It was done.

She knew it would happen one day, but never did she imagine like this. It was almost an ironic way to meet their end. They had been queens, gods, once. They watched civilizations rise and fall - they had helped them fall. To have been defeated and humiliated by mere teenagers... it was bad, but she would have given anything for their suffering to have ended there.

The Rainbooms were none-the-wiser that on the day they had defeated Adagio Dazzle, Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk, they had sentenced them to a fate worse than death.

Their demise hadn't come with a bang, but with a slow decay. Things had seemed okay at the beginning, they had returned home to lick their wounds, regroup and replan. Only after realizing the damage done to their powers was permanent did the depression begin to kick in. The voices – their voices, were what made them what they were. A siren without a voice was like a bird without wings, or a fish without fins. And what happens when you removed those creatures' specially evolved features?

The birds fell from the sky, and the fish starved to death.

She sighed.

How could she even begin to tell them?

They were her responsibility, no matter the world or the century; they had always been hers to protect. They may have been sisters but she raised them like they were her own. And how could a mother even begin to prepare her babies for the inevitable?

It was cruel, it was unjust.

The only thing that kept her going was her utter contempt for the Rainbooms, but even that began to fade as hunger took over.

Adagio looked to her youngest.

She was watching TV, blissfully unaware of the fate baring down on her. Sonata was born the runt of the litter -so intelligence had never been her strongest suit- but Adagio didn't doubt she was also beginning to feel the stabbing feeling in the pit of her stomach. Even now, she swore she could see the bones beginning to show through her cheeks.

“Sonata, honey,” she cooed.

Sonata drew her attention away from the TV and smiled at her older sister.

“Ya 'dagi?”

Adagio gave a small smile. Leave it to Sonata to inspire a glimmer of hope with her cuteness, even when facing oblivion.

“How are you feeling?”

Sonata took a second to respond, more than likely mulling the question over.

“Pretty good, a little hungry. When's Aria coming back from the store?”

A wash of anxieties hit Adagio. She swallowed.

They had tried replacing their diets with human food, even before the loss of their magic. It provided a little sustenance, and was definitely tasty, but was no match for the vast quantities of magical energy they needed to survive.

This shouldn't be allowed. This was just plain cruel. And she knew the worst was yet to come. Sonata was going to stay hungry, they all were. Adagio was going to have to watch her sisters waste away to nothing, and there was nothing she could do about it.

It was a fate worse than death, and frankly, Adagio would have preferred to have dropped dead on that band stand.

“Dagi?”

Adagio looked up, having gotten lost in her thoughts.

Sonata observed her with obvious concern in her eyes. “You okay? You don't look so good?”

Adagio forced a hollow smile and took her sister's hand in her own.

“I'm fine. Everything's fine, don't worry.”

“Adagio, you're like, super cold, you sure you're okay?”

She smiled.

“Yes. I'm fine."

Days went by. Days, and then weeks. Months, maybe?

She had stopped counting, it didn't seem worth it. She would pray every night when she went to bed it would be her last time, and then curse when she woke up the next morning.

And she could barely look at them anymore.

They weren't her sisters. Everything her sisters were, everything that Adagio had nurtured and loved, had died on that stage. She'd look at them now and where she once felt love and comfort... now was just sympathy. Sympathy and anger for what they had become. It was blasphemous to her and outright insulting to their memory. These walking corpses were not Aria and Sonata. They looked like them, they talked like them, even argued like them... but it wasn't them.

When you're around each other almost every second of your immortal life, and when you get to know each other as well as her sisters did, you begin to see past physical appearances. The light -the aurora they emitted- the very essence of what made them themselves was now gone. The wheels were still turning but the driver had left the vehicle. They were just pale, cheap imitations of what they once were... and it sickened her.

She didn't know whether to cry or rage. The knowledge it was her actions that had done this to them was not lost on her, and had long gone past the point of simply depressing her. The fallen wished for death almost daily, but knew that even in their living dead state, she could never abandon her sisters. Whatever was left of them was hers to protect. She had failed them in life, and owed it to them to not fail them in death.

So they would carry on with their 'normal' lives as long they could.

Aria got a job and Sonata went back to attending CHS. The only bright side she took from the situation was that her sisters didn't appear to be aware of their decay. Of course she could see it bright as day, and she knew the harsh reality that at this point, each of them had barely days left.

The shorter the better, as far as she was concerned. The mental weight of being aware of her families coming demise was beginning to take it's toll on her. She could barely bring herself to talk to either of them anymore without bursting into tears. Which they had noticed, of course.

“Adagio, you're really starting to scare us!”

That was when Adagio had made the decision not to tell them. They had confronted her about her behavior and had presented the prefect opportunity for her to explain what was going on. She would later try convincing herself she made the noble choice, by letting them enjoy their last days of semi-existence without the harsh reality of the situation baring down on them. But she knew her real reasons were not so brave. She was too chicken. She spent her life protecting and caring for these girls, and simply could not look them in the eyes and tell them they were going to die.

Even if she had grown to despise what they had become.

It was a lie.

It had all been a dirty, dirty trick.

