Sunset slapped her tray down on the lunchroom table, grinning from ear to ear. “I’m thinking of getting a tattoo.”
Her six friends plastered smiles on their faces as they exchanged frantic looks.
“You… don’t say?” Rarity asked politely.
Sunset’s head bobbed. “Pretty cool, right? I kinda want to show the world I’m still bad, just in a good kind of way. Something to say who I am.”
Twilight pushed up her glasses, using the cover to trade a sidelong glance with Fluttershy. “Sounds like you’ve already picked one out.”
“Yep!” Sunset traced a finger over the side of her left arm. “My initials, right here. SS.”
The subtle anticipation of the other six turned to open horror. After a second of shocked stares, Rainbow slapped her forefinger to her nose. “Not it.”
The others followed suit immediately, save for the second-too-slow Applejack. She copied the move, but the words trailed off as she realized her loss.
“Dang it,” she mumbled, then turned a smile on the puzzled Sunset. “Girl, you’re gettin’ a history lesson tonight. We’re gonna watch a movie called Fury and I reckon that’ll learn ya what needs learnin’.”
The conversation ended as a high squeal marked the announcement speakers coming to life, followed by Luna’s dour voice. “Will Miss Sunset Shimmer please report to the principals’ office? Thank you.”
Sunset stood, snatching up her apple and pushing her dessert bowl over to Rainbow. Across the cafeteria, Adagio laughed out loud and pointed. “Someone’s in trouble again, Sunshit!”
Aria and Sonata obediently joined in the jeering from the sirens’ table. Sunset ignored them as she left the lunch hall and climbed to the second story. She arrived at the principals’ office to find an impromptu staff meeting already underway. Celestia sat on her desk with blazer off, tying down a concealed holster beneath her armpit. The others stood around her with folded arms and tense expressions.
“It must be serious if Cadence wants you now.” Redheart shuffled an unlit lighter around her fingers.
“She sounded serious.” Celestia pulled on her blazer and gave her daughter a distracted smile. “Hi, Sunset. I’ll be going to Crystal Prep for a few hours. Cadence said she found something in the basement but doesn’t know what to make of it. There are drawn symbols and coffins… I’m not really sure what she was trying to describe. I need to see it for myself.”
Cranky grumbled, slapping an old green helmet on his head. “Am I the only one who doesn’t like this at all? No offense to Miss Cadence, but this ain’t her game. How do we know she didn’t give herself away and is inviting you to a trap?”
“We’ll find out the same way we always do.” Celestia turned her smile to him. “We touch the stove and see if it’s hot.”
“Why don’t we go as a group?” Cheerilee held out her hand. “You know, on the off-chance there’s a vampire?”
Celestia shook her head. “We can’t have half the staff leave in the middle of a school day. Besides, Cadence said Cinch was going to be at the appeals board all afternoon. For all we know she lairs in the school at night, so this might be our best chance to check the place out.”
Luna ticked off a third point on her fingers. “Plus, if it is a trap, it’s probably best if not everyone falls into it at once.”
Cheerilee gave her half a smile. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“We’re all sharing ideas, here.” Celestia’s voice carried a tinge of authority that ended the fight before it started.
“You’re right, but you should still go in with backup,” Harshwhinny said.
Sunset nodded. “Me. And before you all say no, keep in mind why you let me join in the first place. The symbols Cadence saw might be part of some rune or ritual, and no one here knows more about that than me.”
Whooves looked up from his phone. “Are these the kind of runes you’d be familiar with?”
“Probably, yeah.” Sunset let a cocky grin form on her face. “Back in Equestria I spent years breaking into the forbidden section of the library. If I had a source of magic, I could be a pretty competent necromancer.”
Harshwhinny sniffed. “That’s not something to be proud of.”
Sunset shrugged and jerked a thumb at herself. “Regardless, if anyone here should go, it’s me.”
Celestia’s smile wobbled. “What about your classes?”
“Mom, I’m acing all of them. Come on.”
“Alright.” Celestia gave in with a bashful wave. “You can come. I never claimed to be a good parent.”
