All We Want and More
"Here." Discord handed Sunset yet another piece of Adagio's heart.
Sunset grimaced and forced another spell out of her horn. She'd retained most of her skill, but after years of not using her magic, her stamina was shockingly low. Repeatedly casting geomancy and metamagic spells was beginning to take its toll, and she wasn't even finished with the first heart yet. Through sheer willpower, she brought the spell to completion and another piece merged with the gem in front of her.
"Good, you're doing well," Discord encouraged her. He snapped his talons and a glass of cold water appeared in front of Sunset. Without taking time to ask questions—or to worry about where it had come from—she gratefully gulped down the offered drink. Somewhat refreshed, she turned her attention to the next piece and fit it into place.
"Last one," Discord said as he handed her a smallish fragment, no bigger than a human fingernail.
Last one, Sunset thought to herself. She could do one more piece, no problem. Momentarily pushing from her mind that this was only the halfway point, she summoned up the energy for the spell and merged the final shard with the remainder of the jewel. Discord picked it up carefully in his lion paw and examined her work.
"Yes, that should work perfectly," he said, turning it this way and that. "Now let's see the other one."
Not wanting to use any more magic than absolutely necessary, Sunset opened Aria's pouch with her teeth and spread out the fragments. She moaned softly as she saw how many pieces it was in. Discord realized her plight.
"Hmm, I wonder..." he said quietly, stroking his goatee. Sunset tried very hard to ignore the fact that it quacked like a duck with each pass of his fingers. "Do you think you could put a bunch of pieces together with the same spell? It would take more skill, of course, but less power than doing them all separately."
"Uh, maybe?" Sunset tried to think past the building ache behind her eyes. It was true that the spell wasn't especially difficult, perhaps because the stones had already been magically shaped once before. They practically seemed to fit themselves together, given the proper stimulus, as if they wanted to return to their proper form. "Yes," Sunset corrected herself with certainty. "Good idea, Discord."
"I've had one or two over the millennia," Discord replied. He reached over and tweaked Sunset's horn with the fingers of his lion paw. "Now why don't you rest that poor little horn of yours while I get these pieces together."
Sunset was grateful enough for the reprieve that she didn't even protest at the touch. She laid down on the cool crystal floor of Twilight's castle and started running through old meditation techniques, trying to relax and encourage her natural stores of magic to recharge more quickly. After a minute or so, she opened her eyes to see what Discord was doing.
The draconequus sat a few feet away looking over the pieces of Aria's heart. His magnifying monocle was gone in favor of a truly absurd-looking set of glasses with many different lenses and attachments that he could swing in front of his eyes. With a level of care and patience that Sunset would never have believed possible from the capricious god of chaos, he fit one piece to another and released them to float in front of him. The pieces stayed in place even once he turned his attention away.
"I thought you said the hearts had too much leftover Harmony for you to affect them," Sunset said.
"So I did," Discord said, eyeing the largest remaining piece. "What I've actually done here is frozen time around them. Since they're not being reached by gravity or any air currents, there's nothing to knock them out of place."
Sunset blanched. "I... I see." Such casual use of such impossible magic scared her on a visceral level, and she was immensely glad that Discord was on their side. Rather than continuing to look at the now-disturbing scene, Sunset closed her eyes and returned to her meditation.
Twilight, a marker stuck uncomfortably in her mouth, carefully drew another line on the tile floor of the practice room. It was her latest addition to an array that resembled a many-pointed star, but the lines curved so as to make a large empty circle in the center. That was where she and the Rainbooms would stand while they played. The magic they produced would be captured and channeled by the array, redirected through dozens of minor channels that would each change the nature of the magic ever-so-slightly. The end result of it all would be that, once the harmonic magic completed a full circuit of the array, it would be released as its opposite.
Twilight took a breath and removed the marker from her mouth, rubbing her aching jaw and wishing desperately that had her horn, or even her pony mouth. Human teeth and mandibles were just so weak.
"How's it coming, Twilight?" Spike asked. Maybe he assumed she was already finished. If only that were true.
"The basic array is down," Twilight explained, "but to get it to do what I want I'm going to need to add a lot of modifiers to it. All it would do like this is send the magic around in a circle." With a resigned sigh, she replaced the marker and bent forward to add another line. It was tiny, no more than a few centimeters, but it would ensure that magic traveling down the larger lines it connected followed the correct path.
