I Like The Emu, But The Emu Don't Like Me

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Kiwi Lollipop felt like she was on top of the world. She and her best friend, Su-Z, were together on a massive stage located within a colossal stadium, rocking out before a crowd of tens of thousands of fans like there was no tomorrow. The feeling of strumming her guitar, the sound of her voice and Su-Z’s drumming echoing throughout the large venue, the nearly-deafening roars of adulation from her fans; they were all so intoxicating, they were what made her feel truly alive. She just soaked it all in like a sponge as she and Su-Z continued to give the performance of a lifetime, silently wishing that it would never end.

But then, without explanation, the sound of her playing and the audience’s cheers were suddenly drowned out by the barking of a small dog. And that was when the popstar’s beautiful and perfect dream came to an abrupt end.

As soon as Kiwi opened her eyes from her night’s rest, she was greeted by Su-Z’s dog, Princess Thunder Guts, who was standing on top of her chest and barking right in her face.

“Alright, alright, I’m awake,” She aggravatedly told the petite pooch. “You can stop now.”

Princess Thunder Guts, in response, gave Kiwi a small, affectionate lick on her left cheek, much to the girl’s chagrin. Kiwi loved Princess Thunder Guts, she truly did, but there were moments where she found the small, energetic dog to be a bit of a nuisance. Moments like this one.

After having thoroughly moistened part of Kiwi’s face with her tongue, Princess Thunder Guts got down off of her chest and proceeded to climb onto Su-Z, who was laying on the other side of the bed. Once atop her owner, she proceeded to once more bark frantically until eventually she too awoke from her slumber.

“Huh, wah,” Su-Z somewhat drowsily said as she slowly regained consciousness and realized that her dog was trying to get her attention. “Oh, good morning, Princess Thunder Guts.”

Like with Kiwi, once Su-Z was awake Princess Thunder Guts gave her an affectionate lick on the cheek. Though unlike with Kiwi, she didn’t stop at just one. But Su-Z didn’t mind in the slightest. In fact, she almost seemed to be enjoying the somewhat gross display of affection.

“Okay, settle down, little girl,” The art school dropout giggled as she sat up and wrapped her arms around the furry creature in a hug. “I love you too.”

Despite her current feelings of irritation towards Princess Thunder Guts, Kiwi couldn’t help but give a small smile at the heartwarming scene between the dog and her best friend. She then got out of bed and stepped on over to the dresser to check herself out in the mirror. Not surprisingly, she looked rather ragged on account of her severe case of bed-head. After giving an almost inaudible sigh at her less-than stellar reflection, she quickly changed out of her pajamas into some more casual clothes and wondered how some girls were able to look so prim and perfect first thing in the morning, and why she wasn’t one of those girls.

It wasn’t long before Su-Z put Princess Thunder Guts down, got out of bed as well, and joined her in front of the dresser mirror.

“Is today the day we start working with the emu,” The younger girl started to ask as she too changed out of her pajamas. “Or am I thinking it’s Thursday when it’s really only Wednesday again?”

“Well, today is the day we start working with the emu,” Kiwi confirmed. “But it’s also still only Wednesday.”

“Huh, why was I thinking we started on Thursday?” Su-Z curiously asked.

“You got me,” Kiwi simply replied.

As Kiwi began to work on her hair, she started to think back to about a week ago. Specifically, back to when she and Su-Z were still living in a van down by the river, and how they’d met the Dazzlings. It had been a seemingly normal day like any other since the two of them had started living in the van, or rather about as normal as a day can be when that’s your living situation. They had simply opened the door to take Princess Thunder Guts out for her daily afternoon walk when they found the three sisters standing not more than ten feet away from them. After introductions and explanations as to why everyone was down by the river the way they were, the Dazzlings offered them the spare bedroom they were currently occupying as well as jobs working on their emu farm for a small monthly stipend, at least until some real money generated from the emus started coming in.

Neither she nor Su-Z had hesitated for a second to accept the offer, mostly because both of them were so desperate to get out of that cramped, hot, and taco meat scented van. Of course, this hadn’t meant that she was entirely without suspicion about the whole thing, as it seemed too good to be true, so on the way to the emu farm she’d asked the Dazzlings why they were doing all this for them. The response she’d been given was simply, ‘It’s because of the magic of friendship’, and while she didn’t quite understand what that meant, for reasons that were unknown to her it was enough to quell her suspicions.

Not only that, but ever since she and Su-Z arrived at the farm the Dazzlings had treated them practically like family. Right from the start they’d been accepted as part of the household and never made to feel like strangers or intruders. They each had a say in what went on the shopping list, they were both added into the rotation for who got to pick the movie on movie nights, and they’d even become privy to some of the Dazzlings’ more…intimate secrets through a bit of girl talk. It was all so strange, but all so heartening as well.

“Do you think it’s alright if I wear my heart hairclips,” Su-Z suddenly inquired, snapping Kiwi out of her train of thought. “Or do you think the emu might mistake them for food and try to eat my head.”

Kiwi resisted the urge to stop styling her hair and facepalm. Sometimes she just didn’t understand how her friend’s mind worked.

“I’m sure it won’t be a problem if you want to wear them,” She answered just as she finished putting on her purple bow and gave herself a spritz of Vita Parfum Flamma Santai.

All Su-Z did in response was give a small, happy squee as she began attaching her various heart-shaped hairclips to her hair. She loved wearing those hairclips. Even though they’d started out solely as accessories for her PostCrush outfit, she found them so cute that eventually she began wearing them even when she wasn’t performing. Now they were practically part of her everyday attire, and when she wasn’t able to wear them for one reason or another she felt practically naked.

“Are you…nervous about today?” Su-Z then inquired, clearly sounding nervous herself. “I mean, neither of us really has any experience with emus or farming.”

“Not really,” Kiwi answered confidently. “Compared to everything we went through when we were touring, working with a bunch of emu should be a breeze.”

“I hope so,” Su-Z tentatively replied.

While she didn’t say it out loud, in her mind Kiwi hoped so too. She didn’t even want to think about what might happen to her and Su-Z should today turn out badly and the Dazzlings decided to kick them out as a result.

It wasn’t much longer that both Kiwi and Su-Z finished with their hair, and that was when they heard a couple of knocks on the door.

“Kiwi, Su-Z,” Sonata Dusk’s voice cheerfully said from out in the hallway. “Breakfast is ready.”

“We’ll be right out,” Kiwi replied.

“Hurry before it gets cold,” Sonata buoyantly said back before the sound of her walking away could be heard.

Deciding to heed Sonata’s advice, Kiwi and Su-Z both came to the same conclusion to wait until after breakfast to finish getting ready for the day. Wasting no time, they headed out into the hallway and down it towards the kitchen. On the way, they each got a surprisingly strong whiff of something that was vaguely familiar to them, but that they couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t until they reached the kitchen a few seconds later and saw what was on the table that they realized what it was they were smelling.

“Sheepherder’s Breakfast!” Su-Z joyfully exclaimed just before rushing over to the table and nearly started to drool over the dish.

“Okay, take it easy, Katy Perry,” Aria Blaze said as she came up behind Su-Z and gently pulled her away from the dish before she really did start to drool over it. “It’s just breakfast.”

“This isn’t just breakfast,” Su-Z replied as she broke free from Aria’s hold, grabbed the spatula out of the pan, and took a bite of the food that was on it. “It’s breakfast heaven!”

As Su-Z blissfully enjoyed the delicious assortment of tastes dancing across her tongue, Adagio Dazzle, who was sitting at the other end of the table irishing up her cup of coffee, looked on with a somewhat distressed expression on her face before shifting slightly to her left so she could address her pig-tailed sister.

“Aria, could you get another spatula out of the drawer please,” She very plainly requested.

“Yeah,” Aria replied in a manner that suggested she shared the same feelings as Adagio in regards to the spatula currently within Su-Z’s hand.

Despite having literally been in the middle of Adagio and Aria’s brief conversation, Su-Z hadn’t heard a word either of them had said. She was too spaced out to notice anything that was currently going on around her, including Kiwi coming up behind her to get a better look at the dish the Dazzlings had prepared.

Sure enough, the large pan that Kiwi was staring down at was indeed a true Sheepherder’s Breakfast, filled with eggs, onions, hash browns, bacon bits, and cheddar cheese, just like she always remembered it being. As she stared at it, she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t recognized the smell of it as soon as it hit her nostrils. She and Su-Z used to love making and eating Sheepherder’s Breakfast when they were first starting off in their musical career, so much so that they would occasionally joke that they ought to be sheepherders on account of how much they loved it. Once their musical career took off though they didn’t have the time to make it anymore, so it had been some time since they’d had it last. Which she figured was the reason why she was unable to identify the dish simply by its aroma.

“You’re not going to go all crazy over this too, are you?” Aria jocosely asked Kiwi as she stepped around her to place the new spatula in the pan.

“N-No,” Kiwi gingerly answered, having been caught off-guard by Aria suddenly appearing next to her. “I’m just…surprised is all. I wasn’t expecting to have Sheepherder’s Breakfast today.”

“Well we wanted your first day of work to start off on a good note,” Adagio amiably replied. “So we figured making your favorite breakfast would help with that.”

Kiwi involuntarily dawned an expression of genuine surprise when she heard Sonata’s explanation. Had she understood the pony-tailed Dazzling correctly? Had she and her sisters really done all this just for her and Su-Z?

“But, how did you know we like this so much?” She inquired.

“Su-Z mentioned it while we were walking Princess Thunder Guts the other day,” Sonata chimed in as she took a seat to Adagio’s left.

Just then, Su-Z gave a muffled noise that indicated she was either agreeing with what Sonata had just said or that she was still enjoying the food in her mouth. It was difficult to tell which.

To say that Kiwi felt touched by the Dazzlings’ kind and considerate gesture would be putting it mildly. She felt moved by it, almost to the point of becoming physically emotional.

“T-Thank you,” She heartfully told the Dazzlings, clearly trying to hold back her growing emotions.

“Don’t get all sappy on us, Lady Gaga,” Aria facetiously replied as she took a seat on the other side of Adagio. “Just dig in already before Su-Z eats the whole thing herself.”

If there was perhaps one thing Kiwi didn’t like about living with the Dazzlings, it was when Aria would refer to her as ‘Lady Gaga’ or ‘Taylor Swift’ or some other female pop singer. She’d never liked being compared to other pop music artists when she was one, and she liked it even less now that she was a former pop music artist. But she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it or anything. She knew Aria was never trying to be mean or malicious when she did it, so each time she’d just let it slide without any fuss.

“Yeah, good idea,” She lightheartedly replied as she took a seat next to Aria and got herself a plateful of Sheepherder’s Breakfast, making sure to use the replacement spatula that the Dazzling had gotten to get it.

For the next few minutes, the PostCrush and Dazzling girls all enjoyed a nice and delicious breakfast together. There was little conversation during the meal, but no one seemed to mind the relative silence. At one point though Princess Thunder Guts entered the room and began barking up a storm in a desperate attempt for some table scraps. Most of the girls simply ignored the small dog, but Su-Z acknowledged her and told her that she wasn’t getting her greedy little paws on any of her heavenly food. Sonata, however, decided to share a tiny bit of what was on her plate with Princess Thunder Guts, which successfully got the petite pooch to cease her barking and leave the kitchen in peace.

Eventually everyone finished eating and they all began to clear the table. That is, until Adagio looked over at the clock on the wall and realized what time it was.

“I should get going,” She stated as she made her way out of the kitchen and over towards a small table located near the front door. “Don’t want to be late for my first day as librarian.”

Part of the reason that today was Kiwi and Su-Z’s first day working with the emus was because it was the first day since they’d moved in with the Dazzlings where any of them were available to teach them their job. Recently, the three sisters had gone through a bit of a career change themselves. They were to become the new librarians at Canterlot High School after being laid off as motivational speakers there when the school board had determined their job to be ‘unnecessary’. As part of their training they all had to go in everyday to learn how to do the job, including Saturday and Sunday so that they could start as soon as possible. But today was the first official start day of their librarian job and Adagio had elected to be the one to go in, which meant that Aria and Sonata would be available to teach the two new farmhands about the emu.

“Later, Adagio,” Aria yelled out to her sister.

“Yeah, have a good day, Dagi,” Sonata then genially added. “And don’t forget to get the pizza on your way home!”

“Sonata,” Adagio yelled back, in a manner that suggested scorn, as she picked up the car keys from the small table. “That was supposed to be a surprise!”

“Oh, right,” Sonata more quietly responded in embarrassment before turning to address Kiwi and Su-Z. “We’re, um, having pizza tonight. Surprise.”

Both Kiwi and Su-Z just sort of looked at one another for a second before giving a few soft giggles, much to the confusion of the three Dazzlings.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Kiwi assured Sonata.

“Yeah, we don’t care if it was supposed to be a surprise,” Su-Z added.

Sonata, in response, simply gave a small sigh of relief that her blunder hadn’t ruined anything for either of the PostCrush girls. Aria gave no visible response.

“Alright, well, I’m out of here.” Adagio said as she opened the front door. “See you girls tonight. And Kiwi and Su-Z; Good luck today.”

Perhaps it was the somewhat impish tone in Adagio’s voice when she’d wished her and Su-Z luck, but Kiwi found the Dazzlings’ well-wishes to be a bit…disconcerting. She felt like Adagio had been trying to convey something else within her words without actually saying it. Something along the lines of, ‘You’re going to need all the luck you can get’.

The thought quickly crossed Kiwi’s mind to ask Adagio about what she really meant by her remark to them, but she just as quickly disregarded it. She was just misinterpreting things, imagining hidden meanings that weren’t really there. And besides, even if she had decided to ask Adagio she was already too late to do so, as the Dazzling was already out the door.

“Okay, the sooner we get started the better,” Aria addressed her and Su-Z as she finished putting her dishes in the dishwasher. “We’ve got a lot to go over today, so you two finish getting ready and then meet us in front of the barn.”

“Well, like Dagi said, good luck today, girls,” Sonata chimed in just before she pulled out her phone from her pocket and started heading towards the hallway.

The youngest Dazzling didn’t make it to the hallway though, as Aria grabbed ahold of her left shoulder as she passed by her.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The Dazzling asked her younger sister, sounding more like she was the girl’s mother.

“Uh, to my room?” Sonata half-answered, half-asked. “I want to call Dashie and talk to her before school starts.”

“You’re already dressed and everything,” Aria said as she let go of Sonata’s shoulder. “You can call Rainbow Dash from out by the barn.”

“Why would I do that?” Sonata confusedly inquired. “My room is much nicer than outside by the barn.”

Unable to help herself, Aria gave a facepalm that was so loud it echoed throughout the room for a second.

“Because you’re helping with the emu today too,” The pig-tailed Dazzling bluntly stated as she lowered her hand. “Honestly, Sonata, when I told Kiwi and Su-Z to meet us in front of the barn, who do think the other person I was referring to was?”

Sonata didn’t say anything in response right away, but instead gave an awkward-looking smile accompanied by a light chuckle.

“I…don’t know,” She eventually, and very embarrassingly, said.

Neither Kiwi nor Su-Z knew what to do other than continue standing silently to the side and watch the sisterly drama between Aria and Sonata unfold. It was the first time either of them had seen any of the Dazzlings in such a situation. They had seen them disagree and get slightly snippy with one another a few times, but this was the first time they’d seen something like this.

“Just…come on,” Aria said as she took Sonata’s right hand in her left and started dragging her towards the front door.

“Okay, okay, you don’t have to be so forceful,” Sonata replied in mild irritation as she pulled her hand free from Aria’s and continued to follow her.

“We’ll, um, be out in a bit,” Kiwi spoke up just before the two Dazzlings reached the door and exited the house.

Once again, Kiwi and Su-Z just sort of looked at one another for a second or two, as if silently asking each other about what they’d just witnessed. During which time, Princess Thunder Guts came up and parked herself in-between them, clearly looking for some attention.

“Well that was an interesting fight,” Kiwi eventually said to her friend.

“Pfft, are you kidding? That wasn’t a fight, that was barely a squabble,” Su-Z surprisingly replied as she bent down and picked up her pet. “Believe me, I know. My sister and I used to fight all the time.”

Hearing Su-Z mention her sister was perhaps the last thing Kiwi had expected. In fact, it was so unexpected that she nearly dawned a visible expression of surprise. In all the time she’d known Su-Z, she’d only ever heard her bring up the subject of her family a handful of times. And of those handful of times she’d only ever mentioned her sister once, maybe twice.

“I guarantee you, if that had been me and Eclipse just now, there would’ve been a lot more yelling, swearing, and we wouldn’t have left on speaking terms,” Su-Z concluded.

“Hmm,” Was all Kiwi was able to say, finding herself unable to think of any other reply.

“But enough of all that,” Su-Z then said in a cutesy voice as she held Princess Thunder Guts up to her face. “How about we get you some treats before we head outside, little girl.”

Princess Thunder Guts simply gave a couple of happy-sounding barks before Su-Z put her back down, at which point she immediately ran over to her food dish like a bat out of hell, causing Su-Z to giggle in amusement before following her. Kiwi, meanwhile, decided to head straight back to their room to finish getting ready so as not to keep Aria and Sonata waiting out in front of the barn for too long. She didn’t like to keep people waiting, probably because she didn’t like to be kept waiting herself.

“Come on, Su-Z,” Kiwi impatiently called out from the living room. “We can’t keep Aria and Sonata waiting much longer.”

“I just need one more minute,” Su-Z called back from their bedroom.

Naturally, Kiwi had been the first of the two PostCrush girls to finish getting ready since Su-Z had decided to get some treats for Princess Thunder Guts, which meant that she was now being forced to wait for her friend and make Aria and Sonata wait for her. A truly undesirable situation for someone so particular about waiting. True, she could’ve just left without Su-Z, but the thought of doing that never even crossed her mind. Su-Z was her best friend after all, and for as much as she hated keeping people waiting, she would never dream of disrespecting her best friend in such a manner.

In an effort to help keep her mind off of all the waiting, she decided to look out a nearby window for anything that might offer her a distraction for a bit. Alas, there was very little to look at aside from a view of the front yard, driveway, and street. But there was one thing of mild interest located in the driveway that she could see; the van she and Su-Z had been living in only a week ago.

After a couple of days with the Dazzlings, both she and Su-Z had each expressed an interest in retrieving the nearly broken-down vehicle from the river bank to them. This wasn’t because either one of them was particularly attached to it, far from it in fact, but since they’d spent what little money they’d had left on it after the IRS audit they didn’t want to just abandon it down by the river. None of the Dazzlings had a problem with this, so the next day they all went down to the river bank together and managed to get the hunk of junk back to the house in one piece…barely.

All-in-all, Kiwi found that the van actually looked kind of nice sitting out there. She felt it added a bit of character to the driveway. After all, by all outward appearances it was in pretty good shape, it was just everything on the inside that was rubbish.

“Okay, I’m ready,” Su-Z said as she emerged from the hallway, drawing Kiwi’s attention away from the van. “Let’s go meet some emu!”

Kiwi was intrigued for a moment by Su-Z’s sudden enthusiasm for going to see the emu, but she didn’t really give it much consideration. She was just happy that Su-Z was finally ready.

“Alright, let’s go,” She said as she headed for the front door, with Su-Z not far behind her.

As Kiwi and Su-Z made their way from the house to the barn, they saw that Aria and Sonata were indeed standing out by the front of the barn like Aria said they would be. Though interestingly enough, they appeared to still be carrying on their conversation from earlier inside the house.

“I just don’t see why I have to help with the emu too is all,” They heard Sonata say once they were close enough. “I mean, you’re the one who knows everything about them, why do you need me?”

“One, because it’ll be better for Kiwi and Su-Z if there’s two of us teaching them,” Aria replied. “And two, you’re still being punished for having sex with Rainbow Dash on our desk at work, remember?”

Both of the PostCrush girls stopped dead in their tracks when they heard this, and for the third time this morning they just sort of looked at one another for a second.

“Do you think that’s the same Rainbow Dash who’s friends with Sunset Shimmer and Pinkie Pie?” Su-Z softly inquired.

“Maybe,” Kiwi just as softly replied as she started walking again. “Though frankly I’m more curious about the ‘having sex on the desk at work’ part.”

“Yeah, sounds kinda kinky,” Su-Z then remarked, sounding somewhat sultry.

All Kiwi could do in response was give a small ‘ugh’ in annoyance as she pinched the bridge of her nose with her right hand. Sometimes she really didn’t understand how her friend’s mind worked.

“What? It does,” Su-Z retorted innocently.

Before Kiwi could genially ask Su-Z to get her mind out of the gutter, Aria and Sonata began to meet them half-way, prompting her to lower her right hand and quickly dawn an expression of steadiness and acuity.

“Okay, you two ready to get started?” Aria asked them once she and Sonata were close enough.

“We’re ready,” Kiwi said confidently.

“Yep, ready Freddie,” Su-Z cheerfully concurred.

“Um, her name’s Aria, not Freddie,” Sonata chimed in, causing Aria to roll her eyes in a derisive fashion.

“Ignore her,” The pig-tailed Dazzling told them as she turned around and started heading back towards the barn. “This way.”

Kiwi and Su-Z did as instructed and followed Aria, and Sonata, over to the front of the barn, stopping only once they reached the large doors that led inside. Wasting no time, Aria began to open them but abruptly stopped after only about a quarter of the way.

“Uh, quick question,” She began to say as she turned around to face them. “Have either of you ever been inside a barn before?”

“I haven’t,” Su-Z answered first.

“Neither have I,” Kiwi then answered.

“Ooh, Ooh, let me get my phone out,” Sonata eagerly spoke up as she reached into her pocket, pulled out her cell phone, and pointed it at them. “This should make for a good post to my MyStable page.”

The amount of confusion that Kiwi and Su-Z felt in that moment was indescribable. Why in the world would Sonata think that recording them going into a barn would be a good social media post?

“You might want to brace yourselves then,” Aria advised them just before finishing opening the door enough for them to walk through.

After yet another quick look at one another, Kiwi and Su-Z followed Aria inside. And as soon as they entered the barn they instantly realized what the two Dazzlings had been getting at.

“Oh my god, the smell,” Kiwi queasily stated as she instinctively brought her hand up to her nose to try and block the foul odor assaulting her nostrils.

“Ewww, ewww, ewww,” Su-Z declared as she did likewise.

Both of the PostCrush girls were so distracted by the smell of the barn that they failed to notice Aria and Sonata having a few chuckles at their expense.

“Yeah, the smell’s pretty bad the first time you come in here,” Aria spoke up once she’d finished chuckling. “But you’ll get used to it fairly quickly.”

Sonata didn’t say anything right away. Instead she just continued to point her camera at Kiwi and Su-Z for a few more seconds before eventually putting it down.

“I think I’ll title this video, ‘Two Girls Entering a Barn for the First Time,’” She said as she put her phone back into her pocket.

Kiwi would be lying if she said she didn’t have a strong desire to grab Sonata’s phone right out of her pocket, throw it to the ground, and smash it into a million pieces so that she couldn’t share the video she’d just taken of her and Su-Z. But since the Dazzling was technically her boss, she resisted the urge to act on that desire.

“Alright, enough fooling around,” Aria said as she started making her way towards the other end of the barn. “We’ll start by letting the emu out so they can get some exercise.”

In an effort to abate the offensive smell of the barn. Kiwi tried to recall other smells that she’d encountered in her life, ones that were much more pleasant. Flowers, the ocean, the Sheepherder’s Breakfast she’d had not more than an hour ago, anything she could think of in the hopes that somehow the memory of such refreshing smells would replace the smell of the barn. And much to her surprise, her little mind over matter trick actually seemed to work to a degree. It wasn’t by much, but it was enough to make being inside the barn at least tolerable now.

Once Su-Z appeared to have gotten over the smell of the barn too, or least gotten used to it, both her and Kiwi started to have a look around the place. They each found it to be bigger than it had looked from the outside and noticed that it had a number of stalls in it, one for each emu, though they couldn’t help but get the impression that they’d been designed more for horses than for emu. As they strode through, they also noticed that all the stalls had a nameplate on it and one emu inside of it. All of the stalls, that is, except for one that had a nameplate with the name ‘Glen’ on it.

“Why is there no emu in this one?” Su-Z curiously asked as she pointed to the empty stall.

Aria turned around to see which stall Su-Z was referring to, and quickly dawned a look of melancholy when she realized which one it was.

“There just isn’t,” She somberly replied before swiftly turning back around and continuing to head for the back doors.

It wasn’t difficult for either Kiwi or Su-Z to pick up on Aria’s sudden mood change.

“Did I say something wrong?” Su-Z quietly asked Sonata with a noticeable hint of concern in her voice.

“No, it’s just…Glen was Aria’s favorite emu,” Sonata dourly explained. “He got really sick awhile back and we lost him while she was at work one day. When she came home that night and Adagio and I broke the news to her, she ran off crying into a thunderstorm. It was really hard on her.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Kiwi sympathetically spoke up.

“Thanks,” Sonata replied. “Anyways, he’s still a bit of a touchy subject with Aria, so just try not to bring him up or anything if you can, okay?”

“Okay,” Su-Z assured the Dazzling.

Kiwi simply nodded her head in confirmation.

“Hey,” Aria suddenly shouted over to the group of girls from over by the back doors. “What’re you guys talking about?”

“Oh, um, just telling Kiwi and Su-Z to watch out for emu droppings,” Sonata quickly shouted back.

“Uh, yeah, I almost stepped in some,” Su-Z then shouted.

Even from half-way across the barn, the three girls could see that Aria was giving them a look of skepticism in response to their claims of discussing emu droppings. But the look quickly faded as she started making her way over towards them.

“Whatever,” She told them in a very tsundere manner. “Let’s just get the emu outside.”

It was then that Aria turned to her left and stopped in front of one of the nearby stalls. When she did, the emu within it came right up to the stall’s gate, as if knowing that it was going to be let out.

“You just unlock the gate like this and open it,” Aria instructed as she demonstrated to Kiwi and Su-Z what they needed to do.

Despite the gate now being open, the emu inside who’d seemed so anxious to be let out didn’t move, much to Kiwi and Su-Z’s confusion.

“Some of the emu will run out on their own once you open the gate,” Aria said as she took a few steps closer towards the large bird. “But most like Brie here you’ll need to sort of guide out, like this.”

Kiwi and Su-Z watched in amazement as Aria placed her left hand on the back of Brie’s neck and wrapped her right arm around her back and started leading her out of the stall, with no resistance at all from the large bird. It was something neither of them had ever seen before. Something that, in a way, was beautiful and heartwarming. It wasn’t long after the two of them stepped out the stall though that Brie gently broke herself free from Aria’s hold and made her way outside on her own.

“Wow,” Kiwi softly commented.

“Yeah,” Su-Z added in admiration.

Once Brie was outside, Aria turned around to address the two girls once more.

“You won’t be able to get close to the emu as easily as that right away, but that’ll change with time,” She told them. “For now though, you’ll need to let them check you out first so they can make sure you’re not a threat.”

“And…what if they see us as a threat?” Kiwi asked, a twinge of fear in her voice as she asked it.

“Don’t worry, that shouldn’t happen,” Aria assured her. “Emu are fairly peaceful animals and don’t get violent unless they’re provoked. So as long as you don’t get aggressive with them you’ll be fine.”

Kiwi gave a small sigh of relief at Aria’s assurance. She didn’t know much about emus yet, but she did know that they had some pretty sharp toe claws. And given the size of some of the emu in the barn, she figured those sharp toe claws could do some real damage to a person.

“Okay, Sonata, you and Su-Z go let Leo out,” Aria then instructed. “Kiwi, you and I will get Cole.”

“Okie doki!” Sonata merrily said as she took ahold of Su-Z’s right hand. “Come on, Su-Z, you’ll like Leo. He’s really friendly.”

Su-Z didn’t say anything in response as Sonata essentially started to drag her over to Leo’s stall, leaving Kiwi and Aria alone.

“So, can I ask you a question?” Kiwi inquired of the Dazzling.

“Sure,” Aria said as she started heading towards Cole’s stall. “What’s on your mind, Britney Spears?”

Without even realizing it, Kiwi gave a low, thankfully inaudible growl at once again having been called the name another pop music singer by Aria.

“I was wondering if this was always an emu farm,” She asked. “I mean, it just seems like this barn and these stalls were built more for horses.”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Aria nonchalantly replied. “When I was conned into buying the place it was sold to me as an emu farm, and frankly I don’t give a damn what it might have been before. It’s an emu farm now and it’ll continue to be and emu farm as long as I’m here.”

A few follow-up questions to Aria’s answer entered Kiwi’s mind, specifically as to how she’d been conned into buying the place and why she seemed so passionate about keeping it an emu farm, but she put them in the back of her mind for another time.

“Alright, like Brie, Cole probably won’t come running out of the stall,” Aria said as they arrived at Cole’s stall. “So after you open the gate just let him check you out for a bit before trying to make contact.”

“Got it,” Kiwi confidently replied.

Remembering how Aria had opened the gate to Brie’s stall a moment ago, Kiwi did likewise with the gate to Cole’s stall and, sure enough, he didn’t come running out. So Kiwi carefully approached the large bird and just sort of stood there for a few seconds while he stared at her.

*RRMMOO*

Cole gave out a small cry before taking a few steps backwards away from Kiwi, much to both hers and Aria’s surprise.

“O-kay,” The Dazzling confusedly said. “Didn’t expect that.”

Kiwi couldn’t help but feel a twinge of rejection from Cole having backed away from her. It wasn’t as though she’d expected him to warm up to her immediately or anything, but she certainly hadn’t expected him to essentially try and get away from her.

“Try holding out your hand when you get close to him,” Aria suggested.

While Kiwi did still have a bit of fear that the emu might attack her, her desire to get Cole to trust her far outweighed that fear. So she did as Aria suggested and extended her right hand out to him as she once again approached him, but as soon as she got close again he backed away from her.

“It’s okay, Cole,” She tried to tell him in a very calm manner. “Don’t be afraid.”

It made no difference.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” She then said as she tried to move closer to Cole once more, only for Aria to take hold of her shoulder and prevent her from doing so.

“Best just leave him be,” The Dazzling told her. “For some reason he doesn’t want you near him. If you keep encroaching on him like this he may get defensive.”

“But...but I…” Kiwi tried say but started to feel choked up, desperately not wanting to give up.

“Look, it’s okay, these things happen,” Aria compassionately tried to assure her. “Some of the emu were wary of me when I first tried to get close to them too. We’ll just try with another one.”

“Y-Yeah, sure,” Kiwi dejectedly agreed as she backed away from Cole and out of his stall.

As Kiwi and Aria stepped out of Cole’s stall and closed the gate behind them, they each noticed that Su-Z appeared to be doing fairly well over with Leo. She was petting him and talking to him and everything, and he was letting her. Neither of them could make out what it was she was saying to him, but Kiwi figured that it was the same kind of stuff she often said to Princess Thunder Guts. And deep within her subconscious, it made her sick with jealousy.

“Come on, let’s go try with Blake,” Aria said as she led Kiwi towards another stall.

But things went exactly the same with Blake as they did with Cole. As did they with Tom, Pat, Drew, and every other emu Kiwi tried to get close to. Every single one wouldn’t allow her to get within five feet of them, and by the time lunch rolled around it was really starting to get to her.

Unlike with breakfast and dinner, the Dazzlings didn’t have anything planned for lunch, so everyone just made whatever they wanted from what was available in the kitchen. Aria and Sonata made a family-sized chicken pot pie that they split and took to eat in Aria’s room so that they could talk privately, Su-Z made herself some creamy spaghetti, and Kiwi was just finishing up microwaving some vegetable lasagna.

“I think I like Leo best,” Su-Z remarked in between bites of her spaghetti. “I mean, I liked all the emu that Sonata and I worked with, but Leo was my favorite.”

“Uh-huh,” Kiwi replied in a very impassive yet also irritated manner just as her lasagna was ready.

“I don’t know why I was so nervous earlier,” Su-Z then said, oblivious to Kiwi’s obviously sour mood. “The emu are so nice and friendly.”

“Yeah, friendly,” Kiwi sarcastically said as she took her lasagna out of the microwave.

As she headed over to the table, Kiwi grabbed the bottle of Jim Beam off the counter that Adagio had left out after irishing up her coffee at breakfast. She sat down across from Su-Z and took a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle, earning her a very confused and dismayed look from her friend.

“You’re drinking?” Su-Z asked her with mild shock.

“Uh-huh,” Was all Kiwi answered as she put the bottle down.

“B-But you always said we shouldn’t drink because it would ruin our voices,” Su-Z reminded her.

“Well what does that matter now, Su-Z?!” Kiwi practically snapped. “Our singing days are over and I need something to help drown out the morning I just had!”

“W-What do you mean?” Su-Z innocently asked. “What happened while I was with Sonata?”

The continued callowness of her friend did little to improve Kiwi’s mood. In fact, it only made it worse.

“While you were making friends with every emu you met, I couldn’t get even one to let me get close to it,” Kiwi shouted as she vehemently got up from her seat. “No matter what I tried every single emu just kept backing away from me like I had the plague or something!”

The loudness of Kiwi’s voice and the anger on her face was enough to make Su-Z wince a bit in her seat. She’d seen Kiwi get upset before, but never like this. And it scared her.

“Are you guys okay out here?” The two of them heard Sonata say from over by the hallway.

The two PostCrush girls turned their attention towards the hallway and saw both Sonata and Aria standing just outside of it staring at them. There was a look of concern on Sonata’s face, while Aria’s expression simply gave the impression of intrigue.

“Oh, what, you came out to record this too?!” Kiwi heatedly asked Sonata. “You want to add another post to your MyStable page?! Maybe title this one, ‘Former Popstar Goes Crazy’?!”

Like with Su-Z, having Kiwi’s fury directed at her made Sonata wince, which caused her big sister to come to her defense.

“Okay, just settle down, Miley Cyrus,” Aria calmly yet firmly told her.

And that was the straw the broke the emu’s back.

“MY NAME IS KIWI,” The girl yelled at the top of her lungs as she swiftly swung her left arm across the table, sending her lasagna and the bottle of Jim Beam flying.

After the pasta and whiskey bottle hit the floor, an extremely uncomfortable silence filled the room. Kiwi just sort of huffed and puffed as Su-Z, Aria, and Sonata all stared at her with looks of shock and fear on their faces. After a few seconds Kiwi started to calm down a bit. Not much, but enough for her to realize what it was she’d just done, and when she did she ran out of the kitchen and out the front door like a bolt of lightning.

It was difficult for Su-Z to tell for certain, but she could’ve sworn she saw a tear or two run down Kiwi’s cheek as she left.

As soon as Kiwi was outside, she headed straight for the van parked in the driveway without hesitation. Consciously she wasn’t sure why it was she’d decided to head there, but subconsciously she knew she just wanted to be somewhere where there wasn’t anyone else around, be they either human or emu. Once she’d reached the van, she swung open the door, stepped inside, and closed the door behind her.

“Nice job, Kiwi, you big idiot,” She began to say to herself as she felt her anger turn to anguish. “You just screwed up royally, again. It was bad enough when you let your pride and your ego cause you to lose your recording contract, now you let your jealousy and anger possibly cause you to lose your second chance.”

The more Kiwi spoke, the more her emotions started to get the better of her. Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes and run down her cheeks like rivers, and her body began to feel weak all over until she felt she needed to sit down.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” She asked as she took a seat on the futon, bringing her legs up to her head so she could bury her face in them.

Kiwi just sat there alone in the van for a minute or two before she heard the sound of someone knocking softly on the door.

“Go away, Su-Z,” She said through her tears, assuming it was her best friend. “I don’t want to talk.”

“It’s me,” Aria’s voice replied just before the door opened and the girl stepped inside. “And I know that’s not true.”

“What are you talking about?” Kiwi said as she turned her away from Aria.

“When you said that you don’t want to talk, I know that’s not true,” Aria explained as she closed the door behind her. “I’ve been where you are now more times than I can remember, and I know that when you’re like that and say you don’t want to talk you actually mean the opposite.”

As much as Kiwi wanted to refute Aria’s claim about what she actually wanted, she found that she couldn’t. After all, just a minute ago she’d been talking to herself.

“I’m sorry I lost it back there,” She apologized as she turned her head back around, though not enough to look directly at Aria. “I’ll clean up the mess later.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Aria told her as she took a seat next to her. “It’s not important right now. Plus I’m pretty sure Sonata and Su-Z are already taking care of it as we speak anyways. Just…tell me what happened to set you off like that.”

Although she knew exactly what had set her off, it was difficult for Kiwi to say it out loud. So she took a short, deep breath as she prepared herself to admit some hard truths.

“Everything,” She solemnly said. “The fact that I can’t get close to the emu, the fact that Su-Z can, the fact that I have to work on this farm instead of being able to perform on stage anymore, all of it. It all just finally came to a head.”

“I see,” Aria affably said.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m eternally grateful to you and your sisters for helping us,” Kiwi quickly clarified so that Aria didn’t get the wrong idea, looking the girl straight in the eyes as she did so. “It’s just…I hate that this is my situation now. I used to be on top of the world and then it all came crumbling down around me. I mean, I had a penthouse in Baltimare with a window that had the most amazing view of the city, and now all I have is a window that has a view of a plot of dirt with a van parked in a driveway. No offense.”

“None taken,” Aria assured her.

“And what’s even worse is that it’s not even my window,” Kiwi continued. “It’s yours. I just happen to be living in the house it’s a part of.”

“It’s your house too, Kiwi,” Aria compassionately said as she put a supportive hand on her shoulder. “Your name may not be on the deed or anything, but it’s still as much your house as it is ours.”

Aria’s kind words and supportive gesture helped bring a small smile to Kiwi’s face, but it wasn’t enough to snap her out of her funk completely.

“I just miss my old life,” She continued, reburying her head in her legs. “I just…wish I could go back to it.”

Hearing Kiwi say this brought back memories for Aria of when she and her sisters had been living in the van, and even some from right after they’d been banished to this world. Both times she remembered feeling the same way as Kiwi, wishing she could return to the life she’d had before. She’d never really gotten over those feelings after being banished, but she had after the Battle of the Bands. And she knew why too.

“Do you know how me and my sisters ended up getting out of this van?” Aria asked.

“No,” Kiwi replied.

“It was because Sunset Shimmer took us in,” Aria informed her.

Before she’d even had time to fully process what Aria had just said, Kiwi brought her head back up and looked at Aria with astonishment on her face.

“Yep,” Aria then said, picking up on Kiwi’s astonishment. “And considering that she was the one who indirectly put us in the van I wasn’t too keen on the whole thing at first. But as time went on, I came to accept my new life. And then later on after spending some time with Pinkie Pie, I learned that life can be weird sometimes and that it’s best to just roll with it. Like when you accidently buy an emu farm, you just start raising emu.”

Kiwi’s astonishment only continued to grow as she listened to Aria’s story. Sunset and Pinkie had been the ones who’d helped her and Su-Z learn that nothing was perfect back at the Starswirl Festival, and now it almost seemed like they were helping her again through Aria.

“My point is; don’t dwell too much on what used to be,” Aria continued. “Because if you do you’ll miss out on all the interesting things life still has in store for you.”

Part of Kiwi knew that she would always long for her old life as a popstar back, but after hearing Aria’s advice to her she felt that maybe she could accept that that life was over and move on from it. She didn’t know what kind of life awaited her on the emu farm, but she was willing to stick around and see what it might be. And of course, she wouldn’t be going through any of it alone either. She’d have Su-Z and the Dazzlings right there with her.

“Thanks, Aria,” She wholeheartedly said as she lowered her legs down off the futon.

“Don’t mention it, Kiwi,” Aria replied as she stood up. “Now come on, let’s get back inside.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Kiwi agreed as she too stood up, realizing that she still needed to apologize to Su-Z and Sonata as well.

“One other thing,” Aria said as she opened the door. “If you didn’t like my nicknames for you, you could’ve just asked me to stop.”

A tiny blush of embarrassment crossed Kiwi’s face after Aria said this.

“Y-Yeah,” She awkwardly replied. “I’ll try that next time instead of exploding in everyone’s faces.”

Both of the girls shared a small laugh as they exited the van and started heading back up to the house. Once they got there, they opened the door to see that Su-Z and Sonata were indeed cleaning up the mess that Kiwi had made when she’d lost her cool, just like Aria had predicted. When they noticed that Kiwi and Aria were back inside, they stopped what they were doing.

“H-Hey, girls,” Kiwi timidly said as she approached them. “I…I’m really sorry for what I did. I let my emotions get the better of me and I took it out on the two of you and Aria, even though none of the reasons why I was upset was in any way your fault. I promise it won’t happen again.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Sonata immediately replied. “These emotional moments happen to us a lot, so I’m used to them.”

Su-Z, though, didn’t say anything for a few seconds. She simply put the cleaning instruments she’d been holding down on the table and slowly bridged the gap between her and Kiwi, a stoic look on her face the entire time.

“Su-Z…I-” Kiwi started to say before being wrapped up in a surprise hug.

“You don’t need to say it again, Kiwi,” Su-Z softly told her. “I forgive you.”

Moved almost to the point of tears, Kiwi returned the hug with gusto just as Princess Thunder Guts came up to the two of them and started nuzzling their legs.

After the emotional display between the two friends and their dog ended, Kiwi helped finish cleaning everything up and getting the kitchen to look spotless once more. As she and Aria finished sweeping up the last of the broken glass from the Jim Beam bottle though, a thought occurred to her. Despite having made amends with everyone, there was still one major problem that hadn’t yet been resolved.

“You know, we still have the issue of the emus avoiding me,” She reminded the Dazzling.

“Don’t worry,” Aria replied as she dumped all the broken glass in the trash can. “We have a friend with years of experience working on a farm who might be able to help with that.”

Between a Limestone and a Hard Place

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“All I’m saying is that the film had a lot of flaws,” Kiwi Lollipop said as she grabbed herself a bottle of lemonade out of the refrigerator. “The story was completely unoriginal and had some serious pacing problems.”

“Really?” Adagio Dazzle replied from her seat at the kitchen table with the slightest hint of contempt in her voice. “Please, elaborate.”

“Well first off, King Ghidorah was brought in way too soon,” Kiwi explained as she took a seat at the table across from Adagio. “I get that he’s supposed to be the big baddie, but bringing him in so soon like that just made the other titans like Rodan look pathetic by comparison. Plus, unlike in 1964’s Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, he wasn’t given much of a build-up. I mean, how are we supposed to be intimidated by him from the start if we know virtually nothing about him?”

Adagio could only give Kiwi a mildly disdainful look as she contemplated her response to the girl’s criticisms.

Ever since the two girls, along with Aria, Sonata, and Su-Z, had watched Godzilla: King of the Monsters the other night, they’d been ‘debating’ back and forth about whether the movie was actually good or not. Adagio, who was an avid kaiju fan and the one who’d selected the movie for movie night, had found it to be both enjoyable and a worthy entry in the vast collection of Godzilla movies. Kiwi on the other hand, who was a major cinephile and not big on blockbusters, had found it to be a less-than-stellar film. So far neither girl had conceded any metaphorical ground to the other, and it didn’t seem like that was going to change anytime soon.

“Okay, first off, it didn’t matter when Ghidorah was brought in,” Adagio refuted staunchly. “The reason that Rodan and the other titans looked pathetic in comparison to him is because they are pathetic in comparison to him. He’s just more powerful than they are, period. And as for Ghidorah needing to be built up, it wasn’t necessary. People already knew who he was going into the movie, and even if they didn’t I’d say he was plenty intimidating right from the start when he was holding his own against Godzilla.”

The PostCrush girl was quick to return Adagio’s expression of mild disdain. She stared the Dazzling down with laser-sharp focus while she tried to think of another criticism to elucidate her argument. In fact, she was so focused on what her next critique would be that she failed to notice Aria Blaze enter the room.

“Okay, we’re all set for tomorrow,” The pig-tailed Dazzling casually remarked to both her and Adagio as she approached the table.

“Well the biggest problem with the movie was definitely the humans,” Kiwi strongly remarked, ignoring Aria. “It spent so little time on them that none of their characters were properly developed. Well, except for Ken Watanabe’s character, but that doesn’t count since he was in the previous film.”

“Excuse me, but didn’t you say that the biggest problem with the previous Godzilla movie was that it spent too much time with the humans?” Adagio just as strongly rebutted, also ignoring Aria.

“Um, hello? Did you hear me-” Aria attempted to interject.

“Yes, I did say that about the last Godzilla film,” Kiwi cut her off. “And what I’m saying right now about King of the Monsters is that it spent too little time with the humans. It just went from one extreme to the other.”

“Is that so?” Adagio replied crisply. “Well then tell me, what’s the magic number of minutes that should be spent with the humans in these movies, since the last one was too many and this one was too few?”

The more Aria listened to Adagio and Kiwi’s argument, the more she began to realize that she wasn’t going to get through to either of them by simply trying to intercalate herself into the conversation. After all, this type of scene involving her older sister wasn’t anything new. She couldn’t recall the number of times throughout the years where Adagio had gotten into heated arguments with people over a topic that she was especially passionate about. Heck she couldn’t even recall the number of times Adagio had argued with her over a topic that she was particularly passionate about. Regardless though, most of the time these arguments were no big deal, as whoever Adagio was arguing with would usually yield fairly quickly and everyone would get on with their lives. This time, however, she felt that that wasn’t going to be the case.

Despite having known Kiwi for only a short time, Aria had gotten the distinct impression that she, much like Adagio, was the stubborn type. The type who had strong opinions and beliefs about things and would stick to them no matter what. And judging from the fact that she’d lasted more than ten minutes arguing with Adagio and was still arguing with her, the Dazzling knew she’d been right in her assessment of the PostCrush girl. Which meant that she was stuck in the middle of a real ‘Unstoppable force meets the immovable object’ scenario.

The only solution that Aria could come up with - other than waiting until one of them snapped and tried to kill the other – was to say something that was so wild and outlandish that it would undoubtably interrupt the argument currently playing out before her. But what? What could she possibly say that would not only sound incredibly crazy, but would also gain her the attention of both Adagio and Kiwi? She pondered this question for a few seconds, but quickly came up with something that she knew would work perfectly.

“Sonata just called,” She began to say as she tried to hide the mischievous smile that was slowly growing on her face. “She said she’s pregnant again and that her and Su-Z are eloping to Whinnyapolis to raise the baby together.”

“WHAT?!” Adagio and Kiwi shouted in unison as they both stood up vehemently and turned to face Aria with expressions of shock.

Upon seeing that her outrageously bizarre statement had achieved its desired effect, Aria allowed her impish smile to fully cross her face.

“Well that worked like a charm,” She triumphantly said as she took a seat at the table. “And now that you two have stopped bickering for a bit, we can discuss the plan for helping Kiwi with the emu tomorrow.”

Aria was referring to the help that she and her sisters had come up with together to help Kiwi after her troublesome first day working on the emu farm. Much to everyone’s confusion not a single emu had allowed the former popstar to get close to it, and given that the girl’s job on the farm was to take care of them it was, needless to say, a real problem. Having no idea why this was so, the three Dazzlings had come to the conclusion that they needed to turn to someone with far more years of farm experience than them for help. Someone they’d once considered an enemy, but now considered a close friend.

“So Applejack agreed to help then?” Adagio asked as she sat back down, slyly shooting her younger sister a brief, piercing glance as she did so for having bamboozled her with that remark about Sonata and Su-Z.

“Um, yeah, about that,” Aria tentatively began to reply. “She-”

“Sorry, I just need clarification on something really quick,” Kiwi interrupted her as she too sat back down. “Su-Z didn’t really elope to Whinnyapolis with Sonata, did she?”

It was clear to Aria and Adagio by the tone of Kiwi’s voice that she was being 100% serious in asking them if what Aria had said a moment ago was true.

“Uh, no, she didn’t,” Aria plainly clarified. “I made that whole thing up.”

“Oh good.” Kiwi replied in relief.

The fact that Kiwi needed Aria to clarify that her remark was a falsehood confused the two Dazzlings, and earned the PostCrush girl a couple of bewildered expressions from them.

“You actually believed that?” Adagio inquired, sounding somewhat smug.

“Hey, you gave the same startled reaction as I did,” Kiwi staunchly reminded the Dazzling, picking up on her pompous attitude. “And besides, I wouldn’t put it past Su-Z to actually do something like that.”

Aria and Adagio just gave each other a confused look for a moment, as if silently asking one another what sort of things Su-Z had done in the past to warrant her best friend believing such a ridiculous claim about her. They were curious, to be sure, but figured that their curiosity would have to wait until another time to be sated. There were more important things to discuss right now.

“So anyways, about Applejack,” Aria spoke up, getting the conversation back on track. “She said she’d help if she could but she’s…unavailable at the moment.”

“Unavailable?” Adagio curiously queried.

“Yeah, she said she and her family are all on their way out of town right now to visit a sick relative,” Aria explained. “So she’s not going to be around for the next few days.”

“I see,” Adagio replied in a distrait manner as she brought her right hand up to her chin, no doubt pondering potential new solutions to try and fix Kiwi’s emu problem.

“So are we going to wait until Applejack gets back then before I try getting close to the emu again?” Kiwi inquired.

“No, we’re still going to try again tomorrow,” Aria explained. “I was able to get someone else with practically the same amount of farm experience who was willing to help.”

Adagio immediately lowered her hand from her chin and dawned a surprised expression when she heard her sister say this. She tried to figure out who Aria was talking about but no one came to mind. Who else did they know who had just as much farm experience as Applejack?

“Who?” Kiwi asked before the Dazzling had a chance to.

“Pinkie’s sister, Limestone.” Aria answered.

The surprised look on Adagio’s face quickly turned to outright shock when she heard her sister utter Limestone’s name, though neither Aria nor Kiwi seemed to notice. Or if they did, they simply didn’t give any response to it.

Was Aria serious? She’d asked Limestone Pie, the girl whose own sister at times referred to her as ‘Captain Grumpy’, to help someone as obstinate as Kiwi with the emus?

“Huh, I didn’t know Pinkie had a sister,” Kiwi remarked.

“She has three actually,” Aria informed the girl. “They’ve all worked on their family farm for a number of years, but Limestone’s the one who essentially runs the place now so I figured she was the best one to ask. Plus she and I are kinda friends.”

It was at this point that Adagio opened her mouth to verbally raise her concern about Aria’s plan, but before she could get a single word out the front door suddenly swung open and Sonata and Su-Z walked in with dinner in-hand.

“We got tacos!” Sonata vivaciously declared as she walked into the kitchen and held the bags in her hands up high for all to see.

“Sorry we took so long,” Su-Z apologized as she followed behind Sonata, sounding slightly annoyed. “We had to go back because someone ate half the food on the way home.”

Sonata could only give a small, embarrassed laugh in response as she put her bags of food down on the table, eliciting eye-rolls from both Aria and Adagio.

“So long as the car doesn’t look like a tornado of taco fixings blew through it, it’s fine,” Aria said as she opened one of the bags and started distributing food accordingly.

“Well, actually, there is-” Su-Z started to reply, but abruptly stopped.

Curious as to why Su-Z had precipitously ceased speaking, Aria, Adagio, and Kiwi all turned to face the direction the girl had been staring to see Sonata giving a couple of rapid slashing motions across her throat with her right hand, which she quickly halted when she realized all eyes were on her.

“Sonata?” Adagio firmly said in her big sister voice.

“Um…w-well,” Sonata stammered, struggling to find just the right way to explain things. “I…may have made a…teeny, tiny mess in the car when I ate some of the tacos on the way home.”

“It looks like a tornado of taco fixings blew through it,” Su-Z impassively chimed in, much to Sonata’s chagrin.

Kiwi chuckled lightly at her best friend’s remark. Adagio and Aria, however, simply gave their younger sister the evil eye, who in turn gave them an awkward smile.

“As soon as we’re done eating you’re cleaning the car, Sonata,” Adagio sternly told the girl.

“Aw, can’t I wait until tomorrow to clean it?” Sonata whined. “It’s dark outside and I won’t be able to see what I’m doing.”

As much as both Adagio and Aria hated to admit it, Sonata had a valid point there.

“Fine, you can wait till tomorrow,” Aria acceded. “But you’re taking care of it first thing in the morning, got it?”

“Got it,” Sonata gaily confirmed, happy that her sisters had acquiesced to her request, just before taking a seat next to Kiwi and digging into her tacos.

As Kiwi unwrapped her own tacos and perforce observed Sonata eating hers, it wasn’t difficult for her to see how the Dazzling might have dirtied up the car a bit. The pony-tailed girl wasn’t so much eating her food as she was inhaling it, taking such quick, large bites and swiftly moving on to another taco that some fixings were splattering around her. Quite frankly though, Kiwi was more concerned about whether Sonata was actually chewing her food before swallowing it than the flying fixings.

Soon enough Su-Z sat down as well and all five girls were enjoying their dinner. At first there was little noise other than the sound of tacos being bitten into and drinks being drunk, but eventually conversations began to form among small groups, like Aria and Adagio.

“Are you sure bringing Limestone to help Kiwi is a good idea?” The elder of the two Dazzlings softly asked her younger sibling.

“Look, I know she wasn’t our first-round draft pick,” Aria just as softly answered, sensing her sister’s unease. “But with Applejack and her family gone she’s the only other person we know who has any farm experience.”

“She has rock farm experience, Aria,” Adagio obdurately reminded her. “Which means that I’m willing to bet she doesn’t have much experience dealing with any farm animals. And besides, that isn’t even my biggest concern.”

“What do you mean?” Aria asked confusedly.

“I mean you know how hot-tempered Limestone can be,” Adagio explained. “And given how contumacious Kiwi can be don’t you think that bringing the two of them together like this might be a recipe for disaster?”

The fact that Limestone and Kiwi both had such strong personalities wasn’t something Aria had considered earlier, and she realized that in hindsight she probably should have. She did indeed know how hot-tempered Limestone could be since the girl tried to beat her up for accidentally running into her at the mall when they’d first met. And as for Kiwi, well, she’d seen firsthand how headstrong she could be only a few minutes ago. It really wasn’t entirely impossible that the two of them might get into it as Adagio postulated.

Even still though, Aria didn’t feel that things would come to that. Limestone was her friend and she knew that as such the Pie girl wouldn’t do anything to cause her trouble….at least not intentionally.

“I get what you’re saying, sis, but I think the odds of anything happening between them are pretty low,” She assuredly told her older sister. “Despite Limestone’s gruff demeanor she’s not as bad as she seems. I mean, you should have heard her when I asked her if she’d help. She sounded almost, I dunno…flattered.”

Of all the words that one could possibly use to describe Limestone Pie, Adagio never imagined she’d hear ‘flattered’ be one of them.

“And for as obstinate as Kiwi can be I seriously doubt she’ll instigate anything,” Aria continued. “Especially not after what happened on Wednesday.”

It was difficult for Adagio to deny that Kiwi would most likely be on her best behavior when it came to working with the emu. After the PostCrush girl had lost her cool on Wednesday she seemed resolved to do just about anything necessary to get the emu to cozy up to her so that she could do her job.

“Plus if anything does happen, don’t forget there’s three of us and two of them,” Aria continued. “I’m pretty sure that means we’ll be able to anything that may arise between them.”

Once again, it was difficult for Adagio to argue with Aria’s words. While she still had her doubts about Limestone, she trusted her sister’s judgement enough to not ask that she call the Pie girl back and tell her tomorrow was off.

“Alright, if you say so,” She said as she reached for her drink. “I just hope you’re right about all of that.”

Although Aria didn’t say anything out loud, mentally she hoped that she was right as well.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the table, Kiwi, Su-Z, and Sonata were having a conversation of their own.

“Can I ask you a personal question, Sonata?” Kiwi asked the Dazzling.

Since Sonata’s mouth was full of delicious taco-y goodness when Kiwi addressed her, she just gave a few small yet vigorous head nods to signal yes.

“Have you…been pregnant before?” Kiwi then inquired gingerly.

Not surprisingly, Sonata was caught a bit off-guard by Kiwi’s question, not only because she’d been asked it but also because she was completely befuddled as to why she’d been asked it in the first place. What was surprising though was that Su-Z appeared to be just as caught off-guard and bewildered as Sonata was, despite the fact that the question hadn’t been directed at her.

It took Sonata a few seconds to finish chewing and swallowing the food in her mouth, but once she had she promptly replied to the PostCrush girl’s query.

“Um, yeah, once,” She answered, her befuddlement evident in her voice. “Why do you ask?”

“Well while you were gone Aria made a, um…joke that you were pregnant again,” Kiwi explained. “So I was just, you know, a little curious.”

“Wait, so does that mean you…you have a child?” Su-Z chimed in, sounding rather enthusiastically astonished.

“Mmhmm, a daughter; Dolly,” Sonata replied. “She’s in school studying to become a marine biologist right now.”

Kiwi was unable to hide her surprise at hearing that Sonata’s daughter was studying to become a marine biologist. She knew that the Dazzlings were older than they looked, but she hadn’t figured that any of them were old enough to have a child who was in college. Sure, it was possible that Dolly was still just a young girl and happened to be an especially gifted child, but Kiwi figured if that were the case than Sonata would’ve said something about that already. The whole thing made Kiwi wonder just how old the Dazzlings really were.

Similarly, Su-Z was also unable to hide her feelings. Though unlike Kiwi, her feelings were more of excitement than surprise.

“OMG, I’d love to meet your daughter,” The younger PostCrush girl exclaimed fervently.

Now it was Sonata’s turn to feel taken aback, thanks to Su-Z’s rather unexpected zeal.

“Oh, um, okay,” The Dazzling said tentatively. “Well she’s coming for a visit on the 10^th, so I’m sure you’ll have a chance to meet her then.”

“Goodie,” Su-Z happily proclaimed just as Kiwi came to a sudden realization.

“Uh, Sonata, the 10^th is tomorrow,” The older PostCrush girl informed the Dazzling.

“What? No it’s not,” Sonata retorted as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Today’s only the-”

Sonata immediately cut herself off when she that the date on her phone was the 9^th and quickly dawned an expression of shock. She then hastily stood up from her seat and turned to face her sisters.

“DOLLY’S VISITING TOMORROW!” She alarmingly shouted over to them, causing both Adagio and Aria to nearly fall out of their chairs.

“What are you talking about, Sonata?” Adagio asked in response, after making sure she was once again firmly in her seat. “Dolly’s visit isn’t until the 10^th.”

“Yeah, and today’s the 9^th!” Sonata informed her and Aria as she held her phone out in front of them. “See?!”

Adagio and Aria both looked at Sonata’s phone and practically dawned the same shocked expression as their younger sister when they saw the date it displayed. In that moment, all three Dazzlings realized that in all the hullabaloo of accepting Kiwi and Su-Z into their home, starting their new job at CHS, and trying to help Kiwi with the emus, they’d completely lost track of how late into the month it already was. And as a result, they’d inadvertently put themselves between a rock and a hard place.

“Well fuck,” Aria uttered in frustration as she facepalmed in a very Picard-like manner before reaching for her phone. “I’ll call Limestone and tell her we have to reschedule.”

Hearing that they were going to have to reschedule with Limestone made Kiwi feel a tad dismayed. Her strong work ethic made her want to get this problem she was having with the emu resolved sooner rather than later so that she could do the job she’d been hired to do. Every day that passed by where she couldn’t do said job was making her feel more and more like a sponge within the Dazzling household, and she was getting really tired of feeling like a sponge.

“Hold on a second, Aria,” Adagio spoke up just before her sister made her call. “I think there’s a way we can work everything in tomorrow.”

“How?” Aria inquired as she lowered her phone. “We can’t monitor Kiwi and Limestone and talk to Dolly about the Overlook at the same time.”

“The Overlook?” Kiwi softly whispered to Su-Z, to which Su-Z simply gave her a confused shrug in response.

“We can if we split up,” Adagio explained. “Sonata and I will talk with Dolly and you’ll go with Kiwi and Limestone. Sound good?”

In all honesty, Adagio’s proposal didn’t sound that good to Aria. The idea that she’d be the only person around to try and defuse any conflict that may arise between Kiwi and Limestone wasn’t exactly a cheerful one. She truly did believe what she’d said earlier about the odds of the two girls getting into anything being low, but she figured that with her luck even a 1% chance would mean something would definitely happen. Even still though, she knew she couldn’t refuse after having defended her belief so ardently to Adagio.

“Yeah, sounds good,” She answered, trying hard to hide any possible hints of reluctance in her voice. “I didn’t really want to have to talk to Dolly about the Overlook and relive that nightmare anyways.”

“Alright then, problem solved,” Adagio nonchalantly stated just before she went back to eating her dinner.

Upon hearing that everything was still on as planned for her tomorrow, Kiwi gave a small, barely noticeable smile.

“Uh, what about me?” Su-Z spoke up as she raised her hand for some reason. “What should I do tomorrow?”

“Hmm?” Adagio uttered before quickly swallowing the food in her mouth. “I don’t know, just…do whatever you want, Su-Z.”

Su-Z, in response, just gave a happy sounding squee and a few swift, cheery claps before returning to her dinner as well.

The rest of the meal was spent in relative normalcy, as was the rest of the evening. Eventually though, it came time for each of the girls to call it a day as one by one they retired to their beds for a good night’s sleep.

The next morning Aria arose a tad earlier than she usually did on a Saturday. Normally on the weekends she’d sleep in until around 9:00, but as far as she was concerned today was a work day and as such she’d set the alarm on her phone the previous night to wake her up like it was. After all, it was the day Limestone was supposed to show up to help Kiwi, and she knew that she needed to get an early start to the day in order to be ready for her friend’s arrival.

After quickly changing out of her pajamas Aria made her way out into the hallway and towards the kitchen to make herself some breakfast, and was surprised to see that Sonata was already up and eating her own breakfast.

“Hey,” Her sister casually greeted her in between bites of cereal.

“Hey,” Aria replied back as she made her way over to the cabinets to get a bowl. “Why’re you up so early?”

“I wanted to get as much of a head start on cleaning the car as I could,” Sonata answered. “You know, try and have it done before Dolly shows up.”

“Yeah, probably for the best,” She remarked as she grabbed a bowl out of the cabinet, followed soon after by a spoon out of a nearby drawer. “I don’t think Dolly needs to see her mother covered in taco fixings again.”

“Gee, thanks for that reminder,” Sonata replied sarcastically, clearly annoyed by the fact that Aria had alluded to the time when she’d accidentally tripped and spilled a plate of tacos onto herself in front of Dolly when she was still a little girl.

Seeing that her remark got a small rise out of her younger sister, Aria gave a barely audible chuckle as she sat down and poured herself a bowl of cereal.

It wasn’t long before Adagio, Kiwi, and Su-Z got up and each made themselves some breakfast as well. Afterwards, Sonata went out to clean the car as promised, Adagio and Su-Z parked themselves in front of the TV, and Aria and Kiwi went out onto the porch to await Limestone’s arrival.

As they waited, Aria tried to discreetly distance herself from Kiwi as she found the girl’s Vita Parfum Flamma Santai perfume to be especially strong today, while Kiwi tried to keep herself from gawking at Sonata while she cleaned the car. She’d caught a glimpse of the mess inside the vehicle when she first stepped outside, and when she did she realized that Su-Z hadn’t been exaggerating when she said it looked like a tornado of taco fixings blew through the car. Though in her opinion it looked more like John Travolta had accidentally shot a taco in the face in there, but same difference.

“So…how come Sonata has a child but you and Adagio don’t?” The PostCrush girl spoke up in an attempt to keep her attention off of Sonata and the car.

“It’s a long, embarrassing, and frankly uncomfortable story,” Aria answered. “If you really want to know you should ask Adagio, she feels practically no shame in telling it. Plus I’m pretty sure she remembers that period of time better than Sonata or I anyways.”

“Um, okay then,” Kiwi awkwardly replied just before noticing a car pulling into the driveway.

Once Aria noticed the car as well she made her way off of the porch and down towards the driveway, followed closely by Kiwi. The car stopped behind the Dazzling’s car and soon enough the driver got out and started making her way up the rest of the driveway. As she did, she dawned a very noticeable look of confusion when she noticed that Sonata was cleaning the inside of the Dazzling’s car.

“Hey, Limestone,” Aria greeted the girl once she was close enough.

“Hey, Aria,” Limestone greeted back before pointing her right thumb at the car. “So, what’s the deal with your sister and your car there?”

“Oh, Sonata’s just cleaning up a taco-related calamity she caused in there,” Aria answered, with no small hint of amusement in her voice. “Pay her no mind.”

“Yeah, that won’t be a problem,” Limestone simply replied.

As Kiwi observed the conversation between Aria and Limestone, she couldn’t help but take note of a couple of things. One, despite being Pinkie’s sister, Limestone seemed to be a lot more…sullen than the perky party girl, and two, Aria appeared to be getting along with Limestone better than she did with her own sisters. Of course, being an only child, she knew that she was entirely unfamiliar with the complicated social dynamics of having a sibling, and figured that the reason the two girls seemed to get along so well was simply because they shared more than a few personality traits.

“So anyways, Kiwi, this is Limestone,” Aria introduced her. “Limestone, this is Kiwi.”

“Oh, um, nice to meet you,” Kiwi said as she snapped out of her train of thought and extended her hand out to Limestone.

“So you’re the famous Kiwi Lollipop of PostCrush, huh?” Limestone said back in a slightly inimical manner as she took Kiwi’s hand and shook it. “Then I guess I have you to thank for my sister playing those annoying pop songs all the time.”

Kiwi immediately withdrew her hand upon hearing Limestone say this, and Aria dawned a look of mild anxiety.

“Um, s-sorry about that,” Kiwi gingerly apologized, which caused Limestone to then sniggle.

“Relax, I’m just messing with you,” She explained lightheartedly. “I mean, Pinkie actually does play your music all the damn time, but your stuff is a lot more bearable to listen to than all the other upbeat pop crap she likes.”

“Uh, thanks?” Kiwi replied confusedly, feeling unsure whether she’d just been complimented or insulted.

As far as Aria was concerned, things were going fairly well so far between Kiwi and Limestone. At least, compared to how they could have gone so far given that Limestone had essentially referred to Kiwi’s style of music as garbage.

“Why don’t we get started,” The Dazzling suggested before things potentially escalated. “The emu should be waking up about now and they might not be as finicky at this early hour.”

“Sounds good,” Limestone said as she started making her way over to the barn. “Come on, Ariana Grande, let’s get to work.”

Much like when Aria had referred to her by names like ‘Britney Spears’ or ‘Lady Gaga’, Kiwi dawned a small scowl and gave a low groan when she heard Limestone call her ‘Ariana Grande’, which didn’t go unnoticed by Aria.

“Hey, Limestone,” The Dazzling softly began to say as she walked alongside the girl. “You might want to ixnay on the nicknames with Kiwi. She can get pretty temperamental when it comes to them, trust me.”

At first Limestone just gave Aria a confused look that seemed to silently ask if Kiwi was a snowflake or something, but she soon lost it when she gave a shrug of indifference.

“Alright, if you say so,” The Pie girl replied, sounding almost exactly like Adagio when she’d said the very same words during dinner last night.

It wasn’t much longer before all three girls arrived at the barn and, sure enough, most of the emu appeared to be in the process of waking up like Aria had said. Upon entering the barn, Kiwi had half-expected to see Limestone give the same nauseated reaction that she and Su-Z had given when they’d entered it for the first time, but she didn’t. It perplexed her at first, but then she remembered that Limestone lived on a farm too and thus figured it was probably because she was simply used to such potent smells.

“So, which one of these mini-ostriches should we start with?” Limestone asked her friend once they were all inside.

“Cole would probably be good,” Aria answered as she pointed over towards Cole’s stall. “He was the first one we started with last time.”

“Okay, come on, Mariah-I mean, Kiwi,” Limestone instructed the PostCrush girl as she headed to where Aria had pointed.

As Kiwi followed behind Limestone, she began to wonder what kind of advice an experienced farm girl like her would share with her. She’d been curious about this since last night but only now was she really starting to speculate about it.

“So tell me,” Limestone spoke up as they approached Cole’s stall. “When you tried getting close to this emu before, how did you act?”

“Act?” Kiwi said as she tried to figure out how to put into words how she was around Cole last time. “Um, just…friendly, I guess.”

“Show me,” Limestone told her.

Doing as Limestone requested, Kiwi opened the gate to the stall, stepped inside, and carefully approached the large bird. Once Cole took note of her presence, she stopped and held out her hand to him in a very nonthreatening manner.

“H-Hey, Cole,” She somewhat nervously said as she tried to get close enough to touch him.

*RRMMOO*

Just like last time, Cole gave out a small cry before taking a few steps backwards away from Kiwi, much to the PostCrush girls continued dismay.

“It was like this with every emu she tried to get close to,” Aria informed Limestone.

“Well no duh,” Limestone replied as she entered the stall. “Your problem is as clear as day.”

“It is?” Kiwi confusedly inquired as she turned around.

“Uh, it is?” Aria just as confusedly reiterated.

“Yeah, it is,” Limestone told them. “Your problem is that you’re being too soft. You have to be firm with the emu, like you would be with a dog you’re training.”

Firm, of course, it was so simple. So simple, in fact, that Kiwi almost felt embarrassed for not realizing it herself.

“You have to show Cole that you’re the one in charge here,” Limestone continued as she placed a supportive hand on Kiwi’s shoulder. “Farming is all about attitude. It doesn’t matter whether you’re farming emus or farming rocks, it’s all about how you approach it.”

“Farming rocks?” Kiwi wondered aloud, though not loud enough for Limestone to notice.

“Now try again,” Limestone said as she removed her hand from Kiwi’s shoulders and gave the girl a small push forward. “And this time, be firm.”

As Aria watched Kiwi take a deep breath as she prepared to approach Cole again, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of worry. Limestone wasn’t necessarily wrong when she claimed that Kiwi might benefit from being firmer with the emu, but she feared that perhaps the girl would get a little too firm and cause Cole to feel threatened. And if that happened, well…

“Cole,” Kiwi more firmly said, which surprisingly did manage to get the large bird’s attention. “Come here.”

Aria stared at Cole with incredible intent for any signs of hostility from him, and when she saw him raise his head to the point that his neck was nearly upright she got worried. Feeling fearful that the large bird was about to get defensive she quickly entered the stall to pull Kiwi away from him, but thankfully by the time she got in there he had lowered his head back down and turned away from the PostCrush girl once again.

“Okay, maybe we should try something else,” The Dazzling spoke up gingerly, not wanting to push the envelope any further. “You don’t want to get too aggressive and make him feel threatened, remember?”

Kiwi had, as a matter of fact, forgotten the importance of making sure the emu didn’t feel threatened by her. While she wasn’t afraid of the emu themselves she was a tad timorous of their sharp toe claws, and the last thing she wanted today was to find out firsthand just how sharp those things really were.

“Y-Yeah,” She agilely said as she backed up a bit from Cole and then looked over towards Limestone. “Maybe we should try something else.”

“Don’t be so scared,” Limestone replied in a surprisingly austere manner. “There’s a difference between being firm and being aggressive.”

It was then that Limestone stepped forward in front of Kiwi and stopped only when she was within a few feet of Cole.

“Let me show you,” The girl then said as she extended her right hand outwards and pointed down at the ground in front of her.

“Cole, come here,” She firmly instructed the emu, sounding even firmer than Kiwi had a moment ago.

Once again, Cole responded to the command by craning his neck upwards, causing Aria and Kiwi’s anxiety to spike. Limestone, however, didn’t seem to be fazed by this in the slightest.

“Limestone, don’t-” Aria tried to warn her friend before she was cut off.

“Cole, come here,” Limestone reiterated even firmer than last time, sounding borderline aggressive now.

This time, Cole responded by ruffling the feathers along his neck and opening his beak to give a low, angry hissing sound that made Limestone realize she’d probably taken things too far.

“Okay, e-easy, Cole,” She said timidly, suddenly losing all of her rabidity, as she slowly backed away from the large bird with her hands out in front of her.

But Cole didn’t take it easy. He kept his neck upright, his feathers ruffled, and gave another hiss as he slowly advanced on Limestone. Not surprisingly, because the Pie girl wasn’t watching where she was walking she tripped and fell onto her backside, which gave her a good view of Cole raising his right leg to attack.

“Limestone!” Aria shouted as she hastily rushed over and placed herself between Cole and Limestone just as Cole delivered his kick, causing her to take the blow instead of her friend.

“AHHH!” The Dazzling shouted as Cole’s toe claw made contact with her left leg, sending a sharp and searing pain running through it that sent her falling onto her side.

“Aria!” Both Limestone and Kiwi shouted as they each hurried over to aid the girl, completely disregarding the possibility of Cole attacking again.

Fortunately Cole appeared to have calmed down after striking Aria and he quickly moved to the other end of the stall, away from the group of girls.

“Fuck that hurts,” Aria uttered from between clenched teeth as she held her left hand up against the bleeding wound now on her leg.

“Oh god I’m so sorry, Aria,” Limestone emotionally apologized as her mind reeled trying to figure out what she should do to help her friend. “I’m so, so, sorry.”

“Don’t…don’t worry about it. I’m okay,” Aria tried to assure the distraught girl, unconvincingly, as she attempted to get up off her side. “Just…help me get back to the house.”

“Are you sure you want to move?” Kiwi inquired concernedly.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Aria confirmed. “I just need some help so that I don’t put too much…too much pressure on my leg.”

Kiwi and Limestone looked at each other for a second, silently asking one another if they were sure they should try to move Aria. And without saying a word, they each wrapped one of Aria’s arms around their shoulders and gently hoisted her up off the ground. The Dazzling gave a small grunt as she was lifted up, but managed to get onto her feet with relative ease.

“Alright, let’s go,” She told the two girls holding her up, prompting them to start walking.

As they all steadily made their way through the barn, Aria tried her best to keep her left leg slightly elevated in order to minimize the pressure she was putting on it, but knew that she couldn’t keep the action up for long. She only hoped that she’d make it to the house before she had to lower it back down, or at least make it close enough that it didn’t start to really hurt.

Thankfully Kiwi and Limestone seemed to be in relative synch in terms of the pace they were walking, so they were moving as quickly as they could without aggravating Aria’s wounded leg. They made it outside fairly quickly and headed straight for the house where Sonata was sitting out on the porch, presumably resting there after finishing up her cleaning. It wasn’t long before the pony-tailed girl noticed them and immediately ran out to them with a look of fearful concern on her face.

“What happened?!” She asked anxiously once she was close enough, her fearful look only growing once she saw her sister’s bleeding leg.

“Cole got a little defensive,” Aria answered. “Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

“I’ll go get the first-aid kit,” Sonata said before she rushed off and into the house as quickly as she could.

It wasn’t much longer before Aria, Kiwi, and Limestone made their way into the house as well, where they were immediately greeted by a worried-looking Adagio and Su-Z.

“Sonata told us what happened,” Adagio informed them as she hastily grabbed a chair from the kitchen and put it down in front of them. “Sit her down here.”

Kiwi and Limestone did as instructed and gently placed Aria in the chair.

“Let me see the wound,” Adagio said as she knelt down next to her sister in order to assess the damage to her leg.

“Calm down, sis, it’s not that bad,” Aria assured her older sibling just as Sonata ran into the room with the first-aid kit.

“What happened?” Su-Z asked Kiwi and Limestone as Adagio and Sonata attended to Aria.

Kiwi wasn’t sure how to answer her friend’s question. She obviously knew what the answer was since she was there when Cole struck Aria, but what she wasn’t sure of was how to answer. From a certain point of view it was plausible to say that it was Limestone’s fault because she’d been too reckless in trying to approach Cole, but she didn’t want to cast blame like that. Not only that, but the only reason Aria had gotten hurt was because she’d made the conscious and willful decision to step in front of Cole before he attacked, and Limestone could hardly be blamed for that part.

“It was all my fault,” Limestone spoke up before Kiwi had a chance to, sounding more remorseful than either PostCrush girl had ever heard anyone be remorseful before. “It was all my goddamn fault!”

After claiming guilt for the incident, Limestone abruptly ran out of the house with tears in her eyes, much to both Kiwi and Su-Z’s surprise. Kiwi almost went after her, but stopped herself when she heard Adagio speak up again.

“Well thankfully you’re right, it’s not that bad,” The eldest Dazzling informed her sister as she started going through the first-aid kit. “The wound isn’t deep enough that you’ll need to go to the hospital for stitches or anything. All we’ll need to do is sterilize it and then bandage it up with some gauze.”

A collective sigh of relief was heard throughout the room at the news that Aria would be fine and didn’t need to go to the hospital. As Adagio began applying first-aid to Aria’s leg, Sonata and Su-Z gathered around Aria to see if there was anything they could do or get for her. Kiwi, meanwhile, discreetly headed for the front door to check on Limestone.

As soon as Kiwi stepped out the door and onto the porch, she saw Limestone leaning face-forward against one of the nearby support posts by her arms, still with tears in her eyes.

“How is she?” The Pie girl emotionally asked her without turning her head away from the post.

“Adagio said Aria will be fine,” Kiwi answered compassionately. “The wound wasn’t that deep so she won’t need to go to the hospital.”

“Thank goodness,” Limestone replied in relief as she lowered her arms and ceased leaning against the post.

Limestone then made her way over to the chair where Sonata had been sitting earlier and dejectedly sat down in it, prompting Kiwi to take a seat in the chair next to her.

“How about you?” The PostCrush girl asked. “You okay?”

“Do I look okay?” Limestone answered pugnaciously.

From the belligerent way Limestone had answered her question, Kiwi began to wonder if maybe it would be better to give Limestone some space and let her sort through her feelings by herself. She started to get up from her seat to leave but was stopped when Limestone took ahold of her arm.

“Look, I’m…I’m sorry I got snippy with you just now,” She apologized as she let go of her arm. “I tend to get pretty defensive when I’m upset.”

“It’s fine,” Kiwi genially assured the Pie girl as she sat back down. “Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s just, I…I can’t believe I got my friend hurt like that,” Limestone confessed. “I came here to help her and I ended up getting her hurt.”

Once more, Kiwi found herself at a loss for words. There was no denying that Limestone’s actions did play a part in Aria getting hurt, but she still didn’t want to cast blame on her and make her feel even worse than she already was.

“I never should’ve agreed to do this,” Limestone continued dolefully. “I mean, I work on a rock farm for crying out loud. Why did I think I could help you guys with your emu?”

Kiwi dawned a confused look when she heard Limestone say that she worked on a rock farm…for a couple of reasons. For one, she didn’t know what a rock farm was or how one even farmed rocks, but mostly she was confused as to why Limestone had, in fact, agreed to help with the emu when she had no experience with farm animals before.

“So, why did you agree to do this?” She asked aloud.

“Because…” Limestone began to say before she precipitously paused to take a quick, deep breath. “Because Aria’s my only friend and when she asked me for help I didn’t want to tell her no.”

Now Kiwi felt confused for a whole different reason.

“Aria’s your only friend?” She asked.

“Yep. My only friend who’s not related to me anyways,” Limestone replied dejectedly. “As you’ve probably figured out I don’t have a very cherry disposition like Pinkie does, so most people don’t even try to be my friend when they meet me. Aria’s the only one who ever has, even after I tried to beat her up.”

Quite a few questions popped into Kiwi’s head in regards to the last part of Limestone’s sentence, but she refrained from asking any of them for the time being.

“When we had lunch together for the first time she opened up to me, confided in me, treated me like I’d been her friend for years,” Limestone continued. “No one other than my sisters had ever done anything like that before, and as time went on and we grew closer I really came to value our friendship. So when she called me and said she needed my help I just…I didn’t want to let her down, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it,” Kiwi sympathized with the distraught girl.

“I get it too,” Aria’s voice unexpectedly then said.

Both Limestone and Kiwi turned their attention towards the front door where they’d heard the voice coming from and saw Aria standing there, her left leg slightly elevated and wrapped in gauze where she’d been struck. Limestone immediately stood up like she’d just been caught in the middle of performing an embarrassing act. Kiwi stood up as well but not as alarmedly.

“H-How much of that did you hear?” Limestone asked anxiously.

“Just about everything,” Aria replied as she slowly started walking over to her friend, being mindful of her wounded leg. “And just so you know, Limestone, I value our friendship too. And that wouldn’t have changed if you’d told me no when I called you.”

“I-It wouldn’t have?” Limestone inquired emotionally.

“Nope,” Aria confirmed as she stopped directly in front of Limestone and put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I’m glad you wanted to help me so badly, but don’t ever feel like you’d be letting me down by saying no if it’s because you feel that you can’t.”

A single tear could be seen rolling down Limestone’s cheek when she heard this.

“I want you to be honest with me, Limestone,” Aria continued. “Even if that means giving me an answer you know I’d rather not get.”

Limestone dawned a small smile as she quickly wiped the tear from her face before responding.

“You got it,” She said. “But just know I’m going to remember that if you ever ask me to help you hide a body.”

“Good to know,” Aria replied jokingly.

The two girls shared a small laugh together right before Kiwi stepped forward and stopped at Aria’s side.

“And you know, Limestone, if you want more than one friend I’m willing to be your friend too,” She said sincerely.

Not surprisingly, Limestone was caught completely off-guard by this statement.

“Y-You are?” She asked.

“Sure,” Kiwi confirmed. “I’d be honored to be your friend.”

Another tear started to roll down Limestone’s cheek, but this time she let roll down without wiping it away.

“Thanks, Kiwi,” She responded wholeheartedly. “I’d be honored to be your friend too.”

After Limestone said this, the three girls just stood together in awkward silence for a few seconds until Kiwi decided to speak up.

“So, should we maybe…hug, or something?” She asked curiously.

“Hug?” Limestone said as she furrowed her brow. “Why would we do that?”

“I don’t know, it just feels like we should,” Kiwi replied. “I mean we all just had a big emotional moment together and it feels like we should cap it off with a group hug.”

Aria and Limestone looked at one another for a second before turning their heads away in embarrassment.

“W-Well if you guys want to hug I guess I’d be game for that as well,” The Dazzling stated.

“Y-Yeah,” Limestone concurred. “It’s not like I really want to hug or anything, but if that’s what you guys want to do I’m fine with it.”

Kiwi just playfully rolled her eyes at the very tsundere display by both Aria and Limestone before wrapping her arms around the two of them in a group hug. At first neither Aria nor Limestone returned the hug, but soon enough they wrapped their arms around one another and Kiwi and the group hug was complete. They stayed like this for a few seconds until they heard a voice call out to them from down by the driveway.

“Um, hi there,” Dolly Dusk somewhat awkwardly addressed them as she came up onto the porch, causing the group hug to promptly end. “Sorry if I’m interrupting something.”

“Oh, uh, hey, Dolly,” Aria greeted her niece, sounding more awkward than she had, as she walked over to her. “Don’t worry, you’re not interrupting anything.”

“Oh my gosh, Aunt Aria, your leg!” Dolly worryingly exclaimed as she noticed the gauze around her aunt’s left leg. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Oh it’s nothing, just a flesh wound,” Aria assured Dolly, trying to assuage her worry. “One of the emu got a little frightened and defensive is all.”

“Well, as long as you’re okay,” Dolly replied as she gave her aunt a hug. “It’s good to see you again, Aunt Aria.”

“It’s good to see you too, kid,” Aria warmly reciprocated as she returned the hug.

Both Kiwi and Limestone felt a twinge of warmth in their hearts as they looked on at Aria and her niece sharing a hug.

“Oh by the way, this is Kiwi and Limestone,” Aria introduced her friends as she broke the hug. “Kiwi lives with us now and works on the farm, and Limestone’s helping us with a little problem today.”

Needless to say, Dolly had a few questions for her aunt about how it was Kiwi had come to live with them, but she figured they could wait until after introductions.

“Nice to meet you both,” She said as she held out her hand to the two of them.

“Nice to meet you too,” Kiwi replied as she shook Dolly’s hand.

“Likewise,” Limestone said as she shook Dolly’s hand after Kiwi.

“Come on, let’s go inside,” Aria said as she headed for the front door. “Your mom’s been looking forward to your visit.”

And so Aria, Dolly, Kiwi and Limestone all headed inside, where they were immediately greeted to a warm reception by Sonata, Adagio, and Su-Z.

“Dolly!” Sonata shouted exuberantly as she wrapped her arms around her daughter in a big hug. “It’s so, so good to see you, sweetheart!”

“It’s good to see you too, Mom,” Dolly replied as she returned the hug.

After Sonata broke her hug with Dolly, Adagio immediately moved in for one herself.

“We missed you so much, honey,” Adagio affectionately told her niece.

“I missed you guys too, Aunt Adagio,” Dolly said back as she returned this hug as well.

Once Adagio broke her hug with Dolly, Su-Z then swiftly moved in and gave the girl a hug as well, much to everyone’s surprise.

“It’s so great to meet you, Dolly!” The PostCrush girl gleefully declared as she held Dolly tight. “I’m Su-Z!”

“Um…it’s great to meet you too, Su-Z,” Dolly unadroitly replied, not returning this hug on account of her arms being pinned to her side by Su-Z’s embrace.

Various looks of confusion could be seen throughout the room as Su-Z continued to hug Dolly for longer than the standard two to three seconds. Some looked away from the scene out of a sense of awkwardness, but no one said anything. That is, until Aria leaned over to Kiwi to ask her a question.

“What’s going on with Su-Z?” She inquired curiously.

Kiwi had a pretty good idea why it was that Su-Z was cozying up to Dolly like she was, but she knew that it wasn’t her place to say anything about it due to its incredibly personal nature. That explanation would have to come from Su-Z herself and at a time when she would feel comfortable enough sharing it.

“No idea,” The girl fibbed.

Soon enough Su-Z did let go of Dolly and all the girl’s sat down together in the living room to simply talk. Dolly was the focus for a while at the beginning with the Dazzlings, and Su-Z, asking her about things like how school was going and if she’d met anyone special. Eventually though the conversation shifted to the events of the morning thus far, brought about by Adagio.

“So did you guys manage to figure out what the problem with the emu was before Cole got violent?” The eldest Dazzling asked Aria and Limestone.

“No, we didn’t,” Aria admitted dejectedly. “It’s still a complete mystery.”

“Problem with the emu?” Dolly quizzically inquired. “What problem with the emu?”

“I can’t get close to them,” Kiwi explained. “Every time I try they just back away from me like I have the plague or something. We can’t figure out why.”

“Oh, it’s probably just because of your perfume,” Dolly speculated with no shortage of confidence.

Everyone else in the room immediately dawned faces of shock and confusion when they heard Dolly say this.

“My perfume?” Kiwi asked in her bewilderment. “I don’t understand.”

“Animals can be pretty sensitive when it comes to smell. I learned about it at school,” Dolly elucidated. “I mean, yeah, it was in regards to marine animals, but I’m guessing it’s the same when it comes to non-marine animals like emu as well.”

The more each of the other girl’s thought about it, the more it started to make sense to each them. How could they have missed something so simple, so obvious?

“And let me tell you, Kiwi, that stuff you’re using right now is pretty strong. I got a good whiff of it earlier when I shook your hand,” Dolly continued. “Flamma Santai, right?”

“Y-Yeah,” Kiwi confirmed.

“I thought so. You’ve got good taste in perfume, by the way,” Dolly complimented her. “But anyways, if you take a shower and wash that stuff off you’ll probably be fine.”

Within what seemed to be the span of a single heartbeat, Kiwi got up from her seat and dashed up the hallway, presumably heading for the bathroom to take a shower. It wasn’t much longer before the sound of the shower turning on was faintly heard in the living room, confirming what everyone had assumed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone run that fast before,” Adagio softly said to herself before turning towards Su-Z and Limestone to address them. “When Kiwi comes back out can you two go with her to the barn to see if the emu will let her near them? My sisters and I need a few minutes to talk with Dolly in private.”

Both Su-Z and Limestone agreed to Adagio’s request without quarrel. The next few minutes were once again filled with idol chit-chat amongst the group of girls until Kiwi reentered the living room after finishing her shower, at which point she, Su-Z, and Limestone all proceeded to go out to the barn.

As the three girls made their way to the barn, Kiwi couldn’t help but still feel a bit nervous about trying to get close to the emu. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe that Dolly was wrong about her perfume being the problem or that the emu would get violent again or anything like that, but after so many failed attempts already the feeling just came naturally to her. But despite this feeling, she still had hope that this time would be different.

Once inside the barn both Kiwi and Limestone thought it best to avoid Cole for the time being just in case he was still feeling defensive, so they went to Drew’s stall to try with him. Like all the other times, Kiwi approached the large bird slowly and extended her arm outward towards him. For a few seconds Drew just sort of stared at her, but eventually he took a few steps towards her, bridging the gap between them and allowing her to pet him. To say that this made Kiwi happy would be an understatement; it made her ecstatic, though she was careful not to let it show too much so as not to scare Drew. Su-Z and Limestone felt the same way as well, but likewise refrained from showing it too much.

After a few minutes of petting Drew, Kiwi went over to Tom’s stall to make sure that what happened with Drew wasn’t just a fluke, and sure enough it wasn’t. Tom let her get close enough to him as well, as did Brie, Pat, and all the other emu. Dolly had been right about what her problem had been, and now that the problem had been fixed she could do her job without hindrance. She was a bit sad that she’d stop having to use her Vita Parfum Flamma Santai perfume, but as far as she was concerned it was a small price to pay if it meant she could get close to the emu.

The three girls stayed in the barn with the emu for about an hour until they decided to return to the house, confident that the Dazzlings had finished talking with Dolly about whatever the Overlook was by that point, and for the rest of the day all seven of the girls just hung out together. They had lunch, played some games, talked a bit more, and even got a couple of pizzas for dinner. By the time the evening rolled around both Dolly and Limestone had agreed to stay a bit longer for movie night, and soon everyone was gathered around the TV.

“Okay, who’s turn is it to pick the movie?” Adagio inquired as she turned on the TV from the couch.

“I think it’s Aria’s turn,” Su-Z answered.

“That sounds about right,” Adagio replied as she handed the remote off to Aria. “Alright, Aria, what’ll it be?”

In all the chaos of the day Aria had completely forgotten that she was next up to pick the movie, so she didn’t have one already in mind like she usually did. Rather than spend time blindly scrolling through the Smart TV looking for something, she simply decided to just go with the first movie that popped into her head.

“Uh…Watchmen?” She said.

“Another superhero movie, what a shock,” Adagio remarked, feigning surprise. “And a three hour snoozefest of a superhero movie at that.”

“Hey, Watchmen is an excellent film,” Kiwi passionately defended the movie. “It managed to successfully translate the complex narratives of the book into a film that remained faithful to Alan Moore’s story.”

“Uh, I don’t know what Watchmen movie you’re talking about, but the one I’ve seen was not faithful to Alan Moore’s story,” Adagio retorted. “There were tons of supporting characters missing and there was no giant alien squid at the end.”

“Oh come on, those were extremely minor changes that didn’t affect the narrative of the story at all,” Kiwi practically barked back.

“Are you crazy? Of course those changes affected the narrative of the story,” Adagio rebutted vehemently. “By leaving out the giant squid at the end the whole story…”

As the two bullheaded girls continued to argue, Sonata, Su-Z, Dolly, and Limestone just stared on in both trepidation and amazement at the scene unfolding in front of them, unsure of whether or not they should try to intervene and put an end to it. Aria, though, knew better than to even speculate that she could stop the argument and just chose to ignore it as she started scrolling through the Smart TV in search of the movie she’d chosen.

“You know, in hindsight we probably should’ve just asked Fluttershy for help with the emu from the very beginning,” Sonata randomly said as she leaned over to her. “I mean, since she can talk to animals and stuff she probably could’ve solved our problem with the emu in like, a minute or two, don’t you think?”

Aria abruptly stopped scrolling when she heard her sister’s words. In that moment she dawned a thousand-yard stare straight ahead at the TV as she tried to figure out why it was that the thought of asking Fluttershy for help never once crossed her mind throughout this whole ordeal. Much to her dismay, she couldn’t come up with any answer other than it was because she’d had…a small lapse in critical thinking.

“Shut up, Sonata,” Was all she could say in response as she went back to scrolling, hoping that she’d find her movie soon so that she could just sit back and forget about the day she’d just had.

Code Clash or: An Impromptu Girls' Night Out

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“Call,” Adagio Dazzle said as she threw two white chips into the pot, being mindful not to knock over her glass of whiskey in the process.

“I’m out,” Kiwi Lollipop declared as she placed her cards face down on the table.

“Call,” Aria Blaze then said as she threw two white chips into the pot, followed promptly by four more white chips. “And raise four more.”

With Aria’s raise it became Su-Z’s turn, and the PostCrush girl just stared at the cards in her hand with a very convincing poker face as she contemplated how she was going to respond.

It had been about an hour now since the four girls had sat down to play some five card draw together, figuring it would be a nice way for everyone to unwind a bit after a long day of working on the emu farm. And for Su-Z that was proving to be true, but for Kiwi, Adagio, and Aria, not so much. Su-Z was proving to be a near unstoppable juggernaut of a poker player, having won approximately 85% of the hands thus far and showing no signs of letting up.

“Hmm,” The PostCrush girl uttered thoughtfully as she continued to examine her cards, much to Aria and Adagio’s chagrin.

Both of the Dazzlings were feeling especially vexed by Su-Z’s card-playing abilities, as they were used to being the ones on-top whenever they’d played five card draw in the past. Back when it had just been the two of them plus Sonata they’d always fared much better when they played cards, but now they were looking like a pair of rank amateurs. In fact, they were both feeling so irked by their present predicament that they were each starting to feel envious of Sonata, who was currently out on a date with Rainbow Dash, for being somewhere other than here right now.

After Su-Z was done looking over her cards, she turned her attention towards Aria and Adagio. With great intent she silently stared at them for a few seconds, studying their faces and analyzing them for any signs that either of them were bluffing. Of course since this was her first-time playing cards with the two Dazzlings she had no idea what any of their tells were yet, but that didn’t deter her from giving an expression that proffered the impression she was not only able to but was currently reading them like a book. Essentially, she wanted to make them feel nervous and uneasy, hoping that in doing so she might get them to involuntarily give a blatantly obvious tell that anyone would be able to pick up on.

Su-Z didn’t pick up on anything coming from Adagio, but she did see something coming from Aria. She noticed that the pig-tailed girl was very lightly tapping her right index finger against the table in a jittery fashion, and she took that to mean that the girl was bluffing.

“Alright then,” She said casually as she called Aria’s raise, and then threw two red chips into the pot as well. “I call and raise again.”

Almost as soon as Su-Z had thrown her two red chips into the pot, Adagio threw her cards down.

“I’m out,” The eldest Dazzling admitted reluctantly as she folded and then took a swig of her whiskey.

Although she didn’t display it visibly, internally Su-Z gave a sigh of relief that Adagio had folded, leaving only her and Aria left to battle for the pot. The PostCrush girl was all but certain that the other Dazzling would fold as well since she’d called her raise and raised the bet herself by two red chips, but she didn’t. Almost as soon as Adagio had folded Aria reached for her stack of red chips, no doubt to call her raise.

It took all of Su-Z’s self-control to not bite her lower lip in worry as she began to grow fearful that she’d misread the girl or, worse yet, fallen for a fake tell. She nearly let her emotions show when, all of a sudden, she witnessed something that put her mind at ease; Aria hesitating to pick up her chips. It was extremely subtle, but Su-Z knew she saw Aria’s hand pull back ever-so-slightly from her chips for a moment before grabbing them.

“I call,” The Dazzling said as she threw two red chips into the pot.

With the bet called both girls laid their cards down on the table for all to see, a look of smug satisfaction on each of their faces as they did so.

As Su-Z stared down at Aria’s cards, she was surprised to see that the Dazzling hadn’t been bluffing. As it turned out Aria had been holding the king of spades, the three of hearts, the three of clubs, the nine of clubs, and the nine of diamonds, giving her a two pair. A fairly good hand, to be sure, but thankfully not as good as the hand she’d been dealt.

