Sunset Shimmer looked at her phone and noted the time. With a click of her tongue, she pocketed her phone and turned to look at her friends. The room was a mix of both curiosity and boredom. After all, they’ve been waiting for what seemed like fifteen minutes, yet both Vinyl Scratch and Applejack haven’t appeared yet.

“Where are they?” she silently mused to no one in particular.

After she recounted the tale of Morpheus based on Twilight’s letter, Sunset brought all of her new friends to the band room; or as Pinkie calls it, “The Rainbooms HQ”. A few text messages from Sunset later, and all the members of the Rainbooms were present, save for the two absentees.

She could understand Vinyl being late – No doubt she was caught by Principal Celestia for listening to her headphones in the halls again. But Applejack? No way. She was the most dependable and honest people Sunset knew. If anything came up, no doubt Applejack would have told them about it. The thought of the two girls being attacked by Morpheus came to Sunset’s mind, making her shudder in fear.

There was no way Morpheus followed them here, right?

She quickly shook her head in denial. No, she was just being pessimistic. Maybe the girls’ phones just ran out of battery, or the teachers confiscated them because they used it in class. There was obviously a perfectly acceptable explanation for all this weirdness. Why should she instantly go to the worst possible thing without even considering them?

Maybe it was because deep down, Sunset knew that her history with these kinds of events were never good.

As Sunset sat there wondering about what their next course of action should be, she felt a hand wrap itself around her shoulders. She turned around to see Rarity, smiling at her. Sunset tried to get her arm off of her, but Rarity only held on to her tighter,

“Dear, whatever are you doing over here?” she asked, doing one of her best male-dominating pouts “Everyone’s over there with our new friends, why not join us?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“True, true,” Rarity nodded, though she still kept up her haughty attitude “Although, I only came here because you looked, what word am I looking for… hmm… worried. Yes, worried. Would it trouble you if I asked just what it is that is causing you such distress?”

Sunset rolled her eyes at Rarity’s antics as she showed small hints of a smile “Oh, you know exactly why I’m worried. Don’t you deny it.”

The seamstress let out a small sigh, no longer able to hold up the charade. She glanced at her own cellphone, her brow furrowing in worry. When Sunset glanced at the phone’s screen, she noted the seventeen failed calls and twelve unsent text messages. Looks like she wasn’t the only one worrying about the situation.

“It’s just not like Applejack to not call,” Rarity finally said as she typed out a new message “If it was Rainbow Dash, then I wouldn’t mind. After all, she’s Rainbow Dash. But Applejack? Applejack?! My, I never would have dreamed that I’d see the day that she made us worried!”

“Good to know that I’m not the only one that thinks that!” Sunset chuckled “Don’t forget, Vinyl’s late, too. Think she got caught by Principal Celestia?”

“As much as I’d like to agree with you, I highly doubt Principal Celestia would actually stop her from helping us save the multiverse,” answered Rarity “She’s a teacher, but she isn’t crazy.”

It took a moment before Rarity finally understood the implications of what she had said, but by then it was far too late. Sunset took out her phone and gripped it tighter, trying to call her two friends in dismay. Thinking quickly, Rarity hugged Sunset even tighter, smiling weakly as she tried to comfort her friend.

“Don’t worry, they’re fine,” she said calmingly, rubbing Sunset’s back soothingly “They’re just running late, is all. I’m sure that they’ll be running through those doors any second now. Then we can start trying to send your friends home, okay, dear?”

Sunset said nothing. She only continued fruitlessly dialling Applejack and Vinyl Scratch’s numbers, praying that they would pick up soon.

Elsewhere in the room, Shade and Quickfix were both conversing with their new inter-dimensional friends. Although, Quickfix was the main attraction of the two. Shade was left sitting on the side, sipping on the soda that Pinkie Pie had brought to the room. Fluttershy was the only ones who were listening to his stories.

But then again, Quickfix was an insane mad scientist. Of course everyone else would be drawn to her.

“-And then Sunset shot another fireball at me. Burned me so bad that I had to stay in a hospital for about a month. Now that I think about it, I think that’s when Redheart started booking that room for me.”

“Oh my!” Fluttershy gasped “That sounds awful! I do hope that she apologised after all that. It didn’t even sound like it was your fault!”

