~ 2 months later ~

The last couple months had gone by quickly for Lightning Dust and her friends. Their channel had grown quite popular in school, and they had become famous in Crystal Prep. The only channel on the school website that had more views than theirs was The Crystals music channel. Lightning had tried to ignore them, though, especially Indigo Zap. And Indigo made sure to do the same.

Lightning was still with Snowfall, but her dad had never found out. She and Snowfall hadn’t talked much about what was going to happen when she left for Airforce Flight School after graduation. He knew he was going to miss her, though. She had finally told Frosty and Minty about their relationship a few weeks back, feeling she could trust them, and they promised not to tell anyone. They really were great friends.

The 3 girls were in the local park on the playground dressed for the cold weather of December. Lightning and Minty were sitting on the swings, and Frosty was on a bench nearby reading a book for her upcoming exams. She always planned ahead.

Frosty finished studying and packed up her books, walking over to the girls. “Only 1 week until the holiday break!” she said. “Are you all excited?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Lightning replied. “It’s gonna be so fun.”

“That’s for sure,” Minty said. “Dusty, we were going to go to the Christmas parade. It’s on the 21st of December. Do you want to-”

“First of all, do you even know me?” Lightning asked her. “Let me know if you want to go snowboarding, and then maybe I’ll be there.”

Minty looked hurt. “I just thought it would be a nice thing to do as friends, since we’ve not really done anything like it before.”

“Well then, you guys have a great time,” Lightning said, getting up to go home. “See you.” She waved, then took off to leave the park.

Frosty spoke up after a moment. “Don’t worry, we’ll have a great time at the parade.”

Minty sighed. “I just wish Dusty was-”

“Well, she made it clear she didn’t want to join us, right?” Frosty said, sounding frustrated. “Minty, do you ever notice that the only things she does with us…are her own ideas?”

Minty looked off in the distance in thought. “Maybe. I try not to think too hard about it. Maybe something’s wrong, what if she’s just having a bad day? Or someone hurt her feelings?”

“Well then, we could’ve said that every day,” Frosty said. “We don’t need to keep making excuses for her, you know. This friendship just isn’t working out very well. I think we need to have a few words with that girl.”

~.~.~.~.~.~

On Sunday evening, It had been 2 days since Lightning saw her friends, and she hadn’t heard anything from them like usual. Normally, they would send her messages all the time, offering her to go out and do things which they should know she wasn’t interested in. But for the entire weekend, she hadn’t gotten anything. She would see them in school the next day, though, and find out what they’d been doing.

She went on her computer to watch some of the old To the Extreme vlogs with her friends, but she was surprised to see that a new live video had been started just 5 minutes ago. She opened it and saw Minty and Frosty, recording themselves in some park by the forest.

“Hey, guys! Minty and Frosty here,” Minty happily said to the camera. “Today, we’re gonna be climbing trees and exploring forests outside the local park. We can’t wait to show you what we find.”

“And to reply to your comments,” Frosty spoke up. “Yes, Dusty is fine. She has just decided to leave our group, as she’s not interested in extreme sports or adventures anymore. It’s alright though, we will have lots of fun with you guys for the next week. And maybe we’ll get back together in the future every now and then.”

Lightning slammed her computer closed. “What kind of crap is this?”

~.~.~.~.~.~

Lightning stomped down the stairs, determined to find them and find out what that video was about. She had seen that place in the park before and if she was fast, which she was, she could catch up to them and confront them about it.

“Hey, where are you off to?” her dad came over to her.

“Be back later,” she said, heading for the door.

“Hey, hey,” he stopped her. “I thought we were going to the music shop to clean up this-” he barely had time to finish before she took off out the door, slamming it behind her. “…evening.”

~.~.~.~.~.~

As Lightning ran through the park, she finally caught sight of Frosty and Minty still talking to the camera, and called to them.

“Hey! You guys!” she approached them.

Frosty turned off the camera and glared at her. “What, now you want to see us?”

“I came to see what is up with the vlog you just posted?” Lightning asked them.

“Ohh, that,” Minty said nervously. “Yeah, we’re gonna go into the forest and vlog today!”

“Not what I mean,” Lightning said. “The part about me ‘not being interested’?”

“Oh, yeah,” Frosty replied. “Well, you don’t seem to be interested in being friends with us, so we figured we didn’t need to have a channel together anymore.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lightning said, starting to get very annoyed with these girls. “It’s not that deep. Just because I don’t like having sleepovers or going out for ice cream. But I’m still part of To the Extreme! I’m ready to come with you. Now, take down that last video before anyone sees it.”

Frosty and Minty fell silent, looking at each other hesitantly. Finally, Frosty stepped forward, making it known that she had something serious to say.

