-Canterlot High School, Three Days Before the Mane Event-

Dapper Alan Jolt walked alongside his friends, Falcon Wing and Wolf Heart, on their way to class as they jested and laughed at the jokes that they shared with each other. “Ey!” Dapper laughed at a particularly clever pun involving Darth Vader asking a dog jedi to join the ‘Bark Side.’

Falcon Wing deadpanned and shook his head, joining Wolf Heart in his actions. “Dapper! This is why I have some drink in my caffeine instead of the other way around!” he joked with his friend, throwing a hoof to the sky above as Dapper Jolt clapped his hooves and pointed at his friend with a wink.

“Oof,” Wolf Heart laughed, her lips curled up in a joyful smile as another mare gently pushed by the trio.

“Scuse me,” she muttered, looking over her shoulder as she made her way to a locker, brushing her tail up against the blue maned pegasus stallion’s legs in the process.

Dapper Jolt’s eyes popped out and his jaw dropped, his view trailing along her well toned form. One could practically see the hearts flying from his head before popping a few feet above him. This was only exaggerated when the unicorn in question winked at the white and blue pegasus.

Falcon Wing stifled back a burst of laughter as Wolf Heart deadpanned upon seeing her friend’s starry eyed expression. With a chuckle, the hat-bearing teenager lifted a hoof and clapped Dapper Jolt’s jaw shut. “C’mon, Dapper, she’s way outta your league. Let’s go find somepony pathetic for you to flirt with.”

The pegasus leaned back on his haunches and crossed his arms, glaring at his friend. “I gotta go say something to her!” Lowering his voice, he spoke again. “She winked at me,” he said. “Besides, who would say no to dheese guns,” Dapper finished, flexing a bicep.

“What guns?” Falcon Wing grinned, drawing another laugh out of Wolf Heart.

Dapper Jolt, on the other hoof, feigned a hurt expression, his wings dropping by his sides. “STUPID, BABY!” he shouted in a russian accent akin to a heavily-armed character in Falcon Wing’s favorite game, throwing his hooves and motioning the stallion. This drew a few confused glances to the trio that caused a nervous smile to cross Falcon Wing’s face. Dropping the accent, he continued. “I’m going to talk to her,” he said, boldly stumping towards the mare with a determined look upon his face.

“HOLD IT!!” Wolf Heart blurted, snatching Dapper Jolt by the wing and yanking him back. “Before you go off bragging what a good artist you are to somepony you hardly know, you need to know a couple things about the art of flirting,” the winged unicorn said, staring firmly into his eyes.

“What?! Why?”

“Do you want a marefriend, or not?” Wolf Heart flatlined, adjusting her glasses.

The pegasus sighed. “Yes,” he groaned, rolling his eyes.

“Then listen,” she said, playfully whapping her friend’s snout with a wing. “Mare’s don’t want a guy just for his muscles and dick… Well, unless the mare’s a slut… But that doesn’t matter. They want a stallion who’ll emote, show some emotion, show her that you’re a funny guy,” she chuckled. “I know you’re capable of that considering all of the puns that you know.”

Dapper Jolt puffed his chest in a prideful manner.

Wolf Heart rolled her eyes. “Try to talk about something that she might be interested in. Godzilla’s cool and all, but how many mare’s do you know that like Godzilla like you do? Excluding your grandmother!”

“Well… I… know… a lot, actually," he answered in an unsure manner.

Wolf Heart shot the stallion a skeptical glance.

“OKAY, so I don’t know any mares that like Godzilla like I do, so what?!” he barked, scrunching his nose and crossing his arms in a pout.

“If that’s the case, ask her a few questions, see what she’s interested in. If you think she’s into you, then you can ask one or two questions about what her favorite dinosaur is or what if she’s ever seen a lot of the Godzilla movies. If she tells you she likes to draw, show her a couple of her drawings in a way that won’t seem overly prideful or braggish,” the mare explained.

“Roasted,” Falcon Wing whispered into Dapper’s ear, eliciting a flat expression from his friend.

