Twilight, Sunset, Azalea, Slate, and Terracotta all rushed to see if there was anymore trouble when they heard Fluttershy's screaming coming from the mess hall. Seeing Terracotta charging past them, the rest of Fragment Hunter followed to see if he could use any help. Terracotta slammed the front doors open as he and Azalea drew their weapons in preparation to fight off anything threatening the girls inside. "What's wrong," Azalea asked as she looked around the room with the others.
"What happened," Sunset Shimmer questioned as she, Twilight, and the rest of Fragment Hunter looked around to see that the mess hall, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Bianca, Momo, and Ivy were all covered in cookie dough.
"I don't know," Fluttershy told everyone. "We were just decorating cookies and—"
"And I was all, 'You need more sprinkles! And you need more sprinkles'," Pinkie Pie said as she interrupted Fluttershy and made wild gestures.
"So, just standard Pinkie Pie stuff," Sunset Shimmer remarked as she crossed her arms and gave a playful look at her excitable friend.
"I was just tossing sprinkles to Fluttershy, when all of a sudden they glowed pink and exploded," Pinkie explained further as she grabbed a handful of sprinkles from a jar on the table and tossed it onto the table. As she did, the sprinkles did glow a pink color and exploded to send more cookie dough flying around the room. Everyone who watched the unintentional demonstration had their hair blown back and got covered in more cookie dough.
"Just like that, only earlier," Momo said as she and Pinkie shook the cookie dough off of themselves and smiled as Pinkie placed her hand on the table in front of her.
"Oookaay," Shimmer said as she cautiously approached Pinkie with Slate. "Why don't you lay off touching stuff for a while," she told Pinkie as she carefully moved Pinkie's hand off the table while Slate pulled his little sister away.
Bianca scoffed in disgust as she looked at her wings to see that her feathers were coated in cookie dough. "This is going to be a pain to deal with," the Dove Faunus said as she flapped her wings to try and get any loose dough out of her feathers. "Can someone give me a hand?"
"I think we all might need a nice shower after this," Ivy remarked. "Care to join me for one later, sweetheart," she said to Terracotta with a smile, who only grinned in return. As soon as Azalea saw her parents flirting, she rushed to the nearest trash can and began to throw up.
"Oh, dear. We really should clean all of this up," Fluttershy said as she headed toward one of the shelves. Seeing a roll of paper towels on the top shelf, Fluttershy struggled to reach the item. "Can someone help me out," she asked when she was unable to get what she needed.
"Let me," Layla offered as she raised her hand and was about to use her Semblance. Just before she could though, a bird flew by Layla from an open window and appeared in front of Fluttershy. Flying up to the shelf, the bird fetched the paper towels for Fluttershy and landed on the girl's finger when she caught them. "I knew animals liked Fluttershy, but that's a little much," Layla whispered to the rest of Fragment Hunter.
"Thank you, Mr. Bird," Fluttershy said. The bird chirped in Fluttershy's ear as if to ask her a question. "Why, of course I can get you a little something to-," Fluttershy replied to the bird before she realized something and gasped in shock. "Did you just... talk," she asked the bird, who tweeted back in reply. "But I don't speak 'chirp'," Fluttershy told the bird as she seemed to answer his question about if spoke his language. As Fluttershy continued her conversation with the animal, the others began to look at her. "I don't know if you're the only bird I can understand," she said. "Oh, no! Please don't call for your friends," Fluttershy told the bird, but several other birds and two owls flew into the room and landed on Fluttershy's arms. Hearing their greetings from the tweets and hoots, Fluttershy just smiled and replied to them. "It's nice to meet all of you, too."
"Were you just talking to the birds," Sunset Shimmer asked as everyone looked at the birds on Fluttershy's arms and the first bird on her head.
"I didn't even know owls could be awake in the middle of the day," Momo said to herself.
"Um, yes," Fluttershy responded in confusion and embarrassment as she nervously smiled back at her friends. Suddenly, the doors slammed open which startled Fluttershy and the birds. As the birds flew away, Applejack, Rarity, and Azalea's dogs entered the mess hall. The dogs saw all the cookie dough on the floor and began to lick away at it while Applejack spoke up.
