The gym was crowded and filled with the low murmur of thinly veiled hostility as people stayed in small groups, clumped up with their musical partners for the upcoming “Battle of the Bands,” glowering and making rude gestures and comments towards anyone else that caught their eyes. The seven girls not influenced by the Siren’s dark energies looked around the room, horrified by the toxic environment the school had become. Even when Sunset had been the school’s tyrant queen, ruling everything with an iron fist and plenty of blackmail, things hadn’t been this bad.

The dark energy that coated everyone in the room was thick and slimy to Sunset’s inherent magical senses, a noxious, choking residue that dug tendrils deep into the minds of students and staff alike, from the youngest junior high student all the way to the normally cantankerous and elderly Mr. Doodle. The miasma made the redhead reel with nausea, the ache in her bones making her feel hot and itchy in ways that couldn’t be properly scratched. Phantom sensations in her hands and feet and back were driving her to distraction, like wings and talons were a heartbeat away from ripping free of her flesh again. Sunset wanted nothing more than to curl up in a corner whimpering until the agony went away and she could breathe again, but she couldn’t. Even if she couldn’t help with the magic, she wasn’t going to abandon the girls…not after everything.

She’d broached the subject of her volatile reaction to the Princess on the way, and the other Equestrian had been just as puzzled. “Some of that sounds like the symptoms of sensitivity to dark magic due to overexposure at a previous date—the nausea, the discomfort, even the pain during their songs. But the rest are unusual symptoms that don’t coincide with anything I’ve ever read,” Princess Twilight had noted. “It could be that a human body develops different symptoms to a pony one, or this could be because of how you were affected by dark magic. It may even be simply your magic fighting off theirs—you were powerful back home, and we both know that magical energy cant just be destroyed, only converted or used. That means you still have your magical reservoir in some fashion.” She’d offered an apologetic frown. “At this juncture, we don’t have enough data to make a valid theory out of it.”

All in all, the alicorn’s response was not very helpful—a part of her felt hurt over the somewhat detached and dismissive reaction, though another part had argued that they had more important matters to focus on, like stopping the source of the dark magic that made her feel so violated and ill. However, it had also been good to see that the princess had reached similar conclusions to what she herself had surmised even with Princess Twilight’s superior knowledge of the magical arts and that they were both stuck at the same point—it meant she hadn’t been completely off base in her thoughts and that she wasn’t forgetting some important or obscure piece of knowledge. That information didn’t help the colicky feeling that was growing with every passing second, or the way her temper kept flaring at the slightest provocation. She could practically hear the grinding of her teeth when the Princess bumped into Flash—quite literally, with her falling on her rear on the ground—and evidently, so could Rarity. She pulled Sunset further away, turning her so she couldn’t glare daggers into Flash’s skull while he and Twilight Sparkle blushed and flirted awkwardly.

“Darling, I know you said you didn’t care about Flash, but if looks could kill, we would likely be down one princess. Are you sure you’re okay?”

She knew her behavior was irrational—the Princess could flirt with whoever she wanted, and it was none of her business if anyone had a crush on her. The doppelganger from her homeworld wasn’t the Twilight that mattered to her…but seeing someone who looked like her being fawned over still caused untold amounts of upset and fury in her innards. Sunset, in that moment, wanted nothing more than to punch Flash in his stupid, goofily grinning face. She blew air out her nose in an irritated snort, scuffing her foot on the floor. “It's…complicated, Rarity. I don’t have feelings for Flash—that was the truth. I never liked him like that, and I never will. He’s really not my type, and I used him back when I was…you know.” One hand rubbed her neck. “…it’s just…the magic in here is making me feel like I’m going to throw up, and even though I don’t think the magic has affected me, some part of me just wants to hurt someone. I’m angry, and I’m not sure why….”

Rarity rubbed her back soothingly. “Sunset, it's okay. This magic business is upsetting and stressful, and if what you said is true, you may be having something akin to an allergic reaction to it. That would make anyone cranky. Though I do think it might be good for you and Flash to bury the hatchet, as it were, sometime. Carrying that around isn’t healthy, no matter what emotions they are.”

