“You know,” Shining Armor said, “I don’t remember seeing you around Crystal Prep before. You just join up?”
Wits, having given up on his chances at freedom now that he was closely watched by the officer, shrugged nonchalantly. “I mostly keep to myself,” he said, followed by a cough that may or may not have been the word ‘probably’. “You know, keep my head down, stay out of trouble, all of that kind of good stuff.”
Shining raised an eyebrow. “Staying out of trouble, huh?”
“I never claimed to be good at it. Where’s Officer Oldman gone, anyway?”
“To let the other schools know what’s going on. It wouldn’t be good for us to get a call about your friends skipping class when they’re really at Canterlot High, right?”
“Right…” Wits frowned as he thought. If we’re in the school system in this world, that means we already existed here, right? If that’s the case, Purple Heart’s and Light Patch’s parents are going to be very confused. He paused mentally, letting his legs work on autopilot to follow Shining Armor. But if we exist here as a parallel to our own world, then why are we in different schools? We should all be in the same high school at this point in our lives.
Wait, Luna had our ages in the wrong order too, so is this a world with the alternate versions of ourselves as they appear in Equestria proper? Wits’ mind span as his thoughts picked up speed. That would mean that there’s versions of us in the pony world as well, right? Did they exist before Discord pulled us into Caverns & Cutie Marks? Are they like ‘In a Mirror, Darkly’ versions of us? Or like an antimatter version? If I touch the Wits End in this universe, could I cause a massive explosion that takes out most of our known universe?
Shining Armor looked back at the mint-colored teen. “What’re you smiling about?”
“What? Nothing. Happy thoughts, is all.” Wits forced his expression back to normal. Note to self: being a teenager again is making chaos and wanton destruction sound like a good idea. Man, hormones are hell… Wait, if there’s a version of me here... He looked up to see a massive building made of brick and what appeared to be crystals. “You know, I’d ask if we’re there yet, but I feel like that’s a bit too obvious.”
“Good old Crystal Prep Academy.” Shining Armor sighed. “It feel like just yesterday I was here, walking the hallowed halls.”
Wits End waited a beat. “You were literally here yesterday, weren’t you.”
Shining coughed. “I had… important police business to discuss with the Dean.”
“Isn’t it against some sort of law to discuss police business with civilians?”
“Hey look! You’re just in time for third quarter!”
Wits watched a horde of well-dressed students milling about smartly. “School uniforms. Great.”
“Speaking of uniforms,” Shining Armor said, “where’s yours?”
“It’s… in my locker? Which I bet I can find my way to from here.” He gave Shining a salute as they crossed through the gates of the school. “Thank you for the escort, officer. I sure learned my lesson about whatever it was I did wrong. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go scream internally for the rest of the day while an alien presence attempts to break down my resolve.”
“You have English 201 with Burnside, huh?”
Wits paused for a moment. “Yeah, let’s go with that.”
Shining Armor rubbed his chin. “Well, I should take you straight to Principal Cinch…” He glanced around, as if checking for Just Duty watching him from around a corner, or perhaps from within a dustbin. “But I think I’ll make an exception this time, Crystal Prep pride and all.”
“You have saved my life. I am eternally grateful.” Wits End bumped his fist against Shining Armor’s. “Balalala. See ya!” With that, Wits darted away and into the mass of students, vanishing from sight.
Shining Armor smirked and shook his head. “Good kid. Weird kid, but a good kid.” Shining Armor turned back towards the gate, only to bump into a Crystal Prep student. “Whoops! Sorry about that.”
The student was dressed in the standard uniform, although it was wrinkled and creased as if it had never seen a coat hanger in its life. A long rats’ nest of cyan hair tangled its way to the student’s mid back, and was pulled into a ponytail. A pair of round glasses slid down to the end of their nose, which they pushed back up with two fingers against the bridge. “Oh, um, sorry.” Their eyes seemed glued to their feet, only occasionally making it up to Shining Armor’s chest, but not quite his face. “I-I wasn’t- Sorry.”
Shining Armor frowned, raising one eyebrow. “Hey, just out of curiosity, what’s your name, kid?”
