If it hadn't been for the hot pain in her upper arm, hitting the wall might have hurt. Trying to bear with the lancing agony from the wound, she pressed on, gasping and choking, unaware of the smear of red on the bricks or the trail of ruby droplets splashing down behind her.
The little bit of her mind still focused fixated sharply on one thing: she had to get away!
She didn’t know why this was happening, or what she’d done to cause it. Had she done something to deserve this? If so, what? The tall walls either side of her seemed to loom accusatorially over her, pressing invisible fingers down at her, passing judgement as she fled the one chasing her.
She came to a wider passageway where a large dustbin stood, slimy and derelict against the dirty wall. Without a second thought she dove behind it, pressing herself against the wall into the shadows. There, she listened, her ears picking up the faintest sounds: the drip of a rusted pipe, the scurrying of tiny creatures all around, the faint whispering of the wind.
In the momentary illusion of safety, she let go of her upper arm. It stung and pulsed with pain; she felt warm blood leaking from the wound, staining her coat. She let out a little squeak of pain and then quickly slammed her hand over her own mouth.
What was that? She thought she heard...
Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate, and echoing her way. She sat, shivering, praying that they hadn’t heard her. She gulped, her hearing interspersed with the dull pulsing of blood in her ears, as though her heart had lodged itself up into her head.
The steps came ever closer. Slowly, slowly. The person following her was in no hurry. They had no trouble keeping up. And no desire, apparently, to make this quick. The steps stopped at the mouth of the wider alley they were in. She pictured in her head the person looking up and down, perhaps for a sign of where she’d gone. If she stayed where she was, she’d be safe. They’d go away and then she could escape.
Please, she begged internally. Please go away. Please!
Silence. Nothing moved. Even the dripping pipe seemed to have lengthened the space between drips in anticipation.
Then the steps began again, industrious and sure. Right towards her.
She stifled a moan under her hand, her heart rate rising. Closer and closer they came; she could have sworn she could feel the trembling of the ground as each step reverberated on the old slabs. They stopped on the other side of the bin. A brief moment of silence.
Then came a loud, metallic bang as they kicked the side of the receptacle, and she could not help herself. Bursting out from between her fingers, she gave a high pitched squeal of shock. Then she shot to her feet, her legs complaining loudly as the blood surged back through them. Stumbling slightly, she pelted down the alley and turned right down the only exit.
Straight into a narrow dead-end.
Her heart missed several beats. Tears streamed unrestrainedly from her eyes, and ran down her pale cheeks as her entire body went cold.
She looked tremulously back. Her would-be killer advanced leisurely. They had known that this was a dead-end. They had known all along. Had they perhaps driven her here on purpose...?
Backing up to the wall. She would have given anything at that moment to have the power to melt through it.
“W-Why are you doing this?” Sonata sobbed.
The person did not reply.
“Please,” she begged, “I’m sorry. Whatever I did, I’m sorry!”
The person still did not reply. They simply stopped about three feet away, the shining blade of the weapon that had cut Sonata’s upper arm held loosely in their hand. Its silver gleam was marred slightly by the dark stains along its length.
There was no avenue of escape. Sonata’s legs felt like they were turning to numb blocks beneath her. She leaned against the wall as the only means of remaining standing.
“Please d-don’t,” she stammered. “I-I don’t wanna die!”
She knew there was no hope of it. She was slipping down the wall. The person’s free hand shot forward and clamped over her mouth, forcing her head back and stifling her wails of anguish and fear. Her good hand struggled feebly against the restraining arm as they raised the knife.
“It’s nothing personal,” the person said simply, as the knife plunged.
By virtue of the setting, very few people had noticed the body for several hours. A certain pink haired individual had noticed a congregation of cats, and had followed the curious felines back to the gruesome discovery.
Most of the police had departed, leaving only a few forensic analysers, and two individuals standing on the edge of the scene. They had long since taken away the body.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sunset said, putting a tentative hand on Adagio’s shoulder. “I mean, I was just getting to know her at school, and...” she bit her lip and looked away.
