//------------------------------// // Chapter 10: Confessions // Story: A Harmonic Sonata // by keaton-furman-prower //------------------------------// “So, where do I start?” The six ponies were sitting in a circle around each other, and five of them were looking at Amethyst. She was looking nervous, but willing to speak. “Well, you have all those weird devices,” said Tennis. “And you said that they told you something about Sonata’s magic or something like that.” “Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that,” said Amethyst. “You see, I’m actually a member of the time police.” “Time police?” asked Fluttershy. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “We’re tasked with chasing time-traveling criminals.” The others stared at Amethyst with a mix of shock and doubt. They then looked at each other, before turning back to the pink unicorn. They all seemed to wish to talk, but nopony seemed to know how to react. Finally, Sonata said the only thing she could have said in the face of such a revelation. “For realzies?” Amethyst sighed. “Yes, for ‘realzies.’ My father is one too. We travel through time, investigating cases of ponies interfering with the flow of time, trying to change history, and stuff like that.” The other ponies looked at her, trying to figure out if she was being serious or messing around with them. “Okay,” Glides said finally. “So, what does have to do with the weird gadgets and whatnot?” Amethyst smiled and pulled out a few of her gadgets. “These allow me to tell if a pony is hiding something,” she explained, pointing at the metal wand. “This one’s my sonic screwdriver. It gives me alerts if it detects unusual magic signatures, and, if there’s a match in the database, it informs me of what type it is. It also has plenty of other functions, including opening doors, setting off other devices, and analyzing ambient magic and energy, although it doesn’t work on wood.” The others nodded in understanding. Amethyst smiled in satisfaction, then pointed to her magic mirror. “If I come across somepony who I find suspicious, I use the Reveal Mirror. It can analyze magic more thoroughly than the screwdriver, and it can show me how much magic a pony has. In addition, if somepony is hiding behind an illusion, or if they’re a shapeshifter, it can reveal their true form.” Unnoticed by anypony, Sonata swallowed hard. “So, yeah. I’m a time cop, and I’ve dealt with a lot of dangerous creatures. A lot of times, they seemed trustworthy, or even friendly. But whenever they thought they’d gained my trust, it was always the same story: they were nothing more than lying, manipulative jerks.” “So, is that why you never talk to anypony?” asked Glides. “And why you always seem so grouchy?” Sugar added. “And why you didn’t like me?” Sonata said quietly, though the others still heard her. Amethyst sighed as she remembered her latest predicament. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I’m just not that good at trusting ponies. And I saw that you had an unusual magic signature, and I immediately thought that it had to do with some sort of evil plot to take over the world.” Sonata stared at Amethyst in amazement. She could hardly believe that she’d just shared so many details of something so very private. She then thought about her own life; how almost nopony else knew what she truly was. She then thought about how she was scared to tell everypony, out of fear that they’d reject her. She then thought about how these five ponies had been so friendly with her, even though they knew so little about her. Finally, she made a decision. “Well, even if you did think that, you still deserve to know the truth.” Immediately, everypony’s heads turned towards Sonata. Amethyst looked particularly surprised by her statement. “What do you mean?” she asked. Sonata sighed as she prepared to tell her story. “Well, the thing is, my magic signo-whatsitcalled isn’t normal because I’m not a normal pony. In fact, I’m technically not even a pony.” The other five looked at her in confusion. Sonata took a deep breath. “The truth is, I was originally a creature called a siren. That’s basically a sort of equinoid fish creature with hypnotic powers that feeds on negative emotions.” “You mean like... the changelings?” asked Tennis. “Something like that,” said Sonata. “Except we’re kind of the opposite of changelings, because while they feed on love, we fed on hate and conflict.” The other ponies looked understandably worried at this revelation, but didn’t say anything. “Anyway, my