It had finally come. The moment of truth. The Dazzlings and the Rainbooms finally face one another head on instead of the game of Catch Me If You Can they’d been playing all week. The Dazzlings had called their… true forms? Familiars? Astral projections? They had called these huge freaking spectral hippocampi and were fighting against the music being thrown at them.
Victory for the Rainbooms was guaranteed so long as they had the Magic of Friendship on their side. Twilight felt a rush of happiness and relief fill her heart as she sang her own part to finally put a stop to Adagio Dazzle. The final notes would secure their victory against the Sirens.
Or… it was supposed to. Adagio’s snarl deepened as she opened her lips in a sonic note powerful enough to drown out Twilight’s voice. The Princess felt rage fill her chest. This was the second time these women had stopped her magic, the most powerful magic in all Equestria. How did they keep thwarting her?
The situation became worse when Sonata and Aria’s projections joined Adagio’s and released a powerful chorus at the group, succeeding in bringing them all to their knees. All but one. Twilight glanced over and realized her last hope. Reaching out desperately, she channeled as much energy as she could into her cry, “Sunset Shimmer! We need you!”
And to the group’s immense relief, their once-nemesis threw off her jacket and began her song. “You’re never gonna bring me down. You’re never gonna break this part of me!”
Together, the group rose again and disrupted the Dazzlings’ spell once more. This time succeeding in bringing most of the student body to their senses. The trio on stage glared across at the band on the hill, but their attention was quickly diverted by a large… was that a freaking spectral alicorn?
As the huge horse reared back, Sonata and Aria moved closer to Adagio fearfully, covering their faces as they waited for the worst to become of them. Adagio on the other hand would look her death in the eye. And she would die fighting. Filling her lungs with a deep breath her mother would be proud of, the leader of the Dazzlings released as many notes as she could in fortississimo just as the alicorn attacked.
The notes collided in a cacophony of sound and color, the crowd below watching in awed shock as the alicorn finally lost its power and a red wave shot over them once more. No matter how hard they tried and how many people were in their group, the Rainbooms’ lungs just couldn’t compare to those of natural-born singers. The red wave of energy knocked the entire group to the ground and short-circuited Vinyl Scratch’s car, effectively sealing the Battle in the Dazzlings’ favor.
There was dead silence for a moment aside from Adagio’s panting. The Rainbooms stared in horror at the stage watching their opponents regain themselves. Aria and Sonata were the first to speak, the latter cheering happily for her leader as the former asked if she was alright.
“I’m fine,” Adagio coughed. “Stupid alicorns. Always barging in at the wrong times. No respect.”
“But we beat them, Dagi!” Sonata exclaimed, doing a cartwheel in the air. “We beat everybody!”
“And we got our full magic back,” Aria added, a small smirk crossing her lips. “Just like you said we would.”
Adagio straightened up and flipped her hair happily. “Well, of course. It would be unjust of me to promise my faithful followers something and not deliver.”
Her friends snorted before they all looked to the hilltop at the terrified band. With a few flaps of her wings, Adagio lifted into the air and soared right for the opposition, her smirk firmly in place. As she hovered above the group, Aria and Sonata joined her, grinning wickedly.
“I don’t understand.” Twilight’s voice broke as she gazed at the three imposing figures fearfully. “That’s the most powerful magic in Equestria. How did you-?”
“Hear that, Dagi!” Sonata squealed. She dropped a little lower to grin at the teens. “We beat the most powerful magic in Equestria!”
Aria gave a soft chuckle and turned to her leader. “Can’t believe I’m admitting this, but you finally did it.”
Adagio waved off the praise with a good-natured smirk. “I couldn’t possibly have gotten this far without you two to carry out my orders. We did this together. I think this is a Siren victory more than a Dazzling one.”
The group below them waited as the three of them bantered with one another, Aria poking fun at Adagio for actually admitting, no matter how covertly, that she needed them as much as they needed her. The Rainbooms looked to one another in confusion before Applejack cleared her throat awkwardly.
That caught the Sirens’ attention and Sonata asked, “Do you wanna poke fun at Dagi, too?”
“Uh, not… really…” Applejack murmured slowly.