“A straight?!” Aria blurted out in disbelief as she stared down at Su-Z’s seven of spades, seven of hearts, seven of diamonds, ace of spades, and ace of hearts.

“Yep,” Su-Z replied fortuitously as she reached over to the pot and started gathering the chips that comprised it. “Come to Mama.”

All Aria could do in response was slowly sink into her seat and give an exhausted sigh, unable to believe that she’d lost with such a good hand.

“How?” The Dazzling asked no one in particular. “How is she so good at this?”

“Years of experience,” Su-Z answered as she finished gathering her new chips. “I’ve been playing cards since I was thirteen and gambling with them since I was eighteen. In fact, it was through playing cards like this that I was able to make enough money to go to art school.”

Both Aria and Adagio couldn’t help but dawn expressions of mild surprise upon hearing this. Despite Su-Z’s obvious prowess for playing cards, she never struck either of them as the gambling type. Not only that, but they were also stupefied by the fact that the girl was apparently so skillful at cards that she’d been able to win enough money playing them to afford art school.

“Yes, and then you had to drop out of art school when you gambled all of your tuition money away,” Kiwi spoke up very candidly.

“Hey, that was different,” Su-Z promptly, and vigorously, replied. “I lost my tuition money betting on badminton, not playing cards.”

The looks of surprise on Aria and Adagio’s faces only grew.

“You gambled your art school money away?” Adagio asked in her bewilderment.

“You gambled on badminton?” Aria just as bewilderingly added.

Without even realizing it, a small blush crossed Su-Z’s face as she turned to face the two Dazzlings.

“Y-Yeah,” She said in vexatious embarrassment. “I was at a casino and had just won my tuition for next semester when I overheard a couple of well-dressed guys say that this badminton game was rigged. So naturally I figured I could win three semesters worth of tuition in one day and I ended up betting everything on the player I heard them mention. She ended up losing though, and after that I had to drop out of school and move back home.”

Neither Adagio nor Aria knew quite how to feel in that moment. On the one hand they felt bad that the reason Su-Z had to drop out of art school was because she couldn’t afford it anymore, but on the other hand, since the reason for her being unable to afford art school anymore was because she’d so foolishly gambled her tuition money away on badminton, they couldn’t feel too bad for her.

“Sorry to hear that,” Adagio said, trying her best to sound sympathetic.

“Yeah, that sucks,” Aria concurred.

“Thanks, but honestly the whole thing was kind of irrelevant,” Su-Z replied. “I would’ve had to leave school two months later anyways when my dad died.”

Once again, expressions of surprise became visible on the Dazzlings’ faces. Only this time Kiwi dawned an expression of surprise along with them.

“You never told me that,” Kiwi said, sounding almost wounded.

“It’s not something I like talking about,” Su-Z replied somberly. “It was completely unexpected and my mom had a really hard time dealing with it at first. She kept on acting like he wasn’t really gone and would say things like, ‘Your father’s just on a business trip, dear, he’ll be back soon’ or, ‘I wish your father would call me when he’s going to be late for dinner like this’. Eventually she came to terms with his passing, but for a few months I had to look after her to make sure she didn’t…try anything.”

Needless to say, the three other girls sitting at the table found Su-Z’s story to be nothing short of heartbreaking. Having to drop out of school, losing a parent, and having to take care of the other parent all within the span of a few short months; it was practically something straight out of a Shakespearean play.

Adagio, Aria, and Kiwi had no idea how to respond to such a woeful story, especially Kiwi. For as much as Kiwi felt taken aback by the sheer sadness of Su-Z’s tale, she felt just as equally taken aback by the fact that this was her first-time hearing it. While it was true that Su-Z had always been pretty private when it came to the subject of her family, she couldn’t believe that her best friend had never once mentioned all this stuff about her father and mother to her before now.

Not only that, but Kiwi also couldn’t believe that Su-Z had shared her story of her own volition, without any pressure or coercion applied. Su-Z had never opened up like that about her family when it’d been just the two of them on-tour.

“So your mom’s okay now?” Adagio asked concernedly.

“Yeah, she’s okay now,” Su-Z replied civilly, before suddenly becoming visibly peeved. “No thanks to Eclipse.”

Now Eclipse, Su-Z had mentioned to Kiwi before. Only a handful of times, but those handful of times were enough for Kiwi to learn that Eclipse was easily the touchiest subject when it came to Su-Z’s family.

“Who’s Eclipse?” Aria spoke up curiously.

“My twin sister,” Su-Z explained, sounding uncharacteristically venomous. “If you can even call her a sister. She certainly never acted much like one when we were growing up, always so self-centered and inconsiderate. You know she couldn’t even be bothered to come home for Dad’s funeral? Yeah, and when I told her about how Mom was having a hard time dealing with his death she just said, ‘I’m sure she’s not that bad, you can take care of her on your own, Supernova.’ The bitch.”

Kiwi knew that if she didn’t steer the subject of conversation away from Eclipse soon Su-Z was going to go on a full-fledged tirade that would likely end up lasting all night. She needed something, anything, to interject with to get everyone else to cease talking about Su-Z’s sister fast, but what?

“Hey, so, um,” She started to say as she desperately tried to think of a new topic of conversation. “Earlier today I was thinking about, um, maybe…getting the van fixed up!”

Much to both Kiwi’s delight and dismay, all eyes turned towards her after she said this. She was glad that she’d successfully gotten everyone’s attention so that they stopped talking about Eclipse, but now she had the little problem of keeping this new conversation going so that it stayed that way.

“I just thought, you know, it might be a good idea,” She continued with an awkward look on her face, making things up as she went along. “I mean, because there are five of us in this house and only one car so, um, it just seems like we should have more than one car, er, van…vehicle…whatever.”

Adagio and Su-Z said nothing as they looked on at Kiwi with confused expressions that seemed to silently communicate concern for her. Aria, on the other hand, didn’t even look in Kiwi’s direction, but instead looked almost straight down as she dawned what appeared to be a rather contemplative expression.

“That’s not a bad idea,” The pig-tailed Dazzling said. “We could really use another working car around here during the weekdays when one of us is at school, in case of emergencies.”

“And so that we don’t have to have pizza delivered anymore too,” Su-Z chimed in as she started gathering up all the cards on the table. “Seriously, that guy who always delivers our pizza creeps me out.”

“I agree,” Adagio concurred.

“The pizza guy creeps you out too?” Su-Z asked as she started shuffling the cards.

“No,” Adagio promptly replied. “Well, I mean I guess he does creep me out a little, but I was referring to getting the van fixed. It really does sound like a good idea.”

The eldest Dazzling then took another quick swig of her whiskey, finishing off the glass.

“I’ll look into the cost of it next time I go over our finances,” She concluded as she put the now empty bottle back down on the table.

Not more than two seconds after Adagio had finished speaking, the front door unexpectedly swung wide open and immediately attracted everyone’s attention over towards it. There they all saw a sight that was simultaneously sweet and fulsome; A clearly intoxicated Sonata and Rainbow Dash stumbling into the house, holding one another in their arms and gazing lovingly into one another’s eyes.

“I love you, Dashie,” Sonata said drunkenly as she and her lover slowly made their way through the living room, oblivious to the presence of her sisters and housemates just one room over.

“Not as much as I love you,” Rainbow Dash replied just as drunkenly before leaning in for a sloppy kiss with Sonata that made everyone at the kitchen table instantly turn away in great discomfort.

“Oh for the love of -,” Aria commented softly as she tried to ignore the kissing sounds that were now echoing throughout the house.

“Should we take this to your bedroom?” Rainbow suggested once she and Sonata broke their kiss.

“Oh, we should,” Sonata sultrily agreed just before the two of them rather clumsily scurried off towards Sonata’s room, leaving Su-Z, Kiwi, Adagio, and Aria alone once more.

There were a few seconds of silence in the kitchen as each of the four girls recomposed themselves after witnessing what had easily been the most uncomfortable public display of affection any of them had ever seen.

“Okay, I did not need to see that,” Su-Z remarked queasily just before Adagio stood up from her seat.

“Welp, looks like we have a Code Clash here people,” The poofy-haired Dazzling stated plainly as she made her way over to the front door and grabbed the car keys off of the small table next to it. “Let’s go.”

Aria got up from the table and joined her older sister over by the front door. Kiwi and Su-Z got up from the table as well, but neither of them left the kitchen. Instead, they just stood there with a couple of puzzled expressions on their faces as they tried to figure out what the heck Adagio was talking about.

“Um, a Code what-now?” Kiwi asked in her confusion.

“Code Clash,” Adagio replied, now sounding a tad confused herself. “You know, meaning that Sonata and Rainbow Dash are about to have sex very loudly?”

The looks of bewilderment on Kiwi and Su-Z’s faces only grew.

At first Adagio couldn’t figure out why it was that Kiwi and Su-Z didn’t know what a Code Clash meant, but she quickly figured it out. And when she did she swiftly turned her head to the side to face Aria, a censuring glower forming on her face as she did so.

“I thought you said you were going to explain the codes to them,” The Dazzling scolded her sister.

“I-I was, honest,” Aria replied hesitantly, having been caught off-guard by Adagio’s chiding. “But I just kinda…forgot about it after the whole thing with Kiwi and the emu.”

Adagio rolled her eyes in a derisive fashion in response to her sister’s excuse as Kiwi and Su-Z each began to wonder what these codes – plural – that they were apparently supposed to have been informed about by now actually were.

“Oh, Dashie!” Sonata’s voice suddenly moaned very sensuously from her bedroom, loud enough for all within the house to hear.

“Okay, time to go,” Adagio hastily said as she practically flew out the front door, followed promptly by Aria.

Even though Kiwi and Su-Z were still incredibly confused about a great many things at the moment, there was one thing that they knew with 100% certainty; They didn’t want to stick around the house for another second after hearing Sonata moan the way she just had. So the two of them quickly followed Aria and Adagio out the door and got into the car with them, and once everyone was buckled up they were all off on their way to somewhere far away from the nauseating sounds of Sonata and Rainbow Dash making love.

“Okay, so about the codes,” Aria said as she drove through the outskirts of Canterlot City. “They’re something Adagio and I came up with for all of the madcap stuff Sonata tends to get up to. As you’ve probably noticed by now she can be pretty…imprudent at times, so we figured a code system would be good for us to quickly communicate with one another what kind of stuff she’s up to when she gets like that.”

“Stuff like when her and Rainbow Dash have loud sex?” Su-Z inquired from the backseat.

“Precisely,” Adagio replied from the front passengers seat. “In fact, it was that very scenario that caused us to come up with the codes in the first place. The two of them rock the casbah fairly regularly.”

Kiwi couldn’t help but give a little chuckle as she suddenly got why it was Adagio and Aria had designated Sonata and Rainbow Dash having sex as Code Clash.

“So, what are the other codes?” She asked after she was done chuckling.

“Let’s see,” Adagio began to answer. “There’s Code Mabel, which means Sonata’s had a little too much sugar. There’s also Code Hughes, which means she’s become a germaphobe…”

“Code Fluttershy,” Aria interjected without skipping a beat. “Meaning she’s brought home a wounded animal that she found on the side of the road.”

“Code Black Swan, meaning she’s become jealous to the point of hysteria,” Adagio continued. “Code Lyoko, meaning she’s got it in her head that the world is just a computer simulation…”

As Adagio and Aria continued to list off the various codes they’d come up with in regards to Sonata’s shenanigans, Kiwi began to wonder how one person could possibly be so vivacious as to warrant such a system of crypto-speak when discussing them. Su-Z, meanwhile, began to wonder how it was that she and Kiwi hadn’t experienced a Code-related event until now, given how many there appeared to be.

“Wow,” Su-Z chimed in after Adagio and Aria had finished. “Sonata sure seems to lead a pretty active lifestyle.”

“You have no idea,” Aria replied rigidly as she sped up to catch a yellow light, barely making it through in time and bringing them within the city limits of Canterlot.

Once inside the city, Kiwi stared out the window for a bit to admire the bright lights and bustling life of the metropolitan landscape. She’d always loved big cities like Canterlot, even when she was a little girl living in a small, middle-of-nowhere town. They just always felt so alive to her, like there was always something going on in them even after the sun went down, which was why she’d chosen to buy a penthouse in Baltimare to live in whenever she wasn’t touring.

Those were good times. She sentimentally thought to herself as she started to recall the life she’d had back then, before losing everything to the record label and IRS.

While Kiwi had not only come to accept her new life on the emu farm but embrace it as well, part of her knew the deep down she’d always be a city girl.

After a few minutes of staring at the urban scenery around her, a rather interesting question was raised within Kiwi that caused her to cease her gawking. A question that, quite honestly, she was surprised she hadn’t even considered until just now.

“Hey, where are we going?” She inquired curiously as she leaned forward towards the center console. “I mean, I know our main objective was to get away from the house, but what now?”

“Now?” Adagio said as she turned her head around to look at Kiwi and Su-Z with an impish-looking smile on her face. “Now we have a girls’ night out!”

Admittedly, this was not what Kiwi had expected to hear from Adagio. And especially not so exuberantly.

“Really?!” Su-Z exclaimed almost as excitedly as she aggressively leaned forward towards the center console as well, practically squishing Kiwi’s face between her own and the front passengers seat in the process. “I’ve never been part of a girls’ night out before!”

A small groan escaped Kiwi’s mouth as she pulled her head back to free herself from between Su-Z and the seat, causing Su-Z to quickly shoot her an awkward and apologetic smile.

“Then you better prepare yourself,” Aria told Su-Z as she sped up to catch another yellow light. “Because girls’ night with us can get pretty crazy!”

Based on the amount of time that had passed since the traffic light had turned yellow and the current rate of acceleration of the car, Kiwi, Su-Z, and Adagio all had serious doubts that Aria was actually going to make it through this time. They each grabbed ahold of their seats just as the light turned red and the car zoomed through the intersection a split-second later, fortunately before any traffic from the perpendicular street had time to get moving again.

“Made it!” Aria declared triumphantly once they were fully through.

Sighs of relief and heavy-breathing were all that could be heard within the car for the next few seconds.

“Will you please stop running yellow lights like that?!” Adagio very heatedly asked her sister once her heartrate went back down to normal, which only caused it to go right back up again. “I swear, Aria, you’re going to get yourself killed one of these days doing that! And possibly get me killed along with you!”

“Oh please. If anything’s going to kill you, sis, it’s all that whiskey you drink, not me running a yellow light,” Aria replied presumptuously. “So relax a little, will ya?”

All Adagio did in response was mumble something under her breath that Aria couldn’t quite make out, nor could Kiwi or Su-Z.

“My heart is pounding like crazy,” Su-Z then randomly remarked, in a manner that suggested she was enjoying the sudden rush of adrenaline she’d just received. “This is going to be the best night out in the history of nights out!”

“Maybe I…should’ve stayed…home,” Kiwi softly remarked to herself as she tried to get her breathing under control, believing that perhaps she would’ve been better off simply enduring the sounds of Sonata and Rainbow Dash’s love-making than blindly following Aria and Adagio towards a night filled with unpredictable insanity.

In truth though, Kiwi was a tad bit excited about this girls’ night out as well. Like Su-Z she’d never been a part of one before, and she wanted to experience what one was like first-hand. She just had a bad feeling about this particular girls’ night out is all, and she prayed that by the end of it they didn’t need to get rid of a body like in that one Scarlett Johansson movie she’d seen where a girls’ night out had gotten a little too crazy.

After about another five minutes of driving, which thankfully didn’t involve any more yellow lights, Aria pulled the car into a medium-sized parking lot that appeared to be fairly full.

“Anybody see a spot?” She asked as she slowly coasted through the lot, shifting her eyes back and forth between what was directly in front of her and what was to her sides.

“I think I see one,” Kiwi spoke up as she peered out her window and pointed to where she thought she saw an open space. “On the other side of that black Mercedes.”

“Oh yeah, I see it,” Aria replied as she accelerated a bit more to get to the spot, fearing someone else might beat her to it despite the fact that there were no other moving vehicles in the lot. “Good eye, Kiwi.”

Sure enough, by the time Aria reached the spot Kiwi had spotted it was still open, and once the Dazzling pulled into it she turned off the car and everyone began to unbuckle their seat belts.

“Whoo, girls’ night!” Su-Z enthusiastically exclaimed as she opened her door and stepped outside.

Just as Kiwi was about to step outside as well, though without the loud declaration that it was girls’ night, she noticed Adagio rummaging around in the glove box, clearly looking for something.

“Ah, there you are,” The Dazzling said as she pulled out a small metal tin from the compartment and handed it off to her sister. “Here, you hold onto this tonight.”

“Alright,” Aria said casually as she took the tin and tucked it away in her pocket just before getting out of the car.

Although Kiwi had only seen the tin for a few seconds, she could’ve sworn she’d seen it somewhere else before. Not that tin specifically, but one very much like it. The fact that she couldn’t place it right away nagged at her mind for a few seconds, but soon enough she recalled where it was she’d seen it; On a TV commercial for something like breath mints or gum.

Figuring that Adagio and Aria simply didn’t want their breath to smell like alcohol the entire evening, Kiwi didn’t give the tin much second thought.

“This way,” Adagio addressed her and Su-Z as she and Aria started making their way through the parking lot.

“So where are we going?” Su-Z asked excitedly as she followed closely behind the two Dazzlings. “A Bar? A nightclub? A strip club?!”

Since no one was looking at her, Kiwi gingerly gave a small facepalm.

“I doubt a small city like Canterlot has any male strip clubs, Su-Z,” She told her friend as she lowered her hand from her face.

“Oh, it has one alright,” Aria replied, sounding like she’d been there before. “But that’s not where we’re headed.”

Aria then turned her head around to face Kiwi and Su-Z, an impish smile on her face not unlike the one Adagio had given the two of them in the car earlier.

“At least not right now,” The Dazzling continued. “Right now we’re headed to a nightclub about a block away.”

Once they were out of the parking lot the Dazzling and PostCrush girls headed west towards the nightclub Aria had mentioned, and as they did so Kiwi began to admire the city around her once again. Canterlot may have been a smaller city compared to others she’d been to like Baltimare or Whinnyapolis, but it was still a city teeming with activity and life. Most of the stores and shops they passed as they walked were still open despite the late hour and a fair number of people were still walking up-and-down the sidewalk as well. It was all just as she remembered it being when she’d still been living in Baltimare or touring for PostCrush, and it helped her forget about the concerns she had regarding this girls’ night out.

As the four girls continued to walk down the street, Su-Z peered ahead a bit to try and see where exactly it was they were headed. She expected to see a large, elegant-looking building similar to the nightclubs she’d frequented in other cities while on-tour, but she didn’t see any such building. All she saw were a variety of stores, restaurants, and what appeared to be just a large brick wall with a neon sign on it and an ATM embedded into it. Nothing even close to what she would consider a nightclub.

“Here we are,” Adagio said as she and Aria suddenly ceased walking…stopping right in front of the large brick wall.

Su-Z and Kiwi both stopped walking as well and looked over to see that what had appeared to be an ATM from a distance was actually just a small door. They then looked up to see what the neon sign above it read.

Chaus

Neither of them knew what this meant. Kiwi figured it was either an Italian or Latin word by the sound of it, but had no idea what it translated to in English.

“This place seems…nice,” Su-Z commented, unconvincingly.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Aria said as she and Adagio headed for the door. “Just wait till we get inside.”

Following the Dazzlings’ lead, Kiwi and Su-Z catenated behind them as they entered the building. Once they were through the threshold, they found themselves in a large but narrow antechamber adorned with sconce light fixtures and artwork on the exposed brick walls. On the other end of the room was a door with a bulky-looking man guarding it, presumably the bouncer.

“Still just nice,” Su-Z whispered to Kiwi as they continued to follow behind Aria and Adagio.

“Good evening, Axel,” Adagio greeted the man once she was close enough to him.

“Good evening, Ms. Dazzle, Ms. Blaze, ladies” The man, apparently named Axel, greeted back as he opened the door for all of them.

As soon as the door was open, the sound of upbeat club music immediately came blasting through from the room on the other side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lhjRdfyGRo

Instinctively, both Kiwi and Su-Z winced at the sudden assault of loud noise on their eardrums. Adagio and Aria, however, did not, and proceeded to step on through into the other room with ease. After a few seconds, Kiwi and Su-Z joined them and were instantly blown away by where they now found themselves.

The two PostCrush girls and two Dazzlings were standing atop a platform with stairwells on either sides of them, overlooking a massive room with a dancefloor that took up the center of it. Surrounding the dancefloor were a number of tables with a bar located on the far-right side and a performing stage located on the far-left side. It was difficult to tell just how many people there were in the room, but considering that the dancefloor alone had to have at least 70 people or so on it one could easily guess the total capacity to be somewhere around 200 people.

It was as true a nightclub as any other either Kiwi or Su-Z had ever seen, and they were both amazed that such a place existed in Canterlot City.

“Okay, this is more than just nice,” Su-Z remarked in her amazement.

“No kidding,” Kiwi added as took it all in.

“Told you,” Aria then said, her voice containing a hint of smug amusement.

“Come on, I see an open table,” Adagio instructed everyone as she headed for the left stairwell.

Aria, Kiwi and Su-Z followed Adagio down to the main floor. Once there they all weaved their way through the large crowd of people and over to the free table that Adagio had spotted; a small booth located against the back wall that could seat roughly five people, which Kiwi was surprised to see available given the number of people in the club and how nice it was.

“Ooh, such soft Corinthian leather,” Su-Z remarked, for some reason with a smooth Spanish accent, as she sat down in the booth and scooted inwards to allow Kiwi to sit next to her on her left.

Adagio then entered the booth and scooched in to Su-Z’s right, leaving a spot to her right free for Aria to sit. But Aria didn’t take a seat.

“I’ll get some drinks,” The pig-tailed Dazzling said. “What’s everyone want?”

“The usual for me,” Adagio replied.

“Um…” Su-Z then said as she tried to think of what it was she wanted to drink. “…Just get me something that has a high volume of alcohol.”

It wasn’t that surprising that Su-Z didn’t know much when it came to spiritous drinks. When she and Kiwi were touring the two of them had agreed to stay away from alcoholic beverages for fear that they might ruin their singing voices, so naturally neither of them were exactly alcohol aficionados. It wasn’t until recently when Kiwi partook of some of Adagio’s Jim Beam after a bad day on the farm that they had decided to lift their self-imposed prohibition, since it was clear that their performing days were well and truly behind them.

Even still though, Su-Z had never seemed so interested in consuming alcohol until now. And Kiwi couldn’t help but wonder why.

“Club soda with cranberry juice for me,” Kiwi answered, earning her a few confused looks from everyone else.

“Oh come on, Kiwi, live a little,” Su-Z told her friend. “It’s girls’ night!”

“We need a designated driver, Su-Z,” Kiwi bluntly stated in response. “I don’t want to die in a car crash by the end of the night because we were all too buzzed to drive safely. And since everyone else is getting drinks I guess that means it has to be me.”

“Y-Yeah, okay,” Su-Z replied, sounding disappointed. “Good point.”

A couple of seconds of uncomfortable silence followed, brought about by the noticeably tenser atmosphere now surrounding the group of girls.

“I’ll, uh, be right back with the drinks,” Aria broke the silence just before heading off towards the bar.

While it was clear to all three girls still at the table that tensions among them were now higher than they had been only a minute ago, none of them quite knew why.

“Anyone want to dance while we wait for Aria?” Adagio spoke up, determined to get the night back on the right track. “Judging from how busy the bar looks it might be a while before she gets back with the drinks.”

“Me, me! I wanna dance!” Su-Z promptly replied as she raised her right hand, clearly back to her usual energetic self.

“I’m good,” Kiwi simply answered.

Adagio started scooting over towards the open end of the booth with Su-Z not far behind her so that Kiwi didn’t have to get up. However, the two girls didn’t make it out of the booth as someone swiftly sat down at the open end, blocking them in.

“Thought I saw you girls come in,” The mystery person said as they put their drink down on the table.

All three sets of eyes immediately turned towards this brazen mystery person who thought they could just invite themselves over to their table, and who they saw made each of them shutter internally; it was the creepy pizza delivery guy.

“Oh, uh, hi there, um…” Su-Z replied, not quite politely but politely enough, as she tried to remember the guy’s name.

“Dart,” The guy introduced himself/reminded Su-Z. “And you’re…Suz, right?”

“Su-Z,” The PostCrush girl corrected him, with no small hint of annoyance in her voice.

“Right, right, Su-Z,” Dart said as he leaned in closer to Su-Z, essentially shoving Adagio out of the way and causing Su-Z to lean back a bit. “So, what brings you here tonight, Su-Z?”

Taking note of how much Su-Z clearly didn’t want to talk to Dart, which somehow Dart himself was completely oblivious to, Kiwi leaned forward across the table to tell the creep to buzz off. But before she could, Adagio pulled Dart off of her and spoke up first.

“We’re here because Su-Z’s father died recently and we’re trying to cheer her up a bit,” The Dazzling said.

Not surprisingly, Kiwi and Su-Z both looked at Adagio with confused expressions for a second, but they soon figured out why she’d said what she just had. She was trying to get Dart to leave by making him feel like he’d intruded on a very private party.

“Oh, man, I’m sorry to hear that,” Dart said sympathetically, remaining in his seat and showing no signs of getting up. “My dog died last year so I get how hard something like that can be.”

The fact that Dart had just compared losing a dog to losing a parent really ticked Su-Z off. Sure, if Princess Thunder Guts died she knew she’d be sad about it, but she also knew that she wouldn’t be as sad about it as she’d been when she’d lost her father.

Much like Kiwi had done a moment ago, Su-Z leaned forward with the intension of telling Dart to take a hike. But once again Adagio intervened first.

“It can be hard losing someone you care about, can’t it?” The Dazzling feigned sympathy while doling out her patented charm. “But let’s not talk about such unpleasantness. Why don’t you tell us, tell me, all about yourself.”

In an effort to really draw Dart’s attention to her, Adagio brought both of her hands up to her chin so she could rest it on them, making sure that her arms smooshed her breasts together enough to prominently display them. While it was true that Adagio was the least endowed of the Dazzlings, she more than made up for it by knowing just how to use them to captivate anyone’s attention she wanted, guy or girl.

“W-Well,” Dart began to say as he tried to make it look like he wasn’t ogling Adagio’s bosom, which he obviously was. “As you know I’m delivering pizzas at the moment, but that’s just until me and my band make it big and…”

As Dart continued to ramble on about himself and take occasional glances at Adagio’s cleavage, Su-Z took a few scoots to her left. Not only to get some distance from the guy, but also to whisper something to Kiwi.

“You don’t think Adagio’s actually into him, do you?” She asked her friend.

“I sure hope not,” Kiwi answered just as Aria returned to the table with drinks in-hand.

“Uh, who’s he?” The pig-tailed girl asked as she placed all the drinks she’d been carrying down on the table.

“Dart. He’s the guy who always delivers our pizzas,” Kiwi said. “He just sat down at our table and tried to hit on Su-Z, but Adagio interjected and started chatting him up.”

At first Aria looked over at her older sibling like she had two heads or something, but as soon as she saw how Adagio was presenting her breasts to Dart she understood what it was her sister was doing. And what she needed to do now that she was back.

“Is that his drink?” The Dazzling then asked Kiwi as she pointed to the bottle Dart had put down on the table when he’d first shown up.

“Yeah,” Kiwi replied.

“Good,” Aria said as she reached into her pocket.

Initially Kiwi and Su-Z thought Aria was reaching into her pocket for her phone, but they soon realized that they were wrong in that assumption when the Dazzling instead pulled out the small tin that Kiwi had noticed Adagio giving her earlier.

Wasting no time, Aria opened the tin and pulled a small white square out of it. She then quickly checked to make sure that Dart’s attention was 100% on Adagio, and when she confirmed that it was she proceeded to reach over to his drink and drop the small white square into it. After which she sat down at the edge of the booth next to Kiwi.

“What was that?” Kiwi asked the Dazzling in a low hush, a bit of alarm evident in her voice. “What did you just put in his drink?”

“A tranquilizer,” Aria replied far too casually as she put the tin down on the table before taking a sip of her drink.

“A what?!” Kiwi then asked, wanting to make sure she’d heard Aria correctly.

“A tranquilizer,” Aria reiterated as she looked down at the still open tin. “Either that or a chiclet. It’s kinda hard to tell the difference between them just by sight.”

“Wait a minute,” Su-Z chimed in. “So if that was a tranquilizer, then the next time he takes a sip from his drink he’ll fall asleep soon after, right?”

“Pretty much,” Aria replied.

A sly smile crossed Su-Z’s face as she took a quick glance over at Dart before returning her attention to Aria.

“Excellent,” She deviously remarked.

Kiwi couldn’t believe what she’d just heard from Aria…or from Su-Z either for that matter. Aria had to be joking, right? There was no way she’d actually just slipped Dart a tranquilizer. That little white square was just a really strong breath mint or something that would ruin the taste of his drink, not leave him unconscious, right? But regardless of all that, was Su-Z being serious right now as well? Was she seriously okay with the idea of drugging someone? Sure Dart was kind of a creep and couldn’t take a hint to fuck off, but even someone like him didn’t deserve to be slipped a freaking tranquilizer.

As Kiwi’s mind continued to reel with how wrong this whole situation had become, Dart picked up his bottle and took a swig of his drink.

“Oh that is too funny,” Adagio said as she feigned beguilement at whatever Dart had just said. “Please, continue.”

“Okay, so there I was on the roof of the building,” Dart continued his story after he put his drink back down. “And I hear this weird sound like a broken trombone or something, right? So I lean over the edge to see what it was, and there, right below me on the sidewalk, there was…was…”

Dart abruptly ceased talking as he began to show some very visible signs of disequilibrium, but managed to remain upright in his seat.

“There was this…big cat…” He continued on, trying to act as though he was completely fine when he clearly wasn’t. “And it had a -”

And just like that, Dart started to fall sideways towards the table as he lost consciousness, only to be caught by Adagio before he made contact with it.

“Finally,” The Dazzling remarked as she discreetly sat Dart back up so that he appeared to be sitting normally. “I wasn’t sure how much longer I could pretend to be interested in hearing about his stupid band, or his even stupider idea for opening a rooftop juice bar.”

“Hehe, rooftop juice bar,” Su-Z chuckled in amusement. “How would that even work? I mean, who would go all the way up to some random apartment building’s roof just for juice?”

“Not only that, but who even goes to juice bars anymore?” Aria chimed in. “Those things stopped being popular years ago when the whole health craze died down.”

“I know, right?” Adagio replied. “There’s no way something like that would be financially sustainable today.”

While this conversation between the three girls was going on, Kiwi sat silently in the middle of it all and simply stared intently at the unconscious Dart, trying to convince herself that none of what had happened in the last few minutes had actually happened. Aria hadn’t slipped Dart a tranquilizer, Su-Z hadn’t acceded to such an action, and Dart definitely wasn’t sitting unconscious only a few feet away from her. Alas though, the reality of the situation was too much for the poor girl to deny, and she soon found herself on the precipice of a panic attack.

“We drugged someone,” She said anxiously to no one in particular. “We’re going to jail. Oh dear god we are going to jail.”

The conversation going on between Adagio, Su-Z, and Aria ceased when they all heard Kiwi’s panicky words.

“Relax, Kiwi, everything’s going to be fine,” Adagio assured the distraught girl before taking a sip of her drink. “We’ve done this kind of thing to douchey guys on almost every girls’ night out and never had any problems.”

Hearing this did not help Kiwi relax. In fact, it had the exact opposite effect and elevated her already high anxiety levels even higher, causing her to begin hyperventilating.

“Breathe, Kiwi, just breathe,” Su-Z tried to comfort her overly-anxious friend.

Just then, a beautiful woman with long, luxurious white hair wearing a black business suit with a red shirt and black tie tucked into it approached the table as a new song started to play throughout the club.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiTTLu4_MEc

“My, my. If it isn’t The Dazzlings, or at least two-thirds of them anyways,” The woman greeted them with a very devil-may-care attitude, her voice containing a subtle but noticeable British accent. “What a surprise to see you here, since I don’t recall booking you for a performance tonight.”

“We’re just here on a girls’ night out, Lucy,” Adagio replied on the qui vive.

“Oh, how fun,” The woman, apparently named Lucy, said as she shifted her attention over to Kiwi and Su-Z. “And I see you’re spending it with a few new friends too.”

It was then that Lucy extended her right hand out in front of the two PostCrush girls.

“Lucy Beel, owner of Chaus,” She introduced herself. “It’s such a pleasure to have the girls from PostCrush in my club.”

“You know who we are?” Su-Z asked surprisedly as she shook Lucy’s hand, followed promptly by Kiwi doing likewise.

“But of course. As a nightclub owner I need to keep up with all the biggest names in the music industry,” Lucy replied. “And let me just say that I was absolutely shocked when I heard your record label dumped you. Two of the most talented names in pop music getting let go simply for asking for their fair share of the money made off of their art, so disgraceful.”

“Oh, um, t-thank you,” Kiwi replied as she started to calm down a bit.

Once introductions and flatteries were all done Lucy shifted her gaze over to the other end of the table, where the unconscious Dart was sitting. And as soon as she noticed him her eyes narrowed slightly and she turned to face Adagio, causing Kiwi’s anxieties to shoot right back up.

“What happened to him?” She asked the Dazzling.

“He couldn’t take a hint,” Adagio answered coolly. “So we had to put him down for a little nap.”

And that was the final nail in Kiwi’s coffin of anxiety. Adagio had essentially just admitted to the club’s owner that they’d drugged someone, and now Lucy was going to have security detain them while she called the police. And once the police arrived they were going to take them all to jail, a place Kiwi knew she wouldn’t survive. She’d seen enough prison dramas to know she’d most likely become one of those prison bitches who got passed around amongst her fellow inmates in exchange for cigarettes...if she was lucky. There was also the possibility that she would simply end up getting shanked on her first day for inadvertently looking at someone the wrong way. In either case, she knew it was game over for her as a cold sweat began to form on her forehead.

“I see,” Lucy simply replied with an exhausted sigh, much to Kiwi’s surprise. “Well just make sure he’s the only one you ‘put down for a little nap’. I don’t want half of my patrons falling asleep and unable to buy drinks.”

“That’s really up to the rest of the male patrons here,” Aria replied. “But we’ll try to be good girls.”

“Please do,” Lucy said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a club to oversee.”

As Lucy began to walk away, Kiwi once more found herself in a state of complete disbelief. How was it that Lucy, the owner of Chaus, was so okay with someone being slipped a tranquilizer in her club? Didn’t she have some sort of responsibility to report such an explicitly illegal action to the authorities, if for no other reason than to cover her own liability as a business owner? Of course, Kiwi wasn’t complaining that Lucy was taking such a laissez-faire approach to this whole situation, since it meant she would avoid going to jail.

Even still though, the morality of all this was something that Kiwi knew would continue to plague her mind for the foreseeable future.

“Oh, and Kiwi, Su-Z,” Lucy said as she turned back around to face the group of girls. “If you ever feel like performing again, come and see me. I’d love to have you play here.”

And just like magic, all of Kiwi’s thoughts and worries about the tranquilizer were instantly banished from her mind.

“R-Really?” The girl asked.

“Of course,” Lucy replied. “Having PostCrush play here would definitely be good for business.”

Just then, a man who was dressed similarly to Axel approached Lucy, tapped her on the shoulder, and whispered something into her ear.

“Tell Raziel I’ll be right there,” Lucy told the man before returning her attention to Kiwi and Su-Z. “Just think about my offer, girls.”

“We will,” Su-Z said as Lucy started walking away once again. “It was nice meeting you.”

For about the umpteenth time that night, Kiwi found herself in a state of incredulity. A chance to perform again, in front of a live crowd? Albeit a smaller crowd than what she’d grown accustomed to while on-tour, but a live crowd none-the-less? It just seemed too good to be true.

“We have to play here, Su-Z,” The girl said with gusto as she grabbed ahold of her friend’s shoulders. “We have to play here!”

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Aria remarked. “Lucy’s pretty infamous for making shady deals with musicians that end up screwing them over.”

“Believe us, we know,” Adagio added.

Kiwi immediately let go of Su-Z and turned to face Adagio, a look of befuddlement on her face.

“You’ve…done business with her before?” The girl asked.

“You could say that,” Adagio answered cryptically. “A few years back she approached us and offered us a contract worth somewhere around $500,000 a year to perform here for five years.”

Both Kiwi and Su-Z’s jaws dropped when they heard this. $500,000 a year? For a club gig in Canterlot City? It was unheard of.

“The problem was that the fine print stated we could only perform here,” Aria took over. “Plus, Lucy would’ve had complete control over when we’d gotten paid. So legally she could’ve paid us nothing until the end of our contract if she’d wanted to, and we would’ve been powerless to do anything about it.”

If Kiwi and Su-Z’s mouths hadn’t already been hanging wide open, they certainly would’ve been now. Having worked with a record label for how many years they were no strangers to trying to be screwed over, but what Aria and Adagio were describing was practically the modern-day equivalent of a Faustian deal.

“You can probably guess that we didn’t sign when we learned this,” Adagio concluded the story. “Just thank goodness we had a lawyer look over that contract when we did.”

As Adagio took a sip of her drink after finishing her story, Kiwi felt a mixture of despondency and relief come over her. She was sad that the hope Lucy had just given her of performing again turned out to be false hope, but she was also relieved that Adagio and Aria had warned her about Lucy before she ended up making a huge mistake. Despite how much she wanted to jump at an opportunity to perform again, she wasn’t desperate enough to allow herself to be taken advantage of.

“Hold on,” Su-Z spoke up, sounding puzzled. “If Lucy tried to screw you guys over, why do you still come to her club?”

“Cause it’s a nice club,” Aria answered, as if stating the obvious. “And she doesn’t call the cops when we tranq douchey guys.”

And just like magic, all of Kiwi’s thoughts and worries about the tranquilizer were instantly returned to the forefront her mind. The PostCrush girl looked over at Dart, who unsurprisingly was still out cold, and was once more filled with moral shame and dread for having been complicit in drugging him.

“Alright, let me out,” Adagio spoke up as she scooted over closer to Su-Z. “I want to get some dancing in before another creep comes up and tries to hit on one of us. Of course knowing my luck some creep will just come up to me while I’m dancing.”

“Yeah, probably,” Aria said as she got up from the booth to let her sister out, followed by Kiwi and then Su-Z.

“Well if that happens I’ll just deal with them the old-fashioned way,” Adagio remarked as she walked off towards the dancefloor.

“The old-fashioned way?” Kiwi inquired tentatively, fearful of what the answer would be.

“Kicking ‘em in the nads,” Aria explained, a wicked smile forming on her face as she did so.

Sure enough, Kiwi wasn’t all that thrilled with the answer she’d just received. Though she figured that, at least from a moral standpoint, kicking a guy in his family jewels was slightly better than drugging him. Slightly.

“Come on, Kiwi,” Su-Z exclaimed as she grabbed her friend’s hand and practically dragged her over to the dancefloor. “Let’s dance!”

Kiwi said nothing as Su-Z forcibly schlepped her across the club. She wasn’t really in the mood for dancing after everything that had just happened, but at the same time she really didn’t want to rain on Su-Z’s parade either. It was still her friend’s first girls’ night out, and even though Kiwi couldn’t for the life of her figure out how it was that Su-Z was still as pumped and energetic as she was, the last thing she wanted was to be what ruined this night for her. So she decided that, for the time being, she’d try to put aside her anxieties and make an effort to have a good time. For Su-Z’s sake.

But Kiwi knew that all those anxieties weren’t going to remain on the sidelines forever, and that when they eventually came back she was going to need to have some very difficult and uncomfortable conversations with her best friend…and Aria and Adagio as well.

Thankfully, the rest of the night went by fairly smoothly for the girls. No other creeps tried to hit on any of them at the club, they had no trouble getting a room at Starlight Karaoke later on when they felt like singing, and they were even able to find a cake shop that was still open when they inexplicably decided they wanted some cake. They almost had an incident at the strip club though when Su-Z tried to get a little too handsy with one of the male strippers, but fortunately Kiwi managed to keep her friend under control. After the strip club they decided to call it a night and head home, believing that by now Sonata and Rainbow dash would be done with their love-making and fast asleep.

As it had been since leaving Chaus, Kiwi was the one who drove since she was the only one who hadn’t consumed any alcohol throughout the night. Su-Z, who was completely sauced at this point, sat next to her in the front passengers seat and Adagio and Aria sat in the backseat. Or rather, Adagio and Aria lied down in the backseat since they’d both fallen into a drunken slumber almost as soon as they’d gotten into the car, with Aria lying on top of Adagio’s large, poofy hair.

“This was soooo much fun!” Su-Z remarked in her intoxicated state as they left the city limits. “We’ve got to do…do another girls’ night out like this sometime soon.”

“Oh yeah, totally,” Kiwi replied, sounding more humoring than sincere. “Just maybe next time we don’t do something illegal like drugging someone.”

“Wha?” Su-Z asked confusedly. “Oh, you mean that whole thing with…with…the creepy pizza delivery guy who’s name I can’t remember right now.”

“Yes, that whole thing with Dart,” Kiwi said.

“Relaaax, Kiwi,” Su-Z told her friend as she leaned in closer to her. “All we did was slip him a little something to make him go night-night, he’ll be fine. And Lucy’s not gonna call the cops on us or anything for doing it, so it’s all good.”

“No, Su-Z, it’s not all good!” Kiwi retorted fiercely. “I don’t care that we’re not going to jail for drugging Dart! I mean, I do care that we’re not going to jail, but even still I’m bothered by the fact that we drugged him, period! It was wrong! It was wrong and I don’t understand why it is you’re so okay with that!”

Kiwi had expected an immediate response from Su-Z, but she didn’t get one. So she turned her attention to the passengers seat for a second to see Su-Z practically huddled next to the car door with tears starting to form in her eyes.

“Look, I’m…I’m sorry, Su-Z,” She apologized as she returned her eyes to the road, realizing she might have been a bit to harsh on her inebriated friend. “It’s just, I…I don’t feel like I understand you lately. When we were touring together you never opened up about your family to me, but ever since we started living with the Dazzlings you’ve been telling stories about your dad dying and how you had to take care of your mom and all sorts of stuff like that. And then tonight when Aria and Adagio slipped Dart a tranquilizer you actually seemed happy about it.”

The tears that had been forming in Su-Z’s eyes started to dry up as she listened to Kiwi’s words.

“Just help me understand all of that, Su-Z,” Kiwi concluded.

In truth, Kiwi didn’t actually expect Su-Z to explain why it was she seemed to be acting differently lately, what with her being drunk and all. But much to her surprise, out of the corner of her eye she saw Su-Z sit back up-right in her seat and look at her with a very earnest expression on her face.

“I dunno why I’ve been so chatty ‘bout my family lately,” The girls said. “But I do know the reason I was happy that Aria slipped Dart that tranquilizer was ‘cause he was ruining our first girls’ night out with our new family and I wanted him to stop. Even if that meant having to put him to sleep for a while.”

It took all of Kiwi’s self-control not to give any kind of physical reaction to Su-Z’s explanation even though every instinct she had said to, least she accidently jerk the steering wheel and end up driving the car into a ditch or something.

“Our new family?” She asked with no shortage of bewilderment. “What are you talking about?”

“You know, our new family,” Su-Z replied. “The two of us, plus Adagio, Aria, and Sonata. We’re a family, aren’t we?”

In all honesty, Kiwi had never thought about their relationship with the Dazzlings that way. Sure that relationship was technically employee-employer, but when she really thought about how much the Dazzlings had welcomed them into their lives and their home the argument could be made that they were all a family.

“Y-Yeah, I guess so,” She told Su-Z.

Even though she was completely brickfaced, Su-Z was able to pick up on Kiwi’s hesitancy.

“Well I think we’re a family,” Su-Z went on. “At least more of a family than my actual family.”

“What do you mean?” Kiwi inquired.

“I mean we’re all a lot closer to one another than me and my sister, mom, dad, and I ever were,” Su-Z explained. “Growing up we never did any of that fun family stuff like go on vacations or build a snowman together, so we never really developed a real closeness to one another, ya know?”

It was then that all the pieces of the puzzle came together for Kiwi. She finally got why this girls’ night out had meant so much to Su-Z and why she’d had such a strong desire for it to be the best night out ever, no matter what.

All she wanted was the kind of fun, family togetherness time that she never got growing up.

Of course this was in no way justification for her blatant complacency in drugging Dart, but at least now Kiwi understood why her friend had been acting the way she’d been tonight.

“Now don’t get me wrong, I love my parents,” Su-Z continued. “They both worked super hard to make sure Eclipse and I were taken care of growing up, but that was kinda part of the problem. They were always so busy, busy, busy that they never had a whole lotta time to spend with us. And I don’t think I need to re-explain what a bitch Eclipse was for you to figure out how close the two of us ever were.”

“Yeah, no. I got that,” Kiwi assured her friend.

“You’ve always been more of a sister to me than she ever was, Kiwi,” Su-Z said, now sounding pretty emotional. “I…I love you so much!”

Without warning, Su-Z then flung herself over the center console and wrapped her arms around Kiwi in a very sloppy hug, much to Kiwi’s chagrin.

“For god’s sake, Su-Z, let go of me!” The girl shouted frantically as she desperately tried to maintain control of the vehicle.

“I love you!” Su-Z repeated as she continued to hug her best friend. “I love you, I love you, I love you!”

“I love you too!” Kiwi replied as she took one hand off the wheel real quick to push Su-Z off of her. “Now just…please let go of me!”

Thankfully Kiwi was able to remove Su-Z from her person before she lost control of the car, and soon after Su-Z fell into a drunken slumber just like Aria and Adagio had earlier.

It wasn’t much longer before Kiwi reached the emu farm and pulled the car up the driveway. Once in front of the house she turned the car off, got out, and wondered whether she should try and wake the others up or just let them sleep. Figuring that if she were them she’d want to be woken up instead of left to sleep in the car, she opened one of the back doors and was caught off-guard by the sight before her; Aria with her arms wrapped around Adagio’s hair like it were a pillow. After a few light giggles she leaned into the car and gave the pig-tailed girl a few shakes to try and rouse her from her sleep. Aria didn’t wake up.

However, what Kiwi’s shaking did do was cause the small tin which had been in the Dazzling’s pocket to fall out and onto the seat. Immediately sensing an opportunity to prevent any future tranquilizer incidents, Kiwi grabbed the tin and put it in her own pocket with the intention of throwing all the tranqs, chiclets, and whatever else within down the garbage disposal once she got inside.

After trying and failing to awaken Aria once more, Kiwi then tried to wake up Adagio. Adagio didn’t wake up either, nor did Su-Z when she tried to wake her up next. Since there was no way in hell Kiwi was going to drag each of the three girls out of the car and into their beds, she just decided to let sleeping drunks lie and headed up to the house.

As Kiwi made her way inside, she hoped that Su-Z, Aria, and Adagio all managed to get a good night’s rest. Because first thing in the morning she was going to give them a very stern talking to about the many, many reasons why it’s wrong to slip someone a tranquilizer. Even if that someone happens to be a creepy, douchey guy.

Using Magical Geodes For Fun and Profit

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“I already told you, Sonata, the answer is no,” Adagio Dazzle adamantly told her sister as she cleared her plate from the breakfast table.

“Aw come on, Dagi,” Sonata Dusk said back from her seat at the table, practically whimpering. “All I need is $100 more to get Dashie that Racing Style Urklenomic Gaming Chair she’s been looking at online for her birthday.”

“Ergonomic,” Kiwi Lollipop chimed in from the seat next to Sonata’s after she’d swallowed the cereal that she’d been chewing.

“Huh?” The youngest Dazzling uttered in confusion.

“It’s Racing Style Ergonomic Gaming Chair,” Kiwi clarified. “You said Urklenomic, which I’m fairly certain isn’t a word.”

“It isn’t?” Sonata asked. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Kiwi replied.

“Huh,” Sonata then said as a thoughtful expression crossed her face. “What about Reaganomics? Is that a word?”

“Reaganomics?” Su-Z asked curiously from the other side of Sonata. “Where did you hear that?”

“On TV,” Sonata answered. “Someone on one of those channels that’s always talking about the stock market and other business stuff said it.”

A puzzled look soon appeared on both Kiwi and Adagio’s faces as each of them silently asked themselves the same question; Why had Sonata been watching that kind of television program? Adagio quickly lost her perplexed expression though as she rolled her eyes in a derisive fashion. This kind of nonsense first thing in the morning was something she neither needed nor wanted, especially on what was easily her least favorite day of the month; finance day.

Finance day was, as the name suggested, the day where Adagio would sit down and go over the households various financial concerns. Financial concerns such as matching credit card receipts against credit card statements to ensure accuracy, evaluating cash flow over the past month to make sure they weren’t spending more money than they were bringing in, and setting a budget for the upcoming month, to name a few. Basically, all of those oh-so-fun things that came with being a financially responsible adult.

Initially, when the Dazzlings had been living with Sunset Shimmer, finance day wasn’t that big of a deal. Their expenses were fairly minimal back then so there wasn’t much for Adagio to manage, but now that they had the emu farm and were supporting Kiwi and Su-Z it wasn’t so easy anymore. So naturally it was always a fairly stressful day for the Dazzling leader, one that was currently being made even more stressful by Sonata’s shenanigans. Though thankfully Kiwi seemed to be taking the brunt of said shenanigans at the moment instead of her.

“Um, I’m not really sure,” The older of the two PostCrush girls answered Sonata’s query. “I mean I know it’s a term that’s used to describe economic policies during the ‘80s, but I don’t know if it’s a word that’s actually in the dictionary.”

“I see,” Sonata replied prudently before turning her attention back over to Adagio, her facial expression instantly shifting back to one of mewling as she did so. “So can I have the money, Dagi? Pretty please?”

“Ugh,” Adagio moaned out in frustration, wishing in that moment that it had been her who’d left for CHS a few minutes ago instead of Aria so that she didn’t have to put up with all of this incessant pestering. “For the last time, Sonata, no!”

Sonata winced slightly in her seat upon hearing Adagio raise her voice to her. She then averted her gaze from her older sister and lowered her head in a defeated manner, silently signaling that she now understood Adagio’s answer loud and clear.

Seeing Sonata suddenly become so dour, Adagio felt a small but powerful twinge of sadness in the bottom of her heart. She didn’t enjoy having to resort to making Sonata feel intimidated like she just had in order to get her point across. At least, not anymore. But unfortunately there were simply times when being so stern was the only way she could get her younger sister to understand the reality of a particular situation. Times like this one, for example, when the situation involved their collective finances.

After giving a nearly inaudible sigh of regret, Adagio opened her mouth to try and explain to Sonata why it was she couldn’t accommodate her request for $100. However, before she could get one word out she was interrupted by Su-Z, who leaned over closer towards Sonata from her seat.

“Hey, you don’t need to get Rainbow Dash that gaming chair for her birthday,” The PostCrush girl compassionately said. “I’m sure she’ll love anything you get for her.”

“Yeah, your gift doesn’t need to be something really big like that,” Kiwi concurred just as compassionately. “A gift card to her favorite restaurant would probably work just fine.”

Sonata’s dejected expression didn’t change.

“I suppose so,” She replied.

No longer able to continue witnessing Sonata’s morose disposition, Adagio once again opened her mouth to speak. Only this time she opened it with the intent of saying something that would hopefully raise her younger sibling’s mood.

“Tell you what, Sonata,” She started to say. “If our expenses weren’t too bad for this past month and I find we have a $100 surplus, you can have it to buy that chair for Rainbow Dash.”

Within the span of about a microsecond, Sonata lifted her head back up and stared up at Adagio with a face that could only be described as beaming with joy.

“R-Really?!” The girl asked enthusiastically.

Adagio simply gave a small smile and silently nodded in response, causing Sonata to hastily get up from her seat and embrace her in a great big bear hug.

“Oh thank you, Dagi!” Sonata gratefully exclaimed as she practically squeezed the life out of her older sister. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“You’re…welcome,” Adagio simply replied as she suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

Both Kiwi and Su-Z couldn’t help but give a few small, amused chuckles at the sight of Sonata’s overly exuberant display of sisterly love and Adagio subtly attempting to free herself from her sister’s hold. Neither Dazzling seemed to notice this. Or if they did, neither of them gave any visible reaction to it.

Eventually Sonata released Adagio from her vice-like hug, much to the poofy-haired girl’s relief, and once she did she turned around to face both Kiwi and Su-Z, a look of intense conviction now on her face.

“Alright, girls, let’s get out there!” She said as though she were a commander addressing her troops. “Those emu aren’t going to take care of themselves!”

And with that, Sonata walked out of the room, and then out the front door, with a swagger that gave the impression that she was a girl on a mission, much to the perplexion of the three girls still remaining within the kitchen.

“Well, at least she’s not sad anymore,” Su-Z remarked in her befuddlement.

“Yeah,” Kiwi concurred, a slight hint of skepticism evident within her voice.

Adagio said nothing.

As Su-Z returned her attention from the front door back to the kitchen, her eyes briefly caught notice of the clock hanging on the wall in the living room, and upon noticing what time it was proceeded to get up from the table.

“I guess it is time to get to work though,” She said as she headed for the front door, though not with the same swagger that Sonata had just a moment ago. “If I don’t get Leo up and out of the barn soon he’ll just sleep all day long.”

Kiwi waited until Su-Z was outside before getting up from the table herself, though she didn’t head for the front door like her friend just had. Instead, she simply turned to face Adagio, dawning a very ruminative expression that made the Dazzling feel a tad uneasy.

“Be honest with me,” The former popstar started to say. “Do you really believe you’ll find a $100 surplus that you can give to Sonata?”

Adagio didn’t answer right away, and not because she’d been caught off-guard by Kiwi’s question or anything like that. She didn’t answer right away because, in all honesty, she wasn’t sure what she believed. Part of her mind was telling her that there wasn’t a snowballs chance in hell she’d find a $100 surplus within their finances, but another part of her mind was telling her that she couldn’t know for certain whether the money was there or not until she actually sat down and ran the numbers. It was one of those conflicts between accepting near-absolute certainty or choosing hope that was difficult for anyone, even the leader of the Dazzlings, to be truly decisive on.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” She solemnly began to answer as she lowered her head and folded her arms beneath her bosom. “It’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility that I will find a $100 surplus, it’s happened before. But admittedly it’s been a while since we had a surplus at all, so…I just don’t know.”

An awkward moment of silence between the two girls followed.

“I see,” Kiwi simply said in response before turning around and heading for the front door.

Feeling that she sensed the faintest hint of judgement within Kiwi’s voice, Adagio immediately brought her head back up to defend her answer. But when she saw that Kiwi had stopped in the doorway and was once again staring at her, now with a look of intense excogitation on her face, she remained silent.

“A bit of advice, Adagio; Don’t give people false hope,” She said. “Sometimes false hope is worse than no hope.”

This time, Adagio had been caught off-guard by Kiwi’s words. And not just by her words either, but also by the sheer amount of sentiment behind those words, like she was speaking directly from her heart. It was enough to leave the Dazzling speechless as Kiwi turned around, headed outside, and closed the door behind her.

For a few seconds Adagio simply stood motionless within the kitchen as she tried to contemplate what could have possibly happened to Kiwi to cause her to hold such an unusual disposition, and so strongly at that. In all the time she’d known the PostCrush girl she’d never heard her sound so obdurate before. Granted she hadn’t known her all that long, but still. Eventually the Dazzling leader placed her query regarding Kiwi in the back of her mind for later. Right now she had much more pressing matters that required her undivided attention.

After briefly shaking her head in a symbolic gesture for removing the unwanted thought from her conscious mind, Adagio exited the kitchen and headed up the hallway leading towards her bedroom so that she could finally get started on getting the household finances in order.

“We have got to start buying a cheaper oatmeal,” Adagio remarked to herself as she finished entering what seemed like the millionth receipt into her spreadsheet.

It had been about two hours now since Adagio had sat down at the desk in her room and started working on the household finances, and not surprisingly she was already beginning to feel exhausted. Despite the relative ease of things like checking credit card statements and entering various receipt amounts into an Excel spreadsheet, the incredibly repetitive nature of it all was enough to quickly zap the Dazzling leader’s energy and make her feel a bit worn out. How some people managed to do this sort of stuff for a living was a complete and utter mystery to her.

“Let’s see what the damage is here,” She said as she grabbed the next receipt for entering.

As Adagio skimmed the receipt in her hand, she found that it was from a pet store and consisted mostly of dogfood. Premium dogfood, to be more precise.

“Marvelous,” She said sarcastically as she typed the amount on the receipt into her computer.

Almost as soon as Adagio had completed entering the amount and put the receipt with the others she’d already gone through, she heard a small, short yipping sound come from behind her. Instinctively she turned around to see what the source of the noise had been and, to no surprise, found the source to be none other than Su-Z’s dog, Princess Thunder Guts.

When it came to Princess Thunder Guts, Adagio had mixed feelings regarding the petite pooch. She couldn’t deny that having a pet dog had its advantages, like making the house feel a little livelier and giving Sonata someone to play with who could keep up with her whenever she consumed too much sugar. But she also couldn’t deny that it also had its disadvantages. Princess Thunder Guts was a very high-maintenance pet, one that had a strict diet consisting of expensive dogfood and required almost daily bathing and grooming using only the finest of pet care products. So it goes without saying that she, as the household financier, harbored a few grievances about having the wee pup around.

“How did you get in here?” She asked the small dog, who was sitting on the floor about halfway between her chair and the door.

Adagio then looked up to find that the door to her room was, much to her surprise, slightly ajar. She could’ve sworn that she’d closed it after entering the room, but apparently she hadn’t closed it all the way, allowing Princess Thunder Guts to nudge it open and walk right on in.

Naturally Princess Thunder Guts didn’t answer Adagio’s question. All she did was continue to sit on the floor with her tongue sticking out of her open mouth and stare up at the Dazzling with a gleam in her eyes as she panted lightly.

“Whatever,” Adagio said as she turned back around, choosing to ignore the miniature mutt.

Just as Adagio reached for the next receipt that needed entering, she once again heard a small, short yipping sound coming from behind her. This time though, she didn’t turn around. A few seconds later when she started skimming the next receipt for the amount she heard yet another yip, but again she didn’t turn around. A few seconds after that she heard many yips repeating one right after the other, and it was then that she finally caved and turned around.

“What, dammit?!” She heatedly addressed Princess Thunder Guts as she spun her chair around.

As if seeing Adagio turn to face her were some sort of cue, Princess Thunder Guts proceeded to run up to her and jump right up onto her lap in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

“Hey!” Adagio said as her mind caught up with the fact that she now had a small dog sitting on her lap.

Princess Thunder Guts didn’t remain seated for long though. Before Adagio had a chance to try and remove the tiny interloper from her person, Princess Thunder Guts got up onto her hind legs, placed her fore legs on the Dazzling’s chest, and gave the girl an affectionate lick on the cheek.

Adagio didn’t take this very affectionately though.

“Why you little-” She said, now sounding downright pissed off, as she picked up Princess Thunder Guts, got up from her seat, and held the bitch out in front of her.

In spite of Adagio’s very infuriating feelings towards her at the moment, Princess Thunder Guts remained stouthearted. She continued to stare at the Dazzling with the same gleam in her eyes, even as she was being held up in the air against her will by the girl.

The longer Adagio stared back at Princess Thunder Guts, the more the gleam in the dog’s eyes began to have a noticeable effect on her. Specifically, she could feel her agitation slowly beginning to abate. She couldn’t explain how, but within that gleam she saw something that made her understand what it was that Princess Thunder Guts wanted; companionship. The Lilliputian creature she was holding in her hands wasn’t trying to annoy her or distract her from her work, she was just feeling lonely and wanted some company. And since Su-Z, Kiwi and Sonata were out in the barn and Aria was at CHS, that meant that she was the lucky soul who was chosen to provide that company.

It wasn’t long before Adagio’s irritation abated completely and she gave a defeated sigh. She then sat back down, placed Princess Thunder Guts back onto her lap, and looked down at the small dog with a stern, but not too stern, expression on her face.

“All right, you can stay,” She told the pup. “But you have to stay quiet, you have to stay on my lap, and you have to keep your tongue to yourself. Got it?”

Like before, Princess Thunder Guts didn’t answer the Dazzling’s question. All she did was continue to sit on the girl’s lap with her tongue sticking out of her open mouth as she lightly panted. Adagio took this as an acknowledgement that the petite pooch understood her, since she had just told her to stay quiet and all. And so with that she swiveled the chair back around so that she could get back to work, being mindful that she left a fair amount of room between herself and the desk as she did so. She didn’t want to inadvertently squish her new lap ornament.

As Adagio went back to work entering receipts, Princess Thunder Guts remained relatively well-behaved. She stayed on the Dazzling’s lap, she stayed quiet, and she didn’t try to lick the girl’s face as instructed. There were, however, a few times where she tried to lay a paw on the laptop while Adagio was typing, but only a few. It wasn’t difficult for her to eventually discern that touching the laptop was a no-no after the Dazzling gently swatted her paw away each time she reached for it.

All-in-all it only took Adagio about another hour to finish entering all the receipts. She hadn’t finished everything she needed to do to figure out the budget for next month, but she was at least at a point now where she could tell whether or not there was a $100 surplus that she could give to Sonata. And just as she’d feared, there wasn’t a $100 surplus. In fact, there was no surplus whatsoever. The numbers clearly showed that they had gone over-budget for the last month, and quite significantly at that.

“Dammit!” The Dazzling hollered as she slammed her laptop shut in frustration, causing Princess Thunder Guts to wince.

Upon realizing that she’d spooked the small dog on her lap, Adagio took her right hand and began to pet the poor thing in a very gentle and soothing manner.

“Sorry,” She apologized. “It’s just…why do I even bother setting a budget each month if no one’s going to adhere to it?”

Adagio then wrapped her arms around Princess Thunder Guts and got up from her seat.

“I mean, last month we spent over $100 on socks alone. Who needs that many socks?” The Dazzling leader continued to vent as she walked over to the window. “And all of that anime Aria keeps buying off of Amazon. Why the hell can’t she just get a Crunchyroll account to watch all of that stuff instead of buying all of those discs?”

In truth, Adagio knew that frivolous spending was only part of the reason their finances were in the red. The other part, arguably the bigger part, was that they were hardly making any money off of their emu. It had been the hopes of her and her sisters that bringing Kiwi and Su-Z on to assist them with the farm would help yield larger profits from the large birds’ oil, feathers, and eggs, but alas this hadn’t been the case thus far. Not because Kiwi or Su-Z were bad farmhands, far from it, but rather because of the emu themselves. They simply weren’t producing many eggs and their oil and feathers were proving extremely difficult to collect without harming them. And as if that weren’t bad enough, they were also having difficulty just trying to get what they had to retail on account of the fact that they had such small quantities to sell.

In short, unless more money started coming in from the emu, things weren’t likely to change financially for the five girls living on the farm. At least not for the better.

Once Adagio reached the window she stared out at the wide-open, flat landscape of the farm, as did Princess Thunder Guts. She could see the barn and part of the enclosure behind it where the emu roamed around most of the day from her vantagepoint, but she couldn’t see any emu, which was strange given the time of day. Usually by now all of the emu were let out to stretch their legs, yet she didn’t see a single one out there.

“Hope they didn’t run into any trouble out there,” She softly said aloud, referring to Sonata, Kiwi, and Su-Z.

Just then, Princess Thunder Guts gave a couple of quick yips that immediately drew Adagio’s attention. The Dazzling looked down at the small dog she was holding in her arms to see that something outside had clearly caught her notice, something significant enough to cause her to start making a small fuss. Curious as to what this something was, Adagio promptly brought her head back up to try and see it for herself. What it was she saw she found to be strangely both comedic and sad at the same time; An emu running around outside of the enclosed area with Sonata, Su-Z, and Kiwi chasing after it in a manner that looked like something straight out of The Benny Hill Show.

“Ah geez,” She said as lowered her head in embarrassment, finding that the classic comedy routine wasn’t as fun to watch when it involved her sister and housemates.

Princess Thunder Guts on the other hand seemed to be enjoying the show just fine. She couldn’t stop barking at it.

“Okay, I think we’ve had enough of that,” Adagio said as she pulled herself and Princess Thunder Guts away from the window, feeling that the petite pooch was getting a little too worked up.

As Adagio started making the short walk from the window back to her desk, a rather interesting thought popped into her head.

“You know, it’s too bad they don’t have Fluttershy’s geode,” She casually said aloud. “If they did then they probably wouldn’t have to-”

Adagio stopped herself midsentence, as well as stopped herself physically, as the interesting thought that had popped into her head abruptly became a metaphorical lightbulb that just clicked on in her head.

“Fluttershy’s geode,” She said softly to herself, right before she dawned an uncharacteristically wide smile and held Princess Thunder Guts out in front of her. “Fluttershy’s geode! That’s the answer!”

Naturally, Princess Thunder Guts winced a bit at Adagio’s sudden shouting, unaware that the girl was shouting for joy as opposed to shouting because she was angry.

“S-Sorry,” Adagio apologized as she once again held Princess Thunder Guts close to her chest, hoping that doing so would show the small dog that she wasn’t upset with her.

The Dazzling’s strategy seemed to work, as soon enough petite pooch was back to her usual, happy-go-lucky self.

“But don’t you see? With Fluttershy’s geode we can talk to the emu and get them to produce more eggs and oil and feathers!” She excitedly explained to the petite pooch. “If we can do that then we shouldn’t have a problem getting our products to market and we’ll finally start making some real money off of this farm!”

Feeling an overwhelming sense of excitement over her idea, along with a bit of self-satisfaction for having come up with the idea, Adagio took a seat on her bed and laid Princess Thunder Guts down next to her. She then began to contemplate how she would go about asking Fluttershy for help. The first way that came to mind was for her to just wait until it was her turn to be CHS’s librarian again and ask her then, but she didn’t like that option. She didn’t want to wait that long. The second way was for her to wait until after school and call Fluttershy, but she didn’t like that option either. Given the enormity of her request she figured it would be to ask it in-person. Plus she didn’t even want to wait that long. That only left one third and final option; She’d have to go to CHS and try to catch Fluttershy when she was at lunch. If it wasn’t already too late in the day that is.

Wasting no time, Adagio hastily reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone to see what time it was.

“Only 11:30,” She said aloud.

Perfect. That meant that as long as she could find a ride to CHS within the next ten minutes she would arrive at the school just in time to catch Fluttershy as she headed to lunch. The only problem was finding a ride in time. Since Aria had taken their only working vehicle to CHS earlier in the day she would have to rely on one of those ride-sharing services to get her to her destination, and those services weren’t always very quick in terms of picking people up. But what other choice did she have if she wanted to get to CHS by lunchtime?

“Where did I put that damn app?” Adagio asked herself as she started scrolling through her phone for the ride-sharing app she’d downloaded a while back.

After a few seconds of searching, the Dazzling found the app she’d been looking for and quickly opened it to request a ride. Once her request had been completed, she got a notification that a ride would be by to pick her up in approximately six minutes.

“Six minutes, huh?” She commented, sounding a tad skeptical, as she looked down at the notification before putting her phone back into her pocket. “Let’s hope so.”

With only about six minutes to get ready to leave, Adagio promptly got up from her seat on the bed, gathered what she needed to from her desk, and headed out into the hallway. She perhaps got halfway down the hall before she heard the tiny patter of paws on the hardwood floor coming from behind her. She stopped and turned around to see, who else, but Princess Thunder Guts emerging from her bedroom and heading right over to her.

“Oh for the love of-” She muttered to herself just before Princess Thunder Guts suddenly jumped up as she ran towards her.

Adagio instinctively reached her arms out to catch Princess Thunder Guts, and once the petite pooch was within her grasp she gave out another small, happy-sounding yip.

“No, you can’t come to school with me,” The Dazzling informed the small dog, interpreting her yip to mean that she wanted to tag along, before putting her down on the floor. “You have to stay here. So stay.”

Convinced that Princess Thunder Guts would follow her command, Adagio turned back around and once again headed for the front door. She didn’t get more than three steps forward before she heard paws pattering on the hardwood floor again.

“Oh for-” She said as she stopped, turned around, and looked down to see Princess Thunder Guts standing at about the same distance from her as when she’d put her down a second ago.

Figuring that another command to stay would do her no good, the Dazzling leader gave a small sigh as she summoned her wits about her to find a way to get out of the house without being followed. It took her a few seconds, but she was able to come up with an idea she thought just might work. But first she needed to gauge something really quick.

Without turning back around so she could keep an eye on Princess Thunder Guts, Adagio took one step backwards. And sure enough, not more than a second and a half later Princess Thunder Guts took a few steps forward until she was only a few feet away from her again.

“Quick little thing, aren’t you?” She softly said.

Now that Adagio knew just how quick she’d have to be to execute her plan successfully, she took a few more steps backwards until she was practically right up against the door. Princess Thunder Guts followed behind her, or rather in front of her, closely. After the petite pooch had stopped again, Adagio used her right hand to reach behind her and grab ahold of the doorknob. This was it. In one fluid motion, the Dazzling swiftly turned the doorknob, opened the door only a fraction of the way, slipped through the opening, and promptly closed the door behind her once she was outside, all within the span of about a second and a half.

“Ha!” She blurted out in triumph when she noticed that Princess Thunder Guts hadn’t made it outside.

Adagio’s victory was short lived though, as a few seconds later Princess Thunder Guts walked through the doggie door that Su-Z had installed in the front door a week ago.

“Oy vey,” The Dazzling leader uttered in complete and utter befuddlement as she stared down at the small dog, who was once more standing only a few feet away from her.

The synapses in Adagio’s brain struggled to fire correctly as she tried to come to grips with the fact that she’d just gone through all of that to try and keep Princess Thunder Guts in the house…only for her to easily walk through the doggie door. She just couldn’t believe she’d done all of that for nothing. But more than that, she just couldn’t help but feel like an idiot for forgetting that the doggie door was there in the first place.

Suddenly feeling like her legs were turned to jelly, the Dazzling gently fell to her knees and extended both of her arms out in front of her.

“You win,” She defeatedly admitted as she waved her fingers towards herself, beckoning for Princess Thunder Guts to come over to her.

Princess Thunder Guts seemed more than happy to oblige by Adagio’s beckon, because in the blink of an eye she rushed over to the girl and jumped right up against her chest.

After she found the strength to get back on her feet, Adagio picked herself back up and, with dog in-hand, walked over to one of the patio chairs to wait for her ride. Thankfully the wait wasn’t a long one, as a couple of minutes later a car matching the one from her notification pulled into the driveway, right at the six minute mark. When Adagio went to get into the car though there was a slight problem; the driver, a stout middle-aged woman, said that she couldn’t bring Princess Thunder Guts with her. But luckily the Dazzling had anticipated such a potential problem while she’d been waiting and had come up with a solution she felt would rectify it.

“If you let me bring the dog I’ll give you a five-star review and a 20% tip,” She told the driver.

And that was all it took for the problem to go away. The driver told Adagio that she had a deal, and as soon as everyone was buckled up they were off to Canterlot High School.

If Adagio hadn’t agreed to give the driver a five-star review and 20% tip at the beginning of the ride, she sure as hell wouldn’t have bestowed either upon her. Aside from arriving at CHS just in time for lunch liked she’d expected, the ride had been simply awful. The middle-aged woman had made a number of sharp turns where she went slightly over the curb, ran at least two stop signs, and at one point even yelled obscenities at an elderly woman in front of her whom she’d felt had been going too slow. It had truly been a nightmare of a ride, one that the Dazzling was grateful to have walked away from in one piece as she sauntered up the approach to Canterlot High School with Princess Thunder Guts in her arms.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m never using one of those ride-sharing services again,” She said to the small dog, which caused Princess Thunder Guts to give a small yip that she interpreted as an agreement.

As the Dazzling and her K-9 companion continued up the approach towards the school’s main entrance, Adagio couldn’t help but make note of how quiet and virtually deserted the whole front area of the school was. It was vastly different compared to the bustling of students, faculty, and staff getting ready for another day that she was used to seeing in the mornings when it was her turn to serve as librarian. The quiet and emptiness were almost eerie by contrast, and in a small way it made her feel glad that she’d ended up bringing Princess Thunder Guts along with her.

It didn’t take Adagio long to reach the main entrance, and just as she reached for the door to open it a startling realization hit her like a wrecking ball.

“Pets aren’t allowed at school,” She very matter-of-factly stated.

Adagio felt like giving herself a facepalm for having forgotten something else so incredibly obvious, but refrained from doing so since she was holding on to Princess Thunder Guts. First the doggie door earlier and now the school policy regarding pets, what was next? Forgetting her own sisters’ names?

“Really hope I never become that forgetful,” The Dazzling leader said, the very thought of ending up so absentminded making her cringe internally.

Putting aside her fears of potentially suffering from dementia someday, Adagio refocused all of her mental energy into how she was going to deal with the immediate problem she was facing; What to do about Princess Thunder Guts without breaking the school’s no-pets policy. At first she thought maybe she could just leave the small dog outside while she spoke with Fluttershy, but she quickly concluded that such an idea was terrible. The risk of Princess Thunder Guts running off was far too great. Maybe she could call Fluttershy on her cell phone and ask her to come outside so they could talk instead? No, that probably wouldn’t work. The school had another policy about students not having their cell phones on them during school hours, so in all likelihood Fluttershy didn’t have her phone on her right now. And even if by chance the Rainboom did happen to have her phone on her Adagio didn’t want to possibly get her in trouble for it.

It seemed like every idea that the Dazzling came up with was crazier and less likely to be successful than the last. But eventually she thought of an idea that was so crazy that it might just work.

“Okay, listen up,” She addressed Princess Thunder Guts as she held the petite pooch out in front of her. “I need you to do me a favor while we’re inside so I don’t get in trouble for breaking the school’s no-pets policy. I need you to play dead so that if anyone asks why I’m carrying you I can just say that you’re a plushie or something. You got that? I need you to play dead.”

All Princess Thunder Guts did in response was continue to stare at her as she panted lightly.

It was then that Adagio hung her head in total dejection. What was she thinking? Believing that Princess Thunder Guts could simply play dead on-command or that such a ploy would actually fool anyone even if she could? What a joke. Forget suffering from dementia someday, she was already suffering from delusion for even entertaining such an outlandish idea.

“Celestia help me, I think Sonata’s asininity is rubbing off on me,” She said aloud as she pulled Princess Thunder Guts back in and up against her chest.

Now convinced that her whole plan had been crazy from the very beginning, Adagio turned around and started to head down the front steps. She realized that it probably would have been better if she’d just been patient and waited until after school to call Fluttershy instead of hailing a ride-share-from-hell to talk to her sooner and in-person, all while bringing her housemate’s dog along and then asking said dog to play dead while at school on top of it. At this point it was probably best to just call it quits and head on home.

It wasn’t until the Dazzling reached the bottom of the steps that she realized she had a little problem.

“We’re stuck here unless we do the ride-sharing thing again,” She said.

Not wanting to risk getting into another ill-tempered person’s car, Adagio quickly decided not to pull out her phone and request another ride from her ride-sharing app. Instead, she simply took a seat on the front steps of the school as she tried to figure out what she was going to do now.

“I don’t suppose you have any ideas, do you?” She asked Princess Thunder Guts rhetorically.

Princess Thunder Guts gave no response…at all.

“Hey, you okay?” The Dazzling then asked, concerned by the small dog’s lack of any verbal or physical acknowledgement to her question.

Again, Princess Thunder Guts gave no response.

As a sense of dread started to creep over her, Adagio hastily pulled Princess Thunder Guts away from her chest and held the Lilliputian creature out in front of her to see if she was all right. Much to her dismay though, the small dog remained completely unresponsive, her eyes no longer containing the gleam she’d seen earlier. Instead, Princess Thunder Guts’ eyes were now cold and sterile, not unlike those of a doll.

“Oh no,” She uttered in sheer terror as she started to assume the worst. “Oh no, oh no, oh-”

Adagio abruptly stopped her freak-out as a sudden realization hit her about what was potentially going on right now. One that she prayed she was correct about.

“Are you…playing dead?” She tentatively asked. “Because if you are, please stop.”

Upon hearing Adagio’s words Princess Thunder Guts’ eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and she abruptly erupted with life, giving a small, happy-sounding yip that filled the Dazzling leader with more relief than she’d ever felt before in her life.

“Oh thank goodness,” She exclaimed. “After having to break the news to Aria about losing Glen there’s no way in hell I could’ve broken the news to Su-Z if something had happened to you.”

Once Adagio’s sense of relief started to dissipate, she began to truly appreciate just how well Princess Thunder Guts had played dead. Needless to say, it was a very convincing performance. So convincing in fact that if she hadn’t known that Princess Thunder Guts was a living, breathing dog she might have actually mistaken her for a stuffed plushie.

It wasn’t long before newfound feelings of optimism regarding her earlier plan started to sway Adagio’s thoughts towards going forward with said plan. After all, if Princess Thunder Guts really could play dead on-command and be so convincing then maybe, just maybe, it would work. Plus she really didn’t want to just continue sitting on the steps like she currently was, and since she’d decided not to hail another ride she didn’t really have much of an alternative but to go inside anyways.

“Eh, fuck it,” She said as she got up from her seat.

As Adagio pulled Princess Thunder Guts back up against her chest and headed towards the front door she told the small dog to play dead again. The petite pooch did as commanded and went virtually lifeless once more, and as soon as she did the Dazzling opened the doors and headed inside. Having no idea how long Princess Thunder Guts could keep up her charade, Adagio determined it was best that she not dillydally, so she headed straight for the cafeteria as quickly as possible without running. The last thing she needed was to draw unwanted attention by running through the hallway.

Naturally there were a number of students out in the halls as Adagio walked through them, many of them at their lockers dropping off books and grabbed their lunches. Thankfully most of the students paid Adagio no mind, and those that did simply gave her cursory glances and didn’t try to stop her to chat. But as the Dazzling turned a corner to get to the hallway where the cafeteria entrance was located, she was immediately accosted by quite possibly the last person she’d wanted to run into.

“Oh, hello, Adagio,” Vice-Principal Luna greeted her cordially.

“H-Hello, Luna,” The Dazzling tentatively greeted back, feeling a cold sweat start to come over her as she did so.

“I’m surprised to see you here today, given that it’s Aria’s day to serve as librarian,” The vice-principal then said, right before noticing Princess Thunder Guts within Adagio’s arms and dawning a more astringent expression. “Is that a live animal you’re holding?”

The harsher tone that Luna had used to ask her question only made Adagio’s cold sweat even worse. Thankfully though Princess Thunder Guts seemed unphased by everything that was happening, as evidenced by the fact that she was still playing dead. Meaning that the Dazzling wasn’t dead in the water just yet.

“Oh goodness no,” She replied in an overly amused manner as she desperately tried to come up with a phony reason for why she was holding what appeared to be a small dog. “This is just a plushie that I brought for…for…Aria!”

Vice-principal Luna’s astringent expression quickly changed into one of surprise upon hearing the Dazzling’s words. Adagio almost dawned a similar expression when she realized what it was she’d just said.

“Yes, this is for Aria,” She continued, practically saying whatever happened to pop into her head at this point. “You see, this is, um…my birthday present to her, because today is her birthday. I wanted to give it to her now because, um, I just couldn’t wait until tonight.”

Luna said nothing in response to the Dazzling leader’s claim. She just furrowed her brow in a way that made it obvious she had her doubts about what she’d just been told being the truth.

“I know, I know, it doesn’t seem like the kind of gift Aria would like. But believe me when I say that she’s really into this kind of cute stuff,” Adagio went on, doubling down on her claim. “She’s one of those people who acts all tough and apathetic on the outside but is actually just a big softy on the inside, you know?”

After Adagio finished speaking she put on a wide smile in an attempt to make her near-ramblings seem fully genuine. Despite how clearly forced it was it appeared to have the desired effect on Luna, as she lowered her brow and started to walk down the hall.

“Well, I won’t keep you then,” The vice-principal said, the tiniest hint of skepticism noticeable in her voice, as she passed by the Dazzling. “Please tell Aria I said happy birthday.”

“I-I will,” Adagio replied.

And with that, Luna turned the corner Adagio had emerged from only moments ago and was out of sight, which was Adagio’s cue to breathe a deep sigh of relief. She doubted that Luna had completely believed everything she’d said, but since the vice-principal hadn’t outright questioned any of it and left that was good enough for her.

“Good girl,” She softly praised Princess Thunder Guts for her unflinching performance, giving her a few light pats on the head as she did so.

Princess Thunder Guts continued to be a good girl and gave no response.

Adagio then started walking again and headed straight towards the entrance to the cafeteria as quickly as possible. Still being mindful not to run in the hallway though. Thankfully the hallway was virtually deserted now so she had no trouble reaching her destination without any further interruptions. When she did reach it, she crossed the threshold and stopped after only taking about a couple of steps inside. She wanted to get eyes on Fluttershy before she fully entered the large, crowded room. A quick scan of the cafeteria revealed to her that the Rainbooms were seated at a table to her right and about half-way towards the back of the room, but not all of the Rainbooms were present. Sunset Shimmer was missing, as was Fluttershy.

“Perfect,” The Dazzling sarcastically remarked, taking the animal-loving Rainboom’s absence from the table as that the universe hated her.

“Adagio?” A familiar voice suddenly called out from behind the Dazzling leader, causing her to wince and promptly turn around to see none other than Sunset Shimmer approaching her from the entrance.

“Oh, hi, Sunset,” She greeted her friend.

“What are you doing here? Isn’t Aria librarian today?” The fiery-haired Rainboom asked her, right before noticing Princess Thunder Guts within her arms. “And why are you holding Su-Z’s dog?”

It was then that Princess Thunder Guts ceased playing dead and gave a small, affectionate yip towards Sunset. Whether this was because the petite pooch was happy to see Sunset or because she simply couldn’t continue her charade any longer was unclear to Adagio, but either way it instantly put the Dazzling on edge. She hastily looked around to make sure that the yip hadn’t drawn any unwanted attention to them, and fortunately it seemed that it hadn’t. The only one who appeared to have heard it was Sunset, who simply gave the small dog a friendly smile.

“It’s a long story,” Adagio told Sunset once her attention was back on the Rainboom. “I’ll explain later if you want, but right now I need your help.”

“Oh, okay,” Sunset replied. “What is it you need?”

“I need to know where Fluttershy is,” The Dazzling elucidated. “I need to ask her if she can use her geode to communicate with our emu.”

“You need Fluttershy?” Sunset said somewhat sullenly. “I’m sorry, Adagio, but she’s not here today. She texted all of us a little before school this morning to say that she’s sick and probably won’t be better until next week.”

An involuntary twitch came over Adagio’s right eye as soon as she heard Sunset say that Fluttershy wasn’t at school today. Everything she’d gone through or put up with to get to CHS just to speak with the demure Rainboom had all been for nothing. She’d dealt with an overly-clingy Princess Thunder Guts, gotten into a car driven by an insane stranger, and lied to her boss about bringing a pet to school. All…for…nothing.

Resisting the urge to yell profanely at the top of her lungs, Adagio instead just hung her head in anguish. While it was true that her plan to ask for Fluttershy’s help with the emu was still an efficacious one and could wait until the girl was feeling better, she just couldn’t believe that this was the way things had turned out for her. There was no denying it; The universe hated her all right.

“Um, Adagio? Are you okay?” Sunset concernedly asked her friend, easily picking up on her now dismal mood.

Adagio was so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t hear Sunset’s question to her. The only thing she could focus on at the moment was finding a way to salvage her self-appointed mission to CHS. Just because Fluttershy wasn’t around like she thought she’d be didn’t mean that she couldn’t find some benefit from schlepping all the way to the school. Maybe one of the other Rainbooms could use their magic to help with the emu instead. Like Rainbow Dash for example. She could use her superspeed to…to…pluck the emu’s feathers so quickly that they wouldn’t feel anything? No, that was a stupid idea. Maybe Twilight could use her telekinesis to…move eggs out of the emu faster? No, that was an even worse idea, on a multitude of levels. Maybe Sunset could…Sunset…

“Sunset!” The Dazzling exclaimed aloud, a bit louder than she’d intended, causing Sunset to flinch ever-so-slightly. “Maybe you can help me instead!”

“I-I can?” The Rainboom replied, sounding almost frightened.

“Yes, you can!” Adagio confirmed as she looked down at Sunset’s neck. “You can use your geode to see what the emu are feeling and-”

Adagio stopped herself mid-sentence when she noticed something rather odd; Sunset wasn’t wearing her geode right now.

“Where’s your geode?” She asked fastidiously.

“Oh, I, um, accidentally left it at home,” Sunset answered rather skittishly as she waved her right hand in a dismissive fashion. “See I was running late this morning and in my rush to get out the door I just…forgot about my geode is all. Dopey me.”

It didn’t take a detective to deduce that Sunset was acting much more volative than usual, and while Adagio was no detective she was certainly as smart and observant as one. Something was definitely wrong with Sunset’s explanation for why it was she wasn’t wearing her geode, no doubt about it. Before she had a chance to try and figure out what that something was though, Sunset started to walk away.

“I gotta go, Adagio. See you later,” The Rainboom said hastily as she headed over towards the table where the other Rainbooms were sitting.

Adagio said nothing in response on account of the fact that Sunset was already long gone before she had a chance to say anything. She would’ve given the girl a small wave goodbye at the very least if she could have, but since she was holding Princess Thunder Guts she couldn’t. All she could do was continue to stand near the entrance to the cafeteria and wonder what had just happened with her friend.

“Something’s definitely going on with her,” She said to herself as she looked on at the Rainboom’s table.

Princess Thunder Guts, in response, looked up at the Dazzling and gave another small yip.

“You think so too, huh?” Adagio then said, interpreting the petite pooch’s yip as a concurring remark.

With no Fluttershy to talk to like she’d planned, and not wanting to pressure Sunset into talking about whatever was going on with her right now, Adagio decided that she’d go to the library and spend the rest of the school day with Aria. She wasn’t too keen on the idea of essentially working for free for the rest of the afternoon, but at least helping Aria would kill time faster than just sitting somewhere doing nothing.

So after instructing Princess Thunder Guts to once again play dead, the Dazzling leader headed for the library.

The walk from the cafeteria to the library was thankfully a short one. And even more thankfully, the library was practically empty when Adagio walked into it. The Dazzling saw only her sister standing behind the check-out counter located near the entrance and a couple of students seated at a table clear on the other end of the room. Not 100 percent ideal, but certainly ideal enough that she could at least talk to Aria without anyone overhearing their conversation. Maybe the universe didn’t hate her as much as she thought.

“Hey, Aria,” Adagio said softly as she walked up to the check-out counter, gaining her sister’s attention.

“Adagio? What are you doing here?” Aria asked as she saw Adagio approach the counter, with Princess Thunder Guts in her arms. “And why’d you bring the mutt with you?”

“She’s been sticking to me like glue all day,” Adagio answered as she put the small dog down on the counter. “I have no idea why, and at this point I don’t even care.”

“O-kay,” Aria replied as she looked down at the motionless Princess Thunder Guts. “Uh, is she all right?”

“She’s fine, she’s just playing dead,” Adagio said right before giving the small dog a light tap on the back. “You can stop now, but you have to stay quiet, okay?”

And with that, Princess Thunder Guts silently sprang to life and looked up at Aria with a happy-looking expression on her face.

“How did…how did you…” The pig-tailed Dazzling tried to ask her sister, clearly confused by how Adagio was able to so masterfully command Su-Z’s dog.

“Again, I have no idea and at this point I don’t care,” Adagio dismissively said as she picked up Princess Thunder Guts and walked around to the other side of the counter.

Once Adagio was behind the counter with Aria she leaned down and placed Princess Thunder Guts on one of the small, cubby-like shelves underneath the counter to keep her out of sight. Princess Thunder Guts put up no resistance to this and obediently stayed on the shelf once Adagio let go of her. She even laid down like she was anticipating being there for a while and getting comfy. All of this continued to amaze and confuse Aria.

“So, you didn’t answer my question about what you’re doing here,” The pig-tailed Dazzling addressed her sister.

“I came here to ask Fluttershy to use her geode to talk to the emu and get them to produce more eggs, oil, and feathers,” Adagio explained as she leaned back up.

“…Huh?” Aria then said, sounding even more confused than she had just a moment ago.

“I know, I know, it wouldn’t solve the immediate problem of finding a $100 surplus for Sonata so that she could get that gaming chair for Rainbow Dash,” Adagio went on. “But I figured that her help with the emu might finally get us out of the financial red in the long-run.”

Aria just stared at her older sister like she’d just spoken Swahili or something.

“Did all that number crunching finally fry your brain, Adagio?” She eventually spoke up. “Because if not than I could really use some context for all of that.”

Acceding to her sister’s request, Adagio filled Aria in on her day from the time that Aria had left for school to just now. Sonata asking for the money, coming up with the idea to ask Fluttershy for help with the emu, the crazy car ride, lying to Luna, nothing was left out. That is, except for the part where she’d told Luna that Aria was into cute things. She knew better than to share that little detail with her sister.

By the end of it all Aria looked even more confused than she’d appeared to be before Adagio had started her story.

“Wow, that is…some morning you had there, sis,” The younger of the two Dazzlings remarked as she tried to process everything she’d just heard.

“You’re telling me,” Adagio bemoaned. “And what really sticks in my craw is that I put myself through all of that insanity for nothing. I mean, what was I thinking? Why didn’t I just wait until after school and try to call Fluttershy? It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d waited.”

Adagio then took a seat in a nearby chair and rested her head on the counter as a sense of melancholy came over her.

“I think you might’ve been right about my brain being fried, Aria,” She went on. “That’s the only explanation I can think of for why I did all that I did this morning.”

The feelings of melancholy stirring inside Adagio only grew strong the more she focused on everything she’d put herself through over the course of the morning. Was she really losing it? Was she really so unable to analyze her plan and see that it would yield fruitless results, regardless of whether or not it was successful? The very idea was downright devastating to her. She’d always prided herself on being smart and clever and ratiocinative, and now it appeared as though she was declining in those attributes? It was enough to make her feel like crying.

Before the Dazzling leader shed any tears though, she felt a small, wet tongue lick part of her right arm. She looked down at where she’d felt the lick and saw Princess Thunder Guts looking up at her from the shelf underneath the counter with the same gleam in her eyes that she’d had back at the house. It was hard for Adagio to explain, but somehow looking down at the petite pooch with the gleam in her eyes started to make her feel better.

Despite all of the madness that had befallen her today due to her own foolish plan, Adagio did have to admit she did have some fun with Princess Thunder Guts. She’d enjoyed having the small dog sit on her lap and provide some company while she’d entered receipts. She’d enjoyed the game they’d played when she’d tried to leave the house alone, only to be foiled by a simple doggie door. She’d enjoyed how they’d managed to fool Vice-Principal Luna into believing that she was just a stuffed plushie, even though that event was rather nerve-racking at the time. So maybe, just maybe, everything she’d been through hadn’t been for nothing after all. Maybe she just ended up with something she hadn’t counted on. Something totally different, but still well worth the cost.

“Okay, enough with the pity-party, sis,” Aria started to say just as Adagio reached underneath the counter. “I was just joking about your brain being fried, and besides-”

Aria stopped herself mid-sentence when she saw Adagio pull Princess Thunder Guts out from beneath the counter and hold her up against her chest in a hug.

“Thank you,” Adagio said softly with a warm smile on her face.

The sudden display of affection that Adagio was currently showing Princess Thunder Guts freaked Aria out a bit. She’d never seen her older sister be that loving towards anyone other than Dolly before, and even though most would find such a scene to be sweet or beautiful, Aria found it to be…unsettling.

“Uh, Adagio? You okay?” The pig-tailed Dazzling asked concernedly.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Adagio replied rather serenely as she put Princess Thunder Guts back on the shelf beneath the counter.

Once again, the small dog put up no resistance to this and obediently stayed on the shelf once Adagio let go of her.

“Now you keep being a good girl and stay there until the day is over with, okay?” Adagio told Princess Thunder Guts.

Princess Thunder Guts gave a small, adorable yawn in response before laying down on the shelf and closing her eyes, which then caused Adagio to give a small, amused chuckle. Aria, meanwhile, continued to be utterly vexed by her sister’s current behavior.

“All right, so what do you need help with, Aria?” Adagio said as she turned to face her younger sister, sounding more like her usual self now.

“Um, well, you can help re-shelf these books,” Aria replied, pointing to a stack of nearby books on the counter as she did so.

“Sounds good,” Adagio simply replied before picking up the stack of books and walking away.

Once Adagio disappeared behind one of the bookcases, Aria turned her attention down towards Princess Thunder Guts. By all appearances the small dog seemed to be asleep, but the Dazzling wasn’t sure she actually was. Regardless though, Aria didn’t dare disturb her, despite feeling a strong desire to pick her up and hold her close to see if she too would suddenly get all affectionate just like Adagio just had.

All things considered, the rest of the day went by without much of a hitch for either Adagio or Aria. Together the two Dazzlings managed to get a fair amount of work done around the library, and all with no problems from Princess Thunder Guts. The only time the pup ever bothered them was when she needed to be taken outside to go to do her business, but since she was so masterful at playing dead while in the hallways it was virtually no trouble for Adagio to handle it. Eventually the day came to an end as it always did, and when it did the two sisters along with their K-9 companion hopped into the car and headed on home. Thankfully for Adagio and Princess Thunder Guts the ride home proved much better than the ride they’d had going to CHS, but that was no surprise. Aria was a good driver…most of the time.

“So I gotta ask, Adagio,” Aria said as they approached their driveway. “What was Su-Z’s reaction when you told her you were taking her dog with you to school?”

As soon as Adagio heard Aria ask her question, she could’ve sworn she’d heard glass breaking within her mind. She’d been in such a rush to get to CHS earlier that she’d neglected to tell Su-Z, Sonata, or Kiwi that she was leaving and taking Princess Thunder Guts with her. And only now had she realized this massive oversight.

“Um, I…might have forgotten to mention that to her,” She embarrassingly admitted just as Aria pulled into the driveway.

“Huh,” Aria replied before removing her right hand from the steering wheel and pointing her index finger straight ahead. “Well it looks like you’ll get your chance to mention it now.”

Adagio looked to where Aria was pointing and saw Sonata, Kiwi, and Su-Z standing out by the front of the house watching the car pull up the driveway with concerned looks on their faces. It wasn’t difficult for her to guess why it was they all looked so concerned.

Once Aria stopped the car and turned it off, she got out of the vehicle first and was immediately accosted by Su-Z.

“We can’t find Princess Thunder Guts anywhere!” The PostCrush girl frantically shouted right in Aria’s face. “We need you to help us look for her!”

“That…won’t be necessary,” Adagio timidly spoke up as she got out of the car and held Princess Thunder Guts out in front of her.

“Princess Thunder Guts!” Su-Z happily exclaimed as she rushed over to the other side of the car, snatched her beloved dog right out of Adagio’s hands, and held her close to her chest. “I was so, so worried about you, little girl!”

Happy to see her owner again, Princess Thunder Guts gave a couple of cheerful yips and licked Su-Z’s cheek as she was practically smothered against the girl’s chest.

“What were you doing with Princess Thunder Guts?” Kiwi asked Adagio.

“Yeah, about that. It’s…a bit of a long story,” Adagio awkwardly replied as she began to rub the back of her head with her right hand. “But regardless I know I shouldn’t have taken her to CHS with me without telling any of you first. So…sorry.”

“You took her to CHS?” Sonata chimed in. “Why did you go there?”

“Again, bit of a long story,” Adagio answered as she lowered her hand from her head. “I’ll explain everything over dinner.”

“You guys are going to love hearing it, trust me,” Aria remarked in a quasi-amused manner, earning her a dirty look from Adagio just before she and everyone else started heading inside.

