• Published 5th Aug 2019
  • 740 Views, 35 Comments

LEGO Equestria Girls 7 - Chronicler06



In the Lego World, the opening of a new theme park leads to tension between Applejack and Rarity, while a magically enhanced object drives someone to selfishly threaten the rest of their friends.

  • ...
1
 35
 740

Unwanted Upgrades

Chapter 5
Unwanted Upgrades

By late afternoon on opening day at Equestria Land, final preparations for the upcoming light show parade were well underway. Final assembly of all the floats had been completed and were now being arranged into a proper order of when each would leave the building. The performers went through final fittings of their costumes and rehearsed their choreography as much as they could in what little time they had left. All of the assistants were running around in a hectic rush all over the building as they swiftly tried to make last-minute deliveries of just about anything to keep things running smoothly. And in the middle of all of this was lead costume designer Rarity, personally overseeing all of the final preparations.

“One hour until wheels up, everyone!” Rarity urgently called out as she quickly scribbled something onto a paper and then tossed the clipboard toward an assistant passing by. “The light parade waits for no one! Tick-tock! Tick-tock!”

Not far behind Rarity stood Vignette Valencia with a smug look on her face. “Big night tonight, Rare,” Vignette spoke up confidently, catching Rarity’s attention. “Perhaps the biggest of all time. Definitely the biggest of your life. I’m excited for you.” She finished her remarks with a friendly wink.

“You’re not worried?” asked Rarity as she increasingly struggled to keep her cool. “Uh, not that I’m worried, unless you’re worried, in which case, I’m very, very worried!”

“There’s no room for self-doubt,” assured Vignette as she stood beside Rarity and put an arm around her shoulders. “You’ve gotta get rid of it faster than a pleated cargo skort.”

Both Rarity and Vignette immediately shuddered at the mere thought of such a hideous crime against fashion.

Vignette let go of Rarity and walked over to take a closer look at a nearby mannequin displaying one of many dresses designed by Rarity for the parade. “So I love everything you’ve done here,” commented Vignette. “One thought — do we want the costumes to have lights on them?”

Remembering the electrical incident earlier that day, Rarity tried to voice an objection to that suggestion, but Vignette just continued speaking.

“Eh, you’ve got time,” noted Vignette with a shrug. “I think we should start from scratch.”

“What?!” asked Rarity in shock and disbelief. “But… but the parade is on in only a couple hours! It’s simply unrealistic to make such a drastic request at this stage!”

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” responded Vignette dismissively. “It’s what I hired you for. B-T-Dubs, every amazing fashion vlogger and Snapgab celeb’s gonna be here tonight! No presh.” As far as she was concerned, there was nothing more left to be said, so she simply walked away without even bothering to see or hear any reaction from Rarity.

Rarity’s anxiety levels had skyrocketed so much that she was practically petrified for a moment before she finally muttered worriedly, “Really? ‘Cause I’m feeling presh…” She was soon snapped out of her impending panic when she saw one of the performers in costume walk by, and she was not pleased with that costume’s design. “Why am I seeing neon pink and yellow on that dragon’s tail?!” she called out furiously. “Is this a beast of legend or a safety vest?!”

As Rarity stormed off to deal with yet another suboptimal design, Vignette made her way out the backdoor of the building. She was momentarily startled when someone passed by right in front of her, but then let out a sigh of relief when she saw it was just that hologram security guard in a royal sentry uniform she had created a couple days ago. As she watched that virtual guard continue his ceaseless patrol along the side of the building, she noticed a cardboard box had been left in the guard’s path, and when he reached it, he just passed right through it like it wasn’t even there — though the hologram’s temporary distortion probably indicated it was more like he was the one that wasn’t even there.

“That sure doesn’t seem right,” muttered Vignette. She pulled out her phone and opened up that app she had used to create the guard. She was about to check the settings when she noticed a notification for new updates that were ready to install. She decided to go ahead and install those updates, then watched the progress bar fill up in only a matter of seconds. With that done, she checked the settings and saw among many of the new features was a toggle to “solidify” an active hologram. She pointed her phone at the patrolling guard and tapped that toggle option, then watched as he marched back towards the box and then tripped over it and stumbled to the ground.

As that virtual guard stood back up to resume his patrol, Vignette smiled and confidently muttered, “If all else fails, this is just the thing I need to make everything perfect.” With that minor issue taken care of, she headed back inside the building and made her way over to her office.


