//------------------------------// // The First Day of School // Story: The Early Years of Sunset Shimmer // by SamRose //------------------------------// The early morning sun was just breaching over-head as Sunset stood before the front entrance of CHS once more. Other students were already making their way into the school, the official first day of CHS beginning soon. After nearly 3 months of adjusting to this world, she was finally back to where everything had begun for her. She had to remind herself that in the end, this was still just a normal school in the human world. It likely wouldn't be all that different from how schools were in Equestria, but if her talks with Principal Celestia had taught her anything, it was that CHS was likely not as academically challenging as Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns had been. Sunset took confidence in that fact though. It was going to be easy for her to become an ace student here, and she was going to take advantage of that fact. Sunset turned around and looked at the CHS statue that stood before the school. A magnificent horse etched out of marble, a representation of the school's mascot and the students drive to march forward in their education. Not that any of that actually mattered to Sunset. Walking up to the statue quickly, she stared at the dull reflection of her face on the polished marble. She hesitantly extended her hand, unsure if she wanted to touch the surface just yet, but reaffirmed herself and pressed her palm against it. Nothing but solid marble pushed back against her, just as she expected it to. It was far too soon for the portal to open again, there was still at least another 26 moons to go before it re-opened, but testing to see if it was open or not re-assured her some. For all she knew there could be some potential time anomalies going on that desynched the two dimensions from each other, a factor Sunset had thought about and was going to try and keep track of. The writings about the portal still etched themselves into her mind. Every 30 moons for 3 days the portal will open. That was what they knew from the Equestrian side. She was going to have to check from this side to make sure it matched up here too. Pulling out her phone, she made a quick note on her calender that the portal hadn't opened, and then pocketed it before turning and walking to school. Celestia had made sure that Sunset had gotten a map of the school along with her schedule, ensuring she wouldn't get lost. Sunset wondered if every kid in school had both, though something told her that in all likelihood most only had the schedule sheet. Stepping in through the front doors she was greeted with a large open room she hadn’t seen since the first day she actually spent in this world. Only this time other humans around her age were milling about, making it feel rather cramped and crowded. Some were standing around mingling, others walking with purpose, and some just straight up playing games there in the hall. It was a disorganized mess, not like the crowds she would've seen back at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. At that school everypony knew they were important and would walk with purpose to their classes or scheduled events. Here it felt like no one had a care in the world, like they could all just go immediately fail all of their classes for the year and none of them would care, they'd probably just laugh it off as a weird coincidence that it happened to all of them. Already Sunset was beginning to feel like she wasn’t going to like the atmosphere of this school. Her first stop was to find the locker that had been assigned to her, get it all set up, then head to her first class for the day. It didn't take her long to find, it was just down the hallway from the front door. Opening it up revealed just an empty metal cabinet meant for holding school supplies so she wouldn't be carrying them around all day. Opening her back pack she pulled out a few issued books for her classes as well as the familiar brown journal with her cutie mark emblazoned on it. She hadn't opened it since the day she got the last message from Celestia, nor had she seen it glow with indications of any further messages. Putting everything away, she decided it'd probably just be better to get moving on to class. She turned down the designated hallway and began her trek across school. The music rooms weren't too far into the school, more located to one side of the building. Her first class of the day was her mandatory music class, and she was feeling confident about it. Celestia had explained it wasn't for those just beginning to play music, but she was already strumming her guitar to basic songs. If she kept up that pace she'd be a master at it in no time. She was certain that with how much work she put into her guitar playing, the music course would be a breeze to ace through. ...Not that acing her classes was even that high of a priority for her. In this world she couldn't care less about what humans thought of her academic abilities, after all she was only going to be there for two more years, after that she was going to become grand ruler of Equestria! Massive amounts of power be willing, of course. No, if anything, acing all of humanity's school courses was just going to be part of her ego boosting, just another step towards proving just how truly magnificent she was. Sunset broke out of her revery when her eyes noticed she was being stared at. She hadn't been doing any over-the-top movements, so her eyes snapped to the person staring at her. A male student jumped in place and quickly