Abacus Cinch's hands flew to the sides of her head to cover her ears. "Shut those speakers up before they ruin everything!"

Looking around the gymnasium, Storm could see several students starting to shake their heads—the green glow leaving their eyes. For a brief moment he thought of just teleporting away as far as he could. With the amount of magic brewing, such a teleport would be hard to trace.

But, it wouldn't take much to use his newfound power to send a pulse along the speaker wires and—a series of loud screeches and pops sounded around the room. "I've got this."

The discordant tune had meant Abacus had to renew her control. One by one she started targeting students to reinforce her control. She was almost halfway through when the doors at the end of the gym opened to reveal Twilight Sparkle. "Get—that—pony!"

Twilight didn't need much help to spot Abacus. The woman was taller than the students, and across the hall she could see the burning red eyes and black smoke pouring from her face. There was a straight line between their faces, and locking eyes with the fledgling dark sorcerer, Twilight unloaded a pin-point accurate blast.

Abacus had been expecting some form of magic to come her way, what she didn't expect from the doppelganger of the mousy teen she'd taught at Crystal Prep was a blast of magic directly at her face. Throwing a shield up, she tried to absorb the whole shot with the shield and, while it held, Abacus got thrown backwards and against the wall of the gym so hard she left a dent in it.

Suddenly rethinking his plan of staying inside until the growing storm was ready, Storm did have the presence of mind enough to look around for Limestone this time. What he didn't expect was a teleportation spell to put her right in front of him. "Sh—"

"You know"—Limestone threw a second punch Storm's way—"I was going to come in with my rifle, try to take up a position and be the princess' fire support, but she said the best way to put people onto the wrong footing was to reverse their expectations." Bringing a quick one-two jab against Storm's forearms as he tried to protect his face from another punch, Limestone grabbed his shoulder and pulled him forward into her rising knee. "And you know what? I think I like her way better."

Climbing out of the wall in a bit of a daze, it took Abacus watching the muscle-bound soldier beat Storm until he folded before she caught up with events. "I'm not sure what your plan was against two magic users, but it stops now. Surrender your will to me!" It was the same will-stealing she'd performed on all the students, but rather than sink deep into Limestone's head, her power just slipped off. "What are—?"

There was an art to punching someone unconscious—Limestone didn't know that art, but she had enthusiasm on her side. When Storm fell to the ground at her hooved feet, she turned to the other problem in the room. Clenching her fist, she wanted to draw her pistol and end this, but with so many young civilians around, she wasn't ready to risk it.

"Just give up. You can't use that mind-control stuff on me." Each step Limestone took, she could hear Abacus' voice trying to drive into her head. "This ends now with you in cuffs or not."

"I'll take not!" Giving up on her target, Abacus instead took control of some more students and ordered them into Limestone's path. "Now what will you do? The longer you wait, the more I will send to stop you."

This was the problem Limestone had foreseen already. The problem specifically was that she and Twilight both lacked the ability to deal with this many people. "Yeah, but—" A tickle at the back of Limestone's neck made her turn around just in time to see Storm rising up from where he lay, jam his claws into the mains conduit that ran along the wall.

Spitting blood (and two teeth) out of his mouth, Storm sucked down the electricity and stopped his efforts of feeding the storm outside. "Now," he said. "Now you die."

The jagged arc of electricity rushed toward Limestone with perfect accuracy. The problem was she had mind-controlled students grabbing at her. All she could think to do was raise her arm at the onrushing electricity and try to think hungry thoughts. "Fuc—"

A blue arc of light lit up the room like a sun. It persisted on and on, so much that everyone dropped to the floor to cover their eyes—everyone except Limestone and the Storm King.

Yelling, Limestone felt agony as the lightning bolt burrowed up her arm and into the void within. It hurt, but that was natural, she realized, given the amount of power involved. One step, then another. She was walking closer to Storm, her own vision somehow protected from the dangerous light of the arc.

"Why won't you die?!" Storm drew on the power circuits. The electricity shouldn't have been able to flow as it did, but with Storm's own wild magic pulling on it, the copper cabling glowed white hot but still delivered current to him.

Until it didn't. Something had finally given-in and—one by one—fuses popped and breakers released.

Sonata, with Fizzlepop in tow, turned the corner just as the power grid for the area lost its ability to cope with the draw. The arc of lightning from the Storm King to Limestone Pie lasted for only a short fraction of a second later before it halted.

The mind-controlled students were starting to stand up and seemed to turn toward Twilight (who was likewise recovering from the flash).

"Twilight, cover your ears." Sonata opened her mouth and started to stretch her body out into its full size. She was cramped in the hallway, but as soon as she saw Twilight's magic shield go up, Sonata began to sing a single note.

Knowing what was to come, Twilight tucked down against the floor and pulled her shield close over her. Even with the shield spell, Twilight could hear an echo of the sonorous note—though the magic effect was held at bay.

For the students caught in the blast, the magic of Sonata's voice didn't entrap them or steal their will—it ensured their freedom. Jerking around to look at her, the mass exodus of former mesmerized students streamed past Twilight and up to Sonata.

