Pinkie rested her head against her palm. Then patted her hands on the desk. Then made weird, warbling noises like a horse blowing bubbles, the kind of noise only Pinkie Pie could make.

She stopped, saddened by the empty seat next to her. Fluttershy hadn’t arrived at Spanish class yet. This worried her. Fluttershy was so delicate. It wouldn’t take much to send her running for the safety of her bed covers to hide from the world and skip class. The teacher wasn’t in yet, either, as the desk was empty.

One of those problems was rectified when the door opened and Miss Sonia stepped in, her dress flowing elegantly behind her as always.

“Good morning, class!” Sonia said, slipping out of her usual Spanish. “I apologize for being late. I was helping a student out of class.”

Wonder who that was, Pinkie Pie thought briefly, before turning her mind back to Fluttershy, then to candy and cupcakes, then back to Fluttershy.

Fluttershy came into the room and the sight of made Pinkie Pie sit up, though not out of excitement.

Fluttershy was wearing the same black and purple dress with webbing as Sonia was, though fitted to her size, of course, along with a bit of black lipstick on her lips. She leaned against the doorframe, posing seductively and dramatically, before sashaying her way to her seat.
Pinkie blinked.

This is worse than her goth phase.

Sonia Dust began a lecture about present participle in Spanish, but Pinkie couldn’t hear it over her attention being focused on Fluttershy.”

“Fluttershy,” Pinkie whispered, “Fluttershy, what are you wearing? Why are you dressed like the teacher?”

“Shh,” Fluttershy snapped at her.

“What?” Pinkie said. “Fluttershy, what’s with you, you’re not like this!”

Fluttershy closed her eyes in frustration. She raised her hand.

“Yes, Fluttershy?” Sonia said.

“Miss Dust, Pinkie Pie keeps talking in class,” Fluttershy said.

“Does she?” Sonia asked, placing her hands on her hips.

“No I’m not!” Pinkie Pie insisted, looking guilty.

“Well, since you’re not talking in class, I’ll thank you not to start talking in the class, entiendes?” Sonia said. “Now, where were we …”

Pinkie didn’t know or care where they were in the lecture. The entire time, all her attention was focused on Fluttershy.

“And then after class was over, I tried to talk to her and asked her if she wanted to hang out and if she was feeling all right and maybe she was feeling funny after eating some of Granny Smith’s coleslaw, but she said she didn’t want to hang out, she was fine, and then I’m pretty sure she cussed me out in Spanish! I don’t even know what she said!” Pinkie flailed her arms, concluding her tale.

“That is concerning,” Twilight said, cupping her chin. “Sunset Shimmer hasn’t wanted to hang out in awhile either.”

“Not to mention that ridiculous accent she insists on keeping up,” Rarity said. “I must confess, darlings, all this hubbub between the French and Spanish classes has me worried about my German class!”

“It’ll be okay, Rarity,” Applejack said. “There’s no way whatever’s going on could be happening in groups of three.”

“I haven’t seen Rainbow Dash in awhile, either,” Twilight said. “Does anyone know where she went?”

The others shrugged.

“I could call her?” Pinkie suggested, pulling out her phone. She looked at it dejectedly. “I could use her inspiring speeches after what happened to Fluttershy …”

“Oh? Qu'est-il arrivé à qui?”

Pinkie Pie was startled and nearly dropped her phone, bouncing it back and forth between her hands like a hot potato before steadying it.

Sunset and Rainbow Dash were standing down the hall, dressed in the blue latex dress and holding books up to their chests with the goal of pushing up their bosoms. Fluttershy was also with them, and giving Pinkie Pie a serious case of side-eye.

“Bonjour, girls!” Sunset greeted them perkily. “To whom were you referring to just now?”

Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie all exchanged glances. They were going to have to navigate this carefully.

“No one,” Rarity said. “We were talking about one.”

“Is that right,” Fluttershy said with a hint of disbelief.

“Non, that cannot be right,” Sunset said, her accent thick and heavy. “You could not have been talking about no one, so you were clearly talking about someone. Whomst was it, and why were you talking about them?”

“Uh …” Twilight stammered.

“Ah, forgive me, forgive me,” Sunset said, raising a hand. “If it’s not something to do with me or mes amies, here, then I suppose it is really none of my business, oui? If you’ll pardon us, we must be off.”

“Sure,” Applejack said. She and Rarity moved aside to let the three of them through.

