Ch.1 Song and Dance
A gentle smile graced Twilight's face as she drifted, pure darkness all around her in every direction. No sounds could reach her, no cruel eyes could see her, only the calm and gentle shadows that surrounded her gave her any sense of reality. For the first time in who knew how long, she was utterly and completely at peace. Without aim or direction in mind, she let herself drift further and further into this sweet oblivion she found herself in. Had she died? Was this death? A small part of her was shocked to find that she didn't really care. She was safe. She was free. She was finally free!
A loud mechanical beeping shattered her peace and with just a blink she was back in her room, her zen replaced by mild grogginess. Groaning in disappointment, she flailed blindly towards her headboard until she found her phone. With careful muscle memory and color recognition, she slid her finger across the screen and shut off her alarm in spite of the images being nothing but a cluster of multicolored blurs. Sighing, she forced herself to sit up stretched her arms over her head, and yawned. Her brain slowly booted up as she plucked her glasses off of her headboard and slid them on, turning all of the blurs in her room into a familiar sight.
Lavender walls and carpet with one half of the room dominated by a wall covered from top to bottom with loaded bookshelves. The other half held her bed, work desk, dresser, wastebasket, and closet. Sighing, she slid out of bed and staggered herself towards her dresser. She grimaced over how gross she felt, mostly dry sweat coating her like mucus on a frog. A sure sign of her near constant night terrors. As she plucked out a clean set of her school uniform, she was surprised by how rested she felt. Normally, when she had a night terror she felt as if she hadn't slept at all. This was especially bad when she had more than one in a night. Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, she pushed the fact to the back of her mind as she gathered the last few things she needed to get ready.
On the way out of her room, she paused in front of her closet mirror. Shining proudly outside her lavender pajama top's collar was a small, petal-shaped black crystal shard. With a loving smile, she took a moment to admire it in the mirror before she continued her trek out of her room. School or not, she desperately needed a shower.
***
A few minutes later of preparation later, Twilight was stepping out of the bathroom ready to face the world. At least, as ready as she was each day. As she had done countless times since her enrollment into Crystal Prep, she was dressed in a simple white dress shirt with a maroon vest warn over it along with a matching plaid skirt. Dark purple knee-socks and navy blue dress shoes completed the look as she made her way down stares to the house's first floor. Her dark sapphire hair was done up in a neat bun on the back of her head, the lone purple and raspberry streaks running through forming a near perfect spiral from its bottom to the top. The smell of coffee and pancakes greeted her, the combination practically dragging her growling stomach towards the kitchen. An excited yipping brought a smile to her face as a small purple puppy with green ears and tail scampered to her side. Smiling, she knelt down to pet the excitable creature.
"Hey Spike," she giggled, scratching him behind the ear. "Who's a good boy?"
The puppy let out a happy bark in response. Twilight laughed as she picked the dog up and hugged him. Spike barely fought against her before she reluctantly set him back down on the floor. Giggling at the dog's antics, she took her seat at the kitchen table. Spread out before her was a tall stack of fluffy pancakes topped with chopped strawberries and a generous drizzling of maple syrup. Set next to it just past her fork and knife was a fresh mug of life-giving coffee. She happily tore into her breakfast with gusto, earning a small chuckle from her mother.
While pushing close to forty, Twilight Velvet still held the same beauty she wielded back in her prime. Her gray skin held a healthy shine matched only by her equally vivid purple hair. This, combined with the full figure she carefully maintained managed to turn more than a few heads whenever she went out in public. The only thing that marked her age were a few white streaks running through her hair that she wore with pride. Holding a mug in one hand, she took a seat across from her daughter at the table.
"Someone's in a good mood," she smirked, taking a sip from her mug.
Twilight swallowed her food, then smiled and said, "Yep!"
"Something you want to share," Velvet asked, her smile gaining a slightly teasing curve to it.
"Not really," she blinked.
"Are you sure?" she egged.
"Yes?" Twilight confirmed, not entirely sure where her mother was going with this.
Velvet continued to stare her daughter down for a couple minutes, then let out an exasperated sigh and slump in her seat.
