//------------------------------//
// It's Just Music... 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
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Valey heard the hubbub before she even reached the commerce building's front door. Her wingtips itched to spread and propel her forward, and Shinespark and Slipstream might have kept up, but she steadied her pace for the sake of the golden armor lumbering along behind her, squeaking in unhappiness every time she almost tripped or fell.

"Sorry!" Nyala apologized as the stares of everyone who decided they'd rather be shopping than a part of whatever was outside burrowed into her gleaming sides. "This stuff's heavy and I'm still getting used to wearing it... Valey, slow down!"

Wasn't she already going slowly enough? Valey sniffed as she stopped to allow her companions a few free steps. Nothing unusually dangerous, but the exit was only a floor above her and already she could hear angry, indignant yells filtering down from above.

"Here I am," Nyala panted, catching up. Why a suit of armor could pant, or why it needed to in the first place, she didn't know, but nodded as they formed up, Shinespark bringing up the rear.

"Heading to join the racket?" a nearby griffon merchant called from his stall, shaking his head. "With armor like that making trouble, I wonder if Percival will rethink his decision not to have an Izvalden military. These days, I tell you..."

Valey frowned at him. "Just checking it out, thanks. We're not here to make a scene."

The griffon whistled a low note. "Well, if you're here to make a not-scene, everyone who benefits from peace and order would appreciate it mightily if you broke it up instead. It would be about time someone taught those Firefly fanatics a lesson..."

"Firefly fanatics, huh?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Well, we'll see about that."

They reached level with the exit, and the plaza drew into sight, covered in a misty not-quite-drizzle with a large throng of ponies and griffons gathered about halfway around. Everyone had something to shout, but they weren't at all courteous about doing it and not a single intelligible, emblematic voice reached Valey's ears. Whatever they wanted, they wanted it too badly to even ask.

"They're clustered around the school," Shinespark murmured. "Fanatics, huh?"

Valey squinted. "Looks like they're mostly yelling at each other," she decided. "Doesn't seem to be a party line or anything, though. That crowd is one first punch away from becoming a free-for-all. Think we've got the firepower to shock-and-awe everyone into submission before some idiot kicks it up a notch?"

Shinespark shook her head. "If I was wearing that armor, and it was connected to me, I could make a big impression... but I'm not even sure what would happen if another pony tried wearing it while Nyala was inside, and don't want to test that in public. Got any tricks you can do?"

"Eh..." Valey sized up the crowd. "Well, I'm pretty sure I can beat them all in a fight, though that probably wouldn't be the best for my reputation. I guess..." Her eyes scanned the plaza, and settled on the fountain in the middle. "Hey, how good are you at levitating water?"

Shinespark followed her gaze. "If you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting, not enough to move all that. I could turn it to mist, though."

"A thick, low-hanging cloud..." Valey rubbed her chin. "Yeah, sure, let's fog them out and then see where things go from there."

"Or you could just grab one and ask what's going on," Nyala suggested, pointing at the crowd.

Slipstream suddenly dropped from above. "It looks like Gerardo's in the center, by the school doors," she reported. "What are we thinking?"

Valey pounded the side of one hoof with the flat of another. "First we make this place a zero-visibility zone, then we get explanations, then we either kick face or leave. Simple."

"What's the fog for?" Nyala asked, following Valey and Shinespark to the fountain. "It makes it harder to see, not yell. We can't make a crowd go away with that."

"Can't we?" Shinespark countered, leaning over the edge and sticking her horn in the fountain pool, where it began to glow and froth. "Protesters want to be seen. If nobody can see them, or if they can't see the effect they're having, they get discouraged. Ignore them and they get madder, but no one's even giving us an eye right now. Valey, get ready to blow!"

"On it!" Valey climbed on the edge of the fountain, locking her hooves in place and beginning to rapidly buzz her wings as the water vaporized and evaporated as a thick cloud. "Eat fog, bozos!"

The rising cloud quickly caught in her breeze, drifting quickly away from the fountain and spreading out as it hit the mob. Cries of indignance and outrage changed to groans of disappointment and incredulity as they were fully enveloped, and even those who had the foresight to look and see where the cloud was coming from couldn't make out the fountain or its inhabitants through the oncoming plume. In a matter of seconds, half the plaza was swamped, the dismal weather hardly giving a chance for the fog to break or burn away.

"Nice!" Valey held a hoof high, and Shinespark bumped it, her orange horn still letting off mist from the aftereffects of her spell.

Soon, ponies and griffons started to wander out of the cloud or fly away, backed by yells of annoyance from within, and those same quitters quickly noticed Shinespark and Valey. "Did you make this fog?" a sour pegasus in an unreasonably plush plumed jacket demanded, nose upturned. "Shame on you for attacking those doing their civic duty!"

A griffonness in a homemade Sirena costume abandoned her attempt to fly away to land in front of the four, sending Slipstream and Nyala back a step. "Hey, are you saboteurs!?" she demanded. "Think it's funny to leave the score forever unsettled, do you? Want to sit on your winnings and gloat until the end of time?"

Valey belched straight at her face, giving her a vaguely annoying smile. "Nah. I just saw a crowd, had no idea what you were yelling about, and decided everyone needed to cool their heads a bit. Nyaah."

"That's not de-escalation!" Shinespark cut in, shoving her aside. "I'm sorry, miss, but our first priority is preventing a fight, and we need the crowd to-"

"My butt you're preventing a fight!" the Sirena-griffon screeched. "This is your fault for trying to quit while you were ahead in the first place!"

"'Ey, stop it with your victim cards already!" a stallion shouted, his mustache taut with anger. "Don't ye tell the rest of us we can't be mad aboot no more concerts just because ye lost! It's aboot the music, not yer egos!"

