Chapter 13. Abduce.
Sunset and Trixie had discussed all night about their next plan of action, and as the hours went by, they even got the rest of the girls in a video conference through Sunset’s laptop. It was frightening how quickly and seamlessly the sirens were influencing everyone.
It took a lot of time, and some of the girls got scolded for staying up so late, but they finally got to a series of agreements and compromises.
First, their test of having Sunset out of the house for a week had cleared her from suspicion, so she was allowed back.
Second, Rainbow, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Twilight couldn’t keep going to the house every day, so they would be taking turns to visit during the week, and planning ‘sleepovers’ during the weekends.
Sunset took the opportunity to suggest that she’d stay full time at the house, only leaving in the afternoons for her mechanic job. She’d ask Flim and Flam to send her the documents via e-mail so she could do home office.
It took a while, but everyone agreed.
“Alright, here’s the copy,” Shimmer said, giving Sunset a key. “Just remember, feeding that thing without us agreeing-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sunset said, snatching the key.. “Let’s go inside already,” she said as she walked to the front door of Shimmer’s house. “I want to see what the siren’s been writing.”
“I thought Twilight sent you pictures?” Shimmer asked.
“Yes, but there’s a lot more written that I want to take a look at.”
Trixie closed the trunk of Shimmer’s car and grabbed the handle of a big blue wheeled traveling case. Of course Trixie had insisted on staying at the house with Sunset.
That part was a little trickier, though. Transportation from Shimmer’s house to Canterlot was scarce, and more so in the mornings. After some consideration, they had deemed it appropriate to call Principal Celestia and ask.
It had been another one-hour long argument, but the circumstances were exceptional, so Principal Celestia had finally agreed to let Trixie stop coming to school with some excuse about an accident or something, as long as she turned in her homework and projects through the girls, and she’d have to go to take the exams.
“Why the fascination with the diary?” Shimmer asked as Sunset opened the door.
Sunset shrugged. “You never know what will be useful in the future.”
Once inside, the first thing Sunset saw was Adagio. The three sisters had been refusing to go to Principal Celestia’s place, and they had been staying at Shimmer’s house. They wanted to take an active part in defeating their doppelgangers and take their lives back. So one of the compromises had been to let them stay and help.
Adagio was sitting on a chair right in front of the one-way mirror, observing the siren. She had a notebook on her lap and a bored expression, but the thing that struck Sunset the most was that Adagio’s hair had been given a complete rework.
Before, it was just a mess; a direct result of the sirens’ actions and her time in captivity. But now, it looked fresh out of the stylist parlor. It wasn’t very long, and her natural curls made it look even shorter, barely reaching below her ears, but it still had quite a lot of volume, so she still looked pretty feminine.
“Hey,” Sunset said, getting Adagio’s attention. “How’s our prisoner behaving?”
Adagio regarded her for a moment, then looked a bit to the side at Shimmer, then back at Sunset. “I think she has a few loose screws,” she replied as Sunset got closer to the mirror. “She does nothing but write those odd symbols.”
Sunset looked closer. There were literal piles of paper sheets everywhere. Sure, writing with a crayon forced a bigger handwriting from the siren, but it still was a bit too much. It almost looked like Dusk was trying to write a novel.
“Tell me again why do you think your plan will work,” Adagio said.
“I’m not sure it will,” Sunset replied. “But I think it’s worth a try. It’ll bring some familiarity to the siren, and it might help in lowering her defenses. And in the worst-case scenario, she’ll think nothing of it and I’ll just have to work harder.”
Sunset had pushed her argument further, and they all had agreed, albeit begrudgingly; They would try to get Dusk to help them stop the sirens from enslaving everyone and potentially ending the world. And the way they would do it was to teach her about morals, good, evil, and whatnot.
It was going to be a challenge, but it was their best shot. And they were running out of time, with the Dazzling’s second concert looming closer each passing day. And even if turning Dusk to the good side failed, they were going to think of alternatives that wouldn’t risk anyone getting hurt again.
