[Nightmare Night] What do we do?

[Lyra Heartstrings]

Lyra Heartstrings had shown up for Nightmare Night in a costume she had worn before. She was dressed as a Leanan Sidhe, a fairy woman who was the Celtic version of a muse, but with a twisted twist to it. The Leanan Sidhe would offer inspiration and creativity to artists she took interest in, and in return lived off of their life force as she fed them idea after idea. Gaelic artists often die young and are frequently prone to madness because of her presence. The candle that burns twice as bright lasts half as long.

The musician wore a green and white dress with cold accents that hugged her torso, but had a very flow-y skirt, long flowing sleeves, and an attached hood. A leather satchel was at her hip with it's ornately braided strap going up to her opposite shoulder. Going across her other shoulder and around her body was a thin cord of braided leather with some bead work. This cord attached to the arms on the lyre across her back. Octavia had helped her make it during their freshman year together. Lastly she had on a pair of pointy prosthetic ears and makeup. Yeah, many students would probably call her some sort of elf princess, but being something that could suck the life and sanity out of someone was way more appropriate for the season.

Then Discord happened.

When the chaos being made his appearance it caught Lyra off guard, and she had panicked like most of the student body. It was a reasonable response, all things considered. Yeah she now had magical girl powers, but he had the element of surprise, and was bringing monsters to life by the time she thought to do anything. She had ran from the gym, slowing only to try and make sure no one got knocked over, trampled, or otherwise hurt. The monsters were out to scare people, they probably wouldn't be overly attacking anyone right? She hopes do at least.

As soon as she could see the outside through some doors and students were making it out there safely she broke away from the group and made her way to the Library. It was the place Sunset had told her the girls would meet up at if things went bad in the school. There usually wasn't a bunch of people in it, which gave the place some privacy, and the doors weren't locked as often as other classrooms so it'd be easy to get in. Now if only there was some British librarian here that had an understanding of magic and the occult to help them out...

Lyra stared at one of the doors to the Library to see who would show up first. She didn't know what all the girls were wearing, or if the harmonizers were protecting them somehow. She reached a hand up to her ear and felt it all the way to its new pointy tip. Nope, no protection. Hopefully the other girls weren't all dressed as monsters and were immediately turned like some of the other students.

[swiftwind]

Swift had been in the library reading up on History. It was boring and probably not what it had been intended for her to do when she was told to go to the Halloween party at the school but she was too old for trick or treating and she barely got enough peace to study at the orphanage.

As it was she had rushed together an outfit for the party consisting of a all-black ensemble with black leather jacket, pale face paint, heavy black make-up around the eyes, and a short black wig which, according to one of her keepers, made her apparently look like a heroine from some movie she hadn't seen. For something which had been put together so quickly she kind of liked it. She mostly wore black anyway so, if anything, she only looked more goth than normal. Almost as soon as she had arrived at the school she had sneaked to the library to try and study in peace.

Her peace was shattered by whatever the heck Discord was appearing in the library and mentioning about spiking the punch with something. After face-palming because she had taken a sip of the punch before coming to the library Swift had looked down. She looked like she had before she left but the face paint which had gone as far as the neck-line on her outfit now seemed to go a lot further down and her wig seemed to now be her hair. At least the thought occured to her that she hadn't gotten a sheet and cut eye-holes in it to go as a ghost. That would have been really unfortunate. Students being turned into monsters and the like was bad but being dead was a worse idea altogether.

Whilst trying to work out how she was going to explain to her keepers at the orphanage what had happened, Swift decided to just try and keep reading. She hadn't seen anyone in the library all night so she guessed she'd be safe there.

That idea was blown out of the water when someone came into the library. She vaguely recognised her from around school but couldn't put a name to the face as she ducked under the desk she was sitting at. It would probably be about right for her luck if she wound up being killed by someone who looked like a Lord of the Rings reject. She looked over the desk as she tried to work out why a elf would have a guitar on her back then smiled. "I'm guessing that freaky whatever it was wasn't some sort of hallucination because of spiked punch then?".

