Good Intentions

by chillbook1

Shared Suffering

Where… where am I?

My back is killing me. Our head, too. My head, I mean. Bed is too hard. Except… There is no bed. I didn't make it home last night. I think. I can't remember. Last I remember was the bar, and that asshole kicking me out. Now… Come on, man. Open your eyes, Sunset, get in gear.

I blink slowly as I sit up. An alleyway, someplace. Downtown, by the looks of it. I don't see anyone, and the sun looks like it's setting. It looks like I blacked out all day. There's no one else around, no one to see me like this. Silver linings, I guess. God, how could it have ended up like this?

I check my phone, see that I missed a few calls from Pinkie. She texted me, too. Asking where I've been, asking if I'm doing okay. She knows the answer already, but she has to ask, and she means well. I know she does. That's why I can't tell her the truth, and the truth is, I'm not doing okay. I don't think I'll ever be okay ever again. Even just thinking about everything we've gone through, all the pain that we felt… Fuck, I need a drink. Maybe I've got a couple of dollars on me, enough to just take the edge off…

I blink a second before remembering that I’m holding my phone still. My phone's about to die, and I probably won't get back home for a while, so I have to text her now

Sorry, Pinkie. Not really ready to talk to anyone right now. Don't worry about me. I'm hanging in there.

Hopefully that's enough for her for the time being. Maybe I'll be able to face her after I get my act together. Maybe when it doesn't hurt quite so much. I don't know if that's ever going to happen though. Every waking moment, I can feel that fight. The toughest, most dangerous Equestrian magic we've ever encountered, and it decided to grab up a high school freshman. Every breath, I can feel his poison stinging my lungs, even though I knew for a fact that it was all gone now. When it gets too quiet, I can feel that power surging through him, our magic cutting a hole through our chest and…

I need a drink. Just something to take the edge off.

I lurch to my feet, groaning like the walking dead, and drag myself out of the alley I collapsed in. I wish I could say this was the first time this had happened, and I wish I could say it'd be the last, but that's not true. The sad, ugly truth is that I've been a wreck for weeks now. Drinking, passing out, waking up behind a dumpster someplace, it's been like this ever since we died. Ginseng died, I mean.

Before long, I find myself in what's probably the last seedy, shady dive bar in Canterlot City that doesn't know me by now. It's a run-down little hole in the wall, the type of place that looks like their drinks come with a knife fight, on the house. Still, like I said, it's the last spot that I haven't been booted out of yet, so it's my best bet. I've got maybe $25 to my name right now. A shitty place like this is gonna be my best bet.

I walk into the place and drag myself to the bar. By the time I get my drink, I forget what I ordered. Something cheap and strong. I slam it right in front of him, then ask for another. He gives it to me, and I take it with me to a table in the corner. Quiet. Lonely. Sad. Just like me. I sip my drink in silence, hoping to forget. Hoping to let this whole thing go past. Hoping that this liquor puts me out of my misery, one way or the other.

“Looks like you were right, sis. There's a killer loose on the streets.”

My blood goes cold in my veins, and I freeze with my drink to my lips. No. No, no, no, no. I look up, praying to God that I somehow misheard, but I didn't. Three girls had entered the bar when I wasn't looking, and it was three girls I hoped to never see again. But who cares what I want, right? What I want didn't matter with Ginseng, and what I want doesn't matter now, as The Dazzlings stroll through the bar, sights set on me.

“Told you it was her,” says Adagio Dazzle. She leads the trio to my table, and they surround me. To my right, Aria Blaze. The hothead. My least favorite of the three. To my left, Sonata Dusk. It's almost funny. In a weird way, I could see the two of us getting along, under different circumstances. And right across the table, smirking that bitchy smirk of hers, is Adagio herself. The brains of the operation. Even if Aria is my least favorite, I don't really care for any of them, after what they did to us.

“Never would've thought we'd see a real, live superhero in a place like this,” Aria snickers. She pulls a chair up and sits down, as do her sisters. “Then again, I guess she's not much of a hero these days.”

“Leave me alone.” I don't need this. I can't handle this, not now. Being stuck here with these three, it's getting me antsy. “I want nothing to do with you three.”

“What? We didn't do anything.” My eyes dart to Sonata, and it's hard to tell if she's messing with me, or if she's really just dumb enough to not realize what's going on. “We just wanted to say hey.”

“Exactly, just saying hello. Maybe we could catch up a bit,” says Adagio. She smiles like The Devil, leaning forward so she can really see how defeated I am. “What's been up with you, Shimmer? Been busy saving the world? Fighting off monsters?”

“Killing kids?” chimes Aria. My fist slams the table, almost without me realizing I had done it, and Aria just laughs at me. “What? Touch a nerve?”