“You, shut up,” he grumbled.

Wolf Heart looked up at the stallion with reflective yellow feathers. “You’re not helping his case,” she said before looking to Dapper and putting a hoof onto his shoulder. “Kick gum and chew ass, okay?” she grinned before turning and pushing the stallion towards the busy unicorn.

The pegasus looked over his shoulder skeptically, receiving a waving hoof to beckon him forward from Wolf Heart and a inquisitive grin from Falcon.

Sighing, the weird stallion pushed himself forward, his heart pounding in his ears. He had never once tried to get a marefriend, though lots of ponies, namely his family, were shocked that he’d never had one. Brushing up the courage, the stallion approached the striped unicorn and replaced his worried frown with a kind smile, oblivious to how shaky his steps were.

When he had finally gotten within ten feet of the mare, he froze and found himself staring at her flank, though hating himself for doing it.

His musings were cut off by a feminine voice. “Enjoying the view,” the unicorn said, swiveling her head slightly and casting the stallion a cursory smile.

“Huh? What?! I… You… N-no, I mean, yes? I… RGH!!” Dapper Jolt blurted as he jerked to attention, babbling like an idiot in an attempt to formulate an intelligent response. His wings stuck up in a rigid stance and his eyes were the size of dinner plates in embarrassment. The stallion laughed nervously, cheeks bright red as he waved a dismissive hoof.

The unicorn giggled before lifting a hoof to hush the stallion. “Don’t worry about it, you’re not the first, and you won’t be the last,” she assured him, closing her eyes and dipping her head. Opening her eyes, she paused at the familiarity of the pegasi’s blue mane and tail, and similarly colored wing feathers, his gun-metal rimmed glasses glinting slightly in the light of the canopy window above them. “You’re in one of my classes, aren’t you?” she asked, lifting a quizzical brow.

“I don’t know,” Dapper Jolt grimaced. “I don’t usually pay attention to the other students of my class.”

“Well… Name’s Autumn Dancer… And your’s iiiiiis, Dapp-er Jolt, right?” she queried, extending a hoof for the stallion.

Regaining his composure, the stallion grinned anxiously. “That’s me, Weirdo Extraordinaire!” Dapper Jolt chuckled, taking her hoof as he gave her features a once over.

Aside from the aforementioned, attractive hips, Autumn was of quite a large build compared to other mares of the same age, though her weight looked more like dense, evenly distributed muscle than it did ‘chub’. Her medium length, well groomed mane and tail were an additionally medium shade of brown, where the fringes were tinged with violet. This purple seemed to be her preferred color theme, as her eyelids and hooves were painted with that same shade. Her horn was robust like her form, and she possessed a bony nasal ridge unlike any pony short of a kirin. Another oddity was her dark brown chest and belly, which looked like scales, and her similarly shaded stripes. The rest of her body was brown too, though it was a lighter shade than her stripes. Autumn’s face was freckled slightly and her eyes were a beautiful shade of aquamarine, a short fang sticking out of her top lip. Her cutie mark was the most baffling part of her, being what looked like a backwards, lowercase ‘q’ with a thin red line being encompassed by the letter’s outline.

As he looked her over, Dapper Jolt almost didn’t hear her clear her throat. “Huh, what?” he spluttered, blinking in rapid succession before looking up.

“You okay? You kinda zoned out,” Autumn said quizzically, cocking a brow asymmetrically as he released her hoof.

“Fine! I’m fine, just kinda… confused,” he replied finally.

“It’s the scales and cutie-mark, isn’t it,” the unicorn mare said flatly.

The stallion nodded. “You remind me of some kind of kirin, sans the kirin tail and hooves,” he said thoughtfully, rubbing the stubble of his chin deep in though.

“I get that a lot. As for the cutie-mark, I don’t know what that is. Always wondered how I got it, considering it’s kind of common knowledge that the letter ‘q’ is in the alphabet. Nothing special about that,” she said with a chuckle, rolling her eyes slightly. Looking at the stallion and remembering his name, she also remembered an attribute she heard often about the pegasus with a top hat and mustache cutie-mark. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but aren’t you that stallion in the drawing class who’s always drawing Godzilla and dinosaurs?” she questioned.

