Tooth-hurty

Chapters

Chapter 2: We Shall Ride Eternal, Hairy and Dumb!
Chapter 3: Dentist Who
Chapter 4: Adventures in Time, Dentistry, and Torture
Chapter 5: The Gas That Keeps Giving
Chapter 6: And Giving, And Giving
Chapter 8: All's Well that Ends WeeeeeeEEEEEEEEE!
Chapter 9: A Learning Experience Was Had by All, and That’s the Tooth
Chapter 1: Better Problem Resolution by Getting Someone Else to Do It
Chapter 7: Epic Adventures of the Drug Induced Kind

Chapter 2: We Shall Ride Eternal, Hairy and Dumb!

“Alright, so this is not at all who I thought you meant when you said you knew of some ‘hot chicks’ who needed a ride, Sunset.”

Flash Sentry sat in the driver’s seat of his muscle car, his day having gone from ‘boring’, to ‘intriguing’, to ‘OH GOD! WHAT?!’ in record time.

His ex-girlfriend Sunset Shimmer sat in the passenger seat, the back seats crammed full of orange hair and ex-siren.

“Hey, I didn’t lie,” Sunset said. “You’re not about to tell me the Dazzlings aren’t hot chicks.”

“Ooooh yes!” Adagio purred from the middle seat while wind courtesy of a moaning Sonata rolling her window up and down whipped Adagio’s hair into the face of a slightly bruised Aria.

“You mislead me,” Flash countered. “I mean, ‘hot chicks’ basically includes literally everyone you hang out with! I had no idea you meant the three magical femme fatales who nearly took out the school!”

Adagio leaned forward and leered suggestively at Flash. “Flattery will get you everywhere!” She pressed an index finger against Flash’s knee and began running it down the length of his thigh. “And I do mean everywhere…”

Flash’s eyes widened as Adagio’s finger slowly moved down his thigh.

Sunset put her hand on Adagio’s face and pushed her back into her seat. She turned to Flash. “I want to say you’re overreacting, buuuuuut…”

Flash raised an eyebrow. “They mind-controlled the entire school and almost took over the world?”

Sunset sighed. “How I wish that was top of my list of worst things I’ve had to deal with. But yes. You’re right. I was desperate, but this was still wrong of me,” Sunset admitted. “I’m sorry I pulled you into this and you have to deal with—”

“GET YOUR HAIR OUT OF MY FACE!” Aria snapped as she swatted at the mass of orange curls that had renewed their assault on her.

“—frickin’ THIS!” Sunset exclaimed.

“Do you think I WANT to be in the middle?!” Adagio shot back at Aria. “I had to do this because Sonata wouldn’t stop whining about having a window seat!”

“But the cool wind feels so good on my aching teeth!” Sonata opened her lips and held her teeth against the rush of incoming air then pushed her window button up and down a few more times. “And this window is so uppy-and-downy!”

Sunset turned around in her seat. “Would you three just calm down for like five minutes?! DON’T MAKE ME TURN THIS CAR AROUND!”

Adagio narrowed her eyes. “You’re not driving.”

“DON’T MAKE FLASH TURN THIS CAR AROUND!”

“Uh, Sunset…? I’m on the highway.”

“DON’T MAKE FLASH TAKE THE NEXT EXIT AND THEN FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET ON THE HIGHWAY GOING THE OTHER DIRECTION SO THE CAR IS EFFECTIVELY TURNED AROUND!”

Flash sighed. “Isn’t Applejack going to meet us at the dentist’s office? Why didn’t at least one of the girls go with her?”

Sunset turned towards Flash with narrowed eyes. “Aria and her had just gotten done beating up each other and Sonata was attached to Adagio and Applejack doesn’t know how to deal with simultaneously listening to Sonata’s inane nonsense while the person next to her rubs her thigh and tries to seduce her as she’s driving at sixty miles per hour!”

Adagio chuckled. “I see you’ve been keeping up with my Instagram.”

Sunset turned to glare at Adagio. “You were just doing that like a minute ago!”

Adagio shrugged. “Everyone needs a hobby.”

Sunset raised her eyelids slightly at Flash. “Any other questions?”

Flash sighed and shook his head, then paused thoughtfully for a moment. “Yeah, just one… Does Twilight have like… some sort of magic phone number or mailbox she uses to keep in contact with you, and can I have her magical phone number or give you a letter to mail or something?”

Sunset closed her eyes, lowered her head, and brought both sets of fingertips to her temples. She let out a long continuous sigh, letting the air flow from her lungs until it was completely depleted.

“So… Is that a ‘no’ to the part where you have a way of contacting her, or a ‘no’ to the part where I can have her number or give you a letter?”

Sunset inhaled until her lungs were full again, then exhaled, sighing with the exact same tone she had just moments before.

“Sonata,” Adagio began, “why are you sticking your arm out the window?”

Sonata let left her hand drift up in down on the wind, as if it was riding a wave. “Because-ow-it’s fun! Ow.” She turned to glare at Adagio. “Why?! Are you going to-ow-tell me I might lose my arm if I don’t keep it inside? YOU’RE NOT MY REAL MOM! OW!”

Adagio shook her head. “I only ask because you said the wind felt good on your teeth, so why stick your arm out?”

Aria grinned and leaned past Adagio. “Yeah! You should stick your entire head out!”

“Yay!” Sonata cried. “Like a d-ow-ggy!” She immediately stuck her head through the window and let her tongue loll out.

“Sunset…?” Flash said.

“Hmmm?” Sunset replied casually.

“Sonata just stuck her entire head out the car window.”

Sunset nodded. “I’m aware of what’s going on behind me, thanks.”

“She’s going to get herself decapitated doing that.”

“Again, I’m well aware of this,” Sunset said. “I am okay with that potential outcome.”

Flash frowned. “Also, I might get pulled over with her doing that.”

Adagio interjected, leaning forward so she was in between Sunset Shimmer and Flash once more. “Oh the police?! They’re pretty easy to placate! I have a little trick I do when they show up, you see I just…” Adagio went quiet as she rolled the fingers on her right hand into an ‘O’. Similarly, she opened her mouth and pursed her lips into a similarly sized round shape before she began rhythmically moving her hand towards and away from her lips at a diagonal angle while she poked at one of her cheeks with her tongue.

Flash’s eyes opened wide as his eyes darted back and forth between the road and Adagio who was currently waggling her eyebrows at him as she continued her lewd gesture.

Sunset turned to push Adagio back down into her seat. The act prompted a brief slap match with Adagio and Aria until Adagio pressed herself against Sonata.

For a brief moment, there was no sound except that of rushing wind and Sonata exclaiming “Wheeeeee-ow-Wheeeeeee-ow… Wheeeeeee-ow” like a vehicle siren that was somehow also in pain.

Flash broke the silence. “Wait… What if it’s a policewoman? I mean… Won’t you have trouble there?”

Sunset smacked her face with both palms and shook her head.

Adagio leaned forward again. “Oh, not a problem! I just…” Adagio formed a ‘V’ with her right index and middle finger then placed it in front of her mouth. She began licking the space where her fingers met.

“SIT DOWN!” Sunset cried as she turned around and pushed Adagio back into her seat.

Adagio took a few swats at Sunset. “STOP PUSHING ME! I’M JUST TRYING TO MAKE FRIENDS! ISN’T THAT THE WHOLE POINT OF YOU KEEPING AN EYE ON US?!”

“WELL DO IT WITHOUT THE WEIRD SEXUAL STUFF!” Sunset cried as she returned cat like swats in Adagio’s direction.

“OH!” Adagio exclaimed. “So friendship means changing how you act so people will like you instead of accepting how you really are, hmmmmmm?!”

Sunset paused her slapping. “No… I mean…I just…” Sunset sighed and hung her head. “I’m sorry, Adagio. You’re right. I overreacted,” she admitted. “Maybe just save it until we’re out of the ca—”

Adagio pulled her hand back as much as she could in the full backseat of the car and brought it against Sunset’s face with an earsplitting ‘SMACK!’

Sunset’s jaw dropped open as she held a palm against the new red mark on her cheek.

Aria let out a chuckle.

“Hah!” Adagio said derisively. “Got you to lower your guard! You stupid friendship-loving wet blank—”

“RRHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAGGGGH!” Sunset undid her seat belt, rotated onto the transmission hump of the car, and threw herself at Adagio. She did her best to pummel Adagio with the limited space the car afforded her.

“Ow! OW!” Adagio exclaimed. “THIS ISN’T VERY FRIENDSHIP OF YOU, SUNSET! OW!”

“HEY! GET OFFA ME!” Aria cried as she began attacking both Sunset and Adagio and in attempt to get the pair to back off and give her some space.

“WOULD YOU ALL KNOCK IT OFF?!” Flash yelled. “I’M TRYING TO MAKE SURE WE DON’T ALL DIE FROM ME CRASHING ON THE HIGHWAY! YOUR BRAWLING BACK THERE IS MAKING THAT QUITE A BIT MORE CHALLENGING THAN USUAL!”

Sunset stopped, her knees on Adagio’s lap and a clump of Adagio’s hair in her left hand as her right was pulled back into a fist directed at Aria.

Adagio stopped, her arms crisscrossed in front of her as her hands were held like talons ready to claw at the faces of both Aria and Sunset.

Aria stopped, a clump of Adagio’s hair in her left hand as her right hand was held as straight as a knife ready to swing into Sunset’s neck.

Sunset quickly crawled back to her seat and buckled her seatbelt as she, Adagio, and Aria murmured apologies to Flash.

Once again the car was silent, save for the sound of the wind and Sonata’s cries of excitement-pain.

Suddenly, Sonata stuck out her arm through the window to join her head and leaned out. Now almost more outside than in, she pointed enthusiastically and tried to shout back into the car.

“We can’t hear you, numb-nuts!” Aria replied

“TRUCK! TRUCK!” Flash cried in a panic.

Sunset clenched her teeth and grasped her seat as Adagio and Aria quickly leaned towards Sonata, grabbed her and pulled her inside moments before a massive truck hauling a trailer occupied the space Sonata was in moments before. The truck blared its horn as it continued the other direction.

Flash and Sunset let out sighs of relief.

“That was close…” Sunset uttered.

“Sonata!” Adagio snapped. “What the hell is so important you’d stick almost your entire body out of a moving vehicle?”

Sonata pointed her hand out the window. “It’s a Ta-ow-Bell! We HAVE t-ow st-ow-p!”

Sunset’s shoulders slumped forward as she felt the muscles on her face do the same. “To think we were almost rid of her.”

Aria sighed as she pushed Adagio’s hair away from her face. “Welcome to our world. Every time she does something stupid and almost gets herself killed somehow we decide to save her dumb ass.”

Adagio glared at Sonata. “You have pointed out literally every restaurant with the word ‘taco’ in it and every Mexican restaurant we’ve driven past, and every time we tell you ‘no’! Why do you think this time will be different?!”

Sonata puffed out her lips into a pout. “Because I’m n-ow-super-mega-ultra-hyper hungry! Ow!”

Adagio and Aria suddenly put on matching frowns as their pupils simultaneously contracted. “Oh…” they said in unison.

Sunset turned to look at backseat again. “Why should that matter? Last time she was super-mega-ultra hungry. We didn’t stop then.”

Adagio shook her head. “Super-mega-ultra-hyper hungry is the level where it happens.”

“Where what happens?” Sunset asked.

Adagio clamped some of her hair around both her ears. Aria reached for some of Adagio’s hair and also pressed it against her ears.

Sonata inhaled as much air as her lungs could carry. “WHOUUUUUAAAhouhhhhhAAAAAhhAAAHAAAAhhhhAAAAA!I’mHUNGryI’MHUngryI’mHUngRY!WITHoUTFoOdI’mgoiNgTODIEEeeeeeEEEEE!oWWWWWieOWWWWIEEEEeeeoWWWWWWWWOWWWWWWEEE!”

“THAT!” Adagio answered.

“OH, FIXER CHRIST!” Sunset exclaimed. “I CAN FEEL MY INTERNAL ORGANS SHAKING!”

“SUNSET!” Flash cried. “I’M NOT SURE I CAN KEEP THE CAR ON THE ROAD WITH ALL THIS GOING ON! I... I’LL MAKE SURE TO CRASH IT ON THE DRIVER’S SIDE!”

“MYTeeeeTH!MystOMACHE!EVerytHINGhURRRrrrrrRRRRRrrrrrtttttTTTTTTTSSSSSO!WIEOWIEowieowieOWIEEEEEeeeeeeEEEEEEE!

“DON’T TALK LIKE THAT, FLASH!” Sunset shouted. “YOU’RE STRONG! I KNOW YOU CAN GET US THROUGH THIS!”

Flash shook his head. “I don’t… I don’t… Sunset?! In case I don’t make it through this, I need… I NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING!”

“MYStOmache!MyTEEth!mystomACHE!mytEETH!”

Sunset began to weep openly. “Choke-Sob-Yes, Flash?!”

“I NEED to tell you to TELL Twilight Sparkle that she is just SO, SOhot! LIKE DAMN! There needs to be inter dimensional LAWS about looking that good, or something!”

“… WHAT?!”

-~One Emergency Trip to a Taco Bell later followed by more stress-filled driving ~-

“Where the heck were y’all?!” A slightly bruised Applejack exclaimed as Sunset half-stumbled out of Flash’s car. “Ah’ve been waiting in this here parkin’ lot for dang near an hour now! I tried textin’, calling’… The whole sheba—Oh…” Applejack trailed off as she got a better look at Sunset.

Strands of Sunset’s hair shot in all directions as if they were attempting to escape from the rest of her while other parts of hair were matted with red, white, or green sauces or some combination of them. Her turquoise eyes fond Applejack as if searching for her through some sort of mist.

Applejack couldn’t help but note that Sunset’s eyes looked tired and perhaps even slightly hollow.

Sunset rushed over to Applejack and threw her arms around her, tears streaming from her face.

“Whoa there, pardner!” Applejack said. “Ah’m sorry I got cross wit’ ya! What happened?!”

“I’M SORRY!” Sunset said. “But-sob-We had to stop for tacos and Sonata ordered so many tacos and tried to fit them two or three at a time into her mouth and-whimper-Adagio kept hitting on the staff and everyone who walked in and-sniff-and-and I think Aria smashed hot sauce packets into the eyes of a marine and beat him up, and-choke- my phone fell into a vat of sour cream and-IT WAS SO HORRIBLE! WHOUAAAAAHOUAAAAAHOUAAAAA!” Sunset’s body shook against Applejack’s with her cries.

“Hey,” Applejack embraced Sunset tightly, gave her a few pats on the back, and then pulled back just enough so she could look Sunset in the face. “I know you’ve had it rough, but as my Granny always says, ‘after the rain always comes the su—”

“ROUND TWO STARTS NOW, APPLEPACK!” Aria cried before she TACKLED Applejack at full speed and brought her to the ground.

Sunset watched as Applejack and Aria rolled around in the parking lot and exchanging blows once more.

“STOP CHEWING ON MY HAIR!” Adagio cried.

“But there’s still bits of TAC-OW and delicious NACH-OW cheese in it!” Sonata replied.

Sunset turned to stare at Flash. Flash stood by his car and looked at the various scenes in front of him, his face communicating quite clearly he had no idea of what to do about any of it.

With a resolute expression on her face, Sunset marched over to Flash and laid her back on the asphalt next to Flash’s boots. She stuck her head right behind the front driver side tire of the car, not caring that the various sauces in her hair were now mixing with the dirt in the parking lot. “Alright, Flash. Get back in that car and throw it into reverse!”

“WHAT?! Sunset I’m not—”

“Come on, Flash!” Sunset cried. “Be my mercy angel!”

Chapter 3: Dentist Who

Adagio Dazzle let out a long irritated sigh, inhaled, and then shouted with all her might in a commanding tone, “DAAAAAAAAZZZZLINGS!”

Sonata stopped chewing on Adagio’s hair and Aria and Applejack ceased fighting. Flash Sentry turned from Sunset to look at Adagio, and even Sunset pulled her head out from under the car to see what was happening.

“ASSEMBLE!”

Sonata quickly sidestepped so she was in front of Adagio. Aria, bruised and battered as she was, quickly detached herself from an equally-injured Applejack, ran across the parking lot, and stood next to Sonata.

A quizzical expression on her face, Sunset stood up as Applejack walked over to her and Flash.

“The heck is goin’ on?” Applejack asked.

Sunset shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen them do this before.”

“Alright, Dazzlings!” Adagio said in a tone reminiscent of that of a drill sergeant. “We’re stepping into unknown territory here and we need to be in control!”

Sunset sighed. “Well, this won’t end well.”

“The plan is simple!” Adagio continued. “Attack pattern alpha!”

Before Sunset, Applejack, or Flash could react, the three Dazzlings got into formation with Adagio in front and Aria and Sonata flanking her. Adagio threw open the wooden double doors to the dentist’s office. The Dazzlings walked in and began singing with all the melodic harmony of a trio of sick cats in the act of being flogged by wet potato sacks.

Their cheeks turning bright red, the three girls rushed out in record time as the doors closed behind them.

Flash’s eyes shot open wide. “Did they just…”

Sunset sighed. “Yep.”

Applejack turned to look at Sunset with the same look of surprise as Flash. “Even though we…”

“Yep,” Sunset repeated.

“HOW DID BOTH OF YOU FORGET WE CAN’T SING?!” Adagio snapped.

“US?!” Aria fired back. “You’re the one who suggested attack pattern alpha in the FIRST place.”

“Hey,” Sonata interjected, “did y-ow-u t-ow ever think that maybe if we just practice a bit, we’d be able to d-ow s-ow-ngs and stuff—”

“Stop saying nonsense!” Adagio interrupted. “What we need is a new plan!”

Sonata piped up. “H-ow-lding pe-ow-ple for rands-ow-me until we get what we want!” she said in excited, if pained tone.

Aria nodded. “I like it.”

“SWEET LORD, NO!” Sunset shouted.

Adagio shook her head. “Too extreme! We need to try subtlety first.”

“Oh, thank GOD!”

Sonata and Aria let out disappointed “Awww”s.

Adagio stroked her chin thoughtfully for a moment. “But yanno what…?” She pointed at Sonata. “Plan ‘B’.”

“YAY!” Sonata exclaimed as Aria smirked.

“OH GOD, WHY?!”

Aria thought for a second. “Uh…. Shock and annoy!”

Sonata began to clap her hands. “Sh-ow-ck and ann-ow-y! Sh-ow-ck and ann-ow-y!”

Applejack leaned closer to Sunset. “Should we be stopping this?”

“Wellll… It doesn’t get much worse than holding people for ransom, so if they’ve figured out something not quite as horrible…”

Flash shook his head. “I have a baaaaaad feeling about this.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Alright, Han Solo—“

Flash’s face lit up. “You really think of me as Han Solo?”

Sunset continued, “Look, the trick with these girls is to pick your battles against them. If you fight them at every turn you’ll end up snapping.”

Flash raised an eyebrow. “Like putting your head behind the tire of a car?”

“Wait, what?!” Applejack exclaimed.

Sunset raised a fist to her mouth and cleared her throat. “Just follow and observe for now. We’ll intervene if it looks like they’re doing something that’ll get the cops called.”

The Dazzlings stormed into the dentist office waiting room as several sets of eyes latched onto them.

The walls of the waiting room were colored light blue, decorated with happy animals brushing their teeth and flossing. As the girls walked in, they passed a large fish tank occupied by a thin white-black-yellow fish, a puffer fish, a purple-orange fish, a thin yellow-fish, a black-and-white striped fish, a small cleaner shrimp, and a pink starfish.

In addition to the aquarium, the waiting room held two sets of four black airport seats, a few of them occupied by people waiting their turn. On one side, one seat was occupied by a woman with steel-blue eyes, long brown hair tied into a ponytail by a red bow, a yellow sweater and red skirt. Next to her was a young boy with spiky brown hair under a yellow-white-red beanie with a green propeller. He was wearing a green hoodie with a golden emblem of three triangles arranged into a larger triangle surrounded by the wingspan of what looked to be an eagle. The boy had his face buried in a ‘Highlights’ magazine and paid no attention to the girls who just barged in.

On the other set of chairs were a pair of girls sitting next to each other wearing matching B.F.F. necklaces. One girl had light teal skin, light blue hair with a large white streak on the side with a pink flower hairband, amber eyes, and wore a pink dress. The other had light yellow skin and curly hair that was blue on one side and pink on the other and steel blue eyes. She wore a white dress blue-and-yellow highlights with a candy design.

Hot on the heels of the Dazzlings, Sunset, Applejack, and Flash entered.

Adagio signaled Aria and Sonata to wait then strolled past the waiting room and its curious sets of eyes until she was right in front of a receptionist desk. A teenaged boy with light-skin, purplish brown hair under a gray beanie, wearing a red jacket over a buttoned-up white-and-gray horizontally-striped shirt looked at Adagio with the same expression one might reserve for an oncoming freight train that was moments away from running them down.

The receptionist swallowed. “Can I-I-Can I help—”

Adagio pointed behind her with her thumb at Sonata. “My associate here needs to see the dentist.” Adagio narrowed her eyes. “NOW!”

“Bu-but… We’re booked for the rest of the day…”

Adagio made a 180. “SONATA! Start moaning at those girls who are practically spooning and not fooling anyone with those B.F.F. necklaces!”

Sonata plopped down on a chair next to the girls who shifted, simultaneously leaning away from Sonata and cozying up to one another.

“OooooHoooooooHHHH! It HUUUUURrrrrrrrrts!” Sonata moaned.

“Aria!” Adagio barked out. “Flip off the fish tank!”

“Roger!” Aria said as she raised her right middle finger and leveled it angrily at the aquarium.

The woman with the brown hair tossed a worried glance at Aria, then at her son sitting next to her, his head still buried in the magazine.

