I tested my luck with the speed limit a little more now that I didn't have a tied up girl on the floor of my car. I didn't want to risk any of the Sirens getting out of Canterlot High, if they were still there at all. The sooner I could capture them, the better. As nice as this vacation was, Celestia did need me back in Equestria to deal with the whole, you know, world war thing.
Just ducky.
I pulled into the parking lot of Canterlot High and hopped out, Blaze following quickly behind me. A quick text exchange with Pinkie let me know that her group was still hanging out in the music room. Given that the school had largely been locked down, Pinkie had Rarity meet me at the school entrance to let me in.
"Hello, Princess Antares," Rarity said, inclining her head in a little bow as she stepped aside so I could enter.
"Really don't need all of the decorum there, Ms. Rarity." I motioned to my t-shirt and jeans. "Do I look like a Princess Antares to you?"
Rarity made a little noise of distaste. "Honestly, Princess, I'm quite certain that your original form is something that befits your royal status."
"Not really. I was a human before I became a pony princess. So, skin color aside, you're looking at my original form, roughly speaking."
"Indeed." Rarity sighed. "Well, if you say so. Personally I can't see why you wouldn't want to go by your title in private, even if you're here for more small-scale pursuits."
"I shrugged. "Well, asking everybody in a high school to call someone clearly male 'Princess Antares' isn't really all that wise, now is it? Just going by my original name helps me blend in a lot more."
"Yes, you've done a marvelous job of simply 'blending in' while you've been here," Rarity deadpanned.
"Point taken. I still fit in better than if I demanded everybody call me by my royalty name." I shot Rarity an amused look. "And is that any way to talk to royalty?"
"Canadian royalty, perhaps," Rarity shot back.
"Nice."
"So about the sirens you spotted..." Blaze chimed in.
Ah, yes, right.
"Well, the rest of the girls can probably explain it better than I can, seeing as how I was away when Rainbow Dash spotted one of them, but I'm not completely sure that they're still in the school."
"Was it both of them, or just one?"
"I think it was both of them," Rarity said. "Though, again, I was not privy to the whole situation. Rainbow just wanted me to wait for you by the school entrance so I could let you in."
"Alright. Let's figure this all out, then."
We reached the band room and Rarity knocked three times. Fluttershy opened up the door and smiled at Rarity. "Oh, good. You're here."
"Yes, and I've brought Princess Antares as well." She shot Blaze a look. "And one of his bodyguards."
"Cool," Rainbow Dash said, standing up and putting the guitar she'd been busy tuning back into its case. "So Pinkie and AJ are giving the school another look to make sure that The Dazzlings aren't still hanging around. Once they get back we can figure it all out."
I shot Sunset a brief look. She had her back turned to me. Seemed like she didn't really care to acknowledge me. Maybe then I'd go away.
Teenagers. I wasn't like that when I was her age, was I?
Maybe once or twice.
"Alright, then we don't have much time. It won't take them long to scout out the school. If they're not back soon then we have to prepare for the possibility that they got mind controlled, which is something that I know how to cure, but I'd really rather not do to them because I like them and it's a cure that requires duct tape and K-pop music."
Rarity and Rainbow Dash both flinched back at that.
"Y-yeah, I'm sure they're fine," Rainbow said.
"Me, too. They'd better be." I took a seat on one of the chairs. "So, what happened? You said you saw one of them?"
"Yeah, she just walked by the music room. I wasn't even sure it was one of them until I noticed the giant poof she had on her head that she probably calls hair." Rainbow stuck out her tongue in distaste. "Seriously, what's with that 'do?"
"No idea, but if it's that big of a deal we can give them a haircut before we all go back to Equestria." I motioned in the vague direction of my car. "I already have one of them secure in my house. If we can get the one you saw then it's not going to be terribly hard to get the last one, too."
The door opened and Pinkie and Applejack walked in, grim looks on their faces. Not good.
"Hey there, Princess Antares," Applejack said, tipping her hat to me. "We checked the whole school. No sirens, or nothin'."
"Hmm. That's too bad." I looked back at Rainbow Dash. "So which one did you actually see? Blue hair or explosion hair?"
