Chapter 10: Sugarcoat, Stop Talking
Of the three new natural disasters that just walked into the room, the one that worries me most is the pegasus. This purple mare seems nice and violent, which we deal with all of the time. That’s why we have ponies like Sunny Flare and Indigo on staff. The orange one seems to think we’re either an all-you-can-’eat’ buffet, or is trying to think of how to seduce her way out of this. Also not unusual.
But nopony, and I mean nopony, ever looks excited to be here. And the blue one, who Twilight has introduced as Sonata Dusk, is smiling for all the world like she just walked into a toy store. Either she’s in for a very disappointing day, or we’re all in for a lot of trouble.
“..and this is Adagio Dazzle,” Twilight finishes, just as I tune back in. I have a tendency to ignore long-winded speeches, and yet somehow retain all of the information. I found it a very useful skill back in college. More so than my Fine Arts Degree, I’ll tell you that. The princess looks around the table expectantly, waiting for either a response, or some sort of group interaction.
“Question,” I say, putting my hoof in the air.
“Um… yes, Sugarcoat?” Twilight says tentatively. My coworkers exchange amused glances that they don’t think I notice.
“Why do you keep calling it the Friendship Laser if it doesn’t actually work?” I ask.
The look on her face is something akin to impressionistic art. “Ex-excuse me?”
“Well, to be more accurate, it only seems to work about half the time” I elaborate. “The entire point of a Friendship Laser, to me, would be to inspire its… target with the desire to be friendly, benevolent, and give up their evil ways. So far that’s only worked on two of your enemies. Well, I assume two, since one of them is in another dimension. The other is Princess Luna, so bonus points there. Besides those two, all the laser seems to do is somehow defeat the enemy in the most efficient way available. Like, turning someone to stone, ripping all of the magic out of their body and casting them to Tartarus, or, in the case of these ‘Sirens’, rob them of their immortality and natural singing ability and leave them weak and mortal in a rather hostile environment. That’s not very Friendship of you.”
My explanation is met with a mixture of amusement, indignation, and exasperation. All of which I’m used to in varying degrees.
Adagio is the first to speak up. “Oh my, miss ‘Princess of Friendship’, she seems to have a point. How could you so callously cast us out into the big bad world with nothing to survive on but our wits and guile after so brutally defeating us in public like that?” She holds a hoof to her forehead in melodramatic fashion. Her acting skills are rather sharp, I admit. Plus she is rather attractive.
“Yeah, that’s so not ‘Friendship’ of you,” drawls Aria Blaze, not bothering with the melodrama. She instead settles for a mocking sneer and a hair flip.
Sonata throws her arms around her unicorn sister, and starts crying. Like actually crying. “But I thought she said we were frie-he-hends!”
Twilight looks to me, then to the siren sisters, and facehoofs rather impressively. “Sonata, we… are friends,” she says in a rather pained voice.
The pegasus gives an overdramatic sniffle and asks, “Then why do you sound so mad?”
The alicorn points a hoof at me. “I’m mad at her.”
“That’s fair,” I admit.
Twilight sighs and levels her gaze at the newcomers. “Alright, look. You lot are here because somepony somewhere needs to teach you lot how to survive in the real world without, you know, brainwashing everypony into doing what you want. Do I expect you all to come out the other side of this… mad science experiment being all goody-two-shoes? No. No I do not. What I do expect is for you three girls, who are older than almost everypony I know and I know the diarchy, to learn how to shoulder some responsibility, get jobs, NOT be criminals, and overall function in society like the quote unquote normal ponies you now are. OK?”
Her rant is met with varying degrees of disinterest. Sonata seems to still be upset, Aria couldn’t care less, and Adagio is doing that thing where you pay perfect attention to somepony but purposefully forget what they’re saying as they’re saying it just to make them mad. I do that last one a lot. “Sure thing, Princess,” says Adagio, with what I would assume on anypony else to be false cheer. On her it’s more like… sadistic glee.
“I don’t think they actually intend to do anything you just said, actually,” I point out.
Twilight’s eyebrow twitches. “Yes, Sugarcoat, I had gathered that much,” she growls through gritted teeth, not actually looking at me. “Look, can you three just… try not to commit any crimes for a few days while we do this thing? I got you a decent hotel room in the city just so you could try for a fresh start here. As much as you three seem bound and determined to do exactly NOT THIS,” she waves a hoof in our general direction, “I really do want you to succeed. I know what it’s like to be the fish out of water.”
Lemon Zest tries and fails to suppress a laugh. “Snrk, ‘fish out of water’. Get it? Cause they like, used to be fish ponies?”
Sour Sweet’s head hits the desk at superluminal speed. “OH MY GOD, ZEST.”
Adagio looks at this interaction with a worried expression. “Um...”
“RIGHT!” Twilight exclaims, much louder than necessary. The whole room jumps in response. “I’ve dropped you off, made introductions, and now I’m going to go do something… away. Bye!” She teleports out of the room with a flourish and one last eye-twitch, leaving the rest of us to a somewhat awkward silence.
Aria , to my surprise, is the first to talk. “So like, what do you girls even do anyway? I mean, I know this is some kind of reformation program, but what do you,” she points to us all individually, “actually do here?”
Sunny just kind of glares at her. “Out jobs. Which, by the way, all fall under the grace of the Royal Guard. Which means we’re allowed to use non-lethal force at will, and lethal force if necessary.”
“Well, ‘at will’ is pushing it a bit,” I correct her. “But yes, we’re all empowered by the crown to use physical force when necessary. Or, in Sunny’s case, when convenient.”
Aria’s eyes narrow. “Is that a threat?”
“Actually, no,” Zest chimes in. “Sunny’s really, really specific with her threats. And creative. And like, Sugarcoat doesn’t threaten ponies. She just talks a lot.”
“And sleeps with half my office,” Sour Sweet grumbles, her face still trying to fuse with the furniture.
“Only one-third,” I correct. “Your office is rather small, anyway, so that hardly counts.”
Adagio seems rather interested in the conversation, all of a sudden.