Equestria Girls: Magical Meltdown

by PonyUpYourBits

Connections

"...and then she jumped off the board at the end and landed perfectly in the grass!" Rainbow Dash excitedly regaled her friends around the lunch table with the story of Jade Jewel's impressive rail grind from the week before. "I asked her to show me a few new tricks but then the library worker came running out and threatened to call the cops on us! We had to book it out of there before she could show me anything!" she said, slightly miffed. Her friends chuckled a little at Dash's near-miss.

"I made a new friend too!" Pinkie Pie jumped in on the conversation. "I was just working on my drumming and this girl named Pearlescent came into the music room and listened to me play! Then she picked up the sticks and showed me an even better way to play! She said she played in a band before, I invited her to come to one of our practice sessions!"

"Pearlescent?" Rainbow Dash wondered aloud. "Is she new to the school too?"

Pinkie Pie thought for a brief moment then shrugged. "I never asked, Dash." She looked around the lunchroom and saw Pearlescent leaving the lunch line. "Hey! Pearlescent!" she said, standing up and trying to wave her new friend over.

"Oh, hey, Jade Jewel is with her," Rainbow Dash said, once she saw who Pinkie was waving at. "I guess they're friends." She tried to wave Jade Jewel over as well. The two girls walked over to the table where their new friends were sitting.

"Wanted you to meet my other friends," Rainbow Dash said to Jade Jewel when they arrived. "Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, and Fluttershy," she said, going around the table. Everyone waved when their name was called and Jade Jewel and Pearlescent did the same. "We have another friend too but she had to miss lunch to work on something."

"Are you two friends?" Pinkie Pie asked Pearlescent. Pearlescent nodded.

"We met at our old school," Pearlescent explained. "Jade Jewel and I were arrested at the same time and as part of the terms of our release, we had to move to this school. We've got another friend who came over with us but I don't...see..." Pearlescent scanned the lunchroom for the third member of their group. "Oh, there she is," she said once she spotted the other girl, pointing across the lunchroom. She had sat down by herself at a faraway table.

Jade Jewel frowned upon seeing their friend sitting alone. "You know, Pearl, maybe we should sit with Suuu-..." Jade immediately cut herself off before saying the girl's real name. "I mean...'Amber Sunrise'..." she corrected. Jade stuck her tongue out as if saying the name left a bad taste in her mouth. Pearlescent giggled softly at her friend's reaction.

"Oh, well...that's cool, we can just meet up later," Rainbow Dash said. She glanced at Jade's arm and saw she was carrying a skateboard with her. "Hey, you brought your board! You up for some action after school?" she asked, pointing at the skateboard. Jade nodded and made a gesture with her hand to suggest Rainbow Dash call her to set up plans later before she and Pearlescent set out for the other side of the lunchroom.

Meanwhile, Sunset Shimmer was sitting by herself, staring at her food and lost in her own thoughts. She sighed when she suddenly was stirred by Jade Jewel dropping her lunch tray right in front of her. "Jade!" she said, mildly irritated by the abrupt interruption.

"Psh, some way to greet your friends," Jade Jewel said. Pearlescent sat down next to her. "Why are you sitting way over here?"

"I...I dunno, I was just...wanting some space," Sunset said, trying to come up with an excuse for being antisocial.

"Really?" Pearlescent asked, taking a bite into the apple on her lunch tray. "Weren't you interested in making friends here?"

"Yeah, you went to all the trouble to put on this getup," Jade added, indicating Sunset's wig and glasses. "Figured you'd at least want to get some mileage out of it."

"I would if I could..." Sunset said in a forsaken tone.

"What do you mean?" Pearlescent asked.

"I'm just not used to meeting new people," Sunset said, dejectedly. "I've tried to join clubs at this school and I just feel out of place. Photography, drama, debate...none of it feels right for me. The other students here...I don't get them."

"Maybe you're just trying too hard," Pearlescent said. "I met this cool drummer just by hanging around the campus. She's really high-energy and it just kind of...clicked," she shrugged.

"Hey, when's the last time you had that thing out?" Sunset asked Jade, pointing at her skateboard.

"Oh, this? I was going skating with someone I met after school," she replied. She pointed over to the table where Rainbow Dash and her friends were sitting.

"That drummer I met is with them too," Pearlescent said, pointing out Pinkie Pie.

"Uuuuugh..." Sunset groaned, frustrated at her friends' ease at socialization. "Why do you guys have it so easy?"

"Like I said," Pearlescent said, biting another chunk off of her apple, "you're just trying too hard. Quit jumping into activities expecting to find people who will like you. Just do something you enjoy and you'll find someone to be friends with."

"Yeah, sure..." Sunset said, uninterested in being lectured by her friend. She pounded her forehead against the table.

"Well, we tried," Jade said, playfully giving up on Sunset's plight. "So whaddya want to do after class?"

"Meh, I was just going to go home," Sunset said in a burnt out tone.

