There have been multiple magical incidents at Canterlot High, it attracted the Dazzlings as well as catching the attention of this world's Twilight Sparkle. Who else has took notice of the magical goings on at Caterlot High, and what do they want?
It began when Sunset Shimmer brought the Element of Magic from Equestria, though she tried to use the magic of the crown for her own ends she was instead defeated. Sunset's defeat attracted the notice of the Dazzlings who tried to claim the magic for themselves, though their plans ended in defeat as well. Both these incidents attracted the attention of this world's Twilight Sparkle who ended up causing a major magical incident herself. Who and what else has noticed the magical goings on at Canterlot High?
An individual known as Starwind has shown an interest in these recent events at Canterlot High and has allied with the Dazzlings. But what is their true intent?
Three girls in jeans and hoodies with the hoods pulled up were running through alleyways as fast as their feet could take them, behind them could be heard the angry shouting of a mass of people. The trio only stopped briefly to toss some showy outfits into a dumpster before they took off running again.
After several minutes more the girls could no longer hear the angry shouts behind them and finally stopped running, then either leaned against a wall or slumped to the ground to catch their breath. And while it seemed they had lost the angry mob the three still glanced around worriedly and jumped at every little sound.
“This is all your fault Adagio.” Aria growled as she glared at the orange-blonde girl.
“How is this my fault?” Adagio questioned, her tone threatening as she took a step towards Aria. “You failed to stop them too.”
“It was your plan so it’s your fault. You’re the one that wanted to go get that equestrian magic in the first place and manipulated everyone into that Battle of the Bands.” Aria closed the distance between Adagio and herself, getting right in her face. “If you had planned better we wouldn’t have lost. Maybe I should have been leading us instead.”
“You lead?! Ha!” Adagio scoffed “You didn’t even know it was equestrian magic in the first place! While I saw it for what it was, a chance to get out full powers back!”
“And look where that got us Adagio! We’ve lost everything!” Aria screamed; her voice was full of anger but a lot of despair was beginning to creep in as well. “Even having a little power was better than having none at all! What are we going to do now?!”
“We’re going to miss ‘All you can eat Pizza Friday’ now that’s for sure.” Sonata said sadly from where she was sitting on the ground. “I really wanted to try that taco pizza…”
For a moment Adagio and Aria just stared at Sonata, not quite believing that Sonata had passed by how dire their situation now was and instead was focusing on pizza of all things. Their looks of disbelief quickly turned to glares of anger.
“You have the scent of magic about you.” An echoing voice suddenly spoke, causing the trio to forget their anger and grab onto each other in fright. “Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that you have a residual scent, like you had magic but now it’s gone.”
A dark figure stepped out of the shadows without making a sound. They were wearing a long black and green coat with a pulled up hood, a green scarf pulled up over the lower half of their face helped to completely hide their features from view.
“Who are you?!” Adagio demanded as Aria and Sonata hid behind her.
“If I were to guess…” The dark figure kept on talking as if Adagio hadn’t even said anything. “I’d say you three were causing trouble, maybe even using whatever powers you had to take things over. Then someone else stepped up, stopped you, and then blasted the magic right out of you.”
“Wow, that’s exactly what happened.” Sonata nodded, then looked at the others and smiled. “He totally nailed it right? Do you think he’s psychic?”
Adagio put a hand over Sonata’s mouth. “Look, I don’t know who you think you are and I don’t know how you know what you know, and honestly right now I don’t care. Unless you can get us our powers back we have no business with you.” She then grabbed Aria’s and Sonata’s hands and began walking away.
“Then perhaps we can make a deal after all.” The dark figure spoke again as Adagio continued dragging the other two down the alleyway. “If you do really want magic again that is.”
Adagio froze in her tracks. Aria and Sonata stared at her a moment before looking at each other and then glancing back at the dark figure still standing behind them.
*******
In the early morning the halls of Canterlot High were bustling with activity as students continued to arrive and prepared to start their school day. Some were going over notes and getting ready for classes, others were simply goofing off before class started, and there were quite a few simply trying to wake up completely before the bell rang.
Three girls made their way down the hall; one wore a leather jacket and had hair of red and gold, another was a blond wearing a cowboy hat while the last had glasses and her violet striped hair pulled up into a bun. The trio was weaving their way through their fellow students as they talked
“Everything is so much more busy here than it was over at Crystal Prep.” Twilight said as she quickly sidestepped another student, returning a wave before readjusting her glasses as she fell back into step with Sunset and Applejack. “I mean it was busy over at Crystal Prep as well when everybody was trying to get to class but there wasn’t this much social interaction; everyone there usually just stayed with certain groups while here at Canterlot everyone’s always mingling and doing different things with everybody. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it may take some time to get used to.”
“I’m sure you’ll get used to it before you know it.” Sunset put a hand on Twilight’s shoulder smiled reassuringly. “And remember we’ll be here for you in case you need any help.”
“That’s right Twilight, we’ll be here whenever you need us.” Applejack nodded. “And you won’t be the only one havin’ to get used to a new school, we’ll be havin’ quite a few new transfers here soon.”
“Thank you, I really appreciate it.” Twilight smiled, but then her expression switched to one of curiosity. “Why will there be a lot of new transfers here?”
“There was a big fire next town over, high school and some of the neighborhood around it burned down. Here’s where they’re sending some of the students.” Applejack told her. “It was all over the news, surprised you didn’t hear about it.”
“I do recall hearing something about a fire, I didn’t know it was that bad.” Twilight said as she thought back. “I guess I was just too wrapped up in my studies to pay attention to the what was going on elsewhere…”
“It’s okay Twilight, I know how it can be to get so wrapped up in your work that you forget about everything else.” Sunset told her with an understanding look. “Just think of all these new arrivals as a chance to make even more friends.”
“Speaking of new arrivals you sure were quick to volunteer to show new students around when you heard Principle Celestia say something about it.” Applejack quirked an eyebrow with a bit of a knowing smirk.
“Well you know I just wanted to make sure the new students feel welcome and that they know they have friends here.” Sunset said brightly but saw that Applejack was still giving her the look. “And try and head off any potential magical problems that come walking in through the door again.” She admitted.
“While that is a good plan and I can understand why you want to do it, what’re the odds another group of supernatural creatures is gonna come walking in the front door?” Applejack questioned.
“Supernatural creatures? Again?” Twilight inquired, a bit shocked. “I knew there was something strange going on here but was never able to get close enough to get a good look at anything until the Friendship Games the other day. Got a bit too close then…”
“It’s okay Twilight.” Applejack patted her on the shoulder. “This happened a little while back at the Battle of the Bands.”
“Long story short; three girls showed up that called themselves the Dazzlings, turned out they were supernatural creatures known as Sirens that had been banished from Equestria. They came to try and use our magic to get their full power back so that they could take over and used their powers to manipulate everyone to get what they wanted.” Sunset explained. “But in the end we beat them and destroyed the source of their power.”
“Wow… I didn’t even begin to guess that something like that was going on back when I was trying to figure out what was going on here.” Twilight made a thoughtful expression. “Maybe I could help you check for magic; I could make something that could scan for magic.” A nervous look appeared on her face. “But not like that thing I brought to the Friendship Games, no definitely not like that.” Twilight said quickly. “More like the one I made before that, a device that just took readings. Maybe I could improve on that design without things going so wrong like last time.”
“That sounds like a great plan Twilight. Maybe I could help you work on that, I’m sure between the two of us we can make a device that’ll pick up any magic that comes to the school.” Sunset grinned, but then noticed a group of unfamiliar faces. “And that must be the must be the first group of new arrivals I’m supposed to show around.”
There were four of them, three girls and a boy, they were standing to the side of the hall watching the other students go by going through their normal morning routines, with only the occasional curious glance towards the new kids.
Sunset slowed her pace to study them a bit before introducing herself. They all had to be related somehow was the first thought that entered her mind, she thought the four just looked too similar not to be. They all had green skin, though one of the girls stood out a bit from the others as her skin was a darker green while the others were very light. They all had black hair as well but two of the girls had streaks of another color in their bangs. One girl had shoulder length hair and was wearing nearly all black; exceptions being the green straps on her boots and a belt, as well as a flaming wing design on her sleeveless top. The next girl had long hair with a reddish-orange streak in her bangs, she was wearing jeans and a green shirt along with a red jacket. The boy was also wearing all black except for his green shoes and designs on his pants that reminded Sunset of dragons, he also had very noticeable scars on his cheek. The darker green girl had a green streak in her bangs and was wearing a green sweater along with a black skirt that had red and purple strips that matched her boots.
“Good luck with the tour Sunset.” Applejack patted her on the back. “As for me and Twilight I think we’d better get Rainbow to stop that and head for class before she’s late again because she’s trying to break her record.”
Applejack motioned ahead of them, quite a ways down the hall Rainbow Dash could be seen juggling a soccer ball. Rainbow Dash was so focused on what she was doing she didn’t even notice the other students giving her a wide berth so that they wouldn’t accidentally get kicked or hit by the ball as she focused on keeping it from hitting the ground.
“See you two at lunch.” Sunset gave a brief wave as the other two girls continued down the hall then started to approach the new students. As she got closer she was able to hear what they were saying.
“A new high school, just great…” The girl in black gave an annoyed sigh as she looked around. “Is anyone else creeped out by the fact that absolutely everyone here is smiling?”
“Look at that rainbow-haired girl over there showing off, I bet I could beat her.” The girl in the red jacket said as she stared determinedly down the hall at Rainbow Dash.
“Nova.” The boy began; his voice was calm but had a hint of exasperation in it. “We’ve been here ten minutes, you shouldn’t be making a scene and challenging people already.”
The girl with the green streak in her hair gave a small gasp and grabbed the boy’s arm and she scooted a bit closer to him. “Did that blue guy just wink at me?”
“Hi I’m Sunset Shimmer.” She gave her best friendly smile as she introduced herself. “Principle Celestia sent me to show you around the school.”
“Yeah she said she’d be sending someone.” The girl in black replied as the four turned their attention to Sunset. “Told us to cram our junk in our lockers and wait.”
“You’ll have to excuse her, she’s less than enthused about being here.” The girl in the red jacket told Sunset as the girl in black just rolled her eyes. “Anyway I’m Shining Nova, but you can just call me Nova, nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too Nova.”
“The grumpy one here is Firecracker.” Shining Nova waved a hand towards the girl in black, who gave her a dirty look.
Firecracker looked over Sunset for a moment. “Nice jacket.” She finally said in a cool tone.
“Thanks.” Sunset decided to take it as a compliment and smiled.
“Next up is Dragon.” Shining Nova patted the boy on the shoulder.
Dragon held out a hand and Sunset shook it. “They’re from an accident.” He told her as she was staring at his face.
“What?” Sunset was a bit taken aback at the statement.
“The scars, got them in a bit of an accident.” Dragon clarified as he tapped the four jagged marks on his cheek. “I figured you were wondering about them.”
“Maybe just a little.” Sunset admitted a bit a sheepishly.
“Everyone does.” Dragon stated matter-of-factly then shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
“I’m Blooming Hope.” The girl with the green streak in her hair said quietly. She had taken a couple steps back and was halfway hidden behind Dragon, but leaned out enough so that Sunset could see her.
“It’s nice to meet you Blooming Hope.” Sunset smiled warmly, trying her best to not make the girl anymore nervous then she apparently already was. Though Sunset couldn’t help but be amused inwardly, the girl’s voice was almost as quiet as Fluttershy’s. She also noticed that while one of Blooming Hope’s eyes matched the emerald green of the other three her other eye was brown.
Before Sunset could say anything else Shining Nova grabbed Blooming Hope by one arm and pulled her into a sideways hug. “Me and Hope here are actually twins!” She said with a big grin as she put her face next to Blooming Hope’s, who didn’t seem to be as excited as her sister about the attention being put on them. “And Firecracker and Dragon are our cousins, and each other’s cousins too.” Shining Nova laughed. “You know, in case you were wondering why we all look so much alike.”
“Yeah I kinda figured that you were all family.” Sunset grinned back at Shining Nova. “It’s great to meet all of you and let me say Welcome to Canterlot High. How about we get to the tour I’m supposed to take you on?”
Sunset lead the four around the school, a task made easier when the bell finally rang and the rest of the students headed for class leaving the halls clear. She showed them the various classes, offices, the lunchroom, gym, the library and computer labs. Sunset did her best to answer what questions they had. She was actually quite relieved they showed an interest; the Dazzlings hadn’t shown an interest in anything except for the music festival, which was one of the things that made them seem so off to her. The new arrivals were acting like one would expect of typical teens, which was a very good sign in Sunset’s opinion. Eventually they ended up back by the lockers where they started.
“Well that covers most everything, if you have anymore questions feel free to ask.” Sunset said as they finished up their tour. She was silent for a moment as she tried to think of some other subject to talk about. “So what brings you all to Canterlot High?”
“A death in the family.” Firecracker stated simply.
“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Sunset mentally berated herself, feeling like she had just put her foot in her mouth.
“Oh don’t worry, it’s not that big a deal!” Shining Nova quickly said before Sunset berated herself too much. Then made a pained expression since she didn’t mean it quite the way it sounded. “I mean it’s okay that you asked that because you couldn’t have known about that. It was just our Grandmother that died. Not that that’s okay, we’re sad about it. We didn’t actually know her all that well but we’re still sad about it… She was…” Shining Nova began to trail off, it was not going how she intended.
“She was a stern person who we didn’t see all that often.” Dragon added as he put a put a hand on Shining Nova’s shoulder and gently pulled her back. “Being the only family she had left our moms came back to take care of things and get everything settled and brought us along too since they couldn’t leave us back where we used to live. Then they decided to enroll us in their old school and so here we are.”
“Ah, thanks for answering my question.” Sunset tried to force a smile hoping to make the moment less awkward while really wishing she had something to change the subject.
“Oh Miss Shimmer, may I have a moment?” A familiar voice called out from behind Sunset.
“Miss Cheerilee!” Sunset spun around to face the teacher, grateful for the distraction away from the awkwardness. “What can I help you with?”
“I was just wondering if you could return this to Miss Pie for me.” Cheerilee pulled out a rolled up poster from the bunch she had tucked under one arm. “Her name was on the list of those who wanted their musical festival posters back. I haven’t been able to catch her this morning so I was hoping you could give it back to her for me.”
“I’d be glad to.” Sunset took the poster, noticing that it still smelled like cake. Then saw the others looking at her inquisitively. “Oh! Sorry about that. We had a musical festival a little while back; well actually it became a Battle of the Bands, it was quite an event to say the least.” Sunset paused a moment, trying to think of something else to say rather than go into all the details of what happened at the Battle of the Bands. “So, are any of you into music?”
“Well of course, I love music!” Shining Nova said with a big smile. “In fact…”
“Just don’t ask her to sing or play an instrument, she couldn’t carry a tune to save her life.” Firecracker cut her off, earning a dirty look from Shining Nova. Firecracker then motioned towards Dragon and Blooming Hope. “They’re the musicians of the family.”
“It’s more of a hobby really, playing music helps me relax.” Dragon said nonchalantly then looked towards Blooming Hope. “She’s more of a musician, even writes songs.”
“Well I try and write songs, I really don’t think any of them are good enough yet to play in front of an audience or anything though.” Blooming Hope averted her gaze away from the others and fidgeted with her fingers a bit.
“I’m sure they’re great.” Sunset said reassuringly and smiled at Blooming Hope. “Maybe you can show them to me sometime.”
Cheerilee cleared her throat to gain their attention. “While it’s great that you’re sharing and making friends might I suggest you get to class if the tour’s over. First class isn’t over yet and I’m sure the teachers would like a chance to meet their new students on the first day rather than having to wait until tomorrow.”
“Oh right.” Sunset blushed a little, a bit embarrassed that she had lost track of time and gotten off track of what she was supposed to be doing. “So what are your first classes? I’ll tell you which way you need to go.”
Class schedules were brought out and Sunset looked them over, giving directions for each one. Needed items were pulled from lockers and soon everybody was ready to head for their classes.
“I’ll see you all later,” Sunset told them before they went their separate ways. “Feel free to come sit with me and my friends during lunch, I’d love to introduce you all to them.”
Everyone then went in different directions, all having different starting classes. Cheerilee watched them all go and stood there alone for a moment smiling, happy to see new friends being made, before continuing on with her own task.
*******
Rainbow Dash walked down the hallway with a purpose, her eyes scanning around at all the students looking for one in particular. Normally she’d be heading for the cafeteria to get some lunch but she had heard things earlier that made her want to meet one of the new arrivals. She finally spotted the one she was looking for talking with the other new arrivals and headed in their direction. As Rainbow Dash got closer she started picking up their conversation.
“While it’s great that you’ve already found something that you really want to get into do you really want to skip lunch just to get an early start on it?” Dragon asked Blooming Hope.
“It’s okay, I’m really not all that hungry right now.” Blooming Hope answered and smiled brightly. “Besides I got an idea for this project I really like but will probably take a bit of work so I’d like to get started on it as soon as I can.”
“I’m not all that hungry either.” Firecracker added. “Besides a teacher wanted to talk with me so I’ll be bailing on lunch too.”
“Don’t worry Dragon I won’t leave you all by your lonesome at lunch.” Shining Nova gave him a playful punch on the arm.
“You Shining Nova?” Rainbow Dash asked loudly as she stood behind the girl in question.
“Yeah that’s me,” Shining Nova replied as she spun around to see who was asking for her. “Who wants to kno…” She stopped when she saw who it was. “I remember seeing you this morning, heard your name was Rainbow Dash.”
“That’s right.” Rainbow Dash gave a rather smug grin. “I heard you’re supposed to be pretty good at sports; also heard you said something about how you think you can beat me. How about we see if you can back up that boast?”
“Oh you are so on for some one-on-one.” Shining Nova grinned fiercely. “ Just name the game.”
Behind Shining Nova Firecracker rolled her eyes, Dragon gave a bit of an exasperated sigh and Blooming Hope just smiled a bit nervously.
“Here we go again.” Blooming Hope said quietly enough that only Dragon and Firecracker heard her, then cleared her thought a bit before speaking up. “Good luck Nova; if anyone needs me I’ll be in the library looking up some things for my project.”
“Yeah I got someplace I need to be so I’ll be taking off too.” Firecracker said as she walked off in the opposite direction as Blooming Hope.
“Well unlike everyone else I’m staving so I’m going to get some lunch.” Dragon waved as he started to walk away. “Have fun Nova.”
“Since the field’s still being cleaned up let’s head to the gym.” Rainbow Dash suggested. “I think some basketball would be a good way to decide this.”
“Oh are you gonna regret picking that.” Shining Nova told her with a confident smile. “Basketball is my game.”
The pair headed over to the gym and found it mostly empty except for a few students sitting around near the walls eating or just talking, there was one student practicing his free throws. Rainbow Dash gave a quick whistle and held up her hands and the student practicing smiled and grabbed another ball from the ball rack and tossed it to Rainbow Dash, who smiled and nodded back in thanks. Shining Nova followed her across the gym to the opposite basket.
So how about the first to sink fifteen baskets wins?” Rainbow Dash suggested as she spun the ball on her finger.
“Sounds good.” Shining Nova agreed with a laugh. “Just don’t let me hear you complaining when you lose.”
“We’ll see about that.” Rainbow Dash passed the ball to Shining Nova.
“You’re letting me have the ball first?” Shining Nova smirked. “You just might regret that.”
“Show me what you got.” Rainbow Dash challenged.
Shining Nova began dribbling the ball as Rainbow Dash stood ready for whatever she might try. Suddenly Shining Nova made her move; she faked right and quickly spun back around to the left, Rainbow couldn’t correct in time giving Shining Nova a clear shot. Taking her shot she sent the ball sailing through the air, Rainbow Dash tried to make a grab for it but the ball was just barely out of reach. The ball went right into the basket without touching the rim.
“Oh Yeah! Nothing but net!” Shining Nova cheered, then touched a finger to her tongue and then to her hip making a hissing sound. “Yeah I’m just that hot.”
“Not bad, looks like I might have to take you seriously.” Rainbow Dash commented as she picked up the ball. “You ready for the real game now?”
“Bring it on.” Shining Nova said confidently.
*******
A young man with light green skin sat alone in the lunchroom of Canterlot High, his emerald eyes scanning around from where he sat at a table in the corner of the room. Dragon had specifically chosen the spot so that he could see the entire room and check out what sort of people were at this school. Though he hadn’t expected he’d be eating lunch alone on the first day; Firecracker had to go talk to a teacher, Shining Nova was playing some one-on-one in the gym with that Rainbow Dash girl, and Blooming Hope was excited about some class project and was looking up stuff in the library. Having nothing else to do and no one to hang out with Dragon simply went to eat lunch alone.
Dragon was spending his time observing the other students as he ate; trying to figure out the various cliques, who hung out with who and the general flow of the school. Which was proving surprising difficult to pin down. Going by general appearances he could place individual students into what cliques they’d most likely be a part of in other schools he had been to but there was something different about this Canterlot High. The students mixed freely and a bit randomly in Dragon’s opinion; different people sitting and talking together, some even switching groups at times to talk to different people. He had noticed it a bit in the hallways during the morning but it really became apparent with so many students gathered in one room. Canterlot High was indeed proving to be a difficult school to figure out.
Dragon also noted the students he had morning classes with, he hadn’t learned all the names yet but he was able to recognize the faces from the classes he had. Like the girl with the two-tone blue hair bouncing her head along to the music she was listening to. He had heard other students calling her DJ-Pon3, which Dragon figured was a stage name of some sort, while the English teacher had called her Miss Scratch. She had been quite she sneaky listening to her music in class; being able to quickly slip out her ear buds and palm them along with her music player whenever the teacher looked her way or walked by. Then there was the gray girl with blond hair and off-kilter eyes, he hadn’t caught her full name yet either but she was apparently a math whiz seeing as she had absolutely aced the math quiz that morning. Then there was Trixie, or rather The Great and Powerful Trixie as she had told him multiple times. In history class it had been some sort of review day with the students being paired off, the teacher had paired Dragon with Trixie and asked her to put in extra effort to make sure he was all caught up with what they had been studying. Dragon had to admit Trixie did do what the teacher asked even though she seemed to try and make a show out of it; that girl sure liked to talk, and loved having a captive audience.
“Hey there!”
Dragon nearly jumped and fell off his seat at the unexpected voice that suddenly came from right next to him but managed to keep control of himself and remain seated. He turned his head and found another face way too close to his own; the smiling pink face had blue eyes and was topped by darker pink hair. Dragon tried to lean back to get back some personal space but the girl just leaned forward and kept the same distance from him.
“Where did you come from?” Dragon wondered aloud as the blue eyes kept staring into his green. There was no way this girl should have been able to sneak up on him like that, there were no doors near him and he should have spotted that much pink coming across the room towards him.
“Well it all started a long time ago…” The girl finally leaned back and grinned as she began her tale. “My Mom and Dad loved each other very much…”
“No, no. I didn’t mean that ‘where did you come from?’ story” Dragon quickly cut her off before she got too far into that tale. "I meant how did you get right here?” He pointed at the chair she was sitting in for emphasis.
“I walked over and sat down silly.” The pink girl giggled
Dragon actually found himself giving the area around him another look over just in case he did miss a door or something, but again found nothing. He just didn’t understand it, this girl should not have been able to sneak up on him like that.
“I’m Pinkie Pie.” She finally introduced herself and grinned again while holding out a hand.
“I’m Dragon.” He shook the offered hand while doing his best to keep his expression neutral as he continued to try and figure out how she had pulled it off.
“You’re new aren’t you?!” Pinkie asked excitedly as she yanked his hand instead of releasing it, bringing them nearly nose-to-nose again, then continued on without giving him a chance to answer. “I’m sure I haven’t seen you before and I know practically everyone in this school, so if I haven’t seen you before you must be new! I saw you and three new girls this morning and I wanted to come over and say hi but I couldn’t come over and say hi because I was taking something to a teacher for Principal Celestia and by the time I was done classes were starting so it was too late to come and say hi; but then I came in for lunch and saw you sitting here and knew it was the perfect time to come say hi.” Pinkie stopped briefly, finally releasing Dragon’s hand, and looked around. “Where are the other three? I wanted to say hi to them too. Your sisters? You all kinda look alike so I figured you were family. Oh! Are you quadruplets?”
“Ah no, we’re cousins actually.” It took Dragon a moment to answer when he realized Pinkie had finally stopped talking and was actually waiting for an answer. “Well Shining Nova and Blooming Hope are actually twins.” Dragon ran his finger over his hair tracing the outline of the twins’ distinctive hair stripes.
“I know a pair of twins, but they’re just cute little babies. I’ve never met high school twins before.” Pinkie was nearly bouncing with excitement. “So where are they? Why aren’t they here eating lunch?”
