> Rainbow Rocks - The Legend of Friendship > by Danieru > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > 1. A singing Menace > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Canterlot High...in another world... It was not too long ago since two visitors came from this place to steal Princess Twilight Sparkle's crown, in an attempt to rule over this world and attack Equestria. The one who was responsible for all this was Sunset Shimmer, a former student of Princess Celestia. But since there was no magic in this world, it had to be brought from another one...Equestria, the world where she originally came from. With the help of her close friend, Radiant Blast, who was a former member of the Royal Guard, Sunset Shimmer came to Equestria to steal the crown of Princess Twilight Sparkle. Having that magical object in her possession would have been more than enough to become the strongest being in this world. However, two ponies were stepping through the magical mirror in Canterlot that connected the two worlds to get the crown back. Those two ponies were Twilight Sparkle and Star Twinkle. Their mission was to get the crown back until the portal, that connected the two worlds would vanish again. Despite not knowing much about this world, having their appearance changed, and without any help at first, Star Twinkle and Twilight managed to track down the counterparts of their friends from Equestria and stopped both Sunset Shimmer and Radiant Blast in time. In the end, Sunset Shimmer and Radiant Blast regretted what they had done to everyone and Star Twinkle and Twilight's friends offered to help them to change for the better. With the situation resolved like that, Star Twinkle and Twilight could leave this world again and return to Equestria. Those events didn't take place too long ago and right now, there was a completely different event that everyone was taking care of and that was the Canterlot High School Musical Showcase, a competition where every band or singer could participate in. For that event, first, some preparations had to be done, like creating some decoration. Many students of Canterlot High met up in the gym to get to work for that. One of those students was Sunset Shimmer who, at this point, still had some problems to fit in. She walked around the gym in an attempt to offer her help but she couldn't shake off the feeling that everyone was keeping a close eye on her. She started to feel nervous and didn't know what to do. Going up to one group and offering her help would be the best thing to do but her fear of getting rejected was just too big so she only ended up wandering through the gym. That was until someone called out to her. "Hey! Sunset!" A male voice shouted across the room which caused Sunset Shimmer to turn towards it in surprise. It was Radiant Blast, Sunset Shimmer's upbeat and carefree friend. "Can you help us out here?" He asked cheerfully, much to the dislike of the three girls he was working already with, in this very moment. Sunset Shimmer was relieved to hear that she could be of help to someone and walked up to the four. "Need some help?" She asked while she already had one brush ready to draw. The three girls looked at each other before eventually, the one with the red hair gave an answer. "Uh, no thanks. We're good," "Yeah!" The one with the purple hair added. "We were already done after all," Radiant Blast looked surprised after he heard that. "Didn't you just say that were barely halfway done?" He asked obliviously. However, Sunset Shimmer immediately knew what was going on. "Oh. Okay," she said with a frown on her face before she walked away again. Seeing his friend walk away like that made Radiant Blast feel a little worried so he decided to follow her. She was clearly bothered by how her help was rejected just now so Radiant Blast attempted to cheer her up again. "Hey, I'm sure if I talk to them then they will-" But Radiant Blast's words were cut short by Sunset Shimmer. "It's okay, I can't really blame them. Not after what I have done to everyone in this school..." "Come on, Sunset, I thought we agreed to forget all this," Radiant Blast said. They were both referring to how they both treated everyone in this school not too long ago. They were both aware that just going up to some people and being all friendly with them wouldn't change the image that they were pretty much building up over all this time in this world. "Give everyone some more time," Radiant Blast advised. "I mean, everyone seemed to have forgiven me already so I'm sure that it will only be a matter of time for you as well," he added confidently with a big grin on his face. But Sunset Shimmer wasn't really affected by this confidence. "Of course they forgive you, Radiant," she said with a frown on her face. "After all, you were not doing anything bad, and every time when you did, it was me who asked you to that. And everyone knows that. Everyone knows that deep inside you were always nice. So nice that you even helped someone like me..." she said in shame. Radiant Blast didn't like to hear Sunset Shimmer talking about herself like that and again, attempted to cheer her up. "You are a nice person as well. The things that you did in the past, just makes it a little harder for everyone to see that," he said with a calm voice as he put his hands on Sunset Shimmer's shoulders. "Also, it's not like everyone is still mad at you," he said while he pointed at another group of people who were waving over to the two. "Sunset Shimmer! Radiant Blast! Over here!" One of the girls of the group shouted across the gym as she waved over to Radiant Blast and Sunset Shimmer. The group consisted of Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. The latter one was the one who wanted the two to join them to help painting some poster. Radiant Blast was happy that the timing was so perfect for them to ask Sunset Shimmer to help them. Sunset Shimmer even smiled as soon as she was called. However, everyone else in the room overheard Pinkie Pie screaming across the hall as well and quickly looked over to Sunset Shimmer with judging eyes and whispering to each other once she walked past them. Sunset Shimmer could only release a sigh once she was standing next to the girls. "I had no idea the whole school would be here," Noticing how, upset Sunset Shimmer was, Rarity decided to quickly change the subject and held the poster up, that she and the girls worked on so far. "Quite the eye-catching advertisement, if I do say so myself." The poster showed a picture of multiple instruments and was supposed to be an advertisement for the band that the girls formed for the music event. "And it smells like cake!" Pinkie Pie pointed out. "It does?" Fluttershy asked before she began to sniff the poster. However, Pinkie Pie helped her and put the poster right into Fluttershy's face, much to her surprise. "I used frosting instead of paste!" Pinkie Pie further pointed out before she removed the poster from Fluttershy's face again, only to reveal that her face now was covered in frosting. Applejack, while smiling a little, decided to tell her about it. "Uh, Fluttershy, you've got a little somethin', uh..." Fluttershy quickly understood what Applejack wanted to tell her and swiped some of her cheeks clean but she almost didn't get anything off. "Did I get it?" She asked, completely unaware of it. Applejack began to smile even more widely. "Heh, not exactly," It was then Sunset Shimmer who used a tissue to clean Fluttershy properly. This little conversation seemed to have distracted Sunset Shimmer a little, much to Radiant Blast's relief. Shortly after, Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna both entered the gym to speak to the students for a moment. "Good afternoon, students," Principal Celestia said, causing all the students to stop their work for a moment. "I just wanted to tell you all how pleased I am that so many of you are going to participate in the first ever Canterlot High School Musical Showcase!" Hearing that quickly made the students cheer. That was until Principal Celestia continued. "This is a wonderful opportunity to raise money for all our after-school programs here at CHS. So keep working on those signs and posters. I think it's going to be one of the most exciting events we've had at CHS since the Fall Formal," she said unaware of how all the students reacted to that. Everyone quickly shifted their eyes to Sunset Shimmer, accompanied by some angry looks. All that Sunset Shimmer could do at this moment was to hide her face in shame. Mentioning the Fall Formal, was certainly not necessary. Luckily, the girls were done with their poster and had to leave the gym only shortly after, keeping Sunset Shimmer away from all the angry expressions that were directed towards her. "Ugh! I am never gonna live that down," Sunset Shimmer said as she walked through the hallway with the rest of her friends. Radiant Blast felt how upset Sunset Shimmer was and tried to cheer her up again with some words. "Come on, Sunset, you make it sound a lot worse than it actually was," But those words didn't seem to work. "A demon. I turned into a raging she-demon. And I turned you into one as well!" She said with a frustrated tone in her voice. "And tried to turn everyone here into teenage zombies for your own personal army!" Pinkie Pie added further to make things even more uncomfortable for Sunset Shimmer. Rarity then decided to finally speak out the words that needed to be said "Oh, darling, you have us, and we've forgiven you for your past... ahem... booboos," she said, making it sound a lot better than it actually was. Applejack also pointed out something interesting. "To be honest, I'd say the whole experience brought everyone at Canterlot High closer than ever before!" "Did you hear that, Sunset?" Radiant Blast said with a grin on his face. "Turning into a demon and trying to turn everyone into zombies actually helped out in the end!" He said, trying to see the positive thing about all this. But like usual, the positive attitude of Radiant Blast didn't really leave an effect on Sunset Shimmer. "Yeah...that is...not really making me feel better..." she simply replied as she was rubbing her arm in discomfort. "You won't be any longer!" Pinkie Pie said excitedly. "Not after you heard us playing!" "Yeah! Let's go and practice for the music event!" Rainbow Dash suggested, being highly excited now as well. "You do that," Radiant Blast said before he stopped walking with the girls. "I have to go somewhere. I'll volunteered to show some new students around in school," he explained. "Okay, we see you later then," Sunset Shimmer replied as she followed the other girls to the practice room of the Rainbooms while Radiant Blast was on his way as well. A little later... Radiant Blast waited patiently near the school entrance for those new students to arrive. It didn't take much longer until three girls were entering the school. All of them looked around as if they wanted to inspect the school. They also seemed kinda lost so Radiant Blast figured that those were the students he was looking for. Still, he walked up to them and asked them anyway. "Hello there. I guess you are the ones that I'm supposed to show around?" He asked with a friendly smile on his face. One of the girls stepped forward. "We are," she said with a grin on her face. The girl who stepped forward had a yellow skin color, a long and wide orange hair with some yellow stripes in it, and raspberry colored eyes. She was wearing a purple top with a pink jacket above it, pink fingerless gloves, short purple trousers with a golden belt around it, pink leggings, and dark purple boots. She was also wearing a black necklace with a red gem on it. The girl on the right had a pink skin color, long purple hair with aquamarine streaks in it, which was tied into a twin tail haircut, and mulberry-colored eyes. She was wearing a yellow top with a light green jacket above it, which had it sleeves ripped off, three dark purple wristbands around each of her arms, a dark purple belt with a silver star on it, and purple trousers and dark purple boots. She also was wearing the same necklace as her friends. The last of the girls, had a bluish-white skin color, light blue hair with dark blue streaks, which was tied into a ponytail, and raspberry colored eyes. She was wearing a cherry colored jacket, a pink spiked wristband on each of her wrists, a pink skirt, and long pink and white boots. Like her friends, she was also wearing the same necklace. "Great!" Radiant Blast replied happily. "My name is Radiant Blast," he introduced himself. The girl in front of him did the same. "Adagio Dazzle," she introduced herself. "And those are Aria Blaze," she said while she pointed to her right to the girl with the twin tails, who crossed her arms and looked away in disinterest. "And Sonata Dusk," she said while she pointed to her left, to the girl with the ponytail, who waved at Radiant Blast with a bright smile on her face. "Got it, follow me, I will show you everything here," Radiant Blast said before he led the way. The three girls followed him, without a word and listened to what Radiant Blast was telling them. "Canterlot High is a great school. You're really gonna love it," he explained. "Oh, yes, we really sense there's something... magical about this place," Adagio Dazzle said once she took a look around herself. "Yep. There is always something happening here," Radiant Blast said before he came across a poster that was hanging on the wall next to him. "Like this!" He said as he pointed towards the poster. "We're having a big musical showcase this weekend! The whole school is pretty much rallying around it. It's gonna be lots of fun!" He said in his excitement. Adagio Dazzle took a look at the poster. She seemed like as if she was actually interested in it. "A musical showcase?" She mumbled to herself before she looked over to her two friends, who both seemed to like the sound of it. Since they all showed some interest in it, Radiant Blast tried to get them to enter this event. "You are new, so I suppose Principal Celestia would let you sign in if you are interested," Aria Blaze showed some disinterest but she also seemed to like this idea. "We have been known to sing from time to time," she said, seeming highly confident about all this. "Hello?" Sonata Dusk then said. "We sing, like, all the time! It's how we get people to do what we want," she added casually, much to Adagio Dazzle's dislike who looked back at her with an angry expression on her face. "What did I say?" She replied, oblivious about her action. Adagio Dazzle quickly corrected Sonata Dusk's words. "What you meant to say was that being in a musical showcase sounds like a great way to meet other students," "Ohhhh, yeah," Sonata Dusk replied in a moment of realization. "What she said I meant to say. That's what I meant. To say," she said with a smile on her face as if she just took care of the whole situation. Aria Blaze could only shake her head. "And what you would have said if you weren't the worst," Sonata Dusk quickly was offended by those words. "You are!" She replied offended. Adagio Dazzle was getting sick of those two arguing and stood in front of them so that Radiant Blast wouldn't pay attention to them anymore. "You'll have to excuse them. They're idiots," she said while she formed a bothered expression on her face. There was an awkward silence afterward. Radiant Blast was not sure what this was all about. He didn't seem to mind though and just kept up his cheerful attitude. "Well, it doesn't matter if you are beginners or not, you are more then welcome to participate in the event," he explained. It didn't take the three girls long until they showed more interest in this music event. "We consider it," Adagio Dazzle said with a rather scheming smile on her face, that Radiant Blast didn't notice. He probably thought she was smiling out of excitement. Later... Radiant Blast was done with the tour. He had the feeling that he did a good job. The three girls seemed to be more interested in the music event, however, which made Radiant Blast happy. He went to the mess hall to meet up with the girls again. They seemed to have finished their practice so Radiant Blast joined them. "So how was the tour?" Applejack asked once Radiant Blast sat down on the table next to Sunset Shimmer. "All good. They seemed nice. It also looks like as if you get more competition in the music event," Radiant Blast informed casually while he started to eat. "Oh please," Rainbow Dash replied. "There is no way that anyone will be a decent competition for us. You should have heard us playing a few minutes ago. No one will stand a chance once my band starts playing in front of everyone," she said confidently. But Applejack thought she didn't hear right. "Your band?" She asked confused. "Of course!" Rainbow Dash replied. "It was my idea to form the Rainbooms after all, and I am the lead singer and guitarist," she pointed out. Some of the girls didn't seem to like hearing those words but they didn't say anything further. Radiant Blast didn't notice all of that and asked something else. "So...did you all grow wings and ears again?" He asked out of curiosity. He was referring to that strange transformation that happened back then when the girls fought against Sunset Shimmer and him. All of them would grow pony-like ears, their hair would get longer, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy even grow wings on their backs while playing. "I just wonder why it happens," Applejack questioned. "Princess Twilight took her crown back to Equestria. Shouldn't that mean she took all the magic back with her?" She pointed out. What Applejack said was true. There is no magic in this world. That is why Sunset Shimmer and Radiant Blast went to Equestria in the first place, to steal the crown of Princess Twilight so that they could be the only ones with magic. The group was scratching their heads over this and tried to find an answer. All except, Radiant Blast. "Who knows?" he simply said, much to everyone's confusion. "I mean, as long as it is only us who have some magic, then there shouldn't be a problem right?" After Radiant Blast pointed that out, the girls started to realize that as well. "I guess you're right," Sunset Shimmer said. "Yeah," Fluttershy added. "I mean, we are not putting anyone in danger with our magic after all," she figured. Realizing that, the girls didn't worry about that matter anymore and continued to eat their lunch. It was just like Radiant Blast said. No one of them would even attempt to do anything bad with that. Worrying about that would also distract them all from the music event. But then in the middle of their lunch, something could be heard from outside the mess hall. "Ah, ah-ah, ah-ahh Ah, ah-ah, ah-ahh," It was someone singing. This was not unnoticed by some of the students in the mess hall, and everyone who heard it slowly looked at the door that would lead inside the room. Soon, the door opened and three girls entered the hall. "Ah, ah-ah, ah-ahh Ah, ah-ah, ah-ahh," They sang as they walked inside the hall. They were the one who were singing. As soon as Radiant Blast saw those three, he quickly recognized them as Adagio Dazzle, Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk. It was the three girls that he showed around a while ago. Their singing was actually pretty nice to listen to. It was almost hypnotizing. Soon, Adagio Dazzle began to sing as she walked through the hall with her two friends. "We heard you want to get together We heard you want to rock this school We've thought of something that is better Something that changes all the rules Why pretend we're all the same When some of us shine brighter?" The other two joined Adagio Dazzle shortly after. The song they sang sounded really soothing but what they were singing about worried Radiant Blast a little, no matter how good their singing sounded. "Me and you, you and me Why don't we see who is better? We don't have to be one and the same thing Oh, what's so wrong with a little competition? Are you afraid of failing the audition?" "You're a star and you should know it Yeah, you rise above the rest It doesn't matter who you hurt If you're just proving you're the best" Shortly after, their song became more intense and powerful. It was like as if they put more energy into their singing. Somehow that "power" seemed to have affected almost every student in the hall. "Battle! You wanna win it Let's have a battle, battle of the bands Let's have a battle, we'll go all in it Let's have a battle, battle, battle Battle of the bands" After listening a little more closely to the song, Radiant Blast figured that it was soon was affecting every student in the mess hall, except him and his six friends. All the students shouted "battle" over and over again and it began to escalate a little. The students began to look at each other aggressively and with the determination to win the music event. Looking at how those events unfolded, Radiant Blast began to get more and more worried. "What is going on here?" He wondered while he looked around on the table to the rest of his friends, but all he got was confused looks. The only one who seemed to have noticed something was Sunset Shimmer. "Radiant...look at their necklaces," she said before she pointed towards the girls. Radiant Blast looked closely at them and soon noticed how their red necklaces were glowing from time to time. After that, he also realized a green mist that was filling the whole hall. It was definitely not normal and he quickly came to one conclusion, the same one that Sunset Shimmer came to. "Yes...magic," she said as she continued to watch the three girls closely. Later... After that performance, the group decided to leave the mess hall because all that was left there was a bunch of students arguing with each other about who would win the music event. This was a way to sudden change after the three girls were starting singing and Sunset Shimmer and Radiant Blast were noticing how there was magic inside the mess hall. "Those three are definitely in possession of some kind of dark magic. How else could you explain what happened back there?" Sunset Shimmer said as she led the way to the office of Principal Celestia. "It seemed to have come from those necklaces that they were wearing...I could feel it..." Radiant Blast said in concern and in a surprisingly serious tone. "Don't worry, y'all," Applejack said with a positive attitude. "We'll let Principal Celestia know all about this and those girls will be kicked to the curb in no time. The last thing she needs is another CHS event almost ruined by some power-crazed lunatic." After she said that however, her eyes widened in realization and she looked over to Sunset Shimmer. "Er, no offense," she then apologized, referring to how Sunset Shimmer was the mentioned power-crazy lunatic. Sunset Shimmer let out a sigh and was clearly bothered by those words but she remained calm. "None taken," she replied. It didn't take long until the group arrived at Principal Celestia's office and told her and Vice Principal Luna all about what happened in the mess hall. "Dark magic? I find that very hard to believe," Principal Celestia said, much to the surprise of everyone, especially since she witnessed everything back then at the Fall