"So, Sunset, how's the club today?" Celestia asked as she, Sunset, and Fluttershy hopped in her car to go back to Celestia's home.
"It was great, actually. We designed the newspaper today, and since there was old material, we got a lot finished today. We might be able to start the school's newspaper tomorrow… if something didn't happen first," Sunset said.
"Oh yes, I was going to mention the reply to the new post."
"Yeah, we saw. I was thinking of going to the park tonight and seeing if we'll find anything. I don't suppose you would be able to take us there, would you?"
"Us? Fluttershy's going there too?"
"Um… yes. That is I want to go, but only if Sunset's there," Fluttershy said shyly with blush dusting her cheeks.
"You… might have to call her parents and say she'll be late and give her a ride," Sunset said with a sheepish smile.
"Hmmm, I'll see what I can do," Celestia said, smiling. Before long, they came to the house, and Celestia parked the car. Sunset and Fluttershy left to finish their homework so they could hang out for a while before they had to leave on their first newspaper expedition.
Once the girls finished their homework, the two decided to play some video games. They decided to play a game called Winter Wendigo. It was a survival game with mild amounts of horror. The goal was to get to the Gem of Cloves and bring it back to a town whilst fighting through a blizzard and ambushes from Wendigos. There were boss battles that had them fighting against liches and glacial wolves. That in of itself wasn't the problem. The problem was that the game was timed, and the ground would break from the cold, making you start over from the last save point. This lead Sunset to rage quit after she kept falling in the same hole or dying to the Alpha Glacier Wolf, causing Fluttershy, who didn't die once, to suggest another game. Together, they decided on Portals 2.
"So, Sunset, when are you going to tell Aiko about your origin?" Fluttershy asked.
"Well, she already knows about magic. But I can't just go up to her say, 'I'm a magical unicorn, who became an alicorn princess, which is a flying unicorn, from another dimension that's filled with talking ponies.' She'd think I was cuckoo," Sunset said. "Knowing our luck, she'll find out about our pony-up forms sooner or later. But let's cross that bridge when we get there. We already have enough to deal with anyways."
Fluttershy nodded just as they heard a knock from the door, and Celestia popped her head through the opened door.
"Fluttershy, I called your parents and told them you had a project with Sunset and might get home late. I did, however, offer to take you home once you were done. I'll take you after we visit the park, okay?" Celestia asked.
"Okay."
"Good, now come downstairs for dinner, you two," Celestia said as the girls glanced out the window, seeing that it was already approaching night.
"Oh wow, it's almost dark out," Sunset said.
The dinner went relatively normal, with the girls telling Celestia about their days. After dinner, Celestia, Sunset, and Fluttershy piled into the car. As they made their way to the park, Sunset rechecked the post to see if there were any details about where the flower reportedly bloomed.
"What do you think we are going to find there?" Fluttershy asked as they pulled into the park behind the school. "Do you think the rumor might be true?"
"Don't know. It probably isn't because if it was, wouldn't more people have seen it by now? If it is real, we'll have to see if I feel any magic from it," Sunset said. "But if Equestrian Magic is involved, it will at least point us into a direction for further rumors. That admin post really screwed us up with being able to properly investigate the reactivation of the forum. Since it said the club will investigate any problems or rumors, why don't we take a look? Best case scenario, it will just be a rumor, and we wouldn't find anything, and the whole forum will be a just stupid prank. Then we can work on finding out who is behind it."
"And the worst-case scenario?" Celestia asked.
"It will not be a rumor anymore, and the forum will be a lot more dangerous than we originally thought, and the girls will have to help us deal with the more problematic rumors that could be posted."
It was that chilling comment that caused Celestia and Fluttershy to go quiet. Because Sunset was right, if this rumor became true, that could potentially mean that everything on the forum could be real, and they would need more help than just Sunset, Twilight, Fluttershy, and Aiko. This could potentially go really bad, really quick.
After a few more minutes of sitting in the car, they exited the car and began to walk into the park. Just like Fluttershy said, the park only had light in a few places near the entrance, leaving the majority in the dark. A chill ran up Sunset's back. It reminded her so much of a horror movie. She nervously glanced at the lights expecting something to suddenly appear. Pushing down her initial, fear she set forward with Fluttershy holding her hand. This was her duty as a princess of Equestria.
"You weren't kidding when you said it's dark," Sunset said, trying to lighten the mood. Normally, it wouldn't be this dark, but it was near pitch black with the clouds covering the moon. The three began their search for the glowing blue spider lily. It shouldn't be that hard, what with it glowing and it being so dark. However, even after spending nearly half an hour and walking most of the park, they couldn't find anything.
"Do you see anything, you two?" Celestia asked after a yawn.
"I don't think the rumor is true. We've walked most of the park and haven't seen a sign of this glowing flower," Sunset said, rather annoyed at wasting her time but relieved that it seemed to be a false alarm. Holding Fluttershy, who hadn't let go of her arm since they began their search, shook her head in response to Celestia's question.
