//------------------------------// // Epilogue II - You Didn’t Know that You Fell // Story: My Empire of Dirt // by PrincessColumbia //------------------------------// The moment Adagio knew things turned south was when the principal’s eyes turned black and blood red. The plan had been elegant in its simplicity; once they spotted the distant ‘fireworks’ display of magic last fall, they mobilized their resources and determined the location of the event was a high school. It was, of course, one of many such schools in the city and one of dozens since the modern school system was invented that they had infiltrated to get high quantities of low quality food. The emotions of teenagers were easily roused from their normally stupified state into intense anger. Of course, maintaining this state was often a challenge, but for a week, maybe two weeks to get their fill before moving on to bigger and better targets? It was (literally) child’s play. Certainly easier than attempting to infiltrate offices or government organizations, where their eternally youthful looks often had the humans in those organizations dismissing them as children themselves. It could be done, especially with the right application of makeup and right selection of wardrobe, but Aria never had the patience and Sonata didn’t have the attention span. It hadn’t used to be this way, of course. After they were first banished, the average age of “functional adult” was on the low end of the teenage years, where what to modern sensibilities would be a child of 13 was often tasked with running a household, sailing a ship, or fighting in wars. Then progress happened, medical technology improved, and lifespans grew longer, and then modern conveniences started appearing to make even contemplating people as old as 19 to be “children” to the ever aging adult demographic. It was in the 1980s that they truly ran into “age ceilings” when attempting to infiltrate adult spaces, and from then on it was a challenge to even be seen as interns, let alone getting into any sort of leadership position. They didn’t need those advantages, strictly, but the more they could position themselves as unquestioned leaders before having to resort to using their ever-dwindling pool of magic, the easier it was to use less and less of said magic. It was never a total win, of course, and even then the magical control couldn’t be maintained forever. This wasn’t Equestria, after all. So they applied to “transfer,” providing the school the “information” for transferring their files from the fictional school they maintained records of for this very purpose. Then the damnable delay happened, at first they had no idea why. It wasn’t like this particular school was exclusive; it was a public school, and so the admissions didn’t have any particular exams to pass or boards to impress (not like that would have been a challenge), and due to the nature of public schools there wouldn’t likely be strict population caps, surely three more “students” wouldn’t be a problem…then the delay stretched to the holidays…then into the new year… and then they found out why there was a delay, along with the rest of the world. Of course the damned Equestrian princess would cause them problems, even after all these years and across worlds! Starswirl’s pet student seemed determined to make their lives just as difficult as the old codger had. Adagio decided they’d go through with the plan anyway. When they received the letter from the vice-principal of the school after it had been granted micronation status, the sirens figured the humans were too stupid to notice that the names of the three new students happened to match three of Equestria’s greatest threats (well, Adagio figured. Aria was too busy breaking furniture in frustration and Sonata was curled up breathing into a paper bag). The name of the vice-principal should have raised alarm bells for her, but she again passed it off, these humans were not immortal, and their similarity was coincidence. There were far more humans in each generation than there ever were sentient beings in Equestria, and there were bound to be purely magical creatures back home that had no comparable humans to mirror. While Aria raised…many good points about the increased risk to the plan with the Equestrians providing direct support to the humans, Adagio pointed out the equally increased reward. One or more wielders of Equestrian magic would have given them the power to dominate a city, putting an entire delegation of native Equestrians under their control would allow them to dominate a continent. So they proceeded as planned. The Monday after they got their confirmation letters they checked in with the brand new building that the staff were calling “the gatehouse” on the end of the walk leading to the front of the school. Once their bags were checked (even immortal magical sirens need to carry their money in something) they proceeded to the front office, and due to a stroke of luck (they thought it was good luck at the time) Vice-principal Luna was dealing with an administrative matter and Principal Celestia wound up being the administrator to check them in. While far from the usual, in their experience, it wasn’t so uncommon for it to be unprecedented that the principal or dean of the school would be the one to start their process of check-in personally. So into the principal’s office they went, the door closed, and away from prying eyes, they began to work their magic. It seemed to be working at first, Principal Celestia settled into her seat, seeming to slip into trance, the magic gripping her mind and manipulating her agency to the siren’s whims. They sang their song, pleased that they made a connection to the mind of the highest authority of this little micronation so quickly.. And then, suddenly, the principal’s eyes turned black and the irises bloomed into blood red. The woman blinked, as though waking from a dream, and then turned that black gaze on them. Impossibly, the weight of centuries was behind that glare, possibly as ancient as she and her sisters, but even more powerful and bloodthirsty. The woman stood, projecting authority and domination with every move of every muscle, her lips peeling back in a snarl, and somehow, superimposed over the woman’s canines, was a spectral pair of fangs, as though this woman was turning into a vampire from human myth before their eyes. “You dare…” hissed the monster before them. Suddenly aware she wasn’t the biggest shark in this ocean, Adagio tried to cut off the magic, but somehow the woman had locked the mental connection open, and the siren’s voices choked off. The principal held out her hand and a very