Creeping Normality

by Eyeswirl the Weirded

Chapter 7: Conflict Resolution

Not confident that she could outrun the giant crocodile and even less confident that she could outrun Rainbow and her super speed, Aria just froze when she came charging in her direction, fist raised and screaming. It was just as she wondered if they could sue the Rainbooms for assault now that Rainbow rushed past her, straight to the croc, and punched it in the nose.

The croc roared with booming, percussive force, which wasn't something Aria thought crocodiles could do no matter their size, sending her, Sonata, and Rainbow hurtling into a concrete wall. Battered and dazed, she shakily got to her feet to witness the Rainbooms going after the croc, not her and Sonata, which was kind of a relief. They shouted orders at each other, bantered a bit, threw their super powers at it, but nothing stopped the croc for long as it snapped its huge jaws at them.

"Pinkie," Not-Princess Twilight shouted over the sound of Fluttershy pleading with the monster to calm down, "use the sprinkles!"

"I can't," Pinkie cried back, distraught, "what if he's somebody's pet?!"

"Pinkie," grunted Applejack as she strained to hold the croc back by its tail, "you've gotta be the only person in the city that has a pet gator, an' this one's tryin' to eat us!!"

"Then why is he wearing a collar?!"

Sunset Shimmer's head tilted. "Collar?" Taking a closer look, she noticed the thick, leather band around the creature's neck; filthy and encrusted with sewer grime, but definitely not part of its body. "She's right! Maybe we can find out what happened to his owner!"

Twilight looked like she was just starting to smell this place. "What?! No, we-"

"Rainbow, can you distract it while Rarity makes a ramp to its head?"

Rainbow quickly saluted, then darted around in front of the croc, keeping its focus on her as Rarity created a magic-crystal-glass-thing leading from the ground beside the croc up to the spot between its eyes, which Sunset quickly ran up, nearly slipped and fell down, then scrambled to get over as Rarity tilted it a little for her. Landing on the beast's head, Sunset knelt down and touched an open palm to its scales, her eyes glowing as she took in the information.

"It's... some guy in a suit!"

Pinkie beamed. "So he is somebody's pet!"

Twilight's eye twitched as she raised her hands in exasperation. "And what do we do with that information right now?!"

Standing on the croc's head, Sunset scratched her own. "Uhh-"

With a violent motion of the croc's neck, she was tossed off, Twilight telekinetically catching her and setting her down at a safe distance before seizing the collar in her magic, then finding and undoing the buckle to remove it. Almost immediately, the creature and its collar began to shrink, the former stopping when it was just a little bit bigger than Pinkie's pet Gummy, the latter giving off a bluish, ethereal glow as it landed in Twilight's hand. She smiled.

"Oh, good, it was the collar." She turned to her inquisitive friends. "If this wasn't the biggest alligator in recorded history, I figured the rogue magic deposit was either on his body, or in it." Her smile vanished. "I don't know what we'd have done if it was something he ate making him that big."

The Rainbooms were collectively startled by Sonata's sudden question. "I thought it was a crocodile?"

Remembering that the two sirens were present, Twilight shook her head. "Uhh... No, it's, actually an alligator. You can tell the difference by the way its teeth-" she pointed to the little reptile in question as he stood idle, blinking one eye and then the other, "point up and down as opposed to all pointing down, and the snout is much-"

"Hey dweeb," Aria interrupted, a tiny act of spite for being secretly proven wrong as she pointed at Twilight's hand, "you're holding a poo-soaked collar."

She, Sonata, and most of the Rainbooms snickered as Twilight made a comically disgusted face and dropped the collar, trying to wipe off the grime on her skirt as Sunset looked at the sirens, a hint of suspicion in her eyes.

"So, what are you two doing down here?"

"We're-"

"Isn't it obvious?!" Rainbow stepped forward with a glare, stopping just a little too close to Aria for personal space considerations. "They must'a been behind the gator!"

"No," Aria replied with obvious contempt as she shoved Rainbow away, "we were, uh... we were just-"

There was no way they would believe that she and Sonata honestly hoped to find-

"We were looking for lost gold," Sonata answered casually, "but there's nothing but bad smells and murder down here!"

