Bass thundered like the beat of primal drums, hammering with a deep, fractious tattoo that had the air quavering and left even the flaring lights that flashed through a hundred different colors feeling heavy on Rainbow Dash’s skin. The air around her was hot with the motion and breath of hundreds of bodies moving to the music, and Rainbow could barely get out of her own head long enough to notice.

Almost a week had passed since the day at the park and Rainbow hadn’t seen a single one of her friends since then except in passing or in class, though not for lack of them trying. Every one of them; together, alone, or in pairs, had tried to approach her, and each time Rainbow had rebuffed their advances.

Sunset had forgiven them, or all but. Them… not her. Not that Rainbow strictly blamed Sunset for that considering what she’d done, but it stung. No, it more than stung… it was agonizing. So was seeing Sunset, who had recently started coming back to school, though on a provisional basis only; the Principal and Vice Principal had been very clear to the student body that a repeat of the first day she’d been back was unacceptable.

Everyone had to respect poor, broken, Sunset Shimmer.

Rainbow’s mouth twisted into an angry snarl almost reflexively before she beat back the thought and the impulse.

“You okay?”

Dash sighed. “When you said ‘let’s hang out and get your mind off it’,” Rainbow Dash half-yelled at the girl who was sitting less than a foot away from her, “this wasn’t really what I was picturing!”

Lightning Dust laughed raucously as she leaned against Rainbow Dash, draping an arm over Rainbow’s shoulder. She was wearing a light-blue leather jacket and tight fitting black top with torn jeans that were held up by a black studded-leather belt. She had been Rainbow Dash’s sole companion for the past week.

Until she had started actively avoiding her friends, Rainbow hadn’t realised just how much of a presence they were in her life. Suddenly she was alone with so much time on her hands it wasn’t even funny. Actually, it was tragic, which had led Rainbow to seeking out her newest friend, one who wasn’t tainted by past association… No, that sounded wrong, even to Rainbow, and it really wasn’t being fair to Lightning Dust. It wasn’t that her fellow soccer-mate was her second choice; quite the opposite, Lightning was, realistically, her best choice, and it was only in the amber-haired girl’s presence that she was, at least momentarily, able to forget about all crap filling up her life since the mess with Anon-A-Miss.

“Aw, c’mon Rainbabe, Discordia is the only ‘Under Twenty-One’ club in Canterlot and it’s cooler than most of the regular clubs,” Lightning said, leaning close to Rainbow’s ear partially so she didn’t have scream herself hoarse and partially as an excuse to be that close to Rainbow Dash. “You’ve been bummed since that mess in the park which was like a week ago, so let’s go shake it on the dance floor and have some fun for a change!”

Rainbow Dash wore her black Rainboom hoodie, featuring the horseshoe and rainbow-tail insignia. Underneath it was her simple white and red cotton tee shirt, slightly stained with sweat from the heat of the club, and her own ripped jeans.

“Ugh… I dunno, Dusty,” Rainbow slumped, laying her head on the table of the booth they’d claimed. “I feel like crap for everything I did… then I took it out on Sunset and Gilda at the park, so now I feel like crap for that.”

Lightning Dust frowned, patting Rainbow Dash’s back and feeling a slight twinge of regret. She had wanted to show Rainbow Dash a good time, to get her dancing and moving… Rainbow always got out of any funk she was in by being active, at least as far as Lightning knew, and it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Sighing, Lightning lowered herself down a little to set her head next to Rainbow’s and mustered up the courage to put her ‘coolness’ aside for a minute, praying it didn’t make her look lame.

“H-Hey… look, Dash,” Lightning started, reaching out and putting a hand over Rainbow’s, “you’re awesome, okay? I… I think you’re like, the coolest chick in school, so… whatever’s goin’ on? You’ll beat it, y’know?”

Rainbow buried her face in her arms, sniffling slightly and letting the pounding music of the club drown her out. She gripped Lightning’s hand though, holding it tight as her shoulders shook a little.

Lightning grimaced and threw her arm over Rainbow’s back and pulled her closer. A part of her wanted so badly to just revel in feeling how close Rainbow was to her but the rest of her? The part of her that truly, genuinely cared for Rainbow? That part hurt… whatever Rainbow was feeling, Lightning could feel the hurt, too.

“Thanks, Dusty,” Rainbow said, her voice thick and cracked with the effort of holding back a sob. “I’m really glad we’re friends now… or I’d be left all alone… just like… just like I left S-”

“Hey, don’t even sweat it, Rainbabe,” Lightning said with a weak smile, cutting off where she knew Rainbow was going; a direct shot for Sadness Ravine. “You’n me? C’mon, we’re still gonna be nipping at each others heels when we’re eighty.”

“Ninety doin’ ninety?” Rainbow asked, letting a slightly wet laugh slip past her voice.

Lightning Dust cackled and clapped Rainbow Dash on the back. “Aw hell yeah, you know it, Rainbabe! Now let’s get out there and dance! C’mon, y’gotta get moving! Rainbow Dash doesn’t sit still!”

“Heh, yeah… okay, fine,” Rainbow said, pushing herself up to stand and sidle out from behind the booth while surreptitiously wiping her eyes. “But I mean it, Dusty, I’m like… super glad you’re here, y’know?”

“Ain’t nowhere I’d rather be,” Lightning crowed, draping herself over Rainbow Dash dramatically before laughing and pulling away only to grab Rainbow’s hands and drag her onto the dance floor.

The beat blasted around them and the music ground and twisted against itself like sliding disks of metal. Electronic shouts of defiance remixed into the thumping beats as Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust slid into the crowd and matched their stomping steps to the music as they moved around each other, every moment bringing them closer and closer.

Lightning Dust could barely keep her eyes on the crowd around her; her gaze was reserved solely for Rainbow Dash. The prismatic girl was dancing almost violently, her eyes lidded, half closed and unfocused and Lightning could all but see the music flow through her with every twitch of her muscles. Lightning felt her heart pounding in time with the beat of the song as she twinned her movements to Rainbow Dash’s. One moment they were dancing a foot apart, then half a foot, then their bodies were moving inches from another.

Then they were touching, with Rainbow sliding her hands down Lightning’s sides as Lightning Dust tangled her fingers into Rainbow’s signature hair, dragging her head back and exposing her neck and Lightning leaned in press her face against Rainbow’s neck, nipping lightly at her cool, cyan skin.

Rainbow tensed and for an instant Lightning was terrified that, caught up in the moment, she’d gone too far. Stopping cold, she slowly lifted her gaze to stare up at Rainbow Dash, trying not to betray anything of the storm of emotion that was roiling beneath what she desperately hoped was a cool facade.

Rainbow Dash breathed hard and stared back at Lightning, and the fire in her eyes when she looked at Lightning was plain to anyone who looked her in the eye.

“I…-” Lightning started.

Whatever she was about to say was stolen the moment Rainbow Dash sealed her lips over Lightning’s.

Lightning Dust’s eyes flew wide as she immediately surged forward, sliding her tongue into the kiss as Rainbow returned the act, tugging and gripping at Lightning’s top, slipping her fingers up the back of Lightning’s shirt only to drag her fingers down the turquoise skin of her back, leaving faint red marks and eliciting a low moan from Lightning against Rainbow’s mouth.

Every one of her fantasies was coming true all at once… well, not quite all of them, but Lightning was willing to be patient for once, all things considered. Every breath tasted like Rainbow, every twitch of her fingers trailed across the brash athlete’s body. Lightning felt like her heart was so full it was about fit to burst.

The beat tapered out and the song trailed, coming to a rattling end, and the moment ended with it as Lightning pulled away from Rainbow, a small trail of spit still connecting their mouths for a moment as she stared dumbly up at the girl she’d spent her whole high school career chasing.

The girl who rivaled her in every sport.

The girl, in freshman year, she thought she hated.

The girl she…

“So… uh,” Rainbow said through panting breaths, “t-that happened…”

Lightning didn't reply, instead feeling her face flush red; she leaned forward, half falling against Rainbow’s chest.

“Uhm… yeah, so…” Lightning started after a moment, not quite trusting herself to stay cogent and look at Rainbow at the same time. “W-what, uh… what happens now?”

Rainbow stared down at Lightning, not sure what to feel beyond the thunder and confusion in her head. She wanted to be with Gilda, or she had wanted it. Did she still want it? A part of her said yes but the rest of her…

When she closed her eyes she could still see the contempt in Gilda’s eyes, the hatred and the anger. She could feel the burn of embarrassment, shame, and fury from when Gilda had rejected her and laid her out on the cold, snowy ground with a closed fist in the same action.

“I… I don't…” Rainbow Dash began, before her voice cracked and died out. What was she supposed to say?

As it turns out, the answer was literally: ‘anything but that’.

“I… I’m sorry,” Lightning said tearily, choking up as Rainbow’s silence stretched out. Swallowing hard, Lightning pulled away and tried to keep the tears from slipping past her defenses and down her cheeks. “I’ll… I’ll go now and… and we can both just forget about this, okay?”

The last words came out as a sob and Lightning turned on her heel and pushed her way through the crowds, away from Rainbow and towards the exit.

Staring dumbly after her, Rainbow felt her brain reboot.

“What?” Rainbow mumbled, blinking away the speckles of confusion that were clogging up her thought processes. “W-wait… WAIT!” Rainbow shouted.

Her whole body suddenly jolted into activity as she pushed and shouldered her way through the crowd, not caring who she slammed into on her way to get to Lightning Dust and catch her before she got outside. Breaking through the outer line of the crowd, Rainbow put on a burst of speed, her mind entirely focused on reaching Lightning… and not at all focused on the couple of girls moving out of the dance floor at the same time.

“OY!”

Rainbow and the two girls went careening to the floor in tangle of limbs and vicious swearing from one of them. Frantically, Rainbow tried to right herself, scrabbling to get free of the mess only to be seized by the back of the neck, hoisted up to her feet, and forcefully spun around.

For a brief, brief moment, Rainbow felt her heart seize as she saw a flash of white hair and gold eyes, but a moment later they resolved into a girl much smaller and thinner than Gilda, although her face held a similar naked anger on it. She wore a tight leather top and miniskirt, her boots were knee-highs that ended in platforms, while her pierced lips were painted a rosy pink. A pale white henna tattoo of a white rose graced her right cheek that seemed out of sorts with her punky, bellicose demeanor.

“Th’fuck ye doin’, ye daft hen?” the girl snarled. “Damn near ran over our lass.”

The girl reached to the side and, seemingly out of nowhere, pulled another girl with long, lavender hair streaked with pink.

An awfully familiar girl.

“T-Twilight?”

“Uhm, yes?” Twilight said in confusion. “Do I know you?”