Sunset’s eyes shot open wide and she made an about face. “I’m gonna throw myself into oncoming traffic,” she announced casually. “See you all in Hell.”

Applejack and Flash quickly reached out to restrain the mentally taxed Sunset. Sunset sighed and turned back around to watch the unfolding madness.

Adagio turned back towards the receptionist. “This goes on for as long as you want it to.”

“Uhhh… I’m-I’m sorry, but there just isn’t an opening today…”

Adagio turned back towards her troops. “Sonata, moan louder!”

“It HUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRTS! OWWWWWWWWWOWWWWWOWWWWIEEEEE!”

“Aria, flip off the fish tank harder!”

“One double-deuce coming up!” Aria replied as she raised her left middle-finger to join her right.

Adagio turned back to the receptionist and raised her hands up into a shrug. “This is all on you! You’re the one in control!” She turned and threw an arm around the receptionist, pointing off emphatically into the waiting room. “You’re the one doing this to these people and fish!”

“Gha! I’m sorry, but it’s Dr. Colgate whose schedule is the prob—”

“Sonata! Operation St. Giver!”

Sonata got up and then sat on the two laps of the women who leaned back as far as they could, their eyes wide and expressions worried.

“ALL I WANT IS FOR MY TEETH TO STOP HUUUUUURRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTIIIIIINNNNG!”

“ARIA! SLAP THE ‘HIGHLIGHTS’OUT OF THE BOY’S HANDS!”

Aria swatted the magazine to the floor. The boy blinked amber eyes a couple times, his hands now holding nothing and his eyes now focused into empty air. He began to sniffle as tears welled up in his eyes. “MooooooOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!”

The woman sitting next to the boy was on her feet in an instant. She shot a glare full of murderous intent at Aria. “HEY! You apologize to my son RIGHT now or you’re about to get more bruises on your face.”

Aria grinned wildly at the woman and raised her right fist into her left hand, cracking her knuckles. “Oh, we’ll see about that.”

“Oh my GOD!” Sunset exclaimed. “How do you three go through daily life without being arrested?!”

Flash raised an eyebrow. “I think Adagio explained that one already.”

Sunset let out a deep sigh and massaged her left temple. “Thanks, Flash. Didn’t need a reminder.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “A reminder of what?”

“Nothing!” Sunset snapped. “Just… Just get ready to stop Aria for starting a brawl.”

“How?” Applejack asked. “By gettin’ into another brawl with her myself?”

Sunset frowned and scrunched her lips. “Well… er… I guess—”

“WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON IN HERE?!”

Everyone stopped what they were doing. They turned to stare at a woman with dark blue hair with a white streak in it and midnight blue eyes that were scowling out at Adagio. The blue-haired woman wore a white doctor’s coat over a light blue buttoned-up shirt and dark blue miniskirt. Additionally, she was holding a clipboard with a golden hour-glass emblem.

The woman with the long brown hair glared at Aria. “Soon,” she said in an ominous tone before sitting down next to her son and wrapping a comforting arm around his shoulders.

Aria continued to grin wildly at the woman. “Anytime, anywhere.”

The brown-haired woman held her gaze on Aria as she leaned down to grab the magazine on the floor and give it back to her son.

Adagio gave the woman in a white coat a grin filled to the brim with ill intent. “Ah, Dr. Colgate, I presume?”

Colgate nodded. “Yes, I’m the Dentist. Do you mind explaining why you three girls have decided to turn my reception area into some sort of weird, angry circus?”

Sunset and Applejack couldn’t help but chuckle.

“My teeeeeeeeeth huuuuuuuuuuuuuuurt!” Sonata moaned, still sitting on the laps of the two girls.

The woman in the pink dress turned to the one in the white dress. “You know she’s kind of adorable. Can we keep her, Bon-bon?”

Bon-bon let out a sigh. “No Lyra. One psychotic girl at home is quite enough.”

Lyra put on a quizzical expression. “But there’s only the two of us.”

Bon-bon rolled her eyes. “You don’t say.”

Adagio motioned to Sonata. “As you can see, there’s someone here in desperate need of your services.”

Colgate frowned. “Well this is rather sudden. I don’t usually just—”

Adagio glared and turned towards Aria and Sonata. “Alright girls. Plan—”

Sunset rushed up to Adagio and Colgate. “NO! No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!” She turned towards Colgate. “I’m sorry, Doctor Colgate! But I really need you to help us out here.”

“Awww…” Adagio said in a slightly mocking tone. “You do care!”

“Not really,” Sunset shot back. “I just want to get Sonata straightened out before one of you starts punching fish.”

“Hey!” Aria piped up. “You’ve been following my Instagram!”

“Sunset?” Colgate said. She looked over Sunset Shimmer carefully. “You look like you need more than a Dentist. You look like you need a nice hot shower and soak in the tub.” She glanced past Sunset towards Applejack and Aria. “And a couple of you look like you can use a hospital.”

Sunset gave Colgate a sad smile. “It’s been a looooong few hours.”

Sonata hopped off the laps of Bon-Bon and Lyra and ran over to Doctor Colgate. She grabbed the free hand of the Dentist and looked at her with a sorrowful, pained expression. “Pllllease say you can help me! I’m in terrible pain! My teeth ache! My head thr-ow-bs! Every waking m-ow-ment is ag-ow-ny for me! I d-ow-n’t kn-ow h-ow much l-ow-nger I can h-ow—”

Adagio cleared her throat. “Take it down a notch, Sonata.”

Sonata grit her teeth. “I don’t know for h-ow much longer I can hold out! This could be the end of me, and I have my whole life in front of me!” Tears began to form in Sonata’s eyes. “If you don’t help me soon, I’ll be gone! I’ll never know the miracle of giving birth or raising a child!”

Sunset, Applejack, and Flash all cringed.

“I’ll never find someone I love enough to marry or even kiss someone!”

Aria snorted and chuckled.

Sonata continued as she allowed tears to fall from her eyes, “Sob-My whole life has stopped stretching in front of me and is shortening to a tiny point! A tiny point that I’ll soon reach if you don’t take pity on me save me from this terrible fate! Please! Doctor Dentist Colgate! PLEASE SAVE ME! YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE!”

The boy in the room began to sniffle as he looked up at his mother. “Mom… I want the sad girl to take my place… I-I-choke-I-DON’T-CARE-IF-I-HAVE-TO-SACRIFICE-MYSELF! I-DON’T-WANT-HER-TO-DIE! WHOUAAAAAAHOUAAAAAHOUAAAAA!”

The boy’s mother rolled her eyes. “Button, you’re just going in for a routine check-up.”

Colgate retracted her hand. “Alright, alright. No need to get dramatic on me.” She looked at her receptionist. “What’s my schedule look like for the next hour?”

The receptionist picked up an electronic tablet and stared at it. “Uh… You’re already double-booked.”

Colgate nodded, reached into her coat to pull out a pen, and scribbled something on her clipboard. “Triple book me.”

“YAAAAAAAAA-OW-AAAAAAAAAY!” Sonata exclaimed.

The receptionist gave Colgate a skeptical look. “You’re really going to try to be in three places at once?”

Colgate gave her receptionist a knowing smile. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” She turned towards Sunset. “Why don’t you get yourself cleaned up in the bathroom? Take as much paper towels and soap as you need.” Colgate gave Sunset another look over. “In fact, I’ll grab you a towel and some extra soap.”

Sunset gave Colgate an embarrassed smile. “Thank you.”

Colgate turned back towards Sonata. “Alright, seahorse girl—”

Adagio’s eyes widened in surprise. “What?! How’d you know?”

Colgate chuckled. “Don’t you know? I’m quite the Lady of time, teeth, and dimensions. But mostly the second thing.” She turned and walked past the receptionist desk towards a hallway and motioned for Sonata to follow. “Follow me. I’ll get you prepped.”

Sonata began to skip happily behind Colgate. “YAY-OW-YAY-OW-YAY-OW…!”

Sunset breathed a sigh of relief. “Well… that wasn’t so bad.”

Applejack interjected, “Uh, Sunset?”

Sunset turned. “What is it Apple-ARIA! YOU PUT THAT STARFISH DOWN RIGHT NOW!”

Aria paused, her right fist pulled back as her left held the pink starfish up. “But she was giving me a funny look!” Aria glared at the starfish which flopped helplessly in her grasp. “Stupid aquatic life! You all think you’re all so great because you can still breathe underwater!”

“Aria!” Applejack said in a warning tone. “You put that critter down now or you and I are gonna have round 3!”

“Hey!” The woman with the brown hair said in a protesting tone. “I had nexties.”

“Flash!” Sunset called. “Hel…” Sunset trailed off as she noticed Flash was now sitting next to Button, also staring intently at the Highlights magazine.

“Got it!” Flash said as he pointed at the magazine. “It’s right there!”

“Hey, Mom!” The boy said excitedly. “We found the shoe!”

The woman sighed. “That’s nice, sweetie.”

Flash looked up at Sunset. “Sorry, did you need something?”

“Nevermind!” Sunset hissed out irritably.

Adagio sat down on the receptionist desk and leered at the teenaged-boy behind it suggestively. “You know, I think my teeth can use some examining too.”

The receptionist gulped. “The Dentist is busy right now…”

Adagio leaned closer. “Oh, I wasn’t talking about her at this particular moment.”

“Er… I’m not really qualified to examine anyone’s teeth professionally…” He raised his fingers. “I don’t really have the touch for dental work.”

Adagio leaned down until her face was inches away from the receptionist. “You can use your hands for other things and use something else to feel around my mouth,” she said, licking her teeth to get her point across.

Sunset moved her head from side to side rapidly as she stared at Adagio and then Aria, unsure of which problem to address first.

As the bedlam continued in the Dentist’s office, Lyra’s eyes widened as if something had suddenly just clicked in her brain. She turned towards Bon-Bon with a sour expression on her face. “Hey! That was mean!”

Chapter 4: Adventures in Time, Dentistry, and Torture

Sunset let out a long continuous sigh as she looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot and tired, and the gaunt look of her face suggested she had just run a marathon. Meanwhile, her hair seemed to suggest said marathon was through some sort of war fought with taco condiments. She placed her hand onto the tap of the stainless steel sink that was under the mirror and turned the water on full blast.

It was risky leaving Adagio and Aria in the care of Applejack and Flash, but she needed a break for herself as much as her hair. At least both Applejack and Flash were dependable for the most part, though Sunset feared they were both out of their depth. Still, she had left them and the receptionist to yell the code words, ‘Oh no, God, oh dear God in heaven’ if Adagio and Aria got too out of hand.

She’d have suggested they call or text her, but she still needed to clean all the sour cream off her phone.

Sunset tipped some of her more matted and condiment-soaked hair into the water and began wringing out water, dirt, and guacamole. Sonata was also still a factor, though leaving her in the care of Dr. Colgate set Sunset’s mind at ease quite a bit. As a dentist, Colgate had taken on everything from rambunctious children, to uncooperative teens, and even stubborn adults with terrible teeth hygiene.

Sunset frowned as she realized Sonata was probably some sort of weird combination of the three.

Still, Colgate presented herself with the airs of someone who had seen everything and done everything. She also seemed to know a startling amount of information regarding just about everyone who graced her office. Even if Sonata was currently a wounded, hyperactive psychopath, no doubt Colgate was up to the challenge.

However… This was Sonata… No doubt the girl had some surprises.

-ooo-

“Alright, say ‘Ahhhhhhh!’” Dr. Colgate said to Sonata. Colgate had donned light blue rubber gloves and a facemask that covered her mouth. Sonata was sitting in the center of the room in a dental chair, a pink dental bib was draped over her chest. Attached to the chair was a small sink and a tray with a number of small dental tools.

Sonata obediently opened her mouth wide. “Ahhhhhhhh…”

Colgate’s eyes widened in surprise before she narrowed them into a judgmental stare. “Well, I guess I’ve seen worse mouths, just not on a person.”

Sonata closed her mouth and puffed out her lower lip into a pout she accentuated with a whimper.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Colgate said as pulled her mask down, walked over to a black office chair, and collapsed into it in front of a large wooden desk. The desk had a light-blue pad for writing that was surrounded by a few items and piles of things, such as a box of rubber gloves, a tooth-shaped mug full of pens, and some blank sheets of paper.

Colgate removed her gloves and threw them into a nearby trashcan, then glanced at a light-blue poster with a kitten that seemed to be suspended in air under the word ‘BELIEVE’. Colgate turned back towards Sonata. “While I’ve seen all manner and conditions of teeth brought on by sweets and lack of dental hygiene habits, you seem to be sporting the whole kit and caboodle of what one shouldn’t do if they want to keep their teeth.”

“But I neeeeed those to eat chocolate and tacos and chocolate tacos!”

Colgate’s right eye twitched. “Yes, yes. Teeth are crucial for those things. I’m going to ask you a few questions now…”

Sonata flinched. “I was in my room playing Mega Rangers Vs. ‘Your Little Tiny Equines’ at 6:30 PM two nights ago! You can ask Adagio and Aria! They’ll support my alibi!”

“Not those types of questions,” Colgate replied.

“Oh…”

“How often do you brush?”

Sonata giggled. “Aria helps me brush every day!”

Colgate gave Sonata a perplexed look. “Wait, you have help brushing?”

“Well sure!” Sonata said. She pointed at her pony tail. “You didn’t think I got all the tangles out of all this on my own, did you?”

“Not your hair! Your teeth! How often do you brush your teeth?!”

Sonata frowned. “What?! Why would I have Aria do that? I don’t think I even want that brush in my m-ow-th!”

Colgate grit her teeth. “Moving on… How often do you have sweets?”

Sonata shrugged. “Oh… you kn-ow… I’m just a social licker.”

“… What?”

“Hey, I stole like… all the lollipop from the candy dish out there. Can I have one n-ow?”

“No!”

Sonata gave Colgate a small pout. “… I’ll share.”

Colgate let out a long sigh. “Do you at least rinse your mouth with water after eating sugary foods?”

“Does gargling Mountain Dew c-ow-nt?”

Colgate nodded. “Right, I’m going to stop asking questions now because I’m starting to get viscerally angry.”

“Hehe… You sound like Adagio… and Aria… Also Sunset Shimmer.” Sonata scrunched her lips up to one side of her face and glanced towards the ceiling. “And Miss Cheerilee, and Vice Principal Luna, and Mr. Donkey, and Principal Celestia, and…”

“You can stop talking for a little bit now.”

“‘kay!”

Colgate sighed and leaned forward far enough that she placed her elbows on her thighs and cradled her chin and mouth in her hands. She stared at Sonata intently.

Sonata swallowed. “Am I… Am I not going to make it?”

“Sonata, I don’t think you’re dying, but I’m trying to figure out how I even start inspecting your teeth.”

“Well, what do you normally do?”

Colgate reached for a box of blue rubber gloves and put a new pair on. “Normally, I grab my syringe to spray your teeth with water and start the cleaning process, but in your case I’m thinking a garden hose and sprayer might be more appropriate.”

Surprisingly Sonata’s face lit up. “Oh, are we playing ‘Git-Mo bay?!’” Sonata smiled widely. “I love that one! Water boarding is just like boogie boarding! Just without the beach, waves, board, and you just feel like you’re drowning instead of riding the water!”

Colgate blinked a few times. “Right, gonna just power right through that one…” She stood up, put her mouth mask back on, and walked over to her tray. She picked up a small mirror on a handle and another tool that was little more than a light blue handle with a small dull hook that was tipped with a tiny, translucent blue end.

“What are those?” Sonata asked in a somewhat concerned tone.

“It’s just a mirror so I can see around your mouth and my sonic scaler, good for cleaning teeth and unlocking doors.” Colgate hit a switch on her scaler. The tip glowed a deep blue and the small item began to vibrate. “I do a lot of both. Now say ‘ahhhhhhhh’.”

“AhhhhhhhhhhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“STOP SCREAMING! I HAVEN’T EVEN PUT ANYTHING INTO YOUR MOUTH YET!”

Sonata giggled. “Phrasing!”

Colgate let out an irritated sigh. “Let’s try this again,” she said as she raised her mirror and sonic scaler up. “Say—”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

“OH, COME ON!” Colgate put her tools down, marched over to her desk, and collapsed back into her chair.

From the dentist chair Sonata sniffled and cried softly. “I’m sorry… I’ll tell you whatever you want just… just MAKE THE TORTURE STOP!”

“I HAVEN’T EVEN DONE ANYTHING YET!”

Sonata let out a frightened whimper. “You mean you’ve only just begun?!”

Colgate threw back her head and let out a groan as she pulled down her mask. She took off her gloves and threw them into the garbage can. “Look, I can see you’re going to need something to calm you down…”

“Oh! You can put on cartoons to calm me down or throw me in a closet! Just like Adagio…”

Colgate shook her head. “I was thinking more some nitrous oxide or numbing agents. I don’t usually break them out for just doing an inspection but I can see you’re going to be a special case.”

“Hehehe… You called me a special case! Just like Aria!”

“Riiiiight… Lemme check something.” Colgate turned towards her desk and opened the top left drawer. Her forehead scrunched up immediately at what she saw.

“Oh! What’s in there?!” Sonata asked.

“Oh, I keep notes to myself in this drawer,” Colgate informed.

“What, like reminders?” Sonata asked.

“No, not like that,” Colgate answered simply. She pulled out a sheet of paper that read ‘STRAP HER DOWN!’ under a light splattering of a dark-red substance. She scrunched her nose and lips “This one is telling me to strap you down.”

“Just like Adagio…”

“What I’m wondering is why is it splattered with blood?” Colgate brought the paper up to her face and dabbed her tongue against one of the red blotches. “MY blood…” Colgate’s eyes shot open wide as she felt a small pin-prick against her neck. She glanced down to see Sonata had grabbed one of her pointed hook dental tools and was now poking it against her skin.

Sonata giggled wickedly. “You really shouldn’t turn your back on someone you’re torturing and just leave them with a tray of sharp instruments.”

“Oh, that’s why,” Colgate said as she crumbled up the note and threw it away. She grabbed a fresh sheet of paper, a pen, and began writing the same message she had just seen while Sonata pressed the pointed hook into her neck and a splattering of blood shot across the note and her desk.

-ooo-

Back in the waiting room, Applejack and Flash Sentry sat on the seats next to Button and his mother. Across from them sat Aria and Adagio, who had taken the empty seats next to Bon-Bon and Lyra.

Applejack and Aria locked eyes in an intense stare down as Flash’s eyes drifted back and forth from the two ex-sirens and the magazine in Button’s hands. Button’s mother likewise kept a close eye on Aria.

Meanwhile Adagio was busy ‘chatting’ to Bon-Bon and Lyra.

“Soooo…” Adagio purred out. “I can really go for a”—Adagio air-quoted— “‘best friends’ sandwich right now!”

Bon-bon let out a loud sigh as Lyra leaned over and asked, “Oh! That sounds delicious! How do you make that?”

Adagio grinned wryly. “All you need is two ‘best friends’ for the bread and someone else to be the meat.”

Applejack sighed. “Do you have an off switch?”

Adagio turned and nodded. “Yeah, my bed from roughly the hours of 7 to 3.”

Applejack’s eyes widened in surprise. “Shoot! You’re an early riser, too?”

Adagio raised an eyebrow. “7 am to 3 pm! The heck is wrong with your life you’d even consider it the other way around?!”

Applejack sighed and leaned back in her chair. She leaned her head closer to Flash. “You think the dentist is having better luck?”

Flash took a break from looming over Button’s shoulder. “Well, there was an awful lot of screaming coming out of the room just now…”

“That was Sonata,” Adagio said. “She’s probably fine… or dead.”

Applejack felt her brow tighten. “That’s kinda like saying either the pigs are having a mud bath or they’re having a buttermilk bath.”

Adagio and Aria exchanged confused glances.

Aria turned back towards Applejack. “The heck are you on about, you weird country yokel?”

“One bath leaves the pigs dirty, the other clean?” Applejack said. “You know, fine and dead are pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum there.”

Aria threw her arms out in front of her. “Then why didn’t you just say that in the first place?! Does like every fifth thing that comes out of your mouth have to remind everyone you live on a farm?!”

Applejack narrowed her eyes. “Yes.”

“Hey,” Flash interrupted. “Aren’t you two like.. concerned for Sonata? You said she might be dead.”

Aria shook her head. “Eh, I don’t think we’re lucky enough for her to be dead. She’s probably just being more of a baby than usual. Heck, I’m surprised we haven't heard her scream for her baby harp seal blanket.”

The room collectively gasped and stared at Aria.

Aria held up her hands in front of her defensively. “Don’t look at me! It’s not my blanky!”

Applejack cleared her throat. “So, if ya don’t mind me asking—”

Adagio interrupted, “We probably do, but I’m guessing you won’t let that stop you.”

Applejack rolled her eyes and continued, “How come you two keep Sonata around if you just try to tear her down all the time?”

Aria frowned. “Yes.”

“… Yes what?” Applejack replied.

“Yes, we do mind.”

Applejack sighed.

“She has a point,” Flash said. “I mean… you three can’t collect your energy anymore and yet you’re all still together even though it seems like you can’t stand each other!”

Adagio let out a heavy sigh. “Look, it’s a long complicated answer that requires exploration of our origins and our very natures.”

Flash shrugged. “We have time.”

Adagio scrunched her lips up. “Are you sure you want to hear all this?”

Flash nodded. “Definitely.”

Adagio looked around. Everyone in the waiting room was now staring at her intently. She sighed as if she was accepting her fate. “Alright fine. You see, it all started when nosey people starting asking nosey questions instead of minding their own business and ended when I told them to shut up. The end,” Adagio punctuated her final statement with a devilish grin. “Huh, guess that wasn’t so long.”

Adagio’s audience gave her a glare as Aria began laughing.

“Nice one, Dagi!” Aria held up her hand and shared a quick high-five with Adagio.

