Each day Cinch could feel her strength wane. The two weeks after the meeting with Principal Celestia had been consumed by preparations for the talent fair. Cinch dove into her work with confidence, but the calls she had to make, the materials she had to review, the details she had to mind—all of it caught up to her for a realization: she had grown dependent on Cadenza’s charity.
The headaches had returned. As if the stress was not enough, the world remembered the inevitability of summer and assaulted Cinch with unbelievably diverse forms of unpleasantness.
Cinch didn’t have time to hound the sirens for a progress report. She’d seen them in the hallways. They would avert their eyes when their paths crossed. The talent fair—which she had long begun regretting—was, between the two tasks, the one with a time limit, and it required her constant attention.
Today things finally got bad enough. Cinch’s fever peaked. Her bones ached, her head throbbed and she couldn’t concentrate on anything. She sat in her office, struggling to function as a searing haze obscured her thoughts.
The door clicked, jolting Cinch awake as Cadenza walked in. Cinch was almost thankful for it. When they finished talking, the dean remained rooted to the spot, looking at Cinch from under her furrowed brow. Cinch realized that she didn’t know what they had just talked about. She wondered if she’d said something nonsensical.
“Is there anything else?” Cinch rasped.
Cadenza’s brow furrowed further, her lips pursed and her gaze turned to the floor, but she neither spoke nor left.
“What do you want, Cadance?” Cinch demanded, raising her voice. “If you don’t have anything else to say, please don’t waste my—” She exploded into a coughing fit. Cadenza watched her for a few seconds, humphed and walked out.
As the fit subsided, Cinch clutched her head. It felt ready to burst from the inside. She shut her eyes tightly and waited for the pain to dull.
Had Cadenza expected something? Another attempt at an apology followed by a humble request for help? Surely she was smarter than that.
Cinch could not tell how long she sat, hands around her skull, before she heard the door open once more.
“I called Shining Armor,” said Cadenza, “he’s driving you home.”
The ride passed in silence. Cinch was happy for a chance to close her eyes for more than a few seconds. They burned behind her eyelids.
After escorting the principal to her door, the grumbling alumnus left for Crystal Prep to lend Cadenza a hand with some of the affairs. Cinch did not have the energy to ponder his willingness or even protest. Having gotten a brief taste of rest in the car, she could barely think of anything else.
For the first time in her life Cinch was glad that empathy had won over reason in Cadenza’s mind.
She spent some time wrapped in blankets, unable to fall asleep. At some point she glanced at the clock to find that the school day had ended and decided to take advantage of her unplanned free time.
First Cinch recalled where her medicine cabinet had been, then how to open it, and finally procured a bottle with a few pills left in it. She could barely read the label—the letters would scatter when her eyes tried to focus on them—but something from the depths of her memory told her these were for fevers.
Cinch’s mind had cleared and her pains had subsided. She had some time (before the effects wore off) to retire to bed once more and hopefully fall asleep this time. But before that, she had something else to do.
She turned on her laptop and called the sirens.
The monitor showed a lazily sitting Aria.
“So, you finally went down, eh?” she asked nonchalantly.
“Yes... yes I did,” Cinch croaked and coughed several times.
“Darn, you don’t look too good. Why’d you call us?” Aria moved to the side to let Adagio pass by behind her. Something red glittered in Adagio’s hands. “We were just about to head out to meet with Sunset and the others.”
“Your dedication to the task is admirable,” said Cinch.
“Oh, right, that’s—” Aria was rudely shoved aside by a happy-looking Sonata who followed after Adagio, also holding a small red object.
“What are those two carrying?” asked Cinch. For whatever reason the red pieces seemed important.
Aria cocked her head. “Didn’t we tell you all that stuff at some point?”
Adagio leaned into the frame. “They are the pieces of our magic pendants. We went back to retrieve them after our... defeat.”
Sonata jumped into view as well. “Sunset said she wanted to see them, so we figured we might as well show them to her!”
Cinch raised her eyebrow. “What do they do, exactly?”
“They used to provide us with all of our power,” Adagio said in response. “They’re decidedly less useful when broken. The pieces can’t absorb and hold energy like the pendants could when they were whole. They do shine when magic passes through them, but that’s pretty much it.”