"I suppose. We searched the whole park, and the only blue flowers we found were anything but glowing," Celestia said thoughtfully.
"Can we go now?" Fluttershy asked anxiously.
"Yeah, let's go," Sunset said as they turned to leave the park. As they turned back to the car, the clouds had a break in them. The moon shined through the park, lighting up the once black skies. The moonlight shined brightly like it hated being hidden behind clouds. The skies became a beautiful hue of blue that shined brightly and created a white shaft of moonlight that shone down on the three as they walked on the path. But as they walked, Fluttershy caught something in the corner of her eyes.
"Wait," She said, making everyone stop. "Look," She pointed at an area in the park. The others turned their head to see what caught Fluttershy's attention.
In the distance, a light glow shone through the trees. As if bewitched, the group of three began their walk to the glows source. The source came from the blue flower from before that they just saw as normal flowers. What was once a regular flower bed of blue spider lilies was now glowing brightly. The petals shone with an ether-like blue hue while the filaments shined with a soft white light. The light was so potent that the grass near it looked to be glowing in the same blue and white light. As they stood shocked, Celestia asked the question that was on everyone's mind.
"What? But it wasn't glowing before," Celestia said.
"Wait, the moon," Sunset said, looking up. She quickly fished out her phone and loaded up the forum. "Look, here it says the lily glows when the moonlight hits it. The moon was covered this whole time."
"They're so beautiful," Fluttershy said.
"Yeah, they are. Let's get pictures for the club," Sunset said as she began to take some photos of the flower along with the other two. Once she was done, Sunset stood quietly as she stared at the flowers.
"What are you thinking, Sunset?" Fluttershy asked.
"This is bad. I can feel traces of magic from the flowers. I think this forum has the ability to create rumors. Sure it's fine when the rumors are harmless, but what happens when the rumors stopping harmless and others look into it before we can? They'll get hurt. We need a way to stop the rumors from spreading or getting out of control."
"In due time, how about we get Fluttershy home so she can get enough sleep for school tomorrow?" Celestia asked.
"You're right, let's go, we can come up with a way tomorrow," Sunset said once she looked at her phone.
After taking a few more photos, the three left the park. They dropped Fluttershy off at home before they made their way home. Once Fluttershy left, both Celestia and Sunset went quiet, both locked in their own thoughts. Celestia was concerned about Sunset's and the others' safety. While Sunset was focused purely on solving their current problem. When they arrived home, they both took quick showers and proceed to turn in for the night. However, even as Celestia fell asleep, Sunset toss and turned, with her mind staying awake late into the night trying to come to a conclusion.
The next morning, Sunset met with the girls at the club room, and she told them what happened the previous day.
"So the rumor is true," Rarity said. "But if it is, then why didn't anyone saw that before? I know that no one usually goes to the park at night, but someone had to see it before."
"What if it has something to do with the forum?" Twilight asked.
"Yeah, that's what we were thinking last night, but we can't conclude on anything yet," Sunset said. "We don't have a lot of evidence. So for the time being, there's nothing we can do about it but try and keep it contained to harmless rumors just to be safe until we know more," Sunset said as she opened up the forum on the computer.
"So are we going to just tell the school what we found?" Aiko asked.
"Yeah, but I have an idea. Last night, I had an idea. Instead of just saying the rumor is true, why don't we just say it doesn't happen anymore?" Sunset said. "If the rumor became true because of the forum, then if we said it doesn't happen anymore, the flowers should, in theory, stop glowing since we stop the rumor, right?"
"That's a good idea, Sunset," Twilight said. "Not to mention, if we said it's true, people are going to investigate it. If we say it doesn't happen anymore, nobody will have any reason to go there. That's going to cause some problems."
Sunset nodded as she began to type the response for Wallflower's post.
Hello! We are the Newspaper Club!!!
Thank you for posting the rumor.As for the blue spider lily, we were able to see it last night. But halfway through, they stopped glowing, so we can only conclude that it was a one-time thing. But since it no longer blooms, the cause of the blooming blue spider lily is unknown since we couldn't gather any data on it. But if it ever blooms again, we will solve it with all our might.
We will post an article about this with photos in our soon-to-be-released newspaper. Until then, you'll have to wait.
Sunset finished as she hit reply.
"There we go. Oh, and Rarity, give the pictures to Wallflower as she's the one that posted the rumor. I'm sure shell love to see them," Sunset said.
"Oh yes. She's in the gardening club. She must be impatient to see them," Rarity said, just as the bell rang, signaling the start of the school.
"Well, time to go to class." Applejack said. "See y'all at lunch," As the girls filled out of the room, Sunset called out to Fluttershy, Aiko, and Twilight.
"Wait, you guys before you go. Can you three wait for a sec," Sunset said hastily.
"What is it?" Fluttershy asked.
"It's nothing big. I just thought to take a quick photo of us. The room feels empty. We should mark the room as ours," Sunset said, picking up the camera Aiko brought to school and gave it to her.
"Oh, of course," Aiko said as everyone piled up together to take the photo. Aiko brought up the camera in front of them and took the photo.
