The first thing Sunset Shimmer noticed as she walked up the path toward the school was a certain tension in the air. Students were whispering to each other, pointing, and either hurrying away from or toward whatever they were pointing at. The hushed whispers reminded her uncomfortably of those that were often about her, but today it seemed that she was not the target.
The second thing she noticed was someone standing under the Wondercolt statue in front of the school. The person was wearing a hoodie with the hood up, but her figure was definitely feminine. She had her hands in her pockets and was swiveling her head from side to side as if looking for something. As Sunset watched, the person was joined by two others who were similarly hooded. It was hard to tell from this distance, but they looked all too familiar.
Oh no.
Sunset dropped her bag and raced past a group of startled students. As she got closer, she knew that she was right. She skidded to a stop in front of the three girls and pointed a finger at them.
“What are you doing here, Dazzlings?”
One of the three lowered her hood, revealing an enormously puffy orange hairdo that was much too big to have been contained in there. “Sunset Shimmer,” Adagio Dazzle said smugly. “I was hoping we’d run into you.”
“You know we’re not actually called 'The Dazzlings,' right?” Aria added from under her hood. “That was just our band name.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” Sunset answered Adagio. “We beat you once already.”
“So you did,” Adagio replied with a smirk. “Of course, you had Twilight Sparkle with you then. Where is she, anyway?” The siren made a show of looking for her.
“Adagio, this isn’t why we’re here.” Sonata lowered her hood. The normally bubbly girl looked drawn and pale, and strangely scared. “Please, Miss Shimmer, we need your help!”
Aria sighed. “Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d say: Sonata’s right. We didn’t come here to pick a fight.”
“Um.” Sunset wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting them to say, but this sure as hay wasn’t it.
“Look,” Adagio spoke over them, “you broke our hearts, Sunset Shimmer.”
“I did what?” Sunset exclaimed.
“Ugh.” Adagio rolled her eyes. “Those red gems we all had!”
“Oh.”
“We haven’t eaten in weeks,” Sonata whined from behind her.
“Uh, well, I’m sure Ms. Smith in the cafeteria would give you something—”
“Are you trying to be dense?” Aria cut her off.
“Argh!” Sunset put her head in her hands and took a deep breath. “Alright, start from the beginning. Tell me why you’re here, what you need, and why I shouldn’t just kick you to the curb.”
Sonata stepped forward. “Those gems we all used to wear, our hearts? Those are the source of our magic, and they’re how we feed. We lasted this long because of how much negative energy we absorbed right before, but you guys broke them, and now we’re… we’re…” she sniffled and wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her hoodie.
“We’re starving,” Aria finished for her. “Literally.”
“Oh my gosh,” Sunset gasped, “I’m so, so sorry.” She shook her head. “Wait, why am I apologizing to you three? You attacked the school and turned everyone against each other. You’re monsters!”
“Yes, well, you would know about monsters, wouldn’t you?” Adagio purred.
Sunset looked away and gripped one of her elbows.
“You’re familiar with Equestria, right?” Adagio continued. “Let’s say you’ve got a terrible monster attacking Canterlot. You capture it and find out it’s a unicorn. As punishment for what it did, you cut off the unicorn’s horn and muzzle so it can’t ever use magic or eat food, and you leave it to die.”
Sunset, having once been a unicorn herself, grew pale as Adagio spoke. “We would never do that!”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Adagio answered. “It’s beyond cruel. But that’s just what you Rainbooms did to us.”
“Alright, stop! Please stop. I get it.”
“That’s why we came back.” Sonata chimed in.
“So why come to me? Do you know of some way to fix them?” Fix them? What am I saying? I can’t unleash the sirens on the world again!
“No,” Aria answered flatly.
“What Aria meant to say,” Adagio said, “is that we don’t know how, but we think it can be done with magic. Equestrian magic.”
“Wow." Sunset massaged her temples. "Alright, hold on, this is just a lot to take in. So, you attacked the school and we beat you, but because of what we did, you’re…”
“Dying?” Adagio supplied helpfully.
