“Nooo waaaay!” Silver Rose looked at a painting Canvas was showing her. It was a painting of her, standing next to the Cheffiel Tower in Prance. “How did you paint in all the holes?”

Canvas Splash sipped from her glass of lemonade and shrugged. “I don’t know. Just paint it, I guess.”

Silver was really amazed with her friend’s art skills. Even if she were to practice for a thousand years, she doubted she would ever be as good as Canvas was. That is, without the use of her changeling skills, of course.

“Yup! Mom wants to hang it up in Dad’s printing shop. So it’s with her now. Right, Sketchy?” Canvas lifted her sketchbook and grinned.

“You’ve had quite the journey, Canvas.” Silver bit into a minced pie she had ordered. “But I’m glad you’re back and that you enjoyed yourself.”

“Yeah, good to be back, though it’s hotter here than it is there.” The girl began scribbling something in her sketchbook. “You’re the only friend I’ve ever had, Silver. It’s nice to have friends.”

“Really?” Silver asked, still perplexed. “I would have thought someone of your talents would have at least a few.”

“Yeah well… talent is one thing.” Canvas scratched at her cheek. “But not everyone likes… special.”

The tone of which Canvas said that struck a chord in Silver’s being.

Not everyone likes special.

Silver thought about herself and her family. Humans would never accept them as what they were. It was a lesson that her mother and aunt had repeated countless times. They were special, but had to hide it from the world to live in peace.

Perhaps that was why she and Canvas could get along so well. They were both misfits in this world, just that her friend wasn’t afraid to show it.

“Hey, do you think strawberry would go well with lemon?” Canvas stirred her lemonade with a straw. “Never thought of it.”

“Uh, strawberries might help balance out the sourness of the citrus…?” Silver attempted. “Sorry, I hadn’t thought much about this either.”

“Meh, worth a try.” Canvas pulled out a box of strawberries from her bag and placed it on the table. “Strawberries, Silver?”

She took a couple and dropped them in her lemonade before stirring it some more. Silver watched as the yellow liquid soon turned a light pink, almost like the lemonade her aunt had made.

Speaking of her aunt, Silver wondered how she was getting on with helping the sirens. She had met up with Sunset Shimmer and that Princess Twilight Sparkle, and had recently managed to get ahold of what she called ‘the sirens’ gems’.

Apparently, those gems were the source of their power, which had been broken in that Battle of the Bands they keep talking about. Without them, the sirens were no longer immortal and sang worse than a cow with severe indigestion.

Canvas sipped at her concoction and nodded to herself. “Hmm, not bad. Maybe could use some butter.”

“Butter, really?” Silver looked into her cup. “You think it’ll help?”

“Maybe. But I don’t have any on me right now, so oh well! Hey, your mom paints, right Silver? Is she any good?”

“Uh, I don’t really know if I have enough knowledge about painting to say,” Silver shrugged. “I mean, you would probably know better than me. You studied the old masters, didn’t you?”

Canvas grinned. “I sure did. I didn’t just study them, I learned from them. Self-taught by those old school painters from all across the west. I may prefer to carry around a sketchpad, but that’s kind of just because they’re easier to carry than a canvas and a palette. Say...” An idea seemed to brighten Canvas Splash’s face. “Do you think I could come over sometime to look at your paintings? Rich people generally have a lot of art in their homes. Uh, no offense, Silver.”

“None taken,” Silver smiled back. “We do have a lot of paintings and art in the mansion. I don’t know exactly how old they are or who painted them though, besides mother.”

“Well, regardless, I’m sure you have some really food ones. Did I say food? I meant good.” Canvas smiled widely.

“I’ll ask if I can have a visitor,” Silver said. “We don’t often have guests in the house. Moth- I mean, I don’t know why.”

“Yeah, Ebony Wings is a secretive one, eh?” Silver’s friend looked at her sketchbook. “More so than Sketchy. Sketchy doesn’t like people looking through him, but he’s okay with you, Silver. Hey, you wanna see the rest of my photos from Prance?”

“Nooo waaaay!” Indigo Zap leaned back and made an ‘X’ with her arms. “Ebony Wings is not some witch! She’s a critically acclaimed actress! No way!”

This conversation was taking place at Lemon Zest’s home’s garage, where she was outfitting her van with a new air-conditioning system. The lime haired girl was adjusting some vents while the rest of the Shadowbolts sat around on the ground, watching and occasionally handing Lemon a requested tool.

“Well, look at Sunny, she’s never been like this.” Sugarcoat waved a hand at the girl in question. “Remember Domino Ace and her? They broke up because Sunny didn’t want to have sex with him. Look at her now.”

“Hey, hey, you don’t need to keep bringing sex up!” Sunny covered her ears.

