The Lost Connection

Chapters

2 - The Offer
3 - The Reveal
4 - The Task
5 - The Call
6 - The Proposal
7 - The Situation
8 - The Setup
9 - The Prelude
10 - The Dance
11 - The Sirens
12 - The Faceoff
13 - Volaticus
14 - The Reunion
15 - Sometimes You Still Lose
The True Ending
1 - The Abduction

2 - The Offer

Pierce Network yawned and powered off his computer. It was nearing sundown here at Canterlot High, and it was about time for the computer teacher to head home and sit in front of his home computer for another few hours while he ate dinner. Pierce liked good food but couldn’t be bothered to cook for himself, hence his fridge was stuffed full of ready to eat meals from the local department store.

As Pierce entered the Canterlot High parking lot, he was pleased to see that Vice Principal Luna’s car was still here. That woman burned the midnight oil even more so than he did. Chuckling, he unlocked his grey sedan and slipped into the driver’s seat.

It was a short drive back to his home, a plain one-storey house with a front porch and built in garage. He activated the door with his phone; like most of the devices in his house like the porch lights and the burglar alarm, they were all linked to his cell phone for easy access.

Parking the car in his garage, Pierce exited the vehicle and proceeded into his house through the garage side door, unlocking the lock with his phone.

The man slightly smiled to himself as he thought about how convenient everything was with his phone and modern technology. He wouldn’t have lived this long if it weren’t for this trusty companion here.

Pierce shrugged his coat from his shoulders, setting it down on a chair before getting himself a glass of water from the sink. He opened the fridge and pulled out a sealed box, opened the wrapping, and put it into the oven, setting it for twenty-five minutes, like he did pretty much every evening.

The computer teacher picked up his glass of water before going into his room, where his high-end computer was. With all the latest in hardware and software, this was a rig that was matched only by the one he maintained at Canterlot High. Most of his salary had gone into souping up both computers, and it was for that reason that every student at CHS knew not to touch his school computer, lest they invoke the wrath of Pierce Network.

Powering up his PC, Pierce was about to sit down and start surfing the net when he was interrupted by his doorbell ringing.

Ding-dong!

He sighed and got up. “Who could be ringing me at this hour? I didn’t order anything, so it mustn’t be the delivery man. Let’s just go have a look and see what we’ve got…”

Bringing up the security feed for the camera he had installed above the front door, Pierce was surprised to see Principal Celestia standing on his doormat, her handbag slung over one shoulder. She looked up at the camera and smiled.

“What on earth is Principal Celestia doing here at my home?” he asked himself as she looked back down at his door. “She’s never come here. Is it something important? Did I do something wrong in school again, perhaps? No, I haven’t hit a student in months. It must be about something else.”

Sighing, Pierce Network unlocked the door and pulled it open.

“Mr. Pierce!” Principal Celestia said brightly. “Just the man who I wanted to see.”

“Principal Celestia,” the computer teacher greeted. “Odd to see you here. I thought perhaps I had done something wrong in school, but I realize I didn’t, so that isn’t why you’re here. Is this something important that you had to see me in person? No one’s ever come all the way here before.”

“There is something important I have to tell you,” Celestia continued to smile, gesturing with one hand. “But let’s go inside. I don’t feel like explaining it all on your doorstep.”

Pierce raised an eyebrow, but gestured for her to enter anyway. That was an odd statement. Principal Celestia never phrased anything like that before. Maybe this important thing wasn’t a good thing.

“Please, sit,” he pointed to his chair. “Would you like a glass of water? Water’s good for the body. Kids these days just enjoy their flavored drinks. They’re not as healthy as kids back in the day.”

Pierce could have sworn he saw Celestia’s eyelid twitch, as if in annoyance, but that couldn’t be. Principal Celestia was well known in all her social circles for having unlimited stores of patience. Then she nodded her head and widened her smile.

“Yes please.”

The computer teacher walked over to his kitchen and filled up another glass with his tap water, returning a few seconds later and handing it to his principal.

“So what is it you wanted to talk to me about, Principal Celestia? Is the school looking for some changes? If you’d like, I can boost up the firewall and the internet for you. The school doesn’t exactly have the best protection there is. I can think of plenty of ways to increase its security.”

Celestia’s smile seemed to broaden.

“Actually, I had something far more… personal to talk to you about. Now if you’ll just take a seat…” The principal gestured to an empty chair across from her.

Dutifully, Pierce sat down. And that was when Principal Celestia pulled back her left sleeve and shot him in the knee with a phantom blade dart.

Pierce instantly reacted, grabbing for his knee as he fell to the floor, gasping in pain. It hurt badly when he moved his knee, forcing him to keep it bent, unable to get up on his feet. Then Principal Celestia rose off her chair and bent down beside him, a calm and peaceful smile still on her face.

“W-What… why?” Pierce knew there had been something odd about her the moment she came into his home, but as he lay there cradling his leg, he still couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Then he remembered the phantom blade under her sleeve. Very few people in the Assassin Brotherhood had used that weapon. “It can’t be…”

“Here, let me give you a hand,” Celestia said, bending down and taking Pierce’s hand. Then she raised it to her mouth and bit down. Pierce gasped as a pair of two inch-long fangs punctured his skin, shooting a paralyzing venom into his bloodstream.

Soon, he realized he couldn’t move anymore, but the pain in his knee was still terrible. “H-How are you still alive? I watched the news… You died… Fell off your balcony… How are you here? How are you Principal Celestia?”

Principal Celestia folded back the arms of her wristbow, smirking down at him.

“And you thought a little tumble like that would be enough to kill me? You underestimate me, Pierce Network. As for how I am Principal Celestia, let’s just say that I’m very adept at copying others.”

Pierce looked back down at the ground and gritted his teeth, trying to steel his nerves against the pain. “I know why you’re here. You’re here to finish what you started all those years ago. You killed the rest of them, but you didn’t kill me. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You’re here to finish what happened that night I escaped from you.”

“You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?” Celestia said, reaching into her jacket and pulling out a short, jagged black dagger that hissed with green toxin along its length. She licked its blade before returning it back to its sheath. “I could finish you right now… but that would do me no good at all. What I’m giving you today, is a chance to earn your pardon.”

“Earn… my pardon?” the computer teacher repeated. “What do you plan on doing? I know you enough to know I can’t trust you… What could you possibly… be planning? It can’t be something good… How did you even find me? I was sure I covered all my tracks...”

“Nothing escapes the Board of Education’s eyes… and even if the Templars are finished, their data still stands. Finding you with their information was childishly simple,” Celestia glared at Pierce with a malice that the real Celestia would never have on her face. With her fangs out, this Celestia looked like a vampire, and Pierce was the main course. “You didn’t even bother to change your name.”

Pierce looked at her and sighed. Thinking back, perhaps he should’ve changed his name. He had shortened it to just Mr. Pierce, but apparently, that wasn’t good enough. Mirror Match had still managed to track him down, probably realizing the names ‘Pierce’ and being a computer teacher were too good to be a coincidence.

“So what are you planning?” he asked her again. “What do you... have in store for me? Is it some grand scheme to return... to the top of power once again?”

Celestia waved her hand dismissively. “Nothing so melodramatic. I simply want to take back what’s mine.”

“What’s yours…? What do you possibly hope to accomplish here, Mirror Match? Even I am unsure of what you want, exactly, and I usually have it all planned out. That’s how I... evaded you for so many years. I had planned everything... down to the small details. I even stopped wearing that brown coat of mine, hoping that I wouldn’t attract any attention with it on. And I was right… I did avoid it. Until now.”

“Oh, for the love of the queen, will you just stop talking? You’re giving me a headache,” Celestia growled, taking aim with her phantom blade. “Or this goes into your other knee, and we’ll see how talkative you are then.”

Pierce narrowed his eyes, but did as she said. He didn’t need a second arrow. The first one was already doing its job of hurting him badly.

Celestia put a hand on her chest, composing herself. “As I was saying, I want to take back what’s mine. My fortune and my estate. When I was declared dead by the authorities,” Celestia’s face darkened. “They froze all my assets and put my home into dispute. I want it all back. And you’d better be able to help me, or I will ensure that your life becomes as much of a living hell as I can make it.”

Dipping her fingers into her handbag, Celestia drew out a sheaf of papers.

“These papers document all of your illegal activities, from hacking the Board of Education’s database, to all your killings in the Assassin Brotherhood as well as your career as a vigilante in Chicoltgo. Yes, I looked into those as well,” Celestia said smugly, spreading the papers out on the table for Pierce to see. “You can keep this set, I’ve got extras. If you refuse, I will distribute these documents to the authorities.

“And in case you think of trying anything clever once my bite wears off, I think you should know: I’ve got the real Principal Celestia tucked away in one of my safehouses. You kill me, and Celestia will die of starvation,” Celestia smiled thinly at Pierce. “So, what will it be?”

The computer teacher didn’t see another option. If he wanted to live, if he wanted to find a way to stop her, he first had to play along. As for the real Principal Celestia, he had to protect her. “What do you… want me to do first?”

Celestia beamed down at Pierce.

“Oh, I knew you’d see the light. Well, first thing is for you to wait until my bite wears off. Then tomorrow, after I’ve fed Celestia, we’ll talk about what I want done. Deal?”

“What… What about my leg? How am I to get around like this…?” Pierce knew there was blood dripping down his injury to his floor, but he didn’t know how much blood he was losing. “How can I help… like this?”

Celestia blew air from her nose. “That’s your problem, not mine. I suggest you get that fixed up, or our partnership will be rather short-lived.”

Pierce grunted, but there was nothing else he could do until the bite wore off, nor did he have anything more to say to Mirror Match.

“Don’t bother getting up, I can see myself out,” Celestia rose to her feet, her knees cracking as she did so. She stopped at the door. “Sayonara, Pierce Network. I do look forward to working with you.”

And then she was gone.

Pierce, unable to do anything more, simply lay on the floor, putting up with his pain, waiting for the poison to wear off. This was going to be a while.

3 - The Reveal

~Three Hours Earlier~

Princess Celestia watched herself pace around the chair she was sitting in, her body still paralyzed from whatever poison she had been administered. She could feel her fingers begin to twitch, but other than those small movements, she couldn’t do anything else but move her eyes and speak.

“Who… are you?” she asked herself. “You’re not… me from the other world, are you?”

“No, I am not,” the other Celestia said smoothly. “I’m from this world. As for who I am… isn’t it obvious? I’m you.”

“But… how is that possible?”

“Well, strictly speaking, I’m not actually you,” the other Celestia shrugged. “But I’d say my disguise is close enough, wouldn’t you say? Your hair color wasn’t easy to mimic, I’ll tell you that.”

“Disguise?” Celestia would’ve drawn back in shock, but she couldn’t move. The disguise was so good that no one would look twice at her. Even Celestia didn’t know it had been a disguise. “Who are you? You’re not me. You’re an impostor. What could you possibly want with my job? I’m just a principal.”

“Oh, but you see,” the other Celestia fluffed her hair and shrugged. “I don’t really have anything to do with you. It’s all to maintain leverage over your computer teacher, Mr. Pierce, or if you’d prefer me to refer to him by his real name, Pierce Network.”

“Pierce? Mr. Pierce?” she repeated the man’s name. “What could you possibly want with him? What good am I to you? We’re just colleagues.”

The other Celestia clucked her tongue disapprovingly.

“You might consider him a colleague, but I assure you, there’s a lot more to Pierce Network than you know,” she held up a handful of papers. “Want me to tell you?”

Celestia watched the papers and swallowed. What did this false Celestia know about the man? She always knew Pierce was an odd one, but how odd was he, exactly?

“G-Go on…” she mumbled.

“Very well! Did you know that your Mr. Pierce is actually wanted for a string of murders and hackings as part of his career as a vigilante in Chicoltgo? Here are the police files,” Celestia watched as her doppelganger thrust a sheet of paper under her nose. There, captured by a security camera, was Mr. Pierce. He was wearing a different coat and had a scarf pulled up over his mouth and nose, but Celestia could still recognize him.

“It can’t be… His records were clean when we hired him,” Celestia wanted to shake her head, but she couldn’t. “I did hear of this vigilante, but... if he’s not a teacher, what is he doing here?”

“But wait, there’s more. After moonlighting as a vigilante, Pierce Network went on to join a group of assassins, killing even more in their name. I have the exact list of his targets here.”

Celestia looked down at the sheet of paper with its lengthy list of people. She recognized a few of the names, like Lucky Deck and Juniper Woods, from the news.

“No way… What have I gotten myself into?”

“And when the assassins ran into a tight spot,” the other Celestia continued. “He bailed on them and ran away to hide at your high school. That’s what he does when he’s in trouble. He runs. Like the coward he is.”

“So what do you want with him?” Celestia felt her toes wiggling now. “Even if he is who you say he is, I can’t let you hurt him. Leave it to the police, otherwise you’re no better than he is.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Celestia’s doppelganger said in a sing-song voice. “I need Pierce Network to do some work for me, and keeping you here is what’s preventing him from simply killing me and moving on. If he kills me, then you can look forward to starving to death, because nobody knows you’re here; even you don’t know where you are. Killing him would do me no good whatsoever. But I do plan on hurting him,” a shadow passed over the other Celestia’s face. “Oh, yes. I plan on hurting him very much for all the trouble he’s caused me.”

“You-You won’t get away with this,” Celestia told her doppelganger. “If not me, someone else will stop you.”

“Maybe,” the other Celestia said lazily. “But I rather doubt it. I’ve been at this game for a very, very, long time, Celestia. Longer than you’ve been alive. I know what I’m doing. Now, before my bite wears off, I’d like to show you your new accommodations.”

“B-Bite?” Celestia wasn’t sure if she’d heard right.

“Unfortunately, you’ll be confined to this room for the most part,” Celestia’s doppelganger pointed to Celestia’s right leg, which she could now see had a manacle and chain attached to it which led to a metal ring in the wall. “But I do intend on making your stay as comfortable as possible. We’ve got a single bed with a feather mattress, an ensuite bathroom, and your own TV set. I’ve brought you a few changes of clothes from your place, and I’ll be dropping by every morning and evening to cook for you. Any questions?”

“Why go through so much trouble if you kidnapped me?” the principal could almost feel the muscles in her neck, moving her head slightly. “Kidnappers aren’t usually this accommodating.”

“Oh, I don’t want you to think of this as a kidnapping,” the other Celestia said kindly. “I want you to consider yourself a guest. A forcibly detained guest, but a guest nonetheless.”

Principal Celestia knew she had to escape and alert the local authorities. She couldn’t just sit here and let this woman pretending to be her do as she pleased with Mr. Pierce, even if he had a shady background. Celestia knew she had to do something, but for now, while the poison still did its work, she had no choice but to wait here.

“And in case you’re thinking about escaping, which I really hope you aren’t, that chain is solid steel and the front door is locked from the outside. So please don’t entertain any thoughts of foolishness while you’re here. I said I wanted you to feel like a guest, and it’s hard to keep that level of hospitality if we’re at each other's throats all the time.”

Celestia said nothing, because she had nothing else to say.

The other Celestia smiled softly at her. “Oh, don’t look so dour. This will all be over before you know it. Trust me on that one.”

Yeah right… Celestia thought to herself. She doubted she would just be able to walk out when all this was over.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting with Pierce scheduled,” Celestia’s doppelganger scooted out of the room and toward the front door. “I’ll be back later. Ciao!”

~Four Hours Later~

“I’m ba-ack!” the other Celestia sang as she waltzed in the front door, a bag of groceries in her hands.

Principal Celestia, who was resting her head on the table, looked up as the groceries were dumped beside her head.

“You’re seriously cooking?” Celestia raised an eyebrow. She’d never heard of a captor cooking for their captive before.

“I said I would, didn’t I?” the other woman said with a smile. “Besides, it’s been far too long since I’ve been able to cook for anyone other than myself. I used to be quite good at it, you know.

“Now, I know you won’t be able to come near the kitchen with that chain on your leg,” the other Celestia continued. “But I’ll try to get it done as quick as I can, then we can eat dinner together. How does that sound?”

“Eating dinner with you?” Celestia looked between the groceries and her captor. “Why are you even holding me here? Why don’t you just let me go. You’re already a very unusual person.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Celestia’s doppelganger muttered, her cheery demeanor evaporating for a second. “But enough of that. I’m going to cook. Feel free to watch TV or read a book while you wait; I promise I won’t take long.”

“What about my sister?” Celestia needed to know. “She’d realize I’m gone. She’ll call the police and they’ll come find me.”

“Oh, yes. Vice Principal Luna,” the other Celestia’s smile didn’t waver. “Well, I’ve given her a bit of a sleeping draught and she’ll be out all of tonight. And I’ll be slipping her half-doses throughout the rest of this little caper, so she’ll be too tired to think straight. You see, Celestia, I’ve thought of everything.”

Principal Celestia simply stared in shock at the other Celestia as she picked up the grocery bags and hummed her way to the kitchen.

“I swear, if you hurt Luna…”

“Oh, don’t be melodramatic,” the other Celestia called back from the kitchen. “It’s a sleeping draught, not a poison. Now calm down and wait like a good little guest; I’ll be back shortly.”

And so Celestia waited while her kidnapper busied herself in the kitchen. There were the sounds of food preparation: utensils being clashed against saucepans and the sizzling of cooking meat. A little over half an hour later, the other Celestia returned with two covered cloches.

“So what did you make?” Celestia humored her captor. Not like she could do anything about it at this time anyway.

Her doppelganger smiled and set the cloches down before lifting the lids, releasing a fine, toothsome smell. “Roast lamb cutlets with mint sauce, served with a side of mashed potatoes and salad.”

“So… we just eat?” Celestia watched as the other Celestia sat down across from her. “You didn’t put poison in it or something? Or some of that sleeping drugs you have?”

“Now what good would that do me?” the other Celestia pouted. “Besides overcomplicating the recipe to make it all still taste good, knocking you out or poisoning you wouldn’t do me any good at all. I want you to be comfortable here, that’s all.”

Celestia squinted her eyes, but picked up the fork and knife and began working on cutting her dinner into bite sized pieces. Swallowing hard, she stabbed a piece of lamb and brought it into her mouth, chewing ever so slowly, part of her not trusting the woman across from her.

“So, how is it?” her doppelganger smiled and placed her head atop her hands.

“Even though you’ve kidnapped me and everything, I hate to say it, but this is really good,” Celestia said after swallowing.

And it was delicious. The sauce had just the right amount of mint in it, and the mashed potatoes were just the right texture, light and fluffy. Celestia dug into her meal with gusto, quickly finishing her food. She wiped the last of the juices from her lips just as the other Celestia was finishing her own meal.

“I’m glad you enjoyed the meal, Celestia. It’s been… what, two years since I’ve been able to cook for someone else?”

The other Celestia picked up her spoon and gazed wistfully at her reflection in the polished silver.

Celestia smiled ruefully. “What, did you kidnap them too?”

“Funny thing,” the other Celestia said, putting down the spoon. “I kind of did. I do miss him though. He was such a good source of love.”

“Source-source of love?” Celestia looked at her funny. “What did you kidnap him for?”

“Why, for food, of course.”

“So… you kidnapped him to… eat with him…?” Celestia asked confusedly. This woman sure had a weird way of spending time with people too.

The other Celestia chuckled darkly. “Celestia, what do you think I am?”

“What do you mean?” the principal raised an eyebrow. “You’re not human?”

“Do you think a human could imitate you as well as I’m doing?” her doppelganger smiled.

“Well…” Celestia thought about it. “Honestly, I don’t know. That man you kidnapped… you didn’t… eat him, did you?”

The other Celestia burst out laughing, slapping her knee in mirth.

“No, no. I don’t eat people, darling. What, did you think I was some kind of cannibal?” The laughter abruptly stopped. “But I will tell you that I am no ordinary human.”

“If you’re not human, then I don’t know what you are,” Celestia shrugged. “I don’t suppose you’d want to tell me?”

The other Celestia yawned. “Another time, perhaps. Right now, it’s about time for me to see to Luna’s naptime. I’ll be back tomorrow morning to cook breakfast and lunch, then it’s off to school.”

Celestia’s doppelganger gathered the dishes and washed them, then gave her a cheery wave and departed.

Principal Celestia sat alone as everything around her grew quiet. She sighed and looked out a window, bars built in between her and the window to prevent escape. The moon was now high in the sky as cars began to show up less and less as people retired to their homes at the end of a long work day.

She hoped Luna would notice something odd about her doppelganger and call the police. If anyone, her sister should be able to spot the differences between them, but as the other Celestia had said, she had been giving Luna sleeping drugs.

Principal Celestia looked around the room, trying to find anything she could use to escape. The chain and shackle around her leg seemed to be made of solid steel, which meant she wasn’t going to be breaking it any time soon, unless she had something powerful, like a sword or a hammer. She looked at the chain again. Maybe a sword wouldn’t even work.

Eventually, her thoughts drifted to her school’s computer teacher, Mr. Pierce. According to the other Celestia, he was a dangerous man, using CHS to hide for the last few years. She didn’t know if she fully believed her doppelganger, but it did explain a few things, like how the man had beaten up two of her students once. She had reprimanded him and even reported it to the Board of Education, but nothing had been done about it.

She returned her attention to the table. There, all nicely held together with a silver paper clip, were the documents that the other Celestia had been showing her earlier. She hadn’t had the chance to give them a proper look. Her curiosity piqued, she reached over and picked them up, starting at the first page.

Author's Note

Pierce Network, done by Cinders of War.

4 - The Task

Celestia was awakened by the sound of the front door opening. She groggily opened her eyes, hoping for a second that she would find herself waking up in her own home, in her own bed.

No such luck.

While the feather mattress that the other Celestia had provided was extremely comfortable, it was still a far cry from her bed at home.

“I’m back!” the false Celestia greeted as she tossed down another bag of groceries on the table, before puffing up her spectral hair. “How was sleep?”

“Decent enough, I suppose...” Celestia scratched at her hair. “Do I get to shower or anything like that? I kind of smell…”

“Certainly you can take a shower. I even cut a hole in the bathroom door so that the chain would fit through. Aaaand…” The other Celestia fished out a bottle of shampoo from the grocery bag. “I got you this too. I know just how hard it is to maintain hair like this, so I think this will work out just fine.”

“Thanks for the thought.” Canterlot High’s principal took the bottle and placed it down beside her. “Another question, will I ever get to leave this place?”

“Well now that depends of several things, most of all Pierce. If he follows through on his part of the deal, then we’ll see.”

“Then we’ll see?” Celestia echoed.

“Look, just take your shower, and I’ll cook breakfast. How do you feel about waffles? I like waffles.”

Grabbing the shampoo, Celestia got up and walked to the bathroom. “Waffles are fine.”

The bathroom was just a small and simple white space, taken up with a single sink over a cabinet, along with a toilet bowl and shower stall. The principal shut the door and quickly undressed, stepping into the shower and turning on the water. Almost as soon as the water hit her pale skin, she screamed and jumped back, standing a good distance away from the falling water.

“The water's cold!” she yelled as loudly as she could, hoping her captor could hear her. “Don’t you have a heater in this place?”

“The red button next to the sink,” the other Celestia called.

The spectral haired principal got out of the shower and found the button by the sink, flipping it down before returning back to the shower. True to her word, the water was now warm. Celestia spent a good long time in the shower, but was unable to truly enjoy herself due to the feeling of the shackle around her ankle. Eventually she emerged, letting steam out into the bathroom. After getting dressed, the principal walked back out into the dining room, where her doppelganger had just finished placing two plates of waffles and fresh fruit.

“You sure took your time in there,” the other Celestia said. “Till I get my funds back, maybe cut down a little on the heater, hmm?”

“What, worried I’ll raise the electric bill?” the principal sat down on the chair.

“A little,” the other Celestia said flatly. She gestured to Celestia’s bedside cabinet, where Pierce Network’s records were strewn. “Doing a little late night reading?”

Celestia nodded. “I wanted to confirm it all for myself. I needed to know if one of my staff members is really what you say he is.”

“Well, you’ll find that everything I’ve told you is true. I don’t lie, Celestia.”

Celestia didn’t know whether to laugh or get angry. “Yes, you do.”

“Well, not about that anyway. My kind lives based on deception and subterfuge; it’s only natural that we be good at lying as well.”

“Right…” Celestia folded her arms, not impressed. “So, what are you? Ready to explain that to me?”

The other Celestia frowned slightly. “Oh. You’re still hung up on that, are you?”

“Not like I really have anything else to do here, do I?” Celestia waved a hand. “So are you telling me or not?”

The other Celestia sighed, rubbing her temples before spearing one of her waffles with a fork. “Fine. Let me tell you a story. Once, there was a great and powerful queen, who had many servants. Eventually, all of her servants died or turned away from her, until there was only one servant remaining. This queen and her loyal servant ruled over many different kingdoms and domains until one day, the queen made a mistake,” Celestia watched as her doppelganger clenched her fist around her fork, as if she was about to stab someone with it. “A mistake so huge that it caused her one loyal servant to leave her. And now-”

“Let me guess,” Celestia said, taking a bite of her fruit. “You were that queen?”

“No, actually,” the other Celestia said, putting down her fork and taking a drink of water to calm herself. “I’m the servant.”

“Servant, huh?” Celestia stabbed her waffle with her fork. “So what now, since you’re no longer serving this queen. What does Pierce have to do with this again?”

“All right, I’ll tell you,” the other Celestia said. “Think back to the winter holidays. You may recall someone called Mirror Match, who fell off her balcony in Manehattan and died. Remember?”

“Mirror Match?” Celestia asked. “Yeah, of course I know her. She used to sponsor plenty of parties for the Board of Education. What about her? Was she this queen you’re talking about? Did you have something to do with her death?”

“Hardly. You want to know the truth, Celestia? Well, here it is. The same Mirror Match who was thrown off her balcony is the same person who’s sitting across from you right now.”

The room seemed to darken, and a sinister little smile grew on the other Celestia’s face. The principal’s own was twisted into one of confusion and shock. None of it seemed to make sense, but a part of her believed every word.

“B-But that’s impossible! You’re dead!”

The other Celestia shrugged, popping a strawberry into her mouth. “I was dead for about a day. Then I got better.”

“You what?” Celestia drew back, like touching her doppelganger would poison her or something. “What are you really? You’re not human, that’s for sure.”

“Another time, perhaps. Right now, I’ve got to get to school. By the way, your lunch is over by your bed, next to those documents you’ve been reading. I hope you like chicken and swiss cheese,” the other Celestia stood up and put her finished breakfast dish away. “Feel free to take your time with breakfast. I’ll be back in the evening to cook and wash up.” Finished with putting her dish away, Celestia’s doppelganger gave her a cheery wave and left out the front door, locking it from the outside.

Pierce Network slowly inched out of his car, careful not to bump his knee against anything as he slammed his car door shut. Trixie, who had been walking close to the parking lot, jumped when he did so, but quickly moved along after she saw the computer teacher’s grumpy face.

Pierce had patched up his knee to the best of his knowledge, using what he remembered from his time with the Assassins. Patch had been of great help when he was there, whether he wanted to admit it or not. He applied what he learned from her and got the dart out of his knee before applying disinfectant and stitches, before bandaging it all up. It still hurt when he walked, but at least he didn’t have to go to a hospital.

“Morning, Mr. Pierce!” a boy with a brown ponytail, Jetstream, wished as he walked past him on the school’s main steps.

“Morning,” Pierce said in a low monotonous voice, struggling to get his right leg up the stairs.

The boy observed his movement and placed a hand to his chin. “What happened to your leg, Mr. Pierce? Need a hand?”

“No,” the computer teacher answered immediately. “Don’t you have homeroom to get to? You kids always enjoy hanging out till the last bell, don’t you? My advice, get to class and stay there. That way, we teachers don’t have to worry if any of you are late.”

“Sure, Mr. Pierce, I’ll get going.” The boy headed into the building, passing Pierce quickly as he didn’t have a leg injury. “If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to ask Jetstream!”

The brown haired man eventually arrived at his classroom, using his phone to take his attention away from the pain in his leg. As he pushed the door open, he let out a sigh of relief as he saw his computer sitting on his desk, as clean as he had left it the previous day. If it was anything that made him cool down, it was his tech.

He pulled out his chair and sat down, stretching his right leg out to reduce the pain. Unpacking his backpack, the teacher pulled out a stack of worksheets and a cheese sandwich in a paper bag, which was to be his breakfast.

Booting up his computer, Pierce took a bite out of his sandwich and entered his password when the prompt came up, then took another bite soon after.

Pierce brought up his lesson plans and his programs, quickly syncing his phone with his computer before licking his fingers clean after finishing up his breakfast.

The teacher watched as his homeroom class entered, his finger flicking across his mobile device’s screen as he marked each kid off as they found their seats.

If it was anything good that had come out of him hitting the two boys a few months ago, it was that there hadn’t been a student that was late for his classes since. Fear was a crude tactic, but Pierce had no problems with using it.

“M-Morning, Mr. Pierce,” Lyra Heartstrings greeted as she found her seat beside Sweetie Drops.

“Morning,” he replied flatly as he brought the projector screen down, activating the projector itself with his phone.

“Everyone’s here? Good. Welcome back to another day of school, I suppose. We’re starting on a new project today, which is to model a 3D character. I’ll be handing these papers out with what you have to do. The faster you get into it, the faster you can get this assignment done.”

Pierce got up to hand out their worksheets, but he forgot about his knee, almost falling flat on his face if he hadn’t caught onto his desk.

“Mr. Pierce?” Watermelody asked from the first row. “Are you alright? Do you need help with that?”

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, standing upright and straightening his shirt. “But here. Do hand these out for me. It’ll be more efficient if each of you take one and pass on to the next. Saves me the hassle too.”

Pierce sat back down after explaining the details to the students, watching as each of them got to work behind their laptop screens. The computer teacher himself got on his phone, flipping through their previous assignments, which they had turned in before class.

Eventually, the first bell rung, releasing the students from his class. Pierce watched them all leave before the next set of students entered, warily finding their seats.

Pierce got up and tried stretching his leg out as he took a few steps around his desk, trying to find the best possible way to walk with this injury, at the same time, explaining the modeling assignment to the second class.

If he was anything, he was time efficient.

