Home Run bailed out of the car as quickly as he could once Lightning Dust had found a parking spot, taking a few deep breaths before straightening himself.
“Oh, don’t overreact, Home Run,” she scoffed as she got out. “I wasn’t even going that fast today. There were too many cars on the road for that.”
“She’s right you know?” Lightning Rain patted him on the back. “Usually she’s way faster.”
“No way… You gotta be kidding me right now,” Home Run chuckled and continued to take deep breaths. “Well, thanks for the ride anyway.”
“Anytime, Home Run,” Lightning Dust smiled and headed towards the school building. “Don’t be afraid to ask whenever you need a ride.”
“Yeah. I just hope I won’t have to do it all that often.”
On the upside at least, he’d gotten to school with enough time to grab breakfast if he hadn’t already had breakfast at home. The baseball player just went on into the school building, heading towards homeroom. He figured he’d surprise Mrs. Harshwhinny for once. He wasn’t particularly a latecomer, but Home Run liked to show up on the dot so that he wouldn’t have to waste any time.
“I’ll catch you later, Home Run,” Lightning Rain and Dust waved, heading off to their respective classrooms.
Home Run returned their waves and pushed open the door to his homeroom. Instead of his teacher all set up and ready, there were just other students in the room. Counting three of them, Home Run recognized Mystery Mint and Tennis Match, but the third girl… he’d never seen her before. The new girl was standing by one of the windows, looking out.
Home Run was curious. Maybe she was a new student. Approaching her, he cleared his throat to get her attention.
“Yes?” the girl asked as she turned around.
She had on a dark leather jacket, a white t-shirt and a red skirt over blue skin, with red shoes covering her feet. Her long grey and teal hair reached down to her waist, messy and kind of sticking out in places; she had a hairclip shaped like the letter ‘A’, holding her fringe up. What really got the boy’s attention were her sharp orange eyes, staring back at him; they looked almost like they could see right through him.
He realized he was staring for far too long and averted his gaze. “Oh, uh, hi, sorry. I’m Home Run and… I haven’t seen you before. Are you new here?”
“New?” the girl looked around the classroom. “No, not really.”
“Oh, uh, cool.” Home Run had no idea what she meant. “Well, seeing as we’ve never met… Hi, I’m Home Run.”
The blue-skinned girl nodded and shook his hand. “Velvet Breeze.”
“So, you’re in this homeroom, Velvet Breeze?” Home Run decided to strike up a conversation.
“That is correct,” she nodded and looked out the window again. “I’m waiting for a friend, Sunset Shimmer. I take it you know her?”
“Sunset? Yeah, I know her. She’s a good friend of mine.”
“Oh?” Velvet smiled at one corner of her mouth. “Well, then I’m sure I’ll be hearing more from you.”
“Well, nice to meet you, Velvet Breeze.” Home Run pointed a finger to the door. “I’ll need to grab some books, so I’ll see you later.”
“And I will need to visit the principal’s office for the time being,” she replied. “A favour, if you will, Home Run. Please don’t let Sunset know that I’m back just yet. I want it to be a surprise.”
“Will do.” With a wave of his hand, Home Run headed out, quickly locating his locker to retrieve his English and Math books. The boy scrambled with his lock, getting it right the second time, grinning with satisfaction when he pried it off the locker door.
“Take that, lock,” he said to himself, reaching an arm in to grab his textbooks. He still had another ten minutes before class, so he took his time in picking the right books out.
When Home Run was finally done, he shut his locker and hooked the lock back into place, scrambling the code for added security. He’d left the lock on without locking it once. It hadn’t been all that bad, except that he found his locker full of internet memes the next day.
He was about to leave when a familiar face stopped beside him, getting to work on her lock.
“Morning, Sunset,” he greeted the fiery haired girl with a finger salute.
“Oh, good morning, Home Run,” she looked a little surprised to see him. “You’re early.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled and patted his books. “Bike broke, so I got a lift from Lightning Dust.”
“Regretting it?”
“Yup,” Home Run nodded vigorously. “Oh, by the way, you’ll be getting a surprise later in class.”
“Oh?” Sunset asked. “What might that be?”
“I won’t spoil it for you,” he smirked and pointed back to homeroom. “I guess you’ll find out when we start class. I’m just gonna go grab a drink before the bell. I’ll see you later.”
Saying their goodbyes, Home Run walked quickly to the cafeteria, grabbing a bottle of soda from the fridge before paying up at the counter.