looking away before his crimson face could show through. Sunset furrowed her brow and pursed her lips, not entirely certain of what just happened. She turned her head the other way, and saw another group of males quickly turn away with similar expressions of their faces. Shaking her head she continued walking towards her class, a little confused at their reactions. Those hadn't been looks of fear or like they were judging her, the only time she'd seen faces similar to those was during some of her TV shows when people had difficulty confessing their love for- Sunset stopped at the realization. She smacked a hand against her forehead and let out an audible groan. Celestia had mentioned something about this to her before, but she hadn’t really been paying much attention at the time. Celestia had been worried that boys her age would be attracted to her and that she should look out for any trying to just get close to her because of that, but she certainly hadn't thought it would be true. Adjusting her backpack and walking with a forceful step in her pace, she continued forward. Whatever, if humans wanted to have a crush on her she couldn't care less, she had no interest in getting romantic with any of them. If they approached her with any interest like that then they were just going to get a cold serving of harsh reality. Though she did think seeing their crushed faces at being rejected could be amusing. Finally arriving at her class, she entered with a proud stride to her step and looked around. There were already a few students sitting around waiting for class to start. Some had instruments out, doing some warm up sessions, while others were mingling around. The class was mostly empty for the moment, no doubt the rest of the students were waiting for class to start before filing in. Sunset looked at the chalk board and saw the words 'Open Seating' written in big letters, so she figured she could sit anywhere. Not feeling like sitting anywhere where she'd be forced to be social and not caring too much about the curriculum, she headed for the back of the class and found a nice seat in the back to call her own. The chairs weren't exactly comfortable, but then again the chairs back at Celestia's Academy for Gifted Unicorns hadn't been comfortable either. Par the course with any school it seemed. With the other students doing their own thing, Sunset just pulled out a book and began reading. There couldn't have been all that much time left between now and when class would start, so she was just looking to kill some time. “Hey, what'cha reading there?” A female voice spoke up. Letting out a disgruntled sigh and looking up at the interrupter, she saw a girl with fuchsia hair and pink skin leaning over her desk, a curious smile on her face. “It's just a medieval fantasy book.” Sunset rolled her eyes before looking at her book, “It's nothing special.” “Well I mean... You don't really see a lot of kids our age reading that kind of stuff. Or any book really. I mean, you can read anything you want online, why read a book?” The girl chuckled at that. Sunset closed her eyes and furrowed her brow as she rubbed her head. She used the internet all the time to learn pretty much anything she needed, but there was no way she was going to be giving up physical books in exchange for a single screen of text. “My names Fuchsia, by the way. Fuchsia Blush.” The strange girl introduced herself. “Wow, what a fitting name.” Sunset grumbled annoyed. “Yeah, I get that a lot. My parents said they couldn't help but name me once they saw my hair color.” Fuchsia shrugged with a chuckle, “What's your name?” “Sunset Shimmer.” Sunset said flatly, looking back to her book and turning the page. She was just wishing for the bell to ring already, or for Fuchsia to at least notice that she didn't want to be bothered. “That's a pretty name too.” Fuchsia nodded, “Do you wanna hang out some time after class? You look like you could use a friend.” “No thanks, I'm good.” Sunset retorted quickly, “I'm not exactly here to make friends.” “Oh...” Fuchsia said feeling the rejection, “I guess that's fine. Sorry to bother you then.” The girl turned and quickly walked off towards her own desk. Sunset let out a hard sigh and turned back to her book. Something in the back of her head told her she should feel at least a little bad for the way she had treated that girl, but what she had said still held true. She wasn't here to make friends. There was no point in getting attached to anyone here. All of them would be nothing more than pawns to her own rise to power. After what seemed like the longest wait, the school bell finally rang, students around the class room scrambling for their seats while what was left of the class filed into the room shortly after. Following those students was the teacher as the bell rang once more for the official start of class. “Hello students, my name is Mrs. Doodle, and I shall be your music instructor for the year!” The older woman chuckled, writing her name on the black board for all to see. “Now, I can see a lot of you already have your own instruments that you brought in, or have noticed the instruments in the room. So, as this is our first day, I thought it'd be fun if some of you came up here to give a little demonstration of your talents so far! Don't worry though, I'm only accepting volunteers today so if you're nervous about performing you don't have to. Now, would anyone like to play a short piece for the class?” A couple hands went up around the room, Sunset deciding to keep hers down for now. She had gotten confident with her guitar playing