A Boundary Apartby armidChaptersHow everything startedClouded thoughtsSuspicion intensifiesAn apology?Know the boundaryInvestigation kick-startHow everything startedDear princess Twilight, In the last few days, things have been quite odd and I’ve been having trouble making sense of it and making the right choices... It all started from the day that our marks for the recent math exam got announced. I don't want to brag but I got a high mark as always. However the joy of my great mark wasn't going to last for long. I was asked by Principal Celestia to tutor SOMEONE in the library after school. It was nothing big, at least I didn't think it was going to be so I accepted. I tutor some students occasionally so I really didn't mind it. But who was the one I was supposed to tutor in math? No one other than Flaming Star himself. At first I thought that this might be a good opportunity to get to know the guy better, since the past two weeks that they have been in school they haven't really engaged with anyone, not him nor Steely Armor. Yes, they occasionally talk to us, but it's not really something to consider. It's mostly "Hi, how is it going." or "hey" "Bye" that sort of thing. It felt as if they are not comfortable with the school or maybe even the students yet so maybe I could break the ice this time. And boy what wishful thinking I had. Because just thinking about what happened makes me irritated by itself, I will not elaborate on it much but it went like this: He looked as if he knew absolutely NOTHING about math so I had to sit there till evening, trying to teach him something. But guess what? He was acting the whole time! why? Don't even get me started on that. It's a story for another time. After my long lasting session of tutoring that genuinely made my mindset ruined, I packed up and left school in hopes of riding on my motorcycle back home. But it didn't start. Once again I tried to turn it on, but still no luck to get it going. I didn't want to start investigating for an issue in it then as I desperately wanted to head home and put my head to rest. So I just locked it there and left it there, hoping no one would try to steal it. I barely got home, and mindlessly walked upstairs and dropped dead on my bed. Next thing I recall was my alarm waking me up in the morning. After I dressed up and packed up my stuff into my backpack, I headed outside. Taking in the air to start a new day, I started walking to school but moments later, I sensed that something was missing. Like: "I shouldn't be walking to school, why am I-'' and then it hit me! "MY MOTORCYCLE!" I dashed through the streets, almost hitting a few people on the way till finally, I caught a sight of the school. However, it was too soon to let out a sigh of relief. I walked up to the school to catch my breath a little bit. Though the thought of my motorcycle being stolen didn't really help with the process. Thankfully, my motorcycle was untouched, at least it seemed to be. However it still wasn't starting, "I should take it to a mechanic today" I told myself. There was probably something wrong with it and I would rather fix it as soon as possible then for it to stop working mid-way. I entered the school afterwards, it was not very crowded, though for some reason, I was not able to find the girls. It was as I was walking around searching for them among other students with my eyes that I felt a pat in the back. "Hey Sunset!" As I turned my head around, Rainbow Dash's face was the first thing to come to view. "How is it going?" "Ugh, I've seen better days." I grunted. "Have you seen the girls?" "Nah, you're the first that I met up with so far" she started walking beside me "So um, what's the problem?" "Well, I had a really frustrating tutoring session with a certain someone yesterday that took till evening and once I got out to ride home, my motorcycle didn't start!" "Yours too?" Her eyes widened, "Mine also doesn't move anymore." "Really?" "Yeah, I found out this morning. And because I was restricted not to use my magic sporadically, I had to walk and drag it all the way here veeeeeeery slowly!" she glared at me. "Rainbow." I let out a silent yell, "We both know what happens when you do that. It messes with all of us!" and stared back at her. She turned her face away, "I KNOW!" but when she wanted to continue, she hit another student and fell on the ground. “Oh.” The student she hit though stood tall as if nothing happened. I helped Rainbow Dash to stand back up, meanwhile the guy turned around to see what hit him. And to our surprise, it was Steely Armor. He looked at us with his yellow eyes and stepped back. "Oh, sorry." "No it's not your fault," I said, "Rainbow just, wasn't paying attention" "Yeah, didn't see you there." She rubbed the back of her head. "Hey um, have you seen the girls?" Steely Armor paused for a second, "The...girls?" His eyes narrowed. "Yeah, like Twilight? Pinkie? AJ?" Rainbow Dash continued, gesturing with her hand. "OH! Right, right." He nodded a few times, "They have changed some classes and put the details on the wall near the cafeteria. They might be there." “They’d changed the schedules? Ugh.” I stepped forward, "Thanks for letting us know!" Rainbow Dash and I started walking away and parting our way from Steely Armor. But I decided to talk with Steely Armor a bit more before leaving. "Oh, hey Steely Armor!" He was on his way too, but turned back, "Yes?" "I just wanted to know how are you feeling about the school and all so far?" He paused for a second, and then responded: "It's...nice...I guess." It didn't seem like he wanted to talk at that point. "That's nice to hear, so, what have you been doing so far? I heard you and Twilight have been having some sessions after school about magic." I pointed backwards with my thumb and tried to keep my eye contact with him. Though he was constantly looking away. "y-yeah,..." He rubbed his right shoulder. "Are you guys doing that today too?" "Oh, no, not today!" He shook his head and kept moving backwards, "I-I gotta go, um...bye!" he then walked away as fast as he could. "What was that all about?" Rainbow Dash whispered, looking as he walked away. "He’s just… shy I guess." The girls were still where Steely Armor said, right in front of the information board. They were discussing the change of schedule when we got there. "Will we be having sports on Tuesday?" gasped Twilight while looking at the board. "Hh, yeah....what about it?" Applejack asked, moving closer to her. "Where is physics? They ruined my full scientific Tuesday." "Uh… it's uh… on Thursday." Fluttershy said softly. But it seemed Twilight couldn't get over it just yet. "THURSDAY!?" Spike noticed me and Rainbow and came running to us, that made the girls follow him with their eyes to finally see us too. "A bit late to the party...." Spike smirked. From what I figured, almost our whole schedule had been changed. However, it wasn't something we wanted. It really wasn't a big deal either, at least not for all of us. Twilight was freaked out about that, so much so that her eyes were going to jump out of their socket and break her glasses. "You're not getting it, this means I have to re-arrange my whole plans and I better do it fast or else everything will be in havoc!" "Alright, alright darling." Rarity put her hands on her shoulders. "I'm sure you can find a way to solve that in no time." Twilight let out a sigh, "Thanks Rarity, but It's just that I don't like being disorganized." "But why?" Pinkie jumped in front of her, "being disorganized is soooooo much fun! you get to figure out what you want to do and look for things you need. You don't like that?" "Not really...." "I mean, look at the bright side," I joined Rarity, "At least the classes are going to be changed from next week and not tomorrow." Before the conversation could continue, the class's bell rang and we each went our separate ways. The rest of the day was uneventful, we didn't have band practice and I was still somewhat sleepy. Rainbow Dash and I talked about our motorcycles and where we should take them. Knowing that my motorcycle had some problems with it recently, I had a gut feeling that this time the issue might be big. After school, Rainbow Dash and I went to check on our motorcycles. Hers did seem fine at first glance though what she described sounded way more different from what I was seeing. "It just stopped and let out some weird noises from the exhausts!" she said. "Did you check it? Maybe something is stuck there." I kneeled to take a closer look. "Though I don't think it's that big of a problem." "I doubt I can reach it with my hand. If there is something jammed in there, it's probably deep down." "Usually it will just shoot it out if there is something in it. There is probably something else than that." I tried to look down the pipe but nothing could be seen. It was then that I saw something. A small puddle of petrol beneath her motorcycle. The petrol was dripping from the motorcycle into the puddle. "Have you seen this Rainbow?" I turned my head to her. "what?" She also sat down, and I pointed at the petrol puddle, "Oh boy, that doesn't look good." I stood up, "Well that explains why it's not working as it should be." Rainbow put her hands on her knees and stood up and kicked her motorcycle, "Ugh! I can't believe it had a leakage and I hadn't noticed it!" she nagged. “No wonder why I was using more petrol these past days.” I put my hands on her shoulder, "look, the puddle is not that big, so the leakage is probably not that bad." She rolled her eyes, "pfft, whatever," and turned back to me, "so what's up with your bike?" I took a look at it from the corner of my eye, "If you ask me, I say that thing most likely won't move anymore." Rainbow Dash raised her eyebrow and started walking towards it, "Why?" "Because it's been sooooo long since I took it to a mechanic, it has all kinds of problems now!" I speeded up to catch up to her. "Then I guess it needs a lot of work!" "probably!...." We were both looking at my motorcycle, but looking at it wouldn't have made it move, "C'mon, let's get these two to a mechanic. We don't have all day." We both went and dragged our motorcycles out of the school yard. Just doing that was tiring by itself, and we wanted to drag them to a mechanic that we haven't decided yet. After a short discussion about where we should go, we decided to drag them to where Rainbow Dash used to take her motorcycle. She said it was not the best, but it does give you a fixed motorcycle. But before we started moving, a familiar face showed up. "Uh, hi...again... what's the issue?" Steely Armor rubbed the back of his head. We both turned our heads to him, "Oh...hi Steely Armor," I said, "Nothing really big, our motorcycles just need some repairing." I gave him a warm smile. "Yeah, they seem pretty messed up," Rainbow Dash added, putting her weight on her motorcycle. "don't worry though, we are taking them to a mechanic." "What's their problem?" Steely Armor stepped closer. "Well, Rainbow has a leakage, and mine probably needs a lot of work to start moving again." Then I looked at it again, "And that is if it will start moving again." He sat down and looked closely at mine, "I can fix them for you." Our eyes widened and we stared at each other. "You can...fix them?" Rainbow Dash asked with an uncertain tone. She took her weight off her motorcycle and continued, "Are you a mechanic or something?" Steely Armor just stood silent, staring at us without a single word, almost nothing of his face flinched, motionless. Until he finally broke the silence. "Bring them to the Cars Graveyard," He walked away after that. For a few minutes Rainbow and I just looked at one another, wondering what just happened. Until Rainbow decided to share her thoughts on him. “He’s a weirdo.” “OK. That’s not...nice.” “C’mon. He acts so odd.” She raised her hand in the air. “And Cars Graveyard?” “That’s outside of the city, right?” “Yeah but it’s not that far out.” Rainbow crossed her arms. “You actually wanna take these there?” I took a moment and then I answered. “Honestly, I’m a little curious. Besides, I doubt you’re looking forward to meeting up with Rusty Wrench.” I smirked at her. “Agh. He’s gonna bring up my debt again!” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Fine, we’ll go there.” We dragged our motorcycles all the way out of the city and took them to Car’s Graveyard. That was exhausting to say the least. But we made it. The garage was extinguishable from the place as it was the only building surrounded by piles of junk. It seemed it was able to maintain multiple vehicles inside. Inside, It had shelves on each wall, all filled up with materials and vehicle parts, a lone big light bulb hanging from the ceiling that lit up the whole garage. We looked around for Steely Armor but he was nowhere to be found. "Heeeey! anybody here?" Rainbow Dash shouted. "Aagh!" We heard a clunk as Steely Armor rolled out from under a blue van, "Over here!” he rubbed his head. “Ow, my head.” "Are you ok?" "Yeah, I'm ok." he stood up and cleaned his oiled hands with a green rag. "bring them in!" Rainbow Dash dragged her motorcycle inside and stabilized it on the spot that Steely Armor was pointing at. He then put on his goggles and stabilized his hat on his head, "It should only take a few minutes," he said and got to work. Rainbow Dash stood near him and watched him as he tinkered with her motorcycle. Meanwhile I brought my motorcycle in and decided to look around the garage a bit more. There were various machine parts on the shelves, both old and rather new. There were various wrenches and tools hanging on the wall, I dare say it was a complete set actually. There were also many parts I couldn't make out what they were, his shelves weren't really organized. But what drew my attention was what was in the corner of the garage. A small desk with pens and pencils on it. As I got closer, I saw something else on the wooden desk. A blueprint. I looked over my shoulder to see if Steely Armor was paying attention or not, and when I made sure that he wasn't, I took a closer look at the blueprint. From what I could gather it looked like a mechanical claw, however, what raised the biggest question was how the scales and description was put down. In shapes. In various shapes that apparently resembled a language. A coded one. But unlike the other parts, the text on the top was written normally: "E.C.H.O stabilizer". After a bit more looking, I saw the same claw of the blueprint on the desk, it had some wires wrapped around it and some that were connected to it from the bottom and had naked ends. "Hey uh, what is this?" I pointed at the blueprint as I was looking at the blueprint. "What?" He was messing around with Rainbow's motorcycle when I asked that and turned his head to look at me. When he saw me near the desk his eyes widened in shock. "Uh, I-I-it's nothing!" he stood up in a split second and came towards me. "Okay?" I said, as he pushed me aside and put a few sheets of paper on the blueprint. "Are you sure it's nothing?" He turned back, "Y-yeah, I-it's nothing really." He tried his best to give a smile but he was very paranoid. His lips and jaw didn't assist him and what came out was an extremely awkward face. I stepped back and walked to Rainbow Dash. I thought it wasn't a big deal at first but the way he reacted was concerning. Rainbow gave me a nudge once I got to her. "What was that all about?" "I'll tell you later" I crossed my arms and stood still. Steely Armor came back and started tinkering with Rainbows bike, he seemed stressed however. He was watching me sporadically every now and then while opening up some places on the motorcycle. And after a while he took his rag and cleaned his hands with it. "It seems the oil pump doesn’t have the pressure it needs to have. Which means that the exhaust is backing up into the motor's pipes that results in the engine cutting out....that is beside the leakage it had from having a loose screw." "so, how long is it going to take?" Rainbow Dash asked, turning her head in different angles to see her bike. "It's done." he said as he put his wrench in the toolbox near him. "Wait, you're done?'' Rainbow Dash walked forward, inspecting her bike from every side possible, left, right, down, up everywhere, and yet she still couldn't believe it. "Are you serious? Steely Armor remained silent and nodded. Rainbow Dash turned her motorcycle on and the engine roared to life. Just after that the rock that was stuck in the exhaust flew out. "Wow! you are really good at this!" Rainbow Dash's complement didn't make him flinch, literally no emotion. "Now yours." he looked at me, his eyes looked way bigger behind his goggles. It looked oddly funny, but I beat myself up not to laugh and dragged my motorcycle to the spot. This time I paid more attention to how he fixes stuff. He first fully inspected the motorcycle, took out some parts to inspect the inside as well but because he wasn’t elaborating on what he was doing as much so I decided to ask him about it. "So how is it?" "...pretty bad, it needs the oil to be changed, the carburetor hasn't been working probably and has damaged the engine significantly. The washers need to be changed too. I doubt you took this to a mechanic for years." "Uhh, yeah! right on the spot!" "Well, you should take it every once in a while, or else you should say goodbye to it, look, even the spark plug is messed up" he stood up and went looking at the shelves and brought some pieces: an engine that looked fresh, and some washers and a spark plug. "I need to replace these." And so he started, he opened my bike and took out the wreck of an engine that was inside like an expert heart surgeon and put in the new engine. He wasn't even looking away from it when he wanted to change tools. He replaced the washers in a flash of a second and finally detached the spark plug and put the new one in the place. My motorcycle got renewed! "Wow! you...you're amazing!...uhm, so, how much should we-" "NOTHING!," he shook his head, "w-well I mainly wanted to return the favor of you helping Flame, so....nothing." he gave me an awkward smile. the pressure behind it could be seen in his eyes. "Thank you!" I said, giving him a smile, "You have no idea how grateful I am, I probably didn't have enough cash to get the engine fixed anywhere else." I looked at the desk in the corner once again from a distance before leaving. Once we got out Rainbow asked about what happened. “You’re not gonna tell me what happened?” "There was this...blueprint on the desk for a claw, but it wasn't normal.” "What do you mean?" She got on her motorcycle. "It was written in shapes!" I also got on mine. Rainbow looked at me, lost. "What?” I sighed, although her question was mine too. "I don't know, and it may not be important at all. However, I think I gotta talk about this to someone." Author's Note Make sure to read the next chapters too! Clouded thoughtsRainbow Dash and I parted ways after that, however I could still hear her shouting "THIS IS AWESOOOOOOOME!" from a mile away. But I don't blame her. My motorcycle felt alive again. it was working flawlessly! I dare say even better than when I first got it. Steely Armor did me a great favor by fixing this for me. I got home pretty quick. My body felt sore from dragging my motorcycle, so I just crashed on my bed and before I knew it, I was napping. When I woke up, it was six-ish. I crawled out of the bed to change my clothes to something more comfortable and dropped on my couch. My mind was wondering about what had happened with Steely and what that blueprint was. He seemed really protective about it. I mean, he does act like the type that doesn't like engaging with others a lot but, still, why a blueprint in shapes? I was just looking around the social media for stuff to pass time, but I just couldn't get the thought off of my head, so I messaged Twilight to see whether she could help me or not. -Hey -Hi -How are you? -I'm good, a bit tired but ok -How are you? -preparing my new schedule for next week "Of course you are!" I thought to myself. -how is spike? -he's eating his food -dinner or evening meal? -I don't know...he has been eating quite sporadically these days. -why don't you make a schedule for his eating too? -WOW! that's an amazing idea! I literally face-palmed myself when I read that. -I meant it as a joke -Oh. -you're still going to do it anyway, right? She didn't respond for a while. -NO! -(-_-) -never mind "I'm sorry Spike!" I said, even though no one was there. -hey, I wanted to ask you something -how would you describe Steely Armor? -Tall, wears a hat and goggles on top. A little chubby. No, I meant as in his personality and how he is overall. -we don't talk much about anything other than magic and our theories on it, but he seems like a nice guy?. -why are you asking this? I felt that explaining all that over text would have taken a long time, so I decided to call her. -Hold on I got up to a sitting position on the couch. As I tapped my phone to call Twilight, I felt something wet on my left cheek. It was Ray, rubbing his head against my cheek. I picked him up with my finger and let him be there. After a few rings, Twilight picked up. "Hello Sunset!" "Hey, so, I think it's better if I tell the story here." "Ok, ugh, hold on." Her voice got all muffled all of a sudden and I could barely hear her. "What is it, Spike?...Yes, it’s her. Why?" And then, I could hear her clearly again. "Hey Sunset, I'm going to turn on the webcam so Spike can see you." "Ah, no problem." I adjusted myself on the couch before my camera turned on. And held the phone in front of me and made sure it was catching my face. Moments later, Twilight's camera also turned on and showed her holding Spike with her hands. I reckoned she had adjusted her phone somewhere since she was holding Spike with both hands. Spike greeted me the moment he saw me. "Hi Sunset!" "Hi Spike! Have you eaten your dinner?" "Um, more like an afternoon snack, to be honest." He rubbed his eyes with his paw. "That's good too." Twilight adjusted her glasses and spoke up. "So what did you want to say?" "Right! So Rainbow Dash and I took our motorcycles to his garage today and-" "He has a garage?" Twilight's face twisted and her eyes narrowed. "Where?" "In the Car’s Graveyard. It seems he runs the place." Twilight was silent. Her eyes narrowing and her lips pushed on one another. I knew she was deep in thought so I stayed silent too. However, after a few seconds, the silence was broken. "How is he working there? Usually the authorities choose someone to take care of things there, and I doubt they would pick a high school teen." "What do you mean by that?" I asked. "The Car's Graveyard is not public domain. It's private, and authorities have the responsibility of watching over it. Now, as far as I recall, it was an abandoned project by them, however I doubt they have not put someone in charge of it." She rubbed Spike's head as she was explaining. "Steely Armor managing to get a garage there's just...something that gets your attention." "Well, that is interesting..." I shook my head. "Anyway, as I was saying," "Oh right, right, sorry!" She rapidly nodded and picked up Spike, put her hand under his belly and the other on his head. "We saw — or I mean, I saw a blueprint there, which was written in weird symbols." Twilight was playing with Spike a little bit but when I said that, she came closer to her phone. "A what?" I rolled my eyes, "A blueprint! In some weird language! The scales, the descriptions, all of them were in weird symbols and shapes." "Okaaaaaaaay?" Her head twisted around a little and she raised her eyebrow. "And when I asked him about it, he rushed towards it and covered the thing up saying that it was really nothing!" I paused for a second to gather my thoughts. "He even pushed me to prevent me from looking at it." "Huh, that is weird." She looked down for a second, probably trying to put things together. "Uhm, Twilight?" She looked at me again. "Yes?" I pointed at the camera, trying to show her Spike who had fallen asleep. "Oh, I....I'll talk to you later Sunset." She hung up. I turned my phone off and tossed it aside. I thought of just passing time and playing