A She-devil in Plain Sight

Rarity looked all around her as she walked around the main hall of the villa -- a room with ceiling coffers up above; floreal golden stuccos covering the borders of the doors’ niches and ionian columns made of plaster framing the aforementioned doors; walls painted with brightly-coloured and nearly pristine frescoes depicting Bacchus and Arianne on a golden chariot pulled by four white horses and four donkeys, said chariot was followed by a cortège composed by naked muscular men playing flutes, trombones, war horns and castanets, drunken horned satyrs, and dancing sylvan nymphs; the floor a smooth composition of pink and yellow granite placed in concentric squares, with a stylized Vandean cross made of obsidian in the center of the hall -- which was currently full of people chattering together, drinking beverages and cocktails of varying complexity and gradation, eating small rectangles of stuffed flatbreads or slices of pepper pie or handfuls of chips of mixed flavours from paper dishes whose colours matched Crystal Prep’s livery.

Rarity waded with aplomb through the crowd, a plastic glass of Bloody Mary in her right hand and her left one used to poke shoulders and delicately push people’s busts aside, rapidly excusing herself with the importuned ones every time she did either of these acts. After a few minutes navigating like inside the sea of people, Rarity managed to get to the much simpler-looking buffet room -- one with pompeian red walls plus spiral-engraved light grey stone skirting board and a floor made of yellow granite -- where, on four broad tables clad in purple and yellow felt tablecloth, an equal number of bowls full of popcorns and multiple varieties and double the amount of trays containing both flatbread pieces and slices of valdostana and pepper pie, with a pile of yellow and red dishes piled up in each table’s corner.

Rarity noticed Sunset taking a slice of valdostana and Lemon Zest -- dressed in a turquoise shirt, white undershirt and lavender long skirt -- picking up two slices of pepper pie and setting them onto her own plate.

“Hello there Sunset,” Rarity said, lightly waving her free hand towards her friend. “And hello there, it is good to see that our past struggles haven’t created an unfillable rift between us.”

“Hello Rarity,” Sunset said while putting her dish onto the table, using her left hand to embrace Lemon Zest’s hip and her right hand to point to Lemon’s chest. “Rarity, meet Lemon Zest again. Lemon Zest, meet Rarity.”

Rarity stretched her hand out -- mirroring Zest’s action -- and grasped onto it, delicately shaking it.

“Nice to meet you, Zest.”

“Pleasure’s mine Rarity.”

“So,” Rarity said, taking a small sip from her drink. “What brought you to join us? Was the invitation from my dear friend Pinkie Pie alone? And, are more people from your Academy going to come and join us later?”

Lemon Zest took a rather large bite off one of her two slices, as she put her paper dish onto one of her forearms and used her free hand to extract her phone from her skirt’s only pocket and turning it on with the pression of a semi-hidden button, then unlocking it with the three taps done in quick succession.

“Yeah. Everyone’s gonna come, only Sugarcoat refused to. Just lemme take a look..” Lemon Zest said, slowly squinting her eyes as she tapped some more. “Ah! There it is, they’re gonna come in twenty minutes or so. ‘Expect a major surprise,’ says Lemon Turner.”

Rarity froze for a few seconds, before rapidly shaking her head and taking a big sip, now trying to savour the vodka’s taste coupled with the tomato juice.

“Ah, a surprise? Well, hope it’ll be a good surprise!” Sunset Shimmer said.

“Uh, that is a really good news to hear,” Rarity said while rapidly nodding. “We are looking forward to their coming.”

Lemon Zest nimbly put her phone back in the pocket and grabbed her dish again, taking up the half-eaten slice of before and disorderly devouring it in one go. Meanwhile, Sunset took a nibble off her valdostana, thusly leaving only the sound of loud chatter from the other guests behind.

Rarity drunk most of her blood-coloured drink, delicately wiping her upper lip with her right index before speaking up.

“What time is it?” Rarity asked. “Pinkie Pie told us to gather in the garden at around half past nine and prepare ourselves for the show we are going to give…”

Lemon Zest set the dish away and pulled her phone away, repeating the routine all over again.

“It’s five past nine.” She said. “Also, are you two really going to make music tonight?”