sisters and I had magic voices, which we could use for various purposes. However, the thing we were most adept with was our ability to hypnotize ponies. We could make them do whatever we wanted, though we mostly made them fight each other so we could feed on their negative emotions” “Wow,” said Glides. “That’s messed up.” “I know,” said Sonata, her voice dipping. “At the time, I never really thought about how we were hurting everypony we encountered. All I knew was that we had to feed, and that was how we did it. But my sisters weren’t like that.” Sonata sighed as she remembered her life. “Adagio was the oldest of us, and so she was sort of the leader. She was always the one who had the big plans, and she was the most skilled with her music. Aria was the middle sister, and she was a big meanie. She didn't like anyone, and she went with Adagio because she liked to mess with ponies. I was the youngest one. I didn't have any plans, and I didn't really have a problem with anypony. I just went along with my sisters because I believed in them, and because Adagio was great at obtaining emotional energy for us to feed on.” “Well, even if you were doing bad things, it's nice that you and your sisters got along,” chirped Fluttershy nervously, eliciting a sigh from Sonata. “Yeah, I thought so too. Anyway, Adagio eventually came up with a plan to have everypony under our control. I didn't really understand it, but Adagio promised we'd never go hungry again, so I just kinda went along with it.” “Did your plan fail?” asked Sugar. “Because we aren't being lorded over by a bunch of singing seaponies.” “Sugar!” Glides hissed angrily. “Don't interrupt Sonata's story!” “Nah, it's okay,” Sonata said quickly. “And yeah, the plan didn't quite go as expected. Some clever unicorn figured out a way to banish us to another dimension, and stripped us of most of our power in the process.” “Is that why you look like a normal earth pony?” asked Tennis. “I don't know,” said Sonata. “When we arrived in that other dimension, we weren't sirens or ponies, but some sort of weird, bipedal ape creatures.” The other ponies looked at her with an incredulous look on their faces. “I know,” said Sonata. “It was really weird. But even if we weren't sirens anymore, we soon realized that we each had a magic pendant which contained a small amount of our power within.” “Huh,” said Amethyst. “That sounds a lot like the cursed amulets I have to deal with on a regular basis.” “I guess you could say that,” said Sonata. “Of course, even with our pendants, we couldn't control others like we could before. All we could do was induce anger and give suggestions, though that was all we needed to feed. Of course, we never really felt full, and the dimension where we were trapped never felt like home.” Sonata paused, noting that the other ponies actually seemed to be sorry for her. She wasn't even sure why; hadn't they heard her talk about how she and her sisters had tried to take over Equestria? “But that wasn’t the worst part. Before all this, we had always had each other’s backs. Yeah, we argued every now and then, but we always managed to resolve our differences eventually. All for tacos, and tacos for all, you know?” “Actually,” said Amethyst, “It’s-” “But after we were banished,” said Sonata, oblivious to the interruption, “things… changed.” While it was not unusual for fights to break out at the bar, it seemed unusually violent tonight. Indeed, at first glance one might think that every single person in the establishment was either arguing or brawling with each other. However, closer inspection revealed three young ladies who were singing at a booth in the corner. They had all covered their heads up with their hoodies, and they were each holding a glowing red gem while they sang. Their voice was mysterious and beautiful, and yet somehow unnerving. After a few minutes, the singing died down, and the three girls stopped to look down at their gems. One of them scowled and removed her hood, revealing her purple skin and hair. “Seriously?!” the girl said. “We did all that singing and all we have to show for it are leftovers?!” “This world does not have magic, Aria,” said a second one as she removed her own hood, showing off her huge orange hairdo. “We can gather energy, but it will be harder, and it won’t be quite as plentiful as in Equestria.” “I know that, Adagio!” Aria replied in annoyance. “But we wouldn’t have to struggle like this if it hadn’t been for your brilliant plan!” Adagio clenched her teeth, trying hard