skills, but she was still only two weeks into playing it. Enough for Celestia to consider her passable for the music magnet, but not enough to be showboating just yet. She still had a while to go for that. Several students went up front and played on their instruments a bit, some obviously better than others. There was a flute player, a cello player, a violin, and a trumpet. Sunset didn't really pay attention though, she just sort of tuned out and let her mind wander into space. This was just some sort of bonding ceremony for the class or something stupid like that, not that she really cared. Not to mention none of them were even playing her instrument, so there was nothing for her to compare against. “-and I play Guitar.” A boy spoke up next. Sunset's ears perked at that and she brought her attention up front again. He was a blue haired boy with a slightly orange skin tone and wore a jacket and jeans. He was holding up a red guitar as he prepared to play. Sunset couldn't help but smirk, finally something to compare her skills against. The boy pressed his hands against the frets and lined his pick against the strings. Sunset watched carefully as pulled his hand up, and began to play. Sunset blinked in surprise, having a difficult time keeping up with the pace of his fingers. She'd seen videos of humans playing at ridiculous speeds, but this was her first time seeing it in person. His fingers practically glided up and down the frets, and his notes were perfectly tuned. The piece only lasted a few seconds, but he finished off with a big strum while let out a heavy breathe. “That's the best I can do so far. I don't have the stamina to maintain that yet, but I'm hoping to one day.” He casually laughed, brushing the back of his head while the class gave an impressed clap. Sunset sucked her teeth and glared at the blue haired boy. She knew full well that it didn't matter who was better at what in the class, but somehow knowing she was being severally out classed left a bad taste in her mouth. She was Sunset Shimmer after all, if she was going to do something then it was only worth doing if she was going to be the best at it. Only a few more kids went up and performed a short piece, none of them guitar players so she just tuned them out again. Sunset tapped a pencil against her desk as she thought of how she was going to improve her playing skills to a point where she could at least boast to being better than wonder boy over there. It was probably going to require a lot of nights of hard practice, getting the timing and movement of her fingers just right, but she'd already made leaps and strides as far as those were concerned. With her mind spaced out, the time flew by and before she realized it, the end of class bell had run. Shaking her mind free, she grabbed her bag and headed out of class quickly. The halls were teeming full of students once more, heading to class or hanging around, Sunset wasn't sure what to make of it all so far. Letting out another frustrated sigh, she decided to go straight to her next class. There was no point in her standing around here after all. She couldn't help but get the feeling it was going to be a long day. 3 classes had come and gone, and lunch was soon on it's way out. So far only one of her classes had actually had any sort of 'learning' to them, the other 2 had just been introductions to the class or the classmates. For Sunset, that meant it had only been a genuinely boring day that was dragging on for way too long. All it did was make her wish to be back at the Academy, at least there her knowledge was put to good use and it passed the days quickly. All she was doing here was sitting in a dumb chair for nearly an hour at a time before getting up and moving to the next. Maybe it'd get better once the actual academics started, but somehow she doubted that. Her free period for the day was up next. She was considering spending the entire time in the library just finding things to read or perhaps just browsing more of the internet. Perhaps she could get a head start on studying for her history class, it was the only class that she had any worries about. Though she considered maybe going over to the portal to study it for a bit, but she didn't have any equipment to study it with, nor did she even know what tools she could study it with on this side of the portal. Sunset let out a sigh and finished the last bite of her burger. It was a passable meal, enough to fill her up, but she wouldn't eat it if she really had any other options for meals right now. It was either the cafeteria menu or bust, especially with nowhere else to eat within walking distance. Plus Sunset had a feeling that there was a 'no leaving campus' during school hours policy, as no one else seemed interested in leaving. At least the meals were cheap. Crumpling up the trash from her meal, she got up from her secluded seat at the end of a table and headed to the trashcan to dump it. Her mind wandered for a moment at how strange it was for her to still be getting adjusted to human food after all this time, but after all the research she'd done on the subject she was finally beginning to have no qualms with eating it. She just had to keep in mind not to eat this way when she got back to Equestria. With her tray returned the bell for the end of lunch rang out. Soon students were rushing about once more, finishing their food, throwing out their trash, putting away their trays, and slowly the cafeteria was emptying out. Sunset made her way out into the halls, checking her map for directions to the library. It looked like she would have to pass