As they walked away, Sunset, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash all looked at the rest of them over their shoulders. Sunset had a manic look in her eye, Fluttershy a questioning and suspicious one, and Rainbow Dash a confident and flirtatious one.

Rainbow Dash blew a kiss at Pinkie Pie, who, not wanting to chance falling under whatever spell the other two, sidled off to the side to evade it, though there was no solid projectile, unlike some kisses that flown through the halls previously.

“Okay, girls,” Rarity said, deciding to state the obvious, “something’s not right here, and we simply must get to the bottom of it.”

“Leave it to me!” Pinkie Pie said. “Behind Fluttershy, I’m the best at sneaking around!”

“Eh,” Twilight said. She had observed Pinkie Pie’s sneaking abilities seemed to operate under Roger Rabbit film rules - if it was funny, she was a quiet as a silent ghost. But when it came to something serious, like whatever had been done to Sunset …

Applejack seemed to sense Twilight’s apprehension, as she went up to Pinkie and put a hand on her shoulder. “Okay, Pinkie Pie. We’re counting on you, all right? Go and figure out what’s up, what’s happened to our friends, and what we can to stop it and maybe reverse before it spreads to anyone else.”

“Agent Pie is on the case!” Pinkie saluted again and proceed to somersault backwards through the hall. Twilight hoped they had made the right choice.

Later in the afternoon, after most of the students had gone, but before the school locked the doors, Pinkie Pie emerged from a janitor’s closet which she had managed to break in and use as a hiding spot, ready to conduct her investigation. She wore a typical spy catsuit and night vision goggles on her head. The fact she had those even though it was still daylight out was best not questioned.

“Those new teachers are up to no good, and Agent Double-o-Pie is going to figure out what!” Pinkie decreed.

She hugged the walls and peered over the corner. Her eyes widened and she retreated back when she saw her suspects walking down the hall.

“Do you think we’re in trouble, Ad - I mean, Dagi?” Sonia asked.

“Of course we are, but no,” Dagi answered, a reply which confused both Sonia and Pinkie. “You did kiss a student, Sonia. The principal can’t let that go unanswered. But obviously, we’re not going to suffer any, you know, actual consequences. The school board just has to keep up the illusion of consequences.” She waved her hand through the air. They walked on, not noticing Pinkie.

“Trying to get out of consequences, huh?” Pinkie said. “We’ll see what Principal Celestia has to say about that! She hates it when people dodge their responsibilities. I’ll tell Celestia about this, and when she hears you three don’t you’re going to suffer any consequences, ooh, you’ll see! She’ll get mad! We should have gone to her in the first place …”

Pinkie made her way through the halls, careful to avoid the foreign language teachers, but she never ran into them in the hallway after that one encounter.

The reason for this became clear when Pinkie approached the principal’s office. The door was left ajar, and she heard voices speaking through it - the teachers’ voices.

Pinkie made her way up to the office and peered inside through the crack in the door, straining her eyes to hear the conversation.

“I understand your concern, Celestia, but you really shouldn’t be worried,” Dagi said, waving a hand. Sonia and a third woman Pinkie didn’t recognize sat next to her. “We’re just teaching these girls what’s to be expected of them when they grow up. Isn’t that what school is all about?”

Celestia chuckled, but it was one of those angry I’m-laughing-to-keep-the-peace kind of chuckles. “Yes, you’re right about that, but here at Canterlot High, we believe it is our responsibility to break stereotypical gender roles, not reinforce them. We don’t want to teach our female staff that they should be expected to kiss whoever asks for it whenever.”

“No?” Dagi said. “That’s a shame. I find it helps to make sure a girl’s expectation of reality is well, realistic.”

“And if you really wanted to teach girls about the ways gender essentialism is in actuality a manufactured idea that is descended from medieval ideas meant to keep women under submissive and subservient under a system that always assume them to be the bad actors in any given situation while giving men the benefit of the doubt, you should be teaching somewhere other than a patriarchal, capitalist society like the United States that commodifies women and sex while simultaneously demonizing them,” Sonia said.

Celestia gave Sonia an odd look.

“Yes, well,” Dagi said. “Disregarding my college’s Gender and Politics 102 class …”

“Dagi,” the third woman said, nudging Dagi’s leg with her foot.

“What?” Dagi said.

The twin-tailed woman nodded towards the door, and Pinkie was sure that she’d been found out.

Dagi’s lips curled into a thin smile, and she chuckled.