Sunset winced. “Right. So you came back to the people you attacked to ask for their help?”
“That’s about it, yeah,” Aria said.
“And why would we even want to help you? Why should we?”
Adagio took a swaggering step forward. “Because,” she said, right in Sunset’s face, “you couldn’t live with yourself if you didn’t. You’re such good girls, you and the Rainbooms. You’d never turn your backs on someone in need, even a former enemy.”
“They wouldn’t,” Sunset answered flatly, “but don’t be too sure about me. You know what I’ve done in the past.”
“Yes, and how you’ve spent every waking moment since then trying to make up for it,” Adagio smirked. “Your tough-girl act doesn’t fool me, Sunset Shimmer.”
What does all this mean? What am I supposed to do?!
Aria, who had been strangely quiet throughout all of this, abruptly swayed where she was standing and leaned back heavily against the Wondercolt statue. For the first time since her arrival, Sunset took the time to really look at the three sirens. Sonata, as she’d noticed before, seemed pale, sad, and scared. Aria could barely stand on her own feet, and was now using the statue to hold herself up. Adagio was putting on a strong front, but her hands were shaking and she looked much too thin, as if she were sick. They were obviously in desperate need.
I’m actually thinking about this, Sunset realized with considerable surprise. I'm considering helping the sirens, giving them back their powers. I can’t just leave them like this, but…
“Please,” Sonata sobbed. “Miss Shimmer, please help us.”
Sunset took another deep breath and looked Adagio in the eye. “Let’s go find the others. If I so much as think that you’re up to something, you three are out on your flanks, got it?”
Great, Sunset thought as the other students in the hall stared at her and the Dazzlings, I can’t wait to see what kinds of rumors come out of this.
“We were all supposed to meet for band practice before school,” Sunset told the sirens as they walked, “I couldn’t make it because I was finishing a project, but the others are probably still in the practice room.”
The sirens didn’t respond. Sunset cleared her throat uncomfortably and led the rest of the way in silence. They arrived at their destination within a few minutes, and Sunset reached for the door.
“Let me talk to them first,” she advised. “It might be a bit of a shock if you three just walked in.”
They still didn’t talk to her, but at least Sonata nodded with a smile. That was something, Sunset supposed.
Sunset stepped into the practice room. “Hi everyone. Sorry I couldn’t make practice.”
“Hey Sunset. It’s cool,” Rainbow answered, “we'll just make you play 'Awesome as I Wanna Be' twice as much at the next one.”
“Haha, yeah. So, listen, I need to talk to all of you.”
“What’s the matter, Sunseaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Pinkie shrieked.
“The Dazzlings!” Rarity gasped. “And they’ve got Sunset Shimmer!” She picked up her keytar with a determined glare at whatever was behind Sunset. Sunset thought she had a pretty good idea of what—or rather, who—it was.
“Formation, girls!” Rainbow shouted. “We need Rainbow Power!” In a flurry of improbable acrobatics, Rainbow and Pinkie leapt across the room to their respective instruments.
“Ah told ya, we ain’t callin’ it ‘Rainbow Power,’ Rainbow Dash,” Applejack said as she slung her bass around herself.
“What else would we call it? It literally shoots rainbows!” Rainbow Dash argued.
“I think the issue of what we call it can wait until after we save our friend,” Rarity snapped.
The others nodded and set themselves to fight, instruments and magic at the ready. Finally prepared for battle, the Rainbooms stared down the Dazzlings. The Dazzlings gazed back with bemused expressions. Awkward silence filled the practice room. Adagio raised an eyebrow. Someone coughed. Sunset facepalmed.
“Look, they aren’t here to fight,” Sunset said to her friends. “And I told you three to wait in the hall!” she snapped at the sirens.
“And miss this?” Aria snickered. “Not a chance.”
“Hi, Pinkie!” Sonata called out, waving to the drummer.
