My Little Pony: Friendship Is Absurd: Equestrian Gals: Rainbow Mocks

Chapters

Rainbow Mocks Part 2
Rainbow Mocks Part 3
Rainbow Mocks Part 1

Rainbow Mocks Part 2

“And it’s time for the second round!” declared Chrysalis. “Just remember that if you lose, it isn’t because you’re a loser. It’s because you went up against someone who, unlike you, is a winner! Anyway, first up are the Shadowbolts. Or at least they will be when we get this equipment calibrated. Come to think of it, maybe I should have waited until that happened to say anything. Ah well, hindsight is 20/20, or maybe even 20/15 or 20/25 sometimes.” She sat down.

Meanwhile, Sunset entered the room and went up to Twilight. “Okay, I’m back. Sorry for being a little late; had to find that ukulele again after it got lost. Anyway, what I found out was–”

Sunset found herself cut off by Rainbow Dash and the rest of her band entering and coming up to them.

“Uh, Rainbow Dash?” asked Twilight. “No need for you guys to be here. Your playing isn’t for a while still.”

“But why miss the chance to scope out the competition?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Um,” said Twilight hesitantly. “Oh, right, because outside there’s an animal-loving star athlete that does endorsements for farms and balloon shops. They also have their own clothing line.”

“We’re not falling for that one again,” said Rainbow Dash.

Crud, thought Twilight, how can I get them out of here so they’re not affected by the Shadowbolts?

“Okay,” called out Chrysalis, “now the equipment is calibrated, so we can get on with this battle of the bands. Ordinarily I’d follow that up with a sarcastic quip, but I’ve opted to not do so in order to provide variety and keep you on your toes.”

“Um… uh… um…” stammered Twilight as she quickly tried to think of a way to handle the situation. Why not try the truth? Not like I have anything to lose. “Okay, the truth is that the Shadowbolts are sirens from an alternate reality and have the ability to cause discord through their singing, which also gives them power. I’m also from that reality, so I’m unaffected, but you aren’t, so you have to get out of here while they sing so you won’t be under their spell!”

There was an awkward pause as the rest stared at Twilight. The silence was finally broken by Pinkie Pie. “Well, why didn’t you just say so in the first place?” she asked.

Before Twilight got a chance to answer, she was interrupted by the Shadowbolts starting their song. Crud, she thought as the music started to take effect.

“Well, of course she wouldn’t have said that in the first place because it’s clearly made up,” declared Applejack. “Seriously, alternate universes?

“I think you were just making that up to try to get more attention to yourself!” added Rarity.

“At least she’s had better luck with relationships than you have,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Oh?” demanded Rarity. “Then where’s your boyfriend?”

“I’m working on it!”

“Sounds like an excuse for failing to find one,” said Rarity.

“Hey!” said Rainbow Dash. “I’ve been trying for a few days. How long have you been unsuccessful at it?”

“Why do either of you think any of the rest of us even care about this stupid bet of yours?” demanded Fluttershy, showing a surprising display of assertiveness.

Twilight sighed as they continued arguing. “And there goes that,” she said to Sunset. “Guess it’s time for Plan B.”

“You know,” said Pinkie Pie, “even if that whole alternate universe thing was real, why are you spending so much time with this random girl than your actual friends?”

“Right!” said Rainbow Dash, momentarily forgetting her argument with Rarity. “Are you saying you don’t want to be in the band?”

“She might not be the only one,” muttered Fluttershy to herself.

“Fine!” said Rainbow Dash. “Anyone not want to me in my band, you’re welcome to leave!”

The group traded glances. Then everyone but Sunset, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash walked off.

“Be that way, then!” said Rainbow Dash. “I’ll be better as a solo act anyway!”

“I’m still here,” said Twilight.

“Yeah, but your ukulele idea was too lame. I guess I’m stuck using it for this round because I don’t have time to get something else, but I can’t have someone around who has lame ideas like that,” said Rainbow Dash dismissively before she walked off.

“That song is pretty powerful,” said an eyes-wide-open Sunset. “It seriously broke you guys up in less than a minute.”

“Well, there had been a few minor tensions in the group beforehand,” said Twilight. “But that was extremely powerful. I wish we had more information on exactly what their plan was. Well, at any rate, I guess I’ll join up with your musical act.”

“I’m sure you’d be better at the ukulele,” said Sunset. “But, anyway, those three Shadowbolt guys? They don’t seem to be the sirens that Starswirl banished, because they only came through the portal the last time it was open. They’ve somehow picked up that magical hypnosis power themselves. Not sure if they had it before they came through the portal or if they somehow found it afterwards.”

“Interesting,” mused Twilight.

And so the next round of the Battle of the Bands continued. The Shadowbolts, Sunset and Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Trixie’s band all advanced.

“So!” declared Twilight. “It looks like next round we’ll end up head to head with the Shadowbolts and can win.”

“You don’t seem particularly down by the fact your friends deserted you,” observed Sunset.

“They’ll all be back to normal after we finish with this, so it’s not that big a deal,” said Twilight. “I hope.”

“So, I guess the plan will work as long as we win the next round,” said Sunset. “Which hopefully will happen considering I don’t think our musical act is all that good.”

“Oh, as long as we have the ukuleles we’ll be fine.”

“What’s this about ukuleles?!” asked Trixie eagerly as she zoomed up to the two of them.

“Trixie?!” asked Sunset and Twilight simultaneously. “What are you doing here?”

Trixie stared at them briefly. “Oh… wow. That was weird. Did you guys rehearse saying that whole thing simultaneously, or are you mentally linked somehow?” She waved off Twilight, who was just about to respond. “Doesn’t matter. Based on your statement that I overheard, I’ve successfully extrapolated the fact that the secret to your success is ukuleles, possibly due to one or more of the judges having a secret affinity for the instrument! Well, no longer! The Great and Powerful Trixie shall obtain all the ukuleles and shall be victorious!” Trixie suddenly noticed everyone staring at her. “And perhaps the Great and Powerful Trixie should not have shouted all of that out loud and exposed the secret to everyone else,” she finished with a sigh.

“Well, what are we going to do now?” Sunset asked Twilight after the crowd had all run off, presumably to buy ukuleles. “Our advantage is gone. I’m sure they’re going to pick up ukuleles.”

“So,” came a voice, “are you two looking for new band members?”

Sunset and Twilight turned to look at who had just spoken and saw Adagio, Aria, and Sonata. “I guess?” said Sunset.

“Oooh!” said Sonata. “I’m great at these guessing games! Maybe I can help! Is it chocolate?”

“Ignore her,” said Adagio. “She’s not very bright. Anyway, the three of us didn’t quite get a band together in time for the competition, so we were hoping we might be able to join up with someone, and it looks like you have vacancies?”

“Well, can any of you play ukuleles well?” asked Twilight.

“As it turns out,” said Adagio, “despite her… mental deficiencies… Sonata actually knows a lot about ukuleles.”

“And you two said those ukulele lessons were a waste of time,” said Sonata as she stuck her tongue out at Adagio and Aria.

“Well, good enough,” said Twilight. “Though I do want to know why you asking about irritability earlier.”

“Oh, well, there was a lot of grouchiness going around, and we wanted to find someone who wasn’t particularly grumpy to join up with,” said Adagio.

“I guess that makes sense,” said Twilight. “Okay, so Sonata’s on the ukulele. What about the other two of you? Can you sing?”

“No!” shouted Aria abruptly. As the other four stared at her, she quickly added “Erm, I mean, no on the singing. Just not very good at it. We’d prefer to stick to instruments. One or both of you two can be the singer for the band.”

“Well!” said Twilight. “I guess that’s that. We can meet later today to practice.” They quickly arranged a time and place to meet later before splitting up.

“Hrm,” said Sunset after she and Twilight had left. “There’s something… off about those three. And I’m not talking about the weird grouchiness survey either.”

“They were too nice,” said Twilight.

“Too nice?”

“Yes,” said Twilight. “Now, I’m not sure if they’ve been around during the performances of the Shadowbolts, but I remember when the Shadowbolts came into the cafeteria and did their big song and dance routine, which would probably make for a good number on a soundtrack if not for the whole hypnosis thing. But those three were there and were hit by the song. I saw them being affected by it. Yet… now they don’t act like they’ve been affected by it at all.”

“It wore off?” said Sunset.

“Maybe,” said Twilight uncertainly. “We have to stick with them because if Sonata is actually good at ukuleles, that would give us the competitive edge necessary. But I still wonder…”

“By the way, I’ve been thinking about our plan,” said Sunset. “Even if we could outdo the Shadowbolts in regards to skills in playing ukuleles, wouldn’t the hypnosis make Chrysalis give them a pass anyway?”

“She’s not hypnotized,” said Twilight.

“She’s so crazy that the music would have no effect?”

“No,” said Twilight. “She’s just been putting in earplugs whenever they perform to dodge the effects. Remember, she knows what’s going on; she just doesn’t care.”

“Okay,” said Sunset. She frowned. “By the way, I think I’ve used or heard the word ‘ukulele’ more times in the last few days than I have in the rest of my entire life.”

“I still say we should just grab the pendants right back,” grumbled Aria. “Much simpler than this convoluted thing we’re doing. Especially because the plan is to grab the pendants back anyway.”

“Do you really want me to have to explain again the reasons why that would be a bad idea?” asked Adagio in a frustrated tone of voice.

“Yes,” said Aria. “Not only because it might make you realize how dumb it is, but also because Sonata probably won’t remember it otherwise.”

“Remember what?” asked Sonata.

“Exactly,” said Aria.

“Fine,” said Adagio. “If we take it from them, they could try to take it back. Or just report the theft to have them taken back by law enforcement.”

“Wait, why didn’t we do that when they were stolen?” asked Sonata.

“We did,” said Adagio. “But we didn’t know who they were so we couldn’t send the police straight after them, like they could with us. And I’m sure that as soon as they got the pendants, they’ve used their hypnosis to come up with faked documents to indicate that they’ve always been the owners of the pendants and then just claim the pendants we lost were somewhere else.”

“Oh,” said Sonata.

“Anyway. Beyond that, they have the opportunity to just take them back themselves. We need to take them as closely as possible to us performing to minimize the chance of that happening. Once our plan succeeds, then it’s too late for them.”

“I still think–” started Aria.

“Furthermore, they count as having Equestrian magic. And you know what would sure make them angry at each other? Losing! But we’d have to imprison them somewhere near where we’d perform, and it’d be a lot harder for someone to stumble upon them in the meantime if that’s done shortly before our performance.”

“I think at this point you’re just trying to come up with anything that’s different than my plan to avoid having to admit I was right all along,” said Aria.

“Look,” said Adagio, “if some perfect opportunity to snatch them comes up in the meantime, we’ll take it. Does that satisfy you?”

“I guess,” said Aria in a clearly reluctant tone.

“By the way,” said Sonata, “a while ago you described Twilight as lavender. Don’t you think she’s really more of a pale orchid color?”

“Why in the world do you even care?” asked Aria.

“Because color is important!”

“But the meaning is obvious! Heck, I thought lavender was already getting pointlessly specific; why not just say purple?”

Sonata and Aria continued arguing with each other. Adagio sighed. What did I ever do to deserve this? she thought to herself. Outside of, you know, all the mind control.

Meanwhile…

“So, just the semifinals and finals to go, right?” asked Thunder.

“Yeah,” said Stormy. “Looks like we’re up against Sunset. Oh, won’t it be interesting to go up against her alternate self.”

“Why would you even care about Sunset? She didn’t do anything to foil any of ours plans; the only one she was around for was that Cloudsdale thing and all of the blame for the foiling goes to Rainbow Dash.”

