Graduation Day -- Canterlot City
EQUESTRIA HURLS
A “My Little Pony: Equestria Girls”/”Daria” crossover
By Erin Mills
Illustrations by Linnofthewoods
CANTERLOT HIGH SCHOOL
CANTERLOT CITY, LZ
JUNE 10, 2016
“This was NOT how I expected to be spending graduation!” Rarity cried as she threw her hands up, generating a large hexagonal crystal shield in front of her. A multicolored streak of light crashed into the shield, dissipating along the facets.
“I don’t think any of us did, Rares!” Rainbow Dash replied, flying by, her wings flapping madly. The athletic teenager dove and swooped around more beams of light that continued to spew from the cracked plinth that stood in front of Canterlot High School.
“Focus, girls!” yelled Sunset Shimmer from where she stood in front of the plinth. “We’ve got to get this under control!”
The redheaded girl scanned the grounds around her. The graduating class of Canterlot High, along with the teachers and spectators that had attended the ceremony were all a safe distance away from the plinth. Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna were doing their best to keep everyone calm.
Well, as calm as anyone could be witnessing a raging geyser of rogue magic spewing into the air and seven teenage girls in sparkly outfits with horse ears (and in three cases, wings as well) using superpowers to deal with it.
“Applejack!” Sunset cried to her blonde cowgirl friend. “Grab a tree! See if we can plug it that way!”
“Gotcha!” Applejack ran over to the nearest tree, the orange geode necklace around her neck glowing brightly. She slammed her fingers into the tree, embedding the tips deep into the bark.
“Sorry, big feller,” she apologized, then, with a grunt of effort, she uprooted the entire thing, turned, and hurled the tree toward the plinth.
The deciduous projectile arced end over end on a dead trajectory for the huge crack in the top of the plinth the magic was spewing from. Unfortunately, as soon as it hit the rampaging geyser, it shattered into a million pieces, which then inexplicably turned into butterflies that immediately flew off at high speed.
Sunset groaned. She turned to the purple girl with glasses standing next to her. “Any ideas, Twilight?”
Twilight Sparkle fiddled with an odd homemade contraption she held in her hands. She looked up at Sunset. “Whatever we do, we need to do it fast! The readings are going bananas! If we don’t stop this thing soon, the whole city is going to be blasted with magical energy and I don’t know what will happen then!”
Sunset groaned again. Today wasn’t supposed to go this way. She and her friends were supposed to sit through a boring graduation ceremony, then go out and celebrate making it through high school unscathed, in spite of the many, many times their lives had been interrupted by dealing with other dimensional magical menaces ever since the Fall Formal of their sophomore year.
But no, Sunset thought. No, the statue base that contains the portal to Equestria just had to explode today of all days. We really should have realized that’s where all the rogue magic we’ve been dealing with over the last couple of years has been coming from this whole time.
While the magical powers Sunset and her friends possessed were helping keep things under control for the moment, they weren’t doing much right now. And Sunset knew why.
“Dash!” she yelled upward. “Where the hell are Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy?! Can you see them?”
Rainbow Dash dodged another random bolt of magic and looked out at the streets surrounding the high school. “I don’t see… wait a sec!”
Rainbow frowned and put a hand over her eyes to shade them. “Oh boy,” she muttered.
She looked down at Sunset. “Promise you won’t get mad?”
Sunset frowned. “What did they do?”
“This is totally on them, not me, okay?” Rainbow replied, seeing Sunset’s face start to turn red.
“What did they DO?!”
“I just wanna be sure you understand that this is completely not my fault and is their idea!”
“JUST TELL ME WHAT THEY DID, DASH!!!”
Rainbow put a hand behind her head, sheepishly.
“Um… I think they stole an ice cream truck.”
“FLOOR IT, FLUTTERSHY!” screamed Pinkie Pie as she leaned out the side door of the ice cream truck. Beside her, her shy friend winced.
“I already am!” she protested. “These things weren’t meant to go that fast, Pinkie!”
