One year. So much can change in such a short period of time, and when it does, it can make life completely different from how things were before...

It had been a little over a year since I moved to Canterlot, and in that time, I had seen magical events completely unlike anything that I had ever experienced as a magical girl. It all started when a girl named Twilight Sparkle came to town, bringing with her some magic from a parallel universe where apparently everyone is a talking horse… Yeah, kinda crazy to think about, but not as crazy as the fact that immediately after she arrived, our school bully turned into a she-demon, a group of sirens tried to feed off our positive energy, and a different Twilight Sparkle turned into another she-demon. Needless to say, things have been pretty crazy ever since she came to town, keeping me pretty distracted from doing any of my magical girl duties in my new home.

Speaking of which, Canterlot doesn't seem to have any magical girls of its own other than Photo Finish, also known as the magical girl Palette, but she doesn't count since she moved to Canterlot from Manehattan a little bit before I did. I've asked Discord if any exist besides the two of us, but he always deflects from the issue, which he does about basically anything I ever try to bring up. The thing that makes me the most mad, though, is that ever since I moved to Canterlot, Discord deactivated my teleport gem, making it impossible for me to even go back to Platinum City, the home for all the magical girls in Manehattan, not that I really had any incentive to go back there anyway.

Back home in Manehattan, life was miserable in every way possible. I had no friends, I was bullied in school, and even Platinum City was run by the three meanest girls in the world, or as Discord called them, “the fearsome threesome”: Fleur De Lis, Le Blanc and Lulu Lemon. The three of them had made it their own personal mission to make sure that I knew I was not welcome among their ranks, and if they ever got their way, they would probably take away my magical girl powers altogether.

The funny thing about that, though, was that I couldn't remember for the life of me how I ever became a magical girl in the first place. Actually, there were a lot of things that I felt like I was forgetting, but I could still feel some kind of strange feeling of nostalgia, even though I could never quite figure out where the feeling was coming from. The feeling first came when I moved to Canterlot, then again when I started thinking about magical girls within the city, then at oddly specific times such as when I thought about indestructibility, shapeshifting, luck, and especially whenever I thought about any kind of deities… but it also came whenever we studied specific frog species in science class, so I guessed that it was just my imagination acting up on me.

The main focus, though, was that life in Canterlot has been a total blessing, even if a couple crazy events nearly ended in my whole school being blown up. I've started a band which I humbly named “Trixie and the Illusions”, I perform magic tricks in school (which are met with mixed reviews), and most importantly, nobody treats me like I'm worthless here. In fact, it feels like everyone here is my friend! Even though I may still have some problems at home, I'm excited to come back to school every day. There's this strange focus on friendship at CHS, like it's somehow the basis of all magic, and even though the magic I use stems from chaos, they still share their friendship with me, a total outsider! Anyone can have a fresh start at CHS!

“Anyone, you say?”

“Waaah!”

I quickly closed my locker, looking around the hallway to see if anyone had seen the magical figure popping out of nowhere and appearing next to my trigonometry homework. Then, once I got a good look at my surroundings and saw that nobody was paying any attention to me, I breathed a long sigh of relief, followed by a look of anger as I squeaked my locker open.

“Discord! What did Trixie tell you about popping up while she's at school?!”

When I peeked back inside my locker, however, I saw that he had taken the letter T from the name on my homework and was sipping on it as if it were some kind of hot drink. “I'm sorry, Trixie,” he replied, tossing the letter back onto the page from where it came and leaving a wet stain around the edges. “Things are just so boooooring over at Crystal Prep right now. So what's this I hear about anyone being able to sign up for the CHS magic show? You know, I have been known to put on quite the show over the past few millennia.” Discord then materialized a magician’s hat and began juggling miniature bombs, causing me to trail my hands down my cheeks as I growled in frustration.

“I'm pretty sure the flyer for the magical showcase didn't mean creatures who could already use magic!”

Suddenly, I felt the gazes of dozens people passing by, and once I turned around, I saw that basically everyone walking to their next class was giving me a curious stare while I was yelling quietly into my locker. With a strong blush, I pressed my back to the locker door and chuckled awkwardly until everyone watching had shrugged their shoulders and hopefully completely forgotten about me. Then, with another sigh of relief and another look of anger, I opened my locker back up, ready to give Discord a piece of my mind, but once I looked inside, he was gone yet again.