“So they’re your means of detecting magical energy, I assume?” Cinch guessed. In her head she was connecting the dots. Detecting strange energy, absorbing and storing it… These were very familiar functions. “Why did Sunset Shimmer want to see them?”
“To the first question: yep!” chirped Sonata, pulling Cinch back out of her thoughts. “And we talked with Sunny about magic and stuff last time.”
“Sunny?” Cinch was unsure what Sunny Flare could know about magic...
“Sunset. She’d wanted to study them or something,” Aria said, “but we managed to swipe them before she did. Which was surprising.”
“We didn’t even find all the pieces,“ Sonata added. “Not like we can just glue them together anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe not to you,” Aria muttered.
“Right,” Cinch said, ”as fascinating as this is, I didn’t call you three for idle conversation.”
Aria clenched her teeth as her eyes darted around something off-screen. She turned to it, squinted, leaning forward slowly and deliberately, then stood up and walked off without saying a word.
Sonata didn’t even try to pretend and simply fled the frame with haste.
Cinch sighed. The sirens were living proof that longevity did not beget maturity.
It fell to Adagio, as the responsible one, to stay and face the questioning. “Unfortunately, we haven’t made much progress,” she said. Her eyes flicked to the side for just a moment, but Cinch noticed.
“Indeed? You three seemed very friendly with Sunset Shimmer several weeks before,” Cinch said in a stern tone. “Do you mean to tell me that you haven’t achieved anything since? Despite being on such good terms with her?”
Adagio shifted uncomfortably. “Well, we don’t actually meet very often.”
“And yet when I call, I just happen to find you preparing to meet them.”
“Speaking of which, I need to go pack something, be right back!” And with that Adagio was gone like the other two, leaving Cinch staring at an empty wall.
With a moment to herself, Cinch thought back to her meeting with Celestia, to the sight of the sirens walking into the cafe with Shimmer and her cohorts. Everything clicked into place. The sirens’ content expressions had felt wrong because they were supposed to be terrible at acting.
No, they were definitely horrendous at acting—Cinch had just seen it for herself. This could only mean one thing. The sirens were genuinely becoming friends with Sunset Shimmer. Since they weren’t magical anymore, they must have been susceptible to external magical influences.
This was unfortunate.
Cinch’s own influence over the sirens would surely wane, even though she had made it perfectly clear that defiance would endanger their futures in this world. It could get worse. Sunset Shimmer could recruit them, or simply let them escape to the horse world…
Cinch had to lure the sirens back again. And soon.
“Adagio!” she barked into the laptop’s microphone.
After a few moments, Adagio appeared on screen again. “Yes?”
“You said fragments of your pendants were missing. Yet Sunset Shimmer hadn’t taken any.” Cinch tapped her fingers together. “How soon after your defeat did you retrieve them?”
Adagio stroked her chin. “The next evening.”
“I believe there may be a way for you to get your powers back.”
Adagio’s eyes widened, and both Sonata and Aria returned to the frame with similarly surprised expressions.
“I have a good guess as to who might have taken the missing pieces,” Cinch said, “and if I’m correct, she managed to make them work.” She paused, feeling unsure about disclosing this information. “Have you been acquainted with Twilight Sparkle? The human one.”
“Yeah! That was very confusing!” Sonata said. “But her big brother was kinda cute. Kept glaring at us, though.”
“She was investigating CHS ever since the first magical occurrence. By the time of the Friendship Games, she had managed to construct a device that detected, forcefully absorbed and stored magic. You can guess what she might have used.”
“Hm. Never mentioned anything of the sort to us,” Adagio said. “The others always insisted that the Games were a sore spot for her. We didn’t press it.” She looked down. “I wonder if she even told them...”
“Here is what you will do,” Cinch said. “First of all, don’t take all the pieces with you. Leave the biggest ones home. The biggest piece of each of your pendants, to be precise.”
Adagio nodded.
