Sunset and her students made their way in the direction of the exit, right towards the approaching Shadow Puppets. The sun had gone down, making the steady stream of shadowy humanoids hard to see, but the direction they were coming from was clear enough, and they all knew that’s where they needed to be.

Zipp and Pipp, using their pegasus magic, formed the tip of the spear as the group broke out of the auditorium, blasting away the Shadow Puppets who were in the process of grabbing screaming students. Izzy and Misty followed up, raising their shields and breaking through a line of them while Sunny unleashed her earth pony magic to catapult Hitch into the air who landed in a group of them and dug his fingers into the grassy ground to make large vines appear that entangled and crushed a good half dozen of them into black smoke.

Sunset could barely keep up with her students. It almost seemed as if their win in the Friendship Games had supercharged their magic somehow. Huh, of course. Magic responds to emotion.

She suddenly felt herself being grabbed by the shoulder and whirled around, coming face to face with a Shadow Puppet. The eyeless creature opened its maw, revealing a grotesque grin.

Donk!

Then something metallic came crashing down onto its head and the abomination crumpled down at Sunset’s feet before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

“Need a hand, kid?”

Sunset blinked at the old man with the shovel standing in front of her. “Cranky?” She looked around in bewilderment, now that they’d made it onto the lawn between the auditorium and the front entrance.

“Nope!” Big Macintosh swung a baseball bat, connecting with another Shadow Puppet that exploded into a puff of smoke, standing back to back with Cheerilee who was wielding a litter picker like a spear. “Hiyah!”

In another corner of the schoolyard, Cadence was getting in on the action, beating on a shadow monster with a rake while yelling: “You … leave … my sister-in-law’s ex-girlfriend and her students alone!”

“Pay attention in class, Sunset!” That particular shout made Sunset wince in a conditioned response as she turned around to see Ms. Harshwhinny disintegrate another monster into thin air before showing off the crochet needles held between the fingers of her fist like a knuckle duster with a grin. “And you said to delete crochet from my dating profile!”

“Well, I didn’t know you could punch ghosts with those,” Sunset defended herself.

“Don’t think you can, normally,” Cranky said, rapping his knuckles against the head of his shovel. “But when the Phantom of the Halls hands you something from his tool shed, you don’t ask questions.”

It was only now that she looked closer Sunset could make out the faint runes etched into the metal and she looked over to where Star Swirl the Bearded, no, where Lars Writs the Janitor was calmly strolling through the schoolyard. One hand held behind his back, he reached into a bag of weed killers strapped to his belt with the other and threw it into the face of a Shadow Puppet charging him, which disintegrated before it reached him. He met Sunset’s eyes and winked. “I made these for a rainy day with a different enemy in mind, but they should suffice.”

“Holy shit!” Zipp yelled with a huge grin on her face from where the students were continuing to make a path forward. “All our teachers are fucking badasses!”

“Language, Zephyrina!” Sunset shouted in a way that sounded ludicrous even to herself, given the situation.

“Go,” Gladys told Sunset as she passed her, “take care of your kids! We’ll defend the auditorium!” She shared a look with Cranky as they both nodded and charged back into the fray.

Sunset turned and ran to catch back up with her students who were still making their way through an army of shadow creatures in a way that, Sunset had to admit, was just as efficient if not more so than the Rainbooms would have done in their heyday.

But a cold and icy wind was blowing up the closer they came to the source of the force, leaving Sunset to raise her arms against the chill wind to cover her face and step more slowly than the students who were able to push back against the howling gale with their magic.

“Sunset!”

Hearing Celestia’s voice over the wind, she looked around, finally spotting the principal on the ground nearby, unable to even stand in the magic hurricane, yet she had made her way over here somehow, presumably in pursuit of their enemy. To even have made it this far with no magic of her own must have required a superhuman effort on her part.

“Opaline!” Celestia yelled over the screaming wind while pointing in the direction of the main entrance as Sunset managed to struggle to her side. “The portal!” What appeared to be a tornado of blue magic swirled around the statue pedestal that Sunset knew to contain the portal to Equestria.

