The Nightwatcher Chronicles: Hunt Turned War

The next arrived quickly, thanks to a lack of sleep. It was the day of the Battle of the Bands. I received a text from Pinkie, which confused me since I never gave it to her. When I asked how she got my number, Pinkie didn't explain it well. I interpreted as she said that she got it to fill in a major plothole in the story. Considering what I had experienced in the last three days, I simply ignored it.

Anyway, Pinkie Pie said that she knew about Devin and me breaking into her house. And understandably so, but she was also impressed that we managed to break into the house without setting off the alarms. I said that we had some outside help

Sunset Shimmer, on the other hand, was not impressed. When we were invited to Applejack's farm to the Rainbooms practice before the Battle of the Bands, Sunset was out in the driveway waiting for us.

I got off of my motorcycle and walked over to her. Honestly, I expected her to say "hi". Instead, she tried to punch me. I managed to block the punch and pinch a nerve in her arm with my other hand that numbed her arm for a few moments.

"Good morning to you, too," I said as I released her arm.

"What the heck is wrong with you? You break into Pinkie's house, threaten Twilight with a gun, and start shooting. Not only that, Pinkie's dad is in the emergency room," Sunset Shimmer hissed. She rubbed her arm.

"Relax, no one is dead or permanently hurt. I needed to extract information that Flash told us she probably had."

"Wait, you interrogated Flash?"

I nodded my head. "Don't worry, he's fine. You can blame Justin for that one."

"Hey, it was a simple misunderstanding," Justin announced.

"Which occurs more often than we're comfortable with," I hear Hannah grumble.

"You could have come to me, instead of probably scarring two people for life. I'm from that dimension, as well," Sunset Shimmer said.

"Yet you didn't tell us who and what the Sirens were. If I remember correctly, we figured who they were before you did," Levi added.

Sunset Shimmer raised her eyebrow. "How?"

"They are similar to creatures in a story from our dimension. The only problem is that we needed to know what that green mist stuff was," Jessie interjected.

Sunset Shimmer pinched the bridge of her nose with her hand that wasn't numb. She shook her head.

"Just warn me next time you try to extract information using aggressive interrogation, so I can try to give you an answer," Sunset Shimmer pleaded.

"I can't make any promises," I replied.

She motioned for us to follow her, and she explained The Rainbooms' plan to defeat the Sirens. They had to play a song that was being written by Twilight. The way it would work was the song acted as a countermeasure to the spell. I think I speak that was a stupid idea. Then, they told us that Twilight joined the band, as well. When they told us that Twilight was the Rainbooms’ newest member, Sunset Shimmer looked emotionally hurt. I guess that the Rainbooms favored Twilight instead of Sunset Shimmer.

Eventually, we arrived at a large shed where the Rainbooms were practicing. We watched their performance in silence.

The song that Twilight wrote was complete crap. The rest of the band didn’t seem interested in playing the song. What was even worse, Twilight’s voice was The Rainbooms’ magic transformation thing didn’t even show up. The entire thing was so bad, it was laughable.

When the song ended. Lance, Daniel, the twins, Hannah, and Justin were stifling a laugh. I was trying to hold in a negative comment, but it was hard to. However, Daniel didn't have that problem.

“That was the worst performance I’ve ever seen in my life,” Daniel announced.

“I agree,” Lance said.

“Yeah. What is wrong with you guys? Were you even trying?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“I was trying,” Fluttershy replied quietly.

“We could play better even with new songs,” Daniel said.

“Oh, yeah?” Rainbow Dash challenged.

“Yeah. I bet we would demolish you in the Battle of the Bands,” Daniel said.

“Prove it.”

We hadn’t played together in two years. Rainbow Dash thought we were going to forfeit because we weren’t good. Our group got a little ticked off that Daniel "voluntold" us to play a song to shut Rainbow Dash up.

Within a few minutes, we brought all of our instruments. Then, we ran into another problem. We didn’t have a song to play. Since Daniel and Lance were with us, we had to play a song with the cello and violin.

“Let’s play The Last Night,” Devin suggested.

