Sunsettling News
The morning sun was pleasantly warm on Sunset Shimmer's skin as she walked in towards the school. A light breeze ruffled her hair, and she paused for a few minutes to appreciate the wide blue sky and splotches of fluffy white cloud that quietly glided accross it.
It had amazed her, at first, to learn that the weather here wasn't managed by a team of trained professionals. It was entirely self-governed and ever-perpetuating. To have no definitive forecast of the weeks and months ahead was a little disconcerting at first, but Sunset had come to enjoy the unpredictability it brought. Figuring out when to take an umbrella with her had been an interesting and slightly damp experience, but the once unicorn had learnt a lot about how to read the signs of incoming precipitation.
Today, though, was just the sort of day that would have had the weatherponies in Canterlot slaving over for hours in the dark of the morning, trying to get just the right breeze to flow through the streets, to have just the right amount of clouds dotting the sky.
Sunset felt a satifying feeling of optimism well up in her chest. If the world could make such a lovely day happen all by itself, then anything could happen.
"Hey, Sunset Shimmer, right?"
The feeling of optimism shriveled, dropping like a stone to tug coldly on Sunset's gut.
Sunset turned, slowly, unable to control her widening eyes. Three girls stood before her, one yellow, one blue, and one pink. Three girls who Sunset hadn't particularly wanted to meet ever again. She tensed her shoulders and her hands balled into fists, but the Dazzlings were lacking in their typical smug smirks. If anything, their smiles were nervous.
Sunset said nothing, but her eyes darted between the three as she waited for them to reveal why they were there.
There was a long pause. A student named Sound Clip who was walking by on the other side of the road named coughed loudly, which made all four girls flinch.
Sunset took a deep breath. "Okay, what do you three want?"
Adagio glanced at her companions, Aria on the right, Sonata on the left. She stepped forwards at their nods.
"We want- ah, that is to say, we would like... to become friends."
The redhead frowned. "Look, I haven't been evil for nearly two years, I'm not interested in 'teaming up to take over the world' or anything like that. Whatever rumours you've heard about the evil demon horse girl blasting the statue Canterlot High statue apart or opening portals into other dimensions, it wasn't me."
Adagio blinked. "Evil... portals... what? That's, uh, nice but not what I meant. We actually want to want to be friends. With you and the other Rainbooms."
"What. Are you serious?"
"We have been reexamining our lives recently, and realised that our actions were maybe not the best moral pathway to have chosen. As paragons of the virtues of Harmony, we were hoping that you and your friends to teach us how to be good people."
Sonata nodded somberly. "World domination isn't financially viable for us at the moment, anyway."
"That's... not really reassuring." Sunset raised her eyebrows at the ex-Sirens.
"Oh, oh please?" The three were giving Sunset the best puppy-dog eyes they could muster, which for Aria meant a slightly bored Alsatian. Sonata and Adagio were doing a much better job of it, and Sunset felt her composure start to weaken. She bit her lip.
"Look, I have to get to the school soon and I'll talk to the others at lu-"
"Oh don't worry, Sunset! We already sent an e-mail to Principal Celestia about re-enrollment and reformation and she said we're in your class!" Adagio beamed, sweeping Sunset into an enthusiastic hug.
"Ack, no!" Sunset pushed the girl away. "No hugs! I haven't agreed to this yet so at the moment we are not friends, got it?"
"Oh, sorry. I was just so eager to... to learn..." Adagio sniffled. Sunset squinted at her.
"Let's just get to class."
Sunset tried to resist the urge to slam her head on the cafeteria table.
All throughout class, there had been whispers. From the moment Sunset had walked in with the trio of singers who had hypnotised the school with their voices, the whispers had started flying about. Especially whenever she had looked to the side and seen them waving wildly at her. Adagio and Aria had claimed a desk between them, but Sonata had been left to find a seat next to one of the other classmates. The blue girl had been chattering incessantly at her deskmate whenever the teacher went quiet, but clearly whatever she had been saying had been alarming, because Stock Footage had grown paler and paler. Then she had begun to colour up again. In green.
