Chapter 8

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I walk down the street, not really looking at anything in particular, crossing the road and rounding a corner on the footpath.

It’s spring now.

After the winter holidays Sunset and her counterpart have made an arrangement.

The Sunset I know is staying in the human would as the resident Sunset, while the younger one is staying in Equestria as its resident Sunset, currently living with the pony Stellar Flare in Sire’s Hollow, with it agreed the families will take turns visiting each other, alternating between Equestria and the human world.

Essentially, Sunset’s family simply doubled in size, with each side seeing the other as direct family in a sense.

I spent the rest of winter in Equestria, partly to make sure Sunset’s younger self was settling in alright, but also due to slight nerves.

I’m aware the Friendship Games are coming up, meaning the timeline in Equestria is getting dangerously close to the season five finale’s time.

With Starlight already no longer a villain, however, that left what would actually happen up in the air.

Thankfully, through quiet observation, aided by Wallflower and her Quirk, I was able to confirm Starlight has no clue about Star Swirl’s time travel spell, so won’t be doing anything too risky.

I wasn’t worried she’d repeat the events of the finale, obviously, but, knowing Starlight and how hard she’d taken it upon realizing how flawed her mindset had been back in her town, the idea she might try to go back in time to stop herself was also a concern.

Granted, I’m not entirely sure what the damage to the timeline would be if she did that, as Starlight deciding to make her town was not a focal point in Equestria’s history like the Rainboom connecting Twilight and the others, but I still preferred not finding out what such an alteration to the timeline could cause.

As a certain professor once said, time travel is for immortals and fools.

Still, since it seemed Starlight was not about to cause the space time continuum to start joking on its own blood in a foolish attempt to fix the mistakes of her literal past, I felt confident that I could leave Equestria alone for at least a few days without risk of events getting as bad as season five’s finale’s.

“Hey! Stop!” a familiar yet unexpected voice cries out.

Focusing ahead, I see a guy with blue skin and grey hair, wearing a leather jacket and jeans running towards me, seeming to be holding something under his arm as if trying to keep it hidden.

Glancing behind him, I immediately recognize the lavender girl and, as the guy is getting closer, put to and two together.

I act like I’m stepping aside to simply let him pass, but stick my leg out at the last minute.

He trips, falling flat on his face, skidding along the pavement, what he’d been holding going flying through the air, revealing a familiar looking backpack.

Charging up 1%, I leap into the air, catching the backpack and landing firmly on the ground, raising a foot and stomping it down in time to catch the guy, stopping his skidding and pinning him down.

“Spike!” Sci-Twi yells, hurrying over.

It’s only now I realize the bag is move and unzip it to reveal the green and purple pup.

He licks my cheek happily, before I hand him to the girl as she stops in front of me.

“Thank you,” she says, taking the bag and cuddling Spike close to her.

“No problem,” I say, before pressing my foot down a little harder on the guy. “Stealing a girl’s backpack? Seriously, dude? That’s beyond pathetic. Got a phone?”

It takes a second for Sci-Twi to realize I’m addressing her now.

“Oh, the police. Right,” she says, fumbling with her bag and getting her phone out and putting it to her ear. “Shining? Yeah, hi. Um… don’t react badly but, someone just tried to rob me.”

A loud unintelligible yelling came from the phone, which she quickly moves away from her ear.

“I’m alright, BBBFF, really,” she says once the yelling has stopped. “Someone else was nearby and stopped him. She’s holding him down. Okay.” She hangs up and looks to me. “My older brother’s an officer in the local police. He’ll be here shortly.”

“That’s good,” I say jovially, dropping down and sitting on the guy under my foot, causing him to give a loud grunt. “Happy to help out, though standing on this guy all day certainly wasn’t how I planned on spending my day.”

Sci-Twi gives a light giggle, while Spike pants.

I hold out my hand. “Name’s— Valley,” I catch myself. “Green Valley.”

“T-Twilight Sparkle,” she responds shyly, returning the handshake a little uncertainly.

“Pleasure to meet you, Twilight Sparkle.”

It only take ten minutes before a cop car shows up and Shining and some guy I don’t recognize with grey skin arrest the guy, putting him in the back of the car.

“You’re the girl who helped my little sister?” Shining asks once the guy’s in the car. He holds out a hand and I shake it. “Thanks a lot.”

I shrug. “Any good person would do the same, sir.”

He nods, before getting in his car and drives off.

“So,” I turn to the lavender girl, “any plans for the day after this?”

