After a good laugh Twilight and Sunset both headed to their respective classes and went through what seemed like a normal day, to their surprise. Before she could realize it lunch rolled around and Sunset moved over to her usual table, where she noticed that Fluttershy was oddly absent, but that didn't seem to matter to anyone else as once again they were in a heated discussion.
"Come on Pinkie, just admit I'm right already," said Rainbow Dash with a smug smile.
Pinkie on the hand looked stern as she crossed her arms and said, "I admit nothing."
"Please, I mean Pharaoh Phetlock is taken down and his Eye of Ra is supposed to be in the villain weapon storage at the Power Ponies compound. Now everything seems wrapped up in a nice little bow right, but then when Mane-iac goes back to her room and it's revealed that she stole it and is keeping it in her drawer," said Rainbow Dash.
Pinkie then raised her hand as she said, "OK, I admit that does not look good and that she is probably at least thinking about using it to restore her full power, but no way is she going to go trough with it. I mean did you see the look on her face when she was holding it, she is fighting tooth and nail against her insanity to not use the Eye of Ra. I mean just look at the season finale promo that aired afterwords, it showed her having a relaxing day out with her daughter, a.k.a. Masked Matterhorn, which is clearly her way of fighting her disillusions and getting past this."
Rainbow's smug smile returned as she said, "You mean the same season finale promo that showed Mane-iac holding a glowing and clearly activated Eye of Ra?"
"Yes active, but not in use. For all we know that occurs before the relaxing day out and she changed her mind," said Pinkie Pie.
This continued on as Sunset giggled slightly before leaning over to Twilight and whispering, "Well at least this is something we can always count on."
Twilight giggled back before saying, "I know right, I just wish they would just go ahead and start reading the comics with me because you don't know how much it hurts to listen to their fan theories and know both of them are wrong, though one of them is kinda close."
Sunset once again giggled at that statement before they were interrupted as two familiar faces, one expected and one unexpected, approached the table.
"Oh good, you haven't gotten food yet," said Wallflower Blush as she and Fluttershy walked up to Sunset.
Sunset was confused at this odd greeting as she said, "Um, hi Wallflower. No I haven't had my lunch yet since I have to turn human to get a burger and I wanted to sit and relax for a while first. How have you been though, I haven't seen you in awhile?"
Wallflower smiled as she said, "Oh, I've been good. Allot more people have been joining the gardening club lately, probably because I'm not getting nervous and erasing their memories or me asking them to join before they can even answer, and I'm making allot more friends."
Sunset smiled as she said, "I'm glad to hear it."
Fluttershy then spoke up saying, "That's actually kind of why I brought her here, because well." She then reached into her backpack and pulled out a plastic bag containing a sandwich before gesturing it to Sunset and saying, "Just try this."
Sunset looked at all this oddly as she said, "OK," before grabbing the bag with her magic field, removing the sandwich and taking a bite. At which point her mouth was greeted with an explosion of flavor that was somehow both unique and different and without even thinking she then scarfed down the rest of the sandwich and declared, "OH MY CELESTIA THIS IS GOOD," which resulted in an odd and scared look from Principal Celestia as she slowly backed out of the cafeteria.
Fluttershy chuckled and said, "I knew you'd like it."
At this Sunset looked at her and said, "Like it? I love it, I mean it tastes just like a hamburger does when I'm human, but somehow even better."
Wallflower on the other hand looked surprised as she said, "Wow, first Fluttershy then you. I didn't think my Blush Bread sandwiches where that good."
Sunset looked at her as she said, "Wait, you made these?"
Wallflower looked at her as she got excited and said, "Yeah, me and some other members of the gardening club have been working on mixing and cross pollinating various flowers and fruits together and this is one of the things I came up with."
Sunset smiled at her as she said, "Well thanks for sharing some with me, I really enjoyed it. You said it's called Blush Bread?"
At this Wallflower, ironically, blushed as she said, "Well it's just the name the other members of the club came up with. I tried to tell them that naming it after me was a little unfair, and embarrassing, since it was Fluttershy's idea to try making food with our plants in the first place but since they all had named their own stuff after themselves they insisted."
