My Brave Pony Starfleet Humans

by DakariKingMykan

Act 3: First Day of School

ACT THREE

The next morning, Lightning was dressed up and was on his way in with Grandruler. Lightning was very nervous because he hadn’t been to a real school since he was a little colt. He had attended preschool on his home planet, Harmonious, before it was destroyed, but all his real education and training was all privately taught to him by Grand Ruler on Unicornicopia.

Still, he wasn’t willing to turn back, as he was still eager to learn more about the human world. If he was to effectively seek clues to find his Rainbow Rod or Sapphira, and fit in with the society around him, he had to become a member of society.

Already, Grandruler had made arrangements during the night with the school board, which he served as School District Supervisor, and managed to pull a few strings. Soon, they arrived at the school, Canterlot High, in the suburban areas on the western part of the island. He owned the school and ran it as supervisor.

They were both about to go in when Grandruler’s cell-phone rang; he had to answer to it as it concerned a few business deal issues. So he told Lightning to on ahead and he’d join him shortly. “Just walk straight through the front door, and you should meet up with Vice Prinicpal Luna. She’ll take you to Prinicpal Celestia, and by then I should be with you.”

Lightning nodded and stepped out of the limo, and his first impressions of the school were fine, it wasn’t all that different from the schools back home. “Well, this is it. No turning back now.” he said to himself.

“Psst…! Lightning, over here.” chirped a little voice. Lightning looked around and could see Krysta in a tree right near him. He walked over to her. “Krysta, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be out looking for leads.”

“I know, but I just wanted to keep my eye on you so I know where to find you.” she gazed at the school and all the students there. “Gee, what a crowd. You sure you’re up to this?”

“Don’t worry about me, and besides it’s only temporary. Once the mission is over we can leave.”

Lightning also had a plan of his own which he hoped would help the mission got smoother. He was taught how sometimes the best way to find what or who you were looking for was draw them out into the open. So he didn’t intend not to keep that he was an alicorn on a mission secret, and just tell people, maybe even prove by showing off his skills, someone was bound to believe him, and maybe he would gain help to find the Rainbow Rod, and draw Sapphira into the open.

“You always were one for taking risks, Lightning. You know that?” said Krysta.

“Hey, risks are what it’s all about, now you better get out of here. I’ve got work to do and so do you. The minute you find anything, tell me at once.”

Krysta agreed and headed off, and no sooner had she when someone did holler. “Hey, you there…!” Lightning turned and saw it was a teenage boy roughly his age, and yet he looked so incredibly familiar. The boy approached him “You’re standing in the flowers I planted.”

Lightning looked down at his feet. “Oh! Sorry about that, Buddy Rose.”

The other boy looked surprised. “How did you know my name?”

“Uh… well… I…”

“Come to think of it, I’ve never seen you around here before. What’s your name?”

“My name’s Lightning Dawn. I just transferred here.”

Buddy Rose gazed at the crushed flowers. “I think I can help them. I know a lot about gardening. I planted lots of the flowers around the school and tend to them every day as part of my extra-credit projects.”

Lightning watched as he worked, and there was no doubt he was just the Buddy Rose he knew back home. Suddenly, an announcement was made over the P.A speakers which could be heard from outdoors. “Good morning students.” the principal said “Just a reminder, that all newly transferred students are to verify their arrival at the main office. That is an order. Thank you.”

Lightning suddenly snapped to, remembering what he was supposed to be doing, but he couldn’t help notice that voice sounded so familiar. “You better shake a leg.” said Buddy Rose “Principal Celestia can get really nasty when people disregard school policies.”

Lightning nodded. “Nice to have met you.” and he dashed off into the building. Inside the main hall, everything looked straight forward. Lightning even saw the display case with all the trophies and school honors, and right next to the case was a beautiful mural of the school itself. “Wow!”

“You like that painting?” said someone behind him “I made it myself.”

“It’s beautiful…” Lightning turned to see the boy who resembled another one of his friends. “You’re Artie Bristles.”