“Oh, well,” she fiddles with her glasses, trying to close her bag and I notice several electronic parts in there… that seem familiar. “I was just doing some shopping for some parts to an experiment. Nothing really important.”

I’m inwardly smirking, but outwardly give a kind smile. “Okay. You ever wanna hang out, you can find me near CHS.”

Mentioning the school causes her eyes to widen. “You’re a student at CHS?”

I shrug. “Kinda. My situation is little different from your average student. Anyway, see you around, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Oh, um, okay,” she says, waving to me. “See you around… um, Valley, was it?”

I laugh, nodding and wave as I head down the street.

Turning away, I grin. I know exactly what those parts in her bag were for. She’s going to be building both the scanner Sunset sees her with, possibly this afternoon even, then the device she used to absorb magic unintentionally.

I pause, before frowning. That reminds me…

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When Sci-Twi’s pendant opens the portals at the end of round two, we act quickly.

Derpy fires a mass of bubbles that form into a wall, surrounding the stands full of students, just as the plants lunge. When they make contact they scream and shrivel up, her having made the bubbles full of weed killer, apparently.

I charge up to 20% and, grabbing Silver’s hand after she absorbed the metal of the stands, shoot forward, Silver turning her arm into a blade and slicing through the head of a plant that was aiming for Sugarcoat, while Dash follows after Sunset, before moving to save Indigo Zap, myself hitting the plant’s the head with a Maneberra Smash, causing it to pop like a zit.

It had taken a few minutes, but the plants eventually went back through the portals as they close, indicating Sci-Twi closed her pendant.

Not waiting, Silver, Diamond and I hurry over to her.

“Valley?” the nerdy girl asks, surprised. “What was all that?”

“Just a sec,” I say, grabbing the pendant and tossing it to Silver. “Absorb Diamond and seal it.”

Diamond goes Diamond and Silver absorbs it, before moving all the diamond on her body over the pendant, sealing it tightly.

“I… but… huh?” is all the lavender girl can respond with.

The Wonderbolts are declared the winners, with Dean Cadance then calling everyone to the gym, Derpy’s bubble wall popping to let everyone go.

“Is everybody alright?” Applejack asks as the rest of the group comes over, before noticing me. “Deku? What’s going on?”

“Deku?” Sci-Twi looks to me in confusion. “I thought your name was Valley.”

“Well, Deku’s kind of a nickname. We can explain later, if you’d like.”

She gives me an odd look, but nods.

Sunset steps forward, glancing at me, before to Sci-Twi. “Twilight, do you have any idea how we can remove my friends’ magic from your pendant and give it back to them?”

I’d informed the girls what was going on before.

Silver holds out the now diamond covered pendant.

She blinks, before looking down, ashamed. “No. I… I’m sorry. I had no idea that energy was magic, that my device would absorb it… or how it all works together.”

Dash puts an arm around her shoulder. “That’s okay. Neither do we.”

She looks from Dash to the rest of us. “Why aren’t you all angry at me? I took something from you without asking, even after Valley or Deku, or whatever she wants to be called helped me two days ago. Even if I didn’t mean to, I still did wrong by all of you… but you’ve all been nice to me.”

“That’s because, here at CHS, we like being nice to others,” Dash thumps her on the shoulder.

“I… I don’t fully understand…” Sci-Twi says, before looking firmly at us. “But I wanna understand!”

Sunset smiles, holding out a hand. “Leave out all the magic stealing, and we’d be happy to help you.”

Sci-Twi looks to it, before giving a small smile and takes it, nodding as I give the girl a shoulder hug.

“What are you doing, Twilight?”

At once, the girl goes ridged and we all turn to see Cinch walking towards us, a very displeased look on her face.

I step in front of the scared girl, arms folded, Diamond, Silver, Derpy and Wallflower forming a wall around her. “She’s talking with her friends. What’s it matter to you, lady?”

At once, Cinch freezes in place, before her mouth pulls back in anger. “What was that, you little urchin?”

I smirk. “What, are you deaf, as well as stupid?”

I hear Dash, AJ, Diamond, Silver and Sunset have to try holding back snickers from behind me as Cinch’s eye twitches.

“My students are of no concern to you!” she says firmly, trying to step forward, only for Diamond and Silver to make it perfectly clear they won’t let her pass.

“And who Twilight becomes friends with is none of yours, either!” Wallflower says with a strong tone.

Cinch looks like she’s about to pop a blood vessel.

A clearing of a throat causes all of us to look and see Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna and Dean Cadance coming over, their eyebrows raised.

Cinch seems to put our insults aside, before pointing at Dash and myself. “You can’t possibly call that a fair race.”

