Sirens of the Night

by The Crazed Werewolf

Battle of the Bands (revised 12.27.2018)

If there were one thing the night was, "silent" wasn't it. "Normal" had gone out the window around the time the Dazzlings had sprouted seahorse-like features similar to how the Rainbooms had started sprouting equine features during their music. In a distant, analytical corner of her mind, Sunset Shimmer pondered the notion that the nature of the Siren's magic just proved that "Harmony" wasn't automatically synonymous with "Good," but the rest of her being was sweapt up in the thrill of once again feeling the coursing of magic through her thaumatory system, a hum of life that ran along side the blood in her veins and arteries that she only realized was there when it suddenly wasn't after the first time she passed through the portal from Equestria.

Her introspection was interrupted by the horrid screeching coming from the stage, somehow formed into something resembling lyrics to a song...that couldn't be the Dazzlings, could it? No...it is the Dazzlings! Sweet Celestia, what happened to their voices? She started running toward the stage, her only thought to apprehend the trio before they could pull off any other magical stunts. Given how Adagio had outplayed Sunset, Twilight, and the Rainbooms so effectively, it wouldn't have surprised the former Equestrian if the Siren had a plan B...and a plan C, D, E, and F. She heard the others follow her lead, Rainbow Dash swooping in to catch up to her just before the magical wings and ears dissipated.

To Sunset's surprise, rather than enact some other tactic to put the Rainbooms back on the defence, the three Sirens grabbed around their necks in a panic, then turned tail and ran.

Rather than split up their newly re-harmonized team, the group slowed to a stop at the place on the stage where the Dazzlings had been standing just moments before. What Sunset at first thought were sequins she realized were shards from the ruby pendants the Sirens had been wearing. She bent down and scooped up some of the shards, tilting her hand back and forth to catch the light on the broken facets of the gemstones. "Guess that explains why these were so special to them."

Twilight reached up to tilt Sunset's hand back and forth, doing her own visual examination of the gems. "Without those pendants and the magic you brought here from Equestria, they're just three harmless teenage girls."

Further conjecture was halted as the crowd's booing was interrupted by a familiar voice, "Rainbooms rule!" The band and Sunset broke out into giggles, some at Flash's shout, some at Twilight's sudden smiling blush.

As though waiting on her cue to sour the mood, Trixie stomped in from where she'd been waiting in the stage wings.

"You may have vanquished the Dazzlings, but you will never have the amazing, show stopping ability of the Great and Powerful Trixie!" To punctuate her pronouncement, she slammed a smoke bomb onto the stage, causing everyone to instinctively close their eyes and start coughing to clear their lungs.

Pinkie was the first to recover. She looked around, gasped, and proclaimed, "She's gone!" After a pause she pointed off to a fence behind where Trixie had been standing, "Oh, wait. There she is."

Trixie abruptly disappeared from sight, not due to magical ability on her part, but due only to the magic of gravity as she fell off the fence and hit the ground with a 'thud' loud enough for everyone on stage to flinch in sympathy.

"Trixie's...okay..." fluttered weakly on the wind from over the fence.

Rainbow Dash chuckled and nudged Sunset. "You know, Twilight's going back to Equestria soon. The Rainbooms could really use someone to help Fluttershy on backup vocals."

An excited, mischievous gleam lit Sunset's eyes as she snagged a nearby electric guitar left behind by one of the previous acts and slung the strap over her shoulder, the remnants of the Siren's jewels clattering to the stage. Without pausing, she let her fingers fly over the frets as she used the fingernails of her right hand as improvised picks to play a nicely crunchy, distorted riff. At the shocked expressions of her friends, she said, "I also play guitar."

Rainbow did her best to cover her surprise, "We'll see..."

As the Rainbooms giggled at Dash's attempted nonchalance, Vice-Principal Luna took a microphone off it's stand and began the process of MC-ing the closing "ceremony," doing her best to keep the crowd upbeat and distracting them from the fact that, yet again, their minds had been magically manipulated. Sunset felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Principal Celestia, almost hiding off-stage and taking advantage of her long limbs to remain concealed while she got the former unicorn's attention. Sunset stepped closer to Celestia, allowing the two to move into the backstage and away from the prying eyes of the rest of the school populous.

"Sunset..." began the principal. When she didn't continue, the younger woman looked the older in the eyes and saw a pain that Sunset knew far too intimately. "...my little Sunshine...I'm so sorry."

Pushing the guitar around her torso so it hung off her back, Sunset leaned in and hugged Celestia. "It's OK, mom. You had even less control over your actions than I did back at the Fall Formal, and you forgave me. The least I can do is forgive you."