through the commons to get there, but it wasn't all that long of a walk from the cafeteria. With that goal in mind, she set forth, passing through the milling students. The hallways emptied as the start of class bell rang once more, the only students still milling about in the halls being the ones with their free period for now. Sunset just continued on her path to the library, noticing a sizable gathering of students in the commons. She had expected them to be a little more scattered than this, not all grouped together like this. Was there a reason? “Gather round one and all! Be astounded by the amazing performance of the Great and Powerful TRIXIE!” A white haired girl with blue skin shouted out in the commons, standing atop a small platform that elevated her above the other students. It certainly solved Sunset's mystery of why there were so many kids gathered around, even she could probably draw a crowd if she was was being that boisterous and noisy. Giving her head a shake, she turned and continued on her way to the library, not caring whatever this 'performance' was going to be. “Feast your eyes as the Great and Powerful Trixie astounds you all with magic the likes you have never seen!” That stopped Sunset in her tracks. She blinked in confusion before turning to look back at Trixie, the boastful girl standing there proud of herself. Had Sunset heard her right? Magic? But there was no such thing in this world, that much she had gathered from the few searches she had done on the subject. Yet this human was claiming she could do it? Sunset joined the crowd of gathered students to watch. If nothing else, it had to be worth a laugh right? “For Trixie's first trick, she will need a volunteer from the audience!” Trixie proclaimed, looking near the front row. Finding her target, she pointed out to a female student with blonde hair and violet skin, “You there! Step forward!” “Who, me?” The girl asked hesitantly before stepping forward. “What is your name?” Trixie asked curiously. “Lavender Lace.” The girl replied quickly. “Very well Lavender, the trick is very simple.” Trixie said pulling out a deck of cards from behind her back. She began rapidly shuffling them in her hands, “I'm going to give you this deck of cards and I want you to shuffle them for me, understand?” “Sure, sounds easy enough.” Lavender replied, holding out her hand as Trixie placed the pre-shuffled deck into her hands. Lavender shuffled the deck similarly to Trixie, though at a bit of a slower rate. “Now, once you feel it's properly shuffled, I want you to pick up the top card and show it to everyone in the crowd, but do not show or tell what it is to Trixie!” With the rule explained, Lavender picked up the top card and looked at it before turning to show it to the crowd. It was the 5 of clubs. “Now if everyone has the card memorized, put it back on the top of the deck and hand it to Trixie.” Following Trixie's orders, Lavender placed the card directly on top of the deck and handed it back to Trixie. Trixie held up the deck to show everyone, “Now, you all see that Lavender put the card back where it was and Trixie has not shuffled or changed the cards around. So whatever card she showed you is still there.” Trixie grinned at this part, “Now Lavender, Trixie wants you to pick a new card. Any card in the deck that isn't the top card.” Lavender thought about it for a moment, before speaking up, “The Queen of Hearts.” “The Queen of Hearts! A fitting card for the Great and Powerful Trixie.” Trixie chuckled, before taking her free hand to the deck and flicking the top card with her fingers. “However Lavender, there is one problem with your choice.” “What's that?” Lavender asked curiously. “Trixie told you,” Trixie began to explain as she drew the top card from the deck and without looking at it showed it to the crowd, “To pick a card that WASN'T the top one!” Clear as day to everyone there, the Queen of Hearts was on display, having been drawn as the top card of the deck. The crowd of students let out a combined sound of surprise before clapping at the impressive trick. Sunset was a little baffled by the display. What had just happened there? Trixie had just pulled a card other than the one that should've been there from the top of the deck, but not only that, she pulled the card that had been picked. Was that how magic worked in this world? The set up was presented as some sort of stage show, rather than an actual exhibition of magic. She knew there were ponies in Equestria that went from town to town to present magic tricks as their job, but this felt different somehow. Had she really cast a spell to change the top card of the deck? Or was it an illusion spell that changed what people saw? Was actual magic even involved in this? “Thank you all very much.” Trixie boasted over the aplause, “The Great and Powerful Trixie has many more tricks up her sleeve though!” She chuckled, before grabbing the sleeves on her blue hoodie and rolling them up. “Or perhaps there are no tricks up my sleeves after all!” She laughed at her own joke as she reached into her pockets and pulled out two red handkerchiefs “For Trixie's next trick, it's an oldie but a goodie.” Trixie cupped the red pieces of cloth into her hand and squished them together. “Let's start simple with a little color change.” She grinned, pulling her hands apart and showing the two clothes had now turned from red to blue. “Next, let's multiply them.” She clasped her hands back together before separating them, four blue clothes now hanging from between her fingers. “Next, let's tie them together.” Another clasp of her