Now, Sunset was hoping that when her friends arrived for lunch, they wouldn't freak out too much.
Or maybe she was hoping that they would freak out and get rid of the Dazzlings. She hadn't even agreed to help them yet and it already felt like she was babysitting three psychotic toddlers.
Sonata and Aria were bickering over their food, while Adagio was letting her gaze take in the whole cafeteria with a serene and malevolent air.
The normal hubbub of the cafeteria was subdued, in part because of the Dazzlings, but also because Sunset's class had been let out early when Stock Footage had run screaming for the toilets.
"So," Adagio leant forwards and rested her chin on her hands. "When are the others arriving? I want to get started on this friendship thing as soon as possible."
"It'll be whenever their classes let out. I don- oh hey, there's Rarity and Fluttershy!"
All of the girls turned to see the animal-lover stiffen in shock as she saw them. It took Rarity a moment to notice her friend's state, and followed her line of vision to where the three ex-Sirens were sitting. Rarity narrowed her eyes, but tugged Fluttershy to the table as Sunset waved them over.
"I'll explain when the others get here," Sunset murmured as the two hovered behind her. "Just go grab your food and we'll wait for them."
Rainbow Dash was next. She took one look at the situation and immediately squared her shoulders. Sunset watched her with concern when the guitarist balled her fists as she approached, but Rainbow didn't turn it into a fist-fight immediately. She sat down next to Fluttershy and glared across the table, then leaned back to raise an eyebrow at Sunset. Sunset waved a hand and shook her head. Rainbow folded her arms and wore a thunderous expression, but still remained quiet.
Twilight Sparkle, of course, didn't recognise Adagio, Aria nor Sonata. However, the air of tension around the table was palpable, so she cast them a rather worried look as she sat down next to Sunset.
"What's going on?" The near-sighted girl whispered.
"We need to wait for AJ and Pinkie, and then they're gonna explain themselves."
"O... kay, but who-"
"I don't mean to alarm y'all, but y'know yer sittin' next to them, right?" Applejack set her tray down with a loud clunk and eyed the Dazzlings suspiciously. Her question was met with four nods, one confused lavender expression, and a burst of confetti as Pinkie Pie appeared from... somewhere.
"Oh good, everyone's here," Sunset tapped on the table to get the attention of the three ex-Sirens. "Hey, now tell them what you told me this morning."
Adagio cleared her throat. "We realised that what we did was wrong, and we've been thinking about it a lot recently. We want you to teach us about... friendship."
There was a surprising lack of reaction from Sunset's friends. Well, that wasn't quite true - they reacted - but the there were none of the outraged shouts or sudden onsets of awkward laughter. Where Sunset had been something imagining loud and dramatic, there was simply shock and suspicion. Rainbow Dash's scowl had deepened, Fluttershy was still glazed over and may not even have noticed the statement, Rarity had her brows pulled slightly together with her mouth skewed to one side, Applejack was using her Eyebrows of Disbelief to their fullest extent, and Pinkie had no expression whatsoever because she seemed to have vanished. Twilight just looked confused, and pushed her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose.
"Is- are you being serious?" Rarity's voice wavered slightly. She lifted one hand slightly, but her arm dropped after a brief moment and she laced the fingers of both hands together.
Adagio nodded slowly. "Until our jewels were shattered, we never even considered there could be another way to live our lives."
"Yeah," snorted Rainbow. "You mean you were happy to use your weird fish-horse magic on anyone until you lost your singing voices."
"Of course we were," Aria sniffed. "It was what we'd been doing for centuries, as 'fish-horses'. It was part of our nature. You know the gems are actually part of our bodies back in Equestria? We use them to eat."
Fluttershy seemed to snap back into consciousness at this, and let out a quiet gasp. She swivelled in her seat to look at Sunset. The redhead nodded with a grimace.
