*RIIIIIIIIING!*

The sound of the school bell had never felt so painful in my life. I had spent the entire night trying to recover from the horrible day that I’d experienced just to lay awake until morning, getting two hours of sleep if my internal clock was correct. I honestly wouldn’t have even made it to school on time if it hadn’t been for Summer Breeze literally leaping into the air and falling on top of me, waking me by knocking the wind out of me. She said that she had tried numerous times waking me up by calling my name, poking me and other less violent methods, but I had the feeling that she really just wanted to try bodyslamming me awake at least once in her life.

“Alright, class! I have a special announcement!”

Miss Cheerilee had always been the teacher with the brightest smile at my school, but for some reason she was extra chipper today, which I naturally assumed meant that Snips and Snails had been expelled. They had always been such a pain to deal with, and Cheerilee was always the brunt of most of their jokes. Then again, maybe that was just me being optimistic seeing as how I had received two hours of sleep and was woken up by my wonderful girlfriend jumping on top of me with all of her weight! My mind was also so tired that I managed to derail my train of thought this quickly in the few short moments that it took for her to finish her next sentence.

“Today we’re going to be joined by a new student! Everyone, please give a warm welcome to your new classmate…” Then, pulling my head off of the arm pillow on my desk, my eyes immediately grew wide, somehow disbelieving the visage in front of me, even though there was no denying it. “...Fleur de Lis!”

Despite my shock, there was no doubt about it. Standing in front of the class was a girl with high heels, long legs, a tight skirt, flawless skin, a figure seemingly carved out by angels, stunning pink hair, and a face that would make any girl jealous. I had to blink twice to make sure I wasn’t imagining things, especially since rather than taking any particular notice to me, she was looking out towards the rest of the kids of the class, waving her hand with a soft smile.

“It’s nice to meet all of you,” she said in a confident, refined voice. “I look forward to getting to know all of you and for us to become good friends this year.”

“Wonderful! Actually, we just happen to have a spare seat right here in the front row! Now, why don’t you take a seat while I start taking atten--”

“Actually, Miss Cheerilee, I’m farsighted. I was hoping I may be able to sit in the back, perhaps next to that nice-looking girl with the white hair?”

“Oh! Umm… Certainly! Soarin, why don’t you come up here to the front so Fleur will be able to see?”

The boy to my side suddenly jumped, putting his phone back into his pocket and trying to play it off like nobody had noticed. “Move to the front?” he said inquisitively. “But Miss Cheerilee! I think I’m farsighted too!”

“Now, Soarin!”

Soarin clicked his tongue as he gathered his things, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as he slumped to his new seat, which honestly reminded me a lot of how Night Seam would have reacted. Then again, I would find out soon enough, seeing as how Night Seam herself was walking slowly towards me, holding her books against her chest while her hips swayed to her desk, making all the boys in the class turn their heads. Even I was caught off guard by how beautiful she had become, feeling a little jealous that even though she had been dead for four years, her new body came with voluptuous curves around her chest and none on her stomach.

As she sat down next to me, I found myself staring with my mouth wide open, not necessarily because of how beautiful she had become, but mainly because she was going to my school! Wasn’t she supposed to be living in Manehattan? I thought she had always wanted to go to the prestigious Crystal Prep Academy, the rivals of my own school, no less! The only reason I even realized that I was gawking, though, was because for just a brief moment, she looked back in my direction, giving me an icy glare before turning her attention back to Miss Cheerilee.

“You’re drawing attention to yourself, Trixie,” Fleur said quietly enough for just the two of us to be able to hear, still looking towards the front of the class as if she didn’t even notice I existed. “If you want to talk, you’re going to have to be discreet. I don’t want either of us getting in trouble because you let yourself get caught by the teacher. Surely after being a magical girl this long, stealth should be no problem for you.”

Yup. This was Night Seam alright.

“What are you doing here?” I asked quietly, looking back and forth between Fleur and Miss Cheerilee to make sure she wouldn’t catch me.

