“Rarity, please! Everyone else is busy!” Sunset pleaded.
After being turned down by all of her friends, she came to Rarity’s house in a final attempt at seeking help.
“I’m sorry, Sunset, but the Summer Costume Contest is tomorrow and I must have my outfit finished in time.”
“But, you’ve been working on that thing all week!”
“Indeed and I intend to use all of my time to continue working until it’s finished.”
“The contest can’t possibly be that important!”
“You bite your tongue!" Rarity gasped, astonished. "This could be the most important day of my fashion career! It will finally be my big chance to impress Sassy Saddles, one of the fashion world’s elites! Being noticed by her could present me with amazing opportunities in the future!"
Rarity could barely contain her giddiness at the thought, which wasn't helping Sunset.
“But, we need to figure out how to deal with those other Stand users! I need someone to investigate with me!”
“Why are you investigating now, of all times?”
“A lot of stuff has happened in the past few days. I can’t sit back and wait any more!”
“Were you not the one who advised us to sit back and wait in the first place?”
Sunset remembered, but she didn't have the time, nor the patience to argue. “Don’t you care at all about helping your friends?”
Rarity convulsed at the mere suggestion that she was acting uncaring and was quite offended. “Of course I care! Don’t try to make me feel bad just because you’re stressing out, again!”
Her words seemed harsh, but Sunset quickly realised that freaking out and hurling accusations around wasn't the smartest way of getting her point across and calmed herself down.
“I’m... sorry. I’ve just been on edge lately. Like something bad might happen if we sit around waiting for too long. We still don’t know what these Stand users want yet. What if they achieve their goal before we can do anything to stop it? What if they already have achieved their goal and we won't even be aware of it until it's too late? What if-”
“Sunset, please!” Rarity intervened before Sunset trailed off on another tangent. “I understand, but you mustn’t lose your composure. How do you expect to protect the town if you’re constantly panicking all the time?”
“But, what if there’s another incident and were not there to stop it?”
“We can’t be everywhere at once, darling. If something happens then we’ll deal with it in the moment like we always have.”
“But, what if we’re too late?”
“Well... then, we’ll just do what we can. It’s not like we can turn back time.”
“I guess...” Sunset understood, there was no point in getting hung up on “what if’s” and “maybe’s”, but she still couldn’t shake off her unease.
Rarity couldn’t bare to see her friend looking so depressed and hoped she could cheer her up, even just a little. “Um, Sunset. If it helps, I usually take a break in the evening, perhaps we can investigate, then?”
“Maybe, I'll call you later...”
Sunset sulked away. There was only one place she could go to drown her sorrows, Sugarcube Cafe. She slumped into a seat, sipping on her milkshake as she gathered her thoughts on the various developments that had occurred over the past few days.
Rainbow Dash immediately headed for the hospital after school. The incident in the forest left Gilda with heavy injuries, but thankfully, they weren't fatal, but that didn’t stop Dash from worrying all day. Gilda wasn’t the only one out of commission either, Fluttershy was absent from school that day, exhausted from her own battle. Applejack and Rarity had work as usual, which meant the only person left unaccounted for was...
“SURPRISE!” Yelled a cheery voice, as they leapt into the seat next to Sunset who nearly spilled her drink in shock.
“Pinkie!” She scolded. “Do you have to do that every time? I thought you were working!”
Pinkie was unfazed by Sunset’s serious tone and continued smiling, like always. “I got my schedule mixed up!” She explained, presenting said schedule.
“Pinkie, that’s a menu.”
“I know, turns out 3:59 wasn’t the time I started work, it was the price of Cake and Coffee.”
“Never a dull moment with you around.” Sunset reached for the napkin on the table to wipe up the minor spillage, only to witness the napkin shake ominously.
A pink blur suddenly dove out from underneath it. “SURPRISE!”
Sunset reeled back with a scream as she spilled more of her drink all over the table as Pinkie’s Stand, Birthday Train, gave her a big smile.
After recollecting herself, Sunset glared at Pinkie. “You did that one on purpose.”
She looked guilty as charged. “You just looked so gloomy, I thought a big shock might perk you up a little bit, get that adrenaline pumping!”
“You couldn’t have found a more subtle way of doing that?”
“Nope.”
Sunset returned to what remained of her drink as she continued her pondering, only for Pinkie to interrupt again.
“So, what are we going to do today?”
“Don’t know, everyone’s busy.”
“I’m not.”
Sunset thought for a moment, Pinkie wasn’t the most focused person in the world, so she wouldn't be the best companion for an investigation, but any company was good company, especially if it was a friend.