The student pushed their glasses back up again, only for them to almost immediately slip down again. “Oh, Uh. I’m… Witstang. Witstang Endsworth. And, um, I really need to get to class. Sorry.” Witstang bowed his head quickly before darting away, joining the mass of students.
“Wi- What?” Shining Armor stood in silence for a few seconds, staring at the milling student body as his brain processed what had happened. Finally, he shook his head. “I need more sleep and less coffee.” He sighed and turned away to rejoin Just Duty on their route, not noticing a small mint-colored figure climbing over the wall a few dozen feet away.
* * *
“There now,” Luna chirped, stapling the papers together swiftly as she smiled at the slumped boys. “Welcome to Canterlot High School, gentlemen. I hope your experience here is fruitful and successful. I will just file these to make the transfer official. I am sure that Principal Celestia will give you a tour of the grounds and facilities.” The vice-principal stood and held the stack of papers under one arm as she walked briskly from the office, leaving the two suffering teens with a giggling Celestia.
“O’ poor trees,” Purple Heart sobbed dramatically, “thou hast been made squar’d paste of thineself for us foolish primates. Woe upon us. Hrooom...”
“Heh. Yeah. At least half a forest died to make those forms,” Light Patch chuckled. His bemusement morphed swiftly to a concerned thinking look when a thought crossed his mind. After a few seconds, he leaned over towards his friend and quietly asked, “How long do you think before the parents of this world’s ‘us’-” He did little air quotes as he said the word, “-are informed about this transfer, leading to our being outed as imposters?”
Purple Heart reclined in his chair, a frown creasing his brow as he considered the ceiling and his friend’s question. “Depends on how fast vice-principal Luna files the transfer. If it’s still hard copy, I’d say a week or so. Maybe longer if there’s an event that takes precedent. If they have interwebs, a few days, three tops.” His frown deepened briefly before clearing into an expression of surprise. “Fudge bollocks.”
“Language,” Celestia reprimanded, frowning at the reclining teen.
“It’s interwebs,” the purple teen continued, ignoring the principal’s interruption. “Luna searched an online database. All she has to do is fill in the blanks in a transfer page online and boom~! Notifications for everyone!” His arms were flung out to the side to visualize the expanse of how bad things were. Before he could continue, a light slap to the back of his head got him to stop.
“Calm down. Even with the internet, something like this likely needs to be reviewed on a couple of levels, and even then they likely would send out any major notifications either through the mail like most every business does or by talking to the student in person. Or, in this situation where it’s coming from the student and right outta the blue, probably a phone call to the parents,” Light Patch reasoned. “I think your initial estimate would be about right; a day to go through the system, another for review, and a final one for contact. Two or three days depending on when they get around to it. We have two to three days to figure out how to get home before we need to memorize the Twilight Zone theme.”
Celestia frowned at the two, confusion warring through her mind as she watched the two boys whisper their conversation. Shaking her head, she elected to question them and their parents when her schedule opened up a bit more. Between the Start of New School Year kerfuffle and a very reputable cake chef opening up one of their bakery chain stores in town, she had a lot on her plate.
Rising from behind her desk, Celestia rapped the surface with a knuckle to get the two boys’ attention. Purple Heart and Light Patch blinked and swiveled their heads around to look expectantly and a touch worriedly at the principal.
“Why don’t we get started on the tour?” she offered. “I’m sure you’ll want to get settled in soon. You’ll start attending formal classes tomorrow after you tell Luna what you’d like to focus on studying.” Not waiting for acknowledgement, she walked around the desk and over to the door. Opening it, she turned back to the male pair and gestured for them to follow. Purple Heart heaved himself to his feet and stuck his hands in his pockets as he sauntered out the door. Celestia arched a brow expectantly at Light Patch, waiting for him to join his friend in the hallway.
“We’re all gonna die,” he said quietly, rising from his chair to follow along. “Think we could tour the cafeteria first?” he asked after a few moments.
“I second that motion, good sir!” Purple Heart agreed, poking his head back into the office. “Sustenance is required! I haven’t eaten for two hours!”
