Nine - Yell
Twilight Velvet padded down the halls of the science building at Starswirl and Clover University. Her next class, Astronomy, wasn’t until five, and she was grateful for the respite. Normally she’d use the time for research, but she was a bit scatterbrained today—she couldn’t seem to shake the blueprints she had uncovered in Twilight’s room from her mind.
It was so unlike Twilight to build weaponry. And even if she swore she wasn’t building it, her designs were detailed enough that she certainly could build it. Or someone else could. It rubbed Velvet the wrong way.
Though, from looking at the blueprints, she doubted the guns would even work. Sure, physics and energetics weren’t her field, but she was pretty sure you couldn’t extract energy from the air. That didn’t make any sense.
Not a lot about Twilight was making sense lately: her sudden interest in friendship (not that Velvet was complaining), her sudden lack of interest in Everton, even though she was still staying in her room studying independently just as much as before, joining a band of all things; not to mention the nightmares that Velvet knew plagued her, even if she never mentioned them.
Velvet felt like she had lost control. Not that she should be controlling her daughter—just that she used to know what was going on in her life. Twilight used to tell her what was going on in her life. What had happened? Was she just going through a phase, or was she purposefully leaving Velvet out of the loop?
She needed to talk to someone, and she knew just the lady. The phone rang twice before someone picked it up.
“Hello, this is Dean Cadance.”
“Hi, it’s Velvet.”
“Oh, hey! How’s the college life treating you?”
“Decently. How’s the high school life treating you?”
“Oh, you know. Teenagers.” They both laughed a little. “Why are you calling? Wanna know if Shining’s proposed yet?”
“Please, you know he’s going to wait until you’re about to buy the ring for him.”
Cadance chuckled. “He’s not that bad!” A pause. “Pretty close, though.”
“He’ll get there eventually,” Velvet assured, her voice settling into a more serious tone. “But no, this is actually about Twilight.”
Cadance hesitated. “…Oh. What about her?”
“I found some blueprints in her room yesterday. For a gun. A gun, Cadance! Can you believe it?”
Cadance gasped maybe a bit more dramatically than she should have. Velvet didn’t seem to notice. “Really? That sure doesn’t sound like Twilight!”
“At least she says she doesn’t plan on building it.”
Another pause. “That’s… good. I, uh… really doubt she’d do something like that?”
“So did I. But the more I think about it, the more I don’t know what she’s doing when she leaves the house. I just don’t want her in danger, you know?”
Cadance gulped nervously. “Yeah, no, me neither. But I’m sure she’s alright, I, um, I…” Cadance let out a hefty sigh. “Velvet. How much do you know about what Twilight is studying?”
Did Cadance know something she didn’t? “Human and canine cohabitation,” Velvet pronounced, delicately.
“Well, they’re certainly communicating a lot more fluently now.”
Velvet frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think it’s probably better if Twilight told you herself.”
“Cadance, tell me what’s going on. Cadance!”
But the line was dead.
She just hoped she would be back in time for Astronomy.
Velvet glanced at her watch as she pulled into Canterlot High’s parking lot. Half past twelve—that was lunch period, right?
She turned off the car and flung open the door, hurrying across the asphalt to the first set of doors she could find. Normally, someone neglecting to go through the front entrance was basis for a lockdown, but Velvet had long discovered that the principals at this school didn’t really know about the safety procedures. In fact, she had done some research, and they had no prior experience working in a school. At all. They had managed to get the job because the previous principal (Discord, was it?) had quit unexpectedly, and the school board had been desperate. It worried Velvet a bit that her daughter went to a school run by them, but Twilight had been so adamant about the transfer; how could she have said no?
What Velvet had not been expecting when she entered the school was the boy who was slowly turning into a frightening black horse bug thing in front of her eyes.
Celestia’s finger depressed the broadcast button, and the speakers around the school crackled to life.
“Attention all students and faculty, this is—”
Suddenly, a scream reverberated through the halls outside Celestia’s office, and soon every room in the school as the microphone picked it up.