“You said that the entire purpose of this magical girl hunt was to protect the students of Canterlot High School. Needless to say, if you want me to help you, it wouldn’t make sense if I didn’t attend the school where the attack would take place. Then, once this ordeal is over, I’ll go back to Manehattan and attend Crystal Prep Academy while you get to enjoy life as a wondercolt.”

The way she chose her words so condescendingly was starting to piss me off, but she was the one helping me, which meant that I couldn’t get angry and have an outburst in class like I would have with a regular student. I had a reputation at school as being great and powerful, even though they knew nothing about my identity as a magical girl, and I couldn’t ruin that by starting a fight with the hot new girl. I had to remind myself that I still had a life outside of being a magical girl, even though the duties of one life had consequences far greater than those of the other.

“So?” she asked, still not even looking in my direction. “Is that all you have to ask?”

“Oh! Uhh, does that mean you live here now or--”

“Discord is transporting me here to attend school while I continue my life at home. He’s currently manipulating everyone’s memories so that when I return home, nobody here will remember me, and my family will never know I was ever here. He’s also the one who enrolled me in this school and made sure I had the exact same schedule as you.”

“...Please tell Trixie you’re joking.”

For just a moment, I saw Fleur’s eyebrows furrow just like Night Seam’s normal expression, but before anyone else could noticed, she returned to her normal aesthetic and continued looking straight forward. “If there’s an attack on the school, I want to make sure we’re together. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m going to need your help if we’re going to defeat the others. I think we should focus on a proper strategy during our next free period. Until then, though, I need you to pretend like you haven’t seen me since elementary school.”

“R-right…”

I had a feeling that until the magical girl hunt was over, school was going to start to feel a little bit longer than usual, but she was right about the two of us having strength in numbers, especially with her talent. These other girls had far more experience than either of us on top of having terrifying magical capabilities. Out of the nine magical girls that Autumn Blaze had raised, two of them were now dead, and now we had one more magical girl to use against her, making it four against seven. Plus, if we could get the girls from Platinum City on our side, the numbers would be in our favor after just two more fights! The main focus, though, was experiencing as few casualties as possible, just so we could make sure that everyone at CHS would remain safe.

I had never received so many stares in my life. Even though I had a reputation for trying to gain the attention of everyone at school, nobody expected that when the hot new girl transferred to my school, she would be hanging out with someone like me. By a logical standpoint, it made sense just because Fleur and I had been friends in the past, but when everyone looked at her walking with me through the lunch line, their eyebrows went up to their scalps while their jaws fell to their knees.

“Does everyone have lunch at the same time around here?” Fleur asked, trying not to sound too conspicuous. “It’s going to be difficult finding a table where just the two of us can talk.”

“Actually, Trixie has someone she wants you to meet!”

Suddenly, Fleur was glaring at me again, hiding her face behind her hair so that only I could see how horrifying she looked. “Trixie, this is not the time to socialize. We need to come up with a plan to--”

“Fleur, Trixie needs you to trust her.” The self-conscious girl from my past that she remembered was now gone, and with a long-winded sigh, she eased up on her expression.

“Fine. Show me who this mystery person is.”

As soon as Granny Smith placed our zap apple jam onto our trays, I quickly raced over to my regular table, grinning widely about the surprise I was about to show her. “Photo Finish!” I exclaimed, slamming my tray of food down onto the table in front of us.

“Yes?” she replied, looking down at her food without so much as a flinch. “Your sneak attacks no longer faze me, Mädchen. Now, if you are ready, I vould like to discuss--” Then, as she rose her head from her lunch, she tilted her glasses upwards, squinting her eyes at the beautiful girl to my right. “Er… Trixie, not to be rude to your friend, but I think zat vut we need to talk about is a little too sensitive for her to be part of our conversation.”

“Actually, Photo Finish, Trixie thinks that she would be perfect for our conversation. Fleur de Lis, Trixie would like you to meet Photo Finish.” I then smiled deviantly, getting ready for the punchline. “But, you would probably better remember her as Palette.”

