“Oh-my-gosh, oh-my-gosh...” Rainbow Dash flicked through her phone with a practiced thumb, using the other hand to balance her lunch tray and drink. Repeating the mantra and grinning from ear to ear, she slid the food onto the Rainboom’s table and stopped mid-‘gosh’ to announce her find. “GameStar gave Tirek’s Revenge a ten. They never give any game a ten!”

Twilight, of course, was ahead in the data collection. She raised her own phone, smirking behind her glasses. “Gamestation Monthly gave it a score of 100%. So did Wintendo Power, and Nerd City rated it five out of five. Everyone says it’s the first overhyped game to be so good it was underhyped.”

Rarity sipped at her juice box, then set it down with her contribution. “Did you know there is not a single copy left for sale within fifty miles of us? I did a netsearch. I looked at auction websites too, and oh, my! Much as I relish the chance to play with you all, three-hundred dollars was rather tempting.”

“Early bird gets the worm.” Sunset Shimmer popped a grape into her mouth, crushing it as she talked. “Speaking of which, thanks for letting me jump on your pre-order, Pinkie.”

Pinkie gave her a thumbs-up. “No prob-on-the-cob! I don’t even like video games, but I loved playing the last one with you.”

“Same here,” Fluttershy mumbled, just loud enough to be heard. She was smiling, too. “Rise of Tirek was fun, but with a max of four players I felt like we had to pick some friends over others. With this new one we can all play together.”

Rarity examined her nails and hummed a little, nodding to Fluttershy’s words. “Indeed. Even ‘casuals’ like us can get into it, and I think it will form a nice spot in our little circle. We can play and chat for an hour or so on days when there’s no time to hang out in-person.”

“We should start planning our roles now.” Twilight adjusted her glasses, eyes closed with a satisfied grin. “I, of course, will be the calculator. Big damage to monsters with prime-number hit points, and they get a spell that fully restores everyone at one-ninth of their health. Easy work for a whiz like me.”

Sunset chuckled, half-embarrassed by her choice. “I’m rolling dark elf. Spikes, leather, and wild hair.”

“Then we shall be rivals, dear!” Rarity scoffed into her hand with mock arrogance. “For I adore the high elf. Those majestic locks, and piercing eyes! So serious in the trailer as he looks to Tirek’s rise and knows he must once more don his bright helm in the defense of peace. And those beautiful robes… oh, darlings, I’ve already selected my Halloween costume.”

“Dragon mage!” Pinkie cheered. “I mean, she can turn into a dragon! How cool is that?”

Fluttershy fidgeted with her straw. “I like the druid. She’s pretty, and she has a cute wolf. Um, and I’ve read you don’t need to be very good at games to play her, because her role is to help her friends. I like the idea of doing that.”

“And I can’t decide!” Rainbow threw her arms into the air. “The thief looks so cool. But the monk is all, ‘HI-YA!’ with his legs, and that’s totally me. And the dark knight is so edgy and sweet. But we’ll need a tank, you know? Someone to protect the others. The paladin is kind of cool, I guess. I’ll play him if I have to, but… oh, wait. What are you thinking, Applejack?”

Silence answered her. Six heads turned to the plain, freckled girl on the last seat of the table. Her own green eyes looked to the far wall, glazed and distant as the mouth beneath chewed slowly on an apple.

“Yo, AJ!” Rainbow called. When that got no response, she clapped her palms. “Earth to AJ.”

The green eyes blinked and focused. Applejack swallowed, following it with a sheepish grin. “Sorry. You were saying?”

“Tirek’s Revenge,” Rainbow said, the name alone drawing smiles from the others. “What class will you play?”

The farm girl picked at her white button-down shirt, chuckling weakly. “Um… not sure. When are y’all thinking of starting?”

They had made no plans, but every other head nodded with Rainbow’s announcement. “Tonight. We’re going to lock ourselves in our computer rooms on a Friday evening like losers and play this puppy until our parents force us to go to bed.”

“Aw, nuts.” Applejack gave an easy laugh and waved her down. “My family’s got plans. You girls have fun.”

“We could wait for you,” Fluttershy offered, but again came the friendly wave.

“Nah. Y’all girls are happier than a fox in a hen house with this thing. Go and have fun.”

Applejack’s smile remained as the conversation blew on from there. The girls tapped on phones around her, reading out loud from reviews and re-watching the trailers while Rainbow rattled off more ideas for her role.

A peach-colored finger picked idly at faded jeans, and Applejack smiled on.