“She told me.” Adagio replied. “Thanks.”
Sunset didn’t quite understand this reaction. Adagio had certainly seemed upset since arriving, and Sunset had even seen her cry a little when being questioned by the police. But otherwise she’d been... well, like her usual self. She supposed it was just that indefinable air of leadership about her, or a personal sense of pride. Or perhaps she simply didn’t show as much emotion as other people. Maybe she was hurting on the inside, and that was why Adagio was even standing here just talking to her right now. Sunset thought how odd it was in and of itself for Adagio to be standing here, just talking to her.
“Do you have any idea why she... why this might have happened?”
“Police thought it was a robbery,” Adagio replied. “Her valuables were gone, but they found them in the trash.”
Sunset frowned. “What does that mean?”
“That the...” Adagio cleared her throat. “That whoever did it wanted to make it look like a robbery, when it wasn’t.”
Sunset felt a shiver run through her. “So they think this was personal?” she asked quietly.
“They don’t know yet. Seems that way though.”
Sunset paused. She felt more than a little guilty, especially standing there. She lived only a block or so away from here. She hoped that Adagio didn’t know that. She cast around for something to say. Having only gotten there once the police had started putting the tape around the entrances to the alleyways, Adagio had been there for some time before when the police had called her over as the next of kin.
“Is Aria, um... okay?”
“She’s at home,” Adagio said listlessly. “She puts on a brave face, but we... we’ve been together so long. We’re like sisters. I don’t think she could stand seeing Sonata—“ she broke off. “She’ll be fine. Eventually.”
“I hope so,” Sunset replied. “You know if you need anyone to talk to, we’re all happy to help. My friends and I.”
She thought for a moment that Adagio was going to sneer. Certainly, Adagio’s mouth curved in a way that was like she was going to, but whether she thought better of it, or it had been a different expression to begin with, she simply gave a large sniff and nodded.
Sunset didn’t want to push her company too much, and so she offered her condolences again, and tentatively left Adagio to her thoughts.
Aria indeed had not been able to stomach seeing Sonata’s body. Before arriving on the scene, she had been all but disbelieving. In her mind it simply could not have happened. The three of them had been together for so long; how could Sonata be gone now?
But she was gone. When the police had lifted the sheet and asked if they could identify Sonata, Aria’s insides had disappeared. Then they were quickly replaced by a writhing sack of slimy creatures all slithering and rolling over one another.
Taking her aside, Adagio had stood pale and resolute as she, Aria, vomited off on the edge of the scene. She had gone home not long after, trembling and ill. The police told her that they would drop by later to take a report from her, charitably allowing for the overwhelming of her feelings at that moment; it seemed unlikely they could have gotten anything out of her right then.
The siren’s home was a large house on the city's eastern heart that had apparently once belonged to some famous person or other whom the IRS had had words with. Being vacant, the sirens had long since appropriated it, using their magic to put off awkward questions and, under Adagio’s instruction, force the acquisition officially so that according to all the paper work, the house was in fact theirs now. They had simply never paid for it.
Aria hadn’t managed to reach her room, but simply flopped down onto the nearest couch and allowed her feelings to overwhelm her. She didn’t know exactly how much time had gone by, but she was broken out of her mourning by a sound from the front door. She vaguely wondered if she’d closed it properly when she came in, since she hadn't heard the loud sound of the key in the lock. She found that she didn’t remember very well, but turned around on the sofa to see who had come in.
“Huh?” she said, frowning in confusion. Her eyes roved from the person’s face to the thing held in their hand. “What’re you— Oh my god...!” she exclaimed, scrabbling off the sofa and falling onto the floor. “I-It was you! But, it can’t have... you wouldn’t have—“ She backed away across the floor as the person advanced. When the person broke out in sudden speed, she tried to get up, she turned and pushed hard off the floor, getting to her feet at lightning speed, but the other was faster. The knife thrust forward. Aria screamed and swung out an arm, deflecting the blow from its intended course and grazing her ribs. She cried out in pain, and using the sudden burst of adrenaline swung out heavily with her fist. She missed, but the assailant backed up quickly to avoid it. Clutching her bleeding side, Aria turned on the spot and made a break for the double doors. The house was large; she could easily lose herself in it, find a phone, or just get out of the house before they could get her.
