"Are you okay, Zipp?" Pipp looked back at her sister nervously. Not like she was now totally worried about her sister turning into a bat creature or anything, but Zipp had demolished an entire serving tray of fruit in minutes and, while impressive, that was a serving platter for eight ponies.
"Fine." Zipp slunk out of the shadows, her ears laid back on her head as she now had a major headache from all the lights and sounds that were going on, everything was just so much louder than the morning and it was getting hard to focus. "What time is it?"
Pipp glanced at her phone, sliding her hoof across its surface to open it, noticing a pop up on her weather app mentioning something about the full moon, and glancing at the time. "Like 8 pm? My phone is sometimes fast so I don't miss a pop star moment or a livestream or my podcast stuff. I mean it's dark outside now." Pipp carefully stepped into her dress, a replica of the scene from Prom Night, where the heroine gets a vat of blood dropped on her. A sheer light pink dress that accented well with her brighter pink coat and cloud like wings.
A small part of her looked at her sister's prominent fangs and large yellow eyes with dark pupils and a small part of her doubted that reenacting that classic horror movie moment for the Spooktacular was a good idea. Then Pipp squashed it- she had been planning her musical set for a few months and she had the whole fake blood set piece planned out weeks and weeks before some cruel twist of fate turned her sister into a movie monster.
Pipp carefully waved at the others in the front row, Sunny and the others had arrived a few minutes before and Pipp had done her best attempt at influencer damage control by sending a nicely worded text to Sunny's phone that 'sorry Zipp and I are totes busy with all this Spooktacular business so like we'll see you after my set.' Pipp hated outright lying, but it was far easier to ask for forgiveness later than just outright come crying out that she had no silly idea how to turn Zipp back into her normal, not fruit addicted, self.
The only thing Sunny could do in this situation was create the most Feedbag worthy smoothie and attempt to put Zipp into a sugar coma.
All in all, Pipp Petals was doing fan-freaking-tastic. And not having a panic attack and a whole mess of worried thoughts of Zipp stampeding through her party. She breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was pear shaped, but the show would go on.
She looked out at the crowd again and her heart sank. She noticed more batponies in the crowd, some grouped up in what almost seemed like packs, some loners, and a mass of them just congregating around the dessert table like a whole mass of sheer evil fluffy ponies.
She carefully counted to ten and composed herself. "This is totally bad."
***
"Ooh, Sunny look at that. This is really making me get those creative juices flowing." Izzy pointed at the pastry sculptures that dotted the entire hall. "I mean all of that is edible? I totally need some pointers from these bakers cause this is extremely creative." Izzy flitted around the large pastry displays, her dyed black mane and striped socks made her stand out more than usual.
Sunny awkwardly stumbled around in her Nightmare Moon costume, the accurate depiction of the armor made out of bits of tin and spray painted to be as accurate as possible without finding some random cursed artifact. Her fake black wings were controlled by a few strings that she had meticulously tied to herself so they wouldn't flap around incessantly. She had debated to come as her alicorn self, but she had a ton of issues with her alicorn magic- sometimes it felt like it was a permanent part of her that she could reach out and touch, sometimes not at all. "Do you feel odd, I mean it's like everypony is staring at us."
Hitch sighed and carefully adjusted his black suit and dark glasses. "Speak for yourselves, I mean you two stick out like a sore hoof. And while I am slightly disappointed that you two somehow failed at a couples costume- who even told Izzy what being goth is like?"
Sunny took a fruit pie and awkwardly smiled as a rather excitable pegasus hissed at her and bared some rather impressive fake teeth. "That was Pipp, and rich coming from you, I mean you are just some pony in a suit. Pot meet kettle."
Hitch flexed a hoof as he carefully maneuvered around a few loud guests. "I told you this is me trying to do a secret agent thing. I mean it's better than my original idea that you shot down."
"-you said you were going to show up here in a dress. I think that's a bit much."
Hitch grumbled slightly. "No discerning for taste, I mean who doesn't like Gentlestallions Prefer Blondes. And at least I was going to be creative with it, not just do the iconic pink dress, but cut it down the middle and sew it together with the waiter outfits in the film. I decided not to because Pipp outright said she had a similar pink dress moment here, and I would have hated upstaging her."