Her face twisted into a guilty expression. “I…do kinda owe him an apology for how I used him. I was pretty awful to him in particular, and he didn’t deserve what I did.”

She got a side hug from the designer. “Tut tut, darling. That’s the past, and I really do wish you’d stop dwelling so hard on it. You cannot move forward if you are dragging your sins around with you like Marley and his chains. Make amends if you can, apologize if you cannot, learn from it, and move on.”

Sunset looked over at Rarity, eyebrow raised. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

A hint of a smile flashed her way. “Everyone makes mistakes, even me. I’ve made them a lot, and…owning up to them can be hard. Apologizing directly even moreso.” Blue eyes watched Applejack bickering good naturedly with Rainbow Dash. “You have to know I fight with Applejack more than anyone else in my life, and she is my oldest, dearest friend. If we hadn’t learned to make amends and move on, we never would have lasted long enough for Princess Twilight to meet us.” The designer rolled her eyes, bemused tolerance in them. “I don’t always mean to fight with her, but sometimes she can just be so very aggravating and pig-headed, and we have such different tastes in certain areas that she doesn’t always see my creative urges as anything other than a ‘prissy waste of time.’”

The cultured accent gave way to a fair imitation of Applejack’s drawl that left Sunset’s mouth hanging open. Rarity smirked at Sunset, reaching over to gently close her mouth, before leaning close, all trace of her normal speech replaced with something far more rural. “Sunset, I was raised here too—didn’t honestly think I sounded like that naturally, did you?” Then it was back as if had never left. “Though I suppose I should take it as a compliment that you had no idea.” She sighed theatrically. “The point is, darling, that we all make mistakes, and we all have to decide what to do about them. For example, I do want to apologize for the inadvertent…ribbing…you have been getting over your…unpleasant history. It isn’t fair of them to constantly bring it up, and I know that adding ‘no offense’ to the end doesn’t make something any less hurtful. I just hope you understand that they don’t mean it out of malice…” Her eyes narrowed at the stetson wearing blonde and the colorful soccer star. “It’s just that sometimes, their mouths open and words come out without their brains ever being involved.”

Surprised laughter escaped before Sunset could stop it, her hand quickly coming up to cover her mouth. “Rarity!” she chuckled.

“What? It’s true, darling, and we both know it.”

Rarity was also fighting a laugh, and before long, they both gave up on trying to stop it. The pleasant feeling of the two girls laughing together eased the nauseous sensation in her stomach, allowing Sunset the chance to really look around the room. So far, the only real progress made here had been learning the names of the Sirens: Adagio, the frizzy haired leader, Aria, the sour one with pigtails, and Sonata, the ditzy one with the ponytail. Pretty names for a pack of emotion-eating monsters stirring up trouble. Sunset was actually looking forward to them eating a rainbow with a form of savage glee that should have frightened her, but she couldn’t manage to make herself feel bad about.

Speaking of the devilish monsters…She spotted them across the way, the urge to slap the smug smile off Adagio’s face growing. The trio of Equestrian natives seemed to be reveling in the strife, and as her magical senses screamed, she opened them to watch the flow of energy around the room. With time to watch and the singing not stabbing in her ears, she had plenty of opportunity to get a good long look at what was going on, to actually watch an emotiphage’s magic at work. It was then she realized it wasn’t just emotion they were siphoning off…almost every person in the room had lingering energy in them, power left behind from an Equestrian source…

Blue-green eyes went wide as the realization hit her like a freight train. Starswirl had sent them here to stop them feeding on Equestrian ponies, all of whom had natural magic. Humans had almost none…until she had come here, used the Crown, and exerted magic on the student body. Magic used on someone left traces behind—it was basic Magic 101 at CSGU, learning how to feel magical signatures. That had to be how creatures who had been undetected for centuries, with no major impact on human society as a whole, suddenly had the power to exert active influence over the student body.

—Especially since they were already stirred up and feeling pissed off, horn-head. There was already anger, strife, and suffering when they walked in.—

Great. She’d basically created a perfect feeding ground by accident. This was her doing.

