Rainbow was on her back and half asleep on the horizontal deckchair in her backyard. She wasn't trying to get a tan—that was impossible now she was covered in blue hair—but she did feel empowered by the sun's light. Like it was an energy source for her magic.

Beside Rainbow, Thunderbolt was similarly sprawled out, though he was just laying on the ground. "I like having you all here." His voice was deeper than ever and if he wasn't careful his Rs would turn into a growl.

"You just like having a choice," Twilight Sparkle said. Like the others she was sprawled on her back, but she had a book floating up before her face so she could read.

Biting her lip, Marble cleared her throat. "He just likes having several of us together. There's a thirty-five percent chance that it's his species' normal family grouping."

"Thirty-five?" Twilight asked.

"Mmhmm," Marble said.

"I mean," Rainbow said, "you could ask the princess how dragons in Equestria behave."

"This is like harem anime." Twilight let her book settle down on her neck.

"No, not really." Marble, who was an expert on such things, started warming up to her topic. "In anime, a harem is just a group of love interests who the main character picks one of."

"Not always, there is—" Twilight said.

"I know there are exceptions, but those are exceptions."

Giggling at the vehemence, Twilight wiggled her hooves in the air a little. "Clearly, we need more testing. You want to watch something later?"

Marble strained at dropping the topic, but contented herself with picking it back up later. "Yeah. That'd be nice."

"Don't forget we're all going to that concert tomorrow night. I don't want any of you egg-heads hiding at the back, either." Rainbow turned her head to look at Marble and Twilight. "I wanna see how awesome the Shadowcolts are live—from the audience perspective."

"Are you comfortable like this?" Thunderbolt asked.

"Huh?" Rainbow tilted her head the other way to look at the dragon. "Like what?"

"Do I have to remind you of what we did earlier?" His voice coming out in a deep purr, Thunderbolt fixed one eye on Rainbow as his own memories flashed back the sex all four of them had shared. "You said you didn't want to be with other women, and I respect that, but you invited them."

"It's complicated," Rainbow said.

"It's not—"

"It is to me, okay? It's such a stupid thing, but when I'm with you, I'm able to be with other women. It just—You dominate the situation so much that I can focus on you." Always feeling like there weren't the right words to describe her feelings, Rainbow just let out a sigh.

Twilight cleared her throat. "I get that same feeling."

"M-Me too. When I'm with him, it's like I don't have to be afraid of what I'll say and do, I can just relax and trust him." Marble, the only one of the little group still mostly human, had even managed to wear a bikini for their little relaxing day together.

"Is it just with him?" Twilight asked.

The question surprised Marble, mostly because she hadn't thought about it herself. For almost a minute she thought, then shook her head. "No. When I'm with you, I feel the same confidence. R-Rainbow isn't as intimate, but she's strong, and I think I can feel that."

"You're strong too," Thunderbolt said. "Strength isn't just claws, wings, and sex. Strong can be mental. You are smart, very smart, and that makes you strong."

"But I don't think that really counts."

"I have thought about this for a long time, and it is true." That settled things as far as Thunderbolt was concerned, unless someone could bring up a good point.

"She's right," Rainbow said. "People don't think smarts really counts as being strong. It's always about perceived personality for both sexes, and perceived physicality for men." When five minutes of silence punctuated her words, Rainbow sat up and looked around. "What?"

Twilight bit her lower lip, then used her superpower of situational ignorance to just blurt out what everyone was thinking. "That was just really deep coming from you, Rainbow. Don't get me wrong, you're smart, hot, and one of the most amazing people I know, but you don't normally get that into social interactions."

"She just doesn't talk about them much," Marble said.

"You want the truth of it?" Rainbow asked, but had no intention of stopping even if she didn't get a round of nods. "The truth is even with this thing in my head, I'm not as smart as you guys. I'm not a genius, I'm not some amazing sorceress, and I don't know nearly as much about right and wrong as my best bud. Flying, though, gives me time to think. Time to get my head around a problem and attack it from all sides. So you know what? Yeah, society thinks those things, but I don't. You're all strong."

Adagio Dazzle had shouted herself hoarse for a full day in a desperate attempt to make someone—anyone—hear her. All that had gained her was a sore throat and the realization that all her guards were deaf.

For weeks she had kept silent, biding her time. She'd felt when Aria had let loose with a blast and she'd even felt the backlash. That's when she heard boots approaching. These had a different sound to the prison guards'.