"Dude, you are way too into musicals." Sunny glanced around the dance floor, unable to see where Izzy ran off to. "Wonderful, I just lost Izzy. I looked away for a moment and boom she's disappeared. I hope she doesn't set something on fire or summon unknowable ancient evils."
Hitch hummed softly to himself. "Sunny, she's a grown mare, she's probably fine. Though I do wonder how Sprout is doing with Sparky, I wanted to bring him here because I haven't left him out of my sight since he was hatched, but this spooky party isn't a place for a baby." Hitch poked a fake display of a row of skeletons and shook his head. "Yeah, he'd have nightmares for sure."
***
"Opaline, oh my goodness there's batponies all over this place. Like they look like ponies and yet also totally batty and it's like totally freaking me out." Misty carefully tried to pull off her white mask to look closer at her one and only- not very nice- friend. "You didn't tell me there was batponies."
Opaline hummed to herself in thought. "I should have seen this coming. I mean the Equestria from before was full of every kind of magical creature, and with how interbred these ponies would be after five thousand years, of course the one moment magic converges with the full moon, they'd have batponies. Luna was always one for the night."
Misty cocked her head. "You only mentioned Twilight before."
Opaline coughed and tried to change the subject for a moment. "Yes, well, she was Twilight's unicorn mage. Totally loved her batpony guards and all that. Totally. She'd have to be dead cause she's a unicorn, but she was powerful with magic, enough to cause a curse on the moon."
Misty nodded. "That's neat. Spooky, but kind of neat. But seriously, what do you want me to do cause I know you wanted me to sabotage the party but we have vamponies all over the place and I currently like where I'm hiding. Sure, it's a random bush in this ornate castle- not as ornate as yours of course- but nice enough, and I'd really like not moving.
Opaline facehoofed and mumbled something about needing to one day do things herself. "Yes, well batponies have one major flaw. All of their senses are heightened and with these untrained ponies turning into these monsters, shall we say, one strong smell and whoosh, one ruined party and the sense of unity falls apart yet again. But get this done before dawn, the moon's magic should be done by then, I think. It's been 5000 years since batponies really existed."
Misty nodded. She racked her brain for a solution for the whole "big smell" thing and came up with very few examples. It didn't help that she had spent years with Opaline planning out each and every step of world domination. She had no clue what these pegasi ads, for that's what ponies called these colorful product placement things, were about. They just looked neat and all that. Though one had a big bottle of perfume, whatever that was. It said it smelled like flowers.
Misty grumbled to herself as she slid her medallion away. "That's all fine and dandy but where would I find perfume in a place like this? I mean I can barely find my way to the bathroom."
A purple unicorn who Misty had never seen before, though that wasn't hard since she had never seen another unicorn before coming to this part of Equestria, popped out of a nearby bush. "Another unicorn with a unicorn problem? Neat I haven't seen many unicorns here, I mean besides Alphabittle and like that's fine, but I haven't seen you in Bridlewood before and I know all the unicorns there." The unicorn facehoofed for a moment. "Oh, I'm sorry, Sunny keeps telling me that introducing yourself is a good idea first. Well that and that I'm a fantastic marefriend, but who's counting? My name is Izzy Moonbow, what's yours?"
Misty felt her hooves quaking as she tried to remain calm, her mind raced with the idea to run as far away from this new pony, fleeing into the safety of the night. But she stood there unmoving for a moment, her brain processing every plan of escape and failing to find a good alternative. "It's, uh, um, Misty."
Izzy cocked her head. "Yeah, and? Misty what? Cause everypony has a last name, I mean I don't think there's another Izzy Something-or-Other in Equestria but it's nice to know a pony's name I mean on the off chance I find another Misty that isn't you. Or an Izzy that isn't me."
Misty darted her eyes around trying to find something to lie and build a fake name from. She stood there for another few seconds, her mouth twitching as she bit her lip in thought. Opaline told her to get this mission done quickly because time was of the essence and here she was trying to come up with a fake last name. "Brightdawn. Misty Brightdawn." She cursed her terrible choice of name, the worry of finishing this evil mission before dawn had clouded her creativity and she came up with the fakest last name possible. . .
Izzy wrapped the smaller unicorn into a big hug and lifted her entirely off the ground. "Neato. That's not as nice as my best friend Sunny's name, but it's really pretty. Kind of suits you. Though I hope it does- I mean it's your name."