Pinkie shuddered, frozen in place. Was Dagi going to do something to her? … Was she going to do the same thing to her she’d done to Sunset?

“Discussions of gender and politics aside, I can’t rest at ease knowing that teachers under my employ are going around kissing students,” Celestia said. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to let you all go.”

“Oh, you think so, huh?” Dagi said.

“That is indeed what I think,” Celestia said, narrowing her eyes.

“Are you sure I couldn’t convince to think otherwise? Or better yet … not at all?”

“What?”

Dagi hopped to her feet and walked over to Celestia’s desk. She grabbed Celestia by the cheeks and planted a forceful kiss on Celestia’s lips.

“Mmh!” Celestia shivered, trying to resist for all of five seconds before falling. Hearts appeared in her eyes, and cum splattered across her thighs, at least if the dark spot that rapidly spread across her pants was anything to judge off.

Dagi let go, and Celestia fell back against her chair, giggling and babbling incoherently.

“Are you sure you couldn’t find it in your heart to make an exception for me and my colleagues?” Dagi said, placing her hand on the table and presenting Celestia with a view down her top. “After all, if you fired us, well … I’m not sure where else we’d have to go, where else we could get employed. After all, Canterlot High presents with so many … opportunities.”

Dagi glared out the corner of her eyes at the door, grinning like a shark, and Pinkie knew Dagi was looking at her. She knew Pinkie was there. She was just messing with her, having her fun, taunting Pinkie like an arrogant predator who was sure her prey was already as good as captured.

“I’m sure,” Celestia said airily, sounding high, “something can be done to make sure you stay on.” She patted her hand on the table like a rag doll, making a doomed attempt to appear serious by reaching for a stack of papers on her desk, but she kept missing it, her hand thumping against the wood while it searched for the paper, unable to focus through the haze of pleasure.

Dagi took Celestia’s hand and guided it to the papers. “You were saying?”

“Perhaps … if you made a petition showing your support by the students and how much they love having you for a teacher, I wouldn’t have to fire you after all, because it would look bad on me,” Celestia said, though her mind was elsewhere, her head rocking back and forth.

“That should be easy,” Dagi said, she and her companions all with maniac grins. “Thank you, Principal Celestia. I’m sure your … cooperation in this manner will be well rewarded.”

She, Sonia, and the other woman all blew kisses at Celestia that manifested into solid projectiles that smacked Celestia on the cheeks, leaving kiss marks in blue, purple, and black.

Celestia let out a high moan and toppled out of her chair, rolling around on the floor in the throes of ecstasy, leaving a puddle of cum on the floor as it built up and overflowed from the top of her pants.

Pinkie turned and darted down the hall, hoping to get away as fast as possible and let the others know what she saw ASAP.

The door to Celestia’s creaked open.

“Leaving so soon?” Dagi called. “But you look so lonely! Don’t you want a nice, hot, warm, wet kiss?”

That does sound nice, Pinkie thought, before reasserting control over her thoughts and continuing to book it out of there as fast she could. An ebon projectile zipped past her head and hit a nearby locker, leaving a black kiss mark on the gray door. It had missed her by an inch. Any closer, and it would have hit, and, Pinkie guessed, put her under the same effect as Celestia.

She continued running, not noticing how there weren’t any more blown kisses after that.

The teachers stood gathered in the door to Celestia’s office.

“Should we go after her?” Aria asked.

“No need,” Dagi said. “We’re far enough along in our plan that it’s already too late for her to do anything to stop it. She’ll fall the same as the rest of them soon enough.”

“Good point,” Aria said. The three of them went onto their offices to lock up for the night.

Pinkie ran through the hall and skidded to a dead halt when Sunset Shimmer appeared like a ghost out from a side hall.

“Bonjour, Pinkie,” Sunset said, greeting Pinkie with a smile. “What’s the hurry?”

“Hurry?” Pinkie said. “There’s not any hurry. I’m just … really excited to go get ice cream with my friends. Yeah, that’s it.” Pinkie backed up, trying to stay out of the reach of Sunset’s arm, lest Sunset do to her what Adagio did to Celestia. Something about Sunset seemed different, and not just her change of clothes or her accent, but Pinkie couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Do you have to be in such a rush, ma chérie?” Sunset leaned against a locker, her falling down over one side of her face sensually, covering her eye. “After all, there’s much to be said about taking things slow.”

Sunset’s hand crept toward Pinkie.

Pinkie’s teeth chattered inside her skull. She smacked Sunset’s hand, slapping her on the wrist.

