CH14: Now to begin the preparations...
Just after school ended, and after they successfully convinced Sunset to cosplay, Rainbow decided on impulse to drag Sunset and Coco to Sugarcube Corner simply because she was hungry. Despite Sunset’s protests she found herself following anyway. As a compromise, Sunset insisted that they sit in the far corner of the shop in an attempt to stay as out of sight as possible.
“So why do I have to be here?” she asked, sitting in the corner seat, a delicious looking chocolate sundae placed in front of her. “I already agreed to dress up in a stupid Daring Do costume.”
Rainbow took a bite of her chocolate cookie before answering. “Yeah *nom* that’s the thing. *nomnomgulp* We actually need costumes to wear.” said Rainbow, taking another bite.
Sunset crossed her arms and leaned onto the table. “Weird. Somehow I just kinda expected you to already have some ready for us.” Sunset couldn’t help but smirk at the annoyed look that she was getting from Rainbow. “What? Haven’t you been dreaming of this day? Don’t you have costumes and posters and stuff ready? I bet you’ve even picked out a specific book for her to sign.”
“I do not!” she blushed. In truth, Rainbow did have one, or rather she would. As soon as the book store restocked she planned to rush over there and grab her own copy of the newest book. From what she’d read of Sunset’s copy it was quickly becoming her favorite book in the series.
“I do!” Coco cheerfully reached into her bag and fished out a familiar copy of Daring Do while Rainbow slumped back into her seat and quietly munched on her cookie.
Sunset took the book from her and read the cover. “Spirit Amulet? Are you sure? You haven't read it yet.” Sunset handed the book back.
Coco blushed lightly and held it close to her, looking down with an expression of sentimental attachment. “That’s alright, it’s still my favorite. Which book are you going to get signed?”
Sunset, currently enjoying a spoonful of her sundae, thoughtfully swooshed around the spoon in her mouth for a few seconds before answering. “Probably the Razer of Dreams.”
Before Sunset could explain her choice Rainbow gulped down the last of her first cookie and spoke up. “Getting back on track, we need some costumes to wear.”
Sunset rolled her eyes in annoyance but Coco looked at her excitedly. “I can make us some!”
Sunset slammed her head into her palm and groaned. “Oh sweet Celestia. Not again…” she mumbled, not willing to go through the whole dress event again.
Rainbow, however, returned Coco’s excited look. “Really? Awesome!”
Coco nodded happily and turned to Sunset. It wasn’t hard for her to figure out why she had her head down. “It’s alright, Sunset. I don’t need to take your measurements or anything. Rarity already has them on file. I’m sure that she’ll be more than happy to share them.”
Sunset threw her head back to the air and let out a huge sigh of relief. “Oh thank Celestia!”
Coco looked at her oddly. “Our principal?” she inquired, wondering why Sunset would use their principal as a religious figure.
“What about our principal?” asked Sunset, still relieved that she could keep her freedom of movement.
“You said, “thank Celestia.” Why her?”
Sunset flinched, realizing her slip up. She sent Rainbow a pleading glance. Rainbow looked at her in confusion for a second before remembering. Oh yeah, thought Rainbow. She doesn't know about the whole pony thing. “So what about me?” she asked, grabbing Coco’s attention. “Please tell me that you’re not like Rares and I can just like, give you one of my shirts or something?” Rainbow took a bite of her second cookie.
Coco chuckled nervously and uncharacteristically avoided eye contact, looking everywhere except at Rainbow. “Well… no. Rarity also… Well she also has you and everyone else on file. She knows all of your sizes for everything you wear.”
“She what?!” Rainbow yelled, nearly choking on a chocolate chunk. Several heads turned in her direction but she paid them no mind. “When did she even get them?!”
Coco stammered to answer the question, well aware that she may have just accidentally exposed a secret of her friend’s. “Y-you didn’t know?”
Thankfully, Sunset didn’t care and was simply relieved to not have to go through any re-fittings. “Who cares how she got them. What are we actually going to wear?”
Rainbow, also curious about that topic, resolved to bring this issue back up later. “Fine. I think we should wear her signature outfit from the first book. It’s the original and it’s the coolest.”
“Alright,” Coco nodded, slowly regaining her composure. “That works. Can you describe it? Or do you have a picture?”
“Yeah, I can describe it.” Rainbow leaned back in her seat with crossed arms and furrowed brows. “Well it’s green...”
Coco reached into her bag and brought out a notebook and pen. “The cargo jacket? What shade?” she asked.
Rainbow flinched and struggled to think of something that Rarity would say. The first thing that came to her mind were ugly sounding words like “mauve” or “citrus.” Frowning, she finally came up with a realistic sounding color shade. “I don’t know. Grass?”
“You mean forest green?” Coco eagerly wrote down what she was told. “Does she have anything on it? Like buttons? How many pockets?”
Sunset snickered almost uncontrollably at Rainbow as she continued to grapple with Coco’s questions. Finally, she decided to end the girl’s suffering. “C-Coco… why don’t you just look at the cover of your own book?” she asked, stammering over her own dying laughter. “You have it on you right?”