Sunset saw her embarrassment and tried to reassure her saying, "Well you do deserve the credit for coming up with something this good," before turning to Fluttershy and saying, "So this was your idea?"
Fluttershy then looked down embarrassed as she said, "Well yeah, you see as much as I could never bring myself to eat a poor defenseless animal the vegetarian diet can get a little... predictable so I just suggested us trying it for a while and the rest of the club loved it."
"I admit it was a little weird having someone besides me suggest something for the club, since I had been it's only member for so long, but I'm really enjoying it. In fact I think next semester I might sign up for the culinary club too. I'd love to able to do more then just crush some plants into a patty and make a sandwich," said Wallflower.
Sunset once again smiled as she said, "That sounds awesome, if you do that though I wouldn't mind taste testing stuff before you turn it in."
Wallflower laughed as she said, "I'll keep that in mind."
Applejack then spoke up saying, "So Wallflower, would you like to join us for lunch?"
Before she could answer though a girl with pink skin and yellow hair yelled from the other side of the cafeteria, "YO WALLFLOWER, YOU COMING OR WHAT?"
Wallflower then yelled back, "JUST A SECOND LILLY," before turning back to Applejack saying, "Sorry but I really got to get over to the other Gardening Club members. We're starting to run out of places to plant in and we're debating whether we should ask Principal Celestia if we can expand our area or if we should start growing stuff at our homes and just bring pictures and stuff to school to show what we are working on. I'll catch you later though."
She then waved and started walking to Lilly as everyone wished her, and by extension Fluttershy who followed her over to weigh in on this unofficial meeting, goodbye.
Rainbow Dash then looked at Sunset saying, "Well it looks like you got one of the problems with being a pony all the time fixed."
Sunset smiled at this as she said, "Yeah, now all I need is for the townspeople to stop freaking out when I talk, to be able to help in Trixie's magic show without Aria and Sonata running crowd control, and probably a car I can drive with hooves and everything will be perfect."
At this everyone chuckled before they continued their lunches, while Sunset simply got a drink from the vending machine to wash down her Blush Bread sandwich. Pinkie and Rainbow went back to arguing over Power Ponies while Applejack simply shook her head at how silly that was, Rarity began absentmindedly sketching a dress on her napkin, and Twilight started cringing with every wrong prediction they made.
Thankfully though lunch soon ended and Sunset, Pinkie, and Rainbow headed into their shared gym class. As Pinkie and Rainbow went into the locker room to change Sunset sat on the floor and thought, "I wonder if maybe I should turn human and put my gym clothes on before turning back into a pony just to be safe. I mean the last thing I need is to have to turn human part way through class and get my street clothes all sweaty, but then I might forget I did that and have to turn human later and be wearing my gym clothes, which I guess isn't really bad but I'd still like to avoid it."
Before Sunset could think on this more though she heard some screams coming from the boys locker room before someone was pushed out the door.
Sunset walked over to see what happened and she saw that this person was who she thought, judging by the jacket, was Flash earlier but now that the jacket was unzipped and the hood was down she could clearly see that it wasn't.
It was a girl she had never seen before, though she did seem familiar, with long blue hair and orange skin who was wearing a white t-shirt under the jacket and jeans. Sunset walked up to her and said, "Got a little turned around on your first day huh?"
The girl then looked at her nervously as she said, "Um, yeah that's what happened."
Sunset noticed her uncomfortably as she said, "Hey no need to be embarrassed, I mean accidents happen." She then reached her front hoof out to the girl as she said, "Hi, I'm Sunset Shimmer and I would like to welcome you to Canterlot High, and if you don't mind me asking do you happen to know Flash Sentry because that looks a lot like his jacket?"
The girl then took Sunset's hoof and shook it as she said, "Um yeah, Flash is my cousin and I'm staying with him and his family while I'm at school here." She then looked up at the ceiling before saying, "My name's Bright Lights and it's nice to meet you."
After the hand to hoof shake ended Sunset smiled as she said, "So I'm guessing by the lack of surprise your cousin told you about me."
Bright looked confused as she said, "What do you mean?"
At this Sunset simply pointed her hoof at herself before Bright seemed to get it and said, "Oh yeah the pony thing... yeah Flash mentioned it."
