The tower door shatters under your magical blast, flinging wood splinters and fragments of the metal banding through the inner room trailing smoke, shredding the carpet and tapestries that line the walls.
The magical mist left behind by the blast clears slowly, revealing your backlit, scowling form. The entrance is otherwise empty though you send will-o-wisps to light every corner, your eyes tracking for any movement… there!
A trio of statues start to move in their alcoves. The living statues are pierced by three of your mageblades before they can take more than a single step out of their alcoves. Your fourth mageblade hangs behind your head, ready if the statues were a distraction.
A moment passes.
Nothing.
You glide silently across the room toward the stairs. The tower was squat, only three floors. No basement. No doubt they were holding your fiance on the top floor. You blazed with anger. Did they think that they could get the better of Sunset Fuck-Mothering Shimmer? You were the next Starswirl the Bearded, and once Celestia stopped being a cunt about it you’d be the next Princess of Equestria too!
”Um, Sunset,” Your apprentice —technically fellow student, but that’s unimportant— Twilight Sparkle speaks timidly behind you, “Shouldn’t we go get the guard now that we know where the kidnappers are based?”
“And leave my future husband in the hands of these thieves? Never.” You growl, climbing the stairs slowly. The second floor, like the first, is one large single room. Here are the beds, the kitchen, and a dining table.
“Is this room dangerous, Twilight?” Twilight looks around. “Scan. It.”
Twilight cringes at forgetting and then casts the spell. After a moment, “Nothing dangerous or alive that I can feel.”
“Good. They’ll be upstairs. Tell me, how would you approach this?” Better make this a lesson. Celestia was ok at teaching magic and ‘FrIeNdSHip’ but she never bothered to teach things like tactics or CQC.
“Well~” Twilight thinks, “We don’t want him hurt, so fighting isn’t really an option. Maybe pay them the ransom but in a bag that we can teleport back to us?”
“They haven’t asked for a ransom.”
”But they’re going to. No point in kidnapping the fiance of one of the princess’s students if you aren’t going to ask for something.”
“Paying what they ask isn’t an option if we don’t know what they want.”
Twilight nods, “We COULD have sneaked in.”
“I’m far too pissed off to do that.” You deadpan.
”I noticed.” Twilight giggles but you glare at her, “Right. Well, we’ll have to lure them away from your fiance and then get him out when they’re distracted.”
“Right.” You charge up the stairs toward the third floor and boot open the door. There, standing arrayed against you are three of your rivals, the Dazzlings.
Adagio smirks, “Oh hello there Sunset, so good of you to join~ us. We were just about to sit down for some tea.”
“Where is he?” You growl out, your four mageblades arraying in front of you.
”Oh you’ve nothing to worry about, he’s just a bit tied up right now.” Adagio indicates a large trunk sitting behind the three.
You glance around. This must be where they make their music. Sheets, instruments, and stools litter the room. Twilight finally arrives behind you, huffing and puffing from her jog. She really needed to exercise more. You grin in the standoff, this was going to get *interesting.*
“Twilight, handle these imbeciles.”
Twilight steps forward on nervous paws, “Er, um, hello there. We’d like Anon back, please?” the sphinx tries.
Adagio, the witch of the group, laughs haughtily, “Really, that’s the best you can do? Ask nicely? Oh I’m quivering in my boots!”
Aria, the siren, floated forward and grinned a shark tooth smile, “Instead of that, you’re going to give us both of your foci.”
You match her grin, waving your mageblades, “How about I make sushi instead?”
Sonata let out a pixie laugh, “Aria would taste awful, ya know? I’d rather eat a bug.”
”You’d eat anything put in front of you, you glutton.” Adagio grouses.
”Can we get back to the matter at hand.” Twilight interrupts the ‘sister’s’ arguing, “You’re going to give back Anon or we’ll go to the guards.”
”You won’t be doing anything.” Adagio lashes out with a wand, expelling a line of light from it that you easily duck under with your short stature. Twilight isn’t as fast as you are, despite being the same height, so the gold light wraps around her neck and sinks into her skin. She drowsily begins to fall over as you bring your blades to bear against the sisters, activating their less-than-lethal edges.
Aria swims through the air like it’s water, batting first one then another of your blades aside before attacking you directly. With a deft leap backwards you get up onto a stool, putting you level with Adagio, though she isn’t the one attacking you.
Pixie dust rains down as Sonata flies overhead and you inadvertently breathe it in. You start to feel your weight lessen as Aria comes in for a second attack. Kicking out with a boot you push away from her and across the room with your now weightless body. You land against a wall and take stock. With a push off the walls and a kinetic concussion to stun the sisters and hopefully start to wake Twilight from her daze you launch yourself into the stairway. Lucky you, all three sisters come charging after you and you hit the living layer as the pixie dust wears off.
Boots planted firmly on the ground you turn to the three assailants and charge a wide spread lightning spell. “Hope you girls have been keeping up with *current* events!” You unleash the charge, zapping them all into twitching messes on the ground, “Because if you have been you’ll know that Anon gets kidnapped every other month! Not just when you bozos show up once a year. I’ve been doing this song and dance since the day we started dating!”
Adagio slowly gets to her feet, “Well, this time we have a secret weapon.” She grins.
You spin and take a battle stance as you hear something open behind you. There stands Anon in all his human glory, totally naked. A blush fills your face. “Anon! Put some clothes on ya fakkin eejit!” Oh gods your gnomish accent is coming through. You hate when Anon does stuff like this.
The man lumbers toward you as you hear giggling behind you. Turning to face the sisters you brandish your mageblades, “Now that Anon’s free I’ll be taking you to the guard.”
Sonanta’s giggling goes up an octave. Suddenly a pair of strong arms wrap around you and your little gnome body is hoisted into Anon’s arms. “Anon! Dis is serious business, ya horny son of a llama! Put mey doun!” While you struggle in ‘Anon’s’ arms you hear a thumping from upstairs. What is Twilight doing up there?
You are Anon, third son of the copper baron Incog and respected courtier of the Lunar Court. You are currently tied up and locked in a box. There’s a scratching, clawing, sound as the box shifts around. You hope it’s not Adagio, she gets WAY too handsy with you. It’s not, Twilight’s purple feline face greets you as the box opens.
”Hey Anon!” She waves one of her cute little paws, “Sunset and I came to get you. She actually let me come along this time, can you believe it?”
You are surprised that Sunset let Twilight come along, to be honest. While only being about four years younger than Sunset and an adult in her own right Twilight Sparkle was still a kid at heart. ”Here, let me just…”
Twilight uses her magic to remove your bonds and gag. Slowly getting up you stretch out. “Thanks Twilight. I don’t know why they all insist on tying me up, it’s not like I can fight back against magic users without an arsenal of artifacts.”
Twilight shrugs her wings, “Maybe they think you look cute tied up?”
You snort and raise an eyebrow at Twilight. “Are you implying something, miss Sparkle?”
Twilight blushes, “No! Shush!”
You chuckle and Twilight continues, “Sunset is distracting the sirens downstairs. What should we do?”
“We should go and support Sunset, I don’t want her to get hurt.” You say, striding toward the door.
”Anon! You just said you can’t fight them, you could get hurt!”
You roll your eyes, “It’s not like they’re blowing up the tower, Twilight, the sirens aren’t dumb enough to turn this deadly, we’ll just have to smack them around a bit and take them to the guard!”
You jog down the stairs and enter into the living area where you freeze. Twilight proceeds to crash into the back of your legs and you go down in a heap, yelling. Above you you can hear Sunset and the sirens start yelling. Magic flies overhead and just as Twilight gets off you another, larger body falls onto you, knocking the air out of you.
”W-w-w-what?” Twilight shouts.
The heavy thing on top of you gets up and you follow suit. There standing in front of you is a —you look down— perfect copy of yourself. His expression is blank and he stands there.
Over his shoulder you can see Sunset fending off the three siren sisters but it looks like she isn’t faring too well. Twilight is blushing and has her paws over her eyes.
Reaching out you touch the other you. Clay. Adagio must have made a clay golem in your image. Kinky. Without orders from whoever is holding the command stone the golem won’t do anything.
“Twilight.” You snap your fingers over the girl’s head, “Twilight, it’s a golem.”
Twilight peeks out from under her paws, “Really?”
”Yeah, think you can find the command stone?”
Behind the golem Sunset clicks her mageblades together into one long pole and with one big golf swing launches Sonata out a window with a fading, “WHEEeeeeeeee…..”
Twilight looks up at you and the golem, “S-so that’s not your…”
Glancing over you see where she’s looking, “No, that’s a scary accurate replica of my dick. Not sure why Adagio made it like that.”
”L-lewd.”
“I know. Now, think you can find the command stone?”
”M-maybe.” Twilight starts channeling her magic. You watch the fight progress between the sirens and Sunset. Sunset’s throwing hands, spells, and mageblades around like a whirlwind in a china shop. When the sisters work together they can get the better hand of her, Adagio handling spells, Aria handling fists, and Sonata zipping around the mageblades.
But Sunset is smart enough to keep things cycling.
The flame haired girl physically throws Aria into Adagio before blasting the returning Sonata with a cold spell, causing her little fairy wings to stiffen and the pixie to fall to the floor.
Adagio throws Aria right back at your fiance and follows it up with a witchy spell to make the floor slick. Sunset slides over the floor, tripping and landing with Aria above her. The pair fight and scrap on the slick.
”Found it!” Twilight chimes from beside you, her eyes glowing with magic, “It’s in Adagio’s pocket!”
“Twilight, I need you to get it.”
”Anon, it’s *in her pocket* I can’t just grab it with telekinesis or teleport it to us, I’d have to physically grab it off her!”
You kneel down, patting her head, “You’ve been training for this, Twilight, you can do it. Get in there, get that stone, and get back over here.”
Twilight’s face firms up and she nods, “Ok. Here I go!” Twilight pounces into the action, dodging in and around the legs of Adagio, tripping her up. With Adagio distracted Sunset lays a beating down on Aria with her mageblades and elbows, knocking the siren around.
Sonata, surprisingly, flits over to you, “You’re supposed to be tied up!” She points out in her high pitched voice, “Get back in your box mister!”
“Yeah, what are you going to do about it?”
”I’m gonna put a spell on you!”
“Scary.” Pixie magic is mostly tricks and pranks, none can do any real damage. Then again, she might rope you up. You flail about, trying to smack the little shid out of the air. The nippy little thing buzzes and flits around your hand, but does not cast her spell.
Sonata blows a raspberry at you, “Ain’t never gonna hit me, ya goober! I didn’t want your silly monkey dick anyway!”
”You’re a foot tall!” You shout at her as you try to smack the dodging pixie. She must have gone through wrench training, she’s so good at it, “I’d tear you apart!”
