Chapter One: Tom's Saviours
We start our story with Tom in class, it was his first day. Tom was very confused, he had no idea what the new assignments would be this year, his first year in this queer little town called 'Ponyville,' where he moved because his parents could no longer afford the home in manehattan. Tom looked around calm and collected, Tom never got nervous, or jealous, or angry, or excited.... just calm... cool.... collected. He watched his new teacher, by the name of Ms. Cheerilee tell the class to remove books and turn to a specific page. Tom did so immediately and flipped to the page with his hoof on the number to be sure. He now looked over to three larger colts playing around with paper wads, Tom decided to help them find the page, he approached the desks, one by one, and opened the books for them, each of the little companions glared at him, and the teacher called to him.
"Tom? What are you doing?" Rang the voice of Miss Cheerilee.
He turned and nodded respectfully. "I was helping them find the pages in their books, Miss Cheerilee, they seemed to be confused because they were giggling and playing instead of reading like you asked, so I assisted them..." Tom stared at the teacher, she looked almost dumbfounded by Toms use of words. She finally shook it off and asked Tom to please return to his seat, he did so, and heard another racket coming from the other side now. He turned to see three fillies, a bit closer to his size, one colored yellow with a red mane, the second orange with a purple mane, and the third white with a half pink-purple mane, each one whispering jokes to each other. Tom was going to help them too, Tom tapped the yellow one on the shoulder, and she turned to face him, she sort of smiled as Tom politely asked her to pay attention, she agreed, and then Tom heard a dreadful calling of his name.
"Tom" stated Miss Cheerilee. "I thought you knew better than to fool around in class, I should have expected you to fall in with the crowd hmm?" She stared at Tom, boring holed into his head as he stared back of a mortified expression. Tom felt like he might cry, he'd never been bad in school, how would his parents react to this?
"I... I...." was all Tom could manage, the poor colt.
A second interruption, one he never expected, the southern heavy accent of the yellow filly with red hair. "Miss Cheerilee, he wasn't talking with us, he was just askin' us to be quiet, that's all!" She was quite loud with this statement.
Cheerilee looked at her and then back at Tom. "Is this true?" She asked, and gave Tome a sorry sort of look.
"Yes..." Tom shook his head rapidly at the teacher, and relaxed as she resumed with the lesson she was teaching. This was the first time Tom was ever so frightened, he could feel his heart almost exploding out of his chest. He payed less attention now to those around him and more to the hooves of the teacher as they wrote. He went silently and respectfully until the bell rang. He made his way to the door of the class room, and pushed the door open with one hoof, he felt the sun shine down on his eyes, and he stepped out to fresh air at last.
Tom watched the three bigger colts from earlier - whom he corrected - step towards him. He waved at them, and they scowled back. Maybe it was their way of saying hello here in Ponyville. They stopped in a circle; or more of a triangle, around him. He smiled at each of them and their faces grew mean.
"Hey Tommy..." Spoke one, Tom did not like this nickname, and decided to correct him.
"My name is Tom" he spoke bluntly, and plainly.
The second one of the three spoke up. "Look, you almost got us in trouble, teachers pet." Tom did not know what 'teachers pet' meant, but it sounded quite nice, like a little kitten or cute puppy. "We got to teach you a lesson"
"I do like to learn!" Said Tom ,looking happily among the three.
The third, and biggest, of all the group smiled. "Yeah.. we'll teach ya' something nice." Tom thought the three were being generous as to teach him something, he really did like to learn. "We'll teach you.... not to get us in trouble, we'll beat the green outta your coat and the yellow outta your mane!"
"What do you me-" Tom was cut off as one of the three shoved him to the ground, it hurt, a lot, and didn't make Tom feel like this wasn't going to be a fun learning experience. The three towered over him, and one lifted a hoof, Tom's guess was that hoof intended harm. The hoof struck hard on Toms stomach, and he curled into a ball, and coughed loudly. He could sense more harm coming, bu no more did, just the sound of hoofsteps toward him. He clenched his eyes, he did not like the feeling of pain. The hoofsteps he heard drew nearer and nearer, but his assailants did not strike again, he heard a familiar voice clal out, and a clatter of stones, the three that stood over him ran off.
He still did not look up, until he felt a soft hoof tap his shoulder. He barely poked an eye out, to see the three fillies he'd also corrected in class. The yellow one helped him up, there was now a large bruise on his gut where the hoof struck. "Are ya' okay?" Spoke the southern yellow filly.
"Yeah, you seemed kinda hurt there." Noted the orange one.
"You don't want to hurt me?" Spoke Tom gingerly, "f-for correcting you? L-like the big guys?" The look on the yellow ones face grew a bit comical.
"'Course not! We wanna be your friend!" She exclaimed. "Ya' see, you have a special trait that we like about you and we want you to join our club." Tom didn't respond, he'd never been in a club before, and what trait could they like Tom for? He was just a small blankflank who always did what he was told.
"You want me to join.... a... club?" Asked Tom.
At last the white unicorn spoke. "Yeah! We're the cutiemark crusaders, we all have blank flanks, just like you do!" As she said this, the three proudly presented their flanks, which were indeed, blank, and had nothing special at all on them. Tom was now amused by this. The unicorn spoke again. "It's sort of like our mission to get our cutie marks! and we're ALWAYS accepting more members!" Her voice was just so..... cheerful..... it made Tom feel..... happy.... wait... Tom felt happy! He began to hyperventilate, he was supposed to be calm, calm and collected, but now he was a happy worried mess. The three tried to calm him, it took several minutes of breathing tests and calm speaking.
"Jeez, it's like he's never had friends b'fore!" Exclaimed the yellow earth pony.
"I...." began Tom, as he looked up at the three, he now knew they were bad news, they has changed him, but how could he turn down his saviors... "I haven't... I don't normally talk to others... I'm always shunned and hated, but with you three... I feel.... happy..." Tom kept up about half an hour of words before he finally felt good, better than he'd ever felt before, in fact, so good, that he hugged the three in front of him. They were his saviors, and his friends, and he loved them.
