"Are you sure you are doing fine Daniel?"
"Yes, it's just..."
"It's just what?"
"Nothing, just nothing."
"You are starting to worry me."
"Trust me I am fine," Daniel gave a reassuring smile.
"If you say so Daniel. Just don't be afraid to tell us something. We can help you," Nyx assured him. They walked into the school house.
~~~
"All right class we have a new student in our class. His name is Daniel and he will be joining us this school year and hopefully more to come. Why don't you pick a seat to spend the rest of your school year in." Daniel looked over the class. Two ponies, one pink and one silver were staring at him dreamily. He looked over to the right and saw his friends smiling and beckoning him to sit in the seat next to them. He smiled and walked over there happily. He failed to notice the two fillies that were dreamily staring were now glaring daggers into the hearts of the CMCs.
"Did you see that? They think they can take any pony they want."
"We need to teach them a lesson Diamond."
"Yes, they must learn that they can't just steal our popularity by making others like them more."
"We need stop the blank flanks once and for all. But how are we going to do that?" Diamond looked across the room, there sat a bucket of blue pant.
"We may not be able stop them, but we will at least have one of them." Diamond Tiara motioned toward the paint bucket and ladder." They both grinned devilishly.
Daniel sat at his desk with his hoof on his chin while his elbow was on his desk. He wasn't really paying attention to anything. Some of his mane blew on to his face. Daniel made and O shape with is mouth and blew the strand back into place. A piece of paper was slipped onto his desk. No it wasn't a note from a classmate, it was a paper full of questions and boxes to answer them in. A dark blue aurora formed around Daniels pencil and was lifted off his desk. Daniel examined his pencil a bit before sharpening the tip of it with his magic. I set the pencil led on the top of the page and stared at the questions reading them to himself.
"What is the answer Daniel?"
"It's uh... 25?"
"Yes five times five is twenty-five." Daniel's hand was holding a skinny pencil and wrote the answer in the question box. "Multiplication works like this..." Daniel came out of the trance.
"3 times 6 is 18," Daniel whispered to himself. He started doing the problems. Then he came across a different answer. "Division... 5 divided by 2 is... two and five-tenths." He began zipping through the questions. Addition and subtraction was easy for him. He finished his paper. He and Nyx at the same time started walking to the teacher and handed her the papers.
"Two perfect scores so far. Well done you two. You may return to your seats." About half an hour went bay in silence. "Time for break, you may go outside and play." Everypony ran out the school house doors to the back play yard. As Daniel exited he heard a, "Psst." He turned his head and saw the two fillies that were looking at him earlier in class.
"Um... hi?"
"Hello, my name is Diamond Tiara and this is Silver Spoon," Diamond Tara introduced. "We were wondering if you could help us with something." They lead Daniel to a ladder that lead to the top of the roof. On the top was a bucket of blue paint. We need you to push that over when we tell you to."
"But won't I get in trouble?"
"No, Ms. Cheerilee wants the roof the be blue and told us to do it but we don't want to get dirty."
"Well, okay if you say so." They went over to the edge.
"We are just looking to see if any pony is there." They peered over the edge until they saw a certain black filly coming out of the doors with her friends. They quickly backed away. "Now." Daniel shoved the bucket of paint. It splashed down roof.
"Hey what the heck!?" Diamond and Silver Spoon ran leaving Daniel. They turned and saw Daniel with a bucket at his hooves on the roof. He backed away slowly. They looked at him betrayed. He couldn't stand it any more and ran off.
~~~
The end of recess bell rang. On the fillies rushed back inside so they wouldn't be late. Daniel got inside at the very last second. his 'friends' were glaring at him. "I didn't know... Diamond and Silver tricked me."
"Yeah they did and they were no where to be seen! Consider yourself unfriended. Go crawl back into the forest where you came from." Daniel's eyes watered. He berried his face into his arms. He was tricked, tricked and now he has no friends, tricked, now he has nothing. "Just dump the bucket and you're one of us," said a big kid in a blue shirt.
"Okay, that's not so hard." He dumped a bucket of fish and in rolled down the roof. And landed on 3 kids. They looked up to see Daniel holding a bucket. He dropped it realizing what just happened. Tricked.
Daniel snapped out of trance. School has ended. His eyes were red and puffy. He burst out the school doors and ran towards the forest in tears.
"Oh that was so perfect, Daniel is ours now," Diamond snickered.
"That was the best thing ever," Sliver Spoon agreed. Nyx was walking by going to her home. "And they think Daniel did it. We did it good."
"We tricked them all." Nyx's eyes shot open
"Daniel..." her head snapped towards the trees, "Oh no." She dropped her bags and began running towards the Everfree Forest. "He was telling the truth." Nyx was running as fast as she could possibly go flapping her wings to give her a little speed. She reached the Everfree looking up to a tree the towered over her. "I wish I would never go in here again." Nyx ran inside the forest.
"Daniel!" Nyx's shouts echoed across the forest. "Daniel come out please. You were right." Nyx kept going deeper into the forest. "Daniel... *gasp,*" A timberwolf jumped out from behind a tree. Two more appeared fro behind. Nyx was surrounded. They revolved around her coming in closer every rotation they make. Nyx tried using her magic but it was still too weak. "HELP!" The timberwolves were about to pounce when a flash of light appeared right next to Nyx. She felt a hoof on her shoulder and then she teleported.
She reappeared in a familiar castle. It was the abandon castle. Smoke Spiraled around her but then dispersed. "Why are you here?" Daniel was right behind her. He looked as if he were crying for days. There were lines under eyes from tears dripping down. His eyes were red, puffy, and had bags under them, his mane was a mess, and his voice was groggy. "Daniel, I'm sorry. You were right, I heard them talking about you and what they did. Please come back." Nyx's eyes slightly teared up. Daniel stumbled over to Nyx. Nyx quickly ran over and caught him. His head was burning hot. "We need to get you to a doctor."