Sunset wrote furiously in her journal. The words on the page appeared in parallel on the pages of a book owned by Princess Twilight Sparkle in Equestria. Twilight’s replies showed up in Sunset’s book.
I can’t bring in a whole contingent of the Elements of Harmony, magical scholars, and Royal Guards, Princess Twilight wrote. Not even just the six of us girls could come through the emergency portal spell we developed.
We need to do something, Sunset replied. Friendship didn’t work here. I thought it stopped the sirens from spreading negative emotion, but now they’re literally murdering people.
Princess Twilight did not reply for nearly a minute. She finally wrote, When you first told me, I didn’t believe it. I still haven’t been able to determine what could make them do that.
Sunset had no idea, either. Monsters they may have been, but Equestrian threats were rarely deadly. Could it have been the influence of being on Earth? Had that been what had happened to her when she tried to take over? After all, even nonmagical humans killed each other all the time.
Sunset’s shoulders tensed. Had being here only made them worse? Or was it simply their decision? How could they possibly have made that choice? Was it out of desperation?
Did the sirens think what they were doing was wrong? Did they simply have different morals?
Sunset shut her eyes tightly and put her hands to her face. No! You are not rationalizing this! They are evil! Period!
Sunset’s phone suddenly buzzed. She glanced at it, but did a double take at the number that had sent the text. She grabbed the phone and opened the message. As she read, her eyes went wide.
She picked up her pen, but then put it down again and closed the journal. She had a plan. Princess Twilight wouldn’t like it, but it had to be done.
She sent a text to her friends, wording it carefully. Who’s up for a snack at Sugarcube Corner?
Sonata relaxed in her bedroom, surfing the dark web. After getting Sunset Shimmer’s phone number from Flash Sentry’s phone, she’d found a way to break in and read text messages. Granted, there was only something to see when Sunset sent a text or something, but it still gave her an edge.
She couldn’t read the incoming texts or listen in on phone conversations. She was still searching for another clandestine source for that. Aria had been helping her, but for a supposed computer expert, she hadn’t been very useful.
While Sunset met with her friends at Sugarcube Corner, Sonata considered her next move. Hopefully Sunset would eventually send a text that specified a convenient location, so Sonata could take her out. With their little leader gone, the Rainbooms would be useless. Sonata was looking forward to sampling them one by one. She could hardly wait.
Sonata navigated to a different place on the secure connection. This site had videos of people being butchered. Some of them came from terrorist propaganda videos. Some of them were cartel revenge messages. Some were produced for more selective audiences. Sonata watched for perhaps an hour, paying attention to techniques.
I should get a video camera, She decided. That would be perfect, showing the Rainbooms tapes of their friends being eaten alive. In that case, maybe she should save Sunset for last.
Sonata blinked and removed her hand from between her legs. Strange. She didn’t know how it had ended up there. It was almost like she was a human watching porn.
Shit. What if she was actually getting turned on by this? Sonata had never thought about sex before. If sirens could even do it, which she somehow doubted. So did that mean slaughter and drinking blood was what it took to get her off? What if she used blood and body parts in…other ways?
Sonata’s brows furrowed at the thought, but then she shrugged. Well, if that’s how it has to be.
Just then, Sunset sent a couple of texts to her friends. After what we talked about earlier, we have to have one last sleepover and one last campout before school starts again. What if we combined them? I know none of us have time to go out to the woods, so what if we found a camping spot in town? There’s a construction site near the school where they’re building a new parking garage. A big concrete building would keep us out of the weather and be a safe place to stay. Let’s meet up at 10pm.
All six of them were going to be outdoors overnight? This was almost too good to be true.
“Dagi, Ari,” Sonata called. “Get ready!”
“What do you want?” replied Adagio from downstairs.
Sonata grinned and got up from her bed, going to meet them. They would want to hear this directly from her, so they would know exactly who was in charge and who had just set them up for their revenge.
Adagio and Aria listened quietly as Sonata laid out what they were doing that evening. “We know where they’re going to be. There’ll be no one else around. We sneak in and capture them in their sleep.”
“Exactly how are you planning to do that?” said Adagio. “We’re outnumbered and they have magic.”
“Well, we might have to bust a few chucklefucks,” said Sonata. She made a mental note to find time to think of better swears. “I really want them all to watch us bleeding out their friends slowly, but even half of them would still give us plenty of tasty teenager to work with.”
She looked at Adagio and Aria for a reply, but nothing came. “What, no backtalk?”
“No,” said Adagio.
Sonata glanced between the two of them and put her hands on her hips. “What’s going on?”
“What are you talking about?” said Aria. “You’ve already got the plan to surprise them. What do you want us to say?”
Maybe they had finally bowed to her strength. Sonata smiled. After they pulled this off and eliminated their strongest enemies, then there would be nothing to stop the three of them from taking over. The city, the country, the whole world. And she would be the most powerful of them all.
