Siren Days

by Spyder27

Apple Bloom's Plan

Chapter II: Apple Bloom’s Plan

Adagio is a really peculiar person. Half the time, I really can’t tell what she’s thinking. I suppose that’s not a bad thing, but it makes her hard to read as a person. I suppose that’s why my big sis had a hard time trusting her at first. Still, I don’t doubt that she’s actually sorry for kinda ditching me. I’m just surprised that it took her so long to talk to me again. I might as well take advantage of the opportunity, right? I mean, she said she would do anything to fix this, so it will be a little fun to torture Adagio like this~ Well, torture is kinda the wrong word to use here. I know this competition is going to be a chore for her, so it’ll be a little fun to see her get annoyed~ Is that wrong of me? I know my big sis would say yes, but she would be giggling at the sight too, so she’s kinda a hypocrite.

“Explain to me again what this competition is all about?” Adagio asks me with a dull expression. Honestly, I can’t help but find it funny to see just how much Adagio seems to dread this. Our walk down the sidewalk is accompanied by the sound of lots of cars and people walking the streets, making us navigate through others.

“It’s supposed to help with school spirit and raise funds for charity~ Everyone forms teams of two and they’re supposed to go around the school, completing different activities~ The first team to finish wins a big trophy!” Walking backwards, I look up at Adagio’s eyes, seeing her raise her eyebrow at me.

“Uh huh… And there was nothing else you wanted to do other than this competition…? Like anything else?” the grumpy siren asks me, trying to find some way out of our agreement.

“Adagio, you said you’d do anything.” Crossing my arms, I pout slightly, still walking backward to keep my eye contact with her. “Don’t tell me you’re going to break this promise too.”

“I won’t. I just… I’m not excited to go to that school.” Her hand comes up to her face, briefly sighing at the thought. Honestly, I could have asked my big brother to come with me today since Applejack is busy, but I thought that maybe it would be fun to do this with Adagio. Maybe I was wrong…? I don’t wanna put her through strife she doesn’t have to go through.

“Can I ask why you don’t wanna go there…?” My question seems to make her nervous pretty easily… Her eyes avoid mine for what feels like minutes. Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to ask… Dang it, Apple Bloom. You can do better than this.

“You do remember what happened the last time I was inside that school, don’t you?” Adagio asks me with a skeptical look, doing some hand motion to try and communicate her point. But if I’m being honest, it only confuses me more. “I ended up controlling the minds of your whole school. I’m not exactly jumping with excitement to go back there and come face-to-face with a lot of people I screwed over.” Well, yeah… Adagio does have a point. But it’s been a while since then, so maybe people forgot? Nah. They still remember Sunset transforming into some kinda demon, so I’m pretty sure they’ll still remember Adagio.

“Well, a lot of the people who were there when you tried to take over are graduated by now! Only people my age and such still remember who you are.” Even though I try to make Adagio feel better about the whole ordeal, it seems she’s not that convinced.

“Even if that’s the case, kids your age would probably tell the younger students as soon as they see me.” Her hand does some sorta spinning motion downward, frowning the whole time. What does that even mean? I guess she’s tryna portray people telling others about her mistakes…? It’s really sad that Adagio can’t seem to get a break… Even I was wary about talking to her again when she came to the homeless shelter, but at least I gave her a chance. I guess I just saw someone who was actually trying… “Regardless, this is probably the biggest mistake we could make. Imagine how it will look on you if you bring me as your teammate to this thing.”

“Now hold on.” Stopping in my tracks, I look Adagio straight in the eye, taking a deep breath. My big sis taught me that if you want to be taken seriously, you hafta look someone in the eye and make sure they know you mean what you’re saying. “I don’t care what other people say. You’ve clearly shown how you’re trying to be a better person and I’m proud of calling you my friend.” Holding my hand out to the tall siren, I smile at her and give her a wink. “You’re not gonna change my mind on that~”

Adagio waits for a moment, looking at my gesture with a raised eyebrow before taking my hand in hers. A small chuckle comes from her, shaking her head for some reason. Did I say something funny…? “God, you’re so pushy. With that confidence, I’m surprised you aren’t running Applejack up the walls.”

“Oh, I am. She’s just used to most of the stuff I do at this point~” Giving Adagio a big smile, I grab her arm slowly, making a fearful expression come over her. We’re going to be late if we don’t get a move on.

“Please don’t…”

“We hafta go anyway! Come on!”

=======================================================

By the time we get to the school grounds, we stop running and I can’t help but feel a little intimidated by all the people walking inside. Everyone decided to participate, huh…? Stop it, Apple Bloom! Have some confidence in yaself! You can do this! You and Adagio will do great as long as we get a headstart on some of the tasks. Well, I guess it really depends on what kind of tasks there are this year. The School Days competition is known to change around their events and all. It’s sorta like the Friendship Games, just on a lower level since it’s only the one school. And everyone's competing against each other instead of another school’s students… Still, I’m sure we can do this. We’re both smart and agile and- “Wait. Are ya panting?”

