Phoenix

12:14PM

“S-Sunset…?” the elderly woman behind the lunch counter paused, her maw widening in shock as she stared at the girl standing across from her, causing Sunset to let out a tired, yet amused sounding side as she gave a light hearted smile.

“I’m Fireside Glow, captain of Crystal Prep’s team, though I’ve had quite a few people call me Sunset Shimmer today. Thankfully the students have yet to attack me like they did that girl, so at least I’m spared from that part of her legacy.”

Fireside’s smile seemed to grow colder as she went, before ending with a glacial edge to it. The woman behind the counter stuttered as she tried to apologize to Fireside, only for the girl to shake her head.

“I would like a salad please. No croutons, dressing, and especially no meat.” Fireside’s sub-zero smile beamed brighter, the elderly woman nodding and going to fix up the girl’s request, leaving the teen to let out a tired sigh as Granny Smith left. She should apologize to the woman, but the teen had been becoming more and more on edge since that last flashback, the figure that had been invisible slowly starting to become corporeal. She’d been so lost in thought that all of the CPA students had already gone through, leaving Fireside at the head of a line of CHS students.

“Here you are, dear.” the woman gave a flinching smile as she handed the tray to Fireside, the girl noticing the apple and water bottle sitting beside her salad.

“Thank you, and I apologize for my outburst.” Fireside gave a brief bow before backing away and starting to snake her way through the lunchroom.

“Fier-y!” Sonata called out, waving ecstatically to her sister from a set of table near the windows that had been pulled together to fit all ten girls sitting there. Fireside nodded, her smile warming as she made her way over to where her sisters, Twilight, and the other remaining members of her team sat.

“What do you want?” Fireside looked up at the table, frown on her face at the rude comment, only to stop and sigh tiredly as the tables were replaced with a single one, five of the seats replaced with the Rainbooms, each of them glowering at the figure standing in front of her. The boots had a pair of legs coming up out of them now, the denim of the jeans sitting tight on the limbs of the figure, an empty tray hovering in front of them.

“I, um…” the voice sounded timid, uneasy as it replied to the five girls. “There’s nowhere else to sit, a-and I was wondering if I could s-sit with the five of you?”

The five girls remained silent, Fireside’s heart dropping as the Rainbooms had to sit and consider the question. The voice sounded hopeful as it pleaded it’s case, the tray starting to shake in front of it. Fireside joined Applejack as the teen stood up and looked around the lunch room. Shadowy blobs sat at the seats, but there were still many empty seats, which the farmer wasted no time in bringing up.

“An what about tha other empty seats?” she asked, a grim expression on her face. Fireside watched as the figure slumped, their torso barely visible as a collection of sketchy lines.

“Sit…” came the quiet comment from Fluttershy, earning a variety of queer looks from her friends, to which she gave a simple response. “As long as she sits and eat, it should be fine, right?”

Fireside could see the figure shaking, a collection of soft sobs being emitted from it as it started to shuffle over towards the table, the scene washing away to be replaced by her friends and sisters, their voices seeming to speed up as reality bleed back to existence.

“So let me guess, you got a salad, didn’t ya!” Aria called out, setting her burger down on her plate, ketchup staining her cheek.

“You know me all too well, Ari.” Fireside shrugged as she sat down at the table, looking over to Sonata, or rather what she was doing with her food. “Uh, Sona? Whatcha doin?”

“Finished!” the girl proclaimed, letting out a pleased huff as she sat back from her plate. “See! It’s a narwhal!”

Sure enough, Sonata’s plate was now host to a mashed potato sculpture of her favourite aquatic creature, a baby carrot sticking out of its forehead to represent the creatures horn. The girl beamed brightly as she looked down at it, only to give a shocked cry as a ketchup stained knife came down and separates the narwhal’s majestic head from its blubbery body.

“Aria!? What was that for!?” Sonata wailed as Aria started to laugh cruelly at her sister’s distress. “What did Crown Prince Blubberhorn the Sixteenth do to deserve that!?”

“Eh-hem…” all of the girls sitting down paused and moved to look at the figure that just cleared her throat, as well as the four other girls standing behind her.