hands before pulling apart showed eight pieces of red and blue cloth all tied together in an alternating pattern hanging between her fingers. The crowd let out another series of 'oohs' before clapping again. Sunset rubbed her chin watching the trick be performed, still uncertain of how exactly Trixie was pulling this off. “And now for the final part of this trick,” Trixie grinned as she clasped all of the tied together pieces of cloth into her hands again, “I will do a Trixie original! It takes a little bit more work than the others,” she explained as her hands worked themselves together repeatedly, “However, after all is said and done, you end up with!” Trixie released her hands, grabbing one end of the sheet with each of her hands before letting it spread out, revealing a 4 by 4 quilt sheet of handkerchiefs, perfectly arranged in alternating color order, “A perfect quilt made by yours truly!” Another series of applauds, this time with a couple of the boys whistling in approval. “Thank you, thank you, you all are too kind.” Trixie chuckled, clearing reveling in the attention. She tossed the quilt behind her, “Now, the Great and Powerful Trixie shall show you one more trick today! One of her finest, I might add. Now again Trixie will need a volunteer. One with a dollar bill, doesn't matter the size.” “I've got one!” A short portly orange haired boy with blue skin spoke up, waving around a 5 dollar bill. “Perfect. Come up here.” Trixie beckoned with her hand, the boy quickly bounding up to the stage to stand next to her. “What's your name kid?” “Snips ma'am!” He answered proudly, holding out the 5 dollar bill for her. “Alright Snips, Trixie wants you to take this marker and quickly write your name on the bill.” Trixie explained, twisting and snapping her hand, somehow summoning a marker into her hand. “Yes ma'am!” He responded quickly taking the marker and writing his name on the bill. “Very good, now hand it to Trixie.” Snips placed the bill into her hands and she inspected the writing. She then held the bill up for all to see, “Now, everyone can see the writing on the bill correct? Trixie will now make the bill, DISAPPEAR!” Trixie twirled her fingers around the bill, and as though there was a wall behind her fingers, the bill seemed to disappear into thin air. “Now you may be asking yourselves, 'Where did Trixie hide the bill?'” Trixie pondered, pretending to be the audience. Trixie twirled her hands for the audience, “It's not in Trixie's hands.” Trixie turned her hoddie's pockets inside out, “Not in Trixie's pockets!” She pulled on each of her sleeves separately, “It's not hiding in Trixie's sleeves!” Trixie put a hand to her chin and thought, “It seems to have gone missing! Perhaps Trixie truly made it vanish from reality!” She chuckled to herself. “It seems we shall never know...” Trixie pondered, putting her hands into her hoodie and fixing the pockets. Trixie's eyes then lit up as if she realized something, “Wait a second!” Trixie said, pulling her hands out of her pocket and pulling out an orange from out of nowhere, “It seems something has appeared in Trixie's hoodie! How did an orange get there?” Trixie spun the orange around, showing everyone that the peel was wholly intact the entire way around. “Well, Trixie did just eat lunch, but she could always go for another snack.” She grinned. Digging her nails into the skin of the fruit, she made surprisingly quickly work of the peel, pulling it aside and revealing the juicy fruit underneath. “Wait a minute, there appears to be something in Trixie's food!” With one last pull of the orange, it split in half and sitting in the middle was a curled up dollar bill. "It seems Trixie has found the missing bill!" Pulling it out and unfurling it and showing it to the audience, it was clearly the same bill that Snips had written his name on. One last round of cheers and applause came from the crowd as Trixie took her bow for her audience. She gave the remains of the orange and bill to Snips as she stepped off of her podium. Sunset was really curious now. While the other students were discussing the show amongst them, Sunset circled around the crowd and kept an eye on where Trixie was heading. Trixie was walking down the hallway, heading towards the locker section. Following quickly, she caught up Trixie. “Hey, Trixie!” Sunset called out, surprising Trixie as she turned around, a grin on her face. “Oh, a fan?” Trixie chuckled, raising up her hand and waving, “Trixie appreciates your enthusiasm, but she really must be on her own for the moment. Certain tricks still take a lot of energy out of Trixie.” “How'd you do all that?” Sunset asked unflinching. “Heh, silly girl, don't you know? A magician never reveals her secrets.” Trixie smirked, waving her hand around to emphasize how grand she was. “What else can you do? Can you do levitation? Teleportation? What about transmogrification? Mind reading? Do you know any attack spells?” Sunset demanded, stepping forward with each barrage of her questions, Trixie backing up and looking off put. “Hey!” Trixie yelled, pushing back, “Get away from me you weirdo! Haven't you ever seen a magic show before!?” Trixie got away from Sunset, adjusting her hoodie. “I have no interest in associating with someone who can't just enjoy a free show! Hmph!” Trixie flicked her hair and stormed away, leaving Sunset in thought. “A magic show?” Sunset muttered to herself as she thought it over. Her searches for magic had only shown negative results, but if this was an actual thing humans did then she could finally start finding some answers. Pulling out her phone, she