They stood atop the hill behind the amphitheater, looking down as the Sirens, gorged on the Equestrian magic they’d stolen from the school and the girls, wove a song of enchantment that had everyone swaying hypnotically in their seats.

“How are we supposed to play over them from up here?” Rainbow asked the rest of them.

She was answered by a car’s horn. Vinyl Scratch drove up in the strangest looking vehicle Sunset had seen to date, and put it in park. One hand lifted a remote and pressed a button, and the redhead watched the car make a weird noise as it reconfigured itself into a complex sound system—a strangely detached portion of her awareness mused over whether or not she should be making mental notes, because if the moment ever came that she mentioned the transforming car-synthesizer to Sparky, her girlfriend would start grilling her for details…mostly so she could pull Sunset out to her lab and start trying to draw up plans for her own variant. The girls gave excited cries and began to work with the DJ to hook their instruments up to the car.

—Horn-head, we’re about to have a much bigger problem than Sparky building a transforming car robot!—

Sunset turned as painfully powerful dark magic arc’ed across the area, buffeting her. The singing Sirens were glowing with an unearthly red light, hovering in the air as a transformation took them, leaving them with equine ears and gossamer fins on their backs like wings. Ponyfeathers! You should have anticipated this, Shimmer! “You girls need to hurry up! This is not looking good! Their magic is reaching further away! If you don’t stop them now, you may not get another chance!” she called to her friends, trying to stamp down on the agitation rising in her.

“Then let’s do this!” Pinkie counted off the beat, and the girls began to play, voices and instruments bolstered by the sound system to wash over the crowd. Sunset saw the Sirens flinch, their eerie voices halting as they looked to the source of new sound. Her friends took that moment to launch into their first verse, and she could see the ripples of their own magic rising from them to clash and begin to overpower the dark energy where the two touched. It was working!

Sunset relished the sensation of the girls’ building magic, the comforting energy rolling over her and pushing back the nastiness she’d been drowning in for the better part of a week, its familiar Equestria-but-not-quite-Equestria feel tickling her awareness pleasantly. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips as their power rose to match the level of energy in their last real practice…and kept climbing, surpassing even the power they’d wielded against her demon-self the night of the Fall Formal. Something was different—something had changed since the last time she’d felt them ‘Pony-up,’ and that change had every ounce of her focus. Blue-green eyes stared intently as the transformations overtook her friends, the scientist and scholar in her looking for incongruities to her previous observations. On the surface, everything seemed much the same—the acquisition of equine traits in the form of pony ears, extended ‘ponytails’, wings for those whose Equestrian doubles were pegasi, and a horn for the unicorn—(and the alicorn, in the case of Princess Twilight)—so there didn’t seem to be any further physical alterations to her friends.

Metaphysically, however, something was most definitely different, in a way that not only could she perceive with her senses, but in a fashion that resonated against her soul, as if some part of her yearned to be immersed directly in that magical field until it was hard to tell where it began and she ended. It wasn’t quite an ache or a hunger, two feelings she was familiar with…this felt more like the former unicorn had forgotten something important and muscle memory was guiding her through the forgotten thing without her conscious input. The feeling only intensified as each of the five human teens became a blazing well of color-light-emotion that the Princess Twilight’s own energy shifted to match.

Down below, Adagio called out, her voice amplified by magic. “So the Rainbooms want to turn this into a real battle of the bands? Then let's battle!” She and her sister Sirens raised their voices in harmony, their power racing back and forth in a deliberate and controlled amplification loop that concentrated in the blood colored gems at their throats, before surging heavenward as a trio of equinoid magical constructs…

“That must be their true forms…” Sunset breathed.