some games but all the thoughts and questions I had in my head felt like a storm on a sunny beach, and I just couldn't stop wondering. Wondering what it all meant. "Why put in the effort to write everything in symbols? Is it that important that you don't want others to figure out what it is? If so, what is it?" My head was exploding! I just couldn't relax with anything now. Not even the new Tirek Rampage game I’d bought recently! I legitimately thought that would help, but even hack-and-slash was not the cure! So I started looking at it from a different angle: "From what I’ve gathered about Steely Armor, he is an antisocial dude who clearly is not very keen on opening up, maybe he just doesn't like people looking at his stuff!" That helped a little. "Am I overthinking this?" I thought to myself while staring at the lonely white lamp that was hanging from the ceiling. "Maybe" I sat on the couch to think more straight, "But even if I am, It's better to be cautious!" I stood up and started walking around my not-so-big living room, but in the end I convinced myself to go back to sleep. Author's Note Special thanks to Cyonix for editing this chapter. Suspicion intensifiesI hardly managed to fall asleep that night with all the thoughts in my head. I headed to school with my now 'renewed' motorcycle and I just couldn't stop being baffled by how perfectly it was working. It started easily, roared like a lion in the wild and it didn't make any sound that was concerning. I got to school early that day. Apparently, I had underestimated my motorcycle's capabilities. I made sure I locked it up nice and tight and left it in the yard. Not many students were there yet so I decided to head to my locker real quick and dump my stuff in it. I took out Geometry and physics and put Math and Calculus in, the rest of the schedule was the same. For me at least! After I closed my locker, I noticed someone walking past me very quickly, so quickly that I felt the swoosh of air rushing past. I turned back out of instinct, only to see a rather large figure take a left turn around a corner before I managed to completely make out who they were. I managed to make out that they were wearing a blue shirt, and I thought I saw something in their hand, but wasn't sure. "Was that Steely Armor?" A thought jumped into my head, but before I could take that thought and make sure of it by going after the figure, I was interrupted by a familiar voice. "Hey Sunshim! how is it going?" I looked back and saw Rainbow Dash's face decorated with a soft smile. "Oh. Hi Rainbow," I responded to her smile with a smile of my own. "I’d say better than yesterday, now that my motorcycle is fixed." "Oh man, mine is just sooooooo AWESOME right now. Back before we took it to Steely, it really wasn't doing that well. But now you can hear the ' when it starts." She tried to replicate herself riding the motorcycle by twisting her hands. Clearly I was not the only one who was impressed by Steely Armor's work. "That's good to hear." "Were you looking for someone, by the way?" She looked around the hallway. "No.....never mind." I gave up on that trail of thought. "So, why are you so early today?" I started walking back to the main entrance. "I was excited to use my bike!'' She started walking beside me. "I get what you mean!" We walked together back to the entrance and waited there for the others to show up. Usually the last quarter to the first class is when everyone shows up. That is, if there is not a particular club like the Parade happening before it. We were laying on the lockers for quite some time till Rainbow Dash decided to break the silence. "Hey, um, you never told me what exactly happened yesterday at Steely Armor's garage that made him rush towards you in a hurry." I took a deep breath and crossed my arms. "The truth is, I don't know either. I think it was something personal or something he didn't want us to see. But...." "But?" She raised her eyebrow slightly. "But something is fishy about it." I shook my head. "Maybe I'm just looking at this the wrong way. I don't know!" Before Rainbow Dash could say anything, Pinkie Pie jumped between us out of nowhere. "Heeeeeey Rainbow! Hey Sunset!" She grabbed our necks in her arms and pulled us to herself. "Oouh!" I said as I tried to release my head from her grasp. "Pinkie! let got, it-" "HURTS!" We both shouted. She let go of both of our necks immediately. "Oh, sorry!" She tried to hold her laughter with her hand. "It's ok," I rubbed my neck, "Just, do it a bit less aggressively next time." "Or not at all!” Rainbow Dash added. Pinkie stood in front of us, moving around constantly, jumping up and down and asking questions and talking non-stop. Whenever she is around, I don't feel how time passes. She told us a weird story about gum that I can't quite remember. However, before I knew it, the others came one by one. "Oooooooh, hi Fluttershy!" She waved her hand rapidly and gave us all a giant smile. "Hi!" Fluttershy said softly and forced herself to wave her hand. She had been there for a while, but I had just been so into Pinkie Pie's story that I hadn’t even noticed her. "Oh, um, hi Fluttershy. Since when have you been here?" "Since 'Gum tried to bite the ice cube'." She adjusted the back pack and Angel tried to hold herself with Fluttershy's shoulder. Rainbow Dash came closer to her and gave me a little nudge. "Man, we really didn't see you there." It was then that Rarity and Applejack stepped into the room too. "I'm telling you darling, you should take better care of your skin!" Rarity said, touching Applejack's face with one of her fingers. "But ah got no time for that! Besides, who needs to put those weird masks on?" She rolled her eyes. We greeted them both and they joined us as we listened to Pinkie's weird story. We all started talking for a while. But it was getting close to the first class and Twilight hadn't shown up yet. I was certain Twilight wouldn't be late for physics, but with every second that passed, I was getting less and less confident. The time for the first class started. We all headed to our own classes. Geometry was first. The teacher hadn't stepped into the classroom and I was staring at the door in hopes for Twilight to show up. I was looking closely at the door handle, the blue painted planks until I suddenly heard some footsteps. The sound was hard to follow when almost all the students were talking to one another. However, I could tell they were coming towards the class. A few seconds later, Miss Golden Ratio stepped into the class. My hopes for seeing Twilight before her were shattered. As the students saw her in her puffy clothes and black skirt, they became silent. "Good morning class, open your books to page 31, and let's get started." She put her notebooks and her own textbook on the desk. She bent down and opened it to a certain page. She then picked up her blue pen and list to check who was absent. "Let's do the role call real quick! OK, Crimson Napalm!" "Ready!" he said from the back of the class. And Miss Golden Ratio noted down and moved on to the next student. "Flash Sentry?" "I'm here!" She called every student one by one until she got to me. "Sunset Shimmer?" I responded without delay, "I'm ready!" "Steely Armor?" "I am ready." And it was then that she got to Twilight's name. She called it only two times and was about to move on when suddenly someone knocked on the door and opened it. It was no one else other than Twilight. She was panting heavily and was almost about to collapse. "I....I ah, ready!" The whole class was staring at her as she walked her way slowly to sit next to me. Miss Golden Ration softly asked her whether she was fine or not, to which she replied with a nod. "OK then. Uhm, Wallflower Blush?" "I....I'm ready!" "OK, everyone's here, so let's start!" She put down the list and her pen on the desk again and picked up the chalk. She drew the shapes that were on page 31 on the board and started teaching. Just seeing Twilight's state, I couldn't focus on the subject properly. I leaned towards her a little and whispered, "Are you ok?" She looked at me and leaned closer. "It's a long story. I will tell you after class." So I sat down and listened to the lesson. It was not very hard but I could see why Miss Golden Ratio was rushing through it. I took a quick glance at the next lessons and they seemed to be pretty complex trigonometry . So my assumption was that she wanted to save time by not sticking around on this subject to give us more time to work on the other ones next week. The students didn't have many questions either. It seemed the subject was as clear and straightforward for them as it was for me. After class I asked Twilight about what happened and why she was late as we both were walking to our lockers. She sighed and stretched a little bit. "Spike decided to follow a squirrel mid-way here so I had to run all the way to catch up with them." It was then that Spike stuck his head out of her backpack. "That squirrel was sticking its tongue at me!" Twilight sighed again. "And before we knew it we were way further than we expected and I had to run the whole way." I patted her on the back. "At least look on the bright side. Spike got a workout." "I guess," she said, looking at Spike over her shoulder. And then Twilight adjusted her backpack, while she stretched a little bit more. "I just remembered..." She caught my attention. "I've been thinking about what you were saying about Steely Armor. I thought maybe it was just something very personal or I don't know." "Yeah, I....am kinda on the same wavelength right now." "But..." I looked at her to see what she wanted to say. "But it's weird anyway....?" "Sort of. Both there being a blueprint written in shapes and him working in Car's Graveyard." We got to my locker then. "Hey, you go catch up with the girls I'll join you in a bit." "OK." She then wandered off. I needed to pick my Physics notebook, but as I was looking in my locker to find it, a tiny yellow sheet of paper fell from the peepholes of my locker onto the ground. I looked around to check if anyone was nearby. But except for a few students who were also checking their lockers, no one else was in that section. I kneeled down and picked it up. I turned it around and read what was written on it: "Wait for me after school, I have something to tell you. -Flaming Star" I was quite shocked to see his name there. But mostly, I was furious because I recalled my tutoring session with him. "He better have an apology readied up," I thought to myself and put the paper in my pocket. After that I continued the search for my notebook. I joined the girls after I found it. This time, it was easier to find them now that I knew they were waiting in the main hall as always. When I got there, Rainbow Dash was in the spotlight. "It's going soooo smooth. Steering it has become waaaaay easier." Rainbow Dash jumped in front of Applejack. "Uh huh," Applejack said, and then noticed me. "Look who's here! Ah reckon ya can tell us what you two did yesterday?" She came closer and gave me a nudge. "Hi guys and...uhhh, what thing, exactly?" I narrowed my eyes and looked at them both after I waved at the girls. "SUNSET!" Pinkie just showed up in front of me out of nowhere. "OH DEAR CELESTIA!" I jumped back, and took a few seconds to breathe. "PINKIE!" "RainbowsaidthatyoutwotookyourmotorcyclestoSteelyArmorandherepairedthemforyoutwoforfreeandtheyaregoingsoooo fastandsmoothsincethen!" She paused for a few seconds with a big smile on her face. "OH, also, sorry about that, didn't mean to scare you!" "It's...ok, just...don't do it again alright?" "Pinkie promise!" "And, please repeat whatever you just said." Pinkie took a deep breath but before she started Rarity put her hand on her shoulder. "Uh, slower, darling!" "Rainbow said that you two took your motorcycles to Steely Armor and he repaired them for you two for free and they are going soooo fast and smooth since then." I let out a sigh. "Yep, we did, and they are pretty amazing now." Twilight looked at me and said, "And he has a garage near Car’s Graveyard." "Yeah, we took our motorcycles there to get them fixed." "Does he....own the place?" Fluttershy asked, raising a finger slightly. I shrugged. "I don't know, but it seemed like he knew his way around there." "Though I still doubt that whatever he is doing there is legal." Twilight added, crossing her arms. "What do you mean by that, Twilight dear?" Rarity asked, raising an eyebrow. Twilight adjusted her glasses before responding. "Like, I doubt someone can start a certified garage in an authorized area." "It's an authorized area?" Rainbow Dash asked. "But the place looks more like a wasteland." "She's right!" Applejack followed up. "It's jus' filled with trash tha' no-one takes care of!" Twilight wanted to elaborate more on the topic but I decided to step in. "Let's just say it's a long story." It was time for the second class. We each had to head to our classes. Twilight, Rainbow and I had Physics and the others headed to art class. The subject was about electromagnetic fields but to be honest I didn't really pay much attention. I was thinking about what Twilight was saying a bit more. If Twilight was right, which she probably was, it opened up a whole other layer about Steely Armor. "How is he staying and messing around with stuff in Car’s Graveyard? He probably doesn't have the permission to be there, does he?" And then a thought just hit me. "What if he doesn't own the blueprint and he just found it?" There was a lot of crap in there so I would not be surprised if he found a random weird blueprint while scavenging there. But what about the claw that was there? I doubt he found that one. "Maybe he managed to decipher the blueprint and actually create what was on it." It was not until after the class was over that I held my thoughts back again. "C'mon Sunset, it's not that big of a deal. Let's go already!" But for some reason I just couldn't. I was walking down the halls alone. I needed some time to put my thoughts together so I decided not to go with the girls this time. However, suddenly I saw a tennis ball get shot full force and hit a locker. I was frozen in place. The speed and the force with which that tennis ball had been shot was so much that it had damaged the locker! "Has someone brought a tennis machine and put it on extreme?" I thought. I slowly stepped forward and looked down the way the ball was shot from. It came from the lab! And someone was stepping out of there in a hurry! "HEY! WAIT!" I shouted as I started chasing after them. From what I could gather from so far away, they looked suspiciously familiar. They started to speed up too, but they were not very fast. It seemed as if they were carrying something that slowed them down, but I couldn't tell exactly what. I sped up too. I was closing the distance rather quickly and as I got closer and closer, I was getting more certain of who I was chasing. There were not many students in that part of the school that day so it was easier for me to keep my eyes on them. I was very close, so much so I could clearly see their snapback hat and their blue shirt. But suddenly they took a sharp turn that I couldn't execute properly since I was going too quickly. As a result, I crashed into the lockers and was dazed for a couple of seconds. When I was on my feet again, I was in a crowded hallway filled with students. The runner probably knew they could lose me here but unfortunately for them, I had already recognized them. I went looking around among the students but I had no luck finding him. It was then that I stumbled into Fluttershy! We crashed to one another as I was not paying attention. "OH! Sorry Fluttershy. Didn't see you there!" "Oh, no....it's ok." She tried to maintain her balance. "Are you alright?" I asked. "Yeah, I-i'm fine." She was finally able to stand without assistance. "I-I just have a lot in my head that's....all." "I know what you mean." I stepped back to let her have some space. It was then that I noticed the painting she had in her hands. "Hey, what is that? Shouldn't you leave your arts in the classroom?" She then turned the canvas towards me and I saw it. It was us! Me, her, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Pinkie Pie. we were all holding each other's hand. "I thought maybe.....I should share this with you all," she said as she hid her face with her hair. I was staring at her drawing for a few minutes, She had drawn us perfectly! Our hair! Our dresses! Everything! "Oh dear Celestia! This.....is....AMAZING!" "Y-you like it?" She showed her face again with a soft smile on it. "I like it? I LOVE IT!" I took the painting from her to look at it closely. "C'mon, let's go show this to the girls!" And yes, I forgot what I wanted to do the moment I saw her painting. But don't blame me. It was just breathtaking. I wish there was a way I could have shared it with you. But maybe one day that we meet up again I will show you a picture or something. Anyway as I was saying: We went to find the girls and show them Fluttershy's painting. Thankfully it didn't take us long to do so. And as I suspected, they too were in love with it! Rarity took it from my hand and looked at it closely. "Oh my! Fluttershy darling this.....this is fabulous!" She then holds it in front of others to see too. "Just look at those fine lines of details on my dress....I mean....our dresses." "OH, OH, OH!" Pinkie jumped forward and bounced in front of the painting. "THAT'S ME! THAT'S ME!" "Yeah yeah Pinkie! we get it!" Rainbow Dash held her back to be able to see the painting. The moment she laid her eyes on it, they glowed bright like diamonds. "Tha-tha.....that is......." "AWESOOOOOOOOOOOOOME!" She shouted so loudly that every student peered to see what was going on. Fluttershy was blushing, though she tried to hide it. "uh-uhm....th-tanks." Twilight took a peek from the side while she was adjusting her glasses. "OH WOW! This looks fantastic Fluttershy!" She then looked at Applejack. "Hey come see this!" Applejack took a peek at the painting too and tightened her eyes, "To be honest, my eyes ain't that big." Twilight gave her a nudge. "A-ah mean....it looks pretty good!" She held a smile. "Thank you all, it really means a lot to me." Fluttershy took the painting from Rarity. "Especially since it's coming from you guys." "I mean it's amazing!" I came closer to her. "I'm just happy I didn't accidentally damage it when I bumped into you." I said as I scratched my head. Fluttershy laughed silently. "It's OK, Sunset. Before that Steely Armor bumped into me and he was even worse." And just when she said that, I remembered what I wanted to do. I facepalmed myself afterwards and grabbed Twilight away before the next class started. "Wa-wait what are you doi-?" "No time to explain!" After I took her to a less crowded hallway I let go of her shirt. And she stepped back immediately. "What is all of this Sunset!?" She pushed me off. "Why did you drag me all the way here?" "Just listen!" I held her shoulders. "The situation with Steely Armor has just gotten more complicated." "How so?" "OK, so I was thinking to myself about the things you were saying. And suddenly this tennis ball hits a locker so hard that the locker got blunted." "I mean if you just throw the ball hard enou-" She wanted to explain stuff but I didn't have time for that. "IT WAS SHOT FROM THE END OF THE HALLWAY!" I shook her. But I realized I was doing it too intensely so I let go of her. "Sorry, I didn't mean to do that." She, who had her glasses all messed up and her hair quite messy from my intense shaking, picked up her glasses and put them back on properly. "I-it's alright...." She paused for a second. "How did a tennis ball get thrown from down the hallway and manage to blunt the locker? the only person I know that can do that might be Applejack." "It was like a tennis ball machine set on extreme!" I stepped back and tried to emphasize with my hand gesture. "Besides, It wasn't Applejack.....It was Steely Armor that I saw down the hallway." "And I doubt he had a tennis ball machine with him." She crossed her arms. "No, but he was holding something. I couldn't make out what it was." "So what happened next?" "I chased him down and he started running. He wasn't very fast. I almost caught up with him but he took a hard turn and I just crashed into the lockers and lost him." "Wait, are you feeling OK?" she asked, trying to check up on my face for any potential bruises. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." I pushed her hands back. "It's just that....the more I think about it the more concerned I get with Steely Armor. You know I don't want what happened with sirens to happen again." Twilight paused for a few seconds and tightened her eyes. "Sorry Sunset but, I don't think this goes back to the sirens.....nor do you think like that." I looked her in the eyes. I could see my reflection in them. "What do you mean by that?" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before answering. "You are not afraid the same thing that happened with sirens will happen with Steely Armor. You are afraid of what happened with me happening to him!" I stood in silence. Truth be told, she was right! This whole time that he and Twilight had been tinkering with magic I had that fear in me. Of Steely Armor getting so into magic that he ended up going through what Twilight has. I didn't want to take the risk with him. "I-" I wanted to respond but twilight beat me to it. "I have the same fear too!" She looked down in shame. "I...just...don't want to accept or...end up looking at it the wrong way." She then shook her head and took another deep breath. "But I promised myself that I won't let what happened to me happen to anyone else." As I was staring at her eyes I could clearly see that she meant every single word she said. "So what do you have in mind?" Twilight asked. I stood silent for a few seconds because I was still shocked by her words. "Uh, uh I'm...I'm gonna talk to him. This time however, I can use vice principal Luna to convince him to tell us about whatever he has been doing." Twilight shook her head, "NO, let's not go that far yet. I'll be staying to do a little bit more research on magic. Then I will ask him about the whole situation. If he doesn't give a proper answer, then we'll use pressure." I nodded and agreed with her. Sadly before our talk could go any further, we had to go back to class. Author's Note Special thanks to Cyonix for editing this chapter. An apology?After school, we all gathered to say goodbye to one another, before everyone headed off. Except me. I was waiting for Flaming Star to show up as he had asked me in his note. So I sat down on the stairs, waiting. After a while, Flaming Star showed up. I noticed he was holding something behind him but couldn't tell what exactly. "Hi," he said. "Hi." I gave a half wave of a hand. "Is there something you wanted to tell me?" Flaming Star stepped forward and revealed what he was holding. It was a bouquet of sunflowers. And they looked fresh. "These are-um, for you." "Oh, wow." I took them from him. "I uh- thanks." The petals looked as bright as the sun. I wanted to know where he got them but, "Wait, how did you know my favorite flower?" I raised an eyebrow. "Let's say it was a lucky guess." He gave me a smirk. "Riiiiiiiight!" I rolled my eyes. "OK fine. I figured your name would be a clue." We both stared at one another for a few seconds until I decided to break the silence. "Anyway, thanks again for these." "It's nothing, really." He shook his hand in the air. "So uh, do you mind walking for a bit?" I looked at him and took a second to make my decision. "Sure!" We started walking with one another. I was not sure how long the walk would take but I didn’t mind, since the air that afternoon was quite fresh. Not long after we had started walking, Flaming Star spoke up. "So, you remember that time you were tutoring me?" "You mean two days ago?" "Yeah." "Of course I do!" I narrowed my eyes and looked at him. "Every. Single. Second of it!" He bit his lip. "I thought so." We stayed silent for a while. Long enough that it was getting rather awkward. "So, is this like, your apology plan or something?" I said as I took another look at the flowers. "Well, not exactly!" Flaming Star rubbed his head. "It's more of a "thank you" plan." At first I was confused but it hit me soon afterwards. "OH! Right, how did the thing with your father go?" "I talked to him." Flaming Star nodded "It worked way better than I expected." He then stopped and pointed with his thumb to somewhere. "Hey, you wanna get something? I’ll pay." I leaned to the side and saw that he was pointing at a café "I mean, why not?" I gave him a smile. We both entered the café. It was rather empty but it did have nice decorations with the way brownish wooden planks accompanied with the natural lighting that came from the windows next to every table gave it a unique look. We sat down behind a table. The waitress came to take our order. Since the café was rather close to school and I had never tried anything there, I decided to see if they have a good quality in their services too or not. So I ordered a milkshake. I have gone to multiple cafés and I have drank many milkshakes to a point that I have developed a very specific taste for them. Flaming Star, on the other hand, ordered an orange juice — a rather odd choice, to say the least. After the waitress left, I started the conversation again. "So, you were saying that you talked to your father?" "He responded way better than I could even imagine." He put his hands on the table. "Well, I am glad you sorted out the problem." "Yeah." He sighed and gave me a smile. "Thanks, for your suggestion..." He paused for a second and turned his smile into a smirk. "...And for tutoring me." I crossed my arms and leaned back. "Not the apology I was looking for but," I glared before continuing. "I guess I accept it." He leaned back on his seat and put his hands behind his head. "I guess the flowers did the trick, then." "Yeah, maybe that too." They brought our order then. Quite fast, but it was also not very crowded. My milkshake was in a tall cup with a pink straw. It looked nice, and I gave it a taste. It wasn't bad, but it wasn’t good, either. Since we were not in a hurry, I gave another try at breaking the ice with Flaming Star. "So, how is your magic practice going with Steely Armor?" "It is going nice. He made me these gloves" — he showed me his hands — "that help me maintain my magic easier." "How?" "He said he made them from firefighters' clothes, so it might stop my fire powers to some extent." "Wait!" I raised my hands to stop him there. "How did he know that?" "He didn't!" He shook his head. "He was like: ‘It should work!’" He made air quotes. “Steely can be a little odd sometimes. Like, he has cameras set up everywhere.” “Thats very odd!” I slurped a little of my milkshake. "So you are getting the hang of it." "Kinda?" He took a gulp of his orange juice. A thought just hit me then. 