Shim Sham's Bizarre Adventure

by Joey JoJo Shabadoo

Part 8-2: A Bizarre Investigation

As Sunset and Pinkie approached Discord’s house Sunset grew hesitant.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“Why not?” Pinkie asked.

“What if he tries to lure us into another trap, like last time?”

“What are you kids doing on my lawn!?” Cried the voice of an angry old man, poking his head out from the second storey window of his house.

“Ah! Supernintendo Discord!”

“That joke wasn’t even funny the first time!” Discord yelled as Pinkie looked away, embarrassed. “What do you kids want? School's over for the day, go home!”

This was Sunset’s chance. “Superintendent, sir? We need to talk to you! It’s important!”

“No thank you, I’m off the clock, which means the school is someone else’s problem til tomorrow!”

“Actually we wanted to talk to you about Stand users!”

“Ugh, I had a feeling you’d say that. All right, Miss Shimmer, I’ll be right down.”

“Well, that was easy.” Pinkie smiled.

“Yeah, too easy...” Discord was being a little too cooperative. Sunset noticed that he left his window open and used Sky Should Be High to fly up and peek inside. He was sitting comfortably in his bedroom chair and yet a second later, Discord was also right in front of them, greeting them at the door.

“Well now, ladies. Why don’t you come in for some tea, so we can have a nice chat.”

Pinkie couldn’t resist the promise of something sweet, but Sunset held her back before she rushed off.

“What’s wrong, ladies? Is something the matter? Surely you can trust old Discor-- what the!?”

Discord started floating, with his arms dangling like a puppet on strings. “What’s happening? Why can’t I move? Are you doing this?”

Sunset responded with a smirk as Discord continued to struggle feebly. In the room upstairs, Sky had the real Discord locked in a hold, leaving his Stand copy hanging in the air.

“That’s much better, as long as we keep the real Discord busy, we won’t have to worry about any surprises from his Stand.”

Pinkie jumped for joy. “All right! Take that Good something or other...”

“It’s called, Good Manners and Customs!” Discord responded, still angrily struggling.

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s supposed to be ironic, not that you'd understand...” He pompously retorted.

“Well, ironically, I still don’t get it.” Pinkie smiled.

“Do you girls have business with me or not?”

Discord was Sunset’s only lead, but she needed to make sure he was restrained, Sky couldn’t hold him forever.

“Pinkie!” She ordered. “Go inside and restrain Discord, tie him to his chair or something.”

“You got it!” She saluted.

Sunset escorted Discord’s Stand to his room and found the real Discord tied to his chair with a variety of belts.

“I’m sorry.” Pinkie apologised. “There were all I could find.”

Discord fidgeted uncomfortably. “Are these belts really necessary?”

“As long as your real body is restricted, you can’t use your Stand.” Sunset explained.

“Yeah, you’re not crushing my head with a hammer, again!” Pinkie added.

“Oh, it was only the one time.”

The girls were not in the mood for any of Discord’s jokes, as Sunset got straight to business.

“Discord! You need to tell us everything!”

“Define 'everything'.”

“Um, well, let’s start with how you got your Stand and when and why.”

“And what.” Pinkie added.

“What “what”?”

“What?”

...

“Ladies, there was a point to all of this, right?”

“Just, tell us about the day you received your Stand.”

“Oh, it was a lovely, sunny day as I was joyously strolling to work, with a spring in my step and a song in my heart, then somebody shot an arrow at me and, well, here we are!”

“Do you think you can be a little more specific?”

“I said it was a 'sunny day', didn't I?”

“Argh!” Sunset leaned in regret and dismay realising how difficult Discord was going to be. There wasn’t a chance he was going to give a straight answer, but she needed to get something out of him, anything that could break through his barrier of sarcasm.

Sunset immediately straightened herself out, with a tenacious look in her eye.

“Discord!” She demanded.

“No need to shout, I’m right here.”

Sunset thought back on the information they gathered from the previous Stand users they interrogated. There was one common trend throughout all of their stories, perhaps this trend would also continue with Discord.

“Have you had any nightmares, lately.”

