Phoenix

“Um, Twilight? Could we speak with you for a minute?”

The Equestrian paused and looked to the side that the voice was coming from, letting the door to CHS’s main offices close with a clunk.

“Octavia…” Twilight muttered as she fully turned to face the girl and her small group of friends. “What do you want? I was just about to head home.”

“It’s, um…” Twilight turned and looked at Bon Bon, amazed at just how different the girl was from her Equestrian counterpart. “It’s… We wanted to talk about Sunset…”

Twilight looked at the other three girls, each of them nodding in affirmation of the blue and pink haired girls comment.

“Very well.” she sighed as she crossed crossed her arms. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Maybe we should take this somewhere more… private.” Octavia suggested as she looked around at all the students who were stopping and whispering about Twilight being here.

“Agreed. Lead the way.”

***

“So, er, Twilight, how come you’re here today?” Bon Bon asked, obviously uneasy.

“I’m trying to track down Anon-A-Miss and bring them to justice.” Twilight responded curtly, her arms having remained crossed the entire time as the five girls traversed the halls of CHS before finally entering a room far away from anywhere else on school grounds, instruments of all sorts contained within.

“Oh, really? Why not just leave all of that to the authorities?” Lyra shrugged as she took a seat, only to almost go flying at Twilight’s retaliatory shout.

“Because your bucking authorities have not done a Celestia-damned thing, that’s why!”

“I understand you are worried, Twilight, but you really must-” Octavia started only to rounded upon by the furious Twilight.

“I have waited and trusted for something to happen since the night she went missing, you insensitive oafs!” she screamed, arms flying into the air. “I am done waiting! I may never find out who it was that attacked Sunset, but I can damn well find out who Anon-A-Miss is and-”

Cries of shock rang out through the room, but they were unable to pierce the sound of the skin on skin contact that had stopped Twilight’s tirade. The girl’s head had spun to rest over top of her shoulder, her eyes wide open yet reduced to shaking pinpricks as she stood there in shocked silence.

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare act like you know what she went through here! You never even visited her! You never checked on her to see if she was doing fine! To see if those traitors that you left in charge actually even tried to be her friends!” Vinyl Scratch’s thunderous words held a venom and raw fury that Twilight had never faced before, and as Vinyl stood there, the back of her right hand reddening considerably from the impact the pale girl had just delivered, the girl tore her signature purple shades from her face, her deep, blood red eyes blazing with the raw fury of the sun.

“You…” Twilight slowly turned to face her assailant, raw energy starting to crackle around her it seemed as she seethed. “How dare you strike me!”

The other three girls in the room cowered as Twilight exploded on the girl that struck her, rushing forward and grabbing the DJ by the neck of her shirt, a strangled scream escaping her lips as she did so.

“Do you know how worried I’ve been! How distraught! The last messages I received from her were all about how she had been abandoned by those girls! About how students at this school were attacking her! And when I come across to find out why she was silent I instead find the Rainbooms trying to say that it was good that she was gone! To top it all off I find out that the Celestia-damned Sirens have been taking care of her after finding her left for dead in an alleyway! How dare you say that I know nothing about-”

Once again the sound of Vinyl’s hand connecting with the cheek of Twilight rung through the room, the other three girls screaming as they rushed to separate the pair from further hurting one another.

“Vinyl!” Octavia shouted as she pulled the girl away, her cultured voice a mixture of anger and concern. “What are you doing!?”

“She thinks she knows!” the teen yelled, tears starting to fly from her eyes. “She thinks she knows a damn thing about being abandoned by those who are supposed to be her friends!”

“I know damn well!” Twilight shouted back, struggling to break free of Lyra’s hold. “I was abandoned by my friends on the day of my brother’s wedding! I was abandoned by my teacher and my family, and it caused the doom of the entire world!”

“If you know what it’s like, then why did you never come and visit her!? To make sure her friends that you left her with were actually doing what they had to!? Were you there to give her a shoulder to cry on when she was ditched for the hundredth time!? Were you there to share your lunch with her because she was bullied into giving hers away!? WERE YOU THERE WHEN SHE NEEDED YOU THE MOST!?” Vinyl shouted herself hoarse, her voice hiccuping as tears continued to stream down her face.

The room grew silent as Vinyl started to wipe away the tears still dotting her face, the teen glowering angrily at the Equestrian Princess who was too busy staring at the ground to respond. Octavia let go of Vinyl when the teen rolled her shoulder, the ebon haired teen deciding to instead embrace the girl who seemed ready to resume her assault on the purple girl standing across the room from her.

“I know I failed her…” Twilight said quietly, shaking her downwards looking head slightly. “I know that the reason of being a Princess is a weak excuse, considering how I was always there for my other friends… I know that she was too scared of disappointing me to ask for help… I know that…”

Twilight looked up, looking extremely frail and weak, her eyes carrying a sorrow beyond her years as she stared at Vinyl. “I know that I may never have her back because I chose to believe in people that I didn’t know, thinking that they were the people I knew… I know it’s all my fault… But I want to help, somehow…”

“Have you stopped to think that maybe this is better for her? That maybe she is actually truly happy for once in her life?” Vinyl croaked uneasily. “That maybe she finally has a family that cares about her, and takes care of her?”

“It may not be the one you wanted for her, Princess, but from what me and the others have seen, it’s the one that she bloody damn well deserves.”

Everyone stood in silence as Vinyl finished talking, Lyra finally letting go of Twilight, the teen slumping forward and falling to her knees, her hands coming up to catch her face as tears started to flow freely from them. Bon Bon and Lyra stepped away slightly, giving some space to the grieving girl, just in time for the door to the room to open, light from the hallway flooding into the room.

“Well… This is… Somethin’ alright.” came the uneasily calm voice of Applejack, as her and the rest of the Rainbooms entered the room.