"From what I can remember about Sirens in Equestria, they have their jewels in their throats, where their voiceboxes should be. Their voices are magical, and can compel others to do things, though the more subtle they are about it, the less resistance the target has to their magic. They feed off of emotional auras, so they usually try to provoke their prey into strong feelings. Anger is fairly powerful, and one of the easiest emotions to incite, so they usually create fights and... eat that, I guess. Historically, there have been stories of powerful Sirens who sang so sweetly that they inspired dozens of ship crews to wreck themselves and would consume the despair of the drowning sailors, Sirens who hovered around battlefields and feasted on bloodlust, and some Sirens," Sunset gave the trio a pointed look. "Used their powers of compulsion to give themselves an enslaved army. In modern Equestria, Sirens are few and far between. A lot of them work as performers, and consume the energy from an authentically enthusiastic audience."
"Oh goodness! So we-! And their-! Oh my," Fluttershy squirmed in place. "I'm so sorry, it must have been like declawing a cat! Or defanging a snake! Or removing a skunk's-"
"Pssshaw, it's not that bad," Sonata picked something from between her teeth and flicked it away in Aria's direction. "We were detached from our jewels when we were sent through the mirror anyway, and had to, like, learn to eat food food. And food food means tacos. But our jewels still worked, kinda. They just stored up the energy instead of feeding it to us."
Applejack took a sip from her juice-box and looked down the line of her friends. Then she squinted at the ex-Sirens. "So, who thinks these gals are legit? 'Cause I'm not sure I trust 'em at all."
Twilight shrugged. "I don't know who they-"
"They are totally up to something," Rainbow Dash growled. "They're just being sneaky about it."
Adagio gave her a flat look. "We literally have less magic than you right now."
"That's exactly what a sneak would say."
There was a tense pause in the conversation, as Rainbow Dash tried to match the glares from Adagio and Aria. It was just reaching the point where Sunset felt she might have to tackle Rainbow out of a brawl when a cloud of confetti burst from somewhere near the ceiling and began to fall onto them like colourful snowflakes.
Pinkie Pie was suddenly leaning over the table next to Applejack, wearing a fake moustache, an impeccably neat suit, and a serious expression.
"Voulez-vous faire la fête? Ou vais-je, la fantastique Pie-rot, découvrir vos plans diaboliques?"* Pinkie pointed a finger at the Dazzlings.
Everyone jolted in surprise.
"Pinkie, are you speaking Prench?" Rarity was the first to react.
"Non! C'est belge!"** Pinkie exclaimed, with an affronted look. She pulled a handkerchief from a pocket on her suit and wiped the bench seat before sitting. "Now then, does it matter if they're still evil or not?"
"Darling, of cou-"
"The answer is no! Because if they are, then keeping an eye on them here is gonna be our best bet for keeping them in line, right? And if they aren't evil, it means more friends." Pinkie wagged her whole hand at the fashionista.
"Pinkie," the growl in Rainbow's voice was back. "You know they tried to hypnotise the students last year, right?"
Twilight Sparkle started. "They wha-?"
"So did I," Sunset pointed out. "And they did get hit by the Rainbow of Harmony... like I did."
"Rainbow of-?" Twilight was cut off again
"We're not evil, I can assure you," Adagio interjected. "We really do want to be friends, and we have an idea about how to prove that to you."
The seven friends all focused on Adagio, waiting for her to reveal her plan.
"We're gonna find you dates."
*"Do you want to party? Or will I, the fantastic Pie-rot, discover your evil schemes?"
**"No! It's Belgian!"
Ah, and the Dazzlings begin their first steps towards stealing the knowledge of this 'Friendship Magic' from the poor unsuspecting humans (+ unicorn). They have this in the bag, I'm sure.
Let me know if there are any errors/spelling things, and thanks for reading! 
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- BluesyTreble · 17k words · 85 7 · 2.7k views
- Mystical Rainboom · 2.9k words · 120 8 · 5k views
- Snowflake Dissonance · 3.7k words · 248 4 · 9.2k views
- Thunder Roller · 22k words · 79 6 · 2.8k views
- Rated Ponystar · 25k words · 604 25 · 16k views
- KingXanaduu · 24k words · 124 4 · 5.3k views
- Darkness Moon · 21k words · 27 1 · 867 views
Stats
Page generated in 0.16 seconds
Total duration
1,014 users online
118,610 hits today, 2,814,898 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Hm. For a premise that's been done as many times as this one (ie: the sirens come back to CHS after the Battle), this is a surprisingly interesting take on the subject so far.
