Blue-green eyes flitted to the open pages of the tome on wards, double checking the lines of the glyphs and runes in the complex design of a ward meant to alert and provide a basic barrier to a small area. Abjuration was never Sunset’s preferred school; she was comfortable with basic personal shield spells and simple protective enchantments, but the more complex barriers were a type of magic she had always struggled with. Wards in particular required a great deal of meticulous patience and perfection that she had always lacked. The lines had to be just right, especially when a spellcaster set them into crystals and stones rather than used themselves as the focus for the spell—stone and crystal lacked the flexibility of a thinking unicorn, who could adjust and change the flow of a magical matrix in real time.

The redhead bit her lip as she brought the etching tool back to the surface of the fist sized gemstone that was a black so dark it seemed to devour light. She wasn’t sure if there was a human world equivalent for what ponies referred to as “Nightstone,” but it was unmatched when it came to defending against dark magic, particularly the kind that affected the mind. It was also extremely hard to overload with brute force, since it grounded energies into the local leyline network, and as near as Sunset could identify with her research and knowledge, CHS was sitting on a leyline nexus.

The tool made a scratching, raspy sound as it carved an elegant curl into the surface, completing the last of the lines for the ward. With a sigh, she set the stone and tool down, shaking her hands out to ease the cramp in her palm before she hopped to her feet and started stretching. She’d been antsy all morning, and the wardstone hadn’t taken as much time as she’d wanted it to.

Nibbling on her thumbnail, the former unicorn glanced at the journal that sat, inert and unresponsive, on the desk. She had yet to hear back from Princess Twilight, and the conversation that had ended abruptly on a sour note. Idly, Sunset considered if she could get advice from her girlfriend on what she should do...maybe frame it as a disagreement with a friend over an opinion on a shared teacher? Then she shook her head, rocking her weight from one foot to the other. No...that wouldn't work. A generic teacher doesn't really capture the reason for my opinion. She’s a teacher to Princess Twilight, but so much more to me. If the princess is anything like Sparky, she has counterparts to Mrs. Velvet and Mr. Night...

Speaking of her girlfriend...she had her second meeting with her principal, and Sunset was half wondering if she should head over to the Sparkle house after she was done for the day, just to make sure Twilight was okay. Her stomach twisted unpleasantly at the thought of showing up to another meltdown like she’d witnessed on Friday.

The former unicorn tapped the toe of her boot on the ground, trying to shake off the agitation she felt, and glanced at the clock. The girls would be showing up in the next fifteen minutes for their lunchtime practice, meaning she needed to get the monitoring equipment set up so they could go right into practice. Maybe that would get rid of some of this restless energy, plus she wanted to do another scan of herself; her magic had been buzzing under her skin for the last hour, never threatening to surge, but making her nerves tingle with power that refused to remain still in her core.

She pulled open the cabinet, snagging the thaumometer and the stand for it, dragging it over to the right spot to capture the whole area where the instruments were already set up, followed by a simple electromagnetic field detection device that she’d acquired from the science storeroom, the antiquated device running on an oversized rechargeable battery that it had taken her three days to find a replacement for. That went on a small table, and she cracked it open to install the roll of paper that it printed the running readings on once it was started—that was an experience, since its innards looked more like something she would find in Equestria rather than the world of modern technology.

Sunset snapped it shut, and gave the setup a once over, running a short baseline test for both, frowning at the readings from the thaumometer. The school’s baseline was fairly steady, but the scan of herself showed a noticeable increase in her SET level. That didn't help her mood. She blew air from her nostrils before dropping in a huff back into the desk chair, picking up a pencil to write the information down in the research notebook she had started.

“Hey, pony-girl, is this a bad time?”

Sunset came right out of her chair in surprise, letting out the most undignified sound she had ever made in any body, made more so by the fact that it sounded like a startled imitation of a proper pony noise. Her head and jerked back, her arms came up defensively, and her body turned to face the threat.

She and Flash Sentry stared awkwardly at each other for a full half minute, during which she felt her entire face heat, skipping past tomato right into molten red. “I...” she stumbled over her words, shoulders slumping. “Any chance you can forget you just heard that?”

He laughed, coming into the room and shutting the door behind him. “Only in the company of others. In private, I reserve the right to rib you for it. Consider the privilege as my form of revenge.” A teasing grin let her know it was all meant in good fun.

