Trixie hits the last note on her song, accompanied by all sorts of crazy, swirly green fireworks that fly all over the auditorium. One of them takes a violent turn in the air, and comes soaring straight at your face. You're about to jump out of your seat to avoid it, only to have the rocket fizzle out, and end in an insignificant pop four inches from your face.
"Wow..." Sunset Shimmer says. "Just wow..."
"I know, right?!" You exclaim. "That firework came straight at me! What in the world was Principal Celestia thinking, letting Trixie use those things?!"
"No, no I mean her." Sunset points at Trixie and her band on stage. "That performance...that was...that was actually good."
"Well, she didn't sound bad, I'll give her that." You shrug. "She'll be nothing once we take the stage though."
"How are you so sure about that?" Sunset raises an eyebrow. "We barely made it past the first round!"
"We barely made it past the first round when YOU weren't with us." You correct her. "I'll bet you my car that we're gonna crush every band that faces off against us if the two of us play as well as we did this morning at Applejacks' barn!"
As Trixie's band walks off the stage, you pull out your phone and gaze upon the second round's roster. If your memory serves you correct, then one more band should be up before you guys go. With nothing left to do, you reach into your backpack, and pull out that book Twilight Sparkle gave to you last night. All this time, you've only really glimpsed at a couple chapters at most, which makes you feel a little bad.
"Attention: The next band up is Flash Sentry and the Flash Drive!" Luna shouts through her microphone. You nearly drop your book in surprise and look back at your phone. Meanwhile, the crowd's cheering and whooping as your best friend walks on stage with his bandmates close behind him.
You never really got to know them since they were never in your classes; however, you've heard them rehearse once after school and you swear to God, they sound like an actual, professional band. You look to your left, and see the rest of the Rainbooms shifting uncomfortably in their seats as Flash Sentry tunes his guitar.
To your right, Sunset Shimmer looks especially uncomfortable, and you don't blame her; this is her ex that she's going to be facing off against next round...you thought you had it bad enough since Flash Sentry was your best friend, but when you look in retrospect, she's got it much, much worse.
Flash's band begins to play and three seconds into the song, your hands shoot up to your ears. The crowd breaks into a pandemonium of cheering and shouting, and your hearing aid begins picking up everyone's voices. The ringing, the obnoxious, high pitched ringing begins to hurt your ears and you tear it off. You expect the blanket of silence to come down upon you, but for some reason, everything still seems to be going on. The cheering...the guitars...the drums...
Slowly, you touch your ears with your hands. You begin by feeling the lobes, then trail upwards, following the natural grooves of your ears until you find your fingertips hovering on the edge of your ear canals. You then bring your hand right to your face, and snap. You snap again. The realization slowly hits you, as you snap one final time and feel your entire body trembling with excitement, and empowerment.
Your hearing...your hearing is back!
Just when you're about to start celebrating however, your attention shifts back to the stage where Flash Sentry is shredding away on a killer guitar solo at the moment. The crowd, more enthusiastic than ever, starts shrieking at the top of their lungs, forcing you to cover your ears again for fear of losing them again.
Although your hands cover your ears, you can still hear hear both the crowd, and Flash's band playing, which as much as you hate to say, sounds much better than everything else you've heard today. Including your songs. But a third sound permeates through all the other noises; it's faint, but for some reason, it refuses to let your ears ignore them. Acting on curiosity, you loosen your hold on your ears for a little bit, and the sound becomes more clear.
It's tough to describe, but the closest thing you can compare it to is singing. And from their soft voices, it definitely sounds like the voice of a female. Could it be another band practicing? You shrug; you guys are the last band about to perform in this round, so isn't it a little too early? Well at least it sounds good; the girl has a mature, clear tone to her voice; something that would fit to be the lead singer of a band or something; you swear though, you could've heard it sometime before...
Slowly, you find yourself bobbing your head to the melody of the mystery girl's singing; you begin to let the sound of her voice guide your mind. It's so...beautiful...the sound just clears everything away from your mind. You suddenly begin feeling the worry of facing off against Flash's band fade away; in fact, you can hardly even notice Flash's guitar solo anymore; his voice just sounds like white noise, and crowd's cheering fades away into whispers.
It doesn't take long for you to begin tapping your feet to the song; you're now swaying your entire body to the mystery girl's voice, like a cobra following the music of an Indian snake charmer. Your vision starts to blur now, as you seemingly lose connection with everything else in the world, but that girl's singing.