“Not really, it’s actually me, her, Pinkie Pie and three other people.” Sunset Shimmer said, scratching the back of her head while she weakly chuckled. “Trouble is, one of us, Applejack, isn’t exactly in the best of moods because we’ve argued a few days ago.”

Rarity recoiled a little, her heart sinking and a tear forming in her right eye, reminded of the event that caused the aforementioned refusal by one of her friends to have any kind of contact with her -- up and including giving a musical performance with her.

“Ah, I can see that. Reminds me of the times when Upper Crust used to play in the school band,” Lemon Zest said, covering her mouth with one hand to reduce her giggling. “He was pretty bad at playing the drums but always insisted to sing the Tercios’ Hymn all the time. Oh the face and the reaction he made when we managed to get Cinch to personally pick Hussar Pike over him!”

“I can only imagine.” Rarity stated dryly. “I take it was rather entertaining, thought.”

“Oh yeah, he was really funny ‘n’ all!” Lemon Zest said, before pausing to grab the last remaining slice of pepper pie and consuming it with a single bite.

“Ah, I see. Anyways, now we’re going to see if Applejack is going to get over it,” Sunset shimmer said hastily, grabbing Rarity’s right hand and dragging her away. “See you in half an hour!”

“See you later alligator!” Lemon Zest said while turning towards the chips’ bowls, just before proceeding to take handfuls after handful of them to set them in her plate.

Rarity was guided out of the buffet room and brought diagonally through the still-crowded main hall and brought to the loggia -- which had white corinthian columns alternated by red doric ones serving as borders to narrow pumice paths with a bronze tub serving as water collector for the copper fountain, which was shaped after a triton spilling water over a grotesque-looking fish in the center of the crossroad, with the rest of the courtyard covered in grass and tidy low bushes -- where the amount of traffic was inferior. There Rarity spotted Pinkie Pie opening up a white van’s door and Applejack stood on a column, amiably chatting with Roseluck.

Sunset let Rarity’s hand go, rushing through the loggia’s corridor towards Pinkie Pie, who immediately jumped off the van and waved visibly. Rarity followed suit.

“Hai Sunny! Hai Rarity!” She said. “How’re you doing? Do you like this party so far?”

“Yes I do.” Rarity stated.

“Me too, but we gotta talk about the musical show we’re gonna put on,” Sunset hastily added, before leaning forward and whispering. “Is AJ up for tonight or not?”

“I think yes. Well, okay, she said that she’ll play if she doesn’t see Rarity around, so maybe she could put a disguise on…” Pinkie said as she walked back into the van, causing Sunset and Rarity to nervously chuckle.

“If only it were that easy…” Sunset said with her head bowed, with Rarity adding sadly. “Indeed…”

Sunset shook her head and rose it again and turned around towards where she came from.

“Anyways, thanks anyways Pinkie. Guess we’ll have to try to convince her to play music with us all.” She said, half-turning her bust and gesturing towards Rarity. “C’mon, let’s get going.”

Rarity nodded and followed Sunset’s footsteps through on the stone path leading to the other side of the loggia. As she did so, she could hear the two girls’ voices get louder and louder at every step.

“And so he stood there and was like ‘Whadda mean, you don’t actually have any black roses in stock?’ and then went on to rant on how ‘unprofessional’ I was and even tried to call the manager on me.” Roseluck was saying with a hint of giggling in her voice, her left elbow resting against her side as the palm of the respective hand rhythmically closed and opened with grace, while Applejack nodded along, still resting against one of the columns.

“I feel ya Rose,” Applejack said. “ Once two guys pulled over and stopped by the fence, thinkin’ mah farm was a farm holiday resort or somethin’ and insisted on gettin’ a bed and a basket of apples outta us.”

“Excuse my interruption, but I gotta ask a real important and quick question,” Sunset said with her right index rose and her right leg forward. She then turned her head to face a somewhat disgruntled-looking applejack. “AJ, would you be willing to close an eye over Rarity’s presence and join the band tonight? Please? For old times’ sake?”

As Roseluck jumped up startled and nearly crashed inside a niche containing a bronze copy of Donatello’s David, Applejack snapped her head around, teeth baring and a wrinkled forehead, as she snarled “No!”

Rarity recoiled, while Sunset stood her ground, letting out an annoyed sigh.