to suppress her anger, a task made much harder by the third girl’s comment. “You think it was brilliant?! Because I thought it was total failure!” “YOU are a total failure!” Aria retorted. “Wha- I’m not a failure! I’m a-” “WILL YOU TWO JUST SHUT UP?!!” The two immediately stopped their argument and turned to Adagio, who seemed to be one comment away from losing control entirely. “Now that I have your attention, I’d like to point out that we’re working with very little right now, and so we need to be smart about how we collect and use energy. As long as you two follow my lead, we’ll be able to survive and eventually-” “Oh, don’t give me that,” Aria growled. We wouldn’t even be in this situation if it weren’t for your leadership! How is this going to be any different?!” “There are lots of reasons!” Adagio countered. “For one thing, that accursed unicorn isn’t here to banish us again!” “Oh, sure,” said Aria, rolling her eyes. “Blame it on the unicorn.” “Um, girls?” Sonata asked nervously. “Should we be arguing like this?” “Don’t play innocent, Sonata!” yelled Aria. “You’ve never done anything that could help us in any of our plans!” “But I-” “Never even tried to create any plans! You just followed us around like a mangy dog!” Sonata shrunk back at her sister’s voice, earning her a condescending smirk from Aria. “It only got worse from there,” said Sonata. The other mares stared in shock as the blue mare closed her eyes, evidently trying to hold back tears. “A few months after we arrived in the other world, Adagio found a girl who she thought was also from Equestria.” “Hold up just a second,” said Amethyst. “You mean somepony else got banished to that dimension too?” “I don't know, said Sonata. “Adagio thought she might have gone there voluntarily. Whatever it was, my sister decided that the mystery girl was the key to getting back to Equestria, so she made a plan to capture her.” “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that it was an epic fail,” said Tennis. “Nah, it was just a fail,” Sonata said, a feeble attempt at bringing a small amount of humor into her story. “But what happened later... was horrible.” “I can’t believe you two messed up our one chance to get back to Equestria!” The three former sirens were standing in a dark alleyway, hoping that law enforcement wouldn’t be able to spot them. Adagio and Aria were currently glaring at each other, while Sonata was looking at them both fearfully. “Oh, sure, it’s our fault that your brilliant plan failed!” yelled Aria. “And besides, if you want to blame anyone, blame Sonata!” “WHAT?!” “I told you that this wasn’t the time for tacos!” yelled Aria. “But noooo, you just had to get a taco, didn’t you?!” “I said I’m sorry!” said Sonata. “I was just so hungry, I couldn’t resist!” “I always knew you were the worst, but this proves it beyond any doubt!” “No! I’m not the worst! You a-” “YOU BOTH ARE!!!” The two immediately stopped their arguing and turned towards Adagio, whose face bore an expression of pure rage. “Listen, Sonata! If you had simply followed the plan, we’d be able to trap this girl, figure out where her Equestrian magic was coming from, and we’d finally be able to end our banishment! Instead, you deviated from the plan, and destroyed any chance we had of ever getting back to Equestria!” Her angry rant earned a scared whimper from Sonata and a smug grin from Aria. But before the purple girl could savor her victory, Adagio grabbed her pendant and pulled her in closer. “As for you, Aria, you seem to have nothing better to do than to whine about every little problem that we encounter, and question every single decision I make! If you had spent half of that time getting Sonata to stick to the plan, we might have been able to pull it off!” “Seriously?!” yelled Aria as she pushed Adagio away. “You’re blaming me for Sonata’s failure?!” “Well, you’re always blaming me for your failures, so why not?” “At least my failures aren’t caused by a huge brain-sucking hair monster!” At this, Adagio screamed in rage and lunged at Aria, knocking her to the ground. The purple siren barely had time to recover before her sister began to attack her, grabbing her right pigtail with one hand while punching her in the face with the other. Before she could do too much damage, however, Aria grabbed her hair and pulled her down, slamming her face against the ground. She then lifted herself off the ground and tried to pull her sister up by the hair, only to get punched in the face once more. Sonata could only watch in horror as