Only once on her life, she had gotten drunk to that point where you couldn't remember a single thing that happened last night, woke up a mess and with the worst hangover ever, swearing you would never ever do it again. Most people did not keep that promise. But being a medical student, she had unwillingly kept that promise because between classes at night and work in the morning to pay her student fees, she didn't have a lot of time to get drunk.

However, as she slowly regained her senses, Sunset's first thought was that this headache was worse than any hangover imaginable. That mixed with the fact she still was feeling like in cartoons when little birds went around a character's head after a colliding with a wall and leaving a perfect outline of their body on it.

Sunset opened her eyes and regretted it. Fluorescent lights shone right above her and burnt her retina, so she closed her eyes again and rolled to the side.

Where was she? Why was she feeling like a horse had kicked her in the head?

Alarm slowly crept onto her and replaced confusion. This couldn't be good. Was she kidnapped? Why?

A groan that wasn't hers reached her ears. Sunset opened her eyes again and noticed she wasn't alone.

Applejack was there, lying in a bed next to the bed she was lying in herself, also looking like in the middle of getting her brain squeezed out of her ears.

And not only her. Next to Applejack was Fluttershy, and then Pinkie Pie. Sunset turned around and noticed Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight.

What in the name of Princess Celestia was going on?

"Girls?!" she blurted out, and all of them winced.

"Not so loud, please..." Dash demanded.

"Is this what a hangover feels like?"

"Nope, Fluttershy. This ain't like a hangover at all."

"What's happening?"

"Yeah! Where are we?"

"I..." Twilight swallowed, looking around the room, now fully sitting on the bed. "I have no idea."

Sunset sat in the bed too, and soon the rest of the girls followed suit.

There was no telling where they were. The room was pitch dark save from the fluorescent lights above Sunset, Rainbow, and Fluttershy. It seemed to extend a few yards into the darkness. There was a door, and a table half swallowed by the dark, and their stuff was sitting on top of the table. Sunset recognized her purse next to Fluttershy's. Her head wobbled and she cringed again.

"We apologize deeply for the aftereffects."

Sunset's mind went blank at the new voice.

No, it wasn't so new...

"That voice!" Dash cried.

Twilight looked like a fish in the needing water. "Could it be...?"

"Yes, indeed, Twilight Sparkle..."

Sunset felt her eyes pop out of her face.

The sound of heels approaching invaded the room, coming out of the darkness. Two silhouettes appeared: two women.

And these women...

"It's been a while since we saw all of you together."

Were Celestia and Luna themselves.

Flash sighed on his way out of The Tasty Treat. Missing a date like that did not sound like Twilight at all, considering her flawless scheduling and punctuality. Was she mad at him? He didn't remember doing something wrong at all. And she didn't sound mad when he called her earlier that day, right before his shift, to confirm their date. She was actually pretty cheerful.

He waited for two hours. Two whole, freaking hours. He couldn't decide between being mad or worried.

Her phone was off, so no calls. Texting was a no-no, for the messages never reached her. And he was reluctant on going to check her apartment. Maybe she fell asleep? She usually arrived home exhausted (dealing with teenagers all day could tire people out) and still had to check homework and exams. And prepare for class. And research for classes in her private library (her biggest pride, the result of a lifetime of books).

Did those kids know how hard she worked for them each day?

Flash tried calling her again. And just like the other times, the same message repeated itself: You've contacted with Twilight Sparkle. If I haven't picked up, I'm probably busy. You can leave a message and I'll contact you as soon as I can.

Beep. End of message.

He really was starting to worry.

Flash checked his wristwatch. 11:37 p.m. Should he check her apartment?

He got the idea of calling one of her friends and pressed the first name that he found: Applejack.

No luck. Hers was off too.

Don't worry, Flash. It's pretty late and she goes to bed early. Maybe I should try Rainbow Dash. They see each other every day, right?

He looked for her number too and called, hoping she would pick up. Please, pick up.

Rainbow Dash here. I-

"Damn it!" he hung up. Now he was really worried.

Standing on the side of an empty street, Flash massaged his brow. It's cool, Flash. It's just your paranoic cop side... I hope. She's alright. She's probably asleep. Yeah, it must be that.

But as he went over to his car, he swore to himself that if Twilight didn't pick up her phone by tomorrow morning, he would turn the whole town upside down.

Sunset swallowed a gulp of water to pass the aspirin offered to her. Her Doctor mind told her this wasn't going to be enough to calm the migraine, but it was what was offered to all of them in the meantime. Her eyes still hated the light, but there was nothing to do about it other than suck it up so she could listen to the explanation on why they were kidnapped by their ex-Principals (Twilight's and Dash's bosses, no less).

