Sunset Shimmer barrelled through the school hall, ignoring the looks she was getting from everypo—everyone she passed by. Thankfully, most of them had learnt at this point not to question or confront her about anything she did, even if it involved sprinting into the old wing of Canterlot High as if she had a manticore hot on her tail. They only needed to know where she was going so that they could be somewhere else.
So much for my vacation…
Upon finding the decommissioned classroom described in Twilight’s message, she skidded to a halt in front of its door and rapped her knuckles against it.
The door creaked open, and Sunset sidled in. “All right, I got your message and came back as quickly as I could. What’s the prob—oh.”
Rainbow Dash lay flat on her back on the teacher’s desk, surrounded by the rest of her friends, all of whom looked like they’d just taken a quick shower—with their clothes on.
Rainbow in particular had angry, red welts on her skin, frizzled hair, and scorch marks on her clothes despite dripping water all over the place. Her jaw hung loose, and her eyes were closed. Sunset first thought that she’d had simply passed out, but then she noticed that Rainbow’s chest didn’t rise or fall with breath, and a faint scent of burnt bacon hung in the air that made her stomach growl and churn at the same time.
“Oh, horse apples!”
She rushed forward, nearly bowling over Fluttershy and Rarity in the process and pressed her index and middle finger to Rainbow Dash’s neck.
No pulse.
“It’s too late, sugarcube,” said Applejack. “We’ve already tried CPR for the last half hour.”
“What the hay happened?” Sunset all but screeched.
Rarity waved her hands frantically at her and hissed, “Keep it down! Are you trying to announce it to the whole school?”
“It was an accident,” Fluttershy murmured.
Sunset opened her mouth, then closed it and clenched her fists at her sides as she squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled deeply. She then let her breath whoosh out and repeated the exercise a couple more times before she reopened her eyes, folded her arms and glowered at her friends. “All right, who’d like to explain this to me?”
“Well, we had a little accident in the chemistry lab,” said Rarity.
“And oh boy was it one doozy of an accident! At first everyone was all shushed and busy doing what Miss Thunderstruck says, and then suddenly Flash Sentry went all “Aaah!” and started yelling at everyone to take cover. Then...” Pinkie cupped her hands together and swiftly parted them, splaying out her fingers. “Fwoosh! His beaker decided it wanted to be called Flash, too, and after all the sparkly lights had cleared out of my eyes, there was fire and everything on the table and—”
Rarity slapped a hand over Pinkie’s mouth and chuckled nervously. “What our dear Pinkie’s trying to say, is that Flash’s experiment had… unforeseen consequences.”
“It’s not really unforeseen, though.” Twilight adjusted her glasses and grimaced as she shook her head. “Flash messed up big time. Everyone really should know what happens when you mix magnesium with—”
“The point, is that there was no malice involved.” Rarity huffed. “There was a minor explosion, which led to a fire, which led to the sprinklers turning on and everyone evacuating the lab.”
“Uh huh, okay. That explains why everyone’s soaked.” Sunset unfolded her arms and gestured at Rainbow’s body. “But these look like electrical burns, and last I checked, fire sprinklers aren’t designed to shoot out lightning with their water.”
“Of course not! We all got out of the lab unharmed, if a little damp.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “And then?”
“Getting there, darling,” Rarity huffed. “There was a little complication, though. When the fire alarm and sprinklers went off, we were all caught so off-guard that we left all of our belongings in the lab when we evacuated.”
“Our phones, too. Can’t believe we totally forgot to grab them on our way out!” Pinkie chimed in.
“We were using them to jot down notes and look up references for the experiment,” Twilight cut in before Sunset could interject. “It seemed like a good idea at the time…”
“Anyway, were were all on our way to the assembly point when Rainbow Dash realised we’d left our phones behind. The poor dear doubled back, said something about doing everyone a huge favour, and it was all we could do to keep up with her.”