"No more concerts?" Shinespark began, ears twitching in confusion, before the griffonness cut her off with a furious shriek.

"Says you!" she snarled, flying straight at the stallion. "Easy for you to go on about how losing doesn't matter when you're in the lead forever now! Your mustache is... Gyaaah!"

Shinespark caught her in a net of telekinesis, sending her crashing to the ground. "No fighting!" she hissed, straining to keep the thrashing griffon from breaking free.

"Ooh, isn't that a story," the stallion taunted, completely ignorant of the fact that Shinespark's flickering field was all that stood between him and getting his head torn off. He leaned even closer to the griffon, smiling sweetly. "For yer information, I don't always voote the same side. See what yer incessant side-taking got us in? Noo more music for any of us, ye filthy looyalist."

The griffon's eyes bulged. "Traitor!" she screamed, inventing a new octave and sending the stallion reeling with hooves to his ears.

"Yeah, okay-" Valey began, suddenly interrupted as a crack and more yells rang out. She folded her ears; a fight was starting elsewhere too. "Okay, maybe this wasn't the best idea."

"It was about to explode anyway," Shinespark consoled as her aura finally relaxed, the griffon slumping unconscious from a blow by Valey's hoof. "Still think we should do something, or run while we can?"

Slipstream winced. "I saw Gerardo at the center..."

Valey huffed. "Yeah, Birdo was bragging about how he was the least-roughed up after Ironridge. He can get a few knocks in. Bananas, am I gonna have to pound these clowns into submission myself?" Snorting, she straightened the fur around her hooves. "Well, here goes nothing..."

"One second before you do anything rash," a voice interrupted, and the four turned to see Chauncey holding a newspaper, music leaking faintly from a device clipped in his ear. Despite the risk of rain, he still wore his full regalia of pious, ornamental robes, the paper tucked partway inside a fold in the fabric. "I was hoping to see my favorite sisters about the front cover of today's news, but it looks like a mob has beaten me to the door. Did you come to see to their well-being too?"

"...You could say that," Valey slowly replied, her wingtips itching for action. "You, uh, sure you don't want us to do anything about that crowd, old geezer? Because they'll steamroll-"

"There he is!" another griffon shouted, pointing a talon at Chauncey and causing a momentary truce in the fighting in his earshot. "The Firefly Sisters' manager! Listen, you!"

"You think it's funny to end concerts forever!?" a huge earth pony roared, launching himself into a flying leap toward Chauncey. "I'll show you how it feels to be forever beneath-"

Valey tensed to launch into action and kick him out of the way, but felt a pressure against her chest telling her to stay put. The stallion roared... and suddenly, with a shock of energy that sent minor ripples across her vision, collided with a barrier made of transparent gray hexagons. The barrier fluctuated slowly, like a still pond that had had a pebble thrown in at half-speed, then winked out of existence the moment he slid off it and fell to the ground, leaving Chauncey unscathed.

Chauncey looked down at where he landed, then back up at the crowd. "That's enough," he commanded, holding about half of their attention. "After all my girls have done to entertain you throughout the years, you repay them like this? Did you even bother to listen to the hundreds of griffons and ponies who went to their concert two nights ago? I deliberately had them schedule it on a night before a holiday so the presses wouldn't run and word of mouth would have a chance to spread before some pretend public servant went and blew their announcement out of proportion, but it looks like it wasn't enough. Now let me through to see them, or I'll make my own way through."

The crowd was all focused on him by now, though their defiance was far from crushed. "Are you saying it was a lie that there'll be no more concerts!?" a voice in the back shouted.

"That depends," Chauncey replied, already walking forward and humming a tune under his breath. "On whether scenes like this one break their resolve to sing. No more contests, certainly. Duos, like the concert last night? Only if you deserve it."

"T-That's hardly fair!" a wavering voice called out. "I was at the concert and am here to express my support for their decision! I think it's unthinkable that anyone would pressure those poor girls to-"

Another voice interrupted her in an angry outburst, and was in turn silenced by several fearful nearby companions. "Go back to your homes," Chauncey commanded. "The only stakes to winning or losing the concerts were ones you yourselves provided. Clear a path. Don't make me say this thrice."

About half of the crowd moved, some resentfully and some fearful and frightened, but there still wasn't a clean path. Chauncey's eyes narrowed... and then the clouds vaporized in a mighty blast, an upside-down mushroom of wind clearing the fog and tearing a hole of blue in the sky.

"What seems to be the trouble?" a heroic voice boomed, and Wallace Whitewing fell from above, landing with a rumble and flexing. "I heard combat, and came racing across the skies!"

"Ah, Wallace. The griffon of the hour." Chauncey nodded in appreciation. "This simplifies things greatly. I'd like an anti-harassment order against the Firefly Sisters, which includes keeping crowds of loiterers away from their doorstep as long as it's necessary. Would you mind keeping an eye on this lot and breaking things up if they get back to fighting, and encouraging them to head home to their families?"

As Wallace thundered his approval, a slightly-soggy Gerardo slipped up beside Valey, Nyala, Shinespark and Slipstream. "At long last, friendly faces," he gasped, shaking himself and straightening his headcrest. "I'm quite relieved to receive backup. A scoundrel had set up a newspaper stand on that very porch with a front page that slandered our musical friends, and I wasn't quite successful in preventing the situation from escalating..."

"Wonderful," Chauncey hummed, thanking Wallace with barely a glance at the rest of the crowd. "Now, if nobody minds, I have some business to see to indoors." He waved at Valey and her friends. "You're welcome to tag along, if you like."

Wallace's girth was too great for the crowd to resist making a path as he lumbered through, and Valey slipped along, leading her companions as they passed through the volatile sea of quadrupeds and entered the double-doors to the school.