//------------------------------// // Ch 1. New Transfer Student? // Story: End of the Wormhole // by colt alchemist //------------------------------// “I’m late! I’m late! I’m late! I’m late! I’m late!” exclaimed Henry Hirota as he rushed through the streets of his neighborhood and on his way to school. This has become quite a habit of his, forgetting to set his alarm clock the night before only to wake up ten minutes before the first bell. He was fortunate enough that his school was only eight blocks from his home, if he can call that being fortunate. He wore his usual attire to school, which was a long sleeve hooded shirt; in which the body had a horizontal stripe design which were gray and dark green, and the sleeves were pitch black. He also wore jeans and white sneakers that would constantly get dirty. Henry didn’t have time to fix his dark brown hair, so he had to bear the fact that he had to go the entire day with his hair looking like a mess. Henry didn’t have time to worry about his appearance, he was in too much of a rush to give a single care. He had to stuff all of his homework into his small blue backpack and had to stop for a minute at each crosswalk just to let other dumb cars pass. Henry was just a Japanese American kid in his junior year in high school. He thought that his life was totally average, and he’s pretty much right. He eventually made it to where he goes to school, which was named Cicada Grove High School. The entire school was huge with different rooms, a second and third floor, outside areas, quadrangles, even its own student store. To say the least, it felt more like a college campus than a high school one, to most students. Henry burst through the front doors and ran through the empty hallways. He stopped and looked around to see that the hallways were actually empty and not just his imagination, that wasn’t a good sign. He found his first period room and ran through the open door. “I’m…..here….” he panted. He looked up and saw that everyone was seated and was staring at him with awkward looks on their faces. He turned to his teacher, Miss Diaz, who had a disapproving look on her face. All Henry could see right now was her usual white dress shirt along with her grey blazer and skirt dress. He looked up and finally noticing her long blonde hair and single eye brow raised. “Mister Hirota, you’re late again,” she half-scolded at him. “I….I’m sorry….miss,” he panted some more. “My alarm clock didn’t go off……and I didn’t have….enough time for breakfast….and I-“ “Save it,” she interrupted while raising a hand at him. “This is your third tardy this week. If you get one more before the week is up, I’m going to have to sign you up for detention.” “What? You can’t be serious,” Henry said in disbelief. “I’m sorry, but rules are rules. Now sit,” she instructed calmly. Henry let out a huff and started to make his way to his seat. He reached his seat that was in the third to last row. He took his sat and rested his head on his desk covering his face with his arms. “Wow, late again?” said a voice, which made Henry look up from his desk. “If you keep this up, you’ll end up becoming like a typical anime protagonist.” Henry looked to his right and noticed one of his friends and classmates, Sierra Nagano. He noticed that she was the same as ever, with her long raven hair and small rectangular glasses. She also wore her usual strange attire which consisted of a white shirt with tiny black polka dots on it and sporting a black jacket. She also wore a teal skirt, magenta knee socks, and a small green ribbon in her hair. Henry also noticed the big smirk she was giving him. “Lay off me will ya, Sierra. My alarm clock didn’t go off,” he replied. “Well, you’re alarm clock can’t go off if you never set it up to begin with,” she explained. “I did set it up,” Henry half-shouted so that no one would hear him. “Did you? Did you really?” Sierra asked smirking. Henry was silent for a while until he came up with his answer. “Ok, I might’ve forgotten,” he finally said. “Uh-huh,” she chuckled. “Hey, I admit it, I forgot again. Besides you try living in a house with a bunch of other kids,” he shot back. “I’d rather not,” she replied. “It’s really difficult sometimes. All of the noise can really make you forget things.” “Like setting up your alarm clock?” she repeated. “Ok, can we please move on?” “No talking back there,” said Miss Diaz. Henry just slumped back into his seat, waiting for this morning lecture to be over with. “Can’t there be a little more excitement in life?” …………………… Henry was backed up by a huge arm to a bunch of gray lockers while the jocks were tossing his back pack around and going through his stuff. Henry had an annoyed