There were three new concerns on the forefront of Sunset’s mind as she began the long trek back to her apartment.
The first was the matter of Applebloom and Sweetie Belle. Sunset needed to find a way to test Adagio’s theory about the two girls. If it turned out that the siren was right about them, then that would mean that Scootaloo would definitely need to be questioned as well. After all, the three friends did everything together.
The second issue was actually getting the three girls to come clean about terrorizing the school, assuming that they were all guilty. Intimidation wouldn’t work; she knew this thanks to her failed attempt at scaring Adagio. Trying to threaten them would only further strengthen the belief that she had slipped back into her old ways - not to mention the type of reception that she’d get from Applejack, Rarity, or Rainbow Dash. The plan was to get her friends back, not push them further away.
There was also the possibility that proving their guilt still wouldn’t be enough. Given her current status in the school, more than likely the students of CHS would dismiss her claims as a desperate attempt at dumping the blame on three innocent girls. This meant that not only would she have to get the three girls to confess willingly, but the confession would have to be done in a way that left zero room for doubt, and it would need to appear as if she herself had nothing to do with it. Once again, this was all assuming that Adagio was right.
Speaking of Adagio, she and her sisters were the final concern. The sirens were dying, and, just like with everything else that had gone wrong recently, Sunset was to blame for it. As much as Sunset wanted to help them, the choice wasn’t really hers to make. That honor went to the Princess of friendship herself.
It was only then that she realized just how insane her promise to Adagio actually was.
‘What was I thinking? Sure, Twilight has a heart of gold and all, but asking her to help out with something like this is a bit much. She’ll never go along with it, especially after how close they came to winning. I was stupid for getting involved. I guess that’s another thing I can add to my list of screw-ups. Way to go, Sunset, you’re on a roll.’
She continued to sulk until she had finally made it back to the apartment. After setting her things down on the floor, Sunset checked the clock and saw that she still had some extra time left before she was scheduled to rendezvous with her friends.
She sat down on her bed, punched in the digits on her phone, and then held the device up to her ear. It rang a few times before someone finally picked up.
“Hello?” answered the voice on the other end.
“Hi, Vice Principal Luna, this is Sunset.”
“Oh, hey! Celestia and I were starting to worry. Have you found anything out yet?”
“Yeah. As far as I can tell, Adagio and her sisters are innocent,” Sunset answered. “But, thanks to them, I’m pretty sure that I know who’s responsible now.”
“Oh, well that didn’t take very long. Who is it?”
“First things first, you might want to grab a pencil and some paper. I’ve got a lot to say, and you might find most of it hard to believe.”
There was a brief pause from the other end before Luna spoke again. “CHS has been visited by beings from a parallel world on about four or five different occasions that I know of. Two of those instances eventually resulted in me, my sister, and just about all of the students under our care being controlled against our will. You might be surprised by what I’m willing to believe nowadays.”
Sunset’s cheeks flushed a little at the memory of what had taken place after she had obtained the Element of Magic.
“Ok, first we need to talk about Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo …”
***
If there was one thing that Sunset hated about winters in the human world, it was the fact that the days were shorter and nights ran longer. Thanks to the Celestia from her world, Equestria never had that problem. The solar Princess usually kept the sun and the moon on the same time schedule all year round. At least that’s how things were before she fled through the Mirror Portal. With Princess Luna resuming her duties as one half of the Royal Equestrian Diarchy it was possible that things might have changed.
She checked the time on her phone and saw that she had arrived at CHS almost ten minutes late. She cut across the track outside the school and walked towards the back entrance, just as the message had instructed. A close inspection of the door revealed that it was cracked open slightly. There was an object preventing the door from shutting all the way, but Sunset couldn’t make out what it was in the dark.
Ignoring it, she pulled the door open and entered the building.
