//------------------------------// // New Faces // Story: New to Ponyville; A Young Colt's Adventure // by AxtontheMechanist //------------------------------// Another day at Ponyville schoolhouse had commenced, and Cheerilee had just entered the classroom, which was now occupied by a larger number of chairs which was due to so many new ponies coming into town. Cheerilee had decided to introduce each one of them as they entered on their own accord. “Alright class, I would like you to welcome quite a few new students to our class. First off, let’s welcome Jackhammer.” A dark grey colt had entered the room. He was quite burly, and had forest green eyes. His cutie mark was a grey fist which was surrounded by what looked like an explosion. The gaze that he gave off was silent and calculating as he assessed everypony in the class, giving the odd snort. All in all, he seemed like a nasty piece of work. He took a seat along the back row next to Diamond Tiara, who was grinning maliciously. “Another student has come here all the way from the Griffin Empires. His name is Lightning Bolt. Come in, please.” A fearsome looking griffin fledgling came into the room. From what Axton could observe, this griffin was aptly named due to the lightning bolt shaped scar that was etched into his cheek. His feathers were the average colour for a griffin, with only two minor details standing out on his body (minus the scar). His eyes, instead of being the usual gold-yellow colour, were a crimson red colour, like that of a small blood riddled pond. Not only were those features weird, the tips of his wings tinged black, looking like dark tendrils that seemed to stain his feathers. He sat in the chair which resided in the darkest corner of the classroom, which happened to be on Silver Spoon’s left. Silver Spoon gave Bolt a small grin, which he returned. “And now for our final new student, for now, I would like to introduce to you Iris Sapphire, who has come all the way from Manehatten!” Cheerilee nodded towards the door, but when finding that nopony came through, she spoke in a softer tone “There’s no need to be shy now, no one in here is all that mean.” Iris however, was incredibly shy in front of ponies she didn’t particularly know and thus refused to come through the door. Dark, decided to do something and spoke up. “Uh, miss? I know Iris; I could speak to her if you want.” Dark mentioned, his eyes lighting up at the thought of earning some brownie points with Iris. “That’d be a great idea, Dark. Alright, you are excused so you may talk to Iris, and hopefully convince her. We will start the lesson now, so feel free to start working as soon as you get back in here, ok?” “Yes, miss.” Dark nodded and walked out of the classroom, determined to convince Iris. Outside the classroom... “Hey, Iris. You alright?” Dark gave a small smile to Iris, who was sitting outside the door. She looked up, a little spark of happiness glinting in her eyes. “Yeah, I just-“She broke off from her sentence, bursting into tears. When she had calmed down a little she continued speaking; however, tears still rolled silently down her cheeks “I- apart from Axton, I don’t have any friends in there, do I?” “That’s absolute rubbish. I like you.” Dark gave a small lopsided grin as he edged closer towards Iris, who now had a deep blush on her face “Anyway” he continued “If Axton thinks you’re ok, then the rest of us have no reason not to like you, right?” “I... I guess.” Iris had stopped crying now, and looked towards Dark with gratitude “Thanks, Dark. What you said means a lot to me.” With that, she went up to Dark and gave him a small kiss on the cheek, before walking confidently into the classroom to take her seat. Meanwhile, Dark just stood there like a statue. After a while, he broke out of his ‘paralysis’ and cheered quietly to himself. A couple of hours later, at the CMC clubhouse “Ok. So what are we gonna do for this ‘Ponyville Talent Show’?” Dark inquired, his curiosity piqued about the 320 bit prize money. “Well, I and Axton have a good song that we’re gonna sing. I have an idea though. What we could do, is each tryout in the talent show, that way we can split the money if any of us win. Does that sound good?” Iris smiled as she saw the others nodding in agreement to her plan which she explained to them. “All right, let’s get to work practising!” Defensive nodded to Scootaloo, who ran off to rehearse for their performance. “We’ll work on the sets then, ok?” Dark nodded to Apple Bloom who agreed. “ We’ll make sure these sets looks the best!” Apple Bloom nodded before giving Axton a quick kiss on the cheek before going out of the clubhouse with Dark so they could get to work on both Axton and Iris’ set. Not only that, they had to gather equipment for Defensive and Scootaloo’s performance, so their work was cut out for them. This left Iris and Axton in the clubhouse to practice their song for the talent show tomorrow, and also have a little chat. “So, before we start practicing the song, can I have a little catch up on what’s happened lately?” Axton asked curiously. “Well, first off we sold the store in Manehatten as Dad had earned enough money to retire and that meant we could move to Ponyville. Of course, I kept writing from time to time as we were mainly busy packing for our move to where we live now. Before we went though, I saw another group of fillies hanging out nearby the moving van. I went to talk to them and one of them spotted me. She introduced me to the rest of her group, explaining she was called Babs Seed, part of something called the Cutie Mark Crusaders, or the CMC for short. I remember her saying I should check up with Apple Bloom in Ponyville to become a member, but it seems I already have that covered. Speaking of Apple Bloom, How long have you two been going out with each other? It’s kinda cute.” She gave a giggle when she saw Axton blushing fiercely. “Uh, about two months, I guess. Anyway, what about you and Dark? I saw you were giving him a good look over, eh?” Axton chuckled as Iris’s cheeks turned a deep shade of red, which contrasted against the rest of her body. “Well... he is kinda cute I guess. I wanted to ask your advice on what kind of things he liked. Y’know, so I could get to know him a little better.” She still had a small light pink twinge on her cheeks as she said this, making Axton brow raise a little. “Well, he likes the Daring Do novels; he also likes other adventure books. Pretty much anything to do with adventuring or medieval times will do.” Axton mentioned “Just don’t try to make him get involved in anything that consists of tragedies or horror stories, he hates that kind of stuff” Axton added, remembering the time that Apple Bloom had told him about, telling Iris about the events that Apple Bloom filled him in on. Basically, when Axton was in the Chamber of the Gods, Scootaloo had started telling horror stories. Long story short, Dark ended up setting himself on fire after he had jumped when receiving a scare from Defensive who had sneaked up from behind. Fortunately, he knew a healing spell, so Dark was ok due to his ability to heal himself. “Nice, thanks Axton. So, how about we get to practicing?” Iris asked, ready to start rehearsing for the upcoming talent show (after she had stopped laughing).