"Did you tell them what happened," Applejack asked the others. "So crazy! I hoisted Rarity up the rock climbin' wall like it was nothin'! Like I had way more strength than I usually do."
"And I made a diamondy thing appear out of nowhere, which normally I'd be excited about. I mean, the facets were just perfect, and the-," Rarity explained as she went on a tangent about her sudden new magic before Applejack told her to focus. "Oh, sorry. It knocked Applejack over and then it disappeared! Not only that, Grimm showed up and nearly killed us. Luckily, the others handled everything and they're gone now."
"Speaking of disappearing, has anybody seen Rainbow Dash since the rock climbing wall," Applejack asked.
Suddenly, a rainbow-colored blur sped by through the doors to the mess hall, zooming by several of the Rainbooms and Fragment Hunter. Speeding toward Slate, the blur crashed into him and the two hit a wall. "Why me," Slate asked in pain as he fell to the ground. Ivy helped him up and began to use her healing Semblance on him in case of any injuries from the crash while everyone saw that the blur was Rainbow Dash.
"Whoa! How'd you do that," Applejack asked as she helped Rainbow Dash off the ground.
"I don't know. I started running to get the harness, and the next thing I knew, I was practically back in town," Rainbow Dash explained.
"But if you had some sort of super speed, why you were gone for so long," Rarity and Rebecca asked about Rainbow Dash's absence.
"Because I lost it when I got far away," Rainbow told everyone. "And then it came back when I got close to camp."
Pinkie gasped when she realized that a majority of the Rainbooms had new powers. "Being at camp is giving us all new magical abilities," she exclaimed in excitement.
"I would've been fine with just a t-shirt," Fluttershy quietly stated.
"A lot of your powers are similar to Semblances," Rua remarked. "Could it be because of us instead?"
"None of us have unlocked their Auras for them, so that's out of the picture," Sunset Blaze replied.
"Not all of us have gotten new abilities," Sunset Shimmer said to everyone. "I haven't. But, Twilight... hasn't either," she reminded about herself and was about to tell everyone about Twilight's telekinesis, but the girl angrily shook her head to make sure Sunset didn't spill the beans.
"So much for my theory that leavin' CHS would mean leavin' any new magic business behind," Applejack sighed.
"Something at the camp must be making this happen. Same with those Grimm appearing," Sunset Shimmer pondered out loud. As she did, nobody noticed Twilight turning her head away as if she was the guilty party.
"Um, Gaea Everfree," Fluttershy suggested.
"Who knows," Sunset Blaze remarked. "But if that's the case, we can just deal with her like the last few threats," she stated as she used her Fire Dust Jacket to create a dancing flame in her open palm as she held out her hand.
"Can you even beat a spirit," Rainbow Dash asked in concern before everyone heard the doors be kicked open. Turning to the doors, Fluttershy screamed in fright when everyone saw a shadowed figure enter the build.
As the figure stepped into the light, the group saw that it was only Gloriosa Daisy holding Applejack's newly dried hat and several other items for her after an unexpected swim in the lake. "Applejack! I was looking for you! Here, I brought you some towels and dry clothes," Gloriosa said as she found Applejack and handed her the supplies. With her hands free, Gloriosa looked around the mess hall to see it was covered in cookie dough and that Azalea's dogs were licking away most of the mess. "Uh, what happened in here?"
"Momo tends to get a little too excited when she's doing certain things and makes games out of them. Apparently, she decided to turn the mess hall into a new art project," Slate quickly said as he came up with a cover story for the mess. To aid the story, Momo gave a giant innocent-looking grin that reminded the Rainbooms a lot of Pinkie's smiles.
"Well, don't worry about it. I got this," Gloriosa said before the doors to the mess hall opened up again.
Derpy and Sandalwood came inside the mess hall since they saw Gloriosa enter earlier. "Gloriosa, I kicked my beanbag into the lake," Sandalwood told the camp director.