“Home Run,” Vauban spoke in his ear. “This drink is terribly unhealthy. You should’ve gotten something else. Look at all the sugar it contains. Last I checked, too much sugar isn’t good for the human body.”
“Come on, buddy,” the boy whispered as he left the cafeteria. “It’s not that bad. Besides, I don’t drink it all the time.”
“You had one three days ago.”
“That… Isn’t recent,” Home Run twisted the cap off and sipped at the bottle. “Besides, I’m still healthy. Right?”
“According to my scans, you’ve dropped in health by 0.02 percent.”
“Umm… Well… Bah, that’s not so bad.”
“Not yet anyway,” Vauban replied as Home Run pushed his homeroom door open.
Sunset gave him a wave as Home Run found his seat near the right side, putting his books down with his backpack.
“Howdy, partner,” Applejack greeted beside him. “Nice morning, innit?”
“Yeah,” the baseball player leaned back and relaxed. “So, anything new?”
“Yeah, Ah think Ah’ve finally mastered the first three obstacles in the dojo, without Rhino’s help,” the cowgirl said. “Ah call that an achievement.”
“Sure is, AJ,” the boy replied with a nod. “So, think you’ll ever get the hang of this? Killing aliens, I mean.”
Applejack scrunched up her mouth and looked to the nearby wall. “Ah don’t think Ah ever will, Home Run. Oh, by the way, Ah met an old friend on the way in this mornin’. She’s a good friend. Ah can introduce ya if you’d like.”
“Who, Velvet Breeze?” Home Run whispered, hoping Sunset didn’t hear them.
Applejack widened her eyes. “Ya know her?”
“Kinda met her before class. She looked like she was inspecting the place. She said to keep it a surprise from Sunset.”
“Yeah, she told me the same,” Applejack chortled. “She’s a good friend, Home Run. Ah’m sure you’ll get along just fine. She was actually here in school with us for a bit, before the winter break.”
“Seriously…” Home Run turned to look at her. “When are you guys going to tell me what happened over the winter break? It’s been months. Really, I’m not a monster,” he ended with a snicker.
“We know ya ain’t a monster, Home Run. You’ve turned out to be a real great friend,” Applejack guffawed. “It’s just… well, Ah don’t think we’re supposed to tell anyone.”
“Alright, alright,” Home Run surrendered. One day he was going to figure it out, but it was not this day. “You win this time. Again. I shouldn’t be prying where I shouldn’t be anyway. If any of you want to tell me, then I guess you’ll tell me.”
Applejack smiled and patted him on the back. “Good on ya, Homey. Who knows, maybe we’ll explain it all to ya one day.”
Home Run had gone ahead to the school’s statue by himself, ready to get some Warframe practice done with Vauban.
The Rainbooms had asked if he wanted to go with them to Sugar Cube Corner to catch up with Velvet Breeze, but the blue haired baseball player had declined, deciding to let them have more personal time together. Besides, it would’ve been weird if he’d gone with them. He didn’t know much about Velvet and she didn’t know much about him; that would’ve led to some awkward conversations, or worse, conversations where he would have no idea what anyone was talking about.
Home Run had just left the school’s main doors when a trio of girls stopped him, just at the top of the staircase, either smirking, waving to him, or not even bothering to look at him.
“Why, if it isn’t Home Run…” Adagio Dazzle placed both her hands on her hips. “Where are you off to today, dear boy?”
“If you want to ask him out, Adagio, just do it,” Aria Blaze folded her arms and snorted.
“I do not!” the yellow-skinned siren turned to her sister, letting Home Run inch past her, quietly, but swiftly moving down the steps and towards the statue.
Sonata Dusk leaned past her sisters and gave Home Run a wide smile and a wave, before being absorbed by the conversation. Home Run had no idea why the sirens always quarreled, but whatever the matter was, he was glad he was away from it. Being friendly to them was one thing, but having to put up with their arguments wasn’t something the boy wanted to do.
“The dojo all set?” Home Run asked his Tenno partner.
“Yes,” Vauban answered after a brief pause. “Princess Twilight isn’t around, but Nyx has opened the way for us.”
“Then let’s get to it.”
Home Run pushed a hand through the statue’s base first and after making sure it was able to go in, he walked the rest of the way in, Vauban immediately folding around him to prevent him from transforming into a pony.
“I hope to see some improvement, Home Run,” his Tenno partner said.
