"What happened?" the Storm King asked. "How did things go so badly?"

Not quite as hardy as Storm, Abacus squinted around the familiar (but cramped) walls of Crystal Prep's boiler room. With the room dimly lit by the boiler's gas light, she crawled her way over to the wall, stood up, and turned the light on. "How do you think? That siren was working for the police."

"That can't be right. Sirens are masterminds. They ply the seas and take over nations on a whim." Storm held the side of his head as if all his other preconceived notions of how sirens operated would fall out his ear. "Wait! That's it! She's controlling this city! That makes sense—but means she just didn't want to bother taking us out herself."

"Or she wasn't powerful enough to. She called in her minions to destroy us—and they failed." Abacus Cinch carefully teased at her own magic and set about reinforcing her mind against further attacks. "We have some time here. Before I went unconscious I managed to obfuscate our possible target, so they will have to search a good part of the city to find us."

With the light on the small room was fully illuminated, though neither could see outside to judge what time it was.

His memory of the fight fuzzy, Storm tried to make sense of the situation he was in. While Abacus had not betrayed him yet, he couldn't help but consider betraying her—trading up to a siren as a "co-villain" wasn't the worst idea. "What now? Where are we?"

"We're in the basement of the school I was the dean of. This is a utility closet that was the next room over from the lab of a student I'd hoped would make my career. You may know of her—Twilight Sparkle." Abacus smiled as Storm blinked in surprise. "Not your world's one, mine. She had magic, real magic, and I thought she could control it. Never send a lackey to do what needs a more careful hand."

Taking a long, slow breath, Storm advanced on the power conduits on the wall. He could feel his element—trapped. It was like when he was in Abacus' house, only this was stronger. "I can sympathize with that. I left a mare to deal with a situation that I should have carried out myself."

Reaching the door, Abacus opened it carefully and peeked into the hallway—only to jerk back when she saw students everywhere. "How'd that work out for you?" she asked when the door was closed.

"I died. The mare turned on me—to side with Twilight—and she turned me to stone and then shattered the stone. It hurt." Taking a deep breath, Storm drew in the power from the conduits—causing electricity to crackle and fizz over his fur. "I could get used to this."

"Careful. If you draw too much, you'll cause a—" The lights cut off, stalling Abacus' warning. "Okay, I think it's time we did this properly. What abilities do you have apart from teleport?"

"I can control the weather, call lightning, winds, sleet, rain—Anything to do with storms." Storm couldn't feel the electricity anymore. "I also have a knack for magic devices."

"Magic devices." Abacus' mouth curled into a tight smile. "I know where one resides. But first we have to get there, and I have just the right plan."

Walking along the hallway, late for class again, Fleur Dis Lee let out a relieved sigh. She might not be doing the best in math and science, but where it mattered—art—she was shining.

Fleur was just about to her visual arts class when the lights went out. "What now?" With the rain of the past week, and with the whole day so far having been cold and overcast, there wasn't a lot of light coming through the windows. "Who's there?"

A soft green light caught Fleur's attention. She narrowed her eyes and took a step toward it, reaching out physically and mentally—and then it brightened and crowded everything that was Fleur to the back of her mind and wrapped it in green light. Her arms relaxed at her sides, she dropped her books, and just stared as Abacus Cinch stepped from the closer with glowing red pupils surrounded in green glow and multi-colored smoke.

"Find another student, do what you must to bring them here." Abacus' voice sank into Fleur's head and became her reason for being. When the girl turned and walked off, Abacus leaned back into the closet. "There. I may not have your fighting prowess, but I can build a new army for you. One that will listen to every command and never betray you."

Storm's smile in the darkened room was accompanied with the sound of thunder outside.

Looking at the sky, Thunderbolt could taste the magic on the air. "It's not natural."

Yawning, Rainbow walked out to stand beside Thunderbolt. "Yeah, those aren't the right clouds for this time of year." Unlike Thunderbolt, she felt the troubling weather in every feather, hair, and nerve ending. She'd never felt so attuned to the weather before, but this had become part of her now she was fully a pegasus. "Let me try something."

Thunderbolt tried to reach out and stop Rainbow, but she was far too quick for his reflexes. Gazing up, he watched her crash through the clouds with a rainbow of light chasing after her. From as far back as Thunderbolt could remember, which involved the vague memories and instincts of a canine, he'd been awed at Rainbow Dash. It was something he'd never ceased.

A swirl of cloud formed, pulling a bunch of thunderheads into a tight mass, and then Rainbow crashed down through them. A large hole appeared in the sky, and it only served to encourage Rainbow more as she sought more ways to disperse the storm clouds above Canterlot.

Limbering up his shoulders, Thunderbolt locked and closed the door behind him and followed Rainbow into the sky. Though he lacked the affinity with weather and the speed, he felt a need to support her.

Sonata knew the feel of magic that was rising like a hurricane in Canterlot. There were three parts to it.

First and foremost, she felt the Storm King gathering a huge thunderstorm. Secondly, she felt pegasus magic fighting against the storm, and she only knew of one pegasus. Finally, there was something intimately familiar about the third magic—it was tiny in scope, but pin-point like a laser. Mind-control magic. "Twilight?"

