There was no fire around her. The fact that she had to remind herself of this was pathetic in her own eyes. But it was also a sign of how bad the dreams could be.

Quietly she breathed in, then out, then in again.

The covers fell back onto the bed as Aria slowly and systematically raised her body into a sitting position, letting her long hair fall all around her face.

It wasn’t that the nightmares were so horrifying for her that she feared to sleep. What she saw she had dreamed times before. And she had witnessed more terrible things while awake.

No, what made them so unbearing was that they reminded her of what she had crossed an ocean for, what should have rightfully been left behind so far away. And she knew why that was, why these came back to her now. All those things she had seen, what she had done, she had been alone then, separated from her sisters.

She was now alone again. So those memories returned, no matter what she did.

But the worst was that she would see her sisters sometimes, but always horrifically brutalized. She knew of course that this was not possible. They were never there. They never had to experience such things. And it was not her own fault!

But everytime she saw them, she awoke, and she missed them dearly. Everytime.

Breath in. Breath out.

The all-consuming flames were new though. They had very suddenly consumed everything, bringing her out of the nightmare prematurely. Now that she thought about it, this was unprecedented. She wondered, if it could have some sort of meaning, after all… Just on a haunch, she reached her senses into the house.

She could hear someone downstairs, as well as…

Her neck prickled, making the hairs stand on end. Something had changed.

Immediately she left her bed and carefully stepped in the corridor. Stepping lightly, her ears perked and her guard up, she made her way downstairs. Indeed, she could feel a trail of magical energy going down the stairs.

A pulse swept through the building, only slightly disturbing a bit of dust; she could feel one figure, in the dinner room. They felt… familiar.

“Dawn? Is that you?” She could hear them moving, so she picked up speed as well.

The dinner room was empty, the only escape was the kitchen and that one was a dead end. Slowing down again, Aria was careful in her approach. Upon reaching the entrance she threw a look inside and saw her. It was indeed Dawn. She seemed to be shaking.

“Hey, Dawn.” She began softly. “Couldn’t sleep well?”

The red girl turned. The look on her face was frantic, as if she were hunted. Her right arm was away from Aria, stiff and pressed against her own body, while the left one held it tight.

“D-Don’t come closer!” She spat out shakily.

Aria raised her hands in a calming gesture. She knew how she had to diffuse this, even though a part of her did not like it a lot.

“Please, relax. I am not going hurt you. You’re very on edge right now, you just need to calm a bit and get yourself collected.” She hummed carefully. It seemed to work. Dawn’s muscles slowly lost their tension, so Aria cautiously stepped a bit closer.

“There, you’re getting better already. Nothing here wants to harm you, Dawn.” Again she got closer. “Did you have a nightmare?”

Through Aria’s soft voice, Dawn’s eye cought something. Just a little glimmer, hidden underneath the fuchsia girl’s loose pyjama shirt. It shone… crimson red… a gem.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl, as memories became clearer.

Of crimson red and laughter, the desire to control, to be the center… of admiration.

Of gems, three in count, in perfect harmony. Of three sisters. Three monsters.

Canterlot High School, between winter and fall. A contest of music. She… had sung herself. But there were also others. And there was Aria.

Aria Blaze and her sisters, who used their songs to spread conflict. She could remember now.

Aria Blaze, the manipulator. The singer.

Aria Blaze. The siren.

Sunset was suddenly very aware. And only so could she have noticed the low humming. She had never seen the other girl’s, monster’s, lips even trembling. But she could hear it now.

She could feel it now. How it wormed itself into her mind. How the gem seemed to slightly, just ever so slightly, pulse in rythm with the hum.

“NO!” She snarled. She would never be controlled by her, by anyone.

“Dawn? What’s wrong?”

Aria did not know what had happened. There was just a swift blurry of movement.

Then the pain started. Something went trickled down her throat, something warm. It was an old feeling.

She could see the blade now, as everything around was suddenly sharper. Dawn held it in her right hand, blood, her blood, trickled down its edge. The girl had a frantic, if not aggressive expression. Already she lifted her arm for another strike.

This time though it missed, as Aria had already launched herself backwards. She had not been on guard enough, had not expected something like this. For a long time, she did not have to fight for her life. Never would she have thought that Dawn could simply break through her soothing voice and the power behind it.