“I’m sorry, Sunset, but I really have to go, kay, thanks, bye!”

Pinkie sprinted down the hall past Sunset.

Sunset pursed her lips, watching her go. “Mm. Disappointing.”

Pinkie gathered up her friends and related all that she saw.

“So even Celestia’s in on it, too!?” Applejack put her hands on the sides of her head in alarm.

“That is most troublesome,” Rarity said. “Twilight, I’m worried that whoever these new ‘teachers’ are, they may know about how things work around here than they let on.”

“I agree, Rarity,” Twilight rubbed at her chin, her glasses shifting on her nose. “We need to think of a plan.”

“But how?” Applejack said. “We don’t know how they actually work! If it’s the Shadowbolts, that’s one thing, but we don’t know who they are or what they want. What’s their goal? What’s their endgame?”

“Yes, Applejack, I understand that is the nature of the problem,” Twilight said. “We need to fight back, but we need to know what we’re fighting back against. How do they operate? How are they getting all the students to dress like that? What they did to do Sunset, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash?”

“We need to figure it out soon, or they might just do it to us before we’re ready,” Rarity said.

“Right. And Pinkie, you said they saw you?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah,” Pinkie said. “They were having a nice, normal, totally not evil chat with Principal Celestia, then they saw me, and wham-bam, smooch, squirt!” Pinkie mimed, chopping her hands and shaking her shoulders.

Rarity shuddered. “That was a more detailed recreation than strictly necessary, darling.”

“We have to assume they know we’re onto them,” Twilight said. “That makes this more dangerous. They’ll probably be waiting for us. We have to be extremely careful. Buddy system. Nobody goes through the hallways without another one of us around. If you see something that looks the tiniest bit suspicious, you call it in immediately, no joking around, no, ‘oh, I’m sure that’s innocent.’ If so much as a trophy in the display case is slightly to the left of when you last saw it, you call the rest of us and get us there right away, got it?”

“Right!” the girls nodded in agreement.

Twilight sighed. “It looks we’re in shadow war territory now, girls. I just hope it’s not too late and they don’t already have an ambush waiting for us.”

“We’ll make it through, Twilight,” Applejack assured her. She took Twilight’s hand. “Always have. Always will.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Y’all know I am. Don’t even pretend otherwise.” Applejack winked. Twilight gave a slight smile in return.

Applejack and Rarity walked through the hall the next morning, passing by the trophy case while clutching their textbooks close to their chests, trying their best to look inconspicuous and avoid eye contact with anyone of the students running around in fetish gear, as Applejack crudely dubbed it.

“Think we’re good?” Applejack whispered out the side of her mouth. She stopped to pretend to look at the trophy case.

“I think … wait, no. Look sharp. Danger, two o’ clock,” Rarity said.

Applejack glanced over and saw Dagi approaching them, the clicks of her heels echoing in the hallways.

“Act natural,” Applejack whispered.

“Darling, please, who do you take me for, an amateur?” Rarity said. They both stared at the trophy case, pretending to be invested in it. But Dagi’s reflection appeared in the polished window, and their eyes couldn’t help but glance toward it.

“Well, well, well,” Dagi said. “What we have we here? A pair of students walking around the hall by themselves during school hours. Now, isn’t that suspicious?” She added a growl to the last word that sounded both threatening and sexually, like the thought of it turned her on.

“We were just heading to lunch,” Applejack said.

“Is that all?” Dagi asked.

“That’s all,” Rarity said.

“Oh, very well, I suppose,” Dagi said. “Carry on. Oh, but if either of you two are interested in learning French, do come by my office sometime. I’d be happy to tutor you. I think you’d find it very … enlightening.” Dagi gave a big predator grin and turned to walk away, her fine butt cheeks jiggling in her latex dress.

“Whew!” Rarity said. “That was a close one.” She noticed Applejack glaring at Dagi. “Applejack? What are you thinking? I don’t like that look in your eye. That look in your eye is the one you always get when you’re about to do something stupid.”

“She’s got her back on us,” Applejack said. “For once, we’ve got the advantage here. It would be plumb foolish not to take it.”

“It’d be ‘plumb foolish’ to make our move when we don’t what she’s capable of,” Rarity said.

“I’m going in.”

“Applejack!” Rarity strained her voice, trying to yell at Applejack to stop while also keeping quiet enough that she didn’t draw Dagi’s attention.

