2 Weekends and a few hours into Monday later…
The contents of the folder were, indeed, rather sparse. So sparse, in fact, that she barely skimmed the information presented in it.
Let’s see, thought the teenaged magician named Trixie, Sparkle, T...why does that sound familiar? Possibly related to the portal jumping princess…? Nah! What’s this? Test scores from Crystal Prep..good grief! Our honor roll students don’t score this high! Trixie heard an approaching city bus, but mentally dismissed it as there was a stop across the street from the school, it would be only natural that it would periodically drop people off there. ...special note of commendation from Dean Cadenza of Crystal Prep...nominated to the Know Bell Prize committee for her work in quantum physics!? Why is this girl not in a UNIVERSITY somewhere?! Trixie realized the thought came a moment too soon. Ah, 25 credits from Canterlot University...what in the world could Canterlot High hope to offer this student?
“Uhm, hello?” interrupted a disturbingly familiar voice, “I’m sorry, I just was supposed to meet a student representative here at this time, and I don’t think I’m late, but the city busses can sometimes be late. I’ve written letters about it, but nobody has replied, and I haven’t seen any trend showing a change…”
Trixie looked up from the folder at the purple girl who apparently came not through the portal to another world, but the city bus that was now pulling away. A few marked differences told the magician that this was definitely not the trans-universal princess. The first was a Crystal Prep uniform sans any of the identifying badges, pins, tie tacs, etc. that were the usual identifiers of a student of that august body. Second was the glasses. Never once, even in one of the fashionista Rarity’s makeover binges, had the Twilight Sparkle from Equestria ever worn glasses. Finally, and even more than the hair in a bun or lack of talking dog, the closed off posture of the girl marked her as a complete and total introvert, something that the admittedly nerdy princess was not.
And yet, in spite of the clear and obvious evidence that this was not Trixie’s proclaimed rival, the Green Eye’d Monster of jealousy gripped the silver haired girl’s thoughts. What came out of her mouth was less a greeting and more of a declaration of war.
“...Sparkle…”
To Trixie’s credit, she did feel a bit bad when the girl genius flinched.
~<*@*>~
Fifteen minutes into the tour and Trixie was getting just as upset with the frequent interruptions from the other students. She no longer bore any animosity toward her universe’s version of Twilight, as the girl was almost, but not quite, a complete doormat to the well-intentioned but misdirected greetings and well-wishing from the other Canterlot Wondercolts.
The perpetually “chill” but never-quite-all-there Tree Hugger was the unfortunate recipient of a dish of Trixie’s “I’ve had just about enough of this!” cake; “I WANT YOU TO PERSONALLY MEET WITH EVERY OTHER STUDENT IN THIS SCHOOL,” shouted Trixie, “AND INFORM THEM THAT THIS IS NOT PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE!”
While somewhat unfortunate for Tree Hugger, it was fortunate for the rest of the student body that it was the neu-hippy that invoked Trixie’s ire. The only student even less flappable than Hugger was Pinkie Pie’s sister Maud, and though legendary for her ability to remain completely stoic at all times was unproblematic, her caustic wit and non sequitur rejoinders would only have inflamed the situation. Tree Hugger simply smiled, “Oooh, so that’s why her aura is different. Totally gnarly,” she turned to address the somewhat embarrassed purple girl, “Like, welcome to our school. You’ll have a groovy time here, I promise.”
Twilight managed a smile and a subdued, “Thanks…”
~<*@*>~
The day finally got more interesting for Twilight Sparkle when science class started. While Trixie had clearly decided the class was boring before it even started, the transfer student was practically bouncing in her seat.
The whole class was startled when the door slammed open, though as soon as the students saw who entered they relaxed again. Save their new student, they were all accustomed to Doctor Whooves’ almost spastic behavior.
The Doctor wasted no time, grabbing a piece of chalk and scrawling large letters on the chalkboard as he spoke, “RIGHT! So, new topic today, chapter 14 in your books (not that we use the books anyway, they’re rubbish) is on physics!” When he whipped around to face the class, his absurdly striped suit and tie almost (...almost) distracting from the man’s personality, as well as the word “PHYSICS” on the board. “So...Physics. Eh? Physics. Phyyyyyyyysics. Physics! Physics. Physics, physics, physics, physics, physics, physics, physics.”
While most of the class was almost board of the man’s antics, Twilight was starting to wonder if she’d be smarter than her teacher...again.
He inhaled deeply through his nose, not quite sniffing, “I hope one of you is getting all this down. Um, okay, let's see what you know. Two identical strips of nylon are charged with static electricity and hung from a string so they can swing freely. What would happen if they were brought near each other?”
Surprised at the highly specific example, Twilight looked around to see if anyone was answering. Seeing nobody was volunteering, she slowly put her hand up.
The brown haired man blinked in surprise, “Yes, uh, what's your name?”
“Twilight Sparkle…”
The Doctor smiled at her, “Twilight! Off you go.”
“They'd repel each other because they have the same charge.”