“Wonderful. The first time in years I squeal like a foal who just got goosed by a crab, and this is when it has to happen? I’d ask what I did to deserve it, but at this point I could just pick something off the list.” She snorted, shaking her head and sitting back down. “What’s up?”

“Besides the fact that I’m now imagining a horse getting its butt pinched by a crab at the beach?” Flashed joked.

“Pony, not horse...but yes, besides that?” She nibbled absently on the pencil in her hand.

He stepped further into the room. “Last week, you asked me to come by because you wanted to run tests on someone from CHS who wasn't sprouting wings and horns. Teacher let us out early after the test, so I figured I’d offer myself up as your guinea pig.”

“Oh!” With the weekend, it had completely slipped her mind. “Sure, that’d be great! It won’t take too long, I promise.” In an instant, she was on her feet again, tugging him over to stand in front of the thaumometer. “I just need to run a couple of scans, take some notes.”

Brows furrowing, the young man stared at her. “Are...are you sure you're okay? You seem awfully jittery.”

“Hmm?” Blue-green eyes looked up from the device. “I’m fine. Had a bit too much coffee this morning.”

“C’mon, Sunset,” Flash countered. “You were a good actress, but I’d like to think I learned a little about you. You don't chew on things like that unless something is bothering you. What’s going on?”

Chewing? I’m not chewing on anyth—Oh. Sunset realized the pencil had found its way to her mouth in place of her thumbnail, and she was cribbing at the piece of wood restlessly with her front teeth. Forcing herself to set the writing utensil on the desk with her notes, she sighed. “It was just a rough weekend,” she hedged, setting the thaumometer up to scan Flash.

He frowned in concern. “Rough? Are you okay?” The young man hesitated, looking around, before he asked quietly, “Everything okay with your girl?”

She rolled her shoulders to try and shake off the prickling feeling building in them. “Sort of. It's...complicated. Sparky and I are fine...but...we didn't really have a good weekend for reasons utterly unrelated to our relationship. I just haven't seemed to be able to shake off the way it left me feeling.” Then she made a face. “I also got a little short with Princess Twilight and she hasn't responded to me in the journal since.”

Rubbing the back of his neck, Flash eyed her, weighing his words before he spoke. At last he held out an arm, giving her one of his smiles—the Nice-Guy-Trying-to-Cheer-Someone-Up smile he kept on hand for upset girls and crying children she noted when her eyes flicked up from the thaumometer’s projected display. “You look like you could use a hug, and a friendly ear, pony-girl. Wanna talk about it, see if that helps you sort out what's going on in your head?”

Sunset shifted her weight to her other leg, resisting the urge to pace. “I...” she paused, stretching her neck and shoulder to try and release some of the tension thrumming in her muscles. “...I dunno. Maybe? It's not exactly something I can really explain easily...” The she realized he was being careful to hide his other arm behind his back. “Speaking of hiding...what’s behind your back?”

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Flash pulled his other arm into view, holding a basket that was piled high with an assortment of fresh vegetables and what looked like a bag of dried apple slices. “I bumped into Granny Smith on the way here, she asked me to give you this. I guess they are from their family’s greenhouses?”

Blue-green eyes went wide and the former unicorn had to restrain herself to a pace best described as a hurried trot, so she could take the basket. She could smell the vegetables, and the scents were making her mouth water. Sunset picked up a tomato and brought it close to her nose, inhaling slowly. “...Sparky had a rough Friday last week,” she explained, before biting straight into the red flesh of the vegetable, unable to stop the pleased nicker in her throat that bubbled up as she chewed.

Flash’s chuckle made her raise an eyebrow. “That must be one amazing tomato. I’ve never seen anyone eat one like an apple before.”

Swallowing, she licked the rich juice off her lips. “I don't feel the need to pretend quite so much to be human with people who know I’m a pony,” she responded. “We eat a lot of our vegetables raw just as often as we cook them.” She squinted at the tomato. “Though tomatoes are better raw if you sprinkle a little salt on them. Not too much though—a salt soused unicorn is never a pretty sight.”

He laughed. “I’ll remember that...” Then the young man changed back to the previous subject. “So your girl had a bad day Friday? Bad grades from her exams? Parent problems?”

The redhead tossed her head, grabbing her notebook and the pencil to take notes on the readings the thaumometer had taken of Flash. “Neither,” she replied. “She’s too brilliant to fail her exams and her family is amazing.” She flicked her eyes towards the door. “...she goes to Crystal Prep, and for all they are supposed to be this amazing school that beats CHS in every imaginable way, the people there sound like they make the old me look like a toothless, declawed manticore kitten with no tail.”

