Hello, fellow readers! And welcome back to Shining Rainbows! Last time, Sora gets to meet Sunset face to face as Yozora has also arrived in Canterlot. Now before we continue, what do we have:

johannvanguard: As all great things have in common, time will tell.

Thanks for the feedback! Now, let's get going!

Chapter 2: Lining up the Pieces

"Where is she..." Rainbow mutters, looking around the food court at the mall to look for a certain someone.

She recently got a text from Applejack, saying that she managed to get her chores done on time thanks to a new friend she recently met and wanted to introduce the two to him. They agreed to meet up at the mall since the two just got off work themselves.

"A-Are you sure it's OK for her to bring this person?" Her friend Twilight, also known as Sci-Twi, asks her as she stood by her.

"Yeah. Why?" Rainbow wasn't exactly sure where she's going with this.

"Well you know, this person may be-"

"Howdy!"

The two heard a familiar voice as they see Applejack, who is now in different attire with her signature stetson hat, with someone else by her side as well. The two came on over soon after as she continues.

"Sorry for the delay, I was giving a brief tour to the new guy."

She gestures to said person by her, who the two actually recognizes from his appearance.

"You!?" Rainbow points right at him, which he barely flinches at.

"Wait, do you know him?" Applejack was understandably confused at this.

"Yeah, you're that guy that fought Midnight back at the Friendship Games!" Rainbow recalls him talking to her briefly before facing the demon, "And it was awesome, by the way!"

"...Thank you?" Yozora wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that as she puts her finger down before she points out a certain detail, "I never caught your name."

"Oh, this is-" Applejack was about to tell her, only for another voice finishing her sentence. "Yozora."

The three turn to Sci-Twi, who was staring at him with a curious expression. "You're Yozora, right?"

"Yes." He simply said in response.

"Which means you two weren't an magical illusion of some sort..." She mutters before realizing something, "Wait, didn't you have someone else with you?"

Yozora took a moment to think before remembering who she's talking about, "Sora."

"OK wait, hang on!" Rainbow spoke up upon hearing that, "Yozora, Sora... aren't those names the ones Sunset keeps mentioning!?"

He was just watching the girls look at him with different expressions now, but all three conveys disbelief at this while he was connecting the dots.

Upon being dragged to yet another unfamiliar world, he had to get involved in a battle that involves crossing through a parallel world of said world and wakes up some time later somewhere else somehow. Right now, he just wants answers to save himself a headache.

"Do you three know where I can find Sunset? I need to know what's going on here."

"Join the club! I reckon we get this sorted out fast!" Applejack agrees with him.

"To Sunset!" Rainbow lead the way as the four go off to her house.

"So to sum it up, the keyblade is an ancient sentient weapon that can choose its wielder based on the strength of their heart?" Sunset summarizes what Sora explains earlier who responds with, "Yup."

"And you traveled through multiple worlds before?" Rarity wonders out loud as she stood behind the couch where the other two sat in, "Like what?"

"Uh, a lot of them I stay the same, but certain ones had us use magic in order to blend in." Sora then recalls the special worlds in the latter, "I have turned into a merman, a vampire, a lion cub, a pirate, and even a toy figure!"

"Bipedal and quadruped forms?" Sunset compares this to her human and pony forms, so she kinda gets it. "Isn't that a bit disorienting?"

"Totally, but I managed to get used to it." He answers with a sigh accompanying it.

Sunset wrote down these notes in a notebook as he was talking, a lot of her questions being answered after months of theories and more.

"And you're sure that your hair is all natural?" Rarity pokes at the tip of one of the spikes as she asks this.

"Yes, it is." He couldn't help but smile at the fact they're still asking that question.

"What about Yozora?" Sunset decides to shift the focus a bit, "What can you tell us about him?"

"Uh..." Sora wasn't entirely sure how to answer that, so he goes with a half-truth. "I only met him once, so I never got the chance to ask."

"You two knew each other enough to work together." Sunset points out.

"That was more on the situation we were in." Sora counters with a good point.

Rarity was simply listening as the two went back and forward a bit before hearing a knock at the door, "I'll get it."