Almost immediately, Photo Finish jumped in her seat, shielding herself with her arm while looking around in every direction to make sure nobody accidentally heard her. “Trixie, vut are you doing?! Do you not realize zat--”

“Palette?” Photo Finish and I both froze, looking back at Fleur de Lis who appeared as if she would cry at any minute, holding her hands to her chest as she took a small step closer. “Is… Is that really you?”

The girl in the glasses switched confused glasses between Fleur and I before hesitantly responding, “Y-yes? And you are…?”

“Palette, it’s me…” Finally, Fleur smiled. “...Night Seam.”

Then, for the first time since I had met her, I saw Photo Finish take off her glasses, setting them down on the table and rising to her feet. As the two of them stared each other in the eyes for several seconds, neither of them speaking, moving or blinking, Photo Finish finally began to break down, running over to Fleur and crying into her shoulders, making anyone who wasn’t staring before quickly turn their heads. None of that seemed to matter to Fleur, though, who ran her fingers through Photo Finish’s hair while her other hand pulled her into a warm embrace.

Once Photo Finish had stopped crying, however, wiping one final tear off of her face, she turned her attention back towards me, shaking her head in confusion. “I do not understand. Does zis mean zat--”

“Yes,” I said, motioning my head towards all the people who were watching us, giving her the hint that we should all sit down before anyone heard what we were talking about. Then, after we made sure that everyone who was watching us had turned their attention somewhere else, I leaned in to where only Fleur and Photo Finish would be able to hear me. “Sonic Boom is dead. She came by the school yesterday to ambush me, but I got lucky and won.”

“How did she know zat you go to zis school?”

“I don’t know. Trixie is trying to figure that out herself.”

Fleur scoffed. “And why didn’t you find that out when she was still alive? How do you know that all the other girls from Everfree City don’t have that information themselves?”

“Trixie was a little preoccupied trying not to get killed! Besides, I tried asking, but Sonic Boom wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“You tried asking her?” Fleur responded with a sarcastic grin. “Did you say ‘please’?”

Photo Finish must have seen that I was about to make a scene, and before I let Fleur have a piece of my mind, she quickly said, “Maybe we should tell Fleur about vut we discussed yesterday.”

“Good thinking, Photo Finish,” Fleur responded, folding her arms and holding her head up high. “Discord updated my magical phone last night, but I would really like to hear what the two of you were able to come up with.”

“Yes, vell, we decided zat ze next magical girl on our list should be Trickster, simply because she seems to be ze easiest to deal with.”

“I think we should hold off on her. The power to manipulate people’s memories is too much to handle by ourselves right now.”

Photo Finish and I looked at each other, then back at Fleur, who seemed to be picking up that there was something we knew about that she didn’t. “Actually, Fleur,” I began, scratching the back of my head awkwardly. “Discord gave us magical orbs with our brownie points so that her magic wouldn’t affect us.”

“...What?!” Fleur quickly pulled out her magical phone, scrolling through the contents, going back and forth between screens before slamming her fist against the tabletop. “THAT BASTARD!” Suddenly, everyone was looking over again, making Fleur come back to reality as she giggled femininely. “I can’t believe he broke up with me over text message! I deserve a man waaaaay better than him.”

As soon as she turned her attention back towards us, all the boys in the cafeteria began chuckling stupidly between themselves, no doubt too distracted to pay attention to our conversation. “I’m guessing zat Discord took away your brownie points, yes?”

“He took the item off of the market completely! I have no way of even purchasing it!”

“Zen you definitely should leave zis to Trixie und myself.”

“But in the meantime, the three of us should work together to eliminate the next girl right now. If what Trixie said is true, then there’s a good chance that they’re just going to learn more and more about us, giving them the upper hand if they wanted to try out another ambush. If there’s even a chance that these other girls don’t know who we are, we need to capitalize on that before they find out.”