Applejack narrowed her eyes at Adagio. “That was just an unkind bait and switch! Like tempting a horse with a carrot and just givin’ him plain oats instead.“

Adagio smacked a palm against her face.

Aria sighed heavily. “Really Appleslack? Really?!”

Applejack glared at Aria. “You know, on the farm we have a saying for situations like this involving pie.”

Aria rolled her eyes. “Oh this’ll be good.”

Adagio put on a fake smile. “Oh, we can’t wait! Please share with us your delightful bit of ‘down home’ wisdom!”

Applejack nodded. “It goes like this, Shut yer pie hole!”

Flash and Button’s mother snickered.

Adagio’s face tightened into a vexed frown as Aria immediately rose to her feat. “Alright farm girl, maybe it’s time for round—”

“SIT!” Colgate’s commanding voice called out.

With a startled expression on her face, Aria sat back down as Colgate walked into the receptionist area with all the subtlety of a raging hurricane. She held her left hand clamped to her neck as blood seeped from under it, staining her white coat and blue shirt, walking right up to her male-teenaged receptionist.

“I need all the drugs,” Colgate declared simply.

“Holy crud!” the receptionist exclaimed. “Are you alright?!”

All the eyes on the room fell on Colgate.

Aria let out a short, derisive laugh. “Looks like someone let their guard down around Sonata.”

“Hey!” Applejack exclaimed. “That’s not funny! She could be seriously hurt!”

Aria nodded. “You’re right. Then it wouldn’t be funny, it’d be hilarious.”

Applejack let out a warning growl.

“Look, I’m fine!” Colgate said as she kept her left hand in place. “I don’t know what any of you know about killing someone with dental equipment, but let me tell you that it’s pretty dang hard.”

The room went silent as everyone continued to stare at Colgate.

“Right,” Colgate began. She turned back to her receptionist. “I think you might have been slightly distracted when I requested ‘all the drugs’.”

The receptionist raised an eyebrow. “Uh… Which ones?”

“All the drugs!” Colgate reiterated. “I’m really not sure how I can be any clearer than that.”

“Ye-Yes, ma’am!” the receptionist replied as he quickly got up and ran off.

Adagio smirked at Colgate. “Sounds like quite you’re throwing the party in there. Can I come?”

“Yeah, me too,” Aria chimed in.

“No!” Colgate replied sharply. “And the drugs aren’t for me, they’re for your friend.”

The smile dropped from Adagio’s face immediately. “I retract my previous request.”

Aria nodded, her expression practically a mirror of Adagio’s, “Yeah, me too.”

Colgate raised an eyebrow. “Something I should know about?”

Aria turned towards Adagio. “Do we tell her? I mean, it might be fun to let her find out on her own…”

Adagio raised an eyebrow. “When has an inebriated Sonata ever been fun?”

Aria frowned. “Good point…” Aria turned back to Colgate. “Sonata gets weird when she’s under the influence of… stuff…”

“I’m currently holding a hand to my neck because the girl stabbed me with a dental probe and then I had to finish my note to myself, fight her off, and strap her back to the chair.”

“Awwww,” Adagio uttered in a disappointed tone. “Now I’m jealous again!”

Colgate continued, “My point is I need specifics regarding ‘weird’.”

Aria looked at Adagio. “How would you categorize it? Scary beyond all reason?”

Adagio nodded. “Scary beyond all reason,” she parroted. She turned towards Colgate. “That’s with alcohol as of late though and it’s never seemed like a good idea to have her experiment with anything else.” Adagio’s eyes went distant. “It really doesn’t appear to be much joy that will come from that. There’s no telling how she’ll act under a round of Novacaine and laughing gas.”

Arai sighed. “I’d say that’d numb her feelings to the giddy joy she’ll get from going on a rampage, but…”

“That’s just par for the course?” Adagio suggested.

Aria nodded. “Yeah…”

Colgate shook her head. “Well, I can’t work with her mouth clamped open and her screaming at me anytime I put something close to it.”

Adagio glared at Colgate. “Stop making me want to get in there with you!”

Colgate shook her head. “Yeah, I really don’t think you’d offer much help when I’m finger-deep in your friend.”

Adagio narrowed her eyes. “You did that last one on purpose, didn’t you?”

Colgate gave Adagio a small smile and held up a thumb and finger to signify ‘a little bit’.”

Applejack and Flash gave Colgate a concerned look.

Applejack spoke up. “Are ya sure you don’t need any help?”

Colgate shook her head. “It’s fine. Sonata is not more than anything I’ve already dealt with.”

‘SPLAT!’

A light blue-arc about the size of a set of human teeth hit Colgate’s cheek and stuck there as a pink, viscous substance platted out. The tooth mold slowly slipped down Colgate’s cheeks and hit the floor with another ‘splat!’

For another brief moment, no one said anything.

“Alright, Doctor the Dentist!” Sonata called out from down the hall. “You want to get medieval?! Let’s get medieval!”

Colgate raised an index finger. “I am unsure of how she got out of her chair!” she said in an oddly confident tone. “Excuse me,” Colgate said as she began to walk back.

Sunset suddenly walked out of the hallway, her hair wet but otherwise clean. “Alright, I’m back. Please don’t tell me any of those three-OH MY GOD!”

“Hi, Sunset!” Colgate greeted cheerfully as she walked back into the hallway, hand on her neck as it continued to bleed and pink goop dripping off her cheek.

Sunset paused mid-step, her mouth hanging open as she stared at Colgate. “Are you… Are you alright?!”

“I’m fine!” Colgate said as a high power spray of water flew down the hallway and blasted her in the face. She rolled up the sleeves on her white coat as water began to soak her clothes. “Once more into the breach, eh?”

Sunset watched Colgate leave then turned towards Adagio and Aria. “What the hell?!”

“Whaaaat…” Adagio said in a protesting tone. “Sonata’s been out of our sight for like… five, ten minutes?”

Aria nodded. “Yeah! This is all on your dentist now! She’s doing much better than any baby-sitter or anything like that we’ve got to watch Sonata.”

“She’s bleeding!” Sunset exclaimed.

Adagio and Aria exchanged looks.

Adagio raised an eyebrow. “Again, she’s doing much better than any baby-sitter we’ve hired to look after Sonata.”

Chapter 5: The Gas That Keeps Giving

With a straining huff, Colgate tightened a leather strap that went around Sonata’s arm and the arm of the off-white dentist chair. The Dentist now sported a modest sized Band-Aid on her neck, a white coat devoid of blood, and a teal blue-colored shirt. Sonata now sported two sets of three leather straps on both her arms, and another half dozen straps going across her body and legs.

Sonata looked down towards her feet and swallowed. “Are we… Are we playing Misery?”

“Tempting,” Colgate replied as she walked back over to her table of tools, placing the mask that was dangling around her neck back over her mouth. “But dentists don’t carry mallets.”

Sonata looked fearfully as Colgate grabbed her sonic scaler.

“Fine! Fine! I’ll tell you everything I know!” Sonata cried. “Just stop the round-the-clock torture!”

“I haven’t done anything yet!” Colgate exclaimed in an irritable tone. “And you’ve only been strapped down for a few minutes!”

Sonata started spilling her guts as if her life depended on it. “9-11 was an outside job, there were no bombs on the towers, and jet fuel can melt steel beams!”

Colgate shook her head. “This is ridiculous…”

“IF YOU THINK LIKE THAT, THE TERRORISTS WIN!”

“NOT THAT!” Colgate snapped as she pulled her mask down again. “I’m just trying to clean your teeth! There’s no need for these theatrics!”

There was a couple of quick knocks on the door followed by the receptionist walking in. He wheeled in two metal tanks hooked up to a box with knobs and a house that ended in a breathing mask. “Here’s the nitrous oxide, Dr. Colgate.”

Dr. Colgate turned, a wild smile on her face as she gripped her left hand hard and rose it into the air. “Finally! I shall subdue my patient and go to work on her teeth! Muahahahahaha!”

Sonata whimpered from the Dentist chair as the receptionist walked out the door, tossing an equally confused and concerned look at the Dentist before he closed the door behind him.

Colgate turned towards Sonata, the wild look still in her eyes as she approached. Her head was tilted eschewing her grim smile as she wheeled the gas canisters up with her. “Oh don’t worry!” she said in a baleful tone as she held up the breathing mask. “This won’t hurt a bit!”

Sonata’s eyes opened wide with fear as her mouth hung open, only quiet, if high-pitched, terror whimpers escaped.

Colgate rose her fist to her mouth and coughed. “Sorry. That came out wrong. This actually won’t hurt a bit,” she said earnestly.

Sonata struggled against her bonds. “I don’t believe you! You’re just trying to lure me into a false sense of security before you go on an all-out attack!”

Colgate folded her arms across her chest. “I already have you strapped to a chair. What exactly would be the point of tricking you?”

Sonata narrowed her eyes until they were narrow slits, wrinkled her brow as much as she could, and pursed her lips out. Colgate concluded she looked like a very angry fish. “You’re trying to get me with Stockholm syndrome! Joke’s on you! I’m already banned from Sweden!”

Colgate leaned over Sonata with an unamused expression, still holding the mask. “Sonata, has anything I’ve done today made you sympathize with me even a little bit?”

“NO!” Sonata cried. “You’re evil, and I hate you!”

“Good!” Colgate said as she thrust the mask onto Sonata’s mouth and strapped it on.

Sonata continued to struggle and yell, even with the mask on her. “You think this will break me?! DO YOU EXPECT ME TO TALK?!”

Colgate shook her head. “No, Sonata. I expect you to laugh!”

“Laugh?! Hah! Excluding that short, mocking laugh I just made, you’ll NEVER get me to laugh!” Sonata declared.

Colgate chuckled and fiddled with the knobs on the box hooked up to the mask and two canisters. “Oh, we’ll see about that…”

“DO YOUR WORST! I’ll NEVER GIVE YOU THE SATISFACTION! I…hehehe I… HAHAHA! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!”

Colgate smirked. “It’s called ‘laughing gas’ for a reason, you know?”

“HeheheHAHAHAHA! STOP THIS!” Sonata demanded.

Colgate shook her head. “I really need you to calm down so I can actually get some work done here.”

“HAHAHAHA! HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME-HEHEHEHE-LAUGH! I HAHAHAHATE YOU! THIS IS-HAHAHA-THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE!”

Colgate reached for her sonic scaler. “Betcha won’t think that in about a minute from now!”

“HAHAHAHA! NO WAY! THIS IS-HEHEHE-TERRIBLE AND I’LL NEVER-HAHAHAHA-FORGIVE YOU!”

-~About a minute later~-

“THIS IS THE FREAKIN’ BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!” Sonata declared.

Colgate adjusted the knobs on the box and pulled the mask off Sonata’s face. “I knew you’d see the light.”

Sonata’s pupils had flooded out over her lilac irises. She currently looked up at the ceiling as if she was seeing it or even any ceiling for the first time. “Light! Light! A thousand points of delicious lights. Sparkling like diamonds in my brain!” Sonata took a deep breath. “Ooooh man! Are you diggin' this air? This air rules!”

Colgate chuckled, and put the mask back over her face. She leaned down, and eyeballed Sonata’s teeth. “Well, glad you’re feeling better about all this. Now let me get in there and—”

Sonata looked up at the Dentist with a sorrowful expression, like a puppy that somehow knew it had done wrong. “Doctor Colgate the Dentist, ma’am? I’m sorry for how I acted before.”

Colgate chuckled and shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. Going to the dentist is scary for lots of people. Granted, no one has stabbed me in the neck before.”

Sonata let out a sad whimper. “See that’s what I’m talking about! I was sooooooo mean to you! And you just went and made me feel sooooo good!”

“Hey, it’s fine, really!” Colgate insisted. “I enjoy a good challen—”

Sonata reached up and pulled Colgate’s mask down. Still looking at the Dentist with a slightly sorrowful look, she spoke, “I want to make you feel good too!”

Colgate’s eyes shot open wide. “Wait, how did you get your arm out of—” Without warning, Sonata grabbed the back of Colgate’s head and pulled her downward. Before Colgate knew it her lips were suddenly mashed against Sonata’s, and before she could react, Sonata opened her mouth.

-ooo-

The waiting room now sported quite a few less people, Bon-Bon and Lyra, and also Button Mash and his mother having vacated. Sunset now occupied the seat next to Flash, who still sat next to Applejack. Aria and Adagio waited with bored expressions as Aria kicked her feet out and Adagio ran a nail file over her nails. Applejack continued to watch Aria like a hawk despite the recent lack of activity and Flash now sat with his head buried in the Highlights magazine he and Button were going through earlier. Sunset sat quietly, one of her ears perked up in the direction of the room Sonata and Colgate occupied.

“It’s quiet in there…” Sunset mused. “Too—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Aria interrupted. “Too quiet.” She shook her head. “I really don’t get what your problem is Sunny. Eventually one of those two has to give.”

Sunset turned towards Aria with a worried expression. “Yeah, but which one?”

Applejack piped up. “Well, if I were a bettin’ gal—”

Sunset narrowed her eyes at Applejack.

“—I’d say Dr. Colgate finally has that little rascal under control since it’s all quiet-like.”

Aria shook her head. “It’s when Sonata is being quiet you really have to be careful. Girl goes all psychotic Solid Snake when she wants to, and suddenly your face is covered with sharpie and you don’t even know it…” Aria quickly whipped out a compact mirror to check her face, then cast a leery glance over the room.

Sunset grit her teeth and cringed fearfully.

Adagio nodded. “Normally my money would be on Sonata, but that dentist seems really determined.”

Aria put her mirror away. “She seems to have the heart of a champion, alright. Also leather straps, those help.”

Adagio chuckled. “They sure doooo~.”

Applejack sighed. “Adagio, you’re worse than a farm mare in hea—”

Aria glared at Applejack.

Applejack rolled her eyes. “It’s just… Is everything an innuendo with you?”

Adagio give Applejack a sideways glance. “Did you really expect ‘leather straps’ to pass by without mention?”

Applejack sighed. “I reckon that was a bit of a layup…”

Adagio leered suggestively at Applejack. “Speaking of layups…”

Applejack groaned.

Sunset turned to shoot a quick dirty look at Adagio. “Do you ever think of anything else?”

“Just world domination,” Adagio answered. She glared at Sunset. “But that’s a lot harder nowadays.”

“I’m sorry,” Sunset replied as she rolled her eyes. She motioned to herself. “Do you want me to apologize for us stopping you from stealing all the energy from the school and our energy to boot?”

Adagio shrugged. “Well just some consideration to our feelings would be nice!”

Sunset threw her hands out in front of her. “You three were uncaring monsters! In fact, you still are!” Forgive me, but I’m having trouble conjuring up much in the way of sympathy here!”

Adagio got up on her feet, anger clearly written across her face. She leveled an index finger at Sunset. “I’ll have you know that before you showed up, we used to quietly slink into diners, sing until everyone was screaming at each other and we couldn’t hear ourselves think, and then barely get enough energy to get by!”

Sunset gave Adagio a blank look. “… And you miss that?”

“Well… yeah!” Adagio cried. “Now instead of doing that, I use that free time to just sit around and watch soap operas and Netflix! I’ve caught up on so many shows! It’s…” Adagio frowned as realization slowly dawned on her face. “It’s uh… it’s horrible…”

Flash lowered his Highlights and raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me for saying this—”

“You’re not excused!” Adagio quickly interjected.

Undaunted, Flash continued, “—what you said sounds like an improvement over what you used to do.”

Adagio gave Flash an indignant look then glanced at Aria. “Help me out here, Aria.”

Aria put on a slightly surprised look as realization seemed to also set on her, encapsulating her thoughts like quick dry cement. “I don’t know what to tell you, Dagi. Now my nights are spent grinding like five WoW characters simultaneously... It’s uh… It’s pretty awesome, really.”

Adagio’s head quaked in confusion and anger for a second and then she turned to Sunset. “Okay, but… I mean… I’ve watched soooo much House of Cards that…” Adagio shook her head and turned towards Applejack. “Okay but Daredevil wasn’t that…” She turned towards Flash, “Sure, I get to have fun with a lot more people, but…” Adagio’s eyes crossed. She turned towards Sunset. “But I go out for drinks way more… but… but…” Adagio’s eyes suddenly rolled back into her head as her legs became wobbly.

Everyone watched as Adagio crashed to the floor with a soft ‘thump’.

For a second everyone just stared at Adagio’s unconscious body, or rather the leg that twitched slightly from under her massive pile of hair.

Sunset looked at Aria in concern. “So uhhhh… Is she okay, or…?”

Aria shrugged. “She’s fine… or dead.”

Colgate’s yell suddenly pierced the relative silence of the waiting room. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—“

“There you go,” Aria said with a smirk as she. “It’s not quiet anymore. Happy?”

Sunset let out a massive sigh.

-ooo-

“—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” Colgate pulled her head back, grabbed Sonata’s arms, and quickly undid the straps that Sonata had somehow gotten free of. Soon Sonata was restrained once more.

Sonata giggled. “Wow! I didn’t think you’d have that much fun from just one kiss!”

“UGH!” Colgate produced a toothbrush and toothpaste from her coat, put the toothpaste on the brush, and began brushing. After a few vigorous strokes she marched over to a stainless steel sink in the corner of the room, spat, and filled a cup with water. She then gargled and spat the water back into the sink.

Wiping her hand across her mouth, Colgate glared at Sonata. “Your mouth tastes like the entire menu of Taco Bell crawled into it to die of some terrible taco autoimmune disease!”

Sonata gave Colgate a pained expression. “…Didn’t… didn’t like it?”

Colgate shook her head. “Why the heck would you think I wanted to be kissed by your filthy mouth?!”

Sonata narrowed her eyes. “Don’tfallasleep…” she mumbled.

“What?” Colgate asked.

“Don’t fall asleep!” Sonata repeated louder and in a more sinister tone.

Colgate sighed and shook her head. “I have a feeling I might regret this, but do you want more laughing gas?”

Sonata’s eyes shot open wide. “Why would you even ask that?! Of course I want more!”

The door suddenly opened as Sunset, Applejack, Flash, and Aria piled in.

Colgate rolled her eyes. “Right, sure… Just barge in everyone. Not like it was a possibility I was working with sharp tools on someone’s mouth, or anything.”

“Are you okay?!” Sunset asked as she looked at Colgate.

“Mostly fine!” Colgate replied.

Aria sighed and produced a green bill that she slapped into the waiting hand of a grinning Applejack.

“We heard screaming!” Flash said.

Colgate smiled. “Nothing a quick brush couldn’t fix.”

Sonata’s head flopped to the side to look at everyone who ran in. “Aria~…. Aaaariaaaaaa~! Come over here so I can lick your faaaaaace~!”

“Do not let her lick your face,” Colgate said.

“Wasn’t gonna,” Aria said.

“Why?” Sunset asked. “Is there something in her mouth you don’t want getting on us?”

Colgate nodded. “Yeah, an impressive collection of bacteria. I don’t think Sonata has ever cleaned her tongue. I bet I could take a drill sample of everything on it and identify literally everything she’s ever eaten by carbon dating it!”

Sonata flopped her head so it was pointed in Colgate’s direction. “But why would you date an element… I mean… I guess it does make diamonds, sooooooo…”

Applejack raised her hand. “I’d like to take that bet.”

Sunset shifted vexed eyes to stare at Applejack. “Out,” she commanded.

Applejack sighed and raised her hands up to head level. “Fine, fine…” she uttered as she turned and walked out the door.

Sunset turned back towards Colgate. “So, do you need help?”

“I got this,” Colgate said. “My solution is more drugs.”

“Yaaaay!” Sonata exclaimed.

Aria suddenly stood up as straight as a board. “I better go check on Adagio!” she declared before making an about-face and leaving the room.

Flash turned towards the door as well. “Yeah and… I’m still looking for that ladle in that hidden picture… I better get on that…”

Sunset watched as they left and turned back towards Colgate. “Are you sure you go… Uh…” Sunset trailed off as she stared slack-jawed at Colgate.

“I’m fine,” Colgate insisted. “Sonata’s just a tad rambunctious and why are you looking at me like that?”

“Sonata is drawing a big red heart on your cheek in permenant marker as we speak!”

Colgate turned as Sonata made a mad dash for the chair and got back into it.

Colgate glared at Sonata and raised her right hand to her right cheek. She pulled it back to reveal a smudge of fresh red marker.

Sonata smiled innocently. “I just wanted to show you how much I love you! Also, do you want to make-out some more?”

Sunset’s eyebrows almost flew right off her head as she turned towards Colgate. “What?!”

Colgate turned towards Sunset. “Want to help me strap her down?”

Sunset hesitated for a moment. “… Yes. Yes. Somehow that’s currently what I want to do most in life.”

Chapter 6: And Giving, And Giving

Sonata glanced up at the reverberating ceiling as she was held in the tight embrace of the dentist hug chair. Chairy was the chair that kept on giving, and the thing he was giving was hugs! Full body leather strap-y hugs, the kind that Adagio liked to give! Everything was sooooo shiny and sparkly as colors danced over the walls, windows, and everything! There were new, fun colors too! The likes of which Sonata had never seen before, like bleen and glurple! Taking in the infinite majesty of the colorful melty room, she smiled as her head bobbed back and forth and—

Oh my gosh! Was that kitten flying as it vibrated under the ‘BELIEVE!’ that was suspended in mid-air and speaking in the voice of that guy who watches penguins all the time?! Could this day get any better?! “Hello kitty!” Sonata greeted cheerfully.

“Yo, dawg!”

Sonata smiled widely. “Penny for your thoughts?”

The kitten gave her a pained expression like it had just suffered at the hands of life throwing lemons at it with reckless abandon! Even too fast to squeeze the sour juices out of them with a baseball bat and dump several pounds of sugar over the lemon blood. Ohhhh… Sonata wanted to hug the little, flying, vibrating kitty soooo much, but it was Chairy’s job to hug her! And it was doing such a good job!

