Dramatic Reading... are you surprised?
It was still all weird, but at least it sorta made sense now. Twilight felt safe enough to leave the library without the fear of being attacked by those two again, or any of those other five she had stuck to her locker door. What were their names…? ‘Futashy’ ‘Jappleack’, ‘Rainbow Darsh’ [insert southpark clip], ‘Jesse Pinkman’, ‘Rearity’, ‘Sunset’, and… um… ‘Brad’? Ok, she knew that one was wrong, and had a suspicion the others may be wrong too, but that’s what she was calling him. She’d never been good with names.
It was almost ironic seems she could memorise numbers like that. Not to mention she had memorized her new friend Silverspoon’s number. She liked this girl and planned on keeping in touch with her even after she left this school. Well, maybe… probably not. She was still going through with what planned. And who could blame her? Even if she hadn’t nearly been raped after all, who in their right mind would want to deal with having an interdimensional angelic doppelbanger?
Despite her earlier thoughts of being able to take Silverspoon in a fight, she felt comfortable around her, and when she left the library, Twilight followed. It was late in the day by this point and really the only thing left was the school assembly. The principal would speak, introduce some of the heads of staff and then most everyone would leave. Twilight wasn’t part of the group though.
Afterwards she’d speak with the principal about leaving this school, and hopefully it was alright if she didn’t attend for the next few days until she was enrolled elsewhere. As the two left, making their way to the gym/assembly hall, Twilight could feel all eyes on her once more. Unbeknownst to her or Silverspoon, word of Twilight’s return had spread quickly… mostly thanks to Silverspoon’s friend Diamond Tiara.
Despite that, they made it to the gym with Twilight only mildly starting to hyperventilate. A few people were already there but most of them didn’t notice her as she found a spot off in the corner, out of the way. More people slowly started filling the hall and among them were four of girls stuck to her locker door. All but the one she’d met earlier. Luckily they didn’t notice her either the room was pretty full by this point, she couldn’t even see those girls shortly after they’d entered.
Sil eventually left Twilight to go find her friend, who she knew would love to meet Twilight. Diamond Tiara always wanted to climb the social ladder and being friends with ‘Princess Twilight’ would be a massive boon to that. Twilight, now standing there alone, despite being in a room with nearly the entire school of just under a thousand people in it, she actually felt comfortable for the first time today. No one was paying attention to her as they all just waited for this thing to start.
The flow of students into the hall slowed as they started to take their seats on the floor, roughly sorted into groups of friends and random people meeting for the first time just now. Twilight even caught a glimpse of Sunset for a moment. But that didn’t bother her. It wasn’t actually that bad… sure she’d been shit-scared today by numerous things, but that would pass sooner or later. And if Diamond Tiara was as big a gossip as Sil said she was, everyone would know she wasn’t this other Twilight pretty fast. Everything was going to be fi-
“TWILIGHT!!!!!” came the second loudest sound Twilight would ever hear. The loudest happened a split second after as the pink-haired girl who had screamed it created a sonic boom from moving across the room towards her at a speed that didn't seem physically possible. “Oh my god I heard you were back but I didn’t believe it, can I come with you back to that other world this time, what’s it like there, what are you doing back here, why haven't you said hi to us yet, do you wanna come say hi to us, why don’t you say hi to everyone, I bet they all wanna see you again, c’mon!”
Before Twilight could say anything, before Twilight could even comprehend what had just happened, this girl, who she knew was from her locker, grabbed both her hands and dragged her seemingly towards the other three she’d seen earlier that where now with the two she’d already met. But that wasn’t where they were heading. Before she knew it, Twilight was up on the stage, microphone in front of her face, a very forward and surprisingly strong girl standing next to her and… the entire school now all focused on her.
She stood there frozen, wide-eyed staring out at the crowd that was staring right back at her. She’d never seen so many people all at once. Sure she'd been to shopping centres and guessed that the number of people vastly outnumbered this. But so many, in so small of a space… all staring at her. Her brain broke as she just stood there and tried to understand what had just happened to her, and why this was happening to her.
“Hey everyone!” Pinkie said, grabbing the mic stand, punk-rocker style. “I bet most of you know this already, but if you don’t then get ready to meet Twilight Sparkle! She's the coolest, kindest, most neatest person to ever win the crown of the Princess of the Fall Formal! Oh and she has super powers and can fly and can shoot rainbow out of her eyes!”
“How high are you?!” some random heckler yelled out.