"Explosion hair," Rainbow replied.
"What was she doing? Just walking?"
"Yeah, I guess," Rainbow said with a shrug. "She looked into the room for like half a second or something, but left pretty quick when she saw us."
"Hmm." I tapped my jaw thoughtfully. "So she's probably not on school grounds anymore. If I had to bet, she's with the other one. Sonata, or something like that."
"Yeah, they weren't in any of my usual hiding spots, and all of the classroom doors were locked," Pinkie said.
"So what are we going to do now?"
"Now..." I stood up and grim look crossed my face. "Now we all go talk to the one I have tied up in my basement." Applejack and Pinkie gave me a curious look, and even Sunset had decided to not ignore me for a few minutes. "I grabbed her not long after my big musical performance," I clarified. "Rapids is watching her right now. For the moment I'm not completely sure of what to do with her, especially since there are two others running amok, but it's a start, and I'd bet that their little group isn't quite as powerful without the set." A grim expression crossed my face. "Right now we need to figure out a way to get the gem around her neck off. It's the source of their power."
"How are we going to do that?" Fluttershy asked.
"I'm not completely sure yet, being, admittedly, fairly new to magic. However..." I shot Sunset a pointed look and began walking over to her. "There is someone here who does know more than I do."
Sunset hopped off of the piano and began backing away. "No chance, buddy," she snarled. "I'm not helping you out! Just bring the one you have back to Equestria with you and deal with it from there!"
Okay, not the worst idea, but it still left a lot of things to chance.
"I'd rather know for sure that would work. I need to figure out how to get her gem off before I start thinking about that kind of thing. You're the only one here who has a chance of figuring that stuff out. You used to be Celestia's student!"
Sunset flinched back slightly at Celestia's name, but she didn't stop glaring at me. "Yeah, and Princess Celestia would be better at this than me! Just take the damn siren back to Equestria and leave me alone!"
"Okay, for..." I groaned and facepalmed. "You really need to get over your hang-ups with me, Sunset! I totally understand: what I did was traumatic for you. You have every right to feel that way, but at the same time, you need to understand why I did what I did! You stole one of the most powerful magical artifacts that Equestria has so that you could invade and take over! What was I supposed to do? What was Celestia supposed to do?"
"Don't you dare use her against me, Antares!" Sunset roared. "You don't understand what you're talking about!"
"Fine, I don't understand what happened between the two of you, but do you know what I do understand? I understand that this world is facing a very real threat by some very bad monsters who will cause serious problems if we don't stop them! Their goal is to subject every man, woman and child on this planet to feed off of forever! Now I am here to put a stop to that threat once and for all! Are you going to let your hatred of me get in the way of doing what is right?" I took a cautious step towards Sunset. "Hate me as much as you want. But you have a chance to stop these creeps. Don't let your hatred of me stop you from doing the right thing, okay?"
Sunset kept glaring at me, but she didn't give some smartass teenager retort. I could see the gears turning in her head as she figured out which she hated more: me, or the idea of these creatures feeding off of her friends. I guess pragmatism won out in the end, because she huffed and began walking out of the room.
"I'm not riding with you. We're taking Rarity's car."
"Oh. Um... very well, then," Rarity said, following after Sunset. "My car only takes five, so somebody will need to ride with Princess Antares."
"Ah'll do it," Applejack said, following after Rarity.
"Shotgun!" Rainbow called, running after the rest of them.
"Um... I guess I'm okay with the middle, if that's fine with everybody else," Fluttershy muttered.
"Yay! Carpool!" Pinkie said happily bouncing out after the rest of them.
Blaze and I exchanged a vaguely amused look, amusement that was dulled a bit by Sunset's behavior.
"We'd best go after them," I said after a moment. "I don't think they know where the house is."
"Pinkie might," Blaze pointed out as we walked out of the music room.
"True."
* * * *
"So, you said ya got, whadja call her, Aria?" Applejack asked as we drove toward the house.
"Yeah. Nabbed her right as we were about to leave school. She was just by herself near the statue. We think she was acting as a lookout."
"Alrighty, if ya say so," Applejack muttered. "Ah can't pretend Ah know what's goin' on in their minds."