“I hate Brenda!” The kitten answered. “And uh, a bad guy hit me in the shin and I peed all over my pants!”

Well that was just weird! Just who or what was a Brenda?! Sonata grinned widely. “Ha, ha, ha! It’s nothin’ a little music can’t help!” Sonata said as a smattering of percussion, hand-claps, and instruments helpfully started up.

Sonata began to bob her head back and forth to the beat of the music as she began singing.

“Rockin', rockin' and rollin'!
Down to the beach I'm strollin'
But the seagulls poke at my head, not fun!
I said, seagulls, hmm! Stop it now

Hoo ha, hmm hmm hmm ha!
Hmm hoo ha, hmm hmm hmm hmm ha!
Hoo ha, hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm HA!”

Sonata turned to see if her song had made the little kitty feel better but she caught something out of the corner of her eye. Sinister-sounding brass and string instruments suddenly sounded out as the thing circled her and came closer… and closer! It was… was… light blue and holding… oh… oh noooo! It was one of those bristly torture devices covered in the goo that tastes like gum, but unfun gum! Sonata turned away and tried to flee as the instruments got louder, but Chairy wouldn’t have it! He was just hugging Sonata too tightly!

“No, Chairy! You have to let me go! Corpses suck at hugging back! AHHHHHHHH—”

Sonata’s scream was cut off as the evil 'brushy brushy' was plunged into her mouth, stabbing at it repeatedly as it savagely attacked her teeth and spread its evil minty foam all over everything!

“BLRRRRGHGAAAARGHGHRRR!”

“DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE!” Sonata’s malicious and remorseless (and perhaps soulless?!) torturer called out as she thrust downward repeatedly with her tool of pain.

Betrayal! Betrayal of the highest order! She DID lure Sonata in a false sense of security so she could attack when she least expected it! It was like Sweden all over again!

“DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE—”

-ooo-

“—DIE GERMS, DIE!”

Sunset Shimmer watched with no small degree of concern as Dr. Colgate stood over Sonata and practically stabbed at her teeth with a toothbrush. The Dentist showed no mercy towards what Sunset could only assume were her most hated enemies, the germs and bacteria that lived inside mouths.

Dr. Colgate had clearly been pushed to her limits in the relatively short period of time she had been alone with Sonata. Who could blame her? Sonata had literally stabbed her in the neck with a dental tool as well as a heap of who knows how much mental trauma on top of that? Instead of run terrified from the girl, no doubt as so many had done before, the Dentist had stood her ground and fought back with all her strength.

Sunset couldn’t help but feel a bit impressed, even if the strength was now manifesting as a mad flurry of brush strokes against teeth.

“DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE—”

Sonata let out a sad, gurgling noise.

Colgate pulled out the toothbrush she was holding and flung it behind her, it landed perfectly in the stainless steel sink in the corner of the room. She produced a red, plastic bowl from her white coat that she held in front of her face. “—And spit.”

Sonata sprayed a perfect arc of foamy mouth contents across the room that hit Sunset Shimmer with a ‘splat!’

Colgate rolled her eyes as she flung the unused red bowl in her hand over her shoulder. It hit the ground and bounced a few times before rolling to a stop.

“EW!” Sunset cried as she whipped the mixture of saliva and toothpaste off her face. “Seriously Sonata! Sour cream, salsa, guacamole and now saliva mixed with toothpaste?! Do you have any more fluids you’re going to share with me?!”

Sonata’s head flopped over to look at Sunset. “Are you coming on to me, magic talking hotdog?”

“Uuuuuggggghhhhh…” Sunset moaned out. “This is just the weirdest day!”

Sonata grinned and raised her eyebrows up and down. “That wasn’t a ‘no’!”

“Here.” Colgate reached into her coat and pulled out a dental bib. “Use this.”

“Thanks,” Sunset said as she took it and began wiping her face off. Sunset lowered the bib and gave Colgate a concerned look. “Are you alright? I mean… I understand that spending time with Sonata can have quite the adverse effect on someone’s psyche, but that was the most intense teeth brushing I’ve ever seen.”

Colgate chuckled. “Sorry, but Sonata’s mouth is filthy.” Colgate pulled a face as if she had just tasted something foul. “I mean really filthy. I have a really sensitive tongue and I could tell Sonata’s mouth was a colony of just the worst bacteria ever.”

Sunset’s forehead tightened. “Okay, but… Why was your tongue…” Sunset pursed her lips slightly. “On second thought, never mind, I don’t want to know.”

Colgate continued, “Brushing her teeth was therapeutic… like… like watching a recording of a bunch of mouthwash commercials back to back.”

“Uh…”

Colgate smiled. “You know… Like that feeling you get when they do the bits where the mouthwash hits the germs and they all dissolve? Kinda like that.”

“… Suuuuuurrrre....?”

“The important thing is we’re making progress! Hopefully I can get back in there soon, and—”

Colgate was cut off as a spray of foamy spit suddenly shot out across the room and hit her in the side of the face.

“Rrrrrarrrrr!” Sonata exclaimed from the dentist chair. “I’m a dilophosaurus! Rrrrrraaaarrrr!”

Colgate didn’t say anything. She stood motionless save for the single twitch of her right eye.

“Uh… Dr. Colgate?” Sunset asked in concern. “Do you need to take a break? Maybe wash your face?”

Colgate’s head suddenly tilted as a mad smile popped onto her face in an instant. With her right hand, she reached into her coat and pulled out three toothbrushes, each one held at the end between two of her clenched fingers as if she had suddenly grown a colorful claw tipped with bristles. With her left hand, she reached into her coat again, producing a tube of toothpaste she used to rapidly coat the ends of each brush with.

Colgate turned and practically dove at Sonata who responded with more growling and spitting.

“RRrrrwaaaarrrr! RRRRWWWWARRRR! BLRARRGHGHGHBLURRRGHGHG…!”

With the countenance of a madwoman performing an enjoyable, if unsavory deed, Colgate expertly manipulated her fingers so she was brushing three parts of Sonata’s mouth simultaneously, all while she began chanting, “I’m gonna have me some fun! I’m gonna have me some fun! I’m gonna have me some fun!”

Sunset swallowed as she watched the oddly intense, and perhaps just slightly violent, scene of dental hygiene unfold, wondering if the rest of her party was holding up any better.

-ooo-

Flanked on either side by Aria and Flash, Adagio sat in one of the airline chairs with her face pointed down at her thighs and her shoulders slumped as if her heavy expression was pulling her entire body downwards. Her face silently spoke at length of having just been dealt a serious emotional blow that had left Adagio reeling, even questioning her entire world. Seemingly sensing the gravitas of the woman’s breakdown, Aria and Flash each held onto one of Adagio’s hands as they stared at her with worry.

Adagio shook her head from side to side, causing her massive pile of orange curls to bounce lightly in all directions from the movement. “Just… just how could this happen?!”

Standing in front of her, Applejack offered an explanation. “Uh… my friends and I blasted you with the power of friendship so now ya get to enjoy normal life like the rest of us?”

Adagio looked up to shoot Applejack a glare. “First of all, please don’t spin that like you were trying to do us all a favor! And that’s not even what I was talking about!”

“Well, what then?” Applejack asked.

“You know… the part where I just casually slipped into watching TV and getting it on with everyone as a replacement for the feeling of people’s energy coursing through me and just… just… abandoning everything I was for my entire existence!” Adagio said as she flung out her arms, then collapsed back down into a sulk.

Aria lowered her eyelids slightly as she leaned her head down to catch Adagio’s eye. “Well, it’s not like you didn’t do those things already, now you just have more time to do it.”

Adagio turned to level a vexed look at Aria. “Not my point!” she hissed out. “Look… Don’t you miss draining people of their energy?”

“Uhhh… I guess? Sorta? Not really?” Aria said. She shook her head. “I mean… It’s not like it ever worked here like it did back in Equestria.” Aria glanced upwards as she dwelled on this more. “Here it was more like slowly starting to starve and the only place you could go to get food was this restaurant with tiny portions and huge wait times… Sorta like...” Aria looked around. “Anyone wanna throw me a punchline there? Like a restaurant you’re mad at? Flash? Snackerflap? No? Dude in the grey beanie? No?” Aria rolled her eyes. “Alright then.”

Adagio tightened her brow and scrunched her lips to one side as she stared at Aria. She elected to go back to staring at her thighs. She shook her head. “Just… just so much of us was tied up on feeding on people… Being creatures that fed on people like they were cattle!”

Aria shrugged. “Guess it did have a kinda cool vampire vibe to it.” She put on an expression smothered in aggravation. “But what a hassle! Now instead of that one stupid restaurant we can go to eat anyplace we want. Like literally because we’re normal and we can just go get food!”

Flash leaned down past Adagio to look at Aria. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

Aria nodded. “Yeah. A little bit. How could you tell?”

“Never mind that!” Adagio snapped. “We were sirens! Ancient beings of hunger and power! It was who we were! Causing strife and devouring the resulting energy is what we did! And now it’s gone… and… and… I think we’re better off!” Adagio puffed out her lower lip. “What do we do now?”

Flash nodded wordlessly and rubbed Adagio’s hand.

“Uhhh… I think we’re doing it,” Aria replied. “Me watching action flicks and playing video games. You having your hot and heavy fun times. Sonata… being Sonata… I mean… I think we have this figured out.” Aria thought for a moment. “And we really never stopped causing strife if that’s what’s buggin’ you.”

Applejack shook her head and smiled at Adagio. “Hey, look at it this way! You can start all over like Sunset did! Make some friends! Start helping people out, you know… Really turn yourself around!”

Adagio looked up at Applejack with a glare. “What’s wrong with what I’m doing now?!”

“Yeah, Chapplejack!” Aria chimed in. “She has a good thing going! Why’s she gotta go all goody-goody?”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Yer askin’ what’s wrong with her sitting around watching TV, staying up until the sun comes out, and running around layin’ down with anyone who will give her the time of day?”

“Well, yeah!” Aria said in an indignant tone. “I mean… she’s happy doing all that stuff!”

Adagio nodded. “I really am.”

“Why’s she gotta conform to your stupid friendship garbage?!” Aria demanded.

“Uh… It sorta helps people contribute as members of society?” Applejack suggested.

“Hey, I contribute!” Adagio said. “I make people feel good… or bad… You know… depending on what they want. And I mean, I’m making money doing that!”

Applejack’s eyebrows went haywire as she tried to raise one, then the other, then lower the first, all while her head tightened and relaxed. “Well that’s uh… Erm… I mean you probably shouldn’t…”

“Not money doing that!” Adagio indignantly.

Applejack let out a sigh of relief.

“I mean… anymore…”

Applejack cringed.

“… For the most part,” Adagio added.

Applejack sighed, lowering her head as her shoulders slumped forward. “Doncha think it’d be better to pick up a way to make money that’s less likely to getcha arrested?”

Adagio sneered. “Pretty sure someone mentioned I can be very convincing when dealing with the police.”

“What does that even mean?!” Applejack huffed out.

“Dude, get off her back!” Aria exclaimed. “She’s an adult!” Aria glanced to her side for a second. “Sorta…” She leveled an angry look at Applejack. “She doesn’t need to be part of your system!”

“Hey! Ah’m just trying to help!”

“Hey, Applejack?” Flash interjected. “Maybe you oughta sit this one out.”

“What?!” Applejack snapped. “Don’t tell me you’re taking their side!”

“I’m not taking sides!” Flash insisted. “But Adagio’s entire world was just rocked. Maybe give her some time to think things through before you discuss her lifestyle.”

“Yeah, Crackersnack!” Adagio said.

“Yeah, Snapplecrack!” Aria added.

Applejack sighed and massaged her forehead. “Seriously? Both of you? Different names and right after Flash said my name about ten seconds ago?” She shook her head. “Look, Ah’m just having trouble feeling sorry for someone who mind-controlled the entire school as part of some world domination scheme!”

Adagio rolled her eyes. “Oh, like Sunset Shimmer?”

“She has a point,” Flash said. “We did forgive Sunset.”

Applejack’s eyes widened. “Yeah, but… but…”

“But what?!” Aria snapped. “What you described is just exactly how things went down with Sunny!”

Applejack let out a defeated sigh. “Alright, fine…” She walked past the dental receptionist who wordlessly watched Applejack pass into the hallway. “I’m just going to check to see how things are going with Sonata…” Applejack stopped in front of a door, opened it, and was immediately blasted by foamy water.

“Rrrrrwaaaarr! Rrrrrwaaaaarrr!” Sonata exclaimed from inside the room. “Take that, fat mailman from that show with the guy who always complains about airline food! Rrrrrwaaaarrggraaaabbble!”

“Yes, yes!” Colgate cried ecstatically from inside the room. “Open your mouth wider! WIDER! HAHAHA! DIE! DIE!”

“Run Applejack!” Sunset cried from inside the room. “Save yourself!”

Applejack quickly closed the door and continued walking down the hallway. “I’m going to find the bathroom and wash off whatever is now all over my face.”

Flash turned back towards Adagio. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

Adagio sighed heavily. “Yeah, I guess so… Just… just the worst part is I think I owe Sunset Shimmer a ‘thank you’ or at least an apology.”

“Oh GOD!” Sunset cried from inside the dentist room. “HOW MUCH SPIT CAN ONE PERSON HAVE?!”

Adagio winced. “Definitely an apology.”

Author's Note

With props to this bad lip reading of the Empire Strikes Back for part of the beginning of this chapter and a joke last chapter.

Chapter 8: All's Well that Ends WeeeeeeEEEEEEEEE!

Blue shield and yellow lightning bolt gleaming against black paint, chrome shining and spinning amongst rubber tires, and engine purring like an army of cats in a sunny spot, Flash’s Mustang roughly bounced as it hit the curve and pulled into the Dazzlings’ driveway with all the gentleness and grace of a car full of exhausted, panicky people who were actively fighting off being slobbered on. No sooner had the car stopped diagonally across the driveway that the two doors flew open and Flash and Sunset fled from the vehicle. They were quickly followed by Adagio and Aria who opted to squeeze and crawl past the upright front seats to reach the freedom the outdoors granted them.

The four bolted for the front door of the house, random buttons undone, jackets hanging off a single arm, and shirts tussled leaving shoulders exposed. The hair of all four former car occupants was in a similarly messy state and bite marks and bruises pot-marked their exposed skin along with the odd, random moist spot on their clothing.

Flash and Sunset arrived at the door first, both doubling over as they huffed and puffed in an attempt to catch their breaths. Reaching the corner of the doorstep, Aria turned and stood with her fists clenched tightly as she stared like a hawk at the car everyone had filed out of. A soggy, chewed-on, stress-riddled hawk. In front of the door.

Adagio made her way past the group and up to the door and lifted a large purple purse to her face with her left hand. She rustled through its contents with her right hand, her glazed over, tired eyes drifting one way then the other as they examined the contents.

Hand on his heart, Flash took a couple deep breaths and looked up. “S-sorry for the close call, girls…”

“It wasn’t your fault!” Sunset huffed out as she leaned forward letting her head and arms dangle slightly. “I mean… You deserve credit for not crashing the car and killing us all with Sonata getting all touchy-feely with everyone like an octopus.” Crossing her arms in front of her chest Sunset grabbed her shoulders and shivered slightly. “She was just as slimy and slippery as an octopus too.”

The left corner of Aria’s mouth curled up into a small sneer as she took a brief glance at Adagio. “Uh, Dagi?”

“Yeah, yeah…” Adagio mumbled as she picked through her purse with all the energy of a sloth, “’credit’… I’ll ‘reward’ Flash when we’re inside and I maybe mix a cocktail or dozen…”

“Not that!” Aria snapped. “What the heck is taking so long?!”

“Sonata is still in the car,” Adagio pointed out. “I didn’t want to take out my keys too fast and have them jingle. That might attract the attention of her and then she’d be on top of me like a drug-addled cheetah with a toddler’s brain.”

Aria raised an eyebrow. “I’m a little surprised that doesn’t appeal to you.”

“Big difference between ‘kinky’ and being worried your partner is going bite a huge chunk out of you…” Adagio shook her head. “Trying to have ‘fun times’ with Sonata right now would be like trying to get it on with a great white shark…”

Aria pursed her lips. “Though you got it on with a great white…”

“Well, sure!” Adagio said. “But that was pre-transformation!” Adagio frowned. “I don’t see that working out so well now.”

Flash stared at Adagio in confusion. “Wait… You actually…”

Sunset quickly put a finger up to Flash’s lips. “I’ll tell you later,” she said quietly. She sighed. “Guess we should maybe be happy she licked one of the seats, figured out it was leather and started chewing on it like it was beef jerky…” she frowned slightly as she turned towards Flash. “Er... That being said, sorry about your car…”

Flash took a deep breath then let it out. “You know? I’m just happy to be alive right now.”

A red pickup truck with patches of discolored paint pulled up to the curb, its engine going silent before the driver side door opened and Applejack stepped out. “Uh, hey everyone! Looks like y’all had a rough time…” Applejack greeted as her keys jangled slightly in her right hand.

Everyone on the doorstep cringed at the sound of the keys. Adagio’s eyes suddenly widened and her lips tightened as she began rummaging through her purse with desperate vigor.

“SHINY!” Sonata exclaimed as she suddenly dove out of the car and started bounding towards Applejack on all fours like some sort of big cat.

“A-Adagio…?” Aria stammered in a worried tone.

“I know! I know!” Adagio replied.

Recoiling as the blue-skinned woman approached, Applejack raised her fist defensively in front of her as Sonata practically slithered back to her feet an arm’s length away from Applejack. “Applejack… hehehehe… Applejack…~” Sonata warbled in a haunting tone.

“Uh, Yeah?” Applejack asked, raising her eyebrow.

Sonata took one big step up to Applejack, putting her face mere inches away from Applejack’s. She placed a finger up to Applejack’s lips. “Shhh… Don’t make this weird…”

“Uh…” Applejack eyes darted down to take in the lack of space between Sonata and herself then back up as she took in the more-crazed-than-usual look in Sonata’s lilac eyes. “Honestly, It’s already pretty weird…”

Sonata suddenly pounced on Applejack, the pair falling sideways away from the truck and onto the uneven grass of the Dazzling’s lawn.

“Ew, ew!” Applejack cried. “She’s licking my ear! She’s OW! She’s biting my cheek!”

“Delicioso taco de carne de cabeza!” Sonata exclaimed.

“Get off! Get—“ Applejack went silent for a moment then let out a pained scream.

“¡Y la lengua se encuentra también!”

“Adagio… Hurry up!”

Applejack tried to restrain Sonata but found the girl was nearly impossible to keep hold off. Soon Applejack found herself crawling towards the door, Sonata latched around her torso and nibbling at her neck. “Help! HELP! This is like trying to wrestle with a pig after it got into Granny Smith’s medicine cabinet!”

“Oh, Flash!” Sunset uttered as she buried her head in Flash’s chest. “I can’t look!”

“I know, Sunset,” Flash said as he wrapped his arms around the shivering woman and rested his chin of her head. He closed his eyes. “I know…”

“Y’ALL STANDING THERE AND AVERTING YOUR EYES IS NOT HELPFUL ONE BIT, YA KNOW! OW!”

“Rump asado, yum!” Sonata commented as she pulled her teeth off the backside of Applejack’s jeans.

“Got them!” Adagio exclaimed. She quickly brought her keys up towards the lock, unlocked it, and opened the door.

Applejack grasped at the lawn and pulled hard, freeing her legs from Sonata’s grasp. Adagio, Sunset, and Flash practically dove inside. Applejack got to her feet and broke into a sprint, Sonata once again breaking into a strange, four-limbed gait. Aria followed the other three inside, slamming the door behind her and locking it.

Panic having gripped hold of her features like a taco-hungry woman hopped up on pain meds, Applejack banged her fist on the door. “Let me in!”

“There’s no time!” Aria counted.

“Yes there is!” Applejack insisted. “Sonata got dizzy while following me and is now rolling around with her arms and legs in the air like a dog that that jus’ found a heapin’ pile a’ dead squirrels!”

“What the hell goes on at that farm of yours, hayseed?!” Aria exclaimed.

“Can we talk about this when I’m inside?!” Applejack asked. “I’m tired of being chewed on, like a dog chewin’ on a pile of dead squirrels!”

“Seriously! What the eff?!”

“We kill a lot of squirrels on my orchard, alright?! You’d be surprised-OH, MA GOD! SHE’S GOT MY BOOT!” Applejack desperately clawed at the door as something began to pull her downwards. “WHY IS SHE TRYIN’ TO EAT MY BOOT?!”

“Con un lado de los pies encurtidos!”

“Way to take one for the team, Hayseed!” Aria yelled at the door.

“But Ah don’t want to take one for-EW! EW! OW! OW!”

Adagio walked into the living room and plopped down in the center of a purple couch, dropping her house keys and purse next to her. “Well, that was certainly an adventure,” she said, making a somewhat exaggerated grunt as she reached for a controller on an armrest. Adagio pointed the controller at the TV and turned it on. “Now time for adventures that don’t involve me in any way.”

Sunset cocked her head and gave Adagio a perplexed expression. “So… What’s the plan here?”

“… I watch Netflix until I feel like getting hammered then going to bed?” Adagio said in a somewhat confused tone. “I mean, you’re all welcome to join me…”

Aria walked over to the couch and sat down next to Adagio. “What are we watching?”

Adagio’s shot Aria an annoyed look. “I was talking about the other things I mentioned.”

“No!” Sunset replied. “What is your plan regarding Sonata!” Sunset clarified. “I mean… It can’t be just ‘leave her outside’!”

“… It can’t?” Adagio and Aria said simultaneously.

“She’s hopped up on pain meds, likely coming off who knows what Dr. Colgate pumped her full of, and I’m pretty sure she shouldn’t be chewing on people and things when she’s just had dental surgery!”