Soon, he returned to his seat as the class began their work, using his phone to look over their previous assignments again. Some of the students were rather creative with their material, but some were just really bad at it. Two of his students had made baseball bats. It was like they weren’t even trying at all.

His grading was disturbed when Flash Sentry walked up to his desk, rubbing the back of his head.

“Yes, what can I do for you, Flash? Make it quick.”

“You okay there, Mr. Pierce? You seem… hurt. Do you need any help around the class?”

Pierce frowned and slapped his baton on the desk, making the blue haired boy jump. “It’s not important, Flash.”

The computer teacher sighed as Flash quickly retreated back to his seat. He knew the boy only wanted to help out, but Pierce didn’t like anyone doing so. Deciding he needed to take his mind off all this, he got up and dragged himself to the projector screen, slapping his baton against one of the program’s tools in the toolbar.

“As I was saying class, this program is the one I want you to open. Inside, you’ll find the tools you need to craft your very own 3D model. The instructions are straightforward. If you kids don’t understand it, you really should ask… Principal Celestia to swap you to another class of your liking.”

“I wish.”

Pierce turned his head, his eyes honing in on the student who said it, Dense Bush, a boy with green skin and brown hair. “What was that, Mr. Bush?”

The student slunk back in his chair and put on a big smile, shaking at the same time. “N-Nothing… Mr. P-Pierce.”

“That’s what I thought,” Pierce snorted, turning to get back to his chair. “Get to work, class.”

He continued to mark their homework and answer any questions the students had on their assignment, all the while, grumbling in his head. He had all these students to deal with all the time and now, Mirror Match had returned, threatening to end his career and his life. What else could possibly go wrong now?

The school bell brought Pierce’s attention back to the classroom as students began powering off their laptops and shoving them into their backpacks.

“You know your work, kids,” Pierce said as some already began leaving the room. “Get as much as you can done, I’ll see what you’ve all got tomorrow. There better be a decent amount of progress, or you might find yourself getting more work tomorrow. I don’t know why you kids work so slowly, but since I don’t know what goes through your heads, I’ll give you more time, just don’t take advantage of my kindness. I might be reasonable, but I won’t play nice. Good day, kids.”

When the last of the students disappeared out the door, the computer teacher leaned back in his seat and sighed, closing his eyes. He didn’t have class for the next two periods, meaning he would be able to plan his next move. He still didn’t know what that witch had in plan for him, but he doubted she was going to let him go after it was over. He had to think of something and he had to do it as soon as he could. Principal Celestia’s life was also on the line.

He had about fifteen minutes of quiet before there was a knock on his door. He didn’t have time to answer as Principal Celestia pushed it open, gently closing it behind her.

“Well now,” she said slyly, locking the door. “How are we doing today?”

“Bad, thanks to you,” he maintained eye contact as she walked up to him, leaning on his desk. “You’ve made life miserable for me right now. I can’t drive with my right leg, I can’t walk nearly as fast as I want to-”

“Aw, boo hoo hoo,” Celestia said sarcastically. “As long as your hands work, I couldn’t care less about how your leg is feeling. Now, about what I want done.”

Pierce groaned and pulled his cap lower. “So what do you want me to do…”

“What I want, is for you to return the ownership of my funds and my penthouse to me. You can do that, can’t you?” Celestia eyed Pierce critically. “Otherwise we’re going to have a serious problem.”

“That’s it?” Pierce lifted an eyebrow. “That’s all you want done? I could normally do it, yes, but after what you’ve done to my knee… How do you expect me to get around and stay hidden like this? If you want me help, fix my leg. I know you can do it. We’ve seen the reports of your healing skills. Don’t say you can’t do it, because I’ve seen them with my own eyes. Some kind of elixir you use can heal us, yourself included. Now if you really need my help, I suggest fixing my knee first, because I won’t be able to do anything like this. You should’ve thought about that before shooting me in the knee in the first place.”

“Can’t you just do it from here? I thought that’s what hackers do, cause trouble from the comfort of their own home, and all that.”

“You don’t know a thing about hacking, do you? In order to get access to databases, I first need to install a program on their antennas at the top of their buildings. That’s how I’ve always done it. That allows me to do as I please after that. I have to climb to the top using my skills, but after what you’ve done… What do you expect me to do? You’ve got to do something about this before I can do something for you.”

Celestia stared long and hard at Pierce, her gaze pinning him to the chair he was in. Then she broke eye contact and turned away.

“Then I suggest you find someone to do it for you, because I’m not wasting any of my healing power on you. I scarcely have enough for myself. So maybe you should find someone to do all that climbing, and soon, because every moment you spend idling is another moment Celestia is rotting in her cell. Good day.”

Celestia unlocked the door and left, slamming it on the way out.

Pierce wore an unamused face, but at the same time, his mind was racing as to how he was going to complete this task. Mirror Match had powers. Every Assassin had known that, but she wasn’t even willing to even get up on the building to plant the bug for him?

“Really, does she even need my help or is she just finding ways to torment me further?” Pierce said aloud for himself to hear. “She could easily scale the building that holds her funds and property, but she won’t even do that for herself? What does she think she’s doing? Where am I going to find someone to help me with this?”

Pierce Network thought back to his old associates in Chicoltgo. There had been plenty of them who knew the basics of hacking, but would they be willing to come back into the shady world? He doubted that himself. The only contact worth contacting was an old hacker who went by B-Tone, who had been one of his friends back then. Pierce hadn’t kept track of him, but perhaps he was still out there fighting against injustice.

Pierce scrolled down his phone, looking for B-Tone’s name in his contacts. Putting it to his ear, he was eventually dismayed to learn that no one was picking up on the other end. He tried it four more times before giving up, slumping back in his chair in defeat.

“Who else can I find that would be willing to help?” he mumbled. “I need someone who knows their way around some hacking and someone who can climb. Where can I find anyone like that besides my old contacts in Chicoltgo? This stinks. To think that getting something like this done would be so hard. What is this world coming to?”

His mind wandered to his other associates, the Assassins. He wasn’t sure if they were still around, as he’d heard about their bureau being raided, but if any of them were still alive, maybe they could help. Nobody could climb like an Assassin, after all. The question was, would they be willing to help him after he had left them? He couldn’t think of anything, but he had no choice. There wasn’t anyone else to turn to. If he wanted to live, he was going to have to take a leap of faith with this plan.

5 - The Call

“Here, Mr. Pierce?” Jetstream asked as he tilted the antenna down a little.

Pierce Network looked up at the school’s roof, where Jetstream was standing, squinting as the sun’s rays shone down under his cap and into his eyes. “A little to the left. I still don’t have a connection. Just keep moving it until I tell you. You don’t need to keep asking.”

Jetstream blew a strand of hair out of his eye and continued, tilting the antenna more to the left as he was instructed.

Pierce kept his eyes on his phone, watching as a green bar on the side wobbled and shook, signifying the bad connection he was having. The rest of the screen was currently black, but he couldn’t do anything till the boy arranged the antenna properly.

Then for a split second, the bar straightened, only to go back to its previous state again.

“Back a little, Jetstream!” Pierce called up to the baseball player. “I had it a second ago. Just move it slightly back.”

“You got it, boss!” the boy responded and moved the antenna back slowly.

“Okay, stop,” Pierce said once the bar righted itself again, this time staying unwavering. “Good. Just leave it as it is. You may go. I’ll send a late note to Mr. Bray. Just make sure you go straight to class. Don’t take my kindness for an excuse.”

“You got it! Glad to be of service, sir!” Jetstream waved from the roof as he headed back to the rooftop door.

Pierce had made use of the clueless baseball player, because he always seemed oblivious the the problems around him. Since he was always talking to the computer teacher like there wasn’t a problem with the world, Pierce figured he put him to some use, which paid off.

With the antenna moved to his liking, Pierce would be able to transmit a message to any remaining Assassins out there.

A part of him still didn’t know if asking their help would work, seeing as he had abandoned them in troubled times, but he also knew he didn’t have a choice if he wanted to save Principal Celestia and get rid of Mirror Match.

Typing the message, he watched as it was sent out through a coded frequency, only able to be read by an Assassin.

Walking back into school, all he could do now was wait and hope someone was still out there and listening.

“I’m back,” Celestia’s doppelganger announced, entering the house with another bag of groceries.

Celestia put down the documents she had been reading and looked up. The other Celestia seemed in a far worse mood than this morning, if the furrowed brow and pursed lips were anything to go by.

“Something on your mind?” she decided to ask her captor. “Something mess up in your plans, perhaps?”

“That Pierce Network is useless!” the other Celestia exploded, throwing her bag onto the table with a thump. “What kind of a hacker is he needs to actually go to the place that he needs to hack in order to do it? I should just kill him and hire someone more competent!”

Celestia wasn’t going to let her double kill anyone, especially not one of her staff, no matter what he had done in the past. He was still human after all.

“W-Why don’t you let him go to the building then? I’m sure he can still help you with what you want, right?”

“He said it himself,” the other Celestia fumed. “He can’t climb anything with his leg in that condition. So if he can’t do it, I may as well dispose of him and get someone who is better suited for the job.”

“Wait, what happened to his leg?” Celestia didn’t recall the man having any injuries or problems. Besides, he’d always looked rather fit for someone his age.

“I shot him in the knee with my phantom blade,” the other Celestia growled. “And I hope it’s hurting him badly. He deserves it for all he’s done, though it does make taking back what’s mine that much harder.”

“So it’s your own fault he can’t help you out,” Celestia sighed and folded her arms. “Well, if you really wanted it done, why don’t you help him with that? What do you even need done that he has to climb a building?”

“It is not my fault-!” the other Celestia began, but then she put a hand on her chest, composing herself. “I’m sorry,” she said eventually. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. A reaper should never lose her temper. But Pierce Network makes me so angry.”

“He does, does he? But you shot him in the knee.” Celestia couldn’t see how her other self wasn’t responsible in a way, but she guessed she wasn’t going to admit her mistake. “So is that what you are? A reaper? What’s that?”

“It’s my title. But let’s not talk about boring things like that. I’ll cook dinner. How do you feel about spaghetti?”

Celestia gave up with the questions. Over these few days, she learnt that when her doppelganger didn’t want to talk anymore, she wouldn’t.

“Spaghetti’s fine. You know, you cook pretty well for a kidnapper and all.”

“Those two things,” the other Celestia said as she tied an apron around herself. “Have nothing to do with each other.”

Celestia laughed. She never had time to consider it, but to see herself talking to her was actually a very strange occurrence. It was like looking in a mirror, only that your reflection could talk to you and keep you hostage.

“I guess not…” Celestia admitted. “So how do you do it? Looking like me and sounding like me? I mean, I really see nothing that can tell us apart.”

“It’s something my kind have long since perfected since before the medieval days, the art of disguises.” There was a hiss as the other Celestia put some bacon in the pan. “As for your voice, we’ve always been good at copying things if given enough time to survey the original. I spent two weeks stalking you and learning your mannerisms before moving in to replace you.”

“You were watching me?” Celestia was shocked. “You’ve gone through a lot of trouble to get me here. All this just to get back at Pierce?”

“Ordinarily I would have spent longer, but time was of the essence. I need Pierce to take back what’s mine, and if he performs well enough, I may even decide to spare his life.”

Celestia blinked. “What do you mean, ‘take back what’s yours’?”

The other Celestia sighed. “Look, you of all people should know that Mirror Match was officially declared dead by the authorities over the winter holidays.”

“Yes, I saw it on the news, just like everyone else,” Celestia nodded.

“Well, I’m clearly not dead, but coming out and explaining that would just be too much trouble for everyone, and reveal far too much about me. So instead, I’ve taken up Pierce with the task of hacking back all of my money and possessions, and assigning them to a new identity,” the other Celestia said proudly. “It’s a rather good plan if I say so myself.”

“It does sound good, except that you shot him in the knee. Can’t you do something about that?”

“I can, but I won’t. I have no intentions of wasting my healing power on him when I’m not at full strength yet.”

“Can’t you just climb the building for him and do as you have to to get him to hack the stuff back for you?” Celestia suggested. Anything she could do to keep Pierce alive.

“Now, would it be seemly for you to be seen climbing a building?” The other Celestia poured out a jar of red sauce into a pan and stirred it. “Remember, I am you, and I am trying to keep your reputation in check as much as possible. So no, I don’t think I will be doing any climbing. Besides, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Too much strain, and I’m nowhere near full strength.”

“That does raise a good point,” Celestia leaned on the table. That would also hurt her reputation. “Well, then you really shouldn’t have injured him. It seems like he’s your only bet now.”

“You know all his dirty secrets.” The other Celestia sniffed as she stirred the spaghetti in the pot. “And you’re still concerning yourself with him? You are an unusual person, Celestia.”

“He may not be the person I knew, but he’s still a person,” Celestia answered. “If I can help it, I won’t let you kill anyone.”

“Well, you can’t help it. As the Queen’s Reaper, it’s my job and responsibility to execute all of the queen’s enemies. And Pierce has made himself a rather big enemy of the queen. But enough about that. Let’s eat.”

The other Celestia returned from the kitchen with two steaming plates of spaghetti with red sauce, lightly sprinkled with crispy bacon bits and served with a side of assorted vegetables drizzled in Prench dressing.

It looked so good that Celestia had to control herself from gobbling it all down.

“This is good.” Even if she was kidnapped, she still felt she had to compliment her captor. Her cooking skill really was something else. “This is amazing.”

The other Celestia leaned back in her chair and inhaled, smiling as she did so. “Why, thank you. I grated some parmesan into the sauce while it was cooking, to give it a slight edge. Can you taste it?”

“Mhhm,” Celestia confirmed, wolfing down her dinner. Her double also proceeded to begin eating, though with a little less enthusiasm.

It was about when Celestia was polishing off the last of her lettuce when she noticed something.

“You’ve only eaten a few bites,” she pointed out. “Is something wrong?”

“No, not really,” the other Celestia shrugged noncommittally. “I get my energy not from food, but from others. And your gratitude is serving me nicely.”

“You don’t need food?” Celestia found that intriguing. “Why not?”

“I do need some food,” the other Celestia amended. “But after a few mouthfuls, I prefer the taste of someone else’s good feelings. In this case, yours.”

“Wait, feelings?” Celestia wore a confused face. “You eat… feelings?”

The other Celestia nodded once. “I do. It’s one of the abilities of my kind. Taste and smell emotions, that is. Aaand now you’re feeling fearful. Please don’t. It doesn’t taste nearly as nice.”

“Well, why wouldn’t I feel fear?” Celestia looked at herself. “You’ve kidnapped me, you’re trying to kill one of my teachers, no one else knows you’re an imposter and you’ve drugged my sister!”

“Well it all sounds very bad when you put it that way,” the other Celestia said awkwardly. “I mean, it isn’t all that awful, right?”

“It is,” Celestia replied flatly. “It’s terrible.”

“It could be worse…” the other Celestia mumbled. “I mean, if this is a kidnapping, you’re the most comfortable kidnap victim ever. And Luna’s in no real danger either. As for Pierce, he deserves everything that he’s got coming. You wouldn’t understand.”

Celestia exhaled and looked out the barred window. “You don’t have to kill him. There are other ways of seeing justice. Besides, what did he do that you want to make him suffer so?”

“Let me tell you another story. Shortly after the queen and her servant parted ways, the queen’s servant saw the error of her ways and looked for a way to get back to her queen and ask for forgiveness. However, the queen was crafty, and had hidden herself from her servant, taking on a completely new identity. In order to find her queen, the servant turned to a group of people called the Templars, who were building a machine that could be used to locate the queen. However, before it could be used, another group of people called the Assassins destroyed the machine, and with it, any hope of the servant using it to find her queen again. Pierce Network was one of the Assassins who was there, who destroyed the machine. And I will make him pay for it.”

“I heard of these two factions from an old student of mine,” Celestia recalled. “But surely there are other ways to find this queen of yours. How did you even know that the machine would’ve worked? Maybe instead of killing him, you can get him to find her for you.”

“That’s… not a bad idea, actually…” the other Celestia put a hand on her chin, thinking. “If I could put up something irresistible… something that even she would fall for…” she glanced at a calendar that was hanging off the fridge. “Yes… that might work!”

“Right, see? You just need to think,” Celestia smiled. “You don’t need to kill Pierce. Besides, he’s been valuable to the school in his own way. He’s good at what he teaches and he even did up a better network connection and firewall for us.”

“I’ve come up with a plan to draw out my queen,” the other Celestia said excitedly. “And I think you and your school can help me. How soon can I organize a Valentine’s Day dance?”

“Wait, what?”

The other Celestia told the principal her plan. She didn’t like it.

“But you can’t use my students as bait like that!” Celestia argued. “They’re just children!”

“I don’t need your students,” the other Celestia said with a grin. “Just the love they produce. I won’t harm a hair on their pretty little heads.”

“What about your queen? If she somehow smells their love and comes, do you guarantee their safety? The safety of my staff and students?”

The other Celestia paused. “Now, ordinarily I would say yes, but after a hundred years, who knows? People change over time, and I don’t know how my queen will react to so much love. But that’s family for you, eh? The ones closest to us are sometimes the most unpredictable.”

“If you can’t guarantee their safety, then I can’t let you go on with that plan!” Celestia raised her voice slightly. “I can’t let harm come to any of them. Please, consider all this.”

“...And I’ll have Network do all the advertising! It’s perfect!” Celestia’s doppelganger jumped to her feet and gave Celestia a pat on the head. “Thank you so much for the idea, sweetie. I’m sure I’ll be able to repay you someday for it, if it works.”

“Hey, are you listening?” Celestia stood up as well. “Hey.”

“Oh, how wonderful it will be to see the queen again!” the other Celestia’s face was positively radiant. “If this works, I might even decide to spare Pierce’s life.”

That last sentence got Principal Celestia’s attention. There was a chance that she could save her computer teacher here, but was she willing to bet the safety of her students on this? She sat back down, her mind deep in thought.

“I hope I can make it before I change,” the other Celestia muttered to herself anxiously.

“Change? What are you talking about now?”

“Nothing,” Celestia’s doppelganger said quickly. “Once Pierce gets my money and home back, I’ll see about this dance. Valentine’s Day is next week, yeah? There should still be time.”

“Now how is this queen even going to know about this dance?” Celestia leaned back in her seat. “I mean, unless she can smell really well, she’s gonna have a tough time finding this place.”

“I believe in Pierce’s ability to advertise the dance properly,” the other Celestia smirked. “Well, if that’s all, I’ll wash up and then head home. Your bed’s very comfy, by the way. Squishy.”

“Wait,” Celestia grabbed her doppelganger’s arm. “My sister, Luna, I want to know she’s doing fine.”

The other Celestia seemed to think for a moment before pulling out Celestia’s own smartphone out of her pocket, holding out tantalizingly just out of reach.

“Fine. Call her. On one condition.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow.

“Give me your hand,” the other Celestia commanded. Celestia offered her right hand, only to have it waved aside. “Your other hand.”

Stretching her left hand out for the other Celestia, Principal Celestia was shocked when her doppelganger opened her mouth and placed her hand in between her teeth. Only then did she hand her the phone.

“Call your sister if you must, but if you call for help, I’ll bite. Capiche?”

Celestia could see and feel all too well the pair of fangs that were jutting out of her double’s mouth and she shuddered involuntarily. Just another reminder that whoever this other Celestia was, she wasn’t human and couldn’t be expected to abide by human rules.

“O-Okay.”

Tapping in Luna’s number with one hand, Celestia raised the phone to her ear and waited. She didn’t have to wait long.

“Hello?” Luna’s bleary voice came from the other end.

“Luna? Hey, it’s me. Just wanted to check in on you. Is everything fine?”

“Tia? Where are you? Why aren’t you at school?”

The other Celestia mouthed ‘meeting’, all the while keeping her fangs pressed against the back of Celestia’s hand.

“I-I have a meeting out of town, Luna,” Celestia said carefully, but at the same time, her mind was a whirl, trying to plan a way to let Luna know what was really going on, but without letting her captor in on it. “J-Just calling back to check on you, dear s-sister.”

“Oh. Well, I’m fine. Bit tired though. And before you ask, yes, I drank that herbal tea you prepared for me. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Herbal tea? Ow!” Celestia gasped as one of her double’s teeth poked her skin. “Right, yes. The tea. I’m glad you’re drinking it, Luna. How does it taste? Good?”

“You should know, you made it,” Luna yawned. “I think I’m going to head home early today. Been feeling really tired lately.”

“Umm… Okay, you take care, sister. Don’t push yourself too hard.”

“Okay, Tia. Goodbye.”

“Rest well…” Celestia said as the line clicked off. “There, happy? I didn’t blab. Can you let go of my arm now?”

“Certainly,” the other Celestia took back the phone and pocketed it. “So now you know that Luna’s okay, I guess it’s time for me to head home. Your home, that is. Well you know what they say, mi casa es su casa. I’ll see you tomorrow morning then, Celestia.”

The principal sighed and nodded. She didn’t have anything else to say, nor did she have the will to do so.

Her doppelganger waved goodbye and headed out, locking the door behind her with a click. Celestia was left to herself, covering her face as she thought of everything and everyone she was missing.

6 - The Proposal

Pierce Network waited out at the side of the school building where students didn’t normally go to, looking at his phone as he stretched out his injured leg in front of himself, leaning back on the bench he was sitting on.

Most of the students would’ve probably cleared the building already, only leaving the ones who still had activities to go to.

“What have I gotten myself into…” Pierce mumbled and rested his head in his hand.

Everything had been going almost smoothly the last two years. Sure, being a teacher wasn’t easy, but no one had bothered to look twice over here for him until now. He knew the tales of Mirror Match. Hay, he’d seen them first hand back when he tried to take her down when he was still in the Brotherhood.

He had asked the Assassins to meet him here, but now that he thought about it, perhaps Canterlot High wasn’t the best place to meet. He could’ve always picked somewhere less populated or perhaps somewhere out of sight from the regular joe, but he had already sent out the message, so it was too late to fix up a new meeting point without risking someone going to the wrong spot, that is, if anyone got his message at all.

He opened the weather app on his phone, looking up the forecast. Thankfully, it looked like it was going to be clear skies all day, so he didn’t need to worry about waiting out here in the rain.

“So you really are still alive, huh?” a female voice said close behind him.

Sitting up straight, Pierce turned his head to see a familiar woman with white and green hair tied up into a braid, standing just behind his bench, her arms folded across her chest. She had on a blue jacket over a black tank top and pink shirt. Pierce wouldn’t have normally wanted to see her again, but like it or not, she was exactly what he was looking for: an Assassin.

“Morning Blade,” he nodded his greeting. “Nice to see you. I heard a lot of what happened on the news. Glad to see you’re still alive. Things had been pretty bad in the recent months, huh? How-How has everything been? I hope these years haven’t been too hard on you.”

Morning Blade glowered at him.

“What do you want?” she asked with her eyes narrowed.

Pierce sighed. He knew things weren’t going to be easy with her.

“Morning Blade, I need your help in a matter,” he explained. “It is of utmost importance that we succeed. To do that, I really need your help.”

“You didn’t seem to need me two years ago when you ditched us.”

The statement cut right through to the heart of the matter. Morning was still angry at him for leaving the Assassins.

“Now, Morning Blade, look, maybe I shouldn’t have, but right now, none of that matters. Mirror Match, she’s still alive and she’s coming for me, and if I don’t do as she says… You can guess what happens.”

“But Mirror Match is dead,” Morning protested. “They said so on the news.”

“Well, she isn’t. She’s visited me and I have the injury to show,” Pierce rolled up his pant leg to show Morning the bandages around his knee. “She wants me to return her funds and her home to her or else… Wait, that’s right. You were a student here. Right here in CHS. I remember High Noon telling me something like that. It’s a pity that cowboy didn’t make it. He was a good Assassin-”

“Pierce,” Morning interrupted. “Quit rambling and get to the point.”

“It’s Principal Celestia. It isn’t just my life on the line, it’s hers. Mirror Match has been pretending to be her and the real Principal Celestia has been captured and put somewhere I cannot locate. If I don’t get these for Mirror, we’re both in trouble.”

“Wait, what? Mirror’s impersonating Principal Celestia? Do you realize how mad this all sounds? How can she be doing that and not get caught? I mean, the two look nothing alike.”

“I didn’t even know it was her until she shot me in the knee. She’s clever, always has been. I’ve come to learn never to underestimate Mirror Match. You shouldn’t either.”

“Look,” Morning said crossly. “Even if I believed you about all this, which I don’t, by the way, you still haven’t told me what you want me for. You’re a traitor and should be served as a traitor deserves.” Morning punctuated this by unfurling her hidden blade menacingly.

Pierce frowned, then looked around wearily before focusing back on Morning. “Until I figure out a plan to stop Mirror Match, I have to buy time by doing what she wants. This is where you come in. I need someone to climb up the real estate office building and the Manehattan Central Bank to plant bugs so I can hack their systems. With my leg in this condition, I’m in no position to climb.”

Morning Blade looked skeptical.

“So you just want me to… climb a building? That’s your angle?”

Pierce shook his head disappointedly. “That’s all I can do for the moment… Will you help me, Morning Blade?”

Morning looked uncomfortable.

“Look. If you really are telling the truth, then Celestia’s really in danger, is she?”

“I’m afraid so,” Pierce nodded. “As a staff member here at Canterlot High School, there’s no way I’d let Mirror Match harm the principal. She has to be stopped, but the only way to do that is to buy time to come up with something. We cannot let injustice win. That was the reason I started being a Vigilante back in Chicoltgo. I couldn’t just let all these bad things happen in front of my eyes without doing something. Sometimes, it’s necessary to do something bad to prevent further chaos, but as an Assassin, you already know that.”

“Right, whatever you say, Pierce.”

“Hmm…” the teacher put a hand to his chin. “Is anyone else around? Perhaps with numbers, we can come out triumphant. Is Frigid Night available? If anything, that kid had resolve and fighting skill.”

“Pierce,” Morning said quietly. “Frigid Night is dead. The rest of the Assassins besides Keila, they’re all dead.”

“All of them?” Pierce asked, his mouth hanging open.

“It’s just as well anyway. The Assassins are finished anyway, without the artifacts to protect.”

Pierce rubbed at his chin vigorously. So much for his plan of assembling an attacking force. Now there were just two left and Pierce had never spoken to Keila before. When he had left, they still had her in the medic wing, on the verge of death.

“It’s a shame. I heard about High Noon and Dewdrop over the news, but to think Frigid Night as well… This changes things. So are you in, Morning Blade? Can I count on you for this job?”

Morning snorted. “Spare me. I know you; you’re not sad about anything.”

Pierce was slightly taken aback. Slightly. “It doesn’t matter what I feel. What matters is whether you can help me and take Mirror Match down.”

Morning Blade folded her arms and looked away. “Fine, I’ll join. But just remember, I’m not doing this for you. This is for Principal Celestia and only Principal Celestia. I couldn’t care what happens to you.”

“Very well,” Pierce replied. “As long as I can buy enough time to come up with a plan, I don’t care what you think of me. I just need you to get the job done. That’s really all there is to it. It’s us and Mirror Match. This Keila, do you think she’ll come? I sent out the message to all Assassins.”

“If she still has her phone, she’ll come,” Morning grunted. “Now tell me, what exactly is going on here?”

“We should find a better place to talk,” Pierce kept looking over his shoulder, anticipating Mirror Match to be watching him from somewhere. “A more comfortable one at that. I can’t really sit very well with my leg like this and she just refuses to heal it for me to do her work for her. I don’t know what her problem is, but I intend to find out exactly what she’s trying to do here.”

Pierce slowly pushed himself up and shuffled forward, beckoning for Morning Blade to follow him to his car. Perhaps he did have a slight chance of coming out of this alive after all.

Morning Blade scaled the rooftops of the tall Manehattan buildings, jumping from pipe to pipe, testing their steadiness before making her climb up. She looked down, noticing the few bustling vehicles down on the streets. It was already close to midnight and most people were already home with their families or on the way.

Morning sighed as she grabbed a ledge to the side and shimmied over. She’d only just gone back to be with her family for a few months when all this Assassin business caught up to her again. She had brought out her hidden blade from her cabinet just in case. Maybe if it was Frigid Night calling her back out, she’d gladly come, but it had been that traitor, Pierce Network, the one who left them two years ago when they really needed every help they could get.

Morning Blade shook her head. Now wasn’t the time to think about that. She put her hand into her pocket, pulling out a tiny bug that Pierce had given her to plant onto the antennae of the real estate office.

Looking up, Morning groaned internally as she looked to the top of the building; she still had at least ten meters to go.

They sure have a really big building…

Morning Blade shimmied along a ledge, hauled herself up an overhang, and continued her climb upwards. She had taken the elevator to the highest floor and proceeded up from there, but it was still an impressive distance to the antennae.

“Morning to Pierce,” she grunted into her headset. “You’re sure this is the right building?”

“Of course I’m sure,” the computer teacher’s voice came out on the other end. “I’m no amateur in this line of business. I’d do it myself, but you know what happened. I always do my research beforehand so that I don’t hack the wrong database. Getting the right place is very important in hacking.”

Morning Blade tuned out the rest of his explanation on hacking as she grabbed ahold of displaced bricks, making her way closer to the roof. Soon, she found herself staring up at the antenna tower, watching its blinking red and green lights as the winds blew around her, tossing her white and green braid around.

“Pierce, I’m almost there,” she said as she placed one hand on the metal tower.

“Good. Now when you reach the top, there’ll be a rectangular power box you need to access,” Pierce said as Morning easily began climbing up, using its metal rungs as handles to quickly pull herself up. “Simply pull it open and place my bug against the bottom wires, attaching the plugs to the two black wires that should be there. Once that’s done, I should be able to hack my way into the real estate agency’s database and do what I need to do from here.”

Morning placed both feet on the top support and pried open the fuse box with her hidden blade. “Gotcha. Attaching the wires now.”

Back at Canterlot High, Pierce Network and Celestia were gathered around his computer, watching as the bug did its work.

“Syncing at one hundred percent… bypassing firewalls… and we’re in,” Pierce reported. “See? What did I tell you? It’s like child’s play as soon as you get the bug in their systems. People don’t know how to create secure firewalls these days. Even this school didn’t have a good one when I first started my job here. If not for me, I don’t know how many people would’ve hacked their way into the school’s systems.”