Adagio did like she’d said and shared the story of her day with everyone over dinner a few minutes later. Much like earlier when she’d told it to Aria though, she made sure to leave out the part where she’d told Luna that her pig-tailed sister liked cute things.

The general consensus was that of disbelief and mild awe when it came to Sonata and Kiwi reactions. Heck, Sonata had been so enraptured by her sister’s story that she never even raised an issue about there not being a $100 surplus for her. Though when it came to Su-Z, Adagio’s tale appeared to have made her feel positively elated, much to the Dazzlings’ surprise. She’d expected the girl to be angry that she’d absconded with her dog for a few hours, not delighted.

“Aww, did you have a fun day with Adagio, Princess?” Su-Z mellifluously asked her dog, who was sitting on the floor next to her chair.

Princess Thunder Guts responded by running underneath the table and pawing at Adagio’s leg until the Dazzling reached down, picked her up, and placed her on her lap.

“EeeeEee!” The PostCrush girl then squeed in sheer delight.

Neither Kiwi, Sonata, nor Aria understood why it was Su-Z was so happy that Adagio and her dog had apparently bonded, but honestly none of them really cared that much about it. Aria and Sonata were each considerably more perplexed by the simple fact that Adagio and Princess Thunder Guts had bonded. Kiwi, on the other hand, wasn’t all that concerned about Adagio and Princess Thunder Guts new relationship at all. She was much more troubled by something that Adagio had mentioned in her story.

“Okay, I’m going to my room,” Adagio said as she took hold of Princess Thunder Guts and got up from her seat. “I still have to figure out what next month’s budget is going to look like.”

No one said anything as Adagio left the kitchen and headed for her room. When the Dazzling leader did get to her room she didn’t immediately go back to working on the household finances though. Instead, she placed Princess Thunder Guts down on the floor and then proceeded to lay down on her bed for a much needed breather. Her day had been so crazy that she felt she needed a little bit of downtime to recharge before getting back to the mind-numbing task of crunching numbers.

“What a day,” She commented just before Princess Thunder Guts jumped up on the bed and walked right up onto her chest.

The initial feeling of having Princess Thunder Guts step on her was a bit discomforting for Adagio, but once the petite pooch ceased moving and laid down she felt fine and decided to let her stay.

“You’re just an agglutinant little thing, aren’t you?” She playfully asked the small dog as she started to pet her.

Eventually Adagio stopped petting Princess Thunder Guts and she just laid on the bed in quiet contemplation. She thought about everything that she’d been through over the course of the day and how, despite not getting to talk to Fluttershy like she’d wanted to, it wasn’t that bad of a day in the end. There was, however, one thing that still troubled her; Sunset Shimmer.

Adagio knew Sunset, first as an enemy, then as a friend after she’d taken her and her sisters in. And in a strange way, that made the fiery-haired Rainboom her best friend. She knew Sunset’s strengths and weaknesses, her likes and dislikes, even how crispy she preferred her toast in the morning. The only other people she knew that well were her own sisters. So when Adagio heard Sunset say that she’d forgotten her geode because she’d been running late for school this morning, she knew she wasn’t telling the truth. Sunset was never forgetful when it came to her geode, no matter how much of a rush she might be in. Putting it on every morning was always the first thing she did, which meant that the girl wasn’t wearing it on purpose.

But why?

After a few minutes of contemplating this question to no avail, Adagio heard a small knock on her door.

“Adagio, you busy?” Kiwi’s voice came from out in the hall.

“No, come on in,” Adagio replied as she sat up, making sure to take hold of Princess Thunder Guts before doing so.

Kiwi promptly entered the room and closed the door behind her.

“What’s on your mind?” The Dazzling then asked as she motioned for Kiwi to take a seat next to her on the bed.

“Sunset Shimmer,” The former popstar answered as she took a seat, much to Adagio’s surprise. “I can’t stop thinking about what you said about your conversation with her and how she wasn’t wearing her geode and I…I just have this strange feeling that something’s wrong with her.”

Adagio wasn’t sure what to make of Kiwi’s concern for Sunset. After all, Kiwi hadn’t been there at lunch time when Sunset became edgy over the subject of her missing geode like she had, so how could the PostCrush girl get the same impression of it simply by hearing about it secondhand? But even still, she couldn’t deny the sincere conviction in Kiwi’s voice when she said she believed Sunset wasn’t okay.

“I know, I feel the same way,” The Dazzling admitted. “Given how much those geodes mean to each of the Rainbooms, I find it difficult to believe Sunset would be so forgetful with hers.”

“So what do you think we should do?” Kiwi asked as she scooched a bit closer towards Adagio. “I mean, if we’re right and something really is wrong with Sunset we can’t just do nothing.”

“I don’t know,” Adagio replied as she looked Kiwi straight in the eyes with a look of extreme austerity. “But I guarantee you, we will do something.”

The Sunset Also Rises (Part 1)

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“Hello?” Adagio Dazzle called out apprehensively into the darkness. “Aria? Sonata? Anyone?”

Adagio had no idea where she was. Even more troubling though was that she didn’t even know how it was she’d gotten there in the first place. The only thing she did know was that at the moment she was completely alone in what appeared to be a dimly-lit hallway with a variety of doors lining the walls on either side, stretching as far as the eye could see.

“Hello?” The Dazzling reiterated.

There was no answer.

The lack of any response to her call filled the Dazzling leader with a sense of trepidation that was practically foreign to her. Normally she was able to remain calm and cool under even the most daunting of circumstances, but given that she was currently in an unfamiliar location for reasons unknown, she was finding it difficult to maintain her usual unperturbable demeanor. Fortunately though, these newfound feelings of anxiety weren’t so strong as to paralyze the poofy-haired girl, and slowly but surely she began to walk down the mysterious hallway in the hopes of finding a way out. Or, at the very least, finding another person.

As Adagio passed the multitude of doors lining the hallway, she subconsciously took note of a few of them. One was a chateau style painted a light purple, another was a more traditional style in a dark brown color. One that particularly caught her eye was a Stratford abbey style that was light brown in color but very faded and old, almost to the point of appearing completely decrepit. It didn’t take the Dazzling long to deduce that no two doors were exactly the same. Each one was different from the others in at least one way. There were, however, two commonalities that she couldn’t help notice that every single door had; they were all windowless, and none of them had any signs or placards or what have you to indicate where it was they led.

The thought of opening one of the doors crossed Adagio’s mind as she continued to walk done the seemingly endless hallway, but something in the back of her mind strongly urged her against doing so. Given that the Dazzling had no idea where she was or where any of the doors might lead, she decided to heed the subconscious caveat for the time being. Though if she didn’t find anything that looked like an exit soon, she felt she’d have no choice but to start opening random doors in the hopes of finding a way out.

“You’re supposed to be so smart,”

“Hello?” She called out once more when she thought she heard a voice.

No answer.

The hallway was really starting to get to Adagio now. Every aspect of it filled her with fret, and with each passing second that she continued to be there those feelings of fear began to morph into feelings of dread and helplessness. The seemingly illimitable nature of the hallway, the constant dim-lighting throughout it, the fact that she was alone, all of these things and more were becoming too much for the Dazzling leader to handle. She knew she needed to find a way out or another person soon or else she was going to succumb to her rapidly growing feelings of fright.

“More power than I could ever imagine,”

The voice was a little bit louder this time, but not loud enough for Adagio to be able to make out what it was it was saying. However, the voice had been loud enough for her to recognize who it belonged to; Sunset Shimmer.

“Sunset? Is that you?” The Dazzling then called out as she began to look around franticly. “Where are you?”

As soon as Adagio finished speaking, she felt a pair of ice-cold hands grab ahold of her shoulders from behind, causing her body to involuntarily tense up and freeze to the point where she found herself unable to even turn her head to see who the pair of hands belonged to. Despite not being able to turn her head though, she could feel the mysterious person behind her leaning in closer until their head was right up against her own.

“Hello, Adagio,” The unmistakable voice of her mother then whispered impishly into her ear. “Lovely to see you again, dear.”

Hearing her mother’s voice instantly broke Adagio out of her paralyzed state, and filled her with a terror that she had prayed she’d never know again for as long as she lived. She opened her mouth to let out a frightened scream as she quickly pulled herself free from her mother’s grip.

Almost as soon as Adagio no longer felt the icy-touch on her shoulder, the Dazzling inexplicably found herself sitting up on her bed in almost total darkness.

A dream. It had all just been a dream.

The fact that what Adagio had just experienced had been nothing more than a bad dream did little to comfort the girl’s current distress. For what seemed like thirty minutes instead of merely thirty seconds, all she could do was continue sitting up on her bed as she breathed heavily in an attempt to calm herself down.

“Come on, Adagio. Get it together,” She said aloud once her breathing was more under control. “It wasn’t real. She wasn’t real. She’s not around anymore. She’s gone.”

As the Dazzling tried to talk herself down, she found that she wasn’t quite sure to whom it was she was referring to when she said, ‘She’s gone’. Was she really referring to her mother, or was she referring to whoever – or whatever - had been impersonating her mother back at the Overlook Hotel. Either one was a possibility. There was no denying that her mother had easily been the greatest source of her fears when she’d been growing up, but the fake Madrigal from the Overlook had been terrifying in her own right. After all, her magic had been strong enough for her to somehow manipulate the abandoned hotel into looking like it was still in business, complete with hotel staff and everything. Not only that, but she’d also been powerful enough to put all of the CHS students, the Rainbooms included, to sleep like it was nothing.

Not knowing which Madrigal it was that had elicited such a fearful response from her in her dream only served to make Adagio feel even more uneasy than she already felt. Was she really still so afraid of her long-dead mother, or was she simply more afraid of the fake Madrigal than she’d consciously admitted to herself? It was difficult for the Dazzling to determine which one was correct, and even more difficult for her to determine which one she was hoping was correct.

Just as Adagio felt that she had calmed down enough to try and go back to sleep, she heard someone gently tap at her bedroom door.

“Adagio?” Kiwi Lollipop’s voice then asked in a hushed-tone from out in the hall. “You okay in there?”

The orts of fear Adagio felt on account of her bad dream quickly gave way to feelings of embarrassment as soon as she heard her housemate’s question. As if simply having the nightmare hadn’t been bad enough, it just had to elicit a scream from her so loud that she’d woken Kiwi up.

Marvelous.

“Y-Yeah, I’m fine,” She assured the former popstar, making a conscious effort to ensure she didn’t sound distressed. “I just…had a bad dream is all. Sorry if I woke you, Kiwi.”

“It’s alright,” Kiwi replied. “Honestly, I’m kind of glad you woke me up. I wasn’t having an especially good dream myself.”

Adagio let out a soft, almost inaudible sigh of relief in response, happy that Kiwi wasn’t upset with her.

“Well sorry anyways,” The Dazzling leader said affably. “I hope you have better dreams next time.”

“You too,” Kiwi said back. “Goodnight, Adagio.”

“Goodnight, Kiwi,” Adagio reiterated as she heard the soft pitter-patter of feet moving away from her door.

With Kiwi gone, Adagio laid back down on her bed in the hopes of returning to sleep before it came time to get up for breakfast. Once her head was once more resting comfortably on her pillow, she turned it to the side towards the nightstand to see what time it was. The clock read 4:17 am. The Dazzling let out another soft sigh when she saw this, though this one was out of irritation. Even if she managed to fall asleep right this second, she’d only end up getting a couple more hours of rest. And what were the odds of her falling asleep quickly after the flood of adrenaline she’d received from her nightmare?

By the time the sun began to rise and the alarm on the clock went off, the Dazzling had only managed to get around another hour of sleep. Despite wishing more than anything in that moment to remain in bed for at least a few more minutes, she sluggishly got up and got dressed for what was sure to be a long day of work at CHS for her. Her listless mood wasn’t so bad as to cause her to dilly-dally in her usual morning preparations though, thankfully, and she managed to make it out to the kitchen in time to have breakfast with her sisters and housemates, who were all already there except for Kiwi.

“Morning,” She greeted everyone, sounding half-dead.

“Morning, Dagi!” Sonata greeted back in her usual upbeat manner from over by the counter.

How it was Sonata managed to be so energetic and cheerful most mornings Adagio would never know.

“Morning,” Aria then greeted indifferently from the table, not even bothering to lift her eyes up from her phone.

Normally Adagio would feel a tad slighted by her sister’s relative indifference to her languor, but right now she was too tired to really give a damn.

Su-Z, who was sitting next to Aria, said nothing as Adagio pulled out the chair at the other end of the table and practically collapsed into it. Though the silent look of concern on the PostCrush girl’s face that the Dazzling leader noticed spoke more volume than any regular-old morning greeting ever could.

“Are you feeling okay, Adagio?” Su-Z eventually spoke up. “Because you seem a little…‘bleh’ this morning.”

Su-Z’s question prompted both Sonata and Aria to cease what they were each doing and look over at their older sister, which was when they noticed just how torpor she was at the moment.

“I’m fine. I just didn’t get much sleep is all,” Adagio answered Su-Z.

Adagio had intentionally left out the fact that her lack of sleep had been caused by a bad dream involving Madrigal Moonlight. The last thing she wanted to bring up around Aria and Sonata was their mother. Even though the three of them had more-or-less vanquished their fear of Madrigal after the incident at the Overlook, she was still a touchy subject for each of them. On top of that, the Dazzling leader really didn’t want to have to explain who Madrigal was to Su-Z, and inevitably Kiwi. The two PostCrush girls may have become family as far as she was concerned, but she wasn’t ready to discuss her mother around them quite yet.

“Aww, I’m sorry, Dagi,” Sonata sympathized with her older sister as she poured herself a cup of coffee. “You want some coffee to help wake you up?”

“Sweet Celestia yes, please,” Adagio replied as she reached out her hand.

As soon as Sonata finished pouring a second cup of coffee, she made her way over to the table and handed Adagio the highly-caffeinated beverage her sister so desired. Wasting no time, Adagio took a big gulp of her morning brew, and the instant the coffee hit her tongue she felt noticeably better. Not a whole lot better, but better enough that at least now she felt she could make it through the workday.

After downing about half of her coffee in five seconds flat, Adagio gave a sigh of contentment and put her cup down on the table just as Kiwi entered the room.

“Morning,” The older of the two PostCrush girls greeted everyone, sounding even worse than Adagio had when she’d entered the room.

“Oh my gosh, Kiwi,” Su-Z said with a bit of alarm as she got up from her seat and made her way over to her best friend. “Are you okay? You sound and look like you just woke up from a dirt nap.”

“I feel like I just woke up from a dirt nap,” Kiwi replied as Su-Z helped her over to the kitchen table to take a seat. “I didn’t get a good night’s sleep last night.”

The looks on Su-Z, Aria, and Sonata’s faces all gave the indication that they were each wondering what could have caused Kiwi to get such a bad night’s rest. Adagio though, knowing perfectly well why it was Kiwi had gotten so little sleep, just looked on at the girl with an expression of sympathy.

“Here, Kiwi,” Sonata said as she passed her cup of coffee over to Kiwi once the girl was seated next to her. “You need this more than I do.”

“Thanks, Sonata,” Kiwi said just before taking a small sip of the drink.

Much like Adagio had done, Kiwi gave a small sigh of contentment once she’d gotten a little caffeine into her system.

“So how come you weren’t able to get much sleep?” Su-Z inquired. “Did you drink some Efflux soda right before bed again?”

“Efflux?” Aria chimed in. “I thought they took that stuff off the market years ago because some people had heart attacks from drinking too much of it.”

“Yeah, they did, but we managed to get ahold of some that were produced but never made it to market,” Su-Z replied. “We used to have some a few hours before a show to get our energy up, but one time when we were on-tour in Manehattan Kiwi accidently drank some too close to bedtime.”

It was at this point that Su-Z inexplicably began to giggle lightly.

“You should have seen her that night,” The girl continued. “At first she was all hyper and talking about how she wanted to parachute onto the stage at our next show, but after she wore herself out all she could do was lay in bed and stare up at the ceiling all night.”

A few soft chuckles could be heard escaping Aria and Sonata’s mouths after hearing Su-Z’s small tale from when she and Kiwi had been on-tour together. Kiwi simply rolled her eyes back and brought her hand up to cover her face in embarrassment. Adagio gave no visible reaction.

“No, Su-Z, I didn’t have any Efflux before bed again,” Kiwi eventually explained, sounding slightly annoyed. “What happened was I had this bad dream.”

“Ooh, ooh, was it the one where you have a test that you didn’t study for?” Sonata eagerly chimed in. “I get that one from time-to-time.”

“No it wasn’t that,” Kiwi answered. “It was one I don’t think I’ve ever had before. I was in this dark hallway with a whole bunch of doors along the walls and I kept hearing this voice softly saying something that I couldn’t make out.”

Adagio was grateful that she hadn’t been drinking any coffee as she listened to Kiwi describe her dream. For if she had been, she knew without a doubt she would have involuntarily performed a spit take. Regardless though, she struggled to conceal the growing shock she felt as Kiwi described the very same dream that she herself had had last night. Thankfully all eyes were on Kiwi at the moment, so no one noticed her aghast reaction to the girl’s dream.

“Ouch,” Aria said. “I hate those dreams where you hear some disembodied voice saying things to you.”

“The voice wasn’t what made the dream so bad,” Kiwi replied. “I mean, it was creepy, but it wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the woman at the end of it.”

“The…woman?” Adagio tentatively asked, fearful of what woman it was to whom Kiwi was referring.

“Yeah, there was this woman with scarlet hair wearing one of those flapper dresses from the 1920s,” Kiwi continued. “And when I saw her all she did was look at me with this wicked smile and say, ‘Hello, Kiwi’, in this beautiful but really eerie voice.”

By the time Kiwi finished speaking, Adagio wasn’t he only one with an expression of stupefaction on her face. Aria and Sonata had dawned similar expressions as well. Soon enough the three siren sisters were exchanging worried looks with one another, leaving both Kiwi and Su-Z confused and a bit worried themselves.

“Um, is everything okay, girls?” Su-Z addressed the Dazzlings.

None of the Dazzlings knew what to say, mostly because none of them were entirely sure if everything truly was okay or not. Fear and anxiety began to set into each of them as they tried to make sense of what it was they’d just heard Kiwi say. Sonata silently tried to convince herself that the PostCrush girl hadn’t really dreamed about Madrigal Moonlight, but rather just some random person that happened to look an awful lot like her. Aria also silently tried to cast doubt that the woman in Kiwi’s dream had been Madrigal, though all she did was tell herself that it couldn’t have been Madrigal. That it was impossible for it to have been Madrigal. Adagio, however, didn’t try to cast any doubt about who the woman in Kiwi’s dream had been, because she knew that there was no doubt about it. It had been Madrigal, just like it had been in her own dream.

The thought of bringing up her dream crossed Adagio’s mind for a brief moment, but she quickly decided not to mention it for the time being. Her sisters were already feeling unsettled enough by the fact that Kiwi had dreamed about their mother, the last thing she wanted to do right now was unnerve them even more by revealing that she too had dreamt about Madrigal.

“Girls, what’s wrong?” Kiwi addressed the Dazzlings after none of them answered Su-Z’s question. “Why are you all looking at each other like that?”

“W-Well, you see…” Sonata attempted to reply. “The woman you said you saw in your dream, s-she sounds an awful lot like…like…”

“Like Madrigal Moonlight,” Aria sedately finished Sonata’s sentence.

Kiwi and Su-Z quickly exchanged puzzled glances after Aria mentioned Madrigal’s name, as if silently asking one another if they knew who that was. Both girls just raised an eyebrow and shrugged at one another to indicate that they didn’t have a clue.

“Who’s Madrigal Moonlight?” Kiwi eventually inquired aloud.

Aria and Sonata both looked off to their side and down at the floor as soon as they heard Kiwi’s question, making it clear to the other three girls at the table that neither of them wanted to answer said question. Naturally, Adagio didn’t want to be the one to answer either, but she knew that, as the eldest amongst the Dazzlings, she would ultimately end up being the one to explain who Madrigal was to the two PostCrush girls. Whether she was ready to or not.

“Madrigal is…Madrigal was our mother. If you can call her that,” The poofy-haired girl reluctantly began to say. “She died a long time ago but we had a pretty bad run-in with her recently. Or rather, someone pretending to be her.”

Not surprisingly, Adagio’s answer only raised more questions within Kiwi and Su-Z regarding Madrigal. Many, many more questions from the looks of it, judging by the fact that their puzzled expressions from a moment ago were now expressions of sheer and utter bewilderment.

“We best just tell you two everything,” Adagio then said, picking up on the obvious confusion of the two PostCrush girls.

Sure enough, Adagio did as she said and proceeded to tell the two PostCrush girls everything about Madrigal, with Aria and Sonata chiming in from time to time. Through the Dazzlings’ tale, Kiwi and Su-Z learned about how Madrigal had been the girls’ biological mother, but hadn’t been much of a mother in the sentimental sense. They learned about all of the abuse the three sisters had suffered under her and how even after her death she’d seemingly returned during their trip to the Overlook Hotel. The only thing that they weren’t told about was how Madrigal had met her end the first time around; when Adagio, Aria, and Sonata had left her for dead in a trench. Other than that though, they learned practically everything there was to know about Madrigal Moonlight. And by the conclusion of their lesson, Kiwi found herself speechless.

“Geez, and I thought my family was messed up,” Su-Z remarked.

“Everyone’s family is messed up, Su-Z,” Aria replied staidly. “Some are just more messed up than others.”

“Way more messed up,” Sonata added so agilely that no one heard her.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room for a few seconds. During which time, each of the five girls avoided making eye contact with one another by either looking down at the table or off to their side.

“I just…I don’t understand any of this,” Kiwi eventually broke the silence, without taking her eyes off of the table. “I’ve never met Madrigal before, I’m sure of it. So how is it possible that I dreamt about her last night? And why?”

“I don’t know. But you and I are going to figure all of this out, Kiwi,” Adagio said just before precipitously getting up from her seat. “And to do that, you’re going to be coming with me to CHS today.”

“She is?!” Aria, Sonata, and Su-Z all said simultaneously as they looked up at Adagio, having been caught completely off-guard by the Dazzling leader’s statement.

“I-I am?” Kiwi then said as she did likewise, though with a tiny hint of fright in her voice.

“You are,” Adagio said as she looked down at Kiwi and patted the girl’s left shoulder a couple of times before heading towards the front door. “Now come on, we better get going.”

“You’re leaving right now?” Sonata asked her older sister. “But you haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

“We’ll grab something on the way to school,” Adagio replied.

Once Adagio reached the front door, she grabbed a couple of keys from the key bowl on a nearby table and opened the door to head on out. But before she crossed the threshold, she looked back to see if Kiwi was right behind her. Much to her surprise, Kiwi wasn’t right behind her. In fact, Kiwi hadn’t even gotten up from the kitchen table yet. The girl was just sitting there staring at her like she had no idea what was going on.

“Come on, Kiwi,” The Dazzling leader reiterated, though more authoritatively this time.

Kiwi neither got up nor said anything in response to Adagio’s ukase. All she did was look over at Su-Z, Aria, and Sonata with a look that silently suggested she was asking them what it was she should do. Much like earlier, Su-Z simply raised an eyebrow and shrugged. Aria and Sonata each gave a shrug as well. However, when the two Dazzlings finished shrugging both of them then slightly jerked their heads in the direction of the front door. Kiwi took this as a quiet communique that meant, ‘You better go with her’.

Reluctantly, Kiwi nodded in agreement.

“C-Coming, Adagio,” The older of the two PostCrush girls said as she got up and headed for the front door.

The instant Kiwi was right behind her, Adagio stepped outside and proceeded to make her way over to the car. In no time at all both she and Kiwi were piled into the vehicle – Adagio in the driver’s seat and Kiwi in the passenger’s – and they were on their way to CHS.

As Adagio backed the car out of the driveway, Kiwi noticed that Su-Z, Aria, and Sonata had gathered onto the porch to watch them leave. At first Kiwi felt a twinge of warmth in her heart that her friends had come out to see them off, but that feeling quickly grew cold when she saw the way they were looking at them. It was difficult for her to tell exactly how it was the three girls were staring at them, but it wasn’t difficult for her to tell how those stares made her feel; they made her feel like she was a puppy that was about to be taken to a farm upstate. Well, a different farm upstate. The kind of farm that she wouldn’t ever be returning from.

“So, um, where are we going to stop for breakfast?” Kiwi asked just as Adagio pulled out onto the street, trying to distract herself from the unsettling stares.

“We aren’t stopping for breakfast,” Adagio informed the girl. “At least not first thing.”

“So…We’re going to stop at CHS first?” Kiwi inquired.

“No,” Adagio replied. “We’re going to stop at Sunset Shimmer’s apartment first.”

Kiwi didn’t respond right away, mainly because she wasn’t sure she’d heard Adagio correctly.

“…Huh?” The PostCrush girl eventually said.

Adagio easily picked up on Kiwi’s growing confusion, and she wasn’t surprised by it in the least. After all, she’d essentially strong-armed the poor girl into coming with her without providing any real reason as to why. So rather than allow Kiwi’s confusion to continue burgeoning, the Dazzling decided that it was time for her to spill the beans about the dream she’d had last night.

“Look, I’m sorry I pulled all of this on you so abruptly, Kiwi,” She started out saying. “But please understand that I did it because I didn’t want to say what I’m about to tell you in front of my sisters.”

“O…kay,” Kiwi replied, now sounding half-confused, half-curious.

Without even realizing it, Adagio took a deep breath before she began explaining things to Kiwi.

“That dream you had last night, I…I had the exact same one,” She confessed. “I was in a dark hallway, I heard a voice calling out to me, and at the end of it I saw my mot – Madrigal.”

Not surprisingly, Kiwi immediately dawned an expression of surprise upon hearing this. Adagio didn’t see this though, on account of the fact that she was driving and therefore keeping her eyes on the road.

“And I highly doubt it’s a coincidence that we both just happened to have had the same dream,” The Dazzling continued. “Something’s going on here, and if Madrigal is involved I guarantee you it’s not something good. I’m not exactly sure how Sunset fits into all of this, but I’m fairly certain that she’s at the center of it.”

There was a moment of silence in the car as a great many questions ran through Kiwi’s head. So many, it turned out, that the girl had trouble choosing just one to ask first. For the time being at least, she decided to ignore all questions pertaining to how it was that both she and Adagio had ended up having the same dream. Instead, she chose to focus on only questions pertaining directly to what the Dazzling had told her.

“What makes you think Sunset’s at the center of all this?” She ended up asking first.

“A couple of things,” Adagio replied. “Primarily it’s because in my dream I was able to make out the voice as Sunset’s, but also because of how she was acting when I saw her at school yesterday.”

All of Kiwi’s various questions were temporarily put by the wayside as she began to recall Adagio’s story of her interaction with Sunset during her trip to CHS the other day with Princess Thunder Guts. Specifically, she began to recall how the Dazzling had said that Sunset had been acting uncharacteristically aloof and hadn’t been wearing her beloved geode. Despite not having witnessed the encounter personally, the tale had given Kiwi a weird feeling that something was seriously wrong with the Rainboom. A weird feeling that she was still feeling, even now.

However, Kiwi wasn’t fully convinced that this feeling meant that Sunset was somehow connected to hers and Adagio’s dreams. After all, she hadn’t been able to make out the voice in her dream, so how could she be sure that the Dazzling leader’s claim was even a possibility?

“I don’t know if I believe your theory about Sunset being at the center of whatever’s going on,” The PostCrush girl admitted. “But…I think that going to see her is probably a good idea. Just in case.”

Kiwi’s skepticism came as no surprise to Adagio. Frankly, if their roles were reversed right now she knew she’d most likely be skeptical too. But thankfully, despite the former popstar’s doubt, she was still willing to believe her enough to agree that seeing Sunset wasn’t completely unwarranted. And that was really all the Dazzling needed from Kiwi right now; a bit of faith.

Before Adagio had a chance to thank Kiwi for her credulity though, her phone began to chime and vibrate. Instinctively, the Dazzling took a quick glance over towards the dash, where she’d placed her phone, and saw the icon that indicated she had a text message.

“Always when I’m driving,” She dryly commented before taking her right hand off of the wheel, grabbing her phone, and handing it off to Kiwi. “Can you see what that text’s about for me?”

“Y-Yeah, sure,” Kiwi hesitantly replied as she took the phone from Adagio.

The PostCrush girl looked down at Adagio’s phone and tapped the text message icon on the screen, which opened the message to reveal that the text had been sent by Sonata. She then read the message silently to herself for a second so that she could give Adagio a simple summary of its contents rather than the whole, somewhat lengthy message.

“It’s from Sonata,” The former popstar said aloud once she was finished reading. “She said she forgot to ask you if you found that $100 surplus in the household budget for her before you left.”

“Ah geez,” Adagio replied, having completely forgotten about all of that due to the chaos of the morning’s events thus far. “Just…text her back and tell her that I’m still working on the budget so I don’t know if there’s a $100 surplus yet.”

In truth, Adagio had finished working on the budget the other day, and she hadn’t found a $100 surplus that she could give to Sonata so that her sister could buy Rainbow Dash a gaming chair for her birthday. But despite this, the Dazzling leader still believed that somehow, someway she would find Sonata that money, if not within the household budget than from some other source. She just didn’t want to let her sister down, thus she felt the need to keep hope alive; even if that hope potentially ended up being false hope.

Kiwi, however, didn’t share Adagio’s outlook on the situation. She hadn’t from the very beginning. Back when she’d heard Adagio promise Sonata the money if she found it, she’d warned the Dazzling leader about how giving someone false hope was sometimes worse than giving them no hope at all. It was a belief that she held very strongly, and one that she wasn’t willing to compromise.

“Is that true?” She asked Adagio. “Are you really still working on the budget?”

As Adagio pulled up to a red light, she looked over at Kiwi, who was looking back at her with an almost accusatory stare.

“No, I finished it last night. And I didn’t find the $100,” The Dazzling replied, choosing to be truthful. “But I will find it somehow, so just text Sonata back and tell her to hold on for now.”

“No,” Kiwi replied fervently as she placed Adagio’s phone back on the dash. “I’m not going to help you give Sonata any more false hope than you already have.”

The judgmental tone in Kiwi’s voice struck a real nerve with Adagio. Who was Kiwi to say that she was giving Sonata false hope? She wasn’t the one dealing with the situation and she didn’t know all of the details about it. So how was it that she was so certain that the hope being given to Sonata was false hope?

“Are you serious right now?” The Dazzling heatedly asked. “I’m doing everything I can to find the money my sister needs to get her girlfriend a nice birthday present, and you have the gall to accuse me of giving her false hope?”

“Because you are giving her false hope, Adagio,” Kiwi retorted just as heatedly. “You just said you finished going over the budget and didn’t find a $100 surplus.”

“I know what I said, Kiwi,” Adagio replied. “But just because I didn’t find the money in the household budget doesn’t mean I won’t find it somewhere else.”

“Will you find it somewhere else though?” Kiwi asked. “Do you have a plan to get it from somewhere else? Are you going to ask a friend to loan it to you, or ask your boss for an advancement on your next paycheck?”

Adagio said nothing in response. The two options for getting the money Kiwi had just mentioned had occurred to her at one point, but she knew neither option was feasible. No one, other than maybe her sisters, would loan her that kind of money simply on good-faith, and Luna had a strict policy of not allowing advancements on faculty and staff paychecks.

“I know you want to spare Sonata’s feelings, Adagio,” Kiwi continued, a bit calmer now. “But you can’t keep on giving her hope when you know there is none. It’s better to just be honest with her.”

With each sentence that Kiwi spoke, Adagio could feel the girl’s words becoming more and more personal.

“That way when Sonata feels disappointment at not being able to get that gaming chair for Rainbow Dash’s birthday it won’t be so crushing,” Kiwi went on, sounding pretty emotional at this point. “And she won’t feel like giving up on hope entirely.”

By the end of Kiwi’s semi-vituperation, Adagio was left speechless. The Dazzling still felt upset with Kiwi for being so judgmental about how she was choosing to deal with Sonata and the $100, but the emotional adiposity of the PostCrush girl’s words weighed too heavy on her heart for her to continue arguing. Instead, she chose to get her emotions in-check and approach the situation from a more level-headed standpoint.

After a few quick mental breaths, it became clear to Adagio where it was Kiwi’s feelings were most likely coming from.

“Is that what someone did to you, Kiwi?” She asked, being mindful not to sound antagonistic at all. “Did someone give you false hope once?”

Kiwi didn’t answer right away. She just turned her head towards the window and brought her right hand up to her face. It was difficult for Adagio to tell for certain, but she was fairly certain she saw the girl wipe a tear from her eye.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Adagio,” Kiwi eventually replied.

The traffic light turned green right after Kiwi finished speaking. Without saying another word, Adagio took her foot off the brake and proceeded to continue down the street towards Sunset Shimmer’s apartment. Neither girl spoke up again for the rest of the journey until they arrived at their destination about ten minutes later.

“We’re here,” Adagio informed Kiwi as she parked the car right in front of Sunset’s apartment.

Before Kiwi stepped out of the car, she took a second to take a look out the window at the place Sunset Shimmer called home, and, much to her surprise, it was a lot nicer than she’d imagined it being. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was she’d been expecting, but whatever that was it certainly hadn’t been the charming, spacious-looking townhouse before her.

“How does a high school student afford a place like this?” She softly asked herself as she got out of the car.

Adagio remained silent as she placed the car keys in her back pocket and walked around the back of the car. As soon as the Dazzling was in front of her, Kiwi followed closely behind as they made their way towards the door.

“So what do we do if Sunset’s left for school already?” The PostCrush girl inquired as the two of them walked. “Do we head to CHS and try to catch her there?”

“Oh, I guarantee you Sunset hasn’t left for school yet,” Adagio replied, sounding almost amused by Kiwi’s question. “She never leaves this early.”

The Dazzling then reached into her front right pocket, took a quick look at her phone, and then put it right back.

“Based on what time it is I’d say she’s probably making breakfast right about now,” She postulated.

“How do you know that?” Kiwi then asked.

“Because I know that girl’s whole weekday morning routine like the back of my hand,” Adagio answered just as they reached the door. “Don’t forget, my sisters and I lived with her for a few months.”

Kiwi had, in fact, forgotten that Adagio and her sisters had lived with Sunset prior to them living on the emu farm. Though in her defense, it had only really been mentioned to her and Su-Z once by Sonata during one of the young Dazzling’s sugar-induced ramblings.

Wasting no time, Adagio clenched her right hand into a fist and proceeded to knock on Sunset’s front door. Both she and Kiwi waited a few seconds for an answer, but none came.

“Sunset?” The Dazzling called out as she knocked again.

Still no answer.

“Maybe she’s still in bed?” Kiwi postulated.

“Maybe,” Adagio replied skeptically. “But I highly doubt it.”

After a second of fidgeting around in her pocket, the Dazzling withdrew a key that clearly wasn’t for the car. Kiwi had noticed Adagio take this key out of the key bowl earlier before they’d left, but as to why the poofy-haired girl had done so she couldn’t say. She’d seen the key in the key bowl many a times before, but until today she’d never seen any of the Dazzlings remove it from there. A small part of her had always wondered what the key unlocked, but now she felt had a pretty good idea about that.

“Why do you have a key to Sunset’s apartment?” She asked.

“Sunset gave it to me while we still lived with her, and she left it with me after we moved out,” Adagio explained. “She sometimes forgets her keys when she goes out, so she wanted me to have a spare in case she ever locked herself out. I think Twilight might have one too.”

Admittedly, Kiwi was a little surprised to hear this. Not the part about Sunset leaving Adagio with a key to her apartment, but the part about Sunset being so forgetful with her keys at times that she’d leave a spare with not one but two people.

“I never pegged Sunset for the forgetful type,” The PostCrush girl remarked as she watched the Dazzling insert the key into the lock.

“She isn’t, not really. She’s only ever forgetful when she oversleeps and she has to rush out the door to get to school on time,” Adagio replied as she unlocked the door. “Don’t tell her I told you this, but one time when we were living together she overslept and almost left for school without wearing a shirt underneath her jacket.”

Kiwi couldn’t help but giggle as the mental image involuntarily formed in her mind of Sunset stepping out of her apartment with only her leather jacket covering up her chest. It wasn’t just this image that she found so amusing though. She also found it amusing how Adagio talked about Sunset with such familiarity, as if the girl were one of her sisters. It was rare that Adagio spoke about anyone other than Aria or Sonata with such a sense of closeness, and given that Sunset had been the Dazzlings’ enemy at one point the former popstar found it humorous that Adagio was speaking about her so intimately right now.

“But one thing that Sunset’s never forgetful about is her geode,” The Dazzling continued, much more sternly than a moment ago. “That’s why when she claimed to have forgotten it the other day I knew she was lying.”

The sudden, serious tone of Adagio’s voice instantly brought Kiwi back down from her amused state, and reminded her of why it was she and the Dazzling were at Sunset’s apartment in the first place.

As soon as the door was unlocked, Adagio gently swung it open and stepped inside.

“Sunset?” She called out into the large studio apartment.

There was no response to Adagio’s call. At least, no direct response. After taking a few more steps inside to allow Kiwi entrance as well, the Dazzling leader thought she heard some soft murmurs coming from the loft where Sunset slept.

“Do you hear that?” She asked her companion as she looked up at the loft.

“Y-Yeah,” Kiwi replied as she did likewise.

Neither girl could make out what it was that was being murmured, if the murmurs were even actual words, but both of them could tell that the voice behind them definitely belonged to Sunset Shimmer.

“Come on,” Adagio said worriedly as she headed for the loft.

Kiwi silently nodded as she followed the Dazzling up the small flight of stairs.

It didn’t take Adagio and Kiwi long to reach the top of the stairs, and when they did they saw a sight that was almost downright horrifying; Sunset Shimmer, lying unconscious on her bed in a cold sweat, muttering something that didn’t sound like it belonged to any known language, and tossing and turning about like she was having an especially awful nightmare.

“Sunset!” Adagio hollered in fright as she rushed over to her friend.

The sight of Sunset in such a distraught state filled Kiwi with a sense of dread, one so strong that she found herself unable to move for a second or two.

“Sunset?!” Adagio shouted once she was by Sunset’s bedside. “Sunset, wake up!”

Adagio desperately tried to awaken Sunset by gently shaking her, but the effort proved futile. No matter how much she shook the Rainboom, Sunset remained trapped within her slumber and unable to acknowledge her pleas. Despite this though, the Dazzling continued to try and rouse her friend from her sleep.

While Adagio tried in vain to awaken Sunset, Kiwi slowly began to walk over to the bed as well. With each step the PostCrush girl took, the more clearly she was able see just how much torment Sunset appeared to be in, and the more she could feel her sense of dread take hold of her. Not because of how bedeviled Sunset was, but because of how powerless she felt to do anything about the girl’s current state. If shaking her and shouting at her like Adagio was doing couldn’t wake her up, what could?

About halfway to the bed Kiwi stopped and pulled out her phone to call an ambulance. Whatever was wrong with Sunset, it was obvious that the girl needed professional medical help. Just as the former popstar was about to dial 911 though, she noticed something odd on the nearby nightstand that caused her to put her phone down for a moment.

“Adagio,” She said to try and get her companion’s attention.

The Dazzling didn’t answer her. All Adagio did was continue to call out Sunset’s name as she desperately tried to shake her awake.

“Sunset! Sunset!” She cried out hysterically.

“Adagio!” Kiwi repeated as she grabbed the Dazzling leader by the shoulder and spun her around to face the nightstand. “Look!”

After the initial shock of being involuntarily spun around wore off, Adagio saw what it was on the nightstand that had caught Kiwi’s attention; Sunset’s geode, pulsating with an ominous orange glow.

“What the-” The Dazzling leader uttered as she got up and moved over to the nightstand.

While she didn’t fully understand the magic behind any of the Rainbooms’ geodes, Adagio understood it enough that she knew something was wrong with Sunset’s right now. The pulsating glow it was currently giving off wasn’t normal, especially considering that it wasn’t even on Sunset’s person at the moment. As far as she knew each Rainboom had to be physically touching their geode in order for it to work, so the fact that it was active at all just lying on the nightstand was a very troubling sign to the Dazzling.

“Why’s it glowing like that?” Kiwi inquired as she too got in for a closer look at the geode.

“I don’t know,” Adagio admitted. “I’ve never seen a magical item act like this before.”

The longer Adagio and Kiwi stared down at Sunset’s geode, the more they each felt like it was somehow trying to communicate with them. Like it knew that something was wrong with its owner and it was trying to call out for help.

“I…I think we should…touch it,” Kiwi precipitously said, sounding almost like she were in a trance, as she slowly reached her right hand out towards the geode.

“Y-Yeah,” Adagio agreed catatonically as she did likewise.

Both girls touched the geode at exactly the same moment, and when they did they each experienced what could only be described as temporary blindness. Their vision went completely dark for a few seconds as they felt like they were being pulled into another dimension. Though the strange thing was that they didn’t feel like they were being pulled there physically, but rather mentally. Like their minds were somehow leaving their bodies behind as they were sent off to who-knows-where.

Soon enough Adagio and Kiwi’s journey came to an end and their sight returned to them, but when it did they found themselves in quite possibly the last place either of them wanted to be.

“T-This is the place from my dream,” Kiwi said in frightful astonishment as she looked around the dimly-lit, door-covered hallway that she’d seen in her sleep.

Adagio said nothing in response as she too took a look around her new, yet somewhat familiar, surroundings. There was no denying that the hallway she and Kiwi were in right now was the same as the one from her dream as well, right down to the various styles of doors lining the walls. The light purple chateau, the dark brown traditional, the light brown Stratford abbey that was nearly decrepit, they were all there along with countless other doors.

As she took in her surroundings, Adagio noticed that Kiwi was looking more than a little frazzled by their current situation. And it only made sense, after all Kiwi wasn’t as used to dealing with magical and bizarre occurrences like she was. True, the PostCrush girl had dealt with magic back at the Starswirl Festival when she’d used the Time Twirler, but that one occurrence could hardly be expected to have steeled her enough to become completely undaunted by the strange power. Heck, even Adagio herself, who’d been dealing with magic her whole life, still found herself daunted by it from time-to-time. But the Dazzling knew that she couldn’t afford to feel daunted right now. Nor could Kiwi.

“Kiwi, you doing okay?” She inquired.

“I…I’m not sure,” Kiwi replied as she ceased her scanning of the hallway and focused her attention on the Dazzling. “This place…it creeps me out. I mean, really creeps me out. But…but I can’t help but feel like we’re meant to be here. Like we’re here for a reason, you know?”

Kiwi’s words caught Adagio by surprise, though not entirely. Although she didn’t say so aloud, internally the Dazzling agreed with her companion’s assessment of their current situation. She couldn’t deny that she also had an unexplainable feeling that wherever it was they were right now it was for some yet unknown reason.

“I don’t want to be in this hallway any longer than we need to be, but I think it’s important that we accomplish whatever it is we’re supposed to do here,” Kiwi concluded, sounding much more steadfast than she had a moment ago.

Hearing Kiwi sound so ardent filled Adagio with relief. The sheer resolute tone of the PostCrush girl’s statement washed away any doubts she had about Kiwi being able to keep her composure during their ordeal.

Sometimes she forgot just how strong Kiwi truly was.

“I agree,” The Dazzling concurred wholeheartedly before looking over to her right at the light purple chateau door. “Tell me, Kiwi; In your dream, did you open any of these doors?”

“No,” Kiwi replied as she too turned her attention to the chateau door.

Adagio had figured that Kiwi, like herself, hadn’t dared open any of the doors whilst in her dream. Despite seeming like nothing more than ordinary doors, both in her dream and now, the Dazzling felt that each one was giving off an emanation that whatever was behind them wasn’t pleasant. However, this emanation wasn’t enough to deter Adagio from acting on her curiosities this time. Not when the reason she was in the hallway again was because she’d come into contact with Sunset’s geode.

“Well, let’s open one now and see where it leads to,” The Dazzling leader said as she walked over to the chateau door.

Kiwi gave no objection as she followed behind Adagio.

As soon as Adagio reached the light purple door, she grabbed hold of the knob but didn’t turn it right away. She took a couple of seconds to steel herself for whatever might be awaiting her on the other side of the door first.

“Here goes,” She said softly to herself as she slowly turned the knob and opened the door.

A brief yet powerful flash of light emanated from the other side of the door the instant Adagio opened it, causing both the Dazzling and Kiwi to shield their eyes. When the light subsided and both girls slowly re-opened their eyes, they saw that the door led to an outdoor area. A track and field area to be more specific, one with a group of about half a dozen people gathered on it.

“Wait a minute,” Adagio started to say as she scanned the outdoor area from the threshold. “Is this…CHS?”

Upon closer examination, the Dazzling was able to determine that it was indeed the grounds of Canterlot High School on the other side of the door. And upon even closer examination, she was able to determine that the people standing on the field were Sunset Shimmer and the other Rainbooms, all of whom were wearing what appeared to be athletic outfits of some sort.

“You’re supposed to be so smart,” Sunset angrily addressed Twilight Sparkle. “But did you ever think that you shouldn’t be messing around with things you don’t understand?!”

As Sunset spoke, she closed a device that Twilight was holding in her hand.

“But I wanna understand!” Twilight replied.

“But you don’t!” Sunset retorted as she got right up in Twilight’s face. “And worst of all, you put the lives of my friends in danger!”

“Sunset?” Kiwi said in stunned awe as she watched the scene unfold from over Adagio’s shoulder.

Sunset didn’t answer to Kiwi’s call. She didn’t even turn her head in Kiwi’s direction to acknowledge that she’d heard her, nor did any of the Rainbooms. They all just continued to act as if she and Adagio weren’t watching them.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” Twilight said tearfully before running off.

“Twilight! Wait!” Twilight’s dog, Spike, called out to his owner as he chased after her.

Once Twilight and Spike were gone, Rainbow Dash walked up behind Sunset and placed a hand on the girl’s left shoulder. The gesture immediately brought Sunset down from her angered state and she gave herself a dejected facepalm, as if suddenly understanding that she’d just made a huge mistake.

Before Adagio or Kiwi had a chance to respond to the scene that they just witnessed unfold, the door quickly slammed shut in front of them. Fortunately Adagio was able to take a step backwards before being struck by it.

“W-What was all that just now?” Kiwi inquired with a mixture of shock and confusion.

“I…I’m not sure,” Adagio replied.

Truthfully though, Adagio did know what all of that had just been. It’d been when Sunset had first met Twilight at the Friendship Games and yelled at her for messing with Equestrian magic. She remembered Sunset telling her about the incident when they were living together, and she especially remembered how the fiery-haired girl had said that it was one of the moments in her life that she regretted most. What the Dazzling was so unsure of was how it was she and Kiwi had just watched it unfold, given that it had happened quite some time ago.

Almost as if she were drawn to it, Adagio quickly moved over to the next door on her right - the dark brown traditional - and opened it without hesitation. Like with the light purple chateau there was a sudden and quick flash of light as soon as the door was opened, but this time it didn’t blind the Dazzling. After being temporarily blinded while opening the last door, she’d made sure to shut her eyes before opening this one. As soon as the light subsided and Adagio opened her eyes again, she once more saw the grounds of CHS on the other side of the door. Only this time she didn’t see the athletic field. Instead she saw the courtyard where the Wondercolts statue was, and Sunset Shimmer standing before the Rainbooms and Snips and Snails with a crown held firmly within her hands.

“At last,” Sunset said wickedly. “More power than I could ever imagine.”

Sunset then placed the crown on her head and she was enveloped in a beam of dark magic that was almost just as blinding as the light from the door. After a few seconds the beam disappeared and Sunset was seen floating in midair, now transformed into what appeared to be a winged-demon of some kind.

“Ahahaha!” Sunset manically laughed as she inspected her new self.

Adagio knew what this moment was as well. It was when Sunset had stolen Princess Twilight’s crown from Equestria and tried to use its power to turn the students of CHS into her own personal army. The Dazzling leader had witnessed part of this moment from a distance with her sisters when their gems detected the presence of Equestrian magic, but she’d never seen Sunset in her demon form before now.

She found the fiery-haired girl both intimidating and slightly attractive like this.

“Is…Is that Sunset?” Kiwi suddenly said from right next to her.

Adagio turned to her left to see Kiwi standing practically shoulder-to-shoulder with her, watching the events on the other side of the door unfold. She’d been so captivated by what she’d been watching that she hadn’t noticed the PostCrush girl get so close to her.

Before the Dazzling had a chance to answer Kiwi’s question, the door slammed shut and silence once more filled the hallway. But the silence didn’t last very long.

“Okay, I am officially done with this place,” Kiwi stated as she backed up a few steps from the door. “I don’t care why it is we’re here anymore. I just…I just want to go home. Now.”

It wasn’t hard for Adagio to tell that Kiwi was just about at her limit. And, if she was being completely honest, so was she. She had no idea where they were, why they were there, or why all the doors were showing them moments from Sunset’s past. She could tell that the lack of all this information was pushing her to her breaking point, but the only thing she felt she could do about it was try to press on and hope that things didn’t get any worse for her and Kiwi.

“Adagio, dear, it’s been far too long,” An all-too-familiar voice suddenly said from just up the hallway. “How about giving your ole mom a hug?”

Adagio and Kiwi instantly turned their attention up the hallway and saw the person that each of them had seen in their dream; Madrigal Moonlight, standing there with her arms held out wide in anticipation of a hug.

The moment Adagio made eye contact with her mother, she could feel her heart skip a beat. Not only had things just gotten worse for her and Kiwi, they’d just gotten about as bad as she could’ve possibly imagined.

The Sunset Also Rises (Part 2)

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“Adagio, dear, it’s been far too long,” Madrigal addressed her daughter as she held her arms out wide. “How about giving your ole mom a hug?”

Adagio really shouldn’t have been surprised to see her mother in the dimly-lit hallway she and Kiwi found themselves in - given that she’d seen her there in her dream - but she was. Instinctively going into big sister mode, the Dazzling leader moved right in front of Kiwi so as to place herself between the PostCrush girl and Madrigal. Since she had no idea what it was Madrigal was up to, she wanted to keep a close proximity to Kiwi in case the scarlet-haired vixen she called her mother tried anything funny.

“How about no,” She strongly refuted.

“O-Oh, okay then. That’s fine,” Madrigal replied in a pained manner. “I understand if you’re not quite comfortable with that.”

Madrigal’s distressed demeanor at being turned down for a hug baffled Adagio. Heck, just the simple fact that the woman had even asked for a hug baffled her. Never in her life had she recalled her mother seeking such a sign of affection from either her or anyone else. The best explanation the Dazzling could come up with for the odd request was that Madrigal was playing some sort of twisted game in the hopes of getting a rise out of her. And if that was indeed the case, she sure as hell wasn’t going to play along with that game.

“Why don’t you drop the act already,” She said. “I know you’re not actually my mother, you practically said so yourself back at the Overlook. So why don’t you just stop pretending and tell me who you really are.”

An anguished expression suddenly appeared on Madrigal’s face, one that was accompanied by a single teardrop that fell down her right cheek.

“You’re breaking your poor mother’s heart, Adagio,” Madrigal then said. “I just want to heal our broken relationship so that we can be a family again. But all you seem to want to do is hate me for trying to love you.”

The Dazzling leader was now all but certain that Madrigal’s false sadness was meant to get a rise out of her. And damn if it wasn’t working like a charm. The more the woman spoke, the angrier she got. Right now all she wanted to do was rush right up to Madrigal and let out how-many-years’ worth of repressed anger towards her mother through her fists, but thankfully she was able to maintain a cool enough head to resist the urge to do so. Such a rash act would surely be a foolish mistake. A mistake that could potentially cost her not only her own life, but Kiwi’s as well.

Kiwi, meanwhile, simply watched silently as Adagio and her mother have what was easily one of the strangest and most confusing conversations she’d ever witnessed. The whole thing made her feel like she was a supporting character in a warped sitcom called, The Dazzlings. More specifically, it made her feel like she was a supporting character in a very special episode of a warped sitcom called, The Dazzlings. One where, after years of not seeing one another, mother and daughter meet again leading to a series of wacky situations that would ultimately end in a heartwarming reunion. Though the PostCrush girl had a feeling there would be no heartwarming ending to this particular ‘episode’.

“Fine, keep up your charade. See if I care,” Adagio retorted. “Because in case you hadn’t figured it out from our encounter at the Overlook, I’m not afraid of my mother anymore. So pretending to be her in order to prey on my fears isn’t going to work.”

Madrigal gave no visible reaction to Adagio’s statement. All she did was recompose herself and shift her focus from the Dazzling over towards Kiwi.

“Tell me, Kiwi; do you have such high levels of hatred for your mother like my daughter seems to have for me?” She inquired.

Kiwi had no idea how to respond to Madrigal’s question, in no small part because she’d never even known her mother. But before the PostCrush girl was able to utter so much as a confused ‘um’ though, Madrigal spoke up once again.

“Oh and by the way, it’s nice to meet you, dearie,” She said. “I always enjoy meeting my daughters’ friends.”

“I-It’s nice to…meet you too?” Kiwi replied, not wanting to be rude.

Almost immediately after Kiwi finished replying to Madrigal, Adagio took a couple of short steps backwards until she was standing no more than a foot directly in front of the PostCrush girl.

“Don’t talk to her,” The Dazzling whispered back to her. “You don’t know the kind of mind games she can play just by having a conversation with you.”

Adagio’s words of warning filled Kiwi with a mixture of anxiety and confusion. She had heard about how bad Madrigal was from the Dazzling and her sisters earlier in the day, sure, but was their mother really that bad? Bad to the point where she could very well be considered a monster? The PostCrush girl didn’t want to believe that that was potentially the case, but given that Adagio knew Madrigal far better than she did she chose to assume the worst and heed the girl’s advice.

“G-Got it,” She tentatively assured her companion.

“Really, Adagio, must you be so callous?” Madrigal spoke up, gaining both girls’ attention. “I mean, I admit that I’m not the friendliest person in the world, but that doesn’t mean I’m some sort of monster, dear.”

A look of frustration involuntarily crossed Adagio’s face for a brief moment when she heard Madrigal’s claim. Her mother, not a monster? Please. The Dazzling and her sisters had a number of emotional, mental, and even physical scars to prove not only that Madrigal was a monster, but that she was a monster amongst monsters. The sheer fallacy of her claiming otherwise was practically rage-inducing. But despite this, Adagio still managed to maintain a cool head. Though she knew that if she didn’t end this encounter with her mother soon - or at the very least take some level of control over it - her cool head was going to turn into an erupting volcano.

“Just what is it you want?” The Dazzling very sternly inquired, right before she redirected her attention to the hallway itself. “Or better yet, how is it that you’re even here? I thought you weren’t able to escape the Overlook without - ”

Adagio cut herself off midsentence as something caught her eye that she hadn’t noticed earlier. The hallway’s carpet, it looked incredibly familiar to her. The Hicks’ Hexagon design, the red, orange, and black coloring of it; she knew she’d seen this carpet somewhere before. It took her a moment to recall where that somewhere had been, but soon enough she remembered all-too-well where it was she’d previously laid eyes on it. And once she remembered she felt an unmistakable twinge of trepidity take hold of her.

“T-This place,” She started to say as she struggled to maintain her collected composure. “Is it…part of the Overlook?”

The possibility of being back within the walls of the Overlook Hotel filled Adagio with no small amount of dread, for more reasons than one. Firstly because the hotel itself had given her the hibbie jibbies, even when it’d looked like a five-star ski resort and not a haunted house. But mostly it was because of what it meant if she actually was back there. It meant that she and her sisters had failed to truly defeat their mother like they’d believed they’d done. And if the magic of friendship wasn’t powerful enough to stop Madrigal, was there anything that was?

Kiwi also felt fearful at potentially being within the Overlook, though not quite as fearful as Adagio. Even though she’d never been there herself, the chilling way the Dazzlings had talked about it had been enough to instill a small amount of anxiety within her regarding it.

Fortunately for both girls though, Madrigal didn’t confirm Adagio’s assumption right away, which each of them took as a sign that the hallway wasn’t part of the Overlook like the Dazzling leader had thought.

“Oh dear. You really don’t understand what’s going on here, do you, Adagio?” Madrigal eventually answered. “Though I can’t say I blame you for that. This is a rather esoteric situation we’ve found ourselves in, isn’t it.”

Adagio said nothing in response.

“To answer your question, dear; No, this place isn’t part of the Overlook. It’s the inside of Sunset Shimmer’s mind,” Madrigal began to explain. “Well, it’s a three dimensional representation of Sunset Shimmer’s mind that you’re able to comprehend at least. One most likely created by the girl’s geode in order to allow you access to it without losing your own minds in the process.”

Not surprisingly, both Adagio and Kiwi had a difficult time grasping some of Madrigal’s explanation, especially the parts regarding the hallway being a three dimensional representation and how it had been created by Sunset’s geode. Though as far as either of them were concerned, such details were of little importance at the moment. The only piece of information that was of any true concern was that the hallway they were in was inside Sunset’s mind. Things like how this was so could wait to be explored at another time…if ever.

Though of course there was still a great plethora of non-metaphysical related questions the Dazzling and PostCrush girl had after learning that they were inside Sunset’s mind.

“If this is Sunset’s mind, then where’s Sunset?” Adagio asked aloud. “I’m guessing that if her geode created this physical representation of her mind then it must have also created a physical representation of her for us to interact with.”

Like Adagio, Kiwi was also curious as to Sunset’s whereabouts after learning that they were inside the Rainboom’s mind. Though unlike Adagio, Kiwi’s belief that a physical representation of Sunset existing somewhere within the mental landscape of the girl’s mind stemmed more from her having seen it in movies and on TV.

“Very well deduced, dear,” Madrigal replied heartily to her daughter’s illation. “There is in fact a physical representation of Sunset in here.”

Madrigal then paused for a second as she gestured over towards one of the doors to her left.

“And she’s right through there if you’d like to see her,” She continued.

Both Adagio and Kiwi immediately turned their attention over towards the door Madrigal was gesturing to; a dark brown flush-style with the number 217 on it. The sight of the door elicited no real reaction within Kiwi, as it appeared to be just another random door amongst the many doors lining the hallway to her. Though for Adagio, the sight of the door elicited a feeling of great trepidation within her, for she recognized it almost immediately.

It was the door from Sunset’s room at the Overlook.

The feelings of trepidation within the Dazzling leader did not emanate from her own fears of the cursed hotel, but rather from her fears of what the door represented within the context of Sunset’s mind. Was it a scar left on the girl’s psyche from her traumatic experience at the Overlook? A scar so deep that it was slowly consuming her conscious mind? Or was it a gateway back to the Overlook itself, where Sunset’s mind was somehow trapped? Whatever the case, the one thing Adagio knew for certain was that if Sunset truly was behind the room 217 door as Madrigal had said, then her dear friend was in even greater need of help than she’d originally believed.

“Sunset?!” The Dazzling hollered as she ran towards the dark brown door.

“Adagio, wait!” Kiwi called out as she tried to follow her companion, having been caught off-guard by the girl’s sudden hegira.

But Adagio didn’t wait for Kiwi to catch up to her, nor did she give any sort of acknowledgement that she’d even heard the PostCrush girl call out to her. All she did was continue to make her way over to the door with 217 on it like a bat out of hell.

Soon enough Adagio reached her destination, and when she did she flung the door open and stepped through the threshold into the room beyond it in one fluid motion. It only took Kiwi about a second or two to catch up to the Dazzling, but by the time she did she was already too late. The instant Adagio was fully through the threshold the door slammed shut, nearly smacking Kiwi square in the face. Thankfully though the PostCrush girl managed to brace herself against the door before making contact with it, but the simple fact that it had closed on her instantly filled her with anxiety. Anxiety that only grew when she tried to open the door herself but found it to now be locked.

“Adagio?! ADAGIO?!” She shouted in her panic as she started to pound furiously on the door.

No answer came from the other side.

“Well that was certainly unexpected,” Madrigal remarked, gaining Kiwi’s attention. “But now that it’s just you and me, Kiwi, perhaps we can finally get down to the rather urgent business at hand.”

“U-Urgent business?” Kiwi replied tentatively, having completely forgotten about Adagio’s earlier warning to her about talking to Madrigal. “W-What urgent business?”

“Why, helping me save Sunset Shimmer of course,” Madrigal answered. “After all, that’s the whole reason why I brought you and Adagio here, dearie.”

“Kiwi?! KIWI?!” Adagio hollered as she pounded on the 217 door with her left hand while trying – and failing – to open it with her right hand.

No answer came from the other side.

Despite the Dazzling leader’s laser-like focus and determination to save Sunset Shimmer only a few short seconds ago, she hadn’t been oblivious to the fact that the door she’d just stepped through had inexplicably shut behind her. As soon as Adagio had heard the loud sound of the door closing she’d turned around to see that she’d only just barely made it into the room before the door had closed, which meant that her companion was still in the hallway with Madrigal.

“Dammit!” She shouted in frustration as she continued to try and open the door, angry more at herself for inadvertently leaving Kiwi behind than at the door for failing to open.

After a few more seconds of trying to get the door open, Adagio ceased pounding on it and let go of the knob. She realized that no matter what she did or how much she tried the whole thing was an effort in futility. The door clearly wasn’t going to open anytime soon.

“DAMMIT!” She shouted once more as she balled her right hand up into a fist and punched the wall to the right of the door with it.

Adagio’s assault on the wall hadn’t damaged it in any visible way, but it had sent a small jolt of pain running through the girl’s hand. And as far as the Dazzling was concerned, she deserved it. She’d been so focused on helping Sunset that she’d completely forgotten about protecting Kiwi from her mother, if only for a brief moment. But because of that brief momentary lapse in her acumen her friend was all alone with Madrigal, and Celestia only knew what fate awaited Kiwi now.

As much as Adagio felt like beating herself up further for being so foolish, she knew she didn’t have that luxury right now. Right now she needed to regain her laser-like focus and find Sunset Shimmer as soon as possible. After all, Sunset was still very much at the center of all this and in need of help too. Not only that, but maybe Sunset would be able to help her save Kiwi from Madrigal, since it was her mind they were all in at the moment.

After taking a deep, calming breath, the Dazzling leader turned around and was immediately surprised to see where it was she was at. Despite the door that she’d just stepped through having been the door to Sunset’s room back at the Overlook Hotel, she found herself not within said room but just outside of the hotel’s large lounge that she and her sisters had once crossed through. With no Sunset Shimmer in sight.

“Great. Just great,” She sarcastically remarked, feeling less-than-thrilled about being back within the beautifully decorated yet hauntingly cavernous lounge.

Perhaps it had been the creepy typewriter with a piece of paper in it that had read, ‘Welcome to the Show’, or the fact that she’d nearly fallen down the staircase at the other end of the room, but Adagio simply did not like the Overlook’s lounge. The place just creeped her out more than any other room within the hotel, including the Gold Room where she’d faced her mother last.

Reluctantly, the Dazzling leader took a few steps forward into the lounge with the intent of heading for the stairwell on the other side, figuring that crossing the room once again was necessary if she was going to have any hope of finding Sunset. Though those few steps were all she took before she heard a faint yet ominous echoing sound that caused her to come to an abrupt halt. It took Adagio a moment or two to realize just what the strange sound she was suddenly hearing was, but as soon as she realized what it was she felt a small chill run down her spine. It was the sound of a typewriter typing.

Knowing exactly where it was the sound was coming from, Adagio quickly turned her head over towards a nearby table to see the same typewriter she seen at the Overlook before sitting on top of it, typing all by itself. The sight of this phenomenon made her feel as though she were in a horror movie, which caused her instincts to start screaming at her to ignore the darn thing and continue onward towards the staircase like she’d been doing. But the Dazzling’s curiosity at what the phantom machine was typing was far too great for her to simply ignore it. She needed to know what it’s message was.

After taking a short, deep breath to steel her nerves Adagio tentatively approached the typewriter. With every step she took the sound of the typing became a little bit louder and her courage began to wane a little bit more, but nonetheless she continued to get closer and closer to it. Soon enough she was standing right in front of the machine and she could make out what it was typing. Only a single word, repeating over and over again.

Monster

“I tried. I really tried,” An emotionless voice suddenly said from right behind the Dazzling.

The chilly and toneless statement caught Adagio completely off-guard and caused her heart to skip a beat.

“Waaah!” She uttered in her now startled state as she turned around to see who the mysterious voice belonged to, grabbing ahold of the table with both hands as she did so in order to prevent herself from stumbling over it.

As soon as the Dazzling saw who it was that had given her such a fright, she instantly felt her heart skip yet another beat. Though this time it wasn’t out of startlement, but rather out of a sense of sheer and unbridled dread.

“S-Sunset?” She said as she stared at a revenant-like version of her friend.

“I tried to be good. I truly did,” Sunset replied dispassionately as she stared back at the Dazzling with eyes as glassy and dead as a doll’s. “I tried to be a good student, but I betrayed and abandoned Princess Celestia. I tried to be a good friend, but I alienated Twilight Sparkle and allowed her to become corrupted by Equestrian magic. I tried to be a good sister, but I let Sunrise down when she’d needed me the most. I tried - ”

All Adagio could do was listen in stunned silence as Sunset continued to list off various ways she’d tried to be good but failed. The sight of her dear friend in such an eidolon state was almost too much for the Dazzling leader to bear. The lifeless look in the Rainboom’s eyes, the cold and hollow tone in her voice, the self-deprecating words coming out of her mouth; it all made the poofy-haired girl feel like shedding tears of sorrow. But for some reason she found herself unable to shed even a single tear.

“No matter how hard I tried to be good, I failed every time,” Sunset eventually said. “I’ll never be able to be good, because I’m just a monster.”

Sunset’s alarming statement that she believed herself to be a monster was what finally caused Adagio’s eyes to start tearing up – uncontrollably. As rivers of watery sadness began to stream down the Dazzling’s cheeks, she lunged forward and grabbed ahold of Sunset by the arms in what could only be described of as a fit of grievous rage.

“How could you say such a horrible thing, Sunset?!” She hollered lugubriously right in the girl’s face. “How could you ever think that you’re a…a monster?!”

Sunset gave no response.

The lack of an answer from Sunset filled Adagio with even greater amounts of fury and anguish. She wasn’t upset with Sunset herself though, she knew that the girl’s reticence wasn’t of her own will. She was upset at whatever had turned Sunset into this tormented and near-lifeless shell of her former self.

As the Dazzling leader stared at her friend in heartbreak her anger slowly began to dissipate, but her grief remained strong. Eventually her grief caused her to lose her strength and let go of the Rainboom’s arms just before she gently fell to her knees right in front of her nearly soporose friend.

“What’s happened to you?” She dolefully inquired as tears continued to run down her cheeks like waterfalls. “What’s caused you to become like this? What could have possibly made you believe such an awful - ”

Adagio cut herself off midsentence as she abruptly came to a great adumbration. She couldn’t explain how, but somehow she suddenly understood everything. Like someone who’d just completed a jigsaw puzzle, she could now see how a bunch of seemingly unrelated pieces had come together to form a great big picture as clear as day. A picture that told the story of how Sunset had come to be in her current state.

“How could I have been so blind?” She uttered softly to herself.

After quickly wiping the tears from her face, Adagio steadily got back onto her feet and looked Sunset square in the eyes.

“I’d wondered why it was Madrigal had asked my sisters and I to use our magic to help her escape the Overlook when she’d known perfectly well that we’d refuse, but now I understand why,” She continued, speaking more to herself than to Sunset. “She’d never needed our magic. That whole confrontation we’d had with her in the Gold Room had been nothing more than a farce, a way to keep us distracted so that we wouldn’t realize what it was she’d actually been after.”

It was at this point that the Dazzling balled up her hands into tightly clenched fists at her side.

“To keep us from realizing that you were her target from the very beginning, Sunset,” She concluded.

“W-Wait. You were the one that brought us here?” Kiwi asked Madrigal, sounding almost completely bewildered. “And you brought us here to…help you save Sunset?”

“That’s what I said,” Madrigal replied, somewhat annoyedly.

Kiwi was too lost in her bewilderment to take notice of the slightly irked tone within Madrigal’s response. Despite having just received clarification that she’d heard the woman correctly, she was still having a rather difficult time coming to grips with what Madrigal had said. No matter how much the gears in her head turned she simply couldn’t make sense of any of it. How was it that Madrigal had been the one who’d brought her and Adagio into Sunset’s head? It’d been the Rainboom’s geode that had called out to the two of them…hadn’t it?

Even more puzzling to the PostCrush girl though was Madrigal’s apparent reason for why it was she’d brought her and Adagio into Sunset’s mind in the first place. How come Madrigal was looking for help to try and save Sunset? Why was she even trying to save Sunset, period? She was the one that Sunset needed saving from…wasn’t she?

“I…I don’t understand,” Kiwi stated aloud.

“I gathered that, dearie,” Madrigal replied as she started taking a few steps forward. “But don’t worry, I can explain everyth - ”

Madrigal cut herself off mid-sentence - as well as mid-stride - when she noticed that for every step forward she’d taken Kiwi had taken a step backwards. That, coupled with the salient look of fear in the PostCrush girl’s eyes, once again brought a pained look to the woman’s face.

“T-There’s no need to be afraid, Kiwi. I’m not going to harm you,” She tentatively tried to assure the former popstar.

Only after hearing Madrigal’s remark did Kiwi realize just how much she was letting her fear show. She’d of course been aware from the very beginning of all this chaos that she hadn’t exactly been concealing her anxieties very well, but it wasn’t until this point that she’d become fully cognizant of just how much those anxieties were noticeably affecting her. And just how much of a problem that was. Based on everything she’d learned about Madrigal from the Dazzlings, Kiwi knew how dangerous it could be to show such strong levels of fear in front of their mother. The fact that Madrigal hadn’t yet preyed on her fear seemed nothing short of a miracle to her. But regardless, the PostCrush girl knew that she had to get her emotions in-check quickly if she was going to survive dealing with the scarlet-haired vixen. Especially now that Adagio wasn’t with her.

And so, after a brief, calming breath, Kiwi straightened up her posture and dawned a more ardent face.

“Forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical, Madrigal,” She began to reply steadfastly. “But I find that difficult to believe based on some of the things I’ve heard about you.”

Kiwi’s new demeanor seemed to catch Madrigal off-guard for a moment, as evidenced by the sudden look of surprise that crossed her face. Though soon enough the woman’s expression returned to its previously pained state.

“O-Oh,” She said dejectedly. “My daughters must have told you stories from when they were growing up, huh?”

“A few, yeah,” Kiwi confirmed. “And they told me about what happened at the Overlook Hotel too.”

“I see,” Madrigal simply replied, sounding even more dejected than she had a moment ago.

Madrigal’s continued state of despondency confused Kiwi, but she paid it little to no mind. So long as the woman standing before her didn’t appear to be angry or threatening in any way than that meant things were going about as well as they possibly could be, at least as far as she was concerned. Which, unbeknownst to her, was starting to make her forget about the gravity of her situation.

“Tell me something; are you even the real Madrigal Moonlight, or are you just an imposture like Adagio said?” The PostCrush girl brazenly asked.

There was a moment of silence after Kiwi asked her question. And in that quiet moment Kiwi could’ve sworn she saw a single teardrop fall down Madrigal’s left cheek, though she couldn’t be one hundred percent certain due to the lackluster lighting of the hallway.

“I’m not sure,” Madrigal eventually answered in a very somber manner.

Madrigal’s response took Kiwi completely by surprise. Of all the possible answers she could’ve received to her query, the one she’d gotten hadn’t even crossed her mind. And once again the PostCrush girl found it difficult to conceal her emotions.

“You’re not sure?” She said back. “How can you be unsure about whether you’re Madrigal Moonlight or not?”

Another brief moment of silence followed as Madrigal brought a hand up to her face and wiped it across her face, confirming to Kiwi that she’d been correct about the teardrop.

“You said my daughters told you about what happened at the Overlook,” Madrigal said as she lowered her hand. “But did they tell you the part where I’d told them how I didn’t know how I’d ended up there?”

A third moment of silence followed as Kiwi tried to recall whether or not the Dazzlings’ had, in fact, made any mention of this in their story.

“No, they didn’t,” She eventually answered.

“I figured as much,” Madrigal then said. “But you see, Kiwi, that’s why I’m not sure if I’m really Madrigal.”

Kiwi’s confusion only grew upon hearing this. How was it that Madrigal not knowing how it was she’d wound up at the Overlook related to her not knowing if she was actually Madrigal or not? The only possible explanation she could come up with was that the woman was suffering from some form of amnesia, but given how she’d both recognized Adagio and was keenly aware of what’d transpired between the two of them last time they’d met that seemed highly unlikely to her.

“I’m…not following,” She confessed.

A small, almost sarcastic-sounding chuckle could be heard escaping Madrigal’s mouth after Kiwi expressed her confusion. One that drew the ire of the PostCrush girl, as evidenced by the mild scowl that briefly crossed her face when she’d heard it.

“I’m sorry, Kiwi,” Madrigal apologized, sensing Kiwi’s slight irritation. “But I wasn’t expecting you to understand. I know that your experience dealing with situations involving magic is…limited.”

This, not surprisingly, only drew further ire from Kiwi. Though that ire was quickly overshadowed by a burning question that popped into her mind.

“How do you know what my experience dealing with magic is like?” She inquired sternly.

“I don’t know how I know that! That’s what I’m trying explain here!” Madrigal replied, now sounding borderline hysterical, as she started to frantically pace the hallway from side-to-side. “I don’t know how it is that I know all of these things! I don’t know how I’m aware that you and your friend, Su-Z, once used the Time Twirler! I don’t know how I know that I have a granddaughter named Dolly! And I’m pretty sure I’ve made it clear by now that I don’t know how it is I ended up at the Overlook!”

Watching Madrigal traipse the hallway and ramble on like a bedlamite renewed Kiwi’s earlier feelings of apprehension towards the woman. It was unsettling behavior to witness from anyone, but given that it was Madrigal who - up until this point - had been so incredibly collected it was especially unsettling for the PostCrush girl. But despite her revived anxieties, Kiwi couldn’t help but feel a smidge of sympathy for the distraught woman. She herself had never experienced anything close to resembling the identity crisis that Madrigal appeared to be going through right now, but even still she couldn’t help but imagine what it might feel like if she had. And as she did so she highly doubted that she would be able to handle the situation any better.

“That’s why I don’t know if I’m really me, Kiwi!” Madrigal continued as she ceased her pacing and turned to face her. “Because there are so many things that I know that I don’t know how I know!”

That last part caused Kiwi to mentally pause for moment so she could try and make sense of it. Thankfully it only took her about a second or two to fully fathom Madrigal’s near-nonsensical phrasing.

“But…but there are things I know that I’m sure I know because I am Madrigal,” Madrigal went on, a bit more calmly now. “Like how Sonata’s first word was ‘mommy’, or how Aria and her father had once gone on a hunting trip together when she was younger. Or even how Adagio and I had gotten into an argument once because she’d kept insisting that she could live on a diet of nothing but shellfish for the rest of her life.”

A brief, practically inaudible chortle could be heard coming from Madrigal as soon as she’d finished her last sentence.

“Honestly, that girl can be so stubborn sometimes,” She then remarked nostalgically.

This was something that Kiwi could not only agree with, but attest too as well. In the short time that she’d been living with Adagio she herself had experienced times where the Dazzling leader had shown high levels of strong headedness. Times like when she’d vehemently defended the quality of the movie Godzilla: King of the Monsters, or when she’d insisted that she would find some extra money for Sonata so that her sister could get Rainbow Dash a nice birthday gift despite all evidence to the contrary. Those times and a few others were all she needed to know just how stubborn Adagio could be when she believed herself to be right about something.

However, Kiwi couldn’t similarly attest to Madrigal’s claims regarding Sonata and Aria, for obvious reasons. But the sheer certainty in the woman’s tone of voice as she’d mentioned them made it difficult for the PostCrush girl to believe that they weren’t any less true than the one regarding Adagio.

“That…was a good memory though,” Madrigal continued. “Because even though we were fighting there was still love between us. I still loved Adagio, despite her belief to the contrary.”

There was a brief pause as Madrigal looked Kiwi dead in the eyes with the most austere look the PostCrush girl had ever seen.

“Kiwi. I know my daughters must have told you some awful stories about how I treated them growing up, and I’m ashamed to admit that most of them are probably true,” The scarlet-haired woman confessed. “But please, believe me when I say that the reason I did all of those things was because I loved them.”

Kiwi was instantly blown away by what Madrigal had said. Not because she believed the woman in any way, but just the opposite. She couldn’t believe Madrigal had just claimed that the reason she’d been so malevolent and downright torturous towards the Dazzlings for how-many-years was because she had loved them. It was enough to enrage her so much that she could’ve sworn she could feel the blood within her veins begin to boil.

“Love?! Love?!” She hollered at Madrigal in her anger. “Are you…are you serious right now?! You honestly believe that all of the horrible things you did to your daughters when they were growing up was because you loved them?!”

Madrigal gave no verbal response to Kiwi’s heated question. All she did was look away from the girl and to her side in shame, but that was all the answer Kiwi needed.

“You…you really are just as bad as Adagio and her sisters said,” She then remarked in disbelief. “I just…I don’t understand it. How could you possibly be such a…such a monster to not only treat your own daughters so awfully, but to also believe that you did so out of love for them?!”

Once again, Madrigal gave no verbal response to Kiwi’s question. At least not initially. For a few seconds there was nothing but an extremely awkward silence in the hallway as Madrigal’s sullen face slowly grew even more morose until it looked like she’d sunk into a deep despair.

“Maybe you’re right,” She eventually, and very softly, said. “Maybe I really am a…a monster.”

Needless to say, this was not the response Kiwi had expected to hear. Not by a longshot. Normally such an unexpected reply would elicit a highly noticeable reaction from her – like gasping loudly or taking a step backwards – but since she was finally starting to grasp the concept of concealing one’s emotions she gave no such highly noticeable reaction. So despite her nearly awestruck level of surprise mentally, physically she managed to keep her reaction to merely that of a look of mild perplexity. Though, of course, Kiwi’s mentally stupefied state did leave her at a loss for words.

“I always thought that I was doing the right thing by being so hard on my daughters,” Madrigal continued somberly. “I thought that by doing so I was preparing them to face the harsh, merciless world I knew they’d one day be entering without me, but…but maybe I was wrong. Maybe all I ended up doing was setting them on a path of cruelty and ruin.”

As Kiwi listened to Madrigal admit her follies as a mother, she couldn’t help but once again feel a twinge of sympathy for the woman. She in no way believed that Madrigal trying to prepare her daughters to one day face the world alone was an excuse for being so awful to them, but she was at least able to understand the logic behind it. However twisted that logic may be.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that they ended up so lost for so long,” Madrigal went on as she turned around in shame until her back was facing Kiwi. “But…but I never imagined that they’d ever become so callous that they would leave their own mother for dead.”

At this, Kiwi found it impossible to hide her level of shock.

“T-They what?!” She barely managed to utter in her now stunned state.

A small, misanthropic smile briefly crossed Madrigal’s face upon hearing Kiwi’s flabbergasted question. One that the PostCrush girl was unable to see though due to the fact that Madrigal was facing away from her.

“Oh, I’d assumed my daughters had told you about how I’d died,” The scarlet-haired woman said as she turned back around, quickly losing her smile as she did so.

“N-No, they hadn’t,” Kiwi replied. “They hadn’t even said anything about you dying. All they’d said was that after years of not seeing you they’d run into you at the Overlook.”

“I see,” Madrigal then said. “Well in that case, allow me to inform you about my…untimely demise, dearie. You see, one day I’d decided to do a little hunting down inside a trench. The trench itself had seemed fairly safe when I’d first ventured down into it, but not long after I’d been in there I learned that it was anything but safe. A number of rocks started to fall all around me and soon enough I’d found myself trapped underneath some of the larger ones, slowly bleeding to death after having been hit by a few of the smaller ones.”

An involuntary gasp escaped Kiwi’s mouth as she couldn’t help but imagine the pain and fear that one must feel from being trapped in a trench while severely injured.

“I had called out for help and my daughters must’ve heard me because a few minutes later they showed up, but…but when they did they didn’t help me,” Madrigal continued. “All they did was just…look at me silently for a bit before leaving. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was frantically calling out for them to come back. But they never did. After that I inexplicably woke up inside the Overlook, and you said you already know what had happened from that point on.”

To say that Kiwi felt taken aback by Madrigal’s tale would be a gross understatement. She felt absolutely perturbed by it. While she’d been aware of the Dazzlings’ troubled past for some time, what she’d just learned from Madrigal regarding them went far beyond what she considered simply being part of one’s troubled past. Abandoning their mother when she was injured and leaving her for dead? What the three girls she’d come to admire and consider family had done was nothing short of…monstrous.

That is, of course, if the tale were actually true. There was always the possibility that Madrigal was making the whole thing up. Though as much as Kiwi wanted to believe that to be the case, she found it difficult to do so. Once more the certainty in the woman’s tone of voice as she’d spoken her words left little doubt within the PostCrush girl’s mind that they were in any way false. But even still, she simply refused to accept that Adagio and her sisters were even capable of such a horrid act.

Several questions quickly popped into Kiwi’s mind in regards to Madrigal’s story. Questions that she hoped would reveal some flaw or inconsistency within the woman’s yarn to show it to be a falsehood. But before she could ask even a single one the lights in the hallway started to flicker, disrupting her train of thought. The flickering only lasted a few seconds, but when it ended the lighting in the hallway was noticeably dimmer. And Madrigal was doubled over in pain.

“Ahh!” The woman shrieked out before falling to her knees.

Instinctively, Kiwi started to rush over to Madrigal to see if she was all right. But when she remembered just who it was she was rushing over to she promptly stopped. Though that still left only about a four foot distance between herself and Madrigal.

“A-Are you okay?” The PostCrush girl inquired, still feeling somewhat concerned for Madrigal’s well-being.

“I’m…I’m fine, Kiwi, ” Madrigal panted in response. “ But we’re…we’re running out of time. If we don’t hurry than…than soon Sunset and I will…will both die.”

Hearing Madrigal mention that Sunset may soon die filled Kiwi with great trepidation. For as bad as Sunset had seemed back in her apartment the PostCrush girl hadn’t thought that she was anywhere near death’s door. Once more the thought that Madrigal was merely lying crossed her mind, but given the severity of the woman’s claim she felt that she couldn’t afford to outright dismiss it. After all, if Madrigal wasn’t lying than she needed to act quickly if she was going to save her dear friend. And Madrigal too, if only by mutual inclusiveness.

“What are you talking about?” She inquired as she gently got down on her knees in order to be at eye-level with Madrigal. “How is it that you and Sunset are in danger?”

“Because…because her geode is trying to expel me from her mind…at any cost,” Madrigal explained.

It stood to reason that Kiwi required a more detailed explanation than that to fully understand what Madrigal was saying. Though fortunately Madrigal seemed to perceive this and continued on without her needing to ask for said details.

“I’m assuming my daughters told you about how they’d ‘defeated’ me back at the Overlook, no?” The scarlet-haired woman asked.

“Yeah, they did,” Kiwi confirmed.

“Well just before that happened I used what little magic I had left to enter Sunset Shimmer’s mind through her geode,” Madrigal then said. “It’s magic acts like a psychic doorway that allows her access into other people’s minds, to a certain degree. But since doors work both ways and I’m highly-skilled with magic, I was able to gain access into her mind fully in order to save myself.”

Madrigal’s explanation was, to say the least, fascinating to Kiwi. Even though she’d experienced first-hand the power of magic when she’d used the Time Twirler, she found herself in awe that it could be so powerful as to allow someone to enter another’s mind like it had allowed Madrigal to enter Sunset’s mind. There was, however, one aspect of Madrigal’s explanation though that she found rather concerning. An aspect that had nothing to do with the power that magic can possess.

“That wasn’t something you just came up with on the spot though, was it, Madrigal?” She sternly - but not too sternly – inquired. “It was something you’d planned in-advance.”

“Yes, it was,” Madrigal admitted as she looked the PostCrush girl straight in the eyes. “But I assure you, Kiwi, it was only a plan of absolute last resort. I didn’t want to, for lack of a better term, invade Sunset’s mind like this, but I had no other choice if I wanted to survive in the event that talking to my daughters ended badly. Which, after they’d left me for dead, I couldn’t rule out as a possibility.”

As much as Kiwi hated to admit it, Madrigal did sort of have a point there. If she’d been in a similar situation as Madrigal she too would most likely have felt the need to have a plan B handy.

“My overall plan was simply to recuperate within the safe-haven of Sunset’s mind and then leave when I was strong enough, but…but I’ve hit a bit of a snag in that plan,” Madrigal continued as she averted her gaze from Kiwi. “Sunset’s geode is trying to forcibly expel me from her mind, that’s what the flickering lights in this physical representation are supposed to, well, represent. It sees me as a threat to Sunset and is doing everything it can to try and get rid of me. And I mean everything. Including things that are harmful to Sunset.”

It was at this point that Kiwi began to understand what Madrigal had meant earlier when she’d said that Sunset’s geode was trying to expel her at any cost.

“It’s a ‘kill the host to kill the disease’ situation, isn’t it?” The PostCrush girl half-inquired, half-stated. “The geode is so desperate to get you out of Sunset’s head that it’s going to destroy Sunset in order to do it.”

Admittedly, Kiwi found the situation she’d just described to be strikingly improbable. Sunset’s geode destroying Sunset in order to protect her? It was the very definition of paradoxical. But then again, maybe Sunset’s geode wasn’t even aware of what of was doing to its owner. Maybe it was simply acting like a computer program and solving a problem it had encountered with no discernable consciousness to guide its actions. Given her limited understanding of how magic worked it wasn’t a possibility that the PostCrush girl could rule out.

“I would leave Sunset’s mind if I could, but I’m not strong enough yet,” Madrigal then said. “That’s why I brought you and Adagio here. Because I need your help in order to save Sunset without dying again.”

Kiwi couldn’t help but get the distinct feeling in that moment that Madrigal didn’t give two licks about Sunset’s safety, only her own. Maybe it was because of the way the woman said that last part about saving Sunset without sacrificing herself ,or maybe it was simply that she still didn’t trust her, but the PostCrush girl just couldn’t help but be leery of Madrigal’s true motives here.

“I know what you must be thinking right now, Kiwi. You must be thinking that I’m only concerned about my own survival,” Madrigal said as she once again made eye contact with Kiwi. “And I’ll admit it, I am concerned about my survival. But I truly am concerned about Sunset’s safety too. I honestly do feel bad, guilty even, that I’ve put her in danger by being inside her mind.”

Once again, the sheer conviction in Madrigal’s voice made it difficult for Kiwi to doubt the woman’s sincerity.

“Not only that, but I’m not afraid about my own survival because I’m afraid of death,” Madrigal solemnly continued. “I’m afraid that if I die again I’ll…I’ll never have another chance to make things right with my daughters. I meant it earlier when I’d told Adagio that I wanted to mend our broken relationship and be a family again. I want that more than anything. But if I die here then I know that will never happen. I know I won’t mysteriously come back again, and I know I’ll never get another chance to make amends with my children.”

The way Madrigal poured her heart out nearly brought Kiwi to tears. Nearly. The PostCrush girl still had a doubt or two about whether Madrigal was truly being sincere at the moment, despite how much she appeared to be. But her feelings aside, there was still one thing about all of this that Kiwi was confused about, and that was what sort of help Madrigal expected from a magicless individual like herself?

“But…how can I help you?” She inquired. “I don’t have any magic.”

The look of solemnity within Madrigal’s eyes quickly intensified after Kiwi asked her question. So much so that it sent a brief chill down the PostCrush girl’s spine.

“I need you to allow me access into your mind, Kiwi,” Madrigal answered.

Upon hearing Madrigal’s answer, Kiwi promptly got back onto her feet and took a few steps backwards away from Madrigal.

“Y-You want me to what?!” She inquired, making no effort to hide her newfound sense of fright.

“Kiwi, please, just listen to me,” Madrigal calmly pleaded as she too got back onto her feet.

Kiwi gave no response to Madrigal’s plea. Not because she was willing to hear the woman out though, but because she was too paralyzed with fear to voice any objections to the contrary. And she did have objections.

“I know that based on everything that’s happening here it sounds like I’m asking you to risk your own life to save me,” Madrigal began to say after a few seconds of silence. “But remember, the only reason Sunset is in danger from me being inside her mind is because of her geode. You don’t have a magical geode, so there won’t be anything trying to destroy you.”

If Kiwi hadn’t been so overcome by feelings of fear she would’ve given a sarcastic laugh at that last part. Nothing trying to destroy her? Madrigal herself could try to destroy her. Who was to say that as soon as the woman entered her mind she wouldn’t try to take over her body, or drive her insane, or any number of other horrific things that one could potentially do while inside someone else’s head. It was out of the question. There was no way in hell she was going to allow Madrigal into her mind.

“I-I’m not - ” Kiwi started to say before the lights in the hallway started to flicker again.

“Ahh!” Madrigal winced as she doubled over in pain once again.

The flickering didn’t last as long as the last time nor did it seem as intense either, so despite her feelings of pain Madrigal managed to stay on her feet. Just like the last time though, Kiwi couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the woman’s suffering. But more than that the incident reminded her of a very crucial fact. If she didn’t help Madrigal, Sunset was doomed.

“I…I know I’m asking a lot of you, Kiwi,” Madrigal said as she slowly regained her composure. “We’ve only just met and…and you have no reason to trust me. Believe me, if…if I were in your shoes I’d be apprehensive about bestowing trust upon someone I’d just met too.”

The fact that she’d just met Madrigal wasn’t what was making Kiwi apprehensive about trusting her. It was the stories she’d heard about her from the Dazzlings’ that was making her apprehensive. According to them Madrigal was vicious, evil, and most certainly one of the last people you’d ever want to trust. In short, they were enough to paint the woman as the devil herself. But Kiwi had to admit that she didn’t find Madrigal to be any of those things after meeting her. She was a bit eccentric to be sure, and, by her own admission, as terrible a mother as the Dazzlings had described, but she hardly seemed either vicious or evil. And she did seem pretty sincere about wanting to save Sunset as well as make amends with her daughters.

“I know that my word alone probably isn’t enough to earn your trust, Kiwi,” Madrigal continued. “But I do give you my word; I promise that if you allow me access into your mind I won’t do anything to harm you, and I’ll leave once I’m strong enough to survive on my own.”

It was then that Madrigal reached out her right hand to Kiwi.

“Please, Kiwi, I’m begging you. Help me,” Madrigal then pleaded.

As Kiwi stared silently at the outstretched hand before her, she knew that her decision to either help Madrigal or not was quite possibly going to be the most important choice she would ever have to make in her entire life. And she had no idea which choice she was going to make.

“It all makes sense now,” Adagio continued to delineate in front of Sunset. “Madrigal knew that my sisters and I would never help her, but she also knew that we’d be able to stop her if she’d tried to force us to. So she came up with a plan to not only escape the Overlook by possessing you, Sunset, but also to keep us from realizing that that was her true target all along. And now that she’s inside your head she’s playing mind games with you. Literally. Trying to convince you that you're a monster by making you remember all of your worst memories on constant repeat. All for the purpose of breaking you so that she can then become you.”

A sarcastically amused chuckle escaped Adagio’s mouth after she’d finished her delineation.

“Typical Mom; ever the real monster,” She remarked with a hint of animosity in her voice.

What really got under Adagio’s skin about all of this wasn’t only that her mother was up to her usual wicked ways, but that she had gotten Sunset involved as well. She just couldn’t help feel that Madrigal had specifically chosen Sunset for her plan because she’d known how much the Rainboom meant to her. In truth though she knew that Sunset had most likely been chosen because of her strong magical prowess, but even still she just hated the fact that her mother had targeted one of her best friends of all people.

For the second time today the Dazzling leader felt like beating herself up for having been so foolish, this time because she hadn’t been able to see Madrigal’s true plan from the very beginning - which had resulted in Sunset’s life being put at risk. But just like before, she knew she didn’t have the luxury to do so right now. Right now she needed to find a way to break the spell Madrigal had used to make Sunset relive all of her worst memories. Though given that she didn’t even know what kind of spell had been used on Sunset she wasn’t entirely sure she would even be able to find a way to cleft her mother’s hex.

The more Adagio focused on what it was she didn’t know about Sunset’s predicament, the more frustrated she became. She was supposed to be a doyen of magical knowledge and yet here she was, as lost and confused as an abecedarian. That alone was enough to make her feel stymied, but the fact that Sunset continued to be in danger because of her benightedness made things even worse.

Thankfully though, the Dazzling refused to give in to her feelings of frustration.

“Okay, just calm down,” She told herself as she took a few deep, mental breaths. “Think, Adagio, think. You don’t need to figure out how it is Madrigal’s doing this, you only need to figure out how to counter it.”

After quickly refocusing her mental efforts, Adagio began to think about the things she did know.

“You know that what Madrigal was doing was making Sunset relive her worst memories over and over,” She continued saying to herself. “You also know that Madrigal has been able to accomplish this because she’s literally inside Sunset’s head. And you know that your surroundings are a three dimensional representation of Sunset’s mind constructed by her geode so that you can interact with it. You know - ”

The Dazzling cut herself off as an especially bright lightbulb suddenly turned on inside her own mind.

“It’s so simple,” She remarked softly. “So simple that it seems too obvious to be the answer.”

Adagio then looked her friend square in the eyes.

“Sunset,” She solemnly started to say. “Do you remember when you helped Twilight discover the magic of friendship?”

As soon as Adagio finished speaking, a door appeared just a few feet away from the girls’ left. It promptly opened itself and gave off a small bit of light – that was nowhere near as blinding as the light from the hallway doors - as it did so, gaining both Adagio and Sunset’s attention. Once the light subsided the front grounds of CHS were revealed to be on the other side, along with a number of people occupying it. Including Sunset and Twilight Sparkle’s alter ego, Midnight Sparkle.

“Even with all that magic and power you’ll still be alone,” The Sunset within the door said to Midnight Sparkle. “True magic comes from honesty, loyalty, laughter, generosity, kindness.”

A rainbow of magical energy began to converge onto a device that Sunset was holding as she spoke, and soon enough the girl began to levitate.

“I understand you, Twilight, and I want to show you the most important magic of all,” Sunset then said before throwing the device in her hand to the ground.

The instant the device hit the ground it shattered and the magical energy it had gathered enveloped Sunset, transforming her into Daydream Shimmer.

“The magic of friendship!” Daydream declared before using her magic to seal a number of nearby spacial anomalies.

A brief battle between Daydream and Midnight quickly ensued, but soon ended with Sunset and Twilight – now back to their usual selves – slowly descending back down to the ground.

“I’m so sorry,” Twilight tearfully apologized once she and Sunset had finished their descent. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“I know,” Sunset then said heartfully. “And going by my own experiences, they’ll forgive you.”

The door closed after that and then disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, returning Adagio and Sunset’s attention to one another. Once the two girls once again locked eyes, Adagio noticed that Sunset’s weren’t as glassy and lifeless as they’d been a moment ago.

“Do you remember when you’d gone back to Equestria to make amends with Princess Celestia?” The Dazzling then asked.

As if Adagio’s question had been some sort of cue, another door suddenly appeared before the two girls and opened on its own. This time though, hardly any flash of light emanated from the door when it opened. Barely even a flicker.

“Princess Celestia,” A pony Sunset said from the other side of the door. “The last time we saw each other I was your snide little pupil who’d betrayed and abandoned you.”

“I wouldn’t have said it that way,” Princess Twilight Sparkle softly interjected before clearing her throat to address Princess Celestia. “What Sunset means to say is - ”

“I mean that I come before you a changed pony,” Sunset cut in. “Humbly asking for forgiveness, guidance, and knowledge.”

A brief moment of silence followed as Princess Celestia descended from her throne and stopped right in front of Sunset.