Celestia blinked. “You had breakfast two hours ago and you’re hungry now?” she inquired confusedly as she stepped into the hallway proper to lead them to the cafeteria.
Purple Heart’s eyes widened comically at the principal. “Of course!” he cried. “I’ve had first breakfast! But not second breakfast!”
“And don’t forget brunch. Growing boys need plenty of food in man sized proportions to become grown men, you know. April showers, May flowers, pilgrims, that kind of thing,” Light Patch rambled. He paused at the skeptical look on the principal’s face.
You give me no choice, you have no one to blame but yourself, Celestia, he thought, deciding to resort to his strongest weapon... Puppy Dog Eyes.
Celestia leaned back slightly, her eyebrows raising. After a moment, she smiled and sighed. “Well, I suppose I can’t argue with that logic. The cafeteria is right this way.” She motioned down one of the hallways. “Follow me, gentlemen.”
“Food, glorious food! Hot sausage and mustard!” Light Patch began to sing. His bad singing became a garbled mess when Purple Heart slapped a hand over the gray teen’s mouth.
“Hey, if I can’t sing, you can’t either,” Purple Heart rumbled. “Hum if you have to. Just. Don’t. Sing... Please.” Light resisted the urge to lick his friend’s hand and merely pulled it away from his face.
“Fine, fine. But you owe me in duck game and- oh my gosh it’s food based heaven!” Light Patch cried as they stepped into the still active cafeteria. “I’ll have one of everything with a side of more!” he ordered, moving towards serving area.
Purple Heart blanched and stayed rooted beside Celestia. “My tab is separate, yeh?” She smiled and nodded.
“This is the cafeteria,” she called, eyes twinkling evilly. “Now, moving on to the sports fields. We have several that are a ways away from the main building.”
The gray teen whipped around to look at Celestia, tears forming in his eyes. Seeing that his plea wasn’t working, he sighed in defeat and fell back in line with Purple Heart.
“Relax,” Celestia giggled. “We can come back here after the tour is over if you want. We are really going to the sports’ fields, though. Come along.”
The sports fields were exactly what one would expect: fields, filled with sports, sportspeople, and sports-related equipment and accessories. “The fields are open to all students,” Celestia said, “as long as you’re not interrupting PE classes or any games. Now, if you’ll follow me, the next building on our right will be the-”
A cry of ‘head’s up!’ interrupted Celestia, causing the trio looked wildly around for whatever incoming object was racing towards them. A spot appeared in the sky and fell quickly to earth, targeting directly towards Light Patch.
“MOVE YA GIT~!” Purple Heart snapped, leaping to assist. Yelping as was his wont, Light Patch jerked out of the object’s path and watched it impact the spot he’d been previously standing on. The ball spun away and bounced into the bleachers whereupon Purple Heart pounced, pursuing the ball and leaving Celestia and Light Patch alone on the path.
After a couple of seconds of stunned silence, Light checked himself for injuries before jumping into a celebratory stance, cackling madly as he shouted, “I live!!!”
Time seemed to slow down as Celestia turned to look for the source of the flying ball. There was a flash of cyan, a flurry of rainbow colors, and a war cry approaching at high speed. Before the principal could say anything, the rainbow blur dropped, sliding feet first after the ball that wasn't there. Unfortunately, that path took it through another obstacle; the legs of a grey, teenaged obstacle. There was an audible crack, a thud of cleats meeting shins, and a series of shouts containing surprise, pain, anger, and more pain, culminating into a pile of teenage limbs that lay twitching in even more pain on the ground.
“Well,” Celestia said, putting her hands on her hips, “that could have been a better introduction.”
“Medic,” the grey teenager weakly called from where he lay on the ground. He shoved the still dazed Rainbow off of himself, then slowly sat up. “Why is my right sock gone? Where did my right sock go? Also, where is my gosh darned shoe?!”
Rainbow Dash shuddered as she righted herself, sitting upright on the ground in an attempt to clear her head. “Did I get the ball?” she asked, peering at her surroundings with narrowed eyes as her head ceased ringing. Purple Heart hopped off the bleachers with ball in hand and jogged over to the group to stand by Celestia.
