That evening, Sonata Dusk was startled by a mysterious sound. She looked up in alarm, glancing from Adagio Dazzle to Aria Blaze, but neither of them seemed to have noticed it. The two of them continued to lay dejectedly where they had fallen, their outfits tattered and bodies bruised from their earlier fight, on the abandoned mattress and slumped against the concrete wall of the underpass. It happened again, and Sonata looked down in alarm.
“You guys,” she said urgently, “I think my stomach is angry at me.”
Adagio didn’t move from her mattress, but she slapped her palm across her face. “That means you’re hungry, Sonata.”
“Which you would know,” cut in Aria, glaring at her from a black eye, “if you weren’t the worst.”
“You are!” snapped the other Siren instinctively. “But, y’know, I don’t feel even a little tingle! We don’t really need that regular food stuff, do we? I mean, it’s good, but…”
This time Adagio did get up, her sigh drowned under the noise of a passing truck, and as she drew herself to her full height she took stock of their surroundings. When they had fled Canterlot High earlier after the Rainbooms’ Equestrian magic had washed over them and destroyed the crystals which contained their own magic, they hadn’t looked back or stopped running until they were clear across town, passing from the well-manicured lawns and music shops to vacant lots and boarded-up windows, where they had disputed the issue until they all collapsed from exhaustion. Flipping her orange hair back, the self-proclaimed leader of their group seemed to reassert her status. “We didn’t. We shouldn’t. But so long as we don’t have our magic, I think we may have to accept certain…difficulties.”
“I don’t think WE have to accept anything,” Aria broke in, angrily standing up, her pigtails out of order. “If we don’t have our magic, then you’re not the strongest, and why should I have to listen to you two worthless losers?”
“US--?! Like you weren’t just as b—nnngh.” Adagio grabbed the girl by the collar. “Forget it. What matters is that we stay together long enough to get some magic back.”
“And how do you suggest we do that? Ask the Rainbrats nicely? We lost our gems, remember?” Aria pushed Adagio away and crossed her arms derisively.
“Think about it, you idiot,” snarled Adagio. “If there was a way for Twilight Sparkle and her magic to get in, there must be a way for us to get it back. Much as I despise this world, we’ll have better luck staying here and biding our time until they least suspect us, when they’re at their weakest. Then we strike—“she punctuated the phrase with a smack of a fist in her palm, “And take back what is rightfully ours!”
“And food, too! Don’t forget about the food!” Sonata added plaintively.
“But we can’t go back there, and we can’t stay here,” huffed Aria, “looking like this.”
“You’re right. We need another fresh start. New clothes. New identities. But without our song, how to get those…those…Sonata, will you stop fidgeting like that?!” Lashing out, Adagio slapped at Sonata’s hand, which had been fussing with something she’d pulled from her pocket. While the blue girl quietly whimpered, several small, sparkling red things fell to the ground.
“Those! Those are necklace fragments,” Adagio practically hissed. “You held onto them? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Sonata Dusk, you’re a genius!”
“A lot of good those will do us now,” said Aria. “Now that they’re depowered and worthless.”
Slowly, a smile crept over Adagio’s face as she gazed past the pink girl, at a neon sign in the window of a store up the slope from the underpass. A simple diamond symbol glowed electric blue in the night, and the words WE PAY CASH FOR JEWELRY! next to them blinked on and off intermittently.
“I wouldn’t say they’re worthless,” chuckled the siren, a familiar confidence coming back to her. “No, I wouldn’t say that at all.”
* * *
“So…let me get this straight,” Lucky Nickel the pawn shop clerk said, running a hand through his greasy silver hair nervously and staring at the threesome that had just walked into the store. Three teenage girls, battered and generally the beaten up, eagerly shoving some small shards of jewelry at him through the window. “You just happened to get these crystals as a gift from your parents before they died, you’re moving in with your aunt and uncle, and you need the money for train fare?”
“Is there an echo in here?” the pink one said. “Just shut up and give us the money, monkey boy.”
“What she means to say is, we really would appreciate it, we couldn’t ask our family for the trouble, and we just need it right now.” The yellow one made a slashing motion across her throat where she thought Lucky couldn’t see it.
“Right. Well, girls, you see, I can’t just take something on the spot. Thing is, we’ve got some rules and regulations in the business, and it’d be pretty dam—pretty darn irresponsible of me to just fork over some money to underage girls, so…I’m gonna have to phone this one in to the boss.” Lucky turned to reach for the receiver.
“Wait! Yoooouuu…want to give us what we’re asking…you wanna make us shine like stars…”
Prior to this moment, Lucky Nickel had heard but never believed the people who claimed to hear something so awful it made your ears bleed. He had some sympathy for them now, and he clasped his hands to his ears with a grimace. The blue girl was…trying to sing, it seemed. In moments, the pain had been doubled, and he was ready to kick the three of them out of the store before the yellow one with orange hair slapped her hand over the other’s mouth. “Wait,” she said, the apparent leader of her ‘sisters’. “I know what we can do.”
She slipped something under the counter: one of the fragments, glimmering a deep red and unless Lucky missed his guess, a genuine ruby. “Why don’t you hold onto this one? As…insurance? We’ll come back later, and you can give it to us. Or our aunt and uncle. They’ll be by. Whichever.” She practically cooed. Lucky stared at her long and hard. It was a difficult decision to make.
A few minutes later they had left the store with wads of cash in hand, and Lucky stared at the doors swinging slowly closed behind them. Had he really done the right thing? Well…his boss didn’t have to know the exact details. He had the security access codes, and he could call somebody later to check up on them. Maybe he would call the police later, just in case. But really, what was the worst that three teenage girls could possibly do?
* * *
Contentedly, Sonata slurped at her fizzy drink, rocking back and forth on the bench and occasionally kicking Aria in the shins. There was nobody else in sight but a janitor slowly shuffling about his rounds further down the platform, leaving them plenty of time for plotting aloud. “Well, I think it sounds like a great idea,” she sniffed, turning her nose up and accidentally smacking the back of her head into the bench.
“You think everything sounds like a great idea,” grumbled the other, huddling herself against the cold wind. She hugged one of the sweaters Adagio had bought them all closer around her, cursing her decision to stay with the two of them after all.
“Now, now, sisters dear,” chuckled Adagio, in unusually good spirits herself. She’d decided on a plan, and in their experience, when she got an idea fixed in her mind, it couldn’t be shaken out. “We’re going to be a family now, and we stick to the story, remember?” After a chorus of grumbled assents, she turned back to the board. “I’m sure of this. What we need is a new start. We need to lay low for a while, hide in a sea of anonymous primate faces. And I know just the place to do it.”
A low rumble shook the platform, and down the road a brilliant light rounded the corner: a train, coming to spirit the powerless sirens away from their current trouble. Adagio smacked at a point on the map pinned to the wall, a list of their destinations, and a place far to the northwest:
“Manehattan.”