look on his face. “Ok, when I said I wanted excitement in my life, this is NOT what I meant,” he said to himself. Robert, the head jock, reached into Henry’s back pack and pulled out a sketch book. He flipped through the pages and noticed some hand sketched animals including dogs, cats, dolphins, birds, lions, and even horses. Robert stopped when reached a page with a pencil sketch of a horse’s head. He turned around and started to laugh at Henry. “What is this?” he laughed as he showed the drawing to Henry. Which made the other jocks laugh. “You like to draw pretty boy?” he mocked which made the other goons laugh some more. “This is pretty good,” he laughed as he slapped Henry with his own sketch book. Robert then coughed up a loogie and spat it right on the drawing, Henry tried to break free and stop him but the other jocks were still holding him back. Robert then threw the sketchbook on the ground and began to stomp on it with his mud covered sneaker. The jocks laughed even harder. Henry felt a bundle of rage building inside of him as he finally broke free of the other jocks restraints. “That was my sketchbook!” he yelled in his face. Henry felt a fist hurdled in his stomach. He gasped for air and bent over from the pain. He started to cough from the blow as he tried to stay up. The jock then brought up another fist, but before he could bring it down on Henry, something stopped him. Robert felt someone holding his fist back. He turned around and became shocked to see who was holding him back. “Hiya friend!” yelled the figure. A huge fist then connected with Roberts face as he was knocked back and plummeted to the ground. “A-Axel?!” exclaimed one of the jocks. Axel Kawada was another one of Henry’s friends, as well as the toughest guy in the whole school. His orange hair was spiked up in the front and he wore his usual silver blue shirt and grey pants. He also wore quite amount of belts on his body, two on each bicep, two on each ankle, and a single belt around his waist. The other jocks just shuddered in fear at his presence. Axel was known for taking in violent street fights around his neighborhood. “I see you’ve been picking on my friend here,” he started as he cracked his knuckles. “We can’t have that, now can we?” The jocks were just shaking with fear, until one of them screamed and charged right for him. Before he could land a punch on Axel, he spun around and elbowed him the upper back, making him fall to the ground. Another one attacked him, but he tripped the goon and punched him downwards hitting the ground harder. More of the jocks kept on running towards him, but they all ended up getting pummeled. After a few more punches, the jocks decided they had enough and made a run for it, Robert included. Axel then picked up Henry’s beaten sketch book and handed it to him. “You alright man?” he asked. “Y-yeah,” Henry said as he took his sketchbook back. “This took me forever to complete.” “Well, you gotta be careful man. If they see you with that book they’re going to think you’re a wuss,” Axel advised. “What am I supposed to do? Change hobbies?” Henry asked. “I don’t know," he shrugged. "All I do know is that the people at this school are messed up. It’s just full of brutes and weirdos.” “Kind of like you?” Henry joked. “Different!” Axel corrected, which resulted in them both laughing. “Well, thanks for getting my sketchbook back. Or at least, what’s left of it,” he said as he took another look at his book. “No prob, man,” Axel replied. The both of them started walking off to try to catch their next class. Well, for Henry to catch his next class, as they got to the buildings Axel walked away on his own path and right out of the school area. “Still ditching school in the middle of the day huh?” he wondered as he saw Axel walk out of the front gates. ……………………………………. The day was pretty much over and all of the students were walking out of the buildings and on their way home. Henry had to stay a little later to collect some things he forgotten last time. Once he made sure he had all of his stuff, he walked out of Miss Diaz’s classroom. “Try not to be late again!” she called out as walked away. Henry waved back at his teacher and continued to roam through the hallways. He was walking outside on the concrete and along one of the quadrangles that had a small hedge surrounding it. While he was thinking about the homework he was not looking forward to, he heard a loud moan coming from one of the bushes. He stopped and looked to his right at the bush. At first, he thought it was just his imagination. Before he could walk away, he caught a glimpse of something that surprised him, a pair of legs coming from behind the shrub. Out of