The entities that had formed overhead were horrible and terrifying in equal measure, at least to the unicorn-turned-teen-girl—though a quick glance towards Princess Twilight Sparkle showed that she too was startled by the creatures more at home in foalhood bogeyman stories than floating before their eyes. Giant, towering hippocampi covered in glittering iridescent scales, their long, equine muzzles filled from one side to the other with shark fangs. Cold reptilian eyes with slitted pupils brimmed with pure and unfiltered hatred as the magical avatars snarled and gnashed their teeth before diving at their opponents. Sunset shook in her boots, struggling with the urge to flee on galloping hooves as fast as possible away from something large enough to snap up a full grown Saddle Arabian in less than three bites—if they had been white, and a little less fish-scaled, they would have matched every drawing and depiction she’d ever seen of Windigos, making her wonder once more if there was a connection between them.

The six girls drew into a defensive circle, the three of them with wings flaring them wide in a gestures they didn’t realize they were doing. Princess Twilight scuffed her foot, tilting her head a fraction to point the imposing, sharp horn on her forehead at them in an instinctive gesture of challenge. Pinkie slammed into her drums with the sticks, and energy exploded in rainbow arcs, scattering the monstrous avatars apart. Rarity joined her in the assault, fingers dancing across the keys on her keytar, sending a hailstorm of shimmering magical diamond constructs to pepper them, leaving painful holes in the avatars that took time to close. Fluttershy directed a swarm of magical butterflies, the shimmering, constantly moving mass disorienting one of the monsters as It roared and shrieked in confusion.

Princess Twilight flung out her hand, eyes glowing with her own magic, flinging a thousand magical stars like bolts forward as she carried a note. The Siren avatars countered with a wailing, warbling note of their own, channeling all the dark and negative feelings they’d been feeding off of all week to overpower the assault. It pushed the Rainbooms back, and Sunset watched in horror as waves of anger, strife, frustration, and misery channeled into power and smashed her friends to the ground, leaving them groaning in pain. It couldn’t be over, could it?

The microphone had flown from the hand of the princess and rolled to a stop at her feet. She picked it up, numb horror fighting against the righteous anger still swirling in her core. Her eyes looked towards the group, watching the princess who was on hands and knees, ears flattened to her head and wings half furled. Princess Twilight looked her way, and her eyes grew wide with some kind of epiphany.

“Sunset Shimmer!” she cried, starting to haul herself back to a bipedal stance. One hand reached out. “We need you!”

Panic filled her. What? What was that supposed to mean? She wasn’t one of the elements, and she couldn’t truly access her magic here. Not without an amplifier like the Crown of Magic had been.

—She’s right, horn-head. They need you, and without you, they fail. They fail, this world falls into the hands of those things….and so does everyone in it. Not just the school, everyone. Including Sparky. It won’t matter if your friends there survive and are immune. No one else is.—

Trepidation filled her. She feared what would happen. She’d had power before, channeled Harmony magic…or tried to, and it had turned her into a demon. She never wanted to be that thing again…

—You won’t!— There was a surety to Stupid Little Voice that Sunset envied in that moment, since she could find no trace of it in her own heart and wished that the voice of her subconscious would share some of its courage. —Think, horn-head! Last time, you were filled with hate, with a lust for something that wasn’t yours to have, and so we became those things! Do you hate now? Does your soul hunger so badly it bleeds?—

Time seemed to stop, for just a brief moment as the words slammed into Sunset, making her think. Did she hate? No…she was filled with rage, certainly, a righteous fire that screamed to protect her friends, their schoolmates and teachers and town and the world from the monsters staring her down. Her eyes flicked towards the toes of her boots, pondering the second question. She…did want things, desire things…some small, some not so small…but nothing with the same all consuming, madness inducing drive that she had once sought Ascension with. She wanted a place where she fit, a place with her friends, with her girlfriend, somewhere she belonged…and it was that place, this place that she wanted to defend and drive the Sirens away from.

