"Ah, ah-ah, ah-ahh"
The silken voice cut through the chatter of the cafeteria, standing out in the din of the crowd, and all the heads turned to see the new girls, as they strolled confidently into the room, singing.
Somebody bumped into her, but at that moment, Trixie would not have noticed if a truck would have hit her. She was too busy feasting her eyes on the vision that was the leader of the new girls. The figure, the gorgeous puff of golden hair, but most of all - the impenetrable confidence of a true goddess. The Great And Powerful Trixie was not of timid sort, but this was a different register of self-confidence altogether, something that demanded attention, insisted to be worshiped and Trixie was willing to submit given even half a chance.
Why pretend we're all the same
When some of us shine brighter?
Here's a chance to find your flame
Are you a loser or a fighter?
Trixie pushed someone out of the way, struggling to get closer, and reward immediately followed: The majestic beauty noticed her, the luscious eyes locking with hers, and a thin pale arm raised to Trixie's chin, holding her in place, like a deer stuck in most wonderful headlights in the world.
You're a star and you should know it
Yeah, you rise above the rest
The warmth of the touch lingered long past the goddess has ascended on the podium of the dining table and moved on.
Trixie would never wash that cheek for the rest of her life.
Let's have a battle, battle, battle
Battle of the bands
"I so want this," her involuntary moan was blessedly lost in the rush of the crowd arguing over...something, she could not care about, too deep in the haze to register her surroundings, as the last choruses of "..Battle!" died out around her.
BRRRIIING!!!!!
The sound of the bell ripped her out of the daze in an empty cafeteria, and the only thing that crossed her mind as she scrambled towards her next class was "Who was that girl?".
****
"Who was that girl?" she demanded from Photo Finish.
"Zey are ze new girls." calmly replied the school photo club president and fellow illeist, before she was interrupted.
"Of course they are new. Trixie would notice them before, if they weren't! What are their names? Where do they come from?"
"Patience, my dahling, patience. Photo Finish is telling!"
"I asked the journalism club, and zey don't seem to know much either, but at least I got ze names. Ze blue-haired one is Sonata Dusk, ze one with pigtails is Aria Dazzle, and ze fluffy one is Adagio Dazzle."
"And?"
"And zats it for now. Well, one more thing - I hear that zey have signed up for ze Showcase. With de magics they did in ze cafeteria zey may upstage even ze marvellous Snapshots in ze Showcase."
"Well, can you..."
"Look at the time!", Photo Finish nearly jumped when she noticed that the break was almost over. "Enough of ze questions. I go." And with a snap of her fingers, she was gone.
The rest of the day was a blur for Trixie as she found her thoughts revolving around Adagio Dazzle. Even her name was musical... Trixie sighed. How could she compete with that? How would she make the girl notice her again... hold her face in her hands again... tell her she is a star... her star.
Sigh.
***
The Great And Powerful Trixie does not mope like a lovesick puppy! - that, of course, was a bold-faced lie. In fact, obsessing over Adagio Dazzle was exactly what she did for most of the previous day. Well, no more! Trixie will talk to Adagio at the lunch break and wow her with the amazing, show-stopping, head-turning ...amazingness that is Trixie.
So her plan may have been slightly less detailed than she would have wanted. And maybe cafeteria line was getting thinner every second and the fateful moment was coming way before she was ready... The Great And Powerful Trixie did not need any more preparation time. She was as great at improvising as in anything else!
She stole another look at the table where the Dazzlings sat. The luxurious puff of the golden hair, deep violet eyes, the majestic authority with which she talked to the pigtails girl, whatever her name was. Trixie was almost too late to turn away before Adagio raised her eyes.
Trixie is not flustered she thought to herself trying to keep the blush away from her cheeks it's... it's not the time yet, that's it. Timing is everything in magic and Trixie knows her timing.