Principal Celestia just gives Cinch a “really, bitch?” look. “Principal Cinch, we all saw what happened. You can’t think CHS had some kind of advantage.”

Cinch looks offended. “Can’t I? Even without your trained attack plants, your students have wings and can do… whatever it is those ones did,” she indicates to myself, Diamond, Silver and Derpy.

“What we did was save your students!” I cut in glaring. “In case you missed it, when Rainbow sprouted her wings, she stopped being in the race. Sunset is the one who crossed the finish line, not Dash. Why? Because she, I and the others were saving your students’ asses! Hell, it was one of your students who, admittedly accidentally, unleashed those plants on the field, not ours! If anyone had the unfair advantage, it was your school, Cinch!”

“Well, the race certainly had some... extenuating circumstances,” Celestia puts a hand on my shoulder, getting me to stop, clearly wanting to keep things from escalating. “Perhaps we should end the games now and declare a tie.”

Cinch scoffs. “A tie? Was this your strategy all along? To force us into accepting you as equals? I think not. The games will continue and Crystal Prep will prevail despite your antics and whatever performance-enhancing regimen your students are on.”

She looks like she’s about to demand Sci-Twi go with her, but a glare from all of us and my team forming a tighter circle around her, seems to make her think otherwise and she walks off.

Sunset sighs. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop all this from happening.”

Principal Celestia shakes her head, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Sunset.”

Sunset pulls away. “Isn’t it? I should know how to control the magic I brought here. But I don’t. I let everyone down. And now Principal Cinch thinks we’re cheating.”

Principal Celestia’s expression becomes stern. “It doesn’t matter what Principal Cinch thinks.”

Sunset shakes her head. “But it does. The students here at CHS don’t just wanna win. They wanna beat Crystal Prep. It isn’t gonna count if the other side doesn’t really think they lost. Crystal Prep is never gonna believe we won fair and square if there’s magic around. And that magic is only around... because of me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Sunset,” I say firmly, turning to her. “Magic is has always been around because of the portal. All you did was help it manifest, which is not a bad thing.”

“I wish I didn’t have to keep competing against you all in the next round,” Sci-Twi looks to us all. “I never really wanted to be in these games and now I want to even less. I just want them to end.”

We all nod.

“Things should be fine, Twi,” I say, indicating to the diamond covered device. “Magic won’t be interfering next round at all, not since Cinch can’t force you to use the magic you already accidentally stole, while having no idea how to use it or what it would do. After all, even if she got her hands on your device, she can’t break through solid diamond, can she?”

“Would she seriously do that?” Rarity asks, aghast.

“It sure sounds like something she’d do,” Sci-Twi says sadly, before smiling and coming out from my team, hugging me. “Guess I really owe you more thanks than I thought... um, do you want me to call you Valley or Deku?”

“I’ll explain later.” I look to the others. “Til then, we’ve a few hours before the final round. How about we hang with Twilight for a bit. Let her get to know us and us her more.”

She gives me a look, before a small smile comes to her face. “I’d like that a lot.” She then looks around at the others nervously. “If… if you’re all okay with it, that is?”

They all smile, Sunset putting a hand on her shoulder. “Sure, Twi.”

We all head off, myself patting myself on the back for averting so much disaster. Should be smooth sailing til the end of the games now.

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From across the street, a pair of eyes watched the girls, wide at the sight they’d just seen.

“I found them at last,” a voice murmured, filled with worried anger. “But, it looks like several of the Quirks got out. Damnit. The boss is gonna hate this. Maybe I can at least get the rest back, though.”

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“You sure Diamond, Silver and Derpy are good on their own?” Wallflower asks as we sneak around the Crystal Prep building’s exterior.

After spending an hour with Sci-Twi and the girls, I realized we needed to head for the Princess of Friendship’s counterpart’s school to retrieve something we placed there the day Crystal Prep went to CHS for the start of the games.

I intend to give Sci-Twi the chance she needs to get out from under Cinch’s thumb without the former needing to become Midnight Sparkle to do it.

We’re wearing our Hero Costumes. If we get caught, I intend to lie and say we’re part of the drama club.

I nod. “Twilight’s device is encased in solid diamond. It would take a while for even Diamond herself to crack it open. We need to… hold up!”

I hold a hand up quickly, making Wallflower pause.

As we rounded the corner, I spotted someone doing what we’re doing, sneaking around, acting like they don’t want to be seen.

Glancing back around the corner, I blink in surprise, realizing it’s the same guy who tried to steal Sci-Twi’s bag several days ago.

