Canterlot High's D&D Club

by 4428Gamer

(1) A Sudden Ambush

        “Hey, Rainbow Dash!” Once we caught her coming out from the locker rooms, Pinkie Pie and I started flagging her down with umbrellas over our heads. Or umbrella hats in Pinkie's case.

“Hey guys.” Rainbow called out with a sigh before walking over in a frown. She was wearing a blue raincoat over top her usual clothes to avoid the rain whereas the two of us had gone without one for now.

“Something wrong?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” She said sourly. He frown deepened. “It started raining right in the middle of soccer practice. Now there’s nothing to do for the next hour.”

"Come on Rainbow Dash, there are plenty of things you can do in the rain!" Pinkie's ever present smile only grew.

"Don't let Rarity catch you saying that." I said. Rainbow tried to hide a smirk, but it was still easy enough to spot.

“There’s that smile!” Pinkie bounded over, her umbrella hat somehow staying totally secure as she kept bouncing around. “Come on Rainbow Dash, let’s go find Twilight! She wanted a tour of the school, remember?”

I smiled as Pinkie kept hopping in place. Starting today, Twilight had officially started school at Canterlot High. The six of us wanted to show her around before class started, but she was adamant about getting to homeroom as soon as possible. As a result, we were only able to show her where her classes were and promise to show her around later.

This only managed to eat at Pinkie all day. Now that the day was over, she was jumping at the bit in order to have us all meet up as soon as possible in front of the cafeteria.

“Yeah Pinkie, I remember.” Rainbow stopped hiding her smirk and rolled her eyes at Pinkie’s usual attitude.

“Then what are we waiting for out in the rain?!” Pinkie turned on her her heel and pointed towards the school dramatically. “Our friend needs us! Let’s hurry!”

“NOOOOO!”

A voice had shouted out a small distance away from us.

“...” Pinkie stayed completely still in her dramatic pose. After a few more seconds she shrugged and replied with, “Well, okay, if you really don’t want to.”

“Stay back!”

We all turned towards the voice and spotted a lone guy keeping a firm grip on a backpack while a few stronger looking jocks were facing off against him. We all realized immediately that there was not a fair fight.

“Not until you get us back the ball.” One student that was holding the opposite end of the backpack. He was staring down the smaller guy with a malicious smirk.

I leaned towards Rainbow Dash, not once taking my eyes off what was going on. “Rainbow, who are those guys?” They were drenched to the bone and had mud splashed along their shoes. But past the dirt and rain, I saw sports jerseys and cleats. They were athletes.

“They’re some of the new transfer students.” Her tone sounded more like a low growl. “I’ve only met the shorter one. His name’s Dumb-Bell.” I could see her tense up when the one holding the backpack tried to yank it away from the other guy. “Apparently they’re all trying to get on sports teams. Dumb-Bell kept complaining about how we don’t have a weightlifting team and settled for trying soccer for...some reason.”

“I don’t have anything to do with your stupid football!” The guy tugged on the backpack again. And to his credit, his strength took the three bullies by surprised and forced the leader of the group to take a better grip of the backpack so as not to lose it.

“Come on.” Once I saw the girls nod, we all headed off in their direction. “Hey, leave him alone!” I called out.

It didn’t get all their attention, but we managed to get the third one to look over. He had a basketball jersey under the mud and his brown hair was hiding his eyes. “Score, look.” He started tapping the bully that was fighting for the backpack, apparently named Score. “Someone’s comin’ over.”

“Good. Maybe they can talk some sense into Storytime over here.” Score flashed a cocky smirk at the kid.

“It’s Story Spinner! And you’re the ones that needs the sense knocked into them!” He gave a strong pull on the backpack again and this time managed to make Score lose his footing for a second.

“Let go!” Story yelled out as we finally began to approach them.

“You let go!” After recovering his footing, Score tightened his grip and shoved the other guy back a few feet. “You’ll get this back when you get our football!”

“He’ll get it back now!” Both of them looked towards us in confusion as Rainbow Dash jumped for the backpack, yanking it out of Score’s hands before he had the chance to stop her.

“Hey, you can’t just take that from me!” The bully grabbed the backpack and was trying to take it from Rainbow Dash. This brought us right back to square one, except now there were seven of us fighting over same backpack in the pouring rain.

“It’s not even yours!” The kid took this chance to grab the backpack to help Rainbow wrench it away from Score. Soon enough, the other bullies joined in, as well as Pinkie Pie and myself.

“Just let go of it already!”
“What’s wrong with these girls?!”
“Wrong with us? What’s wrong with you?!”
“Save tug-o-war for field day!”

As all of us were shouting back and forth, none of us noticed the backpack beginning to give in to everyone's pulling. Although what we did manage to hear was the kid gasping.

“Wait, stop! It’s starting to ri—”

Almost as if the next moment was in slow motion, the four of us suddenly started to fall backwards weightlessly. The backpack was still in our hands, but it didn’t take long before the kid and Rainbow Dash lost their grip.

Pinkie and I were able to keep a hold of the bag, but that didn’t last long either as it flew out of our hands and over our heads. I tried to reach up to catch the bag as quickly as I could, but the ground under my feet was suddenly missing.

“Sunset!” Rainbow Dash’s voice yelled out from where she was as I fell backwards. Meanwhile, Pinkie had the same problem as she tried to keep her balance on the edge of the slope.

Rainbow reached out to try and catch me, but it was too late. My back crashed against the mud as I rolled down the hill. Meanwhile, Pinkie was falling down the same way I was. Except that instead of tumbling around she was literally rolling down the hill as though she were a car wheel.

