Author's Note

Hello, everypony! I hope you guys enjoy this new story! I will have it finished before I submit, that way I need only post the chapters at a rate of 1 or 2 per week. Sooner if the comments section demands it.

Let it be known that the pictures are for visual reference of what the characters look like. As people are going to have pastel hair, I went with anime for references, as they have so many pastel and unusual hair colors, that finding the color you need is easy.

Chapter 1

Jessica Anderson was stalking the halls of Houston High, agitated at the complete shut down of her favorite pastime, soccer. While almost everyone in school had caught ETS, the majority of those that valued education over safety, like herself, had come to school. Unfortunately, that was only about 1 in every 10 people.

“If the clubs are shutdown, why isn't the school…?” She grumbled, trudging through the halls.

“Well unlike some people, we in the school council believe the school should stay open even if there is such a silly thing going around!” Amber, one of the few popular kids to have somehow avoided the outbreak so far, said from behind Jessica. Jess growled and turned around so quickly, that Amber's friend, who was more like a parasitic shadow than a true friend, jumped slightly.

“Now you listen here, you little no-good prissy daughter of a ba-” Jess started, fully prepared to unload one insult after another into the two quote unquote popular kids.

“Hey, Jess!” A good friend of hers shouted, pulling her attention away from the two prima donnas.

“Hmm? Yeah, what do you need, Amy- OH SWEET FUCK! Amy, you have ETS!?” Jessica said, staring at her friends almost sky blue hair.

“Eheheh… Y-yeah… Sorry about that, Jess… I think you might have it too, since… you know…” she replied, rubbing the back of her neck while the other two girls slunk away while the beast was distracted.

Jess sighed and nodded, saying “Yeah, I felt the flu part coming for the past hour… Hey, at least it's speeding up, right? And who knows! Maybe you'll finally get those wings you wanted!”

Amy smiled and twirled a strand of her hair idly, wondering which of the five races she would become, hoping she would be either a pegasus or a nightpony. “Yeah. Maybe I will. But what about you? Are you sure you're going to be ok with being a pony?”

Jessica smiled widely as she replied, saying, “You better believe I am! I mean, being all pastel colored and shit is going to bash on me, but I'll survive. Now if I become a nightpony, that might not be so bad. You hear what those mares and stallions can do yet?”

“Well… The only things I've heard were that they can see clearly at night, and that they are more nocturnal than the others…” Amy said, shuffling her feet a little out of embarrassment.

Jess winced slightly, and scratched her head. “Yeah, that might be a problem… Far as I know, there aren't many nocturnal soccer teams.”

Amy smiled and grabbed Jess by the hand, leading her to their first class. “Well, there's not much point in complaining, since I doubt there would be many pony soccer teams to begin with!”

Jess smiled and rolled her eyes, letting the other girl lead her. But what Jess didn't see, was Amy blushing very, very heavily as she did, all the while mentally screaming at herself for being so direct.

After school was finished they walked to Amy's house to do their homework, chatting along the way. Jess had her bag over one shoulder, gently kicking a soccer ball the coach gave her in order to shut her up about the sports teams, while Amy had her bag in both hands in front of her skirt. The cars came and went, couple homeless folks greeted them, and when one of the kids from their school tried to prank them with a fake mugging, Jess kicked him between the legs and kept going.

Amy looked back at the kid as he picked himself up, and stuck her tongue out at him. She knew it was childish, but she felt he deserved it since she gave her such a scare.

“So! About the homework Professor Jimmy gave us…” Jess started, knowing that Amy was going to ask for help once they got around to it.

Amy, for her part, wilted slightly under the knowing tone. “I um… C-can we take care of his first…?”

Jess smiled and lightly punched Amy on the shoulder as she said, “It's why I brought it up, Amy. You never were much of a public speaker, so I figured you might want a little help with it. That aside for the moment, can I spend the night again? Cassy is making her special brownies tonight, and I don't feel like being there when the cops are called again because she set fire to the complex.”

“Oh, they can't be that bad!” Amy replied, giggling lightly.

“Oh, you have no idea. She makes charcoal out of cereal.”

That thought gave Amy pause as she tried to wrap her head around the thought of making charcoal from cereal, since neither the cereal nor the milk should be anywhere near something hot enough to make that happen.

“I… Your foster mom is scary…” Amy finally said as they walked up to her home. This got a weak smile from Jess.

“Yeah. But my real dad was scarier when he went to my games. I swear, I could hear him clear across the stadium once!” Jess said, chuckling as she recalled the fond memory.

Amy smiled as she saw Jess happy, genuinely happy, for the first time since her parent's accident almost a year ago. It took their lives, but she was left unscathed. Apparently, according to her, an angel descended from heaven and kept her alive long enough for the ambulance to get her to the hospital. Only thing is, if you asked anybody else that was there, she looked as dead as they come as she crawled away from the wreckage. But nobody, surprisingly, knew enough to provide first-aid aside from putting bandages on the cuts and bruises.

As they entered the house, however, Jess began coughing loud and hard, drawing the attention of both of Amy’s parents, who had the pony ears, tail, and hair. The shocking thing was, both of their hairstyles were fluffy, so the only thing setting the two apart in that department was the fast that one was red while the other was hot pink.