Fluttershy paled. "Murder?"

Sonata ignored or didn't hear her, turning Rainbow's suspicious stare right back at her. "And what are you all doing down here?"

"We were looking into what we'd heard about a giant gator in the sewers," Sunset answered. "If it was true, we figured it had to be magic, and if it was, we were the only ones that might be able to do something about it. And," she raised an eyebrow, "you're looking for gold in a sewer?"

"It's a cover-up," Rainbow cut in before either siren could reply, "they're working for Adagio in secret, starting the real plan to get back at us!"

"Oh, get over yourself, Crayola," scoffed Aria with an eyeroll, "you idiots haven't even been on our radar in months."

While uncertain whether it was the sentiment or the nickname that made Rainbow angrier, Applejack yanked her back by her shirt anyway when she snarled and tried to get physical again. "Then you two ain't seen them commercials?"

Aria raised an eyebrow. "What, 'Rainbow Sugar Patrol'? Yea, it was kinda funny the first seven or eight times, but we didn't do anything for 'em." Though she wasn't sure why, it annoyed her that the Rainbooms shared a confused look before Twilight With Glasses asked.

"Why is that, anyway? Aren't the three of you a team?"

"If we still were, would we still be here while she's bumping fists with random celebrities?"

There was a contemplative pause.

"You could be," Rainbow offered weakly, "if she was scheming to do something back here with-"

"Save it," snapped Aria, "if you're just looking for an excuse to take your frustrations out on us like you tried with that gator, you're not gonna find it!"

"Yea," added Sonata, fist raised and a confident grin on her face, "and if you try anyway, we really will get to sue you!"

Rainbow's eyes narrowed. "Sue?! You really are up to something!" She turned to her friends. "Let's get 'em!"

"Um, no," a glowing-eyed Sunset immediately replied as she stood with one hand on Aria's shoulder and the other on Rainbow's forehead, "because she's telling the truth, on both accounts."

Aria immediately took a step back, nearly slipping off a ledge and falling in feces before looking at Sunset in horror. "What the fuck?! Did you just-"

"Aha," declared Sonata, now pointing at Sunset, "inappropriate brain-touching! That's totally sexual harassment!"

"Go back to sleep, Sonata!"

Uncertain as to whether or not the sirens had a legitimate case against Sunset's clearly unwanted glimpse into Aria's mind or if she and Sonata could afford a decent lawyer (or if she, Sunset, and the rest could afford the legal bill if it came to that), with or without Adagio's help, Twilight quickly moved things along. "Why are the three of you apart? Do your jobs not allow you to take some time off and even visit her, or...?"

The especially icy glare she got for this said that this was a sensitive subject, prompting her to take a step back. Not enough to hide behind Applejack, but enough to keep the maneuver easily available!

"It looked like they chose to stay here even when Adagio was offering," Sunset casually answered, "but I didn't go deep enough to see why."

"Seriously," Aria said as her head whipped in Sunset's direction, "how have you not been arrested for doing that?"

"Because there isn't a law in this world about magic use?"

"Even when it's a matter of privacy invasion? Which I'm pretty sure is illegal?"

"...Uhh-"

"Right, I forgot," Aria said through a facepalm, "the Rainbow Sugar Patrol can do whatever they want and everyone else just better be okay with it, right?" A thought sunk in over the ensuing silence, deflating her irritation on the spot. "...Not that I should be judging. I mean, that's exactly what I wanted to use my powers for, so, glass houses. Good for you guys, really, you keep doin' your thing." She turned to walk away. "Let's go, Sonata."

Lacking anything to add to the stunned looks on the Rainbooms' faces, Sonata settled for sticking her tongue out, immediately regretting the taste of sewer air, and following Aria. This may have been just enough to spur Rarity into indignant action, because she scoffed, hastily marching around to block Aria's path. The squeaky sounds of her hazmat suit may have diminished the serious, imposing tone of her face and body language.

"Now wait just a minute! I'll admit that perhaps we aren't always subject to consequences when magic is involved, but we use our powers to help people, something I doubt the three of you ever even considered doing! Is it really that much of a leap that we might be afforded some leniency on account of the good we've done, not just the-"

Not really interested in spelling out that only occasionally abusing their power was still abusing their power, Aria glared at Rarity, grabbed the helmet/hood/thing of her hazmat suit in both hands, popped it off, and flung it over her shoulder.

