Extra, Extra!

Print trotted into the biology lab, pleased with himself. He'd gotten a full night's rest on Sunday, so he hadn't fallen asleep in any of his classes, nor even needed any caffeine to make it through the day. Mango had protested, since he had wanted to play him in PlanetCraft, but Print’s good sense got the better of both of them and they got at least eight hours apiece.

The lab was cluttered with various diagrams and models; a ball-and-stick phospholipid stood among the papers on Mr. Cycle's desk at the front of the room, and a stuffed amoeba hung from the ceiling. Similar biology paraphernalia were strewn about the room on top of cabinets, and even in the disused sinks on the lab benches. The walls were covered in posters of biological processes, from the carbon cycle to anaerobic respiration. The desks were the standard sort: one-piece tables with attached seats, but the lab benches were stationary with black, chemical-resistant tops. In one corner lay an old computer, not much good for anything besides entering data, and in the other, a television, most often used by substitute teachers to make them watch videos on Ebola or somesuch. On the lab benches sat five big totes full of live goldfish, for some experiment or another. A few had been separated out into individual plastic cups, probably as a control.

Print set down his bag with a smile, wondering what his crack team of reporters had brought him today. His investigations team, and their sponsor, Mr. Cycle, sat huddled around a desk.

"Anything, guys?" he called over to where the reporters were.

"Nope," huffed Emmett Van der Claw. The chubby griffon stroked the black bush of feathers that surrounded his beak as he rolled a die onto the table in front of him; before he had met Emmett, Print didn't know griffons could grow beards, but Emmett had had one since he was a freshman.

"Not unless we can write about Vinyl Scratch's DUI," snarked Ee-sang Han-mal, a short jade-colored earth pony from a country nobody seemed to be able to guess- and he was content to let them guess. He, too, rolled a die on the table, fiddling with paper and a pencil.

"Absolutely not," barked Cometsong from the lecturer's desk. The lavender filly fixed Ee-sang with a glare before returning to her novel, The Glass Ménage à Trois.

"Yeah, let's call that a 'no'," Mr. Cycle added sarcastically, shuffling his papers. "Scores, boys?"

"A ten, an eleven, a fourteen, and three seventeens," Ee said proudly.

"I got a ten, a twelve, a fourteen, two eights, and a five," Emmett said, grimacing.

"Re-roll, both of you," Mr. Cycle said automatically. Emmett looked pleased, but Ee-sang was indignant.

"Come on, these are the best stats I ever rolled!" he protested.

"If you want to play them, you need some sort of a handicap," Mr. Cycle said impassively.

"Fine... My wizard's a drunk," Ee said. Print covered his eyes in exasperation.

"...And?" the biology teacher prompted.

"...And what?" Ee asked, annoyed.

"Three seventeens, man," Emm said, trying to calm Ee down.

"Three seventeens," Mr. Cycle agreed.

"Fine! He's a double amputee, then—no back legs," Ee-sang spat. "Can I play two characters?"

Mr. Cycle thought about it for a moment. "Only if your other character uses Emmett's original rolls."

Ee snatched the paper from Emmett's claws.

"Perfect; he's an ogre barbarian who carries the wizard around in a backpack," he said triumphantly. Print stifled a giggle, and Mr. Cycle simply looked shocked that he'd been tricked.

"It's not going to matter once I make the atomizer knife," Emmett clucked, much happier with his second set of rolls.

"I don't want to break the game, I want to break the DM," he said, giving Mr. Cycle a challenging glare.

"I invite the opportunity," Mr. Cycle said confidently. "I've been powergaming Mazes and Monsters since before your parents were old enough to read." The older stallion rose, trotting out into the hallway. "I have to make some copies; I'll be back in an hour."

"So what's your build?" Print asked Emmett casually.

"Ranger," he said offhandedly before taking a swig of Hill Nectar, the ridiculously caffeine-heavy soda that was so popular with gamers. "I plan to minmax into the atomizer knife."

"The one where you can only do one or two damage, but reroll and add your score on max or min damage?" Print tried to recall.

"Yep! Infinite damage, as long as I hit. I plan to tie the knives to arrows and rain death," he said with a comically-evil grin showing through his feathers.

"So," Print said, changing the topic of conversation. "No news?"

"It's a Monday, man, give us a break," Ee-sang said, laying back in his chair.

"Besides," Emmett said, rising from his seat and shuffling over to the computer, "Comet's writing an op-ed."

