Aria's Challenge

by Gear Works

Double Date, Nothing but Trouble

Aria and me finally got our project done in a week, with little time to spare. I already turned in the program design along with the small diskette that he gave us. (Yes, it was an old DOS related program on the computer that’s over ten years old that can fit what we created on a 1 MB diskette.) With ten minutes before school was over, we started talking about…older electronics.

“I have seen the computers in the computer lab and in the library, but this one’s not like those, now that I think about it,” said Aria.

“It’s an older model, and works easier with accessing DOS based programs like Qbasic,” I said. “It’s the only way you can read and access the code of any program. I have my father’s desktop computer with Win XP on it. It’s over a decade old, compared to the current operating system. It also has some diskette drives on it, plus USB ports. It’s old, but I like playing the older, simpler games on that one when I feel like it. Otherwise, I use my laptop for most of my other stuff.”

“You must be into this stuff,” Aria replied.

“Some geeks like to remember the older stuff as a reference and realized how far we’ve come along in this world,” I said. “It’s how we remember our roots in the tech world.”

“Think you can show it to me…tonight?” Aria was giving me that romantic look with her eyes.

“So which sister have you been spending you time with to pull off that look?” I asked her.

“If it’s working, does it matter?” she replied.

“Well, I got nothing better to do this weekend. No homework assignments for me,” I said.

She replied, “Same here.”

“Good, it gives me an excuse to have another TV marathon with Sunset.” We looked at saw that it was Adagio looking over us.

“Another failed attempt to get a date, I see.” Aria was giving a smirk on her face.

“Rub it in, Aria. Going for Bright Idea wasn’t much of a…bright idea.” She face-palm after saying that.

“At least your wood project came out good, from what I saw,” I said.

“Yea. I guess that’s the best that could come out of it,” Adagio replied. “At least I can now help out with Fluttershy on those birdhouses that she likes to build. Listening to the singing birds helps me remember what I’m trying to do with my life now.”

Just then, to school bell rang, signaling the end of school. Everyone started to grab their things and left the room. Adagio started to do the same, but Aria stayed for a moment.

“Do you want to come over right now?” I asked.

“I was hoping that I could stay over for the weekend,” Aria said as she had her hands together behind her back. “Maybe watch some of your DVDs that you have?”

“Sure,” I said. “Make sure you have what you need from home for the weekend.”

“Will do.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek before leaving the room.

---

I was at home, getting ready for Aria to come and stay for the weekend. I looked over to see if I had all that I needed. DVDs? Check. Classic gaming systems? Check. Microwave pizza, drinks, and snacks? Check, check, and check.

And then I saw the bag with the pendent shards. I still remember how she hated seeing those pieces a week ago. So I decided to put the bag away in one of the desk drawers so she doesn’t have to be reminded of them.

Just then, I heard three dull knocks from the front door.

“I wonder who that could be? I don’t think Aria would be knocking that way.”

So I looked through the peephole and was shocked at what I saw. I unlocked and opened the door to see Aria with a bruise on her cheek.

“Aria, what happened?” I asked while walking her inside before closing the door.

“Some jerk decided to sucker-punch me as I was walking towards your place.”

“Here, lay down on the couch while I get an ice pack for that bruise.” I went to the freezer and pulled out an ice pack that I keep for such emergencies. I went back to Aria and had her place it on her cheek. “Did you see who it was?”

“No. He had a hoodie on, covering his face. He just…rushed me from behind the school statue, punched me in the face, and ran off.”

“Another student, perhaps?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe there are some others that we came across that didn’t like us after taking control of them.”

“I guess going by Sugarcube Corner with Rainbow Dash and Soarin is out of the question,” I said.

She looked at me and asked, “What do you mean by that?”

“Soarin called me after I got home and asked if I can bring you along to go on a double date with them. He just asked her out, and feels a bit nervous about doing this.”

“What time?”

“In about a couple of hours,” I told her.

“You think this bruise will settle down?”

“As long as you keep that ice pack on it, it should.”

“Well, no sense backing down,” she said. “Maybe Dash would have an idea on who attacked me, if it’s someone from the school.” She looked around and asked, “ Any idea what to do to kill some time?”

“I hate to get into a movie at this time, and I’m not sure what you feel like doing right now?”

“Why not see what’s going on in sports?” she asked me. “Sunset did get me into sports, since she plays on the basketball team this year.”

“Sure. I wanted to check up on hockey anyway,” I said.

So I turned on the TV and switched it to the sports channel for us to watch while her cheek was trying to heal.