“Which is why I said interesting!” Stormy sighed. “Whatever. It’s not going to be that hard to win those last two rounds with our hypnotic singing.”

“Hrmmmm,” said Maelstrom.

“So where are our new band members?” asked Sunset. “They’re late.”

“I’ll call them up,” said Twilight as she took out her phone. “What was their number again? Oh, right, it was–”

“We’re here!” announced Adagio as the three arrived.

“Why so late?” asked Sunset.

“Don’t ask,” grumbled Adagio.

“We got distracted going up the mountain when we met up with a jive-talking purple penguin who turned out to be a figment of our imagination,” said Sonata.

“Huh?” asked Twilight. “Ignoring that already really weird penguin bit, what mountain? There’s not any near here.”

“Oh, I was just trying to make something up so we wouldn’t have to admit we got pulled over for speeding,” said Sonata. “And then Adagio tried to flirt with the officer to get away with it, going so far as to…” she trailed off as she noticed Adagio staring daggers at her. “Oh, wait. I’m doing that thing where I accidentally reveal secrets again, aren’t I? The point is, we got delayed. Also, she’s not going to be driving again anytime soon.”

“As I was saying,” said Adagio through clenched teeth, “don’t ask. The important thing is that we’re here now.”

And so the group practiced. But because practice is rather boring, that segment will be skipped over in a musical montage. But due to the difficulty of accomplishing that in a non-audiovisual medium, and the fact it probably wouldn’t fit that well anyway in this context, that will also be skipped over.

“Well, I think we’re actually doing a pretty darn good job considering we’ve only been practicing together for a few hours,” said Twilight. “And Sonata is surprisingly good at playing the ukulele.”

“Finally, a reason to have kept that idiot around,” muttered Aria to herself.

“What did you say?” asked Sonata.

“Uh, nothing,” said Aria.

“For realsies?” said Sonata. “Because it sounded like you said, ‘Finally, a reason to have kept that idiot around.’ But that must have been my imagination.”

Later, at the next round of the Battle of the Bands…

“That’s… nice, but not quite what we were looking for,” said Chrysalis after Rainbow Dash had finished. “Trixie’s band progresses.”

“What?!” protested Rainbow Dash. “But she played the exact same song she has in every other round! All she did was add ukuleles!”

“Who cares?” said Chrysalis. “Her song ‘Tricks Up My Sleeve’ is catchy enough I could listen to it over and over again. Would make a good song for a soundtrack. Next!”

“And after I spent that work into learning how to play the ukulele,” muttered Rainbow Dash to herself as she walked off. “I’d smash this if it weren’t much more cost effective to simply return it to the store.”

“Hey!” said Chrysalis. “I said ‘next’! Where is the next band? Did people fail English class and not understand what the word next means?”

“Well,” said Luna, “I’m pretty sure that even someone failing English class would understand the meaning of the word ‘next.’ However, if they were doing well in English, they would observe that you were not using a complete sentence. As a result, your meaning was ambiguous. Although one could perhaps try to fill it in through inference, it still isn’t entirely clear.”

“You lost me,” said Chrysalis in a bored voice. “Can you explain that in English?”

“I just did!”

“My usage of the expression was clearly to indicate that, while you were technically using English, you were talking in such a confusing manner it was unclear,” said Chrysalis in a tone that just barely stopped short of sounding smug.

“Uh, can we start now?” asked Sunset.

“Quiet,” said Chrysalis, “the adults are talking.”

There was a pause.

“Are the adults done talking now?” asked Sunset wearily.

“No, not quite,” said Chrysalis. There was another pause. “Okay, they’re done now.”

“Huh,” observed Thunder as Sunset’s group started playing, “that one is actually rather talented with the ukulele.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t care how much Chrysalis might secretly like ukuleles. It’s still no match for our hypnosis,” said Stormy.

“Hrm,” said Maelstrom thoughtfully.

“Though it sure would be nice if a certain member of our team would contribute to the plans a little more often!” said Stormy.

“Well, that was adequate,” said Chrysalis after the group had finished performing. “Next! And I’d like to clarify that when I say ‘next,’ I do mean I want the next performer to start performing.”

“Well I guess we just have to hope that was good enough to make us pass,” said Twilight after the group had left the stage.

“So do I!” said Adagio. “Also, I just realized the three of us have to run out and do something. We should be back in time for the judging!”

“Wait, what did we have to do?” asked a confused Sonata.

Instead of answering, Adagio and Aria simply grabbed Sonata and pulled her out of the room.

“That was odd,” said Sunset. “Well, I guess it means they won’t get hypnotized.”

“That wouldn’t have mattered that much,” said Twilight, “as we’d either pass or we wouldn’t. Either way, we didn’t really need them anymore. But I did actually want them to stay around so I could try to observe them.”

“I just want this whole thing to be over already so I can head back to my own world,” grumbled Sunset. “Though at least this hasn’t been as nerve-wracking as some of the stuff I’ve had to deal with in Equestria.”

“Because it involves less imminent danger to your physical self?”

“Because if I screw up, I can just run back to my world and forget this ever happened,” said Sunset. “But also that.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow but said nothing. After another verse and chorus, the Shadowbolts finished their song.

“Well!” said Chrysalis. “That was a reasonably entertaining number. However, the win goes to the other band.”

“What are you talking about?!” demanded Luna. “The Shadowbolts were clearly much better!”

“Hey, I’m the one with the tiebreaking vote,” said Chrysalis. “So the Shadowbolts lose. Sorry.”

“Were you even listening to them?”

“Would it matter if I wasn’t?”

“Yes, because then you wouldn’t be able to properly judge them!” said Luna.

“Your objections have been noted,” said Chrysalis. “Anyway, next!”

“There isn’t a next,” said Luna. “There were only four because this was the semifinals.”

“Ah, I’m glad you noticed that!” said Chrysalis. “I was a little worried about your math skills so I said that as a test.”

“Okay, you know what?” said Luna. “I have put up with your craziness for way too long without proper compensation. You can consider this my two weeks’ notice.”

“Oh, please, you’re only saying that because you’re hypnotized by the Shadowbolts,” said Chrysalis in a voice loud enough to be heard by Luna but quiet enough that no one else heard. “Which is probably also why you were voting for them to continue, incidentally.”

Luna stared at Chrysalis for a moment or two before walking away while shaking her head in confusion.

“Enh, she’ll get over it,” said Chrysalis after Luna had walked off. “So anyway, Shadowbolts and Rain-Booms lose, the other teams move on, and I’ve used up all of my witty retorts for now so just suppose I said something really funny right here.”

Meanwhile, in the same room…

“We lost?” said Stormy. “How does that even work?”

“I think Chrysalis has been putting on earplugs in order to stop us from hypnotizing her,” said Thunder.

“If she knows we can hypnotize her, why is she letting us play in this competition?” demanded Stormy. She paused. “Oh, right. It’s Chrysalis we’re talking about. Who knows why she does anything? Whatever. Plan B. Let’s go.”

Meanwhile, also in the same room…

“Victory!” said Twilight. “Well, sort of. It really won’t be quite complete until we find out for sure what their plan is and how to stop it for good. But we’ve stopped it for now.”

“So, we’re done?” asked Sunset. “That all felt rather anticlimactic, but that’s hardly anything to complain about.”

“No, we need to make sure they don’t try to pull anything in the finals,” said Twilight. “Because I expect they will. I don’t think anyone who came to this world to try to enact some kind of diabolical plan that involved them winning this competition would give up so quickly. At any rate, we should go find Adagio, Aria, and Sonata. We’ll need them for the final round.”

The two were interrupted by Trixie zooming up to them. “Ha! The Great and Powerful Trixie is here to announce that she will be the victor in the finals!”

“I forgot how much more annoying you were before you started up Mare Do Well,” muttered Sunset.

“Mare do what now?” asked Trixie.

“Never mind.”

Meanwhile, not in the same room but instead just outside of the aforementioned room…

“Okay, the Shadowbolts must be done playing by now, so it won’t blow out cover to come back in and be unaffected. Let’s go back into the auditorium,” said Aria. “And then we’ll finally stalk them and get the pendants back, right?”

The Shadowbolts took the opportunity to enter the hallway themselves. “Hello?” said Stormy.

The Dazzlings took a quick glance at each other before lunging at the Shadowbolts, who managed to dodge them and then run off.

“After them!” shouted Adagio.

“Because we clearly couldn’t figure that out ourselves,” muttered Aria as the group gave chase.

“I didn’t think it was that obvious,” said Sonata, prompting an exasperated sigh from Aria.

Meanwhile, not only not in the same room as originally, but not even in the same universe…

“You ever get the feeling that if there was a film about somepony else’s life, it might cut to you briefly as some kind of a gag?” asked Trixie.

“Uh… no,” said Lightning Dust.

“Oh, good,” said Trixie in relief. “Neither do I!”

Meanwhile, back in the original room…

“What was that Mare Do Well thing you mentioned?” asked Twilight as she and Sunset left the room.

“It’s this comic book character that Trixie and Lightning Dust came up with back in my universe. It’s actually incredibly popular. See, the story is that there’s this pegasus superhero named Mare Do Well, but despite having tremendous strength, she’s also kind of an idiot, balanced out mostly by her far more intelligent and reasonable changeling sidekick, Carapace. The most recent story arc involved them going into this alternate universe where everyone’s genders were reversed and so were the days of the week, and then…” Sunset trailed off as she noticed Twilight staring at her. “Look, I don’t read it myself! But I hear about it a lot, so I sort of absorbed a lot of knowledge.”

“Well,” said Twilight after they had looked through the nearby hallways, “those three don’t seem to be here… I’ll just call them up on my phone, I suppose.”

“I think they’re finally started to tiring out,” panted Adagio as both groups continued running. “I guess those PE classes at this school we had to take actually paid off.”

The three sirens pursued the Shadowbolts up onto the outside stage that the final round of the Battle of the Bands would be performed on. The Shadowbolts stopped near some kind of control panel to catch their breath.

“Ha!” declared Adagio as she, Aria, and Sonata ran towards them. “Now we can–”

Whatever Adagio was going to say will be forever lost to the ages, as Stormy took the opportunity to pull a lever, which opened up a trapdoor and sent the three sirens tumbling down.

“Ha!” she said. “Make them chase you towards the trap door and then make them fall. Works every time.”

“When has it ever worked before?” asked Thunder. “Wasn’t this the first time we used it?”

“Not the point!”

“Any idea why those three were after us?” asked Thunder.

“Well, they were outside, so maybe they didn’t know they had won,” said Stormy. “So this may have been intended as an act of sabotage or revenge. Whatever. It just means we’ve gotten an extra use out of that trap door.”

“Now that I think about it,” said Thunder, “do you think those might have been the sirens we grabbed the pendants from? I didn’t think of it before because they looked different, but they might have put on disguises.”

“Well, in that case,” said Stormy, “our plan will work even better with those three trapped down there.”

“Hrm,” said Thunder, prompting an eye twitch from Stormy.

Underneath the stage…

“Well, we walked right into that one,” said Sonata as she tried to get water out of her hair and clothes. “Or more accurately, ran right into that one.”

“Whose idea was it to put a big tub of water underneath the stage?” asked Aria as she did the same. “I’m soaking.”

“Well,” said Adagio, “the door’s locked and I can’t break it down, and the cell phone’s not working, possibly due to falling into the water, or maybe there’s just a jammer they set up.”

“Okay, fearless leader,” said Aria sarcastically, “what’s your plan now?”

“You two try and help me break down the door. Maybe if all three of us slam it at once it’ll open.”

The three tried to slam into the door at the same time. This didn’t cause the door to break, but did cause them all to end up falling onto each other in a comedic manner.