Adagio sighed through her nose, pursing her lips. “Just be careful.”
Sunset nodded, then turned around to face Trixie. “You ready?” When Trixie nodded, she looked at Shimmer. “Alright, let’s do it then.”
After a few minutes of getting Trixie ready with the heavy getup, both of them were just outside the siren’s room, with Sunset holding a tray with a few sandwiches on it. Adagio knocked on the mirror, and after five seconds, they entered.
The siren, as always, had hurried to her mattress, waiting patiently for them to close the door. Once Trixie did so, Dusk looked up at them.
Dusk’s contempt smile widened and her eyes seemed to sparkle. “You’re back!”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Of course I am,” she replied instantly. “Here’s your food,” she said, laying the tray down on the chair for Dusk.
The siren nodded, her smile disappearing as she began eating. Sunset took this opportunity to grab a small stack of paper from one of the piles, and began reading.
Everything was in Old Ponish, and even though Sunset had been remembering her classes, it was still quite a challenge to decipher everything. Some words were completely foreign, and more than one sentence needed a few readings before Sunset could begin to understand what it was being said, but in the end, she managed to get the general idea.
Sure enough, the first few pages of every day were just a diary, mundane events like waking up with a sore neck, complaining and praising her own hair for being such a hassle to take care of and a marvel to look at at the same time, or just how bored she sometimes got with nothing better to do.
The rest of the pages were used to reminisce about what Sonata and Sunset had told her last week, and how she was still struggling to understand. A particular paragraph near the end told Sunset about how the siren was starting to consider that maybe the other sirens were in the wrong.
A smile almost formed in Sunset’s face, until she read the last paragraph. This one was a bit smaller than the rest, and it was cramped in the last page as a sort of after-thought ‘hungry’. Sunset read it carefully, and quickly remembered the plan she had shared with the girls.
She brought down the papers and looked at Dusk, who was munching with the same enthusiasm a child has when doing chores.
Sunset took a deep breath before she spoke up.
“Vi yu ar?” Sunset asked, noticing her pronunciation was quite slow and rusty.
“Grazenvol” Dusk replied absentmindedly, then stopped and perked up, looking at Sunset with widened eyes. “Ponish naeg yu ar?”
Sunset nodded. She had thought that speaking Old Ponish with the siren could help in lowering her defenses, and she had shared this idea with the girls last night. And, so far, it was working as Dusk hadn’t even registered the language switch until she had already answered.
Hungry, the siren had replied. It was the same thing that was written in that last paragraph, and Sunset couldn’t ignore the slight pressure in her chest.
“But I don’t speak very well,” Sunset continued in slow and robotic stammers.
Dusk lowered her half-eaten sandwich, still looking at Sunset with surprise and mild curiosity. “I thought Equestrians didn’t speak Ponish anymore.”
Sunset made a face, concentrating as much as she could in order to understand the words Dusk pronounced with natural speed and flow. Old Ponish was a rough and guttural language, completely different from normal English, and even if she could read the siren’s writing with relative ease, her listening skill fell short. None of her teachers pronounced it as naturally as Dusk did.
“We don’t,” Sunset replied. “but some of us study it.”
Dusk acknowledged it and turned to her sandwich, giving it another apathetic bite.
Sunset pursed her lips as she struggled to remember the correct pronunciation of the words that floated in her mind. “I think… I thought about what you say, Sunset began slowly, getting Dusk’s attention once again. “I kn- want to…” She sighed in defeat and switched back to English. “About what you said last week…”
Licking her lips nervously, Sunset took a deep breath. “I don’t quite understand how it works. Can you survive solely on food or not?”
For a moment, Dusk just remained there, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a bitten piece of bread on a hand. She scrunched her face and cocked her head a little. “I like food, but nothing beats feeding.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “So you don’t… usually eat?”