“Please evacuate in a calm and orderly fashion everyone okay bye!” Celestia said quickly, turning off the PA system. “Well so much for avoiding unnecessary panic.”
She jumped slightly as she saw that Chrysalis was now holding a compact handgun, but quickly dismissed it. The scream seemed to come from the side entrance around the corner of the administrative hallway; Celestia maneuvered to the office door and opened it a crack, peering into the hallway.
She was immediately pounced upon by a changeling, and she let out a yelp of her own as she fell roughly on her back.
Sweetie Drops slowly brought her pencil down onto her desk, tilted it up again, and repeated the motion in a sharp staccato.
Tap, tap, tap.
To say she was not paying attention to the class would be inaccurate. To say she was not paying attention to what the class was being taught would be very accurate. Her eyes bounced from student to student, peer to peer, changeling to changeling, as her hand continued its rhythmic drumming.
Tap, tap, tap.
There were more of them than they had counted on. There were the obvious ones—such as the changeling impersonating Lyra, who was recently ‘not sick,’ and had neatly avoiding engaging with her all day (that alone was a dead giveaway of her fakeness)—but the more she had analyzed her classmates’ behaviors, the more she was certain that Pinkie Pie’s list wasn’t nearly comprehensive. Even Mr. Doodle was acting a bit off.
Abruptly, not-Lyra jolted, her chair clanging loudly against Bon Bon’s desk. Before anybody could say anything, she promptly buried herself in her work. The teacher seemed to completely ignore the incident, along with a sizable portion of the class. Sweetie narrowed her eyes. Surely, Mr. Doodle would have at least acted grumpy about the whole ordeal if he was who he claimed to be. And she could have sworn a few other students jumped too; none of them as noticeably as the imposter sitting before her, but the surprise was there. Bon Bon hummed.
Tap, tap, tap.
Surprise at what? Nothing had happened. Sunset Shimmer had claimed that the creatures could telepathically communicate; that was the only explanation that made sense. But what could be shocking enough that one of them had nearly blown their cover? Something they weren’t expecting—hopefully, something that gave the humans an edge.
Tap, tap—crk!
Sweetie’s grip on her pencil shifted as the loudspeakers spoke.
“Attention all students and faculty, this is—” Principal Celestia’s voice was suddenly drowned out by an ear piercing scream. It was a resonant and shrill screech, and as the audio equipment peaked, it was distorted into something vaguely demonic.
With a sharp snap, Sweetie broke her pencil in two, and waves of thick baby blue smoke gushed out of the halves as she lept into action.
Celestia said something else, but Bon Bon didn’t listen, and threw a pair of sunglasses over her eyes. The effect was immediate, and the dense smoke thinned into more of a light mist. She zeroed in on the closest known changeling, bursting forwards and kicking it hard with the spiked heel of her boot. It shot through the air like a cannonball, overturning desks and chairs and knocking a few bodies to the ground before it slammed into the far wall with a thunk and the unmistakable crunch of bone.
She heard a whizzing sound over her shoulder, and swiveled just in time to block a holey hoof with the flat of her arm. The changeling snarled at her, and its horn began to glow, but Sweetie quickly retrieved her Devil’s Tongue from her jacket, stabbing it in the withers.
As it fell to the ground in a green-black heap, she jumped from desk to desk to where Cranky Doodle stood at the head of the classroom, attempting to squint his way through the smokescreen. He was still in human form, except for a curved horn arcing out of his forehead, and Bon Bon had no trouble cutting him down quickly with her blade. The smoke screen was starting to thin; she had to even the odds quickly.
The mechanical reel that controlled her grappling hook buzzed happily as it shot from her sleeve, striking a changeling in the head and knocking it unconscious. Grabbing the rope with her free hand, Bon Bon skillfully maneuvered it around the waist of one of her classmates, lurching her away from the snapping maw of yet another monster.
