//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: Bitter Memories and Sweet Music // by Bookpony579 //------------------------------// Twilight went stiff when she saw Principal Cinch standing there. Beside her were the Shadowbolts, each now wearing fancy black and white orchestra outfits. "Oh! Um...nothing! Just...warming up for the show!" Twilight quickly replied with the rest of her friends quickly nodding along. Cinch raised an eyebrow but appeared to accept the answer as she focused her attention on her former student. "I suppose, in the spirit of good sportsmanship, that I ought to wish you and your school best of luck for the contest. I can certainly imagine you certainly appreciating it yourself considering what happened last time." Twilight flinched while the rest of the CHS crew just looked on in confusion. The Shadowbolts were smirking wickedly at her, some even trying to hold back their laughter. Cinch continued. "When I learned you were the lead singer for you band, I naturally became quite concerned given your....previous attempt at singing at Crystal Prep. Of course that was a long time ago and I'm positive you've moved beyond that. I'm sure you'll be fine singing in a spotlight in front of an enormous crowd of strangers along with your friends and family whom I'm sure you'd want to impress in a contest with enough prize money to greatly benefit your school. Surely there's no reason to be nervous." She gave a small, cruel smile when she noticed Twilight beginning to sweat. "I'm glad we have that all cleared up. I hope to see you after the competition." With that, she and her students promptly walked away, leaving Twilight alone with her curious friends. "What was that about?" Rainbow asked. "Twilight...what she said. Does it have anything to do with why you tried to get out of the contest?" Sunset deduced, looking at Twilight. Twilight just stood there for a moment, feeling like she couldn't breath. Her friend's eyes were trained on her, and she could feel her heart trying to burst it's way out of her chest. She shut her eyes in an attempt to block it out....and the sounds of laughter echoed all around her, closing in and trying to suffocate her... "Twilight?" Flash took a step towards her.... .....right before she disappeared in a flash of light. Everyone blinked at the empty space of air where their friend had just been. "What happened? Where'd she go?" Flash asked worriedly, looking around. "She must have teleported!" Sunset realized. "Come on, there's still time before we go on, let's look around." Twilight sat defeated in a spare prop room, wallowing in solitude until Sunset opened the door. "Twilight there you are!" She exclaimed with relief. "We looked everywhere for you!" Behind her, Twilight saw the rest of her friends looking at her in worry. Sunset quickly took a seat on a box next to Twilight and put a hand on her shoulder. "What's going on? Why did you teleport away?" Twilight just buried her face in her skirt. "I don't want to talk about it." "Twilight.."AJ started as she and the rest of the group took seats around Twilight. "We ain't gonna judge ya, we just want ta know what's going on." "We just want to help you Twilight." Fluttershy pleaded. "You wouldn't understand." Twilight mumbled into her skirt. "Try us." Rainbow demanded, folding her arms. Twilight finally looked up and saw all of her friend's looking at her with concern. She took a deep a breath. "Allright, I'll tell you." Everybody leaned in as she began to tell her story. "First thing you should know: I was a loser at Crystal Prep. I was a nerdy, introverted girl at a school full of overachievers who love bragging about their accomplishments and crushing anyone beneath them to get said accomplishments. So...no friends for me. Not that I ever really bothered trying to make friends." Everybody looked at her, slack jawed. "Back in freshman year, I still had some hope of at least getting them to like me, so I auditioned for the acapella team. I liked singing so I thought it would be a good chance to round out my curriculum and have fun while doing it. But at the audition..." A few years ago... Twilight looked around her, to see the auditorium was full of students here to either audition themselves, support their friends....or make fun of those who messed up on their auditions. "Twilight Sparkle." Twilight jumped when she heard her name called. She took a deep breath and headed onto the stage. At the table in front of it sat Principle Cinch, the supervisor for the team, and the student captain. She took another deep breath before starting on a popular song that had come out earlier that year. The judges were nodding and Twilight let herself get lost in the rhythm, beautifully belting out the words with all her heart when.... *SPLAT!* Twilight suddenly found herself covered in some sort of greenis-blusigh-greyish gunk. She looked up and found a younger Indigo and Lemon up in the rafter, snorting and holding a tipped over bucket. Soon enough the whole auditorium was beside themselves with laughter, pointing at Twilight and even taking pictures with their phones. While the adults tried to get everyone under control, Twilight could feel tears welling up in her eyes. Without waiting another moment, she turned and ran off the stage, the laughter fading the farther she went. Finally, she reached a bathroom and managed to get to a stall before vomiting. Cadence soon arrived, but the damage was done. Indigo and Lemon managed to sneak out without getting caught and the whole thing was ruled as an accident, Cinch managed to hush the whole thing up, but the students continued tormenting Twilight about it for days afterwards, and right up until Summer vacation. Twilight swore off doing anything on stage unless it had something to do with academics. She didn't even have the courage to point the finger at Lemon and Indigo or even tell her parents the full truth of the matter, fearing she might make things worse, especially since Indigo was a star athlete at Crystal Prep and everyone counted on her to bring home most of the athletic trophies. All Twilight could do now was try to survive to graduation without anymore attention grabbing incidents....