There was a knock on the door followed by Applejack’s frantic pleading. “Please let me inside! Sonata grabbed my hat thinking it was a taco, or something… Kinda tragic, but Ah’ve got about twenty hats that look just like that one… Anyway, Ah think she’s distracted for a bit, a… Oh my Orchard Supply Hardware, she’s coming back!”

Sunset and Flash watched as Applejack sprinted past the large, front-facing windows of the Dazzlings’ house, Sonata once again chasing her down as she bounded around on her hands and feet.

Adagio simply nodded in the director of the door. “You’re welcome to go out there and help your friend,” she said. “Please note that I will have Aria get up and lock the door after you.”

Aria sighed, leaned across Adagio’s lap to pick up the keys, then got up. “I’d normally protest here, but I agree it’s important to keep Sonata away from me specifically.”

“Aaaaaaahhh!” Applejack screamed as she ran back in front of the windows.

Sunset and Flash continued to monitor this situation with concerned expressions as Sonata bounced past on all fours exclaiming, “Je tiens simplement à donner à votre visage un peu d'amour lèche!”

“I think I see the problem here,” Aria said as she walked up to the window. She reached for the blinds draw-string, pulled it, and let the blinds fall closed.

Sunset let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t feel super good about myself right now…”

Flash shrugged. “Well, Applejack’s tough…” he mused. “I’m sure she’ll be alright after some therapy.”

Sunset took a deep breath. “But… She’s my friend! I can’t just abandon her because I had one traumatic experience in a car!”

“Eh,” Aria grunted. “More like a few dozen inescapable traumatic experiences that all ran together… I mean, it like was like being in a more saliva-filled version of Hell.”

Sunset stared at the door resolutely. “Doesn’t matter! If it were me Applejack would likely rush out to help provided I lured her with a nominal amount of money!” She turned to face the others in the house. “Come on, guys! I know we’ve had it rough, but it’s time we all got together as friends and overcome a problem!”

Aria groaned. “Oh, here we go…”

Adagio glanced over from the couch as her eyebrows began to nit together. “I have a feeling you were a lot more fun to be around before you went all goody-goody.” Adagio turned towards Flash. “Didn’t you date her when she was queen of the school?”

“Uh, sure? And, uh, it was good sometimes…” Flash frowned. “Though there was an awful lot of being yelled at, called an idiot, and being more or less treated like a personal chauffeur.”

Sunset grimaced.

Adagio looked at Flash with interest. “You wouldn’t happen to be on the market, would you?”

Sunset turned to Flash. “Have I ever apologized for how I acted when we were dating?”

Flash smiled sheepishly. “There was a lot of you being ‘sorry that that plate missed your head’ the night we broke up.”

Sunset took a deep breath as her body shook slightly. “Right… Well, I’m sorry for how I acted when we were dating and I’m especially sorry for all the dishware lobbed at you when we broke up.”

Adagio frowned. “Hey, moron!” she called out. “I’m not hearing an answer to my question.”

It was Flash’s turn to wince. “I think I just had a dating flashback.”

Sunset let out a sigh. “I’ll make it up to you sometime… but right now Applejack needs our help!” Sunset announced dramatically. “Applejack, who helped us through this strange and oddly fluid-filled adventure of getting Sonata to the dentist and back! Sure, maybe she didn’t suffer as much as some of us, me specifically” —

Applejack let out another scream.

— “until just recently, but she’s our comrade! Our friend! And friendship is a sacred bond of trust and being there for one another!”

“Ugh…” Adagio grunted. “This speech is so sugary, now I need to go to the dentist!”

Aria stared off into space. “Is this what that whole ‘slowly dying’ thing you normies gripe about feels like? I think I’m finally starting to feel the weight of my mortality here.”

Sunset glared at the two Dazzlings and continued. “Look, friendship is not just about hanging out and having fun, or associating with someone only when it’s convenient. It’s also about supporting your friends when they need your help! Coming to their aid, and even rescue when they’re in trouble. Even when that trouble is especially bitey or slobbery!” Sunset took a long look at Adagio and then Aria. “I mean… what if it was one of you left out there?! Would you want the other one to come out and save you?”

“Uh, well yeah…” Aria said. “But I also know there’s no way Adagio would come out to get me. I mean… likewise, I’d just leave her out there, too.”

“And you’d be right to do it!” Adagio said from the couch.

Sunset shook her head. “You two are hopeless.” Sunset turned to Flash. “Uh, you up for this? I’ll understand if you say no, I mean… I sort of deserve it…”

Flash smiled. “Hey, Applejack’s our sister-in-arms, right?” He swung an arm in front of his chest. “Semper Friendship, you know!”

Sunset smiled slightly. “Thanks, Flash, but I’m going to ask you never to say ‘semper friendship’ ever again.”

Flash frowned. “You don’t think it’ll catch on?”

Sunset shook her head. “Actually, I think Pinkie will hear it and love it and make our battle cry regardless of what the rest of us think.”

Flash chuckled. “Fair enough.”

Adagio waved from the couch. “Well, have fun getting taco-mange and washing drool out of your hair. Aria, be sure to lock up after them.”

Aria stared at the door for a moment, pursed her lips, then turned towards Adagio. “Actually, I’m going to help them.”

Flash looked at Aria in surprise as Sunset’s face lit up.

“What?! You can’t be serious!” Adagio said.

“You mean my friendship speech actually got through to you?!” Sunset exclaimed.

“Naw,” Aria replied. “Your speech was dumb and I think filled me with existential dread a little bit?”

Sunset frowned heavily.

“Okay, but why though?!” Adagio asked.

Aria smiled. “Figured it’d be fun to leave the door wide open and that between Hayseed, these two, and me, we could at least wrangle Sonata and toss her in here before shutting the door.”

Adagio glared at Aria. “Oh, you b!%@#!”

“You know what? I’ll take it,” Sunset said with a small grin.

“Fine! I’ll help rescue Applejack!” Adagio growled out as she got to her feet and stomped on over to the group by the door. “But, for the record, I’m doing this under protest!”

Sunset turned towards the door. “Well, sometimes friendship means forcing your friends to do stuff they don’t want to.”

Adagio rolled her eyes. “You and I are off to a great start then.”

Sunset grimaced. “Okay, now I’m feeling the weight of my mortality. Besides, you brought me into this mess!”

Adagio’s grumpy expression deepened. “The irony is not lost on me.”

Aria placed her hand on the doorknob. “Well, there’s a chance we all won’t have to worry about our own slow march towards death depending on feral Sonata has gone. You all ready?”

Sunset and Flash nodded and positioned themselves behind Aria while Adagio lingered back somewhat.

“No!” Adagio answered. “In fact, I didn’t want to—”

“TIME’S UP, LET’S DO THIS!” Aria shouted as she swung open the door. “AAAAAAAAAARIAAAAAAAAA BLAAAAAAAA”—

With a ‘CRASH!’ Aria was cut off as Applejack rushed into her, knocking both girls back into the group and sending all five to the ground.

“Fr-friendship is the worst!” Aria muttered from under Applejack as she slowly raised an index finger up into the air.

“I blame YOU for this, Aria!” Adagio snapped from under the pile.

“Ow…” Flash mumbled. “I think one of Aria’s metal hair dealies just cut me across the forehead…”

“Yeah, they do that,” Aria replied.

The group untangled themselves from limbs and hair and began to get back up to their feet. Flash held a hand over his head as a small trickle of blood ran down to his nose.

“Applejack?” Sunset said as she rubbed her head. “We were just coming to rescue you.”

“Ah appreciate that,” Applejack, now in a state of messy, pseudo-undress like the other three, narrowed her eyes slightly. “Though, took ya long enough…”

“Sorry!” Sunset said. She motioned towards Aria and Adagio, the latter being helped to her feet by Flash. “A couple of our team members took some convincing. How’d you get away from Sonata?”

“I snuck past her…” Applejack said as she motioned to the front yard. “She’s just been standing in the middle of the yard, rubbing her cheeks.”

Sunset glanced through the door, frowning as she noticed Sonata staring off into space and rubbing her cheeks. “Maybe the drugs are wearing off?” Sunset suggested.

“Good!” Adagio exclaimed. “That means this nightmare is almost over! Nothing is worse than Sonata on drugs!”

“Ugh, yeah…” Aria agreed. “Sonata is already the ‘worst’, but she reaches new dredges of being unbearable when she’s high as a kite that’s been launched into space, for… I don’t know… scientific research, or something…”

“There’s no wind in space, moron,” Adagio said.

Aria threw her hands up in the air. “Metaphors are hard, alright?!”

“You mean ‘similes’,” Sunset corrected. “That was a ‘simile’ you attempted.”

Applejack nodded. “Right, and you could have said somethin’ sensible like, higher than a weather vane in a tornado…”

Aria narrowed her eyes. “I regret helping everyone!” She declared. “‘Cept for Flash there. He’s the only cool one amongst you all.”

“Huh…” Flash uttered “I don’t hear that often. Thanks, Aria. Man… Today has been a roller-coaster of emotions for me…”

Adagio peered outside. “Speaking of the living embodiment of a roller-coaster of emotions, any guesses on what Sonata is doing?”

Aria leaned over Adagio, practically floating atop her poofy mass of curls as she stared outside. “Uh, my guess is she’s trying to will tacos to her location.”

Sonata let out a pained, pathetic moan.

“I guess that’d be her taco call,” Adagio said with a smirk.

“Hah!” Aria exclaimed. “Good one!”

Sunset scowled at the two Dazzlings present Adagio and Aria shared a high five. “Don’t you two ever let up on the poor girl?”

Adagio and Aria exchanged a confused glance. “Poor girl?” Adagio said. “That poor girl treated everyone here to what I’m sure is one of their most miserable days of their lives!”

Aria looked at Sunset in confusion. “Did you hit your head on the floor when Applejerk ran into everyone?”

“Yeah…” Applejack spoke up. “Not really sorry for that at this point.”

“I’ll admit that I’m not exactly happy that I got dragged into this,” Sunset said. She motioned to Sonata who continued to let out a few pitiful moans. “But Sonata was clearly in pain at the start and looks to be in more pain now.”

Adagio rolled her eyes. “She’s clearly just overreacting for attention.”

“Uh… have you ever had your wisdom teeth removed?”

Everyone turned to look at Flash.

Seeing as he now had the floor, Flash continued, “It’s like a constant ache of having knives stuck in your head…”

Sunset winced. “And I’m sure it doesn’t help when your girlfriend is constantly telling you to ‘man up’ and ‘get over it’.”

Flash chuckled. “I was going to leave that part out. The point is, Sonata’s probably going to need painkillers just to make the next week or two bearable.”

“Ugh, whatever…” Adagio said dismissively. “The pain Sonata will endure is likely nothing compared to what she’d inflict.”

“Yeah!” Aria said in agreement. She glowered at Flash. “What happened to you, man? You used to be cool!”

Flash sighed. “Just trying to give you all some inside perspective, is all…”

“Well, stop!” Adagio ordered. “The three of us know suffering well enough!” She turned to glare at Sunset and Applejack. “Like losing our magical gems that were keeping our bodies in a perpetual state of beauty and also keeping us from having to deal with stuff like wisdom teeth coming in!”

“You were trying to take over the school!” Sunset shot back, throwing her hands up into the air.

Aria rolled her eyes. “Try the world… I mean… It’s not exactly hard for us to take over high schools…”

Adagio nodded. “High School Musical? Glee? Pretty much rip offs of our past exploits… Though, toned down for television.” Adagio’s eyes narrowed in anger. “I swear I’d sue someone if it didn’t mean facing life imprisonment.”

Aria shook her head. “Tell me about it… Man, these modern laws are pretty draconian when it comes to teenagers and fight clubs.”

Adagio sighed. “And forced labor, and orgies…”

Sunset, Applejack, and Flash all exchanged glances.

“Wow…” Sunset uttered. “Again, not feeling that bad about stopping you three.” Sunset rubbed the back of her head. “Look, maybe I’m just wasting my time when it’s apparent all three of you are conscience devoid monsters…”

Adagio and Aria exchanged a quick glance.

“Yes? Go on,” Adagio replied.

Sunset motioned to Sonata. “Just… Sonata’s one of you! She’s your uh… erm… Actually, I’m not entirely sure what your three relationship is to each other except for ‘partners in crime’.”

“That works,” Aria said.

“Well, anyways, Sonata is a Dazzling like you two! It sounds like you’ve all been through quite a lot together.” Sunset frowned. “Are you two really just going to let her suffer for the next couple weeks because you can’t put up with a little face chewing?”

Applejack raised her left eyebrow. “‘A little?’ Ah’m lucky to still have cheeks.”

Sunset turned and gave Applejack a quick scowl. “Shhhh!” she hissed, raising a finger up to her lips.

Adagio and Aria exchanged glances one more.

“Yes. Yes, we are,” Adagio answered. “Next question.”

Sunset closed her eyes and inhaled then exhaled through her nose. She opened her eyes. “Fine. Sonata can stay with me then.”

“… What?” Aria replied in disbelief.

“Hah!” Adagio exclaimed. “Nice try. There’s no way you can possibly mean that.”

“Uh… Sorry, Sunset,” Applejack said. “But Ah’m agreeing with Adagio here. Ah’m not buying it. Not after everything that’s gone on today.”

“I’m serious,” Sunset instead. She pointed at her face where her lips remained flat and her forehead was slightly tightened. “This is my serious face.” She turned towards Flash. “Right?”

Flash cocked his head slightly and took a long look at Sunset’s face. “Oh yeah, that’s your serious face, alright.”

Sunset nodded. “Totally. Totally my serious face.”

Aria’s eyes narrowed and her head drifted to the side slightly as she stared at Sunset.

Adagio continued to smirk. “You wouldn’t last a day…”

Sunset shrugged. “Not by myself, but I have friends to help.”

Applejack let out a sigh. “Sorry, sugarcube… Ah’m sure you can wrangle a few of the other girls, but Ah don’t know how much of this I can take.” Applejack placed her palms in front of her. “And don’t think you can just bribe—”

Sunset leaned close to Applejack. “I’ll give you $50 for each day you help.”

Applejack’s eyes lit up like a slot machine that just hit jackpot. “On the other hand, who can put a price on friendship?”

Sunset smiled. “I’m sure Pinkie is in just by virtue of Sonata needing help… Rainbow Dash will help, even if she complains about it… Fluttershy… uh… well… she won’t say ‘no’!”

Applejack winced. “Sure, but Ah then we might have a bigger problem on our hand… At the very least, we’ll need someone to comfort and probably revive her…”

Sunset snapped a finger. “Rarity!”

“Oh, good call!” Applejack said. “There’s no way she’d wanna get involved with ol’ slobber tooth there, but she couldn’t say no to helping a poor Fluttershy who was used as a squeaky toy.”

Adagio chuckled to herself. “You two are certainly putting in a lot of effort for this bluff.”

Aria pursed her lips into a tight frown as she continued to study Sunset’s face.

“This doesn’t concern you, Adagio,” Sunset said flippantly. She turned to Flash. “You in?”

Flash smiled. “I’ve been there before, so yeah… Just, uh… Please don’t ask me to drive Sonata anywhere while she’s hopped up on pain meds.”

Sunset smiled. “Deal!” Clapping her hands together she turned towards Adagio. “Sonata’s pain medication, if you please.”

Adagio’s smile slowly gave way to a tight-lipped frown. “Fine…” she uttered. She turned. “I’ll go get my purse.”

Aria’s face tightened as she watched Adagio walk away. She turned towards the others and rubbed the back of her head. “Uh… You guys, like, need some of Sonata’s clothes, or something?”

Sunset smiled. “That would be lovely, thanks.”

“Right… right…” Aria turned and took a few steps then turned back. “I’ll, uh… I’ll pack one of Sonata’s sippy cups, too. I mean… she’s not so brain damaged she can only drink from a sippy cup, but she likes it more… and, er, it cuts down on messes.”

Sunset chuckled. “I’ll be careful when I hand her drinks.”

Aria nodded, turned took a single step, then turned back. “Oh, and… Sonata tends to conk out kinda early at night and then get up at some stupid hour of the day… like… sometimes it’s still dark outside, but she’ll usually just turn on the television and watch cartoons, or something…”

“Alright, noted,” Sunset replied. “I’m a bit of an early riser myself, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Provided she’s coherent enough to understand human speech, I’ll show her how to work my TV setup when she gets to my place.”

Aria turned, didn’t even complete a single step, then turned back again. “Her favorite shows are ones with puppets and also that, like… half Spanish cartoon with the girl who’s always looking for stuff…”

“… I’m not sure if that’s pertinent information,” Sunset replied. “But I’ll also keep that in mind.”

Adagio stomped up to Sunset. “Here’s Sonata’s stupid ‘happy pills’,” she said, holding out a large burnt orange-colored bottle of pills.

Still smiling, Sunset plucked the pills from Adagio’s hands. “Thanks, Adagio. Well, once Aria packs up a few of Sonata’s things, we’ll collect her and be on our way.”

Adagio wheeled on Aria. “You’re helping them?!”

“Well… I… They’re doing us a favor… I guess?”

Adagio threw her hands up in the air. “Don’t help them! They’re the enemy!”

Aria glanced at the others. “… Even Flash?”

“Especially Flash!” Adagio insisted. Adagio turned and batted her eyelids at Flash. “Unless you’d reconsider whose side you’re on…~” she sang out.

“Wow… Tempting,” Flash admitted, “But again…” he pointed at Sonata, “horrible tooth pain and being able to empathize with it.”

Adagio turned back to Aria. “Then, YES!” she shouted. “Especially Flash.”

Aria raised her fingertips to her forehead and let out a sigh. “Dagi… I don’t like it any better than you, but—”

“Who said I didn’t like it?!” Adagio replied. A smile appeared on Adagio’s lips, the corners of her lips perhaps raised a tad too high. “See!” Adagio said as she pointed to her face. “This is my ‘like it’ face!” she insisted.

Aria’s forehead knit in skeptically. “That, uh, that doesn’t look like your ‘like it’ face,” Aria replied.

“What would you know?!” Adagio snapped. “You’re a grump 24/7!” Adagio folded her hands across her chest and looked away. “At least Sonata knows how to experience joy…”

“Well… Whatever!” Aria cried throwing her hands up in the air. “They want to take care of her for a few weeks and give us a break! It’s not like… they’re… I don’t know… Gonna indoctrinate Sonata into their weird friendship cult or something…”

Sunset flashed the tiniest bits of a demonic grin. “Yeah… just keep telling yourself that,” she mumbled.

Aria’s amethyst eyes opened wide. “I f#@%en knew it!”

Adagio smacked a palm against her head. “Aria, you dolt. This is exactly what Sunset wants!”

“Screw you, Dagi!” Aria replied.

Adagio rolled her eyes. “I really wish this night was heading in that direction.”

Aria leveled an accusatory finger at Adagio’s chest. “Maybe you don’t give a flip about what happens to Sonata, but I… I…”

Applejack leaned in closer. Sunset smiled with anticipation. “Yes…?” Sunset said.

Adagio just sighed. “Oh, here we go…”

“I… uh… I think… Sonata… She’s… ”

“She’s sorta beginning to look like she’s dying.”

Once again, everyone turned to Flash.

Flash nodded towards Sonata. “Yeah, I don’t know exactly what you girls are doing or think you’re doing, but… Uh…” Flash motioned out. “Sonata’s stopped moaning, and just has tears streaming down her eyes. So maybe just figure out who gets custody of Sonata after she gets her dose?”

Sunset smirked. “She’s not a child, Flash.”

Adagio blew out a dismissive gust of air. “Too easy… Right, Aria?”

Aria didn’t reply, her focus set squarely on Sonata.

Sonata suddenly let out a sound. A breathy moan that escaped as a quiet whimper before it raised in volume and pitch until it was supersonic levels of earsplitting.

“eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

“I was wrong!” Aria exclaimed as she covered her ears with her hands. “This is somehow worser! WORSER THAN WORST!”

“Not everything can be the ‘worst’, Aria!” Adagio cried as she used her hair to cover her own ears. “In fact, only one thing can be the worst!”

“It’s fine!” Sunset said she took a few steps forward holding the bottle of pills. “We’ll just get her what she needs and she’ll be… well, chewing and things and lick—”

Aria sprinted forward, snatching the bottle of pills out of Sunset’s hands as she bolted up to Sonata. Despite being at ground zero for a noise that would make a firetruck a deeper shade of red with jealousy, Aria began struggling with the child safety cap until she successfully pried it off the bottle. She proceeded to dump a modest pile of the pills into her hand.

“Aria, you idiot!” Adagio shouted after her.

“Screw you, Adagio!” Aria fired back. “I’m not going to let Sonata scream like this until she passes out from pain!”

“No, you incredible moron!” Adagio said as she rushed up to Aria. “You need to figure out how many pills to give her otherwise things are going to get much worse!” Adagio snatched the bottle from Aria’s grip and began to read the label. “It says ‘one’!” Adagio shook her head. “I swear, you two would have stupided yourself to death already if it wasn’t for me.”

“Oh…” Aria replied as she pinched a single pill and brought it up to Sonata’s wide open, screeching mouth.

“EEEEEEEEEWATEREEEEEE!”

Aria stared at Sonata in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kiddi—”

“WATER! WATER!” Sonata repeated.

“Fine!” Adagio growled out. “Just stop screaming!”

Sonata clamped her hands over her mouth, muffling the ear-annihilating sound the clearly continued from underneath Sonata’s palms.

Grumbling, Adagio trudged back to the house, not bothering to make eye contact with the trio standing just inside as she pushed past them on the way to the kitchen.

Applejack turned towards Sunset with an impressed look on her face. “Hey, nice thinkin’ there! A little bit of reverse psychology while playin’ up the girl’s competitive side!”

“Yeah,” Flash agreed. “You even had me going there for a bit.”