"Well, let's hope we find out pretty soon," I said as we turned onto our street. "Those necklaces they wear are definitely magical in origin and, despite having the power to raise and lower the sun and moon, I don't have the magical training yet to figure out what's behind them. I'm hoping Sunset picked something up that will allow us to figure out how to get them off and break them. Once we do that, they're no more than simple teenage girls. Easy to arrest and take back to Canterlot." I noted Applejack's look of confusion. "Er... the capital city of the country I rule. It's called Canterlot. You know how all of you have doubles in my world? For some reason the capital city of my country shares the same name as your high school."
"Well, the city we're in is also called 'Canterlot'," Applejack pointed out. "Just thought you meant turnin' them over to the cops, or somethin', which didn't make a lotta sense fer you."
"I suppose I can see your point. Regardless..." I pulled into the driveway of the house. "Let's take this one step at a time, alright?"
"Guess so."
The three of us exited the truck just as Rarity pulled up in her silver Honda Civic type car. Pinkie Pie let out an impresses whistle.
"Is this seriously your house?" she said in awe.
I nodded. "Sure is. Bit big for three people, but, hey, I figured that I might as well splurge a bit once I became a multi-millionaire. Immodest? Maybe, but it looks nice, and I wanted somewhere comfortable to stay."
I pushed the door open and stepped aside for the others to go in first. When Rarity passed by, I gave her a little bow of my head, which triggered an eye roll and a vaguely amused expression from her.
"Okay, so where's this siren you have?" Sunset growled as I shut and locked the door behind us before tossing my keys onto the counter.
"She's in the basement. Lieutenant Rapids is guarding her."
"Fine. Let's get this over with."
Sunset just about stomped over to a nearby door and threw it open, growling and slamming it when she saw that it was, in fact, not the door to the basement. I desperately wanted to make a comment about her opening our shoe closet, but it wouldn't really help her mood, and I didn't want to provoke her. She needed to be as calm as she could. I led the group to the actual basement door and went down ahead of all of them. Just on the off chance that something had gone wrong.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I spotted a girl sitting on the chair, tied up and gagged. The wrong girl.
"Rapids... what the heck happened?!"
Rapids turned her head and probably would have smiled sheepishly at me if not for the gag. I rushed over to her and quickly tore off the tape, allowing her to spit out the rag in her mouth.
"Glad you could make it, Princess Antares," Rapids croaked. "I've kind of had a long day."
"Rapids, what's going on?" I asked as I began trying to tear the tape off. "Where's Aria?"
"It's nice to see you too, Princess." Rapids groaned and leaned her head back. "My head hurts."
"Oh my goodness, your face!" Fluttershy said once she reached the bottom of the steps. "Are you okay?"
"Peachy."
I gave Rapids's face another look and grimaced when I saw the impressive bruises and small cut there. Given her injuries, I wouldn't be surprised if she had a concussion on top of everything."
"Heh. Yeah, I'd usually say that it's a funny story, but it's really not..."
* * * *
Guard duty. How I love it. Being a lieutenant in Princess Antares's royal guard means that I'm usually not the one stuck with guarding doors, and when I do have guard duty, it means that I'm protecting something really important. I guess I could say the same thing here. In front of me sat an evil, emotion-eating siren, and the only thing that stopped her from singing me into submission and feeding time was some duct tape and cloth.
Eh, after being in a big battle, it doesn't seem as unnerving as it sounds.
Now, in the movies, one of us would probably start giving the other some snarky remarks about the possibility of escape, or something like that. Maybe under different circumstances, but she was gagged, and I fancy myself a professional. So instead, I started flipping through some of the music on my new phone. Maybe that part was a bit unprofessional, but I guess I felt that guarding a teenage girl, evil siren or no, had some perks, especially on my home turf, so to speak. It's not like I thought you two were going to be gone for very long anyway.
I wasn't looking through my music for more than a few minutes before the door opened. I heard the sound of two people walking through the house, and assumed for a second that you guys were back. After thinking about it for a second, I realized that the footsteps weren't as heavy as they should have been, and you guys weren't gone for nearly as long as you should have been. If my math was right, you weren't even at the school yet. I quickly picked up the knife and got ready to use it. I might be on two legs instead of four, but I figured that my training could transfer over pretty well. Well enough that I could take on two teenagers with sticks for arms and legs.