And just as she looked, the cubist horse statue came sailing through the air out of it in a high arc, heading right for the two women who were unable to scramble away in the intense magic storm that seemed to be exerting its own gravity.

Oh, fuck me, Sunset thought as she threw herself onto Celestia and closed her eyes. I don’t wanna go out being crushed by the ugliest statue of all time! Please, not like this!

“Ms. Sunset!” There was a loud, dull thud as the improvised projectile came down upon them.

Sunset looked up to see Sprout kneeling there on one knee, having caught the several ton statue with his bare hands, an impact crater several inches deep in the grassy lawn around him, just in Sunset and Celestia’s path. “Uwoaaaaahhhhh!!!” As he got up from his knees to lift the dead weight above his head, he was not only fully ponied up, but he looked like he’d grown at least a foot taller, the bulging muscles in his arms, legs and torso almost threatening to tear his clothes to shreds, a glowing nimbus of shining energy around him. He looked over his shoulders with glowing eyes that were almost bursting with magic. “You ladies okay?”

Sunset began to smile and gave him a thumbs up. “Old school earth pony magic, that’s what it was. Nice!”

“Believe in the me who believes in myself, right?” he said with a grin before turning to Celestia. “Principal, did you want me to put this down anywhere in particular?”

Having gathered herself from the near brush with being squished, Celestia narrowed her eyes at him. “Mr. Cloverleaf,” she told him, “I don’t particularly care where you put that fucking eyesore, neither do I care whether it stays in one piece.”

His grin grew positively vicious, noticing a Shadow Colossus at least three stories high step out from the tornado, apparently the sculpture-slinging culprit. “Destruction of school property with permission? Awesome! In that case,” he roared as he hefted the weight forward, “return to sender! Delivery refused!”

Crash!

Sailing through the air the other way, the statue struck the giant shadow creature square in the chest, breaking into three huge chunks upon impact and sending the creature stumbling back several steps.

Then Sunny appeared floating over Sunset and Celestia, ethereal wings on her back and golden horn on her forehead, she spread her arms, and a shock wave of warm, golden light pushed outwards from her, disintegrating the smaller Shadow Puppets in the vicinity instantly and pushing back the icy wind. “This one is mine,” she growled, reaching out her hand towards the Shadow Colossus in an imitation of Sunset’s technique. “Solar Flare!”

A beam of sunlight rushed forth from her palm, piercing clean through the Colossus, leaving a gaping hole in its chest and continuing on to disturb the tornado behind it. The creature sank to its knees and dissolved into a puddle of black goo.

Before anyone could raise a celebratory shout, three more colossi stepped out of the storm, briefly halted and then combined into an even bigger version that towered into the night sky at twice the height of the school building.

Sunny stared, mouth agape. “Now, this one I might need some help with!”

Even as the creature took one lumbering step forward, its advance was halted when several thick vines burst from the earth, wrapping themselves around its arms and torso. “You got it, Sunny!” Hitch declared, cloaked in a green nimbus of earth pony magic with his arm raised.

Zipp and Pipp whooshed past at blinding speed, flaring their wings behind the giant shadow monster and began blasting it in the back with a jet stream of air, pushing it forward from the top, just as Misty and Izzy ran up encased in their shields, one each impacting its tree trunk-like legs like magic wrecking balls.

Thus assaulted from above and below, and with its high center of gravity, the colossus stumbled forward, falling onto its knees as Sprout came up with a running leap to punch whatever passed for the creature’s face while Sunny flew overhead and began a renewed assault with her solar magic.

Sunset turned to Celestia with a grin after helping her to her feet. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” She had to yell over the sounds of the battle raging behind her.

Celestia gave her former student an exasperated look.

Sunset pointed towards the auditorium. “Cranky and the others are holding down the fort! Keep everyone inside! I’ve got reinforcements incoming!”

Deciding to put her faith in her student, Celestia nodded and took off in the direction of the auditorium.