"Not even one?" she groaned.
Twilight blinked, then wilted in her seat as she finally understood what her mother was hoping for.
"No," Twilight sighed, eyes trained on her food as she ate at a more sedate pace.
"Honey-" Velvet started in concern, only to be cut off.
"It's fine!" Twilight said hastily, leveling a forced smile at her mother. "This just means I have more time to study and experiment."
Velvet sighed into her mug, then said, "You need friends, Twilight."
Twilight let her smile fall into a frown.
"No I don't," she muttered. "Their just useless distractions."
Not that anyone would want to be my friend anyway.
"Besides," she continued. "I already have Spike, Cadence, and Shiny. I don't need anyone else."
"Maybe," Velvet frowned.
"I'm fine mom, really," Twilight smiled.
"I know," she smiled sadly. "Just...at least try to make a friend. Please?"
Faintly, she felt a small tug at the back of her mind. For just a tiny moment, she felt compelled to tell Velvet everything. Instead, she did the same thing she did every time her mother brought up this topic.
"I'll try mom," she smiled, taking a small sip from her coffee.
Unknown to the two humans in the room, at that exact moment, a young woman let out a frustrated scream that shook the walls of her prison.
***
Crystal Prep was truly a marvel of modern construction. While the outside of the building was built to resemble a five story gothic mansion, the inside was much more intricate. Marble tiles of various shades of blue, violet, and pink covered the floors, walls, and even ceiling. As such, it gave the halls an almost magical feeling, as if you were exploring a mystic fortress or a dragon's den. This was the kind of impression Twilight had the first day she set foot in the school. That was before she met the other students that occupied the building.
Her fingers nervously rubbed her pendant, eyes scanning her surroundings like a scared rabbit for two specific faces in the crowd. When she finally made it to the classroom, she let out a relieved sigh and slumped into her seat at the back of the room.
There were two things she discovered very quickly in the first week. First, there were two different types of students in the school. The first were the ones that came from wealthy families that could afford to send their children there. The other were the scholarship students who managed to claw their way through Crystal Prep's strict academic requirements. Twilight was one of the small few to fall into the later category, something that she was fairly proud of initially. The second thing she learned was that the school had a very cutthroat attitude towards teaching.
Only the best were treated with any respect and perfection was the standard all of the students had to live by. The top students embodied these two principles, but instead of being encouraged or looked up to, they were the targets of envy and spite. In turn, most of The Elites as they were called returned the venom aimed at them with contemptuous arrogance. To many of the students in this rank, it was a right they earned as a result of their hard work and dedication to their education. Adding to their ego was the fact that their statuses allowed them to, within reason, earn certain privileges from the Principal. Of course, that didn't mean that they got along very well. Even among The Elites, the drive to rein supreme was insurmountably strong and vicious, the ten students holding that title constantly looking for ways to gain the upper hand on their colleagues.
Unfortunately for Twilight, she was among these ten students. Worse still, she was ranked number one among them. It was for this reason she was met by envious glares and scoffs as she meekly made her way through the halls to her first class. She tuned out her surroundings as she pulled out all of the things she would need for class. She then sat with head tilted towards her desk, trying to fight the urge to look up. She knew what would await her if she did. Cold, jealous eyes. Judging frowns.
Her anxiety spiked as her imagination brought images of her entire class staring at her with spite in their eyes. Her hand drifted towards her pendant and those images slowly started fade away. A tiny smile graced her lips, her anxiety dripping away like an icicle in spring. She felt a tiny tingle in the back of her mind and with it, just enough strength to raise her head a little higher. It was shook when she noticed a couple of students giving her passing glances, but still stood. A small hint of pride filled her at the knowledge that she managed to keep it up all the way until the teacher came in and class officially began.
***
The girl glared balefully at one of her prison's crystal walls. Every day was the same song and dance. The human wakes, she eats, her mother talks to her, she comes to this hell hole, she stays longer to wallow away in her lab, she goes home, does human things for a few hours, goes to sleep, has a panic attack, and starts it all over again. Rinse and repeat. All the while, the human's heart gradually collapsed more and more.