Emerging in the gloominess of the dojo, Home Run noticed Nyx standing before them, her arms folded.
“Greetings, Home Run,” Twilight’s Tenno greeted with a nod. “The floor is all yours. I shall be meditating by the side until you leave. If you need any assistance or someone to spar with, do not hesitate to find me.”
“Sure,” the baseball player began walking over to the obstacle course. “Thanks, Nyx. I owe you one.”
Arriving at the obstacle course’s console, the boy placed an armored hand over the controls, starting up the timer. As soon as it hit zero, Home Run was off, moving as fast as he could over the first blockade, before leaping high across a gap between two platforms, careful to get his footing right.
He’d missed that jump a few times and falling down into the abyss below was less welcoming, even if he was teleported back up by some kind of magical power.
The boy traversed the next bit, tossing a jump grenade ahead of himself as he ran. The floor below his feet began to shift, rising up to create barricades to block his advance. Smiling to himself, Home Run hopped atop his grenade, propelling himself way over the obstacles and to the top of the next one, avoiding the entire climb up in the process.
“Not bad, Home Run,” Vauban praised. “But do remember that you won’t always have those grenades with you. If you want to learn, you will want to run the obstacle course like everyone else.”
“Rainbow Dash doesn’t seem to follow those rules,” Home Run said as he looked down at the drop. “If she doesn’t have to follow them, then I don’t see why I have to. We do what we can to get better, right? This is what I can do. It’s smarter too, won’t you agree, Vauban?”
“I cannot argue with that one. Smart choice, Home Run.”
Using another jump grenade, Home Run found himself before the final obstacle, sprinting as fast as he could, jumping and spinning as he avoided falling platforms, easily making it to the other side. Running the remaining of the course, he passed the gates at the end, finishing with a new record of forty-one seconds.
“There you have it, Vauban!” Home Run whooped and cheered. “Told you I’ve been getting better.”
“Yes, yes, excellent practice, Home Run. You will be ready when the time comes to defend your home once more.”
“Yeah, about that,” Home Run returned to the middle of the room and sat down. “What are we preparing for? The Stalker is gone, Vor is dead, the what was it called… Neural Sentry is dead, so what are we training for? I don’t see why we still need to fight.”
“As I have said, the Lotus has not called us back. I believe she still thinks there is a threat out there. It could be… no, maybe not.”
“What? What is it?”
“It might be a possibility, but perhaps our enemies were not destroyed before we entered our sleep.”
“What?” Home Run asked, more confused than ever.
“What he means, Home Run,” Nyx walked over, standing over them. “Is that maybe the Grineer, Corpus and the Infested are still out there. I doubt that is true. We vanquished them, Vauban. We cut them off at the root. There is no way they can return.”
Vauban took over the Warframe and stood Home Run up. “What if they’re not? We simply laid waste to their fleets. What if they survived? What if they are building up their armies to come back?”
“Then we will be ready,” Nyx spun a ball of green energy in her palm. “I do not believe they could have survived, but… the Lotus has yet to recall us, so there is still a chance you may be right. I, however, hope you are wrong. If our enemies return on this scale, this world will not be safe.”
“Wait, I’m completely lost right now,” Home Run raised a hand. “What are we talking about?”
“Destruction, Home Run,” Nyx answered. “There aren’t enough of us left. If our enemies return, if we do manage to defeat them once more, your world will still feel their vengeance.”
The Grineer scout retracted his visor, frowning to himself as he inspected the portal closely.
“What is it?” his companion, a ballista, asked, placing her sniper rifle down by her feet.
“That is the way in,” he pointed to the statue in the front. “The entrance to the Lotus’ domain.”
“So what are we waiting for?” the ballista looked between the scout and the statue. “We can signal the rest. Send in an attacking squad.”
“That is not our mission,” the scout reminded. “Leave that to the general. The Queens want the destruction of this pathetic human race and the Warframes that protect them. This world is our target.”
“Right, so why not fire down on it from above? I don’t see why we do not just decimate them all right now.”
“Because, the Queens want captives and also because starting up with your largest attack is never a good strategy. We should always see what our enemies have before we strike.”
“Right, right, I didn’t know you studied tactics and strategies,” his companion stated sarcastically.
“Whatever the case, this establishment will be the location of the first attack. Signal the fleet. We’ll start right here.”
“Long live the Queens,” the ballista said and activated her tracking beacon.