“I’m having one right now.”

“What about, in the park, with a creature with red eyes.”

“R-red eye... No idea what you’re talking about.”

“You hesitated.”

“I was merely taken aback by how stupid you sounded.”

“Well, I think you’re hiding something. I think you were struck by the arrow in the park and had a nightmare, just like the rest of that man’s subordinates.”

“That’s a mighty big claim you’re making, there. Got any proof?”

As usual, Discord was being as difficult as possible. Sunset didn’t have any hard evidence that Discord received his Stand in the park, but that was definitely the case with the rest of that man’s subordinates, so it would only make sense for Discord to have been there too.

“Ooh, wait! I have something!” Pinkie exclaimed. She pulled out her phone and presented it to Discord. “Take a look at this!”

“Oh my, you’re really going to town on that cake!”

“What? No wait, that was from last week.” Pinkie quickly searched for the relevant image.

“Here, look at this!”

“Gah! Where did you find that!?”

“Pinkie, what did you show him?”

“The photo of the creepy eyeball thing.”

"Why'd you show him that?"

"When you asked him about seeing red eyes in his nightmare, he replied 'Red eye', singular. So, I just put two and two together and showed him the red eye thingy we saw!"

Sunset was shocked by Pinkie's surprisingly solid reasoning skills. She looked over to Discord who was suddenly looking a little uncomfortable.

“Judging by his reaction. I think the Superintendent may have seen this eye before.”

“No, that’s impossible.” Discord quickly laughed off.

“How?”

“Because, no one’s seen that eye before...”

“Except for you?”

“Yes! I mean, no! I mean, I choose to remain silent!”

“You walked right into that one, didn't you?” Sunset asked looking particularly smug.

“Oh my. It looks like Detective Shimmer and her Partner Pinkie have pried the truth right out of me.”

“Could you please, just tell us what you know.”

“Fine, whatever, I’m getting bored of this charade, anyway. I received my Stand walking through the park and then had a big scary nightmare, so what?”

“What was the nightmare like?”

“It was dark and spooky.”

“Can you give us any details that are relevant?”

“Well, like most dreams, I’ve forgotten most of the details already. All I remember now, is that it happened and it was very spooky.”

Just when Sunset was finally making progress she hit another wall, perhaps a different line of questioning was needed to extract some new information.

“So, Superintendant. Why did you go along with that man’s plans in the first place?”

“Yeah!” Pinkie pressed. “What made you want to go around squishing people’s heads!?”

Discord took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, okay?”

“Um... okay?”

“Girls, do you have any idea how hard it is to keep that school out of trouble?” Discord’s insufferable sarcasm was suddenly absent, he was actually being serious for once.

“What do you mean?”

“Magical demons, destruction of school property, mind control, holes in space-time ripping reality apart and worst of all, cheating at the Friendship Games!? You have no idea how difficult it is to sweep all of these incidents under the rug. It’s like a never ending torrent of sparkles, rainbows and magic with you girls and if that wasn’t bad enough, you little nitwits record everything on those phones of yours and then upload it to the internet for everyone to see!

Do you know how difficult it is to keep all of this magic a secret when there's video evidence of it everywhere!? You’re lucky to have a Superintendent as adept at lying as I am or that school would have been shut down months ago!”

A sudden feeling of guilt washed over Sunset, she never even considered the fact that someone else had to take the fall for all those magical incidents she inadvertently caused. “I’m sorry, I had no idea. When you're trying to save the world, you don't really think about who has to pick up all the pieces afterwords.”

“It’s fine, usually the magic can be written off as mere hoaxes, or special effects, but it gets harder every time. I just figured with magic powers of my own, I could stamp out the source of all my woes permanently and finally have it easy for a change, but I guess I let my anger get the better of me, what with the whole head smashing thing.”

Discord's motive made sense, but to Sunset, it also lead to an important discovery.

“Does that mean you were using your powers for your own personal gain and not for that man’s plans?”

Discord thought for a moment. “Well, to be honest, the attack on the school is the only thing he ever ordered us to do, other than that he left us to our own devices.”