“Look, if you were just uncomfortable with her standing around with you, that’d be more understandable.” Sunset said with a scolding tone. “But reacting like this? She isn’t nor she has done anything wrong at all, why do you have to treat her like this?!”

“Ya know why!” Applejack said “Ah’m not gonna tell ya one more time!”

Once she had recovered from the shout’s strength and made once more peace with its implication, Rarity walked silently away from the ongoing debate between Applejack and Sunset Shimmer back to Pinkie Pie -- who was busy intently staring at the still-going argument from afar with a roll of cables coiled around her forearms -- and her white van.

“Uh… what’s up?” Pinkie asked, as she hurriedly unrolled the cables up, causing them to drop on the stone floor below with a soft thump.

“They are arguing over whether Applejack is right in wishing to not let me play music at her side and, by extensions, if she is right in ostracizing me out of her and my other friends’ lives.” Rarity said after a deep sigh accompanied by chest-holding. “I wish she would see my point, for what actually am, and stop being so… unwavering in her judgment.”

“Pinkie Pie stepped forward and wrapped her right arm around Rarity’s shoulder, resting her hand onto Rarity’s left shoulder.

“I’m sure she’ll change mind sooner or later,” Pinkie said, massaging Rarity’s shoulder lightly. “Because, hey, she may be mad now but I’m sure that, deep down, she doesn’t really want to be…”

All of the sudden, the late evening’s relative quietness was broken by a the sound of a clacson. Jumping high up in the air in startment, Pinkie Pie broke the arm-wrapping to rapidly run away following the sound’s source, while Rarity simply snapped her head and torso around to look behind her, and she saw a wall of headlights coming increasingly closer to the loggia’s perimeter -- namely the piece of nude clay in front of the aforementioned where the white technical van was parked -- and only vague shapes of persons visible.

However Rarity soon discovered that the upcoming experience was more auditive then visive: a trombone produced a deep note and, soon, another couple of them answered in kind with an even deeper tone accompanied by a drum’s single beat, this pattern repeating itself a couple of times, before being replaced by the sound of violins being played with rapid -- almost nervous in fact -- tract that produced a dissonant symphony when soon coupled by the trombones.

“What’s going on?” Pinkie asked. “And what kind of gloomy and scary music is that?”

Rarity bit her lip as she remembered the tune.

“I-I recognize this music… it is the Dies Irae… played by an orchestra.” Rarity said. “I do not know who is playing this, but something tells me he is not planning to bring gifts.”

As the music added the sound of an organ played at lower keys -- which reinforced it even further -- and the broken violins slowly mended sounds into a single sweeping arch, Rarity could hear people rushing out of the villa’s majestic rooms to go to their current position in the scabre pebble-covered parking lot. The headlights reached the point where Rarity and the others were forced to avert their eyes, lest they suffered permanent damage to their eyes.

“W-who’s there?” Somebody in the crowd asked shouting.

Before anyone could answer, there was a sudden peak, as the violins’ sounds fully merged together, creating a loud and sweeping arch, soon followed by the rapid-fire sound of marching drums and, then, trombone-organ mash-up, which covered everyone’s voice and even forced some to kneel down before the sound’s might disturbing their eardrums and ricocheting inside their auditory duct, thus forcing those unfortunate souls to obstruct their ears using their hands.

A few lights were turned off, finally allowing Rarity and some others to look up and actually asses the booming and blindingly bright invader’s identity. At his feet he wore brown boots with bronze buckles and leather black string, his black trousers with a anthracite line running on each leg’s external side covering his legs until they disappeared inside the boots, and his shins covered even further by an horizontally-striped dark red and charcoal coat cape tied close by a dark born leather string close to his neck, his visible torso revealing a bordeaux coat on top of a navy blue shirt, his hands -- which were gripping on a cane topped by a small bronze globe -- covered in black gloves with a white lemon sewn on their top, and, finally, a black cardinal’s hat resting onto his head, nearly covering all of his red hair.

“Ah.” He said, his voice taking a nearly theatrical tone.”I see that you have come to honour me, Lemon Turner of the house of Citri-Vasca, and bask in my presence. Or is this chaotic gathering and all of this commotion supposed to be some manner of lynch mob?”