“Class stuff mostly.” Dragon explained, leaning back a bit because Pinkie was leaning up close again. “Not sure of all the details since I didn’t have classes with any of them this morning.”
“I didn’t have morning classes with any of you either.” Pinkie brought a hand up to her chin in thought. “So what classes do you have for the rest of the day?”
Dragon pulled his class schedule out of his pocket and handed it over to Pinkie figuring it’d have all the information she’d ask about for his classes; be it teachers, times or specific classes. She took the paper and the pink girl read it over, making various ‘hmmmm…’ and ‘uh-huh’ sounds. Then her eyes went wide and she made a loud, high-pitched gasping sound.
“What’s wrong?” Dragon asked.
“We’re afternoon class buddies!” Pinkie cheered with a huge grin.
Before Dragon could ask what exactly she meant Pinkie grabbed him and pulled him into a hug, his face being buried in her chest. And that confirmed it for Dragon, this girl had absolutely no sense of personal space. He tried to grab onto the table or chair to try and get some leverage to get out of her hold but Pinkie was shaking him back and forth so much while hugging and laughing that Dragon’s attempts to get free were reduced to ineffectual flailing.
“It’s been forever since I’ve had so many classes in a row with somebody! I’ll show you where all the classes are, introduce you to the teachers and students, and then we can sit together!” Pinkie was just ecstatic at the idea. “Won’t that be great?!”
“Pin-e le goff of meff! Mmmm!” Dragon tried to talk but his words were severely muffled because of how tight she was hugging him, his face still being pressed against her chest. And he swore all he could smell was sugar, like Pinkie had a frosted coating. Though if she did that might explain a couple things…
Pinkie realized what the problem was and finally let Dragon go. He quickly leaned back took a deep breath, it had been somewhat difficult to breathe while she had been hugging him. Dragon looked over at Pinkie, who seemed so happy about the ‘class buddies’ thing that he couldn’t even feel mad; instead he breathed a sigh of relief and was just glad to be out of that grip of hers. So Dragon just straitened out his hair and finished off his drink, finding he suddenly had a craving for cotton candy and wasn’t sure why.
“So what were you doing before?” Pinkie asked after a moment
“Hmmm?” Dragon was tripped-up a bit by the sudden subject change.
“I mean what were you doing when you were sitting here eating? You were all like this.” Pinkie assumed a perfect imitation of his posture and neutral expression, even holding an imaginary sandwich, as she looked around the room.
“Oh that. I was studying the different students here.” Dragon answered as he looked around the room again. “Just trying to get to know them.”
“That’s not how you get to know people Silly.” Pinkie started laughing. “You can’t just look at them, you gotta go talk to them! C’mon I’ll show you how easy it is!”
Before Dragon could say anything Pinkie grabbed his hand, pulled him out of his seat and started practically dragging him across the room. Doing his best to match his pace to Pinkie’s Dragon wondered how in the world he had gotten into this situation.
*******
“Why does Mr. Donkey always have to give so much homework on a Monday? Most of the students are still tryin’ to get back into gear after the weekend.” Applejack groaned as she walked. “I could understand givin’ so much on a Friday; it’d be the weekend and it’d ‘keep us busy and out of trouble’ as some of the teachers like to say.”
“I think the weekend is why he assigns so much homework at the beginning of the week.” Sunset replied as she shifted around the contents of her backpack a bit before slinging it back over her shoulder. “He figures we’re all nice and rested after the weekend and have plenty of energy for the extra work, the end of the week not so much.”
“I could help you if you like Applejack.” Twilight offered.
“Thank ya kindly Twilight.” Applejack said with a smile but then gave a resigned sigh. “But this is supposed to be a single student type assignment so I’ll just have to buckle down and get it done myself. Maybe we can partner up next time we do a group assignment.”
Ahead of the trio a door opened and they saw one of the new arrivals, Firecracker, walk out.
“Thank you for your time Firecracker.” They heard a teacher’s voice say as the girl moved into the hallway and closed the door behind her.
“Hi Firecracker.” Sunset greeted as they walked up to her. “How do you like Canterlot High so far?”
“It’s alright.” Firecracker answered without changing her expression, which was somewhere between bored and slightly annoyed. “Less annoying then other schools I’ve been to anyway.”
“Well that’s good to hear.” Sunset tried to stay positive, still unsure how to best interact with Firecracker. “Let me introduce you to two of my friends; this is Applejack and Twilight Sparkle.”
Applejack tipped her hat while Twilight gave a small wave, Firecracker just nodded.
“So was the teacher giving you a warning or something?” Applejack asked. “I heard you really told off Diamond Tiara this morning.”
“Eh, the little snot was asking for it.” Firecracker shrugged. “But no, teacher just wanted to know how my mom and aunts were doing. She went to school with them here back in the day apparently.”
“ My family’s been going here forever too, my Granny Smith’s been the lunch lady here since practically the beginning of the school.” Applejack laughed. “She probably knew them too.”
“Well if she’s ever said anything about the ‘Terrible Trio’ or ‘Terror Triplets’ that’d be them; at least according to what I was just told, never heard anything about that from them.” Firecracker smirked and shook her head. “Their actual names are Cherry Bomb, Emerald Heart and Phoenix.”
“Actually…” Applejack began as she thought back to the stories Granny Smith had told her. “Granny has told some tales about them.”
“Were they really that bad?” Twilight asked. “I mean if words like ‘Terrible’ and ‘Terror’ were used to refer to them.”
“According to Granny they really livened things up around here back in the day, some of their stories are some of her favorites to tell.” Applejack grinned.
“I wouldn’t know really, they never told us much about their time here.” Firecracker told them. “They just told us that they used to have a lot of fun.”
“So are we going to have to worry about you and your cousins picking up where your moms left off?” Sunset joked
“Nah, I’m not planning to anyway. As long as no one ticks me off or seriously annoys me you got nothing to worry about.” Firecracker replied with a bit of a smirk. “Definitely not Hope, she’s pretty much the exact opposite of a person who would do that. Dragon’s usually too wrapped up in his own stuff to do anything like that. Nova though… depending on how competitive she gets with that Rainbow Dash girl that could cause some trouble.”
“Rainbow’s a competitive one too,” Applejack gave a bit of a laugh, then sighed. “We might need to keep an eye on them.”
Just then they heard a bit of a commotion down the hall, they turned to see Pinkie practically dragging Dragon around by the hand. She was darting from group to group, person to person, anyone that was in the hallway and introducing them to Dragon then quickly moving on to the next. When she saw Sunset, Applejack and Twilight she waved and rushed on over.
“Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie.” She introduced herself to Firecracker with a huge smile.
“Pinkie, this is my cousin Firecracker.” Dragon waved towards her with his free hand, unable to move his other because of Pinkie’s grip on it.
“And this is Applejack, Twilight and Sunset.” Pinkie said brightly, then realized something. “Oh yeah, you already met Sunset.”
“What are you doing Pinkie?” Sunset asked while trying to hold back a laugh, she had a pretty good guess already though.
“I found Dragon all alone in the lunch room so I went over and said hi, we talked and then I decided to help him get to know everyone.” Pinkie explained. “I’ve introduced him to Principal Celestia, Vice Principle Luna, Granny Smith…”
As Pinkie was talking Dragon tried to pry Pinkie’s fingers loose from his hand, but her grip was so tight that he couldn’t even get his fingers under hers. Firecracker noticed what he was doing and snickered earning her an annoyed look from Dragon, Pinkie didn’t even notice.
“…and we still have half the school left to go.” Pinkie finished her explanation. “And if I’m going to get Dragon introduced to everyone before the end of lunch we’d better get going!”
Pinkie darted off pulling Dragon behind her leaving the others just staring after them.
*******
Blooming Hope walked among the shelves of the library, while she came to get started on her project she wanted to familiarize herself with the library first. It was a very impressive library, especially for a high school, none of her old schools had libraries nearly so large. Two levels with shelves that seemed to go on and on, Blooming Hope thought it might be possible to go back to some quiet corner and actually camp out without anyone else even realizing it. If it wasn’t for having actual classes she could happily spend hours in the library simply reading whatever books caught her eye.
But she wasn’t in the library to daydream, she had something she wanted to do. She had already checked the library catalog and was already gathering the books she needed as she wandered the library; spotting the last book she needed Blooming Hope pulled it from the shelf and added it to the stack she already had. With the books in hand she headed back toward the front of the library; setting them down on a table near the computers so that she could easily check the internet for reference Blooming Hope pulled a notebook out of her backpack so that she could get to work.
After several minutes of working Blooming Hope thought she was making some good progress into planning of her assignment. But then unexpectedly there was a light tap on her shoulder; being so absorbed in her work and not expecting it at all the tap startled her, Blooming Hope let out a quiet shriek and jumped out of her seat. Behind her she heard someone let out their own quiet shriek and the sound of feet hitting the floor as someone jumped back. Quickly spinning around Blooming Hope saw another student, a girl with long pink hair who looked to be on the verge of running away.
“I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle…” They both began then stopped to let the other talk, and then both started again at the same time. “It’s my fault, I really should have…”
They both stopped again and after a moment they both began giggling.
“I’m Blooming Hope,” She introduced herself. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too Blooming Hope, I’m Fluttershy.” She said with a bright smile
“So is there something I can help you with Fluttershy?” Blooming Hope asked as she straightened out her chair, having nearly knocked it down when she had jumped.
“Oh I was helping a friend find some books for a project she was planning.” Fluttershy explained and then pointed to one of the books Blooming Hope had. “And I think you have one of them with you.”
“Oh! I was using this for a project too.” Blooming Hope held up the book. “But I’d be happy to share.”
“That’s wonderful, I’ll let her know right away.” Fluttershy pulled out her phone and began sending a text message.
A moment later Blooming Hope saw another student approaching them, a gorgeous girl with pearl white skin and purple hair.
“I am Rarity, charmed to meet you.” She introduced herself as she reached the table and flipped her hair back, but then a look of recognition came to her face. “I know you, you’re one of our new arrivals and we just had a class together. Blooming Hope was it not?”
“Yes.” Blooming Hope blushed a little. “Me, my sister and cousins started here today.”
“I believe Fluttershy and I have already met two of them, Firecracker and Dragon. Your cousins?” Rarity inquired and Blooming Hope nodded. “Firecracker was speaking with some of our friends while Dragon was being dragged around by another friend of ours friend Pinkie Pie, who seems determined to introduce him to everyone in the school before lunch is over.” She laughed a bit at the memory of Pinkie pulling Dragon around. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your sister yet but we’ve heard she’s in the gym playing a game with our friend Rainbow Dash.”
“Yeah Shining Nova can be more than a little competitive when it comes to sports.” Blooming Hope said with a bit of a nervous smile. “She was even a sports star at our old school so when Rainbow Dash challenged her there was no way she wasn’t going to take her up on it.”
“Rainbow Dash is a sports star too, and very competitive.” Fluttershy told Blooming Hope. “Anything that can be made into a competition she’ll give her all in.”
“So does Shining Nova.” Blooming Hope nodded, then laughed a little. “Back in elementary she used to challenge people to silly little competitions like catching the most falling leaves or who could drink the most chocolate milk.”
“I think it’ll be good for Rainbow Dash to have someone around who’s willing and able to compete with her.” Rarity commented with a smile then motioned to the book that Fluttershy and Blooming Hope had talked about earlier. “So do you enjoy fashion?”
“Well yes, I don’t really dress up all that much but I do like to see all the different designs people come up with and even look at the styles throughout history.” Blooming Hope held up her notebook. “I’m not that far along yet but the project I was planning was going to be a history of musical fashion.”
“Oh that is simply a marvelous idea!” Rarity beamed. “Mine was a more general history of fashion over the last century, but yours sounds so much more fun.”
“Thank you.” Blooming Hope smiled bashfully at Rarity’s praise.
“Ideeeea! Why don’t we work together?” Rarity suggested as she excitedly took Blooming Hope’s hands into her own. “Miss Blossom said we could partner up and I just know we’d make a fabulous team!”
Blooming Hope was stunned for a moment, unsure how to react; but then she though it over for a moment and came to a decision. “Sure, it sounds like it could be fun.”
“Wonderful!” Rarity practically cheered. “I already have so many ideas.”
Rarity took a seat next to Blooming Hope and pulled a notebook and pen out of her backpack and began sketching something, while Fluttershy took the seat on the opposite side.
“I’d like to help, but I’m not in Miss Blossom’s class.” Fluttershy apologized. “But I’m sure you’ll do a great job.”
Blooming Hope saw Fluttershy unzip her backpack and a white rabbit poked its head out; Fluttershy petted the rabbit the raised a finger to her mouth in the signal for ‘shhh’ and smiled, then held her backpack closer to Blooming Hope so that she could pet the bunny too.
*******
Rainbow Dash dribbled the ball as she planned her move, Shining Nova stood between her and the basket ready to head off any attempts for the basket she might make. It had been a surprisingly intense game and the score was now 14-14, the next basket would win the game. They were surrounded by cheering people as quite a crowd had gathered to watch the impromptu game; while most were cheering for Rainbow Dash many were cheering for Shining Nova too as the new arrival was doing very well.
Finally making her move Rainbow Dash raised the ball up and began to jump, Shining Nova jumped up as high as she could to block the shot. But that was the rainbow-haired teen’s plan as she had barely jumped at all and she brought the ball back down as her feet almost immediately touched back down. She spun around her opponent and before Shining Nova could get turned around Rainbow Dash took her shot. The ball sailed through the air, hitting one side of the rim and then bouncing to the other side. The ball spun around the rim for what seemed like an uncomfortably long time to the two players before finally falling into the net.
A huge cheer went up from the crowd and Rainbow Dash jumped and let out a yell in celebration, Shining Nova simply sighed and hung her head at her defeat.
“Good game.” Rainbow Dash held out her hand. “Been a while since I’ve had to give it my all to win some one-on-one.”
“Yeah it was.” Shining Nova shook her hand and smirked. “But I know how you play now, next time things are going to be different.”
“Anytime, anywhere, any game” Rainbow Dash smirked back.
“Congrats Rainbow, didn’t see the whole game but for a while there it looked like you were having a rough time of it.” Applejack commented from where she was standing with the others. “Just lost me five bucks though.”
“What can I say? When the competition is tough I gotta do that much better to win.” Rainbow Dash grinned proudly, then a look of annoyed realization appeared on her face. “Wait a minute… You bet against me?!”
“Sorry Rainbow,” Applejack shrugged with a bit of a smile. “From what I saw Shining Nova was doing good all the way till the end, looked like she just might’ve won.”
“Well next time you’ll win that bet.” Shining Nova said with confidence.
“We’ll see about that.” Rainbow Dash smiled and raised her fist and her and Shining Nova fist bumped.
“But thanks for the vote of confidence… err…” Shining Nova stumbled a bit when she realized she didn’t know the blond girl’s name.
“It’s Applejack, pleased to meet ya.” She introduced herself, then waved a hand behind her. “And this here is Twilight, and I believe you already know Sunset.”
“Nice to meet you.” Shining Nova said as she returned Twilight’s wave.
“Rainbow Dash!” A voice rang out over the crowd.
“And that’d be Pinkie Pie.” Applejack told Shining Nova when she saw her looking around for the source of the voice.
Pinkie appeared out of the crowd, still pulling Dragon behind her. She finally let go of his hand and ran up to Rainbow Dash.
“Congratulations Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie cheered. “I didn’t get to see it because I was busy introducing Dragon to everyone but I heard you won the big game!”
“It was hardly a big game Pinkie, just a little one-on-one.” Rainbow Dash tried to correct her.
“Here’s a congratulatory cupcake.” Pinkie pulled a large cupcake out of her hair and handed it to Rainbow Dash.
“Thanks Pinkie…” Rainbow Dash said as she looked at the blue cupcake with a #1 written in gold frosting on top; she was still trying to figure out how Pinkie carried around such things in her hair without messing up her hair or the food.
A ways behind Pinkie Dragon was shaking his hand some to get the feeling back into it when Firecracker walked up to him.
“Did you ever consider just chewing your arm off to get away from her?” Firecracker asked with a smirk.
“No way.” Dragon answered as he wiggled his fingers making sure he had full movement. “I need both my hands.”
Pinkie then came pushing Rainbow Dash along. “Guys, this is Rainbow Dash.” Pinkie waved an arm presenting Rainbow Dash, then waved the other way. “Rainbow Dash this is Firecracker and Dragon.”
“Yo.” Rainbow Dash said simply.
“Hey.” Dragon responded while Firecracker just nodded.
Just then a bell rang out catching everyone’s attention and all the students still in the gym began to leave.
“Warning bell, gotta get to class! Come on afternoon class buddy!” Pinkie grabbed Dragon’s hand again and shot out of the room, grinning all the way.”
“Afternoon class buddy?” Rainbow Dash questioned.
“Don’t rightly know.” Applejack told her then motioned to one of the doors. “We can ask about it later, for now let’s get to our next class.” She then noticed Shining Nova looking over her schedule. “So what’s your next class?”
“History with Mr. Whooves.” Shining Nova read, then held her schedule a bit closer. “Or is that Dr.? It’s kinda smudged.”
“We have him next too.” Rainbow Dash told her. “Come on, we’ll show you the way.”
As Shining Nova walked with Applejack and Rainbow Dash out of the gym Sunset saw that Firecracker was also looking at her schedule and the accompanying map.
“If I’m remembering your schedule correctly you have Miss Sunlight next right?” Sunset asked as she walked up next to Firecracker.
“Yeah,” Firecracker folded up her schedule and put it back in her pocket. “She doesn’t live up to her name does she?”
“Well that depends what sort of mood you catch her in. Most of the time she’s serious about her work, but if she’s in a really good mood she does live up to her name.” Sunset explained. “Twilight and I have her next too, we can show you the way if you want.”
“Sure.” Firecracker agreed and began walking with Sunset and Twilight.
“I have my notes organized and ready.” Twilight announced as she opened up a notebook. “I hope Miss Sunlight finds my short summaries of the chapters we read yesterday satisfactory.”
Sunset looked into Twilight’s notebook and saw that her ‘short’ summaries took up a full page for each chapter they read, she hadn’t even used a quarter of a page for any of her own chapter summaries.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine Twilight.” Sunset assured her.
*******
Sunset sat out on the front steps of Canterlot High waiting for her friends so that they could walk home together now the school was done for the day. While she did talk to or wave to the other students that were passing her by she was mainly occupied with writing a letter to Princess Twilight. Just letting the Princess know that everything on this side of the portal was fine and that this world’s Twilight was adjusting to Caterlot High and general events along with asking how things were doing in Equestria. She just finished up the letter when her friends started to come out the doors.
“Well that’s another Monday over and done, rest of the week oughta be smooth sailing.” Applejack said with a bit of relief.
“Except for that test in Whooves’ class on Friday.” Rainbow Dash groaned
“Oh come on Rainbow, it ain’t gonna be that bad.” Applejack just shook her head at her friend. “Specially if you’ve been keeping up on your notes.”
“Easy for you to say, you can keep your notes nice and organized. These are mine.” Rainbow Dash pulled a mass of papers out of her backpack, Applejack simply sighed at the sight.
“I can help you organize your notes.” Twilight offered after initially cringing at the sight of Rainbow Dash’s notes.
“Thanks Twilight, you’re a lifesaver!.” Rainbow Dash put an arm around the violet girl’s shoulders and pulled her into a sideways hug with a grin, Twilight just smile and blushed at the sudden hug.
“Were you sending a letter to Princess Twilight?” Fluttershy asked Sunset as she saw her putting her journal into her backpack.
“Yeah just some general update stuff and letting her know everyone is fine.” Sunset answered as she stood up and brushed herself off a bit.
Rarity finally came out the door while texting on her phone; Pinkie was walking right behind trying to peek over Rarity’s shoulder to see whom she was chatting with.
“Ironing out the details for a new outfit for someone?” Sunset took a guess about what Rarity was texting about, and hopefully satisfy Pinkie’s curiosity at the same time.
“Not quite, just chatting with Blooming Hope about a project we’re working on together.” Rarity answered while continuing to text. “We’re going to have so much fun with this.”
“Twilight!” A voice called out.
Twilight spun around to the source of the voice and Spike came running up and leapt into her arms.
“Spike!” Twilight smiled and hugged her dog. “Where have you been all afternoon?”
“Chasing squirrels.” Spike replied and wagged his tail. “You know me and squirrels.”
“Spike!” Fluttershy gasped, but quickly took on a reprimanding tone. “You shouldn’t chase little squirrels around; you could be scaring them and they could get hurt, or you might get hurt.”
“Don’t worry Fluttershy, it’s really just a game me and the squirrels play.” Spike tried to assure her. “I chase them they run up a tree, I bark and they toss acorns at me. A lot of acorns if they get their buddies to help them… But no worries, it doesn’t even hurt if they actually hit me.”
“And what would you do if you ever caught one of them?” Twilight inquired.
“Hmmm… I’m not sure.” Spike considered. “Maybe just tag them and tell them they’re it and then they can chase me around for a while.”
“Hey! I have a great idea!” Pinkie suddenly spoke up, startling half the group. “Let’s all go down to Sugarcube Corner!”
Pinkie skipped ahead of the group while the others just smiled and followed, that was Pinkie’s suggestion practically everyday after school.
Sunset stopped for a moment and looked around, for a moment she thought she felt something… but saw nothing out of the ordinary anywhere around her. After looking around a bit more Sunset thought it must have been her imagination and hurried to catch up with the others.
Across the street was the typical sight of the neighborhood; houses, yards, trees, pretty much what was always there to see. However there was something that was unseen, something hidden even in plain view. If someone were to walk into the middle of one of the empty yards they would find themselves passing through some sort of field that hid what was within from sight. What they would find within would be most unwelcome at Canterlot High, the Dazzlings. With the Dazzlings was a figure dressed in a dark hooded coat and scarf.
“Are you sure they can’t see us Starwind?” Adagio demanded. “She looked right at us.”
“My spell completely conceals us from view as well as keeping us from being heard, even if she was able to sense something it wasn’t enough to cause her concern.” Starwind explained calmly. “Is she the one?”
“Yes, Sunset Shimmer’s the one.” Adagio growled as she glared in Sunset’s direction.
“So she’s the one who cast the first stone.” Starwind commented more to himself than anyone else.
“But she didn’t throw a rock, she stole a crown.” Sonata said in response to Starwind’s comment.
“Merely an expression Sonata.” Starwind told her as he raised his hands in front of him. “Now let’s take a closer look.”
Starwind made a few quick motions and different signs with his hands; the air in front of him shimmered briefly before a flat rectangular shape came into existence, it flickered a bit but Starwind touched a hand to it and various symbols appeared on its surface.
“For a magic spell that sure looks an awful lot like a computer touch screen.” Aria observed as she looked over Starwind’s shoulder.
“It’s a useful interface style, the magic users of this world have been making use of it for a long time.” Starwind said as he began to touch different symbols.
As the Dazzlings watched Starwind work a picture of Sunset appeared on the screen and several words and numbers flashed by along with more symbols that looked like readouts.
“Yes, she is indeed from another world. While her readings are slightly different they are close enough to you three to confirm that she is definitely from the same world.” Starwind announced as he read the information flashing across the screen.
“We’ve told you that already, multiple times.” Adagio huffed, the pointed towards Twilight. “So is that one and her dog.”
“Nope.” Starwind said simply as he switched his focus to Twilight. “All readings indicate that she and her dog are from this world.”
“Then your readings are wrong.” Adagio tried to poke the screen for emphasis, but her finger simply passed right through it. “I know for a fact that she came from Equestria.”
“Her dog talks.” Aria added matter-of-factly.
“A talking animal isn’t a difficult trick if you know the right spells.” Starwind stated. “You can even find them naturally in this world if you know where to look.”
“You know talking animals?” Sonata said excitedly, to which the other Dazzlings rolled their eyes.
“Yes, but with the exception of that dog there are none native to this area.” Starwind answered and Sonata sighed in disappointment.
“Or she could be from Equestria.” Adagio said sounding a bit exasperated. “You already said your magic can’t directly examine theirs so maybe their Equestrian magic is screwing up your scans of them.”
“No it is not, observe.” Starwind said simply.
Scans of the whole group appeared on the screen, their images having slight auras around them. Starwind brought his hands together with index fingers out then separated them, as he did so all the images of the group all moved to the left while the auras that had been around them moved to the right.
“On the left we have our subjects; despite being them all being infused with other-worldly magic I can still scan them and tell you every physical detail about them. Like that the pink girl has a lot of sugar in her system, the dog had been altered and can now speak, and the fact that girl Twilight is of this world.” Starwind told them as various information flashed in front of the individuals he was talking about, he then motioned towards the multi-colored clouds on the other side of the screen. “This is their other-worldly magic; I can detect its existence as well as easily filter it out of my scans of them as I did here, but the magic itself defies any examination by my own. I know it is there but I can tell nothing else about it.”