“Could we have our seats back?” Rainbow Dash asked softly, her eyes passing slowly over the group, surprised looks spreading amongst the Shadowbolts.

“We're just sitting here and eating, isn’t that fine?” Fireside asked, her eyes watching as all five Rainbooms took a quarter step back, her gaze pausing on Fluttershy as tears started to build in her eyes.

“S-Sunset?” Rainbow stuttered, almost dropping her tray, only to have it straightened by the steady hand of the now standing Fireside.

“But you know what? Why don’t you take them? Me and my friends here are going to sit with our other friends.” the tall teen positively shimmered from the heated gaze she delivered to the much shorter girl, before spinning around and waving a hand towards a group of four girls chatting as they walked with their own trays of food. “Oi! Vinyl! Help me push some tables together! You’ve got a large group joining you for lunch!”

The off white girl looked back and held her hand above her head, holding out her pinkie and thumb and giving it a quick shake.

“Come along, Shadowbolts. Let’s leave these seats to the individuals who frequent them the most.” the other nine CPA looked shocked at how much venom was radiating from their captains words before making various actions of indifference as they themselves got up and followed after their leader.

“What was that about?” Sour whispered loudly, rushing to keep step with Fireside.

“Yeah, I haven’t seen you that subtly vicious, like, ever!” Aria added, chuckling softly. “You just went full Sour Sweet on them!”

“I just remembered that they weren’t the nicest of people while I was here was all.” Fireside commented as she approached the tables that Vinyl and Lyra had dragged together. “I could've helped, you two!”

“Yeah, but with how bad you’re single handedly whooping our asses, I figured you could use a break.” Lyra winked as she flopped down onto her seat, letting out a small bark of laughter.

“Single handedly, huh?” Indigo sat across from the girl, competitive glint in her smirk. “Well that’s rich coming from someone eliminated in the first round!”

“Fireside, love, congratulations on your day so far.” Octavia smiled warmly as she sat down, beckoning Fireside to take the seat across from her.

“Thanks, Octavia.” Fireside chuckled nervously as she took the offered seat, everyone working around to get seats of their own.

“So how come you girls are joining us?” Bon Bon asked quietly, trying to look around the girls across from her. “It looked like the lot of you already had a table.”

“Eh, it wasn’t really our table, ya know?” Fireside shrugged as grabbed her fork and stabbed it into her salad. “Besides, I’d rather eat with my friends, ya know?”

Fireside paused, her forkful of salad almost in her open mouth, when she heard a series of sharp snaps from the white girl beside Octavia. The amber teen watched as Vinyl tilted her head, pointing behind Fireside.

“Ah, ya… Don’t worry about them, Vinyl. I’ve had enough to deal with today thanks to my memories coming back.” Fireside sighed as she put the fork down, leaving her salad still uneaten. “Please don’t bother them, they aren’t worth it.”

“Well… If you’re sure. But onto better news!” Octavia’s worried frown was replaced with a warm smile as she watched Fireside finally start eating her salad. “You’re getting your memories back, you say?”

“Is that why you’ve been so out of it at times?” Lyra asked, shifting away from Indigo to converse with the amber teen, earning a nod from Fireside who was too busy scarfing down her salad to respond. “Whatcha rememberin’? Only the good things I hope!”

“Some good.” Fireside shrugged after down half the contents of her water bottle in a single, long pull. “A lotta bad. I’d rather not think about them until after the Games, if that’s fine with y’all.”

“There! All better!” Sonata beamed as she finished fixing the damage that Aria had done to her mashed potato narwhal sculpture, the cyan girl even going as far as to carve the carrot horn. “Plus he’s been improved, see!”

Sonata thrust the sculpture towards Aria, smiling happily as she showed off her work, seeming to have completely forgotten who it was that damaged it in the first place. Aria looked at it, then back to Sonata, a dangerous grin spreading across her face. Fireside paused as she looked up from her salad, her fork tumbling from her grasp in slow motion as she lunged out towards her, crying the girl’s name.

“Aria! Don’t!”

The purple skinned girl let loose a cruel and malicious laugh as she swung her hand up, clipping the plate at the lip closest to her and causing the platter to flip up towards Sonata, the girl’s smile freezing as she watched the plate full of mashed potatoes, roast beef, and assorted veggies turn towards here, rapidly approaching the swell of her generous bust.

