Saturday mid-morning found Sunset and the Rainbooms at the local outdoor amphitheater, a space used by the city and its suburbs for concerts, charity events, and gatherings. They were setting up their equipment with enough time to do a few practice runs, all of them subdued; arguing bitterly had been discarded in favor of depressive introspection. They were all pretty much at the end of their ropes, dragging themselves through the motions with an air of despair over them, soldiering forward despite it all. Fluttershy had barely spoken two words since they’d left the gym, Pinkie’s hair seemed to have lost its normal wild bounce, and even Rainbow couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to project her ego. As for Rarity and Applejack, they spent more time giving each other venomous looks in between long stretches of pointedly ignoring each other than anything else…and in the middle of it all, Princess Twilight Sparkle continued to exist a hair’s breadth from a total meltdown.

Sunset felt beyond drained, her body having gone well past tired into a state only accessible after pushing herself beyond all emotional, physical, and mental reserves, where only sheer stubbornness kept her moving forward, the single minded drive to stand with the girls through this whole disaster keeping her from collapsing into a heap and sleeping into the next year. She found respite from the palpable negative atmosphere in a voice-mail left on her phone from her girlfriend’s entire family, words of encouragement and well wishes sent her way from people who told her how much they missed her that Friday night…followed up by a much more private message from the nerdy girl she cared so much about—every chance she got, she slipped away to listen, drawing what strength she could before facing the dismal cloud hanging over the other girls.

“Check, one, two…” Rainbow leaned towards a microphone. “Testing, testing…”

Sunset was on the sound equipment, and she fiddled with the dials. This caused a horrible screech of feed back and she hurriedly changed the settings.

Fluttershy finally spoke, voicing what had been plaguing all of them all night. “This doesn’t make any sense. We were awful!” Sunset wandered over to her, frowning. “Doesn’t anybody else think it's strange that we’re the ones that made it to the finals?”

“Very strange,” Trixie Lulamoon sneered from behind the group. They all turned to face her, confused. Except for Rainbow Dash…whose ego still hadn’t deflated.

“What are you doing here, Trixie?” she mocked, jerking her thumb towards where the audience would be. “Pretty sure the losers are supposed to be up there in the cheap seats.”

The bumbling magician struck a pose. “The Great and Powerful Trrrrrixie is the most talented girl at Canterlot High,” she proclaimed, rolling the ‘r’ in her own name. “It is I who deserves to be in the finals…” Her fingers snapped imperiously. “And I will not be denied!”

One of the ‘Illusions’ reached for a lever nearby and pulled it. The Rainbooms—and Sunset—had just long enough to wonder what it was supposed to do, before the floor fell out from under them, and they fell into darkness.

They landed in a stunned heap, instruments and all, on a hard floor below the stage. Sunset yelped at the impact, but found herself relatively unharmed. Trixie leaned over the open trap door to look down on them. “See you never!” she called as it shut, plunging them into total darkness.

Or what should’ve been total darkness. Sunset shook her head, realizing that she could make out the shapes and details of her friends—none of the colors, but everything else was surprisingly clear and sharp. She got to her feet, rubbing the small of her back and her rear where she had impacted concrete, and began hunting around for some form of light-switch.

“….’S darker than the inside o’ a coal miner’s lunchbox…” Applejack groused.

“I’m looking for a light, hang on.” The redhead started scanning the walls.

Rainbow huffed from her left, biting out in a scathing tone, “How the fuck can you ‘look’ for anything, Sunset? Can horses see in the dark or some shit?”

She paused in her inspection of the walls. “Pony, not horse…and honestly, I have no idea, Dash—I couldn’t even see this well in the dark as a unicorn. It’s…kind of freaking me out…” Shaking her head with a sharp snort, Sunset muttered, “…worry about the freaky night vision later, Shimmer. Find a light and a way out of here now…” Her eyes located the unmistakable distortion of a switch. “Got it!” She flicked it on, and found herself right next to a door. She tried said door, only to discover it was locked. “…Grogar take it…” she spat. “We’re locked in.”