“What?” Lightning asked slowly.

“…there’s something we’ve been meaning to tell you, Dusty,” Frosty said after a minute. She took a didn’t look at Lightning for a long time, and shut her eyes tightly. Then, with a deep breath, she continued. “Um…we don’t wanna be friends anymore.”

Lightning furrowed her eyebrows, feeling incredibly confused. “Any reason why?”

Frosty sighed heavily. “It all started about a week ago. In fact, it’s been going on ever since we made friends with you, and we just didn’t notice before. Basically, you’re a terrible friend.”

“Yeah,” Minty spoke up. “We always tried to invite you out to do things like get ice cream, go shopping, have sleepovers-”

“Yeah, and I believe I said those are completely lame and ridiculous,” Lightning interrupted. “And I still stand by that.” There was no way her friends were going to leave her just because she had different interests.

“Exactly,” Frosty continued. “We realized you don’t go do extreme sports with us because we’re your friends. You do them for yourself. And you don’t care about doing anything with us that you don’t like.”

“I don’t understand,” Lightning said, stepping back. “Why would I do things I hate?”

“And we always listened to you and tried to support you,” Minty said. “We didn’t have to come surprise you at your house when you were sick, but we did. And you didn’t have to call me when I was going through a roughtime a couple weeks ago. And you didn’t! That’s the difference, and when we realized for the first time that you don’t care about us. You only care about yourself, Dusty.”

“Alright fine, I’ve heard enough,” Lightning said quickly. “I’ll just start my own vlog series. Most people probably watched this one for me anyway.”

“Fine, see how that goes for you,” Frosty said. “But in the end, we have each other, and you have no friends. Now just leave us alone. We have things to do.”

“Yeah, I’m going,” Lightning said. “Just one more thing.” She grabbed the camera out of Frosty’s hand, holding it up in the air. Before the girls could do anything, Lightning threw it, hard, on the ground. They could hear the lens shatter. Minty gasped as tears started rolling down her cheeks.

“Alright, go do your things now,” Lightning finished, leaving for her house and not looking back. She’d had it with these girls weeks ago.

Frosty picked up the camera, but it was broken beyond repair. She set it down on a nearby picnic table, before looking at Minty, who now had tears streaming down her cheeks. Minty sniffled, trying to wipe them away.

“Stop crying, it’s okay,” Frosty hugged her tightly. “We’ll get another one. It was getting pretty old anyways. It’s a new beginning for us, we don’t need to deal with her anymore.” The two pulled apart after a couple minutes, smiling slightly at each other.

Lightning continued walking through the park, thinking this was all too familiar. After all the things they did together, they were just going to end it like that? Well, it wasn’t her loss, for sure. That’s what she tried to keep telling herself. They were the same as Indigo Zap, and they never cared enough to see who she really was.

~.~.~.~.~.~

It had been nearly a week since that incident in the park, and to be honest, Lightning’s life was not going that well. She had tried starting her own vlog series the day after all that happened, and she hardly got any views. However, ‘Minty and Frosty’s Adventures’, as they now called it, had only become more popular. They hadn’t spoken, but she could tell when she saw them in school that they were happier without her. About 2 days after waiting and only getting 5 views on her video and 1 comment from her dad, she deleted it in frustration. She would film more videos after the holiday break.

Lightning came home from school on Friday, the last day before the break. Her dad approached her with a smile as usual, but he actually seemed even more cheerful today.

“How was school, Lightning?” he asked quickly, seeming like he had something else to say.

“The same as usual,” she replied, sitting with him on the couch. “What are you so happy about?” she asked suspiciously, raising an eyebrow.

“I have a bit of a surprise for you,” her dad said, getting out his phone from his pocket and showing her something. “There’s going to be a scenic Christmas-themed train ride, leaving from the station downtown. It goes through the city and the hills outside of town as well. And I got tickets!”

“Oh, come on!” Lightning sighed in frustration. “That sounds so boring, couldn’t you have at least asked me first? Return them, I don’t want to go.”

“They’re non-refundable,” her dad said. “It’ll be fun, Lightning. It’s only 2 hours long, and I booked them for December 22nd. We can still spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day here at the house like always. Maybe your friends from school can come over. Are you still friends with them? I can’t quite remember their names…”

“No, we’re not,” Lightning said, getting up. She did not feel like getting into that story right now. “Alright, I guess we’re going on that train ride then.”

As she went upstairs to her room, she thought to herself. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. She and her dad hadn’t done anything together in a while, and this was definitely the most extreme thing he would ever do. What could be that bad about it?

⚡⭐⚡⭐⚡⭐⚡⭐⚡⭐

Author's Note

I'm working on writing the next part to this, just got a lot of things going on right now.