One Day Off - A 'My Little Pony: Canterlot High' Side-story

It was often much harder to execute a plan than it was to come up with it in the first place. Or, as Murphy would have it, “a plan never survives first contact with the enemy.” In this case, the group wanted to make sure Gerald did not get seen coming out of the girls’ changing room, and they also wanted to make sure Spike did not get taken away. To try to avoid having to answer questions from people they could not see, Gerald would not be going out the way he had come in.

The simple plan was simplified by the fact that only the Crusaders and Bradley, Twilight’s one-time crush, were present at the outdoor pool at the moment. No one else would be coming out through the girls’ changing room since Gerald had locked the door on his way in. Twila was to go out first, clad in her purple and orange bikini. For as long as possible she would sneak around the edge of the pool to try to get to Bradley’s side without him first noticing her. Then she could take a position to ensure he was facing away from the pool, so the other girls could sneak Gerald and Spike out of the changing room.

The random factors were whether anyone would come out of the boys’ changing room, and it was a factor they could not control. Also, someone would have to unlock the door to the girls’ changing room before she left it behind. On top of that, anyone could cross over from the indoor pool to the outdoor pool at any time. Gerald, for one, hoped they were all too distracted having fun to notice from where he was coming. Another possible hitch was whether Shimmer would be able to help Felicia walk out when she needed to come out to the pool, to avoid drawing too much of Bradley’s attention at the wrong moment.

The moment of truth came, Twila heading out and sticking as close to the walls and fences as she could. She moved slowly, knowing that the human eye was most drawn to motion. In the pool, the Crusaders unknowing cooperated with the plan with their play, which meant Bradley was keeping his attention on them. Gerald and Spike waited around the corner in the changing room, while Jackie and Rochelle relayed everything that was going on. Rayne waited near the door for the signal to unlock it, while Shimmer continued to try to talk Felicia up to walking out in her new bikini.

Bradley stood up straight and stared as soon as he noticed Twila coming toward him. Perhaps he wondered how she had managed to get so close, and when she had arrived. As soon as she noticed his attention on him, she stopped for a moment, and then turned her quiet, slow sneaking pace into a more normal walk. But only for a moment, before she remembered Rochelle’s quick lessons on how to walk up to a man. Rochelle palmed her face at how exaggerated Twila’s hip-swings were, but then they seemed to work anyway.

There was one fly in the ointment with their plan, and that was that Gerald himself had told Bradley point-blank that him and Twila dating would not work: Bradley knew that Twila and Gerald came from a different world, a world of magic. He knew that Twilight had responsibilities as Equestria’s newest princess, and that the reunified principality needed all the help it could get, raising security and confidence and helping the economy to recover after the war. Despite the destruction of the anchors holding the portal to the statue at CHS, Gerald had assured Bradley that he would find a way to open a portal back to Equestria, and then he, Spike, and Twilight would all return home. Such a long-distance relationship, let alone one that crossed species and dimensions, was doomed to fail, bringing only heartache. Bradley had reluctantly agreed, briefly fighting for his right to love who he wanted to, regardless of who she was, but in the end reason had prevailed. And now Rochelle had asked Twila to go against that very reason, and on Gerald’s behalf. ‘Irony’ did not cover it.

Twila reached Bradley, and while she walked around him she put a hand on his shoulder and kept it there. She only stopped walking once she was on Bradley’s other side, facing the opening to the changing room door, where the others could not hear what she and Bradley were saying. But Jackie and Rochelle did see her fractional nod.

Jackie slowly stepped forward, with Pinkie on her left and Rochelle, wearing Twila’s one-piece suit, on her right, forming a tight triangle into which Gerald stepped, with Spike on his heels. They moved in a slow lock-step diagonally toward the pool, rotating in the direction opposite from the one Twilight had used. When they were halfway toward the pool, Rochelle started to drift a little out of formation, and Gerald placed her between himself and Bradley, although the other young man was facing away from him, listening intently to Twila. Gerald had a few more steps, and then the formation lost all reasonable cohesion. He quick-stepped toward the boys’ change room, turning so his back was toward it, and pulled his momentum to a stop. In the moment when Bradley detected motion on his peripheral vision, Rochelle had a fraction of that time to get back near the others. She knelt by the pool, Spike right behind her, and as she plopped her ankles in as though to soak her feet, Bradley’s eyes swept right over her, and past her to the other new arrivals.