“Trixie agrees on the urgency we need to have, but if not Trickster, who do you think we should target next?”

Fleur then pulled her phone out again, scrolling through her options until she got to the list of magical girls. “Let’s see… It would be smart to try and ambush Divinity if we could.”

“Don’t even try it,” I said, shaking at the thought. “Trixie has seen what she can do, and there’s a possibility that we might be able to finish the hunt without fighting her anyway.”

It appeared as if Fleur wanted to ask me a follow up question, but instead shrugged her shoulders, scrolling to the next name on the list. “Let’s see… La Proxy, Lucky Star, Trickster, Sun Shadow, Catastrophe, X Genesis Volume 9… I think we can come up with a strategy for beating Catastrophe, but it would involve fighting at least two other magical girls at the same time.”

“Zen perhaps we should leave Catastrophe for later?”

“Maybe, but not too much later. If we can get her to transform into X Genesis Volume 9 and trick the third magical girl into thinking that she’s indestructible, we might be able to get her to kill Catastrophe without realizing it.”

“But how would we even do that?” I asked.

As Fleur sat there for a few seconds, a smile began to appear on her face. “Mind Games! Let’s make that a priority! We just need to eliminate one more magical girl, then we can revive Mind Games and have her trick someone into killing Catastrophe with her telepathy! The only question now is who would be naïve enough to fall for it.”

“Trixie has an idea! We could use Sun Shadow! Not only is she Catastrophe’s sister, but she’s only four years old! That would be a great idea.”

“Uggghhhh.” Suddenly, Fleur and I turned to see Photo Finish running her fingers through her bangs, rubbing her scalp in frustration. “Must we really do zis? Catastrophe is only twelve years old!”

“And so were we, if you remember correctly.” Fleur’s logic was so sound that it made my heart sting, and looking over at Photo Finish, it looked like she felt the same way. “When we first started Discord’s death game, the three of us as well as Marrow were all middle schoolers, yet we got farther than any of the older girls we were battling against. Now, we’re all stronger as a result, and unlike you two, I actually know what it’s like to die. She’s not going to get any sympathy from me.”

“You may have a point,” I began, “but if we’re saving Sun Shadow, Catastrophe and Genny for later, then who would we use to revive Mind Games?”

Without responding, Fleur scrolled through her phone some more before placing it on the table and turning it around so that the two of us could see a picture of a girl with a black and red top. “Lucky Star. To me, she seems like the obvious choice. No matter who we choose to eliminate next, we’re going to have our work cut out for us, but I think that defeating her will be easy enough so long as we go in with a good plan. When it comes to luck, a lot of those variables mean being in the right place at the right time, and if I can take away the visual aspect of her powers, she’s going to have more troubles figuring out how to use her powers. Then, when she’s clueless about how to continue, we can corner her and attack.”

Without seeing any flaws in her plan yet again, I immediately took out my own magical phone, scrolling through its contents until I came across Lucky Star’s information.

Lucky Star
Powers: Luck Manipulation
Identity: Black Clover
Bio: Black Clover is nineteen years old, living with her friend Double Diamond in an apartment one block south of Canterlot Central University. She is currently studying statistics with a minor in psychology. She is very social, attending parties or having quiet, intimate get-togethers almost every night. The little downtime she has is mostly between the periods of 3 PM and 5 PM, which is when she is finished with classes and before Double Diamond returns from work.

“So you can see what we have to do,” Fleur said after I had had the chance to look over her information once more. “We need to strike today between the times Discord gave us. She can only manipulate luck while she’s transformed into a magical girl, so unless she’s expecting us, we should have no roadblocks preventing us from an ambush.”

“And vut do we do if she is expecting us?”

“Adapt. Overcome. Conquer. There is no other way around it. No matter how prepared we are going into a fight, we’ll never know exactly what will happen once the battle begins. The only way to survive is to be adaptable, which is especially true considering Lucky Star’s ability. Do either of you have any objections?”