Walking over to the front door, she unlocks and opens it to see Applejack, Rainbow, and Sci-Twi. "Oh! Hello, girls. What brings you here?"

"Funny you ask. What are you doing here?" Applejack shoots the question back.

"Well, you know the whole thing Sunset's been doing lately? Believe it or not, I met one of the boys she was talking about!" Rarity eagerly answers.

"Really?" Rainbow was amazed at the coincidences today, "You met Sora?"

"Precisely! And he's quite nice, let me tell you." Rarity then realizes something, "Wait, how did you know it was Sora?"

"Well..." Sci-Twi spoke up this time, "We may have the other half of the equation."

Back to Sunset and Sora, they changed the topic to just magic in general as the former was wondering what powers he possesses with the keyblade.

"The keyblade is able to allow the wielder access to elemental magic. With enough training, you can rival even the strongest mages."

"Sounds a lot like a video game..." She compares what he just said to a level up system.

"You're telling me."

The two then notices their new guests as Rarity brought them inside with Rainbow agreeing with her.

"Hey, guys! Didn't hear you come in." Sunset admits as she and Sora got up to their feet, "Sora, these are more of my friends."

"Hiya." He simply said with a small wave to them.

"You already know me, of course." Rarity starts off the introductions before gesturing to the others in order, "This is Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, and-"

"Yozora!?" Sora exclaims upon seeing the last one in line.

Sunset was just as, if not more surprised at this as she immediately went over to him. "You're real too!? This is AMAZING!"

"...This may take a bit." Applejack notices Sunset doing something similar to Rainbow fangirling.

She wasn't wrong as the next few minutes was spend making sure Sunset doesn't faint at this point. Sci-Twi stood a bit away from the group with her excitement not being as high, mainly since her curiosity was turning into fear as bad memories were starting to resurface. Though, her thoughts were interrupted as Sora goes over to talk with her.

"Good to see you doing well." He starts their conversation with a simple ice breaker.

She adjusts her glasses a bit before responding, "Y-Yeah... Thanks for the advice, by the way."

Sora took a second to remember the advice he said, "Oh, you're welcome. So, how has it been so far?"

"Nice, very nice. They are rather accepting of people that were... misguided, for lack of a better term."

"That's also what I was curious about." Sora wonders out loud, "What happened that made you... you know?"

"Um..." Sci-Twi shifts her eyes away before answering, "Let's just say that peer pressure may have been involved... from my old school wanting to win the games."

"That's horrible!" Sora exclaims, but knows that what he says won't matter for something that already happened.

"And it may not have been a main reason why I transferred soon after." Sci-Twi admits.

Yozora overheard their conversation and was also in agreement with Sora with the reasons that forced her into that situation being dumb. Though, he kept quiet about it since she's doing much better since then before hearing Sora speak up again.

"Still, that's just petty." He then shakes his head before changing the subject, or at least he was about to before hearing Rarity.

"OK, she should be fine now."

The boys and Sci-Twi shift their attention to the others as Sunset stood up from her chair, "Sorry about that. I just needed time to process all of this."

"It's understandable, I needed time to process seeing another me." The latter knows what she meant.

Sora and Yozora took a second to realize that she most likely meant the pony princess from the parallel world, which the former said out loud. "Oh yeah, the princess! Something tells me that's a whole other thing, right?"

"You have no idea..." Rainbow sighs with her answer.

"Then let's not get ahead of ourselves." Applejack spoke up to get them back on track, "Right now, let's figure out why these two are here in the first place."

"I have questions to sort out as well." Yozora agrees with her suggestion.

"Same. Mind if we get some answers too?" Sora was on his side on that.

"Fair enough. What do you have in mind?"

Once she got off work and changed into her casual clothes, Pinkie Pie darts down the sidewalk on her roller skates to go get Fluttershy. She wasn't exactly sure, but she felt something big was going down. Reaching the animal shelter, she finds Fluttershy after she has already fed said animals.

"Fluttershy! Something has happened!"

"R-Really? What is it?" Her friend wonders.

"I don't know, but it's big! Like really big!" Pinkie admits as she grabs her hand, "Come on, we got to go see!"

Fluttershy did her best to keep up as they went down the street, especially since Pinkie was on roller skates, as she still wasn't sure what's the big hurry.

