Cryo-7

by Metal Pony Fan


Need it Like a hole in the Roof

"Alright, class, last question. How about this?" The professor, a tan pegasus with greying mane, dragged his stylus against the wall's screen, sliding it to display the next equation. "We are modifying the electrolytes from the previous example, what will that do to the absorption rates?"

He glanced back, and one hoof shot up faster than any of the others. Looking around the room, he waited for other hooves and hands to join it. Instead, he saw panicked students flipping through their textbooks, or sliding through their pads, for something they had missed.

The instructor sighed heavily. "Does anypony know the answer?"

The lone hoof waved back and forth.

"Anypony besides our young guest, who is ostensibly here to be inspired by your shining examples of academic prowess?" He looked around again, and shrugged. "Anypony? Anypony at all?" He heaved a little sigh. "Fine, then, Stormy Skies? What is the answer?"

The hoof lowered, and the young pegasus shifted in her seat. "It's a trick question. You modified the composition of certain individual compounds in a way that's chemically impossible, but you didn't change the concentrations. Hypothetically, absorption rates would be unchanged, but realistically, this is faulty data."

The instructor sighed. "Right as usual, folks. You heard her. Now, the homework is to explain how the changes I made are impossible. Pick one of the modified compounds. I want a short report on what the compound is supposed to be, what change I made to it, and why this change is impossible. I'm feeling generous, with the weekend coming up, so one to two hundred words will be plenty. Dismissed!"

Books closed, and pads were shut down. Students grumbled amongst themselves as they slowly made their way out of the classroom. The instructor packed up to leave as well, logging out of the classroom computer before packing his pad and physical notes into his briefcase.

Before he could close the case, his pad beeped. With a sigh, he looked up, at the only student still in her chair. "Stormy Skies?" The golden yellow pegasus was only now putting her tablet away, running a hoof through her grey-purple mane as the other latched the padded folio case shut. "You are here as a guest, so you can see if you want to attend our medical program. You don't have to turn in homework assignments."

She shrugged, adjusting her loose T-shirt, an unusual piece of clothing for a pony, after it slipped on her shoulder. "Ok," she answered quietly before getting up. She chomped down on the case's lanyard and headed out the door.

The instructor was left shaking his head. "She's an odd one, that's for sure." He pulled his pad out and checked the messages. Predictably, the most recent one was from her, a very concise, and very correct report. It was only four sentences long, but presented the requested information in a clear and professional manner. "If only they were all like that."

Out in the hallway, Stormy Skies went and found a quiet corner to sit down in. The wide halls of Luna's Academy ran along the outside of the building wherever possible, giving a wonderful view of the city through massive windows. Ponies and people of all races hurried through to their next class, or wasted time chatting to each other.

Class start and end times were staggered by a few minutes, very few classes shared them. The class she just left let out at five-thirty, but the one next door wouldn't let out until five-fourty. The next one over at five-fifty. Any classes that let out around the same time were held in classrooms far away from each other. This minimized bottlenecks, but the exchange was that the hallways always had some traffic in them.

She didn't really mind. It was easy to get lost in the crowds here. It wasn't like back home. Her high school was almost all ponies. No. That wasn't right. Her grade was almost all ponies, the rest were more evenly mixed. Still, being surrounded by ponies, she stood out if she wore a shirt. And if she didn't...

She shook her head. She promised herself she wouldn't think about it. She wanted to enjoy her little vacation off-world. It had taken her long enough to convince her mom that she would be fine on her own.

Stormy Skies waited for an opening, and crossed the hall to look out the window. They were on the fourth floor, so the view wasn't as stunning as it was from higher up, but it was still high enough for her to see the tops of the short buildings around them. "The way she went on about it, you'd think I was exploring the fringe worlds. This place almost looks like home."

It had honestly been a little disappointing. This campus was definitely nice, a wide sprawl, resembling a small town, parsed with parks and gardens, all atop a massive hill. Wherever you went, paths had a gentle slope to them. The buildings were simple, unobtrusive things. Pale, stone colored, with massive windows in decorative iron frames. The tallest buildings, a trio of them, only stood seven or eight stories, and she was there now. The rest were below her sight from this floor.

But, she had signed in from the north campus, and that was far more impressive. Right in the heart of the city. Three chromatic glass skyscrapers, reaching dozens of stories higher than those around them. Piercing the sky like the spears of some ancient goddess challenging the sun itself. Surrounded by buildings covered in in trees and vines - ruins - like the jungle was reclaiming its land.

She knew that the vegetation was actually planned and carefully maintained, but the imagery of vine-wrapped buildings, against those glittering towers that reached the clouds, made it feel like something old and powerful slept there.