Sunset let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, I am so glad that worked…”

Applejack blinked in surprise. “Ya mean to tell me you didn’t know those two would go old ‘mother hen’ on Sonata if you pushed them far enough?”

“No!” Sunset said with a smile. “How could I? Adagio and Aria have been pains all day! I had no idea how much they actually cared about Sonata…” Sunset shook her head. “I mean… they cared enough to call me and stay with Sonata the entire time, but that wasn’t really enough to tell if they’d go out of their way to make sure she wasn’t ‘taken away’, possibly permanently.”

“So, you’d have really put up Sonata, screaming, face eaten’ mess that she is, if they let you have her?”

“Well, of course!” Sunset said as Aria rushed past holding a sippy cup. Sunset continued, “I mean… I’m only occasionally a monster.”

Still grumbling to herself, Adagio once again made her way past the group and walked outside. Huddled up by Sonata, Adagio and Aria pulled away her hands and quickly got a pill then water into the pained Dazzling who swallowed both.

Sonata went silent.

Aria let out a sigh of relief. “Alright, nutbar,” she said to Sonata. “Just try to remember this the next time you start to think either of our faces are edib—”

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Adagio and Aria covered their ears.

“Why didn’t that work?!” Aria cried.

“Because it takes 20 to 30 minutes to take effect!” A familiar woman’s voice called out.

Everyone turned and looked with surprise as Dr. Colgate sauntered up to Sonata, produced a syringe full of some clear liquid and quickly jabbed it into Sonata’s neck before depressing the plunger. Sonata’s eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed into Sonata’s and Aria’s arms.

“However that takes effect pretty much immediately!” Dr. Colgate said. She turned towards the trio staring at the sight in front of them in shock. “Would someone kindly hold this for me please?”

Sunset, Applejack, and Flash all walked up, Sunset gently taking the emptied syringe into a hand.

“The hell did you come from?!” Aria exclaimed. “I mean… I’m thankful for you showing up to knock out Sonata, I really should add you to my cell phone contacts, but seriously… The hell?!”

“I show up where and when I’m needed,” Dr. Colgate replied.

“That doesn’t—!”

“Hold her steady, damnit!” Dr. Colgate demanded as she produced a penlight and tiny mirror on a handle in her gloved hands. Adagio and Aria let out strained grunts, holding Sonata up as Dr. Colgate expertly propped open Sonata’s mouth with her pinkie, ring, and middle fingers while she used her others to hold her tools. She peered inside and let out a sigh. “See, this is why I really wish you all didn’t take off as soon as I brought out Sonata….”

Adagio scowled at Dr. Colgate. “We can’t see because you’re making us hold up Sonata as you perform your back-alley dentistry! Also, we were trying to get Sonata home before the knock-out gas wore off and she went crazy in the car.”

Aria likewise shot Dr. Colgate a glare. “Mission failed there, by the way…”

“You all look alright,” Dr. Colgate replied simply. “However…” Dr. Colgate returned her mirror to a pocket and pulled out her sonic scaler. “Sonata should stick to soft foods until her mouth has healed somewhat.”

“She hasn’t actually eaten anything!” Adagio insisted.

“Not fer lack of trying,” Applejack quipped.

With a high-frequency hum, Dr. Colgate smiled and retrieved her sonic scaler. “There… all fixed up.”

“When do you-oof-When do you think she’ll wake up?” Aria asked as she repositioned Sonata.

Dr. Colgate grinned. “Hopefully a bit after I’ve left.” Dr. Colgate looked over the group. “Well, everyone it’s been…Hmmm….”

“Weird?” Sunset suggested.

“Objectively terrifying?” Flash added.

“Messy?” Adagio said.

“A royal pain?!” growled Aria.

“Painful?” Applejack said.

“A day!” Dr. Colgate said with a nod. “Quite a day! Anyhow, please don’t hesitate to call if Sonata has any more tooth-related problems.”

The group looked at Dr. Colgate in disbelief.

“You’ll… you’ll actually treat her again?!” Adagio said.

“Of course!” Dr. Colgate assured. “What’s life without a little challenge now and again?” Dr. Colgate smiled and handed Adagio a card. “Call me if you or your friends ever need to be strapped to a chair.”

Adagio took the card, losing her grip on Sonata much to Aria’s audible protest. Still smiling, Dr. Colgate turned and began walking towards the street, whistling to herself as she went.

“Sunset…” Adagio said, her eyes fixed on Dr. Colgate’s backside as she silently cursed the doctor’s coat that was blocking her view.

“Uh, Yes, Adagio?”

“Is this what love feels like?”

Sunset stared at Adagio for a moment, then turned to watch Dr. Colgate as she disappeared into the dark evening. “You know… I don’t think I could tell you that…”

Chapter 9: A Learning Experience Was Had by All, and That’s the Tooth

Aria Blaze let out a growl of frustration and glared out as flickering colors danced across her face. The sounds of high-impact violence, grunts, and screams filled the room as she hammered away with her thumbs at a controller’s buttons and worked an analog stick. Despite her efforts, she was getting more and more frustrated. “No! Stop! Grrrrrrrrrrr!” Aria stared down at a long, blue ponytail attached to Sonata Dusk who was sitting with her legs sprawled out on the floor. “How are you beating me?!”

Sonata said nothing aside for some exaggerated chewing noises as she held the controller in her mouth and chomped down repeatedly on it, her lilac eyes starting in the direction of the TV, but not really at it.

Next to Aria on the big purple couch sat Flash Sentry and Applejack who respectively watched the screen intently and with a sort of detached interest. That is until the TV announced “Kuma wins” and Aria let out a howl of frustration.

“Hyuk,” Applejack shook her head. “Can’t win ‘em all.”

Aria leaned past flash to glare at Applejack. “Well, I can win against you at least.”

“Reckon so?” Applejack asked, her spring green eyes looking back at Aria in determination.

“Reckon ‘course” Aria said with a smirk.

Applejack leaned forward and held out her hand. “Sonata, give me the control—” Applejack pursed her lips into a tight frown as she looked at the state of the controller. She turned back towards Aria. “Y’all got another controller that isn’t all slobbery?”

“Yes. Sonata, spit the controller into Applejack’s hand.”

Sonata complied with a ‘pttha!’

“Elck!” Applejack exclaimed as she attempted to wipe the controller somewhat clean using her denim skirt.

Aria began tapping buttons as the music changed on the screen. She glanced to her side. “You play video games?”

Flash smirked at Aria. “I’m a high schooler. What do you think?”

Aria simply nodded and turned back towards the screen. “You have next.”

Applejack shook her head. “Well, he better gear up ta fight me, ‘cause—”

There was a blitz of colors and the sounds of video game violence that hit like a storm followed by Applejack letting out a disbelieving yawp. “Ho-how?!”

Aria gave Applejack an icepick smile. “Hey, just feel lucky I didn’t make you play against Sonata.”

Applejack let out a sigh before she turned back to the screen. “Wasn’t Rainbow Dash supposed to be roped into this too?”

“Yeah,” Aria said as she also looked back towards the TV, “but I figure I’d hold onto that for a day when I’m bored and also feel like guilting Sunset into making good on a promise.”

Applejack’s face tightened. “Nice to see where you stand moral-DANGIT! HOW?!”

“Ha-Ha!” Aria shook her head from side to side, a victorious smile on her face as Flash chortled quietly next to her. “Be grinnin’ tonight…” she added.

Sitting at a tall, black square wooden table, Sunset Shimmer and Adagio Dazzle sat across from each other. Both held mugs of some steaming liquid and took small sips as they glanced in the direction of the breakfast nook’s entrance.

“Well, they seem to be having fun,” Sunset said, nodding in the direction of the doorway.

Adagio simply grunted an affirmation as she spun her mug slowly in her hands, staring at it as if the swirls in it would somehow divine her an answer to a question she was currently asking herself.

Sunset tilted her head quizzically, then took another sip of her drink. “This hot chocolate is incredible by the way…”

Adagio glanced up slightly, a small smile appearing on her face. “You might say the secret ingredients are Irish cream and peppermint schnapps.”

Sunset’s turquoise eyes opened slightly and she looked down at her drink. “I thought I felt happier drinking it…”

Adagio let out the barest and briefest of chuckles before she went back down to looking at her own drink, the joy from her face quickly fading.

“… Uh… You alright?” Sunset asked. “I mean… I know it’s been quite the day for everyone, but if you want to talk…”

Adagio glanced up and shot Sunset a piercing glare with her amethyst eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you have some sort of magical friendship rainbow that will solve all my problems and turn me into a normal, functional member of society?”

Seemingly nonplused, Sunset took a quick gulp of her drink, then sat it down on the table before pushing her chair away. “Thanks for the drink, Adagio,” she said as she stood up and took a few steps towards the door. “I think it’s about time we got—”

“No, wait!” Adagio called out.

Sunset stopped in the doorway. She didn’t turn. “I’m not going to sit in awkward silence with you, Adagio, and I’m certainly not going to put up with your verbal abuse.”

“I’m sorry, alright?” Adagio said. “Just... I'm sorry for everything I dragged you into today. I'm lucky you and your friends stuck with it until the end, and I admit it, that was a douche-nozzle move on my part just now… Just… please sit down…”

Sunset let out a soft sigh, turned, and returned to her seat. She picked up her drink and took a few more sips.

Adagio smiled. “It really is good hot chocolate, isn’t it?”

Sunset nodded. “Yes... but don’t tell me you called me back just so I could keep gushing about your beverage… I mean… I might be willing as long as you keep them coming, but somehow I feel there’s a chance it’ll turn into a somewhat repetitive conversation.”

Adagio chuckled. “Sarcasm… I like that… Where was this Sunset Shimmer when we were fighting the Rainbooms?” she asked before taking a sip of her own drink.

“Keeping quiet as to not tick off her new friends whose lives she had trampled all over just half a year prior,” Sunset answered. Sunset looked out towards the entrance. “I guess in a way I have you and your fellow Dazzlings to thank.” Sunset turned towards Adagio and smirked. “Helping beat you three kinda proved I was really serious about this ‘magical friendship’ stuff.”

Adagio’s face tightened into a scowl.

Sunset’s lips pursed in concern. “I can see that it’s a bit too soon to joke about that night with you…”

Adagio shook her head, her orange curls bouncing slightly as she did. “It’s not that,” she said. She sighed and stared off into the direction of the living room. “Today was hard, Sunset Shimmer. It was work, and weird, and just misery… but…” Adagio sat her drink down then brought a fist up to her lips and picked a direction to stare in that wasn’t Sunset’s. “I guess a lot of my days on this planet have been like that…” She rolled her eyes slightly. “Not quite this surreal, but collecting energy from cafés while wondering how far you can push it before someone calls the cops wasn’t always a lot of fun.” She turned back towards Sunset. “There’s going to be more days like this, aren’t there? More days when our bodies rebel against us and we don’t know what to do about it and our only recourse is to find a stranger and hope they can do something to fix it.”

Sunset pursed her lips for a moment. “That’s a bleak way to put it, but yes… That’s part of life, Adagio.”

Adagio let out a sigh and looked away.

Sunset regarded Adagio for a moment. Sure, Adagio and her fellow Dazzlings had a rather different background, if one overlooked the part where they originated from Equestria. However, the ends to their villainous ways certainly had a great deal in common. The big difference there was Twilight immediately reached out a hand to Sunset to give her another chance, something neither Sunset nor Twilight had really considered when the dust settled and the giant siren projections were gone. Maybe if they had tried the Dazzlings would have dismissed the offer of friendship, maybe not. The fact remained that an attempt hadn’t been so much as suggested.

Sitting at the table with her and sharing a drink as the now ex-siren seemingly struggled with a form of melancholy she wasn’t accustomed to, Sunset felt a twinge of regret. Regret that she was so focused on coming into her own at the time that she had overlooked something. That while the Dazzlings had done some rather reprehensible things, she was in a not too dissimilar situation only a few months prior to their arrival. Someone was there to show her there was a better way, and she hadn’t so much as considered that it was her turn to extend a hand of friendship to someone who needed it.

But maybe… maybe it wasn’t too late...

Sunset reached out her right and placed it on Adagio’s arm. “Adagio… I wish there was another way, but—”

Adagio ripped her arm away as her head whipped around so quickly the locks of hair on either side of her face began to sway. “No. Don’t apologize.” Adagio shook her head. “You were stronger than us. You were all the victors.” Her eyes tightened and Sunset could see something of a dangerous gleam in those magenta orbs. “I’m not going to have you start force-feeding me your human or pony garbage pity because there’s an aspect of our defeat you regret.”

“Uh… Right,” Sunset said, suddenly unsure of what to say. Unsure if there was anything she could say to that.

Surprisingly, Adagio’s expression softened as a small smile appeared on it. “Besides…” She turned her head and looked out towards the room’s doorway again where the sounds of Aria cheering on Flash as Applejack cried out in frustration could be heard. “Maybe things aren’t so bad right now… Maybe it’s okay to enjoy the little things in life while we have this time.”

Sunset found her own small smile appearing on her lips. “Wow, Adagio… I’m happy to hear you say that.”

Adagio nodded. “Had this all happened before TV had been invented though, we would have killed you all in your sleep,” she said, smile still on her face.

Sunset let out a chuckle.

Adagio’s smile fell. “No, seriously. I’m not joking. Had this gone down maybe 100 years ago, or earlier, we’d have hunted you all down one by one and took you out…” Adagio smirked wickedly. “We’d probably manage to make it all look like accidents, too.”

Unexpectedly, Sunset’s smile grew into something dark as well. “You might want to consider cutting your hair,” she said.

“… Excuse me?” Adagio asked in confusion.

“Long hair like that? It can get caught in all kinds of things… car doors, wheels, random exposed machines with moving parts… I mean…” Sunset’s smile suddenly went full demonic and she raised her mug. “You never know when you’re one little accident away from being shuffled off this mortal coil.”

Adagio stared at Sunset for a moment and then slowly, another smile, a mirror of Sunset’s appeared on her face. “I’m happy to have met you, Sunset Shimmer,” Adagio said.

Sunset’s smile suddenly turned from something sinister to something bright and chipper. “You know what? I think you’re starting to grow on me a little as well.”

Adagio picked up her mug and tapped it against Sunset’s before both women brought their cups to their lips.

“Ugh! NO!” Aria exclaimed. “I still can’t believe this is even possible!”

Again, Sonata said nothing, instead holding her own controller in her hands as she moved it back and forth over her mouth like it was a corn cob.

Sunset and Adagio walked out into the living room, Sunset looking down at Sonata in concern. “You think a mouth guard is enough?” she asked Aria.

“It keeps your teeth in when you’re punched in the face!” Aria snapped back as she leaned hard to her right, pressing against Flash as she glared daggers at the TV and continued to work her thumbs on her controller furiously. “Yeah… I think it’ll do!”

Sunset just snorted out a short laugh and looked towards the ceiling, shaking her head slightly. She looked over her compatriots in today’s adventures.

Applejack was on the couch, her shoulders slumped and her arms limp as she sneered at the TV screen, seemingly even unable to take joy from Aria’s at the hands…mouth of Sonata. Flash also looked at the screen, but his eyes were becoming unfocused and he stifled a yawn.

“Ready to go?” Sunset floated towards the group, as much a suggestion as a question.

“Ugh, YES!” Applejack exclaimed as she stood up. “Ah don’t think Ah can take any more irritation for the night.” She shook her head. “Anythin’d be better than hanging out here.”

Flash glanced at Applejack and wordlessly got to his feet.

“WHAT THE HELL?!” Aria screamed, nearly throwing her controller on the floor.

“Kuma wins!”

Applejack smirked. “Keep at it… I’m sure you’ll get her eventually.”

Aria sneered at Applejack. “Kicked your ass…”

Applejack narrowed her eyes. “How ‘bout a rematch sometime?”

Aria smirked. “Video games or a real fight?”

“Yes.”

Aria’s smirk turned into a full-toothed smile framed with fiery amethyst eyes. “Right… See you around, cowpoke.”

“Do you have to leave?” Adagio warbled sweetly. “I can make more drinks…” She gave the trio a wry smile. “We can all get teenaged wasted!”

“Tempting!” Sunset said. “But I think we’re all exhausted.”

“Ugh… That’s putting it mildly,” Applejack said.

Adagio pursed her lips into a frown. “No seriously. I'm sorry I roped you all into this, but please stay. I’ll order take-out… Pizza! Chinese! Anything.”

The three looked down at Sonata as she seemingly tried to shove the entire controller in her mouth. This somehow didn’t seem to be doing Aria any favors as the Dazzling continued growling angrily at what was transpiring on the television.

“I think we’re good,” Sunset said. She motioned towards Sonata, “Besides, you two have way more experience with Sonata than us.”

“That’s why I’m trying to bribe you into staying!”

All three couldn’t help but smile at Adagio.

“Consider it good life experience!” Sunset said.

Adagio’s eyes tightened into a glare. “I will get you back for this!”

Sunset just laughed and swatted at the air dismissively. “Hey! I did you a favor! Maybe I’ll collect sometime…”

“Well, uh… Guess this is goodbye?” Flash said.

Staring at the screen, Aria grunted an acknowledgment, then tilted her body to the right again as she continued rapidly tapping at her controller.

“Right. Go,” Adagio said coldly.

Sunset shrugged at Flash and the three friends began to turn.

“Kuma wins!”

“WHAT THE EFF?!”

Before the three could take more than a few steps, Sonata sat down her controller and got to her feet. She dove for the three and took them all in a big bear hug.

“Gha!” Sunset exclaimed.

“What in tarnation?!” Applejack added.

“Uh… Hi?!” Flash said in confusion.

“I think she’s grateful,” Adagio informed.

Sonata suddenly pranced around to the front of the group and gave each one a quick peck on the lips, much to the group’s confusion.

Aria tossed a simmering glower in the direction of Sonata.

“Really grateful,” Adagio said as Sonata scrambled back to her spot in front of the television.

“Uh… right…” Sunset said. “We’ll just be… going.”

Adagio rolled her eyes and motioned for the three to leave. “Yeah… shoo, shoo…”

Again, the three continued their journey towards the front of the house, eventually making it to the front steps of the Dazzlings’ large, purple two-story house with its completely unkempt lawn and overgrown flower beds.

Frowning, Flash glanced back. “Do you really think they have it handled?”

Sunset chuckled. “You sound worried for them…”

“Kind of, yeah…” Flash admitted.

Sunset shook her head. “You always were so kind-hearted…” She shrugged. “I’m sure they know how to take care of themselves.”

“Ugh… yeah,” Applejack said, “It’s what they’re good at.”

Flash frowned. “So… neither of you—?”

“No!” both girls exclaimed simultaneously.

“That was a nightmare!” Applejack howled.

Sunset nodded. “Yes. That was more than enough Dazzlings for one day.” She glanced at Flash. “I mean, we’re not going to stop you if you want to go back!”

Flash seemed to think about this for a moment.

Back inside the house, Aria quickly leaped off the couch and shoved her controller into Adagio’s hands.

“Wha—”

“Keep her busy!” Aria said as she rushed off towards the door. “I’ll be right back.”

“Aria?! What are—”

“Kuma wins!”

Adagio turned and glared at the TV. “Oh… It. Is. On!”

“Hey, Flash,” Aria called as she flung open the door.

Startled from his train of thought “Uh, yeah?” Flash turned around.

Without so much as a warning or invitation, Aria leaned forward and planted a deep kiss right on and into the mouth of a very unexpecting Flash Sentry.

Sunset and Applejack regarded the scene in stunned silence. In fact, this was not altogether unlike how Flash regarded it.

As quickly and as intensely as it began, it was over and Aria broke off the kiss. “Catch ya’ later, okay?” she said, her expression and tone as even as it had been before she decided her tongue needed to explore the insides of Flash’s mouth.

“Uh, sure?!” Flash uttered, clearly still in a state of confusion.

Seemingly satisfied, Aria turned and walked back inside. The only hint that she herself acknowledged that anything out of the ordinary happened being that her hips swayed with a little more energy before she shut the door behind her.

With Aria behind a closed door, Sunset, Applejack, and Flash stood in silence for a few more moments.

“… Uh…” Flash turned back towards the girls. “That was kinda weird, right?”

“Kind of?!” Applejack exclaimed. “That was flat out of the clear blue sky!”

Sunset nodded. “Yeah… I don’t think anyone could have predicted Aria would have done that…” A small smirk appeared on Sunset’s lips. “I guess that’s just how she lets people know she likes them.”

Flash raised an eyebrow. “Kind of a forward way of doing it, don’t you think?!”

“Well, yeah,” Sunset said. “But it’s Aria… She possesses all the subtlety of a sledgehammer with a rocket assist.”

“I, uh… I don’t know what to do about that,” Flash admitted.

Sunset grinned and bumped her shoulders against Flash. “Give her a call sometime when you’re lonely. It might do you some good to have a few girls in your phone for booty calls.”

Flash frowned as he produced his phone. “Maybe? But I don’t even have her num…” His forehead tightened as he looked his screen and swiped at his phone a few times where the message ‘Hey, nerd. It’s Aria’ greeted him. “Apparently, I do have her number.”

Sunset smiled. “See, there ya go!”

Applejack shook her head. “I’m surprised yer not rushing back inside already.”

Another thoughtful look flashed across Flash’s face. “It’s been quite a day. Maybe, it’d be best to think about things first.”

“Hyuk.” Applejack shook her head. “You’ve got some impressive willpower for a boy.”

Sunset playfully punched Applejack’s shoulder. “Sexist much?”

“What?!” Applejack protested with a smile. “It was a complime—”

‘Buzzzzz! Buzzzz!’

Eye’s tightening, both Applejack and Sunset produced phones looked at them.

The color from Applejack’s face drained immediately.

Sunset merely stared at her phone for a bit, a slow, creeping dread slowly growing across her face like ivy taking over the wall of a building.

“Uh… Everything alright?” Flash asked.