There were a few more seconds of us crashing down the hill until finally there was a loud splash. What followed was the feeling of freezing cold water covering my entire body. It wasn’t too deep, thank Celestia for that, but we had landed face first and our clothes were now four times heavier.

I sat up and started to spit out the muddy water. We landed in the trench that ran alongside the sports fields. It was made to collect rainwater and route it out to the drainage pipes. But as the heavy rain had been going on for nearly an hour, the trench was on its way to being filled up to street level in places.

Pinkie swam over to me and helped me stand out of the water. At the same time we spotted Rainbow Dash practically surfing the hill in order to get to us as soon as she could. The other kid was trying his best to do the same. Although he was having a much harder time.

“Are you two okay?!” Rainbow Dash started looking us over, making sure that neither of us were cut or anything from the fall.

“We’re fine,” I assured. “Are those bullies gone?” I tried to look up and spot them, but they were nowhere to be seen.

“They ran off the second you two started falling,” She threw a scowl towards the top of the hill. “But don’t worry. They’re not getting away with this.”

“Hey, where did Story's bag go?” Pinkie was looking around us with a puzzled look on her face.

“Oh no…” All of us turned to spot the kid in question only halfway down the hill. Story was holding his ripped up bag with one hand as he looked all around the ground ahead of him.

Littering the area, we could see papers scattered around as well as a few folders either floating along in the trench or laying on the ground getting pelted on by the heavy rain. Next to the broken backpack was a book or two lying open on the dirt, collecting raindrops while a third book lay half submerged in the water. However that was far from the only thing that fell out of his bag.

Floating around us were dozens of these tiny little figurines of different sizes and colors. Some of them had wings on their sides, some of them had wings but no longer, and several small black discs were on the ground or floating in the water without any figurines connected to them whatsoever. However, not even those lasted long. Every single one of them were steadily floating downstream and into the drainage pipe where they went into the sewers below.

Pinkie threw out a gasp and dove back into the water to gather up whatever she could out of instinct while Rainbow Dash just stood there in silence. She could see the entire mess from where she was standing.

I took this chance to pick up a small figurine that was floating past me. And after cleaning it off with the bottom of my soaked shirt I was able to get a good look it. A short, human figurine stood in purple robes with dark gold trim atop a circular disc made to look like wooden flooring. He had with him a backpack and a bottle strapped to his belt. His face was hidden by the hood but I could only just make out the small line that made its mouth. I could tell that under the hood it had eyes painted on it too.

“Hey, a dragon!” Pinkie stopped her frantic movements and stood up with a bronze colored dragon in her hand. Sadly, the wing fell off as she was holding it. "oops."

“Hey, are you okay up there?” Rainbow tried to make her way up to where Story was. She was stopped short when he glared down at her.

“Yeah...I’m fine.” He spoke with a sharp tone before trying to shovel everything near him up and into his bag. I could already see some of it spilling back out, but it didn’t stop him.

“Uh…” When Rainbow Dash spotted one of the books on the way, she scooped it up and closed it before any more water could ruin the pages. “Do you want some help getting everythi—”

“No.”

After gathering up all the stuff that was around him, he held the backpack in both hands and tried to find a way back up the slope.

“Wait, what about the books?” I started to make my way over towards the other two books that were laying out in the mud.

“...T-There not school books. Besides, they’re ruined anyway.” He was already back up the hill before he could look back over at us. That’s when I finally saw his face. Colors of brown and some red were mixed all over his cheeks and in his hair. A black eye was already starting to form and his shirt was ripped along the shoulder. He probably caught a branch or rock when he fell.

“Thanks for the help. I’m, uh...I'm real sorry about this.” His voice had turned sincere before he started to make his way back up the rest of the hill.

“W-Wait, hold on!” Rainbow tried to run off after him, but she stopped short once I caught her arm. “Wha—Sunset?!”

“Let him go, Dash. He wants to keep to himself right now. Besides, if he really wanted help he would’ve stayed to gather all of his stuff."

Not to mention, I thought. He had a bigger problem to worry about regarding those bullies. There's no way they're going to leave him alone. I know their type too well.

Rainbow Dash didn’t answer and instead gave a nod to me. Then, as I let her go, both of us went to help Pinkie Pie collect whatever figurines were still in the water.

The next five minutes were spent sloshing around in the water and feeling around for anything extra in the mud. In that time we had combed out nearly fifty of those small figurines, all the ruined books, dozens of dice that hadn’t yet floated into the drainage pipe, and a large piece of rolled up vinyl that had gotten stuck between the pipes of the grate.

There were still papers and folders hanging around, but it was all useless now. In all the time spent in the rain, they looked like unreadable tissue. Still, we checked regardless. Two more minutes wasted and we were ready to crawl back up the hill in our brown-soaked clothing.

We stood up, random things cradled in our arms, and started back toward the school. I considered going for my umbrella, but when a few dice slipped out of my grip and rolled back down the hill I decided against it. We were already filthy anyways. So, instead, we started trudging back into the school to dry off.

A sick snort echoed across the near-empty room as a single person sat within. Usually, this room would be alive with advisors and messengers; each bringing in news and separate solutions for the impending battles that lie in wait of Leodaav's armies. Although, perhaps ‘alive’ is not the right word for what would happen during those meetings. Battle strategy was always much less interesting than what the theatre and bards would describe.