Then she was sent here via shuttle after filling out her forms for the trial stay. The medical program was held at the South campus. Such a shame. She had been looking forward to diving off one of those tall towers, but wasn't able to slip away during the registration process.

Everything here at the south campus was so relaxed. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite the adventure she hoped it would be. In fact, it was kind of boring. She didn't get to take any of the advanced classes she really wanted to, just sit in on the basic ones. They didn't assign homework, because she was a temporary student, and would be gone in a few weeks. She also wasn't allowed to bring any work from her internship because her school wanted her focused on this.

She sighed loudly as she caught sight of her reflection in the window. "Why does this need to last a month? It's been a week, and I've already done everything."

She decided to wait until one of the nearby classrooms emptied out, since they were holding the last classes of the day, and hang out until the cleaning crew made her leave. She'd done that once or twice already. By that time, the dinner rush would be over, and she could grab some food without waiting in a ridiculous line. Then... Well, she wasn't sure. The tour had been quite thorough, there wasn't much left to explore. What little there was had to last another three weeks.

She would probably just head to her temporary dorm. There was free subnet service, like there was in most campus buildings, so she could call home if she wanted. One of her brothers or sisters might be up to answer. She had some games on her pad, she could play those. Or she could be productive, and work on her book like she promised herself she would during any downtime.

As she pondered her lack of entertainment, she listened to the sounds of birds outside the window. She blinked. The birds were getting louder.

"Oh!" She glanced around. That was her pad. She was receiving a video call. The hallway was far from empty, but one of the classrooms was emptying out a little early.

She made her way over as a human professor stormed out amidst his students, muttering about noise. She slipped in easily, unnoticed by everyone eager to leave. And all despite the constant chirping!

She picked a desk and sat down, unclipping the folio at her belt and setting it up so it would prop up her pad. She didn't like having to hold the pad while talking. Many ponies pointed out that she liked to talk with her hooves, and she had to agree. If her hooves or wings weren't moving, she was most likely asleep. She answered the impatient bird, clicking the switch that would activate her camera and answer her call.

"Connecting," the screen came to life, "establishing subspace-link."

"Who could it be?" She wondered out loud. It would take several more seconds for a stable real-time connection to be found, an impressively short time given the distances involved. "It's too late to be mom or dad. Is somepony up past bed time?" She smiled as she waited. It had to be one of her younger siblings, or one of the few friends who knew her contact info.

"Link established," the screen flashed.

The words were quickly replaced by a pony's face. A colt, her age, with a confident smirk and bright green hair. His tan snout and brown eyes filled the screen. "Hey, Sky! Miss me yet?"

Her hoof went straight to her face, and she let out a miserable groan. "Damn it, Spot! Who gave you my contact code?"

He leaned back and shrugged. "I missed you, too."

Now that he was framed better, Stormy Skies could see the other pony's surroundings. Chairs and computer stations, lit only by the lamp next to him. "Holy crap. You're at school."

He shrugged again, pressing his ear buds in better. "Yeah? So? I don't have a Subnet connection at home."

"It's two in the morning there!" She rubbed her temples, hoping to stave off the impending migraine. "You broke into the school to call me?"

"Can't leave my girl hanging," he said with a smile.

"No!" Both hooves slammed to the desk, rattling her pad. "I am not your girl. I never have been, and I never will be. Get that through your puny, mishapen brain."

"Ouch!" Spot mimed out getting shot in the chest, going limp in his chair.

"If only I could be so lucky," Stormy muttered.

"You could be nicer to me." Spot laughed. "I mean, who else is gonna want you?"

She bit her lip to keep herself from lashing out immediately. She was in a vacant room, but one of the rooms next door still had a class in session. She had to restrain herself, even though she wanted to tear this colt's head off. She took a slow measured breath before speaking again. "What the hell, Spot? Do you even think before you say things like that?"

"Things like what?" He asked in confusion. "I'm just sayin', unlike some of the other guys, I don't care about-"

"I don't care if you care, or not!" She wrapped her hooves around herself, covering her midsection. "I don't want you thinking about it! Why can't anypony just get the hint? I'm not interested. I go to school to study, not to get caught up in the social drama you all want want to shove down my throat."

"Don't get mad at me, I want to shove something totally different down-"

"Shut up!" She didn't care if she was heard anymore. "That is never going to happen, and if you ever try, I'll bite it off. Got it?" She leaned against the desk. "Goddess, why is everypony in my high-school driven by their libido?"

"Because we're in highschool, duh." Spot answered, oblivious to her question's rhetorical nature. "It's just sex, why do you get so worked up over it?"

"Because, I don't care!"

His snout scrunched up in confusion. "If you didn't care, you wouldn't get worked up."