Dapper Jolt grimaced. “You know about that?”

“Yeah, so what? I think that your art style is quite nice. Could you expand? Sure, everypony can improve. But it’s nice to know that somepony out there still cares about the dinosaurs,” Autumn smiled softly, giving the stallion a playful punch on the shoulder.

Dapper grinned at her words, used to receiving criticism for his interests from not only acquaintances, but occasionally friends and family. “You think so?”

The unicorn smirked at his demeanor. “Yeah. Nice quality to not just be interested in sports and sex, right?”

“Tell me about it. I sit at a lunch table where all I hear is somepony bragging about how big their dick is or something retarded like that,” Dapper grumbled flatly, rolling his eyes with hint of disgust lacing his tone. “I really wish that I could freaking eat my lunch without hearing BS like that, y’know what I mean?” he said, his voice hinting at a bit of animosity towards the subject.

Autumn sighed and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that would be nice. I’ll let you in on a little secret, it can be a bit of a curse to look like I do. It’d be real nice to be with a stallion who wanted me for me and not my ass,” she said whilst shaking her head in disappointment.

“I feel the same way. I’ve never been in a relationship, but I want to be in one with somepony who doesn’t mind how weird I am or my interests in Godzilla,” Dapper muttered, dipping his head. None-too-pleasant memories of being made fun of for that exact reason swam in his vision as he spoke.

“I’m sure you’ll find that ‘special somepony’, being as cute as you are,” she smiled softly before closing her locker door with a metallic click.

The stallion felt his cheeks warming slightly as Autumn hefted a saddlebag with a smile. “Thanks… I can only hope that you’re right,” Dapper Jolt said with a shrug before a stray piece of advice from a friend crossed his mind. “Hey, Autumn… What did Darth Vader say to the jedi dog?” he asked her with a grin.

The unicorn mulled over the thought for a moment before replying. “I don’t know, what did he say?”

“‘You do not know the power of the Bark Side.’ Eh, eeeh… Y-you get it?” he jested, nudging her shoulder with his elbow and wagging his eyebrows.

Autumn managed to keep composure for a whole three seconds before starting to laugh, holding a hoof to her snout to keep from snorting. After another moment, she acknowledged him. “That’s a good one. Where’d you hear that?” she chuckled, lifting a brow.

The pegasus stallion tapped his temple with a hoof before he motioned to ask another question. “Hey... Um uh, Autumn? I was curious to know if… if maybe you wanted to sit with me for lunch sometime?” Dapper stammered, a tinge of hope visible upon his face.

“Hmm… I’ll think about it. You seem nice enough and it would give me the chance to know the the school’s quote unquote ‘weirdo’,” the unicorn told him, putting emphasis on the last part with her hooves. “But I don’t know how my SSP would respond,” Autumn said with a grimace. “If not, we could still be friends though, right?”

“Oh… Sure,” Dapper Jolt shrugged, his ears falling slightly. Another day, another mare the stallion liked who was already in a relationship. Dapper turned as the bell rang for students to get to class, his friends having patiently waited to see how things would go.

Autumn stopped the pegasus. “Hey, hold on,” she said, grabbing him by the shoulder.

Dapper Jolt swung around, taken by surprise when the mare pressed her lips to his cheek.

“Keep in touch, okay?” the unicorn mare said, tapping Jolt’s snout with her hoof in a manner not far removed from what Wolf Heart would do.

“Okay,” the stallion smiled as a trio of mare’s and a stallion approached the unicorn and beckoned her to them, looking like a classic example of the stereotypical popular. It didn’t take long for Dapper Jolt to put two and two together and realize that all of Autumn’s friends were probably snobs.

Autumn glanced over her shoulder to see the stallion returning to his own friends, a strongly built pegasus stallion and blue, winged unicorn mare. A soft smile crossed her lips and her cheeks flushed slightly before she turned back to her own friends.