“Hi, Sonata!” Pinkie happily waved back, then returned to glaring at all three of the Dazzlings.
“Um,” Fluttershy spoke up for the first time, “so, if they aren’t here to cause trouble, then why are they here?”
“They came to ask us for help,” Sunset answered her. “You remember those red jewels they had? The ones that we broke during the Battle? They need magic to fix them, and we’re the only ones who have it.”
“Oooookay,” Rainbow said slowly. “Hey, Sunset, are you feeling alright? You do know that these are The Dazzlings, right? The evil, magical monsters who turned the whole school against itself?”
“You know, there’s someone else in this room who fits that description,” Adagio said slyly.
“Oh. Uh, no offense, Sunset.”
“None taken,” Sunset grumbled around another facepalm. “She does have a point, though. If I could turn out to be one of the good guys, then why not these three? And they really are suffering without those jewels.” She decided to spare them the gruesome details, and hoped desperately that the sirens would as well.
“Uh. You sure about this?” Applejack asked.
“Honestly? No. But I do know that we hurt these girls a lot more than we meant to or needed to, and if we can somehow make things right then we should do it. Believe me, I know a lot about making amends.”
“Well,” Rarity said, “if Sunset Shimmer is willing to vouch for them, then that’s good enough for me. Everyone deserves a second chance, I say.”
"That's mighty generous of ya, Rarity, but how do we know that these three aren't gonna turn around and try their same old tricks again as soon as we fix the jewels? If we even can, that is."
"We don't," Sunset sighed. "All we can do is believe in them, the same way you all believed in me."
"Sunset?" Pinkie leaned forward over her drums. "Are you okay?"
The truth was, she wasn't. The Dazzlings and their situation was reminding her all too much of herself during the time following the Fall Formal, and thinking about that always got her emotional. She fought back her feelings and tried to present her case clinically.
"After what I did at the Fall Formal," she began, "everyone was more than ready to just leave me behind. I was evil, and that was that. Everyone thought it would be best to just turn away from me. The only exception was you girls. You and Princess Twilight believed in me. When I said I was sorry, you were the only ones who listened to me. When I tried to make things right, you were the only ones who thought my efforts were genuine.
"If it weren't for you girls, the others would have been totally right. I would have done whatever it took to get back into everyone's good graces, and I'd have gone right back to my old tricks. I'd have manipulated and hurt everyone, beaten everyone down until I was on top of the heap again, because I would have had nothing else to strive for. You changed all of that. Thanks to you, I learned what friendship really is. I learned what was really important. If we don't give that same chance to the sirens... well, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if we didn't."
"Hmph," Aria cut in with a sigh. "That's very touching and all, but we're not talking about friendship here. We're talking about food."
"Here's what it boils down to, Rainbooms," Adagio said. "I'll try to keep this simple for you. Either you help us and we have a chance, or you don't, and we slowly and painfully starve to death."
“I must say, you three certainly have a strange way of asking for help,” Rarity scolded. “Still, I stand by what I said before. If Sunset Shimmer is vouching for you, I shall do what I can.”
“I agree,” Fluttershy said. “They’ve done some awful things, but we can’t just leave them to suffer.”
Applejack leaned her bass against the wall. “Ah’m with ya, I suppose. Though heck if I know how to fix magical doodads like those things.”
“Gee,” Pinkie said thoughtfully, “I don’t know if my parents would let me invite magical monsters to a slumber party.”
“I say you’re all nuts!” Rainbow shouted. Everyone stopped and stared at her. “We don’t owe these three anything, and the world would be a better place without them.”
“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity gasped. “What a terrible thing to say!”
“Well, it’s true! No way am I helping the Dazzlings get their magic back.”
“Rainbow Dash, please,” Fluttershy begged. “They need us, and we already said we’d help.”
“Really? I sure don’t remember saying that.” Rainbow looked around, finally noticing that everyone else in the room was glaring at her. “Whatever. You guys do what you want, I’m out.” She set down her guitar and left the room, making sure to slam the door behind her.