It took several moments for Rainbow’s brain to catch up to the ‘Parallel Universes’ aspect of her interdimensional friend’s strange reality, but it occurred to Rainbow a second later that there was no way she was looking at her Twilight. Princess Twilight probably wouldn’t be caught dead in a night club, especially not wearing an exceptionally low-cut top, along with a pair of distressed jeans that were more ‘distress’ than ‘jeans’ and rode distractingly low at the hips.

That meant that it could only be the Twilight of this world. The human world.

“Oh shit! Lightning!” Rainbow shouted, her brain catching up and jarring the two girls in surprise as she jerked out of the white-haired girl’s grip. “Sorry! Uh, girl, kisses, brain no good, and then I’m stupid so…! FUCK! BYE!”

She left the two bewildered girls staring after her with slack jawed confusion on their faces as she sprinted away from them.

Rainbow saw no sign of Lightning near the entrance, but the trail of slightly miffed and rustled people glaring annoyedly at the front exit told her everything she needed to know. Pushing off, Rainbow bolted out of the club and onto the sidewalks of downtown Canterlot, looking around for Lightning Dust.

A flash of brilliant gold and amber hair to her right caught Rainbow’s eye and without a moment of hesitation she was off, hitting the pavement and sprinting after Lightning who vanished into an alley to the side of Club Discordia.

Rainbow reached the edge of the alley just in time to hear a pained, wracking sob issue from within. Grimacing, Rainbow stopped, turned and thumped her head against the wall.

“Fuck!” Rainbow swore quietly. “You idiot! You stupid, stupid, dumb, stupid… RRGH!”

Muffling her grunt of annoyance Rainbow turned and pressed herself flat against the wall.

“Okay, okay, you can fix this,” Rainbow muttered. “Just… go around and tell her… what?” Pressing her hands to her face, Rainbow sighed. “What the fuck do I say? Thanks? Do I… what?!”

The faint sounds of crying came from the alley and Rainbow felt like her heart was splitting in two. Lightning Dust was crying… Lightning Dust never cried. At least, not that Rainbow had ever seen or heard, and she’d seen Lightning Dust take some seriously bad hits on the field.

“O-okay, what does dad always say?” Rainbow asked herself softly, pulling her hands from her face. “If it feels right and sounds right, if your gut says it’s good then… do it, so…”

Rainbow knew, in that instant, that the sound of Lightning Dust crying was an awful sound. That was obvious but… no, it wasn’t quite right, either. The sound of Lightning Dust crying wasn’t awful… it was probably the worst sound in the world.

That sounded right.

“I… I…” Rainbow stared down at her hands, then back at the alley entrance. Taking a deep breath, she spoke to herself from the heart. “I would literally do anything to make her stop crying right now.” Wrong. “No, fuck that, I would do anything to make sure she never has to cry like that ever again.”

Rainbow washed the words around in her mouth, they felt right… sounded right… and her gut told her…

“Shit, I guess I’m gay,” Rainbow muttered, rolling her shoulders as she turned down the alley. “Mom’s gonna be fuckin’ thrilled.”

Lightning Dust was curled up against the wall, sitting down in the dirty alley, with her face buried against her knees as she sobbed bitterly. Her shoulders shook hard as she wrapped her arms around her legs and just cried. The night had started great, then they’d gotten to the dance floor and all her dreams suddenly came true for a instant: bright like a nuclear explosion. And then, also similar to such an explosion, the only thing left in its wake was a horrible ruin.

“Why am I so stupid?” Lightning sobbed. “I coulda just… not… and then… fuck! Why am I so goddamn stupid!?”

“Y’know, I ask myself that a lot, too.”

Lightning Dust felt her whole body seize up at the sound of Rainbow’s voice. Taking a slow, halting breath, she swallowed thickly and started to raise her head.

Moving slowly, terrified that, somehow, if she moved too fast then Rainbow would vanish, Lightning traced her eyes up Rainbow’s legs, toned runner’s legs that Lightning had always liked seeing in those short soccer shorts the CHS girls team always wore. Then up to her slender body, then to her eyes. Those piercing, intense, cerise eyes that were settled above a mouth that was always an inch away from a smirk.

A smirk that never failed to make Lightning’s heart skip a beat.

“So uh… sorry, I kinda fucked up back there,” Rainbow said quietly, kneeling down and balancing on the balls of her feet. “I uh… do that a lot actually, so if we’re gonna… I dunno, like, keep doin’, y’know… that, you’ll kinda have to get used to it.”

Lightning stared up at Rainbow with teary eyes, breathing hard with a look on her face like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

After a moment, Lightning licked her lips and took a breath. “Y-You… you mean that? Like… you’n me?”

“I mean, so long as you promise not to get all weepy and submissive on me,” Rainbow replied with a smirk.

Lightning’s heart skipped a beat and she grinned.

“Not a fuckin’ chance, Rainbabe,” Lightning answered, surging to her feet and wrapping her arms around Rainbow Dash.

Lightning hugged Rainbow Dash tight, taking a deep breath as she buried her face against Rainbow’s shoulder. Rainbow stood and slid her arms around Lightning’s waist, holding her as they stood there for several moments. Rainbow was beginning to wonder if Lightning was okay when she finally spoke again, and when she did her voice was a tiny, barely audible whisper.

“I caught you…” Lightning said softly. “I finally caught you.”

Unsure about how to respond, Rainbow decided to do the one thing she figured she probably should’ve learned to do years ago, and said nothing, settling for tightening her grip around Lightning’s waist a little, and letting her rival and now, apparently, girlfriend, sigh happily.

A few minutes later, Rainbow cleared her throat and patted Lightning Dust on the back lightly.

“This uh… this is gettin’ real gay, Dusty,” Dash said with a small laugh.

“Y-Yeah, uhm, sorry,” Lightning pulled away, wiping at her eyes with the sleeves of her jacket. “I just, I’m so crazy, stupid, happy right now, y’know?”

“Yeah, I guess… I guess I am, too,” Rainbow said, burying her face in Lightning’s hair.

“Aw, looks like it ‘ad’n ‘appy endin’, pet,” a voice said from near the entrance to the alley, drawing an embarrassed squeak from both Rainbow and Lightning.

“Babe!” Twilight swatted the white-haired girl lightly from where was wrapped up in the girl’s arms. “That was rude! They seem… nice.”

Rainbow Dash cleared her throat and walked up, not managing to move more than a pace away from Lightning before the gold-haired girl caught up and grabbed Rainbow’s hand, following her.

“Uh, right, sorry about like, kinda running you over,” Rainbow said with a weak laugh. “I was uh… kinda in a hurry.”

“Arh cocka, Ah can fuckin’ tell,” came the reply. “Th’name’s Zee, this ‘ere’s th’love’a m’life, Twilight.”

“Oh my god, babe,” Twilight groaned, thumping her head against Zee’s side in an impromptu headbutt. “Can you please be a little subtle? Discreet? Some form of reserved?”

“Reserved ain’t really m’bag, love,” Zee replied with a laugh before turning back to Rainbow and Lightning. “Chuffed t’see t’all worked out ‘tween ye, got a bit’a th’romantic in me.”

Twilight pulled free of Zee and stepped up to Rainbow and Lightning, holding out a hand. “Hi, I’m Twilight Sparkle, it’s uhm, nice to meet you two.”

Lightning Dust shot a confused glance over at Rainbow, silently asking why Twilight didn’t remember them, but the look Rainbow gave her back told her one thing.

We’ll talk later.

“Right, uh,” Rainbow took Twilight’s hand a shook it. “Rainbow Dash, but call me Dash, though, my dad and I have the same name.”

“Lightning Dust,” Lightning said, taking Twilight’s hand next. “My friends call me Dusty.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Twilight replied with a grin. “Uhm, like she said before, that’s my girlfriend Grizelda, but just call her Zee.”

“Too right, love,” Zee responded, “you pair look like ye need a stiff drink.”

Lightning cackled. “Uhm, I mean, sure? But we’re eighteen so…”

“Ain’t stopped me none, hen,” Zee replied with a smirk. “Got a cabinet full’o the shite at home.”

“She’s right, she does,” Twilight said dryly. “To the point that I kind of wish we had more friends so she wouldn’t just drink it all herself.”

“S’not like I’m unmanageable, love,” Zee said with a laugh, slinging an arm around Twilight.

Twilight scoffed. “You get pretty rowdy when you’re drinking that pine sol of yours.”

“It’s gin, love,” Zee snarked. “Proper gin, aye?” Zee turned back to Rainbow and Lightning. “Anyways, me’n the lass’re ‘eadin out, but if ye’d like t’hang sometime, ye seem like ye know what ye’re on about.”

Twilight pulled out a small notepad from… somewhere and began jotting something down. Rainbow blinked as she tried to spy where on Twilight’s rather form-fitting outfit she could have possibly stowed a notepad and pen, but failed to come up with a satisfactory answer.

Tearing the page free, she passed it to Lightning who looked down and glanced over the two numbers.

“That’s us,” Twilight said with a smile. “You can give us a call, okay? Uhm, it was really nice meeting you two!”

“Arh, cocka, s’thinkin’ we’ll be right good friends, oreyt?” Zee said with a laugh as Twilight returned to her spot under Zee’s arm, shivering slightly in the cold, and they began walking away.

As the two of them gained distance Rainbow continued to stared at Zee, struck again by the uncanny resemblance to someone else she knew. They only got a few feet away before a notion occurred to Rainbow and, as usual, her mouth spat it out before her brain could check it.

“H-Hey, d’you know someone named Gilda Grimfeather?” Rainbow called out, stepped forward slightly.

Zee froze like she’d been struck and for a moment there was a terrible stillness in the air, like a blue sky turning black with storm-clouds. Zee turned her face just slightly, just enough to stare back at Rainbow with one eye, her expression glassy and her smile stretched and thin.

“Can’t say as I do, hen,” Zee said through gritted teeth. “Can’t say as I do.”

Rain rattled against the ceiling and windows of the house in Whitetail, but Twilight could barely hear it from where she had holed up in the basement of Zee’s home; no, it was ‘their home’ she mentally corrected herself.

Twilight tapped away at the paper in front of her. It was half-filled with calculations and was, if Twilight was any judge, set to join the hundreds of others of its kin in the trash can at her feet which, in turn, would be joining the whole tree and a half she’d managed to work through over the last week.

“Still nothing,” Twilight said, her voice dry with irritation. “It’s like I’m right in the middle of getting somewhere and then suddenly… the floor drops out from under me.”

Zee was gone for the time being, she’d stepped out to go for a walk some hours ago. Twilight idly stroked the small, growing bruise on her lower jaw, feeling the slight twinge of pain. Twilight felt awful… she’d said things to Zee again, things she didn’t mean, and then they’d gotten into another fight.