'I can probably find out more about Steely Armor and Flaming Star right now.' We had time, too. So I started. "Hey, how did you two meet up?" I asked as I took another slurp from my milkshake. "You two seem very close." He looked at me for a second and put down his glass. "Well, where do I start?" he looked out the window. "Back in Falcon Stone, you know the elementary one, I had a lot of people who thought I was cool." He paused for a second before continuing. “And I thought they all were my 'friends' but, when the time came, they all backed up. All of them!" He drank a little bit more from his orange juice and continued. "But Steely, he stayed. He, was there for me. Since then, we've always been together. From then I realized that he is the one I should be calling 'friend'" "I see." I nodded and looked out. The sun had almost set. Apparently time had passed faster than I expected. I slurped the milkshake faster. "Hey," Flaming Star said. "How did you all meet up?" I almost slurped a little too much and was about to choke when I heard that. I coughed a couple times before responding. "We-well w-we, uhm, we uh-uh it just, how do I put it?" I moved my hands around in the air till it hit me. "IT'S A LONG STORY!" I had shouted that last part. I felt all the few people that were in the café were staring at me. "Ooooookaaaay" Flaming Star said as he narrowed his eyes. "If you don't feel comfortable it's OK." "NO NO NO! It's just that uh, It's a really long story! And I...uh..." I picked up the flowers and my backpack and stood up. "Actually, It's getting late and I need to do some stuff so yeah, bye!" "Wait, what?" I got out of there in a flash. I panicked for not a very good reason but, the truth is, I really hadn’t been expecting that question. I neither was ready nor knew how I wanted to explain everything to them. It's just not easy to convince people of this world about a world that is full of magical ponies and various creatures that they think of as myths. I could have gone back to school and picked up my motorcycle but I wanted to walk the rest of the way home. I needed to think a little. Breaking the truth to the boys would be hard. I could just give them an outline and not go into details, but they would probably ask questions and I couldn’t just ignore them every single time. But by telling the truth, I will have to tell them about my past too. What if they.... "NO Sunset! Don't go there." I told myself before my chain of thoughts took me somewhere I didn't want to go. When I woke up, my body hurt a little. I probably tossed and turned a lot in my sleep. Anyway, I went and started doing my Physics homework, but after about thirty minutes of reading the book to get an understanding of the subject, I realized I understood absolutely nothing. I should have been listening in class. Thankfully I still had Twilight to rely on. The moment I picked up my phone, I remembered that I had to ask her about how the talk with Steely Armor had gone too. I messaged her to see if she was available or not. And she replied in a few seconds. -Hey -Hey -How did it go? -what? -Thought you said you'd be talking to Steely Armor. (-_-) -Oh right -No luck -but how did it go? -he said it's nothing important and we should not bother -that's nonsense -if it isn't important why is he so protective about it? -I don't know -Well then, I guess it's time for my plan -Are you sure? -yes, if he doesn't budge we have to -It's for the better -ok -Also, -can you help me with physics, I wasn't paying much attention today. -sure -video call? -yeah Author's Note Special thanks to Cyonix for editing this chapter. Know the boundaryThat day after school, I hopped on my motorcycle and headed home right away. Usually on Fridays I dedicate all the remaining hours of the day to myself. Whether it's playing games or simply watching stuff varies. However, that day I had so much on my head that when I got home, I was just laying in bed, trying to put my scattered thoughts together. The only light that was in my room was the dim orange light of the sun that passed through the windows. I tried everything. I tried talking, I let Twilight talk, I tried to make it more serious and I even tried my magic. But none helped me to get one step closer to figure out what Steely Armor has been doing lately. Let alone prevent the possible catastrophe it might have brought. In the process, not only did I gain nothing, I even lost the hard-achieved little progress I made with Flaming Star. However, I had to. I don't like using my magic a lot, but if I feel it is justified, I won't hold it. I rather do what I can to perhaps prevent another catastrophe in CHS than waiting for catastrophe to happen first. But what now? What am I going to do now? Well, It was actually quite clear. I was going to head to Steely Armor's garage. I had a gut feeling that all the weird things that had been happening lately had to do something with that blueprint I saw that other day. It all started when I saw it, and it would have probably ended when I understood what it held. I waited till it was night, dressed up in black so that even if there was guard or something, I could have some more cover in the night. I picked up my phone, the old semi-rusted crowbar that for some reason the previous owner left in the closet, and my back pack. And without any more delays, I hopped on my motorcycle and rode to Car's Graveyard. I won't lie, I was tired, but also desperate. So much so that I didn't even care for the cold wind of the night blasting my face off. If anything, that even helped my eyelids to stay up. But apart from that, I doubted I could have slept with all that happened. Not if I did nothing. It took me way less time to get to Car's Graveyard this time around. There were a car or a pedestrian but apart from them, no one was on the streets. And once I was outside of the city, it was just me, my motorcycle and the road. I parked near Car's Graveyard. No lights, no guard, and not even a gate. Seemed like Twilight was right about this place. I turned on the flashlight on my phone and walked in. Dumps of various cars and vehicles were turned into mountains of rusted metal and dozens of scattered parts around. This time I noticed the place was vaster than I expected. The silhouette of another set of rusted metal mountains could be seen in the distance. Moving my light around, I spotted my target. Steely Armor's Garage. It was closed off by roller doors. I could have opened it with the crowbar but I decided to look around first so that maybe I could have found an easier way to break in. I still wonder whether I was breaking through private property or simply the authorities' domain. Anyway, I had no luck in finding a back door. There was a window but even that was blocked by one of the shelves from the inside. It seemed the only way in was the front way. However, I was not going to attempt breaking the big lock it had with the rusted crowbar I had. "There has to be another way in," I said out loud as I looked at the garage from up to down once more. And suddenly a thought hit me, the roof! I knew the chances of there being a hatch on top would be low. But I wanted to give it a shot. The garage wasn't terribly big but I still needed a ladder of some sort to get on the roof. Thankfully I was in a literal junkyard. And I bet there had to be something that could have helped me. I went looking around in a nearby mountain of junks. I picked one that could have some other stuff other than just car pieces. There were some toys and some messed up furniture in it. I thought maybe it might have a ladder in there. But then again, who throws away a ladder? Like who even replaces their ladder? It's one of those things you buy and keep for the rest of your life. If there was any reason for anyone to throw away your ladder, it would always come down to the ladder breaking or...has been introduced to a bunch of beavers. And yes, I did not find a ladder. Or should I say I did not find a usable ladder. Although, I managed to fetch some rope here and there. They were cut to pieces but I could have tied them together and had a long rope. I just had to find something to use as the hook at the end of the rope. After a bit more searching, I found a metal bar that thankfully was small enough and was possible to be bent. I made a hook out of that and attached it to the end of the rope. I hurled the hook on the roof and after pulling it twice to make sure it's stable enough, I started climbing. Now I just had to hope to not fall off midway in the climb. After a little while I could sense the grip of the hook slipping. I hurried and got to the top and held onto the ledge just in time the hook slipped. After pulling myself up, I looked down to see what sort of fate would have awaited me if I was a bit slow and had to join the grappling hook. Even though the distance wasn't a lot to grant me a broken back, it still could have given myself back pain for a whole week. I looked around the roof. There was a tall antenna that had some wires and cables connected to it that leaded down from the roof. And apart from a lot of pigeon poop scattered around, there was only one more thing that stood out. A hatch door! I quickly took my crowbar out and put it at the edge of the door. The door was not easy to open up. It required a lot of force and I legit was giving it my all. It was not until I put all my weight down on it that it opened. However, the moment I looked down the opened hatch, I noticed a bigger problem. There was no ladder to get down and I had lost my grappling hook. A total fall! To top it all, there wasn't a way back either! I had to fall off the roof to get down from the building too. I either had to drop down, or wait the whole night on the roof and maybe call someone to help me get down in the morning. Sadly I was not planning on sleeping on bird poop which left me with one option. There was one way that I could have neglected the pain of falling such a distance, and that was by rolling the moment I was about to hit the ground. Now how do I know that works? Well I didn't know! I saw it in movies all the time and thought maybe that would work. I dropped my bag and after that I took a deep breath, focused and repeated what I was going to do in my head, pictured it in there and then I dropped down! I made sure I initiated a roll the moment my toes hit the ground. And I did! However what I didn't account for was the distance of which I was going to be rolling. I did not end up with my back like a pancake on the ground, but It did get smacked into the wall. My head was dizzy after the hit. It took me a while to get back on my feet again and once I did, my body still hurt. I stretched a little bit in the darkness and took my phone out and used it's light. I looked around the now dark garage that I got my motorcycle fixed in search for the light switch. There was a blue van in the garage however I didn't mind it much. I found the light switch and turned it on. Not much had changed since the last time I was there. There were various tools and different pieces of vehicles on the shelves. The vans, and a bunch of tools just laying around the floor. The only thing that was granting the light was the lonely light bulb hanging from the ceiling. I walked up to where I saw the blueprint for the first time. The desk in the corner. But there was no blueprint on it this time around. Only a small studying light and some pencils and chalk on there. I looked around the desk to see if I found anything else. There were drawers on the desk. One on each side. I tried to open them but they were locked. I had suspected that the blueprint might have been there. Thankfully, there were various tools at my disposal so I didn't have to rely on the crowbar for opening the drawers. I picked one of the screwdrivers and squeezed the tip in the peephole and used it as a lever. The first drawer put less of a fight than the hatch door on the roof and opened with ease. And the moment I looked at it, I knew I hit the jackpot. The blueprints were rolled inside the drawer alongside one-another. I picked a few and opened them on the table. They all were written in shapes! The only thing I could make out was the shapes they had on them. There was a gauntlet on one. It looked like something out of a sci-fi movie that TV shows on Sundays. The other one was a pair of goggles. Steely Armor's goggles! And last but not least, the claw. I took my phone out and took some shots from them. There was no need to bring the blueprints with myself. And unfortunately, I couldn't find much else. There were more blueprints in the drawers but I thought I had enough pictures. For now at least. After that, I only had to find my way out. Which I only had to get out, how I got in, right? Well, no. Because the hatch was up there and I couldn't find anything that could help me get up there. No ladder, no possible grappling hook, and not even a step. The front entrance was locked up from the other side too. I was stuck. I didn't have a way back on the roof, but now, I didn't have a way back nor a way forward. I got out of a whole, just to fall in another. I couldn't get out, not by myself anyway. I had to get help from someone. But who would be up till midnight? And even come outside of the city to bail me out of a garage in the middle of a junkyard? Still, it was my only ticket out. So I gave it a try. I took my phone and went into my contacts. Now the question was who should I have called? Twilight would have been the best option considering she could open locks with her magic but I was certain she would already be asleep or working on her new schedule. Next up was Applejack. However I knew she would have been asleep too. No super strength for me! I didn't want to bother Fluttershy either. She is not comfortable being out at night. Specially in such places. Nope definitely not her. It seemed I could only hope for three. Rainbow, Pinkie and Rarity. I decided to try Rainbow Dash first. Wasn't sure whether she was playing games till dawn or was knocked out till tomorrow's afternoon but she could get to me faster than anyone else. So I took her number and waited. And waited. And waited, till I realized It would have probably taken hours of doing so for her to finally pick up. "Ugh! C'mon!" I took Pinkie's number afterwards. There was an amazing chance that she would have been awake. To be honest I doubt she even sleeps. Somewhere deep down I feel she just pretends to be asleep every night. Anyway, it didn't take long till she picked up. "Hi Sunset," Pinkie could be heard along with the loud noise of music in the background. "Hi Pinkie! Look, you gotta come to the location I'll be sending you." "WHAT?" she shouted, "I can't hear you!" "I said: YOU HAVE TO COME TO THE LOCATION I'LL SEND YOU!" "Is there a party?" "No, I'm stuck somewhere and I need your help." "You're a sick souvenir?" "NO! I'm STUCK! I. AM. STUCK!" "Oh ok..." She stayed silent for a few seconds and let the sound of music be heard more clearly, "So there is no party there?" "NO!" I was losing my mind! "Just come here ok?" "Alright." She then hung up. I sent the address for her and waited to see if she gave a response or not. And moments later, she replied with: "I'm coming." I sighed, and hoped from the deepest parts of my heart that she'd hurry up. Meanwhile, I walked back to the desk and looked at the blueprints once again. I had nothing better to do anyway. I opened the blueprint that had a picture of a gauntlet, or was it a prosthetic hand I don't know. It had various signs of being electronic on the picture from what looked like lights and wires to the overall design. It looked nothing like a medieval gauntlet. Maybe a bit like the one I saw in that superhero movie, Guardians of the Universe: Battle of infinity? Either that or the one that was labeled Game Finale. Anyway, there wasn't much else I could have gathered from the picture, and I couldn't read what was on it either. After looking at the blueprint with the goggles again, I was certain that it was the same goggles Steely Armor has hanging on his head all the time. So it wasn't just a normal pair of goggles. However, I doubt I'll be using that word for Steely Armor anymore. Just then, I heard the footsteps of someone walking outside. The night was so silent that it could be heard with ease. I walked up to the roller door and put my ear on it. The footsteps were getting louder and louder. They couldn't have been Pinkie. She couldn't have come here that fast. Was it the guard? Does the place even have a guard? Before I could drown myself in more thoughts, I heard the shackling of metal objects bangling. And moments later, the roller door started to open up! I stepped back. Someone was coming in and I imagined being caught or seen there, meant trouble. I walked back and hid myself behind the blue van. I crouched and tried to see if I could get a glimpse of whoever was opening the door to come in. The door was still slowly opening up. Only the shoes and the trousers of the person outside could be seen. After a few seconds the door stopped clanking. And I heard the sound of footsteps coming in. I crouched even lower, and held my breath in hopes of them not noticing me. But it was too late. They already knew me. "Sunset Shimmer, I know you are there!" a strong male voice called, "come out!" I recognized Steely Armors voice, but I didn't know how he knew I was there. But I recalled what Flaming Star said that day. “He has cameras set up everywhere.” I left my hideout. As I stood tall, I could see Steely Armor's face in the dim light of the garage. Frowning, his face no longer lacked emotions. The eyes narrowed and stared at me directly. His arms crossed, resting on his chest. "What are you doing here?" Steely Armor asked, letting go of his crossed arms. I stood in silence. I wasn't sure how I was going to respond. Steely Armor walked forward, "Did you hear me? What are you doing in my garage? How did you even get in?” I took a deep breath. I wasn't expecting this to end up like this, but it seemed I was getting the confrontation I wanted after all. "I came here looking for answers." Steely Armor stopped moving forward. "The answer to what?" I shook my head, "Even now you keep on ignoring the matter." I walked up to the desk, picked up a blueprint and threw it towards him. "The answer to those! What have you been doing lately in school? The answer to how you managed to have a garage in here? How you just, vanished in a hallway?" I raised my voice. Steely Armor crouched and picked up the blueprint as fast as possible. "Why do you want to know?" I sighed before answering, "Because I have been in a similar situation and it didn't go well. I don't want you to go through the same thing!" "What thing? What happened?" he said sarcastically, "You guys never tell me what happened!" I shook my head, "That's because it's not easy to explain" I looked him in the eyes before continuing. "But what is this that you are hiding? At first I wasn't minding it but then, I saw a tennis ball get blasted into a locker in front of me! And don't even try to lie your way out that you weren't the guy running away." Steely Armor took a few steps back and looked down. "And on top of that..." I continued, "...my magic didn't work on you! Why?” He looked at me with his eyes widened only to look away instantly. "It doesn't matter!" he raised his voice. "You shouldn't have come here like this! You must leave!” He pointed outside. I nodded, "No, I shouldn't have...but you left me no choice! I asked you about what was going on multiple times. Twilight even talked to you once! But you were always shaking us off! WHY?" I shouted. "BECAUSE I WAS NOT READY!" Steely Armor shouted back and silenced me with his voice. "I AM NOT READY! IT'S COMPLICATED! IT’S NOT EASY TO EXPLAIN!” "YOU CAN'T AVOID ANSWERING FOREVER!" The moment I said that, everything flashed before my eyes. My thoughts, me talking to Twilight and Flaming Star and their words. It all made sense now. Even though I was not touching Steely Armor, I could sense what he felt. He was just like me. Lost, trying to make sense of what is going on around him without having the puzzle pieces to do so. Both, afraid of what we keep from others. Both, not ready. Steely Armor stood tall and pointed outside once again. His teeth pushing on one another. “LEAVE! NOW!” "I get it..." I said, as I lowered my voice and slowly walked up to Steely Armor. He still refused to look up. "Stay after school on Monday. I will tell you everything that has happened." That caught his attention and made him give me a glimpse from the corner of his eyes. “w-what?” "And sorry...I truly shouldn't have come here...not this way." I picked up my stuff and started walking out. Steely Armor though, still had a few words. "W-w-what d-do you mean?" "I will tell you what happened with magic in our school. You have the right to know it. And I rather do it myself than someone else. And don't worry, I didn't steal anything. I was just...looking." Steely Armor stood still. Looking around, checking stuff, but not saying a word. I texted pinkie to not come anymore and that I had sorted out the situation. Though she didn't see it as soon as I hoped to. I rode my motorcycle home and took some rest. I just passed a long night. I've realized that the true reason why I could never break the ice with the boys wasn't that they weren't used to