The griffon stopped when he saw the goldfish in cups, fixating on them. "What are these for?" he asked, nibbling a claw.

"Each tub had a different amount of phenol put in it," Cometsong explained without looking up from her novel. She was quite studious when she wanted to be, and was certainly the most conventionally intelligent among the Times staff. Her cutie mark of a comet and telescope stood out against her lavender coat, and her mane was a short black shock. She planned to attend university for astrophysics, and her grades put her within striking distance of valedictorian of the senior class.

She'd been the editor-in-chief before Print came along, unceremoniously swept to the side because the school felt it was his right to lead the operation; a pony with a relevant cutie mark always took precedence when it came to giving out positions, in high school at least. Print had felt bad, and Comet had resented him at first, but once she saw the way he ran the paper, she warmed up to him, legitimately enjoying the articles he wrote. She was content with her role of matriarch, doing what Mr. Cycle either couldn't do or didn't bother doing: keep the boys in line.

Emmett noticed one of the goldfish cups was on a hot plate, likely to warm the fish or add a second variable to the control; Mr. Cycle liked side experiments like that. Noting that both Ee and Print were looking, he turned the heat all the way up, a cartoonish, ax-crazy smile plastered on his beak. He chuckled quietly, as if prompting them to respond. Ee closed his eyes and leaned back nonchalantly, while Print shook his head in disapproval. Even Comet looked up from her book for a moment.

"Don't," she stated flatly, her voice piercing Emmett's good mood like a thorn through a water balloon. Emm's shoulders slumped, and he half-hearted turned the dial back, with a soft, defeated "Y'all suck."

He sullenly turned on the computer and booted an indie game from his flash drive, mumbling about how 'comedy was dead'.

Even though he was a year behind him, Ee was far better at maths than Print was, so he grudgingly coached him through his calculus homework, since there was nothing better to do. Ordinarily, Print would find something useful to accomplish, but since there wasn't much that had happened, he'd bank on Cometsong's op-ed, and hope somepony stirred up trouble during the week. Mango Smoothie always begged him to do an article on his blends, but Print thought the nepotism would be a little transparent. Not only was he his brother, but his best friend, first and foremost.

They had met when they were freshman; their personalities clashed wonderfully, Print’s measured and deliberate calm acting as a balance to Mango’s reckless and fiery disposition. They shared a great number of interests, Mango showing Print all about video games, and Print introducing Mango to pulp novels and tabletop games. They had the same homeroom, most of the same classes; they even had the same lunch period. They hit it off immediately and became fast friends. Mango was the first pony Print had confided in, and Mango didn’t change his relationship with Print at all after he learned he was best friends with a colt-cuddler, save refraining from playful slurs.

 Print was in the care of the state at the time, bouncing from foster family to foster family; no family to adopt wanted a meek, nebbish teenage colt. None, save the Smoothies. After spending most of his afternoons at Mango's house after writing for the Times, relaxing and playing video games, he got to know them well. To everypony else, they were just the kindly couple who ran the blend shop on Solar Street, but to him, they were the most stable family he'd ever known, even of it was only for a few hours at a time. They, too had taken quite a liking to him; they made him a quiet proposal, and he jumped for joy. Print had a mother, a father, and a brother before the week was over. The paperwork had gone through just before Spring break, and his new family took their two sons to reconnect (and in Print's case, meet for the first time) with their family in Ponjab Pradesh.

 It was the first time Print had left Canterlot, and it was the first time he recalled opening up and being happy with anypony else besides his one middle school friend, Shooting Star. His new dad explained that he had a lot to learn, just like he had when he married Print’s mother; Mango’s relatives were accepting, but certainly different to ponies from Equestria. Moustachioed uncles had clapped him on the back and given him ornate gifts, like flutes and kites and an ebony stationery kit. Aunts wrapped in the finest cloth gave him advice on how to attract a stallion, all while Mango tried to teach his new little cousins how to play Sorcery: the Quickening when he wasn’t geeking out about how good he felt to be a big brother. Print’s head had swam with the culture shock, but he came to love his new adopted family nearly as soon as they loved him.

Print soaked up the new culture like a sponge; he picked up mannerisms and customs through observation, and the subtleties through interview and study with his family. While learning about his adopted culture, which he had much more of a taste for than Mango (who lamented the lack of video games in the countryside), Print wrote a short memoir on what it meant to be accepted and loved by a family who was so new and so different. He was startled they never saw a problem with his sexuality, and that they loved him right from the start. Upon his return, he quietly slipped his memoir in the Fast Times submission box, expecting Cometsong, then the editor-in-chief, to reject it.