“Alright, Pinkie.” Sunset got up from her seat. “You wanna join me on a little investigation?”
"What kind of investigation?"
"A supernatural one."
Pinkie got super excited. “A supernatural investigation? Those are the best kind! So, what are we investigating?”
“Well, after listening to Applejack and Fluttershy’s stories, I think the first place we should look is the park.”
“Alright! To the park!” Pinkie dashed off in high spirits, with Sunset following close behind.
The girls arrived at the park, but it was surprisingly quiet, with not a soul in sight. What was once a popular spot to spend a warm afternoon was now completely abandoned. Ever since Gilda’s assault the rumours about the strange incidents began spreading like wildfire, in fear of their safety the public refused to go anywhere near the area, even the police seemed hesitant to do any real investigations into the matter, but at least the lack of people made it easier for Sunset and Pinkie to look around on their own.
There were a couple of places of interest that Sunset wanted to look into. The first were the strange markings Applejack found at the Time Dial and the second was the strange house that seemingly disappeared after Fluttershy accidentally discovered it.
“We should check out the Time Dial first.” Sunset suggested.
“You mean that weird art piece?”
“Yeah, Applejack saw something there that sounded suspicious.”
They moved to the center of the park to examine the area. The clock itself didn’t have anything strange about it, but there were some bizarre markings on the ground. Most of it was just graffiti left by artists, but one image stood out as particularly haunting. To most people it looked just like any other strange painting, but to Sunset it gave off a menacing, yet familiar vibe.
The markings were of a circle, with a hexagon in the middle, with each corner of the hexagon housing a smaller circle, with images drawn inside each one. Symbols that seemed to represent something.
“I’ve seen something like this before.” Sunset explained.
“Really? Where?” Pinkie asked.
“In some old history books I read. This looks suspiciously like a Magic Ritual Circle.”
“Like, real magic?”
“Definitely.”
“Wow! I didn’t know real magic existed in this world.”
“What? Oh no, this is Equestrian magic.”
“Equestrian?”
“The world I’m from.”
“You mean with the horses?”
“Ponies.”
“Right, how did something like that end up here, then?”
“Good question.”
Sunset had no idea how a magic circle from Equestria somehow ended up in the human world on its own, but her mind immediately thought of the possibility that whoever, or whatever brought Stand powers across these worlds could also be responsible for this Ritual Circle, but it was only a possibility.
Pinkie analysed the markings herself and a question popped into her head.
“Hey, Sunset? How do you know this is from Equestria?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, how do we know this isn’t just some weird graffiti? It doesn’t look very Equestria-ey to me.”
“Look at this symbol at the top of the circle.”
“You mean this weird star thingy?”
“Yeah, that’s the Element of Magic, without a doubt.”
Pinkie gasped. “What’s that?”
“The big crown thingy that turned me into a demon.”
“Oh and gave us those crazy superpowers! So, what are these other shapes?”
Pinkie pointed to the four symbols underneath the star, they were all the same, images of a gemstone.
“Those must be the other Elements of Harmony, but if that’s the case then why is there a drawing of apples at the bottom?”
“Applejack likes apples, maybe it represents her?”
“What the heck does Applejack have to do with any of this? She was never meant to have a Stand in the first place, like the rest of us."
Pinkie shrugged.
"Also, if you want this Ritual Circle to work you need to draw symbols that represent what you want to use in the ritual, but the apples and the gemstones are contradicting each other.”
“What do the other Elements of Harmony look like?”
“I did some research on them when I was in Equestria and they all look like gemstones, I don’t know what this apple drawing is supposed to mean, but you're not going to accomplish much with only five elements, you need all six.”
"Or you'll turn into a raging she-demon, right?"
"Exactly. You'll lose control of the magic and yourself."
Pinkie thought as hard as she could but all she got was a headache. “Argh! I’m so confused!”
“Well, whoever is trying to use this Ritual Circle isn’t going to accomplish anything with it in the state it’s in now. In fact, as long as they’re in the human world, I doubt they’ll be able to use it at all. We should move on and investigate the forest.”
Leaving the strange markings behind, they moved on from the Time Dial and entered the forest. With their knowledge of what happened to Fluttershy they were extremely cautious. They stuck to only walking in a straight line, to prevent them from getting lost or separated.
They knew the house was located in a clearing near the back of the forest, but all they found was a tree with a rare mushroom growing at the base. It wasn’t relevant to their investigation, but Pinkie thought it was neat and took a picture.
After spending what seemed like hours searching through the woods, the constant walking started to wear the girls down.
“Are we there yet, Sunny?” Pinkie sighed with her hair drooping like a wet towel.