The otherwise tender private moment was interrupted by what sounded like a cat choking on a hairball. The two turned as one to see Twilight, knees slightly wobbly, eyes practically popping out of their sockets, one arm limp and the other extended more like a zombie than a person pointing, "...'Mom?!' 'My little Sunshine?!' When did this happen?"

Sunset and Celestia giggled, only just loud enough to be heard over the sound of the audience cheering as Luna announced the Rainbooms the winners of the competition. "Celestia adopted me about a month after the Fall Formal." Any further explanation would have to wait, as Luna joined them in the hug, having apparently handed the microphone off to Rainbow Dash, who was milking the crowd for all she could. The Vice-Principal threw all her strength into the hug, causing Celestia and Sunset to gurgle and gasp. "...air, Auntie!"

"Luna," grunted Celestia, "Please, a little less force."

As Luna's hug slackened a bit, Sunset caught her breath, "Love you, too, Auntie Luna."

They could see tears threatening to escape Luna's eyes, "I am so very sorry, Sunset. Please know I would never have said those things if I...please forgive me!"

Sunset managed to free an arm enough to pat Luna on the back. "It's OK. I figured out you were being mind-manipulated pretty quick. It did hurt, but one of the first lessons at CSGU when it came to mind spells was that the person under control was as much a victim of the caster as anyone they may hurt while under the spell. There's nothing to forgive."

Any further tenderness was put on hold as a blast of noise emitted from the speakers, the tones of a blown-out power-chord from Rainbow Dash's guitar causing a renewed roar from the crowd. "THANK YOU CANTERLOT HIGH, GOOD NIGHT!" Shouted Dash into the microphone in a classic rock'n'roll send-off. Whoever was on the control board was on top of their game, as the stage lights and spots cut out almost simultaneously and the last of the fireworks from Trixie's act were lit. The Rainbooms practically leaped off the stage (except, of course, for Fluttershy, who skittered off attempting to hide from the crowd behind her band-mates) riding the wave of the roar of the crowd. "That was so...AWESOME!" whooped Dash.

Pinkie Pie bounced around her chromatically-haired friend "From now on, I'm gonna keep DJs all around town, just in case of DJ emergencies!"

Twilight giggled, "I don't think the DJs would be happy with being stashed away like that."

Applejack chuckled at Pinkie's antics, "Well, I dunno about y'all, but I aint had nuthin' to eat since Trixie dropped us under the stage."

"She did WHAT?!" exclaimed Luna.

Sunset giggled, "Mind control, auntie."

Luna sighed and nodded, and Celestia spoke up. "Well I think we could all use a bite to eat. How does pizza sound?"
Cheering was the natural response, and the gaggle of teenagers started herding themselves out the back door of the stage. As they were shuffling about (Applejack and Rainbow Dash forming a traffic jam as they tried to shove their way through the door at the same time), Luna spotted a gleam of red out of corner of her eye. Turning, she realized that the Siren's gem shards had been left behind. Knealing down, she began carefully picking up all the pieces she could find.

"Luna, you coming?" came her sister's voice from the door. Luna turned to see that she was the only one still in the building, Celestia propping the door open with a hip.

"I'm going to make sure Raven gets some students to clean up. I'm sure the Dazzlings didn't think to prepare for any after-event logistics, given how sure they were that they would win."

Celestia nodded, "Don't take too long," she giggled, "I'm not sure I can keep this starving pack of wolves at bay."

Luna grinned as the door closed, then stood, her fist closing over the shards in her palm.

*****

"Twilight Sparkle," began Luna.

The teenage girl who wasn't a teenager nor a human girl inelegantly replied, "Glrk?" around a bite of cheese pizza.

The corner of Luna's mouth quirked up, "May I ask you a question?"

Twilight rapidly chewed and took a sip of water before replying, "Of course, Princess...I mean Vice-Principal Luna."

"Just 'Luna' is fine," she commented, "The Dazzlings...where did they come from, and what is going to happen to them now?"

Twilight imediatly settled into 'lecture' mode, "Well, as you probably figured out, the Dazzlings are really magical creatures from Equestria; a sub-species of sea pony called a siren. They were exiled from Equestria over one-thousand years ago by the most powerful unicorn sorcerer that has ever lived, Starswirl the Bearded. According to our legends, those three caused all sorts of strife before they were exiled."

"One thousand years ago," Luna said in astonishment, "why have they only turned up now?"