“Wouldn't that mean you're disqualified too?”

“Waaah!”

Of course, as I should have predicted, he had just changed his location to my shoulder, barely being shielded by my long hair, making me stand very still to make sure nobody would notice. While gritting my teeth to cause as little movement of my head as possible, I whispered, “I think there's a slight difference between being able to transform into someone who can use magic and literally being a spirit of chaos! Now can you please go back to Crystal Prep and bug someone over there?”

“I would…” Discord then slithered over to my other shoulder, making me shudder as discreetly as I could, praying that nobody was watching as I stared into my locker while whispering to myself. “...but Fleur De Lis is giving a presentation, Le Blanc is talking with her career adviser and Lulu--well, you know Lulu Lemon. Not even I want to be near her during one of her rage fits.”

“Trixie doesn't care where you go! Can you please just leave her alone?!”

Then, as if to put a period on the discussion, I slammed my locker shut, but the moment I did, I saw a boy standing right where my locker door had hid my line of view, appearing like someone had just broken up with him. I flinched nervously, immediately looking down at my shoulder to find that Discord had already disappeared. I could thankfully avoid that awkward conversation, but I was still silently praying that he hadn't overheard me talking to apparently no one. The last thing I wanted was for another person at school to think I was a weirdo.

“Sorry, Trixie,” he said, looking down at his shoes and dipping one hand into his leather jacket while the other combed through his flashy blue hair. “I didn't mean to bother you.”

“What? Oh! No, Trixie wasn't telling you to leave her alone!”

Suddenly, an eyebrow went up on the boy’s face, making me gulp from the question I knew he was about to ask. “So... who were you talking to?”

Crap.

“Uhhhh, a boy from a different school. It was a phone call. He had the wrong number. ANYWAY! For what reason have you come to speak with the Grrreat and Powerful Trixie?”

“Well…” The boy then kicked an imaginary rock, shrugging his shoulders together bashfully in a way that would make any girl who didn't know him better fall for him immediately. “I was thinking… You know how there's that school magic show coming up?”

I couldn't help but smirk. “Ahhhh. So you've come to seek guidance from the most talented magician in all of Equestria? Fear not! When Trixie is done parting unto you all of her knowledge of magical arts, everyone will be astounded by just how much you--”

“Actually, I was kinda hoping we could do an act together.”

He was obviously trying to sound sincere, but again, I knew him better than that. Breaking character and putting my hands on my hips, I asked bluntly, “Alright, Flash. What's her name?”

“Come on, Trixie. Does there always have to be a girl involved? What if I legitimately just want to be part of your act? I mean, you are the most talented magician in school, after all.”

“Ugghhh…” I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head, knowing that despite how sincere he was trying to come off, I knew there had to be more involved than that. “Fine! Trixie will let you be part of her show, but you have to tell me who this girl is that you're trying to impress.”

Flash Sentry's face lit up. “Really? Thanks, Trixie! Her name is Petunia Paleo. I heard that she likes magic, so I thought if I invited her to see us perform, she'd finally start looking at me differently.”

“Wait! Isn't Petunia Paleo in middle school?”

With a shrug, he replied, “She's almost a high schooler. I mean, how old were you when you first fell in love?”

*CLICK!*

Out of nowhere, a throbbing pain seared through my head, causing me to fall to my knees with Flash trying to hold me up for support. There it was again! That feeling like there was some part of my memory trying to reconnect with a past event! Without fail, however, no matter how hard I tried to remember whatever my brain was trying to tell me, I was left with a painful cloudiness that kept me out of my own head.

As I rubbed my head in agony, the blue-haired boy helped me back up to my feet with a concerned look on his face. “You good, Trixie?”

“Yeah,” I groaned. “I'm fine. Just had a migraine is all. Anyway, Trixie has never been in love, so she can't relate to your tasteless girl chases.”

“Really? Have you never even had a crush on someone before?”

*CLICK!*

“AAUUGHHH!”

This time the pain was even more unbearable, leaving Flash Sentry by himself to hold me up before I inadvertently collapsed onto my knees. “Whoooaaaa whoa whoa whoa. Hang on. Let's get you to the nurse's office.”