Whispers came from the crowd, as Lemon Turner slowly turned himself around to face the cars -- the music starting up again at a lower volume as he did so.

“Sadly for the ones craving to spill my blood for a nonsensical cause, my arrival was not without companionship,” He said, as the muffled sound of car doors being slowly opened and then violently closed could be barely heard in the background. “I came here with some assistants, young men and fair women who were quite willing and eager to join my very own Strafexpedition against some of the ones that have committed nefarious deeds against me.”

Rarity gulped as his words’ meaning sunk in her, while the other bystanders either frantically whispered and muttered between each other, or sent insults and curses against Lemon and his lot. As this happened, another pair of headlights were turned off, which allowed everyone to see the upcoming spectacle.

A large maniple walked the goose step forward at the music’s brooding march rhythm. The ones at the column’s sides -- wearing bordeaux shirts, black coats and dark blue trousers if they were boys, while the girls worn similar shirts but had ditched the trousers in favour of purple tartan long skirts and dark blue scarfs -- brandished long poles as they were pikes, while the ones in the center had more variated attires, thusly allowing easier recognition.

On the column’s right wing, Sunny Flare was wearing dark purple long socks, a long blue skirt and a dark blue coat over a light blue sweater, her hair gathered in a half-baked bun and her right hand closed in a fist close to her chest -- a look that made her resemble her infamous mother strongly. In the center, Sour Sweet, dressed in a plum knee-lenght overcoat was acting as an ensign, carrying a banner which depicted a black hand doing the horns while it held onto a crown of spines -- three blood drops radially coming out of it -- on a white background, while from the golden trim stitched to the lower part of the banner three golden trinkets lightly flailed in the air: a bundle of arrows plus a yoke, a two-headed eagle and a hooked cross. Finally, on the left wing, Moondancer marched forward in a stilted way due to her sandals’ high heels and her peculiar attire -- a white and lavender peplum coupled with golden bracelets going from her wrists to her elbow.

Lemon Turner rose his cane-holding left hand high up in the air and, as if they were one, the group abruptly stopped in front of the exhagitated crowd of party guests, a few meters of muddy ground separating them.

Applejack, once she recovered from the sound shockwave, sprung up snarling with bared teeth, only to be quickly intercepted and barely held back by the combined might contained in Roseluck and Bon Bon’s arms

Rainbow Dash made herself way by shoving people away until she finally managed to get in the small space separating the large group from the neatly-organized Crystal Prep’s square formation.

“C’me here Lemon, “ Rainbow Dash cried out while shaking her first against him. “You gotta pay! You’ve made my friend Rarity feel like a monster ‘cuz you --”

“If you were aware of what is the wisest decision here you would not dare to pick a fight on such a matter in such a place.” Lemon Turner said calmly, interrupting Rainbow Dash. “I suggest you to break off and organize your opposition with the woman commonly known as Roseluck, a fitting name, considered her thorns, but not as fitting a name as aconitum.”

A general gasp followed, as Roseluck’s gaze morphed into a stare.

“Take this!” Roseluck said, as she loosened her grip on Applejack’s arm, thusly allowing her to run forward, Bon Bon dragged along in tow, which caused Lemon Turner to scoff and to rapidly lower his cane.

“Let us get over this then. You are free to pursue your own personal objectives now.” He said as he did so.

Soon after, the square broke up, as the cane-wielders charged forward into the crowd, poles lowered like lances in rest, pushing the crowd back into the loggia and into the villa proper, and as the crystal academics in the center ran forward and grappled onto their targets, tackling them down as they let out various battlecries that melded together to create a truly fearsome roar.

Rarity -- using a void that had created itself in the general rout -- jumped away from the ongoing polemen charge to press herself against a wall, watching in horror and shock and listening with sorrow to the din of violent encoutners, as the former festivities degenerated into a brawl -- a rather one-sided one at that -- between scholastical institutions.

“L-Lemon… why did you… did you…” Rarity muttered to herself as she watched the loosened formation encircling, pushing people inside the villa thanks to the pole’s length or forming knots of people overwhelming a solitary, perceived foe and, depending on how charitable they felt, insulting and spitting on them or outright resorting to let their fists and their kicks talk for them.

