Chapter 2 - Rainbow
Applejack was sitting at her usual spot in the lunchroom while waiting for the rest of her friends to arrive. She usually got to the table first because the school’s one and only Chemistry teacher, Dr. Discord, always dismissed class 10 to 15 minutes early. She had made a decent amount of progress on her food by the time Pinkie had arrived, followed shortly by Rainbow Dash and Rarity, with Fluttershy being the last one to the table.
None of the other four girls, Applejack noticed, were particularly talkative today. She wasn’t surprised; this had become pretty routine for almost two weeks now. Pay for your food, sit down, eat, maybe say one or two words when a friend arrived, wait for lunch to end, go back to class, go home.
School really was an irritating place to be. Having her friends around usually made things more bearable. Due to recent events, however, the companionship of the other four was slowly starting to lose its charm.
Applejack sighed as her eyes left her now empty plate and settled upon the rest of the lunchroom. The other students were either glaring daggers at each other from across the room, snickering amongst themselves while catching up on some of the latest pieces of gossip on their phones, or, in the case of she and her friends, they just sat around and ate with hardly any social exchange. Security guards had been stationed within different corners of the lunchroom so as to help prevent any more fights from breaking out.
‘Well,’ Applejack thought to herself, ‘At least they’re making fun of each other now instead of focusing on me and the girls all the time.’ Canterlot High used to be such a wonderful place, but now it was every student for his or herself.
“I’m a little worried, everyone,” Fluttershy announced in her usual low speaking tone. Four other pairs of eyes were suddenly focused on her.
“Oh, somethin’ on yer mind, Shy?” asked Applejack.
Fluttershy nodded once before continuing. “It’s about Sunset.”
A series of irritated groans could be heard from all over the table. “Aw no, she didn’t post any pictures or nasty rumors about you again, did she?” Applejack’s eyes half closed in disgust as she absentmindedly began staring at the empty spot at the table where their former friend used to sit. It hurt deeply knowing that Sunset had betrayed them. She had considered the troublemaker to be an extended member of her own family before all of this began.
“No, nothing like that. It’s just ...” Fluttershy paused in order to gather her thoughts. “At Sugar Cube Corner yesterday, the things she tried to tell us. What if she's telling the truth and she really is innocent?” Fluttershy then recalled Sunset's parting words.
I promise that I’ll find out whoever’s behind all of this, no matter how long it takes.
“I was up all night thinking the same thing,” Pinkie confessed, her somber tone a far-cry from her usual bubbly one. “Something about all of this feels a little crazy, and not the good kind of crazy when you’re out having fun either.”
“You guys can’t be serious!” Rainbow Dash cried out following a facepalm. “Don’t tell me the two of you actually bought in to that crap she tried to pull yesterday? Just look around the school! It’s the old west all over again! This totally has that traitor’s name written all over it!”
“As much as I want to believe otherwise, I’m gonna have to go with Dash on this one,” Applejack admitted. “Think about what happened at those two slumber parties. I told y’all about my childhood nickname, and then the very next day it showed up on the internet. And then there were those pictures we took.” Images of the photos that were taken on the night of the party at Rarity’s began to flash through her mind. Those pictures were only supposed to be seen by her and her friends, not the entire student body!
“They were taken on her phone,” Applejack continued. “And she said it herself, her phone never got stolen. If that’s true, then it couldn’t have been anyone else but her.”
“See? Applejack’s with me! Sunset’s just trying to play the old sympathy card so she can weasel her way back into our lives. Well, I’m not falling for it, and neither should any of you!”
“But she came all that way just to talk to us! And she looked so sad when she left,” Fluttershy interjected. “Could she really have faked all of that?”
Rainbow Dash clenched her teeth in annoyance, obviously not taking too kindly to being questioned. Sunset was a backstabbing liar, end of discussion. “Rarity, please tell me that you’re at least smart enough to see through this?”
Rarity, who was wearing a goofy and somewhat over the top disguise in a last ditch effort to stay hidden from her classmates, was staring down at her still untouched plate of food. “I’m not entirely sure what to believe anymore.”