“What’d y’all do to our friends!?” Applejack shouted as she charged, shoulder tackling Dagi in the back, slamming her elbow right at the base of her spine. Dagi toppled over like a stack of cards.

“Applejack,” Rarity said.

“Don’t start with me now, Rarity!” Applejack said. “This witch is up to something, and I am to find out what!”

“Applejack.”

“What did you do to Sunset? To Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash? Tell me before I hit you again!” She waved her fist around the air.

“Applejack.” Rarity grabbed Applejack by the chin and guided her head. “Look.”

Dagi got to her knees, then rose up to stand on her feet. She looked horrible. Parts of her body were showing an entirely different self, one wearing purple pantyhose with thin, small limbs. Her face was split down the middle, one half looking the same as it was, the other looking like a teenage girl no older than Rarity or Applejack. Visual glitching covered her body, centered around her shoulders, waist, and knees, with a line going through and dividing her face between the two halves. It looked like the colors of an off-air TV channel that’d been scuppered. Every now and then, the glitching would appear on a part of her body and reshape it, making it switch between the teenage parts and the adult parts.

“Your name’s … not Dagi,” Applejack said. Her head felt funny, like she’d been having a headache, but now it was clearing up - a mist in her mind lifted.

“We … we know you,” Rarity said. “We’ve fought you before.”

Applejack twitched her eye. This was frustrating. The mist was lifting, but it wasn’t gone. She could recover enough to know that she and Rarity knew Dagi - or was it Dazzle? That was a name going through her head - but she couldn’t recall everything, just some things.

Dagi lifted up a hand mirror and examined it. She touched a hand to her cheek, observing her visual distortions.

“So.” Dagi closed the hand mirror shut, and in the emptiness of the hallway, the snap it made when the halves closed together sounded more terrifying than anything Applejack could think of - more terrifying than a rampaging rhino, the thundering hooves or a loose herd of oxen, or even a dragon’s roar. “You’ve broken my glamour.”

“Yeah!” Applejack said, regaining her bearings. She pointed a finger. “That’s right, I did! Now answer our questions before I break something else of yours!”

“No,” Dagi said. “No, I don’t think I will.”

“I’ll-”

“You’ll do nothing,” Dagi said, her voice sharp and intimidating, enough that Applejack halted the fist she was raising.. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to turn around. I’m going to walk away, and we’re all going to pretend like this little incident never happened. We wouldn’t Celestia finding about this … unfortunate occurrence, would we?”

“Dazzle?” Rarity said, not focusing on the conversation. “I think her name is Dazzle. Dagi … Adagio?”

“Fat chance!” Applejack said. “I’m gonna take you out here and now before you hurt any more of my friends!”

Dagi sighed. “I tried to give you a chance to get off the hook, but no, you just had to be so stubborn, didn’t you? Why, you might have even been able to go back to your friends, but I guess we’ll never know now, will we?”

Dagi blew a kiss, and two projectile kisses emerged from her mouth, hurtling towards Applejack and Rarity like speeding bullets.

“Rarity, look out!”

Applejack tackled Rarity to the floor and brought them both down, ducking them out of the way of the blown kisses.

“Are we safe?” Rarity asked.

“I don’t know,” Applejack said. She turned over and saw the kisses had struck the trophy case, leaving kiss marks on the glass. She looked over the hall and saw Dagi had slipped away while they were busy dodging her attack. “Son of a biscuit, that slippery snake got away!”

“It’s for the best, really,” Rarity said. “I don’t think we can take her like this, Applejack. Do you see how calm she was? You bull rushed her without warning, and she never flinched! Always kept up her poker face.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Applejack, when she told you to stop, you froze mid-punch and you’re not even under her control, as far as we know! We can’t fight something like that just be running in blindly without a plan.”

Applejack sighed. “I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. We will beat her, Applejack, but it won’t be by tackling her at random. Now get off me and help me up, would you?”

Applejack obliged.

Applejack and Rarity met up in the cafeteria with Pinkie Pie and Twilight to discuss what they saw.

“Really?” Twilight said. “She glitched out?”

“I don’t know how else to describe it,” Applejack said. “It was like playing Super Pony Adventure and the whole game just crashed, only she kept running.”

“And she mentioned a glamour?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah. What of it? Should we care about that?” Applejack said.

“We should,” Twilight said. “It explains a lot. If what you remembered is right, then she is someone we’ve fought before, she’d want to disguise herself before coming back. A glamour is a powerful enchantment used by magical creatures. I’ve read about them, but I never thought they were real.”