After a couple of hours of watching sports updates, and a couple of sport science segments, which Aria became curious about, I looked at her bruise on her cheek and it started to look better. There was a mark still visible, but it wasn’t as swollen from earlier. We decided to head on to Sugarcube Corner to join up with Soarin and Rainbow Dash. The place was almost empty, maybe because most people would rather see a movie or go to an arcade, but not us. When we arrived, Soarin was able to greet us.

“Hey guys. Thanks for showing…”

He was shocked to see Aria’s bruise. Rainbow Dash also reacted the same way and responded.

“Aria, what happen to you?” Dash went up to Aria to look at the bruise.

“I got punched out of nowhere when I was walking to Gears’ place,” Aria replied.

Soarin asked Aria, “Did you see who it was?”

“No. He had a hoodie on, so I couldn’t get a look at his face. I think it was a guy, but I’m not sure.”

Dash recommended, “Well, maybe a nice, cool shake would help make you feel better.”

So we decided to sit at the stools next to the counter and wait for someone to come up and take our order. That’s when we heard a cheerful voice from the back of the building.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be there in just a moment.”

No doubt that was Pinkie’s voice that we just heard. I just knew what was about to happen next when she came skipping out from the room.

“Okie-dokie. What do you *gasp* did some hooded guy punched you in the face?”

Knew it. Pinkie can be like that at times.

“Yep,” Aria replied. “Don’t even know who it was.”

“Well, that is just mean,” Pinkie said and puffed her cheeks.

“Perhaps you can fix up some milkshakes for us. We hope that can make Aria feel better,” I said.

“Okie-dokie-lokie. Vanilla for all?” All four of us nodded, and Pinkie got started to fix our shakes.

After she delivered our shakes, all five of us started talking about who would have attacked Aria. None of us heard from our school about anyone having a grudge with the former sirens. So we decided to change the subject and talk about other things. Pinkie told us about Mrs. Cake having to watch over the twins while Mr. Cake went to the store for some home supplies. Yes, they live upstairs in the back of the same place that they work at. I told them about a small, local shop that I knew when I was in Baltimare that sold custom home decorations was also a home for the owners as well. It was nice to learn how local businesses would also be a place to live for the owners.

We then got to talk about some of the new movies that were being shown tonight, which could explain the slow business going on here. But that gave Pinkie some time to get some fresh treats for the store when the customers come over after the movie. None of the movies caught our attention, which is why we came here. As we kept talking, Aria noticed something out the window. I looked at what she was looking at and saw that it was Sonata with some guy on the other side of the street.

“Hey, is that Sonata’s boyfriend over there?” I asked.

Pinkie answered. “Oh, that’s Stalwart Gray. I have a class with him this year.”

We saw Sonata doing something with her hands in front of him, which lead Aria to ask a question.

“What is she doing with her hands?”

I decided to ask. “Hey Pinkie, is Stalwart deaf?”

“Yep. I first learned about it when I did my “Welcome Back to School” surprise behind him. I was surprised to see that he didn’t react to my surprise, so I tapped his shoulder, and when he turned around, I saw that he had a hearing aide in his ear and thought “Oh, that’s why he didn’t respond, because he’s deaf.” So I decided to talk,” as she slow down her speech, “slowly and made sure my words came clear and see if his hearing aide was working and told him “surprise” to him.” She started to speak normally again. Well, Pinkie’s version of normal. “And I always remember that he’s deaf and that I have to think about the best way for a deaf person to hear, which is with my lips.”

“Wow!” Dash said with a surprised look on her face. “I never expected you to act that way on the fly.”

“I know,” Pinkie replied. “At least I didn’t yell in his face and use strange hand gestures that wasn’t sign-language like Sonata did the first time they met.”

“So that’s how she recognized him,” said Aria.

“When was this?” I asked Aria.

“Just after the Battle of the Bands, after we got…booed off the stage.” Aria cringed at the thought. “I got into a shouting match with Adagio, which became a fight, which she was just standing there, watching. Next thing we knew was that we saw her walking with him away from us. He wasn’t even afraid of us after what happen that night.”

“So that explains why they became an item so fast,” I said. “They knew each other before you girls returned to our school, just after the Battle of the Bands.”

“Then make a great couple,” Pinkie added.

Just as the couple was out of view, another person in a hood was walking along the same path that they were taking. Aria saw this, got off the stool, and went up to the window to get a closer look.

“That’s the guy. That’s the one who punched me,” she said.

We all got off our stools and walked up to Aria to see the guy she was talking about.

