Sunset had been wanting to have a chat with Misty alone for some time now, away from both the school and the orphanage. Thankfully, an old acquaintance had tipped her off towards a solution that didn’t involve inadvertently kidnapping her student for once. Apparently, Misty had taken a page out of Hitch’s book and gotten a part-time job, providing some neutral ground.

So as Sunset made her way to the front of the line, she said brightly: “Maki roll plate for two, extra wasabi, please.”

The girl behind the counter of the small sushi restaurant at the mall blinked in surprise. “Ms. Sunset?” Misty asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Having a late lunch,” Sunset replied with a smile. “I was also hoping I might have a word with you.”

“Uh, sure, I don’t mind,” Misty said as she got to work preparing the order, “I just have to ask my boss if that’s okay. Mr. Tazunaka!”

An elderly Japanese gentleman with a bandana wrapped around his balding head appeared from the back. “Hai, Misty-chan. What is it?” When he spotted Sunset, his wrinkled eyes lit up and he inclined his head. “Ah, Shimmer-san. Konnichiwa.”

Sunset bowed respectfully. “O-hisashiburi desune, Tazunaka-san. Genki datta?”

“Genki dayo, Shimmer-san.”

“Would it be alright if I borrowed your employee for a few minutes?”

“Hai,” he replied with a smile before turning to Misty. “Misty-chan, go ahead and take break. Lunch rush over. I can manage for now.” Sunset began reaching for her purse to pay for the order, but the old man immediately held up his hand. “Ie. Your money no good here, Shimmer-san. On the house.”

Sunset bowed again and replied: “Arigato gozaimasu. Dewa, sumimasen.” She took the sushi plate and motioned for Misty to follow her to a corner booth.

“Do you know Mr. Tazunaka?” Misty asked in awe as they sat down. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him exchange more than two words with a customer. He’s normally so, I mean, …” She was clearly struggling not to say something too blunt about the man who signed her paychecks.

“Go ahead, you can say it,” Sunset replied with a grin while breaking apart a pair of chopsticks, “he’s a grumpy old man most days, unless he gets to know you, that is. I worked here my senior year and most of college. I helped him improve his English, and he taught me a bit of Japanese. That kimono looks cute on you, by the way. I always felt like it was clashing with my hair when I wore it.”

Misty blushed slightly at the compliment and twirled one of her locks to hide her embarrassment. “Thanks.”

“Dig in,” Sunset offered while gesturing towards the plate. “I ordered for two.”

A little more at ease now, Misty nodded and popped some sushi into her mouth as Sunset did the same, both enjoying the fresh taste. “Did you … find out anything more about my mom?” she asked after a bit.

“No, unfortunately not,” Sunset replied apologetically. “Anything on your end?”

Misty shook her head. “No more letters if that’s what you mean. So, if this isn’t about that, what did you want to talk about, Ms. Sunset?”

“Right. I was gonna ask if everything is alright at home.”

“Sure, everything’s fine,” Misty replied, clearly a little confused by the topic. “Why do you ask?”

Sunset wondered for a bit on how to best approach the subject. “I ran into your headmistress the other day, Ms. Opaline? She seems like an … interesting woman. What do you think of her? Does she treat you and the others at the orphanage well?”

Misty considered that for a moment, and Sunset was watching like a hawk for any micro expressions or body language that could give additional insight, but it didn’t seem like bringing up Opaline’s name hadn’t perturbed Misty in any way. She simply seemed to want to consider her words carefully. “She’s alright, I guess,” the girl said finally. “I mean, she’s pretty strict, but never unfairly so. I think she just wants us to do well in life. She’s a little bit like a more scowly version of Principal Celestia.”

“Have you ever seen her get angry or anything, be really mean?”

“Oh, sure, plenty of times,” Misty readily admitted, “but like, doesn’t everybody get angry sometimes? She realizes it when it happens too, and it never goes too far before she snaps out of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, sometimes she’d yell if one of us did something wrong,” Misty explained, “but then she’d catch herself, like her body almost freezes in place, and then her eyes change, suddenly go much softer and she’d simply go on to explain what we did wrong much more evenly. She’d even apologize for raising her voice.”

Her body freezes and then her demeanor changes? I feel like I’ve seen that happen myself. Is it some kind of dissociative identity disorder? Or is there something more sinister, and possibly magical, at work here?

“Don’t get me wrong,” Misty went on, oblivious to Sunset’s thoughts, “Ms. Opaline can come across as cold and distant, even harsh sometimes. She’s not some cuddlebug like Ms. Junebug was.”

“Ms. Junebug?”

“Yeah,” Misty nodded with a smile at what was apparently a fond memory. “She was the old headmistress, retired about three years ago. That’s when Ms. Opaline took over. I’m not gonna lie. Some of us older kids who still remember her sure wish we could have her back sometimes. She was, like, the sweetest old lady you ever met. Kinda like Hitch’s grandma. I’m not gonna pretend that Ms. Opaline is anywhere near as … approachable, but we’ve recognized at some point that she’s being stern because she cares about us. She just shows it in a different way.”