Shade waved her dismissively, laughing in the process “Fluttershy, this is Sunset Shimmer we’re talking about, daughter of Princess Celestia and Bearer of the Element of Magic. Apologising is beneath her.”

*Gasp*

“But hey, at least Pizzelle gave me free food for the whole month! Even Coco came to visit, too. She drew on my casts!” Shade suddenly perked up and waved his cup around “Do you know just how good she is at drawing?! Man, I sure wished I got to keep them. But then again, I don’t really have a place to keep ‘em. Pretty sure the Apple Family wouldn’t want their barn to be filled with casts.”

Fluttershy smiled at Shade’s sudden burst of joy. He’s told her a lot of stories, and each one was even worse than the last. It was nice to know that even the little things in life made him this happy. With a life as bad as his, he needed all the joy he could get. Still, she couldn’t help but feel a bit worried about him.

“You know, you only ever tell stories about the other Elements of Harmony,” Fluttershy suddenly noted “Don’t you have any guy friends as well?”

“Well, a few of ‘em, I guess,” Shade scratched his chin and pondered the thought for a moment “I hang out with a few guys from the local bar a few times, and sometimes Ghoul hangs out with us, but mostly it’s just me and the girls. Wait…”

An uncomfortable silence hung between the two as Shade started to understand the implications of what he just said.

“… Does this mean that I actually had a harem all this time?!” he suddenly shouted, slamming his cup onto the table

“Oh, Shade…”

“And to think, I actually thought that I lost my harem last night! But it turns out that I had them all along! Thank you so much Flutters! Say, would you like to be another official member of my harem? There’s always room for one more!”

She shook her head in reply, suppressing her laughter as well. At least Shade had another happy memory now, even if it was all a delusion on his behalf.

“Come on, it’ll be fun! Wait, what do I do with a ha- ARGH!”

Graar!

A metal creature the size of a fist suddenly leapt onto Shade’s face, roaring and jumping around freely. Fluttershy panicked as she tried to grab the little metal monster but it was too fast. Every time she tried to grab it, it merely jumped away and onto another part of Shade’s body, each time making him gasp in pain.

“Whoops, sorry ‘boot tha’, Shade!”

Quickfix walked up to Shade and held out her palm. The little metal creature jumped into it willingly before curling up into a ball. She scratched the metal ball like someone would scratch a kitten. If you listen carefully, you might even hear her making baby noises at it as if it were her pet.

“Who’s a good lil’ Dino? Ye are. Yes, ye are!”

“What the actual hell, Quickfix?!” Shade shouted, getting off of the floor “Urgh, you spilled soda all over my clothes. How do I even clean this thing?”

“Ye could take it off,” Quickfix answered matter-of-factly as she placed her invention into her satchel “Not like ye ever wore clothes in the first place. Well, except for that cloak a yer’s, anyway.”

“Didn’t Sunset say that wearing clothes is ‘ethical’ or something?” Shade took off his black hoodie, revealing a light blue t-shirt underneath it “Well, it’s not like we’re keeping the clothes when we go back, anyway.”

“THAT WAS SO AWESOME!” Pinkie Pie bounced in front of them, giggling and squealing like a little girl “What else did you bring, huh? Huh? Ooh, I bet it’s some sort of cool raygun! Or maybe it’s a collapsible spear! Wait, wait, wait, don’t tell me. It’s a squirrel mech, isn’t it?!”

“Ah wish ah could’ve brought mah squirrel mech, but it was kinda too big for mah saddle,” sighed Quickfix “Maybe ah could invent a collapsible squirrel mech with rayguns an’ spears?”

“YES! All my yes!!”

“Send us a picture if you finish it!” Rainbow Dash ran up to them, laughing “Wait, other dimension, right. Darn it!”

“INTER-DIMENSIONAL CELLPHONE!” Pinkie squealed “Make a cellphone that can call people from other dimensions!”

“But what if two people from different dimensions have the same number?” Rainbow Dash asked

“Ah’ll fix up the kinks later,” Quickfix brushed the thought aside. She’ll get to it when she gets to it.