"Sure you don't want to meet our friends?" Pearlescent asked.

"Maybe later," Sunset said. She collected her belongings and piled the trash onto her tray before standing up and walking towards the cafeteria door. Pearlescent and Jade Jewel watched as she left with frowns on their faces.

---

Later that day, the human Sunset Shimmer was studying in the school's library. She got up from her table and went to return some books she had been reading to the shelves. As she was shelving her books, the sound of some light whispering from around the corner piqued her curiosity. She peered around the bookshelf and saw two boys sitting at a nearby computer watching a video.

"That was more dramatic than I remember..." one of them said.

"Look what she did to Snips and Snails," the other boy remarked.

Psh, Sunset thought, I bet it's something dumb. She tried to go back to reading the book spines on the shelf but couldn't quell her desire to know what the boys were watching. She continued to listen in.

"Wow, Twilight and her friends are amazing!" the first boy said, enthusiastically.

"I wish all of us didn't get turned into zom-" the second boy said before cutting himself short. "Aw, man, I gotta get to class!"

"Oh dang, me too!" the other one said. They both grabbed their backpacks and quickly vacated the library, leaving the computer still logged in. Sunset couldn't fight her curiosity any longer. With the two boys gone, she subtly walked over to the computer and took their seat, looking at the video they had left on the screen. She rewound the video to the start. The title below the video player read "Demon Rampage at School". I guess I'm not surprised, Sunset told herself as she started the video from the beginning, thinking back to the two students who had been watching it before her.

The video appeared to be amateur footage shot from a cell phone camera. From the nearby landmarks in the shot, it looked as if the video had been recorded at the front of Canterlot High School.

This was shot here? Sunset thought as the video began.

The camera was focused on a winged, demonic creature that was floating above the school's statue. The creature raised its hands above its head and shot down a large beam of energy, aimed at two more students on the ground. In an instant the two students were transformed into demons themselves.

Wow...this is impressive for an amateur project, Sunset thought as the video played, impressed by what she perceived were special effects. The demonness had turned her attention to the other students at this point and, using her power, tore a hole through the front of the school. Suddenly the person filming the video dropped their phone. The video cut out briefly then resumed at a later point in the scene.

What happened there? Sunset wondered, perplexed by the odd cut. As the video resumed, there was now a large crater in the front of the school. The video focused on the six girls who were positioned at the lip of the crater. They appeared human but had extra features like wings. Sunset paused the video at this point to get a closer look at the six.

Hm... she thought. Weren't those Jade and Pearl's new friends? She looked intently at the pink and blue girls specifically, recognizing them as the two girls that Pearlescent and Jade Jewel had pointed out at lunch. As she looked at the paused image longer, she noticed the rest of the girls who were with them were the same group that they had been sitting with in the lunchroom. So they helped with this project? Sunset wondered, upon recognizing the rest of the girls in the shot.

Sunset resumed the video and the camera operator began to walk closer to the large crater while filming, along with the rest of the student body. Guess we're going to see the aftermath, Sunset thought. The video crested over the threshold of the crater and aimed down towards the center. In the bottom, a girl could be seen slowly getting off the ground. She was wearing a black jacket and a magenta skirt but the camera operator was standing at a poor angle to capture her face. She could be heard speaking to the crowd of students standing at rim of the crater. The tone of her voice conveyed sadness and it sounded as though she was sobbing. The girl began to crawl out of the crater as the camera operator zoomed in to her. She pulled herself to the top of the crater and at that moment, one feature in particular caught Sunset's attention: the girl's hair.

"Wh-...what?" Sunset said softly, shocked at what she was looking at. The footage on the screen depicted the back of the girl's head and it could be clearly seen the girl's hair was a fiery red and yellow blend. But that looks just like my hair! Sunset thought, thinking about her own natural hair coloration. The girl in the video was wearing her hair longer but Sunset could not deny that the girl's hair color was a perfect match to her own. The purple girl with wings pulled the other girl to her feet and when she rose, she turned to face the camera operator. Sunset's jaw dropped upon gazing into the face of the girl in the shot as she could not believe what she was looking at: the girl who had come out of the crater looked exactly like her...

Author's Note:

This chapter is a sticking point for me because I couldn't give Sunset deeper characterization. It would have helped drive home the direction the next few chapters take. Ideally I'd have liked to take her failed friend-making experiences and turned them into flashbacks but there wasn't a good way for me to do this (and, to be quite honest, I didn't really think I had the writing finesse to do justice to those scenes).

You can either imagine the flashbacks or think that a song would have been inserted in there.

Comments

[RowanSkie]

dun dun duuun.

[Revan]

One does what one can.

[Arcane Howitzer]

"Wanted you to meet my other friends," Rainbow Dash said to Jade Jewel when they arrived. "Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, and Fluttershy," she said, going around the table. Everyone waved when their name was called and Jade Jewel and Pearlescent did the same. "We have another friend too but she had to miss lunch to work on something."

"And what does that make me?"