“Oh dear.” Fluttershy whispered.
I understand Rainbow's reasons for wanting out. Even though I would help them, I'm glad she stood by her opinions. That doesn't happen to often, usually she just caves in when her friends all want something else.
Rainbow will come around. Just sic Sonata and Pinkie on her.
I like this. This is very well-written and I'm going to follow it.
5242028 Thanks! I appreciate the support!
5241775 I noticed something in Rainbow Rocks. The human characters, while very similar to their Equestrian counterparts, are distinctly different. Rainbow Dash in particular seems like the old Season 1 Rainbow Dash at her worst, back before she'd learned anything about humility or compromise. What does this mean for her friends and the sirens? Well, we'll just have to wait and see
I'm kinda with Dash on this one. Fixing the jewels would enable the sirens to once again feed off of negative energy, which is exactly what they'd do. What else? That's how they eat. They feed off of the suffering and bickering of others. They ask for help, yet they're being... subtly undermining and... evil. I love evil.
5242042 Yeah, they're different because they don't have Twilight or magical pony elements. How will they develop? Who knows?
5242117
I believe Rainbow´s reaction is simply... human: considering the Sirens are a race of emotional vampires like the changeling, who see others like you as foodstock and potential slaves, would you allow them to live, risking other becoming their prey?
heheheh. I'd help Sonata buck the other two Sirens. Sonata is mine~ but, you, my dear author...
You have my attention. can you keep hold of it?
I am myself and as my OC would not help the Dazzlings they are a bunch of hate eating brats, that if you helpnthem they will be put up to their old trick again
I can see Rainbow's perspective. The Rainbooms are being remarkably eager to help when the Dazzlings are being equally remarkably blasé about their intentions. Sonata is perhaps being a little more sincere. Being dead is easy. Dying is hard.
Interesting moral quandary here. I think at the end of the movie, Twilight said that she can open the portal whenever she wants, and Sunset can contact her through the book. Is there any reason Sunset shouldn't just have Twilight open up the portal and dump the Dazzlings through for Equestria to deal with? Especially since they are only here on this world because Starswirl was an irresponsible ass who dumped Equestrian problems on a world not really equipped to handle it?
I would totally help them. How can you say no to this face?
31.media.tumblr.com/3e8b114d94c73f41b9a43a84db651ee2/tumblr_nd8xebqYqW1tnjg9mo1_500.gif
5246139 Like so:
"No."
Interesting story, and I rather like Rainbow's refusal to help them. It makes actual, logical sense considering everything they've done, as well as their total lack of remorse for their actions. None of them seem to be sorry for what they did, and even Sonata is just hungry and desperate.
This could be fun.
Interesting... Tell me more.
5242117
I think that this could end up like this fan fic
where Sombra finds that he can feed on the hatred, fear etc. of others, not affect them negatively, and actually help them by making them brave in the face of their fears and stuff.
Time to call up Twilight and get her to send pony rainbow dash to lend a hoof.
Not badly written but the plot feels weak. Maybe it's just me, but I feel that this could have been written better in terms of plot. Sunset's acceptance was too quick from 'You guys are evil!' to 'You guys need help!'
That's just how I see it
Okay, here's the thing. Ever heard the proverb of the frog and the scorpion? The scorpion promises the frog that it won't sting him if he takes it across the river. Half-way across the river, the scorpion stings the frog and, as they both sink to their doom apologises saying: "What did you expect? I'm a scorpion!" The Sirens are likely to betray our heroes simply because it is in their nature to provoke and seek negative emotional energy. It is how they survive; they are predators and intelligent life-forms are their prey! They are no more 'evil' than any other predator but that doesn't mean they are able to stop following their instinctive drive to seek food!