“Just stop talking and do your job,” Celestia hissed, glancing over her shoulder at the window in the locked door. “I don’t like having to do it here. It’s too exposed. Couldn’t we do this with a laptop in some net cafe?”

“I only work from my own computers,” Pierce said stubbornly. “Any other computer is inferior and insecure. So it’s either here or from my house. I built these up myself. I’ve made sure no common hacker will be able to get into my systems and steal my information. I don’t make it easy for people to do what I do. Some people think they’re untouchable behind their computer systems, but if you really want to be secure, you should build something like mine instead of buying or using one that you can randomly find in stores.”

“Remind me why I give a damn about your computer recommendations,” Celestia said coldly. “Now that you’re in, you can get my penthouse back, yes?”

Pierce pulled down a list of files, opening one into a black screen with green words and numbers scrolling down the screen. “We just need to find the right data and change it. Now, this is where I need your information. Without it, I won’t be able to find the right house and file it under the right name.”

“Information’s all right here,” Celestia pulled out a thumbdrive from her pocket and tossed it onto the computer table. “My new name, my new identity, everything. So don’t mess up.”

Pierce grumbled and plugged the thumbdrive into his computer, watching as a new folder popped up on his screen.

“Ivory Wings…” he read. “So this is also the name you want me to transfer your money to as well?”

“Obviously.”

“Is this in any way a reference to Ebony Wings, the famed actress?” Pierce raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to be like her, perhaps? Start up a life of acting like she has and earn your money and fame through normal means? I would think that that’s a much better idea than all this.”

“I don’t remember asking for your opinion,” Celestia growled. “And I can’t stand Ebony Wings. Why anyone would make a hack like her an academy acclaimed actress is beyond me. Let’s see how she feels when she finds out there’s someone with a similar name, but much better at everything. Ivory Wings is my new chosen name, so hurry up and get me my penthouse back.”

Pierce got back to work and rubbed at his head as he searched for the penthouse under the list of properties. Finding Match Mansions, he tapped away at the keys, adding two lines of code, opening a new window. In this new window, he inserted Ivory Wings’ particulars and details, registering the building under her name.

“There, your home is yours once again,” he cracked his knuckles and closed the tabs. He placed a hand to his earpiece and said, “Tone, you may go. Our job is done here. The next building is Manehattan Central Bank. Do you know where that is? It’s close by. You just need to follow the road and make a left turn at the next junction. You shouldn’t miss it. They have their name built across the roof. Silly people. If I were the owner, I wouldn’t display my name like that. It really gives you away.”

“I think the point is to attract business,” Celestia observed sourly.

“Well, it makes it easier for Tone to find,” Pierce shrugged and pulled out his phone. There was no better way to speed up time than this. He opened up a news app and scrolled down the front page, looking out for interesting things that have happened recently. He didn’t know how long it would take Morning Blade to get to the next building, but hopefully this false Celestia would let it be. He had told her it was an old associate from Chicoltgo, after all, not an Assassin.

There was an article about a fire just here in Canterlot a few weeks ago that just mysteriously vanished. That had caught the computer teacher’s attention, but once he read that it might’ve been the shopkeeper’s imagination, he flipped to the next one.

“Some people…” he mumbled to himself. “They think something’s happened, but in reality, it was all a figment of their imagination. They should always check if it really happened before posting their findings to the newspaper. That would save them the time and disgrace. Magical fires that disappear. If I ever find something like that, I’ll be sure to record it on camera so that I have proof.”

“I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to speed this up?” Celestia asked drily, examining her fingernails.

“Actually, there is something…” Pierce said, not looking up from his phone.

“Hmm?”

Pierce produced his wallet and drew out a pair of one dollar notes. “Go to the vending machine and get me a box of those caramel candies. Should be on the second to last row. They’re actually quite tasty if you ask me. I don’t know why the students never touch it, but it doesn’t matter. More for me.”

Celestia looked at him with a mixture of disbelief and disgust on her face.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Once you try it, you’ll know,” the teacher answered. “Besides, you want to take your mind off this waiting time? This’ll do just that. It never hurts to have a walk after a long while of sitting down at the computer. Normally, I’d go do it, but after what you did to my knee, I’m going to have to settle with sitting here. So why don’t you go get those candies for the both of us? I’ll sit here and coordinate your monies.”

Grumbling under her breath, Celestia snatched the money from Pierce’s hands and stomped out of his room to the vending machine. Pierce sat back and pulled up a video on a speech from the new mayor of San Franciscolt, listening to the man drone on and on as he waited for either Celestia or Morning Blade to get back to him.

“Tone,” he whispered into his earpiece. “What’s your location.”

“Getting there. Don’t rush me,” Morning Blade replied him. “Besides, what’s with this ‘Tone’ deal?”

“Just roll with it. It’s a name of an old friend back in Chicoltgo when I was still a vigilante there. I don’t want to give away your real identity yet. Our… friend might not take so kindly to your real name if she knew. You know how it is. She’s a tricky one, so we’ve got to play by our own set of rules here.”

“Riiiight. I guess she would remember me from the Assassin days.”

“Exactly why we need to be careful about this,” Pierce nodded his head, even if Morning couldn’t see it. “She might suspect something is up if I let her know you’re the one helping me out. So for now, you’re Tone, from Chicoltgo. It’s no problem. Tone was a good hacker. He taught me some things I never knew.”

“If you say so,” Morning grunted as she began to climb the side of the bank’s wall. “What happened to the real Tone anyway?”

“Oh, uh, he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. That’s the story most people think, anyway. I helped him get out, but no one else knows that. I thought it was pretty clever to do that. Now no one’s looking for him.”

“Is that so?” Celestia’s voice came from over his shoulder and made him jump. She threw a small box onto the table, where its contents rattled. “Here’s your bloody candy, now how are you proceeding with my money?”

“He’s on his way,” Pierce explained. “Said not to rush him. I guess that’s a decent idea. He might get into an accident if he doesn’t watch where he’s going, but I can tell you that he should almost be there, okay? The buildings aren’t that far apart.”

The computer teacher pried open the caramel candy box, gazing at the round lumps of sugar inside. He picked one up and tossed it in his mouth, feeling the chewy caramel flood around his mouth, sticking to his teeth as he ate it.

“Here, help yourself,” he lifted the box to the fake Celestia. “I did say you should try some. They are rather delicious. Not the healthiest snacks, but they taste nice. It’s really a wonder why not many people at school get this from the machines. When I get them, there’s always plenty left.”

Celestia skeptically picked up one of the candies from the box and popped it into her mouth. “Awfully sticky, aren’t they?” she said, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping her fingers.

“That’s what caramel is like,” Pierce said as he licked his fingers and put his hands back on the keyboard. Celestia looked at him disgustedly, but said nothing.“Sticky. It’s the stuff it's made of. But forget the stickiness. It’s the taste that matters. I’m sure even someone like you knows how to enjoy something as simple as this.”

“Eeeh, they’re okay, I guess. How’s your man getting on with planting the bug? Is he there yet?”

“Tone, what’s your location now?” he asked his companion again. Now that he thought about it, he should’ve tracked Morning Blade’s number, but it was too late for that.

“Finding my way up the building,” Morning Blade replied in his ear. “I can guess the cleaners here haven’t cleaned the higher floors. The windows are grimy and the pipes are really too rusty.”

“Got it. Be careful. Don’t want you falling now. Falling from that height might not only kill you, but you’ll probably break every bone in your body too. Don’t push yourself. Just go as you see fit.”

“Wait, you’re telling him to slow down?” Celestia said through her chewing. “No, tell him to hurry up. I don’t have all day.”

“If Tone falls, you don’t get your money back,” Pierce said flatly, taking another caramel treat and licking his fingers. “If you want your money, you’re going to have to let him go as he sees fit. He’s not a very good climber, so give him time. If you want to blame someone, you can blame the Manehattan Central Bank. Apparently they don’t clean the outside of their upper floors. Terrible. Imagine looking out the window and seeing grease and smudges. I’m guessing the people up there don’t do that very often.”

Celestia gave him a look that could have curdled milk, but nodded all the same. She raised one hand to her chest and inhaled, breathing out slowly, wincing as she did so.

Pierce noticed it and turned to face her. “Something the matter?”

“No. Everything is fine.”

“Huh. If you say so,” Pierce said and went back to looking at his phone.

"Pierce, I’m at the top. Opening the antenna box now,” Morning Blade said in his earpiece. “So what happens after this?”

“We’ll see…” he said as he snuck a look at Celestia, who was busy taking another candy from the box, examining it up close. “Let’s just deal with this one first. I just need the bug in place and I can do my work from here. It’s all child’s play, really. These bugs really make it easy to get what I need.”

In just three seconds, Morning Blade relayed the green light back to Pierce, finished with planting the bug. The computer teacher cracked his knuckles and accessed the bank’s databanks from his computer, making his way into their transaction screen. He rapidly typed in a few codes, opening a new window, asking for some personal information. Entering Mirror Match’s new identity, he watched as the money from her old account quickly transferred to her new name.

“There you go,” Pierce pulled at his cap and leaned back. “Money’s yours once again. So what happens now?”

The brown haired man put his hand into his pants pocket, gripping on tightly to a taser he had hidden in there earlier. From the outside, it looked like any old phone or wallet, but as long as the fake Celestia didn’t know what it really was, his plan was working. He had no doubt that now that he was finished with his task, she was going to finish him off, but at least he had prepared something, at least, to slow her down.

“Well, now I need your help with something else,” Celestia leaned back and smiled. “I want to organize a Valentine’s Day dance, and you’re going to help with the advertising.”

“A Valentine’s Day dance?” Pierce relaxed the hand in his pocket. “Why on earth would you want to do something like that and what has that got to do with me? I’m a hacker, not a dance organizer. Besides, I think Valentine’s Day is a waste of time. People don’t need to be dancing when they have better things to do, like studying or even sports.”

“I’ll do the dance organizing,” Celestia said firmly, putting a hand on Pierce’s shoulder. “Seeing as I’m the principal. All you need to do is advertise it. Capiche?”

“Advertising seems easy enough,” Pierce flipped his phone in his hand. “I simply need to gather the students in an assembly and convey the event to them. Seeing as they’re kids, they might like this sort of thing, especially if they have special partners already. I don’t, so I haven’t been particularly interested in these sorts of things in my life. They just waste your life away when you could be doing something much more productive.”

Celestia clucked her tongue disapprovingly.

“Not quite that kind of advertising. I want everyone to know about this dance. From here to Fillydelphia to Trottingham. Think you can do that?”

“You want…” the teacher wore a shocked face for a second, but that soon returned to his usual frown. “You want people in other cities to know about this? You’re not planning on inviting non-school students to this dance, are you? It’s not safe for the kids. Who knows what kind of people you might bring in from the other cities. And why do you even want to do that for? What are you trying to do?”

“Never you mind what I’m trying to do,” Celestia reached into her jacket and pulled out her crooked black dagger, its length hissing with toxin as it made contact with the air. “If you don’t want me to stick this somewhere uncomfortable, you’ll help me advertise this dance.”

Pierce grumbled and folded his arms, but nodded his head. “Tone, you can leave Manehattan. We’re done there.”

“Alright. I’ll see you back in Canterlot. Do… Do try not to die yet.”

“I’ll be trying my hardest, Tone.” Pierce powered off his computer and pushed away from his table on his roller chair. “Well, Principal Celestia, there’s nothing more I can do about that tonight. You’re going to have to wait till tomorrow so that I can make some calls to some advertising companies to help out. You’ll need to get your hands on some banners and posters. Are you able to manage that? I don’t know where you’re going to get the resources for that, but I’ll leave it to you. You seem resourceful enough.”

“I’m sure the student body will be willing to help out,” Celestia said confidently, sheathing her dagger. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, Mr. Network. Good work today.”

7 - The Situation

“I’m ba-ack!” the other Celestia sang as she pushed open the front door, her usual burlap sack of groceries in tow.

“Do you always start with that?” Principal Celestia rested her head on a hand.

“Would you prefer I not announce myself? What are you watching, by the way?”

Celestia gestured vaguely to the TV. “Daring Do. They’re having a marathon on channel five, so I figured I’d watch some to pass the time.”

An odd look passed over the other Celestia’s face. “It’s not one of the newer ones, is it? Because I really can’t stand-”

“There’s nothing you can do to stop me now, Daring Do!” the antagonist, Ahuizotl, yelled at the tied up treasure hunter. “The artifact is mine, and mine alone! Not yours!”

Just then, a red haired woman in a black catsuit swooped in on a zipline and kicked him in the face, sending the artifact spiraling towards a cliff, stopping at the edge.

“No! The artifact!” Ahuizotl flew for it, but tripped over the woman’s stuck out foot, falling and hitting his nose on a rock. He didn’t get back up.

“Cat Scratch, you again!” Daring struggled against her rope. “What are you doing here?”

The other Celestia facepalmed. “...her.”

“Daring Do?” Celestia asked, confused.

“Not her, her!” Celestia’s double jabbed a finger at Cat Scratch. “That actor…”

“What, Ebony Wings?” Celestia watched the character as she untied Daring Do. “What’s wrong? She’s a great actor. She’s won so many awards.”

“She’s a hack who’s done nothing to earn those awards,” the other Celestia said bluntly. “I mean, by my standards, all the acting on TV is pretty bad, but Ebony Wings is the worst. I could act a hundred times better than she could.”

“Uh huh,” Celestia looked unamused. “Right.”

“I’m acting as you right now, aren’t I?”

“I suppose you are, but it’s different on TV, isn’t it? People behave differently on TV. It’d be weird if movies were completely realistic.”

“Bah, whatever. The important thing is, I’ve got my home and money back! Yay!” the other Celestia threw her hands up in the air, a cheery smile on her face.

“That’s good, I suppose,” the real Celestia showed her teeth. “So does that mean I can go now? How long are you going to hold me here?”

“Ah ah, not so fast. Now that I have my possessions again, it’s time to move on to the second stage of this grand and glorious operation,” the other Celestia steepled her fingers and tapped the tips together sinisterly. “Attracting the attention of the queen.”

“Oh yes, that Valentine’s Day dance you were planning. So how’s that going for you?”

“Pierce has agreed to do the advertising for it,” Celestia’s double said. “Now all that’s left to do is to actually organize the dance, and I’m sure there are students who would happily take the job. Since you probably know them better than I do, I have to ask, who do I look for in terms of planning festivities?”

“Planning a party?” Celestia only knew two names at the top of her head. “Well, there’s Pinkie Pie or Cheese Sandwich. They’re the best we have at CHS.”

“Pinkie Pie or Cheese Sandwich…” the other Celestia echoed, rubbing her chin. “Who are they again?”

“Students,” Celestia frowned. “You don’t even know who they are? How have you been acting in school? You’re not giving me a bad name are you?”

“I hardly have the time to get to know every single student as well as you do,” the other Celestia said irritably. “Look, I’ll just call them to your- ahem- my office tomorrow and get it sorted. Easy as eggs is eggs.”

“Well, looks like you’ve got it all planned out…” Celestia sighed. She missed being outside, away from this small room. She missed talking to her students and her staff, especially her sister, Luna. “So when will you let me leave?”

“When it’s all over, I suppose,” the other Celestia said, tapping the side of her nose. “But for now, let’s celebrate! I brought cake,” she reached into the sack and produced a small white box.

“Just a question,” Celestia said as she eyed the small box. “How have you been buying the groceries before you got your money back?”

“I keep a couple thousand dollars stashed in each of my safehouses, just in case,” the other Celestia went off to the kitchen, returning with plates and forks. “Always good to have a backup plan, you know, in case you get thrown off a skyscraper or something.”

“Seriously? If you already have so much money, why did you still need Pierce to get your stuff back for you? Couldn’t you just… buy a new house and get more money like a normal person?”

“Never!” the other Celestia hissed, looming over Celestia. Then she put a hand on her chest, breathing in and out to calm down. “Ahem. Never. My penthouse and my fortune belong rightfully to me, and I would have it returned. Now, do you like tiramisu?”

Celestia sighed and pushed some hair behind an ear. “I might, if I knew what that is.”

“It’s Neightalian,” the other Celestia unboxed the cake and cut out two slices. “Try it, it’s good.”

The real principal chose a fork and cut off a small portion of the cake, slowly bringing it to her mouth. As expected when she started chewing, the piece of cake was delicious, with just the right amount of cream and cocoa powder. Celestia helped herself to another chunk as her doppelganger watched with glee.

“You’re right. It is pretty good,” Celestia admitted after her slice was gone.

“Seconds?” her double asked with a sticky sort of smile.

“Sure.”

Celestia’s double cut out a second slice of cake, handing it to the principal. That was when she noticed her doppelganger had scarcely touched her own cake.

“Hold on. I see what you’re doing.” Celestia said, casting an accusing eye on the other Celestia.

“What?”

“You’re feeding off my emotions again, aren’t you?”

The other Celestia held up both hands. “Guilty as charged.”

“That’s… kind of creepy, you know.”

“Not to me it isn’t,” her doppelganger stuffed a bit of tiramisu into her mouth. “See? I’m eating it. Happy? No, of course not. I’d be able to taste it if you were.”

“Now it’s really creepy,” Celestia began to feel her stomach flip. “So you can tell what I feel about everything. If it wasn’t a privacy issue, it would be a security issue. How can anyone hide anything from you?”

“Well, you can’t. Not really. It’s a changeling thing. In our culture we don’t bother hiding our emotions, because everyone else can taste it anyway.”

Changeling. Her other self had said that word. By the sound of it, it made her sound like some sort of shapeshifter.

“That sure is a different way to live,” Celestia swallowed her cake. “So that’s what you are? A changeling? That explains your mimicry skill. So what does a changeling do normally? Kidnap and dispose of people?”

“Oh, Celestia, how could you accuse us all of doing things like that? I’m hurt,” she added with a small grin.

“I’m sure you are,” Celestia exhaled slowly. “If I could eat your emotions, I would be sure you’re not.”

“Well, normally I’d invent an entirely new persona to live with for a while, but you know what they say, desperate times call for desperate measures. And I am very desperate.”

“So is this how it’s been since you left your queen?” Celestia asked, getting a nod from her double. “Then how were things like? Back when there were… more of you?”

“We didn’t always operate like this, you know?” her double looked out the window. “We never asked to be born like this. We never asked to be hated by your kind. But times change, Celestia. I had thought we could integrate well with human society many lifetimes ago and indeed, it had been going well. We had a farm to harvest crops for the village. That was going nicely. We fed each other like that, you see.”

“What made you change your mind?” Celestia couldn’t help but feel interested in this story.

“Then…” the false Celestia took a deep breath. “Then one day, the man I loved… the human I loved turned around and killed my youngest sister. Why, you may ask yourself? Why, just because of these.” She extended her fangs and pointed at them. “If it were you, would you not do the same as I did? Would you resort to the extreme to make sure that never happens again? She was so dear to me. She looked up to me, expected me to protect her. Then your kind took her from me, just because we’re different. I’m not the one at fault, Celestia.”

“That’s terrible,” Celestia said, feeling a rush of sympathy. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

The other Celestia smirked. “You should feel sorry for those sorry humans who took my sister away. My first job as the Queen’s Reaper was to terminate them. All of them. And I can guarantee their deaths were not swift.”

“I know you’re doing this to keep your family safe, or your queen safe,” Celestia nodded her head. “But don’t you think things don’t need to be like this anymore? People aren’t as superstitious as they used to be. Take dominant hands for example. People aren’t killed because they’re left handed anymore. You don’t need to kill.”

The other Celestia finished off her slice of cake, wiping the corners of her mouth with a napkin.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Celestia. As the Queen’s Reaper, my task is to do whatever the queen desires, including taking lives. I’d prefer if I didn’t have to, but that’s my job, come rain or shine, and I have to do it…”

“But then why does your queen require you to kill? You haven’t seen her in years, as you’ve said. Why do you still kill?”

“In the absence of the queen, the reaper is allowed to decide who is worthy of an execution. Pierce and his fellow Assassins decided to come between me and my queen, and for that, they must die. However, since Pierce is working off his sentence, I may decide not to execute him after all,” the other Celestia pulled back her sleeve and examined her right hand. “We’ll see just how well he does.”

Then there’s still hope, Celestia thought to herself. Pierce could still be saved. “You know, you have the capacity to be a good person. I guess it’s your queen that has to change.”

“The queen is perfect!” the other Celestia hissed, her right hand suddenly bursting into bright green fire, the flames swirling around each digit in a miniature viridian inferno. “It is I… who have changed.”

Celestia had startled back, instinctively raising a hand in front of her face. When she realized nothing was going to happen to her, she returned to her chair. “Then why don’t you change back? Be a better changeling.”

The other Celestia gave a hollow laugh, settling both hands onto the table. Celestia could clearly see that her right hand was now a charred charcoal black and had long, sharp talons on the fingertips.

“If it were that easy, don’t you think I would have done it? I’m changing, Celestia, and only finding my queen can stop it.”

“What… what do you mean?” Celestia kept her eyes on her double’s right hand, fascinated by the transformation.

“A queen may live without a reaper, but a reaper cannot live without a queen,” the other Celestia explained forlornly. “I would love nothing more than to remain a faithful servant, but my body has betrayed me. I’m running out of time, Celestia. Soon I will evolve into a queen, I can feel it. And then… and then my life will be over,” she finished, wiping her eyes.

“E-Evolve?” Celestia repeated the word. “But why will your life be over? Will you… will you die?”

The other Celestia shrugged. “Not immediately, no. But there is only room enough in this world for one queen, and once I change, it will be the duty of my queen to kill me. Of that, you can be certain. I saw her kill other contenders for the throne back when there were more of us, and I will be no different.”

“Wait,” Celestia held up her hands. “How can you be sure you even are evolving? You don’t look any different to me.”

The other Celestia clenched her fists atop the table, both her normal and clawed hand rippling with the motion and gave Celestia a withering glare.

“The signs are all there. The shortness of temper, the establishment of a lair, the lack of tactical clarity. A changeling reaper is meant to have infinite patience, Celestia. My dealings with you and Pierce have proven otherwise, no?”

“B-But… Let’s say your queen isn’t… around anymore. What then? How would you stop this evolution?”

The other Celestia sighed.

“Even if my queen is no more, I’m not sure I wouldn’t die anyway. I’m nowhere near healthy, Celestia. I can feel it in my bones; it wouldn’t take much to finish me now.”

Celestia’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t survive falling off a skyscraper without a few scars to show for it,” the other Celestia said sternly. “The fall broke… a lot of bones. They’re not completely healed yet, and I’m afraid that even with your students to feed off of, I won’t be able to absorb enough positive emotion to heal properly. If Pierce somehow decides to forfeit your life and fight me, I’m not sure I could win. I used to be a fearsome warrior, Celestia. Now I’m just barely hanging on.”

“Well… surely there’s something that could be done?” The principal didn’t want anyone dying if she could help it. “Well, isn’t there… someone you could get more love from? Someone… special, perhaps? Do you have one of those? I mean, I know what happened before, but… surely you’ve got others you care about, right?”

“Were it so easy,” the other Celestia snorted. She cut herself another slice of the tiramisu and dug her fork savagely into the cake. “All attempts to contact my, ahem, previous partner have been unsuccessful. I’m on my own here, Celestia.”

“So you were working with someone else? So you weren’t alone all this time? I figured you were out there on your own for so long. Who was this person you were partnered with?”

“An Assassin. His name doesn’t matter,” the other Celestia said, her mouth full of cake. “Aside from him, I’ve been alone for the past hundred years. I do miss the queen and her company terribly so.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Celestia waved her hands swiftly. "Your partner was an assassin. The people Pierce was allied with? I think you’ve lost me. So you were working for these people? Or were you not? How do you have an assassin partner?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” the other Celestia offered with another sticky smile. “I used to be an Assassin too before turning to the Templars. Neither side had what I really wanted, but I stuck with the Templars for, shall we say, economic motivation.”

“You-you betrayed your partner? For economic motivation?” Celestia was disgusted by that sentence. It sounded so cold. “Did you not care for him?”

“Hey, I predate both organizations,” Celestia’s double said defensively. “I figure that gives me the right to choose who to side with and who to switch from.”

“That shouldn’t give you any right to betray your friends!” Celestia almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Don’t lecture me about what I have and don’t have the right to do,” Celestia’s doppelganger said sharply. “I’ve been alive far longer than you have, and-”

“That excuse doesn’t give you the right to do any of this!” Celestia shot back. “So what if you’ve been alive longer? You can’t just throw your friends away. I know humans have hurt you at one point, but surely you know that not every one of us is like that.”

“We don’t have friends in this business, Celestia! Allies at best. My last friend died over a thousand years ago, and I have yet to find someone else worthy of my friendship!”

“Then you should do that instead of kill so many people. There are plenty of people that could be your friends.”

“Who, like you?” the other Celestia snorted. “I only offer my friendship to someone who does me a great favor. And I don’t think there’s anything you, or anyone can do to earn my friendship.”

“Friendship shouldn’t be based on people doing favors for you. It should be based on the bonds you forge with people,” Celestia answered. “I shouldn’t only make friends with someone just because they can help me out. It’s more than that.”

Celestia’s double sniffed disapprovingly. “That’s not how I do things, Celestia. Besides, being friends with a princess is something to be earned, not given out like candy on Halloween.”

“Well you should learn how to do things like that,” Celestia folded her arms. “Trust me. And what’s this about being a princess?”

“The sister of a queen is known as a princess, no?”

Celestia placed a hand to her chin. “I suppose that does make sense… so the queen is your sister? Why didn’t you mention it earlier?”

“Because you wouldn’t understand what it’s like to have sister problems. I observed you long enough to see how you and your sister get along.”

“How we get along?” Celestia felt like laughing. “Clearly you don’t know about the Nightmare Moon incident.”

“Nightmare Moon incident?” the other Celestia looked around the room. “No, I don’t recall anything like that. Did you just make that up?”

“That’s just what my sister and I call it,” the CHS principal explained. “It was a time where Luna was… more rebellious than any other time in our lives. She thought she deserved the principal title more than I did, so she tried to wrest it from me. In the end, I managed to send her away, just for a few months to give her time to think, to consider what she was doing.”

“And?” the doppelganger lifted her clawed hand in question. “What happened after that?”

“While away, she had plenty of time to think,” Celestia went on. “When she came back, she changed. She wasn’t the same Luna that wanted more than she could handle, she wasn’t the same Luna that argued and fought with me constantly. Right there, I was glad the nightmare was over and I had my sister with me once again.”

There was a moment of silence as the other Celestia digested this new information.

“So… I’m not the only one with serious sister problems?”

“There are plenty of people with problems like you. These things happen. You know, I thought I would be able to deal with that problem on my own, but I was wrong. If it weren’t for my friends by my side, who knows how things would have turned out.”

“Again with the friendship thing. I already told you, I don’t have friends in this business. I don’t even have my family any more, let alone any friends!” the other Celestia finished bitterly. “I miss them ever so much.”

“Then you can change all that,” Celestia reached out a hand for her double. “Things don’t have to be this way. You’ve got what you wanted. Leave Pierce alone and let me go. I’ll do what I can to help you. You can trust me. I’ve known what it’s like to be alone.”

“Trust you?” the other Celestia laughed hollowly. “I don’t even trust myself at this point. Why should I trust you?”

“If you didn’t trust me, why would you tell me all your secrets?” Celestia reasoned. “You’re not that far gone.”

“I told you everything because… because I want someone… anyone to know that I tried my hardest to find my sister,” the other Celestia said in a choked voice, turning away from Celestia. “That I tried my best to fulfill my role. That’s why I told you.”

“There’s still time-”

“No, you have said your piece,” the other Celestia stood up, brushing cake crumbs from her jacket. “I will cook dinner, and then I will leave to plan out the rest of the Valentine’s Day dance.”

Celestia spent the rest of the time in silence, watching her double as she prepared dinner by the kitchen. There were so many questions she wanted to ask her, but she knew her captor enough to know that she probably wouldn’t want to answer them. In the end, she decided not to push it and simply watch dinner being prepared.

Soon, a plate of carbonara was placed before Celestia as her double got ready to head out once again.

Celestia felt it was now or never to speak again. “Hey, wait, umm… Celestia. Before you go, I want you to know this. Y-You’re not a bad person… you know? There’s… more good in you than there is bad. I just wanted to let you know that.”

This gave the other Celestia pause, standing at the door with it half open. She looked down at her feet, almost looking ashamed. Then she shook her head and smiled kindly back at Celestia, fangs and all.

“Thank you, Celestia. We may not be friends, but we definitely aren’t enemies. I am… glad for your company.”

8 - The Setup

“Hey kids,” Principal Celestia greeted Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich as they opened the door to her office. “Please, sit down. I have much I want to discuss with you.”

“If it’s about the cannon, I didn’t have anything to do with it!” Cheese quickly mentioned.

Celestia lifted an eyebrow, but quickly returned to her smiling expression. “None of that, Cheese Sandwich. You see, Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and I wanted to plan a dance for it.”

“A Valentine’s Day dance?” Pinkie literally bounced up and down in her seat. “Ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me! I’ll get the decorations done! I can do it!”

“I was getting to that.” Celestia resisted the urge to cover her ears with her hands. “I want you, Pinkie Pie, and you, Cheese Sandwich, to set up the decorations and do up a few posters and banners for me. And not just any banners. These need to be big and bold, in order to attract as much attention as possible. Think you can do it?”

“Think we can do it?” Both party planners looked at each other and smirked.

“You betcha we can, Principal Celestia!” Pinkie swung an arm and widened her already large smile. “No one plans parties better than we do! We’ll have it all up in no time!”

“Wait, one question though, Principal Celestia,” Cheese raised a hand. “How big do you want these banners, specifically? Maybe… large like the soccer field? Or perhaps you want one as large as the school itself?” he ended with a grin to match.

“Make them as big as is reasonably practical,” Celestia smiled at both teenagers. “You’ll also find Mr. Pierce to be a big help, he’s also doing the advertising for the dance. Miss Pie and Mr. Sandwich, I trust you can also arrange the dance for me? Just give me the sit-rep once you’re done, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Righty-o, Principalio Celestia!” Pinkie puffed out her chest and saluted. “We’ll take care of all of this, no problemo!”