“Ah!” she cried as the person tackled her to the ground. She hit the floor hard, her jaw smacking against the wood. Despite the pain she struggled and writhed, kicking out against the attacker. She managed to twist onto her back, intending to knock the person off her.
An excruciating pain in her abdomen made her muscles seize up in agony. Before she could even fully understand what had happened, the knife plunged again and again. With each thrust, Aria’s senses dimmed. She became dully aware of all the little sounds her body made; she realised just how noisy it was in that briefest of moments, just as all those sounds began winding down. As her head fell back against the floor, the last thing she saw wasn’t the grim expression of her murderer, but the wide screen television sitting on the oaken-table opposite the couch. She and her sisters had had a rocky relationship for a long time, but now, with the dark closing in all around her, she remembered vaguely the feeling akin to happiness she’d experienced on those nights when she and the other two had just sat down and watched TV together.
“It’s nothing personal,” the person above her said quietly, as Aria’s body seemed to drift away from her.
In the bright atmosphere of Sugarcube Corner, Sunset and her friends sat around feeling most morose. The usually happy and exuberant bunch cast a sort of gloomy miasma throughout the shop, depressing anyone careless enough to look at their group. Sympathetic to their plight, Mrs. Cake was attempting to dispel the negative air by giving them consolatory pastries and milkshakes. But the confections lay semi or uneaten, the milkshake straws not even taken out of their paper wrappings. The mood of the group was just too weighed down by the gloom of loss.
Sunset, Pinkie, and Fluttershy had gotten to know Sonata quite well following the Dazzling’s defeat at the Battle of the Bands. Sonata had been the first to adapt to being a regular individual, her cheerful personality not allowing her to mope around quite as long as the other two, and had been the most susceptible of the three to the proffered olive branch when offered.
Aria had followed tentatively after, intrigued by Sonata’s conversion and the boisterous qualities of Applejack and Rainbow Dash, and even open to Rarity’s sharp opinions. The six of them had reeled on the day that their two friends had been murdered, all in their own ways.
Rainbow and Applejack, rarely seen indoors, had kept a great deal to themselves since the news had reached them. Rarity and Pinkie had lost a great deal of their creativity as the dark shadow of loss cast itself upon them; clothes were left half-completed in Rarity’s parent’s boutique, and Pinkie had cancelled performing at the usual rung of birthday parties at Sugarcube Corner. Fluttershy, having been the one to find Sonata, had not been out of her house since that day, and had only reluctantly agreed to come to this meet-up with her friends at Sunset’s insistence.
Sunset had decided that she needed to be the one to try to begin the healing path. It hurt her when Sonata had died, but it hurt her even more to see her friends deteriorating into listlessness and sorrow. She had no expectation of cheering them up exactly, but she did hope to break the unspoken vow of silence between them. Perhaps then they could comfort each other. So far, signs were not hopeful.
Fluttershy had sat crying silently to herself the entire time, Rainbow putting a comforting arm around her shoulders. Sunset wondered if perhaps she had been crying for days, or if this meeting simply reminded her of what was wrong.
“I heard that Adagio’s under police protection,” Applejack said, quietly.
“Yeah, she is,” Sunset said quickly. “She called and asked if I’d visit her some time.”
“Are you going to?” Rarity inquired, a little hoarsely. She took a sip of her melted milkshake
“I really think I should,” Sunset said uneasily. “She’s been alone for days. She’s not been coming to school or anything.”
They all exhaled. This was true. Since returning home and finding Aria dead in their living room, Adagio had not once left her house. Only at one point had Sunset gone to visit Adagio since then, taking her some groceries. The police guard had not allowed her entry, as Adagio apparently wanted to be left alone, but confirmed that Adagio had shown no desires to leave, and certainly hadn’t been shopping.
