Broken Hearts
“Wow, that’s some attitude,” Adagio remarked once the door had slammed shut behind Rainbow Dash. She turned to Sunset. “If you’d acted like that, I might have actually believed that you’d refuse to help.”
“Rainbow Dash is remarkably loyal to her friends,” Rarity answered her sternly. “As far as she’s concerned, hurting the people she cares about is completely unforgivable.” She sighed. “She’ll come around. She did for Sunset Shimmer.”
“No point in goin’ after her when she’s like this,” Applejack added. “C’mon, let’s have a look at those jewel things.”
Fluttershy whimpered, but nodded in agreement.
“Here.” Sonata stepped forward and untied a pouch from around her neck. She opened the pouch to reveal a number of gleaming red shards, which she carefully set on the ground. “Putting the pieces back together is easy enough,” she said, “but we can’t get them to stay that way. I tried gluing mine, but I couldn’t get it to hold together right.”
Aria and Adagio rolled their eyes behind her back. Adagio stepped forward and set the pieces of her own heart next to Sonata’s. Aria followed suit, then knelt down to examine them. Sunset and the others gathered around to see what they could learn about the jewels.
“Well, Rares?” Applejack said. “This kinda thing’s more up your alley than mine.”
“Jewels, yes,” Rarity answered. “Magic, not so much." She held up one piece of broken red stone so that it caught the light, reflecting and refracting just as she'd expect any gemstone to.
“Maybe we should play a song?” Fluttershy suggested. “If we call out our magic again, maybe we can use it on them.”
“Let’s try to get some more information first,” Sunset answered. “Blasting them with magic is how we broke them in the first place.”
“Do you mind?” Aria snapped at Pinkie. “That’s my heart you’re licking!” She rocked unsteadily as she reached out for it.
Pinkie Pie, who had indeed been caught in the act of tasting a shard of Aria’s gemstone, shrugged sheepishly. “It tathtes like rock candy!” she said around her still-extended tongue.
"That's... that's great, Pinkie," Sunset said. "Good to know." She turned her attention back to Sonata's heart. With help from Rarity and Sonata, who had clearly done this many times before, she arranged the pieces into their original shape. Like Sonata had said, putting them together wasn't much of a problem. The trick was going to be getting them to stay that way.
Sunset sighed and shook her head. "I don’t know anything about these artifacts. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“It’s possible to fix a broken gemstone,” Rarity said, studying the shards through her glasses, “but it would never be quite the same. Besides which, I obviously have no way of knowing if that would restore their magic.”
“Well, it’s a good place to start,” Sunset replied. “How do we do it?”
Rarity sighed. “It’s not something that just anyone can do," she explained. "You would need the right epoxy, some way of applying pressure, and it often involves heat as well. You girls really should have taken these to a professional.”
“Ooh!” Pinkie exclaimed. “You know who’s really good with rocks?”
"Somehow I don’t think your sister is gonna be able to fix this,” Applejack replied.
“We tried going to a jeweler,” Sonata said to Rarity, “but it was so expensive. There’s no way we can afford it, and he wouldn't take the job without a down payment. If only we had our magic, we could probably have convinced him to do it for free.”
Aria scoffed. “If we had our magic," she mumbled, her voice slurring strangely, "we wouldn’t need to... worry about it in the first… place... ooohhh.”
Aria's eyes fluttered closed. She swayed where she was kneeling, then slowly slumped over toward the floor.
“Aria!” Sonata cried, lunging over to catch her as she fell. She clutched the other girl against herself and gently rocked her, doing what she could to comfort the slowly dying siren. “Aria used up more magic than Adagio and me when we were trying to fix our hearts,” she explained to the others. “She’s got nothing left.”
Aria groaned softly.
“Shh,” Sonata murmured, “shh. It’s gonna be okay. You're gonna be fine. The Rainbooms are going to help us.”
“Unnhh,” Aria groaned. “Let me go." She feebly tried to move, but succeeded only in nestling up closer to Sonata as the other siren held her protectively. "You’re the worst,” she grumbled into Sonata's shoulder.
