Twilight leaped out of bed, glaring at the intruder who was currently caught in her magic, one of her forehooves on the crown on her bedside desk. “What do you think you’re doing?”
A series of muted grumbles and growls came from the figure, and Twilight quickly released her magic around the interloper’s throat. “A better question is what you think you’re doing!”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I’m stopping a random mare from stealing my crown. What do you think I’m doing?”
“You’re stopping me from executing my awesome plan!”
Twilight shook her head. “Urgh… it’s too early in the morning for this.” She took her hostage through a nearby doorway. “Girls, get up. We have someone to blast with rainbows.”
* * *
Across a mirror, five humans were having a study session and occasionally staring across at the Wondercolt statue in the middle of the courtyard. “Do you think she’s going to come back out?” Applejack said, rubbing at her chin thoughtfully.
“I sure hope not. Trying to drive us apart like that was just spiteful!” Rarity huffed. "I mean, of course it didn't work, but that's besides the point."
There was a flash, and a human stumbled out of the base of the statue. Then, she teetered back and forth... and fell on her face. The humans looked at each other with grins, snickering (except for Fluttershy, who was slightly mortified). “Well, I guess whatever is through that statue was less than happy,” Rainbow said. “Let’s go check her out.”
They casually walked over to her and crouched down in a huddle. Rainbow made the obvious examination. “She’s still alive.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Anything else?”
“She came with instructions!" Rainbow grabbed the tag. "‘Expose to as much Friendship as possible in order to maximize your experience with this product.’” Rainbow looked up. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Everyone shrugged. Rainbow looked back down. “Well, I guess there’s no harm in trying it.”
* * *
Sunset smiled at her friends. “See? Friendship is magic!”
Rainbow was twitching one of the wings on her back, running her hand through it, and Rarity was grasping her, now much longer, ponytail. Fluttershy was gripping her ears, trying to look at them over her hair. Applejack had managed to find a mirror, and was staring at her reflection in disbelief. Pinkie had simply seemed to accept it, giggling over her friends predicaments while rolling around on the floor.
“I… I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so literal.” Rarity looked back over at Sunset. “Does this happen often?”
“Only when you’re exposed to magical rainbows!” Sunset gave them a grin.
Sunset looked over at the three figures making weird green magic dust flow out of her classmates. Taking a glance over at her friends, she whispered, “See what I mean? They're really weird.”
Rarity blinked. “Huh. You’re quite right, darling. What do you think we should do?”
Sunset tapped on her chin for a moment. Then, she gave a grin. “Well, I have this book…”
* * *
Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, stumbled out of the portal. (Pinkie Pie leaped out of the portal instead.) Twilight looked about, then nodded to Sunset. “There’s some evil Equestrians around?”
Sunset nodded. “Yeah. They’re Sirens. They use music to cause disharmony and then feed off of it.”
“Alright. Lead us to them!”
Twilight followed Sunset, thought the five ponies turned humans behind her stumbled in an attempt to catch up, still not quite sure how to use their legs.
Behind them, the original humans had raised their eyebrows. "Do you think we should help?" Applejack asked.
Rainbow shook her head. "If we did that, we could get mixed up. That would be too confusing."
Nobody noticed Pinkie Pie swapping places with her counterpart.
* * *
"...because Friendship is Magic!"
After a convenient monologue, the rainbow magic blasted towards the Sirens. Their necklaces never stood a chance, blowing apart into a million shards. Twilight grinned. "Sunset? Tell us if you ever have another problem like this, okay? We're willing to make the trip."
Sunset tapped at her chin with her pencil, staring down at the paper in front of her that was covered in various formulae and scribblings. Beside her, a book buzzed, and she picked it up, reading through its comprehensive text that Twilight had helpfully written out for her. Then she took her pencil and drew out a bit more on the page.
She slammed the pencil down and gave a triumphant cry. “Girls, I know how magic works here!”
* * *
Twilight followed the pull of her device, using its sensor to navigate the halls of Canterlot High. As she approached a door, the device snapped apart in readiness. She pushed the door open.
On the other side was… a strange, floating, sparkling human with pony ears and an unnaturally long ponytail. She was attached to a machine that seemed to be pulling the glow slowly off of her, but she was replenishing it as quickly as it left.
She blinked. “Um…”
One of the humans that wasn’t floating looked over at her. “Rarity, tone it down. We’ve got company.” The floating human slowly floated to the ground.
A yellow human with pink hair walked over to her, tilting her head. “Twilight? Is that you?”
Twilight was now sufficiently creeped out to turn and run.
She didn’t even notice that her device hadn’t collected a sample. The magic inhibitors around glowing human were enough to stop that.
* * *
Sunset stood in front of the door for each skill distributing small vials of magic to each Canterlot High student as secretly as possible.
They ended up decimating their competition in absolutely everything.