“Yeah, Sunny dating Silver Rose?” Indigo looked as though she couldn’t believe it. “Dating the daughter of Ebony Wings? That’s… wow. Plus, doing the deed with her? That’s really something, Sunny. And you say you’re straight?”

“I-I am!” Sunny wailed. “I like hot guys. I love Fast Bender. B-But when it comes to Silver… I don’t know what’s wrong. She’s-she’s so pretty… And I can’t control myself.”

“I’ll admit, Sunny being all nympho like that is rather strange. Hey, stop that!” Indigo moved away after a few hits from Sunny. “But really? Ebony Wings being a witch?”

“We even saw that beast in her home.” Lemon unscrewed a pipe in her car. “We all did. We can’t all dream it up at the same time.”

“Yes.” Sugarcoat took the wrench from Lemon Zest and handed her a screwdriver. Sunny watched her quizzically. Whenever her friend got up and sat back down, she’d have a hand between her legs, like she was trying to protect it. “Long claws, green glowing eyes, we all saw it in their attic. Sunny, where’s the drone?”

“Oh, I didn’t bring it today. I didn’t think we would need it,” the mulberry haired girl answered. “But Sugarcoat’s right. The drone recorded it all. There’s really something going on in that house.”

“Do you guys plan to sneak in?” Indigo folded her arms. “I don’t think that’s a good idea at all, but if you do… I’m in. Can’t pass up a chance to see Ebony Wings up close, right?” she finished excitedly.

“No one’s sneaking in anywhere.” Sugarcoat frowned and adjusted her glasses. “We just need to keep looking.”

“Oh,” Indigo couldn’t keep the disappointed look off her face. “Cause I was kind of hoping to see Ebony Wings up close. But you’re right, I guess. Can’t risk getting caught again and getting sent to juvie.”

“What do you mean ‘again’?” Lemon asked, poking her head out of the van.

Indigo put on an unconvincing look of innocence. “I… may have gotten into a tiny bit of trouble with the police before for doing some not-so-safe stunts on my motorbike. And almost running over an old lady.”

“To think Principal Cinch even allowed you into Crystal Prep.” Sugarcoat rubbed her forehead. “Regardless, yes, we aren’t going to risk something dangerous like that. We’ll need to use our heads.”

“Yeah…” Indigo rubbed at her chin. “Man, Ebony Wings as a witch, huh? I guess I’ll only believe it when I see it.”

“Well, if you wanna see Sunny masturbate…” Lemon tossed a round metallic object out from her van. “All you gotta do is mention Silver Rose a bunch. It’s really like magic. She’ll just start touching herself in front of you.”

“Hey, stop! I won’t! Enough of that!” Sunny went to a corner and grumbled to herself.

“Did not need to visualize that…” Indigo said, looking a little grossed out. “I gotta admit though, if Sunny’s this worked up over things, there’s only so much we can do.”

“So we were hoping we’d get a new take from you, you being back and all,” Sour Sweet said sweetly. “You better have something to contribute.”

“What, about finding out if Ebony Wings is a witch?” Indigo flung her arms out to her sides. “I dunno, why don’t you just get Sunny to ask her girlfriend? Maybe if Sunny can get her, uh… get her on her vulnerable side, she’d spill what we need to know.”

There was a dead silence among the Shadowbolt girls and before long, each of their heads slowly turned to face one girl in the room. Sunny Flare.

“W-What?” Sunny looked at each of her friends. She had a rather bad feeling about this.

“Maybe you can get Silver to spill the beans.” Sugarcoat nodded in thought.

“Yeah…” Lemon wiped a rag over her face to clean up some of the grease. “Perhaps if you can make her squeal enough, she’d say something we’d like to hear. Particularly the stuff about witches.”

“What? That’s a terrible plan!” Sunny protested.

“You enjoy sex anyway.” Sugarcoat got off her stool. Suddenly she squinted and rubbed at her crotch. “Ow… Anyway, you can just do what you like to do, just that you’ll be asking her some questions to see if we can find out anything about their household.”

“I don’t see how this is a good plan…” Sunny blushed, though the thoughts of being with Silver and having sex with her made her quite excited. Excited enough that she had to control her right hand as it made it tried to make its way under her skirt.

“It’s a great plan!” Indigo slammed a fist into her palm. “Sunny can do what she does best, right?”

“It’s not what I do best!”

“We’ll need to get some communication devices. An earpiece will do.” Sugarcoat adjusted her glasses and paced about the garage. “We’ll just feed you the questions and we’ll see what we get back.”

Sunny’s eyes widened beyond that of an owl’s. “Th-that means y-you’d all be able to hear m-me…?” Her face couldn’t get any redder.

“Of course! How else will we know what she’ll say?” Lemon chuckled. “Come on, it’ll be funny to hear you two moan with pleasure.”

