Adagio Dazzle Hates Trigonometryby TheGuineaPig45ChaptersPrologueI: Adagio Dazzle Takes A TestIII: Adagio Dazzle Breaks Into An OfficeII: Adagio Dazzle Finds A Study BuddyPrologueHer van. Her precious van. The one thing that belonged to her, and only her. And Sonata Dusk had set it on fire. Granted, it was a complete accident. All Sonata had wanted to do was use the toaster to heat up a leftover taco she hadn’t finished from the day before. Of course, she put it on a ridiculously high setting, and, sure enough, within three minutes, the toaster was blazing. The fire quickly spread to the other amenities the van offered, like the couch, and Adagio was forced to speedily evacuate the vehicle with Aria and Sonata. Needless to say, she was not in the best mood. “Sonata Dusk,” Adagio growled, her voice dripping with a fiery rage. “I am going to kill you, just like you killed my van!” Sonata frowned, wrapping her arms around her torso. “I didn't mean to! How was I supposed to know that putting a taco inside of a toaster would break it?” “I could’ve guessed,” Aria murmured, unable to avert her eyes from the fiery inferno that had engulfed their home. Adagio groaned and rubbed her temples. It was already bad enough that they had lost the Battle of the Bands and had their necklaces destroyed. But now this? There had to be some mystical force conspiring against her. “What do we do now, Dagi?” Sonata whimpered, clinging onto Aria’s shoulder. “Our voices are gone! Our home is gone! And I didn't even get to eat my chicken taco! You know how much that extra guacamole cost?” Aria shoved her away. “Did you waste all our money on guacamole?!” “Not all of it. We still have this!” She went to pull a quarter out of her pocket, but it fell out before could grab it and rolled away, straight into a sewer vent. “Okay. Now I’ve wasted all our money.” Adagio put her face into her hands. She wasn’t one to cry, but in that moment, she was really close to it. They had no way to buy food, no place to live, no Equestrian magic to help them. They were hopeless. In the distance, they could hear sirens, signaling that the fire department was on its way. Not wanting to explain what had happened to the police, the Dazzlings ran down the street, none of them daring to look back. Twenty-seven minutes later, Sonata tripped over a rock. “Ouch!” she squealed, falling face-first onto the hard cement sidewalk. After a couple of seconds, a bruise appeared on her shoulder. “Ugh! This place is the worst!” “No, you’re the worst!” Aria replied, unable to keep herself from laughing at her sister’s misfortune. Sonata pouted. “No, you are!” “GIRLS!” Adagio shouted, shutting her sisters up before they got into yet another full-scale argument. She took in a deep breath, then exhaled, trying to calm herself down. “I think we can stop running now. We’re far enough from the fire.” Aria and Sonata nodded, and the three Dazzlings sat down on a nearby street curb. Looking up at the endless sky of stars above them, Adagio sighed. What did I do to deserve this? All I wanted was to be adored by everyone. Is that too much to ask for? “Uh-oh,” Sonata whispered to Aria. “Dagi’s doing that thing again.” Aria raised an eyebrow. “Ya know, that thing where she goes into deep thought and doesn't talk to us for a full minute?” “Oh yeah,” Aria replied. “She does do that, doesn't she?” Adagio rolled her eyes, and took a look around at her surroundings. Strangely enough, the area looked familiar. There were luscious green trees that looked like they never missed a day of care, houses so perfectly maintained that not even a shred of grass was out of place, and the faint sound of teenage laughter erupted somewhere nearby. Crud. We’re back in Canterlot. She groaned. This was not what she wanted. All around her were reminders of her greatest failure. The tree across the street? That was where she came up with the lyrics for “Under Our Spell.” That picture-perfect home? She had declined an offer for a sleepover there so that she could spend the night planning on how to break Sunset Shimmer. And that groundhog in the dirt? She didn't have any memories associated with it, but small rodents severely pissed her off, so it wasn’t helping. She looked at her sisters. The looks on their faces told that they had realized where they were, too. “Ugh, this place truly is the worst,” Aria groaned, getting up to stretch out her legs. “We need to get out of here.” Adagio got up and began walking away, but Sonata stayed put, seemingly thinking very hard about something. After a minute, her entire face lit up, her mouth contorting into a large grin. “Wait! I have an idea!” “Your last idea was putting a taco into a toaster, so you’re on very thin ice here, Sonata,” Adagio grumbled, her hands clenched into fists. Sonata nervously chuckled. “Why don’t we re-enroll at Canterlot High School?” Silence. Adagio and Aria looked into each other’s eyes. They tried to keep it in, but they couldn’t. Simultaneously, they burst out into laughter. “That’s the funniest thing you’ve ever said,” Aria giggled. “Go back to CHS? Puh-lease. No Equestrian magic? Not interested.” Sonata shook her head. “There might not be Equestrian magic there anymore, but there is food. Think about it! If we go back to Canterlot High, we could get free breakfast and lunch everyday!” “Oh, you were being serious.” Aria sat back down on the curb and rested her face on her hand. “Duh! Plus, it’s a big school! I’m sure we could find a place to sleep there overnight!” She grabbed Aria and Adagio, and pulled them into a tight hug. “Isn’t it the best plan ever?!” Adagio shook her head, angrily shoving Sonata away. “No. Absolutely not.” Her giddy sister pouted once more. “Actually, it’s not the worst idea,” Aria admitted. Adagio glared at her, eyes visibly filled with rage. “Well, at the very least, it’s the smartest thing Sonata has said in a long time. It is free food and shelter, neither of which we have at the moment. Besides, I'm tired of running around everywhere.” “Exactly! Plus, tomorrow’s Tuesday!” Sonata shrieked, bouncing up and down. “And that means Taco Tuesday!” “Tomorrow’s Monday,” Aria scoffed. “Tuesday!” “Monday!” “SHUT UP!” Adagio shouted. Her two sisters immediately quieted down, fearfully looking into their leader’s eyes. “Need I remind you that everyone at CHS hates us?” Aria shrugged. “Well, they hated Sunset Shimmer, but she’s super popular now.” “That could be us!” Sonata mused, twirling in a circle. “They may hate us now, but if we become the best students Canterlot High School has ever seen, we’ll be adored!" She gasped in awe of her own words. "We'll be the new Sunset Shimmers! Food, shelter, and the popularity we always wanted!” With those words, a flash of inspiration struck Adagio Dazzle, freezing her in place. After taking a second to recompose herself, the words Sonata had just uttered finally sunk in, and a devilish grin emerged on her face. Adored? Popularity? She liked the sound of that. I: Adagio Dazzle Takes A Test“Good morning, Canterlot High School!” Principal Celestia’s cheery voice boomed throughout the school’s P.A. system, right as the last couple students settled down for homeroom. “I hope you’re not feeling the Monday blues, because this is going to be an exciting week at Canterlot High! Wednesday is a big soccer game against Crystal Prep, and tomorrow, we’ll be having an assembly to show a preview of our Fall Drama--” Principal Celestia’s voice cut off. Several students uttered confused noises, but then went back to their personal conversations without giving it a second thought. Adagio Dazzle was sitting on Principal Celestia’s desk, giving her signature devious grin to the woman sitting on the other side. By her side stood Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk, who were showing a confident smirk and genuine smile, respectively. Principal Celestia, on the other hand, had a look of pure horror in her eyes. “What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to recompose herself. “I will not let you wreak havoc on my school once again!” Adagio scoffed and flipped her massive poof of hair. “Principal Celestia, I’m offended. My sisters and I would never.” “Except for the time we did,” Sonata said. Aria nudged her in the side with her elbow. Sonata retaliated by sticking her tongue out. “We’ve seen the error of our ways,” Adagio continued. “Hypnotizing CHS in order to steal their negative energy was cruel, callous, and just plain wrong. Thus, we would like to make amends and right our wrongs by re-enrolling in your school today as proud Wonderbolts.” “Wondercolts,” Celestia corrected. “Whatever. Please, give us poor, lonely girls a second chance. Let us indulge ourselves in the Magic of Friendship and become better people!” She snapped her fingers at her sisters, and the three of them gave Celestia puppy-dog eyes. Very convincing puppy-dog eyes. That worked. Principal Celestia put her hand over her heart and beamed at the girls. Adagio could have sworn she saw a tear in her eyes. “Here at Canterlot High, we are firm believers in second chances and redemption!” She opened her desk, and pulled out a file of papers. “If you are truly as remorseful as you claim, then there’s no reason to turn you away. Dazzlings, welcome to the Wondercolt Family!” Adagio winked back at her sisters. Sonata gave a thumbs-up. “Oh, thank you so much, Principal Celestia,” Adagio said, expertly hiding any hint of manipulation in her voice. “Now, please, tell us, what does one have to do to become the best student at CHS?” Celestia chuckled. “We don’t have a Class Ranking system at Canterlot High. However, if you study, do well on your tests, participate in extracurriculars, and go to social events, you’ll do just fine.” Sonata raised her hand. “Is today Monday or Tuesday?” “Monday.” “Ha!” Aria cruelly exclaimed, slapping Sonata on the back. “You owe me ten dollars.” A pause. “Once we have money again, of course.” “GIRLS!” Adagio snarled through gritted teeth, instantly silencing her sisters. She took a deep breath, recentered herself, then turned back toward Celestia with an innocent smile gracing her face. “Again, my sincerest of thanks. When do classes begin?” Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Well, you see, it’s a bit of a process. You can’t just automatically become students. You have to fill out paperwork, show up on the roster--” “All of that sounds like nonsense keeping my sisters and I from getting a full education!” Adagio hopped off the desk, instead putting her hands on the wooden surface and leaning forward so that she was right in her principal’s face. “How can you expect us to learn and become better if we can’t even take a class?” The principal nervously adjusted her suit jacket and cleared her throat. “I’ll see what I can do. If Vice Principal Luna and I work together, we might be able to get you into classes by lunch.” Adagio grinned and took Celestia’s hand. “Much better. Thank you so much.” Her and her sisters began walking out of the office, but Adagio turned back at the last second. With a sinister look in her eyes, she said one last thing. “You won’t regret this.” Principal Celestia was already starting to regret it. Adagio, Aria, and Sonata sauntered through the halls of CHS, carrying with them an air of superiority. Their plan had worked. Come lunchtime, they would be full-fledged students at Canterlot High and begin their mission of earning their peers' adoration. “I haven’t lost my touch,” Adagio laughed, strutting past the science lab. “You’re welcome, sisters. We now have free food and shelter.” Aria and Sonata joined her revelry, each contributing their own unique laugh. “That was so easy,” the former said. “We’ll be the new Sunset Shimmers in no time.” “Did someone say my name?” The Dazzlings turned a corner and were greeted by Sunset Shimmer, who was standing by a locker, holding a red textbook. Upon seeing the trio of sirens, her face turned white, and that poor book fell to the floor. Adagio tactfully picked it up and handed it back to her. “You dropped this.” Sunset was too stunned to hold it, and just stood there, completely frozen in place. “I think we broke her,” Sonata whispered. “Y-You…” Sunset stammered, pointing at the girls. Her whole body was shaking. “What are you doing here?!” “We go here, duh,” Aria teased, leaning her elbow on Adagio’s shoulder. The flustered Wondercolt was struggling to get out any words. “What?! How?! I thought you got expelled! You hypnotized the whole school!” “So did you.” Sunset