Dusk narrowed her eyes, looking at Sunset like she was some strange abstract painting. “I do, but, like, just because food is tasty.” She then looked at the bread in her fingers. “But… I don’t know…”
“So even you’re not sure how it works?”
“I…” Dusk moved her head from side to side, inspecting the sandwich as if it were some kind of old artifact. “I’ve been feeding forever, so I don’t know, but… These days I’ve been hungry all the time. Food helps a little but I just can’t get enough…” She then turned to Sunset with a confused glare. “But when you let me feed… I was satisfied… I didn’t really need it again until maybe yesterday...”
Sunset leaned forward a bit. “So… you could go some time without food if you only fed on energy?”
At that, Dusk let out a tiny chuckle. “Well, yeah. I mean, Aria and I like to eat, she especially. But Adagio never eats. She says it’s a waste of time.”
“So you don’t need to eat? You only need to feed?”
“I guess?”
Sunset resisted the urge to face palm. “Well I guess you do need to feed after all…” she muttered barely loud enough to elicit a questioning stare from the siren. “Never mind,” she said. “Say, you said your plan is to return to Equestria, but… What then?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Sunset insisted. “If you manage to return, what is your plan? Keep feeding off negative energy? I believe you’ll only get another banishment if you try to pull that stunt again.”
Dusk pursed her lips. “What else is there?” She dropped the sandwich and leaned back, placing her hands on the floor a bit behind her. “I’m a siren. I’m supposed to make people fight and get stronger and make more people fight.”
“Then what?” Sunset asked tentatively.
“Then turn into a Windigo!” Dusk replied cheerily.
Color drained from Sunset as she heard those words. So the stories are true… she thought. She had been hoping that there was something fake about them, and the way Dusk acted added fuel to that hope. But now…
“W-Why though?” She asked.
Dusk, once again, regarded Sunset as if she had asked a difficult to understand philosophical question. “Because that’s what I’m supposed to do?” she replied slowly. “I am born, I feed and then I turn into a Windigo.”
“And then what?” Sunset urged, feeling cold sweat running down the sides of her face.
“And then…” Dusk frowned. “I don’t know. Then keep feeding?”
There was clear uncertainty in the siren’s answer, mixed with just a pinch of hesitance. Sunset picked on it and brought a hand to her mouth thoughtfully.
“Tell me something,” Sunset began, staring into space as she formulated questions in her mind. “Have you ever met other Windigos? What are they like?”
Dusk hummed for a moment. “They’re jerks,” she said simply. “They just go and hoard all the good places to feed!” She crossed her arms and pouted with a loud harrumph.
Sunset had not expected such a reaction. She mouthed silent words for a moment. “Care to elaborate?”
Making a face, Dusk huffed angrily. “Just because they’re strong they think they can take whatever they want. We always have to go somewhere else.” She mused for a moment, pursing her lips and looking away. “They don’t even talk. They just come and we leave. That’s how it is. And that’s why I gotta be one, so I can join them!”
“They don’t talk to you even though they were sirens before?” Sunset asked. Despite the growing void she was feeling in her stomach, she knew she had to keep inquiring about it. She was getting somewhere important, she reckoned.
Dusk hunched forward, still looking away, her frown softening a notch. “No…”
“Do you know why?”
Finally, Dusk looked back at Sunset again. “Uhm… Because they don’t want to?”
“Have you asked the other sirens about it?”
“Well…” Dusk bit her lower lip. “Not really. I never thought about it. Adagio says we have to focus on becoming Windigos and nothing else.”
Sunset let out a sigh. “So you don’t really know what will happen when you become a Windigo.”
“Yeah I know!” Dusk replied defensively. “We get to feed as much as we want!”
Shaking her head, Sunset decided to sit down on the floor, mirroring Dusk’s cross-legged posture. “Nowadays, Windigos are considered myths or tales by most,” she said with an even voice, looking straight into Dusk’s eyes. “No matter how well documented they are… Modern Equestrian history began with the advent of Windigos…”
“Really?” Dusk asked, her foul mood quickly replaced by sheer curiosity.