“P-Pinkie’s g-gettin’ a flu shot t-tomorrow…” Applejack stuttered out.

Mouth agape and eyes still focused on the same spot, Sunset’s arms went limp and she let her phone dangle down around her thighs.

“And that’s… bad?” Flash asked.

Applejack locked her spring green eyes with Flash’s azure ones. “Remember the time there was a big hoopla around the hospital with that hostage situation when we were in middle-school? You know, where an entire SWAT team got deployed and taken out?”

“Uh… Yes. How could I forge-THAT WAS PINKIE?!” Flash exclaimed in disbelief.

Applejack nodded her head up and down. “She, uh… She’s scared of needles…” she offered as if that somehow explained the event.

“Two SWAT teams…” Sunset murmured.

“What?!” Applejack said. “But I heard—”

Sunset shook her head. “There was a slight cover up… The police tried to downplay how bad things got… I mean… it doesn’t reflect that well on them that two whole SWAT teams had to be treated for concussions, broken bones, and type 2 diabetes after a run in with a scared, hysterical 14-year-old.” Sunset looked up. “Hence, why no one tried to charge Pinkie with anything…”

Flash tiled his head slightly. “How’d you know that?” he asked.

Sunset gave Flash a slightly guilty look. “I looked up Pinkie’s past with the rest of my friends back when I wanted to win the Spring Fling… We’re talking a pretty deep dive. Even with learning Pinkie had severe trypanophobia as a weakness, I nearly dropped the whole plan because of what I thought she might do to me if she found out I sabotaged her friendships…” Sunset’s eyes went distant. “Even after I had won the competition, I had trouble sleeping for weeks…” she let out a sigh laden heavy with fatigue.

Applejack exhaled deeply through her nose and let out. “Well, Pinkie’s our friend! She’s gonna need someone to support her…”

Flash pulled his lips into a tight grimace. “I guess it would be kinda wrong to just ignore this, huh?”

“Rainbow Dash is the Element of Loyalty, right?” Sunset asked.

Applejack and Flash turned towards her.

“Uh…” Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Are ya saying what ah think yer saying?”

“Well, it’s just that clearly someone will help Pinkie tomorrow even if we don’t!”

Applejack hung her head and sighed, shaking it from side to side. “That just ain’t right… It’s not like we have anything better...” Applejack slowly raised her head back up. “… to …” She looked at Sunset, then Flash. “… do…”

“…”

All three friends exchanged brief glances, then nodded. They turned and made a mad dash for the Dazzlings’ front door, all three pounding on it with their fists.

‘Knock! Knock! Knock!’

“Adagio?!” Sunset called out. “I changed my mind! Drinking myself until I do something wildly irresponsible sounds great! I’ll even help you with Sonata!”

‘Knock! Knock! Knock!’

“Hey, Aria!” Applejack called out. “How about Ah collect on that rematch right now! Whichever of the two... BOTH of ‘em, even!”

‘Knock! Knock! Knock!’

“Uh… Aria!” Flash called. “Hey! I’m kinda, maybe, sorta seeing this Princess from another dimension, but maybe we can hang out a bit, and make out a bit, and get naked a bit, and do what comes naturally! And—

‘Knock! Knock! Knock!’

“PLEASE JUST LET US IN!”

The End

Chapter 1: Better Problem Resolution by Getting Someone Else to Do It

A tortured moan drifted up from a dark, damp cavern, vibrating fleshy, bulbous stalactite as it makes its way to an opening. Slipping past rows of dingy white stones that line the top and bottom of an opening, it escaped into the world and brought with it a feeling of pain and sorrow. Outside this maw of the cave, Adagio Dazzle and Aria Blaze stare in, both of them wearing matching expressions of disgust as they peer into the foreboding and filthy abyss.

Their eyes drifted over the grimy insides and the longer they stared, the more disgusted their expressions became. It was as if they knew the fate of everything that entered such a location. As if they knew the only thing that could come from entering such a foul place was misery.

Adagio nodded slightly towards Aria. “You go in.”

“No way! You go in!”

Adagio shook her head. “I wouldn’t stick a digit in there if my life depended on it.”

Aria smirked. “You must hear that one a lot.”

Adagio turned to glare at Aria. “Not really, no... Look, as your leader, I order you to get in there!”

Aria snorted. “Leader?! Ever since we got blasted by that Technicolor Pink Void album cover lookin’ horse thing, the only thing you’ve lead us to is a better data plan on our phones.” She frowned slightly. “Which is actually nice… but still!”

Another pained moan escaped from the gaping maw in front of the pair.

Adagio sighed. “Well someone needs to figure out what’s wrong with Sonata! This is somehow worse than regular Sonata.”

Aria pursed her lips. “Well… you’re not wrong.”

Her mouth still wide open, Sonata lowered her eyelids and let out a groan of protest.

“What?!” Aria snapped. “You’re all clingy and whinny!”

Sonata dove forward and wrapped her arms around Aria. “But it huuuuurrrrrrts…!” she moaned.

“See,” Aria said as she attempted to pry Sonata off of her. “This is exactly what I’m talking about!”

The girls stood in their well furnished living room full of gaudy items of gold and purple furniture. Adagio let out a sigh and collapsed onto a big purple couch sitting under a massive clock with a circular gold-colored frame with spikes of different sizes jutting out in lengths of six inches to a foot. She shook her head. “At least look up her symptoms online or something!”

“I already did!” Aria exclaimed as she struggled to free herself of Sonata’s needy grasp. “It looks like Sonata has ‘network connectivity problems’.”

Adagio narrowed her eyes at Aria.

“Joking!” Aria said as she raised her hands in front of her. “I tried to look up what was wrong with Sonata, but all she does is moan, say her teeth hurt, and latch on to me! Not exactly a ton to go off of there.” Aria looked down at Sonata who was still firmly wrapped around her stomach. “Would you get off already?!”

“NO!”

“Go hug Adagio or something!”

“No way!” Adagio said as she swung her hands in front of her. “She already crawled into bed with me last night! She spent the whole night cozying up to me and moaning! It was horrible!” Adagio frowned and stared up at her eyelids. “… Never thought I’d say that.”

“Well what do we do?!” Aria exclaimed. “Watching her suffer in pain is barely fun anymore and now she’s all…”

Sonata let out another sorrowful moan.

“… This!” Aria said as she pointed down at Sonata.

Adagio shrugged. “Take her out back and give her the Old Yeller treatment?”

Sonata giggled. “Hehehe… I like that movie. So funny! Owowowowowowwwwoooooo!”

Adagio raised an eyebrow and looked at Aria. “I take it she’s never seen the ending of that one.”

Aria shook her head. “Oh she’s seen it. Seen it and rewound it over and over again just to laugh to herself.” Aria’s eyes unfocused for a moment. “It was really creepy.”

“You can’t shoot me!” Sonata insisted. “I don’t even have rabies! I need to defend Aria against a rabid wolf first! Owwwwwwwwoooooooowwwwwwie!”

“So… what?” Aria said. “Do we need to go to the zoo or something?”

Adagio shook her head. “Zoos don’t keep rabid animals. We’d have to find an animal with rabies, capture it… have it bite a wolf at the zoo then steal said wolf.”

“Uhg...” Grunted Aria. “There goes our weekend…”

Adagio shook her head. “These are dark times for us, Aria.”

Aria gave Adagio a quizzical look. “So you actually want to go forward with the whole rabid wolf plan?”

Adagio closed her eyes and pressed fingertips against her forehead. “I know it’s hard for you, but don’t be idiotic!”

“Hey!” Aria snapped. “You brought up Old Yeller in the first place!”

Adagio shook her head. “Forget that stupid movie!”

“Never!” Sonata cried, punctuating her statement with a pained moan.

Adagio continued, “What I meant was we’ve never been mortal. Mortals age! Mortals have to deal with stuff like disease and acne!” Adagio looked down at her chest with a frown. “Mortals have to deal with their bodies getting all saggy and wrinkly.”

“Oh! Oh!” Sonata chimed in excitedly. “Like that doggy! You know… the Sharpie!”

Aria looked down at Sonata in confusion. “… What?”

Adagio shook her head. “She means ‘Shar-Pei’.” She continued, “Who knows what new and horrible human things we’re dealing with now! What terrible and tragic changes are going to befall us now that we’re… ugh… getting older. What we need is someone who’s been there. Someone else who’s gone from a world of spells and magic to technology and bodies that betray you. What we need is—”

-ooo-

Sunset Shimmer let out a heavy sigh as she stood in front of the Dazzlings’ doorstep. Much like the Dazzlings themselves, their house was almost impossible to ignore. Although structurally it was just as large and shaped similarly to the houses around it, there were several factors that made it stick out like a thumb that had been whacked with a hammer repeatedly. The Dazzlings house was painted a bizarre mix of purple, blue, and orange splashed across the house in a fairly nonsensical way. It was if the three girls couldn’t decide which color to paint the house and rather than compromise, had some sort of paint war that raged on until the house was conveniently covered and the point became moot when they couldn’t be bothered to care at that point. Now that she had conjured up that image, Sunset would have been surprised if the truth turned out to be anything different.

Additionally, the lawn was also a mess of different grass lengths. Not so much as if someone had mowed it and got bored halfway through, but more like someone attempted to trim the grass with a sword. Although there were a few flower beds amongst the flora, these beds ranged from colorful unkempt masses to lumps of dead plants.

Still simply standing in place, Sunset let out yet another sigh.

“You’ve been sighing non-stop since we started driving over here!”

Sunset turned around to face the country girl who had just addressed her.

Applejack continued, “Don’tcha think you’re maybe frettin’ yer pigs are gonna run wild before you even open the pen?”

Sunset shook her head. “The Dazzlings don’t know how to do anything but run wild! You should know that by now!”

“Shoot, they’re just normal teenagers like you and me now!” Applejack said. “Can’t be all that bad…”

Sunset’s shoulders dropped along with her eyelids. “You don’t have to deal with them as often as me. Even without the ability to mind control people and magically make everyone around them angry, the girls are still a blight upon this planet! They spread disaster and just general weirdness wherever they go!”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Well if that’s what ya think, you seemed awfully eager to get away from mah home.”

“Sorry,” Sunset said earnestly. “But horseback riding is kinda weird for me.”

Applejack frowned. “Huh… Guess that was a tad insensitive of me to suggest.”

Sunset nodded. “Also your horse keeps giving me this look… Like he knows what I am.”

“Guess that’d be a might unsettling.”

Sunset turned and stepped up to the door. “Plus I think he likes me because of that.”

“Shoot, he’s a friendly horse. He likes everybody!”

Sunset turned and gave Applejack a sideways glance. “That’s not the type of like I’m talking about.”

Applejack’s eyes widened and the color drained from her face as if she had just thrown open a door and accidentally walked into a barn with one of her best friends getting rather close to one of her farm animals. “Well there’s an image that’ll haunt my nightmares for a few weeks.”

Sunset turned back towards the door and rolled her eyes. “Believe me” –Sunset knocked on the door— “that’s nothing compared to what we’re about to go through.”

The door suddenly opened as two pairs of hands pushed Sonata out. Sonata quickly wrapped her arms around Sunset Shimmer and moaned into her chest as the door was closed just as quickly as it was opened.

“Case in point,” Sunset said without missing a beat.

“Huh…” Applejack said. “Does she always do that?”

Sunset quickly thrust her fingertips down past Sonata’s arms, pushed against the arms with her palms, and escaped Sonata’s grasp. “Sorry, Applejack.”

“Sorry? Sorry for—”

Sunset pushed Sonata into Applejack who responded with an “Ooof!” before Sonata wrapped her arms around her.

Sonata giggled. “You smell like apples!”

“Uh… Thanks?”

“Owieowieowieowie!”

“HEY!” Sunset cried as she gave the door several hard knocks. “YOU CAN’T JUST FOIST SONATA ON ME!”

“SUCKS TO BE YOU!” Aria shouted from behind the closed door. “SHE’S YOUR PROBLEM NOW!”

“YOU’RE ALL MY PROBLEM!” Sunset shot back. “BUT I’M GOING TO NEED BOTH OF YOU TO KEEP THIS LITTLE MANIAC IN CHECK!”

Sonata looked up at Applejack with innocent eyes and let out a whimper.

“This sweetie pie?!” Applejack exclaimed. “What kind of trouble could she get into on her lonesome?”

Sunset turned towards Applejack and gave her a heavy glare. “The kind that requires a SWAT team to defuse.”

Sonata giggled. “Someone has been following my Instagram~!” she said in a sing-song tone. “Also, ooooooohhhhooowwwwwwwwwooooooooooooiiiiiiiieeee—”

“We GET it!” Sunset snapped.

A window on the second story of the house opened and Adagio appeared. “I don’t see what your problem is. You have Applesnack to help you!”

“Applesna-I MEAN Applejack lacks the mental fortitude to deal with Sonata!” Sunset fired back.

Applejack looked down at Sonata and back up at Sunset. “You really think she’s that bad?!”

Sunset shook her head. “I don’t think so. I know so!”

Adagio gave Sunset a smug smile. “Well we’re not opening up, so you’re stuck with her until she’s fixed!”

Sunset looked up with a sneer... a sneer that quickly gave way to a thoughtful look. “Hey Aria!” she shouted at the door.

“I’M NOT OPENING THIS DOOR!” Aria shouted back.

Sunset continued, “You get the latest Tekken game yet?!”

“Don’t be stupid! Of COURSE I got it!”

Sunset grinned to herself. “Betcha would like a few people to thwomp on!”

“PFFFT! Nice try! But beating on you is getting… Wait…” The door opened a crack, allowing one of her deep amethyst eyes to poke out. “A few…?”

“Arrrrrriaaaaaa…” Adagio growled as she leaned out the window.

Sunset nodded. “Applejack’s not half bad at fighting games and Rainbow Dash is like the easiest person to get to do something if she’s challenged.”

Aria thought about this for a moment. “Fine! But I’m not doing this without Adagio.”

“I refuse!” Adagio said.

Sunset’s grin turned just a touch devilish. “Then go get her!” she said to Aria.

Adagio’s eyes shot open wide. “What! Aria, no! You can’t just—”

Aria suddenly closed the door.

A slightly panic struck look took over Adagio’s features. “Don’t come up here!” Adagio cried as she turned back into the room. “I’ll… I’ll scream for help!”

Sunset looked up and smirked. “Riiiiight… Like we care.”

Adagio turned back out the window and glared down at Sunset. “Look, I’m the leader of this group for a reason. You really think-AH!” Adagio let out a startled yelp as purple arms wrapped themselves around her and began to pull her away from the window. “ARIA! LET GO!” Adagio cried as she quickly grabbed onto the window frame. “AS YOUR LEADER I COMMAND YOU TO LET GO!” Adagio shouted as she began to claw at the wooden window frame, scraping away splotchy paint and even bits of wood.

Still grinning, Sunset spoke, “What are you going to do? Jump out the window? We’re already down here.”

“I WANT HUGS, ADAGIO!” Sonata shouted from below.

Realization quickly grabbed ahold of Adagio just as much as the vice-like grip Aria had on her. She sighed and went limp as Aria dragged her away from the window.

Soon Aria opened the front door, an arm wrapped around Adagio’s waist as the orange-haired woman hung like a corpse in her grasp. “Alright, so what—”

“ARIA!” Sonata exclaimed with the tone of someone seeing a long-lost loved one for the first time in years. She let go of Applejack and wrapped her arms around Aria.

Aria looked down, sighed, and shook her head. “I have so many regrets right now.”

Sensing Aria was suddenly preoccupied, Adagio broke free of the arm around her waist, landing on the ground on all fours. She made a mad dash for the open door…

“Nope!” Sunset said.

‘SLAM!’

‘THUD!’

… and ran smack dab into it as Sunset closed it shut.

“Ow…” Adagio uttered with her face planted against the door. She quickly pulled her face back and began to frantically claw at the closed door like an animal trying to signal it wanted in from a raging rainstorm.

Sunset shook her head. “Forget it! We’re all in this now! You’re just going to have to deal.”

Adagio let out a defeated sigh and turned. “Fine! But let’s make this quick! Netflix won’t wait forever.”

Aria raised an eyebrow. “It kinda will… It’s sorta its thing.”

“Hey,” Applejack interjected, “maybe we can help better if you told us what was wrong with Sonata.”

Sonata turned and looked at Applejack with a pout on her face. “My teeth huuuuuuuurrrrrrrt!” She moaned.

Adagio nodded. “And there’s no way Aria and I are putting our hands into the fetid cavern of rotting tacos.”

“Ew…” Applejack said as her left eye twitched.

“Told you,” Sunset said with a quick glance at Applejack. She looked back at Adagio. “Well what the heck do you want from me?!” Sunset asked. “It’s not like I have magic healing powers!”

“You must have dealt with stuff like this before,” Adagio answered. “I mean, you did once suddenly find yourself a human too!”

“Well, I suppose...” Sunset mused as she rubbed her chin. “But do you really need me for this? I mean, the solution is obvious!”

“Hey, I know!” Applejack spoke up. “When is it time to go to the dentist?”

Everyone else turned to stare at Applejack.

Applejack grinned wide. “Tooth-hurty! Heh, heh, heh…”

Sonata let out a short giggle, cut off by a long moan.

Sunset and Adagio simultaneously put on unamused looks and rolled their eyes.

“Sonata?” Aria said as she stared at Applejack. “Hug Dagi.”

“What?!” Adagio cried.

“’Kay!” Sonata exclaimed as she dove on top of Adagio and wrapped her arms around her, bringing both girls to the ground.

“ACK!” Adagio cried.

Aria suddenly let loose a fist straight into Applejack’s solar plexus. The air suddenly gone from her lungs, Applejack wrapped her arms around her midsection and collapsed to the ground.

Sunset shook her head and looked downwards. “You brought this on yourself, AJ.”

Aria stared at her fist and shook her fingers loose. “Ow… Geez! You must have like… a stomach of rock under there.”

“… Tha… thanks…” Applejack uttered from the ground.

“Yeah,” Aria said, “so is it all that farm work, or do you—AH!”

Without warning, Applejack lunged at Aria and brought her to the ground.

‘THUD!’

“Ya dang sucker-punching varmint!” Applejack cried as she pinned Aria to the grass and delivered a few solid blows into Aria’s sides.

Aria retaliated in kind as she struggled to free herself from Applejack’s grasp. “Your jokes are bad and you should FEEL bad!”

As the two struggled on the ground, another pair of girls were engaged in a struggle of their own.

“Sonata! Let go of me!” Adagio cried.

“NO!” Sonata said. “Your hair is fluffy and soft like a baby panda pelt blankie!” Sonata declared as she rubbed her face against Adagio’s hair.

Sunset’s turquoise eyes became unfocused as she stared off far, far into the distance…

“This is fine.”

…past the horizon, past the atmosphere…

“I’m okay with the events that are unfolding currently.”

… past the bounds of known space…

“That’s okay, things are going to be okay.”

Chapter 7: Epic Adventures of the Drug Induced Kind

Sonata Dusk laid back and stared upwards, not that she had a lot of choice in the matter given just how many belts the chair used to restrain her on it. There were so many belts in fact, Sonata wondered if she could maybe make an entire skirt out of them like one of the characters from Aria’s video games. Of course, even attempting to make completely belt clothing wasn’t really an option considering she couldn’t move.

Instead, Sonata decided to look up into the sky of shifting white and black sand, and then she decided what she was seeing didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Sand wasn’t supposed to float above people and constantly shift between its convenient square boundaries set amongst pillars of pure light! Sand was decidedly unfloaty unless it was at the ocean, which was its natural habitat. Everyone knew that. This disturbing sight of floating sky sand could mean only one thing… Her captor, ‘the Dentist’ (cue dramatic music here), was also stealing from the ocean and using sand in some no-doubt evil anti-gravity experiments.

Did her evil know any bounds, or limits or even the occasional time in the corner to think about what it’s done? No, probably not. She probably even litters.

Sonata momentarily considered saving the sandy sand-like sand that floated above her, but her attempt at moving reminded her that she was also a prisoner in the strange, bright dungeon controlled by the evil ‘the Dentist’. Her arms and legs were held in place and there was even some strange force pushing down on her… Of course! ‘The Dentist’ was also using some sort of gravity ray on her to keep her in place!

Sonata’s eyes widened as she wondered if all dentists were sun-merrily evil. Many of her trusted puppet and cartoon friends had assured her going to the dentist was nothing to be afraid of… They wouldn’t lie to her, right? They taught Sonata about so many other things and those things were true as near as Sonata could tell. I mean, sure sometimes those things they taught her weren’t fun. Broccoli, while supposedly good for her, was just icky, and not even something she could really put on a taco or pizza and she hated it! AND WHY DID THEY KEEP ON SAYING SHE HAD TO EAT IT?!

Sonata gasped. “Gasp!”Maybe they really were wrong and all dentists actually were evil! I mean… It’s not like they were ever right about scary movies, which were always super funny! Could it… Could they be wrong about dentists and a bunch of other things?! Sonata had suspected that whole ‘wash your hands before and after every meal’ thing was just the nerf-air-ee-us soap companies coming up with lies to fill their greedy pockets!

But… but ’the Dentist’ had to be an especially special evil dentist. Perhaps she even had a secret base shaped like a tooth and dental bots! Oh… And she probably had all kinds of evil tricks and schemes she was working on, like enamel-seeking teddy bears to break teeth and mind-control tooth filling!

Yes, that had to be it! If Sonata couldn’t trust her friends from TV, who could she trust?! Would she even be able to keep believing they were still real and not like… puppets (meta-for-cycle speaking of course, I mean, they were certainly real puppets and not fake puppets) controlled by the hands of shadowy figures?! And...and… Why was it that sometimes cartoon people all had only one or two different skin colors?! Could… could that be a lie?! Was her entire life a lie?! Why do people park in the driveway and drive in the parkway?!