The others stared her.

“What? Just because Sunset came from a magical pony alternate dimension means I automatically have to assume all magic is real? Anyway, if she’s using one, it might explain why some of us keep getting headaches when we think we might recognize her.”

“Actually,” Rarity said, “it’s entirely possible I am completely wrong about this, of course, but if we have fought her before, then I … I don’t think you were there, Twilight. I think this was before your time.”

“Right,” Twilight said. “Wait. If that’s right, Rarity, then I shouldn’t be affected by the glamour as as much, since I don’t pose as much of a threat to them, they shouldn’t have warded against me specifically as much,”

“Twilight, please,” Pinkie said. “You think if they’re using some kind of magic to disguise themselves and give people headaches when they try to investigate, they wouldn’t have made it all-purpose?”

“That’s a good point, Pinkie,” Rarity said. “What do you think, Applejack? … Applejack?”

“I’m sorry, girls,” Applejack said. “I’m a little distracted. Have any of y’all noticed the cafeteria is … almost completely empty?”

The girls looked around and verified Applejack’s assessment. There were few tables with any students, and of those students, there was one or two at most per table.

“What’s going on now?” Applejack asked.

“Maybe they know something about it?” Pinkie said, pointing to the entrance, where students were departing to join a crowd going down the hallway.

The girls got up and approached the crowd.

“Excuse me? What’s going on here?” Applejack said, tapping someone’s shoulder for attention.

“You don’t know?” Applejack was stunned to see that somehow, out of a good fifty or so students, she had somehow picked Sunset Shimmer out of the crowd without realizing it until Sunset turned around.

“The teachers are holding a special occasion in the gym today,” Sunset said. “There’s going to be milk and cookies, and we’re going to talk about foreign languages and cultures. It’s going to be great! I hope you’ll come and join us. Oh, that reminds me.” Sunset reached into her handbag and produced four paper stubs that she handed to Applejack. “The four of you have been special invites to the occasion. Please come. The event just won’t be the same without you.”

Sunset gave them a big smile and blew a kiss, though this one didn’t produce a projectile.

Applejack stared at the tickets.

“So,” Applejack said, “we’ve gotten four special invites to an event we didn’t hear about or even know it existed until two minutes ago, right after Rarity and I got done antagonizing and trying to get something out of the French teacher who we know is up to no good, and we just happen to get the invites from our friend, Sunset, and Sunset Shimmer really, really wants us to come. Does this scream ‘trap’ to anyone else?”

“Oh yeah,” Pinkie said.

“Definitely,” Twilight said.

“Absolutely a trap,” Rarity said.

“... we’re gonna go anyway, aren’t we?”

“What? No,” Twilight said. “Applejack, I know you and Rainbow Dash read a lot of comics and argue about shipping Captain America with Bucky or Falcon, but despite what they tell you, heading into a trap knowing that it is a trap is not the clever counter they make it sound like.”

“I guess you’re right,” Applejack said. “That would be dum-”

“Please come,” Sunset said, snapping her hand around Applejack’s wrist. “The event won’t be the same without you!”

“Sunset, let go of me,” Applejack said. Sunset said and did nothing except kept her grip on Applejack’s hand. She was giving a strained grin that suggested she was barely fighting back the urge to turn violent on Applejack.

“Sunset,” Applejack said. She glanced at the crowd. A few students were stopping to stare. A few more stopped and joined them. It took Applejack a minute to realize the students were all wearing the same clothes as Sunset, and the same crazed expression.

“Twilight, darling,” Rarity whispered, “what do you suppose Applejack’s comics say about being coerced to walk into a trap?”

Twilight squeaked.

“Twilight, if we don’t do something soon, I suspect these students are going to become very angry with us,” Rarity said.

“Fine, we’ll be there, we’ll be there!” Applejack said. “Just let go of my freaking arm, woman!”

“That’s better,” Sunset said. She let go, and Applejack jerked her hand away. “Do try to keep an open mind, l' petit amoures. Who knows? If you open up a little, you might just find the whole more pleasurable than you were expecting.”

Sunset and the other students resumed walking, blending into the crowd.

“Well, that didn’t sound ominous at all,” Pinkie Pie said dryly.

“We don’t have a choice,” Twilight said. “We’re going.”

The four of them stepped out of the cafeteria and followed the crowd.

