Flash Sentry awoke in a hospital bed and looked around groggily. He vaguely remembered... well, pretty much everything was vague. He'd been trying to explain that the students needed food and water. That it wasn't their fault this was happening. That they needed help. He must have been an especially bad patient, because the paramedic had dosed him with something that knocked him out.

Flash felt as if he had two voices arguing in his head. One was confident and supremely powerful, ordering him to make sure that Sunset's army lived long enough to fulfill its mission. The other was screaming that something was wrong, that he shouldn't just follow orders, that he needed to fight back. The second voice was strangely muted, however, as if it were speaking from the other side of a door.

I can't let the others starve.

I can't let Sunset Shimmer win.

I can't beat Sunset.

I can't just do what she says.

I can't do anything else.

He felt as if he had a splitting headache, but even that was distant and dull. Maybe it was the medicine numbing it, or maybe it was just that nothing mattered except Sunset Shimmer's voice in his head, telling him what to do.

Flash tried to sit up and realized that he couldn't move. He was restrained, strapped gently but inescapably to the bed, just as he was bound to Sunset's will. He had no idea how long he struggled against the restraints before the door finally opened and a woman in a white hospital uniform and nurse's cap entered.

"Nurse!" Flash called out. "Please, my friends at school—"

"Oh, brother," the woman cut him off. "They said you'd be trouble."

"But they're running out of food!" Flash cried. He was barely aware of what he was saying, he only knew that he had to say it.

"I don't want to hear a word about that school until we take care of you, understand?" The nurse consulted the chart at the foot of his bed as she spoke, finding that he was suffering from exhaustion and dehydration as well as possibly altered mental status. "So the quickest way to help your friends is for you to get better."

The nurse's logic appeared to satisfy whatever compulsion was driving Flash, allowing him to settle back into the bed. If fulfilling Sunset's command meant he first had to convince this nurse that he was healthy, then that's what he would do.

"Okay," he answered dully. "What do I have to do?"

"For now, rest," she ordered him. "We've got you on a saline drip, and we'll bring some food soon, if you're feeling up to it. You'll have to speak with a therapist too." Her businesslike demeanor softened for a moment. "I can't imagine what you've been through," she said gently. "We're not doing this to be mean, or because we don't care about your classmates. We just need to make sure you're healthy before dealing with anything else."

The nurse's instructions formed a checklist in Flash's mind so clear that he could practically see it:

-Rest
-Eat
-Get cleared by therapist

Whatever else she said faded to meaningless background noise.

Adagio threw the boy to the floor of the locker room in between the three sirens. It was quite a bit harder because this one wasn't already fighting Sunset Shimmer's spell, but working together the three of them managed to break her hold on his mind and replace it with their own.

Sonata leaned tiredly against the wall behind her, drained from using so much of her limited magic. Aria was in even worse shape, since she'd had to fight off Sunset Shimmer only a few minutes ago. She swayed on her feet, then sat heavily on the nearest bench to rest.

Adagio was as tired as either of them, but she would never show it. She sauntered forward and tilted the boy's chin up to look into his eyes.

"We were never here," Adagio murmured. "Got it?"

The boy, who was practically nose-to-nose with her, looked like he might melt from the attention. "Got it," he confirmed.

"You saw us going the other way, didn't you?"

"That's right," the boy, whose name she hadn't bothered to learn and never would, whispered back. "In fact, I'm sure I saw you three heading toward the library. I'll tell them that we can corner you in there."

Adagio smirked, though to her thrall it looked like the divine smile of a goddess. "Good boy," she said. "Go spread the word."

Once the boy was gone to do their bidding, the sirens sat and looked uneasily at one another.

"Well, this is a fine mess," Aria grouched. "We've got less magic than we had when we got here."

"True," Adagio admitted, "but look at what we got in return."

"A demon lady mad at us?" Sonata said.

"A small army of our own," Adagio countered. "An army that we can use to keep freeing other students until they all adore us, instead of this Sunset Shimmer. And soon, we'll have our true power back."

"But we don't even know where they are," Aria argued. "For all we know, they found the ones we freed and killed them already."

"Mmm, let's hope so," Adagio answered with a smile. "Imagine how much harder they'd all fight Sunset Shimmer's spell if she forced them to kill their classmates." She sighed. "But you do have a point. Our thralls won't do us much good out there, away from us. We need to gather our forces."

"How?" Sonata asked.

Aria lifted her head as an idea struck. "We know where all of Sunset Shimmer's slaves will be going," she said. "So anyone not going to the library must be one of ours."