“When you meet with them, if Twilight is there, pretend you’ve heard about her magical device from the other students. Rumors and such.” Cinch pointed a finger at Adagio, who was standing on the other side of the screen with a thoughtful look. “When you hand Shimmer the pieces, breach this topic. Mention the fact that you haven’t found all of the pieces, mention having heard about Twilight’s device, pretend you figured out the connection yourselves—“
“Hey! We would’ve figured it out just fine if we knew about her thing!” Aria indignantly said.
Cinch ignored her. “Ask Twilight how she managed to make the pieces work. If you feel they suspect you of wanting your powers back, try to pretend you’re just curious.”
“They shouldn’t suspect that! They trust us!” Sonata exclaimed.
“I’m sure,” Cinch said. “But since you will be deceiving them, it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious.”
Sonata’s eyes fell.
With the sirens off on new orders, Cinch decided to sleep before the pills’ effects ran out.
However, she could not stop thinking about this new development. She was sidetracked renewing the sirens’ loyalty, but she could acquire a useful new tool if it turned out that the gem shards could indeed be made to absorb magic again. As always, running through all possibilities was not something she could avoid when left to herself.
After tossing and turning for half an hour, Abacus felt her headache creeping back. She groaned and threw off the plaid to get up. A feather fell from it and sailed to the floor. “This again,” Abacus sighed. She tossed it into the garbage bin.
Abacus glanced out the window. Surprisingly, bearable weather had finally returned. Dark purple clouds rushed across the sky and the few trees she could see bowed to the wind. This made her decision easy. Throwing on her coat and shoes, she went outside. For the first time in many years she would visit a pharmacy.
She stopped on the steps, about to join the endless stream of people sliding along the sidewalk. Abacus had no idea where the closest pharmacy was. For that matter, she couldn’t recall any of the stores around her house for some reason. Where’d she been buying her groceries, again?
Abacus preferred to search for a pharmacy against the wind. As soon as there was a space among the hurried bodies, she wedged herself into the crowd and matched its pace.
Something brushed against the back of her head. Cinch looked behind her but found nothing save for someone’s irritated face. She hurried to catch up to the person in front, not wanting to hold up the crowd.
Looking above their head, she noticed a large bird flying away. Must’ve touched her with the tail. At least it wasn’t the talons.
Soon enough she reached a crossroads. A predictably large blob of people had already gathered here, waiting until the blur of cars and trains in the city’s veins was halted by the red light.
Abacus spotted two familiar-looking heads of blue hair in the crowd. Shining Armor and… Bread? Was his name Bread? No, she didn’t know the boy’s name. That bread loaf was merely the only thing she remembered him by.
“There she went, setting Twilight up once again,” Armor said to the boy. “She knows that Twilight will be blamed when those three try something. But she doesn’t care.”
“Right?” the boy said. “Goes around thinking of everyone as children. Fat lotta maturity in her own behavior, though!” Armor snickered at the boy’s words. “Don’t know anyone as stubborn, honestly. Made up her mind immediately and stuck with it! Ain’t nothing gonna breach that thick skull now.”
The wind picked up.
“Yeah, yeah,” Shining Armor replied. “Unfortunate, really. Doesn’t practice what she preaches. Convinced herself that her initial understanding is infallible, despite the outlandish things she has to believe in order to keep it from falling apart.”
“Yep. Too bad about Twilight, though, bro. Wouldn’t wanna be her when she ends up accidentally helping the sirens!”
The pedestrian light finally turned green and the wave of flesh and cloth washed over the street. The two blue heads quickly vanished among the others. The crowd in front of the crossing must’ve been packed tighter than sardines—despite the steady stream of people emerging from it, the stationary mass was shrinking irritatingly slowly.
To Abacus’ dismay, the pedestrian light turned back to red just as she reached the road. She considered going anyway, but the loud shriek of an approaching train could already be heard from the left, so she stayed in place. Well, at least there wouldn’t be a whole crowd in front of her this time. She’d be the first to cross.
A bird’s screech rose over the grind of the train’s wheels. Abacus looked up. The large bird from before—a falcon—flew circles between the buildings, as if searching for something. How the wind hadn’t swept it away was a wonder.
Following the bird’s movements, her eyes landed on the building she’d been standing right next to. There was a pharmacy. “Everfree”. A rather strange name. Something about it seemed important, but Abacus opted not to dwell on it, lest she miss the green light again. She had to cross the street, after all.