“That’s weird. If that’s the case then why even go to all the trouble of assembling Stand users in the first place? Does he not care about controlling people after all?”

“Oh, he cares. That nightmare realm is no joke. Once he has you in his clutches, you’re completely helpless. He always made sure to keep us on a leash, just in case.”

“Did you ever see his face?”

“Nope, even when there’s light, he’s always hidden by shadows. Not that he ever leaves that moldy, old cottage anyway.”

“What about the other Stand users, did you know them?”

“Not personally, there was the bossy one, the loud one, the athletic one and the whiny one.”

“You don’t even know their names?”

“Why would I? We weren’t some super villain team, we only met a couple of days before the attack on the school and look how that turned out.”

“Yeah, that was pretty disorganised. Didn’t you have some sort of strategy?”

“Not really, I just lured you into the loud one's range and figured that would be enough. Too be honest, I didn’t have much knowledge of any of their Stand powers. Even the boss just left us to figure things out on our own.”

“So, you don’t have anything else you could tell us?”

“Not at all.”

“So, we’re right back where we started?”

“Looks like it.”

Sunset groaned in exasperation. Every lead she found just spun her in circles.

“Well, there is one other thing I could mention, but I’m not sure if it’s even relevant.”

Sunset quickly perked back up. “Please, anything would be helpful.”

“Well, after Applejack sent me careening through the air, right before I fell unconscious, I saw a bright light shining from angel wings.”

“And?”

“Oh, that’s it, I guess I lost consciousness, right then.”

Discord’s anecdote came completely out of left field, Sunset would have dismissed it as pure fiction, a tall tale Discord made up on the spot, just to mess with her, had it not reminded Sunset of a similar encounter she experienced. “I think I've seen those angel wings and Fluttershy mentioned seeing something in a bright light, too.”

Pinkie felt left out. “Aw, I wish I could have seen it. I wonder what it is?”

Sunset wracked her brain trying to connect all these pieces together. Demons, angels, Stands, creepy eyeballs, this whole situation was just one big mess.

“So, are we done here? These belts are chafing me.”

Sunset raised her head and exhaled deeply. “Yeah, I guess.”

Pinkie freed Discord from the clutches of his belts and the girls headed home.

As they were walking down the street, Pinkie noticed Sunset looking dejected, like she was disappointed in herself.

“Hey, you okay?” Pinkie asked. “You’ve got that mopey look again.”

“Oh? Sorry. I just feel like we haven’t made much progress.”

“What are you talking about? We found out about a magic circle thing, a big ol’ eyeball and why becoming a superintendent is a terrible career choice.”

“But, that magic circle could be used for anything. The eyeball is a Stand we can’t fight and I’m pretty sure we didn’t talk to Discord for career advice.”

“Oh...” Now, Pinkie was feeling dejected, but at least she got Sunset thinking again.

“There is one thing we learned, though...”

“There is!?” Pinkie suddenly snapped back into usual jovial attitude.

“At first I thought whoever was creating these Stand users was trying to build up an army to take over the world or something, but that man doesn’t seem to be interested in making an army at all. Which means, he’s after something else.”

“But, then, why did he send his goons to attack us?”

“Maybe he didn’t. Lightning, Gilda even Discord had their own reasons to attack us. He only ordered the attack at the school to get the Unicorn Arrow back. At least, that's what I thought, but if he isn’t making an army of Stand users, then he probably doesn’t need the arrow back either.”

“Then, what was the point of the attack?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m so anxious, what could he possibly be after? And what about the Stand users we haven’t seen yet? And what’s up with this angel thing? Oh... how could this get any more confusing?”

“Hey, Sunset, Pinkie, how’s it going?” A tall, buff man loomed over the girls, but it was just Bulk Biceps who happened to bump into them during an early evening jog.

Sunset was surprised to see Bulk after all this time. “Where have you been the past three days? I haven’t seen you anywhere.”

“What? You told me to lay low, so I’ve been at home.”

“Bulk, I didn’t mean you literally had to go into hiding like some sort of fugitive.”