Twilight and Spike both looked up as the door to the practice room opened. Twilight experienced a moment of panic as she wondered how to explain the situation to whomever was walking in on her, then exhaled in relief as Rarity entered. Her relief quickly returned to fear, however, as Fluttershy and the sirens entered and she saw the state that they were all in.
With Rarity and Fluttershy's help, the sirens lowered themselves to the floor and leaned up heavily against the wall of the practice room. With the Dazzlings safe, at least for the moment, Fluttershy found a chair in the corner and sat with her head in her hands, fighting back sobs. Rarity took in the scene in the center of the room: Twilight on her hands and knees, attempting to draw with her mouth since there was no way she could trust her hands for such delicate work. It looked terribly uncomfortable, and undignified besides.
"Darling, why don't you let me handle that?" Rarity said, approaching and holding out her hand for the marker. Twilight laughed nervously, removed the marker and wiped it off on her shirt, then gave it to Rarity.
"Hey, is Fluttershy okay?" Spike asked quietly. He knew from experience that there was nothing quite so heartbreaking as seeing Fluttershy cry, and he longed to comfort her.
"She's had a very rough time of it," Rarity answered, "but I'm sure she'll be alright. Fluttershy's stronger than any of us give her credit for."
Spike trotted over to Fluttershy and put his front paws up on her lap. When Fluttershy lowered her hands from her eyes to look, she saw him gazing up at her with concern in his eyes.
"Oh, Spike," she murmured. She scooped him up and placed him on her lap, hugging him close. "I'm sorry, I've just had the most awful day." She buried her face into his fur, taking comfort from his warm presence.
"No worries, Fluttershy, we've all been there," Spike answered, nestling up to her. He still much preferred his dragon body, but he had to admit that being a dog had a couple of advantages. Dragons, while awesome, weren't especially good at cuddling.
The door to the practice room opened, and everyone inside looked up to see who the latest arrival was. Pinkie Pie slowly walked in, her face downcast and her normally happy personality subdued.
"Pinkie! I'm glad you're here," Twilight called out, taking a momentary break from instructing Rarity in how to draw the array. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," Pinkie replied quietly. "I just got an itchy nose a few minutes ago, which usually means that someone close to me is hurting. I was worried."
"There's certainly more than enough stress to go around, but I believe we're all okay," Rarity reassured her.
Pinkie shook her head "No," she murmured. She turned to look at the sirens, who seemed to be just barely clinging to life. "I think it's about them."
The others knew better than to ask how Pinkie knew that someone was hurting, how she knew that it was about the sirens, or why the sirens would count as being close to her. It was best to simply let it go. Twilight and Rarity turned their attention back to drawing the array, while Fluttershy continued hugging Spike. Pinkie sat down next to the sirens and started speaking quietly with Sonata.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash arrived over the next ten minutes or so while Twilight and Rarity kept working on the array. The others watched them curiously, but did not try to interrupt. Another fifteen minutes passed as they worked in near-silence, the only sounds being Twilight's instructions to Rarity and Pinkie's conversation with Sonata. Rainbow Dash and Applejack quietly debated which song they should use for the spell. Applejack immediately overrode Rainbow's first suggestion of Awesome as I Wanna Be, and they eventually settled on Better Than Ever.
At last Twilight took one last walk around the array, double and triple-checked it against her notes, and nodded to herself. "It's done. Now we just need to wait for Sunset and the Dazzlings' hearts."
Twilight looked sideways at the three dying sirens. She felt faintly ill seeing them in such a wretched state. Please hurry.
Sunset Shimmer realized that she must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, Discord was nudging her.
Sunset mumbled incoherently and opened her eyes. She immediately shot up to her hooves as she realized that Discord was holding a comically large air horn next to her ear. "I'm up, I'm up!"
"Oh, you ponies never let me have any fun," Discord complained. He tossed the horn up into the air, where it turned back into his goat horn and reattached itself to his head. "My lady, your jewel awaits you." He bowed and gestured toward where Aria's fully assembled heart floated.
"Ugh. Alright, here goes," Sunset mumbled. The pain behind her eyes had eased off a little bit thanks to the rest she'd gotten, but she was sure it would be back with a vengeance by the time she was done here.
Alright, Sunset, three people's lives are on the line. You are not going to wuss out over a headache. Sunset breathed deeply, and as she exhaled she called forth the power inside her. Her horn shone with a teal light, which flowed into the cracked jewel. The sheer number of breaks she was trying to repair was daunting, but she forced herself to face the task head-on. She called on every bit of confidence—and yes, arrogance—that she possessed, and bent her will toward this one thing. No piece of rock was going to best the great Sunset Shimmer.