The smile made it through lunch, and then the next few periods as the world filled her senses with Tirek’s Revenge. Applejack had never even watched the trailer, but heard it blare from phones enough times to know every line. Students whispered about the game in class, with some even asking her opinion on a role or tactic. And every time she crossed paths with the girls, it was the same. “Have you settled on a character?” “You sure you don’t want us to wait?” Fluttershy showed off her fan art, Rarity insisted she would make a costume of whatever class Applejack chose, and Rainbow talked, talked, talked.

Only Sunset seemed to catch Applejack’s declining mood. She questioned, but Applejack rebuffed her with a smile. This was too silly – too stupid, too petty – to waste Sunset’s time on. Good egg that she was, Sunset didn’t press the matter. Applejack kept it all to herself when the suppressed thoughts boiled up in the middle of tenth period.

“Sixty dollars for a dang video game. Who in the Sam Hell can afford that?”

Dad used to call them, “weevil thoughts.” Nasty, niggling little bastards who dug in and bred, with one leading to another no matter how much you tried to stamp them out.

Applejack’s loping, lanky trod turned to a stomp. The smile morphed into a scowl, and the weevils multiplied. “Suburban kids, that’s who. And how much more for a computer that can run it? Twi probably built her own. The rest just asked their moms. Even Sunset’s got Celestia now, and so what if their parents made them chip in? A little time at the mall or burger joint, and boom. Sixty bucks they got nothing better to spend on.”

She hated the thoughts. These were her friends, and here she was hurling dirt on them. It wasn’t right.

Knowing that didn’t stop her. From one bell to the next, the periods dragged and Applejack fumed. “No radiators to fix, or pesticides to buy. No little sister needing new shoes. Just sixty dollars and nothing better to do with with it. Friday’s supposed to be when we all hang out together. The one evening I get for just me and the girls, and now look at things. How long are they going to be hooked on this, huh? How long before they want to socialize again like darn decent people? And now here’s Rainbow, and I don’t want to see her, and I swear to Jesus that if she asks if I’ve decided my role one more time I’m putting her through the roof.”

She did, and Applejack broke her vow. The farm girl pulled a smile from some hidden reserve, said she hadn’t, and sent Rainbow Dash on her way.

“She’s your friend,” Applejack reminded herself in a stern tone. That didn’t kill the weevils, but it pushed them down enough for her to pay a little attention in the last class. With gossip and texts flying around, she wondered if she was the only one.

Her after-school plans were dead on arrival, but Applejack still made a beeline for her locker. No want or need to stick around. She bypassed her usual gossip spot with Rarity and took a long detour to avoid Twilight’s locker, a move that bumped her chest-to-chest with the second lavender girl she’d hoped not to see.

Aria Blaze. Eight months since the band battle, and the ex-sirens were mean as ever. Aria most of all, with a violent streak a mile wide.

Applejack’s fists closed in her pockets, but the siren wasn’t in the mood. Aria’s cell phone was to her ear, and she didn’t give a second glance before walking on, speaking in an irate tone. “I don’t care how much you paid, I’m lucky Trixie let me in on the ground floor with this. Ask Sonata.”

A pause, then a few more words before Aria rounded the corner. “Not my problem. If you think I’ll give up a chance to join a real band just to...”

Then she was gone. Applejack also pressed on, managing to pass Sunset with only a cursory greeting. One flight of stairs, then the roundabout trip to her locker would be complete. She had actually never come up this way – the stairwell door brought her to the hall with the bad wiring, flickering the scenery from shadows to light every few seconds.

The faculty tried to keep student lockers in better-lit halls, but it wasn’t uncommon for transfer students to get stuck here. Compounded bad luck had ushered in the presence of Adagio Dazzle at her locker, though she scowled into her phone and did not look up.

More problematic was the face that greeted Applejack as she emerged.

“There you are!” Rainbow’s face split into a grin. “What’s with the roundabout trip? You keeping tabs on the sirens?”

She sent a smirk Adagio’s way, but the siren gave no verbal reply. Even the raised middle finger seemed a token gesture as Adagio tapped away on her phone.

A flicker of the lights gave Applejack a precious second to reclaim her smile. She stuttered, fumbling for an excuse, but Rainbow didn’t give her the time.

“I’ve narrowed it down between the dark knight and the monk,” the cyan girl said, drawing a quiet sigh from Applejack and a pause in Adagio’s texting. “The dark knight can sort of tank for the party because he wears heavy armor and can self-heal, but the monk can’t, and from what I hear we’ll need at least one person to take hits. I really need you to make a decision on at least your general role. If you’ll tank, I’ll go monk. Otherwise it’s dark knight.”

“Rainbow...” Applejack’s smile wobbled. “I really think y’all should just play what you like.”

“Come on, AJ, you know me.” Rainbow puffed out her chest and pointed a thumb. “I don’t just want to play, I want us get good at it. You really got to clue me in before we start tonight.”