“I didn’t? Welp, there goes three days of school.”

“If you were hiding then why are you out jogging now?”

“I can’t stay inside forever. No weirdo Stand users are gonna get in the way of my exercise routine.”

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll be attacked?”

“Nah, I doubt they’ll come after me, now that I don’t have my Stand any more.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense... WHAT!?”

“What?”

“What do you mean you don’t have your Stand any more!? What happened!?”

“I don’t know. I can’t summon it any more, watch.”

Bulk closed his eyes and concentrated, on his command, his Stand manifested above him, just like before. It’s massive, powerful arms and tiny head were completely unharmed.

“Oh, hey, Burly Heart! You’re back!”

“WHAT!?” Sunset cried in disbelief. “Bulk, you just said your Stand was gone!”

“Yeah, I guess it came back! Ain’t that weird.”

“Holy Celestia, what is happening?”

Sunset grasped her head, once again as her migraine intensified trying to understand this madness. Bulk and Pinkie looked on, worried for Sunset’s health.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s had a long day...”

After taking some deep breaths, Sunset composed herself and was ready for some good old fashioned questioning.

“Bulk. When did your Stand suddenly disappear?”

“Couple days ago, I think.”

“Did anything strange happen to you?”

“I dunno.”

“Of course not...”

“Sorry, Sunset.”

“Just... go back to your jog, Bulk...”

Bulk could hear the sadness and frustration in Sunset’s voice and attempted to cheer her up

“Hey! If you need help fighting any Stand users in the future, give me call and I’ll come running!”

Sunset accepted Bulk’s offer and let him continue his jog down the street, but she still felt down.

“Every time a new lead presents itself I hit a dead end. I feel like fate is dangling the answers in front of me on a stick, leading me around like a dumb donkey.”

“But, you’re not dumb, or a donkey.” Pinkie explained, trying to comfort her saddened friend. “You just haven’t gotten a lucky break, yet!”

“Oh yeah? And when’s that happening?”

“LOOK!” Pinkie yelled in delight. “Someone’s walking out of the park!” She turned to Sunset to gauge her reaction. “And they’re wearing a suspicious outfit that's concealing their identity!”

Sunset immediately remembered the hooded girl from a few days ago. Was this it? The lucky break she was looking for? “Pinkie! We need to catch that person, right now!”

With renewed hope, the girls chased after the hooded figure and confronted them. At first the figure didn’t pay the girls any notice, even after they called out to them. Sunset used her Stand to fly towards the figure and pull their hood down, grabbing their attention and revealing their long, purple hair with blue highlights.

The once hooded figure glanced behind herself before turning to face the one’s who disturbed her.

Sunset recognised her. “Hey, you’re the girl who was with Gilda, when we were attacked at the school. What was your name again?”

The girl just stood there, staring blankly before pulling out her earphones. “Can I help you with something?”

“You’re the girl we saw at school the other day, the one who tried to fight me.”

“Yeah, I remember you, you made me look like a joke!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You made me and my Diva look pathetic in front of my comrades! Do you have any idea how embarrassed I felt after that!?”

“I don’t recall anyone seeing our fight.”

“I did!” Pinkie jumped in, cutting through the tension. “You were all like 'Shut up!' and Sunset was all like 'Um... okay.' and then your Stands clashed and then you both messed your wrists up pretty bad and then we all had a good laugh.”

“Shut up! It wasn't funny!” The girl became enraged, but Pinkie wasn’t going to let her grumpiness ruin her fun.

“Geez, don’t have to be rude! You gotta learn to smile more! Even Sunset thought that fight was funny!”

“This isn’t a joke! My Diva is way stronger that it was a few days ago! What about you? Have you made any progress with your Stand powers?”

Perplexed by the girl's abrasive, competitive attitude, Pinkie couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for her. “You need to lighten up. Stop being such a whiner.”

Pinkie’s final remark was the last straw, as the girl’s Stand appeared and launched a powerful blow to Pinkie’s face, knocking her to the ground.

Sunset was outraged by the girl’s violent behaviour. “What the heck is wrong with you!? Why did you do that!?”