In particular, Rarity noticed that Sunset and Roseluck getting their arms wrestled on their backs by two girls and one girl and one boy respectively and brought at Lemon Turner’s presence. Rarity tip-toed her way towards them, attempting to hide behind one of the nearby columns in order to overhear the upcoming conversation.

“Not feeling as proud as before, are we?” Lemon Turner said, forcefully raising Roseluck’s chin with his right hand. “And I see that the one that has accepted this disgusting overgrown and talking cross between a spiny rose bush and a venomous aconitus shrub’s money has not proceeded to give herself a proper burial. Do undertakers have decided to raise tariffs too high for your own pockets?”

“I’ve changed since then Lemon!” Sunset Shimmer shouted as she wiggled in the grip of Lemon Turner’s mooks. “I’m not the gal I was back then. Besides, it’s all in the past, you should get over it!”

Lemon Turner arched one of his eyebrows.

“Am I having auditive hallucinations, or is it this true?” He said with acidity. “How can I get over it, if your action nearly ended my entire life in more ways than one? I was nearly killed by a trio of reasonless brutes and I was ostracized out of ‘your’ school for reasons that should have not concerned you.”

“Well, it was a big mistake from my part then, alright?” Sunset Shimmer said with a deep sigh, as Lemon Turner stopped grabbing Roseluck’s chin to instead lean onto his cane. “Look, I understand that you may be pissed towards me, Roseluck and whatever other person may have done wrong to you in the past, but is calling people up to crash a party and attack the guests really the most constructive way to let out your anger?”

“Of course it is!” He said with a scoff, tapping his cane onto the muddy ground. “Why would I have bothered with recruiting and instructing many a schoolmates, if not to get you two and…”

“What?!” Roseluck shouted indignated. “You are telling me your entire reason to pull off all of that was to just get us two and everybody else here at the party was just collateral damage?”

Lemon Turner slowly turned towards Roseluck and then lightly knocked his cane onto her head, thus causing her lips to loosen a groan of pain.

“The term you may be looking for is ‘acceptable casualties,’ but, yes, that is actually a good description of my goal here.” He said, inflating his chest a little and setting one of his hands closed in a fist onto his chest. “I just wanted to make sure I was going to get you two and, preferably, yank you out of a pleasant situation in doing so.”

Tense silence remained behind for a few seconds, allowing Rarity to slowly but surely elaborate what she was seeing -- not to mention, allowing her to try to subdue her anger at Lemon’s behaviour towards Sunset -- by taking deep breaths and rapidly winking her eyes while slowly turning her head left and right, just before looking back at the ongoing scene.

“If that is so, how better are you from past me?” Sunset asked. “How does recruiting some people and putting them into some kind of organized formation in order to mob two people you hate into submission and then let them run off loose, free to beat up whoever they want to without distinction, differs from getting an entire school to push away and insult a single individual because he suffers of something he cannot control?”

Lemon Turner visibly recoiled, his overcoat adding a touch of drama to his gesture -- a touch that could only come from the tragedies of old -- made with his right arm passing over the eyes and his feet rapidly shifting position as if he was engaged in some kind of musicless ball.

“I have my reasons to believe that the violence will be kept at a mini-” He said, just before before being interrupted by shout, one much louder than the others that were coming out the villa, soon followed by Twilight falling face first onto the stone floor below, her ragged-up shirt missing a sleeve and her purple skirt showing rips all over the hem, her glasses nowhere to be seen and her right cheek spoiled by a small bleeding gash. With a gasp, Rarity ran towards her, as Sunset stared petrified, while her jailors and Lemon Turner looked at her rather perplexed.

However, Rarity was slower than Twilight’s attackers -- namely Sunny Flare and a mostly-naked Moondancer -- who immediately proceeded to jump off the small doorstep and close next to a crawling Twilight. Moondancer grabbed Twilight by her shoulders, using her arms to make an U-shaped grip that forced the assailed girl to rest her back onto Moondancer’s bare chest and leaving only her legs free to kick the air in vain.

“No! Leave her alone!” Rarity cried out, her arms stretched out towards Twilight and her legs pushing themselves to their limit in order to get her faster.