“Why do you even care about their magic?” Aria questioned as she looked over the screen. “You seem to have plenty of magic on your own.”
“Not only does it transform them, but you three could have used it to mesmerize the world had they not stopped you.” The Dazzlings looked either uncomfortable or annoyed as Starwind mentioned their defeat. “Just recently I witnessed it used in such a way that it could have caused a chain reaction that would have led to the destruction of this world if it had not been stopped and the damage repaired.”
“Destruction of this world…” Sonata repeated solemnly. “I didn’t know it could’ve caused that…”
“Seriously, who was stupid enough to try and use it like that?” Aria questioned as she shook her head.
“Let me guess…” Adagio smirked. “You want that sort of power for yourself.”
Starwind waved a hand and his screen vanished, he then turned to face the Dazzlings. “I must know what this magic is fully capable of. And if I can’t examine it directly we must observe it until it is understood.”
Sunset gave a quick wave goodbye to the teacher as she left the classroom. With her task done she began to make her way towards the foyer; the majority of the new transfers were arriving today and Sunset had volunteered to show more new arrivals around this morning. Sunset hoped that everything went as well as the day before.
“Sunset Shimmer!” A very familiar voice rang out through the hallway.
Sunset turned towards the source of the voice and saw Pinkie coming down the hallway waving energetically, Applejack was walking next to her and just gave a simple smile and nod rather than waving.
“Good morning Pinkie.” Sunset greeted as the pink girl gave her a quick hug. “Morning Applejack.”
“Morning Sunset.” Applejack replied as the three began walking together. “All fired up to show some more new arrivals around?”
“Well you know, just want to make sure they’re feeling welcome here. And maybe make sure there’s nothing supernatural about them.” Sunset laughed a bit when Applejack gave her the same look as she did the day before when they had been taking about it. “How about you two?”
“Of course I’m all fired up!” Pinkie jumped up in excitement. “A chance to make new friends? No way I’m passing that up.”
“I figured it might help to have another pair of eyes on the look out for any weirdness when we’re welcoming the new guys.” Applejack chuckled a bit then smiled. “Can’t be too careful, right Sunset?”
“Right.” Sunset smiled back. “Better to be safe than sorry after all. But I’m sure everything will be fine.”
Just ahead of them a young man stepped back from his locker as he closed it, then adjusted his jacket and quickly ran his hands through his blue hair to make sure it was in its proper style. He smiled as he saw the trio coming down the hallway.
“Heya Flash.” Applejack greeted before he could say anything.
“Morning Flashy!” Pinkie gave him a high-five when he raised his hand to wave.
“Morning.” Flash took a moment to respond, having been surprised by the unexpected high-five. “You guys heading to the foyer?”
“Yup,” Applejack confirmed. “We all volunteered to show the new guys around.”
“How about you Flash?” Sunset asked as Flash began walking with them.
“Yeah, me too.” Flash admitted. “I thought it sounded kinda fun; get to meet new people, show them around the school and all that.”
“Never pass up a chance to meet new friends.” Pinkie said seriously, then grinned. “You never know what fun you’ll miss out on if you don’t meet new friends.”
“So where are the others?” Flash wondered aloud as he glanced around.
“Busy with other things mostly.” Sunset told him. “Rainbow Dash is running the soccer team through some early morning drills. Rarity is working on a class project. Twilight felt she didn’t know enough about the school yet to give a proper tour and so she decided to get some studying done. And Fluttershy went to her first class early.”
As Sunset finished they reached the foyer and she looked around at the other students who were already there who had also volunteered their time to show the new arrivals around. Sunset saw Lyra, Bon Bon, Octavia, Bulk Biceps, Trixie, Roseluck, Sandlewood, Micro Chips, Mystery Mint; and there still were others arriving. Vice-Principal Luna was going from student to student checking names off a list and handing everyone a slip of paper; eventually Luna came to Sunset, Applejack, Pinkie and Flash.
“Good Morning, I commend you all for donating your time.” Luna smiled as she checked their names off of her list. “Although Miss Shimmer you did already show a group around yesterday so you shouldn’t feel it necessary to show more around today.”
“It’s okay Vice-Principle Luna, I’m glad to help out the new students however I can.” Sunset assured her, then glanced at Pinkie and smiled. “And like Pinkie says, you shouldn’t pass up a chance to meet new friends.”
“A good sentiment.” Luna nodded in agreement. “But you do recall that while you do get out of class to show the new students around you still need to do whatever assignments were given?”
“Already taken care of,” Sunset said proudly. “I’ve finished all the work and turned it in before coming here.”
“Excellent.” Luna said as she handed each of them a slip of paper, which all had numbers on them. “These will help you find your assigned group.”
Just then Principle Celestia walked into the foyer; while smiling and waving to the students which said good morning to her she glanced over to Luna who gave her a nod.
“Good Morning everyone,” Celestia waited a moment before continuing until she was sure she had everyone’s attention. “Let me say that I am so proud of you all for donating your time this morning to help your new classmates get to know our school. They may have lost their old school but let’s do our best to make them feel welcome at Canterlot High. Now let’s all head to the gym where they’re waiting for us.”
With that all the students present began to follow Celestia and Luna towards the gym; most were talking and wondering aloud what sort of people they were about to meet, others were looking at the slips of paper they were given trying to guess how they were going to help find their assigned group.
“So what number did you get?” Pinkie leaned in close and asked in an almost conspiratorial manner, then immediately grinned and jumped up with her paper held high. “I got number ten!”
“Fifteen.” Applejack answered simply.
“Lucky seven for me.” Flash held up his paper.
“Mine’s four.” Sunset answered with Pinkie looking over her shoulder.
When they entered the gym they saw several groups of people standing around talking amongst themselves, though everyone quickly quieted once they saw someone else had come into the gym. Sunset took a look around the room making a quick study of the new arrivals; most were looking at them with neural and unsure expressions but she saw quite a few smiles as well.
“Hello new students, and welcome to Canterlot High. I am Principle Celestia.” She greeted warmly. “This morning your fellow students will be giving you a tour of our school. I believe Vice-Principle Luna already handed out signs to every group so hold them up to help your assigned guide find you so that they can introduce themselves and start the tour. I hope you all come to love Canterlot High as much as we do.”
Celestia stepped to the side and looked back at the students who had volunteered and waved a hand towards the new arrivals with a smile. Everyone looked at their number again and began to walk around the gym to look for their group, Pinkie was skipping amongst all the people giggling the whole time.
Sunset weaved her way through the groups looking for her matching number and she finally spotted the number four sign, with, unsurprisingly, a group of four. As Sunset studied them a bit before approaching she was amused that it was yet another group of three girls and a boy just like her last group.
The one that stood out the most to Sunset was a very tall pink girl with long red hair and eyes wearing jeans and a purple sweater with a stylized heart on it, she looked around the room with a warm smile on her face. The boy was orange with his blond hair combed back wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt with a dark green jacket; he was looking around and quickly jotting things down in a notebook that had a half-sun mark on the front. A purple girl with white hair pulled back into a short ponytail looked around with an expression of boredom, her outfit of black pants, gray shirt and black leather vest was quite a contrast to the girl next to her. The golden girl had her sky blue hair loose and wore a bright pink top and violet jacket with a light blue skirt and boots, she was holding the number four sign and bouncing in place excitedly.
When the golden girl saw Sunset looking their way she grinned and pointed at her sign; Sunset nodded and held her paper around so that the girl could see the matching number on it. With it confirmed that Sunset was the one that was going to be their guide the girl’s blue eyes seemed to sparkle and she got even more excited, even starting to clap.
“Hello, I’m Sunset Shimmer.” She introduced herself as she approached the group.
The golden girl dropped the sign and darted forward. “Hi Sunset Shimmer! I’m Sunny Joy!” She shook Sunset’s hand so hard that it was shaking Sunset’s entire body. “It’s so good to meet you!”
“N-n-nice to m-m-meet you S-S-Sunny Joy.” Sunset managed to stammer out despite the shaking.
The tall girl came over and put her hand over Sunset’s and Sunny’s and stopped the handshake before gently prying Sunny’s hand away while giving her a somewhat disapproving look. Sunny quickly backed away and gave a sheepish smile.
“I’m Venus Love.” She introduced herself while giving Sunset a normal handshake. “ I apologize for Sunny’s… enthusiasm.”
“It’s okay, no harm done. I’m glad she’s so happy about becoming a part of our school.” Sunset laughed. “She actually reminds me a bit of a friend of mine so I’m sure she’ll fit right in.”
“Oh aren’t you an Angel? So forgiving.” Venus let out a squee of delight and hugged Sunset, lifting the shorter girl completely off the ground as she did so.
Sunset wasn’t quite sure how to react to the unexpected hug, she couldn’t even return it since the way Venus picked her up had Sunset’s arms pinned to her sides. But after a moment Venus put Sunset down and smiled brightly.
“I hope you don’t expect us all to be so physically demonstrative.” The purple girl commented dryly. “I’m Aurora Gloom.”
Aurora looked over to the boy but he didn’t take notice, in fact he didn’t seem to be taking notice of any of them as he continued to write in his notebook. Venus cleared her throat but that still failed to get his attention; she then frowned slightly and tapped him hard on the head.
“Ow! What was that fo…?” He trailed off when he saw Venus looking at him, then looked around at the others and closed his notebook. “Oh… right. My name is Sundown Calm.”
“Well now that the introductions are out of the way how about we get to that tour?” Venus smiled brightly as she wrapped an arm around Sunset’s so that they could walk arm in arm. “I’m so looking forward to getting to know our new school.”
“Right…” Sunset nodded, not sure what to make of Venus’s ‘touchy-feely-ness’ but decided to let Venus walk arm in arm with her if that’s what she wanted and not comment on it. “I’d be happy to give you that tour.”
Sunset led them out of the gym; Venus was smiling and waving at others they passed by while Sundown had gone back to jotting things down in his notebook as he looked around, Aurora just looked at him and shook her head as she followed along.
“New School! Yeah!” Sunny cheered as she spun around a few times before matching pace with the rest. “I can’t wait to see what sort of people are here. Oh! Are there any clubs?”
“Of course, there are all sorts of clubs you can join.” Sunset confirmed, which just seemed to excite Sunny more. “Though if you’d just rather go home or hang out after school that’s fine too.”
“That’s good to hear.” Aurora said with barely any emotion. “I’m not much of a joiner.”
“Speaking of hearing things,” Sundown stopped writing and flipped back several pages in his notebook. “I’ve been hearing some very strange things said about this school. Maybe you can confirm or deny some of this stuff I’ve heard.”
“How about we finish the tour before getting into those rumors?” Sunset decided to dance around that subject for now; she wasn’t sure how much she should tell them, she certainly didn’t want to freak out any of the new students on their first day. “Maybe you’ll get some of the answers while I’m showing you around.”
*******
A figured dressed in jeans and a purple hoodie stalked through the halls of Canterlot High; her hood was up and pulled low over her face and she kept her head down to better hide her features. She was so angry with the whole situation that it was taking quite a bit of effort on Adagio’s part not to be stomping as she walked, at least she was finally able to get away from all those groups looking around and found a part of the school with relatively few people wandering through the halls.
It seemed that Starwind’s spell was working the way he said it would though, no one had paid her any mind as she went through the halls. When he had cast the spell before sending them out to observe the school Starwind told them they would be able to move around without being recognized; just so long as they didn’t do anything to draw attention to themselves others would just ignore them and go about their own business. Sonata had suggested that Starwind should make them invisible instead, he told her that invisibility wouldn’t be as nearly useful as she thought in such a crowded space. Invisibility wasn’t much good if someone ran into you because you were in the way and they couldn’t see you, not to mention a big enough impact would disrupt the invisibility spell. Adagio thought they were both idiots for wasting time talking about it.
Adagio said they should just use their songs again to mesmerize the school and then Starwind could have all the answers he wanted from the students, he pointed out that the ones mostly likely to have those answers had proven immune to their songs. Adagio growled as she thought about it since using their power might as well be a moot point. While Starwind did restore their voices and they could sing again they couldn’t put any power into their songs without Starwind granting it, since they had lost their own magic any power they used now had to come directly from him. In fact if they wanted to use any power at all they had to ask for it through the link they now shared, another part of the deal they made that she hadn’t expected.
This whole deal had turned out nothing like Adagio had initially planned when they first met Starwind. Her initial plan was just to play along until he restored their power then they’d use that power on him and walk away fully restored, but that’s not how it went. When Starwind restored their power they could feel it coursing through them and they immediately began to sing, only for it to have absolutely no effect on him. Starwind explained that since their power now came from his own trying to use their songs on him was just giving the magical energy he had granted them back to him. Adagio had been furious, accusing Starwind of purposely not telling them the exact nature of the deal so that they could embarrass themselves like that for his amusement. Starwind told her that no embarrassment was intended on his part, but if they wanted out of the deal it would be simple enough to take back the power he had given them and they could go on their way. Adagio seriously considered it, but in the end just couldn’t go back to being powerless.
Afterwards Adagio had attempted to change tactics a bit and tried to use seduction to try and get more power from Starwind or at least loosen the restrictions about having to ask him to grant them power every time. But that got nothing, he didn’t even react. That had almost made her angrier than she had been after the failed attempt to use their song on him. It may have not been her Siren form but Adagio knew her current body had what these humans liked, she was gorgeous by their standards. But Starwind didn’t react positively or negatively to her seduction attempt, he just carried on like he hadn’t even noticed. Later Adagio had felt like killing Aria and Sonata when they were having a laugh at Adagio’s failed seduction attempt. Though Aria stopped laughing long enough to point out that it was possible that Starwind might have sensed Adagio’s intentions through the link and knew what she was trying to do and so ignored her. While Adagio hated to admit it Aria was probably right, though that still didn’t excuse all the laughing.
A sight coming down the hallway brought Adagio out of her thoughts of what had happened and back to the present, Sunset and Applejack were walking in her direction as they talked. Adagio forced herself to be calm as she stepped to the side of the hallway and waited; she figured if there was a situation that would test how well Starwind’s spell worked it would be this.
“…and I think they’ll fit in just fine.” Applejack told Sunset as they walked by. “They all were friendly enough and eager to get to know Canterlot High.”
“I think my group will find their place too.” Sunset gave a nod, though a look of slight annoyance crept onto her face. “Though one of them was a bit overly-friendly really.”
Adagio could hardly believe it, they passed right by without even noticing her even when she was close enough to touch them. It seemed Starwind’s spell worked as he said after all. Adagio began to follow a ways behind Sunset and Applejack; the whole point of them being here was to observe the Rainbooms’ magic by keeping an eye on them after all and if she passed up a possible chance she was sure Starwind would lecture her or something, then Aria and Sonata would never let her hear the end of it.
“What do ya mean Sunset?” Applejack was a bit surprised to hear her say such a thing.
“Well I’m probably just being overly sensitive about it but one girl was very physically demonstrative, she insisted on walking arm in arm during the entire tour and kept hugging me.” Sunset explained with just a hint of exasperation in her voice. “It’s not that I don’t like hugs, I get daily hugs from Pinkie after all, it’s just this girl kept hugging me for no reason. Seriously we only just met and barely know each other but she keeps glomming onto me like I’m her long lost best friend.”
“Sounds like someone took a shine to you.” Applejack chuckled. “Maybe she liked what she saw and is doing that to let the other new guys know she’s already put a claim on you.”
“AJ!” Sunset said a bit louder than she intended, she blushed as she cleared her throat. “I seriously doubt it’s anything like that.”
Applejack just started laughing while Sunset gave her a bit of an annoyed look, but the pair stopped as they came to one of the intersecting hallways and waved at someone coming their way. Adagio hung back a bit then leaned against a locker and waited, a moment later Pinkie and Flash walked into view.
“So how’d your tours go?” Applejack inquired, but by the way Pinkie was grinning it was pretty obvious what her answer was going to be.
“It went great!” The pink-hair girl was practically bouncing with joy. “More new friends made!”
“Mine went great too, I had a pretty cool group.” Flash answered with a smile. “Even made plans to show them where all the good hangouts are later.”
“Good to hear.” Sunset grinned, happy to know things were going so well. “As for me, I’m not done yet. I volunteered to show a second group around today.”
“Well have fun with that, I gotta get to class. Maybe I should have signed up for a second group too.” Flash considered for a moment, then shrugged and smiled. “I’ll see you guys later.” With that he began to head for class.
“Be sure to make lots of new friends Sunset.” Pinkie told her before skipping off in the same direction Flash went.
“Good luck with the second tour.” Applejack said before a smirk appeared on her face. “But be sure not to use your feminine wiles to charm anyone else into being under your spell.”
“AJ…” Sunset said warningly, but then they both burst out laughing. Applejack patted her on the shoulder before walking off and Sunset headed back towards the foyer.
All of them splitting up in different directions left a choice for who Adagio wanted to follow and keep an eye on. Certainly not Sunset; Adagio was slightly worried that if she was alone with Sunset she’d blow her cover by trying to strangle the red and gold haired girl. Definitely not Pinkie, even though she barely knew her the energetic girl annoyed Adagio to no end. That left Applejack, seeing as how she really didn’t have a choice at all Adagio simply followed after the country girl.
*******
Sunset relaxed in the foyer, since there was time in the schedule between the groups she was going to be showing around she decided take the time to rest a bit since she had already done the work for her morning classes. Now Sunset was watching the second group of students that had volunteered to show the new arrivals around arrive. It seemed that she was the only one that had volunteered for both groups since she didn’t see anyone else that had been with the earlier group. Also waiting were Amethyst Star, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Brawny Beats and Thunderbass; with still more arriving.
“Muffin?” Suddenly Sunset found what looked like a chocolate chip muffin right in front of her face.
“What?” Sunset was a little surprised at the sudden appearance of the muffin, but her eyes followed down the gray arm of the hand the muffin was sitting on to find a familiar smiling face with golden crossed eyes and blond hair. “Oh! Thanks Derpy.” Sunset smiled back as she took the Muffin.
“You’re welcome.” Derpy showed Sunset a basket full of muffins. “All homemade too.”
“I didn’t know you signed up to show the new students around.” Sunset said before taking a bite of the muffin; she was hungry since she had actually skipped breakfast while finishing up the schoolwork she had turned in. “I didn’t see your name on the list yesterday.”
“Well I signed up kinda late.” Derpy laughed and stuck out her tongue. “I wasn’t sure about it at first; but I was talking to Pinkie in our afternoon classes yesterday and she was just so excited about it and the possibility of making new friends, she even introduced me to a couple of the new ones from yesterday, that she convinced me to sign up too. Principle Celestia okayed it even if I was a little late. I spent yesterday evening preparing so that I’d have plenty to share.” She grinned and held up the basket of muffins.
“That’s actually a really nice idea.” Sunset commented while looking at her own muffin. “I wish I would have thought of something like that, a small gift like that would certainly help to make the new arrivals feel more welcome I think.”
“Good food can help make good friends.” Derpy said cheerfully. “At least I think so.”
“I believe you are correct Miss Hooves.” Luna said as she walked up. “Thank you both for donating your time. Or rather in your case Miss Shimmer, thank you for donating more of your time.”
“Always happy to help Vice-Principle Luna.” Derpy grinned.
“Same here.” Sunset agreed.
“An excellent attitude.” Luna checked their names of her list and handed them both slips of paper. “While Miss Shimmer already knows I shall reiterate for Miss Hooves sake, these shall help you find your assigned group later.”
“I’m Number One!” Derpy held up her paper triumphantly.
“And I’ve dropped down from four all the way to nine.” Sunset gave an exaggerated mock sigh.
Derpy moved to Sunset’s side and stuck her paper next to hers. “Don’t worry Sunset, if we put our numbers together like this we’re nineteen, college age.” She then put her paper on the other side of Sunset’s. “And this way we’re ninety-one… oh that’s old… I think I like being college age better.” She quickly switched back.
Sunset couldn’t help but laugh, even Luna laughed a bit as she moved on to the other students. As Luna finished giving everyone their numbers Celestia arrived and gave pretty much the same speech Sunset had heard from her earlier and then led everyone else to the gym where the rest of the new arrivals were waiting.
When Sunset found her matching number she saw that it was a group of five this time with four girls and one boy.
The boy was smaller than the rest, though Sunset wasn’t sure if he was younger or just short, and had cream colored skin with blue and yellow striped hair; his green pants and vest seemed to have more pockets on them that Sunset previously believed possible. A girl with snow-white skin and short light blue hair wearing baggy jeans and a loose yellow sweater seemed to be falling asleep where she stood. The girl next to her had red skin with white freckles and dark green hair wearing a long violet dress and shirt; she looked rather worried for the snow-white girl and would raise a hand up every time it’d look like she was about to fall over only to see her straighten back up. Another girl was tall and quite muscular looking with turquoise skin and dark blue hair pulled up into a ponytail, she was wearing jean shorts and a tank top. The last girl had red skin and wild bright green hair wearing a plaid skirt and a white shirt with a black leather jacket, she was twirling their sign around and even tossed it up and caught it a few times.
“You the one that’s gonna show us around?” The red and green girl asked as Sunset walked up and twirled the sign one more time then stuck her hand out. “Name’s Raspberry Fizz, good to meet ya.”
“Nice to meet you, I’m Sunset Shimmer.” She shook Raspberry’s hand. “And yes, I’ll be showing you around the school.”
“Awesome.” Raspberry grinned, then looked over Sunset’s jacket. “You know, I think we’ll get along just fine Sunset Shimmer.” She looked back towards the girl in the violet dress. “Hey sis get over here and introduce yourself.”
Casting one more worried look towards the girl that seemed to be asleep on her feet the other red and green girl stepped forward held and shook Sunset’s hand. “I’m Strawberry Jam. I’m actually the older sister even if I am the shorter one.”
“Do you have to bring that up every time?” Raspberry groaned. “You shouldn’t freak out just because your little sis had a growth spurt and is taller than you now.”
“I have not ‘freaked out’ about it.” Strawberry stated matter-of-factly. “And I don’t bring it up every time, I was just informing Sunset of something that wasn’t apparent just by looking at us.”
When it looked like an argument was about to break out the girl with turquoise skin cleared her throat and both Raspberry and Strawberry looked at her then sighed and turned away from each other. Raspberry looked like she was about to say something to the larger girl but backed away from the stare she got in return.
“Right then, if we won’t be having any more problems…” She said as she looked between Raspberry and Strawberry. “I’m Ocean Blue, thank you for showing us around Sunset.”
“It’s no problem.” Sunset told Ocean Blue as she looked between the two sisters, while they weren’t looking at each other they both seemed to have calmed down considerably.
Ocean Blue reached over a gave a quick tap on the shoulder to the snoozing girl who jumped as her violet eyes opened wide in shock for a moment, but then fell back to a half-lidded slightly confused look. She shook her head a bit as she looked around, then her gaze finally fell upon Sunset.
“Hey there…” The snow-white girl’s voice trailed off.
“Chill Out, this is Sunset Shimmer.” Ocean Blue said in a bit of an annoyed tone. “She’s going to be showing us around the school.”
“Oh, well thank ya SunSun.” Chill Out laughed a bit. “Like, totally cool of you to show us around.”
Ocean Blue just shook her head and sighed, then motioned towards the boy. “This is Pockets.”
Pockets just waved and gave an awkward smile.
“Pockets doesn’t talk much.” Raspberry told Sunset in a whisper as she leaned closer to her.
Pockets brought a hand to his chin in thought for a moment and then he smiled like he had an idea. He searched through his pockets and eventually found what he was looking for and held it out to Sunset, she saw that it was a small package of hard candies.
“That’s his way of saying hello and that he hopes you can be friends.” Strawberry explained.
“Thank you Pockets.” Sunset accepted the offered candies. “So now that we all know each other how about I show you around now?”
“Yeah!” Raspberry said enthusiastically. “Let’s see what this school’s got.”
*******
Aria sat up at the top of the bleachers as she watched the P.E class run laps around the track, keeping an eye on Rainbow Dash and Pinkie in particular. Not that it was particularly difficult; not only did Rainbow Dash’s hair stand out like a beacon but she was also the fastest one on the track, and Pinkie was skipping around the track rather than running. Not that she was going to complain about it if they made it easy for her to observe them. Whether they used their magic or not didn’t particularly concern her, she was told just to observe so Starwind really didn’t have any right to complain should they not actually use magic while she was observing them.
At least Starwind’s spell had worked perfectly so far; she had been able to move freely around the school grounds, it seemed the most people had been able to notice her was just enough to avoid running into her while walking through the halls. Even a pair of students that had tried sneaking away for a break from the P.E. class had been sitting no more than an arm’s length away from Aria and didn’t notice her, nor did the coach when he had yelled at the pair of errant students to get back down to the track. While Adagio didn’t seem to appreciate the effects of the spell Aria certainly found it useful for what they were doing, though Sonata seemed to be having entirely too much fun with it when she saw her earlier.