“Devin, the song is a bit depressing. We need a song that will blow Rainbow Dash out of the water,” Brody said.

“That's true.”

“ What about Salvation?” Hannah suggested.

“ The only reason you want to play Salvation is because you have the main part,” Dylan said.

“So?”

“How about Comatose?” Brody asked.

We all agreed on the song. Applejack told Rainbow Dash that she should ask the rest of their band what they want to play. Rainbow Dash ignored her statement.

Sunset Shimmer and Spike agreed to judge. Since they knew how the Rainbooms performed at their best, the “judges” told us to play. Brody counted us off and for the first time in two years, we played.

I took a deep breath as Lance and Daniel started to play. I knew the chords and the vocals, but I was nervous. I guess it was because of how long it was since we played. However, that nervousness melted away when I strummed the first chord.

The song flowed perfectly. Despite not playing together for two years. I honestly thought my voice would be offkey, but it wasn't. We played perfectly from the beginning to the end.

“So what do you think, judges?” I asked as the last chord rang out.

“I'm going to be honest, here. I think that Matthew's bad is the better band,” Sunset Shimmer replied.

Rainbow Dash groaned as we gave each other high fives and fist bumps. Then, Spike made his choice. I was concerned that we allowed a dog, of all things, to be a judge.

“Matthew, what is your band’s name?” Spike asked.

“Teens Of Christ Band,” I responded. “Or TOCB, for short.”

“My vote goes to TOCB," Spike announced.

My group started cheering. Rainbow Dash looked a little ticked off. She called Sunset Shimmer a “traitor” and started mumbling something under her breath.

“As I said, Rainbow Dash, you are not awesome at everything. The sooner you figure that out, the less it will crush you later,” Daniel taunted.

“He isn’t wrong, Rainbow Dash,” Applejack said.

“I think we need to rethink our game plan,” Pinkie Pie said. “No offense, Twilight, but you can’t sing.”

“How about Twilight and I switch roles?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“I agree with her,” Levi said.

“I think that idea would be better,” Twilight agreed.

“Since it is fresh on my mind, let’s talk about our costumes,” Rarity announced.

Rarity pulled out from in front of it a mobile clothing rack. On the rack, there were at least twenty costumes. My question was how much free time Rarity had to make a large number of costumes.

“We could try this one,” suggested Rarity as she slipped one on over her clothes.

The costume looked like a marching band uniform but with a skirt and a lot of glitters. If you wanted to dazzle the judges at a marching contest, that uniform would do the trick.

“Um, Rarity. You do know this is a battle of the bands, not a marching band contest,” Devin pointed out.

“You’re right. We could go with something more modern,” Rarity said.

“For the last time, Rarity, cut it out with the costumes,” Applejack complained. “You have y too many costumes."

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you guys supposed to be at the high school to sign in at nine o’clock?” Sunset Shimmer interjected as she looked at her phone.

“Yes,” replied Fluttershy.

“It is 8:45 right now,” announced Sunset Shimmer.

The Rainbooms started to panic and pack up their things. They loaded everything in Applejack’s older brother’s trailer that was hooked to her truck. Some of the girls sat inside the truck while the rest rode in the bed. The dimension allowed people to ride in the back of trucks if they went 25 miles per hour or slower.

After the Rainbooms left, we started picking up our band equipment and loading them onto the van. Within ten minutes, we had everything loaded. Then, we left for CHS in our vehicles.

When we arrived at CHS, the student parking lot was packed. Students, who were in bands, were lined up to sign in for the Battle of the Bands. I counted over ten bands lined up and several more arriving. Our group went up to the door, but we were stopped by the guy signing people in. We're cutting in line.

“Hey, back of the line,” he told us.

“ We aren’t competing. We pulled out of the competition,” I told him.

“Okay, go on ahead," the kids said.

I held the door open and found a soda can on the ground. When Lance went through the door, since he was last, I closed the door and walked down the hall.

We went to the gym and found a seat in the bleachers. The Rainbooms saw us and they sat with us. They told us they didn’t have to perform until a couple buys named, Snips and Snails, finished. Jessie asked me to come with her to the bracket board, which was in front of the stage.