—Then get up there and take a stand! We’re stronger than this sniveling coward you’ve let them see us as—it’s time to show them the true measure of Sunset Shimmer, protege of the Princess of the Sun, one of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria in three centuries! You’ve been going on and on about friendship and being there when your friends need you! What was it Rainbow said? True loyalty is about being loyal to yourself and your beliefs, no matter the cost? Your friends need you now, so get off your sun-marked plot and prove that you’ve been listening to what they’ve been trying to teach you!—

Stupid Little Voice…Once again it proved to be the part of her mind that she needed to listen to more often. Her expression hardened and she took a deep breath, feeling the fire inside her flare up as she reached for it, her footsteps carrying her defiantly in front of her friends, staring intently at Adagio. The lead Siren stared back through the eyes of her floating avatar, widening briefly at whatever she saw in Sunset. Good. That bitch needed to be afraid. They’d messed with Sunset’s friends.

She was warm. Too warm, and she shrugged off her jacket, tossing it away despite the cold temperatures, the kiss of chilly air wonderful against skin that seemed to burn from the energy contained within. The words hadn’t been part of the original song…instead, it was a new verse she’d composed herself while listening to the girls practice in the past few weeks, staring at Fluttershy’s composition and feeling like it was missing something. She could feel the beat as her voice rang out, clear and confident, even as she reached down to offer Princess Twilight a hand up. This time the other pony took it without pause, rising to stand beside her. Sunset could feel the brush of wings as they opened once more, challenging the Sirens with pure stubbornness. Around them, the other girls were also rising, instruments in hand, to rejoin the song…

Adagio’s avatar grew furious and more than a little frightened, lunging forward in an all out attack, her sisters on her tail. Sunset felt the warmth of the magic around her, the emotions swirling within the power of the Elements of Harmony, of love and friendship, loyalty and devotion, compassion and joy…those feelings didn’t just flow over her, they were within her, filling the emptiness she had been feeling for days with pure light. Without even thinking, she raised her hand in time with the princess, bringing them together before them and then out again in a broad, sweeping arc, unicorn instincts and magic training once more pushing the power she felt outward, just as she had in the room under the stage a short time ago. A flash of brilliance and a rainbow exploded from them in a shockwave, rushing across the grass and the earth, through the air…Dark power shattered against it, dissolving before the magic of myth and legend it could never have hoped to stand against, freeing the minds chained by it en-masse. In the amphitheater, students blinked, shaking the fog from their heads, and looked around, realizing that they had front row seats to a climactic magical battle of epic proportions that made the Fall Formal look like a cheap knockoff fight scene for a backyard movie project.

Down below, the sirens’ power dimmed, the hellish light fading from their eyes, and they looked up with ears flat against their skulls in slowly mounting fear. Sunset smiled, her whole body toasty from the magic passing through her veins, joy screaming in her because by Celestia’s golden horseshoes, she’d missed this feeling, the rush of her own magic, the power that had been hers since birth mingling with the power of Harmony. She felt light, like she was floating…and some part of her dimly realized she was, her feet lifted off the ground by the energies around them.

It tingled, she realized, the way it was passing through her extremities,from the tips of her toes all the way to her ears. Actually, that part tickled, and she flicked one ear away from the sensation in annoyance, only to realize….

….that she had flicked one ear in annoyance. Sunset opened her eyes, her gaze trailing upwards as she felt the grin nearly split her face. Her ears pricked forward, and she could hear again, finally, the sounds and subtle noises filling the ears she had been born with instead of the pathetic human ones she’d lived with for half a decade. The sensation traveled down her body, and she could feel the added weight on her hair suggesting the transformation had added a good foot and a half to her locks.

But it was her horn, her wonderful, beautiful, spiraled horn that nearly made her weep with joy. She could feel it, right where it belonged, rising from the center of her forehead, and in that second nothing else mattered. Not the Sirens or the fact that they were locked in a titanic fight to save the world, not the fact that she was still in a human body, not the way the others were watching her in awe, not the way the bass was almost painful to equine ears. The only thing that mattered was that she had her horn back. She could feel it, like she always could in Equestria, the presence of an extra limb with its own host of senses, the very slight upward curve that offered some hints about where at least one of her unknown ancestors may have come from, the way it tapered at the tip, all of the little things that made it hers…

She lifted her head high, pointing that amber spiral right at the avatar beasts, even as the magic raised her friends into the air beside her. Like when Princess Twilight had done it, it was a challenge, not unlike a human unsheathing a sword to point it at an enemy. Sunset felt the magic building again, and this time, as the column of rainbow colors rose heavenward, the unicorn-turned-girl tossed her head with a proud smile and focused every ounce of magic and power she could feel inside of her into her horn, dumping it into the Rainbow of Light.