Meanwhile, Class 2-A had finished off the supersized Shadow Colossus through their combined efforts, and Sunny had directed her solar magic at the tornado, which was starting to show tears in its fabric.

But as Sunset ran to catch up with her students, she was suddenly knocked off her feet by a blast wave of frigid air enhanced by magic.

“Enough, you fools!”

The blast wave also knocked the students back, the tornado dissipating and revealing the entity within, held aloft in another smaller, more intensely condensed magic tornado, eyes ablaze in blue flame and one hand outstretched, blasting the portal with cold fire as she hovered in front of it.

“Ms. Opaline!?” Misty gasped.

Opaline’s eyes turned on her, features twisted into a sneer. “Silly girl,” she growled, “I should have known better than to put three years of my work into your incompetent hands. When we spoke in the car this morning, I thought you might at least be useful for one simple thing. But you couldn’t even do that right. In the end, you weren’t even worth the ink I wasted on those letters.”

So it was you who wrote those letters. Sunset’s heart ached for Misty as she struggled to her feet and put herself between her student and her abuser, and several things clicked into place at once in her mind. “So that’s what it was,” she said with narrowed eyes, “telling Misty about the deal with the school board, playing favorites during the Games, setting Dapper against me to rile everyone up. You’ve been trying to goad them into using their magic all day so you could steal it!”

“Yesssss,” Opaline hissed, “I’ve been subsisting off this world’s pathetic magic for years!”

There was another question finally answered, the absence of magic in this world for the last three years, caused by not only an emotional leech but also a magical leech, a black hole of magic that was only now starting to be satiated enough to allow some of the natural magic of this world to reassert itself.

“Theirs is more potent, more delicious,” Opaline went on, “but even that pales in comparison to the real prize.” Her gaze went to the portal she was in the process of blasting. “I thought with Plan A foiled by your idealistic refusal to use your magic in the Friendship Games, all I had to do was wait for the moon rise, but I can feel someone opposing me on the other side.” Her eyes turned back to Sunset. “Your doing, I suppose.”

Sunset gave her a cheeky grin. “I may have called home in advance. You’re not the first nutjob to try and invade Equestria from this side of the portal. So good luck. Even if you blast your way through there, you’re gonna get your ass cosmically spanked by the Princess of Friendship and the Elements of Harmony. And if I know my obsessive-compulsive friend, she’s got the Pillars of Equestria and the Lord of Chaos waiting in the wings while the Crystal Heart is on loan and aimed straight at the mirror portal in case you so much as poke your ugly muzzle through.”

Opaline pulled back her hand, stopping the assault on the portal. “And yet you seem unwilling to open the floodgates and let real battle be joined, for fear of what I might do with access to that world’s magic, which leaves us at somewhat of an impasse, doesn’t it?”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Sunset said, “this world isn’t as defenseless as you think. This ends tonight!” Sunset put her hand into her jacket pocket … and found a big, fat hole and a fistful of air as her eyes went wide in a panic. The MCD! Where did it go? She began to look frantically around, trying to figure out where in the charge over here she’d lost it.

But hearing fighting words from her teacher, Sunny soared forward on golden wings, aiming at Opaline with another solar blast.

Unfortunately, unlike her summoned shadow creatures, Opaline was barely fazed as she waved her hand and swatted away Sunny’s magic like an annoying insect. “Foolish children!” Reaching forward with her hand, what could only be described as a black hole appeared across Sunny’s chest.

“Arghhhh!” The girl’s body seized up in mid-air with a scream of agony as she was held there for a moment, and the golden wings and horn began to flicker before disappearing entirely. The dark orb turned into a stream of shadows that was pulled back towards Opaline, and Sunny began to fall.

“”Sunny!”” Hitch and Pipp cried out in unison, running forward and throwing themselves on the ground where they barely managed to catch their friend/girlfriend.

Sunny groaned, her eyelids fluttering weakly, alive but seemingly entirely drained. The stream of shadows made its way to Opaline where it sank into her chest. “Ahhh,” she sighed, almost sensually, her eyes flashing brighter with the influx of more magic.