It always went the same, Twilight knew… She’d say something awful to Zee, Zee would get angry, they would tussle and fight, then cry and apologise. But they always made up in the end and that, Twilight knew, was the important part.

They always made up in the end.

Zee had left to cool off and smoke, it was what she and Twilight had gotten into a fight over. Twilight had gotten annoyed at Zee always smoking indoors, then they’d argued about it and… well, the same thing happened that always happened.

Then Zee left to smoke outside.

Twilight smiled a little. Even though she was hard-headed and ornery about a lot of things, in the end she always tried to do right by Twilight.

Especially after what happened with her family…

Twilight narrowed her eyes, her sclera darkening to a radioactive green for a brief, unseen second as rage burned through her veins.

“Zee is my family,” Twilight hissed softly. “Not them… not-”

A loud SNAP startled Twilight and she stared down at her hand. The pencil she’d been holding was snapped neatly in two pieces where she had gripped it too hard.

Staring down at the pencil, Twilight closed her eyes and threw it into the trash, sagging as she lay down, sprawled over the desk as tears dripped quietly from her eyes. Why did that day have to go so wrong? Why? Why did they have to…

Twilight sniffled and buried her face in her arms.

“So what is it you do again?” Shining Armor asked as he spooned another helping of casserole onto his plate. “Cyber-something?”

“Cybersecurity,” Twilight corrected with a small smile.

“Aye, tha’s it,” Zee agreed, taking a bite of mashed potatoes, swallowing before she spoke again in her best effort not to embarrass herself or Twilight. “Most folks, big companies’n the like, they don’t got much in the way’a liquid assets, not cash-like, savvy?” Zee smiled, pointing her fork at Shining to the amusement of most at the table. “Break inta some medical research laboratory’n y’more like as not t’catch some superflu off’n the samples they’re workin’ with and all tha’ only t’steal some specific machinery y’never gonna be able t’fence.”

“That’s correct, but data is far more valuable in the right, or wrong, hands,” Night Light chimed in. “Protecting that is a very lucrative business.”

“Oh aye,” Zee replied with a laugh. “Make m’self a tidy paycheck off’a m’software, see?”

“She writes her own code, basically from scratch,” Twilight said, shooting her girlfriend a proud look. “Not precisely its own coding language, more like a really obscure coding dialect, it’s a pile of impenetrable spaghetti code that only Zee knows how to traverse.”

“And I suppose that means if they need to update or something they can only go to you,” Shining said, narrowing his eyes.

Twilight scowled and even Cadence shot him a glance, but Zee didn’t rise to his bait, instead she just laughed and nodded.

“Aye, tha’s as it is, pal,” Zee replied with an unmoving smile. “S’just good business, oreyt? S’all standard practice in th’industry n’if they don’t like m’service n’skills they can go with another contractor, aye?”

“And has anyone?” Shining retorted. “Gone with another contractor?”

“Shining!” Twilight hissed, but Zee quieted her with a slight squeeze of her leg.

“Aye, a’times,” Zee replied. “Nature’a the business, I charge f’me services, some places want cheaper, s’they go’n they find cheaper. Usually costs’em more in t’end though, aye? Bad security’s worse’n nowt, y’see?”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Shining replied.

“Honey, you’re doing it again,” Cadence whispered out of the side of her mouth in annoyance. “You’re interrogating.”

Before Shining could respond, though, his father added his own two cents.

“Well, actually it’s as Miss King says,” Night Light replied, taking a quick bite of some carrots before continuing. “Security software is often entangled with everything which means that poorly coded software could interfere with any or every aspect of internal software workings, online services, and the like; you see it all the time in start-ups.”

“Tha’s as it is,” Zee added with a small note of triumph in her voice. Even Twilight looked a little smug as she leaned to the side and kissed Zee’s cheek.

Shining’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t like Zee, he knew it to his bones the way he knew he loved his wife. Shining knew he didn’t like Zee but… why? He couldn’t put his finger on why. By all accounts she seemed like a perfect match for Twilight. Outgoing where Twilight was introverted, patient where Twilight was brash, but Twilight seemed to be a good balance for her too and together it all just seemed perfectly normal.

There is such a thing as instinct, though. In some people it’s stronger than others, some have an instinct so strong it’s almost a guide, like a voice just behind the ear whispering to look this way or pay attention to that thing. Pointing out the innocuous and the odd, the otherwise unintrusive that might be a hint to a greater thread of logic. All of those little niggling feelings, those tiny whispers, all of them became deafening in that single instant and all of them said the same thing.

There was blush on Twilight’s cheeks.

That was it, that was all. Twilight was wearing blush, just a hint of it, and a touch of foundation. Perfectly normal for a young girl who was having dinner with her family and introducing her new girlfriend. She had put on a nice outfit and added a small amount of makeup, not enough to be gauche, just enough to highlight her natural beauty. It was all just… perfectly normal…

Twilight was many things, but normal? Normal was never among them. Her unique mindset was a fact that Shining had always been proud of, despite the social issues it had caused her on occasion. His sister was a singular person, someone with a high intelligence score, as his old gaming buddies would say.

And a low wisdom.

The Wizard, the Hermit, the absent-minded professor, all archetypes of the same character: the min-maxed caster-type… all typified in Twilight.

So why was she wearing blush?

Common sense, of course, dictates that one dressed nice and dolled oneself up for an evening out, but Twilight was always more likely to show up grease-stained wearing a two-day old lab coat to a nice dinner event. The reason, the perfectly logical reason, being because she intended to go right back to her experiments post-haste and didn’t see the point in washing up beforehand if she was just going to get dirty again in a few hours.

Think Shining, think, he thought sharply, closing his eyes, Twily is an ‘Int’ character, she thinks like an ‘Int’ character. That means she doesn’t do things because it’s obvious that she should do them, she does them to… to accomplish a task so…

So why was she wearing blush?

“Honey?”

“To hide something,” Shining muttered, feeling a cold stone settle in his gut.

“What?”

Shining turned to Cadence with a harrowed look in his eyes and Cadence’s eyes widened at the expression. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

Slowly, Shining Armor got up from his place at the table, taking his wife’s hand as he did. “S-Sorry everyone I just remembered, I needed to talk to Cadence about something private, we’ll be right back, okay?”

“You do? We will?” Cadence stammered as she was gently pulled to her feet. Shining Armor moved towards the kitchen, Cadence in tow, who shot an apologetic look back at the rest of the table. “Okay, I guess that’s what’s happening, be right back everyone.”

Night Light and Velvet both shot their son a worried look, the wooden tone of his voice putting both of them on edge, but before they could speak up the two were around the corner and gone.

“That was weird,” Twilight said quietly, only to receive a worried nudge from Zee under the table. “Hmm?”

“We’re fuckin’ made, our lass,” Zee whispered, leaning to the side and away from Twilight’s parents as they stared worriedly after Shining and Cadence. “Ah fuckin’ know it.”

“We’re fine,” Twilight said soothingly, reaching out and locking her fingers into Zee’s, pecking a kiss onto her lips. “Everything is fine.”

“S’not, pet,” Zee muttered, but clammed up a second later as Velvet and Night Light turned back to the table.

“That was odd,” Velvet said with concern. “Well, I’m sure we’ll hear about it later.”

“Pretty sure it’s just Shining getting worked up over nothing,” Twilight said with a weak laugh. “So…”

Shining Armor stepped into kitchen, his wife hot on his heels and not looking pleased.

“What the hell, Shining?” Cadence hissed, glaring at her husband as he brushed a strand of pink hair from her eyes. “Seriously, what is your problem? You’ve been treating Zee like she’s in a holding cell! It’s Twilight’s first girlfriend and you’re screwing it up!”

“Something is wrong!” Shining insisted, keeping his voice low. “I… I don’t know how to explain it, but I can feel it!”

“I’m sorry, hon, but you’re going to have to do better than a ‘feeling’ for me to condone you actively sabotaging your little sister’s first real, healthy relationship,” Cadence replied.

Shining grimaced. “That’s the thing… I don’t think it’s healthy, babe… I don’t think it’s healthy at all.”

That got Cadence’s attention. She knew that Twilight was, generously speaking, naive when it came to social interaction. Naive might’ve been overly optimistic actually. Oblivious was probably a better and fairer assessment. The notion that Twilight might end up getting into a relationship with the wrong sort of person was certainly something that had kept Cadence up at night whenever she imagined her little sister-in-law finally making friends and experiencing romance but…

“Give me something, then,” Cadence pleaded quietly. “I want to stand with you on this but you’re going to have to give me a damn good reason.”

Sighing, Shining Armor leaned against the island in the kitchen and scowled back at the dining room in Zee’s relative direction.

“Blush,” Shining finally said. “That’s what got my attention… Twilight is wearing makeup.”

“And?” Cadence asked, her voice begging Shining for that not to be the whole story. “So she wanted to look nice, what’s wrong with that? I know it’s a little out of character for Twilight Sparkle, of all people, to be wearing makeup, but the same could be said of her having a girlfriend, right?”

“No, I mean… yes, I know that,” Shining insisted. “But… something about it just… feels wrong. And they mentioned a fight earlier and… god, Cadence what if-”

Cadence crossed the distance between them in a flash and had a finger to Shining Armor’s lips before the words he was about to say fell out. Her brow was furrowed and a deep, cold, anger was welling up just beneath the beatific surface of her face.

“Shining Armor you are an officer of the law,” Cadence said stormily. “You had better not be about to accuse someone of something as damning as domestic abuse without a rock-fucking-solid piece of evidence.”

“Of course not,” Shining said, pushing Cadence’s hand gently away. “But you also don’t get too far in this job without trusting your gut, and my gut tells me something is seriously wrong, Cady.”

Shining’s took Cadence’s hands, his eyes pleading with her silently for her to believe him. Cadence stared up at him, at the man she loved, then glanced over her shoulder. Of course she wanted Twilight to be happy, and without a doubt Twilight was certainly happier and more lively than Cadence had ever seen her but… Cadence also knew that just because someone was happy in a single moment during a relationship didn’t mean that the relationship itself was good.

It didn’t mean it was healthy, or supportive….

Or safe.

Zee was… strange, Cadence had to admit. Her tattoos, off-hand caustic humor, her casual and almost… slick manner of speech… There were certainly a few red flags. And yet… the way Zee held on to Twilight, the small touches, the way their hands drifted together, the way Twilight leaned her head against Zee. The total and complete comfort the two girls had with one another…

“I don’t know, Shiny,” Cadence said softly. “I’ve seen bad relationships… Twilight has no fear of Zee, not a single iota, I can tell! There’s no tension, no fear, no… nothing… just affection and lots of it.”

