An Equestrian Girls Comedy of Errors

by Godzilla313

Chapter Six

Author's Note:

Just to let you know, the name changes of the human world sirens was just to be able to differentiate between them and the actual sirens, who, (you guessed it,) are the villains again. The chapter will help make that clear as you read.

Chapter 6

Earlier in the day, some interesting things had taken place. Seeing that they had been given new power, and a new source of keeping their voices strong, though they knew not what part of emotional energy from which they gathered that strength. Thus, they knew they had to find “volunteers”, and Adagio figured that there was no better place than that sweatshop in which the three of them worked. They began to sing casually as they went through the warehouse picking their orders, and slowly but surely, their fellow employees began to fall under their spell. Remembering how bent to their will they were, by the time lunch rolled around, almost everyone was now picking their orders for them as well as their own. However, the leads began to notice this before long, but after a few verses, the leads were letting this go. Then, the plant manager noticed what was going on and called the three into their office. After about ten minutes, the leads were now taking their places on the floor and they were the leads, and with a healthy raise to boot, and a rather generous bonus.

One thing that was common about all of this was what was happening to their victims. As they were under their influence, they all showed huge admiration for them, and nearly to the level of worship. The more the admiration showed, the stronger they felt. It was clear fairly quickly for Adagio that the emotion of admiration was the source of strength this time instead of anger as it had been before. As they walked out to their car at the end of the day, Adagio had the evilest smirk on her face. Sonata, all excited, said, “This is so awesome! The whole world can be at our feet! Let’s go get those girls!”

This statement brought a palm to the back of her head from Adagio, who said, “Don’t be an idiot! We just can’t jump into it willy-nilly! We need to take our time.”

Aria rolled her eyes, sighing in frustration, saying, “And just how long do you want to wait?”

“You saw those others,” answered Adagio, “Those are our earthen doubles. If I know those girls, they’ve already befriended them; you can bank on that! What we have to do is watch them, observe their behavior, the way they dress, and then become their doppelgangers!”

“What’s a ‘dopey, dopply, dipply…” muttered Sonata, with no clue as to what she meant. Adagio groaned and said, “That’s doppelganger. In myth, they are a kind of changeling that becomes exactly like a target victim, gets rid of the original, and get out of others what we want them to. Ultimately, it will be for our revenge, but we can make them suffer first.”

“And then bump them off?” questioned Aria.

“Worse,” answered Adagio, “We turn them into our slaves. We seduce them and make them our willing bond serfs to do whatever we want. We can play with their heads for a while, and them bend them to our will. In the meantime, we can get whatever we want from anyone we want, and we’ll live high of the hogs.”

Seeing her vision, the other two began to pick up Adagio’s saunter and her smirk, knowing that the world was about to become their huge, pearl-bearing oyster!

It took some minutes to calm down the trio over what had happened, and Jack was shocked. He was wheeling his head around, looking for a way out, scared to death. He finally said nervously, “Well, it’s been fun, (looking at his watch,) but I got a…thing…” and was quickly packing up his guitar. Starlight noticed this, instinctively tried to use a spell to stop him, and groaned, forgetting that she could not do this here. However, Rainbow Dash, in a flash, was in front of him and said, “Hey, Jack, don’t go. It’s all cool!”

“Says the girl with wings!” he now answered quite frankly. He maneuvered around her, but then found a crystalline barrier in front of him as Rarity said, “Oh, Jack, please don’t go. It seems scary, but once you understand, it’s quite wonderful.”

He yelped at the sudden crystal wall and now wheeled back around, now terrified. Big Mac, though familiar now with their powers after their road trip the previous summer, was concerned that they were showing too much, too fast. Yet, he also understood that Jack could not leave and spill the beans. Even though the whole school knew the deal, the students, knowing the dangers, kept quiet about matters, they still could not afford Jack going out and flapping his gums on the whole show. Jack regained himself and headed left, only to be caught by Mac in a tight wrestling hold punctuated by a sharp, “Nnnnope.”

“Let me go!” he said in protest as Sunset shouted, “Will everypony…everyone, (the stress having her revert to her old terminology for a brief moment,) just take a chill pill and sit down! If we all chill out, (speaking to the trio,) it will all go away in a few minutes, and if you give us a chance, we’ll explain everything. All right?”

“Oh, this had better be good,” grumbled Jack, relaxing a bit, “Or I am going to spill the beans like you never would believe.”

Sunset just nodded, and everyone just sat quietly and awaited things to go back to normal.

Once that had happened, Sunset started by saying, “Okay, what I am going to tell you is going to seem unbelievable, but considering what you have seen, you have to know I am telling you the truth. Now, I have to know that you’ve all watched some kind of science fiction talking about parallel universes, right?”

The trio and Jack looked at one another and then nodded slowly, not sure where she was going with this, but having a guess. Twilight chimed in and said, “Well, scientifically speaking, there is some evidence of this,” and went into a spiel about the eleven dimensions, from zero to ten. She started of detailed, but when it looked as if she was losing them, Spike whispered to her, “Keep it simple. You’re going over their heads.”