A whistle piercing the air disrupted Aria’s thoughts and she saw the coach bringing the class to an end and sending everyone to the showers. Next was lunch so Aria decided to move on to a quieter place since the bleachers would most likely soon be full of noisy students, she hopped off the bleachers and headed back into the main building of the school.
Aria wondered just what Starwind’s plan really was. All he had told them was that he wanted to know the full extent of what Equestrian magic was capable of in this world, but had been excessively vague on any other details. Aria knew there had to be more to it than that, someone like Starwind that had the power that he possessed always had plans. Be it something like taking the power for himself like Adagio thought or destroying it to eliminate magical competition, there had to be something more to what they were doing. But with Starwind keeping things to himself Aria would just have to keep an eye on him as well until she could figure out just what he was up to.
Although Aria had to admit the deal they made hadn’t been too bad so far. They had food and shelter which was a definite step up from the situation they would have been in had they not made the deal; Starwind had even given them spending money to buy food out of the vending machines if they got hungry while out doing their observation. Their voices had been restored and while they did have magic again that came with the proviso that they had to ask Starwind to use it through the link they now shared to do so, like Adagio Aria was less than pleased about that part of the deal. However a bit of the sting was taken out of that, for her at least, after Adagio’s failed attempt at seducing Starwind. Aria snickered, seeing that and Adagio’s reaction afterwards had been hilarious.
Aria stopped by a vending machine to get a few things to eat. It was a bit strange just dealing with normal hunger now; for so long the hunger for negative energy to fuel their power took precedence over all other needs, but now that their gems were destroyed the need for negative energy was gone leaving only their basic physical needs. She didn’t know about the other two but to be honest Aria found it rather nice to not have that overwhelming need constantly gnawing at the back of her mind.
As she finished off her food Aria spotted a familiar figure walking down the hallway, she definitely knew the pearl white skin and purple hair. Rarity walked by talking with some girl Aria didn’t know, someone with dark green skin and black hair with a green streak. Aria tossed the wrappers from her food into the trash and followed after the pair.
“Thank you for sending me those links last night.” Rarity told Blooming Hope. “Those pictures sparked quite a bit of inspiration for our project.”
“You’re welcome.” Blooming Hope smiled, but then her expression fell a bit. “Sorry about sending them to you so late though; my sister got caught up in a binge-watching of her favorite movie series on our computer yesterday.”
“Think nothing if it Dear.” Rarity assured her with a warm smile. “I was actually still awake when I got your message, I was just finishing up an outfit I had been working on.”
The pair entered into the library with Aria following unnoticed close behind. Rarity and Blooming Hope chose a table and set their stuff down, pulling out multiple folders and notebooks and putting them on the table. Aria sat down at the next table then propped her feet up, making sure her hood was pulled low to help keep her face from Rarity’s view just in case, and got comfortable so she could continue her observation.
Rarity opened up her sketchbook and showed her newest designs to her project partner. “Now these are just preliminary designs based on those pictures you linked me to but I’m quite proud of them. What do you think?”
“Oh wow… these look wonderful.” Blooming Hope stared in amazement at the designs. “Will you really be able to make all these by time the project is due?”
“Oh but of course, never doubt me when it comes to creating fashion.” Rarity said proudly then gave a wink. “With the two of us working together this project is going to be absolutely amazing.”
As Rarity and Blooming Hope got to work on the writing portion of their project and continued to plan Aria inwardly groaned, thinking that she should have either found someone else to observe or just kept watching the rainbow-head and hyper girl. If Starwind wanted a report or something on this Aria hoped he liked fashion talk.
*******
Sunset grabbed a bottle of juice and set it on her tray, with the final item of her lunch acquired she began to make her way to the usual table. All in all it had been a good day so far she thought, she had helped new students get to know the school and made new friends. The new arrivals seemed to be integrating well from what Sunset could tell and everyone seemed willing to help them get adjusted to their new school. As she made her way across the cafeteria Sunset could hear several conversations between new students and old.
“Really?! I love that band too!”
“I was at that game dude! I didn’t believe it when I saw either and I was right there!”
“I’ll show you where we hang out after school, you’ll love it.”
“I’m telling you they got the best burgers in town.”
“Hey! Where’d my tacos go?!”
“You read it too? I was beginning to think I was the only one!”
“That sounds awesome! You gotta join our club!”
Sunset arrived at the table she and her friends usually sat at and found that Applejack, Fluttershy and Twilight were already seated and eating lunch; Firecracker and Dragon were there as well.
“Hey there Sunset.” Applejack greeted
“Hi Sunset.” Twilight smiled as Sunset sat down next to her.
Fluttershy just waved since she was taking a bite of her sandwich when Sunset got there.
“Hey Sunset.” Dragon said as she looked his way with an inquisitive expression. “I’m here as Pinkie’s dully appointed representative apparently.”
Twilight giggled a bit. “Pinkie pulled him out of the lunch line and dragged him over here and sat him down, then told him to watch everything and tell her about it later.”
“Said somethin’ about not wanting to miss anything while she’s introducing some of the new guys to everyone.” Applejack said with a laugh.
“I was gonna sit with him anyway and here’s a good a place as any.” Firecracker commented as she continued to eat.
“Well that explains where Pinkie is, not too surprising.” Sunset just laughed and shook her head. “ I talked to Rarity before coming here so I know she and Blooming Hope went to the library for that project of theirs. What about Rainbow Dash?”
“Competing with Shining Nova again.” Fluttershy said rather worriedly. “They were having what started as a civil conversation but then it got heated and they started challenging each other.”
“They settled on a race and went out to the track.” Twilight explained. “They decided whoever lost would buy the other lunch.”
“Knowing them two they’re gonna spend the whole lunch racing.” Applejack commented as she continued to eat.
“Don’t know about Rainbow Dash but when Nova gets going like that she tends to forget things like having to eat.” Firecracker gave a bit of an annoyed sigh. “Then it catches up to her later when the hunger hits her.”
“Yeah Rainbow gets like that too.” Applejack admitted with a sigh. “I imagine this’ll be happening a lot.”
“Well we’ll just have to keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t take it too far.” Sunset told them, then smiled and raised her bottle of juice. “To new friends, or perhaps rivals in this case. May they always make our lives interesting.”
Everyone smiled and raised their drinks, but then a voice they all knew called out excitedly
“Guys! Guys! Guys!”
They all turned to see Pinkie leading a group of four other girls, whom they guessed were the new arrivals she was introducing to everybody. She brought them to the table and lined them up; Pinkie doing it by physically grabbing them and quickly putting them into place seemed to surprise the four judging by their expressions.
“These are some of my friends.” Pinkie waved a hand to present those sitting at the table. “Sunset, Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy, Firecracker and Dragon.”
After they all gave some sort of greeting; either a hi, a wave or even just a nod, Pinkie turned back towards the four new girls.
“This here is Happy Ditty!” Pinkie put her arms over the shoulders of a girl with lime green skin and curly yellow hair wearing worn looking jeans and a tie-die shirt.
“Pleased to meet ya.” Happy Ditty gave a huge grin and waved. “Pinkie said you were all great.”
“And this one is Jubilee.” Pinkie hopped sideways to the next girl and put a hand on her shoulder. The girl had chalk white skin and short black hair with pink shades over her eyes, she was wearing a yellow long coat over jean shorts and pink shirt.
“Hey.” Jubilee said simply and blew a bubble with the gum she was chewing.
Pinkie stepped to the next one and waved an arm dramatically. “I present to you, Crimson Sun.” She had yellow skin with long flowing red hair and was wearing a long dark dress in the gothic lolitia style.
“A pleasure.” Crimson Sun said with only a hint of emotion in her voice as she nodded her head.
“And last but not least is Whirl!” Pinkie practically spun around the girl with light blue skin and dark blue hair that was tied up into pig tails but had the bangs hanging down over one eye and was wearing denim overall shorts with a t-shirt underneath.
“Hi there.” Whirl said as she gave a rather dangerous looking grin.
“And now it’s time to meet even more new people!” Pinkie announced and quickly rushed the four off.
“You’ll get used to that sort of thing soon enough.” Sunset commented with a chuckle as she saw Twilight, Firecracker and Dragon staring after Pinkie.
“Hey Applejack.” A new voice greeted.
Everyone looked to the source of the voice to see a pair of girls standing by the table. One had light gray skin with chestnut brown hair wearing black pants and a loose dark gray sweater, while the other had red skin with purple streaked hair also wearing black pants but with a green and black shirt.
“Good to see ya again Grey Mist, Scarlet Thorn.” Applejack smiled and held out a hand, which Grey Mist shook as she smiled back. “What can I do ya for?”
“Oh we just wanted to come over and say hi, and say thanks again for showing us all around.” Grey Mist answered while looking over everyone at the table.
“I hope we weren’t too much trouble.” Scarlet Mist gave a bit of a nervous smile.
“No trouble at all Scarlet, I was glad to help y’all out.” Applejack assured her, then saw Grey Mist looking inquisitively at the others. “This here is Fluttershy, Sunset, Twilight, Firecracker and Dragon.” She took a look around herself. “So where’s Winter Rose, Boomer and Brainstorm?”
“Brainstorm took off to the computer lab.” Scarlet Thorn answered somewhat apologetically, as if apologizing for her friend’s absence. “He really loves computers and technology of all kinds.”
“Winter’s trying to keep Boomer from buying out one of the vending machines.” Grey Mist gave a bit of a smirk. “Or from putting all his money in, whichever happens first.”
“I swear I have never seen someone who liked vending machine snacks so much.” Applejack laughed and shook her head. “He must’ve bought somethin’ from every machine we passed by earlier.”
Just then a jingle came from Grey Mist’s pocket; she pulled out her phone and looked at the screen, a slight frown appeared on her face.
“Looks like we gotta go save Boomer from Winter now, he must have done or said something to set her off.” Grey Mist sighed as she showed the message to Scarlet Thorn, then flipped it around to show Applejack. There was just one word in big bold letters ‘HELP!’ “We’ll see you around Applejack, it was nice meeting you all.”
The two quickly walked off to find their friends and possibly stop one from hurting the other.
“They seemed nice.” Fluttershy gave a small smile as she watched the two leave.
“It’s seems both you and Pinkie met some interesting people today.” Twilight’s expression fell a bit. “I wish I knew enough about the school to give a tour, it sounds like it was a really good experience.”
“Don’t worry Twi, I’ll bet you’ll know all there is to know about the school in no time.” Applejack encouraged as she reached over and patted Twilight on the hand. “And now you got a chance to make even more friends.”
Sunset simply relaxed and enjoyed the company of her friends, but suddenly found herself grabbed from behind and pulled into a tight hug.
“Hiiiii Sunset.” Came a singsong voice from behind her.
Sunset didn’t have to look to know who it was. “Hi Venus…”
“I saw you sitting here and I just had to come over to say hello.” Venus said with a sweet smile as Sunset turned around to look at her. “Are these the friends you mentioned earlier?”
“A few of them yes.” Sunset told her, feeling a bit calmer now that she was out of Venus’s grip and could breath again. She saw that Sundown was also there standing behind Firecracker and Dragon, writing in his notebook like usual. “Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy, Firecracker, Dragon.” She pointed to each one in turn.
Dragon leaned back slightly and tried to peek into Sundown’s notebook but the orange boy saw what he was doing and quickly turned the notebook away; which left it facing towards Firecracker who also tried to see what was in it. Sundown quickly shut his notebook and stepped back a bit before opening it again and continuing to look around and jotting things down. Firecracker and Dragon stared at him a moment before looking at each other and shaking their heads.
“It is so great meeting all of you, I hope we can become great friends.” Venus said as she gave Twilight a quick hug, not seeming to notice the bespectacled girl’s discomfort, then reached over and gave Dragon a pat on the head.
Before Venus could say or do anything else Sunny Joy darted by laughing while pulling Aurora Gloom behind her, the purple girl had a resigned look on her face as the other pulled her through the door and out of the cafeteria. Everyone in the room just stared after them for a moment before going back to whatever they had been doing before.
“Well… I guess we’d better go see what that was all about.” Venus said in a strangely impassive voice, then turned back to the others and smiled again. “See you all very soon. Come Sundown.” The pair quickly walked off, following the other two out the door.
“That the one you were talking about earlier?” Applejack inquired as she watched the pair leave.
“Yeah, that’s her.” Sunset answered as she straightened her hair a bit since earlier hug had messed it up. “Venus Love.”
“You were right about her being physically demonstrative.” Applejack said before a familiar smirk appeared on her face. “Though what I guessed earlier about the reason why she does that still might hold true.” Then laughed as Sunset gave her a deadpan stare.
“Why did she hug me?” Twilight asked, sounding a bit incredulous.
“I really don’t know, she was doing that all the time when I was showing them around.” Sunset sighed and shook her head. “Sorry about that Twilight, I guess you kinda got caught up in it since you were sitting next to me.”
“It’s okay Sunset, that was hardly your fault.” Twilight’s expression brightened. “Though I think I’ll try and stay out of her reach from now on, she gives very tight hugs.”
The group continued on with their lunch, talking and laughing until the bell rang and they had to get back to class.
*******
A blue and violet form zipped chaotically through the halls of Canterlot High; from behind doors of classrooms and open lockers to behind trashcans and whatever shadows she could find, Sonata was doing her best to sneak around and keep an eye on what was going on around the school.
Sonata was having fun; this observation stuff was like being a spy, a super-spy. Or maybe a magical spy considering the spell Starwind had cast. It kept them from being noticed but Starwind had told them to be careful and not to push their luck by doing something that would draw attention. Which was why Sonata was doing her best to keep out of sight as she moved around, even during classes when most of the students wouldn’t be in the halls. If she was hiding she definitely wouldn’t draw attention to herself. While the sneaking around was pretty fun Sonata was a bit sad that Starwind hadn’t made her invisible instead; while she did understand the reasons he gave for not doing so she thought being invisible would have been a real blast.
A large muscular guy with white skin and red eyes came walking out of a classroom, to stay out of his view Sonata quickly moved up right up behind him as he walked down the hall. She matched his movements like a shadow, keeping her steps timed with his so that he wouldn’t hear her walking behind him. He suddenly stopped and looked around, even turning completely around to look back where he came from, but Sonata avoided being seen by keeping directly behind him no matter which way he turned. Eventually the muscular student scratched his head and shrugged then continued on his way, still unaware of Sonata right behind him. Eventually he came to a junction in the hallway and when he turned left Sonata went right.
Sonata giggled as she continued to sneak around and soon began to hum a little tune, even if Adagio was being all grumbly about their current situation that didn’t mean she couldn’t find ways to enjoy it. She knew why Adagio was so mad of course, it was because she wasn’t in charge anymore and had to follow someone else’s orders; that was pretty much the exact opposite of what the orange-blond siren liked to be. Sonata really didn’t see the problem with it though; they had food, shelter and had their voices back, even if their magic now came with a rule or two about using it, Starwind even gave them money to get food if they got hungry while at the school. Not even Aria seemed to have too much of a problem with their current situation so Sonata really thought Adagio should consider how lucky they were not to be on the streets with nothing and start trying to look on the bright side of things.
As Sonata went over her day in her mind she began to sing to herself, just a little something she made up as she went along. She had been all over the school that day doing her best to observe the Rainbooms and what was going on in general. Though all the people wandering around the halls earlier had made that a bit more difficult than she thought, and so many new faces to keep track of. Sonata had managed to watch each of the Rainbooms at least for a little while, although she hadn’t seen any of them use their magic yet which was kind of defeating the point of watching them. And when she wasn’t watching any of the Rainbooms specifically she was sneaking around the school seeing if there was any other magical shenanigans happening around Canterlot High, which was also proving to be bust so far but she wouldn’t let that deter her. At least the day hadn’t been a complete bust in her opinion; when she was in the cafeteria keeping an eye on a few of the Rainbooms during lunch she was able to snag herself some tacos without being noticed so she didn’t have to spend any of her money.
Unexpectedly around the corner ahead of her came two more students carrying boxes. One was a guy that had pale purple skin with bright orange hair wearing a red jacket with a flame design on it with brown pants, the other was another guy with gray skin and a red mohawk wearing a torn up shirt with a skull on it with black leather pants.
Sonata quickly looked for a place to hide and only saw an open locker, she quickly stepped to it and faced inside like she was looking for something. She was so focused on trying to look inconspicuous that she didn’t notice that she was still holding the last note of her song. She heard them stop behind her and they seemed to be just standing there for what seemed to be an uncomfortably long time to Sonata and she wished they would just keep walking. She glanced back over her shoulder just in time to see them look at each other and shrug before continuing their way down the hall. Sonata finally dropped the note and breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the locker and quickly headed off in the other direction.
The bell rang to let out the final class of the day and Sonata stepped to the side of the hall to let the students go by while she waited for the halls to clear a bit, but a familiar giggling from a nearby classroom caught her attention. Sonata quickly moved to the door to take a peek inside and saw Pinkie talking with three other students; a blond with funny eyes that she was sure she seen before with a girl and a guy with light green skin and black hair and clothes that she hadn’t.
“…and I’m calling it my ‘Sugar Rush Blast’!” Pinkie grinned as she held up a drawing of something Sonata couldn’t quite see. “I’m still working the kinks out of the recipe but when I finish it I’ll bring some to school so you can all try it.”
Sonata decided to get a bit closer so that she could hear the conversation better so she ducked down low as she could as she entered the room and slide under one of the tables.
“I don’t know Pinkie,” Dragon said rather apprehensively. “I swear my teeth are still shaking a bit from that ‘Super Choco-Coffee Blast’ cupcake you talked me into eating this morning.”
“The name ‘Sugar Rush Blast’ doesn’t exactly get my appetite going.” Firecracker just shook her head.
Sonata snuck to the next table peeked up over it.
“Don’t worry guys, I promise when I get it done it’ll be soooo gooood.” Pinkie was nearly drooling at the idea of perfecting her newest recipe.
“I’ve been working on a new muffin recipe I’m calling the ‘Nutty Fruit Swirl’, though it’s not ready yet either” Derpy mentioned with a small smile.
“Oooo! That sounds good!” Pinkie hopped over to Derpy. “What’s in it?”
“Well so far there’s bananas, walnuts, strawberries…” Derpy counted off on her fingers as she began to list the ingredients.
Sonata slowly creeped over to the next table, ducking so low she was nearly crawling. They were only a table away and she figured she’d be able to hear everything crystal clear. But then Sonata noticed everything had gone quiet, and suddenly there was a pink face right in front of hers.
“Hey there! Are you playing spy?” Pinkie asked with a bright smile, but then an expression of recognition appeared on her face and she gasped. “Sonata!”
Sonata let out a shriek and jumped out from under the table and ran out of the room.
“Hey get back here!” Pinkie yelled as she took off after Sonata
“What was that about?” Firecracker questioned as she watched Pinkie disappear out the door.
“I don’t know what she thought she was supposed to be doing there.” Dragon said as he quirked an eyebrow.
“I think that was a Dazzling…” Derpy tilted her head to one side trying to recall the blue girl.
Out in the hallway Sonata ran as fast as she could dodging around people and trying to get away from the pink girl running after her. She sidestepped a familiar purple girl with glasses; it definitely wasn’t the time to keep an eye on her so Sonata keep running as Twilight watched her go by with a quizzical look on her face.
“Come on Twilight!” Pinkie grabbed her arm as she ran by, dragging Twilight into the chase. “That’s one of the Dazzlings!”
“You mean one of those Sirens Sunset was telling me about yesterday?” Twilight tried her best to keep up while remembering what she had been told the day before.
“Yup, that’s the one called Sonata!” Pinkie confirmed as she tried to keep up with the surprisingly speedy siren girl.
While dragging Twilight along with one hand Pinkie pulled out her phone with the other and began texting her friends. She had no clue why Sonata was back at Canterlot High, if she had good or bad intentions this time, or even if the other Dazzlings were somewhere around. But she had to be there for some reason and she knew her friends would want to know she was there and why. But first Pinkie had to catch her.
Sonata shot through the backdoors of the school and out into the parking lot behind it, she ran around or jumped over the various vehicles parked there. She could still hear Pinkie yelling behind her as she reached the back fence and scrambled over it and kept running. Sonata practically dove into the wooded area behind the school, panicking a bit and not sure what to do Sonata eventually picked a large tree and began to climb as high as she could. Nearly slipping a few times she finally picked a branch and hung on as tight as she could, hoping she was high enough and hidden enough to be out of sight.
“Spike!” Sonata heard Twilight call out. “Spike!”
“I’m coming Twilight!” The dog’s voice answered. It first sounded like it was some distance away, but the next time Sonata heard his voice it was much closer. “What is it Twilight? Is there trouble?!”
“Someone just ran in here that we need to find.” Twilight told him. “Can you find them?”
“With my nose I’ll sniff them out in no time!” Spike gave a bit of a howl and dove into the foliage.
“What’s this about one of the Dazzlings being here?” Applejack’s voice asked.
“I saw Sonata!” Pinkie answered. “She ran in here!”
“Well let’s go find her then!” Rainbow Dash’s voice rang out.
Sonata didn’t know what to do. Maybe she should get down out of the tree and run some more, but they were already so close. Maybe she should have kept running instead of climbing the tree, but she might have gotten lost then. They were already looking for her down there, not to mention the dog trying to sniff her out, she couldn’t think of any way to get away.
But then an idea came to Sonata; the link with Starwind! It was there so that they could ask to get some magic from him to put power into their songs. While she already knew no song she could sing would work on the Rainbooms maybe she could just send a message through the link. Sonata still wasn’t quite sure how the whole thing worked but she focused as much as she could on the link.
“I need help! They’re gonna find me! Please Help!”
Not having a clue if it worked or not all Sonata could do was hope as she heard the noise of the Rainbooms pushing their way through trees and brush below.
“I am here Sonata.” A familiar echoing voice spoke.
Despite knowing the voice Sonata slammed her hands over her mouth so as not to let out a surprised shriek at its suddenness. However with her hands over her mouth Sonata was no longer hanging onto the branch… this time she wanted to scream.
Before she could fall a black gloved hand grabbed Sonata’s arm and she breathed a sigh of relief upon realizing she would not be crashing to the ground. When she finally looked up away from the ground and towards Starwind she was again surprised. He was not simply standing on a branch like she thought, Starwind was standing on the trunk like he enjoyed his own personal gravity as he stood horizontally out from the tree.
“Uhhh…” Sonata just couldn’t find the words.
“Magic.” Starwind stated simply
“Ah, okay.” She just nodded.
“Now Sonata,” Starwind began, speaking quietly so those stomping around below didn’t hear. “I appreciate your enthusiasm for your work, I really do. But perhaps you could tone down the sneaky spy antics just a bit.”
Sonata gave a sheepish smile. “You saw?”
“I saw.”
“Sorry for messing up.” Sonata sighed and hung her head.
“It is okay Sonata.” Starwind told her as he looked in the direction of the noise as it was getting closer. “Barring almost getting caught at the end you did well for your first day.”
“I think I heard a voice over this way!” Rainbow Dash yelled to the others.
“Though perhaps we should have this conversation elsewhere.” Starwind said as the noise of multiple people rushing through the foliage below was converging on their location.
The shadows around Starwind and Sonata seemed to warp and became a dark mist that quickly enveloped the two of them, a moment later the mist dissipated and they were gone.
Down below on the ground Spike was the first to reach the tree Sonata had been hiding in, he moved around the tree a few time sniffing to confirm what he thought he smelled. He looked up into the tree and saw nothing, but barked a few times anyway in an attempt to scare out anyone who may have been hiding up there.
“What is it Spike?” Twilight asked as she came running up with Rainbow Dash. “Did you find them?”
“I thought I did, the scent trail ends here.” Spike explained as he sniffed around again. “But I can’t see anyone up there.”
“Neither can I.” Twilight walked around the tree as she looked up into the branches.
“I’ll go up and check it out.” Rainbow Dash said determinedly as she jumped and grabbed onto a branch to pull herself up into the tree.
“Didja find anything?” Applejack asked as she came running up with the others.
“Well Spike says the scent trail he was following ends at this tree.” Twilight answered as she watched Rainbow Dash climb the tree.
“The trail does lead here.” Spike insisted. “My nose never lies.”
“We believe you Spike.” Fluttershy kneeled down and patted him on the head.
“Do you see anything Rainbow Dash?!” Rarity called up after her as Rainbow Dash reached the highest branches.
“Nothing!” Rainbow Dash yelled back down as she hung from the branches at the top of the tree. “There was a couple broken branches though so somebody was up here!”
“But where could she have gone?” Sunset mused, then turned to Pinkie. “Where did you see Sonata anyway?”