Coco blushed and hid the lower half of her face with her notebook. “Oh… you’re right.” Stuffing her supplies safely in her sack, Coco pulled out her personal copy of the first Daring Do book. On it was an illustration of Daring swinging on a vine over the open mouth of a river dwelling crocodile. In one of her hands sat the idol of a two headed jackle holding a sapphire stone.
“Does the cover work?” Sunset asked, shoving another spoonful of her rapidly melting sundae in her mouth. Melted ice cream sucked.
“Actually, this does work!” Coco cheered. “I can make great costumes using this design.” She looked back up to the two of them. “Do you two want two similar costumes or do you girls want something unique on each?”
“I really don’t care either way.” Sunset hurried to savor the delicate taste of her Sugarcube brand sundae before it melted. No matter what, she was determined to finish her delicious treat. Especially since she wasn’t paying for it.
“I’d rather they be as close to the cover as they can be,” Rainbow grinned. “If I’m gonna dress up I’m gonna do it right!”
“Got it!” she nodded. Standing up, she smiled to her friends. “I’ll head home right now to work on it. I might also have to go to Rarity for some help though. I hope that’s alright.”
Rainbow also got up. “Yeah I should get going too, I—”
“Hold on!” Sunset reached out and grabbed Rainbow’s arm. The tomboy turned back to see a needy look on Sunset’s face, she turned to Coco as well and opened her mouth to say something. Nervous, no sound came out and she seemingly struggled to come up with the words. It was obvious that she wanted something and Coco was severely hoping they would be asked to stay. Coco smiled expectantly while Rainbow gave her an odd look.
Finally, Sunset turned to them, having found the words. “Can you buy me another sundae?” she pleaded.
~~~
Outside of the store Rainbow and Coco bid their goodbyes and turned in separate directions. Coco left to head to her house and start the design process while Rainbow left to find out when she could get her hands on the new book.
Coco, while normally an energetic sightseer, quickly found her mind brimming with so many ideas and plans that she ignored all of the wonderful buildings and structures that she would always take the time to smile at. Every so often one would even leak out in the form of quiet muttering. “I could probably create the costumes from scratch but I think that would take too long. I suppose I could tailor existing clothes to match that of the design but would that be too lazy? Actually, I could probably— oof.”
“Hey, pay attention!”
Distracted by her thoughts, Coco accidentally bumped into the person in front of her. Coming back to reality, she realized that she had almost walked into a crosswalk with busy traffic. Luckily, one of the other people standing there stopped her before she could. Coco glanced up to see three girls standing in front of her. One had bright red hair streaked with light red, combined with her red lipstick and stockings it was easy to see what her favorite color is. Thankfully she also wore a pale yellow blouse with an image of a rose on it for contrast. The second girl on the left had very curly spring green hair and wore a light pink dress with a picture of a daisy. The third girl on the right had pale blond hair and wore a purple jacket and dark red-orange skirt.
Coco quickly backed up and chuckled nervously. “I’m sorry. You’d think I’d have learned to pay attention during my time in Manehatten. Thank you for stopping me.”
The red haired girl waved her off and turned back around. “Like, it’s no problem just watch where you’re going next time.”
Next to her the blond girl’s eyes widened in realization. Leaning close to her friend she whispered something in her ear that caused her to turn back around. “You’re that new student right?” she asked.
Coco nodded shyly. “O-oh that’s right, my name’s Coco Pommel. Good afternoon.” Coco smiled and shrunk away in her usual way of meeting new people. While most people would attribute that to hesitation or shyness, it was actually Coco putting herself on guard. In her classes in Manehatten she learned that there were many different kinds of people and not all of them were trustworthy. So she needed to be ready to defend herself if need be.
The expression on the middle girl’s face made it all the more logical. Something about her smile simply rubbed Coco the wrong way. She gestured to herself and her friends. “My name is Roseluck.” She pointed to her friends. “That’s Lily Valley and that’s Daisy. Like, we go to your school. Duh.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” replied Coco. Glancing over behind them she noticed that the sign had changed to green, signalling that they could cross. She started walking. “Sorry, I have to hurry home. I—”
The three girls moved to block her path. “Hold on,” said Rose leading the group. “We have to talk to you about something important.”
Coco looked behind them at the countdown on the green light. “Can this wait until school? I have to get home to do something for my friends.” She tried moving past them a few more times but they continuously moved to block her path. Finally, Coco was forced to give up when the light turned red and traffic resumed.
“Yeah that’s the thing,” hummed Lily, scratching her head. “We saw you with Sunset Shimmer the other day, and we just gotta ask; like, why?”
Coco tilted her head in confusion. “Like, why what?”
“Like, why do you hang with Shimmer,” Rose finished. “Do you know who she is?”
Coco’s brow furrowed in realization. She knew that their names sounded familiar. “Are you the girls that bullied Sunset out of the competition?”
“We’re not bullies!/She deserved it!” Daisy and Rose glanced at one another awkwardly before Daisy backed off and Rose continued. “Sunset Shimmer is the real bully. She tormented us for years. We were just getting back at her.”