[Sunset Shimmer]

For her first few years in the human world, Sunset hadn’t been that big of a fan of the school’s “Nightmare Night” celebrations. Reminded her too much of Equestria, and it didn’t even the cool “evil being trapped in a moon will eat you” part. Everything about it seemed so silly to her when she had much bigger plans to look forward too. Now that those had fallen apart, however, she had to admit this time of year had a nostalgic feel to it. To commemorate that, she had decided to “pony up” a little for the celebration. It was just basically her Element of Magic form, with some fake hair for the tail, some pony ears, a cone to serve as a unicorn ‘horn’, and a dress that matched what would have been her coat color. She had even gotten a patch made of her “cutie mark” to add to it. A little silly, perhaps, but at least for one night she could just play around a bit, for old time’s sake.

What she didn’t expect that to mean was her galloping on four hooves towards the library because Discord decided to use tonight to have some fun. In retrospect it seemed pretty obvious he’d pull something on a night dedicated to scares and frights just for the fun of it. That didn’t make it any less surprising when he had showed up with his little announcement, and definitely didn’t make the sudden transformation into a pony any easier. At least running like this had been like riding a bike; you still sort of remembered how to do it no matter how long it had been since the last time you did it.

With the school fully in chaos, Sunset had made her way towards the library. It was generally quiet enough that her and the other Elements thought it a good place to meet if things got chaotic at school. Apparently that had been good forethought on their part, and Sunset was relieved to see that Lyra had already gotten there.

”Oh thank goodness you’re alright,” Sunset said as she slowed down into a trot before stopping, a slight glance at Lyra’s ears informing her the girl had been hit too,”Have you seen any of the others yet?”

With another glance she spotted Swiftwind, who fortunately looked relatively calm considering the situation. Well, that would probably get fixed soon.

”Ehhh, no, not really. It’s a long story though, but we really don’t have a time to go over the full details. To make it short, he’s a chaotic freak with some pretty messed up powers and we got to stop him.”

She would wait till the others arrived to try and fill in on the rest of what she thought was happening here.

[Vinyl Scratch]

Vinyl loved Halloween. Not only was it the prelude to a whole two weeks of indulging her sweet tooth when she was a kid, picking from her candy collection (assuming she'd gotten to go out trick-or-treating), but it was a night when she could dress up however she wanted, as long as she had the clothes. However she wanted. She could be Aladdin, or a disco pirate, or the ghost of Beethoven, or even just herself with a name tag that said "Spooky." (All of which, at some age or another, she had been.)

Now that she was too big for the trick-or-treating, though, and she had a bit more money and know-how, she had started getting more intricate with her costumes. This year, she'd modified a bike helmet with gold metallic paint and some plastic tint, stuck some molded bits of pipe onto gloves (also with the gold paint), thrown a funky jacket and pants over it all, and went as one of the two "robots" from that band Daft Pink. It was good, indulgent fun—and even better, she got to hide behind a big ol' mask and leave people guessing who she was.

Except the helmet had been warm. Thirst got the better of her, and she'd slid up the visor to take a cup or two of the punch. Not too long after that... well, everything kind of went to heck in a handbasket. Now SHE was being left guessing who she was—because now her movements were stiff and heavy, everything looked strangely green... and she couldn't talk except to make strange whirring noises.

Still. She tried to remain as calm as she could, given the circumstances. The Elements would have to deal with this, and, well, she was an Element now, so she had to deal. Odds were good they'd all be meeting in the library. So. She walked quickly towards in that direction, following the sound of... what was that, hoofbeats? Oh, man, did someone do one of those two-people horse costumes? Poor idiots...

Upon arriving, she reached out and turned the handle, accidentally bending and then snapping it right off in her grip. She looked from the broken handle, to the door, to the handle again, and then shoved it open (maybe a little hard) to find some of the other Elements gathered.

Okay. If she recognized them all right, she saw that Sunset was a little horse, Heartstrings was a creepy-ass Tinkerbell, and this other girl was ... The Crow? If she weren't so freaked out, she would have laughed at the ensemble gathered there. Instead, she power-walked over to the table and dropped the handle on it, gesturing wildly to express her panic and confusion, before calming herself down with a couple deep breaths she wasn't actually taking.

Some red LED lights lit up on her face, spelling out a simple word: VINYL, and then ?!?