Poking her head out of a row of shelves in the adult toy store, Princess Twilight Sparkle wore a blush on her cheeks and had a basket with several items in it. "What's the—" The basket crashed to the floor as she picked up on what Sonata was feeling. "Wow. Okay, that's another big storm. I guess they're awake."

"More than just the storm. Can't you feel that other magic?" Sonata couldn't help but feel it now. She picked out the hurricanes Rainbow was forming easily within the general storm magic, and each lance of mind-control magic as if it was her being the target. "I bet you Limestone will—" Her phone rang.

"Limestone?" Sonata asked when she answered the phone. She waited, listening to the instructions. "Got it, we'll be out the front. Rainbow's already trying to work on the storm. I can feel other magic, though." Another pause. "Mind-control magic. Just little blips in all this chaos, but there're a lot of little blips."

"This is it, isn't it?" Twilight asked. When Sonata nodded, she took a deep breath. "If you need to use your magic on me to win, do it. Don't hesitate."

For a moment this short-circuited Sonata's thinking. "Still, I'll try not to. My lullaby didn't work fast enough last time, but perhaps I could use something a bit faster." Locking the register, she started tapping a text message into her phone for Spicy, to explain why the shop would be closing.

Following Sonata down the stairs, Twilight tried to go over what magic she'd need. Lightning shield was a no-brainer, but now she wanted to be sure she could break mind-control magic. Some offensive teleports would probably be needed too, as well as some of her old faithful blast spells.

When Limestone pulled up at the curb, she reached across and opened the door for Twilight to get in. "Don't worry about trying to find the epicenter of this, it's one of the high schools."

Climbing into the back seat, Sonata caught the end of Limestone's description. "Let me guess, Canterlot High School?"

Tapping the GPS on her dash, Limestone shook her head. "Nope. Crystal Prep. Turns out the second tango, Abacus Cinch, was the dean there a year or so back. Whole bunch of crazy shit with magic happened, she got the blame and got ousted. Guess she wants revenge."

"The Storm King is as much a danger as an ally as an enemy. In my world, his second-in-command had been promised to have her horn repaired. When he thought he had ultimate power, he was prepared to cast her off as unneeded." It had been a harsh reminder for Twilight that the needs of those under her care were always more important than her own. "She didn't do it deliberately, but Fizzlepop's actions resulted in his death."

"Fizzlepop Berrytwist?" Limestone almost facepalmed. She could feel herself being pulled in a specific direction, and she disliked it. She disliked it so much she wanted to punch something very hard.

"That's her!" Twilight said.

Limestone swerved to the side of the road and picked up her phone and started hammering away on the screen—sending the location to the FBI agent in question and telling her to get her ass on site. Leaving her phone unlocked, she tossed it over her shoulder and started driving again. "Tell me if she texts back or calls."

"Right. So, what do you want me to do when we get there?" Sonata juggled the phone a few times before getting it held comfortably.

"Okay. This is the best I've got. They've brought the situation up to Type B and Type C—magic and psychic—and being as they're both proving to be hostile, you can use whatever you want to take them down. But, I want you getting civilians out of the way. Feel free to use your own mind-control." It was a very loose leash, but Limestone didn't want another massacre like with Adagio and Aria. "Princess Twilight Sparkle, I can't give you orders. If you find yourself having to kill one or both targets, very few questions will be asked."

Sonata almost curled up on herself. Here she was, barely coming to terms with the fact that she might have to use her siren powers again, and she was being given permission—even ordered—to use them en mass. The scariest part for her was she had enough energy to do it, too. "And if I get a shot at the BBEG?"

"What's BBEG?" Limestone asked.

"Big Bad Evil Guy," Twilight and Sonata said at the same time.

Limestone didn't want to ask how two such different people knew the same acronym. "Yeah, give 'em whatever you can, but safety is your number one job."

When the car's GPS crackled and flashed an error, Limestone knew they were getting close. "Turn my phone off. It won't work now anyway."

Turning off the phone, Sonata watched as little flares of plasma started to dance off any sharp corners and edges of the car. "T-Twilight?"

"Got it… and there." As soon as she put up the lightning shield, the St. Elmo's Fire sputtered out.

Sonata let out a little sigh of relief. "I'd love to learn that spell off you, when things settle down."

"I'll get you some spellbooks if you want. You can use them to teach some of the locals." The moment the car stopped, Twilight used her telekinesis to open the door and jump out. Ruffling her wings, she felt the pegasus magic waging a war with the storm above.

As Sonata climbed from the car, she slowly released her form and flowed out into a large, sinuous, flying sea monster. Looking around at the school, she noticed a huge bus parked out front. "Okay, what was going on here?"

Author's Note

Twilight Velvet: Since Spike is bi-pedal and as big as you now, do you have him eat at the table like usual person? I don't doubt you have to teach him table manner too.

Twilight Velvet nodded. "Spike was always a member of the family—and you had best believe that meant Twily would feed him at the table—but now he joins us in a more traditional way and use knife and fork appropriately."

So I do this "Ask X" thing. X can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and they will definitely, hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories, and they will answer the best question in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer. Try to keep it to one question per post! They will pick one question per chapter.

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