Red as the blood to be shed, her skin peeled more and more. Adagio sighed and pulled her sleeves up over her palms and walked away from the place the Sirens called home. She headed toward Canterlot and went into a hair salon. Handing a photo to the lady she jutted her chin out.

"Make my hair look like hers."

She promptly sat down in the chair and the lady stared at the picture and then her hair. With Adagio's puffy hair, it would definitely take a while. She sighed and took out some scissors. She'd have to cut her hair in order to make it look the way the girl in the picture's hair looked.

"I have to cut this in order to uhm, make your hair look the same as hers," the lady said.

Adagio flicked her wrist.

"Do it, I don't care. As long as my hair looks exactly like hers."

She glanced at a shelf of hair dye and saw the color she needed. Snatching it, she jabbed it into the woman's hand.

"And while you're at it, dye my hair."

She sat back down and let the woman stare at her via reflection of the mirror. Adagio smirked. She could see that the lady would do it anyway, even if she thought she was crazy. She was going to get paid so she better do it. The woman slowly got to work and cut off extensive lengths of Adagio's hair and got a flat iron heating up on the counter. She sighed as she went about the whole thing.

The former Siren sat and let her do her work. She was smiling to herself. Sunset had a big surprise coming her way. And oh would it affect her. Affect her enough to make her lose control of the jewel's power.

Sunset sat down quietly with Twilight and Celestia in Sugarcube Corner. It was early afternoon and Celestia thought it would be best if she brought the girls out to get something sweet to break the solemn mood. At the moment Twilight was sipping a milkshake and Celestia was picking at a cupcake. She didn't quite figure out how to use her fingers yet. Sunset looked down at the coffee she had. The cream slowly sank down into the brown drink and made swirls of white in her cup. She stirred it and let the coffee and cream combine.

"There's something I need to tell you," she whispered.

Twilight and Celestia both raised their heads to this. Sunset hadn't said anything all day. They looked at her and waited for her to continue. Sunset continued to stir her now cold coffee.

"Before you came here...the Dazzlings approached me."

Twilight's eyes went wide.

"The Dazzlings??"

Sunset nodded. "Adagio and her sisters found that I had the jewel with me. They made a deal with me, that in two weeks I had to give it up to them or they'd get it by force..."

Celestia paled and stopped messing with her cupcake. Twilight bit down on her straw and frowned.

"But how could we do that?" Twilight asked.

"They think that I have the whole jewel. That I have a necklace. Not a fragment," Sunset explained. "They'll be in for a surprise when they find out I don't have a necklace to give them."

Celestia nodded stiffly. This was smart of her to do. But that only made it apparent that she needed to remove the piece sooner than later. Twilight pushed her shake away from her and tapped her chin.

"Two weeks is awfully generous. They might try to pull something off to make the deadline sooner than not. I read in a book that Sirens die without their jewels. Which is all the more reason that the Sirens would try to do something sneaky."

Sunset tasted her coffee and grimaced. Bits of coffee bean scrapped her throat and went in between her teeth. She took a napkin from the napkin container and spit the pieces into it in disgust. Cold coffee was not the best when you don't make sure to stir it well enough.

"Exactly what I was thinking."

Celestia sighed and poked her cupcake.

"Well, we need to come up with something to prevent anything disastrous from happening."

They sat there thinking for a while before Pinkie Pie came over to see how they were doing.

"Hey, guys! Enjoying yourselves?"

"As much as we can," Twilight told her as she sipped her milkshake.

Pinkie tapped the table and pointed to Celestia's cupcake.

"Are you not going to eat it?"

Celestia shook her head and as soon as she had done that Pinkie shoved the thing in her mouth and ate it gleefully.

"Mmm! Delicious! Nothing like cupcakes!" she tried to say through her mouth full of baked good.

Sunset just shook her head at this and kept thinking about what to do. Celestia just watched Pinkie Pie in slight horror and amusement.

"Cupcake-ology. The wonderful science behind baking yummy goodness," Pinkie Pie sighed as she walked away.

Suddenly, something clicked in Twilight's mind.

"That's it!"

Both Sunset and the ruler looked at her and were eager to hear her thoughts.

"Cupcake-ology! That made me think that we need to study you, Sunset! If we study you in your Siren form, we can find strengths and weaknesses and find ways to guard yourself from any attacks the Dazzlings might throw at us! That way, when the time comes to face the Dazzlings, we'll have learned enough about Sirens to maybe even get rid of the jewel somehow!"

Sunset nodded but then shook her head.

"But without the jewel, I can't live."

"We'll find a way around that. I know we can," Twilight told her in determination.

Celestia sighed and nodded.

"Yeah, we can find a way...Certainly."