“Least we kin see now,” the farmer pointed out. “Better’n bein’ in the dark.”

It had been several hours since they’d been shut into the storage room, trying every conceivable thing they could do to get free. Sunset had even gone so far as to try texting her girlfriend out of sheer desperation, but the signal in the room was non-existent. No amount of force seemed to make the sturdy metal door budge, and there wasn’t enough in the room with them to let them climb up to the trap door. They were well and truly stuck unless someone outside let them out.

Rainbow Dash rammed into the door again, shoulder first. Sunset wondered if she’d bruised the bone yet, with how hard and frequently she was trying to muscle the door down. Applejack looked over eventually. “Give it up, Rainbow Dash. Ya been tryin’ at this fer hours. It ain’t gonna open.”

Silence reigned for a few minutes before Princess Twilight hung her head in shame. “Maybe it doesn’t even matter that we’re trapped down here,” she told them. “I don’t think the counterspell would have worked anyway…” Sunset frowned; she’d known it was bad, but she hadn’t thought it was quite that bad…why hadn’t Princess Twilight said anythi—

—Because she was afraid of letting everyone down, remember? Just like you.—

Ponyfeathers. She should have interfered, said something.

“O’course it woulda worked, Twilight,” Applejack countered. “Assumin’ a certain band member didn’ try ta hog the spotlight the whole time we were tryin’ ta play it!” She gave Dash a pointed look, making it very obvious who she was talking about.

“Hey!” Rainbow said, the point completely sailing over her head and through the closed door behind her. “If you wanna tell Twilight she’s getting a little too caught up in trying to be the new leader for this band, you don’t have to be all cryptic about it.”

Rarity stalked up, hands on her hips. “She was talking about you, Rainbow Dash!”

“Me!? I’m just trying to make sure my band rocks as hard as it needs to!”

Four other voices thundered furiously at her. “OUR band!”

Princess Twilight had collapsed to the floor, her back to the wall, curling up in a near fetal position. “But why wasn’t it working?” she whimpered, head in her hands. “I should know what to do.” Panic was rising in her voice. “How could I not know what to do? How could I have failed like this?” Sunset felt everything coming apart. The princess was in the middle of a panic attack, Rainbow’s ego had gotten so out of control that everyone was furious at her, and the group of friends was starting to splinter apart worse than when she had divided them almost two years ago…

“It may have been yer idea ta start a band, but it’s not just yer band, Rainbow Dash!” Applejack punctuated her words by poking Rainbow with her index finger.

“I’m the one that writes all the songs!” she countered, flinging her arms wide.

Fluttershy, meek, kind, compassionate Fluttershy, stomped out from behind Rarity, practically yelling at her oldest friend. “I write songs! You just never let us play any of them!”

The designer got in on the discussion. “I had the most perfect outfits for us to wear!”

Applejack snorted like an angry bull yak, causing Sunset to involuntarily take several steps back. The blonde threw her hands up, snarling, “Again with the costumes!” she snarled at her partner. “No one cares what we’re wearin’!” The last came out as a bellowing yell.

Rarity screamed right back, the two of them falling into the argument like an eerily coordinated dance, moving closer to each other as they exchanged harsh words and aggressive gestures. “I care, Applejack! So sorry if I enjoy trying to make a creative contribution to the band!” It was like watching a married couple argue, the way they stepped into each other’s space, their hand gestures coming within a hair’s breadth of one another but never making contact, their words delivered with cutting sharpness to dig savagely into the other’s buttons while never quite cutting to deep, too personal. They seemed to know all of each other’s hair triggers, to know just how far to push without going too far…Under any other circumstance, Sunset might’ve found it as fascinating as she did terrifying.

“Hey!” Pinkie Pie screeched. “Anybody here remember fun?! I’ll give you a hint: It’s the exact opposite of being in the Rainbooms!”

Dash smacked her forehead. “I wish I’d never asked any of you to be in my band!”