A flock of colorful jays flew by, a blue one caught her eye. “Blazkowicz?” she mumbled. The flock of rainbow jays flew parallel to her, struggling against the wind, barely moving over the train still whizzing by.
Abacus envied them for being able to just fly over everything like that. The fact that the birds were having problems made her feel better.
The wind picked up once again.
The falcon emerged from between two buildings and tore into the flock of jays. It narrowly missed Blazkowicz, striking the jay behind him, the last in the rainbow line, the purple one. They both fell into the traffic, and seconds later the pedestrian lights turned green. Abacus could cross.
As soon as she was on the other side, the wind changed direction. She turned as if diving into it and slowly walked past the buildings, past the faceless people hurrying by, past the birds swarming above her head.
The wind got stronger and stronger, now slowing down her half of the sidewalk while pushing the other half forward, making people stumble. Abacus wished she’d taken her car.
She noticed a storefront that stood out. “Everfree”, looked like a pharmacy. Someone was trying to distract her with these important-seeming storefronts. It was still easy enough to ignore, especially since there was something much more worthy of her attention behind it: an alley, promising a brief respite from the storm.
Abacus turned into the alley and opted to walk through instead of just waiting. Perhaps on the other side she’d find what she was looking for.
A figure ejected itself from the stream of people on the other end, possibly with the same intent as Abacus. Upon further inspection the figure looked familiar, clad in all grey except for the jeweled rings on its fingers.
“Cinchie! Where’re you headed this—” Sombra coughed “—fine afternoon?”
“Lóbrego. So you can walk?” Abacus raised her eyebrow, stopping in front of the old man. “I thought you were wheelchair-bound.”
“No, I only have that wheelchair in my room to remind myself that there exist people more miserable than I,” Sombra said.
“I don’t have time for you, Lóbrego,” Abacus said as she furrowed her brow.
“On the contrary, I happen to know you’d just been thinking of me!” the old man said with a smirk. ”Quite recently in fact!”
“What do you—”
“I have to commend you on your whole plan, Cinchie. Ridding the world of this hidden contamination! What a thankless and noble undertaking!”
Abacus shrugged. “Who else would do it?”
“Indeed! Truly a mark of selflessness there.” Sombra grinned once again before coughing quietly. ”Sacrificing the pleasure of being loved by your peers, the satisfaction of having a clear conscience, all on the altar of the ever vague greater good!”
Abacus crossed her arms. “Haven’t you said this to me before? Word for word, in fact? I do not have time for this.”
“Why don’t you stop listening to me then?” the man turned serious. “You’ve wasted your best years eating up every word I’ve said. How about making your own judgement for once? Something not rooted in my lessons, but in your own observation and reasoning? Something yours from the ground-up? Or is your mind too rigid for that? Too used to the same framework?”
Abacus followed his advice and made a decision of her own. She walked past Sombra, who seemed determined to keep her in one place, talking her ears off with his tripe. Abacus needed to find that pharmacy.
“I’d even wager that you still use my old name for the school team!” the old man shouted after her from the depth of the alley as she emerged.
Not paying him any attention, Abacus cast a brief look around and did indeed spot a pharmacy across the street. It was called “Everfree”.
“Fine…” Abacus muttered. She pierced both directions of the sidewalk’s perpetual movement and stood on the curb. To her fortune, the street wasn’t running at the moment, and there was a clear zebra crossing right in front of her, allowing her to weave through the still traffic, step between two train cars and reach the other side.
Abacus entered the store and felt immense relief at the absence of wind. While a refreshing breeze was always welcome, she was not fond of hurricanes.
Behind the counter stood a woman that strongly reminded Abacus of the man she’d just left behind in the alley. Grey skin, black hair with white patches, excessive jewelry. Although in the woman’s case it was golden hoop bracelets and earrings, as well as neck rings, which was decidedly more eccentric.
As soon as the woman saw Abacus approaching, she spoke up. “Greetings, how can I help you?” In another similarity to Sombra, she had an accent, and an even more pronounced one at that.
Abacus told her she needed something for her fever.