The truck sped down the street toward Canterlot High, defying things like stop signs, the police who were trying to cordon off the area, and the laws of physics as Pinkie grabbed a handful of popsicles, charged them up[ with her magic, then hurled them under the spinning back tires of the truck. The frozen treats exploded, sending the truck into the air, Fluttershy’s screams of terror dopplering away as they gained altitude.
Below them, two stunned police officers watched as the truck sailed off into the sky.
“Sarge?” asked one of them, “Did you see that?”
“No,” said the Sarge, “And neither did you.”
The officer nodded. “There’s a lot of stuff we don’t see, isn’t there, Sarge?”
“Shut up, rookie.”
Sunset looked up as she heard Fluttershy’s scream and quickly got the hell out of the way as the truck miraculously landed upright in front of the school. Pinkie jumped out and thrust her fists in the air.
“THREE POINT LANDING! WOO HOO!”
The other girls rushed to the driver’s side, where Fluttershy was staring straight ahead, eyes the size of dinner plates, a grimace of terror on her face, and her fingers were making dents in the steering wheel.
“Fluttershy, darling, are you all right?” Rarity asked.
“I am never driving again,” Fluttershy squeaked. Rainbow Dash opened the door and gently pulled the yellow girl out. Being out of the truck seemed to bring Fluttershy back to herself.
Sunset stalked around to the other side of the truck to Pinkie Pie.
“What in the hell are you doing?” she asked. Pinkie stared at her, hurt.
“I was out of sweets for my magic. I needed to reload,” she explained.
"BY STEALING AN ICE CREAM TRUCK?!" Sunset howled. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Uhhhhhh..." Pinkie Pie blinked. Blindly, she flipped a switch on the dashboard. Pop Goes the Weasel began playing in a bent key. She smiled sheepishly.
Sunset closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "We will discuss this... IN DEPTH... later."
She gestured for all the girls to gather around her. “Charge up your magic as much as you can. We’re going to try to seal the crack.”
Twilight looked at her handheld gizmo again. “That could be dangerous. From what I can tell, if we seal the crack, that might close the portal to Equestria for good!” She looked up at Sunset. “You wouldn’t ever be able to go back.”
Sunset looked over at the out of control magical geyser, then down to where the mortarboard she'd been wearing at the graduation ceremony lay on the grass, then at the plinth itself where the portal back to her homeland of magical talking ponies was embedded. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them.
“That’s a chance we’ll have to take,” she said.
“Sunset!” Twilight gasped.
“If we don’t seal the crack, everything on this side of the portal is in danger. I’m not letting my mistakes bring about some kind of magical apocalypse!” Her shoulders drooped. “And if that means I have to say goodbye to Equestria, then so be it.”
The other girls looked at each other, concerned for their friend. Then Rainbow Dash stepped forward.
“All right, then,” she said, raising a fist. “Let’s go put a stop to this once and for all!”
“Yeah!” cheered the other girls. Sunset smiled and they began making their way towards the plinth. As they walked, colorful magical auras began forming around each of them: blue, yellow, pink, white, orange, purple, and red. The magic lifted all seven girls off the ground and they hovered in the air before the raging geyser.
Sunset floated slightly ahead of the other girls. “Light it up!” she called.
Each girl thrust out her hands, sending a colored beam of magic toward Sunset. The magic surrounded her in a swirl of multicolored light. Sunset’s eyes began to glow pure white as she became a conduit for the magical power flowing through her. She thrust out her own hands and a rainbow burst forth, zooming up into the air and crashing down directly on top of the mass of chaotic magic. The two forces collided and the girls let out noises of effort as they felt the raw magic trying to push back against their own.
“Give me more!” Sunset yelled over her shoulder. “As much as you can!”
“That could kill you!” Twilight shouted back.
“Do it!” Sunset ordered in a tone which brooked no argument. The other girls focused their power and pushed as hard as they could, sending everything they had into Sunset. Sunset grit her teeth and forced more magic through her hands. The geyser began to wobble and buckle as the rainbow shoved it back down toward the plinth.
Sunset concentrated and pushed even harder. Every cell in her body was screaming in pain, the magical energy threatening to consume her. Sunset kept pushing through the pain, focused solely on putting a stop to the chaos that she had inadvertently unleashed when she brought the Element of Magic to this world from Equestria.