“Wow,” said Sonata. “We’re all dripping wet and on top of each other. This reminds me of that time we got caught in a rainstorm and after we were able to take cover, to keep warm we had to–”

“WE AGREED TO NEVER MENTION THAT AGAIN!”

“Well, they’re not picking up,” said Twilight with a frown. “I guess we’ll just have to do the finals ourselves.”

“And most likely lose horribly,” said Sunset.

Twilight shrugged. “If Trixie wins, the problem is still solved. Though I’m surprised you seem disappointed considering you were so eager to run back.”

“Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to win something after all this work.”

“What do you suggest, then?” asked Twilight. “The ukulele advantage isn’t working anymore.”

Sunset thought for a moment, then a few more moments. “Okay, I’ve got nothing,” she admitted several moments after that. “I guess we can just wing it.”

“Greetings!” announced a human Suri who walked up to the two. “It’s come to my attention you two are going to be in the finals! And I’m having a sale on some designer clothing I picked up! I bet you’d look great in them and win!” She pulled out some clothes. “How about it?”

Twilight looked at the clothes. “It says ‘Not to be confused with actual designer clothes’ on the tag.”

“That’s, um, just a typo,” said Suri.

“I think we’ll pass,” said Sunset.

“Fine!” said Suri. “I’ll have you know plenty of others have purchased the designer clothes I’ve picked up, and none of them have ever complained!”

“Isn’t that because you always skedaddle before they get a chance?” asked Twilight.

“That’s not true!” said Suri before she skedaddled away.

“She’s been trying to pull that on various people,” said Twilight. “I’m surprised she hasn’t gotten arrested for it yet.”

“Her schemes seem a lot more transparent than the Suri from my universe,” said Sunset. “Maybe because she seems younger here for some reason. How does that even work?”

“I try not to think about it too much,” said Twilight.

An indeterminate amount of time (but probably just a few hours) later…

“Testing, one, two, three,” said Twilight into the microphone. “Well, it seems to be in working order. Still no sign of the Shadowbolts.”

“No sign of who?” asked Thunder with a smirk as he jumped onto the stage.

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “And what are you planning to do here?” she asked. “Perform some kind of sabotage?”

“Nah,” he said. “That’s Stormy’s job.”

Stormy, who had used the opportunity to sneak onto the other side of the stage, pulled a lever that caused the trapdoor from the earlier scene to open and cause Twilight and Sunset to tumble down into it before it closed again.

“Seriously,” said Thunder, “who set it up like that? Did the architect put it in as a joke?”

“Thunder,” said Stormy, “haven’t we been over this? Say the witty quip like ‘Nah, that’s Stormy’s job’ after I pull the trick, not before. Doing it before gives them a second or two to respond. You should have made your comment after I pulled the lever.”

“Does it matter? It worked!”

“I’m just saying, for any future instances–”

“What future instances?” demanded Thunder. “We’re about to take over the world! We won’t need any more!”

“Yes, we are about to conquer the world,” said Stormy. “And the time we did it? Was when I was a leader. Clearly showing I am better.”

“Yeah, well, take over the world first, then you can brag.”

“Hr–” started Maelstrom but stopped mid-syllable after a glare from Stormy.

“Well, look who decided to join us,” commented Adagio after Sunset and Twilight had landed on the floor. “Maybe we shouldn’t have moved that pool of water out of the way.”

“Oh, so this is where you guys were?” asked Sunset as she got herself up. “Did…” she trailed off as she looked at the three. “Wait. Your skin is a different color, your hair is different… did you get in disguise or something?”

“No, silly!” said Sonata. “Those wigs and body paint were the disguise! This is how we actually look.”

“How did you fit hair that big under the wigs?” asked Twilight.

“Wait a minute,” said Sunset. “Blue… purple… yellow… the same color as the sirens in the book… are you three actually the sirens banished to this world?”

“Wait, how did you know that?” asked Aria.

“Mostly the fact you just told me,” said Sunset smugly.

Aria facepalmed.

“Ha!” said Sonata. “For once I’m not the one who inadvertently gives away a plan!”

“So,” continued Sunset, “based on this, I’m going to assume that the Shadowbolts must have come into this world, grabbed your powers somehow, and then tried to enact the plan themselves. And you joined with us in order to stop them and possibly get the powers back. But then you fell through the trapdoor like we did.”

Adagio scowled. “I suppose there’s no point in trying to deny it,” she said, “especially because with all of us stuck here, it’s not likely to matter. I can only assume that they’re going to take advantage of our absence to take part in the finals and in doing so gain the power to hypnotize the world. Oh, and the door’s locked pretty shut; don’t think it’ll open or anything by trying to force it.”

Twilight pulled out her cell phone and tried making a call. “This isn’t working either. They must have set up a cell phone jammer nearby.” She sighed. “Well, guess there’s nothing to do until someone rescues us. Anyone have any games we can play to pass the time?”

“Oooh! Oooh!” shouted Sonata as she waved her arm around eagerly. “I’m an expert at Monopoly!”

“Do you have a Monopoly set?” asked Adagio.

“No, but I’m still really good at it!” said Sonata.

This is going to be painful, thought Sunset to herself.

“And so,” announced Chrysalis, “rather than investigate the mysterious disappearance of one of our bands, we’ve opted to do the cost-saving measure of just having the band they beat in the semifinals perform in the finals. Because that’s obviously not suspicious at all, right? Anyway, here they go, the Shadowbolts.”

Underneath the stage…

“Ha!” said Sonata. “You landed on my property!”

“Sonata, no one cares about this imaginary game of Monopoly you’re playing against yourself,” said Adagio in a tired tone of voice.

“You just say that because I’m winning,” said Sonata as she stuck out her tongue.

“Ugh,” said Sunset. “Not only do we have to wait here while the world gets taken over, we have to put up with them in the meantime.”

“Welcome to my world,” grumbled Adagio.

“Hey, if we had just grabbed the pendants like I suggested, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now!” said Aria.

“Huh, I was right, it was the pendants that were the source of their power,” muttered Twilight to herself.

“Oh please,” said Adagio. “Just because my plan didn’t quite work perfectly doesn’t mean yours would have worked.”

“‘Didn’t work quite perfectly’? Understatement!”

“Guys?” asked Twilight. “If arguing gives them power, maybe we should stop arguing?”

Adagio took a deep breath. “You’re right. We should try to avoid it for now.”

“Exactly!” said Aria. “So when I say things like your plan failing miserably shows you were a lackluster leader, you can’t argue with me about it.”

“You wouldn’t have done a better job,” said Adagio. “All you ever do is second guess things.”

“You’re arguing again,” said Twilight.

“Wait, how is this arguing?” asked Sonata. “We’re just stating facts that are contradictory to each other. We do that all the time.”

“That’s what arguing is!” said Twilight.

“I’m not sure about that,” said Sonata.

“You’re arguing with me right now!”

“Am not!”

Yeah, thought Sunset to herself, I am so running back to Equestria whenever we get out of this.

Rainbow Mocks Part 3

“I still think we should have dressed up better,” said Thunder.

“Why bother? Who needs to look good when you’re ruler of the world?” asked Stormy. “Now let’s use the Equestrian magic that’s below us to welcome them to the show!”

The three started levitating as they began their song.

“Welcome to the show
We’re here to let you know
Our time is now
Your time is running out”

“They totally ripped off our song,” said Adagio.

“Our song? I came up with that song!” said Aria.

“Wait, you guys came up with this specific song just in case you would be in a position to sing it to take over the world?” asked Sunset in confusion.

“It’s not like there was that much else to do,” said Aria.

“Well, I guess our only hope is my brother came up with some plan to deal with them,” said Twilight.

Everyone suddenly stopped talking and stared at Twilight. “Say what now?” asked Sunset.

“Oh, well, he’s fairly high ranked in the police force, so I told him everything I knew about what was going on and asked him to try to provide some kind of backup plan.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?!” asked Sunset.

“Because I was worried that if you got brainwashed you’d give it up,” said Twilight. “I mean, I made sure to not know what he was up to just in case that happened to me.”

“What in the world could he do to stop them?” demanded Aria. “Have some kind of crazy band-mobile that would allow another group to play music to beat them? Because that just sounds stupid.”

“Now you need us
Come and heed us
Nothing can stop–”

The music abruptly ended and the Shadowbolts found themselves unceremoniously dropped to to the ground. “That’s a sprain,” muttered Thunder. “What just happened?”

“The pendants…” said Stormy. “They got destroyed somehow. Look at the floor.”

Thunder looked down and saw the pendants in fragments. “What now?”

“Run away!” shouted Maelstrom.

“Wait, did you just–” started Stormy.

“RUN AWAY! TO THE PORTAL!”

The sheer shock of hearing Maelstrom actually say something caused the other two Shadowbolts to obey him without further question and run off the stage. There was an awkward pause and Chrysalis came onto the stage.

“Uh, well, that was… interesting?” she said. “Maybe it was supposed to be a postmodern ending. Well, at any rate, next up is Trixie’s band! At least once the equipment gets reconfigured.”

“It’s called Trixie and the Illusions,” hissed Trixie as she and her band came onto the stage.

“Right, Trixie’s band!” said Chrysalis. “Because as it says, the other performers are just illusions! They’re not really there. So, enjoy this performance of a band that for the most part is nonexistent.”

“Hey! I do exist!” said one of Trixie’s band members.

“Sure, keep telling yourself that,” said Chrysalis.

“Did something happen up there?” asked Twilight. “It sounded like the song abruptly ended.”

Just then, the door opened. “What is going on here?” asked the person on the other side crossly.

“Oh, thank you!” said Sunset as she rushed over. “We got stuck here, and… then…” She suddenly turned pale as she recognized who this was the human version of.

“You know what?” said Tirek. “I don’t think I want to know. I want you lot to get out of here now.”

“No arguments here!” said Adagio as she and the other Dazzlings ran out, followed by Twilight, who grabbed Sunset.

“What the heck is Tirek doing here?” asked Sunset.

“You know him?” asked Twilight.

“He was the guy I had to deal with just before I came here! What is he in this universe?”

“From my understanding, some kind of crime boss,” said Twilight. “He’s probably here to engage in some sort of illegal exchange with someone. But that’s not really important right now! We’ve got to find out what happened!”

Back under the stage…

Tirek looked all around. Okay, he thought to himself, there seems to be no one around. Good. I don’t want anyone to see me doing this. He pulled out his cell phone. Let’s see if that tip about this being a place to find Porygons is accurate.

The Shadowbolts continued their run, only to suddenly run into three other individuals, causing them all to fall down in a disorganized fashion and knocking Stormy unconscious. “Huh?” asked Thunder as he looked over and saw himself.

“Ha!” said the other Thunder. “I told you there were imposters of ourselves running around!” He looked over and saw that Stormy had been knocked out by the crash. “Uh… well, I guess I can tell you later.”

“I don’t have time for this,” muttered the other Thunder as he grabbed the other Stormy and ran off with Maelstrom.

“After them!” said the other other Thunder. “I want to know what’s going on here! Let’s–”

“Freeze!” came a voice as the three suddenly found themselves interrupted by being surrounded by a number of different people in uniforms pointing guns at them.

“Well, this day took a turn for the worse,” said Thunder.

“Hrm,” said Maelstrom.

Over on the stage…

“Are these… fragments of the pendants?” asked Adagio as she looked at them.

“How did they break?” wondered Aria. “Is that what stopped them from singing?”

“This means we can’t enact our plan, right?” asked Sonata.

“Yes, Sonata, of course it means–” started Adagio grouchily.

“Hey!” said Trixie as she approached them. “I’m going next. You want to go, you should’ve just showed up to begin with! I don’t even know why I let you guys stay on the stage for this long, but you should get going now.”