“I don’t understand, we’ve been walking for at least thirty minutes now, but I don’t see this house anywhere.”
“Maybe we’re lost.”
“Lost? This forest isn’t that big. We should have made some progress by now.”
Pinkie looked around aimlessly, she desperately needed to find something interesting before she died of boredom.
“Sunset, look at that mushroom!”
“Pinkie, can you please stop with the mushrooms, we can’t get distracted or we really will get lost.”
Pinkie knew something funky was going on and pulled out her phone to prove it.
“Just look at this!” She demanded.
“That’s just the mushroom from earlier.”
“Yeah, now look at that one.” Pointing to the mushroom on the tree.
“What about it? It doesn’t look any different.”
“Exactly, we just passed the same mushroom!”
The realisation finally dawned on Sunset as she grabbed Pinkie’s phone to compare the picture with the mushroom again. She was right, it was exactly the same, from the position, to the tree and foliage surrounding it.
“But, that’s impossible!” Sunset complained indignantly. “We’ve been walking in a straight line this entire time, how could we possibly have ended up back here.”
Pinkie shrugged.
“Hold on, I got an idea.” Sunset released Sky Should Be High to fly above the trees so she could observe the forest from above. Using her Stand’s clairvoyance, Sunset could see that the forest was as big as she initially thought, she could even see they were close to a clearing with a rundown, old house nearby.
“Do you see anything?” Pinkie asked.
“Yeah, I can see an old cottage just up ahead from here.”
“Ooh, so we’re close? Then let’s get moving, already!”
Returning her Stand, the girls marched through the forest, directly toward the mysterious house, but their progress was halted by Pinkie, once again.
“Um, Sunset?”
“Pinkie, what is it, now?”
“We passed the mushroom tree, again...”
“What!?”
Sunset leapt over to Pinkie to compare her photo with the mushroom again, she was right, they somehow managed to walk in a circle, again.
“But... I don’t... Whuh...?”
“Wow, I never realised you had such a poor sense of direction.”
“But, we only walked for five minutes!”
Sunset had a migraine coming on, from all this unexplainable nonsense. She used her Stand to check from the sky one more time, the scene was exactly the same, the forest hadn’t changed at all.
“Hey.” Pinkie asked. “This might sound a little obvious by now, but do you think an enemy Stand is messing with us?”
“What? O-of course! I totally figured that out, too. I mean, obviously, it's an enemy Stand!” Flustered by Pinkie’s deduction, Sunset quickly composed herself. “But, if that’s the case, then where’s the user?”
Pinkie gasped suddenly. “You don’t think the mushroom is a Stand user, do you?”
“Don’t be stupid, Pinkie, there’s no way a mushroom can have a Stand... right?”
The girls stared at the mushroom, intensely. Could it really possible? They poked it with a stick, but nothing happened. Sunset kicked it a little, but they still didn’t notice anything unusual. Until they heard a shriek.
“Pinkie, was that you?” Sunset asked as she jumped up to her feet.
“No.”
“It sure sounded like you.”
“Oh, maybe it was Mini Me. She must have found something.”
“Mini what? Oh! You mean Birthday Train! Has your Stand been wandering around the forest this whole time!?”
“Of course, she gets bored sitting in my head all day, Stands need to stretch their legs, too.”
Ignoring the concerning psychological implications of Pinkie's explanation, Sunset focused on figuring out the source of the scream.
When they arrived they found Pinkie’s Stand pointing at a bush in distress.
“What is it, Mini Me?” Pinkie asked as she coddled her Stand like a puppy.
“I saw a creepy thing, in the bushes. It was staring at me!”
“I guess I better see what’s in there.” Sunset volunteered.
She carefully approached the bush, hoping not to disturb whatever was lurking inside. She slowly pulled apart the leaves and branches to take a peek. What she saw, hiding in the darkness was a glowing, red eye peering back at her. It took Sunset’s brain a second to process what she was seeing before she reeled her head back in shock.
“What the heck is that thing!?” She remarked, falling back on her butt.
"Did you get it?"
"No, but I will.” Not feeling comfortable with handling the creature with her own hands, she instead had Sky, plunge it’s hand into the bush to yank it out of it’s hiding place.
What Sky pulled out was a glowing red eyeball, wriggling on the end of a black, inky tendril, like an eel struggling to worm its way back into the water. The sight of it dangling helplessly was unsettling to say the least.
“That’s just gross.” Pinkie expressed, sickened, before immediately pulling out her phone and taking a photo of the creature.
“Pinkie! Don’t take a picture of it.”
“Why? Oh wow, it actually showed up!”