Grabbing a bowl of salad and a veggie burger she turned around and started walking (confidently!) towards the Dazzlings' table. Back straight, head high, just like daddy said. A great magician never shows the crowd he is afraid. Her knuckles were white around the tray, and butterflies were stirring up a storm in her belly, but she was Great and she was Powerful, and she would not let it show!
She just needed to focus on something, anything else but those burning violet eyes... like the pendant each of the girls wore on their necks, the red stones shining as if they had their own light. It somehow looked familiar, as if it called to her.... and then she was there, by the table.
The last few steps were the hardest, but finally, she came to a halt by a free chair.
"The Great And Powerful Trixie shall grace you with her amazing company!" she announced, sitting down."Don't get used to it. This is only because you are new here, that Trixie gives you this unique opportunity to bask in her presence".
The minion girls sniggered at the presentation, but Trixie was not about to give up so easily, especially since Adagio herself was not laughing. As she sat down in a free chair, Adagio raised her arm cutting off the laughs of the other two instantly - a gesture of such supreme authority that whipped up butterflies in Trixie's stomach anew.
"Well, it seems the little star wants to join the big leagues."
"The Great and Powerful Trixie is no..." her rebuke was silenced by a peach-colored finger pressed to her lips, as Adagio's eyes peered into her own, freezing her like a rabbit hypnotised by a king cobra. An infinitely long second ticked by as the new girl looked past Trixie's eyes as if examining her very soul.
"Well, well, well,", she noted, licking her full lips. Her finger slowly slid down, trailing along Trixie's cheek down to her collarbone "I see some potential over here. But..." her finger touched magician's breastbone and lingered there for a second, "that is all I see so far."
A little push of the yellow finger hardly registered on Trixie's skin, yet the rejection hurt worse than if she were stabbed by a knife.
The snickers came back again, both brainless minions revelling in the little humiliation she has received.
"Impress me, honey. Then come back."
***
"Aargh!!", Trixie's screamed in frustration as her bloody fist slammed into the bedpost scattering a dozen broken plectra and tried to wipe away the tears.
She’s been practising for hours now, and she just couldn't stop. She wanted to, she really did - her fingers were raw, her muscles ached and cramped, the strings of the guitar became slippery with her blood… but whenever she even thought of taking a break, the memories came back hitting her with the force of the battering ram.
The humiliating retreat under the barrage of laughter of those snivelling sycophants who by some miracle got to hang out with the Adagio. The stupefying defeat by the air-headed jock in the shred-off at the shop. The light push of the orange finger against her breastbone that even hours later hurt like a freshly burned brand.
She sniffled again and picked up her guitar, smearing blood all over the azure strings. She had to impress Adagio even if she'll have to shred her fingers to the bone practising to do it.
"Is everything all right honey?" at least this time Mom knocked before barging into Trixie’s room.
"It's fine, Mom." Trixie hid her bloodied hand behind her back and tried to conceal her frustration behind the usual mask of easy confidence. "Just practicing for the Showcase."
That did not work - her mom knew her all too well. Walking up Trixie, her mom snatched her bloodied hand, examining it with motherly concern.
"A little bit more practice than usual, huh?" she pulled out her kerchief, to clean up the blood. "Come on, pumpkin, talk to me. I can see that something's wrong."
As she tried to pry her hand away from her mother's grip, Trixie let slip a bit of the truth, like a captured animal that bites its own leg off to escape the hunters' trap.
"It's just not coming together like it should. The Great and Powerful Trixie should be captivating and enchanting. But it's ... it's just not. It's empty and stupid and just not good enough!"
"Mhm... " finally Mother released Trixie's hand from her grip. "I see." She gave Trixie a long look. "Pumpkin, can you do the coin trick?"
"Ha! Of course, I can. It is the first trick that The Great and Powerful Trixie has mastered! The one she used to astound and amaze since she was seven years old!"
Her mother merely raised her eyebrow in expectation.
"Trixie knows what you're trying to do, you know." she pouted, but it would not do a magician to disappoint the audience. Even if it was just her Mom.
