The air outside was pleasantly cool and crisp. As a Siren, adapted to the crushing pressure and freezing temperatures of the ocean depths, Sonata found the climate at the surface to be hilariously mild, and even in her human form was not particularly bothered by the cold. In truth, she would have happily ditched the winter gear if she could, but there was no point in taking risks with her health. And besides, wearing it would draw less attention than not. Sonata usually craved attention on a fundamental level, like most Sirens, but right now she needed to keep her head down.

Glancing up and down the street, Sonata idly pondered which way she should go. Deciding that avoiding Luna was probably a good idea, she turned and headed in the opposite direction to the nearest checkpoint, just in case the teacher was still lurking around there.

Sonata had barely gotten a few yards from the house before a pitch-black four-by-four pulled up alongside her. She stared suspiciously as an officer wound down the window and leaned out. “Do you need to get somewhere?”

“Oh, uh… no?” Sonata answered awkwardly. “I’m just going to see if, uh, there’s anything I can do to help out?” She forced out a giggle, hoping that she would be left alone.

The officer frowned, and Sonata was certain that he was about to try to order her back to the house or something, but the next words out of his mouth were the last thing she ever expected to hear, “I’m just delivering some crystals to the eggheads. Do you know anything about magic? We could really use-”

“Yes, I know magic!” Sonata cut in eagerly. “Do you want me to help? I can help!”

“Well, alright then.” The officer grinned and gestured to the passenger seat. “Hop on in, I’ll take you right over.”

---

The magic lab was like a giant candy store for Sirens. A great big candy store with every form and flavor of sweets a Siren could ever ask for. Sonata looked around excitedly, wondering what she should sample first.

There were crystals of all sizes; from boxes full of little fingernail-sized ones, right the way up to an amethyst slab the size of a station wagon. On top of that glorious sight, there were vials and containers of pure magic in liquid form just lying around on the desks, glowing with every color of the rainbow and plenty more besides. Sonata couldn’t resist a smirk as she imagined Adagio and Aria pitching a fit at the sight of all the magic sitting around for the taking.

“As you can see, this is where we store and attempt to categorize our samples of magic before we send them off for experimentation or refinement,” one of the bespectacled scientists explained in a reedy voice.

Sonata had mostly ignored everything the man had been telling her so far, but his last word grabbed her attention and made her whip her head around, accidentally slapping a passing technician with her ponytail. “You can refine it?!”

“Oh, absolutely,” the scientist replied eagerly. “It took a little bit of trial and error, only one fatality, but we were able to figure out a way of removing impurities from the samples and condensing the remaining material.” The scientist adjusted his glasses and glanced around. “We also managed to convert some of the magic into gaseous and even plasmoid forms, but they’re incredibly unstable, so we have to store them separately in the interest of safety.”

Sonata opened her mouth to ask to see some of the refined product, then snapped it shut with a huff as the scientist added that they were stored separately as well. “I guess just this stuff is fine for now.” As she wracked her rarely-used brain for a way to filch some of the crystals without getting caught, Sonata asked, “What did you want help with, anyway?”

The scientist picked up a vial containing a faintly glowing yellow liquid. “Classification, if you don’t mind. The Rainbooms have helped us figure out a system to work out what manner of pony the magic came from, and if they’re powered by such abstract concepts as Loyalty or Honesty, but lots of these samples don’t match any of the criteria at all. Do you think you could help with that?”

“Well, I don’t know about that Loyalty or Honesty stuff that the Raing- the Rainbooms mess around with, but figuring out which creature it belongs to is easy.” Sonata plucked the vial out of the scientist’s hand and, ignoring his squawk of protest, popped the stopper off and took a sip.

“W-what are you doing?!” The scientist spluttered.

Sonata savored the tingle of magic on her tongue for a moment before she swallowed. “Seeing what creature it’s from, duh.” She blinked as she suddenly remembered something. “Oh, yeah, drinking raw magic is, like, super dangerous, so you probably shouldn’t do it. Even Adagio and Aria can’t do it without their amulets.”

“I- who are…? But… but you can drink it?” The scientist asked weakly.

“Yep! I used to do it as a party trick back home, it just gives me funny-smelling gas.” Sonata considered just downing the whole vial so she could have all of its magic, but she quickly decided against it. Even the dumb Enclave people would get suspicious if she did that. Handing the vial back, Sonata added, “By the way, that’s Diamond Dog magic.”

The scientist silently took the vial back, staring at it blankly. All of a sudden, he placed it on a desk by itself and shouted for someone to bring him some glass mixing rods and gather the other scientists around. A few minutes later, Sonata found herself surrounded by a small crowd of sciency people, all clutching vials or clipboards and watching her eagerly. The first scientist dipped a glass rod into his vial and offered it to her, a glob of deep crimson magic stuck to the end of it. “Would you try this one, please?”

“Sure.” Sonata was a little disappointed that she wasn’t able to take swigs from the vials, but she took the rod anyway. She gasped as a sharp and smoky taste filled her mouth. “Whoa, dark Hippogriff magic. I haven’t seen that in a long time.”

As Sonata handed the rod back, another scientist immediately held out another one, kicking off a bizarre taste-testing session as the others handed her sample after sample to try. It was a smorgasbord of different flavors. Sonata enjoyed the selection, savoring each little tidbit as she identified magic from Hippogriffs, Griffons, Buffalo, something spicy that she suspected belonged to a dragon, and even a sample of Windigo magic.

Eventually, the scientists decided to take a break and note down all of their findings. As most of them began to disperse, the one who had initially greeted Sonata gestured to one of the boxes of crystals. “Out of curiosity, do you think you could help us with those later?”