“How’d it go?” Wolf Heart practically blurted as Dapper Jolt advanced towards her and Falcon Wing, a wide grin upon her face.

Dapper deadpanned. “One, she’s a popular, and two, she’s already seeing somepony,” the stallion answered disappointedly. Before either of his friends could utter words of sympathy, Dapper spoke again. “But hey, it’s all hunky dory because she wants to be my friend,” he said sarcastically.

“Well, it’s a start, at least, right?” Wolf said in an attempt to reassure him.

“Yeah, sure,” Dapper said, shrugging it off like nothing and making an attempt at returning to his classic joking manner. “Besides,” he said with a grin. “I got a friend in me!” the pegasus continued in a sing-songy voice before squatting down, crossing his forearms, and kicking his back legs forward in a dance Falcon Wing recognized as the Kazotsky Kick.

The gold winged pegasus started laughing before pulling out his phone and playing the music that was supposed to correspond with Dapper’s dance moves. Before long, he had joined his friend laughing… well, as best he could considering he didn’t practice dancing like a russian in his spare time.

“You guys are so weird,” Wolf Heart laughed whilst shaking her head before moving off towards her class so that she wouldn’t be considered tardy.

-Later that Day, Lunch-

Dapper Jolt was dealing with it again. He was sitting at a lunch table gritting his teeth as he listened to a bunch of assholes obsessing over some of the last topics that should be spoken of during a time when ponies are supposed to be enjoying a meal with their friends.

Oh, these ‘friends’ of mine, he thought to himself, unzipping his lazily discarded saddlebag and pulling his drawing binder from the largest pocket. With a silent growl, he pulled a pencil out of his sweatshirt pocket and began to doodle the outline of a Tyrannosaurus rex in motion. The stallion mulled over his thoughts for a moment, chewing his eraser before putting the lead to the paper and sketching out the arms and legs of the dinosaur. A smile began to cross his face as he transitioned to the tail and hips, images of a fierce predator moving through prehistoric underbrush crossing his vision.

Artwork was one of Dapper Jolt’s few ways to get away from it all, his responsibilities, socialization, everything that he wasn’t feeling up to. It was his fantasy world, where he could draw what he wanted without criticism for how he illustrated or what he illustrated.

As one of the tyrannosaur’s feet became discernible amongst the sea of white, Dapper Jolt’s thoughts transitioned to Autumn, his brows furrowing of their own accord and his smile disappearing. He hardly knew this mare, and yet he felt like he did. He felt as though they had connected.

Lifting his head from the dinosaur, Dapper Jolt scanned the lunchroom in the hopes of finding who he was looking for amongst the ponies. A smile crossed his face as another’s became visible. Rising to his hooves, Dapper approached Autumn with a smile.

The broken horned mare looked over her work as she chewed a fish stick, a sigh leaking from her nose in despair. None of this algebra bull crap was understandable to Rexy. If anything, the only thing she was good at around math was getting angry at how she didn’t understand it. The high school junior grumbled to herself as she furiously ran an eraser over the page she had been working on before tossing said eraser aside and chomping down on another fish stick, slumping back in her seat with a deep exhale.

Rexy was often referred to as ‘Autumn’s twin sister gone wrong’. Autumn was known for a gorgeous, yet muscular form that was a desire to most stallions. She was smart, successful, and beautiful. Rexy was the other side of the coin. Though slightly more muscular than her sibling, this muscle wasn’t what stallion’s looked for. They wanted something delicate, and Rexy was most definitely not delicate. She was also aggressive, and at times a little dense.

Upon hearing approaching hoofsteps, the mare looked up from her work to see a blue maned pegasus approaching her with a smile. Upon seeing the foreboding expresion upon Rexy’s face, the stallion shied away slightly. “What do you want?” she growled in hostility.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were Autumn,” he said, his cheeks flushing as he took a step back. “Do you know where she is?”

Rexy rolled her eyes. “Of course you want Autumn, every stallion wants Autumn. Nobody cares about her sister, do they?” she grumbled before pointing at a table across the cafeteria.