Despite the immense stress of overseeing all the preparations, Rarity had made sure to remember her promise to meet with her friends at a specific time to prepare themselves for their role as the main performance for the parade. To save precious time, she has instructed some assistants to guide her friends to the float they would be performing on, ensuring that she could immediately meet with all of them at once and then just as quickly return to her other important tasks.

The float that the Rainbooms were due to perform on was built like a stage that had a purple backdrop bordered by a large grey arch shaped like a giant horseshoe, and the lower sides of the float surrounding that stage were white with decals of swirling patterns to resemble clouds. As Rarity arrived at this float, what she saw left her with mixed feelings. She was pleased to see that the assistants assigned to retrieve their instruments had successfully delivered them all without any unacceptable delays, but she was upset to see only half of her friends — Sunset, Twilight, and Pinkie — had arrived on time for preparations and rehearsal.

The three girls who were already present on the float were in the middle of being measured by some assistants so their costumes could be properly fitted for them. “Stop it! That tickles!” giggled Pinkie Pie as she kept fidgeting each time the measuring tape was wrapped around various parts of her.

“Why are we even doing this?” asked the assistant who was measuring Twilight. “Isn’t every minifig supposed to be exactly the same size?”

The assistant who was measuring Sunset shrugged and replied, “Beats me, but as long as we get paid to follow whatever orders we’re given, I’m not gonna complain.”

Rarity glanced over at the instruments and her attention focused on Applejack’s bass guitar. Although they had met and spoken a couple times earlier that day, their most recent encounter had ended in disagreement over Applejack insisting that some petty issue she already forgot about was more important than preparing for the parade. Rarity huffed and grumbled, “I suppose Applejack has better things to do than final fittings and sound check.”

“Don’t be mad at her,” argued Sunset as the assistants finished up with her and the others. “She’s been looking for Fluttershy all afternoon, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Rainbow Dash decided to help her out before coming here.”

“Don’t tell me who to be annoyed with!” snapped Rarity.

That sudden and vicious reaction from Rarity caused Sunset, Twilight, and Pinkie to glance at each other worriedly. Sunset leaned close to Twilight and discreetly whispered, “How’s progress on the you-know-what?”

Twilight, knowing that Sunset was referring to her attempt to remotely access her secret tracking system of her friends’ phones, pulled out her phone and glanced at it for a few seconds, then put it away as she sighed and muttered, “Still loading.”

Pinkie Pie — who always made it her personal obligation to ensure that everyone around her had a happy smile on their faces — jumped off the float and landed in front of Rarity. “I know you’re stressed, Rarity,” she assured her friend, “but I’m sure you’ve got something totally amazing up your sleeve!” She then suddenly grasped Rarity’s bare arms and held them up at various angles as she added, “You did remember to wear sleeves with amazing things up them, right?”

Rarity quickly slapped Pinkie’s hands off her arms and scolded, “Pinkie Pie, this is hardly the time for your unreasonable antics. I need you and the others to take all of this very seriously! This parade could be the one defining moment of my entire livelihood, and I will not accept anything less than absolute perfection!”

“As someone who admittingly still struggles with a desire for perfection,” Twilight spoke up, “I can say from experience that you’re only setting yourself up for failure with that kind of attitude. I would highly recommend that you take a step back and try to think about all of this from a more realistic perspective.”

“Twilight, darling, I can hardly afford such a luxury at a time like this,” insisted Rarity in frustration.

“STOP!!”

Everyone in the area immediately turned to the source of that shout and saw Applejack marching with determination towards the Rainbooms’ float. Her expression quickly softened when she noticed all the surrounding assistants had stopped in their tracks to stare at her.

“Oh! Uh, not everybody stop,” clarified Applejack in embarrassment as she continued walking forward. “Ah just meant mah friends. The rest of y’all keep doin’ what you’re doin’, sewin’ up them, uh, clothes an’ whatnot.”

The numerous assistants quickly resumed their various tasks, many of them now choosing to stay clear of Applejack and her friends.

“Where have you been?!” demanded Rarity.

Having moved past the embarrassment of drawing too much attention to herself, Applejack regained her determination as she firmly said, “Nobody go anywhere with Vignette, understood?”

As Pinkie Pie backed up and jumped to sit upon the edge of the float, Twilight, Sunset, and Pinkie glanced at each other and muttered various words of confusion.