the school. Or at least that wasn't all of it. I was keeping a boundary between us that I should have thought of breaking sooner. Even though it may be hard, I have to do it. I have to, if I expect the same thing from them. Your friend and student, Sunset Shimmer. Author's Note Stay patient for future stories. And don't forget to leave your thoughts down in the comments! It helps more than you can imagine! Investigation kick-startThat night Twilight explained the basics and sent a few pics with her own solution to help me get started. Which did help me greatly. However she had to take care of Spike and her own studies so she had to leave the call rather early. But I was more than ready to do my homework. It took me about an hour to figure things out and be done with them. To which I say I did really well considering I didn't pay attention in class. I recall back then I forced someone to do my homework. Not proud of it though. If anything I'm more ashamed but all I want to say is, figuring stuff out for yourself can be fun. Granted, you might need a hand to get going but still. The next day I had to walk to school again. But I wasn't in the right mood so I decided to take a bus instead. And thankfully it was not crowded like most of the time. I sat on one of the seats and listened to some music with my headphones on the way. I still hadn't decided what I wanted to do about how I was going to tell the boys about my past and the whole thing about Equestrian magic. It would be very hard to take in all at once but, it would be very incomplete and unclear otherwise. Not that it would come as clear and easy to understand but rather, easier to maintain? I don't know. Even though I still needed to find a solution for that issue, I had to focus on Steely Armor and whatever he was hiding. Then, it had to be my main concern since I had to deal with it sooner than the other one. After a while, I got to school. The bus stops right in front of the school which is very convenient. There isn't really a station there but since it's Canter lot city's main school, it gets a special treatment. The school was more crowded this time when I got there. Probably because we had sports that day. I was heading to my locker once again. I came face to face with Rainbow Dash on the way. "Hey Sunshim!" She put her hand on my shoulder and joined me on the walk. "Hey Rainbow! How is it going?" "Nothing special, just enjoying the 'Vroom Vrooms' of my bike every morning and afternoon." She mimicked being behind the motorcycle again. "How about you?" "Nothing much, I just have a lot in my mind." I sighed. "Have the girls shown up?" "Not yet. But I know pinkie will be here soon." "Yeah, kinda surprised she hasn't showed up yet." "Yeah..." We stayed silent for a couple of seconds until Rainbow Dash decided to break the silence. "Oh, right! uhm Sunset!" "yeah?" "Vice principal Luna wanted to see you. She asked me about you earlier this morning." "Wait...for what?" "I don't know. But the kids say one of the lockers near the lab had been blunted badly somehow. She is probably trying to figure out who did it." "Huh...right..." I said as I went deep in thoughts. I should have known that Vice principal Luna would have probably tried to get to the bottom of the blunted locker the moment she heard about it. Like "duh!" of course she would! "...Wait! What did you mean by the last part?" "Uhm...nothing!' She rubbed her eyes away from me. "Riiiiiiight..." I rolled my eyes over. "FINE!" She gave up on holding back. "I did think that she thought you might be a part of it. But I didn't think that you might be a part of it." She looked me in the eye after that. "I would never think that." "I know." I smiled. "I was just pulling your leg. Besides It doesn't bother me that much anymore." "OHHH!" She rolled her eyes, and gave me a nudge. "You got me good!" After that I left her and went to vice principal Luna's office. I knocked and as soon as she said "come in" I opened the door and entered. The windows were covered with blinds. Sometimes I wonder if she ever let sunlight come in at all. I've been in her office many times, for various reasons. But never have I seen those blinds up. She herself was sitting behind her desk and working with her computer. "You wanted to see me?" I said to catch her attention. Vice principal Luna switched her gaze from the screen of her computer to me. "Sunset Shimmer, yes." She stood up. "Take a seat." I sat down on one of the chairs and then she continued. "Yesterday I found a blunted locker. It looked as if someone smacked it with a hammer. And not just once." She came close to me and bended. "And?" I asked, pulling my face back a little. "There were some issues with the cameras of that section. They blacked out. However I did see you walking there on one of the cameras." she stepped back. "So?" I raised my eyebrow. I was not sure if she was suspecting me or not but I wasn't feeling good about the situation. She sighed, "I know it was not you, it was quite clear to us that you were merely just passing by." She paused and crossed her arms. "At least that is how the camera's show it." "Right. But I still don't know why I am here." I pointed down. She looked me in the eyes once again. "We believe that you might have been able to identify the suspect..." She stepped closer, "...have you?" Now the question was whether I sell Steely Armor or not? On one hand that way I might have gained some insight to what exactly he is doing but on the other hand, I was technically back stabbing someone I am trying to break the ice with. "Sunset Shimmer?" "YES!" "We are still awaiting your answer." "Well...." I rubbed the back of my head. "You see, I don't really have an Idea of who did that, maybe if I think a bit more I might figure it out but I don't think I can name someone with certainty now." Vice principal Luna glared at me. "Fine, you may leave. But keep us informed." "Of course!" I stood up and left her office at once. Sadly there was not much time to catch up with the girls, I had to head to class. Chemistry of all things! Not saying I don't like it. Just that it's not very entertaining. After class, I met up with Twilight first and foremost. "Hi Twilight!" "Oh, Hi Sunset! Didn't see you this morning with the girls. Rainbow Dash said you had to visit vice principal Luna." She tightened her eyes before continuing. "You didn't just...tell the whole thing to her did you?" "If by the whole thing you mean selling Steely Armor, then no. But there is something else." Twilight's eyes widened. "What!?" "Vice principal Luna has noticed what has happened to the locker. Though she can not find who did it because the camera's in that section were not working properly. For...some reason." It started to feel very suspicious that the camera's just conveniently stopped working in that exact area that Steely Armor was. "Then what were you doing in her office?" "Apparently she spotted me nearby by the cameras and thought maybe I would know something." I shrugged, "Or at least that is how she made it sound like." "Huh." She rubbed her chin. "Wait!" She looked me in the eyes before continuing. "Do you even plan on telling her about Steely Armor, even if...he doesn't budge?" I sighed before answering. "Of course not." "NO?" Twilight's head went back. "Yeah, I'm not gonna sell him! It's just not cool. Besides, he is a new entry and ever since the things that had happened in the school, principal Celestia and vice principal Luna rather not take the chances and will straight out expel him." Twilight's eyes widened in shock, "Really?" "Temporary expel at best." I bit my lip. "That is just....not fair." "I mean..." I moved my hand around in the air, "...That happens if they are doing something weird, and not necessarily just breaking the rules or damaging stuff. Though In Steely Armor's case..." I rubbed the back of my head, "well it's just, very shady." "I see," Twilight said as she looked down and rubbed his hand. I wondered if she felt she was responsible for the current situation with the new entries. She seemed very down when I mentioned how the staff watches the new entries now. But even if she had a part in it, she was only a victim. "Hey." I nudged her with my elbow. "Where is Spike?" Twilight adjusted her back pack, "OH!" She then sighed. ``he was very tired so I let him stay at home. I sort of forgot that he wasn't in the bag today." "I doubt I will ever feel the same with Ray. Half the time he just sneaks up on my cheek without me noticing and the other times he is just doing his own thing." Twilight smiled, "Don't you ever lose him? Like, he is small." "Sometimes I think I have..." I nodded, "...But then I check in the mirror and see he has been sitting on my head the whole time." Twilight's smile turned into laughter and gave me a little push. "You should have seen Spike's face that time I busted him eating a snack at night." "Let me guess, he was probably like..." I widened my eyes, brought my lower jaw back and looked at Twilight from the side. The moment Twilight saw me with that face she chuckled loudly. "Pretty much!" We both slowly let out the rest of the laughter we were holding on after that. I dare say I managed to cheer Twilight up so much that she probably lost her train of thoughts. "Hey, uhm," Twilight said. "yes?" "So...what are we going to do about Steely Armor now?" "I'll talk to him. I might have to threaten him by saying that I will snitch on him and what might happen, but it's for the better." I shook my head. Twilight took a second to gather her thoughts again by looking away. "But, what if that doesn't work too?" I sighed and looked her in the eye before answering, "Then I officially have the privilege to use my magic." "Sounds...sensible." Twilight nodded. "Are we going to do that now?" "No, let's put it on for the second break. We get more time that way. Besides, I wanted to talk to you about something else." "I hope you don't want to come to my house for the weekend so that I can tutor you more on physics," she sighed. "What? No!' I shook my head, "Hold on. I thought you said you were fine with torturing me. Was I...bothering you last night?" "Oh, No!" Twilight closed her eyes and held her head for a second. "It's just that, the schedule will change from next week and I still haven't finished my day-to-day task list. Version 2.0 that is!" "Oh! Right. Anyway, I wanted to talk about something else," I said and I stopped walking. Twilight too stopped and responded. "Sure." I gathered my thoughts before starting. "I've been wondering about how we are going to tell the boys about all the things that have happened here. Should we even tell them to begin with?" "Oh! So you were wondering about it too." She played with her hands. "Not until recently but, you were?" Twilight adjusted her glasses and bit her lip. "It came up a couple of times when Steely Armor and I were trying to make sense of our theories. He also asked about it before but I avoided answering. "But we can't avoid answering forever," I sighed. Twilight said nothing and just nodded. I took a deep breath to help me think better, but it did not make the cut. "I uh, I have to go, sorry see you in next class." "See you." I walked to the bathroom and washed my face in hopes of feeling a bit refreshed but it was not helping. I was just standing there staring at my own reflection in the mirror. It seemed that the issue I thought was so little was apparently way bigger. But should I have focused on that or Steely Armor and whatever he was hiding? In my mind at that point, one was simply something we just had to explain eventually and the other was having the risk repeating what happened in the friendship games. And It was obvious what I went for. After the Geology class Twilight and I asked for Steely Armor to stop for a second. We decided to cut to the topic right away. Or should I say, I decided to do so. "Look Steely Armor, I know you were the one who shot that tennis ball from the lab yesterday. And don't even try to convince me that was normal! Because It was not!" Steely Armor stared at me, without any sort of emotion in his face. "What are you talking about?" "Oh, so you want to deny it! Well that's not going to work since I am one hundred percent sure that I saw you!" I pointed my finger at him and kept my eye contact. Twilight held my arm and tried to calm me down. "Sunset! This is not what I pictured when you said 'talking'." Steely Armor stared at my finger and blinked twice. His face still lacked any emotions. "I do not understand what you two are referring to. Please provide more context," He said with the least amount of mouth movement possible. His jaw was awkwardly moving. I made twilight let go of my arm, "Look, just tell me one thing!" I stood tall and stared at his dead eyes. "What was that blueprint that I saw in your garage about? What are you doing? And you better not try to say 'It's not important!' because if you don't give a proper answer right now, I will have to tell vice principal Luna that you are responsible fo-" "I'm afraid I must leave. Please excuse me!" he interrupted me and started to walk away instantly. He was on my nerves at that point. I literally wanted to shout but I decided to play it smart and hold his hand real quick. I stepped forward and took hold of his wrist. It felt cold and not...normal. Steely Armor stopped and turned to see why I held his hand. Seconds passed and I was in anticipation of seeing him through his memories...but nothing. Nothing at all! It was as if my magic was not working. "Why are you holding my left hand?" Steely Armor asked. I stared at the hand for a second and let go. "Nothing..." He then continued walking as if nothing happened at all. Twilight walked up to me slowly, "Sunset? Are you...alright?" I was still lost by why I didn't see his memories. All I was paying attention to was how Steely Armor was walking away. Suddenly before noticing, I was running after him down the hallway. He took a left turn at the end, towards the janitor's closet? For a second I was like: why? However, the moment I turned left at the end of the hallway, he was gone. That hallway is just a dead-end that only leads to the janitor's closet. And only he himself was walking there. Only him and his mop. I didn't even look back to face Twilight. "Where did he go?" Twilight leaned forward and looked down the hallway. "I...don't know." she turned me around to face her. "What was that all about?" I shook her off and set a little distance between ourselves. "It...doesn't make sense..." Twilight raised an eyebrow and held my shoulder. "What doesn't make sense?" I looker in the eye before responding, "I did not see his memories..." "Wait but, you were holding his wrist!" "Yes. But I saw nothing. Is my magic...'' Before I completed that train of thought, I held Twilight's hand in my own. I sensed her warm soft hands and instantly, My sight turned into a vision of her memories. I let go of her and soon afterwards. "...It's working..." I was lost. I couldn't understand what was happening. Why couldn't I see Steely Armors memories? Was I not touching him? No, I was clearly holding his wrist. Then why didn't my magic work on him? He wasn't wearing a long sleeved shirt either. His shirt didn't even cover his elbows. Why did his hands feel very unnatural? Before I could drown myself any further, Twilight pulled me out of my thoughts. "SUNSET! ARE YOU LISTENING?" "Y-yeah. I'm here." "What has gotten into you?" "...I...I don't know." I was still dazed. Twilight looked at me silently. "What is going on?" I asked. Twilight sighed, "let's go drink some water." I said nothing, I just nodded and continued walking with her to the nearest water fountain. But the thoughts didn't let go of me. It was getting more and more weird. I drank some water from the fountain. I could feel my brain overheating over trying to figure out what happened but thankfully the cold water helped to calm me down. After that I took a really deep breath. I leaned on the wall and kept my head up, looking at the ceiling, still wondering. Twilight came closer to me and put her hand on my shoulder. "Are you feeling better?" "I...think?" She looked at me nervously, "Are you going to tell me what happened and why you were so aggressive towards Steely Armor?" I dragged my hands on my face. "It.." I sighed and decided to try my best at explaining what happened, "First off, I felt being a bit more forward can be helpful in order to get him to tell us what he is doing." "What made you think that way?" Twilight raised her shoulders and hands in the air. "Because all the other times that either you or me talked to him, he didn't budge," I said furiously! Twilight stepped back, and looked away, "Did that same approach work with me?" I turned my head and looked at her, "I..." I was speechless. "You're right...that was a bad Idea." I held my head with my hands, "Sorry." Twilight sighed and turned back to face me, "It's...fine." She then picked her glasses from her face and took out a cloth from her pocket and started cleaning the glasses. "So, what did you see in his memories and why did you start running after him?" "...Nothing..." Twilight put her glasses back on, "What?" "I saw nothing..." I repeated as I shook my head in disbelief. "...like my magic just...didn't work." Twilight stood in silence. I believe she too was trying to make sense as to why my magic didn't work. "So, that's why you held my hand-" "-To see if my magic was working or not, yeah." I completed her sentence. "And...he just...I don't know made me irritated and I was just so puzzled by the fact that my magic didn't work that I ran after him to continue my words or whatever with him." I sighed before I continued, "And guess what, he magically disappeared." Twilight just shook her head in loss. It seemed even she couldn't make sense of the situation. Before we could continue our discussion, we had to head to our next class. I shook my head in loss and continued walking to my class with Twilight I don't think I need to say I was not in the mood to listen to the subject. I was continuing my thoughts on why Steely Armor was acting oddly that day. He usually keeps quiet and doesn't say much. This time however, he seemed confident? Not sure if that is the right word but, he did not feel like always. Not to mention that he had barely any expressions on his face. Actually let me correct myself, he had no expressions on his face. And to top it all, both my magic didn't work on him and he somehow vanished in a dead-end hallway. This whole thing was getting more and more complicated and I barely had any clue as to what Steely Armor was doing. But I bet that his bestie could grant some information. After class I walked around in the halls looking for Flaming Star. It was launch time so most of the students head to the cafeteria right away. I could have simply waited around for him to show up there but, he always sits next to Steely Armor and I wanted to talk to him alone. Therefore I started venturing through the hallways, looking in every corner to find him and eventually I caught him at his locker. I took a deep breath and walked forward. "Hi." "Oh, Hi!" he turned his head to me. "I wanted to say sorry for yesterday, I sort of remembered I had to do something important." Flaming Star closed his locker and locked it real quick before responding. "It's alright, I understand." He then looked away for a second. "Besides, I mainly wanted to make sure you were not mad about that other day. "I was." I smiled, "But I let go of it when I heard you sorted things out with your father." Flaming Star raised his eyebrow, "You mean, it wasn't because of the flowers?" He smirked. I rolled my eyes, "Maybe..." Flaming Star chuckled a little. "So...are you heading to the cafeteria?" That was what I've been waiting for. "Yeah...I just wanted to drop by and apologize for yesterday and all of that." I nodded. As I started walking away, he too started walking next to me. Now I have to be wise. I only had a brief moment to try my best and get something out of him. "So, what do you think about the schools so far?" I asked. "Well, It certainly has a more friendly atmosphere than Falcon Stone. The kids there were..." He took a pause, "...very frustrating." "How so?" Flaming Star sighed before responding, "They all were...arrogant and a bunch of jerks. Some bragged about their status and their marks and some leeched to them. Every single exam, question or something always turned into a pointless competition." "What about you and Steely Armor?" He looked at me for a second, "We...well we minded our own business most of the time. Just me and him." He scratched his hair and continued, "But I am glad we moved, even if it was mostly because of our Magic " He made air quotes. "Steely was quite under pressure in Falcon Stone. And the tuition was not easy for his family anyway." "Wait, then why was he there? Why didn't he go to a cheaper school like...here?" I raised my eyebrow as I pointed around the school. Flaming Star shook his head, "His parents...I...I should not get into this. Sorry." After that, Flaming Star speeded up his walking. I was losing my opportunity, I had to take things a bit more straight. "Hey" I ran up to him real quick. "Have you heard about the blunted locker?" Flaming Star stayed silent for a second and then responded. "Yeah." "Ok, listen, I was there when it happened. I even saw who did it..." "Uh huh," Flaming Star raised his eyebrow. I sighed before revealing his friend's name, "I am one hundred percent sure it was Steely Armor." Flaming Star stayed in silence and looked away. As if he didn't want to respond. I sighed and continued, "Weird things have been happening with Steely Armor. And we are worried. So if you know what he is doing I would be very tha-" "-Ask him, if he feels that you should know, he'll tell you." He then tried to make some distance between us. "I don't know what he is doing but-" "-We did, but he is just turning the whole subject around every time." "That means he doesn't feel like telling you." He was almost running at that point. I had to maintain the same speed so I started running too, "You don't understand. we know something that you don't!" "And what is it?" "It's complicated!" We were in front of the cafeteria door when he stopped running and stood still. "And so is what Steely is doing." He pointed his finger to me. “I’m sorry but I can’t help you with that. It’s Steely’s boundary, and I will not cross it.” I stopped too. Looking at his finger and then switching my sight to his frowning blue eyes. "Steely will tell you when he thinks it's appropriate," Flaming Star continued, "Don't skip his red line." He turned away and started walking away. "Flaming Star!" I called him. He stood still but did not turn back. "what?" I raised my voice, "You are not telling me that I should just wait around for the guy who somehow blasted a tennis ball so hard from the lab that it blunted the locker that was on the other side of the hallway? Or should I ignore how he managed to work around in a restricted area? Or the weird blueprint that was written in shapes? And don't even get me started on how he just vanished in a hallway!" Flaming Star looked at me from the corner of his eye. "It may look odd at first but, as I said before, he will explain it all...when the time comes." He then started walking towards the cafeteria door. My opportunity was gone. Even Flaming Star was not telling me anything. But I had to get to the bottom of whatever Steely Armor has been up to lately. Maybe I could have shook it off at first but now, with what I'd seen, there was no going back. I had to make sure Steely Armor would not repeat the same fate as our Twilight. And for doing so, there was only one option. I walked up to Flaming Star and held his shoulder. I forced him to turn back and the moment I could see his face, I brought my hand up to touch it. But before my hand could reach his face, he caught it in the air. "what are you doing?" He pushed me back before I could do anything else. "Were you...trying to..." He narrowed his eyes and shook his head in disappointment. "You just crossed the line that you shouldn't have crossed." He frowned and went into the cafeteria. Author's Note Make sure you read the next chapter too!