Formal not too long ago. "Those girls came into my office earlier and were absolutely delightful," But as if that wasn't bad enough, Vice Principal Luna straight out accused Sunset Shimmer of all this. "Perhaps Sunset Shimmer is just eager to make someone else out to be a bad element so that her actions at the Fall Formal will become old news. Hearing that quickly made Radiant Blast a little angry. "Hey!" He said angrily as he slammed his head on Principal Celestia's desk. "She would never do something like that!" He said offended. There was plenty more what he wanted to say but Sunset Shimmer dragged him away from the desk so that things wouldn't get any worse now. Rainbow Dash also stepped in and started to defend Sunset Shimmer. "That's not what's happening! We saw all of this go down in the cafeteria too!" "Yes, but isn't your band supposed to be part of the Musical Showcase?" Principal Celestia replied. "Perhaps you're all just worried that the Dazzlings will steal your spotlight," Vice Principal Luna added. "The "Dazzlings"?" Applejack asked. "It's the name of their musical group," Principal Celestia informed. "That's why they came by my office earlier – to sign up for the Showcase. Even sang a little song to Vice Principal Luna and I. And we think having a Battle of the Bands instead is a marvelous idea," they said in an almost hypothesized tone. There was no further reason to talk with both of them anymore. It was just like in the mess hall. Apparently, all the Dazzlings had to do was sing to someone and then they were somehow able to control them in some kind of way. No matter what exactly they were doing, Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna couldn't do anything about them anymore so it was up to Radiant Blast and his friends to come up with something. For that, they decided to meet up in front of the school entrance, where the statue with the mirror to Equestria was. They were sitting in front of it and scratched their heads to come up with a solution for this situation. "I can't believe they got to Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna too," Fluttershy said in her concern. "They've gotten to everybody," Rainbow Dash said while she casually played around with a football. "Not everybody!" Pinkie Pie further pointed out, to see the positive in this situation. "Pinkie Pie's right," Applejack said. "We were there when the Dazzlings were singin' and we weren't affected. It was like we were protected somehow," she figured. Rainbow Dash then came to the one and only conclusion that she had in mind now. "So let's take them down! It's not like we haven't tangled with dark magic before and totally whooped its sorry butt!" She said before her eyes widened in realization. "Uh, no offense," she apologized before she looked over to Sunset Shimmer. Sunset Shimmer, again, sighed "None taken. Again," she said, even though it was obvious that she was bothered by those words. "But that was when Twilight was here," Fluttershy pointed out. "There may be some kind of magic inside us, but it only comes out when we play music. I sure don't know how to use it to... whoop anybody's butt," she admitted. Rarity sighed after hearing that while she casually painted her nails without a worry. "If only we could get a message to Twilight. Maybe she could tell us how to break the spell the Dazzlings have cast on our friends," she suggested. "Well, that's not gonna happen," Rainbow Dash said. "The portal's closed. And I get the feeling they don't exactly have cell phones where she's from," she figured, which Radiant Blast and Sunset Shimmer could quickly confirm. There was a short silence in the group. Everyone tried to come up with a solution but no one had one ready. That was until Radiant Blast shared an idea out of the blue. "Then why not write to her?" He casually suggested while looking at Sunset Shimmer, causing everyone to look at him confused. "Yeah, sure," Rainbow Dash replied sarcastically. "And how do you intend to write to another world? With a letter?" She asked. Radiant Blast ignored that however and walked inside the school again, to his locker to be precise. Not knowing what this was all about, the girls decided to follow him to see what he came up with. "It has to be here somewhere," Radiant Blast said as he threw everything out of his locker, in order to find something. "Aha!" He finally said once he found what he was looking for. He showed the girls what he was looking for. It was a brown book with the same sun symbol on it that was Sunset Shimmer's Cutie Mark, back in Equestria. Sunset Shimmer quickly recognized this book and Radiant Blast gave it to her. "That is...the book Princess Celestia gave me when I was still her student," she said before she whipped the dust off of it and widened her eyes after seeing it again for a long time. "But...I threw it away, didn't I?" She then asked towards Radiant Blast confused. "I know, but I still kept it," Radiant Blast said while he rubbed his neck. "I thought that maybe someday, you would have liked to write something back at Princess Celestia," "In other words..." Sunset Shimmer started. "You always believed that I would someday...stop being mean?" She said almost in shock to see how Radiant Blast was believing in her all this time. "Well, looks like my trust wasn't wrong, huh?" He said with a proud smile on his face. However, this moment between the two had to be interrupted by the others since they didn't really understand how a book would help them out in this situation so Sunset Shimmer explained everything to them. "It used to be that if I wrote something here, it would appear in the pages of a book back in Princess Celestia's library. I get a message to her, then she can get a message to Princess Twilight," Hearing that, actually gave the others some hope now and Rainbow Dash quickly pulled out a pen for Sunset Shimmer to write. "So what are you waiting for? Get to writing!" She said with a grin on her face which was accompanied by some more smiles from the others, who all believed that this was the only option that they had now. Sunset Shimmer took the pen and let out a nervous sigh. "Dear Princess Celestia...Been a long time since I've written these words," she said nervously before she stopped for a moment. "Don't worry, we are all here with you," Radiant Blast said before he formed a big grin on his face as well. Sunset Shimmer was smiling after hearing that and took a deep breath before she started to write something in the latest page of the book to explain everything that would happen and hoped that it would soon reach Princess Twilight so that she would come to this world and help them all with the Dazzlings before it would be too late... To be continued... > 2. Return to Canterlot High > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Equestria... It was only a few days later after Lord Tirek's attempted to steal all the magic from the ponies in Equestria. Surprisingly, everything went back to normal real quick and everypony could live in peace for again. However, Tirek's attack didn't completely leave everything untouched. Princess Twilight Sparkle's home, for example, the Golden Oak Library, was destroyed in the process and she needed another place to live. Conveniently, a giant castle appeared in the middle of Ponyville to serve as a new home for Twilight. Right now, this castle was still a little empty which is why all of her friends helped to bring some of Twilight's stuff in there. Star Twinkle helped out as well. The earth pony stallion walked inside the doors of the castle while pulling a wagon behind him. On the wagon was a pile of books that Princess Celestia gave to Twilight as a kind of compensation for the books that got destroyed by Tirek. Star Twinkle's friends, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Spike and Twilight herself were inside what looked like the throne room and also helped to bring some of her stuff into the castle. "Alright, Twilight, where do you want me to put all those books from Princess Celestia?" Star Twinkle asked. Twilight didn't even look back at Star Twinkle, she was probably too busy telling everypony where to put everything. "The library," she simply replied. "Figures," Star Twinkle replied before he looked around in the room. "Right...library...library..." he said to himself after realizing that he had no idea where the library was. This was a pretty big castle after all and Star Twinkle only saw it a few times from the inside. Once Twilight noticed how lost Star Twinkle was, she began to smile. "Third door on the left," she explained. "Got it," Star Twinkle said before he attempted to walk away only to stop after a few steps again. "Um...even the one that is glowing and vibrating?" He asked confused. Twilight got confused about what Star Twinkle meant with that and took a look at the pile of books. She quickly figured that Star Twinkle was referring to the book on the very top of the pile, which was literally glowing and vibrating just as Star Twinkle said. Wondering what this was all about, Twilight used her magic to levitate that book towards her. The book had Princess Celestia's Cutie Mark on it so Twilight figured that it was rather important. She flipped it open and looked inside to see what this was all about. The rest of her friends noticed that something was wrong with this book as well so they waited until Twilight would explain. As soon as Twilight lowered her eyebrows, Fluttershy went on ahead and asked what everyone else was thinking. "What is it, Twilight? What does it say?" Twilight quickly explained. "It looks like a message to Princess Celestia from my friends at Canterlot High," "How is that even possible?" Rarity asked confused. After all, it was a different world they were talking about. "I have no idea, but it... sounds like they need my help," Twilight replied with a worried expression on her face. Star Twinkle quickly asked the question that worried him the most. "Don't tell me that Sunset Shimmer and Radiant Blast cause trouble again?" But Twilight shook her head. "Actually, this letter came from Sunset Shimmer," she explained. Twilight asked everyone to follow her to the library where she was looking for a book. It didn't take to long until she found the book that she was looking for. "The way Sunset Shimmer describes the situations, I think there are three new girls in the school. And they sound an awful lot like... the sirens," "Not the sirens!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed in shock, much to everyone's surprise. She then moved her head towards Fluttershy. "I don't actually know what that is!" She then whispered loudly. Star Twinkle rolled his eyes. "Yes...that is why Twilight is explaining it to us now...right?" He said, causing Twilight to do exactly that. Twilight went ahead and explained the whole story about those sirens. "The sirens were three beautiful but dangerous creatures who had the power to charm ponies with their music. But to maintain this power, they had to feed on the negativity and distrust of others. The more of this negative energy they consumed, the stronger their voices became, and the farther they could spread their dark magic. If the sirens had their way, they would have divided and conquered all of Equestria. But a certain Star Swirl the Bearded wasn't having it. Rumor has it he found a way to banish them to another world – one where he believed their magic power would be lost," It was obvious to Star Twinkle to see the connection. "So this world where Starswirl banished them to, is the one where our friends in Canterlot High live?" He asked to which Twilight nodded in response. Applejack, however, saw some flaws in this story. "But Star Swirl must have sent them there ages ago. How come they're just surfacin' now?" She asked. "I don't know," Twilight replied. "But if my hunch is right and it is the sirens who have come to Canterlot High, this spell they've cast is just the beginning. My friends need us. We have to get back to them," Twilight said, determined to deal with the sirens. But in the middle of the Twilight's sentence, Star Twinkle got a little confused. "We...us?" He asked confused. Twilight looked towards the stallion. "Yes, you and me Star Twinkle. You are coming with me aren't you?" She asked even though it already sounded as if the decision was made for him. Before Star Twinkle could reply, Pinkie Pie was the one who answered for him instead. "Of course he does! He went with you to this world already and knows all about it after all!" She said with a wide grin on her face which was a huge contrast to Star Twinkle's glare. Star Twinkle sighed and figured that what Pinkie Pie said was true. "I guess, you're right, besides, it would look strange if any of you would show up and meet any of your counterparts in this world," Rainbow Dash, however, pointed something out that no one seemed to have thought about so far. "I hate to burst your bubble, but the connection between their world and Equestria will still be totally cut off for a super long time," "But Sunset Shimmer managed to get a message to us with that book, didn't she?" Star Twinkle further pointed out. After Twilight heard those words, an idea seemed to pop up in her head. "Exactly!" She just said before she took the book and placed it next to the portal to Canterlot High. Conveniently, the mirror to the other world was also brought into this castle for emergencies like this. Without wasting a word, Twilight grabbed a few random things, like musical instruments, cables, and gears to build some kind of contraption around the mirror. After she was done doing that, she actually explained what all this stuff was but the way how she was explaining everything was way too confusing for anyone to understand. "...And the interval between the two points is defined as the square root of the sum of the squares of the separation between the points along three spatial dimensions," Twilight said to end her almost endless explanation of this machine that she created. Everyone was highly confused and tried to make sense out of what Twilight just said but Spike pretty much took the words out of everyone's mouth. "Say what now?" He asked confused. "Duh!" Pinkie Pie immediately replied. "She's gonna take the magic in here and put it in there," she said while she pointed towards the book and then the machine around the mirror. "That'll make the portal open up so that whenever she wants to, she can go from here to there," she explained, referring with here to Equestria and with there to Canterlot High. "Oh...okay," Star Twinkle replied in his realization before he looked over to Twilight. "She is right, is she?" He asked in confirmation. Twilight nodded in response. "We just have to see if it works," she said before she put the book on top of the mirror and right into the machine. It didn't take long until the machine reacted to the book and magic started to flow through all of it. Gears started to turn and the whole machine was shaking in response. The group had no idea how but they all figured that Twilight's plan worked and as soon as the portal opened, it was only confirmed. "Looks like it worked," Star Twinkle said, stating the painfully obvious before he walked closer to the mirror. "Well," Applejack started. "I suppose the rest of us has to wait here again," "Yes," Twilight replied. "It's like Star Twinkle said. Things could get a little confusing if Canterlot High all of a sudden had two of all of you," "But I still get to go, right?" Spike said before he walked up to Twilight. "There isn't another one of me at Canterlot High. And you never know if you might need your trusty assistant," he said almost proudly to which Twilight happily agreed. After everyone was done saying their last words and giving some advice, Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike all stood ready in front of the mirror to go through it any moment. "Ready, guys?" Twilight asked. Star Twinkle took a deep breath since he remembered all too well how weird it was to go to the portal the last time and Spike cracked his knuckles and stood ready to sprint through the mirror any second now. There was not much left to say. The three of them sprinted towards the mirror and quickly vanished as soon as they touched it, meaning that they were now on their way to the other world. On the other side of the mirror... Some time has passed since Sunset Shimmer wrote into her book and sent the message to Princess Celestia. All that she and her friends could do was to wait patiently in front of their end of the portal in hopes of Twilight coming through it. The longer the group waited, however, the more they thought that it was unlikely that Sunset Shimmer's message reached her. "I'm starting to think she's not coming," Rainbow Dash said. She was clearly the first one to lost her patience. But Radiant Blast still had his hopes up and inspected the mirror a little closer, even going so far to knock on the mirror. "Maybe they didn't know how to activate their portal on the other side ye-" But before Radiant Blast could finish his sentence, one person came flying right towards him and knocked him to the ground. "Twilight!" All the girls except Sunset Shimmer shouted in excitement as soon as they saw her. Twilight was sitting on the ground and it seemed like her head was still spinning from going through the portal."I'm back," she said a little embarrassed after an entrance like that. "Welcome back," Radiant Blast said, much to Twilight's confusion since she didn't know where his voice was coming from until she realized that she was sitting on him right now. "Oops! Sorry!" She apologized with a nervous smile on her face. Sunset Shimmer was the first one to offer Twilight a hand and help her up but Twilight had some second thoughts about accepting that at first. Still, after Sunset Shimmer smiled nervously at this awkward moment, Twilight accepted her hand and got up again. Shortly after, Twilight looked around and only noticed Spike, who was transformed into a dog again standing next to her. She was wondering where Star Twinkle was. However, her worry quickly vanished as soon as Star Twinkle came flying through the portal as well, landing on the ground with his face. He wasn't hurt so he quickly got up on his feet again and stretched his back a little after the whole trip to this world was done. "Yep! I knew that it wasn't going to be pretty," he said while he pushed his hands against his back. He and Twilight were wearing the same clothes that they were wearing in the last visit to this world. However, Star Twinkle noticed how he was not wearing his cape anymore and wondered where it was. But Radiant Blast quickly held the cape in front of Star Twinkle's face. "Looking for that?" He said with a smile on his face while he gave Star Twinkle the white and light green cape with a white star on it, back. "Thanks," he said while he put it on his head. Star Twinkle then looked around to see if Twilight and Spike made it to this world in one piece as well. He quickly found the two in the middle of the crowd which consisted of the counterparts of this world's Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. While they were all greeting each other after such a long time, Radiant Blast and Sunset Shimmer both seemed to keep their distance, something that Star Twinkle quickly realized. "They seem to be happy to see each other again," Radiant Blast figured. "Yeah," Sunset Shimmer added. Since the girls were to busy right now, Star Twinkle figured that he should at least talk to those two. "I hope you two were behaving since we were gone," was the first thing he asked, which was a rather weird question after he heard himself saying that. "Nope, all good," Radiant Blast replied happily. But as soon as Star Twinkle took a look at Sunset Shimmer and how she was rubbing her arm uncomfortably, he just knew that something was bothering her. "But...there is still something bothering you?" He said towards Sunset Shimmer. Sunset Shimmer felt a little pointed out but she still explained what she was thinking. "It's nothing too bad really...I just...still feel a little weird in this new group of friends. I mean it all happened..." "Too sudden?" Star Twinkle interrupted. "Yes!" Sunset Shimmer replied. "And I don't quite feel like I-" "That you belong there?" Star Twinkle interrupted again. "Exactly!" Sunset Shimmer replied. "And because of that I-" "You don't know what to do..." Star Twinkle interrupted once more. By now Sunset Shimmer was feeling weird that Star Twinkle was pretty much taking all those words out of her mouth. "Yes! How do you know!?" She asked confused. "Let's just say that I kinda know where you are coming from..." Star Twinkle replied. He was in a similar position as she was a while ago after all. By now, Twilight and the girls seemed to have exchanged their greetings. "As much as I am happy to see you all again, I have to share with you some bad news about those new girls," she explained with a serious tone in her voice. Everyone quickly noticed the serious tone in Twilight's voice and got serious as well for a moment. There was a reason why Twilight was summoned here after all and that reason had to be talked about. In a nearby cafe... To discuss what was about to happen next, the group decided to go and meet somewhere else while ordering some milkshakes in the process. This gave the group from Canterlot High the chance to explain the situation at the school a little better. It quickly gave Star Twinkle, Twilight and Spike a good idea of what was happening. "Oh, I do hate that you had to return at a time of crisis. There's so much catching up to do!" Rarity said. "For starters, a certain blue-haired guitar player was just askin' about you, Twilight," Applejack said. Twilight quickly got excited as soon as she heard that and began to blush. "Flash Sentry was asking about me?!" She said excitedly. Soon, the girls were all looking at her and Twilight felt a little embarrassed. "Isn't that nice?" She then said in a calm voice before she took a sip from her milkshake. "Perhaps you would give us just the slightest bit of gossip from your world? Rarity then asked, being curious about Equestria now. Spike quickly had something prepared, that he wanted to share. "She's got an official title now. The Princess of Friendship!" He explained proudly. Sunset Shimmer couldn't help but share how she was impressed by what Twilight archived. "Wow, that's really impressive. Guess you really were Princess Celestia's prized pupil," she said while she rubbed her arm. She was most likely thinking about how that title could be hers if she didn't decide to escape from Equestria. Noticing how Sunset Shimmer might felt about that, Radiant Blast decided to say some comforting words to her. "What's so special about that?" He said in fake disinterest, in hope that it would make feel Sunset Shimmer better. But Spike wasn't done yet. "She's even got her own castle!" "A castle?! You have your own castle?!?" Rarity then exclaimed while almost spitting out the tea that she was drinking. "Wow..." Radiant Blast then said impressed before he was at a loss of words, much to Sunset Shimmer's surprise who was lowering her eyebrows after those words. Since Twilight felt a little embarrassed to talk about this matter, she decided to quickly