//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Frost Driven 
// by Spectra1 
//------------------------------//

It began falling in the morning. I noticed it at the start of second period, biology, but I guess it could’ve started at the end of first period. Snow isn’t really bound by a class schedule. There wasn’t much to it at first, and it’d been snowing a lot that month, so I didn’t give it much thought. It was those small flakes, like grains of sugar. By third period, the flakes had flattened up and gotten serious, and people were starting to talk about it.
“Think they’ll let us out early?” Spitshine said as we gathered our stuff and headed for Spanish.
I looked out the window and sized it up. It was really coming down and there was already an inch or two on the sill.
“Could be,” I said. “Is it supposed to be a big one?”
“Supposed to be huge: ‘Winter Storm Warning,’” he said. “Where you been?”
“School, practice, homework, whatever. Excuse me for not reading the frickin news.”
“Yeah, well, you might want to check it out sometime,” he said. “Then you would be wearing something nor’easter.”
I looked down at the ground. “Well, if it’s as big as all that, they’ll probably let us go.”
“I hope you’re right, Spectra,” he said.
My name is Frauthworn Spectra. I prefer Frauthworn, but most ponies, even my friends, call me Spectra. I guess it’s easy to say, and maybe some ponies think it’s funny. It doesn’t bother me that much. I’m just glad that Broathhorn never really caught on as a nickname.
Anyway, I’m an athlete, so I made peace with my last name a long time ago. Since I was a little filly in T-ball, I heard it shouted every time I did something right and every time I screwed up, too. These days it’s on the back of my basketball jersey. I like to think that someday people will be chanting it from the bleachers: “Spectra! Spectra! Spectra!” Chanting fans make any name sound good.
Anyway, that’s me. I’ll be sort of like your guide through all of this. Some of the others might’ve seen things differently, and some of them might’ve told it better, but you don’t get to pick. You don’t because, for one thing, not all of us made it.
It was a Tuesday, and before the sky started falling the main thing on my radar was the start of hoops season. The first game was supposed to be that night, home against Canterlot. So when Spitshine said “Think they’ll let us out early?” what I heard was “Think they’ll cancel the game?” So we had different feelings on the subject right from the get-go.
Spitshine was one of my best friends, him and Summerluck. The three of us were pretty tight. Summerluck was just, like, a normal kid. It was sort of his role. It might sound strange, being known for what you aren’t, but Summerluck wasn’t a jock or a Future Farmer of Equestria or a student council member, and he wasn’t super hip or incredibly smart. He was just a normal sophomore. He listened to standard-issue rock music and wore whatever clothes he’d been given for Hearts Warming or his birthday. You needed some kids like that, otherwise all you had were competing factions of freaks, all dressed in outfits that amounted to uniforms and trying to play their music louder than yours.
So for Spitshine, early dismissal just meant more time at home, playing video games and eating pizza rolls. For me, it meant not collecting the payoff for all those hours of practice I’d put in over the off-season, all those jump shots I’d taken in the gym and out in the driveway and at the courts down behind the library. It meant time for the other shooting guards to catch up, to keep their minutes, or to take some of mine.
“They’re going to cancel the game,” I said to Spitshine. “That’s for sure.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Spitshine. “Bummer.”
Spitshine didn’t shoot hoops, not on the team anyway. Neither did Summerluck. They were the same friends I’d always had, the neighborhood fillies I’d ridden bikes with in the cemetery when we were like nine. Our moms sent us there because it was better to ride around where everypony else was dead than out on the road where the traffic would kill you.
I guess it’s kind of weird to still have the same friends as when you were a small filly. It’s not like you’re expected to move on by high school, but you’re definitely allowed. And most jocks run in packs, you know? But I was a sophomore on varsity, so I was kind of an outsider on the team anyway. There were only a few of us, and I wasn’t a star like Downstar or buried deep on the bench like Vartex.
So I was an outside shooter and just kind of outside in general. I didn’t need to hang out with my teammates, though. Those guys would like me just fine when I was a starter, and that was my goal for this season. As for my real friends – Spitshine, Summerluck, and maybe Amberdust on his good days – I didn’t have to prove anything to them. I didn’t have to shoot 40 percent from downtown for them; I didn’t have to shoot at all.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Pete as we settled into our seats across the aisle from each other in Spanish. “This better not get in the way of the dance on Friday, ‘cause I am going to get me some.”
“Yeah, some of your own right hoof afterwards,” I said, because you can’t concede a point like that.
“No way, man,” he said, and he wanted to say something more, something about how Melody was going to be there and had I already forgotten that he’d gotten his hooves on her flank just last week? And if he did ask that, I would say, “How could I, as many times as you’ve reminded all of us about it since then?” But the bell rang and cut him off.