The evidence was on full display to the girl. Literally. A bright mass of violet energy shined brightly just beyond the crystal wall she was staring at. It swirled elegantly in a constant spiral pattern like a galaxy in the infinite black void beyond. Its center pulsed like a heart, each pulse spreading out a thin ring of lavender into the dark that slowly faded away. It was so pretty, so delicate, she could sense the strength sitting just under the surface. It made the ugly black cracks surrounding its center all the more heartbreaking.
While she couldn't remember much from before the human found her, she was certain that she had never seen a soul quite as powerful as this one. A fact that added to her frustrations every time she watched the human's daily routine. The girl was timid, weak, and horribly awkward. Every day she was forced to watch the human cower before others that had their noses so far into the air that they could tell her what the outer-atmosphere smelled like. Even worse was the fact that the girl seemed to lack the spine needed to seek help when it was practically rammed into the face.
"Damn human," she muttered bitterly, turning towards a different wall, this one showing the human's hands jotting down notes into a notebook. "How can someone be so brilliant and so fucking stupid at the same time?"
Brilliant was putting it mildly. The human seemed to devour knowledge just as ravenously as the girl did negative emotions. Maybe even more so. She still remembered how shocked she was when the human read through an entire encyclopedia in a single night. It had only taken her two hours and judging by the immense joy she sensed coming from her, the human loved every second of it. She then spent most of the night typing on her computer, all of it looking like nothing more than an indecipherable jumble of letters, numbers, and words that she had never even heard of before. It gave the girl a massive headache to try and make sense of it, but it also added to the human's happiness.
The girl's lips curved upwards into a small smile at the memory, only for it to shift back into a frustrated frown a second later. She knew the human couldn't keep this up, that even with her parasitizing her it was only a matter of time before she cracked. Even without a passing glance at the human's soul, the girl knew that that time was soon. All it would take is a little push and-
"GRRRRRRRRRRRRR DAMN IT!" she screamed. THIS IS SO STUPID!"
With tight fists at her sides, she stomped towards the wall showing the human's hands and roared, "WHY?! WHY DO YOU LET THESE SHIT STAINS TREAT YOU LIKE THIS?! YOU SHOULD BE STANDING TALL! YOU SHOULD BE PROUD! WHY DO YOU LET THEM KICK YOU INTO THE DIRT LIKE THIS?! WHY, DAMN IT?! WHY?!"
Ragged breaths poured out of her mouth in thick pants, her rage and frustration drawing black fire all across her body. Sensing her power starting to tip past her control, she took a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out. She needed to stay in control, more for the human's sake than her own. Little by little, she started to regain that control, the black fire covering her body slowly fading away with each breath. By the time they completely disappeared, her bloody fury had reduced itself to a more familiar sense of mild irritation.
"I hate this so much," she muttered, dropping bonelessly to her knees.
She leveled a sharp glare at the wall, the image now showing the human putting her things away.
"I'll find a way out of here," she sighed. "I just hope you're still around when I do."
***
Twilight again found herself surrounded by students, her nerves on high alert as she tried to ride the tide to the cafeteria without drawing any attention to herself. A mission she was quickly failing further at with each person she bumped into. Her fingers continued to nervously stroke her pendant as she kept her eyes peeled for nine students in particular. Her heart nearly stopped when a girl with short purple hair passed in front of her, only to let out a relieved sigh when she saw that it wasn't who she thought it was.
Like the rest of the school, the cafeteria was built to look like it came straight out of a fairy tale. The whole room was massive and shined as if it was made of pure diamond. Dozens of round tables seemingly made from the same material where bolted to the ground with ornate iron chairs circling them. Top tier chefs worked the kitchens, filling the room with heavenly aromas most wouldn't even begin to believe, most of it made by alumni fresh out of culinary school.