“You wanna take this outside, Pigtails?” I don't like fighting, but at this point, what I like doesn't seem to matter anymore. “If you've got a problem, we can solve it.”

“Nah, I'm good. I don't wanna get rainbow-lasered to death.”

I polish off the last of my drink, and stand up to leave. I can't do this. These three are monsters, and the worst part is, they're right. I'm no superhero. Not some defender of the innocent. I'm a demon who helped murder a child. Just because they have a point doesn't mean I want to hear it.

“Go fuck yourself, Pigtails.” I take maybe two steps for the door before Adagio stands up, and pulls her wallet from her pocket.

“Sonata, be a dear and go up to the bar for me,” says Adagio, offering her wallet to her sister. “Come back with a glass of water for me, and a bottle of whiskey for our friend Sunset here.”

I freeze, weighing my options. Obviously, this is a trap, Adagio’s way of keeping me here for whatever reason. But, even though I know it's a trap… maybe it's worth it. A bottle is a lot more than I've got now. Maybe this won't be so bad. Maybe I'll be able to sleep tonight. Maybe the liquor will kill this thumping, throbbing pain in our head. My head. I hate myself as I do it, but begrudgingly, I sit back down and sulk while Sonata runs up to the bar. Now here I am, stuck with the two jackals of the group.

“What do you want?” I say through gritted teeth. Adagio smirks and gives me an almost flirty little wink.

“Some cheap laughs at your expense,” she says, with a level of honesty I wasn't really expecting. “You did ruin our lives, after all.”

“Considering what you people did to that kid, maybe we got off lucky,” adds Aria. God, I hate her. So petty, bitter, vindictive. It's like she gets off on making me unhappy. She reminds me of myself, before I met the girls. “Seriously, when did your friendship cult start using lethal force.”

“Here you go, sis.” Sonata’s back with Adagio’s water, a bottle of cheap whiskey, and four glasses for the table. After handing Adagio her water, Sonata distributes glasses and sits the bottle on the middle of the table. With a snort and a roll of my eyes, I reach forward and grab the bottle, pull the stopper, and take a big swing straight from the bottle. “Guess I didn't need so many glasses, huh?”

“It was an accident,” I say quietly. “Obviously, you three have to know that. Right?”

“Uh… You accidentally drank straight from the bottle?”

“She means the kid she killed,” says Aria, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, Sonata, pay attention. Idiot.”

“Oh, I'm sure it wasn't on purpose,” says Adagio with a nod. “At least, I'm sure the others didn't mean to. You, on the other hand…”

“What's that supposed to mean.” I'm not stupid. Of course, I know what that's supposed to mean. I try not to think about it, but she's right. I have no business here, trying to do good for this world. All I've ever been is bad, everywhere I go.

“If you're going to play stupid, this isn't going to be fun for any of us. And, just for the record?” Adagio leans in, like she has a secret for my ears only. “It's not as much of an accusation as you seem to think. Truthfully, Sunset, the fact that you're willing to take such a strong stance… It's one of the few reasons I find myself begrudgingly respecting you, specifically.”

“Can't say I condone killing a kid in cold blood, but hey.” Aria shrugs, every word out of her mouth making me froth inside. The way she talks about Ginseng, so callous, so casual, it gets me closer and closer to punching her lights out. “I bet you wouldn't keep getting attacked by magical monsters if you guys would've quit with the half-measures earlier.”

“Ginseng Blossom was not a monster. He was… troubled. He needed help.”

“Yeah, you sure helped him, huh?”

“You know what's funny? I keep thinking about you three. Can't get you out of our head, especially lately.” I take a swig or two to keep me steady, my heart twitching, my hands shaky, that same pain in my chest I had when I breathed in Ginseng’s poison. I feel like I might die, and I feel like I won't bother fighting it if I am. “And I just keep thinking, why Ginseng? Why do you three get to be here and he doesn't?”

“Four, you mean.” All eyes are suddenly on Sonata, who had managed to stay mostly quiet. She mainly fiddls on her phone, and it takes a few seconds of our stunned silence before she looks up, just as bemused as the rest of us. “What? It's obvs not just us you're mad at. You were already drinking before we saw you, can't blame it all on us.”

Probably the smartest thing I've ever heard come out of her mouth. Who would've thought that she could be so insightful? Or maybe I'm just a lot more obvious these days.

“Yeah, well. You got me. The fact that we all got blasted, and the only one of us to die is some innocent little kid… Bullshit. It's a load of bullshit.” I'm halfway through my bottle by now, and I'm not feeling any better. Who would've thunk it? “The way I see it, we all deserve to be dead a lot more than him.”

