Friends like these

by Istaran

Act 3 - Chapter 3: The presence of pride

"We love you, Dazzlings!"

Words like that made it really hard to remember that this trip was supposed to be about revenge. Despite their talents, Angelica and the Dazzlings had only managed to secure a few hundred dollars and the use of a car from Angelica's mother, and had needed to turn to picking up gigs in small venues to pay for their gas and food as they tried to hunt down their naysayers. But their quest had become a victim of their success in that endeavor. While the internet couldn't do them justice, their musical magic seemed to work shockingly well on humans in person, and they even had a number of literal followers now, chasing them around the state in their own used cars, and cheering them on at every dive they sang in.

"Marry me, Sonata Dusk!" one of their roadies called out as they made their way back to their car. The siren stopped and turned, and seemed about to say something affirmative when Adagio grabbed her wrist and dragged her along, causing her to simply wave goodbye and smile instead.

"I don't mind you having a bit of fun with him, but you are not marrying that loser, Sonata," Adagio said with a huff. While she had no interest in marriage herself, it annoyed her that Sonata managed to get all the marriage proposals. Good thing they were all from losers, or she might actually lose her temper about it.

"Do you mind if I have dinner with him? You know he'll be at the diner anyways," Sonata questioned as they got into the car, and Angelica got the engine started.

"And abandon us? And poor, sweet, Angelica? Maybe next time, but not tonight," Adagio said.

"I don't mind," Angelica pointed out. "He seemed sweet, you should get to know him."

"I said, 'maybe next time'," Adagio reiterated.

"Next time..." Sonata said sadly, watching her would be suitor hurriedly climb into his own car to follow them. She kind of wished Adagio would simply be honest about it. There was never a next time, just more 'maybes', until the guy couldn't follow anymore. And then Adagio would deflect the next one the same way. At least if she was honest, Adagio would have to explain... "Hey, Adagio? Why don't you want me dating anyone?"

"This should be good," Aria snarked, amused to see her leader called out, finally.

"What?! It's nothing like that, we're just busy tonight, okay?" Adagio answered defensively.

"We're not that busy... not any more so than he is. We're just going to go eat at the same diner, and then drive to the same motel to spend the night, and then go get breakfast at the same place... What's the harm if I just did all those things with him instead of you three, just this once? We'd get to the next gig just as fast," Sonata inquired.

"Oooo~. Staying in the same motel room with him?" Angelica teased. "I didn't think you had it in you.~"

Sonata seemed confused and flustered. "What? Why not? It'd give us more time to talk and get to know one another..."

"Sure, talk... right," Aria said dismissively. "Wait, are you serious?"

Angelica coughed a bit, blushing. "Sonata, are you a... are you a virgin?"

Sonata just looked even more confused. "What's a virgin?" Everyone else in the car groaned.

"And... that's why I don't want you dating anyone," Adagio answered.

They took quite a bit longer than usual before picking a diner to stop at, as Angelica lead the way to awkwardly try and explain the birds and the bees to her friend, constantly playing damage control as Aria tried to sabotage the effort. It helped that Sonata wasn't quite as naive as the others had assumed, though she was the only one who thought she could spend the night with her would-be husband without getting laid.

But, in the end, it was her risk to take, not her friends' and so she asked the waitress for a separate table, and waited for her suitor to arrive. She waved to him as he made his way in, earning a blushing grin as he reached her, and followed her to the table.

"I was serious," he began, even before picking up a menu. It was Denny's. They all knew what was on the menu anyways.

"Really?" Sonata said, pleased. "That's very sweet, umm, but I don't even know your name yet? How about we just get to know each other first?"

---

Angelica was quick to rise when she heard the knock on the door. She didn't notice what time the clock showed as she stumbled out of her motel room bed, but there was no sunlight streaming in from the windows yet. She opened the door even as she heard the creaking of the bed her two friends were sharing, indicating they were rising as well.

"Sonata! Come in," she greeted, holding the door open for the wayward siren, as she came in. Sonata was smiling, her usual perky self, so that was good. If she'd been crying, Angelica had a feeling she'd be an accomplice to murder by the time the sun rose. She pulled out a chair for the Dazzling to sit in, and took the other chair, while Adagio and Aria sat on the side of their bed, yawning. "So, what happened? Spill it!"

"Well, we ate, and we talked, and we laughed, and I even got him to try singing one of our songs," Sonata began, giggling sincerely. "His name is Mike, and he designs T-shirts for sale over the internet. He's even got a few with us on them he wanted to get our approval on before he starts selling them. They look really cute!"