“You leave my friends alone!” Sprout roared and began charging in Opaline’s direction, straining against the magic pressure she was exerting through her still active tornado.

“Silence, fool,” Opaline said imperiously, waving her hand without even looking at him, and the same thing that happened to Sunny happened to him.

“Ugh!” He dropped down to his knees, clutching his chest as the black orb began to drain him of his magic and the pony ears atop his head suddenly winked out.

As Sunset was still frantically scanning the area for where she had dropped the MCD, Misty walked past her, but rather than attack, looked up at Opaline with a pleading expression. “Ms. Opaline! Why are you doing this? Please, I’m begging you, stop this! I know you’re not this person!”

Opaline’s eyes turned on her, and Sunset could see them zone in on something in particular, the friendship bracelet that used to belong to her mother. For a brief moment, the blazing inferno in her eyes abated and once again her head shook as if in conflict with herself. But then her eyes flashed once more and she roared. “Begone, fool! I don’t need you anymore! Nobody needs you!” She waved her right hand and a blast wave knocked Misty of her feet.

“Misty!” Sunset jumped and managed to catch Misty before she hit the ground, shielding her student with her body as her back slammed onto the ground.

Lying on top of Sunset, Misty lifted her head and looked at her with tears in her eyes. “I don’t understand. Ngh!” Then she suddenly grunted in pain, the pony ears vanishing from her head.

Opaline floated higher in the air, hands outstretched at both sides and breathing deeply. “I’ve waited 5,000 years for this,” she said with a sideways glance at the portal, “I can wait three more. With your magic, I can conquer this pathetic world. By the time the portal to Equestria opens again, I’ll have an army at my back.”

Sunset looked around, all her students were on the ground, those shadowy tendrils extending from Opaline sucking out their magic. She gritted her teeth, put Misty down as gently as she could given the circumstances and stood up, marching towards Opaline.

Noticing her approach, another black orb appeared over Sunset’s chest, ready to steal her magic as well, only she had none left, and so the dark spell dissipated without effect. Opaline clicked her tongue. “Tch, nothing left for me to take, I suppose. Only a magic has-been who can’t admit that her glory days are over. There’s no one left to oppose me.”

Mustering her best pokerface, Sunset stood tall in the magic hurricane and stared up at the ancient evil. “You’ll find that this world has plenty of champions ready to defend it. And if those aren’t enough, plenty of villains, too.” Slowly and deliberately, she pulled her cellphone out, pressed a speed dial button and said: “Sunset, unleash the magic!”

Opaline quirked an eyebrow at that before her attention was suddenly taken up by a song starting up over on the auditorium stage, three sensual and silky voices harmonizing with each other before the first lyrics were sung. “Welcome to the show~”

Even from over here, renewed screams of sudden fear from the students could be heard as the auditorium filled with a green smoke and Adagio Dazzle, Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk stepped out onto the stage, eyes gleaming red, fangs bared and the wings on their backs lifting them into the air as they sang their dreadful Siren harmony.

Before anybody could fully take that in, an explosion of glitter and confetti announced the arrival of the Rainbooms, being raised onto the stage from below, all the Rainbooms, Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie, glowing and fully ponied up.

Pinkie Pie raised her drumsticks into the air, beating them together before bringing them down to start playing the counter harmony alongside her friends in a recreation of the Battle of the Bands. Meanwhile, Sunset Shimmer stepped forward, making eye contact with Opaline as she threw off her leather jacket and began to sing. “You’re never gonna bring me down!”

And if the sight of a dead woman playing the drums and a doppelganger for a lead singer wasn’t enough, the Rainbooms were carried up into the air in their magic glow.

The students of Class 2-A gasped briefly, beginning to pant in relief as Opaline’s concentration on her draining spell lapsed, stunned at the sight.

Projections went up in the air above the auditorium, showing first the maliciously grinning faces of Juniper Montage and Vignette Valencia from a selfie perspective before they started to pan around with their phones from their position at the right side of the stage over to the left where more green smoke arose in front of a set of plants and vines that hadn’t been there before.