“I think the stage is about two feet high.” Pinkie replied as the rest of her friends made their way onto the stage. Rainbow Dash was the first, other than Pinkie, to greet her by slinging her arm over Twilight’s should. Applejack stood on the opposite side and just put her hand on the girl's other shoulder. Fluttershy came up onto the stage too but tended to hide behind the others in the group and Rarity just walked up as if it was a runway: style, grace, ego.
Sunset was the last up on stage and unlike the rest, she wasn’t to thrilled by this. She’d been in the middle of telling the gang that Twilight was here, but it wasn’t their Twilight they knew. It was the OP Twilight of this world. As she approached “Um, girls…” she said as she saw the look of sheer terror on this Twilight’s face.
Applejack was the next to notice it. “Uh, Twilight? You doing alright?” she asked but got no response. Twilight was like a deer in the headlights, dead to the world. Applejack followed her eye-line out to where she was looking; the crowd. It took a moment for it to click but she figured it out. “Girls, line up.” she said forcefully as she grabbed Rainbow Dash and Rarity and stood them facing away from the crowd in front of Twilight.
Pinkie hopped into her place alongside them and even Fluttershy joined, despite being nearly as afraid of being in front of so many people as Twilight was. She knew better than most the others what was going on with this Twilight and joined in in creating the wall to block the gaze of nearly a thousand people. The five blocked her view of the crowd and the crowd’s view of her. But it didn’t do much good.
“I know this must be hard for you.” Sunset said as she stepped from the end of the wall towards her. She expected Twilight to flinch at seeing her again but barely got anything.
Twilight slowly moved her still, dilated eyes from pointing forward slowly towards Sunset. She heard what she had said, but couldn’t comprehend any of it. Seconds later she figured out what had been asked, but it was even longer after that that Twilight was able to answer as she willed her frozen body to move in the slightest. “It… is…” was all she could manage to say.
“Do you want to get off this stage?” Sunset asked, already knowing the answer.
The same process went through Twilight’s head “I… do…” and it wasn’t any faster than the last time. She hadn’t even answer before Sunset went beside her and put her arm around Twilight’s waist and threw Twilight’s arm over her shoulder.
“C’mon. let’s get you out of here.” she added, pulling Twilight away to backstage. The other five continued to move as a wall, keeping her obscured from view. Sunset set Twilight down on a chair once they were off the stage. seconds later Fluttershy came along and offered Twilight a glass of water, but she didn’t take it. Didn’t even acknowledge it. “Are you alright Twilight Sparkle?” Sunset asked once more.
The process was faster this time, but still went through the same slow actions in Twilight's mind to even answer with a single word. “No.” she wasn’t hyperventilating, her heart wasn’t beating out of her chest. In fact, she was barely breathing and her heart rate was slow. She had completely frozen as her body almost shut down on her from sheer fright. She even felt physically cold form what had just happened to her.
“Is there… anything we can do for you. to make you feel better?”
Cognisity returned to her now that she was away from most of what caused this problem. “Just, leave me alone.” she said as she pulled both her feet up onto the chair, wrapped her arms around her legs, pulling them to her chest and lay her face onto her knees. She wasn’t crying, she was just trying to hide herself and block out all of this.
“Twilight…” Rarity said as she stepped forward and put her hand on her shoulder. “We’re just trying to help you is all. We’re your friends after all.”
“No you’re not!” Twilight yelled back. “You don’t know me. I don’t know you… I’m not that Twilight you knew last year… I don’t want to be this ‘Princess Twilight’, I don’t want to be known, I just want to be like I was at my last school: left alone to be myself. I’m not… I don’t know… I’m me. That’s all I am. All I want to be.”
Before anyone could say anything back to Twilight, the side door to the backstage opened “Who has been using the microphone without permission?” Principal Celestia said as she walked in. Twilight took this opportunity. She’d been wanting to speak with Celestia all day… now she just ran past her out the side exit, away from all of this. Celestia looked at her for a moment before her gaze fell on Pinkie Pie in a frown.
“Um… Pinkie Pie?” Fluttershy asked. “How long have you been holding the microphone up there?”
“Oh I got the whole conversation and you didn’t even notice it did you? I should be a professional boomstick person, I kept it out of shot so well!” she said with pride.
So basically, the whole school had heard what Twilight had just said. Good. Rainbow Dash grabbed the mic “Listen up. You all heard her. Leave her alone or you’ll have to deal with me!”