”I can do size spells!” Sonata giggles, this is a game to her.
You’re getting nowhere. Fortunately Twilight is better at grabbing small objects than you are, and she’s charging back towards you with a rock in her mouth. Adagio is right behind her, trying to grab her tail. “Twilight, give me the stone!”
Twilight doesn’t hesitate, tossing the stone to you. Grinning, you look at the golem, “Golem! Attack Adagio!”
The golem pivots sloppily and throws a wild haymaker at Adagio as she charges after Twilight; the sphinx easily ducks under the cocked arm of the clay creature. With a satisfying thump the golem’s fist slams into Adagio’s cheek and takes her to the ground. Clearly the golem was not well made.
How cout you tell?
Well, its right arm just broke off at the shoulder, the partially hardened clay hitting the ground at about the same time Adagio did. ”FUCK! That hurts!” Adagio complains from her spot on her ass, “Fuck this! Not worth it!” Adagio takes a potion bottle from her pocket and tosses it straight up so that it shatters against the ceiling, spreading glitter throughout the room.
"Golem, pin Adagio!" The golem dives on top of Adagio, pinning her to the floor.
Across the room Sunset kicked Aria off of her and looked around. "FUCK!" She screams and darts toward you, launching a fireball over your shoulder. Behind you there's a splintering crash as one of the shuttered windows is blown open.
As the glitter touches the walls and floor dozens of magical circles light up. Now you weren't an expert by any means, but your fiancé was one of the most educated magicians in the world. And all this looked like enchanted house bullshit. Fucking witches and their need to enchant the shit out of their houses. Why couldn't they just live in a normal house like regular people? But no~ it's gotta be gingerbread this and chicken legs that.
You needed to get out. This whole place was about to go bonkers. And you were already a day outside of Canterlot just inside the edge of the Everfree forest. You didn't want to be teleported to fucking Yakyakistan or some dwarven hold. That's probably why Sunset was rushing past you, grabbing your hand, and hauling your ass toward the window.
You spin and book it for the window right behind Sunset. She takes a running leap through the splintered shutters. You dive through after her. She creates a field of slow falling around herself that you manage to be inside of. Landing gracefully on your feet you turn to see Twilight gliding down next to you.
Swirling black mist rings the short stone tower in the forest clearing. With the gonging of and enormous bell, the tower is gone, as if it had never been. Sunset growls, "I almost had them!" Sunset stomps around the clearing, "They can't keep getting away with this! They're menaces! Stealing fiancés! Putting laughing powder in the beds of the student dorms! Replacing MY WINE WITH GRAPEJUICE!"
You try to calm the short woman down, "Hey, at least they aren't doing anything actually evil, unlike chancellor Neighsay!"
"Do NOT remind me of that fucking CREEP!" Sunset rages.
"Sunset." You try, she keeps ranting, "Sunny? Hey, Suns, girl, lady, baby, gal, you listening? She's not listening."
"I could always smack her on the nose. It's what my mom did to me." Twilight offers.
"I don't think that's going to work. Here, let me." You reach over as Sunset paces by you and wrap your arms around the small woman, hoisting her up into your arms like a disgruntled toddler."
"Hey! Put meh doun ye FOOKING." You crush Sunset in a hug. Boy was she fit as all hell, but you still had longer arms and could squish the life out of her. She wiggles in your arms, her yells muffled in your jacket.
You patiently hold your fiancé for a couple minutes as her rage burns down. Twilight has a paw over her mouth, stifling her giggles. You eventually pull Sunset away from your chest. "Are you calm now?"
"You're sleeping on the couch." She scowls her cute little scowl at you. You kiss the wrinkle on her forehead and set her down.
Fishing the command stone out of your pocket you show it to her. "Think we could track them with this? It's the command stone for that golem of me they had."
Sunset squints at the stone and grabs it, "Is that what that was? I thought for a minute that they had mind controlled you or something."
"Nope. Aria tried but I did those mental exercises you showed me and she wasn't able to get control of me."
Sunset snorts, "Good thing she wasn't trying to REALLY fuck you up." Sunset rotates the stone in her hands, "This could work, but it has a maximum range which isn't very far. We'll have to get back to Canterlot before we can do anything. Maybe get one of the princesses to help."
Sunset looks around, "Where the Tartarus are we, anyway?"
"This," Twilight takes on her lecturing tone, "is the Everfree forest, the magical forest that surround the original Castle of Two Sisters! We're actually really close to Ponyville, where the Nightmare Moon thing happened. We could go visit my friends!"
"Are any of your friends witches?" Sunset asks.
"Well, no, but I do know a shaman who lives here in the woods!"
"Wouldn't the castle have a teleportation circle?" You ask, thinking of the teleportation room used by certain dignitaries in the Canterlot Palace.
Sunset nods, "Yeah, and I could get it working. We could be in Canterlot by nightfall."
You are now Sunset Shimmer, or should you say Sunset Simmer, because that's what you were doing, simmering. You were quite sick and tired of these sisters stealing, or attempting to steal, things from you. If they were boys you'd accuse them of having a crush on you, since they'd done everything except pull your hair and accuse you of having cooties.
"We're going to the Castle of Two Sisters. We can visit your town friends another time. Right now I'm going to teach those three a lesson or eight!" You can hear Anon sigh as he follows behind you. You loved the man to death but he just didn't understand your drive. It was always, "Calm down Sunset." "It's not that important Sunset." "Take a rest, Sunset." "You're already months ahead in your studies, Sunset, come to bed and I'll rub your feet."
Foolish human, you knew your limits, and you would push them until the day they broke and then you would push even further beyond. You trek through the forest and plot. The three sisters would need to be turned in to the guard, of course, but you could have your fun before then. You're certain that Twilight got a magical prank kit for Heath's Warming a few years ago from her brother.
She never used it, the little goody four paws. Spike would know where it was. The only question was, what to use? You look over at your companions.
Perhaps Anon has an idea? He has younger brothers, right? You swear you met them at least once. Why is his family so hard to remember? Perhaps some strange human trait. "Hey, Anon, know any good ways to mess with those sisters?"
Anon pushes a branch out of his handsome face and 'hmm's' to himself, "Itching powder is always a classic?"
"Already thought of that one, hotshot."
"Um, I have an idea." Twilight speaks up.
You raise one sculpted eyebrow, this should be interesting. "A while back my friends and I were poking around in here and we came across this strange little blue flower called poison joke. If you get any of the pollen from the flower on you you'll have a magical 'joke' played on you a couple hours later. It turned my friend Applejack tiny, and it took away my magic, and it make Pinkie stop speaking, that sort of stuff."
"Hmm, that sounds pretty good. Think we could get some?"
"Uhh, maybe? They're chaos magic plants, so it's not like you can just telekinetically pick them up. We'd need some special gear."
"Guess it's a good thing we've got a teleportation circle here that can take us right to the palace!" You chuckle, everything's coming up Sunset!
The three of you reach the Castle of Two Sisters without encountering anything, and the teleportation circle is right in the same spot in this castle as it is in the palace. It takes a bit, and you have to re-carve some of the runes with your mageblades, but you get the old bird functioning again. Twilight confirms that the portal is working by having Spike send an orange to you from the other side.
The three of you join the dragon in the palace TP room. You smugly take out your pocket watch and check the time, 6:57PM, three minutes to dinner. "Hah! There and back by dinner, just like I promised." You smug at Twilight.
"Oh yes, you're so~ smart, oh wise and powerful first student, truly your wisdom knows no bounds." Twilight jokes, smiling at you.
You studiously ignore her words, "Good, we'll grab something to eat, get some null suits, pop back into the woods, get those flowers, and be back just after sunset to speak with Celestia! Once we have their location we just sneak in, douse them with the —what did you call it?"
"Poison joke."
"Poison joke and then get the nearest contingent of guards to round them up and take them to prison where they'll rot!"
"Er, Sunset, you do know that non-violent offenders rarely get jail time, right?" Anon asks.
"Shush! I am basking in my upcoming revenge."
"So~ you *aren't* coming to Moondancer's party?" Spike asks.
Shit.
That was today, wasn't it? That's why you had to be back by dinner. Goddamn it! If you wait too long the sister's might get rid of the golem, or just get so far away that you'll never find them!
Moondancer… You liked Moondancer, she was an alright pal, and one of Twilight's closest friends. Hmm, decisions decisions.
You look down at the dragon, "Hey, you, Twi, and Anon head down to Moondancer's party. Let her know that I'll be there in a minute. I'm just going to get Celestia to help me out with finding the sirens first before heading over, ok?"
Spike saluted, "Got it cap-i-tan! Want me to bring down your present with mine and Twilight's?"
"If you would." You rub the spines on the little dragon's head. He's a cute kid. You hope yours will be at least as cool as him when you get around to having them. You telekinetically pull Anon down for a sloppy kiss before speed walking out of the room.
No doubt princess Celestia would be having dinner in the royal dining room with princess Luna, prince Blueblood, and perhaps one or two close friends. This might prove... difficult. If princess Celestia knew you wanted to take revenge she would insist on sending the guards instead of giving you the location.
You could try to lie, but princess Luna was a master at spotting falsehoods. You would need a technically true excuse to get Celestia out of the room, or get her to help you without revealing why you wanted the information.
You approach the doors to the royal dining room. The guards on either side nod to you as you straighten your combat robes.
Shit, you're still in your combat robes.
Well, they're more practical than your formal dress anyways. Rolling your shoulders you push open the door. The dining room is immaculate in black, white, silver, and gold. Accented with pastel pink and blue. The table is currently sitting at 'informal family dining' length, which gives enough room for three people on either side in addition to the two ends.
Princess Celestia's scintillating form of wings, and light floats gently at one end, a glowing hand holding a star silver fork slowly moving into the mass of feathers. At the other end of the room is a blot of darkness. Since the sun is not yet down Princess Luna is cloaked in dark mist. Beneath the mist will be a tall, pale woman of sharp beauty. The only part of her body visible through the cloud of blackness are her glowing red eyes.
Three more sit at the table between the diarchs. At princess Luna's left hand is Indigo Zap, an electric elemental lóng, and leader of the Shadowbolts, the night guard's crack Search and Destroy task force. At princess Celestia's right hand is Spitfire, a Roc-Phoenix, and leader of the Wonderbolts, the leading Search and Rescue team in Equestria. Across the table from them sits prince Blueblood, his wings ruffling. He always gets in a tizzy whenever 'commoners' are invited to join the royal table, which —considering Celestia loves to invite people to dine with her— is often.