Misty awkwardly laughed. "Yeah, of course that's my name." She shook her head. "Oh right, I have an issue with something. Minor issue but I had a bottle of perfume that I thought was in my bag and nope. Nothing there. Which is a major disappointment since that perfume made my costume."
Izzy nodded, half listening. "Sure, sure. Ooh, idea. Pipp has so many perfumes in her room. I mean I don't know, but if her castle room is anything like her section of the Brighthouse, then yeah makeup and perfume city. Now I've never really been here so we can just ask around and we can get there. I mean how hard can it be to find a royal room?"
Izzy bounced off with Misty nervously following behind her.
***
Pipp was trying to play it totally chill as she eyed up the squads of batponies that totally weren't freaking her right out. She looked down at the teleprompter and smiled as she read off another line, some banal joke, a witty remark, a quick comment on a costume for the costume contest. Simple, easy work that put her name out there in the minds of the guests. "Wonderful, costume there girls. Should have known my Pippsqueaks had some creative talent, I mean with a role model like me its just impossible not to be creative."
A small cheer from the crowd made the pop princess bring out her best camera worthy smile. "Thanks. Now I have to say everypony brought their A game today cause I see some of you unicorn creatives did something interesting, I have never seen ponies glue crystals to themselves before, but its surely something."
Pipp heard a few more ponies in the crowd murmur about all these vampires and she felt extremely exposed. "Oh, I just have some slight preparations to do before I bring down the house in the most rocking concert this side of Equestria." She blew a kiss out to the crowd and darted back behind the curtain. "Jazz, Rocky, I think we might need to move up my concert because it's getting rather unruly out there."
Jazz popped her head out and waved a manicured hoof. "Everything looks okay on the cameras; I mean we don't have a crowd issue so far. Nothing like when you tried to hold Bone-a-roo. That was a terrible solstice event."
Pipp grimaced, knowing full well that she couldn't just come out and say 'hey there's a whole lot of vampires' outside. That would be madness. Sure, Rocky and Jazz trusted her enough to believe most of what she said- though that was mostly because she was their boss. but they'd probably think she was pulling a Spooktacular prank for a bit or video. She lightly cursed her influencer proclivities and sighed. "Don't remind me. Just move up the fake blood dump moment by like an hour? Seems like ponies want to have some music to listen to."
Jazz nodded. "Cool, Rocky, you're a go then, be the best DJ ever."
***
Thunder tapped a hoof on his phone and grinned. "Score, I am so close to getting these Breezies, I just need to be the last one stadning for this auction and boom, new sneakers for the collection."
Zoom rolled her eyes. Her coltfriend and his sneakers. She didn't understand a bit of why he was so obsessed with shoes, but he had been fixated on them since he was little, and she had grown accustomed to his spending habits. Though she couldn't speak much- she had a plant collection that made the pair's shared lodgings look like a mix between a greenhouse and a shoe store. "Dude, I know we aren't assigned to the party, Thunder, but there's a time and place for everything. Put your phone away so we can keep the royal apartments safe. Queen Haven told us to do that. And she's our boss."
Thunder waved a hoof. "Got it, got it. But like the Queen's just chilling in her apartment with that unicorn stallion. And anyway, what's going to come over here. Some interested parties that we turn away and, maybe, just maybe, a fe ponies asking for treats. I mean come on."
Zoom cursed her luck. She could totally explain to Thunder that there was some spooky stuff happening with Zipp and he'd probably believe her, but Pipp had to pull the whole 'as a figurative sister to you, I have to pull sisterly secret privileges' and Zoom, being generally agreeable to be part of the dumbest ideas possible if a pony asked nicely, agreed. "True, so very true."
"-so if I was right and the random pony, I asked for directions knew what they were talking about. . .we're just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the royal apartments." Two unicorns walked out of the stairwell and turned towards Zoom and Thunder.
"Hey, you two, halt." Zoom puffed out her wings and tried to look as menacing as possible since Thunder was still lazing about like he wasn't guarding the most important part of the whole castle.
The goth unicorn waved. "Oh hey, you two. Forgot your names, but I don't forget a stay in prison. I mean it helps Zephyr Heights has the best prison spa ever."
