WW)
“ We will help you, Rainbow Dash. But in order to do so, we’re going to need time.”
Those words echoed through Rainbow Dash’s head once more as she sat behind Sunset Shimmer’s shed. The image of the sirens standing on the Battle of the Bands Grand Final stage and looking like they had when they had knocked the band down accompanied those same words. But even with those two things the only things that were clear, the rest of her mind was a massive ball of chaos that she couldn’t figure out what to do with. Not to mention, those two completely different things repeating themselves in her mind were constantly fighting for dominance and giving her a massive migraine in the process.
Rainbow had no idea who to trust; the siren sisters (as they were known in this world) that lived in the massive mansion with a penguin water fountain, or the sirens that (once) sang to enslave people to do their evil bidding. Okay, she knew she shouldn’t trust the evil sirens that enslaved people, but that was the problem. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was afraid that the siren sisters were going to turn out to be just like the evil sirens. And no matter what she did to think otherwise, she couldn’t get that fear out of her head.
Those thoughts had been terrorising her for two straight hours. It was a wonder she hadn’t gone crazy, yet… though hiding behind the shed in the backyard of a friend from another universe probably could be counted as crazy. At least Sonata Dusk wasn’t after her hair like she had been earlier.
Unfortunately, that small (horror-filled) memory forced the quick return of Adagio’s words as she had tried to reassure Rainbow Dash that she and her sisters weren’t going to harm her and instead were going to help her. That lead back to the Battle of the Bands and, if Rainbow remembered correctly, she had probably frozen on the spot thanks to the same image that was now playing in her head about the sirens.
The fact that she had been practically unresponsive during the first hour clearly worried those around her. According to the others, Aria did some weird spiritual thing at the discovery. It obviously wasn’t that bad because nothing seemed to happen to her other than Aria grunting and exclaiming that she was going up to her room. Whatever the case, Rainbow’s mind had been that fuzzy that Adagio ordered her home to try and snap her out of whatever she had gotten herself into.
Sadly, nothing the girls did was able to help with sorting out the mess that was now Rainbow Dash’s mind. Admittedly, they took the better half of an hour just trying to figure out how they would help and doing everything possible to help (including trying to coax Herman the snake near her. But, thankfully, the snake wouldn’t have any of it), but nothing worked.
Eventually, Rainbow decided that it was better she tried to work things out on her own. That lead to her finding a nice, comfy spot behind Sunset’s shed where one would have a little more trouble finding her than if she had just decided to sit around the corner of the door. The weird thing was, as she made her way outside, she swore she could feel Applejack getting upset over not being able to help. Sadly, the thought was pushed from her mind the moment she had found her spot behind the shed.
But how can I trust those Siren Sisters if everything screams evil? She thought to herself, absentmindedly grabbing a nearby stick and starting to map out her current predicament. I seriously don’t want a repeat on what happened a few months ago. That was just too close.
By the time Rainbow Dash had managed to pull herself away from her thoughts again, she noticed that she had drawn two decent sized spheres in the dirt. The one on the left housed an almost identical image to her ponied-up form while the sphere on the right contained a wheelchair. Underneath these were images of three seahorses and three girls respective to the worlds that they currently resided in. And still further down the seahorse line was, in massive capital letters, the word ‘EVIL’.
Thing was, even as she stared at the roughly drawn image, Rainbow knew that the siren sisters were the only ones who were capable of helping her return home. Yeah, she appreciated all the work that the others were doing for her – in fact, she wished that the seven of them could figure out everything on their own and not get siren help. But given the fact that she knew of only three other people in this world with some type of magic, it almost felt like she had been backed into a corner.
And she hated being backed into a corner.
“ Gaarrrr!” She screamed out loud, her frustration finally making itself known. “ Why’d I have to go and get myself into this mess!?”
“ Ev’rythin’ alrigh’ out here, sugarcube?” a familiar voice asked from behind her, effectively scaring her away from them with a yelp. “ Sorry. Didn’t mean ta spook ya.”
Without an invitation to sit, Applejack made herself comfortable on the edge of the spot that Rainbow Dash has claimed for herself, leaning against the fence as she turned to the rainbow haired girl with a slightly dangerous glint in her eyes. To the farm girl’s credit, she was trying to keep her love lust in check around this version of Rainbow Dash. But – as expected – Rainbow Dash was more concerned about denying anything to do with having been scared to notice any fine details about her companion. She was even going as far as to destroy her little mind-map.
“ I wasn’t scared.” Rainbow growled, throwing the stick away before finally looking up and noticing the dark gleam being suppressed in Applejack’s eyes.
“ Whatever ya say, sugar.” Was her reply. “ Ya know, the Siren Sisters don’t actually turn inta any kin’ of evil sea critters. They’re jus’ good with supernatural stuff.”
A sigh escaped Rainbow’s lips once she realised that her clean-up attempt had failed. But at least the information proved that her fear of the Siren Sisters being magical creatures in human disguises was completely uncalled for. Now it just meant that they were possibly evil human beings instead. And that left only one question to form itself on the tip of her tongue.
“ Then what magic do they have if they can’t turn into creepy, mind controlling seahorse witches?” she asked, easily noticing when Applejack flinched at the description.
“ Well, there is the kind of magic that you would find in some circus or somethin’. Ya know, the ‘pull some varmint outta the hat’ type tricks.” Applejack replied after a few moment’s thought.
“ Yeah.”