He's currently in the middle of saying, "—at which point I had to put my foot down and insist that if she did not have accurate productions numbers by the end of the month then the deal would be allowed to lapse. She objected, of course, but NillinHold has been dancing around the issue of their steel production for over a year and we can't have that kind of uncertainty with all the recent resurgences in chaotic and demonic magics."
You ignore him, something much more interesting is here. Why in the actual Tartarus would the Wonderbolt and Shadowbolt captains be here? "Ah, my wayward student has returned." Celestia's soft voice filled the room as if the room itself were talking, "When I heard that you had chartered a carriage to the Everfree and taken Twilight Sparkle with you I feared that the next I would hear of you would be that you had never returned." A wing near her face opens slightly to reveal a refracting magenta eye.
"Oh, I'm sure you were very worried about Twilight, but don't worry, your 'faithful' student is unharmed."
Celestia makes a sound that you interpret as disapproval, "You really must desist in this insistence that I favor Twilight over you, Sunset. You are both like daughters to me, and I treasure you both equally."
Sure she does, that's why Twilight got to ascend and receive her wings while you were stuck in your first form. You studiously ignore the fact that sphinx's have a significantly easier time ascending forms than most other creatures. "That's not what I'm here to talk about. You see, I had to leave so suddenly because Anon was kidnapped... again."
"Oh? Who by this time? Wait, no, let me guess... Chrysalis? No, she's still recovering from the schism in her hive. Miss Glimmer? No, she's always been more of a big picture kind of Little Bad Evil Girl, hmm. Who was it?"
"The dazzlings." You growl out. You really don't appreciate her royal fat-assedness bringing up the fact that your fiance seems to be the prime target for kidnappings in the entire kingdom.
It's like your life was a bad superhero comic. "Those three? You'd think they'd give up after the last time. Really, their talents would be much better used working for the kingdom rather than pulling these inane stunts."
Your eye twitches, "Those 'stunts' include kidnapping, larceny, blackmail, use of mind altering magic, and littering."
Celestia chuckles, CHUCKLES, "Miss Shimmer, if I took such relatively harmless and non-violent crimes seriously three quarters of the kingdom would be in shackles, you among them, need I remind you?" You blush. Your first attempts at wooing Anon were... less than admirable.
"Well," You say, pulling yourself together, "I've had enough of it, and with your help it'll come to an end by tomorrow. The day after at the latest."
"Oh?" Celestia says, "How do you plan to do that?"
"With this!" You unveil the command stone with a flourish, "That idiot Adagio let us get ahold of the command stone of the weird sex golem she was making. If we act fast we'll be able to find it, and therefore her, before they realize that we can track them."
"I see," Celestia laughs, "and once we do the guards can handle them. Your problem solved."
Your smile was forced, "Well, before the guards take them away I'd like to speak to them, if you'd allow it. They've been... a thorn in my side for so long, I think yelling at them would be very cathartic."
She's totally not buying it, "*Just* yelling at them?"
"And maybe a little slapping."
Celestia reveals enough of her face to raise one incredulous eyebrow at you, but then recedes back into her nest of wings, "Very well, miss Shimmer, let us go immediately. As I understand it you're already late for a friend's party."
Celestia rises from her chair and begins floating out the door. As you go to follow Luna also rises, "We shall join you, sister, to ease your burden."
Celestia's smile is plain to hear, "Thank you Luna, it shall be a joy to work magic with you, we never have the time anymore."
"Indeed."
The three of you begin walking down the castle's corridors. Luna steps up next to you while Celestia floats ahead. "We can see into thine heart, Sunset Shimmer." Luna's otherworldly, icy voice cuts into the ear and mind like a knife.
"Know that you walk a dangerous path, young one. One fraught with peril not of body, but of mind and soul. We know, more than any, the power and the pain of festering thoughts and nightmares of futures imagined. We also know that the words of one such as Us will not steer you from your course, but know this.
"Should you fall, there will be no mercy from Us. We would not kill thee for thine failings, but nor would We spare thee our claw. Choose wisely, and know that We are always watching in the night."
You look up ahead. Seems like Celestia didn't hear her sister speak. You wet your lips. "It's just going to be a little prank, princess." You whisper, "Anon and Twilight both said they'd help. It's not like I'm going to hurt them."
"Like how you weren't going to hurt Lyra?"
"That was an *accident.*"
Luna nods, "And more and more *accidents* have been occurring around you lately. I am not accusing you, Sunset, I am warning you, for your own good. Find something *constructive* to do with your temper."
Another gods damned princess telling you want to do. THIS kind of bullshit is why you haven't ascended yet. "I have myself under control."
"You do. Keep it that way."
The door to one of Celestia's observatories opens and the three of you file in. "Pop quiz miss Shimmer," Celestia takes on her teaching voice, "How would one deduce the location of a golem when all you have is a command stone?"
Your mind totally blanks on this, "Umm..."
"Work through the problem, miss Shimmer. Start with what we can do *with* the command stone."
"Well," you start; witch magic was very much *not* your forte, "you can give it commands. I don't think it does anything else."
"Very good. More advanced stones do exist, but most witches will never bother to create them. Each extra function increases the time and effort to make one exponentially. It's often easier to create multiple command stones for different functions than to create one master command stone. Now, when you give a command, what does the command stone do?"
You knew this one, "The command stone translates language into etheric pulses which it sends out in a repeating pattern until the pattern reaches the golem in question."
"Good, but how does the stone know where the golem is?"
You freeze, "It doesn't. The command stone sends out a sphere of pulses. It's why you have to have a very strict limit on range."
"True, but like you said, it sends out a repeating pattern. How does the command stone know to stop sending the same instruction over and over again?"
You had no idea. Time to guess. "Does the golem send a confirmation signal?"
Celestia's smile washes the room in warmth, "It does, and we can measure when the command stone receives that signal, which means?" You surreptitiously wipe a little sweat from your brow.
"We can triangulate the position of the golem using the time between sending a command and receiving a response!"
"Indeed we can. Now, Luna, let's do this."
The procedure is simple. You place the stone in one corner of the room, overcharge it, give it a command, and wait for it to light up when it receives a response. Move it to the other side of the room and repeat. Move it a third time and there you have it.
But it's been three minutes and the stone hasn't lit up yet. "Uh, how long will this take?"
Celestia looks over at you, "Sunset, we've overcharged this stone to be able to blanket all of Equestria and touch the Crystal Empire. If they're, say, in the badlands, each pulse will take a half an hour to reach the golem and then a half hour back. We're lucky that the golem uses the power of the received pulse to send the message back. If the golem was relying on its own power to do so then we wouldn't be able to do this at all."
"This could take three hours?" You're incredulous. Magic is supposed to be magic! Where's the instantaneous knowing what you need to know? It's bullshit I tell you, bullshit!
"Hmm, yes, I do suppose I should have thought of that. I should have someone fetch me a book and my paperwork."
Luna rolls her eyes, "Of course such a simple detail would have escaped your notice, sister. We shall adjourn then, We must reopen the court in ten minutes. Do try not to use this as an excuse to shirk thine duties."
Celestia mock gasps, "I would never!"
"I am certain." Luna leaves what she's certain about up for debate as she leaves the room.
"Erm, princess? May I be excused. I sort of promised that I would go to Moondancer's birthday party and I'm already pretty late."
"You may, Sunset. Since we don't have any lessons tomorrow I invite you to meet me for breakfast where we shall go over our findings from this little venture."
You speed walk out of the room. You check a mirror in the corridor. You're a bit of a mess. Your robes are ok except for a little blood on your cuff from when Aria scratched your forearm during your fight. There are a couple of burrs on your pants that you pick off and flick into a nearby potted plant. Your boots are a bit muddy, but nothing worse than what you would get walking in the gardens on a damp day, so it's not like they're dropping bits of mud everywhere.
Underneath your robe is another story. Your blouse has sweat stains and you don't smell great. A quick spell temporarily masks the smell, but you'll have to recast it every half hour. Good enough for an informal party full of sweaty academics with not-great social skills, you think. You head for the party.
You opt to enter through the side door of Moondancer's home, stepping directly into the kitchen. Spike is here, of course. The little dragon loved cooking as much as you loved eating his snacks. He and one of his friends, you don't remember the creature's name, are talking about comic books. You wave as you pass, grabbing a bottle of beer off the counter.
The study group is here, along with some others. Looks like Lyra brought her 'not-girlfriend' Bon Bon along.
You slide up next to Moondancer who's eating some nachos. Unicorns love cheese, as far as you could tell. It was kinda weird. "Hey Moonie, having fun?"
Moondancer's head turns toward you, "Sunset! You made it this time! Twilight said you were coming but I wasn't sure. I know how busy you can get."
You chuckle uncomfortably, you haven't really ever felt that you fit in with Moondancer's group. They were a couple years younger than you and were all Twilight's friends. Your own classmates were scattered around the country by now, and you never really knew them when you were together, always shut up in your study.
"Well, I thought I might come to this one. I hear that you and the girls put on a pretty good party."
Moondancer smiles her horsey smile and whickers, "We do at that! I liked your gift, by the way."
"Oh? You didn't already have one?"
"I have my dad's old version, I haven't gotten any of the newer versions."
You nod, "Yeah, I have my mom's second edition set."
"You play O&O?"
"I played with my brother when we were younger. Never got around to finding any other groups after that."
"You totally should! I'd invite you to our group but we're already a bit full. Shining also had a group but ever since he's moved we haven't really kept in touch."
From there you make small talk about tabletop games and other such nerdy stuff. Eventually you're joined by Anon. This isn't really his sort of party, he's more of a finger foods and flutes of champagne kind of guy, but he makes nice with your almost-friends.
The party was going smoothly, and you were steadily getting a better buzz, though you carefully stayed away from the harder stuff and any drink that Anon mixed. That boy could drink like a dwarf. Sure, it'd put him on his ass, but he could. Fortunately it looks like he was taking it easy tonight as well. Probably had to be a court later to negotiate some deal or get something signed.
Eventually the churning people sat you face to face with Lyra, an old acquaintance from school. You smiled and she smiled and her 'not-girlfriend' frowned but she just seemed to have resting bitch face. Lyra introduced her and you made small talk until things moved on. She SAID she'd forgiven you, she said it a long time ago. You didn't believe her. YOU wouldn't have forgiven you.
It had started out innocently enough. Lyra had always been a joker and a prankster. She'd pranked every other person in the class. You had almost been expecting it when she put silver nitrate in your handsoap. Your hands had been dyed black by the substance for over a week.
And one good prank deserves another, right? Just to make sure that she knows not to mess with you again. You'd put a couple living spiders in her backpack and laughed as she screamed and flicked them off her feathers.
Well, she had to get you back. She put a rat in your dorm room. You magicked her bed to the ceiling. She turned all your right shoes into left shoes. You replaced her shampoo with fast hardening resin. You know NOW that you escalated too much to quickly, but you had just been so angry that she thought she could keep up with YOU.