I snort. “Guess prison cells aren’t all that good in this town.”

The guy’s moving in our direction, but clearly only because it’s the way to the nearest door.

I’m wondering what he’s doing as he moves towards a clearly locked door, when, to my alarm, the MMPA activates, Present Mic’s head appearing around the corner as a beam scans the guy.

“New Quirk user detected,” Present Mic’s voice says. “Name: Lockpick. Villain Name: Lockpick. Quirk: Master Key Finger. He can turn his right index finger into any type of key. It’s only that one finger, however and he can only match the shape of the lock after the fact, not before.”

The guy named Lockpick stares at Present Mic’s holographic head, before it vanishes. Sadly, seeing the head’s light goes back towards me, it alerts him of our location.

He blinks for a moment, before his eyes widen in recognition and anger.

“You!” he snarls, charging forward, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a knife. “You’re the little bitch who got me arrested before.”

I indicate Wallflower to go invisible before he can see her and stand my ground.

“Dude, picking a fight with me won’t end well.”

“Like hell it won’t!” he yells, lunging at me, swinging the knife. “You got the drop of me last time, girly. You won’t be so lucky this—”

“Mareberra… Smash,” I say lazily, flicking, being sure to keep my power at 0.5%.

Lockpick gets caught off guard and sent flying backward, his knife being tossed out of his hand.

He thumps to the ground and I turn to where Wallflower was, about to tell her it’s fine, when Lockpick lets out a loud, pain filled scream.

Looking back, he’s holding his hand, blood seeping through his fingers.

I scan the ground and feel myself want to throw up a little. By sheer dumb luck, when he landed, his knife had come down and cut off one of his fingers, his right index finger, to be exact.

I tell Wallflower not to look and to head inside to retrieve what we came for, while I’ll take him to a hospital and call the authorities.

Wallflower does as instructed, then I walk over and pick up Lockpick, punching him in the gut to knock him out cold and sling him over my shoulder.

I want to ask him where he got his Quirk, but I need to get him to a hospital and patched up before he bleeds to death.

I move to grab his finger, when a barking causes me to glance to my right.

A wild dog, a Jack Russell Terrier, I realize, is running towards me.

At first, I don’t know why, before it grabs Lockpick’s severed finger and runs off with it.

“Hey, wait—” I start, before stopping and sigh.

Well, it’s not how I’d have like it to happen, but at least Lockpick’s Quirk won’t be a problem now.

It was centred on that finger. With it gone, he may as well be Quirkless, since he can’t even use his Quirk now.

Shaking my head, knowing, even if I try running after the Terrier, it’s probably already swallowed the finger, so would be pointless and just head for the hospital instead, using my Quirk to get there quickly, remembering to put my mask on before actually arriving.

I hand Lockpick to the doctors and nurses, as well as inform them to call the cops, since he’d been attempting a breaking and entering and attempted assault/attempted murder on two minors.

Wallflower calls me as I’m leaving the hospital, informing me she got what we went to Crystal Prep for and that she was on her way back to the school.

I thank her and tell her I’m on my way too, but that we shouldn’t have to worry.

With the magic sealed in diamond, what’s the worst that could’ve happened while we were gone?

Author's Note

Well, i dunno if this is all that good, but it's definetely better than what i wrote yesterday.

See, i originally tried writing this chapter yesterday but i tried including more of Friendship Games, trying to fit Deku and her team throughout the majority of the movie's events leading up to the end of the second round, using two other fics of mine for ideas of how to work them... before i realized, i'd essentially just quoted everything from those two fics and the movie, with nothing else.

SO, i scrapped it and worked with the original start of the chapter and this is the result, but... I dunno. is it still good, or a flop?

I didn't want to just go straight from the second round to third, which is why Wallflower and Deku went to Crystal Prep before the third round begins.

Hope it's good enough, since it was the only way i could feel i could logically work towards what comes next without just jumping the gun and thus making most of Legend of Everfree feel moot.

So, what exactly were Wallflower and Deku at Crystal Prep for? And another villain? Well, at least he was minor enough that he wouldn't have been too much of a problem and has already been dealt with.

still, who gave him his quirk? And who was that monitoring the girls at the end of the second round and what are they planning?

And has Deku pretty much guaranteed shit is about to hit the fan?

you'll find out next week.

as for the future of this fic, i intend to do a few more chapters before leaving this one on the backburner for a while. I REALLY wanna get back to my WITCH fic.

anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter, since it's WAY better than the original draft, so i hope it didn't suck as bad as that one would've and, til next time, stay safe, stay clean and see you later everybody