Stormy threw her hooves up. "I'm dealing with a moron! Let me rephrase what I just said. I don't care about who's sleeping with who, because I am not going to get involved with any of it. I only get worked up because everypony tries to pressure me into caring."

Spot shrugged it off. He didn't even try to respond to what she said. "You used to be popular."

Stormy shook her head, jaw clenching as she lost control of her anger. "And you used to be my friend." She smashed her hoof down on the camera switch, shutting down the call, and collapsing the folio stand under her hoof.

She sat there in silence for a moment. Her, the empty class, her raspy breathing, and her burning eyes. That was the reason she shut down the call. She wasn't going to cry in front of Spot Light. She was not going to show any kind of weakness to that creep.

She pulled her hoof away from her pad and rubbed her eyes. It seemed that he at least had the good sense not to call back.

What happened to him? He wasn't always like that, and that made it so much worse. They used to be best friends, taking on the world together, training to be the best racers in the galaxy. Every time she saw him, she would remember that, and give him a chance to talk to her. It always ended up with her feeling miserable and degraded. Or, like now, sick to her stomach.

The sad part was that she could pinpoint the exact moment when everything went wrong. No, that wasn't the sad part. The sad part was that the moment that started pushing everything downhill was the moment they spent their entire friendship striving for, the day they made the racing team.

Working together, they aced the tryouts. All the other rookies were confident in their own abilities, but when they were forced to team up, they didn't know how to work with each other. She and Spot had been practicing together for so long, training for that very moment, that they didn't have to plan or discuss anything. Relays, obstacles, nothing slowed them down. During the final trial, they came within a second of breaking a record that had been in place for years.

They had become school celebrities overnight. They were no longer the loners who went off to play on their own, and even if they tried, ponies would follow them.

Spot definitely saw more of the attention. He was an only child, and had no real responsibilities at home. He could spend more time at practice, or hang out after school, or go places on the weekend. Stormy made it out to some events, but with the way her family was, she had to be picky about the time she spent goofing off.

Somewhere during this whirling rush of popularity, Spot got a mare friend. He started dating the coach's daughter. That should have been enough for her to tell Spot something was wrong, but he seemed really happy about it. Also, guess who was a year above them? And fresh out of a relationship with the senior captain of the racing team who was a year above her?

Despite her best efforts, she and Spot started drifting apart. She tried to make time for the group movies, or school functions, but even if she made it, there was no guarantee Spot plus one would be there. He never seemed to go anywhere without his new flame.

Then, revealing herself to be the grade A, undiluted bitch that Stormy had started to suspect, the coach's daughter approached her at practice one day and told her to stay away from Spot. No prelude, no leadup, nothing. Just, "hey, stay away from my colt."

How do you respond to something like that? It wasn't like Stormy even knew her name back then. She never got the chance to properly meet her. She still couldn't recall it. So, she didn't respond to the command. She just went back to her workout.

Stormy never expected that would be the worst mistake of her athletic career. She should have seen it coming, especially when that bitch immediately walked over to daddy dearest with the water bottle Stormy lost a week earlier.

While Stormy tried to figure out how she got her hooves on it, father and daughter whispered back and forth. It wasn't until the coach looked in her direction that she realized something was wrong. The always smiling coach had a cold expression on his face. His daughter glanced back with a smile, then trotted away like nothing happened, leaving him to unknowingly finish her dirty work.

He opened the water bottle, took a sniff, and his unreadable expression became a scowl. He took a sip, and immediately spit it out, a look of disgust on his face. An ugly look that quickly turned at her.

He called Stormy over, and she complied. What else was she going to do? Not listen to the coach? Before she could ask what was going on, he dumped the water bottle over her head.

It wasn't water.

She was told that the coach had kicked her off the team on the spot, and that he was practically screaming at her. But she couldn't remember anything about it. Her only memory of that moment was being drenched in alcohol. It stung her eyes, and burned her nostrils as she ran for the showers.

She ran into classmates along the way. She ran into walls along the way. Nopony listened when she asked for help. Nopony believed her when she said she was set up. Nopony trusted her anymore. And worst of all, the coach had the gall to expect her gratitude for destroying the evidence instead of turning her in.

Even Spot didn't believe her. Until a friend of the coach's daughter admitted to supplying the Torran Whiskey for the incident. When confronted, the bitch blamed it on the Hormones. What Hormones? Oh, just the ones from the foal. Wait, what? Oh, the senior captain of the team's foal? She'd been seeing him the entire time she was dating Spot?

Word got back to the coach somehow, and word made it to the students that there had been a fight. Nopony got the full story, but the coach was fired, the Captain of the team was expelled, and guess who dropped out to move in with him.

Then it was time for winter break.