magical sword just appeared in it, and once the weapon was in her grip the dark sclera cleared to the normal white and her iris returned to light violet. As she glared sternly at them, she reached the hand not holding a sword on them to a small console on her desktop and flipped back a cover off a red button. Clearly a new installation on the desk and positioned next to the public address microphone, the cover was the kind of clear-with-yellow-and-black-stripes that were more common in government installations that involved extremely high security or safety considerations. The woman pressed the button, and an alarm outside the room started blaring. Outside the principal’s office window, they could see every guard already posted by the statue and gatehouse immediately arm themselves and one of the temporary buildings across the street had it’s door practically kicked open, a stream of tactical gear-suited agents pouring out and in the direction of the front of the building. The door behind them burst open, and two nearly identical men rushed in, wearing light plate armor (of all things) and carrying a sword and the other wearing a suit that just screamed “government agent” and holding a gun at the ready. When they saw Celestia holding the sirens at swordpoint, they turned their weapons on them as well. The one with the sword held the tip to Sonata’s throat and the one with the gun held it nearly point blank between Aria’s breasts. The principal adjusted her stance so she was holding the sword on Adagio, ensuring all three were being covered by weapons. The lead siren didn’t take the desk between her and the principal as any sort of buffer or comfort. If the magic she could feel radiating off the thing were even a hint of it’s wielder's abilities with it, the desk wouldn’t offer any protection at all. “What’s the alarm for, your highness?” said the main in armor. The magic holding its grip on Adagio’s voice suddenly stopped, and the principal sagged slightly, putting a hand up to her head and squinting as though straining through a particularly intense migraine. “...starting to hate when that happens,” she said to herself before addressing the men who came in. As she spoke more agents and guards filed in, making the office extremely cramped in very short order. “Please, Captain, it’s just Celestia. I’m not your princess, after all. These three tried to use mind magic on me.” One of the guards, a woman in armor, shuffled forward and held up a gemstone mounted in a gold-wire framework. She passed it up and down Adagio’s body like a metal detecting wand, the gem glowing brighter as it neared the choker holding her gem. “Unless they’ve got some inherent magic that doesn’t light this thing up, the source of their magic is the gems on their necks.” Adagio had only a moment to register the implications of their discovery of the nature of the chokers when Celestia said, “Well, looks like we’ve got three new artifacts to add to the vault. Get the chokers off and put the girls in…” the woman sighed, “Can’t believe I’m saying this…put them in holding until we can confirm their identity.” Adagio’s awareness went white with panic. Celestia sighed again, closing her eyes tight against the pain ringing in her head as the three girls were literally dragged out of her office kicking and screaming. This wasn’t a tantrum of a spoiled child or even the drug-induced hysteria of the (thankfully few) drug addicted students she’d had to deal with in the past, the girls were reacting as though she had suggested their hearts be ripped out. She took a moment to collect herself, using some of the techniques that plowed into the surface of her memories when whatever remnant of the vampire that resided in her soul now took control when the magic started subverting her will. I suppose even just a batch of memories is enough to hold a personality after a millennium… she reasoned. At least, she hoped that the Vampire Lord Celestia hadn’t somehow taken over her brain, even if it had been for good cause. She had recognized Adagio from her holiday jaunt through the multiverse, of course. The memories of the other two were far more fleeting, having been acquired second-hand from the mind of another version of herself, but she remembered her interaction with the poofy-haired girl with a slightly amused, if exasperated, fondness. There had been…something between the girl and Sunset in that universe, one that clearly stressed that version of herself out, but then any mother would be concerned with her daughter being in a relationship of any kind with an obvious “boss bitch” like Adagio. That version of Nagatha had said something about the girl being 1,000 years old…but then so had Celestia in a few of those universes. It was odd, she didn’t think her memories of the young woman included that choker that they obviously had an…unusually high personal interest in. Ah, well, she thought to herself, The Equestrians will deal with the artifacts, once we find the actual identifying information for the three of them we’ll get them back to their homes, and that will likely be the end of that. A flash of movement out of the corner of her eye drew her attention, and she looked out her window to see the three girls being pinned down to the lawn by guards and agents as some EMTs ran up. It was a harrowing 90 seconds as she watched the med techs administer sedatives and the trio finally stopped screaming and thrashing. Not long after they were loaded onto stretchers, some Equestrian guards removing the chokers and securing them in magic-containing cases, and the stretchers carted off to one of the temporary buildings across the street, this one much more robust than the others, with bars on the windows and walls that were several inches thicker than their counterparts. Celestia felt sick, a feeling that had nothing to do with her headache, and knew exactly why. Heavy is the head that wears the crown…she pondered, I don’t even have a crown, and already it’s hard to hold my head up at what I just did…mother, father, please help me make my choice the right one… That none of the memories she carried from her other selves had any sort of happy feelings connected to the beginning of their respective reign or command left her chilled. She turned in her chair to face her desk where she had set the sword in the chaos of removing the three girls. She gently touched the sigil on the pommel that was the elven glyph for “teacher” in another timeline and felt her heart clench, “...how easy would it be to become her?” she pondered to herself, thinking not of the queen that had somehow given her the sword, but of the princess who had given her a daughter.