Sunset let out a scream of pain, exertion, and sheer willpower as she gave the rainbow beam everything she had. The rainbow doubled in size and smashed through the geyser, connecting with the plinth. The crack in the top began to heal itself, becoming smaller and smaller until finally, it disappeared, sealing off the magical energies escaping from it.
The girls slowly floated to the ground. When they landed there was a flash of light and they were once again normal teenage girls, clad in the clothes and graduation robes they had been wearing when the portal exploded.
Sunset turned to face her friends. Her hair was frazzled and bits of residual magical energy crackled from the ends. She gave the other girls an exhausted smile…
… then her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed on the grass.
As Sunset’s friends, Principal Celestia, and Vice Principal Luna rushed forward to make sure Sunset was all right, a purple wisp of magic which had managed to escape before the crack was sealed zipped around in the air, made a loop, then passed through the side of the plinth, which rippled as the magical portal embedded in it activated.
The wisp zipped through the space between worlds, seeking out a new home. It found a way through and emerged out of a large hole behind a dumpster in another world. It floated past the dumpster, its luminescence making the words “Good Times Chinese Restaurant” spray painted on the side visible.
The wisp floated upward, seeking a vessel to inhabit so its power could be transferred to someone. The wisp didn’t care. It simply was. Magic needed to be wielded. It was its nature.
Eventually it floated through a small window carelessly left open in the back of a shop. It drifted from the back room into the main area. It was a thrift store. An eclectic mix of items were on shelves and mounted on the walls. The wisp came to a cabinet of old jewelry. It hovered around the front of the case, then found a finger hole in the back of the cabinet, used to open it, slipped through and landed on a battered broken pocket watch. As soon as it made contact, the watch glowed with a purple light, transforming into an ornate silver version of itself with a large amethyst gem in the center of the cover.
The glow faded and the store was once again dark and silent. The watch didn’t move, but if someone was there to observe it, they would have gotten the impression that, somehow, it was waiting.
Author's Note
Special thanks to Shortskirtsandexplosions for his suggestions.
Notes on chronology:
This story makes the assumption that both Equestria Girls and Daria began with the main characters in the fall of their Sophomore years of high school in the year their respective series debuted. Thus the timelines are as follows:
Equestria Girls
2013-2014: Sophomore year
2014-2015: Junior year
2015-2016: Senior year and graduation.
Daria
1997-1998: Sophomore year
1998-1999: Junior year
1999-2000: Senior year and graduation.
For those unfamiliar with Daria:
Wikipedia entry
DEGA STREET
LAWNDALE, MD
SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 2000
Dega Street was the closest thing you could find to a “bohemian district” in the suburban town of Lawndale. Specialty shops, boutiques, what could laughably be called nightclubs, bars and anything else that wouldn’t be considered “standard” by the rest of the community wound up here. There were even a couple of galleries. Not great galleries, but galleries nonetheless. A little island of “safe” non-conformity in the wider bland conformist streets of the town.
Nathan walked down Dega Street, looking resplendent in his everyday wear: a vintage pair of gray pinstriped trousers, suspenders, a pair of highly polished wingtip shoes, hand painted tie in a floral theme, and a lightly starched and pressed yellow button down shirt. All were circa 1948, purchases made from thrift stores, estate sales, and (much to his chagrin, let’s be clear about that) a couple of places online. His hair was pomaded to the point of nearly being shellacked into place, and it was, for all its outdatedness in the dawn of the 21st Century, a look that suited him. More than one person complemented him as he walked and he took them in stride.
He loved the aesthetics of Post-War Americana and had devoted his sense of style to them. Sure, he’d be the first to admit that era wasn’t the greatest in terms of social issues, but there was a sense of class and standards which you just didn’t get in this post-grunge, Gen X, “let’s wear sneakers to a restaurant” world he considered himself unlucky enough to live in. But, he’d found people who appreciated retro just as much as he did, and while the gang was small, they took it seriously. Unlike a lot of those poseurs who only got into the look and sound of the era because they had watched the dance sequence from “The Mask” eight thousand times and thought they got it. Nathan had tossed his Royal Crown Revue CDs in the trash after that incident. (As much as he hated it, the new wave of swing bands just didn’t put their stuff out on vinyl these days thanks to the record companies. Ugh.)
