//------------------------------//
// Exposing Svengallop 
// Story: Western Champion 
// by The Blue EM2 
//------------------------------//

"Yes?" she asked, looking at the boy in front of her. "How can I help you?"

There was a moment of silence as the singer and Pip looked back and forth between one another. Then Pip decided to speak. "Having driven you and your entourage from Los Angeles to Canterlot, I feel it neccesary to raise a matter of concern about your manager, Svengallop."

Coloratura looked at the boy calmly. "And what matter of concern is this?" she asked him, calmly, and awaiting his reply.

"Well," Pip began, "Svengallop, according to Pinkie Pie, just made a series of unreasonable demands for food and drink, including some demands that were more or less impossible given the time of year."

Coloratura sighed. "Pip, Svengallop works very hard as my manager, and he only has my best interests at heart. I don't really see there being a problem in him asking for things whilst we're on the road."

Pinkie Pie suddenly interrupted. "He threatened to pull you from the festival and book you at Wembley stadium instead! And that's really really really far away!"

"That's in Britain!" Scootaloo added. "My dad saw Coldplay there once."

"Not. Helping. Scootaloo," Apple Bloom growled.

"Whatever, Alice," Scootaloo replied, with a cold smirk on her face.

Coloratura looked truly shocked at this revelation. "WHAT?" she asked, in astonishment. "There's no way he'd do something like that! Charity means a lot to me, and doing that would completely ruin my image!"

Button sighed. "Svengallop, from what we've seen, really doesn't care about your image. He only cares about the money, and pushing away anybody that doesn't fit his viewpoint. He rudely ordered us to move Western Champion away from the train on the grounds that it was smelly!"

Coloratura, however, was not convinced. "What do you know of him?" she asked. "I've worked with him for years, and I know he only had my best interests at heart. You, on the other hand, have known him for a few minutes, and he's very stressed ensuring this all goes to plan!"

Apple Bloom glanced over to Pip. "Whatever happened ta the old Coloratura?" she asked, rhetorically, before loading a video on her phone and playing a video. "This was yer first hit, remember?"

The video showed a much younger Coloratura, without any of the outfits, makeup, or special effects, with just a guitar and microphone, singing her heart out. And the words were as follows;

"America, the land I love,
A land of harmony;
Our flag does wave from high above,
For everyone to see!

America, a land of friends, 
Where people all do roam; 
They say true friendship never ends, 
America, my home!"

There was a moment of silence. "America, the land Ah love," Apple Bloom replied. "Columbia Records, 2002. Ma has the engraved version."

Coloratura was silent for a moment. Then she spoke again. "I understand that you are worried and upset, but those days are long gone. I am no longer just Coloratura, or 'Rara' as I was sometimes called in those days. I am Countess Coloratura, and you are going to need some very strong evidence to convince me that Svengallop is using me."

As she walked away, Rumble lost it. "Fine!" he shouted. "Hide behind a veil so thick you cannot see that he's manipulating you!"

Ocellus put her hand on Rumble's shoulder. "Rumble, that's enough," she said. "I think she gets it."





The team sat in Sugarcube Corner, looking utterly defeated. They had tried, and failed spectularly, to convince Coloratura that Svengallop was using her for power and fame. It seemed nothing would convince her of what was really going on.

"What are we going to do?" Button asked, sighing. "We tried speaking to her and telling her what was going on, but that didn't work."

"What is this, exposition?" Thorax asked, looking up from his milkshake. "Anyways, seeing as speaking didn't work, we're going to have to try something else."

"But what?" Button offered. "We have no hard and fast evidence of his intentions."

Ocellus then looked up. "I think I have an idea," she said.

"Really?" asked Pip. "Please, do tell us."

"Remember what she said before she walked off and Rumble lost his temper?" Ocellus asked in response.

"Must you remind me constantly of that?" Rumble sighed.

