We open on the Sweet Snacks Cafe, a thriving small business in Canterlot. Outside, ‘back to school sale’ posters were starting to crop up like patches of mould, and there was a chill in the air of summer starting to turn to autumn.
The door flew open, as if kicked by an invisible leg, revealing a young woman with a logic-defying mane of pink curls and a wide grin. She took a deep breath, letting the warmth, sounds and smells wash over her, and stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind her. She made a beeline to a ‘wet floor’ sign, stepping deliberately in the puddle and letting the momentum carry her the rest of the way, and spinning at the perfect moment to slide into her and her friends’ favourite booth.
She had just sat down when a waitress, a slightly older woman with her hair in a bun, skated up to her. Her grin widened, and she pulled out her wallet, ready to buy some of the best milkshakes in Canterlot at 50% off.
Oh, the joys of employee discounts! She might even keep working here when school starts up again.
“Hey, Pinkie. How many usuals today, hun?”
“Just me and Sunset today, Doo Wop!”
Her friend-slash-coworker nodded and skated off, leaving Pinkie Pie with little to do but think.
It had been a little over a month since their final showdown with Principal Cinch. Since she had made two new friends, and they had all lost three old ones. They had mourned them all, of course, but now the four of them left standing felt like they were starting to heal. Pinkie’s eyes flicked over to the front door as she heard it open, and her dramatic gasp was loud enough that some of the other customers turned to look.
Ooh! Speaking of new friends…
“Sushi! Sushi! I’m over here, Sushi!”
Sunset Shimmer, or ‘Sushi’ to her friends, matched Pinkie’s enthusiastic arm-flailing with a more reserved wave and a warm chuckle. She made her way over to their table in a much calmer manner than her friend, stepping around the wet floor sign like a normal person, and joined her friend at their table.
Somewhere in the cafe, a phone started ringing.
“I missed you so much!” Pinkie grinned, leaning over the table to wrap Sunset in a hug.
“We saw each other on Monday, remember? But yeah, it’s good to see you again-”
Too-rurururu~
“-And I know what everyone says, but I just can’t get into The Dazzlings. They just give off weird vibes, y’know?”
“They seem fine to me. Heh. Maybe they’re Stand Users, too-”
Too-rurururu~
“-I started busking in the mall last week, and I’ve saved up enough for a day out. Got any recommendations?”
“Cool! You know, there’s this new theme park opening in April, Equestria Land. They’re gonna have this huge coaster-”
Too-rurururu~
“-I mean, can you blame me for thinking she’d be into photography? By the way,” Pinkie pointed an accusing finger at Sunset’s jacket, “It’s for you.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow and reached into one of her jacket’s inside pockets, pulling out her familiar smartphone, “Not me this time,” she smirked, showing Pinkie the dark touchscreen and then returning it to its rightful place.
Pinkie smirked harder and pointed at a pocket on the outside of Sunset’s jacket that was clearly glowing and making muffled ringing noises, “I think it is~.”
Sunset frowned and reached into the offending pocket, pulling out an unfamiliar old-timey flip phone. She held it cautiously, like long-forgotten milk found at the back of the fridge.
“This is the weirdest looking phone I’ve ever seen. This is a phone, right?” She asked, handing it over to Pinkie for a second opinion.
“Yeah, but these went out of style years ago,” Pinkie frowned, turning it over in her hands before passing it back. “It’s not yours?”
Sunset shook her head and fiddled with the device, and soon managed to flip the cover open, revealing a tiny screen and chunky number pad, “Huh… This name mean anything to you?” She asked, turning the screen to face Pinkie. The phone was too primitive to have apps or a touchscreen, but it could save names and photos for contacts. Whoever was calling Sunset had their name saved as ‘The Nowhere Man’, and their profile picture was a stylised drawing of an eye inside the letter ‘U’. Very dramatic.
“Nope. It sounds a little like ‘Nightmare Moon’, but she’s just a movie bad guy, so it’s probably not her. Probably.”
Sunset looked at her like she wanted to ask more about that, but decided dealing with this potential threat was more important. She glanced meaningfully at Pinkie, who nodded and sent a quick text to their group chat:
‘me n sushi @ SSC, might b under attack lol, get here asap’
And Sunset answered the call.
“...Hello?”