Sunny pulled at her hair and covered her face. “No! No it won’t! That’s embarrassing!”

“But it might just work.” Sour Sweet slid closer to Sunny. “Come on, Sunny. It’s for the greater good. We’ll treat you to something after, how about that? You just need to do this one important thing.”

A timer on Sour Sweet’s watch went off and she scurried over to her bag to retrieve her daily pills.

“Re-really? Do I need to do this…? With you all listening…?” Sunny gulped.

“True, it might not be something we’ll be able to unhear after…” Lemon scratched at her chin, leaving more grease marks on her face. “But… I guess if it does get us the info we need, then it’s for a worthy cause, Sunny. Besides, it would be interesting to know what Silver’s voice sounds like when she moans.”

“And I still don’t quite believe you’ve been going out with Ebony Wings’ daughter!” Indigo said loudly and stood up to walk about. “It’s really… I can’t believe you, Sunny, scoring a girl like her! And you’re straight! I’d imagine there are plenty of curly girls out there who would want a piece of Silver Rose.”

“Really? Curly?” Sugarcoat raised an eyebrow.

Indigo simply shrugged. “Hey, if we say straight, then it only makes sense we can say curly.”

“Whatever…” Sour Sweet stowed her water bottle and pill box. “If things go bad though, we could always record anything that happens as blackmail. Imagine if they found out Ebony Wings’ daughter doing this kind of thing.”

“How scandalous!” Lemon reared back and slapped her hands to her cheeks, further greasing up her face. “That wouldn’t be good for Ebony Wings now, would it?”

“B-But Silver’s our friend,” Sunny added on. “We can’t do something like that to our friend, even if they’re witches.”

“Then let’s hope it doesn’t have to come to blackmail.” Sugarcoat adjusted her huge glasses and folded her arms. “If you can get the information we need, Sunny, we won’t need to get to that, so make sure you do your best at your lovemaking.”

“I can’t believe we’re planning something like this…” Sunny hid her red face in her lap.

“Well, I’m sure even if we didn’t plan it, you’d just have sex on your next date anyway, so we might as well get what we can from that,” the bespectacled girl stated as bluntly as ever.

“Yeah come on, call her.” Indigo nudged Sunny. “Set up the next date. Make it soon.”

“You want to invite a friend over?” Ebony Wings rubbed at her chin. “Is that it?”

“Yes, mother,” Silver Rose nodded. “Her name’s Canvas Splash. She’s a friend from school.”

Ebony Wings stirred her drink as she thought. She did not often have guests at her home; whole months could go by without anyone but her servants, tutors, or family setting foot in the house. The last guest she had entertained had been a famous movie director, and that had been over a year ago.

“I see,” Ebony said eventually. “What do you plan to do with her here? Bed her?”

Silver Rose blanched. “What? No! No, mother. She wants to look at the paintings we have.”

“If she wants to look at paintings, then take her to an art gallery,” Ebony Wings said. “I don’t like randomly inviting people into my home.”

“I mean, she’s a good friend. I thought it would be nice to let her… see the grand collection that we have. She’s a great painter. I’m sure if you ask, she’ll paint something for you to add to the collection.”

Silver’s mother took a sip from her glass of red liquid. It looked a little like blood, but Silver could smell the cranberry from it.

“A great painter, hmm? Not as good as me, I’m willing to bet.”

Oh, I’m sure she is… Silver scratched at her cheek. “Umm, right you are, mother. So could I? She’d love to see everything you have.”

“So she wishes to come here and admire my work…” The idea seemed to brighten Ebony Wings’ face. “What day were you thinking of hosting? Perhaps I can take the day off work to, eh, supervise.”

“Hmm… We could do it sometime next week?” The young changeling shrugged. “Maybe… Monday?”

“Make it Tuesday. I’ve an important bit to shoot on Monday.”

“O-Oh. Sure, mother. Tuesday works. I’ll check with Canvas.”

“So you want to invite this girl over… Just so she can see my art collection? Nothing else?” Ebony bent lower and grinned at her daughter.

“W-Well, yes. Canvas, umm… Isn’t like Sunny. She’s not uh, into that kind of thing.” Silver shuffled her feet awkwardly. It was a weird image to have, having sex with someone like Canvas Splash, not that she had anything against her friend. “A-And Su-Sunny’s just a weird girl. So-so she’s like that.”

Ebony Wings slowly, ever so slowly, drained her glass of juice and placed it on her chair’s armrest. “You need to work on your stammering. As always. But I suppose if your friend wishes to admire my artistic genius, then I can oblige.”

Silver’s eyes brightened. “Thank you, mother. Canvas’ll love your collection, I can guarantee!”

“She had better,” Ebony muttered to herself. “Or I’ll paint a special portrait with her blood.”

“What?” Silver tilted her head. “Did you say something, mother?”

“No.”