//------------------------------// // Let's You and Her Fight // Story: Equestria Girls: Hellmouth Harmony // by forrestib //------------------------------// "So what are we going to do now that Dawn knows about Spike?" “Well we could always tell her the truth.” Everyone looked at Fluttershy, blinked, and then Pinkie burst into laughter. She stopped laughing a second later in shock, “Wait were you serious? Are you crazy? She could be another magical being thrust into human form! She could be some sort of interdimensional energy entity! She could be plotting to uncover all our secrets!” Sunset put a hand on Pinkie’s shoulder telling her to back off before putting a reassuring one on Fluttershy’s, “Sorry Fluttershy. I’ve gotta agree with Pinkie here.” Rainbow grabbed her first pizza slice from the box, “She’s totally suspicious. She didn’t even seem all that surprised at the talking dog. Everyone’s surprised by the talking dog the first time!” Spike nodded, “It’s true.” He then jumped up and intercepted Rainbow’s pizza on its way to her mouth. She bit down on air and looked in slight shock as the canine unapologetically licked the cheese off the crust. Rarity continued on topic unaware of the altercation, “We’re going to have to be more careful if we don’t want her finding out about magic. She already knows something is going on. Even if it is just Spike.” Spike was startled back to attention with tomato on his nose, “I didn’t do it!” Rarity looked at him and eyed the half-eaten pizza on the floor with disgust. Rainbow Dash served herself more pizza from the box and prepared to eat. The doorbell rang. Pinkie blurred across the room, taking Rainbow Dash’s plate out of her hands, “Twilight’s back!” Rainbow heard her greeting from across the house, “Twilight! Come on! You’re just in time for pizza!” The others began to file into the other room to greet her themselves. Rainbow Dash snagged another slice from the box on the way out of the kitchen. Twilight freed herself from Pinkie’s hug just in time to get entangled by Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rarity, followed quickly by Pinkie Pie again. She smiled nervously, unaccustomed to so much affection, “Hey everyone. Sorry I’m late. I stopped for some research material on Sunnydale.” Once the group hug ended she graciously took the plate of pizza. Sunset Shimmer took the bag and dug through the books contained within, “19th Century History, Cultural Atlas, College Yearbook, After The Fall: The Final Days of Los Angeles and Sunnydale. These are some great finds! Where’d you get ‘em?” Twilight answered between bites of pizza, “There’s a store right next to the Free Library that buys off all their overflow. They’ve got all sorts of interesting studies and niche topics if you can get past their organization system, or occasional lack thereof.” Sunset flipped through the first few pages of the last book, “This one looks like exactly what we need to know. This Winifred Burkle seems like she knows her stuff. I wonder why I’ve never seen her work before.” Rainbow Dash traded off her pizza slice for the book and flipped it around to the back, “It says here she’s from some place called Vala… Valnesh? Vahalanesh? No idea, there’s an apostrophe in it. Sounds foreign. Oh, get this, this is her first book. Hey, she’s hot. Not everyone can pull off blue hair.” Rainbow traded the book back, only moments later noticing the several bites taken out of her pizza. Applejack asked, “Wha’do ya hope to learn about her from reading about her old hometown?” Twilight passed by the group and headed back toward the kitchen and more pizza, “I’m not sure yet. It just seems to me that if we want to know more about her, learning about where she comes from is a pretty good start.” The others followed her back, Sunset busying herself with the new book. A happy dog leapt into Twilight’s arms in greeting, eagerly licking her face with laughter as the only response needed. Rarity and Applejack both got themselves slices of pizza, followed by Twilight getting a second. By the time Rainbow Dash got to the box, it was empty. Her stomach complained. Fluttershy silently handed a dejected Rainbow a plate with three saved slices piled onto it. Rainbow lit up and dug in immediately. Later that day Sunset and Twilight were eagerly consuming their new book while the others played cards in the living room. Twilight read highlights for the ones not on the sofa, “It says here that Sunnydale was mostly empty by the time it collapsed. There’s a whole section on theories about sociopolitical reasons for the exodus. But that’s all they are, theories. The survivors who were interviewed simply said that they no longer felt safe in their own homes, although stated reasons for that varied wildly case by case. No-one knows what really happened to make everyone leave. It’s fascinating.” Sunset turned the page, “If I didn’t know any better I might say that magic had a hand in it. But that’s impossible. The Element of Magic hadn’t even been brought here yet two years ago. The Sirens were here before then, but something makes me doubt that they had the power or motive to make so many people leave their homes. Do you think Star-Swirl the Bearded might have sent other magical threats here?” Rarity discarded her entire game hand and drew new cards, “It may be possible but that doesn’t make it likely. The fact that the Sirens alone were here for so long without drawing notice boggles the mind. If any other monsters had been sent through, don’t you think there’d be historical evidence of it?” Rainbow trumped Rarity, “Plums are tall. I win again. Who’s for six of eleven?” Pinkie Pie answered by starting to put the game away. Applejack stood to browse the shelves for their next game. She pulled one of the boxes out, carefully as to not topple the large wall that their host possessed. The seven heard the front door open and Pinkie bounded up to greet whoever it may be. Two of her sisters showed themselves from the front hallway and both received large hugs, “Maud! Marble! Are you going to join us? We were just about to play Election Detection! I got the Election Prevention Expansion last week and it looks super fun!” Marble simply smiled and nodded as she hung her hat on a hook by the door. Maud gave