"You need to get outside. Head out the front door and wait for assistance!" This was something Fizzlepop felt comfortable doing. She repeated her shouts, directing the students out of the combat area.

When the power had cut off, the arc of lightning had drawn on Storm's internal reserves. He'd cut his attack before burning himself out, only to feel a hand close around his throat. "W-W-Wait!" He trembled at the sight of Limestone's arm, the glowing pattern of lightning down its length seeming to hum in barely-contained threat.

"Give me a reason. Try to pull anything. Please do it." Remembering what her arm's blast had done before, Limestone had little worry now that she had Storm where she wanted him. "Are you done?"

"Yes, yes. Of course. Now let me go and I promise not to do it agai—"

Tightening her grip, Limestone could feel the pulse of his arteries just under her fingers. "Not how it works here."

Across the gym, trying to regather her control over the few students still milling around the room, Abacus Cinch snarled a curse at Sonata as she soared into the high-ceilinged room. "I've had enough of this. You promised me power beyond my imagination, so give it to me! Forget deals and promises, just let me kill them all!"

A ghostly, deep voice echoed in laughter. "Yes."

Rushing into the gym herself, Twilight heard King Sombra's voice and felt real fear strike. "N-No! Sonata! Get them out of here!" Already attempting to do just that, Twilight teleported students outside the school as fast as she could while black magic seethed around Abacus.

Ignoring Sonata's herding and Twilight's teleporting, Fizzlepop rushed toward Limestone and drew her cuffs on the way. "I'll take him into custody! You deal with that!" She pointed toward Abacus.

Caught with a tough decision to make, Limestone growled under her breath. "If you try to run, I'll hunt you to the far ends of this world. Do what she says and stay out of my way." She only let go of Storm when Fizzlepop had his arms cuffed behind him.

"Yes." Abacus Cinch could feel her body breaking apart into shreds of magic and smoke. It hurt, but not enough to outweigh the certainty that she was becoming more powerful than she'd dreamed. Raising her forehoof, she pointed at Twilight. "Mine."

The attack of dark magic hit Twilight just as hard as it had the first time she'd dealt with Sombra. Her mind struggled and strained, but she was plunged into a dark world and wrapped up in the incomprehensible structure of it.

"Take care of Twilight, I've got this!" Limestone shouted to Sonata. Lifting her arm up and sighting down it like a cannon, Limestone let out a soft breath and squeezed the imagined trigger of her odd new power.

Pulling up out the front of the school, Shining Armor instantly forgot about the groceries he'd been collecting for the break room. Jumping out, he stared at the dazed students collecting on the lawn for a moment before he looked around for Cadance. "Where are the teachers?!"

Still following the command that Sonata had given, Vinyl looked up at Shining in confusion. "Wha?"

"They're locked in the break room. Cinch came back with some kind of lightning guy, then she used some weird mind-control." Lemon Zest pulled Vinyl's hood back over her head enough that the goggles lined up with her eyes. By the time she turned back to Shining, he was already running to the front of the school building.

Inside, Shining didn't slow as he turned the first corner and barreled toward the staff break room. When he reached the door, he found it had been welded shut. "Stand back from the door!"

When the door exploded inward from Shining's kick, Cadance rushed forward and put her arms around him. "Cinch came back!"

"Yeah, I heard. Where is she?" Shining squeezed Cadance, an overwhelming urge to protect her surging through his body.

"They were heading to the gymnasium. The students were—They wouldn't listen to me. They had green eyes." Much as Cadance wanted to stay in Shining's big, strong embrace, she felt a duty she couldn't deny. "Let's go."

For a brief second Shining thought to argue with Cadance. Over the months they'd been together, though, he'd found himself trusting her more and more to be at his side. Though this situation was hardly something as mundane as budget reform, he had to support her. "Okay. Come on."

Together, Shining and Cadance reached the corner of the hallway that turned into the gym just in time to see Limestone fire. The beam of blue light was bright, but not quite as much as Storm's lightning had been. It shot out toward Abacus and, at the last moment, passed through her smoke-like form.

Laughing, feeling his true form restored to him, King Sombra reformed his body after the beam ripped through the air and past him. "You really think that would hurt me? Me?! All of you together won't stop me now." Focusing his gaze on Fizzlepop, he brushed aside her will to stop him. "Kill them."

Staring through a haze of green, Fizzlepop Berrytwist drew her pistol and started to bring it up at the nearest target—the Storm King.

"No no no!" Storm tried to free his arms from the cuffs, but when that didn't work, he flopped forward against Fizzlepop. "I hope that gorilla you brought with you doesn't rip my head off for this."

The shock of electricity was enough to stun Fizzlepop into dropping her gun and was the last of Storm's reserves. In a heap, the pair both lapsed into unconsciousness.

Author's Note

Octavia, why are you even at Crystal Prep?

"We actually had a two-day stopover before the main concert. The first day we were going to perform at Lemon's school, then the second was meant to be at CHS. Things—Things haven't gone as planned," Octavia said.

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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