“Same goes for me!” Cheese looked like he was about to salute, but pulled out a rubber chicken instead and squeezed it, making it squeal a most horrible sound. “We’ve got this, Boneless! We’ll make this the best Valentine’s Day dance you’ll ever see!”

Celestia nodded approvingly.

“I admire your enthusiasm. You’re dismissed then.”

“Gotcha, Principal Celestia!” Pinkie bounced vigorously. “Come on, Cheese! Let’s get to work!”

“What? But we still have class!” the brown haired boy’s voice trailed off as Pinkie Pie dragged him out, the door slowly closing behind them, leaving Celestia by herself once more.

She steepled her fingers and tapped the tips together sinisterly.

“Keikaku Doori.”

Pierce stalked over to a cafe nearby, dragging his injured leg behind him, at the same time, trying to look like it wasn’t an injury. The worst thing he could do now was draw unwanted attention from people that were curious about his limp.

The computer teacher didn’t bother to look at the name of the establishment as he pushed the door open, nodding to the greeting staff waiting for him inside as he made for the table.

Earlier, he had received a message from the only other Assassin remaining, Keila. She asked for a place to meet, so he suggested a cafe close enough for him to walk to, but far enough that Principal Celestia wouldn’t suspect anything strange.

Finally reaching the seat, Pierce sighed deeply as he leaned back and stretched his injured knee out. It was already in the process of healing, but it was like he could still feel the dart in his leg and it wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

“May I get you something while you order, sir?” The waitress stood over him and nodded a greeting, handing him a menu.

“Just a cup of coffee. Black, thanks,” he told her, accepting the piece of board. “I just need something strong for recent events I have to deal with.”

“At once, sir,” she smiled and walked off to the counter.

Pierce Network gazed out one of the windows and tapped his fingers on the tabletop, his brains at work, trying to figure out what to do about Mirror Match.

Soon turning his eyes to his phone instead, he opened the layout of the city, looking for good spots to hold out, if it came to a fight. The last time he had challenged Mirror Match, he had found a simple junction to do combat, utilizing his traps and hacking to take her on. It failed, but he felt it did indeed wound her to an extent.

He was so busy plotting his next move that he almost failed to see a brown-skinned woman sitting down across from him, ordering herself a cup of coffee. She had on a grey half top and green cargo pants, and she had long white and black hair sprouting from her head.

Her description matched the person he was looking for.

“You must be Keila,” Pierce said without really looking up.

“And you are Pierce Network?” she figured. “I’ve had the opportunity to hear of your work, but I heard you left.”

“I did.” The computer teacher nodded his head. “I put the world of Assassins and Templars behind me, and I’ve been in this city ever since. But unfortunately, my past has come back to haunt me. You remember Mirror Match, I’m sure? The infamous Witch of Manehattan. She’s far from dead.”

“Didn’t she fall off a skyscraper?” Keila recalled from the news. “How in the world did she survive something like that?”

“I don’t know, but I’d sure like to find out,” Pierce muttered. “Makes her tricky to deal with, not knowing how much punishment she can take. But she said something to me which makes me suspect she’s not as robust as she once was. ‘I scarcely have enough healing power for myself’. Makes me think she’s still healing up from her fall, or something. Might be worth looking into.”

“So why have you called me here?” Keila shifted her elbows onto the table. “Is it because of her?”

“It is,” Pierce confirmed. “She needed my help to secure her old assets for her, but I fear my usefulness is almost at an end. I need your help, Keila. I know you don’t really know me, nor do you have any reason to trust my judgment, but I need all the help I can get if I want to take Mirror Match down.”

Keila seemed to contemplate her options, tapping a finger on the tabletop. “I thought it was the end of it all after we stopped Sombra. I thought I could leave all this business behind me…”

“It’s fine if you don’t want to help, Keila. I’m not forcing you to do it. I’m just looking for people to help me take down Mirror Match. She’s dangerous. Very dangerous. I myself have trouble taking her down and I don’t know if we can even if there are a few more of us, but I feel we have to try.”

“Looks like it’s worth a try.” Keila eventually nodded her head. “I’m in. In the end, it’s not like I have much to do anyway.”

Pierce gave her a firm nod, but made no attempt to smile. “That’s good. The more help, the better. I just hope it’s enough when we do try to take her on. For now, it’s just us and Morning Blade. I take it that you know her, seeing as you were with the Trottingham bureau for a long time.”

“Morning Blade? Yes,” Keila answered, playing with a few strands of her white hair. “We’re the only ones left, Pierce. Everyone else is gone.”

“I know. She told me. Maybe the three of us are enough, but if I can find some old contacts, maybe they would be willing to help to, but I don’t think they want to get involved with Mirror Match, nor do I think it is a good idea to get them involved. When Mirror Match has a grudge, she holds it forever, longer than you can remain alive. I don’t want to drag them into this situation when they don’t exactly know what’s going on.”

“But you’re willing to drag us into this?” Keila raised an eyebrow.

“It’s different with you and Morning Blade. We’re Assassins, or at least, we used to be. We’ve tangled with Mirror Match before. We know how to kill, to fight, unlike the contacts I used to have. You’ve all heard stories of the Witch of Manehattan. You know what she’s capable of, you believe what she can do. We might be the only ones who can challenge her right now.”

“Didn’t she successfully fight off you and four other highly ranked Assassins? What makes you think this time will be different?”

“As I’ve said, she’s weak now. She mentioned so. We might just have a chance this time. And as for the element of surprise, I think we have it this time. I’m injured and she thinks I’m alone in all this right now. There’s no reason for you or Morning Blade to help me after I left the Brotherhood that night.”

“It’s a lot of assumption, Pierce Network,” Keila said quietly. “But it’s not like we have much more to go on, huh? I’m in. There isn’t much of a choice.”

“Thank you, Keila.” Pierce flipped his phone in his hands. “I know you don’t really know me, but thank you for still wanting to help out. It’s trying times like this that we should all band together against our common enemy. Staying divided is what destroys us.”

“...Right,” Keila said after a few seconds. “So what’s the plan?”

“I’ll keep in touch,” Pierce said. Just then, the waitress returned with his cup of coffee, placing it before him. “Thank you.”

“Anything you would like, ma’am?” the waitress turned to Keila.

“It’s fine. I was about to leave,” the Saddle Arabian told her. “Then I’ll be waiting, Pierce.”

“Will do.” The computer teacher nodded and sipped his coffee.

“Alright, kids. All of you better listen up, because I'm only saying this once." Pierce said once he was sure all the students were here to listen to him. He tried his best to get up on the stage without showing his injury, but it wasn’t easy. "As you all know, Valentine's Day is coming up. Principal Celestia and I have been talking and we've decided to have a Valentine's Day dance this Friday, after school. There will be food, drinks, music... Why am I telling you all that? Of course you already know.”

He watched as the students murmured amongst themselves, some having excited expressions on their faces, some more confused than ever. It was probably because he was the teacher helping to plan this event out.

The students who had been around long enough all knew that Pierce wasn’t one for parties and dancing, and the man knew it himself. Those two things bored him.

“Anyway, kids.” Pierce stopped their jabbering and assumptions about him. “It'll be held here at five after school, so find someone to dance with. If you can. That's it from me. You may return to your classes.”

The computer teacher watched as the students began leaving out through the gym doors, sighing to himself as he thought of how bad an idea this sounded. Of course the students were going to be doubting him. He never attended school events, he never hosted any and he most certainly didn’t enjoy dancing and parties. Mirror Match must have known all that and forced him to give the speech because of that.

Heading back to class, Pierce booted up his computer and prepared the lesson as the students began to file in. They were still giving him weird looks and whispering to one another, but there was nothing he could do about it. In the end, he simply had to wait for the dance day to arrive and see if the plan works.

After he gave the students their assignments, he worked on hacking various social media websites, placing more advertisements for the upcoming dance all over them, replacing all the other adverts.

As he worked to get people to know about the dance, Celestia made herself known, closing the door behind herself after entering his classroom.

“I hope you’ve advertised this dance to the best of your abilities,” Celestia said calmly. “Hiring a plane wasn’t cheap.”

“There’s only so much I’m able to do.” Pierce kept his eyes on his phone. “After what you…” He remembered the students in the classroom. “After my little accident, there’s a limit to what I can do on my own. You’ll have to live with that, because in the end, you need my help for this.”

“Umm… Principal Celestia?” one of the students, Indigo Wreath, raised his hand. “Why are we advertising this dance? Isn’t it a school only event?”

“Well, it kind of is,” Celestia said with a gentle smile. “Except this year I’m trying to branch out to more schools, and by advertising the dance, perhaps other schools will catch on and we can have more joint-school events in the future.”

“Well, as long as Crystal Prep isn’t a part of this.” The boy rubbed his head and got back to work.

“I have no idea what that is,” Celestia muttered to herself. Some of the students gave her weird looks, but she quickly turned away from them. “Mr. Pierce, I’ll see you in my office during lunch break.” And then she left the classroom.

“She’s not being serious, right?”

The students began chatting amongst themselves, much to Pierce’s annoyance. He slapped a palm on the table, getting his class’ attention. “Kids, back to work. Principal Celestia’s presence doesn’t allow you to side track. I gave you an assignment. Make sure you get it down this period, otherwise you’re to do it as homework tonight.”

“Yes, Mr. Pierce,” the class groaned collectively.

The computer teacher sat back and proceeded to work out his plan to take down Mirror Match. He had scoped out Canterlot’s area using a maps app on his phone and he found a few good spots he could place his traps, but the only problem was that the city had a decent population. He wasn’t going to get this done silently, no matter how isolated they were. At most, he might have twenty to thirty minutes to kill her before the authorities show up, if he hacked the signals in the area.

But that was only his backup plan. If Mirror Match did indeed leave him alone once he finished his work for her, then he would rather avoid the risk of facing her and losing.

Now the next problem was how he was going to get Mirror Match into his designated trap zone. She’d have no reason to meet him anywhere besides school or maybe Pierce’s own home.

He went on and on, trying to cover every detail he could think of. It was then that he remembered Principal Celestia. The real Principal Celestia.

Mirror Match had her hidden somewhere. If he somehow managed to kill her, he might never be able to find her. If he wanted to go ahead with his plans, then he first had to figure out where Mirror was keeping the principal.

Don’t worry, Principal Celestia. I’ll find you. I’m not going to let Mirror Match get the better of you or me. This time, she’s the one that’s at the end of the stick.

Whatever he was planning to do, Pierce was going to have to wait till after the dance. He didn’t like parties, but he guessed once wouldn’t hurt. Hopefully.

9 - The Prelude

“Well, this is it,” the other Celestia said as she flipped a pancake over the stove. “The Valentine’s Day dance is tonight. I’m thrilled.”

“Did you ask anyone to the dance?” Celestia asked her doppelganger. Where there had been a clawed, blackened hand the previous night was now back to its normal skin color, with neatly trimmed nails.

“Pft, no. I have to be prepared for my queen’s arrival.”

“Just make sure you keep my students and staff safe,” Celestia reminded her. “I can’t have them injured. Please, just promise that to me.”

“I don’t make promises that I can’t keep,” the other Celestia said, pouring more batter into the pan.

“Come on, what do I have to do to get you to follow that?” Celestia balled her hands. “If my students were harmed during this dance… I-I can’t… What good will I be as their principal?”

“Well it’s not like I’m orchestrating a shooting.” The other Celestia pointed out. “All I need is their delicious love energy to lure my queen in. They shouldn’t be in harm’s way at all.”

“Al-alright…” Celestia leaned back. “I’m sorry. I’m just afraid of the possibilities.”

“That being said, I still can’t promise you they’ll be unharmed…” Celestia’s doppelganger angled her head back and breathed in deep. “I have a strange feeling about tonight. Something will happen at the dance, and I hope it’s my queen. But if not… my intuition is never wrong, Celestia. Something will happen tonight. I just don’t know what.”

“Something will happen?” Celestia tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“It’s as if the strings of fate have all been leading up to this night. All I can say is that something will happen this night at the dance, but I can’t tell you more than that.”

“That’s some intuition you have there.”

“It’s intuition, not fortune telling,” the other Celestia protested. “Besides. One way or another, after tonight, I will either be doomed or free, so that’s something.”

“So if you’re free, does that mean we’re free too? Pierce and I.”

“Hmm…” The other Celestia mused as she dribbled some maple syrup on a plate of pancakes. “I honestly don’t know…”

“Why not?” Celestia watched the syrup slowly spread across the pancakes. “If you find your sister, um, queen, you won’t need me here anymore, would you? Nor would you need Pierce’s help.”

“It’s not just a matter of needing you around or not,” the other Celestia said, bringing both plates to the table. “It’s a matter of both of you knowing too much. Pierce especially. If he can hack my possessions back into my grasp, then there’s always the chance he might attempt something stupid like taking them away from me, or revealing my true identity. Now I’m quite sure you wouldn’t be so foolish as to try blabbing, but one can never be quite too certain, eh?”

“What?” Celestia was taken aback. “But you said you’d let us both go when you’re done! You lied?”

“I don’t recall saying that I’d let you both go.” The other Celestia stared into Celestia’s eyes, and she could see the madness contained within. “Only that I might, might, not kill Pierce once this is all over. And it all hangs on tonight. You, me, him, our fates will be determined on whether my queen appears this night.”

Celestia couldn’t keep her mouth from dropping open and staying open. Everything she heard from her captor right now was too much for her mind to take in. She should’ve known from the start that there was no way this person would ever let her go. That’s why she told her about her life and all. You could give all the secrets you wanted to someone if you knew they were never going to be able to tell anyone.

“As for you, I’ve already thought of a solution for that. You see, I’ve brewed up an amnesiac that will make you forget… the past three weeks or so. I have no intention of replacing you forever, so I’ll just return you to your school, with you none the wiser.”

“But what about Pierce? Can’t you just do that to him as well?”

“I could, but I won’t. Not yet, anyway. His fate hangs in the balance of tonight.”

Celestia looked down at her hands. “I thought I was getting somewhere with you, you know? You didn’t seem like a bad person. Please. No one has to die. Not you, not him.”

“I told you I’ll think about it,” the other Celestia repeated sternly. “Drop it. I’m already working at my limit here. I don’t have time for all this.”

Celestia looked away, unsure of what she could say to fight for their lives.

“Ah… the only thing that would make tonight better is if I could meet them at the same time. I wonder if my sister will bring them along?”

“Who’s them?”

“The rest of my family. Three young girls with outstanding voices and vision. I left them with my queen when… when we split up. I suppose she has them now.”

“Are they-are they your daughters?” Celestia asked. “Or perhaps your queen’s daughters? I didn’t know you had any kids.”

“They’re not related to me by blood, but through circumstance. We met over a thousand years ago and have since then been together. Look, I’ll show you a picture.”

The other Celestia reached into her jacket pocket and drew out an old, black and white photograph. It was rumpled, as if it had been folded and unfolded many times, but there, captured by the camera, were three teenage girls, one with poofy hair, one with twin tails, and one with a ponytail. They were all wearing late renaissance dresses, and were smiling or smirking at the camera with various degrees of smugness.

Celestia instantly recognized their faces. In fact, they had tried to take over CHS once before and if it were not for Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer and the others, they might have succeeded. The picture she was looking at was a picture of the sirens, Adagio Dazzle, Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk.

“No way, these are the girls?” Celestia asked her captor.

“Why, do you know something about them?” the other Celestia asked curiously.

“N-No…” Celestia said. This piece of information might come in useful later, so she tucked it away in the corner of her mind.

The principal tried her best to think of other things, not wanting to let her doppelganger find out she was hiding something through her emotions. Celestia calmed herself and thought about the pancakes on the table. Even if she had been upset about their conversation, her body couldn’t deny that it was hungry.

Stabbing her fork into one of the pancakes, Celestia took a bite out of it and tried to fill her mind with the taste instead.

“I see you’ve taken a liking to your food.” The other Celestia sat down and rested her head on her hands.

“What can I say.” Celestia shrugged. “You can cook.”

“That I can, Celestia,” her doppelganger smirked. “It’s with the experience. It comes to you when your sister simply fails at it.”

“You’ve told me a lot about your sister and queen,” Celestia said with a half-full mouth. “But what about these girls? You said they’re daughters by circumstance? How did that come to be?”

“We met a little over a thousand years ago in some village in Maretania, just a little before the start of what you call the Middle Ages. The queen wanted to know what was disrupting the flow of positive energy in that place. So I went there and found those three little rascals using their magic and stirring up trouble. We had a bit of a scuffle, but in the end I decided to take them back to the queen, and we decided it would be better if we worked together rather than against each other.” The other Celestia chewed a bit of pancake before continuing, “Changelings feed off positive energy. Sirens feed off negative energy. You’d think that would make us natural enemies, but working together has proven far more prosperous than if we went separately. Of course, when the queen and I split up, they went with her rather than with me.”

“So they were closer to your queen than to you?” Celestia was curious as to what happened.

“The queen is the queen. It was their duty to go with her rather than with me.”

“You didn’t care if they didn’t want to go with you?”

“My… My preferences didn’t matter. Two of them prefer being with the queen anyway.”

“How about the third?”

The other Celestia seemed to have a slight motion in her eyes and quickly looked away. “She wanted to come with me. I told her… I told her not to. She and her sisters were meant to be together. I didn’t want to ruin their relationship too.”

“That mustn’t have been easy.” Celestia understood having to let someone go down their own path. She had to send Luna away all those years ago.

“No. It wasn’t. But if the queen shows tonight, I’ll be able to see them all again. Which is why I hope the advertisements have reached her. That Pierce better have done his job properly… or I’ll have his head on a plate.”

“I’m sure he has.” Celestia tried to defend him again. “He’s never performed badly in his work at CHS, with the exception of his attitude and, um, problems. I’m sure he did his best of what you asked him.”

The other Celestia snorted. “Yeah. Sure. We’ll find out tonight, won’t we?”

Celestia folded her arms and took a deep breath. Her doppelganger was right. Everything hinged on the Valentine’s Day dance tonight. Her freedom, Pierce’s life, her captor’s chance to see her sister and the sirens once again… There was nothing Principal Celestia could do but hope everything went well.

If Pierce had indeed circulated enough adverts on the dance around to the other cities as well, then there was definitely a high chance that her doppelganger’s queen would show up.

Right? Celestia thought to herself. There was no way things wouldn’t go the way they were planned to go.

The only problem she could see was that the queen was no longer alive. If that were the case, then all three of their lives were likely done for. Celestia hoped that she was still out there somewhere.

“We will,” Celestia nodded after a long moment of silence. “I wish you all the best and that you reunite with your queen once more.” Then another question surfaced in her mind. An important one. “What will you do once you find her again?”

“Ask for forgiveness for leaving her, and hopefully be re-instated as reaper. The act of meeting her will most likely stop my queen evolution, and with that out of the way, I’ll be able to resume my duties once more,” the other Celestia sighed. “I have much to answer for.”

“You’re not going back to killing are you?”

The other Celestia shrugged. “Depends on what the queen wants. I’m just her hands and feet.”

Celestia sighed. She held onto the tiny sliver of hope that perhaps her queen had changed, if she were still around. She couldn’t possibly have survived this long if she killed a lot of people. Maybe she’d learnt to bunker down and play it safe after all these years. It would explain why her doppelganger had failed to find her all this time.

“Well…” the other Celestia looked at her watch. “I really should be getting home to get ready. Don’t want to be going to the dance not all fancy and stuff, right?”

The Canterlot High principal could only sit back and nod. There was nothing she could do but hope for the best. If it all went well, she would have nothing to worry about.

Her doppelganger picked up her things and opened the front door. “Whatever happens after this, Celestia, know that I have cherished your company here. I’ll be seeing you later with the news.”

And then she was gone, closing the door and locking it behind her.

10 - The Dance

The setting sun provided an excellent backdrop for CHS’s Valentine’s Day dance. The last rays of radiant sunlight pattered down upon the banners that Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich had hung up all over the campus, proudly swaying and fluttering in the evening breeze.

Pierce Network watched from the entrance as most of the students arrive in pairs, very much excited for the dance.

If only they knew what this was really for…

Pierce looked at his phone, which he had linked to a few micro cameras he had placed around the school building. He had no idea why Mirror wanted them there and she had refused to tell him why, but at least with these, he could make sure no suspicious characters were to appear at the school dance. With such a huge amount of advertising, there was no telling who might show up.

Watching Derpy arrive with a half-eaten muffin in her hands, Pierce grunted and limped back inside, looking at the time. It was almost five and Principal Celestia was nowhere to be found.

Pierce grumbled to himself all along the way to a group of tables the party planners had set up. When he eventually got there, he pulled up a chair and sat down, stretching his injured leg out, softly massaging his knee with one hand, while his other kept the phone close to his face to monitor the cameras.

“Typical Pierce. A veritable feast in the making, and you choose to look at your phone.”

Celestia’s voice reached Pierce’s ears as the principal in question walked toward him. She was wearing her usual attire, though she had added a pair of diamond earrings and a pearl necklace.

“Nothing fancy?” he asked her, keeping his eyes on his phone. “I thought perhaps you were coming in something fancy. It is a dance after all. You enjoy parties, don’t you? You used to host them all the time when you were still in Manehattan. A waste of time for me, really, but you seemed to like them a lot. It’s a whole lot of money going down the drain when you organize something like this, isn’t it?”

“The party isn’t for me this time.” Celestia sniffed. “It’s for someone far more important.”

“Right…” Pierce tried to put the pieces together. “That’s why you asked for the cameras, huh? So that you can find this important someone? Let me guess, it’s your queen you’re trying to look for, am I right? It would make sense to throw such a big dance with such a big advertising to go.”

Celestia hissed. “You ask too many questions. Who this party is for is none of your business. You’re just the host here, so get up on stage and host.”

Pierce grunted, but pushed to his feet. He slowly made his way towards the stage, trying to make his limp as unnoticeable as possible. He didn’t like it when the students asked him questions, just like how Mirror Match didn’t like him asking her.

Bah… Everything’s gone bad since you showed up, Mirror Match…

Pierce brought one leg up at a time as he ascended the stairs to get on the stage. Celestia followed closely behind him, but she made no attempt to help him.

So much for keeping up appearances.

Pierce stopped somewhere in the middle, close to the front, and pulled out a microphone from his coat pocket.

“Excuse me. Is this working?” Pierce tested into the microphone. “Alright, good. Welcome, students. As you all know, tonight is the Valentine’s Day dance, and you’re all here today to enjoy yourselves and have fun. Consider yourselves lucky. Back in my day-”

Pierce felt the tip of something sharp press against his back before Principal Celestia cleared her throat. She wanted him to stop.

“Get to the point,” Celestia whispered in his ear.

“Right,” Pierce coughed and looked at all the students. “Let the dancing begin then.”

Pierce braced himself as he watched Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich roll a cannon in around the back and fired up a blast of confetti with a massive boom.

The computer teacher watched from the stage as the students began spreading out across the gym floor as Vinyl Scratch started the loud music. Most of them began dancing, while some opted to hang around by the refreshments table.

Celestia looked around herself and sniffed. “It’s not very strong, is it?”

“What’s not very strong?” Pierce replied. “Do you mean the AC? I can simply turn it up on my phone, seeing as I’ve linked most of the school’s systems to it. I never took you for feeling warm. You’re always so cold.”

“The love,” Celestia explained impatiently. “It’s insipid. This is hardly a meal at all, much less a feast.”

Pierce shrugged and looked through the cameras on his phone again, trying to find anything suspicious or out of the ordinary. It was all mostly quiet, with a few students running in, late for the dance. One girl, by the looks of it, Watermelody, had tripped on her long blue dress, dropping a skull, which rolled along the grass, freaking out another two students.

“That girl and her skulls…” Pierce muttered to himself. “I don’t even know why she carries them around. Where does she even get them? They can’t be real, no way she can find real ones. The question is, where does she buy these fake skulls? Kids these days, they do anything to get their hands on weird stuff.”

Then something on one of the cameras caught the teacher’s eye. It was a long black car with tinted windows, stopped right outside on the road facing the school’s entrance. Pierce watched it closely. For many minutes, the car didn’t move, nor did anyone get out.

“What are you staring at so intently?” Celestia stepped behind him to have a look.

“There’s this car outside that’s just been waiting there,” he moved his arm to let her see the phone screen more clearly.

Celestia seemed to freeze.

“Where is this car? Exactly.”

“Front lawn, just a little to the left of the Wondercolt statue,” Pierce told her. “Now if this is-”

The flickering of the lights cut off his sentence as he looked around. Even his cameras fuzzed out whenever the lights blacked out.

All the students had gone quiet, including Vinyl Scratch and her music. It was like the flickering had plunged the entire gym into silence.

Almost as quickly as it had started, the lights came on again and stayed on, like nothing had happened.

“That was weird…” Pierce looked at his phone again. His cameras had all come back online, displaying the sides of the school and the mysterious black car, still where it was. “You need to call someone to check the lighting in this building, Principal Celestia. It could be faulty wiring or perhaps even a short circuit. Lightning isn’t always accompanied by thunder. Perhaps there’s a storm coming.”

Celestia was about to reply when her nostrils flared and she stumbled back a step. There was a new scent in the air, overpowering almost every other smell.

“What?” Pierce watched her face change. “I don’t smell anything. Is something on fire? Maybe the blackout caused something to burn out. I’ll check the cameras. If there’s a fire, we’ll have to quell it before it gets out of hand.”

Pierce cycled through his cameras when the gym lights flickered again, causing a few murmurs to erupt from the students.

“It’s not fire, you dolt!” Celestia’s mouth was open, breathing through it in pants. “It’s… hate. Something in here is giving off a strong aura of hatred. Very strong.”

“Hate? Who could possibly-”

Then the gym disappeared into darkness once again, this time, staying for a few seconds.

“What…?” Pierce looked around. If it weren’t for his phone’s light, he wouldn’t even be able to see anything.

Almost as if nothing had happened, the lights came back on instantly, but the silence stayed.

Pierce eyed the DJ, but she made no move to start the music again. Instead, her eyes, along with the eyes of the other students and Principal Celestia, were focused on something below one of the basketball hoops.

At first, the teacher had thought it was a shadow, cast by the hoop, but then it started smoking and expanding, like a small campfire, but without the fire.

“I need to go,” Celestia whispered. “Now.”

“Go where? What is that thing over there?”

“She’s out there! I can feel it. Her majesty.” Celestia seemed to move as if in a trance.

“Wait, what about that?” Pierce grabbed her arm and pointed to the shadow, which was now as large as a human. “You have an image to keep up. You’re the principal. You can’t abandon your students and staff just like that. Your job would be on the line if you don’t handle this well. And Luna, look at her.”

The vice principal was still by the punch table, but she looked like she had fallen asleep standing up.

“You have to keep her safe as well. She’s your sister after all.”

Then to Pierce’s astonishment and even Celestia’s, a few of the students had folded out a sleek metallic armor over themselves, now resembling something he’d seen on TV a few weeks ago. If he hadn’t seen it fold around the students, he would’ve thought they were robots.

They were of various shapes and colors, each one sporting a faceless mask.

Pierce had also seen Mr. Loregiver, the history teacher, enter one of those things, brandishing a razor sharp sword in his hand. Whatever was going on here, it looked big, bigger than Mirror Match’s search for her queen.

These suits of armor were definitely not from law-enforcement. They looked almost… alien, but it couldn’t possibly be alien. Pierce never believed in them. He figured it was a tale the government had concocted.

Celestia growled, a sound which the real Celestia would have never made.

“This had better be a real emergency and not some prank, or I’ll have your head, Network.”

“Do I look like I know what’s going on?” Pierce pointed a finger at the robots and shadow. “A few students and a teacher just turned into those things and they seem to be waiting for something in that shadow. Robots. Do you think I have something to do with this? If you do, you’re wasting your time. This isn’t my doing. This looks like more trouble. More trouble than anything I’ve seen before.”

“Oh, will you just shut up?!” Celestia ran to Vice Principal Luna and pulled her along to the doors of the gym, which she swiftly threw open. “Students! Quickly find your way out of the gym. Do not panic! Move in an orderly fashion.”

Pierce kept an eye on the shadow, which had suddenly been shrugged off like a cape as another one of those armored suits stood up, a pair of knives in its hands.

As with most life-threatening events, most of the students completely ignored Celestia’s warning, immediately screaming and running for their lives.

The shadowy figure chucked his knives at the other group, but missed, lodging them in the wall on the far side, almost skewering a group of students.

“Go!” Pierce yelled at them. “Move! You don’t want to get killed here like this.”

He would’ve rushed over and pushed them on, but his injury prevented any of that. Instead, Pierce focused on getting away, looking for a good place to bunker down, preferably behind something solid.

As his foot touched the bottom of the third step, a pair of armored hands grabbed him by the right arm and the back as one of the armored suits helped him move down, pulling the teacher so fast that he ended up hopping along.

“You gotta get out of here, Mr. Pierce,” he told him. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Pierce couldn’t remember which student this was. “It’s not safe.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he answered. “What are these things? These suits. They look like they can fight all kinds of threats. Where did you get one? They look almost organic, like they have a mind of their own.”

“Too many questions, Mr. Pierce!” the suit pushed Pierce down as a dagger flew overhead. “For now, just focus on getting to the exit!”

“Flash!” one of the other suits yelled and projected a green barrier around herself as she stood between Pierce and a trio of knives. “Go, get him out of the gym! I’ll cover you!”

“Thanks, Twilight! Come on, Mr. Pierce, you heard her.”

Suddenly, the computer teacher was swept up in armored arms and sped out to the entrance, almost like he had just been shot out of a cannon. It was so fast that it left Pierce wondering how he actually got to the door.

“Stay out here until we’ve dealt with this,” he was told before the suit ran back in with a burst of lightning.

Most of the students were already gathered here, some even taking their phones out to take pictures of the battle inside the gym. The staff were busy counting the kids, trying to account for them.

Pierce dusted down his attire and limped out, noticing Principal Celestia by the Wondercolt statue, looking out at the road.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and viewed the camera feed. The black car that had been in front of the statue was now gone. He looked at all the other cameras, but the car had likely left the area after the thing attacked them.

“Did you find her?” Pierce asked the false principal when he got close enough for her to hear him. “Did you make it out in time?”