On this day, however, the only sound that echoed across the room was a quill. Rhythmic drips of ink and scratching against parchment had the quill playing a symphony amidst the silence. The musician to blame was a young human by the name of Percival Waterbringer.

Percival sat inside the quiet room and stared at the empty council table before him. On most days there would be a world map filled with tokens representing the troops belonging to either the enemy or the Allegiance. To Percival's left would be final decisions that would need to be sent out. And then, to his right, there would be stacks of papers from the commanders on the front complaining about some problem or another. It would be Percival's job to read and deal with every single paper accordingly, ensuring that they reached their intended destination.

However, the only things that were on said table now were a few pieces of blank parchment, a box of almost empty tissues, and music box perched on its stand playing whatever songs came to it. Courtesy of Pandora an enchantment placed by the academy’s transmutation expert.

The man took a moment to look out the windo

The window to the man’s right revealed the results of war. A village of tents and make-shift walls and barricades were spread about with soldiers currently resting or heading towards their next shift. Their lowered guards felt somewhat comical to Percival. It was not five days that assassins had managed to sneak by the army and strike at him. While a patrol had saved Percival, the assault had left him poisoned and weak with much of their military secrets sabotaged.

With a disgusted sigh, Percival sat back in his chair. The commander was due to arrive any minute for her usual meeting. Although today it seemed that the commander would have an actual reason to visit her young officer.

Percival grimaced at the thought of the meeting to come. He knew that running leaving moving to a temporary camp rather than staying deeper in the kingdom's borders was dangerous, especially given his position. Yet still he did it. Why? What was his reason for doing so? What was there to gain by practically kissing the front lines while consciously dismissing the safety of home?

Those were the questions that the commander more than likely had in store for him. Actually, he knew for a fact that those questions were to come. It was his job to know. And still, he would have to come to the conclusion that he had no real answers for her.

So all he could do waz_____

I jolted in my seat at the sound of knocking on the door. “Ugh...Every. Time.” I muttered under my breath. “Ms. Cheerilee, yo-you don’t have to knock,” I called out awkwardly. “I mean, it's your classroom.”

Glancing at the clock, I noticed that Ms. Cheerilee was a little earlier coming in than usual. She always came in at 3:23. Like Clockwork. If it wasn’t so funny opening the door for her right before she knocked then I would be freaked out by it.

Still, that didn’t stop her from knocking some more. With a sigh, I slumped forward on the table and just called out, “Come in!”

A few seconds of silence later and the door finally opened. The second it was, however, it wasn't Ms. Cheerilee that walked in. Instead, some random girl with a cowboy hat stuck her head in and glanced around. Once she saw me leaning on the table she cleared her throat and chose her words.

"‘Scuse me, but I’m lookin’ fer some sorta...club?” She spoke with an obvious country accent. It sounded almost too over the top to be real. Except, the cowboy hat and freckles made the accent seem way too fitting for it to be fake.

I rolled my eyes and jerked my thumb towards the general direction of the club she was heading towards. “Art Club’s in room 2-0-9. Not 1-0-9.”

“Nope. Not lookin’ for the Art Club.” She went ahead and straightened out so she wasn’t leaning into the doorway as much.

That had me perk my head slightly. “Funny. That’s the club that almost everyone’s looking for. In that case, cheerleading practice is meeting at the auxiliary gym today since the gymnasium floor is being waxed.”

“Uh,” She let out an awkward chuckle. “Flattered ya think me the type, but I ain’t lookin’ for them neither.”

I looked at her in confusion. “Wood...Working?”

She rolled her eyes. “Maybe it’d be easier if I just said which club,” She murmured. “I’m lookin’ fer somethin' called the Dand D. Club?”

"Dandy Club?" I repeated. It took me all of five seconds of staring her down before a jolt snapped me out of it. “You have got to be joking.”

“Nope. We’ve been tryin’ ta find this club fer the past ten minutes.”

“Well, sorry to let you down, but it's not called the Dandy Club. It's called...I’m sorry, did you say we?” Once again I was left entirely confused.

"Yep. There's seven of us." She gave me a smile.

"...O-kay..." I debated how to play this out. "I mean... Alright, I'm...I'm sorry if this comes off as rude but why are you interested in this...well, I guess you could call it a club." That last part was said more to me than to her. "D&D's not really the kind of thing people would be willing to choose over other clubs. Especially if they've never heard of it before."

The cowgirl thought it over for a moment. "Well, wasn't that the point a them flyers we saw some time last week?"

"The flyers are what drew you in?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. Ms. Cheerilee, in the attempt of having this club actually become something, had me make and put up flyers around the school. I only made about five or so and they each just had simple outlines of the D&D symbol with 'D&D Club! A tale of Adventure each Tues. / Thurs.' written on each poster.

And two or three days later those dumb posters were thrown away by me. Of course, I didn't have the heart to tell Ms. Cheerilee that part. She instead thinks the janitors made a mistake and threw them out.

Before I could question her further the girl turned back out into the hallway. “Hey y'all, I found the club!”

After shouted loud enough to bring the cows home, she walked back into the room. As I saw the rest of her I noted that the girl was dressed in some white blouse-shirt thing, a denim skirt, and cowboy boots to match. If I didn't think she looked the part of a cowgirl before than her clothes were a ringing bell. Still, 'Dandy Club' or otherwise, what the heck was someone like her doing here?

“Um. We early err somethin’?” She started looking around before setting a bag of stuff on the table I was sitting at. “Where is everybody?”