One piece at a time, Sunset encouraged herself. Her temples throbbed the moment she began channeling her magic into a geomancy spell, but she ignored the pain. It was little worse than a bumped elbow, not even worth bothering herself with. As long as her magic didn't give out completely, she could handle a bit of discomfort.
Three small pieces of Aria's heart forged themselves together, the leylines branching out almost of their own accord to connect with one another and seek the next piece of stone. Sunset's headache spiked, but she grit her teeth and worked through it, joining what she'd already connected to the next largest piece.
"Halfway there," Discord murmured beside her. Sunset looked up at Aria's heart and saw that he was correct. More than half of the pendant was already reassembled. Unfortunately, what remained were all smaller pieces, and there were still quite a few of them. She decided to take them in waves, connecting a bunch of small shards to one another, then taking the bigger pieces she'd created and joining them to the whole.
Tears of pain were gathering in the corners of her eyes by the time she realized that she only had three large pieces remaining. Breathing deeply and focusing her will, she cast her spell and joined two of them together. The stone flowed into itself and created a seamless bond, the leylines within seeking each other out and creating a network of channels for magic to travel through. Sunset was alarmed to realize that she was sweating and breathing quite heavily. If her magical fatigue was beginning to take a physical toll, then she was approaching true exhaustion.
"Don't give up now," Discord encouraged her. He snapped his fingers and vanished, reappearing a few feet away in an outfit that could have come straight from Canterlot High's cheerleading supplies; a long-sleeved shirt and miniskirt, and pom-poms on his hands—or claws, as the case might be.
"Sunset Shimmer, she's our girl!" Discord chanted, waving the pom-poms in an uncannily good impression of an actual cheerleading routine. "Gonna be the hero of two worlds!"
Sunset wasn't sure whether she was amused or deeply, deeply disturbed. Still, it certainly did encourage her to finish her project, if only to prevent Discord from doing that again. Summoning up the very dregs of her magic, she forced one last geomancy spell out of her horn. The two halves of Aria's heart, connected along one last, jagged break, melted and flowed together, creating a single, complete artifact.
Sunset groaned and pushed out just a little more power. Come on, the leylines practically make themselves, Sunset chided herself. You can do this. To her immense relief, the magical channels sought out and joined with one another at last. It was done.
Sunset collapsed to the floor, greedily sucking in air. She felt like she'd just run two Mare-a-thons back to back, and the worst part was that she wasn't even finished yet. She still had to return to the human world and summon a completely different type of magic to recharge the jewels that she'd just worked so hard to repair.
"It's a wonderful thing you're doing, Sunset Shimmer," Discord said quietly. Sunset was relieved to see that he had discarded his cheerleader uniform. "There are very few ponies who would lift a hoof to help creatures of chaos."
Sunset forced a shaky smile onto her muzzle. "Hey," she said, "if I could turn myself around, anyone can do it. You really care about these sirens, don't you?"
"I... I do." Discord himself sounded surprised about that. "At first I just thought it would be fun to spend some time with other beings like myself, but it's more than that. I think I might actually be very sad if they don't make it."
"That's friendship for you," Sunset mumbled. "At least, I think so. I'm pretty new to it myself." She shook her head and forced herself to stand. "Anyway, everyone's waiting for me. I need to get back right now, or this could all still be for nothing."
Discord snapped his fingers, producing a glass of water and two pills. Sunset looked at them suspiciously, then realized that they were nothing more or less than Aspirin from the human world. Equestria had no such thing. "How did you—?" Sunset started to ask, then thought better of it. She was coming to realize that asking Discord how or why would give her a worse headache than her magical exhaustion. She simply took the pills, swallowed them with a mouthful of water, and then finished off the glass. "Thank you. Now, I really do need to go." She hauled herself up, put the two pouches into her saddlebags, and made for the mirror.
"Good luck," Discord called after her without a hint of sarcasm.
Sunset stepped out into the human world and winced. The sunlight wasn't doing her headache any favors. Shading her eyes with a hand, she ran as quickly as she could up to the school and barged in. School had long since let out, so there was little chance of her running into anyone at this point, and they would hopefully not be interrupted during their attempt to reactivate the hearts. If anyone walked in on them, they'd have some explaining to do. She hurried around a corner and nearly bumped straight into Twilight.