The teacher’s smile grew, “Correctamundo! A word I have never used before and hopefully never will again. Question two, I coil up a thin piece of micro wire and place it in a glass of water. Then I turn on the electricity and measure to see if the water's temperature is affected. My question is this: how do I measure the electrical power going into the coil?”
Twilight’s eyes started to sparkle as she grinned widely, she loved electronics! Without any hesitation this time, she shot her hand up again.
Raising an eyebrow, her teacher scanned the rest of the room, “Someone else.” There was absolutely no response from the rest of the class. “Nope...? Okay, Twilight, go for it.”
She dropped her hand and sat up eagerly, “Measure the current and PDs in an ampmeter and a voltmeter.” The rest of the class was now staring openly at Twilight.
“Two to Twilight! Right then, Twilight, tell me this; true or false: the greater the dampening of the system, the quicker it loses energy to its surroundings.”
“False!”
The Doctor leaned forward, bracing his hands on the workbench, “What is a non-coding DNA?”
Twilight also leaned in slightly, “DNA that doesn't code for a protein.”
“Sixty-five-thousand-nine-hundred-and-eighty-three times five?”
“Three-hundred-and-twenty-nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-fifteen.”
Trixie was fairly gobsmacked, so much so that she didn’t care that her jaw was hanging open as she watched the intellectual tennis match. She’d never seen any student be able to keep up with the eccentric Doctor Time Turner, there was even a betting pool on whether he was just making stuff up to sound impressive or was actually a genius so far beyond the rest of them that they couldn’t even have a frame of reference.
Seemingly oblivious to the scrutiny of the rest of the class, the man continued, “How do you travel faster than light?”
“By opening a quantum tunnel with an FTL factor of 36.7 recurring.” snapped Twilight with a huge smile.
The Doctor’s mouth now also dropped open a bit, but only just before he smiled hugely, showing an alarming, yet somehow non-threatening, number of teeth. “Oh, I think I’m going to like you Twilight Sparkle!”
@-_-|-_-@
The cafeteria food was as cafeteria food always is, that is to say only able to be called ”food” under very strict definitions, overly salted, and with questionable nutritional value.
It was hamburgers, though, so Twilight Sparkle couldn't have cared less about any of that. Sure, she knew that, intellectually, it was “bad food,” but she knew a good, greasy comfort burger always hit the spot, especially when trying to process world-wide altering revelations.
“Mrrmph…” she swallowed the bite in her mouth, “So, let me see if I understand; the reason everyone knows who I am is because an alternate universe doppelganger of me who is actually a magical princess passed through a portal in front of the school and had a magical fight with a girl who is now considered one of the saviors of the school but at the time was a demon? Also, ‘magic’? Really?!”
“Alternate dimension,” corrected Trixie, “But, yes.”
“Universe,” returned Twilight, “'Dimensions’ are height, width, depth, spin, etc. The alternate of me you described isn't a multidimensional being, out at least no more so than you or I, so she's most likely from another universe, consistent with Friendly Brightlight’s Many Worlds hypothesis.”
An unexpected voice piped in, “Geeze, she's an even bigger egghead than the Princess!” A sky blue hand dropped one tray, then another on the left side of Twilight.
“Be nice, Rainbow,” a meek pink-haired girl quietly chastised as she set her tray down next to the first speaker. “She's brand new to this school and doesn't know anyone yet.”
“Besides Trixie,” commented a third voice, “And I understand from the ‘grape vine,’ as it were, that the pairing was…arranged by our good principal.” A new lunch tray was placed next to Twilight's on the opposite side from Rainbow's trays. The girl the tray belonged to daintily seated herself, “I'm Rarity Belle, darling. And I apologize in advance for Pinkie.”
“Huh?” Twilight was overwhelmed at this point, having several people suddenly be very friendly to her. Her confusion ratcheted up further when she looked back to her lunch to find a cupcake with a sizzling candle on it. As she processed this, before she could say anything, the candle exploded with a tiny 'pop,’ confetti blasting upward. “GAH!” she exclaimed as she instinctively fell backwards.
Strong but gentle arms caught her before she fell off the bench and gingerly righted her. “We really are sorry for Pinkie. She means well, just ride out the welcome and then just smile and nod.” Looking back, Twilight saw an orange skinned girl with red and yellow hair taking her tray back from another orange skinned girl, this one blond haired.
Turning back around to face the table, her vision was filled with pink. Leaning back, she was able to take in the smiling face of a pink skinned, pink haired girl with a nearly excessive amount of curly pink hair. “HI TWILIGHT!” bubbled the pink apparition, “I know you're probably already friends with Trixie, but I always say that you can't have too many friends. And since we practically already know you since we already know your alternate-world counterpart, you can count on all of us as friends, too!”
Trixie, cheek propped on her fist, elbow on the table and looking thoroughly bored with the whole scene, simply shoved Pinkie to the side, “Twilight Sparkle, meet the Rainbooms. Rain-goons,” she picked up her fork and waved it dramatically, “Meet Twilight Sparkle.”