Rainbow pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation. “You’ve gotta be kidding me ...”
“I never said that I didn’t think that she was Anon-A-Miss. All I said was that I wasn’t sure.” Judging by all of the questioning stares that she received, Rarity deduced that her friends were waiting for a more detailed explanation.
“Rainbow raised a valid point. This is just the sort of thing that she was known for doing in the past. And like Applejack mentioned earlier, the only person who had the ability to upload those pictures was Sunset. As far as I know, she didn’t send them to any of us. With that in mind, I don’t see how it could be anyone else besides her.”
“But?” asked Applejack.
“It’s just like Pinkie said; something doesn’t feel right about all of this. The Sunset Shimmer that I remember wouldn’t have been this careless. She’d never do something this obvious if it meant suffering the wrath of the entire school. Instead of throwing it around all over the place, she would have held on to the secrets that she had uncovered and would have then used it as leverage against the other students. Compared to her usual approach, this is just plain sloppy, amateurish even.”
Just then, all of the phones in the cafeteria started to vibrate. A sudden hush had befallen the entire cafeteria while the security guards began to prepare themselves for the possibility of having to break up another fight. The students of CHS were all too familiar with what that signal meant by now. A new update from Anon-a-Miss.
Applejack rolled her eyes while resting the side of her face against her hand. “Here we go again.” Who was the unlucky student of the day this time? She wouldn’t have to wait long to find out, the students were slowly beginning to talk amongst themselves again.
“No way!”
“Wow.”
“Sunset should be ashamed of herself.”
“Did they really do that?”
“Oh boy …”
“That’s kinda hot if they really did.”
“Ha, always knew she was a little manly!”
One by one, several pairs of eyes had begun to lock on to the table were Applejack and the others were sitting.
‘It’s one of us? Again?’ Rarity asked herself in confusion. She turned her head and watched as Fluttershy pulled out her phone and began signing in to her Mystable account. There was a cursory look on her face as she scrolled through old comments. Then her eyes widened and she slapped a hand over her mouth in shock.
One by one, the other girls began checking their own phones for updates. It didn’t take them very long to find what all of the excitement was about. At the top of Anon-a-miss’s webpage was a new post that read, “Remember how Gilda and Rainbow Dash used to be such good friends? It probably had something to do with this! Get a room, you two!”
Underneath the caption was a picture of Rainbow Dash and another student named Gilda. They were standing in a parking lot, their lips pressed together.
It was clear that the two didn’t want to be seen, as evidenced by the way in which their faces were concealed behind the hoods on their jackets. However, there was no mistaking Rainbow’s hair pattern, and the way that the photo was angled gave any onlookers a clear view of Gilda’s face.
The post currently had 107 likes and growing.
An icy chill raced up Rarity’s spine as she pried her attention away from her phone. She turned towards Rainbow Dash, who didn’t move a muscle or utter a sound. She didn’t even breathe. She just sat there, stone still.
Fluttershy wanted to give her friend a hug, she wanted to tell her that everything would be okay, and to just ignore it. Before she got the chance, someone cut her off from somewhere in the cafeteria.
“Yo, Dash! Guess they don’t call you ‘Rainbow’ for nothing huh, you little freak?”
The entire cafeteria erupted with boisterous laughter, shattering the trance like state that had befallen Rainbow Dash.
She jumped out of her seat, and ran for the lunchroom door.
Applejack and Pinkie chased after Rainbow, but it was in vain. Rainbow was already 3/4ths of the way down the hall by the time the other two girls had made it outside the lunchroom door.
‘Sunset,’ Fluttershy thought to herself, ‘If you really aren’t the one doing this, then please hurry and find out who is.’
***
Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna were having a debate inside of the back quarters of their office. The two sisters were trying to reach an agreement on whether or not to enforce a new “No Cell Phones Allowed” policy. Luna was in favor of the idea, but her sister was skeptical.
“But Celestia,” cried the school’s second in command with a hint of frustration, “If the reason for all of the fighting is because of their phones, then wouldn’t it make more sense to just forbid them from carrying them around on school grounds?”
