Alone
Adagio grunted as she and her friends landed on the ground. A soft growl filtered from her throat at the audacity of that Star Swirl. How dare he sentence them to banishment? Sirens ruled the oceans of Equestria! Without them, there would be no emotional balance among the seafolk. Not… that they could ever return to the ocean as it were.
Lifting up, the lead siren glanced down and gasped in horror. Her hooves. Her beautiful hooves were replaced with… with these odd limbs. Each one had five protruding appendages curling on it. What were these? Where were her hooves?
“Holy Stallions!” Aria shrieked. Adagio turned to her quickly and found the purple siren staring down her own body. “Where the Tartarus is my tail?” the grumpy siren demanded, wiggling the odd-looking pair of… land legs she now possessed.
Hurriedly, Adagio whipped her head to the other side where she had heard Sonata land. She found the bubbliest siren holding her strange forelegs to her chest and blushing profusely. “Sonata?” Adagio asked slowly. “What’s wrong?”
Cyan cheeks darkened further and Sonata slowly pulled her limbs away. “M-my chest has… it has mammal parts…” Sonata whispered, showing her fellow sirens her mammary glands.
The blood drained from Adagio’s face and her… split hoof? Whatever it was, she used it to feel for her gills. Nothing. Her neck was bare. She only had lungs.
“He turned us into mammals…” she breathed in horror.
“But what kind?” Aria huffed. “We clearly aren’t ponies.”
“Whatever we are, we need to figure out what to do now.” Adagio used her new hooves to push herself onto all fours. Her new hindlegs wobbled unsteadily and she sighed. They would need to learn how to use them. This was going to be difficult. “We need to practice with our new parts before we can do anything. That means, until we get this under control, we have to stay away from others of whatever species this is.”
Gingerly, the lead siren lifted a single hindleg and inched it forward. That was progress at least. They seemed to work similarly to the front hooves she had possessed in Equestria. All she needed to do was bend the elbow—did the land ponies call them knees?—and move it forward. Now, she did the same with one of her front hoof things and she began to move, if slowly.
Her sisters followed her movements, stumbling over themselves slightly. Gradually, they began trekking through the forest they had found themselves in. “Whatever this world is,” Adagio murmured, watching the animal life around them. “It’s clear each animal has a different dialect. I’m not sure if they’ll understand us should we attempt communication.”
“Great!” Aria grumbled. “Turned into mammals and unable to communicate with the other animals. How are we supposed to survive?”
“We’ll figure something out,” Sonata said softly as she glanced around them uneasily. “We always do.”
Adagio smiled back at her. As she did, she noticed something off. Sitting on her tail—flank? Haunches?—she turned to the other two and cocked her head, staring at them hard. Aria and Sonata stared at her, wondering what the problem was. Adagio’s eyes narrowed as she tried to figure out what was different.
Looking down at herself, the leader of their Orchestra used her strange forehooves to grasp the fabric over her body and lift it. With the five protrusions, she felt around her chest area, ignoring her moderately sized mammary glands as she examined the area. Smooth fur or… flesh? Nothing but smooth flesh met her appendages.
Amethyst eyes widened in horror. “Our Song Modules!” she breathed. She stared over at Sonata and Aria. They wouldn’t survive long without the gems. If she didn’t find some magic soon, they would be-!
“Oh, they’re right here!” Sonata exclaimed quietly, reaching up to a strange neckpiece at her throat. There, glowing around her neck, was a smaller version of their Modules. Sonata turned it over in her fingers so Adagio could get a good look. “I guess this is how the mammals here would wear them if they were Sirens,” she suggested.
“Thank you, Sonata,” Adagio breathed. “I was worried for a moment. We should probably keep going. I don’t feel any magic in this area and without magic, you two will-.”
At that moment, Aria sank to the ground. Adagio rushed to her side. Or, well, hobbled to her side on her new limbs, using her oddly shortened muzzle to nuzzle her comrade. “I’m good,” Aria huffed. “Just… really tired for some reason.”
“It must be the lack of magic,” the yellow siren whispered, glancing over to see Sonata leaning heavily against a tree. “Star Swirl sent us to a world without magic.”
Biting her lip, Adagio glanced around. They had never tried their voices on regular animals in Equestria, just ponies and seafolk. Maybe…Taking in a deep breath (how bizarre) Adagio slowly began to sing. Her Module began to glow, providing the magic behind her song as she hoped the spell worked on animals. Sirens were meant to use it on sea life to keep the emotional balance, but…
Thankfully, the signature green mist of their magic began to flow from the bushes. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough. Allowing her Module to absorb the energy, Adagio slowly focused her energy and shared it with Sonata and Aria. A bit of their strength seemed to return and they nodded to her to signal they were okay.
