As the bus took a turn and entered downtown, Spike decided now was a good time to ask something he was curious about since the bus left his street. "Are you picking anyone else up?"

"Nope, right now you're the only one going who's out this way. So you got the whole bus to yourself!" she replied, throwing him a smile over her shoulder.

After grabbing some chow at a local fast food joint, they were soon on the interstate, any sign of civilization soon fading behind them. With the exception of the occasional car passing them or trucks heading into town, it proved to be a bit of a lonely trip.

And the hours slowly rolled on.

"So...what kind of college is this? It's not some weird, pretentious, artsy kind of place, is it?" he asked with trepidation. "I mean, it's not gonna be filled with classes about junk like how a broken sofa is a deep statement about society or crud like that, is it?

"Huh? Oh, no! It's nothing like that! Don't worry. Granted, it's got a couple of art classes, but those are mainly just teaching you the mechanics of how to paint and sculpt and such. The curriculum itself is pretty straightforward with the usual: math, history, languages, and chemistry along with the art ones and a few like cooking, health, phys-ed, as well as a hundred acres of campus devoted to the agriculture, horticulture, and botany courses."

Spike's eyes widened slightly. He had a fair idea of how big an acre was, so a hundred had to cover a fair bit of land. "That's a lotta ground to set off for something like that."

"Not really. The whole campus covers three thousand acres. Plus some of the crops grown are used to supplement the school's finances."

"Oh, cool."

"We're planning an astronomy course too, but it's still being worked on. It'd mainly be weekly so those taking it can catch up on sleep since they'd more than likely be up all night at times..." she was cut off by an unexpected yawn. This was no 'I'm bored' yawn either; it was a full fledged 'ready to drop off' one.

"Speaking of sleep...Spike, how long were you up before you came to meet me?"

"Um...about four-thirty. I wanted to be sure I had everything packed." he replied, chuckling weakly at the raised eye she threw over her shoulder at him.

"Seriously?? Surprised you haven't started nodding off already!" she sighed and looked at the clock again. "Look, we still have a ways to go, so you might be better off catching up on it now. Besides, I doubt you wanna chance being dead on your feet when you meet the Deans."

"Meet the..." he tried to fight back another yawn and failed. "The Deans?"

"Yeah, they like to meet the new students when they arrive. Actually, you're among the last to be registered for the year. But they'll tell you everything once we get there. Now, go ahead and get some sleep. I'll wake you up when we get there, ok?"

"That *YAWN*...that sounds like a good idea when you put it like that." he let out another weak chuckle as he leaned against the window. "My mom almost gave me the riot act for getting up that early too..." his eyes drooped shut.

A few minutes later and he was fast asleep.

Luna chuckled to her self before looking at the clock one more time. A few miles later she reached an off-ramp and returned to surface streets.

A couple more miles and turns soon had them on back roads. Every so often she would look at the clock, then check the mirrors to be sure no one was around.

As she reached a lonely stretch of dirt road, the clock suddenly let out a rhythmic buzz. Hearing it caused a wide smile to form of her lips, "Finally!" she said, immediately digging into her jacket pocket and pulling out a small, pink, heart-shaped piece of crystal. It seemed to pulse with its pink light in a similar pace to a heartbeat.

"Next stop: The Global College of Equestria!" with that, she slapped the crystal on the dash, cracking it. As soon as it did, the pink light engulfed her, Spike, and the entire bus. If anyone had been nearby, they most likely would have been blinded for a moment.

When it faded after a few seconds, the dirt road was completely empty.

Author's Note

Sorry about the last three chapters being so short, but these parts just felt like they should have their own sections

Though I will try and make the next one past the 1k mark at least.