was taken aback by Aria’s words, nearly stumbling over the backpack that was behind her foot. She caught herself, then took a deep breath. “Okay, you’re right, I did do that. But that’s in the past now. I learned about the Magic of Friendship and became a better person.” “Oh! Twinsies!” Sonata giggled, patting Sunset on the back. “That’s exactly why we’re here!” Sunset furrowed her brow. “You want to learn about the Magic of Friendship?” “Something like that,” Adagio yawned, striding past her fellow student. “We’re reformed now, just like you. No more hypnotizing. No more bickering. No more evil plans. Just good old fashioned academia.” “Even Principal Celestia agreed,” Aria added, following Adagio away. “We all deserve second chances.” “See you later, alligator!” Sonata called out, running to catch up with her sisters. Sunset watched the Dazzlings leave, and shook her head in disbelief. They had to be up to something, right? Unless… they genuinely were reformed. Could she trust them? In that moment, standing in front of her locker, Sunset Shimmer vowed to get to the bottom of the sudden reappearance of the Dazzlings. After history class, of course. At lunch, the Dazzlings had a table all to themselves. Adagio put her feet up and bit into an apple. “Mmm… I haven’t had food this good in months.” She wiped her lips with a napkin and let out a deep sigh. “I’ll admit, this wasn’t the worst plan we’ve ever had.” “That honor still goes to the taco in a toaster,” Aria agreed, scarfing down her plate of spaghetti and meatballs. “Seriously, what were you thinking?!” “I’ll give you an answer when I wake up from this food coma,” Sonata moaned gleefully, a tossing a potato chip into her mouth. The students at the surrounding tables were constantly stealing glances at them and whispering. Some had looks of terror on their face. Others appeared angry. Most were just plain confused. And while they weren’t being loud enough for the Dazzlings to hear their gossip, they knew it was about them. Especially since not a soul in the cafeteria dared to even approach the girls. “Look at us,” Adagio said, taking another chunk out of her apple. “We’re already the center of attention. Everyone is talking about us.” Aria shrugged. “I suppose negative attention is better than no attention at all.” Adagio tossed her apple core into a nearby trash can and laughed. “Oh, we’ll win them over faster than you can say 'Battle of the Bands'.” “Battle of the Bands!” Sonata blurted out. “Did we win yet?” Aria Blaze punched her in the arm. Adagio was about to come up with a plan for the rest of the girls’ day, but was interrupted by Vice Principal Luna, who walked over to their table with three sheets of paper in her hand. “Here are your schedules,” she said, giving a paper to each girl. “We did not have a gauge for your abilities, and put you into classes based on what the majority of your grade is taking.” Adagio ripped hers out of Luna’s hand and quickly scoured it. Concert Choir, Biology, Twentieth Century Literature, Lunch, Gym, Trigonometry, History. She didn't know what Trigonometry even was, but couldn't be bothered to ask. “This will do.” “Hey, wait,” Aria grumbled, sneaking a peek over Adagio’s shoulder. “We only have Biology and History together!” “We did our best,” Luna replied, barely showing any emotion in her voice, “but some classes were already at their maximum capacity, so we needed to shuffle you around.” Adagio put her hand on Aria’s shoulder. “Sister, you’ll be fine. Honestly, I could use a break from your cumbersome quarrels.” She waved her hand at Vice Principal Luna, signaling for her to leave. Luna rolled her eyes and walked away, loudly moaning. “This it it, girls,” Adagio continued, pulling her sisters in towards her. “The start of our journey to gain the adoration of everyone. We have to be the very best at all of these courses, so our peers will respect us.” Aria and Sonata nodded. “No messing up. Basically, just don’t be yourselves.” Sonata took Adagio’s words into consideration. “Mmm… okay! In that case, I’ll be Sonata Dust!” Aria rolled her eyes. “Finish your food, Sonata.” Gym class had been a piece of cake. Adagio was a fantastic dodgeball player. Thanks to her experience dancing in her performances, she was nimble and could avoid the flying balls with ease. Her poofy hair was a big advantage, too, since if the ball hit her hair, but not her body, she wasn’t out. They had played three games, and Adagio was the last person standing in two of them. Although, she was pretty certain one of her teammates had thrown a ball at her. No matter. She had brought her team to victory. Surely, she had earned at least a little respect. She walked into the Trigonometry classroom with a fierce gusto, offering smiles to her peers instead of shooting them daggers. Of course, the other students were still afraid of her. “Ah, so the rumors are true,” the teacher said, nervously smiling at her student. “Hello, Adagio Dazzle. I’m Miss Cheerilee, and I’ll be your Trigonometry teacher for the remainder of the school year.” She held out her hand for Adagio to shake. The student just stared at it. “Um, on a later date, we’ll have to catch you up with the material and assess your skill level. But since we’re taking a test today, you’re welcome to sit out and observe.” Adagio gasped. “Nonsense. I want to take the test, just like every other student. How else am I going to prove my academic prowess and be the best student?” “Are you sure?” “Positive.” Adagio Dazzle turned around and took searched for a seat. A couple of students moved their bags into empty seats so she wouldn’t sit by them, while others just held their heads down and hoped for the best. Eventually, Adagio found a place next to a girl with glasses and dark blue hair and purple streaks. The girl was looking through her notes, and thus didn't pay notice the siren sitting next to her. Something seemed familiar about her, but Adagio just couldn’t put her finger on it. After thirty seconds of internal debating, it hit her like a ton of bricks. “Twilight Sparkle?!” “Hi,” Twilight replied. “Do I know you?” “Of course you do! What are you doing here? I thought you went back to Equestria!” Twilight sighed and shook her head. “I get that a lot. You’re thinking of the other Twilight Sparkle. That one’s a princess. I’m just… me.” “There are two of you?!” “Yup. I’m still trying to figure out the science behind it myself, but--” “That is awful.” Twilight rolled her eyes and went back to looking at her notes. Adagio grimaced, and continued staring at her. Twilight Sparkle. Just as bad as Sunset Shimmer. “Alright, class,” Cheerilee announced, a stack of papers in her hand. “I hope you all studied over the weekend, because it’s test time!” The room erupted into a loud groan. “Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as you think. There’s less than twenty questions.” This should be effortless, Adagio thought. Cheerilee placed the tests face down on each student’s desk, and told them to flip it over when she said “Begin.” Adagio patiently waiting for the signal, then furiously flipped her paper over and bore her eyes into that first question. “Name”. Easy. She wrote down “Adagio Dazzle”. The next one said “Period”. Why would they want that? She shrugged, and put “.” on the line. The final one displayed the word “Date”. Ugh. I’m not going out with someone I just met. Disgusting. She wrote “Not a chance” in the slot. Great. Three down, ten to go. The next question was continued the easy streak. “What is the angle of depression?” There was an image next to it, filled with numbers, but Adagio ignored it. “Depression is a state of extreme sadness. For example, me being tortured by my SISTERS every waking minute of my life.” Under it was a question which read, “sin(35)=” with another image. Adagio didn't remember there being thirty-five deadly sins. Thinking the “5” was a typo, she wrote the only three deadly sins she could remember: “Pride, Envy, and Greed.” Then the test asked for "2 pi" in degrees. She wrote “Strawberry Rhubarb and Apple.” Adagio continued through the rest of the questions like this, ignoring all the triangles that were plastered over the test. After about five minutes, she stood up and triumphantly strutted up to Miss Cheerilee, garnering the looks of her fellow classmates, who were still in their seats on the first couple of questions. The siren put the paper down on her teacher’s desk. “I’m done." “Great!” Cheerilee said with a smile. “I’ll grade that right now for you.” "Fantastic. By the way, this test is full of spelling and grammar mistakes. I see now why you're not an English teacher." "I-- Um-- Okay?" Adagio waited as her test was looked over, absentmindedly checking her nails. She looked up, and Twilight was staring at her. Adagio winked and waved. Twilight shook her head and went back to her test. After a minute or so, Cheerilee tapped the Dazzling on her shoulder. “Um, I don’t-- Here. Just take a look.” She handed Adagio her test. There were several red “X” marks all over the paper. All the shapes had been circle. And at the top of the paper, there was a big, red “1” drawn in permanent marker. “A one?” Adagio asked, looking at the sheet. “Because I’m number one?” Cheerilee sighed. “No. One out of one hundred points. And that’s just because you wrote your name.” Adagio blankly stared at the red “1”, which had sown its image into her brain just as permanent as the marker it was written with. She had failed trigonometry. No. No way. That couldn’t be. Absolutely not. Trigonometry had failed her. And she was not about to let that stand. III: Adagio Dazzle Breaks Into An OfficeThe Dazzlings peeked her head around the corner. Sure enough, the janitor was still mopping the floor with intense precision and care, headphones in his ears and keys jangling on his belt. Adagio was not happy about it. “This piece of human scum is taking forever!” she groaned, pulling on her hair. “He’s been mopping this one spot for thirty minutes! It’s already 8pm! If the floor isn’t clean by now, you either need to move on or change professions!” Aria looked up from her comic to roll her eyes. “Calm down. Let him do his job or whatever. It’s not like we don’t have the entire night for this.” Sonata raised her hand. “I would like to sleep at some point.” She crossed her arms and tilted her nose into the air, as if she were preparing herself for the other sisters’ imminent protests. “After all, good poetry comes from a healthy brain and body.” “Will you stop with the poetry?!” Aria tossed her light reading at Sonata’s face, but the younger sister was expecting such a move and expertly dodged it. “I will not, Ari. You make me so mad sometimes. You are the worst. Truth.” She paused. “A haiku.” Aria clenched her fists and geared up to strike, but decided against it at the last second. Adagio looked around the corner once again, desperately hoping for a different outcome, but the janitor remained stationary. She bit her lip, trying her very hardest not to scream at the top of her lungs. This was going nowhere. “Girls,” she muttered, struggling to keep her cool. “We need a new plan.” “Did we have an old plan?” Aria asked, rubbing her forehead. “All you said was we needed to ‘destroy trigonometry,’ which, by the way, makes no sense. Math is an abstract concept, not a physical object.” Adagio devilishly grinned. “Math was a physical object when I put my test through the paper shredder in the library.” With those words, Sonata and Aria shared a glance of worry. “Now, I need one of you idiots to sneak behind him and steal his keys.” “Why do you need his keys?” “Why do you ask so many questions?” Aria rolled her eyes, but didn't dare argue with her older sister, fearing what her and Sonata apprehensively called ‘The Wrath of Adagio’. Between how their sister was acting in history class earlier and her current frantic mentality, Aria and Sonata could sense it was coming. It was only a question of how long before the big-haired volcano erupted. Adagio Dazzle stared intimidatingly at her sisters, waiting for one of them to follow her demands. Aria pushed Sonata forward, but the youngest sister quickly darted behind Aria and nudged her forward, prompting Aria to push Sonata forward again. This cycle continued for another minute or so, until Adagio got tired of their shenanigans and stepped in between them. “Great,” she said, lightly placing her hands on their backs. “You’ve both earned the privilege of grabbing the key.” With a burst of force, the lead Dazzling