From a cold, ruthless and evolutionary standpoint, the Six should just offer them painless euthanasia as the only alternative to death by starvation that they're going to get. However, Aria is right to say they don't have the necessary level of callous cruelty. Killing a predator that's an animal is one thing. Killing one that is also a sentient life-form is a lot more difficult. It becomes a difficult and near-unnavigable moral quandary. Kill the Sirens now (one way or another, passive or active) or let them destroy innumerable lives as they feed?
Maybe they can find a middle road that sets the Sirens free from their malign nature but they must be ready for the moral consequences if they cannot.
The pacing was pretty fast. There was too much dialogue and not enough narration. Story was still decent enough.
5255906
Good points. The only alternative to your options of starvation/death, transmutation into something else, or their old tricks I can think of would be to find a replacement food supply-- like animal negative emotions if those work (they might not). As they're living in a human city, there's a limited amount of nonhuman sources of emotion for them to feed on, but they might be able to make it work with regular trips to a zoo or farm, it depends on all kinds of factors like if the intelligence or size of the creature counts and if the girls could stand to see animals fighting each-other to keep the Sirens alive. The only reason I think it might possible at all is because I could easily see the Dazzlings never bothering to try it when they had their powers, as humans were available and plentiful.
Why does EVERYONE believe The Dazzlings are gonna die without their pendants?
On a side note, I've made some very interesting lore in my own Dazzlings trilogy which I'm still working on.
Basically: The Sirens all hailed from a third world called Lyrica, where music was the key to everything here, prosperity, dominance and life itself. All Sirens were created by one who ruled over them all, King Allure. Each one of his songs created a Siren, who would spend an eternity training under him, and learning the ways of the Sirens.
The Sirens are divided into two equally powerful groups, Blissen Sirens maintain the balance of the worlds by spreading bliss and harmony, whereas Furen Sirens spread hatred and discord across the worlds. Both Furen Sirens and Blissen Sirens are needed to safeguard the worlds from cataclysm after cataclysm.
Ever since the great war of the three worlds, the Sirens were classified as near-extinct. King Allure had fallen, but his last survivors did not. He had prophesized that three Furen Sirens known as The Dazzlings, along with their brothers, The Blasters, would one day be able to sing a powerful song to resurrect the entire species and punish both Equestria and the Human World for almost ending the Sirens once and for all.
5255906
The question isn't whether or not the sirens will betray them. This could easily be a trick, not to mention they haven't exactly promised to behave if they get their magic back. The Rainbooms should pretty much start from the assumption that they can't trust the Dazzlings. However, that doesn't mean helping them isn't the right thing to do anyway, because letting them starve to death is still inhumane. It's a matter of showing mercy. And the thing about mercy is, sometimes it means allowing your enemy the chance to take advantage of it.
This all reminds me of Sanji's introduction arc in One Piece, when this starving, near-dead pirate shows up at a restaurant and literally begs for food. All of the cooks want to let him die rather than risk him turning on them once fed, whereas Sanji and the head chef (who have both come close to dying of hunger in the past) are all like: "Do you assholes have any idea what kind of agony this guy is in right now? If he wants to start a fight, we'll just have to fight him. But if we don't feed him now, then we are the monsters here!"
Don't look at me. I'm assuming they were actual magical artifacts even back in Equestria. (Because, you know, it's not like unicorn horns turn into magic wands of whatever.)
LOL
Have a favorite, and a
Okay this is Villain 101: If you're going to throw yourself on your enemy's compassion, make sure you don't mock her compassion as a weakness in the same breath.
I think the Rainbooms should follow the advice of the great Jim Kirk.
Yep. I don't care if she's just being rash and hard-headed, almost stupid-levels, like her canon self. This version of Rainbow Dash is being kind of horrible. At least if she continues with this attitude once she calms down.
If she simply thinks they're lying, that's fine. But she gave no indication of that.
They are so degenerated they can't digest normal food? I doubt it. They were changed to humans that means they have the same digestive system. They can eat the same food as any normal human.
5255906
Griffons are predators too and are friends with ponies. What's your point?