change the subject. "What's new here? I mean, besides your school becoming the target of dangerous magical creatures from Equestria?" She said almost jokingly, in order to lift the mood. Rainbow Dash was the first one to point out something else that was happening recently. "Yeah, so, that isn't exactly the only strange thing that's happened since you left," she said before she pulled out a small strange device in front of Star Twinkle and Twilight. "We call this a cell phone," Radiant Blast pointed out. "Not the phone, Radiant! Look!" Rainbow Dash said before she pointed at the video that was playing inside the cell phone. It showed the girls in their last band practice. Star Twinkle quickly noticed something off in this video. "Wait..." he said after he saw what was happening to the girls in this video. They were growing pony ears, their hair got longer and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy even grew wings. "That's just like back then...when we were here the first time," he figured. "Pretty sweet, huh? It happens to all of us when we play," Rainbow Dash said proudly. "But I thought there was no magic in this world?" Star Twinkle asked. "I mean other than when Twilight's crown was brought here," Even though she was confused as well, Twilight had a slight guess about all this. "My crown was returned to Equestria, but some of its magic must have remained here at Canterlot High," she said. However, that didn't need to be a bad thing at all. "Now that we're all back together, we can use that magic on the sirens. Just like when we were able to use it on Sunset Shimmer when she turned into that horrifyingly awful winged monster!" She said in order to raise the morale of the group again. But as soon as she realized what she said, she felt bad. "No offense," she said towards Sunset Shimmer as an apology. "None taken," Sunset Shimmer said bothered after having to say it yet again. "I'm used to it," she added while she crossed her arms. "So that's the plan?" Star Twinkle asked. "We go and do the same thing to the sirens what we did against Radiant Blast and Sunset Shimmer?" "You bet!" Rainbow Dash replied enthusiastically. "They'll never even know what hit 'em!" "Yep. We've got nothin' to worry about now that you are back," Applejack agreed. "Oh, I'm pretty sure I could find something to worry about," Fluttershy said. "But it won't be the sirens," she added while maintaining a positive attitude about the whole situation. After agreeing to do this, everyone figured that it would be best to deal with the sirens, or rather, the Dazzlings as soon as possible. But no one knew where they were at the moment, making it a little hard to deal with them right away. Unexpectedly though, one person actually knew where they were. And that person was Pinkie Pie, who casually pointed out that information. "There's a big party tonight for all the bands who signed up to be in the showcase! That would include the Dazzlings," she said as she was taking the last sip from her milkshake. "There we go," Star Twinkle said. "Yes," Twilight replied. "Looks like we've got a party to crash," "Awesome!" Radiant Blast said excitedly. "And this time we are on the good side!" He added while putting his arm around Sunset Shimmer. "Yes," Sunset Shimmer replied, feeling happy that this was the case as well. With all that being settled, the group just had to wait a few hours until this party started to go up against the Dazzlings. Star Twinkle would really like to deal with them as soon as possible and without anything that would pressure them this time. Later at the gym of Canterlot High... Star Twinkle, Twilight and the rest of the group went to the party and waited for the Dazzlings to arrive. The gym was already full of people. Like Pinkie Pie said, all the bands that would participate in the music event showed up there. This was also when Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike realized the changes in the school. Everyone was acting rather hostile towards each other. Radiant Blast went on ahead and explained. "Everyone was so excited about the music event but when the Dazzlings showed up and began to sing, they all turned out like this! Winning the music event seems to be more important to them than anything else," he said with a frown on his face. "It won't be like that any longer once we deal with the Dazzlings though," Star Twinkle replied, confident that everything should return to normal again. "Yeah, you're right!" Radiant Blast replied forming a smile on his face shortly after. "The Dazzlings don't seem to be here yet," Sunset Shimmer pointed out. "Well, since they are not here yet, I'm going to grab a little drink," Star Twinkle said before he left the group to walk up to the table where some punch was handed out. Before he reached the table, however, someone walked up to him. "You?" This person asked, causing Star Twinkle to turn towards someone familiar. It was Flash Sentry if Star Twinkle remembered it right. He vaguely remembered him from his last visit to this world. "I haven't seen you here since the...incident..." he said, referring to when Sunset Shimmer tried to take over Canterlot High. "Wait! Does that mean, Twilight is here as well?" He then asked in a small boost of excitement. "Yeah, she is over there," Star Twinkle said before he pointed towards his friends. "Oh! I'm gonna go and say hello to her if you don't mind," Flash Sentry said before he walked off to meet Twilight. Star Twinkle just ignored this little interruption and continued his way to get some punch. He picked up one cup of punch and he couldn't help to overhear the conversation right next to him. "I tell you the punch is good," One girl next to Star Twinkle said angrily. "And I tell you, the punch is awful!" Another girl said back in an annoyed tone in her voice. "What do you know about good fruit punch?" The first girl replied before she crossed her arms. "More than you!" The other girl replied. "Do not!" "Do too!" Star Twinkle quickly felt a little annoyed to overhear this conversation and just wished that those two girls would discuss this matter a little quieter. But as soon as he was thinking that, of course, things got even worse. "You!" One of the girls then said, talking to Star Twinkle and doing the last thing that he wanted now, making him part of this discussion. "The punch tastes good, right?" The girls with the blue skin and the blue hair asked. Star Twinkle had to come up with an excuse. He had to focus on the Dazzlings and had no time to deal with another minor problem now. "I haven't really tasted it yet so..." But before his excuse could be received by the two girls in front of him, another girl showed up. "Girls!" She said in an angry tone. "Could you please stop wasting your time with stuff like that!? We have more important business to attend right now!" She said with her teeth clenching in anger. Star Twinkle was kinda relieved that this girl was kinda pulling him out of this conversation and apologized to Star Twinkle. "Sorry, those two can be rather...stupid," "That's...very direct..." Star Twinkle thought after this bold sentence. Shortly after, Star Twinkle was hit on the head by something small. He grabbed his hair and quickly found something that was stuck in it. It seemed to be a piece of chocolate, like the ones that usually were on chocolate cookies. When he turned around to see where it came from, Rainbow Dash was looking at him and looked back and forth between him and the three girls in front of him. Star Twinkle didn't know what this was all about and he decided to walk back to his friends who were all giving him some strange faces. "What?" He replied as soon as he noticed those expressions. "What were you doing over there, talking to the Dazzlings!?" Sunset Shimmer asked almost shocked. "The Dazzlings?" Star Twinkle replied in shock before he turned around in his realization. "Wait, those three were the sirens!?" He asked in shock. "Yes!" Sunset Shimmer replied. He thought that those three girls were a little weird but he didn't expect them to be the sirens. "W-well, what are we waiting for then? Let's go and take care of them!" He said, in an attempt to distract from his accidental encounter with his enemies. The group didn't waste any more time and straight out walked up to the three girls to get this all over with. As soon as Star Twinkle, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were close to the three girls, they started to wonder what this was all about. Twilight decided to take the lead and straight out confronted the three girls. "We know who you are and we also know what you are after! There isn't going to be a Battle of the Bands! We're gonna make sure of that!" She said before she and the rest of her friends started to hold each other's hands, much to the surprise of the Dazzlings. "Let's do this!" Star Twinkle said determinedly. "Friendship is magic!" Twilight then shouted out trying to summon the magic inside of the seven friends to shot it right at the three girls. ... There was silence in the room and all of the people in the gym were wondering what they were doing. The group didn't seem to notice it yet but Radiant Blast and Sunset Shimmer did. "Um...they do realize that nothing is happening...right?" Radiant Blast whispered towards Sunset Shimmer in a confused and nervous tone. But Sunset Shimmer kept looking at the group and didn't know what went wrong. There is only one thing that she knew for absolute certain. "This...is not good," To be continued... > 3. Change of Plans > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was an awkward silence inside the gym of Canterlot High. The students in there kept their eyes on the group of people that stood in the middle of it, holding their hands. It was Star Twinkle, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie, who all stood there with closed eyes, trying to focus on the magic inside of them to defeat the sirens. But...that didn't go exactly as planned... Star Twinkle was the first one to open his eyes. All he saw was how everyone was staring at him confused. He soon knew that something was wrong. "Um...Twilight?" He whispered. "Yes?" Twilight replied, her eyes still being closed because she tried to focus on her magic. Star Twinkle was kinda surprised that Twilight didn't notice anything. "Nothing is happening," he then whispered. As soon as Twilight heard that, her eyes popped open and she looked around to see if what Star Twinkle said was true. "Uh, weren't there rainbows and lasers and stuff last time?" Rainbow Dash said after she noticed that something was wrong as well. "I don't understand," Twilight said, being heavily confused about why nothing was happening. "We're all together again. Why isn't this working?" She wondered, but all she got as a reply from her friends were confused expressions. And of course, the sirens were the only ones who were smiling at those events since they seemed to know what the group attempted to do. "Talk about throwing down the gauntlet! This group is obviously serious about winning! A little cocky though, aren't they?" Adagio Dazzle said, quickly taking advantage of this situation to make the group look like the bad ones. "Claiming there won't really be a battle. Seems they think they've already got this thing all locked up," And as expected, everyone quickly took the bait and got angered. "Not if the Great and Powerful Trrrrrixie has anything to do with it!" Trixie exclaimed confidently. "Whatever, Trixie! We're the best band at CHS!" Flash Sentry answered to Trixie's words. "No! The Crusaders are gonna win!" Apple Bloom said in the name of her friends. Soon, the whole gym was getting loud and was filled with arguing students. It seemed to be even worse then it was before. The group felt, in a way, responsible for this and felt really bad but Radiant Blast and Sunset Shimmer went over to them. "Let's get out of here!" Sunset Shimmer said before she grabbed Twilight's arm. "But-" Twilight replied, trying to fix everything in the gym again before Star Twinkle interrupted her. "I think she is right, Twilight," he said, causing Twilight to listen to what he had to say. "It obviously didn't work so let us go and think about everything and come up with a new plan," he further pointed out. After Twilight carefully thought about those words, she figured that this was actually the best thing to do now so she and her friends tailed out of the gym while everyone was too busy with arguing. But their escape was not unnoticed by the very ones who they tried to stop. "I think we may have found what we're looking for. Or rather, it found us," Adagio Dazzle said with a smirk on her face before she turned around to the other two sirens only to see that Sonata Dusk was not getting what she meant with that, causing Aria Blaze to slap herself because of that reaction. "Magic!!" Adagio Dazzle exclaimed angrily. "Don't you see?! Everyone else has fallen under our spell. But not those seven," "And what does that mean to us?" Aria Blaze replied in disinterest, feeling not really threatened by that. Adagio Dazzle rubbed her chin and began to think. "Let's just come up with a backup plan. In case things get annoying," she said with an evil smirk on her face. "I think I already have something in mind," Whatever that plan ended up being, the group was unaware of it yet and just had to worry about their own plans right now. After all, their original plan did not work at all... Later, in front of the school entrance... "Well, that didn't go too smoothly..." Radiant Blast said bothered and also a little sad about the situation. Unlike him, however, Twilight was rather shocked by this outcome and tried her best to figure out what went wrong. "It doesn't make any sense. I should have been able to create a spark that would help us break their spell. That's how it worked before," she said while she was walking back and forth confused. "Maybe we do need the crown?" Star Twinkle guessed. "He's right," Sunset Shimmer agreed. "Remember back. To defeat me, you drew magic from the crown I was wearing. The sirens' magic comes from their music. So maybe you have to use the same kind of magic to defeat them," she pointed out. Radiant Blast, however, didn't quite understand. "You mean singing?" He asked confused. "But we don't know how to manipulate others with our voices," he pointed out. "Well...it was just an idea..." Sunset Shimmer replied with a frown on her face. "No. I think you're onto something," Twilight then suddenly replied. "Really?" Sunset Shimmer said, turning her frown around again as if she was happy to be of some help. Twilight further extended the theory that Sunset Shimmer mentioned. "It's when you play the music that you transform now, right?" She asked in confirmation. "Yup. Ears, tails, the whole shebang," Applejack explained. Twilight seemed to get closer to an answer. "So maybe the way to use that magic to defeat the sirens is by playing a musical counter-spell!" She figured. "You mean like a song?" Fluttershy asked. "Uh-huh. And in order to free everyone who's been exposed to the sirens' spell, we'll need them all to hear it," Twilight explained, happily after finally coming up with another plan. What Twilight said made sense to everyone. It was the only thing left to do anyway so giving it a try. "Well, the time couldn't be better," Radiant Blast said without anyone realizing what he meant with that at first. "The music event of the school should be the perfect opportunity for us to get everyone to hear this song," he explained happily as if the problem was already dealt with. The group quickly started to like this idea. Fortunately, they were already a band and knew how to play instruments and sing. They should be more than capable to sing against the Dazzlings. Having their hope raised up again quickly made them forget the failure from before and they had a whole bunch of determination now. "Guess the Rainbooms are the band to beat," Applejack said confidently. "And I believe you two just became the Rainbooms' newest members," Rarity added, referring to Star Twinkle and Twilight. Everyone quickly agreed to that idea as well. It made sense. If the spell was supposed to work, then Star Twinkle and Twilight were both needed. Then again, when they fought against Sunset Shimmer, the six girls were enough to release the magic that eventually defeated. Still, to make sure it would work, Star Twinkle decided to join as well. Pinkie Pie then brought up an important question. "So what do you wanna play? Triangle?" She said before she actually pulled out one. "Sousaphone?" She asked before she pulled out one of those as well. "Theremin?" She asked, before she again, pulled out one of those from nowhere. But Twilight quickly brought up something really important. "It might take a little too long to learn how to play something with these," she said, referring to her fingers that both she and Star Twinkle still had to get used to. "How about we just sing?" She then suggested to which Star Twinkle just nodded in response. Rainbow Dash quickly made one thing sure, however, "Like, as in, lead singers? Cuz that's usually my gig. This being my band and all," Rainbow Dash explained, trying to get her point across pretty fast. Applejack got a little bothered by how Rainbow Dash was choosing her words. "It's our band! And, of course, as lead singer. Twilight is the one with the magical know-how to help us pull this thing off," she pointed out. Rainbow Dash, while not really liking to hear that, admitted that this was true. "Okay, yeah, that's cool. I'll just use this as a chance to hone my already insanely good lead guitar skills," she said. "It's only temporary. And we don't have to win the Battle of the Bands. We just have to perform during the first round of the competition," Twilight explained. Hearing that actually took a lot of pressure off from Star Twinkle. He even considered playing an instrument if it wasn't necessary for them to win at all. "Alright, then!" Star Twinkle said in a rush of determination. "Then we should get started on learning that counter-spell as soon as possible," But unfortunately, it wasn't as easy as everyone expected it. "Well, that's just it," Twilight said in concern "I don't know any," she pointed out, which quickly set the mood of the group down again. " But I'm sure I could figure out how to write one," she then added, in an attempt to raise the mood again for the better. Spike fully supported those words. "Totally! Twilight can write a spell like it's nobody's business. That's pretty much how she got to become a princess in Equestria," he explained proudly and confidently. Twilight, however, pointed out what actually happened. "Technically, I helped finish a spell. And there was a little more to it than that, Spike," she added. The group had mixed feelings about this solution but there was not much else that they could do at this moment. Star Twinkle figured that he should say something to remember them all to this. "Whatever we have to do, there is still some time left. Let's go and get everything ready for now so that you can get into writing that spell," Twilight agreed to that and picked up Spike from the ground. "You're right. Leave it to me," She said determinedly. "C'mon!" She then said before she was about to walk inside the school again. Star Twinkle knew where she was going to and followed her but the rest didn't know what was going on. "Where are you two going?" Radiant Blast asked confused. Twilight explained. "Well, last time we were here, Star Twinkle, Spike and I spent the night in the library," "Yeah," Star Twinkle added. "You won't believe how stiff your back gets once you sleep a night on a few books," he expressed while he stretched his back just by the thought of sleeping in the library again. But Pinkie Pie didn't like to hear this at all. "Are you crazy?! We're besties now! Slumber party at my house!" She exclaimed happily. However, Rarity felt a little embarrassed by the thought of it. "Wait! A slumber party with boys!?" She said in shock and embarrassment. Radiant Blast quickly agreed that this would maybe a little weird so he came up with a solution. "Don't worry! Star Twinkle can stay at my place!" He demanded. Star Twinkle was thankful to hear that. "Only if it isn't too much trouble..." he added. "Of course not!" Radiant Blast replied happily. Having Star Twinkle and Twilight split up like that, meant that the girls could do whatever they want without having to worry about the boys being around. Star Twinkle was just glad that he didn't have to spend the night in a library again, like the last time he was in this world so he happily appreciated Radiant Blast's offer to stay for the night. At Radiant Blast's place... While the girls were all spending the night at Pinkie Pie's place, Star Twinkle was spending the night at Radiant Blast's place. There was nothing much to say about the place. It didn't look too fancy but also not to bad. In fact, the place looked better than what Star Twinkle was used to from his own home. The two spend the night having some fun instead of worrying about the next day. Star Twinkle felt kinda bad that he had to let Twilight figure out a spell all on her own but he was also aware that there was not much that he could do so he just agreed to do what Radiant Blast wanted to do, even if he wasn't too good at some things. "And I won again!" Radiant Blast said cheerfully after he took another win in the video game that the two were playing. "Looks like it..." Star Twinkle replied with a slightly bothered expression on his face. Radiant Blast chuckled. "Wow, you are really bad at video games," he said amused after taking another win. Star Twinkle was actually not too surprised about that. "Well, still don't know how to operate these," he replied. "What? The controller?" Radiant Blast asked confused. "No...these," Star Twinkle replied before he was moving his fingers in front of his head. "Oh! Yeah...figures..." Radiant Blast said before he turned off his console. "Well, I think now is probably the best opportunity to talk a little," he said before he sat down next to Star Twinkle on the ground. "About what?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "Well...about you!" Radiant Blast said highly excited. "I mean, the last time we met, I was too busy being mean to you. I know that Twilight is a princess in Equestria and that she was the student of Princess Celestia herself but I don't know anything about you!" Star Twinkle was feeling a little awkward that the conversation was focusing on him now, especially since Radiant Blast seemed really excited to hear something about his life. However, it was only fair that he should tell Radiant Blast something, after all, Star Twinkle knew a few things about Radiant Blast. For example, he was a member of Celestia's Royal Guard before he left to follow Sunset Shimmer into this world to not leave her alone. "Well, where to start..." Star Twinkle said before he thought about what would be the most basic thing to tell someone something about himself. "For starters, my full name is Starfall Twinkle," Radiant Blast reacted positively surprised. "Neat," he said in interest. Star Twinkle continued. "I live in Ponyville, where I work as a carpenter pony in a workshop called The Iron Hammer," "Cool!" Radiant Blast replied before he came up with a question now. "And how did you meet Twilight?" Star Twinkle had a feeling that this question was coming up. He remembered all too well when that was since this was the day where his whole life changed for the better. "A while ago...at the Summer Sun Celebration. Something was threatening to take over Equestria and Twilight and her friends wanted to stop it. I just happened to follow them for some strange reason and helped them to archive that. I've been friends with her ever since," Radiant Blast was highly impressed to hear a story like that and had his mouth open in awe. "Wow! That is a really cool way to meet someone for the first time," Star Twinkle had to admit that it was a pretty crazy story after he remembered it back. "I guess it is," This story actually caused Radiant Blast too look up and think about his first meeting with Sunset Shimmer. "I kinda wish it went the same way with me and Sunset Shimmer. I think she didn't really like me that much when we first met," he said with a smile on his face. "Really?