But now, it all came back to her again.

Dawn surged forward, stabbing with her kitchen knife at Aria’s abdomen. It was a wild attack, no thought behind it and training, but its strength and the crazed determination still made it lethal. The red girl had not even made it half the way before Aria acted.

She dove to her left, faster than her opponent could even realize, and then she launched herself at Dawn. The knife arm was pressed inwards against the torso of its wielder, the blade safely pointing away from its intended target.

Aria moved behind Dawn, her left hand reaching out and gripping the other’s right. Now the hand and thus the knife were held in a vice grip, while Aria’s one right arm wrapped itself around the red girl’s throat.

“Stop this now!” Aria grumbled through both, the sudden exertion, and the pain from her own throat. If it were fatal, she would already have noticed, or died, so she could ignore that for now. “Come to your senses Dawn. That is not what you want!”

Again, she let magic flow into her words and through them into the other’s ear. But this time, sublety was out of the window. This time she would need force.

Sunset could feel it, how the words tried to shut down her body and like before, it made her lash out. Her right hand was completely immobilized, so was her head, but her left was free. If her mind had not been so confused and whirled up, she would have been surprised by her own speed.

Changing the blade was a difficult action that resulted in cuts along her own fingers, but she did it and immediately tried to stab it into the side of the girl holding her.

Her captor saw the attack coming though. Twisting her stomach back, she allowed the knife to pass through air, before trying to pin it between both bodies. That opportunity was taken just a tick too late, as it already pulled out for another stab.

Aria let go with her own left hand made a grab for the girl’s new knife hand. While this would prevent more stabs, it did leave the right hand of the red-haired girl completely free again. A red fist subsequently hit her on the forehead, again and again.

She did not falter however, biting through the pain and bringing her head to Dawn’s left to hinder the other’s punches. Then she began to kick her legs against the stance of her opponent, attempting to bring them both to the ground.

To her benefit, Dawn was no experienced combatant, in any form as far as she knew. So, her tactic mostly resolved to attacking at any given opportunity. She had not the clearance of mind to act with purpose. Thus, she answered Aria’s kicks by struggeling against the former’s hold, bringing herself even more out of balance.

With a heavy thud, they both landed on the cold and hard kitchen floor. Immediately they wrestled for control, trying to literally get on top of the other. The struggle was tipping more and more in the fuchsia combatants favor.

But Dawn’s body was pumping itself full of more and more adrenaline, as well as activating other ressources. Straining her muscles, she was able to break her knife hand free of its grapple. Holding the arm across her throat with her own free hand, the blade swiped through the air. And then it swiped through skin, then flesh and blood. Again, and again, three and then four times it raked across Aria’s arm, before Dawn set it against the fuchsia wrist and drove the blade in.

The other girl had not been prepared for the sudden strike. Before she could pull her arm away, the blade bit into it. The effect was immediate. Aria could feel the blood leaving her limb and with it her strength. This was a critical wound; she wouldn’t hold out for long.

Aria threw her entire weight onto the sudden aggressor. Her only functioning hand grasping Dawn’s neck in an attempt to knock her out. Her strained vocal cords sprang into action and she started a forceful chant. The power behind her voice would suppress the victim’s mind, blocking them from controlling their body, until it too was overwhelmed and forced to slip into unconsciousness. Aria did not need that much of the effect to get away and tend to her wounds.

That would normally be the case. Maybe, she was losing her blood faster than calculated. Or Dawn was actually resisting the force of her voice again.

The enraged girl braced herself against the floor. In an act of raging strength, her limbs pressed and managed to lift herself and Aria on top of her off the ground. Then she threw herself to the left, twisting in the air. It had the desired effect.

The fuchsia girl took the impact on her left side, her good arm momentarily trapped under her own body. Then Dawn released the bloody and torn limb of her enemy and turned herself.

She pounced, pinning Aria beneath her; one knee pressing the other’s functioning arm permanently on the ground. Then, taking the knife into both hands, she drove it into the arm’s shoulder socket, directly into the middle.

Aria screamed. For the first time, her pain was given voice. Then she screamed again, when Dawn twisted the blade, before rippping it out and stabbing it right into the other shoulder.