“Yikes.” Flash made a face. “Sounds pleasant. So she doesn't get along with people at school?”

“Pretty much...and the principal sounds like my own principal from back in Equestria: as awful as the students and as cuddly as a thornbush.” She sighed. “Anyway, Sparky had a terrible day and was a mess when I got to her house.”

Concern laced her ex-boyfriend’s tone. “By ‘a mess,’ do you mean someone beat her up? Or...?”

A surge of protective fury went through her, and she curled her lips back to show teeth with a low growling noise. “If anyone puts a hand on her, I’ll break every bone in their arm into tiny pieces,” she hissed before she could stop herself, her boot making a rough THUD as she brought her previously relaxed foot down hard.

A slow nod and Flash shrugged. “Anyone who beats up a girl deserves what they get. So, just regular bullying then—or was it more...like what people were doing to you?”

Forcing the anger down, Sunset took a breath, then another bite of the tomato to make sure the magic in her veins wasn't going to react violently. Swallowing, she scowled. “She hasn't said. Sparky had a meeting with her principal, but I’m not sure if that was the cause or just one more stressor on her for the day. Either way, she was having a massive freak-out when I got there. We spent most of the night trying to get her to calm down and feel better...”

“I’ve got a cousin like that,” the young man commented. “Sometimes it doesn't even have to be anything particularly bad, just outside of the norm or his expectations to make everything too much.”

The former unicorn polished off the tomato. “That sounds about right. So Friday night was bad...” She fell silent, her brows knitting together pensively. Once again she was caught in the memory of blackened eyes and twisted horns of dark reflections and inner demons.

“Sunset?” A warm hand rested on her shoulder, jolting her back to the present, where Flash was eyeing her with real worry now. “What aren't you telling me?”

She curled her arms around herself in a defensive gesture, pushing down the memory of her nightmare. “I...” A shiver passed through her. “...I have nightmares...” she confessed. “Not all the time, but sometimes...”

The touch on her shoulder became an arm draped over them as he turned the gesture into a sideways hug, guiding her back to her chair at the desk. “You had one this weekend?”

“Friday night—well, early Saturday morning.” Sunset couldn't stop the words from spilling out. “It was a bad one, really bad. I woke everyone up at the house with my screaming.”

Flash grabbed the second desk chair that had belonged there originally, dragging it so he could sit next to her. “And it was stuff you couldn't tell them about?”

The redheaded teen rubbed her face tiredly. “Kind of...but not exactly. Have you ever had a dream that you weren't sure was just a dream? Like it meant something more?”

“Like a message or something?” He leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Not really? I don't remember most of my dreams, and when I do, they're really weird. Like standing up on a stage with crying clowns tossing tiny pickles at me kind of weird.” He glanced her way. “Truth be told, I never give dreams much thought once I’m awake.”

She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I know humans don't always put much stock in dreams, but in Equestria, dreams...they can have meaning...with a pony’s mind trying to tell them something...and some ponies see more than just their own inner thoughts and feelings. Nightmares are actually dangerous for a pony, since magic can interact with them and create monsters. But that's not all—sometimes, a pony can...feel or see or sense things that will happen before they do. It’s a form of clairvoyance, related to certain schools of magic.” It felt good to be able to voice some of her worries, if for no other reason than it let her talk her way through the problem.

The young man blinked. “Okay...so magic makes dreams more than weird head movies for ponies. You're thinking your nightmare was one of these? Has that happened before?”

Sunset bit down on her thumbnail, wincing when her teeth caught some of the flesh instead. “I...feel like it might have been. I've had nightmares before, especially since the formal, but...this was different. It...felt strange, and there was too much about it that was just...out of the ordinary...” Blue-green eyes met his. “It terrifies me, Flash—I would take being trapped in the heart of a forest fire with an inhibitor ring on my horn over the way the nightmare made me feel.”

Grimacing at that, he went back to looking upwards in thought. “So a warning of some kind then, since that's what pony nightmares can do and you didn’t...I dunno...wake up to an eldritch nightmare beyond mortal ken gnawing your face off.”

She shuddered. “And that was an image I never needed. There’s a reason I left in the middle of you trying to show me Alien last year.”