shoved her sisters around the corner, and they immediately slipped and fell onto slippery tile floor. Due to the headphones in his ears and his back being turned toward the girls, the janitor didn't notice the girls and kept innocently mopping. “Dagi!” Sonata whined, lying on the ground. “That hurt!” “Perfect! You can write about it in your next poem!” Adagio hissed, sharply pointing at the janitor. “Now get me that key!” Aria raised her middle finger at her sister, but still did as she was told and slowly inched toward the unsuspecting custodian. With Sonata close behind, she took quiet, careful baby steps, doing her best to keep her footing against the newly mopped floor. Adagio watched intently, hoping her sisters wouldn’t botch their mission, but fully expecting them to. Once they were about a foot away from the man, he finally decided he was done mopping that section of the hallway and turned around to put his mop in a bucket. Caught off guard, Sonata ducked while Aria slid across the floor, clinging onto a nearby wall as if her life depended on it. Adagio held her breath. Luckily, the janitor was deeply into his music and thus wasn’t paying great attention to his surroundings. As the pair of sisters let out a sigh of relief, it quickly became apparent that their lucky break was short-lived, as the janitor began walking away, looking for a new place to excessively clean. “Get him!” Adagio yelled, shooing the girls with her hands. Aria moaned, then tailed the janitor, following him around another corner. Sonata shuffled behind her, nearly slipping on the floor once again, but just barely keeping herself up at the last moment. Adagio, however, did not follow. Instead, she trusted her sisters would complete her task, and honestly, she couldn’t care less about the damage they caused along the way. Without so much as a glance in their direction, she walked back into the locked library, which she had purposefully wedged open with a book following the end of the Study Buddies session. On the staircase was the book Twilight Sparkle had left her, All About Triangles. Adagio opened up the first page, which had an illustration of a red triangle in a park on a sunny day. Of course, since it was a children’s book, the triangle had a face and could talk. Hi! I’m a triangle! I’m a shape with three sides! Adagio glared at the abomination. Why should somebody care about that dumb triangle? And why did math have to get more complicated than 1+1=2? She flipped through the rest of the book, and, as expected, it was filled with more useless facts than a tabloid. This was it. In one swift motion, Adagio grabbed the first page and ripped it straight out the book, leaving a jagged trail of paper clinging onto its binding. She stared at the red triangle one last time, looking at his tender, warm smile and idyllic city life. He looked so happy to be a triangle. Like he didn't have a care in the world. And thus, Adagio Dazzle put him straight into the paper shredder. In an instant, that triangle and his perfect world has been reduced to nothing but strands of rubbish. One by one, she ripped out the other pages of the book and placed them straight into the metal box of death, watching their remains beautifully fall inside the machine, reborn as perfectly cut strips. Much to her delight, watch something she passionately despised be destroyed right before her very eyes was immensely satisfying. When it came down to the final page, she laughed. And, much to her surprise, it quickly evolved into a maniacal laugh, something she hadn’t done since the Battle of the Bands. It had come so naturally, despite being dormant within her for so long. It felt good. Very good, indeed. The other Dazzlings returned to the library about twenty minutes after they had begun chasing the janitor. Aria had his key ring in her hand, Sonata carried his mop, and they were both soaking wet. “Goodness, girls,” Adagio sighed, marveling at the state of her sisters. “I asked you to steal his keys, not his job.” Sonata began wringing out her hair, creating a puddle of water below her. “We ran into a couple of issues along the way, but Ari and I are amazing ninjas, so we got the key just like that!” She snapped her fingers, accidentally knocking over her mop. “No, we didn't!” Aria argued, shaking out her shirt. “It took forever! He kept walking away right as we were about to grab his keys! Eventually, we got so frustrated we just stole the stupid mop and ran away.” “Which worked out in the end. When he noticed it was missing, he was soooo distracted, he didn't even realize the keys were coming off his belt!” Aria scoffed. “Of course, someone just had to knock over the mop bucket and cover us in dirty water before we left.” “Did not!” “Did too!” Adagio raised her fist up, silencing her sisters. “Adequate work, girls. For once.” She snatched the keys from Aria’s hand and began sauntering through the library’s door. “Come on. We have work to do.” The other two Dazzlings groaned, but followed their leader’s demands without much hesitation. The three sisters walked back through the hallways, peering around every corner to make sure the touring janitor wasn’t around, seeking vengeance for his stolen mop. Once they could confirm he was not in the area, they advanced forward, not daring to make any sound that would make their presence known. After a minute or so, they made it to their destination. “Principal Celestia’s office?” Aria asked, leaning against the wall. “If I end up in detention on my second day of school, I’m going to be very grumpy.” Sonata laughed. “You’re always grumpy.” “Relax,” Adagio replied, her voice calm and collected. Though her heart was racing, it didn't show. “No one will ever know we were here.” She put the key into the lock and turned it. With a resounding “click” that faintly echoed through the hallways, the door opened. They were in. Principal Celestia’s desk was riddled with paperwork, sun momentos, and a desktop computer that looked like it belonged in another decade. Adagio Dazzle comfortably sat on her chair and booted up the machine. Unsurprisingly, it asked for a password. “Great,” Aria scoffed. She sat on the desk, next to Adagio. “How do you plan to bypass this?” Adagio looked around, spying a post-it note under a stack of Fire Codes. sUn15b3Tt3Rth4NmO0n. She smirked and typed in the code. Sure enough, her desktop, decorated with a sunny background image, appeared on the screen. “Adagio’s a hacker!” Sonata gasped, backing away. “Adagio’s a lunatic,” Aria grumbled, crossing her arms. “Can I just point out that either dropping the class or studying for it would have been much easier than this?” “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” the eldest siren replied, pulling up a search engine and typing “teachers” into the search bar. Several of Celestia’s previously visited websites appeared, and Adagio clicked on the first one she saw. Through the power of guesswork, she managed to pull up a master list of all the classes and periods. Since they were in alphabetical order, she scrolled down to the “T”s, and there it was. The bane of her existence. Trigonometry. She clicked on it, and a pop-up box appeared. In the bottom right corner was a button that read “Delete.” Without an ounce of hesitation, she pressed it. “We’re done, girls,” Adagio Dazzle laughed, cracking her knuckles. “Simple as that. We’ve destroyed Trigonometry.” Sonata and Aria looked at each other in disbelief. She couldn’t have just deleted an entire class. There had to be a catch of some sort. Regardless, their fear of Adagio’s wrath kept them from asking questions, and they blindly followed their leader back to the library, where they spent the rest of the night. “Adagio Dazzle, Aria Blaze, and Sonata Dusk, please report to the Principal’s Office immediately.” Crap. The three girls walked into the room, greeted by a very angry Principal Celestia. Without saying a word, she turned her desktop screen toward them. Are you sure you want to delete Trigonometry? Adagio bit her lip. She could feel Aria’s glare boring into the back of her skull. “That wasn’t us,” she instinctively blurted out, crossing her fingers behind her back. Celestia rolled her eyes. “The security camera footage says otherwise.” Adagio could feel the sweat sliding down her forehead. All that work for nothing. And what was worse, it wasn’t even Sonata or Aria who had botched the mission. It was her. Celestia was reprimanding them and explaining their punishment, but her words couldn’t reach the stunned Dazzling leader. Once again, she had failed, only this time, she couldn't run away. Canterlot High was all she had. And already, on her second day, she was losing it. The only thing she could process was Aria Blaze, who leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Adagio Dazzle, I am going to kill you.” II: Adagio Dazzle Finds A Study BuddyAdagio walked into history class filled with a fiery rage. Aria could sense this from a mile away, and gulped as Adagio sat in the plastic chair next to her. She considered asking what was wrong, but figured she would find out anyway within a couple of seconds, and decided instead to cherish her last few seconds of calm before the storm. Adagio opened her mouth. Aria braced for impact. “Aria,” the elder sister growled, baring her teeth. “How were your classes?” The younger sister had not been expecting this approach, and proceeded with caution. “Um, fine, I guess,” she responded with a shrug. “Turns out Baking class is more cleaning than actual baking. But then I had Music Theory with Sonata, which was so easy, I almost fell asle--” “How come you and Sonata get to go to Music Theory while I’m stuck in Trigonometry?!” Adagio yelled, interrupting her fellow siren. “I demand to be put into Music Theory this instant! Where’s Principal Celestia?!” A couple of students who were taking their seats near the Dazzlings immediately got up and moved to a different location. Aria furrowed her brow. “What is Trigonometry?” Adagio was seething with rage. “The study of failure, apparently! Everybody else was taking a test, so I offered to join them, and wound up getting a ONE in front of the entire class!” Aria snickered, prompting a burning glare from Adagio. “And it gets worse! Miss Cheerilee said I was being ‘impulsive’ and then recommended that I take a less advanced math course, like Algebra or Geometry! The nerve of that lady!” “It’s your fault for volunteering to take a test on your first day of school,” Aria snarked, twirling a pencil between her index and middle fingers. “What did you expect?” Adagio ripped the pencil out of her hand and tossed it right out of an open window, much to her sister’s annoyance. “Our mission is to become the best students at CHS, but if I can’t pass this stupid course about triangles, that isn’t going to happen!” Aria rolled her eyes. “Okay, first, I needed that pencil. And second, just do what your teacher said. Drop it for a lower math course.” “Absolutely not! If I drop it for a worse math class, everyone will know, I’ll become a disgrace, and the student body will NEVER adore us! This is a matter of dignity, Aria. Not that you would understand, since you don’t have any to lose.” The younger sister ignored Adagio’s diss and leaned back in her seat, bringing two out of the four chair legs off the ground. “So you’d rather keep failing at a class than switch to one you actually might succeed in?” “I’d rather be taken out of math entirely. But if I have to stay, then I am not leaving Trigonometry.” The lead siren cracked her knuckles and sighed. “I just need a plan to get through the semester.” For the rest of the school day, Adagio thought only about how to pass Trigonometry, passively taking notes while Mr. Turnip Truck taught about the founding of Canterlot. Unfortunately, when the last school bell rang, she still had nothing. Crap. Adagio and Aria waited for Sonata by the girl’s bathroom. She came skipping toward them, a colossal smile on her face and a hopeful glimmer in her eyes. “Ugh,” Aria groaned, facepalming. “Sonata, what did we tell you about accepting mysterious substances from strangers?” Sonata giggled. “I’m on a natural high, silly! In Creative Writing class, you get to write poems, which are just like songs without the backing track! It was a-MAZE-ing!” “Fantastic,” Adagio mumbled under her breath. “Everyone had a good day except me.” The Dazzlings wandered the hallways, watching as their peers put on their backpacks and slowly exited the building. Every time the