Zoom shook her head, trying to place the unicorn since Zephyr Heights hadn't used the jail system for unicorns since- oh. She remembered the chatty one, it was one of the princesses' friends. The name escaped her but take away the dyed mane and black eyeliner and the cheery personality shone right through. She reflexively bowed since while the unicorn wasn't royalty, per se, she was one of the five that brought back magic. And Zoom liked this new Flight Magic that the five brought back into the world. She had been a speed demon at heart, and she was able to take to the air like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Zoom shook her head for a moment since she remembered that while she liked flying, she did still have a job to do. And she didn't recognize the second unicorn. "Wait, why are you here. I mean this is the royal apartments and we kind of have to protect it."
Izzy nodded. "Totally fair, I mean you're actual guards. Though its cool that you two have a natural spooky costume. This is Misty Brightdawn and she needs some perfume for her costume. And I thought, well since Pipp is a perfume designer or whatever she called it. . .why not just grab a few and try them out. It's like free publicity for Pipp's pefumes and potions."
Misty awkwardly waved at the two pegasi.
Zoom narrowed her eyes to stare at the suspicious unicorn. "Sounds fishy."
Thunder rolled his eyes. "Down, Zoom." He waved a green hoof and smiled. "Go on ahead, but please don't tell Pipp we let you two in her room, she gets a bit weird when ponies poke around her stuff. The perfume section is on the left. Can't miss it, I mean it takes up like an entire wall.
***
Zipp slunk around the party, a pair of sunglasses that she had found backstage covered her eyes from the strobing lights of the DJ booth that Rocky was controlling. She sucked on a smoothie that the bar had graciously made her, not a Sunny level of smoothie, but it was enough to stop what felt like the world's worst hangover from beating a drum in her brain. This sucked. She did enjoy a good Spooktacular because she could let loose and have fun, but with her new batty condition, it was a bit of a pain.
"Princess, you got turned into this, too?"
Zipp turned around to the voice, the booming stereo system playing some forgettable pop music making it hard to figure out to locate for a moment. Then she looked down and grimaced as she recognized one of the young ponies that ran around Maretime Bay. She didn't know the name of the pony since she rarely interacted with her or her young friends- they were more like Pipp's own cheer squad in the Bay- but she had compartmentalized this magical affliction as a small thing. Maybe a few pegasi that she vaguely recognized from her flight school teaching or her childhood, but she had forgot that magic was a zero sum game. The reintroduction of magic would affect everything in Equestria, refilling a vacuum with possibility.
She just had thought it was her own problem. Or at least an adult one.
Zipp breathed out, thankfully used to high stress situations, and tried not to worry the young blue pegasus. "I mean I kind of woke up like this. And no, its not from me breaking some natural law cause of new magic, it just happened." She bent down to look into the young foal's eyes and sighed. "What is your name? I mean sounds rude but unlike my sister, I kind of forget."
The blue pegasus nodded. "Glory." She flexed her pink wings and squinted at the DJ booth. "Can we, um, go anywhere else? It's kind of loud."
Zipp nodded. "Follow me. You ever hear of the Wonderbolts?"
***
Misty was in heaven. She knew that modern living was probably a lot easier than her life in Opaline's castle but this collection of pleasantries and soaps made her rethink her whole life for a brief moment. She could look at some underutilized corner of the room and see technology that seemed like magic. Opaline had told her of the wonders of the past, but she hadn't prepared her for reality. Hopefully she wasn't nerding out too much, Opaline told her it was very annoying and unbecoming of a spy to have an emotional breakdown because you saw something new and exciting.
She was supposed to be a normal unicorn and this Izzy Moonbow wasn't freaking out over electrical sockets and computer screens. Izzy was balanced carefully on the bed, her hooves dangling and her magic floating random books off of nearby bookshelves for her to scan through.
Misty was kind of jealous. Well, totally jealous. Izzy had things she desperately wanted- magic and a cutie mark- and she was skilled at magic it seemed. Opaline made magic sound difficult, arcane, dangerous, exciting, and here Izzy was using magic like it was nothing. No thought about power usage or creativity, just floating books over and not doing the smart thing. Getting up and climbing for a book.
Misty breathed out. She was trying to be cool, calm, and collected. She trotted over to the left side of the room, noticing the large mirror and carefully running a hopoof through her frizzy mane in a nervous tic as she scanned the myriad bottles of perfume. Each scent sounded like an ancient spell- rosewater with hint of bergamot, iris floral scent, pumpkin spice latte chai tea. That last one sounded particularly powerful. She looked over to Izzy, the purple unicorn's head buried in a book titled "Positive Thinking and You: How To Deal with Criticism and Self Doubt. Good, it would be far easier to grab as many perfumes as possible when the mare wasn't looking.