The minute I was back on my legs, however, I pulled my arm out of his grip angrily, rubbing my temples to help soothe the aching sensation between my eyes. “Trixie said she's fine!”

“Fine? You just collapsed two times in thirty seconds! Do you really just expect me to let my partner walk to class, knowing that she’s in complete pain, just because she said she’s fine?”

With a serious look on my face, I looked him in the eyes and said plainly, “Yes.”

Flash, however, needed a minute to take in my reply before giving me an unapproving scoff. “Whatever, Trixie. All I’m doing is trying to help.”

“You can help Trixie at the magical showcase. I don’t need you for anything else.”

Again, Flash stood silent in disbelief for a few moments before shaking his head in aggravation. “Works for me,” he said, walking away with his hands in his jacket pockets. “I’ll just put my name next to yours on the signup sheet. I’ll see you later.”

Then, all the annoyance I was feeling suddenly disappeared, quickly being replaced with guilt and shame, but before I could rush over to apologize, someone appeared in my way. She was younger, probably even younger than Rarity’s sister, with fair pink skin and bright blue hair done up in frilly curls with a cute, light-colored bow that sealed the perfect image of an innocent little girl. She was the exact type of girl who I would normally walk around without giving another second of thought, but somehow, when I saw her, I saw myself back when I was a middle schooler in Manehattan. As much as I wanted to push past her in my urgency to apologize to Flash Sentry, however, I couldn’t help but think of how someone would have done that to me just a few years earlier.

“Golly!” she said in a youthful, high-pitched voice. “That didn’t sound very nice!”

“Trixie was just about to apologize. Sorry, could you excuse me for just a second?”

The moment I had squeezed myself past her shoulder, however, the young girl continued. “You don’t really think he’s going to forgive you just like that, do you?”

Freezing and turning back towards the girl with my eyebrow raised, I asked, “What do you mean?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” She then shrugged, shaking her head like there was something I was too naive to see. “You can’t just apologize when he’s angry.”

“...I can’t?”

“Nope! You gotta give him some time to cool down first! If you walked over and apologized right now, do you think he’d actually forgive you?”

“That… was what Trixie was hoping for, yes.”

“After the way you just treated him? He’s too angry to think about forgiving you, even if it is the right thing to do! You need to let him calm down for a little while so he can think about all the good times you two have had together. You did just let him have a part in your show, after all, and it was all out of the goodness of your heart! Do you really think he’d see that if you tried asking him to forgive you while he’s all riled up like that?”

As much as I urgently wanted to take care of the issue as soon as I could, the little girl’s logic seemed to make perfect sense. I didn’t want him to be mad at me anymore, but I couldn’t deny that he would probably be more receptive to an apology after he had some time to collect himself. I didn’t know how angry he was, to be honest, but even if it was just a little bit, I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize our friendship.

“My name’s Cozy Glow, by the way!” she said, sticking out her hand energetically. “You’re the Great and Powerful Trixie, aren’t you?”

I flinched intrinsically. Even though I had promoted myself at school by that name, the only times I had ever heard it used were when I was in my magical girl form. Nobody had ever called me by my stage name at school, but then again, this little girl probably didn’t have anything to go off of other than that.

“I saw your name on the signup sheet,” she continued while I shook her hand. “Everyone at school says you’re in a shooin to win.”

“They do? I mean--Naturally!”

“It’s no wonder that boy wanted to be part of your act so bad! Actually, I had a question to ask you about that, but it’s kind of embarrassing…”

As the girl put her hands behind her back, innocently tracing a circle with her foot, I placed my hands to my hips with a newfound confidence. “Ask away. It’s been a while since the Great and Powerful Trixie has had a Q&A.”

“Then…” Suddenly, her bashful smile turned into a sinister smirk. “Can you use real magic?”

My heart stopped. My whole body froze. She couldn’t know, could she? There weren’t supposed to be any magical girls in Canterlot! How would she know?!

Once I looked back down at her face, though, I saw that her sinister smile was back to being an innocent grin, complete with large, pleading eyes that made me second guess what I saw just a moment ago. “N-no!” I replied hastily. “They’re all parlor tricks; look at this hand while I’m setting up with that hand. Nobody can use real mag--”

“I can.”