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "I would have never thought that she seems to really like you after all," "You think!?" Radiant Blast immediately replied with wide-open eyes before he got a little embarrassed and grinned nervously. He quickly decided to change the subject. "So...do you think that Twilight can come up with a counter-spell in time?" "Yes," Star Twinkle replied immediately, much to Radiant Blast's surprise. "Knowing her, she is probably scratching her head to come up with one, right now but she always ends up with the right solution," Radiant Blast smiled after he heard that. "That's a lot of trust that you are putting in her. Good!" "Good?" Star Twinkle asked. Radiant Blast explained. "Don't get me wrong now but I always figured that Twilight's role of coming here was always a little bit bigger than yours..." Even though Radiant Blast probably meant to not sound offending, Star Twinkle immediately knew what he meant and admitted that he was right. It was just like last time, Twilight needed her crown back, so naturally, she was the one who had to come to this world to get it back. But Star Twinkle only kinda tagged along on the way and helped her. In the end, he wasn't even needed to defeat Sunset Shimmer and Radiant Blast, making his stay in the world rather pointless after thinking about it. "I guess..." Star Twinkle then replied with a small frown on his face. Radiant Blast noticed Star Twinkle's reaction. "No! That is not what I meant!" He said. "What I mean is, it's the same with me and Sunset Shimmer!" He added. Star Twinkle didn't quite understand what he was meaning with that at first so Radiant Blast further explained. "Despite that, you keep helping Twilight in any way possible, just like how I help Sunset Shimmer whenever I can! And that is awesome!" "It is?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "Listen," Radiant Blast said. "I am well aware that I can be a little dense sometimes and that Sunset Shimmer was usually the one who took charge of the situation back then but I know that...me being around helped her as well! Just like how you being around Twilight always helps her out," Star Twinkle got a little confused by those words. "Me being around...helps Twilight?" He asked. Radiant Blast further continued. "Sunset Shimmer might be the smarter one, she always knew what to do, and she was the one who took charge of the whole situation since we got sent here to this world...but...whenever there was something that she couldn't do or if she was at a loss at times, then I was always around, just in case," he explained with a wide grin on his face. "And the same goes for you! Just because Twilight is a princess and gifted in magic doesn't mean that she won't need any help from every now and then," Hearing those words actually made Star Twinkle feel better again, which was strange because they came from Radiant Blast, who was not known to spill wise words like that around very often. "Thanks, I think you're right," Star Twinkle said with a smile on his face. "Of course I am! "Radiant Blast said with a grin on his face. "Now let's get some sleep, we have to get up early tomorrow!" He advised before he walked over to his bedroom. "I placed a mattress in my bedroom, you can sleep there," "Thank you," Star Twinkle said in gratitude. It was no real bed but it sounded a million times better than sleeping on some books so he was pretty happy to hear that. "But I should warn you! I snore! Loudly!" Radiant Blast pointed out. "I'm sure it won't be that bad," Star Twinkle said without a worry. ... But a few hours later, Star Twinkle realized that Radiant Blast wasn't kidding. He was snoring really loudly, making it really hard for him to catch some sleep. But it wasn't like that was the only thing that kept him awake. He started to think about what he said before. "I did say to Radiant Blast that I believe that Twilight will find a solution but...is she really supposed to be the only one who takes care of the situation?" He started to wonder. Those thoughts kept him awake for a good amount of time and they wouldn't leave his head any time soon. That was unless it was impossible for him to form any thoughts while listening to the snoring right next to him. It actually made him jump because it was happening when Star Twinkle was right in the middle of a thought. "He really wasn't kidding..." Star Twinkle said bothered before he grabbed his pillow to cover his ears in the hope to get some more sleep. On the next day... Before the Rainbooms were about to attend the music event, they decided to practice the spell that Twilight came up with. They did that in a barn of the Apple family. Twilight actually managed to get it done in time and all that was left to do was playing it. Star Twinkle actually sang with Twilight and did a pretty good job on doing so. But something seemed wrong. He usually wasn't the one who pointed at other mistakes but he could swear that Twilight was having a really hard time singing the song that she wrote. "Hey, hey, listen We've got a message for you We're not all alike But our friendship is true Yeah, we're really different But we still get along," While the text sounded good at best, the way how she sang it was really forced and nervous, which was really unlike her. Also, unlike what the others told Star Twinkle before, there was only little indication that they were releasing magic or transformed while playing. Still, Twilight and Star Twinkle continued to perform the song. "So hey, hey, listen to our song You may think you're in control But we're here to prove you wrong With our friendship and our music With the power of our song Gonna stomp our feet, clap our hands With the magic of friendship Gonna stop your evil plan," After the song was finally done, there was an awkward silence. Not only did they not manage to transform, but they also had to listen to this pretty bad song. It made them all wonder if this so-called counter-spell would work at all. "Eh, that sounded..." Spike started before he tried to find the right words. "way better than the last... five times you've played it. Heh heh," he said nervously after being exposed to the song for so long. "Really?" Radiant Blast asked confused. "I thought it sounded just as bad as-" he said before he was poked in the sides by Sunset Shimmer. "I-I mean...yeah totally better, right?" He asked before he looked outside the window where Applejack's big brother, Big McIntosh was standing at, watching the band singing. He only had one word to say after hearing their performance before he walked away again. "Nope." Rainbow Dash was a little annoyed by all of this as well and didn't even attempt to show it openly. "I think it's pretty obvious what's going wrong with this counter-spell," she said. But before she could go into any detail, Applejack pointed out what she thought was going wrong. "You're turnin' what should be the chorus into a five-minute guitar solo?" She said annoyed. Of course, Rainbow Dash got even more annoyed after hearing that. "I have to pick up the slack somehow! Are you guys even trying?!" She asked. "I'm trying..." Fluttershy said quietly and nervously. Seeing how everyone was losing their cool, Twilight got more and more nervous. "It's fine," she said before she laughed nervously. "It'll be fine. One more time from the top!" She suggested much to the dislike of everyone else. Needless to say, no one was really looking forward to another performance. "Or, perhaps we could take a short break, try on some of the wardrobe choices I've put together?" Rarity said, in order to change the subject far away from the horrible singing. She brought in a few outfits and proudly showed them off in front of everyone else. While she was busy doing that, Star Twinkle decided to walk over to Radiant Blast and Sunset Shimmer to whisper something to them without anyone noticing it. "Say...was it really that bad?" He asked. Radiant Blast and Sunset Shimmer looked at each other nervously before Sunset Shimmer took it upon herself to answer. "No! No...it wasn't...I mean...There are better songs out there but..." Star Twinkle quickly noticed how Sunset Shimmer was having a hard time getting her words across so he decided to make his words more clear. "No, please, be honest," After he said that, Radiant Blast and Sunset Shimmer looked at each other again and nodded. Radiant Blast then spits out what he thought. "It was horrible," he brutal honest said in Star Twinkle's face. Star Twinkle was not really surprised to hear that. "I know..." he said depressed. Seeing him like that prompted Sunset Shimmer to say some cheerful words. "Don't worry, I'm sure you will get the hang of it sooner or later!" She said, keeping a positive attitude before she looked over to Radiant Blast. "How much time do we have left, Radiant?" She asked. Radiant Blast then looked over at his watch to check the time. "You're supposed to be checking in the Battle of the Bands in...fifteen minutes," "What!?" Everyone except Radiant Blast exclaimed in shock. A nervous smile was formed on Radiant Blast's face after he heard this reaction. "Sorry...must have forgotten it..." he admitted with a wide nervous grin on his face. As if everyone wasn't already nervous enough, hearing that really didn't help now. "But it's not ready!" Twilight said in a panic. "If we play our counter-spell in the first round and it doesn't work, the sirens will know what we're up to and make sure we don't get a chance to play it again!" She pointed out, which was definitely something that they had to prevent. The group was about to pack all their stuff to carry it over to the school but as soon as they heard that, they stopped. Things got more and more complicated every second. However, Applejack seemed to have found the solution to this problem. "Then we'll have to buy ourselves some time so you can keep workin' on it!" She suggested. "But how do you propose we do that?" Rarity asked confused. Rainbow Dash, however, seemed to know what Applejack was on about. "We compete in the Battle of the Bands for real! I take over lead vocals again and we stay alive until the finals! We unleash the counter-spell then!" She explained. Star Twinkle rubbed his chin after he heard that plan. "That actually sounds like a good idea, that is, if we win each time," Rainbow Dash quickly felt offended by those words. "Oh, please! Of course, we win! It's my band after all!" She said proudly. "Our band," Applejack corrected. "Guess we have no choice," Star Twinkle said. "You'll have figured it out by finals, right?" He then asked towards Twilight. She didn't answer right away so Spike was the one who answered for her. "Of course she will. You know Twilight. She's never met a problem she couldn't solve," he said confidently before he turned towards Twilight. "Right, Twilight?" He asked towards her. "...Right..." Twilight replied with a lot less confidence in her voice and a nervous expression on her face. Without realizing that reaction, Rainbow Dash decided to lift the spirit of the group again. "Then let's go win us a Battle of the Bands!" She said determined to take home the victory. Still, Twilight, from all people, was the least excited one about this. She was probably too concerned about the Dazzlings at this point. But whatever was on her mind now, it had to wait. Right now, the group just had to get to the school in time or the won't even have a chance to stop the Dazzlings. Later, inside the gym of Canterlot High... The group actually managed to get inside the gym on time. When they entered it, however, there was already a lot of tension. All the students kept a close eye and glared at each other. And group knew all too well why that was the case. Fittingly, they saw the three members of the Dazzlings sitting on top of a grandstand, looking down on them. "We just arrived here and people are already arguing," Star Twinkle said after he looked around the gym. "Yes, but don't worry," Radiant Blast said. "Once Twilight finishes the counterspell, everything will be back to normal," As soon as Twilight heard those words, she couldn't help but get nervous again while also trying to not let anyone notice that. Of course, the Dazzlings had a close eye on the group as soon as they saw them entering the gym. However, they didn't seem the least bit intimidated by them. "Looks like our main dish has arrived," Adagio Dazzle said amused. "Main dish?" Aria Blaze asked. "Hasn't our true power already been restored?" "Well, it can't hurt to have some more, right?" Adagio Dazzle replied. "But how are we supposed to get their magic?" Sonata Dusk asked confused. "They are the only ones who aren't under our spell," Adagio Dazzle was all too aware of that as well. "The Rainbooms are just as capable of falling apart as anyone else. They just need a little... push in the wrong direction. I have a feeling everyone here is going to be lining up to give them a shove," she explained. "And if that doesn't work, then we just have to make sure that they will fall apart from the inside," she added with a sinister smile on her face. It was not clear yet what she meant with that by the other two but whatever it was...it will most likely not be pretty... To be continued... > 4. Battle of the Bands! > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The battle of the Bands has officially started. Sixteen bands ended up competing in this tournament-style battle. Each time, two bands would compete against each other. Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna, as well as the audience would decide which band would win. The one that looses will drop out in the competition and the winner goes to the next round. So in order to win the whole thing, one band has to win four times. Star Twinkle and the Rainbooms however, didn't care about winning, with maybe the exception of Rainbow Dash. All that they needed to do was to stop the Sirens, who at this point, had everyone under their spell, except Star Twinkle and his friends. The only thing they needed to do was to use a counterspell to free everyone again. Unfortunately, Twilight had no counterspell ready yet and she still needed a lot more time from the looks of it. Since the counterspell needed to be heard by everyone in order to cancel the Sirens spell, the Rainbooms needed to use it at the Battle of the Bands event, where all students would end up being eventually. It needed to work on the first time they decided to use it or else the Sirens would get suspicious of their plan. This meant that the Rainbooms had to buy more time for her, meaning that they had to stay in the competition for as long as possible, winning against everyone who they were facing. Luckily, not every band in the competition seemed to be too much of a threat to the Rainbooms. One of the "bands" was on stage already and tried their best to impress everyone. The Rainbooms were there too backstage and couldn't help but feel weird listening to this performance. "And here I thought our practice earlier this day was bad..." Star Twinkle thought while he listened to the current performance. The contestants that were playing right now consisted of Snips and Snails, who decided to take a more hip approach with their music. Both of them were wearing hoodies, long necklaces, sunglasses, and long pants, fitting for the music that they were doing right now if one could even call it music. "Aw, yeah! Snips and Snails indahouse, yo! They call me MC Snips and that ain't no lie My favorite food is like pumpkin pie I'm DJ Snazzy Snails, I like whales When I go to the beach, I always bring my pails," Those were only a few of the brilliant lyrics that those two came up with, accompanied by some poor beatboxing from both of them. At first, Star Twinkle thought he was the only one who didn't like it because he was not too much into this kind of music but as soon as he looked over to the audience, behind the curtain and saw the reactions of everyone else, he was sure that this was not a good performance at all. However, both Snips and Snails didn't seem to notice that and just continued without a care. "Everybody knows my favorite color is orange My rhymes are so fly, they're better than... um... Than an orange, yo! Yeah! Yeah! Represent!" ... "What do we... What do we do now?" Snips asked in the middle of the song. "Get off the stage, I'd like to leave right now," Snails replied. The two seemed to realized that no one in the audience was really enjoying this "song" and tried to do their best to end it now. "Bam! That just happened!" Snips said before he stood there back to back with Snails. "Aw, yeah! We out!" Snails added. "Snips and Snails outta here!" They both said before they took their mics and straight out let them drop on the ground, causing the whole gym to be filled with a painful sound as soon as they hit the ground. Everyone quickly covered their ears as soon a that happened. "As if listening to their music wasn't painful enough," Star Twinkle said after the screeching sound in his ears gone. Needless to say, there was not much cheering in the audience for those two. Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna also didn't seem too impressed. "Please do not drop the mics," Principal Celestia said without a single hint in her voice that she was enjoying this performance. Still, Snips and Snails walked off the stage as if they have just won the whole thing. They even went so far to advise the Rainbooms to give up while they walked past them, and advise that wasn't even remotely taken seriously by any of them. "Least we know one group who won't stand in the way of us gettin' to the finals," Applejack straight out said as soon as the two walked past her. Radiant Blast, however, was not sure why Applejack said that. "I thought they weren't too bad," he casually said, much to everyone's surprise. He was actually the only one of the group who was moving his head up and down and actually enjoyed the music while the two of them were on stage. But the others didn't see much competition in those two and focused on their own performance, which was about to start any minute now. "How about we show them how real music sounds like?" Star Twinkle said. Rainbow Dash quickly picked up on those words. "Yeah! Let's get ready to rock!" She said, causing the group to get all hyped up for their performance. "Wait!" Pinkie Pie then suddenly said. "Where's Rarity?" She asked, making everyone realize that now as well. "Oh! Here! I'm here!" Rarity said while panting a little. It seemed as if Rarity was getting something before the performance started and as soon as she showed herself, everyone knew what. She stood there wearing a rather unique and strange-looking costume. She was wearing a white top and a long purple skirt, which were actually the only things that looked normal but over her white top, she was wearing a light brown jacket with diamonds all over it. The weirdest part about this outfit though was that it had metallic pieces hanging from her jacket. The first thing that came into Star Twinkle's mind was that she looked like a living wind bell. Rarity was obviously the only one who thought that this outfit was looking fabulous. "We will be performing in front of an audience. I'm not going to wear something fabulous?" She said while she proudly presented this outfit in front of everyone. The group was not really understanding what exactly was fabulous about this outfit and just decided to ignore it. They had to focus on winning this round after all. Twilight decided to remember everyone about their true goal. "Remember, we have to be good enough to make it through but not so good we let the sirens see the magic within us. They could realize we plan to use it against them," So far the group did a really bad job of getting this magic to work but it can't be too bad to hold back a little more. The Rainbooms were a good band, with or without magic so that would hopefully not too much of a problem. "Got it!" Rainbow Dash replied. Be cool enough to win, but not so cool that we end up showing off the whole ears and tails and rainbows thing. Sooo... about twenty percent less cool," Rainbow Dash figured. After all that was settled, the group went up to the stage and left only Radiant Blast and Sunset Shimmer who were waiting backstage. "You think they will make it through the first round?" Radiant Blast asked. "I'm sure they'll be fine," Sunset Shimmer replied confidently. As soon as Star Twinkle walked on the stage, he began to get a little nervous. He would have never stepped on the stage if his friends weren't with him right now. He just had to get used to it, however, since he had to be on stage sooner a later if he wanted to help them activate the counter-spell. Things didn't make it any better once he saw how most of the audience consisted of the bands that they had to go up against, all of them glaring at him and the rest of the Rainbooms. But despite being glared at from all sides, getting through the first round is what they had to make sure of now so they couldn't afford to get intimidated. As soon as they were ready, they started the song. "One! Two!" Pinkie Pie said as a signal for everybody to start. And so the song began. Rainbow Dash played the electric guitar, Applejack the bass, Rarity the keytar, Fluttershy the tambourine, Pinkie Pie was on the drums and "We've just got the day to get ready And there's only so much time to lose Because tonight, yeah, we're here to party So let's think of something fun to do," Needless to say, the song sounded good. There was also no indication of magic being released so everything was going according to plan, much to Radiant Blast's and Sunset Shimmer's relief. "See? Nothing to worry about," Sunset Shimmer said. Unfortunately, things changed pretty quickly. "Sunset! There!" Radiant Blast whispered to her while he pointed at the ceiling above the stage. One band was straight out trying to sabotage the Rainbooms. They used some strings with magnets at the end of them and went right for Rarity and her costume which was full of metallic objects. As soon as the magnets got stuck to her, she was flying all over the stage. The Rainbooms were busy playing the song but they also noticed that something strange was going on. Of course, they couldn't stop in the middle of the song so all they could do was to keep going as if everything was normal. "We don't know (we don't know) what's gonna happen We just know (we just know) it's gonna feel right All our friends are here And it's time to ignite the lights! Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight Shake your tail, shake your tail Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight Shake your tail, shake your tail," They continued to sing while the band on top of the stage kept continuing their sabotage while laughing at the demise of the Rainbooms. It was Photo Finish and her band who were responsible for this. They probably tried to raise their chances to win by ruining the Rainbooms performance. "Hey!" Radiant Blast then said, much to their surprise. He climbed up the railing in order to stop all this and ran towards the three girls who were sabotaging the Rainbooms. As soon as they saw him charging at them, they began to run away. However, they didn't let go of the strings, much to Rarity's dislike who continued to fly all over the place because of the chase above her. As if things weren't bad enough on and above the stage, the place in front of the stage didn't look better as well. The audience mostly consisted of the bands that were competing against the Rainbooms and since they were all under the spell of the Dazzlings, everyone only cared about their own victory and didn't mind the performance of the Rainbooms. Pinkie Pie noticed the lack of cheer in the crowd and decided to do something about it. She kicked one of her drums and confetti flew right up in the air, which slowly rained down on the Rainbooms. It was an attempt of her to make the performance look a little better. However, that miserably fired back as soon as Twilight accidentally swallowed a piece of confetti while she was singing. It was impossible for her to continue singing since she was coughing heavily but thankfully, Star Twinkle noticed that and smacked her with on the back and Twilight managed to spit it out shortly after. Still, this was pretty embarrassing and Twilight was blushing because of it. She just had to continue with the song. Radiant Blast stopped his chase as soon as he saw some things going wrong down on the stage. He knew that he had to do something to help but chasing Photo Finish didn't seem to help much since Rarity was still stuck on the magnets and flew all over the stage, knocking stuff over. After he took a moment to see where Photo Finish and the other two girls went to, he saw Snips and Snails walking on the railing as well, ready to sabotage the Rainbooms. The two played around with the lights and directed right at Fluttershy. Being the shy person she was, she quickly ran away from the spotlight so that no one would look at her. "Hey!" Radiant Blast said before he walked over to Snips and Snails to stop them but as soon as he ran after them, Photo Finish and her band continued to ruin Rarity's part of the song. "Stop!" Radiant Blast said after he saw that and chased after the three again. It was a total mess. Radiant Blast couldn't stop both of the groups at once so all he could do was to walk back and forth. Things also didn't look better on stage. Fluttershy was running away from the light and Rarity flew all around the stage and even bumped into Star Twinkle for a moment. Twilight was doing the lead singer part so he figured that he should leave the song to her and did something to help Rarity out. He grabbed her arm and tried his best to pull the jacket away from the magnet that was stuck on her. Eventually, the arms of the jacket were ripped apart from the magnet, finally freeing Rarity. However, instead of being relieved or thankful, she was shocked about what happened to her precious jacket. Still, with all this going on on the stage, the band kept playing until the song was finished, which thankfully was about to happen any second now, despite Fluttershy hiding behind Pinkie Pie's drums and Rarity sitting on the ground, crying in embarrassment. "Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight Shake your tail, shake your tail Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight Shake your tail, shake your tail Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight Shake your tail, shake your tail Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight Shake your tail, shake your tail Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight!" After the song was over, all that could be heard in the gym was the applaud of Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna. The Rainbooms walked off the stage without a word and filled with embarrassment. By now, Radiant Blast was also back on the ground again, being ashamed as well because he couldn't prevent everything that happened just now. Rarity was the one who had the hardest time getting over all this. "Ruined! Absolutely ruined!" She exclaimed while she cried in frustration, causing her make-up to run down her face. Applejack was upset by the outcome of this performance as well but instead of feeling bad about it, she decided to point her finger to someone else in this situation. "Rarity were you tryin' to make us lose out there?!" She said angrily. "Wh- Oh! This was not my fault! This was an act of sabotage!" Rarity protested offended. "She's right!" Radiant Blast interrupted before the situation would escalate even further. "I tried to help but...well you know what happened..." he then said, blaming himself for the outcome of all this. But Applejack insisted that it was still mostly Rarity's fault. "Yeah, well, whoever did this couldn't have done this if Rarity didn't insist on dressin' like... like...this!" She said, referring to why Rarity was wearing those strange clothes in the first place. "We need to sound good! Is there some reason that concept seems to escape you?" The two of them kept getting at it and as if that wasn't bad enough, Rainbow Dash started to blame others now as well. "And what was with the confetti, Pinkie Pie? How am I supposed to rock if there's paper stuck in my frets?!" She said bothered. "It was pretty distracting..." Fluttershy added quietly. Pinkie Pie couldn't believe what she just heard. "Ugh! Says the girl who was running from a light the whole time! A light!" She exclaimed angrily. By now, Star Twinkle felt like the girls were getting a little too far with the finger-pointing. "Hey, you know how Fluttershy is when it comes to things like this," he said in order to defend Fluttershy before he looked over to Rainbow Dash. "And by the way, we don't need to rock because we still need to keep a low profile in front of the Dazzlings," he reminded Rainbow Dash. But Rainbow Dash didn't seem to be done with the blaming. "Yeah, and I'm pretty sure your little performance helped out there a lot..." "What?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "She's right!" Applejack added. "Why did you just stopped singing in the middle of the song?" She asked. "I was trying to help Rarity!" Star Twinkle replied angrily. "Yeah, that's all good, but we can't just let one of our lead singers go off to do something else," Rainbow Dash added. Things got more and more out of hand and the group started to blame each other left and right, much to Twilight's Radiant Blast's and Sunset Shimmer's dislike. The later finally decided to speak up and reminded them of the important thing now. "You still sounded much better than most of the other bands. I'm sure you'll make it to the next round," she said. "She's right," Radiant Blast agreed. "Our goal was to reach the next round and I'm sure that you will pass!" He added, keeping a positive attitude despite everything that happened. "But it won't matter if you don't have that counter-spell ready," Sunset Shimmer said, causing Twilight to get nervous again, as soon as that was mentioned. "All you need is some more practice until you get the hang of it! Somewhere where the Sirens can't hear you," she advised. "Yes, and we keep an eye out for them!" Radiant Blast said with a grin on his face. That plan sounded really good for the rest of the group. They really needed to get that counter-spell to work as soon as possible without the Sirens knowing about all this. They couldn't afford to listen to the other bands and had to prepare as much as possible. Later, in the school hallway... Finding a place to practice was all good, but the problem was to find a place like that. The Sirens probably already got an eye on the Rainbooms so they had to find a secluded place. Twilight, of course, was scratching her head to find a place. "I don't think we should use a classroom so maybe..." but her sentence was cut short as soon as she accidentally bumped into Flash Sentry who was standing in front of her with his other band members. Embarrassed by this, Twilight started to blush. "We really need to stop bumping into each other like this," she said while chuckling nervously. But for some reason, Flash Sentry wasn't taking this little bump all too lightly. "Uh, you guys hear something?" He asked towards his band-mates while he turned his head around, completely ignoring Twilight. Twilight got really confused about this reaction. "I said, we have to stop—" "There it is again. So annoying," Flash Sentry interrupted in the middle of Twilight's sentence. "Why are you acting like this? I thought we were friends," Twilight asked confused after she saw hot Flash Sentry was treating her all of the sudden. Flash Sentry got angry all of a sudden and decided to explain what was bothering him so much. "Yeah, and then you decide to come back here just so you can beat me in the Battle of the Bands. I want this, Twilight, and you're trying to take it from me! Some friend," he said angrily before he turned around again and continued to ignore her. "That's not why—" Twilight was about to say but Applejack decided to let her ignore all this so that they could move on. "Come on, Twilight. We've got things to do," she said while she took Twilight's arm and pulled her with her. "I don't get it. Why is he acting like that all of the sudden," Twilight wondered before she actually started to feel bad about the words the Flash Sentry threw at her. Since Twilight seemed to have forgotten it in this very moment, Star Twinkle decided to refresh her memory. "Don't forget, everyone is under the Sirens spell. That's probably why he was acting like that," he explained. "Yeah...you're right," Twilight replied with a frown on her face. Noticing how Twilight was feeling at the moment, Star Twinkle put on a confident smile. "Don't worry, Twilight," he said while he grabbed her shoulder. "Once we defeat the Sirens, everyone will return to normal again," he said in order to cheer her up again. Twilight knew that this was true. She also knew that she had no time worrying about that now so she decided to forget it. "You're right!" She said with a confident smile on her face. Without the group noticing it, however, the Sirens only stood a few feet away from them and watched the whole scene. They most likely had something to do with this very scene, judging from the way how they laughed at the group's misery. Then suddenly, Principal Celestia's voice could be heard from the speakers of the school. "The next band to take the stage will be Trixie and the Illusions," she announced. This quickly caught the attention of the Sirens. "Better head back. We're supposed to go on after Trixie," Adagio Dazzle said before she led to the gym. While they were on their way back, however, two people blocked their path, ready to have a little talk with those three "You're never gonna get away with this," Sunset Shimmer said with a serious expression on her face while Radiant Blast stood next to her with a serious expression on his face as well. But despite those words, the Sirens didn't seem too much threatened and were quick to respond. "Why? Because you didn't?" Adagio Dazzle said as she walked closer to Sunset Shimmer before Radiant Blast took a few steps forward like some kind of signal that he wouldn't let her do anything suspicious. As soon as Adagio Dazzle realized that, her eyes wandered to Radiant Blast now. She was smiling and didn't seem threatened by him, however. "Oh, we know all about you two. You've got quite the reputation at Canterlot High," she then said. Sunset Shimmer got a little uncomfortable after she heard that "I've changed! I'm in a much better place now!" She replied. "Waiting in the wings while your friends have all the fun?" Immediately replied amused. Hearing that made Sunset Shimmer feel even more uncomfortable, so much that she didn't know what to say to this. Luckily, Radiant Blast was right next to her at this moment. "We are helping them too!" He said offended. "Even if we are not part of the band!" Adagio Dazzle, however, didn't believe this. "Oh, yes, you are all so tight. And yet... they didn't ask you to be in the band, didn't they?" She asked with a smirk on her face. "I mean, they had enough time to include you by now," she pointed out. "Probably afraid no one would want to see them play if they were in the group," Aria Blaze added. It was quite obvious that they only said those words to manipulate and discourage Sunset Shimmer, and both her and Radiant Blast were aware of that. But even knowing that, it didn't stop Sunset Shimmer to feel bad. "Too bad! So sad!" Sonata Dusk said cheerfully at Sunset Shimmer's demise. The three Sirens smiled and even started to laugh at how Sunset Shimmer took those words to hearts and began to feel really bad. Radiant Blast started to get really angry seeing how the three were enjoying all of this. "You all take that back!" Radiant Blast said angrily. "Don't act like as if you know anything about us!" Adagio Dazzle was again, not threatened. She looked over to Radiant Blast before she looked back at Sunset Shimmer with a smirk on her face. "It must be really nice to at least have one friend who always defends you. No matter what you do, he will always mindlessly side with you, even if the things that you do are wrong, am I right?" Those words seemed to strike hard into Sunset Shimmer's mind. Even though Radiant Blast was angry at the Sirens, he was more worried about Sunset Shimmer right now and how she was affected by all those words. "If it's any consolation, no one is going to remember you at all by the time we're done," Adagio Dazzle said before she walked away with the other two Sirens walking right behind her. The three were gone now and all that was left was a really sad Sunset Shimmer. Radiant Blast was really angry at the Sirens to cause her to be in this state. Still, Radiant Blast was trying his best to cheer her up. "Don't let their words get to you Sunset. They just try to manipulate you, just like everyone else," Sunset Shimmer rubbed her arm and looked away. "Yeah..." she said in a very unconvincing tone. "I better go and check up on the others...in case they need me..." she then said before she walked away. She couldn't even look at Radiant Blast at this very moment for some reason and she was clearly not in the condition to talk. Radiant Blast realized that it was all because of the Sirens, making him even angrier at them. Later at the gym... Without letting anyone know, Radiant Blast entered the gym to keep a close eye on Sirens while they were having their performance. He knew that each time when they were singing, people would get manipulated so he decided to watch their performance as well, to make sure that he and his friends were maybe prepared for what they were up against. "I should be alright. That Spell of them didn't affect me after all," he figured before he took a spot in the crowd to watch the performance. It didn't take long until the curtain opened and the three Sirens stepped forward to start their song. "Oh-whoa-oh, oh-whoa-oh You didn't know that you fell Oh-whoa-oh, oh-whoa-oh," It was a shame that those three were using their singing to manipulate others since they were actually really good singers. Radiant Blast took a look around the gym and quickly noticed how everyone was listening to the Sirens while moving their heads with the music. It was like everyone was in trance. It was kinda scary to look at. But despite that behavior around him, Radiant Blast continued to listen to the Sirens. Adagio Dazzle was the lead singer of the group while the other two sang with her or provided background music. "Blindsided by the beat Clapping your hands, stomping your feet You didn't know that you fell Oh-whoa-oh-oh-oh Now you've fallen under our spell Oh-whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh," As soon as the song picked up, Radiant Blast could feel captivated by their singing as well It was beautiful to listen to, that much that he had to admit. He actually enjoyed listening to them. Probably even more than he liked to admit. But despite that, he continued to listen as the Sirens continued their song. "We've got the music, makes you move it Got the song that makes you lose it We say "jump", you say "how high?" Put your hands up to the sky We've got the music, makes you move it Got the song that makes you lose it We say "jump", you say "how high?" Put your hands up to the sky Oh-whoa-oh, oh-whoa-oh You didn't know that you fell Oh-whoa-oh, oh-whoa-oh Now that you're under our spell," It was really weird but for some reason, Radiant Blast felt as if listening to the Sirens was the most important thing in the world for him. He couldn't stop listening to them and slowly found himself in a trance. While the Sirens continued their song, they began to smile as soon as they noticed Radiant Blast listening to their music and being under their spell. "Under...your...spell..." were the last words that Radiant Blast said before he mindlessly continued to listen to the Sirens singing. To be continued... > 5. The Semi-Final > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Battle of the Bands continued... One band after another dropped out of the competition. Luckily, the Rainbooms were not one of them. During the whole competition, the goal remained the same for Star Twinkle and his friends. Twilight still needed to complete the counter-spell that would end the spell of the Sirens, who pretty much had everyone except the Rainbooms under their control. Still, everyone believed that Twilight would manage to get the spell ready in time and kept playing good enough to make it through every round but not too good so that they would show their magic in front of the Sirens, who were, of course, watching all the performances of the Rainbooms. They couldn't afford to let them know about their plan to use a counter-spell against them so they had to keep the magic inside until the finals. All of that worked perfectly so far. There are only two more rounds to go for the Rainbooms and only three bands remained in the competition. One, of course, was the Rainbooms who only had to deal with one more band to reach the finals and that was Trixie's band, which are called "Trixie and the Illusions". The third band, which already reached the finals, were the Dazzlings. This all meant that there were two chances left for the Rainbooms to use that counter-spell and the next round was about to begin in a few minutes, meaning that it was all getting really close. But despite that, everyone was in high spirits and was not worried at all. Star Twinkle and the others all believed that Twilight would end up getting the spell done by the finals, much to her discomfort. All they could do now was to wait for Trixie's band to finish their song so that they could go up on stage. The girls were all patiently waiting but Star Twinkle was looking all over the place and was wondering why one of them was still missing. "Where is Radiant Blast? Shouldn't he be here by now?" Star Twinkle asked confused, mainly directed towards Sunset Shimmer. The answer that he received, however, was not what he expected. "Don't know...not like it matters if he is here or not anyway," she said with a frown on her face, not even bothering to look at Star Twinkle. "What?