I gave a deflated laugh and put on my best pathetic smile money couldn't buy. “You see, funny you mention that. Everyone's already here," I said with a wave of my hand. "Me, Myself and Silence. We're about all this club can handle, I guess...”

She rose an eyebrow with an amused smile, forcing me to drop the whole act. “Sorry, dumb joke. I’ve been in here too long.” I held up my hands in defense. “So, who’s this ‘we’ you mentioned? All I see is—”

I was interrupted by a quick knock on the door frame. “Hello?” Another head peeked inside the room. This time it was a girl with glasses that cover most of her face and deep blue hair with two strands of hair being violet and purple all tied up in a bun. “Oh. There you are Applejack. We couldn’t tell which room you were in.”

As the girl walked in I saw that she was in a sweater vest and had a very familiar looking set of Dungeon & Dragons books resting in her arms. Just as I had figured out that there were three of them, my attention was brought to the next girl that walked in behind her. I instantly spotted a large amount of light pink hair and a green skirt with butterfli...

“Fluttershy?” I asked, very confused to spot a familiar face at this school.

She let out a quiet gasp upon seeing me. “Story?”

“You two know each other?” The girl with glasses was looking between both me and Fluttershy, as was the country girl.

“Y-Yeah. Fluttershy works at the pet groomer. And one of my dogs—” “Puggles! She's our favorite visitor,” Fluttershy finished with a smile.

Puggles was one of my family's dogs. Since her back nails grew into the bottoms of her paws, we had to get them trimmed regularly. Soon enough, we became such regular customers to the point where she gets her nails done free. Although I had known Fluttershy even before then.

“By the way, she’s due for an appointment after the weekend, right?” Fluttershy didn’t waste any time walking over and putting some kind of plastic bucket on the table next to the bag that the country girl put down.

“Next Monday, yeah." I chuckled. "How’d you remember that?”

“I’m the one clipping her nails this time. Uh, if that’s okay with you.” Fluttershy gave one of her usual shy smiles.

“You kidding?” I broke out into a grin. “Puggles loves you! I don’t see why not.” It wasn't too often that she actually showed any kind of smile without being behind her hair, but she was giggling nonetheless.

“So what are you all doing here anyways? And what’s all this stuff about?” I noticed the girl with glasses put the books she had on the table while Fluttershy placed a plastic bucket down beside them.

“Hello?”

Before Fluttershy answered, a fourth girl walked through the doorway with a sophisticated air to her. Not to mention the only thing I could really use to describe her would be purple. Purple hair, purple dress, purple boots, purple...Purple.

“Now, really Applejack, did you think that all of us were just down the hall from you?” The purple girl continued in and noticed that Fluttershy and the other girl placed some stuff on the table. So, adding to the pattern, she placed two shopping bags on the table as well. One had this really nice looking backpack in it from some brand name store along with a smaller bag placed next to it.

“Yeah well...Sorry Rares, guess I jumped the gun a bit.” The country girl, named Applejack apparently, adjusted her hat from the embarrassment. A habit of hers if I had to guess.

“Oh, you needn’t be upset, darling. I didn’t mean anything by it.” The girl then turned to me. “You must be Story Spinner, yes?”

“Uh, yes?” I started to look between the four of them. Then towards all the stuff collecting on the table. “Okay seriously, what is all this stuff?”

“They’re gifts!” “BWAAH!” What the hell?!

“Pinkie!” More than one voice had shouted.

Sadly, I didn't get the chance to see who was shouting as I was too busy trying to stuff my heart back into my chest. By the time I realized that I was breathing louder than I needed, I noticed that two other girls had come into the room at some point. Those two, plus the girl dressed in bright pink with a wall of frizzy hair, all rung a distinct bell for me.

One of the girls that just ran in, frowned. “Pinkie Pie. We’re trying to welcome him to the school, not scare him into leaving!”

“Well you’re a bit late for that!” I shouted, not able to control the volume quite yet.

“I'm sorry," the pink girl beside me stated. "I’m just so excited!” The girl practically jumped over me and the table before hopping in place next to the others. “I’ve never thrown a ‘Schoolwarming Party’ before!”

“The heck is a Schoolwarming Party?” I stared down the girl in pink while still clutching my heart with both hands.

“This is, silly!” She gestured to the classroom. “Gummy and Silence got the right idea. Isn't that right you two?!” She looked over at the desk I was pointing to earlier, which now had a...a…

“Is that a baby gator?” I probably looked like an idiot in front of all these girls with the dumbfounded look on my face, but I swear, officer, that alligator was not there before.

“Uh-huh!” Still, the pink girl didn’t seem the least bit surprised. Nor was she scared considering that she was near inches away from that thing.

"..." Without any more words left, I simply nodded and took a moment to calm down. Thankfully, the girls noticed this and let me have my time to regain my composure.

When I looked back up I looked over the last three girls to come in. The girl in pink, Pinkie as one of the others called her, was grinning happily as she held what seemed to be several bags with smaller boxes inside of them. The next one was a girl with fiery hair and a leather jacket as she had some kind of cylinder container peeking out from her bag. And final out of the three was a girl with a rainbow of colors through her hair. In fact, a lot about her was multi-colored.

Those last three had me lean back a little in thought. Like I thought before, it was a distant bell but I was fairly certain I remember bumping into them before. More than just passing by in the halls.

And then the memories of last Friday starting coming back.

"You three..." I muttered. "What are all of you doing here?"