“You mean this ball?” the purple teen asked, twirling the soccer ball in his hand. “Not even close. Zero out of ten. No balls hit. Would not play again.”
“Light Patch, Purple Heart,” Celestia said, warding off Rainbow Dash’s attempt to grab the ball, “this is Rainbow Dash, our… star athlete. Rainbow, would you be willing to show our new students around the school?”
“I’m kinda in the middle of practice…” Rainbow Dash stopped, reading the look on the Principal’s face. “I mean, sure. I’ll round up the rest of the gang.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” Celestia said with a glowing smile. She turned back towards the two new transfer students. “I leave you gentlemen in good hands.” She gave Rainbow Dash a warning look that had the girl shivering, then she walked off back to the main building. The two boys blinked at her departing figure, then looked at Rainbow Dash expectantly. The female athlete shifted in place and cleared her throat.
“Well, uh… I guess we can start with the Arts building,” she offered. “Unless you two have a particular interest?”
“Eh...” Light Patch hummed, glancing aside at Purple Heart. The purple teen twisted his mouth as he thought, meeting his friend’s gaze.
“Cafeteria?” he asked.
“Cafeteria,” Light confirmed.
“Cafeteria,” they said.
“Cafeteria is good,” Purple Heart said to Rainbow Dash. She blinked and then sighed.
“Lucky for me, the girls should be there already,” she muttered, walking between the two boys and towards the cafeteria itself, snatching her soccer ball from Purple Heart as she passed him. “Mine.”
“Hai, hai, blue-chan,” Purple Heart chuckled, falling in behind her.
“Excuse me,” Light called as the two drew increasingly further away from him, “I was a recent unwilling crash test dummy. Slow down if you don’t mind.” Rainbow Dash growled as she swung around and tapped her foot on the grass impatiently, waiting for the grey teen to catch up.
“No need to get salty,” Purple Heart chided from farther on. “You were the crash tester. Show a little sympathy.”
“It was an impressive power slide,” Light Patch noted. “So, other than sports, what else do you focus on around here?” he asked, trying to get Rainbow to lighten up and also avoid the almost inevitable awkward silence.
“Depends,” Rainbow Dash said. “How many sports are there? ‘Cause if you can name it, I’ve tried it.” She smirked as the grey teen caught up. “I take it by your reaction time that you’re not much of a soccer player, huh? What’s your thing? Ping-pong? Maybe bowling?”
“I enjoy bowling, but I don’t really play it that much. I enjoy mini golf, but the main sport thing I do is fencing, specifically epee,” Light Patch replied, taking an ‘en garde’ stance and moving forward into a lunge only to topple over face first thanks to weakened knees.
Rainbow Dash squatted next to the prone teen. “And I’m sure you’re greaaaaaat at it,” she drawled. She stood back up, looking Purple Heart over. “And let me guess. You’re a baseball kind of guy, right? I’ve played enough to tell. You any good?”
“How astute of you,” Purple Heart grinned. “You’re the first person I’ve met who hasn’t immediately pegged me for a football lineman. Good on you.” He crouched down beside Light Patch and hefted him into a sitting position. “As for skill, I’ve been playing baseball almost my entire life. I know a thing or two. C’mon now, Light. Get up. You want food don’t you?” He patted Light’s back in an attempt to stir him into action. Light Patch immediately sprung back up to his feet, only to immediately fall back to the ground.
“That was poorly thought out,” the teen said to the blade of grass he was becoming intimately familiar with. After a couple of seconds to let the pain in his legs recede, he slowly hoisted himself up onto his feet. “To food and glory!” he declared, striking a heroic pointing pose and limping back towards the cafeteria. A few steps later, he turned back to look at Purple and Rainbow now behind him. “You two really gonna lose to Urist McLimpy here?” That galvanized Rainbow into action and she shot forward past Light.
“This was also poorly considered!” Light cried, limping as fast as the pain would let him.
“Shouldn’t have taunted her,” Purple Heart chided, jogging after them.