How everything startedDear princess Twilight, In the last few days, things have been quite odd and I’ve been having trouble making sense of it and making the right choices... It all started from the day that our marks for the recent math exam got announced. I don't want to brag but I got a high mark as always. However the joy of my great mark wasn't going to last for long. I was asked by Principal Celestia to tutor SOMEONE in the library after school. It was nothing big, at least I didn't think it was going to be so I accepted. I tutor some students occasionally so I really didn't mind it. But who was the one I was supposed to tutor in math? No one other than Flaming Star himself. At first I thought that this might be a good opportunity to get to know the guy better, since the past two weeks that they have been in school they haven't really engaged with anyone, not him nor Steely Armor. Yes, they occasionally talk to us, but it's not really something to consider. It's mostly "Hi, how is it going." or "hey" "Bye" that sort of thing. It felt as if they are not comfortable with the school or maybe even the students yet so maybe I could break the ice this time. And boy what wishful thinking I had. Because just thinking about what happened makes me irritated by itself, I will not elaborate on it much but it went like this: He looked as if he knew absolutely NOTHING about math so I had to sit there till evening, trying to teach him something. But guess what? He was acting the whole time! why? Don't even get me started on that. It's a story for another time. After my long lasting session of tutoring that genuinely made my mindset ruined, I packed up and left school in hopes of riding on my motorcycle back home. But it didn't start. Once again I tried to turn it on, but still no luck to get it going. I didn't want to start investigating for an issue in it then as I desperately wanted to head home and put my head to rest. So I just locked it there and left it there, hoping no one would try to steal it. I barely got home, and mindlessly walked upstairs and dropped dead on my bed. Next thing I recall was my alarm waking me up in the morning. After I dressed up and packed up my stuff into my backpack, I headed outside. Taking in the air to start a new day, I started walking to school but moments later, I sensed that something was missing. Like: "I shouldn't be walking to school, why am I-'' and then it hit me! "MY MOTORCYCLE!" I dashed through the streets, almost hitting a few people on the way till finally, I caught a sight of the school. However, it was too soon to let out a sigh of relief. I walked up to the school to catch my breath a little bit. Though the thought of my motorcycle being stolen didn't really help with the process. Thankfully, my motorcycle was untouched, at least it seemed to be. However it still wasn't starting, "I should take it to a mechanic today" I told myself. There was probably something wrong with it and I would rather fix it as soon as possible then for it to stop working mid-way. I entered the school afterwards, it was not very crowded, though for some reason, I was not able to find the girls. It was as I was walking around searching for them among other students with my eyes that I felt a pat in the back. "Hey Sunset!" As I turned my head around, Rainbow Dash's face was the first thing to come to view. "How is it going?" "Ugh, I've seen better days." I grunted. "Have you seen the girls?" "Nah, you're the first that I met up with so far" she started walking beside me "So um, what's the problem?" "Well, I had a really frustrating tutoring session with a certain someone yesterday that took till evening and once I got out to ride home, my motorcycle didn't start!" "Yours too?" Her eyes widened, "Mine also doesn't move anymore." "Really?" "Yeah, I found out this morning. And because I was restricted not to use my magic sporadically, I had to walk and drag it all the way here veeeeeeery slowly!" she glared at me. "Rainbow." I let out a silent yell, "We both know what happens when you do that. It messes with all of us!" and stared back at her. She turned her face away, "I KNOW!" but when she wanted to continue, she hit another student and fell on the ground. “Oh.” The student she hit though stood tall as if nothing happened. I helped Rainbow Dash to stand back up, meanwhile the guy turned around to see what hit him. And to our surprise, it was Steely Armor. He looked at us with his yellow eyes and stepped back. "Oh, sorry." "No it's not your fault," I said, "Rainbow just, wasn't paying attention" "Yeah, didn't see you there." She rubbed the back of her head. "Hey um, have you seen the girls?" Steely Armor paused for a second, "The...girls?" His eyes narrowed. "Yeah, like Twilight? Pinkie? AJ?" Rainbow Dash continued, gesturing with her hand. "OH! Right, right." He nodded a few times, "They have changed some classes and put the details on the wall near the cafeteria. They might be there." “They’d changed the schedules? Ugh.” I stepped forward, "Thanks for letting us know!" Rainbow Dash and I started walking away and parting our way from Steely Armor. But I decided to talk with Steely Armor a bit more before leaving. "Oh, hey Steely Armor!" He was on his way too, but turned back, "Yes?" "I just wanted to know how are you feeling about the school and all so far?" He paused for a second, and then responded: "It's...nice...I guess." It didn't seem like he wanted to talk at that point. "That's nice to hear, so, what have you been doing so far? I heard you and Twilight have been having some sessions after school about magic." I pointed backwards with my thumb and tried to keep my eye contact with him. Though he was constantly looking away. "y-yeah,..." He rubbed his right shoulder. "Are you guys doing that today too?" "Oh, no, not today!" He shook his head and kept moving backwards, "I-I gotta go, um...bye!" he then walked away as fast as he could. "What was that all about?" Rainbow Dash whispered, looking as he walked away. "He’s just… shy I guess." The girls were still where Steely Armor said, right in front of the information board. They were discussing the change of schedule when we got there. "Will we be having sports on Tuesday?" gasped Twilight while looking at the board. "Hh, yeah....what about it?" Applejack asked, moving closer to her. "Where is physics? They ruined my full scientific Tuesday." "Uh… it's uh… on Thursday." Fluttershy said softly. But it seemed Twilight couldn't get over it just yet. "THURSDAY!?" Spike noticed me and Rainbow and came running to us, that made the girls follow him with their eyes to finally see us too. "A bit late to the party...." Spike smirked. From what I figured, almost our whole schedule had been changed. However, it wasn't something we wanted. It really wasn't a big deal either, at least not for all of us. Twilight was freaked out about that, so much so that her eyes were going to jump out of their socket and break her glasses. "You're not getting it, this means I have to re-arrange my whole plans and I better do it fast or else everything will be in havoc!" "Alright, alright darling." Rarity put her hands on her shoulders. "I'm sure you can find a way to solve that in no time." Twilight let out a sigh, "Thanks Rarity, but It's just that I don't like being disorganized." "But why?" Pinkie jumped in front of her, "being disorganized is soooooo much fun! you get to figure out what you want to do and look for things you need. You don't like that?" "Not really...." "I mean, look at the bright side," I joined Rarity, "At least the classes are going to be changed from next week and not tomorrow." Before the conversation could continue, the class's bell rang and we each went our separate ways. The rest of the day was uneventful, we didn't have band practice and I was still somewhat sleepy. Rainbow Dash and I talked about our motorcycles and where we should take them. Knowing that my motorcycle had some problems with it recently, I had a gut feeling that this time the issue might be big. After school, Rainbow Dash and I went to check on our motorcycles. Hers did seem fine at first glance though what she described sounded way more different from what I was seeing. "It just stopped and let out some weird noises from the exhausts!" she said. "Did you check it? Maybe something is stuck there." I kneeled to take a closer look. "Though I don't think it's that big of a problem." "I doubt I can reach it with my hand. If there is something jammed in there, it's probably deep down." "Usually it will just shoot it out if there is something in it. There is probably something else than that." I tried to look down the pipe but nothing could be seen. It was then that I saw something. A small puddle of petrol beneath her motorcycle. The petrol was dripping from the motorcycle into the puddle. "Have you seen this Rainbow?" I turned my head to her. "what?" She also sat down, and I pointed at the petrol puddle, "Oh boy, that doesn't look good." I stood up, "Well that explains why it's not working as it should be." Rainbow put her hands on her knees and stood up and kicked her motorcycle, "Ugh! I can't believe it had a leakage and I hadn't noticed it!" she nagged. “No wonder why I was using more petrol these past days.” I put my hands on her shoulder, "look, the puddle is not that big, so the leakage is probably not that bad." She rolled her eyes, "pfft, whatever," and turned back to me, "so what's up with your bike?" I took a look at it from the corner of my eye, "If you ask me, I say that thing most likely won't move anymore." Rainbow Dash raised her eyebrow and started walking towards it, "Why?" "Because it's been sooooo long since I took it to a mechanic, it has all kinds of problems now!" I speeded up to catch up to her. "Then I guess it needs a lot of work!" "probably!...." We were both looking at my motorcycle, but looking at it wouldn't have made it move, "C'mon, let's get these two to a mechanic. We don't have all day." We both went and dragged our motorcycles out of the school yard. Just doing that was tiring by itself, and we wanted to drag them to a mechanic that we haven't decided yet. After a short discussion about where we should go, we decided to drag them to where Rainbow Dash used to take her motorcycle. She said it was not the best, but it does give you a fixed motorcycle. But before we started moving, a familiar face showed up. "Uh, hi...again... what's the issue?" Steely Armor rubbed the back of his head. We both turned our heads to him, "Oh...hi Steely Armor," I said, "Nothing really big, our motorcycles just need some repairing." I gave him a warm smile. "Yeah, they seem pretty messed up," Rainbow Dash added, putting her weight on her motorcycle. "don't worry though, we are taking them to a mechanic." "What's their problem?" Steely Armor stepped closer. "Well, Rainbow has a leakage, and mine probably needs a lot of work to start moving again." Then I looked at it again, "And that is if it will start moving again." He sat down and looked closely at mine, "I can fix them for you." Our eyes widened and we stared at each other. "You can...fix them?" Rainbow Dash asked with an uncertain tone. She took her weight off her motorcycle and continued, "Are you a mechanic or something?" Steely Armor just stood silent, staring at us without a single word, almost nothing of his face flinched, motionless. Until he finally broke the silence. "Bring them to the Cars Graveyard," He walked away after that. For a few minutes Rainbow and I just looked at one another, wondering what just happened. Until Rainbow decided to share her thoughts on him. “He’s a weirdo.” “OK. That’s not...nice.” “C’mon. He acts so odd.” She raised her hand in the air. “And Cars Graveyard?” “That’s outside of the city, right?” “Yeah but it’s not that far out.” Rainbow crossed her arms. “You actually wanna take these there?” I took a moment and then I answered. “Honestly, I’m a little curious. Besides, I doubt you’re looking forward to meeting up with Rusty Wrench.” I smirked at her. “Agh. He’s gonna bring up my debt again!” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Fine, we’ll go there.” We dragged our motorcycles all the way out of the city and took them to Car’s Graveyard. That was exhausting to say the least. But we made it. The garage was extinguishable from the place as it was the only building surrounded by piles of junk. It seemed it was able to maintain multiple vehicles inside. Inside, It had shelves on each wall, all filled up with materials and vehicle parts, a lone big light bulb hanging from the ceiling that lit up the whole garage. We looked around for Steely Armor but he was nowhere to be found. "Heeeey! anybody here?" Rainbow Dash shouted. "Aagh!" We heard a clunk as Steely Armor rolled out from under a blue van, "Over here!” he rubbed his head. “Ow, my head.” "Are you ok?" "Yeah, I'm ok." he stood up and cleaned his oiled hands with a green rag. "bring them in!" Rainbow Dash dragged her motorcycle inside and stabilized it on the spot that Steely Armor was pointing at. He then put on his goggles and stabilized his hat on his head, "It should only take a few minutes," he said and got to work. Rainbow Dash stood near him and watched him as he tinkered with her motorcycle. Meanwhile I brought my motorcycle in and decided to look around the garage a bit more. There were various machine parts on the shelves, both old and rather new. There were various wrenches and tools hanging on the wall, I dare say it was a complete set actually. There were also many parts I couldn't make out what they were, his shelves weren't really organized. But what drew my attention was what was in the corner of the garage. A small desk with pens and pencils on it. As I got closer, I saw something else on the wooden desk. A blueprint. I looked over my shoulder to see if Steely Armor was paying attention or not, and when I made sure that he wasn't, I took a closer look at the blueprint. From what I could gather it looked like a mechanical claw, however, what raised the biggest question was how the scales and description was put down. In shapes. In various shapes that apparently resembled a language. A coded one. But unlike the other parts, the text on the top was written normally: "E.C.H.O stabilizer". After a bit more looking, I saw the same claw of the blueprint on the desk, it had some wires wrapped around it and some that were connected to it from the bottom and had naked ends. "Hey uh, what is this?" I pointed at the blueprint as I was looking at the blueprint. "What?" He was messing around with Rainbow's motorcycle when I asked that and turned his head to look at me. When he saw me near the desk his eyes widened in shock. "Uh, I-I-it's nothing!" he stood up in a split second and came towards me. "Okay?" I said, as he pushed me aside and put a few sheets of paper on the blueprint. "Are you sure it's nothing?" He turned back, "Y-yeah, I-it's nothing really." He tried his best to give a smile but he was very paranoid. His lips and jaw didn't assist him and what came out was an extremely awkward face. I stepped back and walked to Rainbow Dash. I thought it wasn't a big deal at first but the way he reacted was concerning. Rainbow gave me a nudge once I got to her. "What was that all about?" "I'll tell you later" I crossed my arms and stood still. Steely Armor came back and started tinkering with Rainbows bike, he seemed stressed however. He was watching me sporadically every now and then while opening up some places on the motorcycle. And after a while he took his rag and cleaned his hands with it. "It seems the oil pump doesn’t have the pressure it needs to have. Which means that the exhaust is backing up into the motor's pipes that results in the engine cutting out....that is beside the leakage it had from having a loose screw." "so, how long is it going to take?" Rainbow Dash asked, turning her head in different angles to see her bike. "It's done." he said as he put his wrench in the toolbox near him. "Wait, you're done?'' Rainbow Dash walked forward, inspecting her bike from every side possible, left, right, down, up everywhere, and yet she still couldn't believe it. "Are you serious? Steely Armor remained silent and nodded. Rainbow Dash turned her motorcycle on and the engine roared to life. Just after that the rock that was stuck in the exhaust flew out. "Wow! you are really good at this!" Rainbow Dash's complement didn't make him flinch, literally no emotion. "Now yours." he looked at me, his eyes looked way bigger behind his goggles. It looked oddly funny, but I beat myself up not to laugh and dragged my motorcycle to the spot. This time I paid more attention to how he fixes stuff. He first fully inspected the motorcycle, took out some parts to inspect the inside as well but because he wasn’t elaborating on what he was doing as much so I decided to ask him about it. "So how is it?" "...pretty bad, it needs the oil to be changed, the carburetor hasn't been working probably and has damaged the engine significantly. The washers need to be changed too. I doubt you took this to a mechanic for years." "Uhh, yeah! right on the spot!" "Well, you should take it every once in a while, or else you should say goodbye to it, look, even the spark plug is messed up" he stood up and went looking at the shelves and brought some pieces: an engine that looked fresh, and some washers and a spark plug. "I need to replace these." And so he started, he opened my bike and took out the wreck of an engine that was inside like an expert heart surgeon and put in the new engine. He wasn't even looking away from it when he wanted to change tools. He replaced the washers in a flash of a second and finally detached the spark plug and put the new one in the place. My motorcycle got renewed! "Wow! you...you're amazing!...uhm, so, how much should we-" "NOTHING!," he shook his head, "w-well I mainly wanted to return the favor of you helping Flame, so....nothing." he gave me an awkward smile. the pressure behind it could be seen in his eyes. "Thank you!" I said, giving him a smile, "You have no idea how grateful I am, I probably didn't have enough cash to get the engine fixed anywhere else." I looked at the desk in the corner once again from a distance before leaving. Once we got out Rainbow asked about what happened. “You’re not gonna tell me what happened?” "There was this...blueprint on the desk for a claw, but it wasn't normal.” "What do you mean?" She got on her motorcycle. "It was written in shapes!" I also got on mine. Rainbow looked at me, lost. "What?” I sighed, although her question was mine too. "I don't know, and it may not be important at all. However, I think I gotta talk about this to someone." Author's Note Make sure to read the next chapters too!
Clouded thoughtsRainbow Dash and I parted ways after that, however I could still hear her shouting "THIS IS AWESOOOOOOOME!" from a mile away. But I don't blame her. My motorcycle felt alive again. it was working flawlessly! I dare say even better than when I first got it. Steely Armor did me a great favor by fixing this for me. I got home pretty quick. My body felt sore from dragging my motorcycle, so I just crashed on my bed and before I knew it, I was napping. When I woke up, it was six-ish. I crawled out of the bed to change my clothes to something more comfortable and dropped on my couch. My mind was wondering about what had happened with Steely and what that blueprint was. He seemed really protective about it. I mean, he does act like the type that doesn't like engaging with others a lot but, still, why a blueprint in shapes? I was just looking around the social media for stuff to pass time, but I just couldn't get the thought off of my head, so I messaged Twilight to see whether she could help me or not. -Hey -Hi -How are you? -I'm good, a bit tired but ok -How are you? -preparing my new schedule for next week "Of course you are!" I thought to myself. -how is spike? -he's eating his food -dinner or evening meal? -I don't know...he has been eating quite sporadically these days. -why don't you make a schedule for his eating too? -WOW! that's an amazing idea! I literally face-palmed myself when I read that. -I meant it as a joke -Oh. -you're still going to do it anyway, right? She didn't respond for a while. -NO! -(-_-) -never mind "I'm sorry Spike!" I said, even though no one was there. -hey, I wanted to ask you something -how would you describe Steely Armor? -Tall, wears a hat and goggles on top. A little chubby. No, I meant as in his personality and how he is overall. -we don't talk much about anything other than magic and our theories on it, but he seems like a nice guy?. -why are you asking this? I felt that explaining all that over text would have taken a long time, so I decided to call her. -Hold on I got up to a sitting position on the couch. As I tapped my phone to call Twilight, I felt something wet on my left cheek. It was Ray, rubbing his head against my cheek. I picked him up with my finger and let him be there. After a few rings, Twilight picked up. "Hello Sunset!" "Hey, so, I think it's better if I tell the story here." "Ok, ugh, hold on." Her voice got all muffled all of a sudden and I could barely hear her. "What is it, Spike?...Yes, it’s her. Why?" And then, I could hear her clearly again. "Hey Sunset, I'm going to turn on the webcam so Spike can see you." "Ah, no problem." I adjusted myself on the couch before my camera turned on. And held the phone in front of me and made sure it was catching my face. Moments later, Twilight's camera also turned on and showed her holding Spike with her hands. I reckoned she had adjusted her phone somewhere since she was holding Spike with both hands. Spike greeted me the moment he saw me. "Hi Sunset!" "Hi Spike! Have you eaten your dinner?" "Um, more like an afternoon snack, to be honest." He rubbed his eyes with his paw. "That's good too." Twilight adjusted her glasses and spoke up. "So what did you want to say?" "Right! So Rainbow Dash and I took our motorcycles to his garage today and-" "He has a garage?" Twilight's face twisted and her eyes narrowed. "Where?" "In the Car’s Graveyard. It seems he runs the place." Twilight was silent. Her eyes narrowing and her lips pushed on one another. I knew she was deep in thought so I stayed silent too. However, after a few seconds, the silence was broken. "How is he working there? Usually the authorities choose someone to take care of things there, and I doubt they would pick a high school teen." "What do you mean by that?" I asked. "The Car's Graveyard is not public domain. It's private, and authorities have the responsibility of watching over it. Now, as far as I recall, it was an abandoned project by them, however I doubt they have not put someone in charge of it." She rubbed Spike's head as she was explaining. "Steely Armor managing to get a garage there's just...something that gets your attention." "Well, that is interesting..." I shook my head. "Anyway, as I was saying," "Oh right, right, sorry!" She rapidly nodded and picked up Spike, put her hand under his belly and the other on his head. "We saw — or I mean, I saw a blueprint there, which was written in weird symbols." Twilight was playing with Spike a little bit but when I said that, she came closer to her phone. "A what?" I rolled my eyes, "A blueprint! In some weird language! The scales, the descriptions, all of them were in weird symbols and shapes." "Okaaaaaaaay?" Her head twisted around a little and she raised her eyebrow. "And when I asked him about it, he rushed towards it and covered the thing up saying that it was really nothing!" I paused for a second to gather my thoughts. "He even pushed me to prevent me from looking at it." "Huh, that is weird." She looked down for a second, probably trying to put things together. "Uhm, Twilight?" She looked at me again. "Yes?" I pointed at the camera, trying to show her Spike who had fallen asleep. "Oh, I....I'll talk to you later Sunset." She hung up. I turned my phone off and tossed it aside. I thought of just passing time and playing some games but all the thoughts and questions I had in my head felt like a storm on a sunny beach, and I just couldn't stop wondering. Wondering what it all meant. "Why put in the effort to write everything in symbols? Is it that important that you don't want others to figure out what it is? If so, what is it?" My head was exploding! I just couldn't relax with anything now. Not even the new Tirek Rampage game I’d bought recently! I legitimately thought that would help, but even hack-and-slash was not the cure! So I started looking at it from a different angle: "From what I’ve gathered about Steely Armor, he is an antisocial dude who clearly is not very keen on opening up, maybe he just doesn't like people looking at his stuff!" That helped a little. "Am I overthinking this?" I thought to myself while staring at the lonely white lamp that was hanging from the ceiling. "Maybe" I sat on the couch to think more straight, "But even if I am, It's better to be cautious!" I stood up and started walking around my not-so-big living room, but in the end I convinced myself to go back to sleep. Author's Note Special thanks to Cyonix for editing this chapter.