“What?” Sunset examined the picture, the eye’s appearance was captured perfectly. She winced back at the creature as it continued to squirm, but Sky held it tightly by its tendril. “Is this really the enemy Stand we’ve been looking for?”
The eye eventually stopped squirming, having tired itself out.
While Pinkie refused to go anywhere near it, she did have a question about the slimy, spying eyeball. “So, what are we gonna do with this thing?”
“I guess we could put it in a container or something. Maybe we can use it to draw out the user.”
“Or maybe we can rough it up a little to let the user know, not to leave creepy eye balls lying around.”
“Speaking of its user, I wonder what kind of power this thing has and what they were using it for? Can’t be much if we caught it this easily.”
“I bet it spies on people while it hides in the shadows, like a creeper.”
“You really don’t like this thing, do you Pinkie.”
“It gives me bad joo joo, Sunset and you know how I feel about bad joo joo!”
Sunset took a closer look at the eye by having her Stand dangle it a little closer to her. As she leaned in to examine it, the eye suddenly jutted upwards, scaring Sunset half to death.
With the eye now wide open, the creature stared into the distance as the surrounding area began to distort like television static. The trees, bushes and ground became unstable as they faded in and out of reality like an oasis. The eye was warping the area into an indescribable void.
Sunset observed the phenomenon hoping to gain a better understanding of the eye’s powers, but as reality slowly started slipping further away, concern for her and Pinkie’s safety became top priority. She had Sky slam the eye into the ground and in doing so, it’s effects wore off as the world returned to normal.
“Pinkie!” Sunset called. “Did you see all that!?”
“Um, I saw the eye doing a thing and then you started disappearing.”
“What? I was disappearing? That’s not what I saw.”
Pinkie shrugged, but was suddenly spooked. “Sunset! The eye thingy is still moving!”
The eye had all ready recovered from being dunked into the ground and slithered towards the girls. Pinkie jumped out of the way to avoid touching it as the eye escaped into the forest.
“Pinkie! Why didn’t you stop it!?”
“I’m sorry! It’s just so slippery and gross!”
“We can’t let it escape or we might never get out of this forest!”
Sunset and Pinkie ceased their bickering and tailed the peeping eyeball. It sunk into the shadows to travel through the trees and bushes with ease, but even still it wasn't sly enough to shake the girls, as it left behind a black, smokey trail that they used to track its movements.
Just as the girls were about to catch up to it, however, the trail suddenly vanished.
“What?” Sunset cried, upset over the eye’s sudden disappearing act. “Where did the trail go?”
Pinkie, on the other hand, was delighted. “Hey, we’re back in the park!”
“What? That conniving, little black booger. It must have lead us away from that house on purpose!”
“Who cares. At least we’re finally out of that endless forest.”
“But, what about the house?”
“As long as that eye thingy is in there, I don't think we're getting anywhere near that house. I say we forget about it.”
“But, then. How did Fluttershy find it?”
Pinkie shrugged.
Sunset sighed in defeat. “I can’t believe I got outsmarted by an eyeball.”
“Just let it go, Sunny.”
After that exhausting ordeal, the girls took a breather to relax on a bench by the side of the road as they pondered the next stage of their investigation.
“Wanna go get ice cream?”
“Pinkie, we just had milkshakes, like, an hour ago.”
"So, that’s a no, then?”
Sunset moaned in exasperation, she didn’t think their investigation would hit a dead end so quickly. As long as that eye was protecting the forest, they couldn’t do anything. Tired and out of ideas, she pulled out her phone.
“Ooh, do you have some sort of lead on your phone?” Pinkie asked.
“Nope.”
“Oh... well, what are you doing?”
“Flicking through the different numbers I have to see if anything catches my eye.”
“How will that help?”
“I have no idea.”
“Aw man, finding Stand users is harder than we thought.”
Sunset was suddenly struck with a thought. “Stand users...? Oh, that’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“We should get information from the other Stand users!”
“Didn’t we do that already? We’ve talked to every Stand user we’ve fought.”
“Not all of them, there’s one who managed to slip away.”
“Who?”
“Superintendent Discord.”
“I don’t know if I want to talk with the guy who crushed my head with a hammer.”
“But, he’s our only lead.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
“Nope.”
“Oh...”
“But, luckily for us, we live in the technological age, where all the information in the world is uploaded online for all to see. All of which is available to us on a device that fits conveniently in the palm of our hands. With this phone and some deductive reasoning skills we should be able to pinpoint Discord’s current residence with no problems.”
Pinkie interrupted. “Ooh, there he is! He’s entering that house on the other side of the road!”
“Or, we could just got to that house... on the other side... of the road..."