Artie didn’t act surprised, most people knew who he was, and those that didn’t often just saw the mural and his name signed in the corner. “That’s me, all right.” He said extending his hand “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

“Uh… yes. I was on my way to see the principal.”

“Well, good luck, and trust me you’ll need it. She’s not really in a good mood today. See ya.” and no sooner had he gone did a tall woman with voluminous purple, sparkling hair approached Lightning. “Excuse me. I couldn’t help but hearing that you’re new here.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m Vice Principal Luna, and if I’m right, you must Lightning Dawn. Please follow me.”

She lead him to the main office and said that she and her sister, Celestia had been expecting him since they received the phone-call last night from Grandruler, but before they could enter the Principal’s private office, the phone rang and Luna had to take. “Just go inside, I have to take this.”

“Thank you.”

Lightning walked up to the door, took a deep breath and knocked softly.

“Come in!”

Lightning opened the door, and the principal turned in round in her chair to face him, and they both gasped in shock and shouted “…YOU!!”

“Oh, no…! No…! This isn’t happening.” cried Lightning. Celestia couldn’t believe it herself, but nonetheless she did realize the advantage over this, and Lightning realized it too. “I’m your principal now, and I expect you to respect that and the rules. Understood?”

As much as Lightning felt outraged, he agreed “Yes… ma’am.”

Celestia went over Lighting’s recently presented file, and was shocked to find that he had no family, no birth certificate, not even any records of previous schools attended. Celestia angrily slammed the file on her desk “This is an outrage; an absolute insult to the school system.”

Lightning didn’t like her tone, but he spoke calmly “I was told to be welcomed at this school, and the arrangements were not to be questioned.”

Celestia was confused and more outraged “And just who authorized this?”

“…I did!” snapped a voice from outside the door. Celestia felt a shiver run up her spine as she turned around nervously and saw him standing them, tapping his foot and glaring at her with disappointment. “Mr. Grandruler.”

“…Celestia.” he spoke very deeply “I take it you two already know each other.”

Lightning and Celestia gazed at one another and nodded, and it soon became clear to Celestia that Lightning was another one of Grandruler’s special kids whom he went out of his way to help. “I completely forgot. You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve been having a little trouble lately.”

Grandruler slowly approached her “I hope I can trust you Celestia. I’ve been hearing stories about you sliding off the edge, and if there’s one thing I won’t tolerate it’s when people on my payroll forget the rules of conduct, especially to those I’m trying to help. You had better shape up, missy!”

“Yes sir.”

With that all settled, Lightning was given his schedule and map of the school and told to head off to his first class. He went off and Grandruler gazed at Celestia. “I’ll be watching you very closely.” He said as he quietly shut the door, and Celestia sighed as she sagged in her chair shaking her head in dismay.

Outside, Grandruler seemed more concerned for Celestia than disappointed. “Luna, you should know better than to let your sister blow her top like that.”

“Sorry sir. She’s going through hard times.”

Grandruler nodded, but the silence was soon interrupted by loud banging sounds and screams coming from outside in the main-hall. “What the devil…!” snarled Grandruler as he, Luna, and Celestia dashed out to the hall.

A couple of punk kids were lighting cherry-bombs in the hall, extremely against school rules, and with them was a teenage girl with orange and red striped hair, and her boyfriend stood next to her. He looked a lot like Lightning, but he didn’t seem to like what was happening. He then looked down the hall. “Watch it, it’s Grandruler!”

The other two punk kids stood up right in fear and ran for it; many of the other students saw him examine the ashes and the soot all over the floor and the walls. “Who did this?” he bellowed “…Well!!”

The girl approached Grandruler and put on a weeping face. “Mr. Grandruler, I saw who it was.” and she pointed at the two punk students. “It was them!” She then nudged her boyfriend, forcing him to comply with her veracity, when really he knew the truth. “Yes sir, we both saw them.”

Grandruler glared down at the two boys, but Celestia decided to handle it herself and told the boys to meet her after school for extreme punishment. The girl, however, who was really responsible and told the boys to take the wrap, was very pleased with herself. Her boyfriend shook his head in dismay. “Sometimes you go too far, Sunset. You’re going to get busted one of these days, you know.”