Shining shook his head. “Twilight doesn’t fear anything, Cady, not really,” he said quietly. “She’s got anxiety out the wazoo, sure, but fear? Like you and I know it? She really, genuinely is fearless. For better or worse, she’s always been that way, and y’know why?”

Cadence turned her mind back to the past, to all the years she’d spent babysitting the young scientist, the little prodigy Twilight Sparkle who could learn and master almost any skill. Yes, she ‘feared’ poor performance, she ‘feared’ doing badly on tests and exams and anything that measured her ability or intellect because that was an aspect of her that Twilight had tied fundamentally into who she was in her own mind.

But pain? Danger? Even death? No, Twilight Sparkle had never really feared those things that normal people feared. Twilight the Scientist, Twilight the Prodigy, didn’t fear them because…

“Because she thought she could control them,” Cadence replied in a quiet voice.

“Yeah,” Shining said in a dark tone. “If that Zee is… is hurting Twilight, but Twilight thinks she can fix her, or… or control her? Do you really, honestly think she would show or even feel any fear?”

“I…” Cadence felt her tongue tie up in her mouth as she turned to stare back at the dining room.

For better or worse, Shining had planted a seed of doubt in her mind. Was Twilight being hurt like that? Was she… was Zee…? Cadence took several deep, shuddering breaths, before turning back to Shining Armor with a look of deep concern in her eyes.

“So what do we do?” Cadence asked finally.

Shining sighed in relief.

“I just… I need to see under the makeup,” Shining said, his mouth twisted as he tried to find a way in his mind to make it work. “If there’s something there then I’ll know, okay? I need your help, Cady.”

“Always, Shiny,” Cadence replied. “But if you’re wrong? What happens then? Twilight might never forgive you.”

“I’ll live with that,” Shining said firmly. “I’d rather do something and be wrong there, than choose to do nothing and be wrong about that, and if being wrong here means spending the next ten years making it up to her, and to Zee, I will.”

“Good,” Cadence said in a hard voice. “Alright, well, makeup isn’t easy to remove, trust me. It’s not something you can just smear off, alright?”

Shining grimaced; he knew she was right, but… “So what do we do?”

“We start by being honest with ourselves,” Cadence said, sighing heavily. “We’ve not looking for ‘something’, we’re looking for… a bruise, right?”

Shining almost flinched at the word, but nodded.

“Well, then this is easier than we’re making it out to be…” Cadence glanced back at the dining room again, this time with pain in her eyes. “We don’t need to get the makeup off of her in secret if we already have a reason to and… well… the thing about bruises? They’re sensitive.”

Cadence and Shining Armor rejoined the table, seemingly in better spirits than when they left. Twilight was just glad that her brother had stopped needling Zee over every little thing; it had put Zee badly on edge and all they needed to do was get through the evening without a total disaster. Something that would be much, much harder if Zee was walking on eggshells all the time around her brother.

The rest of dinner cleaned up easily enough, everyone had their portions and in the end the leftovers were being pack up by Twilight’s mother, who had insisted that Zee take something home since she was apparently living alone.

That had taken a little bit of explaining.

“So you’re here all by yourself?” Velvet asked, her brow furrowing in worry. “What if something happens?”

“Aye, but I’m ‘ardly alone, miss,” Zee said with a chuckle. “Got our lass, she’s by every other day or more, savvy? An’ s’not like I’m some old biddy fixin’ t’break a hip, oreyt? Still sixteen; mah body’s still made’a rubber’n magic when it comes to bouncin’ back from scrapes.”

“Such is the invincibility of youth,” Night Light replied as he entered with dishes from the dining room. “Well, we still worry, though, ja? Check in every now and then, won’t you?”

“Be a pleasure,” Zee replied, smiling.

In the living room, apart from the rest, Twilight had staged her brother to the side in private to chew him out for his behaviour. Twilight glared up at her brother, glad that Zee was distracted helping her mother and father tidy up. Shining Armor withered slightly under her expression as Cadence gently patted his shoulder.

“So are you going to explain what the he-heck that was at the dinner table?” Twilight said grimly. “I brought my friend, my girlfriend, over here to meet my family and the first thing you do is grill her?!”

“Twily, c’mon, I’m your big brother,” Shining said, trying his best to keep a tone of nonchalance. “I think I’m entitled to make sure you’re with a good sort of person, right?”

“You don’t get to decide that!” Twilight snapped, earning a flinch from the both of them. “She’s my girlfriend, this is my relationship, and I don’t need your approval for it.”

By the end, Twilight was jabbing her finger into Shining’s chest, backing him up a step. In her anger, she missed the glance that her brother and his wife shared, Cadence nodding quickly as she stepped forward and intercepted Twilight’s hand on another downward stroke.

“Twilight, that’s rude,” Cadence said sternly. “I’ve talked to him already, and he knows he went too far, but even if I hadn’t, someone else being rude…”

Twilight sighed, letting out a slow breath. “...isn’t a reason for me to be… I know, I’m sorry.”

Cadence felt a stony pit of guilt open in her gut at her small manipulation as she put on a smile.

“That’s right,” she replied, taking the excuse to get closer, raising her hand to Twilight’s cheek. “We always put our best face on, remember?”

Her hand came to rest on Twilight’s cheek under the guise of a friendly, familial touch of affection, and it was only an instant too late that Twilight realised the position she was in as Cadence’s thumb came to rest right on top of the bruise on her cheek.

“OW!” Twilight flinched away reflexively, pulling back a few steps as she raised her hand to her cheek where Cadence had pressed against the sensitive bruise from earlier that day.

A deadly silence stretched out through the living room as Cadence stared, a look of growing horror on her face as she pulled her hand back like it had been burnt. Shining’s eyes were wide with shock as the sound of footsteps came from the hall and Zee stepped into the room.

“Oy, wha’s that?” Zee looked at Twilight with concern. “Thee’oreyt, our lass?”

“You BITCH!”

Shining never had a chance to move because Cadence had her hands on Zee in a split second, gripping her around her collar and heaving her off the ground, the pink-haired woman’s eyes blazing with lambent fury. Zee squawked in surprise, choking as she was lifted from her feet.

“HOW DARE YOU LAY A HAND ON HER!” Cadence practically shrieked.

An instant later, Night Light and Twilight Velvet were in the room and pulling Cadence off of Zee, demanding an explanation as Shining sidled around and came to a stop behind his sister. Twilight surged forward to protect her girlfriend but was stopped by her brother’s hand on her arm, pulling her back.

“Twilight!” Shining’s voice was void of all warmth as he turned his sister around to face him. “I need you to tell me something and you are going to tell me the truth. Under that makeup… is there a bruise?”

Twilight’s eyes widened and she shook her arm free of Shining’s grip. More accurately he let her go; as angry as he was, no part of him would let him hurt his sister, not now especially.

“W-What?!” Twilight laughed nervously, her voice cracking as she glanced over her shoulder at Zee staggering away from Cadence who was still glaring at her with borderline insane rage. “That’s nuts! Crazy! That’s-”

“Twilight, stop,” Shining said, his features darkening terribly. “You always were an awful liar.”

“Shining, Cadence, what the hell is going on?” Velvet demanded.

“That thing-!” Cadence pointed at Zee, “laid hands on your daughter!”

Night Light’s eyes widened in shock, and Velvet’s hands flew to her mouth as she stared between the two of them.

Tears trickled down Twilight’s cheeks as she backed away from her family, slowly and carefully sidling towards Zee. “So… so what you just have a hunch and that gives you the right to attack my girlfriend?!”

“My hunches are usually right, but your reaction to being touched there,” Shining pointed to her cheek, “and your, I repeat, awful lying pretty much confirmed it.”

“W-Well, FINE!” Twilight screamed, pulling her handkerchief from her pocket and roughly wiping at her cheek, flinching as she irritated the bruise. “There! Are you happy?!”

Ripping the cloth away from her face, there was a collective hissing intake of breath at the faint but very perceptible bruise that marred Twilight’s soft, lavender skin.

“Now what?” Twilight demanded, moving to put herself between Zee and the rest of her family.

“Now I arrest that girl for battery,” Shining said darkly, narrowing his eyes at Zee who looked horrified.

Twilight just grinned, a twisted, nasty expression that none of her family had ever seen plastered over the normally soft-spoken girl’s face. The look put a chill in their hearts as Twilight raised the hand holding the cloth up to her mouth and spat into it.

“Show them, Zee,” Twilight said in a quiet voice as she handed the damp rag to Zee.

“C-C’mon, pet, tha’s not-” Zee said softly, but snapped her mouth shut as Twilight rounded on her, eyes burning as she stared down the taller girl.

“I said: ‘show them’,” Twilight repeated slowly, and Zee flinched.

Cadence felt something dark and ugly grip her heart as she watched their interaction. A part of her wanted to just delete that little snippet of time, that small, split second of scene from her memory. She had been so focused on Twilight that she had never once paid attention to the other girl in the picture. Twilight showed no fear, she never did, Shiny was right about that, but Zee? It was tiny… barely there, but it was there.

An infinitesimally small but icy sliver of fear directed at Twilight.

Slowly, Zee took the rag and raised it her own face, wiping away carefully and revealing the twin of the bruise that Twilight had given her during their fight.

“So, are you going to arrest her and me?” Twilight asked caustically, turning to regard her family and pointedly ignoring the looks of growing horror on their faces. “We got into a fight, that was it, she’s not beating me, okay? We just… get physical sometimes, that’s all.”

“Twilight… Ladybug, that’s…” Cadence whispered, stepping forward. “That’s awful that’s… that’s not… not love, that’s sick.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I feel, Cady,” Twilight snapped before turning back to her brother. “So… are you going to arrest us both? Except, oh right, I’m not pressing charges! And neither is she, right Zee?”

Zee shook her head slowly.

“Good thing you're not eighteen yet, so mom and dad get to decide that. And either way I'm not letting you go with her,” Shining said, stepping past his mother, father, and wife to stand towering over Twilight.

“Fuck you,” Twilight hissed, earning a gasp from her mother and father, Cadence just stared in shock.

Before her brother could say anything she whipped around, turning on her heel and showing him her back as she stalked away reaching out to grab Zee’s hand. Zee and Twilight’s worried eyes met and Twilight jerked her head to the side, nodding towards the door, her eyes widening a little as she mouthed the words ‘car’ and ‘I love you’, just as Shining snapped a hand out to grab her by the shoulder. Twilight shoved Zee towards the door as she came to a stop at the edge of Shining’s grip just while shoving her other hand into the small pocket hidden in the folds of her skirt.