Sure enough, instead of you two like I'd hoped, the other two sirens came down the stairs, both armed with baseball bats. Not good. My knife didn't have the reach of the bats, and I was used to throwing knives with my wings. I didn't have the next clue about how to effectively throw them as a human, and even if I did, that still left one siren to deal with.
In short, I wasn't in a very good position.
"Well, it's lovely to see you again," the one with the orange explosion for a mane said. "I take it you know why we're here?"
"Yeah, I'm not as dumb as that one," I said, pointing at the blue-haired one with my knife.
"Indeed?" The orange one laughed at my little joke. "How amusing."
"How did you even find this place?" I asked. "Pretty smart of you."
Yeah, stroke their egos. If she started monologueing then I had a little time to figure something out. On top of, you know, figuring out how they found us so we could block it in the future.
"Oh, it wasn't really all that hard once you took the bait." Orangey tapped her gem. "You see, we have an innate connection to each other through these gems. I've knew where you took her the second you brought her here. After that, it was just a matter of interrogating a few of the students to find out that you three hung out with one of the bands. The Rainwhatevers. I took a gamble that you'd told them about us, and appeared before them to draw you out, leaving us to get Aria here."
Aria managed a little chuckle behind her gag.
Ass.
"So, now that we've found her, we're just going to take her and be on our way."
"And you're going to sing a few lame songs to take over the world, is that it? Lemmie tell you something, Orangey. If your songs didn't have magic in them, you'd be noponies. Heck, I'd say that's what you are now."
That didn't make her happy. She snarled at me and slammed her bat against the wall, hard enough to let me know that if I found myself on the business end of it, I would be in a world of hurt.
Seriously not good.
"What, no snarky remarks?" Orangey said smugly. "Have you learned that you're not going to stop us now? Typical mortals. You can't ever beat your superiors." Orangey jerked her head to Aria. "Sonata, get her loose, would you?"
Sonata bent down to pick up the scissors we'd left by Aria, but I took a step closer to Aria. "Can't let you do that."
Orangey let out another cartoonish evil laugh. "Oh, and what are you going to do to stop us? It's just you down here and--"
Did you know that a villain will stop monologueing if you cut their cheek open with a bread knife? I was pretty sure of that before, but now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Of course, I got a baseball bat to the side of my head for my troubles.
"You imbecile!" Orangey roared as I writhed on the ground, clutching my now ringing head. "Look what you did!"
"Oh, cool, the knife is going to work a lot better," Sonata said happily, picking up the knife I had dropped. With that it wasn't more than a few seconds before she got Aria free. While she did that, Adagio vocalized a little bit while holding her hand up to her cut. When she finished, she brought her hand down to reveal a wound that looked several days old. Dang.
"We'll help you completely fix it after we eat, Adagio," Aria grumbled. "Let's just get out of here."
"Soon." Adagio grinned evilly at me like a spider who had just caught a plump fly. "We have a great opportunity here, girls. An actual Equestrian at our complete mercy."
"Ugh, bite me," I groaned.
Adagio laughed once again. "Oh, we don't need do do anything as uncouth as that. You're mad at me for hitting you with the bat, aren't you? Good. I can work with that."
She slammed the bat down on my leg. I screamed in pain and grabbed my leg where she hit it.
"That makes you angry, doesn't it?" she whispered smugly. "Well I suppose that's good for us. We haven't tasted Equestrian emotions in a very long time.
They all began vocalizing in harmony. I reached up to put my hands over my ears, but that just got me a baseball bat to the ribs. If they weren't as physically strong as scrawny teenage girls, they could have done some real damage. Either way, I'd be sore in the morning. Or now.
I didn't think about the injuries, though. I could only think about the feeling of my emotions being sucked out as they fed off of me. I couldn't feel anything happy. All I could feel was rage and hatred, which is what they freaking fed on in the first place! Every time I tried to crawl away or put my fingers in my ears, I got a taste of baseball bat for my troubles. Every time I opened my eyes, I saw what looked like a green mist coming out of me which funneled into their gems. I guess that must have been my emotions, or something. I dunno. Didn't really care about that at the moment.