The Rainbow grew brighter and brighter as it pierced the cloud cover in the sky, becoming a swirling white orb from which something began to emerge. Everyone watching looked on in awe, even Sunset, as an alicorn made of the light of a million million stars, the rainbow they’d fashioned as its flowing mane, blew the clouds apart and leveled it spiraled horn at the Sirens. The creatures thrown in the human world by Starswirl looked on in terror—even when they had lived in their native world, the power above them had been a legend for eons. And now, it was being directed at them.

The alicorn avatar let loose a crystalline whinny, looking down on them in judgment, and light shot from its horn, disintegrating their own ethereal avatars and shattering the stones in their pendants into innumerable shards. The light was blinding, and when the spots faded from their eyes, the alicorn was gone, the afternoon sky placid and calm.

The girls headed down for the fallen sirens on the stage as the trio tried to gather up the shards of their gems, looking at them in horror. They opened their mouths to sing, but all that came out was a horrid, off key warbling. The audience let out angry jeers, tossing food and other things at them, running them off stage. As they fled past Sunset, she caught Adagio looking at her with a moment of true fear. It made her frown as she stepped up to inspect the fragments they’d left behind. The stones were dead now, inert, and the last bits of enchantment from them was fading fast. “Guess that explains why these were so special to them,” she commented.

Princess Twilight nodded her agreement. “Without those pendants and the magic you brought her from Equestria, they’re just three harmless teenage girls.”

Suddenly a voice called out, “Rainbooms rule!” before a blur of blue and black practically tackled the visiting princess in a hug. Flash Sentry, sporting that goofy smile he thought of as charming (Sunset still disagreed there), pulled back to look the princess in the eyes. “That was amazing.” It made the alicorn-turned-human blush, and Sunset actually joined her friends in giggling. She’d spent enough time with her own Twilight to recognize what she was seeing. The pair shuffled a little awkwardly, realizing how it looked and that the girls were giggling at them, but they didn’t seem any hurry to stop that hug….At least until Trixie popped up just behind them.

“You may have vanquished the Dazzlings,” she boasted, “but you will never have the amazing, show-stopping ability of the Great and Powerful Trrrixie!” She threw down another one of her smoke bombs, and when it cleared, she was no longer on the stage.

Pinkie, predictably, gasped out, “She’s gone!” before her eyes spotted something near the back of the amphitheater. “Oh wait! There she is!” Trixie was making her escape, only to fall off the back of the wall to the ground behind it. They heard her call out something about being unharmed.

Rainbow dismissed Trixie a moment later, looking at Sunset. “You know…” she began. “Twilight is going back to Equestria soon…The Rainbooms could really use someone to help Fluttershy on backup vocals…”

The tone was teasing and playful, but the offer was genuine, and Sunset’s heart soared. She gave Rainbow a lopsided smile and glanced around, spotting the electric guitar Trixie had forgotten. She trotted over to it, picked it up with easy familiarity, and proceeded to play a complex, fast paced riff from one of her favorite rock songs, flinging her head back as she got into the music momentarily. The guitar still hanging off her from its strap, she shyly put her hands behind her back, offering out in a voice filled with timid hope, “…I also play guitar…”

Every jaw on stage hung slack, her friends—and even Spike—staring at her in shock and awe. The other girls all glanced towards Rainbow to see how she would take the display of skill. The athlete not only looked shocked, but more than a little embarrassed, the sudden realization that every time she’d bragged about her skill, Sunset had been right there. She recovered to give the redhead a grin. “We’ll see,” she said, but the grin on her face told Sunset that the rhythm guitarist spot she’d been daydreaming about was all hers.