pulled up her internet browser and starting searching up 'Magic Shows' and 'Magic Tricks'. Arriving at Celestia's house, Sunset flopped on her bed, tired and feeling a little defeated. After having watched Trixie's magic show, she thought she had found a break through on how to get magic in this world, but all it turned out to be were illusions. Simple slide-of-hand tricks that were to fool humans into thinking one thing is happening when really another is happening. Trixie had been good at her craft too, when Sunset tried to look up the tricks she had performed online, she hadn't really found any ways to do them. After having watched several performances though, it wasn't just a one time thing, all of them had some explanation or trick to them that showed it wasn't real magic. Real magic truly didn't exist in this world. That thought had weighted on her mind the rest of the day and she hadn't even paid attention to her last two classes. It had consumed her thoughts as Celestia drove her home. She was really getting sick of all the false hopes and fake leads that kept turning up as dead ends. Every single thing she thought so far would lead her to gaining power only turned out to be massive busts. What was there left for her to try and do now? Was all she going to do was wait for the portal to open up again? She had so much time to figure out a plan once the portal was open again that there wasn't any point in trying to think of what to do once she returned right this moment. Thinking of what she'd do once she returned to Equestria would only depress her right now. Letting out a defeated and annoyed sigh, Sunset sat up and grabbed her guitar, adjusting the tensions on the strings and strumming the strings a little. It was soothing to just take her frustrations and turn them into a bit of music. She had never thought she would've been into music, or at least creating music, but she found herself enjoying the hobby. Even if she had decided to learn it so that she could ride a bicycle. Her hands stopped at that thought. She had only barely been trying out her bike the past few days. Between work and studying her guitar, she hadn't put much effort into it. And if she was going to move into that condo Luna had set aside for her, it was something she needed to do. She may have been tired, but mastering that bike was what she needed to do right now. Putting her guitar aside, she got up, and headed for the garage. Standing at the top of the hill, she looked down at the path below her. It wasn't the steepest hill nearby, but it was steep enough to get the bike going at a constant velocity. She had done a few laps on the flat course she had been using and her handling had improved way beyond what they were before, with only two crashes to her name before they stopped happening at all. All that left then was the speed and braking tests. If she could pass that, she'd finally be ready to tackle a vehicle with an engine on it. Adjusting the strap on her helmet to make sure it was fit tight, she got up onto the seat and gripped the brake. Making sure the kickstand was up and keeping herself balanced with her foot on the ground, she took a deep breathe and let go of the brake, kicking herself forward. The first few seconds were fine, just building up speed like normal. She didn't even need to turn the pedals, the bike built up all it's momentum on it's own. Faster and faster she began to accelerate, the force of gravity pulling her as she rode down the hill. She gripped the handle bars and kept her eyes focused, feeling the wind rushing past her hair and body. This speed felt different from just riding around on her bike. She felt her body naturally moving forward, angling herself horizontally. Her grip with her hands and feet felt familiar, as if she was sliding into a form she hadn't taken in so long now. The clicking of the bike reminded her of the clicking of her hooves against the ground, the rush of wind felt similar to her running full gallop down a long road. Her body shifted it's weight so naturally while on the bike, it was like she'd done this her entire life. The speed increased to the point she was comfortable, and she gently pulled on the brake to maintain that speed. With the turn coming up, she adjusted her body weight and began to turn. The feeling came so naturally it was as if she was back on four legs again. The turn was hard and fast, the wheels whirring as she made the turn, not bending the bike too far to crash it, turning the wheel only enough to make sure she could safely make the turn. The wind rushed past her ears and the turn ended, Sunset righting herself on the bike and heading down the street at the speed built up by her downward ride. She almost couldn't believe the difference going fast down a hill felt compared to slowly building up speed and balance at a slow pace on the bike. She flexed her fingers as well, each individual fingers releasing and re-gripping the handles. Her finger dexterity was far better as well, the guitar lessons having worked out immensely. Swerving the bike while gripping the brake hard and letting her foot down, the bike slid to a stop, her footing keeping the bike upright. Sunset couldn't help but feel pride in her skills at this point. In what felt like a relatively short time to her, she had already gotten this far with her skills. If she could do this well on a bike, perhaps a motorcycle really was the better option for her over a car. She felt like she could conquer the world now. Though she figured that was how she was supposed to feel, after all it was going to come true one day.