Sunset is clearly apprehensive, but hasn't completely forgotten that she was in their shoes once, which would make her look like kind of a hypocrite. The others are apparently cautious, with Fluttershy even acknowledging the damage done to the sirens and where exactly they stand, and Sci-Twi seems to be trying to say she doesn't know them at all, so she isn't willing to really weigh in yet. Pinkie's looking pretty genre-savvy about the whole thing, so here's hoping she keeps things civil.
It's been a while since I read the first chapter, so just looking at their behavior here, it's easy to forget that the sirens were scheming anything at all. Whether or not they see that through or get side-tracked with the friendly matchmaking business, I hope to stick around to find out.
This is really interesting, hope nothing bad happens in the end
7111628
Yeah, I know the subject's been done to death, but I just wanted to write it my way, y'know?
Thanks for your input on the characters, I hope I can keep them consistent!
7111676
Bad, hmm? What kind of bad could you possibly mean?
7111716 I'm still new to the whole Fimfiction. But i did read this one story 2 years ago were the Dazzlings infiltrated the Rainbooms being their "friends", getting their gems back and finally over powering the Rainbooms and beating them up. Cant remember the name but i do really your story, forgive me if i said anything wrong. Still new to all this
7111690
Oh, that it's been done is by no means a complaint, because not many of those times were done well. That's part of the reason I write about the sirens myself, and this looks like it might be headed elsewhere. Aria and/or Adagio being screwed over while Sonata reaps the full benefits of befriending the Rainbooms, no matter what happened leading up to that point, would be the painfully typical outcome.
But Hell, most of those stories were written long before Sci-Twi was around, so even if that's more or less what you have planned, her presence alone might at least breathe some fresh air into the formula.
The day the Sirens find dates for the Rainbooms is like Rainbow Dash admit she go 'both ways'.
I may not be Belgian, but I am French, and so i will say that
should be replaces by : "sombres desseins" (for more drama) or "plans diaboliques" (more natural)
Also, its "belge" and not "Belgique" (and we don't capitalize language's name).
Edit : I should slap myself because a good translation of "It's Belgian!" is "C'est du belge!". Sorry for the little error.
Poirot?
7111741
Ah, this story is gonna have a lot more focus on the 'Dazzlings act as matchmakers' angle. As to whether or not their plans work or not... that'd be spoilers!
7111753
Ooh, yeah, I hope I can do it well! I can at least confirm that the Sirens are a united front, whether or not things go well for them.
7111819
Why Rainbow Dash specifically?
7112030
Ah, thank-you! I will fix that ASAP.
7112593
Yup!
7113156 It was either that or Pinkie Pie giving up sugar forever.
Clueless Twilight XD
Hiya, sorry to ask (I've never commented before reading a story before), but does this include any spoilers for season 5 or 6 or Friendship Games?
I know the ones that cover Friendship Games usually say in the description, but I thought if the story was set a year after Rainbow Rocks, I should check beforehand.
Thanks!
7470580
Yep, spoilers for Friendship Games, sorry.
7471290 No problem, thanks for letting me know. I will try to remember to come back after seeing Friendship Games.
What happened to this? It was a fun concept and I was interested in reading more.
7671775
Real life is beating me up and I have a case of 'it's not perfect, must delete' going on with the next chapter and I keep writing paragraphs and then removing them. I'm trying to work with the 'finished, not perfect' mantra but it's not been working so much, heh. Doesn't help that all my inspiration wants to do is start new things and never finish them.
I think I'm going to try and get it all written out and release it in one go/as I edit it but I can't guarantee when that will be. Hopefully before the new year.
7671846 Completely understandable. Good luck and happy writing!
7671873
Heh, thanks!