“You’re not good, you’re the best.” Sunset gave her a quick, tight hug and pulled away. “I’ll be right back. Gotta get my gun from my locker.”
Cranky snorted. “You don’t keep it on you? What if you were walking down the hall and a vampire or terrorist or something grabbed y–”
In one fluid motion, Celestia snatched a handkerchief from her pocket and jammed it in Cranky’s mouth, never shifting her beatific smile from Sunset. “Because she would be in very big trouble if she carried her gun around school. Go on and fetch it, Sunset. I’ll meet you by the car.”
“Um…”
Such was Sunset’s usual way of starting a conversation. Celestia waited patiently as they drove, giving the young woman time to find her voice.
After two more tries, the words came out. “I went in your bedroom yesterday. I wasn’t snooping or anything, just looking for where one of my red socks got to.”
“That’s fine,” Celestia said. “It’s your house, too. I would expect you to knock if the door was closed, but our room isn’t off-limits at all.”
Sunset gave a bashful smile. “I know. I just noticed something while I was in there. Your beds aren’t pushed together anymore. They’re still pretty close, but you and Aunt Luna have got the night stand in between you now.
Celestia confirmed it with a nod. “We just moved them on Friday, though we were maybe a foot apart for a week before then. Next week we’ll be on opposite sides of the room. Then I’ll try sleeping in the sofa bed and we’ll see how it goes.”
“Good luck,” Sunset offered. Then, “There’s nothing wrong with what you have now, though. You and Luna need each other, same way I need my friends.”
Celestia shook her head. “It is not the same. It’s one thing to rely on your friends and family, it’s another to absolutely require them for a good night’s sleep. It’s not healthy. Luna and I talked about it, it… sort of keeps us in stasis. We can’t really move on, can’t lead different lives while we’re chained together like that. I’ve wanted to go to Hawaii for a long time, but Luna didn’t, so I stayed. And Luna lurks on a few dating sites – what if she wants to bring a gentleman home one night? I can’t very well share the bedroom with them.”
Sunset swallowed a laugh. “I think just about any guy you could mention would be okay with that.”
“Lulu said the same thing.” Celestia frowned, but a smile danced in her eyes. “It’s working, I think. We’re sleeping well, even outside of arm’s reach.”
The smile in her eyes turned to laughter. “I can’t quite explain, but I feel we’re a little different now. When Luna moved in ten years ago, we found a routine we could live with. Stability and sanity that had evaded us since our parents died. It was a life raft at the time, but Sunset… ten years, with no real change. We liked it that way. We liked the stasis, because it was safe. Nothing changed.”
She gave Sunset a brief glance and smile before turning her eyes back on the road. “Until you. Then things changed in a hurry. The living room, turned to a bedroom. Homework spread out on the table. Panties with printed swear words mixed in with my laundry.”
Sunset covered her beet-red face with her hands. “I am so sorry about that.”
“I’m not!” A chuckle came through with Celestia’s words. “The change was good, Sunset. Luna started doing things, both for herself and around the house. We’re both sleeping better and smiling easier. I think we’re no longer afraid. You reminded us that change can be good, and we can take our own hand in making it good. We owe you for that.”
“Hey, don’t make this too sappy.” Sunset scratched her cheek, poorly hiding the wide grin on her face. “I owe you guys way more. Food and family, and it doesn’t even end there. I belong somewhere now. I’m not caught between two worlds, I’m not hiding my living situation from my friends, I’m not even a hobo crashing on your couch. This, right here, is where I’m supposed to be. That’s a good feeling.”
“Maybe not ‘right’ right here,” Celestia noted as they pulled into Crystal Prep’s parking lot. “I’m still not sure about you cutting classes, but I guess it’s too late for that. Now before we get out: your pistol. Is it both secret and accessible?”
Sunset nodded. “Back belt, hidden by the jacket. I like it better than the chest holster. Means I don’t have to unzip before firing.”
“Good. Stay watchful.”