“I won’t say that she probably hasn’t done bad things. But she’s in a better place now. She’s sorry for what she did.”
Lily gave her a disgusted look. “Do you even know what she did?”
Coco flinched back. “N-no... but does it really matter?”
Rose and Lily shared identical looks of non amusement. Lily turned back to her and held up an open palm. With her other hand she began lowering fingers as she counted off. “She destroyed part of the school, tormented the student body for years, destroyed friendships, rigged and cheated in every competition she’s ever been a part of, brainwashed all of us with some kind of dark magic and then used said dark magic to transform into a horrible demon.”
“And worst of all I have to see a freaking therapist because I keep having nightmares!” added Rose.
Coco stared at them in shocked disbelief. “She did all that?” she whispered. Shaking her head she struggled to get the bad images out of her head, refusing to believe that her friend could do such bad things to others. “You’re exaggerating! Sunset’s a nice person.”
Rose calmed herself down and crossed her arms. “Listen, I’m just trying to help you out. Sunset may seem all nice and all now, but that’s only because she’s trying to get people back on her side. Trust me, as soon as she gets what she wants she’s going to throw all of you away and go right back to being the bully that she used to be.”
“Yeah, she’s just using you!” added Lily. “She uses everyone. Think about it. If she was really your friend she would’ve told you everything we just did! She is not your friend!”
Coco wanted to argue but she reluctantly had to admit the truth in the fact that nobody ever told her exactly what Sunset did. She always had the feeling that it was being purposely hidden from her by not only Sunset, but Rarity and her friends as well. Coco just always assumed that there was a reason behind it.
“And if you’re wondering about those other girls, they're just as weird,” Lily continued. “Personally, I think that Sunset’s already gotten to them with her freaky magic.”
“Freaky magic?” Coco questioned.
Daisy looked down at her watch and motioned to get the others’ attention. “Girls, we’re going to be late,” she whispered.
Rose nodded and turned back to Coco. “Like, I hope that you’ll think about what we told you. Sunset is bad news and you need to stop hanging around with her.”
Rose and the others turned to leave but Lily glanced back and left her own closing remark. “Seriously, she needs to just leave this place altogether. Nobody wants her here anyway.”
The crosswalk sign turned green and the trio of girls crossed without any further comments, leaving their conversation behind to linger in Coco’s mind.
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Two chapters in as many days. Awesome.
Now can you complete the hat trick? C'mon and make the month's wait worth it!
5537958 Gee it has been a month has it... lol I've been slacking.
Awesome update! Keep up the amazing work!
Why are the flower trio always massive bitches? I have never seen a story with them where they weren't causing problems.
i1133.photobucket.com/albums/m583/sonadai1000/objection.jpg
People keep parts of their life secret until they know for certain that others can be trusted or they trust themselves enough to come out and admit past wrongs
Hmmmm, how does this sound? "Hi, I'm Sunset Shimmer. I once became a demon and fucked with everyone's mind, do you you want to be my friend?"
5538319
Because they're bitches in canon. Kind of why Rainbow Dash is usually a bitch, because unless someone's future/life is on the line she's selfish and lazy and bitchy. Same reason why people write Twilight as a nerd instead of an inspirational savant, because she's a nerd in canon. The Flower Sisters just scream and generally be rude any time you see them during something happening.
The Flower Sisters aren't exactly 3-dimensional in canon anyway. Good to know that only one of them is in therapy, I thought everyone exposed to dark magic was having the dreams, but maybe it's only Rose because her Mom died.
as a former bully (something I'm not proud of) I will say that "most bullies don't have anything behind them..." remark is kinda false. Actually VERY false. At the risk of sounding like I'm defending bullying (I'm not. trust me) most bullies have major baggage behind them which spurs their behavior. its not them just being mean people by nature. Being a bully isn't a calculated decision. It doesn't excuse the behavior, dear sweet luna no it doesn't. But it DOES provide insight into it.
That said, as is pretty obvious, the flower power puffs are pretty much cardboard cut outs in the film itself, so you're actually hitting the nail on the head with them. Actually, you're even giving them some actually good characterization comparatively
If the next chapter doesn't begin with Coco having not believed a single word they said immediately after they mention Sunset having "freaky magic", I will be severely disappointed. In Coco, not the story.
Strange how the only girls in school who want to give Sunset a second chance are "brainwashed" into it. It sure would paint the trio in a bad light if it was established that the girls are also immune to this kind of thing...
OH WAIT.
5877052 While "awesome as I wanna be" may not be a thing, "stupid as I wanna be" certainly is.
Coco seems to have a good head on her shoulders. She won't let those words get to her. Hopefully.
5538319 I think they should be used for comic relief, instead, honestly. The horror, the horror indeed...
Yes, everythiiiiinnnngg...
I expect Coco to at least confront Sunny or maybe Rarity to at least find out what exactly happened, then decide Sunset's gotten better since.
So they were making up the whole nightmare thing