“As if.” remarked Sunset “I’ve done okay up to now, and I expect you to help me keep it up. Got it?!”

“Whatever.” her boyfriend said as he went off to class and he secretly thought in his mind “But you’ll never expect what’s in store for you and the rest of this world, Earth-Girl!” his eyes shimmered a wicked glow of pale blue.

Lightning, followed his map to his first class, literature, and on the way he met up with another familiar resemblance, as a young teenage boy was slipping a letter into someone’s locker. “Excuse me…”

The other boy jumped in startle, and as Lightning expected, he spoke in rhyme.

“I’m sorry there,
But you gave me a scare.”

“I see that… uh, your name wouldn’t happen to be Rhymey, would it?” Lightning asked.

“William Stirskewer 3 is my name.
But folks call me Rhymey just the same.”

Lightning already knew why, and didn’t bother to ask what he was doing with that letter in the locker, and merely asked for directions to class as he had a hard time understanding the map and the building. As luck had it, he and Rhymey had the same class right then, and he gladly showed him the way.

The teacher welcomed Lightning, having been told of his schedule, and let him take his seat, but Lightning soon found the class to be very boring, for all the lessons were things and subjects he already had learned a while back during his training and studies back home.

The same thing applied was with his next class, mathematics, it, too was easy for him. The teacher merely assigned the students to copy the problems off of the board and solve them, and Lightning was finished in almost no time, much to the other students’ and even the teacher’s shock amazement, but to Lightning the hours seemed to last forever, but he kept hoping that soon things would turn up and he’d learn the things he came for.

His third period was science and biology, with Professor Brain, yet another resemblance, but that was the only interesting by far that he learned. Even that class seemed too easy. Lightning even handed in his basic assignment that day for the professor to gaze at. “I must say Mr. Dawn, this certain is. Satisfactory…”

“…Most satisfactory” Lightning muttered along with the professor, knowing he would say it, and his fourth period was Arts and Crafts. That class really didn’t start out well for him, as some of the students like picking on the new kids, throwing bits of paper at him, Lightning did his best to ignore them and they just kept throwing stuff at him while the teacher’s back was turned, worse than that, the teacher didn’t really like Lightning’s sketching of the Rainbow Rod he had made. “This is what you call a work of art, Mr. Dawn?” she sneered. “Is there something wrong with it?” Lightning asked. The truth was the teacher didn’t like it when students were able to draw or make things better than she could, and she would often resort to bullying and mocking their works, even if it was good looking. “I’m afraid this is not worth the effort.” she said as she crumpled up the drawing and threw it away. Many students laughed at Lightning, but Lightning felt cross and hurt. Artie, who was in the class as well, was cross with everyone and felt sorry for Lightning.

After class, he took the crumped drawing out of the trash and decided he’d keep it for himself, to help him keep his mind on the mission, and he headed to the cafeteria for lunch. At least the food was very nice, which did help spark some of Lightning’s observations, that humans ate the same foods from his universe.

Still, he was starting to feel maybe coming to school wasn’t a very good idea after all. He didn’t feel challenged enough, and though he had run into some familiar faces, he really didn’t feel like he fit in with anyone. It got worse when he kindly asked if he could sit in empty places, but most students coldly rebuked him.

However, Lightning spotted Buddy Rose, Artie, and Rhymey all sitting together at a table, and waving at him to join them. “Thank you.”

“Don’t let the others get to you.” said Buddy “Here at Canterlot High, the students prefer to stick to groups. They don’t take kind to newbies.”

“I’ve noticed that.”

Lightning looked around and could see all the many groups…

Athletes… Fashionistas… drama… eco kids…techies… rockers… and several other kinds of groups too. Lightning compared them like how elemental forces in Starfleet were divided by fields, but nobody behaved cold or harsh to one another.

Still, Lightning un-crumpled his drawing of the Rainbow Rod for his seemingly new friends. They all thought it was wonderful. “It’s almost as good as my work.” said Artie “But what made you think to draw this?”