I instinctively took a step back, trying to repress an expression of fear while she once again grinned with malevolence. Part of me felt like I was overreacting, like she was talking about some different kind of magic completely unrelated to magical girls, but after the way this conversation had gone so far, I had no idea how else I was supposed to think. Could she actually be one of us? And if she was, how was I supposed to react to that?

“Th-then…” I stuttered. “Then you should enter into the talent show as well! The Great and Powerful Trixie can’t remember the last time she had an adequate rival.”

“Really? What about Divinity?”

*CLICK!*

“AUGH!”

Once again, the searing pain from before swarmed through my skull, giving me an almost unbearable headache as I fell to the floor. Unlike Flash Sentry, however, Cozy Glow didn’t rush to my aid. In fact, while I had collapsed onto my knees, the blue-haired girl stood above me with her hands on her hips, her smile having vanished from her face, replaced with a disapproving scowl.

“Not much fun remembering what you did now, does it?”

Remembering what I did?

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Great and Powerful Trixie. We both know the real reason why there are no magical girls in Canterlot.”

I was right! She really was a magical girl! But that still didn’t explain what she was saying or why she seemed so angry all of a sudden.

“What are you talking about? Why aren’t there any magical girls in Canterlot?”

“Oh, like you don’t know.” The pain was gradually beginning to dissipate, but my confusion was still as strong as ever. “By the way, I’ve got a message from Autumn Blaze for you.”

*CLICK!!!*

“AAAAAHHHH!!!!”

“STOP SCREAMING!”

Even with Cozy Glow yelling at me to stop, I couldn’t stop the sounds coming out of my throat. It felt like my brain was about to snap in half, like the more things she told me about, the more my mind would rip itself apart. Once I was finally able to calm my voice down into a little more than a whimper, however, I still couldn’t lift my head to to more than Cozy Glow’s feet, which began pacing around me.

“I’ve done my homework, you know,” she said, much more calmly than before. “I’ve been waiting for you and your friends from Platinum City to show up, but I never thought I’d find one of you attending my school.”

One of us? That meant she hadn’t found out about Palette yet! I had to keep my thoughts to myself, though, just in case this girl turned out to be just as bad as Lulu Lemon, which so far seemed to be more than just a probability.

“How do you know about the Great and Powerful Trixie?”

“Oh, that’s an easy one! Divinity told me about you… before you killed her, that is.”

I bit back on the pain as my mind clicked again, trying to get as much information out of her as I could before my mind stopped thinking clearly.

“Who’s Divinity? Trixie would never kill someone!”

Suddenly, Cozy Glow froze, and once I finally had the strength to look up to her face, I saw her staring back at me with an expression of total confusion. Once the initial shock was over, though, her eyebrows furrowed again in a look of pure anger.

“You’re not fooling me! You know what you did!”

“I don’t!! Trixie has no idea what you’re talking about!”

“YOU’RE LYING!”

*RIIIIIIING!*

Finally, the bell rang to start the next session of classes, and even though that meant the two of us were late, we both knew that our time was up here, at least if we wanted to save face. With one final glare in my direction, Cozy Glow said, “Saved by the bell, huh? Well let me tell you something, Great and Powerful Trixie. Autumn Blaze wants to talk to you, and she said that I could do whatever I want to convince you to see her.”

My head was still spinning. Divinity? Autumn Blaze? Were these magical girls? I’d never killed anyone before, so was there someone out there pretending to be me and killing people? Did that mean Canterlot had more magical girls than I thought? As I got back up to my feet, though, Cozy Glow’s previously aggravated demeanor had disappeared, replaced with the sweet, innocent smile she was wearing when I first ran into her.

“We’ll be expecting you in Everfree City tonight. See ya later, Great and Powerful Trixie!”

As the younger girl waved goodbye and merrily skipped to class, however, I fell forward onto a nearby locker, taking a few moments to soothe the discomfort that had made its way throughout the rest of my body. There was no way I’d be able to attend class like this. If I showed up late looking like I’d just been beaten up, it would mean that my mother would get a message sent home for sure, and I wanted to do every possible thing I could to avoid that. Besides, I had way too much to wrap my head around already to pay any attention in science class.