She hadn't pranked you back after that. But you had to be SURE. So you had spelled her door and window to switch places. She was only one floor up, so the fall shouldn't have been that bad, and she was falling right into the gardens, so soft landing!
Not so much.
She'd broken her right leg from landing on it incorrectly. You had been... less than remorseful. First you blamed Lyra for landing wrong. Then you blamed her for starting it in the first place. Then you'd insisted that you weren't sorry because your plan had succeeded and she wouldn't bother you again. At that point Celestia had insisted that you receive therapy.
Therapy didn't exactly work. They'd almost diagnosed you with Antisocial Personality Disorder, but they weren't convinced that it was something that they could or should treat.
Instead you'd been given 'empathy lessons.'
It had taken months, and you'd never truly admitted, to yourself, that you were wrong until years later. But you had been convinced to apologize to Lyra, who had forgiven you on the spot. Well, she said that she had. You were... better now, you think. It was still a struggle, sometimes, to understand when you were hurting someone. Sometimes it was a struggle to care. But you were better now, you hope. And when you weren't you could always turn to Twilight or Anon. They had your back.
The party continues around you. You take another drink. You need to do something else. Twilight appears to be very badly losing a drinking contest with someone you've never met.
You amble over to Twilight, by now pleasantly buzzed. Sitting across from your quite-drunk-at-this-point friend is a relatively large unicorn stallion with a warm orange coat and a bright yellow mane and tail. He's placed his most recent tankard of ale down on the table and Twilight has yet to pick hers up.
You're not entirely sure she can. Poor Twilight, probably showing off to the handsome young stallion. "I hope my friend isn't causing too much trouble." You smile at him.
"Nah, she's cool brah." He says with that surfer dude accent that Shining had before he got married. "But I think she's done."
"Yer gun-gunna be done mr. handsome colt. Ju-s u wait!" Twilight slurs, her tail flopping about like a drunk snake attacking rats.
You look down at how many drinks Twilight has had and do a little mental math. She *probably* wouldn't throw up tonight, but she should get some water in her before bed. "So, who are you?"
"I'm Moonie's older brother, Star Farer, nice ta meet ya." He holds his hoof out and you bump it.
"Sunset Shimmer, pleasure's all mine."
"Ya gonna need help gettin' her home?"
"Nah," you point, "The big guy's mine, he'll carry her."
"Cool. Wanna see if you can outdrink a horse?" His eyes twinkle with mischief.
You laugh, "I'm planning on waking up tomorrow."
"Eh, it's cool."
The night progresses from there, and people start heading home. You had deposited Twilight on the couch where she was half awake, slowly sipping at a glass of water as Moondancer talks to her about whatever has been happening at the school for gifted mages.
Eventually Anon says that he has just under two hours before he has a meeting, so you should head out. You help him toss Twilight onto his back and the two of you say your goodbyes before collecting Spike.
The streets are cool and quiet. The sun is down by now, it being 10PM. Once the sun was down all the good little daywalkers were in their houses and the night folks came out. Vampires prowled the streets, doing their quiet shopping and eyeing up their next meal. The meals, in turn, were eyeing up the vampires, wondering what delights they would receive before and after the bloodsuckers got their fill. Huge, monsterous bats and moths winged overhead, their downdrafts causing little eddies of dust on the streets.
You put one foot in front of the other, precariously balancing between the street and the sidewalk, though the distinction is meaningless at this time of day. Behind you walks Anon, carrying Twilight, gently humming a tune. Spike scampers ahead, ready to be home and in bed. The stars twinkle overhead and the night passes around you.
Twilight's tower has always been a pain. It had been yours, back before you had technically 'graduated' though that just meant a change in your student status rather than the normal thing of going on to find a job. You didn't trust yourself to teleport Twilight up, but you could slowly levitate her up to her bedroom window where Spike pulled her through and onto her bed.
Anon walks you home, holding your hand in his, warming you like the alcohol warmed you earlier. You arrive at your house, the one your parents bought you once you proposed to Anon, the day after your graduation. You had thought you were ready then. Yet you still hadn't found your purpose. You knew what it was, of course. To become the next princess. But you hadn't FOUND it yet. You would. But that's for later. You're standing outside your door, much like how your fourth date ended. You wonder if this will end the same way.
You are a slightly tipsy Anon, and your adorable fiancé has done that cute little thing she likes to do where she summons an arcane step-stool to put herself at your eye level. Your number one bacon haired girl leans against the door of your little house, her aqua eyes reflecting the golden light of the street lamps, gently biting her lip.
That's no fair, *you* wanted to bite that lip, so you do, taking Sunset in your arms and pressing your mouth against hers, taking her lip into your mouth and gently nibbling on it. She wraps her legs around you and locks her ankles behind you. Get you a girl who can hang from you like a monkey from a tree. You fumble for the door and Sunset is already undoing the buttons of your shirt, her fingers made clumsy in her haste and inebriation. You stumble inside as the door opens and you have to take all of Sunset's weight.
"Timbe~r" Sunset squeals as you go down onto your hands and knees in the entranceway. Sunset giggles underneath you, "Without even closing the door? Naughty~"
"Shush, you." You kiss her nose and slowly push yourself to your feet. Pushing the door closed behind you you kick off your shoes start to make your way up the stairs to the master bedroom. You hear Sunset's boots hit the stairs halfway up.
Sunset, undeterred, kissed and nipped at your neck, occasionally making you pause as she sucks on a sensitive spot. By the time you reach your room you're raring to go. One of the best parts of having a gnome as a lover? Being able to physically throw her across the room onto the bed.
She actually pushed off you with her legs as you tossed her, doing a backflip in the air before hitting the bed. "I really should wear dresses more often. Not being able to have you inside me whenever I want is a pain."
You snort, "Is every single day not enough for you, ya little nympho?" You drop your already unbuttoned shirt to the floor.
"Hey, you're the one that did this to me, ya fat cocked humie boy. I was a good girl before you." Her robe comes off, revealing her sweat stained white blouse and black slacks. She, naturally, throws the robe at you.
You catch the garment that wants to be a bird and hang it on the back of the vanity chair. "You were *never* a good girl, Sunset Shimmer. I've heard the stories. *You* told me most of them." Your pants and socks come off easily, Sunset following suit.
"I'll have you know that I was chaste and virginal before I met you, good sir!" Sunset giggles as you approach. You both always enjoyed taking the other's underwear off, like unwrapping a present. Sunset runs her hands all over your cock as you work through the pleasure to unbind her bra, pulling it off her arms to take her nicely sized breasts into your palms.
Sunset cheats by using her telekinesis to start jerking you off as she slowly slips your boxers off and tosses them onto the floor. You squeeze her shoulders and gasp into her mouth as her hands join her magic, gently kneading your balls with one hand while her other wraps her finger and thumb around the head, gently tugging on the glands while her magic bathes your shaft in warmth.
"Sunny," You groan, "I thought you wanted to have sex, not have me bust in ten seconds all over you."
"What? Big boy can't take a little teasing?" She kisses along your jaw, which she only has the reach for because you're nearly bent in half with pleasure.
"We'll see who can't handle their pleasure." You suddenly push Sunset down onto the bed, quickly reaching down and sliding off her panties. Then you toss her legs over your shoulders and dive in like a man starved. No teasing, no sir, you eat her out with vigor and aplomb, going from sucking on her clit to tonguing her as deep as you can go in seconds.
Sunset writes, moans, and giggles as you make out with her sex.
If she wasn't dripping wet before she certainly is now with how much spit and girl-lube is covering every inch of her 'delicate flower.'
After several minutes you come up for a proper breath. You look her dead in the eyes and lick your lips. No doubt your entire mouth and chin are glistening with her fluids. "I need you inside me right now." Sunset practically begs.
You wipe your face with the back of your forearm and crawl up her body, giving her a closed mouth kiss. With a little nudging and prodding you get Sunset to lay on her side with you behind her. You tug her butt against your crotch while you lie on your side, bending her until you can feel her vagina press against the base of your cock. Grabbing Anon Jr. you guide it into Sunset's tight, hot depths.
Sunset sighs as you spread her open and slowly plumb her depths until her butt rests against your hips. She has to arch her back like a gymnist to get the angle just right. While the penetration depth of this position leaves something to be desired it can't be beat for sheer comfort as the two of you gently rock against each other.
The foreplay did its job well and you're both almost halfway to an orgasm after the first minute. You reach around her with both arms, your left coming under her head to caress her cheek, lips, and tongue. Your right hand dips into her well maintained pubic hair and squeezes in between her legs, which she parts slightly to allow you better movement.
Your fingers rotate in little circles at the same rhythm as your gentle rocking and thrusting. At this speed you can both feel your orgasm building slowly inside you. The room is quiet except for your breathing as you both bask in the heat and sensuality of your bodies.
"Babe, slow down with my clit, tell me when you're close." You slow your hand down at Sunset's breathless tone. Her walls constrict around you slightly with an almost-orgasm, pushing you closer to your own release. Another minute passes with harsher breathing and slightly faster rocking. You do your best to hold back from just slamming your hips into her.
You want to really feel it, every thrust as it brings you closer and closer to the edge one small step at a time.
"I-I'm close, Sunny."
"Finish me off, Anon."
Your fingers speed up again, Sunset must have been holding the edge because she moans out almost immediatly as her walls convulse around you. Your eyes roll back into your head but with an enormous will you keep the same pace. Like the tide coming in each thrust into her squeezing depths brings you close, each sliding retreat pulls back a bit only to return, higher than before as you pierce her depths.
Then, with one final thrust, no faster than any of the others you press your hips hard into Sunset's glorious ass and unload into her depths, your hips twitching harder into her with each pulse that escapes you until you are spent.
The two of you stay frozen for a moment like that, both your orgasms slowly fading. Then you both relax all your tensed muscles. Sunset rolls onto her stomach and your slowly deflating dick pops free of her. You lay on your back, sighing out a long breath. It was nights like this that you wish you'd gone with the day court instead of night court. If only you could just drift off to dreamland. But you had to get up. You had deals to make tonight.
"Sunny?"
"Mmm?"
"We should shower."
"Mmm." She agrees, or doesn't, you can't tell.
"C'mon." You roll out of bed and stumble on your not quite stable legs. Wew, that one did a number on you.
Sunset's half asleep, so you decide to just pick her up. You have to be careful about it, since you didn't want her leaking all over the place. Eventually you worm one arm under her thighs near her hips and the other under her armpits and lift with your legs. Sunset sort of flops bonelessly in your arms. Silly girl.