While Bradley was distracted, Gerald continued to move slowly around the pool.

“Oh hey, Sis,” Beatrice called to Jackie. “I didn’t know you were coming here today, or I’d have asked to come together.”

“That’s okay, Sugar, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Wanna play with us?” Louise asked, seeing Rayne come into view from the change room.

“Sure, Squirt,” the other said.

And then everyone froze and stared as Felicia came out, Shimmer leading her by the hand. Gerald had to admit that the bikini Rochelle had decided to lend to Shimmer looked good on her, and why not when they were pretty well her fiery autumnal colours. But the one who was drawing most of the attention was timid Felicia in her pale green bikini, a matching blanket wrapped around her waist. It would have been for modesty, however the towel’s motion was exaggerating her own, putting an accent on Felicia’s normally-shy manner, and making her seem more outspoken.

“Oh... my...” Felicia began to tremble, and she looked down, her hair falling to hide some of her face. Which, ironically, drew in more attention form her captive audience. Shimmer’s attempts to coax her closer to the pool seemed to be falling short, but at least Felicia had not run crying, but judging from the pattern Gerald was seeing, that would probably happen soon.

Gerald took three quick steps, turned, and from Bradley’s side opposite Twila, called out, “Felicia, you look great! Want to play?” Felicia looked up, startled. In fact, everyone turned to stare at Gerald, as he was pointing at the pool. “Oh, you probably don’t want to get your towel wet, though,” he said, taking long strides toward the pool “Coming?”

Felicia took one hesitant step toward the pool, her free hand on the towel at her waist as though to remove it, but she froze, realizing what she had been about to do. That was when Gerald dropped into the water. He was across the width of the pool from her when he started moving his arms and legs like he was trying to walk along the bottom on all fours, barely kicking to keep his head above the water, but he was also moving across the pool. “Do I have it wrong?”

“Is that supposed to be a dog paddle?” Louise asked, “because it sucks!”

“Well, sorry if it’s my first... time at a pool!” The others laughed, but Felicia was not laughing with them. She fairly tore one hand from Shimmer’s grip, the towel from her waist, and jumped into the water. She hung off the nearby wall with one hand, while she reached out with the other to support Gerald as he floundered, half-swimming and half walking. “Like this,” she said once he was stable. She let go, kicked off the wall, and started doing an easy crawl while the others watched.

“Oh, that’s what I got wrong,” Gerald said. And of course he had: he had been swimming like a horse, instead of like a human. But watching Felicia demonstrate how to use one’s legs and hands to kick and paddle made everything clear. A quick glance at Twila showed that she was blushing, thinking much the same thing.

As more people began to come into the pool, the group settled into more normal play, swimming and passing around inflatable balls and other toys, and everyone took turns teaching Gerald and Twila how to swim. Gerald had to admit he was having fun, literally stretching his legs and not focusing at all on his attempts to find this world’s connection to magic, or another portal. He decided that he liked hanging out with his friends and having fun, which is something he should have remembered from Equestria.

After lunch, they found an ice cream truck parked nearby and bought some cones to enjoy around the pool. Naturally, Gerald treated them, but avoided giving any ice cream to Spike for obvious reasons. The dragon-turned-dog did, however, stick close to Rochelle, continuously keeping her off balance until she lost some of her ice cream. While the others giggled or chuckled, Gerald discretely transferred some ice cream from his own cone to Rochelle’s. Since he did not have as much of a sweet tooth as the others, he would not miss a scoop here or there.