“Or I can just go and you never have to see me again,” Sunset then said nervously as she lowered her head.

Almost instantly, Princess Celestia used her right hoof to raise Sunset’s head back up until the two of them were making eye contact.

“I’ve missed you, Sunset Shimmer,” Princess Celestia then wholeheartedly declared.

“I…I’m so sorry,” Sunset replied just as wholeheartedly before she and Princess Celestia wrapped their hooves around one another in a hug.

The door closed after that and, just like the last one, abruptly disappeared into thin air.

Adagio and Sunset once again locked eyes as soon as the door vanished, and when they did Adagio noticed yet another noticeable improvement within the Rainboom’s eyes. They still looked a bit hazy, to be sure, but at least now she no longer looked like a creepy doll.

“Trust me, Sunset, I know how making mistakes can make you feel,” Adagio then said. “They can make you feel like you’re a bad person. Like you’re unforgivable. Like you’re a…a monster. And I know those feelings can seem really strong when you keep reliving them in your head over and over again. But please, believe me when I say that making mistakes doesn’t make you a monster.”

It was at this point that Adagio lifted both of her arms up from her side and placed her hands on Sunset’s cheeks.

“I know you’ve made some pretty big mistakes in your life, Sunset, but those mistakes do not make you a monster,” She continued, becoming more and more emotional with each sentence. “Because a monster wouldn’t have risked her life to save Twilight from corrupted magic, or gone back and apologized to Princess Celestia for abandoning her. Or…or given my sisters and I a place to live when we’d needed it and the chance at making a new life for ourselves.”

By now Adagio’s emotions had grown so powerful that they began to pour out the corners of her eyes in the form of a few teardrops.

“You’re a good person, Sunset. One of the kindest and most compassionate people I’ve ever met,” The Dazzling confessed before removing her hands from Sunset’s face and wrapping her arms around the girl in an impassioned hug. “And I…I love you.”

Adagio was unable to tell due to her hug, but as soon as she told Sunset that she loved her the last remnants of haze vanished from the Rainboom’s eyes and she returned to looking like her usual self. Though the Dazzling was soon able to assume all of this when she felt Sunset’s arms wrap around her back to return her hug. For a few seconds the two girls simply hugged one another in silence until a blinding light – more blinding than any of the doors had produced – precipitously covered the room and enveloped both of them within its glow.

When the light eventually subsided Adagio found herself back within Sunset’s apartment, standing in exactly the same spot she’d been standing in before she’d found herself inside Sunset’s mind. Her gaze was also still on the Rainboom’s geode like it had been before as well, and her peripheral vision allowed her to catch a glimpse of the nearby alarm clock which showed that only one minute had passed since she’d touched said geode; despite the fact that what she’d just gone through inside Sunset’s mind had clearly been longer than one measly minute.

“A-Adagio?” She suddenly heard Kiwi’s voice say from right next to her.

The Dazzling leader quickly turned her head to see that Kiwi was indeed standing right next to her – where she too had been right before entering Sunset’s mind – and looking at her with an expression of both relief and delight.

“K-Kiwi?” She said back just before throwing her arms around the PostCrush girl in an impromptu hug.

“Oof,” Kiwi involuntarily uttered in response to Adagio’s unexpected embrace.

“I’m so, so sorry I left you back in the hallway,” The Dazzling profusely apologized as she semi-broke her hug to look Kiwi directly in the eyes. “Are you okay? Did Madrigal hurt you? What happened after I left?”

“I…I’m fine, Adagio,” Kiwi answered, somewhat tentatively. “Madrigal didn’t hurt me. She just…talked to me for a while before a bright light covered the hallway and I found myself back here with you.”

Kiwi’s vague depiction of the events that had occurred between her and Madrigal after she’d left the hallway did little to assuage Adagio’s concerns about what had transpired between the two of them. She was about to ask the PostCrush girl for more details – specifically what it was that Madrigal had said to her – but before she could the sound of someone nearby rousing from their sleep caught both her’s and Kiwi’s attention.

“Wha…What’s going on?” Sunset Shimmer asked in a very groggy manner as she looked at the two girls with tired, half-lidded eyes. “Adagio? Kiwi? What are you two doing in my apartment?”

The sight of Sunset awake and well instantly brought looks of joy to both Adagio and Kiwi’s faces. And soon enough both girls rushed over to the Rainboom and lunged themselves right into her in a clumsy group hug that caused all three of them to fall down onto the bed. Which in-turn caused Sunset to snap out of her morning grogginess.

“Oh thank goodness you’re all right, Sunset!” Adagio proclaimed as she practically nestled up against her dear friend.

“We were so worried about you!” Kiwi then said as she did likewise.

“Um, o-okay. Thanks?” Sunset replied confusedly. “But, um, why were you worried about me exactly?”

“It’s a long story,” Adagio replied as she removed herself from Sunset’s person. “Maybe we should explain everything over breakfast.”

And so the Dazzling, PostCrush girl, and Rainboom all sat down and had breakfast together there in the apartment as the tale of Madrigal’s return was recounted. Throughout the meal Adagio and Kiwi each took turns telling Sunset of how they’d each dreamt about Madrigal, were drawn into the girl’s mind by her geode, and what it was they’d experienced whilst inside her head. Though, in all honesty, Adagio recounted her experiences much more than Kiwi did. The Dazzling leader left little to no detail out about all that she’d been through while Kiwi, by contrast, only gave ambiguous particulars. But between the two of them though Sunset was able to get a pretty clear picture of all that had happened whilst they’d been inside her head, and it left her nearly speechless.

“I…I can’t believe Madrigal was able to use my geode to get inside my mind like that,” The Rainboom remarked as she looked down timorously at said geode currently wrapped around her neck.

“Don’t let it worry you too much, Sunset,” Adagio tried to hearten her friend, sensing her diffidence towards her geode. “Madrigal was always an expert among experts when it came to magic. I doubt you’ll ever encounter anyone who could manipulate your geode’s magic like she was able to ever again.”

“Maybe,” Sunset replied, sounding less-than-convinced. “But I’m more worried that Madrigal isn’t really gone. I mean, how do we know she isn’t still inside my head.”

“I highly doubt that she is. When we broke whatever spell she was using on you it should’ve erased her from your mind.” Adagio tried to assure Sunset before looking over at Kiwi. “Unless of course you have reason to believe that she might have somehow survived, Kiwi.”

A look of shock quickly crossed Kiwi’s face after Adagio had asked her question. The kind of shocked look one might get after being caught doing something extremely embarrassing.

“W-Why would I have any reason to believe that Madrigal survived?” She inquired.

“You were with her when her spell over Sunset was broken. Tell me; what happened to her after that?” Adagio replied.

“I…I’m not sure,” Kiwi answered falteringly. “Everything happened so quickly at the end that I don’t know what happened to Madrigal. All I know was that one second the two of us were talking and the next I was back here standing next to you.”

A moment of awkward silence followed as Adagio gingerly stared Kiwi down with a suspicious look in her eyes while Kiwi tried her best to avert her gaze from the Dazzling’s.

“W-Well I’m confident that if you think Madrigal is gone than she is, Adagio,” Sunset eventually spoke up in order to break the silence. “But I’ll be sure to be on my guard just in case she isn’t and let you know if I start feeling unwell again.”

“Good,” Adagio simply said back as she broke her stare and looked over at a nearby clock.

As soon as the Dazzling laid eyes on the clock she instantly lost any and all conjectures she had regarding Kiwi’s attestation about Madrigal’s fate.

“Dammit. We have to go,” She then said hastily as she got up from her seat. “There’s only twenty minutes left before school starts.”

Upon hearing Adagio’s statement about the time both Sunset and Kiwi turned their attention over towards the clock as well and saw that the Dazzling was right; there were only twenty minutes remaining before the first period bell would ring at CHS.

“Shoot. I’ll never be able to make it in time by walking,” Sunset said in a somewhat alarmed manner as she too got up from her seat. “Do you girls mind if I catch a ride with you?”

“Not at all,” Adagio promptly replied before turning her attention to Kiwi, who was still seated. “Come on, Kiwi.”

“W-Wait,” Kiwi said as she finally got up from her seat. “You both still want to go to CHS today? After everything we all just went through?”

“I don’t want to, but I have to,” Sunset replied as she started gathering her various school items from a nearby coffee table. “I can’t afford to miss even one day’s lecture in history class. I’m struggling in that subject enough as it is.”

“And believe me, Kiwi, I’d love nothing more than to go home right now and have either Aria or Sonata cover for me, but it’s too late for that,” The Dazzling explained, a tad testily, as she helped Sunset gather up her things. “Now come on!”

“Okay, okay,” Kiwi replied profusely to try and calm Adagio down. “Just…let me go to the bathroom before we head out, all right?”

Adagio gave no verbal response to the PostCrush girl’s request, but she did discreetly roll her eyes in an annoyed fashion. Sunset, meanwhile, pointed to a nearby hallway.

“The bathroom’s down that way and the second door on the left, Kiwi,” The Rainboom precipitately informed her friend. “Just please try to be quick. History is my first period class and I really don’t want to be late for it.”

“I’ll be quick, I promise,” Kiwi assured Sunset before dashing off towards the hallway the Rainboom had pointed to.

“We’ll meet you outside!” Adagio shouted out to Kiwi before she disappeared from her sight.

It only took a few seconds later for the Dazzling to help Sunset gather her things, and once everything was zipped up inside the Rainboom’s backpack the two girls started to make their way towards the front door.

“So, Adagio,” Sunset abruptly spoke up in a suspiciously coquettish manner as they walked. “About that part of your story where you said that you love me.”

A small but very noticeable blush instantaneously crossed Adagio’s face as soon as she heard Sunset’s statement.

“D-Don’t get the wrong idea, Shimmer,” The Dazzling replied tentatively. “When I said that I loved you I meant it in a strictly plutonic sense.”

A hoydenish laugh could be heard coming from Sunset after Adagio had finished giving her explanation.

“Whatever you say,” The Rainboom simply replied, still sounding quite coquettish.

Adagio’s blush only intensified as she opened the front door and stepped outside.

Meanwhile, back inside the apartment Kiwi stood in front of the vanity within Sunset’s bathroom, clasping it with both hands as she looked at her reflection within the mirror hanging above it. In truth, she hadn’t needed to use the bathroom at all. What she’d truly needed was simply a minute to herself to contemplate what it was that had happened back within Sunset’s mind. Specifically, what had happened in there between her and Madrigal after the woman had held out her hand to her.

“Just what the hell have you done, Kiwi?” She asked herself as she tilted her head down towards the sink.

“You’ve saved my life,” She heard Madrigal’s voice suddenly say.

Feeling startled from having precipitously heard Madrigal’s voice, Kiwi lifted her head back up and saw Madrigal’s image within the mirror’s reflection, standing right behind her with her hands on her shoulders. The PostCrush girl then turned her head around expecting to see Madrigal standing behind her, but there was no Madrigal to be seen. Which was incredibly odd for a number of reasons, not the least of them being that she could’ve sworn she could feel someone touching her shoulders.

“I honestly can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me, Kiwi,” Madrigal then said, drawing Kiwi’s attention back to the mirror. “You are, without a doubt, one of the kindest and most compassionate people I’ve ever met.”

Chalking up Madrigal only being visible within the mirror and the feeling on her shoulders as just more magic, Kiwi simply stared at the Dazzlings’ mother for a moment before dawning a very stern and intimidating expression.

“Just remember your promise, Madrigal,” She stated strongly. “Because if you give me any reason to believe – even for a second - that you’ve forgotten it I’ll have Adagio and her sisters use their magic to rip you right out of my head before you’re strong enough to survive on your own.”

“There’s no need for threats, dearie,” Madrigal sedately assured the PostCrush girl. “I made you a promise and I intend to keep it. You have nothing to worry about from me.”

Madrigal’s assurances did little to convince Kiwi that allowing the woman into her mind wasn’t a potential mistake, but then again there really wasn’t anything that would’ve convinced her otherwise. She wasn’t even entirely sure why it was she’d agreed to help Madrigal in the first place. Maybe it was because, deep-down, she believed that Madrigal was being one hundred percent sincere when she’d said that all she wanted was the chance to make amends with her daughters. Maybe it was because she just wasn’t capable of leaving someone to their demise when she had the power to save them. Or maybe she'd done it solely for Sunset's sake. Whatever the reason, what was done was done. She’d made her choice and now she had to live with it, no matter the potential consequences.

Feeling overwhelmed by her continued debate with herself as to whether or not she’d made the right choice, Kiwi gave an exhausted sigh and closed her eyes as she once more tilted her head down towards the sink. Which caused her to miss the unmistakably misanthropic smile that briefly crossed Madrigal’s face within the mirror’s reflection.

Hell is for Sirens (Part 1)

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“I don’t know, Su-Z. A gift card just feels like it’d be too impersonal a present for Dashie’s birthday,” Sonata Dusk said as she filled up the last of the emu’s troughs with feed for the evening. “I mean I get that I can’t get her that gaming chair she’s been wanting because money is tight and all, but a gift card just…just doesn’t feel like the kind of gift you give your girlfriend for her birthday.”

“I get what you’re saying, Sonata, I really do,” Su-Z replied as she did likewise. “But it doesn’t seem like you have a whole lot of other options. You said it yourself; money is tight right now.”

“Yeah,” Sonata admitted with a reluctant sigh.

It was the end of yet another day on the emu farm for Su-Z and Sonata. They’d spent most of the day inside the barn doing tasks like filling the troughs, cleaning out the pens, and brushing the occasional emu; things that were normally undesirable because of the high levels of physicality they demanded. But today those tasks were not only seen as desirable but as a blessing as well on account of the high humidity outside. Not only that, but given that Aria was at CHS today the two girls were able to cut a few small corners here and there that they normally wouldn’t have been able to. So all things considered it had actually been one of the better days on the farm for them.

The only thing that had been less than ideal about the day was Sonata’s near-constant ramblings about what she was going to get Rainbow Dash for her birthday. At least as far as Su-Z was concerned.

Ever since Adagio had informed Sonata that they couldn’t spare $100 from the household budget for her to buy a gaming chair for Rainbow Dash the young Dazzling had become a bit obsessive. The subject of Rainbow Dash’s birthday gift became practically the only thing Sonata ever talked about anymore. And it didn’t require any prompting either. The girl would simply walk up to someone at any random time and start going on and on about her dilemma.

It had gotten to be so bad that some members of the household – namely Aria – had taken to actively avoiding Sonata because they feared becoming the latest victim of one of her seemingly endless series of woeful soliloquies.

Su-Z, however, had felt no such need to avoid Sonata. In fact, she’d felt the exact opposite. She’d been feeling like she needed to be close to the girl during her troubled time. Perhaps it was because Sonata was the Dazzling she got along with best or maybe just because she was just such a caring and compassionate person, but the PostCrush girl genuinely wanted to help her friend. The only problem was she wasn’t sure how to help Sonata since the girl was shooting down every idea for a gift that was suggested to her, including the gift card one her and Kiwi had brought up back when all of this first started.

“I just don’t want Dashie to think I’m phoning it in, you know?” Sonata continued. “She’s such an amazing girlfriend and I…I just don’t want her to think I don’t care enough about her to give her something truly special for her birthday.”

Just then, as Su-Z finished emptying her feed bag, a lightbulb went off within the PostCrush girl’s mind. One brought about by Sonata’s choice of wording.

“Maybe you don’t need to get Rainbow Dash a gift for her birthday,” She said with a sense of revelation.

“Huh?” Sonata instantly replied in utter bewilderment as she looked up at her friend.

“Maybe instead of giving her something truly special you can do something truly special for her instead,” Su-Z explained.

“Do something special for her? Like what?” The Dazzling replied.

“Well you said she likes pranks, right?” Su-Z said. “Maybe you could plan a really awesome prank for her to do!”

It took Sonata second to process what Su-Z was proposing. But when she did process it she put her now-empty feed bag down and brought a hand up to her chin.

“Plan a prank for her to do,” Sonata reiterated softly as she pondered the idea further.

“Or...or you could plan an awesome prank that the two of you could do together!” Su-Z continued. “I’m sure she’d love that!”

The more Su-Z spoke of the idea, the more Sonata liked it.

“Yeah. Yeah!” Sonata excitedly exclaimed, before suddenly shifting to a more subdued and somewhat gloomy mood. “Oh, but I don’t know if I can plan a really awesome prank though. I’m not much of a prankster.”

“I can help you out if you want!” Su-Z said as she grabbed hold of the Dazzling’s shoulders with gusto. “I pulled pranks all the time when Kiwi and I were on-tour.”

“Really?” Sonata asked, surprised to hear Su-Z say that she was a prankster.

“Oh yeah. Recording artists play pranks on one another all the time when they perform together at big concerts and stuff,” The PostCrush girl expounded as she let go of Sonata’s shoulders. “Well, most do. Kiwi never really did because, in case you hadn’t noticed, she doesn’t have a big sense of humor.”

Sonata couldn’t help but giggle at Su-Z’s comment regarding Kiwi’s sense of humor, finding it to be exceedingly true.

“Anywhoo, I played pranks on pretty much every major artist out there while we were touring. Sometimes with help,” Su-Z continued. “In fact, there was this one time in Foaledo when Countess Coloratura and I spent an entire night together covering Sapphire Shores’ car in brightly-colored sticky notes.”

“What?! No way,” Sonata replied in clear and obvious skepticism. “You and Countess Coloratura did not do that.”

“Oh, we did it all right,” Su-Z assured her friend, with no shortage of pride in her voice. “And I have the picture somewhere in my phone to prove it. I’ll show it to you later.”

“Oh my gosh, you totally have to!” Sonata replied jovially, eliciting an amiable smile from Su-Z.

Just as the two girls finished their conversation, the back doors to the barn opened and Adagio and Kiwi walked inside, each of them escorting an emu at their side. Or rather, Adagio and Kiwi stumbled into the barn, each of them holding onto an emu in order to keep themselves upright as they guided it.

“Thank heavens this day is finally over,” Kiwi remarked tiresomely as she and her emu advanced further into the barn.

“Amen to that, sister,” Adagio just as tiresomely answered as she wiped an excessive amount of sweat from her brow. “I’m not sure how much longer I would’ve lasted out there.”

While both Su-Z and Sonata were undoubtably sympathetic to Kiwi and Adagio’s clear discomfort, they were each extremely grateful that it hadn’t been them outside under the scorching sun all day. Neither of them had a high tolerance for dealing with the summertime heat. They were much more a keen to dealing with cold, wintery weather.

Despite Kiwi and Adagio’s exhausted states they each managed to corral their emu back into their pens fairly quickly. And once they were done they each made their way over towards Su-Z and Kiwi at the front-end of the barn, where they both promptly took a seat on a nearby bale of hay to rest up for a minute. What followed was silence throughout the barn - save for the sounds of light panting emanating from Kiwi and Adagio. A silence that was only broken when the unmistakable pinging of a cell phone started to ring out throughout the barn.

“Oh, that’s me!” Su-Z eagerly exclaimed as she quickly reached into her right pocket and withdrew her phone, recognizing the pinging as a text notification.

Wasting no time, Su-Z tapped the text notification icon on her phone to see who it was that was texting her, and after the sender’s name and message appeared she quickly read through it.

“Oh no,” She uttered softly as she dawned an expression of dread while rapidly tapping her phone and then placing it up to her ear.

“Everything okay, Su-Z?” Kiwi inquired concernedly as she got up from her seat.

“Shh!” Su-Z replied sharply as she took a few steps off to the side for some privacy.

Soon enough Sonata and Adagio began to share Kiwi’s concern for Su-Z. It wasn’t like her to get riled up so quickly, or even get riled up at all. She was one of the most easy-going people they’d ever met. The only time they’d ever seen her lose her cool was when they’d played cards one night and she’d started talking about her family, which led each of them to assume that the text message she’d just received had something to do with either her mom or her sister.

A few seemingly never-ending seconds passed as the three girls waited for whoever Su-Z was calling to pick up so they could hopefully find out what was going on. Eventually though the mystery person picked up, and when they did they heard Su-Z speak a name that none of them had expected to hear.

“Dolly?” The younger PostCrush girl said.

Shocked expressions immediately appeared on the faces of the three other girls in the barn as soon as they discovered that the person who’d texted Su-Z and was now speaking with her on the phone was apparently Sonata’s daughter, Dolly Dusk.

“Dolly?! What’s wrong with Dolly?!” Adagio precipitously, and worrisomely, spoke up as she hastily approached Su-Z and held out her right hand. “Give me the phone! I want to talk to her!”

Su-Z, in response, simply extended her left arm out to keep Adagio from getting any closer to her. Which of course only exasperated Adagio further.

“Let me talk to her!” The Dazzling leader demanded right before swatting Su-Z’s arm away from her.

As Adagio continued to persist in trying to seize Su-Z’s phone from her, Sonata and Kiwi continued to maintain a respectful distance from the girl. The reason for this being because both of them weren’t sure what else it was they should do. Anxiety and confusion for why it was that Dolly had called Su-Z with apparent bad news was what kept Sonata from taking any action like Adagio had. As for Kiwi, she just simply felt like a third wheel – or rather fourth wheel – in all of this developing drama.

“It’s your Aunt Adagio,” Su-Z said into the phone as she continued to hold the eldest Dazzling back as best she could. “She says she wants to talk to you.”

“Dolly, sweetie, are you okay?!” Adagio shouted so that Dolly would be able to hear her through Su-Z’s phone.

The poofy-haired girl ceased her struggles with Su-Z for a few more seconds as she, along with Sonata and Kiwi, waited for the younger PostCrush girl to hear what Dolly had to say.

“She said to tell you that she’s okay,” Su-Z eventually relayed to Adagio, eliciting an immediate sigh of relief from the Dazzling. “But that she doesn’t want to talk to you right now.”

The relief Adagio felt instantly dissipated upon hearing that Dolly didn’t want to talk to her.

“W-What?” The Dazzling uttered softly in shock and dismay.

“Just…give us a minute, okay?” Su-Z requested tentatively as she walked past Adagio and headed for the barn doors.

Adagio said nothing nor tried to stop Su-Z as she passed her. Likewise, Sonata and Kiwi both remained silent and passive as Su-Z walked past them and exited the barn.

Once Su-Z was outside and assumedly out of earshot, Adagio hurried back over towards her sister and housemate with a not-so-subtle look of aggravation on her face.

“What the hell is going on here?” She whispered heatedly to them, just in case Su-Z wasn’t as far away from the barn as she believed her to be. “Why is Dolly calling Su-Z and why is she refusing to talk to us?”

At first both Sonata and Kiwi were confused by Adagio’s use of the word ‘us’, since technically it had only been her that Dolly had refused to talk to. But putting that little technicality aside – mostly because they were both fairly certain that Dolly would’ve refused to talk to either of them anyhow – the Dazzling and elder PostCrush girl just looked at one another with faces that silently communicated the question: Do you know what’s going on here?

But before either Sonata or Kiwi could say anything aloud Adagio spoke up again.

“When did Dolly and Su-Z even become so close anyways?” The Dazzling leader continued, sounding even more heated than she had a moment ago.

“When Dolly came to visit a few weeks ago, remember?” Kiwi answered.

Adagio did remember Dolly’s visit to the farm not too long ago. And how could she not? Given how little she’d seen of her beloved niece while she was growing up, the Dazzling leader made it a point to always make sure she cherished any and all moments they got to spend together now that she was back in her life. She remembered Dolly talking to her about how school and her marine biology studies were going, about movies she’d seen recently, and about how she’d even been thinking about adopting a cat. She remembered practically everything about the time they’d spent together during the visit.

But what Adagio wasn’t remembering right now was that she hadn’t spent every waking moment with Dolly while she’d been on the farm. There’d been a few times where she hadn’t been in the same room with Dolly, times like about a half-hour after dinner when she’d had to run to the store to pick up some strawberry ice cream because they were all out of it – and it was Dolly’s favorite flavor. A time that Kiwi remembered very clearly.

“They became friends after talking for a bit while you were gone,” Kiwi explained. “So what? What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that this friendship of theirs is resulting in Dolly keeping secrets from us,” Adagio promptly fired back. “Dolly never kept secrets from us before she became friends with Su-Z.”

It took all of Kiwi’s self-restraint to keep from rolling her eyes at how much she felt that Adagio was overreacting to all of this. And at how much the Dazzling was jumping to conclusions too.

“First off, Dolly isn’t keeping secrets from you, Adagio. She just said she didn’t want to talk to you is all,” The PostCrush girl animadverted. “And second, even if she is keeping secrets from you I doubt that it’s on account of her being friends with Su-Z.”

“Don’t act like you know Dolly, Kiwi. You don’t know her like we do,” Adagio practically snapped back at Kiwi, sounding downright offended by the girl’s words. “We’re her family, her blood. We know her better than you do now or ever will.”

Kiwi would’ve been lying if she’d said that she didn’t feel wounded by Adagio’s remarks. While it was true that she hadn’t known Dolly nearly as long as the Dazzlings and that she wasn’t related to the girl by blood, the harshness of Adagio’s words cut her deeply. Ever since she and Su-Z had come to live with the Dazzlings she’d been told that they were considered family. But now she was starting to wonder if perhaps that wasn’t quite as true as she’d been led to believe – at least as far as Adagio was concerned.

“Dolly shared everything with us when she was growing up,” The Dazzling leader continued. “It wasn’t until after her last visit when she apparently became friends with Su-Z that all of that changed. So I think it only makes sense that Su-Z is the cause of Dolly suddenly being so secretive.”

At this point Kiwi had heard just about enough out of Adagio regarding Su-Z. She could let all of the Dazzling leader’s remarks about her go without a fuss, but she couldn’t let the girl’s near-paranoid remarks regarding Su-Z go without giving her a piece of her mind.

Just as Kiwi took a step forward to confront Adagio though, Sonata – who’d been surprisingly passive this whole time – abruptly cut her off.

“That’s enough, Adagio,” The younger Dazzling told her sister firmly.

Needless to say, Kiwi was taken aback a bit by Sonata’s sudden intervention in the discussion. But what took her aback even more was that Sonata’s intervention appeared to have humbled Adagio and subdued the girl’s diatribe.

“B-But Sonata…” The poofy-haired girl replied, in a very uncharacteristically tentative manner, before being cut-off.

“No buts,” Sonata retorted. “Dolly’s not a little girl anymore, she’s an adult. And if there’s something going on in her life that she doesn’t want to tell us about than she doesn’t have to.”

It was clear from the expression on Adagio’s face that she had something she wanted to say, but despite this she remained silent.

“And furthermore, you can’t blame Su-Z for Dolly’s choices either,” Sonata added as she pointed her right index finger squarely in front of her sister’s face. “So I don’t want to hear you say anything more about her friendship with Dolly or their phone call just now. Understood?”

Adagio immediately nodded her head in acknowledgment, much to Kiwi’s continued befuddlement.

The PostCrush girl had known from hearing the Dazzlings’ story about the Overlook Hotel that Sonata could be pretty intimidating when it came to matters regarding her daughter, but until now she’d had no idea just how intimidating. Sonata could be downright terrifying. The sheer sense of fear that the young Dazzling was able to conjure within her without even raising her voice was admittedly impressive. Especially considering how easily that fear appeared to have tempered Adagio’s rantings.

“Good,” Sonata said a bit less sternly as she lowered her finger, turned around, and headed for the door. “Now let’s go have dinner.”

Despite being in a near state of shock like Adagio, Kiwi quickly recomposed herself and followed Sonata out of the barn. Leaving Adagio alone, whom she felt both needed and wanted some privacy after being essentially eviscerated verbally by her younger sister.

As Kiwi made her way over towards Sonata, and subsequently over towards the house, she couldn’t help but notice that the Dazzling’s car was parked in the driveway. Signaling to her that Aria was already home from her day at CHS.

“I’m sorry about Adagio,” Sonata apologized to the PostCrush girl as soon as she’d caught up with her. “She didn’t mean to bad-mouth Su-Z or anything like that. She’s just very…concerned about Dolly is all.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Kiwi simply replied as they continued to walk towards the house.

“And to be honest, I am a bit too,” The Dazzling confessed. “When I heard Su-Z say Dolly’s name after saying ‘Oh no’ I couldn’t help but feel that Dolly was in some sort of trouble that she didn’t want me or Adagio or Aria to know about.”

This, Kiwi could understand. Perhaps it was because Sonata was Dolly’s mother – as opposed to Adagio – or because the young Dazzling was expressing her anxieties in a much more calm and rational manner than her older sister had, but for some reason they seemed more genuine to her than anything Adagio had been spouting earlier.

“You…you don’t think that’s actually the case, do you, Kiwi?” Sonata then inquired. “Su-Z was probably just overreacting with that ‘Oh no’, r-right?”

“I’m sure she was,” Kiwi instinctively assured her friend. “You know how Su-Z can overreact to pretty much anything. Remember how she freaked out when she learned that the real story of Pocahontas was nothing like the animated movie?”

“Yeah,” Sonata replied with a giggle. “She said that everything she knew was a lie and that she’d never watch another Disney movie ever again.”

“But then next movie night when we watched The Little Mermaid she watched it with us,” Kiwi interjected. “So I think it’s safe to say that whatever it is she’s alarmed about now it’s no big deal. Su-Z’s just being, well…Su-Z about all of this.”

Another few giggles escaped Sonata’s mouth.

“Yeah. You’re probably right, Kiwi,” The Dazzling replied with a slight hint of confidence in her voice. “I’m sure everything’s fine.”

Kiwi tried to think of something to say to further reinforce her belief that Su-Z was overreacting and that Dolly wasn’t in any trouble, but she was unable to find the right words. So instead she simply gave her friend a small smile, which was apparently enough to do the trick as Sonata quickly gave her a small smile back.

The following few seconds for the Dazzling and PostCrush girl were spent in a relatively comfortable silence as they continued to make their way up to the house. But once they got up to the porch that silence was promptly broken as they found themselves once again in the company of Su-Z, who was still on her phone.

“Okay, okay, fine. Just call me later, all right?” The younger of the two PostCrush girls said into her phone. “Yeah. Talk to you later, Dolly. Bye.”

Her call ended, Su-Z put her phone back into her pocket and proceeded to turn around to address Sonata and Kiwi.

“I tell ya, that girl worries me sometimes,” She very nonchalantly told her friends before heading towards the front door.

Neither Sonata nor Kiwi said anything in response as Su-Z opened the door and stepped inside, but one look at Sonata’s face would’ve revealed to any who saw it that Su-Z’s remark had rattled her a bit.

Feeling that there was no point to staying outside any longer - and wanting to be somewhere air conditioned – Sonata and Kiwi quickly followed behind Su-Z and went inside. Though neither of them got very far past the threshold on account of Su-Z more-or-less blocking the entrance as she stared into the kitchen.

Curious as to what it was that had caused her best friend to stop so close to the doorway, Kiwi – in addition to Sonata - turned her attention towards the kitchen. What the older PostCrush girl saw initially was nothing out of the ordinary; Aria sitting at the kitchen table scrolling through her phone. But as soon as she shifted her line of sight a tad to the right she saw someone else sitting at the table as well who was typing on a laptop. A girl with pig-tails and glasses wearing a uniform of some sort whom she was fairly certain she’d never seen before.

“Who’s that?” Su-Z asked softly Sonata before Kiwi had a chance to.

“That’s our friend Sugarcoat. She’s a student at Crystal Prep Academy and manages the magic act of another friend of ours,” Sonata answered. “But I have no idea why she’s here right now.”

“She’s here because I asked her to look over our finances,” Adagio suddenly said from right behind the three girls, mildly startling each of them.

“Why’d you ask her to do that?” Kiwi inquired, making no effort to hide the concern in her voice.

“Because after I couldn’t find that $100 for Sonata I got a little worried about our money situation,” Adagio answered. “And I figured since Sugarcoat manages Trixie’s magic act and is an aspiring business woman she was the best person to ask for a bit of help. So I called her last night and she said she’d take a look at our books after school today as long as one of us was able to pick her up from CPA.”

Kiwi, Sonata, and Su-Z all looked at one another with anxious faces for a moment. Each of them knew that the household finances weren’t all that great, but none of them had imagined that they’d be in such poor shape that they’d need a third-party person to come in and have a look at them.

Quite frankly, the whole thing made each of them fear that perhaps they were in danger of losing the farm.

“How’s everything looking, Sugarcoat?” Adagio hollered as she walked past her sister and housemates and headed for the kitchen.

“Too early to say,” Sugarcoat promptly answered in her usual monotone manner, and without either looking up from her laptop or ceasing her typing too. “I’ll let you know in a bit.”

Adagio simply gave a small shrug in response to Sugarcoat’s reply before silently making her way into the kitchen and taking a seat to Aria’s left. Feeling that the Dazzling leader had the right idea in this particular situation, Kiwi followed suit and walked into the kitchen without saying a word as well. Leaving Su-Z and Sonata alone together by the front door.

Curious as to what exactly Sugarcoat was typing on her laptop, Su-Z decided she too would make her way into the kitchen. Though instead of sitting down like Adagio and Kiwi she planned on going around the table to more-or-less hover over Sugarcoat while she worked. But before she could even take one step forward she felt Sonata’s hand gently take hold of her shoulder.

“Hey, um, Su-Z. C-Can I ask you something?” The Dazzling inquired softly.

“Uh, yeah. Of Course, Sonata,” Su-Z replied.

“Okay. I just…I don’t want it to seem like I’m…like I’m trying to question your character or anything like that,” Sonata falteringly started to say. “But I just…I just need to know that you’d tell me if Dolly was ever in any kind of trouble. Y-You would tell me if that were ever the case, right?”

Surprisingly, Su-Z’s initial reaction to Sonata’s question was to merely give her friend a look of bewilderment, which obviously did little to improve the Dazzling’s doubtful disposition. But soon enough the PostCrush girl lost her perplexed expression and answered her friend’s question.

“Um, yeah, I guess I would,” Su-Z said. “Unless Dolly explicitly told me not to tell you that is.”

While the PostCrush girl’s answer was less than ideal for Sonata, the young Dazzling still found it to be satisfactory. At least for now.

“All right. Thanks, Su-Z,” Sonata said before she started making her way towards the kitchen.

Su-Z remained behind for a moment as she briefly racked her brain trying to figure out where Sonata’s strange question had come from. While she found it true that Sonata could be unpredictable and downright weird at times - Aria’s words, not her’s – the PostCrush girl simply couldn’t figure out where the Dazzling’s suddenly high-level of concern for Dolly was originating from. Sure she was the girl’s mother and all, but what reason did she have for being so worried all of a sudden?

It never once crossed Su-Z’s mind that the phone call she’d just had with Dolly was even potentially the source of Sonata’s unease.

Deciding to put her friend’s odd inquiry aside for the time being, Su-Z swiftly headed into the kitchen. When she got there she immediately made her way around the table and leaned back against the nearby counter, giving her an almost unobstructed view of Sugarcoat’s laptop screen. What she saw was pretty much what she’d expected; a spreadsheet full of numbers, formulas, charts, etc. But what she hadn’t expected was for it all to be so detailed and intricate that she couldn’t even make heads or tails of any of it.

The kitchen remained fairly quiet for another few minutes with the exception of the sounds of typing. Eventually though Sugarcoat ceased her number crunching and turned her laptop around so that everyone sitting at the table could see the screen.

“Okay, here’s what your situation looks like,” The Crystal Prep girl started to say as she stood up and pointed to a graph displayed on the laptop. “As you can see, when you first took over this farm your operating expenses were outweighing your revenues but not by much. However, as you can see here your expenses have recently increased drastically due to various changes in your variable costs leading to a greater deficit between -”

“We don’t need the full report, Sugarcoat,” Adagio interrupted the Shadowbolt. “Just give us the bottom line.”

Sugarcoat couldn’t help but shoot Adagio a quick look of asperity for having interrupted her. But just as quickly as she’d done so she lost her tart expression and returned her attention to the group as a whole.

“The bottom line is that you’re going through money more quickly than you’re bringing it in,” The girl summarized.

“Heh. Tell us something we don’t know,” Aria impassively, though with a hint of mordancy, remarked as she continued to scroll through her phone.

“Well what I’m betting you didn’t know is that at the rate you’re losing money you’ll be completely out of it in approximately six months,” Sugarcoat expounded.

Aria instantly stopped scrolling through her phone upon hearing Sugarcoat’s delineation. In fact, she stopped holding her phone altogether. The pure and unbridled shock she felt after hearing Sugarcoat’s words caused her to loosen her grip on the device and send it falling to the floor, where it made a very audible thump once it made contact with the hardwood surface.

“What?!” The Dazzling hollered in horror - along with her sisters and housemates - as she vehemently got up from her seat.

“It’s all right here,” Sugarcoat replied as she pointed to a different part of her graph, seemingly unfazed by the simultaneous cries that’d just rung out at her. “If your financial situation stays its current course you won’t have any money left to keep the farm running in about six months or so.”

Sugarcoat then pointed to another part of her graph.

“And as you can see here it won’t be long after that that you won’t be able to keep the farm, period.” She concluded.

The three Dazzlings and two PostCrush girls all huddled closely together in front of Sugarcoat’s laptop to get a better look at the graph the girl was explaining to them. Each of them studied it attentively for a moment, not only to verify for themselves what Sugarcoat had said to them to be true but also to try and find any potential mistakes the Shadowbolt may have made in her analysis. Not one of them found any such mistakes, and it was hard for any of them to deny that the descending line on the graph was anything but a troubling sign.

Nothing short of sheer dread began to creep into Adagio, Kiwi, Aria, Su-Z, and Sonata as the reality of their situation became clear to them. They were in very real and very serious danger of losing their home. Memories from each of their times living in the van down by the river soon flashed before each of their minds’ eye, heightening their fears for worry that they may soon find themselves back in that awful predicament. Not only that, but fear that they’d be separated began to take hold as well. The Dazzling and PostCrush girls had really come to love one another as a family – for the most part - and the thought of having to part ways if the farm was lost was more painful to each of them than losing the farm itself.

“So what can we do?” Aria spoke up as she shifted her attention from the laptop to Sugarcoat. “You said we’ll run out of money in six months if our finances don’t change course, so that must mean that there are changes we can make before we reach that point. Right?”

“There are, yes,” Sugarcoat confirmed as all eyes in the room focused on her. “The best option would be to try and get a loan from the bank. One that would cover at least the next six months’ worth of expenses.”

“Yeah, I doubt that’s going to work,” Adagio explained very matter-of-factly. “We tried getting a loan from the bank not long after we bought this place. They wouldn’t give us one because they didn’t deem us to be, and I quote, ‘economically viable’.”

“I see,” Sugarcoat replied. “Well then the next best option would be to make drastic cuts to your variable costs wherever possible.”

Sugarcoat shifted her gaze over to Kiwi and Su-Z for a quick moment before promptly returning it to Adagio.

“This would include letting your new farmhands go,” The Shadowbolt then said.

“NO!” All three Dazzlings fiercely retorted simultaneously, eliciting a very noticeable look of stupefaction from Sugarcoat and a couple of discreet smiles from Kiwi and Su-Z.

“A-All right then,” Sugarcoat said as she recomposed herself. “In that case I’d recommend you find another source of income to increase your household earnings. I doubt that doing so would solve your money problems completely, but at the very least it should help you stay afloat for a few months longer.”

“Find another source of income?” Sonata half-said, half-asked. “But how do we do that? We all already work full-time jobs.”

“Yes, but three of you are only getting paid for doing the work of one person,” Sugarcoat replied, focusing all of her attention on the Dazzlings. “And I hate to break it to you, but that’s why you aren’t economically viable. Having three of you doing the work of one person and only being paid one salary makes no financial sense.”

Adagio, Aria, and Sonata each opened their mouths to offer a rebuttal to Sugarcoat’s claim. Though when none of them could think of a reasonable counterargument they promptly closed their mouths without uttering so much as a single ‘um’. As much as it pained the three sisters to admit it, Sugarcoat was right. Their current employment situation wasn’t financially feasible. In truth the Dazzlings had come to realize the financial folly of their shared job as librarian at CHS long ago. But given how much each of them enjoyed working at the high school and being around their friends they’d simply decided to ignore said folly, believing that the profits from their emu farm would supplement their income enough to allow them to continue splitting the librarian job three-ways.

But now that they’d seen Sugarcoat’s analysis, they knew that they’d been wrong in that belief. Very wrong.

“All right,” Adagio sighed reluctantly. “We’ll look into finding some new jobs first thing tomorrow.”

Aria and Sonata said nothing in response to their sister’s edict. Though one look at either of their faces would reveal that they clearly felt just as reluctant about the whole thing as Adagio did.

“Good,” Sugarcoat replied as she closed up her laptop and put it away in her bag. “And while you’re doing that I’ll talk to my mom about seeing if she has any connections that might be willing to help you.”

“Huh?” The Dazzling and PostCrush girls all uttered in response.

“My mom has a lot of connections in the Canterlot City business community. Most of them at companies that deal with things like marketing and logistics,” Sugarcoat began to explain. “It’s possible that one of them might be willing to help you out for a small fee or a percentage of your profits. I’ll admit it’s a bit of a long-shot, but you never know. There could be someone out there who wants to get in on the emu-business.”

To say that the Dazzlings were touched by Sugarcoat’s offer to seek help from her mother for them would’ve been an understatement. They were moved by it, almost to the point of shedding tears of joy. As were Kiwi and Su-Z, who’d only just met the girl today. Sugarcoat had already given them her time to help them analyze their finances, and now she was willing to go even further for them. She was willing to try and find them some professional connections to not only help save their business but to help grow it as well. Only a handful of times had either the three Dazzlings or two PostCrush girls been shown such generosity, and each of them considered themselves fortunate to have a friend like Sugarcoat.

“Thank you, Sugarcoat. For everything,” Adagio said heartfully as she held out her right hand across the table to the Shadowbolt. “We owe you one.”

Sugarcoat extended her right hand out to shake the Dazzling leader’s but stopped about halfway through when she felt her phone vibrating within her pocket.

“Just a second,” The girl said as she reached into her pocket, withdrew her phone, and answered it. “Hello?...Uh-huh…Uh-huh…I see…”

For about a minute the Dazzling and PostCrush girls stood silently as Sugarcoat continued to talk on her phone, during which time they each tried to piece together who the Shadowbolt was talking to and about what by listening to her various remarks and replies. Though given that Sugarcoat’s remarks and replies were brief and not that various beyond ‘uh-huh’ and ‘I see’ they had a difficult time piecing any answers together.

“…Okay, I’ll be there soon,” The Crystal Prep student said right before ending her call, putting her phone back into her pocket, and addressing the group of girls once more. “Well it looks like I’ll be calling in that favor already. I need a ride to the police station downtown.”

Needless to say, expressions of confusion and concern crossed each of the Dazzling’s and PostCrush girl’s faces when they heard Sugarcoat say where it was she needed a ride to.

“Why do you need a ride to the police station?” Aria inquired before anyone else had a chance to.

“Trixie’s been arrested and she needs me to bail her out,” Sugarcoat answered.

Sugarcoat’s answer elicited a variety of reactions from the other girls in the room. Kiwi and Su-Z maintained their confused looks as they each tried to remember exactly who Trixie was, having recalled one of the Dazzlings mentioning her before. Sonata gave a small groan as though she weren’t surprised in the least and gave a quick eyeroll. Aria also gave a similar groan but gave herself a light facepalm instead of an eyeroll. And Adagio just started to laugh uncontrollably.

“Ahahaha!” The eldest Dazzling blurted out as she wrapped her arms around her stomach.

“Okay, what did she do?” Aria asked in an exhausted manner.

“She was going forty in a twenty five zone,” Sugarcoat answered.

“Wait. She was arrested for speeding?” Kiwi then asked. “Don’t the police usually just write tickets for that?”

“They do, yes,” Sugarcoat replied. “But then if you get too confrontational with the officer writing the ticket you get arrested. And Trixie got too confrontational with the officer writing the ticket.”

Aria and Sonata each gave a second, more dejected sounding groan in response to Sugarcoat’s explanation for Trixie’s arrest. Adagio just laughed even harder.

“You’re…You’re kidding me!” The poofy-haired girl uttered between her bursts of laughter. “That is…that is absolutely priceless! Ahahaha!”

“Yes. Priceless,” Sugarcoat replied sarcastically. “Anyways, if you could give me a ride downtown I’d appreciate it.”

“Yeah, alright,” Aria said as she picked her phone up off the floor and put it in her pocket. “Let’s go bail Trixie out of jail.”

Aria and Sugarcoat then started to make their way over towards the front door. Only to be stopped half-way there when Adagio called out to them.

“Hold on, hold on. I’m coming too,” The Dazzling leader said as she tried to recompose herself.

“Seriously?” Aria asked as she turned around to face her sister. “Why?”

“Um, because Trixie is in jail, Aria,” Adagio replied, as if the answer were obvious. “This is something I need to see for myself. And maybe take a few pictures for posterity while I’m at it.”

Now it was Aria’s turn to give a small eyeroll.

“Fine, let’s go,” The pig-tailed Dazzling replied.

Aria and Sugarcoat waited a second for Adagio to join them before turning back around and once more making for the front door. Though, once again, they didn’t make it very far before someone called out to them.

“Wait. Can I come too?” Kiwi addressed the group of girls.

“Ugh,” Aria grunted out as she stopped dead in her tracks and turned around yet again. “Why?”

“T-The police station is only about a block away from Cybil’s Retro Candy Store,” The PostCrush girl answered tentatively, picking up on Aria’s frustration. “I-It’s the only place in town that has Verburg satellite wafers. I ate the last of them a few days ago and just wanted to get some more.”

“Fine, whatever, let’s just go already,” Aria said. “I have other things I wanted to do today besides drive people around town and bail other people out of jail.”

Kiwi quickly made her way over towards the front door. Once she reached Aria, Sugarcoat, and Adagio though they didn’t immediately depart like she’d believed they would. Instead, they all stayed where they were for a moment as Aria looked over at Sonata and Su-Z, who were now the only ones left in the kitchen.

“Anyone else want to tag along?” She rather irksomely asked her sister and housemate.

Both Sonata and Su-Z promptly shook their heads.

“Okay, let’s – ow!” Aria then said as she turned back around and took a step forward, only to immediately stub her left toe on something.

“You okay, Aria?” Kiwi inquired.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Aria replied with a small wince as she looked down to see what it was she’d hit. “I just ran my foot into Sonata’s stupid tablet is all.”

All eyes shifted downwards towards where Aria was looking to see that the Dazzling had indeed stubbed her toe on Sonata’s stone tablet.

Not long after the incident at the Overlook Hotel, the young Dazzling had found the strange tablet half-buried in the backyard near a dying tree. Normally such an unaesthetic object would’ve elicited nothing more than a brief, cursory interest from Sonata, but for some reason the tablet had inexplicably caught her eye. So much so that she’d brought it into the house, where she’d proceeded to put it down near the front door and simply leave it there for a number of weeks.

“Oh yeah. Forgot about that thing,” Sonata admitted.

A few mumbled, practically incoherent words could be heard emanating from Aria as she knelt down to pick up the tablet.

“Well since you clearly don’t care about this stupid thing that much I’m going to throw it out,” The elder Dazzling then very articulately, and acutely, retorted.

“What?! No!” Sonata quickly replied as she ran over to her older sister. “I do care about it, honest! I…I just forgot I left it there is all!”

Then, almost as if she were Oliver Twist pleading for some more food, Sonata held out her arms in front of Aria.

“I’ll put it in my room where it’ll be out of the way, I swear,” The girl promised.

In truth, Aria wanted nothing more in that moment than to throw the tablet in her hands away. And not just because she’d stubbed her toe on it. She also wanted it gone because it gave her the creeps. She couldn’t explain it, but whenever she looked at it she always felt a slight chill run down her spine. Maybe it was just because it looked like something straight out of any of the numerous horror movie she’d seen, but whatever the reason Aria simply didn’t care for the damn thing in the least.

However, since Sonata was promising to keep the tablet in her room where she wouldn’t have to see it anymore Aria reluctantly handed it off to her younger sister. That, and the middle Dazzling found Sonata’s begging to be so pitiable she thought she would actually feel bad if she didn’t capitulate to the girl’s plea.

“Thanks, Aria,” Sonata said once the tablet was in her hands.

“Whatever,” Aria replied before turning around and finally heading out the door.

Sugarcoat silently followed behind Aria, who in-turn was followed by Adagio and Kiwi.

“Finally,” Adagio remarked as she exited the house. “I can’t wait to see Trixie behind bars.”

Both Sonata and Su-Z noticed Kiwi give a small, derisive eyeroll as soon as Adagio finished speaking.

“Adagio, do you know what schadenfreude is?” The PostCrush girl asked as she also walked out the door.

“No, Kiwi, I don’t know what schadenfreude is. But please tell me because I’m dying to know,” The eldest Dazzling replied sarcastically just before walking out of earshot of the two girls.

Kiwi closed the door behind her leaving Sonata and Su-Z alone in the house, along with a still silence that was rather rare in the Dazzling/PostCrush household. The silence didn’t last long though as Su-Z soon walked over to Sonata, feeling curious about the stone tablet that the girl had been so determined to hold on to.

As Su-Z looked over Sonata’s shoulder at the tablet, she couldn’t help but wonder why exactly it was that the girl wanted to keep it so badly. Sure it was an interesting enough object on account of the Aramaic-looking symbols etched into it, but it just didn’t seem like the sort of thing that Sonata was usually interested in. It wasn’t new or cute or even brightly colored. It was old, dull, and looked like it belonged in a museum. In other words, something more along the lines of what her sister Eclipse would’ve found fascinating. But not Sonata.

“So why do you want to keep that thing so badly?” She eventually inquired aloud.

“I…I don’t know,” Sonata answered as she brought the tablet in closer to her chest. “It’s weird but…but when I found it out in the backyard I felt like it…”

Sonata paused for a brief moment before giving a small sigh and walking over towards the kitchen table.

“Forget it. You’ll just think I’m crazy,” The Dazzling then said.

“No I won’t,” Su-Z assured her friend as she followed her into the kitchen. “I promise I won’t think you’re crazy, Sonata.”

Once she reached the table, Sonata put the tablet down and just stared at it until Su-Z arrived next to her.

“I felt like…like the tablet wanted me to find it,” The Dazzling eventually said. “Believe me I know how that sounds, but it’s true. When I saw it sticking half-way out of the ground I felt like it was calling out to me, like it wanted me to dig it out and bring it inside the house.”

Admittedly, Su-Z did find what Sonata was saying to be somewhat crazy. The tablet was a piece of rock, how could it want anything? But, considering that her and Kiwi had once used a magical artifact to keep re-living the same day numerous times, she couldn’t dismiss the Dazzling’s claim as entirely crazy. Or even entirely impossible for that matter. Highly implausible, perhaps, but not entirely impossible.

Su-Z shifted her attention to the tablet as well, hoping that maybe if she stared at it for a bit she too might feel it call out to her too. But after a few seconds of staring silently at it and feeling nothing she quickly came to the conclusion that she wasn’t going to experience the same thing Sonata had claimed to have experienced when she’d first found the hunk of rock. Still though, the PostCrush girl wasn’t ready to outright disregard her friend’s claim.

“Okay, so then what?” Su-Z asked. “Cause I’m guessing that you finding the it and bringing it into the house couldn’t have been all the tablet wanted, right?”

“I’m guessing. But I have no idea what to do next,” Sonata replied as she placed her right hand on the tablet. “I think whatever else it may want has something to do with these symbols on it, like maybe they’re instructions or something. But since I can’t read them it’s hard to know for sure.”

“Hmm,” Su-Z muttered as she focused more intently on the symbols etched into the tablet. “If these symbols really are instructions written in some ancient, extrinsic language then maybe we might be able to translate them with the translation app on my phone.”

“You have an app on your phone that can translate this?” Sonata inquired as Su-Z pulled out her phone.

“Well I don’t know for certain that it can, but I’m pretty sure that it’ll be able to,” Su-Z said. “I mean, if it can translate what ghosts say I’m pretty sure it can translate some old symbols.”

“Huh, neat,” Sonata simply replied.

After a few seconds of scrolling through her phone Su-Z opened the translation app she had mentioned. Once it finished loading she pointed her phone’s camera at the tablet and snapped a picture of the stone, and within only a matter of seconds the app worked it’s digital magic and produced a translation.

“W-Whoa,” Su-Z replied with a slight tremble in her voice. “This is not what I expected.”

“What’s it say?” Sonata asked as she leaned over to take a look at what was displayed on Su-Z’s phone.

At first Sonata had intended to just read what was displayed on the phone silently to herself like Su-Z had done. But as soon as the Dazzling laid eyes on the translation she felt an inexplicable urge to read it aloud.

“’Ade Due Lustitia. Come forth, infernal judge.’”

For a moment Sonata and Su-Z’s eyes met as they each turned to face the other with looks of confusion plastered on their faces. Though said moment of eye contact turned out to be very brief as soon all the lights in the kitchen began to rapidly flicker on and off in a seemingly random manner, diverting the girls’ attention away from one another.

“Um, w-what’s wrong with the lights?” Sonata asked anxiously as she instinctively drew herself closer to Su-Z.

“B-Beats me,” Su-Z answered just as anxiously.

For a good ten seconds – which felt more like ten minutes to the Dazzling and PostCrush girl – the lights continued to perform their haphazard dance of illumination before suddenly turning off all at once, leaving the two girls in utter darkness - save for the iota of natural light of twilight that managed to creep out over the western horizon and through a few windows that is.

With the mad flickering now over, Sonata distanced herself a bit from Su-Z as both she and her housemate began to scan their surroundings. Though with only the smallest amount of light seeping in through the west-facing windows neither of them were able to truly see very much. At first glance everything seemed to be as it was in the room before the lights had gone hay-wire, but when Sonata looked over at the far end of the island counter she could’ve sworn she saw a shadowy silhouette belonging to something that hadn’t been there earlier. Something distinctly human-shaped.

“S-Su-Z,” The Dazzling said as she tapped her friend on the arm to further get her attention.

Su-Z immediately turned to face Sonata to see what it was she wanted, only to see that the Dazzling apparently wanted her to look over towards the other end of the room as indicated by her pointing finger. Without hesitation the PostCrush girl redirected her attention to where it was Sonata was pointing, and as soon as she did the light suddenly came back on and she saw what it was that had caught her housemate’s attention; a pale-skinned girl with silvery-white hair wearing sunglasses who was leaning on the counter and looking straight at them.

“Yo, how’s it goin’?” The mysterious girl addressed them amiably.

“WAAAAH!” Both Su-Z and Sonata hollered out as they quickly grabbed hold of one another.

“Whoa, you two got some good lungs on ya. Those were a couple of pretty impressive screams,” The pale-skinned girl replied as she ceased leaning on the counter and started making her way around it towards the two terrified girls.

Every instinct within Sonata and Su-Z told them that they should run. Run away from the mystery girl that was slowly approaching them and who’d appeared out of seemingly nowhere after an unexplainable and haunting incident where the lights had frantically flickered on and off. But no matter how loud those instincts screamed both the Dazzling and PostCrush girl found themselves unable to move their legs. Their fear had petrified them to the point of ensuring that they’re feet would remain firmly planted where they stood for the time being, though each of them did manage to find enough strength to at least let go of the other. Other than that though all either Sonata or Su-Z could really do was move their eyes as they watched the sunglasses-clad girl slowly advance towards them.

At about the halfway point from where the mystery girl had started to where they were standing, both Sonata and Su-Z noticed four features about her that they hadn’t initially perceived. Firstly, they noticed that she was wearing an unbuttoned black suit jacket around her shoulders over a red shirt and black tie with two silver clips that attached it to the shirt. Secondly, they also noticed that she sported a pair of red, fingerless gloves on her hands with tags that read ‘HPJ’. Thirdly, they noticed that her silvery-white hair was done up in a short pony tail on the back of her head that was held together with a red bandana. And fourthly, and most peculiarly, they noticed that she had what appeared to be two small, black horns with rounded tips coming out of her head and a black arrow-tipped tail protruding from her lower back, giving them the impression that she was some sort of demon-girl.

“I’m Justice, former High Prosecutor of Hell,” The girl introduced herself as she reached the two girls and extended her right hand out to them. “Damn glad to meet you.”

Between the demonic appearance of the girl - apparently named Justice - and the fact that she’d identified herself as the former High Prosecutor of Hell, Sonata and Su-Z felt that they were in some seriously deep, deep trouble. If Justice’s claim was, in-fact, true - and there was much evidence to support that it was – then it meant that she wasn’t just demon-looking, she was an actual demon! And from everything they’d each been led to believe through things like books and movies, demons were nothing but bad news. They were monstrous creatures from the underworld that served a dark and cruel master. Evil beings that were bent on bringing harm to people and leading them to damnation through a variety of subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle tactics.

But as far as either Sonata or Su-Z were concerned, Justice didn’t seem to fit those stereotypes at all.

Aside from having a few of the typical physical characteristics associated with a demon, Justice hardly appeared to be a monstrous or evil being to either the Dazzling and PostCrush girl. Personality-wise, they each found her to be awfully nice. Friendly even. So far she’d shown them absolutely no signs of malice. All she’d done was graciously introduce herself to them, and, oddly enough, compliment them on their screaming skills. Overall she just seemed genuinely…nice.

Though not surprisingly, the idea of Justice’s affable demeanor simply being part of some sort of trick crossed both Sonata and Su-Z’s minds. But in all honesty neither of them believed that to be the case. As far as they could tell the demon-girl truly was an amiable person who just so happened to be a demon and the former High Prosecutor of Hell. Still though, the two girls both harbored a few reservations towards Justice given the fact that she’d appeared in their kitchen out of thin air, and they each thought it best to remain at least a little bit wary of her. But not so wary as to be rude and ignore her cordiality.

“G-Glad to meet you too,” Sonata replied tentatively as she took Justice’s hand and shook it. “I’m S-Sonata Dusk, former siren. And this is Su-Z, former, um…popstar.”

“H-Hi,” Su-Z said just as tentatively as she lifted her right hand in an affable gesture.

“A siren and a popstar, huh? Awesome! I’ve never met a siren or a popstar before,” Justice said as she ended her handshake with Sonata and then proceeded to place her right hand on-top of the Dazzling’s tablet. “So which one of you ladies read the tablet out loud?”

Neither Sonata nor Su-Z said anything in response. Instead, Sonata simply raised her right hand to indicate that she’d been the one who had read the tablet aloud. Though strangely, the Dazzling’s gesture elicited no immediate reply from Justice.

“I guessing one of you is raising your hand, and whichever one of you it is I’m going to need you to speak up,” The demon-girl eventually said just before she lifted her sunglasses up a bit to reveal a pair of white, cloudy eyes that’d been hidden behind them. “’Cause as you can see, I can’t see.”

“Oh, s-sorry,” Sonata apologized, feeling that she’d inadvertently vexed Justice. “It was me. I read the tablet out loud.”

“No worries,” Justice assured the former siren as she lowered her shades back down to their resting place on her nose.

As the Dazzling and PostCrush girl watched as Justice once more covered her eyes they could each feel the initial shock and anxiety of being face-to-face with an actual demon beginning to fade. And as that shock and anxiety began to fade a question popped into their minds. A question that, quite frankly, they were each surprised they hadn’t asked themselves until this very moment; Why was Justice here? It was obvious to both of them that she was physically here because of the tablet, but what was her purpose here? What exactly did she want from them?

“Well I’m guessing you want to get right to it, Sonata,” Justice then said. “So tell me, who do you want me to send to Hell for you?”

Hell is for Sirens (Part 2)

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“WHAT?!” Both Sonata and Su-Z shouted.

“Whoa, hey, you two have already proven that you’ve got impressive screaming skills,” Justice said. “I don’t need any more convincing of that.”

The Dazzling and PostCrush girl quickly turned to face one another, each of them sporting looks of renewed shock and anxiety on their faces. Had they just heard Justice correctly? Had the demon girl really just said that she wanted to know who Sonata wanted to send to Hell? And then said that she’d take them to Hell? The whole thing sounded like complete and utter cockamamie, and if it weren’t for the fact that it’d come from an actual demon that’s exactly how both Sonata and Su-Z would’ve perceived it. Nothing but cockamamie. But each of them very much believed that Justice was being one hundred percent serious.

And that seriousness lit a fire of animosity within Sonata.

Despite the young Dazzling’s normally chipper and up-beat demeanor she was no stranger to feelings of anger or hatred. Like everyone else she had occasional moments in her life where she found herself so upset with someone that she would utter a curse word or even yell at them right to their face. But only once in her life had she ever been so angry with someone that she’d wished for them to be sent to the fiery inferno that was Hell. Other than that though Sonata had never wished for anyone to be sent to Hell, and for Justice to even insinuate otherwise filled the girl with nothing short of great rancor.

“I don’t want to send anyone to Hell!” She asserted as she shifted her attention back to the demon girl.

“You don’t?” Justice asked.

“No!” Sonata replied heatedly.

“Huh,” Justice said before quickly looking down at the tablet for a moment and then just as quickly returning her attention to Sonata. “Ya sure?”

“Yes!” Sonata affirmed, sounding even more heated than she had a second ago.

It was at this point that Su-Z started to notice just how unnerved Sonata was becoming, and how quickly she was becoming unnerved at that. Part of the PostCrush girl thought that she should speak up and try to diffuse the situation before her friend blew a fuse and did something to potentially incur the wrath of the demon girl before them. But another part of her – a much louder part of her - thought it better to remain silent and on the sidelines for the time being. Mostly because of the fact that, as far as she was concerned, Sonata had surpassed Justice as the most frightening and dangerous figure in the room.

Justice, for her part, simply looked down at the tablet again for a moment before returning her attention to Sonata once more.

“You sure you’re sure?” Justice then asked. “’Cause if you don’t want to send someone to Hell then why’d you read the tablet out loud?”

“I don’t know!” Sonata hollered back, having finally reached her breaking point. “I don’t know why I’ve done any of the things that I’ve done with that stupid tablet! I don’t know why I brought it into the house, I don’t know why I begged Aria to let me keep it, and I don’t know why I read the inscription on it out loud!”

Now feeling downright fearful of Sonata, Su-Z took a few steps off to the side to give her friend some room to vent. Though not too much room just in case she needed to intervene before things escalated to a level she didn’t even want to think about.

“But what I do know is that I didn’t do any of that stuff because I expected a demon to show up asking me who I wanted to have dragged off to Hell!” Sonata continued to holler at Justice, though not quite as intensely now. “So why don’t you just go back to Hell, Justice, because I’m not going to ask you to send someone down there for me!”

A few seconds of extremely uncomfortable silence - save for Sonata’s heavy breathing - followed the Dazzling’s tirade. During which time Su-Z continued to argue with herself about what she should do. Intervene, continue to remain silent; neither option seemed particularly good at the moment. If she intervened she risked ending up on the receiving end of Sonata’s newfound fury, but if she continued to remain silent she risked Sonata incurring Justice’s wrath – if the Dazzling hadn’t already done so that is. Fortunately though it appeared that Justice hadn’t been agitated at all by Sonata’s verbal assault on her, at least as far as the PostCrush girl could tell. So for the time being, she decided to continue to remain a quiet observer.

“Yeeeah, that’s going to be a bit of a problem,” Justice replied. “See I’m not allowed to go back to Hell until you have me send someone down there first. It’s kind of a rule.”

“…What?” Sonata then said in a manner that was soft in volume but intense in tone.

By now Sonata’s frustrations had gone beyond the realm of simply being evident verbally and crossed over into the realm of being evident physically as well. After the Dazzling finished asking her one-word question her face quickly began to turn a dark red color as steam started to blow out from both her right and left ears. Or at least Su-Z could’ve sworn she saw steam coming out of Sonata’s ears. But even if the steam was just her imagination playing tricks on her the PostCrush girl knew for certain that her friend’s face was rapidly turning red, and that if she didn’t intervene now there wouldn’t be another opportunity to do so before things escalated to the point of no return.

And so, reluctantly, Su-Z swiftly took a few steps forward and placed herself in-between Sonata and Justice.

“O-Okay. Maybe we should all just calm down a bit, huh?” The PostCrush girl said tentatively.

Both Sonata and Justice immediately shifted their attention from one another over towards Su-Z, but neither of them said anything in response to her plea for calm.

“S-So, yeah, this whole situation is, um…kind of crazy…and confusing,” The PostCrush girl then said, finding herself at a near complete loss for words as a cold sweat started to come over her. “But I think if we just, you know, pause for a moment and take a deep breath then maybe we can figure out how to make it, um…not so crazy and confusing?”

Su-Z gave out a few nervous chuckles after she finished her less-than-articulate plea for calm in the hopes that they’d help lighten the mood in the room. Initially though it seemed that neither her chuckles nor her plea had any effect on Sonata or Justice, as both girls simply continued to stare silently at her with unchanged expressions for a few seconds.

“Not a bad idea, Suz,” Justice eventually spoke up.

“Su-Z,” The PostCrush girl corrected her.

“Right, sorry,” Justice apologized. “Anyways, I think you’ve got a good idea there. ‘Cause truth be told you two are really starting to confuse the hell out of me. No pun intended.”

“We’re the ones confusing you?” Sonata replied, with no small hint of irritated obfuscation in her voice.

“Yep. Frankly I don’t think I’ve ever been more confused than I am right now,” Justice said. “I mean, I just don’t get it. What kind of cultists would summon a demon if they don’t want her to send someone to Hell for them?”

“Wait, did you just say ‘cultists’?” Su-Z spoke up. “We’re not cultists.”

“You’re not?” Justice asked.

“No!” Both Su-Z and Sonata answered simultaneously.

“Huh,” Justice replied. “Are you revolutionaries then? Like with the Judean People’s Front or something?”

“No!!” The Dazzling and PostCrush girl once again answered in unison.

“Hmm,” Justice then uttered as she brought a hand up to her chin and tilted her head slightly downward.

For a few seconds Justice maintained her phlegmatic appearance in silence, much to Sonata and Su-Z’s chagrin. Though neither of them could complain too much as the silence meant that the demon girl wasn’t asking them if they belonged to any questionable groups. However, they each assumed that Justice’s current state was just one of contemplation, and that soon enough she was going to ask them yet again if they were affiliated with some sort of contentious organization.

“Oh!” Justice said excitedly as she came out of her stoic state. “Are you members of either the Democratic or Republican party?!”

Sure enough, Sonata and Su-Z had assumed correctly.

“NO!!!” The Dazzling and PostCrush girl answered simultaneously for a third time.

“Damn. Thought for sure I had it that time,” Justice said. “Well if you two aren’t cultists, revolutionaries, or politicians then I give up. The only other reason I can think of for why you summoned me is that you want to make me your demon bride or something. But given everything that’s happened so far I’m guessing that’s not the case.”

Despite the fact that Justice had outright disregarded her latest theory as to why it was she’d been summoned, both Sonata and Su-Z found themselves speechless that she’d even considered such a crazy idea as a possibility.

“Ah geez. That is the case, isn’t it?” Justice then said after a few seconds of silence. “Look, I’m flattered and everything but the answer is a hard no. There is no way in hell I am going through something like that again. Pun intended that time.”

It was at this point that Su-Z turned around to look at Sonata once more, half-expecting to see the Dazzling on the verge of a full-blown meltdown. But much to the PostCrush girl’s surprise she saw that her friend appeared to be more befuddled and fatigued than enraged.

“I need a minute,” The Dazzling said wearily as she turned around and headed for the living room. “I just…I need a minute.”

Su-Z said nothing as she watched Sonata exit the kitchen and promptly take a seat in a nearby living room chair, mostly because she didn’t know what to say. Or rather, she found herself unable to say what it was she wanted to. From the moment she saw the Dazzling turn around and make for the other room she wanted to tell her to stay so as not to leave her alone with Justice, but given just how dejectedly Sonata had sounded she figured that the girl truly was in desperate need of a minute or two to herself.

“She going to be okay?” Justice asked the PostCrush girl, regaining her attention. “It seems like she’s taking my rejection pretty hard.”

“N-No, it’s not that,” Su-Z replied. “Just…look, Sonata doesn’t want to make you a demon bride or have you send anyone to Hell for her or anything like that. She – we – didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Sonata just found that tablet outside and then I used an app on my phone to translate the inscription. Neither of us knew that reading it aloud was going to summon you.”

“Oh. Well that certainly explains a lot,” Justice said. “Why didn’t you two just say so from the very beginning?”

Su-Z couldn’t help but facepalm in response to Justice’s question, finding it frustratingly stupefying that the demon girl hadn’t interpreted the screams she and Sonata had let out earlier as a blatantly obvious sign that they hadn’t meant to summon her.

“Welp, I suppose I should give you the run down on the tablet and everything then,” Justice then said as she took a seat at the kitchen table. “I don’t normally have to do this so if it seems like I’m skipping over anything important just let me know.”

Happy that she was finally going to get some answers, Su-Z swiftly took a seat at the table as well. But just as the PostCrush girl sat down she came to the realization that Sonata should probably be present for all of this as well.

“Hey, Sonata,” She called out into the living room.

“Yeah, I heard. And I’m coming,” The Dazzling replied as she got up from her seat and made her way into the kitchen once more.

Once Sonata rejoined the other two girls in the kitchen and took a seat to Su-Z’s left, Justice put both of her feet up on the table and placed her right index finger on top of the tablet.

“Okay, so for starters this thing is called a perdition tablet,” Justice began explaining. “And as you’ve probably already ascertained it’s used to summon demons for the purpose of sending someone to Hell on someone else’s behalf. They were created by Lucifer, the Queen of Hell, about four thousand years ago as a means of sowing massive chaos on Earth without drawing the attention of Heaven.”

“S-Sorry,” Su-Z tentatively interrupted as she slightly raised her right hand up. “But what do you mean by, ‘without drawing the attention of Heaven’? I thought Heaven saw everything.”

“That’s what Heaven wants everyone to think, but in truth they’re not nearly as all-seeing as they claim to be,” Justice replied. “So knowing that Heaven doesn’t see everything that goes on up here Lucy came up with these tablets to allow demons to come up to Earth in such small numbers and for such small amounts of time that Heaven wouldn’t notice them.”

“But why?” Sonata inquired. “I mean I get that it’s so someone can send someone else to Hell, but I don’t get how sending just one person to Hell could sow massive chaos?”

As soon as Sonata finished asking her question a small, rather impish-looking smile appeared on Justice’s face.

“It sows massive chaos if the person you send to Hell is someone who’s in a position of power,” The demon girl explained. “That’s why Lucy always tried to make sure the tablets ended up in the hands of dissidents like cultists or revolutionaries. She figured those kinds of people were more than likely to have a highly influential and powerful person sent to Hell, and end up causing some serious chaos as a result.”

The more Sonata and Su-Z thought about what Justice was saying, the more the logic made sense to them. Throughout the world there was certainly no shortage of powerful people who helped shape events on a global scale every day, people who were things like lawmakers or military leaders. It certainly wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that sending even one of them to their untimely demise would generate a lot of chaos in the world.

The thought alone of how the world could potentially change overnight if a president or a general were suddenly sent to Hell was bone-chilling to both of the girls, and each of them couldn’t help but wonder just how many times throughout history a perdition tablet had been used by someone to drastically alter its course.

“Unfortunately though, Lucy figured wrong,” Justice continued, now sounding a tad dejected. “As it turns out cultists and revolutionaries are just as petty and stupid as everyone else up here.”

Subconsciously feeling that they’d been indirectly slighted, the Dazzling and PostCrush girl both shot Justice a brief, peevish glare without even realizing it.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how many unimportant people I’ve sent to Hell for trivial reasons,” The demon girl continued. “Like this one time when I was summoned by a French knight during the Caroline War for example. I thought, ‘Awesome! This guy’s going to have me send someone important like John of Gaunt or The Black Prince to Hell and create some serious chaos!’ But as it turned out, I thought wrong. Rather than have me send someone in-command of the English army to Hell he had me send this other French knight there instead. And why? Because the other knight’s stallion knocked up one of his mares! Just…crazy, am I right?”

Needless to say, it was incredibly difficult for Sonata and Su-Z to agree or even sympathize with Justice’s disposition - for a multitude of reasons. But despite this they each felt that they should at least appear to be sympathetic by subtly and silently nodding their heads in agreement. Though the gestures were a bit of a mute-point since Justice couldn’t even see them.

“But getting back to the tablet itself,” Justice continued. “It acts as a sort of contract between the demon who’s summoned and the person who uses it. A contract that states that the demon must send someone to Hell on behalf of that person before returning to Hell herself. Ergo, the demon has to remain here on Earth with that person until the contract is fulfilled.”

Even though Sonata had essentially been told this part earlier when she’d heatedly told Justice to go back to Hell, the reality of what it truly meant was only now starting to sink in for her, as evident by the look of extreme trepidation that quickly overtook her face.

“Oh god,” The young Dazzling muttered inaudibly to herself.

Just then, Justice removed her feet from the table, got up from her seat, and began to walk around the table towards Sonata’s left.

As the demon girl made her short journey to the other end of the table, the reality of what her words meant sunk in for Su-Z as well. And just as Justice took a seat on the other end of Sonata she too dawned an expression of great anxiety.

“So since you don’t want to send anyone to Hell, Sonata, it looks like you and I are going to be spending a lot of time together,” Justice concluded as she wrapped her right arm around the Dazzling’s shoulders.

Hearing Justice say out loud what she’d already realized only made the reality of the situation sink in deeper for Sonata, and before the Dazzling knew it she was hanging her head in almost total dejection.

“Oh god,” Sonata repeated - this time audibly.

“Hey, come on, it won’t be so bad,” The demon girl amiably assured the distraught Dazzling. “Just think of all the fun stuff we can do together! We can stay up all night and make crank calls, or we can go out and knock over some mailboxes! Hell, we can even open up a bakery and then burn it down for the insurance money if you want!”

Just then, Justice leaned in ever-so-closer to Sonata, causing the Dazzling to snap out of her despondency just enough for her to shift her head ever-so-slightly away from the demon girl.

“Please tell me you want to open up a bakery and then burn it down for the insurance money,” The demon girl playfully begged.

“N-No, I don’t want to do that,” Sonata barely managed to say.

“Shoot,” Justice replied as she let go of the Dazzling and leaned back in her seat. “Well whatever you want to do just let me know and we’ll do it. I’m game for pretty much anything so long as it doesn’t involve tax fraud.”

“Tax fraud?” Su-Z said as she too regained some of her composure.

“Yep, tax fraud,” Justice confirmed. “Lucy said that we’re not allowed to do that when we’re up here. Something about not messing with the IRS because they’re worse than Heaven or whatever.”

This, Su-Z could genuinely agree with. After all, it was thanks to the IRS that she and Kiwi had ended up living in a van down by the river after they’d been dropped by their label.

Sonata, on the other hand, had little-to-no opinion on the matter. The Dazzling found herself too overwhelmed with anxiety over being stuck with a demon at her side to focus on anything else at the moment. Anxieties like how her sisters would react to all of this when they got home, or how her beloved Dashie would react when she found out. Were Adagio and Aria going kick to her out? Possibly. Was Rainbow Dash going to break up with her? Also possible. Rainbow had almost broken up with her after she’d learned about Dolly, so it was entirely plausible that the Rainboom would react similarly when she learned about Justice. These and various other nightmare scenarios quickly flooded Sonata’s mind until the poor girl once again found herself in a despondent state.

“Oh god,” She uttered for a third time.

“Tell you what,” Justice spoke up in an upbeat manner, completely oblivious to the Dazzling’s current state. “To celebrate our new friendship I’m going to bake us some apple pie. Not to brag or anything, but I make a pretty mean apple pie.”

And with that, Justice got up from her seat and made her way over towards the oven, leaving Sonata and Su-Z alone at the table.

With Justice now gone - or at least preoccupied elsewhere – Su-Z was able to fully regain her composure. At first the PostCrush girl watched as the demon turned on the oven and started randomly opening cabinets in search of ingredients, but soon enough she diverted her attention over towards Sonata. And when she did, she noticed just how forlorn the Dazzling was truly feeling. In particular, she noticed the thousand-yard stare emanating from the girl’s eyes as she stared down at the table.

It was a truly haunting sight for the former popstar to behold. One that filled her with immense concern for her friend.

“Are you okay, Sonata?” She asked delicately.

“This is bad. This is so bad,” The Dazzling stated absentmindedly. “If Adagio and Aria come home and find out that I summoned a demon from Hell they’re going to disown me. And then when Rainbow Dash finds out she’ll break up with me. And then I…I don’t know what I’ll…”

A couple of teardrops started to form in the corners of Sonata’s eyes as she voiced her fears to Su-Z. Tears that did not go unperceived by the PostCrush girl.

“Listen to me, Sonata,” Su-Z said firmly as she leaned forward and took hold of the Dazzling’s hands, earning her the girl’s attention. “Nothing like that is going to happen. Adagio and Aria aren’t going to disown you and Rainbow Dash isn’t going to break up with you, because none of them are going to find out that we summoned a demon.”

Sonata’s expression immediately changed from one of despondency to one of confusion and slight irritation.

“Su-Z, they’re going to find out,” The Dazzling replied bluntly. “You heard what Justice said. She can’t leave my side until she sends someone to Hell for me, and since I refuse to do that it means I’m stuck with her for the rest of my life!”

“I know, I know. But I don’t care about what Justice said,” Su-Z said in an ataractic manner. “There’s got to be another way we can get rid of Justice before anyone else finds out we summoned her. I don’t know how exactly, but I know that we’ll figure something out.”

As soon as Su-Z finished speaking, Sonata gave a soft, defeated sigh. The Dazzling certainly admired her friend’s optimism, but she couldn’t help but feel that it was greatly misplaced given the reality of the situation. As far as she could tell there was no other way she could get rid of Justice other than by having someone sent to Hell, and there definitely wasn’t any way for her to keep either her sisters or Rainbow Dash from finding out about the demon girl either. She was screwed, plain and simple, and the only reasonable course of action now was to try and figure out a way to minimize the fallout.

Sonata opened her mouth to recapitulate her viewpoint to Su-Z, but just before she got word-one out she was struck by a great realization; when Su-Z had talked about finding another way of getting rid of Justice, she’d used the plural pronoun ‘we’.

“W-What did you say?” She then inquired, wanting to make sure she’d heard her friend correctly.

“I said we’ll find another way out of this,” Su-Z reiterated, with no small hint of conviction in her voice. “I know there has to be some other way to send Justice back to Hell without sending someone else there first, I’m sure of it. We just have to figure out what that way is before anyone else sees her.”

And that was all the confirmation Sonata needed. The Dazzling now knew without a doubt that, as far as Su-Z was concerned, the two of them were in this together. This despite the fact that the PostCrush girl had no obligation to continue being involved with everything that was happening and potentially had so much to lose by continuing to be involved.

The kindness and loyalty that her friend was showing her right now was enough to bring another teardrop or two to the corners of Sonata’s eyes. Though this time they were tears of joy.

“Yeah. You’re right, Su-Z,” The Dazzling said as she started to feel a bit choked up. “We’ll figure something out. Together.”

Su-Z then flashed Sonata a warm and reassuring smile which the Dazzling was quick to return. And for the first time since Justice had appeared in their kitchen, the two girls felt a sense of serenity and sanguineness.

A moment that was tragically cut short though when the sound of a cell phone ringing could be heard coming from S-Z’s pocket.

“Oh, that’s probably Dolly,” The PostCrush girl said as she got up from her seat, pulled her phone out of her pocket, and headed off towards the living room. “Be right back, Sonata.”

“W-What? Su-Z!” Sonata called out to her friend as she left the room, hoping that doing so would get her to turn around and come back.

But Su-Z didn’t turn around and come back, much to the Dazzling’s dismay.

As Sonata watched the PostCrush girl advance through the living room and take a seat located well out of earshot from her seat in the kitchen, she felt like she’d just been on the receiving end of some cruel cosmic joke. Right after she and Su-Z had said that they were in this together Su-Z got a phone call and had to leave her. Of course the young Dazzling knew that her friend would come back - Su-Z herself had said that she would - but seeing the girl walk off so suddenly just made her feel that the proverbial rug had been pulled out from right underneath her.

The sense of loss didn’t last long for Sonata though, as it was soon replaced with renewed feelings of anxiety over what Su-Z and Dolly were talking about.

In all the madness of having summoned a demon from Hell, the Dazzling had completely forgotten about Su-Z’s earlier mysterious phone call with her daughter. Admittedly, part of this forgetfulness was because she’d chosen to believe Kiwi’s theory that this correspondence was no big deal. But now that Dolly had contacted the PostCrush girl once again, Sonata was starting to wonder if Adagio’s theory of something being up was more accurate. Was Dolly okay? Was she really in some sort of trouble that she didn’t want her or Adagio or Aria to know about? The more Sonata pondered these and similar questions, the more her anxiety began to rise.

“Oh god,” She softly and apprehensively said to herself as she started to assume the worst.

It wasn’t long before Sonata’s worries got the best of her and she found herself getting up out of her seat with the intent of going into the living room and demanding that Su-Z reveal what was going on with her daughter. Forcefully, if needed. Something was definitely going on with Dolly, and as the girl’s mother it was her right to know about it.

Sonata took a few firm steps forward towards the living room, determined to find out what Su-Z and Dolly were talking about by any means necessary. But as the Dazzling approached the threshold between the kitchen and the living room she became aware of just how impulsively abrasive she was acting right now, and it gave her pause.

What in the world was she doing? Was she really just about to confront Su-Z and demand that the girl disclose the contents of her private conversation? Was she really about to forcibly intrude into her adult daughter’s personal life? Was this really the kind of friend and mother she wanted to be?

Feeling ashamed by how she’d almost let her fears and anxieties get the better of her and make her do something she would’ve later regretted, Sonata took a few steps back.

“Oooh, honey crisp apples. Nice!” The Dazzling then heard Justice exclaim from the other end of the room.

Sonata immediately turned her attention over towards Justice and saw that the demon girl was still hard at work making her apple pie, which strangely enough helped convince her that she shouldn’t get involved in whatever was happening between Su-Z and Dolly. Right now she had a more pressing issue to attend to in the form of a demon in her kitchen, and if she wanted to have any hope of rectifying that issue she needed to give it her undivided attention.

And so Sonata decided to trust that the situation between her daughter and her housemate was nothing too serious. For now at least. The young Dazzling certainly still had her reservations about their mysterious phone calls, but she knew that all that would have to wait until a later time. A time when hopefully she would feel more level-headed and be able to approach it in a healthier way than she’d almost done just now.

“Okay, Sonata. Think,” She said softly to herself as she refocused her mental energy. “How are you going to get rid of Justice before Aria and Dagi get back?”

For a few moments the Dazzling simply stood silently there in the kitchen as she contemplated potential ways she could send Justice back to Hell without sending someone else there first. Or rather, she tried to contemplate potential ways she could send Justice back to Hell without sending someone else there first. Not surprisingly, no solutions were coming to mind.

But despite this initial lack of revelation, Sonata kept at it. She thought back to everything that Justice had said about the perdition tablet and how it worked, figuring that perhaps there was some pertinent piece of information that she might have missed. But alas, no such piece of information came to mind. All she could recall was Justice explaining what the tablet was, why Lucifer had created them, how they acted as a contract, and how one time a knight had used a tablet to send another knight to Hell over an impregnated mare.

“Wait a minute,” The Dazzling said aloud as a great epiphany began to take shape within her mind. “That’s it!”

“Hey! Sorry about that, Sonata,” Su-Z said as she re-entered the kitchen, her phone call supposedly now done. “So back to what we were talking abo -”

“Su-Z, I’ve got it!” Sonata interrupted the girl elatedly as she took grabbed ahold of her friend’s shoulders. “I know how we can send Justice back to Hell!”

“Really?!” The PostCrush girl just as elatedly replied. “How?!”

“We just have to get Heaven’s attention!” The Dazzling answered.

“Get Heaven’s attention?” Su-Z then queried.

“Yeah, get Heaven’s attention!” Sonata reiterated as she let go of Su-Z’s shoulders. “Remember what Justice said about why Lucifer created the tablets? She said they were created as a way for demons to sow chaos on Earth without drawing the attention of Heaven. So all we have to do is find a way to let Heaven know that Justice is here!”

“Yeah. Yeah!” Su-Z asserted as she began to understand Sonata’s logic. “Once Heaven finds out that Justice got out of Hell they’ll probably send her back down there in a heartbeat!”

“Uh-huh!” Sonata uttered before assuming a more stoic demeanor. “The only question though is how do we go about getting Heaven’s attention?”

“What about by praying?” Su-Z suggested. “Heaven’s always listening to prayers, right?”

“Nah, not really,” Justice said from right beside them.

“GAH!” The Dazzling and PostCrush girl both hollered out, having been caught off-guard by the demon girl’s sudden appearance by their side.

“Man, you two really like to scream, don’t ya?” Justice stated facetiously.

For a few moments the only sound heard in the kitchen was that of heavy breathing emanating from Sonata and Su-Z as the two girls tried to catch their breath.

“What do you mean by, ‘not really’?” Su-Z asked once she could speak again.

“I mean that Heaven isn’t listening to prayers anymore,” Justice explained. “Or maybe they still are and they’re just ignoring them, I dunno. Either way they’ve pretty much stopped paying attention to anything short of an apocalypse around here since The Big Guy’s Son got crucified a few centuries back.”

“Of course they have,” Sonata remarked acerbically.

“I tell ya, Heaven just went from one extreme to another after that happened,” Justice expatiated. “I mean back in the old days they were so involved in everything that went on up here that whenever Lucy left Hell they’d have her ass back down there within a day. But now they’re so indifferent to everything that she’s been able to stay up here for seven years and counting! Which, you know, is good for her and all, but when she’d left I had bet on her being back in Hell within four to six hours.”

The demon girl then trembled ever-so-slightly.

“Boy, was that a bet with Pandemonica I regretted making,” She concluded.

Sadly most of Justice’s words had been ignored by Sonata. After the demon girl had said that Heaven no longer listened to prayers the Dazzling’s mind tuned her out as it went about trying to once again find a solution to the problem at hand.

Conversely, Su-Z had listened quite intently to Justice’s words. And as a result, she learned a piece of information that she believed could potentially lead to the solution she and Sonata were looking for.

“Wait, did you say that Lucifer has been up here for seven years?” She asked the demon.

“Give or take a year, yeah,” Justice answered.

“Do you know where she is?” Su-Z then asked.

“Sure. Why do you –” Justice began to reply before abruptly stopping herself and dawning an impish smile. “Oh. Okay, I see where you’re going with this.”

“Huh, wha?” Sonata chimed in as she precipitously broke out of her cerebrations. “Who’s going where with what now?”

Neither Su-Z nor Justice immediately answered Sonata. Instead, the PostCrush girl and demon simply looked at each other for a moment as if silently deciding between the two of them which one was going to speak up. Eventually Su-Z decided that she would be the one to speak up, if for no other reason than to get Justice to stop staring at her with that overly-impish smile.

“W-Well since Lucifer is somewhere here on Earth, I wanted to ask Justice if she could maybe, you know, take us to see her,” The former popstar explained tentatively.

“WHAT?!” The Dazzling reacted expectedly.

“The answer is yes, by the way,” Justice interjected. “I can take you to Lucy and I totally will if you want me to.”

“Are you crazy, Su-Z?!” Sonata continued, ignoring Justice’s statement. “It isn’t bad enough we’re stuck dealing with a demon, you want to add The Devil on top of that?!”

“J-Just hear me out, Sonata,” Su-Z beseeched her friend. “Lucifer was the one who created the tablets, right? So if that’s the case then maybe she can help us. She might be able to break the contract between you and Justice or…or undo the summoning, or…something along those lines.”

Sonata said nothing back. All she did was continue to stare at Su-Z with a look of pure bewilderment on her face as her mind desperately tried to process her friend’s suggestion.

Was Su-Z really being serious right now? Did she honestly think that the goddamn Devil would help them? Even if Lucifer could break the contract like she’d speculated, would the Queen of Hell do it simply out of the kindness of her heart? Unlikely. While it was true that Justice had turned out to be so unexpectedly friendly for a demon, it was doubtful that The Devil herself would turn out to be so surprisingly amiable as well.

The more Sonata thought about Su-Z’s idea, the more she became convinced that it was a terrible one. But unfortunately, it was the only idea they had. Despite how hard the Dazzling continued to try and think of another alternative she found herself unable to come up with anything better. Like it or not, the only options they had were to either go and appeal to Lucifer for help or stay at home and do nothing.

After a brief moment of deliberation, Sonata made her choice. And when she did she let out a very defeated-sounding sigh.

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” The Dazzling started to address Su-Z and Justice. “But yeah, okay. Let’s go see Lucifer.”

“Awesome! I was hoping you’d say that!” Justice said as she once again wrapped her right arm around the Dazzling’s shoulders. “You two are going to love Lucy! I mean I can’t guarantee that she’ll help you, but I can guarantee that you’re going to love her regardless.”

Feeling a mixture of mild annoyance and exhaustion from the demon girl’s overly-enthusiastic temperament, Sonata couldn’t help but roll her eyes in a quick and discreet manner. Though not quite quickly or discreetly enough to escape the notice of Su-Z, who couldn’t help but find the whole scene just a little bit humorous.

“Well I guess we should get going then,” The PostCrush girl said gaily, right before suddenly casting her eyes around the room in a nervous fashion. “You know, before Kiwi, Adagio, and Aria get back.”

“Oh, yeah. Totally,” Justice replied as she let go of Sonata and turned around. “But not until after we’ve had some apple pie first.”

As soon as Justice finished speaking she started to walk away and back on over towards the oven. However, she only made it about two steps of the way there before Sonata took ahold of her left arm, forcing her to stop.

“No! No pie first! We’re going now!” The Dazzling stated fiercely as she tightened her grip on the demon girl’s arm.

“You wanna go now?” Justice inquired - seemingly unfazed by either Sonata’s grip or ferocity – before quickly looking over at the oven for a moment and then just as quickly returning her attention to Sonata. “Are you sure you wanna do that? ’Cause I already put the pie in the ov -”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Sonata interrupted the demon through gritted teeth as she used her right hand to grab hold of Justice’s right arm as well. “Now do whatever is it you have to do to take us to Lucifer this instant, missy.”

A small chuckle escaped from Su-Z’s mouth immediately after she heard her friend refer to Justice as ‘missy’.

“All right then,” The demon girl replied as Sonata let go of her arms. “If you just wanna scooch in a little closer, Su-Z, we can be on our way.”

Following Justice’s instruction, Su-Z moved in closer until she was about as equidistant from the demon girl as Sonata was. And once she was in place, Justice placed one hand on her right shoulder while simultaneously placing her other hand on Sonata’s left shoulder.

“You both might wanna close your eyes,” Justice then advised. “I’ve been told this can be a bit harsh on the ole peepers.”

Sonata and Su-Z looked at one another for a moment. It wasn’t difficult for either girl to pick up that the other was feeling anxious about whatever it was Justice was about to do, but figuring it best to heed the demon girl’s advice they did as she suggested and closed their eyes.

“Are your eyes closed?” The blind girl asked them.

“Yes,” The Dazzling and PostCrush girl both answered.

“Good. Now don’t open them until I tell you to,” Justice then told them. “Here we go.”

As soon a Justice finished speaking Sonata and Su-Z heard what could only be described as the sound of flames encircling them, causing the two girls to tightly clinch their eyes shut more as their anxiety levels quickly spiked. Thankfully though, the fiery sound only lasted a couple of seconds, and as soon as it stopped a wave of relief washed over the Dazzling and PostCrush girl.

“Okay, we’re here,” They then heard Justice tell them. “You can open your eyes now.”

Very slowly, Sonata and Su-Z started to open their eyes.

As the Dazzling and PostCrush girl started to take in their new surroundings, they noticed that they were now in a very large, fairly ornate room and standing in the middle of what appeared to be a dancefloor. They also noticed that there was a bar located to their far-left, a performing stage to their far-right, and a number of empty tables spread throughout the room.

“Wait a minute. I…I know this place,” Su-Z said as she continued to scan the room. “This is the club that Adagio and Aria brought Kiwi and I to when we had our girls’ night out. What was it called? Chess, or Chews, or -”

“Chaus. It’s called Chaus,” Sonata informed her friend. “And you’re right, that’s definitely where we are.”

“Wait, you two have been here before?” Justice chimed in. “So…does that mean you two already know Lucy?”

“Well we know a Lucy Beel who owns this club,” Sonata started to reply. “But I don’t see how that relates to Lucif -”

The Dazzling found that she had to stop herself mid-sentence as a very large lightbulb suddenly lit up inside her head.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” She then uttered in bewildered astonishment.

“I don’t get what’s going on here,” Su-Z then spoke up. “You said you were taking us to see Lucifer, Justice, but I don’t see her anywhere.”

“Maybe that’s because you haven’t looked up yet,” A familiar voice called out to the three girls.

All eyes, including Justice’s, immediately shot over towards where the voice had come from. And there, standing atop the platform located near the club’s entrance and looking down at them, was none other than Chaus’ owner, Lucy Beel.

“Yo, Lucy!” Justice hollered up to the woman. “How’s it goin’?!”

Lucy said nothing in response as she hastily yet adroitly made her way over towards one of the nearby staircases and started to descend it, never once diverting her gaze from the group of girls on the dancefloor as she did so.

As Su-Z watched Lucy advance towards her, she began to wonder how it was that Justice knew the woman. At first she thought that perhaps the demon girl knew Lucy because the club owner had once used a perdition tablet just like her and Sonata had done, but not long after having that thought the same lightbulb that had turned on inside Sonata’s mind also turned on inside hers.

“Whoa, h-hold on a minute,” The PostCrush girl said in pure shock and awe once Lucy stepped onto the dancefloor. “Y-Y-You’re Lucifer, Lucy?!”

“Oh don’t act so surprised, Su-Z,” Lucy replied dismissively as she walked right past the former popstar.

But Su-Z was surprised. Flabbergasted even. She just couldn’t believe that Lucy Beel, the woman who’d offered her and Kiwi an opportunity to perform at her club, was in actuality the Queen of Hell.

Sonata, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly as surprised by this grand divulgence. She was still surprised, to be sure, but given her and her sisters’ past experiences dealing with Lucy’s shady and unscrupulous concordats it wasn’t too difficult for her to believe that the woman was the literal Devil.

“So, been a while, huh, Boss,” Justice said as Justice stopped right in front of her. “It’s good to see you’re still looking as sharp and sexy as ever.”

Both Sonata and Su-Z found themselves confused by Justice’s remark seeing as how the girl was blind and therefore unable to ascertain Lucy’s current appearance, despite the fact that the club owner did indeed look sharp and sexy. But when they heard a small, light-hearted chortle emanate from Lucy’s mouth in response they figured that the demon girl’s words had been spoken in jest.

“Why thank you, Justice, dear,” Lucy said back cordially. “And let me say, it’s good to see that you still have that incongruous sense of humor of yours.”

“Hey, you know me; always awesome,” Justice boasted playfully.

“Undoubtedly,” Lucy replied genially, right before she abruptly grabbed Justice by the collar and dawned an astringent expression.

“Whoa, Lucy,” The demon girl said as she was taken hold of. “I know it’s been a while but do you really wanna catch up right now…on this dancefloor…in front of Sonata and Su-Z?”

Sonata and Su-Z could only speculate what it was Justice really meant by ‘catch up’. But as soon as they each came to the same fairly reasonable guess they immediately tried to not focus on it.

“I don’t want to catch up, Justice!” Lucy replied acerbically. “What I do want is for you to tell me why you suddenly showed up at my club with a Dazzling and a member of PostCrush right before we open!”

“Oooh, gotcha,” Justice said. “Well, ya see, Sonata over there summoned me using a perdition tablet. Thing is though she doesn’t want me to send anyone to Hell so she wanted to see if you could maybe send me back down there without having to take someone with me.”