Sunset was smiling so hard her cheeks hurt, and when all six of the girls—princess included—came and wrapped her up in a group hug, she felt better than she ever had. These were her friends, and she’d had her place among them all along.

With the epic battle over, the crowd of teenagers and school staff began to disperse, no longer interested in wasting their Saturday. Many of them waved or cheered or called out positive things to the Rainbooms, and Sunset was shocked to have a number of them wave at her as well. In fact, as she looked around, meeting the eyes of many of her classmates, she found very few looking back at her with anger or hostility. Many were moderately indifferent, and a few still looked sour, but a good portion at least offered a friendly wave.

The redhead leaned against the wall, trying to collect herself. It was almost too much to take in, the sudden positivity, and she felt more than a little overwhelmed. She reached up to rub her fingertips where her horn had been, already missing the smoothly curled spire.

“Sunset?”

Blue-green eyes sought the source of the exhausted voice filled with shame and guilt. Her Vice-Principal stood a short distance away, dark circles prominent under haunted eyes, and Sunset thought she picked up on a slight tremor in the woman’s limbs—after the way the week had gone, she could relate to all of that, considering she was halfway convinced the wall she was leaning against was holding her own body up more than anything. “Miss Luna?” she asked quietly, frowning in concern—something about the woman’s entire bearing worried her, gave off the sense of self-destructive pain-guilt-grief-hurt-shame that the former bully knew all too well.

Luna ran a shaking hand through her midnight hair, barely able to meet her student’s eyes. “I wanted to apologize to you for how I acted in the office and the things I implied about you…Enchantment or not, you did not deserve the ugliness directed at you, and it pains me to have been one of the perpetrators.”

Sunset gave the woman a tired smile, feeling her own mental and emotional exhaustion hovering just out of sight, holding herself up at this point with more determination than anything. “Miss Luna, it’s okay. You had no control over the situation—you were being controlled by ancient evil monsters with mind warping powers from my homeworld. Even there, only a select few would have been immune to their enchantments.”

The administrator nodded slowly, face still twisted into a frown. “I still feel I could have done more to fight off their ensorcellment…there were times I felt I could almost break free, but…” She looked away. “..I lacked the mental fortitude…”

The amber-skinned teen pushed off the wall to step closer and place a hand on the woman’s arm. “It wasn’t you, Miss Luna, you need to understand that. You were not weak—the fact that you could resist them at all is huge, especially for a human with no magical ability or training whatsoever. Those girls weren’t just teens with magic powers, they were thousands and thousands of years old, so powerful and evil and twisted that one of the greatest unicorn sorcerers in ten thousand years couldn’t beat them in Equestria. Please…don’t beat yourself up for something that was not your fault—I saw you fighting, you and Principal Celestia. I knew it wasn’t you, that the people I knew were fighting as hard as possible.” Chewing her lip, she offered quite seriously, “It gave me strength to keep fighting too, when it got really bad…I could have chosen what was easy…but…” A shrug and a worn sounding chuckle escaped her. “I didn’t. I needed to do what was right, even if it sucked.”

Luna watched her for a minute, studying her intently as guilt fell back and was replaced by puzzlement. “…I still feel I owe you an apology, Miss Shimmer, as I feel we failed in our duty to you as educators.”

“Mind-controlling emotion-eating hippocampi bent on taking over the world were making you do those things. I’m fairly certain that gives you a pass on ‘Saying a few mean things’ to us. We figured out pretty quickly what was going on—the Sirens weren’t exactly subtle spellcasters. It’s alright, Miss Luna—there’s nothing to forgive you for.”

The Vice-Principal nodded along to her words, before changing directions with her thoughts. “That also raises the point that we owe you a great deal of thanks for that as well...you worked to save people who had done you ill, and you risked your lives to do so, you and your friends.” A faint smile quirked the corner of her mouth. “It is not much, and it does not make up for your distress this past week, Miss Shimmer, but... consider your ‘debt to society’ paid. Your afternoons are your own again, a few weeks earlier than planned.”