Off the stage…

Various police officers, including Shining Armor, stood around guarding Thunder, Stormy, and Maelstrom, who were all in handcuffs. Twilight and Sunset ran up to them. “What happened?” asked Twilight.

“We just stopped their plan,” said Shining Armor. “We got their pendants destroyed and that was pretty much the end of it.”

“How?” asked Twilight.

An excited-looking human version of Gilda came up to them clutching several large sniper rifles. “Didja see my triple snipe?!” she asked excitedly. “Three pendants hit perfectly!”

“Yes,” said Shining Armor, “very impressive. You’re definitely going to get a great bonus for that.”

“Three pendants hit at once! Ken Satori only wishes he was that good!” said Gilda.

“Who?” asked Shining Armor.

“Um… uh… forget I said that,” said Gilda quickly. “I don’t even read that series. It’s for dweebs.”

“What series?”

“Exactly!” declared Gilda.

“Wait, how do you even pull off a triple snipe?” asked Twilight.

“Practice, practice, practice,” said Gilda.

“Anyway,” said Shining Armor, “we set up everything to take them down while protecting ourselves from their music with some headphones and earplugs. You were right about the pendants, by the way. I’m glad that stopped their plan, because having to actually shoot them would’ve been a PR nightmare.”

“What are we even being charged with?” demanded Thunder.

“A lot of counts of both attempted and successful mind control,” said Shining Armor.

“What law actually prohibits that?”

“That’s a good question!” announced a human Lightning Dust who suddenly showed up. “As any mind control would inherently involve tampering with someone’s neurons, one could easily make the claim that it’s a form of assault. And we made sure to get a lot of video evidence proving this, and I’m sure there will be plenty of witness testimony, so don’t think we don’t have proof. That’s why we delayed intervening until now, in order to gather it.”

“Oh yeah,” muttered Sunset, “being obsessed about legal matters did used to be her thing.”

“But just to be sure,” said Shining Armor, “a little while ago I had some friends in the government slip a note about it counting as a crime into a bill about water supply.”

“Look, I’ve had enough of this!” said Thunder. “I didn’t try to brainwash or hypnotize anyone. That was just an imposter of some sort! I’m innocent!”

The previously unconscious Stormy finally got up. “Any idea why the mind control failed?” she asked woozily.

Thunder facepalmed.

“Well,” said Shining Armor, “we’ve been after you three for long enough that it’s rather nice to finally be able to arrest you. Also, someone be sure to stop by and arrest that Suri girl for all those cases of fraud.”

The nearby Dazzlings stared in disbelief at the situation. Finally Sonata spoke. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing we weren’t able to go through with our plan. We dodged a pretty literal bullet there, eh? Eh?”

“Oh, just shut up, Sonata,” said Aria.

“Well, this is… not good,” said Adagio. “While on the bright side this means no one else will be able to enact our plan, it also means that with our savings starting to run out, we’ll all have to find some kind of jobs to pay the rent.”

“Oh, that’ll be no problem!” said Sonata. “I just got offered a job as an investment banker. It’s got a 6-figure salary.”

Adagio and Aria stared at Sonata as if she had suddenly turned into an alien. “Sonata, how did you even qualify for that?” asked Aria.

“With the college degree I got,” said Sonata matter of factly. “Online courses are pretty useful for those. Also, being highly knowledgeable about the field.”

“Oh, wait, I get it,” said Adagio. “You’re just screwing with us, aren’t you?”

“Nope!” said Sonata. “Or at least not in the way you think I am. See, I’m actually a genius, and I’ve just been pretending to be stupid this whole time. For realsies.”

Aria and Adagio stared blankly at Sonata for a while, then continued staring, then stared some more. Finally Adagio spoke. “Why?”

Sonata quickly took out a cell phone and snapped a picture of Aria and Adagio. “Mostly to see the look that’s on your faces right now.”

Is this the real life? thought Aria bleakly to herself. Or is this just fantasy?

Meanwhile…

“Hrm,” said Chrysalis, “I suddenly have a feeling of insignificance, as if someone else just pulled off something I could never hope to match. Ah well. It’s probably just gas. Still, I’m so happy about how everything worked out. We got to see a ton of ukuleles used, the school made money, and the world didn’t get taken over, just as I predicted. Isn’t that right, Luna?” She paused. “Luna?” Another pause. “Oh, right, she got all angry, so she’s not here right now. I’m sure she’ll be back to her usual beleaguered self due to this whole thing getting wrapped up.”

“Okay,” said Luna as she coincidentally approached Chrysalis at this time, “we just got the polls done. Apparently your approval rating dropped down a bit.”

“Well, I’m sure that going down to something like 94% isn’t a big deal,” said Chrysalis.

“Actually,” said Luna as she looked over a clipboard, “you’re down to 88%.”

“What?!” asked Chrysalis.

“Well, 87.96477%, to be exact,” added Luna.

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo,” screamed Chrysalis before passing out from lack of oxygen.

Luna looked down at the passed-out Chrysalis. “You know, maybe I will stick with this job after all.”

Also meanwhile…

“So this whole caper seems to be wrapped up?” Sunset asked Twilight as they stood next to the statue. “I can finally get those games and leave this universe? And hopefully not have to ever see, hear, or mention ukuleles ever again.”

“You said ‘ever’ twice,” said Twilight. “But, sure, I’ll transfer them over right now. Though while I don’t mind the fact you helped in order to get them, I do wonder why you didn’t just ask someone else or go online yourself to find them.”

“Wait, I can do that?” asked Sunset. “Darn it, I didn’t know enough about how this technology worked. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble.”

The two stood there for a little while as the programs transferred over.

“Going back, then?” asked Twilight.

“You know, now that I think about it, maybe it might be a good idea to stick around here. You seem to have to deal with potentially world-ending crises slightly less often than my home universe, and–”

“Did anybody say ‘cider shortage’?” asked a human Flim excitedly as he and an equally human Flam suddenly ran up, inadvertently knocking into Sunset and causing her to tumble through the portal.

“Um… no,” said Twilight. “Nobody said anything like that.”

“I think we really need to go back to the drawing board,” said Flam with a frown. “This super hearing device is still malfunctioning.” The two left.

“Might as well go get Sunset,” muttered Twilight as she tried to walk through the portal, only to walk straight into rock instead. “Wait, why is it closed?”

On the other side of the portal…

“Why isn’t this thing working?” asked Sunset as she pressed on the mirror.

“Hey, Sunset!” said Trixie as she entered the room. “I finally was able to find the instructions manual for the mirror! Turns out it was in the refrigerator!”

“How does that eve… never mind. Where is it now?” asked Sunset.

“What, I don’t get my $50/hour plus expenses?”

“Trixie, not only do I doubt you need the money, that’s still not the unit of currency we use!”

“Fine,” grumbled Trixie as she pulled out a book. “Here you go.”

Sunset took a quick glance through the book. “Okay. ‘The portal naturally recharges magical energy as time goes on, but the amount of energy expanded in opening the portal, keeping it open, and transferring beings from one universe to another is very high. Therefore, the 30-moon interval and 3-day length of opening has been set as the default to optimize this so that when it opens it will be able to stay open for that period and transfer a high number of beings before shutting down to fully recharge. These settings can be adjusted or the portal opened manually (see page 64 for instructions), but be warned that overuse will cause it to automatically shut itself down until it is able to recover the required energy to be used again.’ Well, I guess it’s going to be out of commission for a while.”

Suri entered the room. “Oh, Sunset? I figured you should know those Shadowbolt guys you were asking about came rushing through the portal soon before you did.”

“Wait, what?”

“Oh yeah,” said Suri, “I can remember it like it was yesterday… which is odd, as it was today. The female one was unconscious so the others woke her up but then it turned out they got the wrong one or something. I was a little confused on that point, but then one of them said that it wasn’t a bad thing as they thought the normal female one was too bossy and then they all left.”

“And you didn’t do anything to stop them?”

“Hey, if you wanted a guard, you should have asked Gilda. She’s the one with all the artillery. What did you want me to do, knit them into submission?”

“Well, at least I got what I wanted through this whole thing,” said Sunset. “Might as well call Twilight and tell her what’s going on. Uh… wait, what was her number again?”

“I still can’t believe that after all those crimes we pulled, the thing we actually get busted for is something we didn’t actually do,” grumbled the human Thunder as the three sat in the back of the police car.

“I can’t believe that my compatriots got me mixed up with the Stormy from this universe and left me behind,” said Stormy.

“Hrmmmmmmmmm,” said Maelstrom, prompting eye twitches from both Thunder and Stormy.

Back in our ‘regular’ universe…

“Well,” said Sunset, “I guess it’s back to forgetting this thing ever happened, much like we did after the first adventure in that universe.”

“Sounds like a plan!” said Trixie. “And just to make sure everything gets nicely wrapped up, I should mention that Flim and Flam managed to reconcile their differences in a way that was either extraordinarily heartwarming or extraordinarily comical; I forgot which.”

Gilda came in. “Oh, Sunset? Chrysalis is here and she wants to talk to all of us.”

“As if I haven’t dealt with her enough… ugh,” said Sunset. “Fine. Let’s go.”

After grabbing the other members of the group, they all went to the entrance hall of the castle to find Chrysalis with a very large box.

“Hi, everypony!” said Chrysalis cheerfully.

“Hello, Chrysalis,” said Sunset, Suri, Gilda, Flim, Flam, Lightning Dust, and Trixie unenthusiastically.

“Oh, come on, show some enthusiasm! For all you know I’m here to give you some kind of gift or something rather than a task to complete!”

“You say that, but then you never give us a gift,” said Lightning Dust.

“This time is different!” declared Chrysalis as she gestured towards the box. “I realized that, considering you did play a critical role in saving the whole world, simply not having to pay taxes on this castle seemed like a rather lame reward.”

“That is one of the most reasonable things I’ve ever heard you say,” muttered Sunset under her breath.

“And so,” continued Chrysalis, “you get another reward in this box! You might be wondering how I got this through the door when it’s much bigger than the door is, but that will remain an unsolved mystery of the universe.”

“So what is this gift?” asked Flam.

“Something amazing!” said Chrysalis as she opened the box, revealing a slightly smaller box inside it. “Another box!”

“Joy,” said Sunset.

“But it’s what’s inside the other box that’s even better! It’s the greatest gift one could possibly give!” Chrysalis opened the second box, causing a huge amount of ukuleles to fall on top of the group. “A lifetime supply of ukuleles.”

After climbing out of the pile, the group stared at Chrysalis blankly.

“You know, it’s acts of kindness like this that allow me to maintain my 94.2477797% approval rating,” said Chrysalis. “And yes, you’re right! That is an increase from the 94.2477796% it was at a few days ago! Apparently, not needlessly putting the world in order to hold a battle of the bands caused my popularity to go up ever so slightly, which is odd because I was never in a position to do that to begin with. Anyway, have fun with the ukuleles!” Chrysalis left as the group continued silently staring at her.

Sunset finally broke the silence. “I guess we could sell the ukuleles. That way, we’ll get something out of it.”

“Just be sure not to try to pass them off as another instrument,” said Suri. “That can get you in a lot of legal trouble. Believe me, I speak from experience. Nearly got nailed for that once.”

“You tried to pass off ukuleles as another instrument?” asked Flam.

“No, it was actually clothes in that case. But at least I learned from it, or else I might have gotten in some real trouble if I had kept it up.”

Just then, the phone rang. Sunset answered it. “Sorry for not calling earlier,” said Twilight, “as my phone was on the fritz for a little bit there. However, the portal doesn’t seem to be working now. Do you know what’s going on there?”

“Apparently it ran out of power and it’ll take a while to get it back,” said Sunset.