“Him?” I asked her, which she nodded.

“It looks like he’s…following Sonata and Stalwart,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Oh no he isn’t,” Aria said and started to head to the doorway.

I grabbed her, stopping her in her tracks, and said, “What are you going to do?”

“That guy tried to take me out. I’m not going to let him do it to my sister as well. He’s going to pay!” She jerked free from my grip and started to run outside to chase the hooded guy.

“This is not good,” Rainbow Dash said. “Pinkie, call Sunset and let her know what going on. We might need her help if this gets any worse.” Pinkie nodded and pulled out her cell phone. Dash looked at us and said, “We better follow her.” We nodded and made our way outside to chase Aria and the hooded guy down.

As we were chasing them on the sidewalk, we could see the hooded guy already pushed Stalwart to the ground before making a move on Sonata. Aria saw this and yelled at him, causing him to look back before he ran away. Aria kept chasing him down when we stop and check on the other two.

“You two OK?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“I think so,” Sonata replied.

Soarin kneel down to check on Stalwart and said to us, “I take care of them. You go and help Aria out.” We nodded and started to catch up to Aria.

The chase continued on up to the park, where we lost sight of Aria and the hooded guy.

“Where did they go?” asked Rainbow Dash.

We looked around until we heard Aria yell again. I was able to see movement in the direction of the sound behind some trees.

“That way,” I said as I pointed at the direction of the movement.

Our pursuit went on when we saw Aria still chasing down the hooded man. He was close to the edge of the park when Aria hit something on the ground, causing her to lose her balance and fall down. When we got up to her, the hooded guy was almost out of the park, until a blaze of orange came through at tackle the guy down. I was able to pull Aria on her feet and we made our way to where the guy was tackled down. We saw Sunset running up to the scene and noticed that it was Adagio who tackled the guy.

Sunset said, “Pinkie told me what happen. When we saw you run into the park, we drove to the other side hoping that he would pass through. Adagio saw the movement coming over here and just went straight into him.”

“Good call, Sunset,” replied Dash. “Now let’s see who wanted to hurt our former siren friends.”

Sunset helped Adagio get the guy on his feet and removed his hood, only to find out that it was girl instead, and one that we remember seeing back at school on the women’s basketball team.

“LIGHTNING DUST!!!” yelled Dash. “What in the world are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? Making sure we don’t have a repeat performance at school,” replied Lightning Dust, as she was jerking herself loose.

“Like hell you are,” Aria replied in anger, while I was trying to hold her back.

“In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have any magic powers, so we’re just as harmless as any other student in the school,” said Adagio.

“Then why are you even back in school? To cause more trouble?” said Dust.

“Principal Celestia agreed to give them a second chance after I found them out on their own,” said Sunset.

“Well so did you, and you almost made a mess of it,” Dust replied.

“In case you haven’t noticed, she saved all of the students, along with our help,” said Dash.

“I still don’t even buy it.”

‘That’s the problem with you, Lightning Dust,” said Dash. You’re always so self-centered that you can’t even see straight at what’s in front of you.”

“What I see is a boy who once faced troublemakers in the past. Now he’s dating one? Since when did he become so weak to do that?” said Dust.

Just hearing that really got my blood boiling. Enough that I ran and threw my fist into her face, knocking her to the ground and leaving her with a bloody nose.

“IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT ME? THAT I’M WEAK? I’VE DEALT WITH BULLIES IN THE PAST, AND YOU’RE MIGHT JUST BE THE BIGGEST, MEANEST BULLY THAT NEEDED TO BE DECKED IN HER LIFE!!!”

The other girls were shocked to see how I was acting right now. Aria realized how I was acting and went and hugged me from behind, trying to calm me down, in which it started to have an effect on me. Rainbow Dash walked up to Lightning Dust and grabbed her by her collar and got into her face.

“Consider this your last warning. You try to pull another stunt like this, and not only will I see to it that you get kicked off the basketball team, but you won’t even be able to try out for the soccer team as well.”

Sunset walked up to her and added, “And if you think about getting the cops into this for that bloody nose, we’ll be happy to tell them about your assaults on Aria and the couple that you tried to attack.”

“So do us a favor and go home and get that nose cleaned up, because I’ll be watching you from here on out,” said Dash, letting her go.

Lightning Dust got up and ran off until she was out of view. Aria released me from her hug, and I decided to sit down at a nearby low wall. Soarin, Sonata, and Stalwart were able to find us at the edge of the park.

“Did you get him?” Soarin asked.

“It was actually Lightning Dust that was doing this,” replied Dash.

