The school's western courtyard was quite active during the usual hours of the day. Though not as popular as the other areas of the building, the courtyard was often occupied by students seeking a place to study in solace, somepony wanting to eat their lunch away from the crowded mess hall, or a class performing a special lesson or experiment.
Today, though, way after school was over, you are the courtyard's only inhabitant.
You sit on your belly on a stone bench, reading the latest book assigned by your literature teacher. You have already finished your math and science work for today, and with nothing really waiting for you at home, it just seemed proper to enjoy the peaceful ambiance surrounding you for as long as possible.
The novel itself, a simple story centered around betrayal, war, love, and hope in a medieval setting, is nothing too intriguing for you, despite your admiration for the few good books you have encountered. The book in front of you is not so terrible on its own merits, but with how long this school year has been, you are just simply tired of teachers dumping homework and assignments all over you.
Luckily, you're a senior. In fact, just a few weeks from now you'll never have to return back here at all. All the mess with teachers, students, and general difficulties will soon be swept under the rug. As your literature teacher once said to a classroom full of distracted, disinterested adolescents with no experience in the adult world:
"The world will be yours for the taking! So cheer up!"
Something wet and cold hits the side of your head as you were finishing up the thirteenth chapter of the story. The foreign projectile catches you by surprise, knocking you down face-first onto the cobblestone ground while your hindlegs poke out into the air. Your hoof reaches your targeted cheek to feel the sense of the offending object, and once your eyes are trained on it, you discover the culprit to be a scoop of orange ice cream.
"Like the treat, Meep?"
You look up to stare at the source of the feminine voice, and once you do your heart cringes at the sight in front of you.
Celestia, no.
A pair of ponies, one a dark blue earth pony colt and the other an orange pegasus filly, that you were familiar with, now raised the population of the courtyard by three residents when all you wanted was for it to stay limited to one. Sadly, these newcomers show no effort in being peaceful neighbors, as their devilish smirks portrayed anything other than a warm welcome.
"Sunny was asking you a question, Meep," says the colt, smiling at his companion. The filly herself was carrying an ice cream cone in one hoof, no doubt the source of your injury. "I swear, some ponies are just ungrateful."
You wipe away the ice cream from your face and throw it into a nearby flower bed. You scowl at the duo still present -- both of them continuing to pester you with their smug expressions. You were hoping that most students would be gone from the school, but apparently, that isn't the case for today.
"You know what I don't understand, Bran?" Sunny asks. "Why is Meep even here after all that's been going on? It's been weeks since the festival, and they still don't get the point of how this school isn't actually welcoming to klutzes."
You get up off the ground and dust yourself off. "My name isn't Meep."
Bran laughs loudly. "Well, guess what? It's what we're calling ya. In fact, it's all that everypony's been calling you, so it doesn't change squat if we quit at it, you dolt."
"It would still be nice if you could call me by my real name."
Without warning, Sunny floats over to the stone bench where you are and retrieves your book with her right wing. "What's this little story you're reading?" she teases.
"That doesn't belong to you!" you shout in frustration and nervousness, knowing just how bad these two are. As the pegasus runs through the novel's pages with little attention, you leap forward and grab it with your teeth. Sunny put up some resistance, tugging around the hard cover with both wings and even her own teeth, but eventually you win the tussle and put the book into your nearby saddlebags.
No. Not today. Definitely not today. I can't deal with this.
You bend downward and place your saddlebags over your back. You search for a way out of the courtyard and find an exit door within a corridor on your left. You sprint away from the two bullies behind you in a race toward the corridor, when Sunny suddenly appears in front of you, blocking the way out. Not knowing any other solution, you take a small step to the side and slam your head and torso into the filly's side, knocking her down to the ground. It would seem a bit much for some ponies, but these two are really rotten.
Before you know it, you find yourself crashing into the exit door, which leads to you tumbling down a flight of stairs until you pause midway. The sight of the familiar buildings of Canterlot in the distance that you've seen before gives you hope that you'll be able to evade your bullies just yet.
You scramble to your hooves as quickly as you can and hurry down the rest of the stairs. You turn left and run down a cobblestone sidewalk, trying your best not to bump into any fellow Canterlot residents. All you had to do was find a place to lay low until you were certain that Sunny and Bran were no longer interested in bothering you. Perhaps an alleyway or a random shop to be a pretend customer would suffice until they got bored of searching.