“Sorry?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Weird question: Does this mean the rest of your magical girl squad needs to be worried about nightmares too?”

That stopped her train of thought cold; she hadn't considered that as a possibility at all, but Flash had raised a good question. One she did not know the answer to, and she acknowledged as much, adding, “There’s really no precedent here. In Equestria, most beings have considerable magic in them, even ones who aren't active spellcasters like a unicorn is, and that can be affected by the individual’s emotional state. Humans...don't normally have that kind of magic in them—for example, you registered just now as a 0.6793 on the SET scale Equestria uses to measure magic. If a creature from Equestria had a SET level that low, they’d be dying a slow death unless they got an infusion of magic immediately. At this point, that's even lower than the baseline for the school itself—1.3 today, just to give you a comparison. But the girls...they’re different.”

“Different how? Like just a higher magic power level?”

Sunset shook her head. “That's part of it...but...it's almost as if the girls have become sources of magical energy rather than beings using it. So I have no idea if they will be susceptible to the problems native denizens of Equestria suffer from. The best I can do is watch out for problems and maybe warn them...but I also don't want to cause a panic over nothing.”

He nodded. “I think you should at least warn them. You guys are a team, right? You owe it to them to at least let them know it's a possibility, and if it does happen, they know to speak up about it instead of...I dunno, sit on the problem while it slowly ‘drives them mad with knowledge man was not meant to know?’” Flash made air quotes with his fingers, and at her somewhat blank stare, he sighed. “We need to introduce you to a broader spectrum of human literature. Even I’m aware of Horrible Phobias Lovecraft and his work, and I rarely find books I like.”

“I read!” she countered defensively. “And the name sounds familiar.”

“What name sounds familiar?” Pinkie seemed to appear in front of them, beaming from ear to ear.

The redhead managed to keep from making noise this time around, but it was only Flash’s steadying grip that kept her from falling out of her chair. “Pinkie! Don't do that! How long have you been standing there?”

“Oh, I just got here! We all did!” The party planner waved an arm towards the door, where the rest of the girls were filing in. Then she gave them a considering look and produced a plate of cupcakes that she plonked down on the desk next to the basket of produce. “You guys are waaaaay too tense! Have some cupcakes—guaranteed to put a smile on your face!”

Having made that announcement, she snagged a tomato out of the basket. “Hmmm...is the tomato a vegetable or a fruit? It tastes like a veggie, but some people call it a fruit...do you think a tomato would make a good cupcake?” She made a face and turned to Sunset. “Do ponies make tomato cupcakes?”

Tomato...cupcakes? The former unicorn made a face. “No...I've had bread with tomato in it though...that's pretty good.”

“Sounds weird,” Rainbow remarked, hauling her guitar case off her back. “Shimmer, you set up our sound equipment yet?”

“Not yet, but it's all ready to be plugged in.” Sunset took a moment to help herself to a cupcake, hoping maybe the sugar would help her feel a little better.

“Awesome! AJ, gimme a hand.” Rainbow started plugging in their sound equipment. “So, Flash, you here to listen to us jam?”

The lone male in the room glanced at Sunset, then back to Rainbow Dash. “Sure. Haven't heard you guys since the Battle of the Bands. You...got what you needed with your scanner thing, right, Sunset?”

Finishing the cupcake—and regretting it a little when she stood up and her stomach lurched—Sunset wiped her hands off on her jeans. “Yeah. I’ll want to scan you once a week or so to establish a consistent profile, but we can talk about that later.” She needed to move, to do something to burn off the energy that was making her skin itch from the inside. “What are we playing first?” An amber skinned hand grabbed her electric guitar, checking the cords and giving it a test strum to make sure everything was in order.

Fluttershy fiddled with her hair. “Maybe we could start with ‘Shine Like Rainbows?’”

“Oooo!” Pinkie hopped gleefully over to her drums. “I like that one! It always makes my insides all squishy and tingly!”

Blue-green eyes slipped shut for a moment. Pinkie was right about the feelings the song evoked. She knew the bulk of the song was about friendship, but the opening lines always hit her hard, and in her mind, when she played those chords and put her all into that first verse, it wasn't her friends she was directing it at. They could have the second verse. For her, the first verse called to mind the very girl she’d spent the morning worrying about. “Shine Like Rainbows sounds like a good start. Maybe we can do that new one Fluttershy finished last week too.”