Rarity didn’t even turn from her argument with Applejack as she roared back, “I wish I’d never agreed to it!”

The scene dissolved into pure and utter chaos, all of the girls screaming and yelling and arguing with each other while the alicorn-turned-teenager huddled in the corner, rocking herself and mumbling in a full blown freakout—Sunset was actually concerned she’d completely snapped.

—Horn-head!— the Stupid Little Voice barked, getting her attention. —Look! The magic!—

Sunset threw her senses all the way open almost against her own will, and the world changed around her from one instant to the next, throwing her into the middle of a horrifying vision. Black, tainted energy had crept in from the crack in the trapdoor and now hung from the ceiling and crept down walls and across the floor, bloated and fetid to her awareness. It squirmed and stroked tiny tendrils across whatever parts of her friends it could reach, sticky grasping feelers sinking into their flesh like leeches and leaving the faint impression of black, sickly veins beneath that pulsed in time with some grotesque heartbeat. It had dug into all of the others, including the princess, and as the amber skinned teen watched, she could see it drawing that misty, smokey haze of emotional energy…only this energy was steeped in the essence of not-quite-Equestrian-power that the girls had been emanating for weeks (plus the blazing power of a single alicorn.)

“Sweet Mother of Discord…”

—Its doubtful the draconequus has anything to do with it, him or his nightmarish Mother.—

Blue-green eyes sought her own limbs in fear of what filthy, tainted power she would find attached to her own body, only to find that she alone seemed untouched. As she observed, one of the tendrils came close, brushing against her skin with a jolt of searing pain that rocked through her…and then the black power shriveled and burned away, like dry grass that hit a flashpoint, leaving her flesh unmarked.

What was happening? Why were the Sirens affecting them now? Was it the difference in their power? It shouldn’t be…not only were the Elements of Harmony some of the strongest objects in Equestria, but it didn’t explain why she was unaffected—she didn’t have an Element of Harmony protecting her. Even Discord, the embodiment of Chaos, couldn’t stand up to them—she knew that very well, considering she’d seen his statue in the palace gardens! There was no way three over sized, ugly-as-the-backside-of-a-diamond-dog sea-ponies with magic voices were strong enough to overpower the Elements…or even the traces of their energy that lingered in the human girls. So why was it working? Why had the energy—energy that Sunset could still sense in them, though it was shuttered and dim—stopped protecting them?

The former unicorn wracked her brain. She’d read up on the elements from one of the few books she’d snagged in her first return trip to Equestria, when she’d found out about the pony Twilight Sparkle had replaced her as Celestia’s student and been seeking ways to get revenge. They bonded with a pony—or person, in this case—who exemplified the ideal they represented. Even without the Princess having identified the girls with their corresponding Elements at the Fall Formal, it didn’t take much consideration on Sunset’s part to pair each of the humans that had become special to her with one of the Elements of Harmony.

Applejack. Honesty. “All Ah ask is that ya be honest—with yerself an’ with yer friends.”

Fluttershy. Kindness. “Everyone needs a little kindness sometimes, no matter how tough they appear.”

Pinkie Pie. Laughter. “…Everyone has days where everything seems dark, lonely, and hopeless..but when you’re at your saddest, your friends will be there. They’ll help you realize it’s not so bad and help you find a reason to smile again!"

Rarity. Generosity. “…sometimes, Sunset, the greatest thing we can give to someone isn’t about what they want or even deserve…it's about giving them what they need the most.”

Rainbow Dash. Loyalty. “Loyalty isn’t just about sticking by someone. Loyalty also is about remaining true to yourself and your beliefs, even if it costs you everything. After all, if you cant be loyal to yourself…then how can you hope to be loyal to anyone else?”

She looked to each of them, then her eyes turned towards Princess Twilight Sparkle, the sixth Element of Harmony, the Bearer of Magic…but it wasn’t her that Sunset saw and heard in her memory. Instead, a softly smiling girl with glasses filled her vision, purple eyes shining. “...you don’t have anything to prove to me—I’ll always be your friend no matter what you choose to do. Friendship isn’t based on conditions or a price. It's freely given or it's not real.”