"Well," the girl with fire hair began. "Back on the slope, we noticed that a lot of your things were ruined when they crashed into the water. And when we saw just what all of it was, we wanted to try and help get some of it back for you."

To show some emphasis, the girl took out the cylindrical package and placed it between the plastic bucket and backpack.

"...Wait," When I saw some of the girls look at me expectantly, as though parents waiting for their kid to open a gift, I pulled the lid off the container and noticed a piece of familiar looking vinyl wrapped inside. Curious, I slid it out and, sure enough, it was the same vinyl mat I had lost to the water. "You found it?"

The pink gi...Pinkie walked up next and handed me the bags she was holding. "Uh-huh! We found a lot of other stuff too, see?!"

I opened the bags and there were seven or so small boxes each wrapped up like presents. I carefully shook one next to my ear and heard the sound of several small things jingling around inside of it. Without ripping open the paper I knew it was some of the dice and miniatures I lost.

"After tha girls told us 'bout the fight you were in with those jerks." The cowgirl spoke up from the back. "We thought we'd try an' make yer first few weeks at Canterlot a tad better."

"But...All of this though?" I glanced back over at the three books and backpack. The three books were the player guide, dungeon master guide, and monster manual; the three books that are nearly required to play a legit game. Only, they weren't the original editions, they were some collector's edition that was more expensive than what I had. Pair them with the backpack that had 'Carousel Boutique' on the tag and I immediately remembered that the store with that name was a local store that was not cheap to shop at.

"I..." When I glanced towards the smaller bag I spotted a couple of boxes that had D&D miniatures in them. Each one was meant to have four random minis, with three random miniatures and one large random miniature. Those cost nearly twenty dollars each and there were three of them.

"...I. I don't know how I can pay any of this back." I could barely speak.

"Well that's the thing about gifts," Pinkie assured. "You're not supposed to pay us back for them."

"And if you want," the girl with glasses added. "You can go ahead and think of them as...Well—"

"As a peace offering," the fire girl concluded.

"Peace offering?" I snickered. “What, am I at war with the…” I looked down at the paper I was writing on before any of them showed up. And while biting my lip I flipped the paper upside down. “Uh. D-Don’t answer that. Still, um, you didn't have to do all this...”

"We didn't want you to get the wrong idea about Canterlot High.” The purple girl told me. “And we didn’t think that it was fair about everything that had happened.”

“I mean..." I thought back to the three bullies that had messed with me. And while the one who decked me got suspended, the others simply got a warning. Mostly because I didn't say anything about it. "Still, you guys shouldn’t be the ones getting all this stuff. It’s not like you’re one of those jocks that threw my bag down the hill…”

“Oh come now. Don’t you think that you’re holding an unnecessary grudge?” The purple one asked.

“Unnecessary?” I repeated. “Do you know just how much that bag of stuff cost me? All the figures, adventures, my lap—my materials? Care to guess just how much money literally went down the drain?” They all stayed silent at that.

I took a deep breath in order to calm down. They weren’t the reason that my stuff was ruined. Or that I was going to be chewed out by my parents whenever they eventually learned about all this. Not to mention the black eye I was poorly hiding behind these stupid sunglasses.

“Over three hundred bucks.” With a sigh, I settled into my seat and watched all their reactions. Most of them sat there dumbfounded. A few of the others were just staring at me as if they were waiting for the punchline.

It wasn’t coming.

Suddenly the alarm on my phone went off. I pulled it out and sure enough, it was 3:23. Time for Clockwork.

They watched as I turned off the alarm and got up to answer the door. “This...This stuff is that expensive?” The girl with the rainbow hair was talking to herself, but I heard her.

"Pretty much." She perked up when she heard me answer. "The books I had were about twenty to fifty bucks a piece. There was papers and stories that took me weeks to perfect. Some dice were collected from former players or people I only met once." I paused at the door. "The figures were the most expensive. Some were commissioned, others were painted and repainted by hand. A few of the others were even 3-D printed by an old friend of mine. After all that time, materials, thought...memories poured into that stuff...I’m probably low-balling the price with three hundred.”

Once I reached for the door handle, I discarded my sadness as best I could and opened the door. “Hello Ms. Cheerilee.” From the hallway I could see her flinch and make some small ‘yip’ sound.

“Story…” She took in a few quick breaths. “How do you do that?!” She was able to control the volume in her voice, but she still sounded scared out of her wits.

“It’s a talent I guess.” I shrugged in indifference as I held the door open for her. Her hands were full with a few snacks, her computer, and some kind of medicine. It was funny. For someone who was caught off-guard from me opening the door, it sure looked like she was expecting someone to get the door in the first place.

“Well, regardless," she composed herself almost as well as I had and stepped inside. "I wanted to stop by and give you something for your eye, courtesy of. Nurse. Redheart…” She stopped when she saw people other than me in this room for the first time since coming to the school. “Girls?”

“Oh. Hello Ms. Cheerilee.” The fire hair girl gave an awkward wave of her hand to greet her. “What a surprise to find you here.”

“In my classroom?” She deadpanned, causing me to snicker.

“They're here because they heard about the black eye. And stuff.” I took Ms. Cheerilee’s laptop and went to put it on her desk to start charging it.

“Ah. That explains it.” She snapped out of it and put the snacks and medicine on the table along with the other things the girl's brought. “Oh. You didn’t bring your laptop?”

I stopped where I was. “Uh—No. No, I left it at home for now. I mean, I don’t have a backpack to carry it around in...Remember?”