“What do you want, AJ.” Lyra growled harshly, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she regarded the quintet of girls that just entered the room.

“Well, we heard that tha Princess was here, and we were hopin’ ta talk at her.” AJ said slowly, careful to make sure that the aggressive quartet understood why they were here. “But it seems that tha Princess is dealin’ with somethin’.”

“Why do you five want to talk to me?” Twilight croaked, slowly standing up and wiping away her tears as best she could. “To try and absolve your sins?”

“Hey! We fucked up, and we admit it, alright!” Rainbow yelled from behind Applejack. “We just want to try and fix everything!”

“You don’t get to decide that.” Twilight looked over the group. “I told you to never talk to her, and I meant it!”

“Oh really? Well wouldn’t you love to know that-” Lyra started, a smug grin on her face, only to be cut off by the most least likely person to ever cut someone off.

“We tried talking with her!” Fluttershy cried, ducking out from behind Applejack. “We tried talking with Sunset yesterday, and-”

“Why…?” The Rainbooms were shocked at just how disappointed Twilight appeared as she stood there, watching them carefully. “Why would you ever think that talking to her would be a good idea?”

“They were feeling guilty, if’n ya ask me.” Lyra said, sneering at the group. “They eavesdropped on the four of us talking about how we were going to meet with Sunset at one of the local Tea Shoppes, and they decided to come for a visit as well.”

“They spent a lot of the time trying to make Sunset think they actually were her friends. Even showed her some videos from the Battle of the Bands!” Vinyl said, her voice continuing to crack. “They even tried to make it sound like we weren’t her friends!”

“Is it true…?” Twilight, as defeated as she looked and sounded, still held a small aura of control. “Did you ever try and be her friend? Did you ever try to move past the hate, and come to understand the magic of friendship? Or was all the trust I put into you for naught…?”

The five girls stood there, shifting around restlessly as they struggled to come up with an answer, only to have AJ step forward and remove her stetson from her head.

“I’m mighty sorry… Princess…” she said calmly, looking Twilight directly in the eye, unblinking. “We never really tried. Even when she helped us with the Battle o’ tha Bands, it were only ‘cause you were there… We didn’t ever try ta be her friends.”

Twilight watched as the other four girls nodded their own heads, all of them bowing their heads low as they tried not to look at the Princess.

“But why…? Why couldn't you at least try?” Twilight’s voice carried all of her disappointment, her regret, her hurt. “What did you gain from making sure Sunset didn’t have friends?”

“We thought… We thought that it was all a trick…” Rainbow said, still staring at her feet. “We thought that this was just Sunset Shimmer trying to trick you, to take advantage of your kindness…”

“We didn’t want to be hurt by her again.” Rarity said, fiddling with the bangle around her wrist. “We didn’t want the school to ever be torn apart again like she had it…”

“So we all failed her then…” Twilight said, looking around at each girl as they looked up at her in confusion. “You didn’t realize that she was being honest, that she really wanted to be friends… You didn’t want to be hurt. And I trusted the five of you blindly… Because I thought that you were my friends…”

“We…” Fluttershy’s eyes started to tear up as she look at the Princess. “We aren’t your friends…?”

“No… You aren’t… You are just the human versions of my closest friends… You haven’t been through the struggles that we have, all of our adventures together…” Twilight paused as she addressed them, watching as they realized just what was about to happen. “I let my understanding of my world, affect my judgement of this world… And look where it got me? Going on a rampage to try and prove Sunset’s innocence to naive teenagers who would rather hate than be friends…”

“But hate isn’t the way to live… Sunset knows that… I’ve just learned that… So maybe I should give you a second chance to prove yourselves… Because any less would prove that I am no better than you…” Twilight slowly stood up, looking back at the other four girls who had stood silently watching. “You four can reach her, I assume? You can reach… Fireside?”

“We… We can, yes…” Octavia nodded solemnly, watching as the girl from another world have a small, understanding smile as she wiped away the last of her tears.

“Good… That’s all I need to know… I suppose I will have to go and apologize to Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna for my earlier outburst, as well as the Sirens for not giving them a chance to prove that they’d had changed… As for you five?” Twilight turned around as she addressed the Rainbooms, each of them jolting up into an uncomfortably straight stance. “I’m giving you girls a second chance… Please don’t prove me wrong again…”

The five girls nodded as they parted ranks, allowing Twilight to slowly make her way out of the room and into the hallway, nodding to everyone in the room as she started her departure.

“So, uh… Any idea on what we should do?” Rainbow asked after they could no longer hear Twilight Sparkle’s footsteps.

“Yer guess is’s good as mine, shugahcube.” Applejack replied as she reseated her stetson to her head, before turning around at looking at the four girls on the other end of the room. “Though, maybe we should ask them what they think we should do.”

“Well let me first say,” Vinyl strode forward, before leaning over and grasping and flailing her right hand around. “Jeezus FUCK did that hurt!”

“I’ll say!” Lyra added, laughing as she walked forward to pat the violently cussing DJ on the back. “You just backhanded a Princess from another damn world, Scratch! Twice!”

“She what!?” Rarity screeched, the girl almost fainting at the declaration.

“Why the hell does she give you guys a second chance!” Rainbow yelled, looking at the four of them in disbelief.

“Well she kinda deserved it.” Bon Bon said softly, smiling sheepishly. “She was getting a little out of hand.”

“Well… She didn’t seem to think to badly of it?” Rarity looked around uneasily. “I guess we can just forget about hearing that then.”

“So what do you recommend we do in regards to Sunset?” Rainbow asked, sounding somewhat impatient.

“Well firstly, her name is Fireside Glow.” Vinyl explained, a large grin coming to her face. “And secondly, just follow our lead.”