Said Principals, in fact, were patiently waiting for all of them sitting in chairs right in front of Sunset's bed. The rest of the girls had made themselves comfortable on Sunset's bed.

"Alright, mind tellin' us why are we in here?!" Applejack demanded to know. "What is goin' on?!"

"How did we get here in the first place?" asked Pinkie Pie. She looked all over the place. "Last thing I remember, I was leaving Sugarcube Corner to go home. I don't remember ever being here before."

"You were sedated with horse tranquilizer," Luna replied. Sunset lifted an eyebrow. Luna made a gesture with her hand. "Do not worry, it was a small dose. The headache should be gone by tomorrow."

"You darted us?!"

"No, we didn't, Rainbow Dash," Celestia replied, making a gesture with her pointer finger. "She did."

All girls turned to see the dark again and gasped when a third woman came out. She was actually way younger, and it took them while before linking her face with a name.

"Bon Bon?!" Fluttershy blurted. The girl smirked and took off her dark glasses.

"Not quite." Bon Bon replied, adjusting her long, leather black coat. She approached Celestia and Luna and stood behind them.

"My real name is Sweetie Drops. Sorry for the deception all these years."

"But... We haven't seen each other since High School..." Sunset stated.

"You haven't seen her," Luna claimed, and Sweetie Drops proudly smirked behind her. "But she's seen you. She's the best at stealth and spying."

Dash raised a hand like some policeman. "Hold the bus, SPYING?!"

"This is getting weirder every minute..." Twilight mumbled.

"Why, yes." Celestia nodded. "This is what happens here, girls." she extended her arms outwards. "Welcome to the headquarters of the of Abnormal Threat Investigation and Defense Agency."

"But we go by ATIDA." Sweetie Drops shrugged. "It's shorter."

Silence fell upon them. Sunset was incredibly skeptical of this whole situation. Spys? It was ridiculous! And yet here they were, in some room with a headache caused by horse tranquilizer (dear god, horse tranquilizer!) with three women in front of them. Sunset carefully examined Celestia and Luna. She could no longer know who they were. Of course, they weren't the Principals that figured in their yearbooks, so if they weren't those women, who were they?

"This is a prank." Dash decided, looking around the room. "There must be hidden cameras somewhere. We'll appear at some Haytube channel and we'll laugh about this tomorrow."

"This is no prank, Rainbow Dash." Luna declared.

"Then it must be a dream!" Rarity claimed. "It must be that. I'm dreaming and tomorrow morning I'll wake up and- Auch! Applejack! Why would you do that?!"

"This ain't no dream." Applejack corrected, her eyes glued to Celestia and Luna. "This is darn real."

"Indeed." Celestia smiled. "And now that you know how you got here, I think you're quite interested in knowing why you are here."

"If you could explain it already," Twilight pipped in. "We would be more than grateful."

"Very well." Celestia stood up and walked back to the darkness. She disappeared for a few seconds, and suddenly, the light on that side of the room was on. Next thing she knew, Sunset was looking a giant board filled to the brim with pictures, graphics, and such. Celestia stood next to it, a pointer on her hand, looking like a teacher about to give a class.

"Girls," she started. "We've brought you here because of this." she made a gesture to the board. "There's plenty of this world that you don't know about. And Equestrian Magic is one of the matters you're partly ignorant about."

"Pff-please." Dash snorted. "We know everything there is to know about Equestrian magic."

"Like that it has been around this world for almost three-thousand years?" Luna asked.

Sunset's mind went blank. "What? No! It came to this world when I brought Princess Twilight's crown!"

"Please, you barely brought a portion of it here," Celestia claimed. Luna now stood on the other side of the board. Celestia pointed to a picture of some runes. "This here is the oldest evidence of Equestrian magic. It dates back to around three-thousand years. It depicts the usage of a bow that never missed its target, glowing red every time it was shot, used by an unnamed soldier whose appearance changed every time he used the bow." Celestia arched an eyebrow. "Sounds pretty magical, don't you think?"

"There's plenty of evidence of the matter." Luna looked over to the board. "Writings, drawing, rocks. And stuff that shouldn't be there..."

"Pretty much like these." Celestia raised her hand and showed the girls...

Their geodes.

"HEY!" Sunset stood up. "Give that back!"

"We will." Celestia put the geodes back on her coat's pocket. "But after we're done."

"We couldn't risk speedy here running off." Sweetie Drops, who had sat down on the bed Applejack previously was, claimed.