“She irritated me.”

“You didn’t have to hurt her like that!”

“She’s the enemy, I’ll attack her if I feel like it.”

“Enemy? So, you’re working for that shadow man, too?”

A sudden, smug grin crawled onto the girl’s face. “Ha! He wishes. He can’t control me with those freaky visions of his. I’m going to do things my way.”

“Visions? You mean the nightmares?”

“Visions, nightmares... whatever they’re called, they don’t work on me!”

“So, what are you trying to accomplish without him?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Sunset Shimmer.” The girl taunted.

“I don't remember giving you my name.”

“Didn't need to, I already know everything about your magical hi-jinks, Sunset. That Battle of the Bands fiasco was pretty entertaining.”

“How do you know about that? You don’t even go to my school!”

“Are you kidding!? People record videos of that stuff all the time! Most people just right it off as some elaborate hoax or some artsy music video, but of course we all know truth, right?”

Sunset found it creepy that someone would do so much research on her without her knowledge. “What possible reason could you have to look into my past?”

“That’s a secret.”

This girl was even more uncooperative than Discord. She showed no signs of backing down and was preparing herself for a fight, Sunset readied her Stand in response.

Sunset's Stand didn't impress the girl. It didn't look like it had grown at all, since the last time they met, in contrast to Diva, which looked more beefed up than before.

“You’re going to fight me with that?”

“Y-yeah. Is that a problem?”

“Well, it’s just... I’ve never felt such a strange mix of amusement and utter disappointment before. Your powers haven’t grown an inch since we last met, it’s almost sad.”

“HEY!” Yelled a voice below them. “Sunset’s Stand has totally grown since last time!”
Still lying on the floor, Pinkie sprung back up on her feet. Her face still had Diva's fist imprinted on it, but otherwise she was unharmed. After plugging her nose and blowing super hard, Pinkie’s face popped back into shape as if nothing happened.

Disheartened and dismayed, the girl was devastated that her powerful strike had no effect on Pinkie at all. “How!? That punch should have shattered your nose! What happened!?”

“It’s all thanks to my Stand, Birthday Train!” Pinkie’s Stand waved as it rested on her shoulder.

“That’s not a train! That’s a horse!”

“Says you!” The Stand replied sticking it’s tongue out in rebellion.

Insulted by her Stand and it’s power, Diva quickly threw another punch at Pinkie’s face, knocking her down again. Pinkie immediately bounced back up on her feet and fixed her contorted face with zero effort.

The girl trembled with rage, but also doubt. “How is this happening? My Diva’s become so much stronger and yet this... this... cartoon pony is somehow stronger!? What are you!? Indestructible!?”

“Pretty much!” Pinkie smiled without a care.

The girl was shocked, but soon recovered as she saw this as an opportunity. “Really? Then let’s see how indestructible you really are!” Diva pointed its middle and forefinger and fired a blue beam.

Sunset knew Pinkie wouldn’t be harmed, thanks to her Stand ability, but there was something off about that beam, it didn’t look powerful, meaning it probably had some other effect that wasn't concerned with dealing damage. Sunset trusted her gut and jumped to protect Pinkie.

She braced herself as she was struck by the beam, but she felt no pain. In fact, it felt extremely weak, like water from a squirt gun. The beam dissipated leaving the girl more enraged than she was before. “NO! What are you doing!?”

“I was protecting my friend from... whatever that was.”

“No! I don’t want this garbage! And now my power’s gone! I didn't even get to use it!”

Sunset had no idea what the girl was ranting about, but she was clearly distressed over something. She’d love to ask and learn more about her Stand, but it didn’t look like the girl was in the mood to talk. She instead took advantage of her distress to launch a surprise counterattack.

Still yelling to herself, the girl failed to notice Sky Should Be High, flying in low, to land a strong uppercut right to her face, knocking the girl down. As she fell, a notebook slipped out of the front pocket of her hoodie and onto the ground, opening to the bookmarked page.

Not wanting to let any potential evidence slip by her, Sunset used Sky's clairvoyance to read the book. She only managed to glance at it for a moment as the girl’s Stand quickly reclaimed the book before helping it’s user back on her feet.