All of the ambiance was lost to Twilight, the pressures of the first couple of weeks squashing any appreciation she had for it all out of her. She kept her head down as she made her way towards the lunch line, praying that none of her fellow Elites saw her. She barely paid any attention to what she put on her tray, basically grabbing the first thing that came into reach at each loading station. It ultimately didn't matter all that much to her anyway. No matter how much skill was put into the food here, it all tasted like ash in her mouth.
Once she got out of line, she kept her eyes locked onto her loaded tray and made her way to the back of the room. There, she found a single table shoved into the farthest corner with a single tented iron chair set at it. Letting a small smile grace her lips, she took a seat in the chair and set her tray on the table. The worn silk padding in her seat sank under her weight, but she didn't care. This was the one place in the whole school other than her lab that she could be alone, a small oasis in the dreaded dessert that was her academic life.
With a small smile, she dug into her food.
Her smile fell, dread welling up inside her when two familiar shadows fell on her table's surface.
"Why, if it isn't Sparkle," a girl gushed, only for it to take on an irate tone a second later as she added, "Too high and mighty to sit with the rest of us, huh?"
"Perhaps," a prim girl's voice said, a cruel smile oozing out of her tone. "But then again, what do you expect from Crystal Prep's number one?"
Twilight's hand shivered as it drifted up towards her pendant, silently praying that the girls would leave her alone for once. Her prayers went unanswered as a light turquoise gray hand slid into her downward line of sight. She froze when its fingers lightly hooked her chin and slowly dragged her gaze up towards it owner's cerise eyes. The girl holding her gaze was roughly the same age as Twilight, but with a much more elegant build and poise. Her straight mulberry hair was cut short, only just barely touching her shoulders with light raspberry streaks running through it. A light layer of indigo eyeshadow made the girl's already stunning eyes shine in the cafeteria's light. At her side stood a girl of equal build, though a lot less refined. Her skin held a pale gold-gray shine that added to the charm of her moderate rose freckles on her cheeks. Her long straight hair was the same color with a light teal streak running through it and done up in a ponytail. Her indigo eyes held contempt as they bore into Twilight, her pale aquamarine eyeshadow adding to the effect.
"H-Hello Sunny Flare. S-S-Sour Sweet," Twilight stammered, eyes flicking back and forth between the two girls.
"Greetings," the first girl, Sunny Flare, said sweetly, her hand finally leaving Twilight's chin. "Do you mind if we eat here today?"
"Yeah," the other girl, Sour Sweet smiled, only to frown a second later to add, "Unless you're too good for us."
"I-I-" Twilight stammered, only for the two of them to drag one chair apiece from two separate nearby tables anyway.
"There," Sunny smiled, taking a seat. "Isn't this better?"
Twilight cowered further into her seat, her food long forgotten at this point.
"Awe, the princess is scared," Sour pouted, then sneered and leaned forward in her seat as she growled, "Good."
"Now, now Sour, behave," Sunny frowned. "It's only natural that the number one would want to lord her title over us. As the number two and three, we should respect her academic dedication."
Sunny's eyes turned cold when they locked back onto Twilight and a faint growl entered her tone as she added, "For now."
Twilight reared back further from her, the number two Elite's eyes holding a raptor's intensity. Sunny's smile returned, but her eyes never lost their ferocity. Sour's smile took on a sinister edge as she watched her partner in crime work her magic. While they both hated to admit it, Twilight was a truly brilliant girl, but that did her very little good as far as her timid nature was concerned. Something the students ranked just below her took full advantage of whenever they could.
Seeing the fear in the girl's eyes, two girls decided to amuse themselves by partaking in something they knew affected Twilight the most. They ate their lunch and watched Twilight. Not talk. Not tease. Just sat quietly and watched the number one fidget nervously in her seat.
Of course, Twilight knew that this was not all that they were going to do to her. It never was. She sat on the edge of her seat waiting for them to finally make their move. She knew it was going to hurt, but in a lot of ways, the waiting was the worst part.
After what felt like a year, the two girls finished their meals and stood up. Twilight closed her eyes, shivering as she braced for what was coming. Sour and Sunny shared a look, then smiled wickedly as they moved to either side of the scared girl. At the same time, they knelt down to Twilight's level and whispered in her ear.