“Oh my God, if I would've known you were gonna be so fucking lame, I would've waited in the car!” groans Aria. “You're supposed to argue with me so I can make you look stupid.We get it, you're sad cause you fucked up, boo-fucking-hoo.”

“Shut up, Aria.” To my surprise, and I think Aria's too, Sonata speaks up again. She's still buried in her phone, but she rolls her eyes at her sister's antics. “I don't really like cheater-pants here either, but lay off. She might, like, off herself or something.”

“Yeah, like I give a shit.”

“Then she's right, we should be dead.”

“Enough. I'm curious, now.” Adagio regains control of the situation easily, and it's obvious that she has to keep the other two from fighting pretty often. “Tell me, Sunset. Why do you think that?”

“We all knew that what we were doing was wrong. Ginseng… I'm not so sure. Those kids at school, they were brutal to him.” They treated him so badly, and we just stood there and watched. I could've done something, anything, but I didn't. “He was fighting back. And yeah, he went about it the wrong way, but maybe if we would've done something different…”

“Oh, Sunset Shimmer. And after I swallowed my pride and admitted I respect you, too.” Adagio rolls her eyes and reaches for my bottle. Her hand grabs the glass, and I almost snatch it back, but I let her take it and watch her take a swig. She paid for it, after all. Besides, I don't see Adagio as much of a drinker. She'll probably leave me plenty. “Surely you're not that naive. You don't think he chose his path already? I read about what happened, you know. And I know, as well as you, that the kid was beyond saving. The way he was talking, stopping him was your only option.”

“Yeah, well. It's still not fair.” I can tell I'm starting to slur my words, and I can almost feel the pain fading away. As soon as Adagio sets the bottle down, I take it back from her. “Why do we deserve a second chance, huh?”

It takes me a second to realize, but none of them respond right away. I look up and see the sisters sharing looks of confusion. Even Pigtails seems taken off guard, and she wasn't taking any of this seriously. What's going on?

“What do you mean, second chance?” Adagio asks.

“You're still alive. You gave up trying to take over the world or whatever. We beat you, and you had a second chance at life. Just like me.”

“Huh. I think I owe you an apology, Shimmer. All this time, I thought you were being a bitch,” says Aria. “Turns out, you're just stupid.”

“What she means is… Well, you destroyed our gemstones. No gems, no negative energy. No negative energy, no food.” Adagio looks to her sisters, then to me, with none of the bitter vindictiveness that I'd expected from her. It almost looks like she pities me. Can't say I blame her. “We had some energy sort of stockpiled in us, but when you shattered our gems… That started the clock. We have maybe… six years left?”

“Five,” says Sonata, still not looking up from her phone. “Well, five and a half, I guess. These are all guesstimates though, so who knows?”

“Definitely gonna die soon, though,” says Aria. “So you really didn't know, huh? That's why you never checked up on us, because you didn't know that you guys killed us.”

They're lying. They have to be lying. We didn't… we couldn't have… No. No, it's not a lie. We hurt them. Maybe that's all we ever did. Just hurt people we should be helping. Save the day? Maybe. But then we leave people like The Dazzlings behind. Our actions have consequences, and we never cared to deal with them.

Adagio’s wrong. I don't deserve her respect. I deserve to be exactly where I am now; Rock bottom.

“I'm sorry,” I mutter. “We didn't know. We should've… We… I'm sorry…”

“Well, this got boring. I'm gonna go smoke,” snorts Aria. She stands up, barely even looking at me. She got her laughs at my expense. No reason for her to stick around. “See you later, Gacy.”

“Go with her, Sonata. I'll be out in a few.” Adagio watches as her sisters gather themselves and walk out of the bar. Once we're alone, she locks eyes with me, and I have to look away. I don't want to be here anymore. I'm not sure I want to be anywhere anymore. “Now that we're alone, may I ask you a personal question?”

“Does it matter if I say no?”

“No.”

I snicker darkly at the honesty, then I grab my bottle and give Adagio a little nod.

“Obviously, you're sad about the kid. Who wouldn't be?” says Adagio. There's something weird about her vibe, almost like she's suspicious of me or something. I don't really care by this point. Whatever she thinks I am, I'm probably guilty. “But why did this hit you so hard, hm? You didn't know the kid personally, and I don't imagine the rest of your friends are out drinking themselves blind. So why are you so damaged by this whole thing?”

I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to answer her. But I don't really have much choice. Adagio’s probably not going to take no for an answer here, and honestly? After what we did to them, to Ginseng, she deserves an answer. And I deserve to suffer through the memories. I polish off the last of the bottle, push down the puke, and look up at Adagio.