As we walked to the board, I saw the Sirens talking amongst themselves.

The fact they were working for Hamato made me nervous. One way or another, they needed to be stopped.

The bracket board had the set-up of the March Madness college basketball tournament. Except there were fewer teams. In total, there were thirty-two bands. The Rainbooms were the third band to play. They were competing against two girls playing a duet on the piano.

“This Battle of the Bands looks fierce,” Jessie said.

“Considering most of the school under a spell, the word ‘fierce’ fits or an understatement. A friendly showcase turned sour. This sounds like our school plays our freshman year,” I replied.

“Don’t remind me. Sarah shouldn’t have gotten suspended. The girl bull rushed her and Sarah defended herself.”

“Nothing we could do.”

As we turned around to go sit back down, Sirens were standing behind us. The leader had her arms crossed and a sadistic smile on her face. The other two also had sadistic grins on their faces.

“Scoping out the competition?” asked the leader.

“No, we pulled out of the Battle of the Bands. Our band is only for entertainment,” I responded.

“Your loss. I’m Adagio Dazzle,” the leader said.

“I’m Matthew Wilson. This is my girlfriend, Jessie Anderson.”

“Pleasure to meet you both,” replied Adagio.

“Who are your companions?” Jessie asked.

“On my right is Aria Blaze and on my left is Sonata Dusk.”

“My pleasure to meet you. We’re going to sit down and watch the show,” I lied.

Jessie and I walked back to our seats, I heard Adagio ask me, "Are you sure you don’t want to prove you are the best?”

I turned around and replied, “There is always someone better than you.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing you getting proven wrong.”

Jessie and I returned to our seats. Daniel asked what happened and I let Jessie explain. After about ten minutes, the two principals walked into the gym.

“Hello everyone. Welcome to CHS’s first annual Battle of the Bands,” Principal Celestia shouted

“Ez egy éves esemény, most?”

(Hungarian) “This is an annual, now?” Lance asked.

“Það mun ekki vera after að Steinarnir eru barnar.”

(Icelandic) “It won’t be after the Sirens are beaten,” I replied

“Minu küsimus on, kuidas. Et Twilighti plaan on läbikukkunud.”

(Estonian) “My question is how. Twilight’s plan is doomed to fail,” Daniel added.

“Wir werden einen Weg finden, die Sirenen zu besiegen.”

(German) “We’ll find a way to beat the Sirens,” I said.

Celestia told the students that Luna and herself would be the judges. I thought that everybody knew that already but not. She also discussed the rules of the competition and how each performance will be judged. The way the principals would be judging seemed like they were going easy on the bands. It was quite pathetic.

Then, Vice Principal Luna said something that caused the arguing to start up again.

“There can be only one winner. Who is going to win?”

The entire gym, except us, started to argue. It was very irritating, considering that Orange and my friends' butt heads a lot. I saw Flash and his band arguing with another band. So far, he was doing what I paid him to do. Then, I saw more of that negative energy hovering around.

Eventually, Principal Celestia became fed up with the arguing and calmed the students down. Then, Vice Principal Luna announced a guy named Bulk Biceps was up first in two minutes. A bulky guy walked onto the stage with a violin and tuned his violin.

I admired that he used his two minutes wisely. Then, the principals told him they were ready.

I had to admit, Bulk Bicep’s performance was amazing. What was amazing was that he played a hard piece of music from our dimension, called Con and Gigue, by memory. Daniel looked impressed. I guess he has the right to think that since he’s our violin player.

When he was done, only Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna, and very few people clapped, which is very sad. I noticed that our group was about to clap but stopped when the clapping ceased.

The next group to perform was Snips and Snails. They were dressed like a couple of 90’s rappers. You know, the sagging of the pants, flat-bill hats facing sideways, and sunglasses. Most of our group looked like we're about to laugh. Then again, so was everyone else in the gym.