You truly believe that, don’t you? And when you say the previous headmistress retired, I sure hope that means she actually got to retire, not that Opaline retired her. “Sounds like a very mature way of looking at things,” Sunset said.

Now it was Misty’s turn to ask a rather pointed question. “Why are you so interested in Ms. Opaline?” she asked. “Is this about the Friendship Games? I know she’s gonna be the head judge.”

Huh, now there’s a thought my 16-year-old self would have delighted in, having a spy in the enemy camp to get some dirt on the judge. Sunset shook her head with a smile, glad that such thoughts were behind her these days and wouldn’t poison her students. “No, Misty. I’m more than confident that you and your classmates will do perfectly well in the Games.” She reached over the table and put her hand on Misty’s. “Listen, when the day of the Friendship Games comes, I don’t want you to pay any mind to us silly adults and our petty rivalries. Just have fun, play fair and do your best. Win or lose, the important thing is that you gave it your all and you can be proud of yourself at the end of the day, because nobody can take that from you.”

Misty looked back at her, clearly a little intrigued by what Sunset had meant about silly adults and petty rivalries, but she nodded in acknowledgment of the advice before they both turned their heads towards the counter at hearing a shout.

“Orokana otoko! You ask for ketchup with sushi? Ketchup!? You dishonor self, family and country! Get out of my shop, stupid American! Never come back!”

Misty grimaced at the sight of her boss waving a very sharp knife in the face of a terrified looking man. “I had better get back to my post before Mr. Tazunaka fillets a customer,” she said, standing up.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good call.”

“See you around, Ms. Sunset.”

Sunset lingered for a bit, watching Misty calm down her irate boss and shuffling him to the back before profusely apologizing to the customer and smoothing things over. Then she stood up and quietly left.

As she walked through the mall, she pondered what she had learned from her interaction with Misty. As was seemingly the norm these days, getting some answers had only raised more questions for her.

While there was plenty of reason to be suspicious of her actions, there was no proof that Opaline was to blame for any of the recent events. What were the odds of her playing a long con for three years? Could she simply be the harsh but misunderstood headmistress of an orphanage? Was there anything concrete to tie her back to the Maretime Bay incident? How did Bright Hope’s disappearance figure into all this? Didn’t she seem just as suspicious as Opaline or even more so? Maybe there was a third party at work, totally unknown to Sunset as of right now. Why had the magic returned now of all times? What had caused its absence in the first place?

As she pondered these questions, a familiar voice called out to her. “Sunset! Over here!”

She looked up and walked through the food court with a smile. “Hey, Sparky,” she said while taking a seat at the table next to Twilight.

Twilight Sparkle nodded and pushed the second cup in front of her towards Sunset. “Still take your coffee black?”

“Thanks,” Sunset said, taking a sip, “so, how is our project coming along? I got that you wanted to give me an update in person when you asked me to come here today, but your text was a little cryptic.”

“All this stuff coming back to the surface has me a little paranoid, so I didn’t want to say too much over the phone,” Twilight explained. “Progress was a lot faster than even I anticipated, thanks to the … help you sent over. He’s a little …” Twilight left it hanging there for a moment.

“Super weird?” Sunset suggested with a wry smile.

“I was gonna say eccentric,” Twilight replied diplomatically.

“I’ve met the Equestrian version. He’s eccentric. Our guy is definitely a little extra, albeit no less brilliant from what I can tell.” She noted a man with a white Santa beard and carrying a number of plates coming their way. “Here comes our weirdo now.”

Star Swirl the Bearded, extra-dimensional janitor version, put his bounty of assorted pastries down and sat down with an inclination of his head. “Ladies, can I interest you in some crepes?”

“I just had a late lunch,” Sunset declined politely.

He shrugged, and his wrinkled hand hovered above the plates for a bit. “More for me. I’ll say one thing for humans, much more inventive with their cuisine than ponies are. The advantages of an omnivore diet, I suppose.” Deciding on a jelly doughnut to start with, he asked Twilight before taking a bite: “Have you presented Ms. Shimmer with the fruits of our combined labor yet?”

Sunset immediately sat up a little straighter and turned to Twilight as well. “Wait, when you said the project was coming along, you meant?”

“It’s done,” she confirmed with an unreadable expression on her face before reaching into her bag, pulling out the device and putting it on the table.

Involuntarily leaning away a little bit, Sunset regarded the thing. “I didn’t expect it to look like that,” she whispered. “It’s got bad memories written all over it.”

Twilight nodded. “I know, for me as well. But you said you needed it as soon as possible, and it’s a proven design for what it’s worth.”

“Time being of the essence, there was no point in reinventing the wheel, Ms. Shimmer,” Star Swirl agreed while wiping some strawberry jam out of his beard with his thumb and licking it off. “And it’s a little less conspicuous than carrying around a two foot obsidian drinking horn.”

“I suppose so,” Sunset muttered and picked up the device, turning it over in her hands. The round box looked almost exactly the same as the one Twilight had invented prior to the last Friendship Games.