“Oh,” said Twilight. “Darn it. I was hoping to take the opportunity to head there again. I like it here, but it’d still be nice to visit my original universe. At least everything seems to have worked out all right. The plans of both the Dazzlings and Shadowbolts got foiled and neither seem to be able to cause any more havoc.”

“What happened to them, anyway?”

“Well, the Shadowbolts got arrested. I don’t know where Sonata wandered off to, but right now Aria and Adagio seem to just be staring blankly for some reason. Not sure what was up with that. But everyone’s getting along now, and I made up with my friends. Oh, and Trixie ended up winning the whole competition. That song of hers is rather catchy.”

“Oh, okay.”

“By the way,” said Twilight, “as nice as it’d be to talk to some of the people I know on that side of the portal, we should probably limit communications. I just got to see the bill and it turns out that calling across universes is really expensive.”

Sunset hung up the phone. “Well, I guess that’s that.”

“All’s well that ends well, right?” said Lightning Dust. “Except for the several things that didn’t end well, but none of them affected me, so I’m surprisingly fine with that.”

“Well, while we wait to try to find somepony to buy these ukuleles, I want to try some of these games out,” said Sunset as she started using the cell phone. “Huh,” she said a short time later. “Some of these aren’t working for some reason. Do any of you happen to know what ‘DRM’ stands for?”

Some time later, in another universe…

“And seriously, just look at the thread used in this! Even for a cheap outfit like this, this is inexcusable!”

“Suri,” Stormy said, calling down to the bunk below her, “you’ve done nothing but complain about the uniforms since we got here. Could you give it a rest?”

“Not when there’s so many things wrong with it! I mean, you can’t tell me these prison uniforms aren’t horribly ugly! Even the color’s boring. Orange? It’s so predictable! Let me tell you, orange is not the new black! And speaking of the color…”

Stormy stared up at the ceiling of their cell and sighed. “This is going to be a long ten years.”

“Ha!” said Suri. “Joke’s on you! I only got sentenced to three!”

Author's Note

And that's it for Rainbow Mocks! Unfortunately, I have to say I didn't think it turned out quite as well as I wanted. I think I wrote myself into a bit of a corner with the ending of the previous Equestrian Gals (specifically, the Shadowbolts grabbing the pendants) that made this story suffer a bit. Still, I think there were a lot of good jokes in it, and hopefully you enjoyed it. With this story over, it's time to finally get back to Friendship Is Absurd proper!

For some more thoughts on this story AND a preview of the next chapter of Friendship Is Absurd, be sure to look at the most recent blog post.

Rainbow Mocks Part 1

It was a beautiful day in Equestria… but that’s not where our story begins. Instead, our story begins in a restaurant, where many people were arguing, except for three hooded figures in the corner that were softly singing. A small green fog covered the floor, which then headed straight towards the three figures, as if it was being absorbed by them.

The three figures stopped singing and removed the hoods, revealing hair far too large to plausibly fit under the hoods and now allowing the narrative to refer to them by name. “That was barely worth the effort,” grumbled Aria. “I’m tired of fast food, Adagio, I need a meal.”

“The energy here isn’t the same as in Equestria,” said Adagio. “We can only gain so much power here.”

“I knew that, Adagio,” said Aria with an edge in her voice. “Why did you feel the need to remind me?”

“Because if you’re not going to stop grumbling about it, I’m going to keep pointing it out until you do! It’s not like there’s much we can do about it.”

“Ugh,” said Aria as she slumped in her chair, “I wish we’d never been banished to this awful place.”

“Really?” asked Adagio sarcastically. “I love it here!”

“For realsies?” asked Sonata, speaking for the first time in this scene. “Because I think this place is the worst. Except for the tacos, anyway.” Her eyes widened and she licked her lips. “Tacos…”

Adagio had to exercise tremendous restraint to prevent herself from facepalming. Aria, not having that restraint, did facepalm. “Sonata, you have to get over this ridiculous obsession about tacos.”

“Oh yeah? Well what about your obsession with–” started Sonata, but what probably would have been a pretty funny punchline was interrupted by Adagio noticing some kind of light out the window and dashing out of the restaurant. Sonata and Aria stared for a moment, then ran after her.

The light faded shortly after Adagio exited the restaurant, but she continued staring off in its direction.

“Uh, so what’s going on?” asked Aria.

“Do you know what that was?” asked Adagio as she gestured towards the sky.

Sonata and Aria shrugged. “Enh?”

“That was Equestrian magic!” snapped Adagio. “You know, giant pillar of light?”

“It could’ve just been a weird firework celebration,” said Aria. “Besides, this world doesn’t have Equestrian magic.”

“That was not what fireworks look like! As for the world not having Equestrian magic, it does now! And we’re going to use it to make everyone in this pathetic little world adore us.”

The three struck a menacing pose. Then they realized the pointlessness of doing so when there wasn’t anyone around to take pictures of them, so they opted to head home instead.

“Finally!” declared Adagio as they walked. “I was starting to think we were actually stuck here for good! All we have to do is figure out exactly where that light came from! That could probably take a few months. And then–”

Adagio found herself interrupted by someone coming up from behind and covering her mouth with a cloth, as did Sonata and Aria. They all shortly passed out.

“Ugh,” groaned Adagio as she got up, rubbing her head. “What just happened?”

“I think someone made us pass out with chloroform,” said Aria.

“Ahhh!” screamed Sonata as she looked down. “The pendants are gone!”

“Yet, oddly, not our wallets,” noted Adagio. “Whenever anyone tried to rob us before, we always just sang to them to make them stop… but this group of robbers went straight for covering up our mouths, preventing us from doing that. And they took only the pendants. The only explanation that comes to mind is they actually knew about the pendants’ power and wanted to steal them for their own benefit.”

“This is bad, right?” asked Sonata.

“Yes,” snapped Adagio as her eye twitched, “this is very bad!”

“Okay, fearless leader, what’s the plan?” asked Aria.

Adagio grimaced. “Okay, so based on the fact they took away the pendants and nothing else, and also the fact they knew to cover our mouths to stop our singing, it’s highly probable that they somehow did know their powers. Still, there’s a chance they don’t, so we need to keep an eye on the pawn shops in case they pop up there. But if the thieves did know how the pendants work, they’d presumably be trying to enact our plan, so we need to make it a point to keep an eye on wherever that magic came from, because they’ll be going there to try to make use of it.”

“And in the meantime, no pendants to make it easy for us,” said Aria. “At least we did store up all that cash just in case.”

“Relax, girls!” said Sonata. “As long as we have tacos–”

“Okay, you know what?” asked Aria. “The next time the word ‘taco’ comes out of your mouth, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

“Eep!” said Sonata.

“Okay,” said Adagio, “here’s the deal. I’ll try to figure out where that light came from. Aria, you keep an eye on any place that might buy those pendants, just in case the thieves try to pawn them off. Sonata, you… uh… um… stay out of the way.”

Three shadowy figures stood in the shadows, as shadowy figures are wont to do, though these were three shadowy figures that were not the three figures wearing the hoods mentioned at the start, in case that wasn’t clear.

“Come on, Thunder Strike, who’s the better leader?” asked one gleefully. “This plan of mine is totally being more successful than anything you came up with when you were the one making up the plans. You never would’ve thought to use those Wonderbolts uniforms we stole to help us sneak into the castle.”

The aforementioned Thunder Strike folded his arms. “Stormy, talk is cheap when you haven’t completed your plan yet. In fact, you’ve really only accomplished yet another step in this seemingly endlessly convoluted plan rather than getting to the actual goal. Getting those pendants was, what, Step 24? Or was it Step 24.5, considering stealing the pendants was a backup plan in case Twilight didn’t take over due to that whole Alicorn Amulet thing?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Stormy Skies, “because there’s only three steps left. Step one: Figure out how to use these pendants. Step two: Use them to take over the world. Step three: Profit.”

“Fine, whatever,” said Thunder Strike. “But can we go to somewhere where there’s lights? It’s way too dark here. I mean, I know we’re the Shadowbolts, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some lights on while we’re discussing things.”

“Fair enough. Now, it might take a little while to master the usage of these pendants. But once we do, we’ll be able to use them to make everyone in this pathetic little world adore us.”

“Hrm,” said the third figure.

“Okay, that’s it,” said Stormy. “Maelstrom, you have to start actually talking. I’m tired of you saying nothing but ‘hrm’ all the time.”

“Hrm?” asked Maelstrom Tempest.

Stormy looked like she was on the verge of hitting him in the face. “Stop doing that!”

“Oh, come on,” said Thunder Strike. “That’s just sort of his thing. You’re the bossy one, I’m the smart one, and he’s the quiet one.”

“Excuse me? I’m the smart one of this group. If you’re so smart, then why didn’t a single plan of yours to conquer Equestria work? You can maybe blame the first one on Nightmare Moon being an idiot, but since then it’s been all you.”

“You haven’t taken anything over yourself, you know. And I think you’ve just been lucky so far that the plan has worked.”

“And how was I lucky?” demanded Stormy.

“Uh, let’s see,” said Thunder as he counted off on his fingers. “First, that this was the world the Sirens were banished to. Second, that they happened to be so close to where we emerged that it was possible to grab those pendants. Third… wow, these fingers are useful for this. Anyway, third, that they didn’t put up more of a fight when we grabbed them. Fourth–”

“Who cares? It worked, didn’t it?”

“I’m just pointing out, after your initial plan to just be Twilight’s sub-lieutenants after she took over failed due to her, you know, being snapped back to normal, you would’ve had absolutely nothing to show for this if you didn’t get lucky with finding the sirens!”

“Hey, I gave you the interesting part of the plan! At least you got to go to the dance to see what would happen. I got stuck waiting around watching the sirens so that if the Twilight plan didn’t fail, we’d know where they were to snatch those pendants from as a backup.”

“Ugh, whatever,” said Thunder. “I’m tired of discussing things we already know. Let’s figure out how these pendants work.”

“My real question is how in the world Maelstrom is going to help considering he never talks, so how is he going to sing?” asked Stormy.

“I don’t know maybe he can just vocalize or something,” said Thunder. “But hey, be glad that we can actually refer to ourselves as the Shadowbolts in this world without having to worry about infringing on the trademark of the Wonderbolts. I mean, it’s not like there would be some team in this world that happened to be called the Shadowbolts as well, right? What are the odds?”

Seven chapters of Friendship Is Absurd later…

“And it’s so nice to have our own castle! In Equestria! That’s tax-free!” said Trixie. There was a pause. “You’re not going to grumpily say ‘I know, Trixie’?”

“Why bother?” asked Sunset. “You keep insisting on saying things I already know anyway.”

“You mean like the fact we got this castle as a result of that whole Tirek business?”

“Yes,” said Sunset. “Ugh, I still feel exhausted from all that. And I find it a little disturbing that I’ve become so desensitized to having to deal with ultra-powerful beings trying to take over the world that that’s my reaction rather than some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Just then, a ringing sound was heard. Trixie looked around. “Is that an alarm or something?”

“No,” said Sunset. “It’s just a cell phone I got from that alternate universe I visited.”

“You mean that adventure that you’ve never spoken of again until this point for no apparent reason?”

“Yes!” snapped Sunset. “I should probably get this. Who is even calling me? I thought these things weren’t even invented here!”

Sunset pulled the phone out of a bag and pushed a button on it. “Who is this?” she asked.

“This is Twilight,” said a voice from the phone. “I was hoping I would get ahold of you.”

“Wait, Twilight? How did you get this number?”

“Because this is the cell phone I gave you before you left? How would I not know?”