Before Snips and Snails began, the Rainbooms and Sunset Shimmer went to the side of the stage since they were “on deck”. Rarity ran off to the bathroom for an “emergency”. Whatever that meant.

I think I speak for everyone in the gym when I say the performance was outright terrible. Snips and Snails were trying to freestyle the entire time. It was like they weren't even trying. Dalton was almost rolling on the floor, but he was snickering, along with Levi. Eric was clenching his jaw to prevent himself from laughing. What sent Dalton running for the bathroom laughing his head off was when the duo tried to beatbox at the end. Then, they tried to do “drop the mic”, but the only result was the worst microphone feedback I ever heard. Celestia ordered the two not to drop the microphones. Then, Levi shouted something that got the principals and Bulk Biceps, not like him.

“Hey, they attempted to ‘drop the mike’! You should let them win!”

The entire gym stared at him. The principals gave him a dirty look. Bulk Biceps looked like he was about to kill him. Snips and Snails chuckled to themselves.

“That wasn’t necessary, Mr. Rodriguez. I suggest you keep your mouth closed or I will put you in detention,” snapped Celestia.

Levi gave them a thumbs up. I was trying to not go off on Levi since I was the most embarrassed.

Luna and Celestia went up onto the stage with a couple of clipboards but remained behind the curtain. I guess they were discussing who would advance to the next round. It only took about thirty seconds to decide. They went over to the bracket board and took a red dry-erase marker and marked out Snips and Snails. Then, they moved Bulk Biceps to the next round.

Then, I saw Rarity running across the gym and over to the band. She had changed clothes and had on a buckskin hippie outfit with metal all over it. It was a bit ridiculous. They talked for a little bit, and then they took the stage.

The Rainbooms performance was exceptional. They played a song called “Shake Your Tail”. The song was related to partying. Not the drinking, smoking weed, and refusing to remain a virgin type partying. I was beginning to think that the dimension didn’t have that kind of problem.

During the song, there were a few problems that occurred. I saw other bands trying to sabotage the Rainbooms. One attempt caused Rarity’s outfit and the sleeves to tear and her to cry. Pinkie fired a confetti cannon, that was also the floor tom, and the confetti got stuck in Rainbow Dash’s guitar frets. One-piece flew into Twilight’s throat and caused her to choke which was bad since she had backup vocals. Fluttershy did her a solid and hit her in the back. The piece of confetti flew out. Speaking of Fluttershy, since Fluttershy is very shy, she hates being in the spotlight. Anyway, a band used light to shine on her. She ran back and forth on the stage trying to avoid the spotlight. Despite the sabotage and Pinkie’s confetti cannon, the Rainbooms moved onto the next round.

Our group went to the music room and hung out there. The Rainbooms joined us but were arguing about what song to play next. While they were doing that, Twilight frantically wrote in that notebook she was writing In last night. Fluttershy tried to suggest playing her song, but Rainbow Dash ignored her. It got to the point where I chewed the Rainbooms.

“Will you guys shut up?!” I shouted.

Everyone looked at me. The Rainbooms were shocked that I had yelled at them.

“Do you girls even hear yourselves? You’re becoming exactly what you are trying to fight. You are arguing with each other, and you’re acting like the bozos that are under the Sirens’ spell. How do you expect to beat the Sirens if you are acting like this? Rainbow Dash, you are the main source of the problem.”

“How am I the main source?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Your enormous ego is getting in the way of everything. ‘ I’m so awesome and blah, blah, blah. Believe me, it gets on everyone’s nerves. You think you are the boss of the entire band. I know that the rest of the band gets extremely annoyed by it. Can I get a witness?”

“Preach it, pastor,” Devin said.

“Amen,” Dylan added.

"Oorah!” Justin shouted.

“Um…I agree,” Fluttershy mumbled.

“Every single day, you are sounding like your dad,” Lance announced.

“Then Dad raised me right,” I replied.

Rainbow Dash sat in a chair pouting like a six-year-old. The rest of us tried to make conversation. We did this until the Sweet 16 round started.