There were minor differences, of course, the obsidian frame and inlays that replaced the purple plastic being the most obvious, but also some small details that Sunset thought she recognized from the plans Misty had been given for the ill-fated refit. Some of those elements had clearly given the two of them some additional inspiration, but the ultimate product was visibly much more an evolution of Twilight’s MCD than the Horn of Sombra, a perfect marriage of human technology and Equestrian magic.

“I was quite surprised, in the best possible way, when I first reviewed Ms. Sparkle’s design,” Star Swirl commented. “She is very adept at arcane engineering for someone who has never received a formal education in magic. I had to do little more than supply the new spell matrix and the enchantment technique.”

“It just speaks to how brilliant she is,” Sunset said, watching Twilight blush in response from the corner of her eye.

“Perhaps. I think it also speaks to how good a tutor you are, Ms. Shimmer.”

She didn’t feel like acknowledging the compliment, so she asked instead: “How does it work?”

“Here,” Twilight said, taking the device back for a moment and demonstrating. “You pull this pin, then you give it a quarter clockwise turn until you hear a click, that means it’s armed, and then you push this button in the middle.”

“And then you’ve got three seconds to make sure it’s not pointed at you or anyone you care about,” Star Swirl added. “Remember that it can only be dispelled from the outside which would destroy it, rendering our hard work moot, and everyone who could even do so in this world is currently sitting at this table, as far as we know.”

“Pull the pin, turn clockwise, push button,” Sunset confirmed with a nod. After Twilight handed it back, she weighed it in her hand. “It’s pretty light. The Horn of Sombra was much more substantial than this. Is there enough material for it to work right?”

“There’s enough obsidian in there to keep an enraged alicorn at bay,” Star Swirl told her. “The original was always a little over-engineered. It’s one of the reasons that led me to my erroneous initial conclusion that it might have been made by an amateur when you first showed me.”

“Clearly, they weren’t,” Sunset pointed out, “we’ve figured out that much. Any guesses as to why then?”

“An abundance of caution?” Star Swirl suggested, though he averted his eyes as he said it.

There was a silence as Twilight and Star Swirl exchanged a look. Noticing that, Sunset asked: “What aren’t you telling me?”

“There’s no real proof at this point,” Twilight responded, meeting Sunset’s eyes. “You’ve already got so much on your plate, maybe it would be best not to speculate.”

Sunset appreciated the thought, but shook her head immediately. “Guys, I’m fumbling in the dark here, bucking at ghosts, with my students’ lives on the line. I need all the information I can get. Whatever it is, tell me.”

Twilight looked over at Star Swirl who finished off his doughnut before answering with a sigh. “After we completed the enchantment on our prototype, I finally had enough numbers to go back and make a rough estimate on the original’s capabilities. My best guess as to why it’s such a chonker compared to ours is that … it was meant to hold more than one entity.”

Feeling her head start to spin, Sunset had to put an elbow on the table and rest her forehead in her palm. The implication made her sick to her stomach, and now part of her wished they had kept their silence. “So what you’re telling me is that the Maretime Bay incident might have been a full-blown prison break, with more than just one on the loose.”

“Again, we have no proof right now that there was more than one to begin with,” Twilight said in the hopes of providing a silver lining to the revelation. “But we’ve already started production on two more MCDs, just in case.”

“Will they be ready in time for the Friendship Games?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Star Swirl informed her gravely. “We can streamline the technical process of building them, but the enchantment takes time, and I don’t have to tell you of all people what a bad idea it is to rush an enchantment.”

Sunset took that news in and found that she couldn’t argue with it. She held up the prototype in front of her eyes. “In other words, I’ve got one silver bullet in my chamber, so if something happens at the Friendship Games, I better make damn sure I don’t miss.”

“Good luck with that,” Twilight said with feeling, “but it’s gotta be hard to come up with a plan when we know next to nothing about our enemy, other than the fact that it’s probably some magic-obsessed, megalomaniacal nutjob as per usual.”

Sunset stared into her coffee mug, regarding her own reflection in the dark brew, and slowly that dark reflection began to grin back at her. “You know what? You’re absolutely right, Sparky. Luckily, I used to be one of those, so I know exactly how they think.” With the beginnings of a plan starting to take shape in her mind, Sunset looked at her friend.

Twilight seemed to involuntarily shudder at that. “Oh, I know that look. You just had an awful idea, didn’t you? I’m not gonna like this, am I?”

“I need you to do me a favor and get the band back together, Sparky,” Sunset told her with narrowed eyes and a vicious grin on her face. “Have them ready for the Friendship Games.”

“I’m with you so far,” Twilight said with a nod. “You know the girls and I are behind you, always. But what are you gonna do?”

Sunset steepled her fingers together and began to stare off into the distance with the intensity of a supervillain. “I’m gonna assemble a strike force of the baddest and meanest magic bitches this world has to offer. It’s time to start fighting fire with hellfire.”

Author's Note

Brought to you by my generous patreon supporter(s):

Gold Tier:
-Daedalus Aegle

Silver Tier:
-Brandon Caldwell