“You! You will never get into my mind again, monster!” The red girl snarled, right into her face. Aria did not reply, she couldn’t. Her previous attempts had been draining and with her steady loss of both power and feeling, her body was broken.

That was not enough for Sunset. Two hands, crimson blood coating the red skin, reached forward and wrapped themselves around a purplish throat.

Her victim did not have near the strength to combat her hold. Soon, her lungs screamed for oxygen.

Weakly, one hand clawed against the iron-like grip.

“Never, fucking, again!”

Aria’s only functioning hand let go of the girl currently choking her to death. Instead it tried to press under her own shirt, searching for something.

Seconds seemingly stretched into agonizing minutes. Everything was blurring.

She had now completely lost any feeling in her right arm. Her left was moving sluggishly, the rest of her body did not have the strength to move.

Yet, her increasingly numb fingers finally touched warm crystal.

In her last act of willpower and self-preservation, Aria grasped her siren’s gem in her hand.

Then she pressed it into Dawn Fire’s hands.

For Dawn, everything suddenly went white.

-o0o-

She was standing, yet she was swimming.

Around her a sea, an ocean, inside of a crystal. Confined yet endless, with a void beyond.

Her head was expanding and pressing itself together simultaneously. Her newfound identity was rendered to nothing.

All around her were motes. Emotions and feelings, tunes and sounds, music and speech, it being given impossible form and held together by faint strings of green that danced to a tact she could not hear.

Inbetween were long strands of many wonderful colours. They too were connected to others by the green, no. They were the center, the link in a long chain of shapes from which all those motes spread apart.

It all danced around her. A never-ending stream. And she could sense it all. She was part of it all, in many ways, at different times, with different feelings.

And it was all connected with eachother, an ever-expanding web and she was connected to it. All those strands that were twisting and contorting, sometimes expanding and opening up. Then they showed pictures, frozen moments or moving images.

Memories.

Then it all rushed by her, or maybe she was moving. She could see how long the chain went, longer then she could see, longer then she could even think. And it was all still here, meticously kept in order. As if weaved and sorted by hand.

The mind of an immortal.

The strands, the chain, began circling around her, like a malmstrom. The space around her suddenly pulsed with a deep crimson.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

She could see the distant yet seemingly so nearby walls glimmer like crystalline walls. The green fog surrounded her, creating bonds that connected the great chain to her own body. She felt watched, yet she was alone?

No. Underneath her, she sensed it, felt it. Felt her, like a predator lurking beneath her in the deep water. A mind as sharp as rows of teeth. A will that could shatter mountains, sparing her own presence only with acception. A voice that could sway nations, dictate fate, that would lull the sun. A soul, born, forged and defined by the same things.

Dominance. Strife. Hunger.

Blood.

All channeled by a crimson crystal, beautiful and terrible.

The Heart of a Siren.

Then the showing began. Strands and motes swirled around, coalescing into a whirle of colours and sensations. She could feel, hear, sense and see what was before her.

The story of a life as long as millennia was shown to her in the matter of seconds.

She saw the beginning. The first careful and tender moments of live inside the safety of a hardened veil. Only for a descend into those base desires, as soon as the veil was broken and soon crimson consumed all. It only ended once three beats were left, starting the forming of a whole.

She saw destruction. An unholy union of three, Arrogance and Envy and Greed, bringing Armageddon and death to so many souls.

She saw the climax, the pacification of the ocean. Water filled with the blood of the guilty and innocent alike. Yet not the artists, the conductors of it all.

For them she saw a storm. The end of an era, as reality shifted and worlds changed.

She saw new land. New forms and new lives around.

She saw countless civilizations through countless ages rise and fall, she saw it all.

Then she saw, herself. Yet it was not her. It was, who she had been once.

She saw it all happen again. The hope, the rise for new power, for something that might actually matter. And then the fall, further then ever before. The breaking of the three immortal’s hearts

She saw the union, all three arguing, reconciling, then banding together like they always had. They worked towards a plan, gathering all they could.

She saw the three standing in a familiar room, furniture pushed aside to make room. A ritual. The broken hearts were in the center, everything was accounted for, as they began to chant, to complete the ritual and regain what was lost.