"Sunset!" Twilight exclaimed. "Perfect, we finished the array just a few minutes ago. I was just on my way to see if you needed help."
Sunset shook her head, then immediately regretted it. "They're ready."
The two of them re-entered the practice room. Sunset reached into her backpack and withdrew the two pouches from separate pockets, giving one each to Aria and Adagio. The two of them shakily opened the bags and their eyes went wide at the sight of their reconstructed hearts. They clutched the artifacts to themselves as if already drawing energy through them.
Sonata reached into the pocket of her hoodie. She'd been keeping her own heart out of sight to spare the others' feelings, but she took it out now and held it ready.
"Careful now," Twilight warned the other Rainbooms. "We need to play in the center of the circle, but don't touch any part of it as you go in. If any of those lines get rubbed out, the entire array could collapse."
Heeding her warning, the Rainbooms picked up their instruments and carefully stepped over the lines into the center of the array. An exhausted Sunset Shimmer was the last to join them.
"Ready, girls?" Rainbow Dash called to the rest of the band. They all nodded back to her. "Pinkie?"
Pinkie raised her drumsticks. "You three are gonna be just fine," she promised the sirens with a grin. "Here we go! One! Two! Three! Four!" She knocked the drumsticks together to set the tempo, and the Rainbooms launched into their song. As expected, the magic of their friendship rose up around them in a swirl of rainbow energy.
Twilight watched nervously as the outer edge of their Rainbow Power came into contact with her array. If anything at all seemed to be off, she would stop their performance immediately. The magic flowed into the circle and the lines began to shine with a multicolored glow. As she watched, the power raced around the circle, following the various twists and turns, loop-arounds and reversals, slowly but surely being manipulated into something that it wasn't. The light emanating from the array slowly shifted from rainbow to a dark, sickly green. Although it was exactly what was supposed to happen, it was still more than a little unsettling to see.
The first of their Rainbow Power completed its circuit and flowed out into the practice room in a thick stream of dark magic. The sirens gasped in unison as they felt power flowing into their hearts. One by one, the hearts started to shine with a bright red glow. It was working.
The sirens began to sing, not to try to enchant the Rainbooms or to battle against their magic, but to support it. The song was weak at first, little more than a whisper, but it quickly gained volume as the sirens greedily fed upon the negative energy. They felt strength returning to their wasted bodies as they desperately took in the nourishment they'd needed.
Adagio was the first of the three to rise to her feet. She spread her arms out and sang at her full power, exulting in her recovery and the mere fact that she was alive. Sonata joined her a moment later, a rapturous smile plastered across her face. Aria was the last to stand, but stand she did, continuing to sing as she drew in more and more power. She wore a relieved smile, which quickly morphed into a smirk.
Before anyone could stop her, before the Rainbooms could react, Aria leaped across the practice room and dragged a foot across the array, scuffing out several of the lines.
"Stop playing, now!" Twilight cried out, but it was already too late. Her array had been breached, and there was still an immense amount of magic in the room. Harmonic and dark magics flowed into the gap, mingling and contending with one another in a deadly whirlwind of power. "Run!"
The Rainbooms dropped their instruments and dove for the edge of the array, trying to escape before their magic rebounded on them. They were knocked flat as the opposing energies emitted a concussive blast of pressure. The sirens fled the room as the seven girls were engulfed in a tornado of negative energy.
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"Hey guys, let's not have anyone keep watch over the Sirens. Yeah, that's a great idea."
:|
Aria, WHY?!
DOUCHE! That was a douche move! not surprised but, still douche!
Why didn't Shimmer and Twilight just change the harmonic frequency that the stones drew in? Or would that have taken far to long? If my Suspicion's are correct, then the siren's are Swirl's creations and he couldn't bring himself to destroy them.
Building go bye-bye?
Well Shit. There goes plan A.
Wow, they got their strength back fast! While it's good to see they'll live... damn it Aria!
So, now what? The Sirens leave the Mane 6 for dead and go on another rampage? I guess they're all back to square one now.
All we can do now is hope that either Adagio or Sonata will have some sort of gratitude.
Seems a safe bet.
And double-cross!
That may or may not come back to bite them.
"I'm a scorpion."
5338573
Ever heard of the Farmer and the Viper tale?
5338653
Ever heard of The Lion and the Mouse?