“Mother Nature is here to cause trouble!” Gloriosa Daisy, or rather Gaia Everfree, stepped out from the smoke with an intense look, seemingly ready to bring nature’s wrath to the fray. “And make it double!” Wallflower Blush appeared from behind her, looking like Gaia Everfree’s evil(er) twin sister, both seemingly fully transformed by the power of the glowing geode crystals divided up between them and hanging around their necks.

The cameras panned across the arrayed arcane might of Canterlot City until they landed on a close-up of Sunset Shimmer who, hitting a high note with a glint in her eye, was engulfed in fire and brimstone until she emerged from the bright flame in her demon form.

An evil laugh and a grin on her lips, she held out her arm and pointed at a suddenly shocked looking Twilight Sparkle who was swallowed up in shadows, until two dark wings broke the black smoke and Midnight Sparkle emerged on the scene. “Muwahahaha!!!”

As the two demon women cackled in her direction, Opaline was far from cowed at the display. She was positively buzzing. She looked back at Sunset staring defiantly at her from the ground, then back to the other Sunset on stage, and her lips curled into a grin. “Oh, very clever, Sunset Shimmer,” she said in that direction. “Using your students and some random human lookalike as bait while you bring out the big guns. I can almost respect it.”

You would, wouldn’t you?

“I knew you were hiding the rest of your magic from me!” Opaline screamed, ecstatic, as she surged in the direction of the auditorium, all else but the power in front of her forgotten. “And now I’ll have it ALL! All of this world’s pathetic magic gathered in one place. This is your last mistake, Sunset Shimmer!” Reaching out her hand as she arrived on the outer edge of the auditorium, the full force of the magic shadows began to coalesce around Demon Sunset.

Time stood still for a moment as she was entirely engulfed in a black hole that no light could pass through, and then the shadows became permeable again, revealing a grinning demon visage that wasn’t so much as fazed.

“WHAT!?”

“Sorry, no magic here, honey,” Demon Sunset declared, her voice suddenly taking on a showmanship quality in a completely different timbre as a pointy, blue hat studded with stars and moons appeared atop her head. She pulled it halfway over her eyes with one hand as she gave a grin and a wink. “For you see, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled off …”

A puff of smoke detonated, engulfing her and blowing away the ineffective magic shadows as a person could be seen doing a pirouette within until she spread her arms wide and dissipated the colorful smoke in a shower of sparkles to reveal a woman with silver hair in full magician getup, her star-studded cape fluttering out behind her. “… was to make you believe that she didn’t really exist!” Trixie Lulamoon took three steps forward in mid-air, towards the crowd rather than Opaline. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, teachers and students of all ages, WELCOME TO THE SHOW!”

She snapped her fingers, and the Faux Pinkie Pie floated in her direction, pulling a top hat out of nowhere and undergoing a similar transformation as Trixie just did in a sudden smoke bomb until Rufus, in a black tux and cape emerged, taking his cousin’s outstretched hand in his and announcing grandiosely: “The Great and Powerful Trixie presents …”

“… a co-production between Canterlot High’s alumni association and drama club …” She spun her cousin around and they pushed off each other as they both floated to opposite ends of the stage.

“… for the enjoyment of our classmates and that of our new friends from Crystal Prep …” Rufus held out one arm as he looked over the crowd and began to float back towards the center, as if gravity affected him only sideways.

Trixie did the same, and the two stage magicians came back together, clasping each other by the outstretched forearms, spun around each other in mid-air a couple of times and then stopped to spread their arms wide. ““THE FRIENDSHIP GAMES MAGICAL EXTRAVAGANZA!!!””

A fireworks display that felt as if the 4th of July had had a love child in a threesome with New Year’s Eve and Guy Fawkes Night suddenly went off behind the stage to punctuate their combined announcement, and the Rainbooms and Dazzlings took the cue to intensify their, suddenly very cordial sounding, duet. Students from both schools, stunned out of their near panic, began to whoop and cheer as everything that had come before was suddenly perceived as warm-up to the show.