Lightning felt a little nervous, but decided to tell them about it, when suddenly he heard the students laughing at a girl who had dropped her tray and spilled food on her books, a girl whom Lightning could almost identify exactly… with long purple hair.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

Rhymey answered…

“That is Starla Shine; she is kind,
But she has a very lonesome mind.
Her interests is studying stars and stuff,
and many students treat her very rough.”

Lightning could see for himself as Starla tried to gather her things up, and a big bullying student took her astronomy book. “Hey, give me that back!” Starla demanded, but the tall guy wouldn’t let her have it. “What’s the matter, you going to cry little star?”

Lightning had seen enough and waltzed over and grabbed the bully’s arm. “Hey, Hey!” the guy whimpered as Lightning pulled it down slowly down and took the book from him. “Just because she’s different than you, doesn’t give you the right to bully her.” Lightning said.

Starla looked up at him and felt touched that someone was standing up for her, but the bully was outraged and wretched out of Lightning’s grip and glared at him fuming. “You’re the new kid, aren’t you? You know what I call newbies around here; Fresh meat!”

“Am I supposed to be scared?” Lightning simply said. Many of the students felt shivers run up their spine as they saw what looked like was going to be a fight. Some we’re even hollering “Fight-Fight-Fight-Fight!”

The bully looked ready for a brawl, but the warning bell rang indicating lunch hour was nearly over. “I’ll settle with you later, punk.” and he stormed off.

Lightning cleaned off Starla’s book and handed it to her “Thanks, but you didn’t have to do that, I’m not helpless.”

“I just wanted to, that’s all.” Lightning said “I feel people shouldn’t be pushed around without good reason.”

Starla felt the same, but she had to leave and head to class, even though she hadn’t eaten lunch, and Lightning found himself unable to take his eyes off her, but she thanked him one more time before she left. Lightning eventually snapped himself out of his daze when his new friends told him he’d be late for class.

At the popular table, where Sunset, her boyfriend Flash Sentry, and several other students were sitting saw the whole thing. “That new kid’s not like most others.” Sunset said. Flash sighed and rolled his eyes “And let me guess, you think he might be valuable to boosting our image, am I warm?”

“You’re burning up.” said Sunset. She got out her powder compact and made sure she looked pretty enough. “Step back, I’m going in.”

Flash sighed “Every time, she does this.”

…

Lightning’s next class was Geography, and was finally something he knew would help him learn more about the Earth and things. When Sunset waltz up to him. “So… Hi.” She said to him.

“Um… hello…” Lightning said.

“So, you’re the new kid, huh? Don’t worry; I’ve been down that road before. Oh, sorry about that, the name’s Sunset Shimmer.”

“Sun… Set… Shimmer?”

“I know, weird name right; but hey, I’ll bet no one knows who you are either.”

“Well, just a few actually.”

“Well, trust me, if you stick with me and my crowd, you’ll be part of school popularity in no time.”

Lightning was starting to get the feeling this girl was just spouting a bunch of nonsense, and while her offer was tempting, he reminded himself he came to complete a mission, not to become popular. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m a practically guy, and I prefer to get where I am on my own.”

Sunset felt appalled “Um, maybe you didn’t hear me. I’m offering you the chance of a lifetime.”

“And I said thanks but no thanks. I’m just not interested.”

“Not interested?!” snarled Sunset, and before she could react any further, the teacher came in and told everyone to take their seats, especially her. “This isn’t over.” she said to Lightning.

Rhymey and Buddy Rose were in the class with Lightning and could barely believe what they had just seen, and they felt Lightning was in big trouble now. Everyone in school knew about Sunset Shimmer and her in-crowd friends. They were the most popular group on campus. Many would offer their very souls to get in and be as popular as they were, but most knew that Sunset Shimmer was a rotten girl; a total snob, and above all things just plain bad news.

As the class continued, Sunset eyed across at Lightning from her seat, and was already plotting more things for him, and Flash, sitting next to her hated it when his girlfriend acted like this. “Why did I ever get stuck dating an Earth-Girl like this?” he wondered to himself.