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "Where was that coming from?" He asked. Sunset Shimmer sighed. "It's nothing, I was just thinking out loud," she said with crossed arms and a frown on her face. Seeing this behavior only worried Star Twinkle more. "Is something wrong?" He then asked in his concern. Sunset Shimmer realized that she probably couldn't hide it from Star Twinkle once he decided to poke in further so she just went out with what was bothering her. "I'm just thinking about my and Radiant Blast's role in all of this," she said with a frown on her face. "Your role?" Star Twinkle asked confused. "Yes," Sunset Shimmer replied. "Twilight is coming up with the counter-spell and the rest of you try your best to buy her some more time and play in the band to activate the magic. But I and Radiant Blast are just standing on the sidelines and do nothing," This all sounded all too familiar to Star Twinkle. "So you are feeling left out?" He guessed. Judging from Sunset Shimmer's surprised reaction, it seemed as if he hit the nail on point. "Yeah, maybe," she replied, even though it was obvious for him that this was the case. The worried expression on Star Twinkle turned into a smile and he grabbed Sunset Shimmer's shoulder before he said some comforting words to her. "Listen, I know exactly how you feel right now," he said. He could swear that Sunset Shimmer was not believing him so he continued further. "I am well aware that I can be a little dense sometimes and that Sunset Shimmer was usually the one who took charge of the situation back then but I know that...me being around helped her as well! Just like how you being around Twilight always helps her out," Star Twinkle said. Those words kinda confused Sunset Shimmer, especially since Star Twinkle was talking about her as if she was not present. "Huh?" Was the only thing she could reply after those words. Star Twinkle then explained. "Radiant Blast said that to me," he said with a grin on his face. "He always knew that he was the guy who was right next to you and that the things he did, were minor compared to yours but he still stuck with you in case he was needed," Suddenly, Sunset Shimmer understood and began to smile as well. "Yeah, that sounds like him," she said. However, there was still one thing that bothered her. "But the things I did were horrible," she said with a frown forming on her face again. "I'm not saying that trying to take over the school and Equestria was a good thing," Star Twinkle replied. "But the fact that Radiant Blast even helped you to archive that should prove enough that he is a good friend," Hearing that made, Sunset Shimmer think back about the words that the Sirens said to her. "I don't know. No matter what I do, he will always have my back. I don't know if I really want that. What if I return to do more evil stuff? Will he mindlessly support me again?" She questioned. "Nope, not mindless," Star Twinkle quickly responded confidently, much to Sunset Shimmer's surprise. "Friends are also there to tell you when you cross the line. Remember when you were about to crush the portal to Equestria? Remember who stopped you in the last moment?" And again, the expression on Sunset Shimmer's face changed from a from to a smile again. If there was someone who knew Radiant Blast best than it was her after all. "He is a good guy, a little naive and dense, but a good guy. And if he was here, then he would be happy to just part of all of this even if the things that he contributes are pretty small," "How can you be so sure?" Sunset Shimmer asked. But Star Twinkle had an easy answer ready. "Because I feel the same way most of the time," he said with a grin on his face. "I'll do what I can and that is all there is to it. I used to think that I am pathetic for not being able to do, what I thought isn't enough, but in the end, that didn't help me out either. Every little thing can help, no matter how small it may be," Sunset Shimmer was kinda surprised to hear those kinds of words from Star Twinkle but she was happy to hear them regardless. "You really believe this?" She asked once more as a kind of confirmation but then she remembered where she got her doubts from in the first place. It was the Sirens. She immediately got angry and blamed them for getting her thoughts clouded like this. "No! You're right!" She then said determinedly. "I believe in Radiant Blast and I'm sure that if he was here, he would say that everything is fine, the way it is!" Star Twinkle was happy to hear that and that he was able to cheer up Sunset Shimmer a little. However, the more they talked about Radiant Blast, the more one thing worried him. "Speaking of him, where is he?" He said with some frustration in his voice. Rainbow Dash overheard those words but she didn't seem to worry. "Wherever he is, he will miss another awesome performance by my band if he doesn't hurry," she said, confidently to win the next round without a problem. "Our band!" Applejack corrected yet again angrily but Rainbow Dash ignored that. In the middle of that, Fluttershy decided to address something that was really important to her. "Um, I was just wondering. We haven't played any of my songs yet, and..." But she was quickly interrupted by Rainbow Dash "It's the semifinals. We gotta do "Awesome As I Wanna Be"." she said. Fluttershy, of course, was not too happy to hear that. "Don't know why I even asked..." she mumbled in a bothered tone. Star Twinkle didn't really bother about that and mentioned the thing that was concerning him the most now. "Instead of worrying what song we will play, we should consider if we can play the counter-spell now," he said while he looked over to Twilight But Twilight looked away embarrassed, giving everyone a clear sign that this was still not the case. The group was very understanding about that and didn't put more pressure on her. "Don't worry, Twilight," Applejack said. "Finals aren't until tonight. We'll get in a little more practice before we're supposed to hit the stage. We won't let you down!" She said, seeing the positive about all this. Ironically, those words actually made Twilight feel even more nervous. The rest of the group agreed and were right behind Applejack's words. Twilight was really the only one who wasn't too happy to hear that. Like before, she seemed to be pressuring herself the most, making her more nervous. "You won't let me down..." Twilight whispered under her breath quietly. While the group continued to wait for Trixie and her band to finish their song, finally, Radiant Blast appeared and walked up to the group. "There you are Radiant!" Sunset Shimmer said relived after Radiant Blast finally appeared. "Where have you been!?" Rainbow Dash said, not bothering to hide how annoyed she was by how late Radiant Blast was. "You almost missed how we were about to rock the next round!" Whatever caused Radiant Blast to be this late, he did seem to get a little annoyed by Rainbow Dash's words. "Well, sorry okay? Maybe I had something important to take care of!?" He said with an unusually serious and almost hostile tone in his voice. The group was definitely caught off guard by those words and looked at each other confused for a moment. Before they could pick up on Radiant Blast's strange behavior, however, cheering could be heard in the gym. It was looking as if Trixie and the Illusions were done playing, meaning that there were only minutes left until the Rainbooms had to go out there. "Looks like it's our turn now," Star Twinkle figured. Trixie and her two bandmates exited the stage and walked up to the Rainbooms. Being the overconfident person she was, Trixie didn't miss this chance to talk down on them before she left. "You're never gonna top that performance, "Rain-goons"." She said before she turned towards Twilight for a moment. "You shouldn't be allowed to when you have such a big advantage over the rest of us," she added. "My superior guitar playing and off-the-charts awesome singing voice?" Rainbow Dash boasted, completely missing how Trixie was obviously not talking about her. "Oh, don't be ridiculous," Trixie replied. "I mean her!" She said while she straight out pointed at Twilight now. "If you were really all that, Rainbow Dash, you wouldn't have needed to bring in some magical ringer to have half a chance. Everyone's talking about it," "Ha! Puh-leeze!" Rainbow Dash said. "I could win this thing as a solo act and everybody knows it!" She claimed confidently, much to everyone's dislike, who all felt a little offended by how Rainbow Dash was pretty much saying that she didn't need her friends at all. Everyone remained silent and decided to ignore those words, except for Radiant Blast, who was clenching his teeth. "Yeah, sure you could," he said in a highly sarcastic voice, which was no unnoticed by Rainbow Dash, who turned around after hearing those words and glared at Radiant Blast because of it. "See? I'm not the only one who thinks like that," Trixie said with a smile on her face. "Anyway, I don't have time to talk with you so...tata," she said before she suddenly, threw a smoke bomb at the ground, to make her disappearance look a little more stylish. But all it did was making everyone cough because of the smoke and the only one who was surprised by all of that was Pinkie Pie. "She's gone!" Pinkie Pie said in shock. "Um, no, she is over there," Star Twinkle then said while he pointed at Trixie who was hiding in obvious sight behind Pinkie Pie's drums. "Oh," Pinkie Pie said, causing Trixie to run away embarrassed as soon as she was spotted. The group didn't really know how to react to this encounter. Of course, they wouldn't stop playing because of Trixie's words so they just decided to ignore her. It was also not as if they had much time to worry about it since Principal Celestia was calling the Rainbooms on the stage already. "Alright then, let's get this round over with," Star Twinkle said, causing the girls to reply in some cheers to pump themselves up. "Knock 'em dead, Rainbooms!" Spike said in excitement while he waited next to Sunset Shimmer and Radiant Blast. The latter one seemed not too happy for some reason. "They better win," he said while he clenched his teeth angrily. By now, Sunset Shimmer was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with Radiant Blast. "Is something the matter? You are behaving a little...odd..." Radiant Blast looked back at her. "Well, we can't afford to drop out of the competition after all this work," "Yes, but..." Sunset Shimmer started before she stopped herself from telling Radiant Blast what she had in mind and decided to focus on the performance of the Rainbooms. The song that they were singing now is called "Awesome as I wanna be," which was a song that actually a big ego trip of a song dedicated to Rainbow Dash. Needless to say, singing a song that was all about Rainbow Dash was something that the group wasn't really looking forward to but it wasn't really like as if they were singing at all because, not surprisingly, Rainbow Dash did most of it. "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Awesome as I wanna be Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Awesome as I wanna be First you see me riding on a sonic boom Got my guitar shreddin' up my latest tune There is nothin' you can do to beat me I'm so good that you can't defeat me Yeah, I'm awesome, take caution Watch out for me, I'm awesome as I wanna be I'm awesome, take caution Watch out for me, I'm awesome as I wanna be" Rainbow Dash was really getting into this song but the rest of her friends were just rolling their eyes and played rather normal. In fact, Rainbow Dash seemed to try her best to be at the center of attention on the stage. She must have felt a little challenged after hearing those words from Trixie and Radiant Blast before and felt as if she had to prove everyone in the school wrong. Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash was getting a little ahead of herself. Star Twinkle only provided some background singing and wasn't really busy so he quickly noticed something about Rainbow Dash that could ruin everything. Ears started to appear on Rainbow Dash's head. She was about to show the magic inside of her without realizing it herself. Of course, that is something that they couldn't afford to happen with the Sirens being somewhere in the crowd watching all of this. Despite that, Rainbow Dash continued to play like there was no tomorrow, without noticing how she was about to ruin their whole plan. Star Twinkle and Twilight both didn't play an instrument right now and just did some singing but Twilight didn't seem to notice anything about Rainbow Dash so it was up to Star Twinkle to do something about it or at least let Rainbow Dash know what is happening right now. He slowly moved towards Rainbow Dash without making it look too suspicious. He figured giving her some kind of sign would be enough to stop her. However, as soon as Star Twinkle was almost next to her, Sunset Shimmer charged right at Rainbow Dash, knocking her over and making her fall into the others, damaging some of the instruments and completely ruining the whole song and putting it to a stop. All that was left was Sunset Shimmer standing in the middle of the stage while everyone in the audience stood there and looked at her. It was really embarrassing to have that song interrupted for everyone in the band but it must have been even more embarrassing for Sunset Shimmer. And of course, since everyone was still under the spell of the Sirens, they quickly took advantage of this situation. "Now that's the bad girl we love to hate!" Flash Sentry pointed out. Soon words like "I knew she was still trouble" or "The real Sunset Shimmer is back" filled the room, much to Sunset Shimmer's demise. "No. It isn't like that," Sunset Shimmer replied to all those accusations in an attempt to defend herself. Whether what she was doing was good or bad, the damage was already done and the Rainbooms left the stage embarrassed, annoyed and frustrated. As soon as they were off the stage, Rainbow Dash instantly asked the most obvious question. "What was that?!" She exclaimed angrily after this weird incident. "You were showing them your magic. I-I didn't know what else to do," Sunset Shimmer explained. No one was really happy about that answer."Close the curtains? Unplug her amp? Give us a chance to deal with the situation?" Rarity said, which all sounded like admittedly better solutions to this situation. "I'm sorry, I just wanted to help," Sunset Shimmer replied in her frustration. "Yeah, well, you didn't," Rainbow Dash replied angrily while glaring at Sunset Shimmer. "And thanks to you, we will now drop out of this competition!" She said, straight out blaming Sunset Shimmer now. By now, Radiant Blast had enough of how Rainbow Dash was acting towards Sunset Shimmer and stepped up to defend her. "Hey! Stop blaming She tried to help to keep this whole plan alive! Something that was obviously not important to you!" He said angrily, much to Sunset Shimmer's discomfort. She knew that Radiant Blast would usually defend her but this time it almost looked as if he was ready to fight or something. It kinda worried her. "Radiant is right!" Applejack agreed. "None of this would've happened if you weren't tryin' to show off – as usual," she pointed out, blaming Rainbow Dash for this outcome. As if things weren't bad enough, Trixie appeared right next to the group and decided to pour even more salt into their wounds. "Good show, "Rain-brooms"." She congratulated with an amused tone in her voice. "I especially liked the part where Sunset Shimmer, in a fit of jealous rage, knocked out Rainbow Dash mid-guitar solo!" "It wasn't a fit of jealous rage!" Sunset Shimmer angrily replied. "If you say so," Trixie replied before she looked away and caught a glimpse of how Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna seemed to discuss the last two performances. "Ooh! Looks like they've already decided who'll be moving on to the finals! I'm guessing it wasn't too difficult a decision," she said confidently, not being a little bit worried that it would go any other way. "Yeah, probably not," Star Twinkle thought while he took a look at Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna as well. He already scratched the idea that he and the Rainbooms made it to the finals after this mess of a performance. But to his surprise, something seemed to be going on next to Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna. The Sirens appeared next to the two and began to sing. For a moment, it looked as if Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna were both caught into a trance. Star Twinkle had a slight guess what this was all about but he was not too sure. It's not like he could put a thought into his guess anyway since the rest of his friends were still continuing to argue at this very moment. "What can we do?" Rarity said in her frustration. "There isn't gonna be another opportunity for us to play. And I had the most gorgeous outfit for the finals!" "Yup, 'cause that's the real tragedy here, Rarity – that you won't get to play dress-up!" Applejack said while rolling her eyes. "You know perfectly well that is not what I meant!" Rarity replied angrily after hearing those words. "You guys wanna keep it down?" Rainbow Dash interrupted. "They're about to announce who's moving on," "Who are you kidding?" Fluttershy said frustrated. "You know it isn't gonna be us," Despite what was happening just a few minutes ago, Star Twinkle kept his eyes focused on the Sirens, who now walked down to the audience again. "I don't know...I think we might have a chance..." Star Twinkle mumbled to his friends, much to their surprise. It wasn't really like him to see the positive about things. He was still clinging to that one guess that he had after seeing what the Sirens did to Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna. But the only way to find out if it was right, was to wait for the result, which was about to be revealed right now by Principal Celestia. "The band that will be joining the Dazzlings in tonight's finals... The Rainbooms!" "What?!" Trixie said in complete shock, followed by confused gasps by the Rainbooms. Now it was obvious for Star Twinkle that the Sirens had their hands into all of this. There was no way that the interrupted performance of the Rainbooms was better than Trixie's. The Sirens must have pulled the strings so that the Rainbooms would win. But that only raised the question of why they would do such a thing. Needless to say, Trixie was pretty angry about this result and walked away from the group. "This isn't over!" She said before she was off for good. The Rainbooms got back on stage, where Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna waited for them. "Congratulations. You deserve it," Principal Celestia said happily. However, the group was well aware that this was not the case. The group was quickly joined by the Sirens, their future opponents, who actually seemed kinda happy about this result. "See you at tonight's big show, Rainbooms. We are really looking forward to it," Adagio Dazzle said in an amused tone. It was just now, that the Rainbooms noticed how the audience reacted to their victory. No one looked happy and believed that this victory was deserved, making the Rainbooms feel rather uncomfortable. Star Twinkle figured that this was what the Sirens were after. They wanted to create more negative emotions to feed off from. Whatever the reason was, the group needed to leave because it was getting rather serious inside the gym. No one really wanted to stay there any longer because of all the bad things that were thrown at them. Besides, they still needed some time to prepare for the final tonight. Later... The Rainbooms decided to practice at the stage where the final was supposed to be tonight. It was a little stadium with a lot of seats in front of it, fitting for the last two bands to perform on. The Sirens where nowhere to be found and didn't seem to want to use this stadium so the Rainbooms might as well took it for their practice. However, that exact absence of the Sirens was what worried Star Twinkle and made him lose focus on the practice. "Check, one, two. Testing, testing... " Rainbow Dash said right into her microphone. There was no feedback which was probably because Star Twinkle didn't turn it on, something that he was supposed to do right now if he wouldn't have drifted off in thoughts. But as soon as he saw how Rainbow Dash looked at him annoyed, he panicked a little and turned it on. Shortly after, Rainbow Dash tested it again. "Testing...!" She said, followed by a horribly loud microphone feedback noise, that made everyone shrug. Realizing that, Star Twinkle had turned the microphone on a little too much, he quickly turned it down again. "Sorry," he apologized embarrassed with a grin on his face. "I had some other things on my mind just now," he explained. "Yeah, like, why we won the last round?" Pinkie Pie guessed. Star Twinkle was clearly not the only one who was confused about this outcome. "Well, it didn't really make sense," Fluttershy agreed. "We were awful. Doesn't anybody else think it's strange that we're the ones that made it to the finals?" She asked. Star Twinkle was about to tell Fluttershy that he probably knew more about this but before he could do that, an unexpected visitor approached the Rainbooms. "Very strange." It was Trixie, who didn't seem all too happy and glared at the group. "What are you doing here, Trixie? Pretty sure the losers are supposed to be up there in the cheap seats," Rainbow Dash said unimpressed by Trixie's sudden appearance. Trixie wasted no time and explained why she appeared in front of the group. "The Great and Powerful Trixie is the most talented girl at Canterlot High. It is I who deserves to be in the finals," she claimed angrily. "And I will not be denied!" She added before she snapped her fingers, which served as a signal for one of her other band members to pull a lever that would open up a trap door right beneath the feet of the Rainbooms. The group dropped down one floor below. Thankfully they weren't hurt too much by the fall and only got away with a few bruises. When they looked up again they saw Trixie laughing at their current situation. "See you never!" She said before the trapdoor closed again and left the group. "That... is not good..." Star Twinkle said after he found himself and his friends in this situation. To be continued... > 6. Finale - Rainbooms VS Dazzlings > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It has been quite a few hours since the Rainbooms were trapped under the stage by Trixie after they had beaten her in the Music competition. No one really knew how long it has been but they definitely knew that time was running out because they could hear Trixie's band playing in the place of the Rainbooms. Driven by that, the group had to do something to get out of this room. Rainbow Dash desperately tried to break the only door in the room by running into it. She even managed to convince Star Twinkle to help her with that but he couldn't nearly do this as long as her and quickly figured that the door wouldn't break anytime soon. But that didn't stop Rainbow Dash to continue trying that. After another unsuccessful attempt, Applejack decided to tell her that it was useless. "Give it up, Rainbow Dash. You've been tryin' at this for hours. It's not gonna open," she said. She was also probably tired of seeing her doing this over and over again. Star Twinkle figured that long ago and accepted the fact that someone from outside had to open the door. Fortunately, there was someone of them who was still out there. "Spike wasn't captured by Trixie so maybe he will find a way to free us," he said, trying to see the positive thing about the whole situation. Radiant Blast, who was just sitting in one corner of the room, just chuckled after hearing that. "Yeah, as if he could do anything to help us," he said. Twilight would have reacted to a sentence like that, coming from Radiant Blast, but she seemed too much focused on something else to bother. "Maybe it doesn't even matter that we're trapped down here. I don't think the counter-spell would have worked anyway," she said in frustration as she was sitting on the ground. "Of course it would have worked, Twilight," Applejack replied confidently. "Assumin' a certain band member didn't try to hog the spotlight the whole time we were tryin' to play it!" She added, obviously referring to Rainbow Dash. "Hey! If you wanna tell Twilight she's getting a little too caught up trying to be the new leader of this band, you don't have to be all cryptic about it," Rainbow Dash replied, completely unaware that she was the one Applejack was talking about. "She was talking about you, Rainbow Dash!" Rarity said annoyed by how Rainbow Dash wasn't even remotely aware of that. "Me?!" Rainbow Dash said in shock and confusion. "I'm just trying to make sure my band rocks as hard as it needs to!" She explained. "OUR BAND!!" Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie exclaimed angrily after Rainbow Dash, again, called it her band. "It might've been your idea to start a band, but it's not just your band, Rainbow Dash!" Applejack pointed out angrily. Hearing that started to get on the nerves of Rainbow Dash "I'm the one who writes all the songs!" She explained annoyed. "I write songs!" Fluttershy then angrily exclaimed. "You just never let us play any of them!" She explained in a loud tone in her voice, which was very unlike her, meaning that even she was getting on her limit of how much she could take. Frustration quickly rose in the group, some of them being worried about different things than others. "I had the most perfect outfits for us to wear!" Rarity said while being on the verge of having tears running down her cheeks. "Again with the costumes!" Applejack exclaimed annoyed. "No one cares what we're wearin'!" She explained. "I care, Applejack!" Rarity exclaimed back. "So sorry if I enjoy trying to make a creative contribution to the band!" "Hey! Anybody here remember fun?!" Pinkie Pie then said angrily after having enough of all the arguing around her. Ironically, she joined right in the arguing as well. "I'll give you a hint: It's the exact opposite of being in the Rainbooms!" Star Twinkle was feeling more and more uncomfortable seeing his friends like this and desperately wanted to do something about it. "I think we all should calm down a little bit and-" But he wasn't even paid attention to by anyone and they just continued to argue. "I wish I never asked any of you to be in my band!" Rainbow Dash said angrily. "I wish I'd never agreed to be in it!!!!" Rarity exclaimed back. "Me neither!" The rest of the girls angrily agreed. By now, the arguing in the group got a little out of hand. The girls were so caught up in arguing that they totally forgot the situation they were in right now. Star Twinkle, Twilight, Sunset Shimmer, and Radiant Blast were the only ones who were not part of that. Star Twinkle hoped that one of the others would stop in to calm them down, but that didn't happen. Star Twinkle turned in his frustration towards Twilight in hope that she knew what to do. "Hey Twilight, come on, say something!" Twilight didn't even seem to notice what was going on here. She was way too fixated on something else. "But why wasn't it working? I should know what to do. How could I not know what to do? How could I have failed like this?" She said to herself in her frustration. Thinking about the counter-spell seemed to be the only thing in her mind right now. Star Twinkle looked over to Radiant Blast and Sunset Shimmer. Sunset Shimmer seemed to be a little uncomfortable to see the others like that and couldn't bring herself to say anything and Radiant Blast didn't even seem to care what was going on. It only left Star Twinkle to do something in this situation. He was not sure what to do but he had to do something. Getting into a fight at this very moment is something that they really couldn't afford. "Hey! Could we please stop arguing!? We need to get out of here to stop the Sirens, remember!?" He said almost angrily at his friends. However, Star Twinkle's words hit on deaf ears and no one even paid attention to him, with the exception of Radiant Blast who got up on his feet. "As if you are doing anything to contribute to all of this," "What?" Star Twinkle replied confused. "You heard me!" Radiant Blast quickly replied. "Twilight is doing all the work! You are just here because you happen to have some magic inside you as well. You are not exactly doing anything to help either!" "What is wrong with you!? Wasn't it you who told me that being around can help as much?" Star Twinkle replied confused. Radiant Blast didn't seem to care about that anymore and just arrogantly turned his head around. Star Twinkle felt like that the situation was getting worse by every passing second. There they were trapped under the stage without a way out and with most of them arguing. As if that wasn't bad enough, time started to run out right about now. "Ahh, ah-ah, ahh Ah, ah-ah, ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah Ah, ah-ah, ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah," Above their heads, singing could be heard and from the sound of it, it was the Sirens. Right about now, they were starting their performance. This meant that they were about to unleash their magic at everyone in the school and since they were getting stronger by feeding off hate, they were probably even stronger now. In fact, Star Twinkle could literally see some kind of magic mist coming down to this room, which was most likely coming from the Sirens. Seeing that only made him feel more nervous and helpless. His friends wouldn't listen to him, Radiant Blast was acting strange, Twilight was completely beside herself. and Sunset Shimmer didn't seem to be able to do anything either. Since his friends were also fighting with each other, the Sirens, who were right above their heads would get stronger by absorbing everyone's negative emotions. Soon, Star Twinkle gave up on doing anything and decided to just deal with the situation. He felt like everything was against him so there was no point in continuing. Seeing Star Twinkle frustrated like that actually seemed to amuse Radiant Blast and he began to smile, much to Sunset Shimmer's shock who couldn't believe it at all. In one corner, Twilight was sitting on the ground mumbling some stuff to herself, then there was Star Twinkle who had no idea what to do anymore, then there were the girls who wouldn't stop arguing with each other and Radiant Blast who seemed to enjoy watching the whole situation go downhill. Sunset Shimmer was also well aware of how the Sirens were drawing strength from this whole situation. She didn't know how to get out of this room, she didn't know why the counter-spell didn't work before, and she didn't know why Radiant Blast was acting like this but she knew that if she just did nothing now, then the situation would get even worse. Finally, she put herself together and decided to act. "Stop! You have to stop!" She said as she jumped between the girls. "This is what they've been after all along! They're feeding off of the magic inside you!" After hearing those words, the girls actually stopped fighting for a moment. "How can they be using our magic?" Applejack asked confused after Sunset Shimmer got between them. "It's the magic of friendship," But Sunset Shimmer seemed to have figured everything out and wanted everyone to understand that this was not the time to fight. She watched the whole group for a while now and knew exactly what was going on but she decided to not do anything up until now. Seeing her friends like that, however, made her finally realize that she had to tell them all what she had noticed so far. "Ever since you started this band, you've been letting little things get to you. I never said anything 'cause I didn't feel like it was my place. Not when I was so new to this whole "friendship" thing. I still have a lot to learn. But I do know that if you don't work out even the smallest problems right at the start, the magic of friendship can be turned into something else," she explained, speaking from her heart right now. Both Star Twinkle and Twilight seemed to have snapped out of their frustration as soon as they heard those words now. Twilight came to a realization herself. "I can't believe all this tension was happening right under my nose and I didn't realize it. I'm supposed to be the one with all the answers. And all I've done since I got here is let you down," she said in regret. But Sunset Shimmer disagreed with those words. "I don't think anyone is supposed to have all the answers," she said before she looked over to the girls who were arguing a few minutes ago. "But you can count on your friends to help you find them," she explained with a smile on her face. Star Twinkle had to agree with those words. "Yeah, I mean, I would feel pressured really bad if everyone would expect me to have all the answers," he admitted while he looked over to Twilight. The rest of the girls admitted that they should have supported Twilight instead of fighting the whole time, that way she would have probably have the counter-spell ready by now. Right now, their eyes were opened and they decided to forget all the things that they were fighting about and instead worked together to come up with a solution. Eventually, they gained a new determination to work together to go up against the Sirens. But one certain person was not at all affected by all of this. "Good job!" Radiant Blast said sarcastically while he watched his friends like that. "You just now realized that you were all wrong after it is already too late!" He said with a hostile sounding tone in his voice. "And if you haven't realized it yet, we are trapped here. Right now, the final is going on right above our heads and that is all because you were so focused on other things instead of focusing on stopping the Sirens!" Star Twinkle knew that some of those things Radiant Blast said were true, but the way how he said them was what bothered him. "If we all put our heads together right now, I'm sure we will find a way to stop them," "They already could have been stopped if you wouldn't have argued the whole time!" Radiant Blast said angrily. "But guess what, Sunset Shimmer was the one who had to remind you what is important, you know, the one who you didn't even bother to ask to be part of your band! The one you ignored the whole time! Do you all really think you are in the right place to speak about the magic of friendship?" All those words really hit the group. They started to feel bad and regretted leaving out Sunset Shimmer from their band. Sunset Shimmer, however, felt like that this was the lesser problem now and wanted to go on to deal with the Sirens. However, Radiant Blast managed to let the mood drop down in the group and shake their determination. And it was not like he was done doing that anytime soon. "Twilight was supposed to come to this world in order to help us and you were supposed to assist her, but what did you do? Nothing! You just stood there and let her do everything without a single attempt to help her! And now you think you can defeat the Sirens after realizing that you were wrong? If you ask me, you are no friends! You are just a bunch of losers! It only proves that back then, Sunset Shimmer should have been the one who won the crown and take over-" SLAP! Right in the middle of Radiant Blast's sentence, Sunset Shimmer walked up to him and slapped her hand across his face, leaving a silence in the room that was only filled by the sound that was created by her, slapping him. Radiant Blast looked back at Sunset Shimmer after that with wide eyes and an open mouth while she was glaring at him angrily. The others were highly surprised at that and wanted to say something to both of them but they decided not to because what Sunset Shimmer said afterward was enough that needed to be said at this moment. "Remember when I was about to destroy the portal to Equestria?" She asked while she lowered her hand again. "It was you who stopped me when I was about to go too far. You know what I was doing was wrong but you supported me all this time until I was about to cross the line. You were a friend to me and pointed out my mistake. Now it is time for me to tell you to stop!" Radiant Blast felt bad hearing Sunset Shimmer saying those words while barely containing herself to break out in tears of seeing Radiant Blast act like that. "Sunset...I..." was the only thing he could say at this moment. Despite Radiant Blast seemingly realizing his mistake, Sunset Shimmer continued to continue. "Right now, we have to forget the mistakes that we made in the past and need to continue to focus what is happening right now," saying those words made Sunset Shimmer lower her head a little while forming a little frown on her face. "Funny that I am the one who is saying that since all I've done was thinking about the bad things I did in the past. But only looking at my mistakes will not help me to grow," she then looked over to her friends and smiled. "Luckily, I have friends who help me whenever I don't know how to progress on my own," she then looked back to Radiant Blast again. "Just like how I am now telling you," Radiant Blast seemed to have carefully thought about those words and started to feel weird. He stood there motionless for a few seconds before his eyes glowed in green light and some familiar green mist was flying upwards away from him. "That's...the same mist that the Sirens create!" Star Twinkle pointed out. "So Radiant Blast was controlled by them? That would explain his strange behavior," she figured. Moments after the mist was gone, Radiant Blast almost dropped on the ground if Sunset Shimmer wasn't there to hold him. He managed to stay on his feet with her help and took some exhausted breaths. "What happened?" He immediately asked in confusion. Sunset Shimmer explained. "It looks like the Sirens manipulated you, Radiant," As soon as he heard that, he quickly remembered. "That's right! The Sirens got to me! All the things I did and said...I somehow couldn't stop creating tension between you all and make you fight! I'm so sorry!" He apologized in a mix of frustration and regret. The group quickly identified this behavior as one that only the real Radiant Blast would say and were happy that he is back again. Still, Star Twinkle was wondering why Radiant Blast was affected by the Siren's spell in the first place, especially after listening to their songs previously without any harm. To that, Twilight had a reasonable explanation. "We were protected by our magic," she said referring to anyone except Sunset Shimmer and Radiant Blast. "Maybe you two were just protected because you were close to us. As soon as Radiant Blast was alone, however, the spell started to work on his as well," she figured after she analyzed the situation further. The group could have tried to figure out what was the cause for the whole day, but soon Rainbow Dash, out of all people reminded them that there were more important things to worry about now. "Who cares! We have to stop the Sirens now!" She said. "She's right," Fluttershy agreed. "We have to stop them before they manipulate everyone in the finals," "You're right!" Twilight said. "We need to get out of here!" He said before she leads the way to the door that Rainbow Dash was busy smashing down for the whole time. "But Rainbow Dash tried to smack the door open! It won't open that easily," Applejack pointed out. "Yes, that is why we all have to try it now. After all, if we work together," she started. "Then there is no one who can stop us, right?" Star Twinkle finished with his mood rising in this seemingly hopeless situation. "Exactly!" Twilight replied before she stood ready to charge right at the door, followed by the rest of her friends standing right next to her to assist her. As soon as she saw how everyone stood ready, she gave a signal so that everyone would start to charge now. "Go!" She said before she and her friends began to run towards the door at full speed to knock it down for good. Bamm! A loud smashing sound echoed through the room after the group ran right into it. ... But unfortunately, the door was still standing, which could not be said by the Star Twinkle and his friends who all laid down on the ground with some minor pain. Even nine people were not enough force to bring this metal door down, much to the frustration of the group. "You know what?" Star Twinkle said as soon as things stopped spinning in his head. "I think a metal door is enough to stop us," This certainly dropped the mood of everyone to zero again and left them with no other option left. Before anyone could even address what to do next, the door actually began to open, much to everyone's surprise. "A delayed reaction?" Radiant Blast asked confused, although most of the group doubted that that was the case. As soon as the door was fully open one familiar cold nosed face greeted them. "Spike!" Twilight said as soon as she spotted her number one assistant again. "Sorry I took so long. I had to find somebody who wasn't under the sirens' spell to help me get you out," Spike explained. The group was surprised to hear that there was actually someone who wasn't affected and were curious about who it was. Seconds later, a girl showed herself in front of the group. She had white skin, and her hair consisted of cobalt blue and brilliant opal blue colors. She was also wearing purple sunglasses, a white jacket and a white shirt with purple leggings beneath it. "Why isn't she under their spell?" Twilight asked. Spike quickly explained. "Never takes off her headphones," he simply said, which caused everyone to just now realize that she was indeed wearing aquamarine-colored headphones. It was obvious after thinking about it. The Sirens manipulated others with their singing so if someone didn't hear their singing, then their magic will not work. "Figures," Star Twinkle replied after he heard Spike's explanation. Now that the door was open, the only thing left to do was going out there and confront the Dazzlings. Everyone was in high spirits to defeat them this time. "Ooh, which version of the counter-spell are we going to play?" Rarity asked before they set foot outside. "I don't think it matters what song we play, as long as we play it together as friends," Twilight explained. Rainbow Dash was the first one to speak up on that. "I know just the song," she said, to which everyone quickly figured that she was about to mention one of her songs that would further glorify herself. But, that was not the case. Instead, she walked over to Fluttershy. "Fluttershy's written a really great one," she said, offering to play one of her songs this time, something that Fluttershy waited for such a long time. Needless to say, Fluttershy was really happy to hear this, not to mention her other friends who were glad to see this change in Rainbow Dash. Applejack also had something in mind before they were to set out to deal with the Sirens. "We're about to save the world here. Personally, I think we should do it in style," she said before she turned over to Rarity, asking her to provide some outfits for the band. Of course, Rarity was really happy to hear this. "I thought you'd never ask!" She said before she pulled all of the costumes that she made over to her. Radiant Blast was happy to see all of them treating each other like friends again without complaining or being bothered by every small thing. "Glad that they all get along again," he commented after he watched his friends happily. "Of course," Star Twinkle said. "We may forget the most important things from time to time, but in the end, we all remember it again. We may be friends but that doesn't mean that we are completely saved from doing mistakes. I guess that is what the Sirens tried to take advantage of that from the very beginning," he then figured. "Don't worry!" Radiant Blast then said with an optimistic tone in his voice. "No matter what they are up to, I know that you will defeat the Sirens this time!" He added with a cheerful grin on his face. Soon, Rarity walked over to Star Twinkle and presented him with the costume that he was supposed to wear now. "Here you go, Star Twinkle," she said while she handed him his costume. Much like the costumes for the girls, which were all very colorful, Star Twinkle's was looking fancy as well. His costume consisted mostly of colors ranging from, yellow, light green and white. For Star Twinkle's taste, it was a little too flashy but he had to admit that it actually looked really good. He also agreed with Applejack, if he and his friends were about to save the world, then they may as well do it with style. The only thing left was to actually save the world now... Later outside... As soon as everyone was fully dressed and ready, the group made haste to the stage. From far away, they could hear the Sirens singing on the stage. The group had to find a place to play, it had to be somewhere where everybody could hear them playing. Obviously, it couldn't be on the stage because the Sirens were on it already, and they most likely did not intend to share it with the Rainbooms. They managed to find a spot on a little hill right behind the audience seats. The group looked over to the stage and saw the performance of the Sirens. The crowd in front of them cheered for them and almost seemed to be in some kind of trance the longer they continued to sing. As usual, Adagio Dazzle was the lead singer while Sonata Dusk and Aria Blaze provided the background music. "Welcome to the show Ah-ah-ah-ah, ah We're here to let you know Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah Our time is now Ah-ah-ah-ah, ah Your time is running out Ah, ah, ah," The longer the group listened to them, the more they wanted to stop them, however, there was one problem that Rainbow Dash pointed out. "How are we supposed to play over them from up here?" The Rainbooms may be in clear sight of everyone but the problem was that the Sirens were on the stage with all the music equipment, which of course, helped them to let everyone hear their music. The Rainbooms had all their instruments with them but without proper equipment, they could not be heard from that hill, especially if the Sirens were playing over them. "Maybe we just have to play really loud?" Radiant Blast suggested, which was, of course, an idea that came out of frustration. But things didn't seem all too helpless. Honking could be heard from behind the Rainbooms. It came from the girl that rescued them before who was parking her car next to them. She then pressed a button and miraculously, the car started to change. It turned from a car to some kind of DJ studio, fully equipped with music speakers which is exactly what the group needed right now. "That should help a lot," Star Twinkle commented after he saw this convenient thing right in front of him. "Then let's go!" Twilight said, prompting everybody to get ready now. Unbeknownst of the actions of the Rainbooms, the Dazzlings continued their song without care, starting to get everyone in the crowd under their control by now. As if that wasn't enough though, a change started to happen to them now. Red waves of magic started to come from them and the three girls levitated above the ground. And just like with the Rainbooms, the Dazzlings began to change their appearance. Their amulets started to glow and they were soon surrounded by the same light. They started to grow ears on their heads, their hair began to get longer and see-through wings appeared on their backs. It seemed as if their power was growing stronger by the second. "Feel the wave of sound As it crashes down You can't turn away We'll make you wanna sta-a-a-ay We will be adored Tell us that you want us We won't be ignored It's time for our reward Now you need us Come and heed us Nothing can stop us now," They continued to sing while already feeling victorious. But ironically, the Rainbooms were starting to sing now, much to the confusion of the three, who just noticed their competition. Star Twinkle and Twilight were doing the lead singing part while the rest of the girls were playing, and Sunset Shimmer and Radiant Blast watched, hoping that this time the counter-spell would work. "Oh-oh, oh-whoa-oh I've got the music in me Oh-oh, oh-whoa-oh Don't need to hear a crowd Cheering out my name I didn't come here seeking Infamy or fame The one and only thing That I am here to bring Is music, is the music Is the music in my soul Gonna break out!" And this time, finally, the magic inside of everyone was released. Ears started to grow on their heads, the hair of the girls got longer and Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy grew wings on their backs. As soon as that happened, Radiant Blast jumped up and down in excitement. "Look! Magic! They did it!" He said towards Sunset Shimmer, who advised him to be quiet again so that he wouldn't interrupt the Rainbooms now. "Set myself free, yeah Let it all go Just let it be, yeah Find the music in your heart Let the music make you start To set yourself apart," The crowd actually took their eyes off from the Dazzlings and looked over to the Rainbooms. The counter-spell started to work and broke everyone out of their trance. But even though the plan of the Sirens seemed to slowly crumble away, they were not intimidated at all. "So the Rainbooms want to turn this into a real Battle of the Bands?" Adagio Dazzle said after she saw this attempt to stop them before a smug smile began to form on her face. "Then let's battle!" She said before she and the other Sirens continued their song, this time focusing their magic directly at the Rainbooms. "What we have in store All we want and more We will break