"Enough!" Adagio said after what felt like an eternity. "We don't have much time to prepare."
"But that was so good!" Sonata whined. "Maybe we can just take her with us?"
"Oh, we'll feed on her again really soon, Sonata. We have bigger meals to prepare."
"I guess," Sonata muttered.
"So what do we do with this one?" Aria asked, kicking my foot.
"Oh, just tie her up, or something," Adagio said. "Although..." Adagio grabbed the knife and flicked the blade across my cheek, drawing a little blood. Compared to everything else, it barely even tickled. "Now you may tie her up."
"With pleasure." Aria knelt down next to me with a predatory grin on her face. "By the way, I think I owe you something, too."
With that, she grabbed my head and slammed it down on the floor, knocking me out cold.
* * * *
"I, uh, woke up a few seconds before you got home," Rapids said, adjusting the ice pack on her forehead.
"I think you have a concussion," Fluttershy said as she continued checking Rapids's injuries. "It doesn't look like you have any broken bones, but you're going to be bruised pretty bad for the next couple of days. The cut doesn't look bad enough to need stitches." Fluttershy straightened up and put her hand on Rapids's forehead. "It's really best if we get her to a doctor. I might have missed something, and I don't have medical equipment here."
"We'll get her to a medic in Equestria," I grumbled, my head in my hands.
"That's just great," Sunset snapped. "You had a Siren here and you let it get away!"
I snapped my head up and glared at Sunset. "Oh, so I was just supposed to know offhand that they could track each other with their magical gems? If that's such common knowledge, why didn't you tell me that?"
"You could have just taken her back to Equestria from the start!"
"And what? Risked her doing some real damage in a world with a ton of magic? I wanted to depower her before taking her back!"
"Face it, Antares, you have done nothing but mess this up since you got here!" Sunset said, poking me in the chest. "You are an arrogant imbecile who thinks that just because she got her wings that she's somehow smarter than the rest of us!"
"Oh, the gender card. That's really mature, Sunset," I growled, shooting to my feet. "You know, I still can't figure out what your deal is! I don't know how many ways I can apologize for just doing my job and protecting my subjects from someone who was trying to take them over!"
"You don't know what you're talking about!" Sunset shouted. She would have gotten in my face if not for the fact that she stood a good head shorter than me. "You don't know what happened between Princess Celestia and I!"
"You're right! I don't know! And I don't care! I already told you that Celestia has kept it to herself!" I slammed my hand against the wall, eliciting shocked cries from Fluttershy and Rarity. "I am not here to arrest you and take you back to Equestria! I am not here to completely uproot your life again! I am not here to take you away from your friends! All of the things you have are things that Celestia and I both want for you!"
"Don't pretend that you have any idea of what she thinks about me!" Sunset shrieked. "You and I are done talking!" She pointed to the basement door. "Get out! Get out of my world! Get out of my life! Just leave me alone!"
"Uh, Princess Antares?" Blaze said.
"Not now, Captain," I growled. "Seems like Sunset and I have some things to work out."
"No, seriously, Princess Antares, you might--"
"Shut up!" I snarled before wheeling around back to Sunset. "Now you listen to me! You are not going to kick me out of my own house! If I want to stay here for the rest of my life then sucks to be you! You are not in control here, Sunset! The only reason she managed to get away is because I went to go get you based on some bullshit tip!" I scoffed. "I don't even think you could have done anything even if I we came down here and Aria was where we'd left her."
"Well at least I would have tried something other than whatever crossed my mind at the moment!" Sunset made a noise of disgust. "If you took this the least bit seriously then you'd have it solved by now! If they win it's your fault!"
"Oh that is IT," I roared. "You are--"
"TD, Sunset, shut the fuck up!"
Sunset and I both looked over at Blaze in shock. My shock lasted for only a second or so before I figured out why Blaze wanted me to stop beyond it freaking everyone out. Green mist surrounded both Sunset and I, which was wafting up the stairs. If I concentrated, I could even hear faint singing.
Oh.