She sighed, thought it through, and gave them the simple version. Starlight, to try to keep it simple, said, “She said all that to say is that there is a place in the multiverse where the sentient creatures are equine, bovine, gryphon, hippogryph, changeling, and dragon mainly. Not one hominid exists. Being that it must be at a line parallel to ours, but lower or higher than this universe, there are doubles here in that one that are the various species I just mentioned.”

Jack wanted to say something, but after what he had seen, he had to let it go, knowing there was indeed something to it. He then said, “So, how do you know this?”

Starlight and Sunset looked at one another, and Sunset said, “There is a portal to that realm, and when one passes through it, you become the dominant species of this world from what you were.”

He rolled his eyes and said, “Next, you’ll tell me you’re both from that world.”

“Well…” responded Starlight, trailing off, not sure the reaction. Jack was now just holding his head, so confused, and said, “Okay, look, just tell me about your world.”

With that, Starlight and Sunset traded off, telling them all about their world, their homeland—Equestria—and how things were there. Sunset then sighed heavily as she had to tell her story on how she got there and her self-imposed exile, but then how a princess from her home world came over when she made a bid to try to build an army and go back to conquer that world and stopped her. Yet, because of that contact and connection, and her reformation, magic now somehow was infiltrating this world though in an unpredictable fashion. One effect was what they had just seen. Aria then said, “It must have been quite the adjustment coming over,” seeming to have believed their story.

“Oh, there’s some adjustments,” Pinkie blurted out, joyfully, “But once you do it enough, it becomes easy.”

For a moment, no one reacted, but then Sunset realized what was said, who said it, and then slowly turned her head, looked at her both quizzically and suspiciously, asking, “And you know this, how?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” answered Pinkie, “I mean, you went back a couple of times: once to get a new journal and once to help the twins. And then there is Princess Twilight, and she does it without an issue.”

Sunset had to let it go, yet, there was still something not satisfying in her answer, and she would have to dig into it later. Right that moment was not the time. Adagio then said, “So, what you are saying is that, since coming into contact with you, the same effect happened to us?”

“Seems so,” answered Sunset with a slight shrug.

“But we didn’t…’pony up’,” pondered Sonata, “We got these crazy bat wings, and…”

Sunset held her hand up and said, “There’s a story to that as well.”

After explaining the incident with the sirens, the trio was now both looking a bit confused. Sonata then said, “Well, why didn’t we turn out evil?”

“Remember what I said about the fifth dimension: probability,” said Twilight, “You end up who and what you are in your world by three factors: choice, chance, and the actions of others with you. In your case, everything fell right, and you didn’t turn out bad.”

Starlight came in and said, “In the case of my world’s versions of you, they were half horse, half fish, but not grotesque by our standards, from what I understand. Yet, they served the Lord of Chaos, and used their power to serve his needs and wants. They were eventually defeated by a great unicorn named Starswirl the Bearded with the Pillars of Old Equestria opened a hole to this world and banished them here, thinking they would have no power here. Yet, they did not realize the gems they used to do their work would not be powerless, and therefore, waited for the right chance to strike.”

Jack pondered and said, “Sirens, you say… I know something about our worlds answer to them, though they are only myth here…Greek myth. They were beautiful sea maidens, similar to mermaids, but who lured sailors into wrecking their ships on the rocky shores and then devouring them when they all came ashore and the sirens took on monstrous forms. In the tale of Jason and the Argonauts, they got by them when one of their sailors sang louder than they to drown them out and as well as they as he played on his harp. Other than that, no one could resist them.”

“Well, they were similar, but not that gruesome,” answered Sunset, to which Adagio said, “Are they still around?”

“We haven’t seen them for a while,” she answered, “From what we understand, they’re living on the other side of the city and not doing too well for themselves. In fact, from what I understand, they don’t come around here because they want to avoid us as much as possible, so I wouldn’t worry too much.”

Fluttershy was listening and pondering, and then said, “But, you know, they do have the same names as the others, and if they ever did come around, I think that we should find a way to make sure we can know who is who.”

“Well, I would say that the accoutrements between the two groups of you are quite contrasting,” stated Rarity, to which Applejack added, “And y’all dress real different, too.”

Rarity paused for a moment on Applejack’s response, but then shook it off and said, “But, I would suppose we could find another way to make sure you are you, like a code.”

“How about different names?” asked Twilight, “They could be something only we know so that, if we address your doubles, they’ll look at us oddly and we’ll know them.”

Twilight pondered it and then said, “Adagio is a musical term that means, ‘Play slowly’. We could call you, ‘Andante,’ which means, ‘Played at a walking pace’. Sonata, we could call you, ‘Cantata’, a vocal composition accompanied by instruments, and Aria, we could call you, ‘Cabaletta’, which is a simple aria with a repetitive rhythm. It will take a bit of getting used to, but it might work.”

The three looked at each other back and forth, pondered it, and they all nodded up and down, but Aria said, “Are you sure about mine?”