“AAARRGGHHHH!!!” Above the cheers of the crowd, Opaline’s enraged scream was barely audible as she turned her attention to another target. She reached out her hand, and Rarity was suddenly engulfed in her shadows.

The fashionista hadn’t even stopped playing her keytar by the time she emerged unscathed from the darkness. But now she took one hand off the instrument, using it to pull the pony ear hairband off her head. She waved it around for a bit, giving Opaline a feisty look and finished off with a curtsy in mid-air.

Frantically, Opaline tried her luck on Gloriosa and Wallflower next, reaching out both hands at the same time, but it didn’t even get her the wait as a pneumatic piston raised the two Poison Ivy lookalikes onto a platform just off the stage, leaving the plant backdrop behind. Emerging out of the darkness, they took each other by the hand and started to play back-up dancer to the Rainbooms/Dazzlings comeback concert as Juniper and Vignette did the same on the opposite side.

When it came to Sonata’s turn to be swallowed by the shadows and emerge without so much as a cough, the Siren spat out her plastic fangs and stuck out her tongue with a mischievous twinkle behind her colored contact lenses before continuing to sing as if it was all part of the show.

Screaming in frustration, Opaline attempted to steal the magic from almost every magic wielder this world had known in the last decade one by one, but all of it was for naught. “What is this!?” Her eyes darted around as she began to piece together the magnitude of the ruse she had fallen for. “Costumes? Fog machines? Wires? Stage trickery! It’s all smoke and mirrors! None of you have any real magic!”

“Oh, we got plenty of magic,” Trixie replied haughtily as she swooped back and forth above the heads of the crowd on a barely visible steel cable. “CHS special edition! TRIXIE EX MACHINA! You might be 5,000 years old or whatever, but you don’t even make the Top 5 of theatrical magic bullshit this school has seen in the last ten years!”

“Fools! Charlatans!” Opaline growled. “You’re not going to stop me with childish illusions!”

“Oh, we’re not here to stop you,” Trixie explained, the stage smile never leaving her face as her arc brought her within arm’s length of the ancient, evil spirit. At the apex of her arc, she pulled a colorful handkerchief out of her cleavage and held it up so Opaline, and only Opaline, could read the embroidered message on it: We’re the distraction, bitch! Trixie then made the cloth disappear into thin air, flipped Opaline the double bird and swooped away with a shit-eating grin on her face.

Opaline gasped when the real Sunset suddenly shouted behind her: “Keep going, Sprout! We’re almost there!” She whirled around with a horrified expression.

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

Sprout took another step, and another, with his arms crossed in front of his chest, newfound earth pony muscles bulging under his letter jacket that was being torn to shreds in the magic maelstrom Opaline was exerting, and yet he advanced like a force of nature the likes of which neither this world nor Equestria had seen since the days of Rockhoof.

And like the Pillars of Old, his friends stood behind him to catch him if he should stumble in a V-formation, Zipp and Pipp at his shoulders with their arms outstretched as they pushed back against Opaline’s massive power with their pegasus magic, Misty and Izzy arrayed at their shoulders in turn, projecting their shields to keep the group from getting enveloped, and bringing up the rear Sunny and Hitch whose powers caused the plants and the very earth itself behind them to keep pushing the group forward, all fully ponied up with eyes aglow as Opaline had let up on the enemy in front of her with her eyes on a more enticing meal, a grim determination etched on their young faces.

And in the midst of that wedge, that magic juggernaut of seven connected souls Harmony had chosen as her new champions in this world, stood Sunset Shimmer, taking cover behind Sprout’s back, a simple history teacher with no magic of her own left to call upon, except the Magic of Friendship that connected her with old friends and enemies alike, and they’d all come together to heed her call and give her students the opening they needed.

Screeching like a banshee, Opaline turned the full force of her attack back on them, that icy chill of magic wind. Sprout locked his joints in place and held his arms in front of his face as his friends spread the force of the attack between them and held him in place. “Ms. Sunset! I don’t think I can push any further!” He shouted to be heard over the rushing magic wind.

