—wake up.

“Mi sol?”

I let out a shuddering breath as I turn my head to face Tempest who’s still lying beside me. Her arms are curled protectively around my body, and I’m pressed hard against her chest, clutching at her with desperate strength.

Rather than answer, I reach a hand up to run my fingers over her cheek before leaning in to press my lips to hers.

“I have new cousins,” I say softly as I pull back, and Tempest grimaces.

Tempest Shadow isn’t exactly beautiful by classical standards, although I suppose beauty is a matter of opinion. She’s powerful, and I’ve always found power to be beautiful. The former gangbanger is towering and broad, with amazonian stature. Her fuchsia hair is hacked short into a crude mohawk that’s currently hanging loose over the shaved sides of her head, matching her deep, mulberry complexion nicely.

She bears the tattoos and scars of her former profession proudly. Her body is covered in the marks and symbols of her old allegiance to the Storm Kings, and their brutal methods. Scars twist around her body with faded lines and raised slashes of rough tissue across her back, sides, and arms.

Over the past year I’ve learned to identify a lot of different types of wounds, and Tempest has quite a collection.

“Mierde, so el Bandito figured it out, huh?” Tempest sat up and pulled me up with her. My limbs were still a little numb, I hadn’t fully re-engaged with my body yet. “Now what?”

“Now we figure out how many there are,” Aria says from the other side of the room.

The middle sister of the Siren’s is resting in one of the easy chairs of our apartment with a grave look on her face. Aria has aged a little since the Trials of the Entity. Apparently her immortality, and that of her sisters, had run its course with their loss at the Battle of the Bands, and without their full magic they weren’t able to rebuild the spell that created it.

Under normal circumstances that would mean all three are now functionally human.

The flatulent minotaur in the room, however, is that Adagio and Sonata are still technically Killers like me, Priests of the Entity, and none of us are sure if we even can die. We can be injured, but we have no idea what dying will entail assuming it's even possible. It may mean we die for good, or we might snap back into the Entity’s clutches.

I'd take death over that second option, personally.

Two years have passed and it's still hard to know if Adagio and Sonata are aging or not. Time will eventually tell. If they aren't aging, and that will answer our question at least in part but that's a long time coming.

“I saw them, then.” I hate admitting it, I had hoped that the other voices I’d heard back in that vision had just been supporting mortals, but that was looking less and less likely.

“Shit,” Aria flips the knife in her hand almost compulsively, turning it over and over as she glares out the window. “Talk to me, Red.”

“There's three, and they’re basically human,” I turn my mind back to the vision, trying to hold onto it fully. It’s hard, though… they’re not my memories and my mind knows it, so I’m remembering it second-hand which ironically is not unlike trying to recall a dream. “One of them is short, or at least average height, and they were wearing a hoodie. They had a mask on too, like a cheap plaster mask with crude paint daubed onto it to make a face, and they use knives, or other crude cutting weapons.”

“Multiple Fogborn Killers, and identical?” Aria asks bitterly as she pulls a hunting knife from its sheath at her hip, she’s never without a weapon to defend herself nowadays, which I get. “I’ve never heard of something like that, but that means we’re not dealing with some punk human slasher now, we could be dealing with a fucking army of them running around Canterlot.”

“What of powers?” Tempest voices the question we’re all thinking as she stands and pulls on a sweater. “What can they do, Mi sol?”

“I… I’m not a hundred percent sure,” I admit, thinking back to their almost feral movements. “They’re crazy-fast, it’s like they fly into a rage and come sprinting at you full-bore… there’s no subtlety to it, so I’m guessing it’s a bare-bones, high-grade physical enhancement.”

“There’s a virtue to simplicity, Red,” Aria sheathes the knife and sighs. “Okay so, let’s assume you’re right… that means they’re going to be super fast, stupid strong, and probably have enhanced perceptions, right?”

“That’s the usual kit,” I say. “Physical enhancement contains a basic battery of enchantments that aren’t terribly complicated but are definitely effective.”

“But there’s always a catch,” Tempest crosses her arms and furrows her brow, and I nod my agreement.

There is always a catch with a Killer. Their powers are double-edged blades. Adagio and her supernaturally effective hatchets are balanced by her compulsion to hum that lullaby, and I noticed during the Trials she wasn’t quite as fast as some of the others. The Wraith can't attack while he's shrouded, the Shape compulsively stalks his prey before descending on them, and there are a variety of others.

“Time limit.” As I say the words I know I’ve hit the nail on the head. “Physical enhancement is potent but if it’s not attached to something sturdy like, say, a piece of equipment, and just layered onto a person, then it wears them down…” I think back to what I saw in the vision, and how the Killer had spasmed and screamed. “They can’t maintain their rage for very long, and when it runs its course it claps back on them hard.”