It took her a few seconds, but she nodded along. “Right, right, I forgot about that.” I gave a silent sigh of relief as she caught on. “Well, at least you're finding other ways to keep busy.” Cheerilee started looking around and noticed that all eyes were on her. I guess it was a force of habit, seeing as how she’s a teacher and all.

“...Well!" She clapped her hands. "I think I'll cut this short.” She made her way for the door after handing me the snacks and medicine. “I don’t want to interrupt the club any more than I already have. See you all tomorrow.”

As the teacher took her chance to leave before it got any more awkward, I broke open one of the little packets of crackers she left me. “So, um...Since you’re all still here, did you...Did you want me to explain how all this stuff works?”

“Actually, I think I would like to hear about it.” The girl with the glasses took a step from where she was standing. “I tried to read through the books as much as I could, but it didn’t give as much an explanation as I hoped it would.”

“Well, I think I might be able to help Ms...W-what’s your name again?” I couldn’t remember whether or not she even said it.

“Twilight Sparkle,” She gave with a nod.

"Twilight. Okay then," I repeated the name in my head a few times to try and remember it. It was only after that when I realized I knew almost none of their names. "My name is Story Spinner. I'm kind of a big drama nut, so I usually hang around the theatre whenever I'm not here.”

Realizing that I still didn't know most of their names, I kept going. "So, how about the rest of you? I'm afraid that out of all of you, I only really know Fluttershy." Both of us shared a friendly nod. It was ironic the more I thought about it. From what I could tell she was probably the shyest person in school and she was one of the only people I really knew.

“I’m Sunset Shimmer,” The girl with the fire hair introduced. "I'm a bit of a music geek. Actually, we all are."

“Name’s Applejack," The cowgirl said. "My family and I work Sweet Apple Acres."

“Pinkie Pie!” The pink one didn't even introduce herself. She just shouted her name. "Party planner extra-not-ordinary!"

“My name is Rarity,” the purple one spoke politely. "I manage the Carousel Boutique a few roads down."

"Wait, you manage..." I glanced back down to the backpack's tag. 'Carousel Boutique'. It clicked in my head. "You manage that place? But, you are a student here, yeah?"

"Well, technically Prim Hemline owns the building," Rarity explained with a nervous chuckle. "However, I am the one who manages the entire boutique and creates quite a few of the marvelous outfits that everyone is always talking about."

“Uh...I'm," The rainbow-colored girl gulped in worry. "I'm R-Rainbow.” Whether she had acted like that the whole time or not, 'Rainbow' was acting much meeker than before. Like she was suddenly worried of something. I opened my mouth to say something but as I did I noticed a small hint of Rainbow trying to shrink back. Definitely worried. Huh.

I instead gave a polite nod. With having already known Fluttershy I was used to getting along with quieter people. Still, it did strike me as odd that only one of Fluttershy's friends seemed to be shy like her in the first place.

Once all of them finally finished their introductions I started on my own. “Well nice to meet a few more friendly faces outside of other drama nuts. And since some of you were interested in just what all this is, let me try to show you." I started to move back to my seat, glancing at all the things set around me. "The name of it all is Dungeons & Dragons, or D&D for short. Not to be confused with Dandy D.” I jokingly clarified since Applejack was one of the closer ones standing nearby.

Going back to the packet of crackers, I took out a cracker and continued. “The way it works is that basically there’s a group of players and one DM, Dungeon Master. All the players work as a group as the DM acts as a narrator to the adventure the group plays.”

“Wait, narrator? So then the game’s all 'bout tellin' a story?” Applejack’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“More or less, yeah.” I shrugged. “Players make their own characters and put them into the story. You fight monsters, solve mysteries and puzzles, discover the answers to the universe, pretty much anything like that. Kind of like you’re an actor in an adventure movie.” I tried appealing to them as much as I could, but I saw a few of them already starting to get lost.

Taking this opportunity, I spotted one of the gift boxes, courtesy of Pinkie Pie, and fully ripped away the wrapping paper to reveal a simple white box with a tabbed lid that you could unfold to open. As I flipped the lid open I was immediately welcomed with a random collection of several miniatures that had fallen into the draining water last week. Letting my pure joy flash across my face for a moment I pulled out a couple of the familiar miniatures and placed them out.

The result was a small army of humanoid-looking creatures. One was a decent sized orc with a heavy mace resting on its shoulder. Beside that was a barbarian woman in furs and leathers with an axe and a bald wizard in a red robe holding flames in each hand. With each mini I placed down I continued to give a quick overview of the game and what the point of these minis was even for. The fact that I was using the gifts they had given me had drawn their attention slightly.

Over the next two or three minutes, I kept bringing in more of their gifts, even opening up on of the store-bought boxes of miniatures that had four random figures inside.

As I took out the contents of the surprise box, handing the bubblewrap that each mini was wrapped in to Pinkie when she demanded it, I held out a well-detailed miniature the size of my entire hand. The sight of it tore Pinkie's attention away from the bubblewrap and made her face light up.

“Woah, look at this one! A dragon!” Pinkie Pie took no time in taking it out of the plastic for me before flying it around the room like a kid with a place. All while making dragon noises in the process.

A couple of us laughed at the sight, while the others simply shook their heads with smiles. “Sorry ‘bout her.” Applejack gave out a chuckle before inspecting the orc from before. “Geez. This thing’s got the underbite of a bulldog and then some.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda their thing.” I hurried up and opened the second box as the rest of their interest remained. The figures in it were a cockatrice, a water elemental with a trident, and a Needle Blight; a humanoid-shaped creature that looked as though it were made out of wood. As for the bigger figure, this time it was a Pegasus.