“Her again?” replied Soarin. “You would think she would get her act together after what she has done over a year ago.”

“Well, let’s hope that Gears’ punch in the nose would get the message across,” said Dash.

Soarin was shocked when he heard that and looked at me. Sunset walked up and sat next to me.

“I’ve never seen you act like that before. Were you like this back in Baltimare?”

I nodded, and then said, “I try my best to hold back. But when she said that about me…I just lost control. That’s how my life was back in Baltimare; everyone saying bad things to me. I almost wanted to do the same thing to a girl who was picking on me, but another girl and her boyfriend came to my aid and caused her to back off. This was why my parents wanted me to attend here instead while they were away. They were hoping I wouldn’t get into any more problems. Guess it doesn’t matter where I attend anyway.”

Aria sat down on the other side, wrapped her arm around mine, looked at me, and said, “Yes it does. You helped me understand what I needed to do to move on, and I’m grateful for that.”

“I have to agree with her,” Adagio added. “You’re smart and clever. And what if you had one bad episode? So what? We all have one at times.”

“This coming from the lead siren,” said Aria.

This lead Adagio to raise an eyebrow, curious as to what Aria just said, before she realized it’s meaning and just blew it off. “Whatever. I just wish you told me in the first place what happen when you arrived at Gears’ place. We could have looked into the matter, and all of this could have been avoided.”

“Well, I think we were able to get it resolved anyway,” said Sunset.

It was then that we saw Stalwart and Sonata exchanging sign language to each other. We weren’t sure what they were talking about, but Rainbow Dash decided to ask the question.

“Um, what are you two talking about?”

Sonata looked at us, which also caused Stalwart to do the same. “Well, we were wondering what to do, since we were coming to the park in the first place,” Sonata said and she was signing the words with her hands.

“We wanted to come to the park in the first place,” Stalwart said, which his speech wasn’t as clear as any other person, but enough to understand. “But maybe we can go to Sugarcube Corner instead.”

“Some of us were just there before all this happened,” I said. “We only had shakes there, and it was nearly empty. Maybe…all of us can just hang out there with Pinkie for a couple of hours. At least until business can pick up over there.”

“I could go for a slice of pie anyway,” Adagio said.

“If Pinkie has some fresh cookies there, I’m in,” Sunset added.

So we decided to return to Sugarcube Corner, with Sunset driving her car to a nearby parking lot. We took a booth and ordered some white cake and apple pie and sodas all around. We got talking to various shows, in which we made sure that Stalwart was able to read our lips, since his hearing can’t be as clear as usual is with his hearing aid. We got to talk about movies and shows, to music, to even stories from the siren’s time back in the pony world. It lasted for a couple of hours before we started to see other customers come in to the shop. Mr. Cake finally made it back in time for the late night rush. That’s when we decided to leave for the evening.

We waved to Pinkie as we were heading out and went our separate ways for the night. Aria went back with me to my place to watch a movie while staying the weekend with me.

After walking into my room, I lay down on the couch and asked Aria, “Want to pick up where we last left off last weekend?”

“Actually, I had something else in mind.” I saw Aria go up to the DVD shelf and picked out a different DVD. “I was thinking about this one.”

I saw the title and was surprised that she knew I had it. “The Last Starfighter?”

“Yep. Sunset told me about this one. I’m guessing you had her over back then?”

“Yep. After the Fall Formal, whenever her friends were busy on the weekends, she would ask me if she could come over for some company. I showed her my collection and that DVD was the first one she wanted to see. She said that she never got to watch sci-fi movies before and noticed that this was made before I was born. I blame my father for hooking me on those ones, but the creativity of those movies were interesting during that time.”

“Well, our would was filled with magic, not high tech. And we never experience space at all.” She walked on over and popped the DVD into the player and handed me the remote before lying on top of me. “I think it would be nice to watch.”

“Then the Last Starfighter it is.” I pressed play and started to movie.

Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada.

“Just wait until you see what the Gunstar looks like,” I said.

“Is that the space ship in the movie?” asked Aria.

“You could say that,” I replied as I laid my arms around her neck.

“Then bring it on.”

Author's Note:

The OC "Stalwart Gray" belongs to Sipioc. You can find his character in A Hushed Sonata.

Comments

[MyLittleGeneration]

I just looked up The Last Starfighter, then for some reason thought of Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway theme. Dunno why.
If you don't know it:

[SOG AVENGER 225]

7102924
my brother has the special edition of that game it comes included with an action figure and my brother's looking to get rid of it.