Magic Is A Pain Sometimes

Sunset was having a small panic attack. She had almost Ponied-Up while on her motorbike, in clear view of everyone who thought CHS was a normal school. Her breaths were short and rapid and thoughts raced through her brain. It was like a sickness that had overtaken her. She was pacing again, waiting for the anxiety to pass. It wasn't working. She was furious with Twilight because she hadn't offered any advice, and she was supposed to be the magic expert. Her friends were not helping her to control her magic. Everyone she had turned to for help was ignoring her!

She slammed a fist on the kitchen table. A crack appeared, then it widened and turned purple around the edges. She had opened up a portal. Desperately, she tried to close it with her magic, but she was unable to. Vines crept through the rip in space and time and coiled around her ankles and wrists. She was only able to grab her journal and a pen before she was dragged through a portal that wasn't meant to exist.

The other side of the portal was a bleak wasteland. There were plants like the one that had dragged her. It had finally released her and she stood in the middle of this new world, without a clue what to do.
"Her," moaned a voice that made Sunset jump. "It has to be her."
Sunset snapped her head round to find the owner of the voice. Three girls were stood a few metres behind her. The Dazzlings.
"Oh, hey," Sunset said slowly, trying to hide the hatred from her voice.
"Hey, Sunset Shimmer," said the girl in the middle. Adagio Dazzle. "You wouldn't help us get out of here, would you?"
"Why should I help you? You tried to take over Equestria and got banished by Starswirl to the human land, which you also tried to take over in an effort to return to Equestria and tear apart both worlds! Plus," Sunset turned and pointed at a girl with blue hair in a pony tail, "Sonata stole my burrito. That was expensive. I lost ten pounds worth of burrito to a girl who eats negative emotions!"
"Yes, well, sorry," Sonata said sheepishly.
"We were hungry," Adagio added.
"Hungry for power, you mean," Sunset reminded them.
"Well yes, but hungry for someone to listen as well. How would you fell if everyone judged you on a small event in your life and didn't recognise that you had changed?"
Sunset hesitated. Judged? Changed? These girls were monsters!
"We know you know our pain of being judged, even when things are different," said Aria Blaze. "No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't convince Starswirl that we were ok. Then, in this world, we became a laughing stock."

Sunset had never thought about what the Dazzlings had been through. In all Equestrian legends, they were evil. Were they? Or did the world turn against them, like it once did to her?
"You mean - you didn't always feed of negativity?" she stammered.
"The penny's finally dropped," groaned Adagio, "of course we didn't.

"We were Starswirl the Bearded's creations, us three. Part dragon, part unicorn, part seapony. We were not the prettiest of creatures in Equestria, but, to make up for that, we were given the gift of singing. Even the birds would fall silent when we sang. Our role was to stop the Changeling invasions with negativity because, as you know, with our voices, we could use magic to gently manipulate others. We didn't mean to, it just happened because we are magical. We worked for good, not making too much negativity to start a war, but enough to prevent the Changelings feeding off Equestria's friendship. Then Starswirl realised that we weren't needed any more and sent us to retirement. But we liked performing, and he wouldn't let us. So we decided to undo our work and turn ponies against each other. It hurt us to see friends become foes, but Starswirl tried to destroy us, and we wanted to fight back against becoming statues. Then, of course, the events known in Equestria's legends took place, and we were banished here. We had to sing to get the plants to let us out, but we didn't eat or drink in such a long time that we lost our voices. We had to eat a plant to get enough water. As punishment, we weren't sent to Equestria, but the human world."

Sunset was stunned that the girls in front of her were not villains, but kind creatures who had been mistreated. Adagio wiped a tear from her eye. Some of her make-up was rubbed off and a faint scar running from just below her left eye to her cheek was revealed.
"I'm so sorry," choked out Sunset. Her own eyes were welling up with tears.
"It's ok," Sonata said, "because we deserve to be dumped here in a way. Still, it's rather miserable. Just dust and plants. And I wish we could repair these." She pulled her huge broken ruby necklace out of her jeans pocket.
"Can you sing without them?"
"Sort of. Not very well when we sing together, but fairly good at solos." She coughed quietly, then sang the words, "Changeling had a little lamb his fleece as dark as night."
"So you can sing alone. How about all three of you? Do you know any of the songs you learned for the Battle of the Bands?"
"Well," said Aria, "our necklaces allowed us to improvise while singing and still sound decent. I suppose we could try "Under Our Spell" because we practiced that a lot."
Sunset stepped back to let them prepare.

"Oh oh, oh oh, you didn't know that you fell," they sang in harmony. "Oh oh, oh oh, now that you're under our spell."
It wasn't their perfect voices from the Battle of the Bands, but it was enough to impress Sunset. She said, "Who says you need your necklaces?"
"Starswirl and his stupid magic," said Aria.
"Oh."
"They aren't beyond repair, but we have to get away from here to repair them. They are also - as far as we know - irreplaceable."
"Unless there's a certain type of crystal in a cave that I know of." Sunset smiled. "And I might know how to get out of here."