no visible reaction discernible to anyone except Pinkie, “Ok.” Pinkie Pie jumped for joy, “Yay! This is so exciting!” Meanwhile Applejack was sorting through several dozen cardboard tokens that varied in size, symbol and color, “You said this thing has expansions?” Pinkie ran over and expertly removed a stack of boxes from the shelf, “Yup! Election Elective, Detective Election, Elation Detection and Election Prevention!” Pinkie emptied the stack of boxes and a new pile of increasingly elaborate tokens, with multiple types of cards mixed in, was added to what Applejack had been attempting to organize. Marble Pie sat next to Applejack and quickly began to sort out the pieces into neat stacks. Maud sat down next to Sunset and Twilight on the couch, “After the Fall: The Final Days of Los Angeles and Sunnydale.” Pinkie gasped, “Of course! Maud! You wrote a paper on Sunnydale didn’t you?” She nodded, “19th Century History. I wrote about the long-scale effects the Gold Rush had on California politics, including the founding of Sunnydale.” Twilight pulled the other book from her bag and checked the inside cover, “I’m guessing you sold your textbook to the library after you finished the class?” Maud blinked, “Is that my book?” Sunset stared at the name written on the top of the first page, “Apparently.” Twilight asked the older girl, “Do you know anything about the circumstances of Sunnydale’s destruction? Maud answered, “The city had been experiencing regular seismic activity for several years leading up to its collapse. There were no discernible fault lines or tectonic causes for the event that could be conclusively determined. It’s the biggest rock-based mystery since calcified carbon disulfide was found near uracil deposits in the ice caps on mars.” Sunset and Twilight paused in their reading to consider that. Rarity unfolded a game board bigger than some tables as Rainbow carefully sorted out five separate decks of cards to shuffle. Maud looked up at the game setup, “You shuffled the district cards in with the zoning cards.” Marble nodded nervously, “Mmhm.” Rainbow’s eye twitched and a scowl formed. Fluttershy took over sorting the sixth deck out as Rarity constructed the 3D portions of the board. Sunset flipped to another section of their book, “Wait a minute. We’ve been focusing on Dawn so much we’ve forgotten how we got into this mess to begin with. Xander Harris, the man with the eyepatch, was an L.A. survivor too. Maybe we should be looking into the similarities between the two events. Otherwise Canterlot may wind up the third city destroyed in as many years.” Twilight frowned, “But what similarities? Sunnydale was empty and turned into a giant sinkhole. L.A. was a fire caused by negligence at a power plant. The only connection is that Xander Harris was there both times.” The other reader shook her head, “doesn’t that seem odd to you? What effect could be achieved by demolishing two California cities? There’s been economic fallout, sure. But I can’t imagine that being the end goal of all this.” Twilight straightened her glasses, “You know it wasn’t long after Sunnydale that Xander started getting transfers from England. Maybe he’s in it for the money. Overseas companies would probably pay a hefty sum to even partially collapse the American dollar.” Applejack joined the discussion, “If yer talkin’ ‘bout sinkin’ cities for profit, I don’t think anyone’d pay more than the military. If anything, North Korea would probably be easier to bring down than L.A. for someone with that kind of power.” Twilight gave a frustrated sigh, “What kind of power? The cause is completely different in both cases! What could he possibly be able to do that would start fires and enact earthquakes to the same effect? I’m not even certain anymore that the two incidents are actually connected at all!” Sunset put a calming arm around her study partner, “Hey. Take a deep breath. We’ll work it out.” Maud stood and left the two on the sofa to join the rest of the group on the floor. Pinkie passed her two dice and a currency exchange rate card. Fluttershy looked up at the two remaining outliers, “Are you two going to join us? Nine players would definitely help with the notoriety token distribution.” Sunset and Twilight both looked at Fluttershy, and then at the game, and back to Fluttershy, and then to each other. Sunset raised her eyebrows slightly, indicating that the choice wasn’t to be her own. Twilight smiled initially, and hesitated. She looked down at her feet, Spike curled up asleep nearby. She looked back up to Sunset to see that the choice was still unmade and settled in with a contented smile, “No. Thank you, but I think we’re fine right where we are.” Sunset found herself pleasantly confused and confusedly pleased as the other girl leaned back against her arm. After a second of thought and another second of watching the game start, she relaxed and reengaged in the book that was still held in front of her. Several minutes into the game Twilight looked back up at Sunset, “Do you want to go with me to meet up with my brother tomorrow?” Pinkie Pie gasped, “Are you kidding. I’d love to! We can all go!” Applejack saw the shock on Twilight and intervened, “Hold up there Pinkie. I think she was talking to Sunset there, and I don’t think we should overwhelm Shining Armor by meeting too many strangers at once.” Pinkie’s hair briefly deflated, “Aw.” Sunset answered, “Thank you for the offer, but I really wouldn’t want to intrude. I know you haven’t seen him in a while.” Twilight smiled, “That’s very thoughtful of you, but Pinkie’s right. I do want to introduce him to my new CHS friends, and there’s no-one I’d rather start with than you. And you know I never mind having you around…” They both looked at their feet. Neither girl noticed the other’s cheeks increase in color. Everyone else in the room, who had stopped their game to watch with fascination, most definitely noticed. Applejack put her hand over Pinkie’s mouth to prevent her from interrupting. They returned to their game after the awkward pause lingered on for a few too many seconds. By the time Sunset looked up at them they were trading favor cards and shifting pieces of the board around like they’d never stopped. The next day, Dawn prepared to enact her master plan.