Maneuvering while carrying Sunset like this is a challenge, since you have to crab walk through doors, but eventually, and with minimal bumping, you get Sunset into the bathtub where she sits and leaks. "Are you going to help at all?"
"Nope~" Sunset sounds like a kid, "This is what you get for picking me up earlier."
"Ah," You scratch your face in embarrassment, "You remembered."
Sunset blows out a breath, "Of course."
"Do I still have to sleep on the couch?"
"Depends on how good a job you do at cleaning me."
"Ah, well, allow me to show you the finer side of things." You turn on the water and make sure it's warm before starting up the shower.
You pick Sunset up by her armpits and she thankfully stays standing half in, half out of the spray. Grabbing a loofa you apply a generous dollop of soap and begin cleaning up your love. Sunset's skin is smooth from well manicured nail to perfectly pedicured toe. She used to apply lotion to her entire body every morning before leaving for class. Now she does it around noon. Why? Because that's when you wake up. Being part of the night court usually means you get home around three thirty in the morning, and get to sleep around four, so you wake up around noonish, which is when Sunset takes her lunch break.
She'll come home, sneak upstairs, and gently wake you up. Or, y'know, just send a little buzzing ball of magic to get you ass out of bed. You'll wake up and the two of you will apply skin lotion to each other. Sometimes this turns into sex, other times Sunset will be lost in her own little world, still other times will be a torrent of excited arcano-babble as she goes over her latest spell research.
Regardless it ends when the two of you a glistening golden gods. Well, the lotion is oil based. It's a bit slick and slippery and takes a while to sink in, but you can feel the smooth texture of Sunset's skin thanks to it. That and Sunset insists that neither of you put on any clothes while it soaks in, which means you get to make and eat lunch with a naked, oiled up Sunset pretty much every day. Most men can only dream of the life you live every day.
Then you two usually make and eat lunch before she goes off for her afternoon duties and you start your day. You scratch Sunset's scalp vigorously to get the conditioner deep into her roots. She's mostly asleep at this point so you lean her up against the back wall of the shower while you clean yourself off.
Stepping out and shutting off the water you grab a towel and hold it open. Sunset steps into it and you dry her off quickly before wrapping her hair in a second towel. Slapping her butt you send her off to bed while you dry yourself off.
Returning to your room you find Sunset brushing out her hair. You get dressed while she finishes and climbs into bed, snuggling up and hugging a big dakimakura with a printing of a picture of you on it. She'd gotten it custom made when you switched from day court to night court after the return of princess Luna. You hadn't actually been living together at the time, but she said she wanted something to snuggle while she thought of you. You kiss Sunset on the temple. "Love you."
She smiles, "Love you too, my big strong man."
You leave the house with a smile. You flash your night court badge to the cute ghoul guardswoman at the south gate and enter into the palace grounds.
After day court ends at around 4PM most people leave the palace grounds, their business for the day done. By 5PM there will be a small group clustered around the entrance to the night courtroom. When the bells are done tolling five the doors will open and the small group will enter. These are the daytime petitioners for the night court. Not so affectionately referred to as 'sunwalkers' by the members of the 'proper' night court. These are usually minor nobles, nobles who have been snubbed, or people who have otherwise angered the more powerful members of the day court and now are 'reduced' to appealing to the Lady of the Night. Luna invariably deals with these rather harshly. She knows that they would not be in her presence if they could instead appeal to her sister. Few of them will actually meet with her, of course, like how few who go to the day court will meet with Celestia, but still, the attitude prevails. These types will leave when the court adjourns for a one hour dinner at 7PM. When the doors open again at 8PM there will be a few new faces that enter, but the night court wouldn't pick up until after sunset.
Once the sun is down the proper night court can begin. It's never as busy as the day court, but it will do steady business until it closes at 1AM. At this point there will be another one hour break for 'the midnight snack' which is a mix of lunch/dinner for the night walkers. Rather than the three meals of the day, the creatures of the night preferred to have two meals. From 2AM to 4AM the night council would speak about any important topics which came to light during court or upcoming important decisions to be made. You usually left around 3AM since the most important things were talked about at the beginning, probably specifically to let people like you get to bed. You were a minor advisor to the princess, as the son of the biggest copper firms in the country, but you were rarely needed. As you understood it after the night council adjourned princess Luna would spend the rest of the night guarding the dreams of Equestria.
You enter into the night court chamber. It is a rather large room with a vaulted ceiling, though that ceiling is lower than you would expect, making the room feel more like a wine cellar than a palace great-room. Marble columns hold up the ribs of the ceiling and between them are about two dozen desks, each filled with a scribe, notary, lawyer, or judge. Across the desks from some of the officials are aristocrats, night nobles, bankers, and the occasional citizen whose case got bumped up to the palace.
It's currently —you check your pocket watch— just before midnight, meaning you're right on time to have your latest trade deal notarized. You walk quickly over to desk 2-5 where your acquaintance, Yuka, a tariaksuq, sits behind his desk, filling out some paperwork. Across the desk from him sits Blint, a dwarf and owner of a new, large scale bronze smelting complex.
This final meeting was the culmination of several months of back and forth via letter with the relatively young man to determine exactly how much copper he needed on what kind of delivery timeframe and how much he would pay for it. "Anon, you son of a goat, it's good to finally meet you." The hearty tones of the dwarf echo in the room. Several other officials and patrons look over at you, but go back to their own work just as quickly.
"Blint, a pleasure to finally meet you as well." You shake the short man's rough hand, not wincing at the iron grip.
"Sit down, I've been here for a bit, talking with Yuka here. I've never been in the capitol before, so he was recommending me some places I should see before I head home."
"Well, Yuka would know, he tends to get into places us normal folk don't have access to."
"Oh? Is that right? And here he was trying to tell me Donut Joe's was the best place in town." The dwarf guffaws. You see Yuka blush out of the corner of your eye, which is the only way you can see him, since if you try looking directly at him he's invisible.
"Donut Joe's is great if you want sugary pastries, but if you want some really good stuff you'll want to hit the middle tier and look for Alberto's Gentleman's Club, it's a little black door in a small alley off Cobbler's street. Tell them Anon or Yuka sent you." Yuka looks up at you sharply.
"Don't worry, Yuka, Blint is good people. Now Blint, you must keep one thing in mind while you're there. Do not, ever, touch the girls unless they say it's ok. You could get Yuka and I both kicked out if you do."
"Right, no touching, I understand ye." The dwarf nods. He came from a rather puritan home, and had rather puritan values. He probably wouldn't even step into the rooms where the girls danced, but better safe than sorry.
"Here's your paperwork." Yuka starts.
From there everything goes smoothly for the next half hour as Yuka goes over all the clauses, sub clauses, and even what was not covered by the contract. Yuka was very thorough with his job. It's one of the reasons you like him so much. When he was doing the notarizing the people you were making a deal with always felt that you were playing them fair.
You always were, but there's a difference between being fair and being seen to be fair.
At around 12:30 you stand up, shake Blint's hand again, and see him out of the night court. You have half an hour before the night counsel breaks for 'lunch' after which you would actually do your official job of advising princess Luna regarding a matter to do with the night guard at around 2:15. After that you would sit in until 3:30 and then head home. You decide that pestering the guards just outside the doors is a good waste of time before what would be your dinner. Then again, now that you think about it, the only thing you'd eaten today was some party food at Moondancer's place. Adagio didn't bother feeding you breakfast or lunch after she kidnapped you yesterday on your way home from night court.
You'd have to remedy that, which would mean going out into the city once night court closed. For now though you took a position just outside the doors, right beside a friend of yours. "Evening Nocturn." You say to the tall vampiress.
"Evening, Anon." She says, her voice like a whisper on the wind.
"Anything interesting happen today?"
She chuckles, "You tell me. Word is you got kidnapped again."
You roll your eyes, "Siren sisters. Shouldn't you guys be protecting me from them or something?"
"You weren't on palace grounds, therefore, not our problem. The CPD can handle it, especially since they're just hooligans and not someone actually dangerous. Besides, we're not rated for witches or sirens, you'd want to bring in a task force for them."
"Uh-huh."
"Hey, *you're* the one who refused a guard detail, if I remember correctly."
You sigh, "I don't need a bunch of guards following me around all the time. Twilight, Sunset, and Spike don't need them, and I don't need them."
"Two of the most powerful mages in Equestria and a *dragon* don't need guards so that makes it ok for your fragile human ass to not have them? That's dumb, Anon, and you know it."
Leaning back against the wall you look up at Luna's sky, "I just don't want to be a burden, ya know? I mean, it's not like they're going to hurt me, because if they do they'd have Sunset, Twilight, Spike, Shaing and Cadence, Luna, and probably Celestia out for their blood, so it's not like I'm in any *real* danger, but it's annoying, ya know? They don't even offer me lunch or anything. You'd think after, what, three years they'd have at least warmed up enough to me to stop being so mean about it."
"Oh boo hoo, your kidnappers are rude. You know some people have to worry about getting mugged, right?"
"Hey, just because some people have it worse doesn't make my problems irrelevant."
"You're right. The fact that your problems are dumb makes them irrelevant."
"You're impossible."
"No, you are. Aren't you rich? Couldn't you get, like, armor and stuff to stop you from getting kidnapped?"
"I'm not *that* rich. My family is rich, I just get a stipend from the company to represent them in the court and to help making deals."
"I get guard pay." Nocturn snarks.
"Oh fu~ck you, I've seen guard salaries, you make almost as much as I do, ya overpaid statue."
"Yup, thi~s is the life."
You chuckle and start walking away, "I'm going for lunch, have fun you two."
"Grab me a cider!" Nocturn calls. The guy on the other side of the door, a rock troll, just grunts. He's a pretty quiet guy, preferring to listen rather than participate in conversation. Loves making rock puns though.
You do not grab nocturn a cider. Mostly because you'd never be able to find her since the guard rotates after night court, but she shouldn't be drinking on the job anyway. You have a delicious fillydelphia style sandwich with beef dipping sauce and thick cut prench fries. You wave to Lawrence, the filth demon who lives in one of the alleys of the upper ring. The nobles don't like him, but he's responsible for keeping the sewers on this part of the town blockage free, so he does good work. Just don't stand downwind of him.
You arrive back to the counsel chamber about five minutes before they start. You make small talk with the iron and steel advisor while you wait. Seems like the cost of iron is going to go up for a little bit since one of the larger mines is starting to run dry. They'll have another mine or two able to pick up the slack in a few years but you should stock up on basics like nails in the next couple months. Soon enough it came to the matter on which you were to advise.