The three girls laughed, thinking up of even more things to add to the new inter-dimensional laser shooting, spear wielding squirrel mecha cellphone. Redheart, on the other hand, walked past them and checked up on Shade. Even if she was starting to accept that he was pretty much immune to pain now, she was still the nurse’s aide. She wasn’t going to leave him behind.

“We need to find a way to stop you from getting hurt so much,” she sighed, noting that there were no bruise marks on her body “It’s either that, or you should start hanging out with different people.”

“Hey, the universe hates me. Who am I to judge?” Shade laughed “As long as I don’t die any time soon, I should be fine, right?”

“Please don’t say that,” squeaked Fluttershy, tightening her grip on her hair “Nobody would be happy if you died, you know.”

“Yeah, like I’ll even get to kill myself right. I’ll probably trip on a banana peel on my way and land myself in the hospital. Again.”

After confirming that he wasn’t harmed, Shade turned his attention to Sunset and Rarity. They separated themselves from the conversation for quite a while, and Shade was starting to wonder just what they were doing. He noticed that Sunset was sweating bullets, tapping on her phone like crazy while Rarity wrapped a comforting hand around her. A pang of guilt started to swell in his chest.

Excusing himself from the two pink-haired girls, Shade walked towards Sunset and Rarity. Even if this was a different Sunset, he still didn’t like seeing her worried.

“Hey,” he said flatly, waving to the girls in question “Do we have a problem or something?”

“It’s just… Well, I…” Sunset stammered as she tried to find the best thing to say “I don’t know…”

Shade sat on the stage that the girls were leaning on and crossed his arms. He was quite a patient pony. With his luck, he needed to be as patient as he could get. It wouldn’t mind him that much if Sunset wanted to skirt around the topic for a bit more.

“Didn’t you say that there were supposed to be two other girls?” he added

Sunset merely looked at her phone in dismay. Rarity continued patting her back and smiled weakly.

“Well, they apparently came across some… difficulties, if I should say so myself.” Rarity said on Sunset’s behalf “We’re not sure if they could make it in time.”

“Then we should jus’ get started,” Quickfix joined the conversation, hands still twiddling inside her satchel “Ye said that ye could channel magic from playing music, right? Well, s’not like ye’ll need all the members of the band, right? What do they even play?”

“Bass and mixer,” Sunset sighed

“… Does anyone even notice if the bassist isn’t there?” Shade asked, quickly getting a slap on the face courtesy of Quickfix “OW!”

“S’much as ah’d like to disagree, Shade’s right,” Quickfix stuffed the Slapper 9000 back into her satchel “C’mon, just one practise song or somethin’?”

The two eldest members of the group looked at each other, and then back to the dimension travellers. It was worth a try, and they really don’t have the time to wait for Applejack and Vinyl Scratch for much longer. If worse comes to worst, at least Shade and Quickfix could go back to their world and try to fix the whole mess before anyone else gets hurt.

“I don’t see why not,” Rarity finally agreed as she picked up her keytar “We’ll play one song. If that doesn’t send them back, then we’ll go look for Applejack and Vinyl. Is that okay with you, Sunset?”

“Sure, I guess,” Sunset jumped off the stage and walked to her other friends “Hey guys, we’re gonna start playing now!”

“Took you long enough!” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes “I thought you just wanted to skip school today. Although, that isn’t such a bad idea…”

“Dashie, don’t you think your tardy record is bad enough?” Fluttershy reminded her while twirling her tambourine around “I wouldn’t want you to get suspended now,”

“Ugh, fine, mom.”

Rainbow jacked in her electric guitar to the amplifier, strumming a few chords to test them out. When she felt that they were good enough, she started to play a quick guitar solo, feeling the magic flow through her body like a nice cool drink on a hot summer’s day. She could feel the pony ears and wings slowly willing into existence. Her hair grew twice as long, simulating the pony tail that she was supposed to have. As soon as she stopped, the new appendages disappeared into nothingness.

“Oh yeah! Still got it!” she shouted, finishing with a heavy chord “So, what’re we gonna play? Awesome As I Wanna Be?”

“We play that song all the time!” Sunset groaned “Can’t we play something else?”

“Like what, Better Than Ever?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow “Or maybe you wanna go all out and sing Shine Like Rainbows instead?”