Sonata gave a sad smile and hugged her more tightly. “Nuh-uh," she said with a small giggle, "you are.”
Sunset watched the oddly touching scene and had to swallow a lump in her throat. “How long does she have?” she asked.
“Who knows?” Adagio shrugged carelessly. “A couple of days, maybe less.”
“Why in the heck did'ja wait so long to come find us?” Applejack demanded.
“I think your friend Rainbow Dash answered that pretty clearly,” Adagio replied, hands on her hips.
Sunset nodded in understanding. “You didn’t think we’d actually do it." It only made sense. After all, from the sirens' perspective, why should they? "You tried everything else first, and only came back here because you were totally out of options.”
“Yeah,” Sonata answered sadly, still cradling Aria. To her surprise, she found herself being held in turn by Pinkie Pie.
“Don’t you worry,” Pinkie said, as quiet and serious as anyone had ever seen her. “We won’t let anything happen to your friends, or to you.”
Sonata nodded her thanks and gave Pinkie a watery smile. Somehow, Pinkie made her think of fresh cotton candy: warm and soft and sweet. It was oddly comforting.
“Alright girls,” Sunset said. “I know I said it would be our last resort, but I think we just ran out of time. The only thing I can think of doing right now is putting the pieces back together and hitting them with our magic.
“What if that just breaks them worse?” Adagio demanded.
“They’re in pieces,” Sonata argued. “How much worse can it get?”
“Fine,” Adagio snapped back, “then you go first.”
“Alright, I will!”
Sonata carefully lowered Aria to the floor. She gathered up the pieces of Aria’s heart and set them next to her horribly weak companion. Adagio picked up her own shards and stepped out of the line of fire. Sonata now sat alone, facing the small stage where the Rainbooms were gathering and preparing their instruments.
“You sure about this?" Applejack asked as she adjusted her bass strap.
“Mhm!” Sonata grinned with a hint of her usual bubbliness. “I know you’ll do everything you can, so even if this doesn’t work, it’s not your fault, alright?”
“Um,” Fluttershy said, “I hate to be a bother, but how are we supposed to do this without Rainbow Dash?”
“I’ll play her part,” Sunset answered quickly, picking up Rainbow’s guitar.
“Well, I suppose that should work. Which song shall we play?” Rarity asked.
“I definitely know ‘Music in Our Hearts’ the best,” Sunset answered.
“Uh,” Sonata broke in, “maybe not that one?” She gave a nervous laugh.
“Oh! Ah, no, maybe not,” Sunset said quickly. Using the same song that had shattered the hearts in the first place would certainly be uncomfortable, if nothing else.
“Well, how about ‘Shake Your Tail?’” Pinkie Pie suggested. It was one of their easiest songs, so Sunset should be able to follow along easily enough despite her lack of practice at it. The others nodded agreement, so Pinkie settled down behind her drums and gave Sonata a grin. She picked up her drumsticks and got ready to cue the others in.
Sunset was always amazed at how much that girl could convey with a smile. This one said, you can trust us. It’ll be okay.
“Ready girls?” Pinkie banged her drumsticks together. “One, two, three, four!”
With Sunset filling in for Rainbow Dash on lead guitar and vocals, the Rainbooms launched into the song. As usual, they all felt the surge of magic rising up. As they got more into their playing, each of them sprouted cute pointed ears and pony tails.
"We don't know, (we don't know)
What's gonna happen."
That's the truth, Sunset thought grimly.
"We just know (we just know)
It's gonna feel right
All our friends are here,"
This is it, Sunset thought. Their magic was peaking right as they reached the chorus.
"And it's time to igniiiiiiiite the liiiiiight!"
And ignite they did. As they started with the first of many "shake your tail"s, a rainbow of energy surged up around them, swirling with power and waiting only for a direction. The sirens were looking distinctly uncomfortable as they put themselves at the Rainbooms’ mercy. The only one who didn’t seem worried was Sonata, who sat directly in front of them with a confident smile.