"She said that 'you are going to need some very strong evidence to convince me that Svengallop is using me'. All we need to do is get some evidence to convince her of this fact, and boom! Job done."

"Unless you happen to have an audio recording of him threatening Pinkie in your back pocket, that's not much help." Thorax looked at his sister. "Unless, we were to..."

"Exactly!" Ocellus countered. "We need to get him in a position where he reveals his true colours, and then simply record his response, either in audio or with picture, then show Coloratura."

Pip looked at Ocellus. "I'm not too sure about the legality of this plan," he said finally, "but if it helps Coloratura, it seems to be a good idea to follow through with it. Now then, who has a movie camera?"





The next day, Pip walked into the stage area that had been set up for the Canterlot Music Festival. Coloratura was sitting outside, looking at nobody in particular, whilst Svengallop was staring impatiently at a group of workers moving a speaker around. "Countess Coloratura?" the boy called over, hoping to get her attention.

"Yes, Pip?" she asked. "And thank you for using my full name."

"About Svengallop," Pip started.

"What about him?" Coloratura replied, visibly irritated.

"If you were to give me a chance to prove that Svengallop doesn't have your best interests at heart, would you give it to me?"

Coloratura nodded, almost in resignation. "Svengallop!" she called. "I'm considering cancelling the competition for the students at Canterlot High."

"Fantastic!" Svengallop replied. "Those contests and meetings with children serve no practical purpose, and do nothing to build your image at all. Pinkie!" he shouted. "We are making some tweaks to the show. Follow me!" He led Pinkie off to a secluded area, and then turned to her.

"Cancel the contest for the children and schedule me a spa treatment," he snapped. "Now that I don't have to oversee a rehearsal with those brats, I have time for the works! You know the drill! Deliver, or the diva ditches your dippy charity!"

Little did he realise that Ocellus had been recording the entire thing with a concealed microphone, and then almost immediately played the recording back over the speakers in the stadium.





"Cancel the contest for the children and schedule me a spa treatment. Now that I don't have to oversee a rehearsal with those brats, I have time for the works! You know the drill! Deliver, or the diva ditches your  dippy charity!"

Coloratura looked horrified, as Svengallop walked back, looking totally unphased. "So that's how you've been managing things behind my back?" she asked.

"I don't see the problem," Svengallop replied. "I manage for you, make you a success, ensure you get gigs. In return, I should have some perks."

"You use my good name to get what you want!" Coloratura cried, still horrified. "Charity means so much to me. I would never cancel something like a contest for schoolchildren. You've been using my name as a bullying tactic!"

"Charity, charity, do you ever speak of anything else?" Svengallop said mockingly. "You have clearly forgotten something. You only exist because of me. If I leave, you fall apart. And the record company can send you back to that bug ridden Manhattan apartment I found you crawling in. You want to be broke and starving again?"

"You clearly don't understand the real me!" Coloratura protested.

Svengallop laughed loudly, and nastily. "The real you was created entirely by me. I control the staff, and they are hired through me." And then he smiled cruelly. "And I quit, taking all of them with me. Good luck, Countess! Watch your career fall to pieces all around you!"

Coloratura walked him and the team walk off. She then removed the veil that covered her face. "Somebody get me out of this ridiculous outfit," she said. "The show must go on, and if needed I will go on without him."





"This is gonna be a disaster!" Coloratura cried, looking at her new outfit in the mirror. "How are the effects and sound going to work? Svengallop took all the sound engineers with him, so we've got no microphones, no audio effects, nothing! And I only have an accoustic song I wrote in about an hour!" She put her head in her hands. "This is a disaster!"

"You don't need all those effects," Pip reassured her. "And as for sound and microphones, we can power them from Western Champion's engines."

"Miss Coloratura?" called a stage hand. "I don't mean to hurry you, but the concert is about to start, and you're the opening act."

Coloratura nodded grimly. "Here goes nothing," she sighed, and stepped out of her dressing room toward the limelight.