“That’s good enough! I can get it from here!” Throwing herself on the ground between his legs, Sunset reached forward and retrieved the MCD lying in the grass at his feet, having been lost there during a scuffle earlier in the fight. Pull the pin, turn clockwise, push the button! “Everybody, hit the deck!” Sunset screamed as she lobbed the instrument in Opaline’s direction like a grenade with all her might.

The MCD went sailing through the air as the students threw themselves on the ground, obeying Sunset’s command without question, and it landed just below Opaline who looked at the item in bewilderment until she put two and two together. “NO!”

After the longest three seconds of Sunset’s life, the device snapped open with a flash of light and enveloped Opaline’s form in a swirling vortex of purple magic that ran exactly counter to Opaline’s blue magic.

“Argh! No! What is this? I destroyed it! You couldn’t have …” With panic in her eyes, she struggled against the pull, redoubling her efforts to combat its magic with hers, but that gut reaction also caused the MCD’s magic to flash and intensify, that wicked feature which meant a more powerful pull towards the prison the more powerful the intended inmate was. Realizing she was about to fight the same losing battle she’d fought five millennia ago, her eyes darted around the students until they landed on Misty and grew intense. “I won’t go back! I’ll just have to start over again!” With that, she reached out her hand in Misty’s direction, apparently ready to cast yet another spell.

Seeing that, Sunset struggled to her feet and towards her student who suddenly seemed frozen in fear at having the villain’s full attention. “No!” She threw herself upon Misty, intent on taking the blow, whatever it was, in her place.

But that blow never came. “Argh!” Instead a scream filled with pain from Opaline herself filled the air, and Sunset lifted her head to look.

Opaline’s left hand had slammed into her right forearm with enough force for the nails to break the skin and draw blood. While the right half of her face was filled with pain, the left half was contorted into a snarl of unholy anger directed at … herself? “NO … YOU … WON’T!!!” An altogether new voice spoke from Opaline’s lips, a voice seemingly ready to take on the gods themselves in a bare-fisted, knuckle-dragging fight to the bitter end as that brown eye flashed with righteous fury. Brown?

“Ms. Sunset, look!”

Misty’s shout caused Sunset to look back at her and, realizing that Misty had spotted something, follow her eyeline. That’s when she saw it, too. Opaline’s immaculate curls had come loose in the battering of competing magic forces, revealing a birthmark on the right side of her throat. She looked back at Misty who was simply staring at the woman in the maelstrom. “Misty, stay here!”

“What are you doing, Ms. Sunset!?” Misty screamed.

“I’m gonna go get her for you,” Sunset said simply, with a smile that was much more confident than she was feeling, having drawn the same conclusion that Misty seemed to have arrived at. Then she turned and jumped into the vortex with a running leap that came to a halt when she grabbed Opaline around the waist. “It doesn’t have to end this way! Come with me!” She screamed, now caught in the pull of the MCD with her.

“Fool! Let go of me! I won’t stoop to accepting help from you!” Drawing her right arm back, she punched Sunset in the temple hard enough to make her head ring. No magic, just a fist and hatred.

But Sunset refused to let go as she locked onto those blue eyes. “I’m not talking to you, bitch!”

Opaline gasped, and both her eyes turned brown for a split second.

“Bright Hope! I know you’re in there! If there was ever a time to fight, it’s right now! Fight her! Misty is waiting for you!”

Opaline growled, her head jerking this way and that in such a way that would have made the director of The Exorcist go queasy, her eye color changing back and forth between blue and brown. Finally, her arm reared back once more in what appeared more like a claw than a human hand, and Sunset braced herself for the incoming blow. She would hold on, no matter what.

The open palm connected with Sunset’s forehead, and she reeled, though not from the force of the impact but what it did to her. Sunset’s eyes flashed a brilliant white, and then the world suddenly went dark around her.

Author's Note

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

Gold Tier:
-Daedalus Aegle

Silver Tier:
-Brandon Caldwell