“Ugh, how could this have happened to us? To us!” Adagio Dazzle shouted as she paced back and forth in the dilapidated, ready-to-be condemned townhouse she and her fellow former Sirens had taken refuge in. After their utter defeat at the hands of the Rainbooms earlier in the evening they had tried to return to the luxurious penthouse loft they called home, where it had quickly become apparent that any hold they once had over their landlord had been broken the moment they lost their powers. He'd actually chased them for a good two blocks before they managed to ditch him.
“I know how it happened,” Aria Blaze said with feigned disinterest from her place on the ripped and stained couch as she played idly with the green streak in her purple hair. “It starts with ‘Adagio’ and it ends with ‘Dazzle’.”
Adagio wheeled on the sitting girl, hands planted on her hips and her eyes flaring wide. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it means,” Aria said, standing so that they were face to face as she jabbed an accusing finger at Adagio. “It was your plan and it failed, so it’s your fault!”
“Oh, you think you can do better?” Adagio spread her arms wide. “Please, tell me what you would have done differently! Tell me what secret scheme you had for overcoming what was hands-down the most powerful magic force any of us has ever seen before?”
Aria’s mouth worked up and down, but what little sound came forth was scattered and disjointed. “I would’ve… I could have… um…”
“That’s what I thought,” Adagio said with a smirk as she lifted the underside of Aria’s chin with her finger.
“Shut up!” Aria swatted the other girl’s hand away. “It’s still your fault that we even got involved; if you hadn’t convinced us to try to take the Rainbooms’ magic at least we’d still have our powers!”
“You were the one complaining about how miserable you were feeding on this world’s scraps, idiot!”
“Scraps are better than nothing, moron!”
“Girls! Girls, stop fighting, please!” Sonata Dusk said, trying to force herself between her two shouting friends. “It’s no biggie! Everybody just chill out for a sec, take a deep breath and slowly count to ten. Like this.” She closed her eyes and proceeded to demonstrate. “In…. and out… better?” After another moment of silence she opened one eye to find both Adagio and Aria glaring at her, and frowned. “Not better?”
Adagio let out a sigh and massaged the bridge of her nose, while Aria shook her head.
“Sonata… you are the worst.”
“Nuh-uh! You are!” came Sonata’s indignant and predictable response.
“No, Aria is right,” Adagio said. “You really are the worst Sonata. Do you know why?”
Sonata’s eyes widened at Adagio as she shifted from side to side nervously. “N-no…”
“It’s because you don’t even understand how serious this is.” The orange-haired girl rounded on her, taking slow steps forward as she spoke and forcing Sonata to back away. “We’ve lost our powers. We can no longer feed on negative energy, and that means we can no longer use magic. If we can’t use magic, we can’t make these pathetic slugs do what we want, and that means from this point on we’re going to have to live just like them!”
Sonata’s back met the wall and she could retreat no further, but Adagio moved right up to her face, only inches apart as she continued. “We’re going to be living among these magicless, low-brow, thick-as-mud humans, as…” her voice fell, “... as equals.” She stepped away from Sonata and plopped down heavily on the couch, staring off into space with a vacant yet somewhat terrified expression.
“Well… maybe it, um, won’t be so bad?” Sonata offered cautiously. “I mean, there’s a bright side to everything, right? All we have to do is find it!”
“A bright side? A bright side?!” Adagio sprung to her feet, their noses practically touching as she backed Sonata into the wall again. She raised her arm, causing Sonata to cringe, but instead of striking her Adagio smirked. “Actually, you know what? That’s not a bad idea,” she crooned.
Sonata managed a weak smile. “It isn’t?”
Aria’s jaw fell open. “It isn’t?!”
“Sure,” Adagio said sweetly as she took Sonata by the shoulder and led her toward the front door, opening and gently guiding her through it. “Tell you what: how about you go out and look for the bright side to all of this, and when you find it come back and tell Aria and I all about it? I’m sure that’ll solve all our problems and make everything all better.”
Sonata beamed and did a little dance on the front stoop. “For realsies?!”