When they arrived at the gym, they found it rather plainly decorated for something about foreign cultures. A few balloons and streamers littered the place. A pink banner reading “welcome” in black bold letters was strung from the ceiling. At the far end of the gym, Dagi, Sonia, and Ariel attended a catering station, serving cookies, milk and punch to whoever asked for them. Dagi’s glamour had been repaired, as she showed no signs of her earlier glitching.

“Some event,” Applejack whispered to Twilight.

“Yeah,” Twilight said. She looked around and saw few couples making out, including a few involving two girls or two guys.

“Applejack, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity!” Dagi shouted, somehow able to pick them out from well across a large room. “It’s so good to see you could make it! Come, come, join us at the table.”

All eyes in the room fell on their group.

“Don’t mind if we do!” Twilight said, trying to play it cool. They walked up and approached the serving station.

“Everybody, give a warm welcome to our guests of honor!” Dagi said. The crowd applauded. “They’ve been so very special for us in the past, and we’re just so excited to have them be here, aren’t we, girls?”

“Oh, yeah,” Ariel said, deadpan. “Very special.”

“So excited,” Sonia said, her teeth bared like shark fangs.

“Why don’t you have a cookie, dears?” Dagi said, gesturing to the platter of chocolate chip cookies on the table while leaning over, letting them peek down her top, and resting one hand on her hips.

“No thanks,” Twilight said. “We just got out of the cafeteria. We’re not hungry.”

“No, please,” Dagi said. “I insist.”

“No, really,” Applejack said. “We couldn’t eat another bite.”

“Hmm.” Dagi leaned over further and whispered. “Look around.”

The girls did. All around them, students were glaring at them. Even the ones previously engaged in passionate makeout sessions were now glaring at them for daring to turn down the precious cookies.

“Look at them,” Dagi said. “They’re just so very upset that you would turn down this fantastic cookies that we baked just for you. With … special ingredients.” She waved a hand over her chest.

“Well, not just for you, but still,” Sonia said, picking one cookie up and taking a bite out of it.

“Tell you what,” Dagi said. “I know, just between the three of us and the four of you, that we know that you know that we know that you know that we know you and so on and so on,” Dagi waved her hand around, “about what’s really going on here beneath the surface. Though, if you’ll permit me to gloat, I’ll bet we know a good deal more about it than you do. So I’ll cut you a deal. Take a bite of the cookie.” She lifted one up. “And for each bite, we will answer one question.”

The girls looked to each other. If the teachers answered their questions honestly … this might be a worthy tradeoff.

“I’ll go first.” Rarity took the cookie from Dagi’s hand and took a bite. “What’s your plan for the school?”

“To reform it,” Dagi said. “We plan to have a very expansive foreign language program by the time we’re done.”

Rarity took a second bite. “What did you to do our friends?”

“The same thing we’re going to do to you,” Aria said.

Rarity stuffed the cookie into her mouth and gulped. Crumbs caked around her mouth. “How do we beat you?”

“You can’t,” Dagi said. “Not this time.”

Rarity clenched a fist. She reached for another cookie, but Pinkie stopped her and took one.

“Might as well spread it around a bit,” Pinkie Pie said. She chomped down on the cookie, eating half of it in one bite. “What are your names?”

“Oh, what’s in a name?” Dagi said. “As far as you’re concerned, our names are Dagi, Sonia, and Ariel. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Pinkie ate the second half. “How do we cure the students of what you did to them?”

“You can’t,” Ariel said. “But what you makes you think they even want to be cured? How do you know they’re not happy like this?”

“Enough!” Twilight said. “You’re not actually answering our questions! You’re just giving us vague non-answers that let you gloat without actually telling us any useful information!”

“Au contraire,” Dagi said. “We are answering your questions. Just like we said we would.”

“We never said anything about giving the answers you actually wanted,” Ariel added.

“But,” Dagi said, “we’re satisfied, and so …” she clapped her hands twice. “You’re free to go.”

Twilight looked around. The students, at Dagi’s command, stopped staring. The makeouters resumed making out, and all the students were talking and chatting among themselves as if Twilight and her friends didn’t exist.

Twilight gently ushered her friends out the door. She glanced over her shoulder at Dagi.

“This isn’t over,” Twilight mouthed. She left.

Dagi chuckled. “No. Not by a longshot. Not until all your friends, and your friends’ friends, and your entire support networks are dust in my hand.” She curled her hand into a fist.