Suspicion intensifiesI hardly managed to fall asleep that night with all the thoughts in my head. I headed to school with my now 'renewed' motorcycle and I just couldn't stop being baffled by how perfectly it was working. It started easily, roared like a lion in the wild and it didn't make any sound that was concerning. I got to school early that day. Apparently, I had underestimated my motorcycle's capabilities. I made sure I locked it up nice and tight and left it in the yard. Not many students were there yet so I decided to head to my locker real quick and dump my stuff in it. I took out Geometry and physics and put Math and Calculus in, the rest of the schedule was the same. For me at least! After I closed my locker, I noticed someone walking past me very quickly, so quickly that I felt the swoosh of air rushing past. I turned back out of instinct, only to see a rather large figure take a left turn around a corner before I managed to completely make out who they were. I managed to make out that they were wearing a blue shirt, and I thought I saw something in their hand, but wasn't sure. "Was that Steely Armor?" A thought jumped into my head, but before I could take that thought and make sure of it by going after the figure, I was interrupted by a familiar voice. "Hey Sunshim! how is it going?" I looked back and saw Rainbow Dash's face decorated with a soft smile. "Oh. Hi Rainbow," I responded to her smile with a smile of my own. "I’d say better than yesterday, now that my motorcycle is fixed." "Oh man, mine is just sooooooo AWESOME right now. Back before we took it to Steely, it really wasn't doing that well. But now you can hear the ' when it starts." She tried to replicate herself riding the motorcycle by twisting her hands. Clearly I was not the only one who was impressed by Steely Armor's work. "That's good to hear." "Were you looking for someone, by the way?" She looked around the hallway. "No.....never mind." I gave up on that trail of thought. "So, why are you so early today?" I started walking back to the main entrance. "I was excited to use my bike!'' She started walking beside me. "I get what you mean!" We walked together back to the entrance and waited there for the others to show up. Usually the last quarter to the first class is when everyone shows up. That is, if there is not a particular club like the Parade happening before it. We were laying on the lockers for quite some time till Rainbow Dash decided to break the silence. "Hey, um, you never told me what exactly happened yesterday at Steely Armor's garage that made him rush towards you in a hurry." I took a deep breath and crossed my arms. "The truth is, I don't know either. I think it was something personal or something he didn't want us to see. But...." "But?" She raised her eyebrow slightly. "But something is fishy about it." I shook my head. "Maybe I'm just looking at this the wrong way. I don't know!" Before Rainbow Dash could say anything, Pinkie Pie jumped between us out of nowhere. "Heeeeeey Rainbow! Hey Sunset!" She grabbed our necks in her arms and pulled us to herself. "Oouh!" I said as I tried to release my head from her grasp. "Pinkie! let got, it-" "HURTS!" We both shouted. She let go of both of our necks immediately. "Oh, sorry!" She tried to hold her laughter with her hand. "It's ok," I rubbed my neck, "Just, do it a bit less aggressively next time." "Or not at all!” Rainbow Dash added. Pinkie stood in front of us, moving around constantly, jumping up and down and asking questions and talking non-stop. Whenever she is around, I don't feel how time passes. She told us a weird story about gum that I can't quite remember. However, before I knew it, the others came one by one. "Oooooooh, hi Fluttershy!" She waved her hand rapidly and gave us all a giant smile. "Hi!" Fluttershy said softly and forced herself to wave her hand. She had been there for a while, but I had just been so into Pinkie Pie's story that I hadn’t even noticed her. "Oh, um, hi Fluttershy. Since when have you been here?" "Since 'Gum tried to bite the ice cube'." She adjusted the back pack and Angel tried to hold herself with Fluttershy's shoulder. Rainbow Dash came closer to her and gave me a little nudge. "Man, we really didn't see you there." It was then that Rarity and Applejack stepped into the room too. "I'm telling you darling, you should take better care of your skin!" Rarity said, touching Applejack's face with one of her fingers. "But ah got no time for that! Besides, who needs to put those weird masks on?" She rolled her eyes. We greeted them both and they joined us as we listened to Pinkie's weird story. We all started talking for a while. But it was getting close to the first class and Twilight hadn't shown up yet. I was certain Twilight wouldn't be late for physics, but with every second that passed, I was getting less and less confident. The time for the first class started. We all headed to our own classes. Geometry was first. The teacher hadn't stepped into the classroom and I was staring at the door in hopes for Twilight to show up. I was looking closely at the door handle, the blue painted planks until I suddenly heard some footsteps. The sound was hard to follow when almost all the students were talking to one another. However, I could tell they were coming towards the class. A few seconds later, Miss Golden Ratio stepped into the class. My hopes for seeing Twilight before her were shattered. As the students saw her in her puffy clothes and black skirt, they became silent. "Good morning class, open your books to page 31, and let's get started." She put her notebooks and her own textbook on the desk. She bent down and opened it to a certain page. She then picked up her blue pen and list to check who was absent. "Let's do the role call real quick! OK, Crimson Napalm!" "Ready!" he said from the back of the class. And Miss Golden Ratio noted down and moved on to the next student. "Flash Sentry?" "I'm here!" She called every student one by one until she got to me. "Sunset Shimmer?" I responded without delay, "I'm ready!" "Steely Armor?" "I am ready." And it was then that she got to Twilight's name. She called it only two times and was about to move on when suddenly someone knocked on the door and opened it. It was no one else other than Twilight. She was panting heavily and was almost about to collapse. "I....I ah, ready!" The whole class was staring at her as she walked her way slowly to sit next to me. Miss Golden Ration softly asked her whether she was fine or not, to which she replied with a nod. "OK then. Uhm, Wallflower Blush?" "I....I'm ready!" "OK, everyone's here, so let's start!" She put down the list and her pen on the desk again and picked up the chalk. She drew the shapes that were on page 31 on the board and started teaching. Just seeing Twilight's state, I couldn't focus on the subject properly. I leaned towards her a little and whispered, "Are you ok?" She looked at me and leaned closer. "It's a long story. I will tell you after class." So I sat down and listened to the lesson. It was not very hard but I could see why Miss Golden Ratio was rushing through it. I took a quick glance at the next lessons and they seemed to be pretty complex trigonometry . So my assumption was that she wanted to save time by not sticking around on this subject to give us more time to work on the other ones next week. The students didn't have many questions either. It seemed the subject was as clear and straightforward for them as it was for me. After class I asked Twilight about what happened and why she was late as we both were walking to our lockers. She sighed and stretched a little bit. "Spike decided to follow a squirrel mid-way here so I had to run all the way to catch up with them." It was then that Spike stuck his head out of her backpack. "That squirrel was sticking its tongue at me!" Twilight sighed again. "And before we knew it we were way further than we expected and I had to run the whole way." I patted her on the back. "At least look on the bright side. Spike got a workout." "I guess," she said, looking at Spike over her shoulder. And then Twilight adjusted her backpack, while she stretched a little bit more. "I just remembered..." She caught my attention. "I've been thinking about what you were saying about Steely Armor. I thought maybe it was just something very personal or I don't know." "Yeah, I....am kinda on the same wavelength right now." "But..." I looked at her to see what she wanted to say. "But it's weird anyway....?" "Sort of. Both there being a blueprint written in shapes and him working in Car's Graveyard." We got to my locker then. "Hey, you go catch up with the girls I'll join you in a bit." "OK." She then wandered off. I needed to pick my Physics notebook, but as I was looking in my locker to find it, a tiny yellow sheet of paper fell from the peepholes of my locker onto the ground. I looked around to check if anyone was nearby. But except for a few students who were also checking their lockers, no one else was in that section. I kneeled down and picked it up. I turned it around and read what was written on it: "Wait for me after school, I have something to tell you. -Flaming Star" I was quite shocked to see his name there. But mostly, I was furious because I recalled my tutoring session with him. "He better have an apology readied up," I thought to myself and put the paper in my pocket. After that I continued the search for my notebook. I joined the girls after I found it. This time, it was easier to find them now that I knew they were waiting in the main hall as always. When I got there, Rainbow Dash was in the spotlight. "It's going soooo smooth. Steering it has become waaaaay easier." Rainbow Dash jumped in front of Applejack. "Uh huh," Applejack said, and then noticed me. "Look who's here! Ah reckon ya can tell us what you two did yesterday?" She came closer and gave me a nudge. "Hi guys and...uhhh, what thing, exactly?" I narrowed my eyes and looked at them both after I waved at the girls. "SUNSET!" Pinkie just showed up in front of me out of nowhere. "OH DEAR CELESTIA!" I jumped back, and took a few seconds to breathe. "PINKIE!" "RainbowsaidthatyoutwotookyourmotorcyclestoSteelyArmorandherepairedthemforyoutwoforfreeandtheyaregoingsoooo fastandsmoothsincethen!" She paused for a few seconds with a big smile on her face. "OH, also, sorry about that, didn't mean to scare you!" "It's...ok, just...don't do it again alright?" "Pinkie promise!" "And, please repeat whatever you just said." Pinkie took a deep breath but before she started Rarity put her hand on her shoulder. "Uh, slower, darling!" "Rainbow said that you two took your motorcycles to Steely Armor and he repaired them for you two for free and they are going soooo fast and smooth since then." I let out a sigh. "Yep, we did, and they are pretty amazing now." Twilight looked at me and said, "And he has a garage near Car’s Graveyard." "Yeah, we took our motorcycles there to get them fixed." "Does he....own the place?" Fluttershy asked, raising a finger slightly. I shrugged. "I don't know, but it seemed like he knew his way around there." "Though I still doubt that whatever he is doing there is legal." Twilight added, crossing her arms. "What do you mean by that, Twilight dear?" Rarity asked, raising an eyebrow. Twilight adjusted her glasses before responding. "Like, I doubt someone can start a certified garage in an authorized area." "It's an authorized area?" Rainbow Dash asked. "But the place looks more like a wasteland." "She's right!" Applejack followed up. "It's jus' filled with trash tha' no-one takes care of!" Twilight wanted to elaborate more on the topic but I decided to step in. "Let's just say it's a long story." It was time for the second class. We each had to head to our classes. Twilight, Rainbow and I had Physics and the others headed to art class. The subject was about electromagnetic fields but to be honest I didn't really pay much attention. I was thinking about what Twilight was saying a bit more. If Twilight was right, which she probably was, it opened up a whole other layer about Steely Armor. "How is he staying and messing around with stuff in Car’s Graveyard? He probably doesn't have the permission to be there, does he?" And then a thought just hit me. "What if he doesn't own the blueprint and he just found it?" There was a lot of crap in there so I would not be surprised if he found a random weird blueprint while scavenging there. But what about the claw that was there? I doubt he found that one. "Maybe he managed to decipher the blueprint and actually create what was on it." It was not until after the class was over that I held my thoughts back again. "C'mon Sunset, it's not that big of a deal. Let's go already!" But for some reason I just couldn't. I was walking down the halls alone. I needed some time to put my thoughts together so I decided not to go with the girls this time. However, suddenly I saw a tennis ball get shot full force and hit a locker. I was frozen in place. The speed and the force with which that tennis ball had been shot was so much that it had damaged the locker! "Has someone brought a tennis machine and put it on extreme?" I thought. I slowly stepped forward and looked down the way the ball was shot from. It came from the lab! And someone was stepping out of there in a hurry! "HEY! WAIT!" I shouted as I started chasing after them. From what I could gather from so far away, they looked suspiciously familiar. They started to speed up too, but they were not very fast. It seemed as if they were carrying something that slowed them down, but I couldn't tell exactly what. I sped up too. I was closing the distance rather quickly and as I got closer and closer, I was getting more certain of who I was chasing. There were not many students in that part of the school that day so it was easier for me to keep my eyes on them. I was very close, so much so I could clearly see their snapback hat and their blue shirt. But suddenly they took a sharp turn that I couldn't execute properly since I was going too quickly. As a result, I crashed into the lockers and was dazed for a couple of seconds. When I was on my feet again, I was in a crowded hallway filled with students. The runner probably knew they could lose me here but unfortunately for them, I had already recognized them. I went looking around among the students but I had no luck finding him. It was then that I stumbled into Fluttershy! We crashed to one another as I was not paying attention. "OH! Sorry Fluttershy. Didn't see you there!" "Oh, no....it's ok." She tried to maintain her balance. "Are you alright?" I asked. "Yeah, I-i'm fine." She was finally able to stand without assistance. "I-I just have a lot in my head that's....all." "I know what you mean." I stepped back to let her have some space. It was then that I noticed the painting she had in her hands. "Hey, what is that? Shouldn't you leave your arts in the classroom?" She then turned the canvas towards me and I saw it. It was us! Me, her, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Pinkie Pie. we were all holding each other's hand. "I thought maybe.....I should share this with you all," she said as she hid her face with her hair. I was staring at her drawing for a few minutes, She had drawn us perfectly! Our hair! Our dresses! Everything! "Oh dear Celestia! This.....is....AMAZING!" "Y-you like it?" She showed her face again with a soft smile on it. "I like it? I LOVE IT!" I took the painting from her to look at it closely. "C'mon, let's go show this to the girls!" And yes, I forgot what I wanted to do the moment I saw her painting. But don't blame me. It was just breathtaking. I wish there was a way I could have shared it with you. But maybe one day that we meet up again I will show you a picture or something. Anyway as I was saying: We went to find the girls and show them Fluttershy's painting. Thankfully it didn't take us long to do so. And as I suspected, they too were in love with it! Rarity took it from my hand and looked at it closely. "Oh my! Fluttershy darling this.....this is fabulous!" She then holds it in front of others to see too. "Just look at those fine lines of details on my dress....I mean....our dresses." "OH, OH, OH!" Pinkie jumped forward and bounced in front of the painting. "THAT'S ME! THAT'S ME!" "Yeah yeah Pinkie! we get it!" Rainbow Dash held her back to be able to see the painting. The moment she laid her eyes on it, they glowed bright like diamonds. "Tha-tha.....that is......." "AWESOOOOOOOOOOOOOME!" She shouted so loudly that every student peered to see what was going on. Fluttershy was blushing, though she tried to hide it. "uh-uhm....th-tanks." Twilight took a peek from the side while she was adjusting her glasses. "OH WOW! This looks fantastic Fluttershy!" She then looked at Applejack. "Hey come see this!" Applejack took a peek at the painting too and tightened her eyes, "To be honest, my eyes ain't that big." Twilight gave her a nudge. "A-ah mean....it looks pretty good!" She held a smile. "Thank you all, it really means a lot to me." Fluttershy took the painting from Rarity. "Especially since it's coming from you guys." "I mean it's amazing!" I came closer to her. "I'm just happy I didn't accidentally damage it when I bumped into you." I said as I scratched my head. Fluttershy laughed silently. "It's OK, Sunset. Before that Steely Armor bumped into me and he was even worse." And just when she said that, I remembered what I wanted to do. I facepalmed myself afterwards and grabbed Twilight away before the next class started. "Wa-wait what are you doi-?" "No time to explain!" After I took her to a less crowded hallway I let go of her shirt. And she stepped back immediately. "What is all of this Sunset!?" She pushed me off. "Why did you drag me all the way here?" "Just listen!" I held her shoulders. "The situation with Steely Armor has just gotten more complicated." "How so?" "OK, so I was thinking to myself about the things you were saying. And suddenly this tennis ball hits a locker so hard that the locker got blunted." "I mean if you just throw the ball hard enou-" She wanted to explain stuff but I didn't have time for that. "IT WAS SHOT FROM THE END OF THE HALLWAY!" I shook her. But I realized I was doing it too intensely so I let go of her. "Sorry, I didn't mean to do that." She, who had her glasses all messed up and her hair quite messy from my intense shaking, picked up her glasses and put them back on properly. "I-it's alright...." She paused for a second. "How did a tennis ball get thrown from down the hallway and manage to blunt the locker? the only person I know that can do that might be Applejack." "It was like a tennis ball machine set on extreme!" I stepped back and tried to emphasize with my hand gesture. "Besides, It wasn't Applejack.....It was Steely Armor that I saw down the hallway." "And I doubt he had a tennis ball machine with him." She crossed her arms. "No, but he was holding something. I couldn't make out what it was." "So what happened next?" "I chased him down and he started running. He wasn't very fast. I almost caught up with him but he took a hard turn and I just crashed into the lockers and lost him." "Wait, are you feeling OK?" she asked, trying to check up on my face for any potential bruises. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." I pushed her hands back. "It's just that....the more I think about it the more concerned I get with Steely Armor. You know I don't want what happened with sirens to happen again." Twilight paused for a few seconds and tightened her eyes. "Sorry Sunset but, I don't think this goes back to the sirens.....nor do you think like that." I looked her in the eyes. I could see my reflection in them. "What do you mean by that?" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before answering. "You are not afraid the same thing that happened with sirens will happen with Steely Armor. You are afraid of what happened with me happening to him!" I stood in silence. Truth be told, she was right! This whole time that he and Twilight had been tinkering with magic I had that fear in me. Of Steely Armor getting so into magic that he ended up going through what Twilight has. I didn't want to take the risk with him. "I-" I wanted to respond but twilight beat me to it. "I have the same fear too!" She looked down in shame. "I...just...don't want to accept or...end up looking at it the wrong way." She then shook her head and took another deep breath. "But I promised myself that I won't let what happened to me happen to anyone else." As I was staring at her eyes I could clearly see that she meant every single word she said. "So what do you have in mind?" Twilight asked. I stood silent for a few seconds because I was still shocked by her words. "Uh, uh I'm...I'm gonna talk to him. This time however, I can use vice principal Luna to convince him to tell us about whatever he has been doing." Twilight shook her head, "NO, let's not go that far yet. I'll be staying to do a little bit more research on magic. Then I will ask him about the whole situation. If he doesn't give a proper answer, then we'll use pressure." I nodded and agreed with her. Sadly before our talk could go any further, we had to go back to class. Author's Note Special thanks to Cyonix for editing this chapter.
