The Phantom of Canterlot High

by Lucky Seven

Kashmir (Battle of the Bands IX)

The semi-finals. For Sunset Shimmer, it was hard to believe that her friends had all made it there. They were great, sure, but the school had had some fantastic groups competing. Of course, the fact remained that the Dazzlings had made it just as far on the wings of the spell they held the school under. She had yet to listen to any of their songs, but found herself rather curious as they took the stage, the first of the four remaining groups to do so.

Her friends were all gathered around the punch table, and appeared to be discussing what they’d do next, with Pinkie Pie imitating her drumming. Deciding that the others likely didn’t care to watch them, she turned her focus back to the stage, peeking out from the end of the curtains. A soft bassline began to resonate, and the trio smirked, beginning to sing. Something seemed… off, though.

One look at Adagio showed that the leader was focused entirely on the song, staring down the crowd as she sang. Yet the other two seemed to be looking anywhere but the crowd, mostly staring down at the ground. Their singing seemed a bit bored, as well, but the many onlookers didn’t seem to take notice. Sunset chalked it up to the spell simply doing its work, and decided to go to the others and speak with Twilight. She made her way over with a smile, and looked to Twilight.

“Twilight, I have a question.”

“Ask away, Sunset,” the alicorn turned human replied with a smile of her own. “You seem a bit troubled.”

“That’s just it. I was watching the Dazzlings play and Aria and Sonata seem…” Sunset struggled to find a word that described what she felt, and decided to settle on, “different.”

“Different?”

“Yeah, I mean, it seemed like they weren’t really—”

“Into it?” Ember guessed, earning a nod from Sunset. “I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but I saw Adagio yelling at them while I was playing.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I’m not sure, Rainbow Dash, but they must have done something to upset her,” Sunset concluded. “They almost seemed scared of her while they were singing.”

“So, what, you think she’s just forcing them to sing for her?” Applejack chuckled. “That don’t seem very likely.”

“I’m actually going to have to agree with Applejack, dearie. Are you sure you weren’t just seeing things?”

“I know what I saw, Rarity.” Sunset stared down her friend, who seemed to shrivel up under the glare she was receiving. “The fact that you’d even say that is a bit insulting.”

“What Rarity’s trying to say is that those three girls are like, all super bad and evil and stuff!” Pinkie shouted, drawing a bit of attention towards the group. Luckily it didn’t last too long, and Sunset turned back to face Twilight.

“What do you think, Twilight?” Twilight seemed to look anywhere but at Sunset, who couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “So none of you believe me?”

“I do,” Ember said, smiling a bit. That earned a “huh?” from basically the entire group, and Danny snickered as Ember stuck her tongue out at them. “I’m just saying, Sunset’s been doing her best to make up for what she did—”

“Wait, who told you about that?” Sunset asked, though she already had an idea. She narrowed her eyes at Danny, who gulped.

“Oh, wow, would you look at the time?” He raised his wrist up and looked at it, chuckling nervously. “I have to be somewhere.”

“You’re not even wearing a watch,” Ember pointed out, covering her eyes and shaking her head in disappointment.

“Well then I guess it’s time to go to the watch store and buy one!” he shouted, backing away from the group and taking off as soon as there was a few feet between him and Sunset.

“Anyways,” Ember continued with a roll of her eyes. “The least you guys could do is cut her a little slack. I’ve only been here for a few days, but you always bring up her past and are hesitant to trust her. That’s not exactly something friends do, is it?”

The first to relent was Rainbow Dash, who let out a sigh. “Alright, maybe we have been a bit hard on her. But why should we believe that something is wrong with Aria and Sonata, and more importantly, why should we care?”

“Because that’s what friends do,” the meekest member of the group finally spoke up. “When Sunset did all of those mean things, we could still tell that she needed help. What if those girls need our help and don’t even realize it?”

The rest of the group tried to come up with something to oppose that view, but couldn’t. Sunset wrapped her arms around Fluttershy, who almost immediately tensed up and tried to wriggle free. “Thank you, Fluttershy.”

“You know, I think I know just the person to find out what’s going on.” Ember grinned. She took a quick look around, satisfied that nobody was looking in her direction, instead focused on the show the Dazzlings were putting on, before turning intangible and sinking down into the floor.