"That's right!" Sonata exclaimed. "If we just avoid the library, we can find all of our new 'friends,' and we'll be safe doing it."

"Unless we run into Sunset Shimmer," Adagio replied. She had the brief satisfaction of seeing the other two's faces fall, but she had to admit that she didn't have a better idea. "So we'll just have to be careful," she continued. "Split up. Each of you find two or three of our thralls and bring them back here. That'll be enough to get us started."

"Get us started on what?" Sonata asked.

"Restoring our power, fighting back against Sunset Shimmer, and taking her magic for ourselves," Adagio answered. "Just for starters," she smirked.

"What do you mean?" Aria asked.

"Think about it," Adagio replied. "We came here following Equestrian magic. Something from Equestria got here somehow. Maybe we can use it to find a way back."

"But we came here from Equestria," Sonata retorted. "And we couldn't go back."

"True," Adagio said, "but Starswirl must be long dead by now, and his banishment spell with him. Maybe another unicorn sent Sunset Shimmer here, but I think there might be something here we can use."

Aria and Sonata shared a rare glance. Was it possible? Could the answer not just to restoring their power, but to getting back to Equestria be somewhere in this school? Suddenly, both were on their feet and eager to continue the mission.

"That's more like it," Adagio said approvingly. "Let's go."

Twilight kept trying to put the strange encounter out of her mind, but she couldn't. A talking dog would hardly be the strangest thing about this situation, but a talking dog that looked like Spike, answered to the name Spike, and called her by name, but said she wasn't "his" Twilight? What was that even supposed to mean? Did that mean there was another Twilight out there somewhere?

"Focus." Twilight growled to herself. There was no way she'd get any answers until that dog was caught, so the best use of her time now was to keep studying the strange energy coming from Canterlot High. To that end, she pulled a large, heavy necklace out of her bag and put it around her neck.

This necklace was both the lynch pin and the potential weak point of her mission here. She'd designed it based on the readings she'd taken of the strange energy, and it should—should—allow her to track, measure, and contain that energy, or at least a sample of it. Unfortunately, things had started moving very quickly, and she hadn't had enough time to perfect the design or to test it. Going into the field with a mere prototype was asking for trouble, but it was the best she could do with the time she had. Besides, containing the energy was the truly dangerous part, and it was unlikely that she'd get close enough to the school to try that.

She activated the device and was pleased to see it start blinking, indicating that the energy was coming from the school. She'd already known that, of course, but it was confirmation that her device worked. She set up her laptop and a couple of other instruments and began to record her findings, now supplementing them with observations of the school and the students around it. She was still baffled, but determined to solve the puzzle.

Twilight quickly got absorbed in her work and soon lost track of time. She'd likely have stayed in that same spot all day, but a commotion coming from the school finally broke through her hyperfocus. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, then looked to see what was going on.

The students, who had been standing in unbroken, unmoving rows, had all sprung into action at once. They were forming groups and running all over the school grounds. The formation was broken. The defenses, such as they were, were down. Twilight squinted at the activity and considered her options.

Running into that mess was hardly the logical choice. Or was it? She had no idea what had caused the students to start behaving this way, and she couldn't count on it lasting or happening again. This was her chance, possibly her only chance, to get a sample of the energy. On the other hand, who knew what they would do if they realized she didn't belong there. She could be risking her life. Was it worth it? To learn more about a completely new form of energy with mysterious, seemingly impossible properties? To learn how to capture it, harness it, maybe even to produce it? To make the greatest scientific discovery since nuclear fission?

"Miss?" One of the officers had the weird talking dog by the scruff of its neck. The dog had put up a hell of a fight at first, but now it seemed resigned to being carried. The policeman walked down the alley toward where Twilight had been working. Her backpack was leaning against one of the buildings, but there was no sign of the girl. "Huh. Where'd she get to?"

The officer's radio crackled.

Crap, the speaker said. Someone get Shining Armor on the horn. His sister jumped the barricade.

"What?" the dog exclaimed suddenly. "Twilight went in there?!"

"Shut it," the policeman grumbled. Twilight had jumped the barricade at the point that he was supposed to be guarding. There was going to be Tartarus to pay once the Captain found out. "This is your fault, you know."

"Put me down!" The dog started squirming harder than ever. When the policeman refused to let go, he twisted hard and sank has teeth into the man's arm.

The cop swore and dropped the dog, who immediately bolted for the school.

"Twilight!" he shouted as he ran. "Wait!"