sirens approached a student, they would do either run, scream and then run, or just awkwardly smile and wave at them. Adagio took it in stride, flipping her hair and loudly clicking her heels against the floor to make it sure their presence was known. After around ten minutes, most people had gone home, leaving the Dazzlings alone in the main foyer. “Huh,” Sonata said, looking around at the emptiness that surrounded her. “School was fun, but what happens now?” “If we’re going to stay here overnight, we might as well do something to pass the time,” Adagio suggested, leaning against a locker. “Principal Celestia mentioned that participating in an extracurricular activity would help us become the best students at CHS, so we just have to find one that’s right for us.” “Great, you can join the Mathletes,” Aria quipped, playfully nudging Adagio in the ribs. The elder sister retaliated with an obscene hand gesture. “Okay, fine. It’s too late to join the Fall Drama, and we can’t sing well enough to join a musical act. So what do we do?” The Dazzlings scanned the halls for posters, hoping to find one listing an activity that would peak their interest. Football? No. Soccer? Definitely not. Yearbook club? Don’t care enough. Horseback riding? They had already experienced enough trauma from ponies in their lives. Animal Care Club? Not if those animals were rodents. The only club that seemed interesting was Dance Club, but it only met on Thursdays. “This is hopeless,” Aria moaned, blowing her hair out of her face. “There’s nothing good at this school!” Sonata solemnly nodded her head, then pulled the last poster off the way. Her face immediately lit back up, and she shoved the paper straight into her sisters’ faces. “Ooo! Study Buddies! Such a cute name!” Aria rubbed her temples. “Of course you would pick that, Sonata. That sounds like the lamest club on campus.” “You’re the lamest club on campus!” “That doesn't even make sense.” “Girls, please!” Adagio interjected, planting herself in between her quarreling sisters. “If we can’t agree on anything else, then that’s our only option.” She grabbed the poster, which said the club took place everyday from 3pm to 6pm. “To the library, I suppose.” Sonata clapped her hands and rushed off, while Aria and Adagio stayed back, the former carrying a look of dismay. “Who knows?” Adagio said, shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe we’ll enjoy it.” Adagio Dazzle was not enjoying Study Buddies. As predicted, it was a rather dull scene, hosted in what felt like the quietest library on the planet. Every member of the “club” was either doing homework, reading a book for homework, or helping each other with homework! There was no room for conversation about anything other than English, Math, History, and Science. To Adagio, it felt like she was being punished for such a low grade. Strangely enough, this was the first time all day where no student had shown the slightest tinge of fear around the Dazzlings, although they were likely too invested in their studies to even notice the sirens were there. Stranger, however, was the fact that Aria and Sonata seemed to be enjoying themselves. Aria had somehow found a comic on one of the hundreds of bookshelves and was quietly reading it, while Sonata used the opportunity to write more of the poetry she had been gushing about earlier. Which left Adagio sitting by herself on the stairs, staring at the ceiling. It was an admittedly nice ceiling, with glass panels arranged in a beautiful diamond pattern. However, the more Adagio looked at it, the more upset she got. Diamonds were shapes, which reminded her of triangles, which in turn made her think about Trigonometry, thus recalling the image of the red “1” on her paper. It wasn’t long before she wanted to throw a book at the ceiling and shatter it. She was debating the maximum weight she could hurl that high when the new Twilight Sparkle with glasses walked over and sat down on the step next to her. “As the founder, president, and organizer of Study Buddies, I like to check in with everyone who shows up at our meetings. And, well, I couldn’t help but notice you sitting here, all by yourself. Is everything okay?” “Never better,” Adagio replied, deciding that a dictionary could be a suitable projectile. Twilight pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, a little uncomfortably. “Are you sure? Because it’s fine if you aren’t. Failing a test isn’t easy. At least, that’s what Rainbow Dash tells me.” Adagio laughed directly in her peer’s face. “Clearly, you don’t know me as well as you think.” “We just met today. I don’t know you at all.” The siren groaned, having forgotten that there were now two Twilights she had to keep track of. Desperately wanting to escape the conversation, she began fake coughing. “Oh dear,” she wheezed, beating her chest. “I think I’m coming down with something. I better get out of here.” She got up and started making her way down the stairs, but Twilight followed her. “Here, have a lozenge!” she said, tossing one to Adagio. “Come on. I’ve been running this club for months. I’ve seen every excuse in the book.” The Dazzling rolled her eyes and sat down at an empty table. “Listen, I know Study Buddies isn’t the most interesting place on campus, but I do believe it can be a real asset to your education. Having time specifically dedicated to doing homework or getting yourself a tutor can be a tremendous help come test time.” “A tutor? What is that?” Twilight’s entire body leapt up like a spring, and her smile seemed to brighten the entire room. Adagio knew she had made a terrible mistake. “Oh! A tutor is like having your own private teacher that helps with your specific needs!” Adagio Dazzle wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I don’t exactly have the best experience with teachers.” “Let me change that. Not to brag or anything, but I’ve never gotten below an A- on a Trig test. I could be your tutor!” She put her hand on Adagio’s shoulder, but it was quickly swatted away. “The top student helping the bottom student?” the siren hissed. “No way. I’m not some sob story you can fix.” Twilight shook her head and sat with Adagio. “There’s nothing to fix. You’re a perfectly capable and talented individual. I just want to help you down the path to success.” Adagio looked around, searching for an out, but Sonata and Aria were still busy reading and writing. As much as she didn't want to actually learn the subject she hated the most, she felt like she didn't have a choice. “Let’s do some math,” she eventually groaned. Adagio was overwhelmed. Twilight Sparkle had littered the table with charts, graphs, textbooks, and worksheets, all filled with triangles, circles, and symbols she had never seen before, like “π”. “Don’t be intimidated,” Twilight reassured, sensing Adagio’s discomfort. “Most of these are references for me, not you.” She grabbed a blank sheet of paper, and drew a triangle on it. “Let’s start with a basic question.” “Okay, I have one,” Adagio said, pointing a sharp finger at the shape. “Why should I care about this triangle? Is this triangle going to help me in my life? Advance my career? Bring me joy? Because it’s already failed at that last one.” Twilight giggled. “You like music, right? Well, sound travels in waves, which are sort of similar to the sine and cosine functions used in trigonometry. It’s very useful when producing a song on a computer.” “That’s wonderful, but I heard nothing about this triangle.” After a heavy sigh, Twilight pointed to the longest side of the shape. “Do you know what this is called?” Adagio looked around at the millions of worksheets spilled around the table, hoping to find the answer in the mess. Her eyes landed on a cheat sheet directly across from her. “The high-pot-to-nose,” she answered, squinting. “Hypotenuse, but that’s right!” Twilight clapped her hands together, then began scribbling down numbers on each side of the triangle. Hmm… Maybe cheaters do prosper, Adagio thought to herself. Let’s keep this up. With the answer paper directly in her line of sight, the Dazzling began getting every question almost right. She called exponents “little numbers,” mispronounced just about every term there was, and thought decimals and periods were the same thing, but other than that, Adagio felt as if she was thriving without learning a single thing. Until Twilight caught her. Adagio had been asked if she knew what the Pythagorean theorem was, but since the paper was so far away and the equation was so long, her eyes were off of her own paper for just a second too long. Twilight gasped when she caught the siren’s wandering gaze. “Wait. Have you been cheating this whole time?!” Adagio rolled his eyes. “You were the one who put the answers right in front of me, so I’d say this is more your fault than mine.” Twilight facepalmed, then rubbed her forehead in frustration. Turning over the cheat sheet, she looked Adagio Dazzle straight into the eyes. “Tell me one thing you learned this entire study session.” “Cheaters always prosper,” Adagio immediately replied, nonchalantly checking her nails. “One thing about trigonometry.” The lump in Adagio’s throat began to grow bigger as Twilight’s eyes bore into her own. She searched her brain for an answer, but kept drawing blanks. What were the little numbers called? What was the longest side of a triangle? How many degrees was a right angle? Why was Twilight Sparkle talking so much about pie? “I learned,” Adagio stammed, hesitantly choosing each word, “that pie is very important.” Twilight nodded her head in agreement, but still wasn’t convinced. “Tell me,” she said, giving Adagio a side eye, “what is pi?” A bead of sweat dropped down Adagio’s forehead. She knew what the food pie was, but she somehow got the sense that it wasn’t what Twilight was looking for. Her brain began racing, scrambling to procure even the slightest drop of math knowledge. Still, nothing. She would have to improvise. “Pie is… a number?” Twilight gasped. Adagio was saying everything right, but she wasn’t sure if it was on purpose. She needed one more question to definitively decide if the siren had actually learned anything. “How long is pi?” “One digit, like every other number.” Adagio flipped her hair confidently, as if she was suddenly a master of math. “Next time you challenge me, at least try to make it difficult.” Twilight shook her head and sighed. “Pi is an infinite decimal, Adagio.” The siren’s face went pale. “Look, I can’t help you if you don’t really want to learn. Math is hard. You have to be willing to put in the work and effort if you want to do well.” Adagio pounded her fist on the table. “I am putting in the effort! That’s how I got a one instead of a zero!” The tutor began packing up her books and papers into her backpack. “I want to help you, but I can’t if you’re just going to resort to cheating.” She handed Adagio a children’s book titled All About Triangles. “This was my favorite story to read as a kid. Maybe it’ll inspire you and foster a love for learning, like it did for me!” Adagio began laughing, staring at the cover. “Why do you have a children’s book in your backpack?” Twilight blushed, and put on her now heavy backpack. “Just give it a try. And to kick off your journey of knowledge, let me leave you with a piece of knowledge. Pi is 3.1415.” “I thought you said it was infinite.” “It is, but-- You know what? Just enjoy the book. Knowledge is power, if you know how to harness it.” She walked away, leaving Adagio glaring at the cover of All About Triangles, which showed a yellow triangle and a pink triangle with faces smiling at each other. It made her feel sick to her stomach. It was 5:55pm, meaning Study Buddies was almost over and the Dazzlings would finally have the school all to themselves. While Adagio considered using that time to study for Trigonometry or at least read the triangle book, Twilight’s words had inspired her. Math was hard, and it took way too much effort for its reward, or lack thereof. Adagio didn't want to fail again, but she also didn't want to learn about a subject she hated or drop the class. She was an expert at everything else she had ever tried, so she was not about to let some silly polygons destroy her chances at becoming the best student. Math was not going to keep her from being adored. Of course, to enact her plan, she was going to need help. She patted Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk on their backs, and whispered five simple words to them as the other students vacated the library. Five words that shocked the pair of sisters. “Girls, let’s go destroy Trigonometry.”