Zee stumbled towards the door as Twilight turned to glare over her shoulder at her brother, a faint spark of green flashing over her eyes. “Get your hands off of me.”

“You’re not going any-”

Shining never finished his sentence. From behind, Cadence, Night Light, and Twilight Velvet watched as Shining suddenly jerked and spasmed, gurgling as he stumbled back and collapsed to the floor revealing an utterly livid Twilight Sparkle holding out her taser at approximately gut-level.

“Fuck all of you, you’re not taking her away from me,” Twilight hissed, “I love her and I will do whatever it takes!”

Turning on her heel one more time, Twilight sprinted out the door just as the sound of the E-Type’s engine roaring to life was heard throughout the neighborhood.

“Oh god…” Cadence muttered, “Shining!”

No one pursued them as Zee and Twilight tore out of the driveway and away from the Heights. No one had the strength to. Night Light and Velvet just stared in numb shock at what had transpired, at how in a single brutal instant they’d lost track of their daughter and seen a rift split wide in their family seemingly out of nowhere. Cadence knelt next to Shining Armor, checking his pulse and desperately assuring herself that he was alright.

In the passenger seat of the E-Type, Twilight just curled up and cried.

Twilight was startled out of her dark memories by a sudden waft of floral scent to her right. Glancing over, Twilight’s eyes widened as she saw a bouquet of flowers bobbing next to her head, the hand holding it belonging to her favorite person in the world.

“Got ye somethin’, our lass,” Zee said bashfully from the side, smiling softly around a split lip as she held out the flowers.

Blinking away her surprise, Twilight reached out and cradled the bouquet, take a deep breath and laughing a little as tears leapt to her eyes.

“Purple Hyacinths and Daffodils,” Twilight said softly. “The flowers of sorrow and of love without equal…” Twilight laughed a little as she turned to look up at Zee. “Of course I forgive you, you dumb sap.”

“A-Also got ye this,” Zee held up a single flower with delicate, butter-yellow petals and a fresh green stem. “S’Primrose, aye? Know it?”

Twilight felt more tears trickle down her cheeks as she took it and held it to her nose, nodding. “It means, ‘I can’t live without you’.”

“Arh, tha’s as it is, our lass,” Zee said softly. “Life ain’t life n’more without you, savvy?”

Laying down the flowers, Twilight reached up and wrapped her arms around Zee, pulling herself up to press her forehead to Zee’s and giggle, nuzzling their noses together.

“I know exactly what you mean,” Twilight said with a wide smile.

“Brought y’somethin’ else, too, as it ‘appens,” Zee said, reaching behind her and picking up another metal case identical to the one that had carried the gauntlets. “I uh, ‘ad t’fetch it from Canterlot First Independent, aye? So… took me a minute.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “No way… is this another-?”

Clicking the latches open, Zee entered the combination into the pair of digital locks and released the mechanisms to pop the case.

“S’not the same thing,” Zee said quietly. “Th’reason I didn’t ‘ave it in t’first place, love, is because… m’Pops told me t’leave it lay, that all we needed was the gauntlets but… well, guess ah ain’t so sure now, savvy?”

The lid swung open and inside was an ancient and weathered metal staff. The iron it was crudely crafted from was old, impossibly old, and it smelt of something deeply unpleasant like dirt or rot. Could metal rot? Twilight wondered as she looked down at it, knowing in her sensible mind that metal did not rot. It oxidized, it transformed into component minerals through exposure to oxygen, but it did not rot.

Despite that logical and well-reasoned line of thought, Twilight was utterly certain of one thing: this metal staff was rotten.

But it was not the staff that Twilight really stared at. The rotten metal staff was a curiosity, or perhaps more accurately it was a symptom of a greater malevolence. The strange rotting staff was topped by a metal ring, pristine as could be, and suspended in the center of that ring by thin, ancient, corded ropes was a small bell.

It was a beautiful bell made of something like brass and hung with a silent menace, staring back Twilight just as she stared at it. The gauntlets were mindless, they were wicked and powerful and belligerent, sure, but they were mindless.

This bell was not, as strange as it was to think, the bell seemed to regard her and in the echoes of the bell that had not yet rung, Twilight imagined she heard someone laughing.

“What is this?” Twilight whispered, reaching out and touching the body of the bell, running her finger over its cold, smooth frame.

“Can’t rightly say, pet,” Zee replied, looking down at it. “Only know it was the second piece t’the puzzle, aye? Pop said we didn’t need it, but…”

“Why do we even need the gauntlets?” Twilight asked quietly, drawing a look from Zee. “Seriously, babe, we’re supposed to be figuring out how to get your father out of prison but… we’ve been just beating our head against this anti-scientific wall for weeks and I’ve taken a lot on faith but I chose you over my family,” Twilight swung her arm out, gesturing outside. “I think I’m entitled to know why we’re studying this thing and what it has to do with your dad!”

Zee sighed, wrapping her arms around herself for a moment before nodding.

“Aye, fair's fair, our lass,” Zee replied, sagging a little as she nodded. Taking a deep breath, Zee leaned forward and looked Twilight in the eye. “Truth is this: m’Pops? Well, ‘ees in prison f’life for a good reason… ‘ees Storm King, founder’n leader a’the Las Pegasus Storm Kings, and he will never be let outta prison, no chance’a parole, and… he’s on Death Row. Only ‘is influence ‘as kept ‘im outta th'chair, savvy?”

Twilight’s eyes widened with every word from Zee’s mouth. Storm King, an infamous modern gangster, she knew a little bit about him but…

“So there’s only one way t’get’im outta San Tornado, pet,” Zee continued, backing up and dropping onto the easy chair they’d dragged down to the basement. “An’ tha’s a jailbreak… but ye’d need’n army t’get a man outta Tornado, and life ain’t like movies. Ain't got a pocket fulla favors t'call in f'some misfit band've experts… so instead I need power… lots of it.”

“And the gauntlets?” Twilight asked.

“Pure power,” Zee said. “Pops, ‘ee told me there were things in th’world, places in th’world, where there’s still power… old power.” Zee glanced over at the staff with the bell. “Things that allus had that power, savvy? Those gauntlets, they remember power, and… and I can use it t’get’im out, ‘ee told me so.”

“How could he have known?” Twilight asked incredulously. “We’ve barely even scratched the surface of the things!”

“M’pops was clever,” Zee replied. “Ain’t as smart as me, but cleverer by ‘alf, see? He knew things… dunno ‘ow, but ‘ee was allus right, oreyt? So yeah, I need ye t’trust me, pet… trust that if we can figure those things out, then we’ll ‘ave this in the fuckin’ bag!”

Twilight sighed. “Alright well, still not as crazy as the gauntlets themselves, so… I guess let’s get going.” Twilight stood and picked up a small palm-sized device and tossed it to Zee. “Made a little progress at least, here.”

“Wuzzat, our lass?” Zee asked, catching the object and turning it over in her hands. “Sorta looks like’n old cd player.”

“It’s a scanner, for lack of a better term,” Twilight replied. “I managed to figure out how to tune it to the unusual ambient frequencies of energy that the gauntlets put out, it can read output, and if we can see it-”

“We can control it,” Zee finished with a grin. “Aye, tha’s our lass, y’brilliant as y’are beautiful!”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Zee,” Twilight admonished, holding out her hand for the scanner. “It’s a prototype, and I don’t even know if it works.”

“Leastwise it’s somethin’, pet,” Zee said with a small smile. Her face fell a moment later as she slumped. “Can’t lie, lass, we’re gettin’ desperate. Not long a’fore ye brother works out where we live, then we’ll be up shite creek, no lie.”

“Yeah… I know, I'm… I’m so sorry,” Twilight said in a low voice, gripping the scanner hard. “It’s all my fault… if I hadn’t insisted you come to the dinner that night, or if I’d just been more careful… I’m the one who got caught, I’m the one who couldn’t keep everything a secret… it’s-”

A single outstretched finger silenced Twilight's tirade against herself, and a moment later the finger was replaced by Zee’s soft, full lips. The shadow of doubt and guilt that had been creeping up Twilight’s gullet was pushed down as she melted into Zee’s touch. This is why she had given so much up… this feeling. There was nothing in the world that Twilight could even begin to compare it to, it was like flying and breathing, like spreading wings and being caught in a headwind.

“Ain’t y’fault, our lass,” Zee said softly, as she pulled away. “S’my fault f’bein’ who I am.”

“That’s not true,” Twilight insisted. “What you’ve done and… and who you are? Those are two different things, okay?” Holding up the scanner, Twilight frowned. “I’ll admit, I’m not thrilled about what we’re about to do, alright? Freeing a known criminal? That’s… not really what I signed up for…”

“You knew ‘ee was in prison…” Zee said sheepishly, pulling away a little.

“You made it sound like he was in there because he was framed or something,” Twilight said in a grim voice, then sighed. “But, then I didn’t really ask because… I guess I already suspected the truth.”

“I’ll leave’im behind, too, if ye want,” Zee said softly, drawing a surprised look from Twilight. “After we get’im out, m’Pops, I mean? You… you gave up y’family t’help me, savvy? So…”

“You agreed to go on the straight and narrow, remember?” Twilight said, setting down the scanner and taking Zee’s hands. “I… have the feeling that if you stick around your dad then… he’s probably going to make sure you don’t.”

“Aye, y’probably right,” Zee admitted. She knew Storm well enough to know he had too many plans, too many irons in the fire, to just go straight after a jailbreak. It wasn’t in him. “So… ‘ow ‘bout this,” Zee said, standing straighter and gripping Twilight’s hands. “We get’im out, set’im up with some funds, and then scarper, yeah? Leave everythin’ behind, go t’Germaneigh, or… dunno, Neighpon, somewhere far away where it’ll jus’ be us, yeah? No criminal record, no family tellin’ us ‘oos good enough f’us… just us.”

Twilight’s eyes widened at that, but she didn’t pull away. “You’re… you’re serious, aren’t you?”

“As an ‘eart attack, pet,” Zee said with narrowed eyes. “I owe m’Pops a lot, but I ain’t gonna sit ‘round and do ‘is biddin’ forever, savvy? I’ve done oreyt on m’own, just…”

“Just what?” Twilight asked quietly, moving a little closer and returning the light squeeze from Zee’s fingers.

“Ain’t ever ‘ad any reason t’do anythin’ but what Pops told me, yeah?” Zee said, looking as if she’d only just realised it herself. “All this time I’ve done nowt f’myself, was allus workin’ towards Pops til I met you, pet.”

“Me?” Twilight said softly, and blushed as she spoke, but Zee swallowed hard as she braced herself to admit what her first plan was. “What did I do?”

