As the old saying went, Violetta could see her house from here. She was swooping down upon it like an invisible bird, gliding through the night in an unseen, incorporeal body, doing something that should have been impossible, and her mind was smashed together with an old creeper and a mysterious zebra psychic. And everything was fine.

She was about to go inside of her brother’s head and move some mental furniture around. Afterwards, who knew what was next? And this was her doing—she didn’t know how she knew it—but this was her. The old pony, he was just guiding her, steering her magic, and the zebra was smoothing out mind ripples, whatever those were. But a part of Violetta’s brain knew and understood that this was all her, her magic, her gift. Her so called ‘Master’ would have needed a half-dozen ponies or more to do this under most circumstances, but tonight, it was all on her.

Every teenage girl wanted their ego stroked, and knowing she had this sort of power hidden within her made her stubby little girl dick hard as diamonds and able to cut glass. She was the ugly one, the blue girl, she wasn’t one of the popular pastels like her classmates or some vibrant, vivid colour. It wasn’t easy being blue—it led to a lifetime of being teased and accusations of having a blueberry as a parent. She had spent a lifetime asking, ‘it’s ‘cause I’m blue, ain’t it?’

But being a dark shade of blue had been freeing in a way. She didn’t have to worry about being pretty, no, she got face piercings, nose piercings, eyebrow piercings, pretty much every flap of skin had a stud or a post in it. Since no one would accept her, she could get away with wearing a wardrobe that came from a thrift shop. She had made the most of being blue. She had made being blue become a state of mind.

None of that mattered now. She was a small blue horse and she had power. It was intoxicating. As she drew nearer to her house, her brain reminded her to be mindful of her thoughts. She didn’t know how much the old creeper knew inside of her head, how far his thoughts overlapped her thoughts, how much of herself she was able to keep private from him. She didn’t know if the zebra had a way to keep the nasty, wrinkly old fart out of her innermost thoughts.

She had to sell a believable lie, everything depended on it.

Almost in control of her brother’s body, disgusted and filled with revulsion, she pulled the door open and looked at the two police officers on the porch. She willed herself to smile and she felt her brother’s body respond—he smiled too. She looked at the officer on the left, then the one on the right. She had some awareness of her captor in the back of her mind, it was like having a teacher watching you work and grading your progress as it happened.

“Hi, is your mother home?” the officer on the left asked.

“We’d like to ask some questions, if you don’t mind,” the officer on the right added.

The first of the lies began. She had to make them believable. “My mother, is uh, she’s off on a sales trip. She should be back home in a day or two.”

“I see,” the officer on the left responded. “If you don’t mind me asking, son, but just how old are you?”

“I’m about to turn forteen,” Violetta replied through her brother’s lips. “Normally, my big sister is here to look after me.”

“Yeah, about that…” The officer on the right frowned and shook his head. “Tell me, son, do you know anything about your sister’s whereabouts?”

She felt something in her brother’s mind. Was it worry? Fear? Panic? She didn’t know. She was surprised that he felt that way, just a little. It made her feel just a tiny bit awful that she was about to fuck with his head. She dominated him, grinding down his sense of will, his thoughts, she stomped everything down somehow, without understanding anything she was doing. She had to make a believable lie. She couldn’t just say any dopey shit that came to mind. This was… this was her eulogy. This was how others would remember her. RIP, Violetta, that weird punk girl with the nice leather jacket and the big black boots.

“My sister, she kept talking about going off and becoming a roadie for some band, I can’t think of what it was called. Some group of butch-bitch fem-punks that she was really into. She and mom fight all the time.” Violetta stopped right there. The shorter and less detailed she kept this, the better.

“Is that so?” the officer on the right asked.

“My sister is sorta gay,” Violetta explained through her brother’s mouth and using his voice. “Mom doesn’t like that she’s kinda queer. She puts a lot of pressure on my sister to be normal and she keeps telling her that its just a phase.”

The best lies were rooted in the truth. At some point, Violetta was going to have to have a good cry about this. She didn’t expect for this to cut so deep. Even worse, her captor had a front row seat to all of this, which made everything all the more galling.

“That’s a damn shame,” the officer on the left said in a low voice as he glanced over at his fellow officer beside him. “This intolerance is why we have so many runaways. When will parents learn? Kids these days, they’ll just up and leave if they get the chance. I see it every day.”

“I blame the internet,” the other officer said. “There’s probably some kind of network or support group out there that makes it easier.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small cellphone, an Orange wPhone.

Upon seeing it, Violetta’s emotional reaction was so strong that her brother began to sniffle. She could feel tears welling up in her brother’s eyes. Her phone was a little battered, but looked to be none the worse for wear. The rubber cover for it was scuffed, beat up, and faded. It was her link to the world, her lifeline.

“This was found where your sister was last seen, serving detention,” the officer said as he held out the phone. “Something seems to have happened to it, it’s shorted out or something. It’s dead. We tried looking, to see if we could find any details on her whereabouts.”

Reaching out her brother’s hand, she took her phone from the officer. Her phone was dead. Something about that had a profound effect upon her, and she felt her emotions going out of control. She began to feel ripples again. With a mental snarl, she shoved everything down, she had to finish this, she had to keep her shit together.

As she blinked with her brother’s eyes, her perspective made a crazy shift. Now, she was inside of the officer’s heads, both of them, and staring at her brother. She could see his face, his eyes, his somewhat dull and vacant expression. She realised that she could actually feel the officer’s minds being smoothed over, their senses being dulled.