"I'm not sure." replied Twilight after a moment of thought. "Starswirl could have used a time displacement spell on them, he is the only pony to have ever mastered time spells. Of course, it was an uncontrolled time-space vortex, so it could simply have been a quirk of inter-universal physics. Sunset and I came over by magic mirror, which even without knowing exactly how it was built I can tell you it would by design create more stable wormholes than a spell cast in the midst of combat like Starswirl did."

"So what's going to happen to them now," Fluttershy asked quietly from across the table. Twilight looked at Fluttershy and then back at Luna.

"I don't know," Twilight said, "If I knew where they were I would take them back to Equestria, but as it stands I don't know where they are or what, if any, authority I have over them."

"Do they present any threat to our world?" Luna inquired.

"I don't think so, those crystal pendants were the source of their powers," Twilight said, "so they shouldn't be any more dangerous than normal teenage girls."

Celestia and Luna both exchanged looks with each other after Twilght's last comment. As happens with siblings and long-married couples, they were able to convey entire conversations with a mere glance. Three teenagers, girls no less, powerless and alone in the city? Not on our watch! was the unspoke conclusion.

The younger girls at the table continued, oblivious to the unspoken conversation. "Should I contact you if they turn up," Sunset asked her fellow Equestrian.

"I'll leave that up to you," Twilight said, "Since you live here, you'll be in a better position to make the judgment call."

"I just hope that this is the last time we have to deal magical creatures and artifacts from Equestria," Rarity said.

"Well now that I've found a way to keep the portal open and we have the journal to keep in touch, I'm just a quick note away. Frankly, I'm going to have my hands full keeping my world's Pinkie Pie from crossing over," Twilight said.

All eyes on the table turned and looked at the pink haired party girl. "What?" Pinkie said as she looked at everyone and pulled a can of whipped cream out of her hair and sprayed some into her soda.

After dinner, Luna helped drive the everyone to Celestia's house where the girls were having a sleepover. Once everyone was settled, Luna returned to her own home. She placed her keys on the counter before she sat down on her couch and took the crystal fragments out of her pocket. She picked one of the larger pieces up and studied it. Luna wasn't sure why but she found herself fascinated by the pendent fragments.

*****

"What are we going to do now Adagio," Aria asked her sister. Sonata was sleeping peacefully on the sole mattress in the room they had decided was suitable for sleeping.

The silence following the question was pregnant with pain and fear. "I don't know," Adagio finally answered. She wanted to scream, but she didn't want to wake Sonata.

"Could...we go home?" Aria asked.

"The pony princess would likely have us put in chains the moment we set foot back in Equestria," Adagio answered, "It looks like we will have to learn to live in this world."

"But we don't have any skills to help us survive in this world." Aria pointed out.

"Then we'll have to learn!" Adagio snapped. Stung by the verbal slap, Aria sunk back into a slump against the wall.
Adagio considered their options. She had always been a flirt, maybe she could use her skills to her and her sisters advantage...the more she thought about it, the more the idea disgusted her. Such a move was barely one step above doing things that Adagio had hoped that she would never have to do. She promised herself that she wouldn't force her two sisters into that lifestyle.

"We'll find a way Aria." Adagio said at last.

Author's Note:

Looks like another long writing project for me. Yay!

So the idea for this story came to me while I was reading Sotharan's Full Circle for the third time. I suggest you read it if you haven't, or if you have read it again.

I would like to thank PrincessColumbia for revising this chapter!

Comments

[Gidano90]

A story where the dazzling are adopted? Never seen, never heard and sincerely I never had a thing like that ... you definitely caught my attention.

[The Crazed Werewolf]

8968442
Thanks, the idea just popped into my head. There are a lot of Celestia adopts Sunset fics out there, even I have written one. I was originally going to write a Luna adopts Sunset story, but the idea evolved into this.

[Fury Assembly]

Interesting story

[The Crazed Werewolf]

8968506
Thanks

[Charlie_K]

Kind of rough in the delivery, but overall an interesting idea. Following this for now to see where things go from here.

[WhitewolfStormrunner]

This is great so far, and I'm loving it!

Quick question, though: Is there a prequel (or previous story) that you wrote about Principal Celestia adopting Sunset?

[The Crazed Werewolf]

10572487
Actually, the third instalment of the "Sirens of the Night" series, Sirens of the Night: Sunset's Tale, tells the story of how Sunset came to be adopted by Principal Celestia.

[hmaf43]

"I don't think so, those crystal pendants were the source of their powers," Twilight said, "so they shouldn't be any more dangerous than normal teenage girls."

just like sci-twi