Celesta followed her own advice as they stepped from the car. This was the hardest part of the business, for her. The awkward paranoia that settled after the discovery and before the hunt. The knowledge that any face could be a foe, any dark corner an ambush… with the damning kicker that some such fears were inevitably right. Crystal Prep loomed dark and threatening beneath the grey winter clouds – a sign of vampiric influence, or an over-active imagination?
Certainly the latter. Celestia had visited less than a month ago, and the place felt as normal as ever then. Crystal Prep’s faux medieval architecture may seem suitable for a vampire, but the feeling always passed once one stepped through the doors. The inside lighting was, if anything, uncomfortably bright: product of both the innumerable glass and crystal artworks throughout the school, and a maintenance policy of changing even dimming bulbs for fresh ones. Principal Cinch had a lust for perfection and the budget to make it so.
Vampire Cinch. Even now, Celestia had a hard time picturing it. The lights were a perfect example – Cinch was harsh, obvious and blunt. Yet if Cadence was right, Cinch was expressly plotting against Celestia. Why? Or rather, why now? Celestia had obliviously sat through dozens of meetings with the obnoxious woman over the years. Cinch could have killed her easily at any one of them. Why did she not? What changed?
Celestia gave her daughter a smile as they left the car. Sunset was good at that kind of thinking, that need to look at things from strange angles. When they were done here, Celestia would let her shake the question and see what comes out.
For now, to business. She traded a wave with a tall pink woman waiting for them by the gym entrance.
“Hello, Miss Cadence.” Sunset gave her own shy wave as Celestia shook hands. The dean had evidently calmed down since they talked on Friday, now wearing a small, easy smile. She had evidently gotten sick, too – while one hand met Celestia’s, the other held a handkerchief to her mouth. A wet cough barked into it, necessitating an unfortunately un-subtle gulp. Cadence even had to swallow again before she could speak.
“Thanks for coming, Miss Celestia.” Cadence’s smile grew a bit more polite as it found the other. “Um, and Sunset. Excuse me, I think I caught something over the weekend. I didn’t sleep well.”
“Understandable,” Celestia said. They passed into the gym, then the school proper. The place was as bright and pristine as ever, with a grim underlay of mechanical efficiency. A bell rang and dull-eyed students flooded the hall, dragging massive books in straight lines to their next class.
The shuffle was broken today by a near-unending stream of wet coughs and audible gulps. Celestia discreetly squeezed some sanitizer onto her hands and rubbed them together. “Something’s going around.”
“Yeah,” Sunset said distractedly, sniffing the air. “Something smells good, though.”
Cadence smiled back at her. “It’s taco day.”
“You have taco days?” Celestia asked.
Cadence turned to walk backwards as she led them on. “They voted on it a little while ago. Care to get some before we go downstairs? I probably cut into your lunch with this.”
Her stomach growled, drawing a chuckle from above. “Mine, too. Come on, I’m hungry.”
A look was shared between Sunset and Celestia. They had no secret codes or signals, but a sidelong glance and quirk of the eyebrow told it all. Whatever emotion they expected from Cadence, nonchalance was not at all on the list. It was strange. Strange was bad.
“Just take us down there,” Celestia said. “Then we should leave, before Cinch comes back.”
Cadence shrugged and turned away, giving Sunset a chance to whisper. “Do we have an out if we need one?”
“I have a grenade,” Celestia whispered back. “And a microphone. Everything we hear is going right to Luna.”
“Is that why we’re not bailing now?”
Celestia nodded. “Yes. It might be nothing. This might just be Cadence’s way of dealing with the stress. And if something is amiss, the more we find out, the better.”
She paused in both her speech and steps, then added, “Why don’t you wait by the car?”
“Like hell,” Sunset hissed back. Celestia’s chance for a rebuttal ended as Cadence turned once more, forcing them to abandon the whispers.
“Elevator or stairs?” Cadence asked.
One of these left a much more reliable egress. “Stairs.”
They passed the threshold, which unfortunately included a heavy set of fire doors. A brief inspection gave Celestia no comfort – they were in perfect order, just like everything else.
At least the basement itself was brightly lit. The trio passed from a bleak hallway to Crystal Prep’s old assembly room, marked with gaudy purple linoleum and a pile of old televisions and speakers. A wealthy alumnus had gifted the school a new auditorium ten years ago, relegating this one to junk storage.