“Thanks, I guess… Have a good one?” the pegasus replied, unsure how to react. He’d never seen this mare before… That said, he’d never really paid any attention to Autumn in the classes that they shared.

The mare in question rolled her eyes with an irritated snort before taking another crack at continuing her school work.

Upon nearly reaching the table directed to him, Dapper Jolt froze in his tracks with a frown as he beheld the sight. Autumn was sitting beside a heavily built earth stallion, boasting whilst placing an arm around the unicorn, who seemed a tad irritated at his demeanor. The stallion, Dapper could instantly recognize as one that he’d had to deal with since elementary school; Base Runner.

Base Runner and Dapper Jolt had never gotten along in the past. In a ‘friendly’ game of recess soccer, Dapper Jolt managed to get the ball, where Base Runner promptly acquainted his hoof with Dapper’s face. Needless to say, the pegasus tried to avoid the stallion best he could. In a situation such as this, he typically would’ve walked away, but Dapper noticed how unamused Autumn appeared and gathered the courage to stand up to his life-long bully.

Upon his approach, Autumn turned her head and swiveled an ear, a soft smile crossing her face at his ideal timing in the situation.

Unfortunately, Base Runner also turned, a glare upon his face at seeing the blue maned pegasus. His glare soon transitioned into something a bit ‘friendlier.’ A smile replaced foreboding and for a moment, Dapper actually thought that Runner might lighten up. His mistake, for when the pegasus mustered the bravery to walk up to him and try a polite smile, the earth stallion spoke. “LOOK! It’s Godzilla!” he laughed with wide eyes, feigning shock as he pointed across the cafeteria.

Dapper Jolt’s expression dropped like a fly, his wings sagging by his sides as a leer crossed his face. “Good to see you too Base,” he grumbled.

“I never said it was good to see you,” the athletic student barked back, crossing his arms and leaning back on his haunches.

Autumn interjected, stepping between the two stallions as they seemingly squared off against one another. She turned to Base Runner, jabbing a hoof at his chest with a glare that demanded his respect. “Knock it off,” she snapped in his face. “Learn a bit of respect, not just towards him but others as well. I, for one, don’t appreciate being bragged about like I’m some kind of possession of yours,” the unicorn mare growled, standing eye level with the taller stallion.

Base Runner glared at the mare momentarily before fixing his eyes on Dapper Jolt. “You be careful,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “She’s mine.” With that, the earth stallion took a seat at the table he had been and returning to his conversation with his friends.

Dapper Jolt grimaced as Autumn approached him, not wanting to hurt her feelings with unleashing his opinion of her SSP. Unable to constrain himself, the words just came out. “Seriously?! Why him?! He’s an asshat!” he chastised, gesturing towards the stallion in question.

“I know he is. But try getting out of a relationship involving a whole lot of guilt tripping,” she explained while retaining a flat expression. “And abuse.”

The pegasi’s ears fell flat at the words. “Oh… I didn’t realize,” he said guiltily, dropping his gaze away from Autumn’s eyes with a frown. “Hence the whole ‘winking at me’ thing?” Dapper Jolt asked hesitantly, lifting his view slightly. A disappointed sigh leaked from his nose, both in sympathy for Autumn’s current predicament, and guilt for his jumping to conclusions.

“Always on the look-out for somepony to step into that cocky prick’s horseshoes,” the unicorn said with a shrug. “So… where were you sitting?” she then asked, her view roving over the cafeteria’s many tables.

“Over there,” Dapper acknowledged, pointing at the table that seated Falcon Wing, Wolf Heart, and a few of his other friends.

Autumn smiled at the sight, seeing the ponies at the table laughing and sharing each other’s company. “Lead the way.”

“Alright,” the pegasus shrugged, his mood lifting at her words. Upon reaching the table, Falcon Wing dropped what he was saying and turned to face the duo, a wide grin crossing his face as Dapper Jolt pulled up a seat for the heavily built unicorn that was with him.