Her pupils shrinking to pinpricks, Rarity gasped, immediately regretting it as the foul air assaulted her inside and out. She dropped to her knees with one hand extended dramatically to the ceiling, then fell on her side, choking, sputtering, and clutching at her throat as Aria stared at her in disdain before stepping over her and moving on, Sonata in tow.

Despite her friend's dismay, Sunset giggled. "I liked that movie too."

"What movie is that?"

Hearing the unfamiliar, adult male voice from behind them, the Rainbooms (bar Rarity) whipped around to see a filthy man in shabby clothes, holding the alligator in both arms as though it were a cat.

"Uh," Applejack began, "howdy. Who're you?"

Gently stroking the gator on the top of its head and drawing a happy chirp, he smiled. "My name is Rough Diamond, and I've been roaming these corridors in search of my beloved pet, Snappers."

Snappers moved his head to brush his snout against his owner's chin, drawing a chuckle as he again pet the little alligator.

Following a brief silence, Rainbow dared ask. "That's... your pet?"

"Yes, and my life had simply fallen apart without my Snappers, but now I can get back to my cold fusion research in peace."

Most of the Rainbooms gaped. Pinkie beamed.

"Oh," he added as he started toward the exit, "and you girls should be careful down here, there are some strange young women with a metal detector hunting for gold of all things. Took off and ran when I tried to tell them they were most likely picking up my granddad's lucky pocket knife."

His distant footsteps had ceased to echo by the time any of the Rainbooms made a sound again, in the form of Rarity scoffing as she got to her feet. "Really? Not one of you was going to help me?"

Applejack rolled her eyes. "We've been doin' fine without yer fancy 'full-body protection,' Rarity, it ain't gonna kill ya."

"But the smell will take WEEKS to wash out of our hair!!"

"More importantly," Sunset said with a smile, "we stopped the giant gator and reunited him with a loved one. Sewers, sirens, and questionable ethics aside, I'd call that a pretty good day, wouldn't you?"

Her friends smiled in kind. Maybe they weren't perfect themselves, but they knew they strove to do the right thing whenever they could, which, to them, was enough.

Holding up a handful of sprinkles, Pinkie giggled. "Sooo glad I didn't need to use these; if I had to blow up an alligator, I might never have been able to look Gummy in the eye again!"

Time briefly slowed for the other six Rainbooms as Pinkie moved her arm to chuck the sprinkles over her shoulder. Directly into the river of raw sewage.

"PINKIE, NOOOO!!"

In the following weeks, Rarity had the tact not to say anything about hazmat suits.

%%%

With the Eezy-Cheezy tour bus/trailer/thing (Adagio still hadn't properly learned the name for such a vehicle) not in operation for the duration of their stay in Hollywood and Adagio having procured her own key for it long in advance (Plan D if the Rainbooms attacked her here was looking less and less likely to reach execution), it made for a nice, quiet meeting place. All Adagio had to do was walk out to the surprisingly spacious garage it was kept in, call Cheese Sandwich, politely ask him to meet her there, and wait.

If Cheese suspected anything, he didn't show it, because he answered the call in his usual, cheerful tones, agreed to come see her without hesitation, and was climbing aboard within minutes. He didn't even ask how she got his number.

"Hey, 'Dagi-O!"

Sitting by the little table next to a window (that she knew Felt Feather, hiding in the garage, would be able to see), she offered a friendly little smile and gestured to the seat across from her. "Thanks for coming. Please, have a seat."

"I'd rather not, but I'll sure sit on it!"

Her outward expression unchanging, she pieced together what he meant as he sat down. "...Right. I just wanted to talk about the fan gifts you've been bringing me."

It was subtle, but she was sure his smile shrank a little. "Nothing wrong with 'em, is there? Does everything taste okay?"