Now that she’d realized it, she could feel the lingering touch of Equestrian magic in the other students that had been at the Formal, residue from when she’d violated their minds and turned them into an army of fighting slaves. It wasn’t the same kind of powerful, prismatic spectrum of light that came from the six who had used the Elements on her, but it was still there, open to the Sirens like an ‘all you can eat’ buffet.

And they were, gorging themselves on the energy that roiled across the ground and air everywhere but by the princess and her friends. Comparatively, the six of them were a null zone, dark magic shrinking away and fizzling out as it got close, before closing around a short distance behind them as they moved to confront the Sirens.

Sunset braced herself for the brilliant display of power…

And nothing happened.

Well. Something happened alright, but it wasn’t the rainbow produced by the Elements of Harmony. Instead, it was the Dazzlings seizing upon the failure and riling the students up, turning them on the girls, the yelling in the gym growing to a fevered pitch. What’s more, Sunset realized, seeing the victorious gleam in Adagio’s eyes, was that the girls had overplayed their hand, and the enemy was onto them.

“Ponyfeathers…” she groaned, as the girls slunk towards her and the exit, proverbial tails between their legs. Now what would they do?

They were all seated on the front steps—except for the princess—watching a sight that Sunset had grown used to dealing with on a semi-regular basis: a Twilight Sparkle Freakout…though this seemed to be a first for the others, judging by the looks on their faces. She leaned back on her elbows on the steps, brain already working out how to curb the anxiety attack and solve the problem at the same time as she listened to the familiar voice growing increasingly pitchy and scratchy.

“It doesn’t make any sense!” Princess Twilight lamented, pacing back and forth, the count and beat of her steps remarkably consistent a pattern—Sunset found she could not only count the steps, but time them, and they were exactly the same every single time. She found herself observing the whole thing with a measure more detachment than she did with Sparky’s, and once again, the differences amidst similarities jumped out. It was almost disappointing to observe the princess winding herself up more and more, far beyond the point where her own Twilight would have started trying to do things to mitigate the impending panic. “I should have been able to create the spark that would help us break their spell! That’s how it worked before!” The voice took on a frantic, whiny tone that sounded close to tears, making the former unicorn sit forward slightly with a frown. Princess Twilight was doing everything except wringing her hands, and Sunset somehow knew she’d start doing that next—pony or not, it was still a Twilight. Time for her to interject before this turned into a full blown panic attack.

She crossed her arms over her chest, pointing out the obvious, even as she knew she was opening herself up to more unintentional teasing. “…but to defeat me, you drew magic from the Crown I was wearing,” she said, trying to not see the fireball heading towards her friends and the princess in her mind’s eye, focusing on a thought that had been niggling at her. One finger rubbed her chin. “The Sirens’ magic comes from their music…”

A memory came to her mind, Celestia’s face and voice at the forefront. “It takes practice and knowledge of the magic being used against me, my little sun. Even powerful magic can be countered by taking advantage of its type and resonance. Certain magics are canceled by applying their opposites with equivalent force…but others can be overridden and turned to your advantage if you use a similar, sympathetic energy that is more powerful….”

“Like ice against a fireball?” a very small Sunset asked eagerly.

“Indeed, or using ice against a water globe to make more ice…”

“That’s so cool, M-Princess!”

Her eyes grew wider as she came back to the present, her voice growing excited with her epiphany. “So maybe you have to use the same kind of magic to defeat them!” Princess Twilight went deadly still as she spoke, and Sunset worried that she overstepped. She backpedaled in a hurry. “Or…maybe not…”

The visiting pony wearing her girlfriend’s face whipped around, pointing eagerly at her. “No…I think you’re on to something.” She was clearly following a mental trail now, the expression sliding into one Sunset interpreted easily, and the smile of encouragement on her face was so much like Princess Celestia’s that Sunset couldn’t help herself.

“Really!?” she blurted out, trying to fight the sense of pleasure coming from the suggestion of praise.

Princess Twilight nodded, then dragged that finger to point at the rest of the group. “Its when you play music that you transform now, right?”