Splap.

The table went silent, eyes glued to the chunks and globs of food that dripped from Sonata’s bust onto her skirt, her hands still in front of her as they held onto the now empty space where the platter once resided. She looked down at her chest, her hand moving in slow, jerky motions towards the carved up baby carrot that stuck from the mass of mashed potato she now wore.

Aria suddenly cringed as Sonata’s natural puppy dog like eyes started to shimmer, tears building at an explosive rate before unleashing themselves in a tide down the cyan girl’s cheeks, yet she remained silent, her gaze focused on the carrot that now rested in the palms of her hands.

“FOR CROWN PRINCE BLUBBERHORN THE SIXTEENTH!” the girl bellowed, an anger unseen by the world erupting from the girl as she rocketed from her seat and towards her now reeling sister, a haze of bloodlust in the magenta eyes of Sonata. Her hands shot to Aria’s plate and pulled apart the half eaten hamburger that sat ignored, and started to slather the contents of the sandwich upon the front of her sister’s shirt, ketchup and mustard staining the burgundy blazer.

“Ack, hey! Stop that you heartless bitch! Do you know how hard it is to clean ketchup and mustard stains!?” Aria stumbled back out of her chair, landing crudely on the floor as her taller sister loomed above her, wielding the buns like deadly knives as she used her size advantage to continue to smear the condiments on Aria’s top.

“CROWN PRINCE BLUBBERHORN THE SIXTEENTH MUST BE AVENGED!” the girl yelled viciously, continuing her unending assault on Aria, only to be hefted away by Adagio, the matriarchal sister shouting in some unknown tongue at the two, before tossing Sonata to the floor beside Aria. She continued to assault them verbally, causing even more attention to be drawn to what was unfolding.

“Um, Adagio? Let’s get them to the washroom.” Fireside had vaulted across the table to stand beside her sister, the amber teen noticing that the veins around Adagio’s temple were threatening to tear through her sister’s skin.

Adagio paused and looked around, noticing all the students watching them now, before groaning as she wiped a hand down her face, nodding at Fireside before returning to their other two sisters, barking another few words in that other language.

“Hey, watch it!” Fireside scolded, slapping her sister’s shoulder gently. “No need to call them that!”

Adagio paused, her eyes narrowing dangerously as she looked at Fireside, but out of fear, not anger. Adagio looked down and apologized to the two prone sisters, watching as Fireside helped them to their feet, the four nodding before making their way quickly through the doors of the cafeteria and towards the nearest washroom.

“Okay, can one of you tell me what the hell language that was?” Fireside looked back over her shoulder at the three girls, each of them oddly mute.

“I’m more wondering about where you learned it, dear.” Adagio said tiredly, as if she were carrying the weight of the whole world on her shoulders.

“My memories, I guess?” Fireside shrugged as she turned the corner, smiling slightly when she saw the sign for the women's washroom. “Good, right where I guess I remembered it? This way, you three!”

The four made their way into the washroom, Aria and Sonata stripping out of their blazers and throwing them haphazardly into the sinks. Fireside grabbed Adagio’s attention, pulling the girl to the side.

“Look, we can deal with the whole memories thing after the Games, promise, cause I got some questions I want answered now. For the time being, you make sure those two goofs are cleaned up as best they can, and I’m going to go do damage control in the cafeteria.” Adagio nodded as Fireside retreated back into the hall. But she had barely rounded the corner before something caught her ear. Music, coming down from the other end of the hall.

And like a siren’s song, Fireside found herself slowly creeping down the hallway, more visions flashing and disappearing, voices fading in and out, the song! The song growing louder, and distorted, the pitch fluctuating rapidly until all at once everything fell silent. Before her sat a closed door, with a single off centered musical note hanging on it as the lone decoration. She paused, looking down as a ripple distorted the scene, revealing a small mess resting on the floor.