The rest of the girls started to gather around as I pulled out some dice and the book that Twilight had brought. The more I broke out the 'peace offerings,' the more interested they seemed to be. I took it as a sign that they bought all of this stuff without any idea on how it was supposed to work.

More time passed as I begun to explain the game in more depth. What the dice were for, which books did what, the magic that was in the game. When I had gone over everything I could without going in too much detail I turned the questions to each of them. I tried asking questions to try and find out where everyone's interests and dislikes stood. By the three minute mark I had most of them pegged pretty easily.

Rarity seemed the type to like dramatics, so I played up the acting part of the game whenever answering her questions. With Twilight, I just had to bring up numbers and mechanics without making it too boring for everyone else. For Pinkie Pie, I just had to roll the dice or move the figures and she would take up a front row seat. By the time I told them enough background I already began to tell them a story from one of my older games to draw them in further.

By the time I finished telling them about "Bear God", the ridiculous plan I worked out with another player that could shift into animals, Fluttershy and Applejack were sold on the game as well. The more I was able to move past the fact that there were numbers and rules to the game, the more all of them seemed willing to hear about it.

That is save for the two girls who had at one point excused themselves from the table and out the door.

“Woah, hey, what’re you—” I dragged Rainbow Dash out of the room with me and quickly shushed her before she could alarm the others. Next, I made sure to close the door as slowly as I could so that I wouldn't bother Story or the others. He was only now starting to get move past explaining things and started to speak to each of the other girls. That meant the two of us could slip out without distracting him.

Once I was sure the door was shut all the way I let go of the handle and turned toward her. “Okay, Rainbow Dash. What’s going on?”

She stopped pushing back against me and instead folded her arms and tightened up. "What are you talking about?"

"Something's bothering you. I can see it."

"Well, yeah, something's bothering me," Rainbow said awkwardly. "I. I Wanted to hear that...Bear story."

I rolled my eyes. "Before that."

Rainbow Dash didn't give me an answer. She just folded her arms tighter.

"Rainbow," I sighed. "You started acting nervous out of nowhere. Before, it was you who came up with the idea of making him feel welcome. Now you just look like you want to run out of here." I rested my hands on my hips. "You're acting guilty about something."

“No, I'm not,” She shouted. When I raised an eyebrow, she started to shrink a little. “I-I mean...I just thought he would be a lot more. Not friendly, is all. You know, like anti-social. Or something.” She started to avert my gaze and study the lockers as if they would all swing open any second.

“Uh-huh,” I hummed. We both saw him back on the sports fields. A 'not friendly' person wouldn't already have a couple of friends with the drama students. And if that game was any proof, he didn't seem anti-social in the slightest.

After taking a deep breath, I loosened up a little and gave her a more worried look. “Rainbow, is there something about this Story guy that's bothering you. You can tell me.”

Rainbow Dash held her breath with a bitten lip. After an attempt of stubborn silence, she cracked. “That obvious, huh?” She closed her eyes as if thinking to herself for a few more seconds. “Look, I don’t like talking about it that much. But...I'll say this much; I know him.”

“You do?” I looked back at the door. No one got up to check on us. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“I...I’m not sure.” She shook her head as if she regretted saying that much. “Look, it happened back in elementary, before you started coming here. Before most of the girls started coming here. And, if it’s all the same with you, that’s as far as I wanna go about it. If it helps you and the others from worrying so much, then I’ll try a little harder not to make it so obvious.”

I mulled it over. Seeing Rainbow Dash like this was new. Typically she wouldn't just lean away from something like this. She'd actually take it head on. “...I understand. But you have to remember that we're here for you. If you want to talk, any of us are here to listen."

"...Thanks." Rainbow Dash started to loosen up at my words.

"Don't worry about." I let myself return a smile, but it was short-lived. "There's something else I need to talk about though."

I looked back in the window of the door. The rest of the girls were still crowded around Story Spinner. They looked completely entranced by whatever story he was telling them about. Even though it seemed that Pinkie and Twilight were bombarding him with questions, Story already seemed to keep up with either of them. As he held up his hand he started shouting in this crazy, high-pitched voice before half flinging his hand down onto the table. Whatever he was telling them, the entire group seemed to be laughing about it.

“What's up?” Rainbow walked up next to me to look into the window herself.

“Well...I don’t think Story Spinner’s being completely honest with us either. It felt like he was trying to keep quiet about something.”

“How do ya figure that?” Rainbow was at a loss.

“Remember when he told us how much his stuff was worth?” She nodded. “Well, it sounded like he was going to say something else, but stopped himself.”

“O-kay," Rainbow looked more puzzled. "I mean, that doesn’t really mean anything does it? He could have still been angry about it.” Rainbow looked at me out of the corner of her eye before looking back through the window.

“I thought that too, but then there was something else.” I backed away from the door. “When Ms. Cheerilee came in, she mentioned something about him always having a laptop with him. But suddenly he doesn't have it with him anymore.”

“...Yeah?” She crossed her arms. "Didn't he say he couldn't bring it since he was missing his backpack?"

“That's just it” I found myself yelling at her in a whisper. “He said that he didn’t have a backpack to put his laptop in anymore. So that means he usually has a laptop in his backpack. And what happened to his backpack?”

“You already know what happened. It fell down the hill,” She answered matter-of-factly.