“Eyup,” Applejack confirmed, hands emphasizing her words with rapid gestures. “Ears, tails, the whole shebang.”

Bringing her fist down on her palm, the alicorn continued the thread of her idea. “So maybe the way to use that magic to defeat the Sirens is by playing a musical counterspell!”

Fluttershy peeked out from the curtain of her hair. “You mean like a song?” For all her apparent timidity, there was no denying that Fluttershy loved music and singing.

Sunset watched the princess nod, rubbing her wrist against her chin. The gesture was so odd that she was taken aback momentarily, and she actively studied the other Pony-Turned-Person’s body language. Her hands had curled into awkward fists, almost like she had forgotten what fingers were…The redhead bit back a laugh, remembering those days, early on in her stay here. Having those five wiggly worm-snake-paws instead of proper hooves had been a learning experience, and even now, she knew when she was emotionally agitated she tended to fist her hands the same way. It was nice knowing it wasn’t just her.

“Uh-huh…and in order to free everyone who has been exposed to the Sirens’ spell, we’ll need them all to hear it.” Her one fisted hand hung in the air like a forehoof ready to stamp the ground, and the one former unicorn in the group wondered how ridiculous she looked to the group that didn’t recognize it as a gesture of assertion and aggression.

No one brought it up though They all frowned at her words, thinking hard, before Rarity let out a gasp and jumped up. “The band competition!” she exclaimed. “That’s the next time we can be certain everyone will be in the same place at the same time!”

Joining Rarity in standing, Applejack slapped a hand on Dash’s shoulder. “Guess the Rainbooms are the band ta beat.” The athlete grinned and gave her a thumbs up.

The designer continued, “And I believe you, Twilight, just became the Rainbooms newest member.”

She knew it was a necessity: Without the princess, they’d be down the most crucial and critical Element of Harmony, the one that made all the others actually work right. It didn’t stop it from stinging though, considering how much she secretly desired to play with them.

—You’ve been watching them play for weeks, you know. Why haven’t you bothered to bring up the fact that you can match Rainbow on the electric? Or that you have a halfway decent singing voice? You know they’d take bring you in in a heartbeat. If you asked right now, they would bring you in faster than Celestia could banish someone to the Moon.—

Stupid Little Voice knew perfectly well why she hadn’t asked yet, and if she did it now, it would just look like she was trying to show up the princess. No. She would be there to support them, just like she’d told Sparky she was going to do—she’d be their manager, their gofer, their cheerleader, whatever they needed. If they kept up playing after the competition, maybe she’d ask then, but not before. Sunset worked to put her mask back together, knowing it had faltered as the rest of the group crowded around their royal friend. Rarity had already asked enough probing questions. She pushed off the steps to rejoin them, as Pinkie was excitedly trying to figure out what instrument to saddle Princess Twilight with….and going through some very odd choices in the meantime.

Looking more than a little frazzled, Princess Twilight offered weakly, “I…might take a little too long to learn how to play something with these.” She hung her half fisted hands before them to point out the issue. Sunset bit back a snort and a snarky response. She wasn’t wrong; Sunset had spent the better part of three years practicing before she considered herself even passably decent on the acoustic, and learning the electric guitar had been a whole separate experience. “I’ll just sing.” That would probably work out much better—from the few times she and Sparky had had music going while they messed with this invention or that machine (like the day they’d gutted and upgraded her heater), Twilight Sparkle didn’t have too bad of a singing voice. Could have just been her though, seeing as she might have a bit of a bias.

Rainbow leaned an arm on the alicorn’s shoulder. “Like, as in lead singer?” she demanded warily. “Cuz that’s usually my gig. This being my band and all.” Sunset didnt think it was possible to roll her eyes so hard it hurt—it turned out, it was very possible—and it did hurt—when Rainbow Dash’s infamous ego was involved.

Apparently Applejack felt the same way, since she stepped up to Dash, temper flaring.”It’s our band,” she corrected tersely, before turning to Princess Twilight with a much kinder tone. “An’ of course as lead singer. She’s the one with the magical know-how ta help us pull this thing off.”