Soon the sun began to set, and it was time to catch a bus back home. The others were reluctant to say goodbye so soon, dragging their heels, but they would all have to leave, especially Sunset Shimmer. “I want to thank you all for a fun time,” she said as they stood together in front of the change room’s opening. The building maintenance team had already been through looking for the source of the bomb from earlier, but Rayne and Pinkie had been thorough in cleaning it up.

“It was our pleasure,” Twila said.

“Yeah,” Stephanie said, “come play again soon!”

“I’d like that.” Shimmer took one last look at Gerald and Twila. “Are you sure neither of you wants to take this portal home?”

“Aww, we’ll find another,” Twila said.

“She’s right. Besides, it wouldn’t feel right if everypony couldn’t go.”

“It’s just that everyone worries... I’ve got it: there’s a book inside my old locker at school that can solve everything!”

“Darling, what’s a book going to do?”

“It’s not what it says that’s important, it’s what it does. That book is paired with another in Princess Celestia’s library. When I write in my book, what I write appears in Princess Celestia’s book as well, and vice versa. If Princess Celestia or I can find where the other book is –“

“Then we can use it to correspond. Sunset Shimmer, that’s brilliant!”

“Well, not to rub it in, but I was the protégée before you were. You’ll just have to remember the locker number and combination when I give it to you.”

“Of course,”

“Well then, guess I’ll be saying ‘farewell’ to you now, since it’d be weird if you followed us in here,” Shimmer said to Gerald, nodding toward the changing room’s opening.

“You could say that,” he said, and was surprised an instant later when Shimmer hugged him, followed by whispering the locker combination into his ear. The one-time adversary left Gerald with a little peck on the cheek as she pulled back, and then she turned and ran into the changing room, where he could not follow. “Hey, this is just ‘goodbye’ until next time,” Gerald said.

“If you say so,” Shimmer said.

But the others could follow, and did. Gerald turned around and made his way to the boys’ changing room, the bag with his change of clothes in one hand as discretely passed to him when Shimmer embraced him. “Well, that was interesting,” Bradley said, catching up.

“Which part?”

“You and the others sneaking Spike in. Sunset Shimmer reappearing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say a little bit of magic was involved.”

“Seems to me you do know better,”

“So what was up with sending Twila out to seduce me?”

Gerald raised an eyebrow, as if to say ‘why, whatever do you mean?’

“Oh come on, you gave me that lecture about why our relationship wouldn’t work, and now this. Despite my pretty boy looks, I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Well then, Bradley Holmes, lets see if you can solve the mystery.”

“I know you wouldn’t have wanted me to spot Spike, but I know from before that he’s not a normal dog, so I would have helped cover for him even if my manager saw. So as for the rest... does it have to do with how Sunset Shimmer is here?”

“Not anymore it doesn’t,”

“The way to travel between worlds before was the portal inside the statue at CHS, but that’s destroyed. So there was another portal here... in the ladies’ change room? If so, no wonder you didn’t want to be seen!”

“Not just a pretty face indeed,”

“Don’t worry: I won’t spill your secret.”

“I do not know to what you are referring, my good man.”

“Exactly.”

Showered and changed, the friends trooped onto the bus together with the Crusaders and Bradley. Gerald noticed that Twilight was wearing a brand-new accessory around her neck: a necklace that showed blue and green and gold and red, but did not hold an inner light. Knowing it was from a precious friend, he did not begrudge another of his own precious friends ownership over the item.

Some of the friends, including the Crusaders, Felicia, and Rochelle, who had exerted themselves the most in the pool, were dozing as the bus rumbled along the street. As the vehicle took a corner, Rochelle nuzzled more securely into Gerald’s shoulder, while on his other side, Stephanie snoozed with her head on his thigh. Today’s objective had been to relax and get refreshed, and the way he was feeling then, surrounded by good friends, he could not create any argument against the day’s objectives being completed.

Perhaps some day soon, with Sunset Shimmer safely returned to Equestria, they would be able to work together to find a new portal – one that could take Twilight Sparkle, Spike the Dragon, and Verdant Gearhead home.

Until that time, Twila Evenstar, Spike the Dog, and Gerald Green were home.