Her mouth worked but no sound came out. She was free from detention? “I...dont know what to say...”

“You need say nothing, Miss Shimmer…we may very well owe you our lives, if not our sanity. Recognizing your personal growth as well as your acts of selflessness and courage is a small thing to offer you from where I stand, but it is what is within my power to give.” Luna glanced over. “I…do not wish to keep you much longer, as it seems your friends are coming to collect you…but…” She took a deep breath, as if to brace herself. “…My sister…wants to speak to you as well…but I am afraid she is in no state of mind right now to have that conversation. She needs time, I believe, to process some very personal troubles that those ‘Dazzlings’ dragged forcefully to the surface—trying to speak to you now, given everything, would not go well for either of you.”

Brows furrowing, Sunset tried not to let the sudden stab of worry show on her face. “…I…of course, Miss Luna. I’m willing to talk to her when she’s ready…but…please, is she okay? They didn’t hurt her, did they?”

Dark eyes were shadowed. “…My sister is unharmed…physically, at least.” She patted Sunset’s shoulder. “I will pass along your concern. For now, let me handle my sister—her troubles are not your burden to carry, Sunset Shimmer.”

The former unicorn mulled over the response, deep in thought. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure if she was in the right state of mind to face the human Celestia right now, given how her mounting exhaustion and emotionally charged state were weighing her down, and only sheer stubbornness was keeping her plodding along at this point. Having the vague, stomach churning thoughts floating up from the back of her mind about what the Sirens might’ve done when she and the girls weren’t there to be the focus of the hostility was more than she could handle, especially because she kept thinking about their resemblance to Windigos. Despite the pleasant, watered down version of the Hearth’s Warming Tale told on the holiday in Equestria, the first-hoof accounts left from the actual warring tribes era painted a much bloodier, horrific tale; her mind was more than capable of drawing parallels and offering grim suggestions.

Flicking her eyes back to Luna’s with that in mind, she nodded. “…Not my burden, no, but…I do have some understanding of what they were and what they could do to someone under the right circumstances.” For a moment, she considered how Princess Celestia would have reacted to being held under mind-control while her ponies were controlled and tormented, and she shuddered before continuing. “When she’s ready…or…if you need me, I’m available.”

The admin sighed softly, then made an exhausted movement that could have been a nod or perhaps a shrug—it was hard to tell with how slumped and worn she seemed. "I will keep that in mind, Miss Shimmer."

Impulsively, Sunset reached out and pulled the older woman into a brief hug, "I mean it—I know magic and I know what dark magic can leave you feeling like, more than anyone else in this world. Day or night, I’m here to help however I can if I’m needed." A part of her mind that sounded suspiciously like her girlfriend offered a suggestion, bringing a wan smile to Sunset’s face. "I'll even bring the ice cream—someone important taught me that it’s part of a perfect remedy for nightmares and dark thoughts."

For whatever reason, that caused the dark haired woman to smile. “I believe I have heard something like that before, Miss Shimmer. Thank you.” She stepped back, preparing to leave. “If you will excuse me, I am going to get my sister home so we can both rest. I will see you at school next week, Miss Shimmer.” With that, Luna slipped away, navigating her way through the slowly thinning crowd of teens.

I swear, one of my favorite moments in Rainbow Rocks is sunset doing the guitar riff, and then Looking and sounding like a hopeful child with the “i also play guitar...” line. Something about it just...its fucking adorable as hell. Like omg, she just wants to be included, give this unicorn-girl a hug dammit!

This is pretty much the end of the “rehash of the movie” bit, and I appreciate everyone’s patience. I can assure you, everything that happened is important for things going forward, as youll soon see.

And thus begins the post Rainbow Rocks clean up....all 20+ chapters of it. There's a lot of stuff to deal with in the aftermath of the mess created by the Sirens, some of which hasn't even yet been touched on. Sunset's job isnt done just yet, folks--its really just beginning.

*cackles maniacally*