(I always found it strange that Aesop had two fables with contradictory morals)
5338627
We can't help our nature.
5338672
I think you are talking about "Androcles and the Lion". The Viper´s tale teaches us about not expect gratitude from the wicked.
I hope that Adagio and Sonata actually get angry at Aria for what she did.... and that the spell had side effects on them as well.
5338737
No... I meant The Lion and the Mouse
Basically, a lion attempts to eat a mouse but the mouse begs for mercy and, eventually, the lion relents. Later, the lion is caught in a hunter's net and the mouse comes to his rescue, saving the lion's life. The moral is that mercy is rewarded.
The one thought running through each of the sirens' minds as they evacuate the practice room: "See ya, SUCKERS!"
I'm sorry, but that's what I immediately thought of when I read the last sentence.
You could've just taken them to a bar to recharge off the ambient negative energy there. Always over complicating things, thats our Twilight.
She's still the best there is though.
5338906 I'd like to think Sonata at least is better than that, but she's also very, very susceptible to peer pressure from her sisters.
why is it that they can never just let the bad guys suffer the consequences of their actions? i'd have just let them starve. call me a coward if you wish, but they brought that shit on themselves.
And this is why you don't carry the scorpion across the ri--
*looks at comments*
Damn, someone beat me to it.
5339302 That could certainly also be a good story, with the Rainbooms making that decision and having to cope with the consequences. I might very much like to read that story. It's just not the story I'm telling.
Villains engaging in betrayal and deception? Gasp. Shock. Horror.
Though I was hoping Sonata would stay.. Ah well. Here's hoping she comes back.
Deception? Or three girls on the brink of starving to death finally being able to eat again going a little nuts.
5340246
They were still being fed when Aria jumped up and scuffed the design. For that reason and others, I'm inclined to think they'd intended to act in bad faith.
Well, Aria and Adagio at least. Sonata probably went along just to feel included.
ho
hohoho
hohohohohohohohohooOHOHHOHOHOOHOHOO!
5339302 Really? Dazzlings are most harmless villains in the show and they probably have most interesting kind of redemption. You wanted to be blindly adored? Then we'll prove you that true feelings are better. At least Fluttershy tried.
What, no five-minute musical number?
I don't get why she isn't using her hands. Even aside from the part where she had to mouthwrite in the movie (even though as a unicorn that can't be much easier), drawing a large design on the floor can't take that much hand-eye coordination.
Never trust a siren, should've killed them when we had the chance.
5340347
I know how everyone looks at Sonata but just once I want her to be the "bunny eared lawyer" truly unredeemable and also terrifyingly dangerous and treacherous one of the bunch.
5341370
We are blinded by her cuteness. I want to cuddle her. TO DEATH.
*and powerful
AAAAaaaaaaahh I told you so I told you so.
Aria is an idiot. There is no way she is going to have their trust ever again once they defeat her.
This seems apt:
5339900
this take on the Siren's origins kind of reminds me of the mahjarrat...
you're really nailing it when it comes to magic theory.
Oh Aria, you are do delightfully nefarious. You get my seal of approval
5340912
She spent years as a young filly without the ability to do any meaningful amount of magic. She wouldn't just be practiced at writing with her mouth but every other task related to interacting with her world too. Even when she was studying to get into Celestia's school for gifted unicorns she could barely turn a page in a book with her magic (heaven forbid trying something as precise as writing). I would argue that she has spent far more of her life writing with her mouth than her magic even if she hasn't necessarily done it as much since gaining her adult levels of magic. I also doubt that skill simply goes away after so many years of having it ingrained into you.
As for the design, we have no idea how complex it is. Even very very large artistic works can have insane levels of detail. Ever seen magical rings in anime? She could have entire arrays within arrays of symbols and patterns.
5340347
Well, there was one big flaw in Fluttershy's plan to use emotional attachment to get the Sirens not to betray them by forging a bond with them. It wasn't even that the Sirens are evil or anything like that. It's just this:
Aria was pretty much unconscious the whole time she was doing it. She didn't get to spend time awake around Fluttershy.
Best. Fanfic. EVER.
You are not going to wuss out over a headache.
"if only to prevent Discord from doing that again" spoilsport - still, that little bit was hilarious. it's very touching to see Discord care about anything other than himself and Fluttershy
the end of this chapter is suspected but amazingly done. I really like the subtle and simple things about it
YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME??!!?
D-BAG MOVE ARIA!