The wobbling stopped. Reinforced by conscious effort, the smile became wide and stretched as Applejack gave the best reply she could think of. “Uh, okay… I won’t be a, uh, ‘tank.’”

“Awesome. Thanks.” Rainbow turned the thumb upwards, getting a half-hearted chuckle from her friend. “Shame you can’t join us for day one, but thems the breaks. I’m really looking forward to having the whole gang together to save the land from Tirek.”

“Me–” Applejack started, but Rainbow had taken off. The stair door was already closing by the time Applejack finished with a low, wistful, “Too.”

Nothing else for it. Applejack turned, ready to slump the remaining distance to her locker when a pair of magenta eyes locked on to her own.

That was enough to make her pause, but Adagio broke the gaze first. The yellow siren sniffed and swept a hand behind her head, throwing out its pile of curls. “You’re lucky she’s an idiot.”

“And you’re lucky I left my kicking boots at home.” Another weevil thought Applejack left unspoken. She walked past, followed by Adagio’s words.

“You don’t own the game.” The words came with a sort of soft smugness. Like Adagio was gloating her own deduction instead of Applejack’s misfortune. “Dust-bowl farmer can’t afford it, huh?”

“I must’ve missed the part where it was any of your business,” Applejack called back. She didn’t slow down.

Her locker wasn’t far, but one more encounter with Pinkie Pie nearly pushed her over the edge. The poof-haired girl babbled excitedly about how awesome it was going to be tonight, and even more awesome when they all played together, and how much she had been looking forward to the game, and “Girl, I love you, but I am so close to strangling you.”

Applejack made it through. She always did, even as she figured one more delay would push her over the edge.

Coming to her locker brought back the smile, and added a crazed chuckle to Applejack’s lips. The afternoon had seemed to take a month of Sundays, but it was over. And, hey – an evening with the family suited her just fine. Maybe her and Apple Bloom could play cards, or she could knock out the weekend chores with Macintosh. Then she’d give a text Saturday morning and see if the girls were feeling social after–

“Hey.”

Applejack chuckled again at the voice, more from stress than anything. This stupid day would not end, and the throaty, feminine tone of the speaker identified it as one she thought she was done with.

She gave a sideways glance, seeing Adagio approach from the way she came. Stiletto heels tapped on linoleum, giving a rhythm which stood out from the after-school bustle around them.

Her quarry reached, the yellow girl leaned on the neighboring locker. Applejack turned to face, arms loose and ready. There was no doubt the tough farmer could take Adagio in a fair fight, but she doubted the siren would give her one.

Adagio wore her usual expression of knowing smugness, but that was it – usual. Her smile was a small, coy one without triumph or mockery.

“I have Tirek’s Revenge.”

Applejack winced and blushed at the tone. If sex had a voice it’d be Adagio’s, and she was turning it to the max.

Applejack wasn’t dumb, through. She matched the gaze with indifference. “I ain’t buying.”

The coy smile flicked upwards. “I’m not selling.”

“Huh?”

Whether from a memory or Applejack’s wordless response, Adagio’s smile fell to a thin, neutral line. “I have three copies at home. I got them to share, but the ungrateful bitches I planned to share them with are too good for poor little Adagio.”

Guarded, Applejack gave a shrug. “So sell ‘em online.”

The line twisted to a crueler smirk. “Tempting, but the aforementioned bitches have a strong dislike for you and your rainbow-shooting friends. Rubbing this in their faces would give me pleasure a simple payday could never match.”

Applejack could read between the lines. “Sonata and Aria, right, right. Why not just wait until a better time? Most people don’t waste their Fridays running home to play video games.”

The cruel smirk remained, and this time Applejack felt it aim at her. “First, your opinion of your fellow humans is charmingly inflated. Second, if I wanted help fixing relations with my sisters, I would have joined your friendship cult months ago. Now do you want the game, or don’t you? I can get it to you tonight so you can join in with your friends.”

Applejack leveled a stare at Adagio, trying without success to see some hint of a deeper plan. One had to be in the works. Petty payback aside, the sirens didn’t do nice things without something in it for them.

Still, no reason to say no. Another shrug, and Applejack turned to load her book bag. “Whatever. Bring it by the farmhouse, if you like.”

“Wow.” Adagio rolled the word, letting her smile stretch and reveal teeth. “Not so much as a thank you.”

“I doubt you’ll actually do it,” Applejack said with honesty. The work done, she closed the locker and turned away quickly. Whether the siren had an expression of anger, annoyance, or seduction, nothing good could come from another look. Applejack began walking, and no tap of the stiletto heels followed.