“The physical body can only take so much strain.” Aria’s smirk twists her face up and I smile back at her. “Okay… that’s not bad, but if there’s more than one…”

“The Entity needed hope to fuel its powers,” I sigh and glance out the window at the rain. Autumn had come grudgingly to Canterlot, but when it arrived it brought storms. “I think we can safely assume the Thief has to use the same source, at least for now… and they don’t seem to have very good control over their Killers. In the memories I witnessed, I saw them kill the victim with their own hands, not hook them.”

“Then the thief probably didn’t get much from it,” Aria lets out a harsh, bitter laugh. “Not that it does the vic any good.”

It certainly doesn’t.

“Keep an eye on the morgue records,” I didn’t really need to tell Aria that, but she nods anyway. “If any more bodies come in we need to know if they have wounds inflicted by the hooks… that’s when it’ll be a real problem.”

“You don’t think we’ll catch them beforehand?” Tempest looks a little angry at the prospect.

“Assume the worst,” I say, giving her an apologetic look. “We’ll do our best, but these assholes have been evading us for eight months.”

I get up and walk over to the window to look down over the city. We're on the seventh floor of a cheap apartment complex, one of dozens in the Commons, and Tempest and I had been sharing it with Starlight and Sour Sweet since I got back a year ago. Aria had been living with us too, but she moved out and into her girlfriend’s place a little over six months ago.

In the year since my return, and the two years since Exodus Night as everyone apparently named it, when I managed to eject all the others out of my disintegrating Trial realm and send them back home, so much has changed.

So much so that I can't help a sense of disconnection from the world at large.

Thanks to Tempest’s friend, Grubber, I managed to get a new identity fabricated, at least.

Now I work the night shift under the name ‘Scarlet Dream’ in a sleep clinic that operates out of the medical offices beneath Canterlot General. I’m good at my job, not necessarily because I understand sleep medicine but because even when I’m awake and ‘human’ I can manipulate sleeping minds.

It also keeps me close to Aria with whom I’ve developed a strong friendship, for which I am still incredibly grateful.

“Any news about the disappearances?” I hate thinking about them, but…

“No,” Aria shakes her head ruefully. “Not since the last one went missing.”

“How many so far?” I grimace as the words pass my lips. I don’t really want a reminder but I need to know.

Aria turns to Tempest, who shares my grim expression.

“At last count,” she began, and I could see the mental calculations happening in her mind, “we’re at nine former Wondercolts confirmed missing.”

Ever since I found out a couple had gone missing months back, I started keeping an eye on them. I’m not sure why, masochistic self-hatred maybe? Or maybe I’m just obsessed. All I know is that they’ve been slowly vanishing from the world.

Lyra, her girlfriend Bon Bon disappeared a month ago. Microchip, Tree Hugger, and Bulk Biceps a month prior to that. Flash Sentry, for whom I still hated myself over how I used to treat him, a week before them. Hoops, Score, and Dumbbell had gone missing on a camping trip just a week prior to Flash vanishing.

There are few other lengthy absence marks I was able to turn up, but nothing I could pin down as certain: a girl with no school photo, a local and chronically truant bully named Gilda, and a couple of others.

My guess is that the Entity is reaping a harvest of souls to try and make up for whatever it had lost to the Thief. Although why it's targeting my old high school acquaintances I don't know. Although the grimmer possibility is that one or more of them might have fallen victim to one of the serial killers, or even the Legion I suppose.

Either way, the Entity was definitely taking some of them at least. Maybe because all of the above had been involved in the Anon-A-Miss scandal in one way or another? Of course, those were just the ones we knew about. Canterlot is a huge city, there could be any number of other people who vanished.

As for me? Well… as far as anyone beyond my small circle of friends knows, Sunset Shimmer is extremely dead.

More accurately, as far as they know I killed myself.

Even Princess Twilight is still under that impression since the Journal is now just a chunk of corrupted black crystal stuffed in a lead box and buried in a sanctified graveyard beside a church in the Commons.

In fairness, technically I did kill myself, it just didn’t take thanks to the Old Stain sticking its chitinous claws into matters.

It isn't my fault I got tormented to the point of suicide, only for everyone to feel guilty after it turned out I was innocent. It isn't my fault that that feeling is probably what drew the Entity’s hunters to them. I owe them nothing! I certainly didn’t owe it to anyone to publicly come back from the dead just so they can soothe their own rotten consciences.

It… it's not my fault.

It's not.

A pair of strong arms circle around me, and a rigid tension ripples through my arms, setting my fingers to twitching.

“Mi Sol?”

“I’m fine,” I snap, extricating myself from Tempest’s arms and moving away on shaky legs. “What’s our next move, Ari’?”

The former Siren gives me a level look which I studiously ignore before answering me.

“Good question,” Aria’s reply is stony. “Without a solid lead on these new Killers we’re stuck waiting for the next murder.”