curiosity, he walked behind the bush to see if there was anyone on the other side. To his surprise, there was. Henry’s eyes jumped when he saw a teenage girl, around his age, lying on the ground behind the bush. Henry took notice at this girl’s strange appearance. She had a pale complexion and long purple hair with a pink streak in it. She was also wearing a lavender blazer over a white shirt and wore a deep purple mini skirt. He also noticed that violet high boots she was wearing. Henry was confused and didn’t really know what to do. “A-a girl?” he stuttered. “Why is she sleeping behind a shrub? Is she a transfer student?” Henry decided it would be best to wake her up and ask her why she was sleeping on the ground. He looked to see if no one was around and lightly tapped her shoulder. Her body flinched at the touch and he immediately pulled back his arm. He shook her shoulder some more as she let out more moans. “Hey, girl I’ve never seen,” he said as he shrugged her some more. “You awake yet?” The girl’s eyes finally fluttered open and let out a big yawn. She then used her arms to sit up properly to fully wake up. As she did, Henry noticed something dangling from her neck. It appeared to be six-sided star medallion. Henry raised an eyebrow at the strange piece of jewelry as he had never seen anything like it before. The girl then faced him with half open eyes and a confused look on her face. “W-what happened? Where am I?” she said with a tired moan. “Um, hey, are you feeling alright?” asked Henry. “I found you sleeping behind this shrub.” “What? Why would-” she stopped mid-sentence and got a better look at Henry and her eyes widened. “Wait,” she said as she rubbed her eyes. As she did, she took a second look at her hands, as if she had seen them before. “Hands?” she wondered. “Yes, those are your hands,” Henry said sounding confused. “Am I….back at Canterlot High?” she wondered. “Canter-what?” asked Henry. The girl got up and examined her whole body. She then turned to her left and saw her reflection in a nearby window. “My clothes have changed?” she asked as she looked at herself. “And why do I look so pale?” “I don’t know, I just got here,” said Henry honestly. The girl then turned towards Henry. “What do you mean you just got here? Are you also from Equestria?” she asked. “N-no. I’m from…..here.” “Here? What is here? What high school is this?” she demanded. “Cicada Grove High,” he answered. “And before you ask, yes, that is also the name of this town.” “Cicada Grove?” she repeated. She then began to scratch her head and paced around in a circle pondering. She even started to think aloud. “So, this isn’t Canterlot High? Then this has got to be alternative version of the world my Canterlot High friends are from. But why am I suddenly here? First, I was just doing my studies. Then all of sudden, I’m in this strange new world. What am I going to do?” Henry really didn’t know what to make of this student. He decided to take the logical step and asked her for her name. “Excuse me, but do you think you could tell me your name?” he asked. The girl then turned around to face him. “Oh, how rude of me,” she said as she extended her hand. “My name is Twilight Sparkle.” “Twilight? That’s, an unusual name,” said Henry laughing in his mind. “Is there something wrong with my name?” she asked as she raised an eyebrow. “What? Oh, no I didn’t mean it like that!” exclaimed Henry as he waved his arms frantically. “It’s just, I’ve never actually met anyone with that kind of name before, that’s all! Hehehehe.” “Oh, I see. Well, can you tell me your name?” she asked. “My name? Oh right. I’m Henry,” he introduced as he shook her hand. “Henry…....?” she asked wanting his last name too. “Henry Hirota.” “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you mister Hirota,” she greeted. “Just Henry is fine. Do you think you can answer a question or two?” “Uh, sure what?” “First off, why were you sleeping behind a shrub?” he asked. “To be honest, I have no idea,” she answered as best as she could. “Well, do you know why you’re here? Are you some kind of transfer student?” “Again, I have no idea. I don’t really remember much after that portal opened.” “Portal?” wondered Henry. “What portal, there’s no portal here.” “The one right there,” she said as she pointed outward. All they saw were more shrubs, buildings, and students leaving. While Henry was confused, Twilight grew scared and began to panic. “It’s not there anymore?” she said with a gasp. “This is bad. How am I going to get back home?!” Henry just looked at this new girl with a mixture of confusion and concern. It seems as though his wish, to make his life a little more exciting, is about to come true.