"Now, my captain has advised me that the magical shielding spells that we've been employing have proven to be sub-par in modern electrical testing, something which had to change recently due to the increase in electricity based items being used by the common citizen. These 'electrical appliances' are not yet widespread, but I'm advised that their ease of use for the non-magically trained will likely lead to an explosion in popularity, and so we'll have to start worrying about common criminals having access to electrical equipment. Now, that is why I have asked Anon and Regolith to speak on this matter. It is known to us that both copper and silver are electrically conductive, and we wished to know how such metals might be used to protect our guards in the future. Regolith, you have the floor."
"I know some of this new invention, though my people have no use for it, being as they are of the earth itself. It travels best through metals of high quality, such a gold, platinum, and silver, of course. A plating of silver over the guards armor would catch any stray electricity and send it into the ground, neutralizing it. With the recent surge in silver and the lowering of price the entire nightguard could have their armor silvered at a small cost, and silver is still the metal of the moon, of course."
"I see. Anon, I have heard that copper is also electrically conductive. In fact, it's what these 'power wires' are made of. What do you suggest?"
Well, you could call Regolith out on his bullshit. You don't need a full plating to create what the engineers are calling a 'faraday cage' though it might be helpful. But Regolith and the silver merchants have a *lot* of power and could fuck you and your family over royally. You could take advantage of the fact that he says a full plating and try to convince Luna to get copper plate, but that would be using her ignorance for your own gain, and you might one day be found out, though for such a minor thing you likely wouldn't be chastised for it. Furthermore you could plead ignorance. You had a mage for a fiancé, so you don't have any of these new electrical appliances yourself.
No, you can see it now, Luna’s disappointed stare. You stand, "While Regolith's idea would work, certainly, I believe that his desire to see the night guard draped in the metals he profits from is clouding his judgement."
The stone elemental glares at you across the table, he knows what you're about to do. In his eyes you can see him asking, 'why would you do this? Don't you know that you won't be making any money either?' "Rather than a full cage of conductive metal in order to ground any electrical attack, you really only need four or five points on the armor where electricity will be drawn to. From there you can use wires to redirect the metal into the ground. You could do this with, oh, I'd say a dozen or so bits per armor set, perhaps lower if you do them in bulk."
"Is that so?" Luna asks in surprise, "Well, that's a convenient solution for something my guard captain thought would be a rather large problem. We thank thee for thine candor, Anon. Do be seated."
You sit down and keep your eyes on your notes and documents. You hope that Regolith doesn't take offence, but you held little hope. You just hope it doesn't become such a problem that your uncle replaces you. You didn't want to have to get a —ugh— real job. You'd tried it once. Absolutely aweful. Maybe Sunny would let you become a house husband. You could take care of a child or two, and your mother and hers both wanted grandchildren sooner rather than later.
The next day, breakfast in the Royal Breakfast Nook.
You are Sunset Shimmer and marmalade spread over a still warm blueberry scone is *sinful* in its deliciousness. If your ass wasn't already having trouble fitting into your pants you'd eat it all day every day.
Celestia is telling you about how the stones indicated that the golem they're attached to can be found just north-east of Las Pegasus. "Which is a truly silly place to go. With all the tourists coming in and out of that city I've no doubt that someone has already seen the building and alerted the guard. By the time you get there they might have already been caught.
"If they were that foolish they'd have been caught a long time ago. They're probably hidden somewhere. Once we're close enough I'll just use the command stone to home in on their location."
"You should get the guard before confronting them. They may try to run, especially if you yell with all the ferocity you bring with our little... disagreements."
There she goes, bringing that up. You'd stop going at her full force over a week ago. You knew now that arguing with her wouldn't get you what you want. "I will." You lie.
"She definitely won't." Luna says. She's currently eating a massive steak raw with her bare hands.
If only the peasantry could see their princess now. "I'll get them as soon as I think they're needed."
"Well I'll be sending them a letter, so I suggest you get them immediately."
"I'll take it under advisement."
Celestia sighs and stands up, "I hope you heed it. I must be off to the first meetings of the day. Sister, Sunset, Blueblood."
You each say goodbye. You turn and leave the room. It’s just after breakfast, so you find Twilight in her tower, studying with Spike. “Yo, dorkle!” You shout.
”Ugh.” She moans from somewhere in the house. Oh shit, that right, she got *wasted* last night. Must have a killer hangover.
“Sorry.” You whisper-shout into the house/library/observatory.
”Stop the world I wanna get off…” Twilight moans.
Ouch, that sucks. Hangovers are a massive shitter. You can’t even take care of them with magic. Well, not arcane magic. Pro-tip, do not fuck around with someone’s brain chemistry, that’s how you get dead people. Also it’s really hard to do, to the point where just trying will drain even the most powerful mages. “Right, you need water, coffee, and breakfast.”
”Already gotcha covered.” Spike says. He’s laying out Twilight’s breakfast on the table as the cat stumbles her way into the room. Twilight slumps down next to the table, laying her head on it, and makes a little kitty whining noise. You pour yourself coffee, and start drinking.
It's not until around 10AM that Twilight feels well enough to go on the expedition for some weird blue flowers. The pair of you suit up in magical null suits. You've always hated null suits. Imagine —if you will— wearing something that turns you deaf while you're in it. That's what it's like. Your magical sense is just gone. You would be completely unable to cast magic while wearing it. You could have always left it in a bag until you got there, but you didn't want to waste time in the field.
You have to give the address to the TP room attendant since you can't activate the teleport yourself. He's shocked that he's never heard of the location before, and a bit frightened when you tell him where it leads. Still, you had the authority to go basically anywhere you wanted, so he activates the circle and you're suddenly standing in the crumbling castle ruins.
"It shouldn't be hard to find some poison joke. There's a really big patch not far from Zecora's house, so if we just head in the direction of Ponyville we'll find them." The two of you walk for an hour in the general direction of Ponyville.
Twilight points out some scary looking trees, a repaired bridge, and a small river, retelling the story of the Nightmare Moon incident. It's a story you knew well. At the appropriate point you cut in, "And then she was like, 'Twahlaht, does ya trust meh?' And you were like, 'No, I just met you today!'"
Twilight snorts, "That's not how that went."
"Oh yeah! Because you know levitation spells, and you just levitated yourself instead of falling into the pit."
"Shush! You try thinking of clever magical solutions when *you're* hanging off a cliff!"
You huff, "If I'm so clever I won't even be near a cliff. Cliffs are dangerous, don't ya know."
"Alright ms. Responsible. Look there." Twilight points, "That looks like poison joke. Just one or two flowers should be fine."
The two of you get to picking.
For the procurement of magical flora you use these really long handled shears. There's an attachment right above the blade, a pair of rubber clamps that clamp onto the flower right above where it is cut. The flowers go into a hermetically sealed jar at the end of a long metal pole. Then, one the jar and shears are out of the patch of magical flowers they get dusted with nullstone. Then they get washed down with magically inert water. One jar with two blue flowers acquired. And back to the castle you go.
Twilight heads off to lunch. You place the jar with the flowers in the cupboard specifically for magical items used by Celestia's students. There were only three right now. Twilight knew what the flower was and Midnight Star was smart enough to not touch anything in the cupboard she didn't recognize. You headed home to awaken your fiancé. Naked lunches are the best idea you've ever had. Anon isn't needed at night court today, so you invite him along. He's not all that useful in a fight, but he's more than down to watch those three get dragged away in chains.
Twilight is a short jaunt back to the castle after and she's happy to come along. Twilight might be about as useful in a fight as Anon, but her encyclopedic knowledge of magic will be useful. The train ride is boring. The three of you play cards. Twilight studies some. Anon explores the train. You levitate various objects in abstract patterns. Seven hours later you arrive in Las Pegasus.
It's now 8:25PM and you are in Las Pegasus, the capitol of games, gambling, bars, strip joints, and brothels. You're currently in the 'family friendly' part of town. You check the golem stone. Not in range. That's expected. They're likely out of town. You figure that your first course of action should be getting up high and using Eagle Vision to look around. While the highest point in Las Pegasus would be up on the cloud part of the city you wouldn't be able to get a good view of the ground from there. Instead you head for a five story hotel, Twilight and Anon trailing behind you.
You get to the front desk. "Sunset Shimmer, on assignment from Princess Celestia, I need access to your roof." You pull out your badge that marked you as one of princess Celestia's pupils. Technically you weren't supposed to have it anymore now that you'd 'graduated' but Celestia had never asked for it back.
There's a bit of a kerfuffle when the clerk had to go get his manager and the manager had to go get the owner. It didn't help that the only thing you would tell them was that you 'were not at liberty to discuss an ongoing investigation, but no one in the building is under suspicion.'
Eventually you, Twilight, and Anon are on the roof. The hotel is pretty far into the city, but you can see the north-eastern edge where the city turns to countryside. With the eagle eye vision you're able to see much further, and... there! At the base of the mountains, almost completely obscured in a copse of trees is a little patch of grey that is almost certainly the tower.
Piece of cake.
You'll need to warn the guards before making your 'attack.' Twilight and Anon chit-chat as you make your way to the LPPD station. Apparently after Moondancer's party She and Twinkleshine were caught doing some 'stuff.' You could guess what kind of stuff. Twink was an amorous drunk, and Moondancer was pretty starved for physical attention. Poor girl, her family wouldn't accept her dating outside her species and there were only so many of the rather scarce unicorn race roaming around.
Entering into the LPPD you find the front desk and introduce yourself. There's a blue slime wearing a police hat behind the desk. "Oh yes dearie, we did get a letter from that there princess, we did. Let me just see here." Little slimy tentacles extended from the slime and turned some laminated papers.
"Ah yes it looks like sergeant Talos is goin' to fetch da spell team. Should be back in two wags of a dogs tail. We haven't found these tower of theirs but we were plannin' of using some of the weather team to do a grid search o' d'area."
"No need, I've found them."
"Have ya now?"
You walk over to a map of Las Pegasus and the surrounding area. First you find the general location of the hotel. Then you draw a line with your finger in the general direction you were looking until you find the first mountain. Grabbing a dry-erase marker you circle the foot of the mountain in red.
"It's right around here. When sergeant Talos gets back, tell him that that's where we'll be."
The slime wiggles in shock, "Yer gonna go out th'are by yerself? I can't allow that, dears. You're students of th'princess! It'd be our hearts if'n you got hurt!"
"Sorry, can't hear you, leaving too fast." You call as you exit the building.
Twilight and Anon catch up with you halfway to the Roc taxi. "We should probably let the guard handle this, Sunset. I know that you want to get back at the girls, but what if they kidnap Anon again while you're pulling your prank?"
"Hey!" Anon buts in, "I'm not *that* easy to kidnap!"
Twilight side-eyed him. Then suddenly he was gone. You look over at her, "Where did you teleport him?" Twilight nods up ahead. There, standing next to the Roc taxi was Anon, standing, tied head to toe in ropes, with a sign dangling from his neck that says, "Easiest to kidnap man in the world."