With just enough energy left to weakly push myself up straight again, I slowly made my way to the nurse’s office, dragging my feet as I tried to figure out how I was supposed to make any sense of this mess.

“Moooom! I’m home!”

Silence.

I raised an eyebrow in suspicion. Usually when I got home, I would be able to hear her getting ready for work or using the television, but almost never would I get home and hear nothing. Almost never…

With a slight shiver running down my spine, goosebumps beginning to form on my skin, I walked down the hallway to the kitchen, looking everywhere for signs that my mom was even home. “Hello?” I called. “Anyone home?” Nothing again, but as I got closer to the kitchen, I began to hear a very faint sound of someone’s fingertips tapping against the countertops. “Mom?”

Finally, I turned the corner and saw my mom slouched over, her hair dangling over her face like she was in the middle of sobbing, but I knew my mom better than that. In the seventeen years I had been alive, I had never once seen her cry. All I’d ever seen was pure rage, and this time was no exception.

“Sit. Down. Now.”

I did exactly as I was told, sitting down at the kitchen table while my hands shuddered in my lap. “Mom? Are you OK?”

“Am I OK?” She then began to giggle, causing me to gulp reflexively while my whole body began shaking internally. “Ohhhhh, Trixie. Where do I even begin with you?” She lifted herself upright, still with her hair dangling over her face. “I have given you nothing but a good life. I’ve given you food, shelter, and the clothes on your back, but this is how you repay me?”

“W-what do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb, you stupid bitch!”

Before I even had time to react, a butcher’s knife soared right past my cheek, getting stuck in the wall behind me, leaving me to quiver with my eyes and mouth wide open. My whole body was trembling. I couldn’t breathe. The knife had missed me by no more than a few centimeters, and judging by how much my mom was shaking and heaving with anger, I could only assume that she didn’t mean to miss.

“You’ve had a lot of fuck ups in your life, Trixie, but assaulting a freshman girl? How fucking twisted do you have to be in order to even do something like that?!” Assaulting someone? Did this have something to do with Divinity again? “Here I am, trying to get ready for a long day of work ahead of me, and not even five minutes ago, I get a call from Principal Celestia. Apparently you decided to attack some girl named Cozy Glow? For what? Were you pissed off that she was prettier than you or something?”

Wait! Did Cozy Glow say that I attacked her?!

“Mom, you don’t understand!”

“THAT’S IT!” With all the adrenaline in her body surging at once, she walked away from the counter and marched in my direction. I intrinsically got up and backed away, but before I managed to even take three steps, her hand was around my neck, forcing me into the wall behind me and sending violent punches across my face. “You’re trying to tell me that I don’t understand that my own daughter is a monster? HOW DUMB DO YOU THINK I AM?!”

“Mom!” I cried, desperately trying to breath with her grip still firm around my neck, blood pouring out of my nose. “Mom! Stop! Ple-hee-heeease!”

“Oh, so now you suddenly don’t want to fight?!” She then let go of my neck, only to grab me by the hair, sending another punch into my mouth. “I bet you that girl Cozy Glow was saying the same thing!” Right hook. “I bet you she wasn’t crying like a little bitch like you are, though!” Uppercut. “All I’ve ever done is try to give you a good life, BUT YOU KEEP! FUCKING! UP!!!”

Punch to my ribs. Punch to my face. Elbow to the face. Punch. Punch. Punch! Finally, she let go of my hair, just to give me a knee to my gut as I fell forward. Blood was streaming from my nose and mouth, tears cascading down my cheeks, and all the while, I was in a battle between trying not to cry anymore and desperately heaving for air. After having the wind knocked out of me, though, all I could do was fall onto my knees with my arms wrapped around my stomach, trying to get that breath of air into my lungs so I could let out a loud wail. Before I even got that chance, though, as my eyes were squeezed shut to try and block out the rest of the world, she thrust her foot into my jaw as hard as she could, knocking me backwards, my head hitting the wall in the process.

“Get up! Get up right fucking now!”

“I can’t!”

“Oh, you wanna talk back to me, you little shit?” Leaning over to grab me by the neck once again, she lifted my whole body up against the wall, this time taking the knife out from where it had gotten stuck in her previous burst of rage. Then, once I opened my eyes, I saw a look full of anger from my mom as she angled the tip of the knife towards my chin, huffing furiously while her hand shook from the pure adrenaline. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just get rid of you. My life would be so much better. Maybe then I could start over with a new daughter, one who actually listens and behaves like a good little girl!”