Whit a simple flick of a wrist, a coin appeared atop her fingers, wobbling unsteadily as her tired muscles protested. She turned her hand around, and dropped the coin in her fist, only for it to reappear again, travelling across her knuckles one by one - a little golden blur.
Mentally counting down the precise movements of her fingers as she rolled the golden bit across her knuckles, Trixie made a slow roundabout motion, crossing her left hand over the coin and snapped her fingers instantly vanishing it into thin air.
She showed her empty hands to the audience and, with a twirl of her thumb, a coin appeared out of nowhere, launched spinning in the air. As it fell, a clap of Trixie's hand covered it for a second, to open up and reveal that it disappeared again.
"Ta-da!" the young magician announced in lieu of fireworks. "See? I said I can do it!"
Her mother clapped a few times, smiling widely. Her delight and adoration, if obviously biased, still cheered Trixie up.
"Never doubted you, my little magician. How did you do it?"
"A great magician never reveals her tricks!" Trixie's response came instantly, meeting her mother's smile with her own unsteady grin. "But what does it have to do with the Showcase?"
"Well, honey, music is very much like magic. All you need is preparation, practice, and confidence. Just like with the coin trick - you had the coin prepared, you practiced your trick a lot, and since you knew you can do it, you were confident about it. And I know you practiced your music with the girls so much, so I'm sure that all that's left is for you to just be your Great and Powerful self, and you will shine brighter than anyone in your school at the Showcase."
Surprisingly, that helped to dispell some of Trixie's blues. Who knew that parents could actually be useful for once?
"Thanks, Mom, that… that really helped."
That earned her a hug, despite all her halfhearted protests.
"Hey, Mom?"
"Yes, pumpkin?"
"Can you give me uncle Firehazard's phone number? I'm going to need a lot more fireworks."
Chapter II - Fast Food Friday
Trixie enjoyed going to school.
Not that she liked the classes or enjoyed the company of fellow students, but ever since Dazzling came into the school everything felt different: It was like Adagio's spell filled every hall and classroom, an invisible, green mango-and-peppermint-scented fog that permeated all of CHS, tickling against Trixie's skin so delightfully.
Lessons and classes blurred away and faded into the background, and all anyone could talk about was the Battle of the Bands. Every clash of former friends, every loud boast and every fight over who's band was better just filled her up with energy and resolve to win, no matter what.
She barely even thought of Adagio - her violet eyes, her smooth orange skin, the curves of her voluptuous body.... No, Trixie's thoughts were all about dominating in the Battle of the Bands.
It was almost too easy to win. Extra practice she made her friends put in, her special effects she used and the newfound energy that just filled her to the brim, she simply blasted her opponents off the stage in wicked solos and amazing tricks, their humiliated bands filling the rows of haters and enviers in the audience, and their boos and shouts of hatred giving her that extra jolt of power to win again and again. It would be already a reward enough in itself, but the real reward waited for her after the set, when tired and sweaty she would walk off the stage and maybe, just maybe catch Adagio looking at her, a glint of interest in those violet eyes.
She could feel Adagio’s eyes on her when she went to the stage the third time. A spark of curiosity, a touch of encouragement. She was no longer just a little star, a face in the crowd to the elder Dazzling and that meant the world of difference to Trixie. And as the Rainbooms stumbled onto the stage, stepping on each other's toes and snapping at each other, she knew she would win.
It was her destiny. It was inevitable: A showdown that was meant to be, a battle for her own soul. The Illusions versus The Dazzlings.
And again with three silken voices, her world came crashing down like a house of cards.
She watched them come in behind Principal Celestia and Luna, their gemstones glowing with green light. And even over the petty squabbles of the Rainblooms, she could hear their song - a wordless, humming tune that seemed somehow familiar, like she knew it a long, long time ago.
This time, unlike in the cafeteria, she could see what they were doing - the thin spider web of a spell woven by the sound in the air.