“A perdition tablet?” Lucy said perplexedly as she let go of Justice and turned to face Sonata. “You found a perdition tablet?”

“Yep,” Sonata answered very candidly.

“Huh, well I’ll be damned,” Lucy then said right before turning back towards Justice. “I thought the last of those was used 50 years ago on D.B. Cooper.”

Justice simply shrugged her shoulders in response.

“Well I suppose that’s not important right now,” Lucy said as she started to walk back on over towards the staircase she’d descended from only moments ago. “What is important is that we take this conversation somewhere more private before the club opens. Follow me.”

Doing as instructed, Justice immediately began to follow Lucy as she walked away. Sonata and Su-Z then followed behind Justice moments later.

As the four women ascended the staircase, Sonata and Su-Z started to wonder just where it was Lucy was leading them. The club owner had said that they were going to continue their conversation somewhere more private, but neither of them knew where that somewhere was going to be. They figured that Lucy wasn’t going to lead them somewhere outside of the club, which meant that, in all likelihood, she was going to take them to what they assumed was the only truly private place in the building; her office.

Once Lucy, Justice, Sonata, and Su-Z reached the top of the stairs, they proceeded to walk past the front entrance to the club and over towards an elevator located at the far end of the room. Upon reaching the elevator they all stopped as Lucy pushed the up button next to it. Much to Sonata and Su-Z’s surprise though, the doors didn’t open right away. They had to wait a few seconds for the elevator to arrive.

“Hey, you got any apple pie around here, Lucy?” Justice inquired while they waited. “’Cause I started making some earlier but didn’t get a chance to have any before we came here, and I still kinda want some.”

“No, Justice, I don’t have any apple pie,” Lucy replied.

“Shoot,” Justice simply remarked just as the elevator arrived.

When the doors of the elevator opened, the four women were greeted by a compartment so opulent and grandiose that it riveled those belonging to some of the fanciest hotels that S-Z had stayed in while on-tour.

“Wow,” The PostCrush girl remarked as she and the others entered the elevator.

“I know,” Lucy said boastfully.

Once all four women were inside the elevator – Lucy and Justice in front, Sonata and Su-Z in back - Lucy quickly entered a five-digit code on a nearby keypad, causing the doors to close. And as the elevator compartment slowly started to move upward Sonata reached out and took hold of Su-Z’s hand, which Su-Z accepted graciously.

The Dazzling knew not what awaited her within the lair of The Devil herself, but she knew that whatever it was she would be able to face it, because she would have her friend right there with her to help her do so.

Hell is for Sirens (Part 3)

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“So ya sure you don’t have any apple pie around here, Lucy?” Justice asked the woman as they – along with Sonata and Su-Z - rode the elevator.

“Yes, Justice, I’m sure,” Lucy answered, sounding a tad peeved.

“You sure you’re sure?” Justice then asked.

“Yes, Justice, I’m sure,” Lucy once again answered, this time through gritted teeth.

“What’s with her and doing that bit?” Sonata whispered over to Su-Z.

“No idea,” Su-Z whispered back just as the elevator dinged, indicating that they’d arrived at their destination.

Once the elevator doors opened the four women exited the compartment and began to walk down a large but narrow antechamber, not entirely unlike the one that connected the club’s entrance to the outside world. Though the two major differences between that antechamber and this one were that this one was far more lavishly decorated and it didn’t have a door at the other end of it. Instead, it opened up to an even larger room that was just as opulent and grandiose as the elevator compartment was, if not more so.

“Wow,” Su-Z once more remarked as she took in the magnificence of the room.

Sonata also found the room they were now in to be palatial and extravagant but she chose to remain silent, figuring it best to keep a demure manner about her around Lucy.

A number of things about the room caught the eyes of the Dazzling and PostCrush girl as they followed Lucy and Justice through it. Things like expensive-looking paintings that adorned the walls, elegant crown molding that ran all along the edges of the ceiling, and lavish pieces of furniture that sprawled across the floor. But perhaps what caught each of their eyes the most were the series of five pedestals that were located along the far-back wall and behind a desk covered in ledgers that they were walking towards. Each of the pedestals sat a different height and most were adorned with an item atop it. The pedestal to the very left displayed a small, very embroidered box with Greek symbols on it, and the one next to it displayed a wooden staff with an owl totem that sat on the top end. The pedestal in the middle had an unsettling-looking, spike-laden mask in the shape of a heart atop it, and the one next to that pedestal displayed a black notebook with ‘arvc-5’ written on it. The final pedestal was the only one with nothing on it.

“Now let me make sure I understand the situation,” Lucy said as she walked around behind the desk, took a seat, and planted her elbows on top of it as she intertwined her fingers. “You used a perdition tablet, Sonata, but you don’t want to send anyone to Hell. So you’ve come to me in the hopes that I’ll break the contract between you and Justice so that you’re not stuck with her by your side for the rest of your life, correct?”

“Um, yeah, pretty much,” Sonata replied as she and Su-Z each took seats in front of the desk.

Justice decided to remain standing and took a position at the side of the desk.

“So can you do it? Can you break the contract?” Sonata continued.

“Of course I can,” Lucy answered in an uncharacteristically amiable manner. “And I’d be more than happy to do that for you, my dear.”

Despite Sonata’s desire to remain reserved in her emotions she couldn’t help but dawn an expression of surprise upon hearing Lucy’s answer.

“Seriously?” Su-Z asked, sounding just as surprised as Sonata looked.

“Seriously,” Lucy replied as she opened one of the desk drawers and withdrew a piece of paper out of it. “There’s just one little thing I need you to do first, Sonata.”

“Yes, anything!” Sonata exclaimed as she jumped out of her seat.

“I just need you to sign this for me,” Lucy said as she held the paper up to the Dazzling. “You and your -”

Cutting Lucy off mid-sentence, Sonata snatched the paper from the woman’s hand and reached for a nearby pen so that she could sign it and finally put an end to all of this madness. But just as the Dazzling was about to put pen to paper she realized just what it was that Lucy had given her.

“This…this is a contract for my sisters and I to perform at your club,” She said aloud.

“It is. As a matter of fact it’s the same contract I offered the three of you a few years ago,” Lucy elucidated. “So if you could just sign it and then get your sisters to do the same I can send Justice back to Hell, where she’ll be out of your life forever.”

“Why do I suddenly feel like an unwanted child at a custody hearing?” Justice randomly chimed in.

“Quiet, Justice,” Lucy retorted.

As Sonata looked over the paper in greater detail she saw that it was indeed the exact same contract Lucy had offered her, Adagio, and Aria to perform at Chaus a while back. The exact same one that they had turned down because it would have prohibited them from performing anywhere else and would’ve essentially allowed Lucy to withhold all of their pay from them until it expired.

At first Sonata was confused as to why sending Justice back to Hell was contingent on her and her sisters signing the contract. From where she stood it appeared that the contract and Justice had nothing to do with one another, so why was Lucy saying that she required a signed contract before she could get rid of Justice for her? But soon enough, the Dazzling understood; Lucy didn’t need the contract signed in order to get rid of Justice for her, she just wanted the contract signed in exchange for getting rid of Justice.

Despite the Dazzling’s initial displeasure with Lucy’s little quid pro quo she had to admit that she was tempted to accept it in order to free herself of Justice. Thankfully though the temptation didn’t last long, as soon she realized two things. One, she could never ask her sisters to accept such an awful deal, especially for the sole purpose of her own gain. And two, even if she could commit such an incredibly selfish act there would be no way for her to do so without revealing to her sisters that she’d summoned a demon from Hell anyhow.

“I’m not signing this,” She said as she dropped the pen and held the piece of paper out in front of Lucy. “And I’m not asking Adagio and Aria to sign it either.”

An uncomfortable moment of silence fell across the room as Sonata and Lucy stared one another down while Su-Z and Justice looked on.

“Are you sure about that, Sonata,” Lucy eventually said as she leaned back in her chair. “Don’t forget, I’m the only one who can break the contract between you and Justice. So unless you’ve suddenly changed your mind about not wanting to send someone to Hell, you need me. And I’m not going to give you what you want without you giving me what I want in exchange.”

Sonata did take a moment to reconsider her decision like Lucy suggested. Though not her decision to refuse the woman’s trade-off, but rather her decision to not have Justice send someone to Hell for her.

“Actually, now that you bring it up, Lucy, I think there is someone I want to send to Hell,” She said.

Both Lucy and Su-Z’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates upon hearing Sonata’s remark.

“S-Sonata?” Su-Z uttered in disbelief.

“O-Oh, you don’t say,” Lucy then said as she tried – and failed – to hide her surprise. “Well, pray tell, who is this someone that you’ve suddenly decided you want sent to Hell?”

“…You,” Sonata replied acutely.

An unsettling silence fell across the room once again as both Lucy and Su-Z’s eyes somehow widened even more than they already had. A silence that was only broken when Justice smacked both of her palms down on the desk and began to chortle loudly.

“Oh damn!” The demon girl managed to say through her laughter. “She turned the tables on you, Lucy! She turned the tables on you good!”

Justice then removed her right hand from the desk and placed it on Sonata’s left shoulder.

“I gotta say, Sonata, I don’t think there’s a demon in Hell that could’ve pulled one over on Lucy like you just did,” She told the Dazzling.

Without saying a word, Sonata removed Justice’s hand from her shoulder in a very deferential manner.

“A little quick to declare that Sonata just ‘pulled one over on me’, don’t you think, Justice?” Lucy then said as she regained her composure.

“Nah, not really,” Justice replied. “I mean, we all know you don’t want to go back to Hell, Lucy. And since Sonata just threatened to have me send you back down there if you don’t send me back down there first, well, it kinda means you lost this one.”

Hearing Justice tell Lucy that she lost brought a cocky, triumphant smile to Sonata’s face. Of course the Dazzling already knew this to be the case from the moment she came up with the idea of threatening to have Justice send the woman back to Hell, but hearing Justice say it aloud filled her with a sense of triumph that she couldn’t help but show.

That is, until Lucy started to laugh.

“Ahahahaha!” The Queen of Hell cachinnated as the Dazzling’s smile quickly faded. “Come now, Justice, do you really think that I’ve lost just because Sonata threated to send me back to Hell?! Ahahahaha!”

“Well not anymore,” Justice replied awkwardly.

As Lucy continued to laugh, Sonata tried to figure out exactly why it was the woman was so amused. As far as she could tell her plan had been full-proof. Either Lucy sent Justice back to Hell for her or she would have Lucy sent back to Hell by Justice, those were the only two options there were. Neither of which were considered favorable by the club owner. So why in the world was Lucy laughing right now and saying that she hadn’t lost?

“I can tell you’re confused, Sonata. So allow me to explain,” Lucy said as she ceased her laughter. “You see, Justice is right about one thing; I don’t want to go back to Hell. I’ve been up here for seven years now and I’ve grown rather fond of Canterlot. It’s a surprisingly interesting city, and one that I have no plans of leaving anytime soon. But even if I were to leave it because of, oh, I don’t know, someone using a perdition tablet to send me to Hell I can always just come right back.”

It was at this point that Sonata realized why it was Lucy had been so amused by her threat.

“After all I did manage to get out of Hell once before, I think I can manage to do it again,” Lucy continued as she dawned a cocky smile similar to the one Sonata had only a minute ago.

As the realization of the critical flaw in her seemingly full-proof plan sunk in Sonata couldn’t believe that she’d overlooked such an obvious factor. Of course Lucy would have no problem getting out of Hell a second time, Justice had mentioned earlier that when the woman had done so the first time she’d been able to do it with ease. So it only stood to reason that she could do it again just as easily, making the threat of sending her back to Hell virtually no threat at all.

“Regardless though you’re of course still free to have me sent to Hell so that you can get rid of Justice. It’s not like I’d be able to stop you or anything if that’s what you really want to do,” Lucy continued arrogantly, before suddenly becoming noticeably astringent. “But just know that if you do choose to send me back down there I’m going to be very, very upset about that.”

The severity with which Lucy expressed her feelings towards being sent back to Hell cut through Sonata’s soul like a knife through butter, so much so that the Dazzling’s fear of her sisters finding out about Justice quickly became overshadowed by a newfound fear of what might happen if she made Lucy upset. She knew that if Adagio and Aria found out about Justice they would be incredibly upset with her, no doubt about it, but she also knew that no matter how incredibly upset they might get with her that she would be all right. Inversely, she knew that if she got the Devil herself upset with her then there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell that she’d be all right.

Face the ire of her sisters or face the wrath of Lucy, those were the only two options Sonata had left at this point. And despite her great displeasure with either of them the Dazzling knew which one she had to go with.

“Come on, Justice, Su-Z,” She said defeatedly as she turned around and started to walk away. “We’re leaving.”

“Okie-dokie,” Justice said as she followed behind the Dazzling. “Later, Lucy.”

“Goodbye, Justice,” Lucy replied pompously, without taking her eyes off of Sonata.

As Sonata slowly but surely made her way back towards the elevator she could feel a tear or two start to form in the corners of her eyes. Not only had she failed to get Lucy to send Justice back to Hell for her but she’d been utterly humiliated in trying to do so. When she’d agreed to appeal to the Queen of Hell for help she thought that, at worst, she’d receive a simple no for an answer and that would be that. Instead she ended up being on the receiving end of a very ominous threat and forced to walk away with her metaphorical tail between her legs, and the worst part of it all was that she was responsible for this outcome. She’d chosen to threaten Lucy first and put the woman into a position where she had to strike back at her. She had no one to blame for what had just happened with Lucy and would happen next with her sisters but herself, and the emotional toll of that fact was quickly starting to manifest itself physically as she walked.

But just as Sonata reached the center of the room and could feel the first teardrop begin to fall down her cheek she heard the sound of a cellphone camera going off from back by the desk, causing her to stop.

The first thought that came to the Dazzling’s mind after hearing the camera click was that Lucy was capturing her defeat for posterity so that she could look back on it for a good laugh whenever she wanted. But when she turned around to confirm this speculation she immediately discovered her assumption was wrong. She didn’t see Lucy pointing a cellphone at her like she’d expected, but instead saw the woman looking curiously over at a still-seated Su-Z, who had her phone out and pointed squarely at the desk.

“What are you doing?” Lucy asked the PostCrush girl.

“Taking pictures,” Su-Z replied casually, right before she took another picture.

“Of my desk?” Lucy said perplexedly.

“No, of your ledgers,” Su-Z answered.

Just then Lucy swiftly looked down at her desk to see that she did indeed have ledgers scattered all across it. Open ledgers.

“T-Those are private!” The club owner barked as she hastily tried to close all of the ledgers before Su-Z could take any more pictures of them.

“Well then you probably shouldn’t have left them laying out in the open like that,” Su-Z replied in a wiseass manner, eliciting a very visible look of irritation from Lucy.

“Just leave, Su-Z,” The woman said sternly as she stood up and pointed over towards the elevator. “And delete those pictures you just took on your way out.”

“No, I don’t think I’ll leave just yet,” Su-Z replied staidly as she too stood up. “And I don’t think I’ll delete the pictures I just took either. At least not until you send Justice back to Hell for us first.”

Feeling confused about what Su-Z was doing, as well as concern for the girl’s safety, Sonata quickly made her way back over to the desk and put a hand on her friend’s shoulder.

“Forget it, Su-Z. Let’s just go,” The Dazzling told the PostCrush girl.

“I’ve got this, Sonata,” Su-Z assured her friend as she placed a hand on top of the Dazzling’s and gave her a warm smile. “Trust me.”

As much as Sonata wanted to insist that Su-Z give up on whatever game it was she was playing and leave with her and Justice she found herself unable to do so. The more the Dazzling looked upon the affable face of her friend the more she felt a renewed sense of hope that there really was some way to get Lucy to send Justice back to Hell for them. Maybe it was because of the high-level of confidence behind that affable smile or the fact that Lucy had gotten so quickly riled up by the PostCrush girl’s actions, but Sonata chose to trust that Su-Z knew what it was she was doing.

And so, still not knowing just what game Su-Z was playing at, The Dazzling returned the former popstar’s warm smile and gave a small nod before gently removing her hand from the girl’s shoulder.

“Now as I was saying,” Su-Z said sternly as she once more addressed Lucy. “We’re not going to leave or delete the pictures I just took until you send Justice back to Hell for us, Lucy. Or else.”

“Or else what, exactly?” Lucy asked, sounding borderline incredulous at this point.

Now it was Su-Z’s turn to dawn a cocky, triumphant smile.

“Or else we’re going to -” The PostCrush girl began to say, before cutting herself off as her phone started to ring. “Oh, that’s probably Dolly. Just a minute.”

As Su-Z put her phone up to her ear and started to walk over to a more isolated part of the room Sonata and Lucy exchanged puzzled glances with one another. Had each of them really just bore witness to the same thing? Had Su-Z really just cut herself off in the middle of such a heated conversation to take a phone call? Neither woman could fully wrap her head around it.

Though for Sonata there was more than just confusion swirling around inside her head, there was also no small amount of frustration mixed in there as well. And with each passing second that the Dazzling tried to understand what had just happened that frustration boiled ever closer to the surface.

Sonata simply found herself unable to comprehend how Su-Z seemingly believed that she could hit some imaginary pause button in their arbitration with the Queen of Hell like it was nothing. Like doing so wasn’t going to negatively affect their colloquy with the woman. The Dazzling was no master adjudicator but she did know enough about the art of negotiation to know that you didn’t walk away when you had the upper hand, and they’d most certainly had the upper hand. Su-Z had managed to get Lucy agitated and she very well could’ve had the woman in the palm of her hand if she’d only finished her sentence. But instead she’d chosen to cut herself off in the middle of that sentence – all so she could take another phone call from Dolly.

This was the third time within the last few hours that Su-Z and Dolly had shared a mysterious phone call. The first- and second-times Sonata had been able to keep her emotions and anxieties regarding them in-check, but now the Dazzling found herself unable to do so again. The frustrations she’d been feeling towards Su-Z and Dolly’s calls rapidly blended together with those from her having to deal with Justice and Lucy, and eventually created a feeling so strong that it could no longer be contained.

“Are you kidding me?” She said as she made her way over to Su-Z. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“Huh?” Su-Z muttered as she lowered her phone from her ear and turned around.

No more than a second after Su-Z finished turning around she found Sonata standing a mere three feet away from her with an outstretched hand.

“Give me the phone, Su-Z!” The Dazzling demanded.

Sonata’s sudden change in mood confused Su-Z, though her confusion was swiftly overshadowed by fear that she’d inadvertently incurred her friend’s wrath.

“Um, I can’t really do that, Sonata. I’m kind of using it right now,” The PostCrush girl replied tentatively.

“Give…me…the phone!” Sonata reiterated.

For a brief moment Su-Z diverted her attention away from Sonata and over to Lucy - who was still standing behind her desk - in the hopes that maybe the club owner would somehow intervene in the conversation. Perhaps by providing some explanation for the Dazzling’s current mood for example. But as soon as the PostCrush girl saw that Lucy seemed just as confused as she was she brought her attention back to Sonata.

“A-Are you feeling all right, Sonata?” She then asked her friend. “You seem a bit…frazzled.”

It was hard for the Dazzling to discern if Su-Z was being serious or not, and in all honesty part of her was sort of hoping that the girl was just being flippant right now.

“No, Su-Z, I am not feeling all right!” Sonata replied irately. “In case you haven’t noticed I’ve been having a really, really bad day!”

Sonata then lowered her hand and began to pace back and forth in front of Su-Z.

“I mean, with everything that’s happened today I’m starting to think that I’m in my own personal Hell right now!” She continued. “In the span of just a few hours – a few hours - I’ve had to deal with my sisters getting upset with me over that stupid tablet, summoning an incredibly annoying demon whom I can’t seem to rid myself of, -”

“Annoying?” Justice spoke up softly. “I’m not annoying, I’m awesome. Right, Lucy?”

“Ehhh,” Lucy replied dubiously.

“- getting humiliated by the Queen of Hell, and my daughter making numerous inexplicable phone calls to one of my housemates!” Sonata continued. “I am far from feeling all right, Su-Z! Right now I…I feel like my whole world is spinning out of control and there’s nothing I can do to stop it! Like I’m completely and utterly helpless right now!”

Just then the Dazzling ceased her pacing.

“I know there’s nothing I can do about how Aria and Adagio feel, and from the looks of things I don’t think there’s anything I can do regarding Justice or Lucy either,” She then said wearily as she once more held her hand out in front of the PostCrush girl. “But there may be something I can do about Dolly. So please, Su-Z, I’m begging you, just give me the phone. Just let me talk to my daughter and make sure she’s okay.”

Su-Z was of two minds about what she should do. Part of her wanted to hand Sonata the phone so that she could help ease some of her friend’s distress, but another part of her wanted to hold onto the phone out of a sense of respect for Dolly’s privacy. After all, Dolly was her friend too. As much as she wanted to help Sonata she wasn’t sure that handing her phone over to the Dazzling wouldn’t result in a betrayal of Dolly’s trust in her. Earlier when they’d spoken the girl had made it clear that she didn’t want to talk to Adagio, so did that also mean she didn’t want to talk to her mother either? It seemed like a reasonable assumption that she didn’t, but the PostCrush girl wasn’t certain of it.

The more Su-Z tried to figure out what the best course of action to take was the more she started to feel like she was in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t scenario. No matter what choice she made she was going to end up hurting someone, the only question was whether that someone was going to be either Sonata or Dolly.

Though thankfully before the PostCrush girl had to make such a difficult choice she heard her name called out through the phone, prompting her to place the device back up to her ear.

“Dolly?” She spoke into it. “…Yeah, that was your mom just now. She says she wants to talk to you.”

The next few seconds were filled with silence as Su-Z listened to Dolly through her phone, with only the occasional ‘Uh-huh’ uttered by the former popstar to break it up.

“You sure?” The PostCrush girl eventually said. “…You sure you’re sure?”

A subtle, involuntary twitch overcame Sonata’s left eye for a couple of seconds after hearing Su-Z say this.

“…Okay, just a sec,” Su-Z then said, just before lowering the phone from her head and holding it out in front of Sonata. “She wants to talk to you.”

Within the span of exactly one second Sonata swiftly took the phone from Su-Z’s hand and put it up to her ear.

“Dolly?!” The Dazzling said disquietly into the device.

“Mom?” Dolly said back through the phone. “What’s going on? Did I just hear you say something about summoning a demon and getting humiliated by the Queen of Hell?”

“Never mind all that, honey,” Sonata replied hurriedly. “Just…are you all right?”

“Um, yeah. I’m all right,” Dolly answered, sounding mildly confused.

“Oh thank goodness,” Sonata said softly to herself.

“Why would you think I wasn’t all right, Mom?” Dolly then inquired.

“W-Well,” Sonata began to say as she desperately tried to find the best way to explain herself so as not to come off as being an overly apprehensive parent – even though arguably that was exactly what she was being at the moment. “You and Su-Z have just been calling and texting a lot today, and when you said you didn’t want to talk to Aunt Adagio earlier -”

“Ah, that explains it,” Dolly interrupted. “Let me guess: After I told Aunt Adagio I didn’t want to talk to her she got all manic and started speculating that I was in some sort of trouble that I didn’t want her or you or Aunt Aria to know about. And ever since then you’ve been worried that she might’ve been right, right?”

“Um, y-yeah, pretty much,” Sonata replied somewhat embarrassingly.

“Mhmm, I figured. You and Aunt Adagio may have changed but neither of you have changed that much,” Dolly remarked.

“Y-Yeah, I guess not,” Sonata then said very embarrassingly as a dark red blush quickly began to overtake her face.

“Well if it’ll help give you and Aunt Adagio some peace of mind I’ll explain why I’ve been talking to Su-Z so much today,” Dolly assured her mother. “See, earlier this week I went to -”

“No, Dolly, you don’t have to do that,” Sonata hastily interjected. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. Even though you’re my daughter you’re also an adult, and I have no right to make you tell me or make you feel like you have to tell me what’s going on in your life if you don’t want to. I trust you, honey. I know it may not seem like that after I got so hysterical just now – sorry about that by the way - but I do, and if you tell me that you’re all right then that’s all I need to hear. Yeah, I’ll probably still be a little worried about you later, but I’ll just have to deal with it.”

A few seconds of silence followed.

“A-And I’ll make sure Aunt Adagio deals with it too,” The Dazzling then added. “So, um, don’t worry about her getting even more manic or anything.”

“…Thanks, Mom. I’m glad to hear you say all that,” Dolly eventually said. “Thing is though, I’m actually okay with telling you about what’s been going on with me lately. In fact, I want to tell you about what’s been going on.”

“You do?” Sonata asked.

“Uh-huh,” Dolly assured her mother. “But maybe we should wait until later to talk. You know, after you get done dealing with…whatever it is you’re dealing with involving a demon and the Queen of Hell.”

Just then Sonata remembered where it is she was and what it was she’d been doing before speaking to Dolly. The Dazzling quickly turned around to see Justice and Lucy both staring at her, the latter with her head resting atop her right hand and an irksome expression on her face and the former with her usual affable smile plastered on hers.

“Um, yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” She agreed. “How about I call you this weekend?”

“Sounds good,” Dolly replied. “Talk to you then, Mom.”

“Right, talk to you then, honey,” Sonata said. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Dolly then said just before she hung up.

Her conversation with her daughter now over Sonata lowered the phone from her head and handed it back to Su-Z.

“Thanks,” The Dazzling said with a hint of awkwardness in her voice as the PostCrush girl took her phone back.

“No problem,” Su-Z replied, with the same hint of awkwardness, as she put the device back into her pocket.

Sonata was unsure of what she should either say or do next. She knew she needed to get back to her dealings with Lucy and Justice post-haste, but she also knew that she had to issue an apology to Su-Z first.

The Dazzling was fully aware of how horrendously she’d just treated her friend. All day Su-Z had been nothing short of a kind and supportive friend to her and she’d repaid that kindness and support by blowing up right in the girl’s face. She’d allowed her frustrations involving Justice and Lucy to get the better of her and took them out on the former popstar in a tirade of misdirected anger, and she felt just awful about it. She needed to apologize to her, she wanted to apologize to her, but for some reason she found herself unable to find the right way to do so.

Despite Sonata’s inability to find the right apologetic approach though she opened her mouth with the intent of offering her friend an ‘I’m sorry’, figuring that that would be a good enough place to start and she could just wing it from there. But before the Dazzling could even get out the ‘I’m’ Su-Z walked up to her side and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Come on,” The PostCrush girl said dogmatically as she looked her friend square in the eyes. “Let’s finish up here and go home.”

Su-Z then flashed Sonata a small smile, removed her hand for the girl’s shoulder, and started to walk back on over towards Lucy’s desk.

Sonata turned around and watched in awe and confusion as her friend made her way back to where Lucy and Justice were. She’d expected the PostCrush girl to be angry with her, or the very least upset, but instead she was acting as if no altercation had just transpired between them. The whole thing made absolutely no sense to the Dazzling. However, given that there was still the matter of dealing with Lucy at hand she decided it best to just go with the flow. She still felt a burning desire within her to issue an apology to her housemate, but since Su-Z didn’t seem at all perturbed at the moment she felt she could wait until later before doing so. Though not too much later.

“Done with your little episode of Days of Our Lives?” Lucy asked Su-Z acrimoniously as the girl approached her desk once more, causing her to remove her head from her hand and assume a more up-right position in her chair. “Because believe it or not I have better things to do than bear witness to whatever drama it is that’s unfolding within the Dazzling household.”

Realizing just how far from the conversation she now was, Sonata quickly made her way her way back over to the desk as well.

“Sorry for that interruption,” Su-Z apologized, though somewhat disingenuously, once she reached the desk. “Now where were we?”

“Oh, oh!” Justice piped up just as Sonata rejoined the group. “Lucy had told you to leave and delete those pictures you took, Su-Z, but you said that you weren’t leaving until Lucy sent me back to Hell, or else. Then Lucy said, ‘Or else what, exactly’, and then you started to say something but stopped half-way through when your phone started ringing.”

“Thank you for that recap, Justice,” Lucy said, now sounding somewhat disingenuous herself.

“Right, right,” Su-Z then said as she recollected her thoughts from right before her phone had rung. “What I was going to say was, ‘Or else we’re going to send these pictures of your crooked ledgers to the IRS’.”

As soon as Su-Z uttered the words ‘crooked ledgers’ and ‘IRS’ Lucy’s eyes widened noticeably and she quickly shifted from an up-right seated position to a more kyphosis one.

“C-Crooked ledgers? T-These ledgers aren’t crooked, they’re anything but crooked,” The club owner said apprehensively as she heedless started to grab as many ledgers as she could. “What on earth would possibly make you think they were crooked, Su-Z?”

“Because they look an awful lot like the crooked ledgers that the IRS kept showing Kiwi and I during our audit,” Su-Z explained as she planted her palms down on the desk and leaned over it slightly.

Just now realizing how pointless it was for her to be gathering up her ledgers since Su-Z had already taken multiple pictures of them Lucy ceased frantically culling the numerous record books up in her arms and sat back down.

“Forgot about the part of mine and Kiwi’s fall from grace where our label was keeping crooked books, huh?” The PostCrush girl continued. “That’s okay, most people do. They always seem to remember how Kiwi and I asked for more money but forget about how our label was investigated by the IRS for tax fraud, and just how much time we spent in an IRS office getting grilled over how much we knew about it. Which, just for the record, we didn’t know anything.”

It was at this moment that one of the many ledgers Lucy was still holding onto fell out of her arms and hit the floor, creating small thumping noise that no one, not even Lucy, seemed to notice.

“I gotta tell ya, being audited like that was definitely one of the most unpleasant things I’ve ever been through,” Su-Z went on. “But despite how grueling the whole ordeal was there was a silver-lining that came from it, and that was that I learned how to spot a crooked ledger when I see one.”

The PostCrush girl then placed her right index finger one of the few ledgers Lucy hadn’t managed to scoop up.

“And these? Oh boy are they crooked,” She then remarked bumptiously.

“Yeeeah, I kinda doubt that,” Justice chimed in. “I’m not sure what you think you saw in those ledgers, Su-Z, but I can guarantee you that it wasn’t anything crooked or fraudulent or whatever else that’d basically boil down to tax fraud. Right, Lucy?”

Lucy said nothing in response.

“Right, Lucy?” Justice reiterated, sounding noticeably less confident this time.

Once again, Lucy said nothing in response. She just continued to stare up at Su-Z in a distrait manner as yet another ledger fell from her arms and onto the floor.

“Oh, Lucy,” Justice then said disappointingly.

Just then Lucy suddenly let go the remaining ledgers she’d been holding onto and stood up vehemently, startling everyone else in the room and causing Su-Z to take a step or two back from the desk.

“Well sorry for doing what I had to in order to keep this club running, Justice!” The club owner hollered. “You think I wanted to fudge my books?! That I wanted to commit tax fraud?! No! The only reason I did any of that was because I didn’t have any other choice! Within the second year of opening Chaus I ran out of money and I had to either shut it down or lie to the IRS, and there was no way in hell I was going to allow this club to be shut down!”

As Sonata continued to watch things unfold she couldn’t believe what it was she was witnessing right now. Lucy Beel, the normally cool and collected owner of Chaus and the only person she’d ever met who even came close to rivaling her mother in terms of having a peremptory presence, acting so incredibly flustered and defensive. It was a side of the woman that she hadn’t known existed. Heck, it was a side of the woman that she hadn’t even conceived of existing. But it was a side of Lucy that the Dazzling was glad to see as it humanized her a bit, making her seem less indomitable and therefore more capable of being bested.

“And don’t you dare go judging me, Justice!” Lucy continued to holler at the demon girl. “You want to call me a hypocrite for committing tax fraud after I told you and every other demon in Hell not to do it, fine! I’m a hypocrite, I admit it! But I will not have any of my demons acting all sanctimonious like those arrogant-ass angels up in Heaven, got it?!”

“Okay, okay! Sorry, Lucy,” Justice apologized.

Her heated tirade towards Justice finished Lucy turned her attention back over to Su-Z and Sonata.

“Now let me make sure I understand the situation,” The Queen of Hell said coolly, yet also sharply. “You want me to break the contract between Sonata and Justice, Su-Z, and if I don’t you’re threatening to send the pictures you just took of my ledgers to the IRS, correct?”

“Yep,” Su-Z replied with conviction. “And just an FYI, I still have the number of the agent who handled our audit in my phone so I can send her the pictures lickity-split. And with as big of an opportunist as she seemed I guessing that once she sees the pictures of your ledgers she’ll be very interested in taking a look at them first-hand.”

An unsettling silence fell over the room as Su-Z and Lucy simply stared one another down, which Sonata couldn’t stand in the least. The Dazzling’s nerves had already been on-edge for a while, and now with this eerie reticence they weren’t getting any better. Quite the opposite in fact. The stillness and tension that was presently permeating the room’s atmosphere caused the pony-tailed girl’s mind to conceive no small number of ways in which things could quickly turn ugly for her and Su-Z. It was clear to her that Lucy felt that she’d been backed into a corner, and from personal experience she knew just what a person in such a position was potentially capable of. And given that Lucy was the Queen of Hell she fathomed that the woman was potentially capable of even more than she could possibly imagine.

To say that Sonata felt anxious right now would’ve been a gross understatement.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence – but was in actuality only about five seconds – the Dazzling’s neurasthenia worsened to the point where she could no longer take it. She quickly formulated a plan in her head to buoyantly step in and tell Lucy that she was fine with being stuck with Justice and that she and Su-Z would leave her office without sending any pictures to the IRS. It wasn’t a very elegant plan, or even a very good one, but she knew that it would likely diffuse the tension in the room and help soothe her frayed nerves. Of course she also knew that this plan wouldn’t solve the problem she’d come all this way to have taken care of, but so long as she and Su-Z left unharmed that was all that really mattered to her at this point.

After taking a second to mentally steel herself Sonata took a step forward with the intent of ultimately placing herself between Su-Z and Justice, but when she saw Lucy sit down she stopped dead in her tracks about halfway there.

“Fine,” The Queen of Hell said bitingly. “You win, Su-Z.”

As much as Sonata tried to contain her astonishment at what she’d just heard she found herself unable to do so. Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped, and a small ‘huh’ escaped her mouth as her mind temporarily entered a corybantic state. Thankfully though this all went unnoticed by Lucy, whose attention was fixated squarely on Su-Z and Su-Z alone.

“All right then,” The PostCrush girl replied. “Now if you’ll just undo the contract I’ll delete the pictures from my phone and we’ll get out of your hair.”

Lucy then snapped her fingers, producing a small flame that flickered out of existence just as quickly as it had appeared.

“Done,” The woman said.

“Justice,” Su-Z said as she turned towards the demon girl. “Is the contract actually broken?”

“Yeah, it’s broken,” Justice confirmed.

Feeling sufficiently satisfied by Justice’s affirmation that the contract between her and Sonata was now null-and-void Su-Z took her phone out of her pocket, tapped it a few times until she opened the app that contained the pictures she’d taken, and then turned the phone towards Lucy. After a few seconds of allowing the club owner to look over said pictures Su-Z turned the phone back towards herself and selected each one individually before hitting the delete button, erasing them all at once. The PostCrush girl then turned the phone towards Lucy once again to show her that she’d upheld her end of the agreement.

“Thank you,” Lucy said politely yet acridly just before gesturing over towards the elevator. “Now if you don’t mind I’m a busy woman with a club to run, so unless you’re planning on staying for a few drinks downstairs I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Fair enough,” Su-Z said before turning towards Sonata - who by now had managed to get her astonishment under control. “Let’s go, Sonata.”

“Y-Yeah,” The Dazzling simply replied.

“Bye, Justice,” Su-Z then said amiably to the demon girl as she and Sonata started to make their way over to the elevator.

“Bye, Su-Z. Bye, Sonata,” Justice just as amiably said back as she gave both girls a genial wave goodbye.

Sonata didn’t say anything to Justice as she walked closely behind Su-Z through the large room. Now that she was free of the demon she didn’t want to have anything more to do with her. All she wanted now was to just get home and pretend that everything that’d happened over the course of the last few hours hadn’t.

As the Dazzling and PostCrush girl continued to make their way towards the elevator to leave they each discreetly looked around the room a bit more. They had no real desire to do so, per se, but both of them found it practically impossible not to take the opulence and extravagancy of it all in. The room truly was nothing less than a triumph of modern architecture and design, and both Su-Z and Sonata couldn’t help but wonder just how much of it had been paid for by money that Lucy hadn’t reported to the IRS.

“Oh, Su-Z,” Lucy abruptly vociferated out to the two of them just as they reached the antechamber, causing them to stop and turn around. “Just a FYI, my offer from the other night to have PostCrush perform here still stands. Be a dear and tell Kiwi that for me, will you?”

“Sure,” Su-Z less-than-convincingly said before turning back around and entering the small chamber.

Sonata quickly followed her friend once more, and in no time at all both her and Su-Z crossed through the large, narrow room.

The instant the Dazzling and PostCrush girl reached the elevator Su-Z hit the button to go down, and thankfully this time the doors opened right away. The two girls entered the lift before the doors even had a chance to fully open, but once they were inside they both remembered something; the last time they’d gotten into the elevator Lucy had needed to enter a code in order to get it moving. They turned their attention towards the control panel where the keypad for the code was. Sonata feared that one of them was going to have to go back out and ask Lucy for the code, something that she definitely didn’t want to do and suspected that Su-Z didn’t want to do either. Su-Z, however, didn’t think such an action would be necessary. She noticed that the keypad was adjacent only to the up button and came to the conclusion that this meant the code was only needed if one wanted to go up. Figuring she had nothing to lose by trying to go down without entering the code the PostCrush girl hit the corresponding button and, much to her and Sonata’s relief, the doors closed and the compartment began to move.

Neither girl said anything as they rode the elevator back down to the club, nor did they say anything as they got off the elevator and made their way through the club - which was now open and already full of patrons. It wasn’t until they were outside of the club and on the streets of Canterlot City that one of them spoke up.

“Oh thank goodness that’s over,” Su-Z huffed out as she bent over slightly and grabbed her knees. “I’m not sure how much longer I could’ve kept it together in there. Lucy is really, really scary.”

“Y-Yeah,” Sonata replied, surprised by the PostCrush girls sudden change in disposition.

As Sonata watched her friend vent her anxieties her mind began to drift back to her need to apologize to the girl. The obligation she felt to do so still burned strongly within her, and although she wasn’t sure that now was the best time to issue an apology on account of the fact that they’d literally just left Chaus she couldn’t wait any longer to say what she knew needed to be said.

“S-Su-Z?” The Dazzling softly started to say. “Listen, I wanted to tell you that -”

“I’m sorry, Sonata,” The PostCrush girl spoke up reservedly, suggesting that she hadn’t heard her friend speaking, as she let go of her knees and stood up straight.

“…Huh?” The Dazzling then uttered bewilderingly.

“I’m sorry for making you worry about Dolly,” Su-Z explained. “I know I should’ve told you that right after the phone in Lucy’s office but we were still dealing with Lucy and Justice and, well, I guess I’m sorry for that too. But mostly I’m sorry about everything involving Dolly.”

The sheer amount of confusion Sonata was feeling right now was indescribable, though if she did have to put a description to it she most likely would have said something along the lines of how it felt like someone had taken the majority of her words right out of her mouth and placed them inside Su-Z’s mouth.

“No. No, no, no,” She managed to say. “I’m the one who should be apologizing to you, Su-Z. It was wrong of me to yell at you like I did back there in Lucy’s office and demand you give me your phone. It doesn’t matter if I did those things because I was worried about my daughter, my actions were completely uncalled for.”

“No they weren’t, Sonata,” Su-Z replied. “You had every right to be upset with me, I’m the one who acted wrongly. I shouldn’t have assumed that Dolly didn’t want to talk to you after she said she didn’t want to talk to Adagio. Plus I should’ve picked up on your concerns earlier after you’d asked me if I’d tell you if Dolly was ever in any kind of trouble.”

The PostCrush girl then let out a dejected sigh.

“I’ve been a terrible friend today,” She self-criticized.

“No, no, you’ve been a great friend today,” Sonata declared. “You helped me out on the farm, you offered to help me plan a prank for Rainbow Dash’s birthday, and you helped me deal with summoning a demon from Hell! If anyone’s been a terrible friend today it’s me.”

“That’s not true, Sonata,” Su-Z replied, somewhat heatedly. “I’m the one who’s been the terrible friend today.”

“No, I’m the one who’s been the terrible friend today!” Sonata retorted, very heatedly.

“I’m the terrible friend!” Su-Z insisted.

“I’m the terrible friend!” Sonata likewise insisted.

“Are we really arguing about this?!” Su-Z inquired.

“Seems like it, yeah!” Sonata answered.

A moment of silence fell between Sonata and Su-Z but was quickly broken up by the sound of laughter emanating from both girls.

“Why don’t we just agree that both of us haven’t been very good friends today?” Su-Z blithely suggested.

“Yeah, okay,” Sonata just as blithely concurred.

After the Dazzling and PostCrush girl finished laughing they decided to share a warm and friendly hug to further show that they were no longer angry with one another. Though sadly the hug didn’t last very long as almost immediately after it was initiated Sonata’s phone began to ring.

“Oh, that’s Adagio’s ringtone,” The Dazzling said as she removed her phone from her pocket and answered the call. “Hey, Dagi.”

“Sonata Dusk, where the hell are you and Su-Z?!” Adagio hollered at her through the device, at a volume so loud that Su-Z was able to hear it.

“W-We’re downtown,” Sonata answered, taken aback a bit by her sister’s harsh tone. “Is everything all right, Dagi? You sound a bit…frazzled.”

“No, everything is not all right!” Adagio said. “You and Su-Z almost burned the whole damn house down!”

“We what?!” Sonata replied.

“Yeah, you idiots left the oven on!” Adagio screamed.

Sonata was once again greatly confused. She knew she hadn’t turned on the oven before she’d left, and she didn’t recall any moments where Su-Z had turned it on either. For a moment the Dazzling couldn’t figure out how it was that the oven had been turned on if neither her nor Su-Z were the ones responsible, but soon enough she was able to deduce what had most likely happened; Justice had turned the oven on whilst in the midst of making her apple pie.

“O-oh, yeah, the oven,” She said, pretending as though she had just recalled turning the appliance on. “S-sorry about that, Dagi. I started making an apple pie and I forgot about it.”

“An apple pie?!” Adagio replied in confused fury. “Since when the hell do you make apple pie?! You know what, I don’t even care! Just get back home right now so you can help clean up this mess you made!”

“Yeah, okay, we’ll be right home. Bye, Dagi,” Sonata said right before she ended the call and then gave a small sigh. “Great, something else my sisters are upset with me about now.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Su-Z said as she wrapped her right arm around her friend’s shoulders. “I’ve got your back.”

The continued kindness and loyalty that Su-Z was showing Sonata, despite all of the hardship they’d been through today, instantly lifted the Dazzling’s mood. She of course knew that even with Su-Z having her back she was in for it when she got home, but just knowing that her friend would be there for her made her feel a bit more at ease.

“Thanks, Su-Z,” She said staidly.

“No problem, Sonata,” Su-Z said back as she removed her arm from the girl’s shoulders and pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Now how about we brainstorm a few ideas for that prank for Rainbow Dash’s birthday while I request us an Uber?”

“All right,” Sonata agreed.

“Great!” Su-Z replied as she started to scroll through her phone. “So just to get the ball rolling, how do you feel about something involving fireworks?”

“Well this was a fun day, don’t ya think so, Boss?” Justice asked Lucy.

“’Fun’ isn’t quite the word I would use to describe today, Justice,” Lucy grumbled in response.

“Ah buck up, Lucy,” Justice replied. “So Su-Z bested you, big deal. We all get bested from time-to-time, and not to sound like an arrogant-ass angel or anything but it is kinda your own fault for committing tax fraud and leaving the evidence laying out in the open.”

“Getting bested by Su-Z isn’t what’s bothering me, Justice,” Lucy explained. “Well maybe it’s bothering me a little, but what’s really got me vexed is that I let another chance to inveigle the Dazzlings slip through my fingers.”

“Huh,” Justice uttered in mild surprise. “I didn’t know that Sonata and her sisters were such popular performers.”

“Please,” Lucy remarked derisively. “The Dazzlings are about as popular as Triangle Sally or Bro-Botix.”

“Who?” Justice inquired.

“Exactly,” Lucy said. “Look, the point I’m trying to make here is that I don’t want the Dazzlings to perform at my club because I think they’ll bring in the crowds. No, I have other reasons for wanting them under my employ.”

“Aaaah, I gotcha,” Justice said as she leaned in closer to Lucy. “Care to share what those reasons are?”

“Really, Justice?” The club owner chortled as she got up from her seat. “You think I’m going to share that information with you after the way you shared my feelings towards the IRS with Sonata and Su-Z?”

“Well when you put it that way I guess you’re not,” The demon girl replied sullenly.

“You guess correctly,” Lucy said as she turned around and looked at the various items lining the back wall of her office. “But don’t worry, Justice, I’m not mad about what happened today. True the Dazzlings may have eluded me once again, but it’s of little consequence. I’m all but certain that another opportunity to ensnare them will present itself in due time.”

It was at this point that a devilish smile appeared on the Queen of Hell’s face.

“So all I need to do is simply wait patiently for that time to come,” She concluded.

“Cool, cool,” Justice replied nonchalantly. “But, uh, while we’re waiting patiently for that time to come do ya think maybe we can get some apple pie?”

Lucy couldn’t help but roll her eyes and let out a small sigh in response to Justice’s request.

“Fine, Justice. We can get some apple pie,” She capitulated.

“Awesome!” Justice replied cheerfully.

The Shape of Violet

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*RRMMOO*

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming as fast as I can, Leo,” Adagio said irksomely as she approached the noisy emu’s pen with a bag of feed in her hand.

Soon enough Adagio reached the large bird’s trough and began pouring emu-feed into it. Feed which Leo hastily proceeded to devour at a rate nearly equal to that of it being sluiced, sending bits of the provender flying through the air and into the Dazzling’s poofy hair.

“Ugh,” The girl chagrined as she continued to fill the trough.

As much as Adagio was happy to be living on the emu farm - because it meant she got to live in a house as opposed to an apartment or a van down by the river - there was one aspect of farm-life that she wasn’t very keen on: the farming. The Dazzling had never considered herself to be either outdoorsy or an animal lover, so living and working on a farm full of emu wasn’t exactly her idea of paradise. But it was good enough, and thankfully most days working on the farm were fairly tolerable due to the fact that she usually had help from some combination of Aria, Sonata, Kiwi, and Su-Z.

Unfortunately though, today was not one of those days.

For various reasons, Adagio’s sisters and housemates were out-and-about in Canterlot City today. Leaving the Dazzling leader to tend to the emu by herself. She knew at the beginning of the day that the numerous tasks that went into caring for the emu would be arduous to complete on her own, but she was confident that she would be able to do everything without any help. However, by midday she started to feel differently. After only about half-a-day’s work the girl felt exhausted and she seriously doubted she’d be able to finish caring for the emu by her lonesome. She briefly contemplated just calling it a day after lunch but quickly concluded that doing so wasn’t an option. At least not if she wanted to avoid getting cussed out and possibly hospitalized by Aria.

The only real option Adagio had to ensure that all of her tasks were completed by days end was to find someone who was not only able to help her but also willing to do so, and fortunately after a few phone calls she’d found someone who met both criteria.

“Damn, these things are heavy,” Spitfire moderately repined as she plopped a full bag of feed down next to the trough located in the pen to Adagio’s right.

“Eh, this kind isn’t too bad,” Adagio said to her friend as she finished filling Leo’s trough, brushed the bits of feed out of her hair as best she could, and made her way over to the adjoining pen. “You should have been here when we first took over the place and Aria insisted we give the emu organic-blend feed. Now that stuff was heavy.”

“Seriously?” Spitfire said as she opened her bag. “You’re telling me there’s a type of feed out there that’s even heavier than this?”

“Yep,” Adagio replied as she entered the pen and helped Spitfire lift the bag. “If you don’t believe me we can run on down to the place where we get our feed from after we’re done here and I can show you.”

“No, no, that’s fine. I believe you,” Spitfire quickly replied as she and the Dazzling began filling the last of the troughs.

Amused by her friend’s hastily spoken response, the Dazzling gave a small chuckle which Spitfire was unable to hear over the sound of feed being rapidly poured into the metal trough.

Soon enough, the trough went from completely empty to completely full, and as soon as it did Adagio and Spitfire carried the now slightly lighter – though still somewhat heavy - bag of feed out of the pen. Once they were clear of the door the Dazzling and the CHS soccer player plopped the bag down on the ground, producing a loud thud that earned them the attention of a few of the emu for a couple of seconds. Though neither girl noticed the large birds’ gazes as they were too busy catching their breath.

“Man, I never knew how exhausting all this farming stuff could be,” Spitfire said between her breaths as she lifted her right hand up in a manner that suggested she was requesting a fist-bump. “Serious props to you and your sisters for being able to do all this day in and day out, Adagio.”

“Thanks, Spitfire,” Adagio said as she fist-bumped her friend. “But in all honesty my sisters and I can’t take much credit for doing all this stuff day in and day out anymore. Kiwi and Su-Z are the ones handling most of the farming these days.”

“Oh, right. I forgot you hired those two,” Spitfire replied as she headed towards a nearby bench and took a seat. “I take it from the fact that these emu are still alive that they’re pretty good farmhands, huh?”

A brief silence filled the barn as Adagio pondered her response to Spitfire’s question whilst she concurrently proceeded to join her friend.

“Yeah, they’re all right I suppose,” The Dazzling leader eventually replied, though with a hint of suspect in her voice, as she too sat down on the bench.

“You sure?” Spitfire asked with a furrowed brow. “’Cause it doesn’t seem like you’re sure.”

Adagio wasn’t surprised that Spitfire had noticed her unconvincing tone. The two girls hadn’t been friends for very long yet, but in the short time that they were the Dazzling leader learned that the high school athlete was a very mindful and observant person. She just always had a way of being able to read people both on and off the soccer pitch, and very little ever got past her because of this.

“Well it’s not so much Kiwi and Su-Z’s job performance as farmhands as it is Kiwi and Su-Z themselves,” Adagio elaborated. “I mean they’re both great and all and I’m glad they’re here helping us run the farm and everything, but there are times when, let’s just say…they get on my nerves.”

“How do you mean?” Spitfire inquired.

“Oh, where to begin?” Adagio asked rhetorically. “I guess for starters, there’s the fact that Su-Z is prone to sudden and unexplained mood swings. One minute she’ll be all happy-go-lucky and talking to her dog in that weird baby-talk voice and the next she’ll be all grumpy and irate and complaining about how her sister is a massive bitch. I swear, that girl must be undiagnosed bipolar or something.”

“Uh-huh,” Spitfire uttered to let her friend know she was listening with intent.

“And then there’s Kiwi with her stubborn and judgmental attitude,” The Dazzling then said, with a not-so-subtle inkling of spite in her voice. “I mean can you believe that she accused me of giving Sonata false hope when I told her I’d try and find $100 within the household budget so that she could get Rainbow Dash a nice birthday present? How the hell was I giving her false hope when I hadn’t looked close enough at the budget to know whether I could give her the $100 or not? Yeah, it was a longshot that I was going to find it, I admit that. But so what? Just because it was a longshot that meant I was giving my sister false hope by telling her that I might actually find it? Honestly!”

“Hehe,” Spitfire chuckled lightly under her breath.

“Did I say something funny?” Adagio asked as she turned to face her friend, sounding slightly offended.

“No, no. I’m sorry,” The CHS student apologized. “It’s just…never mind.”

The Dazzling raised one of her eyebrows.

“All right,” Spitfire then said, taking her friend’s subtle gesture as a sign that she should continue. “It’s just…it seems to me that the reason Su-Z and Kiwi tend to get on your nerves sometimes is because they remind you of yourself and your sisters is all.”

Upon hearing Spitfire’s claim, Adagio dawned perhaps the most befuddled expression she’d ever given.

“Excuse me?” She asked in her befuddlement.

“Hey, I’m just callin’ it like I see it,” Spitfire replied. “From the way you just described how those two can be sometimes it sounds to me like they bug you because you see parts of yourself and your sisters in them.”

“Uh-huh,” The Dazzling then uttered, still sounding totally confused. “You care to explain that particular interpretation with me, Spitfire?”

“If you want me to,” Spitfire said.

“Oh, I want you to,” Adagio confirmed.

“If you insist,” Spitfire replied. “Well from what you said about Su-Z, I don’t think it’s the ‘undiagnosed bipolar’ thing that gets on your nerves. I think it’s that, at any given time, she’s either very similar to Sonata or very similar to Aria, which means that at any given time you’re dealing with either twice the jauntiness or twice the irritability that you’re used to.”

At first, Adagio thought Spitfire was talking crazy-talk. But the more the Dazzling thought about it the more she thought her friend might actually be on to something. Su-Z was, at most times, on one far-end of the temperament spectrum or the other. She was either blithe and carefree just like Sonata or bothered and irascible just like Aria. There really wasn’t much of a middle ground with her.

The Dazzling leader had her doubts though that this fact about Su-Z was truly what bothered her in regards to the girl, but she couldn’t deny that it was at least a possibility.

“And as for Kiwi,” Spitfire continued. “I think her stubbornness gets to you so easily because you see a part of yourself in her that you don’t like.”

This, Adagio perceived to be nothing other than one hundred percent crazy-talk.

“Really, Spitfire?” The Dazzling said incredulously. “You think that’s why Kiwi gets on my nerves? Because when she’s being all stubborn and judgmental I see a part of myself in her that I don’t like?”

“Well I didn’t say anything about when she’s being judgmental,” Spitfire corrected her friend. “But when she’s being stubborn, yeah. I think you see something about yourself that you don’t like in her and that’s why it bugs you so much.”

The more Adagio listened to Spitfire expatiate her theory, the more she thought her friend was way off the mark on this one. The Dazzling leader was no expert as to the innermost workings of her mind, but she knew enough about herself to know that what bugged her so much about Kiwi’s stubbornness wasn’t on account of her seeing an unflattering reflection of herself within the PostCrush girl. It was because of the simple fact that she was just as equally stubborn as Kiwi, and like two positively charged ions it was just in their nature to clash with one another.

However, despite how wrong Adagio knew her friend’s assumption to be though she didn’t feel offended by it. Quite the opposite actually; she found it to be rather amusing.

“Well, Spitfire, if that’s what you believe then I have to say: I think you have a promising career as a psychiatrist ahead of you,” The poofy-haired girl said in an amiably sarcastic manner as she got up from the bench.

“Like I said, I’m just callin’ it like I see it,” Spitfire just as amiably replied as she too got up from her seat.

“Come on, let’s go get some lemonade,” The Dazzling said as she headed for the barn doors. “Unless you just want to head on home now.”

“Are you kidding?” Spitfire asked oratorically as she followed alongside her friend. “After how hard we just worked there’s no way I’m passing up some lemonade before I go.”

Within seconds, the two girls were out of the barn and making their way over towards the house.

As Adagio and Spitfire walked towards the house, the Dazzling took note of the setting sun off in the distance. It was very low, about two-thirds of the way gone over the horizon already, and as she looked out upon the descending orb of light she felt a sense of gratitude that she and Spitfire had finished their work inside the barn before it had set completely. Tending to the emu during the daytime was bad enough, tending to them after dark was even worse.

“So how is it you got stuck doing all this farm work by yourself?” Spitfire inquired as they walked. “What happened to Kiwi, Su-Z, and your sisters?”

“Oh, Aria and Sonata are out looking for new jobs today and Kiwi and Su-Z are at a deposition or something with the IRS,” Adagio answered. “Apparently that whole tax fraud case involving their old label still isn’t over.”

“Ouch,” Spitfire replied, feeling sympathy for the two former popstars, before fully realizing what it was the Dazzling leader had just said regarding her siblings. “Wait, did you say that Aria and Sonata are out looking for new jobs?”

“Yep,” Adagio confirmed.

“So, does that mean you three aren’t going to be the librarians at school anymore?” The student athlete then asked with the slightest indication of worriment in her voice.

It was at this point that Adagio realized she hadn’t told Spitfire about how she and her sisters were in need of some new jobs to help bring money in so that they didn’t lose the farm. As a matter of fact, she hadn’t told anyone about her and her sisters’ financial plight. As far as she knew the only person outside her household who knew anything about it was Sugarcoat, and that was because she’d been the one who’d informed her, her sisters, and her housemates that if they didn’t bring in more money soon they’d end up losing the farm.

“No, just Aria and Sonata,” The Dazzling explained. “See we’re a little low on money right now so we figured it best if only one of us stayed on as librarian at CHS and the other two found some new jobs.”

Adagio purposefully left out the part about her and her sisters potentially losing the farm if they didn’t start bringing in more money. It just didn’t seem pertinent to her that Spitfire be made aware of that little tidbit of information.

“I was willing to find a new job if either Aria or Sonata wanted to remain librarian, but much to my surprise neither of them did,” The poofy-haired girl continued. “So, yeah, I’m still going to be the librarian at school.”

“Oh, okay. Cool,” Spitfire said in an uncharacteristically elated manner.

Spitfire’s enthusiasm confused Adagio. She had figured her friend would be happy at the news that she would be the one who continued to serve as school librarian since it meant that the two of them would be able to continue seeing each other fairly regularly, but the sheer level of ardor the girl just showed told her that there was more to it than just that.

Adagio may not have been as astute as Spitfire was, but she was still most definitely above-average in terms of intuitive recognition. And thanks to this she sensed an opportunity to have a little more amiable fun with the girl.

“My goodness, Spitfire, you seem awfully happy that I’m the one who’s staying on as librarian,” The former siren replied in a suggestive manner as she closed the gap between herself and her friend. “Could it be because you’re hoping my sticking around CHS means that you and I will become…closer?”

“Oh, Adagio,” Spitfire said seductively as she stopped, wrapped her arms around the Dazzling’s waist, and stared longingly into her eyes. “I’m hoping that you staying on as librarian means that you and I will become as close as two people can possibly get.”

Spitfire suddenly taking hold of her caught Adagio completely off-guard. And even though the Dazzling was all but certain that her friend was just messing with her right now, the scene of intimacy that was now unfolding between them quickly became a bit too real for her to handle.

“Nope, nope,” She hastily said as she gently pushed herself free. “I’m sorry, I’m not into girls, I shouldn’t have done that, I don’t know why I did. Just please, please don’t ever give me those bedroom-eyes again, Spitfire.”

“Oh darn,” Spitfire remarked in an overly-exaggerated, sarcastic manner before she started making her way towards the house once more. “I guess this means I’ll just have to settle for courting one of your sisters then.”

Adagio found herself not only thrown for a loop at this, but also found herself unsure if her friend was still messing with her or not.

“Y-You’re not serious about that, are you?” She asked tentatively as she caught up with Spitfire.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not,” Spitfire simply replied.

Despite the Dazzling’s uncertainty about Spitfire’s earnestness about courting her sisters, she couldn’t help but let out a small and muffled snicker. Regardless of whether the girl was actually serious or not, she was just glad to have someone like Spitfire as a friend. Someone who wasn’t so easily intimidated by her shenanigans. Someone who could not only be just as mischievous as her but could also turn the tables on her mischief by doing something completely unexpected. Spitfire of course had many other wonderful qualities other than these, but for Adagio the fact that the girl was such a kindred spirit to her own was what made her feel so lucky she got to call the aspiring athlete ‘friend’.

“But going back to me being happy about you remaining as librarian at CHS,” Spitfire spoke up as the two of them made their way ever closer to the house. “The real reason I’m glad you’re the one staying on is because I think that, between you and your sisters, you’re the one who’s made CHS a better place the most.”

Once again, Adagio found herself caught completely off-guard by her friend.

“I mean no offense to Aria and Sonata, I know they’ve both done a lot for the school too,” Spitfire continued. “But I just feel that of the three of you you’re the one who’s had the biggest impact on everyone. Of course you and I are close friends so I’m probably biased, but you know, that’s just my humble opinion.”

“Is that so?” The Dazzling leader said. “Well you’re probable bias aside, how is it you figure I’ve had a bigger impact on CHS than my sisters?”

“Ah come on, Adagio, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Spitfire replied. “In the short time you’ve been a part of CHS you’ve helped me realize that not making the Canterlot University soccer team wasn’t the end of the world, helped Moondancer accept her feelings for Twilight, and helped show those two crazy girls from River City around the school. And that’s not even half of what you’ve accomplished.”

“Uh, Spitfire, those girls from River City left CHS half-way through the day and never came back,” Adagio reminded her friend.

“Well, yeah, that’s true. But you stuck with them up until that point,” Spitfire said. “I mean, with as nuts as those two were I’m pretty sure anyone else would’ve given up after about five minutes.”

The Dazzling leader agreed with this, but didn’t say so aloud.

As Adagio recollected her brief yet memorable experience dealing with the two outlandish girls from River City, it brought to mind many of the other noteworthy times she’d had since becoming a CHS faculty member. She started to recall not just the instances Spitfire had mentioned but a plethora of others as well. Most were fairly pleasant memories, like when she’d helped Sweetie Belle with her singing or when she’d managed to talk some sense into Rainbow Dash after the Rainboom had learned of Dolly’s existence, but not all of them.

“I guess I have made a difference at CHS, but it hasn’t always been a positive one,” She said sullenly. “I’m sure Raven would attest to that.”

“Oh, um, y-yeah,” Spitfire reluctantly concurred. “I suppose you did kinda make a…little mistake when it came to her, huh?”

Adagio’s mistake when she’d chosen to manipulate Raven’s feelings for her had been anything but little. Because of her, the poor girl had ended up getting hurt during a scuffle between Sonata and Aria and wound up being taken to the hospital with a broken nose and mild head injury. And on top of that she’d also manipulated her sisters into having the scuffle in the first place. The whole incident had been of her making, and even though she’d never intended for things to escalate to such a drastic and dangerous level she’d been the one who’d set those calamitous wheels in motion.

“But you made things right with Raven and she forgave you!” Spitfire quickly added with fervor. “You apologized to her, took her out on a real date, and made her that promise that you wouldn’t be so careless with other people’s feelings again!”

Despite Spitfire’s passionate reminder that Adagio had made amends with Raven and that the girl had forgiven her, the Dazzling’s spirits didn’t lift any. Though she did appreciate her friend’s efforts to try and raise them. For Adagio, the fact that the incident had occurred at all far outweighed the fact that it had concluded on a relatively good note, and she simply couldn’t find it within her heart to forgive herself for it no matter how much she wished she could. As far as she was concerned, she’d committed a truly unforgivable misdeed. Even if the person she’d harmed had forgiven her.

“And I don’t think anyone can say that you haven’t kept that promise,” Spitfire continued. “Not after how you managed to talk Violet down when she was planning to jump off the school’s roof.”

Upon hearing Violet’s name uttered, Adagio immediately snapped out of her despondency. She didn’t quite return to the mildly fervent spirit she’d been in before she’d started talking about Raven, but she at least didn’t feel so forlorn anymore.

“Seriously, if talking someone out of committing suicide isn’t the epitome of displaying empathy then I don’t know what is,” Spitfire concluded.

As the memory of her encounter with Violet on the roof of CHS came flooding back into the forefront of her mind, Adagio recalled the multitude of emotions she’d experienced during the ordeal. Surprise, when she’d discovered Violet sitting on the roof’s edge. Anxiety, when Violet started talking to her in an eerily calm voice and asking questions like, ‘How far up do you think we are’. Anger, when she’d learned that Violet’s ex-boyfriend had distributed a nude photo of her online. Horror, when Violet explained that she was planning to kill herself by jumping off the roof. Sadness, when she’d told the girl the story of her own battle with suicidal thinking. And relief, when Violet had ultimately decided to come down from the ledge.

To say that the whole incident had been an emotional rollercoaster for Adagio would’ve been a gross understatement. As far as the Dazzling was concerned, it had been one of the most intense and frightening moments of her life. One that, unfortunately, hadn’t truly ended for her.

After Violet had come down from the roof and spoken with the school’s district psychologist she’d agreed to be taken to a mental hospital for a few days for observation, something Adagio had a bit of concern with. She hadn’t had any objection with Violet receiving some professional help, but what she had had some disagreement with was the girl being confined to Smith’s Grove Mental Hospital, a place that was more than 50 miles away from Canterlot City. More than 50 miles away from her friends and family. She hadn’t voiced this disagreement though since Violet had agreed to the confinement and it was only supposed to be for a few days, though given that those few days had turned into a few months she wish that she had.

About a week after Adagio had talked Violet down from the roof she began looking for the girl around CHS, but she never saw her. About a week after that she began making inquiries with Violet’s friends about the girl’s whereabouts and condition, but none of them had known anything. Eventually she’d resolved herself to go to Smith’s Grove and check on Violet, but due to the hospital’s long distance from Canterlot and her having to share the only car in the household with four other people she’d been unable to make the trip out there. And because of that, the turmoil within her continued to linger.

Even though she’d saved Violet’s life that day on the roof of Canterlot High, Adagio felt that she was not yet done helping the girl. She felt that she needed to continue being there for Violet, that she needed to be there for the girl during her recovery, though she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was simply because she’d been the one who’d convinced Violet not to jump and felt a sense of responsibility for the girl’s well-being, or maybe it was because she felt that she needed Violet’s help closing this lamentable incident in her life as much as she felt Violet needed her help to do the same. Whatever the reason, the Dazzling knew that she could no longer dawdle following up with Violet, and just as she and Spitfire reached the porch of the house she resolved herself to visit the girl within a week’s time.

“Hey, Spitfire, can I ask you for another favor?” She said as she reached into her pocket for her keys.

“As long as it’s not to drive you to the feed store to get more of those heavy-ass bags, sure,” Spitfire replied half-jokingly.

“Don’t worry, I don’t need a ride to the feed store. But I may need a ride somewhere else,” Adagio said as she inserted her house key into the lock. “This weekend I might need your help getting to -”

The Dazzling stopped herself mid-sentence as she turned the key into lock to unlock it, only to find that it was already unlocked.

“You okay, Adagio?” Spitfire asked shortly after Adagio had abruptly cut herself off.

“The door’s unlocked,” The former siren whispered to her friend, a hint of alarm evident within her voice.

“Oh,” Spitfire whispered back, a hint of alarm now evident within her voice as well. “M-Maybe you just forgot to lock it when we came out.”

“No, I know I locked it,” Adagio affirmed.

Wondering if perhaps her sisters or her housemates had come home while they were in the barn, the Dazzling quickly turned her head towards the driveway to see if the household car was parked in it. But when she saw that it wasn’t she felt her heart skip a beat.

Someone was in her house. Someone who didn’t belong there.

“So what do we do?” Spitfire inquired.

“What do we do?” Adagio said as she steeled her courage. “We see whose inside.”

And with that, the Dazzling turned the doorknob and slowly opened the door. As she did so, she expected the sight of some stranger standing in her house to enter her view, but such a sight never came. She never saw anyone, not even once the door was fully open.

“Hmm,” She uttered wearily as she cautiously entered the house, followed closely behind by Spitfire.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s here,” The CHS student said softly as she looked around the empty room. “I think you just forgot to lock the door, Adagio.”

Even though she was certain she’d locked the door before heading out to the barn, Adagio started to think maybe Spitfire was right. Perhaps she had mistakenly left the door unlocked after all. Perhaps she’d simply been remembering a different time when she’d locked the door. The thought swirled around in her head for a moment until she heard the sound of a door creaking open just down the hall, and then she knew that she’d been right. Someone was in the house.

“Who’s there?!” She shouted down the hallway, readying herself for a potentially dangerous confrontation as she did so.

A couple of seconds passed before someone emerged from one of the rooms down the hall – the bathroom - and when this someone did emerge all fears of a confrontation immediately vanished from Adagio’s mind.

“V-Violet?” The Dazzling leader uttered in disbelief as she stared at the Snapshot girl.

“Adagio!” Violet Blurr elatedly vociferated as she ran up the hallway and wrapped her arms around the Dazzling in a great big bear hug.

The sudden impact of Violet’s body against hers nearly sent Adagio falling backwards, but fortunately she managed to remain upright.

As Adagio looked down at the girl hugging her she had to blink a few times to make sure that it was actually Violet Blurr who was embracing her. Not just because she was so surprised to see Violet, but also because she wasn’t entirely sure that it even was Violet. The girl wasn’t wearing any of the unique articles of clothing that she usually wore. Not her purple skirt and stripped leggings, not her canary yellow top, not even her spiked headband with roses in it. Instead, she just had on a plain old white shirt and a pair of navy pants. Really the only distinguishing feature about the girl right now was her grayish rose and magenta hair with light rose highlights, which told Adagio that this was indeed Violet Blurr.

“It’s so good to see you again!” The Snapshot girl said as she let go of the Dazzling.

“Um, y-yeah. It’s…good to see you too,” Adagio replied, finding herself unable to think of anything else to say at the moment.

A large, slightly unsettling smile appeared on Violet’s face as soon as Adagio said this, one that the Dazzling feared might be a precursor to another incoming bear hug.

“Um, h-hey, Violet,” Spitfire greeted the girl, sounding just as flummoxed as Adagio had. “How are you doing?”

“Hey, Spitfire,” Violet greeted back. “I’m good. Thanks for asking.”

Her fear of a second bear hug sedated thanks to Spitfire’s intervention, Adagio hastily tried to wrap her mind around what was happening. Though the task proved to be a rather difficult one for her given how utterly bizarre and preternatural the whole situation was. A seemingly endless series of questions cascaded through her mind at such a rapid pace that she barely had enough time to register them. Questions like, ‘How did Violet get to the farm’, and ‘How did Violet get into the house’. But amongst all of these many questions one and only one repeated itself fairly often and fairly loudly; ‘Why is Violet here’.

“So I guess you’re probably wondering why it is I’m in your house, huh, Adagio,” Violet then said, almost as though she were psychic.

“W-Well, yeah, I was,” The Dazzling confessed. “Among other things.”

“Hehe, I figured as much,” Violet replied in an overly blithe manner. “Why don’t we sit down and I’ll tell you how it is I ended up here, hmm?”

Violet then proceeded to gaily make her way over towards a nearby couch.

“Just a fair warning though, some of what I tell you might sound a bit bizarre, but I swear that it’s all true,” The girl said as she sat down and patted the seat next to her. “I’d never lie to you, Adagio.”

Feeling a sense of unease, Adagio discreetly shifted her gaze over to Spitfire for a moment in an attempt to see if her friend was feeling the same way. And not surprisingly, it appeared that Spitfire was indeed feeling just as perturbed as she was. At least if the subtle expression of bemusement on the girl’s face was any indication.

As much as Adagio wanted to confer with Spitfire before engaging Violet with her questions, the Dazzling didn’t think that was the best course of action to take. There was something about Violet’s overly upbeat disposition that she found to be…unsettling. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but something that made her believe that right now it would be best if she did as the girl requested and took a seat next to her.

“All right,” She said as she made her way over to the couch and sat down on the spot Violet had patted, followed soon after by Spitfire taking a seat in a nearby chair.

“Okay, so remember how after you convinced me to come down from the school’s roof I was taken to Smith’s Grove Mental Hospital?” Violet inquired.

“Yeah, I remember,” Adagio replied. “That Dr. Loomis woman said she wanted to keep you there for a few days for observation to make sure you were no longer a danger to yourself.”

“Yep, that’s what Dr. Loomis said all right. Pretty much word-for-word,” Violet said. “The only thing is though, she kinda lied when she said ‘a few days’. After spending about a week in the hospital I asked Dr. Loomis during what I thought was our last session when I could expect to be released, and you know what she said? She said, ‘I’m afraid not for a while, Violet’.”

“But why?” Adagio asked. “When you agreed to go to Smith’s Grove you already seemed to be in a much better place than you were when you were up on the roof, so how is it that after a few days in the hospital Dr. Loomis still thought you were a danger to yourself?”

“See that’s where thing start to get bizarre,” Violet replied. “I mean, I’d felt that all of the sessions Dr. Loomis and I had had up until then were fairly good ones, so it made no sense to me that she thought I couldn’t be released after a week of being in the hospital. I tried to explain to her that since I’d arrived at Smith’s Grove I hadn’t had so much as a single thought of self-harm and she just reiterated that she felt I couldn’t be released.”

“That is pretty bizarre,” Spitfire chimed in. “Did Dr. Loomis say anything else? Like maybe what her reason was for feeling that you couldn’t be released?”

“Yeah, eventually she did explain that. And that’s where things get really bizarre,” Violet said. “She said that the reason I couldn’t be released wasn’t because she felt that I was a danger to myself anymore, but because she felt that I might be a danger to others.”

“What?!” Adagio hollered, practically jumping out of her seat as she did so. “Why in the world would Dr. Loomis think you’d be a danger to anyone else?! You’re one of the most amiable people I’ve ever met!”

“Aww. Thank you, Adagio,” Violet replied affectionately as she clasped the Dazzling’s right hand with both of hers. “You are such a nice person.”

“Uh, t-thanks, Violet,” Adagio said tentatively as she gently tried to free her hand from Violet’s grasp, though to no avail.

“I mean it!” Violet loudly stated, sensing Adagio’s hesitancy, as she tightened her grip on the Dazzling leader’s hand. “You’re just so nice and kind and considerate and so many other wonderful things!”

Adagio said nothing in response as she desperately tried not to wince at the growing level of pain within her right hand. Though with each passing second that Violet continued to clutch it the Dazzling found it increasingly difficult to do so, and soon enough she could feel herself slowly beginning to grimace, forcing her to once again try and free her captive appendage.

“Um, Violet? Quick question,” Spitfire interjected. “If Dr. Loomis said she didn’t feel you could be released, then how come you’re not still in the hospital?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Violet said as she abruptly let go of Adagio’s hand, much to the Dazzling’s relief. “It’s because I left during the big breakout last night.”

A couple of very visible looks of shock appeared on both Adagio and Spitfire’s faces when they heard Violet say this.

“The b-breakout?” The Dazzling leader asked, sounding noticeably shaken.

“Uh-huh, the breakout,” Violet replied in a manner that suggested she was oblivious to the distress of the other two girls in the room. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it on the news or something. Every patient at Smith’s Grove broke out last night after one of Dr. Loomis’ other patients got out of his room. I think his name was Michael…something. Eh, whatever, doesn’t matter. The point is that this other patient unlocked every door to every room in the hospital after he got out, freeing everyone. And since Dr. Loomis made it clear that she wasn’t going to let me go anytime soon I took it as my opportunity to leave.”

Violet’s explanation of how she’d gotten out of the hospital left Adagio with more questions than answers. Questions such as how Violet had made the trek from Smith’s Grove to her house in just a little under 24 hours, or why it was that she’d chosen to come to the farm of all places. But before she could ask any of these many questions Spitfire spoke up once more.

“Just one more question, Violet,” The student athlete said with no small hint of trepidation within her voice. “Did Dr. Loomis say why it was she felt you were a danger to others?”

“Yeah, she did. And it’s the most bizarre part of all of this,” Violet answered irksomely. “She said that I was suffering from something called…what was it again? Obsessive love disorder? I don’t know, something like that. Anyways, she said that because of this disorder it was a possibility that I could be a danger to Adagio.”

Without even thinking about it, Adagio instinctively shifted herself down the couch a bit, away from Violet.

“Huh?” She uttered distraughtly.

“I know, right? Isn’t that just one of the most ridiculous things you’ve ever heard?” Violet asked, right before wrapping her arms around the Dazzling in a big bear hug for the second time today. “I mean, how could Dr. Loomis possibly think that I’d be a danger to the girl I love with all my heart?”

Similarly to when Violet had hugged her earlier, Adagio had to take a few seconds to make sure that what her brain was currently processing was correct. Not that the person hugging her was Violet this time though, that part she got just fine, but rather that Violet had said that she, Adagio Dazzle, was the girl that she loved with all her heart. Though the Dazzling’s brain soon found it difficult to continue its processing, as Violet’s tight hug quickly restricted the flow of oxygen to it.

“Violet…air.” The Dazzling leader said as soon as she realized that she was short of breath.

“Oopsie, sorry!” Violet apologized as she let go of Adagio. “I guess I don’t know the strength of my own love, huh?”

“Hehe,” The Dazzling leader uttered deliriously as a serious case of déjà vu came over her, recalling that Raven had said something very similar to her once.

“Hey, you know what I just realized?” Spitfire said quickly as she vehemently got up from her seat. “I never got that lemonade I was promised.”

The student athlete then took a few steps forward and lightly grabbed ahold of Adagio’s arm.

“You think you can come into the kitchen with me, Adagio?” She said as she gently pulled the Dazzling up from the couch. “You know, so you can show me where the lemonade is.”

“Yeah, lemonade.” Adagio simply replied in a daze as she slowly started to make her way over towards the kitchen, followed closely behind by Spitfire.

“Ooh, lemonade. Can I have some?” Violet asked just before the two girls left the room.

Adagio didn’t say anything in response. She just continued walking slowly into the kitchen, prompting Spitfire to turn around and answer Violet.

“Uh, sure, Violet,” The soccer player said. “But, um, we’ll bring a glass of it out here to you. You look so comfy sitting there that I don’t want you to have to get up.”

“Huh. You know, I do feel pretty comfy sitting here,” Violet replied. “Thanks, Spitfire! That’s really nice of you!”

“D-Don’t mention it,” Spitfire said tentatively before turning back around and quickly rejoining Adagio, who was already in the kitchen.

“Why does this keep happening to me?” The Dazzling leader uttered softly and absentmindedly to herself as she opened the refrigerator door. “Why is it that I keep attracting these love-sick girls like I’m some sort of love-sick girl magnet? I’m not even into girls. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t suppose it does,” Spitfire just as softly said as she leaned in close to Adagio. “So, what are we gonna do about Violet?”

“Ha,” Adagio chuckled, now sounding a bit more with-it, as she pulled a pitcher of lemonade out of the fridge. “I’m going to level with you, Spitfire; I have no damn idea what we’re gonna do about Violet. And you know why? Because the way I see it we have a classic no-win scenario here.”

“What do you mean?” Spitfire inquired.

“Come on, Spitfire, you’re smart enough to see the reality of this situation,” The Dazzling replied as she opened a nearby cabinet and started pulling glasses out of it. “There are only two options we have here. Either I rebuke Violet’s feelings for me or I pretend to accept them, however deranged they may be. If I do the former she’ll most likely slip right back into her suicidal mind frame and try to hurt herself again, but if I do the latter and string her along she’d probably end up getting hurt at some point just like Raven did.”

Adagio ceased removing glasses from the cabinet and placed both her palms flat on the countertop.

“No matter what I do, Violet will get hurt,” She said somberly as she stared down at the glasses she’d already gotten down.

“Or you’ll get hurt,” Spitfire added. “If Dr. Loomis’ analysis of Violet’s condition is correct then we can’t ignore that she could hurt you if you upset her.”

“She wouldn’t do that!” Adagio snapped softly, though with a volume loud enough that it nearly reached the living room. “Violet may be a danger to herself but there’s no way she’s a danger to me or anyone else!”

“Violet’s not in a mentally stable place right now, Adagio,” Spitfire calmly reminded the Dazzling, placing a supportive hand on her friend’s shoulder for added measure. “There’s no telling who she’s potentially a danger to.”

As much as Adagio wanted to continue refuting Spitfire’s claims regarding Violet, she found that she couldn’t. No matter how much she wanted to believe that someone as good-natured as Violet was incapable of being a danger to someone else, she had to admit that the girl’s behavior thus far had been so erratic and irregular that it just might be possible for her to have a severe enough psychotic episode that she could bring harm to another person.

“Okay, you may be right about that,” She capitulated as she gently brushed Spitfire’s hand off of her shoulder and went back to taking glasses out of the cabinet. “But it still doesn’t change the fact that I have no idea what to do about Violet.”

“I know,” Spitfire said as she grabbed the pitcher of lemonade and started pouring drinks. “But I think I might have an idea of how we can get out of this mess. Without either you or Violet getting hurt.”

“You do?” Adagio replied with a mixture of surprise and elation. “What is it?”

“I don’t think we have time for me to explain it,” Spitfire said as she discreetly glanced over her shoulder at Violet for a split-second. “Just follow my lead once we’re back in the living room.”

Adagio also glanced over her shoulder at Violet for a split-second, and when she did she saw the girl still seated in her comfy spot looking over at her and Spitfire with a not-so-subtle expression of impatience plastered across her face.

“G-Got it,” She told her friend with a small hint of unease in her voice, brought about by Violet’s slightly unsettling staring.

Soon enough, Adagio and Spitfire finished pouring their glasses of lemonade and headed back into the living room.

“Here you go, Violet,” Spitfire said as she handed one of the glasses she’d been carrying.

“Thanks,” Violet replied, somewhat virulently, as she took the glass while Adagio retook her seat next to her. “You two sure took your time getting these drinks. Any particular reason for that?”

The obvious hostility evident within Violet’s voice only made Adagio’s already frayed nerves worse. She didn’t know what it was Spitfire was intending to do, but the Dazzling hoped to Heaven above that whatever it was it would, at the very least, calm the Snapshot girl down.

“Oh, we were just talking about you two becoming a couple,” Spitfire casually replied, right before taking a sip of her lemonade.

Adagio was extremely grateful that she hadn’t yet taken a sip of her lemonade, because she knew that if she had she would’ve performed the mother of all spit-takes upon hearing Spitfire’s response to Violet’s question.

“You…you were?” Violet inquired in astonishment.

“Oh yeah,” Spitfire affirmed after finishing her sip of lemonade. “Adagio just couldn’t stop talking about how happy she is that you confessed to her and how happy you two are going to be together. Right, Adagio?”

Adagio couldn’t tell for certain, but she was fairly sure that all the color had drained from her face in the short time Spitfire had been talking.

The Dazzling had no idea what it was her friend was doing. Was this the idea Spitfire had mentioned earlier? Was her idea essentially to force her into an obviously unwanted relationship with Violet? Adagio didn’t want to believe this to be true, but she was having a difficult time convincing herself otherwise. Even still though, she trusted that Spitfire had a good reason for saying what she had and that she was leading up to some other endgame.

“Y-Yeah. That’s right,” She told Violet. “I…I can’t wait for us to, um…start a new life together, Violet.”

Any sane person would’ve easily deduced that Adagio’s words were just short of being sincere, but thankfully Violet wasn’t exactly sane right now and she ate them right up, as evidenced by the blinding expression of joy that lit up her face.

“Oh, Adagio!” The Snapshot girl vociferated as she embraced the Dazzling leader for a third time. “I’m so, so happy you want to be with me!”

“Uh-huh,” Adagio simply replied as she returned the hug in a very minimalist way, feeling tired of them by this point.

As Violet continued to hug Adagio for an unusual and uncomfortable amount of time, the Dazzling eventually shot Spitfire a looked that seemed to silently say, ‘Please continue with your plan already’.

“Yeah, I’m happy for you guys too,” Spitfire started to say, after spending more time watching the long hug in silence than Adagio would’ve liked. “The only thing is though, Violet, Adagio brought up a problem with you two being together.”

“A…a problem?” Violet said as she immediately broke her hug with Adagio.

“Yep. A big one too,” Spitfire informed the girl. “Adagio pointed out that since you escaped from the hospital it would be practically impossible for you two to be together. She said that Dr. Loomis probably called the police after she noticed you left and that they’re out looking for you.”

“Oh. I…I suppose that’s probably true,” Violet admitted sedately.

“Uh-huh,” Spitfire continued. “And it’s probably a fair assumption to make that if the police take you back to the hospital then Dr. Loomis may never let you out of there?”

“Y-Yeah,” Violet agreed despairingly as tears started to form in the corners of her eyes.

As the current conversation between Spitfire and Violet progressed, Adagio felt that she was beginning to understand what Spitfire’s plan was.

“So taking that into consideration, Adagio figured it would be best if we took you back to Smith’s Grove,” Spitfire went on. “If we did that - that’s to say, if you went back willingly - then Dr. Loomis might take it as a sign that you’re on the road to recovery and let you out after a few more sessions with her.”

Violet said nothing, though the look on her face told both Adagio and Spitfire that she was in deep contemplation over Spitfire’s proposal.

Adagio had been correct in her belief that she was starting to understand Spitfire’s plan; her friend was trying to convince Violet that going back to the hospital was the best thing for her, even if it meant lying to her in the process. Though just because she was finally beginning to get the plan didn’t mean that she was completely on-board with it. The Dazzling leader wasn’t entirely sure that lying to Violet about her reciprocation of the girl’s amative feelings wouldn’t lead to problems down the road. Problems similar to those she’d experienced when Raven had had amative feelings for her. Problems that would lead to Violet getting seriously hurt.

However, given that the endgame in all of this was to get Violet back to the hospital, Adagio felt that the lie was worth the risk. She didn’t like having to lie to the girl, period, but if it was what was needed to make sure she got the help she needed then that was that. No way around it. The Dazzling only hoped that Dr. Loomis would be able to help Violet get over her obsessive love disorder so that neither of them ended up needing to go to a medical hospital as a result of her lying.

“I-If I go back to Smith’s Grove, will you visit me, Adagio?” The Snapshot girl eventually spoke up.

“Of course I will, Violet,” Adagio replied without hesitation. “I always meant to visit you after you went there initially, but I…I didn’t. And I’m so sorry for that.”

Feeling she needed to show more commiseration, Adagio took a hold of Violet’s hand in hers.

“But I promise, if you let Spitfire and I take you back I’ll visit you every week,” The Dazzling assured the girl.

Once again Violet initially remained silent, causing Adagio to worry that the Snapshot girl wasn’t going to agree to go back to Smith’s Grove. But soon the Dazzling leader felt Violet grip her hand in a gentle and caring way, and when she did she knew she had no reason to be concerned.

“Okay, I’ll go back then,” Violet said with a small smile, one that contained a mixture of both joy and sorrow.

“Thank you, Violet,” Adagio replied, returning Violet’s duplicitous smile.

“Okay then,” Spitfire said as she finished her lemonade and got up from her seat. “If we’re going to Smith’s Grove we’d better get going now. It’s a long drive there and it’s already kinda late.”

Adagio immediately got up after Spitfire finished speaking, but Violet didn’t. It wasn’t difficult for the Dazzling to tell that the Snapshot girl was nervous about going back to Smith’s Grove, so in an effort to help her feel more at ease she reached out a supportive hand to her.

“It’s going to be okay,” She assured Violet.

Violet dawned another small smile and took Adagio’s hand, and soon after all three of the girls were piled into Spitfire’s car and on their way to Smith’s Grove Mental Hospital.

The drive to Smith’s Grove was a long one, just as Spitfire had said it would be, and during the trip none of the three girls spoke so much as a single word to one another. The weight of the evening’s events weighed heavy on each of them and none of them felt there was anything more to say until they reached the hospital, which they did in just a little over an hour.

When they reached the gates of Smith’s Grove they were let in by a security guard and met at the front entrance by Dr. Loomis, who had a couple of orderlies escort Violet back to her room almost immediately. Adagio and Spitfire were only able to get a quick goodbye to Violet before the Snapshot girl was taken inside the hospital. Not surprisingly, once Violet was out of earshot Dr. Loomis asked the two girls what had transpired between them and her patient. Adagio and Spitfire explained everything to the psychiatrist from the time they’d found Violet in Adagio’s house to when they’d left it, and much to their surprise Dr. Loomis said little in response. She mostly just thanked them for bringing Violet back to Smith’s Grove and then went into the hospital herself, leaving them alone.

Seeing as how they’re business at Smith’s Grove was complete, Adagio and Spitfire got back into the car and started to make their way back to the farm. Like the trip to the hospital, the trip from it was a long and quiet one. It wasn’t until they were nearly back at the farm that the silence between them finally broke.

“Listen, Adagio,” Spitfire began to say solemnly. “If you want to keep what we just went through with Violet a secret from your sisters, I totally get it. All you have to do is tell me you never want us to speak of this again and I swear that I’ll never speak of it again.”

“Thanks for that, Spitfire, but it’s all right. I’m going to tell Aria and Sonata everything,” Adagio informed her friend. “After what happened with Raven I don’t think it’d be a good idea to keep what happened tonight from them.”

“Okay,” Spitfire simply replied as she pulled into Adagio’s driveway.

As the two girls made their way up the driveway, Adagio noticed two things that indicated to her that her sisters and housemates were now home. The first being that her car – or rather hers and Aria’s and Sonata’s and Kiwi’s and Su-Z’s car, since they all shared it – was parked up near the house, and the second being that there were lights on inside the house. Not long after making these observations, Spitfire slowly pulled up behind the other car already in the driveway and put hers in park.

“Thanks for everything today, Spitfire,” The Dazzling leader said as she unbuckled her seatbelt. “I don’t know how I would’ve handled Violet or gotten all the work around here done without you.”

“Hey, what are friends for?” Spitfire said just as Adagio opened her door and stepped out of the car. “Have a good rest of the night. I’ll see you Monday at school.”

“You too. And yeah, see you then,” Adagio replied before walking away.

“Hey, Adagio,” Spitfire called out to the Dazzling before she got too far, causing Adagio to stop and turn around. “Just so it’s one less thing on your mind; I wasn’t being serious when I said I’d try to court your sisters.”

A small chortle could be heard escaping Adagio’s mouth upon her hearing this.

“Well, that’s a shame,” She playfully replied. “I was kinda looking forward to having you as a sister-in-law, Spitfire.”

Spitfire just chortled back mildly before shifting gears and backing out down the driveway.

Adagio watched her friend leave, and as soon as Spitfire was out of view she turned back around and headed for the house again. As she walked, she worried about how she was going to explain everything that had happened this evening with Violet to her sisters and housemates, and how they would react to it.

More specifically, Adagio worried about how the stubborn and judgmental Kiwi Lollipop would react to it.

“Why do I have the feeling this night is far from over with?” The Dazzling sighed softly to herself as she stepped onto the porch and reached for the front door.

The Phantom Madrigal

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“…So then Spitfire and I took Violet back to Smith’s Grove,” Adagio Dazzle told her sisters and housemates as she recounted her very notable evening up until this point to them. “We told Dr. Loomis what had happened once we got there and Violet was out of earshot, but she didn’t really say much back to us.”

Aria, Sonata, Su-Z, and Kiwi all listened intently to the eldest Dazzling’s tale from around the kitchen table, each of them feeling a sense of shock in their own right. For the two younger Dazzlings, their consternation originated from the simple fact that another love-sick girl had tried to hew herself onto their sister. For Su-Z, it was the extent of Violet’s love sickness that addled her so much. The PostCrush girl had long had a fear of going mad or losing her mind completely due to severe trauma or illness, and hearing Adagio’s story of how far Violet’s mind appeared to have fallen from sanity only made her feel more worrisome about the fragility of her own mental stability. And as for Kiwi, it was the fact that Adagio had lied to Violet about reciprocating the girl’s feelings for her that had her in such a strong state of stupefaction.

“After that Spitfire brought me back home and, well, here we are,” Adagio concluded her tale.

No one knew what to say after Adagio had finished speaking. Eventually the uncomfortable silence within the kitchen became too much for the Dazzling leader to bear, and she spoke up once more.

“Anyone have any questions?” She asked the other girls at the table in a desperate attempt for conversation.

“Um,” Sonata uttered as she slightly raised her right hand. “You…you said you weren’t serious about being in love with Violet, right, Dagi?”

“Right,” Adagio confirmed. “That was just something Spitfire and I told Violet so that we could convince her to go back to the hospital.”

“Unbelievable,” Kiwi uttered disdainfully under her breath, though not nearly at a low enough volume for it to go unnoticed by everyone else at the table.

“Something you want to say, Kiwi?” Adagio asked the elder PostCrush girl.

“No. Nothing at all,” Kiwi replied unconvincingly.

“No no, please. Speak your mind,” The Dazzling leader said back in a manner that was mild in sonority yet intensely baleful in tone.

Sensing the tension that was quickly growing between Adagio and Kiwi, the three other girls in the room all discreetly scooched their chairs away from them.

“You want me to speak my mind, Adagio? Fine, I’ll speak my mind,” Kiwi heatedly said as she stood up and practically slammed her palms down on the table. “I think the way you handled things with Violet was awful. Appalling even.”

“Is that so?” Adagio replied, her sonority no longer mild, as she too got up from her seat. “And how, exactly, was my handling of things with Violet so ‘appalling’?”

“It was appalling because you lied to and manipulated a mentally ill girl,” Kiwi answered the Dazzling. “You took Violet’s feelings for you, beguiled as they were, and exploited them to suit your own ends.”

“Yes, I did lie to and manipulate Violet,” Adagio capitulated, practically hissing through her teeth at this point. “But my ‘end’ was to get her back to Smith’s Grove so she could get the help she needs. I’d say that’s a pretty justifiable reason for lying to and manipulating her.”

As Aria, Sonata, and Su-Z continued to watch the feud between Adagio and Kiwi grow ever fiercer, the three of them each began to contemplate fastidiously leaving the table and retreating to another part of the house. But the more they thought of doing this the more they felt it prudent to not do so. None of them wanted to draw the attention of either Adagio or Kiwi as they left and risk subsequently getting drawn into their argument. As far as any of them were concerned it was far better to just remain as inconspicuous as possible, even if it meant staying at the table.

“Are…are you seriously saying that the ends justify the means, Adagio?” Kiwi asked the Dazzling, a mixture of anger and befuddlement evident within in her voice.

Much to the surprise of everyone at the table, Adagio let out a small chortle in response to Kiwi’s question.

“That’s a pretty glib interpretation, don’t you think, Kiwi?” Adagio replied amusedly, causing Kiwi’s anger to grow ten-fold.

“Excuse me?!” The older PostCrush girl said at a volume so loud it caused the other four girls in the room to instinctively wince away from her.

The room fell silent. None of the other girls at the table knew how to respond to an outburst as boisterous and heated as the one Kiwi had just delivered – Adagio in particular. The eldest Dazzling was unaccustomed to being spoken to in such an acrimonious manner. She was no stranger to it though, as on one or two occasions when she was younger her mother had been quite astringent with her. But those few instances hadn’t been enough for her to learn how to best react when finding herself on the receiving end of someone’s fiery salvo.

Fortunately for Adagio though, one of her sisters spoke up and broke the tension in the room for her before she found herself in a position of having to break it herself.

“Um, c-can we please stop all this fighting?” Sonata tentatively asked, sounding as though she were on the verge of tears.

Realizing how their arguing was upsetting Sonata – as well as Aria and Su-Z to a lesser degree – Adagio and Kiwi each looked off to the side in remorse, feeling that perhaps they’d taken their altercation a bit too far.

“Yeah, this whole argument is pointless,” Aria chimed in. “Especially since Kiwi’s kinda right about you messing up on this one, Adagio.”

“Excuse me?!” Adagio asked her sister incredulously as she turned her head around to face her.

“Uh, thank you, Aria,” Kiwi half-lauded, half-asked the pig-tailed girl, feeling happy that she agreed with her but also feeling slightly confused by that fact.

“Wait, you agree with Kiwi?” Su-Z asked Aria. “How can you agree with Kiwi when Adagio clearly made the right call with Violet?”

“Hold on, you’re with Adagio on this, Su-Z?” Kiwi asked her friend, finding it difficult to believe what she’d just heard the girl say.

“I’m sorry, Kiwi, but yeah, I am,” Su-Z replied. “Violet was in a dangerous place mentally, and she was a threat to herself and Adagio and Spitfire. She needed to go back to the hospital and I don’t think there was anything wrong with what Adagio did to get her back there.”

Kiwi said nothing in response. Her acute consternation over the fact that her best friend was siding with Adagio caused her to be incapable of articulating anything for a few seconds.

“Are you serious right now, Aria?” Adagio inquired of her younger sister. “I mean I know I promised you and Sonata that I wouldn’t lie to and manipulate people anymore, but do you honestly think that what I did to get Violet back to Smith’s Grove wasn’t justified given the circumstances?”