“At first… nuffink, yeah? Nowt changed, ah met ye online, this damn savvy lass from across the pond ‘oo was even smarter’n me,” Zee said with a chuckle, “an’ all I could think was this was it… I’d get ye t’help me figure out the gauntlets ‘cause I was stuck…” Zee grimaced, staring down at the floor as she made the admission, but Twilight didn’t flinch or even move.

Twilight nodded silently before letting go of Zee’s hand to reach for her chin and lift her face so their eyes were meeting. Twilight would have had to have been blind to miss the pain and the regret in them.

“So, what changed?”

“Everything,” Zee answered in a whisper. “I saw ye and s’like the bottom dropped outta m’gut, yeah?” Zee shrugged and grasped Twilight’s hand, squeezing it hard as she closed her eyes. “That day at the mall, ye ran inta me and at first I was just bloody radged, then ye apologised an’… I ‘eard ye voice an'...”

“You knew it was me,” Twilight filled in, and Zee just nodded.

“Aye, tha’s as it is,” Zee agreed. “An’ I stepped back from ye and, fuck, ye were so fuckin’ scared and… ye were scared’a me and it felt ‘orrible, an’ then later when that slag had a go at ye I just fuckin’ lost it, pet…”

Twilight giggled a little at the memory. Sunny Flare still refused to come near her after what happened at the mall and none of the others seemed particularly inclined to say anything about it. Apparently the news about Twilight’s violent girlfriend got around to the usual suspects of Crystal Prep relatively quickly.

“That day ye came over, I was gonna try t’convince ye to stick about, yeah?” Zee said in a low voice. “Get ye t’help me or… or make ye… only… I just couldn’t do it, pet…” Zee sighed and slumped her shoulders. “Opened m’mouth to ask ye to stay an’ ‘eard m’self tellin’ ye t’go… then I was tellin’ ye everything, airin’ out all me wickedness'n worse an’ it was like I couldn’t fuckin’ stop m’self.”

“And then I left,” Twilight said somberly.

Zee nodded. “Ye left, aye, an’ then ye came back and I was so goddamn ‘appy, thought ‘bout jus’ cuttin’ an’ runnin’ right there, grabbin’ ye an’ goin’ off but…”

“That’s not who you are,” Twilight said firmly.

Zee nodded, pulling Twilight into her arms and burying her face against Twilight’s neck. “I bloody love ye so much, pet,” Zee whispered, “You want me t’go straight’n narrow? Then I’ll do it, jus’ as soon as I got no more unfinished business… I ain’t leavin’ Pops on Death Row.”

Twilight nodded firmly, stepping away, reaching out, and gripping the sensor as she held it up. The circular display cycled several times when she booted it up, with the varied colors that indicated output levels, frequencies, and gradients moving through their various stages to ensure the displays were operating correctly.

“Alright, moment of truth,” Twilight said as Zee walked up and peered over her shoulder as Twilight held up the scanner to the Bell first, and depressed the trigger in the center to activate the scanning apparatus within.

“Odd,” Twilight said quietly, her brow furrowing as she looked at the readouts. “It’s almost like the bell isn’t even there.”

Zee examined the readings herself from behind Twilight, her eyes narrowing. “Naw, ain’t that, love, tha’s an inversion, see?” Zee pointed to the odd peaks in the frequency. “S’like the gauntlets and the bell’re running on opposite wavelengths’a the same energy, aye? That bell’s like a sinkhole’re somethin’.”

“It’s absorbing energy?” Twilight said with a slight feeling of awe. “That’s fascinating, imagine what we could learn from this! I think you were right to bring it.”

Zee felt a faint warmth in her chest as Twilight turned and pressed her lips to Zee’s, giggling as she did and throwing her arms around the dark-skinned girl with a laugh.

“But it works!” Twilight cheered. “It really works! We can do this!”

“Arh cocka, tha’s as it is,” Zee agreed with a wide grin. “Oreyt, las’ one, can’t scan one’n not t’other, yeah?”

“Right,” Twilight agreed, dropping back to her feet. “Science is about repeatable results, we can’t have a sample size of one.”

Walking to the other side of the room where the gauntlets were sitting out surrounded by various tools, Twilight let out a breath, held up the scanner, and pressed the button.

The only warning that all was not well was the brief moment where every bar on the display immediately slammed into the red spectrum. Zee cried out as Twilight was engulfed in a flash of white light and a moment later the young scientist staggered backward with a cry of pain. Zee caught her by the shoulders and collapsed to the ground as Twilight slumped into Zee’s arms.

The air around the room stank of ozone and had a faint coppery smell to it that Zee found alarming. She knew that smell, it was blood, and immediately Zee began scanning the room for its source.

A moment later she realised she was holding it.

Twilight was gripping the scanner, whose central mechanism had blown out violently. There had been a crystalline mass in the center, specifically a diamond, one that Zee had acquired to serve as the scanner’s focal lens. It was black and shattered and the exploding fragments had shredded Twilight’s hands.

“Ah fuck!” Zee yelled.

Cradling Twilight and rushing upstairs, Zee laid her out on the kitchen counter before immediately turning and sprinting to the bathroom where a rather robust first aid kit was sitting underneath the counter. Pulling it free, Zee ran back to the kitchen and pulled out a pair of tweezers and some rubbing alcohol. For the moment, Zee was actually grateful that the shock had knocked Twilight unconscious, because this was really going to hurt.

“Gonna ‘urt me more’n you, our lass,” Zee gasped as she tipped the disinfecting liquid onto Twilight’s hands before carefully starting to pull fragment after fragment out.

It was a grueling process, one that took nearly half an hour, and through it all Zee was trying not to cry. Twilight had gotten hurt… really hurt, and all because of helping her. They’d both known that the gauntlets were dangerous but they’d ploughed ahead regardless. No, Zee had ploughed ahead and Twilight had just been running to keep up with her, leaving them both heedless of the very real danger they were in.

“S’my fault, pet,” Zee sobbed as she pulled another fragment from Twilight’s hand. “Shouldn’ta got ye involved… m’lucky ye didn’t catch a shot in anythin’ but ye hands… fuck…”

The thought of the explosion outright killing Twilight flashed through Zee's mind; one of the fragments striking her throat or hitting some vital organ… or blinding her, or…

Zee clenched her jaw as she set the tweezers aside, having pulled free the last of the fragments. She’d gone over Twilight’s hands with great care to ensure not a single bit of the lens was left. Without missing another moment, she grabbed the bandages from her kit and began wrapping Twilight’s hands in the soft, clean cloth. Luckily the force of the explosion wasn’t so extreme that it propelled the fragments very far, and they’d had to exit the metal casing of the central brace first which probably absorbed most of the force and, as such, none of Twilight’s cuts were terribly deep.

“Lucky,” Zee muttered again as she tied off the bandages at last. “Was bloody, fucking, goddamn lucky.”

Carefully, Zee looped her arms under Twilight’s slight frame and carried her to the couch where they slept most nights. Setting her gently down, Zee brushed a few strands of violet from her face and smiled.

“Never shoulda let ye get inta this, our lass,” Zee said softly. “I’ve wrecked ye bloody life, I ‘ave… s’all m’fault.”

Twilight's silent form had no comfort to offer Zee as she stared down at the beautiful young girl yet, in spite of that, a strange sense of resolve entered her heart.

“No more, lass,” Zee said in a dark voice as she stood. “Ain’t lettin’ ye fuck about with’em any longer, either I’m gettin’ the gauntlets t’work or… or ye won’t ‘ave t’worry ‘bout me any more, savvy?”

Turning on her heel, Zee strode down the hall to the basement and took the steps two at a time. Pushing the lower door open, she walked over to her coat where it was hung on the small rack by the door. Zee fished around in the pockets for a moment before pulling out a cigarette pack, retrieving one, and lighting it.

“Sorry pet,” Zee said as she took a drag on it while she walked over to the heavy steel chair that was part of Zee’s side of the workroom. “Know I said I’d quit smokin’ indoors but,” gripping the back of the chair, Zee dragged it out to the center of the room, “...figure it ain’t gonna matter if this all goes wrong, and if it don’t I’ll just apologise…”

Locking her fingers and flexing, Zee snarled as her knuckles cracked. She’d put her girl in danger for her own stupid plans. And calling them plans was probably giving them too much credit. Zee had grown so used to flying by the seat of her pants that it was all she ever gave any thought to. Without a plan, though, she was just hurtling in the general direction of her goal; once upon a time that had been enough, since whatever obstacles or debris she crashed through had only ever hurt her.

That wasn’t the case anymore.

This time it was Twilight who had taken the blow and that was not going to happen again.

Grabbing her arc-welder and rivet gun, Zee snapped up a bunch of scrap metal and set to work grounding the chair. Pulling her welder's mask down over her face, she began the arduous process of bolting the chair to the cement floor. Practised hands made quick work of the project, and after a short time Zee stood up and pulled the mask off of her sweat-stained face, spitting out the last in a series of cigarettes she’d smoked through the entirety of the project.

Her throat thick with phlegm and her hair plastered to her head with the heat of her work, Zee switched off her welder and tossed it away.

“Alright, you fuckin’ pricks,” Zee hissed as she walked over to the gauntlets. “Let’s see if you’ll listen t’me now.”

Picking them up, Zee examined the armored gauntlets. For a moment she was struck with a quiet admiration for whoever had made them. Though brutal looking, it was clear upon examination that the appearance was entirely purposeful rather than a result of crude workmanship; it was more a matter of aesthetic.

“Guess ‘ooever wore these first was a right bastard,” Zee said with a scoff. “Guess the next’un will be, too, ‘ey?”

Walking over to the chair Zee dropped down into the seat and set the gauntlets in her lap to examine the locking mechanisms that kept the articulation closed off. Scowling, Zee stared down at them, working through the patterns in her mind, her prodigious intellect unraveling the puzzle in front of her in moments; a second later her hands were moving and finding the hidden catches and threads to pull that released the plated skin of the armored gauntlets.

In moments the gauntlets were laid open before her like a dissected frog, their guts hollow, waiting to be filled with the essence that would animate them once again. Zee wasn’t sure how she knew that but she did… she knew that the gauntlets wanted to be worn, they needed it. She could almost hear them whispering insistently in her mind, telling her to put them on, to become a true force of nature.

“I am the storm… the glutton… the endless calamity of the skies…” Zee's mouth moved without her even thinking, the lines spilling from her lips as naturally as if they were her own name, and a deep rumble echoed every word like a wet, throaty growl. “Lightning and storm, my hunger is endless, every flash of my light will reveal your shadow to me, and I will feed upon it all…”

Zee grinned wide, lightning the color of emerald fire sparking in her eyes as she laughed. “Time t’feed…” she wasn’t sure why she said it but it sounded right.