Somewhere in the depth of her mind, she knew should have been terrified as she watched the song creeping into principal's heads, filling their eyes with the green light, tugging at their limbs like strings of a puppet. Turning living, breathing humans into nothing more than mechanical mannequins filled with Adagio's voice.
She should've been scared.
Instead it just felt hot.
Captivated by their spellwork, she almost missed what exactly was Celestia announcing:
"The band that will be joining the Dazzlings in tonight's finals is... Rainbooms."
"WHAT?!"
***
.
Why would she do that? thoughts and emotions ran rampant in her head like a bunny stampede. - was she afraid of competing with The Great and Powerful Trixie? Was she tired of playing with me, and just wants me to go away? Does she just not care?
The Great And Powerful Trixie had never been so confused in her entire life. And given the events of the past few months, that was saying something.
"Adagio!"
Catching up to the Dazzlings just walking off stage, she grabbed the girl, pinning her to the wall.
"Why did you do that?!"
A small smile played on Adagio's lips. The full, all-too-close to Trixie plush lips, that almost made her vision swim just looking at them.
"Oh my, you caught me red-handed. Whatever shall I do?" mocking and sarcastic tone just wound Trixie up in her righteous indignation.
The other Dazzlings tittered again, in their usual fashion.
Trixie growled in frustration. "Are you afraid of The Great and Powerful Trixie's music so much?"
Suddenly, Adagio twisted in her grip in a single sinuous motion that bordered on inhuman, and then her body was pressed into Trixie's back, her hot breath on her ear.
"Hardly, my little star. Just giving you a chance."
All thought was banished from Trixie's head, all she could do was try not to drown in the orange hands coiled around her shoulders.
"Those bands don't hold a candle to The Great and Powerful Trixie, do they?"
"N-no" a whimper. Almost a whine, as Trixie melted into a puddle, Adagio's lips too close to her ear to form coherent thought.
Adagio hand pulled Trixie tighter into her embrace. Something hot and soft and pliable pressed into Trixie's back.
"And you do want to impress me, don't you honey?"
Trixie's nod set the fluff of Adagio's hair in motion. Hot breath on her neck set her nerves on fire - a reward for the right answer.
"So very admirable. And you've done marvelously so far. But that is not enough to impress me. Not yet."
The cold of open space would be more bearable than the torturous absence of Adagio's breath on Trixie's neck.
"Now only if you could figure out a way to still make it to the finals... one last shove so to speak, and then.." Adagio's tongue did something warm and wet and utterly amazing to Trixie's ear "I might actually be impressed."
The last word underlined by a sharp bite on Trixie's earlobe...and she probably blacked out, because the next thing she remembered was her propped up against the wall, too weak in the knees to stand up, Adagio nowhere in sight.
This floor feels nice...
***
"Trixie, this is insane!"
Apparently, Fuchi did not like her plan.
"You need to snap out of it, G&P", Lavi kept up the futile argument, "we want to win the Battle as much as anyone else, but you are entirely too obsessed. All those endless rehearsals I can understand, but actually trapping Rainbooms under the stage? Someone could get really hurt!"
"That Dazzling is doing something to you, I swear. Making us rehearse for six hours straight, hurting yourself while playing, and now this? Come on, girl. Let's just sit this one out. It's just a stupid song contest, it's not even your thing."
Trixie winced and rubbed her temples. After the talk with Adagio she felt so drained, and now this argument was giving her a headache.
Maybe they were right. Things were getting seriously weird. Like Fall Formal - level weird, and she should have been scared.
She gripped her guitar, running her fingers across the strings, feeling an almost invisible smudge of her blood on its neck - a reminder of her practice sessions she could never entirely remove.
Adagio clearly was doing something to her.
Are you a loser or a fighter?
Messing with her mind.
Impress me, honey. Then come back
Using her.
One last shove... and then...
She gripped her guitar like a weapon, tugging at the strings. The sound echoed through the empty locker room and something flickered back from the bottom of her friends' eyes. Mangoes and peppermint. Pure, unadulterated vertigo of magic.