Sunset nodded slowly. “Millennia ago, the old pony land suffered a Windigo attack. Half the population fled to what today is known as Equestria.”
“And the other half?” Dusk asked with nothing but interest in her voice. “Are they still feeding the Windigos?”
“No,” Sunset replied as she closed her eyes. “None of them survived a week.”
Dusk cocked her head and frowned in confusion. “That doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t they survive? The whole point of feeding is having someone around to give us energy!”
“That’s because Windigos don’t feed,” Sunset replied. She then opened her eyes and regarded the siren. “They just arrive, attracted by negative energy, and bring with them blizzards that lay waste to the land until everything is gone.”
Dusk only stared at Sunset with a frown for a whole ten seconds. “That doesn’t make sense!” She repeated.
“I know,” Sunset replied. “Why would complex creatures such as yourself lose the thing that makes them different when they reach the next evolution level? And why would you strive to become mindless creatures that do nothing but circle around an area and fill it with snow?” Sunset covered her mouth thoughtfully. “And what’s even more mysterious, Windigos are basically all-powerful spirits, but according to the records, it only took three ponies sharing stories to fend against a Windigo attack. It’s too inconsistent.”
She regarded Dusk, who was glaring at her with rapt attention. “If I have to take a guess,” Sunset continued. “I’d say that the goal of becoming Windigos is more of an impulse. Like, a caterpillar knows it has to become a butterfly. But in your case, your final form is just a mindless force of nature, and you have the choice not to become one.” She stared right into Dusks eyes. “Tell me, Dusk, do you really want to be a brainless spirit that kills everything?”
Dusk cocked her head. “Well, Adagio always says I’m brainless. But if I don’t have a brain, how can I think?”
Sunset deadpanned.
“But I don’t understand,” Dusk continued. “Adagio says that we have to become Windigos, but you say Windigos are stupid, and Adagio is not stupid…”
“Well, I already told you,” Sunset replied hurriedly. “I think it’s just a natural impulse because it technically is a part of who you are. Maybe she doesn’t know either.”
“Maybe…” Dusk said, not sounding very convinced.”
Sunset made a face. “Hey, have you been thinking about what we discussed last week?”
Dusk looked up at Sunset. “Yeah…”
“And have you come up with an answer?”
Dusk cocked her head and looked up, humming. “Well… I don’t really like how my sisters call me stupid all the time…”
Sunset perked up. “How does that make you feel?”
“I…” Dusk bit her lower lip. “I feel sad.”
“Do you like being sad?”
“Of course not!” Dusk replied with a frown.
Sunset leaned forward. “You know, when you make people fight each other, they feel sad afterward.”
Dusk blinked in surprise. “They do?”
Sunset nodded. “Sure they’re angry and fight and produce all that energy that you feed on. But when you leave and the hypnosis wears off, those people start feeling sad precisely because they argued and fought with their friends. Do you understand?”
“I think…”
“Just think about that,” Sunset continued. “For example, your human versions.” That made Dusk look straight at Sunset. “As Sonata told you last time, she and her sisters were really sad when they were in that basement. Tell me, how would you feel if it had been you back there?”
Dusk made a face and hunched. “Uhm… I would feel bad. That place was scary…”
“So, would you send Sonata and her sisters back there again?”
“Uhm…” Dusk looked away, humming, and after ten full seconds, she looked back at Sunset. “No…”
“Why not?” Sunset insisted.
“Because…” Dusk bit her lower lip. “Because they would feel sad…”
Sunset noticed Dusk still sounded hesitant, but there was a spark of understanding in her voice she couldn’t ignore. She had to try a little more.
With a nod, Sunset continued. “What about the other sirens?”
Dusk cocked her head. “Uhm… Well, Adagio said we had to keep them there, so maybe she doesn’t know they get… sad…” She frowned. “But… Adagio is smart, she knows everything. She has to know they get sad, right?” She crossed her arms and leaned a little to her left, looking at Sunset with her head hanging to the side. “But that doesn’t make sense…”
Dusk hummed and kept leaning to either side, and as seconds passed, she looked more troubled. Sunset decided she had to let the siren consider the ideas that now flooded her head and check back on her later.
