Reformation's Downside

by Moonlit Sky

6. Disintegrating

When we return to the Canterlot High School campus several months later, it's with the benefit of several months' research into everything we can possibly learn about the school. Detailed profiles of every student and teacher we can identify as such. Reports on the school's culture and history. Even physical blueprints of the building, surprisingly easy to take from City Hall with our newfound power from the increased background magic. (Sunset Shimmer is still going there. She's sent me only a handful of texts since that night, none telling me where she is when she's not at school or anything else of use, the most recent simply being "i'm sorry" devoid of any context. It's taken a bit of effort to avoid rushing our plans, knowing that.)

But the increased background magic is, ultimately, a minor change. We can enchant larger groups with less effort than before, but still only on the scale of hundreds, not the billions that are our ultimate goal. Which brings us to the true objective of our plan: getting the rest of the Equestrian magic. Those six girls at the school were all immune to our song, much as Sunset was when we first met her, and all evidence suggests it was for the same reason: that they had a native reserve of magic to help shield them from our song's effects. Separating that magic from them, and absorbing it into ourselves via our feeding, ought to be a far more significant power boost. We have no way to know whether it will be enough of a power boost to let us take over the world, but it will certainly be far more than we can get any other way.

(And if Sunset doesn't have a good reason for her apparent abandonment of the plan—if she has betrayed us, after all—well, then she can join the pile of people to be fed on too.)

The first step is to convince the school's principal and vice-principal that we've already submitted valid transfer paperwork and been accepted. We hand them some crudely-falsified paperwork, to support the deception; any serious audit would see straight through it, but by the time they're no longer under the direct influence of the spell, they should be so accustomed to our presence that they won't have any reason to check it closely.

The second step is to be officially shown around the school, and ask some pointed questions to start probing for weaknesses in the school's social environment. We wait in the entry hall for our tour guide to show up, and—

"Hi. Are you the new..."

Sunset.

Our tour guide is Sunset Shimmer.

"Adagio?" Apparently I wasn't the only one briefly stunned in surprise. "Aria? Sonata? You're the new students here?"

"No, we're a different three girls new to the school waiting here for a tour," Aria says, arms folded.

"Wait, we're not the three new students? Although I suppose we are the oldest students here, so we're really the least new, now that I think about it," Sonata says.

Our tour guide is Sunset Shimmer.

I'd been expecting that she'd be avoiding us, that we'd actually need to look for her. Instead, she's here, right now.

"W-well," Sunset says, "follow me, then. I hope you enjoy your time here. And, uh. Don't get everyone here fighting too badly? Please?"

I walk up to her, grabbing her attention before she can turn around to lead us to somewhere less secluded. "Sunset. Tell me what's going on."

She looks as uncomfortable as I've ever seen her, and takes a few moments to reply. "I... made friends here. Real friends, not just 'friends' who stay with me because I'm popular or because I've manipulated them into becoming infatuated with me. I realized how terrible I used to be, back when we spent time together. And I didn't want to keep doing that to you, so I... just stopped. Which, now that you're here, I'm starting to realize was... maybe not the least worrying way I could have handled it." She wrings her hands.

I laugh, but it feels wrong. Forced. "You're saying you broke off from talking to me, even to explain what had gone on, because you felt bad about manipulating me?"

Sunset hangs her head. "I tried to give you something over text, but... that's pretty much exactly what I did, yup."

Everything is wrong. Sunset is wrong. She wouldn't feel bad about something like that. She has to be lying for the sake of some greater plan, be under watch by some means we're not seeing, something.

But even as I tell myself that I know I'm just making up excuses. She's serious. She's not so bad at covert signaling that she wouldn't have been able to make it clear, if she were being watched.

"Did you even try to finish the plan?" My voice comes out wrong. Quieter than I'd intended.

"Finish the plan?"

"After the purple girl and her friends blasted you into a crater with the Element. There was time for a second shot. You could have grabbed the Element from her when she was distracted, or called us in to enchant her and get it for you. You could have had Equestria, just like you'd planned! We spent almost an hour running around, tiring ourselves out looking for you!"

"I... no. They didn't need the Element to beat me. I was wearing it. Its power went out of control, turned me into a rampaging monster. I would have killed them, if their friendship hadn't been able to shield them from me. And even if the plan were salvageable, it would have been a mistake. I was a power-hungry selfish jerk even before the Element's magic got into me. I wouldn't have had any place running Equestria."

"I... see."

"You see?" She looks hopeful, for some reason.

"Yes. I see. Now, you were going to show us around the school?"

I'm not done with her. Not anywhere close. But there's no reason to let her in on exactly what I'm thinking, not when I'm thinking in large part about how satisfying it's going to be to collapse this school's entire social structure down on her head and make her regret turning into this person she's become.

Comments

[redandready45]

I'm not done with her. Not anywhere close. But there's no reason to let her in on exactly what I'm thinking, not when I'm thinking in large part about how satisfying it's going to be to collapse this school's entire social structure down on her head and make her regret turning into this person she's become.

Adagio sounds like a scorned girlfriend.