A twitch of jealousy entered Celestia’s heart. “And I can’t even get funding for a school garden.”
Sunset nudged Cadence. “Hey, tell me about the symbols. What color were they drawn in? Did any of them seem to move, or hurt your eyes when you looked at them?”
The touch seemed to push Cadence off balance. She stumbled a few steps away, dishing out a cough that sent a mouthful of spit to the ground.
“Sorry,” she gurgled, spitting again. “Just sick. And hungry.”
“Hungry?” Sunset arched an eyebrow.
Cadence nodded. “Really hungry.”
She leaped, leading with the teeth for Sunset’s face. Instead she found the arm of the leather jacket – then Celestia’s fist, cold-cocking her on the side.
“The hell was that!?” Sunset shrieked. “Also, good reflexes, Mom.”
“Thanks,” Celestia said briskly. “Did she break the skin?”
Sunset patted down her arm and gave a relieved sigh. “No. These Hemline jackets aren’t really built to last, but they beat human teeth. Now what the hell was that?”
“Not exactly sure, but… look.” Celestia knelt down over where Cadence had been coughing. The overhead lighting gave clear vision of the viscous puddle, along with the small white bubbles held within.
At least, they seemed to be bubbles. Until they hatched.
A dozen tiny, translucent red worms burst from their casings and wiggled in vain for a few seconds before falling limp. Both Celestia and Sunset staggered back from the sight, the latter casting a look to the unconscious Cadence. “Tirek’s Teeth! Any ideas?”
“Brain worms.”
Celestia said the words, but someone else did as well. A prim, matronly voice emerged from one of the speakers, followed a second later by a crash from behind them.
Sunset didn’t need to ask. “The fire doors,” she grumbled, already snatching for her gun.
Celestia remained still. She folded her arms and cast a glare around the room. “Abacus Cinch. I was hoping to speak with you.”
Though warped by the ancient speaker, the voice on the other end was unmistakable. “The feeling is not returned. But on the off-chance you carry any explosives with you…”
Celestia winced.
“…I would caution against using them. Property damage is expensive, and I would assuredly make your precious students pay for it.”
Celestia put one hand in her blazer and set it on the pistol. “Let’s talk about this.”
“It’s too late for negotiations. I tried that. I tried being nice with you, and it got me nowhere.”
The skitter of claws on the floor brought Sunset’s gaze sharply to a side hall. Red eyes glared at her from the darkness beyond, and a quick look around showed the same by the stairs.
With one hand holding her gun, Sunset pulled Whooves’ gift from her pocket and pulled the trigger. A thin beam of brilliance shot from the light gun, illuminating a dozen white forms in the darkened hallway. They hissed and fled the light. The closest snapped at her instead of running, and paid the price as Sunset’s beam seared it to ash.
“Ghasts,” she murmured. She whipped to face another hall and tried playing the light across more than one of them. The shortened contact seemed to cause nothing more than smoked skin, and this time they all scurried out of sight.
Sunset turned back to the original hall to find the lurkers back in place. She swallowed hard and took a step closer to Celestia. At least the ghasts could only watch, with the assembly hall in artificial daylight.
On cue, the lights flickered. They remained on, but the threat was clear.
Sunset looked to her mentor, feeling a brief thrill of annoyance. Celestia was still focused on the speaker, uselessly negotiating with someone who obviously wanted them dead.
…And in doing so, milked information for Luna. Sunset smiled, in spite of it all.
“I don’t understand,” Celestia offered. “What did I do? Is this about me killing vampires?”
“Of course not,” the voice on the other end scoffed. “I care nothing for the dim-witted bloodsuckers you put in the ground. As far as I am concerned, all your battles were just rats fighting rats.”
“So why this?” Celestia asked. “Why now? Was it when Cadence discovered you?”
Cinch gave a brisk laugh. “Don’t insult me. I let the idiot get away.”
“To lure me here.” A brief, grim smile fell on Celestia’s face, quickly lost to her frown. “But I still don’t understand. You said you tried negotiations? What did we negotiate?”