***
Perhaps it was due to the echoing of her footsteps being the only sounds that she could hear, or maybe it was the memories of being stared at with disdain by the other students and staff, but Sunset felt increasingly uncomfortable being on school grounds so late at night. Things only got worse when she finally made it inside the gymnasium and saw that none of the lights were on. Sunset considered turning around and going back home until she spotted her five friends all leaning against the bleachers in the back corner of the room. At least, she assumed it was them. She wasn't entirely sure because they were all wearing hoods.
A few of them motioned with their hands for her to come closer. Sunset, although reluctant at first, cautiously did as requested. ‘This definitely doesn’t feel right.’
Sunset stopped just a few feet away from the girls before calling out. “Hey, girls? Not that I’m complaining, but this meetup feels a little … creepy.”
“That’s the idea.”
Sunset jumped back in surprise.
That voice, it definitely didn’t belong to any of her friends.
Suddenly, all of the lights cut on at once. Several other people began filing into the room, one by one. By Sunset’s estimation, there must have been between twenty and thirty of them all together, and they were all wearing hooded clothing. She couldn’t decipher who they all were, but somehow Sunset was able to discern one key fact. They were all CHS students. She understood now why the message sounded so strange. The entire thing had been a setup from the start.
Looking around the room, she noticed that there were at least three students standing guard at each of the room’s exits. The rest of the students were standing in various locations that would have interfered with any attempts at escape.
Sunset turned her attention back towards the five students standing against the bleachers. One of them she recognized as Gilda. Thanks to her imposing size and frighteningly short temper, she quickly became one of the most feared students in the school.
She had fallen down a few pegs on CHS’s social ladder after Sunset came into the picture. However, she had been slowly making a comeback ever since the fiery haired girl had chosen a more peaceful way of life.
Standing on Gilda’s left was a student who everyone called Dumbbell. He used to be on CHS’s wrestling team until he got kicked off because of his grades. Needless to say, he didn’t like his nickname very much.
Sunset failed to recognize who the other three students were, although one of them looked slightly familiar. She never got a chance to pay it too much attention thanks to Gilda.
“You know, I didn’t think that you’d actually be dumb enough to fall for this. Guess you aren’t as smart as everyone thinks, huh?” Gilda jeered in a mocking tone.
Sunset ignored the insult. When she spoke, her voice was calm and controlled. “What happened to Rainbow Dash? I got a message from her saying that there was an emergency.”
Gilda smiled, reached into her pocket, and then pulled out a bright red colored phone. She then pushed a series of buttons before raising the phone to her ear. Shortly after, Sunset’s phone started ringing. She checked and saw a message that read, “Incoming Call from Rainbow Dash.”
Sunset never answered, opting instead to let it jump to voicemail. “Out of curiosity, how exactly did you get Rainbow’s phone?” she asked.
“I went looking for you, you weren’t there, bumped into Dash instead. She had her phone out, and I wanted it. Plain and simple,” Gilda stated matter-of-factly.
Sunset arched an eyebrow in suspicion. “So, you’re telling me that she just handed it to you? Just like that?”
“Well, if you want to get technical, I might have jumped her after school and snatched it afterwards. Speaking of my old buddy, you really pissed her off with that post that you put up yesterday. Heck, you pissed me off too.”
For the life of her, Sunset didn’t know what Gilda was talking about. Due to all of the threats and hate mail that had been flooding her inbox, Sunset took down her Mystable account and deleted the app from her phone. From what she had just heard, it sounded as if things had gotten a lot worse since then.
“But enough of that,” Gilda put Rainbow’s phone away and began cracking her knuckles, “You screwed with the wrong school, you little freak. We don’t need Twilight to save the day. We’re gonna be the heroes this time.” She began smiling with excitement. “Hope you had fun messing with us. Now it’s our turn.”
One by one all of the students slowly began stalking towards Sunset, like a pack of wolves closing in on their prey. Sunset took a couple steps back and tried once again to locate a possible escape route. Nothing had changed; the doors were still being guarded.
The students had Sunset trapped within an enclosing circle now. Even if she did find a way outside the ring of students, there was still the issue of having to outrun Gilda, who had the strength of a lion and the speed of a cheetah. It appeared to be a no-win situation for Sunset.