“NO!” Adagio barked, slamming the door shut and locking it, leaving Sonata standing outside in the cool night breeze.
“... Wait, now I’m confused.”
Sonata sighed to the rusty tin can she was kicking along the sidewalk in front of her. She’d been circling the block for the past few minutes, after Adagio and Aria had staunchly refused to let her back inside.
“Maybe Adagio’s right,” she spoke softly. “Maybe there isn’t a bright side to this after all. I mean, it’s nighttime; shouldn’t it be, like, really easy to find something bright when it’s this dark?”
Her musings were interrupted as a particularly strong gust of wind blew a discarded flyer into her face. She struggled with the offending newsprint for a moment before pulling it off and holding it at arm’s length to get a better look. She was just about to toss the paper away when it caught her attention.
She stared, her eyes growing wider with every word she read as her mouth fell open in a humongous grin.
“Bright side!!”
The pounding on the door was more insistent than before, and Adagio could hear Sonata calling out from the other side long before she opened it. The excited girl nearly fell into the house as soon as she no longer had something to hammer her fists against.
“What?!” Adagio snapped as Sonata regained her composure and began bouncing up and down.
“Adagio! I found it, I found it!” She stopped hopping and took on a more pensive look. “Or maybe it found me?”
Adagio pressed her fingers to her temples in a vain attempt to ward off a headache as Aria came around the corner to see what the commotion was. “What are you talking about?”
“The bright side! I found the bright side you told me to look for!” She held up the flyer, which Adagio regarded with a raised eyebrow as she took it and glanced over the many advertisements and coupons.
“Oookay… what exactly am I looking at?”
“Right here!” Sonata pointed. “Tonight is Free Taco night at Taco Bell! Isn’t that perfect? What are the odds that we’d end up broke and powerless on the one night that we can still get free tacos? It’s, like, a sign or something!”
Adagio ground her teeth and slowly looked up from the flyer as Aria peeked over her shoulder. Sonata’s wide grin started to fade as the two stared her down.
“Are you guys not in the mood for tacos?”
Sonata sailed through the air with the grace of a drunken pelican before landing unceremoniously on a pile of plastic trash bags on the sidewalk. She blew a lock of her own hair from her face, and from her upside-down vantage watched as Adagio crumpled up the flyer and tossed it into the pile as well. It struck her lightly on the nose before rolling away.
“Here’s an idea: try coming back when you have a clue!!” Adagio yelled before slamming the door once again.
“A clue? But I thought I was looking for a bright side?” Sonata grumbled. With some effort, she managed to roll herself off the trash pile and into a cross-legged sitting position on the ground, and placed her head in her hands with a sigh. The breeze rustled the wrinkled flyer, and she once again picked it up, unfurling the page to gaze longingly at the crispy, zesty, salsa-y goodness it promised. Her stomach growled.
“Yeah, me too,” she sighed again. After a moment she furrowed her brow and sat up a little straighter. “Waitaminute… just because Adagio and Aria don’t want to go get tacos doesn’t mean I can’t.” She perked up and became more and more excited as she continued. “I can totes go down to Taco Bell on my own! And I bet if I tell them how sad my friends are and ask really nicely they’ll let me bring some back for Adagio and Aria, and then they’ll eat them and it’ll taste sooo good; they’ll feel better and we’ll be happy and everything will be okay again!!”
Sonata leaped to her feet, punching the air in excitement. She turned and placed her hands on her hips, looking toward the direction of the town’s busy and well-lit downtown commercial district.
“Watch out Canterlot; Sonata Dusk is going on a taco run!”
Halfway across town, a particular pink-loving party planner was just snuggling into her warm, soft bed, thoughts of her friends and the amazing day they’d shared promising sweet dreams and a bright future.
She suddenly sat bolt upright, her wide eyes crossing to focus on the single lock of hair that dangled in front of her face as it twitched and wobbled with a will of it’s own. It stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and her eyes narrowed maniacally as a wide, excited grin blossomed.
“Tacos…”