The girls unleashed their magic, but even as they did so, they knew that something was off. They were used to seeing their power emerge as a full rainbow. This time, the energy was much redder than it should have been, and it seemed as if some colors were missing. The semi-rainbow washed over the still-smiling siren and… nothing. There was no responding surge of energy, the pieces of Sonata’s shattered heart didn’t fuse back together. There was no effect at all. Sonata’s smile faltered.
The song wound down to its close, and they had nothing to show for it.
“I’m sorry,” Sunset said as she carefully set down Rainbow's guitar. “I’m so sorry. Maybe I’m just not experienced enough with this magic?”
“Maybe it’s because Rainbow Dash wasn’t playing with us?” Fluttershy suggested.
“Could be, or maybe we need Princess Twilight to make it work right,” Applejack answered.
Sonata’s lip trembled. “That’s,” she squeaked, “that’s alright. Like I said, I know you did everything you could.” She quickly turned away so the others wouldn’t see her start to cry.
“Hey!” Pinkie slammed a drumstick down onto one of her cymbals, catching everyone’s attention. “There’ll be none of that, missy. We’ll get Rainbow Dash and Princess Twilight and we’ll fix your magical whoosits. That’s a Pinkie Promise!” She performed a strange series of gestures that ended with her mashing a cupcake into her own eye. Where she’d gotten it from was anyone’s guess.
“What do you girls think you’re doing?” a sly male voice slithered through the room.
“Oh!” Sunset gasped at the sight of the brown-coated teacher. “Um, Mr. Discord, sir, we were just—”
“It was a good show, but surely you have someplace else to be?” He raised one of his abnormally bushy eyebrows.
“Right. Sorry, sir, we’ll go right now.”
“See that you do. Oh, Miss Shimmer, I do believe you dropped this outside.” He tossed Sunset’s backpack to her, then looked them over with his strangely yellow eyes. “And take off those ears," he added, "you look ridiculous!”
Mr. Discord opened the door and walked out of the practice room. Sunset didn’t realize until much later that he most definitely hadn’t been holding a backpack when he walked in. For now, she was too dazed by the entire incident to string two thoughts together.
Once the door was closed, Pinkie stuck her tongue out at where he had been.
“I saw that, Miss Pie!” his muffled voice floated back through the room. Everyone was silent for a long moment.
“So, how come he isn’t in class?” Applejack finally asked. A round of shrugs were the only answer she got.
“What does that weirdo teach, anyway?” Adagio questioned.
“Science,” Rarity said. “I’ve never taken his class myself, but they say that he’s absolutely fascinated with chaos theory.”
Another long, awkward silence filled the room.
“Alright,” Sunset said, shaking off the strange encounter. “We need to find Rainbow Dash. You girls talk to her, and I’ll write to Twilight right away.”
“What’re we gonna do about these three while we’re gone?” Applejack asked, looking at the sirens. “We’ll all be in a heap o’ trouble if someone finds them hanging around.”
“We can take care of ourselves,” Adagio replied.
“Clearly,” Rarity answered her flatly. “Even so, we would need a way to find you again.”
“I’ll give you my phone number!” Sonata reached into the pocket of her hoodie and pulled out a small, pink phone.
“You have a cell phone?” Sunset asked. Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure why she thought that was so strange. Surely the sirens had been here long enough to familiarize themselves with modern conveniences.
“You have a cell phone?” Adagio echoed, looking just as surprised.
“Duh!" Sonata giggled. "I don’t know how you and Aria live without one.”
Pinkie Pie jumped down and traded numbers with Sonata. As they were swapping information, Applejack tilted her head in confusion.
“So, who does a siren need to call, anyway?” she asked curiously.
“The pizza place, mostly,” Sonata answered.
“Are you two done?” Adagio asked impatiently.