“Our powers got an upgrade since we fought. Now it's not just, like, high-five and then a rainbow laser happens. We've got real powers now. Mine is… Well, I don't really know what to call it. I'm an empath, I think is what Twilight said?” Twilight. Where is she, man? Where has she been? We needed her, and she ditched us. When she finds out what happened, she probably won't be able to look at us. “Basically, I can see people's memories, feel their feelings. That kinda thing. And Ginseng… every time he moved, a new cloud of that poison would waft out. Wave his arms a little and he could turn a room into a gas chamber. So if we were gonna stop him, he had to be restrained.”

“You held him down,” says Adagio with a nod. “Fuck me…”

“I was closest, there wasn't time. If we didn't do anything, he'd have killed everyone. So I held him down while the others blasted him.” Maybe someone else could've done it. Rainbow would've been fast enough, but she wasn't thinking straight at the time. Can't really blame her for that. “And I can't, like, turn my powers off. Just, if I touch someone for long enough, it activates. His rage, became my rage. His sadness, mine. And his pain… I felt that beam cut through us. I felt our body burning. The pressure in our head, pop like a water balloon. When I try to sleep, I can still feel the hole in our chest. When I close my eyes, I can hear him screaming in pain. Begging for it to stop. Crying for his mother. I died with him, except when I was done dying, I had to get back up and deal with what happens after.”

I don't know when, but I started crying at some point. The tears just started coming out. Don't like it. I feel bad, just miserable. Head hurts, stomach hurts. I just want to go to sleep. Maybe I'll feel better when I wake up. Maybe I won't wake up at all.

“You've been through a lot, hm? Well, Sunset. Let me give you some advice.” Adagio stands up and throws a $20 onto the table. “Forget about us. Forget about the kid. Start over. Move on with your life. I'm going to call you a cab, and then, hopefully, we never see each other again.”

“Forget…” I grab the money and look up, wondering why she was doing this. She's swimming before me, and I can't really focus on her, but I can see the pity on her face. “Why forget?”

“It's better that way.”

She's gone. I blink and minutes have passed, and Adagio is gone. I clutch the money she gave me, her parting words bouncing around my brain. Forget, it's better that way. Maybe she's right. Maybe I should just forget. But a bottle of whiskey isn't gonna get me there. Nothing on Earth can just make me forget.

Huh. Not on Earth, but maybe back home…

“Thanks… Sorry…”

I don't remember what happens after that. I don't remember leaving. Don't remember falling asleep. Next thing I know, I'm in my bed, hungover and puking over the edge of my mattress. When I'm done being sick, I sit up and cry. Not because of Ginseng, and not because of The Dazzlings. I'm crying because of me. What I plan to do, and what's going to happen next. And the worst part is, Adagio was right.

It's better this way.

Comments

[Pete100]

“Can't say I condone killing a kid in cold blood, but hey.” Aria shrugs, every word out of her mouth making me froth inside. The way she talks about Ginseng, so callous, so casual, it gets me closer and closer to punching her lights out. “I bet you wouldn't keep getting attacked by magical monsters if you guys would've quit with the half-measures earlier.”

She’s not entirely wrong.

“Four, you mean.” All eyes are suddenly on Sonata, who had managed to stay mostly quiet. She mainly fiddls on her phone, and it takes a few seconds of our stunned silence before she looks up, just as bemused as the rest of us. “What? It's obvs not just us you're mad at. You were already drinking before we saw you, can't blame it all on us.”

Wow, didn’t know sonata had some brain.

“Shut up, Aria.” To my surprise, and I think Aria's too, Sonata speaks up again. She's still buried in her phone, but she rolls her eyes at her sister's antics. “I don't really like cheater-pants here either, but lay off. She might, like, off herself or something.”

Yay Sonata!!!

“We all knew that what we were doing was wrong. Ginseng… I'm not so sure. Those kids at school, they were brutal to him.” They treated him so badly, and we just stood there and watched. I could've done something, anything, but I didn't. “He was fighting back. And yeah, he went about it the wrong way, but maybe if we would've done something different…”

Ok I’m starting to be on ginseng side.

They're lying. They have to be lying. We didn't… we couldn't have… No. No, it's not a lie. We hurt them. Maybe that's all we ever did. Just hurt people we should be helping. Save the day? Maybe. But then we leave people like The Dazzlings behind. Our actions have consequences, and we never cared to deal with them.

That’s an interesting premise.

“You've been through a lot, hm? Well, Sunset. Let me give you some advice.” Adagio stands up and throws a $20 onto the table. “Forget about us. Forget about the kid. Start over. Move on with your life. I'm going to call you a cab, and then, hopefully, we never see each other again.”

Sometimes you shouldn’t forget.