“It’s a damn shame, a fifteen year old sophomore ran out of the house by her mother’s intolerance.” He paused and shook his head. “Are we going to write this up as a runaway?” one officer asked the other.

“Yeah, she’s long gone by now, just like the others. She probably hopped on the first bus out of town.” Sighing, the other officer shook his head as well. “We’re sorry, kid.”

It was then that her captor took over. She could feel him, it was as if he pushed her aside, and she could feel his will pressing into the minds of the officers. She didn’t know what was going on, but she assumed that he had a lot of practice doing this. She looked upon her brother through the eyes of the police officers, her brother was a dork, a real dork, and he listened to annoying pop music made for dumb dork girls.

When she felt herself being torn out of the minds of the officers, she realised that she would never be seeing her brother again, or her mother. One of the officer’s hands twitched, almost as if he was about to raise it and wave goodbye. Like an unseen balloon, she floated away, drifting upwards on some unseen current.

You did well. She heard her captor’s voice inside of her current state of consciousness, whatever it happened to be at the moment. Our work is almost finished.

Around her, she felt the wind pick up, and clouds began to roll in. On the edge of the city, a dense fog gathered. She had seen this fog before, she hated it. When the fog rolled in, cellphones had trouble working, satellite dishes for television lost all signal, and it seemed that everything went on the fritz. Local scientists said it had something to do with the old iron mines and electromagnetic interference.

But as it happened, as she made it happen, she knew it was so much more. It was the fog of forgetfulness, and it didn’t come from this place. It came from where her captor came from. He somehow pulled it through. It was weak here, and lost potency at a rapid rate, but it was effective for his purposes. It dulled the senses, made people less likely to think and remember certain unpleasant things. As she made the fog happen, she knew. As this fog rolled through town, the people that knew her, they would become to content to forget her. Sour Sweet too. She would be an uncomfortable memory, a troubled girl with a troubled mother that nobody wanted to talk about. There would be no candlelit vigils, or memorials, as all of those things would hurt too much. It was better to forget. She was making it better to forget. She was erasing her own existence, in a sense, hastening her own departure. Even the Cakes would find her memory unbearable.

This fog wasn’t like the others though, this was her fog. Where as before, her captor had to have the linked minds of many to produce the fog and cross it over, she was doing this. This amnesiatic fog was strong in a way that the others previous weren’t. This would not be a night to remember. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. Come morning, a lot of folks would wake up feeling hungover and they would have trouble remembering the night before.

Everywhere the fog rolled, things died. Lights flickered and went out as a blackout rolled through the city. Cars sputtered and quit, their headlights going dim. Electronics all over the city fizzled and went out, including the police computers and the dispatch center. Expensive components inside the cell towers popped like champagne corks as they smoked and sizzled.

Her captor guided her with a gentle hand, showing her the way. He put the magic in her mind and it was through her force of will that she made it happen. She was helping to sow chaos and dissent, and it felt good. This world had rejected her, this world had thrown her away, this world had never given her a chance, this world had to pay.

It was easy to lapse into anger and connect with all of her pent up, bottled up rage. More fog came rolling through and the whole city was blanketed with it now. A hand held up in front of the nose could not be seen. Violetta realised that if she could somehow just pull enough magic through the bridge, the connection, the star bridge, she might be able to erase all traces of her existence completely. The night was hers, and she drew power from it. The stars overhead twinkled above the fog and their faint light gave her strength.

She had power. Real power. Her captor, he was just along for the ride. He was nothing. He was inconsequential. He was a flea. But, he was a flea that she needed. He had knowledge, he had learning. He knew how to make the magic bend and submit. She felt more ripples, more disturbances, and they enraged her. She brought her crushing will down upon them and the ripples smoothed out. Her connection remained true. The star bridge did not collapse.

In the darkness, in the fog, something resisted her. Something pushed back against the chaos and disorder she had sown. She felt it in her mind, she felt it in her fog. Her disembodied consciousness sought it out, and her seething rage gave her strength. How dare something rise up against her?

She could feel her captor pulling and tugging upon her, trying to assert control, but she was able to ignore him. While he had the knowledge she needed, he didn’t have the power to be a threat to her. She floated through the fog like an unseen spectre, seeking out what had resisted her.

A garage. Music. The garage still had light, it still had warmth, it still had power somehow. And that music. Something about the music. The music calmed the rage. What was the old expression? Music soothed the savage beast? Violetta Eventide recognised that music, she knew that sound.

It was the Rainbooms. Sunset Shimmer’s soulful voice assaulted her disembodied ears and wormed its way into her fevered, disconnected brain. The music pushed back against her influence. The area around the garage was free of fog. It was an island of warmth and light. As beautiful as the music was though, something deep inside of Violetta hated it. She resisted it, trying to push it out of her consciousness. She tried to bring the fog to smother the music, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not penetrate the barrier of warmth, light, and sound.

There was a screeching guitar riff and it hit her like an out of control garbage truck. The sensation was both physical and painful. It didn’t just hurt her, but her captor as well. It jarred her, woke her up, like a slap to the face, it brought her to her senses. Like a rock dropped into a pond, it caused ripples, and the ripples became too much to bear. She could not smooth them out. She could not make the music stop.

She could not hold herself together, and she felt the star bridge collapse.

Author's Note

Ah, the turning point. How satisfying. Here we go...

Next chapter: "Bitch, I'm gonna fistfuck your horsepussy!"