PrologueHer van. Her precious van. The one thing that belonged to her, and only her. And Sonata Dusk had set it on fire. Granted, it was a complete accident. All Sonata had wanted to do was use the toaster to heat up a leftover taco she hadn’t finished from the day before. Of course, she put it on a ridiculously high setting, and, sure enough, within three minutes, the toaster was blazing. The fire quickly spread to the other amenities the van offered, like the couch, and Adagio was forced to speedily evacuate the vehicle with Aria and Sonata. Needless to say, she was not in the best mood. “Sonata Dusk,” Adagio growled, her voice dripping with a fiery rage. “I am going to kill you, just like you killed my van!” Sonata frowned, wrapping her arms around her torso. “I didn't mean to! How was I supposed to know that putting a taco inside of a toaster would break it?” “I could’ve guessed,” Aria murmured, unable to avert her eyes from the fiery inferno that had engulfed their home. Adagio groaned and rubbed her temples. It was already bad enough that they had lost the Battle of the Bands and had their necklaces destroyed. But now this? There had to be some mystical force conspiring against her. “What do we do now, Dagi?” Sonata whimpered, clinging onto Aria’s shoulder. “Our voices are gone! Our home is gone! And I didn't even get to eat my chicken taco! You know how much that extra guacamole cost?” Aria shoved her away. “Did you waste all our money on guacamole?!” “Not all of it. We still have this!” She went to pull a quarter out of her pocket, but it fell out before could grab it and rolled away, straight into a sewer vent. “Okay. Now I’ve wasted all our money.” Adagio put her face into her hands. She wasn’t one to cry, but in that moment, she was really close to it. They had no way to buy food, no place to live, no Equestrian magic to help them. They were hopeless. In the distance, they could hear sirens, signaling that the fire department was on its way. Not wanting to explain what had happened to the police, the Dazzlings ran down the street, none of them daring to look back. Twenty-seven minutes later, Sonata tripped over a rock. “Ouch!” she squealed, falling face-first onto the hard cement sidewalk. After a couple of seconds, a bruise appeared on her shoulder. “Ugh! This place is the worst!” “No, you’re the worst!” Aria replied, unable to keep herself from laughing at her sister’s misfortune. Sonata pouted. “No, you are!” “GIRLS!” Adagio shouted, shutting her sisters up before they got into yet another full-scale argument. She took in a deep breath, then exhaled, trying to calm herself down. “I think we can stop running now. We’re far enough from the fire.” Aria and Sonata nodded, and the three Dazzlings sat down on a nearby street curb. Looking up at the endless sky of stars above them, Adagio sighed. What did I do to deserve this? All I wanted was to be adored by everyone. Is that too much to ask for? “Uh-oh,” Sonata whispered to Aria. “Dagi’s doing that thing again.” Aria raised an eyebrow. “Ya know, that thing where she goes into deep thought and doesn't talk to us for a full minute?” “Oh yeah,” Aria replied. “She does do that, doesn't she?” Adagio rolled her eyes, and took a look around at her surroundings. Strangely enough, the area looked familiar. There were luscious green trees that looked like they never missed a day of care, houses so perfectly maintained that not even a shred of grass was out of place, and the faint sound of teenage laughter erupted somewhere nearby. Crud. We’re back in Canterlot. She groaned. This was not what she wanted. All around her were reminders of her greatest failure. The tree across the street? That was where she came up with the lyrics for “Under Our Spell.” That picture-perfect home? She had declined an offer for a sleepover there so that she could spend the night planning on how to break Sunset Shimmer. And that groundhog in the dirt? She didn't have any memories associated with it, but small rodents severely pissed her off, so it wasn’t helping. She looked at her sisters. The looks on their faces told that they had realized where they were, too. “Ugh, this place truly is the worst,” Aria groaned, getting up to stretch out her legs. “We need to get out of here.” Adagio got up and began walking away, but Sonata stayed put, seemingly thinking very hard about something. After a minute, her entire face lit up, her mouth contorting into a large grin. “Wait! I have an idea!” “Your last idea was putting a taco into a toaster, so you’re on very thin ice here, Sonata,” Adagio grumbled, her hands clenched into fists. Sonata nervously chuckled. “Why don’t we re-enroll at Canterlot High School?” Silence. Adagio and Aria looked into each other’s eyes. They tried to keep it in, but they couldn’t. Simultaneously, they burst out into laughter. “That’s the funniest thing you’ve ever said,” Aria giggled. “Go back to CHS? Puh-lease. No Equestrian magic? Not interested.” Sonata shook her head. “There might not be Equestrian magic there anymore, but there is food. Think about it! If we go back to Canterlot High, we could get free breakfast and lunch everyday!” “Oh, you were being serious.” Aria sat back down on the curb and rested her face on her hand. “Duh! Plus, it’s a big school! I’m sure we could find a place to sleep there overnight!” She grabbed Aria and Adagio, and pulled them into a tight hug. “Isn’t it the best plan ever?!” Adagio shook her head, angrily shoving Sonata away. “No. Absolutely not.” Her giddy sister pouted once more. “Actually, it’s not the worst idea,” Aria admitted. Adagio glared at her, eyes visibly filled with rage. “Well, at the very least, it’s the smartest thing Sonata has said in a long time. It is free food and shelter, neither of which we have at the moment. Besides, I'm tired of running around everywhere.” “Exactly! Plus, tomorrow’s Tuesday!” Sonata shrieked, bouncing up and down. “And that means Taco Tuesday!” “Tomorrow’s Monday,” Aria scoffed. “Tuesday!” “Monday!” “SHUT UP!” Adagio shouted. Her two sisters immediately quieted down, fearfully looking into their leader’s eyes. “Need I remind you that everyone at CHS hates us?” Aria shrugged. “Well, they hated Sunset Shimmer, but she’s super popular now.” “That could be us!” Sonata mused, twirling in a circle. “They may hate us now, but if we become the best students Canterlot High School has ever seen, we’ll be adored!" She gasped in awe of her own words. "We'll be the new Sunset Shimmers! Food, shelter, and the popularity we always wanted!” With those words, a flash of inspiration struck Adagio Dazzle, freezing her in place. After taking a second to recompose herself, the words Sonata had just uttered finally sunk in, and a devilish grin emerged on her face. Adored? Popularity? She liked the sound of that.
I: Adagio Dazzle Takes A Test“Good morning, Canterlot High School!” Principal Celestia’s cheery voice boomed throughout the school’s P.A. system, right as the last couple students settled down for homeroom. “I hope you’re not feeling the Monday blues, because this is going to be an exciting week at Canterlot High! Wednesday is a big soccer game against Crystal Prep, and tomorrow, we’ll be having an assembly to show a preview of our Fall Drama--” Principal Celestia’s voice cut off. Several students uttered confused noises, but then went back to their personal conversations without giving it a second thought. Adagio Dazzle was sitting on Principal Celestia’s desk, giving her signature devious grin to the woman sitting on the other side. By her side stood Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk, who were showing a confident smirk and genuine smile, respectively. Principal Celestia, on the other hand, had a look of pure horror in her eyes. “What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to recompose herself. “I will not let you wreak havoc on my school once again!” Adagio scoffed and flipped her massive poof of hair. “Principal Celestia, I’m offended. My sisters and I would never.” “Except for the time we did,” Sonata said. Aria nudged her in the side with her elbow. Sonata retaliated by sticking her tongue out. “We’ve seen the error of our ways,” Adagio continued. “Hypnotizing CHS in order to steal their negative energy was cruel, callous, and just plain wrong. Thus, we would like to make amends and right our wrongs by re-enrolling in your school today as proud Wonderbolts.” “Wondercolts,” Celestia corrected. “Whatever. Please, give us poor, lonely girls a second chance. Let us indulge ourselves in the Magic of Friendship and become better people!” She snapped her fingers at her sisters, and the three of them gave Celestia puppy-dog eyes. Very convincing puppy-dog eyes. That worked. Principal Celestia put her hand over her heart and beamed at the girls. Adagio could have sworn she saw a tear in her eyes. “Here at Canterlot High, we are firm believers in second chances and redemption!” She opened her desk, and pulled out a file of papers. “If you are truly as remorseful as you claim, then there’s no reason to turn you away. Dazzlings, welcome to the Wondercolt Family!” Adagio winked back at her sisters. Sonata gave a thumbs-up. “Oh, thank you so much, Principal Celestia,” Adagio said, expertly hiding any hint of manipulation in her voice. “Now, please, tell us, what does one have to do to become the best student at CHS?” Celestia chuckled. “We don’t have a Class Ranking system at Canterlot High. However, if you study, do well on your tests, participate in extracurriculars, and go to social events, you’ll do just fine.” Sonata raised her hand. “Is today Monday or Tuesday?” “Monday.” “Ha!” Aria cruelly exclaimed, slapping Sonata on the back. “You owe me ten dollars.” A pause. “Once we have money again, of course.” “GIRLS!” Adagio snarled through gritted teeth, instantly silencing her sisters. She took a deep breath, recentered herself, then turned back toward Celestia with an innocent smile gracing her face. “Again, my sincerest of thanks. When do classes begin?” Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Well, you see, it’s a bit of a process. You can’t just automatically become students. You have to fill out paperwork, show up on the roster--” “All of that sounds like nonsense keeping my sisters and I from getting a full education!” Adagio hopped off the desk, instead putting her hands on the wooden surface and leaning forward so that she was right in her principal’s face. “How can you expect us to learn and become better if we can’t even take a class?” The principal nervously adjusted her suit jacket and cleared her throat. “I’ll see what I can do. If Vice Principal Luna and I work together, we might be able to get you into classes by lunch.” Adagio grinned and took Celestia’s hand. “Much better. Thank you so much.” Her and her sisters began walking out of the office, but Adagio turned back at the last second. With a sinister look in her eyes, she said one last thing. “You won’t regret this.” Principal Celestia was already starting to regret it. Adagio, Aria, and Sonata sauntered through the halls of CHS, carrying with them an air of superiority. Their plan had worked. Come lunchtime, they would be full-fledged students at Canterlot High and begin their mission of earning their peers' adoration. “I haven’t lost my touch,” Adagio laughed, strutting past the science lab. “You’re welcome, sisters. We now have free food and shelter.” Aria and Sonata joined her revelry, each contributing their own unique laugh. “That was so easy,” the former said. “We’ll be the new Sunset Shimmers in no time.” “Did someone say my name?” The Dazzlings turned a corner and were greeted by Sunset Shimmer, who was standing by a locker, holding a red textbook. Upon seeing the trio of sirens, her face turned white, and that poor book fell to the floor. Adagio tactfully picked it up and handed it back to her. “You dropped this.” Sunset was too stunned to hold it, and just stood there, completely frozen in place. “I think we broke her,” Sonata whispered. “Y-You…” Sunset stammered, pointing at the girls. Her whole body was shaking. “What are you doing here?!” “We go here, duh,” Aria teased, leaning her elbow on Adagio’s shoulder. The flustered Wondercolt was struggling to get out any words. “What?! How?! I thought you got expelled! You hypnotized the whole school!” “So did you.” Sunset was taken aback by Aria’s words, nearly stumbling over the backpack that was behind her