Gloriosa's eye twitched as her list of duties began to pile up, but nobody noticed. "I'll get you another one," Gloriosa replied.
"Several of us could go and get it out of the water," Layla remarked, but Gloriosa ignored her.
"And I'm all out of arrows," Derpy said as she held out several broken arrows in her hand.
"Say no more! New arrows coming right up," Gloriosa told her.
"There you are," Timber said as he moved past Sandalwood and Derpy to talk with Gloriosa. "Filthy Rich is back. Do you want me to handle it? Otherwise, I think that Terracotta guy might break something," Timber told his sister in a quiet voice.
"You know, I'm standing right here," Terracotta said to Timber, who turned to see that the Bull Faunus was standing right next to him.
"Absolutely not," Gloriosa responded to her brother in a harsh whisper. "I've got this," Gloriosa said in her regular chipper tone as she walked past Sunset Shimmer and Sunset Blaze, touching their arms as she exited the building with Timber, Sandalwood, and Derpy. When she briefly grabbed the girls, they believed that they heard a scream.
"Fluttershy, enough with the screaming," Sunset Shimmer told Fluttershy.
"I didn't scream," Fluttershy responded.
"For once," Rainbow Dash and Rua remarked at the same time.
"Nobody did," Rarity stated.
As Sunset Shimmer was confused by what she heard, Sunset Blaze was reminded of the initiation exam of Beacon Academy and how she first discovered her Semblance after meeting Azalea. For some reason, Blaze heard Azalea panic about a few things when she claimed to have said anything. Piecing together the clues she found about what Shimmer said, she was snapped out of her thoughts when Principal Celestia make an announcement with the P.A. "Attention, campers! Anyone who's interested in making floating paper lanterns, please meet us by the picnic tables."
"I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I've been lookin' forward to comin' here for a month," Applejack told the others. "Maybe we forget about this 'new magic' for a bit and just try to focus on enjoyin' our time at camp?"
"I was oh, so excited about designs I've come up with for the camp fashion show," Rarity said as she clapped her hands in excitement.
"I'll help you out after I clean this stuff out of my wings," Bianca said as she continued to inspect her feathers.
"And I've barely gotten to whoop anybody in tetherball," Rainbow Dash added.
"I think we should try to figure it out," Sunset Shimmer stated. "But if letting it go for now is what the rest of you want..."
The Rainbooms agreed about enjoying their time at camp before dealing with their new magic powers, but Twilight was still feeling uncertain about it. "Come on," Sunset Blaze told everyone. "Let's get cleaned up and start making our lanterns."
That evening, the Rainbooms and Fragment Hunter gathered together with the rest of the campers to start making paper lanterns while Bianca tried to make sure that her hair and feathers were completely clean. After following the instructions provided by Celestia, Luna, and Gloriosa, the lanterns were made and ready to be painted. Fluttershy made her lantern with butterflies on it, Rainbow Dash added lightning bolts on hers, and Rarity was painting diamond patterns on her lantern when she noticed Pinkie doing something with her own lantern. "Um, Pinkie Pie, what are you doing," Rarity asked as she looked at her friend.
"Putting marshmallows in my lantern. Then when we light them, mine will be beautiful and delicious," Pinkie replied as she placed marshmallows on her lantern to cover it, while putting colored ones on in the design of a flower as well.
"Oh, that sounds fun," Momo said as she looked over at Pinkie Pie and the others.
"Don't even think about it, Momo," Slate warned as he painted his horseshoe emblem on his lantern. "It'll be too heavy to fly."
While the siblings continued talking, Vinyl began to paint her emblem of a record with three scratches on her lantern in blue and gold colors. At the same time and table, Lapis began to paint a mermaid scale pattern on her lantern while Azalea drew flowers and butterflies on hers. Momo added hearts onto her lantern when Slate talked her out of putting candy on it, but started to add Azalea and Slate's personal emblems in some of the hearts as a way of subtly teasing her brother. Sunset Blaze saw what she was doing and chuckled while adding flame patterns and her phoenix-winged sun emblem onto her lantern. "These are gonna be amazing to see take flight," Blaze remarked as she added the final stroke to her emblem.