[swiftwind]

Swift looked at Vinyl and frowned as she moved from her desk. She had seen some bizarre stuff in her time but a orange coloured pony-ish thing which sounded like Sunset was one of them, not to mention the school's resident DJ being turned into the ungodly love-child of C3-PO and the Stig was one of them.

She seemed to have been turned into something else. She could feel that her jacket was tighter than it should be and there was definitely something wrong. She took off her leather jacket and giggled slightly as she realised something. "I'm buff".

She had more muscle tone than she could ever remember. She had always been scrawny but she seemed to be packing some muscle. She really wished she could even remember who she had been told the ensemble resembled since it would probably have been a help. Since Sunset was the only one that she knew, Swift walked over to Sunset and frowned. "Sunset, you're a horse". She looked her over, not completely sure what to say before saying the one thing which sprung to mind, considering the fact that she wasn't even bipedal anymore. "You poor thing".

[Pinkie Pie]

Now was the time for Pinkie Pie to shine! It was Canterlot High's "Nightmare Night," festival, one of Pinkie's absolute favorite school activities! What could be better than dressing up in funny clothes and eating tons of free candy?! Nothing! That's what!

She looked in the mirror and smiled with pride at the costume she'd painstakingly put together. She didn't think there was a single costume like this. That was understandable. It might have been a little taboo. After all, most people went with typical Halloween affair, like zombies or vampires. Nothing too scary. However, as much as Pinkie loved anything coated in sugar, she didn't believe in sugarcoating the fright factor of her costume. Rather, she felt it was her sworn duty as a party planner and Halloween celebrator to scare the pants off of anybody that crossed her path.

That's why she decided to dress up as a tornado... with sharks coming out of it... and volcanoes for hands! But of course, as Rarity would often say, no costume is complete without a complimentary headdress. That's why Pinkie decided to wear an ornamental cake on her head. Yeah, yeah, cake isn't scary. But this isn't any ordinary cake. It was a fruitcake! You know, those disgusting things they give out at Christmas masquerading as cake! Those are some scary cakes!

Her friends told her that the costume might just raise a few eyebrows. You heard right. Her friends told her that her costume was so scary that it might even scare their eyebrows! What an honor!

As she walked down the halls of Canterlot High, she could already see a few eyebrows raising! Pinkie couldn't believe how well this costume was working! She hadn't even unveiled the best part yet!

With the push of a string on her right hand, a flood of lava evacuated the barrel of her volcano hands, incinerating all who stood in Tornado Shark Volcano Fruitcake's way!

"Pinkie!"

"Young woman, stop that!"

Pinkie giggled with glee as she cartwheeled away. "Don't worry!" she said. "It's not real lava! It's only orange juice! Watch!" She aimed her right hand into the air and pulled the string. Suddenly, a mysterious, discordant figure, who for convenience sake Pinkie would simply call Discord, appeared. In the blink of an eye, the sweet sensation of freshly-squeezed extract of oranges landing on her head turned to a smoldering bombardment of boiling hot magma! Before Pinkie could react, a roaring fire spread out on her fruitcake headdress!

"EEEK!" she screamed! "Fire! Fire!"

Down the halls Pinkie continued to sprint, squealing at the top of her lungs until she came upon a water fountain. Her patience diminished on account of a large flame atop her scalp, she pushed the current occupant out of the way with a forceful nudge and poured the soothing liquid until the flames were all gone.

In a moment, the flames were all gone, but it came with a cost. The fruitcake adorned on her head now had a permanent vestige of the flames in the form of a pitch black burn mark. Her headdress was ruined, but on the bright side, it may have worked in her favor. After all, the only thing scarier than fruitcake was burnt fruitcake.

With haste, Pinkie retreated to the library, the closest room available to her, in hopes of escaping any further chaos. There, she found her friends Lyra, Swiftwind, the talking horse from that old black-and-white show, and the vocalist of Daft Punk. (Pinkie has her resources) She decided to run up to them, and maybe see if they had a plan to get to the bottom of all this chaos.

[Lyra Heartstrings]

Lyra was trying to take some calming breaths, and it was working. She and her friends would put a stop to this, and then make things right. Maybe she might even find some fun to have doing it. Who said saving the town had to be all hard work and aggravation. There was bound to be something that could be amusing. So what if she was turning into some fairy maiden that sucked the sanity out of artists, there were bound to be people in predicaments much more funny than hers.