on through Now it's time to finish you!" As they continued their song, the three girls started to release even more magic. Their eyes started to glow in red light and even more, red magic waves were released from them. They were ready to unleash their full power now. Another Change started to happen to them, this time, while their bodies remained immobile, three pony-like creatures emerged right above their heads. There was no doubt that it was the true form of the Sirens. They had an upper-body that strongly reminded the group to some kind of mix of a pony and a dragon. They had hooves, but also scales and fins on their back. Their lower body looked like the backside of a fish like a sea creature. The Rainbooms quickly felt intimidated by this sight and before they knew it, the three Sirens flew right towards them and began their attack. However, it was not like the Rainbooms had no means of defending themselves. "Turn up the music!" Sunset Shimmer said towards the DJ behind the machine. The counter-spell worked with the help of magic, so playing even more intensely was helping them out to protect themselves from the Siren's attack. Every one of the girls released some of their magic and fired them right at the Sirens. So did Star Twinkle and Twilight who both fired at Adagio Dazzle. However, the Siren countered with her own magic and screeched at the two of them. Star Twinkle and Twilight could barely stand after this attack and as if things weren't bad enough, the other two Sirens joined in as well and screeched right at the whole band. Having to deal with all this magic was really hard and the group started to drop down on their knees. Twilight even dropped her microphone in the process, causing it to fly out of reach and right in front of Sunset Shimmer's feet. It almost looked as if the Rainbooms lost. Seeing them in this helpless state was exactly what made the Sirens feel victorious again. "We can't beat them," Star Twinkle said as he was kneeling on the ground defenselessly. Sunset Shimmer picked up the microphone and was about to bring it back to Twilight but Radiant Blast had a better idea and walked over to the machine of the DJ to ask her something. The only reply he got was a positive nod and soon the girl opened some kind of door behind the machine. Radiant Blast walked over there and picked up something before he stood in front of the Rainbooms. He placed a keyboard in front of himself that he then started to play with a serious expression on his face. "What are you doing, Radiant!?" Sunset Shimmer asked in her confusion about Radiant Blast's action. Radiant Blast then explained. "I may not have magic inside of me like the others, but I will try to help in any way I can," he said before he looked over to the Rainbooms and smiled. "Every little thing helps, right?" He said with a grin on his face. Affected by this sudden action, Sunset Shimmer looked at the microphone in her hand formed a determined expression on her face. She took off her jacket and walked right next to Radiant Blast, who started playing after he saw the determination on Sunset shimmer's face, who started to sing at this very moment. "You're never gonna bring me down You're never gonna break this part of me My friends are here to bring me 'round Not singing just for popularity," Seeing how the two of them were about to counterattack right now, and far away from giving up any moment, the Rainbooms started to get on their feet again to finish this all. Star Twinkle and Twilight quickly joined Sunset Shimmer's singing. "We're here to let you know That we won't let it go," The rest of the Rainbooms also got back up on their feet and continued playing, while providing some background singing. "Our music is a bomb and it's about to blow And you can try to fight But we have got the light of Friendship on our side!" In the midst of the song, the Dazzlings started to charge at the Rainbooms, however, they were powerless against the magic that they released and were pushed away from it. A rainbow came flying towards the stage and freed all the people that were under the spell of the Sirens who's human bodies also got hit by the rainbow and made them lose their balance. "Got the music in our hearts We're here to blow this thing apart And together, we will never Be afraid of the dark Here to sing our song out loud Get you dancing with the crowd As the music of our friendship Survives, survives!" Then suddenly, in the middle of the song, A light began to surround Sunset Shimmer and Radiant Blast and levitated them above the ground. The group had a pretty good guess what was happening to them. Both of them started to grow ears on their heads and Sunset Shimmer's hair got longer, just like what happened to the rest of the Rainbooms. The Rainbooms also levitated above the ground by now and all the nine people who were singing now concentrated their magic created a massive rainbow above their heads. "Got the music in our hearts We're here to blow this thing apart And together, we will never Be afraid of the dark Here to sing our song out loud Get you dancing with the crowd As the music of our friendship Survives, survives, survives!" The Sirens were definitely intimidated by that sight but as soon as they saw what was above the heads of the Rainbooms, they knew that they were in big trouble. Above the rainbow was a giant ball of magic, which started to grow wings. Eventually, this ball transformed into a giant Alicorn which shot a magic beam right at the true form of the Sirens, and soon at the three girls on stage, destroying their necklaces as soon as they got hit by that beam. The three Sirens helplessly looked at their broken necklaces. The crowd in front of them was wondering why they stopped their singing and waited confused for them to continue. So they did... "We will be adored Tell us that you want us We won't be ignored It's time for our reward..." Their singing sounded a lot worse all of a sudden. It seemed as if their singing abilities came right from their necklaces and without them, they didn't have any singing talent at all. And of course, because their singing sounded horrible now, the crowd was booing them and threw stuff at the stage. The only thing that was left to do for the Sirens was to leave the stage. They ran away from the angry crowd and escaped for good, leaving the Rainbooms victorious. The only thing that remained where their shattered necklaces on the ground, which Sunset Shimmer picked up for a moment, only to find out that they were completely useless now. Twilight seemed to have figured out what exactly that meant. "Without those pendants and the magic you brought here from Equestria, they're just three harmless teenage girls," she explained. "Which means that they won't be any danger anymore," Star Twinkle figured. The group was just happy that the Sirens were defeated and laughed it all off. However, there was one person who wasn't too happy at this very moment. And that person was Trixie, who just appeared right next to the group. "You may have vanquished the Dazzlings, but you will never have the amazing, show-stopping ability of the Great and Powerful Trixie!" She simply said before she threw a smoke bomb on the ground, causing everyone to cough because of the smoke. Once the smoke settled, Trixie was gone "She's gone!" Pinkie Pie said in shock. "No, she is right over there," Star Twinkle corrected before he pointed towards the exit of the audience seats where Trixie could be found climbing over the fence so that she could vanish. As soon as she was spotted, however, Trixie lost her balance and fell over and landed abruptly on the other side of the fence. "Trixie's okay!" Was the last thing that they could hear from her from the other side. Once the group was left alone again, they discussed some things that happened only a few minutes ago. Rainbow Dash pointed out that Sunset Shimmer and Radiant Blast did very well in the fight against the Sirens and offered them to provide some backup vocals. Radiant Blast happily agreed to that and Sunset Shimmer picked up a guitar and played on it as a response, much to everyone's surprise. "I also play guitar," she then said with a smile on her face after showing off her skills with the guitar. Rainbow Dash was actually quite shocked to see some competition that could replace her as a lead guitarist but she decided to stay cool. "We'll see," she casually said, much to everyone's amusement who all saw right through her poker face. After that, the group attended to the crowd who was cheering on them after this performance. It was well deserved and it felt good to be cheered instead of getting booed at, like before. The next day... Before they knew it, the day had come where Star Twinkle, Twilight, and Spike had to return to Equestria. The whole group met in front of the portal and said their goodbyes. "Sure wish you could stay longer," Applejack said in the name of everyone who was present. But unfortunately, that was not so easy for Twilight. "Me too," Twilight replied. "But I have responsibilities in Equestria that I have to get back to. Its citizens need me," Luckily there was one positive about the whole situation. "But now we can go through the portal whenever we need to. This isn't goodbye. It's just goodbye 'til next time," she explained happily. "Which hopefully is not when this world is in danger again," Star Twinkle added after having clearly enough of fighting dangers in this world. "Yeah," Twilight replied with a smile on her face before she turned towards Spike and looked back at Star Twinkle again. "You two ready?" Both Star Twinkle and Spike nodded in response, signaling her that they were both ready to go through the portal again. Shortly after, they walked through it and were back on the other side again, leaving only the seven members of the Rainbooms. "And now, they are gone," Radiant Blast said after the three vanished before their eyes. "Yep, I already miss them," Sunset Shimmer added. And with that, life at Canterlot High returned to normal again. At least in some ways. After the Battle of the Bands, Sunset Shimmer's reputation finally had the change that she wanted. The students of the school accepted her and she began to build friendships with them. Radiant Blast liked how this change finally came. Seeing how everyone started to see what Radiant Blast saw in her, made him really happy. A few days later, at the stage where the Battle of the Bands took place, the Rainbooms met to practice again. Before that, however, Sunset Shimmer sat on the ground and decided to write to Twilight with the diary that she used before. "Dear Princess Twilight, Missing you guys already, and I hope you'll be back soon. Things are definitely looking up for me here at Canterlot High. But I know I still have a lot to learn about friendship. Luckily, I have good friends to help me out with that. Hope you don't mind if I write to you for advice when I need it, Your friend, Sunset Shimmer," Radiant Blast patiently waited for her to finish her message. After she was done, Radiant Blast helped her up and the two of them looked over to the rest of their friends who also patiently waited for their two newest members to join them on their practice. "You seem a lot happier than before," Radiant Blast said out of nowhere, causing Sunset Shimmer to feel a little embarrassed. "Thanks to you and the others," she shared with a smile on her face as she and Radiant Blast walked towards the others. Radiant Blast was happy to hear that. "Hey, you did your part as well," he pointed out. "Remember? Don't focus too much on the past and instead look at what is in front of you," "Yeah," Sunset Shimmer said happily while she looked at the rest of her friends. "You're right," The thing that was right in front of her now, were her friends, who were there for her whenever she needed help. And she really appreciated that. Not to mention that everyone in the school slowly started to accept her. All thanks to Radiant Blast, Princess Twilight and the rest of her friends who not only stopped her back then but also forgave her for what she did in the past. If it wouldn't be for that, then things wouldn't be as they were now. But just like Radiant Blast said, she had to focus what was in front of her... Her friends... To be continued... > 7. Epilogue > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was only an hour after the events at Canterlot High, where the Rainbooms stopped the Sirens from taking over the whole school with their magic. While the Rainbooms were probably celebrating their victory now, the Sirens were anything but happy about the outcome of their plan and walked aimlessly through the streets filled with anger. "I can't believe this!" Adagio Dazzle said angrily while she raised her arms in the air. "Calm down," Aria Blaze said as she put her hands on Adagio. "Calm Down!?" Adagio Dazzle replied as she slapped the hand of Aria Blaze away. "How am I supposed to calm down!? Our necklaces were broken by those stupid Rainbooms! We won't be able to control anyone with our singing anymore!" She exclaimed without care that everyone around her would hear her. Sonata Dusk tipped her chin. "What's so bad about that?" She then asked confused. "I mean, we kinda got around just fine without most of our magic since we came here," she pointed out. Hearing that, made Adagio Dazzle clench her teeth in anger. However, before she could say anything to Sonata Dusk, Aria Blaze took over. "Listen, we tried to get everything but lost everything in the process so let's just deal with it. It's just like you said, our necklaces are gone and we can't use any magic so let's just not think about it okay," she suggested, even though it was highly visible that she didn't like saying that. Adagio Dazzle rubbed her eyes. "Fine..." She just said, accepting the harsh truth. "But I swear that those Rain-losers will pay for this someday," she said while she crossed her arms. "Yeah, stupid Rainbooms," Aria Blaze agreed on. Sonata Dusk seemed to be the only one who didn't seem to hold any grudge against the Rainbooms. "They seemed nice to me," she said much to the confusion of everyone. "I mean, am I the only one who thought that the one guy with the cap was kinda cute?" She asked with a smile on her face. This question was not commented on by the other two girls, who simply rolled their eyes. "Let's go home," Adagio Dazzle then said. "Okay!" Sonata Dusk replied happily. "You know since we can't control anyone with our magic anymore, we probably need some kind of job to get around. I heard that one Taco Shop was looking for employees so-" "Not now, Sonata!" Adagio Dazzle said annoyed, deciding to ignore Sonata Dusk's words for now. The three girls continued to be on their way. As if things weren't bad enough for them, it also started to lightly rain, something that they really could have live without now. But that was actually the least of their worries now. One person walked past the three girls, someone wearing gray pants and a gray jacket with a hood that was hiding the person's face. This person also held a bag of groceries in its hand, which accidentally happened to hit Aria Blaze on her legs. "Hey! Watch where you're going, will you!?" She said angrily after this accident. It took Adagio Dazzle to make her calm down and advise her that it wasn't worth getting mad about that. The person who walked past the three girls stood still and turned around for a moment after those words. "Sorry," the person apologized in a male voice, however, the three girls did not hear him at all and continued to walk away in a bad mood. The boy figured that going up to them while they were angry like this, would only make the situation worse, so he just decided to continue being on his way. Later... It wasn't long after that when the boy arrived home. He had already put away the stuff that he bought without changing his clothes yet and went to his bedroom. He turned the lights on and walked inside. "I'm home, Comet!" He said before he removed his hood, revealing his light green skin, his dark green star-shaped hair, and his light green eyes. His words were directed at his pet Gold Fish, who was swimming motionless in a fishbowl on a drawer next to his bed. The boy took off his gray jacket and revealed a white shirt beneath it which had six different colored stars on it, a red, an orange, a yellow, a light blue, a dark blue and a purple one. "Don't worry, I didn't forget your food," he said with a smile before he placed some fish food next to Comet's bowl and laid down on his bed to get more comfortable. "Sure wish that it didn't rain, just after I decided to do some last-minute shopping," he complained with a bored expression on his face. Suddenly, a ringing could be heard, coming from the boy's pockets. It was his phone, which he took out confused before he looked at it. "Who could that be at a time like that?" He wondered before he accepted the call. "Hello?" He obviously asked to see who was calling him. ... "Oh, it's you, ... Where I was? I did some grocery shopping just now, sorry. ... You are in school!? ... You want me to come over? Now!? But it's raining and it's also pretty late so- ... No...I am not busy with anything but... ... Sigh...alright...I'll come...but just so that I can pick you up...It's late you should go home too... ... Yeah, see you," After the boy hung up again, he lifted himself back up but not without releasing a big sigh after a call like this. "Well, Comet looks like as if I still have to go somewhere," he said towards his pet Gold Fish. Comet didn't respond and was swimming motionlessly in the middle of the bowl with wide-open eyes... The boy grabbed the jacket that he just took off a minute ago and left the room. "Later," he said before he turned off the light in the room and closed the door so that he could be on his way to meet up with the person who called him. Later... The boy made his way through the dark hallways of his school. The person who called him was a good friend of his, who decided to stay a little longer in school because of some kind of important business. He didn't feel right walking through the dark hallways since it made him feel as if he was in some kind of horror movie. He couldn't even imagine how his friend could stay in this place for so long. Of course, he knew exactly where his friend was at and made his way right to one certain room of the school. Through a little glass window, he could still see light from inside the room. When the boy opened the room, his legs were already greeted by someone. It was a little purple dog who began to scratch his legs. The boy chuckled. "Looks like I am not the only one who has to stay up late, huh?" He said before he kneed down to pet the little dog. On the other side of the room, the boy already saw his friend. It was a girl wearing a white lab coat, and black glasses. It was a girl with light purple skin, dark blue hair with multiple purple and pink colored streaks and violet eyes. "Star Twinkle! You're here!" She said happily as soon as she saw her friend entering the room. Star Twinkle shook his head. "Twilight, don't you think you stayed here long enough? I know our principal gave you permission to enter the school whenever you want to but I think there are much better ways to spend your weekends," he advised. But Twilight disagreed. "I couldn't possibly go home today! There was way too much going on!" She explained in her excitement. "Remember a while ago? I picked up some strange signals...something that almost seemed out of this world!" "Yeah?" Star Twinkle replied before he picked a chair to sit on because he figured that he would stay a little longer now. "Well, you won't believe it but today I got almost the exact same signal! It was even bigger than before!" Twilight explained before she turned her head around to look at a board on the wall, which had several notes and pictures of Canterlot High on it. "And you won't believe where it came from again," Star Twinkle's attention was suddenly peaked and he raised his head. "Canterlot High?" He figured to which Twilight replied with a nod. "One signal coming from this school would have maybe been a coincidence but in the last days, there were multiple small signals and today this really big one again!" She said while she used her arms to practically explain how big it was. "I'm telling you, there is something going on in this school! Something...out of this world," she said before she rubbed her chin and focused her sight on the board in front of her. After a rather awkward silence, Twilight turned around again and saw Star Twinkle with one of his arms leaning on a nearby table and an expression on his face that Twilight couldn't quite identify. She figured that this stuff all bored Star Twinkle so she got a little embarrassed. "You don't believe me?" She asked while she rubbed her arm almost in embarrassment. "Twilight, I don't know as much about this stuff like you do but I will support you in any way possible," he said with a smile on his face, making Twilight form a smile on her face after hearing that. "But! It's late and you should go home. Knowing you, you probably stayed here all day without eating properly or taking a break," "But-" "No buts!" Star Twinkle interrupted, like a mother that was looking over her kids. He then walked up to her and put his hands on her shoulder. "Listen, whatever happened today in Canterlot High, it's gone now, right?" "Well actually, there is some small signal that is still coming from the school," Twilight replied "Right. But all of that can wait a little more, right? I mean it's not like we don't have any other things to take care of in this school right now. So let's just focus on one thing after another without overworking ourselves, okay?" After listening to those words, Twilight actually realized how exhausted she was and had to agree with what Star Twinkle told her, especially the last words that he added. "Seeing how you work so much actually worries me a little," he simply said, which was enough for Twilight to finally agree. "Okay," she then said with a nod, which caused her glasses to slip down to her nose, causing her to lift them up shortly after. "Let's go home, Spike," she then said towards her dog, who also seemed to be happy that he can finally go home. After finally packing all her things, Twilight, Star Twinkle, and Spike walked towards the entrance of their school to both go home. While walking through the dark hallways, Twilight got one more thing off from her heart. "Thanks for always looking after me, Star Twinkle," Twilight said as she walked through the hallways next to Star Twinkle. "I don't really make things easy for you, am I? Having a friend like me must be really exhausting," Star Twinkle laughed after hearing those words. "Don't be ridiculous. Even if that would be true, you are the only friend that I have to look after so it really wouldn't be that bad. I am really glad that I can call you my friend," Twilight happily smiled after hearing those words from her only friend as well. "Yes...me too," she replied quietly as she and Star Twinkle both walked out of the school and to go home. Still, the signals that Twilight got from Canterlot High were still on her mind and she swore herself that one day she would find out what it was all about. One day...