You burst out laughing, "How did you *do* that?"
Twilight smiles and giggles, "I had to sew the runes into the inner lining of his jacket —by paw!"
You snort, "We've been a bad influence on you, Twilight."
"Please, my brother did stuff like this all the time. I've told you about the 'best sibling' crown, right?"
"You have, and I've told you what an awful idea it was, right?"
"Yeah. Looking back on it, mom and dad started having kids *way* to early."
The pair of you arrive where Anon is tied. He glares down at you, "Someone will pay for this."
You ignore him, "Oh my, look here Twilight, a perfectly kidnappable human! Isn't it just our lucky day!"
Twilight picks up on your tone, "Boy gee golly gosh Sunset it sure is, and a couple young ladies like us, well, we do love to kidnap us some humans we do."
You snort, "Please. Please don't ever say gee golly gosh again."
"Oh boy miss Sunset, I don't know if I can do that." Twilight keeps up her silliness, a huge smile on her face. You roll your eyes and levitate the still tied up Anon into the Roc taxi building. Soon enough the three of you are winging out of town, to be dropped off in a field about ten minutes walk from the tower. You stalk closer, time to get this show on the road, or onto the tower, you suppose.
Be the bestest little nerdy kitty Twiggly wiggly Sparkles. Truly your flappers were the greatest in all the land. Your paws the softest upon the ground. Your eyes... very pretty? Whatever, enough of that.
You're doing a 'high altitude pass' over the siren's tower using Eagle Vision to look around. None of them are obviously outside, which is to be expected, since it was after dinner time. You stay in the air for a full ten minutes before swooping closer. You land softly on the crumbling stones on the roof and listen, your ears already enhanced. Soft talking and moving inside. You hear a chair scrape back, so Adagio and at least one other is inside.
You slowly climb down the side of the tower with your Spider Climb paws. The noise inside stops as some pebbles fall from the wall. You wait in silence for several minutes, sweat beading your face. Eventually one of the shutters on the second floor opens slightly, no light coming out. They must have doused the lights inside so as to not give away when they looked outside. More minutes elapse until the shutter closes.
As you begin moving again more pebbles fall, clattering against the tower and hitting the ground. Too much noise, with a puff of air you fly straight up and over the top before Adagio's head pops out of the window, looking up and around at the tower and woods.
"Be careful, girls, I think we might be found. Get ready to activate the emergency escape just in case.” You arrive back to Anon and Sunset’s hiding spot. Sunset has just finished putting up the poison joke bottle on a tree branch overlooking a clearing. It looks good. Anon's jacket was stuffed with forest debris and covered in mud. It looks like a dead animal and has been placed directly under the poison joke. With her telekinesis Sunset has shredded the flower into a coarse dust. The coat has a trap spell on it attached to the lid of the jar. If anything larger than a small animal touches the jacket the jar will open.
You are Sunset Shimmer and you have to make this sound... natural. You use telekinesis to smack one of your mage blades against a tree, then drag it through the underbrush in a straight line toward the rap before snapping a twig next to the trap. Then you remember that TK makes a pretty distinctive noise, and that all three of the sisters are sound magic users. Double fuck. The door to their tower bursts open and Aria sends a shockwave scream in your general direction. You're all hiding behind trees so it doesn't do anything except hurt your ears.
One or all of you must have made a sound while you were deaf from the attack because the sisters come charging out, spreading out in a line as they come forward. Sonata sends dozens of pixie lights into the woods, lighting up everything enough for anyone to see.
"Come out and we promise to only hurt you a little." Adagio says. Sonata is hovering above and slightly back from the trap. Adagio is off to the left. Aria to the right. Sonata is too light to trigger the trap.
Be Anon. This day has been... interesting, so far. Sunset has set up an elaborate plot to get the sirens back for their tomfoolery and dragged you and Twilight into it.
Not that either of you minded, spending time with Sunset was always *some* kind of fun.
It's just today was the kind of fun that saw you crouched behind a tree while three magic users searched for you to... hurt you? You don't think they'll do anything drastic, but they might smack you around a bit and tell you to leave. Well, they'll smack Sunset and Twilight around a bit. Or maybe not. This time Sunset was almost enough for them on her own.
"Anon, psst, hey, Anon." Sunset whispers.
"Yeah?"
"Go talk to Sonata."
You pause. That was perhaps the dumbest thing you could do in this situation. Sure, they probably wouldn't hurt you, but surely they weren't dumb enough to think you came alone?
"Why?"
"Just do it before they hear us!"
Ok.
You stand up, rustling a bush as you do so. "You there!" Aria calls, "Step out and show yourself! Slowly."
You slowly step out from behind the tree, hands up. You should have brought a kinetic wand, or a smoke bomb, or something.
"A-Anon?" Sonata asks.
"Me~" You do jazz hands while you slowly walk towards Sonata.
"What are you doing here?"
"Well, you see...Sunset figured out where you guys were."
"How?" Adagio demands, stalking closer.
"That golem? We have the command stone, and the princesses were able to extend its range, allowing us to track where the golem was."
"I told you it would get us in trouble. Besides, it's creepy." Aria swim-floats closer. Now the four of you are positioned under the jar.
"Yeah, well, she's back in Las Pegasus getting the guards ready to storm this place, but I thought that I would come ahead and talk."
"About what?" Adagio's eyes narrow.
"About... us. You see, girls, over the last three years I think we've really started to bond. You kidnap me, you make demands, Sunset frees me. Really, I think of you as my wives away from my wife." You chuckle.
Aria rolls her eyes.
Sonata blushes.
Adagio just raises an eyebrow, "Really?"
"Oh yes, so I've come to ask that, next time you kidnap me, could you be a bit nicer about it? I'll come quietly, but getting a bag over my head and tied up in a box kinda sucks. I want to sit down, chat a bit, maybe have lunch with you girls." You smile winningly, "What do you say?"
"That's stupid," Aria says, "we don't kidnap you because we like you, we kidnap you because you're the best bargaining chip for getting what we want. We're not your friends, douchebag."
"Aria!" Shocked, Sonata turns to her sister, "That's so rude! We've known Anon here for years! I think by now a little politeness is called for."
"We're not friends, numbnuts!"
"Why not!"
"Friends don't kidnap each other?"
"Why not?"
"Ugh! That's just not what friends do!"
Adagio steps up beside you. She steps on the jacket. You don't notice this. The tiny blue flakes of the flower are invisible in the faint light of the blue pixie lights. "So, you want to make some sort of arrangement? Why? You know that if one day we win your wife won't be happy."
"Well, I don't think you'll win."
"Please, we're the aggressors. We just have to get lucky one time and we win. She has to get lucky every time we do our stuff. How long until she gets into a situation she can't get out of? Even with her little friend to help you barely got away last time. This time we'll know about her."
"This time."
Adagio gently but firmly takes your arm, "This time. Girls, let's go inside."
You are Sunset Shimmer and you have a plan. Well, the beginnings of a plan. "Twilight, pose them a riddle, if you will."
"What?"
You blink about fifty meters away and cover your ears, erecting a soundproof barrier around you. The flash of the blink spell will have alerted the sirens, so you just hope that Twilight was quick enough on the uptake to activate her species special magic. You slowly count to one hundred and drop the barrier and uncover your ears.
You levitate a bunch of forest debris as high as you can and cast conflagration on the area they're in, setting all the debris on fire. That should bring the guards running. You draw your four mageblades and set them floating around you, rushing back towards the tower. Adagio was ranting and raving while pacing about the area. You pause in a bush a ways away.
It was obvious that Sonata, Anon, and Aria weren't going to get the riddle, but Twilight refused to end the guessing time early, smiling her little smile while the shimmering barrier of her magic surrounded her. Above her was an hourglass, slowly counting down the five minute timer the 'contestants' had to answer her riddle.
You waited.
Adagio ranted.
The sand in the hourglass fell.
Until the last grain hit the bottom.
The hourglass disappeared, taking with it Twilight's barrier. Anon, Adagio, and Sonata flop bonelessly to the floor. For not answering the sphinx's riddle they were her paralyzed playthings for the next ten minutes.
Adagio snarled at Twilight. Twilight let out an uncomfortable little laugh Dashing forward you send a mageblade to slash at Adagio. The witch deflects it with her arm, a skin of hard bark covering the limb. "Twilight, into the tower! Take Anon!"
Twilight starts moving by instinct, "Not so fast!" Adagio throws her hand out at Twilight.
You bring all four of your mageblades to bear on Adagio, slamming the heavy weapons into her stomach and the back of her knees at the same time, sending her to the ground.
Bringing your hands forward you drop a kinetic blast where she lays, but she transforms into a crow and flaps into the air.
Twilight blows open the tower door and drags Anon into the building. Your blades swing through the air but the nimble crow swoops between them. Fuck it, friendlies were out of range. Bringing your hands together you compress the air around you in a dome until it is almost a liquid. Cold mist starts to form as the crow lands and reverts to Adagio. Erecting a weak dome shield between you and the super compressed air you release the energy, sending a shockwave out from you with a muted boom. Adagio is knocked on her ass and the two paralyzed sisters are pushed along the ground. Sonata's body is tossed into a tree.
Adagio's lip is bleeding when she stands. Fuck, she now has access to blood magic, can’t let that shit touch you. You fire off rapid, tiny pulses of kinetic blasts. Puffs of dirt spray up from the ground, bark is spit from trees, and Adagio takes several hits to the body. That's gonna bruise. She eventually dodges behind a tree. Can't have that. You run around the other side of the tree. Gone. Shit.
A mountain lion pounces on you from behind. You roll, the lion's claws and teeth drawing blood before you knock it off you. You slam a fist sized kinetic blast into its face, launching it back and into a tree. With a wounded yowl the big cat charges off into the forest. That's the thing with getting help from animals. One good bop and the fuckers will run away. No animal is dumb enough to fight a losing battle unless it's starved or cornered.
Roots tangle around your feet and ankles. With your right hand you switch the mageblades to lethal mode and set them loose, slicing carefully through the roots, slowly pulling your feet out. You palm the command stone from your pocket and hold it up to your mouth. You whisper, "Golem, rise, come to the front of the house, find the pixie Sonata, pick her up, and run as fast as you can south-east until you meet more people. Hand the pixie to them. The stone goes back into your pocket. You finally pull your feet free of the shredded roots, switching your mageblades back to non-lethal.
You scan the surroundings and move in a slow circle around the fallen bodies of Adagio's sisters. You hear a shuffling from the house. Slowly what remains of the golem comes shuffling around from the back. It's still missing its right arm, and it appears to be partially melted. Adagio was probably disposing of it but wasn't done. It shuffles forward until it reaches the body of Sonata and picks her up. Then it does its best to sprint in the general direction the guards are going to come from.
