For Rainbow Dash, there has never been a day more frustrating than this one. First of all, she had been dragged into what is, in her honest opinion, one of the most tiring moments of her life, when Midnight Sparkle was unleashed and almost leveled the entire school, she also had to contend with all of the ramifications from this event. Mainly, all of the grief that was thrown her way by the members of the athletic committee. It went from the financial sacrifices that they would have to make in order to redo the friendship games after the countless attempts of cheating, courtesy of one Principal Abacus Cinch, to the overwhelming amount of paperwork that would need to be done in order for the heads of both schools to allow their respective teams to participate again.

With all of this, and probably more weighing down on her, Rainbow was not in the best of moods right now. As insomnia very quickly raised its ugly head, which led to many restless nights for her, she could not bear with all of this pressure put upon her. She very quickly made the executive decision that she needed a break from all of this, just a short period of time to her mind back in place so that she could focus entirely on what was to come for next year's games. However, she could not do this all on her lonesome. If she was going to get some much deserved R&R, she was going to invite some of her friends to come along for the ride. With her plan in mind she spent the rest of the night making preparations and having little sleep.

The next morning, she called Sunset Shimmer, Rarity, and Twilight Sparkle and informed them about what she was planning. They were excited for this little vacation and accepted her invitation vehemently. She then drove to the courtyard at Crystal Prep, where they had all agreed to meet, due to Twilight living at the academy. She pulled up to the courtyard and eagerly awaited her friends' arrivals. Thirty minutes later, her excited companions ran over towards Rainbow's blue Ferrari, and got her attention through knocking on the window due to the fact that she was asleep. When Rainbow jolted awake, she unlocked the door for them and let them in.

"So, Rainbow," Rarity exclaimed with anticipation, "what are you planning to do for this excursion you told us about."

Rainbow, with eagerness in her voice said, "First, before we do any of this, let's get some lunch, I know a pretty good burger place a couple blocks away, my treat." With excitement on their faces, they headed off.

A few hours later, they had just finished eating their lunches when someone came up to them that they were not expecting. Sonata Dusk, whose jacket was torn at the seams from wear, apprehensively approached them. She explained that she wanted to apologize for all of the havoc that she and her sisters had caused, and that she wanted to do something in order to make it up to them.

"Um, guys, I am really sorry about all the mean stuff we did to you guys," Sonata said with timidness in her voice, which was usually so bubbly and carefree, "I really wish there was a way for me to be able to make it up to you guys. Aria left us and said she was going to become a star without us, but, thankfully, Adagio never left my side. We're kind of inseparable these days, and she said that I should come to you guys and apologize for what we did. She said that she is really busy trying to find us new jobs in order to help sustain ourselves, but we are doing pretty well so far.
Rarity and Rainbow were hesitant to accept her request immediately, due to the chaos that they had enacted, while Sunset and Twilight were a lot more accepting, due to the fact that they were both very forgiving people. They decided to let Sonata come with them in order to ignite something akin to friendship between them all. With excitement, they raced towards their first stop, Manehattan.

As they drove to the train station where they would be able to go to Manehattan, they were chatting about the usual stuff, boys, clothes, and the like. As they turned through an intersection on their way to the station, their radio, which had been playing classical music, per Rarity's request, suddenly cut off and began emitting an ominous high-pitched frequency. After a while, the frequency became so overwhelming that everyone in the car suffered from a searing headache. This pain was so severe that it almost caused them to lose control of the car, but before anything happened, Rainbow managed to gain control back and they pushed onward.

They then arrived at the train station, with everyone no worse for wear despite the intense onslaught of pain that they had to go through. After getting their tickets from the ticket-taker, they eagerly marched toward the train, when Rainbow suddenly felt very uneasy, almost as if she was being watched. She scanned her environment, looking for any sign of her eavesdropper, when her eyes rested on a hooded figure. The figure was about as tall as she was, with a feminine build. The cloak she wore was ragged and white, with burns sprawled all over it. Rainbow could not identify the person's face. The only features she could see perfectly were her hands and feet, both appendages burned severely, with blisters and pustules peppering them. When Rainbow turned to show her friends the mysterious figure, she then saw that she was the only one in the station, with all of the lights shattered, completely submerging her in darkness. Rainbow, with combined expressions and confusion and fear, turned to see the hooded girl had disappeared. Perplexed, Rainbow began to leave when she saw the girl again, only this time she was right in front of her face, holding a knife in her mangled right hand. The girl hurled the knife into Rainbow's eye and then Rainbow blacked out.

Author's Note

I hope that everyone enjoys this. I have been thinking about making a project like this for a while now. I finally have the courage to do it.

I have been a hardcore fan of the Evil Within series for a long time, and I have wanted to translate that series into the EQ world ever since I started doing this
Once this story makes it to the FIMFiction platform, I will be making a blog post illustrating some of the ideas that I have going for this, so sit tight.

DISCLAIMER: This story takes place four weeks after Friendship Games.