Fireside knelt down, the muffled sounds of sniffling with the odd hiccuping sob intermixed breaking the silence of the hallway. She studied the pile, noticing the mangled up remains of a triangular piece of wood and plastic, metal strands of various thickness hanging out at obtuse angles as-

“Guy…” the half visible apparition said emotionally, Fireside watching as it reached out a shaking, amber hand towards the mess of pieces.

It was a guitar on the floor, Fireside recognized, the instruments neck separated into kindling as the ghost reached out and started to try and pick up all the pieces, holding them close to her generous bust.

“Why… Why did they do this to you…?” the spectre asked with a trembling voice as pieces started to clatter to the floor around her, the scene slowly fading away, replaced instead by a rather cheery sounding beat, the same one that called Fireside to this room. The teen got up, gently wrapping a hand around the brass door knob and turning it, opening a passageway into the room.

All around her, watching Fireside enter, were instruments. Steel drums, violins, trumpets and more were stored around her, a small stage set up to the far end of the room. To the side sat a large piano, its surface immaculately spotless, obviously well maintained just as everything else that watched the girl. A drum set slowly faded into existence, coinciding with the small riff, the cymbals even shifting in time with the sticks hitting them, followed by a tambourine shaking around. A pair of guitars, one a bass, started to float around ominously as indiscernible words started to fill the air, before a keytar joined in, hovering off to the side.

The sound of hands tapping on flesh and cloth somehow started to override the music, causing Fireside to shift her gaze over to the piano, and the figure that sat upon it. Her mouth opened, her eyes widened, she took a step back, but her actions couldn’t stop her as she watched the figure seated on the piano start to fully reveal itself. Or rather, herself…

A tall, amber skin teen with long, stylized hair of blood and gold sat on the piano, giving a weak, uneasy smile as she sat listening to the band play, her aquamarine eyes shifting around uneasily. She wore a black leather jacket, the artistic collar popped open to show off the gems that happily glinted in the light, the top open wide enough to show the magenta shirt that hung to the girl’s extraordinary bust line, a dual toned sun emblazoned in the center of it. Her long legs ran out of an orange skirt, two lines of purple and yellow running side by side across it, and down into long, black boots with ornamental magenta flames running across the toes.

Fireside watched as she shifted around on the piano, the Rainbooms starting to materialize with their instruments, their eyes uneasy as they shifted to her as they failed at focusing on their playing. The vocals of the song started to unjumble themselves, the air clearing up and bombarding Fireside with a song about coming together, and friendship, yet it held a sharp undertone to it as the teen stumbled back, tripping over herself and falling to her back.

She was grimacing as her hands shot to her head, pained cries and whimpering escaping from her lips as the memories resumed their relentless assault, tearing flaming holes in her mind as they released themselves from the asphyxiating mist that had plagued her since that first day in the hospital those many months ago. Tears, meltingly hot, ran down her face, finding a way to pierce through the substantial shielding of her eyelids. Her body screamed in pain as her nails dug into her forehead, her legs kicking and flailing around her wildly.

Only for everything to stop, the girl’s torso thrusting sharply up off the floor, her mouth gaping in silence before she collapsed back down onto the floor, unmoving, save for the minute rising and lowering of her chest, coinciding with the quiet gasps of air she was emitting.

The girl groaned, then cried as she wrapped up into a ball, her arms embracing her knees and pulling them into herself. Her body was wracked with severe roils as she started to roll side to side, trying to comprehend everything that had just made itself known to her. She-

A cry! One of distress, before dying out! The girl’s eyes shot open, shaking as they drew to pinpoints. She scrambled to her feet, racing to the door and opening it. A loud collection of thundering feet echoed through the halls, followed by their accension up the stairs just around the corner.

Sunset Shimmer gave an uneasy gulp, her heart threatening to erupt from her chest. She closed the door, quietly, before pausing to look down. The remnants of the guitar remained, a tear coming to her eye as she watched herself try to piece the instrument back together before vanishing. Her head tilted up, tracking the sounds of the feet stomping on the floor above her. She was uneasy, to say the least, but regardless of what they had attempted to do, Sonata had just cried out for help, and given what had happened to her at the hands of these students, Sunset couldn’t risk something happening to the Siren’s.

She let out the breath that she was holding, squared her shoulders, then started to quietly dash towards the stairs.