Her own smile faintly grew. "They taste fine, Mr. Sandwich, not the least because there was no trace of anything the slightest bit unusual found in the most recent batch." As anticipated, that won a look of surprise, but she didn't stop smiling. "I won't bore you with the details, but when I learned that all of my mail was to be directed through specific channels, not just randomly dropped off, I couldn't help doing a little digging."

Having accepted that she didn't know Cheese Sandwich well enough to predict his next move, Adagio just waited. If worst came to worst, she'd hope her hands were quick enough to use the taser she'd been given and that Felt Feather was paying close attention.

To her surprise, he just sighed and frowned. "I'm sorry I lied to you." He took her own smile being replaced by an inquisitive stare to mean 'Why did you lie,' not 'why are you sorry about the lying,' so he answered the first one. "I've noticed it since the day you started at Eezy-Cheezy, but you don't smile a lot, not even now unless you're onstage, and you usually look, I don't know, not miserable, but, sad or maybe just wistful sometimes. I figured you might brighten up, and you might not, it wasn't really my business, but when you invited me along for this thing-" his smile made a brief, but strong return, "which has been a hoot, by the way! -I thought it was only fair that I try a little harder to make you as happy as me and Gouda about all this. I don't know if it's just that you've been missing your friends back home or what, but if my usual songs and pulling stuff out of nowhere weren't helping, I thought I'd try tasty stuff!"

His face grew guilty. "But, well, I know what it looks like when a guy gives a girl sweets, and I didn't wanna make you think I was being all-" he made a comically exaggerated 'suave' face in tandem with an exaggerated French accent here, briefly popping a fedora onto his head, "-'oh-hoh-hoh, I gave you DEE-LISH-USH food, now you have to go out with me!' or anything like that, but when you just say that, it looks like you're trying to reverse-psychology the other person into just that because then you've got them thinking about it and that wasn't gonna make you happier at all, so I lied and said it was just from random fans!"

There was a pause as Adagio went over his story in her head. Knowing what she knew of Cheese Sandwich, it certainly fit. He was always trying to get people to smile, always trying to string as many people as possible into celebrating every little thing, but...

She offered a faint grin. "Perhaps I should be apologizing too. I've seen you doing what you do, even with random customers back in Canterlot when you had the time, but I've gotten so... accustomed to people treating me a little differently, for one reason or another, that I don't think I even entertained the idea that you were just being nice. Trying to woo me was one consideration, yes, the other being that you had heard about me prior to my employment and had some kind of plan brewing."

He raised an eyebrow, confused. "'Heard about you'?"

So he didn't know. Or, at the very least, he's still pretending. If the latter, I can only guess why he would bother.

She'd come up with a few cover stories, a few feasible lies for things she might have been involved in other than the Battle, but if this whole situation sprung from not being forthcoming...? "I was the cause of a magical crisis at Canterlot High, and would have made adoring thralls of... well, at least a whole town, but probably a nicer one than Canterlot."

His eyes widened considerably. If she weren't so focused on his response, it might have even been comical. "You're one of those magic-from-another-dimension people I kept hearing about?"

"Well-"

He beamed. "That's awesome!! Can you ride a broom or cast Thundaga or turn into a big, honking dragon? Or even a non-honking one, which would probably be most of them! Oh, what about-"

"No," she interrupted, "I couldn't do any of those things even before I lost the bulk of my power."

The smile faded. "Aw, shoot." Then it came back. "Welp, maybe it'll come back some day? If it does, just lemme know, I can totally hook you up with a black, pointy hat, and a big ol' cauldron!" His levity receded a little. "You'll have to come up with the giant spoon on your own, though."

"That's, er, good to know, thank you."

Actually, the hat thing gave her an idea, but now wasn't the time. He wasn't bothered by her being a magical monster, that was what she'd meant to find out. That and what he was up to with the snacks he'd been bringing her. She wasn't even going to need the recording she'd been taking of all this now. All she really had left was some idle curiosity, and a question she unwittingly indulged with a mild frown.

"Do I really look sad to you?"