Before you could make up your mind, you feel a heavy weight slam into your backside before you even get around the corner of the sidewalk. With nearly a quarter of your breath taken away, you remain helpless as a familiar orange figure takes advantage of your stunned state to lift you up and pin you against the wall of an unknown establishment.
"You're not going anywhere, Meep!" Sunny taunts. "We're still having fun! And I don't really appreciate that body slam of yours back there."
Just behind her, an exhausted Bran comes running down the sidewalk. A sidewalk that, sadly, did not have many other ponies anymore as before. "You got them?"
Sunny smiles menacingly at you. "Yep. Got 'em right here."
You squirm and thrash against the filly's grasp as best as you can, only to be met with little success. Your troubles worsen when Bran catches up to Sunny's side, and soon you find yourself being stared down by these two gleeful fiends.
Why is it always like this? Why can't ponies leave me alone? I'm not trying to make anyone's life worse. Can't these blockheads get that?
"So, what you want to do with them?" Bran asks his friend. Without warning, the blue colt grabs a tug of your mane, wretches your neck forwards, and then slams the back of your head into the wall. "There's nopony around to help this slowpoke, but somepony could come around soon if we're not fast enough."
"Hmm..." Sunny mused over the question, all the while continuing to stare down at you. The slam you received from Bran made your head throb and buzz, and with no way of caressing the injured spot, you were left to just deal with the pain. Matters were made much worse when Bran randomly bucks you in the torso, causing you to gasp in pain as you fall to the ground. Luckily for you, you had enough tolerance to get over the pain rather quickly.
Sunny looks to her friend, rather annoyed. "Dude, I haven't made up my mind."
Bran shrugged. "You took too long, so I got bored. If you haven't made up your mind, we can just rough them up for a good while."
The orange pegasus steps over you, ignoring your mild discomfort. She walks for a few seconds down the sidewalk until she comes across an alleyway just near the corner. Another cruel smirk springs from her lips as she stares into the dark space.
"This alley right here seems real nice. Grab 'em."
"Now that's just what we need!" Bran chuckles. The blue earth pony suddenly looms over you like a menacing shadow. "It's too bad a loser like you doesn't have friends anymore. Some company would be really useful right now, I bet. But you just had to ruin things for everypony."
Bran bites into your mane and drags you against the sidewalk's friction, walking backward as he follows Sunny into the alleyway. Any resistance you displayed was not enough to deter Bran, who was much stronger than you, and thus you are left completely at the mercy of these two thugs that you've had to deal with for several years. It wasn't until recently that their antics against you have grown worse -- and you know completely why that is.
For over a month you've had to deal with all forms of harassment and mistreatment from many ponies in your school -- including not only students but even negligent, ill-mannered teachers who should know better. From behind-your-back-but-within-earshot gossip and outright name-calling, to spitballs, tripping, and shoved into walls, nearly half of the high school had shown either their disdain or lack of respect for you.
And all because of one stupid mistake that you never saw coming -- and would have avoided if you knew that you were heading toward it.
"After we're done with you," Sunny says, "you'll probably learn your lesson and never show up---"
A flash. A purple flash. Take all it took to silence the orange filly before she went on to boast.
The flash catches the attention of all three of you. Whatever it was, it was emitting itself far away into the city, but still close enough to cause you to put your hoof up against your eyes. The powerful source of energy pulsates like a strobe light, growing bigger and bigger as it expands into the sky. The three of you are left in awe at the sight, with even Bran letting go of your mane to gawk.
"W-what in T-tartarus is that?" he asks, his bravado from before suddenly diminished into a whimper.
Before another word could be said, a cloud of dust and air erupted near the purple light source, followed by a horrific boom that rattled through the ground and through everypony's bones like a winter's frostbite --- causing the trio to stand straight up as if by instinct. In just a few seconds, the dust cloud shoots through the entire neighborhood, the rushing wind knocking you and the others back down to the ground as quickly as you got up from it.
All around you are the sounds of glass shattering, ponies screaming incoherently, and the relentless roar of the wind. For a moment, as you lay crouched on the ground and eyes closed in a pathetic manner, you swear that you hear the groans of buildings collapsing from afar. The chaos happening is beyond startling. Beyond breathtaking. You refuse to open your eyes to witness the sight, that is until you hear Sunny speak.
"Oh, crap! Not another one!"