Celestia, who had almost finished draining the contents from her coffee mug, shook her head in disagreement. “I’m afraid that it’s not that simple. What if there’s an emergency and a student needs to get in contact with someone, or the other way around?”
“Then they can just walk down here and ask to use one of the phones in the office! Is it really that complicated?”
“That’s not a bad idea, Luna.” The Vice Principal smiled slightly at having finally won the debate. “But there are still a few reasons why that won’t work.” Her smile turned back into a frown.
“How many of the students do you think would actually go along with that? Most of them would get rebellious and sneak their phones in anyway. That type of thing tends to happen when you take away certain freedoms.” Luna got ready to say something else, but then Celestia cut her off. “Not only that, but what you suggested would target all of the students regardless of circumstance. Some of the students here have legitimate reasons for why they need to carry their phones. If we punish them too, then we run the risk of getting chewed out by their parents, and I’d rather not put up with that. Our jobs are stressful enough as it is.”
“I suppose you do have a point there,” Luna admitted sadly. “I still think that we should push for my idea.”
“Yeah, I know, I know,” Celestia said to her little sister with fatigue in her voice. “It’s a good idea, but it won’t make the problem go away. This won’t stop unless we can somehow pull this out at the roots. We just need to figure out how.”
As if on cue, a series of soft knocks came from the office door.
“Come in,” called Vice Principal Luna.
One of the office attendants, a middle aged man with a receding hairline, stepped into the room. “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a student back here who wants to have a word with you two. She says it’s an emergency.”
The two school heads exchanged a brief glance with each other before Celestia turned back to the attendant. “Let her in.”
The man walked away for a moment and returned with a certain fiery haired student who the two sisters knew all too well.
“Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna, we need to talk.”
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Yes! Someone is finally thinking! Anon-A-Miss wasn't Sunset's style. Good for Rarity to notice this.
Scootaloo, Applebloom, Sweetie Belle… you three are so dead when Rainbow finds out the truth.
Hey, wait a second! If the story's already finished, then why not just upload the whole thing, rather than post two chapters a week? That makes a lot more sense to me.
I'm guessing this will go the way of Journey of the Spark...
OK, seriously, if this is STILL Apple-Bloom and crew, then I'm seriously questioning why they went THIS far now! Moreover, how in the sweet hell are they going to be exposed/deal with the fallout? I mean, Scoots just went along with humiliating her sister about THAT in front of the entire school? I can understand a few things, but this is far bigger than that now! I think we need to check in with the CMC, otherwise I'm not sure i can swallow something like this happening.
Either that, or we have another person doing this, only thing that makes sense. Best of luck, but this chapter has me concerned with how you're going to handle this.
6583183 More like on days like these, kids like them...
S H O U L D B E B U R N I N G I N H E L L
6583283
I'm going to have to agree here. The comic already did enough damage to the characters. There isn't a need to make them worse then they already were.
6583468
6583283 And that's what the author said in the notes "I just hope that no one gets disappointed with the end result."
6583283 what if it's that whole 'we've come to far to stop now' kind of mind set? i mean, they did become the new pariah's of the school. but here, they weren't exposed, so they had no reason to force them to stop. i've seen, first hand, how far that kind of thinking can make someone go. there own fear of punishment and retaliation overcomes whatever negative thoughts they have about what they're doing, and so they just keep going farther and farther down the rabbit hole, until they can no longer see the light.
6583573
So kind of like Sunset's own fall? Though the difference was she was blinded by pride and ambition. However before the whole 'raging she-demon' thing she still had standards. Every other major villain would of used Spike as a hostage, and be perfectly okay with hurting him to get what they wanted, but Sunset didn't, she let him go.
Again, the whole Anon-A-Miss thing doesn't fit Sunset's M.O. when she did stuff like this there was a point: Power and Control. She'd humiliate and blackmail to eliminate competition, she covertly destroyed friendships with bogus text messages and e-mails to keep people from uniting against her, etc. She wouldn't humiliate people for the sake of it.