He rounded the corner and entered Christy’s Closet, his go-to place for new threads and accessories. He greeted the clerk at the counter, (everybody knew him there), and began looking over the racks. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just seeing what was there. He thumbed through the racks of shirts, ties, pants, and suits and didn’t really find anything that jumped out at him. He either owned most of it already or it was outside his particular era of taste. He took a brief glance at the women’s section, always curious what new frocks had shown up in between his visits. Not that he’d ever WEAR any of them, you understand, but it was always good to see what was available for the ladies so you could accessorize appropriately so you both looked good.
As he idly flipped through the rack, he stopped and frowned as he found a glittery gold evening gown with short sleeves and a plunging neckline. Right next to it was a pink polka dotted number, and a navy blue gown from the ‘50s. Nathan felt his teeth clench. He knew those dresses.
They had belonged to a girl he dated a few months previous. Jane Lane. An attractive, arty girl with a wicked sense of humor, some pretty decent art skills and an affinity for some of the same retro stuff he idolized. Things had started out okay, but after a while, she started taking it less and less seriously. That wasn’t helped by her friend: a miserable, sarcastic little twerp named Daria who mouthed off about everything Jane had done with Nathan, culminating in her and her boyfriend nearly ruining a great night out with the gang at the abandoned drive-in theater on the outskirts of town.
And then after that disaster, Jane actually expected them to spend MORE time with Daria the Drip and her boyfriend! She bought tickets to some corny amateur magic act at that school she went to, which was bad enough, but then she wanted to wear ‘40s shoes with a ‘50s dress out that night! It was almost a blessing that they had broken up after that argument. God only knew what the gang would’ve said if they had actually shown up at the floating ukulele review that night.
And here that self-same dress was, clearly abandoned by Jane after the split. Nathan huffed through his nose and walked away from the rack. She wasn’t worth getting this agitated about. Just another Frankie-come-lately. He should have guessed when he met her in the stationery store and he first saw those godawful boots of hers. Was it really too much to expect to find a girl who shared his passion for Post-War style and didn’t see it as just another fad? It was a lifestyle, and Nathan was committed to living it to the fullest.
Speaking of, he found himself next to the jewelry cabinet and his eyes immediately went to the ornate silver pocket watch with the large amethyst in the cover. Nathan whistled. It wasn’t quite the right style for the era, but it was a looker.
“Hey, Joanie!” he called to the clerk, who came over to the case. “How much for that little eye-catcher?” he asked, pointing at the watch.
Joanie opened the case and pulled out the watch. She checked the tag attached to the chain. “Huh? Says it’s twenty.”
“Twenty?” Nathan’s eyebrow raised. “For something that happening? That can’t be right.”
“We go by what’s on the tag and the tag says it’s twenty,” Joanie shrugged. “You want to buy it?”
“There’s gotta be a catch,” Nathan said. “Can I open it? Make sure the works aren’t busted or anything like that?”
“Sure,” said Joanie. Nathan thumbed the pushbutton on top of the watch stem, popping the cover open. There was a flash of purple light, causing Nathan to wince briefly as it overwhelmed his vision. When it returned, he blinked, spots dancing in his eyes.
“What the hell was that?” he asked. Then he stared. Joanie was still at the counter but she seemed… frozen. Still looking at him with an unblinking stare. Nathan frowned and snapped his fingers in front of the clerk’s face a couple of times.
“Joanie? You okay?”
Joanie didn’t respond. Nathan waved his hand in front of her eyes, but still got no response. He looked around, trying to see if maybe this was some kind of elaborate gag being played on him. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He leaned over the counter to see if there was someone down there, but all he saw were Joanie’s feet.
“Ugh,” he said automatically as the sneakers Joanie was wearing. Modern trash, definitely not the kind that went with the vintage blouse and jeans she was wearing. “Joanie, come on,” he continued, deliberately being rude to provoke a reaction. “I thought you had better taste in shoes than that.”