By the time the break ended, Spot was unrecognizable. He was Captain of the team now, and more popular than ever. Stormy couldn't understand why. He was never nice to anypony after what happened. He hardly ever smiled, and he was downright mean to any mare that tried to talk to him.

Somehow, that didn't keep him from sleeping his way through half the hoofball cheerleading squad.

It only took until spring break for him to get tired of constant flings. And when school started up again, he had a steady mare friend. They were inseparable, and acted so head over hooves it made your teeth rot from syrupy sappyness of it all. At least, until the last day before summer break. She walked up on stage and, slapped him before he gave their grade's farewell speech. No words were exchanged.

And so ended their first year of highschool.

Spot was nowhere to be found that Summer. Slappy moved away with her family. None of Stormy's old friends wanted anything to do with her anymore.

Come second year, she was nopony, just the quiet bookworm studying alone in the corner. Spot was just as popular as ever, only he had stopped chasing every tail attached to a pretty rump. Which would have been great, except, for some reason, he was focused on her.

There was a time she might have considered it. If he had asked her to be his mare friend back right after they joined the racing team, she probably would have agreed. They did everything together back then. But he wasn't the same pony anymore.

It was sad, everything that happened to him, but it didn't excuse his behavior. He was crude. His friends were all assholes, especially the new vice-captain of the racing team. He was a worse, if that's even possible, version of post-breakup Spot. Only, he had nothing to blame it on. And, somehow, there were still mares that wanted either him, or Spot, for themselves. Worst of all, they saw her as an obstacle.

She spent the whole year keeping her head down, and avoiding Spot whenever possible. She wanted her friend back at first, but he was impossible to talk to. Every conversation went sour, turning into an argument. Every argument brought backlash from the fanclub.

There were only a few girls in her class who weren't mean to her. And only two she would even consider calling friends. But even they couldn't understand why she wouldn't date Spot. It was most likely one of them who gave Spot her contact code.

Why? Why can't everypony just mind their own damn business? She was always told to enjoy highschool school, because you only get to go once. That's one too many, thank you. Everypony who isn't a friend hates you. Everypony who is or was a friend won't respect boundaries. And every damned one of them is hell-bent on fucking their way to the top.

And now, here she was. Third-year honor student, never had a boyfriend, never had a chance at an athletic career, alone on a different planet because all she had in life was her studying.

That was probably all she would ever have. As much as she hated to admit it, Spot was right. Who else would want her? She leaned back and tugged at the collar of her shirt. What was underneath would scare away most ponies. Where in the galaxy was she supposed to find somepony her age, that could overlook her flaws, wouldn't pressure her to get physical, and could avoid the social landmines waiting back home?

Without warning, a brightly colored mass crashed through the ceiling. She yelped in surprise as a sky blue meteor smashed into the desk in front of her, leaving a rainbow lined lump that groaned in pain.

The lump lifted its head, and a pair of eyes looked up at her. It was a pegasus! He opened his mouth to speak, and dark blue magic enveloped him, yanking him back up through the ceiling as fast as he had fallen.

Stormy Skies was alone in the room once more, with a damaged desk, and an obliterated pad in front of her. She looked up through the hole left behind in the pony's wake, and it went through at least another two floors. She couldn't see past that. What was up there? There was a floor of offices, the gym on the top floor, and nothing past that.

"What the hell?" Stormy stared up until falling dust forced her to look away. Did he fall through the roof? How was he able to move after that? And who dragged him back up? He wasn't screaming, and his face didn't show any fear, so he probably wasn't in any danger.

She blinked and looked back up. That was probably the stupidest thought she ever had in her life. How do you crash through a building, twice, without being in danger?

She looked down at the desk. Its top was smashed, the frame was bent, and the legs had been punched into the floor. Her pad was a mangled spiderweb of glass and plastic clinging to what was now a bowl shaped metal frame sitting on splintered wood. On the bright side, Spot couldn't contact her anymore.

On the dark side, it looked like a cherry bomb got set off in the middle of the classroom. And the perpetrator was nowhere to be found.

Stormy's eyes went wide. "They're gonna think I did this!"

With that, she ran from the classroom, mangled pad stuffed into her shirt to contain as many pieces as possible. She kept her eyes forward as she slipped into the bustling crowds. Glancing back only once, upon reaching the elevator, to ensure she wasn't trailing plastic breadcrumbs.

She entered the elevator with a group of human students, who were too thoroughly engrossed in their conversation about startup finances to notice her during the ride to the second floor. When they left the elevator, and no one else boarded, Stormy Skies was left with a choice.

She could leave, or she could try to find that colt.

She quickly hit the button that would take her to the top floor. It wasn't that much of a choice really.

What if he was hurt?