“Yeah,” Dash settled into her spot now that everything was arranged to her satisfaction. “I spent the weekend with Shy working out the arrangements on that. With you backing me up, Sunset, we can get a little more creative without losing the sound. Is your thaum-thingy recording yet?”

“Thaumometer. I actually started it up after I scanned Flash. I wanted to get an idea of if things change when we aren't playing. Flash, hit the green button on that big thing by your elbow?” When he did, the redhead ran her hand through her hair. “I’m ready to go.”

“Right! Let’s do this! Pinks, count us off!”

It felt good to play, something about the power in the opening notes of the song soothing her nerves, and like it often did as she let her fingers instinctively find the right chords to fill in and enrich the sound of the lead guitar and the bass, Sunset’s mind drifted. Purple eyes filled her mind’s eye, and the magic under her skin throbbed warningly, right before her vision blurred.

She could still see the room she was in, could feel the way her fingers continued playing, could hear the song as Applejack began the first verse. She even saw a worried look on Flash’s face as he started to stand....but that wasn't all she saw. Darkness had filled the room, translucent but still powerful enough to make her skin crawl, and two figures emerged amidst the black, half out of focus and as insubstantial as the shadows that reminded her far too much of the writhing void-spawn from her nightmare. Yet...even out of focus she knew the first form, could feel the knowledge burned into her bones—Twilight Sparkle, staring down a monstrosity that was horrifying to look upon even as indistinct as it was. Stretched and gaunt, with limbs too long and spindly to be human, and over long fingers that ended in talons, it was a parody of a human figure. Too pale skin was colorless—not white, like Rarity, but truly without color, and catlike eyes and oversized, pointed ears capped off its look, as it reached for Twilight with a hand that oozed noxious foulness that reeked so strongly of the darkest forms of magic that Sunset actually gagged. She took a step, wanting to wrest her girlfriend away from whatever it was...

And as quickly as it had begun, the vision ended, and every bone in her body burned so badly tears sprang to her eyes. The magic surged, and it felt like she was melting from the inside out, her legs threatening to give out. The former unicorn wanted to drop her guitar, to cry out, to beg her friends for help, but she could not stop playing. Her eyes widened when the magic raced through her body towards her skull—it was treating the music as a complex spell matrix that was midcast!

The feeling of ponying up had never hurt before, but this hovered on the line between pleasure and pain, enough that the moment her ears were under her control again, Sunset pinned them back, her senses reeling from it all. That meant she couldn't even cry out a warning—she had just enough in her to make sure her horn wasn’t pointed at anyone or anything before all the raw power she’d been feeling leapt through her skull and burst free from the end of her horn.

The room was bathed in crimson light as the magic expanded outwards from its source. The sudden brilliance made the other girls falter in their playing—Rarity hit three sour notes on her keytar and Rainbow completely missed her cue for her lines—but as the wave touched each of them, they became caught up in the magic and their playing found harmony again, even as their own pony ears relocated and Rainbow’s wings pushed her several feet into the air. Sunset could feel the magic within her friends joining hers, until the brilliant red itself was transformed into a blazing Rainbow of Light.

The lights in the room flickered warningly under the presence of the Elements of Harmony and their strongest power, the beautiful display of color and magic making Sunset’s senses sing. Love and friendship, intertwined with the virtues each of the girls embodied filled her until she felt her heart would burst, and in that moment, caught between the euphoria of the Rainbow and the fearful vision of Twilight, she found herself wanting to turn the magic loose on the threat and drive it away from her girlfriend for good.

The song had reached a crescendo, and with it, the rising energy in the air. The fluorescent lights overhead dimmed and brightened, before overloading with a series of worrying pops, leaving the sole illumination in the room a large window and the shimmering hues of the Rainbow that exploded outward in all directions, passing through the walls and floors of the school as if they were not even there, the light of it growing to a blinding intensity.

The impact it had on her senses and the raw force of the magic drove Sunset to her knees, and the former unicorn could feel herself wavering, control slipping from her grasp, no matter how much she struggled to tighten her will on her magic. Just before it shattered entirely, she felt an arm around her back, offering support and providing strength that gave her focus to renew her mental grasp. She was dimly aware of a voice buzzing distantly in ears that hurt. “It’s okay, pony-girl, you got this, and your friends? We’re all here with you. You’ve got this...”

*Evil cackling*

*Leaves the week on a cliffhanger*

*runs off*

(sorry, not sorry.)