She fumbled with her bag, careful not to damage the old burlap sack that she held rather close to her. It was one of her few possessions that she had and she had carefully mended each and every tear and burst seam with a new one. It may not look like much on the outside- just some random brown cloth bag, but the inside was a rainbow of colors and patterns that only she knew. It was special and hers and she didn't want to ruin it with a broken perfume bottle or ten smearing its contents all over. The smell would never come out.
She carefully grabbed a couple perfumes, careful to stash them in her bag, and looked at Izzy. Nothing new, she was glued to the book. Misty breathed a sigh of relief and shoved in more perfumes. Opaline told her to get this mission done quickly and she knew first hoof not to disappoint the alicorn, she had far too many late nights without dinner to shirk her sabotage mission. She eyed the small perfume that had caught her eye- its mystical pumpkin spice latte chai tea smell intrigued her. It sounded unique. She touched a hoof to the spray bottle head and pushed down.
She breathed in the smell and wanted to burst into tears. Not that it was bad, far from it, but it was the strongest smell she had ever, well, smelled before and the castle lye soaps with their acrid smelling freshness didn't hold a candle to this airy goodness that she had used.
She pushed the perfume into a side pocket and smiled to herself.
"There we go, sorry, sorry, it took me a while to choose what to use. Should we get back to the party? I mean everyone is probably super worried about us, right."
Izzy cocked her head. "You mean everypony, right?"
Misty cringed. "Right, right. Sorry, regional dialect. From, uh, outside where you're from. Everypony."
Izzy smiled. "Neat. So there's unicorns outside of Bridlewood. I mean before now cause with the magic back it's just kind of spread unicorns out. Though it does kind of cause some issues, I mean Alphabittle was telling me recently that there were new unicorn support groups to acclimatize everypony to the outside world just so we can walk around and not freak out about the four taboo phrases."
Misty gulped. That sounded ominous. "Which are? I mean as a unicorn from a different place I'm a little curious. . .for science reasons of course."
Izzy nodded. "Well they are magic, wing, feather, and mayonnaise. Don't ask me how that last one was added. It's a whole mess of a tale."
Misty awkwardly smiled. She had thought it would be some word of power. Opaline loved finding those in ancient books and ruins. But no, it was some silly thing. How could magic be a taboo word or phrase? It was one of the only things she wanted as a filly, magic and a cutie mark.
***
"Wow, you have all this stuff and I didn't even know you collected things." Glory flitted around Zipp's hoard of sports memorabilia, her worry about being a batpony forgotten for a brief moment. The small blue pegasus popped her head out of the hoard and cupped her hooves together. "I mean seriously. Pipp didn't mention it at all and she blogs the royal vacation because she doesn't want to have us fans worry about her. Not really my thing since I'm more a fan of her music, but the food of Bridlewood looked rather pretty."
Zipp smiled for a moment. the foalish wonder making her fruit cravings more bearable. She looked down at her smoothie that she had taken from the party and sighed, carefully sucking down the sugary mess without much complaint. She had to be careful though, the new large teeth still gave her issues. While she had to admit she looked cool in the mirror, the chance of biting your tongue off was a bit too much. She put the smoothie on a nearby side table she had refurbished and cupped her own hooves together. "I kind of tell my sister that I prefer privacy and all that. I'm already a princess, I kind of don't want to be an internet celebrity."
Glory shrugged. "I mean it makes sense. I kind of like my own privacy. But come on, you could totally do your own thing, like "Zipp's Totally Tubular Tricks" or "Sports Podcast" or I dunno, "Flight Stuff." Glory picked up some old Wonderbolts flyer that was old and faded, the blue and gold uniforms gone to teal and yellow with age. "I mean you have all this cool stuff and nopony even knows about it. I mean besides the few pics that Pipp posts every Spooktacular with you in your costume. Honestly kind of thought you made that one up. Guess I owe Peach Fizz some bits on that- she said it was probably an ancient pegasi thing and I said no. Cause I haven't heard of this sports team at all and I have these wings on my back." Glory flapped her pink and white bat wings to prove the point.