Photo Finish and I looked at each other with the same expression, neither of us feeling amazingly confident, but it wasn’t as if we could think of a plan that was any better than what Fleur had come up with. Plus, it was a bonus knowing that her mindset was the same as ours when thinking about who we wanted to bring back to life next, which would avoid any uncomfortable discussions in the meantime. There would probably be a time in the future where we would butt heads about who should be brought to life next, but hopefully she would come to an agreement on at least most of what we decided on.

Finally, the two of us looked back at Fleur and nodded our heads, making her smile as she brushed her feminine curls behind her shoulders. “It’s settled, then. We’ll meet in the courtyard once school is over and further discuss our plan of attack.”

96 South Neighvada Avenue, Canterlot. The time was 2:56 in the afternoon when we saw a girl with dark red hair and light tan skin fumble with her keys as she attempted to get into her apartment. She was carrying two textbooks in one arm while trying unsuccessfully to pick the right key out of her keychain, dropping the entire set to the floor as her textbooks fell out of her arms.

“Are you sure zis is ze girl we’re looking for? She seems a little too clumsy to be ze manipulator of fortune.”

“Sshhh!” Night Seam whispered, and suddenly, Black Clover froze as she bent over to grab her belongings. She then looked all around her environment as the three of us hid behind the support beams of a nearby overpass, but after remaining frozen for about twenty seconds, she fumbled her things back into her arms and awkwardly made her way into her apartment, allowing Night Seam to catch her breath. “Didn’t I tell you that we needed to be quiet?!”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t think zat she vould be able to hear us.”

“You’d better hope you’re right! This is a mission we can’t afford to lose.”

“Then Trixie thinks we should move before anyone sees us.”

Night Seam looked back at me with a scowl, seemingly upset that she was taking orders from me, yet nodding nonetheless. As the three of us jumped from shadow to shadow, trying not to get caught by the college students making their way home from their classes, we ended up on the front porch of her apartment, discreetly looking through her window to see what she was doing. Night Seam was now turning the porch black, just to make sure there were as any shadows as possible to protect us while was stood guard, but after a few more glances upwards, Palette gave us a thumbs up to begin the attack.

I was the first to move, using my magic to gently turn the doorknob to see if it was still unlocked, and fortunately for us, the door silently clicked, allowing us entrance into her home while she was in another room. Again, Night Seam continued to turn the space around the room black to camouflage ourselves further as the three of us ducked our heads and silently made our way into her apart--

*Crash!*

“Palette! You idiot!”

“Turn back! Quick!”

Just as soon as I turned to open the door, however, I accidentally tripped on something beneath me, not only closing the door, but hitting my jaw right on the doorknob, pulling it off its hinges and essentially locking us in. There was no way that all this was just a coincidence! She knew we were there! I then immediately summoned my spear, along with Night Seam summoning her throwing knives and Palette painting two handguns. The three of us all looked at each other, trying to figure out what to do next, seeing as how we had no idea where she was in the apartment or what she had planned.

“Trixie,” Night Seam began, “start moving some furniture with your magic! Try to surround us on all sides! Palette, make us a shield, fast!”

The two of us complied, doing everything we could to shield ourselves from an attack while our backs were pressed against the door. Just as Palette was finishing up her drawing, though, I felt a sneeze coming on, one that was far too late for me to hold back. I then squeezed my eyelids together, trying to hold in the sensation flowing through my nose, but about a second later, the force went straight through my lips, causing me to momentarily lose control of a bookshelf which just happened to be above us at the time. Suddenly, the three of us were crushed by the furniture landing down onto our backs, and before we had the chance to get back up, a pair of red shoes with black and white leggings stepped in front of us. Then, as the three of us slowly looked up, we saw a girl with a red and black top, holding a handful of playing cards and staring down at us with a large smile plastered across her face.

“Would you look at that! Guess It’s my lucky day!”

Author's Note

I also found this picture of Fleur de Lis, which I thought was funny considering the farsighted joke I made. https://derpicdn.net/img/2018/7/10/1777630/full.png