“In a classroom where I was talking to Derpy, Dragon, and Firecracker.” Pinkie tilted her head to one side and tapped herself on the head as she thought. “I’m not even sure how she got in there, we were talking when I suddenly noticed someone hiding under a table. I didn’t even realize it was Sonata until I got a good look at her face.”
“Well unless she flew away I’m not sure how she got out of there.” Rainbow Dash commented as she dropped back to the ground.
“But the Dazzlings supposed to be powerless now are they not?” Rarity inquired.
“Yeah, Princess Twilight even examined the gem fragments they left behind and said as far as she could tell there was no magic left in them.” Sunset crossed her arms over her chest as she thought back. “Adagio did grab the pieces of one of the gems before they ran off but it should have been depowered just as the others were.”
“But why would any of them come back here?” Fluttershy wondered. “They’d have to know they definitely wouldn’t be welcome.”
“Maybe they think they can repower themselves again using our magic?” Applejack suggested.
“I don’t know Applejack, there’s nothing that I know of that they could do with just a single broken gem.” Sunset replied as she thought through every possibility she could think of. “And they didn’t seem the most mechanically inclined so I doubt they could create anything to absorb magic like Twilight did.” Sunset realized what she said and gave Twilight an apologetic look for bringing up that subject.
Twilight just smiled to let Sunset know it was okay. “So there’s no way they could repower themselves here?”
“None that I know of.” Sunset just shook her head. “Even if they managed to make it back to Equestria there’d be nothing they could do with a broken gem. Considering their original forms are aquatic based they might end up worse off than they would here.”
“So why don’t we just keep an eye out for them and if they try to cause any sort of trouble we just…” Rainbow Dash punched and kicked the air a few times. “If they didn’t learn their lesson the first time we pound it into them this time.”
“I don’t think we’d have to get so violent if they don’t actually have any power any more.” Fluttershy cringed a bit as she watched Rainbow Dash continue her imaginary fighting.
“Well let’s keep an eye out for them just in case, if they do pop up again we’ll decide what to do then.” Sunset told everyone, then smiled. “So how about we get out of here and head on home since school’s out?”
They all headed out of the wooded area and back to the school to pick up their stuff; all of them still wondering what the appearance of a Dazzling could mean for them.
The halls of Canterlot High were nearly empty it being so early in the morning that the doors had just been unlocked to admit students; while some early risers had arrived most still wouldn’t be arriving for some time yet so the school was quiet. A trio of girls were walking and talking as they carried various boxes and bags, a feat made easier since there was barely anyone else in the halls maneuver around.
“Thank you both again for helping carry my materials in.” Rarity smiled as she looked back over her shoulder. “Bringing everything in one trip will allow me to start all the sooner. Though I must apologize for dragging you in so early.”
“It’s okay Rarity, I don’t mind.” Fluttershy assured her. “I’m actually really curious to see what you and Blooming Hope have come up with.”
“I was going to be coming in early anyway.” Sunset said with a bit of a shrug. “Take a look around for anything suspicious…”
“Ah yes, I’ve been wondering about the Dazzlings since yesterday as well.” Rarity frowned a bit as she nodded. “Where there’s one the other two are bound to be close by.”
“Can we really be sure about that?” Fluttershy asked, the others immediately gave her questioning looks. She shrunk back a bit but still was able to reply “What I mean is, how do we know that Sonata didn’t come back here alone for her own reasons?”
“I suppose that’s possible,” Sunset mused. “If their shared powers were really the only thing that kept them together losing them might have caused them to go their separate ways… But that still leaves the question of why would she come back here of all places?”
“Maybe she was lonely and didn’t know where else to go.” Fluttershy offered, sounding a bit sad.
“If we see her again perhaps we can ask her, try talking to her instead of chasing her.” Rarity suggested. “Pinkie did do her best alerting us and trying to catch her; but if Sonata really didn’t have any bad intentions in being here maybe yelling and chasing after her wasn’t the best thing to do. If we see Sonata again let us try approaching her calmly and try simply talking to her.”
“I like that idea better than Rainbow Dash’s ‘beat them up’ plan.” Fluttershy admitted.
“Well whatever they’re planning, whether it’s just Sonata by herself or all the Dazzlings, it would be nice to be able to just talk it out instead of having a potentially life threatening battle.” Sunset sighed as she thought back to those incidents, then shook her head and decided to change subjects. “So where are we taking all this stuff anyway?”
“The band room.” Rarity answered as she motioned down the hall. “No one uses it this early in the morning so there’s plenty of space and it’ll be quiet; perfect for the creative process.”
“And if you want to take a break and do something else for a while you could play some music.” Fluttershy suggested.
“I don’t think I’ll be taking any breaks from creating fashion.” Rarity commented, then a thoughtful look appeared on her face. “Although considering our theme perhaps playing music would give us even more inspiration…”
It was then they noticed a faint sound as they moved down the hall getting louder as they got closer to the band room; it was someone singing accompanied by piano music, a song that had been popular on the charts for a while.
“Seems like someone’s already there.” Sunset said as she listened to the music. “Sounds like they managed to pull out the old upright piano too.”
“Well Blooming Hope was going to meet me there.” Rarity told them as she listened to the familiar voice. “Looks like she arrived first.”
As the three reached the band room they noticed that the door was slightly ajar and so they peered inside to check if it really was Blooming Hope in there, and to not disturb the singing if they could help it. When they looked inside they saw it was indeed who they thought it was; they could see Blooming Hope singing with her eyes closed and her body swaying to the tune, but she was not the one playing the music. Off to one side they could see Dragon at the piano.
Rarity, Fluttershy & Sunset quietly opened the door and stepped inside, setting the stuff they were carrying down quietly so they wouldn’t disrupt Blooming Hope’s singing. But they did not go completely unnoticed as they saw Dragon turn his head a bit and looked towards them out of the corner of his eye, he simply nodded his head in greeting and continued to play the music.
While the three girls enjoyed what they heard it was only a moment later Blooming Hope finished her song and so they began clapping. Still having her eyes closed and not expecting applause the clapping surprised Blooming Hope; she let out a gasp and jumped back slightly, one foot slipping as she did so. With one hand she grabbed Dragon’s shoulder behind her and the other shot out in front of her towards the girls as she tried to balance herself.
Fluttershy quickly rushed forward and grabbed Blooming Hope’s outstretched hand to give her some additional support. “I got you, I got you, I’m so sorry we startled you, I got you.”
“We’re so sorry Dear. Are you all right?” Rarity asked as the green girl straightened up.
“Yeah I’m okay,” Blooming Hope laughed a bit and stuck out her tongue. “Guess I was too absorbed in the music, I didn’t even hear you come in.”
“Well we were trying to be quiet so we wouldn’t distract you so that’s partially our fault.” Sunset said apologetically, then smiled. “You have a wonderful singing voice.”
“Thank you very much.” Blooming Hope blushed a bit.
“And not bad with the piano Dragon.” Sunset looked towards him with a bit of a smirk. “Actually really good for someone who says he just does it as a hobby to relax.”
“Eh, what can I say?” Dragon shrugged and returned a smirk of his own. “I like to relax a lot.”
“I had no idea you were musicians too; though perhaps I really should have guessed considering the theme you came up with for this project.” Rarity smiled at Blooming Hope, then looked at Sunset. “You already knew?”
“It came up when I was showing them around on their first day here.” Sunset nodded as she looked at the two. “Blooming Hope even writes her own songs.”
“Oh! Will you perform one of your songs for us?” Rarity asked sweetly.
“Oh, well…” Blooming Hope said nervously and began fidgeting with her fingers.
“I’d like to hear one of your songs too.” Fluttershy added, but noticed how nervous Blooming Hope was. “But only if it’s okay with you. I write songs too so I know how nervous you can get when performing your work in front of others.”
“It’s just that…” Blooming Hope trailed off and then looked at Dragon.
“It’s up to you, they’re your songs.” Dragon told her and then tapped a piano key. “I’m just here to provide musical accompaniment.”
“Well I guess it wouldn’t hurt to sing one of my songs.” Blooming Hope finally agreed with a small smile. “I just hope it sounds okay, I haven’t really sang in front of anyone else other than family.” She looked at Dragon again. “I’m going to sing ‘Together to the Stars’ if that’s okay.”
“Fine with me. That’s your newest one isn’t it?” Dragon said as he cracked his knuckles and wiggled his fingers a bit before placing them over the keys of the piano. “Ready when you are.”
Blooming Hope took a deep breath and nodded; Dragon began to play, the melody starting out soft and almost dreamy. Blooming Hope started to sing, her singing starting out quiet and soft like the music but her voice soon began to rise as the tempo picked up. It was a song about friendship; friends supporting and helping each other to reach as high as they could to seize their dreams. Rarity, Fluttershy and Sunset were either swaying their bodies or tapping their feet to the music as Blooming Hope was putting her all into the performance. When the song finished the three applauded once again, without the startled reaction from Blooming Hope since she knew they were there.
“A lovely song.” Rarity said brightly.
“I liked it.” Fluttershy smiled as she clapped a bit more.
“Great work on both the singing and the song writing.” Sunset nodded approvingly.
“T-thank you.” Blooming Hope blushed even more than she had before. “I’m glad you liked it.”
Just then another musical tune sounded, though it didn’t come from any of the instruments in the room.
“That’s mine…” Sunset said rather sheepishly as she pulled out her phone and looked at the screen. “Looks like Twilight’s arrived; I should get going, we got a project of our own to work on. Good luck with your project.” She gave a smile and a quick wave as she left the room.
“I’d better get going too, I need to check on a couple things before classes start.” Fluttershy told them. “But I’m really looking forward to seeing what you guys make.” The pink haired girl followed out after Sunset.
“I’ll get out of your way too, you don’t need me around distracting you.” Dragon stood up from the bench in front of the piano and stretched. “Let me know if you want a ride home after school Hope.”
“You didn’t tell him?” Rarity asked Blooming Hope as Dragon began to walk away.
“Well I hadn’t found the right time yet…” Blooming Hope laughed rather nervously.
“Hope…” Dragon stopped walking as he turned towards his cousin then crossed his arms and quirked an eyebrow. “What did you volunteer me for this time?”
“Remember I told you that along with out report we were going to make various outfits to go with our history of musical fashion theme?” Blooming Hope asked and Dragon nodded. “Well we need someone to wear the outfits.”
“I figured one of you would wear the outfits while the other gave the report, or you’d alternate.” Dragon commented.
“We did consider that at first. But then decided that it would be better to give the report together, in our own special outfits of course, and have others model our outfits instead.” Rarity explained. “We need two models, a boy and a girl.”
“You know since the fashions can vary quite a bit between guys and girls.” Blooming Hope added. “So I was thinking you could be our male model.”
“Yeah… I don’t think I’m model material.” Dragon simply shook his head.
“We think you’d be a perfectly fine model Darling.” Rarity said sweetly with a wink. “Especially once we get you out of those black clothes.”
Dragon looked down at his outfit. “What’s wrong with black? I like black, I think it contrasts well with my pale skin.” He held up an arm in front of his shirt to better show the contrast.
Rarity giggled. “Indeed it does. But we think some other colors and styles would suit you very well; especially with your build and features.” Rarity reached up and squeezed his cheeks slightly between her hands as she turned Dragon’s head back and forth while studying his features. “Yes, I think I could make something that would compliment this face very nicely.”
“Please Dragon…” Blooming Hope said as a pout began to appear on her face. “It’d really help us out.”
“Don’t even!” Dragon leveled a finger at Blooming Hope. “No doing that! You better not!”
“Pleeeeaaaase?” Blooming Hope stepped closer to Dragon; her head tilted to one side as she looked up at him with pleading eyes and her lower lip quivering.
“Nope! Not gonna work this time!” Dragon tried looking away, but that just made Blooming Hope move right next to him while continuing to pout. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, then gritted his teeth and threw his hands up. “Gah! Fine I’ll do it!” Dragon nearly growled. “Just stop with the pouting!”
“Yay!” Blooming Hope cheered with a grin. “Thank you Dragon.”
Rarity managed to hold back a laugh at what she just witnessed and took a breath to regain her composure then smiled. “I’m sure you’ll do a fantastic job for our project, thank you.”
Dragon just sighed. “Well, let me know when you need me to dress-up.” He said as he walked towards the door.
“Just one more moment if you please Dragon.” Rarity said before he could leave and quickly moved over to the things she, Fluttershy and Sunset had brought in earlier.
“If you want me to help with preparing materials I feel the need to mention needlework is not something I’m skilled at.” Dragon said as he watched Rarity pull out a small box.
Rarity pulled out her work glasses and slipped them on before taking something else out of the box, she turned to Dragon with something long and thin rolled up in her hand. She smirked and there was an audible pop as Rarity grabbed one end of it and quickly stretched it out between her hands. Dragon took a step back with a rather worried look on is face.
“Uh… What is…?” Dragon began to question.
“We must take your measurements.” Rarity said happily as she held up her measuring tape. “It simply will not do to have one of our models wearing ill-fitting clothes will it?” She glanced to Blooming Hope. “If you would be so kind as to write them down while I take the measurements.”
Blooming Hope nodded and pulled out a notebook as Rarity began her work; she took the measurements swiftly and efficiently starting each number as she took it, it only took a few moments for Rarity to get everything she needed.
“And done.” Rarity announced as she stepped back from Dragon and gave a brilliant smile. “These outfits will be spectacular!”
“So now that I’m all measured out is it okay for me to leave?” Dragon motioned towards the door.
“Of course Darling.” Rarity nodded but then held up a finger right when Dragon was about to turn away. “However we will need you once more for a final fitting before we give the report.”
“Okay, just give me a call when you need me.” Dragon gave a wave as he walked out the door. “Later.”
Rarity waited a moment until she was sure Dragon was out of earshot. “I must say that pout was devastatingly effective.” Rarity laughed. “I haven’t known all of you very long but I didn’t think anything would get that sort of reaction out of him.”
“There’s not much that can.” Blooming Hope said seriously, then laughed. “I’m just glad that it’s still effective on him. Though I gotta use it sparingly or he might build up an immunity to it like he did with Shining Nova; she used to use it all the time when we were younger but it eventually stopped working on Dragon for her.”
“Understandable.” Rarity commented as she looked over the measurements. “Using something like that too much would just weaken the effect each time.”
“Well now we have our male model. What about out female model?” Blooming Hope inquired.
“Worry not my dear Blooming Hope, I already have someone in mind.” Rarity said as she began to pull out various materials to begin working. “I already have her measurements but it might prove difficult to convince her to stop competing with your sister long enough to give us a hand. Do you think I could borrow your pout for a bit?”
“Sure.” Blooming Hope smiled. “Just use it responsibly.”
They both laugh laughed as they got started on the next stage of their project.
*******
As the majority of Canterlot High’s students began to arrive for the day none were aware they were being watched by a figure that stood atop the school, an individual who wore a dark hooded long coat and scarf; the hood and green scarf completely hiding their features from view. Starwind glanced at all the students moving about below as his hands quickly moved over his mystic screen, tapping various symbols while pictures and other symbols flashed across its surface. Red symbols would pop up frequently and the screen would briefly be covered in static as he continued to work.
“Hmmm… Is the interference a side-effect of the other-worldly magic existing and being used in the area?” Starwind wondered aloud as he looked over his screen. “Or is it a natural reaction of this world’s magic field to foreign magic?”
Starwind tilted his head to one side as if he was trying to listen to something, he then made a few quick signs with his hands as he turned and motioned towards a spot behind him. The shadows around the area he had motioned towards began to warp and seemed to become a dark mist that rose up from the surface of the roof; the mist gathered into a thick cloud and then suddenly dissipated, vanishing without a trace as the shadows returned to normal. In place of the cloud stood the Dazzlings.
“Morning Starwind!” Sonata grinned and waved.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to travelling like that.” Aria rubbed her arms trying to warm herself up.
“Urgh…” Adagio just groaned and swayed a bit in place, being only half-awake. While she was dressed her hair was an absolute mess and she was lacking her usual makeup. “Too… early…”
“So what are you doing up here?” Aria asked as she walked over and looked at Starwind’s mystic screen.
“Trying to figure out what is causing the interference to my area scans.” Starwind answered as he tapped his screen a few times, causing static and a couple red symbols to flash by.
“I thought you said Equestrian magic didn’t screw up your scans.” Aria gave him a dubious look.
“The interference is not the Equestrian magic, not directly anyway.” Starwind explained as he went over the information on his screen. “And it only comes up when I try to do a general wide-area scan, if I’m doing a focused scan on a particular object or searching for known targets there’s no problems. For example…”
The images on the screen shifted and became a map of the school and a bit of the surrounding area. Eight glowing dots were in various places around the map, most were already in the school but a few were still outside.
“The Rainbooms.” Aria guessed.
“Correct.” Starwind nodded.
“That one must be that Pinkie girl.” Sonata pointed to a dot that seemed to be moving in a random pattern as it got closer to the school, then pointed to another that was heading towards the school at a high speed. “And that’s probably Rainbow Dash.” Last she pointed to a dot that was moving around the in the trees behind the school. “And that’s their dog.”
“If I knew we were just going to stand around up here talking about pointless stuff I would have just stayed home and stayed in bed.” Adagio grumbled as she rubbed her eyes. “What are we even doing here today?”
“To continue our observations of course.” Starwind stated matter-of-factly.
“Why? So Sonata can almost get herself caught again?” Adagio growled and jabbed a finger at the blue siren.
“At least I was doing what I was supposed to be doing!” Sonata shot back. “I was able to observe all the Rainboooms. You watched how many of them? Maybe one? The rest of the time you were just grumping around the school.”
“Seriously Adagio, I’m surprised you didn’t attract attention the way you were stomping around part of the time.” Aria added. “Were you even paying attention at all when you were following the cowgirl around? “
“Oh don’t you start with me.” Adagio said warningly as she narrowed her eyes. “At least I didn’t fall asleep on the job.”
“Hey! You try sitting there and listening to those two go on and on about fashion stuff!” Aria sneered and then rolled her eyes. “But even falling asleep I still was able to watch more than you did.”
Starwind sighed, a rather odd sound as it was echoing like his voice. “We have a job to do, this bickering is only wasting time.”
“What are we even going to do down there?” Adagio demanded as she got right in Starwind’s face. “Thanks to Sonata’s screw-up they’ll probably be on the look out; bet that spell of yours won’t do much if they’re actively looking for us.”
“As long as you don’t do anything to draw attention to yourselves my spell will continue to keep you from being noticed.” Starwind answered calmly despite the siren practically growling in his face. “To find you they would have to be checking every person in the school up close and personal to be able to see through the enchantment, and it doesn’t seem like they’re that desperate to find you. Even if they were you would clearly see what was happening and be able to slip away before they got to you.”
“If your magic can mess with everyone’s perceptions like that why don’t you just put the Rainbooms under some sort of spell to get the answers you want?” Adagio questioned as she crossed her arms and glared at Starwind.
“Whatever kept you from mesmerizing them with your songs also seems to protect their minds from the influence of my magic.” Starwind taped his screen and pictures of the Rainbooms and their information appeared. “That can probably be attributed to the Equestrian magic.”
“So you actually have tried casting magic on them?” Aria inquired with a raised eyebrow.
“What’d you use on them?” Sonata asked, then put her fingers to her temples with a look of concentration on her face. “Mind reading?” She then put her hand over her heart and made a goofy grin. “A charming love spell?” Then she stuck her arms straight out and began walking in a circle. “Mind control?”
“Nothing quite like that Sonata.” Starwind said as he waved a hand and his mystic screen vanished. “Something more subtle than that, just some minor spells that would go unnoticed as I tested their defenses.”
“Minor? Seriously?” Adagio deadpanned then shook her heard. “Why not use something major? Something big? Something that would blow their minds… preferably literally.”
“Because it wouldn’t have worked. Which is why I was testing things with minor spells; if the ones I used to test them had no effect on their minds the major ones wouldn’t have either. And literally blowing someone’s mind with magic tends not to leave much in the way of usable information.” Starwind quickly closed and opened his hand for an explosion then wiggled his fingers and he lowered his hand like ashes falling. “Besides a big spell would have given me away; not only would they be able to feel something was happening but many of those kinds of spells require me to be in close proximity, if not outright having to touch them, which just would have made things even more obvious. If I reveal myself I’d rather it not be in that way.”
“Is that why you hide away while we’re doing all the work?” Adagio said accusingly and poked him in the chest. “Cause you’re afraid of getting caught?”
“Actually I have been around observing as well.” Starwind said as he put a hand over Adagio’s and slowly moved it away from him so she wouldn’t be poking him in the chest. “With my ability to scan over the entire area inhibited direct observation is the next best thing.”
“But I haven’t seen you around observing.” Sonata raised a hand to her chin in thought, then let out a gasp. “Have you been making yourself invisible?!”
“No invisibility, merely approaching the observation from a different angle.” Starwind said in a somewhat soothing tone when it looked like Sonata may have been angry at the thought of him being invisible and not making her that way too. “I am in a different guise when I’m out observing so I doubt you’d recognize me even if you were right next to me.”
“Well have you seen them using their magic from this ‘different angle’ of yours?” Adagio asked pointedly.
“Unfortunately no, I’ve heard things but have yet to actually see anything.” Starwind sighed a bit. “Which is why we must continue our observations. If you are all ready.”
“All ready!” Sonata said with a smile.
“Whatever.” Aria said coolly. “We gotta do what we gotta do.”
“Do I look ready to you?” Adagio held her hands up to indicate her hair, which still looked like she had just rolled out of bed.
“Does it really bother you so much?” Starwind questioned as Adagio tried and failed to fix her hair with just her hands. “It’s not like people are going to even notice it thanks to my spell.”
“I don’t care, I do not want to be walking around in public looking like this.” Aria glowered at him. “I wouldn’t have even left the bedroom without having this fixed if it wasn’t for you grabbing us before I was ready with that shadow transport spell of yours.”
Starwind said nothing as he simply pointed at Adagio. Before she could question what he was doing Starwind snapped his fingers and suddenly Adagio felt a tingly feeling over her whole body, but especially around her head.
Adagio noticed Sonata was staring at her with a surprised look on her face while Aria had merely arched an eyebrow. “What do you just do?!” She demanded of Starwind.
Starwind made a couple quick signs with one hand and suddenly a mirror appeared in the air in front of Adagio; she looked into it to see her hair was in its usual style without a strand out of place, even her makeup was perfect.
“Well I suppose you’re not completely useless.” Adagio commented offhandedly as she checked out her reflection from different angles before the mirror vanished.
“I aim to please.” Starwind said with a trace of sarcasm in his voice as he pulled out a trio of notebooks with pens clipped to them out of his coat and handed them to the Dazzlings. “You can use these today to write down any observations you make or anything else interesting you hear; it’ll help us keep more organized and we won’t have to worry about anyone forgetting anything if it’s written down. Plus it should help in remaining unnoticed.”
“Because if we’re sitting around in a class room looking like we’re taking notes like everyone else it’ll help us blend in better and not draw attention to ourselves.” Aria guessed rather then waiting for one of the others to ask about it.
“Correct again Aria.” Stawind confirmed.
“Let’s just get this over with.” Adagio grumbled. “The sooner we get done with this and go back home the better.”
“Very well.” Starwind made some quick motions with his hands and pointed at the Dazzlings; they felt a brief tingling and the air around them brightened slightly, but both quickly faded. “Now that the spell is in place let us head down into the school.”
Starwind went up to the door that was at the side of the library’s dome; he point towards the lock and there was a loud click as it unlocked, Starwind opened the door and motioned for the Dazzlings to enter. As the Dazzlings went through the door Starwind handed each of them money for food as he had done the day before and they started down the stairs.
As Adagio pocketed the money she thought of something. “Where do you get this money anyway?” She asked as she turned back around; only to see that Starwind was gone and the door was slowly swinging shut. “Oh come on!”
Sonata hopped back up to the top of the stairs and opened the door back up. “Starwind?” She poked her head out and looked around the roof, then looked back at the other Dazzlings as she closed the door. “He’s gone.”
“Probably ‘ported himself down into the school somewhere.” Aria shrugged. “Get started on what he’s doing for his observation or whatever.”
“Doesn’t make it any less annoying…” Adagio began to growl, then stopped herself and took a deep breath. “Let’s go.” She said calmly as she headed down the stairs and into the school.
*******
Sunset and Twilight talked as they sat at a table towards the back of the classroom, most of the other students were gathered into different groups as they chatted amongst themselves. The usual teacher was ill and so they had a substitute who only gave the students a brief quiz before saying that was all for the class and they could do whatever as long as they didn’t get too loud or troublesome. Sunset and Twilight had moved to the back of the room away from the majority of the other students so that they could discuss their ideas for a new device to detect magic with at least a small amount of privacy.
“Here’s the original plans for my previous device.” Twilight opened up a notebook to reveal a schematic. “I didn’t use it for very long before I made the other one but it was able to get the readings I needed. So I was thinking we could refine this design into what we need.”