“What I have a problem with, Adagio, is what you told Violet to get her back to Smith’s Grove,” Aria informed her older sister. “I don’t think you should’ve told her you were in love with her.”

This came as no surprise to Adagio. After everything that had happened with Raven a while back Aria had been notably vocal about her disposition towards her lying and manipulating people, especially when those lies and manipulations involved someone’s feelings of adoration for her.

However, Adagio’s understanding of where her sister’s mindset was coming from didn’t change the fact that she believed it to be flawed.

“Well how exactly was I supposed to convince her to go back to the hospital if I didn’t pretend to be in love with her, hmm?” The Dazzling leader brazenly inquired.

“I don’t know, but I still don’t think you should’ve pretended to be in love with her,” Aria responded just as brazenly. “I mean I get that you did it because you thought once Violet was back at the hospital Dr. Loomis would be able to help her, but what if your assumption was wrong, huh? What if by pretending to be in love with Violet you just made her condition so bad that she’ll never be able to get over it?”

In truth, Adagio hadn’t thought about the possibility that her falsely reciprocating Violet’s feelings for her could worsen the girl’s already fragile mental state. But by this point in the argument, the Dazzling leader was too blinded by her desire to be right to care about that possibility.

“Oh that’s ridiculous, Aria,” She coarsely dismissed her sister’s theory.

“Excuse me?!” Aria angrily replied as she got up from her seat.

“How can you agree with Adagio, Su-Z?” Kiwi asked her friend, having just now regained her ability to say anything. “She lied to Violet, manipulated her.”

“Yeah, so that Violet could get the help she needs, Kiwi,” Su-Z sternly said. “Look, I’m not saying that things like lying and manipulating are good in-and-of themselves, but I do believe that there are situations like the one Adagio was just in where they can be used for good.”

“Oh spare me your dime-store philosophy, Su-Z,” Kiwi crassly instructed the girl.

“Excuse me?!” Su-Z said fiercely as she stood up.

By this point Adagio, Aria, Kiwi, and Su-Z were all talking over each other, making it nearly impossible for any of them to make out what anyone else was saying. Though unfortunately, this lack of being able to hear one another didn’t deter any of the four girls from continuing to argue. Each of them continued to try and make their point as loudly and as heatedly as possible, much to the growing dismay of a now lachrymose Sonata.

“STOP IT! STOP FIGHTING!” The youngest Dazzling tearfully pleaded as she got up from her chair.

Sonata’s blaring and sorrowful imploration quickly succeeded in ceasing the quarrel amongst Adagio, Aria, Kiwi, and Su-Z. Having been caught off-guard by the resounding request for calm, each of the bickering girls turned to face the pony-tailed Dazzling just as she brought her hands up to her face in an attempt to hide her distraught visage from view.

“Everyone just…s-stop fighting!” Sonata sniveled through her hands, right before she abruptly brought them back down and hastily left the room.

Within a few seconds of Sonata’s departure from the kitchen, the sound of a door slamming shut from down the hallway reverberated throughout the house, which Adagio, Aria, Kiwi, and Su-Z all assumed was the result of Sonata retreating to the seclusion of her bedroom.

As silence once again fell over the kitchen the four girls remaining within it simply stood around quietly while avoiding eye contact with one another, as not a one of them could think of what to either say or do next. Internally each of them felt terrible about having inadvertently caused Sonata such an enormous amount of distress, but externally they all remained indurated just in case one or more of the other girls felt like resuming the skirmish they’d just been having.

Fortunately though, no one resumed the skirmish.

“I’m going to bed,” Aria precipitously informed the room right before leaving it.

“I-I’m going to go check on Sonata,” Su-Z said somberly soon after, right before leaving the room as well.

Not long after Su-Z’s exodus Adagio followed hers and Aria’s suit and left the kitchen as well, though the Dazzling leader didn’t say anything as she departed. All she did was silently shoot a brief, unflattering glance in Kiwi’s direction as she passed by the girl, one that Kiwi couldn’t help but shoot right back at her.

“Hmph,” The PostCrush girl uttered softly to herself once Adagio had disappeared into the hallway.

Even though Kiwi hadn’t had any desire to continue arguing with her best friend and housemates, the anger and detestation that had brought about the argument in the first place remained isochronal within her as she stood alone next to the kitchen table. She didn’t know if this was because she was just incapable of overcoming these strong feelings at the moment or if it was because she wanted to hang onto them out of a sense of justification, but either way she didn’t really care. All she knew was that she needed to get out of the house for a while and put a little more distance between herself and everyone else for a bit.

And so, as if a woman on a mission, Kiwi made her way over towards the front door, opened it posthaste, and stepped out onto the porch.

“Aah,” She let out after taking in a deep breath of the brisk, nighttime air.

While the fresh air did help alleviate some of Kiwi’s abrogating feelings, it didn’t alleviate them by much. The PostCrush girl still felt very much upset. Figuring that perhaps she needed even more distance from the house, she stepped off of the porch and started making her way over towards the driveway. More specifically, she headed towards the van that was parked within the driveway, the van that she and Su-Z had been sleeping in not too long ago.

As Kiwi slowly made her way over to the nearly broken-down vehicle, she began to reminisce about hers and Su-Z’s time living within its confines down by the river. She remembered how during the day they’d have to take turns keeping an eye out for patrol cars so they didn’t get in trouble with the police, how during the cold and frigid nights they’d have to sleep together in order to stay warm, and how from week-to-week they’d often worry about whether or not they would have enough money to afford dog food for Princess Thunder Guts – or possibly people food for themselves.

To say those were tough days would’ve been an understatement. They were brutal days, rock bottom days even. Days that had only come to an end because the Dazzlings had thrown them a life preserver and given them the opportunity to create a new life for themselves on their emu farm. And as Kiwi began to become cognizant of this fact she began to feel that, even if she were objectively right regarding Adagio’s handling of Violet, she had been the one who’d truly acted appallingly this evening.

“Damn it, Kiwi, you did it again,” The PostCrush girl berated herself as she leaned back against the side of the van. “You let your stubborn and judgmental side cause you to make obdurate decisions, just like at the Starswirl Festival when you had to be perfect.”

The more Kiwi thought about her recent demeanor towards her best friend and housemates, the more appalled with herself she began to feel. She’d shown Adagio nothing but disdain and disrespect, treated Su-Z like she was some sort of dimwitted crony, and played a large part in bringing Sonata to tears. Just one of these things alone would’ve been enough to make the PostCrush girl feel forlorn, but all three of them combined made her feel absolutely despondent.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” She asked herself as she slid down the side of the van before ultimately plopping herself down on the ground below.

“Isn’t it obvious, Kiwi?” A voice unexpectedly answered the girl. “What’s wrong with you is that you’re too smart for your own good.”

Startled by the unanticipated response to her question, Kiwi immediately picked herself up from off the ground and turned towards the direction she thought she’d heard the voice coming from. But much to her surprise there was no one there, leading her to believe that perhaps she’d just been hearing things. However, the PostCrush girl was all but certain that she truly had heard a voice just now, and believing that perhaps she’d just been wrong about where the voice had come from she began to look all around her for any signs of another person nearby. But no matter where it was she looked, she continued to see that she was alone.

“H-Hello?” She eventually, and tentatively, called out into the darkness.

“Hello, Kiwi,” The voice replied back.

When Kiwi heard the voice again there was no doubt in her mind where it had come from this time; it had come from directly behind her. Wasting no time, the former popstar quickly turned around and saw who it was that the voice belonged to, and when she did she was so stunned that she lost her balance and once more found herself situated down on the ground.

“M-M-Madrigal?!” The PostCrush girl managed to get out in her shocked state as she looked up at the Dazzlings’ mother, who was leaning up against the van just as she herself had been doing a moment ago.

“In the flesh, so to speak,” Madrigal replied to Kiwi as she ceased leaning against the van and proceeded to crouch down right in front of the girl. “Sorry I scared you, dear. I tried not to the best I could, but given our situation I suppose it was unavoidable.”

It had been a few weeks since the incident where Kiwi had agreed to let Madrigal into her mind in order to save her, and in that time the PostCrush girl had practically forgotten that the woman was residing within her head. She remembered the incident in its entirety as clear as day – how could she not – but for some reason the fact that she had Madrigal’s soul or spirit or whatever occupying some of her mental space had escaped her. Perhaps it was because subconsciously she just didn’t want to be regularly reminded of this fact, or perhaps it was because Madrigal had been playing with her mind and keeping her from remembering that she was there. Either one was entirely possible.

But whatever the reason for Kiwi’s forgetfulness, it didn’t change the fact that Madrigal was physically standing, or rather crouching, before her.

“I’d help you up but I’m afraid I’m unable,” Madrigal continued right before waving her right hand right through Kiwi’s left leg, which caused the PostCrush girl’s already high levels of shock to skyrocket even higher. “As you can see, I’m not exactly here.”

Kiwi had no idea what was going on right now. Her mind was reeling far too much trying to make sense of her current situation for it to actually do so. How was it that Madrigal was here speaking to her? Last they’d spoken she had been nothing more than a reflection in Sunset’s bathroom mirror. And how was it that Madrigal was able to faze herself through her body? Was the woman a ghost now? Did this mean that she was no longer inside her head? These questions and more ran through Kiwi’s mind at such a rapid pace that she couldn’t even find enough mental energy to move her mouth and say something to Madrigal.

“Are you all right, Kiwi? I didn’t frighten you too much, did I?” Madrigal asked her concernedly. “Because if this is too much for you I can do away with the illusion. I just figured it would be easier for you to talk to a visitant than a voice in your head.”

Madrigal’s words did little to assuage Kiwi’s consternation, though strangely enough they did help provide her with a bit of clarity. The girl still wasn’t quite sure if Madrigal was some sort of phantasm or not, but based on her statement that she could ‘do away with the illusion’ suggested to her that whatever the woman was she had control over it. Additionally, Madrigal’s remark that she felt that her talking to a visitant would be easier than a voice in her head indicated to the PostCrush girl that she was still residing within her mind.

The best Kiwi could figure from all this information was that Madrigal was somehow using magic to create a nebulous image of herself. An image that, in all likelihood, was visible only to her.

“I-I’m fine. I’m fine,” She told Madrigal as she recomposed herself. “And, um, you’re f-fine too.”

“Oh good,” Madrigal replied.

With the worst of her trepidation now behind her, new feelings of embarrassment began to surface within Kiwi. Feelings brought about by her current, less-than-flattering position laying on the ground. Wasting no time, the PostCrush girl quickly finished collecting herself, shot up off the ground, and dusted herself off as gracefully as possible.

Not long after, Madrigal got up as well.

Once she finished dusting herself off, Kiwi noticed a difference in Madrigal’s appearance from the last time they’d spoken. The woman was no longer wearing the champagne gold V-neck flapper dress that she had before, but rather a black satin sheath evening gown with a neckline that left her shoulders uncovered. It was an outfit that the former popstar found to be very elegant and felicitous, especially given how greatly it complimented Madrigal’s luxuriously silky scarlet hair.

“Um, I like your new dress,” She told the woman in a desperate attempt for conversation.

“Oh you’re too kind, dear,” Madrigal chastely replied to the compliment before doing a small twirl to show off the entire outfit. “This little number is something I’ve always wanted to try wearing, and not to sound boastful but I believe I’m pulling it off fetchingly.”

“Y-Yeah, fetchingly,” Kiwi concurred, finding the statement to be just a tad bit boastful.

“So, that was quite the argument you had with Adagio and Su-Z, hmm?” Madrigal abruptly shifted subjects.

Having been caught off-guard by the sudden change in topic, Kiwi took an involuntary step backwards and nearly fell to the ground once again. Thankfully though, she managed to remain standing.

“You…you know about that?” She asked.

“Well of course I know about it, I saw it,” Madrigal replied as she lifted her right hand and pointed her index finger at Kiwi’s forehead. “I’m inside your head, Kiwi; that means I see just about everything you do.”

Practically all the color drained from Kiwi’s face when she heard this. In hindsight she probably should have known that when she’d let Madrigal inside her mind the woman would be able to observe her day-to-day life from behind her eyes, but she hadn’t. And because of this it was only now that she came to understand that some of her more private moments since she’d saved Madrigal hadn’t actually been private.

“You…You’ve been watching me,” She said absentmindedly, and with no small amount of dread, as she dawned a thousand yard-stare. “Oh my gosh. Ohhhhhhh my gosh.”

“Relax, Kiwi,” Madrigal instructed the distressed PostCrush girl. “I said that I see just about everything you see, I’m not watching you 24/7.”

It was at this point that Madrigal extended her right arm and placed her hand on Kiwi’s left shoulder, so to speak. Despite the image of Madrigal that Kiwi was seeing being only nebulous in nature, the former popstar could have sworn that she felt the warmth of a flesh-and-blood hand resting on her shoulder.

“Believe me, I understand that there are times when a girl needs some privacy,” The Dazzlings’ mother then cordially told her.

As much as Kiwi wanted to believe that Madrigal was being truthful right now, she couldn’t help but have her doubts. The woman had just confessed to having watched the argument she’d had with Adagio and Su-Z without her knowledge, so who was to say that she hadn’t been watching other things as well. Had she been watching two weeks ago when she’d spoken with her dad on the phone? When she’d accosted Su-Z last week to once again voice her belief that they should take Lucy Beel up on her offer for them to perform at Chaus? When she’d…alleviated some stress the other day? There was no way for the PostCrush girl to know. However, given the high level of sincerity that had been evident within Madrigal’s words, Kiwi chose to accept them as being truthful.

“T-Thanks, Madrigal,” She lauded the woman for respecting her privacy.

“Now, about that argument with Adagio and Su-Z,” Madrigal replied candidly, once again abruptly changing the topic of conversation. “Why exactly are you upset about it so much, Kiwi?”

The fact that Madrigal kept coming back to the subject of her recent argument both confused and intrigued Kiwi.

“Why do you want to talk about that so badly?” She asked the Dazzlings’ mother.

“Because I want to make sure you’re not upset for the wrong reasons,” Madrigal answered.

This only compounded Kiwi’s confusion and intrigue.

“Okay, you lost me,” The PostCrush girl confessed.

“That’s all right, I figured I’d need to elucidate,” Madrigal said. “But if it’s all the same to you, Kiwi, do you mind if we continue our conversation elsewhere?”

Madrigal then pointed over towards the barn.

“Like in there perhaps?” She suggested.

“Oh, um, sure,” Kiwi consented, though somewhat perplexedly. “We can head over to the barn if you -”

“Wonderful,” Madrigal interrupted. “I’ll see you inside then.”

“What do mea -” The PostCrush girl replied as she turned back around, only to cut herself off when she discovered that Madrigal was no longer there.

Finding herself alone once more, Kiwi began to question if she hadn’t been alone this whole time. As much as she didn’t want to admit it she couldn’t deny the possibility that the woman she’d supposedly been talking to for the last few minutes had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination, one brought about by her deep distress over her recent argument. Though, in all honesty, the PostCrush girl highly doubted that this was the case. After all, why would her feelings of deep distress manifest themselves as Madrigal Moonlight of all people?

And so, as Kiwi shrugged off her questions regarding Madrigal’s veridity, she made her way on over to the barn.

Despite her best efforts not to focus too much on Madrigal as she walked, Kiwi couldn’t help but wonder one thing about the woman; had she discerned if she was actually Madrigal Moonlight or not? Back in Sunset’s mind, she remembered how distraught Madrigal had been as to whether she actually was the Dazzlings’ mother or just some sort of imitation of her created by the Overlook. It was a query that the PostCrush girl hadn’t received an answer to whilst she was within Sunset’s mind, and one that she wasn’t even sure Madrigal had found an answer to yet. But the former popstar wasn’t too concerned about the answer to that query right now – whatever it may be. Right now all she wanted an answer to was what Madrigal meant when she’d said she wanted to make sure she wasn’t upset for the wrong reasons.

After only about a minute of walking Kiwi reached the barn and stepped inside of it, where she saw Madrigal looking around at the numerous emu asleep in their pens.

“Hard to believe that caring for these creatures is what my daughters are doing with their lives these days,” The woman said as she examined the large birds. “Though not as hard to believe that it’s what you’re doing with your life, Kiwi.”

“Yeah, it’s hard for me to believe that this is my life now too,” Kiwi remarked ardently as she made her way over to Madrigal. “Now can you please tell me what it is you meant when you said you wanted to make sure I wasn’t upset for the wrong reasons?”

“Oh I think you know what I meant by that, dear,” Madrigal exasperated.

“No, Madrigal, I don’t,” The PostCrush girl replied curtly, much to the chagrin of some of the emu within close proximity of her who were beginning to rouse from their sleep. “And given everything that I’ve been through tonight I am really not in the mood for any obscure or cryptic remarks! So either tell me what you meant already or this conversation is over!”

Almost immediately after Kiwi finished her mini tirade she realized she might have made a huge mistake in yelling at Madrigal. The woman was literally inside of her head, and it stood to reason that if she was strong enough now to cast an illusion of herself she was strong enough to wreak some havoc with her mind if she felt apt to. Fortunately though, and much to the former popstar’s surprise, when Madrigal let out a small and playful chuckle in response to her little jeremiad it seemed that she wasn’t feeling inclined to perform any mental-based attacks on her.

“I’m sorry, dear,” The Dazzlings’ mother apologized as her chortling came to an end. “It’s just…it really is astonishing how much alike you and Adagio are; you’re both so strongly opinionated and adamant as hell.”

Needless to say, being compared to Adagio was one of the last things Kiwi wanted to hear right now – along with just being affronted in general. But still feeling fearful of potential retribution from Madrigal if she got riled up, the PostCrush girl decided to keep her displeasure at the woman’s remark to herself.

“But if you really need me to explain things then I suppose there’s no way around it,” Madrigal continued. “What I meant when I said I wanted to make sure you weren’t upset for the wrong reasons is that I wanted to make sure you weren’t upset because you thought you were wrong.”

“Because I…think I’m wrong?” Kiwi asked bewilderedly.

“That’s right,” Madrigal replied. “I mean I can understand if you were upset because you let your temper get the better of you, but if you were upset because you were starting to think you were wrong about Adagio’s handling of that Violet girl then that’s something I just couldn’t allow.”

“You…couldn’t?” Kiwi then asked.

“Of course not, Kiwi,” Madrigal answered, as if she were stating the obvious, before she turned around and took a few steps forward as she started to once more look around the barn. “How could I possibly let you feel bad about your stance in that argument when you were so clearly in the right?”

Due to Kiwi’s current befuddled state, it took her a few seconds longer than normal to fully process Madrigal’s words.

“Are you saying that you…agree with me?” She inquired, just to make sure she was understanding the woman correctly.

“Yes, Kiwi, that’s what I’m saying,” Madrigal replied, somewhat testily, as she ceased her walking and turn back around to face the former popstar.

“Thank you!” The PostCrush girl then loudly lauded as she practically lunged at Madrigal with the intent of giving her companion a hug, only for her to phase right through the woman when she tried to wrap her arms around her.

“I’m not actually here, dear,” Madrigal bluntly reminded Kiwi as the girl desperately tried to maintain her footing after her failed hug.

“Right, right. S-Sorry about that,” Kiwi said embarrassedly as she quickly regained her composure.

“It’s all right,” The Dazzlings’ mother assured her. “I’m just glad to hear that you weren’t upset earlier because your opinion of what Adagio had done tonight had changed.”

“Oh I can assure you; my opinion of what Adagio did tonight has most definitely not changed,” The PostCrush girl replied with conviction. “I mean, it’s just so obvious that her lying to Violet and manipulating her was wrong, isn’t it? And I don’t care what Su-Z says, there’s no excuse for that kind of behavior! I seriously don’t understand how it is that you, Aria, and I are the only ones who seem to realize that! I just…ARGHHH!”

As soon as Kiwi let out her loud, aggravated grunt the sound of numerous cries from nearly every emu in the barn could be heard ringing throughout the structure, much to the annoyance of both the PostCrush girl and Madrigal.

“Noisy things, aren’t they?” The Dazzlings’ mother remarked.

“Great, that’s just great,” Kiwi said lamentably as she took a seat on a nearby bale of hay. “First I agitate Sonata, then I go and agitate the emu too.”

Once Kiwi was fully seated on her bale she brought her knees up to her head and promptly proceeded to bury her face in them.

“Fuck me,” The PostCrush girl sobbingly self-deprecated through her patella. “Just…fuck me.”

At this, a small but undoubtedly mischievous smile crossed Madrigal’s face.

“There, there, dear. You’re being far too hard on yourself,” The woman told Kiwi as she quickly lost her wicked grin and took a seat next to the girl.

“Am I though?” Kiwi replied as she removed her head from her knees and assumed a more natural seated position. “I just…I always do this kind of thing; I let my feelings get the better of me and end up making everyone around me miserable. I did it tonight with the emu and Sonata, I did it with Su-Z when we were trying to get more money from our label, and I…I…”

Many of the muscles within Kiwi’s throat began to tense up as she tried to complete her sentence, so many in fact that she felt a lump in her larynx and found herself unable to continue speaking. She quickly turned her head away from Madrigal and tried to clear her throat, believing that doing so would help her, though all it did was make her feel worse.

“It’s all right, Kiwi,” Madrigal assured the PostCrush girl as she laid a hand atop one of Kiwi’s hands.

Much like earlier when Madrigal had touched her shoulder, Kiwi could’ve sworn that she felt the warmth of a flesh-and-blood hand touching her.

“I...I’m sorry,” The former popstar apologized as she collected herself. “It’s just that…I get a little choked up whenever I…try and talk about what happened between me and…my dad.”

“Well if it’s too much for you to talk about then you don’t have to,” Madrigal told the distraught girl. “Though, in all honesty, I would suggest that you talk about it. Speaking from my own personal experiences with parent-child conflicts, it’s best to get these things out in the open so you can heal from them. Otherwise they can, and most likely will, just lead to more pain.”

Kiwi contemplated Madrigal’s words for a few seconds, and in that contemplation she found herself thinking back to the only time she’d spoken to anyone about her dad. She couldn’t remember exactly how long ago it had been, only that it had been while she and Su-Z were on-tour and they’d had one too many celebratory drinks after a show. In their inebriated states they’d started sharing personal stories that they hadn’t told one another yet, and eventually the elder PostCrush girl had told her friend the story about the falling-out she’d had with her father.

The entire memory was fuzzy for Kiwi since she’d been so intoxicated that night, but one thing she did remember was that she did feel slightly better about the incident after sharing her bedlam with Su-Z. So perhaps, she thought, Madrigal’s suggestion to talk about it was a wise one.

“What happened between me and my dad is a bit of a long story,” The PostCrush girl austerely began to explain. “But it all starts when I was five years old. We lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and I mean a really small town, one with just less than eight hundred people in it. It was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone else, so I knew just about every other family in town. Many of the families had kids, a few of them that were my age. But no matter how young or old the kids in those families were I noticed that each one had a dad and a mom, except for me.”

Kiwi could feel a few small tears beginning to form in the corners of her eyes as she talked, but the former popstar paid them no mind as she continued with her tale.

“One day when my dad picked me up after kindergarten I asked him why it was I didn’t have a mom, and he said that it was…it was because my mom went somewhere far away. Naturally I was confused by that answer so I asked him if she’d ever come back, and he…he assured me that one day we’d see her again.”

“But you never did see her, did you?” Madrigal interjected. “And he knew that you never would.”

“Yeah, he knew all right,” Kiwi replied, her voice now filled with rancor. “He knew because he’d watched my mom die as she gave birth to me.”

The tears in the corners of Kiwi’s eyes suddenly began to stream down her cheeks like a pair of mighty rivers, though like before when they’d begun to form the PostCrush girl took no notice of them.

“He lied to me, gave me false hope that I’d someday see my mom,” She continued through her weeping. “And he continued to do so for years. Each and every time I asked him about my mom while I was growing up he gave me the same damn answer.”

“So how did you learn the truth then?” Madrigal solemnly inquired.

“When I saw my mom’s death certificate,” Kiwi replied as she wiped the tears from her face. “I was maybe thirteen or fourteen when I began to question if my dad was lying to me and had decided to try and find out what had happened to my mom for myself. I asked a few relatives and people around town about her but all I could ever get from any of them was what she was like, nothing about where she was or anything like that. It wasn’t until I was eighteen that I accidentally came across my mom’s death certificate while putting something away in my dad’s file cabinet that I’d learned she’d died the day I was born.”

“And I’m guessing that that’s when you two had your falling-out?” Madrigal asked.

“Yep, that’s when,” Kiwi confirmed grievously as fresh tears started to run down her face. “I confronted him about the death certificate and about his consistent lying to me over the years. He apologized profusely for not telling me she was dead but said that he hadn’t lied to me because all those times he’d said we’d see her again he was talking about seeing her again in Heaven or some bullshit like that. Needless to say, I only got more pissed off by that lame-ass excuse. I yelled at him some more until I’d had enough and packed my bags to leave home. My dad pleaded with me to stay but I…I just couldn’t. I left town that night for Baltimare and never looked back.”

“So you haven’t seen you’re dad since that night?” Madrigal then asked.

“No, I haven’t,” Kiwi answered. “But I have spoken to him. One night when Su-Z and I were on the road touring I’d gotten to thinking about the night I’d left home and decided to call my dad to see how he was doing. He picked up and, much to my surprise, we ended up talking for quite a while. We talked about how each of us had been doing and what each of us had been up to since we’d had that big fight, though we never actually talked about the fight itself. We still talk on the phone every now and then to, you know, keep in touch, but there’s no denying that there’s still a lot of…emotional distance between us.”

An uneasy silence fell across the barn after Kiwi finished her somber tale – save for the sounds of the PostCrush girl’s mild sobbing and the cries of a few emu who were still feeling flustered.

“I’m so sorry, Kiwi,” Madrigal eventually broke the silence. “Just so you know, if I could give you a hug right now I would.”

“Thanks,” Kiwi lauded soberly as she finished wiping the last of her tears from her face.

“I know that story wasn’t easy for you to share with me,” Madrigal then said as she got up from her seat. “But I’m glad that you did share it, because now I think we can move forward with finding a way for you to reconcile with Adagio.”

“Huh?” The PostCrush girl uttered as she looked up at Madrigal.

“Believe me, dear, I’d love it if my daughter would just realize that you’re right and she’s wrong, but I guarantee you that she won’t. She’s far too stubborn to even consider the possibility that she’s wrong,” The Dazzlings’ mother replied. “Trust me, the best thing you can do is attempt to placate her, and that starts by first pinpointing where it is your strong distain for lying stems from. And thanks to your story I believe we’ve just done that.”

Kiwi had, in actuality, long ago figured out where it was her strong distain for lying had stemmed from, but given that Madrigal seemed sincerely intent on helping her make amends with Adagio she didn’t point this fact out to the woman. That, and because she was perplexed as to why Madrigal was even discussing any of this at all.

“It seems to me that you have such a low tolerance for people lying and giving false hope because you were lied to and given false hope about seeing your mother for years,” Madrigal stated the obvious as she began to pace back-and-forth in front of Kiwi. “Hmmm…I never thought I’d say this, but given how much Adagio has changed from when she was younger your tragic tale of being lied to for so long might just garner some sympathy from her. Yes, I think if you apologize to her for yelling and explain why it is that lying riles you up so much you just might be able to reconcile with her.”

“Yeah, I kind of doubt that,” Kiwi dissented as she too stood up. “I don’t think Adagio’s angry that I yelled at her, at least not entirely. I’m pretty sure she’s also angry because she thinks I was being so judgmental about how she handled things with Violet - which I have to admit I kind of was.”

“You were in the right, Kiwi, it doesn’t matter how judgmental you were,” Madrigal nonchalantly remarked. “But regardless, I guarantee that if you just apologize to Adagio for yelling at her then she’ll take it as an apology for everything.”

“Seriously?” Kiwi inquired dubiously.

“Trust me, I know my own daughter,” Madrigal replied. “And I know what you’re thinking; ‘But Madrigal, you just said that Adagio has changed so much from when she was younger.’ Well while that may be true, I’d be willing to bet she hasn’t changed that much.”

Madrigal’s averment did little to assuage Kiwi’s skepticism. However, since the PostCrush girl couldn’t come up with any alternatives to try and gain Adagio’s clemency – other than by telling the Dazzling leader that she’d made the right call with Violet, which she adamantly refused to do – she figured that Madrigal’s approach was at least worth a shot.

“I suppose I don’t have anything to lose by trying that,” She admitted tentatively.

“It’ll work, I’m sure of it,” Madrigal assured Kiwi before turning around and heading towards the barn doors. “Now let’s get going, before it gets too late and Adagio goes to bed. I don’t want you to have to wake her up to apologize to her.”

“Um, couldn’t I just wait until morning to apologize to her if she’s already in bed?” Kiwi inquired as she followed Madrigal’s lead.

“Oh you don’t want to wait until morning, dear,” Madrigal replied. “If you let Adagio go to bed angry with you then she might never accept your apology.”

Kiwi got the distinct impression that Madrigal was speaking from personal experience with that last piece of advice.

In no time at all, both Madrigal and Kiwi were out of the barn and on their way back to the house.

“There’s one more thing I need to ask you, Madrigal,” Kiwi informed her companion as they began their short journey.

“And what’s that, dear?” Madrigal replied.

“Why is it you helped me tonight? I mean, at all,” The PostCrush girl inquired.

“Isn’t it obvious, Kiwi?” Madrigal replied. “You saved my life, helping you out tonight was the least I could do to repay you for that.”

The rest of the journey back to the house was primarily spent in silence, but when Kiwi and Madrigal reached the porch the PostCrush girl had a startling revelation that caused her to stop dead in her tracks and break that silence.

“Damn it, I forgot about Su-Z and Sonata,” The former popstar chastised herself. “I’m pretty sure I have to apologize to the two of them too.”

“Perhaps, but I wouldn’t worry too much about Su-Z,” Madrigal said as she turned around to face Kiwi. “She’s your best friend, and I’m sure the two of you have survived worse arguments than the one you had tonight.”

Kiwi had to admit that this was true. She and Su-Z had survived a multitude of arguments over the course of their friendship, ones that were, in fact, far worse than the one they’d had tonight.

“And as for Sonata, I’d worry even less about her,” Madrigal continued, a modicum of enmity now evident within her voice, as she turned back around. “She may seem recherché at times but she’s stronger than she appears.”

“Even still, they’re both owed apologies,” Kiwi insisted as she walked past Madrigal and opened the front door, seemingly unperturbed by the woman’s small but sudden change in tone.

“Good luck,” Madrigal wished the PostCrush girl before fading away with a cool dissolve.

As Kiwi entered the house she noticed that the kitchen and living room were empty, leading her to believe that everyone was still in their rooms. Deciding it best to start by apologizing to Adagio first, she quickly made a beeline for the hallway and stopped when she reached the door to the Dazzling leader’s bedroom. After taking a brief second to take a deep breath and steel herself the PostCrush girl curled her right hand up into a fist and lifted it up to gently knock-on Adagio’s door, but just as she swung her clenched hand forward to deliver the first knock the door suddenly flung open and she accidentally hit Adagio square in the middle of her forehead.

“Ow!” The Dazzling uttered as she rubbed the spot where she’d been struck.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so, so sorry, Adagio!” The PostCrush girl hastily expressed remorse. “I-I swear that was an accident! I came here to apologize to you for earlier and -”

“Kiwi!” Adagio interrupted mirthfully as she wrapped her arms around the elder PostCrush girl in a giant hug.

“Um, okay then. We’re…hugging,” Kiwi said as she tried to wrap her head around what was happening right now.

“You’ll never guess what happened!” Adagio said to Kiwi as she let go of her. “I just checked my voicemail and there’s a message on it from Sugarcoat!”

“Sugarcoat? What did she want?” Kiwi inquired.

“You remember when she said that she’d talk to her mom about seeing if she has any business connections that might be willing to help us?” Adagio replied. “Well apparently one of her mom’s old sorority sisters runs a venture capital firm and has expressed an interest in doing business with us!”

“Wait, are you serious?!” The PostCrush girl asked sanguinely.

“Super serious!” The Dazzling answered fervidly right before drawing the former popstar into another hug. “Isn’t this great, Kiwi?! If this thing works out then we won’t have to go back to living down by the river in that stupid van!”

“Yeah, it’s great news!” Kiwi concurred as she returned Adagio’s hug.

“Uh, what the hell’s going on out here?” The two girls heard Aria’s voice say from just down the hall, causing them to abruptly end their hug.

As Kiwi and Adagio looked down the hallway they saw that Aria was staring at them bewilderingly from the doorway to her room, as well as Sonata and Su-Z from the doorway to Sonata’s room.

Adagio quickly explained what she’d told Kiwi to the other three girls now in the hallway, and when she did numerous more hugs where shared amongst all five girls. After the all the hugging ended the Dazzling leader then instructed everyone to follow her out to the barn so they could get it ready for their visit from the venture capital firm, much to the puzzlement of each of the other four girls.

“Um, the visit isn’t happening tomorrow, is it?” Su-Z inquired.

“Oh goodness no. Sugarcoat said in her message that it probably won’t happen until next week at the earliest,” Adagio hastily informed the group. “But we need to get started tidying up the barn now so that it looks its best by the time our guests arrive.”

“Oh for crying out loud,” Aria mumbled under her breath.

“Now come on!” Adagio reiterated as she headed for the front door.

“Should we…follow her?” Sonata asked the remaining girls in the hallway.

“Yeah, probably,” Aria reluctantly capitulated as she started to make her way up the hall. “I’d rather not risk pissing her off twice in one day.”

Kiwi, Sonata, and Su-Z all silently agreed with Aria’s mentality and each decided it best to follow Adagio out to the barn as well. Though before they left the hallway Kiwi took the opportunity to issue a couple of brief yet heartfelt apologies to Su-Z and Sonata, which thankfully for the elder PostCrush girl were accepted by the other two girls. The three of them then caught up with Aria and headed out the front door together, and as they did Kiwi made two mental notes to herself for later; apologize to Adagio sometime before the night was over and find a book or something to help her work on not being so judgmental so as to avoid future arguments with the Dazzling leader – or anyone for that matter.

As Kiwi stepped out into the brisk nighttime air and started heading towards the barn once more, her mind began to recollect the evening’s events. Specifically, the events involving Madrigal. It was still a little difficult for the PostCrush girl to believe that the Dazzlings’ mother had appeared before her as a phantasm and offered to help her make amends with Adagio, and even though Madrigal had claimed her reason for doing so was out of gratitude for saving her life Kiwi couldn’t help but feel that the woman might have had ulterior motives. After all, the Dazzlings themselves had said their mother was notoriously deceitful. But as the former popstar recalled her recent happenings with Madrigal she couldn’t conceive of any motives for the woman’s actions other than to show appreciation. And even though Madrigal’s advice and insights had proven less-than-beneficial in the end, she was still thankful that they’d been given.

“Hurry up, slowpokes!” Adagio suddenly hollered over to her and the others from right in front of the barn. “We’re burning moonlight!”

“Ugh,” Aria uttered irksomely in response.

“C-Coming, Dagi,” Sonata replied as she picked up the pace a little.

All-in-all, Kiwi still had mixed feelings about having Madrigal inside her head. But given how farcical the Dazzlings could be at times she figured that having someone around who could help her deal with them might not be such a bad thing, even if they existed within her mind.

“Come on, we better hurry,” Su-Z said to her.

“Yeah, we probably should,” Kiwi agreed just before she and her friend hustled over to the barn.

Meanwhile, within the back of Kiwi’s mind, Madrigal Moonlight watched from behind the PostCrush girl’s eyes as the former popstar hastily made her way over to her daughters.

“So, you’ve never had a mother, huh, Kiwi?” The Dazzlings’ mother said to herself as a small but undoubtedly mischievous smile crossed her face. “Interesting.”

Sympathy From The Devil (Part 1)

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“No…no...no,” Aria Blaze said to herself as she sat at the kitchen table and scrolled through her phone. “No…no…yes.”

Almost immediately after Aria uttered the word ‘yes’, a small and high-pitched yipping sound emanated from Princess Thunder Guts, who was seated in the chair to the girl’s right.

“What? You don’t think I should choose this guy?” The Dazzling asked Su-Z’s dog.

Princess Thunder Guts let out another small and high-pitched yip, followed promptly by about half a dozen more yips.

“Oh come on. This guy’s perfect,” Aria replied as she showed the petite pooch her phone. “Just look at him.”

For a few seconds, the pig-tailed girl held her phone down near Princess Thunder Guts’ face as the small pup stared silently at it. Eventually the dainty dog let out a cute yet intimidating growl, prompting Aria to bring the device back up to her own face.

“All right, all right. Yeesh,” The Dazzling capitulated. “If you feel that strongly about it I won’t go with him.”

At this, Princess Thunder Guts let out a high-pitched, happy-sounding yip.

Feeling slightly annoyed by her K-9 companion’s vehement disapproval of her choice, Aria reluctantly went back to scrolling through her phone in the hopes of finding someone else who would suit her needs. Someone else who would, in all hopefulness, also meet with the approval of Princess Thunder Guts.

As she scrolled, the Dazzling tried to recall how exactly it had come to be that she and the small dog had entered into their consociation together, but to no fruition. However, given the petite pooch’s uncanny ability to select propitious guys she didn’t really care. Favorable results were favorable results, and that was the only thing that mattered to her. Even if those results came courtesy of Su-Z’s pet.

“So this one is the bishop, right?” Sonata Dusk could be heard saying from the living room.

“Right,” Su-Z replied.

“And it’s the one I can only move diagonally, right?” The youngest Dazzling then inquired.

“Right,” Su-Z once again replied.

Intrigued by the conversation transpiring between her younger sister and the younger of the two PostCrush girls, Aria ceased scrolling through her phone for a moment and looked up from the device to peer in to the other room. Much to her surprise, she saw Sonata and Su-Z seated around the coffee table with a chess board placed between them – as well as Kiwi seated a little further away reading a book, but this wasn’t all that surprising.

“And what’s this castle-looking piece called again?” Sonata then asked.

“It’s called a rook. Though sometimes it’s just called a castle,” Su-Z answered as she picked up a black rook. “This is the one you can only move up, down, or to the side.”

“I see,” Sonata uttered fixedly as she brought a hand up to her chin.

As Aria continued to watch the scene between Sonata and Su-Z unfold, she tried to figure out the reason why it was happening in the first place, but couldn’t for the life of her discern what that reason was. It was no secret that Su-Z enjoyed playing all sorts of games – pretty much everything from Go Fish to Kropki – so seeing her with a chess board wasn’t too out of the ordinary. Sonata, however, wasn’t near as big a game-enthusiast by comparison. Her younger sister enjoyed the occasional game of cards or checkers as much as the next person, but never once had the girl expressed an interest in chess. Had Sonata asked Su-Z to teach her how to play chess? Had Su-Z simply asked Sonata to play the game with her? Aria had no idea.

“Now how do you move the horsy again?” Sonata asked as she put down the rook and picked up a knight.

Normally this sort of inane chatter from her younger sister would cause Aria to retreat to the quiet solitude of her room, though not this time. This time she remained right where she was. Not just because she was perfectly content sitting at the kitchen table, but also because she was all but certain the scenario being played out before her would soon turn comedic. If Sonata was struggling just to learn what some of the chess pieces were called then it stood to reason she’d lose a match in a spectacularly quick and hilarious fashion, and when she did lose that match Aria wanted to close by to witness it.

And so, the pig-tailed girl went back to scrolling through her phone but made sure to keep a fraction of her attention on Sonata and Su-Z’s conversation. Though that fraction of attention didn’t remain with the two girls for long, as soon it was diverted towards the hallway when Aria heard the unmistakable sound of aggravated footsteps emanating from within it.

“Aria!” Adagio Dazzle hollered as she emerged from the hallway, garnering not only the full attention of Aria but of Sonata, Su-Z, and Kiwi as well.

“Here we go,” Aria drearily said to Princess Thunder Guts as Adagio made her way over to them, knowing full well what it was her older sister was coming over to discuss with her.

“I thought I told you to go out and find a job today,” The eldest Dazzling heatedly said to her once she reached the kitchen table.

“Yeah, you told me that, Adagio,” Aria replied in a surprisingly calm fashion. “And when you did I thought I’d told you that I’d already found a job.”

The middle Dazzling then got up from her seat and presented her phone to her older sister.

“See? I’m working right now,” She added.

Adagio looked at Aria’s phone and studied it for a couple of seconds before giving a short, exhausted sigh and a facepalm.

“For the hundredth time, Aria: playing daily fantasy sports on your phone is not a job,” The poofy-haired girl told her younger sister as she removed her hand from her face.

“Says you,” Aria replied, somewhat haughtily, as she took her phone back and retook her seat. “Because in case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve won $446 so far this week.”

Almost as soon as Aria said this, Princess Thunder Guts let out a couple of piqued-sounding yips.

“I mean, we’ve won $446 so far this week,” The Dazzling corrected herself.

A couple of happy-sounding yips came from Princess Thunder Guts immediately after Aria’s emendation.

“Uh-huh,” Adagio then uttered, sounding less-than-impressed. “And how much did you bet to win that $446?”

“Uh, w-well…” Aria replied tentatively. “I think we’d bet somewhere around…$430?”

“$430, huh?” Adagio said. “So if my math is accurate, then in actuality you’ve only won $16 this week, correct?”

Aria just silently averted her gaze from Adagio in response.

The need to facepalm herself again quickly came over Adagio, but thankfully she resisted the urge to act on that need. The eldest Dazzling didn’t know which was worse; the fact that Aria believed playing fantasy sports with Su-Z’s dog constituted her having a job, or the fact that she believed she was truly prospering at playing said fantasy sports. But regardless of which fact was actually worse, she knew that she had to make a few different, more crucial facts clear to her headstrong sibling.

“Look, Aria,” She said levelheadedly as she took a seat at the table directly across from the girl. “I get that you don’t like the idea of having to find another job, but you knew that was going to be the case when you said you didn’t want to continue being the librarian at CHS.”

“No, I didn’t,” Aria replied irksomely without looking up from her phone. “I didn’t know that because when you said that only one of us would continue being librarian you never said anything about whoever said no having to find a new job.”

Adagio was 95% certain that she had mentioned that when she’d spoken with her sisters about their employment situation, but rather than argue with Aria about it directly she decided to address the issue in a more indirect fashion.

“If I didn’t say that you and Sonata needed to find new jobs after you both told me you didn’t want to stay on as librarian, then why do you think it was Sonata went out and got that job at Cybil’s Retro Candy Store?” She asked her sister.

“Because she’s an idiot?” Aria replied bluntly, still without looking up from her phone.

“Hey!” Sonata hollered from the living room.

“Well regardless, since you said you didn’t want to stay on as librarian you need to find another job,” Adagio informed her sibling.

“Why?” Aria inquired. “We got that venture capitalist person coming in a couple of weeks to invest in the farm don’t we? Didn’t you say that once we get money from them and access to their logistics network or whatever that we’d be fine?”

“If we get money from them and access to their logistics network we’ll be fine!” The elder Dazzling pointedly corrected her younger sister. “We don’t have any guarantee that they’ll want to do business with us!”

Feeling taken aback by Adagio’s sudden change in temperament, Aria finally looked up from her phone and made eye contact with her sister.

“And if it turns out that that venture capital firm doesn’t want to do business with us, then...” Adagio continued before cutting herself off and giving a dejected sigh. “…then we’ll most likely end up losing the farm before too long.”

At this, Aria put down her phone entirely and gave her full attention to Adagio.

“You heard what Sugarcoat said after she looked at our finances, Aria,” The Dazzling leader continued, though now very somberly. “If we don’t bring in more money soon then we’re going to lose everything. Believe me, I want this whole venture capital thing to work out just as much as you do, but we both know that we can’t bet the farm on that happening.”

Adagio’s words began to pierce Aria’s being like a dagger. Not just because of how dire they were, but also because of how truthful they were. She’d been there when Sugarcoat had explained how grave their money situation was and knew full well that their home was in jeopardy. But just because she knew this didn’t mean that she’d accepted it.

Every time Aria had thought about the possibility that she and her sisters could lose the emu farm she’d just downplayed it by telling herself that things would work out well in the end. After all, most times these sorts of things did. Facing down their mother at the Overlook, getting their job as CHS librarians after being let go as motivational speakers, even inadvertently using most of their money to buy the farm; all situations that’d had satisfying ends. But no matter how hard the Dazzling tried to convince herself that this was another one of those times she found it impossible to do so, in no small part because at the moment she couldn’t stop thinking about a time when things hadn’t.

The death of Glen, Aria’s favorite emu, still haunted the Dazzling, even after she’d had a long and bizarre conversation with Death herself about it. The fact that he was gone though wasn’t why his death continued to haunt her, it was the feeling that she’d failed him. She’d tried so hard to help the ailing emu overcome his sickness, but despite all her best efforts he’d still passed away. In the time since then she’d come to understand that, in all likelihood, there was nothing that could have been done to save him. It had simply been his time. But even still, the pig-tailed girl felt a sense of guilt over her beloved emu’s death. And she knew that she’d feel that same sense of guilt again if she failed the remaining emu under her care.

“We need money and we need it now, and that means all three of us bringing home paychecks,” Adagio went on. “Because if even one of us doesn’t pull her weight then we’ll probably wind up living back in that damn van.”

The dagger composed of Adagio’s words pierced Aria deeper and deeper with each sentence the elder Dazzling spoke, and it wasn’t long before that dagger reached the younger Dazzling’s core. As much as Aria hated to admit it, Adagio was right. She needed to find a job that provided a steadier and more lucrative paycheck, or risk failing both her emu and her family.

“All right, all right. Enough with the guilt trip, Adagio,” She said in her typical miffed fashion as she got up from the table. “I get it, okay? I’ll go out and find a job already.”

Wanting to get away from Adagio as much as anything else right now, Aria started making her way over towards the table by the front door where the car keys were laying. As she did, she began to think of places where she could possibly work given her lack of credentials. The first few options that came to mind weren’t exactly ideal, but before she could think of any better ones she found her attention diverted elsewhere.

“Hang on, Aria,” Adagio abruptly called out to her, causing the middle Dazzling to stop dead in her tracks before suddenly turning towards the living room. “Hey, Kiwi! Come here a second!”

Upon hearing her name called out, the elder of the two PostCrush girls looked up from her book.

“Sorry, what was that?” She hollered back.

“Come here a second!” Adagio reiterated.

Kiwi dawned a perplexed expression for a quick moment but did as Adagio had requested. She put her book down on a nearby table, got up from her seat, and quickly joined Adagio in the kitchen.

“What’s up?” She asked once she’d reached the Dazzling leader.

“You have any plans for today?” Adagio inquired.

“Not especially, no,” Kiwi replied. “Why do you ask?”

“I need you to do me a favor,” The poofy-haired girl answered. “I need you to go with Aria and make sure she actually looks for a job.”

“What?!” Aria retorted heatedly, so much so that it garnered the attention of Sonata and Su-Z.

“Um…I guess I could do that for you,” Kiwi replied hesitantly. “But, um, are you sure that that would be…necessary?”

“Unfortunately yes,” Adagio answered before turning to face Aria. “You see, Aria has this habit of saying she’ll do things and then only pretending that she did them.”

As much as Aria wanted to tempestuously refute Adagio’s claim, she knew that she had little to no ground to do so. She had, in the past, falsely claimed to have done things her sisters had asked her to do, like pay the electric bill or feed Sonata’s goldfish. But all of those instances had been before the Battle of the Bands, and since then she’d adopted a greater policy of being honest with her siblings that she felt she’d adhered to – for the most part.

So, needless to say, the pig-tailed girl felt that her older sister asking Kiwi to accompany her on her job search was completely and utterly unwarranted.

“If you’re so concerned about Aria actually looking for a job then why don’t you go with her?” Kiwi asked Adagio, a bit more confrontationally than she’d intended.

“I’m too busy today to go myself,” The Dazzling leader acutely replied. “I have to finish going over some paperwork for when that venture capitalist person comes.”

Almost defeatedly, Kiwi averted her gaze from Adagio.

The PostCrush girl had hoped that by pointing out the fact that the Dazzling leader herself could accompany Aria she would be spared the impossible choice of having to either refuse Adagio’s request or go with an irate Aria. One of the last things she wanted to do was get on Adagio’s bad side again by denying the girl’s request, especially so soon after they’d made-up. But at the same time she also didn’t want to get on Aria’s bad side by agreeing to the Dazzling leader’s petition. She knew it wasn’t wise to be around the middle Dazzling when she was upset, but more than that she just didn’t want it to seem like she was taking sides against her. Of all the Dazzlings, Aria was the one she felt closest to, and she didn’t want to jeopardize that closeness by going along with something she knew the pig-tailed girl was adamantly against.

“You really don’t trust me to actually look for a job, Adagio?” Aria then asked her sister, in a manner that suggested she was asking rhetorically.

“Like I said, you have a habit of being deceitful, Aria,” Adagio replied bluntly.

As much as Aria wanted to remonstrate her older sister, she knew that doing so would be futile. Once Adagio was fixed on something there was no changing her mind. The thought of simply dashing out of the house and leaving before Kiwi had a chance to follow her briefly crossed the Dazzling’s mind, but she knew this too would be a pointless endeavor. Even if she found a job while out on her own, Adagio would simply accompany her to her first day of work to confirm said job was real. And once she realized this she concurrently concluded that having Kiwi go with her now was ultimately the best option open to her, even if it was one that she still wasn’t happy about.

“Tch. Fine, whatever,” Aria acidulously capitulated as she once more headed for the table where the car keys were laying. “Let’s go, Kiwi.”

“Uh, um…okay,” Kiwi replied as she quickly followed behind Aria.

In no time at all Aria had the car keys within her hand, and once Kiwi was right behind her she aggressively flung the front door open and proceeded to step out onto the porch.

“Okay, so to win this game I have to get my king from my end of the board over to yours, right?” She heard Sonata say just before Kiwi closed the door behind them.

As Aria made her way over to the car, she silently wished that she was sticking around the house so she could watch as Sonata attempted to play chess. With the embittered mood she now found herself in, she really felt in need of a good laugh.

“Seriously, just…fuck Adagio,” Aria vented from her seat at Chaus’ bar as she slammed her now empty glass down on the counter. “I am so goddamn sick of her thinking she’s the boss of me just because she’s older.”

“I’m not sure being older has much to do with it,” Kiwi replied from right next to her. “I think she just likes being bossy.”

“Yeah, probably,” The Dazzling concurred before diverting her attention to the other end of the bar. “Yo, bartender! Another Negroni over here!”

Aria and Kiwi had been at Chaus for about forty minutes now, after spending approximately four and a half hours out-and-about Canterlot City seeking a job for the Dazzling. And within those four and a half hours the two girls had visited precisely twenty-two businesses within the city that, in one form or another, had advertised they were hiring. Of those twenty-two businesses, sixteen of them had turned Aria away outright. Only six had granted her an interview, and of those six interviews exactly zero of them had resulted in the Dazzling getting a job.

And so, after spending the better part of an afternoon visiting nearly two dozen businesses, Aria remained not only unemployed but also thoroughly pissed off.

“Here you go, miss,” The bartender said as she handed Aria her third Negroni of the day.

“Thanks,” The Dazzling replied before taking a sip of the Italian cocktail and then returning her attention back to Kiwi. “And fuck all those restaurant and store managers while we’re at it.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Kiwi said before taking a sip of her own drink. “I can’t believe how rude and inconsiderate some of those people were to you, especially that one woman who said she wouldn’t hire you because she thought you were suffering from, what did she call it again…‘resting bitch face’?”

“Yep, that was it,” Aria corrected her friend. “I hear that one a lot.”

“For real?” Kiwi inquired, sounding quite testy. “Geez, what the hell is wrong with people?”

“Beats me,” Aria answered before taking another sip of her drink.

“Just…why do people always have to judge others by their appearance?” The PostCrush girl then asked. “I mean, yeah, you do have a bit of a brusque expression most of the time, Aria, -”

“Gee, thanks, Kiwi,” The Dazzling cut-in sarcastically.

“But you’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met,” Kiwi finished her sentence, much to Aria’s surprise. “You were the one who consoled me after my awful first day working on the farm, you empathized with me when Adagio and I had that fight over how she handled things with Violet, and, well… overall you’ve just been a really great friend to me. So it just pisses me off that so many people would judge you without even trying to get to know you first, because you’re a really amazing person that anyone would be lucky to have in their life.”

Within seconds, Aria’s face became redder than a Santorini tomato, causing the Dazzling to quickly turn her head away from the PostCrush girl out of a sense of embarrassment. She wasn’t used to receiving such kind words from others, and despite the examples Kiwi had just given to support her belief being true she questioned if she was truly deserving of such high praise. Though regardless, she couldn’t deny the feeling of elation she felt from hearing those words given the shitty day she’d been having.

“T-Thanks, Kiwi,” Aria replied sincerely as she turned back to face the girl.

Kiwi couldn’t help but let out a small, closemouthed giggle when she noticed how flushed Aria’s face was, finding both it and the fact that the Dazzling was clearly flustered cute.

“You’re welcome,” She replied with élan as she raised her glass for a toast, which Aria swiftly reciprocated.

“Well, if it isn’t Aria Blaze and Kiwi Lollipop,” A familiar voice suddenly said from the Dazzling’s left.

Both Aria and Kiwi immediately turned their attention to where the voice had come from to see none other than Chaus’ owner, Lucy Beel, now seated at the bar with them.

“Oh. Hey, Lucy,” Aria listlessly greeted the woman before returning to her Negroni.

“H-Hi, Ms. Beel,” Kiwi then greeted the woman.

“Please, just call me Lucy, dear,” The club owner amiably told the PostCrush girl before turning her attention to Aria. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure of you two dropping by my club today?”

“Just needed a drink,” The Dazzling replied. “And this place happened to be the closest spot to get one. So, yeah.”

“Oh, is that all?” Lucy then inquired, sounding facetiously disappointed. “Well that’s a shame. I was hoping you’d popped in because you’d reconsidered performing here. Especially you, Kiwi.”

“M-Me?” The PostCrush girl asked.

“But of course you,” Lucy affirmed. “I’d assumed that after Su-Z’s recent visit the next time I’d see you was because you two had talked and decided to take me up on my offer.”

“Wait, hold up,” Kiwi interjected. “Su-Z was here recently? When? And how come?”

“Sorry, I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss the details of our little meeting,” Lucy informed the PostCrush girl. “But at the end of it I’d asked her to let you know that my offer to have PostCrush perform here was still open. Though I’m guessing from this conversation that she didn’t do that.”

“No, she didn’t,” The PostCrush girl replied rather sourly, right before quickly downing a good portion of her drink.

“Well it was great seeing you, Lucy. Really,” Aria chimed in disingenuously. “But if you don’t mind I’d like to enjoy my drink in peace so I can try and figure out how I’m going to tell Adagio that I’m apparently unemployable.”

As soon as Aria brought up the subject of her employment woes, a brief smirk quickly crossed Lucy’s face. One that went unnoticed by both the Dazzling and PostCrush girl.

“In need of a job, huh?” The woman said. “You know, I might be able to help you out with that. It just so happens that I’m in need of -”

“My sisters and I aren’t performing here!” Aria cut the club owner off.

“Good guess, but no,” Lucy replied. “What I’m in need of is someone to act as a…courier of sorts for me.”

Both Aria and Kiwi’s ears spontaneously perked up when they heard Lucy say this, most notably Aria’s. The Dazzling had been all-but-certain that the help Lucy was going to offer her was having Adagio, Sonata, and herself perform at Chaus since she’d been trying to get them to do so for some time, so the fact that the club owner had brought up a different propoundment had thrown her for a bit of a loop.

Upon first consideration, working as a courier didn’t sound too bad to Aria. She’d get to drive a truck, be out-and-about town instead of being cooped up in a store or restaurant all day, and, most appealingly, she’d get to work alone. The whole thing wasn’t exactly what she would’ve considered a dream job, but it at least sounded like it was a job she could tolerate doing. However, there were a couple of factors about the position that made her feel leery about it; she’d be working for the notoriously scrupulous Lucy Beel, and the way the woman had described the position was, to say the least, perplexing.

“’Courier of sorts’?” Aria said. “Care to elaborate on that, Lucy?”

“My, my. Aren’t we feeling overly skeptical today,” The club owner replied jocularly. “What I mean by ‘of sorts’ is that you wouldn’t be doing many deliveries, mostly just pick-ups. And usually just one pick-up at a time.”

“Mostly just pick-ups, huh?” The Dazzling echoed as she raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like that’s more the work of a gofer than a courier.”

“Tomayto, tomahto,” Lucy uttered dismissively. “Regardless of what you want to call the job, I can assure you that the pay for it is extremely generous.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it is,” Aria replied doubtfully before returning to her drink.

“Now your skepticism is just hurting my feelings, Aria,” Lucy playfully told the Dazzling before grabbing a nearby cocktail napkin on the counter with one hand and pulling a pen out of one of her pockets with the other.

Within the blink of an eye the club owner scribbled something down on the napkin and slid it over to Aria, though the Dazzling seemed less than enthusiastic about assaying it. For a few seconds all she focused on was finishing up her drink, and when said drink was eventually finished she put her glass down and took a look at what Lucy had written on the piece of paper.

“This how much the job pays per month?” She inquired, sounding unimpressed.

“How much the job pays per pick-up,” Lucy informed her.

In that moment Aria felt a sense of relief that she’d finished her drink when she had, because if she hadn’t she might have very well performed a spit take. Almost instinctively, she looked Lucy square in the eyes with a stunned expression that silently asked the woman if she was being serious, and when Lucy’s countenance remained unchanged the Dazzling knew that she was.

“Aria?” Kiwi chimed in concernedly.

The pig-tailed girl said nothing in response but did slide Lucy’s napkin across the counter some more so that Kiwi could see what was written on it.

“W-Whoa,” The PostCrush girl uttered in disbelief.

“And just so you know, there’s usually somewhere around four or five things a month that I need picked up,” Lucy then said.

Both Aria and Kiwi could feel themselves becoming even more dazed after hearing this. They each did some quick mental math and deduced that four or five pick-ups a month times the amount Lucy had written down equated to quite a hefty sum of money. So hefty, in fact, that they were fairly certain that they wouldn’t need to worry about getting that venture capitalist firm to do business with them in order to become financially stable. Heck, they probably wouldn’t even need to worry about Adagio and Sonata bringing in paychecks of their own either. Neither one of them had to say it, but the Dazzling and PostCrush girl could tell simply by looking at one another that they were both thinking the same thing; this was an opportunity that needed to be taken advantage of.

However, despite the apparent earnestness of Lucy’s offer to her, Aria remained wary of the woman. Lucy had tried to screw her and her sisters over in the past with that performance contract, and she wasn’t about to agree to anything the club owner put before her without first getting a few things straight.

“Okay, I’ll admit I’m interested in the job,” She conceded. “But I have a couple of conditions I’ll need met before I agree to any of this.”

“Glad to see you’re finally starting to come around,” Lucy replied, almost mirthfully. “Name your conditions.”

“One, no contracts,” The Dazzling started off. “And two, I get paid by the pick-up; half before and half when it’s done.”

“Aaand we’re right back to being overly skeptical again,” The club owner said with a sigh, right before extending her hand out to Aria. “But very well. I agree to your conditions.”

“All right then,” Aria said as she took ahold of Lucy’s hand and shook it. “So how’s this going to work exactly? You just going to call me whenever you need something picked up?”

“Pretty much,” Lucy said as she and Aria ended their handshake. “Though for now you can just follow me.”

“Huh?” The Dazzling uttered.

“There’s something I need picked up right now,” Lucy clarified imposingly as she got up from her seat. “So if you’d follow me up to my office we can quickly go over the details and you can be on your way.”

The fact that Lucy had failed to mention that she’d be starting her ‘courier’ job right this minute didn’t sit well with Aria. It wasn’t that going on a pick-up right now was going to conflict with any previous plans she’d had, because she hadn’t any, but it was just the simple case that her new boss had waited until after she’d agreed to the job to share this information with her that left a sour taste in her mouth. That, and she didn’t care for how imperious Lucy was now sounding.

“Okay, lead the way,” She replied, sucking up her acerbic feelings, as she too got up from her seat.

“Um, I guess I’ll just hang around here until you’re done, Aria,” Kiwi suddenly chimed in.

Upon hearing Kiwi’s declaration, Aria silently chided herself for neglecting to think of her friend in this situation. In all likelihood she’d need the car to go do Lucy’s pick-up, which meant that Kiwi would, as she eluded to, be stuck at Chaus until she returned. The thought of getting the girl a ride through a ride-share app quickly crossed her mind, but after the horror story Adagio had told them from when she’d used a ride-sharing app to get to CHS one time she really didn’t want to do that. The Dazzling’s mind then wandered to the possibility of taking Kiwi with her to do the pick-up. She wasn’t sure if Lucy would be okay with that though, but she figured she had nothing to lose by asking if it was.

“Oh don’t be silly, Kiwi. You’re welcome to come up with us,” Lucy spoke up before Aria had a chance to say anything. “In fact, if you don’t mind there’s a job I’d like to talk to you about while Aria’s out doing her pick-up.”

“R-Really?!” Kiwi replied excitedly as she shot up from her seat, having a pretty good idea what job it was Lucy wished to discuss with her.

“Really,” Lucy affirmed right before turning around. “Now come, this way.”

Part of Aria wanted to tell Kiwi that she shouldn’t join her and Lucy in the club owner’s office. Much like the PostCrush girl, she also had a pretty good idea what job it was Lucy wished to discuss with her, and she didn’t like it one bit. One of the last things she wanted was to see her friend get screwed over by one of Lucy’s infamous contracts like she and her sisters almost had been. However, she chose to not to raise any opposition verbally for one very simple reason; she had no real right too. If Lucy wanted to offer Kiwi a contract then it was Kiwi’s choice and Kiwi’s choice alone to decide whether she would hear the woman out and then do whatever she pleased with said contract. The Dazzling wasn’t going to be like her older sister and tell the PostCrush girl what to do. Though she wasn’t going to just let Kiwi walk into the lion’s den without a friendly little reminder either.

“Hey,” She whispered to her friend as they both began to follow Lucy up to her office. “Don’t forget what Adagio and I told you about Lucy and contracts.”

“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten,” Kiwi whispered back.

Aria simply nodded in reply.

Within no time, the three women quickly crossed through the club, ascended to the top floor via Lucy’s private elevator, and found themselves walking through the attenuated antechamber leading to Lucy’s office. Though about half-way through the narrow vestibule they each heard a voice cry out from the room that lied ahead, causing them to give pause.

“Will you calm down already?!” The voice said.

“Oh terrific,” Lucy remarked sarcastically, arousing the curiosity of both Aria and Kiwi.

“Uh, who was that just now?” Aria wondered aloud.

“And why did they sound so agitated?” Kiwi added.

“That’s just an associate of mine,” Lucy answered in a very enervated manner before continuing onwards toward her office. “And I’m guessing she sounds agitated because she’s still struggling with the last job I gave her.”

Aria and Kiwi exchanged a couple of confused and anxious looks with one another that seemed to suggest both of them were unsure if they should continue to follow Lucy or not. Though since neither girl raised any such concern vocally, they each quickly disregarded their agita and proceeded once more to tail the club owner.

A few seconds later the three women reached their destination, and when they did the Dazzling and PostCrush girl initially found themselves in awe of Lucy’s office, so much so that they stopped dead in their tracks. Neither of them had seen a room so opulent and grandiose before. Even Kiwi, who had once owned one of the most expensive penthouses in Baltimare, found it hard to believe how lavish the room was. However, this sense of amazement at the room’s high-level of extravagance that she and Aria were feeling quickly became overshadowed by a sense of curiosity when they each noticed a white-haired girl wearing sunglasses near the center of the room who was clasping a large, jostling animal carrier in her arms.

“Problems, Justice?” Lucy asked the girl as she made her way over to her desk.

“No, no. It’s all under control,” Justice replied, though unconvincingly, as the carrier continued to jostle vigorously within her grasp. “I mean, he did get out of the carrier and I had a liiiittle trouble getting him back in it, but we’re cool now.”

A low and shrill sound unlike anything Aria or Kiwi had ever heard then emitted from the carrier, causing Justice to bring the front of it up to her face.

“We’re cool now, right?” The girl asked the mysterious creature within, in an incredibly stern and intimidating manner.

At this, a doleful-sounding whimper could then be heard coming from the carrier.

“Yep, we’re cool!” Justice informed Lucy as she lowered the carrier from her face and placed it on a nearby chair.

Feeling curious as to what it was that was inside the carrier, Aria and Kiwi both discreetly peered over towards it as they approached Lucy’s desk. However, the dim lighting of the room made it difficult for them to see the mysterious animal held within it. All they were able to see was a pair of eerie red and black eyes that soon met their own, and as soon as they did both of them quickly averted their gaze away from the carrier and picked up their pace ever-so-slightly.

“I suppose introductions are in order,” Lucy said as the Dazzling and PostCrush girl each took a seat in front of her desk. “Aria, Kiwi, this is -”

“I’m Justice, former High Prosecutor of Hell,” Justice interjected as she quickly made her way over to the group, took ahold of Kiwi’s hand, and began to shake it fervently. “Damn glad to meet you.”

“L-Likewise,” Kiwi replied, trying her best to maintain her composure as her arm was forcibly flailed up and down.

“Hey,” The Dazzling simply said as Justice ceased shaking Kiwi’s hand, causing her to swiftly place both of her hands in her pockets.

With Justice’s ardent and overly-aggressive salutation now complete, both Aria and Kiwi noticed a few things about the girl that they found…peculiar, namely the two small, black horns with rounded tips coming out of her head and the black arrow-tipped tail protruding from her lower back. Kiwi found these things to be perplexing but more so disquieting, so she chose to simply pretend as if they weren’t there. Aria, however, couldn’t help but find them intriguing. The Dazzling was no stranger to seeing such unusual appendages on a person, but it never crossed her mind that they might be real. She just assumed that they were really good accessories to some demon-themed cosplay Justice was wearing.

“Thank you for that spirited greeting, Justice,” Lucy caustically told her associate. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get down to the business at hand.”

“Okie dokie, Boss,” Justice replied as she hoisted herself up onto the end of Lucy’s desk and took a seat upon it. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Both Aria and Kiwi noticed Lucy give a not-so-discreet eyeroll before she started talking.

“So as for the pick-up, Aria,” The club owner began to say. “The package is at an office building about twelve blocks east of here. You and Justice will go up to the seventeenth floor of that building and -”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Me and Justice?” Aria cut the woman off before doing a double-take at Justice and then pointing to the girl. “You’re saying she’s coming along with me?”

“Well technically, you’re going along with her,” Lucy replied.

Needless to say, Aria wasn’t happy to hear this. It was bad enough that she was now going to have company on her pick-up after being led to believe that she’d be working alone, but add the fact that she wasn’t even going to be the lead woman performing the job to that and she was downright vexed by the slight she felt Lucy had just dealt her. So much so that for a moment she gave serious consideration to getting up and walking out of the club owner’s office right now.

However, the dollar amount that Lucy had written on the cocktail napkin crept its way into the forefront of Aria’s mind, and as the Dazzling thought about how much that dollar amount could help her family and her emu she knew that she couldn’t walk away from it, no matter how affronted she may be feeling right now.

“Really wish you’d said something about this downstairs, Lucy,” She told the woman, making no attempt to hide her discontent.

“I didn’t say anything about this until just now?” Lucy replied, clearly feigning ignorance. “Oh, well my apologies for that.”

It took all of Aria’s self-control not to shoot Lucy a very disdainful look upon hearing this.

“Though don’t worry, this pick-up should be the only one you and Justice do together,” Lucy continued. “I just need you to accompany Justice on this particular pick-up because she requires someone to help her verify the item you’ll be retrieving for me.”

Just then, the club owner looked over at Justice with an expression of pity and pique plastered all over her face.

“That, and because Justice has been having some difficulty picking up even the simplest of things for me lately,” She added.

“Aw come on, Lucy. You’re not still hung up on that coffee order from the other day, are ya?” Justice asked the woman. “I swear, I heard you say that you wanted a nice coffee.”

“Ice coffee! I said I wanted an ice coffee!” Lucy fervidly corrected her. “Honestly, Justice, I’m starting to think you’re blind and deaf.”

“Nah, still just blind,” Justice replied. “Though I do think all those thrash metal concerts I’ve been going to lately have been affecting my hearing a bit. Or maybe I just got a lot of wax build-up in my ears, hard to say.”

Despite her continued displeasure at having to accompany Justice for this pick-up, hearing that the girl was blind helped Aria at least understand why this was the case. If Justice was blind then it only made sense that she would need someone to help her make sure that she was picking up the correct item.

“Well regardless, you and Aria will be doing this pick-up together,” Lucy told Justice before turning her attention back to the Dazzling. “Now as I was saying, you’ll pick up the package from the seventeenth floor of an office building about twelve blocks east of here. It’s a place Justice is familiar with, so you don’t have to worry about knowing exactly where it is you’re going.”

The club owner then reached underneath her desk, pulled out a small, gray carrying case, and placed it atop the desk.

“Once you’re at the pick-up spot, you’ll hand over this case and you’ll be given the package,” Lucy continued as she slid the case over to Aria. “After that you simply have to bring the package back here to me and you’ll receive your money.”

“I’ll receive half my money,” Aria corrected the woman. “We agreed that I’d be paid half before doing the job and half when it’s done, remember?”

“Oh yes, yes. Of course,” Lucy replied dismissively as she opened one of her desk drawers and withdrew a good-sized stack of cash from it.

The Dazzling, as well as Kiwi, watched intently as Lucy flipped through the bundle of money in her hand. Each of them found it surprising that the club owner would keep such a large amount of cash just lying around in her desk drawer, even if that desk drawer was located in a room accessible only via a private, code-activated elevator.

“There we are,” Lucy said as she pulled a few bills from the wad of cash and handed them to Aria. “I believe this is half the amount we agreed upon.”

After a quick count of the money she’d just been handed, Aria confirmed that it was indeed half the amount she and Lucy had agreed to.

“Thanks,” The Dazzling said as she placed the money in her pocket.

“Well now that that’s all squared away, I think it’s about time the two of you got going,” Lucy then said to Aria and Justice.

“Yeah, probably,” Justice replied as she got up from her seat on Lucy’s desk and started to make her way over to the elevator. “Come on, Aria, let’s do this thing!”

Aria said nothing as she got up from her seat to follow Justice, though she did shoot Kiwi a quick look to try and wordlessly remind the PostCrush girl that she shouldn’t sign anything that Lucy might give her while she was gone. Astonishingly, Kiwi seemed to pick up on the Dazzling’s inaudible communication and gave her a small nod to indicate as such. In truth, Aria still didn’t like the fact that she was leaving Kiwi alone with someone as unscrupulous as Lucy Beel, but she knew that the PostCrush girl had a good enough head on her shoulders that she wouldn’t so easily be deceived by one of Lucy’s rose-colored contracts.

And so, with gray case in-hand, Aria started to follow behind Justice as she and the girl got their pick-up underway.

“Ahem. Justice?” Lucy called out to her associate before she and Aria got too far, gaining the attention of both girls. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Am I?” Justice replied confusedly.

Lucy then held up a small, black case that was no bigger than a pencil box.

“Oh. Guess I am forgetting something,” Justice said just before swiftly retrieving the black case from Lucy. “Sorry about that, Boss.”

“Just make sure you have Aria verify the item,” Lucy reminded the girl.

“Will do,” Justice assured the club owner as she put the case in her pocket and rejoined the Dazzling.

As Aria and Justice headed towards the elevator once more, the Dazzling chose to once again try and see what animal was within the carrier located on the chair as they passed by it. But just like the first time, she was still unable to determine just what it was inside the carrier and quickly averted her gaze from it when she made eye contact with the mysterious creature.

Once Aria and Justice reached the entrance to the antechamber, the Dazzling could hear Lucy say something to Kiwi but couldn’t make out exactly what. She then heard Kiwi say something back but just barely as they made their way through the narrow vestibule. By the time they reached the elevator she couldn’t hear either of them, and that was when she started to have second thoughts about accepting this courier job.

Between Lucy not telling her about Justice down at the bar, Lucy never once mentioning what exactly it is she and Justice are supposed to be picking up, and the fact that this whole thing was slowly reminding her of a gangland drug deal she’d once seen in an old noir movie, Aria couldn’t help but get the feeling that by day’s end she was going to regret having taken this job.

Sympathy From The Devil (Part 2)

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“You know, I think I might have been right earlier about having high wax build-up in my ears,” Justice said from the passenger’s seat of Aria’s car as she used her left pinkie finger to dig at her ear. “I’m feeling a lot of ceraceous stuff in there.”

“Uh-huh,” Aria replied half-heartedly from the driver’s seat.

“You wouldn’t happen to know any home remedies or anything for excessive ear wax, would ya?” The sunglasses-clad girl then inquired.

“Afraid not,” The Dazzling simply answered.

“Damn,” Justice uttered as she continued to excavate her ear canal.

Justice continued to dig around in her ear for a few more seconds before eventually removing her finger from the small orifice, along with a fairly good-sized chunk of earwax.

“Woof. Feels like I got a lot outta there,” The blind girl said before practically shoving her left pinkie finger in Aria’s face. “This look like a lotta earwax to you?”

“For fuck’s sake, I’m trying to drive here!” The Dazzling hollered as she forcibly removed Justice’s finger from right in front of her.

“Yeah, I think my recent hearing problem has been because of excessive earwax,” Justice then said as she flicked the waxy substance on her finger out the window.

“You don’t have much of a social filter, do you?” Aria abruptly asked her companion.

“What’s a social filter?” Justice replied, giving the Dazzling her answer.

“Ugh,” The pig-tailed girl muttered under her breath.

It had only been a few minutes since the Dazzling and Justice had left Chaus together to go on their pick-up for Lucy, but already Aria was finding the girl to be a tad irritating. It wasn’t just the fact that Justice felt an apparent need to excavate her ear canal in front of her that bothered the pig-tailed girl though, it was also the fact that the sunglasses-clad girl apparently felt the need for constant conversation. Ever since the two of them had left Lucy’s office Justice had been blathering on almost incessantly about whatever random thought popped into her head, including but not limited to how nice she’d found the weather to be lately and how much she loved the 1976 Fillydelphia hockey team. Unfortunately for Aria, she hadn’t found any of these random thoughts to be even remotely interesting, and she resolved herself to just giving as many short, close-ended responses to the girl’s ramblings as possible in the hopes that she’d eventually just shut up.

“So, what’s your deal, Aria?” Justice abruptly asked her, much to the Dazzling’s bewilderment.

“My deal?” She asked back.

“Yeah, you know, how come you’re doing this?” Justice clarified. “Most people don’t agree to work for Lucy unless they’re either greedy or desperate. So what’s your deal; are ya greedy or are ya desperate?”

At this rather intrusive question, Aria really wished that Justice had stuck to simply talking about the weather or her favorite hockey team.

“Well if it’s gotta be one of those two options, then I suppose I’m desperate,” She answered. “What about you? How come you’re working for Lucy?”

“Oh, that’s a long and complicated story you’d probably regret hearing,” Her companion replied as she put her feet up on the dash, much to the Dazzling’s annoyance. “But I’d really like hear to your story.”

“And why’s that?” Aria then inquired, making little-to-no attempt to hide her irritability.

“I like stories,” Justice answered in a fatuously gleeful manner.

Needless to say, Aria wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to share the story of her financial hardships with a girl she’d met just a little under an hour ago. However, the jocund manner in which Justice had expressed her fondness for stories left her feeling unable to avoid doing so. Though, much like she’d been doing for the most part up until this point, she wasn’t going to say much.

“Not much of a story to tell,” She confessed. “I just need the money to help ensure that my sisters and I don’t lose our emu farm. That’s pretty much it.”

“Emu, huh? Smart,” Justice replied. “A lot of people choose to raise ostriches over emus because they think ostriches will bring in more money, which they usually do, but those people rarely understand what it is they’re getting themselves into.”

“How do you mean?” Aria then inquired, finding herself intrigued by her companion’s apparent knowledge of ostrich farming.

“Ostriches are big into conspiracy theories,” Justice clarified. “Seriously, they’re always going on and on about the weirdest stuff, like the moon landing being filmed by Stanley Kubrick or the pyramids being built by Sears. In fact, I think the last time I spoke to an ostrich he told me something along the lines of the world being fake.”

Aria had no idea how to respond to this, mostly because she wasn’t sure whether Justice was trying to be funny or if she was being one hundred percent serious. The fact that the girl had stated such an outlandish claim about ostriches being conspiracy theorists made it difficult for the Dazzling to take it as anything other than a joke, but the earnestness with which she’d spoken said claim strongly led her to believe that she’d meant it most seriously. It was a conundrum that Aria didn’t want to spend much time or mental energy on, so before her mind became too enveloped in it she just assumed that Justice was simply joshing her.

“Trust me, ostriches might be more profitable than emu but they’re not worth all the headaches they cause,” Justice continued, instantly evanescing the Dazzling’s assumption. “So if you ever start thinking about switching from emus to ostriches, just…don’t do it.”

“O-Okay. I won’t,” Aria replied tentatively, finding herself unable to think of any other response.

“Good, good,” Justice said. “Now if you ever want to start raising rheas, they’re not so bad. The only thing about them is -”

The Dazzling decided to tune out her companion’s seemingly interminable rambling, mostly out of a need to maintain her sanity. Her mental stability had already been pushed to its limits when Justice had just been spouting random thoughts and opinions, but now that the girl was spouting sheer absurdities it was teetering on the razors edge.

To help her ignore Justice’s discursive chitchat, Aria tried to focus on Sonata attempting to play a game of chess against Su-Z. The sight of her sister endeavoring to learn the complex and strategy-based board game before she’d left the house had been humorous to her, and she could only imagine how much more humorous it would have been to see her actually playing it. The image of Sonata making all sorts of incorrect moves with the pieces and missing key opportunities to advance on Su-Z’s king quickly entered the forefront of her mind, effectively drowning out Justice’s verbiage and causing a small smile to cross her face. Though unfortunately for the Dazzling, this respite did not last long.

“And then there’s cassowaries, which are even worse than ostriches,” Justice continued to ramble on. “Those guys are all just straight up jerks. Make no mistake, you ever let your guard down around a cassowary for even a second and the next thing you know it’ll steal both your car and your collection of Elizabeth Gaskell novels.”

Despite Aria’s best efforts to ignore the ever-growing drivel spewing from Justice’s mouth, her sanity continued to be chiseled away at like a slab of marble. She knew that if she didn’t do something to stop her companion from talking soon then she was going to have no choice but to pull the car over, get out, and forsake completing the pick-up to keep herself from losing it. But what could she do? Short of sowing the girl’s mouth shut there wasn’t much she could do to cease her harangue.

Then again, maybe she didn’t need to get Justice to stop talking.

All the Dazzling really needed was for her companion to cease her nonsensical ramblings. She’d been fine when Justice had simply been rambling on about hockey teams and earwax. Annoyed, but fine. If she could get the girl back to talking about any of those things – or anything that made the tiniest bit of sense – then perhaps she could complete her job without going crazy in the process. The question, though, was how exactly was she going to get the topic of conversation changed?

“And consider yourself lucky that elephant birds went extinct,” Justice continued. “Believe me, you don’t even want to know how bad those guys wer -”

“Hey, so, uh, I gotta ask you something,” Aria interjected, before actually coming up with a question to ask the girl. “Um, uh…what’s up with that cosplay you got on?”

“Cosplay?” Justice confusedly replied as the car pulled up to a red light.

“Yeah, you know, the demon horns and tail,” The Dazzling clarified. “How come you’re wearin’ them?”

“Uh, because I was born with them? Like all demons are?” Justice answered, sounding even more confused than she had a second ago.

Almost as soon as Justice gave her reply, Aria became fearful that her plan to shift the conversation betwixt herself and the girl away from the absurd was backfiring on her. When she’d decided to ask her companion about her cosplay she hadn’t expected the girl to imply that she believed herself to be an actual demon, a claim that one could argue was more absurd than believing ostriches were conspiracy theorists. Though unlike Justice’s belief regarding ostriches, the Dazzling knew that she had a way of disproving the girl’s belief she was a demon right here and now.

“Aw come on, you weren’t born with those,” She said as she reached for one of Justice’s horns. “I know they’re just -”

Aria cut herself off as soon as she took ahold of one of Justice’s horns and felt that it was as hard as bone.

“N-no way,” She uttered in disbelief as she gave the appendage in her hand a little tug.

“Ow,” Justice softly articulated as her whole head was slightly jerked to the side along with her horn.

The Dazzling immediately released Justice’s horn from her grip when it became clear to her that the protrusions popping out of the girl’s head were genuine. She then quickly directed her attention down to the girl’s tail in the hopes of spotting some aspect of it that would prove it to be fake, but when she saw the tail wave at her she knew that it too had to be a genuine part of Justice’s body.

“Holy shit,” She then said in placid awe as she realized that her companion was, in fact, a bona fide demon.

“More like unholy shit! Huh? Huh?” Justice replied amusedly. “Sorry, I know that was terrible but I couldn’t help myself.”

Aria found herself frozen in stupefaction with no idea what to do or say. In all her years she’d come across no small number of unusual beings, both in Equestria and in the world she now called home, but never before had she ever come across an actual demon. Heck, up until now she hadn’t even believed demons to be real beings. Given that she and her sisters had been referred to as demons on more than one occasion back in Equestria she’d always just been under the impression that ‘demon’ was simply a term used to describe someone who was believed to be evil and amoral. But Justice was living proof that demons existed as an actual race of beings, and the Dazzling wasn’t exactly sure how to internalize this new discovery.

“Um…s-sorry for grabbing your horn like that,” She apologized to the girl, suddenly feeling fearful of possibly aggravating her.

“It’s cool, no biggie,” Justice assured Aria. “Though a bit of friendly advice, you probably don’t want to make grabbing demon horns a habit. There are some demons out there who take horn-grabbing as a sign of sexual avidity, and no offense but you don’t seem like the kind of person who would survive a night with a lascivious demon.”

“N-no offense taken,” Aria replied.

For a few seconds, the pig-tailed girl’s attention remained silently fixated on Justice as she continued to fully process that her companion was a real-life demon. Though it wasn’t so much the fact that Justice was a demon that plagued her cerebration, but rather why it was that a demon was working for Lucy Beel. Lucy was a powerful and intimidating woman, sure, but powerful and intimidating enough to get a demon to work for her? The very thought was almost laughable, that is until Aria managed to put all the pieces of the metaphorical puzzle together.

“Wait a minute,” She said with a sense of adumbration. “If you’re a demon and you work for Lucy, then that means Lucy is…is -”

The Dazzling cut herself off when she heard the unmistakable sound of a car horn coming from behind her.

“Move it!” An angry voice then called out to her.

Aria quickly returned her focus to the road to see that the red light in front of her had changed to green, prompting her to put the pedal to the metal.

“Whoa! We drag racing with that guy?!” Justice inquired gaily as she felt her body lurch from the sudden movement.

“Oh, uh, n-no,” The Dazzling replied, realizing that she might have accelerated a bit too harshly.

“Aww, that’s a shame,” The demon girl said disappointingly as Aria slowed the car down.

As she decelerated, Aria took a brief glance at an upcoming street sign in an effort to gauge how much further it was to their destination. Thankfully she was now going slow enough to read it, and when she did she was able to deduce that they only had about another three blocks to go.

As the Dazzling drove those last three blocks, she began to think about the new bits of information she’d just learned over the last minute or so. More specifically, she began to think about how Lucy Beel was the Devil herself.

The fact that Lucy was the Devil though didn’t surprise Aria very much. It was still a shock, to be sure, but given the woman’s notoriously shady and unscrupulous ways it wasn’t entirely unbelievable. No, what garnered the full assiduity of the Dazzling’s thoughts was that she was working for the Devil. The theological implications of such a thing alone were enough to warrant a few drops of cold sweat, but what truly gave Aria worry was what was going to happen to her after this pick-up was complete. Was Lucy going to keep her word and pay her the rest of their agreed-upon amount, or would she renege? Heck, would the woman even let her live? Did Lucy see her as nothing more than a pawn in whatever game she was playing, one to be disposed of once her perceived purpose was fulfilled? These thoughts and more cycled through her mind, causing her cold sweat to intensify.

However, amongst these many thoughts was one that brought some calm to the Dazzling’s mind: Justice. Justice was overly chatty, ribald, and had zero respect for personal space, but those things appeared to be the fullest extent of her faults. She wasn’t hateful or cruel or any number of the other things one would typically think a demon would be. So if Justice was no more egregious than most people were, then it stood to reason that her boss wasn’t either. Right?

“We’re here,” Justice suddenly piped up.

“Huh?” The Dazzling uttered as she broke out of her train of thought.

“I said we’re here,” Justice reiterated as she pointed out the window.

Aria quickly pulled the car over to the curb and looked out the window to see that Justice was indeed correct; they’d arrived at their destination.

“Uh, how’d you know we were here?” She asked her companion as she turned the car off. “I thought you were blind.”

“I am blind,” Justice replied as Aria grabbed the case Lucy had given her and they both got out of the car. “But it’s like Lucy said, I’ve been to this place before. I know how long it takes to get here from Chaus.”

The Dazzling found this hard to believe given how many variables could have - and most likely had - affected their travel time compared to the last time Justice had visited the office building, but she didn’t really care. She was just glad that they’d arrived at the pick-up spot and that soon this whole thing would be over with.

As Aria followed Justice up to the entrance of the building, she took note of how plain and unassuming it looked. She wasn’t sure why, but when Lucy had mentioned that it was an office building she’d expected something with more of an elliptical massing like what you tend to see in movies. However, the exterior looked more like that of Chaus; a large brick wall, though with a few windows scattered throughout. Instinctively, this less-than-impressive facade led the Dazzling to believe that the inside would likewise be unremarkable. But as she’d learned from Chaus’ extravagant interior, things weren’t always as they appeared from the outside. And as she and Justice stepped through the front doors she discovered this to be the case once again.

While the exterior of the building was nothing like the office buildings one saw in movies, the interior looked like something straight out of a Hollywood financial thriller. The furniture spread throughout the lobby was all very regal and contemporary, numerous pieces of expensive looking au courant artwork were hanging from the walls and ceiling, and the floor appeared to be made of marble so pristine that it was practically sparkling. Overall, the room didn’t look too unlike Lucy’s office in terms of extravagance, and for the second time today Aria found herself in awe of such lavishness.

“Hey, Justice,” A young man, presumably the building’s nightwatchman, greeted Justice from behind a large reception desk as she and the Dazzling approached it.

“Hey, Gio,” Justice greeted the man back.

“Lucy’s waiting for you upstairs,” Gio then said as he succinctly pointed his thumb over to a nearby corridor filled with elevators.

“Thanks,” The demon girl replied as she headed for the corridor, followed closely behind by Aria.

“Hey,” Gio greeted the Dazzling as she walked by the desk.

“Hey,” Aria simply replied.

Once within the corridor, Justice stopped at the first elevator on her right and hit the button beside it to go up.

“So, the person we’re meeting with is also named Lucy?” The Dazzling asked Justice as the elevator doors opened.

“Lucrezia actually,” Justice replied as the two of them entered the lift. “Lucy’s just what her brothers call her, so whatever you do don’t call her that. In fact, it’s probably best if you don’t even address her unless she addresses you first…or look directly at her either.”

“So she’s pretty pompous, huh?” Aria then rhetorically asked.

“You have no idea,” The demon girl said as the doors closed.

As the elevator began its slow ascent, Aria found her mind once again wandering to the fact that she was working for the Devil. Strangely enough though, this time she didn’t find herself thinking about the possibility of Lucy getting rid of her after the pick-up, but rather the opposite. What if Lucy had been sincere earlier and truly did want her to continue working as her courier? What would she do then? The Dazzling couldn’t deny that continuing to work for the woman would likely prove to be very financially lucrative for her and her emu farm, but what would the cost be for that remuneration? Lucy was the Devil, a.k.a. the Prince – or rather Princess – of Darkness, there was no way she could work for the most well-known evildoer in recorded history.

Then again, was Lucy really as bad as all those stories throughout history made her out to be?

The more Aria thought about Lucy and everything she’d read and been told about her, the more she started to question how much of it was accurate. There was no question as to whether Lucy was unscrupulous and Machiavellian – she was – but the Dazzling wasn’t so sure the woman was the embodiment of evil she’d been led to believe. After all, when she and her sisters had turned down the club owner’s offer to perform at Chaus Lucy hadn’t taken any retaliatory action against them. She continued to offer the opportunity to them to the point of being pushy, sure, but that was it. She never tried to do anything like blackmail them or threaten them into performing for her. Not only that, but Aria knew from personal experience that not all stories about evil were true.

Over the course of her life in Equestria, the Dazzling had heard numerous stories about sirens and how evil they were. Some of those stories she couldn’t refute were true, like how they used their magic to sow discontent amongst beings in order to feed off their negative energy, but a good number of them she could abnegate as nothing but complete and utter bull. Never in her life had she ever met a siren who feasted on the entrails of their enemies or offered sacrifices to ancient deities in exchange for power like some tales suggested, and she knew for certain that there was no credibility to the myth that sirens were descendants of Dagon the Deep One. So if so many stories about sirens were wrong, didn’t it stand to reason that at least a few of them about the Devil could be wrong as well?

For the remainder of the elevator ride, Aria contemplated whether or not she should continue to work for Lucy after this pick-up was done. Unfortunately though, she failed to come to a decision by the time she and Justice reached the seventeenth floor.

“Ahhhh,” Justice uttered as she stepped out of the elevator. “I love the smell of this place.”

As soon as Aria stepped out of the elevator her nostrils were assaulted by a powerful flower-like aroma that made her wince. The scent itself wasn’t unpleasant, something akin to lilac, but the air was so thick with it that it was practically causing the Dazzling’s brain to go into sensory overload.

“Geez. Do they have a hundred of those air freshener things plugged in up here?” She wondered aloud.

“No idea,” Justice replied. “All I know is that it smells a lot better than Hell.”

The Dazzling said nothing in response.

As she and Justice walked, Aria couldn’t help but look around at the office she now found herself in. The room was large and fairly open with several cubicles spread throughout and enclosed offices lining the walls, all of which appeared to have been constructed using high-priced materials. It was a pretty nice set-up overall, and the more the Dazzling looked around at it the more she started to wonder just what kind of business was being run out of this office.

Before long, the two girls finished crossing the large office space and arrived in front of a room with a glass door and glass walls, the former being covered from the inside by blinds.

“Here we go,” Justice said as she reached for the door.

Not knowing exactly what to expect next, Aria hastily steeled herself for whatever was about to await her and her companion.

“Yo, Lucrezia!” Justice hollered as she opened the door and stepped through the threshold. “How’s it hangin’?!”

“Hello again, Justice,” A female voice said haughtily back just as Aria entered the room. “Things are ‘hangin’’ just fine, thank you for asking.”

Despite Justice’s earlier warning for her not to look directly at Lucrezia unless addressed by her first, the Dazzling couldn’t help but look in the direction where she’d heard the voice come from. When she did, she saw a beautiful, blond-haired woman no older than twenty-five dressed in a pantsuit sitting at the far end of a conference table located in the center of the room.

At first, Aria found it difficult to believe that this was the person she and Justice were supposed to meet. She didn’t really know what it was she’d been expecting their contact to look like, but she knew that she hadn’t been expecting someone so young. But the longer the Dazzling looked at Lucrezia there was one aspect about her that both met her expectations and convinced her that this was who they were meant to do business with: her eyes. Lucrezia had the same kind of eyes as Lucy, ones that radiated a sense of supreme confidence, an icy resolve, and a hunger for hegemony within their bearer. They were the kind of eyes that suggested this was someone who would do anything and everything necessary to get what they wanted.

“And who’s this you’ve brought along with you?” Lucrezia then asked Justice as she shifted her attention over towards Aria, causing the Dazzling to quickly avert her gaze.

“This is Aria. She’s here to help me verify the item,” Justice explained as she took a seat at the table directly opposite Lucrezia.

For a few seconds, Lucrezia stared silently at the Dazzling as if she were sizing the pig-tailed girl up, much to Aria’s displeasure. Aria tried to make sure she didn’t accidently shoot the woman the usual nasty look she shot at people who looked at her funny, but with each passing second that Lucrezia continued to stare at her she found it increasingly difficult to hide her irritation.

“Very well,” Lucrezia said reluctantly as she returned her attention to Justice, with nigh a second to spare before Aria’s self-restraint would’ve collapsed. “Let’s just get this over with already.”

Feeling the same as Lucrezia, Aria quickly took a seat to Justice’s right and placed the case she’d been carrying on the table.

“You have my payment?” Lucrezia asked.

“Right here,” Justice confirmed as she lightly tapped the case a couple of times. “You have the item?”

“Right here,” Lucrezia said as she removed a small case from her lap and placed it on the table.

“Ready?” Justice then asked, right before placing her hand firmly on her case.

“Ready,” Lucrezia corroborated as she likewise placed a hand firmly on her case.

“Okay, one,” Justice began to count. “…two…three!”

As soon as Justice finished her count, both her and Lucrezia slid their cases across the table as though they were a couple of curling stones. As Aria watched the scene swiftly unfold, she couldn’t help but respect and admire how both parties glided their case along the table with expert ease. Neither one of them shoved with either too much or too little force, and when the cases passed each other they never once came into contact. It was a truly impressive display, and one that told the Dazzling that this wasn’t the first time Justice and Lucrezia had engaged in such an exchange.

“Let’s see now,” Lucrezia said as she opened her new case.

The room fell silent for a moment as Lucrezia examined her payment. Curious as to what it was she’d been carrying up until now, Aria discreetly shifted herself in her seat to see if she could catch a glimpse of what exactly the payment was. Though unfortunately, Lucrezia closed the case just before she was able to see its contents.

“Excellent,” The woman declared as she removed the case from the table and placed it down on the floor beside her chair.

“Okie dokie, let’s see what we’ve got here,” Justice then said right before opening her new case.

Without hesitation, Aria once again shifted in her seat, this time to try and get a look inside Justice’s case. Naturally it was easier for her to see what was inside this case than the other one, and what she saw filled her with no small amount of incredulity.

“That’s it?” She asked Justice as she continued to stare at the case’s contents. “Just a lousy wooden cross?”

“Yep, this is it,” Justice confirmed as she removed the ligneous crucifix from its confines, revealing a looped strand of thin rope attached to the top of it. “Or at least it appears to be. We won’t know for sure until you verify it.”

Justice’s response only compounded Aria’s confusion. The Dazzling couldn’t understand what was so special about this very ordinary looking cross that was only slightly larger than her hand or why Lucy would possibly want it, let alone how she was supposed to verify it as the item she and Justice had been sent to retrieve.

“Let’s just get this around your neck real quick,” Justice then said as she did as she stated and placed the cross around Aria’s neck, much to the continued bewilderment of the pig-tailed girl.

“What the hell are you doing?” She testily asked her companion, though making no attempt to stop her.

“What? Lucy said you need to be wearing the item in order to verify it,” The demon girl explained, right before removing the small, pencil box-sized case Lucy had given her earlier from her pocket.

By this point the Dazzling’s confusion got the better of her and she turned to face Lucrezia, forgetting what Justice had told her earlier about neither looking at nor speaking to the woman unless addressed by her first.

“Hey, Lucrezia,” She started to say. “Do you have any idea what the hell is going on he - OW!”

Aria abruptly cut herself off when she felt a very sharp, very painful prick coming from her upper left arm. The Dazzling immediately turned her head to see what had caused this sudden puncture in her bicep, and when she saw what that cause was she could feel her heart skip a beat.