This round, Principal Celestia used the PA system to call people to the stage. A little in the Sweet 16 round, I watched the Sirens, or the Dazzlings as they called themselves, perform a song. Talk about not being subtle. The song was called Under Our Spell. Everyone that was under the spell was unaware of the song’s true nature.

When the Sirens were done, Adagio looked at me and gave an evil grin. That inspired me, even more, to take them out.

Eventually, the quarterfinals began around 1:30 pm. During Bulk Biceps's performance, which he was going to lose, Rainbow Dash pulled a muscle in her right arm. The one she strummed with. The Rainbooms began to panic. Someone had to take their place. Even though I didn’t want to, I asked my band to take over. They agreed, but I didn’t think that the principals wouldn’t go with it.

We ran out to the van and grabbed our instruments. Then we went to the gym as Principal Celestia gave the last call for the Rainbooms. The principals were confused to see us instead of the Rainbooms. There was a soft murmur across the gym.

“Where are the Rainbooms?” asked Vice Principal Luna.

"Rainbow Dash pulled a muscle in her arms. Her strumming arm. Which is her right arm. She pulled her bicep,” Justin replied.

“Justins, slēdziet. Tu stāsta skaņu kā meli.”

(Latvian) “Justin, shut up. You’re making the story sound like a lie,” I said.

“Buʙaxşed. Man kūşiş mekardam, ki ʙa savoli xud çavoʙ diham.”

(Tajik) “Sorry. I was trying to respond to her question.”

I saw Celestia about to say “no”, but I had a backup plan. I had Dalton do one of his most dangerous magic abilities. He was going to control Principal Celestia and Vice Principal and make her say yes.

Dalton was sitting at the top of the stands, with a light green aura surrounding his hands, and sent what looked like green energy into their heads. Celestia and Luna's bodies tensed up and their eyes stayed open. Dalton did his dirty work and she said “yes”. After Dalton unpossessed Celestia, she looked confused but shook it off.

“Can you give us a couple of minutes so we can decide on what to play? This was sort of a last-minute thing?” I asked.

“I’ll allow it,” replied Principal Celestia.

The band and I stepped off to the side and had a little conference.

“So, Matthew. What song should we play?” Devin asked.

“I don’t know. You guys got any ideas?” I replied.

“What about It’s Not Me, It's You?” Brody asked.

“We have to play something with the cello and violin,” Hannah responded.

“What about Awake And Alive?” Daniel suggested.

“That’s a good one. Everyone agrees?” I replied.

Everyone gave a thumbs up, and we returned to our spots. Of course, I was in the middle with Brody behind me. Dylan was to my left and Devin was, as well. Hannah and Justin were on my right. Lance was in front of Dylan and Devin. Daniel was in front of Hannah and Justin. We had adjusted our microphone stands to our height. Finally, we were ready to play. Of course, Brody counted us off.

The violin and cello started first. Then the headbanging awesomeness began. Despite not having played this song in two years, we killed it. Then, I played the guitar solo of the song. When I started playing the solo, the crowd went nuts. Even the Rainbooms seemed impressed. Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna looked impressed after we finished. The crowd did as well because they were clapping extremely loud.

“That was the most incredible performance I’ve seen all day,” Vice Principal Luna announced as she clapped.

“I concur. You shouldn’t have dropped out of the competition,” Principal Celestia added.

“No disrespect, ma’am, but I said before my band is for entertainment purposes not for competitive purposes. Except for this one time,” I said.

“Fair enough,” Principal Celestia said.

The group and I walked off the stage as the two principals walked on stage. Then they headed off stage to decide who went to the semi-finals. It was about ten or fifteen seconds later, the two principals came out on stage. I already knew who was advancing to the semifinals.

“After much deliberation, the ‘Rainbooms’ will advance to the semifinals,” Principal Celestia announced.

Our group didn’t even celebrate. We picked our instruments and we went to the van. The Rainbooms ran into us while we were going to the van. All of them looked nervous.

“So? How did it go?” asked Twilight.

“I guess it went well. Except for the fact that you owe us one,” I replied.

“What do you mean ‘you owe us one?” Rarity asked.