"W-What do you think is happening?"

"Not sure, but it's very important!" Pinkie vaguely answers in response.

It didn't take very long to reach their destination, which was Sunset's house, and stop at her door. Fluttershy took a moment to recover from the trip as Pinkie knocks on the door. Soon after she did, Rainbow opens it to see the two.

"Hi, Rainbow! Did we miss anything?" Pinkie was rather excited as she asked this.

"W-Wait, how did you-" Rainbow was cut off as Pinkie gasps upon seeing the new faces.

A sudden pop caught the otherworldly duo off guard, surprised by an excited Pinkie as Fluttershy just walks into the house and Rainbow closing the door, pretty much used to her antics at this point.

"Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie! It's really nice to meet you!" She introduces herself as she shook both their hands, shaking them quite vigorously.

"N-Nice to meet you!" Sora didn't expect this, but was used to such behavior from other friends he knew.

Yozora was just flabbergasted at this until the shaking stopped, his hand still going the motion until he manually stops it.

Sora did the same before speaking, "I'm Sora, and this is Yozora."

"Really? Hehe, your names sound similar." She notices, which the others also took note of.

"Um, hi." Fluttershy was quiet with her words, which Rainbow helps her out on. "This is Fluttershy, the last member of our team."

"Nice to meet all of you." Yozora simply said before getting back on topic, "Now, can we get some answers?"

"Sure thing. Shoot." Sunset agrees with the others giving a simple nod.

Sora and Yozora glance at each other before the former speaks, "You first."

The latter just looks back at the group and has the first question come to mind, "What do you six know about magic?"

Sunset takes the lead for this one, "Well, you already know about Equestria and the mirror portal. Though, for that side to make sense, we'll start with when the magic came to this world."

From here, the Rainbooms took their seats as Sora and Yozora didn't mind sitting on the floor before getting into storytime with Sunset starting it.

"All right. For a bit of backstory, I'm actually from Equestria. I was a rather gifted unicorn who gained the honor to be Princess Celestia's prized pupil. During the time I was under her wing, I learned a lot more about magic than I thought possible."

Sunset's expression then hardens a bit as she continues, "In exchange, I became much more ambitious and condescending to others. The princess notices this and tries to warn me of traveling down such a path, but I refused to listen and we eventually parted ways when I escaped into this world."

While Yozora was rather quiet during this, Sora finds himself making comparisons to others he has met over his adventures. Though, it may likely be cause he misses them and puts it back in his mind for now as he opens his ears back up to listen.

"It took me awhile to adjust, but I managed as you can tell. However, I now held a grudge against the princess and decided to do the next best thing, which is rule Canterlot High as its 'princess'. As the others can attest, it wasn't a nice experience to say the least."

Excluding Twilight, the girls mutters in agreement to confirm her statement as she takes a breath and continues.

"After some time, it was when I return to Equestria to take the new princess's crown and in turn, bring magic into this world as she came after me to take it back. She had to reunite these girls and the school in order to beat me at my own game until I finally managed to get the crown into my hands again. Once I placed it upon my head... I can say that my true colors were revealed."

"All of us saw it." Rainbow comments, "But we managed to take her down along with Princess Twilight and take the crown back."

"And we were to transform too, though not as drastic as Sunset's was." Pinkie adds, "Then Twilight had to return to her world soon after before the portal closed again, which cut off the magic flowing through said portal."

So far, the two were rather intrigued by this. By the time they arrived, Sunset had a much different form than what they described in the story they just told.

"Obviously, that didn't last long." Yozora spoke up after all of that, "Since magic is still here and all. And something tells me it was during your reformation."

"I honestly figured that too." Sora admits.

"You're pretty perceptive." Sunset compliments their deduction before transitioning to the second story, "Once Princess Twilight left, I stayed here to make up for what I've done to the school. It was NOT easy as you can guess."

"While we were willing to accept her change, the school understandably had doubts." Rarity clarifies, "It wasn't until the Musical Showcase that we were given yet another curveball."

"Funny enough, it involves Equestria again as three girls called the Dazzlings came to our school." Pinkie steps in for a bit, "Who are actually Sirens that can use their voices to hypnotize people into doing what they want and feeds off the negativity they cause through their special gems."