"WHAT did you just call me?!"

"As we were saying," Luna went on, ignoring the exchange. "It's no mystery for us the existence of magic in our world. We've been dealing with it since forever."

"As heads of ATIDA, however," Celestia said. "we couldn't ignore your powers. As soon as we knew you were bearers of such powerful magic..."

"We knew you had to be part of our Agency."

As the words sank in, silence fell upon them again. Sunset exchanged odd looks with the rest of the girls.

"Join?" Sunset asked, pointing to herself. "US?"

"Yes, you," Luna replied.

"You seven have within you a power like no other. A great force that could be used to defend the world from future threats just like you did with The Dazzlings, to mention one incident."

"But it's been forever since last time we defeated a villain with our magic..." Twilight pointed. "We haven't used our transformation at all since High School!"

"Which is weird!" Pinkie Pie claimed. "And that's me saying that!"

"That's because we've kept threats away from you." All turned to see at Sweetie Drops. "We couldn't risk you being attacked when you no longer were together, all the time, at the same place."

"But no major threat has come yet, I assure you." Celestia shrugged. "Otherwise, we would have called you sooner."

"Why now, then?" Sunset crossed her arms. "Why's it so important right now and not before?"

Celestia and Luna exchanged nervous glances. This didn't go unnoticed by the girls, who feared the worst.

"There's... there's something wrong, isn't it?" Fluttershy asked, completely terrified.

"Let's say... The Agency has worked really hard lately. Danger seems to increase by the day." Sweetie Drops said. "We also deal with big, more common threats, and everything has been restless lately. Cartels and mercenary organizations have been acting a lot more than usual."

"That's why we were obliged to do this." Luna declared. "We can't let this go unnoticed. We need you to be ready to face whatever is in store, and we can't just expect you to go, transform and deal with it. It doesn't work that way. Not anymore."

"Your abilities could be greatly used on our lines of defense. We need you" Celestia pointed to all of them. "to be our newest, top tier special agents."

Sunset rested against the headboard. This was too much to take in all at once. Danger? Real danger? This was beyond what they did until then. How could people expect them to become top tier spies? What really was going on here?

She took a look at Celestia and Luna. They seemed calm and collected, waiting for them to give their answers. But as Sunset looked at their eyes, she noticed something else: an eagerness, like wishing they just agreed and go along with it when they knew nothing about this.

Hell, now she knew nothing about them!

"This is just a load of bullsh*t!"

All of them looked at Applejack, surprised. She had stood up and hardened her expression.

"You expect us to just leave our lives, our jobs and responsibilities to go play superhero?!"

"We never said that," Celestia replied, calm as a river. "Whether or not you decided to keep your current jobs, it's up to you. You could always organize your time. The job around here is mostly done at night. That leaves you with a great deal of broad daylight to go about your lives normally."

"We aren't expecting you to drop everything." Luna continued. "That would attract way too much attention. But we are asking for a commitment to this cause. It's important. The fate of the world is what we're dealing with here."

This seemed to calm down Applejack. The farm girl sat down again and kept quiet.

"Be indulgent," Sweetie Drops pleaded. "You seven have a power no one else in the whole Agency has. Your abilities are pretty much needed. We are simple humans against the threat of magic we don't fully comprehend. If we'd even out the odds a bit, it would be awesome for us."

The room itself seemed to hold its breath.

But no one said a word.

And as the silence and pondering seemed to extend to infinity, someone had to say something. Anything.

And that someone was Twilight.

"I think..." Twilight said in a hushed tone. "I think we need some time to think about it."

It was barely noticeable, so much that Sunset thought she had imagined it, but she noticed Celestia let go a tiny, relieved sigh.

"That's good enough," Celestia said. "You can take all the time you need to think it through. But please consider it. Sweetie Drops, would you mind taking them home?"

"Not at all, ma'am."

As the girls slowly retrieved their bags, coats, and geodes, Celestia turned to them one last time before Sweetie Drops guided them out of the room.

"Please, girls, think about it. We could really use your help around here. You've been given a gift like any other, and I think you should make good use of it."

Author's Note

And so it goes!
Quite a lot of surprises, right? It seems like the two women at the Prologue were no other than Sweetie Drops and Celestia. Bet you didn't saw that one coming

Yes, I like Flashlight. Deal with it.

DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a Romance story. TSMOE Is an Action, Adventure, and Drama story. If Romance ever does appear, it'll only be as a subplot. Actually, Flash himself appears barely a few times in the story. The same thing goes for any other romance.

With that settled, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Stay tuned for any more to come.

Until next time!
~Midday Giggle