Zipp sighed. "Yeah, well, I can get why. I mean the Wonderbolts kind of only exist in dusty tomes and the few old posters that haven't crumbled with age. Sad cause there's a whole section dedicated to them in the royal archives. Thought some of the stories were made up though when I was little- sending tornadoes filled with lakewater to a floating city made of clouds sounded completely fantastical. The return of magic kind of put a few of their more silly encounters in perspective."
Glory sat there quiet for a moment. "Yeah magic." She wrapped her leathery wings around her. "So you think we're going to turn back or is this a permanent thing? Cause I saw a lot of confused ponies out there in the party and while I kind of like the whole look, I really don't like the downsides." The young pony rubbed her ears. "I mean its cool to see in the dark and have scary teeth. but I kind of liked not having my friends me kind of scared of me. They don't say it, but they seem distant and all. It's only been like a day but they look at me funny. I mean I only did like one odd thing with a juice box and they probably think I'm going to attack them or something."
Zipp couldn't really say anything to that.
***
Pipp carefully breathed out, carefully smoothing out her dress as she did so. It was just like every other pop show performance, just with one tiny wrinkle of like a hundred batponies out there. But she could compartmentalize it, sure, that was simple. They may be possible bloodthirsty monsters, but like they were still here to party and she was Equestria's party princess, if the tabloids were to be believed. Though with how they shipped her with every well known stallion or mare that she looked at for more than a few minutes, they were completely off base. But sure, she at least knew how to party or to give ponies a mostly family friendly good time. No biggie about the batty ponies slinking about the Spooktacular. She loved spooky weird shit, magic was back, she saw enough episodes of Spookynatural to know the whole lore of multiple creatures of evil. All she had to do was perform and do the motions.
It was so easy, she could do it in her sleep.
She whispered into her mic to Jazz and Rocky and checked for a moment for her backup dancers. She saw a few of them in the corner of her eye that were also afflicted with this odd magical curse but she let that slip away. They at least seemed professional enough to put on a show, and partially that was because she hoofpicked them from the royal guards, they had a sense of duty to have the best show possible and keep things safe in bad situations.
She may be a pop star, but she was also royalty and being on stage with her backup dancers was probably safer than being in the crowd.
"Okay, Zephyr Heights, who's ready for the best concert ever?" A loud cheer washed over her and for a moment everything was right in the world, she was in her element and nothing could go wrong. "Cool, now anypony who knows this next song, sing along." The stereo system blasted out the backing track of her recent spooky hit, Monster Party.
How very ironic, Pipp thought, before she started singing.
***
Misty crept back into the party with Izzy bouncing behind her. The purple unicorn was a bit foolish and silly, and Opaline would despise her cheerfulness, but Misty kind of liked having another unicorn around. Or at least a part of her felt bad as she realized as she entered the party again, the loud and boisterous music that, she had to admit, was pretty catchy would have to stop immediately. It would be hard to sing some happy go lucky pop song as batponies started having a feeding frenzy.
She grimaced as she felt around in her bag, the pretty smelling perfumes more like an explosive primed to blow at any moment. She glanced over to Izzy, noticing that the mare had been probably blabbing her ear off for who knows how long and she snapped back to reality. "What?"
Izzy shrugged. "You remind me of Sunny. I mean not literally since she's an earth pony sometimes and sometimes an alicorn- thank goodness she learned how to kind of turn that on and off, though I would have accepted her winged and horny self cause well I do like her and all, but she sometimes tunes me out too. I mean I get it now, its hard to focus with Pipp up there singing." Izzy pointed at the small pink mare on stage, her light pink dress and fuzzy wings making her stand out, even if the spotlight was fully on her and Misty could swear the pegasus was glittering in the light.
Of course a pony like that knew how to make perfumes.
"Oh, I wasn't staring. just listening to the music. Don't get to do that often. My town likes not singing and having fun." Not like Misty was outright lying there, Opaline was so focused upon her mission of reclaiming all the magic that Twilight Sparkle stole from her that any 'frivolity', Opaline's words, was seen as a waste of time.
Misty felt a twinge of guilt for a moment, Opaline's words that this odd magical happening would stop at dawn and right itself echoed in her head. If she did nothing, she could, for once, enjoy a night and live it up and have a nice memory that she could have for all time. If she went along with the plan, she'd cause so much chaos, discord and misfortune that she'd think about it for a while after. But if she didn't do it, Opaline would be angry and that was worse. She gulped and stared at Izzy for a brief moment, the idea that she was possibly ruining a chance at something. Opaline had eyes on these ponies, enough so Misty knew the word she was looking for, "friendship", she'd be ruining or tainting it with her action.