“You know very well what it was.”
Celestia gave a joyless laugh. “Honestly, I don’t! In the last year or more, all we discussed was the Friendship Games. Even most of that was just in the last couple months, with you wanting…”
She trailed off, eyes blinking wider. “…No.”
“No?” Sunset echoed.
Celestia shook her head wildly, a mad grin forming on her face. “No, no, no. Cinch, tell me this isn’t about the Friendship Games.”
Silence. Celestia’s grin only grew as her calm fell apart. “It is! Abacus, you short-sighted mosquito, this is about the stupid contest!?”
“Amusing. A human lectures me on short-sightedness.”
The droll tone from the speakers dropped to one of low anger. “Now see here, you self-righteous child. I have spent centuries building Crystal Prep into the institution it is today. European royalty and third-world dictators alike pay me to take their brats, because I offer one thing no other school can: Perfection. Literal lifetimes of perfect results, creating a perfectly unsullied reputation that has only now been blemished. I’m not surprised a second-rate principal like you would cheat to win, but the blindness of the Friendship Games committee has forced my hand.”
Celestia’s grin morphed to a roar. “I did not cheat! You know why? Because it was a stupid game! You’re doing this over a stupid game that nobody but you cares about.”
“Incorrect.” Cinch’s voice turned to acid as the lights flickered again. “I am doing this for my reputation and the reputation of Crystal Prep. Things far more valuable than the lives of some measly humans.”
“Wait,” Celestia said quickly. “‘Some’ humans? More than us?”
Cinch’s words picked up a kind of angry glee. “Yes. Let me tell you about it; I want you to know what will become of your own reputation. Crystal Prep is taking a little field trip to Canterlot High this afternoon. My students will spread their disgusting gift to yours, and I will take great pleasure in personally infecting or disemboweling every one of your band of idiot hunters. The next day, you, Miss Celestia, will be all over the news. With brain worms in their blood, your own students will testify to your cheating, corruption, molestation and abuse. Canterlot High will be destroyed, its students dispersed to the other public morgues of education. In light of the scandal, the Games committee will have no choice but to reverse your win.”
“You FUCK!”
Celestia was a calm woman by nature. Polite. She had actually never used that most naughty of words before today.
Even she was a little shocked that it was only the start. “You petty, small-minded bitch, you think I care about my reputation? You’re about to murder people and destroy lives for a stupid set of random contests! That’s, that’s… I can’t even! That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, and I’m a high school principal! This is dumber than… I, I don’t know. This is like someone turning evil because a childhood friend moved away. It’s random, and it doesn’t even make sense! No one cares about your precious perfection, you square-jawed leech. It only exists in your undead brain. I…”
She took a deep breath, and failed to calm down in the slightest. “I hunt because I have to. It’s part of my job, to protect and nurture my students. I don’t particularly enjoy it. But for you, Cinch, I’m going to take a damn lot of pleasure pounding a stake through your heart by shoving it down your throat!”
“No.” Cinch’s rebuttal was calm and even. “You are going to get ripped apart by ghasts. Goodbye, Miss Celestia.”
The lights flickered, one last time. Taunting them. Growls emerged from the hallways beyond. Four entrances – far too many to hold. Celestia and Sunset stood back-to-back in the middle of the room, giving them a little open ground to fire on. Pistols were in their hands, and Sunset awkwardly held the light gun alongside hers.
The yellow teen chuckled weakly. “I’m gonna tell Aunt Luna you said ‘fuck.’”
“She already knows.” Celestia smiled, very softly. A little sadly.
“Sunset? Honestly, I don’t think she can both protect the school and rescue us.”
“Oh.”
Sunset swallowed hard, then shuffled her back against Celestia’s. “Mom?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
“We’re gonna win. We’re gonna thump these chumps.”
Celestia nodded. Her smile was gone, leaving skill in its wake. “Shoot when you know you’ll hit. We take the first wave as it comes. Then when they’re thinking twice, we make for the stairs.”
Celestia felt, rather than saw, Sunset nod her head. They were facing away from each other, and the lights had gone out.