“Are you guys really going to start arguing over what song you want to play?” Redheart shook her head in despair “I don’t think that’s really the biggest issue we have here.”

“Yeah!” Pinkie’s voice echoed through the room before she started playing a few beats on the drums “I thought we got past that after the whole Dazzlings episode. Wait, Morpheus isn’t secretly a Siren, is he?!”

“I highly doubt that,” Rarity got into her spot and pressed a few keys “They told me that they were the only Sirens around, and I take their word on it.”

“But you forget, Sirens are part dolphin! And you can never trust dolphins. Right, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy nodded enthusiastically, happy that someone else has taken an interest in her distrust of dolphins. She was one step closer into proving that dolphins weren’t the cute adorable little angels that people made them out to be, and were really heartless, cruel monsters that ruin other animals’ lives with their cruel behaviours!

“Ready guys?” Rainbow called, earning a nod from everyone in the room “And a one, and a two, and a one, two, three, fo-”

The band room door suddenly burst open, revealing a panting Applejack carrying an unconscious Vinyl Scratch. The group rushed towards them, their instruments lay forgotten on the ground. Redheart took out a medical kit she had brought and started checking the two for any injuries. Strangely enough, the two of them didn’t have any physical ailments.

“What happened?!” Sunset shouted as she helped lift Vinyl to the stage

“It... It was a… a… Ah dunno, monster or… or somethin’,” Applejack said in between pants “Smoke an’ mist, everywhere… Everybody’s droppin’ like flies!”

“Mist?” Quickfix asked in confirmation, raising an eyebrow “Ah don’t like where this is headin’,”

She was already opening up her satchel, looking for a good weapon she could use. But the problem was, what could she use to attack something that she couldn’t touch? She really regretted not bringing her upgraded vacuum cleaner. Maybe she could have had some success with that.

“Okay, we need a battle plan,” Dash pumped her fists “Everybody, get your instruments. We could blast Quickfix and Shade later. Right now, we’re aiming our magic at that smoke monster!”

“Morpheus,” Fluttershy reminded her

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. C’mon, guys. Chop chop!”

Seeing as there was nothing else for them to do, the group all scampered around to reach their respective instruments. Even Applejack tried to shake off her fatigue as she limped towards her bass with Rarity’s assistance. The room was a flurry of activity and movement.

Shade stood to the side, not sure what his role in the whole event was. Sunset and the Rainbooms were already at their instruments, only waiting for the enemy to appear. Redheart was busy trying to wake Vinyl up. Even Quickfix was busy, combining any and all weapons that she had in her disposal as she muttered a prayer to Deus Machina. Swallowing a wad of saliva, Shade took out his Handy Dandy Poking Stick™ and peeked out the door. However, he instantly regretted that decision.

“Damn…”

The whole school was filled with the same thick mist that had attacked them back in Equestria. He could already feel himself getting drowsier just looking at it, but Shade held on. He turned back to the group, all of which had their battle faces on.

“Should… Should I open the door?” his face was sweating buckets

“Do it,” Dash ordered

Praying to Celestia for safety, Shade pulled the double doors open. The room was quickly engulfed in mist, prompting the Rainbooms to start playing their instruments. As they played, a rainbow of colour surrounded their bodies, transforming them into their pony-hybrid forms and forming a protective field around the whole room.

Quickfix wiped the sweat off her brow, finally finished with her invention. She grabbed the bottle of soda that Pinkie had brought and emptied its contents into a small hatch. Once the bottle was empty, she raised the laser gun-esque weapon into the sky, aiming for anything moving.

“C’mon out, ye lil’ wanker!” Quickfix shouted to the heavens “Ah know ye’r in there somewhere!”

“So we meet again, my little lamb…”

A wave of fear chilled everyone to their bones, almost making the Rainbooms stop playing. Shrugging off the coldness, they started playing even louder. With a command from Sunset Shimmer, they played a loud chord which engulfed the room with rainbow-coloured light. When the light finally faded, they noticed that the mist was still there.

“Oh, silly lambs…” Morpheus’ chilling laugh echoed throughout the room “You would need much more than that to kill a God. Relax, surrender. It is futile to continue trying. Join all your friends in my land of slumber, and perhaps you too shall find peace.”