Looking at Adagio, I can’t help but raise my eyebrow at her state, leaning over and taking deep breaths while holding her ribs. I swear we didn’t go that fast. Or that far, right? It was only a few minutes. Did something hit her gut? Or did something else happen? “Just… give me a moment,” Adagio barely tells me, taking deep breaths through her mouth as she does so.

“Har har. Very funny,” I reply, rolling my eyes at Adagio’s attempt at humor. Pulling her upward, I pull her towards the door, only for her to pull back slightly upon seeing what’s ahead of us. “Seriously, you need to work on running some more. You’re acting like ya almost died.”

“Maybe that’s because I did,” she grumbles, ducking her head down to try and avoid the stares of the people we pass.

“Before we sign up, I need to tell ya something. There’s a little… cheat in this competition.” Dragging the siren along, we reach the line before a lot of other people do. Hopefully, we can get signed in soon in that case.

“A cheat?” she asks me in a quiet yet curious tone, pulling her arm from my grasp. Adagio still tries to keep herself relatively small, avoiding direct eye contact with a lot of the students.

“Ya really don’t hafta worry. Most of the people here don’t know who you are.” I try to reassure her, but knowing Adagio, it only does a little good. Patting her shoulder I smile at her, nodding a little. “Yeah, there’s a cheat. Basically, every School Days competition, there is some lucky team who gets a solution sheet to half of the activities from Vice Principal Luna. She denies it of course, but it’s still a thing, nonetheless. If any team is caught with a cheat sheet, they’re disqualified, so the team that has it has to be pretty secretive.”

“Uh huh… Well, that just sounds blatantly unfair,” Adagio responds in a groan, bringing her hand to her eyes. “How are you supposed to combat something like that? Find the team and steal it?”

“Yup!” That was a good guess on her part~ I’m glad it’s not that difficult to explain things like this to her. Adagio, however, still looks confused… “Why are ya looking at me like that?”

“You’re legit supposed to steal this sheet from the other team?” For some reason, Adagio looks pretty surprised by my answer, making me wonder if I said it in a weird way.

“Well, how else are ya supposed to get it? It’s pretty much a battle between teams to take the sheet from one another. But if anyone gets caught with it, they’re disqualified, so it’s sorta a secret battle. So, all we hafta do is find the team with this sheet and find a way to steal it! Simple as that~” Before Adagio can respond to me, the line moves forward, making us walk to the sign-in table. “I’m Apple Bloom and this is my teammate, Adagio Dazzle~” The woman at the table seems to be a volunteer, so Adagio’s name thankfully doesn’t seem to ring any bells for her.

“Adagio Dazzle? Is it spelled how it sounds or…?” the woman asks both of us, making Adagio roll her eyes slightly. Don’t be rude, Adagio… We’re at my school after all.

“Exactly how it sounds.” Adagio crosses her arms slowly as we wait for her to write our names down on name tags, signing us in on a piece of paper afterward.

“Okay, you two~ Have fun!” she tells us before giving us the name tags, pointing towards the gymnasium. I’ve never understood why it’s called a gymnasium when it’s not like typical gyms. If anything, we use it as an auditorium more often, but yeah. Maybe my big sis can explain it when I get home.

“Ya ready?” I ask Adagio with a big smile, seeing her nervously shrug. I know that it’s probably going to be nerve-wrackin for her to deal with other people staring at her, but I will be here the whole time. As long as she has one friend to be here, it’ll all work out in the end, right?

“As ready as I’ll ever be…”

Comments

[Daybreaker218]

Luna always sowing chaos

[Blood Rarity]

[Spyder27]

11335288
She is the most mischievous princess of them all~

[ScisetShimmerEvan]

“Adagio, you said you’d do anything.” Crossing my arms, I pout slightly, still walking backward to keep my eye contact with her. “Don’t tell me you’re going to break this promise too.”

She's got a point Adagio. A promise is a promise.

“Well, how else are ya supposed to get it? It’s pretty much a battle between teams to take the sheet from one another. But if anyone gets caught with it, they’re disqualified, so it’s sorta a secret battle. So, all we hafta do is find the team with this sheet and find a way to steal it! Simple as that~” Before Adagio can respond to me, the line moves forward, making us walk to the sign-in table. “I’m Apple Bloom and this is my teammate, Adagio Dazzle~” The woman at the table seems to be a volunteer, so Adagio’s name thankfully doesn’t seem to ring any bells for her.

Well, they're screwed.

“Okay, you two~ Have fun!” she tells us before giving us the name tags, pointing towards the gymnasium. I’ve never understood why it’s called a gymnasium when it’s not like typical gyms. If anything, we use it as an auditorium more often, but yeah. Maybe my big sis can explain it when I get home.

I question myself the same thing from time to time too.