"I had to go back on my word that my band is for entertainment not for competing. In that case, you owe us one.”

“Sure, fine. Did y'all get us into the next round or not?” Applejack said.

“ Have fun at the semifinals,” Justin announced.

The Rainbooms went ecstatic. They were jumping around and cheering. Pinkie ran up to Brody and hugged him tightly. I thought she was going to squeeze him to death, from the way his face turned a deep red. Sunset Shimmer backed up a bit and kind of had a depressed look on her face.

“Let go of me now,” Brody grunted.

Pinkie Pie let go of Brody and he started coughing. I was about to laugh until I saw Sunset Shimmer slip away and walked down the hall. She seemed like she was upset about something. I motioned for Jessie to follow me so we could find out what was wrong with Sunset Shimmer.

We followed Sunset Shimmer back to the library. She sat at the table and laid her head down. Jessie and I walked over to her. I tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped. Sunset Shimmer turned around and had a startled look on her face. She relaxed when she saw us.

“You’re a little jumpy,” Jessie said as she sat next to her.

“I didn’t hear you come up behind me,” Sunset Shimmer replied.

“That happens a lot. When I was a kid, I used to play hide and seek with my cousins. I had a strategy of moving quietly so I could hide in multiple places. It takes a while to perfect it,” Jessie explained.

“What’s your excuse?” Sunset asked me.

“I am an assassin,” I replied.

“That's fair. I assume you didn’t follow me here to talk about whatever we were talking about,” Sunset Shimmer said.

“You seemed depressed all day long. What’s going on?” Jessie asked.

“I wasn’t asked to be a part of the Rainbooms. They asked Twilight instead of me. I think they didn’t ask me because no one would want to see them play. You may remember, I didn’t have the best of reputations,” Sunset Shimmer replied.

“I know how you feel,” Jessie said.

“You do?”

“Before I began dating Matthew, I gave everyone a hard time. Mainly, I was still hurting after my mom’s death. She died of cancer when I was fifteen. I wasn’t liked by a lot of people. Matthew saw what I was going through and helped me through my suffering. People were suspicious of my change of attitude but they saw that I truly changed. Sometimes, trust takes time.”

“I would have never guessed that about you,” Sunset Shimmer said.

“At our old school, she joined the debate team. Although Jessie needed to speak up when she was arguing with people,” I pointed out.

“My voice cracks when I speak up like that,” Jessie announced.

We talked for a couple of hours. We missed the rest of the quarterfinals but it was worth it.

Later, I went to look at who was in the semifinals. The first battle was the Dazzlings and a group called the Crusaders. The Crusaders were the girls who sold us cookies. The second battle was the Rainbooms and a girl named Trixie. Her group was called Illusions, I think. The semis was going to be a tough one.

Of course, the Sirens knocked the Crusaders out of the competition and advanced to the finals. Trixie and the Illusions performed pretty well, except that Trixie accidentally threw her guitar pick. The principals didn’t seem to notice, nor did the crowd. The Rainbooms performance, well, went south. Mainly due to my impulsiveness and Sunset Shimmer freaking out.

Here’s what happened:

Our group stood just off the stage with Sunset Shimmer. Despite the number of people offstage, no one noticed we were back there. The Rainbooms ended playing Awesome As I Want To Be. I could tell the rest of the Rainbooms weren’t happy to play the song.

Rainbow Dash played her guitar solo loudly and slightly obnoxiously. Eventually, she started to play her guitar behind her and upside down. Then, her transformation thing began to show. From what I found out later, the plan was to avoid doing that so the Sirens didn’t know what was happening.

Thanks to my impulsiveness, I drew my pistol and fired. The bullet flew and severed the cord that connects Rainbow Dash’s guitar to the amp. The bullet continued and struck the amp, which sent sparks everywhere. Sunset Shimmer ran and tackled Rainbow Dash. People started screaming and running everywhere.

Just like in my dreams days ago, I shouted: “Run!!”

I ran backstage as fast as I could. The rest of the group scattered amongst the screaming students. I found an emergency exit and ran out of the door.