//------------------------------//
// 5. Panicking 
// Story: Reformation's Downside 
// by Moonlit Sky 
//------------------------------//

Sunset texts me a few times over the next two days, but we don't meet up again; she's still a bit upset about my mistakes in guarding the portal, plus she needs to put all her focus on handling matters at the school, because apparently Celestia sent her latest student through the portal to chase after the Element and said student is doing her best to sabotage Sunset's chances of winning the Fall Formal. I offer to come by with the other two Sirens and just charm the Element directly from whoever is guarding it, but Sunset says that she has things handled and tells us to hold off. It stinks of overconfidence, but I don't push the matter; after all, she's not the one who made two major tactical errors in immediate succession just a short while ago, unless her recounting of events on her side of the portal was eliding over something. Pushing will just annoy her.

The night of the Fall Formal, I'm sitting with the other two Sirens outside a coffee shop, just two blocks or so from the school. If anything goes wrong, I want us to be able to sweep in with minimal fuss to resolve things. Even at the pathetic level of power we're currently restrained to, the three of us together will be able to control the key figures of the school well enough to ensure that everything goes our way.

I'm just starting to get antsy when a gigantic beam of blue light projects from the ground at the school into the sky, accompanied by a rush of perceptibly-increased ambient magic. I send Sunset a text, "Success?", but she doesn't respond. If, fifteen minutes from now, she still hasn't responded, I'm going over there; if she's decided to backstab me and not share the Element's power like she promised, I fully intend for us to reach the portal before it closes and make her regret it.

(Or is the increased ambient magic her promised sharing? No, I decide, after the three of us enact a quick test on a few passers-by; it's boosted our power mildly, but not nearly enough to take even the city, let alone the world.)

Ten minutes later, another beam of light blasts into the sky, this time rainbow-colored, before twisting down towards a point on the ground and bringing with it yet another rise in ambient magic. I text Sunset again. Still no response. Just give her another five minutes...





When the three of us arrive at the school, whatever was happening is over. There's a crater in the lawn near the portal, and a large hole in the school building's facade; despite that, to all appearances, whatever is happening is just a normal school dance. Nobody tries to stop us as we enter the grounds, despite the dance being a private ceremony, which is the first sign that something is off. Sunset Shimmer is nowhere to be found, which is the second. And, in the middle of the dance, there's a purple girl wearing the Element of Magic, at which point things suddenly slot into place. Sunset didn't betray us; she lost. Celestia's new student actually beat her, despite all her confidence, and now the girl has the Element and the portal is closing in under an hour.

We need to find Sunset. The purple girl is secondary, right now. A brief song to the crowd gets them focused on dancing, ready to pressure anyone who stops dancing into continuing, which should hold the girl in place while we search. Getting the Element won't do anything, if Sunset isn't there to use it; I haven't got the slightest idea how to use it myself.

But Sunset is nowhere to be found. When we ask a few students, the answer is the same: the last they saw of her was at the bottom of the big crater, following her "turning to a demon" and then the purple girl and some others blasting her with a rainbow; since then there's been no sign of her.

I text her again. Nothing. I call her. Nothing. I have Aria and Sonata help me charm half a dozen students to search around the school and text me if they find her, then set off at a jog towards Sunset's apartment. She has to be somewhere. We can still salvage this. I just need to get Sunset back from wherever she's vanished to so she can do her thing with the Element.

When we arrive at the apartment, Sonata panting slightly from the exertion of the jog, I don't even bother trying to get in the mundane way. I sing into the intercom, and the other two follow my lead, and the door is unlocked for us a moment later. The increased ambient magic is already making things easier; we won't be able to take over the world just from this, but it's certainly helpful in charming large numbers of humans in sequence without any bouts of feeding in between.

Sunset doesn't answer when I start banging on the door of her apartment. There's no ringing or buzzing inside when I call her phone again. I half-expect Aria to suggest kicking in the door, but she just shrugs, instead, as I scream in frustration. Under twenty minutes left. I take us back to the school, still at a jog near the limits of Sonata's stamina, despite the impulse to give up; I've salvaged doomed-looking plans at the last minute before, and if Sunset is there, I don't want to squander the chance.

But there's nothing. The dance is beginning to fray around the edges, the purple girl pushing her way slowly through the crowd despite their efforts to the contrary, and still with no sign of Sunset and no contact from any of the minions I charmed to look for her.

I sigh, and lean against one of the school walls on the edge of the courtyard, watching as the purple girl makes her way to the portal, trailed by a group of teenagers and a dog. Aria and Sonata are complaining, telling me to give up already, but I'm not ready yet. We still have one last chance. If we charm the purple girl, and Sunset shows up in the next ten minutes, we might still pull this off; and if she doesn't, well, that still leaves the Element of Magic with us and Equestria none the wiser about what went wrong.

I walk over to the girl and her entourage, and the other two Sirens follow behind me, as they always do in the end despite their complaints. We sing to them about how beautiful the world is, how tragic it would be to leave it and go somewhere else. The students nearby nod along.

The purple girl and her entourage look at us in confusion. One of them, blue with rainbow hair, moves to the front of their group and asks, "who are you supposed to be?", while the others continue to hug out their goodbyes.

...the song did nothing. They're immune somehow, probably for reasons related to their collective victory against Sunset. Piled on top of everything else, that's finally too much for me; I stop singing and sit down in defeat. I ignore the blue girl's continuing questions, and I ignore the other two Sirens' worried prodding, and I just stare at the purple girl until she vanishes through the portal with seconds to spare. If I wanted to invent a tactical justification for my behavior, I could probably come up with a plausible one—that I'm just faking weakness to make our future targets here underestimate us, or trying to draw out sympathy to distract them, or something—but the truth is that I'm just tired. We've been running around the city for over an hour, repeatedly using our magic without ever pausing to feed, beating our heads against the aftermath of a plan which failed for reasons I still don't understand, and it's all amounted to nothing. The Element is gone, and there's no word from Sunset either.