Indigo slept through most of Saturday. Sunday wasn’t much better – she went to the gym, but the weariness from both the party and the week of studying and trainings caused her to mistake the miles in treadmill settings for kilometres. After a few seconds of intense sprint, she realised her mistake and slowed down, looking around to check if no one saw her. Luckily, the gym was rather empty on Sunday, so Indigo continued her workout.
“What’s up, Indy?” someone behind her asked.
Indigo shuddered, waking up, and fell off the treadmill. Luckily, the person who startled her had good reflexes and caught her before her back could get to know the floor better.
Indigo looked up and saw a pair of yellow eyes hidden behind blonde hair belonging to the person holding her in her arms. “Muffins? What are you doing here?”
“Training,” Muffins replied. “Sorry for scaring you.”
Indigo stood up. “It’s fine,” she said. “I kinda zoned out while running. Do you know if anyone else got caught?”
Muffins shook her head. “Not really. Flash spent the whole night in a closet with Sugarcoat and he says she’s a total…” She cleared her throat. “The word started with C.”
“Yeah, that’s surely Sugarcoat,” Indigo muttered. “How about the rest?”
“I talked to Lemon and apparently Sandalwood, Sour Sweet, and Bulk made it back home… But you probably know about it from Bulk.”
Indigo furrowed her eyebrows. “Not really. We haven’t talked since Friday night. I don’t remember much from Saturday, you know...”
“Really?” Muffins shrugged and walked to the kettlebells standing neatly by the wall. “That’d explain why he was kinda salty yesterday, when we were helping Trixie find her car. It didn’t take long since I knew where it was.”
Indigo nodded, moving away when Muffins swung the kettlebell above her head. “You managed to do anything yesterday? Where did you get so much energy?”
Muffins smirked. “My brain doesn’t need much.”
When Indigo finally felt fully awake, it was Monday morning. She was just eating her breakfast, when her father lowered the newspaper he was reading.
“Isn’t that your friend?” he asked.
Indigo nearly chuckled when she saw the photo of Sunny Flare. It happened to be the same photo she’d posted online, just with her face blurred.
“Ah, so that’s why she didn’t make it to the party,” Indigo said quickly. “She tried to rob a store? Really?”
“They only mention trespassing,” Indigo’s father shrugged. “And that she wasn’t alone.”
“Oh really?” Indigo nodded. “Wonder who was she with…”
Indigo’s father smirked. “Whoever they were, they didn’t do much. Back when I was playing football, we lit the hotel on fire. By accident.”
“Yeah, sure,” Indigo chuckled. “Any other crazy things you did, dad?”
“Well… Your mother would probably be angry if I called her a thing…”
“Dad!” Indigo exclaimed, smacking her hand against her forehead. “Nevermind… You lit the hotel on fire, after all.”
“And you spent a night in a furniture store,” Indigo’s father replied.
Indigo nearly choked on her cereal. “How do you know?” she whispered after a while of coughing.
“Don’t ever play poker.” Her father chuckled. “You have a really bad liar’s face…”
Indigo smirked, seeing Sunny Flare sitting at the bus stop. For some reason, Sunny was wearing a slightly different kind of uniform, the collar of her blazer turned up to cover her bruised face. When Indigo stopped her motorbike, Sunny walked to her, limping.
“Do I have a bad liar’s face?” Indigo asked, looking at herself in the mirror of her motorbike.
“Yes,” Sunny muttered. “If they caught you, you’d stay in prison for at least twenty years because of your face alone.”
“What I thought.” Indigo looked at Sunny’s legs. “What happened to you? Police brutality? Or maybe you picked the soap under the shower?”
“I used to have rotaviral infections that were funnier than your jokes,” Sunny replied, sitting on Indigo’s motorbike. “I’d run away, but I got tangled in my onesie. And spare me nasty comments, I’m hung over like hell.”
Indigo raised her eyebrows. “Still? It’s been two days already!”
“Well, I spent only two hours at the station, but mom still bought me a bottle of wine to soothe my nerves.” Sunny smiled. “And another one when the news caught my father on his way to Dubai. Apparently Winford Epsom Derby III is currently rewriting his will.”
“That’d sound more serious if he didn’t do that twice already,” Indigo muttered, taking over a cyclist.