“Wha…What the fuck?” She uttered as she stared at an empty syringe protruding from her arm that was being held by Justice.

“One…two…three…” Justice started muttering to herself as she removed the syringe from the Dazzling’s arm.

Several thoughts and feelings rushed through Aria’s mind in that moment, far more than the girl was able to consciously process, but the strongest and loudest of those thoughts and feelings was an extreme desire for her to beat the ever-loving hell out of Justice.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” She hollered as she vehemently got up from her seat and grabbed Justice by her shirt collar. “WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?! WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST INJECT ME WITH?!”

“Six…seven…eight…” Justice continued to mutter, seemingly unperturbed by the Dazzling’s intimidating actions.

“ANSWER ME, DAMMIT!” Aria then shouted right in the demon girl’s face. “ANSWER ME OR I SWEAR I’M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!”

“Aw, it’s cute that you think you could actually do that,” Justice replied in a non-derisively playful manner. “But to answer your question, I injected you with 300 milligrams of black mamba venom, give or take.”

“B-Black mamba venom?” The Dazzling timorously said as she released her hold on the demon girl.

For the second time in less than a minute, Aria could feel her heart skip a beat. The pig-tailed girl was by no means a herpetologist, but she knew enough about snakes to know that the black mamba was one of the most dangerous kinds on the planet due to its highly toxic venom. Panic quickly began to set in as the Dazzling feared that soon she would be convulsing on the floor as a result of the toxin and then, not long after, become paralyzed and die there.

“No,” She uttered in sheer terror. “No, no, no!”

“Well now, I wasn’t expecting a show with my payment,” Lucrezia said wickedly as she watched the Dazzling hysterically fret about.

What little part of Aria’s mind that hadn’t been consumed by fear screamed at her to pull her phone out of her pocket and dial 911 before it was too late, but that part was far too small for her to listen to it. She was all but convinced that this was the end for her, that there was no hope she was going to survive this. Eventually the Dazzling’s initial panic began to subside, and when it did she couldn’t help but ask herself a plethora of questions; Why had Justice injected her with black mamba venom? How was doing so supposed to help her verify the item they were picking up? Where was she going to go after she died? Had she lived a good enough life to make up for all the bad things she’d done? Were her sisters going to miss her once she was gone? Was Kiwi going to be okay back at Chaus with Lucy?

Kiwi.

The instant Aria remembered that Kiwi was still back at Chaus alone with the woman who’d essentially sentenced her to death her fear for her own life became replaced with fear for the PostCrush girl’s. She wasn’t sure why, but the thought of Lucy harming Kiwi filled her with more anger than she’d been filled with when she realized Lucy had just indirectly harmed her. The Dazzling could feel the blood in her veins begin to boil as she imagined her friend doubled over in pain before Lucy’s feet, though she knew that in all likelihood this was simply because of the black mamba venom working its way through her system. But even so, she swore that if Lucy had or was planning to harm Kiwi then she’d find some way to escape Heaven or Hell or wherever she was about to go and make the woman pay dearly.

“Aaaaand…time!” Justice suddenly vociferated as she got up from her seat, garnering Aria’s attention. “Looks like the item is legit. Nice work, Aria.”

“What?!” The Dazzling hollered at the demon girl. “What the fuck are you talking about?!”

“The cross, it’s the real deal. If it wasn’t you’d be dead by paralysis by now,” Justice explained.

Aria had no response to this. On the one hand, she was glad to hear Justice’s implication that she wasn’t going to die on account of the crucifix around her neck, but on the other she still had no idea what the demon girl was talking about.

“Okay, just…what is this?” The Dazzling asked as she held the item around her neck up. “How is it that because of this I’m not dead?”

“Beats me,” Justice confessed. “All I know about that cross is what Lucy told me, and the only thing she told me was that it makes its wielder virtually immortal.”

“It’s the cross of Grigori Rasputin,” Lucrezia chimed in. “It’s an incredibly powerful protective item, and the reason the man was able to survive so many assassination attempts.”

“The cross of…Grigori Rasputin?” Aria said as she looked down at the crucifix in her hand.

The name Grigori Rasputin didn’t mean much to the Dazzling, but she had heard of the man before. From what she remembered, he was some sort of Russian monk who lived about a hundred years ago and was infamous for being hard to kill but eventually died after being shot in the head.

“So, this is Rasputin’s famous cross, huh?” Justice said as she approached Aria for a closer look at the crucifix, which baffled the Dazzling since the girl was blind. “Hard to believe that a guy who could barely read managed to manipulate dark magic masterfully enough to create something as impressive as this. Kinda makes me wish I’d still been High Prosecutor of Hell when he died to be honest.”

“Oh don’t speak so highly of the man, Justice. He was an idiot,” Lucrezia told the demon girl. “Though he was pretty proficient with dark magic, I’ll give him that at least.”

The Dazzling found it strange how Lucrezia spoke as if she’d personally known a man who had died over a hundred years ago, though given the fact that there was a bona fide demon in the room she wouldn’t have been surprised if the woman had been around since the time of Rasputin.

“Hold on,” Aria addressed Lucrezia as a sudden realization struck her. “You said this thing was the reason Rasputin was able to survive so many assassination attempts. If that’s true, then how come he died by assassination?”

“Because he wasn’t wearing it at the time,” Lucrezia explained. “I did just say the man was an idiot, didn’t I?”

This wasn’t too difficult for the Dazzling to accept. After all, how many times back in the day had her and her sisters’ plans been undone by simple user error – usually on the part of Sonata.

“And even if he had been wearing it at that time it probably wouldn’t have protected him forever,” Lucrezia explained. “As impressive as that item is, it does have its limits. It can protect against things like poisons, knives, and bullets but against things like bombs or incendiary devices it’s pretty much useless, and given how much Rasputin’s enemies wanted him gone I have no doubt they would have resorted to such extreme measures eventually.”

Just then, Lucrezia got up from her seat.

“But enough of all this exposition,” The woman said as she extended her hand out at the Dazzling. “It’s time for you to give me the crucifix back now.”

“Huh?” Aria uttered right before looking over at Justice to see if she knew what Lucrezia was talking about, to which Justice simply gave a shoulder shrug in response.

“I’m double-crossing you, nitwits,” Lucrezia replied as she moved her fingers towards herself a couple of times in a ‘bring it’ gesture. “Now hand over the cross. I really don’t want to have to make a mess in here.”

A few chortles could be heard emanating from Justice immediately after Lucrezia issued her vaguely threatening remark.

“Oh Lucrezia, you’re such a crack-up,” The demon girl stated as her laughter started to die down and she began to move towards the door. “Thanks for the laughs, but we gotta get going now. Come on, Aria.”

Despite Justice’s belief that Lucrezia was being facetious in her demands for Rasputin’s cross back, Aria got the distinct impression that the woman was being anything but comical right now. Regardless though, she quickly followed the demon girl’s lead and headed for the door, but just as Justice reached for the door’s handle the sound of a couple hands slamming down on the table made both her and her companion freeze in their tracks.

“You think I’m joking around here?!” Lucrezia hollered, causing both girls to involuntarily wince. “I want my damn cross back and I want it now!”

“Okay then,” Justice replied, much to Aria’s surprise. “Just give us the payment back first and then you can have the cross back in about half an hour or so.”

“Half an hour or so?” Aria asked the demon girl in manner that simultaneously seemed to ask her if she was crazy. “Why can’t we just give it to her now and end this?”

“Because then you’d die,” Justice told the Dazzling, as though she were stating the obvious. “The cross may have kept the venom from affecting you but that stuff’s still in your system. If you take it off before it finishes eliminating the venom you’ll still end up dying of paralysis.”

“Oh come fucking on!” The Dazzling shouted in response.

Although Aria was aggravated by yet another piece of bullshit she had to put up with, a small part of her felt a sense of warmth at the fact that Justice wanted to wait until she no longer needed Rasputin’s cross to stay alive before handing it back over to Lucrezia.

“I’m not giving you the payment back and I’m not waiting a half hour to get my cross back either,” Lucrezia said as she removed what appeared to be a lighter from one of her suit pockets. “Now hand it over or I’ll activate the fire sprinklers and cover this room in holy water.”

Initially, Aria didn’t quite understand how Lucrezia’s ultimatum was much of a threat, but as soon as she looked over at Justice and saw the look of mild anxiety on the girl’s face she began to comprehend just how serious of a threat it was. Justice was a demon, an unholy being, so it stood to reason that something like holy water would be a potentially hazardous substance to her.

“N-Nice bluff, Lucrezia, but I know you don’t have any holy water in those sprinklers,” Justice told the woman, a hint of trepidation easily evident within her voice. “If you did I would have smelled it as soon as I walked into the room.”

“You can smell holy water?” Aria inquired dubiously.

“Of course. All demons can,” Justice replied.

“Right, of course. Silly me,” The Dazzling replied sarcastically.

“Are you sure about that, Justice?” Lucrezia asked the demon girl haughtily. “Are you so sure you’d still be able to smell holy water over all the Essence of Lilac I’ve had pumped throughout this floor?”

“Well I…I-I would think…I mean, i-it’s possible that I…” Justice stammered.

As Aria listened to Justice struggle to come up with an answer to Lucrezia’s question she realized Lucrezia’s threat was even more serious than she’d thought. Ever since she and Justice had partnered up, the demon girl had been buoyant, calm, and garrulous, but now she was weighted, agitated, and practically speechless, all things that the Dazzling took as signs that the situation they now found themselves in was about as virulently severe as it could be.

“What, no snappy retort, Justice? No amusing little comeback?” Lucrezia devilishly asked the girl.

“No, not really,” Justice confessed. “Well, not unless you consider ‘sorry about the door’ a snappy retort.”

“Sorry about the door?” Lucrezia asked confusedly.

“Yep,” Justice replied as she clenched her left hand into a fist. “Sorry about the door!”

Within the blink of an eye, Justice hurled her fist at the glass door and made contact with it, causing a loud and resounding thud to echo across the room. Though much to the shock of both the demon girl and the Dazzling, the door didn’t shatter. In fact, by all accounts it appeared that Justice’s punch hadn’t caused any damage whatsoever to the noncrystalline substance.

“W-Well damn,” Justice said, trying to sound confident but sounding more apprehensive instead. “You really thought of everything, huh, Lucrezia?”

“Indeed I have,” Lucrezia replied arrogantly before turning her attention to Aria. “Now give me the cross.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” The Dazzling resolutely declared as she took hold of the crucifix around her neck and clutched it tightly.

“Give me the cross or I kill Justice and then take it from you by force!” Lucrezia tempestuously declared as she opened the top of her supposed lighter, revealing a button underneath that Aria assumed would activate the fire sprinklers if pressed.

“Don’t give her the cross, Aria,” Justice told the Dazzling.

“Give it to me!” Lucrezia once more demanded.

Aria knew fully well that no matter who she listened to she wasn’t going to live long enough to see another sunrise. She knew that one way or another the cross around her neck that was protecting her from the deadly venom coursing through her veins was coming off, either by her own hand or Lucrezia’s. Oddly enough though, this awareness of her waning mortality didn’t agitate her. Perhaps it was because she’d gotten all the agitation out of her system a few minutes earlier, but the Dazzling now found herself at peace with her fate.

“Final warning!” Lucrezia shouted as she placed her thumb directly above the button in her hand. “Give me the cross or else Justice dies!”

In truth, Aria didn’t care all that much about Justice’s well-being at the moment. After all, Justice was the one who’d injected her with the black mamba venom and put her in this perilous predicament. The fact that the demon girl’s fate now rested in her hands felt almost poetic to her.

As the Dazzling contemplated what her next and possibly final action would be, she realized that there was really only one factor that was going to sway her one way or the other; did she want her companion to die alongside her? Under normal circumstances, such a question would be difficult for anyone to answer. However, given everything that had transpired between her and the demon girl today, Aria knew exactly what the answer to that question was.

Sympathy From The Devil (Part 3)

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“All right, Lucrezia. You win,” Aria reluctantly conceded.

“What?!” Justice vociferated.

“Smart choice,” Lucrezia commended the Dazzling as she removed her thumb from directly over the button in her hand and extended her other hand out to the girl. “Now hand over the cross.”

With a heavy heart, Aria reached for the string keeping Rasputin’s cross around her neck. As she took the long piece of fiber in her hands and started to lift the crucifix up over her head, she experienced what could only be described as a highlight reel of her life flash before her eyes. All of the most powerfully emotional moments that had occurred throughout her life rapidly came flooding back to the forefront of her mind in a veritable cascade of anamnesis, a good number of them being times when she’d been either extremely angry, like when she’d believed her sisters had let Glen die, or extremely sad, like when she’d realized she was never going to see her father again. But much to the Dazzling surprise, there was no small number of happier moments that she recalled as well, like when she and Trixie had put on a magic show together or when she’d met her younger sister for the first time.

All-in-all, Aria felt that she’d had a pretty decent life, one free of any major regrets save for one; she wished it hadn’t taken her and her sisters so long to realize that their lust for power was meaningless. But in any case, if this truly was the end of the road for her then she believed wholeheartedly that she could say she’d had a good run.

Feeling that she was just about done removing the cross from her person, the Dazzling hastily steeled herself for whatever pain she was about to suffer through. She’d never been subjected to a neurotoxin before so she didn’t know for sure just what the effects of it would be, but she was all but certain that a great deal of agony would soon be upon her. However, just before she got the string up over her head she felt a hand grab ahold of her arm and force it, along with the crucifix, back down.

“I’m not gonna let you do this, Aria,” Justice sternly told the pig-tailed girl as she continued to hold her arm down.

Aria found herself unable to reply to Justice for a few seconds on account of how taken aback she was by the demon girl’s actions. The Dazzling had understood quite clearly from Justice’s repeated implorations that the demon girl didn’t want her to hand Rasputin’s cross back over to Lucrezia, but she hadn’t expected her to try and physically stop her from doing so.

At first, Aria felt touched by her companion’s concern for her well-being. It was rare for her to be shown such worry from someone other than her sisters, so for her to be shown some by a girl she’d only met earlier that day was nothing short of heartwarming for her. Though unfortunately, this warm and fuzzy feeling she had was short-lived as the realization that Justice’s concern was, in all likelihood, not for her but rather for making sure that Rasputin’s cross ultimately ended up in Lucy’s hands.

“Face it, Justice, it’s over,” She crisply told the demon girl as she removed her hand from her arm. “You said it yourself, Lucrezia’s thought of everything. She’s getting this back one way or another, so I might as well hand it over and make sure at least one of us gets out of this alive.”

“Don’t be dense,” Justice sharply replied, eliciting a scowl from the Dazzling. “You really think Lucrezia’s going to let me go if you hand over the crucifix? She’s just playing on your sympathy to get you to give up the cross willingly.”

“Playing on my sympathy?” Aria replied confusedly. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh bravo, Justice ~! Well done ~!” Lucrezia applauded the demon girl sarcastically. “I’m so happy you get to die with the satisfaction of knowing that you figured it all out.”

“Figured what out?” The Dazzling then inquired.

“It wasn’t like it was hard to figure out,” Justice told Lucrezia. “Your endgame was more predictable than a Nicholas Spark’s novel.”

“Ooh, good comeback,” Lucrezia replied, still sounding sarcastic. “How long did it take you to come up with that one?”

“I’m guessing about as long as it took you to come up with this obtusely simplistic plan of yours,” Justice fired back.

“What plan?! What endgame?!” Aria heatedly inquired, feeling as frustrated at her own obliviousness as she was by the fact that she was being ignored. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on here?!”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Lucrezia said as she rolled her eyes derisively. “I’m going to kill Justice no matter what you do, Aria. Honestly, get with the program already.”

Normally being spoken to in such a condescending manner would’ve caused Aria to shoot the offender the evil eye, but when the Dazzling heard Lucrezia say that she was going to kill Justice regardless of what she did she instead dawned a look of consternation.

“Hey, don’t talk down to her like that!” Justice told Lucrezia.

“Oh, that’s rich coming from the girl who just called her dense,” Lucrezia replied.

“I didn’t call her dense, I told her not to be dense,” Justice clarified. “There’s a difference.”

“Pfft, please. There’s about as much of a difference between those as there is between Margot Robbie and Samara Weaving,” Lucrezia retorted.

“Oh, that’s it!” Justice said as she advanced on Lucrezia, forcing the woman to once more place her thumb directly over the button in her hand. “Now you’ve crossed the li -”

“Will you two shut up already?!” Aria shouted as she placed herself between the two bickering women, much to the incredulity of both of them.

Silence fell over the room for a few seconds - save for the sound of Aria lightly panting. During this time, both Justice and Lucrezia simply looked at the other two women in the room with great intent, as if trying to ascertain what either of them was going to do next. Aria, on the other hand, had her sights fully focused inward as she desperately tried to determine what her next move was. The Dazzling had rushed headlong into Justice and Lucrezia’s argument to stop their bickering but had done so without completely thinking things through, and as a result she now felt as though she’d just placed herself between a rock and a hard place with no means of escape.

In truth, Aria wasn’t even sure why it was she’d intervened in Justice and Lucrezia’s quarreling. She had little to no love for either of them, so wouldn’t it have been better to simply let them go at it and possibly quash each other? The mental image she created within her mind of such an outcome was certainly appealing, but deep down she knew that the chances of that outcome actually happening were highly unlikely. Odds were that Justice wouldn’t be able to so much as lay a finger on Lucrezia before the woman activated the fire sprinklers and dowsed her with holy water, and that was something the Dazzling simply couldn’t allow to happen if she wanted to have any hope of surviving the night.

Countless ideas popped into Aria’s head as she desperately contemplated her next move, everything from pleading for peace to ordering the two bickering parties to go stand in separate corners so they could cool off, but unfortunately not a single one of them felt like they would be a good idea to try. She eventually concluded that any direct attempt to end Justice and Lucrezia’s fighting would be futile, so as quickly as her brain could she began to think of some indirect ways to quell their aggression. Many new ideas soon flooded her mind, though sadly the majority of them still didn’t seem very promising.

However, there was one idea that crossed Aria’s mind that she believed would, at the very least, give her some more time to come up with a better plan. One idea that, with a bit of luck, would not only keep Justice and Lucrezia from going at each other’s throats again but could also potentially get Lucrezia to put down the fire sprinkler button.

“N-Now then,” She said as she caught her breath, trying her best to sound as composed and imperturbable as possible. “It’s obvious that there’s a lot of hostility in the room right now, and if there’s anything I’ve learned from the Rainbooms since meeting them it’s that the best way to deal with so much bad blood is to address it in a calm and respectful manner. So why don’t we all just take a couple of deep breaths and have ourselves a little chat?”

“…Huh?” Lucrezia uttered, sounding completely and utterly addled.

“The Rainbooms?” Justice chimed in. “They one of those new-age, feel-good bohemian groups or something?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Aria answered the demon girl before turning her attention over to Lucrezia. “Let’s start with what triggered all of this, Lucrezia. Why it is that you’re double-crossing us? Is it because you’re trying to prove your worth to someone? Like maybe your brothers?”

The befuddled look on Lucrezia’s face only grew more and more intense with each question the Dazzling asked her. Eventually a mild but noticeable twitch came over the woman’s left eye for a few seconds, and as it did Lucrezia plopped herself back into her chair and looked over at Justice.

“Is she for real?” She asked the demon girl rhetorically before returning her attention to Aria. “Are you seriously trying to play psychologist with me right now?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to find a solution to this whole thing where no one has to die,” Aria clarified as she too retook her seat, followed promptly by Justice taking a new seat directly next to her.

“Ha!” Lucrezia retorted vivaciously. “You mean you’re trying to find a solution where you two don’t have to die, because from where I’m sitting there’s no possible way this can end with me dying.”

“Hate to admit it, but from where I’m sitting she’s right about that,” Justice whispered to Aria, causing the Dazzling to discreetly kick her leg ever-so-slightly beneath the table.

“So why is it you want to kill us exactly?” The Dazzling then inquired. “Why not just wait a half-hour, get the crucifix back from me willingly, and then let us leave?”

“Now you’re just insulting my intelligence,” Lucrezia replied, sounding somewhat offended. “If I let you walk out of here alive you’ll just call Lucy the instant you’re out of my sight and she’ll come after me like a bat out of Hell before I have a chance to get out of Canterlot. But if I kill you, she won’t know that I’ve double-crossed her until after I’m long gone from this sad little city.”

A spark within Aria’s mind immediately ignited when she heard Lucrezia bring up Lucy. The Dazzling couldn’t believe that she forgotten that the woman who’d sent her and Justice on this pick-up was just as involved in all of this as they were. Perhaps not as directly involved as them, but still involved nonetheless.

“And you think Lucy wouldn’t come after you even if you got out of Canterlot?” She asked. “What, is she under some sort of curse where she can’t leave Canterlot, or have someone else leave it in her stead?”

“Knowing Lucy, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were,” Lucrezia said in mild amusement. “But regardless, I doubt she’d put in much of an effort to come after me for Rasputin’s cross. It may be a powerful protective item, but it’s not like there aren’t similar items around that she could acquire without going through the hassle of trying to find me.”

“Ha!” Aria abruptly uttered in a very loud and derisive manner.

“I say something funny?” Lucrezia asked the Dazzling, now sounding acutely offended.

“I think I missed the joke too,” Justice then whispered to Aria, causing her to once again discreetly kick the demon girl’s leg beneath the table.

“Oh, you definitely said something funny,” The pig-tailed girl told Lucrezia. “You said you think Lucy won’t come after you because she could just get another protective item without resorting to finding you.”

“And what’s so funny about that?” Lucrezia inquired.

“What’s funny about it is that you seem to think Lucy won’t come after you simply for double-crossing her,” Aria answered.

Almost as soon as Aria said this, Lucrezia’s right hand began to lightly shake. The woman quickly removed her hand from atop the table and placed it upon her lap, out of sight from either the Dazzling or Justice. However, this act of concealment came too little too late. The mild trembling in Lucrezia’s hand had caught Aria’s attention the instant it’d begun, and when the Dazzling saw this sign of uneasiness coming from her adversary she knew that her words had had their desired effect.

“Frankly, I’m kinda surprised you hadn’t thought of that,” Aria continued. “I’d just assumed that you knew Lucy well enough to know that she’d never risk any damage to her reputation by letting someone get away with double-crossing her, but I guess I was wrong in that assumption.”

The more Aria spoke, the more Lucrezia’s shuddering became obvious. In almost no time at all the woman’s entire right arm was trembling and her left leg was acting more restless than a feline on catnip, bringing a sense of triumph to the Dazzling that she desperately wanted to flaunt but knew she couldn’t. At least not yet.

“Frankly, I don’t even want to think about the kind of person Lucy would send to take care of someone who betrayed her,” She added, right before turning to face Justice. “What do you think, Justice? You think Lucy would send someone worse than the two of us to deal with a back-stabbing double-crosser?”

“Oh, um, yeah, probably,” Justice concurred. “If I had to guess, I’d say Lucy would send Judgement to go after such a person. Judgement loves a good hunt, almost as much as she loves dishing out arduous punishments.”

By this point, Lucrezia was practically nothing but a bundle of nerves wearing a pantsuit. Both of her arms were now shaking, her left leg was vibrating at nearly superhuman speed, and her forehead was slowly becoming covered in a cold sweat. It was a sight of such strong distress that, for most, would elicit feelings of discomfort, but for Aria all it did was elicit a cavalier smile.

The Dazzling was now convinced that she, along with Justice, had successfully aroused enough fear within Lucrezia for them to win their little standoff with her. With so much dread currently flooding the woman’s mind she knew that Lucrezia could be easily convinced that letting them leave unharmed was not only sensible but also in her own best interest, though the fact that Lucrezia hadn’t yet admitted as such indicated that she still needed to give the woman one more little push to get her to that locus.

“So what’s it gonna be, Lucrezia?” She asked haughtily. “You gonna let us go and put an end to all this, or you gonna kill us and spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder in fear of Lucy?”

An eerie silence fell over the room as Aria and Justice awaited Lucrezia’s response, one that the Dazzling couldn’t help but relish as she watched the woman wordlessly fret. Despite having renounced her wicked ways after the Battle of the Bands, Aria gained a great deal of satisfaction from watching Lucrezia sweat - eventually to the point where Lucrezia needed to wipe some of it from her brow. If there was but one thing in this or any other world that she loved with guilty pleasure, it was successfully turning the tables on someone whom she felt had wronged her. And given how Lucrezia had so blatantly wronged her she practically felt as though she were on cloud nine right now.

“I-If I let you go, h-how do I know you won’t tell Lucy that I tried to d-double-cross her?” Lucrezia eventually spoke up.

“You don’t,” Aria admitted. “But for what it’s worth, we promise we won’t say anything about this to Lucy.”

“We won’t?” Justice chimed in, earning her a third discreet kick from Aria.

“We won’t,” The Dazzling replied sternly, simultaneously admonishing Justice and reassuring Lucrezia.

A small smile could be seen growing on Lucrezia’s face after Aria uttered her reassurance, as well as a teardrop or two forming in the corners of the woman’s eyes. It was a sight that the Dazzling found to be both amusing and pitiable, but mostly amusing.

“T-Thank you. Thank you so much,” Lucrezia garbled as she turned her head away from the Dazzling and Justice, presumably out of embarrassment. “I…I’m so sorry. I..I..”

As Lucrezia struggled to finish her thought, Aria expected to hear subtle sounds of sniffling and sniveling begin to emanate from the woman at any moment. Given how Lucrezia had looked before turning her head away it seemed only logical to the Dazzling that she would start to make such blubbering noises. Though ultimately, she never heard those blubbering noises. However, she did eventually hear Lucrezia begin to utter some form of noise, but it wasn’t what one would consider sniffling or sniveling. It was more along the lines of sneering and snickering.

“I can’t…I can’t keep this up anymore! Ahahahaha!” Lucrezia then hollered as she abruptly burst out into laughter.

“Uh, did I miss another joke?” Justice asked Aria as Lucrezia continued to laugh hysterically.

The Dazzling didn’t reply, mostly due to the fact that she wasn’t sure if they actually had missed a joke.

Lucrezia’s sudden change in temperament greatly confused Aria. One moment the woman appeared as though she were close to having a complete mental breakdown and the next she was laughing like it was Friday night at The Paramount Theater, it made no sense to her. Then again, perhaps Lucrezia had had a complete mental breakdown and this hysterical laughter was simply the result of that. It was certainly tempting to believe this to be the case, but the manner in which Lucrezia was laughing suggested otherwise to the Dazzling. Despite it being hysterical, the woman’s guffawing didn’t seem raving or delirious. Rather, it seemed more feted and almost maniacal, much to Aria’s chagrin.

“Oh…oh my,” Lucrezia said as she laughter started to die down a bit. “That was…that was truly pitiable, Aria. Just downright sad and plaintive. But it was good for a laugh and I needed one today, so thank you for that.”

“W-What are you talking about?” Aria inquired tepidly.

“That whole routine you just went through of course,” Lucrezia answered. “Playing psychologist, saying all those things to try and convince me I was making a mistake by double-crossing Lucy; an admittedly admirable attempt to save yourselves given your grave situation, but ultimately just…sad.”

The Dazzling desperately wanted to say something to counter Lucrezia’s claim, something to once more get the woman to sweat and second-guess herself, but she couldn’t think of anything. Her scheme had been unraveled, and deep down she knew that there was nothing she could say to fetter it back together.

“You know, at first I thought about calling bullshit on your little ploy right from the start,” Lucrezia continued, now sounding just as pompous as when all of this had begun. “But then I thought to myself, ‘No, see how long you can string this nitwit along until she realizes she’s just embarrassing herself.’ And I don’t know if it’s because I’m such a talented actress or you really are dense, Aria, but it took much longer for our two-woman one-act to come to an end than I’d expected.”

Aria couldn’t tell if Lucrezia was being so overly insulting to try and get a rise out of her or she was simply just a super obnoxious person in general, but either way the Dazzling could feel the fires of enmity begin to burn ever hotter within her with each word the woman spoke.

“I’ve been playing this Game of Thrones stuff for a long time, dating back to when the game actually was played over thrones,” Lucrezia then said as she got up from her seat and walked over to the glass wall on the other side of the room. “And do you how it is I’ve managed to stay at it for so long? By being smarter than everyone else, by thinking of every little detail in my plans and devising contingencies for every eventuality. Did you really think I hadn’t expected -”

As Lucrezia rambled on boastfully whilst looking out the window, Aria couldn’t help but give a small, dejected sigh and sink a bit into her seat. The Dazzling had never cared for this kind of boastful monologuing, not even back when she and her sisters had been so power-hungry - and not just because Adagio had never let her do any of it. To her, monologuing was nothing more than an exercise in egotistical idiocy, given how often it led to their downfall because it provided the person or persons being monologued to a chance to come up with a plan to stop them.

For a brief moment, Aria contemplated trying to come up with a plan to stop Lucrezia while the woman harangued but quickly decided doing so would just be futile. Playing psychologist had been the only card in her deck of trickery that’d stood any chance of succeeding, and since it had failed miserably she once again felt forced to resign herself to her virulent fate.

“I’ve always had a unique talent for seeing things that others miss, not that my father ever saw that mind you,” Lucrezia continued to babble. “All that bastard ever saw in me was a pretty face and nothing more. Any plans I ever came up with to keep our family alive he always dismissed in front of me but then passed along to my brothers as if they were his ideas. My brothers would implement ‘his’ plans and everyone would get credit for them except the one person who deserved it most; me!”

Another reason Aria hated monologuing so much was because eventually it always got insanely personal, and now that Lucrezia had reached that point in her rambling the Dazzling found herself sinking even deeper into her seat – though admittedly she found it somewhat amusing that she’d apparently been correct earlier about the woman doing all of this to prove herself to someone.

With each circuitous word that spewed from Lucrezia’s mouth Aria wished more and more that this whole excruciating experience would end already. The pig-tailed girl didn’t know for certain what awaited her in death, but she had to figure whatever it was it couldn’t possibly be any worse than continuing to listen to Lucrezia talk aimlessly and endlessly. Part of her thought it would be prudent to just remove Rasputin’s cross from around her neck to spare herself any further verbal torture, but she knew that if she tried to do that Justice would, in all likelihood, simply prevent her from doing so again.

Suddenly feeling curious about how Justice was reacting to Lucrezia’s prattling, Aria turned her head to see if her companion was feeling just as annoyed as she was right now. Though much to the Dazzling’s surprise, the demon girl didn’t look annoyed in the least. Rather, she looked quite pleased as she quietly got up from her seat and slowly but steadily started to walk around the table, much to Aria’s befuddlement and concern. The pig-tailed girl hastily sat more upright in her chair as she watched with worrisome eyes whilst Justice ambled around the end of the table and started to make a beeline straight for Lucrezia, causing her bafflement and alarm to compound immensely. What the heck was Justice thinking? The instant Lucrezia noticed her coming towards her she’d push the button in her hand and make it rain holy water, so why in the world would she even consider approaching her?

Feeling worried that Lucrezia might have already spotted her companion, Aria promptly turned her attention back to the woman, only to find her still looking out the window as she spoke.

“Well now it’s my turn to call the shots! It’s my time to lead the House of Burdz!” Lucrezia declared, completely oblivious to Justice’s ever-growing advancement towards her. “And no one - not my brothers, not Lucy, and certainly not you two - is going to get in the way of my -”

Lucrezia abruptly cut herself off when she felt a hand swiftly and firmly take ahold of hers.

“Gotcha,” Justice blithely told the woman right before spinning her around about ninety degrees and using her free hand to deliver a heavy blow right to her solar plexus.

“Ohhhh,” Lucrezia managed to softly utter as the wind was knocked out of her and she fell to her knees.

“I’ll just take this,” Justice then said as she took the button from the now marred Lucrezia.

Aria couldn’t believe what it was she’d just witnessed. So many things about this endeavor she’d embarked on for Lucy had been outlandish and incogitable, but the scene that had just unfolded before her was a whole new level of capriciousness. The way Lucrezia had started monologuing to the point of becoming inattentive to everything else in the room, Justice managing to take her by surprise and incapacitate her with a single strike; it all felt to her like something a hackneyed Saturday morning cartoon writer would churn out.

However, the Dazzling felt she couldn’t complain too much about everything that’d just happened since it all had led to a desirable outcome.

“Here, Aria. Hold onto this for me, will ya?” Justice then said as she closed the cover on the button and tossed it to the pig-tailed girl. “And good job getting Lucrezia to start monologuing by the way.”

Caught completely off-guard by Justice tossing the climacteric button to her, Aria quickly scrambled to her feet to try and catch the now airborne device. Thankfully, the demon girl’s throw was fairly on-point and the Dazzling had little trouble clasping it safely within her hands, but the fact that there was even a chance of the button hitting the table or ground and accidently getting pressed was enough to make her heart skip a beat or two.

“Are you crazy?!” She hotly asked her companion, wondering why she’d take such an incredibly unnecessary risk by throwing the button.

“What?” Justice nonchalantly replied as she hoisted Lucrezia up by the collar of her suit. “I need both hands free to teach this double-crossing bitch a lesson.”

Lucrezia gave no verbal or physical response to this, presumptively due to her still being disoriented by Justice’s punch.

As much as Aria would have liked to see Lucrezia get what was coming to her, she strongly felt that it was in both hers and Justice’s best interest if they just left right this second. So much craziness had already gone down since they’d walked into this office and there was no guarantee that more wasn’t awaiting them if they stuck around, so it only seemed sensible to walk away now before any further absurdities presented themselves.

“Forget her, let’s get out of here,” The Dazzling told the demon girl as she headed for the door.

“Aww come on, Aria,” Justice moaned. “I rarely get to punish people anymore, and I really want to punish Lucrezia.”

“You can punish her by making sure she never gets a good night’s sleep ever again,” Aria countered. “When we get back to Chaus we’ll tell Lucy that Lucrezia tried to double-cross her and then the bitch can spend the rest of her life living in fear.”

“Awww, not psychological punishment,” The demon girl then whined. “That’s not nearly as fun as corporal punishment.”

“Too bad!” The Dazzling snapped as she reached the door. “Now get the passkey to this door off of Lucrezia and let’s go already!”

“Buzzkill,” Justice muttered under her breath as she did as instructed and withdrew the key from one of Lucrezia’s pockets.

Upon obtaining the small, plastic passkey, Justice let go of Lucrezia, who once again fell to her knees but was at least with it enough now to brace herself from collapsing completely.

“Fuck…you,” The woman softly told the demon girl from down on all fours as her breath slowly started to return to her.

“You should be so lucky,” Justice replied facetiously before turning around and making her way over to Aria.

As Justice approached her Aria reached out her hand to get the passkey from demon girl. Despite being blind, Justice somehow sensed what the Dazzling was doing and held the key out in front of her for her companion to take, but just as she did so she felt a sudden sharp and burning sensation come over part of her arm.

“Ah!” The demon girl winced as she naturally jerked her arm closer to her person in response to the unexpected pain.

“Justice?” Aria said concernedly as she made her way over to the girl.

Within a matter of seconds Aria reached her companion and promptly took a look at the girl’s arm to see if she could see anything wrong with it. Almost instantly, the Dazzling noticed a small burn mark on Justice’s forearm that she was fairly certain hadn’t been there earlier.

“What the heck?” She uttered in bewilderment, wondering how it was the mark had suddenly appeared there.

“Damn. I haven’t felt something like that since I accidentally walked past that wave pool during a mass baptism in China a few years back,” Justice declared as she rubbed the mark with her opposite hand to try and soothe it.

As if the word ‘baptism’ were some sort of trigger, Aria swiftly craned her neck upwards to look at the sprinkler system sprawling across the ceiling. When she did, she noticed that a few of the sprinkler heads spread throughout were starting to drip with water.

“Oh no,” She uttered.

“Hehehe,” Lucrezia very softly but very wickedly uttered as she steadily got back onto her feet.

“What did you do?!” The Dazzling shouted at the woman. “What did you do?!”

“Exactly what I said earlier: I thought of everything,” Lucrezia answered once she was fully upright once more, though barely. “Which means that I put a timer on the sprinklers just in case I lost the activation button. And from the looks of it, I’d say time’s up.”

A look of sheer dread crossed Aria’s face when she heard Lucrezia’s explanation, and without even realizing it she went into fight-or-flight mode and hastily grabbed the passkey from Justice, took the demon girl’s hand in her free one, and ran for the door as fast as she could. However, the two girls didn’t get more than three steps closer to the exit before every single sprinkler head in the room opened up and started to rain copious amounts of liquid death from above.

“AAAHHH!” Justice cried out in excruciating pain as every inch of her exposed flesh became bombarded with the acid-like substance, causing her to fall to the floor and writhe about in pain.

“Justice!” Aria said as she instinctively jumped into action and attempted to use her body to shield Justice from the holy water, though to little success.

“AAAHHH! AAAHHH!” Justice continued to cry out as much of her body remained exposed to the deadly deluge.

Despite her best efforts to protect her companion, Aria found herself unable to completely shield Justice. The demon girl’s flailing alone was making it impossible to fully cover her body, though even without the flailing the Dazzling wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to fully cover her. With each passing second that Justice let out her screams of agony Aria feared more and more for what was going to happen to her if the demon girl died. But more than that, with each scream the Dazzling could feel her heart be pierced with a thousand acicular blades.

Justice’s cries of pain were so excruciating, so primal that they reached all the way to Aria’s core. They were the kind of sounds that one couldn’t even begin to fathom were possible for someone to even make, and in that moment she hoped within the back of her mind that she would never hear this sort of anguished shrieking come from her sisters or housemates. With all of her heart she wished that she could do something to help the demon girl and end her suffering, but sadly there wasn’t anything that she could think of to do so. With all of Justice’s uncontrollable flailing it would be impossible to get her out of the room and the only thing within the room that could help her was Rasputin’s cross, which she needed to continue wielding to keep herself alive.

“Wait a second,” The Dazzling uttered to herself as she suddenly realized something Justice had said earlier regarding the cross around her neck.

Within the blink of an eye, Aria took hold of Rasputin’s cross with one hand and Justice’s hand with the other, making sure that the crucifix remained around her neck as she did so.

“Here!” She told Justice as she placed the cross within her companion’s hand and closed said hand around it, hoping with all her might that the girl could hear her over all the screaming. “Hold onto this! Just hold onto it!”

It was difficult for Aria to tell if Justice had heard her or not, but given that the demon girl appeared to be trying to grasp the cross as best she could it seemed that one way or another she got the message. The Dazzling attempted to help her companion by clasping both of her hands around hers, but just as the girl’s flailing had made it difficult to shield her so too did it make this difficult. Though thankfully, this time she managed to find the strength needed to properly compensate for Justice’s threshing.

“Come on, come on,” Aria muttered to no one in particular as she watched to see if anything about Justice started to change.

Sure enough, after a few seconds of Justice holding onto Rasputin’s cross some things did begin to change, the first among them being that the demon girl’s screams became quieter and less agonizing. Eventually her screaming stopped entirely, and when it did Aria initially feared that perhaps her companion had died. However, when the Dazzling saw that the numerous burn marks along Justice’s body were starting to heal at incredible speed she knew that this wasn’t the case, and that the theory her mind had formulated regarding the cross was true.

“W-What’s happening?” Lucrezia inquired apprehensively as she too noticed that Justice was starting to heal.

“Yeah, what’s…happening?” Justice weakly ingeminated as she tried to get back up on her feet.

“Easy. Don’t let go of the cross,” Aria told the demon girl as she helped her up.

“T-This doesn’t make any sense,” Lucrezia said as she backed away slightly from the two girls. “H-How come the holy water isn’t burning Justice anymore? And how come her injuries have healed.”

“It’s Rasputin’s cross, duh,” Aria explained once she and the demon girl were fully upright, trying to imitate Lucrezia’s pompousness as best she could. “You said it yourself, Lucrezia: it’s an incredibly powerful protective item.”

“I…I don’t understand,” Lucrezia confessed. “Justice isn’t wearing the cross, how is it protecting her?”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Aria answered. “Justice said that Lucy told her the cross makes whoever wields it virtually immortal. So as long as it’s around my neck and in Justice’s hand, we’re both wielding it.”

The Dazzling then dawned an arrogant smile.

“Honestly, Lucrezia, get with the program already,” She insolently told the woman.

“Ah, I see what you did there,” Justice said impertinently as she gave her companion a light tap with her elbow. “Nice one, Aria.”

Lucrezia opened her mouth to speak but said nothing, much to Aria’s amusement. The Dazzling wasn’t sure if the woman’s newfound speechlessness was due to her inability to come up with an adequate rebuttal or if she was too filled with fear to utter her counterstatement, but either way she was simply glad to see Lucrezia so genuinely flustered.

A few seconds of silence passed, during which time the sprinklers finally ceased showering the room in holy water.

“W-Well then,” Lucrezia eventually spoke up. “What say you keep the crucifix and I give you the payment for it back so we can all just forget about this whole, um…unfortunate incident, hmm?”

The woman swiftly grabbed the case that Justice had slid over to her earlier and held it out in front of her while simultaneously cracking a very forced and very awkward-looking smile.

“F-Friends?” She then said timorously.

As if reading one another’s minds, Aria and Justice shared a quick and silent look before concurrently nodding in agreement.

“Nah,” Both girls told Lucrezia in unison.

The Dazzling and demon girl proceeded to advance on Lucrezia with the clear intent of causing their would-be garroter malice, prompting the woman to drop the case and back away hastily. Lucrezia didn’t get very far though, as after only a few steps she hit a chair and went tumbling to the ground. By the time she managed to get herself recomposed, Aria and Justice were practically right on top of her.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Lucrezia pleaded. “This…this whole thing wasn’t my idea! It was…it was Gio’s! Yeah, he forced me to do all of this, I swear!”

“Now you’re just insulting my intelligence,” Justice told Lucrezia, now trying her hand at imitating the woman. “I know Gio isn’t smart enough to come up with a plan this meticulous, and even if he was you pretty much admitted earlier that you were the one behind this double-cross, Lucrezia.”

Without warning, Justice reached down with her free hand and grabbed Lucrezia by her shirt collar, much to Aria’s agitation as the gesture caused the cross around her neck to suddenly jerk her head downward.

“Careful, will ya?” The Dazzling flippantly asked her companion.

Justice didn’t say anything in response. All the demon girl did was proceed to hoist Lucrezia up off the ground and bring her within a couple inches of her face.

“Justice? Justice, p-please, we can talk about this,” The woman said fearfully as she stared at her own reflection within the demon girl’s sunglasses.

“I’ve got a question for ya, Lucrezia,” Justice sternly said. “You answer it truthfully and I’ll let you go, understand?”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” Lucrezia immediately replied.

“The spell you put on the door so that I couldn’t break it, did you cast it all along this room?” The demon girl asked.

“I-I’m not the one who cast the spell. It was Gio, honest,” Lucrezia answered, sounding sincere enough. “I don’t know if he cast it along the whole room or not.”

Just then, a wicked smile crossed Justice face, one that caused a pit to form in Aria’s stomach when she saw it.

“Well, why don’t we find out if he did?” The demon girl asked.

Within what felt like only nanoseconds to Aria, Justice hoisted Lucrezia up even more and flung her to the side as though she were no heavier than a soft-shell jacket. The woman sailed through the air for only a fraction of a second – not even long enough for her to utter a single scream - before making contact with the nearby glass window with a resounding thud.

“Sweet Celestia!” She shouted as Lucrezia bounced off the window and hit the floor.

“Ah nuts,” Justice remarked as she walked over to where Lucrezia had hit the window - dragging Aria along with her - and tapped the glass a few times to check its structural integrity. “Looks like Gio did cast the spell around the whole room.”

With where Justice had dragged her to, Aria now found herself standing almost directly over a now lifeless-looking Lucrezia. Fearful that she might have just become an accomplice to a first-degree felony, the Dazzling gently gave the woman a few light kicks to see if her sudden collision with the window and floor had been fatal.

“Ugh,” A benumbed and barely audible moan escaped from Lucrezia’s mouth, much to Aria’s relief.

“What the actual hell, Justice?!” The Dazzling hollered at her companion. “I thought we were just going to rough her up a bit, not try and murder her!”

“I wasn’t trying to murder her,” Justice replied innocently.

“You tried to throw her out of a seventeen-story window, that’s trying to murder her!” Aria explained.

“Oh, she wouldn’t have died if she’d gone through the glass,” The demon girl said as she too gave the woman a few kicks. “Trust me, this one’s tougher than she looks. She may be pompous, conniving, and a coward, but she’s tough.”

Aria had a difficult time believing Justice’s claim that Lucrezia would’ve survived a fall from seventeen-stories above ground level, but she really didn’t feel like she had the mental energy to argue with the girl about that right now. Right now all she felt she had the energy for was getting in the car and heading back to Chaus.

“Let’s just go already,” She said as she took ahold of Justice’s arm and started walking towards the door.

“Okie dokie,” Justice simply replied.

Before Aria pulled her too far away, Justice used her free hand to grab the case containing Lucrezia’s payment from off the floor.

Within a matter of moments, Aria was able to successfully use Lucrezia’s passkey to open the door and get herself and Justice back to the elevator. Once inside the lift they wasted no time in getting it moving back down to the ground floor, though like before when they’d used it to go up they now found themselves with a few moments of slightly uncomfortable idleness.

“You think Gio will still be in the lobby when we get down there?” Aria asked her companion, both out of concern for the man being a problem and out of a desire to break the silence.

“Probably. Though I doubt he’ll try anything funny,” Justice answered. “And even if he does, don’t worry about it. I can handle him.”

The Dazzling had no doubt that Justice could take on the nightwatchman with ease, even with one of her hands full carrying the case with Lucrezia’s payment and the other holding onto Rasputin’s cross.

“You know, you can probably let go of the cross now,” She said as she began to wonder why the demon girl was still holding onto it even though the rain of holy water had ended.

“Yeeeah, I’d rather not,” Justice replied. “My clothes are still pretty soaked with holy water, so I’m afraid that if I let go of this thing I’m gonna get burned again.”

The fact that Justice’s clothes were still saturated with holy water was something that Aria hadn’t considered. In fact, up until just now she hadn’t really considered that her own clothes were similarly drenched. In all the panic and chaos that’d erupted after Lucrezia had activated the sprinklers it was simply something that she hadn’t taken much note of.

“We can stop somewhere on the way back to Chaus and get some dry clothes if you want,” She told her companion, wanting just as much as her to shed her sodden attire.

“For real?” Justice rhetorically asked, sounding genuinely touched by the Dazzling’s offer. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Aria replied just as they reached the ground floor.

Sure enough, as the two girls got off the elevator and walked around the corner into the lobby Gio was still seated in the same spot he’d been in earlier.

“Took you long enough, sis,” The man said as he turned to face them. “You need any help with the cle -”

Gio cut himself off when he saw that it was Aria and Justice who’d come off the elevator and not his sister as he’d assumed.

“Surprise,” The Dazzling vapidly said as she and Justice walked past him.

Justice said nothing to Gio but did shoot him the best finger-gun she could muster with the hand she was using to carry the case.

Just as Justice had predicted, the young nightwatchman didn’t try anything funny. All he did was get up hastily from his seat once the Dazzling and demon girl walked past him and make his way over towards the elevator, presumably to go up and check on Lucrezia.

“Hey, I gotta ask you something, Justice,” Aria said as she and her companion exited the building.

“Okay. Shoot,” The demon girl replied.

“How come you were so insistent on me not taking this cross off back there?” The Dazzling inquired.

“Oh, well that’s easy; it’s because I like you,” Justice replied, much to Aria’s surprise.

“You…l-like me?” She asked apprehensively, unsure of which exact form of ‘like’ the demon girl was using.

“Well, yeah, of course I do,” Justice confirmed as they reached the car. “Not sure if you know this, Aria, but you’re a pretty awesome person. You’re strong-willed, cunning, and a good listener. Seriously, I don’t know many people who would’ve managed to survive an encounter with Lucrezia like that, or who would’ve let me talk so much about the 1976 Fillydelphia hockey team. If I didn’t have my hands full right now I’d be tempted to give you the biggest side hug of your life, buddy.”

Aria didn’t say so aloud, but internally she was glad that Justice was unable to hug her. Though she did appreciate the sentiment behind the girl’s desire to do so, and the sentiment behind her referring to her as her buddy.

“Don’t go getting soft on me, Miss-Former-High-Prosecutor-of-Hell,” The Dazzling said as she gave Justice a light tap on the arm, eliciting a small smile from the demon girl. “Now come on, let’s get out of here and -”

Aria abruptly stopped talking right as she and Justice reached the car and came to an uneasy realization.

“Uh, how are we both going to get into the car without ever removing the cross from our person?” She inquired.

“Oh, we’ll just, um…” Justice started to answer. “You can get in and then I’ll – wait, that won’t work…we can both climb in through the – no, that won’t work either…okay, I have no idea.”

“Terrific,” The Dazzling uttered as she facepalmed.

“So you’ve pulled that talky-feely stuff on people before?” Justice inquired as she and Aria walked through the antechamber leading to Lucy’s office.

“Oh, yeah, tons of times,” The Dazzling answered. “I learned a long time ago that if you ever want to confuse someone to the point of stupefying them you just need to start talking about feelings and mushy stuff like that.”

“Huh. I’ll have to remember that,” The demon girl replied as they exited the narrow foyer.

By some miracle, Aria and Justice had managed to find a way to get into the car with relative ease whilst both of them continued to hold onto Rasputin’s cross. And by some even bigger miracle, they’d managed to find a way to get out of their holy water-soaked clothes and into some dry ones they picked up at a store on the way back to Chaus with just as much relative ease. Then again, after what they’d gone through with Lucrezia just about anything would’ve been relatively easy by comparison. Regardless though, both girls were simply glad to finally be done with their job and back at Chaus; Aria a bit more so than Justice.

“Aria, Justice, welcome back,” Lucy greeted them as they approached her desk. “My, my, don’t you two look…different.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Aria replied as she quickly scanned the room. “Where’s Kiwi?”

“She’s downstairs having a few drinks on the house,” Lucy answered.

Aria wasn’t sure how she felt about this. On the one hand, she was glad that her housemate hadn’t been alone with Lucy the whole time she’d been gone, but on the other she was worried that the reason for this was because Lucy had used her silver tongue to talk the PostCrush girl into signing something she shouldn’t have.

“I see by the cross around your neck, Aria, that your pick-up was successful,” The club owner then said.

“Really? That’s what tells you our pick-up was successful?” The Dazzling rhetorically asked, right before reaching Lucy’s desk and slamming her palms down on top of it. “The fact that I’m still alive didn’t tell you that?!”

“Well, sounds like Justice remembered to have you verify the item then,” Lucy replied, seemingly unfazed by Aria’s intimidating gesticulation.

Lucy’s apparent indifference to her being acutely upset only made Aria even more agitated. She was by no means surprised by the woman’s callousness, especially now that she knew her to be the Devil herself, but the day’s events had weighed heavy on her ability to deal with unpleasant people and situations. Right now, even the smallest amount of distastefulness was enough to make her blood begin to boil. However, she made every effort to not let these feelings get the better of her.

“Was that whole verification-thing really necessary, Lucy?” Justice chimed in. “I mean, did you seriously think Lucrezia was going to try and give us a fake item?”

Lucy didn’t reply to Justice’s inquiry right away. She did, however, raise a single brow at the demon girl in what could only be described as a look of puzzlement.

“Yes, Justice, I did think there was a possibility she’d do that,” She eventually answered. “Or at the very least something like it.”

“Weeell, she did try to double-cross us by killing me with holy water and letting the black mamba venom kill Aria,” Justice reluctantly admitted.

“My point exactly,” Lucy sharply told the demon girl before shifting her attention back to Aria. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ll take my cross.”

The Dazzling grabbed the rope around her neck with great alacrity, wanting nothing more in that moment than to give it to Lucy and be done with the cursed thing once and for all. However, as she lifted it over her head she stopped about midway through when she realized that it might still not be safe for her to take it off. A quick recall of everything that had happened since Justice had injected her with the venom told her that more than a half-hour should’ve passed by now, but she wasn’t entirely certain. Regardless though, she decided to finish removing the cross from her person out of a strong belief that it was safe for her to do so, and a strong sense of faith within Justice that if she was wrong her new buddy would help her.

“Here,” She said sourly as she threw the crucifix down onto the desk.

In the seconds that immediately followed the removal of Rasputin’s cross from her person, Aria felt no differently than she had when she’d been wearing the crucifix.

“And consider this my last pick-up for you, Lucy,” The Dazzling added after she was sure she was fine. “I quit. Find yourself another ‘courier’.”

“Oh, well that’s disappointing to hear,” Lucy said in a surprisingly placid manner. “But if that’s how you feel I suppose that’s that.”

Aria watched in mild bewilderment as Lucy picked up the cross and placed it inside one of her desk drawers, wondering why it was the woman seemed so accepting of her resignation. She wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she’d been expecting from the club owner when she told her that she was quitting, but she knew she hadn’t been expecting one so mild and amenable.

“Here’s the rest of the amount we agreed upon for this job, as well as a little extra,” Lucy then said as she pulled some cash out of her desk. “Think of it as a…performance bonus.”

Aria took the money from Lucy and quickly looked through it to see if there really was more than what she and Lucy had agreed to, and much to her pleasant surprise the woman actually had given her extra. Of course, she made sure not to express this pleasantness right in front of Lucy. Playing things as impassively as possible around the club owner was always a strategy that she and her sisters had felt to be wise, but now that she knew she was the Devil she felt that this strategy was practically sage.

“Thanks,” She plainly said as she put the money in her pocket and turned around to leave.

“Later, Aria,” Justice bid the Dazzling goodbye.

“Later, Justice,” Aria simply said back.

In truth, the Dazzling wanted to say more to Justice. She wanted to tell her that, despite a few rocky moments during their time working together, she was glad that they’d gone on the pick-up together and was grateful for the concern she’d shown her. But just as she didn’t want to show her amiability regarding her ‘performance bonus’, so too did she not want to show her newfound fondness for the demon girl in front of Lucy either.

With the business between herself and Lucy concluded, Aria began to make her way towards the elevator. As she walked through the large, ornate room she hoped that she’d never have to set foot within it again for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that she found the place a little too ostentatious for her liking.

“Good luck with your upcoming meeting with Banyan Capital, Aria!” Lucy called out to her just as she got about halfway to the antechamber.

The instant the Dazzling heard the words ‘Banyan Capital’ she stopped dead in her tracks. Banyan Capital was the name of the venture capital firm that Sugarcoats mom had helped them get in contact with, and for Lucy to know that they were coming to her farm filled her with no shortage of strong, negative emotions.

“How the hell do you know about that?” She asked the woman indignantly as she turned back around.

“The owner of Banyan told me,” Lucy explained. “As prominent business owners within the Canterlot community we talk to each other often, and when she told me the other day that she was going to be sending one of her associates out to an emu farm I figured she just had to be talking about your place.”

The fact that Lucy personally knew the owner of the venture capital firm she and her sisters were to meet with didn’t sit well with Aria. The Dazzling couldn’t help but get the distinct impression that the reason the club owner was sharing this information with her was to vex her, to make her feel that she had some form of control over whether or not Banyan would choose to do business with her and her sisters – which for all she knew might very well be the case.

“Bit of friendly advice for you,” Lucy then added. “When you meet with the Banyan associate, focus more on your initial high-level spend and pecuniary resources rather than revenue growth. Banyan people tend to care more about making sure that the businesses they take on will have a healthy cash-flow rather than how much money they could potentially make right off the bat.”

Despite Lucy speaking in her usual tongue-and-cheek manner, Aria believed the woman’s suggestion to be a sincere one.

“Thanks for the advice,” The Dazzling replied dispassionately as she turned around and started to walk away once more.

As Aria headed back down to the club to rendezvous with Kiwi, she found herself fixated on Lucy’s connection to Banyan Capital and whether not the club owner could – or would – do anything to derail her meeting with the firm. She just couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that the whole reason the woman had made mention of her knowledge of the meeting was to indirectly tell her not to get her hopes up that it would go well. Then again, Lucy had just offered her a genuinely sound piece of advice about how to make a good impression on the Banyan associate, so maybe providing her with that was all she’d wanted to do.

The more Aria thought about the whole thing the more she could feel a migraine start to come over her, so rather than allow that headache to overtake her she decided to forget about the subject and simply believe that things would work out well in the end, regardless of any possible intervention by Lucy.

By the time the Dazzling reached the main floor of Chaus the club was mostly empty, so she had no trouble locating Kiwi seated over at the bar. She quickly made her way over to her, though not too quickly as she needed a little bit of time to figure out how she was going to explain certain things about her pick-up to the PostCrush girl. She already knew that she wasn’t going to tell her about Justice being a bona fide demon and Lucy being the Devil for fear of being thought of as nuts, but there were still a number of other things she wasn’t sure she wanted her friend to know about.

“Hey, Kiwi,” She greeted the girl once she reached the bar.

“Hey, Ari – oh my gosh!” The PostCrush girl replied as she turned around and saw the Dazzling’s unusual attire. “Why are you wearing those clothes? Are you okay? What happened on your pick-up?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you on the way home,” Aria said as she signaled for the PostCrush girl to follow her.

“Oh, o-okay,” Kiwi said as she got up from her seat and followed Aria out to the car.

Once the two girls were on the road back home Aria told her housemate her tale of retrieval and betrayal. The Dazzling tried to give as few details as possible, but near-constant questions from Kiwi forced her to be more specific than she would’ve liked. In the end, her story basically went something like this: Justice poisoned her on Lucy’s orders to verify the legitimacy of Rasputin’s cross, and soon after Lucrezia demanded the cross back and tried to double-cross them. She and Justice managed to fight back against Lucrezia and get away without harm, but not without accidently activating the sprinkler system and getting soaked in the process.

Despite some of the more interesting parts of Aria’s story being left out, like Justice trying to throw Lucrezia out a seventeen-story window, Kiwi still found herself in shock and awe of everything that had befallen the Dazzling while she was out on her pick-up.

“Wow. Just…I don’t even know what to say to all of that,” The PostCrush girl said. “I can’t believe Lucy told Justice to poison you, or that Justice actually did that. She seemed so nice.”

“Eh, she’s not so bad,” Aria replied. “Yeah, she poisoned me, but when Lucrezia tried to take Rasputin’s cross back she did everything she could to protect me. Way I see it those two things kinda balance each other out.”

“I suppose so,” Kiwi conceded. “But what really surprises me is that Lucy told her to poison you. I just don’t understand how she could ask someone to poison someone else.”

“Yeah, me either,” Aria lied.

“Well one thing’s for sure,” Kiwi said with conviction. “I am not taking her up on her offer for me to perform at Chaus.”

“That what she wanted to talk to you about?” The Dazzling inquired.

“Uh-huh,” The PostCrush girl answered. “She said that she’d be all right with just me performing there if Su-Z didn’t want to, and without a contract. But after what you just told me I’m never even going to step foot inside Chaus again, let alone perform there.”

Unbeknownst to Kiwi, Aria cracked a small smile upon hearing her say that she wanted to never step foot inside Chaus again. The Dazzling felt touched by how upset her friend felt at the fact that Lucy had indirectly poisoned her, but unfortunately the feeling didn’t last long as soon an unfortunate realization came to her.

“Aw dang it,” She said aloud. “Adagio’s probably gonna be pissed that I found a job and quit it in the same day.”

“Probably,” Kiwi said. “But given how much money you made today I’m guessing she won’t be too upset.”

“Here’s hoping,” The Dazzling replied.

“And you know, we can always go out again and find you another job,” The PostCrush girl continued. “I mean, yeah, the chances of us finding you something that pays as well as that courier job are pretty low, but after today I think what’s most important is that you get a job that’s safe and -”

Without realizing it, Aria inadvertently tuned out her housemate as her mind began to contemplate if she’d truly made the right choice by resigning as Lucy’s courier. Not from the standpoint of Lucy possibly sabotaging her meeting with Banyan Capital as a result of doing so, but from the standpoint of it having been a really good paying job. Kiwi was certainly right about the odds of her finding a similarly high-paying job being low, and if things didn’t turn out well with Banyan Capital – for whatever reason – then she and her sisters would most likely find themselves in financial trouble so dire they’d lose their farm.

The more the Dazzling thought on all of this the more she started to feel that letting such a lucrative job go was a foolish decision, regardless of how dangerous it might be, and that for the sake of her sisters, housemates, and emus it might be best if she went back to Lucy the next morning and told her she’d continue to serve as her courier.

The Prodigal Sister

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“True, true original. True, true original ~” Su-Z sang to the emu she was grooming, though at a slower and more soothing tempo than usual. “True, true original. We’re perfect, perfectly true ~”

*RRMMOO*

The PostCrush girl’s emu let out a low, happy sounding note as she continued to brush and sing to him, eliciting a cheerful smile from the former popstar.

Only a few months had passed since Su-Z and Kiwi had come to live and work on the Dazzlings’ emu farm, but for the former popstar it felt more like she’d been there for a few years. Unlike Kiwi, the younger of the two PostCrush girls had had little to no trouble acclimating to farm life. Perhaps it was because of all the years she’d spent taking care of Princess Thunder Guts, but Su-Z not only found it fairly undemanding to tend to the emus but also somewhat enjoyable. Almost immediately after her first day of work she’d discovered a certain satisfaction in ensuring the large birds were taken care of and cherished. A satisfaction that, while not as intoxicating as the satisfaction that came from playing a sold-out show, was still very much rewarding.

However, despite the contentment she felt from her new station in life, Su-Z did have to admit that farm life had its downsides compared to popstar life. She no longer got to travel the world for one thing - which she’d absolutely loved - nor did she have as many nice possessions as she’d once had. Plus, money was much tighter now, more so than it had ever been for her. But these and other downsides were seen as trivial to her, and when she considered the upsides that had come about from living and working on the Dazzlings’ farm, such as the strong bonds she’d formed with the former sirens and the friendship she’d forged with Sonata’s daughter, Dolly, she was grateful for where life had taken her.

Though the PostCrush girl did wish that her journey to the farm hadn’t involved such a painful and ruinous fall from stardom.

“Damn, I’ve never seen Cole act so relaxed during a grooming before,” Aria Blaze said from the pen to Su-Z’s left.

“Me either,” Su-Z replied. “Usually he’s all fussy and grouchy whenever Kiwi or I try to groom him. No idea why he’s so much calmer today.”

“Beats me,” Aria admitted just as she finished grooming her emu. “Though if I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably because of your singing. Glen always seemed to like it when I hummed a song or two while I groomed him.”

The PostCrush girl nearly dropped her brush when she heard Aria bring up Glen. Back when she and Kiwi had first started working on the farm, Sonata had warned them about bringing up the middle Dazzling’s favorite emu who’d passed away, and Aria herself rarely ever spoke of him. So to hear the pigtailed girl make mention of him so casually was nothing short of surprising.

“I always wondered if all emu liked music or if it was just him. I never hummed or sang to any of the others,” The Dazzling continued, now sounding somewhat somber. “It always felt like that was something special between us, you know?”

“Uh-huh,” Su-Z replied sympathetically.

A brief moment of silence fell across the barn as Aria exited the pen she was in and took a seat on a nearby small bench.

“I know it sounds stupid, but I really miss that big, dumb bird,” The Dazzling lamented.

As the PostCrush girl finished grooming Cole and put her brush down, she wondered why it was that her friend was suddenly so chatty about Glen. It was unlike Aria to go off on a random tangent like this, and the fact that that tangent had led to her discussing something that she’d been told was a sensitive subject for the Dazzling. But regardless of whatever the reason for Aria precipitously opening up about her deceased emu, Su-Z knew what it was she had to do next.

“Hey, there’s nothing stupid about that,” The PostCrush girl compassionately told her friend as she took a seat next to her. “Glen was someone special to you and he’s gone, it’s only natural for you to miss him.”

Su-Z then placed a supportive hand atop the Dazzling’s.

“If I ever lost Princess Thunder Guts like you’d lost Glen I know I’d miss her every single day,” She continued. “So don’t feel bad about missing your emu. There’s nothing wrong with missing someone you felt close to, whoever they were.”

Another brief moment of silence followed as Aria turned her head away from Su-Z, though the PostCrush girl could’ve sworn she heard her friend give a small sniffle as she did so.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I miss Glen that much or anything,” The Dazzling eventually said in her typical tsundere fashion, though still with a hint of somberness evident within her voice. “I mean I miss him every once and a while, but not, like, every single day.”

Having known Aria long enough to understand her oranyan tendencies, Su-Z simply gave a playful eyeroll while her friend wasn’t looking and patted her hand a few times.

“Whatever you say, Aria,” The PostCrush girl facetiously said.

As Su-Z humored her friend’s faux surliness externally, internally she found herself fending off feelings of jealousy towards the Dazzling. Much to both the PostCrush girl’s surprise and dismay, she found herself feeling jealous of Aria for being able to open up about a subject that was so touchy for her, something that she herself often struggled with.

Like most people, Su-Z had a few subjects that she was pretty sensitive about. Subjects such as her sister Eclipse and PostCrush losing a Best New Band award to a one-hit wonder group called Of Girls and Rabbits a few years back to name a few. But unlike most people – or perhaps still like most people - the former popstar tended to avoid these subjects as much as possible. It was only natural, she felt, to steer clear of such delicate matters whenever feasible, as well as bury any negative emotions that arose whenever it was impossible to avoid them.

Alongside the PostCrush girl’s jealousy though was another feeling, one that she didn’t find quite as ugly; admiration. Seeing Aria find the courage and strength to start to overcome her pain from losing Glen filled her with a warm respect for the girl, even if it made her feel somewhat inadequate by comparison. And so, Su-Z chose to focus on this admiration rather than her jealousy, and as a result she buried the negative emotion down deep inside herself.

“Come on,” Aria said as she abruptly stood up. “We better get back to the house before Adagio gets pissed at us for being late.”

“Yeah, okay,” Su-Z concurred right before standing up as well.

As the two girls made their way through the barn towards the exit, the PostCrush girl glanced at all the emus they passed along the way and studied each of them for a couple of seconds. She and Aria had spent the majority of the morning and early afternoon grooming the emus - at Adagio’s strong insistence - in preparation for the arrival of the associate from Banyan Capital who was visiting them later in the day, and despite feeling as though they’d both done their best, she wasn’t all too sure their efforts had been enough. There was no denying that the large birds looked better than they had a few hours ago, but on the whole they still appeared rather bushy and unkempt.

“You think we got all the emus looking presentable enough?” She asked Aria as they continued to walk, wondering if the girl’s older sister would feel satisfied with their work.

“Eh, probably not,” The Dazzling answered bluntly. “But I don’t think it really matters. I’m pretty sure the venture capital person is going to care more about our business plan than how our emus look – despite Adagio’s belief to the contrary.”

“She really puts a lot of emphasis on appearances, huh?” Su-Z half-asked, half-stated.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Aria replied spiritlessly.

“Honestly though, I’m not even sure why Adagio’s getting so bent out of shape over this meeting,” The PostCrush girl then said as she and Aria exited the barn and headed for the house. “I mean, with that high-paying courier job you got we should be okay moneywise even without Banyan Capital’s help, shouldn’t we?”

“Yeeeah, no,” The Dazzling said awkwardly. “The job may be high-paying but it’s only on an as-needed basis, so I don’t know how much money I’ll be bringing in from month-to-month. Plus I’m not even sure how long the job is going to last for anyhow.”

Su-Z felt strongly inclined to inquire more about what Aria’s mysteriously lucrative courier job was, but since she knew such inquiries would be futile she remained silent. Adagio, Sonata, and herself had all previously pressed the girl for information regarding her new job when she’d returned from her job hunt with a good-sized wad of cash, but she’d refused to say anything about it other than that she was acting as a courier. Even Kiwi, who’d accompanied Aria on her search for employment, had refused to shed any light on Aria’s job – and rather disgruntledly at that – leading the PostCrush girl to come to the unsettling conclusion that Aria was working as a drug mule.

Not too surprisingly, Sonata had come to the same conclusion that Su-Z had, as evidenced by the youngest Dazzling having straight up asked her sister if she was running drugs. Naturally, Aria had vehemently denied that she was, and with Kiwi having backed her up on that denial all parties involved were satisfied with Aria keeping her job a secret so long as she was bringing in money from it. Though, at least in Su-Z’s case, some silent curiosities remained.

The PostCrush girl figured that someday she’d learn more about Aria’s mysterious new job, but much like with Glen, she knew that that day would come when the Dazzling was good and ready to talk about it.

“Ah geez,” Aria randomly and dejectedly said as the two girls approached the house.

“What’s wrong?” Su-Z confusedly inquired.

“That package over there,” The Dazzling replied as she pointed towards the porch.

The former popstar looked over to where her friend was pointing and saw a fairly large cardboard box lying on their porch near the front door, presumably left there by some delivery driver while they’d been in the barn.

“What about it?” She asked.

“How much you wanna bet it’s full of skin care products that Sonata bought after watching late-night infomercials again,” Aria rhetorically asked her housemate.

The PostCrush girl said nothing in response. She wanted to refute the Dazzling’s belief that Sonata had gone on a spending spree after watching one-too-many infomercials in the middle of the night whilst unable to fall asleep, but she knew all too well that the girl might have done just that.

A few seconds later the two girls reached the porch, and when they did they each stopped to inspect the box to see whose name was on the shipping label.

“Huh?” Su-Z said aloud when she saw that the package was addressed to her.

“Something you weren’t expecting?” Aria said in response to her friend’s confused remark.

“Yeah. No idea what this could be,” The PostCrush girl replied as she scanned the package for clues as to either its contents or where it had come from. “I know I didn’t order anything online or off of any infomercials, so I don’t know what -”

Su-Z abruptly cut herself when her eyes fell on the return address located in the upper right-hand corner of the shipping label. There was no name listed on it, but the street name alone told her everything that she needed to know.

“Ah geez,” She said dejectedly. “It’s junk from my mom.”

“How do you know it’s junk?” Aria inquired.

“Because she always sends me junk whenever she goes on one of her cleaning benders,” The PostCrush girl replied as she removed the tape from the top of the package and opened the box, revealing an assortment of various items within. “See? Nothing but a bunch of random stuff from when I was younger that she either thinks I want or that she can’t stomach to just throw out.”

“Ah,” The Dazzling simply replied as Su-Z hoisted the box off the ground and placed it on a nearby patio chair.

“Look at all of this,” The former popstar said as she started to rummage through the contents of the package. “Old boardgames, sketchbooks from grade school, Tamagotchis, -”

“What’s a Tamagotchi?” Aria interrupted.

“A digital pet that I never took care of but always wanted more of for some reason,” Su-Z answered as she continued to rummage. “Geez, can you believe this? My mom even threw in some crumbled-up newspaper clippings from when Kiwi and I were – oh my gosh! Cloudpuff!”

Within the blink of an eye, the PostCrush girl pulled a small white plush dog with wings from the box and held it close to her cheek.

“I thought I’d lost you years ago!” She said to the stuffed animal as she lovingly nuzzled it. “Ooooh, you’re just as fluffy and cuddly as I remember!”

Su-Z continued to affectionately cuddle her childhood toy for a few seconds until she heard the very distinct sound of Aria snickering playfully.

“I-I mean, um…” The former popstar embarrassingly began to say as she quickly removed the plush novelty from her face and threw it back into the box. “…I’m not excited at all about seeing the stuffed animal that I used to sleep with when I was younger. Nope, not excited at all.”

“Uh-huh, sure. Whatever you say, Su-Z,” The Dazzling facetiously told her friend.

Still feeling no small amount of embarrassment from her over-the-top reaction to seeing her long-lost childhood toy again, Su-Z swiftly folded the box back up and picked it up.

“C-Come on, let’s get inside,” She said, a small blush now crossing her face, as she desperately tried to open the front door with her hands full, though to no avail.

“Here,” Aria said as she opened the door for her friend.

“Thanks,” The PostCrush girl hastily lauded the Dazzling as she headed inside.

Upon entering the house, Su-Z couldn’t help but take notice of how much cleaner the living room and kitchen each looked than usual. Normally both rooms were aesthetically pleasing enough with only a few things here-or-there that seemed unpalatable, but since the meeting with the Banyan associate was likely to take place primarily in either one Adagio had strongly insisted – or rather strongly demanded – that, much like the barn and the emus, they look as spick and span as possible. And thanks to the efforts of Adagio, Kiwi, and Sonata, they did look incredibly spick and span.

“Hmm,” The former popstar muttered to herself as she contemplated where to set the box in her hands down without upsetting any of her housemates’ hard work.

After scanning the living room and kitchen for a few seconds, the PostCrush girl came to the conclusion that the best place to set down her package, at least temporarily, was the kitchen table. There was nothing else on the flat piece of furniture at the moment and it was highly unlikely that placing the box on top of it would dirty it up any. Plus it seemed like the most logical spot to set down a large box, even without worrying about disrupting the cleanliness of the house.

And so, with the weight of the box in her arms starting to get to her, Su-Z hurriedly made her way to the kitchen and carefully placed her package atop the table.

“Are you serious?!” Adagio’s voice suddenly roared from the nearby hallway, instantly causing the PostCrush girl to swiftly remove the box she’d just set down from the tabletop.

“The box was on the table when I got here!” She fibbed as she turned around, expecting to see Adagio staring daggers at her.

Much to Su-Z’s surprise though, when she looked over at the hallway there was no one standing there. Needless to say, the former popstar felt a sense of relief that Adagio’s hollering hadn’t been directed at her, but at the same time she couldn’t help but be curious as to what it was that had caused the eldest Dazzling to raise her voice.

“Oh, great,” Aria sarcastically remarked from over by the front door. “What’s Adagio getting her panties in a bunch over now?”

Almost as soon as Aria finished speaking, one of the bedroom doors from down the hall flung open and Adagio stormed out into the hallway.

“Where are the car keys?!” The poofy-haired girl shouted at no one in particular.

“Dagi, please, just calm down,” Sonata pleaded with her older sister as she followed behind her, who in turn was followed behind by Kiwi. “This isn’t that big a deal.”

“Not that big a deal? Not that big a deal?!” Adagio said bemusedly as she stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face her sibling. “How can you of all people say that this isn’t that big a deal?!”

Even from where Su-Z was standing, she could see the trepidation that was starting to come over Sonata as a result of Adagio yelling right in her face. Instinctively, the PostCrush girl started to make her way over to the two girls to try and disseminate the situation, but before she was able to take more than a couple steps forward Aria beat her to it.

“Okay, okay. What’s going on?” The middle Dazzling asked her siblings, in a manner that gave one the distinct impression that this was something she had to do all too often.

Adagio looked over at Aria for a split-second before returning her gaze right back to Sonata.

“You wanna tell Aria, or do you want to wait another few weeks to let her in on your little secret?” The Dazzling leader crassly asked her youngest sibling.

“Um, w-well, you see, Aria,” Sonata started to say, sounding noticeably flustered. “Dolly met a boy in her oceanography class at school, and the two of them, um…have started dating.”

“Ah, so that’s what this is about,” Su-Z uttered softly to herself just as Kiwi walked up beside her.

“You already knew about this?” The older of the two PostCrush girls asked.

“Yeah, Dolly told me about her boyfriend over the phone a few weeks ago,” Su-Z answered. “She told Sonata not long afterwards, and when she did all three of us agreed that it would probably be best to keep it a secret until we figured out how to break the news to Adagio.”

“Can’t imagine why you felt the need to do that,” Kiwi commented sarcastically.

“Seriously? Are you not seeing how Adagio’s acting right now?” The younger PostCrush girl replied, clearly not picking up on her friend’s mordancy.

“Sarcasm, Su-Z,” Kiwi candidly informed the girl.

“Ohhh,” Su-Z replied, as if gaining some great new perspicacity. “Well anyways, I’m guessing since Adagio found out about Dolly’s boyfriend that means Sonata accidently spilled the beans, huh?”

“Yep,” Kiwi confirmed “And as soon as she did Adagio started freaking out, and, well, here we are.”

“Here we are,” Su-Z reiterated as she and Kiwi watched the family drama amongst the three Dazzling sisters continue to unfold before them.

“Oh, I trust Dolly. It’s this new boyfriend of hers that I don’t trust,” Adagio told her siblings as she practically shoved them out of her way and headed for the front door. “I want to know who he is and what his intentions with Dolly are, and the best way for me to do that is to drive to Dolly’s school and have a little chat with him.”

Within what seemed like the blink of an eye, the eldest Dazzling reached the door, grabbed the car keys from off a nearby table, and flung the door open with so much force that one would think she were trying to tear the thing off its hinges.

“Uh, Adagio? Our meeting with Banyan?” Aria reminded her older sister just before she stepped outside.

An awkward silence fell over the house for a few seconds as Adagio simply stood in the doorway whilst everyone else watched her, waiting to see what it was the girl would do next. Eventually, the Dazzling leader took a step back and gently closed the door before turning back around.

“I’m going as soon as our meeting is done,” She said reluctantly and sharply as she made her way back over to the others.

Aria and Sonata each let out a small, discreet sigh of relief as their older sister rejoined them, though not so small and discreet that it avoided Su-Z’s notice. In truth, the younger PostCrush girl felt relieved that Adagio wasn’t rushing off to reenact the Spanish Inquisition with Dolly’s boyfriend for the time being, she just didn’t show it. She had no doubt that the Dazzling meant it when she said that she’d leave immediately after their meeting with Banyan concluded, but she also had faith that by that time the girl would be a bit calmer – especially if the Banyan meeting ended up going well.

Not long after Adagio reconvened with her sisters, her gaze shifted over towards Su-Z and Kiwi. And when it did, she quickly dawned an expression of curiosity and confusion.

“What’s with the box, Su-Z?” The Dazzling leader asked her.

“Oh, this?” Su-Z replied as she hoisted the box up slightly. “It’s just a bunch of junk my mom sent me.”

“And Cloudpuff,” Aria added jocosely, much to Su-Z’s chagrin.

“Well just throw it in your room before the Banyan associate gets here,” Adagio instructed the former popstar.

“On it,” The former popstar said as she started to make her way towards her bedroom, happy to finally have a place where she could set her package down without worry.

Just as Su-Z was about to enter the hallway leading to her room, the sound of three swift, loud knocks from over by the front door echoed throughout the house, immediately garnering the attention of all five girls within it.

“Is that the Banyan person?” Sonata wondered aloud.

“I don’t know,” Adagio answered, a hint of trepidation noticeable within her voice. “Just…everyone get into position!”

At Adagio’s direction, Aria, Sonata, Kiwi and Su-Z all went to assigned positions that the elder Dazzling had given them the day before for when the Banyan associate arrived. Aria joined her older sister to answer the door while Sonata went and grabbed a plate of assorted cheeses from the kitchen counter to offer their guest. Kiwi and Su-Z both went to sit down at the kitchen table - Su-Z doing so whilst still carrying the package from her mother.

“Su-Z!” Adagio hollered at the girl when she noticed the large parcel was still in her hands.

“On it!” Su-Z reiterated before abruptly changing course and double-timing it to her bedroom.

Within a matter of seconds the former popstar disappeared into the hallway, effectively removing herself from view of the front door just as Adagio and Aria reached it. After confirming that Su-Z and her subfuscous box of junk were no longer within sight, Adagio quickly reached for the doorknob and, with a surprising amount of grace, swiftly opened the door.

“Hello! And welcome to Dazzling Farms!” The eldest Dazzling cheerfully blurted out to the person on the other side of the threshold, before even getting a good look at them.

“When did we start calling this place ‘Dazzling Farms’?” Sonata discreetly whispered to Kiwi after hearing her sister’s boisterous greeting.

“I’m guessing just now,” Kiwi just as discreetly whispered back.

“Oh, um, hello,” A professional-looking young woman with light sapphire bluish gray hair answered Adagio. “I’m supposed to meet with an Adagio Dazzle here on behalf of Banyan Capital. My name is -”

“Yes, of course! We’ve been expecting you!” Adagio interrupted the woman, right before gently putting an arm around her back. “Please, please, come in!”

“T-Thank you,” The Banyan associate apprehensively replied as she was lightly pulled into the house by the Dazzling leader.

“I’m Adagio Dazzle, the chief financial officer,” The poofy-haired girl introduced herself. “And this is my sister Aria, our production manager.”

“Hey,” Aria simply said as she extended an amiable hand out to their guest.

“Nice to meet you,” The Banyan woman replied as she shook the Dazzling’s hand.

“And over here is my other sister Sonata,” Adagio then said as she guided the woman over towards her youngest sibling. “She’s, um…someone who helps out from time-to-time.”

“Hello!” Sonata greeted the Banyan associate as she shoved the platter in her hand right in the woman’s face. “Care for some cheese?!”

“Um, n-no, thank you,” The woman somewhat squeamishly declined. “I’m lactose intolerant.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry about that,” Adagio apologized.

Immediately after Adagio’s mea culpa, the eldest Dazzling vigilantly shot Sonata a very stern and very austere face in an attempt to silently communicate to her younger sibling to remove the cheese platter from their guest’s face. Thankfully, Sonata instantly picked-up on her older sister’s non-verbal message and quickly did as requested.

“And over here we have one of our farmhands,” Adagio then said once the woman’s face was free of dairy-product. “Her name is -”

“Kiwi Lollipop?” The Banyan associate interjected in bewildered astonishment.

“Um, yes, that’s me,” The former popstar replied almost as bewilderedly as she got up from her seat to greet the woman.

As Kiwi extended her hand for a handshake, she tried to figure out how it was that this stranger apparently knew who she was. After about a millisecond though - and to no small amount of personal embarrassment - the girl remembered that at one point she’d been one of the biggest names in pop music, and that in all likelihood the Banyan associate knew of her from her time as a member of PostCrush.

However, the more the PostCrush girl looked at the woman standing in front of her the more she got the sense that she’d seen her somewhere before. She was fairly certain that they hadn’t met prior to today, but she was also fairly certain that she had seen her somewhere before, like on a TV show or in a picture in a magazine. But no matter how hard she tried to place who this person was she couldn’t do so, causing her curiosity to grow exponentially until it reached a point where it simply had to be sated.

“Sorry, but do I know you from somewhere?” She asked the woman as she shook her hand.

“Possibly,” The Banyan associate answered as she broke her handshake with Kiwi. “We’ve never met before, but it’s possible that my sister told you about me while you were on-tour together.”

“Your sister?” Kiwi wondered aloud.

As soon as the PostCrush girl finished speaking, the realization as to whom the woman was referring to struck her like a bolt of lightning, and just as an actual bolt of lightning would have done it caused her heart to skip a few beats. Additionally, the memory of where it was she’d seen this woman before came rushing back to the forefront of her mind like a mighty tidal wave; in a picture on Su-Z’s phone.

“Hold on,” Kiwi said with mild dread as she began to fully grapple with the reality of who it was she was speaking with. “You…you’re -”

“Eclipse?!” Su-Z suddenly shouted from the entrance to the hallway, immediately gaining her the attention of everyone else in the house.

“Eclipse?!” All three Dazzling sisters uttered simultaneously as they looked back over at their guest, whom they now knew was, of all people, Su-Z’s estranged sister.

“Supernova?” Eclipse uttered in quiet awe. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?! I live here!” Su-Z answered rather harshly, as though she were offended at the fact that she had to point such a thing out. “What are you doing here?!”

“I’m doing my job,” Eclipse replied with mild pique. “I’m an associate with Banyan Capital and was told to evaluate this farm for a potential partnership with the firm.”

A discomforting reticence inundated the house as the two estranged sisters stared one another down – Su-Z with enmity and scorn within her eyes and Eclipse with vexation and pertinacity within hers. Adagio, Aria, Sonata, and Kiwi all found themselves at a loss for either words or action, each of them finding herself only able to shift her gaze around the room. The four girls frantically looked at one another in the desperate hope that one of them would do or say something to break the uncomfortable tension now permeating the room, but the expression on each of their faces made it clear that none of them had any desire to further involve themselves in Su-Z and Eclipse’s family drama.

That is, until Sonata abruptly dawned a very quizzical look on her face.

“Wait a minute,” The youngest Dazzling spoke up as she looked over at Su-Z. “I thought you said you and your sister were twins. So how come you two don’t look anything alike?”

“We’re fraternal twins,” Su-Z clarified rather sourly, without ever taking her eyes off Eclipse.

“O-Okay, well then,” Adagio apprehensively chimed in, wanting more than anything in that moment to avoid another bout of bitter silence – and get back on-track with their meeting. “This has certainly turned into quite the, um…family reunion, hasn’t it? But how about we all have a seat now and -”

“Ha! Please,” Su-Z interrupted. “If this were a family reunion Eclipse wouldn’t have bothered to show up.”

“Real mature, Supernova,” Eclipse sarcastically retorted. “But Adagio is right, we should all have a seat and get this meeting underway.”

The three Dazzlings and Kiwi all gave a collective sigh of relief upon hearing Eclipse say that they should get their meeting started. As soon as Su-Z had hurled her slight at her sister they each had feared that the situation between the two of them would turn explosive, but thankfully Eclipse appeared to have been unperturbed by her twin’s crude words.

With things seemingly getting back on track, the four girls and their guest all started to make their way over towards the kitchen table. Su-Z, however, remained right where she was, like a steadfast pillar of steel.

“Oh, yeah, I’m the immature one,” The younger PostCrush replied, causing everyone else in the room to stop and turn around to face her – and simultaneously shattering Adagio, Aria, Sonata, and Kiwi’s sense of relief. “This coming from the girl who straight-up abandoned her family after she went off to college.”

“This isn’t the time or place for this, Supernova,” Eclipse sternly and testily replied.

“Tell me, when was the last time you saw or spoke with anyone in our family other than me?” The PostCrush girl continued right before slowly beginning to advance on her sister. “When was the last time you talked to Aunt Pitaya and Uncle Durian? Or visited Uncle Crimson and Cousin Indigo? Or had contact of any kind with Mom?!”

“Enough already!” Eclipse snapped as she started to meet Su-Z half-way. “If you want to talk about family matters then we can do so after I’m done with work!”

Each step that Su-Z and Eclipse took towards one another was light in sound but boomed like thunder within the ears of Kiwi and the Dazzlings. To the four other girls in the room, every step that drew the younger PostCrush girl and her sister closer also moved the doomsday clock ever closer to midnight. It was as clear and obvious as day to them that the animosity between Su-Z and Eclipse was even greater than they’d been led to believe by the younger PostCrush girl’s stories, and that if they didn’t do something to diffuse their fiery conversation soon then that animosity could potentially go nuclear.

Though unfortunately, none of them had any idea how to go about intervening in Su-Z and Eclipse’s confrontation.

The Dazzling sisters and Kiwi were no strangers to having to act as a mediator to help settle conflicts, but not a one of them had ever found themselves dealing with such a long-standing and intense altercation before, and as such none of them knew how to resolve it. Additionally, even if one of them did know how to intercede none of them was sure that she would’ve been able to muster up the courage to actually do so. All any of them felt they could do was watch the scene between Su-Z and her sister play out and hope with all their might that somehow the two wouldn’t end up coming to blows with one another.

“Uh-huh, sure,” Su-Z replied caustically. “I have no doubt that if I try calling you after you’re done with work you’ll definitely pick up.”

“Are you calling me a liar?!” Eclipse retorted just as she and Su-Z reached one another.

“Oh, no. I’d never call you a liar, Eclipse,” The PostCrush girl answered. “An apostate and a bitch maybe, but never a liar.”

“You…you…petulant child!” Eclipse derided her sister. “Who the hell do you think you are to judge me, huh?! Who are you to try and make me feel ashamed for breaking off contact with all those awful people I had to deal with growing up?!”

“Awful people?!” Su-Z fired right back, sounding downright offended. “Those people are you’re family!”

“Those people are terrible!” Eclipse hollered right in Su-Z’s face. “Every single one of them, terrible; Aunt Pitaya and Uncle Durian are a couple of über control freaks who always tried to convert us to their wacko religion whenever they saw us, Uncle Crimson and Cousin Indigo are so overly competitive they’re practically the posterchildren for the phrase, ‘Keeping Up with the Joneses', and Mom, oh, you want to talk about abandoning family, her and Dad were such workaholics for so many years that they might as well have abandoned us!”

A brief pause in Su-Z and Eclipse’s argument occurred as Eclipse tried to catch her breath from all of her yelling, during which time the Dazzlings and Kiwi all concluded with absolute certainty that their meeting wasn’t going to be getting back on track anytime soon – if ever. There was no daunt in any of their minds at this point that a more brutal, possibly physical altercation between the two sisters was just over the horizon, and that by the end of it they’d be lucky to have even a shred of hope of doing business with Banyan Capital left.

“And you,” Eclipse said with no small amount of contemptuous scorn once she’d regained her breath. “Do you have any idea what it was like having to grow-up alongside you?”

“Enlighten me,” Su-Z just as disdainfully replied.

“It…was…exhausting,” Eclipse informed her sister, strongly emphasizing each word. “You were, and by all accounts still are, an immature, self-centered, shameless attention hog.”

“You sure you’re not projecting your own shortcomings onto me, Eclipse?!” The PostCrush girl fired back. “’Cause the way I remember it, you were the one who was always the immature, self-centered, shameless attention hog!”

“Me?!” Eclipse shouted in disbelief. “I’m not the one who had to have Mom and Dad praise her every time she did some stupid drawing!”

“Well, I’m not the one who always had to have Mom and Dad praise her when she got a good grade on a test!” Su-Z rebuttaled.

“Yeah, w-well…” Eclipse stammered as she struggled to figure out what to say next. “…I’m not the one who had to have Mom and Dad console her for weeks on end after she found out that she’s infertile!”

Immediately after Eclipse uttered the word ‘infertile’ she gave a shocked gasp and placed both of her hands over her mouth. Similarly, Kiwi and the Dazzlings all dawned aghast expressions, perhaps the strongest any of them had ever given. Su-Z, though, remained almost entirely unchanged in her appearance, save for one noticeable difference; she now had tears streaming down her cheeks.

“S-Supernova, I…I didn’t mean to say that,” Eclipse sorrowfully said as she removed her hands from in front of her mouth. “I-I’m so, so sor-”

Before Eclipse could finish her sentence, Su-Z abruptly turned around and silently started to walk away.

“Supernova,” Eclipse woefully called out to her sister as she entered the hallway.

Su-Z gave no acknowledgement of her twin’s cry. The younger PostCrush girl simply continued to walk mutely through the hallway until she reached her bedroom, at which point she swiftly entered the room and promptly closed the door behind her.

As Su-Z disappeared into her room, Eclipse, Kiwi, Adagio, Aria, and Sonata, all caught a brief glimpse of the girl’s face. Not surprisingly, the stern, exasperated expression that she’d had before turning away from their view had been replaced by the somber and frail expression of someone who was just barely keeping it together. It was a sight that caused each of their hearts to sink a little bit due to the sheer amount of anguish Su-Z was clearly now feeling. But for Eclipse, the one who was responsible for that anguish, it felt as though her heart was sinking into oblivion.

“I’m sorry,” Eclipse grievously apologized to no one in particular.

None of the other girls said anything in response to Eclipse’s apology, mostly because all of them found themselves unable to even say anything after what had just transpired before them. Each of them had expected Su-Z and Eclipse’s argument to come to an explosive conclusion, one that would most likely have included physical confrontation, but instead it had come to a sudden and unexpected end brought about by a single word. For the Dazzlings, it was a combination of the shocking discovery they’d just learned about Su-Z and their collective distaste for Eclipse’s actions that were the cause of their speechlessness. For Kiwi though, it was just the sense of distaste for Eclipse’s actions that left her aphonic.

Once their initial shock began to dissipate, Kiwi and the Dazzlings all turned their attention towards Eclipse, who as far as they could tell had turned into a living statue. The young professional was completely motionless as though she’d been frozen in time, her gaze still fixated on the spot where she’d last seen her sister. Each of the four girls wanted to say something to Eclipse to make sure she was all right - despite their current feelings of detestation for her – but just like before none of them knew what to say.

“I…I should go,” Eclipse spoke up as she snapped out of her catatonia, right before turning around and heading for the front door as quickly as her legs would allow her.

“W-Wait,” Adagio barely managed to get out just as Eclipse opened the door.

“I’ll make sure someone else from Banyan contacts you about setting up another meeting,” The Banyan woman said as she stood in the doorway, now sounding a bit choked up. “Just…please tell Supernova that I’m sorry.”

As soon as Eclipse finished dolefully making her request, she stepped outside and closed the door behind her, leaving Adagio, Aria, Sonata, and Kiwi alone to process what they’d just witnessed.

“What…What just happened?” Aria softly asked the group.

“I’m not sure,” Adagio replied falteringly. “Things escalated so much and so quickly that I don’t know if I caught everything or not.”

“H-Hey, Kiwi,” Sonata tentatively addressed the former popstar. “That thing Eclipse said about Su-Z being infertile, do you…know if it’s true?”

Kiwi didn’t answer right away. Initially, the PostCrush girl simply turned her head to the side and looked dejectedly down at the floor.

“Yeah, I know,” The former popstar eventually replied. “And it is true; Su-Z, she…she can’t ever have children.”

Much like Eclipse had done after revealing her sister’s condition, Sonata brought her hands up to cover her mouth after she heard Kiwi’s confirmation. As for Aria and Adagio, the two of them followed the PostCrush girl’s lead and silently lowered their heads in a very despondent manner.

“I don’t know a lot of the details about Su-Z’s condition, but I do know that it has something to do with her having a hormonal imbalance,” Kiwi expounded. “I also know that when Su-Z found out that she was infertile it was devastating for her. When she told me about it she said that when she was growing up she always saw herself becoming a mother someday, and that when she learned she couldn’t physically have children it sent her into a pretty deep depression for a while.”

“I can imagine,” Adagio remarked solemnly.

“Su-Z said she eventually came to terms with her infertility, but as you saw it’s still a touchy subject for her,” The elder PostCrush girl continued. “Until today, the only people who knew about it were her immediate family and me. I figured that one day Su-Z would feel comfortable enough sharing her secret with the three of you, but I never expected that something like this would happen before then.”

Silence fell over the room once more as the Dazzlings continued to process the heartbreaking information they’d just learned regarding Su-Z. The three of them all had differing opinions and feelings about having children and motherhood in general, but they each shared the same feeling of sadness for Su-Z being physically unable to ever bear a child. Especially since, according to Kiwi, someday having a child was something that the girl really wanted when she was younger.

“I…I’m going to go check on Su-Z,” Sonata eventually broke the silence.

The youngest Dazzling turned around and started to make her way over towards the hallway, but only managed to make it about halfway before Kiwi caught up with her and grabbed her arm.

“No,” The former popstar told her housemate.

“W-What?” Sonata replied confusedly. “But we can’t just -”

“Trust me, Sonata, it’s best to leave Su-Z alone right now,” Kiwi cut the Dazzling off as she let go of her arm. “This is as touchy of a subject as there is for her, and I guarantee you that the last thing she wants right now is to talk about it even more. You can go and check on her in a bit, I promise, but for now all of us just need to give her some space.”

Despite Kiwi’s advice, Sonata still felt it would be best to go check on Su-Z. However, the girl’s mentality quickly changed when the sound of shouting accompanied by the sound of something crashing to the floor from within Su-Z’s room abruptly echoed throughout the house.

“So, what do we do now then?” Aria inquired.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going outside to get some air,” Kiwi replied right before heading for the front door.

“I think I’ll go get some air too,” Adagio acceded as she followed behind Kiwi.

Aria and Sonata looked at each other for a second before ultimately deciding to follow behind their older sister. Within moments, all four girls walked through the front door and out onto the porch, leaving Su-Z the house’s only remaining occupant.

