• Published 19th May 2016
  • 1,368 Views, 57 Comments

Zest for Life! - AppleJTZ



When her friends refuse to join Lemon's band, she stumbles upon members outside of Crystal Prep.

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Back to zero

Lemon walked down the sparkling corridors of Crystal Prep Academy, heading for the exit. Her march was not quite as enthusiastic as usual, the punk girl almost slurping with hanging shoulders while burying her hands in the pockets of her blue jeans. Looking straight down, past her black tank-top with the winking skull on the front she stared at her black boots, dragging them over the shining tiles of the school. The whole day she had carried herself like this, wandering from class to class like a zombie. It was Friday afternoon and the last lesson had just ended, but while most students couldn’t get out of the school fast enough, she was still moving rather sluggishly. Theoretically, Lemon had an hour of rehearsal with her band right now before she would go home and kick off the weekend.

Except there was no band anymore.

Raising her gaze from her feet Lemon closed her eyes. They had only practiced for a week together, but the short time she had spent with those two had already created a number of fond memories she could call back on…

Like on their first day after they had gone back to the music room, when they had kept arguing what to play until it was dark and they were trapped in the school overnight…

Or on the day after, when Aria and Octavia were arguing so loud the janitor came by to see if everything was alright…

Or the time the two had used the guitars in the room as swords to beat each other up…

And didn’t stop fighting until Lemon had bugged them so much they attacked her instead…

Maybe “fond memories” wasn’t the right term, but Lemon was still sad it was over.

At the end of the corridor, the large round entrance hall was coming into sight. Lemon straightened herself, and picked up her pace. She didn’t notice a girl was walking into the corridor behind her, taking a look around before setting her eyes on Lemon’s back. Seeing her long green hair hanging over the dark pink leather jacket with its ripped sleeves she called out to her.

“LEMON! Wait!”

It took a moment until the words had gone through the headphones into Lemon’s head. Turning around Lemon was surprised to see Sunny, her purple high-heels clapping as she ran towards her. She was wearing a lavender skirt, alongside a light blue shirt under a short yellow vest, buttoned over the chest. When she had caught up to Lemon Sunny bent forward, taking in a few deep breaths with her hands on her knees.

“Phew! There you are” she panted, wiping some sweat off her forehead. “I was afraid you were already gone.”

Lemon looked at her friend in confusion. “What are you still doing here, Sunny?” she asked. “You’re usually out an hour earlier than the rest of us on Friday - shouldn’t you be like, home already?”

A smirk spread over Sunny’s face. “There is something I would like to show you.”

“Show me?” Lemon repeated, raising an eyebrow.

Chuckling Sunny grabbed Lemon by her wrist, careful not to touch the spikes on her wristlet. “Just come with me!” she told her, dragging Lemon’s arm. Reluctantly, Lemon followed, the two of them going down the corridor back into the school. “Sorry again about your band” Sunny said to her on the way. “I know you guys would have had rehearsal right now.”

Lemon rolled her eyes. “You and the guys have been telling me you’re sorry like, all day.”

“Because you’ve been down about it all day” Sunny responded.

Tilting her head back, Lemon let out a sigh. “I know I shouldn’t be mourning that much about it.” She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. “Well, it’s Friday – maybe a trip to the disco or sumthin’s gonna cheer me up.”

The smile on Sunny’s face grew even bigger. “Oh, I think I’ve got something better than a disco for you.”

Before Lemon could ask what she meant Sunny stopped in front of a door. Lemon immediately noticed it was the one to the music room, and frowned. “What are we doing here?”

Instead of answering, Sunny opened the door. Looking inside Lemon took a step back, her eyes growing wide. Four instrument had been put into the middle of the room, alongside a mic holder. While mic and the bass guitar were unoccupied, one of her friends was standing at each of the other three instruments. At the drums there was Indigo, wearing an altered version of the school uniform: While skirt and jacket were the same, the sleeves of the jacket were tied around her neck, her top instead being a yellow-white T-shirt with lightning symbols all over it. Sugarcoat was standing behind the keyboard, dressed in a white blouse and a blue-grey skirt, with a blue scarf hanging around her neck. Sour was holding a guitar, her cherry-red summer dress with pink frills at the skirt going down to her knees, sporting short sleeves and puffy shoulder parts alongside a pink ribbon at the neck. As they saw Lemon Indigo grinned at her, Sugarcoat smirked slightly and Sour showed her a sweet smile.

Staring dumfounded at them Lemon slowly put her headphones off her ears. “Um, guys… w-what are you doing here?” she asked.

Holding the neck of her guitar with one hand Sour stemmed her other one against her hip. “What, isn’t it obvious? We are waiting for our lead singer – now get on the mic, I don’t wanna spend the whole day here” she told her sternly. “It’s Friday afternoon, after all.”

Lemon stood on the spot, speechless. After a while Indigo cleared her throat. “See, Lemon” she said, rubbing the back of her head “When your band performed last night, that music you played, those weird melodies with all that classic, pop and rock stuff – we were really amazed at how well it all went together, and how much fun you guys had playing.”

Sunny nodded. “You showed us it doesn’t matter if we don’t like the same music – we can still be a band.”

“It’s kind of the same morale from when we became friends, only with music instead of different personalities” Sugarcoat remarked.

Sunny put a hand on Lemon’s shoulder. “So, we changed our mind and decided to join your band – and since we’re all Shadowbolts, we shouldn’t have a problem with Cinch!” A little more quietly, she added: “That is… if you still WANT us in your band.”

