It was cold.

It shouldn’t have been cold. It was spring, there were only two months left in the school year, the sun was still up, and any thermometer would have told Twilight it was warm out. Yet she could only feel a chill.

The encounter flashed over and over again in her mind.

“You're supposed to be so smart, but did you ever think that you shouldn't be messing around with things you don't understand?!”

Slumped against the wall on the far side of Canterlot High, Twilight held the magic detector – magic drainer, in practice – in her hand. Still around her neck. Light still blinking. It hung on her like a chain.

“And worst of all, you put the lives of my friends in danger!”

Her breath hitched. She didn’t understand. That girl (Sunset?) was right. She didn’t know what she was dealing with at all. She hadn’t tried.

This should have been careful. This should have been considered. That device – that thing – was supposed to be for research. For science. And here she was, draining the very thing she’d meant to study. Stealing it from the world around her. Even leeching it from people.

Exhaling, Twilight deduced the obvious conclusion. She should have been learning from those girls. She should be talking to them, interviewing them, collaborating with them. A gateway to another world of learning, and she’d squandered it.

All because she couldn’t stop thinking about the Games.

The rotten, accursed Friendship Games.

Because for all her grades, all her academic awards, all her independent study, Twilight Sparkle knew that deep down, she was stupid.

Too stupid to escape. Too stupid to find a way out. Too stupid to not get trapped like a rat.

What was potentially the most dangerous power on the planet was right there, right in front of her, and all Twilight could think about was how to secure her Everton admission. To get out from Crystal Prep. To get away from Cinch.

She grit her teeth, anger and loathing boiling within her. She grabbed the device, yanking the strap over her head and holding it in front of her face. Its light continued to swirl in silent mocking. With a scream, she hurled it with all the energy her fury could muster.

It landed barely over a meter from her, in the grass. The blinking light remained visible.

And there Twilight once again felt her impotence, her uselessness. Thinking she could just toss the problem away, escape it. There it sat, all the power she’d thoughtlessly collected, waiting for someone to take responsibility over it. To do something.

What was happening to her?

She was used to hiding. Shying away. Trying to stay under the radar so her classmates forgot to sneer and laugh behind her back. But the lab was supposed to be different. The lab was where she could be in charge, where she could have control. And failures were an inevitable part of the scientific process, certainly, but in the lab, you owned up to them, improved on them.

Right now, Twilight didn’t feel like she could own up to anything.

But as the crushing words of Sunset bore down on her mind, as the vivid images of those girls being drained of power flashed through her head, she knew she couldn’t just do nothing.

What would Shiny do?

Twilight inhaled, slowly, and exhaled equally slowly. She did it again. Gradually, she stood, and took a step forward.

She could stop this. She could take back control. She could stop the cycle of deflecting and hiding. She could make things right.

All she had to do was–

“Twilight Sparkle?”

And then her blood turned to ice as she stopped in place, her head turning toward the all-too-horribly-familiar voice that had just come from around the corner, its steely monotone and refined accent derailing any resolve Twilight had felt in that moment.

Cinch.

“I thought I might find you here. None of your classmates have seen you since the Tri-Cross Relay. Why is that, I wonder?”

“Um…”

The principal did not wait for a response. Instead, she stepped past Twilight, toward the detector. Twilight’s breaths grew ragged as Cinch reached down to grab it.

“DON’T!”

Unfazed by the shout, Cinch picked it up by the strap, leaving it dangling from her hand as she turned to face Twilight directly. “Oh, you need not worry, dear. I merely saw that you’d… dropped this.”

She walked toward Twilight, holding out her arm. Twilight took the strap from her, but did not put it back on her neck.

A smirk crossed Cinch’s face. “There, now. I wouldn’t want you to lose something so important.”

Twilight couldn’t bear to look at her smile. She turned away, and mumbled “It’s not important.”

Unfortunately for her, Cinch heard that. “Oh, isn’t it? Surely, you wouldn’t have been carrying it around your neck the whole tournament if it was merely aesthetic. It certainly isn’t Crystal Prep regulation uniform, after all.”

Instinctively, Twilight shook her head. She clenched her fists as she realized her mistake, nails digging into her skin. The chill felt so much stronger now.

She glanced back, and found the principal's smile now had teeth.

All it once, it became clear that Cinch knew. She must have. At the very least, she’d seen something that had happened. Something that linked all the strange occurrences back to her.

For a brief moment, she wondered if Cinch had found Spike. Twilight had managed to evade him after the Relay, hide once again as he ran off trying to find her. (While speaking out loud. Because of her. Because she was stupid.)

That seemed unlikely, however. If Cinch had hard evidence to throw in her face, she wouldn’t play coy about it. Not when they were alone.

Instead, as was so often the case with the principal, it came down to brute authority.

“Twilight Sparkle, before you agreed to join the Games, we made an agreement, did we not?”

Twilight was silent. Her smile dissipating, Cinch leaned forward. Twilight retracted the arm she held the device, backing up to the wall once more. Personal space had never been an idea Cinch subscribed to.

“Did we not?” she repeated.

“W-we did.”

“I’m glad you recall. And you’ll also recall that should you fail to complete your participation – or fail to win – I simply will not be able to endorse your application to Everton, correct?”

“B-buh-”

Cinch’s stare was boring into her, and her icy words struck true. “But what?”

Twilight gulped, whatever sentence had been intended falling away into oblivion. In its place, Twilight found there was only one word she could speak. “Correct.”

The smile returned, worse than ever. “Good. It’s important we stay on the same page, after all.”

The eye contact was unbearable, and Twilight broke it with haste, fast enough that it shook her glasses. “Of course, P-Principal Cinch,” she said as she adjusted them back with her free hand.

Cinch nodded, triumph evident in her voice as she stepped back. “Now, won’t you come along? Preparations for the third event will be complete within the hour, and we wouldn’t want our opponents to get any more strategic advantages, would we?”

Twilight looked back at her. She was holding out her hand, not for Twilight to take, but to give a gesture to beckon her compliance.

Everything from minutes earlier flashed through her mind. Her disgust, her regret, her revulsion over what she’d so passively become. Her hopes of making things right. Her brother.

She wanted to think Shiny could’ve said no. She wanted to think Shiny could’ve stopped this.

But a cold thought ran through her mind. Shining Armor played in the Games. Shining Armor won. Shining Armor graduated.

Shiny had been strong enough for Crystal Prep. To handle Cinch's domination, to thrive in her domain. Twilight only wanted to weasel her way out. As always.

Because she was too stupid to do anything else.

Thus, without a word, Twilight took a tentative step forward.

“Very good.”

Cinch held her position until Twilight was right beside her, then pointed to the device once again.

“Won’t you put that on, Twilight? I wouldn’t want you to risk dropping it again.”

Twilight lifted her arm up again, staring into the device. And in its swirl she no longer saw the pain it had caused. The fear it had made her feel. The desire to destroy it.

She could only see her one way out. The one way she could hope for to flee Crystal Prep for good.

Cinch’s way.

In the end, nothing else mattered. She put it on.
-------
Before them, the sun landed in the west and began to settle below the horizon. A small gust of wind brought a chill to the air as Cinch led the way to the courtyard, where the third event of the Friendship Games would be held.

And Twilight Sparkle followed, walking toward her doom.