“Things still looked fine when we got back there, aside from all the sprinklers going on like it’s monsoon season. Must’ve shorted out something in the lab, and I’d bet’cha it was that faulty power outlet in the left corner. Always did sound a mite crackly whenever we plugged something in there,” said Applejack as she rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Anyways, we did warn her not to go stickin’ her nose into a beehive, but…”
“Oh, for the love of—you can’t be serious!” Sunset winced and facepalmed. “You’re not telling me she deliberately charged into a room full of potentially electrified water, right? What, did she think she could just outrun the current?”
“Sunset! Honestly, you could stand to hold a higher opinion of our poor friend,” Rarity cried, gesturing at Rainbow.
“Well, she did stop at the door and stick a finger into the water before going in.” Twilight peered at the ugly burns on Rainbow’s arms and bit her lip. “Still not the brightest idea, but it wasn’t electrified when she’d tested it, so she ran in and shoved our phones into her bag…”
“And then, zap! There was this awful kzz-kzz-kzz! sound and she looked like she was trying to do the Hokey Pokey and run at the same time. She tripped and crashed at the last second, but she just managed to toss us the bag before she, uh, checked out. She didn't make it out of the lab.”
Fluttershy hugged herself and shuddered. “It was awful…”
“I… I see.” Sunset frowned. “So why is she here and not in a morgue?”
“I tripped the circuit breakers to kill the power, and we carried her off before anyone could come and take a look. Honestly, we’d rather settle this without too many folks askin’ questions we can’t straightly answer…”
Awkward silence filled the room as Applejack’s words petered out.
Sunset slowly shifted her gaze from one friend to another, noting that Fluttershy was the only one with red, puffy eyes. The rest of them had the jitters in varying degrees, except for Twilight, whose contemplative examination of Rainbow’s anatomy suggested that she was only a couple of electrodes short of attempting to re-enact Frankenstein.
“I don’t know which is more worrying: that Rainbow Dash could just off herself out of the blue like that, or the fact that you girls seem to be handling this really, really well…”
“Your access to Equestrian magic is a major factor,” said Twilight. “I’m pretty sure there’s something on the other side of the portal capable of fixing this.”
“Least, we reckon so. Otherwise we’ll get round to startin’ up the waterworks.” Applejack then gulped and threw an uneasy look at Rainbow. “After we decide what to do with the… evidence.”
Fluttershy grasped Sunset’s hand and squeezed, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “You can fix this, right? Please, we don’t know what we’ll do if you can’t—”
“Whoa, whoa, just—yeah, I think I can. I know some zebras with friends on the other side. We just need to get her through the portal without being seen.” Sunset gingerly patted her on the back as she wriggled her other hand free. Then, she blew a heavy sigh through her nostrils and said, “And then I’ll have to haggle with some creepy zebras, go on a quest for exotic reagents and maybe play a round of Monopony with Death. This weekend is going to be just super.”
Fluttershy sniffed. “So, you’ll bring her back the way she was?”
“Hay, no. She’s going to keep those scars. But if Death throws in some common sense with the package, I don’t think I’ll complain.” Sunset glanced at her watch. “I suppose we’re moving her after the school closes?”
Her friends nodded.
“All right, let’s do this.” Sunset clapped her hands and rubbed them together to soothe her frayed nerves. “We hide the body until we’re ready to move out. The sooner we get her to Equestria, the sooner I can start forgetting that Rainbow got herself killed for nothing.”
“Technically, it wasn’t all for nothing,” said Twilight.
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “What’re you talking about?”
Twilight fished her smartphone out of her pocket and waved it at her.
“It’s a phone,” Sunset deadpanned. “People replace them all the time. Sometimes more than once in the same year!”
“The communication device itself? Sure.” Twilight took off the cover and tapped a finger on the access panel at the back. She then pried it open to reveal the little chip inside. “But we usually transfer the subscriber identification module because it’s effectively our personalised number and has a lot of our stuff in it—authentication keys and research notes, in my case. If Rainbow hadn’t dashed back in and taken our phones out of sprinkler range, they probably would’ve been fried beyond recovery once the water hit the power outlet. That data is irreplaceable.”
Sunset tilted her head. “So, what you’re saying is…”
Twilight smiled. “She just died for our SIMs.”
Author's Note
An entry for the FimFic Feghoot Festival.