“Oh!” said Sunset. “You mean you’re the Twilight from that alternate universe but who was actually originally from this universe, as opposed to the Twilight in this universe who was originally from your universe because the two of you swapped spaces several years ago. And I’m sorry for phrasing that so weirdly, but deal with Trixie enough and it just happens! How were you able to make a call across universes, though?”

Twilight presumably shrugged on the other end. “I made sure to get a phone with a really strong signal. It’s why I wasn’t able to call before now; I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money on a phone in the hopes it would be able to call you. This thing wasn’t cheap. I only did it now because I really needed to get in contact with you.”

“Uh, okay. So what’s the emergency?”

“Well…” started Twilight.

“Do you want me to remind you how many days it’s been since our pendants got stolen?” asked Aria in a bored voice.

“No,” said Adagio.

“Okay,” said Aria in an equally bored voice. “Do you want me to remind you how many days it’s been since you came up with your brilliant plan of enrolling as students at this school on the grounds of it being the most likely place to find the pendants, as you tracked down that big light show to this school?”

“Aria, if you have something to say, say it.”

“I’m merely pointing out, fearless leader, that thus far your plan doesn’t seem to be bearing fruit.”

“Hey, some trees do take a while to bear fruit,” said Sonata.

“That analogy doesn’t even make sense!” said Aria.

“Does so!” said Sonata as she stuck her tongue out at Aria. “You mentioned bearing fruit, and my analogy mentioned bearing fruit. It makes perfect sense!”

Adagio sighed. “You two were annoying enough when we did have the pendants, and now you’re even worse. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ll need you two after we get the pendants back–”

Adagio was interrupted by the doors of the cafeteria suddenly bursting open and an unseen orchestra starting up as three students walked in singing.

“Ha!” said Adagio as a rather catchy musical number started up. “See? I told you they’d come here. Now all we have to do is find the right time to snatch the pendants back, and victory will be ours!”

“Eep!” said Sonata. “What if they recognize us?”

Adagio and Aria stared at Sonata.

“Isn’t that a valid question?” asked Sonata.

“Sonata,” said Aria, “were you somehow not around when we spent all that time getting these disguises ready so we wouldn’t be recognized? Disguises we’re wearing right now? I mean, this morning we spent all that time making our skin look to be a different color than normal to make us harder to recognize.”

“Oh yeah,” said Sonata, “that does ring a distant bell.”

“Can I just punch her?” asked Aria.

“That’ll have to wait,” said Adagio as she glanced towards the rest of the cafeteria. “It looks like they’re starting up on the part that gets the crowd really riled up. We should join in so we don’t look weird.”

“This song would have been so much better if we had sung it,” mumbled Aria. “Seriously, ‘we don’t have to be one and the same thing’? What an awkward-sounding lyric.”

Elsewhere in the cafeteria, a particular lavender-colored girl looked at everything that was happening and frowned.

“Well, that was fun,” said Thunder after the remaining portion of the musical number. “Now what?”

“Just walk out?” asked Stormy. “There’s not much else to do.”

“It just feels so awkward to just have that big musical number and then just walk out. I wish this was a film or something, because then it could just cut to the next scene.”

“It’s not like anyone would notice us, because everyone’s busy arguing!”

Sonata stared at the trio as they argued. “Do you think they got affected by the singing too?”

Aria facepalmed.

“…and that’s the current situation,” finished Twilight.

“You mean three new students popped up and sang a song and that caused havoc and so you’re calling to ask if it has anything to do with Equestria?” asked Trixie excitedly.

“Trixie, why have you repeated exactly what was just… oh, why do I even bother,” said Sunset. “Don’t you have a Mare Do Well comic to write with Lightning Dust?”

“That can wait. Listening to this is far more interesting!”

Sunset sighed. “Whatever. Anyway, Twilight, I’ll try to do some research on this. Although if I manage to find information, I’ll have to give it to you over the phone due to the portal not working now.”

“Did you guys try contacting the manufacturer of the portal?” asked Trixie.

“The manufacturer?”

“Well, somepony had to make it, right? Maybe they can help.”

“Okay, even if there was, how do I contact them? There wasn’t any information on the portal as to who made it!”

“Not true!” declared Trixie. “It said ‘made in Chineigh,’ remember?”

“Somehow,” said Sunset, “I don’t think that that will help us find the maker. That’s a big place.”

“Ha!” said Trixie. “Detective Trixie is on the case! For $50/hour, plus expenses, I’ll figure it out!”

“But dollars aren’t even our unit of currency,” said a confused Sunset.

There was a pause. “Hrm,” said Trixie. “I guess I don’t have a good response to that one.”

“Whatever,” said Sunset as she turned back to the phone. “Sorry about that, Twilight. I’ll get the mirror brought over here and I’ll… see if I can figure something out. Then I can pop over if I fix it. I could use some more games on this cell phone anyway; I was getting bored with only having a few.”

“You can play them without fingers?” asked Twilight.

“It took some practice, but… yes. At least some of them. By the way, um… is that boyfriend of yours around?”

“Huh? No, his family had to move away so our relationship’s long distance now. Why?!”

“Just wondering,” said Sunset. “Uh… anyway, I’ll get to doing that research.” She hung up and gave a sigh of relief. “Phew. I won’t have to deal with him if I go over there.”

“Who?” asked Trixie. “That Flash Sentry guy? Why are you so terrified of him anyway? He was kind of dumb but seemed reasonably nice from when I met him, at least the version of him in this universe.”

“Oh, sure, he’s nice,” said Sunset. “And that’s all he is! He’s bland as all heck! If he were a character in a film, the audience would hate him for his blandness! In fact, he has such a lack of personality that he steals the personality of all of those around him like a black hole! I wasn’t always this grumpy, you know! But he took the optimism right out of me!”

Trixie stared for a few moment before speaking. “Uh, Sunset? I think I have to tell you that you’re being just a little paranoid. Not to mention that I’m pretty sure you were always fairly grumpy.”

“Oh yeah?” demanded Sunset. “Just look at you! Remember how you were trying to promote that magic show of yours? Whatever happened to that? I’ll tell you what, it’s because he sucked that part of your personality away!”

“I think it had more to do with me finding a more successful career path,” said Trixie.

“You only think that because your deductive side is gone too, thanks to him! Don’t you see how completely terrifying he is?!”

“O… kay…” said Trixie slowly. “I can see you have some… personal issues here. So I’m just going to go… somewhere. Somewhere you aren’t.” She paused. “Wait, this isn’t all just a ploy to get me to leave, is it?”

“Well, you can stay around if you want to help me research,” said Sunset.

“I’m gone,” said Trixie as she abruptly left.

Some time later…

“It should not take that long to look up information about malevolent musical monsters,” muttered Sunset. “Spent all that time looking under the wrong letters… whose idea was it to put all the information in that Alliterative Appellation Almanac book?”

“Hiya, Sunset!” announced Gilda as she entered. “Are you talking to yourself again? I heard that’s the first sign of insanity.”

Dealing with you guys is the first sign of insanity, thought Sunset to herself. “What do you want?”

“Well!” said Gilda. “I was thinking that we have this castle. And sometimes castles get invaded. So I want a room to be set aside for emergency weapons. You know, your machine guns, bazookas, maybe a rocket launcher or two, several sniper rifles–”

“Gilda, you’re the only one even capable of using those things, because nopony else has fingers or claws to fire them with. Why would we need that many?”

“Maybe you could invent fake hands,” suggested Gilda. “Then you could use them.”

“This is just a ploy to try to let me store your guns somewhere because you’ve run out of room at home, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” said Gilda.

“Look, I don’t have time to deal with this,” said Sunset. “I’m trying to figure out how to reactivate this mirror portal.”

“Oh, that thing that only opens up every 30 moons? Did you consider just opening it up and adjusting the internal clock?”

Sunset stared at Gilda in confusion.

“I mean, it has to keep track of time somehow so that it knows how to open up. Presumably there’s some mechanical or magical clock mechanism within it that does it. So just figure out how to change the clock so it’s 30 moons from the last time it opened up.”

“That is so incredibly stupid that… that… that it’s probably sure to work,” said Sunset with a sigh.

“See, now you’re getting how things work in this world of ours,” said Gilda. “Incidentally, why would anyone make a portal with that kind of restriction to begin with?”

“How should I know? I didn’t make the portal!” Sunset sighed again. “I don’t know anything about this sort of thing. Do you know anypony who might know how to go about deconstructing this in order to change the clock?”

“Why are you asking me? I don’t know any of this magic stuff. It’s like the rules to it get made up as they go along.”

Flim and Flam suddenly rushed in. “Did anypony say ‘cider shortage’?” asked Flim excitedly.

“Nopony said anything like that,” said a confused Sunset.

“Darn it,” said Flam with a frown. “I guess that super hearing device still isn’t working right. What were you talking about, then?”

“We were trying to figure out if there was anypony who might be able to figure out how to change the internal clock on a magical device?”

“Lucky you!” declared Flim. “We know one. And we won’t even charge you any money to find out!”

“What’s your angle, then?”

“What, you don’t think we could just be doing this out of the goodness of our hearts?” asked Flam.

There was a pause. “No,” Sunset said bluntly.

“Fine! It’s because we get a small amount for every pony we refer! Are you happy now?”

“So what’s the guy’s name?”

“Doctor Hooves,” said Flim.

“Time Turner,” said Flam at the same time.

“Huh?” asked Sunset. “Which is it?”

“I told you, his name is Time Turner!” said Flam.

“You’re wrong!” said Flim. “It’s Doctor Hooves!”

The argument escalated rapidly from there until the two started fighting each other in a cartoon-esque dust cloud. “Mom always loved you best!” screamed Flam.

“I didn’t even know those two could fight,” said Sunset. “I thought they basically shared a brain.”

“Enh, your right brain is supposedly constantly battling your left for dominance,” said Gilda. “That may be what’s happening here.”

“Well, I plan to get this mirror looked at by… whatever his name was,” said Sunset.

“Could I come along?” asked Gilda.

“Uh… sure?” said Sunset.

“Okay,” said Gilda as she started walking off.

“Wait, weren’t you coming along?”

“I just asked if I could come along. I never said I wanted to. I’m off to further perfect my sniping skills!”

“Aren’t your sniping skills already good?” asked Sunset.

“Sure,” said Gilda, “when performing a single snipe. I can even do a double snipe pretty well. But I want to achieve the legendary quadruple snipe!”

“How does that even work?” asked Sunset.

“You fire four at four different targets simultaneously,” said Gilda as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Duh.”

Sunset watched Gilda walk off. “The most annoying thing is, I don’t know if she’s being honest or is just screwing with me again,” she muttered.

One trip later…

“So,” started Sunset after she had reached the building where the of-unknown-name stallion was, “Flim and Flam recommended you, so do you think you could–”

“Yep!” he said as he gave her a device. “Here you go! All you have to do is press this button while near the mirror, and it’ll change its internal clock!”

“How the heck did you not only know what I wanted, but also had it all ready?” asked a confused Sunset.

“Oh, I have powers over time, so after you told me in the future, I just went back in time and made it so it’d all be ready.”

“Really?” asked Sunset.

“Nah,” said the stallion. “I just have hidden cameras set up everywhere and saw you discuss it. By the way, when you’re asleep, you snore pretty loudly.”

“Wait, what?” asked Sunset.

“Just kidding,” said the stallion. “In truth, I’m a mind reader and I just happened to have such a device ready. So when you got near here and I read your intentions, I had it ready.”

“Reading minds is possible?”

“Not as far as I know; I made that up too. The real reason was–”

“Never mind,” said Sunset wearily. “Can you just sell it to me?”

“Sure!” he declared.

“All right!” said Sunset. “The portal is now active!”

“Why did you feel the need to bring me over to announce that?” asked Suri.

“Because I thought it was an accomplishment that I did it! Plus, I hoped somepony might want to see me off as I go over.”