Yep, I understand the premise here all too well, it's all I could think about when I saw the ending of the movie. The Sirens need their magic, it's a part of their very being. I honestly don't even understand why anyone would call them monsters for what they did. Do you call a lion a monster for eating a zebra? No. The Siren are predators and other creatures are their prey. They are only doing what they naturally should be doing. Now you can defend yourself from them and that's perfectly alright and understandable but hating them for being what they are is just pointless. This story takes it even a step further and makes their "feeding" on negative emotions literal (the movie doesn't quite confirm this) which just makes the movie ending sickeningly dark when you really think about it (then again all the villains in MLP get a pretty sad ending from their point of view).
Only other comment I have is I'm disappointed in Rainbow's reaction to the situation. I would have actually expected AJ to be more upset and stubborn about this than RD. Welp, I guess I'll just have to read on and see what her reasoning is...
5347631
They were changed so that they resemble humanoids (We have no way of knowing how human they actually were internally. It could just be a change in shape/appearance but not in actual function) but kept their innate magical qualities. Said innate magical qualities are not native to humans and could potentially require sustenance that food cannot provide. An example in fiction would be vampires who can often eat human food (and maybe even enjoy it) but in most media gain little/nothing from doing so and instead starve without blood.
Why do they have this problem but Sunset/Twilight never did? Could be a result of how they were banish maybe. Sunset/Twilight came through the mirror and do not seem to have their natural magic available to them in any way (the only magic Twilight had/has came from her crown/the magic of friendship/harmony). The Sirens were banish by Starswirl somehow (probably not by shoving them through the mirror though) and did keep their natural magic.
5368617
We dont know enugh about them to make that assumtion. Given the nature of the show itself and the attitudes the writers tend to take twards such things, I think its likely the Sirens, and changelings for that matter, dont need that energy to survive, just to fuel their magic. Maybe it's not even the only way they could get said energy but the simplest. In that case, it's the diffrence between a hunter and a poacher, a hunter kills to eat and survive and isn't evil but a poacher kills for money when there are other options available and thus are evil.
1) It WOULD be cruel and unusual to let the enemy to simply slowly starve to death.
2) Killing an enemy that is no longer a threat is barbaric.
3) The Sirens WILL turn on them the moment they have power again, IT'S THE NATURE OF THE BEAST.
4) They've shown nothing remotely resembling repentance, which is QUITE different from Sunset who broke down in tears.
5) While there's enough negative humanity produces on a daily basis to feed them, trusting me NOT to abuse their power when they get it again is foolish.
5409570
Yep. Twilight's a sick bitch, considering she probably knew this.
Anyway, this would be a good story, if you had any sense of pacing.
(You don't. So it isn't.)
5281760
Jeebus Fervi, I get that you beat me to the punch on most everything but do you have to take my favorite examples too?
This is interesting, some parts transition a little fast for my liking (and in that we miss some narration/description) but overall I like the premise. Adagio does a lot of smirking, but that's to be expected since that's how her face naturally looks. I think it's cute that she harps on Sunset's newly-embraced goodness incessantly, and a nice touch that Sunset doesn't in turn keep thinking about falling back into old ways. Aria isn't as rude/terse as she's usually portrayed and actually had nice dialogue.
The Rainbooms are pretty quick to switch sides, and human Rainbow is pretty much always a jerk, so this all makes for good reading. that said I'm moving on to the next chapter
I see this fic has an accurate persona of rainbow dash. Following the "all I do is bitch" rule...
5347631 I agree with Murkglow's explanation here; I always saw normal food as something that the Dazzlings could eat for satisfaction, but not sustenance. Asking the Dazzlings to survive on regular food would be like asking us to survive on Twinkies and Coca-Cola.
Which none of us can do. We're not Pinkie.
Sometimes, you just have to make a choice and hope that you did the right thing.
Wow...Adagio is surprisingly and much to my pleasure...still a bitch...AWESOME!
8716369
Adagio is not Adagio without being a bitch!