“Right,” said Sonata. “Let’s go.”
“Just a minute,” said Adagio. She pulled knives out of the kitchen drawers, handing one to Aria.
Strong as she was, Sonata also recognized how threatening a blade could be. She took one for herself. There was no good way to carry it, but Sonata wasn’t worried that she would accidentally cut herself. It wasn’t like she was a klutz. She wasn’t even worried about the park ranger’s gun that she’d tucked into her jeans before leaving her room.
They drove to the construction site, arriving a few minutes early. Aria opened the trunk and pulled out a coil of rope. Sonata gave her a look. “We’re going to need it to tie them up,” Aria pointed out.
“We could have gotten here a little later,” said Sonata. “So we could sneak up while they were sleeping.”
“All we have to do is wait,” said Adagio.
“I think the basement of the parking garage could be a good place to wait,” said Aria. “It’s quiet, and with no windows there’s less chance of them spotting us.”
Sonata held up her phone. “Good, I brought music.”
She led them down the ramp into the depths of the underground level. There were a couple of switchbacks until they were finally met with a blank concrete wall in the deepest corner.
There were a few pieces of equipment that seemed to have been brought by the construction workers. Sonata had been using her phone for light, but turned on a small construction lamp to save her battery. They were far enough below the surface that the glow probably wouldn’t reveal their presence.
Sitting on the floor near the wall were three white cardboard cups.
“Coffee?” said Sonata, incredulously. She picked one up. “It’s still warm. Hey, it smells like pumpkin spice!”
“Who left these here?” Adagio asked.
“How did they?” said Aria. “Pumpkin spice-flavored stuff isn’t even sold during summer.”
Sonata didn’t care. There was some weird undertaste, but otherwise it was delicious. Adagio and Aria didn’t touch the other drinks.
With a few minutes to spare, Sonata put in her earbuds and wandered a few steps away towards the wall. She scrolled her playlist, looking for something to get pumped. Well, maybe not too pumped. It would be good to be calm before the blood would send her heart racing. Kavinsky? Sonata picked the song.
She’d no sooner started the music than a lasso of rope dropped over her shoulders. A boot pressed into her back and the rope pulled tight, pinning her arms and ripping out her earbuds.
Despite the binding, Sonata spun, finding Applejack on the other end of the rope and the rest of the Rainbooms arrayed across the floor, ponied up and radiating magic, trapping the three sirens in the basement with their backs to the wall.
No! She wasn’t trapped, they were!. Sonata snarled. Applejack pulled harder, but she was no match. Sonata ripped the rope in two and grabbed Applejack by the leg, swinging her in a half circle to slam into the concrete wall.
Something hit her like a piledriver between the shoulderblades, driving Sonata forward to smack into the wall herself. She spun, arm shooting out to backhand Rainbow Dash. The blow knocked the girl across the basement.
Sonata started forward, shoulders up and fingers clawed.
“I put enough sleeping pills in the lattes to knock out a horse!” Pinkie said.
“Apparently that doesn’t work on sirens!” Rarity replied.
“We need to do something!” Fluttershy shrieked. “Applejack and Rainbow are hurt!”
Sonata didn’t follow the conversation. Nothing these kids said or did could stop her.
Her attention did snap to Fluttershy as the girl rushed forward to where her two injured friends lay. Sonata sidestepped, shooting out a hand and hammering Fluttershy in the face hard enough to take her off her feet. Her nose collapsed around Sonata’s fist, spraying blood.
Sonata kept walking towards the others. She licked her fingers. There was no fear, but Fluttershy’s worry was enough to tide her over. And was that a little spark of magic she detected?
“S-stop!” Sunset shouted, shielding some girl who looked a lot like Princess Twilight Sparkle.
“Why do they always say that?” said Sonata, glancing to either side at Adagio and Aria. Both of them had their knives out, but had done absolutely nothing with them.
Sunset raised her hands, sparks of magic crackling off them. Sonata punched her in the abdomen. To Sunset’s credit, she took it better than any of the others, rolling with it and perhaps not even sustaining any broken bones. The force still sent her stumbling back, falling on the floor.
Sonata stepped forward and grabbed the new Twilight by the collar, lifting her clear of the floor. This one wasn’t ponied up. She scrabbled for some device that hung around her neck, but Sonata ripped it off her and tossed it over her shoulder. The fear, oh fuck yes, this one was afraid.
Sonata drove her fingers into Twilight’s neck, the nails slicing through skin and muscle. Twilight screamed and kicked, her shoes doing nothing to Sonata’s shins. Her hands grabbed at Sonata’s clothes.
Blood began to flow over Sonata’s hands. She smiled. The wound wouldn’t kill Twilight, not yet. Sonata’s probing fingers found her carotid artery. She literally held Twilight’s life between her fingertips.