You want to let go...you want to lean back and lose yourself in the music...you don't want to think anymore...just let go and-
"Anon? Hey, Anon come on! We gotta get ready!" A foreign voice penetrates your mind. Suddenly, all feelings of peace comes to an abrupt stop, and you stand face to face with Twilight Sparkle.
"Did he fall asleep or something?" Twilight asks Sunset Shimmer. "He looked like he was completely zoned out for a moment..."
"I dunno." Sunset shrugs. "I was too busy listening to Flash's band."
"Speaking of which..." Fluttershy steps in. "They played good...I mean, really good...what are we going to do?"
"Just give it our all, and hope it's enough." Applejack says. "Come on, we don't have much time before we're up..."
******
As you tune your guitar, you can't help but think about what just happened in the auditorium a couple minutes ago. What was it? And more important, who was it that was singing so beautifully? Could it be...
You freeze up. Every hair in your body stands up in attention. It's that sound; that singing again! But this time, it's different; its lower, and has more of a bubbly, happy-go-lucky personality to it. But it's equally as beautiful as the voice you heard before. You feel your body involuntarily moving, as you set your guitar down, and begin walking towards the door. You have to find the source of this. You have to-
"Hey, what're you doing, Anon?" Sunset Shimmer stops you. "We're going in ten minutes!"
"I gotta make a pit stop." You quickly lie.
"Well make it quick, we haven't got much time." She says as you close the door behind her.
You stare into the school's empty hallways. Usually, you hate it when the hallways were empty like this; it feels unnatural, the way your footsteps echo every time your feet make contact with the linoleum, but this time it doesn't feel so bad...not when the sound of those girls singing is so beautiful...
Your ears search for the sounds of those voices, but it picks up nothing. Disappointed, you begin heading back but then you hear it again! Another voice! It's a higher-pitched one, with some attitude behind it, drawing you towards the stairs.
You follow the singing upstairs, into the English hallway and make a left. The music is getting stronger now. In the corner of your mind, you remind yourself that the Rainbooms are going soon, but at the moment, it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal anymore. All you want to do right now is find out who these beautiful voices belong to. In your music-induced stupor, you turn the corner and feel your body connect with something solid.
"Oh no!" You hear someone cry out. "I'm sorry, I-"
You shake your head, and find you're suddenly standing in the middle of the English hallway. You don't know how the hell you got here, but even more strange, is the fact that your best friend, Flash Sentry along with his bandmates are standing right in front of you.
"Jeez, do you even look where you're going when you walk?" He says in a hostile tone. You're slightly taken back by it, but a faint flash of green in his eyes reminds you of what's happening to him.
"Hey, it was an accident man chill." You raise your hands up defensively. But just as you're about to leave, you find your pathway blocked by the drummer of the band.
"You're not even going to apologize?" Flash rolls his eyes. "Man, some friend you are."
You know this isn't the real Flash speaking, but deep down, you feel a pang of annoyance build up inside of you. You really want to say something back, even though you know you shouldn't; you just keep your mouth zipped as you stare down your best friend.
"I'm sorry, Flash." You say calmly. "It was an honest mistake, now just lemme head back and-"
"And what?" Flash cuts you off.
"I dunno..." You say sarcastically. "Let me head back and play my song for the Battle?"
Flash Sentry stares at you for a moment, and his eyes widen with realization for a moment, and looks down upon you with scorn.
"Oh yeah, I totally forgot!" He laughs harshly. "You and your joke of a band somehow made it past the first round!"
"I hear Sunset Shedemon's part of the crew as well." He chuckles. "Damn...Twilight must be really desperate if she's letting people like you and her in; am I right, or am I right? I bet you don't even know how to play a guitar!"
You want to be the better man; you want to just let it go. To just walk away, and pretend this stuff never happened, and normally you would. But having this stuff all come from your own friend of all people, and that....that name he called Sunset infuriates you to no end. Just like when you were hearing that beautiful girl's singing voice, your brain suddenly seems to cease to function, and you do something that you immediately regret.
It was too late though; you couldn't do anything about it. Your fist was already flying. And man, was the sound of that crack sickening. Now, you can do nothing but just watch in shock over what you just did to your best friend.
"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR?!" Flash Sentry shouts in rage, clenching his nose. You try to step back, only to be shoved by one of his bandmates to the ground. You narrowly avoid a kick to the face, and look up to see your best friend staring down at you with blood pouring out of his nose, and a murderous glare in his eyes. Strangely though, green smoke begins to form out of nowhere, and you scramble to get back up the ground.
Flash lunges at you with a right hook that just grazes your cheek, and his other two bandmates try to get at you from the sides, but you quickly step back, pull out your taco spray, and let it loose before booking it down the stairs. Once you get down, you continue sprinting, all the way until you make it back to the room where you were originally practicing with the Rainbooms.