"They're upstairs!" I cried. I took a second to scoop up the scissors before running up the stairs after the Sirens, Blaze, Rainbow Dash, Sunset, Rarity and Applejack quick behind me. As I reached the top step, I heard the front door slam. I knew I could outrun them, but those hopes were dashed when I saw my keys missing from where I'd put them on the counter earlier. Not good. I rushed out of the front door just in time to see the Sirens backing out of my driveway in my car. All three were laughing their plots off. When they saw me come out of the door, Adagio mouthed the word "delicious" while Aria flipped me the bird. That's all I got before they sped off in my car, leaving me standing on my driveway in a state of total shock. I was broken out of my shock after a brief moment by Rarity's screams.
"My tires! They slashed my tires!"
"Oh." I took a deep breath and slowly walked back into my house. I could only stare at the ground in utter defeat. I had no doubts that the Sirens were far more powerful than before, now that they'd been feeding off of me and Sunset. My earlier trick that I used to free the school wouldn't work twice. They'd make sure of that.
"Princess Antares? What now?" Blaze asked.
"I just..." I collapsed onto my living room couch without another word. The rest of the group all gathered, taking seats around me. I glanced over at Sunset, who was rubbing her arm in embarrassment.
"I'm... I'm sorry for what I said," Sunset muttered.
"No, it's okay. We both said stupid stuff. And... you know, you were kind of right, I guess." I laid down on the couch and draped an arm over my eyes. "I... I haven't been thinking this through as well as I could have been. I started out alright, I guess, but I haven't been treating this as seriously as I should have been. Maybe if I had nothing would have changed and we'd still be here, but I kind of doubt it." I removed my arm and looked at everyone in the room. "Look, and don't think too little of me here, but... here's the thing. This, for me, is kind of a vacation. For you it's an uncertain time where a magical, emotion-eating group of monsters is trying to take over the world. To me they're teenage girls with some neat powers. As an alicorn, they're not stronger than I am. I thought that, no matter how much effort I put into this, it wouldn't be that difficult to solve things."
I moved my arm and looked at everybody else in the room. "At home, I have a world war brewing. I don't know if this world ever had one, but where I come from originally, we had two. They killed tens of millions of people." Everyone let out a quiet gasp, but I ignored it. "When this is over, I have to go back and stop that. I have to stop one from happening in Equestria or face the horrors that come with it. I've... I've never been in a war before. So to take a break from playing impossible games of peace politics, I get to come over here and stop three magical beings in stakes far lower than the ones I'm facing back home. Just for a day or two, I get to get a rest from the constant stress of 'what happens when I fail?'"
"Antares..." Sunset scooted over a footrest and sat down in front of me. "You're going to make it through, alright? Princess Celestia is smart. She'll know what to do. She'll stop it. That aside... I haven't been fair to you. Yeah, I didn't like it when you brought me back to Princess Celestia, but that's not your fault. You just... did what you had to."
"Yeah, I know." I sighed. "I guess we both messed up, but I feel I messed up a bit more by being so... casual about a situation that is actually very dangerous. It just felt nice to not be dealing with the stress back home. It's not fair to any of you either. You called me for help, and I need to start taking this a bit more seriously. I didn't think everything through all the way and now look where we are. Rapids got really hurt and now they have a bunch of power and my car."
"Aw shucks, Princess Antares, we don't blame ya," Applejack said.
"Yeah, well, you and I both will if the Sirens actually win." I sat up and looked Sunset in the eye. "Look, Sunset. You may not like me, and that's fine. Can we put aside our petty problems to actually beat these guys?"
Sunset smirked at me and extended her hand. "Yeah, I guess. I didn't realize how much those feelings were affecting me negatively until they got taken to that extreme. Truce."
"Truce." I took her hand and shook it before standing up. "Okay, ladies and gentlestallion. Let's go get my car back. And save the world too, I guess."
Everyone in the room cheered and stood up too.
"Let's do it!" Rainbow said, pumping her fist into the air. "How's it gonna work?"
My mind flashed back to our various instruments. If the Sirens used magic in their music to fight, I had a pretty good guess of where they'd be very soon.
"I think I have an idea."