“This time he’s serious,” Sunny said. “If he ever hears about me in the news, all the money will go to a foundation for recovering alcoholics. My lawyer will explain that to me after he’s done with cleaning the mess after Friday.”
“Maybe it’s bad my parents are not that rich,” Indigo muttered. “If I got caught, my mom would simply murder me.”
“Savage lower classes…” Sunny muttered. “But at least I’m getting my revenge. I added a little thing to that photo of mine…”
“I’m not staring at it ever again,” Indigo said. They reached the school grounds and she started to look for a free parking spot.
“You can stare,” Sunny replied. “But if you downloaded it, you also have a trojan horse and good luck getting rid of it. All those computers are now my zombies. I already launched a distributed denial-of-service attack on the website of our police and several gossip sites…”
“English, please.” Indigo finally found a spot and parked her motorbike there.
“Their servers are too crowded and you can’t access their websites,” Sunny said. “Primitive, but fun.”
“Someone will finally connect the dots,” Indigo said. “The police, the people who wrote about you… Hack the store’s website and you’ll suddenly wake up as an unperson.”
“Maybe…” Sunny smirked. “By the way, how are you and Bulk? I didn’t exactly feel well after you knocked me out, but I’ve heard he wasn’t happy.”
“It’s fine now,” Indigo muttered.
“You’re really a bad liar…” Sunny walked to the door of the school, not waiting for Indigo. However, Dean Cadance stopped her right after she got inside of the building, letting Indigo catch up.
“Yeah, I’m pulling the socks up,” Indigo muttered.
“That too,” Dean Cadance muttered. “Sunny, the Principal wants to see you.”
Sunny gulped. “See you around, Indigo,” she muttered before walking off with Dean Cadance.
“See ya.” Indigo sighed and went to the classroom. On her way across the corridors, she checked her phone. Since Friday, Bulk neither called nor texted her. A few times, she wanted to text him, but she stopped herself from doing so, telling herself that if he started it, he also should apologise first.
“Hello,” Indigo said, seeing Lemon Zest sitting in front of the class, headphones on her ears. “What’s up?”
Lemon lowered her headphones. “I did as you told me.”
“What exactly?” Indigo sat next to her, dropping her bag on the floor. “I tell a lot of things…”
“I’m ditching Sour Sweet.” Lemon shrugged, wincing slightly.
Indigo raised her eyebrows, but not for long – when it came to lying, Lemon seemed even worse than her. “And how did she take it?”
“I said I’m ditching her, not that I did,” Lemon replied. “So far I didn’t go to school with her.”
Indigo shook her head. “Baby steps, huh?”
“Kinda.” Lemon looked down the corridor. Indigo followed her gaze and saw Sour Sweet approaching them.
“Hi, Lemon,” Sour muttered. “I’ve been worried about you. Did you go to school by foot?”
“By bus,” Lemon replied, putting her headphones back on.
“Too bad,” Sour said. “Buses are dangerous. You shouldn’t take them. Someone could replace the driver and kidnap a bus.” She shrugged. “Or someone could come and shoot everyone in school…”
Lemon lowered her head, hiding her face behind her hair. Indigo stood up. “Say that again and I’ll break your legs.”
“What?” Sour backpedalled. “Did I say I’d shoot everyone in school?”
“Your bag,” Indigo muttered.
“Wha–” Sour’s eyes widened when Indigo yanked her bag off her shoulder and looked inside. “Give it back to me!”
“No gun.” Indigo shrugged and gave Sour the bag. “You can tell your doctor about it so she can see how much we trust you.”
“I trust her,” Lemon said. “She needs someone to do that for her, right?”
Indigo sighed. “Didn’t you just want to di–” She paused, seeing Lemon’s face. “Of course.”
“What are you talking about?” Sour Sweet asked.
“You’d better talk about it yourselves.” Indigo sat on the floor next to Lemon and crossed her arms. “Assuming Lemon wants to.”
Lemon didn’t say anything to Sour Sweet throughout the lesson that passed mostly uneventfully. Only after it ended, they were joined by Sunny Flare, who limped towards them and groaned, resting herself against the wall.
“How was the meeting with Cinch?” Sour Sweet asked. “Did it end in whipping?”
“Worse,” Sunny replied. “I’m kinda not exactly suspended.”