“Thanks, you saved my li—Bon Bon? Is that you? What the hell?!”
Sweetie dropped the girl unceremoniously to the floor, ignoring her, and pulled a pen from the pocket on her blouse. She aimed the end towards the changeling and clicked it, sending a small needle flying. It cut through the air like a jet and pierced the aliens carapace, and before too long, he lay on the ground, fast asleep.
Before the girl could question her any further, Bon Bon catapulted herself off of a nearby desk into the middle of two more human-shaped changelings. Her arm lashed out as soon as she landed, and Devil’s Tongue was in and out of the closer changeling’s chest before he could react, the two holes it left spouting emerald blood. Before his body even hit the floor, Sweetie Drops turned on her heel, and none too soon; the other changeling had shifted its arms into curved blades of chitin, and only instinct raised her dagger to block. The changeling jumped out of the deadlock and into another swing, but Bon Bon was ready to meet him this time, and neatly parried his blade out of the way. She lunged and made a swipe of her own, but the changeling dodged out of the way on a new set of leathery wings. He swung both makeshift scythes down in a powerful overhead strike, but Bon Bon’s arms moved like lightning, brutally knocking one scythe to the side and catching the other between the blades of her weapon. The grind of chitin on metal assaulted Bon Bon’s ears as they pushed against each other, but with a grunt, Sweetie stepped forward and, his blade still caught in hers, plunged the end of the Tongue into the changeling’s stomach.
By now, the smoke had almost fully cleared, and she folded up the sunglasses, wiping the sweat from her brow. There had been eight changelings, and she counted… only seven bodies on the floor. That meant—
She looked around, giving no attention to the stunned gazes of her classmates. Her eyes came to rest on the final changeling.
She shot forward, the prongs of her dagger ready, bloodstained, and deadly, and stopped.
The monster in front of her curled in on itself. “P-please don’t hurt me, Bonnie,” pleaded the tear stained face of Lyra Heartstrings. “It’s really me, I-I swear!”
Bon Bon grit her teeth and adjusted her grip. It was a trick, obviously. She knew that.
The onlookers were confused and horrified. They had no idea what had just happened: there was smoke, and now a bunch of dead or unconscious aliens on the floor, and it looked like Bon Bon, whose clothes were spattered with repulsive green blood, was about to kill her girlfriend.
“P-please…”
“You’re a fake,” Sweetie hissed. “Nothing but a liar. You deserve to die.”
But her blade had yet to fall.
“I’m real! I s-swear I’m real.” The words were choppy and broken. Much quieter: “I don’t want to die…”
Bon Bon hated seeing Lyra like this, and for so many reasons. But she had a duty.
Sweetie Drops took a breath.
Closed her eyes.
And winced as she felt wetness splash against her ankles.
The crowd gasped, and Sweetie opened her eyes to a changeling, it’s head no longer attached to its body. She took another deep breath, and turned to address her classmates.
“Get out of the school.”
The young agent ran out the door, and the room fell into a disgusting silence.
Twilight jumped as the scream echoed through her laboratory.
“C’mon, I’m so close! Just… a little… more…” she grunted, twisting a screw tighter with every word.
The rainbooms silently scanned the lunchroom. The air was tense, and nobody volunteered to say anything; they only looked, instantly breaking eye contact when they saw any of the countless students that were staring at them.
The seconds ticked by, heavy and slow, and even the humans who weren’t involved had stopped talking, wondering why the lunchroom was so quiet.
Nobody moved at the pop of the PA system.
Nobody moved at Principal Celestia’s voice.
Everybody moved at the yell.
The Rainbooms jumped to their feet and crowded together in a tight circle as nearly half of the other students leapt from their seats, chairs hitting the floor with loud clangs of metal. A confused panic overtook the bystanders, who sat frozen still or looked to the doors or tried to grab their friends and ask what was going on.
“Hope you girls didn’t wear your best clothes,” Sunset said, “ ‘cause things are about to get messy.”
Rarity groaned.