“You mean to do the amazing task of delivering exposition?”

“Hey!” said Sunset. “I had to do a lot of research to figure this out. It would’ve been nice if somepony other than you showed up for this.”

“Lightning Dust and Trixie are busy with Mare Do Well—as always—Flim and Flam are busy arguing, and Gilda said she didn’t care. Why didn’t you get Twilight to come along with the mirror when you ordered it? She’d probably actually be interested in this considering it’s the universe she was originally from.”

“Couldn’t get ahold of her. She’s apparently busy with something.”

“Busy with what?”

“I don’t know,” said Sunset. “Probably something a lot more interesting than this, though.”

Meanwhile, in the Crystal Empire…

“Discord?” asked Twilight.

“Yes?”

“Just so you know, if we somehow survive this, you are never coming to the Crystal Empire again.”

“Oh, come on,” said Discord. “You act like you’ve never inadvertently caused a Smooze to grow so large that it became immune to both of our magic, followed by us getting trapped in it and being slowly digested.”

“Maybe because I never did that!”

“Oh, relax,” said Discord. “This’ll take at least two weeks to fully digest us.”

“HOW IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE A RELAXING THOUGHT?!”

Back in Ponyville…

“Well, I guess I’m off,” said Sunset. “Don’t do anything too stupid while I’m gone.”

“You know,” said Suri, “all this alternate universe stuff sounds interesting to me. I’d like to see what it looks like.”

“There is a warning on it that you shouldn’t have too many people go through it,” said Sunset, “because that could upset the balance or… something.”

“Oh, pshaw!” said Suri. “I’m sure that’s just there to scare off the insurance sellers.”

“That makes absolutely no–” started Sunset, but she was interrupted by Suri simply walking through the portal. “Of course,” she muttered before walking through it herself.

Sunset emerged from the portal to find a human-looking Suri, who was taking the opportunity to examine herself. “Hrm. Weird. Oh well, I’m off.” Suri started moving back into the portal.

“Wait, you came here just for a few seconds?” asked Sunset.

“Just seems more boring than I thought,” said Suri with a shrug. “Plus, no easy opportunities to make cash that I see.”

Sunset sighed in frustration as Suri left. “Whatever. I just have to find Twilight and relay the information.” She paused. “I have no idea where she is. Darn it, I should have set up some kind of a meeting time and place. Ah well, I guess I’ll just call her… and I have got to stop this habit of talking to myself.”

Meanwhile…

“Twilight!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash as she skidded into the room. “I need your help on something immediately!”

“Is this an actual emergency?” asked Twilight.

“Yeah, totally! See, Rarity was complaining about it being hard to get a boyfriend, so I was telling her it was easy, so she said ‘let’s see you do better’ and now we have a bet going about me getting one, but I don’t know how to do it.”

“Just… find a guy you think you might like and ask him out?” suggested Twilight.

“Maybe, but in my time at high school, no guy has ever tried to ask me out. That must mean they don’t like me for some reason! I have to figure out what the problem is there before I try. Do they find me boring?”

“Um,” said Twilight uncertainly. “Do you think that maybe guys… might have a certain idea about you? One that would make them assume you’d be uninterested in them?”

Rainbow Dash scratched her head. “Not really. Do they think I’m already in a relationship?”

Twilight sighed. “Okay. Let’s go over it. First, you’ve got rainbow-colored hair.”

“I know, isn’t it awesome?” asked Rainbow Dash as she fluffed her hair. “Got it from my dad. It’s what first made my mom notice him!”

“And you’ve also got rainbow bracelets, rainbow socks…”

“Doesn’t it look great with my hair?”

Twilight sighed again. “So you’ve got a lot of rainbow-colored things. And you’re a tomboy. And you’re almost always seen with other girls. Do you not see a particular impression people might get from that?”

Rainbow Dash thought about it, then scratched her head again in confusion. “The fact I’m attractive, athletic, and available? Now I’m even more confused about why no one ever asks me out.”

In lieu of sighing again, Twilight facepalmed. “No, Rainbow, it’s not that. Those things together mean they think–” started Twilight before she was abruptly interrupted by her phone ringing. “Hello?” she asked into it. There was a pause while she listened to the other person. “Sure, I’ll be right there.” She hung up. “Anyway, as I was saying–”

“No need!” declared Rainbow Dash. “I figured it out! They think I’m a renegade from the Island of the Amazons! And as everyone knows, Amazons only like men who can beat them in combat! Or at least that’s how I think it went, as I didn’t pay that much attention in that class. And in that case, they’d be afraid of me because they’d have to fight me in order to try to ask me out. They must think the rainbow stuff is some kind of tribal symbol. I just have to correct that misconception. Thanks, Twilight!”

Twilight stared after Rainbow Dash as she dashed off. After a pause just long enough to achieve maximum comedy but not so long that the joke became overdone, she shrugged and left.

“So!” declared Adagio. “Now that we have a better idea what we’re up against, it’s time to make a plan to get those pendants back. And by that I mean I’ll probably be the one to make the whole plan because you two would come up with bad ideas.”

“You really know how to inspire loyalty,” said Aria.

“Fine!” said Adagio. “Then tell us your plan!”

Aria sighed wearily. “Just attack them directly and grab the pendants. Why make it complicated?”

“Because they’d probably see it coming and be prepared, particularly as that’s how they got it from us?”

“Fine, then. What’s your brilliant plan?”

“Let them do the work for us,” said Adagio. “Their plan, I assume, is to start up this Battle of the Bands in order to mesmerize people, and that hopefully whatever provoked this Equestrian magic will still be here and get affected by it. We just have to let them do it and then, when they’re about to have it all work in their favor and they’re not suspecting it… grab the pendants back and take all that power for ourselves.”

“I think we’ve all forgotten about the most important thing, though!” declared Sonata.

“What?” asked Aria, having a feeling she was going to regret it.

“How should I know? I just said we’ve forgotten about it,” said Sonata.

After a brief mental acknowledgment that her feeling she was going to regret asking turned out to be correct, Aria said, “Fine, I guess we’ll go with that plan.”

“Wait a minute,” said Adagio, “Sonata was right. There is something we’re forgetting.”

“Sonata was right?” asked Aria incredulously.

“I know,” said Sonata sadly, “I’m scared too.”

“What we need to remember,” said Adagio, “is the fact that, most likely, someone here does have that Equestrian magic. We weren’t able to figure it out beforehand, but maybe with them doing this we could find it out. Then we could try to use whichever person or group has that power to get the pendants away from them, then grab them ourselves.”

“That… could work,” said Aria tepidly. “Do you have any idea how to figure out who does have those powers?”

“Actually,” said Adagio, “I think I do.”

“Shhhh!” said Cheerilee as she walked by.

“Maybe we should scheme somewhere other than the library,” muttered Adagio.

“You know,” said Twilight to Sunset after finding her next to the statue, “you could have just come inside.”

“I don’t know the layout of the school. It’s faster for you to meet me here at the statue.” Sunset pulled out a book. “Anyway, I think I figured out what’s going on. So a while ago, there were these sirens who could sing and hypnotize people and make them fight each other. Personally I’m not sure why the fighting part was necessary, as I’d think just hypnotizing would be sufficient, but whatever. I don’t make the rules of nature or magic. Then this guy named Starswirl got rid of them, supposedly banishing them to another universe because I guess the best way to solve your problems is to pass the buck.”

“Not exactly an uncommon strategy,” said Twilight.

“I know, right? Anyway, I assume that the other universe is this world.”

“Hrm,” said Twilight. “Okay, any ideas on how to handle it?”

“Nope!” said Sunset. “Anyway, can I get some new games on my cell phone before heading back?”

“Wait, you’re just heading back?” asked Twilight. “Already?”

“I thought you only needed me to be here to deliver the information.”

“As long as you’re here, I could use some help!”

“Look,” said Sunset, “I just recently had to deal with a potentially world conquering enemy. And it was pretty stressful, to put it mildly. I do not want to have to do that again, especially so soon afterwards. Can’t you just do it yourself?”

“You’re the only other one who’s knowledgeable about this sort of thing,” said Twilight. “Besides, I’m not going to give your phone any more apps or games unless you help me.”

Darn it, thought Sunset, I should’ve asked for the games before telling her that. “Fine, fine. Since the whole ‘battle of the bands’ thing is presumably required for their plan, why not just see if you can get it canceled?”

“First, said Twilight, “I don’t think ‘these three are from an alternate universe and have magical powers’ is a particularly effective argument for stopping it. Second, that would involve having to actually talk to our principal. You do remember who she is, right? Do you want that headache?”

“No, I don’t want that headache,” said Sunset with a sigh. “But having to go through the whole process of stopping them otherwise would be an even bigger headache.”

“Well,” said Chrysalis, “speaking as your principal, a fact you already know and thus making everything I’ve said after the word ‘well’ to be redundant up to this point, you’ve successfully convinced me that those three students actually started up the whole battle of the bands thing as a way to try to brainwash people and take over the world. Or at least the tri-state area.”

“Oh, good,” said Twilight with relief. “So you’ll call it off?”

“What? Heck no,” said Chrysalis. “Do you have any idea how much attention we could get for this? If they’re brainwashing people, more people would come to see this due to being brainwashed! We could sell tickets! And that extra income would be able to pay for that hole in the roof that somehow happened at the Fall Formal. I do have to pay some attention to the budget.”

“But then they’d take over the world!” said Twilight.

“Oh, please,” said Chrysalis. “Has the world been taken over before? Why should I worry this time?”

“That makes absolutely no sense,” said Sunset.

“Well, if you’re so worried about it, why don’t you do something about it?”

“That’s what we were trying to do when we came to you!”

“Pfft,” said Chrysalis as she started filing her nails absentmindedly. “You should take your own initiative rather than passing the buck. Seriously, what are they teaching in those schools nowadays?”

Sunset and Twilight stared blankly at Chrysalis.

“Well, I can see my brilliance has left you speechless,” said Chrysalis. “Don’t worry too much about it; I tend to get speechless due to my own brilliance also. Anything else you need me to share my wisdom on?”

Sunset and Twilight continued staring blankly.

“Good!” said Chrysalis. “Now, just in case you’ve forgotten, what you’re supposed to do now is turn around and walk out. Also, in retrospect, I think ‘hypnotize’ was a more accurate term than ‘brainwash.’”

Sunset and Twilight walked out in. After an awkward silence, Twilight finally spoke. “I told you it would be a headache.”

Sunset sighed. “Do you know that in Equestria, when it looked like this one bad guy was going to kill us all, she announced she was going to give some deep confession to us, but it just turned out to be she loved ukuleles? Ugh. I mean, I’ll give her credit for partially coming up with the way to defeat him, but… seriously?”

“Well, anyway,” said Twilight, “All we have to do is beat the sirens in order to thwart their plan, because then they won’t have an opportunity to perform in front of a big enough audience.”

“That would prevent this plan. Why can’t they just go to some other area or school and do it again?”

“I don’t think it was coincidence they chose this school,” said Twilight. “I mean, I guess it could, but it seems unlikely. There must be something about this particular school or location that is required for their plan. I don’t think it would work at another.”

“Does this mean the two of us have to be some kind of duo act?” asked Sunset. “Because I’m not sure I’m experienced enough with hands to be able to play an instrument with proficiency, particularly considering I don’t know that much about instrument playing even in Equestria. I don’t even know the difference between a viola and violin outside of the fact the two end in a slightly different letter combination!”

“Actually,” said Twilight, “by sheer lucky coincidence, I’ve already got a band. Rainbow Dash decided to make a band called the Rain-Booms, so we can just use that.”

“What are the odds that you’d conveniently have a band?” asked Sunset.