“ They do that. Even put up a few shindigs here an’ there. Plus, they all do that liftin’ thing like Adagio did to ya earlier. Fer the life o’ me, Ah can’t quite remember what they call it, though. Anyway, each one o’ them has their own magic they use, too.”
“ What do you mean?”
“ Ya know how you’ve got ya sports that yer always workin’ on, and how Fluttershy always has her animals? Well, them Siren Sisters ‘ave their own type of magic that they work with. Adagio is all mystical with her predictions an’ whatnot. Ah don’t even understand half the stuff she does. An’ Ah’ve seen Sonata literally pop outta nowhere an’ start movin’ water from the well on the farm to the apple trees. That freaked me out big time, that did. Turns out, she’d gone and gotten herself stuck inta Aria’s secret stash.”
“ Secret stash? Really?”
“ Eyup. One of them many rooms in that big mansion of theirs is home ta Aria’s secret stash of alcohol. Ah have no clue as ta what she uses all that hard drink for, but Ah don’t think Ah’ve ever seen her drunk or drinkin’. Ta be honest, Ah don’t rightly know what Aria does, an’ Ah don’t just mean with all that alcohol. What Ah do know is that, ‘round these parts, the Siren Sisters will do whatever they can ta help someone if’n they just called… includin’ you.”
That made Rainbow Dash think. But even then, she came up with the same problem that she had started with back when she had first met this world’s Adagio Dazzle. Could she trust this world’s versions of the sirens or not?
Applejack easily noticed the hesitation in her friend’s eyes and allowed a small sigh to escape her lips. She wasn’t sure exactly what Rainbow Dash was thinking on the matter before them, though she could make a pretty good guess that it had something to do with having called Adagio a ‘former world dominating siren from Equestria’ wherever that was. Either way, she could clearly tell that whatever was playing in the girl’s head for the past hour or so was freaking her out big time. So she did the only thing she could think of; she stood up and stretched her hand out to the girl.
“ Ya know, sittin’ ‘round here and thinkin’ like this ain’t gonna get you nowhere. If yer like the Rainbow Dash Ah know, then yer more of a ‘do it’ kinda person, not a ‘read or think on it’ person like Twi. So Ah think me an’ you should walk back inta that house and start havin’ us a good time with our friends. Ah even heard Sunset say somethin’ ‘bout a guitar.”
“ You really think they won’t do anything to me?” Rainbow Dash asked. “ Those sirens from my world were pretty nasty. They managed to enslave pretty much the entire school after all.”
“ Ah’m sure of it, Dash. An’ if’n they do try somethin’, then Ah’ll stop ‘em. Jus’ like Ah did with Sonata when she went crazy fer yer hair.”
“ Yeah, why did you stop her?”
“ Other than the fact that Ah could see that you weren’t okay with it? In this world, there are only two others who Das’ll let touch her hair if she ain’t doin’ it herself and they are a hair dresser an’ me. Now come on. Ah can already smell the cakes that Pinkie and Fluttershy were bakin’. Ya don’t wanna miss out on them, now, do ya?”
“ Never missed a Pinkie cake in my life.” Rainbow Dash admitted with a smile, taking Applejack’s offered hand and getting up. “ And I don’t plan on starting now.”
That being said, the two girls allowed themselves to be led back into the house by the scent of freshly baked cakes coming out of the oven. Pinkie – being protective as ever of the still hot cakes – refused anyone even touching them while they were still on the racks cooling, but she let Rainbow Dash steal some of the chocolate chips that she had been planning to use as decoration for one of the cakes. Applejack took one of the little sugar ladybugs and popped it in her mouth as quick as she could before the two made their way to Sunset’s room.
Unfortunately, things went downhill not long after they walked into the bedroom. In fact, Rainbow Dash didn’t even make it past the doorframe before she noticed Herman the snake slithering around and checking out her borrowed things; his pink tongue flickering in and out of his mouth as he tasted her scent. She couldn’t even stop the tiny squeak that came out of her mouth when she noticed how close the snake was to her stuff… that she was going to be using later that day.
Applejack didn’t know what to do after she heard that. All she knew was that, one minute Rainbow Dash was beside her and the next minute, she wasn’t. In fact, not even Rarity, Twilight and Sunset could figure out who had moved the fastest out of the girl and the snake. The only thing they saw was Herman raise his head to look at Rainbow Dash – whose scent he had caught just as she was entering the room – then the two had hurried off in opposite directions; Rainbow heading back to the kitchen while Herman hurried back to the safety of his tank.
“ Somehow I get the feeling that Rainbow Dash doesn’t like snakes.” Rarity mused, looking out into the hallway to see if she could locate the athlete.
“ Really, Rarity?” Applejack deadpanned.
“ What did you think she was doing this morning when Herman woke her up? No Rainbow Dash that I know is ever happy about being woken up early unless it’s for something she wants. But this Rainbow Dash was certainly hiding something with the way she was acting.”
“ An’ that somethin’ has ta do with snakes.” The farm girl sighed, seeing reason in what her fashionista friend was getting at.
“ Precisely.”
“ Well, as much as I find this quite interesting, considering it was our Rainbow Dash who convinced me to get Herman in the first place,” Sunset interrupted, going over to her wardrobe and searching for something after having locked Herman in his tank. “ we better get out there before she, Pinkie and my dad all eat the cakes before we even get to try them.” At that point, she came out with an old looking acoustic guitar. “ Besides, regardless of any flaws or differences, we still have a friend to help.”
With that, she led the small group out into the kitchen where, sure enough, the cakes were already being fought over. And they hadn’t even been iced yet.