Adagio sighed and rubbed her head with her split hoof, muttering, “This new world is going to be hard enough learning about, but we may have to feed far more often now. That was barely enough to sustain the three of us for two days.”
“Then let’s get goin’,” Aria shrugged. “Sooner we find other mammals like this, sooner we can find somewhere to gather more food, right?”
Adagio nodded. She needed to focus on keeping her Orchestra fed. She couldn’t lose them. She couldn’t be alone again.
Adagio rubbed her head as the magical blast dropped she and her friends back to the stage. She could feel her power slipping away, fading back into what it was before discovering the school. Those children had stolen their birthright from them, just as Star Swirl had those years ago. Growling, she glared across at them before something red caught her eye. Glancing down, Adagio felt her heart skid to a halt.
Their Song Modules.
Before all three of them lay shattered gemstones, the red jewels glowing faintly before their power faded out. No. No, this couldn’t happen. They needed those. She needed those. Casting a quick look to the other members of her Orchestra, Adagio quickly scooped up the pieces of her Module and stood. If she could recreate the song that gave them the power, perhaps she could reseal the gems, fix them up and regain their energy.
Aria and Sonata quickly followed her lead, standing beside her. Sharing the swiftest of looks, the trio began to sing. It was clear within seconds that something was terribly wrong. Their voices… their voices weren’t harmonizing! They couldn’t muster up the magic if they couldn’t even harmonize. Adagio felt panic creep through her stomach, slithering up her chest as she shared a worried glance with Aria.
Food began flying at them and the trio took off. They needed to find shelter, find a place to regroup and figure out how to move forward. The panic slowly expanded to encompass Adagio’s whole body as the three of them raced off the stadium’s property.
From the hilltop, the Rainbooms shared cheers and high fives with one another. Twilight pulled Sunset into a grateful hug, grinning at her happily before lifting into the air with the fiery-haired woman in her arms. Rainbow Dash followed with Applejack in her arms and Fluttershy gently carried Rarity to the stage. Pinkie packed all of their instruments into Vinyl’s car and hopped in beside the DJ.
As the group reconvened on the stage, the students all cheered for them happily, a few shouting Sunset’s name gratefully. The amber-skinned woman smiled out at the crowd. She had finally gotten them to see that she was fully on their side!
Turning to Princess Twilight, Sunset noticed a worried look in the alicorn’s eyes. Smirking, she reached out to place a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “You wanna try reforming them too, Princess?” she chuckled.
“Well, it couldn’t hurt to try, could it?” Twilight blushed slightly. Sunset shrugged and turned to the rest of their friends. The group all gave their own shrugs and grinned at the pair of Equestrians.
“Well then, come on!” Rainbow Dash cheered. “I doubt they’ll come back to school after what happened, so let’s go find’em!”
At once, Pinkie took the lead, bounding from the stage and hurrying in the direction the Sirens had gone. Rainbow Dash and Sunset Shimmer were right behind her with Applejack and Twilight close behind, Fluttershy behind them and Rarity bringing up the rear. Pinkie checked around every corner she came to, trying to spot any sign of the women they were searching for. She was hoping to see any of the singing group, but their leader’s hair would be her best chance of finding them. The rest of the group simply followed along behind her. They all refrained from calling out the girls’ names—not that they knew any outside of the leader’s name anyway, apart from Sunset—knowing the trio were likely not in the mood to see them and would avoid them if they knew they were near.
A few blocks from Canterlot Stadium, Pinkie stopped and cocked her head. The others paused behind her and copied the action. It took a moment with the wind blowing slightly, but all of them could just make out… screaming? The group shared a panicked glance before racing in the direction of the sound. They didn’t know what was happening, but if someone was in trouble, they needed to see what they could do. Sunset easily gained ground and sped alongside Pinkie as the screaming grew louder.
Coming to an alley, Pinkie and Sunset slid to a stop in the entrance, everyone else peering around them warily. On the ground in the middle of the alleyway knelt Adagio. A bright white glow surrounded her, the energy sucking at everything around it, but passing over regular objects. Still, the energy reached out. It was as if the magic was… searching for something.
That something appeared to be the two Sirens Sunset identified as Aria and Sonata. The two of them seemed to be the only things affected by the magic radiating from Adagio. What struck the group was the sheer terror on the pair’s faces as sobs emanated from Adagio herself.