Her eyes went wide as she remembered what the Princess of Friendship had said that fateful night. “The crown may be upon your head, Sunset Shimmer, but you cannot wield it, because you do not possess the most powerful Magic of all: The Magic of Friendship.”

As she stared at the screaming match before her, Sunset suddenly understood. The answer had been there all along, why the power wasn’t working, why they were being influenced and drained now by the Sirens. And she grew angry, angrier than she had felt since that night she’d put on the Crown, rage and indignation and righteous fury growing in her breast until her bones felt like they should be melting. How. Dare. They? Those three fish market bargain-bin rejects had no right to come in and do this to her friends, her school…and she wasn’t going to let them have it without a fight.

Her head ached, the place where her horn used to be feeling like someone was driving a spike through it, and she flung her arms out as she lunged forward into the middle of the group. “Stop!” she yelled. “You have to stop!” She could hear the music above them, feel the immense and growing power of the Sirens…but the magic buffeting her met resistance in…something. Without thinking, unicorn instincts and magical training reacted and her mind pushed outward, sending whatever inside her was fighting back against their enemies outward in a wave of metaphysical force that felt both alien and as familiar as her own hooves. The dark energy in the room writhed to her sight, before burning up and retreating away from her and her friends, just as it had against her earlier but on a much broader scale. With everyone’s attention on her now, she frantically tried to make them see. “This is what they’ve been after all along! They’re feeding off the magic inside you!”

Applejack blinked almost like she was surfacing groggily from an angry nap, confusion coloring her voice. “How kin they be usin’ our magic? It's the magic of friendship.”

Sunset glanced towards Princess Twilight, who had been snapped out of her mumbling to stare at the redhead. Then she turned back to her friends, taking a deep breath and remembering what she’d learned. “Ever since you started this band you’ve been letting little things get to you.” She ducked her head. “I never said anything because I didn’t feel like it was my place…Not when I was so new to this…friendship thing…” She closed her eyes, trying to breathe and focus on the matter at hand and not the way her bones felt like they were vibrating. “I still have a lot to learn…but I do know that if you don’t work through the smallest problem, right at the start, the magic of friendship can be turned into something else.”

Five guilty faces stared at her, realization dawning and their own actions replaying in their own minds. Seeing themselves…and how they acted. She heard movement behind her. “I can’t believe all this tension was happening right under my nose and I didn’t even realize it..” Princess Twilight hung her head, rubbing her own arm in shame. “I’m supposed to be the one with all the answers, but all I’ve done since I got here was let you down.”

It wasn’t her Twilight, but Sunset knew what to say. She hesitated for a moment, then placed her hand on the princess’ shoulder and smiled warmly. “I don’t think any one pony—person—is supposed to have all the answers. That’s the whole point here, not just with the band, but the magic too: each of us brings our own part, and it’s only when we put it all together, when we work together as friends that we can find the answer we were looking for all along…”

The fire inside her was no longer burning her up from the inside out. It had become a good warmth, like the heat of a fireplace on a cold winter day, and she reveled in it after days of agony and suffering. Her eyes tracked over the faces of her friends and she saw her own exhaustion reflected in them, and the need to help bubbled up in her again. Once more her mind pushed, this time to fill the room with that warm feeling that was emanating from the deepest recesses of her spirit, trying to share the sensations she was reveling in, smiling even more as the girls seemed to perk up, their eyes bright and alert once more.

The alicorn turned human looked at her, then at the group, before turning back to Sunset with a proud smile so like Princess Celestia that it made her heart ache. “I think you already found the answer,” she told the redhead. Then she pointed. “C’mon. We need to get out of here!”

They tried to ram the door again, only to land in a heap as it resisted them. A moment later, footsteps from outside could be heard, and the door opened inward to reveal a small four legged figure with a wagging tail. Princess Twilight dove for him, scooping him into her arms. “Spike!” she cried, hugging him tightly and nuzzling his cheek with hers.