“Not good enough!” I snarl the words out, then bite my tongue and step back. “Sorry… I’m just…”

“No pasa nada, Mi Sol,” Tempest tangles her fingers into my hair, teasing out the knots that had formed there while I slept. “You can’t win every fight, Shimmer, hell, sometimes you can’t even win most of them.”

“Just the ones that matter,” I say softly. “So long as I can win those… but we’re losing people left and right.”

Everything is going wrong, we're playing catch up in the bloodiest game imaginable and are no closer to actually pinning down these new Killers than we had been when the murders first started. The best we can say is that now we know we’re chasing multiple murderous psychopaths instead just a singular one.

“Anything from 'Dagi?” I glance at Aria who just shakes her head.

“Damn it.” I lean back against Tempest and mull over our situation for a while as Aria spins the knife on her palm and Tempest continues to dote on my messy hair.

“Gotta get going soon, Red,” Aria says after almost twenty minutes. “My shift is coming up, and so is yours.”

“Yeah, yeah, gimme a minute.” I grab a pair of clean scrubs from the ground by the bed and kneel to pull them on lower half.

They’re not halfway up before I feel Tempest give my ass a playful swat.

I pause and cast a withering glare over my shoulder at the Marexican woman who's sat back down on our bed and now has her hands crossed languidly behind her head and as she relaxes against the headboard.

“Did you expect me to ignore you, Mi Sol?” She asks cheekily.

I chuckle, then shake my head and continue pulling on my clothes. They’re nothing fashionable, but I found a brand of scrubs that was at least decently comfy. That was important in a job like this, that and a pair of shoes with good insoles.

“Oy, ready to go, hot stuff?” Aria calls from the kitchen.

"Yes, mom, just lemme get my face on,” I growl as I pull my shoes on, tie my hair back in a loose tail, and then go to the bathroom.

I pop open my contacts case and slip on my lenses. They’re simple colored lenses that turn my normally bright cyan eyes a watery gray, and once they’re in place I give my hair a quick once over at the roots. I’d dyed the gold a color of red that was a few shades deeper than the rest of my hair.

It still matches up nicely which doesn't surprise me. Adagio just redid the dye job about a week ago, but I still have to be careful not to let the roots show too much in case I run into an ‘old friend’, which basically amounts to anyone who knew me back in my Wondercolt days.

I finish the look off with a layer of foundation to change the lines of my face a little, another trick ‘Dagi showed me, before pulling a ball cap on over my head and stepping out of the bathroom as Aria emerges from the kitchen with half of a hot pocket hanging from her mouth, a pair of half-moon glasses perched on her nose, and her white doctor’s coat over one arm.

It’s strange how professional Aria looks now. She looks like an actual doctor when she’s got all of her shit together.

Two years ago, give or take a month, she had been a miserable, immortal asshole with too much magic and violent streak a mile wide. Now, after spending Quill only knows how long in the Entity’s clutches, and having spent a solid year in the Emergency Department of Canterlot General, she’s mellowed out considerably.

Her girlfriend probably had something to do with that, though.

Aria mumbles something incoherent around her hot pocket and nods for me to follow. I get a few steps out before Tempest’s powerful arms weave around my waist and she pulls me back.

“Going somewhere, Mi Sol?” Tempest grins as she nuzzles against the back of my neck.

“To work, you slob,” I say, but I lean into her touch.

Her affection helps keep me grounded. Maybe because it’s a feeling no fully-fledged Killer can ever truly understand. I can’t imagine a creature like the Trapper even conceiving of the emotions tied to something like what exists between Tempest and I.

Is it love?

Maybe.

Back in the Trials, when everything was do or die, it felt simple and definite. Now, though, after a year of being together, I've been starting to wonder if I even know what that word really means. I think that I love her, and I think that she loves me, but I don’t know for sure.

Maybe that’s because a part of me is a Killer. One of the Entity’s Fogborn priests. Or maybe it’s because at my heart I’m still a broken, traumatized little filly who doesn’t trust anything that even smells of love and affection because those things have been the source of all my worst pain and anguish in life.

Regardless, I lean up to brush a kiss along Tempest’s sharp, powerful jawline before peeling out of her grip. It's a little gratifying that her fingers stay tense on my sides and hips for a moment before letting me go.

I don’t know about love, but I know that Tempest cares deeply about me, and I feel the same. I would die for her, just as I would die for any of my ‘sisters’ who stand with me, but it’s Tempest’s touch and scent and voice that brings me back from the Dreamtime and keeps me from wandering too far.

Maybe that’s the closest someone like me gets to love.

“You coming, Red?” Aria says from the door, watching me with a single eyebrow crooked up the ceiling.

“Take care of yourself, Mi Sol,” Tempest presses her forehead to mine briefly, and I nod.

Then I turn, step out of Tempest’s arms, and follow Aria out into the night to start our respective shifts while we wait for another murder to happen, and show us who these new Killers truly are.

Author's Note

Slowly, gently. This is how a life is taken.

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