The call ended and Xander turned back to Dawn.
“So what's this I hear about an apocalypse?”
Dawn sighed, “There isn't one as far as I can tell. The kids all seem nice enough right now, although they're definitely hiding something from me. The rest of the students know too so I think I can find out from them if I can sneak away from my new best bud club.”
Dawn saw the seven students she had met the previous day outside the school. She very intently circled a wide area around them, melting into the crowd of other students entering the building. She wanted to see how long she could go today without picking up a tail. Yesterday one of the other students had almost spilled the beans on whatever it was that was going on here. She needed to talk to as many other students as she could, without being noticed by her welcoming party.
Her first target was a blue-haired boy with a guitar. She walked up and said, “Hey.”
The boy didn’t even look up from his guitar, “Hey. You’re the new girl, right? Dawn?”
She nodded, “Uhuh. I was wondering if I could ask you a question?”
He retuned one of the strings that she was fairly certain had been fine before, “Sure. What do you want to know?”
“Well, there’s the talking dog...”
“Spike.”
Dawn paused at the correction, “Right… So how about that? I mean what’s the deal?”
The boy sighed and looked up from his guitar for the first time, “Look, I may not entirely get along with those girls anymore, but it’s really not my place to be talking about them either. If you want to know about the talking dog, I think you should talk to the talking dog or his owner. I don’t mean any offense to you. It’s just not my story to tell.”
She smiled, “Well that’s very gentlemanlike of you. If you don’t mind me asking, why don’t you get along with them anymore? You seem like a really nice guy.”
He frowned in contemplation, “Let’s just say Sunset Shimmer and I used to go out, and Twilight, well… This Twilight never even gave me the time of day. Look I have to get to class. If you wanna talk about something else we can meet back up at lunch.”
Dawn managed to dodge them all through classes. Quite the feat, considering how many classes she and Sunset and Twilight had in common.
She reapproached her new informant at lunch. He was still holding his guitar. Did he take it to class with him too?
“Hey.”
The boy looked up and smiled when he recognized her, “Hey.”
Dawn slid into the seat next to him, “I didn’t catch your name before, did I.”
He laughed, “It’s alright. You were too busy interrogating me about my exes. I’m Flash, Flash Sentry.”
“Dawn.” She paused, “But you already knew that anyway. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you forgot in the last few hours?”
Flash stopped strumming and retuned the instrument for the third time she had seen that day, “Well I was getting rusty on a few of the details from when we met this morning. The refresher is nice. It’ll come in handy if I get tested later.”
“Right. Well anyway, you said we could talk later, and, well, now it’s later. So can we talk?”
He sighed again and frowned at her, “Look, Dawn, you seem pretty cool, and I’d love to talk or hang out or even go out sometime. If you wanted to, which I’m pretty sure you don’t. If you want someone to talk to, I’m your man. If you want someone to finish interrogating about the Rainbooms, you’ll have to ask someone else to spy for you.”
Dawn nodded respectively, “So when you said that we could talk about something else…”
“...I meant something else. Sorry Dawn. Like I said before, they’re not my secrets.”
She smiled up at Flash, “You know for someone who doesn’t get along with them anymore, you’re a pretty good friend.”
As she got up he waved goodbye, “I try. See you around, Dawn.”
She looked around the room briefly for anyone else to ask. The kid that had almost outed them the day before was there, Sandalwood. He was sitting next to one of the more unfortunate fashion victims she had ever seen. But he was also the one who had almost outed them yesterday. If they had talked to him since she might expose herself by going to him.
Four younger girls, probably sophomores, caught her eye. She didn’t realize at first why they looked so familiar, until she compared two of them to their older sisters. Younger versions of Rarity and Applejack sat in the same room. The third had her hair styled the same way as Rainbow, not a common look. And the fourth had several characteristics that were shared between Applejack and her sister. Not quite similar enough to be a third sister though.
Then again, she was like four years older than them. No way that’d be suspicious at all.
Oh hey, third sibling. She walked over to sit with Applejack’s brother.
“Heya. I’m new here. My name’s Dawn. Are you Applejack’s brother?”
The boy finished chewing and swallowed a bite of his sandwich, “Eyup.”
Dawn waited for that statement to continue. It didn’t, “So what’s your name?”
He once again finished processing the food in his mouth. Patient conversationalist, “Apple Mcintosh. But everyone calls me Big Mac.”
Dawn smiled cheerily, “It’s nice to meet you.”
She immediately drew a blank on what to say next. She reached into the depths of her experience in conversation. What did she talk about other than demons and how to fight them? She looked closer at Big Mac, grasping for details that she could work with.
“I like your jacket. It matches your hair. I’ve always liked red hair.”
She kicked herself under the table and stopped talking. If she had stopped to think maybe she would have realized before speaking that most of her conversation experience was with other girls. What was she thinking trying to talk fashion with a guy?
Big Mac smiled at her and kept eating. A man of few words, apparently. She would have liked that if it weren’t totally annoying. As things were she found herself sitting awkwardly and trying to think of something to say. Well, awkwardly for her at least. It seemed like Big Mac hadn’t noticed the silence, or maybe he was just used to it.
“So have you and Applejack been going here long?”
He swallowed the last bite of sandwich, “Eyup”
Dawn had decided that she liked her conversations with a bit more conversing in them. All she knew about this boy was that he didn’t talk much. At this rate it would take her days to get anything meaningful about his sister and she only had five more minutes of lunch.
Wait, she only had five more minutes of lunch? She frustratedly rechecked the clock. She was actually hungry too, and hadn’t eaten anything all day. She could always eat after school.
Or she could just eat and investigate more tomorrow. Her stomach liked that idea better.
At the end of the school day Twilight rushed out the door faster than Sunset had ever seen her run. She tackle-hugged someone who Sunset and the rest assumed must be her brother. The other five turned away toward their own modes of transit. Sunset had her car nearby, but kept walking to go meet the person she had only observed from afar several years before.
Twilight said something to him and Shining Armor turned to Sunset, “So you’re the girl I’ve heard so much about for the past month.”