That comment is the push you need to gain the courage to pull up your eyelids. Dust fills the afternoon air, causing the atmosphere to adopt a hazy yellow appearance, resembling the air-polluted cities outside of Equestria that you've learned about. Buildings of all shapes and sizes are left in damaged conditions, from broken windows and missing doors to large holes caused by objects thrown through by the explosion. Luckily, the building behind you had few windows, meaning that none of the falling glass had a chance of striking you.
But the eery, dead sky and harmed dwellings are the least of your worries. Through the dust, another purple flash, though dimmer, had sprung up in the city, this time to the east of where the first flash was emitted. More unfortunate is that this flash is much closer to you than the previous one -- perhaps by six or seven blocks. As soon as your eyes caught sight of the event, ponies run frantically through the streets to get away from the current and impending mayhems.
With no care for her friend, Sunny shakes off the dust on her coat and mane and took off to the sky, the yellow clouds obscuring any further sightings of the pegasus. Any concern or feelings of betrayal that Bran has are unknown to you, as the frightened earth pony takes off around the corner of the sidewalk and disappears as well. Taking the hint, you yourself get up and turn back toward the alley that was meant to be your doom.
The shadows of the alleyway did little to block out the purple light that spilled in, but you have hope that somehow the cramped space would give you protection from the upcoming blast. And the certainty of your guess is just about to be answered
The ground underneath shook harder than ever before with the strength of an earthquake. Before your brain could have any grasp of what was occurring, your body is launched off its hooves and sent crashing into a nearby duo of trash cans. A rush of dust from the explosion managed to find its way into the narrow opening of the alleyway and invades the entire cramped space that you occupy. The back of your body is coated in specks of grey and yellow like a rooftop covered in snow.
You groan as your weak limbs pull you up away from metal cans and garbage bags that did little to cushion your flight. Getting to your hooves amidst the dust-filled environment, you do everything you can to keep your body afloat -- along with your mental state -- but you find that hard to do. Your legs wobble underneath you and your heart is pumping adrenaline like a racehorse, all while your ears are ringing from the explosion and your lungs choke up every once and a while.
But despite your dazed state, you can spot an opening out of the alleyway ahead. Through sheer will, you brave through your shock and take the first steps needed to reach your destination. You have no idea where you are going to go from here. The thought of returning back to the school entered, but you did not know how damaged it could have been from the second explosion. The next choice would be home, but you have no idea if they'll be any more explosions, even though the house was in the opposite direction of the chaos. You made up your mind that if home was unsafe, that you'll have to leave Canterlot.
"If you weren't such a screw-up before, you certainly are now, you ass."
You're just a step away from leaving the alley when you stop and place a hoof over your chest, as an unbearable pain spreads throughout your body. Your blood vessels feel as though they've been filled with piercing minuscule icicles, your bones are victims to a relentless pounding sensation as if a hammer was going to work on them, and your heart is weighed down as if gravel was pouring down its chambers.
But in a surprising way, the physical trauma you're undergoing is not what daunts you the most. It's the nightmare occurring within your psyche burning like cruel wildfire. Inside of your head are whispers you've heard time and time again --- whispers that weaken your spirit and waste away at your confidence. Or any you had left.
There are so many whispers in your head, and nothing you do can get them out.
"Geez. If this is how you plan events, no wonder nopony would screw themselves over by being friends with you."
"What the hell is wrong with you, you weirdo? Get out of here and go live with the mole rats! In a burrow!"
"Really? You decided to come here. Wow. You're pretty bold. Or dense."
"Well, it's no surprise why you and your parents have a crappy relationship. I'd be ashamed too if my child was a damn loser!"
"It wasn't my fault. It's not my fault. It's not my fault. It's not my fault..."
Tears run down your face and your murmurs turn to choking sobs as you lay down on the ground -- clutching onto your sides with your forelegs again. Your eyes are shut so tight, and you yourself are so lost in your pain, that you don't pick up on the sight around you at first.
Out of thin air, crackles of purple electricity dance all around you and strike at random places in the alleyway, burning most of what they touch to ash. That electricity soon turns into a bubble that surrounds you and expands outward. Eventually, you open your moist eyes when you feel yourself lifted off the ground, and you find that your body is floating up into the air --- with the bubble acting as your transportation.
You're halfway between the building when it hits you. The pain you felt before is now amplified by up to five times that of what you've experienced so far. You let out a piercing scream as the electricity strikes you over and over again with purple lightning bolts. The voices in your head repeat themselves with a much louder volume and intensity. You stretch out your appendages as you're desperate to seek out some form of relief.
No. This is not your destiny.
And within a white flash of light, you disappear from the alleyway.