Another pony, a unicorn stallion inhaled sharply at the sight and reeled back. “Oh my GOD!! Dapper Jolt has a real-life sentient marefriend!” Jackpot Ace blurted as Wolf Heart jabbed an elbow at his torso. The stallion yelped in slight pain before looking up and noticing just how flushed the two in question were.

“She’s dating,” Dapper Jolt grimaced as Autumn cocked a brow. “Sort of?”

“Why is she here then?!” the pony hollered, throwing his hooves to the sky above. “She isn’t cheating, is she?”

“JACKPOT!” Wolf snapped, grabbing the stallion by the ear. “Stahp… You’re clearly embarrassing both of them,” she scolded, pointing at the wide eyed expressions that Autumn and Dapper Jolt wore. “And no, she’s not cheating… That I know of… But regardless!”

The unicorn stallion winced before patting his friend’s arm in a submissive manner. “Okay, okay! Uncle!” he cringed before Wolf Heart released his ear.

Another mare, fairly short and wearing a pair of glasses looked to Dapper Jolt’s newfound friend with a smile. “You’re so gorgeous!” the wavy haired earth mare cooed, eliciting a blush from Autumn. Smiling, Flute Melody continued. “He’s a lucky stallion to know you.”

“Um, did you just assume his gender?” Jackpot interjected, gesturing towards Dapper Jolt.

Autumn turned to Dapper with a baffled expression as to what was happening. The pegasus responded with a shrug. “Ya get used to it after a while,” he said with a grin before turning to his other friends. “Anywho, this is Autumn,” Dapper said whilst clearing his throat. “Autumn, you haven’t been formally introduced, but this is Wolf Heart, Falcon Wing, Flute Melody, Shadow Blade, and… Jackpot,” the pegasus said as he gestured to them, his expression flatlining as he gestured to the unicorn stallion.

A stray thought crossed Wolf Heart’s mind as she ushered a kind smile and wave to Autumn. “Wait,” she said, furrowing a brow. “What do you mean she’s ‘sort of’ dating? I thought that you said she was dating earlier?” the winged unicorn queried, a frown crossing her lips.

Before Dapper Jolt could answer Wolf Heart’s question, the unicorn mare acknowledged. “It’s a bit complicated, but the stallion that I’m with… He’s more than a little abusive,” Autumn said with a grimace, her ears swiveling back slightly. She didn’t know why she was telling these ponies that she’d just met everything about her personal life, but doing so seemed to chip away at the emotional mountain off of her back. Base Runner had seemed a nice stallion when she’d first met him, but as she got to see his true colors and wanted to leave him, he wouldn’t stand for it.

“Abusive?” Jackpot frowned, calming to a slightly more sympathetic manner than Autumn had seen earlier. The mare that he was currently crushing on was in a similar predicament as Autumn. “That’s not cool.”

“He only wants me for… this,” the unicorn clarified, gesturing towards herself. “He’s not interested in personality.”

In spite of the situation, Falcon Wing nudged Dapper Jolt’s shoulder and wiggled his eyebrows. Apparently, Jackpot shared Falcon’s sentiment, for he looked back and forth between Autumn and the blue maned pegasus with a grin.

“No! Stop it,” Dapper Jolt said with a nervous laugh.

“Yeah… Stop. You should know better,” Shadow Blade chastised hesitantly before coughing into his arm and saying something incoherent amongst his feigned hacking.

Autumn looked to Dapper Jolt and cocked a brow, her lips flat. “Y’know what… You seemed like a nice guy, but I’m not so sure about some of the ponies that you call ‘friend,’” the mare said before rising to her hooves to move away from the table.

“What?! No! Hold on, please!” the pegasus called after her, jumping from his seat and putting a hoof to her shoulder.

Autumn whipped around with a glare that murdered any protests that had been developing in Dapper Jolt’s throat.

The stallion shied away from her with a guilt-ridden frown before he returned to his seat, the table having gone silent. “Fantastic,” he muttered, resting his chin on the tabletop and letting his wings drop.

