Aria Blaze: Throat Puncher

by Dubs Rewatcher


MESS

Aria stifled a yawn and looked up at the window. “Could I just get a coffee?”

The coffee vendor nodded and offered her a grin before ducking back inside his large metal cart.

A stiff early morning breeze rolled through the streets as Aria stood and waited for her drink. She was a block away from Canterlot High School, which, according to the newspapers, was where the “Rainbow Laser” had struck. A local gossip rag had mentioned something about a fire demon, and teenage girls growing wings… Probably just a crock, but even so, it was clear that something had happened. Aria could only imagine what kind of weird stuff had gone down there.

Not that it would ever prove a problem to her. Fire demons still had throats, right?

The itching returned, but before it could grow into the tortuous burning, Aria clasped her hands in front of her chest and wrung them. She couldn’t go five minutes without crushing her hands together, grabbing at her palms as if they were about to fall off. Callouses covered her fingers. Massaging her hands like that was one of the few treatments she had found to stop the tingling—albeit only for a few minutes.

Sonata and Adagio had already gone ahead to scout out the school and figure out the best way to infiltrate it. In the two months since seeing the rainbow laser, they had done as much research as they could on the school. There was quite a bit of info to be gleaned, but one fact stood at the front of Aria’s brain: Canterlot High School housed nearly one thousand students.

Just the number made her mouth water. To think, a thousand stupid teenagers, all under their control? It would be a feast greater than any they had ever had before—and maybe it would finally be enough to fill up the black hole that was her soul.

“Here you are, young lady!” the coffee vendor said, poking his head out of the cart again. He handed over the steaming cup and received a crumpled-up dollar bill, hastily fished out of Aria’s pocket.

Aria took a deep whiff of the drink, smiling as its bitter fragrance swam through her nostrils. Unlike Sonata, she had never developed a taste for human food—the donuts and muffins that filled the rest of the vendor’s cart just filled her with nausea. And yet, she had come to love coffee. The way it kicked every sense into overdrive, as if shocking her with a taser… it was like the buzzing from her Amulet turned into a liquid.

Her high was dampened a bit, however, when she realized the coffee vendor still had his hand outstretched.

She raised a brow. “You need something?”

“You gave me a dollar,” he said. “Coffee’s a dollar-fifty.”

“What? Since when?”

“Since yesterday. Raised prices. Inflation and all that.”

Aria rolled her eyes, but rummaged around in her pockets all the same. She pulled out a wad of lint. “I don’t have fifty cents.”

“Well then,” the coffee vendor said with a frown, “I think I’m gonna have to ask for that coffee back.”

“Seriously?” Aria asked. “I already drank from it. If I give it back, you’re just gonna pour it out anyway.”

“It’s the principle of it!” he said. “You don’t pay, and all of a sudden every goth girl in the city thinks they can get free coffee! It’ll be madness!”

“You’re not going to make me pay,” Aria said with a scowl.

The vendor shrugged. “I think I gotta.”

Aria’s breathing hastened. “Okay,” she muttered, placing the cup of coffee on the sidewalk next to her. With quick, jerky steps, she walked around to the back of the vendor’s cart and opened the back door, revealing a nervous coffee vendor.

He didn’t even yell as Aria punched him in the throat and sent him crashing to the floor.

Aria spent a moment glaring at him, silently daring him to make a move. When it was clear that he wasn’t getting up, she backed off—only for shock to wash over her. She watched the man’s writhing body, stared at the growing bruise on his throat. It had felt even doughier than it looked.

She shouldn’t have done that. It was stupid, stupid.

...But he had tried to take her coffee. And who was he to talk back to her? Some stupid human?

Pushing down the disgust, Aria slammed the cart’s door closed. She made sure no one had seen her before grabbing her coffee and hurrying off. As she sipped at her drink, she prepared herself for the glorious feast that was to come.