“My nose!” The girl cried in anger. “You made my nose bleed!”

“Yeah! Guess my Stand wasn’t as weak as you thought it was!”

Her pride wounded, the girl contemplated Sunset's words. “Does that mean, I’m still weak, too?”

“Um, well, it doesn’t matter how strong your Stand is, the user is still just a normal person. E-except, Pinkie... she’s, like, the total opposite for some reason. Stand powers are weird like that.”

“Pinkie...” The girl mumbled to herself.

Sunset grew concerned. The girl didn’t seem emotionally stable with her sudden mood swings and that was saying a lot considering the people she’d met recently. “Hey, are you okay? We don’t have to fight like this, you know? I want to stop that man too, so why don’t we work together?”

“Never!”

The girl marched over to Sunset with violent intent. Her Stand loomed over her with a dark aura. Sky attempted to fend off the Stand, but to no avail, as its attacks were too weak to cause any harm to it. There were no openings for Sunset to exploit and nowhere to run.

Before Sunset was struck by the Stand’s mighty fist, a ghostly figure flew between them, wielding a sturdy shield and blocked the attack with ease.

“What!?” The girl cried. “Who did that!?”

“Excuse me.” From across the street, Rarity had entered the battle.

She was standing in a circle where the pavement used to be. Her Stand, Lady Fascination, had sliced up part of the concrete and melded it into a shield to defend her friend. The girl however was unaware of this ability and was baffled that anything was capable of withstanding her Stand’s attack.

“Why can’t I break this shield!”

“It’s not the shield you should be worrying about, right Sunset!”

Sunset heard Rarity’s call and while the girl was distracted, trying to break through the shield, she, once again, failed to notice Sky Should Be High slip into her range and land another punch, this time to her gut.

That single punch was enough to wind the girl and prevent her from using her Stand for any more assaults, as she fell to knees, clutching her stomach. “That... hurt.. but how?”

Sunset flicked her hair. “Didn’t I already explain that having a Stand doesn’t make you superhuman? Anyone can be brought to their knees with a nice solid punch to the gut!”

“Speaking of explaining..." Asked Rarity, as she joined her friends. "Who are you?”

“Starlight... Glimmer...”

Sunset also asked her own question. “Starlight, could you tell me the meaning of the symbols in the notebook you were carrying?”

“No.” A sudden gust of wind engulfed Starlight, pushing the girls away from her. By the time the wind died down, Starlight had already escaped.

“Hey!” Pinkie objected. “That’s not fair! She used the wind as a cover to escape and she didn’t even answer our question!”

“There’s not much we can do now, Pinkie...” Sunset sighed.

Even though she had escaped, Rarity was still bothered by something. “Sunset, what are these symbols you were talking about?”

“I’m not sure, but some of them looked just like the ones we found in the park, but there were a bunch of scribbles all over the page, I couldn’t make out what any of it meant.”

“Well, that’s certainly troubling, but unless we can figure out what she's trying to accomplish with them, there's not much else we can do.”

“Yeah, but she’s also been watching videos of me.”

“Oh, those...”

“You knew about them!?”

“Well, yes, I wasn’t sure whether to tell you.”

“I need to see those videos! There has to be a clue hidden in them, somewhere."

Comments

[Saiyan of the North Star]

KO awesome chapter, Sunset got some little clues about the man and yet there are still some unanswered questions. The girls will have to work there butt off to solve this mystery.

[diablo4000]

Bet Starlight going to regret messing withthe myterous man sooner or later.

[FoldabotZ]

The whole interrogation scene with Discord looked like something out of Ace Attorney, just add music.

[enigmaMystere]

I'm gonna guess right now that Starlight is the one taking other's powers.

[Black--Soul]

Looks like everyone get powers, but has real clue what to use them for in a bigger picture.

Maybe this is a testrun? Alternative the one behind it all just simply needs more time to prepare things.

Put the video of Sunset to negatives and you see
'pink fluffly unicorn dancing on rainbows'