“What was that?” Rainbow demanded angrily as I flinched.

“Y-you were showing them your magic! I had to do something!” I shouted and hugged myself.

“Unplug her amp? Give us an opportunity to handle the situation?” Rarity snapped as Spike raised an eyebrow. Looked weird on a dog.

“I just wanted to help,” I muttered.

“Yeah well you didn’t!” Rainbow shot back and I shivered.

“Hey!”

We all jumped at the angry voice and spun around as Vinyl climbed up the stairs.

“This is not her fault!” Vinyl growled and pressed a hand against Rainbows chest. “This is all on you being your typical show off self. Maybe you should take a step back and look at yourself before you come after her.”

“I didn’t know you could speak,” Rainbow muttered in awe as I watched.

“Seriously? That’s what you say right now?” Vinyl scoffed as she folded her arms. “You’re unbelievable.”

“You’re unbelievable!” Rainbow exclaimed and glared. “We’re trying to save the school here.”

“Trying to save the school or trying to save yourself?” Vinyl asked as Rainbow flinched. “Some friends you are. You bully Sunset, treat her like shit, don’t do anything when the classmates we have harass or hurt her, make some snarky comment and say no offense. You don’t give a single damn about her.”

Rainbow opened her mouth to speak before someone else did it for her.

“Some performance Raingoons,” Trixie mocked as we all rolled our eyes. “I especially like the part were Sunset Shimmer, in a fit of jealous rage, knocks out Rainbow Dash mid guitar solo!”

“It wasn’t a fit of jealous rage!” I screamed and pushed Trixie over as the others excluding Vinyl rubbed their backs.

“If you say so,” Trixie smirked as she pushed me off and flipped her hair. “Well, looks like the principals are coming. Pretty sure it wasn’t that hard to decide.”

“This is our last opportunity to perform and I had the most gorgeous outfit!” Rarity whined as I rolled my eyes.

“Because that’s the real tragedy here Rarity. Ya don’t get to play dress up!”

“That is not what I meant and you know it!”

Vinyl put her headphones on and ducked behind the curtains as the Dazzlings sang, stroking the principals back as their eyes flashed green.

“The band going on to the next part of the battle of the bands is the Rainbooms!” Principal Celestia announced as Trixie gasped angrily.

“What!?” Trixie exclaimed and glared at us. “This isn’t over Rainbooms!” She threw down something and a cloud of smoke made us all cough as Trixie disappeared.

“She’s gone!” Pinkie gasped and sighed. “There she is!” Trixie groaned and took off running from behind her hiding spit.

“We’re really looking forward to the next part of the competition Rainbooms,” Adagio smirked as she placed her hands on her hips.

“Yeah well not as much as we are!” Rainbow shouted as everyone started booing us out of the gym.

Well, this fucking blows.

I yawned and laid on my back as I stared at the ceiling of the stage. Rainbow rammed into the door for the nineteenth time at least and groaned, rubbing her shoulder.

“Give it up Dash. Ya’ve been at it for hours. It ain’t openin.”

We had been trapped down here by shocker, Trixie and her little gang of miscreants. And she couldn’t even pull the lever herself. She had Fuchsia Blush do it. I only knew her and Lavender Laces names because I broke up the trio in freshman year.

“I don’t know what went wrong. How could I fail like this?” Twilight muttered to herself as she hugged her legs. I almost felt a pang of sympathy for her. Almost. “Maybe it doesn’t matter that we’re trapped down here. The counterspell probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

“Of course it woulda! Provided a certain band member didn’t hog the spotlight the whole time we were tryin to play it!” Applejack shouted and glared at Rainbow as I sighed.

“Hey if you want to tell Twilight she’s getting a bit too caught up trying to be the new leader of the band, you don’t have to be all cryptic about it.”

“Do you hear yourself when you speak?” I muttered under my breath and rolled my eyes.

“She was talking about you Rainbow Dash!”

“Me?” Rainbow asked incredulously. “I’m just trying to make sure my band rocks as hard as it needs to!”

“Our band!”

“It mighta been your idea to start a band but it ain’t just your band!” Applejack grumbled and pressed a finger against Rainbows chest.

“I write all the songs!”

“I write songs! You just never let us play them!” Fluttershy shouted and glared at the rainbow haired girl. Now this should get interesting, the shy girl starting to get mad? If Discord wasn’t trapped in stone back home, he’d be having a field day with this.

“I wish I never asked you to be in my band!”

“I wish I never agreed to be in it!”

“Me neither!” Fluttershy and Applejack said in unison.

“Hey!” Pinkie shouted as I jumped slightly. She had a weird ability of appearing out of nowhere. “You remember fun? It’s the opposite of being in the Rainbooms!”

I raised an eyebrow as they continued arguing and a weird green smoke started trailing out of them and up through the ceiling. I glanced back at Twilight who was rocking herself back and forth.

I rolled my eyes as I pushed my self up. Typical of the Equestrian Princesses. They have an uncanny ability of being utterly useless at the worst times.

“Stop! You have to stop!” I exclaimed as they all looked at me. “This is what they’re after. The magic inside you.”

“But how? It’s the magic of friendship!”

“Seriously?” I scoffed and raised an eyebrow. “This whole time you’ve been letting little things get in the way. I didn’t say anything because it wasn’t my place but well my first true friend gave me a verbal beating I needed.”

“I can’t believe all this tension was happening right under my nose this whole time and I didn’t see it,” Twilight admitted as she stood next to me.

“Maybe we aren’t supposed to have all the answers all the time,” I smirked faintly and shrugged. “Celestia knows I don’t.”

“So what now?” Fluttershy asked quietly as they looked at me.

“Don’t look at me. I’m just the she demon,” I grumbled and stepped back. Fluttershy opened her mouth and closed as Rainbow sighed.

“We play the counterspell, free the others and make it up to Sunset. Somehow.”

“We’re getting the band back together?” Pinkie asked excitedly as she started vibrating on the floor.

“We’re getting our band back together,” Rainbow corrected with a smug grin.

“Woohoo!” Pinkie screamed and started bouncing off the walls literally as I ducked to avoid catching a pink body to the face.

“And I know just the song,” Rainbow announced as we gave her unamused looks. “Fluttershy here has written a really good one.”

“We’re about to save the world. Personally ah think we should do it in style,” Applejack smirked and nodded at Rarity. “Rarity?”

“I thought you’d never ask!”

“Lets get out of here first, then change!” Rainbow announced and we all pressed our shoulders against the door till it opened and we all fell backwards.

“There you guys are. Had to find someone who wasn’t under their spell,” Spike said as he waved a paw. Vinyl stepped forward and waved as we grinned at each other.

“Why isn’t she under the spell?” Twilight asked curiously. “She was being friendly to Sunset earlier. I should have seen something was different.”

“Never takes off her headphones.”

“Vinyl thank the stars!” I exclaimed as I froze with my arms extended. “Right, hugs aren’t a thing you like.”

“I think this would be considered an exception,” Vinyl snickered as she hugged me. “Now come on, you have an ass kicking to give.”

I gave a nod as I followed her out. It felt nice to have an actual friend.