New School, Old Students

Two boys exited a bus, both of them tired from the long bus ride, and the early morning rise. They were both around 17 or 18 years old, and both seemed nice enough. One wore a nice black and red jacket, a striped polo shirt, jeans, sneakers and glasses. Quite standard apparel. As he exited the bus he gave his thanks to the bus driver, who in the hour long bus ride had gotten into a conversation with them. He was a nice old man, and was quite wise and kept the boy with glasses from worrying about the new school. As he walked out the door he turned and called out to another boy, who was tall and was sporting a messy brown bedhead, sunken in eyes, a navy blue turtleneck, and some sweatpants.

"All right John let's go, we're gonna be late to CHS if we don't book it!" In response John quickly gathered his bags and shuffled out. It was until then that the glassed boy noticed that John had two bags, one his own, and the other his counterpart's. He sighed in relief as John threw him the book bag.

"Dan, how are you supposed to 'book it' if you don't have any books?" John's humor was not well received by Dan, who was almost reeling at hearing the awful pun. While it would have been nice to worry about such things forever, they had a school to get to, and it was still a couple of blocks away. The two walked- or rather strode? - at a brisk pace. It was during the march that John began a conversation.

"So you know how we're not going to use our names right? Everyone here has the object names, so we've gotta do the same Dan, but instead of being some cheesy name I thought we'd do the two names that we found online back home. So how about it, 'Grigne'?"

Dan, or 'Grigne' didn't seem all too excited as his friend, but nodded anyways. They waited until they were sure that nobody would remember them discussing before he started again.

"OK then, 'Dardoch', anyway, I think we'll be able to get a tour, or course selection or something, they better not drop us in grade level or I'm going to get an aneurysm". Dardoch laughed at this notion, and quickly gave his word of agreement to such a statement. The two had worked hard back home, and should have been in either Multi-Variable Calculus or Linear Algebra with Vectors, not Pre-Calculus.

Before the two could discuss their various schedules any further, they arrived at the large grounds, and the distinctive statue of a colt, with its forelegs raised as if in defiance to the sun, greeted them, this was in fact, Canterlot High School.

"Holy moly Grigne, it hasn't changed a bit has it? The same statue, the same 'big boarding school' look, the green grass, how long's it been Grigne?" Dardoch seemed more surprised than happy, and Grigne looked the same.

"Three years Dardoch, three years. I guess we're here because of the fact that it's been so long. We came to try this one more time." Grigne's words were almost drowned out by the tumultuous roar of various people walking in and out. The duo seemed to shrink themselves into the crowd, as if in fear of being spotted. As if the eyes of a vulture were upon them. Of course they could not escape the gaze of the ever present Pinkie Pie, who'd been jumping around to school as it were. Before they could even raise an eyebrow in wonder the girl with the pink dress took them both by the neck while squealing such exclamatory phrases as: "Omigosh" or "Wowee" and before the duo knew it they were choraled into the building by the pink haired girl.

"Oh my gosh, you're new here? What are your names? Do you like chocolate or vanilla cake? Do you know where to go?" The endless torrent of questions only stopped assailing the boys when five other girls walked around, led by a fiery haired girl wearing a leather jacket. Both were too dazed by Pinkie Pie to hear anything. Well almost anything. They for instance, heard that the pink haired girl was 'Pinkie Pie', that the fiery haired one was 'Sunset Shimmer', the chromatically haired girl with the big ego was 'Rainbow Dash', the shy doormat was 'Fluttershy', the rustic farmhand 'Applejack', and that the fashionista with the posh accent was 'Rarity'. They chuckled at the names, before they received their first understandable question, Sunset seemed nice enough, so they'd trust that these girls could get them where they need to go.

"So, what are your names? I haven't seen you at all, so I'm guessing you're new?" Sunset asked, tilting her head a tad to the side, as if in deep thought of trying to remember them.

"Well, I'm Dardoch, and the quiet one's Grigne, yeah I guess you could say we're new. We're out of town so we checked online for the best school in town and this seems to be it. Could you take us to the front office to let us get our courses set up? Grigne and I had one funky curriculum and we're hoping we can at least continue on that track." Dardoch seemed quite confident in his speech, while Grigne almost hid behind him. Instead of talking he was taking them all in. He was definitely quiet all right. This didn't faze Sunset Shimmer though, shy people were usually quite smart. Ah, but she was forgetting to answer Dardoch, she quickly dictated the directions after Dardoch repeated them for Grigne to actually remember them. They were about to walk off with a small wave and nod before Sunset ran from her clique to join the two, who were clearly clueless and looked primed to get lost for fifteen minutes.