When the door opened and revealed Limestone Pie, Adagio Dazzle felt the utmost contempt. She watched as the soldier stepped into her cell.

Limestone was wearing her new suit—custom made by a close friend, it had all sorts of fancy stitching inside the liner. She didn't carry a weapon apart from her arm. "Hey." When she got no response, she adjusted her mental focus to the one Sonata had suggested. "Can you believe the scum down here?"

The style of interaction told Adagio what was going on. "Sonata told you about me." She almost spat her former friend's name. "You're all worms—her too now."

It was a barb, Limestone knew. Sonata had coached her, and after Sonata a psychiatrist had given her a further briefing. "Can we just skip the bullshit and pretend we went through the psychotic monster and the siren bit?"

Adagio almost laughed. Almost. "On one condition—you get angry for me. I haven't had a proper meal down here, and everyone seems to be on drugs or something."

Feeding leads to control, Sonata had told her. Standing up, Limestone walked to the door and opened it—it wasn't locked. Now she got to put into practice something she'd been working on. "Watch me, I'm going to let her feed a little. It will give her some power, but I can control her," Limestone signed to the guard watching her. When the big guy nodded, she slipped back inside. "Okay, how do you want to do this?"

It caught Adagio off-guard. She looked up at Limestone—who in Adagio's mind was just a muscled freak of a human—and gave the gentlest little push. "You'll have to take off the armor. How you scum can even bear to wear that many wards I have no idea."

Sliding her jacket off, Limestone could feel the ambient magic change through the taste from her arm. "You're using magic. How do you have this much?"

"One of the guards forgot his meds one day." Pushing a little more, Adagio slid off Limestone's mind like it was a greased eel. Taking a slow breath, she tried a different path and, despite the defense, managed to find a little purchase on Limestone. "Now just get angry."

It was incredible to Limestone that she could feel Adagio clinging to the outside of her mind as well as the siren was. "That's your job. If you—" The punch, and the speed Adagio used to achieve it, stunned Limestone—but it did the trick. She rocked back on her feet a little and when she head the door start to open, held up her hand to placate the guard. "Yeah, that did it."

Adagio jumped to her feet and rushed at Limestone. Leaning forward, she pressed herself against the other woman and inhaled all the threat and potential for violence—not that there was much. "If you get angry for me, really angry, I'll make you a god."

Limestone reached for her calm place and shut down her anger. She turned the tap off, but while she did that a feeling like someone else's hand was doing the turning. Her anger started to grow and she saw a soft greenish mist starting to fill the room.

"There you go. Relax, give all your anger to me and let me feast." Adagio saw her chance at freedom and tried to reach deeper into Limestone's mind—only to get punched in the stomach for her trouble. Coughing, ignoring the blood, Adagio looked up at Limestone. "You can't fight me. Every time you try to fight, I just get stronger."

Lifting her arm up, Limestone opened her clenched fist and started to inhale. Magic poured from Adagio. It was her own anger reconstituted into the siren's energy, but Limestone could still taste her own fury in it. "I knew you'd try this."

Staring at Limestone, Adagio tried to cut off her magic and conserve it—only to have Limestone's arm continue to suck at her core. "W-What are you doing? How are you doing that?!"

"This is me taking back what's mine. You don't deserve my anger." It was easy for Limestone to work out where Adagio's magic came from. She grabbed the siren by the neck so that her palm was in contact with the gem. "And now you're going to answer questions so I don't eat every ounce of your magic and break your gem—again."

It was agony. Adagio could still taste the quality of Limestone's anger, but the magic was being drained out of her as quickly as she fed. For a moment she contemplated trying to just blow Limestone's head off with what magic she had left.

"If it makes you feel any better, the worms end up eating everything in the end." Limestone's arm was glittering with red and blue patterns shining through her white shirt sleeve. "Now, we're going to have a good and long conversation and you're going to answer every question I ask without hesitating—I have two others I need to speak to today."

With three transcripts in hand, Limestone Pie left the facility behind her. She hated having to threaten and bully prisoners, but of the three only Adagio needed that much attention. "The shit I do for my country."

Author's Note

Twilight, who gets custody of ol' Stormy?

"We decided, since Equestria already dealt with him and failed, we're going to let the humans take this one. Sombra's husk too. They both committed crimes in their world, so they need to serve punishment here." Twilight shrugged her shoulders. "Hopefully they have better luck than we did."

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