975/Before the Explosion

Before the Explosion
Date of Scene:	07 January 2024
Location:	Dorms #2
Synopsis:	Hinoiri passes out... again... while studying. Her roommate has opinions. Sunbreaker has opinions of these opinions. She blows up their apartment like the calm and rationale actor she is.
Cast of Characters:	Hinoiri Kirara, Double Trouble

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Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara was... in the front room. The TV was off, and her homework had spilled out to here. Why? Well, if Dianora peeked into Hinoiri's room, she'd see... papers scattere all over the places, drawings, notes. And hey, her handwriting was still garbage but her actual drawings weren't bad. A lot of stuff about 'Project Eclipse' was all over it.

But the front room? That... was school work. And it wouldn't take Dianora long to find out why, either. Class grades were out and Hinoiri had a copy of the ranks...

... And once again, Hinoiri was in the top tenth percentile. She truly was advanced. but she wasn't... perfect. She didn't ace it. She missed a question here or there. And so she was studying. Reports, books on japanese language, home economics, chemistry... some work books from the library.

She'd been going through some of the work books when, finally... she'd just kind of conked out. She'd planned to have all of this done before Dianora got home. Instead, she got to come home to find Hinoiri on the floor, a pen dangling out of her mouth, face stuck to one of the pages.

You know, maybe her moving in with Hinoiri and making sure someone checked up on the girl now and again wasn't such a bad idea.

Double Trouble has posed:
School was out of session, which had given Double Trouble so much more leeway to cause mayhem around the city. Having received precious validation from Fuyuko, they were redoubling their efforts in making friends with magical girls. Their ruse with Adora had been successful, and they meant to replicate it. But this time they wanted something more viscerally terrifying than a youma-fied bus. Those were just too ridiculous.

So they had been at Obsidian, and out venturing in the Dusk Zone just a little to find the perfect creature to let loose, and they had found several good candidates. But all that work was tiring, and so they were going to set their plan in to motion the next day.

Right *now* she was Dianora, and she was opening to door to her dorm suite hoping to find that Hinoiri had been inspired to bake her something delicious.

But what she found was something much, much more expected.

She sighs quietly, trying hard not to wake the overworked unicorn. "Oh, onee-chan, what am I going to do with you?"

Then she goes and gets her glitter sharpies and draws little unicorns on Hinoiri's cheeks, and a big swirly moustache under her nose.

She quietly scampers off to put away her markers, and then comes back into the main room positioning herself so its as if she just arrived. This time she's loud. "Onee-chan!" She runs over and grabs hold of Hinoiri's shoulders and shake just a little. "Onee-chan! Are you okay?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara really should have spent more time baking and making nice things for her friend. Sure, she wasn't the best cook.... but she could do pre-mixed things okay.

Instead, she gave a light grumble. "Five more minutes sovereign Sora... I dun wanna go to magic school today..." she mumbled, stretching and trying to roll away from the nagging shaking and grabbing.

However, after a few more moments she groggily opened her eyes and looked up. "Hnhhg? Oh... hey. Oh... shoot. Sorry," Hinoiri mumbled, giving a light yawn. One cheek now housing a unicorn, the other having a red mark from where it had stuck to the page. "I'll clean up my stuff. Thought I'd be done before you... before you got home... just doing a bit of cramming, heh..."

"Did you have... fun today?" she asked... before her head kind of lulled forward against Dianora and she mmmed... "Soft... smell like ginger bread..."

Double Trouble has posed:
Dianora Lagorio does her best to keep her face under control as Hinoiri wakes up. The whole look is just so silly. Especially the moustache. Accept the glitter into your soul. She only manages to succeed because she is a thespian, and this is important.

"Onee-chan, why are you cramming? You're already one of the smartest students in school," Dianora says, and she already knows the answer. Hinoiri just said it, but the stupid unicorn needs to be lead to that water before she'll drink it. If she'll drink it.

Dianora pushes on Hinoiri until she's sitting upright, and then reaches up with her hands to take her necklace off. The little girl shimmers in a inky black blob and reforms as Double Trouble. They drop the necklace in a pocket of their bodysuit and then sit down next to Hinoiri, draping their arm over her shoulder and wrapping their tail around her waist. It's a hug.