Applejack was unaware that Vignette was currently inside her office, which happened to be right on the other side of the wall behind the Rainbooms’ float, so she had been able to overhear Applejack’s word of caution. She immediately took cover behind the portion of the wall that was between the door and the window to prevent anyone from noticing her presence. She wasn’t sure how, but that apple farmer was somehow onto her, and she knew she had to think of something to discourage any suspicion. She glanced at her desk and noticed someone had decided to plug their phone into her recharger cable. Normally, she would complain about someone committing such a blatant disregard of her office space without her knowledge, but seeing that plain regular phone just sitting there on her desk gave her an idea.

Back outside near the Rainbooms’ float, Rarity grabbed Applejack and shoved her towards the float as she grumbled, “You can explain yourself after the parade. I’m sure—”

Applejack immediately shrugged off her friend’s grip on her and sharply responded, “No, Rarity, this cannot wait. Vignette is evil!”

Vignette decided that now would be the perfect time to make her presence known, so she casually opened the door and stepped out of her office, convinced that her timing would be ideal to minimize Applejack’s credibility.

Sure enough, Rarity’s shock at Applejack’s accusation quickly turned to mortification when she heard the door close and saw Vignette standing right behind her.

Pinkie remained sitting upon the edge of the float as she loudly whispered, “Applejack, she’s right over there!”

Applejack ignored the awkwardness that had just built around her and firmly continued, “Ah know Fluttershy was last seen hours ago goin’ somewhere with Vignette, an’ Ah saw her from the security office when she made Rainbow Dash disappear with her phone!”

“How did you get access to the security office?” asked Sunset.

“Trust me, ya wouldn’t believe how pathetic security is ‘round here,” replied Applejack. “The guy practically welcomed me into his office with open arms!” She turned her furious glare to Vignette as she continued, “Point is, Ah know what Ah saw! Ten eggs in a chicken coop says it’s Equestrian magic.”

“Oh, honey, delusional isn’t your color,” said Vignette dismissively in a sweet tone as she tugged at the back of Applejack’s hair piece. “You’re an autumn.” She then let go of Applejack’s hair and proceeded to occupy herself with the plain purple phone in her hand.

“If you’re so innocent, then how do ya explain this?!” accused Applejack as she swiped the phone out of Vignette’s hands, brought up its camera feature, and aimed it at a nearby pink dress on a mannequin. “Say goodbye to your mannequin thingy!”

Applejack quickly took a few pictures of the target object, but against her expectations, nothing out of the ordinary happened at all. “Uh, hang on…” she muttered uneasily as she started randomly tapping buttons on the phone. “Watch it… disappear!”

As Applejack seemingly made a complete fool of herself, Rarity crossed her arms and turned away, feeling absolutely humiliated that someone she considered a friend would behave in such an awful manner in front of someone who had done everything to encourage her efforts for the parade.

“Uh, Ah think Ah hash-gabbed mah snap-tag or all in the— Ugh, Ah can’t figure out these new fandangled apps,” grumbled Applejack in frustration. She quickly realized what she had just said and mumbled in embarrassment, “Ah sound just like Granny Smith…”

Little did any of the Equestria Girls know, Vignette had made sure to conspicuously hold the regular phone she had found on her desk, while keeping her magically enhanced phone hidden in her pocket. With that bit of deception successful, Vignette casually took the regular phone out of Applejack’s hands and sweetly said, “I just saw your friends, Rare. They’re in wardrobe and they’re fine.” She walked over to stand beside Rarity and took a selfie with her on that regular phone.

“Are you sure?” asked Rarity.

“And looking good in your costumes, by the way,” complimented Vignette, which brought a smile to Rarity’s face.

Applejack facepalmed and exclaimed, “Seriously?! You’re gonna take her word at face value over the word of one of your real friends?! Sunset! Come over here an’ check her!”

Before Sunset had a chance to speak up, Rarity scolded, “Applejack, the parade is less than an hour away and—”

“This is bigger than the parade, Rarity!” insisted Applejack.

“Nothing’s bigger than the parade, Applejack!” argued Rarity.

Applejack gasped in shock, then furrowed her brow and sharply responded, “Ah know ya didn’t just say that about your missin’ friends!”

“Don’t mind me, ladies,” Vignette spoke up smugly as she walked away from between the arguing Rarity and Applejack. “I’m just gonna let you two sort this out amongst yourselves.” As she walked away, she encountered a group of assistants who had stopped to watch the escalating conflict, so she tossed the regular phone towards one of them and spoke up, “Move along, people. Nothing to see here.”

All of the assistants quickly rushed off to resume their various tasks.

“Admit it, Applejack!” exclaimed Rarity furiously. “You don’t care about my parade!”

“‘Mah parade’?! This ain’t about you!” Applejack shot back. “She’s done somethin’ to our friends!”