‘Unless I change the rules.’
The instant that the mob of students came within a reasonable distance, Sunset pulled her phone back out and, without missing a beat, chucked it as hard as she could at Gilda. From that close of a distance, the other girl wasn’t able to dodge and she fell to the ground clutching her face in pain while screaming out profanities. The action had its desired effect. The students were too stunned to move, obviously not expecting her to fight back.
Taking full advantage of the opportunity in front of her, Sunset ran towards the section within the circle that looked the weakest and bulldozed her way through with enough force to knock a few students onto the floor.
Having forced her way outside the circle, Sunset took off and didn’t look back. She was like a runaway locomotive, and anything that got in her way was going to get obliterated.
Her sights were now aimed at the students who were standing guard at the gym’s upper left entrance. The plan was simple, use her momentum to charge through the door, cut down the hallway, and then make a beeline for the school’s front entrance. If she could make it outside, then all she had to do was gun it for the Mirror Portal where she’d be safe. She figured that it was unlikely that anyone would dare follow her back into Equestria. Even if a few students were feeling gutsy enough to take the challenge, she doubted that any of them had had any practice with running on all fours.
Sunset had gotten so close to the exit that the students blocking her way were debating whether or not to move aside for fear of getting rammed. They were only a fraction of a second away from getting knocked aside until Sunset felt a sudden resistance along her midsection, resulting in her falling to the floor.
Sunset quickly identified who had just tackled her from behind. It was a girl named Lightning Dust, an athlete who had transferred to CHS two years ago.
“Hurry up! I got her!” Lightning shouted out. Sunset looked over and saw that the other students were gaining on her. She threw the hardest punch that she could at Lightning, blasting the girl directly in the nose. The strike resulted in Lightning losing her hold.
Sunset managed to kick Lightning Dust off of her and rose back onto her feet. Unfortunately, before Sunset could properly regain her footing, a hard impact to the side had sent her tumbling back down onto the ground. The students who were guarding the door had jumped in and had gone on the attack. While she was trying her best to fend them off, the ring of students from before had managed to catch up. They descended on their target like a swarm of locusts.
What followed next were several minutes of Sunset trying in vain to shield herself from a relentless barrage of punches, kicks, and stomps. Every time she tried moving to protect one section of her body, another part became exposed. She wanted to scream, she wanted to cry, but the most that she could muster were pained grunts.
Sunset wasn’t sure how much longer the attack went on for, but she soon became aware of the sensation of being lifted into the air. She tried opening her eyes, but she could only get one of the two visual orbs to follow her orders. For some reason her other eye was stubbornly refusing to open.
She now noticed that she was being pinned against the wall by a long muscular arm that had a vice like grip on her coat-collar.
The world around her had become blurry, as if Sunset was watching the events unfold from the other side of a foggy window, but she was fairly certain that the one who had grabbed her was Dumbbell. He said something to her, but she couldn’t hear it very well, it was probably an insult. Then he punched her in the face, hard. At least Sunset thought that that’s what he had done.
Her body felt numb, but based on the way that her head had suddenly jerked and bounced off the back of the wall, she assumed that she had likely gotten hit pretty hard.
‘Why?’
There were three more hits to the torso. Sunset was too delirious to tell if they were all from Dumbbell or if someone else had taken over.
‘I just needed … a little more time.’
Their laughter and cheers, which seemed to be coming from every direction at once, was beginning to blend together into a giant, distorted, mesh of sound.
More strikes to the head, her sides, every exposed body part. Was she still being pinned to the wall, or had she been dropped back onto the floor?
Sunset felt one final blow, followed by something warm trickling down the side of her face.
She began to hallucinate. She was standing in Sugar Cube Corner, joined by her friends. Twilight and Princess Celestia were there too. Everyone had smiles on their faces. They all looked so happy.
‘I ... was so ... close …’
The image faded away as Sunset’s reality finally crumbled into darkness.