“We could ease the symptoms if you so wish, but eliminating the cause is much more efficient,” the woman said after a moment’s thought.
Abacus frowned. “What exactly do you mean? Whatever caused it is in the past, I just need to be able to work while it goes away.”
“It is never that simple, I’m afraid.” The woman shook her head. “You won’t escape the sickness until you look into yourself.”
“My health hasn’t been a concern for years, I’m simply overworked,” Abacus said crossing her arms.
“That could be the issue, but if your immune system is as strong as you claim, something must have weakened it severely.” The woman tapped her chin. “Do you have any allergies, perhaps?”
“Yes, I do, to animals. Dogs and cats, the like.” Abacus furrowed her brow in realization. “Ah. Must’ve been something that animal shelter girl had left in my car. I would’ve thought the rain’d washed anything of that sort off of her.” She shrugged. “I’ll have it cleaned.”
The woman shook her head. “It’s not the only thing that’s gotten past your defences, it seems.” She pointed her finger at Abacus’ forehead. “The walls you’ve erected in your mind have been breached. An inner battle is waged, just like with a virus, but this time losing might be advised.”
Abacus grasped her head, suddenly aware of the thumping. She heard the wind outside grow even more powerful.
“Just give me the medicine,” she said.
Sounds of things colliding with the shop’s windows mirrored the pulsing sensation in Abacus’ head. She turned back and looked outside. The storm had gotten so strong that people were blown around like paper bags. Garbage and debris was flung about. The birds above were completely at the wind’s mercy, getting the worst of it.
“And do you have a phone? I’d need to call a taxi if I want to get home now,” Abacus said turning back to the woman, who smiled in response.
“We can grant you a trip home,” she said, “but it comes as part of a package deal that also includes a brain, a heart and some courage. Would you like that?”
“Yes, yes, fine, I’ll take all of that!” Abacus shouted.
“I’ll call my lovely assistant,” the woman said, nodding, before she disappeared through a door behind her.
A phone went off, playing a strangely gentle fanfare instead of the usual grating sound. A young, familiar-looking girl emerged from the door. She raised a magic wand and waved it around. The phone played its tune once more. “Prepare yourself for our special deal! Witness, as the Great and Powerful—”
Cinch shot up from the couch. She shook her head, recalling the nonsense her feverish mind had just subjected her to. Was magic worming its way into her thoughts?
Cinch kept hearing the soft, artificial ring. Its persistence and unfamiliarity quickly got on her nerves. What did it want? She looked around for a possible source and found that it came from her laptop, still open on the table.
Cinch approached the computer and looked at the screen. She was getting a call from the sirens.
“How much time has passed?” she mumbled before accepting the call.
When the image appeared, Cinch saw Adagio look back at her with a dark expression. Behind her sat Sonata, hugging her legs, her head buried in her knees. Aria was nowhere to be seen.
“They don’t trust us,” Adagio said.
Cinch could only grunt, not fully awake yet. “Elaborate.”
“We asked about the pendants. Twilight Sparkle did use the pieces in her device.” Adagio leaned forward. “Then Aria got the bright idea to ask if they’d help restore the pendants. It seems she wanted the power back more than Sonata or I did.”
“And let me guess…”
“Yes.” Adagio shook her head. “Accusations flew. Sonata kept saying she only wanted to go back to Equestria, but I don’t think they paid her much attention at that point. Sunset said she’d write to Princess Twilight about us, too.” Adagio sighed. ”Long story short, we don’t talk to each other anymore and I’m not sure we can do what you needed us for, now.”
“On the contrary, Adagio,” Cinch said with a weak grin. “There’ll be a good opportunity for you girls to get that book in the near future. We know now that Shimmer does have it.” She touched her chin with a finger. “Now, the fact that Twilight did indeed use the shards proves that their functionality can be restored. To a point at least. Do you think that can be achieved by having them cut into whole shapes once again?”
Adagio’s looked thoughtful. “Yes, in fact. I think it might. They’ll be weaker due to smaller size, and the shape might affect some specifics…” She cocked her head to the side. ”But we don’t have any equipment to cut gems!”
Cinch grinned a bit wider.
“Luckily for you girls, it so happens I know a man who’s all about gems…”