“How so?” Lemon asked. “I thought with the money your father gives to school–”
“That’s why I’m not exactly suspended,” Sunny replied. “But Cinch said that if I tarnish the school reputation again, she’ll say a word or two about me to her friend at MIT.” She sighed. “Of course, I could hack the whole recruiting process but that wouldn’t be ethical.”
“And you worry about it?” Indigo rolled her eyes. “I always assumed you think ethics is something you can eat.”
“Yeah,” Sunny muttered. “But some nerd from MIT could notice my hacking. That’d be bad.”
Indigo shook her head. “But of course.”
The Canterlot High cafeteria was loud and full of students, each of them taking their place at the tables. Sandalwood looked around and smirked – he loved the crowds, especially if they consisted of girls his age. His height and dreadlocks caused a lot of them to go mad about him, but he hardly cared. He wanted a girl who dared to tell him that he was a jackass – and incidentally, the only such girl was Sugarcoat.
His smile didn’t falter even when he did get his food. The only element of vegan food in the cafeteria that he was sure would always appear was the element of surprise; he’d long stopped to think about it, if only to maintain sanity. He took the tray and walked to the table, where Bulk was staring at his phone.
“Alas, poor Yorick!” Sandalwood exclaimed. “I knew him well, Bulky.”
“What?” Bulk asked.
“You stare at this phone as if it was Yorick’s skull.” Sandalwood smirked at Sophisticata, the head of the drama society. He was taken and her love life apparently involved Shakespeare, wine, and a fellow actress called Drama Letter, but he thought a little flirt wouldn’t hurt anyone. “What’s up, dude? Something’s rotten in the state of Crystal Prep, huh?”
“I’m fine,” Bulk replied.
“Your relationship isn’t, though.” Sandalwood shrugged. “What Muffins didn’t tell me, I figured out from the look in thine eyes, my friend. And there she is!” He turned to Muffins, who walked to their table with Flash. “How is your relationship? Better than Bulk’s?”
“Nonexistent,” Flash muttered. “That’s better, I guess.”
“Sorry, Muffins.” Sandalwood shrugged. “I’m afraid Flash still prefers horse princess from another world. Or at least the girl who is currently hanging out with that Timber boy.”
“Shut up, Sandalwood,” Bulk growled. “Or I’ll be forced to smack you.”
“I’d do that too, but after Bulk, that’d be corpse desecration.” Flash took a bite of his food.
“Oh, come on!” Sandalwood rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to fix your relations here. Bulk, you should totally call Indigo. She’s probably worried about you.”
“She should call first and apologise. Not to me, though.” Bulk shrugged. “To Sunny.”
“Screw Sunny,” Sandalwood said. “I’ve heard from Sugarcoat this girl has an IQ of 150. Most certainly, she doesn’t act like it.”
“Still, Indigo shouldn’t go around, punching people,” Bulk replied. “She’s wiser than that.”
“Yeah, but you’ve said nothing when she punched Norman,” Flash said. “We’re a bit to blame here.”
Sandalwood raised his finger. “It’s all about setting clear limits. Your doe should know how long is her chain.”
“What limits?” Muffins asked. “You treat all girls like shit.”
Sandalwood shook his head. “Not exactly. I treat like shit only the girls who allow me to do so. Like, for the first few days I test waters, checking what I can and can’t do. In case of Sugarcoat, she quickly told me to shut the fuck up and since then our relationship is flourishing.”
“Yeah, sure,” Bulk muttered. “Because it worked so well with Fluttershy.”
“Well, that was a different case.” Sandalwood blushed. “Fluttershy… involved a lot of pushing. I kept looking for my limits, pushing her into the most uncomfortable situation, until I realised that I’m, like, being a dick to her all the time, so I decided to break up. She took that well.”
“She pushed you down the stairs,” Flash said.
“But then she called help.”
“She called the police, telling them that she’d killed you.” Muffins sighed.
“But she apologised later. Before telling me to get out,” Sandalwood replied.
Bulk shook his head. “Sandalwood, did it ever occur to you to just be nice to her?”
“Why?” Sandalwood asked. “She didn’t respect herself enough to ever tell me to stop. Also, did being nice to Indigo ever help?”
“Of course,” Bulk replied. “We weren’t treating each other like test subjects, for starters.”
“Maybe not consciously,” Sandalwood replied. “On a subconscious level–”
“Sandalwood.” Bulk sighed. “Did someone tell you that you’re a dick?”
Sandalwood only smirked.