“Ah, good. You finally picked up,” As the caller ID implied, the voice of a young man, about their age if Pinkie had to guess, came out of the phone, a little crunchy from the cheap speakers. “I’d say it’s nice to finally meet you, Shimmer, but I’m not confident this counts.”
“A complete stranger gets within arms’ reach of me and slips something into my pocket without me knowing, then calls me without letting me know his name, face, or motives. Yeah, I don’t think it does either. Am I speaking to ‘The Nowhere Man’ right now?”
“You are.”
“Okay. I have way too many questions right now, but my biggest question is this: how’d you sneak this phone into my jacket?”
“Humans are naturally predisposed to stick to their routines, and one of my associates managed to figure out yours. ‘Every Thursday lunchtime, at least two members of their friend group meet at the Sweet Snacks Cafe to hang out, sitting at the table in the southwest corner and ordering their favourite drinks every time. Shimmer herself gets there by parking her motorcycle near the paint store on Thunder Road, so if she needs to buy anything she won’t have to carry it very far. The walk from there to the cafe takes her about three minutes, but if there’s a crowd it’ll take four instead. Foot traffic on her route is heaviest on the four-way intersection two minutes and thirty seconds into her journey’; that’s what she told me. When we had the necessary measures to talk to you in place, all we had to do was have someone cross the road at the same time you did and slip this phone into your pocket.”
A horrified silence fell over their table. Pinkie felt like she was gonna throw up, and Sunset herself didn’t look much better.
“Y-you’ve been stalking us!? And who’s ‘we’!?”
“Oh, no, no, we haven’t been stalking you! We’ve just been monitoring you without your knowledge or consent, and, uh… Okay, maybe we have been stalking you. Sorry. As for who we are, we’re not that important; just some concerned citizens trying to make a difference, that’s all.”
Sunset didn’t look convinced. “And how long have you been ‘just some concerned citizens’?”
“Oh, ah... Just under a month, maybe?”
“So you’ve been planning this for a while, and I’m guessing since you’re making a move now you’ve got some kind of backup plan in place if this doesn’t go well. Any chance you could at least tell me your name? You seem to know a lot about me, after all.”
“So you can go after me and my loved ones? I’m not an idiot, Shimmer. What else do you want? My blood type? My mother’s maiden name? Maybe the three numbers on the back of my card?”
“...Why would I want to do that? This is creepier than anything Cinch or her goons tried and a major invasion of my privacy, but I’m not going to hurt your family over it.”
“I’m not willing to take the risk.”
“...Okay, whatever. Are you going to keep rambling or can we just skip to the Stand attack?”
“I’m not some kind of raging barbarian, Shimmer,” he chuckled; a lukewarm, hollow sound that sounded more like a weird frog than a person. “We’re both civilised members of society, yes? I’d like to at least try to reason with you.”
“Fine. ‘Reason’ away.”
“Great to hear! First things first, I actually wanted to thank you for taking down Cinch. I’m not entirely certain what her goal was, but I got my hands on some of her notes and from what I could piece together it didn’t sound pleasant. ‘Eternal conformity’ this, ‘global legacy’ that; frankly I have no idea how someone like that got a teaching degree.”
Now that raised even more red flags. After they’d won, Jojo had suggested they double back to Crystal Prep to check Cinch’s office for notes; they still weren’t sure how Cinch knew about the Stand Geode, and if she was part of a larger group it was better to find out themselves instead of waiting for her allies to attack them out of nowhere. Sunset and Rainbow had agreed; Cinch had amassed a small army of brainwashed Stand Users, and it was certain there were some unaccounted for who needed to be debriefed. And Pinkie wanted to steal all the doors in the building.
But by the time they’d gotten there someone else had beaten them to it. Cinch’s office had been ransacked, and the closest thing to a clue was that the weight of the heavy desk that had been thrown across the room meant the culprit was either a Stand User or a powerlifter.
“I’ll be the first to admit I’m ill-suited to a Stand fight. From what I’ve heard, Superorganism would have torn me in half, and that’s assuming I could have gotten around her followers. She was a threat beyond comprehension, and I am forever grateful to you and your friends for standing up to her. I’m just sorry for all the lives it took to put her down. Although, I must ask: was what you did to her really necessary? At this point, death would be a mercy.”
“She doesn’t deserve mercy.”
“...Riiiiight. Ah, well, that brings me to the second reason I’m calling you. My conditions are simple: leave Canterlot and never return.”