Laying her arms into the gauntlets, she found to her total lack of surprise that they fit her perfectly, almost as if they had been made just for her.

A second later they snapped shut, and the lights went out.

Twilight Sparkle awoke to the sound of screams as she sat bolt upright on the couch. Wincing, Twilight stared down at her hands and flinched at the blood-stained bandages that were wrapped around them. A moment later her memories flooded back: the scanner, the explosion… the gauntlets-"

“MMMPPHHHHHHH! FUCK!”

Twilight staggered to her feet as Zee’s strangely muffled voice ripped through the air, with agony lending a sharp, bloody edge to it. Panic shot through Twilight’s veins as the blood rushed back to her head and she bumped into the small coffee table that sat in front of the couch as she twisted around to run towards the basement. Letting out a bestial scream of impatience, Twilight kicked the table out of the way and sprinted down the hall, ripping the door open as she ran down the stairs and pulling the inner door open to a sight out of her nightmares.

Zee was in the center of a localized tornado of electricity, which was insane; electricity didn’t behave like that, although Twilight was quickly reaching the point of giving up on the laws of physics entirely as they seemed to be proving woefully inadequate lately.

Besides, that wasn't Twilight's main concern at the moment.

Zee’s body spasmed and shook, and foam dripped from the edges of her mouth where she was biting into a strip of leather. Her eyes were rolled up into her head as she seized violently, and her hair was caught in the throes of the electromagnetic tornado, making it stand straight up in a mohawk that would have looked almost comical if Zee weren’t the midst of what was probably an excruciatingly painful death. On her hands were the gauntlets they’d been studying, and where before the metal has just been oddly luminous, now the frame of the odd artifacts shone as if fresh from a forge's flames with strange markings like letters or glyphs that had been invisible before, but we're now engraved as if by acid into the body of the gauntlets.

“OH SHIT!” Twilight shrieked as she looked around for something, anything that could help.

Her eyes scanned the entirety of their workshop, even though she knew the whole of the inventory by heart, having made the checklists and inventory sheets herself. There wasn’t a single thing in the basement capable of nullifying, dispersing, or absorbing that level of energy… output…

“Absorbing…” Twilight whispered as a truly insane idea flickered through her mind. “Absorbing the wavelengths…”

Sprinting to the rotten metal staff, Twilight pulled the thing free, ignoring any danger of touching the thing for the possibility of saving Zee.

“Okay, Twilight, you have a stick with a bell on, now what?!” Twilight gasped.

Turning to the tornado of power, she briefly entertained the idea of just sticking the staff into the mess of energy, but discarded the idea just as quickly. “I need to save her, not get struck by lightning! But how do I get the energy to focus into the bell?!”

Focus.

Twilight’s eyes widened and she smiled, a few hairs popping out of place as she laughed out loud at the sheer absurdity of what she was about to do. And yes, she was certainly going to do it. She had to. She wasn’t going to lose Zee, certainly not like this. Not without putting up one hell of a fight.

Gripping the staff with both hands, she started violently beating the circular head of the staff against the cement floor, her arms ringing and pounding with pain as she did so. A few moments later there was a dull, thudding, atonal ring as the bell dislodged from where it had been secured. Snatching up the bell, Twilight sprinted back up to the living room for a moment then came back down gripping the blown out scanner.

“Most of the peripheral circuitry should be fine,” Twilight mumbled as she prised open the main central casing. “Just need to replace the primary circuit board…”

Grabbing the pieces she needed from her desk, she worked faster than she ever had before, Zee’s muffled screams pushing her past her point of tolerance.

“Will you just hold on and SHUT UP!? I’M TRYING TO SAVE YOU!” Twilight spat at the violently spasming Zee before turning back to the scanner and ripping the inner buttress from within the center case.

Picking up the small bell, Twilight wrapped it in coils of copper and jammed it into the center of the scanner.

“Shit!” Twilight swore, seeing it sticking out slightly. “Well, sometimes every problem is a nail!” Grabbing a rubber-headed hammer, Twilight pounded the bell until it fit into place. “Perfect!” Twilight exclaimed, holding up the slightly dented scanner.

A quick scan of the interior told Twilight that the main circuits were all still intact; considering she’d made them out of the most expensive and durable materials that Zee could provide her, she wasn’t surprised.

Turning to Zee, who was still jerking and twisting in the chair, Twilight swallowed hard. “Okay baby, I’m here for you, if you’re going so am I… I’ll save you, though… I promise… you saved me from a life of loneliness, so… now it’s my turn!”

Grabbing the thick cord of rope from the floor that had originally been securing the bell to the staff, Twilight looped it through the outcropped head of the scanner and tied it off to hang around her neck, then held it up.

“One small step,” Twilight muttered, before hitting the button.

The dolorous sound of an enormous bell sounded throughout the basement, and the vortex of lightning suddenly seemed to freeze in place. Twilight’s eyes widened as the bell rung again, and again, and again, and each time, she could swear she heard a voice… a deep, sonorous, and gruff voice.

It was laughing.

Storm King curled his fingers dexterously, looping the thick red threads between them as he teased out shapes and forms. It was an old game his mother had taught him before he left for the ‘colonies’, something the old bat had never approved of. He imagined that, were she still alive, she would approve significantly less of his current circumstances: lying in a private cell against a padded bench in prison as he held his hands above him and indulged in an enjoyable pastime.

A dull crack and distant flash from outside distracted him for a moment. Wrinkling his nose, Storm sat up and sniffed at the air. A moment ago the skies had been clear, cold, and dry, but suddenly every sense in his body told him there was about to be the mother of all storms. There was a faint acrid taste on the back of his tongue that told him there was lightning and thunder incoming, and the smell of wet air that had suddenly swept into his cell from his barred window gave him a sense of the mammoth rainfall that was on its way.

But from where?

Glancing outside, Storm raised an eyebrow at the skies. They had been clear. Now, though, there were enormous, twisting black thunderheads. A moment later his private premonition proved correct as a flash of lightning lit the pitch-black darkness of the night followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder.

“What was that…” Storm muttered, turning his ear to the window and focusing. “Swear I ‘eard…”

Another crack of thunder and lightning and… there! Storm’s eyes widened as he heard laughter on the winds, the voice was high and feminine but husky at the same time.

One more explosion of thunder and a blinding flash that seemed to come from everywhere at once and the whole wing of the prison shook violently, pitching Storm to the ground as the ceiling lights shuddered and flickered.

“Oh, ye did it, sprog,” Storm said with a laugh as he staggered to his feet and looked around with a mad grin. “C’mon then, do it! Get uz outta here!”

A high scream of rage filled the air and a moment later the prison wing shook again violently and this time all of the lights went out. Storm heard transformers and breakers detonate and blow all over the prison as rain and wind blew violently outside. With his room consumed in darkness, Storm just grinned up at the ceiling waiting as crash after crash of thunder and lightning struck the building.

A dull thud and an electric whine filled the air and suddenly, the automatic bolted door of Storm’s cell discharged and creaked open. Grinning, Storm was just about to sprint outside when a movement in the corner of his eye put him spinning around with his fists raised to face-

...a teenage girl?

Sitting cross-legged on the bench he had been occupying a moment ago. Storm stared down at the girl. She had long purple hair that hung around her in a bit of a scatter. Her skirt and blouse were badly singed and pitted but certainly looked better than what appeared to be the remains of a lab coat, which was severely scorched.

In spite of her state of appearance, she grinned widely up at him with a disconcertingly… mad light in her eyes.

“Good evening Mister King,” she said in a spritely voice. “My name is Twilight Sparkle, I’m here to break you out of prison!”

Storm blinked in confusion. “Ah, tha’s a nice sentiment, lass, but…” Storm gestured to the open door and Twilight scoffed.

“Oh, that’s a red herring,” Twilight said with a small laugh, waving her hand dismissively. “After all, it’s no use pulling a jailbreak if they know where to look for you, right? And breaking out an infamous ganglord will get a lot of people looking, the trick is… gotta make them look in the wrong direction, right?”

“Suppose I’m followin’,” Storm replied with narrowed eyes. “An’ ‘ow’d you get in here anyway?”

Twilight just smiled that disconcerting smile of hers and held up the scanner with the bell lodged in it. “This right here! I’ll show you how it works, don’t worry!”

Storm’s eyes widened and for a moment he was silent. A second later a small laugh bubbled up from his chest, deep and throaty, that turned into full, knee-slapping paroxysms of laughter as Twilight stared on in mild confusion.

“I… Zee thought you'd be mad that we used it,” Twilight said, surprise overriding the euphoric high she was riding for a moment. “You aren’t?”

“Mad? Nah, fuckin’ thrilled t’bits,” Storm said, and Twilight’s slightly unnerving smile reappeared.

“Oh, good!” Twilight exclaimed, clapping her hands and hopping up to her feet. “Alright, now, time to get out of here, I’m taking us to the roof first, okay? Gotta pick up Zee, but stick close to me, alright? This thing has a maximum viable proximity and I wouldn’t want you to leave a foot behind.”

Storm nodded, his own face stretching into a wide smile as he stepped up and set a hand on Twilight’s shoulder. “Tha’s good, lass, you lead the way.”

Nodding, Twilight turned to the wall and held up the her hands and made a motion with her fingers like she was gripping something hard. Energy bled out of the bell, but slowly, and Twilight’s brow furrowed in concentration. A moment later, it was like a snap of pressure released and the sound of heavy a bell thundered through the air and Twilight arched her hands out, and with a sound like ripping fabric, the space around the two of them twisted and folded sickeningly.

A second later, Storm flinched as raindrops pounded against his face and wind swept around him. The smell of ozone was everywhere and Storm stared down at the concrete under his feet. It was distorted and blackened with heat. A laugh sounded from somewhere above him, and he looked around to see Twilight staring up with her arms thrown wide.

“HEY BABE! I GOT HIM!” Twilight yelled, a wild smile on her face as her hair and ruined clothing were plastered to her body by rainfall.

Twilight was answered by another crash of thunder and lightning. Laughter cascaded through the air carried by torrential rain and near-hurricane force winds.

“Brace yourself,” Twilight yelled over the calamitous noise.

A moment later lightning struck the roof like the hammer of a pagan god, and Storm rocked on his feet. Twilight was smiling in a broad, wild manner that spoke of a mind not wholly intact.

Well, that is a side effect of dark magic, Storm mused silently with a small grin.

As the dust cleared at the epicenter of the strike, a figure stood up, her form crackling with electrical surges dancing across her arms and legs.

Grizelda King’s smile was an unhinged rictus and her eyes were wide and dancing with power.