“Hola, class,” said Ms. Starliner in her signature fractured Spanish.
“Hola, Senora Starliner,” said the girls, mostly, some of them burying their noses deeper by rolling their r’s.
I looked over at Spitshine, and he gave me that look, opening his eyes wide and shrugging his shoulders forward as if to say, “You know what I mean?” I did, but that dance would never happen. Looking back on all of this, I shiver a little, thinking of what took its place. Images creep in: black smoke and blue skin.
But again, I’m getting ahead of myself, way ahead. You haven’t even met everypony yet. We caught up with Summerluck after class. Everyone was talking about the snow. It was coming down in rolling sheets by then, like white curtains blowing in the wind. But Summerluck wanted to talk about his ridiculous Flammenwerfer, which was kind of like his pet project.
The Flammenwerfer was a go-kart, or was going to be. Summerluck was attempting to piece it together in shop class. He’d spent the entire marking period working on it, and if it didn’t work, he was straight-up going to fail. Plus, he insisted it was going to be sweet. If he finished it, if it worked, if, if, if.
“Come on, guys. We’ll have the place to ourselves,” he was saying.
He meant that we could screw around with the tools and maybe mess around with some of the other stuff the other kids had brought in for their own projects.
Flammenwerfer was the German word for flamethrower. I only knew that because Summerluck told me. I didn’t speak German; I was having enough trouble in Spanish. But he’d told me, and everypony else he knew, and more than once. That tells you something about Summerluck, not that he’s a Neo Nazi or anything, but that he’s always been kind of fascinated with wars and Royal Guard stuff.
Now, obsessed with the guard is one thing at age ten – I mean, we all were – but at fifteen? It’s maybe a little bit of a warning sign, you know? Summerluck kind of freaked some ponies out, not the fillies as much as some of the teachers. Truth is, he’d probably freak me out a little too, if I hadn’t known him since we were really little.
“Can’t do it man,” I told him. “I’ve got a game tonight.”
No pony responded for a second or two, and they managed not to laugh or roll their eyes, but I knew what they were thinking. “Maybe,” I added. I was surprised how defensive I sounded, and I guess that was enough to get a reply.
“No way that’s gonna happen,” said Summerluck, flicking his hoof toward the window and the snow outside. Without even looking out there I knew he was right, but it still kind of ticked me off, that hoof flick. It seemed like he was just dismissing it. It’s the first game of the season, I was thinking. You can’t just wave it off like you’re shooing away a parasprite.
“Come on, guys,” said Summerluck. “It’s almost done. I’ll be able to test the engine again soon.”
“Yeah,” said Spitshine, “and then you just have to figure out some new way to keep that engine hooked up to the frickin’ wheels. If it even works.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa … What is this negativity?” said Summerluck, sort of fake-offended. “Not if, when. When it works.”
“When it explodes, more like,” I said
“Well,” said Summerluck, breaking into a smile, “at least that’ll be cool to watch.”
“Yeah, I don’t need my fur anyways,” I said.
We were just joking around at this point, and that meant, basically, that we were going to do it. We couldn’t bust on him and then leave him hanging. It’s hard to explain why not – I guess because that would be one thing too many. We all knew we were probably going to stay after and help him, but there were still some logistics to work out, some possible defenses.
“I don’t think so, man,” I said. “If it’s early dismissal, there won’t be any late buses.”
“Nah, it’s cool. My dad’ll pick us up.”
The high school was kind of out in the middle of nowhere, on a big tract of what used to be farmland. That’s kind of a big deal, and I’ll get back to it later. For now, all you need to know is that two miles away was about as close as anyone was liable to be.
“I don’t want to be here all night,” said Spitshine.
“They knock off at like four, at the latest.”
“Yeah,” I said, just going through the motions of resistance at this point, “but will shop even be open? Gustrock’ll be gone just like everypony else.”
“Are you kidding, man? He loves it when anypony stay after.”
That was true. The old colt enjoyed any sign the ponies were taking an interest in his class. Summerluck paused and then said, “Lock up when you leave,” in a pretty good imitation of Gustrock’s voice.
I looked over at Spitshine. He shrugged. As lame as Summerluck’s Junker of a would-be go-kart was, it wasn’t like Spitshine and I had a ton of exciting projects of our own to work on. My game wasn’t going to happen, and it was just another Tuesday for Spitshine.
“Alright,” I said at last, “but let’s at least wait for the announcements.”
We knew they were coming: Game canceled would probably be first, then early dismissal. A speaker hung on the wall above our heads in the hallway. But it stayed silent for now, and we had to bust our flanks to get to class.