foot. She caught herself, then took a deep breath. “Okay, you’re right, I did do that. But that’s in the past now. I learned about the Magic of Friendship and became a better person.” “Oh! Twinsies!” Sonata giggled, patting Sunset on the back. “That’s exactly why we’re here!” Sunset furrowed her brow. “You want to learn about the Magic of Friendship?” “Something like that,” Adagio yawned, striding past her fellow student. “We’re reformed now, just like you. No more hypnotizing. No more bickering. No more evil plans. Just good old fashioned academia.” “Even Principal Celestia agreed,” Aria added, following Adagio away. “We all deserve second chances.” “See you later, alligator!” Sonata called out, running to catch up with her sisters. Sunset watched the Dazzlings leave, and shook her head in disbelief. They had to be up to something, right? Unless… they genuinely were reformed. Could she trust them? In that moment, standing in front of her locker, Sunset Shimmer vowed to get to the bottom of the sudden reappearance of the Dazzlings. After history class, of course. At lunch, the Dazzlings had a table all to themselves. Adagio put her feet up and bit into an apple. “Mmm… I haven’t had food this good in months.” She wiped her lips with a napkin and let out a deep sigh. “I’ll admit, this wasn’t the worst plan we’ve ever had.” “That honor still goes to the taco in a toaster,” Aria agreed, scarfing down her plate of spaghetti and meatballs. “Seriously, what were you thinking?!” “I’ll give you an answer when I wake up from this food coma,” Sonata moaned gleefully, a tossing a potato chip into her mouth. The students at the surrounding tables were constantly stealing glances at them and whispering. Some had looks of terror on their face. Others appeared angry. Most were just plain confused. And while they weren’t being loud enough for the Dazzlings to hear their gossip, they knew it was about them. Especially since not a soul in the cafeteria dared to even approach the girls. “Look at us,” Adagio said, taking another chunk out of her apple. “We’re already the center of attention. Everyone is talking about us.” Aria shrugged. “I suppose negative attention is better than no attention at all.” Adagio tossed her apple core into a nearby trash can and laughed. “Oh, we’ll win them over faster than you can say 'Battle of the Bands'.” “Battle of the Bands!” Sonata blurted out. “Did we win yet?” Aria Blaze punched her in the arm. Adagio was about to come up with a plan for the rest of the girls’ day, but was interrupted by Vice Principal Luna, who walked over to their table with three sheets of paper in her hand. “Here are your schedules,” she said, giving a paper to each girl. “We did not have a gauge for your abilities, and put you into classes based on what the majority of your grade is taking.” Adagio ripped hers out of Luna’s hand and quickly scoured it. Concert Choir, Biology, Twentieth Century Literature, Lunch, Gym, Trigonometry, History. She didn't know what Trigonometry even was, but couldn't be bothered to ask. “This will do.” “Hey, wait,” Aria grumbled, sneaking a peek over Adagio’s shoulder. “We only have Biology and History together!” “We did our best,” Luna replied, barely showing any emotion in her voice, “but some classes were already at their maximum capacity, so we needed to shuffle you around.” Adagio put her hand on Aria’s shoulder. “Sister, you’ll be fine. Honestly, I could use a break from your cumbersome quarrels.” She waved her hand at Vice Principal Luna, signaling for her to leave. Luna rolled her eyes and walked away, loudly moaning. “This it it, girls,” Adagio continued, pulling her sisters in towards her. “The start of our journey to gain the adoration of everyone. We have to be the very best at all of these courses, so our peers will respect us.” Aria and Sonata nodded. “No messing up. Basically, just don’t be yourselves.” Sonata took Adagio’s words into consideration. “Mmm… okay! In that case, I’ll be Sonata Dust!” Aria rolled her eyes. “Finish your food, Sonata.” Gym class had been a piece of cake. Adagio was a fantastic dodgeball player. Thanks to her experience dancing in her performances, she was nimble and could avoid the flying balls with ease. Her poofy hair was a big advantage, too, since if the ball hit her hair, but not her body, she wasn’t out. They had played three games, and Adagio was the last person standing in two of them. Although, she was pretty certain one of her teammates had thrown a ball at her. No matter. She had brought her team to victory. Surely, she had earned at least a little respect. She walked into the Trigonometry classroom with a fierce gusto, offering smiles to her peers instead of shooting them daggers. Of course, the other students were still afraid of her. “Ah, so the rumors are true,” the teacher said, nervously smiling at her student. “Hello, Adagio Dazzle. I’m Miss Cheerilee, and I’ll be your Trigonometry teacher for the remainder of the school year.” She held out her hand for Adagio to shake. The student just stared at it. “Um, on a later date, we’ll have to catch you up with the material and assess your skill level. But since we’re taking a test today, you’re welcome to sit out and observe.” Adagio gasped. “Nonsense. I want to take the test, just like every other student. How else am I going to prove my academic prowess and be the best student?” “Are you sure?” “Positive.” Adagio Dazzle turned around and took searched for a seat. A couple of students moved their bags into empty seats so she wouldn’t sit by them, while others just held their heads down and hoped for the best. Eventually, Adagio found a place next to a girl with glasses and dark blue hair and purple streaks. The girl was looking through her notes, and thus didn't pay notice the siren sitting next to her. Something seemed familiar about her, but Adagio just couldn’t put her finger on it. After thirty seconds of internal debating, it hit her like a ton of bricks. “Twilight Sparkle?!” “Hi,” Twilight replied. “Do I know you?” “Of course you do! What are you doing here? I thought you went back to Equestria!” Twilight sighed and shook her head. “I get that a lot. You’re thinking of the other Twilight Sparkle. That one’s a princess. I’m just… me.” “There are two of you?!” “Yup. I’m still trying to figure out the science behind it myself, but--” “That is awful.” Twilight rolled her eyes and went back to looking at her notes. Adagio grimaced, and continued staring at her. Twilight Sparkle. Just as bad as Sunset Shimmer. “Alright, class,” Cheerilee announced, a stack of papers in her hand. “I hope you all studied over the weekend, because it’s test time!” The room erupted into a loud groan. “Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as you think. There’s less than twenty questions.” This should be effortless, Adagio thought. Cheerilee placed the tests face down on each student’s desk, and told them to flip it over when she said “Begin.” Adagio patiently waiting for the signal, then furiously flipped her paper over and bore her eyes into that first question. “Name”. Easy. She wrote down “Adagio Dazzle”. The next one said “Period”. Why would they want that? She shrugged, and put “.” on the line. The final one displayed the word “Date”. Ugh. I’m not going out with someone I just met. Disgusting. She wrote “Not a chance” in the slot. Great. Three down, ten to go. The next question was continued the easy streak. “What is the angle of depression?” There was an image next to it, filled with numbers, but Adagio ignored it. “Depression is a state of extreme sadness. For example, me being tortured by my SISTERS every waking minute of my life.” Under it was a question which read, “sin(35)=” with another image. Adagio didn't remember there being thirty-five deadly sins. Thinking the “5” was a typo, she wrote the only three deadly sins she could remember: “Pride, Envy, and Greed.” Then the test asked for "2 pi" in degrees. She wrote “Strawberry Rhubarb and Apple.” Adagio continued through the rest of the questions like this, ignoring all the triangles that were plastered over the test. After about five minutes, she stood up and triumphantly strutted up to Miss Cheerilee, garnering the looks of her fellow classmates, who were still in their seats on the first couple of questions. The siren put the paper down on her teacher’s desk. “I’m done." “Great!” Cheerilee said with a smile. “I’ll grade that right now for you.” "Fantastic. By the way, this test is full of spelling and grammar mistakes. I see now why you're not an English teacher." "I-- Um-- Okay?" Adagio waited as her test was looked over, absentmindedly checking her nails. She looked up, and Twilight was staring at her. Adagio winked and waved. Twilight shook her head and went back to her test. After a minute or so, Cheerilee tapped the Dazzling on her shoulder. “Um, I don’t-- Here. Just take a look.” She handed Adagio her test. There were several red “X” marks all over the paper. All the shapes had been circle. And at the top of the paper, there was a big, red “1” drawn in permanent marker. “A one?” Adagio asked, looking at the sheet. “Because I’m number one?” Cheerilee sighed. “No. One out of one hundred points. And that’s just because you wrote your name.” Adagio blankly stared at the red “1”, which had sown its image into her brain just as permanent as the marker it was written with. She had failed trigonometry. No. No way. That couldn’t be. Absolutely not. Trigonometry had failed her. And she was not about to let that stand.
III: Adagio Dazzle Breaks Into An OfficeThe Dazzlings peeked her head around the corner. Sure enough, the janitor was still mopping the floor with intense precision and care, headphones in his ears and keys jangling on his belt. Adagio was not happy about it. “This piece of human scum is taking forever!” she groaned, pulling on her hair. “He’s been mopping this one spot for thirty minutes! It’s already 8pm! If the floor isn’t clean by now, you either need to move on or change professions!” Aria looked up from her comic to roll her eyes. “Calm down. Let him do his job or whatever. It’s not like we don’t have the entire night for this.” Sonata raised her hand. “I would like to sleep at some point.” She crossed her arms and tilted her nose into the air, as if she were preparing herself for the other sisters’ imminent protests. “After all, good poetry comes from a healthy brain and body.” “Will you stop with the poetry?!” Aria tossed her light reading at Sonata’s face, but the younger sister was expecting such a move and expertly dodged it. “I will not, Ari. You make me so mad sometimes. You are the worst. Truth.” She paused. “A haiku.” Aria clenched her fists and geared up to strike, but decided against it at the last second. Adagio looked around the corner once again, desperately hoping for a different outcome, but the janitor remained stationary. She bit her lip, trying her very hardest not to scream at the top of her lungs. This was going nowhere. “Girls,” she muttered, struggling to keep her cool. “We need a new plan.” “Did we have an old plan?” Aria asked, rubbing her forehead. “All you said was we needed to ‘destroy trigonometry,’ which, by the way, makes no sense. Math is an abstract concept, not a physical object.” Adagio devilishly grinned. “Math was a physical object when I put my test through the paper shredder in the library.” With those words, Sonata and Aria shared a glance of worry. “Now, I need one of you idiots to sneak behind him and steal his keys.” “Why do you need his keys?” “Why do you ask so many questions?” Aria rolled her eyes, but didn't dare argue with her older sister, fearing what her and Sonata apprehensively called ‘The Wrath of Adagio’. Between how their sister was acting in history class earlier and her current frantic mentality, Aria and Sonata could sense it was coming. It was only a question of how long before the big-haired volcano erupted. Adagio Dazzle stared intimidatingly at her sisters, waiting for one of them to follow her demands. Aria pushed Sonata forward, but the youngest sister quickly darted behind Aria and nudged her forward, prompting Aria to push Sonata forward again. This cycle continued for another minute or so, until Adagio got tired of their shenanigans and stepped in between them. “Great,” she said, lightly placing her hands on their backs. “You’ve both earned the privilege of grabbing the key.” With a burst of force, the lead Dazzling shoved her sisters around the corner, and they immediately slipped and fell onto