First Lemon looked at Sunny, then at her other friends, each having a somewhat apologizing look on their faces. After considering for a moment she shook her head. “Nah, Zest for Life’s dead” she told them, sending a shock through everybody. With a sly grin she then asked: “So, any ideas for the name of our new band?”

Her friends breathed a sigh of relief, with Indigo shouting in cheer. Lemon glanced to Sunny standing next to her, both girls smiling happily at each. “But we’re not playing punk rock!” Sunny suddenly called out, sternly pointing her finger at Lemon. “That’s not music, it’s just loud.”

A little startled Lemon watched as Sunny walked past her into the room towards the bass guitar. She then remembered her headphones still resting around her neck, peeked at them, then at Sunny.

A mischievous smirk formed of her lips.

“Oh, really?” she asked, pulling one of the phones over her ear. She selected a song and fast-forwarded to a specific part. As Sunny was about to lift up the bass she jumped over to her, and before the surprised girl could react the headphones were already over her ears. Sunny closed her eyes, expecting a barrage of screams to assault her eardrums. However, she was quite surprised to hear a soft, calm melody. The strings of the guitars were being pulled slowly, the drums only gently brushed over the cymbals, and the voice of the singer was actually quite pleasant. The lyrics were rather hard, and the music was still sounding punky, but she didn’t find it noisy. Before she knew it, Sunny found herself tapping her feet to the rhythm, slightly bopping her head.

“So, Miss Fancy?” Lemon asked, hands on her hips.

After listening some more to the music Sunny slowly nodded her head. “I must say, I didn’t think punk rock could be so peaceful” she admitted.

Lemon laughed. “Well of course it can be! Usually right before it REALLY kicks in!”

Sunny looked a little confused at Lemon. Suddenly, an explosion of E-guitars and drums blasted through the headphones right into her skull, paralyzing her. As soon as she recovered from the shock she took off the headphones. Hearing Lemon giggle the classy girl threw a scornful glare at her friend.

“By the way we’re lucky you booked the room for four months in advance” Sugarcoat chimed in.

Taking up her headphones from Sunny’s hands and putting them back on her head, Lemon gave her a questioning look. “Whaddya mean?”

A wide smile spread over Indigo’s face. “Well look at the timetable!”

Lemon glanced over to the sheets of paper hanging next to the door, and winced: Having been almost empty the day before, the front page was suddenly filled to the brim.

“What the-“ She rushed over, scamming through the various pages hanging behind it. All of them were pretty much completely filled out. “The room’s completely booked till summer?!” she screamed.

Sour nodded. “Just like every other music room in school” she told her.

Lemon kept rummaging through the sheets for a while before turning back to her friends, bearing a look of disbelief. “But… but when I booked it, there were like, only two or three reservations per week!”

“True” Sunny confirmed. “But after your concert, the other students seemed to have gotten a taste for music.”

“There are DOZENS of new school bands!” Indigo exclaimed, throwing her arms up in the air. “And not just classic or rock, but all sorts of genres: Pop, jazz, techno, country, even folklore and marching music – our band’s already got some fierce competition.”

“Considering Cinch will ever allow a contest where any music but classic will have a chance to win” Sugarcoat reminded her, causing Indigo to scowl at her.

Putting a fist in front of her mouth Sour cleared her throat. “Um, girls? Sorry to interrupt the chit-chat – but aren’t we here to play some music?” she asked, impatiently tapping her foot on the floor.

With a chuckle, Lemon stepped over to the mic holder. “Yeah, she’s right” she said, taking the mic in both hands. Grinning Indigo picked up her sticks, Sunny strapped on the bass, Sugarcoat placed her fingers on her keyboard and Sour put the pick on the strings. “Come one, let’s rock! One, two, three...”

A few minutes later, the music room looked like a battlefield. Instruments were lying around everywhere, Sunny and Sugarcoat were heavily arguing if remixing classic songs was an insult to the composers’ cultural legacy or not, and Sour and Indigo were basically at each other’s throats. Lemon watched her friends fight, sighing. At the same time however, she cracked a smile.

“Alright – back from the start, I guess.”

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading this story! A small epilogue can be found here.

Comments ( 8 )

Yay! This story is back! I was wondering what was going to happen with Lemon's new band, and their first gig.

It was nice seeing Aria and Octavia start to warm up to each other, and the group eventually coming to a compromise over what kind of music to play. Instead of picking one genre for their first gig, they combined all three of their favorites. Awesome of them to accomplish.

I find it sad that Zest for Life had to break up after the first gig, but I have a feeling that Lemon's new band will fill the void just fine. Amazing how one band can inspire tons more to form. Bands forming at school like that was fast, and it's another step towards Crystal Prep becoming a better school and the students in it becoming better people.

The ending was perfect, heading back to square one with starting a band. Or maybe square two since square one is getting band members.

Can't wait to see what friendship lesson Lemon learned from this experience.

XDDDD Loved the hilarious ending bit there. XDDD

And that's how the band got together!

7443217 I imagined a music studio or something would be too expansive for a bunch of high school girls, but didn't find a good way too add it into the dialogue.

That ending, though. Genius!

8209590 It's corrected, thank you.

This was fun. Sure, your broken English is still grating, but you have a good sense for what and what not to include. You showed us the important parts of the band's origin and then didn't get bogged down with repeating all of that a bunch. You just went right to the concert. You've also done a pretty consistently good job with characterization throughout these fics so far.

I also appreciate that they all formed their own band at the end. That was a nice touch.

Honestly, I'd really like to see some sort of music related event between this band and the Rainbooms

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