“Yepperooni!” Pinkie put her phone away, and Sonata followed suit. The siren’s smile was slipping again, until Pinkie caught her in a huge hug. “Don’t be such a frowny-face,” she said softly. Despite the light words, her tone was warm and caring. “It’ll be alright. You’ll see.”
“I know,” Sonata answered, her voice muffled a bit by Pinkie’s shoulder. “Thanks.”
Applejack laid a hand on Sonata’s back. “Buck up there," she said kindly, “we ain't givin' up yet.”
"You guys are the best," Sonata murmured happily, still pinned against Pinkie Pie.
“Ugh.” Adagio leaned her head back against the wall. “You all make me want to puke.”
They left the sirens in the practice room and split up, Sunset to write a letter to Princess Twilight, the others to track down Rainbow Dash and talk some sense into her. Keeping an eye out for the hall monitor, Sunset slipped over to her locker as quickly as she could. She pulled out the diary that bore her old cutie mark and sat down against the lockers to write.
Dear Princess Twilight,
I wish I were writing to you because I’d learned some great lesson about friendship, but the truth is that I desperately need your help. The Dazzlings came back. but they’re I can’t say that they’ve changed, but they’re in a lot of trouble and we’ve promised to help them.
When we beat them in the Battle of the Bands, our last attack broke something. They each had a red jewel, they call them their hearts. It turns out that those things are the source of their power, and also how they feed. Without them, the sirens are starving to death. They don’t have much time left. I feel sick just writing about it.
I know they did terrible things before, but, well, so did I. If all I needed was a friend to help me through it, why not them? Please, Twilight. Please help.
Sunset Shimmer
Sunset leaned heavily back into the lockers and hugged the diary to her chest. “And please hurry.”
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Such good writing...
*secretly starts shipping Fluttercord* I'm sorry! Old habits die hard!
Oh man this is interesting...so far, you are holding my attention...
Now I feel REALLY bad for those three. AND I'm worried about Aria.....continue, please! You have my full support!
What if there is nothing they can do, and they die? What about going back to Equestria?
I bet Pinkie is banned from Science Class due to her breaking the laws of laws of physics.
5254384 Are you kidding? She's Mr. Discord's top student!
Here's the likely problem: The Rainbooms' magic is the Magic of Harmony. It is positive and healing in all its ways. The Siren's magic is the Magic of Chaos - dark, destructive and discordant. One cannot heal the other, only destroy it.
The presence of the God of Chaos at CHS made a sliver of ice slide down my back. Assuming this isn't the Equestrian Discord, there is no reason to assume he is a benevolent character. He is more likely to offer to save the Sirens on the terms that they become his minions or worse.
It's an interesting idea, for sure. But I feel like you're moving along too quickly. There's an awful lot of dialogue, but not nearly enough narration.
5254241
I don't think that would be a good idea, those jewels were part of their bodies, just imagine transforming back and then having a huge hole on your chest.... I think that would be bad for your healt
“Do you mind? That’s my heart you’re licking!”
Loving this story so far!
Also, extremely clever that you made Discord a science teacher whose fascinated with the "chaos" theory.
Mr.Discord
HOLD THE FKING PHONE
HOLD IT CMON I DONT HAVE AL DAY
You're doing a great job with making the sirens sympathetic characters. I don't think RD will need much convincing after she actually she's what they're going through - she's brash, but not a monster.
So, is this Sonatapie thing a Freindshipping, or just shipping?
It seems I should wait and see, so please, keep your filthy spoilers to yourself!
"Do you mind? That’s my heart you’re licking!”
Pinkie does sure lighten a story
love it, Sunset just decides it makes sense for the sirens to have modern technology:
I really enjoy the journal entry, it embodies the empathy, the urgency, and the entreating helplessness with so few words.
Sunset...you and Adagio either need to hug, have a screaming match, kiss or bang cause omg Adagio has a stick up her bum xD
memegenerator.net/img/instances/80168820/oh-snap-someone-just-got-burned.jpg
Chaos theory huh?
Wonder if this Discord is as crazy as the other...