“It’s just so unfair,” Pinkie sobbed, sniffing loudly. “Why’d this have to happen?”
“I don’t know,” Applejack murmured. “Whoever’s doin’ it’s a monster.” She shook her head and sighed heavily. “Them sirens might have done some things they ought not be proud of, but they didn’t deserve what they got.”
“No one deserves what happened to them,” Rarity put in, thickly, wiping her nose on a handkerchief.
They passed a few moments in silence.
“I’m sorry to bring you all out here like this,” Sunset said suddenly. “I didn’t mean to make us all...” she lowered her head.
“No, darling,” Rarity blurted. “No, you were right. We couldn’t sit around crying about it. There is nothing we can do about it after all.”
“The funerals are tomorrow,” Applejack pointed out. “Are we all going together?”
They agreed to it, Sunset a little quieter than the others. Sunset sighed again.
“Well, I have some shopping to do before I go to see Adagio.” So saying, she stood up.
“Call us,” Rarity said. “And give our... well, our condolences, won’t you?”
Sunset hesitated, biting her lip a little. “Yeah.” She affected a smile, and exited the shop, leaving her friends to stare morosely after her.
“Hey,” was the first thing to occurred to Sunset to say. She had attempted to make it sound cheerful, but wondered a second later if that might have been insensitive.
Having been allowed in by the seated policeman, who was reading a newspaper by the door, they passed the second police guard who watched Adagio and Sunset move passed the stairs. Adagio had assured them it was fine, but the second officer insisted on at least checking Sunset’s handbag. Seeing that it contained not so much as a nail clipper, he ushered them on with a nod.
The house, being so large, had a second lounge nearer to the kitchen and dining room. Adagio sat Sunset down in a chair whilst she went to fetch them something to eat, and returned with a little cake and some coffee.
Sunset watched Adagio probingly whilst the two of them sat in silence, eating. Her hair wasn’t its usually poofy, dominating mane, but had been allowed to hang long, and curly. Additionally, Adagio didn’t seem to be keeping up with her wardrobe anymore; she wore pyjama trousers and a loose-fitting shirt. She had bags under eyes and a pale complexion. Sunset grimaced to see her in such a state.
“So how’s everyone at school?” Adagio asked.
“Fine,” Sunset said immediately. “I mean, as fine as they can be, you know.”
They stayed silent for a little while.
“Did you know,” Adagio said out of the blue. “The police apparently found some prints.”
“Oh,” Sunset said, hoping she sounded upbeat. “That’s good. So they know who did it?”
“Not yet,” Adagio said, quietly. “They only found them yesterday in the lounge. On the wood of the floor. They’ll know by tomorrow.”
“Then they’ll catch them,” Sunset said, stabbing at her cake.
Adagio looked at Sunset, giving her a long, penetrating sort of look. If Sunset had looked up from her defenceless cake, she might have seen a dark glint in Adagio’s eye.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “They think that it was someone close to us. Since they knew where we lived and everything.”
Sunset didn’t say anything to that. To be frank, she wasn’t aware that the sirens had been close to anyone. They had had no friends before. They only had each other. Sunset sipped her coffee, and looked at Adagio askance. She didn’t know why exactly, but she felt a slight tingle of trepidation spread through her.
“You know when I said that they hadn’t taken Sonata’s valuables,’ Adagio said, as though coming out of a deep reverie.
“Yeah,” Sunset agreed.
“That wasn’t... entirely true.” She paused to take a bite of her own cake. “I didn’t tell the police, but Sonata and Aria both had something stolen.”
Sunset waited for Adagio to go on. She didn’t move or say anything, but sat there, watching the other girl closely as she steepled her fingers and carried on talking.
“The police thought maybe, with Sonata, that she’d been targeted for rape, but when I found Aria in the house...”
“You were the one who found her, weren’t you?” Sunset asked, matching Adagio’s hushed tone.
“Yes,” Adagio went on. “Neither of them had been assaulted like that. But they both had something stolen.”