But Opaline's influence was right around her neck, the gold medallion, the only thing the alicorn had really given her since she had found her in the outer lands outside Equestria, it weighed heavy on her heart and mind.
"I think you and Sunny would get along great. I mean you two are awkward and nerdy and it shows that even unicorns can be odd. Though its not like I'm the best case, I mean it took me a while to realize Bridlewood tried to run me out of town a few times. Sure, Sunny had to spell it out for me, but I got the message eventually. Not like I take it too hard, I mean they came around eventually. Else they wouldn't use my services for new sculptures and stuff."
Misty nodded, unsure of what the purple unicorn was even talking about. She felt the perfumes shift around her bag and listened to the music's tempo, entraining her ear to the rhythm as she grabbed a perfume and waited for the right time. "Sounds great, I mean I'd love to meet her, I mean you mention her a ton and she sounds wonderful." Misty cringed since Sunny did seem interesting, and the few snippets of Opaline's network of magic devices and things made the five of these ponies seem wonderful, though maybe they were secretly the worst. Opaline's magic wasn't infallible since she couldn't spy in the Brighthouse, the ancient magics of Equestria made it impossible to see within.
For all Misty knew, maybe Izzy and the others were secretly summoning demons or horrible creatures now because of the return of magic. She didn't know but Opaline's stories of the past seemed to make it highly possible that all these ponies were misusing magic.
"Hey, uh, Izzy, I just realized I haven't really eaten all that much, so I'm going to go get something to eat. I'll be back."
Izzy nodded and pointed. "Sure, sure, I'm going to check on Sunny and the others, see them right there, in the front? The one that looks like an alicorn, though like a black evil one? That one is Sunny. She doesn't always look like that, that's her costume. Though I guess I don't often look like this either, I mean I dyed my mane black to fit with what Pipp called 'the goth style.' I just did this cause I wanted to see how mane dye works and Pipp is great at it, I mean it totally makes sense why."
Misty blinked. Of course. Sure, whatever. She didn't know how to answer so she just nodded and mimed a 'hooves up' and slunk into the crowd. She wasn't lying, she was positively starving and while she had to cause a commotion, that didn't mean she wasn't going to stuff her face with food. She had smelled the wonderful spiced air for the last few hours and if she wasn't trying to blend in, she'd have camped out at the food tables and never left.
***
Pipp looked up at the fake blood in the rafters and smiled, the planning she had made for the best Spooktacular setlist had been months in advance, dance rehearsals, marketing, the works. She shut her eyes as she timed the button press that Rocky would do, she had done a trick like this a few years back and she'd rather not reenact that particular failure, while it was memorable enough to become an internet meme, being blinded and falling off the stage as your fans watched was kind of humiliating. The music died and she timed the bucket's slow tip down, counting down from ten as she waited for the fake blood to spill over herself and make a nice memorable moment for everypony.
The bucket tipped over and splashed its contents all over the stage, splattering some of the audience in the carefully delineated splash zone and as Pipp opened her eyes, she smelled not the iron smell of convincing fake blood, but the pungent smell of her very own perfumes.
Odd, very odd.
She didn't have time to think about that coincidence because the first batpony in the audience started howling in pain. A cacophony of howls erupted from the crowd.
Pipp stepped up the the microphone and tapped it with a hoof. "Uh, don't worry everypony this is, uh, totally a completely planned thing." She was terrible at outright lying. She saw the crowd shift and sway for a moment as they tried to figure out if it was real.
The pink pop star moved away for a moment, not caring that she was completely soaked in fake blood, her pink coat smeared with red and whispered into her secondary mic. "Hit the button, Rocky, hit it. We'll play through this no problem. Pull out something from the upcoming album. The one Jazz said every critic would see as a complete genre shift."
Pipp knew immediately that she had been heard even as the crowd started attempting to go for the doors as the sprinkler system they had carefully set up beforehoof started raining down a fine mist of food coloring and water. Rocky hit the button for the backing track and a loud wall of sound stopped everypony in their tracks, the panic and fear dissipating for a moment as phones were pulled out to record something that the Pippsqueak fan forums would go crazy for.
Pipp Petals, their internet queen was doing pegasi speed metal.