“Is this about our friends or about you and Vignette?” argued Rarity indignantly. “Ever since she gave me this opportunity, you’ve been jealous because she sees my potential but she didn’t hire you!”

Sunset, Twilight, and Pinkie felt helpless as they watched the argument between Rarity and Applejack continue to heat up.

“You girls, please stop!” begged Twilight.

“This isn’t like you!” exclaimed Sunset worriedly.

“Don’t say something you’ll regret!” cried Pinkie desperately.

The pleas of their friends went ignored as Applejack shouted back, “In case you’ve forgotten, ya didn’t even want the job when it was first offered, an’ the only reason ya took it was because Ah told ya to go for it! You accepted this opportunity because of me, an’ this is the thanks Ah get?! Even worse, you’re so blind that you can’t even see Vignette’s been usin’ ya! You only like her because she’s always blowin’ smoke up your chimney, but that’s what she does to everyone! YOU’RE NOT THAT SPECIAL!!”

As soon as those final words left Applejack’s mouth, all of the girls were completely stunned, including Applejack herself. The feelings of intense anger between Rarity and Applejack quickly evaporated, leaving Rarity hurt and Applejack ashamed.

After a moment of awkward silence, Applejack shamefully muttered, “Maybe Ah should just… go.”

“Yes… maybe you should,” Rarity bitterly agreed.

Applejack turned away and lowered her head in shame as she slowly walked towards the nearest door out of the building.

“Applejack, wait!” Sunset called out.

With Applejack gone, Rarity finally broke down and started sobbing as she ran towards Vignette’s office.

“Rarity!” Pinkie cried out as she hopped off the float and ran after her hurt friend.

As Rarity entered the office and slammed the door shut, Vignette — who had been standing on the sidelines the whole time — walked forward and blocked Pinkie’s path. “Waiting is for waiters, ladies,” she said smugly as she pulled out her actual phone and wrapped her arm around Pinkie’s neck. “We’re better off without her.”

“What do you mean by ‘we’?” asked Twilight as both she and Sunset frowned and clenched their fists.

“The Throwbacks, formerly known as the Rainbooms,” answered Vignette as she hugged a nonconsenting Pinkie Pie closer to her.

Sunset jumped off the float and yanked Pinkie out of Vignette’s grasp. As Twilight also jumped off the float to join them, Sunset asked suspiciously, “Hang on, why does ‘we’ include you?”

“Obviously, somebody needs to fill Applejuice’s spot,” explained Vignette proudly, “and since it’s so last-minute, we are lucky to have someone with as much talent and vision as moi.”

“Uh… you?” asked Pinkie, completely baffled.

“And not just that,” added Vignette excitedly, “we’ll be playing a song I wrote!”

The three present Equestria Girls had their hands on their hips and glared at Vignette as Sunset firmly explained, “Okay, one; you are not in the band! You also sure as heck don’t have our permission to change the band’s name, and if you’ve already been spreading word of your unauthorized name change, we can have you sued for false advertisement. And two; just because our friends had a fight doesn’t automatically mean one of them is permanently kicked out of the group, which is why we are absolutely not performing without Applejack.”

“Which is her name, by the way,” emphasized Pinkie in displeasure. “Not ‘Applejuice’.”

“And you know what?” continued Twilight with growing determination. “She’s not usually one to make up crazy lies, like, ever.”

“Yeah, that’s usually my shtick!” added Pinkie, her expression just as serious as those of her friends beside her. “She’s supposed to be the reliable, dependable one!”

Sunset slowly raised her fists as she concluded, “So all that stuff she said about you…”

Vignette had remained completely relaxed in the face of all those accusations — even keeping most of her attention down at her phone the whole time — and when they gave her the chance to respond, she just shrugged and contently replied, “Meh, all true.”

Pinkie immediately gasped and tearfully exclaimed, “Holy spaghetti! How could you do such a horrible thing to our friends?!”

“Like this!” replied Vignette as she immediately held up her phone at the three girls and took a picture of them before they had a chance to take even a single step forward. The magically enhanced device quickly transformed the three of them into holographic images which were then pulled into the phone and vanished.