"Fuck..." You pant, finding a chair to collapse onto. You take a couple deep breaths, and stare up into the ceiling, taking in what just happened.
'You fucking scumbag, Anon...you just punched your best friend over literally nothing.' You think to yourself. But it was so weird though; during that moment, you just...you just weren't thinking straight! Obviously, it doesn't excuse you from doing what you just did, but still; what the hell is happening to you?!
Your thoughts are interrupted as you hear the door slam open, and see a red-eyed Flash Sentry charging towards you, cracking his knuckles. You put your arms in front of your face, but his right hook goes straight through your defenses, causing your body to crash painfully down on the hard, linoleum floor.
"Hey, hey, I'm sorry Flash! I'm sorry!" You shout, trying to get away from him. He grabs you by the throat, and he's about to punch you in the face again, but you suddenly hear him yelp weakly, and suddenly fall to the ground. You look up, and see a mane of yellow and red hair standing above Flash Sentry's body, before immediately making out who the person was.
"Sunset?!" You blurt out. You're about to say something, but see Sunset Shimmer's eyes gleaming with fiery rage; something that was...it's tough to describe it, but as terrifying as it was, it was somehow beautiful at the same time. You just stay where you are, as Sunset kneels, and puts her finger over Flash's neck to check his pulse.
"Are you alright?" She asks, a concerned look spread across her face.
"I'm fine." You reply, clutching your cheek. "Flash sure knows how to throw his hooks though..."
"What the hell were you doing?!" She demands, surprising you with the sudden aggressive tone in her voice. "I thought you were just going to the bathroom!"
"It's...it's complicated." You say.
"Clearly." She rolls her eyes. "Come on, we've only got five minutes left before we go on stage."
"But what about Flash?!" You point at his limp body.
"Oh, he'll live." Sunset says casually. "He'll probably wake up in like two hours or so."
You dust off your body, and stare at the unconscious body of your best friend. It doesn't take long for a wave of guilt to quickly come over you. In just a month and a half, you've caused so much harm and pain to others, and now your own best friend. It just keeps getting worse, and worse, doesn't it?
"He's a nice guy, isn't he?" Sunset says, handing you your guitar. "Flash Sentry?"
"Yeah..." You nod. "He's like a brother to me...he was the only one who stuck with me after the whole Rainbow Dash incident too, and now..."
"You punched him in the face?" Sunset finishes your sentence bluntly.
"And I feel like the biggest scumbag in the world." You hang your head in shame. "I immediately regretted it the second I did it; it......it was like Adagio and the Dazzlings all over again! I just wasn't thinking straight!"
"Well, at least you know what you did was wrong." Sunset says optimistically. "Right?"
"Yeah." You scoff. "Except you missed the part where I just lost my best friend now."
You drop your guitar and walk up to one of the mirrors in the room. Your reflection shines back at you, and you see a purple bruise forming on your cheek where you took Flash Sentry's hit. A hit that totally could have been avoided if your dumbass didn't decide to hit him first. Hell, a lot of things could have been avoided if you just thought about what you were about to do for a second time, but it's too late now...
"When I fucked up with Rainbow Dash and all, I felt like there was no way I could ever do something like that again..." You say. "Well look at me now......is there anything I can't fuck up?"
"Well at least you didn't turn into a crazy winged demon that tried to take over the school when you punched Flash." Sunset scoffs. "It could always be worse..."
"First Rainbow...now Flash..." You continue to stare at your own reflection. "Is everyone ever going to forgive me for what I've done? Hell, I can barely even forgive myself..."
Your eyes are tearing up. You start blinking profusely to try and fight back the tears; it's a battle you're losing though. As you wipe one of your eyes, you suddenly feel a hand on your shoulder.
"Well sitting on your ass and feeling sorry for yourself sure isn't going to do anything." Sunset Shimmer smirks. "Isn't that what you told me?"
You freeze in place for a moment, and take in what Sunset Shimmer just said for a second; did she just...
"We're still in this, you know." She says, picking up your guitar and holding it expectantly towards you. "Don't let your past define you...because your past isn't today."
You take the guitar out of Sunset's hands, and give it a couple strums...strangely enough, it's perfectly tuned right now, even though you never remember touching it since the first round. You turn around, and see Sunset Shimmer no longer by your side, but at the classroom's door, with her hands on her hips and a radiant smile on her face.
"Well, what are you waiting for, Anon?" She beckons you. "We've got a Battle of the Bands to win."