slippery tile floor. Due to the headphones in his ears and his back being turned toward the girls, the janitor didn't notice the girls and kept innocently mopping. “Dagi!” Sonata whined, lying on the ground. “That hurt!” “Perfect! You can write about it in your next poem!” Adagio hissed, sharply pointing at the janitor. “Now get me that key!” Aria raised her middle finger at her sister, but still did as she was told and slowly inched toward the unsuspecting custodian. With Sonata close behind, she took quiet, careful baby steps, doing her best to keep her footing against the newly mopped floor. Adagio watched intently, hoping her sisters wouldn’t botch their mission, but fully expecting them to. Once they were about a foot away from the man, he finally decided he was done mopping that section of the hallway and turned around to put his mop in a bucket. Caught off guard, Sonata ducked while Aria slid across the floor, clinging onto a nearby wall as if her life depended on it. Adagio held her breath. Luckily, the janitor was deeply into his music and thus wasn’t paying great attention to his surroundings. As the pair of sisters let out a sigh of relief, it quickly became apparent that their lucky break was short-lived, as the janitor began walking away, looking for a new place to excessively clean. “Get him!” Adagio yelled, shooing the girls with her hands. Aria moaned, then tailed the janitor, following him around another corner. Sonata shuffled behind her, nearly slipping on the floor once again, but just barely keeping herself up at the last moment. Adagio, however, did not follow. Instead, she trusted her sisters would complete her task, and honestly, she couldn’t care less about the damage they caused along the way. Without so much as a glance in their direction, she walked back into the locked library, which she had purposefully wedged open with a book following the end of the Study Buddies session. On the staircase was the book Twilight Sparkle had left her, All About Triangles. Adagio opened up the first page, which had an illustration of a red triangle in a park on a sunny day. Of course, since it was a children’s book, the triangle had a face and could talk. Hi! I’m a triangle! I’m a shape with three sides! Adagio glared at the abomination. Why should somebody care about that dumb triangle? And why did math have to get more complicated than 1+1=2? She flipped through the rest of the book, and, as expected, it was filled with more useless facts than a tabloid. This was it. In one swift motion, Adagio grabbed the first page and ripped it straight out the book, leaving a jagged trail of paper clinging onto its binding. She stared at the red triangle one last time, looking at his tender, warm smile and idyllic city life. He looked so happy to be a triangle. Like he didn't have a care in the world. And thus, Adagio Dazzle put him straight into the paper shredder. In an instant, that triangle and his perfect world has been reduced to nothing but strands of rubbish. One by one, she ripped out the other pages of the book and placed them straight into the metal box of death, watching their remains beautifully fall inside the machine, reborn as perfectly cut strips. Much to her delight, watch something she passionately despised be destroyed right before her very eyes was immensely satisfying. When it came down to the final page, she laughed. And, much to her surprise, it quickly evolved into a maniacal laugh, something she hadn’t done since the Battle of the Bands. It had come so naturally, despite being dormant within her for so long. It felt good. Very good, indeed. The other Dazzlings returned to the library about twenty minutes after they had begun chasing the janitor. Aria had his key ring in her hand, Sonata carried his mop, and they were both soaking wet. “Goodness, girls,” Adagio sighed, marveling at the state of her sisters. “I asked you to steal his keys, not his job.” Sonata began wringing out her hair, creating a puddle of water below her. “We ran into a couple of issues along the way, but Ari and I are amazing ninjas, so we got the key just like that!” She snapped her fingers, accidentally knocking over her mop. “No, we didn't!” Aria argued, shaking out her shirt. “It took forever! He kept walking away right as we were about to grab his keys! Eventually, we got so frustrated we just stole the stupid mop and ran away.” “Which worked out in the end. When he noticed it was missing, he was soooo distracted, he didn't even realize the keys were coming off his belt!” Aria scoffed. “Of course, someone just had to knock over the mop bucket and cover us in dirty water before we left.” “Did not!” “Did too!” Adagio raised her fist up, silencing her sisters. “Adequate work, girls. For once.” She snatched the keys from Aria’s hand and began sauntering through the library’s door. “Come on. We have work to do.” The other two Dazzlings groaned, but followed their leader’s demands without much hesitation. The three sisters walked back through the hallways, peering around every corner to make sure the touring janitor wasn’t around, seeking vengeance for his stolen mop. Once they could confirm he was not in the area, they advanced forward, not daring to make any sound that would make their presence known. After a minute or so, they made it to their destination. “Principal Celestia’s office?” Aria asked, leaning against the wall. “If I end up in detention on my second day of school, I’m going to be very grumpy.” Sonata laughed. “You’re always grumpy.” “Relax,” Adagio replied, her voice calm and collected. Though her heart was racing, it didn't show. “No one will ever know we were here.” She put the key into the lock and turned it. With a resounding “click” that faintly echoed through the hallways, the door opened. They were in. Principal Celestia’s desk was riddled with paperwork, sun momentos, and a desktop computer that looked like it belonged in another decade. Adagio Dazzle comfortably sat on her chair and booted up the machine. Unsurprisingly, it asked for a password. “Great,” Aria scoffed. She sat on the desk, next to Adagio. “How do you plan to bypass this?” Adagio looked around, spying a post-it note under a stack of Fire Codes. sUn15b3Tt3Rth4NmO0n. She smirked and typed in the code. Sure enough, her desktop, decorated with a sunny background image, appeared on the screen. “Adagio’s a hacker!” Sonata gasped, backing away. “Adagio’s a lunatic,” Aria grumbled, crossing her arms. “Can I just point out that either dropping the class or studying for it would have been much easier than this?” “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” the eldest siren replied, pulling up a search engine and typing “teachers” into the search bar. Several of Celestia’s previously visited websites appeared, and Adagio clicked on the first one she saw. Through the power of guesswork, she managed to pull up a master list of all the classes and periods. Since they were in alphabetical order, she scrolled down to the “T”s, and there it was. The bane of her existence. Trigonometry. She clicked on it, and a pop-up box appeared. In the bottom right corner was a button that read “Delete.” Without an ounce of hesitation, she pressed it. “We’re done, girls,” Adagio Dazzle laughed, cracking her knuckles. “Simple as that. We’ve destroyed Trigonometry.” Sonata and Aria looked at each other in disbelief. She couldn’t have just deleted an entire class. There had to be a catch of some sort. Regardless, their fear of Adagio’s wrath kept them from asking questions, and they blindly followed their leader back to the library, where they spent the rest of the night. “Adagio Dazzle, Aria Blaze, and Sonata Dusk, please report to the Principal’s Office immediately.” Crap. The three girls walked into the room, greeted by a very angry Principal Celestia. Without saying a word, she turned her desktop screen toward them. Are you sure you want to delete Trigonometry? Adagio bit her lip. She could feel Aria’s glare boring into the back of her skull. “That wasn’t us,” she instinctively blurted out, crossing her fingers behind her back. Celestia rolled her eyes. “The security camera footage says otherwise.” Adagio could feel the sweat sliding down her forehead. All that work for nothing. And what was worse, it wasn’t even Sonata or Aria who had botched the mission. It was her. Celestia was reprimanding them and explaining their punishment, but her words couldn’t reach the stunned Dazzling leader. Once again, she had failed, only this time, she couldn't run away. Canterlot High was all she had. And already, on her second day, she was losing it. The only thing she could process was Aria Blaze, who leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Adagio Dazzle, I am going to kill you.”
II: Adagio Dazzle Finds A Study BuddyAdagio walked into history class filled with a fiery rage. Aria could sense this from a mile away, and gulped as Adagio sat in the plastic chair next to her. She considered asking what was wrong, but figured she would find out anyway within a couple of seconds, and decided instead to cherish her last few seconds of calm before the storm. Adagio opened her mouth. Aria braced for impact. “Aria,” the elder sister growled, baring her teeth. “How were your classes?” The younger sister had not been expecting this approach, and proceeded with caution. “Um, fine, I guess,” she responded with a shrug. “Turns out Baking class is more cleaning than actual baking. But then I had Music Theory with Sonata, which was so easy, I almost fell asle--” “How come you and Sonata get to go to Music Theory while I’m stuck in Trigonometry?!” Adagio yelled, interrupting her fellow siren. “I demand to be put into Music Theory this instant! Where’s Principal Celestia?!” A couple of students who were taking their seats near the Dazzlings immediately got up and moved to a different location. Aria furrowed her brow. “What is Trigonometry?” Adagio was seething with rage. “The study of failure, apparently! Everybody else was taking a test, so I offered to join them, and wound up getting a ONE in front of the entire class!” Aria snickered, prompting a burning glare from Adagio. “And it gets worse! Miss Cheerilee said I was being ‘impulsive’ and then recommended that I take a less advanced math course, like Algebra or Geometry! The nerve of that lady!” “It’s your fault for volunteering to take a test on your first day of school,” Aria snarked, twirling a pencil between her index and middle fingers. “What did you expect?” Adagio ripped the pencil out of her hand and tossed it right out of an open window, much to her sister’s annoyance. “Our mission is to become the best students at CHS, but if I can’t pass this stupid course about triangles, that isn’t going to happen!” Aria rolled her eyes. “Okay, first, I needed that pencil. And second, just do what your teacher said. Drop it for a lower math course.” “Absolutely not! If I drop it for a worse math class, everyone will know, I’ll become a disgrace, and the student body will NEVER adore us! This is a matter of dignity, Aria. Not that you would understand, since you don’t have any to lose.” The younger sister ignored Adagio’s diss and leaned back in her seat, bringing two out of the four chair legs off the ground. “So you’d rather keep failing at a class than switch to one you actually might succeed in?” “I’d rather be taken out of math entirely. But if I have to stay, then I am not leaving Trigonometry.” The lead siren cracked her knuckles and sighed. “I just need a plan to get through the semester.” For the rest of the school day, Adagio thought only about how to pass Trigonometry, passively taking notes while Mr. Turnip Truck taught about the founding of Canterlot. Unfortunately, when the last school bell rang, she still had nothing. Crap. Adagio and Aria waited for Sonata by the girl’s bathroom. She came skipping toward them, a colossal smile on her face and a hopeful glimmer in her eyes. “Ugh,” Aria groaned, facepalming. “Sonata, what did we tell you about accepting mysterious substances from strangers?” Sonata giggled. “I’m on a natural high, silly! In Creative Writing class, you get to write poems, which are just like songs without the backing track! It was a-MAZE-ing!” “Fantastic,” Adagio mumbled under her breath. “Everyone had a good day except me.” The Dazzlings wandered the hallways, watching as their peers put on their backpacks and slowly exited the building. Every time the sirens approached a student, they would do either run, scream and then run, or just