“Hogwash!”

Quickfix fired her gun at the mist, spraying acidic soda all throughout the room. Morpheus merely laughed as it moved the mist around, dodging the shots as if they were butterfly kisses. A curse escaped Quickfix’s mouth as she cocks the gun and aims once more, waiting for another opportunity.

Just as she was about to fire, Quickfix noticed a small spherical ball roll out of her satchel. She had no memory of placing this item in the bag, yet she wasn’t one to question things. It might have fallen in while she was packing or something. Grabbing the sphere, she easily identified the item as a grenade – one of the items that she had recently invented.

Morpheus’ laugh was starting to get to her nerves, and the Rainbooms as well were unable to counter the dream god’s attack. With no second thoughts, she pulled the trigger and threw it towards the mist. Seconds later, the bomb exploded with a spray of light and gunpowder, blinding everyone and creating an explosion so loud it shook the entire building.

In a fit of coughing, Redheart was the first that noticed that something was off. The music that everyone was just playing had… stopped. She cursed Quickfix, thinking that the blast was far too powerful for them to handle. When the dust was clear, she noticed that the Rainbooms were all on the floor, unconscious.

“Quickfix!” Shade shouted through the chaos “What the hell?!”

“Ah was… *cough* hopin’ that it’d work…”

“Poor, lost lamb. Your attempts at helping have only caused more suffering for your dear friends… All this destruction, and it is all your fault.”

“No… no…! Ah’m not listenin’ ta ye!” Quickfix shouted, firing her weapon at the air “Tis all yer fault! None a this woulda happened if ye never showed up!”

“Ah, yes, but remember this. I did not cause your friends any harm. You yourself did that. Look around you, young lamb. Look at all that you have done. Do you still think yourself as a hero?”

Against her better judgement, Quickfix turned to look around her. The band room was a mess. Debris was scattered everywhere, and the musical instruments were destroyed. The Rainbooms were dusting themselves off, some were even unconscious.

“No…” she muttered, lowering her weapon “Ah… It’s not me fault. It’s not me fault!”

“Quickfix!”

The girl cocked her head around. Shade was standing before her, covered in dust and grime. Guilt ran through Quickfix as she saw her assistant in such a terrible state. Tears started to stream down her face as she finally saw what her chaotic actions had lead to.

“Quickfix, calm down!” Shade grabbed the girl by her shoulders and shook her out of her shock “We’ll handle this later, okay?! Don’t let that asshole get to you. We need to finish him up first!”

“Shade…”

Letting go of Quickfix, Shade reached for the girl’s satchel and passed it to her. The mist was getting thicker, and both of them were quickly losing consciousness. If they didn’t finish this fast, then they’ll fall victim to Morpheus as well. A huge grin graced Shade’s face before he keeled over, falling face first onto the ground.

“Shade!”

Quickfix kneeled down to help him up, but soon found it difficult to stand up herself. Her energy was quickly draining, and soon Morpheus will emerge victorious. She couldn’t help but blame herself for causing this much damage. If only she didn’t throw that grenade just now!

Two other people kneeled beside Quickfix, and she quickly identified them as Redheart and Sunset. The former was already treating Shade with her medical kit, while the latter was strumming her guitar with all the energy that she had left.

“We can’t hold on for much longer…” Sunset coughed “I’m gonna try sending us back to your world…!”

“Hurry!” Quickfix answered forcefully, holding on tightly to Shade’s hand

Sunset nodded, putting her heart into playing the guitar. The rainbow surrounded the group, creating a force field that repelled Morpheus away. As the light shone even brighter, almost filling their entire vision with white, Sunset looked at her friends all spread out across the room, unconscious.

“I’m sorry…” a single tear streaked down her face “I’m sorry…!”

The group felt their bodies slowly being lifted away, growing lighter and lighter by the second. And then, they were gone.

Author's Notes:

Okay, this chapter is a bit... dark. But hey, the story is already reaching its end soon. With everything they have at stake now, I just can't find anywhere to place the comedy. I am a disgrace to the Comedy tag!

Sorry this chapter was late, by the way. I posted a blog post about my excuse, if you're interested.