Blue skinned hands came up in a placating gesture. “Okay, yeah…That’s cool.”

—Way to sound insincere, featherbrain…—

“I’ll just use this as a chance to hone my already insanely good lead guitar skills.” She wiggled her fingers and moved like she was playing the “air guitar.” Sunset found herself biting her tongue as the petulant response turned right back into baseless boasting.

—Insanely good? Her A string is consistently off, and she struggles with some of the chords because her hands are kind of small. You really should help check that ego of hers before everyone else chokes on it.—

Princess Twilight sought to placate dissent, spreading her hands. “Its only temporary,” she assured them. “And we don’t have to win the Battle of the Bands. We just have to perform during the first round of the competition.”
Never one to stay down long, Rainbow pumped a fist in the air. “Let’s get to learning that musical counterspell!”

Sunset heard the next statement before the princess even spoke. She knew it the instant her face fell, eyes looking everywhere but at her friends. “That’s just it…” she sighed. “I don’t know any.” Of course not…Sunset thought back through all the different kinds of spells, counterspells, unique magical applications…even the most esoteric branches of modern unicorn magic didn’t use music. The closest thing that Equestria had to musical magic, besides spells meant to enhance music, was the way passive magic tended to respond positively to impromptu vocal numbers during things like Winter Wrap-Up, and most of that involved Earth ponies and Pegasi…who didn’t use active magic. The applications seemed useless in this case. Horseapples.

“But…I’m sure I could figure out how to write one?” the princess offered, trying to put a positive spin on things.

It could work, she supposed. The magic in the girls did feel like Harmony magic, and that was something the Princess of Friendship had experience in, given her status as the Bearer of the Element of Magic….Still, writing a spell from scratch was hard. She’d done it in the past, manipulating basic magical theories to create a combination effect that did what she wanted. Mostly, she’d used it to get even with the snobby students at CSGU who talked down to her. It was even harder if the spell in question had a vocal component. She did not envy the princess this time, that was for sure….

At least until the dragon-dog spoke up, patting one purple socked leg with his forepaw. “Totally! Twilight can write a spell like its nobody’s business! That’s pretty much how she got to be a Princess in Equestria!”

What?

Sunset’s mind ground to a halt, practically tripping over itself. She earned Ascension how??

“Technically, I helped finish a spell…”

Of all the moon-banished, yak brained, half-baked, diamond-dog rutted piles of minotaur shit she’d ever heard in her life, this one was piled up nice and high like one of Princess Celestia’s favorite cakes and served on a platter made of gold. Ascension. Because she…finished a spell. Anger burned…her bones felt like they were ready to combust at any moment; for the first time it drowned out the association with her adorable nerd, and she hated Twilight Sparkle more than anything in the world.

—Damn her to Tartarus and Tirek take her for a horn cap!—

“….and there was a lot more to it than that, Spike” Princess Twilight finished, admonishing the dog-dragon like a parent would a child, her expression becoming a stern frown as she looked down at him.

He scoffed. “Yeah, whatever.”

Princess Twilight shook her head before taking a deep breath, psyching herself up. “I’ve got this.” She picked up Spike. “C’mon.”

Air. Sunset needed air, to get away and calm down before she lost her temper. She kept a firm hold on her happy mask, still smiling at Princess Twilight, hate and rage fighting against her. She watched the princess head up the steps towards the school, and slowly began moving away from the group to make her escape.

“Where ya goin’?” Applejack asked, and for a second, Sunset thought it was directed her way. Then she realized everyone was watching the princess.

“Well, last time we were here, Spike and I spent the night in the library.” She pointed towards the school.

Pinkie Pie was suddenly at Princess Twilight’s side, beaming. “Are you crazy??! We’re besties now!” She wrapped her arms around the purple skinned form, picking her up in what looked like a bone-crushing bear hug. “SLUMBER PARTY AT MY HOUSE!”

No real notes this time, other than telling everyone to please be safe in a time of chaos, and to encourage people to extend a hand in friendship to others wherever possible. Its up to everyone to be the best person they can be, even when things are scary and uncertain and stressful.