A smirk began to form on her lips as she heard the possibility of one now. The sound of hooves reached her ears, and the thought of two people that went in together on a two-person horse costume was beginning to bring a giggle out of her. She was all ready to see what poor saps got stuck together when a fiery Unicorn burst in. The urge to laugh disappeared like flash paper, no more were there amusing thoughts of two people stuck together. Sunset Shimmer was there as a pony.

"Sunset..." it took a moment for Lyra to find her words. "You... you're a..." her eyes widened as she took in the sight before her. Slowly she reached out and gave Sunset Shimmer a light touch as if to check she was real. "You are... so adorable." Suddenly Lyra wrapped her arms around Sunset and gave her a big hug. "Look at your ears, and your horn, and your hooves. You even have a cutie mark like you told us about. I wish you were my little pony."

Lyra's gushing was abruptly put to a stop by a techno terminator breaking the door. Whirring noises accompanied the robot's random flailing. Letting go of Sunset Shimmer, Lyra walked around the automaton with a graceful stride. Golden eyes blinked in response to the letters and punctuation flashing across its face. Lyra reached out and tapped shave and a haircut on the face-plate with a short fingernail as she took it in. "Are you looking for Vinyl, or are you spelling you're Vinyl?"

Her attention was pulled away for a second by Swift's remark about Sunset. "She's a pony, a Unicorn, and probably the best off among us. At least my costume is the only one that could be inclined to harm someone so far." As soon as the words left her mouth Pinkie Pie arrived on the scene. One look at the girl's costume and Lyra found her hand on her face. "Okay, I stand corrected. I think that hurt my sanity, and given my costume, that's saying something."

[swiftwind]

Swift looked at Lyra, trying to work out why she was so calm about what had happened to Sunset. Since she had arrived at CHS she had spent as much time as she could in the library but she had heard what a lot of the students had to say about her. She would have thought that the comments that she turned into a demon at the Fall Formal and tried to take over the world was untrue, if not hugely improbable but she had heard it from a lot of students and the reaction of a lot of the student body to her being in the room was a clue that something was definitely wrong.

She was not going to judge her, based on her supposed past misdeeds since she had done some bad things in the past and Sunset had treated her well on the couple of times she had been with her. She was willing to give her more than the shadow of the doubt.

There was something about what Lyra had said. She seemed to be convinced that Sunset was capable of dealing with what had happened better than she probably should have. She walked over to Sunset, unsure of what to think. She was somewhat discombobulated by the whole thing and, inwardly, she was a little surprised she hadn't completely freaked out yet.

She smiled, considering the fact that she thought that Unicorns had wings, not horns on their heads as she tried to work out what to say. She kept her voice low as she settled on her choice of words. "Sunset, I know this is probably me getting the completely wrong end of what Lyra said but this whole horse..". She paused as she remembered how Lyra had described her. "Sorry, pony thing isn't as new as it should be". She blushed and looked anywhere but straight at Sunset. "I'm sorry, I've got the completely wrong end of things. I guess I'm freaking out more than I thought".

[Pinkie Pie]

Pinkie dashed to meet her friends. She so desperately wanted to get to the bottom of this and fast. Unfortunately, little did she know that the faster she would run, the more powerful her cyclone would become. As she thrashed her way through the library, books and computers and other such things would fly from their shelves, orbiting around her body and straying into her funnel cavity as if she were one, big vacuum cleaner. Well, not a vacuum cleaner. More like a vacuum un-cleaner!

As she finally reached maximum velocity, she began to spin round and round until finally spiraled out of control and burned herself out. As she came to a sudden halt in front of her friends, she collapsed on her back, having her just enough time to shield herself from the swiftly approaching barrage of books attempting to shower her face.

"Oh, girls, thank goodness you're all here!" she exclaimed. "This evening has been just horrible! First my costume comes to life, then it catches fire, and then I totally trash the school library! And the worst part is..." She gulped, tears welling up in her eyes as she held a hardcover book in front of her face. "...I accidentally spoiled the new Herald Plotter book for myself!"