The blunette shrugged. “Well, I’m good for some milkshakes after that workout.”
“Tell me about it,” Aria agreed. “My throat is gonna be hoarse for a while.”
Adagio sniffed at her contemptuously. “Think about how I feel. I had to save my devoted followers from a gigantic freaking alicorn. I may as well use hand signals for the next few days.”
“It’ll give us a reprieve from that mouth of yours,” the twin-tailed siren snickered, devolving the group back into playful banter once more.
The group on the ground had gotten enough of being ignored and Rarity stood, clearing her throat more prominently. The Sirens turned to them again, eyebrows raised expectantly. As the others stood behind her, Rarity called, “Not to be rude, but… what are you going to do now?”
“We were just talking about going for milkshakes…” Sonata pointed out slowly.
“But what are you going to do with us?" Applejack inquired.
“Aren’t you gonna, you know, destroy us or whatever?” Pinkie Pie inquired, puzzlement plastered all over her face.
The Sirens stared at the group in confusion. “Why would we do that?” Sonata asked in bemusement.
“Sounds like overkill to me,” Aria agreed, crossing her arms.
The Rainbooms stared at the trio, slack-jawed. “Are you serious?” Rainbow Dash demanded incredulously. “Why go through all this if you’re not going to kill us?”
“So that we could win, of course,” Adagio responded with a flip of her hair.
Sunset’s eyebrows furrowed as she repeated, “You… created the Battle of the Bands… made every student think it was them against the world… hypnotized basically everyone… and made all of us fight… so you could win?”
“Hey, when you say it, it sounds dumb!” Sonata exclaimed. “But think about how we felt! It sucks losing all the time!”
“Star Swirl with his stupid instruments when all we knew how to use were our voices,” Aria grumbled. “And it’s not like any of these weak humans could put up much of a fight against us. We’re Sirens, for crying out loud! That would have just been demeaning!”
“And don’t even get me started on those stupid princesses and their manes,” Adagio muttered. “As if our dorsal fins could compare to pure hair.”
Aria snickered and nodded, jabbing a finger at Adagio as she agreed, “You should’ve seen how ecstatic Dag was when she realized her mane, or hair, or whatever was bigger than Celestia’s in this universe. She about died.”
Sonata crossed her arms with a childish pout as her wings flapped to keep her aloft. “We just wanted to win for once. I mean, yeah, it’s nice to have our full magic again so we can get food more easily now, but we just wanted to win.”
“And now that we have, we can make sure no one forgets it!” Adagio smirked, dropping to the ground in front of Twilight. “All those students in that crowd, as soon as they wake up from our temporary zombie spell, they’re all going to know that a princess of Equestria lost to Sirens!”
The Rainbooms stared at the trio in confounded silence. “This was all so they would win…” Fluttershy sighed softly.
“Then why did you lead us to believe that you were here to take over the world?” Rarity huffed, pressing a hand to her temple.
“Because you wouldn’t have taken us seriously if we hadn’t,” Adagio scoffed. “We wanted to have a fair competition, not for you to go easy on us just because we wanted to win something. Our pride would never allow that kind of pity.”
Sunset made her way closer. “So, all that taunting in the hallway, that was so you could cement your ‘villain’ image?”
Now the three blushed slightly. “Actually, that was us telling you we have a lot in common and we think you’re kinda cool…” Sonata mumbled nervously.
Sunset stared at her for a moment before deadpanning, “You’re not good at expressing your emotions.”
“A demon!” Adagio gushed in a tone much higher than usual for her. “How much more exotic can you get? I thought we were powerful, which we are, of course, but for you to have the Element of Magic consume you so completely and for you to have done so much damage! It’s absolutely astounding!”
“Yeah, it definitely wasn’t anything to laugh at,” Aria chuckled. “I mean, I’m pretty sure if the three of us went against you in that form, only Adagio would be left standing.”
“Why Adagio?” Applejack scratched her head in confusion.
Adagio pointed to her hair calmly. “I have the largest dorsal fin, so clearly I would come out on top. However, that’s not to say that Sunset Shimmer wouldn’t have put up quite a fight in that form. Shame she can’t access it whenever she wishes. I would love to practice dueling with her sometime-.”
“Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here,” Rainbow Dash interrupted. “Let’s get back to the part where you turned the entire school on its head just so you could win a competition.”
“Which we did.” Aria’s smirk grew at Rainbow Dash’s irritated glare.
“So… no one’s in actual danger?” Twilight asked hopefully.
Adagio rolled her eyes and held up her hand, snapping her fingers. Murmurs from below signaled that the students and faculty were coming to. All of the spectators stared up at the hill, seeing the two bands facing one another. After a moment, Adagio waved a hand to Twilight, her smug grin still in place.
Sighing, Twilight called, “The Dazzlings… they beat us. They… won the Battle of the Bands.”
There was a short pause before the crowd began cheering, chanting the band name of the victorious trio. Sonata waved to the adoring fans as Adagio held out a hand to Rainbow Dash. “So, no hard feelings, I hope?”
The rainbow-haired woman grinned and took the hand good-naturedly. “Yeah, sure. Why not. I mean, I was totally going easy on you anyway cause we didn’t wanna hurt you too bad.”
“That giant alicorn we blasted out of the sky says otherwise,” Aria grunted, cocking her hip. “Still, pretty cool trick as far as magic goes. Lucky Adagio has a will of iron or we’d have lost. Again.”
“Yeah,” Sunset chuckled, walking forward to shake the lead siren’s hand as well. “I doubt even in demon form I would be able to take on a spectral alicorn.”
“Your flattery is much appreciated,” Adagio chirped.
Pinkie bounced around for a moment before shouting, “The Battle of the Bands is over! Guess what that means?” Her friends simply smiled as she shrieked, “Battle of the Bands afterparty slash Dazzlings Congratulations party!” Turning to the crowd, she borderline screamed, “Everyone to the gym! Let’s party!”
Fluttershy hung back a moment and rubbed her arm. Aria took notice and floated next to the shy woman. “What’s wrong, Timid Toes?”
Fluttershy sunk in on herself as she replied nervously, “W-well… it’s just… this was originally going to be a fundraiser for the school… but we didn’t see anyone giving any money at all-.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Aria waved her worries off. “Adagio made sure we didn’t do too much harm when we came. She had Sonata make the donation box and everything. I set it up, too. People gave money as soon as they came in. No big.”
“Oh,” Fluttershy breathed with a small smile. “Thank you. That makes me feel much better.”
“Yeah, well, couldn’t have your pink friend getting upset you weren’t havin’ fun at her party,” the purple siren shrugged. “Now, hop on. I want some actually good punch before everyone else drinks it all.”
“I-I can fly-.”
“We just kicked your butt in a battle to the ‘death’, chick. Hop on.”
Fluttershy jumped onto Aria’s back and the pair flew to the gym where the party was already in full swing. Letting the pinkette down, Aria floated over to where her sisters were presenting Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna with the donation box. “All the money earned tonight is in there,” Adagio was saying.
“I must admit,” Principal Celestia murmured. “I did not expect this to be the outcome of another brainwashing. Thank you girls for making this… an interesting school event.”
“However, we would like to avoid turning a showcase into a competition in the future,” Luna piped in sternly.
“We just wanted to win once,” Sonata told them, munching a cookie. “We don’t need to do this again now that we’ve won.”
The two older women—in biological age only apparently—nodded to her and headed off to put the donations in a safe place until Monday. Meanwhile, the Rainbooms surrounded the Dazzlings. Both groups still possessed their pony traits and Twilight, Sunset Shimmer, and Adagio immediately began making comparisons. Rarity and Fluttershy had begun explaining to everyone who would listen about Sunset Shimmer’s involvement in nearly beating the Dazzlings, leading to the news spreading around the gym within minutes. Applejack and Pinkie were keeping Sonata company as she explained every last detail of the plan to them while Aria and Rainbow Dash raced each other around the gym.
Thankfully, another crisis had been averted and now the school was happily enjoying the aftermath. Nothing would be able to top this kind of thing… until the Friendship Games decided to come along…
Author's Note
Just something I thought of after seeing the finale of the final movie and reading quite a few fics.