“I remember that.” Sunset smiled as she recognized the device. “That’s the one you had when you were here before the Friendship Games.
“Sorry about that.” Twilight hung her head. “Snooping around like that probably only made you more suspicious of me when I came back with the other Crystal Prep students.”
“Actually at the time I didn’t get a good look at your face so I didn’t know just who to be suspicious of, so don’t worry about it.” Sunset patted her on the shoulder. “What worried me more was someone messing with the portal to Equestria. Someone accidentally going through it would be in for a big surprise, not to mention Princess Twilight and whoever else was on the other side getting a surprise when an unexpected visitor dropped in on them.”
“I never would have guessed that was a portal to another world.” Twilight said with some wonder in her voice, then laughed a bit. “But even if I didn’t know what it was at the time I just had to take a closer look at it since it was the first thing I picked up and the readings from my invention told me that it was emanating the unknown energy.”
“And that’s when I spotted you then chased after you when you ran.” Sunset chuckled as she recalled the incident.
“Yeah, again sorry about that. I imagine running away like that probably just made things look worse, that I really was up to something bad.” Twilight sighed. “I was so focused on the mystery I didn’t stop to think what me sneaking around like that would look like to other people.”
“It’s okay Twilight, consider it a lesson learned.” Sunset assured her, then decided to get back to what this discussion was supposed to be about. “So do you have any ideas yet about how we could refine the device?”
“Well I think this design is a bit too conspicuous to be carrying around the school. Which is one of the reasons I made my next one look like pendant compact, something that wouldn’t look too out of place being carried around by a teenage girl. Though that really didn’t work out as well as I thought it would… Anyway, I think the first step is coming up with a new look for our magic scanner.” Twilight pulled out a clean sheet of paper and began sketching, a minute later she slid the paper over to Sunset so she could see it. “These are all the absolutely necessary components, as long as they’re all there we can have them in pretty much any configuration we want. So want do you think? Do you have any ideas we could use for a new configuration?”
Sunset looked over the parts Twilight had sketched out and thought for a bit, then smiled. “Actually I think I just might…” Sunset pulled out a notebook of her own and began sketching, a few moments later she showed Twilight. “So what do you think?”
“It looks like a cellphone…” Twilight stared at Sunset’s sketch quizzically, then a look of realization appeared on her face. “Oh! That’s a really good idea. What would look less out of place in a teen’s hand than a cellphone?” Twilight picked up the notebook to get a closer look. “You even have it so that the antenna can slide out from the sides when it’s activated.”
“So you do you think it’s a workable design?” Sunset inquired as Twilight continued to look over her rough design. “I wasn’t entirely sure everything would work in this configuration.”
“I’m sure we can get it to work, we might even be able to use our own cellphones as a base.” Twilight nodded as she set the notebook down. “Though we’ll have to come up with a new interface program for it since it’ll have to utilize a touch screen. And if we arrange everything right we might even be able to keep its functionality as a cellphone too. Let’s get started.”
Twilight smiled and pulled out her own cellphone along with a small tool set and got ready to pry her phone open to start work. Sunset quickly grabbed Twilight’s hands and stopped her from dismantling her phone.
“Hold on there a sec Twilight; you probably shouldn’t be ripping apart your phone in class, you’d have parts all over when the bell rang.” Sunset gently took the phone and tool away from Twilight and set them down one the table. “How about we work on this design a bit more so we’ll be sure everything works, then we can start ripping our phones apart.”
“Yeah that would be the best course of action.” Twilight gave an embarrassed smile.
At the next table, unnoticed by all the others in the classroom, sat Adagio. She continued writing Sunset’s and Twilight’s conversation down into the notebook Starwind had given her; Adagio decided she’d outdo both Aria and Sonata in recording their observations in the notebooks, that’d show them up for criticizing her earlier.
When she started Adagio figured she wouldn’t be hearing anything she’d particularly care about, but listening in on the conversation between Sunset and Twilight had proven her wrong. This Twilight being from this world was apparently true as Sunset as mentioned a Princess Twilight separate from her; not that’d Adagio would ever admit to the others that she was wrong with her insistence that this Twilight had been the same one from the Battle of the Bands. Another item of interest was that they were apparently trying to make something that could detect magic; Adagio briefly considered keeping that tidbit of information from Starwind just to see him surprised if they actually detected and caught him, but she decided to tell him after all because she thought Starwind possibly freaking out over it would be funny.
But what caught Adagio’s interest most of all was that there was an active portal to Equestria somewhere around the school. While she continued to write she found her thoughts kept drifting back to that portal to Equestria, a way back after all this time. But even if she could find the portal Adagio wondered if it’d even be worth it to use it. Her power, along with Aria’s and Sonata’s, was gone, if they went back they’d still have nothing now that their gems were destroyed. Not to mention from what Sunset had said Princess Twilight and whoever else could be waiting on the other side of the portal. With a potentially hostile reception along with what would probably not be a very suitable environment for their original forms going through the portal would be a big risk. Would that risk even be worth it now that they no longer had the power they had before?
Adagio decided to think about it for a while as she continued to write down her observations.
*******
Pinkie skipped across the cafeteria balancing five drinks in her arms, and despite dodging and spinning around various students as she went she didn’t spill a drop. She was still helping the group she had shown around the day before get accustomed to the school, Pinkie was sure her friends wouldn’t mind since they all had stuff of their own to do. With one final spin around Curly Winds Pinkie made it to the table where Happy Ditty, Jubilee, Crimson Sun and Whirl were waiting for her.
“Presenting the Pinkie Soda Special!” Pinkie grinned and slid the drinks across the table, each stopping perfectly in front of its intended recipient. “Well maybe I should say it’s the Pinkie Soda Special Lite, they didn’t have everything here to make the full recipe.”
“Ooooo… looks good.” Happy Ditty immediately took a sip and smiled. “Mmmm… it is good!”
“If they’re all from the same recipe why is the stuff in each glass a different color?” Jubilee questioned as she looked over all the drinks, but took a drink anyway. “Not bad though.”
“Indeed, it is quite good.” Crimson Sun commented as she stirred her glass a bit with her straw. “I should like to have the recipe.”
Whirl smelled her drink and gave it a questioning look but took a taste anyway; she grimaced and shuddered. “That’s… intense”
“No surprise you’d think that Miss Can’t-Handle-Sugar.” Jubilee snickered as she took another drink.
Happy Ditty downed the rest of her drink. “Yum!” As she set her glass down she turned to Pinkie with a smile. “So Pinkie you said something about a band earlier?”
“Yeah! Me and my friends have a band called the Rainbooms, we have all sorts of fun in it!” Pinkie began tapping her fingers on the table. “I play the drums!”
“Hey! I play drums too!” Whirl grinned and put her glass down before daring to take another drink and slid it to one side.
“Really? Are you in a band too?” Pinkie jumped up and leaned across the table putting her face right in front of Whirl’s, causing the blue girl to lean back a bit.
“Actually we’re all in the band.” Jubilee smirked as she watched Whirl trying to lean away from Pinkie. “Well sort of a band anyway, we haven’t had any gigs or played in front of people or anything.”
“But we’ve practiced a whole bunch though!” Happy Ditty piped in. “I play the guitar and sing, well we all sing really, Jubilee plays the bass, like Whirl said she’s on the drums, Crimson Sun plays the keyboard and the saxophone and the…”
“I play whatever is suitable for the song.” Crimson Sun interjected, reaching over and closing Happy Ditty’s mouth so that she wouldn’t continue run off a list of musical instruments. “Most songs I use the keyboard or saxophone though.”
“So what’s your band called?” Pinkie asked as she sat back down in her seat, much to Whirl’s relief.
“For right now anyway.” Jubilee quickly added. “We’re still working on that actually.”
“Oh come on, I already came up with a great name.” Whirl sounded a bit indignant as she crossed her arms. “Cybertronics.”
“And the rest of us voted not to be called that.” Crimson Sun commented as she sipped her drink. “Don’t be angry just because you lost the vote.”
“Good afternoon Miss Pie, could I speak with you for a moment?” A voice from behind Pinkie spoke, she quickly spun around to see that it was the Principle.
“Sure!” Pinkie jumped up from her seat. “What can I do for you Principle Celestia?”
“I was speaking to Miss Love here and I think she has a wonderful idea for helping students both new and old get to know each other better.” Celestia said as she looked towards the tall pink and red girl standing next to her. “A get-together this Saturday here at the school; not anything too fancy, just something relaxing and friendly.” Celestia smiled and put a hand on Pinkie’s shoulder. “And since you’re our premier party planner I thought that you might like to lend a hand.”
“I would love to!” Pinkie gave a huge grin then reached over and grabbed Venus Love’s hand to shake it. “Hi again Venus, we met yesterday but didn’t get to talk much since I was busy introducing my group to everyone. But I think a get-together this Saturday is a great idea!”
“Thank you Pinkie.” Venus returned the handshake briefly then pulled her hand back and smiled warmly. “But please don’t feel like you have to help with this, it was my idea so I wouldn’t mind having to do all the work myself.”
“It’s okay, I’d be happy to help.” Pinkie smiled back; then offered her hand to the guy that was standing a little behind Venus, Sundown Calm she remembered, but he didn’t even notice and simply kept writing in his notebook. Pinkie just shrugged and turned back to Venus. “Party planning is a specialty of mine.”
Venus’s smiled dropped a little but then she then brightened back up. “I really wouldn’t want to trouble you, especially if you have any previous plans.”
“I insist.” Pinkie told her as she placed a hand to her chest. “I always have the time to plan a party.”
“Well if you insist…” Venus simply nodded and kept smiling, though an eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly. “I would be happy to work with you.”
“So what sort of ideas do you have for it so far?” Pinkie bounced on her heels in excitement.
“Well nothing really major, just food and maybe some music.” Venus explained. “Just a little something to really get those positive feelings up and flowing.”
“We could even have live music, there’s quite a few bands here at CHS. Oh!” Pinkie had a realization and spun back around to those still sitting at the table. “This could be your big debut! The Cyber-Gumdrops Live!”
“Cyber-Gumdrops?” Whirl repeated in a confused tone.
“Uh Pinkie…? That’s supposed to be Chocolate Gumdrops.” Jubilee corrected while holding back a laugh.
“I kinda like Cyber-Gumdrops.” Happy Ditty smiled and nodded.
“This would be a good chance to play in front of an audience.” Crimson Sun commented in a thoughtful tone.
“What do you think Venus?” Pinkie asked as she spun back around. “Wouldn’t having live bands be great?”
“Live bands do tend to have a more positive effect on most people than recorded music and probably would help get people together.” Venus thought a bit, then turned to Sundown. “Did you get that? Bands at the get-together?”
“Huh?” Sundown looked up from his notebook to see Venus looking at him expectantly, then flipped back a few pages and jotted something down. “Live bands at the get-together… There, got it.”
“Excellent.” Venus nodded then turned back to Pinkie. “Now we just need to refine our ideas.”
“It looks like you two will make an great team.” Celestia said happily. “Now we don’t have too long until the weekend so let’s keep things simple and have everything planned out and on my desk by Friday morning so I can review and approve it.”
“Of course Principal Celestia.” Venus nodded.
“Okie dokie lokie.” Pinkie grinned.
“Well I shall leave you girls to your planning then, I look forward to seeing what you come up with.” Celestia nodded and gave a smile before walking away.
“Let’s head out to the field, I thought that would be the best place to have something like this.” Venus told Pinkie as she motioned for her to follow. “Maybe we can come up with some more ideas if we’re in the setting the get-together is going to be at.”
“Oooo… good idea.” Pinkie began to skip along, then stopped and turned back to the table. “You guys wanna come along? See where you’re first big performance is going to be?”
“Sure.” Happy Ditty answered while the rest nodded.
As the four stood up from the table Whirl thought she had better finish off her drink before going. It may have been way more sweet than what she liked but the least she could do is finish it off since Pinkie made it just for them, but when Whirl reached for her glass she found it empty. She held up the glass and wondered if one of the others grabbed it and finished it off when she wasn’t looking, most likely Happy Ditty. Whirl just shrugged and set the glass back down before following after the others.
At the next table over Sonata finished up writing down her notes on the conversation she just observed. She hoped that Starwind would want to check out that get-together once she told him about it, she thought it sounded like it’d be fun. Sonata also hoped that Pinkie would give that Crimson Sun girl the recipe to that drink she made sometime while she was observing them, that glass she had snuck away from the other blue girl had been delicious.
With her notes on her current observation done Sonata decided to move on and find someone or something else to observe.
*******
In the science lab the students had been split-up by the teacher into pairs to work on the day’s assignment; at a table near the window sat Applejack, Firecracker, Rainbow Dash & Shining Nova. They wore goggles, aprons and gloves as they carefully worked with the chemicals before them.
“You seem to have a pretty good handle on this,” Applejack commented as she measured out chemicals as precisely as she could. “You done this before?”
“Yeah actually.” Firecracker replied as she carefully poured the chemicals Applejack measured out into a beaker that was slowing heating over a flame. “Was working on pretty much the same thing at the school we were at before this one.”
“Must be kinda nice already knowing what we’re working on, makes it nice and easy.” Applejack chuckled a bit as she handed another test tube to Firecracker. “Kinda like a vacation from the usual school work.”
“Well I wouldn’t ever call schoolwork a vacation.” Firecracker said as she poured the last chemical into the beaker, then carefully adjusted the heat. “I won’t complain about it being easier though.”
“Shouldn’t you already know this stuff too?” Rainbow Dash questioned her partner. “You did go to the same school before this right?”
“Well I didn’t think I’d be doing it again so I didn’t exactly commit it to memory.” Shining Nova answered as she measured out chemicals.
“Well don’t worry about it, we can just wing it.” Rainbow Dash said confidently as she poured chemicals into her and Shining Nova’s beaker.
“This ain’t the kind of thing you can just wing Rainbow Dash.” Applejack shook her head as she wrote down a couple things on the worksheet that she had attached to a clipboard. “You shouldn’t even need to wing it considerin’ you have the worksheet right there in front of you.”
“It’ll be fine AJ.” Rainbow Dash waved off as she fiddled with the heat.
“So Cuz… any hints you want to throw my way?” Shining Nova asked as she leaned closer to Firecracker.
“Read the worksheet again.” Firecracker smirked as she and Applejack watched the fluid in their beaker change colors.
“Already gave it one read over, that should be enough.” Shining Nova slid the worksheet off to one side. “Right Rainbow Dash?”
“Right. We learn by doing, not by reading.” Rainbow Dash nodded and grinned. “Now check this out.”
The rainbow-haired teen suddenly cranked up the temperature under their beaker and sat back with a rather smug expression on her face. The fluid in the beaker changed colors like Applejack’s and Firecracker’s did, but then began to bubble and boil. It started to change color again and shifted through several more colors; the four of them watched in fascination as the fluid finally became a rainbow of colors. But with a sudden hiss and a puff of smoke the mixture turned black.
“Well that was an interesting reaction.” Firecracker snickered. “Not what we were supposed to be going for though.”
“You might want to read through that worksheet one more time, just in case ya missed something…” Applejack slid their worksheet back towards them. “Like the right temperature.”
“I thought it looked pretty cool.” Rainbow Dash reached over and turned off the heat. “Until it burned anyway.”
“Maybe we can get extra credit for making it change like that.” Shining Nova suggested.
“Sorry girls, no extra credit for boiling the assignment into inactivity.” The teacher, Mr. Rye, suddenly leaned in; smiling he switched the blackened beaker with a new one. “But there’s still plenty of time in class, so why don’t you give it another try?”
The pair sighed and got back to work.
“I’d rather be back out on the field.” Shining Nova thought aloud as she returned to measuring chemicals.
“Me too.” Rainbow Dash simply nodded as Shining Nova handed her the first test tube of chemicals. “So have we figured out what we’re going to do next?”
“Not sure. I heard someone say we should play tennis, another said homerun derby, football…” Shining Nova began to count off suggestions she heard.
Sitting on a spare stool nearby Aria just shook her head and continued to write in her notebook. It was turning out to be a pretty boring class, when it looked like something interesting was going to happen it went up in smoke pretty quick. The whole day had been pretty boring so far; with the exception of a few rumors and general gossip she didn’t have much of interest in her notebook, just a general report of various members of the Rainbooms in their classes.
Out of the corner of her eye Aria saw a beaker at the table she was next to starting to boil so violently that it was beginning to shake, neither of the pair that was supposed to be watching it was paying any attention to their assignment. One was busy writing something in his notebook while the other was just staring towards the same group Aria had been watching with a goofy smile on his face. By the look of it things were going to be more interesting than when Rainbow Dash and her partner messed up theirs. While it might be fun to watch Aria had no desire to be anywhere close to the beaker when it blew.
Aria was just starting to get up to leave when another idea crossed her mind. She sighed and sat back down, she rolled her eyes at what she saw as idiocy as she reached over to the one that had been making the goofy smile and flicked him in the ear.
“Ow! What was tha…?” His head spun around towards his partner, but suddenly stopped when he saw the beaker. “Whoa! Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!”
The other guy heard the commotion his partner was making and looked over and saw what was going on in the beaker as well. Their hands both shot out and with some fumbling they managed to turn the heat off and after a moment the bubbling stopped and the chemical mixture settled into a brown sludge. The boys breathed a sigh of relief but then started laughing nervously when they saw the teacher standing across the table from them giving them a stern look.
“You’re welcome idiots…” Aria muttered as she went back to her observations.
*******
After school Twilight and Sunset sat in the library going over their designs for their new magic scanner, still making small changes and adjustments. Rarity sat on the other side of the table texting while Pinkie and Fluttershy were at the next table talking. A moment later Applejack and Rainbow Dash walked in, Pinkie waved excitedly until they reached the tables.
“So is this going to be the magic detector thing you’re working on?” Rainbow Dash asked as she looked over the papers full of sketches and notes spread out on the table. “You’re seriously gonna make it look like a cellphone?”
“It’s was Sunset’s idea.” Twilight smiled as she held up one of the sketches. “It’ll be the perfect camouflage for the magic scanners.”
“We’re pretty sure we can keep them functional as cellphones too.” Sunset added.
“So they’d be like some sort of spy-gear hidden in our phones?” Rainbow Dash picked up the sketch and gave it a quizzical look.
“Well I suppose you could think of it that way.” Twilight brought a finger to her chin as she considered it. “But we won’t install it in your phone if you don’t want us to.”
“It’s cool, I don’t mind.” Rainbow Dash told her as she handed the sketch back. “It’d be pretty awesome having a spy phone.”
Applejack took a seat with Fluttershy and Pinkie while Rainbow Dash dropped her backpack on the table and flopped down in the seat across from her and let out an annoyed sigh.
“Not really, just a bit ticked that I didn’t win against Nova today.” Rainbow Dash frowned a bit.
“I heard it was a tie.” Applejack laughed a bit at the way Rainbow Dash was acting. “Means you didn’t lose either.”
“But I would have won if all those people hadn’t come pouring out onto the field!” Rainbow Dash threw her hands up.
“That might be my fault.” Pinkie admitted apologetically. “I was one of the ones they were kinda following out there.”
“I’m not really annoyed at you or the rest of the people that came out,” Rainbow Dash told the Pinkie, getting a smile in return. “I’m more annoyed with myself for getting distracted by that; Nova was totally distracted too and if I would’ve been paying attention I could’ve scored another goal and won the game instead of just getting a tie.”
“What was that all about anyway?” Applejack asked as she quirked an eyebrow. “I saw a bunch of people parading down the hall but didn’t have a clue what was goin’ on.”
“I was wondering that too.” Fluttershy added.
“Well Venus Love had the idea of having a get-together this Saturday where new and old students could get to know each other, Celestia asked if I’d like to help. I said yes of course.” Pinkie explained. “Venus though it’d be best to have it out on the field so we went out there to start planning everything. It started with just seven of us but I may have mentioned it to a few more people on the way there and they wanted to help out too.”
“Looked to be more than a few people there Pinkie.” Applejack chuckled
“Word spreads fast?” Pinkie offered as an explanation.
“So what did you come up with?” Sunset asked as she finished up some alterations to a design.
“The basics are going to be food, music and games; and there’ll be plenty of room to dance or just to hang out and get to know each other. I bet the whole school’s gonna be there!” Pinkie told them with a huge grin. “Speaking of music it’s gonna be live, I already got a few of our friends’ bands to agree to be there but I think there’s room for one more. So what do you say? Are the Rainbooms gonna make an appearance?”
“Well of course they are.” Rainbow Dash said immediately, while everyone else nodded, then she smirked. “Gotta show the new guys how we rock here at Canterlot High.”
While the rest laughed Rarity tilted her head to one side as if trying to listen to something. “Does anyone else hear that? A scratching sound?”
The rest went silent and started to listen, at first no one else seemed to hear anything but after a moment they began to hear some sort of scratching nearby.
“Yeah, there it is.” Applejack said as she cupped a hand to her ear trying to zero in on the source of the noise.
“I think it’s coming from over here.” Rainbow Dash got up and began walking towards one of the bookshelves.
“I’m think you’re right.” Sunset said as she began moving towards the bookshelf as well.
“Be careful.” Fluttershy quietly called after them
The pair stepped quietly as they got closer to the bookshelf, listening closely to figure out exactly where the noise was coming from. When they got to the shelf they were finally able to pinpoint where it was, they both looked up as they could tell the sound was coming from the top of the shelves above them. Rainbow Dash looked at Sunset and nodded then kneeled down and linked her hands together to give Sunset a step up, when Sunset put her foot in place Rainbow Dash slowly began to lift.
As Rainbow Dash lifted her up Sunset could hear some sort of sniffing sound along with the scratching. When she was able to peek over the top of the shelves Sunset wasn’t quite sure what she was looking at; there was some sort of small dark rounded form, it was fuzzy standing on four small clawed feet and facing away from her. As Sunset stared at it trying to figure out what it was it suddenly spun around revealing three small red eyes, then it let out a hiss showing many small fangs. Sunset jerked back, causing her to lose her balance and go crashing down on top of Rainbow Dash.
As Sunset and Rainbow Dash hit the floor whatever the thing was jumped off the bookshelf and landed on the table where Twilight and Rarity were sitting before immediately bounding off, eliciting a shrike from Rarity as she fell backwards in surprise while Twilight quickly grabbed her phone and tried to take a picture. Whatever the little creature was it shot off between the bookshelves.
“What in tarnation was that?” Applejack asked as she helped Rarity up.
“I don’t know.” Sunset groaned as she and Rainbow Dash untangled themselves. “But it’s not any normal animal that I’ve ever seen.”
“Whatever it is catch it!” Rainbow Dash jumped up after she and Sunset managed to get untangled and ran after the creature, quickly followed by Applejack and Pinkie.
“Is everyone okay?” Sunset asked as she looked over the others.
“I’m fine.” Fluttershy answered. “It sure surprised me though.”
“It didn’t touch me.” Twilight said as she started cleaning up the papers that had been sent flying all over the place. “It sure made a mess of our designs and notes though.”
“What a horrid little thing.” Rarity said with disgust as she brushed herself off.
“If it’s dangerous we’d better make sure it doesn’t get out of here.” Sunset said determinedly. “Let’s get the doors closed so it can’t leave that way.”
As the girls rushed over to the doors to get them closed they heard yelling coming from further back in the library; while part of it was their friends chasing after the thing the rest of the yells were from other people that had been in the library that had just seen the little creature. Several students came running out into the front of the library, Sunset managed to direct them a bit and keep them from colliding with each other as the others held open the doors.
“Girls what are you doing?” Cheerilee asked as she was making sure the rest of the students were out of the library. “We all need to get out of here and call animal control, there’s some little creature on the loose back there.”
We know Miss Cheerilee, we already saw it.” Sunset told her. “Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Pinkie are trying to catch it. We were going to close the doors so it can’t get out, you can go out and check on the others to make sure they’re okay and we’ll close up behind you.”
“No girls, I’m not about to let you lock yourselves up alone with a potentially dangerous animal.” Cheerilee said sternly. “I’m not going to leave until I’m sure you’re all safe.”
The sounds of the chase were coming closer and they watched as the creature shot out into the open with Rainbow Dash right behind it, but it suddenly turned and when Rainbow Dash tried to follow her forward momentum was too much and she ended up skidding across the floor. Applejack and Pinkie came running out from the bookshelves from other directions trying to head off the thing.
“Applejack!” Rainbow Dash called out as she kicked a small trashcan she had come to a stop near into the air towards the blond girl.
Applejack leaped into the air and caught the trashcan, the creature stopped and stared up at her, as she came down Applejack slammed the trashcan down over the thing. The was a screech and a sudden banging coming from underneath the can but Applejack held it in place with her foot on top and the creature was unable to escape.
“Nice slam Applejack.” Rainbow Dash said as she came running up and gave her a high-five.