Principal Celestia’s shoulder were shaking, and a small sniffle could be heard. Pierce crept closer, only for Celestia to screech in anger and grab him by the throat with her left hand. The computer teacher struggled against her grip, but she was far stronger than he was.

“W-What…?” he croaked. He was unable to say anything else.

“You knew this would happen…” Celestia growled, holding out her right index finger. It began to smoke and burst into emerald flames, leaving Celestia with a talon on the end of her blackened finger. She pressed the claw against his throat, angry tears in her eyes.

Pierce choked and gagged, feeling his consciousness begin to drift away. Finally, after what felt like forever, Celestia let go, dropping him to the ground against the Wondercolt statue. The teacher grabbed for his throat and breathed in as deeply as he could before a series of coughs emerged from his mouth.

“I… didn’t… know…” Pierce said in between breaths. “How would I…? What… was that thing…?”

“Don’t lie to me! Somehow, this is your doing. You’re the reason I missed the queen!”

“How do you… think I would’ve… managed to get… something like that?” Pierce was shocked. If only it was his doing. “It almost… killed me. I wouldn’t… kill myself, would I?”

Celestia closed in on him, flicking him with her clawed finger. “And still you show no fear…” she said, flicking her tongue at the air. “I know it was you. Now get out of my sight. I may have missed the queen, but by my blade I will not tolerate any more tomfoolery from you tonight!”

Celestia stalked off back towards the gym where the rest of the students were gathered. Pierce continued to breathe, refilling his lungs with the oxygen he had lost.

Things were looking bad. Because of that strange armored suit, now Mirror Match thought he was the one at fault. Pierce shook his head. To think all this was his fault was ridiculous. If he had somehow acquired suits of metal like that, he would’ve already tried to kill her.

His circumstances weren’t looking great, but at least he had a backup plan in the works. His traps were already set, just in case, and he told Morning Blade and Keila to be ready when he called. He didn’t know if they listened, but he had no one else to fallback to.

The only problem now was locating the real Principal Celestia. If his plans did manage to work, he still had no idea where she was and as Mirror had said, she would starve to death.

Pierce grunted. That was the only thing keeping his plans from working. Somehow, he needed to know where Mirror Match had hidden her.

Then an idea struck him. Perhaps he could figure it out if he slipped one of his bugs into the false Celestia’s pockets. He could always follow the signal with his phone and see where she went.

It’s better than nothing, especially when my life is now probably on the line, all because of that shadowy armored thing. Things these days… You come to expect the irregular when you work here long enough.

Pierce could still hear the sounds of battle from within the gym, along with the occasional hole appearing in the walls. Whatever these thing were, they were powerful.

Discord lumbered over, half his hair blackened from soot and debris and part of his lab coat had been torn off.

“My, what a turn of events we have here…” He dusted his now grey coat. “You alright, Pierce? With your leg like that, I’m surprised you got out with barely a stain on your outfit. Not that I wanted you to be trapped in there, of course.” Discord waved his hands innocently.

“I’m decent enough,” Pierce grunted and rubbed his throat. “Are the students safe? Are they all out? In circumstances like these, some of them are bound to hide under the tables or worse, stay frozen-”

“They’re all out, Pierce.” Discord stuck a finger in his ear and twisted it. “Cheerilee and Bray are watching them now. I just thought you needed some help, especially after Celestia stormed off from you furiously. What did you do to make her so mad?”

Pierce sighed and scratched his cheek. “Honestly, I don’t exactly know. Seeing as I had a part in planning this event, perhaps she thinks it’s all my fault that this happened. Maybe I should’ve known better and refused. With all the strange things going on in the last month, maybe I should’ve thought over it more.”

“Maybe, maybe, maybe.” Discord threw his hands up and pulled his yellow work glove tighter over his fingers. “There are so many different ways events can play out. There’s no way to know them all, Pierce. What’s done is done. Unless you can reverse time, I suggest looking ahead.”

“Insightful words, Discord.” Pierce fiddled with the bug in his pocket. The whacky science teacher was right.

Without another moment’s thought, Pierce walked over to where Celestia was standing, taking the tiny device out of his pocket as he got closer.

Celestia wheeled around, flames flashing in her eyes.

“Just what in the queen’s name do you think you’re doing?” she hissed. Pierce noticed that her right hand was now in her pocket, concealing the claw on her index finger. “I told you to get out of my sight!”

Pierce sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. I know, strange right? Pierce isn’t sorry for anything, but I do acknowledge my faults even if I don’t show it. I should’ve made sure the dance was safer, considering the amount of advertising we put up, obviously outside parties were going to show up.” Just then an explosion sounded from inside the gym.

“I suppose I should go see what’s left of the gym…” Celestia muttered to herself. “It’s what the real me would do.”

“Wait!” Pierce grabbed on to her arm and pulled her down, just as a chunk of debris flew out the main doors, bouncing away and stopping close to the Wondercolt statue. A few students shrieked and moved away. “Don’t you hear them? They’re still in there. Unless you want to join the battle yourself, you should wait out here like the rest of us.”

“Since when do you care about my well-being?” Celestia snapped. “I’m going to have a look. You can do me a favor by getting the hay out of my way.”

Pierce stepped aside and joined the rest of the school body, watching the gym entrance anxiously. The computer teacher could make out shapes inside, flying around and clashing with each other, but he couldn’t see very well in the dark.

Flipping his palm up, he let a small smile creep across his mouth. It was empty, the bug now in Celestia’s jacket pocket. Now it was only a matter of seeing where she goes to try to determine where she was keeping the real Principal Celestia.

Then there were more rumbles from within the gym, one such shock sending a tremor under their feet. The students began murmuring, some even moving off towards the back of the school to get away from the gym’s surroundings. Pierce didn’t blame them and for the time being, it seemed like a good idea. Cheerilee also thought the same, now directing the students to follow their classmates.

Pierce stood in his spot, watching Principal Celestia. Just then, smoke began to fill the gym, pouring out through the doors and into the night sky.

“Did something catch on fire?” he said out loud. “Though that’s not hard with all the fighting going on inside.”

Then the group of suits began running out, some helping others as they headed for the Wondercolt statue. The last suit coming out was carrying Trixie with him.

Pierce widened his eyes for a second. He hadn’t seen the white haired girl enter the gym at anytime. The other teachers seemed sure they had accounted for all the students as well.

“Trixie?” a pink haired suit asked the same question. “What are you doing here?”

Pierce watched them, his eyes taking in everything, but his mind still trying to tell him it was all a dream. How could any of this even exist? Surely they hadn’t come up with such advanced technology already? Pierce looked at his phone. His gadgets definitely couldn’t match up to those slim robotic suits.

Almost as abruptly as they had rushed out of the gym, they disappeared through the statue’s base, heading to that Twilight Sparkle’s world.

Celestia watched all this happen, then she rubbed her face with her left hand and gave a dismissive wave at the statue’s general direction.

“You know what, I’m not even going to ask. I don’t care.”

Pierce looked at her and then back at the statue. “You’re not? All my life, I’ve never seen technology like that. And- oh yes, you’re not the real Principal Celestia. Twilight Sparkle, the girl with purple skin, she’s from the other world. That’s how she comes and goes. It’s normally closed, so I haven’t been able to see what it’s like on the other side.”

“I already said I don’t give a damn about it, so stop informing me. Go home, go to the pub, go anywhere. I don’t care anymore.”

Pierce began to leave, but something hit him in the back of the head. It was his bug.

“And the next time you decide to bug someone, don’t put it in their pockets!”

Pierce rubbed his head and bent down to pick up his device. Maybe he should’ve thought of a better place to put it.

Pierce Network stepped into the school’s gymnasium, curious as to what damage had been caused within.

The students had also thought the same, reappearing from behind the corner where they had gone to hide. They must have heard the commotion before and the silence they had been left with.

“The horror! The horror!” Pierce watched as Roseluck leaned back and fainted in Lightning Rain’s arms.

Way to add the dramatic effect, kid.

Pierce had expected to see a mess when he went back into the gym, but the robots had been sure to exceed his expectations. There were craters in the gym’s flooring, and enough holes in the walls to make the building look like a life-sized swiss cheese. All the decorations in the room had been torn to shreds, including the punch table, which now lay on its side, in half, the ice sculpture that had been on it was now a puddle across the floor. Debris of all shapes and sizes dotted the gym, making it look like some sort of airsoft arena.

This was all going to take a lot of time and money to fix back up.

Pierce watched the students as they explored the mess. Some of them took it harder than others, likely because they needed the gym to play their sports games.

“I’ll tell you what they were.” From behind Pierce, Jetstream swaggered in, his suit caked with dust with a few tears around the legs. “Well, now that we’ve got a moment to calm down, I think we all can look at the facts. One, our school was once again attacked by a something. We’ll call it the Creeper, because it reminds me of ol’ Lightning here-”

“Hey!” Lightning Rain interrupted him.

“Well, it’s true,” Jetstream continued, unfazed. “Anyway, it's obvious what that thing was. It was a robot.”

Pierce had thought the same, but then he remembered the suits folding over some of the students and Loregiver, meaning they couldn’t be robots. Whatever it was they were fighting, it looked like it resembled their suits, so it could’ve very well been someone else in a suit, not a robot.

Suddenly, the Jetstream boy waved a hand through the gym’s ruined space and yelled, “Could a guy in a suit have done all this?”

“Yes!” All the other students yelled at the same time.

Pierce watched as they began arguing and throwing all kinds of conspiracy theories about what could’ve happened.

The kids have imagination, I’ll give them that…

“Pierce…” It was Principal Celestia. She was now standing behind him, her voice frosty. “Send them home. I’ve had enough for one night.”

“Right.” The computer teacher limped over to the crowd of students. “Alright, that's about it, kids… Discuss what happened away from here. In your homes, on your way back. I declare this dance over. Have a nice rest of the evening kids. I need to take care of some business first.”

Pierce watched the students begin to leave the gymnasium, sighing at how oblivious they all were to a threat before them. Principal Celestia had been replaced, but so far, no one seems to have picked that up. Mirror Match had done a really good job in replacing her.

“So what are we going to do about the gym?” Pierce asked the Canterlot High principal. “I’ll call a contractor to start sorting this out right now, but what about the money? You’ll have to deal with that on your part, seeing as you’re masquerading as the principal here.”

“Just shut up, Pierce.” Celestia rubbed her face with her left hand, keeping her right hand in her pocket. “I’ll pay for the gym, but you’re going to pay for ruining my chances at meeting my queen again.”

“I told you-”

“I don’t care what you told me!” Celestia’s eyes flared green, like there was fire behind them. “As far as I’m concerned, you sabotaged this dance. I’m going to go home to think and mark my words, if you were really the one behind this, you can kiss your freedom goodbye, because you’ll never be seeing anything ever again.”

Celestia turned and stomped out of the gym, leaving Pierce by himself.

The teacher reached a hand into his coat and retrieved his phone, opening up his message app. Cracking his knuckles, he began typing:

We might have to act soon. Mirror Match is furious about what happened at the Valentine’s Day dance. I’ll explain that later, but I don’t think she has much more use for me. This is going to end soon, so I think it’s time we get ready. Standby for instructions.

Pierce Network

Stowing his phone, the former Assassin looked up at the moon through a hole in the roof. Time wasn’t something they had, but he had to make do with what he had left.

Earlier, after Celestia had discovered his bug, he had gone over to her car and hidden it underneath, close to the brake lines. Unless she was paranoid, there wasn’t any chance she was going to find it this time, so Pierce had high hopes he was going to finally learn where the real Principal Celestia was being kept. Then after that, it was all a matter of getting Mirror Match in the right place to end it all.

“This time, Mirror Match…” he breathed. “I’m one step ahead of you.”

Author's Note

For those of you who are confused about what happened in this chapter, the other side of the story is covered in Cinders of War's story, A Rift Between Worlds. <<< [Link to chapters here]

11 - The Sirens

Principal Celestia washed the shampoo out of her hair as she stood under a warm shower, thoroughly cleaning the bubbles out of her hair, at the same time, using the warmth to wash her worries away. She had seen the news on TV a few days ago, about how Canterlot High’s gym had been damaged in some gas leak.

Celestia knew it wasn’t just some gas leak.

Worry had clouded her mind all night, keeping her from falling asleep, but the shower had managed to calm her down a little. Whatever had happened, she held on to the hope that her staff had kept the students safe.

She knew her doppelganger would’ve had some part in whatever happened. She had waited day and night for her to come visit and say something, but she had been missing for the last few days. Thankfully, there had been a few leftovers for Celestia to sustain herself with.

At some point, as the water from the showerhead fell down around her, Celestia thought she heard the door outside slam shut. Blinking water out of her eyes, Celestia looked to the bathroom door and tried to hear what was going on outside, wondering if she had heard the door or not.

Drying herself and getting dressed quickly, Celestia opened the bathroom door and peeked out into the dining room. At last, her other self was seated at the table, her head on the surface and collapsed in the very picture of defeat.

Celestia edged out of the bathroom, wrapping a towel around her head to dry it.

“Hey…” Celestia ventured, tiptoeing into the dining area. “Where have you been? Are you okay?”

“No,” was all the other Celestia said, keeping her head down.

“What happened?” Celestia sat across from her. “I heard about the gas leak on the news. Is-Is everyone safe?”

“Huh? Oh, I don’t know,” Celestia’s double mumbled. “Probably. I think.”

“What? What’s wrong? You’re upset. I don’t need to eat your emotions to know that.”

“It’s all over,” the other Celestia moaned into the table, shaking her fist at nothing in particular. “It’s over, and I was so, so close.”

“Are you going to elaborate on what happened? I mean, I’d like to help, if I can, that is.”

The other Celestia raised her head a smidgen.

“I could feel the queen there, at the dance… sense her, smell her. And then that thrice damned Pierce Network summoned some kind of avatar of hatred to scare her away. Ended up wrecking the gym too… ugh…”

“He-he what? Summoned an… avatar of h-hatred?” Celestia reeled back for a second. “I… I don’t even know what to think now. What do you mean by avatar of hatred? Some kind of monster?”

“I don’t know. It looked human enough, but gave off such a strong aura of hate…” the other Celestia shivered. “Of course the queen would make a run for it. It’s in our blood to avoid hate.”

“I’m… I’m not sure we humans can conjure up such creatures…” Celestia looked at her doppelganger. “Are you sure it’s his fault?”

“Who else’s fault could it be?” the other Celestia demanded. “He’s the only suspect who would even think to disturb the dance and drive the queen away…”

“I don’t know… But what about my sister and the students? Was anyone hurt?”

“Don’t think so. Everyone made a run for it when the fighting started. It’s over, Celestia. My life is over…”

Celestia watched her double collapse on the table again, her face completely pressed against the wooden surface.

The principal hesitantly reached over and patted the other Celestia on the shoulder. “There’s still a chance, I’m sure. You attracted her to you once, you can do it again.”

Celestia’s double looked up at her with damp eyes. “It’s too late, Celestia. My evolution is almost upon me… I don’t have time to try again.”

“No, no, you know she’s out there now. There’s still hope. Don’t give up yet. Pierce. You can get him to… to scan the area or something. Now you know she’s in one of the cities you advertised.”

“It’s too late,” Celestia’s doppelganger groaned. “I can feel it; I have only days left now. Not enough time to come up with and enact another plan. I’m doomed, I tell you.”

“Days are all you need.” Celestia knocked a hand on the table to get her attention. “The longer you spend wailing here, the less time you’ll have. Get Pierce on the line. I’ll speak to him if I have to, but you’re not giving up now.”

“I’ll not have another word to that odious man. He’s responsible for my predicament in the first place!”

“I doubt it’s his fault. I mean really, summoning a hate avatar? He’s a hacker, not a summoner. Call him. He can help you.”

“The only time when I would want to see him again is to kill him,” the other Celestia snarled. “He’s had it coming for a long time… and as for you, I don’t see any point in impersonating you any longer.”

“What are you going to do?” Celestia asked, taking an instinctive step back.

“Now it comes time to make ensure that all that I’ve told you remains a secret.” The other Celestia stood up and walked into the kitchen, coming back with a syringe filled with a swirling blue-black liquid. “This amnesiac will blur your memories of the past three weeks or so… I’ll leave you at your home and we’ll never meet again. How does that sound?”

Celestia was tempted. Sorely tempted by this offer. But then she thought back to her entire time trapped here. She had been treated fairly, without any malice. Did she really want to forget it all?

“I’ll forget it all, huh…?” Celestia looked at her double, her eyes still damp from crying. “But what if I don’t want to? I don’t want to forget about you. You’re a very unique person.”

“Well I can’t have you telling everyone about what happened here,” the other Celestia sighed. “Come on, I’ll make it quick.”

“I won’t tell anyone!” Celestia backed away from the needle.

“Your word isn’t going to cut it, Celestia. Come on, make this easy for yourself.”

“B-But I can do you a favor! That’s how you make friends, right? Favors?”

The other Celestia looked mildly amused.

“What can you do for me, Celestia. Can you bring me to my queen? Can you halt my evolution?”

“No…”

“Then you have nothing. Come on. I promise it won’t hurt.”

“What about the sirens?” Celestia raised her palms up. “I can help you with that.”

“Th-The sirens?” the other Celestia lowered the needle and tilted her head. “What do you know of the sirens?”

“They came to my school a few months back, before the winter break,” Celestia began her explanation. “They tried to take over, but a group of my students stopped them. I decided to keep tabs on them, just in case, so I happen to know where they are.”

“You… you knew this whole time…” The other Celestia looked confused, then angry, then puzzled and hurt. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Knowing you enough, I decided to hold on to that information, just in case I could have a moment to bargain with you, just like this.”

“Where are they?” Celestia’s doppelganger demanded. “I need to see them!”

“They bought a place in the city. A small apartment. They haven’t gotten any jobs, so I don’t know how they’ve been paying the bills.”

“They’re probably using their singing,” Celestia’s double exclaimed. “You know their address, right? Let’s go see them now!”

“So you won’t wipe my memory?” Celestia checked with her other self.

“If what you’re telling me is true, not only will I not wipe your memory, but I’ll let you go. No fuss, no muss. However, if what you’re telling me is false…” the other Celestia left the threat hanging in the air, unfinished.

“You know me, right? You’ve spied on me for weeks. I won’t lie to you.” Celestia lifted her leg with chain attached. “So will you get this off me? And what about your disguise? We can’t have two of me walking about.”

“That just means you’ll have to stay hidden. Get in the back of the car and lie down. Don’t try to run for it, because if you do, expect to feel a sharp and fatal pain between your shoulder blades.”

“Got it.” Celestia shook her chain. “So are you going to free me?”

The other Celestia reached into her pocket and withdrew a small silver key which she inserted into the shackle around Celestia’s leg. With a click, the chain fell away.

Celestia rubbed at her ankle, glad to finally be out of that cuff.

“Now come on, let’s go! What’s their address?”

Pierce watched from his home computer as Principal Celestia’s car stopped outside a row of buildings, just west of the city center, along a secluded line of apartments and small stores.

“Morning Blade, I have her last known position,” he said into his earpiece. “Tide Avenue, west of Canterlot City. She’s been stopped for more than ten minutes. Likely visiting a captive Principal Celestia. See what you can find. I don’t know what she’s planning to do now, but it can’t be good. I sent the location to your phone.”

“Right, right,” Morning replied. “I’ll check this place out. If Principal Celestia is there, I’ll get her home safe and sound.”

“Good,” Pierce nodded, then swapped comms. “Keila, we’ve got a hit on a possible location of Principal Celestia. Morning Blade’s on her way there as we speak. Hopefully this is the one. Mirror Match shouldn’t have known about the bug under her car, not this time at least. How are the traps on your end?”

Pierce had sent Keila to an old quarry, just outside the city. It had used to be an old mine many years ago, but has since been closed down after a fatal accident. From what he gathered, people rarely went there. Unless he had to use his more serious traps, they should be able to evade the authorities there.

“I’ve found a few good spots to hide some of them,” Keila reported. “I’ll show you later. I’ve marked them all down on a drawn map. As for the explosives, are we really using these? They look really dangerous.”

“For Mirror Match’s case, it might not even kill her.” Pierce shook his head. He still remembered everything he had thrown at Mirror Match. At most, she was severely wounded, but he doubted that. The explosives back then hadn’t even slowed her and they had lost a good Assassin that day.

“Then looks like we have no choice. We’ll have to risk it. I’ll set them up.”

“Yeah, the more traps the better…” Pierce grunted. “No doubt she’s planning to kill me after what happened at the dance. Now she thinks it’s all my fault, but it doesn’t matter. I think she’s wanted to kill me from the start. I only helped her to buy time to plan out all this.”

“I’ll be around when that time comes, I hope. I want to be there to put a knife in Mirror Match’s heart.”

“Let’s hope so, Keila,” Pierce sighed, flipping his phone in his hand. “Whatever happens here, only one of us will be walking away from this. Us Assassins or Mirror Match.”

The car ride to the sirens’ residence was harrowing, to say the least. Lying down in the back of her car, Celestia prayed that her information was correct. As the vehicle sped along the dimly lit roads of Canterlot, Celestia relished in finally being able to see the sky.

A part of her wanted to throw the door open and make a run for it into the dark streets, but she had told her double that she wouldn’t. Normally, anyone would lie to get away from their kidnappers, but this one was different. Celestia couldn’t quite place it, but she still knew she saw good in her double.

“Make a left here,” Celestia instructed. “Then another left at the next road.”

The real principal ducked back down after speaking, looking out through a window at the sky above. It was a nice night. Not too cloudy, allowing her a glimpse of the stars. Her sister would’ve liked this night sky. Celestia hoped she was doing alright.

“Where to now?” The other Celestia signaled with the second left turn.

Principal Celestia ducked her head up and looked at her surroundings. “Straight ahead. You see that row of apartments? It’s the third block.”

“I see it.”

The apartments on the left weren’t exactly kept in good condition, but at the same time, they weren’t rundown apartments you could find in certain areas of Manehattan. The one the sirens were staying in was a tall grey building with white painted windows and ledges. From some of the windows, you could tell no one’s been cleaning them in a while.

The other Celestia stopped the car, buzzed down the window and stuck her head outside. She sniffed.

“I don’t smell anything…” Celestia’s double said slowly.

“Well, what were you expecting to smell?” Celestia asked, still lying prone in the back.

“Sirens are meant to smell like the ocean.”

“C-Come again?” The principal lifted an eyebrow.

“Is this some kind of joke, Celestia? Because I’m not laughing.”

“What? H-How do I know if they smell like the ocean? My senses aren’t as acute as yours!”

“Well I’m telling you now, the sirens smell like the ocean. And there’s no ocean smell here. This better not be a trick, Celestia…” she ended with a growl.

“No no, they’re here!” Celestia waved her hands frantically. “I’m sure of it! I’ve visited them here!”

The other Celestia looked at her skeptically before bringing the car to a halt and stepping out.

“The things I do for you, Celestia…”

The other Celestia marched up to the front door of the apartment, then promptly turned a hundred and eighty degrees and marched back to the car.

“Which floor did you say they lived on?”

Celestia poked her head up.

“The fifth. Honestly, it would be easier if I came with you, as I know exactly which door to knock on.”

The other Celestia bristled, then put a hand on her chest, breathing in and out to calm herself down.

“Fine. But no running, you hear me?”

“Yes, of course,” Celestia sighed.

Together, both Celestia’s made their way into the first floor of apartments. The real principal hung back behind the false one, hoping none of the tenants would exit their homes to see them. It would be hard explaining why there were two Principal Celestia’s.

Thankfully, no one had appeared around any of the floors as Celestia quietly followed behind her doppelganger. Never once did she turn around, but Celestia figured she could move quick enough if she attempted to escape.

The stairways were filthy, with trash, beer bottles and dark stains all over. Whoever owned the entire building was likely not doing their job.

Finally arriving at the fifth floor, Celestia lifted her pale hand and pointed to the door just around the bend of the staircase support. “That one. Five-o-two.”

The other Celestia raised one hand to knock, her right hand, the one which still had the blackened index finger with the talon attached. She hesitated. Could this be the gold at the end of the metaphorical rainbow? Could Celestia actually be telling the truth? She sniffed at the air. There was no ocean scent, but rather the faint signature smells of people stewing in discontent. And yet, there was no smell or taste of deceit from Celestia. She was telling the truth, or, at least she thought she was.

“Well, not as if I have anything to lose,” the false Celestia muttered, then brought her hand up and rapped three times on the door.

At first, there was nothing, but then she picked up the sound of scuffling feet on the other side of the door.

“Get the door, Aria,” someone’s muffled voice came. It sounded vaguely familiar.

“You get it. I’m not getting up just yet.” Another familiar voice came. Could it be?

“Well fine then! But it’s your turn next time!”

As the door swung open, the other Celestia was greeted by the sight of a yellow-skinned girl with puffy orange hair, a sight she knew very well.

“Principal Celestia?” she frowned. “I told you, I didn’t want to see you here ever again! We won’t go back!”

“Adagio…” the other Celestia breathed.

“Yeah, go away!” Adagio Dazzle balled her fists. “Don’t act like you care about us! If you did, you’d have let us take over, just like that. Why are you still standing there? Go on, get lost!”

“Adagio, it’s me,” the other Celestia whispered, tears forming in her eyes.

“I know it’s you, Celestia, and I said to go… away…” Adagio’s eyes traveled down to the other Celestia’s right hand, whose index finger still sported the black coloration and the long talon. Then to the real Principal Celestia, who was standing at the staircase. “Wait. You can’t be…” Adagio stepped back and shouted into the apartment, “Aria! Sonata! You need to come see this!”

“Really, do I have to?” Both Celestia’s heard the other siren groan from inside the room.

There were footsteps, followed by a bouncy Sonata Dusk as she stood by the doorway with her sister. She looked at both Celestia’s back and forth, her eyes almost as wide as an owl’s.

The false Celestia’s smile widened and her tears started falling.

“No way, there are two of you?” Sonata pointed at them.

Then she was swiftly picked up in a hug by the other Celestia, who was very clearly happy to see the blue haired siren.

“I-It’s really you, Sonata… It’s been so long… I-I’ve missed you all...”

“Umm… what’s going on, Dagi?” Sonata looked at the other siren. “Why are there two Celestia’s?”

“Sonata… it’s me. I finally found you girls again…” the false Celestia whispered.

“It’s you? What do you… mean…” Sonata’s face changed to one of confusion, then shock as she beheld the other Celestia’s index finger. “Psithyra…?”

“Yes… I’m so sorry.” The other Celestia’s voice wavered, sounding like two women speaking at once. “So very sorry for leaving all those years ago.”

Principal Celestia watched from the staircase at the teary reunion. She couldn’t help but smile at them. Her captor might’ve impersonated her and kept her away from her friends and sister, but Celestia was glad she finally found part of her family again.

“Is… Is she with you as well?” Celestia’s double looked at the sirens hopefully. “Is my sister here?”

“Chrysalis?” Adagio looked at the false Celestia. “No… She’s not. We split up not too long after you left, Psithyra. We don’t know where she is. I’m sorry.”

“Y-You don’t? But I left you in her care! What do you mean, you split up?”

Aria came to the door next, her normally cynical face melting into one of shock when she realized who was really at the door.

“Is it really you?” She hesitantly approached the door, hands coming up to her mouth.

“Yeah…” The false Celestia, or Psithyra, as the real Celestia had heard, reached out her hand and brought both Aria and Adagio into the hug. “I’ve missed you all so much… But what happened between you three and the queen?”

“It wasn’t the same without you,” Adagio said. “We parted ways two years after you left us.”

“I shouldn’t have left all those years ago… I was upset. I shouldn’t have let my feelings control me.” Psithyra leaned into the three girls. “Can you forgive me for my actions…?”

Adagio looked pensive. “Well, I-”

“Of course we forgive you!” Sonata gushed, squeezing the changeling close.

There were a few more minutes of hugging and sweet nothings, then Psithyra drew back, a look of puzzlement on her face.

“I almost didn’t come because I couldn’t smell you. Why don’t you smell like the ocean any more?”

Then Psithyra noticed something. The red gems that normally adorned their necks were nowhere to be seen. “What happened to your gems?”

All three sirens winced. “Yeah. About that…”

“Our gems kind of… broke. Now we can’t sing.”

Psithyra’s eye twitched, then she turned to Celestia menacingly. “I don’t suppose you know anything about this?”

Celestia looked at her captor, slightly defensively. “I do. They came to my school and hypnotized all of us, trying to take over, but a group of my students put a stop to it.”

“Why is it that when I lose one problem, I seem to gain two more?” Psithyra groaned, but quickly turned it into a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, you three. I’m going to make it all better, just you wait and see.”

“You’re not mad we decided to follow in your sister’s footsteps of world domination?” Adagio put her hands on her hips.

“We’re sorry, Thyra.” Sonata kicked a foot out, ashamed. “We should’ve stuck to what you’ve taught us and stayed away from the spotlight. There was just… magic.”

“Real magic,” Aria added. “We haven’t seen that since we left Equestria. So you know, we decided to try and get it.”

“I’m not disappointed that you tried to get the magic,” Psithyra said gently. “I’m disappointed you tried it without me. I could have come up with a plan for you. I’m- or I was, good at those.”

Celestia didn’t like what she heard, but there wasn’t really anything she could do about it.

“Sorry to interrupt this reunion, um, Psithyra.” Celestia coughed, getting her attention. “I’m glad you found your family again. But-”

“Did I say you could use my real name?” Psithyra snarled, the caught herself. “Sorry. What’s that?”

Celestia had taken a step back, but came back when her double calmed down. “I hope you know, like you said, laying low is a better tactic. You really don’t need to kill anymore. Times are different. People, especially the students in my school, don’t find things like magic and non-humans weird anymore. You don’t need to live with so much violence anymore.”

“Psithyra looked at the sirens, then at her hands. “But your students took their powers from them! They didn’t deserve that! Their immortality… it’s gone…they smell… normal now,” she finished with a growl.

“I’m sorry, Psithyra.” Celestia hesitantly walked forward. “But girls, it’s not right what you did.”

“No one asked you, Celestia!” Adagio yelled at her.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Psithyra cooed. “I’m here now, and I’m going to make it all better. Do you still have the gem fragments?”

