The time had come for the first day of school and Apple Bloom was not happy, she was deliberately doing everything slow in hopes that somebody would just consider the level of lethargy so great that she could skip the day, no such luck when it came to her family. Granny Smith practically forced the apple-mash oatmeal down Apple Bloom's throat and the poor girl nearly choked on the five glasses apple juice that followed. Her brother literally carried her to the washroom where her sister attacked Bloom's uncleanness with the ferocity that she'd heard Granny Smith had at Applejack's age. Once Apple Bloom washed, a good forty minutes faster and earlier than she would normally be on a school day, and dressed in her usual yellow shirt and blue overalls with an Apple insignia emblazoned on the chest, her messy red hair cleaned in addition to her nearly trademark pink bow set to adorn her head, clean stocking on her feet before a cleaned pair of the machiner's boots she was fond of on, and her green backpack with an apple insignia upon thrown on her back, with all the basic materials for a standard school day she was half dragged and half carried by Applejack all the way to the schoolhouse.
“You too,” came the elegant voice of Rarity, the red and bronze clad blond turned to see the white clad violet haired enchantress floating a young girl clad in white with pink and purple swirling two-toned hair in a small cage of the enchantress's levitation crystals, “it was an absolute disaster getting her ready for all this, good thing I had us start a preparations for getting here a good 2 hours early today.”
“Tha whole family jus' got done gettin' Apple Bloom ready, she was tryin' ta drag everythang out, so we jus' rushed 'er tha old fashion way.” Both girls were still squirming and giving their sisters death glares during the entire exchange.
“Why do I have go to this place, I was doing fine at home,” squeaked the two-tone haired girl in the floating cage.
“Do ya know what kind o' projects Ah could be workin' on instead o' goin' ta this waste o' time,” drawled Apple Bloom, “Basides tha schoolhouse doesn't open fer another hour and a half, we're earlier than everybody else today.”
“Tha early bird gets tha worm, as tha sayin' goes,” said Applejack.
“While I'm all for being fashionably late,” said Rarity with flick of her curly violet hair, “sometimes being early does wonders for you, it gives you time to work on things you concerning the place you go that you didn't consider 'til you got there.”
The two girls just stared at their respective sisters with intensified death glares. The two were put next each other as the holds their respective sisters had on them were released. They just huffed and sat down on the ground cross legged with angry faces on.
“Sweetie Belle, you're doing two very rude things. One you didn't bother to introduce yourself and two, which is a far greater crime, you're ruining the dress I worked on for months just so you could make a good impression during class introductions.”
At the same time Applejack said, “Apple Bloom, ya need ta bae more courteous, intraduce yerself.”
Sweetie rolled her eyes with disinterests and held out her hand saying in a uninterested monotone, “I'm Sweetie Belle, nice to meet you.”
Applele Bloom shook her hand with same level of disinterest as she said in her own uninterested tone, “Apple Bloom, et's a pleasure ms Belle.”
This earned a genuine laugh from Sweetie, who's laughter really did sound like a crystal bell, and a few giggles and snickers as she said, “You make me sound like some old lady, I'm the same age as you.”
With the tension broken Apple Bloom gave chuckle of her own and and said, “Sorry, et's bit o' uh force o' habit.”
“Gain way,” came a voice from up above, the two women took a few steps back and a young orange clad, purple haired skyborn girl with slightly tanned skin crashed between the young earthborn girl and young magicborn girl. “Sorry,” said the girl, “something always throws off my flying ability, I'm told I'll probably grow out of it,” she looked at the confused faces of the girls next her and said, “hi there,” holding out hands to both of them, “I'm Scootaloo.”
The other two snapped out their trances and Apple Bloom said, “Classes haven't even started yet and already weird stuff is happenin', Ah just intraduced mahself ta her,” she gestured to Sweetie Belle, “Ya can wait 'til we intraduce ta tha class proper-like, which is in about an hour an' uh half by mah count.”
“Why are we so early?” Whined Sweetie Belle.
“To ensure you're don't miss anything,” said Rarity with a huff as she pulled her alabaster colored gloves from her hip pouch and pulled them on with a graceful flair.
“She's right ya know,” drawled Applejack, “tha new announcements o' tha year always seem ta come yer firs' day at tha school.”