When I looked down at the knife by my throat, I expected to feel terror, to look for any way I could to calm her down and try to get myself out of there, but instead, I felt nothing. I was in so much pain already that why did it matter if she hit me again? Would I really care if she left me a scar? What if she actually killed me like she was threatening? Even though I thought I would be scared, that I would be flailing for my life and begging for her to let me live, I didn’t feel anything.

I didn’t care if I died anymore.

“I’m going to give you to the count of three, and if I don’t hear an apology out of you in the next three seconds, I promise I’m going to actually kill you this time.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but I was too weak for the words to come out.

“One.”

I tried to push air out of my lungs, but I just didn’t have any left to give.

“Two.”

This was it. If I didn’t make something happen now, I was going to die. With one final push, I tried to get my mouth to make words… but I knew that I was hopeless. With my eyes shutting in despair, tears rolling down my face, I sadly hung my head and began to cry my heart out.

“Thr--”

*Riiiiiing!*

The two of us froze. My mom’s cellphone was going off, cutting my death sentence short for at least a couple more seconds, allowing me to get all the air I needed in the meantime. Dropping the knife, she pulled her phone out of her pocket, lifted an eyebrow and shot me the most fierce glare she could muster.

“Don’t move. Don’t talk. Don’t cry.” I nodded my head vigorously, and with a sigh, she answered her phone with an aggravated, “Who is this? ... Huh? ... No, I don’t want a vacation to Las Pegasus! ... I don’t care what kind of contest I won! I never signed up for--Who are you? … Joe? Joe who? … Oh, your motherf--Don’t ever call me again!”

With a pissed off sigh, she then clicked her phone off, but before she could even put it back into her pocket, I quickly said, “I’m sorry, mom. I love you.”

My mom froze, her fierce gaze softening slightly from the unexpected reply, and after a few moments of looking straight into my eyes with disapproval, she released my neck from her grip, allowing me to fall to my knees again, grabbing my throat and coughing out the built up saliva. I expected her to kick me once more for good measure, but instead, she took a seat at the kitchen table, burying her face into her hands as her hair drooped over once more.

“Go to your room, Trixie. I don’t want to hear one more word come out of your mouth the rest of the night. We’ll talk about this later, but you’re not off the hook just yet. You’ve put me under a lot of stress with that stunt you pulled today.”

I was about to apologize again, but quickly remembering what she said, I simply nodded my head, wobbled myself back up to my feet and limped my way to my bedroom upstairs, trying my best not to get any blood on the carpet. Once I got upstairs, I quietly shut the door, took off my bloody clothes and started looking for something I could use to wipe the blood off of my skin. Fortunately she hadn’t knocked out any of my teeth, but she still left me with a black eye, which would be a nightmare to get out with makeup.

“Ugh…” I moaned, looking into my bedroom mirror. “Just great. Right as soon as I convinced everybody that the last one was from a freak baseball accident.”

“To be fair, you could have come up with something better than that.”

“Wah!” I flinched wildly upon seeing the god of chaos laying down on my bed from my mirror, leading me to cover myself up with my arms as I turned towards him angrily. “Discord! Could you at least pop up when Trixie isn’t changing?”

“Oh, we both know how long it takes you women to get dressed nowadays.” Then, with the snap of his paw, the clothes I was wearing earlier reappeared on my body without a single trace of blood. Actually, looking back into the mirror, my black eye and messy hair were completely restored as well, leaving me looking like nothing happened at all. “Nooooow do I have permission to speak to you? I was the one who saved your life, after all.”

It took me a moment to understand what he was talking about before it suddenly clicked (in a way that wasn’t painful). “Wait! That was YOU calling my mom?!”

“Please, hold your applause!” Discord took a bow regardless, though, as bouquets of roses flung to his feet from my peripheral vision. My mind, however, was now stuck on a completely new thought.

“Actually, Trixie is glad you’re here! What can you tell me about Cozy Glow? Is she a magical girl?”