her sisters brutally fought each other. Her eyes began to water as she tried to intervene. “Girls! Please stop it!” Without any warning, both Adagio and Aria slammed their fists into Sonata’s face, causing her to recoil. They then glared at each other before resuming their fight. The blue siren stood still for a moment, her mind busy processing what had just happened. Then, the dam broke. “Fine!” she yelled, tears streaming down her eyes. “I don’t want you either! In fact, I don’t even want to be a siren anymore!” She then grabbed her pendant and tore it off her neck. The two fighting sisters paused and watched in horror as she threw it onto the ground, shattering it. “See?! I’m not your sister anymore! I’m just... whatever those weird bald monkeys are! She then ran out of the alley, her vision blurry from the tears in her eyes. She didn’t know where she was running to, or even where she wanted to go. All she knew was that she didn’t want to be near the other two ever again. “And after that… I managed to find a way back into Equestria. Then Princess Luna took me in as her student, and that was that. As Sonata finished her tale, her fellow ponies stared at her in shock. None of them seemed to be able to say anything, so Sonata continued to speak. “I still don’t understand why it all had to end like that. I mean, we were family! Family doesn’t fight like that! Family sticks together!” Sonata didn’t even bother to hide the tears that were forming in her eyes. “I just wanted for us to stay! I didn’t care if we were taking over the world, or just hanging out with each other! We were supposed to do it together!” After this, Sonata continued to cry, her hooves becoming wet with tears. She didn’t even care about the fact that the others were watching her cry her heart out; All she knew was that her family had fallen apart, and she’d been powerless to stop it. Gradually, she realized that she was being held by somepony. Slowly she opened, her eyes, and was shocked to see that Glides was now hugging her tightly. “Wh-what are you doing?” “I think you need somepony to hug you.” she whispered quietly. Sonata opened her mouth to speak, only for the words to fade when Amethyst joined the hug. “I’m sorry about your family.” Sonata had no idea what to say; she just watched with wide eyes as Tennis, Fluttershy, and Sugar all joined the hug. “But...I’m a siren! I’m an emotion-eating, anger-inducing, hypno-singing sea monster!” To her surprise, Amethyst chuckled. “I suppose it’s true you’re not a normal pony, Sonata. But nopony- or siren- should have to watch their family tear itself apart. And in all the time I’ve been with you, I haven’t found any evidence that you’ve been trying to brainwash us, or deceiving us, or trying to mislead us.” “Of course she’s not trying to be mean to us!” said Sugar. “I mean, what did you think one singing sea monster was going to do? Maybe she could brainwash a school, but she’d be totally unable to do much else!” Immediately, everypony burst into laughter. For a moment, all their problems seemed far away, and the sorrow that had been gathering in Sonata’s heart was dispelled. “Thank you, everypony. I… never thought anypony would ever accept me.” “Oh, come on, Sonata. What are friends for?” Sonata blinked. “You think I’m a friend, Amethyst?” The purple-maned unicorn smiled at her. “Please… just call me Amy.” Sonata grinned, while everypony else stared in shock. “I thought you hated that name!” said Sugar. She shrugged “Eh, it’s grown on me.” Sonata could hardly believe it. Just a few hours ago, Amethyst had disliked her intensely. However, she now considered her a friend. And as she looked around, she realized that each of them, who she’d only known for a few hours, were now smiling at her in the same way. “Everypony… thank you.” The other ponies smiled. “You’re welcome,” said Glides. “And remember that we’ll always be here for you when somepony wants to bully you. So don’t let them get to you, because we’ll always be right here for you.” Sonata smiled, moved by the support her friends were showing. In all her years living as a pony, she had never believed that such a thing would be possible. She’d always believed she’d be shunned for her past. But here she was, with five great new friends who had accepted her for who she was. She then turned her head in the direction of the old castle with newfound determination in her eyes. “Come on everypony! We still have to save Equestria!” Her friends cheered, and together, they began to race towards the castle.