Despite the number of people in the house having decreased significantly with Kiwi, Adagio, Aria, and Sonata’s departure, the noise level within it soon increased greatly. Multiple crashing noises emanating from Su-Z’s room started to ring throughout the domicile like church bells as the younger PostCrush girl took out her feelings of aggravation on just about anything she could get her hands on. Pillows, plushies, decorative houseplants; these things and more all began to suffer the wrath of a woman scorned in perhaps the most devastating way possible, and the more Su-Z took out her aggression on them the more she became subconsciously grateful that her beloved Princess Thunder Guts wasn’t in the room with her at the moment.

“Stupid Banyan meeting! Stupid Eclipse!” The enraged former popstar shouted as she savagely knocked over the box of junk her mom had sent her, scattering its various contents across the bedroom floor. “Stupid infer…infertil…”

No matter how hard Su-Z tried, she found herself unable to fully utter the word that had brought her so much pain ever since it came into her life. Though in trying to muster up the ability to speak it aloud she found that her anger began to subside at a rapid rate. However, for as quickly as the girl’s anger dissipated it was just as quickly replaced by a sorrow so strong that it caused her to fall to her knees and brace herself against the floor with her hands.

“Why? Just…why?” The former popstar sobbed as tears flowed like rivers down her face.

Wanting nothing more in that moment than for her agony to end, Su-Z closed her eyes tight in a desperate attempt to shut herself off from both the world outside and the world within her now troubled mind. Her tears continued to fall to the floor below her as she tried to calm down and center herself, but despite her best efforts the task proved impossible. Her levels of distress were simply too high, and soon enough she came to the conclusion that she had no other choice but to cry out all of her abrogating emotions, much to her chagrin.

For the next few minutes, Su-Z remained on the floor as she continued to bawl her eyes out. During this time her sorrow gradually began to lighten, and eventually the girl felt that she’d calmed down enough to get up. She opened her eyes and prepared to hoist herself back to an upright position, but when she did she noticed one of the sketchbooks from her mother’s package of junk right underneath her that caused her to pause.

“T-This is…” The PostCrush girl said as she sat up and took the open book in her hands.

As Su-Z stared at the page of the book in her hands – that was now covered in tears – she studied what it was that had been scribbled onto it: a drawing of a couple of dogs playing in an open field. It was clearly an image that the girl had drawn years ago when she was still in grade school, and even though decades had passed since its creation she remembered it quite well. Not because it was a particularly good drawing, but because of what had happened while she was drawing it.

The memory associated with the picture in Su-Z’s hands came flooding back to the forefront of the girl’s mind so vividly that it felt like it was only made yesterday, and as the scene played out before her mind she felt new tears begin to form within the corners of her eyes.

“I…I need to make things right,” The former popstar said firmly as she closed the sketchbook, not wanting to stain it’s pages any more with further teardrops.

With her newfound determination to right her wrongs, Su-Z got up fully from the floor and wiped the tears from her face before leaving her bedroom and heading for the front door with her sketchbook still in-hand.

“Just…what the hell is wrong with me?” Eclipse asked herself as she rode the elevator up back to her office. “How could I lose my temper so easily like that?”

After leaving the Dazzling’s farm the young businesswoman had decided to take her lunchbreak before returning to the offices of Banyan Capital, both to get ahold of herself and so that her coworkers wouldn’t wonder why it was she’d returned from her meeting so soon.

All throughout her break, Eclipse had been asking herself questions like the ones she was now asking in the elevator. Despite having been right in the middle of the verbal argument that had just taken place at her meeting, it was just so difficult for the young professional to believe that she’d acted the way she had. It was debatable as to who it was that had truly started the fight, but even if it hadn’t been her it was no excuse for how she’d handled things.

“How could I risk my job by acting so crass?” The girl continued to ask herself. “And worst of all, how could I say all those terrible things to Supernova?”

There was no denying that the fear of potentially losing her job over her unprofessional behavior at Dazzling Farms was one of the biggest concerns on Eclipse’s mind at the moment, but the concern over how her sister was doing was just as big a concern to her as well. She knew full well - perhaps more than anyone else in the world – just how sensitive the topic of her twin’s infertility was, and yet she’d still made the conscious decision to bring it up in such a disparaging way. It was enough to make her feel so appalled and disgusted with herself that she knew she had to go back to the emu farm and apologize to her sister.

“I need to make things right,” She said firmly just as the elevator reached her floor.

As Eclipse got off the elevator and headed for her office, she told herself that as soon as the workday was over she was going to head straight back the Dazzling Farms and apologize profusely to her sister for the argument that they’d just had. She didn’t know if her apology would be accepted, given the already rocky relationship between the two of them, but even if it wouldn’t be she knew that offering it was still something she had to do.

Within almost no time at all, Eclipse reached her office and opened the door to step inside the small workspace. However, the girl only made it about half-way through the threshold before noticing that someone had been waiting within her office for her, causing her to stop dead in her tracks.

“S-Supernova?” She said as she finished stepping into her office and quickly closed the door behind her. “Wh-What are you doing here?”

Su-Z didn’t say anything in response. All she did was take a few steps closer towards her sister and then extend the sketchbook in her hands out to her.

“What’s this?” Eclipse inquired as she stared at the object being presented to her.

“Open it. Page 14,” Su-Z simply answered.

With each passing second, Eclipse became more and more confused as to what was going on. Part of her wanted to just jump right in and profusely apologize to her sister while she had the chance, but given how much her twin seemed to be on-edge she feared that doing so would only frighten her off. For now, she figured it best to just go with the flow and work in her apology at a time when it would feel more natural.

“All right,” She said as she took the book from her sister and opened it.

As Eclipse flipped through the books trying to find page 14, she took note of many of the drawings within it. Some were of people, others were of scenic locations like rivers and mountains, and others still were of animals, but no matter the subject of the drawings they all had one thing in common: they were all pretty amateurish. Eventually she reached the desired page, and when she did she studied the drawing on it for a few seconds; a couple of dogs playing in an open field - or at least that’s what she thought it was given how much it had been distorted by water droplets.

“I don’t understand,” She confessed as she looked from the book. “What is this, Supernova?”

“It’s a picture I drew when we were in third grade,” Su-Z solemnly began to explain. “When I was drawing it Ruby Brooch and Emerald Lovebright came up to my desk and started making fun of me for how bad it was. I mean, I knew full well that it wasn’t very good, but it still hurt that they were laughing at me for it, you know? I started to get all teary-eyed and you came over and pulled Ruby by one of her pigtails and told her, ‘Don’t make fun of my sister! You make fun of her again and I’ll rip your pigtails right off your head!’ You remember that?”

Eclipse did, in fact, remember this moment from her and her sister’s childhood, but for some reason found herself unable to confirm this aloud.

“I thought you were so cool when you said that,” Su-Z continued, now sounding a bit choked up. “Ruby and Emerald never bothered me again after that day, all because of you. You were always there for me whenever I needed you growing up. But then you changed. Time went by and suddenly you…you weren’t there for me anymore.”

“I know, I know,” Eclipse interjected, trying not to sound too testy even though she was beginning to feel a bit irritated.

“But I realize now that the reason you weren’t there was because…I changed too,” Su-Z continued, much to Eclipse’s surprise. “You were right, Eclipse, about how after Mom and Dad started working so much I began to hog all of their attention for myself. I made you feel invisible and unimportant and…and as a result I ended up pushing you away.”

Eclipse felt touched by her sister’s confession, but she knew that her twin didn’t hold all the blame for what had caused them to drift apart.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I didn’t push you away right back,” She admitted as she started to feel choked up as well. “Rather than telling you how I felt I just tried to compete with you for Mom and Dad’s attention, and because of that a gulf started to form between us that just kept growing and growing until it eventually expanded into oblivion. And once I’d pushed you away I started pushing other people away too until…until I ended up pushing everyone away.”

By this point, both girls were so overcome by emotion that it was difficult for either of them to speak.

“I’m sorry, Eclipse,” Su-Z managed to squeak out as fresh tears started to steam down her cheeks. “I’m sorry for always trying to hog Mom and Dad’s attention growing up. I’m sorry for all those awful things I said to you today. And I’m sorry for…just everything.”

“I…I’m sorry too, Supernova,” Eclipse tearfully said as she moved in to give her sister a hug, which Su-Z was quick to reciprocate. “I’m sorry I abandoned you and our family, and for all those terrible things I said to you earlier. And I’m so, so sorry that I brought up your…condition.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Su-Z assured her twin as she held her close for the first time in years.

For the next few minutes, the two siblings continued to hug and cry onto one another’s shoulders within the confines of Eclipse’s office. Despite the large number of tears being shed on each of their persons, neither girl wanted to let go of her sister. For so long they’d been disconnected from one another, separated by a great chasm that had been created by unspoken frustrations and resentments, but finally, after a bizarre twist of fate, they’re paths had crossed and they’d managed to close the large fissure between them.

Eventually, the hug between the formerly estranged sisters did come to an end - with both girls letting go of each other at the same time – and when it did Su-Z took her sketchbook back and started to side-step around Eclipse.

“Okay, well, I guess I’ll get out of your hair now and let you get back to work,” The PostCrush girl said as she did so.

“Actually,” Eclipse replied as she gently took hold of Su-Z’s arms for a second to keep her from side-stepping any further. “How about I take the rest of the day off and we just, I dunno…hang out or something to catch up?”

“I…I’d like that,” Su-Z replied as she felt herself getting choked up once more – though this time due to joy.

The two sisters shared another quick hug before leaving Eclipse’s office together, and after a quick stop by Eclipse’s boss’s office they both stepped onto the elevator together to head down to the building’s lobby.

“So, what should we do?” Su-Z asked her sister as they rode the lift.

“No idea,” Eclipse answered. “Though if it’s all right with you, I’d like to head back to the farm at some point today. I think I should apologize to everyone else there too.”

“Yeah, okay,” The PostCrush girl replied, right before suddenly getting struck with a lightning bolt of revelation. “Oh, oh! We should totally call Mom and tell her that we’ve made up! She’ll be so happy! She might even invite us over for dinner one night and bake some of those delicious lemon bars she always used to make around the holidays when we were younger!”

“Gee, I sure hope so,” Eclipse said sarcastically.

“Really?” Su-Z asked her sister confusedly. “I thought you didn’t like Mom's lemon bars because she always put too much powdered sugar on them for your liking.”

“Sarcasm, Supernova,” Eclipse playfully, though still somewhat bluntly, informed her sister as they arrived at the lobby.

“Ohhh,” Su-Z replied, right before she and Eclipse shared a light giggle and walked out into the lobby of the Banyan building.

“I missed you, sis,” Eclipse wholeheartedly confessed.

“I missed you too, sis,” Su-Z wholeheartedly reciprocated as she wrapped her arm around her sister’s shoulder and the two of them stepped out onto the streets of Canterlot City for their day of hanging out together.

When Kiwi Met Su-Z

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“Bored,” Su-Z said to no one in particular as she laid on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “Boorred. Booorrred. Boooorr -”

“If you’re going to do that, Su-Z, do you think you can maybe do it somewhere else?” Kiwi Lollipop asked her friend from a nearby chair as she reluctantly looked up from the book she was reading.

“Sorry, Kiwi,” The younger PostCrush girl apologized. “It’s just…I’m so bored right now.”

“I gathered,” Kiwi replied listlessly.

“The problem is that it’s too quiet around here with Adagio, Aria, and Sonata gone,” Su-Z expounded. “I mean, it’s crazy how, well…less crazy things have been since they left to go visit Dolly. Without them around, things have just been so dull and mundane and…and…”

“Boring?” Kiwi finished her friend’s thought.

“Exactly!” Su-Z replied.

Without even being fully conscious of it, Kiwi gave a small eyeroll in response to Su-Z’s empathic remark. Not because she believed the girl to be wrong about things being less crazy than usual with the Dazzlings gone – it was undeniably true - but because she simply couldn’t believe that her friend found the calm to be boring.

In the three days since the Dazzlings had left to pay Dolly a visit so they could meet her new boyfriend, the elder of the two PostCrush girls had come to enjoy the peace and quiet that had come as a result of their departure. She loved the three siren sisters – platonically - and was forever grateful to them for getting her and Su-Z out of that van down by the river, but she couldn’t deny that living with them could be a tad trying at times. Chaos had a habit of finding some or all of them just about every other day, and through the magic of transitive properties this meant that it often found her as well. So for her to have a few days of serenity was something she considered a small blessing, and she just found it incredibly difficult to understand how Su-Z could find such tranquility to be so humdrum.

“So find something to do if you’re so bored,” She said to the girl. “Why don’t you call your sister and see if she wants to go on another reconciliation date?”

“Nah, I probably shouldn’t,” Su-Z answered. “Eclipse and I may have made up, but we’ve decided it’d be best to rebuild our relationship slowly. If we take things too quickly we’d probably just end up having another fallout, you know?”

“Okay, well, maybe try doing something constructive,” Kiwi then said. “Try reading a book or working on a jigsaw puzzle. Or maybe try your hand at writing that ‘Help Wanted’ ad Adagio was talking about creating.”

“Eh, all those things would probably just increase my boredom,” Su-Z said as she sat up on the couch. “I think I’ll just see if there’s anything good on TV.”

“Whatever works for you,” Kiwi replied as she went back to reading her book.

As Su-Z reached for the remote sitting on the nearby coffee table, she couldn’t help but wonder why it was Kiwi had started reading her book once more knowing full well that she was about to turn the TV on. The younger PostCrush girl had expected her friend would’ve returned to her book after their conversation, but she’d also expected the girl to get up from her seat and go into another room to avoid any further distracting noise. Though ultimately, she gave this query little thought, as eventually she came to the conclusion that TV noise was something that Kiwi would simply be able to tune out.

Once she had the remote within her hand, Su-Z promptly used it to turn the TV on. And within the blink of an eye, the device’s screen lit up and showed a scene of a blind man driving a Ferrari.

“Whoo-ah!” The blind man said as he quickly sped up, much to the dismay of the young man in the passenger’s seat.

“Seen it,” She uttered to herself, though at a low enough volume so as to not disturb Kiwi again, as she changed the channel.

“Cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark's in the water. Our shark,” A shark hunter on the new channel said.

“Seen it,” Su-Z repeated right before changing the channel yet again.

“Well, let's see, that's natives 8, oil workers 0. Anyone else wanna play with Cupcake?” A man on the newer channel said to a group of bar patrons.

“Seen it…unfortunately,” Su-Z said as she changed the channel for a third time.

The fourth channel Su-Z turned to featured a scene with a couple of girls – one bespectacled and the other a redhead – sitting in a semi-crowded coffee shop as a young man approached their table.

“Heads up,” The glasses-clad girl whispered to her friend.

“Hey,” The young man shyly greeted them. “My band’s playing here on Friday night, and, uh…well it’s gonna be a buncha cool bands playin’ and stuff. You don’t have to pay if you show them this flyer at the door.”

The young man then handed each of the girls a flyer, which they both studied for a few seconds.

“Which band is yours?” The girl with the glasses eventually asked, sounding only semi-interested.

“It’s…Alien Autopsy,” The young man replied.

“Oh. Bitchin’,” The glasses-clad girl simply replied, now sounding even less interested than she had a moment ago.

As the scene on the TV played out, Su-Z got the distinct impression that she’d seen it somewhere before. However, despite her best initial efforts, she found herself unable to place where it was she’d recognized it from. Not surprisingly, this inability to properly recall where she’d seen the scene before began to gnaw at the girl’s psyche like a beaver gnawing on a piece of wood, and within a short amount of time that gnawing feeling became a rather large nuisance. One so big and annoying that she simply had to figure out the answer to her psychical query.

And so, with a level of determination she hadn’t felt since deciding that PostCrush would utterly dominate Of Girls and Rabbits on the Billboard charts, Su-Z put the remote in her hand down and watched intently as the movie on the TV continued to play out.

“Yeah, well…maybe I’ll see you there,” The young man said to the two girls right before walking away.

“Yeah, thanks,” The redhead spoke up before he was out of earshot.

“God, what a dork,” The girl with the glasses said to her friend once the young man was gone.

“You're just jealous,” The redhead replied.

“Trust me, at this point I'm past the fact that every single guy likes you better than me,” The glasses-clad girl confessed.

As soon as the girl with the glasses finished her confession, Su-Z gained a strong, almost certain feeling that she knew where it was she’d seen this scene before. And when she did, she immediately dawned a large, almost goofy-looking smile that nearly stretched from ear-to-ear.

“Kiwi! Kiwi!” The girl frantically shouted at her friend through her overly amused facial expression.

“You don’t have to yell, Su-Z. I’m sitting right here,” Kiwi replied as she put her book down.

“Look! Look!” Su-Z jovially instructed her bandmate as she vigorously pointed at the TV.

Kiwi felt a mixture of confusion and mild annoyance at Su-Z’s overly energetic demand that she look at the TV. However, despite these feelings she did as her friend requested and turned her attention over towards the television set.

“Oh, face it, you just hate every single guy on the face of the earth,” The redhead said.

“That's not true!” The glasses-clad girl strongly replied. “I just hate all these extroverted, obnoxious, pseudo-bohemian losers!”

Within seconds of watching the movie play out on the TV, Kiwi’s confusion and mild annoyance began to dissipate.

“No way,” The older PostCrush girl uttered in mild disbelief as the memory of where she’d seen this movie before came flooding back to the forefront of her mind like a mighty tsunami.

“This is that movie, isn’t it?!” Su-Z rhetorically asked. “The one we watched together the night we met, right?!”

“Yeah, I think it is,” Kiwi replied hypnotically as she continued to watch the television, finding herself unable to turn away from it.

Any and all disbelief that Kiwi continued to hold regarding what it was she was watching immediately disappeared with Su-Z’s rhetorical question. The movie currently playing on their TV on Dazzling Farms was the exact same one that had played on the TV in Su-Z’s apartment the night she’d met her future best friend.

“Come on!” Su-Z excitedly said as she tapped the seat next to her. “Come on over here and let’s watch it again!”

Without even thinking about it, Kiwi lifted herself up out of her chair and sauntered over to the spot on the couch her best friend had tapped, all the while keeping her eyes fixed on the TV. Within a couple of seconds, she was seated next to Su-Z and watching a movie whose name she didn’t know with her, just like on that fateful night so many years ago that had ended up changing her life forever.

“Damn it,” Kiwi dejectedly said to herself as she walked down the lamp-lite streets of Baltimare. “I really thought I had a shot at that one.”

The 18-year-old girl looked down at the newspaper clipping in her hand and mentally crossed off yet another job listing printed on it; the sixth one of the day.

It had been a little over two months since Kiwi had abruptly left the small town she’d grown-up in and moved to the big city of Baltimare, and over the course of those approximately two months she’d failed to find a job. She’d managed to easily find an affordable - albeit cramped – apartment located above a shabby bakery on her first day in the city, but when it had come to finding a place of employment she hadn’t been quite as fortunate. Every office, store, and restaurant that she’d interviewed at had turned her away almost immediately, usually citing her lack of previous work experience as the reason for doing so. It was an understandable enough reason, she knew, but one that was causing her no small amount of frustration for multiple reasons.

When Kiwi had left home, she hadn’t had much in the way of savings. She’d had enough money to afford a bus ticket to Baltimare as well as rent and food for just over three months, but that was pretty much it. There wasn’t much left for incidental expenses, and as fate would have it she’d had no small amount of those since arriving in the city. Little things like taxi rides and restocking on personal hygiene products had slowly but surely eaten away at her meager nest egg, and she now found herself on the verge of running out of money before even making it to her third rent payment.

The new city-girl knew all-too-well what would most likely happen if she failed to present her landlady with her next rent payment on time: she’d get evicted right on the spot. From her very first meeting with the woman, Kiwi got the distinct impression that she wasn’t much of a patient or merciful woman, and that she’d have no reservations about kicking her out of her apartment if she was even one day late with her rent.

Another unfortunate fact that Kiwi knew all-too-well was what would happen if she got evicted from her apartment: she’d have to move back to her hometown and live with her father once more. This was what frustrated her most of all. After learning that her father had lied to her for years regarding her mother’s death she never wanted to so much as ever see the man again, let alone move back in with him. The very idea of doing so was enough to make her blood boil.

“Damn it!” She reiterated, though now much more indignantly, as the realization of her perilous financial situation became ever clearer to her.

Kiwi’s sudden outburst garnered her the attention of a few passers-by, but she paid them no mind. She was too focused inward to notice any such things. Just about every ounce of her attention was currently being fixated on finding a way to land a job so she could solve her money problems, and as such she failed to notice her landlady step out of her shop as she passed by its entrance.

“Hey, Kumquat!” The landlady shouted at her from the doorway.

Upon hearing the booming, contralto voice of her landlady, Kiwi immediately stopped and took a quick, deep breath before turning around to face her.

“It’s Kiwi, Ms. Potpie,” The girl annoyedly corrected her. “Just like it says on the renter’s agreement I signed when I moved in.”

“Whatever,” Ms. Potpie insipidly replied. “I need to tell you that you can’t go into your apartment right now. Your neighbor across the hall found some cockroaches outside your door so I had to have someone come and spray for them.”

“WHAT?!” Kiwi loudly replied, once again gaining her some looks from passers-by.

“Yeah, and the exterminator said you can’t go in the apartment for three days,” Ms. Potpie then told the girl, seemingly unperturbed by her boisterous cry.

As much as Kiwi wanted to shout ‘what’ again, she found herself unable to do so. For a few seconds the girl was unable to utter so much as an ‘um’ as her mind reeled with the news that her apartment – aka the only place she could spend the night – was sealed off due to an apparent infestation of cockroaches.

“But…but…” She started to say once she was capable of speaking again. “I-If I can’t get into my apartment then where am I supposed to sleep tonight?”

“Just stay with a friend or at a hotel or something,” Ms. Potpie answered uncaringly.

For the second time within the span of a minute, Kiwi found herself speechless. This time though due to a growing feeling of rage within the very core of her being. Ms. Potpie knew that she was new to Baltimare and that she wasn’t exactly swimming in cash, so for the woman to suggest that she could stay with a non-existent friend or that she could afford a hotel was nothing short of infuriating to her. She opened her mouth to very contentiously remind her of these facts, but thankfully before she could utter her first heated word a pressing query entered her mind that allowed a somewhat cooler head to prevail.

“Am I going to be getting some of my rent money for this month back because of this?” She asked her landlady through gritted teeth.

“You kidding? Not a chance,” Ms. Potpie answered just before abruptly walking back into her store.

In a way, Kiwi was grateful that Ms. Potpie had left when she did, because if she hadn’t she was sure that she would’ve cursed the woman out to the point of losing her apartment. She hadn’t expected a favorable response to her rent-refund question, but the contentious way in which her landlady had answered her once more made her blood begin to boil. And this time, she wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to hold her emotions back had their conversation continued.

“Hey, new girl! Pick up the pace!” She heard Ms. Potpie shout at someone once she was fully back inside the store.

As Kiwi stood near-frozen on the sidewalk in front of Ms. Potpie’s shop, she began to think about how much she hated the fact that such an astringent and callous woman was her landlady. About how she hated the fact that she had to live in such a small, inelegant, and apparently cockroach-infested apartment. About how she hated the fact that she couldn’t find a job and was on the brink of complete financial collapse. About how she hated that her father had lied to her about her mother’s death for so many years.

But perhaps most of all, she thought about how she hated that all of her current woes were of her own making.

As much as Kiwi wanted to place the blame for everything that she was going through right now on Ms. Potpie or her father or just about anyone else, she knew that it was her and her alone who was ultimately culpable. Sure, there were factors outside of her control that had contributed to her recent series of distresses, but all of those factors were merely by-products of one core, very crucial action on her part: she’d left home carelessly. When she’d made the decision to move to Baltimare she’d done so impulsively and without considering the potential ramifications of her decision, including the possibility that she’d run out of money. She’d allowed her anger towards her father to cloud her better-thinking, and though the argument could be made that her father bared some of the responsibility for her leaving home, she knew that, when all was said and done, coming to Baltimare and placing herself in financial peril was entirely on her.

“Fuck,” The girl uttered under her breath in both frustration and lament.

Despite knowing that she couldn’t enter her apartment, Kiwi turned around and headed for the stairs that led up to the residences above the bakery. Within no time she reached the top and peered over towards her unit and, not surprisingly, there was a notice on her door about the extermination that had taken place on the other side of it. She then peered over towards the door of her neighbor across the hall whom Ms. Potpie had said was the one who’d told her about the cockroaches, and as she looked at that door she began to wonder why it was that only her apartment had needed spraying and not the whole building.

“Because the landlady’s so damn cheap,” She answered her own question aloud before crossing the hallway and heading towards the stairs that led up to the roof.

If there was one thing that Kiwi liked about where she lived, it was that the building’s roof offered a good view of downtown Baltimare. Not a great view, but one that allowed her to see some of the city’s nicer and newer structures, including the tallest building in the city; a high-rise complex that was home to some of Baltimare’s wealthiest and most famous citizens. On especially hard days, Kiwi liked to saunter up to the roof of the building and stare out at the contemporary superstructure as she imagined what it looked like on the inside of the high-rise’s penthouse. It was a simple activity that helped provide her with an escape from the harshness of her reality, if only for a few moments. And given how harsh her reality had been thus far today, she felt an almost medical need to escape from it for a while.

The journey from Kiwi’s apartment floor to the roof was a fairly short one – only about twelve seconds at normal walking pace – but today it felt even shorter than usual to the girl. Perhaps it was simply because she was walking faster than usual and didn’t realize it or because she just zoned out a bit during her jaunt, but either way she found herself up on the roof before she knew it.

“Yeesh. More cans,” She said in mild disgust as she walked across the roof and looked at all of the discarded cans of air freshener scattered throughout it. “Who keeps leaving these things up here?”

For the most part the roof was a fairly clean place, save for the occasional half dozen or so discarded aerosol cans atop it. It wasn’t great by any means, but it was most certainly cleaner than her apartment – despite her numerous attempts to spruce up her living space – and was another reason she liked it so much. The air freshener cans that usually adorned it were really the only thing that bothered her about the roof, but they were a minor annoyance at worst. Plus, the cans were typically only within her field of vision for a short time anyhow since she always sat on the ledge to look out across the city.

And if anything, it was more the mystery of where the cans kept coming from that bothered her than the actual fact that the cans were littered across the roof.

After carefully making her way across the top of her apartment building, Kiwi stepped up onto the ledge and took her usual spot atop it to stare out at the city and the tallest building within it. Once seated, she let her legs sway for a bit as they dangled off the edge before bringing them to a more still position. It was a simple, almost pointless gesture, she knew, but for some reason it felt good to allow her legs to waver for a bit over the ledge, so she always did it right after sitting down at her look-out spot.

After her legs were steady, Kiwi stared out at the high-rise in the distance and once again began to imagine what it was like inside the penthouse at the top of it. She imagined it being extremely spacious and elegant, with expensive furniture and décor spread throughout. A Marcia L-shape sectional couch in front of a 65” OLED TV in the living room, a Tobias Tall bed complete with canopy in the bedroom, and grassy dune and sandbar impression paintings decorating the walls in every room; these were but a few of the things she envisioned existing within the luxurious dwelling - a far contrast from the bare-basic amenities that occupied her small apartment. She then imagined herself walking through the penthouse and over towards one of its glass walls to peer out across the city, and what she imagined the view looking like from there nearly took her breath away.

“The lights,” She said softly to herself as she pictured the lights of the city shining up at her - instead of down on her like they were right now.

The more Kiwi thought about the view of Baltimare from the penthouse the more she began to slip into the world she was quickly creating within her mind. She started to imagine that the penthouse was hers and that she was hosting a party within it, with every party guest complementing her on her gorgeous home as she walked past them.

“Thank you. Thank you,” Her imaginary self said as she gracefully sauntered through the living room and out onto the balcony.

On the balcony, a lone figure awaited her. She couldn’t perfectly form the image of this figure within her mind, but she knew that whoever they were they were someone who greatly admired and adored her. Loved her even. And as she approached them, the lights of the city began to shine ever brighter on them and a warm, sensual feeling began to take hold of her. The figure reached out their hand towards her and, instinctively, Kiwi reached out her hand to take theirs. With every inch that her hand got closer to the figure’s the more the warm and sensual feeling enveloped her, eliciting a level of euphoria that she was sure she’d never felt before.

Back in reality, Kiwi could feel her heart begin to beat quicker and quicker within her chest as her fantasy continued to play out. Without even really realizing it, her hand reached out into the emptiness in front of it as her imaginary self reached out to the mysterious figure.

“Mon amour,” She softly said aloud as the Kiwi within her mind just about connected with her enigmatic person.

“Don’t take too long!” Ms. Potpie’s voice suddenly echoed up from the street, immediately breaking Kiwi out of her beautiful fantasy world.

“Wha – ?” The girl said as she abruptly snapped back to reality.

Instinctively, Kiwi retracted her hand once her imaginary scenario had been broken. And once she’d regained her full senses she looked down to where she’d heard Ms. Potpie yelling from and saw the woman standing just outside her shop. It was unclear to her who it was that she’d just yelled at, but it didn’t really matter. All that really mattered was that her hollering had broken her out of her beautiful fantasy and placed her squarely back within her ugly reality.

Perhaps it was because of how deeply she’d gone into her imaginary world, but now that she was back in the real-world Kiwi was very keenly aware of her current situation; she was sitting on a rooftop of a battered building, alone, with the city’s light shining down on her instead of up at her.

“Damn it,” She said as she clenched her right hand into a fist and lightly slammed it down onto the ledge. “Damn it!”

Not surprisingly, Kiwi’s hand hurt for a few seconds after bringing it down onto the ledge, but the girl was too upset to really notice the pain. She was upset over the fact that Ms. Potpie’s shouting had pulled her out of her dazzling fantasy. She was upset that she’d allowed herself to dive so deep into her imaginary world. But most of all, she was upset that her fantasy had been just that: a fantasy. She looked back up at the high-rise off in the distance, but this time the sight of it only filled her with enmity. Because of her agitated state it now appeared to her that the high-rise was mocking her, telling her that it’s penthouse was now and would forever be out of her reach. That the best she’d ever get was a spot on a ledge to stare up at it and imagine what would never be.

Eventually, this feeling of enmity became too much for Kiwi to ignore. And within the blink of an eye, she got up from her seated position and stood atop the ledge in a very bellicose manner.

“RAAAAHHHH!” She yelled out in an almost primal fashion at the building that was mocking her.

Despite her high level of hostility at the moment, Kiwi was fully aware of how ridiculous it was for her to be screaming at a building – or for her to believe that said building was mocking her. But even still, she had to admit that it felt good to just yell out all of her resentments and frustrations, however ridiculous they might have been. And much to her surprise, it actually felt pretty cathartic to do so. She knew that nothing would really change as a result of her venting, but at the very least she didn’t feel quite as angry anymore.

“Don’t do it!” A female voice precipitously called out from behind her just as she finished yelling.

Instinctively, Kiwi turned around to see who it was that had called out to her, and when she did she saw a young woman about her age running towards her.

“Don’t do it!” The young woman reiterated as she continued to swiftly advance on her.

Without even thinking about it, Kiwi took a step backwards to try and put a little distance between herself and the shouting stranger quickly advancing on her.

“Wah!” The girl let out as the foot that she’d moved failed to make contact with a solid surface and she began to flail about in an attempt to maintain her balance atop the ledge.

Kiwi’s attempts to maintain her equilibrium rapidly proved to be futile, as before she knew it she found herself falling backwards and over the edge of the roof.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl for Kiwi as she tumbled off the gable. Countless thoughts rushed to the forefront of her mind as it was flooded with adrenaline, but oddly enough she found herself able to make out each and every one of those thought.

How could she have been so stupid as to step off the roof? Who was the girl that had been running towards her? Why had that girl been running towards her in the first place? Would her father ever learn of what was about to happen to her? Questions like these were the kinds of things Kiwi asked herself as the rooftop slowly disappeared from her view, but sadly she found that she didn’t have answers to any of them. Though this lack of antiphons did bother her much, as she figured that in another few seconds it wouldn’t matter.

Just as the top of the roof exited her field of view, Kiwi closed her eyes and tried to calm herself as best as possible. She tried to think about the things that might be awaiting her in the next life, and whether or not her mother would be amongst them. She’d never been entirely convinced that there was such a thing as the afterlife, but if there was she’d always hoped that her mother would be there waiting for her.

The thought of seeing the mother she’d never known succeeded in calming Kiwi’s mind – at least as much as it could be calmed given the situation – but much like when she’d felt beatific whilst within her fantasy world she soon found herself suddenly ripped away from her blissful state.

“Gotcha!” The mystery girl shouted just as she grabbed ahold of her left arm, causing her to abruptly cease her descent.

As soon as she felt herself stop mid-air, Kiwi opened her eyes and looked up at the girl holding onto her arm for dear life.

“Listen…I…” The girl tried to say as she struggled to maintain her grip on her. “I don’t know…what you’re going through, but…this isn’t the answer.”

“…What?” Kiwi asked the girl confusedly.

“Trust me, I know…that things can seem pretty bad sometimes,” The girl then said. “But you…can’t just throw your life away because…things seem bad right now.”

The more the girl talked, the more befuddled Kiwi became. However, it wasn’t long before the metaphorical lightbulb over her head lit up and her befuddlement was replaced with dismayed understanding.

“Wait, did you think that I was going to jump off the roof?!” She crossly asked.

“Well, yeah,” The girl answered in a very pell-mell manner. “You were…weren’t you?”

“No, I wasn’t!” Kiwi replied indignantly. “I was just looking out over the city before you came charging at me and I slipped!”

“…Oh,” The girl then said embarrassedly. “Um, s-sorry. My bad.”

Despite the fact that she was currently hanging from the side of a building by one arm, Kiwi couldn’t help but give herself a facepalm with her free hand.

“Can you please just pull me up already?!” She asked as she removed her hand from her face.

“Right, right,” The girl hastily said right before she started to hoist Kiwi back up to the rooftop.

As she was lifted back up, Kiwi grabbed hold of the ledge with her free hand and did her best to get some form of footing along the side of the building. Unfortunately though, there wasn’t really much of anything for her to securely plant her feet against as she climbed back up. But thankfully it didn’t seem to matter. Between the mystery girl hoisting and her own efforts she soon found herself safely seated back atop the roof.

For a few seconds, neither girl said anything as they both sat atop the roof and tried to catch their breath after having overly exerted themselves. But as soon as Kiwi managed to recuperate enough she decided to break the silence.

“Thank…you,” She lauded the girl who’d just help save her life – after inadvertently putting it in danger in the first place.

“Don’t…mention it,” The girl said back, right before extending a hand out to her. “I’m…Supernova Zap, by the way.”

“Kiwi Lollipop,” Kiwi introduced herself as she shook the girl’s hand.

“So, you like to come up here to look out at the city too, huh?” Supernova then said as she stood up.

Kiwi likewise stood up, but she didn’t immediately reply to Supernova’s question right away. Even though the girl had pulled her to safety from the side of the roof she still had a few questions about her and who she was. Questions such as whether she was someone who lived in the building as well, and if she did if she was the neighbor across the hall who’d reported the cockroaches near her apartment to Ms. Potpie.

“Yeah, I like to come up here after having a particularly bad day,” She said once she was fully upright. “Or if I grow tired of being inside my cramped apartment. Is that why you come up here too?”

“Oh, no. I just come up here to take my smoke break,” Supernova answered. “I work in the bakery downstairs.”

Just then, Supernova dawned a jolted look that gave Kiwi the distinct impression that the girl had just remembered something important.

“That actually reminds me,” Supernova then said right before she bent down, picked up a nearby air freshener can, and started to spray herself with its contents.

Naturally, some of the vapor from Supernova’s can wandered on over to where Kiwi was standing, and as soon as that vapor whiffed its way into the girl’s nostrils she instantaneously recoiled in disgust.

“Oh my gosh!” She uttered as she pinched her nose shut. “Is that…cigarette smoke?”

“Uh-huh,” Supernova verified as she continued to spray herself. “But don’t worry, it’s not real cigarette smoke. It’s just an artificial scent. I got these so that I can smell like cigarettes after I take my smoke break. Afterall, you can’t take a smoke break unless you smoke – or at least make it seem like you smoke.”

Despite Kiwi having closed off her nostrils she could still feel some of the artificial cigarette smoke getting inside, so in an effort to minimize the amount of foul odor entering her proboscis she took a few steps back from Supernova. Though not too many steps back as to find herself unable to continue conversing with the girl.

“Where’d you even get something like that?” She inquired as she ceased pinching her nose.

“The internet,” Supernova simply replied, as though such a vague answer were a wholly satisfying one.

A few seconds later, Supernova ceased spraying herself with the nauseating aroma and threw the can back down onto the roof, much to Kiwi’s annoyance. She didn’t care for the girl so carelessly littering the otherwise clean rooftop, but she decided it best to not make a big thing of it and remained silent on the matter.

“So, are you the new girl Ms. Potpie was yelling at earlier?” Kiwi asked.

“Yep. I sure am,” Supernova replied rather listlessly as she turned toward the ledge and started to lean on it. “Though I’m not sure why she still calls me that after I’ve been working here for, like, six months or so now.”

“Probably because she can’t be bothered to remember your name,” Kiwi said as she moved closer to Supernova and joined her in leaning on the ledge, recalling how Ms. Potpie had called her Kumquat earlier as she did so.

“Yeah, probably,” Supernova agreed. “Though honestly, it’s not the nickname itself that bothers me so much. It’s the fact that she can’t seem to make an effort to remember my name that bugs me.”

“You don’t mind being called ‘new girl’?” Kiwi asked bewilderedly.

“Nah. Not really,” Supernova answered, now sounding somewhat somber. “In a way I actually like having a nickname, it just bothers me that the reason I have one is because someone can’t even try and remember my actual name. It makes me feel like…never mind.”

“It’s okay, you can keep going,” Kiwi replied sympathetically.

“No, no. It’s fine,” Supernova countered. “Just…forget I ever said anything about all that.”

An uncomfortable silence fell across the rooftop as a sudden awkwardness crept its way between the two girls. It was clear to Kiwi that Supernova had started down a subject matter that was very personal and delicate to her, but that she wasn’t comfortable opening up about fully. However, she got the distinct impression that Supernova did want to open up to her but simply didn’t feel that she could yet – since they’d only just met. She thought of something – anything - she could possibly do to help Supernova feel comfortable with being more vulnerable with her, and after a few seconds she came to the conclusion that the best way to get the girl to open up to her was for her to open up first.

“Hey. You see that building over there?” She asked Supernova as she pointed off towards the high-rise in the distance.

“Yeah?” Supernova half-asked, half-said.

“That’s what I come up here to look at when I’m feeling down,” Kiwi explained. “I like to think about what it must be like inside there. Especially the penthouse at the top.”

“Huh,” Supernova uttered in intrigue as she focused on the high-rise’s penthouse.

“I just…I like to imagine that someday I could have a life like that,” Kiwi confessed. “A life of comfort and security. A life where I wouldn’t have to deal with people like Ms. Potpie. A life where I wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not I’m going to be able to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner on a given day. A life where I wouldn’t have to worry about losing my apartment and having to move back in with my dad.”

“You…have those kinds of worries right now?” Supernova asked concernedly.

“Yeah, I do,” Kiwi reluctantly admitted. “I’m at the end of my rope moneywise, and if I don’t find a job or some other way to make money soon I’m not going to be able to continue living in this city much longer. And if that happens then I’ll have no choice but to move back home with my dad, and after what happened between us that’s the absolute last thing that I want.”

Another silence fell over the rooftop as Kiwi started to feel a couple of tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

When the girl had made the decision to open up and share her hardships with Supernova, she hadn’t expected to experience such a strong emotional response from doing so. Afterall, it wasn’t as if any of the information she’d just shared was news to her. She’d been fully aware of her various woes for some time now. But for some reason, expressing those woes aloud – and in front of another person – appeared to give them more substance and verisimilitude. All of a sudden, they felt more real, and because of that she could feel herself starting to become more emotional than she’d been expecting.

As feelings of embarrassment over her newly emotional state began to take hold, Kiwi turned her head to the side and tried to discreetly brush the tears from her eyes before they had a chance to fall down her face. However, her efforts proved to be in vain as a single teardrop managed to escape the corner of her eye before she fully turned her head.

A teardrop that didn’t go unnoticed by Supernova.

“I’m sorry to hear all that,” The girl compassionately told Kiwi. “I’m sorry to hear that you’re struggling so much right now. And I’m sorry to hear that you and your dad aren’t getting along too.”

To say that she and her dad weren’t ‘getting along’ felt like a gross understatement to Kiwi, but the girl chose not to express this feeling aloud. She wasn’t ready to fully open that can of worms to another person just yet – or even to herself.

Feeling both embarrassed and that she was being rude for not looking at the person talking to her, Kiwi quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and turned back around to face Supernova.

“I know firsthand how difficult things can get between family members sometimes,” Supernova continued. “My sister and I haven’t been getting along very well these days either. I mean, we haven’t been all that close for a while now, but lately it seems like we’re farther apart than ever.”

Just then, Supernova dawned a very stern and flustered expression, causing her to turn her attention away from Kiwi and out towards the city.

“I just…I don’t get what her deal is,” The girl went on, now sounding undeniably irate. “She doesn’t seem to want to have anything to do with me anymore! And it really pisses me off, you know, ‘cause she won’t even tell me why it is she’s acting so cold and distant towards me!”

Supernova’s tirade was brought to a small break as the girl found herself in need of a few calming breaths, during which time Kiwi began to have mixed feelings about her plan to have the girl open up to her. On the one hand, she was glad that Supernova was now comfortable enough around her to share such intimate information and feelings with her. But on the other hand, she wasn’t too sure that she hadn’t just inadvertently helped Supernova also open up a Pandora’s box of sorts.

“I mean, what, am I not good enough for her anymore or something?!” Supernova continued to vent. “Does she suddenly think that she’s better than me?! Just because she’s a student at some fancy business school and I’m…I’m…”

Supernova then lowered her head sullenly and mumbled something under her breath that was too muffled by the various sounds of the city for Kiwi to hear. Though Kiwi was certain that even if the two of them had been somewhere quieter she still wouldn’t have been able to make out whatever it was the other girl had just said.

“Sorry, what was that?” Kiwi inquired.

“I’m an art school dropout,” Supernova reiterated, though still not at a loud enough volume to be heard.

“I still can’t hear you,” Kiwi told the other girl as she leaned in a bit closer to her.

“I’m an art school dropout!” Supernova then practically hollered under protest, causing Kiwi to flinch away from her.

Much like Kiwi only a few moments ago, Supernova soon felt tears begin to well up in the corners of her eye. Though unlike Kiwi, she didn’t shy away from her companion when she felt those tears coming on. She just continued to look out over the city as the small drops of wetness rolled down her cheeks, all the while maintaining her stern and flustered expression.

“I had to drop out of art school a few months ago,” She continued. “It was mostly because I couldn’t afford it anymore, but even if that hadn’t been the case I doubt I would’ve lasted much longer anyhow. I…I wasn’t doing very well, and I don’t think I would’ve gotten any better with time.”

The more Supernova talked, the more her cheeks started to look like they had two mighty rivers streaming down them.

“I felt like such a loser when I left art school. And I’ve felt that way ever since,” The girl confessed. “And sometimes I think that’s the reason why my sister has been distancing herself from me so much lately, and why Ms. Potpie can’t remember my name; because they both see me as nothing but a big loser who’ll never amount to anything more than an art school dropout.”

Without warning, Supernova turned to face Kiwi with a distressed smile stretching across her face – the sight of which pained Kiwi all the way down to her core.

“And you know something? Maybe they’re right,” Supernova said through her sad smile. “Maybe I am just a big loser who’ll never make anything of herself. Maybe I’ll always just be Supernova Zap, art school dropout.”

The pain Kiwi had felt when she’d seen Supernova’s somberly tender smile multiplied tenfold as soon as she heard the girl’s self-deprecating words. Without even thinking about it, she quickly wrapped her arms around the sorrowful girl and pulled her in as close as she could for a big, warm hug.

“You’re not a loser, Supernova!” She passionately vociferated.

“I…I’m not?” Supernova simply replied as her sad smile was replaced by a look of consternation.

“No, you’re not!” Kiwi assured the girl as she started to cry along with her. “Just because you dropped out of art school doesn’t mean you’re a loser! And it doesn’t matter if other people see you as a loser because you dropped out either! What would make you a loser is if you were to give up on yourself, and you’re not the kind of person who would do that!”

“I’m…not?” Supernova asked, sounding as though she were on the verge of a fresh set of tears.

“No, you’re not,” Kiwi responded. “And you know how I know that? It’s because you grabbed ahold of me when I fell off the roof and told me that I shouldn’t throw my life away just because things were bad right now.”

Just then, Kiwi broke her hug with Supernova but kept her hands atop the girl’s shoulders.

“You didn’t give up on me – a total stranger - when you’d thought that I’d given up on life,” She continued as she dawned an affable smile. “So I know that you’re not the kind of person who would ever give up on herself. And I have no doubt that someday, you’re going to amount to something great. Something so far above an art school dropout that everyone will forget you ever were one.”

Two new streams of tears started to flow down Supernova’s cheeks as she stared at Kiwi’s similarly tear-stained face. Though unlike before, these new streams of tears weren’t brought about by self-disparagement. These ones were brought about by feelings of joy.

Despite this fact, however, Supernova still felt a need to try and wipe them from her face.

“Thank you, Kiwi,” The girl lauded as she gently brushed her cheeks. “I think I really needed to hear that.”

“Don’t mention it,” Kiwi replied.

As soon as Supernova finished clearing the tears from her face – or at least most of them – she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around Kiwi in a hug. One that somehow managed to be even bigger and warmer than the one she’d received only moments ago.

After the initial shock of having been so suddenly and energetically embraced wore off, Kiwi swiftly reciprocated Supernova’s hug, and together the two girls held onto one another genially for what felt like an eternity – but was, in actuality, only a few seconds.

“Hey, new girl! New girl!” Ms. Potpie’s booming, contralto voice abruptly shouted up from the street, causing Kiwi and Supernova to immediately break their hug and peer down over the ledge. “Your break ended three minutes ago! Get your butt back down here!”

“All right, all right. I’m coming,” Supernova shouted back.

Upon receiving a reply from Supernova, Ms. Potpie quickly went back into her shop and disappeared from view.

“Bitch,” Supernova uttered softly once her boss was back inside, eliciting a small giggle from Kiwi.

Once Kiwi had finished her light guffawing, she and Supernova both ceased their downward peering and simply stared at one another for a while in an awkward silence, with neither girl knowing what to say to the other now that their heartwarming moment had been brought to an abrupt end.

“So, um…I guess we both better get going,” Kiwi eventually spoke up. “You have to go back to work and I have to…find a place to sleep tonight.”

“You don’t have a place to sleep tonight?” Supernova inquired bewilderedly before giving a sharp gasp. “Wait, don’t tell me that was your apartment I saw with the extermination notice on the door when I was coming up here!”

“Yep. That was mine,” Kiwi admitted defeatedly. “And thanks to that notice I have to find somewhere to stay for the next few days. But since I’m new to this city and don’t have much money I’m not sure where that somewhere will be.”

“I see,” Supernova then said, right before she precipitously grabbed ahold of Kiwi’s hand. “In that case, you can come stay with me!”

“W-Wha – wah!” Kiwi began to say before Supernova yanked her arm and started to lead her towards the roof’s entrance.

“My apartment only has one bedroom, but I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Supernova explained as she ushered Kiwi across the rooftop. “There should be enough space in the living room for an air mattress or something. And don’t worry, you can have the bed if air mattresses are too uncomfortable for you. They don’t bother me. Oh, and if you need a toothbrush I think I’ve got an extra one -”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Kiwi interrupted as she gently freed herself from Supernova’s hold and ceased walking. “You’re seriously just going to invite some random girl you just met to come live with you?”

“I’m not inviting some random girl I just met to come live with me,” Supernova replied as she turned around to address her companion. “I’m inviting the new friend I just made to come live with me.”

“F-Friend?” Kiwi asked in mild awe.

“Yeah. Friend,” Supernova confirmed. “I’m pretty sure after everything we’ve just been through together that’s what we are now.”

For a brief moment, Kiwi found herself speechless. While she did agree with Supernova that everything the two of them had just been through together had forged some form of a relationship betwixt them, she was shocked to hear the girl refer to her as her friend; a friend whom she was willing to let stay in her apartment.

In truth, Kiwi also felt that the bond she and Supernova now shared was one of friendship, but given how little each of them still knew one another she wasn’t sure she was comfortable accepting such a large and generous offer from the girl. However, given that she was in dire need of a place to stay for a few days she found herself in no position to turn down such an offer. Even if that offer was from someone she’d only just met today.

“Y-Yeah, okay,” She conceded. “We can go back to your place once you’re done with work.”

“Yeah, no. We’re going now,” Supernova said right before once again taking Kiwi’s arm and dragging her behind her.

“Now?” Kiwi asked with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. “B-But what about your job?”

“Screw it. I’ll find another one,” Supernova replied rather bluntly. “Hey! Tomorrow we can both go out and look for jobs together! That should be fun, right?!”

Kiwi wasn’t so sure that she and Supernova looking for jobs together would be something she’d consider ‘fun’. But regardless, she did think that having someone going through the job-hunting process with her would at least make it a bit more bearable.

"Uh, sure. Fun," The girl simply answered.

Within only a matter of minutes, Kiwi and Supernova made the journey from the roof of Kiwi’s apartment building over to Supernova’s apartment – which was located only about two-and-a-half blocks away from Kiwi’s. Though much to Kiwi’s chagrin, during the entirety of those few minutes Supernova had refused to let go of her hand.

As she entered the apartment of her new friend, Kiwi couldn’t help but take note of how much nicer it was than hers. It wasn’t anything worth writing home about, but it was undoubtedly larger and more well-kept than the rat’s nest she was currently renting from Ms. Potpie.

“You sure you’re all right taking the air mattress?” Supernova asked as she sifted through a hallway closet located near the living room. “’Cause if you want the bed it’s no trouble.”

“No, no. It’s okay,” Kiwi assured the girl. “You’re already being kind enough by letting me stay here. I don’t need to take your bed on top of that.”

“Okay. If you’re sure,” Supernova replied right before ceasing her sifting. “Dang it, it’s not in here. I’m going to go check my bedroom closet real quick. Just make yourself at home until I get back.”

“All right,” Kiwi replied as Supernova disappeared into the bedroom.

Feeling that the best way to make herself feel at home would be by watching some television, Kiwi took a seat on a small, two-person couch in front of the TV and promptly turned it on using a nearby remote.

“You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talking...you talking to me?” A man on the TV said as soon as the screen lit up.

“Seen it,” Kiwi uttered to herself as she changed the channel.

“You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.” A scruffy-looking man on the new channel said.

“Seen it,” Kiwi repeated right before changing the channel yet again.

“Love means never having to say you're sorry,” A sorrowful woman on the third channel said.

“Sorry, sister, but no it doesn’t,” Kiwi sassed the woman before changing the channel for a third time.

“This is so bad, it's almost good,” A red-haired girl on the new channel said as she watched a band play.

“This is so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again,” A girl with glasses standing next to the redhead then said.

“Heh heh,” Kiwi giggled.

“Just think, we'll never have to see any of these creepy faces ever again,” The glasses-clad girl then said as she and the redhead looked around the room.

“Unless they're in your summer school class!” The redhead chided her friend.

“Shut up!” The glasses-clad girl strongly retorted.

“Heh heh,” Kiwi giggled once again as she put the remote down.

“All right, I found the air mattress!” Supernova proudly declared as she reentered the living room with a large, deflated air mattress in her arms.

“Uh-huh,” Kiwi absentmindedly replied without even taking her eyes off the TV.

“Now we just need to clear some space and we can -” Supernova continued before abruptly stopping herself upon realizing that Kiwi was paying more attention to the TV than to her. “Um, whatcha watchin’?

“Not sure. But it’s kinda funny,” Kiwi answered - this time taking her eyes off the TV to look at Supernova – before lightly tapping the seat next to her. “You wanna watch it together?”

“Sure!” Supernova replied gaily as she dropped the uninflated mattress on the floor and eagerly joined Kiwi on the couch.

The two girls then spent the next two hours or so watching a movie on TV whose name they didn’t even know. Though at no point did the fact that they didn’t know what movie they were watching bother either of them, nor did the fact that, in all likelihood, they’d started watching it after it had already started. They each just enjoyed sharing a period of time together were neither of them was hanging off of a building – Kiwi in particular.

And though neither of them said it that night, both Kiwi and Supernova got the feeling that their newfound friendship had only just begun.

“You ever find out what this movie is called?” Su-Z asked Kiwi as they continued to watch their mystery movie from the Dazzling’s couch.

“Nope,” Kiwi admitted. “In all honesty, I really haven’t even thought about this movie that much since the night we watched it all those years ago.”

“Yeah, me either. On both accounts,” Su-Z said as she scooched closer to her friend and rested her head on her shoulder, much to Kiwi’s surprise. “But you know something? I’m glad I came across it and that we’re watching it together again.”

“Why’s that?” Kiwi inquired.

“I guess because it helps put things into perspective, you know?” Su-Z answered. “Like how far the two of us have come since the last time we watched it; both in our friendship and in life.”

Kiwi wasn’t sure how to respond to this. She couldn’t deny Su-Z’s claim that rewatching the movie they’d watched together so many years ago did kind of put things into perspective, but she didn’t understand the girl’s remark about how far the two of them had come. She got what her friend meant about their friendship in relation to what it was when they’d first met - it had irrefutably grown stronger – but what she had a difficult time grasping was what she meant by how far the two of them had come in life.

As far as Kiwi was concerned, their station in life hadn’t improved much from what it had been when they’d first met.

While it was true that together she and Su-Z had become one of the biggest names in pop music between now and then, they’d also fallen from that grand stratum during that time. And even though they’d managed to get back on their feet somewhat by working and living on the Dazzlings’ emu farm since that fall, she hardly considered farm life to be ideal. She didn’t think it was beneath her or anything, but she also didn’t think that it was the life she was best suited for either – as evidenced by some of the struggles she’d experienced on her very first day of working with the emus.

“Y-Yeah. I guess it does put things into perspective,” She eventually responded to Su-Z’s statement.

“Mm-hmm,” Su-Z simply uttered as she went back to fully devoting her attention to the movie.

Kiwi likewise went back to giving her full attention to the movie, but not long after she found it difficult to keep it there. In the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but keep thinking about how over the course of the last few years she’d managed to rise to the top of the world only to come crashing down from it. And about how, despite having come to accept her current station in life, there was little she wasn’t willing to do or sacrifice in order to rise to the top again.

Emus, Demons & Etc. (Part 1)

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“I dunno, it just…doesn’t feel right,” Justice said as she examined her left elbow.

“I’m sure you’re fine, Justice,” Lucy Beel replied dismissively as she looked over a spreadsheet on her computer.

“Yeeeah, I’m not so sure about that,” The demon-girl then said as she poked at her angular joint. “I accidentally wandered through some poison oak the other day, and with the way my elbow’s feeling now I’m really worried that it might have given me a rash or something from it.”

“And how exactly would you have gotten a rash on your elbow from walking through poison oak?” The Devil inquired as she stopped working for a second and looked up at her companion.

“’Cause it kept trying to feel me up and I had to keep swatting it away,” Justice answered as she ceased her poking. “Freakin’ pervy plants.”

Rather than allow herself to get dragged into yet another nonsensical conversation with her former High Prosecutor, Lucy simply and silently went back to examining her spreadsheet.

“Be honest with me, Lucy,” The blind demon said right before shoving her elbow right in her boss’ face. “Does it look like I’m breaking out or anything?”

“For Hell’s sake, Justice, get your elbow out of my face!” Lucy shouted as she tried to forcibly remove Justice’s arm from in front of her.

Justice and Lucy tussled mildly for a while as the demon-girl insisted that Lucy examine her elbow for rash and the Devil insisted that Justice cease invading her personal space, causing each of them to become quite disheveled.

For the first minute or so of Lucy and Justice’s skirmish, it appeared as though the two of them would be forever locked within it. Both of them remained strongly adamant in their position and gave no indication that they were going to concede to the other. Thankfully though, when they each heard the sound of footsteps begin to echo throughout the cavernous office they began to cease their struggling.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Aria Blaze said in her usual tsundere fashion as she approached the two women whilst carrying a small black case in her hand.

“Don’t worry, you’re not,” Lucy tempestuously replied as she hastily fixed her appearance.

“Hey, Aria, do me a favor, will ya?” Justice said as she leaned over Lucy’s desk - much to the Devil’s annoyance - and presented her elbow to the Dazzling. “Can you look at my elbow and tell me if it looks like it’s got a rash or something on it?”

Naturally, Aria was confused as to why it was Justice was asking her to examine her elbow for a rash, as evidenced by the eyebrow she quickly furrowed. Despite this vexation though, she decided to oblige the girl’s request for a favor and started to examine her elbow once she was close enough to Lucy’s desk.

“Hmmm,” She uttered after a few seconds. “You definitely got something there, but I don’t think it’s a rash. I’d say it’s more of a scrape.”

“A scrape, huh?” Justice said as she retracted her elbow. “Phew, that’s a relief. After what happened the last time some foliage got too frisky with me I was really hoping that I didn’t have a rash.”

Aria’s brow furrowed even higher after hearing Justice’s statement of alleviation. So much so that the Dazzling felt the need to turn her attention over to Lucy and share her quizzical expression with the woman in the hopes that she’d help shed some light on the instant that Justice had just referenced.

“Don’t ask, I beg you,” Lucy softly pleaded with Aria, clearly picking up on what she was putting down.

Choosing to trust Lucy, Aria didn’t press her curiosity any further. Instead, she simply decided to get back to the business at hand she had with the woman and placed the case she was holding down on her desk.

“Okay, well, here’s your item,” The Dazzling told her employer as she did so.

“Ah, excellent,” Lucy replied as she spun the case around, opened it, and examined the contents within.

During the time that Lucy inspected the item she’d just been given, seconds passed by as if they were minutes for Aria. The Dazzling wasn’t sure if this was because she was in a hurry to get home or because she just didn’t like being in the club owner’s commodious and gaudy-looking office for very long – or both – but whatever the reason she soon found herself rapidly tapping one of her feet as she impatiently waited for Lucy to pay her for her latest pick-up.

“Yes, yes. This appears to be the genuine article,” Lucy eventually said with satisfaction as she removed the item from the case, revealing it to be a slightly rusted flintlock pistol. “Such a beautiful piece, don’t you think? Constructed in 19^th century Russia, never been fired, and it was once owned by renowned author Anton Chekhov.”

If it hadn’t been for the fact that Lucy was staring almost directly at her, Aria would have rolled her eyes derisively at the woman. Between Gregori Rasputin’s cross that she and Justice had picked up together on her first day as Lucy’s courier, Danila Antsiferov’s compass that she’d picked up – alone – not long after that, and now Anton Chekhov’s gun, she felt that the club owner had a strong fondness for Russian artifacts. One that very nearly bordered on the obsessive.

“Yeah, yeah, that gun’s really something,” The Dazzling replied ardently as she ceased her foot-tapping. “Now can I get paid? I’ve got a thing with my sisters I need to get going for.”

“But of course,” Lucy answered as she put the pistol down, rummaged through one of her desk drawers for a few seconds, and eventually withdrew a stack of bills that she handed to her courier.

“Thanks,” Aria said to Lucy as she took the money from the woman.

“Oh, no, thank you,” Lucy lauded back. “And just so you know, there’s another item I’m expecting to be ready for pick-up late next week if you’re interested in more work.”

“Cool,” Aria replied as she quickly counted her money. “Just give me a call when it’s ready and I’ll take care of it.”

“Wonderful,” The club owner said genially, right before dawning an astonished expression that indicated she’d just remembered something important. “Oh, and one other small thing. A band I’d scheduled to play here tomorrow abruptly cancelled on me this morning, and I was wondering if you and your sisters could help me out of a jam and possibly fill in for them. It would just be for the one night, I assure you.”

“Nope,” The Dazzling very bluntly replied as she continued to count the bills in her hand.

The incredibly candid – and arguably rude - response from the Dazzling didn’t sit well with the Devil, as evidenced by the look of mild glower that briefly crossed her face. A look that, fortunately for her, went unnoticed by Aria.

“T-That’s all right,” The woman said as she quickly regained her affable demeanor. “I understand that you girls probably already have other plans for tomorrow night. I just figured I’d ask in case you were free and wanted to earn a few extra bucks.”

“Uh-huh,” The Dazzling uttered as she finished counting her money and placed her payment in her pocket. “Anything else?”

“No, no. Nothing else,” Lucy replied, now sounding almost sickeningly genial.

“All right then. Later,” Aria then said as she turned around and headed for the elevator. “Good luck with your band issue.”

“Bye, Aria!” Justice called out to the girl as she left.

The Dazzling said nothing back but did raise her left hand up to signify that she’d heard the demon-girl’s amiable goodbye. Though immediately after doing so she remembered that Justice was blind and therefore unable to see her affable gesture.

“Bye, Justice!” She hollered back just before entering the antechamber linking Lucy’s office to the elevator and disappearing from the other women’s sight.

As soon as it was obvious that Aria had made her way through the narrow passageway and into the elevator, Lucy immediately dropped her congenial demeanor and once more dawned a displeasured expression as she aggressively sat further back in her chair.

“That girl still doesn’t trust me,” The woman irately said to no one in particular.

“What are you talking about? Aria trusts you,” Justice chimed in as she walked around Lucy’s desk and took a seat in one of the chairs in front of it. “She wouldn’t keep coming back here and doing pick-ups for you if she didn’t trust you.”

“Well then she doesn’t trust me enough!” Lucy heatedly shot back. “Not to the degree that I need to her to at least.”

“You mean to the degree that she’ll agree to perform here?” Justice half-asked, half-said.

“Precisely,” The Devil sternly replied.

Upon hearing her boss confirm her suspicions, Justice couldn’t help but give a small, internal sigh. Ever since she’d come back to working directly with Lucy nearly every conversation the two of them had engaged in had, at one point or another, veered towards the subject of getting the Dazzlings to perform at Chaus. And as far as the demon-girl was concerned, it was a subject that was getting somewhat old.

Though in truth, it wasn’t so much the fact that Lucy frequently brought up the Dazzlings performing at Chaus that irked Justice so, but rather the fact that her boss never expounded upon why it was that it mattered so much to her.

Each time Lucy had talked about getting the three siren sisters to perform at her club she’d never once provided an explanation as to the reason for its apparent importance. The most that she’d ever disclosed as to her motivation was that she needed the Dazzlings for her plans to come to fruition, and nothing more. Much to the chagrin of Justice and her curiosity. On more than one occasion the demon-girl had thought to ask her boss for more details as to her mysterious plans, but each time she’d concluded that doing so would have proved utterly futile. There was no way Lucy was going to divulge any information she deemed secretive to her, especially after she’d spilled the beans about the woman’s fear of the IRS to Sonata and Su-Z.

Despite knowing that Lucy wasn’t going to share any further info with her though, Justice’s curiosity about her boss’ intense interest in the Dazzlings continued to linger, even now. So much so that she once more felt tempted to ask about it. Thankfully though, there was another curiosity she had at the moment that she felt she could indulge instead.

“So, what’s the deal with the gun?” She inquired as she leaned forward onto Lucy’s desk and picked up the small firearm atop it. “It shoot magic bullets that never miss or something?”

“Oh, goodness no,” Lucy answered in an almost risible manner. “That thing is nothing more than a piece of junk.”

“Wait, seriously?” Justice replied incredulously.

“Seriously,” The Devil confirmed. “Frankly, I doubt it’s even actually Chekhov’s gun. I only bought the blasted thing so that I’d have something for Aria to pick up.”

Although it couldn’t be seen through her sunglasses, Justice rapidly blinked twice due to her newfound high-level of confusion.

“Um, okay,” The demon-girl then said, now sounding noticeably stupefied, as she put the gun down.

“I can tell you need me to explain a few things to you, Justice,” Lucy rather condescendingly told her companion. “See, the whole reason I hired Aria as my courier was so that I could get her and her sisters to finally perform here. I figured if I paid her large sums of money to pick up items for me I’d gain enough of her trust that she’d convince her siblings that I’m sufficiently honest and upright to work for.”

“But…you’re not honest and upright, Boss,” Justice interjected.

“Of course I’m not, but that’s beside the point,” Lucy replied. “I just need them to think that I’m honest and upright. And you’d think that a good way to do that would be by helping one of them when they’re having money troubles by giving them a high-paying job, but apparently not.”

At this point, Lucy got up from her seat and turned around to look at the various items on display against the back wall of her office.

“I just don’t get it,” The Devil then said sternly. “Why doesn’t Aria seem to trust me any more than she did before I hired her? What more do I have to do to convince her that I’m trustworthy? I gave her a job when she needed one, I offered her some genuinely sound advice on how to deal with Banyan Capital, I even bought about half-a-dozen things I don’t even need just so she’d be able to get paid for doing pick-ups, but still she acts as though -”

“Hold up. Hooold up,” Justice interrupted. “Did you just say you’ve bought about half-a-dozen things you don’t need solely for the purpose of being able to pay Aria to pick them up for you?”

“Yes, Justice, I did,” Lucy informed her companion. “Please try to keep up.”

Immediately after answering the demon-girl’s question, Lucy went right back to giving her periphrastic soliloquy. Though now the club owner’s words fell only on deaf ears, as Justice completely tuned the woman out whilst she retreated into her own mind to try and make sense of what she’d just learned.

From the day she’d been summoned from Hell by Sonata and Su-Z and reunited with Lucy after seven years, Justice had been aware of her boss’ desire to have the Dazzlings play at her club. However, it was only now upon hearing Lucy confess that she’d been giving Aria pick-up jobs solely for the purposes of paying her that she truly understood just how strong that desire was. And that newfound realization concerned her greatly. It wasn’t like Lucy to be so adamantly determined to see a single, solitary ambition come to fruition - especially an ambition that was clearly only a small part of a much larger goal – and the borderline obsessive level of that determination was raising some red flags for the demon-girl. Red flags that signaled back to a time when Lucy had been so overly strong-willed that it’d cost her dearly, as well as countless others.

The longer Justice thought about what Lucy had just told her, the more she felt that she had no other choice but to broach the subject of Lucy’s motivation for wanting the Dazzlings to play at Chaus with the woman once again. If there was even a one percent chance her boss was once again slipping into a state of obsession from which dire consequences could result, she needed to make every conceivable effort to make that determination and take action to pull her out of that obsessive state if necessary. And as soon as Lucy was finished with her palaver rambling she intended to make that effort.

“There has to be something I’m missing here. There has to be,” The Devil continued to monologue. “I just have to find out what that something is.”

Sensing that her boss was finally finished speaking, Justice removed herself from atop Lucy’s desk and assumed a more upright and naturally seated position.

“Listen, Boss,” The demon-girl started to say in an uncharacteristically solemn manner. “I know you don’t like sharing stuff with me ‘cause I’m not great at keeping secrets, but I think it’s time you told me why you’re so gung-hoe on having Aria and her sisters perform here.”

Unsurprisingly, Justice’s impetration appeared to catch Lucy off-guard, as evidenced by the fact that the woman didn’t offer an immediate response. Eventually though, Lucy turned around to face her companion and shot her a somewhat acetic look - which of course the blind girl couldn’t see – as she sat back down in her chair.

“Is that so?” The Devil addressed the demon-girl in a stern yet adroit tone of voice. “And why, exactly, should I do that, Justice?”

“’Cause I think you’re starting to let this thing consume you,” Justice confessed, making sure to sound as deferential as possible. “Getting the Dazzlings to perform at this club is practically all you ever talk about these days. I can’t even remember a single conversation we’ve had since reuniting where you didn’t eventually veer the subject towards them.”

Justice paused for a moment to allow Lucy to offer a rebuttal just in case the woman had one, but after about five silence-filled seconds passed she continued to voice her concerns.

“And on top of that, there’s this whole ‘I’m paying Aria to pick up stuff I don’t need’ thing now,” The demon-girl went on, now sounding noticeably less deferential. “I mean, I know we don’t typically care about money and I’m sure that it isn’t an issue for you or anything, but given how significant that stuff is up here it’s just kinda crazy how you keep throwing it away on things you don’t need just to have an excuse to pay Aria, you know?”

Once more, Justice took a moment’s pause in case there was anything Lucy wished to say. But just like before, the woman said nothing. Which, if the demon-girl was being completely honest with herself, was something that she found to be a little unnerving.

When she’d made the decision to express her worries to Lucy, Justice had more-or-less expected her boss to voice a dissenting statement or two to those apprehensions, given the woman’s penchant for being sensitive to criticism. But instead, Lucy had thus far remained completely silent, which Justice couldn’t help but fearfully feel meant that she was taking the time to prepare a real doozy of a comeback remark. One so powerful and pernicious that it would leave her reeling to the degree that she’d never want to question her boss ever again.

However, despite this fearful feeling Justice knew that there was no stopping now. She’d already started voicing her concerns, and now she needed to finish voicing them. No matter how potentially calamitous the fallout from doing so might be.

“And no offense, Lucy, but frankly seeing you act like this kinda reminds me of…of…” The demon-girl said as she struggled to complete her thought.

“Of…?” Lucy interjected.

“…of back when you were obsessing over Xekáno,” Justice tentatively finished her sentence.

Immediately upon hearing Justice utter the word ‘Xekáno’, Lucy’s appearance changed in a number of small but not unnoticeable ways. A brief twitch came over each of the fingers on her right hand, both of her eyes dilated, and a cold sweat began to form on her forehead to name a few of the more apparent alterations. Despite all of the changes being subtle in appearance, though, they were very much misleading indicators as to the woman’s current state of mind.

Internally, the Devil was filled with nothing short of trepidation and alarm.

In that moment, Lucy was immensely grateful that Justice was blind. The last thing she wanted right now was for her blabbermouth of a companion to become even slightly aware of what it was she was truly up to, and if the demon-girl had been able to see how simply hearing ‘Xekáno’ had affected her she would’ve undoubtedly gained at least some awareness of what she was scheming. Thankfully though, with Justice being unable to pick up on the physical signs of her present mode of being she still had a chance at keeping the girl in the dark. A chance that, first and foremost, depended on her ability to calm herself down and reply to Justice’s concerns in a natural and ordinary-seeming way.

“I see,” The Devil said in a very measured manner. “Well, I have to say, Justice, that’s quite the harsh criticism. But as much as I hate to admit it, you might be right.”

“I…might?” Justice asked bewilderedly.

“Yes, you might,” Lucy confirmed as she assumed a more relaxed position in her chair. “Hearing you say all that just now has really opened my eyes to how I’ve been acting lately. And though I wish I could deny it, everything you said was completely accurate; I’ve been fixating too much on getting the Dazzlings to perform here and allowing that fixation to cloud my better judgement.”

Justice wanted to say something in response to Lucy’s confession but found herself unable to on account of how flabbergasted she was that her boss was even admitting to her being right.

“And thank you for bringing up Xekáno,” The Devil continued. “I know that wasn’t an easy thing for you to do, but I’m glad that you did because you were right about that too; I was starting to act like I had back then. And after how all that ended the last thing I want is to put any of us through a similar ordeal again.”

“Um, okay. Cool,” Justice replied, still sounding a bit bewildered. “I’m…glad to hear that.”

Sensing that her companion’s concerns were beginning to be placated, Lucy briefly dawned a small, mischievous smile before swiftly returning to her compunctious state and resting her head within her left hand.

“I think the frustration of this whole thing has just been getting to me recently,” She said exhaustedly. “I mean, I’ve been trying to get the Dazzlings to play at my club for so long now, and it just doesn’t seem like I’ve been able to make any progress in getting them closer to saying ‘yes’.”

“Hey, I get it, Boss,” Justice sympathetically responded. “But I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I’m sure you’ve made at least some progress.”

“Nice of you to say, Justice, but it certainly doesn’t appear that way,” The Devil somewhat defeatedly said back. “Especially not after earlier when Aria was so quick to turn down my request for her and her sister to perform here tomorrow night.”

“Oh, well I wouldn’t let that get you down,” Justice replied in her usual vivacious manner. “I’m pretty sure Aria only did that because she was feeling real anxious to get out of here and to that meeting she has with her sisters about hiring a new part-time farmhand.”

“Perhaps,” Lucy conceded. “But even still, she was awfully -”

The Devil stopped herself midsentence when she came to a mind-boggling realization: Justice knew what the meeting Aria had mentioned was about. When the Dazzling had made reference to a meeting with her sisters before leaving she hadn’t said anything about what that meeting was in regards to, but somehow Justice was aware that it was about hiring a new person to work on their emu farm. And as a growing desire to find out how her companion came about this knowledge began to overtake her she dropped her whole enervated act and sat up more properly in her seat.

“How do you know what Aria’s meeting with her sisters is about?” She asked the demon-girl in an almost demanding fashion.

“She told me,” Justice answered as though she were stating the obvious. “We got to talking downstairs while she was waiting for you to give her the info for today’s pick-up and she mentioned it.”

Initially, Lucy found herself livid by this. How in the nine circles of Hell was it that Aria apparently trusted Justice more than her? She’d benevolently bestowed upon the Dazzling a job, and by contrast Justice had injected her with a lethal dose of black mamba venom. True, the only reason Justice had done so was because she’d instructed her to, but ultimately it was still the demon-girl who’d pulled the metaphorical trigger. So why did Aria feel comfortable enough around Justice to share the details of her plans with her? It made absolutely no sense to the Devil.

However, Lucy’s feelings of agitation were swiftly replaced by feelings of jubilation when she fully realized that Aria did, to a degree, trust Justice. Whatever reason or reasons the Dazzling had for trusting the demon-girl over her were of little-to-no consequence. The only thing of any importance was that she did trust Justice, and since Justice was practically wrapped around her finger that meant she had at least a small means of influencing the pig-tailed girl, so long as she played her cards right. And much like earlier, the Devil felt that the card she needed to play at this particular moment was that of subtlety.

“Hmm. All right then,” She said as casually as possible in order to avoid letting her feelings of exultation show. “But you know, Justice, all this talk of money has reminded me of something I wanted to ask you.”

“Oh, okay. What’s that?” The demon-girl inquired.

“How much am I paying you right now?” Lucy then asked.

“Paying me?” Justice answered, sounding noticeably bewildered for about the third time today. “Um, you’re not paying me at all, Lucy. I’m pretty sure you’ve never paid me for anything. Like, ever.”

“That’s what I thought,” Lucy replied. “I’ve never paid you before because you’ve never done anything for me outside of Hell. But we’re not in Hell anymore, now are we, Justice?”

“Nope,” Justice simply said.

“And since we’re no longer in Hell I feel that you need to start earning some money so that you can start pulling your weight around here,” The Devil continued. “After all, those apple pies you love so much aren’t free.”

“Makes sense,” Justice replied, remembering how she herself had pointed out earlier how significant money was up on Earth. “So, does this mean you’re going to start paying me, Boss?”

“Oh goodness no,” Lucy answered in an almost amused fashion. “I can’t pay you officially because you don’t exist on paper up here and I can’t pay you under the table either since I had to get rid of all of my cooked books – thank you, Su-Z.”

Just then, the Devil folded her hands and rested her arms on her desk as she leaned forward ever-so-slightly.

“No, I’m afraid you’re going to have to earn some money elsewhere, Justice,” She concluded in a manner that would give one the impression she was laying the demon-girl off.

“Damn. But whatever, it is what it is I guess,” Justice accepted with a surprising amount of ataraxia as she got up from her seat. “You got any ideas where I can make some money at least?”

“I might have one idea,” Lucy devilishly replied.

“Where the hell are you, Aria?!” Adagio Dazzle’s voice shouted through the speaker system in Aria’s car. “Because in case you forgot, we had a household meeting scheduled for today!”

“Chill, Adagio, I didn’t forget,” Aria instructed her older sister as she drove. “I’m in the car and headed home now.”

“Well when you left this morning you said you’d be home an hour ago!” The elder Dazzling heatedly reminded her sibling.

“Sorry, work went longer than I’d thought it would today,” The pig-tailed girl apologized, though not that remorsefully. “Look, I just left the city limits, so I shouldn’t be much longer.”

Surprisingly, the middle Dazzling didn’t receive another heated response from her older sister after saying this.

“Adagio?” Aria said to make sure her call hadn’t been disconnected.

“I’ve got another call coming through,” Adagio eventually spoke up. “Just…come straight home so we can get our meeting started already.”

Immediately after Adagio finished speaking, the call ended and Aria gave a quick eyeroll.

“Yeah, I said I’m on my way home,” The younger Dazzling said, feeling slightly miffed that her sister had felt the need to tell her to come straight home when she’d made it clear that she already was.

Despite her phone call with Adagio being rather unpleasant, Aria was glad that her older sibling had called her. The conversation had served as a good distraction from the thoughts and questions she typically found herself preoccupied with after finishing a pick-up job for Lucy, namely whether or not continuing to work for the woman was the right thing to do. Though now that Adagio had hung up and she was left with no sufficient diversion, she quickly found those thoughts and questions rushing to the forefront of her mind.

“There’s nothing wrong with working for Lucy,” The Dazzling said aloud. “There’s nothing wrong with working for her.”

As per usual, Aria began debating with herself by stating - either aloud or mentally - that there was nothing erroneous or misguided with doing pick-ups for Lucy. But also as per usual, making this statement alone wasn’t nearly enough to convince her that the words composing it were true.

“She may be the Devil, but it’s not like I’m doing anything bad by picking stuff up for her,” She continued to deliberate vocally. “I’m not breaking any laws or hurting anyone or anything. And it’s not like I’m helping her do anything wrong either.”

Knowing full-well where her mind was going to take her next, Aria beat herself to the punch by saying that she wasn’t aiding or abetting any wrongdoing on Lucy’s part through working for her. However, the benefit of this foresight was short lived, as soon her psyche took her to a place she hadn’t yet gone before.

“S-She’s just collecting a bunch of old junk like all rich people,” The Dazzling went on, now sounding a tad shaken. “I mean, yeah, that first piece of junk I picked up for her was magical, and some of the other junk I’ve picked up for her might have been magical too. But it’s not like she’s doing anything bad with any of it. All she’s doing with that stuff is putting it on display in her office so she can show her rich friends that she’s richer than they are, that’s all.”

So far as Aria could tell, this was true. Each and every item that she’d picked up for Lucy since becoming her courier had been placed in a prominent location within the club owner’s office, suggesting strongly that she wasn’t doing anything with them other than using them to showcase her wealth. Even the item she’d picked up that she knew for a fact was magical – Rasputin’s cross – had simply been set ornately upon a pedestal along the back wall of the woman’s office for all who sat in front of her desk to see.

Though of course, the Dazzling had no way of knowing for certain that Lucy wasn’t doing dubious deeds with any of the items she’d picked up for her when she wasn’t around. For all she knew, the woman was using Rasputin’s cross to make herself near invincible and bully her board of directors or using the heavy-ass black cauldron she’d picked up after that to conjure voodoo spells and curse her enemies. But then again, it wasn’t as though she had any proof that Lucy was doing any of these things – or even any legitimate reason to believe them to be remotely true.

“Fuck!” Aria uttered in frustration as her demurral regarding working for Lucy started to go up and down like a rollercoaster running at light speed.

Despite having this debate with herself nearly every time she finished doing a pick-up job for Lucy, the Dazzling had yet to come even close to a definitive conclusion as to whether or not working for the woman was all right or not. From the standpoint of making sure that her family had enough money to live and not lose their emu farm, it was undoubtedly the right thing. Working as Lucy’s courier was proving to be very financially lucrative. But from the standpoint of moral philosophy, it was still incredibly unclear if she was at all in the wrong. And that uncertainty only caused her frustration to grow.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” She reiterated as she slammed her right hand on the steering wheel multiple times.

Sadly, this was also per usual for the pig-tailed girl as she journeyed home from Chaus. Just about every time she’d debated with herself like this her frustration at not being able to arrive at a clear answer to her ethical conundrum had resulted in her feeling the need to hit something. The idea that she might be slipping back into villainous acts didn’t sit well with her in the slightest. Her life and the lives of her sisters had changed for the better since embracing the magic of friendship, and she didn’t want to jeopardize all that she now had by working for a potential villain. But at the same time, she didn’t want to jeopardize all that she now had by going bankrupt either. Even with Banyan Capital’s assistance, money was still a big concern within her household, and she knew she had to do her part to help make it less of a concern.

But was the cost of obtaining financial stability worth the potential risk of once more winding up on the wrong end of the moral spectrum?

“You’re fine. It’s all fine,” Aria told herself to try and calm herself down. “You don’t have any reason to believe that Lucy’s doing anything wrong with the stuff you’ve been picking up for her. And if it turns out that she is doing anything wrong, you stop working for her and do whatever you have to to make things right.”

This type of asseveration routinely followed the Dazzling’s mini outburst. It was never enough to give her the answers she so desperately desired, but it was at least enough for her to rationalize her decision to continue working for Lucy – for better or for worse.

Almost as soon as Aria finished making her pronouncement, she pulled into the driveway of Dazzling Farms and parked the car up near the house. Before getting out and heading inside, though, she took a few seconds to take a couple of deep breaths and recompose herself. The last thing she wanted right now was to walk into the house looking noticeably distressed and be bombarded with questions from her sisters and housemates about what was wrong.

So with every bit of mental energy she could muster, the middle Dazzling suppressed her agitated disposition and assumed her usual indifferent demeanor.

“Let’s get this over with,” She said in a very tsundere fashion as she got out of the car and headed for the house.

Within a matter of moments, Aria reached the porch, opened the front door, and stepped inside without delay. However, as soon as she took a single step through the threshold she found herself needing to come to an abrupt stop, as Adagio was standing only a mere seven feet or so away from the entrance with her back turned towards it.

“Yes…yes, if you could that would be great,” The older Dazzling said into her phone, seemingly unaware that her younger sibling had nearly run into her.

Under more normal circumstances, Aria would likely have made some sort of crass remark to her sister over her having chosen such a poor place to stand. But given how she’d been feeling only a couple of minutes ago she instead just gave Adagio a derisive eyeroll before dropping the car keys in the nearby key bowl, sidestepping her older sister, and heading into the living room for their meeting.

Upon walking into the living room, the middle Dazzling noticed that Sonata, Kiwi, and Su-Z were already there and seated throughout as they all awaited the start of the meeting. Sonata and Kiwi were both seated next to each other on the couch and apparently engaged in conversation whilst Su-Z was located in one of the single-person chairs and petting Princess Thunder Guts, who was seated atop her lap. Because of this, there were only two seats remaining within the room that she could occupy; the far end of the couch and the other single-person chair located almost right to the far end of the couch.

Without even really thinking about it, Aria made the decision to sit in the single-person chair so that she could avoid sitting on the couch – and next to Kiwi.

“No way. Seriously?” Sonata said to Kiwi as Aria made her way over towards her chosen seat.

“Seriously,” Kiwi replied. “The reason Countess Coloratura does so much yoga is because has a major sweet tooth.”

“Especially for custard pudding,” Su-Z chimed in. “I swear, back when Kiwi and I were popstars I saw her eat just about a whole bowl of that stuff at a party once.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s too funny!” Sonata chortled.

Kiwi and Su-Z joined in Sonata’s merriment by offering up a few chuckles of their own, but as soon as Aria walked past all three of them Kiwi immediately ceased her mirth-making and turned her head away so as not to face the itinerant Dazzling. The action seemed to go unnoticed by Sonata and Su-Z, who continued to cackle gleefully, but it most definitely didn’t escape Aria’s notice.

Ever since Aria had gone back to working for Lucy after her first pick-up for the woman, Kiwi had become noticeably more distant from her – and the Dazzling knew it. The PostCrush girl rarely ever engaged her in conversation anymore, and whenever she would engage her first she’d often only receive short, closed-ended responses from her. Plus, there were a number of times similar to the one just now where the former popstar had made it a point of actively trying to avoid any interaction with her. None of this surprised Aria much though, given how Kiwi had reacted to the tale of her first pick-up for Lucy, but she did have to admit that it did hurt her a tad.

Ever since Kiwi and Su-Z had moved onto the emu farm with her and her sisters, Aria had felt that she and Kiwi had developed a special bond b’twixt them. She wouldn’t go so far as to say that they were best friends, but she did believe that because of a handful of moments they’d shared - most notably the heart-to-heart talk in the van on Kiwi’s first day working the farm – that they’d become more than simply friends. So for Kiwi to now be acting so coldly was a bit disheartening for her, though it wasn’t nearly disheartening enough for her to say anything about it.

As far as Aria was concerned, if this was the way Kiwi wanted things to be between them from now on then that was fine by her. After all, what did it really matter if they had a special bond or not?

“Do you know anything personal about Sapphire Shores?” Sonata asked the two PostCrush girls just as Aria sat down.

“Sapphire Shores? Nah, I don’t know anything all that personal about her,” Su-Z answered before turning to face her best friend. “How about you, Kiwi?”

“Huh?” Kiwi replied dazedly as she brought her attention back to the conversation.

“Sapphire Shores; you know anything personal about her?” Su-Z clarified.

“Oh, um…n-no, not really,” The elder PostCrush girl replied awkwardly.

Su-Z and Sonata exchanged a quick look of confusion as to Kiwi’s sudden change in demeanor. But before either of them could ask the girl if something was wrong, Adagio walked into the room and clapped her hands together a couple of times.

“Okay, people, let’s get this meeting started,” The Dazzling leader commandingly said as she stood over the group of girls. “Since we’re getting started later than expected and I have to get going to Smith’s Grove soon we’ll keep things nice and short.”

Aria couldn’t help but shoot Adagio a derisive glare after she’d commented about how their meeting was getting started later than expected, feeling that her older sister was taking a passive-aggressive shot at her by doing so.

“As you all know, we’re looking at bringing on a new part-time farmhand,” The eldest Dazzling continued, seemingly oblivious to her younger sibling’s glower. “We’re doing more business now than we ever have before thanks to Su-Z’s sister getting us that Banyan agreement, and because of that we need to start thinking more about things like operational planning and efficiency. Which means we need to make sure we have enough people working on the farm to ensure we can meet our demand.”

“If I may,” Kiwi respectfully cut in. “I don’t think we necessarily need any extra people working on the farm. Su-Z and I have been more than able to keep up with all the new responsibilities we’ve been given since business started booming.”

“Yeah, we haven’t had any problems with our new tasks at all,” Su-Z concurred.

“I know, and we’re grateful for all the extra work you’ve both been putting in lately,” Adagio replied as she addressed Kiwi’s concern. “But with the way our business is growing it’s only a matter of time until things become too much for the two of you to handle alone. We’re going to need a third person eventually, and with that in mind it’d be best to bring that person on sooner rather than later so they can get as much training as possible before things get too busy.”

After a few seconds of contemplating Adagio’s logic, both of the PostCrush girls nodded in agreement.

“Why don’t one of us just go back to working on the farm instead?” Sonata chimed in. “I mean, I’d be okay with quitting my job at the candy store if need be.”

Knowing their sister as well as they did, Aria and Adagio both knew that Sonata’s generous offer to quit her job at Cybil’s Retro Candy Store was most likely not as generous as she was making it out to be. If they had to put money on Sonata’s true motivation for her proposition that money would’ve been put on her simply not wanting to work at the sweets shop anymore, and not on her having an actual desire to help fill the part-time farmhand position.

“Unfortunately, that’s not a viable option right now, Sonata,” Adagio replied. “Our business may have picked up significantly, but we’ve still got a ways to go before we’re financially sound. We just can’t afford to lose even a single source of income for the time being.”

A subtle yet noticeable look of disappointment crossed Sonata’s face as soon as Adagio turned her offer down, confirming to the other two Dazzlings that they’d have won their fictional bet. Though neither of them took any joy in Sonata’s discontent, as the two of them weren’t exactly thrilled by their continuing need to accrue money from outside the farm either.

“Trust me, I’ve given this whole thing a lot of consideration,” Adagio continued to address the group. “And like all of you I wish there were a more in-house solution here too, especially given how difficult it’s been trying to even find someone willing to work here part-time. But this is the best way to ensure that we keep Dazzling Farms moving in the right direction.”

Collective nods and soft ‘yeah’s were given in response to the eldest Dazzling’s remarks. But despite these actions of agreement, the four other girls in the room each still had their own private concerns, specifically how they were going to find someone who was willing to work part-time on the farm. After all, Adagio hadn’t been wrong when she’d mentioned how difficult it was trying to find a part-time farmhand.

In the time since Adagio had placed ads in the Canterlot Chronicle and on the internet for a part-time farmhand not a single person had expressed an interest in filling the position. Plus, none of the friends they’d talked to directly about the job wanted to fill it either. Or rather, none of the friends they’d talked to were able to fill it, due to all of them being students at CHS and stuck at school during the day. But regardless, the lack of any genuine prospects for their job opening was very discouraging to the PostCrush girls and two youngest Dazzlings, and all four of them couldn’t help but wonder what Adagio’s back-up plan was should such a prospect never present themself – if she even had a back-up plan.

“The good news though is that the phone call I just had was with someone who was inquiring about the job,” Adagio then said, immediately garnering her the full attention of everyone else in the room.

“For real?!” Su-Z inquired optimistically.

“For real,” Adagio answered, now sounding somewhat optimistic herself. “They said they heard about it from a friend of theirs and that they can be over later today for an interview.”

“We’re interviewing this person so soon?” Aria chimed in almost accusatorially. “You don’t think doing that makes us look kinda desperate?”

“We are desperate,” The eldest Dazzling sternly reminded her sister. “And we’re not interviewing them, Aria; you are.”

“What?! Just me?!” The pig-tail girl replied indignantly as she vehemently got up from her chair. “The hell, Adagio?! I thought you said we were going to handle the interview process together!”

“That was the plan, yes,” Adagio replied rather calmly, but with the subtlest hint of irritation evident within her voice. “But since you were so late getting home and I need to get going to Smith’s Grove for my visit with Violet you’re on your own for this part.”

The look on Aria’s face made it clear to all who gazed upon it that the middle Dazzling desperately wanted to offer some rebuttal that would hopefully get her older sibling to honor her promise. But soon enough, that look morphed into one that gave the impression that the girl wasn’t going to give any such counterstatement – or was simply unable to come up with any such counterstatement.

“Um, we could help you if you want, Aria,” Sonata tentatively spoke up before turning her attention to Kiwi and Su-Z. “Right, girls?”

Kiwi and Su-Z each gave Aria an affirming nod in response to Sonata’s inquiry, though Kiwi with noticeably less enthusiasm than Su-Z.

“Fine, whatever,” Aria grumbled as she practically threw herself back into her seat.

“All right then,” Adagio then said as she looked over at the clock mounted above the TV. “I’m heading out to Smith’s Grove now so I don’t miss visiting hours, so meeting adjourned I guess.”

And with that, the Dazzling leader promptly turned around and exited the living room.

“Wait a minute,” Kiwi called out to the girl just as she reached the front door. “You’re not going to tell us anything about this person we’re supposed to interview, Adagio? Like maybe what their name is.”

“They didn’t tell me their name, and I didn’t think to ask for it,” Adagio confessed as she took the car keys out of the bowl Aria had dropped them in earlier. “But I can tell you that they’re a girl and that she’s the tomboy type. I swear, with the way she kept using words like ‘cool’ and ‘awesome’ in just about every sentence it felt like I was talking to Rainbow Dash.”

A noticeable smile immediately crossed Sonata’s face after Adagio mentioned that the person that they’d be interviewing was similar in temperament to her girlfriend. While conversely, the same information caused a small scowl to cross Aria’s already glower-looking face. The thought of having to deal with yet another tomboy was one that the middle Dazzling didn’t exactly love. She didn’t have anything against tomboys, mind you, but given how often she found herself interacting with Rainbow Dash and/or Justice on an almost daily basis she felt that two tomboys in her life was already more than enough.

“Okay, I’m leaving,” Adagio said as she headed out the door. “Call me if anything comes up.”

“Tell Violet I said hi!” Sonata called out to her sibling as she left.

“Will do!” Adagio vociferated back right before the door closed behind her.

With the Dazzling leader gone, the four girls remaining in the house all silently looked at one another for a few seconds, as if wordlessly asking each other what it was they should do now. Eventually though, the silence came to an abrupt end when Princess Thunder Guts suddenly leaped down from atop Su-Z’s lap and started barking, earning her the attention of everyone in the room.

“Huh? What is it, little girl?” Su-Z asked her dog as the petite pooch ran over to the front door and began pawing at it.

“Does she want to go out?” Sonata inquired.

“I think she’d just use the doggie door if that’s what she wanted,” Kiwi remarked.

Su-Z got up from her seat to see why it was her pet had unexpectedly began palpating the front door, but after taking only a couple of steps a quick series of knocks coming from the other side of the door caused her to stop dead in her tracks – and caused Princess Thunder Guts to cease her frantic pawing.

“You think that’s the girl we’re supposed to interview?” She asked the other girls in the room.

“It can’t be,” Kiwi answered. “Adagio only got off the phone with her a few minutes ago.”

“Maybe she was already on her way over when she called,” Sonata chimed in.

Unbeknownst to one another, Kiwi and Aria had the same thought in response to Sonata’s remark: why would the girl who was interested in the farmhand job already have been on her way to the interview before knowing she’d been granted one?

“Well, whoever it is, I’ve got it,” Aria said as she got up and made her way over to the front door.

As the middle Dazzling ventured through the living room to answer the door, she took a moment to calm down and recompose herself just in case the person at the door really was the girl that was interested in the farmhand job. Despite how unlikely it was that this was the case, she didn’t want to take the risk of scaring a potential worker off by projecting her current bitter feelings towards Adagio onto them.

“Come here, Princess,” Su-Z called out to her dog in an attempt to get her out of the way of the door, though to no avail.

For reasons unknown, Princess Thunder Guts ignored her owner’s command and continued to stand in front of the door and up at it, making it all but impossible for Aria to open the thing without bonking the miniature mutt once she reached it. Wanting to avoid such a bonking from occurring, Su-Z hastily ran over to the door to pick up her pet and get her out of the Dazzling’s way. But before she could get there, Aria beat her to the punch and removed Princess Thunder Guts from her path by picking her up herself, eliciting a small yet happy-sounding yip from the petite pooch.

“Yeah, yeah,” The pig-tailed girl said to the petite pooch as she secured her with one arm and reached for the door with the other. “Just don’t go barking at the person on the other side of the door when I open it, okay?”

Princess Thunder Guts gave another small, happy-sounding yip in response.

“Okay,” Aria then said as she opened the door.

Despite not having reached the front door quickly enough to remove her pet from in front of it, Su-Z had managed to make it far enough that she was able to see who was at the door when Aria opened it. And when she did see who was at the door she was grateful that the Dazzling had been the one who’d picked up Princess Thunder Guts instead of her, because if she had been the one holding her pet in that moment she feared that she would’ve dropped her due to shock.

“Justice?!” The PostCrush girl and Aria both said in a very pell-mell manner as they stared at the demon-girl standing just outside the house.

“Justice?!” Sonata and Kiwi shouted simultaneously as they both swiftly got up from their seats.

“Yo, how’s it goin’?” Justice greeted everyone. “I’m here about the part-time farmhand job.”

Living On An Emu Farm Just Outside Of Town

by Peni Parker

I Like The Emu, But The Emu Don't Like Me

Between a Limestone and a Hard Place

Code Clash or: An Impromptu Girls' Night Out

Using Magical Geodes For Fun and Profit

The Sunset Also Rises (Part 1)

The Sunset Also Rises (Part 2)

Hell is for Sirens (Part 1)

Hell is for Sirens (Part 2)

Hell is for Sirens (Part 3)

The Shape of Violet

The Phantom Madrigal

Sympathy From The Devil (Part 1)

Sympathy From The Devil (Part 2)

Sympathy From The Devil (Part 3)

The Prodigal Sister

When Kiwi Met Su-Z

Emus, Demons & Etc. (Part 1)