“Why should we?” Sunny Flare said, positioning herself at a whimpering Twilight’s side and turning her head towards Rarity, a ferocious grin nearly occupying her face. She gave one slow, almost taunting, near kick close to Twilight’s ribcage. “Wanna join her?”

Rarity, still on the run, tried to quickly put on the most menacing look she could muster, her hands lowered and closed into fists.

“No, I-” she was interrupted by a strong slap on the face whose strength caused Rarity to lose balance and violently fall onto her rear end and nearly hit her head against the loggia’s low wall. Her vision blurred up for the pain, prompting her to try to massage it away with her hand.

“Was I clear?” Sunny Flare said out loud as she kicked Twilight in her ribcase, prompting the latter to cry out in pain and to start to wail and sob unctrollably.

“Listen up, Sunny of the house of Cinch!” Lemon Turner shouted. “Either you cease your assault onto Twilight, or…”

“What are you gonna do, call my mom?” She said, chuckling evilly as she gave another kick to Twilight, this time on her hip. “As if she’d care about me beating Twilight up! She’d be so, so, so happy to hear that I’ve punished a defector the way it should be treated.”

“Ah, so you are wishing to engage in infighting?! So be it!”” He shouted. “Vichians, get those maenads out of my sight!”

Rarity slowly and carefully set one hand on the floor and one on the wall, then pushed herself up to sit on top of the loggia’s wall, trying to ignore the sore pain she was feeling in the coccyx as she did so. By doing so, she saw Roseluck and susnet being immediately freed from the four henchmen who -- after a rapid salute to Lemon -- turned around and charged forward towards Moondancer and Sunny Flare. The latter gave one last kick in the ribs to an already-prostrated and crying Twilight, just before turning towards the charging four and taking a stance preparing her for melee, the former immediately left her grip onto Twilight, which caused the assaulted girl to fall down like a ragdoll and then curl up to massage the offended areas, to instead turn her back around and flee inside the hustle in the villa.

“Where are you going you a-hole?!” Sunny Flare said, once she realized she had been left at her own devices, while she threw a couple of punched to the air in front of her. “I need help here!”

“As far as I can get from a brawl!” Moondancer said as she rapidly closed the villa’s door behind her. To the door slamming followed the slight cracking sound of Sunny Flare being hit on the nose by a punch of one of Lemon’s allies, which made her bend over to hold her nose -- a few seconds of liberty soon preceded by the only girl in the group grabbing her by the waist and locking her legs down and one of the guys holding her by her wrists with the grip of a single hand.

Soon after, Lemon Turner rushed forwards towards Twilight, kneeling next to her as soon as he was nearby, light brushing his gloved hand over Twilight’s damaged facial features. Rarity wobbly got up and walked toward him and Twilight.

“How are you feeling? Did you lose your glasses completely or did you manage to hide them away before being savagely attacked?” He asked.

“I-I… I feel v-very bad…” She whimpered in pain. “A-and t-they broke m-my glasses… I’d l-like some help..”

He turned his head to glare at Moondancer and Sunny Flare, before looking back at Twilight, a small smile on his face as he set his right hand behind her back and using his free hand to grab Twilight’s left hand to help her stand. Rarity went closer and grabbed Twilight’s free hand, ultimately allowing Twilight to sit up properly.

“Come on, it is alright,” he muttered as he slowly caressed Twilight’s face. “I am here, and so is your friend Rarity.”

“Yes, it is true,” Rarity said, kneeling next to her beaten friend. “You do not seem to be lethally wound, although a triage from trained professionals would clear any shdow of doubt.”

While Twilight lightly trembled, Lemon Turner nodded in agreement.

“Thinking about it, it indeed would be wise to do so,” Lemon Turner said as he lightly pulled Twilight up by her arm. “Lend me a hand to get her up please.”
Rarity nodded and grasped Twilight’s right hand, before quickly springing up and pulling her upwards, for the lighting-quick set her shoulders underneath Twilight’s arm, allowing it to rest limply onto her shoulders.

“I-I can w-walk…” Twilight protested weakly as she was slowly carried forward into the small garden. “I-I just don’t feel t-too well…”

“Nonsense!” Lemon Turner said as he kept walking forward, past the fountain and closer to his car. “You clearly need at least one person to support you in walking.”