Right Beside You

by Godslittleprincess

Chapter 2: The World on Your Back

Roughly two months later, Flash and Twilight were a week away from their wedding, and the two of them were about to head out for an evening of fun with their friends. Let’s pause the narrative on them for a little while to check up on some old foes, shall we?

---

In the part of town where Sunset lived during her high school years, three former sirens were lounging around inside their refitted van. Actually, just Aria and Sonata were lounging. Adagio was working away at a laptop while listening to the audio through a pair of clunky, professional grade headphones.

“Ugh,” Aria groaned as she dramatically spread herself across her limited lounging space. “I’m so sick of being stuck here, Adagio. If I have to spend another day in this world, I’m going to scream.”

Adagio growled as she looked up from her work to glare at her sister, “Hey, don’t you think I want to get back to Equestria too? Besides, unless we can get those meddling girls to show us the way back, which, by the way, is totally unlikely, we’re pretty much stuck here, so can you please make living out of this van easier on me by ATTEMPTING to make the best of our current situation?”

“You know, aside from the fact that we lost our voices, our lives right now are actually better than they were three years ago,” Sonata noted before sighing, “It’s still pretty sucky, you know, being stuck in a world with no magic and everything.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

“You know what? That’s it,” Aria cried, slamming her fist on the wall of the van. “I say we go over to the spot at the park our necklace fragments were reacting to last year and see what’s there.”

“Are you nuts?!” Adagio retorted. “We don’t know what’s down there. True, it could be a portal to Equestria or something that’ll restore our voices and magic, but it could also be something that could end up killing us or driving us insane or worst. We could end up blowing off each other’s heads or possessed by a dark entity for all we know.”

“If I remember right, it was YOUR plan to take control of that school and steal the Equestrian magic from those girls,” Aria noted accusingly. “How is digging up whatever’s at the park any riskier than that?”

“Before, we still had our voices and whatever little magic we brought with us from Equestria. Now, we have nothing.”

“Yeah,” Sonata agreed, “except for each other, this van, Dagi’s laptop, and a career in the music industry that’s doing okay enough to put food on the table.”

“We dig up whatever’s at that park; we might not even have any of that anymore.”

Aria just crossed her arms with a huff.

“You know it’s too bad we can’t find someone to use as a meat shield to dig up the magic for us,” Sonata mused absently. “That way if something bad is buried under there, he or she can get the full blast of the stuff while we walk away scot-free.”

Adagio looked up from her work while Aria straightened up at her seat, both sharing stunned looks with each other. Slowly, their stunned looks morphed into malicious grins.

---

Meanwhile, at Flash’s house, he and First Base were just about to leave.

“You sure you and Grandma don’t want to come with us, Aunt Flare?” Flash asked his aunt as he checked his pockets for his car keys. “I know how much the two of you love karaoke.”

“We’ll have plenty of other chances to karaoke,” Flare Burst replied.

“You, on the other hand, won’t get too many chances to hang out with your friends like this,” Grandma Birdie added. “Enjoy it while you can.”

“What about you, Bee?” Flash asked his adopted cousin. “Come on. Imagine how cool you’ll be starting high school having already hung out with college kids.”

“Imagining it, and,” Honey Bee replied, not looking up from her phone, “totally not caring.”

“Oh, well, your loss.”

Before Flash and Base could walk about the door, however, the doorbell rang.

“Now, who could that be?” wondered Grandma.

Being the one closest to the door, Flash decided to open it. To his surprise, he found his stepbrother standing on the other side.

“Oh, Coin Bank,” he nervously greeted. “Uh, how are you?”

“Aren’t you going to let me inside?” Coin Bank asked in a condescending tone.

“Uh, yeah, of course I am. Come right in.” Flash stepped away from the door, allowed Coin to walk past him, and closed
the door behind him.

“Everybody,” Flash introduced to the women in the room, “this is Coin Bank. He’s our stepbrother, uh, apparently.”

Coin Bank didn’t pay anyone any mind, seeming more focused on analyzing the dining and living rooms and the furniture. Aunt Flare, Grandma, and Bee shared uneasy looks with each other, utterly perplexed by his behavior.

“Yeah, not that we’re not glad to see you, but what are you doing here?” First Base asked Coin. “And how did you even find where we lived?”

Coin Bank smirked knowingly and pulled out a piece of cardstock from his jacket pocket.

“I found this in Stepfather #2’s garbage a few months ago,” he boasted, shoving the wedding invitation into Flash’s hands. “I just followed the address to the church last Sunday, waited for you to leave service, followed you home, and wrote down your address.”

Flash dropped the invitation as everyone in his family locked eyes with each other, their faces twisted in shock and disgust.

“YOU WERE STALKING US WHILE WE WERE IN CHURCH?!” Bee cried out before sputtering, “D-d-do you have any idea how creepy that is?”

“Not to mention sacrilegious,” Base added.

“Okay, before this gets any weirder, do you mind telling us why you put so much effort into trying to find where we live?” Flare practically demanded.

With the annoyingly smug smirk still adorning his face, Coin replied, “I actually have TWO reasons for coming here. The first is that I wanted to know where my stepfather came from and what he left behind.”

Coin resumed examining the house from top to bottom.

Then, he chuckled mirthlessly, “He said he came from nothing, and boy, was he right. This place is as close to nothing as anybody can get.”

Flash and his family frowned at that.

“Grandma, should I call the cops?” Bee asked.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Grandma replied. “I think your mom will probably pick him up and throw him out any minute now.”

“Young man, did you drive all the way here from New York and follow us home from church just to insult our home?” Aunt Flare asked Coin Bank. Her nephews could see a sharp gleam of danger in the glower she was giving him.