But she saw what happened. Had something been missing, was something overlooked? A mistake made, a part forgotten? None knew. She had to witness as the room was devastated, as the three had their souls torn, their bodies ripped bloody.

She saw them all on the ground as flames danced around them, heard their wet chokes as they could not breath through torn throats. She saw as Envy held Greed, desperately comforting a fellow monster, not wanting for either to part alone. She saw as Arrogance crawled towards them.

She saw the single beating heart in her palm.

She saw them argue without voice. Even as they wasted away, none wanted to take the life they had managed to create for themselves, even more if it meant to condem their sisters. In the end, Envy was the slowest to act, her fellows were faster and decided for her. It was the only time that Envy had fallen behind both of them, it would be the last time.

She saw as one life was given and two lifes ended.

She saw only feint images. White rooms, filled with white people talking without end. Envy alone in a bed, staring into the void, the heart, her heart, never far from her.

She saw familiar faces, four of them, siblings. She knew them.

She saw a meeting of chance that changed the way of the chain around her. As the siblings took her into their lifes.

She saw Envy moving on. Living in the home of her fellows alone, working and meeting those that had saved her from the sadness.

Finally, she saw Envy in a hospital again, talking with a girl with fiery hair.

-o0o-

Her breath was laboured, as if she had just run a marathon. Her eyes were blurry, she could only see a mix of colours in front of her. There was a ringing in her ears, sounds of sobbing, screams that only slowly faided away. Her hands were touching something, something cold.

She shook her head vehemently, trying to clear the feedback from her mind. When she opened her eyes, she could see again. And thus, she saw what she had done.

Her hands were still wrapped around the slashed throat of a fuchsia-skinned woman. Two hands with cruel wounds were bleeding a small sea around them, colouring the floor as well as long hair of purple and cyan a deep, all consuming red. Her eyes were closed.

“ARIA!” she screamed with a hoarse voice, releasing the tight grip on the other’s windpipe, instead trying to shake her awake. She whimpered as she feared for the worst, she prayed that the other could still be saved. She would do anything, she wanted to do anything to correct her mistakes.

But deep in her mind, she already knew that those wounds were fatal. There was too much blood around them.

“ARIA PLEASE! YOU CAN’T DIE!”

Her moves were frantic, her brain wrecked itself trying to find a solution, to recall the correct medical procedures. But in her panic, it all evaded her. Tears had already started to flow down her red cheeks.

“A-…a-aria?” Realization slowly fought its way through her mind. She had killed her only friend. Lifting the chest, she pressed herself into the other’s shoulder. Now she was crying uncontrollably.

Startled, her head flinched away. She had heard a weak, rhythmic thumping sound. Could it be?

Suddenly, two fuchsia hands surged forward, one grabbing at her own throat while the other held the right side of her face. A pair of eyes stared at her like two crimson lights. Then she felt pain.

It was like electricity filling her veines, tormenting her own body, while a terrible wail filled her ears and paralyzed her mind. She could feel her body weakening, sense how she was zapped of a strength inside herself. It could only have been a couple of seconds, yet it had felt so much longer. All of her limbs ached and she lost her balance as the two arms shoved her away.

As soon as she managed to regain her bearrings, she frantically looked towards the only one who could have done this, leftover pain mixing with a strange happieness.

Because indeed, the one she had thought murdered by her own hands was slowly rising up again. Her crimson eyes stared into her assailant as her abused vocal bands rasped:” You want another round, Dawn?”

She could only shake her head.

“Then don’t fucking sit there. Bathroom right next to the kitchen, in the cabinet are med-kits, bring them both. NOW!”

“I’ll be there in just a few minutes, okay?” Twilight said to her mother as she entered her lab. It was early in the morning, weekend. Like always, she would take a short and simple look-around her lab to make sure everything was in order.

She yawned again. Standing up for normal school days was no problem for her, usually anyways. But in weekends, she often tended to go to bed way later then she should. And the next day she always said she would stop that sort of thing. Which she never did.

A bit sluggishly, the young scientist began to check her equipement.

Good, the experiements from yesterday were moving along accordingly. She had done what the school had designated as homework three times already by herself. But where others would use that excuse to give themselves more free time, Twilight went along and recreated the same experiement for the forth time. She found it made a lot of sense to do that.