They weren't dying. This whole time Adagio had been ticking off days on the calendar, praying that when they finally passed they went peacefully. But they weren't dying, because that would have been way too lucky. They were suffering from a fate way worse.

They were already dead.

Adagio couldn't even recognize her sisters at this point. Aria and Sonata were long gone and what inhabited their bodies were faded echoes. She would sit in the living room for hours, watching them stumble around mindlessly. They could function, sure. They knew how to eat, sleep, and do housework. But the noises they made weren't words... or none that Adagio could understand. It had been weeks since she had successfully communicated with either of them.

Probably the worse part was that somewhere, deep, deep down inside them, a small part of her sisters still existed. The Not-Sonata would bring her food, and the Not-Aria had even tried establishing contact via hand signals. They still cared about her. Or, they thought they did. Adagio arrived at the conclusion they probably worked like computer programs, and did what they did because that's what they were supposed to do, not because they wanted to. Physically they were little more than blurry silhouettes at this point, but from the small parts of behavior Adagio could make out, they still acted roughly the same as her sisters.

This made something awaken inside Adagio. Where she used to feel despair and depression, she now felt angry. She was angry before, but this was different. Earlier it was directed at the Rainbooms, at Sunset Shimmer, but now it was everywhere. It was the situation she was angry at. She felt cheated. She had been done dirty, like a pathetic joke. She had not only lost her sisters, she had these two abombinations left in their place.

She tried not to hate them, but found it so difficult. She reminded herself constantly that it wasn't their fault, that they were just as much a victim of circumstance as her. But it didn't work, and every time she spotted one of them she couldn't ignore the fact her sisters had died for them.

Then finally, after she-didn't-know-how-long of sitting down and crying about it, she got the urge to take matters into her own hands.

Adagio was not a merciful creature by nature, but the rules changed when it was her family. She had been protecting her girls since they were all born, and she realized now it was her duty to see it through to the end. Again, this was never, ever, how she imagined the great Dazzlings would meet their end, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

She waited until night fall, when the Not-Aria had disappeared and then slowly crept into action.

Sneaking quietly into the Not-Sonata's room, she spied her target sleeping on the bed.

From the outside, it almost looked vaguely recognizable as the sister she would have once died to protect. That made what was about to happen even more painful on her side.

She grabbed the spare pillow.

She was decided, she would do anything to protect her sisters... even if that meant putting them out of their misery.

Adagio climbed across the large bed, never taking her eyes off the Not-Sonata. It was fast asleep, snoring and drooling onto the pillow it was spooning.

She wanted to say goodbye. She wanted to kiss it on the forehead, tell it how much she loved it, anything in tribute to the sister she had lost. But she couldn't without breaking up, and she had to be strong right now. For Sonata. This was the best mercy she could give her.

The pillow was placed over it's face and gently pushed down on.

Seconds ticked over.

Adagio could feel the hot tears on her cheeks.

The body began twitching.

“Shh, it's okay. Everything's fine,” she tried to ease it.

More seconds.

The body began to thrash. The Not-Sonata was awake.

Adagio tightened her grip, forcing her body weight down onto the pillow.

“Sshhhhhhh,” she repeated, trying to maintain a soft tone while gritting her teeth.

She could hear voices coming from beneath the pillow but couldn't determine what was being said. Adagio shifted her body weight onto the pillow. The Not-Sonata's failing limbs had began flailing around, but not enough to make Adagio stop. She bit her lip and closed her eyes.

Surely it wouldn't be much longer now. Sonata wasn't as strong as her two sisters; there was a reason Adagio had chosen to free her first.

A stray punch collided with Adagio's jaw, momentarily allowing the Not-Sonata a gasp of breath and time to let out a blood-curdling scream.

“NO!” Adagio forced the pillow harder down onto it's face. But it now knew exactly where Adagio was and began directing all of it's attacks towards her face. Another punch collided with her nose, breaking it instantly, while the other hand dug its nails into her jaw and started scraping away her skin.

Adagio could feel a sudden warm presence on her face and assumed it to be her own blood. She took a twisted sense of pride that Sonata wasn't going out without a fight. Her knuckles began to turn white and she forced the pillow down harder.

“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER!”

A sudden force tackled her from the side and onto the floor. The room was alive with noise. Her eyes tried to focus and picked up on the Not-Aria as her attacker. It was leaning over her, and quickly delivered a punch down into Adagio's face, knocking her head to the side and causing bright black splodges to dot in and out of her vision.

Pennies.

Adagio could taste pennies.

Wait, not pennies.

Blood.

Lots of blood.

Her blood.

She pulled herself back to the bedroom. The room was spinning.

The Not-Aria was on the bed with the Not-Sonata. They were both shouting. What they were saying, Adagio couldn't make out, but knew they were obviously distressed. She had tried to do this gently and during the night because she knew the two would overreact if they caught on to what she was trying to do.

If only they could see things from her point of view. She pitied them; they would never understand that she was trying to help them. Was clinging onto this miserable, empty existence really that important to them?

Adagio didn't have time to further this thought before the Not-Aria dove back onto her again, throwing another punch and enveloping her vision in darkness.

Author's Notes:

Trying a little experiment with this fic, would love to know what you guys think