However, Rainbow Dash didn’t seem to get it. So, rather than correct her, I nodded for her to go on and watched as the gears in Rainbow's head started to slowly turn. Just as I was about to explain it to her, Rainbow's head suddenly flinched faintly. Her eyes began to widen and her mouth opened as she was about to speak eyes begin to widen. It looked as though her expressions debating with one another until, finally—

“His lapt— augh!” I covered up her mouth before she gave it away.

“Rainbow, be quiet!” I stared her down. “We can't let him know that we found out!”

She shook away from my hands. “What do you mean don’t let him find out?!”

“He kept it a secret for a reason, didn’t he?!” I took another look in the window to make sure nothing changed. “Look; he probably didn't want us to feel guilty for him. We already started giving him all these gifts."

"Then, what, we pretend that this is enough and leave him alone?” She certainly wasn’t about to do that, but she was waiting for an answer. "His laptop is gone because of those creeps!"

“I know that.” I took a second to calm myself down before this turned into an argument. “I don't want to let this go either. You saw how miserable he was a few days ago."

"Then why don't we go to those jerks that ruined his laptop in the first place?" All of Rainbow's worry and silence was gone now. Instead, it was filled with determination and want for action.

"It's not our place to butt in. After all, if Story didn't tell Vice Principal Luna about his laptop than that doesn't mean we should do that for him. There could be another reason why he's not telling anyone."

Rainbow Dash grimaced for a second. "Well, what if," she drew back what she was going to say. "Well, he's new, right? Maybe when he gets used to everyone he'll tell someone about it."

I glanced back into the room and instantly saw the issue with Rainbow's idea. Still surrounded by the others, Story was telling a story in a way that reminded me of those silent comedy films. After a few more seconds of rolling his fists, he went still and started tilting to the right, pretending like he just got clonked on the head. As his head hit the table, the girls laughed belted out laughing.

I looked back to Rainbow Dash. "It looks as though he's settled in already. Opening up to others might be harder than it seems."

I watched along with Rainbow as he picked up a book and spun it around to face the girls, pointing to one thing and then the next. From what I could tell, he seemed to be pretty invested in explaining everything. Not only that but the girls all seemed to be paying attention to what he was telling them.

That's when I saw Twilight act. She quickly dug through her backpack and pulled out a couple of pencils, saying something to Story. Story seemed confused for a moment, only to be taken aback as the other girls started to add on to what Twilight said. Each of them seemed to nod as Story seemed less surprised as he gave off a genuine smile towards the girls.

And that's when it slowly began to dawn on me.

"That's what we do."

"What?" Rainbow pulled back to look at me.

"We join his club." I backed away from the window. "If we join his club than we can try and help him."

Rainbow's expression showed just how against the idea she was. "What would even be the point?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," she stuttered. "He doesn't have any problems with getting along with others. And he even said he had some friends with the drama kids. Isn't the whole point of our magic being that we help people learn about friendship?"

I leaned back for a moment. It wasn't as though Rainbow was exactly wrong. Our magic revolved around friendship. But even if Story Spinner didn't have problems with friendship, there was still something else going on here. And I think Twilight would understand that too. In fact, she'd probably be thinking about joining his club the moment she noticed that no one was in it.

I shook my head and focused. "Friendship problem or not, I think joining this club is the right idea."

I saw Rainbow try and formulate any kind of alternative. Something else that we could do that would keep her a distance away. But why?

"Rainbow Dash," I cut in before she could speak. "If you have another idea then I'm all ears."

Whatever Rainbow Dash was about to say, that made her think it over again. "...How's about we just buy him another laptop?" I rose an eyebrow. "I mean, it can't be that expensive...right?"

I just crossed my arms. I know that she didn't even believe that. Rarity, Applejack, Twilight and myself all chipped in for the books alone and it was still a dent to each of our wallets. None of us had the money to buy a decent laptop.

So instead, Rainbow tensed up and rethought her words. "O-Okay, then, how about we just ask him what he wants?"

I sighed. "Do you think you would ask for help in his position?" She opened her mouth to speak, but something stopped her. "You saw him in there. He was thinking of a way to pay us back for all of those things. Even if he admitted what he wanted, he'll just think that we're taking pity on him because he's in a bad spot."

"And you think that joining this club won't look like that?" Now it was her turn to narrow her eyes at me. "He'll still think that we're taking pity on him."

I heard another collection of giggles from the room. "Normally, you'd be right. However..." But of us went back to the window only to see a few of the girls with some dice in each of their hands and Pinkie Pie now being the head of the conversation. She was still holding the dragon figure in her hands and seemed to be playing around with it as though she were a little girl with a dollhouse. Only, instead of a dollhouse, she was pretending that the table was some kind of village.

"Something tells me a few of them are joining the club anyways." Suddenly, Pinkie used the dragon figure to knock over a monument of erasers before flying around the room some more, earning eye rolls and some laughs from the rest of the group.

As Rainbow continued to watch, she became more and more aware of the fact that she was the only one worried. She started to bite at her knuckle as she tried thinking of some other plan, some other way to talk her way out of it.

But she couldn't.

"I'm the only one that doesn't really want to, huh?" She let out a sigh and turned towards me with a serious look. "Alright Sunset. I'll go for one day. But if it doesn't work, then I really don't want to keep coming back."

"I understand," With a smile, I leaned against the wall. "Besides, maybe he's just going through a rough spot right now. At the very least, this will help him feel more welcomed here. Now come on." Signalling her to follow, I reached for the doorknob. "Let's go tell the others."