"Indeed they will," Ivy said from the table next to them. She was painting an ivy-pattern and stars on her lantern while Terracotta was drawing various symbols on his own. The rest of Fragment Hunter was adding their own personal touches to each of their lanterns as well. Silver added a chain pattern on his, Cereza made moon designs that alternated between blue and red, and Rebecca made shuriken-styled designs on her lantern. Layla made a smoke detail on her lantern as she painted it, Rua chose to decorate her lantern with a skull design, Celadon painted on gemstones to her lantern, and Vixen her lantern with her own emblem.
While everyone was finishing up their lanterns, Twilight and Spike were separated from the others at their own table. "Hey, Twilight, why aren't you with everyone else," Spike asked as she finished her star and moon decorated lantern.
"Sunset said something at camp is causing the other girls to get new magic and bring those Creatures of Grimm. I think it's Midnight Sparkle. She's still part of me. I can feel it. I think her magic is infecting my friends and bringing those monsters here," Twilight confided in her dog and best friend.
"What are we gonna do," Spike asked in concern.
"I don't know what I can do," Twilight admitted sadly.
"Okay, everyone," Gloriosa exclaimed. "It's time to watch your lanterns fly!"
As everyone approached the unfinished dock for Gloriosa, Celestia, or Luna to light the candles in their lanterns, Twilight slowly walked as she saw none of Fragment Hunter heading for the same location as her. Instead, she watched as Sunset Blaze and Azalea use Fire Dust to create a small flame that they used to light their candles. As Twilight continued on her way, she saw some of the lantern designs her friends made. While Applejack went with an obvious apple design, Sunset Shimmer chose to decorate her lantern with bamboo designs that looked very nice. "Hey, cool lantern," Timber complimented as he approached Twilight. "Mine's my face," he said as he held up his lantern to show a super deformed version of his head that wouldn't look out of place in a spinoff comedy series of a popular anime-styled show. Twilight laughed halfhearted at Timber holding his lantern up to his face, but she continued walking while she was still unsure of what to do about her whole 'Midnight Sparkle situation'. "Uh, you okay," Timber asked Twilight as he walked beside her. "You don't seem like yourself tonight."
Twilight was lost in her thoughts as she and Timber walked up to the dock. Celestia and Luna had lighters ready to prepare their lanterns as the two stopped in front of them. As Twilight watched her lantern's candle become lit, she watched the flickering flame and smiled at the sight of the small dancing flame lighting up her lantern. For a moment, she forgot about her worries and enjoyed the sight of her starry lantern before Gloriosa instructed everyone to release their lanterns over the lake. Everyone watched the sight of each lantern lighting up the night sky with all the different designs they had.
As the lanterns floated up into the sky, Pinkie tossed up her own to only find it immediately falling back to the ground from the weight of the marshmallows she decorated it with. "Aw! Oh, well! Now I get to eat it," Pinkie groaned in disappointment before immediately looking on the bright side. Everyone watched as she started picking off marshmallows from it and messing chomp down on them. "Yep, beautiful and delicious," she said with pride while her mouth and fingers were covered in marshmallow. Momo immediately went to the lantern for herself and Pinkie happily shared the treats with her doppelganger before everyone watched the lanterns floating over the lake. A few of them bumped into each other and Momo giggled when she saw Slate and Azalea's own lanterns gently float into each other.
"Aw man, I missed it," Bianca complained as she walked up to the dock with dry clothes and a towel on her head. "Well, at least I can do this," she remarked as she flapped her wings and took flight to get a better view of the lanterns from the air. As she watched the lanterns, she turned to see Ventus Gaia had the same idea as her as he used his Semblance to float above the camp like he was resting on a sofa.
"Alright. Mrs. Holstein volunteered to cook tonight, so let's go the mess hall for dinner," Luna told everyone. Upon hearing that Ivy was cooking, every single visitor from Remnant bolted for the mess hall and nearly took out the doors to the building in their rush.