The magicborn and earthborn girls grumbled a bit while the newly situated skyborn girl beamed with excitement. “What's yer malfunction?” Said Apple Bloom, “Yer 'ere way ta early ta look tha' chipper.”
“I just finished moving here last week,” said Scootaloo with excitement, “this will be my first time learning in place like this.”
Rarity and Applejack held back their own giggles, this unexpected new arrival was a welcome counterpoint to the dour moods of both their sisters. “Yer serious? We go' only one instructor 'ere,” said Apple Bloom, “she's a scholar named Cheerilee, where ya both come from.”
My mom and dad home schooled me up 'til now,” said Sweetie Belle, “but they said something required their undivided attention and decided to drop me into classes here.”
“I moved here from Cumula,” said Scootaloo, “my parents said it would be better fit for me here. You see,” she got a little dour herself, “I haven't been able to fly well for some time time now, I keep getting teased by everybody back there,” she perked up again, “but here I don't have to worry about something like that.”
For some reason two found the bubbly nature of their unexpected third member somewhat infectious. Before they knew it Cheerilee showed up to open up the schoolhouse, the Cerise clad woman pleasantly surprised to see the three girls outside the building. She unlocked the door and ushered them them in before turning and bowing respectfully to the two women. After giving the school teacher a courteous wave the two departed for there other duties.
After telling the girls they could take any seat they wanted Cheerilee headed to the board and wrote her name on the board, which she then bordered with a depiction smiling flowers. All her prior students knew this as her personal sign, an insignia that let everyone know it was the real her, to the class newbies it just looked like an odd quirk.
After a few minutes the rest of the class filed in and all the seats, save one (usually it was three), were filled. “Good morning class,” said Cheerily with a cheery voice, “I'm miss Cheerilee, your teacher here, for those of you that are new to the school here. We'll go through with everybody introducing their names and giving a short statement about themselves,” she gestured to the front desks nearest the door, where the three earliest students were sitting.”
Apple Bloom gave a sigh and said, “Ah'm Apple Bloom, and Ah live et tha Sweet Apple Temple wid mos' o' mah family.”
Sweetie Belle squeaked when she realized she was next, “I'm Sweetie Belle, I've been taking academic courses at home before today.”
Scootaloo practically jumped at the opportunity when her turn came, “I'm Scootaloo, I moved here from Cumula a few weeks ago.”
The rest of the class did introductions, the last two were Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. They obviously were under the impression that you should save the best for last, and certainly thought way about themselves.
“I'm Diamond Tiara,” said Diamond with self-importance saturating her voice, “and my family has ownership of most of your businesses,” she shot Apple Bloom a death glare, Bloom just smirked at the pink clad girl in a fancy outfit.
“I'm Silver Spoon,” said Silver Spoon with a tone that indicated her belief she was above them all, “and my family owns most of the silver goods production facilities in the nation.”
“Now that you've all made introductions, it's time for your first class project,” the whole class groaned, with the exception of Schootaloo and Sweetie Belle, at this. “You'll break up into groups, they can be as small as two and as large as six. You're project is to take a look at your partners and write a summary of what kind of mage they'll be identified as when we go for identification ritual this year, it'll be due in two months and will run along with the rest of your classwork. Your first task is to come up with a name for your group, after you've decided write the group's name down and your names under the group's name, while you're doing that I'll read off some announcements for this year. Now everybody pick your groups,” she clapped her hands and left the kids to work amongst themselves, after ten minutes she would be reading off the announcements.
“Sweetie, Bloom,” said Scootaloo, “can we be a group?”
“Ah suppose,” said Apple Bloom, “as long as ya pull yer own weight, “mah last five groups Ah was tha one doing mos' o' tha work,” she huffed, “Las' time Ah do anythang wid those snobs.”
“Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon?” Squeaked Sweetie Belle, “They don't seem very intent on working with others. Probably gonna pair up and put almost no effort into it.”
“An' abou' half tha res' o' tha class,” Apple Bloom drawled, “ta them the expression 'grew up in uh orchard' translates ta 'tha one tha' doesn't mind all tha 'eavy lifin' fer tha project'. Ah swear, tha class gets lazier every year!”