“I can’t eat crystals, I’m not some stinky dragon, but I’d still really like to look at them.” Sonata tried to put on her best attempt at an innocently curious expression. It must have worked, as the scientist eagerly told her that she was more than welcome to examine them immediately.

Most of the boxes were unexpectedly disappointing. It looked like there was a fair amount of magic even in the tiny crystals, but, no matter how many of them Sonata checked, none of them seemed suitable for making another amulet with. All of the crystals were either too fragile, too flawed, or simply so full of their own latent magic that crafting a Siren amulet from them would be ridiculously tricky and time-consuming.

“Is something wrong?” The scientist asked.

Sonata sighed and rolled her eyes. “These crystals are pretty cool, I guess, but they’re just not me, y’know?”

The scientist adjusted his glasses and gave her a searching look. “Are you trying to get a crystal for yourself?”

“Well yea- uh, I mean, no?” Sonata winced as she realized that she had just managed to give herself away.

She grinned awkwardly, trying to just gloss over the sticky moment, but the scientist surprised her again when he asked, “Don’t you already have magic?”

Sonata stared at him blankly. “I used to but I, uh… lost it.”

“I see.” The scientist nodded and puffed out his chest. “In that case, let’s see what we can find! Do you have any clues as to what we’re looking for?”

The offer brought Sonata up short. She did have the fragments of her old amulet in her pocket; she carried them just about everywhere out of some unwanted sense of sentimentality, but revealing them to strangers felt somehow risky. After a few moments, Sonata relented and drew a small pouch out of her pocket. She felt oddly solemn as she pulled out a fragment of the shattered ruby. “This is my old amulet. Do you have anything like this?”

The scientist leaned in to take a closer look, then turned to look around the room. “The red ones are on the shelf over there, let’s take a look.”

Sonata put the fragment away as she followed after the scientist, only to get distracted halfway across the room by a faint humming sound. It was low, and pleasantly melodic, but no-one else seemed to be paying any attention to it. Sonata looked around for a radio, but her eyes instead fell on a small box on a nearby table. Someone had scribbled ‘Unidentified - Veined’ on the side of it in black marker.

Tentatively, as if she was afraid that the song would stop if she startled it, Sonata crept over to the box. Inside were a handful of crystals of various colors, but her eyes were immediately drawn to one tucked in the very corner of the box. Sonata picked it up and held it up to examine it in the light. It was tiny, barely the size of her little fingernail, and was a beautiful deep blue color shot through with bright red veins that sparkled like ruby.

“Have you found something?” The scientist asked, coming up behind her. “Ah, that’s a pretty little thing, isn’t it? Does it ring any bells for you?”

“It’s perfect,” Sonata replied tightly. It was a struggle to keep a maniacal grin off her face. She didn’t have to taste the magic to know that this little crystal was made of pure Siren magic. Her magic.

“In that case, it’s yours.” Sonata gaped in shock at him, but the scientist just shrugged. “Consider it a little payment for helping us out. Besides, the Enclave could use as many allies with magic as it can get.”

This time, it was utterly impossible for the Siren to stop a smile from spreading across her face, but a sudden thought snapped her back to her senses. “Thanks, but, um, could I ask you a favor?” The scientist nodded. “Could you keep all of this a secret from Luna? She worries about her students, and I really don’t want to worry her,” Sonata lied easily.

The scientist gave her a conspiratorial smirk. “Of course. I’ll have to make a note in our records that we’ve given you the crystal, but I’ll make sure that the team keeps quiet about it. Just be careful, okay?”

“Thanks so much! You’re the best!” Sonata beamed and clasped the crystal tightly between her hands. “I’m just going to go to the ladies room for a minute, I’ll see you soon!” She said a curt goodbye and hurried to leave, hardly able to believe her luck. The thought that the Enclave scientists would be stupid enough to simply hand her magic had never even crossed her mind, no matter how lax they were about safety.

As soon as she reached the restroom, Sonata checked that it was empty, then ducked into a cubicle. Wild glee filled her as she sat down and stared at the little nugget of pure power in her hands. It was too small to make into an amulet on its own, but there was a chance that she could either get her hands on more, or even use the fragments of the old amulet to make a setting for it.

Grinning like a psychopath, Sonata fished the pouch out of her pocket and tipped the fragments into her hand. As she pondered how best to arrange the fragments into a setting to hold the new crystal, the crystal pulsed and several of the smallest fragments leapt from her hand to stick to it. Sonata watched in astonished silence as the old fragments melted and seeped into the crystal, new veins burrowing through it until the fragments had disappeared entirely, leaving the crystal just a little bigger than it had been.

Sonata blinked dumbly as she tried to figure out what had just happened. She gently pressed the crystal against the other fragments, but nothing happened. Sonata desperately combed through her memories, trying to remember the last time she had crafted an amulet. “I shaped the crystal,” she whispered to herself. “I threaded the necklace, I attuned the stone to my- wait, this thing’s already ready for me!”

Proud of the fact that she had dredged something useful out of the depths of her mind, Sonata nodded and looked at the crystal with fresh eyes. Even as she watched, faint wisps of green, the magical essence of conflict and discord, materialised around the crystal.

“The magic inside it must have called to whatever was left in the fragments of the old amulet. Ha! I’m not the dumb one! Suck it, Aria!” Giddy with her success, Sonata tucked the fragments back into their pouch and gazed lovingly at her new crystal.

If she was right, and she had a funny feeling that even Adagio would admit that she was, then the crystal wouldn’t accept the rest of the fragments because it just wasn’t big enough. Assuming that she could find more of them, however, and figure out a way to meld them together, then Sonata was sure that she would be able to easily make an amulet more powerful than any she had ever used before.

Next Chapter: Chapter 141 - Sunset's Resolve Estimated time remaining: 12 Hours, 60 Minutes