Sunset and the group stared as Sonata and Aria held tightly to anything within their grasp. “Adagio, make it stop!” Aria screeched, fingers curled desperately around a nearby fire escape ladder.
“I-I can’t!” Adagio shouted as she clutched her head between her fingers. “Not without my magic! It won’t work without our Modules!”
“Dagi, please!” Sonata sniffed. Her fingers grasped fearfully at a doorjamb. “I don’t want to go back inside! I don’t! I like being out here!”
Tears poured down Adagio’s cheeks as she watched the other two futilely struggle against the pull. “I’m sorry,” she whispered as Sonata lost her grip first. The blue-haired siren released a terrified scream as she slammed into Adagio.
The group watching winced and cringed as the blue woman’s limbs began melding with Adagio’s drawing an agonized cry from both women. The magic appeared to engulf Sonata’s entire body as the poor siren struggled to free herself. Within moments, Sonata had been sucked inside of Adagio, the yellow siren trembling with sobs. “I’m so sorry!” she cried as Aria valiantly held on.
“Dag, come on!” Aria begged. “Ya gotta fight this!”
“I can’t!” Adagio exclaimed. “I… I can’t… I don’t want to be alone again… please…”
With a last effort, the magic pulling at Aria gave a rough tug and the purple siren lost her grip in surprise. With a startled shout, she also smashed against her host, melting into Adagio with a bright flash, just as Sonata had. Now, with the other two Sirens gone, all that was left in the alley was a sobbing woman, holding her hands to her face in defeat.
Sunset and Twilight shared a stunned glance as the rest of their friends simply stared blankly at their crying enemy, unable to process what had happened. By all accounts, it looked like Sonata and Aria… weren’t real people. If either Twilight or Sunset had to hazard a guess, they would wager both of the other Sirens had been illusions created by Adagio herself. Slowly, Sunset moved forward and cleared her throat. Adagio turned to her immediately. Her face fell into a vulnerable expression, her eyes wide and body trembling.
“D-don’t come closer!” Adagio whimpered, standing and backing away from them. “Don’t… don’t hurt me…”
“We’re not here to hurt you,” Sunset cooed gently. “We came looking to see if you three were, uh, okay…”
Adagio glanced to the ground and sniffed, one hand going to her head. Twilight stepped up to stand beside Sunset and Adagio whimpered. “What just happened?” the princess asked softly, trying not to startle the terrified woman. “Why did your friends merge with you?”
“Without our-Dagi’s-magic, Ari and I can’t be outside.” Adagio bit her lip as her voice deepened slightly and she became more guarded. “They were part of me, since I was a little guppy. When I was given my Song Module, it was powerful enough to cast them out of my being. They were still connected to me, though, by an unbreakable link, keeping the three of us together all this time.”
“So,” Rarity piped in cautiously. “When we destroyed your jewels, it also-.”
“Cut off the magic keeping me and Sonata sustained outside of Adagio,” Adagio snarled, her eyes darkening to Aria’s deep violet as her voice took on a gruff quality. “Thanks to the loss of our magic, we’re…” Her expression fell into a vulnerable, childish one as Sonata whimpered, “Dagi’s all alone again, just like when she was a guppy.”
Sunset sent a smile to Twilight as she said, “Well, you know, you don’t have to be alone anymore.”
Adagio’s natural haughty expression returned as she sniffed in contempt. “I suppose this is the part where you offer me redemption through friendship? I take it you’ll invite me to join your little ragtag gang of misfits so you can parade me around like a showpony, proving to the school your unstoppable power by presenting them with another defeated enemy to add to your trophy collection.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Sunset told her calmly, holding up a hand to stop the others, namely Rainbow Dash, from saying something that could jeopardize the situation. “We can introduce you to some of the people at school who have similar interests that you do. We won’t make you spend time with us, but we do want to be there for you.”
Adagio’s eyes narrowed calculatingly, almost as if the trio were in an argument with one another, except within her mind instead of out in the world. After a few moments, she bit her lip and Sonata’s more open expression returned. “We’ve… we’ve never been without each other. How would the other students react to… us? Like this?”
Now, Rainbow Dash stepped up with a confident smile. “They’ll be a little harsh at first, but we’ve learned from our mistakes with Sunset. We’ll entrust the student body to make you a better person, not tear you down. And we’ll be there, remember?”
“Dash is right,” Applejack agreed, giving the skittish woman an encouraging smile. “We’ll be there for y’all when ya need us. Ain’t no way we gon hang ya out to dry by yerself.”