"Why don't I just take you there, this campus is really, really, really big. Say what was your schedule last semester? I'm a sophomore so I bet you've taken way more advanced classes than I have. I'm in Pre-Cal, Honors Chemistry, Honors World History, you know for redundancy's sake why don't we assume that it's advanced?" Before the two could stop her she began explaining her schedule and the woes of not being in the Advanced Placement program, of course she was an AP student but Canterlot High was a private institution, and did not partake in such a program, citing Principal Celestia getting annoyed at the people who would forsake their actual interest for getting a higher weighted GPA. Dardoch pretended to care, while Grigne remembered back in his old school where this was a massive problem.

"Well Sunset, my schedule last semester was Linear Algebra with Vectors, so I'm taking Multi-Variable now, I'm done with Microeconomics and Government so I would take AP Comparative Government, wait you mean this place doesn't have AP? I had a huge GPA! Oh well, I'm sure they have an advanced Social Studies course, I was in band, Chinese, I did some funky thing with doubling up..." The two would go on like this, talking about the merits of weighted GPAs and AP classes, with Grigne occasionally answering a question, though his responses were choppy. Dardoch seemed outgoing, but every answer he gave felt vague at the end of the day. He never answered what school he came from, defaulting to "You'd never have heard of it, it was far away" or when asked why he went to Canterlot the response was a generic "Our parents moved because of job opportunities." It all seemed very fake, but Sunset assumed that the two just wanted their privacy, and was content with that. Before they knew it, they reached the front office. Sunset walked into the Principal's office, presumably to get a late slip, as the first period bell had rung a while ago. Dardoch sauntered over to the front desk and asked about mundane school paper work and the like. This was as boring and tiring as you'd think it was, as the old lady on the front desk seemed to react at half speed.

Meanwhile, in Principal Celestia's desk, everything seemed normal for the most part, Sunset had told the Principal that two new students had entered, and she showed them to the office to get paper work done. Before Celestia could stop her Sunset began on a long winded rant about how those two students had super weighted GPAs and essentially cleared the first two years of college basics. The Principal was lost in thought, not of the merits of AP classes but on the strange timing, and the fact that when she remembered the paperwork, it was very vague and spotty, however she assumed the new students were perhaps less fortunate, and deserved guidance. Seeing their transcript also helped her in that opinion, the two had ridiculous course loads with odd doubling up and taking of classes over the summer. She gave Sunset the ever bureaucratic smile, nod, and proceed to say that she'll "Consider it" before sending her off with a late slip.

"One more thing Sunset, could you please show the new kids around, they're seniors, but I think they need a lot to adjust to, being in a new environment after so long." Sunset nodded and ran off to her class, lest she miss some important lecture that would infringe on her 'band time' as she called it.

She was glad that she didn't have to hear about that AP nonsense again. It had been around three years ago that she stopped such tomfoolery, it was no good for the students, and would rather appeal to colleges to allow the courses to be college credit, but not weigh on their GPA.

That wasn't the point though. There was something else to it, but she'd dare not say it. Truth be told, it filled her with shame to think of that event three years ago. How could she let those students make such a mistake and be forced to leave her school to goodness knows where. Where else would they go? The Badlands - or as they prefer to be known - the Woodlands High School? Superintendent Chryssalis was a loony, and an egomaniac who put the poor conditions of the school district under superhuman weight, and even tried to take over CHS in a court struggle that would have won if not for a key unexpected testimony. Would they go to Crystal Prep? Perhaps, they were smart, but not as smart as these two new kids, and she didn't even know where these kids came from, she'd have to ask them later one day.

Remembering that she never saw those two kids again filled her with more grief than she wanted in the morning. Perhaps they became drug dealers or the like. While Vice-Principal Luna would have exclaimed "Good grief and good rubbish" to them, Celestia couldn't help but start scouring the web in search of the two name's he'd never forget. Names more immortal that Sunset Shimmer or Adagio Dazzle.

She knew it would mean nothing. All of her previous thoughts meant nothing, and it was an audacity of hope to assume that they ended up anywhere in this world. That thing they created was not natural, it was horrific, and he could see the two in fear, as they realized they-

She couldn't think about that now. Disaster after disaster occurred at the school. Having to deal with the Fall Formal and the disaster that had been, as apparently a she-demon Sunset Shimmer was formed by touching a crown made from cheap sterling silver that was apparently a magical artifact from another dimension as tried to take over multiple worlds. That required more than a Tylenol to cure, considering she could only hear the aftermath from Sunset Shimmer and her group. On that note, the Battle of the Bands technically went alright, but in all honesty, the news and conspiracy theorists were more on target than she'd want them to be. The three Dazzlings had apparently used magic to take over the school, and using the magic of friendship the Rainbooms defeated them and took their magic away.

Celestia mouthed out such a chain of events, reeling at the childishness of it. She wasn't surprised though. In fact, she did believe in magic.

And she wanted nothing to do with that awful, swirling, black and red menace that was called 'magic'.