Now standing completely alone, Vignette’s smile grew as she said to herself, “Now let’s see if this Equestrian magique is all it’s cracked up to be…” She swiped through the pictures of the five girls she had taken and settled on Sunset Shimmer as her test model. She then quickly swiped through some various costumes and decided to go with an excessively frilly princess dress. “Looking much better already…”

Vignette repeated the process with the other four girls in her collection. She gave Fluttershy a hardcore punk design with wildly messy hair, provided Rainbow Dash with a highly feminine dress and excessive makeup, applied a sporty uniform on Twilight without glasses, and finally put Pinkie Pie into some restrictive business attire with straight hair. With all five girls now in her envisioned “Throwback” costumes, she swiped the finalized models up onto the performance stage float, where those holograms suddenly appeared with their own musical instruments already in hand.

With her work complete, Vignette sighed in satisfaction and happily remarked, “I wish I’d had this thing years ago! Just think how perfect my life could’ve looked!”

It was at this moment that Rarity finally opened the door and stepped out of the office room, still sniffling away her last remaining tears.

Upon seeing her favorite employee return, Vignette squealed excitedly as she pulled Rarity close to her and gestured towards the holograms. “Rare, you are not gonna believe this!” she exclaimed cheerfully.

Rarity pushed herself out of Vignette’s grip and walked slowly towards the float. “What… What is this?” she asked quietly. She noticed that standing on that mobile stage were five holograms that resembled her friends, but dressed up in garish costumes that she knew would horribly clash with their respective styles. But what made those holograms especially creepy was how they stood perfectly still like statues with unblinking gazes that stared straight ahead and unnaturally big smiles on their faces.

Growing increasingly freaked out, Rarity turned back to Vignette and hesitantly asked, “W-What am I looking at?”

“Your friends, but better!” Vignette proudly answered as she placed an arm around Rarity’s shoulders. “Do you love it? Of course you do! Now we can make the parade exactly how I want it!”

“How… you want it?” asked Rarity in shock as she pushed herself out of Vignette’s grip and slowly backed away. “You said you hired me for my vision!”

Vignette shrugged and shamelessly admitted, “Well, I needed your vision to bring out my vision. And thanks to this new app I’ve got, I can easily fill in any gaps you left behind. Nobody will ever notice the difference!” She then turned her attention down at her phone without a care in the world.

Rarity turned around to face the holograms on the stage. She hesitantly stepped forward and reached out to grab the leg of who she believed to be her friend Fluttershy. When her hand passed right though that ghostly leg, she recoiled in horror and disbelief.

“Oh! Right. I should probably apply those upgrades I just downloaded,” noted Vignette as she quickly tapped on her phone. Seconds later, the holograms took on a more solidified appearance, allowing the bright colors on their costumes to really stand out. However, those holograms still remained completely still, as she had not yet given them any movement commands. “Looking even better already! I’ll assign their moves just before the parade starts, which should be enough to make them really stand out like no other band had ever done in history!”

Rarity turned back to Vignette and fearfully asked, “Vignette… wh-what is going on here? Where are my friends?!”

“Like, trapped in the internet as zeroes and ones or erased from existence or something?” replied Vignette nonchalantly with a shrug. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

“What?!” exclaimed Rarity, aghast.

Vignette began casually pacing back and forth as she explained, “See, like, my phone somehow became magique or something, and now it has this wonderful power where whenever I take a picture of something, it disappears, and then I can customize them with a swipe of my hand and make them real again. Or… real enough to matter, but hey, blah-blah-blah, O.M.G., I’m boring myself just talking about this stuff. This whole monologuing thing is so not my style.”

As Vignette spoke, Rarity felt increasingly hurt, terrified, and above all else… betrayed. She had placed so much faith and trust in Vignette over the past two weeks, and hearing her confess to practically wiping out nearly all of her friends and behave like it was no big deal was an absolute act of treachery beyond imagination. But even worse for Rarity was the sudden realization that, despite how wild and crazy those claims had sounded at the time, Applejack turned out to be completely right! She had ignored Applejack’s warnings all day long, and now all of their friends had paid the price for her blind envy. All of these feeling crashing together in such a short amount of time caused another emotion to quickly rise within her — rage.

As soon as Vignette finished her monologue, Rarity furiously shouted, “Bring back my friends this instant!”

Vignette smirked and responded, “Fine. If you wanna be with them so bad, I’ll do you one last favor.” She held up her phone and aimed it at Rarity. “You’re welcome.”

Rarity had only enough time to gasp and hold up her hands before Vignette took a picture of her.

Author's Note:

I added in some additional dialogue throughout many scenes in this chapter to help emphasize what I believe to be some key points that are worth noting. Also, this chapter has a few more clues on how the rescue and final confrontation in this story will differ from the official version. Just two more chapters and the epilogue left to go, and the next two chapters is where this story will finally start to get very interesting.