Three teenage girls ran as fast as they could away from the stage. Fortunately for them the audience seemed to be distracted by the girls who had thwarted them, but there was no telling how long it would last. Once they got over their initial celebration, they would undoubtedly organize themselves and hunt them down. Or call the cops. Or the army.
“Girls,” Sonata gasped as she ran. “We’re in big trouble.”
The yellow girl turned to make sure they weren't being followed. As soon as she was sure that they were safe, she signaled them to stop to catch their breath.
“Well, of course we’re in trouble!” she yelled angrily. “We got our collective asses kicked by a bunch of teenage girls who were singing about friendship!”
“Yeah, well I just thought I would point it out, since nobody seems to have noticed yet,” said Sonata. “I mean, we just got up and ran away after we realized we can’t sing. Maybe nobody noticed yet!”
“Oh, wow!” Aria said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “I mean, I was so busy trying to not get killed by an angry mob that I never realized just how bad we screwed up!”
“You see, Dagi?” said Sonata. “Some people never notice when things go wrong!”
Before she could say anything else, the blue girl felt a stinging pain on her cheek as her head was forced backwards. As she grabbed her cheek in pain, she saw Aria holding her hand out.
“You…” she gasped. “You slapped me!”
“No, really?” said Aria. “Some things just go straight over my head.”
“How can you not know that you slapped me?” said Sonata. “You hurt me!”
“Well, maybe I wouldn’t have had to do that if you didn’t spend all your time being a useless, brain-dead, taco-obsessed ditz!”
Sonata gasped. Aria had been mean to her before, but not this much. And she had certainly never slapped her.
“Well,” she yelled. “you… are really rude!”
“Yeah?” said Adagio. “So would it be really rude if I slapped you as well?”
Sonata gasped as her eyes began to well up.
“Wh-why would you do that?”
“Let’s be honest,” Adagio said calmly. “Aria’s got a point. You rarely ever help us out. Sometimes you end up causing problems. Hell, you practically revealed the full extent of our plans to Sunset Shimmer by accident. Do you realize how stupid you have to be to screw up like that?”
“But I-”
“No!” said Aria. “You’re an idiot, you’re useless, and you can’t even think of any witty comebacks! So why don’t you just admit that our team would be better off if you just went away and never came back?!”
Sonata stared at her fellow sirens, tears streaming down her cheeks. They had never exactly been best friends, but now they were openly hostile towards her.
“I… you… I’m not useless!”
“For realzies?” Adagio said in her best mockery of Sonata’s voice. “What can you possibly do that Aria and I can’t do on our own?”
Sonata tried to speak, but the word got stuck in her throat. She wanted to say that she was useful, that she had always been helpful in the past, and that she could help them in whatever scheme they would try next.
But all she could think of was the way Adagio and Aria were glaring at her.
She could no longer take it. She turned away from them and ran away, sobbing all the way.
“Stupid girls.”
It was late saturday morning as Sonata sat at a booth at the cafe. She had sat her many other times in the past, harvesting the discord of the patrons along with her fellow sirens. But now she had lost her magic gem, and she was on her own.
She was wearing her jeans and her hoodie as she always had, though she no longer had her gem and couldn’t really do anything. She was grateful for her hoodie, though; it was allowing her to cover up her head in case anyone recognized her. It was doing little to improve her mood, however.
All Sonata could think of was the words of her fellow sirens. It was possible that they had just been angry at her because they had just lost. But Adagio had been pretty calm during the whole affair, and Aria had made it very clear that her resentment had been around for a long time. In addition, they had challenged her to think about any time she had ever been helpful to them.
Then, there was the pain. Aria’s slap had hurt Sonata, there was no denying that. But they had also hurt her in a deep, emotional way; their words had carved their way into Sonata’s soul, burning until all she wanted was to run away. And somehow, it had hurt far more than the slap.
Was this the kind of pain they had inflicted on people? Now that Sonata had experienced it firsthand, she was beginning to understand the severity of what she had done to those who listened to her music. And she didn’t like it. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more conscious she became of her own pain.
Almost without thinking, she removed her hood, letting her ponytail hang out. What was the point of hiding anymore? There was little she could do for her fellow sirens. True, she could get caught, but she didn’t know if she even cared. She deserved whatever horrible fate befell her.
Sonata wasn't sure how long she sat there. It might have been a minute, or it might have been several hours. All she knew was that it was interrupted by a most unexpected visitor.
“Hey.”
Sonata looked up to see a boy staring at her. He had purple skin, and he had messy blue hair with a few purple and pink streaks. He was wearing a blue jacket and purple pants, and he was carrying a white chocolate smoothie with whipped cream.
She couldn’t help but think about the girl who had been singing with the Rainbooms.
“Are you okay?” the boy asked. “You seem kind of glum.”
The blue girl didn’t answer. She merely stared down, doing her best to ignore him.
“Okay, you don’t want to talk,” he said. “But seriously, you look like you’ve had some trouble. And a pretty girl like you doesn’t deserve to be left alone like this.”