“Well now that we have our group together what do ya a think we should call ourselves?”
“Let's do that somewhere we can't be heard by everybody,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Ah know jus' tha place,” said Apple Bloom jumping up, and noticing how the rest of the class looked like clusters near the middle and back of the classroom, “folla me,” she gestured for them to come with her. The girls walked across the room towards the teacher's desk, After Sweetie had grabbed some papers and writing utensils. Looking around once they got to the chalkboard Apple Bloom removed a loose board to the bottom right of the board after checking that nobody was watching them.
The girls slipped through to a room that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in decades, but somehow had very little dust at the same time. Apple Bloom carefully closed the 'door' behind her as she entered the room. “Nice, ain't et? Ah found et bah accident durin' tha time uh mandatory conference wid mah family was goin' on. Don't know why et's 'ere, but et's uh good place ta hammer out our ideas.”
“We could call ourselves the the 'Future Adventure League' that sounds cool,” said Sootaloo.
“Nuh uh,” said Sweetie Belle, “chances are most of the boys will be trying for that one, we need a name that says who we are and what we want to do with ourselves.”
“Tha' is uh good point,” said Apple Bloom, “et's almost like we're on uh crusade ta find out who we are.”
“As long as we don't have a name that sounds overly pretentious or cutesie I'm fine with it,” said Scootaloo, “I wanna be cool, and being attached to a group with lame name might hurt my chances at that.”
“That's it!” Squeaked Sweetie Belle, who then furious scribbled something on one of the pieces of paper and held it up for the other two to read.
“Cutie Mage Crusaders,” read Apple Bloom and Scootaloo in unison.
“Ah like et,” said Apple Bloom, “et's simple an' straight ta tha point,” she took one of the spare writing utensils and wrote her name under it.
“It's not embarrassing sounding, so I'm in,” said Scootaloo picking up a writing impliment and signing her name.
Sweetie beamed as she put her name on the page and carefully rolled up the scroll in a way that nothing smudged. The girls returned from the secret room and were happy to see nobody was watching where they were.
“Miss Cheerilee,” said Sweetie Belle.
Cheerilee looked over at the three, “Oh girls, I was just getting ready for giving everyone this year's announcements.”
“We already finished,” the three said in unison as Sweetie handed the scroll to Cheerlie.
“Well, color me impressed,” said Cheerilee, “you're the first group to turn in the assignment.”
Sweetie and Scootaloo cocked their eyebrows with a bit of surprise, Apple Bloom just giggled and pointed to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, it turned out the rich girls had been spending most of their time trying to decide the right quill and flashy ink to use for the assignment. The rest of the class groups seemed to be arguing over things less arbitrary, Scootaloo caught a few of the boys saying how they wanted their group name to be a sports reference only to find out their partners didn't have the same kind of interest in sports as them, she snickered at this.
“Settle down everybody,” said Cheerilee, “with the return of Princess Luna this past summer we'll be getting updated updated history books in the next few months,” half the class groaned, “also I have been informed that somebody is working on making our Class Identification ceremony a bit more memorable, talks are still going on, but if successful the whole class should have an experience as enjoyable as it is memorable. Also the Golden Oak library is now open for business for those of you who haven't heard yet, our new librarian is from Chantalot and is very eager to learn more about our fair town. Also, if you see a small purple and green lizard it probably belongs to our new librarian, she's an Arcane Mage and would very much appreciate you not attempting to remove or harm her familiar. One more note here,” she took a look at the notes on her desk, which coincidently also had the turned in CMC paper, “you will not be leaving this building until you're first assignment is turned in, it's short day and after you have turned it in you are free to do whatever you wish for the rest of the day. We'll be having normal school hours the moment the sun is up tomorrow.” The rest of the class groaned as Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo skipped out of the building.
“First thing's first,” said Sweetie, “we see if my sister can get us some group signifiers to tell everyone who we are.”
“Sounds good ta me,” said Apple Bloom, “once that's done we can ask mah sister if she knows any good places ta hold our meetin's.”
“Aw yeah,” said Scootaloo putting her hand out, “say it with me girls.”
“We are the Cutie Mage Crusaders, yay!” Yelled the girls after they brought their hands together and thew them up when got to the last word. With that they made their way to see Rarity.