“Sorry I took so long,” he apologized. “I had to find somebody who wasn’t under the Sirens’ spell to help me get you out.” He pointed, and another figure waved through the door: Vinyl Scratch, the school’s resident DJ.

Princess Twilight blinked in confusion. “…why isn’t she under their spell?”

Spike laughed. “Never takes off her headphones.” Vinyl tapped her earpiece and gave a thumbs up.

Applejack turned towards the group. “C’mon, y’all! Time ta prove we still got the magic o’ friendship inside us!”

“And there’s only one way to do it,” the princess affirmed, raising her fist high.
Pinkie jumped up and down like an excited puppy. “We’re getting the band back together?!” she squealed with joy.

Rainbow smirked. “We’re getting our band back together,” she corrected. Pinkie let out an even higher pitched sound of joy, one that Sunset wanted to echo. She could feel the magic again, growing stronger in her friends, tickling her senses and driving the writhing tendrils of darkness even further away from the group.

Rarity made a happy noise. “Ooo! Which version of the counterspell are we going to play?” she wanted to know, her eyes dancing.

“I don’t think it matters what song we play,” Princess Twilight responded, “as long as we play it together—as friends.”

Dash grinned smugly. “I know just the song.” Sunset frowned worriedly, hoping that Dash wasn’t about to go on another ego bender…but she was pleasantly surprised with what came next—and so was Fluttershy. Rainbow walked over to her. “Fluttershy’s written a really great one,” she informed them. The sound of joy that escaped the girl with pale pink hair was so adorable it would have impacted even the most bitter, blackened heart.

Green eyes flicked across the room to meet blue ones, a gaze that Sunset actually felt embarrassed to be witnessing. Something in the brief, silent exchange held a level of intimacy and intensity that made her feel as though she were a peeping tom looking in someone’s bedroom window. Then Applejack smiled. “We’re about ta save the world here. Personally, Ah think we should do it in style. Rares?”

The designer grabbed a nearby rack with hangers and pulled it into full view. “I thought you’d never ask!” she gushed, handing off the garment bags to each girl. Her hand brushed Applejack’s when she gave her hers last, the farmer ducking down to murmur something in a white-skinned ear. Blue eyes went wide and Rarity froze for a half second, before her free hand came up to ghost across one freckled cheek. Applejack took the digits in hand, brushing her lips to the knuckles in a perfect courtly kiss, both of them unaware that everyone else in the room was pretending not to see while they changed into costumes.

Sunset found herself leaning close to Rainbow Dash, whispering to her. “…Do they realize that everyone knows they’re dating and are basically the school’s married couple? That there’s literally no point in hiding it because everyone already knows?”

Dash shrugged. “…It’s just one of those things, Sunset. Sun comes up in the east, water’s wet, men and women will never understand each other, and Applejack and Rarity are the greatest love story never told. Universal constants. Just let them have it. It’ll be funny when we get to point it out when we toast them at their wedding.”

Shaking her head, the former unicorn moved to help out with things like hard to reach zippers, doing what everyone else was doing at that moment—pointedly ignoring the lovers in the corner and gathering their equipment to go stop the powerful monsters from taking over the world.

Consider this a treat for the week, a double chapter post because I'm in such a good mood!

The quip about the Mother of Chaos being "nightmarish" is, of course, my obligatory Slayers NEXT reference. (partially because there's a similarity between Lina Inverse's appearance in NEXT and Sunset Shimmer's color scheme, and both are fiery tempered sorceresses with anger issues.)

Rarity and AJ fighting was always fascinating to watch for me, regardless of whether it was the two legged versions or the four legged ones. There's a strange sort of poetry to the way the characters play off of each other, even in conflict, and how they can seemingly have these kinds of super intense, aggressive arguments, yet still maintain the kind of closeness that lets them be aware of each other on a very personally intimate level and present a solid interpersonal relationship.