An apology?After school, we all gathered to say goodbye to one another, before everyone headed off. Except me. I was waiting for Flaming Star to show up as he had asked me in his note. So I sat down on the stairs, waiting. After a while, Flaming Star showed up. I noticed he was holding something behind him but couldn't tell what exactly. "Hi," he said. "Hi." I gave a half wave of a hand. "Is there something you wanted to tell me?" Flaming Star stepped forward and revealed what he was holding. It was a bouquet of sunflowers. And they looked fresh. "These are-um, for you." "Oh, wow." I took them from him. "I uh- thanks." The petals looked as bright as the sun. I wanted to know where he got them but, "Wait, how did you know my favorite flower?" I raised an eyebrow. "Let's say it was a lucky guess." He gave me a smirk. "Riiiiiiiight!" I rolled my eyes. "OK fine. I figured your name would be a clue." We both stared at one another for a few seconds until I decided to break the silence. "Anyway, thanks again for these." "It's nothing, really." He shook his hand in the air. "So uh, do you mind walking for a bit?" I looked at him and took a second to make my decision. "Sure!" We started walking with one another. I was not sure how long the walk would take but I didn’t mind, since the air that afternoon was quite fresh. Not long after we had started walking, Flaming Star spoke up. "So, you remember that time you were tutoring me?" "You mean two days ago?" "Yeah." "Of course I do!" I narrowed my eyes and looked at him. "Every. Single. Second of it!" He bit his lip. "I thought so." We stayed silent for a while. Long enough that it was getting rather awkward. "So, is this like, your apology plan or something?" I said as I took another look at the flowers. "Well, not exactly!" Flaming Star rubbed his head. "It's more of a "thank you" plan." At first I was confused but it hit me soon afterwards. "OH! Right, how did the thing with your father go?" "I talked to him." Flaming Star nodded "It worked way better than I expected." He then stopped and pointed with his thumb to somewhere. "Hey, you wanna get something? I’ll pay." I leaned to the side and saw that he was pointing at a café "I mean, why not?" I gave him a smile. We both entered the café. It was rather empty but it did have nice decorations with the way brownish wooden planks accompanied with the natural lighting that came from the windows next to every table gave it a unique look. We sat down behind a table. The waitress came to take our order. Since the café was rather close to school and I had never tried anything there, I decided to see if they have a good quality in their services too or not. So I ordered a milkshake. I have gone to multiple cafés and I have drank many milkshakes to a point that I have developed a very specific taste for them. Flaming Star, on the other hand, ordered an orange juice — a rather odd choice, to say the least. After the waitress left, I started the conversation again. "So, you were saying that you talked to your father?" "He responded way better than I could even imagine." He put his hands on the table. "Well, I am glad you sorted out the problem." "Yeah." He sighed and gave me a smile. "Thanks, for your suggestion..." He paused for a second and turned his smile into a smirk. "...And for tutoring me." I crossed my arms and leaned back. "Not the apology I was looking for but," I glared before continuing. "I guess I accept it." He leaned back on his seat and put his hands behind his head. "I guess the flowers did the trick, then." "Yeah, maybe that too." They brought our order then. Quite fast, but it was also not very crowded. My milkshake was in a tall cup with a pink straw. It looked nice, and I gave it a taste. It wasn't bad, but it wasn’t good, either. Since we were not in a hurry, I gave another try at breaking the ice with Flaming Star. "So, how is your magic practice going with Steely Armor?" "It is going nice. He made me these gloves" — he showed me his hands — "that help me maintain my magic easier." "How?" "He said he made them from firefighters' clothes, so it might stop my fire powers to some extent." "Wait!" I raised my hands to stop him there. "How did he know that?" "He didn't!" He shook his head. "He was like: ‘It should work!’" He made air quotes. “Steely can be a little odd sometimes. Like, he has cameras set up everywhere.” “Thats very odd!” I slurped a little of my milkshake. "So you are getting the hang of it." "Kinda?" He took a gulp of his orange juice. A thought just hit me then. 'I can probably find out more about Steely Armor and Flaming Star right now.' We had time, too. So I started. "Hey, how did you two meet up?" I asked as I took another slurp from my milkshake. "You two seem very close." He looked at me for a second and put down his glass. "Well, where do I start?" he looked out the window. "Back in Falcon Stone, you know the elementary one, I had a lot of people who thought I was cool." He paused for a second before continuing. “And I thought they all were my 'friends' but, when the time came, they all backed up. All of them!" He drank a little bit more from his orange juice and continued. "But Steely, he stayed. He, was there for me. Since then, we've always been together. From then I realized that he is the one I should be calling 'friend'" "I see." I nodded and looked out. The sun had almost set. Apparently time had passed faster than I expected. I slurped the milkshake faster. "Hey," Flaming Star said. "How did you all meet up?" I almost slurped a little too much and was about to choke when I heard that. I coughed a couple times before responding. "We-well w-we, uhm, we uh-uh it just, how do I put it?" I moved my hands around in the air till it hit me. "IT'S A LONG STORY!" I had shouted that last part. I felt all the few people that were in the café were staring at me. "Ooooookaaaay" Flaming Star said as he narrowed his eyes. "If you don't feel comfortable it's OK." "NO NO NO! It's just that uh, It's a really long story! And I...uh..." I picked up the flowers and my backpack and stood up. "Actually, It's getting late and I need to do some stuff so yeah, bye!" "Wait, what?" I got out of there in a flash. I panicked for not a very good reason but, the truth is, I really hadn’t been expecting that question. I neither was ready nor knew how I wanted to explain everything to them. It's just not easy to convince people of this world about a world that is full of magical ponies and various creatures that they think of as myths. I could have gone back to school and picked up my motorcycle but I wanted to walk the rest of the way home. I needed to think a little. Breaking the truth to the boys would be hard. I could just give them an outline and not go into details, but they would probably ask questions and I couldn’t just ignore them every single time. But by telling the truth, I will have to tell them about my past too. What if they.... "NO Sunset! Don't go there." I told myself before my chain of thoughts took me somewhere I didn't want to go. When I woke up, my body hurt a little. I probably tossed and turned a lot in my sleep. Anyway, I went and started doing my Physics homework, but after about thirty minutes of reading the book to get an understanding of the subject, I realized I understood absolutely nothing. I should have been listening in class. Thankfully I still had Twilight to rely on. The moment I picked up my phone, I remembered that I had to ask her about how the talk with Steely Armor had gone too. I messaged her to see if she was available or not. And she replied in a few seconds. -Hey -Hey -How did it go? -what? -Thought you said you'd be talking to Steely Armor. (-_-) -Oh right -No luck -but how did it go? -he said it's nothing important and we should not bother -that's nonsense -if it isn't important why is he so protective about it? -I don't know -Well then, I guess it's time for my plan -Are you sure? -yes, if he doesn't budge we have to -It's for the better -ok -Also, -can you help me with physics, I wasn't paying much attention today. -sure -video call? -yeah Author's Note Special thanks to Cyonix for editing this chapter.
Know the boundaryThat day after school, I hopped on my motorcycle and headed home right away. Usually on Fridays I dedicate all the remaining hours of the day to myself. Whether it's playing games or simply watching stuff varies. However, that day I had so much on my head that when I got home, I was just laying in bed, trying to put my scattered thoughts together. The only light that was in my room was the dim orange light of the sun that passed through the windows. I tried everything. I tried talking, I let Twilight talk, I tried to make it more serious and I even tried my magic. But none helped me to get one step closer to figure out what Steely Armor has been doing lately. Let alone prevent the possible catastrophe it might have brought. In the process, not only did I gain nothing, I even lost the hard-achieved little progress I made with Flaming Star. However, I had to. I don't like using my magic a lot, but if I feel it is justified, I won't hold it. I rather do what I can to perhaps prevent another catastrophe in CHS than waiting for catastrophe to happen first. But what now? What am I going to do now? Well, It was actually quite clear. I was going to head to Steely Armor's garage. I had a gut feeling that all the weird things that had been happening lately had to do something with that blueprint I saw that other day. It all started when I saw it, and it would have probably ended when I understood what it held. I waited till it was night, dressed up in black so that even if there was guard or something, I could have some more cover in the night. I picked up my phone, the old semi-rusted crowbar that for some reason the previous owner left in the closet, and my back pack. And without any more delays, I hopped on my motorcycle and rode to Car's Graveyard. I won't lie, I was tired, but also desperate. So much so that I didn't even care for the cold wind of the night blasting my face off. If anything, that even helped my eyelids to stay up. But apart from that, I doubted I could have slept with all that happened. Not if I did nothing. It took me way less time to get to Car's Graveyard this time around. There were a car or a pedestrian but apart from them, no one was on the streets. And once I was outside of the city, it was just me, my motorcycle and the road. I parked near Car's Graveyard. No lights, no guard, and not even a gate. Seemed like Twilight was right about this place. I turned on the flashlight on my phone and walked in. Dumps of various cars and vehicles were turned into mountains of rusted metal and dozens of scattered parts around. This time I noticed the place was vaster than I expected. The silhouette of another set of rusted metal mountains could be seen in the distance. Moving my light around, I spotted my target. Steely Armor's Garage. It was closed off by roller doors. I could have opened it with the crowbar but I decided to look around first so that maybe I could have found an easier way to break in. I still wonder whether I was breaking through private property or simply the authorities' domain. Anyway, I had no luck in finding a back door. There was a window but even that was blocked by one of the shelves from the inside. It seemed the only way in was the front way. However, I was not going to attempt breaking the big lock it had with the rusted crowbar I had. "There has to be another way in," I said out loud as I looked at the garage from up to down once more. And suddenly a thought hit me, the roof! I knew the chances of there being a hatch on top would be low. But I wanted to give it a shot. The garage wasn't terribly big but I still needed a ladder of some sort to get on the roof. Thankfully I was in a literal junkyard. And I bet there had to be something that could have helped me. I went looking around in a nearby mountain of junks. I picked one that could have some other stuff other than just car pieces. There were some toys and some messed up furniture in it. I thought maybe it might have a ladder in there. But then again, who throws away a ladder? Like who even replaces their ladder? It's one of those things you buy and keep for the rest of your life. If there was any reason for anyone to throw away your ladder, it would always come down to the ladder breaking or...has been introduced to a bunch of beavers. And yes, I did not find a ladder. Or should I say I did not find a usable ladder. Although, I managed to fetch some rope here and there. They were cut to pieces but I could have tied them together and had a long rope. I just had to find something to use as the hook at the end of the rope. After a bit more searching, I found a metal bar that thankfully was small enough and was possible to be bent. I made a hook out of that and attached it to the end of the rope. I hurled the hook on the roof and after pulling it twice to make sure it's stable enough, I started climbing. Now I just had to hope to not fall off midway in the climb. After a little while I could sense the grip of the hook slipping. I hurried and got to the top and held onto the ledge just in time the hook slipped. After pulling myself up, I looked down to see what sort of fate would have awaited me if I was a bit slow and had to join the grappling hook. Even though the distance wasn't a lot to grant me a broken back, it still could have given myself back pain for a whole week. I looked around the roof. There was a tall antenna that had some wires and cables connected to it that leaded down from the roof. And apart from a lot of pigeon poop scattered around, there was only one more thing that stood out. A hatch door! I quickly took my crowbar out and put it at the edge of the door. The door was not easy to open up. It required a lot of force and I legit was giving it my all. It was not until I put all my weight down on it that it opened. However, the moment I looked down the opened hatch, I noticed a bigger problem. There was no ladder to get down and I had lost my grappling hook. A total fall! To top it all, there wasn't a way back either! I had to fall off the roof to get down from the building too. I either had to drop down, or wait the whole night on the roof and maybe call someone to help me get down in the morning. Sadly I was not planning on sleeping on bird poop which left me with one option. There was one way that I could have neglected the pain of falling such a distance, and that was by rolling the moment I was about to hit the ground. Now how do I know that works? Well I didn't know! I saw it in movies all the time and thought maybe that would work. I dropped my bag and after that I took a deep breath, focused and repeated what I was going to do in my head, pictured it in there and then I dropped down! I made sure I initiated a roll the moment my toes hit the ground. And I did! However what I didn't account for was the distance of which I was going to be rolling. I did not end up with my back like a pancake on the ground, but It did get smacked into the wall. My head was dizzy after the hit. It took me a while to get back on my feet again and once I did, my body still hurt. I stretched a little bit in the darkness and took my phone out and used it's light. I looked around the now dark garage that I got my motorcycle fixed in search for the light switch. There was a blue van in the garage however I didn't mind it much. I found the light switch and turned it on. Not much had changed since the last time I was there. There were various tools and different pieces of vehicles on the shelves. The vans, and a bunch of tools just laying around the floor. The only thing that was granting the light was the lonely light bulb hanging from the ceiling. I walked up to where I saw the blueprint for the first time. The desk in the corner. But there was no blueprint on it this time around. Only a small studying light and some pencils and chalk on there. I looked around the desk to see if I found anything else. There were drawers on the desk. One on each side. I tried to open them but they were locked. I had suspected that the blueprint might have been there. Thankfully, there were various tools at my disposal so I didn't have to rely on the crowbar for opening the drawers. I picked one of the screwdrivers and squeezed the tip in the peephole and used it as a lever. The first drawer put less of a fight than the hatch door on the roof and opened with ease. And the moment I looked at it, I knew I hit the jackpot. The blueprints were rolled inside the drawer alongside one-another. I picked a few and opened them on the table. They all were written in shapes! The only thing I could make out was the shapes they had on them. There was a gauntlet on one. It looked like something out of a sci-fi movie that TV shows on Sundays. The other one was a pair of goggles. Steely Armor's goggles! And last but not least, the claw. I took my phone out and took some shots from them. There was no need to bring the blueprints with myself. And unfortunately, I couldn't find much else. There were more blueprints in the drawers but I thought I had enough pictures. For now at least. After that, I only had to find my way out. Which I only had to get out, how I got in, right? Well, no. Because the hatch was up there and I couldn't find anything that could help me get up there. No ladder, no possible grappling hook, and not even a step. The front entrance was locked up from the other side too. I was stuck. I didn't have a way back on the roof, but now, I didn't have a way back nor a way forward. I got out of a whole, just to fall in another. I couldn't get out, not by myself anyway. I had to get help from someone. But who would be up till midnight? And even come outside of the city to bail me out of a garage in the middle of a junkyard? Still, it was my only ticket out. So I gave it a try. I took my phone and went into my contacts. Now the question was who should I have called? Twilight would have been the best option considering she could open locks with her magic but I was certain she would already be asleep or working on her new schedule. Next up was Applejack. However I knew she would have been asleep too. No super strength for me! I didn't want to bother Fluttershy either. She is not comfortable being out at night. Specially in such places. Nope definitely not her. It seemed I could only hope for three. Rainbow, Pinkie and Rarity. I decided to try Rainbow Dash first. Wasn't sure whether she was playing games till dawn or was knocked out till tomorrow's afternoon but she could get to me faster than anyone else. So I took her number and waited. And waited. And waited, till I realized It would have probably taken hours of doing so for her to finally pick up. "Ugh! C'mon!" I took Pinkie's number afterwards. There was an amazing chance that she would have been awake. To be honest I doubt she even sleeps. Somewhere deep down I feel she just pretends to be asleep every night. Anyway, it didn't take long till she picked up. "Hi Sunset," Pinkie could be heard along with the loud noise of music in the background. "Hi Pinkie! Look, you gotta come to the location I'll be sending you." "WHAT?" she shouted, "I can't hear you!" "I said: YOU HAVE TO COME TO THE LOCATION I'LL SEND YOU!" "Is there a party?" "No, I'm stuck somewhere and I need your help." "You're a sick souvenir?" "NO! I'm STUCK! I. AM. STUCK!" "Oh ok..." She stayed silent for a few seconds and let the sound of music be heard more clearly, "So there is no party there?" "NO!" I was losing my mind! "Just come here ok?" "Alright." She then hung up. I sent the address for her and waited to see if she gave a response or not. And moments later, she replied with: "I'm coming." I sighed, and hoped from the deepest parts of my heart that she'd hurry up. Meanwhile, I walked back to the desk and looked at the blueprints once again. I had nothing better to do anyway. I opened the blueprint that had a picture of a gauntlet, or was it a prosthetic hand I don't know. It had various signs of being electronic on the picture from what looked like lights and wires to the overall design. It looked nothing like a medieval gauntlet. Maybe a bit like the one I saw in that superhero movie, Guardians of the Universe: Battle of infinity? Either that or the one that was labeled Game Finale. Anyway, there wasn't much else I could have gathered from the picture, and I couldn't read what was on it either. After looking at the blueprint with the goggles again, I was certain that it was the same goggles Steely Armor has hanging on his head all the time. So it wasn't just a normal pair of goggles. However, I doubt I'll be using that word for Steely Armor anymore. Just then, I heard the footsteps of someone walking outside. The night was so silent that it could be heard with ease. I walked up to the roller door and put my ear on it. The footsteps were getting louder and louder. They couldn't have been Pinkie. She couldn't have come here that fast. Was it the guard? Does the place even have a guard? Before I could drown myself in more thoughts, I heard the shackling of metal objects bangling. And moments later, the roller door started to open up! I stepped back. Someone was coming in and I imagined being caught or seen there, meant trouble. I walked back and hid myself behind the blue van. I crouched and tried to see if I could get a glimpse of whoever was opening the door to come in. The door was still slowly opening up. Only the shoes and the trousers of the person outside could be seen. After a few seconds the door stopped clanking. And I heard the sound of footsteps coming in. I crouched even lower, and held my breath in hopes of them not noticing me. But it was too late. They already knew me. "Sunset Shimmer, I know you are there!" a strong male voice called, "come out!" I recognized Steely Armors voice, but I didn't know how he knew I was there. But I recalled what Flaming Star said that day. “He has cameras set up everywhere.” I left my hideout. As I stood tall, I could see Steely Armor's face in the dim light of the garage. Frowning, his face no longer lacked emotions. The eyes narrowed and stared at me directly. His arms crossed, resting on his chest. "What are you doing here?" Steely Armor asked, letting go of his crossed arms. I stood in silence. I wasn't sure how I was going to respond. Steely Armor walked forward, "Did you hear me? What are you doing in my garage? How did you even get in?” I took a deep breath. I wasn't expecting this to end up like this, but it seemed I was getting the confrontation I wanted after all. "I came here looking for answers." Steely Armor stopped moving forward. "The answer to what?" I shook my head, "Even now you keep on ignoring the matter." I walked up to the desk, picked up a blueprint and threw it towards him. "The answer to those! What have you been doing lately in school? The answer to how you managed to have a garage in here? How you just, vanished in a hallway?" I raised my voice. Steely Armor crouched and picked up the blueprint as fast as possible. "Why do you want to know?" I sighed before answering, "Because I have been in a similar situation and it didn't go well. I don't want you to go through the same thing!" "What thing? What happened?" he said sarcastically, "You guys never tell me what happened!" I shook my head, "That's because it's not easy to explain" I looked him in the eyes before continuing. "But what is this that you are hiding? At first I wasn't minding it but then, I saw a tennis ball get blasted into a locker in front of me! And don't even try to lie your way out that you weren't the guy running away." Steely Armor took a few steps back and looked down. "And on top of that..." I continued, "...my magic didn't work on you! Why?” He looked at me with his eyes widened only to look away instantly. "It doesn't matter!" he raised his voice. "You shouldn't have come here like this! You must leave!” He pointed outside. I nodded, "No, I shouldn't have...but you left me no choice! I asked you about what was going on multiple times. Twilight even talked to you once! But you were always shaking us off! WHY?" I shouted. "BECAUSE I WAS NOT READY!" Steely Armor shouted back and silenced me with his voice. "I AM NOT READY! IT'S COMPLICATED! IT’S NOT EASY TO EXPLAIN!” "YOU CAN'T AVOID ANSWERING FOREVER!" The moment I said that, everything flashed before my eyes. My thoughts, me talking to Twilight and Flaming Star and their words. It all made sense now. Even though I was not touching Steely Armor, I could sense what he felt. He was just like me. Lost, trying to make sense of what is going on around him without having the puzzle pieces to do so. Both, afraid of what we keep from others. Both, not ready. Steely Armor stood tall and pointed outside once again. His teeth pushing on one another. “LEAVE! NOW!” "I get it..." I said, as I lowered my voice and slowly walked up to Steely Armor. He still refused to look up. "Stay after school on Monday. I will tell you everything that has happened." That caught his attention and made him give me a glimpse from the corner of his eyes. “w-what?” "And sorry...I truly shouldn't have come here...not this way." I picked up my stuff and started walking out. Steely Armor though, still had a few words. "W-w-what d-do you mean?" "I will tell you what happened with magic in our school. You have the right to know it. And I rather do it myself than someone else. And don't worry, I didn't steal anything. I was just...looking." Steely Armor stood still. Looking around, checking stuff, but not saying a word. I texted pinkie to not come anymore and that I had sorted out the situation. Though she didn't see it as soon as I hoped to. I rode my motorcycle home and took some rest. I just passed a long night. I've realized that the true reason why I could never break the ice with the boys wasn't that they weren't used to the school. Or at least that wasn't all of it. I was keeping a boundary between us that I should have thought of breaking sooner. Even though it may be hard, I have to do it. I have to, if I expect the same thing from them. Your friend and student, Sunset Shimmer. Author's Note Stay patient for future stories. And don't forget to leave your thoughts down in the comments! It helps more than you can imagine!