Rarity woke up the next morning with thoughts about playing hooky and skipping class. Given the … unfortunate current situation, she didn’t feel like risking herself any more than she had to. Perhaps her parents would understand if she requested a transfer to Crystal Prep and told her she didn’t feel safe at CHS anymore. It was unfortunate to come to this, but one must do what is necessary.

Rarity yawned, stretched, and looked out the window and saw the sunlight streaming into her room. She got up from her bed and opened the curtains to let more of the light in. Why should she go to school instead of going out and enjoying this lovely day?

Was für ein schöner Morgen! ... was? Tue ich - tue ich Deutsch sprechen? … Tatsächlich! Aber wie - warum - die Kekse! ... Pinkie Pie! Sie hatte auch welche.

Rarity grabbed her phone and speed-dialed Pinkie Pie.

“Pinkie, Bist du in Ordnung?”

“Rarity! Estaba a punto de llamarte. No puedo hablar ingles!”

“Was? Ich kann dich nicht verstehen.”

“Rarity? Estas enferma? No suenas bien.”

Rarity sighed. “Ich werde einen unserer anderen Freund anrufen. Vielleicht können sie helfen.”

Rarity hung up and dialed Applejack.

“Applejack! Ich bin in Schwierigkeiten und brauche Hilfe!”

“Hello?” Applejack asked. “Who is this? I don’t know any Germans.”

… Wie antworte ich darau Rarity thought. Ich weiß nicht ... Ich weiß nicht, was sie sagt.

“Hello? Hello?” the phone clicked off.

Rarity put the phone down.

Das ist schlecht, Rarity thought. Even her thoughts were in German. Das ist noch schlimmer als ich dachte! Diese Cookies haben mich nicht nur dazu gebracht, über Nacht Deutsch zu lernen! Sie haben mich auch mein Englisch vergessen lassen! Sie schöpften mein Englisch aus und ersetzten es durch Deutsch! Ich erinnere mich nicht einmal an meine Zeitformen und Konjugationen! Was soll ich bloß tun?

Author's Notes:

My plans for this got a little haywire; initially there would be three chapters each dedicated to each 'language', so three chapters for Adagio and Sunset, three for Sonata and her victims ... but after writing out the last chapter, I couldn't think of anything worthwhile to cram between Fluttershy getting caught and the events of this chapter. So I moved the 'German' portion up to this chapter.

Guess what the special ingredient was in the cookies. Go on. Guess.

Intended Translations
French:
Qu'est-il arrivé à qui? = What happened to who?
Mes amies. = my friends.
Mon cher. = my dear.

Spanish:
Estaba a punto de llamarte. No puedo hablar ingles! = I was just about to call you. I can't speak English!
Estas enferma? No suenas bien. = Are you sick? You don't sound well/right.

German:
Was für ein schöner Morgen! ... was? Tue ich - tue ich Deutsch sprechen? … Tatsächlich! Aber wie - warum - die Kekse! ... Pinkie Pie! Sie hatte auch welche. = what a lovely morning! … what? Am I - am I speaking in German? … I am! But how - why - the cookies! … Pinkie Pie! She had them too.

Bist du in Ordnung? = Are you okay?

Was? Ich kann dich nicht verstehen. = What? I can't understand you.

“Ich werde einen unserer anderen Freund anrufen. Vielleicht können sie helfen. = I'm going to call one of our other friends. Maybe they can help.

Ich bin in Schwierigkeiten und brauche Hilfe! = I'm in a bad situation and I need help.

Wie antworte ich darau Ich weiß nicht ... Ich weiß nicht, was sie sagt. = How do I respond to that? I don't ... I don't know what she's saying.

Das ist schlecht. Das ist noch schlimmer als ich dachte! Diese Cookies haben mich nicht nur dazu gebracht, über Nacht Deutsch zu lernen! Sie haben mich auch mein Englisch vergessen lassen! Sie schöpften mein Englisch aus und ersetzten es durch Deutsch! Ich erinnere mich nicht einmal an meine Zeitformen und Konjugationen! Was soll ich bloß tun? = "This is bad. This is even worse than I thought! Those cookies didn’t just make me learn German overnight! They made me forget my English, too! They scooped out my English and replaced it with German! I don’t even remember my tenses and conjugations! What am I going to do?"

And a Very Special Thanks to my Patrons:

Trepphacs
LazyReader19
Facinus
Thehock1
MyMaskofShame
Captain Croisandwich

11/17/18: Patched instances for "Arial" to read "Ariel."