"Trixie... please," Fuchsia almost begged. As if she was afraid of Trixie. "let's go home."
"No."
Her fingers came alive on her guitar and green mist and mango rolled across the room.
***
Trixie had never wanted anything more than this moment.
Nothing came close. Not vacation in Las Pegasus with Daddy. Not her first successful magic trick. Anything before or beyond this moment was pale, irrelevant, flat compared to the stage that was now in front of her. Her very bones ached for her to go out and start playing, and were anyone to try to stop her from it, she knew - with terrifying, complete certainty - that she would rip their throat out with her bare teeth and walk over their corpse without a second thought to get on that stage.
She entered the mango scented mist covering the stage and felt it trickling through her skin as it filled her with energy and power. Fuchi and Lavi followed - smiles on their faces, spring in their step, green light in their eyes.
Oh yeah-ah-yeah
She never practiced this song. It just came to her with the rush of being on the stage, the pulse of something new being born within her.
If you wanna see some action
Gotta be the center of attraction
Make sure that they got their eyes on you
Like a face that you see on every magazine
And they had. All of the school was watching her play, and she could feel Adagio's eyes with the back of her head, a heavy violet gaze that was now unable to look away from Trixie.
Come out from the shadows it's your time
'cause tonight is the night for everyone to see
Plectrum exploded in her fingers, but it didn't matter - her nails extended and hardened, keeping the tempo of the music.
It's natural!
Her fang nicked her own lips, blood trickling down her mouth and pooling by her throat like a red necklace.
Sensational!
Electricity ran across Trixie's skin like a miniature storm of her own making, begging to rush in and fill her. Pain and pleasure of the shocks mixed into something greater than both.
Feel the heat that's all around you
Flashing lights and ecstasy surround you
Unearthly tones crept into the music, swirling the surrounding fog into vortexes and whirlpools, expanding the storm of eldritch energy.
You're the queen of the scene living in a dream
She pulled Adagio on the stage, the Dazzling powerless before her song.
And you believe that this is what you've waited for
and it's you that they all adore
A savage kiss ripped Adagio's lips, their blood mixing on their lips.
And then something happened.
A resonance. A spark connected the two of them. It was like a shock to restart a heart she didn't know had stopped. Like a slap they give to the newborn to make it take its first breath. And like a baby being born Trixie screamed, her cry intertwined with the music.
She could feel everything so crystal-sharp, every sensation a flash of pleasure and pain against the naked nerve:
The discord of the audience that loved and hated her at the same time.
The pulse of stolen power that filled the Dazzlings.
Hotter than a thousand suns, more delicious than honey - the magic of the Rainbooms' argument beneath her, spilling in the air like blood from a gushing wound.
And now it was the easiest thing in the world to just reach out and inhale it all through the crimson gem of congealed blood on her throat.
The world exploded in a blissful agony of energy rushing into her like a mighty torrent. White-hot lightning ran along her spine and she arched her back to the near-orgasmic sensation as fin-like translucent wings ripped out of her back in a shower of gore. She could feel the blood vessels pop in her eyes, drowning the world in red. It was the best feeling in the world as if she just now came truly alive.
There was just one last thing left to do.
Hidden from the view by the salvo of the final fireworks and last chords of the song, in a blinding flash of teleport, they vanished off the stage.
***
Her eyes still glazed over, Adagio propped up on a pillow and lit a cigarette.
"Well." Adagio's voice was a little bit coarse, giving it a deeper, more velvet feel, "Colour me impressed, my little star."
Tobacco smoke filled the room. Mango-flavored of course.
A long pull masked the awkward pause, neither of them sure what to say.
"So... you want to conquer the world with us?"
Trixie snuggled closer and licked one of the bite marks she left on the impeccable orange neck, tasting the saltiness of her lover's blood.
"With you. Anything with you".
Author's Note
Yeah, I dunno, it kinda didn't work out the way I imagined it at first... but hey, anything is better than a blank page, amirite?