“Well, I was thinking ‘Arioso’, a short recitative that is melodic but is not an aria, but that is too close to your actual name.”

“Cabaletta it is,” she said.

While they were talking, Starlight had drifted over to the instruments, wanting to pick up one of the guitars, but remembered he etiquette; you don’t pick up someone else’s instruments without permission. However, Sunset noticed this and said, “Do you play?”

She jumped a bit at this, not noticing that she was being observed. She came about a bit swiftly and said, “Well, I do play, but the guitars here are different. In my…our…world, they have four strings and are designed so that our hoofs can play the chords. Yet, because of that, I don’t think I could play here.”

“Why not?” asked Sunset, “All it would take is for you to learn the tuning and chords, and your familiarity with the instrument would take care of the rest. I could show you.”

“That would be cool,” she answered, “I’d love to play some with you all.”

“What is your style of music?” asked Dash.

“Uh…” she said, not sure how to answer, “When I was younger, I had a…dark spell.”

AJ asked, “Younger? It couldn’t be much younger than now.”

Sunset jumped in and said, “Um…let me explain. For whatever reason, the portal makes us teens. In my world, she and I are actually considered adults, about in our early to mid-twenties in this world.”

That caught them off guard, but that was really neither here nor there to them; they were friends, and that was all that mattered. Starlight then said, “So, my music was of a darker tone; it was very cynical and anti-establishment.”

“I wonder if the portal put your fashion style as…” Rarity started to say, but seeing this seemed to be a touchy subject for Starlight with her hesitant speech in speaking of the past, and she then said, “Please forgive me, darling, but I wish not to sound rude, and, well, your clothes seem to speak of a style called ‘Emo’. It is punk at the very least.”

Starlight said, “No offense taken. Let’s just say I had issues, but I’m over that now. Princess Twilight has helped broaden my musical tastes, so I’m not into that as much anymore, really, not much at all. But, what is this ‘punk’ you speak of?”

Jack was quick to help with this as he pulled up a few different bands: The Sex Pistols, the Ramones, the Violent Femmes, to name a few. Starlight seemed to take a glow to it, and said, “I could get into that.”

Adagio, that is, Andante, then said, “You know, with our love for music from the 1970’s and 1980’s, you could play with us, if you could learn guitar for this world, well, at least for the time you are here.”

Jack then pondered it, and added, “You know, how many of you have ever heard of a revival group known as ‘Sha-Na-Na’?”

They all shook their heads, and Jack then said, “They were a group of musicians and singers who did covers of songs from the 1950’s and the early 60s. They even played at Woodstock. You know, considering the era now, we could do the same thing with stuff from the 1970’s and 1980’s.”

Sonata, now Cantata, chirped cheerfully, “That would be so awesome,” and Pinkie Pie echoed it, “Disco out!”

“Uh…” groaned Jack, “Let’s not go there unless the song was that good.”

The other three seemed to agree, and Aria, now Cabaletta, said, “Starlight, you could take on a punk look. I kinda look like a heavy metal Lolita.”

Andante then said, “Well, I could take the role of the new wave, but in my style of clothing.”

Rarity’s head was whirling, seeing all the fashion potential for the group, and blurted out, “Oh, you give me so many ideas to mix that era and your styles.”

Jack then said, “I can do the early 70s look.”

Cantata then said, “I can do the 70s glam rock look!”

Jack then said, “You really want to do this?”

“But what would we call ourselves?” asked Cantata.

Jack thought and said, “Well, think about some of the crazy names some of those bands came up with in that time and maybe we could think of something.

Fluttershy, the songstress that she was, thought about that, and then said, “Well, we are heading towards the actual first day of summer,” and Twilight then said, “I think I catch what you’re saying. In ancient times, the first day of summer was called a midsummer celebration, though it was only the start of summer.”

“And I was thinking of Shakespeare,” said Fluttershy, “How about ‘Midsummer Dream’?”

For whatever reason, that struck a chord with the newly forming group, with Jack saying, “That is so different and unique that I think it just might work.”

Pinkie Pie cheered and said, “Yea!” and began to sing “Happy Birthday” for them. “Happy birthday?” asked a confused Rainbow Dash, “Really?”

“Why not?” questioned Pinkie in response, “We just saw the birth of a new band: Midsummer Dream!”

The four looked at each other, and then said together, “Midsummer Dream it is!”

They cheered, and Jack, now taking out his guitar again, said, “Well, we came to party and jam; let’s get to it!”

They cheered anew and went for their instruments, and Starlight said, “Sunset, I’ll observe you and see what I can pick up.”

Jack unplugged his, handed it to Starlight and said, “Well, new bandmate, you can use mine while you visit here, and you can see what you can figure out with it unplugged as you watch.”

Starlight smiled, loving how her friendship lessons were being put to good use once again, suddenly feeling very welcome. She loved Andante’s confidence and leadership, Cabaletta’s coolness, Sonata’s bubbly personality, and Jack’s easy-going manner, and it made her feel confident and safe. Indeed, this was going to be a great summer.