Adagio *doesn't* reveal herself.
Damn that's cold.
Everything is silent for a minute. Where the hell is that witch? Better get some cover. You duck into the tower. The layout is just like last time, inside there are three statues. Oh, they're in different places and Twilight is panting with effort. The statues must have been fixed when you sent her in here and she must have fought them off.
Oops.
You stick your head out of the door and fire off a spray of kinetic blasts in case Adagio was using some kind of camouflage spell. No dice. "You ok, Twilight?"
"Quite alright. It was a bit difficult to analyse the spell weave while dodging their attacks, but once I did I was able to dismantle their come to life spell fairly easily.
"How's Anon?"
"Unharmed." Twilight nods to one side of the room where Anon is laying awkwardly on a small couch. He's twitching a bit. The paralysis must be wearing off. Still nothing outside. Slowly Anon comes to.
"Ugh, Twilight. You couldn't have picked something easier?"
"Sorry, Anon. I needed one that was so hard that none of you would get it.
"Adagio did. What was it, anyway?"
"The ocean."
Anon looks at her blankly, "Why didn't Aria get it then?"
"She kept guessing lakes and rivers. She thought it was a specific one."
"I see."
You look outside. Aria is up and floating back in the trees. She glares balefully at you but doesn't approach. Perhaps Adagio went after Sonata and they'll attack when they're back together? You pull the command stone from your pocket. "Ping." You command it. After a second it flashes green. The golem hasn't been destroyed and is in range. Lucky that, it should have been out of range by now. Probably slower because it was damaged. Oh well, you can't think of any new orders to give it anyway.
But if Adagio hasn't destroyed it yet, where is she? "Twilight, get us some ear plugs, if Aria starts singing I don’t want to be able to hear it. Use whatever you need to. Some for all of us would be nice. I'll set up some rudimentary mind-to-mind communication spells."
The pair of you work in silence. Twilight takes some wax from the candles and fashions it into crude ear plugs. You all stuff your ears until you can't hear each other anymore.
That should keep you all from being charmed by Aria's singing if she tries it.
You glance out the doorway every couple minutes. Aria's still there, waiting. Then the entire area that the tower is in is bathed in blood red light. Looking around you see that the trees in a ring around the tower have glowing dots and smears on them.
Blood.
Adagio's blood.
Blood magic.
You suddenly freeze. All the blood in your body is completely still for a second. Your heart flutters and compresses on your immobile blood. Darkness encroaches on your vision for a moment. Then your blood is flowing again, but you can't move of your own volition. You, Twilight, and Anon tumble to the ground, unable to control your muscles. You breath slowly and rhythmically, like you're sleeping, but your eyes are open. You see Adagio step into the house. She's saying something. Aria floats in after her, looking at you with a victorious smirk.
'Stay.'
…
'Frozen.'
…
'Even.'
…
'If.'
…
'You'
…
'Can.'
…
'Move.'
Telepathic communication while paralyzed was torture. Not to mention that you were weaving a minor illusion to make it look like you had been knocked fully unconscious by the blood magic. Looking through the illusion of your closed eyes you see Aria and Adagio argue for a little, then Adagio storms upstairs while Aria looks over your bodies.
Sparkles fill the room, falling through the floor as if it wasn't there. Aria suddenly looks up, and a crossbow bolt hits her right in the face. It's a stunning bolt, so the tip is a sack full of sand, but still, that's gotta hurt.
Suddenly there's a lurch and you feel the creeping, crawling sensation of witch movement. It's kinda like the entire tower fell into a giant lake, and then fell back out into air on the other side, but the water is magic and the air is reality. You can move again. You see your companions jerk as they regain command of their bodies, but they stay limp on the floor.
You pop to your feet, bringing your mageblades to you in a close, defensive formation. A quick scan of the room sees Aria getting to her feet and Adagio rushing down the stairs. By the door you see a witch hunter all dressed in burlap and leather. Behind him the open door lets in snow. An empty crossbow at his feet, a mancatcher in his hands. The two of you meet eyes and nod to one another, then you turn to the sisters.
Witch hunters are specialized for witches, so you rush Aria, weaving your mageblades into an attack pattern, slamming them into her sides, arms, and tail repeatedly. She tries to screech at you, but your earplugs work well and you just keep pummeling her over and over again. She puts up as much of a fight as she can, but your assault is far too much for her. The fight is over in under a minute, with you pinning the siren to the ground as she thrashes and growls.
Looking over you see that the witch hunter has subdued Adagio and has her trussed like a hog, a sack stuffed in her mouth and a gag tied across her face. She seems delirious. Probably from the fumes of the special anti-magic herbs that fill the sack. You wrap one arm around Aria's throat and put her in a sleeper hold.
"Sleep now, little bitch. You've got one hell of a day tomorrow." You taunt as she passes out. You sigh and slump. Well, that didn't go *quite* as planned, but you won, and you'll take it. No one was even badly hurt.
You pop your ear plugs out. "Thanks for the backup."
The witch hunter grunts, "You shouldn't have gone ahead, miss Shimmer. This could all have been avoided."
"Ugh, I'm sure, *dad*."
The man snorts, "I know your father, and he would be much harsher about this than I."
You roll your eyes, of course he knows your father. Your father knew everyone on every police force in Equestria, you swear. You help up Anon and Twilight and get them to take out their earplugs. Now to figure out where you are and head home, siren sisters in tow.
You were not too far outside the Crystal Empire, but you were behind a hill. The witch hunter has a bright red flare that he sticks in the snow at the top of the hill. The thing smokes like the dickens and is bright as hell. Two hours later a contingent of guards show up, headed up by none other than Prince Shining Armor.
You can take the captain out of the guard but you can't take the guard out of the captain. "Twily!" The hulking sphinx says, bringing his sister in for a crushing hug.
She isn't able to get a proper breath until he lets her go, but once he does she's all excitement and joy, "BBBFF! It's so good to see you! How've you been? How's Cadance and the baby?” The siblings chat animatedly while you hand off the sirens to the guards, giving them all the info you know about the three sisters, including that there's a third currently in the custody of the LPPD.
The trek back to town *sucks.* You were dressed for the desert, not the tundra. Even with a borrowed cloak it's ice cold and your magic is garbage at heating you without catching shit on fire. Eventually you're in the Crystal Empire. Nice. You spend the night, since it's nearly 10PM at this point.
And you wake up to the absolute funniest shit. Anon's a girl, and not a 25 year old woman like if he just got gender swapped, he's a cute little 12 year old girl. And he is fucking adorable. You laugh so hard.
"Yeah, yuk it up while you can, I'm like this so *you* could get your revenge."
"And I love you for it my widdle snoogie woogie Nonnykins." You pinch his cheeks.
"Cut that shit out, Sunset."
"Oh no, I'm going to have *fun* with this."
You have one of the maids fetch a little dress for him to wear. You have to promise some really naughty kinky shit for him to put it on, but it's so~ worth it. He's so cute in a dress with his long hair up in a bow. At breakfast when everyone asks where Anon is you say that he's in bed and that this is his sister.
The ruse lasts for all of ten minutes before anyone realizes that there's no way that Anon's sister would be in the Crystal Empire coincidentally on the same day he got transported there. Then everyone else starts fawning over him. You, on the other hand, are rushing to the 'dungeon.' It. Is. Amazing.
Aria is all noodly. Her arms, neck, and tail are all super long and flop around like spaghetti noodles. Adagio is FAT. Like, land whale, needs a whole wagon just to move fat.
"You did this to us you bitch! I'll get you for this!"
"What? Can't take your own medicine? This *is* the payback. Remember how you've been kidnapping my fiancé for the last three. Freaking. Years?"
"That was business, twerp, this is personal!"
"Oh please, I could have chopped your legs off and the courts would have ruled self defense. Be thankful that I only did this. It'll wear off, eventually... I think.
"YOU THINK?"
"Ta-ta!" You close the door with a thunk. What a couple of babies. You wonder what happened to Sonata?
Be Sonata. Be barfing up glitter. As all pixies do. This must be the. Worst. Possible. Thing. Even thinking of tacos makes you nauseous. When the guards gave you some, the smell repulsed you. You ate them anyway, and here you are. Truly the gods have forsaken you.
Back to Sunset. You pack into the train for Canterlot around noon. Twilight says that there's a herbal bath that Anon has to take to get rid of the joke, so he and Twilight are staying on the train until it reaches Ponyville so he can do that. You get Twilight to promise to not tell Celestia about the cure, at least for a couple days. Hours later you're standing in front of the princess, having just finished recounting your adventure.
"I see." she says, "While I'm glad that you caught the troublemakers I don't like that you felt the need to punish them yourself. You are not a judge, Sunset, to be handing down penalties."
"It was a *prank.* Give me a break."
"It is because it was a prank that you will not be receiving a punishment. Had you set out to hurt them there would have been consequences. As it is, like much of your work, I find your results admirable and your methods less so."
"Well, it's good to know I'm sticking to form."
Celestia sighs, "Well, if that is all, I'm certain you have many things to do."
You really didn't, but you are certain that life was going to be nice and relaxed for the next several months.
And it was.
You had no duties except occasionally teaching a class, providing tutoring, and going on assignments for the princess, all of which you excelled at. You found out that the dazzlings were charged with cleaning the sewers of Canterlot! Hah! You even saw them in their blue coveralls one day. You waved at them with maximum enthusiasm. They blushed and stayed as far away as they could.
Silly girls. You hope they enjoyed the smell of poop. It was at the end of those months that something new happened. There was a knock at your door early on day, so insistent that it woke both you and Anon up. The pair of you opened the door, and there was a guard.
And behind that guard was Adagio and Aria. Wearing frilly maid outfits.
"Miss Shimmer? Hello, I'm sergeant Peacekeeper. I'm here to deliver your wards."
"My what?"
"On the recommendation of Princess Celestia these two wards of the Canterlot Police Department are on a work-release program, and on her further recommendation it was determined that they should work for the slighted party, which is you, Ms. Shimmer, and you Mr. Mous, as well as Ms. Sparkle. They are to be maids, secretaries, and assistants. Twelve hours a day, five days a week, for a full year, though they might have that sentence reduced for continued good behavior." He looks critically at the two behind him. "If you feel this is unreasonable, or if they act up we can always put them back on the sewer crew. They were pretty good at that."
Your smile is like that of a cat that just caught every bird in the city. "No, I think this'll suit us quite well."
Author's Note
So, as mentioned in the description, this was originally a choose your own adventure story. If you made it this far; let me know, should I run another one here? What kind of CYOA would you want?