"You may be the top student in this school," Sunny hissed, venomous rage lacing every syllable. "But that doesn't make you any less pathetic. You'll slip up eventually and when you do, I will enjoy every second of it."
"Me too," Sour whispered sweetly, then snarled, "I've always wondered what it would be like to have someone carry my crap around."
The two girls giggled happily, all smiles and sunshine as they made their way out of the cafeteria. Twilight sat numbly in her seat, her eyes blankly staring down at her half-eaten lunch.
***
The light tapping of computer keys was the only sound to be heard as Twilight worked. School had ended hours ago, yet she still remained on the premises. With the power of her title she was able to have one of the school's old storage rooms converted into a lab. It wasn't anything fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but it was good enough to suit her needs. A few used computers were hooked up to several odd devices Twilight built from scratch in one corner of the room, most of them covered with burns with loose wires sticking out of places that used to have panels keeping them in. In another corner of the room stood a simple cot, generally used if Twilight ended up staying the night, but now held a sleeping purple and green puppy.
At a far wall, Twilight tapped away at her desk on her laptop, her eyes scanning carefully over various readings on display. A few days ago, her equipment picked up several readings of some unknown type of energy in the city. At first, she thought it was just her equipment going haywire. There was no way such massive sources of power could avoid the knew's attention. At the very least, someone would've put something up on social media. Then a spike massive enough fry most of her equipment came up last week. It was pure luck that she was able to salvage enough data from the machines to determine where the spike came from. A now massive pile of rubble that used to be Canter Bridge. With a handheld variant of the gear that survived the surge, she investigated the sight.
Her hand drifted towards the only thing she found among the wreckage, her fingers lovingly caressing its slightly rough surface.
Her eyes carefully scanned the data over and over again, but no matter what she did, she couldn't make heads or tails of it. The readings said that whatever this energy was, it was massive in scale, easily capable of obliterating or powering a small city three times over. At the same time, it seemed to possess attributes from more than one form of energy. It was almost as if the sensors were dropped into the middle of a supernova, an arctic storm, and an active volcano all at the same time. By all accounts, a lot more than the bridge should've been destroyed last week.
She let out a frustrated whine, her head leaning back in her rolling chair and eyes staring at the ceiling. She needed to figure this out. At least, if she wanted to get into the Everton Independent Study program. The college was her ticket out of this place, the best chance she had to escape Crystal Prep's shark-tank philosophy and Principle Cinch's overbearing influence. There, she could continue her education in peace and with those that matched her intellectually.
Her mind drifted back towards what happened to her during lunch and her lack of progress in her research added another weight to the already massive load pulling her into the abyss. The stress, the sleepless nights, and all of the verbal abuse lobed at her from Sunny Flare and Sour Sweet ate at her that left her soul bone thin. She wanted it all to stop, but it all seemed so hopeless. She could feel it. She was falling apart.
"I just want it all to end," she whispered, tears starting to trickle down her cheeks.
"Please...hang in there. Just a little longer," a rough female voice begged.
Twilight flinched, sitting up right and frantically looking around.
"W-Who said that?" she stammered.
A heavy pause, then, she got a shocked response.
"Wait, you can hear me?"
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😁 You've got featured!
Now we'll have a grand old time.
Well this just got worse. Hopefully Twilight will be able to resist the influence of Lily.
10640574
I'm uncertain it is "Lily" as we know her.
This little writh seem to have a chance to be nice.
nice chapter
Wild out of nowhere guess that's probably wrong; the girl trapped in the crystal was everything Lily didn't want of herself, all the nice/good bits, and some mean stuff got forced in on her death.
Ah shit, Twilight heard her....
Personally no matter the version I always felt earth twilight was foolish to mess with something without learning more about it first. Plus she was totally let off the hook despite her almost killing someone because she cried when she was scolded. She was supposed to be a scientist but she forgot to observe the energy to see if affected the world in any way.
Well here's hoping the two lead each other to a better path on Lily's surprise second chance at redemption.