Sunset noticing how nervous she seemed to be decided that it would just be best to stop the conversation for now as she pointed behind her and said, "Well the girls locker room is right there, you better hurry and change before Coach Spitfire comes in."
Bright seemed to blush as she said, "Oh um... I don't exactly have a girls gym uniform."
Sunset thought there was something off in the way she worded that but decided to chalk it up to her still being nervous before saying, "Well that's OK, you can borrow mine if you want because as you can see I don't exactly need it." Sunset then levitated a pen and paper in front of her before writing down her locker number and combination and moving it over to Bright Lights
She grabbed it and said, "Thanks," before moving over to the locker room door where she stopped and started blushing for some reason.
Sunset seeing this said, "There's no need to be nervous... after all were all girls in there right."
This only seemed to make Bright blush more as she nervously laughed and said, "Right, just girls," before taking a deep breath and charging into locker room, clearly intent on trying to get in and get out as quickly as possible.
Sunset began commenting to herself, "Wow, I've seen people get nervous in a new place before but not quite like that."
It didn't take long for everyone to come out, Bright of course being the first as she bolted back into main gym with her face even redder than before for some reason, and soon afterwards Spitfire walked through the gyms main doors as she whistled to get everyone's attention and said, "Alright maggots listen up, we need to test all of your stamina so today were doing The Pacer Test."
Everyone grumbled at this resulting in Spitfire lowering her sunglasses to let everyone know she was serious before saying, "Look I know what your thinking 'I'm young, of course of I got good stamina and don't need to do this' well we'll see how that works out when you can't run out of the way of an out of control car in time and end up in a FULL BODY ARM AND LEG CAST, DRINKING TROUGH A STRAW!"
Everyone ceased grumbling as they knew that as soon as Spitfire started talking about casts and straws there was no reasoning with her, resulting in her saying, "Excellent, now guys get on the line for the test, girls sit on the side lines until they finish."
Sunset followed the other girls and sat down next to Pinkie and Rainbow to talk while they wait before she heard Spitfire yell, "HEY NEW GIRL! I SAID GUYS FIRST!"
At this Sunset looked up and saw Bright standing in front of Spitfire saying, "Sorry, I guess I misheard."
"Well you better work on those listening skills; otherwise you won't hear when the out of control car is coming and you'll end up in a FULL BODY ARM AND LEG CAST, DRINKING THROUGH A STRAW!" said Spitfire.
Bright simply nodded as she ran over towards the other girls and sat down.
Rainbow looked over at this and said, "What's up with her?"
"Oh, she's Flash's cousin Bright Lights who just transferred here," said Sunset as she noticed that Bright was sitting alone before saying, "I think I'll go over and talk to her some more."
"That sounds cool, you want us to come with?" said Rainbow.
"No, I wouldn't want to overwhelm her. She seems really nervous even for a first day," said Sunset.
Rainbow then shrugged and said, "Alright," as Sunset began walking over to Bright.
"Oh hey," said Bright as she saw Sunset approach.
"Hi," said Sunset as she noticed that Bright still had a bit of a blush on her face and decided to make some small talk to try and relax her. She said, "So what school did you go to before this?"
That only seemed to worry Bright more though as she said, "Oh, it was this really expensive and elite private school like way on the other side of the country."
"Oh is that why you were so nervous about the locker room," asked Sunset. Bright looked confused before Sunset continued saying, "I heard some of those private school have like a dozen private changing rooms for each student to go in one at a time."
Bright seemed to perk up at as she said, "Yeah, sure that's why."
Sunset thought that was odd but decided to press on saying, "So what brings you to Canterlot High then?"
"Oh um... my parents thought it would be good to go to a public school for a little bit to get used to being around more people. Being at an elite private school means very few classmates, in fact my gym class had so few people in it that we were all able to change without even using all the private rooms," said Bright before nervously laughing at her possible exaggeration at the end.
"Oh, I gotcha," said Sunset as she thought to herself, "Oh that's what going on, she probably is just having some anxiety since she's not used to being around so many people."
Sunset then realized something as she said, "Wait, but why isn't Flash here helping you get used to this stuff?"