"It was also cause of their meddling that the showcase was changed to the Battle of the Bands." Applejack adds, "If the school wasn't doubting us already, they were now against us during that whole fiasco."

"Though, there was a silver lining as Princess Twilight was able to come back and help us." Fluttershy also adds.

"Which is how we learned about the Sirens and the way to fight back with the power of music." Rainbow does an air guitar motion as she said the last three words.

Sunset was thankful the others took over for a bit as some of that was a bit blurry to her, admittedly because her doubts was clouding her judgement after a brief confrontation with the Dazzlings.

"And I must say, best music battle ever!" She hears Rainbow cheers for their win against the Dazzlings before feeling a pat on her shoulder, "Which we wouldn't have won without Sunset."

"Congrats!" Sora claps in response for their efforts with Yozora giving him a blank stare.

The group smiles at his cheer before Sci-Twi finally speaks up after all this time, "All of that happened before the Games?"

"You'd be surprised, sugarcube." Applejack then realizes how long they were going, "Sorry for leaving you out."

"No, it's fine. I wasn't there for those." Sci-Twi knew why they did.

"I honestly want to ask about those Games you keep mentioning." Sora admits, "What are those about?"

"The Friendship Games are a set of sports events between our school and Crystal Prep, the one she used to go to." Rainbow took over this time while gesturing to Sci-Twi before going back to her explanation, "They happen every four years and usually ends with the latter school winning until this year where they decided on a tie, for obvious reasons."

"That's oddly specific." Yozora comments on before summarizing what they told them, "So, all of you not only know about magic, but have used it too. Can you still use magic?"

"That's the strangest thing, actually." Applejack answers, "Our magic used to only come out when we played music. Now, it happens when our special trait shows itself."

"Special trait?" Sora questions the same thing Yozora was about to ask.

"Oh, I almost forgot." Sunset jumps back in to answer, "The crown I stole from Princess Twilight was a physical artifact in that world that is also part of five others, all of them together known as the 'Elements of Harmony'. After my defeat, it was revealed that the elements are also connected here and are apart of us as well. The traits are what the elements are known for, which are 'Honesty', 'Generosity', 'Loyalty', 'Laughter', 'Kindness', and 'Magic'. I know this as I have tested it myself."

"She did. That was pretty fun, honestly." Fluttershy admits.

"For you guys..." Sunset shook her head at all the testing they did that day.

Sora and Yozora have managed to learn a lot from the stories they told. The latter then notices at the corner of his eyes that the sun has already set with the night coming out, which he mentions to the others.

"Best we stop here for today. It's already dark."

"You're right! Wow, time sure flies." Pinkie points out, "But, that brings up another question. Who will they stay with for the night?"

Surprisingly, Sunset shoots up her hand. "I'll do it! I can make space!"

"You'll just keep them up all night with all those questions." Rainbow retorts.

"I don't mind." Sora said as he rubs the back of his head, "I had all nighters before."

"...I can sleep anywhere." Yozora casually mentions, "Plus, I still have a question or two."

"Yes!" Sunset was ecstatic about this for obvious reasons.

"Well, it's their choice." Applejack didn't mind this with the others agreeing with that notion.

With that said, they agree to meet up tomorrow before leaving Sunset alone with the two. She was about to start with the questions, but notices Sora letting out a yawn.

"Guess the questions are gonna be for tomorrow, too."

Sora nervously smiles at her before getting up to his feet, "Sorry, guess I'm more tired than I thought."

Yozora does the same as he goes to sit on the couch, "Goodnight."

With that said, he leans back and rests his head before closing his eyes. The two were surprised that he wasn't kidding earlier.

"We better get some sleep too." Sunset simply says before going to get ready for bed, "Goodnight to you too, Sora."

"Goodnight." He said back as he goes to lay down on the unoccupied part of the couch, after taking off his shoes of course.

It didn't take too long before the house fell silent, its resident and her guests sleeping the night away.

And done! This was mainly to have the main cast meet up and explain most of the questions from the battle at the Games... not that much besides that.

So, with that said, thanks for reading and I'll see you next chapter!