Sonata kept trying to look away as the boy sat opposite of her. However, he showed no signs of losing interest. He wasn’t even bothering with his smoothie.
“So, can you at least give me your name?” he asked.
Sonata sighed. She had already lost her powers, her reputation, and her “friends.” Could she really go in any direction other than up?
“Sonata Dusk.”
“Wow, what a coincidence.”
“Your name is Sonata too?”
She temporarily cringed as she remembered every time her fellow sirens had rebuked her for saying silly things. To her surprise, however, the boy simply laughed.
“Nah, that would be weird. Call me Dusk Shine.”
“Oh,” said Sonata. “Sorry… Dusk Shine.”
“Don’t be,” said Dusk. “It was actually kind of funny.”
Slowly, a smile crept onto Sonata’s face.
“You… think I’m funny?”
“I guess so,” said Dusk. “I mean, I don’t know that much about you, but you certainly seem funny.”
“Wow,” said Sonata. “Nobody’s ever said I was funny before.”
As she said this, her smile faded away. Dusk frowned as he saw this.
“So, do you want to talk about why you’re all alone here?”
Sonata shuddered.
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated?” asked Dusk.
“Yeah,” said Sonata. “And most of it you probably wouldn’t believe. You’d say I’m crazy.”
“Okay,” said Dusk. “Why don’t you just tell me what I would believe?”
Sonata gulped. She felt as if she was being interrogated. The boy’s uncanny resemblance to that one member of the Rainbooms wasn’t helping either. But then again, she had a lot to get off her chest.
“Well, I used to hang out with two other girls, and we were… well, bullies. And we’d been doing a lot of bad stuff for years. But then, recently, something… went wrong.”
“You were a bully?” Dusk said in surprise. “I… really wouldn’t have expected that.”
“Well, it was a bit more complicated than that,” said Sonata. “But after that night… we began to fight. Or, really, I guess they began to fight me. And they really were angry at me, so they said a lot of things. Things that hurt. And then I began to think about all the people we hurt, and it hurt even more.”
Dusk watched as her eyes began to well up. He was finding it hard to believe that a pretty, fun girl like her could have been a bully. However, seeing her tears falling down her cheeks, he could tell that there was definitely something to what she was saying.
At the same time, he could feel that Sonata wasn’t giving him the whole story. He knew she had told him it was complicated, but he just couldn’t help but wonder what it was that she didn’t want to talk about.
But that could wait. For now, he had to deal with Sonata.
Without waiting for her to say anything, he pushed the white chocolate smoothie in her direction.
“Here.”
Sonata stopped crying and stared at the smoothie. In shock she turned upwards to face him.
“But… why?”
“I think you need something to cheer you up.”
“But all those things I did! The people I was being mean to! I… I don’t deserve such kindness.”
As she said this, she tried to push the smoothie away. However, Dusk grabbed her hand.
“I’m not going to argue that you did some pretty bad things, Sonata,” he said. “But the fact remains that you’re having a bad day and you need something to cheer you up. And besides, just because you did bad things in the past doesn’t mean you can’t do good in the future, right?”
Sonata thought about what Dusk was saying.
“Tell me, Sonata. Do you regret what you did?”
“Well, I do,” she said.
“And you want to make up for it, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah, I guess I want to do good. I don’t want to hurt anyone else. For realzies.”
Dusk laughed as she said this.
“Did you just say ‘for realzies?’”
“Yeah,” said Sonata. “My… friends never liked it.”
“Your friends, who were so mean to you?”
Silently, Sonata nodded.
“They really weren’t your friends, Sonata. Just people who wanted you to help them be mean to other people.”
Sonata sighed as he said this.
“But it’s not too late to learn how to make friends,” said Dusk. “And if you want, I can help you.”
“You would do that for me?” asked Sonata, surprised by his attitude.
“Of course I will,” said Dusk. “That’s what friends do for each other, right?”
“Friends?” said Sonata.
“Friends.”
For a moment, the two Dusks stared into each other’s eyes, both slowly realizing just how much their lives were about to change. Hopefully for the better. And so, the both smiled together.
“Thank you, Dusk Shine.”
“You’re welcome, Sonata Dusk.”
Slowly, Dusk let go of Sonata’s hand. She then hesitantly accepted the smoothie, and began to drink. It was pretty good for something she’d gotten from a boy who looked a lot like one of her former enemies.
Author's Note
This is the kind of shipfic that Sonata would come up with. And you love it.
Or not. Actually, that would be better. That way I won't have to write any sort of continuation to this trash I wrote on writer's block, or explain why Twilight's counterpart is R63'd when everypony else has a normal human counterpart.
(On which note, may I propose that Sonata Dusk's R63 counterpart be named Cadence Twilight? 
)
Ah well. Enjoy it, comment, and tell me if this is worth continuing (and please say no... ah, who am I kidding, of course you're going to say yes.)