awkwardly smile and wave at them. Adagio took it in stride, flipping her hair and loudly clicking her heels against the floor to make it sure their presence was known. After around ten minutes, most people had gone home, leaving the Dazzlings alone in the main foyer. “Huh,” Sonata said, looking around at the emptiness that surrounded her. “School was fun, but what happens now?” “If we’re going to stay here overnight, we might as well do something to pass the time,” Adagio suggested, leaning against a locker. “Principal Celestia mentioned that participating in an extracurricular activity would help us become the best students at CHS, so we just have to find one that’s right for us.” “Great, you can join the Mathletes,” Aria quipped, playfully nudging Adagio in the ribs. The elder sister retaliated with an obscene hand gesture. “Okay, fine. It’s too late to join the Fall Drama, and we can’t sing well enough to join a musical act. So what do we do?” The Dazzlings scanned the halls for posters, hoping to find one listing an activity that would peak their interest. Football? No. Soccer? Definitely not. Yearbook club? Don’t care enough. Horseback riding? They had already experienced enough trauma from ponies in their lives. Animal Care Club? Not if those animals were rodents. The only club that seemed interesting was Dance Club, but it only met on Thursdays. “This is hopeless,” Aria moaned, blowing her hair out of her face. “There’s nothing good at this school!” Sonata solemnly nodded her head, then pulled the last poster off the way. Her face immediately lit back up, and she shoved the paper straight into her sisters’ faces. “Ooo! Study Buddies! Such a cute name!” Aria rubbed her temples. “Of course you would pick that, Sonata. That sounds like the lamest club on campus.” “You’re the lamest club on campus!” “That doesn't even make sense.” “Girls, please!” Adagio interjected, planting herself in between her quarreling sisters. “If we can’t agree on anything else, then that’s our only option.” She grabbed the poster, which said the club took place everyday from 3pm to 6pm. “To the library, I suppose.” Sonata clapped her hands and rushed off, while Aria and Adagio stayed back, the former carrying a look of dismay. “Who knows?” Adagio said, shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe we’ll enjoy it.” Adagio Dazzle was not enjoying Study Buddies. As predicted, it was a rather dull scene, hosted in what felt like the quietest library on the planet. Every member of the “club” was either doing homework, reading a book for homework, or helping each other with homework! There was no room for conversation about anything other than English, Math, History, and Science. To Adagio, it felt like she was being punished for such a low grade. Strangely enough, this was the first time all day where no student had shown the slightest tinge of fear around the Dazzlings, although they were likely too invested in their studies to even notice the sirens were there. Stranger, however, was the fact that Aria and Sonata seemed to be enjoying themselves. Aria had somehow found a comic on one of the hundreds of bookshelves and was quietly reading it, while Sonata used the opportunity to write more of the poetry she had been gushing about earlier. Which left Adagio sitting by herself on the stairs, staring at the ceiling. It was an admittedly nice ceiling, with glass panels arranged in a beautiful diamond pattern. However, the more Adagio looked at it, the more upset she got. Diamonds were shapes, which reminded her of triangles, which in turn made her think about Trigonometry, thus recalling the image of the red “1” on her paper. It wasn’t long before she wanted to throw a book at the ceiling and shatter it. She was debating the maximum weight she could hurl that high when the new Twilight Sparkle with glasses walked over and sat down on the step next to her. “As the founder, president, and organizer of Study Buddies, I like to check in with everyone who shows up at our meetings. And, well, I couldn’t help but notice you sitting here, all by yourself. Is everything okay?” “Never better,” Adagio replied, deciding that a dictionary could be a suitable projectile. Twilight pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, a little uncomfortably. “Are you sure? Because it’s fine if you aren’t. Failing a test isn’t easy. At least, that’s what Rainbow Dash tells me.” Adagio laughed directly in her peer’s face. “Clearly, you don’t know me as well as you think.” “We just met today. I don’t know you at all.” The siren groaned, having forgotten that there were now two Twilights she had to keep track of. Desperately wanting to escape the conversation, she began fake coughing. “Oh dear,” she wheezed, beating her chest. “I think I’m coming down with something. I better get out of here.” She got up and started making her way down the stairs, but Twilight followed her. “Here, have a lozenge!” she said, tossing one to Adagio. “Come on. I’ve been running this club for months. I’ve seen every excuse in the book.” The Dazzling rolled her eyes and sat down at an empty table. “Listen, I know Study Buddies isn’t the most interesting place on campus, but I do believe it can be a real asset to your education. Having time specifically dedicated to doing homework or getting yourself a tutor can be a tremendous help come test time.” “A tutor? What is that?” Twilight’s entire body leapt up like a spring, and her smile seemed to brighten the entire room. Adagio knew she had made a terrible mistake. “Oh! A tutor is like having your own private teacher that helps with your specific needs!” Adagio Dazzle wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I don’t exactly have the best experience with teachers.” “Let me change that. Not to brag or anything, but I’ve never gotten below an A- on a Trig test. I could be your tutor!” She put her hand on Adagio’s shoulder, but it was quickly swatted away. “The top student helping the bottom student?” the siren hissed. “No way. I’m not some sob story you can fix.” Twilight shook her head and sat with Adagio. “There’s nothing to fix. You’re a perfectly capable and talented individual. I just want to help you down the path to success.” Adagio looked around, searching for an out, but Sonata and Aria were still busy reading and writing. As much as she didn't want to actually learn the subject she hated the most, she felt like she didn't have a choice. “Let’s do some math,” she eventually groaned. Adagio was overwhelmed. Twilight Sparkle had littered the table with charts, graphs, textbooks, and worksheets, all filled with triangles, circles, and symbols she had never seen before, like “π”. “Don’t be intimidated,” Twilight reassured, sensing Adagio’s discomfort. “Most of these are references for me, not you.” She grabbed a blank sheet of paper, and drew a triangle on it. “Let’s start with a basic question.” “Okay, I have one,” Adagio said, pointing a sharp finger at the shape. “Why should I care about this triangle? Is this triangle going to help me in my life? Advance my career? Bring me joy? Because it’s already failed at that last one.” Twilight giggled. “You like music, right? Well, sound travels in waves, which are sort of similar to the sine and cosine functions used in trigonometry. It’s very useful when producing a song on a computer.” “That’s wonderful, but I heard nothing about this triangle.” After a heavy sigh, Twilight pointed to the longest side of the shape. “Do you know what this is called?” Adagio looked around at the millions of worksheets spilled around the table, hoping to find the answer in the mess. Her eyes landed on a cheat sheet directly across from her. “The high-pot-to-nose,” she answered, squinting. “Hypotenuse, but that’s right!” Twilight clapped her hands together, then began scribbling down numbers on each side of the triangle. Hmm… Maybe cheaters do prosper, Adagio thought to herself. Let’s keep this up. With the answer paper directly in her line of sight, the Dazzling began getting every question almost right. She called exponents “little numbers,” mispronounced just about every term there was, and thought decimals and periods were the same thing, but other than that, Adagio felt as if she was thriving without learning a single thing. Until Twilight caught her. Adagio had been asked if she knew what the Pythagorean theorem was, but since the paper was so far away and the equation was so long, her eyes were off of her own paper for just a second too long. Twilight gasped when she caught the siren’s wandering gaze. “Wait. Have you been cheating this whole time?!” Adagio rolled his eyes. “You were the one who put the answers right in front of me, so I’d say this is more your fault than mine.” Twilight facepalmed, then rubbed her forehead in frustration. Turning over the cheat sheet, she looked Adagio Dazzle straight into the eyes. “Tell me one thing you learned this entire study session.” “Cheaters always prosper,” Adagio immediately replied, nonchalantly checking her nails. “One thing about trigonometry.” The lump in Adagio’s throat began to grow bigger as Twilight’s eyes bore into her own. She searched her brain for an answer, but kept drawing blanks. What were the little numbers called? What was the longest side of a triangle? How many degrees was a right angle? Why was Twilight Sparkle talking so much about pie? “I learned,” Adagio stammed, hesitantly choosing each word, “that pie is very important.” Twilight nodded her head in agreement, but still wasn’t convinced. “Tell me,” she said, giving Adagio a side eye, “what is pi?” A bead of sweat dropped down Adagio’s forehead. She knew what the food pie was, but she somehow got the sense that it wasn’t what Twilight was looking for. Her brain began racing, scrambling to procure even the slightest drop of math knowledge. Still, nothing. She would have to improvise. “Pie is… a number?” Twilight gasped. Adagio was saying everything right, but she wasn’t sure if it was on purpose. She needed one more question to definitively decide if the siren had actually learned anything. “How long is pi?” “One digit, like every other number.” Adagio flipped her hair confidently, as if she was suddenly a master of math. “Next time you challenge me, at least try to make it difficult.” Twilight shook her head and sighed. “Pi is an infinite decimal, Adagio.” The siren’s face went pale. “Look, I can’t help you if you don’t really want to learn. Math is hard. You have to be willing to put in the work and effort if you want to do well.” Adagio pounded her fist on the table. “I am putting in the effort! That’s how I got a one instead of a zero!” The tutor began packing up her books and papers into her backpack. “I want to help you, but I can’t if you’re just going to resort to cheating.” She handed Adagio a children’s book titled All About Triangles. “This was my favorite story to read as a kid. Maybe it’ll inspire you and foster a love for learning, like it did for me!” Adagio began laughing, staring at the cover. “Why do you have a children’s book in your backpack?” Twilight blushed, and put on her now heavy backpack. “Just give it a try. And to kick off your journey of knowledge, let me leave you with a piece of knowledge. Pi is 3.1415.” “I thought you said it was infinite.” “It is, but-- You know what? Just enjoy the book. Knowledge is power, if you know how to harness it.” She walked away, leaving Adagio glaring at the cover of All About Triangles, which showed a yellow triangle and a pink triangle with faces smiling at each other. It made her feel sick to her stomach. It was 5:55pm, meaning Study Buddies was almost over and the Dazzlings would finally have the school all to themselves. While Adagio considered using that time to study for Trigonometry or at least read the triangle book, Twilight’s words had inspired her. Math was hard, and it took way too much effort for its reward, or lack thereof. Adagio didn't want to fail again, but she also didn't want to learn about a subject she hated or drop the class. She was an expert at everything else she had ever tried, so she was not about to let some silly polygons destroy her chances at becoming the best student. Math was not going to keep her from being adored. Of course, to enact her plan, she was going to need help. She patted Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk on their backs, and whispered five simple words to them as the other students vacated the library. Five words that shocked the pair of sisters. “Girls, let’s go destroy Trigonometry.”