“I’ve got mine,” Adagio said, holding up a small pouch. “I think the Rainbooms have Sonata’s and Aria’s.”

“Who?” Psithyra said before waving her hand dismissively. “Nevermind. I’ll get updated on things later. Right now, I have business to take care of.”

The changeling turned to Celestia.

“I misjudged you, Celestia. You truly are a woman of your word, and I’d be glad to count you among my friends. As promised, you are free to go, and so long as you keep the details behind your detainment a secret, I give you my word I won’t come back to haunt you.”

“May I tell my sister?” Celestia asked. She couldn’t hide things from Luna, not like that.

Psithyra considered it. “Mmmh, okay. But if word of this gets out, I will be back, you hear me? Just our secret.”

“I swear,” Celestia said, placing a hand over her heart. “It’ll be just our secret.”

“Then you may go now, Celestia,” Psithrya took out the car keys and handed them over. “And… thank you. You’ve done for me what few have done. I’ll… think about what you said. Maybe I can work it into my new persona.”

“Then I wish you all the best, Psithyra,” Celestia nodded. “I won’t forget you and who you are, good or bad.”

She waited until Celestia had departed, then turned back to the sirens.

“Girls, I think it’s fair to let you know, I’m not well either. All this time without the queen has taken its toll on me. Not to mention falling off a skyscraper.”

“You fell off a skyscraper?” Sonata goggled at Psithyra.

“I was pushed.”

“You-you’re not going to die, are you?” Sonata clung to the doppelganger. “You just found us again!”

“No, I’m not going to die… not while I still have you three. But I am evolving into a queen. In a few days, I suspect I’ll be a vastly different person. And I can’t stand that.”

“Man, we’re all kind of boned, aren’t we?” Aria said drily.

“You’re evolving?” Adagio demanded. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, I’m going to turn into a queen, like my sister. Our time apart has changed me, Adagio. I… I’m afraid. But don’t worry. I’ll watch over you three like a hawk. Now that we’re together again, I don’t matter anymore. It’s all about you.”

Sonata sniffled. “But I don’t want you to be the queen. The queen is a big meany-pants.”

“You’re lucky she’s not here to hear that, Sonata.” Aria flicked her sister’s blue ponytail. “For me, I dunno. I kinda prefer the queen. Maybe you’re changing for the better?”

“If I become the queen, who’s going to come up with all the plans?” Psithyra demanded. “You?”

Aria took a step back. “Geez, sorry. I was just trying to find a silver lining.”

“I’m sure we can figure something out, Psithyra.” Adagio rested her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “But for now, it’s good to see you again.”

“Yeah…” Psithyra smiled and pulled them all in for another group hug. “It is…”

The four of them embraced for a long while, until the sound of a phone ringing broke the atmosphere. Psithyra looked down and retrieved Celestia’s smartphone. She’d forgotten to give it back.

“Hello?” She answered, switching back to Celestia’s voice.

“Hello, Principal Celestia?” It was Pierce Network. “I might have some news on your queen. I was wondering if you want to meet up. I feel like you probably want to kill me after what happened at the dance. Now, I’m not the kind of man who just wants to die simply, so I went ahead and did some searching. I think I might have found some traces of something at an old quarry, just a little bit outside the city. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to track her any further than this. Maybe you’ll have a better nose at this. One thing, though. I want to know that this information gets me something out of it.”

“How in the world did you manage to get any reading on the queen when I haven’t?” Psithrya demanded. “You’re lying to me.”

“That’s because you never bothered looking,” Pierce answered. “I tracked the car by feature recognition technology. There are somethings you can do if you know how to hack your way into cameras. But I want to know that you’ll leave me alone after I help you find her again.”

“We’ll see just how good your information is before I make any decisions about your life,” Psithyra hissed.

“Fair enough. I’ll send you the address.” Then the line clicked off.

“Who was that?” Sonata asked as the changeling put the phone away.

“Someone who’s outlived his usefulness. He claims to have a lead on where the queen is, and if he does, I’ll have to meet him. However…” Psithyra reached into her jacket and pulled out a compact black pistol, screwing a suppressor onto the muzzle. “One way or another, I’m not going to let him walk. He ruined my first chances to meet the queen again, and for that he must pay.”

“Are you sure you’re strong enough?” Adagio asked, taking one of the changeling’s hands. “You look pretty worn out.”

“What, you don’t think I can gun down one annoying man in cold blood? Think a little more highly of me, Adagio.” She straightened up and checked the address the computer teacher had sent her.

“Fitting. One final mission for the queen before I ascend to the throne. You’re not getting away from this one, Pierce Network.”

12 - The Faceoff

Pierce Network threw his cupboard doors open, staring inside for a second before he reached behind his various shirts, pushing a button at the back, which allowed him to slide away the cupboard’s false back panel, revealing assets he thought he would never have to touch again.

In the back was his old Vigilante and Assassin coat, a brown one with a high collar and a hood attached. He had hung it up when he left the Assassins a few years ago. Alongside the coat was an old grey scarf, and strapped to the back wall, was his Assassin hidden blade, still kept in reasonable condition, and his trusty pistol.

Pierce sighed. “I never thought I’d ever fish you out of my cupboard again… But times call for your return, old friend. I didn’t think the Templars would ever find me again, but Mirror Match has. I thought I could leave my old life behind, but I guess I was wrong. In this business, you can never truly leave. All you need is a gentle tug and you find yourself pulled back into the world of killing…”

He pulled the scarf over his head before grabbing the coat off the wall, sliding his arms through the sleeves before buttoning the front. The computer teacher grunted as he fought to get the buttons to reach the other side. It seems years of inactivity and sugary snacks had taken their toll on him.

Breathing in, Pierce got the last two buttons in before sighing with relief. It wasn’t too uncomfortable or tight, but he made a note to start exercising again when his leg healed up.

Pulling at the velcro straps holding his weapons in place, Pierce took and fastened the hidden blade under his right arm and holstered his pistol in his coat. He already had his extendable baton with him, now hidden within his coat. He had started using it as a pointer in class, but he still kept it around to teach the students a lesson if they severely misbehaved in class, like that Jetstream and Lightning Rain incident a while ago.

The real Principal Celestia had reprimanded him for it and reported it to the Board of Education. If he hadn’t hacked her message and stopped it from transmitting, the Templars might’ve found him much sooner.

Speaking of Principal Celestia…

Pierce had sent Morning Blade to the coordinates of her car earlier. The former Assassin had broken into a small building, but no one had been there, though she reported that she had found evidence of someone being held there, having found a steel chain and bars on the windows.

Wherever she was now, Pierce was hoping to get that information out of Mirror Match at the quarry. He had about two hours to go before she was supposed to meet him there.

Holding out his phone, Pierce checked the tracker on Principal Celestia’s car. It was now outside her own home, but that didn’t really mean anything. She was likely checking up on Vice Principal Luna, whom she had kept drugged in order to fool her.

But all that was about to come to an end. Pierce knew there was no way he was walking out alive once Mirror was done with him, so this time, he was already one step ahead of her.

“This is it, Mirror Match,” he said, mostly for himself to hear as he opened his home door, then locking it once he stepped out. “This is where it all comes to an end. Whether I die or you die today, the others will rescue Principal Celestia once they find out where you moved her. You thought you had everything in order? You thought you were invincible? Unkillable? All that changes today. It’s time for us to show you that even you… can die.”

The site of the quarry was all quiet like it had always been since its abandonment many years ago. People had used to come here to explore, hoping to find some mythical treasure or artifact, but in the end, the stories of spirits dragging you deep underground always worked.

Pierce Network didn’t believe in any of those stories. Anything he couldn’t see, he would simply shrug off as a myth, but after what he’s seen with Mirror Match and Mentor Steel Shine, maybe underground spirits weren’t such a tall tale. Though, he wasn’t likely to go down into the quarry ever, especially not with his leg like this.

“Good to see you again, Morning Blade,” Keila greeted the other ex-Assassin. She now had on a tattered brown cloak, something she wasn’t wearing when Pierce had met with her.

“Keila.” Morning answered, keeping it short. “It’s… It’s good to see you again, I suppose.”

“Good to see you’re better than when I last saw you.” Keila slipped an arm around Morning and gave her a quick hug. “Doing okay?”

“Getting there…” Morning Blade nodded. “But it’s been okay so far. I’ve started going to college.”

“Hey, that’s good. Much better.” Keila grinned. “I’ve still been in Trottingham, sorting through whatever Mentor Steel Shine and the other Mentors had stocked up in her vault. They have things from so long ago, it’s like… wow. You should come see someday.”

“Right, if you two are done…” Pierce limped over to them, holding a sniper rifle under one arm. “It’s almost time for the meeting. We should get into position. Now, Morning Blade. I want you to take this and head up to that hill over there.” The teacher pointed to the distance, just above the quarry, near the road. “I only have five bullets in that thing, so once you run out, come join us down here. Keila, I want you at the target spot, ready to strike as soon as I give the signal. We’ll only have one shot. If we fail today, that’s it.”

“You know I’ve never used one of these, right?” Morning held the large rifle up and inspected it. “And I’m missing my right eye. What do you expect me to do?”

“Try your best.” Pierce looked at his phone, linked to several cameras in the surrounding area. “That’s all I ask. That we each give our best to take down the Witch of Manehattan once and for all. Now, I know you are fond of Principal Celestia, but right now, this won’t be her. I need to know you will do what you have to when the time comes.”

“I will do what I must.” Morning Blade turned and began walking to her designated spot.

“Then I’ll see you all when it begins.” Pierce limped back to his spot under a lamppost. “Good luck. Don’t mess up now. We’ve come so far to finally put that witch in the ground.”

Keila pulled her hood over her head and disappeared down the quarry and Morning Blade had already gone, now somewhere atop the hill with her weapon at ready.

Pierce sat down atop an empty crate and closed his eyes. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but if he didn’t try something now, Mirror was still going to be out there, and he wasn’t going to wait for her to decide to dispose of him. No. He had to be the first to strike.

With his phone in hand and weapons tucked inside his brown coat, Pierce waited and in forty minutes, his wait was over.

“Pierce, I got something. It’s her,” Morning Blade’s voice came on his earpiece. “But… she’s just walking in. Did she walk all the way here…?”

Something wasn’t adding up. “Keep an eye around. Eagle vision. Make sure she’s alone. I’ll see what she’s come to say.”

Pierce grabbed the lamppost and hauled himself up, phone in hand, ready for whatever was coming. Soon, he spotted Principal Celestia walking towards him out of the thin night fog.

“Pierce, are we sure she isn’t the real Principal Celestia?” Keila’s voice whispered in his ear. “She could be using the real one as a decoy while she watches us from somewhere.”

The hacker narrowed his eyes. He didn’t think of that, but he didn’t deny that could’ve been something Mirror might’ve thought up.

He shook his head. She was too close for him to voice an answer now. Whether she was the real one or not, the only way to find out now was to have a talk with her.

“Good, you’re here,” Pierce said to her as she met him under the lamppost light. “So, let’s get this clear. Once you have this information, you’ll let Principal Celestia and I go in peace?”

“Depends,” Celestia said, keeping her right hand in her pocket. “What have you found?”

“Traces of the car that appeared at school.” Pierce kept an eye on her this time, not just his phone. “I told you, I had access to cameras in the city and I managed to find that same car traveling along a certain route. Whoever was driving that car, your queen or not, they were trying to avoid the public eye. Why is that, I don’t know, but maybe you do, but that’s not as important right now. So is that good enough for you?”

“I don’t suppose you can tell me who owns that car?” Celestia said, turning her back to Pierce.

“Not yet.” The computer teacher shook his head. “I need to get a good look at the car plate before I can find out. But I was hoping you can pick up their trail or something. You have a good sense of smell, do you not? I remember your skills when you fought us and all the stories from the other Assassins about you. That’s why I called you here. If you can pick up something, it’ll save me the trouble of tracking the car with the clues we can find here.”

“You know something?” Celestia said, slowly turning around. “I’ve had just enough of your bullcrap, Pierce Network.” Her hand came out of her pocket, holding a suppressed pistol in her grasp, its laser sight playing about on Pierce’s chest. “You don’t care about helping me find the queen in the slightest, and on top of everything else you’ve done, I think it’s fair to call this cooperation over.”

“Is that what you think now?” Pierce showed no indication of fear, but this changed his plans a little. He had hoped to get her to the pit first. “Then I guess it’s the way it has to be. Good morning.”

That was his signal.

A loud gunshot pierced the air before a powerful bullet came whizzing through the air. Unfortunately, Mirror leaned back and the bullet just missed her by the nose.

Pierce wasn’t having any of it. He pressed a button on his phone’s screen and jumped back as one of his traps sprung. It was an electrical netting on the floor, hidden under the gravel. Celestia opened her eyes wide with surprise, but was otherwise unaffected.

“Electrical netting, hm? Then it’s a good thing Celestia’s shoes are all rubber soled.”

But Pierce already had his pistol out, firing while she was distracted. Mirror looked up a second too late as the first bullet tore through her shoulder, then her chest as she fell back off the netting on a knee, clutching her wounds.

The hacker aimed and fired again, but Mirror barged into him, knocking him down as she lifted her own pistol to his head.

Before she could pull the trigger, Pierce heard the sniper rifle fire again before a bullet pinged dangerously close to his face, forcing Mirror away from him. Then Keila appeared from behind and kicked her in the gut and threw her to the side before helping the hacker up.

“You,” Mirror growled. Principal Celestia’s face was twisted into a look she would never make. “I remember you. What are you doing back with Pierce? He betrayed you all. Now you have come to die alongside him?”

“Not today.” Keila swiped her hands under her coat and returned with two gleaming daggers. “Today, we’re putting an end to you, once and for all.”

“See, Mirror Match?” Pierce pointed his pistol at her head. “I’ve got backup. Now tell me, where is the real Principal Celestia? This time, you’re on the other end of the stick. You’re at your limit.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Mirror cackled. “I already let Celestia go. She’s not a part of this any longer. You on the other hand… You-”

Then she somersaulted back as another sniper round smashed into the dirt round where she was standing.

“Enough!” Mirror screeched and fired her gun at Pierce.

The hacker was pushed down by Keila, just as he clicked a button on his phone’s screen. Two harpoons fired out from the sides of the quarry road, one drilling into Mirror’s right shoulder, the other into her left side, a few inches under her arm.

“Gah!” She gasped and dropped her pistol.

“Now, Keila.” Pierce fired his weapon at the false principal and he would’ve hit her head if she hadn’t blocked it with her arms. “She’s still tough, but she cannot last much longer. She must already be close to her limit.”

The Saddle Arabian ex-Assassin approached her with her daggers ready, but before she could strike, Mirror had ripped the harpoon points off their latches and ducked low as another shot from Morning Blade flew over her head. Then she kicked out at Keila, knocking her down before leaping on her, delivering a volley of quick punches to her.

“You shouldn’t interfere!” she snarled. “But now that you have, you too, will die!”

As Mirror lifted her left hand again to punch Keila, the air was filled with the sound of the final sniper bullet, cutting through a portion of Mirror’s arm. That gave Keila time to push her off with her daggers, stabbing her in the chest before rolling to the side and getting up, wiping blood off the corner of her mouth.

The false principal stumbled back, cradling her arm and the wounds on her chest, a fierce growl on her face, very unlike the real Principal Celestia.

“Just give up.” Pierce reloaded his gun. “It’s over for you now. There is nothing you can do. You are spent. You cannot beat all of us as you are now. You said it yourself. You don’t have enough strength to get out of this alive. In the end, you’re just like every other Templar and criminal I’ve had to put down. You all think you’re invincible, but that’s why I’m here. I’m here to show you that you’re wrong.”

“Just stop talking!” Mirror yelled and covered the distance between them in a blink of an eye, tackling Pierce so hard that he flew back a few inches, landing on the ground, while she knocked one of Keila’s daggers away and grabbed the ex-Assassin around the throat, lifting her off the ground. “You want to help this wretched man so much? Then you’ll be the first to die!”

Green fire erupted from Mirror’s mouth as Keila tried to fight against Mirror Match’s grip, but it was like iron. Pierce got up and rubbed his chest, picking up his pistol and taking aim, but Keila was in between both of them; he might end up shooting her instead.

He searched through his trap triggers on his phone, but Mirror wasn’t standing close to any of the non-lethal ones.

Come on, Keila. You can beat her.

From behind, Morning Blade lunged out of the darkness and tackled Mirror Match down, freeing Keila from her grip as she fell atop the false principal.

“How dare you impersonate such a good person!” Morning lifted her hidden blade high. “Principal Celestia did nothing to deserve this! Where is she, witch?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” Celestia replied in a voice that sounded like two people talking at once. In her mouth, a pair of sharp, pointed fangs made themselves known.

“Where. Is. She.” Morning Blade’s frown deepened and her blade got closer to Mirror’s neck.

“You’re not very good at listening, are you?” Mirror lashed out with a kick. “I already said I let her go, which is more than I can say for you.”

Morning recovered and pulled her pistol from her holster, just as Mirror rolled to hers and picked it up, rising to a standing position as both of them pointed the weapons at each other. Morning Blade’s finger curled around the trigger, but Mirror swatted her arm aside, taking aim with her own pistol. Using her free hand, Morning pushed Mirror’s arm up, and the shot went above her head. Swinging her own gun around, Morning let off a shot, but it was ducked by Mirror Match who brought her gun around, aiming for a chest shot. Morning’s hand seized Mirror’s, yanking it down where the bullet flew harmlessly between her legs.

Mirror Match snarled, Celestia’s face twisting into an expression of pure hatred. She raised the gun again, just as Morning Blade raised hers. They met forearm to forearm, both of them shooting off a bullet, Morning’s gun giving off an earsplitting crack while Mirror’s suppressed pistol gave off a thwip. Both of them ducked their heads to the side, avoiding each other’s bullets before Morning pushed Mirror’s hand away to fire again. The false Celestia did the same, both missing their marks once more.

Pierce lay there watching, reloading his pistol. They were both shooting at each other at such close range and only one wrong move would finish the fight now. He had to do something before Mirror could get the upper hand on Morning Blade.

“Keila,” he called as he struggled to his feet. Soon the Saddle Arabian was by his side, hauling him up under one shoulder. “We need to lure her over to one of the traps. Just a little more to the right.”

“I’ll help her out.” Keila took one step towards the fight, but jumped back almost as quickly and bent to the left as a bullet flew by her.

“No, stay back, I’ve got this,” Morning said as she and Mirror fired at each other again, both missing. “It’s too dangerous.”

A bullet flew by Pierce’s face as the two women continued to shoot, deflect, and divert each other’s guns. Crack! Thwip! Crack! Thwip! Until finally, there came a different sound.

Click.

There was a tense moment as all the fighting stopped, and both combatants looked at their guns.

Mirror Match grinned, showing off her fangs. “You’re empty.”

Morning Blade’s face paled and she took an involuntary step back. “Son of a…”

Bang!

Mirror Match stumbled away, driven back by Pierce’s gunshot.

“She might be empty,” the computer teacher said. “But I’m not. You’ve forgotten, witch, that there are three of us. We outnumber you.”

“Why you little-!” The former Templar agent raised her own gun once more, but Morning Blade wrenched her arm aside at the last minute. Mirror twisted out of her grasp and fired again, only to be rewarded with a similar click.

Mirror sighed.

“Well shi-”

Keila joined in the fight, flying in with a kick to Mirror’s head, while Morning scrambled for another magazine. The false principal brought up her arms to block, but she still fell back a step, almost close enough for Pierce to trigger one of his other traps.

Close enough, Pierce decided. He fired one bullet, watching as it hit Mirror in the right thigh, sending her back and down on a knee. Wasting no time, Pierce flipped the page of his phone’s screen and pressed one of the activation buttons, watching as the button’s color changed from red to green.

From under the gravel, a bear trap-like device activated, its jaws flipping up and ensnaring Mirror Match’s left leg, its metal teeth biting deep into her calf, drawing blood and cracking bone.

Pierce and Morning took the chance to shoot at her, punching bullets into her chest before Mirror lifted her arms to block them, but she was still getting hurt. Some bounced off her chest, but Pierce could still see a spread of blood in multiple parts of her body, spreading across her clothes.

When their magazines clicked empty, Pierce and the others watched on, looking to see if they had finally done it. Mirror wasn’t dead yet, but she looked like she was having trouble breathing.

It was unsettling for Morning Blade especially. To see what appeared to be Principal Celestia covered in gunshot wounds and bleeding struck a chord of wrongness in the former Assassin, a chord of wrongness that was dispelled when Mirror Match spoke, her dual-toned voice wavering.

“Haah… haah… You think that’s enough… to kill me?” Mirror reached down and pried off the bear trap, throwing the entire thing aside as she struggled to her feet. On hand went into her bloodstained jacket and pulled out her black dagger, its length glowing green with toxin.

“How is she still getting up?” Keila looked at the witch unbelievingly. “That trap must’ve broken her leg.”

“She’s not human, remember?” Pierce said. “But she should be losing it. She’s weakened. She can’t possibly keep this up.”

Mirror Match swiped at the air with her dagger, sending drops of green venom across the ground where little plumes of smoke rose from where they touched the gravel.

“I thought I’d never have to use this technique again…” she growled, tightly grasping her dagger. “But you leave me no choice, you cretins!”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Pierce scoffed and reloaded his gun. “You were planning on using that blade on me, just like all the others. You’re not one to give up easily, but so are we. That poison dagger has to go. You’ve caused too much pain with that weapon over time. It’s time we put an end to it and you.”

“I’m not talking about the dagger,” Mirror Match said sinisterly, holding both her arms close to her body, then flinging them out again. There was a sudden wave of heat as bright green flames engulfed her body, lighting up the night. But not every part of her body. The flames were patchy and some of them died out upon reaching her chest and parts of her arms and legs, though both her feet, hands, and head remained shrouded in roaring fire.

As the flames slowly flickered and faded, the three former Assassins were able to see what had transpired. Standing where there had been a likeness of Principal Celestia, now stood a tall, thin and blackened entity with royal purple hair reaching down to her feet, each of which had grown talons, the shoes having burned off. The creature raised its hands, each finger of which was also tipped with a three-inch long talon, one of which was still gripping the toxic dagger. The scorched remains of Celestia’s jacket and pants clung to its lithe form, and sooty flakes drifted off as it took a step toward Pierce and the others. Through the thick curtain of hair, a pair of enormous fangs could be seen, with a pair of slit-pupiled eyes above them.

Morning Blade was horror-struck. “W-What are you, Mirror Match?”

The creature gave a laughing cough, spitting out some bullets before speaking in a more pronounced version of her dual voice.

“You keep calling me that. That, is not my name.”

The thing that was now standing where Principal Celestia or Mirror Match was took a step forward, only for Pierce to activate the electrical net trap again. They watched as blue electricity began to arc up the creature. She spasmed once, but then looked straight at Pierce and tore the trap from the ground, tossing it over her shoulder.

The computer teacher had heard stories of this monstrous form from other Assassins, but he had dismissed them as hallucinations or misinterpretation. Obviously, he had been wrong.

“You think your simple tricks will work on me now?” Mirror Match’s, or whatever her name was, voice had returned to a singular sound, though it was different from her voice Pierce knew. “I’m going to enjoy tearing you lot apart. Especially you, Pierce.”

“It’s not going to be easy, witch!” Keila lunged for her, daggers thrusting towards Mirror’s chest.

Suddenly, it was like Mirror Match had teleported. She appeared beside Keila, slashing at her arm with her sharp claws, tearing into skin and knocking the Saddle Arabian down, her blood trailing on the floor as she slid on the gravel.

“Agh!” Keila grasped for her arm, not getting up from the ground.

“Keila!” Morning tried to get to her, but Mirror was already on her, swinging her claws at her. The ex-Assassin reached into her coat and pulled out her katana, blocking Mirror with it.

Mirror instead stepped down on Morning’s foot, the talons on her feet piercing the former Assassin’s shoe and biting deep. The black dagger swiped dangerously close to Morning’s face, and she backpedaled to avoid the deadly weapon.

Pierce unsheathed his hidden blade and made a stab at Mirror. Mirror grabbed his hidden blade with her hand and squeezed, and there was a splintering noise as the blade broke in her grip.

“Your Assassin tricks won’t work on me,” she gloated, thrusting her dagger at Pierce, who leapt away, almost falling on his feet, barely missing the tiny droplets of poison as they jumped off the blade.

“Then try this on for size, witch,” Pierce said, bringing up his gun and shooting Mirror in the chest, aiming for her heart. The bullet struck Mirror square in the chest and bounced off, pinging on the ground. “What?”

“Hehe… hahaha.”

Mirror surged forward, her dagger held high. Pierce was pushed against a wall, using his left hand to keep the dagger from falling. His right hand squeezed the trigger, the gun pressed against Mirror’s heart.

“How are you…?”

Mirror smirked, pushing the dagger down toward his shoulder. “Bulletproof underwear. Never leave home without it.” Green flames flickered in her mouth as she pushed the dagger down. “Now die.”

“Not yet!” Both Morning Blade and Keila jammed a blade in Mirror Match’s sides, one on the left, the other on the right.

They pulled her to the side, allowing Pierce to stumble away, falling on his side and reloading his pistol.

“You dare interfere with me!” Mirror screeched in her dual-tone voice, claws flashing as she opened a line of blood on Morning Blade’s arm. “Do you know who I am?”

“No, and I don’t care,” Pierce said, pointing his gun and firing, this time hitting Mirror in the abdomen, and was rewarded with a spray of red. Morning and Keila backed off as he emptied his magazine into Mirror’s body, causing her to stagger away from them, still clutching her dagger as if it were a lifeline.

“Haah… haah…” Mirror panted, holding her arms close to her body as more green flames licked up at her wounds. But then, the fire seemed to peter out and die, leaving Mirror with a look of dismay and shock on her face.

“No… not now…” she gasped, falling to her knees. “I’m not done yet…”

“It is over.” Morning Blade unsheathed her katana and held it close to Mirror Match’s neck.

“You’ve run out now, witch.” Pierce limped closer, pointing his pistol at her head. “You thought you could beat us, but you were already lacking when you came to find me. It was only a matter of time before you finally ran out of juice. You should’ve left in peace. That way, none of us would have to go through all this.”

“It would seem that I’ve underestimated you, Network,” Mirror Match groaned, blood running from the corner of her mouth. “A man more deserving of an execution I wouldn’t think of.”

“Look who’s talking!” Morning raised her katana until it was just under Mirror Match’s neck, the steel touching her flesh.

“I… suppose you’re going to kill me now…” Mirror said ruefully. “Winner take all and all that…”

“It’s over,” Keila said, brandishing her daggers. “Game, set and match.”

“Over?” A new, female voice boomed from above. “Why, if you’ll forgive me for being cliched, I think it’s just getting started.”

The three former Assassins looked up. Silhouetted against the moon, standing on the top of a crane, was a dark figure with long, flowing hair. The figure dropped down, landing in a crouch between Mirror Match and the former Assassins, transitioning her motion into a low spinning sweep kick that ignited a circle of green flames around herself and Mirror Match, forcing the former Assassins to step back to avoid the fire.

As the ring of fire slowly crackled its way into oblivion, the figure stood up, illuminated by the moonlight.

It wasn’t one of their old enemies.

It wasn’t even a Templar.

13 - Volaticus

It was Ebony Wings.

“Ebony Wings?”

The three former Assassins gaped in surprise at the woman who stood before them. She was dressed in a leather corset with long sleeves, pants with holes near the feet, and shoes that appeared to be armored. In one hand she held a long, silver fleuret, and in the other, a crooked black short sword that glowed green with venom.

Pierce Network had recognized her from her flowing black hair and facial features, seeing as she was an acclaimed actress and all, but what she was doing here, he had no idea.

She brushed her dark hair away from her sparkling green eyes and grinned over her shoulder. “Miss me, little sister?”

“S-Sister?” Mirror Match gasped in disbelief.

“Sister?” Morning Blade repeated.

“Yes, it is I, Ebony Wings!” Ebony proclaimed, turning back to face the three former Assassins. “And this is my sister you’re menacing. So I’m only going to ask you once: drop the weapons and run away. This is bigger than you know.”

“Are you a servant of the queen as well?” Pierce asked her. “The one Mirror Match is always talking about? She’s mentioned a queen on countless occasions, but we’ve never been able to determine who or what she is. For all we know, it could be a figment of her imagination or a ploy used to throw us off track. So… Are you a servant of the queen like she is?”

Ebony Wings rolled her head on her shoulders, her mouth opening and closing with a wet snap. “You fool,” she said eventually. “I am the queen.”

The former Assassins exchanged quick glances, both at Ebony Wings and then at the kneeling Mirror Match. This had been their only chance to kill her, but now that Ebony Wings was here, all three of them suddenly felt as if the odds had shifted.

Pierce took a bold step forward. “I’m not running. Your sister needs to die now and you can’t protect her. She’s caused us all too much trouble in the past and now here she is again, back in our lives. If not for her, I would still be living a good life here, undisturbed.”

Ebony Wings’s smile turned into a frown. “Oh, shut up!” Then over her shoulder, she called, “What exactly did you do to get into this situation?”

Mirror struggled to her feet, collapsing against a pile of cinderblocks with her black dagger in hand. She seemed to still be in shock from Ebony’s arrival.

“Trying to find you, that’s what…” she fell back down to the ground. “A-And you were here… All this time. Ebony Wings… the worst actress out there. I should’ve known it was you.”

“‘Worst actress out there’? I thought I was pretty good; I have a whole shelf of awards,” Ebony’s lips twitched with amusement.

Mirror eyed the former Assassins. “They might believe you, but I see through your acting. You’re terrible, sister… So bad. Ugh…” She turned on her back and placed her hand over a chest wound.

“Don’t strain yourself, sister,” Ebony said, turning back to their opponents. “I’ll handle this.”

Keila and Morning Blade looked at each other uncertainly, but Pierce knew Mirror needed to go. This was their only chance and they weren’t going to give up after coming so close to winning.

“Morning, Keila, on my mark,” he whispered to them, his thumb tapping away on his phone’s screen. “Try to get to Mirror Match. I’ll try to distract Ebony Wings. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, or more accurately, on my phone. I’ve programmed it to work on a lot of things here, just in case.”