Wolf Heart frowned as she shifted her gaze from the pegasus to Autumn, that frown soon turning into a glare. “I’ll be right back,” the teenage mare said sternly, pushing her chair back as she rose to her hooves. Flute Melody elected not to follow her, seeing as Dapper Jolt wasn’t as close a friend to herself as Wolf was. And this matter, for whatever reason, seemed to concern Dapper.

Wolf Heart, meanwhile, stumped off towards Autumn with a firm expression that belied her typically chipper and jesting demeanor. Upon seeing her reproaching the table that she was presumed to have been originally sitting at, Wolf leapt forward and snatched the unicorn by the arm.

Base Runner didn’t have the chance to react before, with surprising strength, the sky blue mare pulled Autumn away from him and the cafeteria, dragging the unicorn mare all the way to the mare’s bathroom.

“Okay… What’s the deal?” Autumn snapped as she yanked away from the winged unicorn with a growl.

Wolf Heart leaned back on her haunches and impatiently tapped a hoof, crossing her arms. “What’s the deal?! Do you have any idea how long he’s been looking for the right mare?! Every… Single… One… that he’s ever had his eyes on already has that Special Somepony in their life. I, of all ponies, would know… I was one of ‘em! You know how I know that?! Because he told me,” she snapped, stabbing a hoof at Autumn’s chest to annunciate the fact.

“What’s your point?” the unicorn growled in a manner very unlady-like, especially for her.

“My point?” Wolf Heart wore a hurt expression on her face. “Is your head lodged where it is for warmth? He clearly likes you. And if you’re not going to give him a chance because of the company that he keeps, then there is something severely wrong with you.” Having let her anger out, Wolf Heart sighed, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “At least give him a chance. If things between you and that stallion really aren’t working out like you say, than I’m sure you can afford to do at least that,” the mare said.

Wolf Heart looked upon her handiwork for a moment, seeing Autumn’s surprise, before rising to her hooves and exiting the bathroom to return to her friends.

Autumn was frozen in place by Wolf Heart’s words for a moment, feeling touched by what she had been told, save for the part about her head. After another minute, she sighed, regaining her composure before also leaving the mare’s room and returning to the cafeteria.

Wolf Heart took a seat next to Dapper Jolt with a huff, brushing a lock of her long mane out of her eyes before smiling at the pegasus, electing to ignore the confused expression swiftly materializing across his muzzle. “What… did you say?” he asked with wide eyes whilst tucking his drawing binder back into his green and black saddlebag.

“Ask her,” Falcon Wing interjected, pointing to the cafeteria doorway towards a striped unicorn as she made her way to a lone table.

“Enough to make her see,” Wolf acknowledged with a nod. “Now then, this Friday is the Mane Event, and from what I understand, Autumn is probably not going to want to go to the dance with that asshole that she’s already seeing,” she explained.

Dapper Jolt didn’t have to take long to put two and two together. “What? No, no, HELL no!! No! I… No! I can’t dance to save my life, or my sister’s! Let alone dance with a mare!”

Almost everypony, namely Falcon, Wolf, and Shadow, deadpanned at his words.

“Kazotsky Kick and Take On Me don’t count in this situation! How would a dance partner feel if her date just squatted down and started kicking his legs like some psycho maniac?!” he blurted. “Probably she’d get up and ditch ‘im! Besides, who would want to dance with me?!”

Jackpot Ace shrugged. “Well, you’re not wrong.”

Dapper Jolt deadpanned and stared at the unicorn. “You’re not helping.”

“Well… If that’s how you feel, show up to the dance to break her fall if she decides to go with her SSP and things don’t work out… Wouldn’t that work out? You don’t have to straight up ask,” Falcon Wing suggested, earning a nod of approval from a couple of the surrounding ponies. “But first, get some help,” he laughed, putting on a joyful expression to lift the mood. “Easy as that magic that Obi Wan Dorogi is teaching us in ‘Foreign Magic’ class.”

Dapper Jolt couldn’t help but crack a grin at the words and roll his eyes. “Heavy hates magic,” he sighed in a champion russian accent.

Author's Note

Artwork by Evergreen-Gemdust