"Oh he's... sick and couldn't be here today. Yeah he accidentally stumbled into some Poison Jo-OAK, Poison Oak and he's just hanging at home while he's getting over the rash," said Bright as she once again laughed nervously.
Meanwhile Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie stood on the other side of the gym watching as Sunset and Bright talked.
"Dang, she wasn't kidding when she said Bright was nervous. She's blushing with almost every word," said Rainbow Dash before she turned to Pinkie Pie and said, "Is that why haven't blasted her with a confetti cannon and sung your welcome song for her yet."
Pinkie then giggled as she said, "Oh silly Dashie, I don't need to welcome her because she's-"
Before Pinkie could finish though she was interrupted as Spitfire blew her whistle again and said, "Alright good job guys, you've shown improvement since last time," before making a few notes on her clipboard and saying," Alright ladies, it's your turn."
They then got up and moved over to the start line as Spitfire moved over to the stereo and started up the voice that irritated every student who ever heard it.
After about twelve laps Sunset was already weaving as she failed her second lap and Spitfire yelled, "Sunset out, jease you think you'd be at least a little better with four legs instead of two," as Sunset groggily made her way over to the edge of the gym and sat down again.
She watched as slowly more and more girls where eliminated until lap sixty when all that remained was Pinkie and Rainbow, which was usual since Rainbow has always been athletic and Pinkie was well... Pinkie, and finally Bright, unexpectedly.
At about lap seventy Bright finally gave out and failed that lap and the next as Spitfire said, "Nice hustle new girl, but time to hit the floor."
Bright breathed heavily as she walked over to Sunset and she said, "Nice work, were you on the track team at your old school or something?"
Bright sat next to her panting as she said, "Soccer actually."
"Oh so just like your cousin, guess it runs in the family," said Sunset.
Before she could respond to that though Pinkie gave out and Rainbow Dash soon followed after her as Spitfire once again blew her whistle and said, "Alright nice work ladies, you all showed improvement as well. Now everyone sit, cool down, get some water, and I'll set up the mats for sit-ups. We go in about fifteen, and remember don't complain or you'll end up in-"
"A FULL BODY ARM AND LEG CAST DRINKING THROUGH A STRAW," responded the students before she could finish which resulted in her simply blushing as said, "Well yeah, I think you got it," before going to the supply closet to get the mats.
Rainbow walked up to Sunset and Bright as she said, "Nice work out there, you had a lot of good hustle."
"Thanks," said Bright.
"One question though, did you lose a lot weight recently or something?" said Rainbow.
Bright blushed, and this time Sunset didn't blame her as that was somewhat of personal question, before she said, "Why do you ask?"
"It's just that, at least at first, the way you were running, it was like you were used to a whole different center of gravity," said Rainbow.
Bright seemed to relax at that as she said, "Oh yeah... I started this new diet recently so I might have lost a few pounds."
"Well, you should probably work on that. I mean if you hadn't burned up so much energy running like that at the start you could have almost come close to what I did," said Rainbow as any desire to help melted into her usual cocky grin.
"I'll keep that in mind," said Bright.
Pinkie then skipped over, seemingly not tired at all, as she said, "I don't know, I think you did pretty good considering this recent change Flash."
Bright seemed to get nervous at that statement as Sunset simply looked confused and Rainbow looked offended as she said, "Woah woah Pinkie, if anyone deserves the nickname Flash it's me. I mean I'm the only one with real super speed here."
Pinkie then began saying, "I didn't mean it like that, it's just she-" before she was interrupted as Bright put her hand in front of her mouth before laughing nervously.
She then said, "Very funny, Pinkie was it? Can we talk over there for a minute?"
She then led Pinkie into a corner on the other side of the gym as Rainbow looked confused and said, "What was that about?"
Sunset looked over just as confused she said, "I don't know... I know Bright said she's not used to dealing with large groups of people so maybe she is telling Pinkie not to give her showy nicknames like that or anything that well make her stand out."
This explanation seemed to satisfy Rainbow as she shrugged her shoulders and said, "That makes sense."