"Why do you even care about school?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara looked up at them. "Hng? I... what? No, not really," Hinoiri mumbled before giving a light yawn. Still... she did lean into the hug. Which, while she wasn't always okay with them... it was a sign of how tired she was that she really did just lean against it. "There's a lot of people who score higher than me... some days. I just need to work a bit harder, so I don't keep making sloppy mistakes or run into things that I haven't encountered yet."

She gave a light yawn, closing her eyes again. "It's... really not that hard... you just need to memorize all the formulas, learn all the dates, figure out the chemical reactions, make sure you don't mess up the calculations as you do them, and..." She blinked a few times and then...

"... Why... wouldn't I? Care, I mean? I need to learn, if I'm going to be Sovereign one day, I need to know as much as possible, how else will I be able to effectively lead my people or know if who I'm delegating work to is competent at their job?"

"I still have so much to learn... I keep making small mistakes... missing things... like on our trip. I can't keep messing up or I'll never achieve my destiny."

Double Trouble has posed:
Double Trouble sighs. They've tried to have this conversation with her so many times, and it always comes back to the same. Fucking. Perfectionism. It is so powerful that it absolutely blinds her to any reasonable argument they might make. They've spent months trying, and they're no scientist, but they're pretty sure the data is conclusive.

Wise words aren't going to cut it. Their dense, beautiful unicorn needs the kind of therapy only they can provide.

Their tail unwinds and they stand up. They're a blob of inky black for a second and then Hinoiri is standing right there in front of Hinoiri wearing the same clothes and with the same bags under her eyes. But without the sharpie. She seriously needs more sleep. Girl, look at yourself.

Her hand comes up and the back of it is pressed against her forehead, she tilts her head back and wails, "Oh! Woe is me. I am so desperate for the approval of an aloof bitch who either never cared or was just an incompetent teacher that I'll burn myself out cramming Earth studies because maybe if I'm perfect enough she'll finally notice me."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara stared up at herself, mouth hanging open and... "Wow... I look weird," Hinoiri finally said. "Though I'm not sure why--"

And there it was. Calling her out. Her cheeks were red she felt her anger boiling up. "I-I'm not, Sora isn't... she wasn't incompetent, she just... was... she overestimated herself. Underestimated me."

"And I'm NOT burning myself out!" She got to her feet and jammed a finger into fake's chest. "I'm just driven, okay?! I don't like losing, in anything. I can handle it. This world is EASY!" Maybe. But not for her. Maybe if she could relax.

"Besides, she would NEVER approve of anything I'm doing here! If she knew what I was doing, she'd be furious! She'd hate me! She'd never forgive me for the people I'm hurting, the things I'm destroying! But that doesn't matter, because I don't NEED her approval! I don't need her love or her care or anything from her! I'm never going to need anything from her ever AGAIN!" And Double Trouble could see that fire in the unicorn's eyes, the way her hand pulled back. That desire for violence, ready to slap her... But then, before she could fling the hand... she stopped, her hand pulled back but shaking. "I've got everything handled. Project Eclipse is going to give me everything I need to succeed. And so what if I want to learn about the way earth does things? Some of this might be useful one day."

Double Trouble has posed:
Hinoiri's double shoves her finger right back into Hinoiri's chest. "You sure seem to have given a lot of thought to what she'd think about what you're doing."

Then she takes step back and just stamps at the floor and seems to fume. "I don't care what Sora thinks. I just have to be top of my class because I don't like losing. That's all. It has nothing at all to do with the impossible expectations and complete lack of support or validation."

Then she flops over onto the papers, her face smooshed in just like she found Hinoiri when she got home. "Five more minutes sovereign Sora... I dun wanna go to magic school today...", she mimics.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara opened her mouth to object, but... there wasn't... anything she could say in refuting it. She stared down at her. "I just... I..." Her arms around herself.

"... Fine. I... of course I think about it. I'm going to have to face her one day. I have to... know..." Hinoiri looked away, towards her room. Thinking about that book.

"... Then... then what... if I just gave up? Is that what you want? For me to just... surrender?" Hinoiri sat down on the loveseat and pulled back, hugging her knees to her chest.

"To just... accept my entire life has been a waste? To give up on the destiny I was shown? To just... be... mundane? Normal? It's not... impossible. I was top of my school back home and it was a lot harder than this place. It was the top school in all of Kirakirafantastica. With the greatest minds. And I wasn't jsut perfect, I was exceptional. I could do it there, why can't I do it here? What else am I supposed to do?"