“Good on ye, lass,” Storm said, swinging his arms wide. “Ye did it, knew ye could, and I couldn’t be prouder.”

“Aye, tha’s as it is,” Zee said as she walked up to her adoptive father. “Now...

“Now…?” Storm raised an eyebrow, smiling as if he knew what was coming.

Zee, even supercharged with magic as she was, wielding artifacts of questionable safety and incredible potency, had difficulty meeting her foster father’s eyes, and it was only after Twilight made her way over to the taller girl that Zee worked up the courage to do so.

“We’re leavin’, aye? Our lass’n I,” Zee said, “I’ve set up an ‘ouse, an’ funds, and… ye’ll ‘ave whatever ye need, pops but… I promised our lass I’d let it all go after this, an’-”

“Aye, ye don’t fail on ye word,” Storm said with a sad smile. “Can’t very well punish ye f’learnin’ a lesson I right pounded inta ye skull, eh, sprog?”

“S-So… you don’t care?” Twilight asked, her limbs still restless and twitchy with the power coursing through her. “We can just…. go?”

“Aye,” Storm said, nodding. “Gonna miss ye lass,” he said to Zee, walking over and settling a wide, heavy hand on her head and ruffling her hair. “Ain’t seen ye in years and now I gotta lose ye again… what a shame.” Turning to Twilight, Storm grinned widely. “An’ you… only known ye a minute but ye seem like ‘xactly the sort for my little ‘Zelda, ey? You treat’er right, and don’t be afraid to bop’er one, she’s got a temper, that’n.”

“I… I’m aware,” Twilight said with a nervous laugh. “S-so… that’s it?”

“Aye,” Storm repeated, “I’ll jus’ be ‘avin’ those bits back then, if ye please.” Storm held out his hands to the two girls, nodding to the pair of artifacts they were wearing. “Can’t rightly go about quiet-like draggin’ a thunderstorm with ye everywhere, and ye will…” Storm warned, and Zee looked down at her armored hands in alarm. “An’ even I don’t know what all that bell's doin’ to ye, love.”

Twilight glanced down at the scanner, then over at Zee. Of course they’d have to give the artifacts up, that was obvious… right? They’d… they couldn’t just take them, not only were they dangerous and powerful, they weren’t exactly easy to hide if they were being used. True, the bell seemed innocuous, but so did a black hole from a distance if you had no idea what it was doing.

And Twilight really didn’t have any idea what the bell really was.

“Well?” Storm asked, his mouth quirking up slightly. “Can’t say I’ve got all night, loves…”

Zee stared down at the gauntlets. In her heart she knew she didn’t want to take them off. The freedom, the thrill, the sheer unbridled power they contained was… she wanted to keep them. But going straight? Lying low like she’d promised Twilight she would? There was no way to reasonably do that with the gauntlets engaged; moreover, she would be stealing them from her father by taking them… they were never hers to begin with. She was a thief but… but you didn’t steal from family.

Beside her, Twilight’s mind was cranking through the possibilities. In the past hour she had seen things, experienced things, done things that even the most cutting edge of science regarded and mere theory. Quantum entanglement? Teleportation? Twilight could, with no more than an effort of will, bind two points of space together and forge a temporary, but stable, wormhole. Her grip tightened around the scanner as it hit her all at once.

She was holding the solution to FTL travel. With more study, more time, could she travel between continents? Between planets?

Dimensions?

“Y-yeah…” Zee said finally, a note of defeat and pain in her voice. “S’like I promised, gotta own that, savvy? Let’s get ye back ‘ome, pops, then we’ll get outta ye hair.”

“Tha’s as it is, then,” Storm said with a sad smile. “Well, let’s see the place…. Miss Sparkle?”

“I don’t want to…” Twilight whispered, gripping the scanner.

“Lass, we’re standin’ on a prison,” Zee said with slight alarm “We gotta go.”

“Fine!” Twilight snapped, gripping the bell and attuning to it far more quickly than she had before as she stepped between Zee and Storm.

Space spasmed around them and a moment later the three of them fell into a graceless tumble in the backyard of the house Zee had bought. A moment later, rain began to fall in a slight patter from above them, and Zee looked up worriedly to see storm clouds forming.

“Arh, there it is,” Storm nodded up at the sky. “Told ye, sprog, ‘ere, lemme ‘elp.”

Walking over to Zee, Storm knelt and fidgeted with the gauntlets for a moment. Suddenly, without warning, the gauntlets let out a cranking, ratcheting noise and collapsed down until they were nothing more than metal armbands, almost like shackles without a chain, wrapped around her slender wrists and halfway up her forearm.

“That’ll suppress the ambient effects, m’lass,” Storm said. “Then, ye just gotta dislodge the notches below to let’em go.”

“How do you know all of this?” Twilight asked in a low voice as she stood up, still cradling the scanner. “How can you possibly know how any of this works?”

Storm smiled at her, a warm, paternal smile that seemed to hide a laugh underneath it. “I’ve ‘ad decades t’parse about for the knowledge I need t’open the ancient gate, love, and those two artifacts… well, tha’s my ticket in, savvy?”

“Gate?” Twilight asked, her voice taking on an awestruck tone. “To where?”

“Dunno,” Storm said with a grin that was starting to turn wild. “But I aim t’find out, lass, because it’s where those baubles’re from, aye? And t’gether they can unlock every secret ye can imagine and more and… way I see, tha’s a decent enough thing t’spend ye life on, aye?” Suddenly, he held out a hand to Twilight. “Now. I’ll be ‘avin it back, and the two’a you can be on ye way, savvy? With my blessin’ as Zee’s old pops… just invite me t’the weddin’ aye? Assumin’ I ain’t travelin’ the stars by that point.”

Twilight felt her breath hitch in her throat as he spoke and she stared down at his hand, then down at the scanner, then at Zee who was staring at the shackles. After a moment, Twilight saw Zee go to release the catches on them. To take off the gauntlets for good, just like she had promised Twilight she would do.

“Stop!” Twilight nearly shouted at Zee, who froze and stared up at her. “Do you… I… I know what I asked before… I know what I told you I wanted from you but…”

“Lass, what’re ye sayin’?” Zee muttered, getting to her feet and walking over to Twilight. “We’re leavin’, aye? Tha’s that, we did it!”

“But… it’s not enough,” Twilight mumbled, stepping forward and burying her face in Zee’s chest. “I want… I want more.”

“More what?” Zee pleaded, wrapping her arms around Twilight. “More’n me?”

“NO!” Twilight cried, tightening her grip around Zee’s middle. “You’re my whole world but I just want more! And I want to share it with you! I want to do things no one has ever done, and I want you to be there right next me, forever!”

“You could come with me,” Storm said in a lower voice, slicing through the tension that had grown between the two girls.

Both Twilight and Zee turned to regard Storm King who was smiling on with that same paternal grin.

“Aye, why not?” Storm said with a shrug. “You’ll keep th’baubles, they’re just a means to’n end f’me, and we’ll rip that gate open and do things none’ve ever done nor seen, aye?” Stepping up, he set a hand on both Zee and Twilight’s shoulders. “And ‘sides, this way… we can all be family… us three, aye? If ye don’t mind keepin’ tabs on an old man, oreyt?”

Zee stared up at her foster father who was smiling down at her in that way that never failed to leave her feeling better, and after a moment she moved to the side to rest her head on his broad chest before looking down at Twilight who was still in her arms.

“So… one more job, our lass?” Zee asked quietly.

Twilight smiled back up at her girlfriend radiantly.

“One more job.”

I taste dirt and pain. The ground is hard and damp underneath my hands as I push myself up from where I landed. Where I fell. Where I was cast down.

“Gilda…”

The voice is a twisted hiss of fury and gleeful rage, and in the distance I hear a bell ringing. It’s like the sound of a church bell… enormous and sonorous, like the tolling of a funeral dirge. I can barely lift my head; everything hurts… my body is so heavy.

I hear laughter resound around me as a pair of boots comes into view in front of my face from where I’m lying on the ground. My breath is a slow, dragging measure, and all I want to do is sleep.

“Good-bye, Gilda…” the voice says with an angry snarl.

The sound of lightning crackling above me is a herald of my death, I know this like I know the sun will rise. But I don’t look up at it… I don’t face my death. Instead I turn my head, my lips moving soundlessly as I stare out in the distance at a pair of figures locked in a blinding duel of light and dark.

“Sunshine…”

The lightning falls with the clangor of bells.

Sunset Shimmer thrashed and spasmed awake, breathing hard and dragging air into her lungs as if she'd been choking. Desperate with terror, she flailed in the dark, only to have her hand caught by a familiar touch; long, dark fingers cradled her with infinite care and pulled her down to be wrapped in a loving embrace.

“Hey, s’okay, Sunshine,” Gilda said softly, petting Sunset’s hair. “S’okay, just a night terror, a’right? I’m right here, y’fine.”

Was she? Sunset wondered as she curled close to Gilda, tears streaming from her eyes. That had been so much more than a dream, and…

The bells were still ringing.

“Ah, fuck, really?” Gilda swore as she sat up, fishing for her phone. “Ain’t even fuckin’ light out, Temp,” she muttered as she eyed the caller ID with annoyance, before hitting the ‘answer call’ button. “What?!”

“Grifa… got some real bad news,” Tempest’s voice was a harsh, hushed whisper that chilled Gilda to her core. Tempest didn’t just sound worried. She sounded scared.

“W-What’s up?” Gilda asked shakily, turning away from Sunset and sitting up on the bed. “C’mon, can’t be that bad, right? Everyone’s okay, right?”

Sunset stared on in worry before crawling over to Gilda and leaning against her in silent comfort. Gilda wrapped her free arm around the redhead out of reflex.

“S-Si, for now, yeah, but…” Tempest trailed off for a moment before finding her voice again. “There was a storm, yeah? Up at San Tornado… power went out… and…”

“No,” Gilda hissed, not in disbelief but in denial. “Fuck no, don’t say it.”

“Grifa, he’s missing…” Tempest said in a hollow voice. “Jefe Storm… he’s free.”

Author's Notes:

And that marks the end of Act II, and we're moving on to Act III.

Fair warning, we're moving in to the holiday season so my posts might end up more sporadic than usual because I have things to do with family and such. As such I doubt I'll finish Featherfall before the end of the year, but the end is coming, most definitely, and don't worry, the plan is to have a happy end.

That said, I have a few notes: don't forget, we've got a TvTropes page now, so anyone who wants to can feel free to contribute to it. Secondly, I'll be happy to answer any questions you all have about the characters if you'd like, just ask.

Thirdly: holy crap everyone, this story is a quarter of a million words long and it's not done.