“Actually, I do have one other reason,” Coin said, putting an arm around Flash’s shoulders in disingenuous camaraderie. “I’m also here to stop this guy from making a terrible, terrible mistake.”

“Excuse me,” Flash cried, uncomfortably pulling away from him.

“Dude, you do NOT want to get married. You’re young. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Do you really want to spend the rest of it tied down to one girl?”

Usually when Flash became angry, his ears would heat up from the blood rushing into them. This time, his whole face turned red.

“You don’t even know me,” Flash tried not to shout. “What would you know about what I want?”

“Come on. Look at yourself,” Coin Bank continued. “I mean, how old are ya? 18? 19? You’re too young to be some chick’s husband. Why are you in such a hurry to marry her anyways? What, is she having your kid or something?”

Flash clenched both his hands into fists, using all his self-control to keep himself from simply punching his stepbrother.

“First of all, her name is Twilight, and she’s not just ‘some chick,’” Flash tried not to yell. “She’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, and no, she’s not having my kid. That would be physically impossible!”

Silence fell over everyone in the room. Coin Bank looked like he was about to say something else, but the look in Flash’s eye and the way his fists were trembling quickly shut him up.

“Uh, Bro, we gotta get going. We’re going to be late,” Base pointed out.

“Late for what?” asked Coin.

“Some of Bro and Twilight’s friends are throwing the two of them a singles party at the karaoke and pizza place.”

“Singles party?” Coin raised his eyebrows at First Base’s choice of words.

“It’s basically a bachelor party and a bachelorette party put together,” Flash explained. “Three of my friends are girls, so it would have been weird to have them over at a guys party, but it’d be just as weird to have them hang with Twilight and her friends, so all our friends are hanging with us together.”

A deeply intent expression crossed Coin Bank’s face for a few moments.

Then, he turned to Flash and asked, “You wouldn’t have an extra invite to that party, would you?”

Flash and Base shared an incredulous look with each other before Flash turned back to Coin.

“You randomly show up at my house and insult my family, and not even five seconds ago, you were trying to talk me out of getting married in the rudest, most condescending way possible. Why would I want you to hang out with me and my friends?!” Flash suddenly shouted. “Why do you even want to hang out with me and my friends?”

“Because,” Coin answered, “I’m bored, I need to get away from my family, and I can’t hang out with my usual crew because they’re all scattered across the winds overseas doing [censored].”

“We’re not allowed to use words like that in this house,” Bee butted in. “Believe me. I’ve gotten in trouble for doing that.”

“What would you do if I say no?” Flash asked, glaring pointedly at his stepbrother.

“I follow you to the venue and crash your party,” Coin bragged. “On second thought, go ahead and say no. Crashing your party sounds WAY more fun.”

---

Five minutes later, Flash and First Base were in Flash’s car driving to the venue with Micro Chips, Button Mash, and one extra person.

“So,” Coin Bank said to Micro, “you’re this guy’s best friend?”

“Uh, yes, yes I am,” Micro replied uncomfortably.

“Huh, I expected you to be a bit less, well, you.”

“Bro, can you explain to me how this is better than having him crash your party?” Base asked his older brother.

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Flash muttered.

“By the way, how old are ya?” Coin continued to ask Micro. “18? 19?”

“19,” Micro replied.

“I hear ya. So, when are you planning on getting hitched yourself?”

“Oh, oh, don’t you DARE drag him into this!” Flash snapped at Coin. “We are not starting that conversation back up again.”

“What conversation?” asked Button Mash.

“He’s trying to convince me not to get married even though the whole thing is none of his business.”

“Ha!” scoffed Coin. “Your own father at his current age doesn’t even qualify as a good husband. What makes you think you’ll be able to do a better job at a much younger age? You might as well call the whole thing off before your marriage ultimately fails.”

Those words were like a slap to the face, two slaps to the face, two slaps to the face and a stab through the heart. Flash couldn’t do anything but clench his hands on the steering wheel and grind his teeth after hearing those words. He tried to shake them off, but those words just kept echoing in his head, burning themselves into the back of his mind.

First Base could tell from the look on his brother’s face that what Coin Bank said had gotten to him. Micro Chips came to the same conclusion after seeing Flash’s face on the rearview mirror.

“Our dad was a jerk who only looked out for himself,” Base retorted. “Flash isn’t like that.”

“Flash may be young, but he most certainly has the right integrity needed to be a good husband,” Micro agreed. “Besides, why are you so determined to get him to call of his wedding anyway? Two months ago, you didn’t even know he existed.”

Coin Bank just scowled at the two of them, but before he could say anything more, the group arrived at the venue.

Author's Note:

Okay, so, this is my first time writing an Equestria Girls story where magic is actually plot-relevant and my first time writing the Dazzlings. I'm not sure how well I did in either of those points, but I hope my inexperience didn't mess with this story too badly.

Also, I basically created Flash's stepbrother to act as Flash's shoulder devil in this story, so if he feels poorly fleshed out, now you know why.

Comments

[Foxhelm]

I get this massive 'There is literally nothing better for me to do' vibe from Coin, like he literally has nothing better to do, a man without a purpose or reason to function... I kind of want to blame his own absence father and his stepfathers...

[SuperSonicHeroes]

I get the feeling Coin is like the way he is because of his family somehow. That being said, it is really easy to get pissed off at him for not just his rudeness but the fact that he went out of his way to find Flash and his family just to be rude to him and try to talk him out of marrying Twilight.

[Ro994]

Honestly, Coin is lucky Flash and his family are as nice as they are. If that had been me, I would've straight out kicked him in the shin and immediately call the police. And I consider myself a nice person -___-