So she stood up and regarded Dusk one last time. “I’ll let you think, I’ll be back for dinner time.” Dusk barely acknowledged her, and Sunset smiled to herself. “Luzen yu,” she said and turned around to leave.
~~~~~~~~
“I thought you were crazy,” Aria said. She was standing in front of the one-way mirror, looking at the siren with a frown. Much like Adagio, she had gotten a haircut, but unlike her, she had decided to try a new look. Her right side had been machine-shaved, and the rest had been left long enough to reach her cheekbones. “But your plan might be working alright.”
Sunset was sitting on a couch, a laptop on her lap as she worked on the documents Flim and Flam had sent her. She looked up to Aria. “What makes you say so?”
“Well, she’s always drawing those symbols, but since you spoke that weird language to her, she has been there, sitting and thinking.”
“I don’t think it was because of me speaking Old Ponish to her,” Sunset admitted. “But I’m glad to know she’s considering what we discussed.”
“Yeah!” Sonata said. She was sitting at the dining table with Trixie, both were eating some sandwiches. Much like her sisters, she had gotten her hair fixed, and on her part, she had decided to get bangs and just leave her hair to grow again. “I told you evil-me would understand!”
Trixie giggled. “Well, if she understands, then she won’t be so evil anymore.”
“We can only hope,” Sunset said.
Sonata stopped mid chew. “... Wait, if she’s not evil anymore, will we both be Sonata again?”
“I think it’ll be better to leave things as they are,” Adagio replied as she walked from the hallway, rubbing a towel on her wet hair. “Shower’s free, if anyone wants to use it,” she said, looking around the place. “Did Sunset say when she was coming back?”
“Why won’t you call her ‘Shimmer’?” Trixie asked. “It gets confusing with Sunset here.”
“Because you understand who I’m referring to,” Adagio replied simply.
Trixie rolled her eyes, but smiled nonetheless. “She’s supposed to come back any minute, why don’t you go wait for her in the bedroom?”
Adagio heated up, and her cheeks became a soft shade of red. The girls laughed heartily, Aria being the loudest. “I swear I’ll get you for this, Lulamoon,” she hissed, and Trixie replied by blowing a raspberry at her.
The sound of a car parking grabbed the girls’ attention. Adagio inhaled sharply by reflex, eliciting another round of laughter, to which she could only blush. A moment later, the front door opened, and in came Shimmer.
“Hey, Sunset!” Aria called her with a big smirk on her face. “Adagio wants to tell you somethin’!”
“Shut your mouth!” Adagio barked, making Aria laugh a lot more in response. She turned to Shimmer sheepishly. “Ignore her. How was your… trip?” She said, noticing that Shimmer wasn’t looking at her. In fact, she wasn’t looking at anything.
Sonata cocked her head. “Are you alright? You look kinda pale.”
But Shimmer didn’t even acknowledge her. Adagio was about to ask again, when a familiar voice sounded from behind Shimmer.
“Well, ain’t this a cozy place to hide?” the raspy voice said.
Sunset quickly stood up, feeling a freezing chill run down her entire body. She looked around, and saw Adagio frozen in place, having dropped the towel, and staring horrified at the uninvited guest. Sunset barely managed to straighten up when a young, terribly familiar girl entered the house.
Aria Blaze, the siren.
The siren pushed Shimmer aside and casually walked to the middle of the room, looking down at each and every one of the girls. Her grin was small and toothy, and she stood with the same confidence as a lion in her den.
Sunset tried to move, to get to the airhorns that were sitting at the coffee table right in front of her, but her body refused to obey her, she couldn’t even stop looking at the siren, who regarded her with a curious look. And before Sunset could even begin to think of a plan, the siren opened her mouth.
And everything was fine.