“Did anyone get hurt chasing that thing around?” Sunset asked as she came walking up with the others.
“Nah, the thing just ran away from us hissing all the way.” Applejack shook her head as the noise from under the trashcan continued. “Didn’t even try and bite nobody, just ran between their legs.”
“While I can’t condone you girls taking it upon yourselves to capture a potentially dangerous animal,” Cheerilee began in a lecturing tone, then smiled. “I will say good work in catching it without anyone getting hurt.”
“I hope it’s okay.” Fluttershy said worriedly, even when the others gave her strange looks. “Whatever it is it might just be scared and that’s why it ran.”
“We should get it out of there so we can get a better look at it and find out what it is.” Twilight commented as she looked down at the trashcan with a thoughtful expression. “Question is what can we use to keep it from running again?”
“We use this.” Pinkie smiled and held up a net.
“Pinkie, why do you have a net?” Rainbow Dash questioned as she stared at Pinkie.
“How else am I supposed to catch the little creature?” Pinkie answered as she swung the net around.
Everyone looked down when the noise suddenly stopped.
“I hope that means it just calmed down.” Sunset said apprehensively.
“Ready with that net Pinkie?” Applejack kneeled down to grab the trashcan with her hands.
“Yup.” Pinkie grinned and held her net in a ready position.
Applejack quickly lifted the trashcan and Pinkie slammed the net down; but there was nothing to catch, only a bit of black smoke wafting through the air.
“Where’d it go?!” Rainbow Dash kneeled down and moved Pinkie’s net to check the floor where the creature should have been then checked the empty trashcan. “No way it could have vanished.”
“Why not?” Rarity said as Rainbow Dash stood back up. “It not like we haven’t experienced stranger things.”
“Could it have been something from Equestria?” Fluttershy asked as she turned to Sunset.
“I don’t think so.” Sunset shook her head. “I didn’t get a very good look at it but it didn’t look like any Equestrian creature I know of.”
“Well I did try to get a picture, maybe we can have a better look at it.” Twilight said as she took out her phone, then sighed. “Or not…”
Twilight showed everyone the picture. While the little creature was in the shot it was nothing more than a black blur across the image, more noticeable was Rarity falling backwards as she shrieked.
“Not my most flattering picture.” Rarity said dryly.
“So first a Dazzling and now a weird little monster. What’s going on around here?” Rainbow Dash crossed her arms as and annoyed expression appeared on her face. “And what are we gonna do about it?”
“Not a whole lot we can until we figure out what it all means.” Applejack said matter-of-factly.
“Yeah all we can do for now is keep our eyes and ears open as we try and figure this out, and if it’s something bad hope we can catch it before it starts.” Sunset said seriously. “Until then…”
“We can go to Sugar Cube Corner!” Pinkie suddenly piped in.
“That actually sounds pretty good right now.” Sunset cracked a smile. “So let’s clean up and do that.”
“Whatever you girls do please be careful, and good luck.” Cheerilee told them. “I’m going to go check and make sure everyone else is okay.”
As Cheerilee left the group quickly cleaned up and gathered their things before setting out themselves. As they were heading out the library doors Sunset stopped and looked back briefly, there was no way that was just some random occurrence. But what did it mean? Was something else starting to happen at Canterlot High? Something bad yet again? Sunset didn’t have enough information to even make an educated guess and could only hope she could learn more before any problems arose.
“Sunset!” Pinkie called back from down the hallway.
“Coming!” Sunset called out as she rushed to catch up.
The school day had finished at Canterlot High and most everyone had gone home for the day, only a few of the faculty were still about finishing up some final tasks before heading home themselves. However in the library far back amongst the shelves sitting at a table in a corner that seemed to be forgotten by most were Starwind and the Dazzlings.
Starwind was reading through the notebooks where the Dazzlings had written their observations for the day, taking his time studying the material. Adagio was sitting on one end of the table glaring at Starwind with and expression that was a mixture of boredom and annoyance, wishing she was somewhere else but knowing there was no where else to go. Aria sat with her feet propped up on the table as she read one of the notebooks that Starwind wasn’t currently looking through, comparing notes with what she herself had observed. Sonata sat at the far end of the table eating chips and drinking a soda as she read through a book she had pulled from a nearby shelf, the others hadn’t seen what the book’s title was but Sonata kept giggling at whatever was in it.
“The stuff they gossip about around here…” Aria shook her head as she continued going through the notebook.
“Pretty typical stuff for a high school really.” Stawind responded as he read through the notebook he had. “Though there is the occasional interesting oddity.”
“Why are we just sitting here reading?” Adagio groaned. “There can’t be any use to knowing what the idiots around here gossip about.”
“On the contrary Adagio, as the saying goes ‘Knowledge is Power’.” Starwind told the golden siren as he held up the notebook. “The more we know about the people and the goings-on around here the better prepared we’ll be for whatever might happen.”
“It’s still boring.” Adagio frowned as she crossed her arms.
“Well if you’re that bored I suppose it’d be okay to tell you a little something I have planned for later.” Starwind’s voice had a bit of amusement in it. “How would you girls like to sing someone a little song this evening?”
“Are you serious?!” Adagio leaned forward and grabbed Starwind by the scarf, pulling him close enough that her face was nearly under Starwind’s hood along with his. “You’re just not saying that to try and get me to stop complaining or something?”
“I am indeed serious.” Starwind said as he pried Adagio’s hand open to let loose his scarf so he could lean back. “You’re going to mesmerize someone to make them more pliable to questioning so that I can ask them about that portal to Equestria.”
“And you don’t have any magic that you could use to get the information yourself?” Aria inquired as she set her notebook down.
“Oh I have a few things that could get the job done; but the spells I know for such a task are unsubtle and heavy-handed, plus run the risk of causing damage that could make them forget the information I was trying to get.” Starwind simply shook his head. “But with your singing instead of a hammering blow it would be a gentle trip into the mental fog leaving them open and unable to resist. Far more useful and far less mess.”
“Well whatever, be more interesting than just sitting around reading or watching.” Adagio commented nonchalantly as she leaned back, but she had a small smile on her face as she did so.
“So who are we going after?” Aria asked as she swung her feet off the table. “Can’t be any of the Rainbooms since our songs don’t work on them. Did you find someone else who knows about Equestrian magic?”
“Oh! Did you sniff them out?” Sonata suddenly tossed in.
“Why would you even ask something like that Sonata?” Aria immediately countered.
“Well that’s how he found us didn’t he?” Sonata motioned toward Starwind and then tapped herself on the nose. “Said we had the scent of magic.”
“He was just saying that to be dramatic.” Aria rolled her eyes as Sonata glared at her.
“Actually Aria, I really can smell magic.” Starwind laughed a bit. “And Sonata is right about how I found you three, I caught your scent and followed it to you.”
“I told you!” Sonata called out triumphantly.
“Seriously?” Aria looked at Starwind with an extremely doubtful look on her face.
“Yes, it is a minor ability of mine.” Starwind nodded, then sighed. “Unfortunately one that is nearly useless here; the Rainbooms have used so much Equestrian magic on these grounds that the scent practically covers the whole school and overpowers everything else.”
“What does magic even smell like?” Adagio inquired, looking at Starwind a bit doubtfully as well.
“Well while there is a base scent it’s kinda hard to describe, and then Equestrian magic has a base scent of its own which is equally difficult to describe. However each individual that has magic in them has their own scent on top of that which is a bit easier to identify.” Starwind explained. “For example the scent that you three had when I found you, or rather what remained of it, reminded me a lot of the sea.”
“So whoever it is we’re going after tonight I’m guessing they’re not magic.” Aria decided to change subjects back to whatever it was Starwind had planned. “So how’d you find them and how are we going to get them?
“Found them by observing and listening in of course.” Starwind said as he steepled his hands. “Now here’s the plan…”
*******
In what was usually a quiet neighborhood a garage door opened revealing three teenagers that had just finished their band practice. Flash Sentry gently set his guitar in its case, after making sure everything was secure he closed the case and picked it up as he turned to his band-mates.
“If this evening’s practice is anything to go by we’re going to really rock them at the get-together this weekend.” Flash gave a quick fist pump with his free hand.
“No doubt.” Ringo said as he put his own guitar away. “We should be able to show the new guys a thing or two.”
“Oh Yeah! We’ve been on fire this week!” Brawly Beats practically cheered as he spun his drumsticks. “We’re gonna blow the other bands away this Saturday.”
“It’s not going to be a competition Brawly, even though we will be the best band there.” Ringo smirked a bit as he turned to Flash. “You want a ride home?”
“Nah, that’s okay. Feel like walking tonight.” Flash shrugged as he looked outside. “Looks like it’s going to be a pretty nice night, maybe I’ll be able to find some fresh inspiration and finish that new song I’ve been working on. Then we’ll have something new for the get-together.”
“Well hope you find that inspiration quick then, we only got a couple more days to learn a whole new song.” Ringo joked and gave a quick wave as he started out. “Be seeing you tomorrow.”
“Later Flash.” Brawly Beats said as held out a fist.
“Later Brawly.” Flash grinned and returned the fistbump.
As he made his way home Flash enjoyed the evening, the weather was clear and the stars had just come out. Maybe he really would be able to find the inspiration for his new song. When Pinkie asked him and his band to play at the get-together she was planning with that new girl, Venus Love, Flash found he just couldn’t say no, Pinkie’s enthusiasm was just too infectious. Even if it was a pretty spur of the moment school event it was still a great chance for him and his band to show off their music to the new students.
Flash began to make his way through the park; not only was it a shortcut to his house but maybe the more natural surroundings would help along that inspiration he was looking for. Not that they really needed a new song, they had several songs that he knew would be great for the event, Flash just wanted to have something fresh for the new arrivals.
As he continued walking through the park a tune came to Flash’s mind and he began to hum it out loud. It was a good one he thought; it was a calm tune and a bit mysterious sounding but it was catchy and something he felt he could easily put words to. But as he continued to hum Flash began to think there was something about the tune that sounded a bit familiar, maybe a bit too familiar… He shook his head, it couldn’t be. But as Flash stopped humming he noticed something; the tune wasn’t something he had been thinking up in his mind, it was coming from somewhere else.
Flash listened closely and he could hear a voice but couldn’t pinpoint where it was, it was like it was floating in the breeze all around him. The voice was starting to sound familiar and Flash didn’t like what he heard at all; he picked up the pace of his walk and did his best to watch the area around him as he headed for the closest way out of the park.
It was then that he saw someone on the path ahead of him walking in his direction, the voice picking up in volume as they got closer. Though he couldn’t tell who it was in the darkness, the trees around them shielded the figure from the streetlights so all Flash could make out was their form. It was definitely a girl, Flash could tell that much even if they seemed to be wearing a baggy hoodie with the hood up. Flash came to a stop and took a step back, he was feeling something was very wrong and he suddenly wanted to be anyplace but the park.
The figure stepped into the light cast by one of the streetlights near the path, under the hood Flash could make out golden skin and familiar sultry violet eyes. She took a few more steps before reaching up and pulling her hood down, sending curly orange-blond hair cascading down her back, before placing her hands on her hips as she continued to sing.
Flash took a few more steps back, his expression shifting from shock to fear before becoming one of anger. “Adagio! What are you doing here?!”
Adagio didn’t answer and she simply continued to sing; the look in her eyes was one of confidence, someone who knew they had already succeeded.
Flash could feel his mind beginning to fog, and he shook his head attempting to keep it clear. “Not this time!” He turned and ran intending to put as much distance between them as he could.
He didn’t know why Adagio was here, how she seemed to have her power back when it was supposed to be gone or why she seemed to be after him, but Flash sure wasn’t going to let himself be caught. He needed to get out of the park first of all, hopefully that’d give him enough distance to no longer be within range of the song, then he’d call Sunset; her and the girls beat the Dazzlings before, they’d definitely be able to do it again.
Taking a quick glance over his shoulder Flash couldn’t see Adagio anymore but his mind still felt a bit hazy, and he could still hear the song clearly. As he rounded the next corner Flash found out why he could still hear the song so well, leaning against a tree was another of the Dazzlings. As she sang Aria glanced towards Flash and then walked out into the middle of the path and crossed her arms as she continued to stare at him. Looking back Flash could see Adagio again as she walked towards him, her voice and Aria’s joining together in their song. Along with the fog in his mind it was starting to feel like there was a physical weight pressing down on Flash, but with a growl of determination he held his guitar case tight to his body and bolted from the park path and into the trees.
While they might be able to outmaneuver him when he was sticking the paths Flash was betting it wouldn’t be so easy when he was running randomly through the trees, though he had to slow his pace a bit because of the darkness and all the foliage. But he couldn’t seem to get away as the song seemed just as clear as it was when he left the path. Flash decided he could be a bit less careful and push himself a bit faster so that he could get away, but paid for it almost immediately as he tripped on a root. He managed to keep himself from completely going face down and instead went down on his knees and one hand. Before Flash could stand back up he saw a pair of feet right in front of him and looked up, even in the darkness he could make out Sonata’s face. As she sang she simply leaned down and booped Flash on the nose. Flash scrambled to his feet and took off running again as fast as he was able.
Flash did his best to get away, running in random directions through the trees and down the paths. But it didn’t seem to do any good. No matter which way he went he always found one of the Dazzlings in his path. As their song rang in his ears it got harder and harder to think clearly; and as his mind continued to fog his body was feeling heavier, like he was trying to drag a great weight through sand.
Moving forward the best he could Flash vaguely recognized that he was somewhere in the center of the park, pretty much the exact opposite of where he had wanted to go. Flash stumbled and lost his grip on his guitar case and it clattered down onto the stone of the path he was on. His body was feeling so heavy and his mind was so muddled that he couldn’t walk anymore and he went down to one knee. Flash could see the Dazzling circling around him as they continued to sing, though he could barely make them out as his vision was beginning to get fuzzy and Flash could feel himself starting to slip into unconsciousness as he began to tip forward.
Suddenly Flash felt a hand under his chin, a gloved hand by the feel of it, stopping him from falling face first to the ground.
“Ah Ah, Mr. Sentry. We can’t have you passing out on us yet.” An echoing voice spoke, piercing through the fog in Flash’s mind enough to be understood.
The hand slowly began to lift and Flash found himself standing up, his body seeming to move of its own accord rather than him actually deciding to stand up. As Flash stood his eyes began to focus a bit better and he could see what gloved hand was attached to; he saw a long black and green coat with a hood and scarf, whoever they were their features we hidden behind the scarf and the darkness under the hood.
“Who…?” Flash managed to ask, his voice sounding distant to his own ears.
“Who I am is not important right now.” Starwind answered simply. “What’s important right now, Mr. Sentry, is that I require information. I believe you have the information I seek. Now, will you answer my questions?”
It was a strange feeling to Flash, while his mind still felt hazy he heard the hooded one’s words perfectly clear. He couldn’t even move his body anymore, it was almost like he was hanging from the hand that was holding him by the chin. And he was close enough that all he could focus on was the darkness under the hood, but out of the corner of his eyes Flash could see that the Dazzlings were still circling around them and could still hear the sound of their song. It was getting so hard to think, let alone actually vocalize an answer.
“Yes...” Flash was vaguely surprised to hear his own voice.
“Excellent.” Starwind nodded slightly. “You are a friend of the Rainbooms are you not?”
“Yes…” Flash answered again, but then he was able to force himself to focus enough to add to it. “I won’t betray them…”
“Commendable.” Starwind commented as he watched Flash trying to concentrate. “Worry not, I won’t be asking you to betray them. As I said information is all I seek; I am unable to get it directly from the Rainbooms themselves so I must seek another source, which is you. Do you understand?”
“I understand…” Flash struggled to try and focus more.
“You seem closer to them than many.” Starwind stated matter-of-factly. “Have you spoken with them about their magic?”
“Not really… I didn’t want to seem like I was nosy if they didn’t want to talk about it...” Flash managed to shake his head a bit. “I don’t think anyone really does, after everything that’s happened everyone just accepts it…”
“It seems so as there’s only rumors floating around the school.” Starwind sighed. “So they truly are the only ones that know how their magic works then?”
“I’m not sure they know either…” No matter how hard he tried Flash couldn’t stop himself from answering the questions.
“How could they not know how their own magic works?” Starwind questioned, disbelief evident in his voice.
“It just sort of happens, especially when they play music…” Flash couldn’t even bite his tongue to try and keep from answering. “Sunset was trying to figure it out, something about it not working like back in her home…”
“Them not completely understanding it makes the situation potentially worse.” Starwind said more to himself than anyone before turning his attention back to Flash. “But you mentioning Miss Shimmer and her home brings us to the main reason we are having this conversation. The portal to Equestria… Do you know where it is?”
“Yes…” Flash did not want to answer the question he knew was coming.
“Where?” Starwind asked in a conversational tone, but the question seemed to bore right into Flash’s mind.
Flash was silent a moment as he concentrated as hard as he could not to say anything, but no matter how hard he tried to hold them back he could feel the words slipping out. “It’s in… the base of… the statue in front of the school…”
“Thank you.” Starwind said as he let go of Flash’s chin
Flash felt like his body was going to give out and he’d crumple to the ground, but right as he felt like he was about to fall a hand grabbed onto his arm. His body went from almost falling over to standing up straight. Feeling a bit like he was on strings Flash walked mechanically as Starwind led him over to a nearby park bench.
“I thank you for your time Mr. Sentry, it was enlightening.” Starwind sat Flash down gently on the bench. “I apologize for the inconvenience.” Starwind raised a hand slightly and Flash’s guitar case floated up off the ground and into it, he then set the case on the bench next to Flash.
His mind still in a fog and whole body feeling numb Flash could only look at the dark figure that stood in front of him. Flash watched as the Dazzlings came up and stood next to hooded one as they quietly continued their song while looking down at Flash with expressions of smug satisfaction.
“You can rest now Mr. Sentry.” Starwind said as he reached over and placed a hand to Flash’s forehead. “Just consider this all a bad dream you had when you sat down to rest and fell asleep.”
The hand came down from Flash’s forehead passed over his eyes and the next thing Flash knew was that everything went black.
*******
“Flash? Flash are you all right? Flash!”
Flash could hear a prim and proper accented voice, but he was just feeling so relaxed that he really didn’t even feel like bothering to open his eyes.
“Yo Flash!”
There was a different voice, then a sudden blow across his face that sent him reeling and snapped him out of his relaxed state of mind. As his eyes blinked open and the world slowly came back into focus Flash could make out two forms in front of him. He could make out one with gray skin and long black hair wearing some sort of purple dress, the other had white skin and blue hair wearing white top and purple leggings.
“You can’t just slap people like that when you want to wake them up.” The first voice admonished
“Well how else was I supposed to wake him up?” The second voice questioned. “Didn’t have any water to throw on him and I don’t think he much appreciate having hot espresso poured in his lap.”
Flash’s eyes finally focused and he recognized who was speaking. “Octavia? Vinyl?”
“Flash! Are you all right?” Octavia asked with relief in her voice. “We found you sprawled out here unconscious.”
“Thought you might have been dead.” Vinyl smirked, but then her expression shifted to an apologetic one. “Sorry about the slap.”
“It’s okay,” Flash rubbed his cheek as he stood up from the bench. “I must’ve been really out of it if it took something like that to wake me up.”
“Why were you sleeping here of all places?” Octavia inquired.
“I was heading home after band practice…” Flash began, trying to remember how he did end up sleeping on that park bench. “I guess I was tired and sat down to rest then fell asleep… I think I had a strange dream…”
“Strange dream?” Octavia repeated while Vinyl gave him a questioning look.
“Yeah, I was being chased by someone…” Flash tried to recall the dream. “I think it was… they looked like… wait…”
There was something nagging him at the back of his mind, something important about what Flash was trying to recall. Flash crossed his arms and brought one hand up to where he was touching his forehead as he focused on trying to remember what was so important. He had been chased by someone, multiple people, but who they were was fuzzy. Concentrating on what he could remember the image became clearer; three familiar girls, behind them a dark figure. As the image in his mind came more into focus Flash immediately recognized the girls. There was a sharp pain and he grasped his head, that had been no dream.
“Flash, you okay?” Vinyl asked as she put her hands on his shoulders to steady him when it looked like he might fall over, dropping her espresso in the process.
“The Dazzlings!” Flash exclaimed as the pain subsided. “They were here!”
“Flash, the Dazzlings are gone.” Octavia told him. “They were defeated and ran away remember? They probably didn’t stop until they were far away from here.”
“Actually, at least one of them hung around.” Vinyl mentioned, getting a quizzical look from Octavia. “Pinkie saw the blue one in the school the other day and tried to catch her, but she got away.”
“Why am I only hearing about this now?” Octavia questioned.
“Probably because you don’t really listen to the gossip going around school.” Vinyl shrugged.
“And all of them were here tonight, and had their powers back somehow.” Flash pulled out his phone. “The others need to know about this.”
Setting his phone to speaker so that Octavia and Vinyl could hear too Flash tapped the intended number, a couple rings later the call was picked up.
“Flash?” Sunset answered with a slightly surprised tone. “What’s up?”
“Sunset, I saw the Dazzlings tonight.” Flash said grimly. “And they had their powers again.”
“What?! How could…?! They didn’t hurt you did they?” Sunset asked worriedly.
“No, I’m fine.” Flash told her. “They hit me with their song, but they’re gone and I’m not feeling the effects anymore.”
“That’s good.” Sunset said with relief. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“Well after band practice I was heading home and was taking a shortcut through the park when I heard singing, and of course you know who showed up.” Flash began to explain. “I could feel the song starting to affect me so I tried to run before it took hold, but no matter where I went they always seemed to be able to head me off. Eventually it was like I was paralyzed and couldn’t even move anymore, then someone else showed up…”
“Someone else?” Sunset asked, it was evident from the tone of her voice that she did not like the potential implications of that fact.
“Yeah, they seemed to be working with the Dazzlings. I’m not sure who or why, that’s when things start to get a bit fuzzy.” Flash was struggling to remember what happened. “I’m pretty sure it was a guy… yeah definitely was a guy. He asked some questions, I just can’t remember what. After that everything went black until Octavia and Vinyl here found me out cold on a park bench and woke me up.”
“I’ll call the girls and we’ll get there as soon as we can.” Sunset said assuringly “You’re still at the park right?”
“Yup, you’ll find us by my car over on the north side of the park.” Vinyl said before Flash could answer.
“We’ll see you there.” Sunset told them and they could hear the determination in her voice. “Then we’ll find the Dazzlings and whoever was with them and put a stop to whatever it is they’re planning.”
*******
Outside a café were the Dazzlings; they sat in silence as Sonata ate her sandwiches while Adagio and Aria had only gotten drinks.
After they had caught and questioned Flash Sonata had been hungry so Starwind gave them money so that they could go get something to eat while he went elsewhere to continue his investigations. They didn’t attract too much attention at the café they picked, Aria had wondered if it was because they picked someplace that didn’t seem to have a lot of high school students or that Starwind had left some sort of spell still in effect. After they made their order they took it back outside to sit at one of the tables in front of the café so they wouldn’t have to put up with the people inside.
“So…” Adagio finally broke the silence as she idly stirred her drink. “We know where the portal is now.”
“Yeah, and?” Aria commented as and took a sip of her drink.
“What do you mean ‘Yeah, and’?!” Adagio demanded as she slammed a hand down on the table. “We can finally leave this world and get away from all this stupidity!”
“And then what Adagio?” Aria set her drink down and gave the orange-blond girl a skeptical look. “You already said that when you were listening in on Sunset she mentioned something about how the other Twilight would be there on the Equestrian side, and I doubt she’d be happy to see us.”
“There’s no way she’d be watching the portal all the time.” Adagio sat back and crossed her arms. “If we went through at the right time we might be able to sneak through and get away without being noticed.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of water on the other side of the portal so I doubt there’d be much sneaking around. Flopping around maybe.” Aria scoffed. “We don’t have our gems anymore Adagio, and without them once we hit Equestria we probably go back to the way we were. Then we’d just be easy pickings for whoever is on the other side.”
“Well it’s not like we’re completely powerless, we have some magic… thanks to Starwind” Adagio winced slightly, like it pained her to have to say that.
“I don’t think it’d work over there.” Sonata commented as she finished off a sandwich. “What magic we got now comes from Starwind right? And Equestria is a whole other world from this one, which means it’s way, way far away. Probably too far for the link with Starwind to work so we’d probably lose what magic we got as soon as we went through.”
“Have you two completely given up on trying to leave this world?” Adagio asked incredulously. “I thought you said this place was the worst.”
“Honestly? Since losing our gems I couldn’t care less about trying to get back to Equestria. I’d rather be stuck like this…” Aria motioned towards her body. “Than go back to how we were.”
“I don’t think this place is really so bad any more.” Sonata admitted. “We have a home now, and food, and magic. And we get to be spies too.”