Not that anyone else shared that opinion. Or any of her thoughts really.

Moving on to her second, still ongoing experiement. Here too, everything in order, nothing to do but make a few small notes on the paper already laid out.

Her classmates, no, honestly the entire school, was just an endless source of impedement and frustration. Mainly because they seemed much more focused on taunting her then actually wanting to learn anything. She wished that she could just skip everything, attending this school, sports and group projects and focus on the important things.

It would be over soon, she told herself. She was already looking into her future ways forward. She just needed to keep up her effort and she would succeed. If everybody else was to dumb to prioritize, their fault. Problem was that they still had sway over Twilight actions, afterall she could barely defend herself verbally. Physical was out of the question.

The purple girl grumbled as she moved on to her sensory equipement. She hated it. She could do nothing against them. They were too strong, their ability to lie in front of the teachers too good to get them in actual trouble. She had tried a few times, in her earlier years. Success had been nonexistent and the torment afterwards only harsher.

She just wished she had the power to hold her own. Oh, if she did…

Twilight’s rapid head shaking caused her long hair to cover her eyes completely. Pushing away her dark thoughts before they had even a chance to manifest, she tried to focus her mind on the work before her. She was sure she could check her sensors while sleeping, which she may have even done already, but this always proved to relax her. Thinking about such things was… uncomfortable for her, no matter the little satisfaction she drew from her thought-play.

And, in a way, she was lucky to have focused her attention on the sensors, for her newest additions had picked up something again.

“So soon?” She spoke to herself. “The last occurrence had been only two days ago.”

But that was not the real shocker Twilight would experience today. For as she made her scans, her new-and-improvement equipement was able to point her in the direction of the surge of this strange new energy, as well as give her a rough distance-estimate. Pulling up a map of the city, Twilight worked for a few moments before, with a gasp, the reality settled in with her.

“This was in our neighbourhood!”

Indeed, beginning sometime last night the energy had been spiking drastically. Now excited, Twilight poured over her notes. The levels that her devices picked up matched that first flare that she had picked up, it had to be, her calculations were never wrong. This of course meant that she may meet whoever or whatever had caused this first event.

“No wait; this is in our neighbourhood! It is still ongoing!” The would-be scientist hovered between extrem joy and a sense of shock of being so close this. It would prove an A-class opportunity for her…

She had school today.

Twilight’s blood ran cold.

She had never missed school attendance. She had also never ditched it, never had she even dreamed of it.

What made things worse was that today she had to hand over the results of the experiement. Her own results were not that important, only to hold up her flawless record, but she had the homework for about a dozen other students! If she did not deliver, they would all seek revenge on her. She wouldn’t survive that. She had to go.

On the other hand… this was definitely a rare occurrence. For her scanners to pick up an emission of this new energy, in walking distance. She could find out so much. Evidence, in her reach.

Twilight had to be honest, she would gladly sacrifice her flawless reputation of attendance and done work for this. But, to anger all the students… she could not imagine what they would do to her for this. She would also have to go now to find the source. That would mean to lie to her parents which she also felt sick about.

She looked at her scanners. The detected energy surge was slowly going down.

It took Twilight three hundred and twenty-one seconds to gather her necessary equipement in her school bags, good thing that she kept them in her lab. Her school material was left in its staid. After eating breakfast as covertly as she could make it fast, the purple girl immediately left her home and began walking, her hand scanner guiding her forward.

Her stomach slowly filled with dread as she marched on. But there was no turning back now.

Author's Note

Aria: “Dawn, you ok, right?“
Author *showing Sunset how to use a knife* “What? Or sure, suuuuuure!“

I mean, come on. I put a gore tag on this, might as well use it from time to time. (Somehow the fight was rather easy to write in comparison to others. Huh.)

Anyway, on a more serious note: I might have to make sort of a break in releasing chapters. Cause is that I kinda ran out of fnished chapters to publish, so I have to write more before this can continue. However, since september I have started working, which means that writing progress has slowed down considerably. Sorry 'bout that.

I'll have to see how effectively I can write new chapters. Currently the goal is to bring the next chapter between christmas and new year. After that, I'll have to see.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed. Have a nice day and stay safe.