---

Running away from Sunset had taken the wind out of Danny and he leaned down, hands on his knees, panting. He didn’t have much time for a reprieve, sadly, as he found himself being tugged underground, suddenly invisible. Looking down, he saw Ember staring right back at him, patting her foot impatiently. Danny sighed, and quickly floated down to the ground, making himself tangible again in the process. “Alright, where’d you drag me to and why?”

Ember laughed. “We’re under the stage, you dingus. And as for why I dragged you down here, I want you to go spy on the Dazzlings and see if you can find out if there’s any truth to what Sunset was saying.”

“I thought you agreed with her?”

“I do, but the others seem pretty hesitant. Not very good ‘friends’, if you ask me.”

“Coming from you, that is simply hilarious,” Danny chuckled. “Alright, I’ll do it. Where did you say they were?”

“They’ll probably be on the hill behind the bleachers, sitting against a tree. That’s where they’ve been for the past two rounds. If they’re not there, just look for them. Anyways, it’s about to be time for me to go on stage again,” she went intangible, floating into the air, but not before calling down to him. “And make sure they don’t see you this time!”

Danny didn’t have enough time to offer up a retort before she disappeared, and he grumbled to himself. Deciding not to waste any time, he followed Ember’s lead, quickly turning intangible and flying towards the location she’d described to him. As he soared through the sky, he could see her and Pinkie beginning to move some equipment on stage. In a way, he was almost sad that he wouldn’t be able to focus on her song.

It didn’t take long for him to spot the Dazzlings, exactly where she’d said they would be, and he softly landed in the tree above them as they talked. The trio seemed to be arguing about something, so they didn’t even notice his presence as he became solid once more.

“I’m telling you, Adagio, the crowd seemed to cheer a lot louder for that ghost girl.”

“Then we’ll simply have to do better!” Adagio shouted at Aria. To Danny’s surprise, the pig-tailed girl stood her ground.

“No, Adagio, I think the problem is that you won’t listen to any of our ideas!” she shot back. Sonata gasped at the anger in her friend’s voice, and Danny could tell that she didn’t even want to be there at the moment. “You always tell us you know best, but nothing has changed for us in the past thousand years!”

Adagio fumed, balling both of her hands up into fists, but managed to exhale slowly. She seemed to calm down as she regarded Aria with a voice laced with far less venom than before. “I understand where you’re coming from, I do. However, if everything doesn’t play out perfectly, then we stand no chance of ever getting our full magical power back.”

“But you haven’t even accounted for the changes going on around us,” Aria argued. “Ember clearly isn’t going to believe that Danny would betray her, and Sunset completely ignored us when we tried to lie to her about him.”

‘Heh, nice to know,’ he chuckled inwardly.

Adagio put a finger to her chin in thought, but it was Sonata who managed to reply first. “Maybe instead of making Danny look bad, we could just play and hope they like us better?”

Both Adagio and Aria groaned at that. “Ugh, she’s clearly more powerful than us, Sonata.”

“I must admit, Aria is correct. Her powers don’t seem to come through magic, so she has an advantage over us that we can’t possibly compensate for.”

“So then… what do we do?” Sonata asked, genuinely curious. For the first time, Adagio didn’t have an answer. Before she had time to think over it, though, the Dazzlings and Danny found their attention drawn to the stage as the aforementioned ghost girl began playing.

Even the Dazzlings found themselves a bit enraptured as Ember moved up close to the mic, and began singing softly into it. “Wow, she actually has a really pretty voice,” Sonata noted.

“Pretty enough to capture the attention of even other sirens,” Adagio noted. “This is bad.”

As soon as Ember started playing her guitar, she paused as she finished the first verse. As she did, Danny couldn’t help but notice that something was different about her. Had she…?

“Did she take her ponytail out?” Sonata asked his question for him, pointing at her head.

“Oh yeah, she did,” Aria said. “Why would she—” Aria was cut off by the guitar kicked back in and Ember’s hair flared directly upwards all at once. “Oh, that’s why.”