Ebony Wings flourished her fleuret and took a step toward the three former Assassins.

“So, which one of you wants to die first?”

“Now.” Pierce clicked a button, activating a shock trap he had set up earlier.

Ebony Wings wasn’t exactly over it, but the blue electricity spread out far enough to reach her, the current crawling to her leg and jumping up her body. She leapt backward almost unaffected, snarling and glaring daggers at Pierce. Fangs shot out from her gums and she licked them, letting drops of venom patter down onto the ground.

Keila and Morning Blade had already moved, rushing towards the downed Mirror Match with their blades drawn. The latter had her pistol out, taking aim as she closed the distance.

Moving faster than anyone would have believed, Ebony Wings faced the two oncoming threats and lashed out with a kick, connecting with Morning Blade’s gut, immediately following up with a slash at Keila with her fleuret. The Saddle Arabian was forced to block with her knives, bringing her to a halt.

Pierce Network took this chance to whip out his pistol and fire at Mirror Match, doing his best to aim for her head. His bullet was intercepted by Ebony’s black blade. Ebony knocked Keila down with a spinning kick to the head and hissed at Pierce.

“Are you ignoring me?” she growled. “Am I not the greater threat to you? Am I not more worthy of your attention?”

Morning Blade raised her pistol at Ebony Wings, who simply pushed her arm aside so that the shot went wide before slashing her wrist with a flick of her fleuret. Blood sprayed out and Morning cried out in pain, dropping her gun.

“We don’t want you dead,” Pierce scowled at the actress. “We have no quarrel with you, just your sister. She ruined us from within. A clever tactic, one we clearly didn’t see coming. Evil comes in many forms.”

Tapping on his phone, Pierce activated a sonic trap, just beside Mirror Match. To them, it was almost silent, but it was too much for the former Templar agent. She brought her hands up to her ears and covered them, screaming in pain.

Taking this chance, Pierce reloaded his pistol and fired two bullets at her, while he pointed the rest in Ebony’s direction.

Ebony frowned and seemed to fade away, reappearing in front of Mirror Match, stabbing the sonic trap with her black blade. Both bullets struck her instead, one passing through her leg and the other drilling into her chest. A red stain began to grow on Ebony Wings’ front.

And then Ebony Wings did something none of the former Assassins expected. She began to laugh.

“Ha ha ha… Did you seriously think… hee hee… that you’d be able to kill me with that little thing? Ha ha… you don’t have what it takes to kill me,” Abruptly, the laughter stopped, replaced by a low, growling tone as she spat out the bullet. “But I have what it takes to kill you. Want to see?”

“Oh, now you’ve made her mad,” Mirror tittered. To the trio’s dismay, some of her wounds were beginning to close, the smaller cuts healing over. “Go on, sister! Show them what it is to fall foul of the queen!”

Ebony Wings clenched her fists around her weapons, and suddenly both her hands burst into bright green flames burning up to her wrists. Five seconds later, the flames died down, revealing Ebony’s hands to be charcoal black and each finger tipped with a long, sharp talon.

“You, you’re just like her,” Keila said with disgust as she watched the actress’ hands.

“What now, Pierce?” Morning Blade wrapped her wrist in a bandage. “We can’t beat this one. We should go.”

Pierce knew she was right, but then he looked at Mirror Match, who now wore a smug smile across her face. He didn’t like it.

“No. We have to do this. If we fail today, she recovers and there’s no stopping her again.”

The hacker scrolled through his phone. He didn’t have many traps left, but he still had one big trick up his sleeve. All he had to do was lure the woman, or whatever she was, a little bit over to the left, close to the center of the road.

Ebony Wings dashed forward, so fast that she became a blur. Within a heartbeat, she was at Keila, delivering a devastating roundhouse kick to the Saddle Arabian’s head, knocking her down. Morning Blade attacked from behind, but without looking, Ebony raised her left arm, the one holding the black blade, to block. Venom hissed against Morning Blade’s katana as it began to eat away at the metal.

The actress snarled, spinning around and clawing Morning Blade with the hand that held the fleuret, her talons leaving long and deep scratch marks on the former Assassin’s cheek.

Morning dropped her melting weapon and fell back, rolling out of the way, a hand grabbing for her bleeding cheek as she crawled away. Keila tried to get up, but seemed to be having trouble steadying herself. Pierce walked out further on the road, reloading his pistol and firing at the actress.

Ebony Wings zigzagged through his bullets, rushing at him as he moved as fast as his leg could handle. Her long hair streamed out behind like a pennant as she approached, her swords held perpendicular to her body like two wings. Pierce fired one more shot which was deflected by Ebony’s black blade, then his gun clicked empty.

“Foolish humans,” Ebony laughed at him, decreasing her speed. “When will you learn to stop using the same useless weapons against us?”

“Who knows,” Pierce told her as he readied his phone, waiting for the right moment. “We aren’t very good at giving up. You see, giving up just makes a person weak. I’m not weak and neither are the other two.”

Ebony slowed down to a walk, shaking her head. “Do you always talk like this?” she said. “I can see why my sister wants to kill you.”

Pierce waited until she was right above his primed trap, his thumb pressing down on the button as his mouth lifted into a smug grin.

Beneath Ebony Wings, a steam pipe exploded, blasting her with a jet of scalding steam, blanketing the immediate area in smoke.

“Doesn’t matter if your sister wants to kill me,” Pierce said to himself. “We need to kill her, and you won’t be stopping us. With her out of our lives, the world will return to its regular order. No more running, no more hiding, no more Mirror Match.”

And then Ebony Wings sprinted out of the steam, running straight at Pierce and impaling her fleuret through his shoulder hard enough to pin him to the wall. Ebony’s face was split in half; one side was still the actress’s normal face, the other half was a charcoal black guise with an acid green eye and slit pupil. She pressed herself against Pierce, twisting the sword and growling at him with her fanged mouth.

Pierce was about to flip through his phone to find the explosives tab, but Ebony pinned his arm to the side.

“I have just about had it with you,” she said, her voice layered like two women speaking at once. “You annoy me so. You and your little tricks.”

As Pierce writhed like a bug on a pin, Ebony wrestled the phone out of his hand and crushed it in her grip like a soda can.

“Well, that’s that, isn’t it?” Ebony smirked. “You’re out of luck, and for crimes against the queen and her kin,” She raised her black sword, its crooked length glowing green with toxin. “I hereby sentence you to-”

“No!” Keila ran into her, tackling the actress to the ground.

Ebony Wings let go of her fleuret, allowing Pierce to yank it out with a grunt and limp back, reloading his pistol again.

Ebony leapt to her feet, kicking Keila in the head again before returning her attention to Pierce, who had a magazine halfway to his gun. Wasting no time, Ebony slashed out with her black blade, nicking the pistol and knocking his arm aside. A vile green liquid clung to the point where the blade had met the gun, hissing as it began to dissolve the metal.

“That weapon…” Pierce eyed her short sword with disgust and dropped his dissolving gun. “It melts away at anything and the poison keeps its victims alive until their days are up… It does not conform to any such scientific rules.”

“Must you drone on about everything?” the actress bellowed. “You deserve to die.”

Then Morning Blade and Keila returned, one kicking Ebony Wings in the back, while the other stabbed her in the side with a dagger multiple times.

“Go, Pierce!” Keila waved at him with a free hand. “We can’t win this! We have to get out of here!”

Ebony screeched, green flames gusting out from where Keila had stabbed her, the fire clinging to the former Assassin and igniting her clothes. The Saddle Arabian fell back, rolling on the ground to try and put out the flames.

Morning Blade extended her hidden blade, but Ebony Wings caught her arm as it descended, grabbing the hidden blade with her bare hand and snapping it off before stabbing her with it in the side. Morning gasped and stumbled away, only for Ebony Wings to kick her in the gut as she tried to escape, blood spraying out from the wound.

Pierce watched as the others were tossed to the side, struggling to get back on their feet as Ebony Wings turned back to him. Even if he got a whole block away, there was no telling how long he would have before this creature could catch up to him, and he wasn’t going to abandon Keila and Morning Blade. Not this time.

He dug around in his coat pocket, bringing out his foldable baton and a cluster of smoke bombs. Ebony growled deep in her throat, scooping up her fleuret and brandishing both swords at Pierce.

“Come on,” she said, walking toward the hacker, her mismatched eyes gleaming with anticipation. “Let’s see how long you can last.”

Pierce threw the smoke bombs just as Ebony Wings vanished on the spot, disappearing in a dark blur. Thick, white smoke sprang up from the ground, covering the immediate area.

And then Ebony Wings reappeared directly in front of Pierce, stabbing her fleuret into the ground next to her feet and sheathing her black blade. Pierce swung at her with his baton. Ebony opened her mouth wide and caught it with her teeth, biting down hard and snapping the weapon in half. Spitting the remains of the baton out onto the ground, Ebony Wings raised both hands and tore through Pierce’s coat, digging her claws under his ribs and lifting him off the ground.

“Agh!” the hacker grunted and delivered a series of punches to the side of Ebony’s head, but with little effect. He was starting to have trouble breathing and his strength was slowly draining.

“What now, you odious little man?” Ebony sneered, her voice shifting between a single and double speaker. She dug her claws in deeper.

For once, Pierce didn’t see any alternatives. His phone was destroyed, his weapons were gone, and he was all out of smoke bombs. Is this it? Is this where it all ends?

Ebony threw Pierce onto the ground and straddled him, slashing at his chest with her claws again and again, each talon easily ripping through his clothes and the flesh beneath. Blood sprayed up, flecks of it settling across Ebony’s face and front.

The computer teacher could only turn away from his killer, looking to Morning Blade and Keila, who lay over on the pavement, their stamina drained. He willed them to leave, to get out of here. If any of them were to die here today, it would be him. They were still young and had their lives ahead of them.

Then Pierce turned back to Ebony, wincing as another claw cut something within him. “L-Let the girls g-go… It-it’s me… you want… Let th-them leave and go… on their way...” He didn’t have the strength to speak more.

Ebony stopped her onslaught, pausing with one clawed hand in his chest.

“You are in no position to make demands,” she said coldly. She removed her hand from Pierce’s ribs and drew her black blade. “You’ll be the first, though. Now for crimes against the queen and her kin, I hereby-”

Before she could even scratch the surface of Pierce’s skin, she suddenly looked up and around. Only after a few more seconds could Pierce hear it himself. Police sirens. Someone had likely called the police.

Ebony’s slit-pupiled eye twitched, and she leapt off of Pierce, picking up her fleuret and sprinting back to Mirror Match and scooping her up in her arms.

“This isn’t over,” she snarled at them before disappearing with her sister in a dark blur.

Pierce lay there, unable to get up, unable to breathe enough, his lungs partially punctured by Ebony Wings’ claws. The sirens continued to get louder, but he could do nothing to get himself to safety.

Then he felt a pair of hands lift him up from underneath and he was slowly being dragged away, leaving a trail of blood on the floor under him.

“It’s not enough, Keila,” he heard Morning Blade say as his vision began to fade. “They’ll just follow the blood.”

“Well, help me out then. We’re not going to leave him to die like that.”

The last thing Pierce remembered before everything became hazy was himself being lifted up and carried away.

14 - The Reunion

Ebony Wings ran through the night, turning corners and vaulting over low walls. She had run quite a distance from the quarry, and the sound of police sirens could no longer be heard. She opted to stick to the shadows of the alleyways, seeing as part of her disguise had melted off and her sister wasn’t even in disguise anymore.

“I… I still can’t believe… it’s you, sister. Ebony Wings…” Psithyra moaned, a hand over her chest wound. Her burnt shirt was also stained red in many places. “I can’t stand your acting… I thought it was… the worst.”

“Hush.” Ebony Wings placed a finger over her sister’s lips. “You focus on regaining your strength, I’ll get us home.”

“I never even... invited you to one of my parties!” Psithyra groaned, placing a clawed hand over her face. “Imagine all the trouble that would have saved...”

“Parties, dear sister?”

“I… I was Mirror Match. From Manehattan.”

Ebony Wings raised the eyebrow of her non-disguised side of her face. “You were? My, my. You have been busy.”

“Speak for yourself… Acclaimed actress. You’ve made… a good life for yourself, sister. All on your own… Impressive… Chrysalis.”

“Shhh,” Chrysalis said, then pulled a phone from her pocket. “Silver Platter? I need to you bring the car around. I’m on the corner of Two-Shoes Avenue and Plum Street. And line the back seat with towels. Things have gotten a little messy.”

“Who’re you talking to…?” Psithyra watched her sister. It still all felt like a dream to her. Maybe it was. She still couldn’t believe such a hack was her sister in disguise.

“My butler,” Chrysalis said, putting the phone away. “He’ll be here shortly, then we can go home.”

“Wait… I’m not in disguise! And your disguise is… lacking…”

“Oh, relax, little sister. Silver Platter knows who he serves. The rest of the staff too, so don’t worry about disguises when it comes to them. I’ve got this.”

The two of them waited in silence for a moment.

“Chrysalis?” Psithrya murmured.

“Hmm?”

“I… I want to apologize.”

The elder changeling looked down to the changeling in her arms. “Whatever for?”

“For leaving you back in Trotsylvania. And… for thinking I could replace you.” Psithyra coughed out blood.

Chrysalis tenderly stroked her sister’s long purple hair. “Thyra… I forgave you for Trotsylvania years ago. And what’s this about replacing me?”

“I was evolving… into a queen. I’m sorry, Chrysalis. The years apart… were too much for me. I developed queenly abilities… powers… that should only be yours.”

Chrysalis looked down at her sister with her split face and smiled. “Well, I’m here, so you won’t evolve any further. As for your queenly gifts, I think that you can keep them, so long as you still serve me.”

Psithyra’s bloody face lit up in an expression of purest joy.

“You… you truly mean that?”

“Of course I do. Psithyra, you’re my sister. Did you really think I would be angry at you for getting better at your job?”

Psithrya laid back in her sister’s arms like a child. “It feels so good, having you forgive me.”

“Sister,” Chrysalis said softly. “I have long since forgiven you. Perhaps the one you need to seek forgiveness from, is yourself.”

“I would never have thought you would forgive so easily… You have changed…” Psithyra chuckled, then started coughing violently, hacking out blood. “I… I don’t think I’ll make it, Chrysalis… But, at least I know you forgive me… Thank you, sister.”

“Don’t say such things,” Chrysalis said sternly. “You will make it. You have a niece who’s been dying to meet you. Wouldn’t want to disappoint her, would you?”

“You… You have a daughter…?” Psithyra coughed again. “You really have changed…”

“We all have,” Chrysalis said quietly.

At that moment, a long black car pulled up on the curb, the back door popping open without any given cue. In interior was lined with fluffy white towels that did an excellent job of soaking up all the blood as both changelings climbed in.

As the butler put the car into gear, Psithyra nudged Chrysalis’ arm.

“Chryssie… I found them.”

“Who?”

“The sirens…” Psithyra sighed. “They’re in worse shape than me…”

“Worse than you?” Chrysalis eyed her sister’s injuries. She exhaled loudly, letting her love fill the interior of the limousine. As she watched, the smaller wounds on her sister’s body began to close and heal.

“Oh, there’s so much to do…” Psithyra said, putting a hand over her face. “I have to fix their gems, hunt down the rest of the dissenters, and-”

“What dissenters?” Chrysalis asked gently, stroking her sister’s hair.

“Those ones at the quarry. Especially the man… he could do… irreparable damage to us.”

Chrysalis licked her fangs as the car stopped at a red light.

“I left that little man in pretty bad condition. I doubt he’ll survive.”

Psithyra sat up, gripping her sister’s arm like a vise, bringing her face within inches of her sister’s.

“If I survived, then it’s possible he survived too,” she hissed. “We need to shut him down before he exposes us.”

“Psssh. You’re a changeling. He isn’t. I’m sure he’s met his match. Besides, you’re not worried about the other two?”

“They don’t have the technical know-how to put a target on us. But if Pierce Network survived, we might be in quite a bit of trouble, especially since he’s seen under your disguise.”

“I tore his lungs apart. He can’t have long.” Chrysalis waved a hand. Psithyra looked at her sister for a few seconds. Finally, Chrysalis sighed and said, “If he does survive, he’ll have to go to a hospital for injuries like that. And after what I did to him, it’ll be on the news for sure.”

“I need to kill him,” Psithyra said through gritted teeth. “He’s earned his spot on the execution list.”

“I wholeheartedly agree,” Chrysalis said. “Attempted regicide is a capital offence. I trust you have a plan?”

“I do, but first I need to know a few things. One, how old is my niece, and two, do you have an axe I could use?”

“You’re in no condition to go anywhere, Thyra.” Her sister wagged a finger. “Just a few minutes ago you were saying you weren’t going to make it.”

“But I have to-”

“No, dear sister. For once, let me be your hands and feet.”

Psithyra looked at her sister in pure amazement. Then she grabbed her and held her close.

“This truly is the happiest day of my life.”

Morning Blade lay on a bed in the Canterlot hospital, resting after the doctors had worked on stitching up her injuries. They weren’t as bad as Pierce’s, which is why she was already done. Pierce was still in the emergency room in critical condition, having been rolled into the operating theater by a small army of doctors and nurses. They had been in there for hours now, and there was still no word on Pierce’s condition.

Keila lay opposite her, her body mostly in bandages from burns she received in the fight, though Morning was more used to seeing her with the bandages than without. Thankfully, the Saddle Arabian couldn’t feel the pain.

“So we could say it was a gang attack right?” Keila asked after a few minutes of silence. Because of the state Pierce was in, the doctors had yet to question them what had happened. They still had time to figure an alibi out. “Gangs are common here, right?”

“Not in Canterlot…” Morning Blade touched at her cheek, which had a dressing placed over the claw marks Ebony Wings had given her. “Gang attacks are very rare here. Besides. No gang leaves claw marks like that.”

“Then we’ll just say it was a… cougar or something. I don’t know what you have here.”

“Not a lot of wildlife around here…” Morning said glumly. “Most of it’s in the Everfree forest, and that’s miles away.”

“Well, we’ve got to think of something to tell the doctors,” Keila said anxiously. “They’ll get curious eventually and then what will we tell them? That the movie star Ebony Wings came and clawed him half to death? They’d lock us up in the mental ward.”

“We could always say we found him like this,” Morning suggested. “Then we wouldn’t have any idea why he’s like this.”

Keila shrugged. “Could work. Think they’ll buy it?”

Just then, the door to the room swung open, revealing a doctor, who pulled his mask down and joined Keila at Morning’s side.

“You two are the friends of Mr. Pierce Network, correct?” The two former Assassins nodded. “Then I have come bearing good news.” The doctor smiled. “Mr. Network will most likely pull through. His condition is stable, but critical. Our best surgeons are working their magic as I speak.”

“That’s good,” Morning sighed in relief.

“Now, I have to ask...” The doctor pulled out a clipboard and pen. “How did this happen? We need to know as many details as possible to ensure the best possible treatment.”

Morning looked at Keila again, then sighed. “We found him at the abandoned quarry like that. We did our best to get him help after that.”

“It’s like he was attacked by an animal,” the doctor said, pulling out a sheet of paper and looking over it. “Except animals usually go for the throat, not the chest and abdominal area.”

“Well, you’re the doctor, so you know best.” Keila managed a smile. “What do you think could’ve done this to him?”

“Well, unless he keeps a collection of exotic pet animals, I can’t think of what might have caused these injuries,” the doctor shrugged. “I suppose the important thing is that he’s going to live.”

“How bad is it?” Morning Blade asked.

“To tell you the truth, it was mostly touch and go there for a while. But we managed to stop the internal bleeding, and we’ve stitched up most of the lacerations. I’d give a day’s pay to learn what caused them though… perhaps Mr. Network will be able to tell me more once he awakens.”

If only you knew… Morning thought, remembering the claws on Ebony Wings’ fingers, the fangs in her mouth. She had a gut feeling that nobody would believe her though, so she just sat back and sighed.

“Thank you, doctor…” Morning nodded. “Thank you for saving his life.”

“All in a day's work.” He shifted his glasses up. “Now, about you two and your injuries…”

Morning and Keila shared a quick glance. They had forgotten about themselves.

“Uh…”

Pierce Network had dreamt that he had woken in a cold and dark world, with nothing but blue gravel surrounding him. From somewhere in the dark, he had heard laughter, followed by a blaze of green fire. Two fiery eyes and a sickle mouth appeared in the sky above him, before a pair of sharp claws emerged from the gravel mounds around him.

Just as they had dug their tips into his chest, he woke up. Pierce panted and breathed, but soon found it was nearly impossible to get a full breath of air. The room around him was clean and white and there were other beds around him as well.

Years of being a vigilante and an Assassin had taught him that this was a hospital, a frequently visited place back in his youthful days.

There was an oxygen mask strapped to his face and both his arms and legs felt like they were under a pile of rocks; he could barely move them.

A nurse, who was by his side, got up and ran outside, likely going to get the doctor.

Great… I better come up with an excuse before he asks me. I obviously can’t say I was attacked by Ebony Wings and that she tore my insides up. How am I even still alive? I should be dead… No matter, let’s just see what happens next.

Soon, he spotted the bald head of a doctor as he pushed the doors open, rushing to Pierce’s side.

“Mr. Pierce, can you hear me?” Was the first thing he asked.

Pierce tried to open his mouth, but everything felt dry and hoarse and nothing came out. Instead, he made a simple motion of nodding his head.

“You are experiencing weakness and lack of strength, Mr. Pierce,” the doctor went on. “I’m afraid you’ve been out for… almost six days now.”

Six days…? It’s been that long…?

“You suffered major lacerations to your abdomen and chest, damaging both your digestive system and your lungs. Thankfully, your heart wasn’t damaged and we were able to stitch up the wounds before anything too bad could happen. Now, since neither of your friends seem to know, what happened to you? I’ve never quite seen any injuries like yours before.”

Here’s the question… Pierce sighed. For now, he was glad he was unable to talk. He simply moved his head and opened his mouth, unable to utter anything.

“Take it easy, you don’t have to answer me immediately.” The doctor got up and poured Pierce a glass of water. “For now, just rest. The worst is behind us, but you’ll need to spend quite some time here, to make sure there aren’t any complications,” he finished, dropping a straw into the glass.

“We’ll have to restrict you to mostly liquids during your time here,” the doctor continued. “Your intestines were in pretty bad shape when we rolled you in.”

Through the mask, the doctor inserted the straw through a small hole, pushing it till it reached Pierce’s mouth. “Now, try and drink. It may be a little hard at first, but you’ll get the hang of it eventually. Don’t worry, if you are unable, we’ll get it into your system through the tubes.”

Pierce sipped through the straw, using as much strength as he could muster to suck the water up and into his mouth. Once the clear liquid entered his mouth, the computer teacher let out a sigh of relief. It felt good for his parched throat.

“Yes, good work, Mr. Pierce,” the doctor said with a grin. “And don’t you worry. We’ll help you get back up to top shape again as soon as we can.”

Pierce looked back up at a spinning fan as the doctor left, sighing through his nose, watching the mask fog up. He was in no condition to do anything now, but what of Mirror Match? Now with her sister, acclaimed actress Ebony Wings knowing of their existence, surely they couldn’t stay hidden for long, especially not if he was bound to this hospital bed. But then again, there was no way Ebony Wings would show up to kill him in a place as public as a hospital, right?

Then he remembered Mirror Match’s power of disguise. If her sister was better, there was always the possibility that anyone who walked through that door would try to kill him. He wasn’t safe here, he wasn’t safe anywhere. Pierce knew what he had to do, but the question now was, could he get to safety?

He started with his hands, trying to wiggle his fingers more extensively. After about five minutes, he found he had a lot less trouble than when he had woken up. Moving on to his arms, Pierce tried to push himself up to a sitting position. That action alone proved almost too difficult and his chest began to hurt.

Come on, you’re stronger than this, Pierce. You have to move or Mirror Match will find you and you will die. Do you want to die, Pierce? No, you don’t. You’ve made it out of more harrowing situations. You’ll make it out of this one. You’ve lived long. You’ve fought plenty of evil. You can still do this.

The computer teacher tried to shake his head. No, this was certainly the most distressing situation he’d ever been in. Mirror Match was no human and she definitely proved that at the quarry.

Sweat began to form on his brows and his arms, but soon, after much difficulty, Pierce was sitting against his pillow, breathing in deeply through the mask.

Then there was another thing. Morning Blade and Keila. If he was here, then they would be around somewhere in the hospital as well. He couldn’t abandon them. Not again.

As if on cue, a familiar white-haired head poked itself around the corner, through the door.

“Pierce, you’re awake!” Morning Blade exclaimed, entering the room with Keila in tow. They were both in the same blue gowns as Pierce and they had several bandages and patches on their faces and arms, and probably more underneath their clothes too.

Pierce slowly nodded his head, but was still unable to say anything. Maybe he just needed more water. Picking up the glass, he inserted the straw through the tiny port and began sucking up water to the best of his ability.

“Here, let me.” Morning held the glass for him. “How’re you feeling?”

Pierce lifted a hand and shook it.

“Still can’t speak, huh?” Morning looked at him. “Must be the muscles. You’ve been out for six days, Pierce. That’s all you’ve been doing. Lying here. Plus, Ebony Wings sure did a number on you. Far worse than anything we’ve seen. Well, we’re glad you’re still alive. I’m sorry if I made you feel I wanted to kill you. I didn’t mean all of it.”

Pierce nodded his head. He knew it had been his own fault that she wanted to kill him in the first place. She didn’t have to be sorry about anything.

“Not… your fault…” he managed to scrape out of his mouth. He realized for once in his life, he didn’t have much to say, or really, he couldn’t say much. Just those few words already made him feel out of breath. “Mine…” He pointed at himself.

The other two former Assassins looked down at their feet. “It’s not your fault either, Pierce. Who knew that Ebony Wings would come as backup for Mirror Match? None of us could have predicted that.”

“We almost had her,” Keila slammed a fist into her palm. “So close to ending that witch… then her big sister had to show up and ruin everything.”

“We can’t… stay…” Pierce said, interrupting their thoughts. “Need to… go. Not safe…”

“What are you talking about, Pierce?” Morning asked as she inspected the bandages on her wrist.

“Disguise…” he coughed, rubbing at his throat. “Could be… anyone. We must leave.”

“Oh my…” Keila said grimly. “He’s right. If… the queen can disguise herself to look like Ebony Wings, there’s no telling who she might be. She could be any of the doctors or nurses and we’d never know.”

“What do you propose we do?” Morning pointed at Pierce. “He’s in no condition to go anywhere.”

“If we leave him here, there’s no telling how long before Ebony Wings shows up.”

“For all we know, she could already be here,” Morning said ominously. “We have to profile everyone who comes in with eagle vision. It’s the only way to be sure.”

“We can’t do that,” Keila interjected. “We have to sleep sometime, and does eagle vision even work on Ebony Wings and her kind? I’ve never tested it out.”

Morning Blade tapped her chin with a finger. “Well then, there’s only one choice remaining. We have to get Pierce out of here before the queen shows up. If she hasn’t already.”

Keila took a look at all the medical machinery that Pierce was attached to. “That won’t be easy…” she said slowly.

“Nothing…” Pierce croaked. “Is ever easy.”

At that moment, a nurse with brown spiky hair poked her head into the room.

“Everything alright, loves?” She said cheerily in a Trottingham accent.

“Uh, yeah,” Morning replied. “We’re just, um… visiting a friend. Yeah.”

“Alright then,” the nurse said, fiddling with the orange goggles around her neck. “Don’t stay too long. I’m sure this gentleman needs his rest.” And with that, the nurse vanished around the corner, almost as if she had teleported away.

“O-kay,” Morning continued, rubbing her wrist. It felt so light without a hidden blade strapped to it. “As I was saying, we need to get Pierce, and by extension, ourselves out of here before the queen shows up. And I think I have a plan.”

“Oh, really,” Keila said skeptically. “You going to tell us?”

“Pierce, do you have a spare phone?” Morning asked the teacher. “I’m thinking if you hack the hospital’s systems, you can get out early. Or at least get transferred to home care.”

The man nodded. “Home…” Then he paused. “Wait... Mirror Match... knows where I live. Not safe there...”

“Well then…” Keila said slowly. “How about the Canterlot bureau? It’s inconspicuous enough, and I don’t think Mirror knows where it is.”

“That sounds good,” Morning nodded. “But first, we need to get you a phone. Pierce, do you have any extra ones?”

“Home,” Pierce repeated.

“You have an extra phone at your place?” Morning asked.

“Several,” Pierce managed. “I… need one of you… to go to my house and get... phone.”

“I’ll go-”

“No, you stay, Morning.” Keila put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve got more serious injuries than I do. You stay here and watch him. I’ll go get the phone and come back.”

Morning nodded. “I’ll watch over him. No one’s going to get to him on my watch.”

“Gotcha,” Keila mock-saluted the other two and scuttled from the room. Moments later, she came back with an embarrassed look on her face. “Um, where do you live again?”

15 - Sometimes You Still Lose

Keila walked up to the front door of Pierce’s house. The Saddle Arabian was careful not to set off any traps that Pierce’s security system might have in store for an intruder, but after a quick scan with eagle vision, she was surprised to find not a single trap waiting for her. Which, considering the computer teacher’s paranoia, was unusual in itself. Not even a remote activated sprinkler came on as she closed in on the front door.

It was there where the ominous feeling set in. As her hand reached for the keyhole to insert the key that Pierce had given her, Keila was both shocked and unnerved as the door swung open at her touch.

Her instincts kicking in, Keila immediately hopped back and got into a combat stance, keeping her arms at her sides as she peered inside the dark hallway of Pierce’s house. Further inspection of the lock revealed that it had not been picked, or forced open with the usual methods. The metal looked as though it had been melted, as if by some acid or extreme temperature. She looked up, seeing a security camera pointed at the doormat. Keila glanced at it once, then proceeded into the house.

It was dark inside. Keila reached out to turn on the lights, but first she decided to use eagle vision to check if there was anyone else in the house. It turned up empty, so Keila relaxed and continued inside. According to Pierce, his extra phone was on a shelf in his computer room.