Sunset grinned and reached out to Adagio, allowing her arm to hang between them. “Come back with us,” she said softly. “We’ll figure things out, I promise. But no one deserves to be alone, no matter what they did in the past.”
Violet eyes stared at the hand before Adagio receded slightly. “I don’t trust you,” she whispered. It was difficult to tell which of the three was speaking in that moment or if it was all of them. “You just stripped me of my best friends and our only chance of regaining our magic.”
“It could have been worse,” Twilight pointed out. “I could have told you I was taking you back to Equestria to have you persecuted for your crimes-.”
“Crimes?” Adagio snorted, her eyes flashing darker as she folded her arms with a scowl. Aria. “You mean the supposed crimes your oh-so-accurate Equestrian history books said we committed?”
“Mind control is a pretty serious crime…” Sunset muttered, scratching her neck self-consciously.
The contemptuous smirk that descended over the siren’s expression indicated that Adagio had returned. “Mind control is a side effect of our magic. We Sirens kept the harmonious balance in the Equestrian oceans before we needed to relocate to the mainland. Even then, we continued our purpose of balancing the discontent and peace of Equestria. How can harmony exist without disharmony?”
“Still,” Twilight interjected before any of the others could comment. “You could have a chance to… not be alone anymore, to have people like you for you instead of because of your magic. Don’t you at least want to try?”
The siren stared at her, eyes narrowed once more in suspicion. Slowly, Adagio took a step forward. “Fine, princess,” she murmured lowly, still eyeing them all warily. “We’ll do this your way. But this does not make us friends and I do not trust any of you.”
“Yeah, feeling’s mutual,” Rainbow Dash scoffed with her arms folded.
Instantly, Aria’s scowl returned and she bared her teeth at the sports star, violet eyes narrowed venomously. However, before anything could be said, Sunset stepped between the pair and smiled at the volatile woman. “Great! So, uh, we’ll… see you at school on Monday then?”
Adagio straightened. “I suppose so,” she drawled calmly. “I’ve nothing else to do now. Aria still refuses to be a showpony, though.”
“That would be insulting!” Sunset chuckled. “Just regular former enemies turned acquaintances, if that’s acceptable.” Adagio merely gave a curt nod.
The group began making their way back to Canterlot High. Adagio stayed slightly further away from the others, arms crossed as Aria scowled at Rainbow Dash the entire way back. Sunset and Twilight watched them all and shared a glance with a slight sigh.
“I imagine it’ll take some time for her to adjust to this new lifestyle,” Twilight muttered. “But I’m sure you all can do it. Just… try to be more open with her? They might actually start to warm up to you all in time.”
“Hey, these girls fought off a demon,” Sunset smirked. “How hard can acquainting the school with a former siren with multiple personalities really be?”
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You should continue it! I'm really enjoying the story! Keep up the good work!
Oh my God...Aria and Sonata weren't real?!
Cue Murphy's Law.
If the fic ends here I may be forced to projectile vomit at my monitor. Seriously though, I'd say continue it. I'm a sucker for happy or at least hopeful endings, and right now this looks like a pretty dismal note to end the fic on.
Been a good fic either way, though.
8279502
Thank you. I'll try to keep delivering.
8279601
Nope. Not in the slightest.
8279606
I'm gonna have so much fun!
8279681
To prevent your monitor from suffering such a terrible fate, I'll see what I can do!
Said the Princess of Friendship
I'd leave it here, personally, the narrative has a nice arc to it, starting with Aria and Sonata becoming separate, and finishing with them going back in. I'm not sure how well having those two internalised would mesh with the story of them going back to CHS, so I'd be inclined to write a sirens back at CHS story as a separate tale, if that's what you're wanting to tell, one without the 3-in-1 angle
8280385
You Sir/Madam/Unspecified, are a saint.
8280773
Yeah, it wasn't one of Twilight's opportune lines.
I do feel it's a good rounding. I'm happy you like the expansion and, frankly, I'm proud of myself for pulling something like this off (I had zero faith I could come up with anything good for it
). Still, I think something slight might work as a good ending, tie everything up. Maybe a few chapters detailing Adagio's rocky start back at CHS and then an epilogue of how she's getting along. I feel like that would be a nice wrap up. It would smooth everything out.
Though, I may take you up on writing that separate Sirens Back at CHS storyline sometime in the future.
time will tell.
8281042
I try.
WELP IM INTERESTED.
And then, they all got frozen in time, for the story went on hiatus.
Really wish it wasn’t, but them’s the breaks. Hopefully this glorious work comes back before G5 is out.
Oh snap! This is going to be good!
Please continue this.