“Important things?” Sunset asked, her eyes fixed on Adagio’s profile.
“Oh yes,” Adagio said quietly. “Very important things.”
There followed a short pause, after which Adagio seemed to perk up. Sunset almost jumped at the sudden smile on her face.
“You want any more cake?” she asked, picking up her own and Sunset’s plates.
“Oh, um, no. Thank you,” Sunset grinned. Adagio grinned back, a little wider than could be considered entirely natural, and made her way quickly to the kitchen. As she passed the kitchen door, unbeknownst to Sunset, she casually reached out and locked the door to the hallways leading to the vestibule.
Sunset sat there, thinking. She had a few options here. But she had made up her mind when she’d figured out what was going on; when she’d figured out what Adagio had been doing. She’d come here to confront Adagio about it, and there was no point putting it off. Tomorrow it would be too late to do anything about it if the police had her prints. She had to stop Adagio. Too much had been done, and lost, to justify her leaving now. But Adagio’s change in mood disconcerted her, and she was only slightly afraid when she noticed, out of the corner of her eye, Adagio standing in the doorway to the kitchen, glaring at her.
She looked around. Not much to her surprise, she saw the thing in Adagio’s hand. The gleaming metal blade of a kitchen knife. Sunset’s eyes roved from it, to the equally steely cold look in Adagio’s eye.
“You just had to shove your nose in, didn’t you?” Adagio said, darkly.
Sunset stood up. She said nothing.
Adagio took a step or two forward, holding the knife up, and pointed at Sunset. “You couldn’t just have left us alone.”
“You’ve done horrible things, Adagio,” Sunset said steadily.
“What do you care?” Adagio spat. “I’d have left this place. You and your friends beat me at the battle of the bands. I’d have left. We would have left; gone someplace far off where you couldn’t bother us.”
“You didn’t think I could just let you hurt more people.” Sunset glared coldly at Adagio, her eyes flicking every so often to the knife.
Adagio gave a humourless laugh. “Well unfortunately for you, I caught on to you. And now I have the weapon.”
She advanced a step, but then froze, as Sunset pulled something black and shiny out of her jacket. She levelled the pistol at Adagio’s chest. Adagio’s face went pale.
“Drop it,” Sunset said calmly.
“A gun,” Adagio breathed, as though unable to believe what she was seeing.
“I got it just this morning. Lucky me.” She levelled the gun straighter. “Drop the knife.”
Adagio hesitated, and then threw the knife off to the side. She stood there, her lip trembling, her eyes blazing with hatred.
“How did you find out?” she snarled.
“I was friends with Sonata,” Sunset replied, her cool tone offsetting Adagio’s furious one. “It took a while, but she opened up to me about all sorts of things.”
Adagio narrowed her eyes. “She told you what I was doing,” she surmised.
“Yes,” Sunset confirmed. “She let enough slip, anyway. I figured out what was going on. You couldn’t imagine that I’d let it happen.”
“A little while longer and it wouldn’t have mattered,” Adagio growled, almost to herself.
“Believe me,” Sunset said sharply, “I know.” With her free hand she fished something else out of her jacket. A small plastic bag, full of glittering red shards of glass or crystal. Adagio blanched, her face contorting with rage and grief.
“You kept—“ she choked. “You fucking bitch! You murdered my sisters!“
Sunset’s expression didn’t change. “Yes,” she said simply. “You sent Sonata to the jewellers. I didn’t want to believe what she told me until I saw her going home. I knew you had to be almost done.”
“I’ll kill you, you smug—“
The shot that rang out was louder, and more jolting than Sunset had expected. She had never fired one before. As might be expected, her aim wasn’t exact.
Adagio fell back against the wall, clutching her middle. Sunset watched, her hand trembling, as Adagio slipped down the wall to splay against the skirting board, a dark red stain streaking the wall. She took several shallow breaths and then coughed up a mouthful of blood.