Arriving in the living room, Keila beheld a shocking sight. Everything electronic had been smashed and destroyed, and a coffee table in the middle had been turned on its side. Long, deep gouges were hacked into the plastic and wood, and in the upper right corner of the room, the remains of a security camera hung, suspended by a single wire. Everything in the room had been systematically ruined, from the keyboards to the monitors to the highly advanced PC tower that now lay in tiny pieces all over the floor. It was as if a tornado had ripped through the room, wrecking everything that the computer had been, only, Keila knew what the real cause might’ve been.

Mirror Match… or Ebony Wings.

Keila searched the shelf for the extra phone, but all she found was bits of its screen and battery.

Curses… I’m too late.

Turning around, she produced her own phone and contacted Morning Blade.

There was a short pause before the other ex-Assassin picked up. “Keila?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Bad news.” The Saddle Arabian looked around the room, searching for anything she could possibly salvage. “Pierce’s house, it’s been totaled. Each item, ranging from Pierce’s computer to his phone and cameras, they’ve all been ripped apart.”

“Oh dear. I’ll relay this to Pierce. Hang on.” Keila waited for a bit, picking at the scraps of Pierce’s second phone. “Keila, Pierce wants you to grab whatever is left of his phone. He’ll handle the rest.”

“Um… sure.” Keila grabbed the handful of electronics and stuffed them into her coat pocket. “We’ll need to find somewhere safe. Somewhere Mirror Match wouldn’t know. If Pierce’s house isn’t safe, I don’t know where is.”

“We can settle that when you get back. We’ll first need to get Pierce out of the hospital.”

“Right.” Keila began making her way out. “So you’re saying Pierce can somehow get the phone working again even if it’s all in pieces?”

“Pierce says he can and that’s really the only option we have right now. I suggest we go along with it.”

“I guess you’re right.”

Pocketing her phone and the leftover pieces of Pierce’s phone, Keila swooped out of the computer teacher’s home, closing the front door behind her. With the sun already setting, she figured it would be nighttime by the time she got back to the hospital. Hopefully that wouldn’t be too late for them.

Even while bedridden and heavily injured, Pierce Network was still able to piece his broken phone together, using some extra bits Morning Blade had nicked from one of the nurses. Pierce would say that he hoped the nurse wouldn’t miss her phone too much, but truthfully, he didn’t care. All that mattered right now was hacking his way out of the hospital and getting somewhere safe, somewhere Mirror Match wouldn’t be able to find them.

“You truly are a man of intelligence,” Keila told him as she watched him fix up the makeshift phone.

“Yeah, well, not when he made the choice whether to leave the Assassins or not, and certainly not when he enrolled in my school with the same name.” Morning Blade pulled at her white braid. “You got Principal Celestia in trouble for nothing. I mean, surely you could’ve thought of a better place to lay low?”

“School was the best…” Pierce said with a wheeze. With his lungs damaged, he didn’t have a lot of oxygen to keep up a good conversation for once in his life. All he could manage were the important bits. “I would never… go near children. Best place to be… But you are right. Should’ve changed my name.”

“So when you fix that phone up, what then?” Morning Blade folded her arms and watched him work. “You just program the hospital to let you out?”

Pierce nodded and attached a single red wire into the central chip. A red light suddenly became green and he smiled weakly.

Bringing up the screen on the nurse’s phone, Pierce worked his way into one of his secret apps, entering rows and rows of code before arriving at a simple black screen with green lettering. Now it was only a matter of bypassing the hospital database’s firewall and swap around some codes to change his discharge to today. Simple enough.

With his fingers flying across the screen, though not as quickly as he wanted, Pierce did what he had to do and eventually came to the page with his particulars. He changed his discharge status to today, filling in all the information he needed to make sure no one was going to ask twice with his release. As for his address, he left it as his house. It would better if Mirror Match didn’t know where he was heading off to.

“Done.” He looked up at the two ex-Assassins, thumbing the phone screen off. “Now… we leave.”

Pierce tried to swing his legs off the bed, but he had a lot of trouble to even lift them enough to move himself. Morning Blade and Keila were soon by both his sides, helping him up from under his arms.

A nurse stopped by the door, watching the two of them struggle to move Pierce.

“Leaving so soon? I thought you weren’t due to leave for another few weeks at least.”

“He was just cleared,” Keila explained as Morning Blade ran off to get a wheelchair from the corner. “The doctor decided home treatment would be better for him at this point.”

“The doc said that? Let me see…” The nurse lifted her tablet computer and pulled up the appropriate file. “Hmm… Home movement requested… today… Oh, well, yes, It would seem he has. Would you like some assistance in moving Mr. Pierce?”

“Oh, just to the wheelchair is fine.” Keila waved as Morning came back with the wheelchair. “We can manage the rest.”

“All right then,” the nurse said hesitantly. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to call the doctor to do some last minute checks on him before sending him home?”

“Oh there’s no need.” Morning Blade looked as innocent as she could as the nurse and Keila helped Pierce down onto the wheelchair.

Pierce grunted as they placed him down, his chest still hurting all over. Ebony Wings had really did a number on him. In his whole career as an Assassin or even a vigilante, he’d never been as wounded as he was right now. At least right now, he wasn’t alone.

“Well, it was a pleasure to have you here, Mr. Pierce.” The nurse bowed slightly and smiled. “I would say we hope to see you again, but that would be bad of us. Take care, Mr. Pierce.”

“You take care too…” Pierce wheezed as Morning began wheeling him out of the room.

On the way out of the hospital, Pierce’s mind was a whirl of gears and machinations. While his body was heavily damaged, his mind was almost still as sharp as ever. Even now, he was busy planning how they would stay hidden from Mirror Match and Ebony Wings and what he should do with the information he had. Then there was also the case of Principal Celestia. He needed to call to make sure she was indeed safe, but that would also pose the risk of Mirror Match tracing the call back to him. There were too many things to think about right now and there wasn’t any time for rest.

“So what’s the plan now, Pierce?” Morning Blade whispered as they exited the hospital, emerging through two sliding doors. “Where should we go? Mirror will know all our conventional safehouses.”

“Then we have to look… to my old ones…” Pierce said as they went looking for a car. His van wasn’t here right now and the next best possible thing would be to steal someone’s car. He’d done plenty of that back in the day, so unless he had forgotten how to do it, they shouldn’t have any trouble in getting one.

Eventually, Pierce had settled his eyes on a square white van.

That’ll do just fine.

He had driven plenty of vehicles back in his time and during his years with the Assassins, but he always found vans to be easier to drive, and they also doubled as a storage space when needed, which was nice. Using his makeshift phone, Pierce unlocked the car door for Morning and Keila.

“I’ll drive.” Keila volunteered and got into the driver’s seat. “I think I still remember how to hotwire a car.”

In no time, the Saddle Arabian got the engines running, while Morning helped Pierce into the back of the van, buckling him in with the van’s only seatbelt. Pierce shook his head. It was a poorly managed van, but it was better than nothing. When he got better, he could always fix it up to suit his many needs.

Pierce still remembered some of his older safehouses back in Chicoltgo. It was a far drive from here, but it was better than nothing. Searching up the coordinates on his makeshift phone, Pierce pinpointed one and handed it to Morning Blade to direct Keila.

It was going to be some time before they got to Chicoltgo, so Pierce decided a short nap wouldn’t hurt, at least not as much as his body.

“Deactivate,” Pierce mumbled and weakly pointed a finger to a code input terminal by the door. “Five, five, seven, five, eight… five, five, one, zero…”

“Gee, you sure like the number five, huh?” Keila did as she was told, inputting the code. A red light on the terminal changed to green, letting Pierce know that his old security system was now down.

“Just an old password…” Pierce said as Morning Blade wheeled him up a step.

“Just how old is this place?” Morning Blade pushed the door open, hearing the hinges creak. “It’s like no one’s been here in over ten years.”

She began pushing him in, down a long dark hall, similar to many of the Assassin safehouses, though these ones were only used by Pierce and his hacker friends. They had long since stopped their activities and none of these would’ve been in use for a long, long time.

“More than ten…” Pierce coughed. “Much longer…”

The hall they were in led them down a row of locked doors, where Pierce had once kept his stores of gadgets. Perhaps there were still some in there that he could use, but first, he would have to recover enough to at least move around on his own.

Finding the fuse by the wall, Pierce directed Morning to flip it, suddenly bringing power back to the hall, with the lights flickering on one by one from where they were to the end of the hall. A few flickered a couple of times, then went out.

She trekked back to where Pierce and Keila were, her feet kicking up clouds of dust as they met the carpet.

“Place isn’t exactly a dream come true, but if it’s safe from them, then it’s fine with me.”

“Wait till we are… inside.” Pierce pointed ahead, directing her to keep going. “There is… more.”

Once they arrived at the end, Pierce could see the rusty railings beyond the door and only Morning Blade and Keila were high enough to see what was beyond them. Pierce smiled internally as he watched their faces warp with surprise.

Down past the railing was where his real lair was, filled with server mainframes to the sides and more than a dozen computer screens at the far end of the room against the wall, with a table filled with gadget bits and an old keyboard where he used to monitor the city.

“Pierce this is all… Wow.” Keila walked down the metal staircase to the main room, her footsteps echoing around the desolate room.

“It’s all supremely outdated though...” Pierce admitted. “No one’s been here... to upgrade or update anything in over a decade. Still, if I do… this…” Pierce took out his phone and handed it to Morning and asked her to have it plugged it into one of the servers with a cable. “We can at least… see the security camera footage from… my house. See what happened.”

“All done, Pierce.” Morning stood up from the corner with all the servers and dusted her hands down.

The hacker nodded and pointed to the CPU switches for Keila to turn on. She did so and activated his multiple screens, each dusty monitor flickering to life after a few moments. Two of them stayed off, and more than a few sputtered, the images coming through with bursts of static. It had really felt like a lifetime since his activities as a vigilante back in his prime.

“Let’s see…” Pierce reached both his hands out to the dusty keyboard and an older mouse, sitting on his dusty table. He was surprised they still worked, though they were caked in so much dirt, it began affecting the mouse sensor underneath.

“The phone bits you recovered probably hold some of the footage…” Pierce said, his fingers working on the keyboard, plumes of dust rising with each keystroke. “I’m banking on the assumption... that whoever wrecked my stuff... went for the computer first. Then moved on to the camera and the phone.”

As he hoped, the screen began showing footage from his camera as the perpetrator entered his room, holding an axe in their hand. It was hard to tell from the washed out colored images, but the intruder appeared to have light-colored hair, and skin to match.

“That doesn’t look like Mirror Match,” Keila muttered.

“Could be Ebony Wings.” Morning walked back over and folded her arms as she surveyed the footage. “She’s an actor. She might have wigs to use and stuff.”

Pierce grunted in response and went back to surveying the screen. His frown deepened as the intruder hefted the axe and delivered a crushing blow to his computer, continuing to axe apart every single component. The intruder was clearly enjoying this, a wide smile on her face as she systematically wrecked the entire setup.

After that, she got to the camera, which buzzed out of existence as the perpetrator swung her axe at the screen. Pierce leaned back in his wheelchair and sighed. Now he knew what had happened to his home. It really didn’t change anything, but it made him feel better knowing what Keila had seen.

This Ebony Wings was a problem and Mirror Match still was. As long as he was alive, he was sure they would be out there, searching for him, ready to end him with those black blades of theirs, just like the others so many years ago.

There didn’t look like there was much of a chance against them, especially not against Ebony Wings; she was more powerful and vicious than Mirror Match ever was. Pierce considered just wheeling himself out there and waiting for them to finish him, but then he shook his head.

No. It won’t end like that and I’m sure as hay not making it this easy for them. If I am to die, I will die knowing I will have caused a great deal of inconvenience for these monsters.

“So…” Morning ventured after a long moment of silence. “What do we do now?”

“I don’t suppose we can do anything about those two?” Keila said with a sigh. “I mean, who’s going to believe that Ebony Wings is… well, all that? You know, fangs and claws.”

“We’re Assassins,” Morning Blade said discontentedly. “Or at least we were. Couldn’t we just assassinate them?”

“That... would be a good idea…” Pierce wheezed. “You know we can’t… Not anymore. We were close… but with Ebony Wings… too much.”

“Well then…” Keila said despondently. “What can we do? Just sitting and doing nothing doesn’t seem like much of a plan.”

“One thing we can do…” Pierce looked up at his various ancient screens. “Ebony Wings. If we can expose her… she will have nowhere to hide. Expose her for what… she really is. A monster.”

“Expose her?” Keila looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “How do you plan on doing that?”

“We don’t have anything on her,” Morning told him. “Right?”

“We can… start here.” Pierce pointed to his screens.

All he had to do was some digging. And then he also had the data from Mirror Match and her identity change to Ivory Wings, not to mention her estate and her funds. He gave her her things back. He could always take them away just as easily. Then he also had his old data about Mirror and all the strange things she had done. Given time, he knew he could expose them to the world and once that happened, things would be a lot easier for sure.

“We can still… turn this around.” Pierce patted his wheelchair’s armrests. “We haven’t lost…”

As long as he still had any of his tech and some connection, then there was still hope in turning all this around. Pierce pictured Ebony Wings in his mind, remembering as she tore into him with her long talons. His lungs still hurt a little when he breathed, but it only served as an encouragement to expose her to the world.

Now that he knew her true nature and that of her sister, Mirror Match, it was only a matter of time until he had all the information he needed to turn the world against time.

This time for sure, Pierce knew he could beat them. They weren’t as invincible as they might think. This time, he would have the upper hand.

“Sometimes… you still lose…” Pierce looked up at his monitor and smiled.

T͉̗̼̗̦̱͟h̝̫ͅe̤͓̖̮̠̥̞ ̴̭̺̫̹͉ͅE̘̻̰n̸d.̞̜̠̖..͈?̷

The True Ending

Pierce Network slowly walked up to the back door of Canterlot High. The sun was still halfway behind the horizon, the golden sphere inching its way up into the sky.

He wheezed as he stretched his arm to his coat pocket to retrieve his newly constructed phone, unlocking the screen to get to his hacks. His other hand was tucked into his coat, where it rested on the grip of the pistol he had hidden in there. While he did not expect to meet any kind of threat on the way, as he had not announced his return in any way at all, it was safer to be prepared for anything.

Though, if it did come to a fight, he wasn’t likely to get out of it alive. He was still recovering from his injuries and he still had quite the difficulty in breathing. Still, he managed to slip into the school without incident. It was far too early for students to be here, so he would have uninterrupted access to his computer. The files he needed to upload were all on his phone, and he would have liked to get them online sooner, but there was no internet connection at his hideout due to it being over a decade of disrepair, and he didn’t trust any other connection. His school computer was the only system he would feel safe uploading anything on, after his home one had been trashed.

He hoped to make his work quick, wanting to disappear before the first students arrived, or worse, Mirror Match or Ebony Wings. He began mapping out his plan in his head as he walked down the hall, a hand already going to his chest as he breathed.

Get in, upload the data, get out before anyone could see him.

Over the last few weeks, he had gathered a lot of information about the two women. Some of it was disturbing enough to give him nightmares. And he didn’t dream.

If everything he had found about these monsters was true, then he had a lot more to worry about if they found out what he was about to do.

He knew the only options left to him. If he uploaded this information, he would have nowhere left to go. They were going to hunt him down for the rest of his life either until they found him, or until someone else were to find them.

Pierce had heard stories of monster hunters all across different myths and folklore. Ebony Wings and Mirror Match, if the stories held out, had faced such hunters before. If they were still around today, there was always the chance that monster hunters still roamed the world in search of such prey.

However, regardless if they still existed or not, he had already prepared himself for the worst, deleting any information he had to anyone, including Morning Blade and Keila. No one else was going to die because of his actions. Not again.

What mattered now was getting to his computer and uploading his data as quickly as he could.

He hurried as fast as he could down the empty hallways, until he saw the familiar sight that was his classroom door.

He was about to turn the handle when he noticed something through the small window that was set in the door.

There was someone already inside, sitting on one of the swivel chairs and idly spinning themselves around like it was the first time they were ever sitting in one.

He didn’t think any student would be this early, and he didn’t even recognize this one. She was wearing a white jacket over a dark colored t-shirt with a smiley face on it and a short green skirt. Her curly blue hair was tied into a low ponytail, and she continued to spin on the chair, paying no attention to Pierce. Maybe it was because her eyes were closed.

He checked his watch to make sure it was right. It read 5 AM, too early for a student to be here. Much too early.

Sighing, he took his hand off the his pistol and straightened his coat. It was just a kid; there was no need to be so highly strung. There was no way Ebony Wings or Mirror Match would be able to shrink themselves, even with all their powers.

Pushing open the door with his shoulder, Pierce entered his classroom. The teenager’s eyes snapped open and she got off the chair, standing up, one hand holding an unreasonably large tote bag and the other straightening her skirt.

“Oh, Mr. Pierce!” the girl chirped in a high, musical voice. “You’re back!”

“Right… Just for a little bit.” Pierce stalked in and placed a hand on his desk to steady himself as he took some time to breathe. “And who might you be?”

“I’m new,” the girl said impishly. “And there were rumors you’d be coming back today, so the whole class got together and got you some presents. Look!”

“Uh huh…” Pierce raised an eyebrow and pulled up his chair closer. He had told no one that he was coming here today and he had only planned to be here to upload his data, then leave.

Pierce’s eyes ventured down to his desk, where a sparkling new keyboard was connected to his computer and next to it was a box of the caramel sticky candies he liked to buy from the vending machine.

“How, uh… thoughtful…” Pierce looked back at the new girl. Something about all this wasn’t feeling right. And he never thought his homeroom class would be so kind as to buy him a new keyboard. Things weren’t adding up too well.
“We had a bit of a fundraiser while you were gone, so we replaced that worn out keyboard of yours and got you a little something sweet. Do you like it?” the girl leaned closer to him, near enough for him to smell her designer perfume.

Pierce surveyed the gifts. While he wasn’t exactly happy that the class had gone and replaced his keyboard with his permission, he decided that in the end their good intentions meant more to him than a pet peeve, although, he still found this all very weird.

Booting up his computer, Pierce opened the box of candy and discreetly booted up an app on his phone. Pushing aside the last few scraps of paper, he turned back to the girl, who was watching him expectantly, both hands immersed in her tote bag. The app he had opened was one he had designed himself, which was capable of scanning for chemicals of a high toxicity rate, an example being poison. The girl and everything about her didn’t seem right and Pierce wanted to be sure he wasn’t just being paranoid.

An thin blue beam shone out of his phone’s camera lens, bathing the open box of candy in its light. Moments later, his phone beeped once. It was clean.

Looks clear. Maybe I’m just off my engines and I’ve overthought all this.

“Why are you even… this early, kid?” Pierce sat down on his chair and grunted as one of his muscles seemed to punch him in the chest.

The girl shrugged, but still had the smile on her face. “Couldn’t wait to see you, Mr. Pierce.”

“Uh huh.”

While he waited for his computer to get to the login screen, the girl curtseyed and waltzed out of his classroom with her tote bag, leaving him alone. He sighed and reached for his phone, syncing it up with his computer. Pierce didn’t know how much more time he would have. No one was supposed to know he had returned to school. Whoever the girl was, news was going to spread that he had returned and it was only a matter of time before it reached the monsters. However, at least they would be too late. By tomorrow, they would realize their mistake, but it would be too late to stop him. No one could stop the internet.

As he watched his computer screen shift to his login screen, he looked around the classroom. This would likely be his last time in here. He would miss the place, with its windowless walls and its high speed internet connection, the payment courtesy of Principal Celestia. He still wanted to check on her, to see if she had gotten out alright and unharmed, like Mirror Match had said, but first, he had a job to do.

As he waited, there was a faint sound from outside his room, the door of which was still slightly ajar from the girl’s departure. It sounded like a snick of metal sliding across metal. It reminded Pierce of his Assassin days, of a blade leaving its sheath. But then he caught sight of a yellow eye and blue hair peeking at him through the crack. Then she noticed him looking and disappeared.

“Hmph.”

Pierce logged in to his account, and began to pull up a plethora of social media sites. MyStable, Ewetube, even YourSpace. He was just about to start signing in when he felt his stomach growl.

Right… I didn’t eat breakfast.

He had been up all night compiling his data and he hadn’t had dinner either. Seeing as the candy wasn’t poisoned, Pierce decided to give it a try, keeping an eye on the door at the same time. To his surprise, the candy was even tastier than the ones he got from the vending machine. He set his phone to sync with the computer and began to eat the caramel treats.

Pierce had reached the bottom of the box by the time his phone finished connecting to his computer. He cracked his knuckles deviously. It was almost time. He was halfway through typing his username when he realized that his fingers were still coated with a thin layer of caramel from his little binge. Oddly, the keyboard remained as pristine as ever.

“Must be nonstick,” Pierce grunted with glad surprise. “Just means no more cleaning up for me.” He licked his fingers clean and continued to type in his username, ‘VigilanteFox1337”.

But the moment his fingertips brushed the ‘3’ key, Pierce’s chest gave a great, sharp throb of pain. The computer teacher gasped, clasping at his ribs frantically. At first, he thought it was his lungs acting up again, but the pain did not go away, rather, it worsened with every beat of his heart. Pierce gasped for breath, his phone and computer forgotten. He had to upload the files. Fast.

Reaching for the keyboard again, he typed in the last ‘3’, followed by the ‘7’, but his fingers failed him as he went to type in the password, the digits shaking too much to pick out individual keys anymore.

“N-No… Not yet…”

There was the sound of his classroom door opening, and with great difficulty Pierce turned to see who it was. It was the girl again, from before. He knew there was something off about her, but he hadn’t taken the right precautions it seems.

“Well, well, well,” she said softly, turning around and locking the door, pulling down the blind to the window for good measure. “Seems you weren’t as smart as they say.”

“What… who are you?” Pierce clutched his chest, feeling it was harder and harder to breathe. “What did you do… to me?”

A razor thin smile crept across her face as she stepped over Pierce, making straight for his computer instead. She reached into her tote bag and snapped on a pair of latex gloves before inserting a silver memory card into his PC. Through the haze of pain, Pierce could only watch with horror as whatever program that girl had loaded began to erase every last speck of data on the hard drive. The screen flashed several times, its death throes casting eerie shadows on the wall before it finally reverted back to its original, unused state.

“No…” He couldn’t keep his head up anymore, resting it on the cool tiled floor. He hit himself mentally for not turning around and leaving when he saw the girl in his room. He should’ve known he couldn’t risk it now this late in the game.

“You know,” the girl said, turning to face him as she unplugged the memory card and put it back into her bag. “I was really hoping you’d take the bait. It would have been a lot messier if I’d had to stab you.” She pulled a long silver knife from her bag and licked the blade. As she opened her mouth, Pierce could see a pair of fangs protruding from her gums.

His eyes widened in recognition. She was one of them. One of those monsters. He should’ve realized there could be more of them. Now, it was too late and his plans had failed completely. At least he had erased his phone’s data. That way, no one else was going to die. One was more than enough.

The girl hummed to herself as she methodically searched his desk, cabinets, and finally, the teacher himself, taking his thumb drives, memory cards, phones, and even his watch, wallet, and earpiece. All these she put into her tote bag, finally ending with his gun.

“Poor Pierce Network,” the girl cooed sinisterly as she reached behind a desk and retrieved his old keyboard. “So paranoid, so untrusting of even his own class, but never once suspecting that with every keystroke you were bringing your own end closer.” She tutted and swapped out the new keyboard for his old one. “You really shouldn’t lick your fingers while using a computer.

“Now, as much as I would like to watch the poison twist you, I have places to be today.” The girl wagged a finger at Pierce and blew him a kiss. “The queen and her kin send their regards.”

With her work done, the girl slipped the replacement keyboard into her bag and made for the door. In the fading cone of darkness, Pierce heard the door unlock, open, and close. He couldn’t feel his body anymore. Only the sound of his own, labored breathing rang strong in his ears. No… there was one other sound. That of a female singing in the distance. The girl.

“This day has been just perfect,
The kind of day of which I’ve dreamed since I was small,
The queen’s enemies will fall,
At her feet they will all crawl,
Just before we execute them all!”

And then Pierce closed his eyes and never opened them again.

The girl stepped into the hall with a skip in her step. She had done it. The recusant had been all taken care of, and not a single drop of blood had been spilt. Not like she had wanted any to spill. This was one of the few times she had been allowed to roam free on her own, with the other times being the same thing as today, just that her target had never shown up and she had wasted her time waiting.

Perhaps she should’ve sat down on one of those spinning chairs before today. It would’ve certainly done its job of entertaining all the times she had come to this place for nothing.

The plan hadn’t been perfect and there were likely going to be plenty of questions from other people, but at least she had followed it as she had been ordered. Plus, being out on her own was exciting enough.

There were still so many new things to see on the way out, including a poster of some kind of game coming up. It looked like it was painted and it looked fun.

Exiting the building, she saw the long black car she had come in, waiting by the pavement, its tinted windows absorbing the morning sun’s light. Looking around carefully to make sure no one else was watching, the girl opened the door and slipped inside.

It was cool and dark inside the limo, just like how she knew her mother liked it.

“Is it done?” a female voice came from the darkness, the opposite side of where the girl was seated.

“Yes, mother,” she answered as she buckled herself in. “You won’t have to worry about that man again.”

“And what of the evidence?” the female voice asked.

“All taken care of,” the girl replied, holding up her bag. “It’s all in here. Every last bit that I could find. Oh and the keyboard too, if you still want it. I thought I’d take it so no one else gets poisoned accidentally.”

“Excellent thinking,” the female voice said, leaning forward and looming out of the shadows to reveal a charcoal black face framed by teal hair. Her green, slit-pupiled eyes sparkled like emeralds.

“You’ve done me very proud today, my little changeling,” Queen Chrysalis crooned, sitting back again and suffusing the inside of the car with love.

And the girl soaked it in, feeling immeasurably happy.

Just perfect indeed.

~The End~

Author's Note

Achievement Unlocked

A Sticky End

You reached the true conclusion of The Lost Connection... but there's always more to be seen.

1 - The Abduction

Principal Celestia groaned as she slowly came to. Her head felt like someone had been beating on it with a jackhammer, and the inside of her mouth tasted like something had crawled in there and died. She reached over to her bedside cabinet for the glass of water that she kept there for just such reasons.

It was then that Celestia realized that the bedside cabinet was not there, and that she couldn’t move her arm at all, and that there was something tied across her mouth, preventing her from making any more noise than a quiet murmur. Her eyes shot open, but she may as well have kept them shut; it was pitch black. Her inner ear told her that she was lying down, but where could she possibly be? Celestia tried to get up, but her legs wouldn’t respond. Nor would any other part of her anatomy, now that she was waking up.

Fear began to claw at the principal’s heart. She was suddenly aware of how oppressive the darkness was, as if she were entombed in a coffin. Principal Celestia raised her head, the only part of her that still seemed to be able to move, almost immediately knocking it on a metal surface above her. The metal felt thin, no more than a few millimeters thick.

She couldn’t remember how she had even gotten here. After work that day, she had gone home before her sister as usual, but after that, Celestia couldn’t remember what happened. Did she even make it home? The Canterlot principal tried to remember, but it was as if she had too much to drink. She just couldn’t recall how she ended up here.

Principal Celestia tried to speak, but only muffled sounds came out. It was then that she realized the gag around her mouth smelt of soot and ash, like it had come from something that was burnt. She fought against her stomach from throwing up. It wouldn’t do her much good anyways.

All of a sudden, there was a faint click and the cough of an engine starting. Celestia’s entire surroundings began to vibrate, and she could hear the sound of wheels grinding against asphalt.

Well, that answered one of her questions. She was in the trunk of a car. As for how she got there… a few, unpleasant possibilities emerged in her head. One, she was in the clutches of some psychopath, and that she was being taken somewhere far away so that he could hold her for ransom or worse. Two, this was some new magical threat and, like the Dazzlings, they had decided that neutralizing her was the first part of their plan, or three, this was some prank her sister, Luna, was in the process of doing, though this time, Celestia hoped it was the third option instead of the first two.

The car continued on its journey, stopping on occasion. Celestia tried to see if she could tell where she was by listening to the sounds around her, but that quickly proved bootless; the car’s engine was far too loud for that. So Celestia was left in the dark, both literally and metaphorically, until the car finally came to a halt and the engine was switched off. The principal heard one of the car doors open and slam shut, before a pair of feet could be heard walking around on the pavement below.

Then the trunk was opened, but before she could take a proper look at who it was, a cloth bag was thrust over her head, only giving her a split second to see who her captor was. All she had been able to see was a pair of light purple eyes before sight was taken from her.

She tried to speak, to scream or cry for help, but all she could manage with the gag around her mouth were a few muffled calls. Celestia felt herself being picked up and slung over the shoulder of… whoever this was, and carried a short distance. There was the sound of a key sliding into a lock, and then that of a door opening and closing.

Before she knew it, she was tossed down on a chair, the wooden furniture rocking slightly as it came to a stop. Something cold and metallic was clasped around her right ankle.

Celestia tried to squirm in her spot, but she realized she still couldn’t move. Whatever it was that her captor had tied her up in, it was really strong; she couldn’t even feel it around her as well.

What is happening…? Where am I?

“How are you feeling, Principal Celestia?” It sounded like a woman speaking, although her voice sounded somewhat familiar. “I’m sorry about the mess. Oh wait, you can’t see, can you? Let me help you with that.”

The bag was lifted off Celestia’s head, and the gag was untied from behind. The principal was able to see her surroundings for the first time. It was a fairly nondescript room, with a beige carpeted floor and a single bed and dresser to her right. There was a wardrobe in front of her with a mirror, but it was angled away so that she couldn’t see whoever was behind her.

“So who are you?” Celestia asked nervously, unable to look around. “What do you want?”

“There are a great many things I want,” the mysterious woman said, her voice still sounding just like Celestia’s.

“Why did you bring me here?” Celestia rephrased her question. “If it’s money you want, you can have it.”

The woman scoffed. “I don’t want money. Not yours, anyway. What I do want is for you to stay seated while I tell you why you are here.”

“Who are you? Show yourself.”

Celestia could hear footfalls as her captor walked into view. As she became visible, the principal felt her head go light, and her vision began to spin.

No… this shouldn’t be…

She recognized this person. She saw her every day, in fact, in the mirror.

Celestia was looking at herself.