The trio remained quiet for the rest of Ember’s song, and Danny became intangible once more, taking off into the sky to watch the show from right above the stage.

“Little girl… there you are…

All the lighters lookin’ just like stars…

Sing along, feel the sound…

Take a ride on the hands of the crowd…

And here it comes! The moment when!

You know you’ll never be the same again!

Power chord! You see the light!

You found your place in the world tonight!”

It was clear to him that this song was about her own life, and he couldn’t help but bob his head a bit as she sang the chorus out just as softly as before. The crowd seemed to be doing the same, and Ember launched into a solo. It was much slower than the solos from the other songs she’d played, and he found it relaxing, closing his eyes.

After a few measures, the solo came to a swift end and Ember began playing the main riff again.

“This goes out to anyone,

Whose heart beats like a kick drum,

When an awesome riff comes!

Knows the words to every line, every time,

And you know you gotta go and get some, get pumped,

Find yourself and lose it!”

With that, Ember launched into the final chorus of the song, belting out the lyrics this time as the students cheered. It wasn’t much longer before the song ended, and the students broke into a raucous applause as the judges began conversing. It seemed as if they were conflicted, and Danny flew down a bit as Principal Celestia shuffled her way out of her seat and made her way onto the stage.

Taking the microphone from Ember, she looked down at the paper she held in her other hand. “Ahem, quiet down, please.” It took nearly a minute, but the students managed to do just that, and Danny took this quick reprieve to fly back over to the Dazzlings as Celestia continued speaking. “In an unexpected decision, the judges have given the same score to the Dazzlings and Miss McLain.”

“What does that mean?” Ember scratched her head, confused. “A rematch?”

“Quite the contrary. We’ve decided that, since both of you put on such a great show for us, you’ll both be advancing to the finals.”

“You mean a three-way final?” she asked, and Celestia nodded.

“Yes. The winner of our next matchup between the Rainbooms and Trixie and the Illusions will face off against both the Dazzlings and yourself in a winner-takes-all scenario.”

Danny was far away at this point, but he could see that the grin Ember wore on her face matched that of the rejuvenated Dazzlings’. “Well then, I can’t wait to face the Rainbooms,” she chuckled, walking off the stage.

At the same time, the Dazzlings looked back at one another, and Adagio bore a large smile. “This is perfect. Now we can take them all out in one fell swoop!”

“Yeah, but we still need to come up with a new plan, Adagio, and you need to let us help.”

Adagio paused for a moment, but conceded. “Very well, Aria. We’ll come up with a plan together.”

“Hooray, we get to be friends again!” Sonata exclaimed, pulling the two into a hug. It was just a hunch, but Danny felt like Aria and Sonata could have been friends with the Rainbooms this entire time had they not been evil. Of course, that little bit of conflict between them brought a smirk to his face. He couldn’t wait to tell the others that Sunset had been right.

Author's Note:

So I decided to give Sunset and the Dazzlings some attention here, because I've been neglecting them for the past few chapters.

This is also the first chapter to feature a song with vocals that you can hear, because I felt that Lzzy Hale's voice is similar enough to Ember's, and the song I chose perfectly embodied rock fans. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed it, and are looking forward to the finale of the first arc next time!

Comments

[Dicefire5]

I just love seeing Ember getting some love!

[Makolic]

I enjoyed, it. Can't wait to see what Danny's little cunning mind comes up with. Ember getting air time, with sunset and dazzilngs.

[Bronybro 117]

I know this question probably isn't related to your story, but where did you get that awesome Ember art for your avatar?

[grammar404]

I really ship Ember and Danny ever since she showed up in the show, I like the romance between villain and hero since they have different views but similar feelings. And I never shipped Danny with the goth girl because of it.

I'm hoping for a romance here mister!

[Lucky Seven]

7100490 Edited to include a new link, since the old one broke. Thank you for the head's up, Muggonny.

i.pinimg.com/564x/2f/16/51/2f16519b063450f933b2ed0ec38c8ade.jpg

[Serefin]

I'm desperately hoping it doesn't take another month to finish this off. It's rare for me to be this excited about a story.

[Lucky Seven]

7101786 Hah, expect it within a week, all I have left to do is decide on some songs ;)