“Cozy Glow?” The draconequus put a claw to his chin, scratching his head with his tail. “Can’t say I’ve ever met her. Although, I just happen to be all-seeing. It wouldn’t be hard to learn a thing or two about her.”

That might come in handy, but right now I had other questions.

“What about Divinity or Autumn Blaze? Have you ever heard of them?”

Suddenly, Discord’s previous goofy expression dissolved into a face just like my mother had worn just moments earlier. I gulped and took a step back, but Discord continued to move in closer. “Who told you about them?”

“C-Cozy Glow did. Does that mean you can tell me about them? Cozy Glow told me to meet her in Everfree City tonight, but I have no idea where that--”

“You’re not going to Everfree City! Ever!”

Discord had now gotten so close that I fell back onto my rump in surprise, wincing unintentionally as I was hit with a sharp pain from my earlier encounter. “You know something, Discord! Tell Trixie what’s going on!”

“Is Cozy Glow in Everfree City right now?”

“Probably, but how will Trixie know unless you take her there?!”

I quickly slapped my hands to my mouth, more afraid that my loud voice might summon my mother’s wrath than anything the god of chaos could do to me. Discord, however, seemed unentertained, something that was actually an uncommon sight given the draconequus’s personality. As he careened his long neck down to make direct eye contact, he whispered sternly, “I want you to find out everything you can about Cozy Glow.”

“But… aren’t you the all-seeing one?”

Discord continued to scowl, but rather than continue the conversation any further, he lifted his head back up and said, “Do what I say, Trixie, or next time… I won’t be making any phone calls.” Then, with the snap of his fingers, he disintegrated into the air, leaving no trace that he was even there.

This whole situation was becoming even more confusing! Who was this Cozy Glow girl, and why didn’t Discord know anything about her? Who were Autumn Blaze and Divinity, and why was Discord so adamant about me not going to Everfree City? What even was Everfree City?

I pounded my fist onto my dresser in frustration, silently praying that I hadn’t made a noise loud enough for my mom to hear. “Dammit, Discord… What are you hiding?”

“Sshh! Sshh! That’s her!”

“Really? She actually came to school today?”

“Can you believe her?”

“I wonder if she still thinks she has friends at this school.”

As I walked through the front doors of Canterlot High, the aura of the school was different than normal. It was like everyone was looking at me, only it felt like they were all judging me for some reason. I held my books close to my chest, just like I had done when I was in middle school, walking to class as quickly as I could while overhearing almost a chorus of whispers.

“She did what?”

“I always knew she was strange.”

“Why did they even let her back here?”

“I wish someone would just get rid of her already.”

I was fighting back tears as I walked, hoping that everything they were saying was about some other girl, even though I could feel their gazes on my back. What could have possibly happened that made them all talk so cruelly? Did this have anything to do with what happened yesterday?

Finally, I made it to my classroom, but the moment I did, my jaw dropped as my books fell to the floor. I wasn’t able to hold my tears back any longer. Silently standing there, I began to cry as I looked down at my desk, which was now covered in hateful messages.

“Loser! Punk! The world would be better off without you! Kill yourself! No friends! Liar! Great and Powerful psycho! So weird! Jump off a cliff! Future school shooter! Lunatic! Ugly! Narcissist! Why don’t you just die already?!”

As I read the words over and over in my head, a small chuckle cracked behind me until the entire classroom had erupted into a roar of laughter. I immediately fell to my knees, bawling my eyes out into my palms while the laughter grew louder and louder, mocking me as I cried in painful agony.

“What a loser!”

“She got what she deserves!”

“Hey, everyone! Check out the Great and Powerful cry baby!”

My hands were now drenched in tears, but when I looked around, I saw that not only were they laughing at me, they were all pointing in my direction as if to prove that yes, they were laughing at me. I was the one who they wanted to feel bad. I was the brunt of their jokes. They wanted to make sure that I knew my place.

Out of the corner of my eye, though, I saw someone who wasn’t laughing. She was standing in the hallway with her arms folded, and she was staring right at me. She may not have been laughing, but the smirk she was wearing was even worse.

“...Cozy Glow?”

Her smirk, though, only grew wider, and as she walked off, I was left completely alone in my classroom while everyone I knew pointed and laughed at me. Then, for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to be the center of attention anymore… I just wanted to disappear forever.