Investigation kick-startThat night Twilight explained the basics and sent a few pics with her own solution to help me get started. Which did help me greatly. However she had to take care of Spike and her own studies so she had to leave the call rather early. But I was more than ready to do my homework. It took me about an hour to figure things out and be done with them. To which I say I did really well considering I didn't pay attention in class. I recall back then I forced someone to do my homework. Not proud of it though. If anything I'm more ashamed but all I want to say is, figuring stuff out for yourself can be fun. Granted, you might need a hand to get going but still. The next day I had to walk to school again. But I wasn't in the right mood so I decided to take a bus instead. And thankfully it was not crowded like most of the time. I sat on one of the seats and listened to some music with my headphones on the way. I still hadn't decided what I wanted to do about how I was going to tell the boys about my past and the whole thing about Equestrian magic. It would be very hard to take in all at once but, it would be very incomplete and unclear otherwise. Not that it would come as clear and easy to understand but rather, easier to maintain? I don't know. Even though I still needed to find a solution for that issue, I had to focus on Steely Armor and whatever he was hiding. Then, it had to be my main concern since I had to deal with it sooner than the other one. After a while, I got to school. The bus stops right in front of the school which is very convenient. There isn't really a station there but since it's Canter lot city's main school, it gets a special treatment. The school was more crowded this time when I got there. Probably because we had sports that day. I was heading to my locker once again. I came face to face with Rainbow Dash on the way. "Hey Sunshim!" She put her hand on my shoulder and joined me on the walk. "Hey Rainbow! How is it going?" "Nothing special, just enjoying the 'Vroom Vrooms' of my bike every morning and afternoon." She mimicked being behind the motorcycle again. "How about you?" "Nothing much, I just have a lot in my mind." I sighed. "Have the girls shown up?" "Not yet. But I know pinkie will be here soon." "Yeah, kinda surprised she hasn't showed up yet." "Yeah..." We stayed silent for a couple of seconds until Rainbow Dash decided to break the silence. "Oh, right! uhm Sunset!" "yeah?" "Vice principal Luna wanted to see you. She asked me about you earlier this morning." "Wait...for what?" "I don't know. But the kids say one of the lockers near the lab had been blunted badly somehow. She is probably trying to figure out who did it." "Huh...right..." I said as I went deep in thoughts. I should have known that Vice principal Luna would have probably tried to get to the bottom of the blunted locker the moment she heard about it. Like "duh!" of course she would! "...Wait! What did you mean by the last part?" "Uhm...nothing!' She rubbed her eyes away from me. "Riiiiiiight..." I rolled my eyes over. "FINE!" She gave up on holding back. "I did think that she thought you might be a part of it. But I didn't think that you might be a part of it." She looked me in the eye after that. "I would never think that." "I know." I smiled. "I was just pulling your leg. Besides It doesn't bother me that much anymore." "OHHH!" She rolled her eyes, and gave me a nudge. "You got me good!" After that I left her and went to vice principal Luna's office. I knocked and as soon as she said "come in" I opened the door and entered. The windows were covered with blinds. Sometimes I wonder if she ever let sunlight come in at all. I've been in her office many times, for various reasons. But never have I seen those blinds up. She herself was sitting behind her desk and working with her computer. "You wanted to see me?" I said to catch her attention. Vice principal Luna switched her gaze from the screen of her computer to me. "Sunset Shimmer, yes." She stood up. "Take a seat." I sat down on one of the chairs and then she continued. "Yesterday I found a blunted locker. It looked as if someone smacked it with a hammer. And not just once." She came close to me and bended. "And?" I asked, pulling my face back a little. "There were some issues with the cameras of that section. They blacked out. However I did see you walking there on one of the cameras." she stepped back. "So?" I raised my eyebrow. I was not sure if she was suspecting me or not but I wasn't feeling good about the situation. She sighed, "I know it was not you, it was quite clear to us that you were merely just passing by." She paused and crossed her arms. "At least that is how the camera's show it." "Right. But I still don't know why I am here." I pointed down. She looked me in the eyes once again. "We believe that you might have been able to identify the suspect..." She stepped closer, "...have you?" Now the question was whether I sell Steely Armor or not? On one hand that way I might have gained some insight to what exactly he is doing but on the other hand, I was technically back stabbing someone I am trying to break the ice with. "Sunset Shimmer?" "YES!" "We are still awaiting your answer." "Well...." I rubbed the back of my head. "You see, I don't really have an Idea of who did that, maybe if I think a bit more I might figure it out but I don't think I can name someone with certainty now." Vice principal Luna glared at me. "Fine, you may leave. But keep us informed." "Of course!" I stood up and left her office at once. Sadly there was not much time to catch up with the girls, I had to head to class. Chemistry of all things! Not saying I don't like it. Just that it's not very entertaining. After class, I met up with Twilight first and foremost. "Hi Twilight!" "Oh, Hi Sunset! Didn't see you this morning with the girls. Rainbow Dash said you had to visit vice principal Luna." She tightened her eyes before continuing. "You didn't just...tell the whole thing to her did you?" "If by the whole thing you mean selling Steely Armor, then no. But there is something else." Twilight's eyes widened. "What!?" "Vice principal Luna has noticed what has happened to the locker. Though she can not find who did it because the camera's in that section were not working properly. For...some reason." It started to feel very suspicious that the camera's just conveniently stopped working in that exact area that Steely Armor was. "Then what were you doing in her office?" "Apparently she spotted me nearby by the cameras and thought maybe I would know something." I shrugged, "Or at least that is how she made it sound like." "Huh." She rubbed her chin. "Wait!" She looked me in the eyes before continuing. "Do you even plan on telling her about Steely Armor, even if...he doesn't budge?" I sighed before answering. "Of course not." "NO?" Twilight's head went back. "Yeah, I'm not gonna sell him! It's just not cool. Besides, he is a new entry and ever since the things that had happened in the school, principal Celestia and vice principal Luna rather not take the chances and will straight out expel him." Twilight's eyes widened in shock, "Really?" "Temporary expel at best." I bit my lip. "That is just....not fair." "I mean..." I moved my hand around in the air, "...That happens if they are doing something weird, and not necessarily just breaking the rules or damaging stuff. Though In Steely Armor's case..." I rubbed the back of my head, "well it's just, very shady." "I see," Twilight said as she looked down and rubbed his hand. I wondered if she felt she was responsible for the current situation with the new entries. She seemed very down when I mentioned how the staff watches the new entries now. But even if she had a part in it, she was only a victim. "Hey." I nudged her with my elbow. "Where is Spike?" Twilight adjusted her back pack, "OH!" She then sighed. ``he was very tired so I let him stay at home. I sort of forgot that he wasn't in the bag today." "I doubt I will ever feel the same with Ray. Half the time he just sneaks up on my cheek without me noticing and the other times he is just doing his own thing." Twilight smiled, "Don't you ever lose him? Like, he is small." "Sometimes I think I have..." I nodded, "...But then I check in the mirror and see he has been sitting on my head the whole time." Twilight's smile turned into laughter and gave me a little push. "You should have seen Spike's face that time I busted him eating a snack at night." "Let me guess, he was probably like..." I widened my eyes, brought my lower jaw back and looked at Twilight from the side. The moment Twilight saw me with that face she chuckled loudly. "Pretty much!" We both slowly let out the rest of the laughter we were holding on after that. I dare say I managed to cheer Twilight up so much that she probably lost her train of thoughts. "Hey, uhm," Twilight said. "yes?" "So...what are we going to do about Steely Armor now?" "I'll talk to him. I might have to threaten him by saying that I will snitch on him and what might happen, but it's for the better." I shook my head. Twilight took a second to gather her thoughts again by looking away. "But, what if that doesn't work too?" I sighed and looked her in the eye before answering, "Then I officially have the privilege to use my magic." "Sounds...sensible." Twilight nodded. "Are we going to do that now?" "No, let's put it on for the second break. We get more time that way. Besides, I wanted to talk to you about something else." "I hope you don't want to come to my house for the weekend so that I can tutor you more on physics," she sighed. "What? No!' I shook my head, "Hold on. I thought you said you were fine with torturing me. Was I...bothering you last night?" "Oh, No!" Twilight closed her eyes and held her head for a second. "It's just that, the schedule will change from next week and I still haven't finished my day-to-day task list. Version 2.0 that is!" "Oh! Right. Anyway, I wanted to talk about something else," I said and I stopped walking. Twilight too stopped and responded. "Sure." I gathered my thoughts before starting. "I've been wondering about how we are going to tell the boys about all the things that have happened here. Should we even tell them to begin with?" "Oh! So you were wondering about it too." She played with her hands. "Not until recently but, you were?" Twilight adjusted her glasses and bit her lip. "It came up a couple of times when Steely Armor and I were trying to make sense of our theories. He also asked about it before but I avoided answering. "But we can't avoid answering forever," I sighed. Twilight said nothing and just nodded. I took a deep breath to help me think better, but it did not make the cut. "I uh, I have to go, sorry see you in next class." "See you." I walked to the bathroom and washed my face in hopes of feeling a bit refreshed but it was not helping. I was just standing there staring at my own reflection in the mirror. It seemed that the issue I thought was so little was apparently way bigger. But should I have focused on that or Steely Armor and whatever he was hiding? In my mind at that point, one was simply something we just had to explain eventually and the other was having the risk repeating what happened in the friendship games. And It was obvious what I went for. After the Geology class Twilight and I asked for Steely Armor to stop for a second. We decided to cut to the topic right away. Or should I say, I decided to do so. "Look Steely Armor, I know you were the one who shot that tennis ball from the lab yesterday. And don't even try to convince me that was normal! Because It was not!" Steely Armor stared at me, without any sort of emotion in his face. "What are you talking about?" "Oh, so you want to deny it! Well that's not going to work since I am one hundred percent sure that I saw you!" I pointed my finger at him and kept my eye contact. Twilight held my arm and tried to calm me down. "Sunset! This is not what I pictured when you said 'talking'." Steely Armor stared at my finger and blinked twice. His face still lacked any emotions. "I do not understand what you two are referring to. Please provide more context," He said with the least amount of mouth movement possible. His jaw was awkwardly moving. I made twilight let go of my arm, "Look, just tell me one thing!" I stood tall and stared at his dead eyes. "What was that blueprint that I saw in your garage about? What are you doing? And you better not try to say 'It's not important!' because if you don't give a proper answer right now, I will have to tell vice principal Luna that you are responsible fo-" "I'm afraid I must leave. Please excuse me!" he interrupted me and started to walk away instantly. He was on my nerves at that point. I literally wanted to shout but I decided to play it smart and hold his hand real quick. I stepped forward and took hold of his wrist. It felt cold and not...normal. Steely Armor stopped and turned to see why I held his hand. Seconds passed and I was in anticipation of seeing him through his memories...but nothing. Nothing at all! It was as if my magic was not working. "Why are you holding my left hand?" Steely Armor asked. I stared at the hand for a second and let go. "Nothing..." He then continued walking as if nothing happened at all. Twilight walked up to me slowly, "Sunset? Are you...alright?" I was still lost by why I didn't see his memories. All I was paying attention to was how Steely Armor was walking away. Suddenly before noticing, I was running after him down the hallway. He took a left turn at the end, towards the janitor's closet? For a second I was like: why? However, the moment I turned left at the end of the hallway, he was gone. That hallway is just a dead-end that only leads to the janitor's closet. And only he himself was walking there. Only him and his mop. I didn't even look back to face Twilight. "Where did he go?" Twilight leaned forward and looked down the hallway. "I...don't know." she turned me around to face her. "What was that all about?" I shook her off and set a little distance between ourselves. "It...doesn't make sense..." Twilight raised an eyebrow and held my shoulder. "What doesn't make sense?" I looker in the eye before responding, "I did not see his memories..." "Wait but, you were holding his wrist!" "Yes. But I saw nothing. Is my magic...'' Before I completed that train of thought, I held Twilight's hand in my own. I sensed her warm soft hands and instantly, My sight turned into a vision of her memories. I let go of her and soon afterwards. "...It's working..." I was lost. I couldn't understand what was happening. Why couldn't I see Steely Armors memories? Was I not touching him? No, I was clearly holding his wrist. Then why didn't my magic work on him? He wasn't wearing a long sleeved shirt either. His shirt didn't even cover his elbows. Why did his hands feel very unnatural? Before I could drown myself any further, Twilight pulled me out of my thoughts. "SUNSET! ARE YOU LISTENING?" "Y-yeah. I'm here." "What has gotten into you?" "...I...I don't know." I was still dazed. Twilight looked at me silently. "What is going on?" I asked. Twilight sighed, "let's go drink some water." I said nothing, I just nodded and continued walking with her to the nearest water fountain. But the thoughts didn't let go of me. It was getting more and more weird. I drank some water from the fountain. I could feel my brain overheating over trying to figure out what happened but thankfully the cold water helped to calm me down. After that I took a really deep breath. I leaned on the wall and kept my head up, looking at the ceiling, still wondering. Twilight came closer to me and put her hand on my shoulder. "Are you feeling better?" "I...think?" She looked at me nervously, "Are you going to tell me what happened and why you were so aggressive towards Steely Armor?" I dragged my hands on my face. "It.." I sighed and decided to try my best at explaining what happened, "First off, I felt being a bit more forward can be helpful in order to get him to tell us what he is doing." "What made you think that way?" Twilight raised her shoulders and hands in the air. "Because all the other times that either you or me talked to him, he didn't budge," I said furiously! Twilight stepped back, and looked away, "Did that same approach work with me?" I turned my head and looked at her, "I..." I was speechless. "You're right...that was a bad Idea." I held my head with my hands, "Sorry." Twilight sighed and turned back to face me, "It's...fine." She then picked her glasses from her face and took out a cloth from her pocket and started cleaning the glasses. "So, what did you see in his memories and why did you start running after him?" "...Nothing..." Twilight put her glasses back on, "What?" "I saw nothing..." I repeated as I shook my head in disbelief. "...like my magic just...didn't work." Twilight stood in silence. I believe she too was trying to make sense as to why my magic didn't work. "So, that's why you held my hand-" "-To see if my magic was working or not, yeah." I completed her sentence. "And...he just...I don't know made me irritated and I was just so puzzled by the fact that my magic didn't work that I ran after him to continue my words or whatever with him." I sighed before I continued, "And guess what, he magically disappeared." Twilight just shook her head in loss. It seemed even she couldn't make sense of the situation. Before we could continue our discussion, we had to head to our next class. I shook my head in loss and continued walking to my class with Twilight I don't think I need to say I was not in the mood to listen to the subject. I was continuing my thoughts on why Steely Armor was acting oddly that day. He usually keeps quiet and doesn't say much. This time however, he seemed confident? Not sure if that is the right word but, he did not feel like always. Not to mention that he had barely any expressions on his face. Actually let me correct myself, he had no expressions on his face. And to top it all, both my magic didn't work on him and he somehow vanished in a dead-end hallway. This whole thing was getting more and more complicated and I barely had any clue as to what Steely Armor was doing. But I bet that his bestie could grant some information. After class I walked around in the halls looking for Flaming Star. It was launch time so most of the students head to the cafeteria right away. I could have simply waited around for him to show up there but, he always sits next to Steely Armor and I wanted to talk to him alone. Therefore I started venturing through the hallways, looking in every corner to find him and eventually I caught him at his locker. I took a deep breath and walked forward. "Hi." "Oh, Hi!" he turned his head to me. "I wanted to say sorry for yesterday, I sort of remembered I had to do something important." Flaming Star closed his locker and locked it real quick before responding. "It's alright, I understand." He then looked away for a second. "Besides, I mainly wanted to make sure you were not mad about that other day. "I was." I smiled, "But I let go of it when I heard you sorted things out with your father." Flaming Star raised his eyebrow, "You mean, it wasn't because of the flowers?" He smirked. I rolled my eyes, "Maybe..." Flaming Star chuckled a little. "So...are you heading to the cafeteria?" That was what I've been waiting for. "Yeah...I just wanted to drop by and apologize for yesterday and all of that." I nodded. As I started walking away, he too started walking next to me. Now I have to be wise. I only had a brief moment to try my best and get something out of him. "So, what do you think about the schools so far?" I asked. "Well, It certainly has a more friendly atmosphere than Falcon Stone. The kids there were..." He took a pause, "...very frustrating." "How so?" Flaming Star sighed before responding, "They all were...arrogant and a bunch of jerks. Some bragged about their status and their marks and some leeched to them. Every single exam, question or something always turned into a pointless competition." "What about you and Steely Armor?" He looked at me for a second, "We...well we minded our own business most of the time. Just me and him." He scratched his hair and continued, "But I am glad we moved, even if it was mostly because of our Magic " He made air quotes. "Steely was quite under pressure in Falcon Stone. And the tuition was not easy for his family anyway." "Wait, then why was he there? Why didn't he go to a cheaper school like...here?" I raised my eyebrow as I pointed around the school. Flaming Star shook his head, "His parents...I...I should not get into this. Sorry." After that, Flaming Star speeded up his walking. I was losing my opportunity, I had to take things a bit more straight. "Hey" I ran up to him real quick. "Have you heard about the blunted locker?" Flaming Star stayed silent for a second and then responded. "Yeah." "Ok, listen, I was there when it happened. I even saw who did it..." "Uh huh," Flaming Star raised his eyebrow. I sighed before revealing his friend's name, "I am one hundred percent sure it was Steely Armor." Flaming Star stayed in silence and looked away. As if he didn't want to respond. I sighed and continued, "Weird things have been happening with Steely Armor. And we are worried. So if you know what he is doing I would be very tha-" "-Ask him, if he feels that you should know, he'll tell you." He then tried to make some distance between us. "I don't know what he is doing but-" "-We did, but he is just turning the whole subject around every time." "That means he doesn't feel like telling you." He was almost running at that point. I had to maintain the same speed so I started running too, "You don't understand. we know something that you don't!" "And what is it?" "It's complicated!" We were in front of the cafeteria door when he stopped running and stood still. "And so is what Steely is doing." He pointed his finger to me. “I’m sorry but I can’t help you with that. It’s Steely’s boundary, and I will not cross it.” I stopped too. Looking at his finger and then switching my sight to his frowning blue eyes. "Steely will tell you when he thinks it's appropriate," Flaming Star continued, "Don't skip his red line." He turned away and started walking away. "Flaming Star!" I called him. He stood still but did not turn back. "what?" I raised my voice, "You are not telling me that I should just wait around for the guy who somehow blasted a tennis ball so hard from the lab that it blunted the locker that was on the other side of the hallway? Or should I ignore how he managed to work around in a restricted area? Or the weird blueprint that was written in shapes? And don't even get me started on how he just vanished in a hallway!" Flaming Star looked at me from the corner of his eye. "It may look odd at first but, as I said before, he will explain it all...when the time comes." He then started walking towards the cafeteria door. My opportunity was gone. Even Flaming Star was not telling me anything. But I had to get to the bottom of whatever Steely Armor has been up to lately. Maybe I could have shook it off at first but now, with what I'd seen, there was no going back. I had to make sure Steely Armor would not repeat the same fate as our Twilight. And for doing so, there was only one option. I walked up to Flaming Star and held his shoulder. I forced him to turn back and the moment I could see his face, I brought my hand up to touch it. But before my hand could reach his face, he caught it in the air. "what are you doing?" He pushed me back before I could do anything else. "Were you...trying to..." He narrowed his eyes and shook his head in disappointment. "You just crossed the line that you shouldn't have crossed." He frowned and went into the cafeteria. Author's Note Make sure you read the next chapter too!