"Yup." The immediate reply made her flinch, so he tried to make it better with a little smile. "It's not like, just-waiting-for-the-end-for-hollow-is-my-soul misery or anything, or, it doesn't look like that from the outside, but you should totally get help if it is, but, yea, if I were to look at you on any given day when you weren't Poofy-ing it up? I'd probably think you weren't super thrilled about life, which is weird for someone that gets to ride around on a party bus and be rich and famous!" He blinked, starting to sweat. "Uh, not that I'm trying to say that alone should make you happy or that I think you're shallow enough to be set for life with just fame and fortune, just that, you seem about as happy now as you were before, which isn't very much!"

Taking a moment to absorb all that, she snorted, devolving into quiet gigglefits as he hesitantly smiled back at her.

"Did you really think I was trying to poison you?"

She gently shook her head. "Not at first, at least not until I knew that you were lying to me."

He looked back at her with a hint of guilt. "Ehh, yea, I can sorta see how you'd pin the tail on that donkey."

The urge was there to outline what else she'd thought up when guessing at his true intentions, like giving her plain, unaltered food several times to get her used to taking food from him, then poison or drug her when she least expected it, or just make her think she'd been poisoned in the hope that she'd rush off to the nearest source of an antidote and, given that unneeded antivenom can be just as lethal as venom in the right circumstances, unwittingly end herself by trying to counter nonexistent toxins, if not injecting herself with real, more lethal poison in the antidote arranged beforehand. However, even though Cheese appeared to be a much kinder person than she'd come to suspect, there was no need to give him such ideas.

On that note, she still had something she wanted to say, and wasn't sure how.

...Being direct has gained me more progress in understanding him than all of our previous interactions combined.

Taking a breath, she was able to smile. "You're a very nice boy, Cheese Sandwich, but I feel I should say right now that there's no chance of anything happening between us."

He just chuckled, casually waving a hand. "Oh, don't worry about it, I'm gay!"

Adagio's jaw dropped. "Y-you're...?"

"Yup! As in 'happy' and as in 'likes men'!"

Smiling brightly, Adagio clasped her hands together. "Oh, that is such a relief! F-for a moment there," she said with a giggle she couldn't quite keep down, "I was worried how it would look if you knew inviting you along had been my idea, which I did because you helped me during that first commercial, and that it would look like we were getting closer with this little talk and then I'd have to go and sour the whole thing with that, but-"

"Nope!"

It looked like Adagio was still trying to say something, but seeing her laugh like this just had him smiling from ear to ear, so he laughed right along with her! In the back of his mind, he knew that she'd probably be back to the usual, not-quite-frowny-but-definitely-not-happy-faced Adagio before long, but for now, this was something.

Eventually, Adagio got a hold of herself, wiping away a tear as she reigned in her gigglefits. "Well, I... I think that was all I wanted to talk about. Thank you for coming, Cheese Sandwich."

He chuckled. "Any time, 'Dagi-O! Now if you'll excuse me," he said while donning a viking helmet, "I promised the guys at the dock a sea shanty, and the theme is Norse mythology! Catch ya later!"

Once more, Adagio watched as he got up and bounded off, away to make a nuisance of himself for all things bleak and depressing.

Then it struck her what going to meet 'the guys' at a dock might have meant in the context of his last revelation to her, making her blush and giggle scandalously.

Well, she thought as she got to her feet, stretched, and started toward the bus door, it's not guaranteed that that's what he's up to, but I can hardly begrudge him his vices, can I?

She had barely stepped off the bus when she saw Felt Feather, standing there waiting for her. "Hello, Madam. I trust that all went well with Cheese Sandwich?"

Giggling, she nodded. "Yes, I think so." Then a thought occurred. "Wait, weren't you nearby the whole time?"

"Yes, but you instructed me to keep an eye on the two of you through the bus window for the duration of your discussion. I could see, but not hear your conversation. Having me hide in the stall, under a seat, in an internal compartment, or otherwise obscured from sight, perhaps under a large blanket thrown over a few seats, would have offered the opposite scenario, had that been your wish."

Blinking twice, Adagio facepalmed.

Author's Note:

I hope it came across clearly that Adagio looking kind of sad wasn't something that just popped out of nowhere, it's something that no one, including Adagio herself, even noticed, save for the type of person that lives to see other people happy.

Comments

[JMP]

Well, glad there's nothing strange with Cheese. Just a nice guy trying to make someone cheer up a bit