So many questions. Like… like… Was Sonata just the victim of unfortunate circumstances, or was this punishment for some sort of sin… Specifically a mouth-based sin… Had too many tacos made her teeth turn gray?! Was that why they hurt so much… er… before?

Sonata felt her eyes widen. Whatever strange experiments were being done on her body meant it took a lot of focus to feel much of everything… But… but, the pain in her mouth was gone… This might have been cause for like… a big party or something, but she couldn’t feel her mouth at all! Maybe her entire mouth had been stolen! And that was more of a cause for like… big concern for realzies!

“Oh my gosh!” a female voice exclaimed. “Your mouth isn’t missing. Dr. Colgate just numbed it so you wouldn’t freak out so much as she examines it.”

Sonata tried to turn her head towards the sound of the voice, but it wouldn’t budge. Uh, her head, pacific-alley. Not the voice… The voice could move as far as Sonata knew. Instead our daring heroine moved her eyes to try to see where the voice had come from.

Sonata gasped!

“Gasp!”

It was a talking pile of bacon! “Hello talking pile of bacon!” Sonata greeted. “Are you my fairy guardian mom-angel or just some random experiment from ‘the Dentist’ (more dramatic music!) who has mind-reading powers?! Er… I mean you have the mind-reading powers… I really hope the evil ‘the Dentist’ doesn’t have mind-reading powers!”

The pile of bacon shook itself, its delicious-looking slabs of cooked pork flying every direction. “I’m neither of those things! It’s me, Sunset Shimmer!”

Sonata gasped again! “Gasp again! So ‘the Dentist’ transformed you into bacon who can somehow read minds?! That’s horrible! I mean… maybe reading minds is not so bad, but being bacon, as delicious as it might be, is probably horrible.”

“Sonata, I’m not bacon and I can’t read minds!” Sunset Bacon Pile, who was clearly in denial, rearranged her bacon face into an angry bacon face. “You’ve just been narrating your weird dental drug-induced hallucinations in the third person for a few minutes now!”

“Don’t worry Sunset Bacon Pile!” Sonata closed her eyes and began opening and closing her fingers. “Once I use the force to retrieve my lightsaber and free myself, we can quest for the magic dragon balls, wish for the legendary One Piece treasure where we’ll ALSO find the One Ring, and then we’ll teach the Terminator and Freddy Krueger the true meaning of flag day before we all finally make our way to Mount Doom where we can destroy the ring and free the land of this teeth tyrant and also Mumm-Ra the Everliving!”

Sunset raised a hand to her forehead and groaned. While this was probably better than having Sonata play ‘make believe spitting dinosaur’, the amount of whatever it was that was now in her system had made her forget how thinking works and she was a near-unstoppable chatterbox listing off whatever strange things she thought she saw or whatever she was thinking at the time.

“Sonata gasped yet again! ‘Gasp yet again!’ Do you think the Dentist is stealing teeth in an evil gambit to force the tooth fairy out a jorrawrrrb? Arr mrraarrraa… Tarrwarra wwwraarrourr…”

Sonata’s speech suddenly turned incomprehensible as Doctor Colgate put her Sonic Scaler and a tiny mirror on a thin handle inside her patient’s mouth. Sonata seemed mostly oblivious to this fact as she continued to attempt communication with Sunset despite the small tools in her mouth.

“That’s quite enough of that,” Dr. Colgate said. “I was curious to see how that whole magic Jedi plot to destroy my bizarre league of evil was going to play out.” Colgate sighed and frowned. “But then you just had to make everything cliché with the whole tooth fairy thing.”

Sunset looked up at the Doctor and shook her head. “Isn’t that illegal?”

Colgate glanced down at Sonata and then shifted her gaze to Sunset. “Which part?”

“Any of it? All of it?!” Sunset asked. She motioned to Sonata. “The straps, the copious amount of drugs you filled Sonata with, the fact that you’re examining her mouth while straddling her!”

Colgate merely shrugged from her perch on Sonata’s abdomen. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Colgate said as she focused her tools and attention back to Sonata’s mouth. “At this point it seems all three things are necessary to keep this squirming girl in place.”

Sunset closed her eyes hard and shook her head. “Well, I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but this seems a bit dangerous… even more so for you than Sonata! I guess I’m a bit impressed, but also maybe a little concerned over the lengths you’d go to work on her teeth.”

Colgate turned and grinned at Sunset. “Well, as much fun as it was to give that cesspool of a mouth a much needed cleaning, I have a job to do and can’t very well let her go back into the world moaning in horrible tooth pain. What kind of dentist would I be if I couldn’t deal with a tooth problem regardless of if it’s attached to a rambunctious young woman or a giant acid spewing monster?”

Sunset pursed her lips. Colgate was remarkably hard to read and good at saying just about anything deadpan when she wasn’t overly excited or whipped up into a strange tooth-cleaning frenzy. Deciding asking for an explanation would probably net her a flippant response, Sunset just shook her head. “A sane, regular dentist?” she offered.

The corners of Colgate’s lips rose. “Oh, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place for that.” Her eyes suddenly widened and she quickly placed her tools on a dental tray before placing both sets of gloved fingers on Sonata’s lips as she used her thumbs to keep her mouth open. She tilted her head and leaned it down so that she was looking into Sonata’s open maw with her right eye. “Oh, would you look at that?!”

Sonata merely blabbered out more incomprehensible words in response.

Sunset once again looked at the scene in front of her in concern as she held a hand over her forehead. “Uh… Aren’t you afraid Sonata’s going to try to bite your thumbs off?”

Colgate shook her head. “I don’t think she even knows what planet she’s on at this point!” She turned her head and peered into the mouth with her left eye this time. “If she tries it, I’ll just bite her nose. That’ll make her reconsider!” Colgate shifted her eyes to look at Sunset again. “Now why aren’t you looking at this?!”

Sunset stared at Colgate blankly. “You’re asking me why I haven’t gone over there and tried to shove my face right into Sonata’s mouth as you hold it open…”

Colgate nodded. “Yes! I even invited you over! Don’t worry about the smell. Her mouth is practically stench free at this point.”

Sunset looked at Colgate in bemusement. “I think I’m going to take a pass on that.”

Colgate turned and peered into Sonata’s mouth again. “Okay, but you don’t know what you’re missing~!” She said in a sing-song tone.

Sunset once again sighed and shook her head, clasping the sides of it. Maybe she should have let Dr. Colgate tackle this on her own. ‘Stressful’ didn’t even begin to cover what she felt between Sonata’s hallucinations and the Dentist’s loopy behavior. Even with the other two Dazzlings out in the waiting room, no doubt Sunset was winning the ‘worst day’ competition by a mile or more.

-ooo-

Her massive collection of orange locks covering her face, Adagio Dazzle let out a long continuous sigh as she slumped forward in her seat. With her hair hanging down almost enough to touch the floor, about the only thing else visible on the siren was a pair of purple boots with golden spiky rings around her ankles and the high heels which had spikes on the back of them.

Aria still sat next to Adagio, an uncharacteristically concerned look on her face.

From a seat across from the two Dazzlings, Flash took a moment to stroke his chin and look over Adagio with a ponderous expression. He suddenly pointed at Adagio. “You know… With her hair covering her like that, she sort of looks like a sexy version of cousin It.”

Aria turned to glare at Flash for a moment before her eyes turned up slightly into her knitted brow. She then turned to Adagio, a deep frown coming onto Aria’s features as the hair-covered siren remained motionless.

“Sorry,” Flash said sheepishly. “Guess this isn’t the time…”

“Well, no,” Aria said, “But really, I’m more concerned Adagio didn’t take that as an invitation to jump you and take you off to some reasonably secluded place and have her way with you.”

“Uh… Wow,” Flash replied. “You really think she’d do it based on a weird comment like that?”

Aria shrugged. “She’s done pretty much the same thing to others with far less invitation.”

“Oh… okay then…” Flash said.

“Come on, Dagi!” Aria said. She motioned towards Flash. “Don’t you want to drag this reasonably cute guy off somewhere female caveman style because he has a weird hair fetish?”

Flash shook his head, his eyes widening. “Huh?! But I didn’t—”

“I’m not in the mood!” Adagio exclaimed from behind her hair curtain.

Aria recoiled slightly. “I… uh… I see…”

“Erm… Is that bad?” Flash asked.

“Depends on how you feel about the ability to make snowmen in Hell, I guess,” Aria replied. “Also depends on how much you were looking forward to your weird hair sex fantasy.”

Applejack walked down the hall, the suds and spittle cleaned off of her face. “Alright, what Ah miss?”

“I don’t have a weird hair sex fantasy!” Flash exclaimed.

“Whatever, weirdo,” Aria replied.

Applejack dropped her head and sighed. “Ah knew I shoulda took more time in the bathroom.”

Aria motioned to the hair pile that was Adagio. “Adagio doesn’t want to jump your cute guitar playing friend’s bones.”

A hand with its index finger pointed upwards emerged from the collection of orange curls. “Right this second,” Adagio clarified.

Aria nodded. “Right, at least right this second she doesn’t.”

“Oh… okay?” Applejack replied. “But uh… How is that a big deal? Ah mean, we’re kinda in a public place and it’s the middle of the day, so…”

Aria shook her head. “Man, you really haven’t figured anything out about us, have you?”

Applejack scrunched up her lips slightly. “Sorry if makin’ friends with y’all after you tried to take over the school wasn’t high on my ‘to do list’.”

“Again, hypocrite!” Aria hissed out.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Do ya even feel bad about the school thing?”

The left corners of Aria’s lips pulled to the side a bit. “I don’t know…” Aria said.

“See?!” Applejack said, leveling an accusing finger at Aria. “You don’t even know enough to feel bad about mind-controlling everyone and getting my friends and Ah to go at it like a flock of roosters in a cockfight free-for all!”

It was Flash’s turn to tighten his brow and glance upwards. “Is… is that a farm thing?”

Aria shook her head. “Oh, I don’t feel bad about that part.”

Applejack grumbled to herself and collapsed into the chair next to Flash. “Of course ya don’t.”

“Look Hayseed,” Aria began, “nothing personal but that school, your friends, and you were our ticket to getting our powers back! Our real powers. I dunno what, like… the human way to explain this but…” Aria thought for a moment. “Imagine if you were hit with a debuff that affected all your stats and you could never really get rid of it. Sure, you could feed off some energy here or there to lessen the effect a bit, but it wasn’t like a ‘remove curse’ spell or erm… like when you go to bed in RPGs and everything is fine when you wake up. Getting you girls to fight and then feeding off the energy was going to be our way to lift the ‘debuff’ curse on us.”

Applejack stared at Aria blankly. “Ah understood almost none of that.”

Aria folded her arms across her chest and rolled her eyes. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I got it,” Flash said.

“Great,” Aria said grumpily. “At least one of you isn’t a complete moron.”

Flash chuckled. “Heh. Thanks.”

Applejack gave Flash an irritated look. “Flash, that was about as ‘backhanded’ as compliments get.”

Flash nodded. “I know… but I guess from dating Sunset back when she was a bitc-Back from before she was nice, I’ve kinda learned to read between the lines in these situations.”

Aria continued, “Anyhow, we’ve now lost ALL our magic, but like… I dunno… Everything feels so different and we don’t have to go to cafes and sing until everyone is throwing scalding hot coffee at each other… I mean… I guess I miss that part, but the whole energy sucking thing was really cutting into my video game playing time.”

Applejack judgmentally stared at Aria. “So, you’re not sure if yer sorry just cause you lost your powers but get to play more video games?!”

“What the heck do you want from me?!” Aria said, throwing her hands out. “People were sorta just food to all of us for centuries! Excuse me for not eating a handful of happy pills so I can bounce off the walls and overload everyone with sugary baked goods until everyone is puking up stuff that makes it looks like they ate an entire rainbow.”

Applejack scoffed and folded her arms across her chest. “Pinkie’s naturally like that, she doesn’t need meds to make her feel good. Also, we’re not supposed to talk about the Cupcakolypse.” Applejack shivered slightly. “Some of us still have nightmares over that day.”

“Look, whatever!” Aria replied. “I don’t actually care if you care about us or not, but I figured you were at least paying enough attention to figure out when things are serious. Like if say… Sonata decides she’s not hungry, I don’t feel like punching something, or Adagio is too depressed to get it on with someone on a whim.”

“Okay, fine… Adagio’s depressed…” Applejack replied. “What do you propose we do about it?”

Aria shrugged. “How should I know?! You’re the one who's part of ‘team friendship’, can’t you like… put up the rainbow symbol, gather your other pony rangers, and blast Adagio until she feels up to feeling up strangers again?”

Applejack’s entire face tightened. “Ah’m not gonna pretend I know a whole heck-of-a-lot about our magic abilities, but Ah’m pretty sure they don’t work that way.”

“Ugh!” Aria exclaimed. “Then what good are they?”

Applejack frowned heavily. “Yer asking me what my friend’s and my magical powers, which have turned people back from being demons and stopped you and yer friends from taking over the school, are good for jus’ ‘cause I don’t think callin’ everyone up to transform and blast Adagio so she feels like hittin’ on people will work.”

Aria rolled her eyes. “Wow. Welcome to the conversation, hayseed.”

Applejack sighed. “Just checkin’…”

For a while, no one said anything, but sat quietly as the awkward silence rolled in to fill the void left by the awkward conversation.

Oddly enough, it was Adagio who decided to cut through the silence. “Aria, why haven’t you tried to take advantage of my weakened state?” Adagio asked from behind her hair cover.

Aria turned and raised an eyebrow. “Uh… ‘Cause that’s more your thing?”

“Not like that!” Adagio exclaimed. She inserted her fingers into her curtain of curls, and pulled back on a substantial collection of her hair. She flung this poofy mass of a mop behind her head, revealing half her face. “I mean, why haven’t you declared yourself ‘Leader of the Dazzlings’ or something? You used to just suggest that you should run things as punctuation to my sentences. You’re overdue as it is and now’s the perfect opportunity to declare yourself our new leader.”

Aria tightened her brow and her lips as she stared at Adagio briefly. “First of all, who do you take me for, Starscream?”

Adagio tilted her head and gave Aria an annoyed glance.

“Who’s Starscream?” Applejack enquired. “Does uh… he or she go to our school?” Applejack rubbed her chin. “Who’d name a kid Starscream, anyhow?”

Aria turned to Applejack with a deep frown on her face. “Seriously hayseed, you need to watch TV or spend more time on the internet or something!”

Applejack just let out a big sigh and leaned back in her seat. “Excuse me for breathin’…”

Flash piped up, “I understood that reference.”

“Great,” Aria said unenthusiastically. “At least most people in here are tracking the conversation. “Anyways, if I did take over I’d probably rename us ‘The Blazings’. Which I think we can all agree is a much better name.”

Flash chimed in, “Provided people don’t assume that’s like a drug thing.”

Applejack snickered.

Aria shot Flash a small glare. “Come on, dude! You were actually on my good side!”

Adagio glanced at Flash. “That’s not an easy thing to do.”

Flash held up a hand and gave Aria a sheepish smile. “Right, sorry.”

Aria turned back to Adagio. “Oh, and finally, I’m not sure what exactly I’m taking over at this point… I mean… Now we’re just three normal—”

Applejack coughed.

“—sorta normal girls,” Aria finished with an eye roll. “It’s not like we’re coming up with plans to make a big score of energy or even trying to take over high schools to get our powers back.”

Adagio groaned. “So our legacy is we once hijacked a school's band showcase and now we’re not even worth the effort for you to declare yourself the new leader of even when I’m at my lowest…”

“Well, again… I’m not sure what I’d be in charge of at this point,” Aria said. “Without powers that just means Sonata’s a whack-a-doodle and I sure the heck don’t want to get more involved in your affairs.” Aria shrugged. “So… you’re now the undisputed leader of us three… Congratulations…?” Aria looked up at Applejack and Flash. “You two need to say ‘congratulations’ too.”

“Erm… Congratulations?” Applejack said in an unsure tone.

Flash smiled and even clapped his hands a few times. “Congratulations!”

Adagio let out an extended groan and leaned forward so her hair was covering her face and most of her body again.

“Well that didn’t make her feel any better!” Applejack said.

Aria smirked. “Oh, that wasn’t for her. That was for me. I thought it’d be funny.”

“You’re the worst,” Adagio muttered.

“Naw,” Aria replied as she leaned back in her seat. “That title totally belongs to Sonata.” Aria tilted her head towards Adagio and stared at her intently. “What’s even eating you? Don’t tell me you’re now just coming to grips with the sorta-normal girls thing!”

Adagio sighed and brushed away half of the hair curtain in front of her face once more. “Not exactly, but I mean… Up until now I was at least mitigating those feelings by taking it out on Sunset Shimmer and her friends at every opportunity.”

“HAH!” Applejack said as she rose to her feet and leveled an accusing index finger at Adagio. “So the truth comes out! I knew ya low-down sea-snakes were still evil and trying to make life hard for all of us!”

Adagio rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself, country girl. It’s not like we sit around and plan how to get back at you, just more you’re our ‘go to’ contacts when we don’t want to deal with situations like this exact situation we’re in now with Sonata! It’s just… ugh… hating all of you was at least a nice outlet for the feelings of anger from having our powers stripped away.”

Applejack folded her arms across her chest. “Ah really don’t see how that’s supposed to make me feel better about everything.”

Adagio let out a heavy sigh. “Well… sorry…”

Applejack sat back down. “Uh… alright…”

Adagio tilted her head to face Aria again. “I just… I just don’t know what to do anymore…”

Aria shrugged. “You can replace your hate for The Rainbooms with a feeling of hate for just about everything like me.”

Adagio frowned. “That sounds exhausting.”

“Why do you think my sleep schedule is so messed up?”

Adagio groaned and shook her head, causing her massive locks of orange hair to bounce up and down lightly. “Pass.”

Aria threw up her hands. “Well, I don’t know! Maybe try developing a strong sense of uh… the weird word where you feel better about other people’s misery?”

“Schadenfreude?” Flash offered.

“Yeah!” Aria said pointing at Flash. “That thing.”

Adagio pursed her lips in contemplation. “Well… Maybe…”

A door down the hallway suddenly opened and Sunset Shimmer trudged back into the waiting room. Her hair was a frazzled, moist mess and she carried the haggard look of someone who had narrowly survived some harrowing event.

Everyone turned and stared at her.

“Uh… You alright, sugarcube?” Applejack asked.

Sunset sniffled as her turquoise eyes became glassy. “No!” she uttered. She took another look at the group, walked over to Flash and Applejack, and sat right down in Flash’s lap.

Flash looked up at Sunset in surprise for a second as she wrapped her arms around him, though a look of understanding quickly came over him as she began to speak.

“Oh, Flash! Sob-It was terrible! Sonata was all crazy and spitting toothpaste water everywhere! And… and-choke-and then she started hallucinating all kinds of strange things and narrating her own thoughts. Hhehh-Then Dr. Colgate found something and made me look into Sonata’s mouth and everything was weird and bad and I didn’t like it at ALL!” Sunset started to cry as she buried her face into Flash’s shoulder.

Flash gave Sunset a small smile and patted her back gently. “There, there… it’s alright. It’s over now… You just need to relax for a little bit and get your mind off of all this.”

Sunset suddenly pulled her head back. “I don’t know if I CAN! Sonata is just so weird when she’s hopped up on gas and drugs, and Dr. Colgate went all dentist crazy! And-and-SOB! EVERYTHING HAPPENS SO MUCH!” Sunset let out a wail and buried her head into Flash’s shoulder once more.

Aria turned and glanced at Adagio. “This doing anything for ya?”

Adagio shook her head. “Not really…” Adagio inhaled sharply. “It’s a little too close to home.”

Aria grimaced. “Yeah…”

Applejack looked over the sobbing Sunset Shimmer before looking at Flash. “Uh… Is she going to be okay?”

Flash smiled. “Yeah, probably… I mean… She used to do this with me all the time when we were dating. She should be alright after she has a good cry.”

Sunset raised her head and made a phlegmy snort. “I’m sorry. I’ll be fine…”

Colgate triumphantly strolled into the room. “I’ve finally diagnosed my impatient patient!” she cried.

Sunset began to shake slightly in Flash’s arms and held onto him tighter. “Eventually… probably… maybe…”

Dr. Colgate looked over the two groups sitting on the chairs for a moment, who looked back at her with inquisitive stares. “Oh… Right then,” she said as she suddenly walked over to Adagio and Aria and set in Adagio’s lap, wrapping her arms around Adagio and placing her legs across Aria’s lap.

“Whoa! What the heck?!” Aria exclaimed.

Adagio’s eyes went wide. “You’re invading my personal space right now!” she declared. “Liking it!”

“Okay, Doc…” Aria said tentatively as she as she stared down at Colgate’s legs, noticing that she somehow lost both her shoes during her struggle with Sonata. “So you figured out what’s wrong with Sonata’s taco hole?”

Dr. Colgate lifted an index finger into the air. “Indeed! Oh, your friend put up quite the fight, but after strapping her down, straddling her, and after much probing and careful exploration of Sonata’s mouth, I have, in fact, figured out what the cause of her pain is!”

Adagio nodded. “I understand. However, could you please repeat all of that, but slower this time.”

“It’s quite simple, really!” Colgate said as she sprung off of Adagio’s lap and back onto her feet, much to Adagio’s disappoint. “Just a simple case of her wisdom teeth coming in.”

Aria spoke up, “So, you think you can get her to stop whining all the time?”

“Of course!” Colgate said raising an index finger. “I mean, first I have to pull them out and there’s bound to be some residual pain that will last for a bit, but after a week or two of her on pain killers she should be right as rain!”

The room went dead silent. Sunset retrieved one of her arms from around Flash and used it to pull Applejack into a group huddle. Even Adagio and Aria’s eyes went wide as they slowly pulled each other close and looked down the hall fearfully.

Colgate turned her head back and forth between the two groups. “What?”