“I don’t believe you two.” Adagio just shook her head. “You’d rather be that guy’s servants than being out on our own doing what we want?”
“I don’t see it as being his servant, I see it as working for room and board. He even gives us money.” Aria pulled some cash out of her pocket and held it up to prove her point before putting it back. “It more like a job really; and a lot better than how we would have ended up if we didn’t make that deal with him. Seriously would you really want to go back to what we were having to do before? Especially without magic? Either trying to find shelter or conning somebody into letting us in if we didn’t have the energy for a song. And that only worked sometimes, most of the time we were having to huddle under what cover we could find outside. And then having to steal whatever else we needed when we didn’t have enough energy to make someone give it to us, I don’t remember how many times we almost got busted for that. Would you really want to go back to all that?”
“I wouldn’t.” Sonata wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “I like having a warm bed of my own.”
Adagio mumbled something under her breath.
“What was that Adagio?” Aria asked as she set an elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand.
“I said I wouldn’t want to go back to that either, okay?!” Adagio growled and glared at Aria. “What do you want me to do? Go kissing up to Starwind now?”
“As funny as that would be… no.” Aria told her as a serious expression came to her features. “You do whatever you want, it doesn’t really matter to me. Our powers aren’t connected like they were before so it’s not like we have to stay together like we did when we had our gems. If you really want to go for the portal and jump back to Equestria go right ahead, I won’t stop you. But I’ll be staying here unless something a lot better comes along.”
“I’m gonna stay too.” Sonata said with a nod.
Adagio turned her head and looked away from Aria and Sonata, staring towards the ground. She forced her expression to be neutral but there was an occasional twitch at the corner of her mouth. Finally she took a deep breath and looked back towards the others.
“Fine… whatever.” Adagio said flatly. “I’ll stay for now; at least until I can think of a better plan than just jumping into the portal and hoping for the best.”
Suddenly there was a squealing of tires as a white car that had passed by the café slammed on the brakes, forcing several other cars to slam on their brakes as well. While there were no collisions the air was filled with noise as everybody started honking their horns. When the Dazzlings turned to see what was happening and try and figure out why the sudden traffic jam happened they saw someone standing up in the white convertible that had been the one to first slam on their brakes. They immediately recognized the white-skinned girl with the two-tone blue hair and shades; she was standing up in her car and yelling while pointing at them, though they couldn’t hear her because of all the noise from the horns. Next to her was a another familiar girl with gray skin and black hair trying to pull the other girl back down into her seat with one hand while talking on her phone with the other.
“Isn’t that the one who was helping the Rainbooms?” Sonata said as she looked over the scene with a quizzical look on her face.
“I still want to know why she wasn’t affected by our power.” Adagio was practically glaring daggers.
“I don’t think any of that matters right now.” Aria commented as she stood up. “Looks like that other one’s making a call so they’re probably not the only ones who know we’re here right now, we should go.”
“Ya think?” Adagio said sarcastically as she stood up before motioning down the street. “Let’s go this way. Thanks to all the other cars stopped she isn’t going to get hers turned around anytime soon, unless they want to abandon that car to chase us on foot we got a head start.” She then grabbed Sonata’s hand and pulled her out of her chair as she took off down the street.
“You could have at least let me grab what was left of my sandwiches!” Sonata complained as she looked back to what was left of her meal still on the table.
“You can ask Starwind to buy you more!” Aria reached over and turned Sonata’s head to face forward as they ran.
“Down this alley!” Adagio ordered as she made a sharp turn. “The quicker we can get out of sight the better!”
“Why don’t we call Starwind?” Sonata asked as Adagio continued to drag her along. “He could just use his magic to poof us out of here.”
“We don’t need him to get us out of this.” Adagio huffed as she continued to run.
The three took a path that zigged and zagged through alleys and across streets; doing their best to avoid what people they saw and trying to stay out of sight. Eventually they came to a stop and sat down on a nearby bench to catch their breaths, they couldn’t see any cars or people around.
“See?” Adagio smirked as she ran a hand through her hair. “I told you we didn’t need Starwind’s help.”
“There they are!” A voice called out.
Their heads whipped around to see Sunset, Twilight, Spike and Rarity had come around the corner of the building they were sitting by; Sunset and Rarity looked both determined and angry while Twilight and Spike were looking at them with inquisitive expressions.
Before anyone could say anything else the Dazzlings jumped to their feet and took off running again, while still feeling a bit winded the desire not to get caught gave them the motivation to keep running. They started to pull away from their pursuers and hoped to lose them by quickly turning corners and ducking through more alleys. But as they went around another corner the Dazzlings skidded to a stop as they saw the rest of the Rainbooms along with Flash heading down the street towards them.
“Stop right there!” Rainbow Dash ordered as she broke into a run.
While the others rounded the corner behind them Adagio wasn’t ready to give it up yet; fortunately they had come to a stop right next to the entrance of an alley, she grabbed Aria’s and Sonata’s hands and ran into the alleyway.
The Dazzlings could hear the Rainbooms yelling behind them but focused on the path ahead of them, it was a slim chance but if they kept going they might be able to get away. But just as they were about to reach the other end of the alley there was a screeching of tires on the pavement as a familiar white car came to a quick stop and blocked their path. Vinyl Scratch jumped out of her car and waggled a finger at the Dazzlings.
“Can I call for him now?” Sonata whispered to Adagio
“Yes…” Adagio grumbled under her breath.
“Your escape is denied!” They heard Rainbow Dash say boastfully and turned to see the whole group was behind them.
“It’s over Dazzlings.” Sunset told them, she quirked an eyebrow when she saw Sonata looked to be mumbling to herself but she decided to ignore it and her expression became serious again as she looked over the three. “What ever it is you were planning it stops here.”
Despite being blocked off from both sides the Dazzlings didn’t look like they were about to give up, in fact Adagio took a step forward and snarled at the Rainbooms. But then Sonata reached over and tugged on Adagio’s sleeve, Adagio looked over and Sonata gave her a small nod. Adagio’s expression immediately changed from one of anger to a familiar smug grin.
“Oh you’d like to think that wouldn’t you?” Adagio put a hand on her hip and let out a laugh. “You won’t be catching us, not a chance.”
“Later Rainbrooms.” Aria smirked.
“Bye-bye.” Sonata gave a small wave.
Before anyone knew what was going on the shadows around the Dazzlings began to warp and became like a dark mist that rose up and quickly enveloped them. Rainbow Dash charged forward but before she could even reach the cloud of mist it suddenly vanished without a trance and the shadows returned to normal; the Dazzlings were nowhere to be seen.
“No way!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she searched around, even going so far as stomping on the ground and tapping on the walls of the alley looking for some sort of secret entrance. “They can’t just poof away like that!”
“I’ll sniff them out!” Spike ran over and began sniffing all around where the Dazzlings had been standing.
“They didn’t come our way.” Octavia said as she walked up with Vinyl to where Rainbow Dash was searching. “All we saw was that mist coming up around them and then only the all of you in the alleyway.”
“I didn’t know they could do that.” Twilight commented as she adjusted her glasses. “I thought their powers were supposed to be sound-based.”
“The only power they had was through their songs. But we stripped them of their power back at the Battle of the Bands” Sunset had a hand to her chin in thought as she watched Rainbow Dash continue to search. “I saw Sonata mumbling something to herself before they vanished, but it couldn’t have been her… Whatever powers they had should be completely gone.”
“Maybe they went to Equestria then came back and bought something or someone back with them?” Fluttershy offered.
“But surely Princess Twilight would have noticed them coming and going.” Rarity replied. “And if they managed to make it through the portal why would they come back? That is their home after all.”
“Nothing.” Spike said as he stopped sniffing and sat down.” I can smell their trails coming in, but they just end right here.”
“Well they had to have something that helped them pull that off.” Rainbow Dash growled as all her searching turned up nothing.
“That something would be me.” An echoing voice from behind them spoke in a casual tone. “I couldn’t have you catching my associates after all.”
They spun around to find a dark figure in a hooded long coat and scarf standing behind them, no one had seen or heard them walk up, they were just suddenly there. Flash recognized the dark figure immediately.
“It’s you!” Flash leveled an accusing finger at Starwind. “You were the one with the Dazzlings back in the park!”
“You actually remember, impressive Mr. Sentry.” Starwind told Flash as the blue haired young man glared at him. “It may have been only a minor enchantment but it’s still no small feat to have shaken it off so quickly.”
“Hi I’m Pinkie Pie!” The pink girl cheerfully introduced herself and waved. “And this is Applejack, Flash, Fluttershy, Octavia, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Sunset, Twilight and Vinyl Scratch. What’s your name?”
“I am known as Starwind.” He answered as he gave a slight bow.
“Well if you’re working with the Dazzlings that means you’re no friend of ours!” Rainbow shouted as she charged forward.
“Dash! Wait!” Sunset made a grab for Rainbow Dash’s arm but missed. “We don’t know what he can do!”
But Rainbow Dash wasn’t listening; she let out a battle cry as she brought her fist back, fully intending to punch this Starwind right in his hidden face. Starwind only response was raising a hand with palm facing outward towards the incoming girl. Rainbow Dash lashed out with a punch which was intercepted by Starwind’s hand, accompanied by a flash as their hands made contact.
No one was sure what happened. Suddenly Rainbow Dash was stumbling back the way she came; but she was not stumbling backwards like she had been knocked back, she had been completely turned around. Rainbow Dash was stumbling forward as if her punch had totally missed and she threw herself off balance with her continued forward momentum. Applejack managed to catch her as the rainbow-haired girl nearly ran into her.
“How the…?” Rainbow looked up at Applejack in confusion then back at Starwind who was standing there as if nothing happened. “What the heck just happened?”
“What are you?” Applejack questioned as she looked at Starwind, not sure if she wanted to know what was under that hood.
“I could be considered many things.” Starwind responded wryly. “But if you insist on a more specific label… mage, warlock, sorcerer, wizard; take your pick. I consider them rather archaic terms though.”
“You’re a magic-user?!” Twilight gasped, feeling a mixture of shock and fascination. “Did you come from Equestria too?”
“No, while I have heard much of Equestria from the Dazzlings I am not from that world.” Starwind answered as Twilight seemed to be trying to decide if she wanted to get closer to examine him or not. “I am of this world.”
“This world...?” Twilight repeated, unsure if she heard that right. “This world has its own magic…? What… mmph!”
Sunset gently, but firmly, put a hand over Twilight’s mouth before she could launch into a barrage of questions; when Twilight settled down Sunset removed her hand
Sunset looked at Starwind with a serious, almost grave, expression. “Why are you here?”
“I am here because of you Miss Shimmer.” Starwind nodded his head towards her.
“Me?!” Sunset was a bit taken aback.
“Yes Miss Shimmer, you are the one who brought other-worldly magic into this world after all.” Starwind stated matter-of-factly. “After all that’s happened did you think that it would continue to go unnoticed?”
“To be honest pretty much everybody who hasn’t see it with their own eyes seems quick to write it off as some sort of trick.” Applejack answered.
“Yeah, even though some fuzzy pics and videos have been posted online everybody’s all like ‘Faaaaake’ or ‘it’s a publicity stunt for some movie’ and stuff like that.” Rainbow Dash added
“I’ve seen the comments, some are rather amusing.” Starwind actually chuckled a bit. “But I’m not talking about skeptical mundanes, I’m referring to other magic-users. I wasn’t even anywhere near this area and I still felt it when Equestrian magic practically exploded into existence in this world.”
“I really wouldn’t consider it an explosion…” Fluttershy said as she hid behind Applejack.
“Yeah, it was more like a laser light show, it was pretty awesome.” Rainbow Dash grinned, but then remembered the situation and her face became serious again.
“Let me put it another way,” Starwind said with a bit of sigh. “This world has a magical field, though it is not easy to see it is everywhere. But in this case think of it like a pond; when you brought Equestrian magic to this world and used for the first time in the way that you did it was like throwing a big rock into that pond and it created waves that spread out across the water. Waves that could be seen and felt by those sensitive to such things.”
“And I suppose you’re terribly sensitive to such things since you felt it from so far away.” Rarity guessed.
“Actually no, my sensitivity is pretty normal for someone like me. But that’s just how powerful that initial unleashing was; I wasn’t expected it and definitely wasn’t prepared, but even at that distance it was like getting hit in the face with a bat.” Starwind explained as he slammed a fist into a palm to emphasize it.
“That was quite a while back…” Applejack thought aloud. “So you’ve been lurking around here watching us since then?”
“Again no. As I said I wasn’t expecting it and was unprepared so I wasn’t able to figure out more than the general direction of the disturbance after it happened, what it was even was quite a mystery.” Starwind shrugged a bit. “It wasn’t until the second major incident that I was able to pinpoint just where the disturbances were coming from.”
“And after that was when you joined up with the Dazzlings.” Sunset said a bit accusingly.
“Correct Miss Shimmer.” Starwind told her, sounding a bit amused at her tone. “I found them not long after their defeat, we struck a deal and now they assist me here. Having three more sets of eyes on the task has been useful.”
“You don’t have any other wizard friends to help you?” Sunset commented rather disdainfully as she crossed her arms. “From what you said you couldn’t have been the only one to have sensed it.”
“Oh I have no doubt that I wasn’t, something like that would have been hard to miss. But if anyone else has come I am unaware of them, and probably vice-versa.” Starwind replied, still seeming not to care about Sunset’s tone. “Unlike your world Miss Shimmer magic here is a rare gift; and not one displayed openly considering things that have happened to the magic-users of this world in the past. Most of us operate independently and generally stay out of each others way unless someone starts causing major problems.”
“So what did you discover during your own investigation of Canterlot High?” Twilight inquired, but then noticed everyone else looking at her. “What? You aren’t curious about what someone who’s versed in the magic of this world thinks about the situation?”
“What I found was what seemed to be an infestation of other-worldly magic. There have been instances of other-worldly magic coming to this world before, but it has always faded fairly quickly while this continues to persist. It remains within you even though most of you weren’t born with the innate gift for magic, the magic is strong enough that I can smell it.” As Starwind mentioned this Pinkie looked at her arm quizzically and took a sniff. “Another thing was the reaction of this world’s magical field. Each major incident of you using the other-worldly magic pushes against the magic field of this world, even pushing it back a bit, creating the wave effect. Afterwards it comes rushing back to fill the void, though so much rushes back that the area has a higher amount of magical energy than before. Another effect that still persists even now.”
“None of that sounds all that bad, in fact that more magic part sounds like it’d be pretty good for you.” Applejack said as she gave him a suspicious look, wondering where this was all going.
“Indeed.” Starwind agreed. “In fact I was about to write the other-worldly magic itself off as a bit of an oddity, though one that did seem to attract trouble in the form of denizens from its home world. Something to study and keep an eye on just in case of trouble.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming along here.” Sunset voiced her thoughts, she did not like where this was going.
“Very astute Miss Shimmer.” Starwind nodded. “But that was before the Friendship Games.”
“You were at the Friendship Games?” Twilight said rather nervously. “Then you saw…”
“Yes, I arrived just in time to see your transformation Miss Sparkle.” Starwind’s tone began to cool considerably. “By the way, it would be much appreciated if you didn’t go punching holes in reality again, the fabric of the universe is thin enough in this area without someone purposely ripping into it.”
“That wasn’t her fault!” Sunset raised an arm up protectively in front of Twilight while the others stepped in closer around her. “That was only because she absorbed far too much magic and it overwhelmed her!”
“Exactly. An overdose of your Equestrian magic changed her into a monster that was so bent on getting to another world that she didn’t even care if the way she went about it would have led to the end of this one.” Starwind’s voice had become downright frigid. “And I now know that you experienced something similar when you first unleashed it into this world, though the monster you became seemed more bent on the domination of your former world from what I understand.”
“I… I was in a dark place then, I’m a much better person now!” Sunset defended. “If you were there that day then you saw that I didn’t become a monster; I was able to use the magic to repair the holes in reality, protect everyone and save Twilight.”
“Yes, while it seemed her desperation to understand magic was what fueled her transformation into a monster, it seemed your determination and desire to protect allowed you to become something more benign.” Starwind crossed his arms and brought a hand up with one finger raised. “But therein lies the problem… If your emotional state determines whether you become an angel or a demon what happens if one of you were to have a really bad day and then transformed? “
“That won’t happen.” Sunset said determinedly. “We’ll always be there for each other no matter what; we’ll help each other out through whatever might happen so we’ll never go to such a dark place that that has a chance of happening.”
“Commendable.” Starwind commented as he lowered his hand. “But something else I must wonder… If your emotional state can affect it in such a way, how much of an influence does the Equestrian magic have on you? Your bodies are infused with it, living everyday with it inside you. Has it affected your minds? Does it drive you to do things now that you wouldn’t have before?”
“It doesn’t work like that.” Sunset retorted. “I should know, I come from the same world as it does and used to work with it all the time.”
“Do you now? Just how much do you really understand of it?” Starwind inquired. “From what I’ve heard it no longer acts like it did back in Equestria and you have yet to completely understand how it works in this world.”
“I know more than you seem to think.” Sunset glared at Starwind. “And I won’t stop working until I understand it.”
“As will I.” Starwind responded, causing the others to look at him questioningly. “I will continue to study and observe until I understand enough to come to a decision. If it is as safe and helpful as you believe then I will admit that I was wrong and my fears were unfounded. But if it does prove as dangerous as I fear I will destroy it.”
“And just how are you gonna do that?” Rainbow Dash questioned skeptically. “You already said it’s inside us, to destroy it you’d probably have to take us out too.”
“If that’s what it takes.” Starwind’s voice seemed cold enough to freeze the air around them.
“Seriously?!” Rainbow Dash’s jaw dropped as everyone else either had expressions of shock or disbelief.
“I’ve worked too hard to see this world and everything I’ve done fall into the abyss because someone was messing around with forces they didn’t understand.” They all saw Starwind’s eyes glow briefly within the darkness under his hood. “If I find such a threat I will do whatever it takes to stop it, even if it means completely eliminating the source.”
“You are wrong Starwind.” Sunset told him, her voice serious and strong as she looked right into where she had seen the glowing eyes. “We’ll prove it and show you there is nothing to worry about.”
“We shall see.” Starwind said as he turned and began to walk away. “Goodbye Rainbooms, I’ll be watching.”
Again the shadows began to warp and a familiar dark mist rose up to envelope Starwind; Spike ran forward barking, but the shadows had already returned to normal and Starwind was gone by the time Spike got to the spot he had been.
“How does he do that?” Spike wondered aloud as he sniffed around. “You can’t just walk off and not leave a trail.”
“Great… another problem caused by what I did back then.” Sunset sighed and hung her head.
“Oh Darling don’t think like that.” Rarity put a comforting hand on Sunset’s shoulder. “Like you said you’re a much better person now and together we’ll show that Starwind how wrong he is.”
“It’s really more my fault.” Twilight said as she averted her gaze from everyone and wrapped her arms around herself. “He said that he thought the Equestrian magic was only an oddity until he saw what I did at the Friendship Games.”
“Now don’t you go thinking like that neither.” Applejack gently grabbed Twilight’s chin and turned her face back towards everyone. “You didn’t know what was gonna happen when Cinch talked you into using the magic, let alone who may have been watching.”
“Let alone it being a wizard.” Fluttershy added.
“Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock… whichever you want to call him it’s like something out of a storybook.” Octavia said a bit wistfully. “Though I suppose a lot of what’s happened at Canterlot High could be considered to be right out of a storybook.”
“Yeah if I hadn’t lived through all that I wouldn’t buy that he’s a magic-whatever.” Vinyl laughed a bit. “Even seeing him and the Dazzlings poof away like that I would have thought it was some sort of stage trick.”
“Even if he is magic I doubt he’s all that powerful.” Rainbow Dash scowled towards where Starwind had vanished. “If he could’ve done more he would have done it instead of poofing away like that.”
“I don’t know Rainbow Dash, I’m guessing he’s the one who gave the Dazzlings their powers back so he’s got to have some tricks up his sleeve.” Flash shook his head as he remembered his earlier encounter.
“Well all things considered, what’s been done is in the past so no sense in worrying about it anymore and whatever that guy’s planning we’ll handle it together like we always do.” Applejack said as she put an arm over Sunset’s and Twilight’s shoulders. “You two gonna be all right?”
“Yeah I’ll be fine.” Twilight answered with a small smile. “Thank you.”
“I’ll be okay, thanks Applejack.” Sunset gave a smile and a nod. “And you’re right, considering all we’ve done we can handle anything when we’re together.”
“That’s the spirit.” Applejack grinned as they all began to head out of the alleyway.
“When Starwind said he’d be watching do you think he meant all the time?” Fluttershy asked as she looked around worriedly.
“Oh my, I hadn’t even thought of that…” Rarity let out a small gasp. “I thought he was creepy but I didn’t think he was that kind of creep.”
Sunset let out a snort as she tried to hold in a laugh, which earned her an annoyed look from Rarity. “Sorry.” She gave an apologetic look. “I don’t think that’s the case; I don’t know what sort of power he really has but Starwind did say he was glad to have more sets of eyes from the Dazzlings for what he’s doing so I’m going to guess he can’t use his magic to watch us anywhere all the time.”
“Well that’s a relief.” Fluttershy relaxed a bit.
“But doesn’t that mean they’ll be around nearby instead?” Twilight questioned. “It stands to reason that if Starwind can’t use some sort of magic to watch from a distance that he and the Dazzlings will be close by observing, probably using magic to stay hidden. In fact we may have nearly caught them in the act already when Pinkie spotted that one in the classroom… Sonata wasn’t it? Pinkie, you said she was just suddenly there when you spotted her right?”
“Yup! Was talking when I suddenly noticed her hiding under a table, never even saw her come in.” Pinkie answered as she skipped next to Twilight. “But I don’t think we have anything to worry about, Starwind will definitely see our magic is good. Oh! Maybe he’ll even become our friend after! I mean how could he not? Not only do we have friendship magic but we’re all just so loveable!”
“Ever the optimist aren’t ya Pinkie?” Applejack said with a laugh.
“Yup!” Pinkie grinned.
“I’d offer everyone a ride, but I don’t think we could all cram into my car.” Vinyl said as she stopped by her convertible. “So what’s the plan? Keep an eye out and see if we can catch them in the act?”
“For now that probably would be the best course of action, now that we know they’re around and have some idea what they’re up to maybe we can catch them at it.” Sunset said thoughtfully. “And we’ll have to be careful about how we use our magic too since that’s what Starwind is looking out for.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Vinyl jumped into the driver’s seat of her car. “If you need help with anything you know how to reach me.”
“We’ll call you immediately if we see anything.” Octavia said as she got in the passenger’s seat normally.
Everyone waved as Vinyl and Octavia drove off then began making their own way down the street.
“How about we go get an after-chase post-meeting-a-magical-person snack?” Pinkie suggested as she practically was dancing down the sidewalk to a tune that only she seemed to hear.
“How can you think of food at a time like this?” Rarity gave Pinkie a look of disbelief.
“Well that chase did work up a bit of an appetite.” Rainbow Dash admitted while rubbing her stomach.
“If that bit of running worked up an appetite you should try doing what seemed like a few laps around the park.” Flash told Rainbow Dash as she held her stomach. “Getting something to eat does sound really good right now.”
“Oh very well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to get a little something to eat.” Rarity relented as the two looked at her with almost pleading expressions.
“Food run it is.” Applejack smiled as she watched Pinkie, Rainbow Dash and Flash cheer.
While everyone else was smiling and laughing as they walked Sunset inwardly sighed; she now knew what was going on around Canterlot High, not that it made her feel any better about the situation. She had also not only learned that this world did indeed have its own magic, something she had always wondered, but she had also met a native magic-user. Unfortunately that magic-user saw the magic she had brought from Equestria, and by extension Sunset and her friends, as a potential threat.
Sunset just wasn’t sure what to do in this situation. If they kept on using their magic like they normally did she doubted there’d be anything for Starwind to see as a threat; there was certainly nothing threatening about them transforming while playing music or when they were being true to themselves. But just how close would Starwind be watching and just what criteria would he be judging their magic by? That she had no clue about. Or what if something else happened while he was watching and became another crisis that needed the use of their magic to prevent? Again she could only guess and hope for the best.
Sunset took a deep breath to calm herself down. She would figure this out no matter whet it took, she would let nothing and no one harm her friends while she was around.
“You doing all right?” Applejack’s voice brought Sunset out of her thoughts.
“Yeah, I’m all right.” Sunset answered as she rubbed the back of her head. “Probably just over-thinking things.”
“You do remember you don’t have ta take everything on yourself right?” Applejack gave her a questioning look, but soon smiled and put an arm over her shoulders. “We’ll all always be right here next to you to help carry the burden, whatever it is.”
“I know, thanks AJ.” Sunset smiled and put her arm over Applejack’s shoulders as they continued to follow along with everyone.