To his surprise, he saw it in the Friday edition of the Times, and to his even greater surprise, in the Sunday edition of the Solar Sentinel, Canterlot's citywide newspaper. Cometsong, whose family also came from the Ponjab, took a liking to how it accurately represented an oft-demonized and alienated culture, and after that, Mr. Cycle had sent it to his cousin who made sure it made the third page at least. When ponies realized it had been written by a freshman in high school, he was entered into a contest without his knowledge. Before he knew it, he was in the runner-up for Equestria's Best Young Journalist award, which inadvertently forced him to reluctantly supplant Cometsong as editor-in-chief.

“What’s your op-ed going to be on, Commie?” Print chirped happily as soon as he finished his calculus. It felt good to be free of homework; it meant he could help Mango with whatever he had, and they could get right to gaming.

“Oh, just a little piece on exclusionism and stratification in Canterlot,” she said. “Unicorns dominating high society and education, pegasi compromising the middle class, and Earth ponies being relegated to only certain neighborhoods.”

“That hasn’t been done to death,” Ee-sang said sarcastically. “I’m sure ponies are going to love a rehash of ninth grade Equestrian history.”

“It’s an op-ed,” she retorted. “It’s about my experiences.”

“Yeah, growing up the daughter of two neurosurgeons, must have been hard,” Ee snapped.

“Yeah, like growing up with them never around,” she replied, annoyed. Ee left it alone. He glanced over at Emmett to see what he was doing, but something caught his eye. He his lips parted in a toothy smile. He was about to say something, but Mr. Cycle came back in, carrying a stack of copies.

“You two finished building your characters?” he asked eagerly.

“Yep,” Emmett chirped, leaping from the computer chair to the gaming desk with grace that defied his pudgy frame.

“What. Is. That?” Mr. Cycle said, his face turning dark and dropping the stack of papers to point a hoof at the hot plate. Print saw a goldfish floating upright, its stiff body bouncing jauntily between bubbles as the water in the cup boiled.

The smile dropped from Emmett’s face immediately, as Ee and Print did their absolute best not to explode with laughter immediately.

“Did you do that?” Mr. Cycle asked darkly, more angry than any of them had ever seen him.

“No,” Emmett said, keeping a pokerface the likes of which Print had never seen. His diaphragm was convulsing from stifled laughter, Emmett’s bumbling idiocy having created a unique brand of hilarity.

“You mean you didn’t have anything to do with that?” he seethed.

“Nnnope,” Emm said, looking him straight in the eyes, his eyes nor beak showing no emotion whatsoever. Ee had his eyes closed and his hoof over his mouth to stop from guffawing, and even Cometsong was holding her chest and trying not to fall to stitches. Print himself faceplanted on the desk out of sheer hilarity, but luckily Mr. Cycle was too angry and fixated on Emmett to notice any of them. Cometsong pulled herself together first.

“So who did this, then?” Mr. Cycle shouted, gesturing angrily at the cooked fish.

“It was probably the freshmen in third period,” Cometsong suggested, miraculously keeping a straight face.

“Or somepony from Chess Club,” Ee agreed. Chess club used the room every other day, but both the Fast Times and Chess met every day at the same time, regardless, using the time to get more done and to relax with their friends. Between them, an informal academic team had sprung up, but didn’t get much traction.

“Hmmm, maybe… Yeah…” Mr. Cycle growled, rubbing his jowls. “Those goons are always mucking around in here… I’ll be back in a few minutes.” he mumbled, scuffling out of the room, doubtless to have a talk with the principle or something about restricting Chess club’s access to his room.

As soon as he was gone down the hall (Cometsong looked to be sure), the three ponies devolved into a raucous pile of howling hyenas, hooting about Emm’s misfortunate idiocy.

“It got buckin’ fried!” Ee wheezed.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Emmett exclaimed. “I turned it back down! I didn’t mean to kill it!”

“Let me see that,” Comet giggled, trotting over to the hot plate. Seeing the dial, she couldn’t help but keel over from laughter. “You broke the knob!” she wailed.

“I swear guys!” Emm protested comically, his voice rising to a squeak. “It’s not my fault!”

Print gasped for air as he gripped the desk, unable to keep from laughing. He felt bad for the fish, but the sheer look on Emmett’s face during Mr. Cycle’s accusation would have him laughing for a long, long time.