“Well,” said Twilight as she took out a calculator, “if you’d like to know the exact–”

“I don’t,” said Sunset as she cut Twilight off. “Anyway, it looks like you have things all set here, so if you can just give me those games, then I can head back to Equestria–”

This time, Twilight did the interrupting. “No,” she said, “I need you around in case we need you.”

“What would you need me for?! I don’t have magic or anything! And you already have your band!”

“But you presumably have immunity from the hypnosis, because you’re from Equestria like I am,” said Twilight. “The rest of my friends don’t. I need someone else in case they end up falling under the spell. So my suggestion is that you make your own solo entry into the Battle of the Bands, so if that happens and they all fall into arguments and lose, I can just join up with yours to continue and defeat the sirens.”

“And how do I manage that when I’m not technically a student?” asked Sunset.

“Oh, they let practically anyone in,” said Twilight. “It’s kind of weird and I don’t really understand it. But we are talking about Chrysalis, after all. She probably does it as a joke.”

“Fine,” said Sunset. “But you do remember that I can’t play instruments at all, right? I mentioned that less than a minute ago? I’d be doing this by myself, and I’m not that great of a singer.”

“Actually, there is a way I think to have you guarantee to continue…”

“Greetings!” declared Sonata as she suddenly popped up. “I’m currently taking a survey! Do you find yourself more irritable than usual?”

“I don’t think so?” said Twilight.

“How about you?” Sonata asked Sunset.

“Yes, because I hate when people suddenly give me surveys.”

“I’ll put that as a ‘maybe,’” said Sonata. “That’s all. See you later!” She ran off.

“That was weird,” said Sunset. “Do you know her?”

“I think she transferred in recently,” said Twilight. “She’s kind of weird. People mostly just ignore her.”

“Welcome, one and all, to the Battle of the Bands!” declared Chrysalis as she stood on stage. “Now, ordinarily I would say this is where a bunch of mediocre performers try to find out which of them is the least mediocre because if any of you think you might be able to do this professionally, forget it. But because I’m being motivational, I’m not saying that! Instead, you’re all special snowflakes! Just be sure to forget that snowflakes are all interchangeable and end up melting away into nothingness in the end.”

Luna, sitting at the judge's table, groaned. “How do you maintain that 94% approval rating?” she asked after Chrysalis sat down next to her.

“Hey!” said Chrysalis. “I’ll have you know that it’s 94.2477%!”

Luna sighed.

“And the answer,” continued Chrysalis, “is that it’s 5.6523% inspiration, 94.2477% perspiration!”

“That makes absolutely no sense,” said Luna. She paused. “Also, by my calculations, there’s still 0.1% left.”

“Oh, that?” asked Chrysalis. “That’s just the taxation.”

I really should have taken that Vice Principal job at Crystal Prep instead of here, thought Luna to herself. “Can we just get this started?”

And thus, the Battle of the Band began. The first group up was Snips and Snails. They picked up the microphones and opened their mouths to sing.

“Okay, next!” announced Chrysalis before the two could actually start singing.

“But we didn’t even start yet!” said Snips.

“I already can tell this is going to be really bad. Just saving us some time. Next!”

Snips and Snails sadly walked away.

“What happened to being motivational?” asked Luna. “You need to at least give them a chance.”

“Oh, good point. Okay, you two can try anyway!”

Snips and Snails went back on stage and picked up the microphones.

A few seconds later…

“Okay, next!” announced Chrysalis. “That was enough.”

“But we only said two lines,” said Snails.

“And that was enough. NEXT!”

After several bands that no one cares about, it was the Rain-Booms’ turn.

“Are you sure about this whole ukulele thing?” asked Rarity as they walked up to the stage.

“Even if I wasn’t,” said Twilight, “isn’t it a little late to be asking me now?”

“That reminds me!” declared Rainbow Dash as she went up to the microphone and spoke into it. “Before we begin our song, I’d like to make an announcement. I think there’s been some untrue rumors going on about me, and I’d like to correct them.”

Oh no, thought Twilight in despair. Wait, how in the world do ukuleles remind her of that?

“I’d just to clarify,” continued Rainbow Dash, “that, no, I am not from any kind of Island of the Amazons and my hair and sock color are not any kind of tribal symbol thereof.”

“Ohhhh,” said a lot of students in the audience.

“That clears everything up!” said one.

“And here I was thinking she was some kind of a danger!” added another. “What a relief!”

“I agree with everything that was said by those other guys, making this statement completely unnecessary!” said a third.

Huh, thought Twilight. I guess Rainbow Dash was right. So much for my theory of them being afraid of her due to thinking she was in an all-female gang, with her hair color being a gang symbol.

“And with that cleared up,” said Rainbow Dash, “let us begin!”

Adagio, Aria, and Sonata watched from the stands as the band performed. “So,” Adagio said, “we can be almost certain it’s that lavender girl that’s the source of the magic.”

“I still find your method of determining the source to be highly dubious,” said Aria.

“Here we go again,” said Adagio as she rolled her eyes.

“I’m just saying, I don’t think Sonata is a great judge of this sort of thing.”

“Hey!” said Sonata. “I take offense to that! I did a great job trying to figure out who was unaffected! And she was the only one of the students that were in the cafeteria at the time to not act really grumpy when I asked them if they were really grumpy.”

“Aria,” said Adagio, “maybe if you had tried finding people who weren’t affected like I asked, I wouldn’t have had to have Sonata do so much of the work.”

“Because I thought it was a bad idea to begin with. It might have alerted someone.”

“Do you do anything other than complain?” asked Adagio. “It seems like I can’t ever suggest any plan without you immediately taking the opposite view.”

“Well, maybe if your plans had a better success rate in the past, I’d be more willing to accept them,” muttered Aria to herself.

“At any rate, while she appears to be the source, I’m not sure how much magic she is capable of producing on her own,” said Adagio, “so trying to use it ourselves, without the pendants, doesn’t seem like it will work. But I do have another plan…”

“Because that’s–” started Aria.

“I don’t need another sarcastic quip!” snapped Adagio.

“Why don’t you guys just enjoy the music?” asked Sonata. “Some of this is rather catchy.”

A short while later the Rain-Booms finished up their song and exited the stage, then a few more bands played. Sunset went onto the stage when her turn came up.

“Uh… hi?” asked Sunset nervously after she got on the stage. “I’m here as a solo act. I’ll just sing and play an instrument at the same time. So… I guess I’ll just get to it?”

“What in the world is Sunset Shimmer doing here?” asked Thunder as the Shadowbolts waited their turn while Sunset started her song. “The portal’s closed, isn’t it?”

“Oh please,” said Stormy, “it’s obvious. This must be the alternate counterpart to the Sunset we ever so briefly met back in our world.”

“Hrmmmmm,” said Maelstrom, causing Stormy’s eye to twitch.

“Well, she doesn’t seem very good with the instrumentation,” observed Thunder. “Or the singing. Or much of anything else. Maybe she’s doing this to try to list it as a school activity on her future resume.”

The remainder of the song later…

“Well,” said Chrysalis, “your singing was off enough that Auto-Tune couldn’t fix it, your instrumentation sounded like you never played before, the lyrics were unoriginal, it went on way too long, your singing didn’t match up with the instrumentation, and all in all it’d probably be one of those auditions they show on one of those reality shows that has no chance of success and is just there so the audience can laugh at you. Congratulations, you pass!”

“What?!” asked someone from the band who had performed just before her. “How does she beat us, then? You said ours was really good!”

“Yes, but I want to purposefully let someone bad to continue, as a joke.”

“What?!” said the student.

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Chrysalis. “One day you’ll look back at this and laugh.”

“Did you seriously let them continue as a joke?” Luna whispered to Chrysalis.

“Actually,” Chrysalis whispered back, “I just really like the fact she’s using a ukulele, but I didn’t want anyone to know that.”

“You know what?” said Luna wearily. “I need a break. Why don’t you handle the next one yourself? It’s not like my opinions matter, as we each get a vote and you get the tiebreaking vote.”

“It projects a better image to have two judges, though,” said Chrysalis. “But fine, go do whatever, as long as it doesn’t involve cooking popcorn with a freezer. Trust me, it doesn’t work well.”

Luna started to say something in response, then thought better of it and left instead.

“Anyway,” said Chrysalis, “next!”

Sunset exited the stage and went over to Twilight. “Okay, I’ll admit it. Exploiting Chrysalis’s fondness for ukuleles did work. Where’s the rest of your team?”

“Because they haven’t had a chance to hear the sirens’ song, I got them to leave, as I want them to not be constantly arguing with each other,” said Twilight.

“Greetings!” said Stormy as she went up to the microphone. “I just want to note that even though our band is called the Shadowbolts, we have absolutely no relation whatsoever to that team from Crystal Prep. And don’t worry about us violating their intellectual property, because they’re a sports team whereas we’re a band, and thus there is no risk of brand confusion!” Stormy quickly observed that the other students didn’t seem to care about legal finesse. “Uh, anyway, here we go!”

“Those are the sirens?” Sunset asked Twilight as the Shadowbolts started playing. “They sure don’t look like the ones from the book I read.”

“Well, of course. They’re not physically sirens anymore; they got transformed just like everyone else seems to when they go through the portal.”

“Yeah, but… even their colors are different,” said Sunset. “Also, I can’t help but feel like I’ve met these guys somewhere before. Shadowbolts just sounds familiar for some reason… where have I heard that? I wish I could go back to Equestria to find out.”

“Why can’t you?” asked Twilight. “I mean, the portal’s open, right? There’s nothing stopping you from just heading back for a little bit.”

“That’s… a rather good point,” said Sunset. “I should have time between rounds.”

One interdimensional trip later…

“You know who the Shadowbolts are?” Sunset asked Suri.

“No,” said Suri. “The name does sound familiar, though.”

“Do you know who the Shadowbolts are?” Sunset asked Gilda.

“Sounds like the name of a metal rock band,” said Gilda. “But no.”

“Do you know who the Shadowbolts are?” Sunset asked Trixie and Lightning Dust.

“Oh, yeah, those were the guys I met when we were on the way to get the Elements of Irony to beat Nightmare Moon,” said Lightning Dust. “Their plan was still really stupid. They also were behind that thing where they tried to fake saving a baby to get popularity. That plan was less stupid, but it still failed.”

“They should be in that alternate universe,” added Trixie. “They went over there with Twilight when she was still all crazy from the Alicorn Amulet.”

Sunset stared at the two in shock. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“Uh, I did,” said Lightning Dust. “Back in that adventure, I’m pretty sure I identified them by name.”

“I can’t remember a random thing you said that long ago!”

“And you would’ve known the Twilight connection if you hadn’t left the room so quickly after you got back from the alternate universe,” added Trixie, “because Twilight mentioned it.”

“Well,” said Sunset, “I guess that was easy enough to find out.”

“What you need to do is pay more attention to things,” said Lightning Dust.

“Says the pony who is constantly crashing into objects,” muttered Sunset.

“Hey!” said Lightning Dust. “I’ll have you know I haven’t done that in at least four days!”

“By the way,” said Trixie, “as long as you’re here, maybe you can help us write this next bit of the comic. It would be good to get an outsider’s perspective. If, after inadvertently ending up in an alternate universe where everypony’s genders were flipped and the days of the week were in the opposite order, you found yourself face to face with a chainsaw-wielding axe murderer ghost, do you think that shouting ‘AAAAHHHH!!!’ or ‘AIEEEEEE!!!’ would be your natural response?”

Sunset stared at Trixie for a little while, then turned around and left without saying anything.

“Brilliant!” said Lightning Dust. “The proper response to that situation would have been to be speechless in terror! Sunset can be surprisingly smart sometimes.”