Joanie didn’t respond, which caused Nathan to frown again. He had made comments like that before in a joking fashion, but Joanie never let them slide. He was definitely in Weirdsville here.
He glanced down at the pocket watch, which seemed to be working just fine. He snapped it shut and Joanie looked down at her feet.
“What was I thinking?” she said. Nathan blinked and looked back at her.
“Pardon?” he asked.
“My shoes! I was in such a hurry to get to work today I put on my running shoes!” Joanie stepped out from behind the counter. “I can’t wear these with this outfit! I’m going to have to change them. Maybe those heels I saw last week.”
She blinked again and looked up at Nathan. “Oh! Sorry, what am I doing? Are you going to take the watch?”
Nathan looked from her, to the watch, and back again. A slow smile crept across his face.
“Yeah, y’know what? I think I will. It… speaks to me.”
CANTERLOT HIGH SCHOOL
CANTERLOT CITY, LZ
SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 2016
After waking up, taken home, and having a good night’s sleep, Sunset Shimmer was ready to get onto the next thing she knew she needed to do: check to make sure the portal to Equestria in the plinth outside Canterlot High was still working. She and her friends met just after noon at the campus.
“Okay, so here’s what I know,” Sunset said (after assuring her friends she was just fine, thanks.) She held up a large book with an ornate sun-star hybrid symbol on the cover. “I wrote to Princess Twilight this morning after I got up, and she responded, so we know the magic linking the journals together is still working.”
“Princess Twilight” was Princess Twilight Sparkle, one of the four princesses of the land of Equestria. She was Twilight Sparkle’s counterpart in that dimension. “Princess Twilight” was the name the group of friends used to distinguish between the two.
The princess and Sunset Shimmer were able to communicate across their two worlds by a magically enchanted journal which acted much like the text function of a cell phone. Whatever each wrote in their journal would magically appear on the pages of the journal belonging to the other. Sunset opened her journal to the relevant pages.
“According to Princess Twilight,” she began. “The portal seems to be stable on her end. She didn’t detect anything unusual and nothing happened yesterday when we were sealing the crack in ours. She and I agree that it’s probably a good idea for me to take a quick trip to Equestria to make sure everything’s working correctly.”
“Are you sure, Sunset, darling?” asked Rarity. “Couldn’t we send an inanimate object through as a test first?”
“I’d rather go through myself,” Sunset answered. “We’ll need to see if there’s anything weird happening during the actual transit between our worlds. Better to have someone who can report on anything unusual than just chucking a rock or something through.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” said Rarity. She looked up and fixed Sunset with a stern stare. “But you had better come back to us in one piece, understand?”
Sunset grinned. “Crystal clear!”
She turned to Twilight, who had her gizmo from the day before out and was running it over the surface of the plinth the portal occupied. “How’s it look?”
“Everything seems to match the readings I have form when I scanned it before. It seems to be stable, but there’s a minor fluctuation I can’t seem to account for.”
“Is it anything I should be worrying about?”
Twilight shook her head. “Not as far as I can tell. It’s a really minor variant on the usual waveforms. Like one millispike’s difference. I don’t think it should affect anything.”
“All right.” Sunset handed the journal to Twilight. “Take this. Let the princess know when I’ve gone through. If everything’s all right, I’ll write back when I get to Equestria.”
“And if it isn’t?” Twilight asked.
“I’ll come right back,” Sunset promised. “And we’ll figure out what to do from there.”
“All right,” said Twilight. She took a step back from the plinth. The rest of Sunset’s friends grouped up next to her.
“Good luck!” they chorused. Sunset grinned.
“Thanks! And don’t worry! Everything will be fine!”
Sunset took a deep breath, then stepped through the portal. The girls waited…
… and waited…
… and waited.
Just as Twilight was ready to panic and send her pony counterpart a frantic message, the portal rippled and Sunset came back through. She looked behind her shoulder at it and then back at her friends.
“I’m not sure where that was, but it was definitely NOT Equestria.”
Author's Note
Nathan appears in "Daria" Season 5, Episode 9, "Life in the Past Lane."