As Sunset knelt down in front of her, she heard the two policemen at the door. They shouted something and tried the handle. Sunset ignored them. She reached down Adagio’s shirt collar and plucked out the repaired pendant, gazing at it for a little while.
“Y-You... you f-fuck...” Adagio choked.
“Honestly,” Sunset said quietly, as a loud banging sounded from the door. She held the pistol up to Adagio’s temple. She saw the mingled terror, pain, and rage mingling in Adagio’s eyes “It’s nothing personal.”
“Fuck you!” Adagio shrieked thickly.
The second bang made everything momentarily silent. The crashing bangs against the door ceased for an instance before industriously resuming.
Sunset watched as Adagio’s corpse slipped sideways to the floor. She thought it would be disrespectful to her not to. She could feel repulsed at what she was doing, but she couldn’t shrink from it; she wouldn’t disrespect her friends like that. She didn’t even bother to wipe the flecks and splatter of blood from her own face. It didn’t matter anyway.
She held up the pendant in her hand to eye level. As with the previous two, the light inside it sparkled and then dimmed, and cracks appeared across it surface. The life force of its owner extinguished, it had nothing to derive its form from. Holding open the bag, she let the thing crumble to shards into it to join the others. A little bag of red, spiky glass shards.
Staring at the little sharp stones, her mind wondered momentarily backwards over the passed few days.
The dread that had thrilled through her spurred her on. The three of them could not be allowed to have their powers back. The results could have been horrible. What they had been capable of at the Battle of the Bands, if they had been fully aware of what Sunset and her friends could do... surely they would have eliminated them first. Slaughtered her friends, killed her as well, perhaps even returned to Equestria. They would have no time to prepare, no time to properly defend themselves. They would die, ignominious and unremembered on the sirens' quest for power.
She concealed the knife in her jacket until she had caught up with Sonata. Sonata had turned to look at her. She had smiled. It had been so hard. So very hard. When the knife had left her jacket, Sonata's smile didn't disappear. A faint bemusement came over her. She had no thought in her head that her friend would do anything so monstrous as she was planning to. Not until the first attempt.
As she had chased Sonata through the alley, as she had cornered her helplessly in the shadows, and as she held her still to deliver the fatal blow, her mind screamed at her not to do it. Her limbs trembled as though working against her will. She knew that she couldn't let the sirens return to their former strength. She knew they wouldn't give up that power willingly; there was no hope of it. This was the only recourse. She knew it.
So why had it felt so wrong?
Aria had been different. Not easier, but different. After speaking to Adagio, she had made her way as quickly as she could to their house. Finding the door mercifully open, she entered. If she were a crueler person, she'd have thanked whatever divine providence had made it so easy. For there she was, lying on the couch. But she had heard Sunset entering.
Sunset hadn't known Aria as well as she'd known Sonata. That didn't make it easier to kill her, but it did make her constant reinforcing of her purpose easier. This had to be done. She had already begun; she couldn't stop now. She just couldn't. What had murdering Sonata meant if she didn't finish it? She found that her hand moved more freely as she had torn Aria's guts out. Her insides found it no more easier, but her hands carried her purpose more obediently.
But still, she could not be blind to the cruelty. To the pain that she caused.
She had stolen the gun. It might be returned soon. She did not know. It wasn't her concern. She had just hoped that whatever happened, she could be kinder in her task than previously. Not just for her own feelings, but for Adagio's as well. Despite what the sirens could do, what they might do, they didn't deserve pain.
She came back to herself as a particularly loud splintering noise resounded through the room. Shards of the broken door burst into the room, showing small portions of the policemen on the other side.
“I really had nothing against you guys,” Sunset said as the door to the hallway continued to splinter under the assault. She laid the bag next to Adagio’s body, and arranged the still warm hand to hold the bag loosely against her chest. Then she closed Adagio’s eyes. She looked oddly peaceful.
“I even think I liked you,” Sunset whispered, pressing the barrel of her pistol up under her own chin, and placing her finger on the trigger. The metal felt cold and solid against the tender flesh of her throat. “But there needs to be fewer monsters in the world.”