"Yeah, yeah, skip to the good part," Aria whined. "You know, where he had his wicked way with you?"

"Had his..." Sonata began, confused, before their conversation the previous night returned to mind. "Oh, no! Mike was a perfect gentleman the whole time. We just talked the whole time, until it got too late, and then we snuggled and slept. Really!"

"Bullshit!" Adagio claimed. "Aria!"

Angelica tried futilely to intervene as the other two sirens physically dragged Sonata to the bed and went so far as to remove her clothing and check. But there was no mistaking it. Sonata was undeniably still a virgin. The surprise was enough to stun the other two long enough for Angelica to pull Sonata free and give her a chance to regain her dignity.

"That was totally uncalled for!" Angelica scolded Adagio. "You really trust your friend that little?!"

"It's not her, I don't trust," Adagio countered. "If he'd seduced her properly, that's one thing, but since he didn't..."

"Since he didn't what?" Angelica asked, before she realized what Adagio was insinuating. "You think he'd drug her or something?!"

"You don't know this guy. And neither do we. He could be some kind of weird stalker creep. I mean, he has been following us around from town to town," Aria pointed out.

"He's not a creep!" Sonata yelled, getting angry with her friends. "I just told you, he was a perfect gentleman the whole time! And I'm going to marry him!"

Everyone stared at Sonata in stunned silence as she blushed brightly and wilted a little under their looks.

"Well, maybe," she backpedaled. "I mean he did ask me, after the concert, and he is able to work on the road so he'd be able to follow us and he's super nice and he likes me... I don' t know! I haven't told him yet, but I am seriously considering it."

"You just met this creep, and you're already considering marriage?" Adagio asked in a scathing tone.

"Well, he did bring it up," Sonata answered defensively.

"So what, you're going to be hanging with him instead of us all the time now?" Aria asked, in a decidedly even tone, hiding her own emotions.

"Well, he could join us, at least at meals and such? I'm not leaving you three," Sonata suggested.

Angelica wrapped Sonata in a tight hug, crying a bit. "You better not, Sonata... I couldn't stand to lose you, not after all we've been through together."

"Angelica! What the hell did you do?!" Adagio screamed in alarm.

At the speaking of the magic words, Sonata had begun to glow brightly, her form tearing away into motes of light and vanishing as she returned Angelica's hug.

Aria sighed, realizing full well what had just happened. "What are we going to tell Mike?" she asked in a bored tone.

The answer, of course, was to skip breakfast and drive away before anyone noticed.

---

"Just what do you think you're doing?!" Twilight Sparkled asked the other unicorn.

She didn't stop what she was doing for even a moment, but she did at least deign to answer. "The great and powerful Trixie Lulamoon is hacking your internets, of course!"

"What, how? How did you even get through the authentication? Even if you had my password, the spider would have easily seen that you're not me," Twilight asked, thoroughly confused.

"Trixie has travelled to the human lands, and learned there that the greatest of egos can bend the internets to their wills! After all, there is no spoon!" Trixie said as she continued operating the device through a mix of the hoof-keyboard and doing something with her horn. Ultimately, though, she just seemed to be composing an email to Relena, despite all her big talk. After hitting the send button, she backed off, satisfied. "There! The great and powerful Trixie has completed her important business, and now the more simple folk may return to their pedestrian concerns."

Twilight hid her face in her hoof and sighed, shaking her mane as Trixie relinquished the terminal. She was brought out of her funk as the console switched contexts and declared "You've got mail!" Shockingly, the email was from Princess Celestia. As she read, her eyes got larger and larger.

---

Tears spilled down Sonata Dusk's face as she sat on the grass, arms wrapped tightly around her knees. They were gone, all of them. Or rather she was, but it was kind of the same thing. Adagio Dazzle and Aria Blaze, her lifelong friends, and the only ones who knew her true nature. Despite their unending bickering, Sonata felt she could always trust and count on them, but now they were left behind. Angelica, her first true human friend. Her return here, to Canterlot High School was proof of that friendship, she knew, but that just made it sincerely painful. And even Mike... she had just been getting to know him, but she liked everything she'd seen so far.

An arm slipped around her shoulders, the hand just coming into view. Her tears blurred her vision, but she could make out the skin tone. It wasn't like anyone here in this world, much more at home in the world she had just left. In fact, it was decidedly familiar. She looked up, away from the hand to see the face of the one who owned it. Mike smiled down at her nervously.