Meanwhile Bright and Pinkie finished walking as she took her hand off Pinkie's mouth and said, "Alright, so you figured out it was me?"
Pinkie smiled at this and said, "Of course I did Flash, it takes more than one of friends suddenly turning into the opposite gender or a completely different species for me to not recognize them."
Flash then backed up as she said, "I would ask more about that, but considering you have now been through both those situations and several others I can't even imagine, and probably some stuff no one else can imagine, I'm just gonna accept that answer. So you're probably wondering how I ended up like this, you see-"
She was interrupted though as Pinkie spoke up saying, "You were missing Princess Twilight so you decided to go to Equestria and talk to her about where your relationship stood and after a bit you both agreed that it didn't make sense to give up on each other so quickly so you decided to start officially dating and see where it goes. So after a few dates you decided to invite her to an early picnic in the woods with the plan being to have it all set up by the time she got there, but since you didn't know much about the pony world you accidentally set it up on some magic plant that has weird effects on creatures and turned you into a girl. So Twilight told you not to worry because she has a friend who can fix up a cure, but before you could go with her to take it you realized it was time for school and, not wanting anyone to find out you and Princess Twilight were dating yet, you figured you could hide this and get through the day until Twilight's friend finished making the cure, but unfortunately that fell apart as you didn't think about the fact that you would have to change for gym"
After this was all said and done Flash stood there mouth agape before saying, "How did you know all that?"
Pinkie then shrugged before saying, "Ehh, just a hunch."
*
"Well congrats you got it right, but please don't tell anyone especially Sunset. She was the one who told me to get over Princess Twilight in the first place and I'm not sure how she'll react if she finds out I've been hopping back and forth like this to be with her," said Flash.
"Oh no problem. Cross my heart and hope to fly stick a cupcake in my eye," said Pinkie before pulling an actual cupcake out of her hair and sticking it in her eye.
"Thanks, and don't worry you shouldn't have to keep this secret for very long-" said Flash before she was interrupted by a vibrating and glowing from her pocket as she reached in and pulled out a rock with a keyboard and screen crudely painted on it.
"What's that?" said Pinkie Pie curiously.
"It's a communication stone Twilight gave me so we could still talk on days where she was too busy for me to actually come over. I tried to paint it to look like a phone so I at least wouldn't look completely insane when I held it up to my ear and talked into it, but I didn't do a very good job," said Flash as she lifted the stone to her ear. "Hey Twi, so what's going on with the cure... so what if she's sick she's a healer... what do you mean the only cure for Pony Pox is a week of bed rest... doesn't she have an assistant or someone who can finish the cure... she can't be that bad at making potions... it's Apple Bloom!... Yeah if she's anything like the Apple Bloom here than I see your point, I still remember when she was assisting the nurse and accidentally used liquid heat on my cut instead of disinfectant... we'll isn't there a gender swapping spell or something you could use to fix this... UH fine, we still on for that date tonight... you're right that would be awkward, I'll talk to you later," said Flash before putting the stone back in her pocket.*2
Pinkie looked at her eagerly as she said, "Soooo, what did she say?"
Flash groaned before saying, "Apparently her friend Zecora, who was supposed to make the cure, came down with a sudden case of Pony Pox and won't be able to work on the cure for a few days at least, and unfortunately while there is a book describing the cure the only other pony familiar with how Zecora's equipment works is Apple Bloom and she's not to good at it. Even worse Twilight can't fix it herself since apparently Poison Joke overrides almost all magic." Flash then sighed before saying, "It looks like Bright Lights is here to stay for awhile. Say you wouldn't happen to have a spare gym uniform I can use? I think Sunset might get suspicious if I keep borrowing hers."
At this Pinkie grinned and said, "Of course I do," before grabbing onto her saying, "In fact you should come over to my house tonight and try on a bunch of my old clothes since they might also get suspicious if you wear the same clothes every day." Flash was about to interrupt and say how almost everyone in the school wears the same thing everyday, but Pinkie continued saying, "Oh we'll have a dress up slumber party, question though, have you ever been curious about how skirts feel?"
As Pinkie continued asking other questions like that, which Flash was scared to answer as the answer to some of them was yes, she thought to herself, "This is going to be a long week."