Twilight’s desperate hands found the gun Sonata had packed. She jerked it free. Sonata looked down. Twilight pressed the barrel against her stomach.
The sound of the shot was nothing compared to the punch to Sonata’s guts. She staggered, letting go of Twilight, who fell, firing twice more.
The pain came on so suddenly that Sonata couldn’t even tell how many bullets had hit. She went to her knees, not even seeing Twilight fall next to her. She touched her stomach, the clothes already soaked with blood. Her hands came up, desperately trying to clean them with her mouth. She tried to hold the blood in, fingers trying to find and plug the bullet holes.
Her own blood coated her legs, spreading across the floor. Sonata went to her face, tongue on the concrete, desperately trying to scrape the blood back into her mouth.
She felt lightheaded, but the pain was fading. Her fingers slipped out of the bullet holes. Sonata rolled to her side, staring at her stomach. The wound was closing.
They couldn’t stop her! Sonata jumped up, power swelling in her chest. A laugh came easily. She’d taken out more than half the Rainbooms, and there was nothing they could do!
She looked at Adagio and Aria. The two of them stared at her, wide-eyed.
“What are you waiting for?” Sonata demanded. Aria’s knife slipped from her fingers. Adagio took a step backwards.
They were worthless. Sonata turned away. She was more powerful than them, than anyone!
Sunset had gotten up. There was a book in her hands, the pages glowing. Her eyes flashed white with magic, her feet floating from the floor. She stared at Sonata, meeting her eyes. No fear.
Sonata kept coming, passing Adagio and Aria. She reached forward. Sunset lifted a hand, activating the magic of a spell powerful enough that it seemed to distort the air.
Sonata braced, but nothing happened. Emboldened once again, she shouted “You can’t do anything to me! You tried once and you failed! I’m stronger than ever before, I’m stronger than you, and I will have my revenge!”
“I know that feeling,” said Sunset, her voice magnitudes calmer that the situation merited. “And I know you’re wrong.”
A flash of light and invisible force hit Sonata like a tidal wave. She turned. Against the wall was a portal taller than her, glowing with magic and drawing her irresistibly towards it.
Her shoes started to slide. Sonata turned and lunged forward, but made no headway. She dropped to a crouch, still sliding backwards, being drawn towards her fate. Sonata knew if she allowed herself to go through, she would lose everything, her place on this puny planet, her strength, everything she had gained, everything she had earned.
Her fingernails scraped across the concrete, desperately trying to hold her in place. She pressed down until they tore out of the nailbeds, but it wasn’t enough.
Sonata’s last ounce of strength wasn’t good enough. Her entire body left the ground, the magic swirling around her body dragging her to her fate.
As she went backwards, she grabbed at Adagio and Aria. “Help me!” she bellowed.
Both tried to duck, but Sonata’s hands found them, dragging them with her. They struggled, but neither put up even half her fight. They were weak, she was strong!
Sonata looked over her shoulder, everything in her field of vision going white as she went through.
The blinding light faded slowly. The force pulling on Sonata had stopped. She blinked. There was a blue sky above, turning golden in the late afternoon.
Her phone was somewhere in one of her pockets, music app still working. The song played on.
Sonata sat up, ill-fitting clothing binding her body. Her shoes had come off, being completely unsuited for hooves.
Adagio and Aria were nearby, similarly transformed into earth ponies. Sonata stared at them.
“Why did you bring us?” said Adagio. She blinked hard and then screamed, “What did you do!?”
“You deserve it as much as me!” Sonata shouted. “You were there, you drank blood too!”
“It was your idea!” Aria pointed out. “You forced us! The portal didn’t even affect Adagio and I. Not until you grabbed us.”
“Oh, you’re innocent?” said Sonata. “None of this would have happened if you two had helped me! I even knocked Sunset Shimmer down for you. A single stab, and we would have won! There would have been nothing stopping us from taking over the rest of the world!”
Adagio got up. “None of this would have happened to start with if it weren’t for you!”
Sonata met her nose to nose, but Adagio wasn’t backing down. “Look at us now,” Adagio snarled, gesturing to the open, featureless meadow in which they had appeared. “We have nothing. We’re broke, magicless, and mortal. This is all your fault, Sonata. We tried to stop you, but you just dragged the two of us down with you, you foolish, self-serving monster!”
Adagio turned and stormed away. Aria didn’t even spare Sonata a glance before following her.
The wind picked up, blowing the meadow grass around. Sonata looked down. It looked like any grass, no way to tell where she was located. She looked up at the sky, endless nothing. Just like her bank account, her house, and her stuff. Her sisters. Her power. Her whole life. Gone.
With the sun still setting, it would be dark soon. The wind rose again, stronger this time. The faint music still coming from the phone’s tiny speaker sounded hollow and feeble.
Sonata was alone.
She put a hoof to her chest. The feeling inside her...