"Mikey!" Sonata cried out as she ensnared him in a crushing hug, getting tears all over the shoulder of his shirt. He simply returned the hug for now, letting her finish. "How... how did you even get here?!"

"I honestly was hoping you could tell me that," he shrugged, helplessly. "I barely managed to get dressed this morning in my motel room when I was suddenly whisked away to some kind of crystal throne room where a weird horse thing and a weird dragon thing were looking at me. The dragon thing opened its mouth, and John De Lancie's voice came out, and asked me what I would be willing to do to stay with you, and when I said 'anything', he said 'done!' and snapped his fingers... and then, I saw you here crying." Mike took a moment to catch his breath, but instead had the breath knocked out of him as Sonata tackled him to the ground and gave him a kiss. It was a chaste little peck on the lips, but still the most intimate physical contact they had had yet, and Mike beamed back at her.

They sat up and looked around for a bit, with Mike's arm once more wrapped around her shoulders, and Sonata leaning in close and just enjoying his presence as people came and went around them. After noticing the skin tones and catching some of the names flying around, he finally asked Sonata "so... is this where you're from then? This isn't Earth, is it?"

"Kinda..." Sonata began, but before she could finish a shadow came over them. They looked up to see a purple skinned teenage girl with a decided lack of balance reaching a hand down to them.

"Come with me, if you want to live..." Twilight began. "... in Equestria," she clarified. "Princess Celestia sent me to retrieve you two. Please don't make this any harder than it already is..."

"Equestria?" Mike asked, thoroughly confused. "Where's that, and why would we want to go there?"

"That's... that's where I'm actually from," Sonata explained. "But if we go there, won't I...? And what about Mikey...?" She hesitated, afraid to even explain her questions in front of Mike. "Mikey... you did say you'd do anything to be with me, right?"

Mike took a deep breath to steady himself. That was never a question that could possibly end without some kind of trouble. "That's right, Sonata. I'm here for you no matter what."

That settled, they followed the purple girl off the lawn, and to the back of a nearby statue. She pressed her hand into the stone beneath and it vanished for a moment, before she pulled it back. "Right, in you both go. There'll be time enough for explanations on the other side."

Sonata was the first through, her hand holding onto Mike's as she passed through the hidden portal. The universe spiraled and contorted around Mike as he passed from one world to another, the magic of the portal conforming him to his new destination. When he stepped out into the wooden floor of the library on the other side, it was on three hooves, rather than the two feet he had entered on. The fourth hoof was held now, but by the hoof of what seemed to be some kind of half pony, half sea mammal, with Sonata's skin tone for its fur color.

"Hi Mikey," Sonata began, "I know this is going to freak you out but, well... this is the real me." At least her voice was the same, that helped him dial his freak out down to a ten. As the unicorn stepped out of the portal behind them and powered it down, the brown earth pony that now answered to 'Mike' tripped and stumbled and fell flat on his belly in a poorly executed attempt to run around screaming.

"I realize this must be terribly confusing to you," Twilight began, reading off the script her teacher had provided for her. "However, the Princess has taken the liberty of arranging a house, a small stipend, and tutors to help you get on your hooves and begin your new lives together, and anxiously awaits invitations to your wedding. Congratulations on your new 'ship. Sincerely, Celestia's Shipping Service."

Mike slowly settled down with the help of a hug from Sonata, as Twilight checked the line off her list, and happily trotted away, content in a job well done.

Comments

[Wind of the Skies]

damn shipping service. stay away from me. i'm perfectly content hiding in the dark. but really if there were other verses out there that could contact us they would have done so and with my bad but at the same time good luck it would be me they contacted. with me the silver cloud has a black lining just as the storm cloud has a silver lining. like the time i had to go to the hospital on christmas eve. i should have lost my eye that day but i did not. i just needed 8 stitches in my eyebrow.

[Dravkwn]

Hmm, I decided I like this story and I am somewhat surprised it has so few up votes.

[Istaran]

6517907

It's kind of a 'risky' story to write. The first story isn't going to be everybody's cup of tea to begin with. If you didn't like that one, you won't have the background to read this one. Even if you did, it's kind of almost more an anthology of story starts until the later acts start tying them in together. And even then, it's never a simple clean single story.

Except in the sense that it's the story of two worlds coming into contact with one another. And at that, it's an odd one.

Glad you like it. :) I'm actually pushing a bit more to finish this one over the others just so it'll be Complete at some point.