"... What else can I do? Dee? Tell me? What other way is there for me? If I'm not the best anymore, then what? Am I just supposed to accept... being... lesser than I used to be? Accept being... being... mundane? Being... common?"

Double Trouble has posed:
Hinoiri's double rolled over on the floor and then got back up while Hinoiri was monologuing. She just stared at the girl while her mind turned over inside. Even the shock of seeing herself didn't crack through the armor of cognitive dissonance.

She was going to have to really act now. She was going to have to play a character she'd only ever seen in a portrait. Hinoiri might not be able to have hooves in this world, but Double Trouble can take any shape.

She deforms into an ink black blob that then grows and solidifies into Sora in all her equine glory. Her wings spread out and give a solid flap, blowing all the papers around the room before she folds them against her sides.

"I never cared about you Hinoiri Kirara," she says. "Nothing you can ever do will change that."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Hinoiri Kirara stared at her. And you could almost feel her soul cracking. The tears forming in her eyes. Trailing down her cheeks. Drip. Drip drip. Drip. Even smearing the unicorn on her cheek a little bit.

Were she a puella, her soul gem would have likely turned black then. Fortunately, she wasn't. She just stared at her mentor. At the mare who... who she thought... she thought...

She'd never be loved.

She'd never be wanted.

It didn't matter how many times she proved herself exceptional.

It didn't matter if she destroyed this world and the next. She was... she would never be worthy. And the dark energy began to flow in, began to swirl around that core of a pure heart that she had. As the unicorn sunk into despair...

But maybe it was because that protection had recently been amped up. But the tears stopped and... "Then I will MAKE YOU CARE!" Hinoiri screamed.

And then she was Sunbreaker. And lunging across the room at her, body aflame and fire launching out at her, erupting in all directions, sending flames searing through the apartment and attempting to maim/mutilate the fake Sora.

Double Trouble has posed:
A clear sign that it's not actually Sora is that when Sunbreaker comes hurtling at her shooting flames, she deforms into an inky black blob that zooms so fast to the other side of the room it almost looks like it teleported. Then reforms into Sora once again, right where Hinoiri had been standing.

"You can't even grasp the concept of 'nothing you can do will make me care' and you expect to be Sovereign?" Sora sneers, and then laughs. "The new girl is so much better than you. I like her. We write letters back and forth all the time."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker growled, fire forming in her hands. "Oh, she's SO SPECIAL, ISN'T SHE?! I bet you'd come back for her, wouldn't you? Nevermind I WAITED! I WAITED FOR YOU! I WATCHED AND I WAITED AND YOU NEVER CAME!" Sunbreaker screamed.

"I did everything for you!" She held out both hands, sending a flurry of wild fire throughout the room at Double Trouble, causing the windows of the room to shatter outwards.

"I studied! I held my tongue! I knelt! I would have happily served you and obeyed you and done anything!"

"I didn't have to be your equal, I would have been happy to just be in your shadow forever BUT YOU COULDN'T EVEN DO THAT! WHY?! WHY WASN'T I EVER GOOD ENOUGH?! WHAT DID YOU WANT FROM ME?!"

Double Trouble has posed:
Sora does the same trick again, deforming into inky black nothingness and zipping across the room faster than the flames fill it. They reform standing right behind Hinoiri.

"I. Didn't. Care. You were an experiment. I wanted to see what would happen if I told a pony she could be me and then left her to her own devices. Now here you are so desperate for me to care that you're cramming for Earth school."

She snorts and shakes her hair out. "Pathetic."

Then she does something very un-Sora-like. She duskports away.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker was stricken. Her eyes wide. It... an experiment? she was... she....

And then she turned around, screaming and unleashing so much fire and rage, destroying so much. FIRE FIRE FIRE! DESTROY! DESTROY THEM ALL!

It wasn't until a few moments later she was aware that the fire alarms were blaring. There were people screaming. There were evacuations. Panic.

What had she done? Oh no. No no no. She'd ruined everything. Her plans. Her goals. Everything. EVERYTHING! It was gone. It was all gone. Everyone was going to know. She'd just... she'd burned herself so bad. Panic... no. No no no no.

She had, what, a minute? Two? She then... ran. To her room. She gathered her things... what she could, taking them with her....

And she left, dusk porting away. Going... she... didn't know where.