The human CMC here are just blinded by jealousy and going on a power trip. They've forgotten their goal-they weren't just after Sunset. They were after all their sisters' friends. They wanted to break up the Humane 6 so their sisters would spend more time with them. Now? Now they're being jerks for the sake of being jerks. They didn't have to post the stuff people sent them, but they still chose to do it.
6583573 I'd agree except for one problem...they could simply end it. No seriously, their tracks are covered, all it takes is just closing up shop and vanishing off the grid. I've actually seen that kinda thing happen, so what strikes me is why they are motivated to continue, when it would be simplicity itself to simply stop and savor their triumph before returning to the grind. Hell! I mean, as is things are just building!!
Ok, gunna be honest, it's gunna take seeing the CMC to really get me to stop harping on all this. That's what I want, a well constructed seen with them hashing things out, and how they come to the idea to either keep going or not. Not even confessing to their crimes, I'm just talking about them adding fuel to the fire.
6583556
I'm not saying I'm disapointed, I'm saying, as things stand, something needs to happen to establish continued motive for these characters, or their previous established selves are called into question. I'm not asking for a huge thing, one well constructed and thought out scene with them would be enough. Give the CMC enough face-time for us to understand their thoughts and motives on this, and I'm good for whatever else comes. I'm just stuck on how much this seems to be going too far even for them in the comics. That's all I need, an establishing shot that has their characters expressed, their reasoning touched on, and the argument they make to either stop/move forward/confess or not.
6585050 I'm completely with you, really i am. i was just thinking that they are still kids, and they're in to some seriously messed up shit right now. so maybe they aren't thinking as logically as they should be. not to mention that this is the CMC, who are known for not making the best decisions in just about anything.
6583184
1.) By spacing things out, there's a better chance of more people seeing the story, compared to if I were to upload all 14 chapters at once.
I want an audience.
The more people reading the better.
Oh, and this also gives late readers some time to get all caught up.
2.) This gives me more than enough time to triple check my work and make sure that everything is to my liking.
3.) Despite what I said at the end of chapter 2, there's always a chance that I might decide to either change or add something else to a specific chapter before I make it go public.
If everything goes up at once, then It'll be too late to change anything.
4.) It's fun making you all wait.
In all seriousness though, I might decide to put out 3 chapters a week if enough people enjoy the story.
6590582 Okay, that makes sense.
6583283
I like that you're picking the story apart as you go along.
It helps me learn what not to do the next time I try my hand at writing.
It also shows me who's still "interested," which helps more than you probably realize.
Keep it up.
Trust that I know what I'm doing.
Some of your questions might get answered in the end if you wait around long enough.
Don't take that as me saying "stop asking me stuff".
I'll be happy to answer just about anything, as long as it doesn't directly reveal any details about chapters that haven't been released yet.
Worst case, you're more than welcome to click the dislike button and move on.
Mmmmm... this'll end wonderfully, hot damn the culprit is boned
Nice job on this.
6583283
That's what true evil is. A few white lies here, a little bad there and suddenly it's all so easy.
That's what we did before every kid had a phone in school.
Well, at lease one of them is being sensible...if not a little
.
Even Pinkie is starting to have doubts
.
Exactly Rarity! All the more reason to listen to her!
Oh, shit...
.
Rainbow...
.
Hurry
!
Oh boy...
.
That was an... interesting direction to take Anon-a-Miss ramping it up
Too bad the story refuses to forgive Pinkie, Ratity, and Fluttershy after this.
Damn, I'm jealous of western schools(although I just graduated), some of them allow students to bring phones there. While here I am in Malaysia with the "No Cellphone Policy" being the norm in basically 90% of schools regardless if its government or private schools. You wanna call your parents? Ask the teacher to borrow her phone or use the public phone.
The closest you get to bringing a phone to school legally is if you bring it then you hand it to the teachers for them to keep it until school period ends then you can take it back which is usually around 1-3pm depending on schools.
6583382
*left eye glows blue*
11347428 I'd like to change my reference to this.
i.pinimg.com/564x/4d/fb/09/4dfb0999a506b433e3a94670b1ec5205.jpg