Since You Came Along

by Sky Scraper

Ch. 3 - New Friends for Sky

As expected, Sky's February break was uneventful since he wasn't allowed to go anywhere. He did, however, appreciate the chance to catch up on sleep and not have to do homework. He spent much of his time either reading books in his room or hanging out with Duke.

On Monday morning, Sky discovered another nice thing about Canterlot High. Their school day started at 8:30 instead of 7:30, so Sky got an extra hour of sleep and didn't feel quite as grumpy when he woke up. After getting dressed, eating breakfast and brushing his teeth, Sky was ready to go. Evening drove him the rather short distance to CHS, and pulled up in front of the school at 8:25. "See you, Mom," Sky said as he picked up his backpack and got out of the car.

"Bye, sweetie!" Evening replied with a smile. "I hope you have a good first day!"

"Thanks! I hope so too." Sky walked toward the school and joined a sizable crowd of teenage boys and girls all filing into the building. When he made it into the atrium, Sky found a bench and sat down. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his folded schedule, which he'd received via email and printed out a few days prior. According to his schedule, his first class of the day was English in room 117. Once the crowd of students had dissipated, Sky got up from the bench and made his way down the hall, reading the room number on each door. When he found number 117, he opened the door and walked into the room.

Although the teacher was nowhere to be seen, most of the students had already arrived and were sitting at their desks, casually chatting with one another. Sky wasn't sure where to sit, so he found an empty desk near the back of the room and sat down. Sitting at the back of the class was a habit he'd developed at Crystal Prep - he liked to have his own space and be out of the teacher's view.

Just then, the door opened and a man with light purple skin and light gray hair walked into the room. All of the students turned their attention to him.

"Good morning, everyone!" he said. "My name is Silver Script, and I'm one of the English teachers here at CHS." He chuckled. "You might be wondering why I'm introducing myself to you again. After all, it's only been a week since we last saw each other! Well, it just so happens that today, we have a new student joining our class!" He looked around the room. "Is Sky Scraper here?"

Sky Scraper raised his hand. "Yep, that's me."

"Great to have you with us, Sky!" said Mr. Script. "Could you please stand and introduce yourself to the class?"

"Sure thing." Sky stood up from his seat. He wasn't very good at public speaking, so he wanted to make his introduction as brief as he could. "Hey, everyone. I'm Sky Scraper, but you can just call me Sky. I just transferred here from Crystal Prep, so today's my first day at CHS."

At the mention of Crystal Prep, some students began whispering to one another. "Don't worry, I'm not one of those people," Sky said, feeling a bit annoyed. "I didn't like being at Crystal Prep, and I'm glad to be coming here instead."

"Thank you for sharing that with us," said Mr. Script, "and welcome to CHS!" Sky sat back down, and Mr. Script turned his attention to the full class. "Anyway, I don't have much planned for today, since I didn't want to give you too much work on the first day back. Today we'll just be reading the first three chapters of The Klugetown Files, which I introduced right before break. There will be no written homework for tonight!" Everyone in the class smiled upon hearing that.

Mr. Script walked over to Sky's desk and handed him a copy of the aforementioned book. "We're starting this book today," he explained to Sky. "It's one of my favorite books, so I hope you enjoy it too!"

"Cool." Sky began thumbing through the book, which contained about three hundred pages. The chapters looked fairly short, so reading the first three wouldn't take him very long. He flipped to the first page and began reading.

As it turned out, The Klugetown Files was a really interesting book, much better than any of the boring books that Sky had been forced to read at Crystal Prep. When he finished reading the assigned section, it was only halfway through the class period. Since he was enjoying the book and didn't have anything else to do, he began reading ahead. When he got to the end of chapter six, class was nearly over, so he stopped reading and put the book away in his backpack.

At that moment, the boy sitting on Sky's left turned over to talk to him. "Yo, Sky!" he said. "How you doing?" The boy had dark gray skin and a silver mohawk.

"Pretty good," Sky replied. "I'm liking this book so far. It's way better than anything I read in any of my other English classes. What about you?"

"Same here," the gray-skinned boy agreed. "We're lucky to have Mr. Script, he's such a cool teacher. My name's Thunderlane, by the way. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too." Sky and Thunderlane shook hands.

"So I heard you used to go to Crystal Prep," said Thunderlane. "You must know about the big rivalry between us and them."

Sky nodded. "Yes, I do. It's stupid if you ask me."

"Well, it was all started by them. They think they're better than everyone else just because they're some bougie private school. Cross-country and track meets with them are the worst. They always beat us because they can afford to have pro runners as their coaches."

"I actually ran cross-country and track when I was there," Sky recalled. "The running itself was great, but my times were pretty average and I barely talked to anyone else on the team."

"Yeah, I never talked to anyone on that team either," Thunderlane chuckled. "You should join the track team here, though. Sign-ups are next week, and if you were average at Crystal Prep, you'll probably be above average on our team."

"Good idea! I'll definitely do that."

Just then, Mr. Script announced that class was over. "It's now 9:15, so that's the end of our class for today. Have a wonderful rest of your day!"

Everyone began getting up from their seats and grabbing their backpacks to head out. "Well, I gotta go now," said Thunderlane. "My History teacher doesn't take kindly to people being late, I'll tell you that. It was nice meeting you, man!"

"You too!" Sky replied. He got up and followed the crowd of students out of the room. "Thank you, Mr. Script!" he said as he walked past the teacher's desk.

"You're welcome, Sky!" Mr. Script said with a smile. "It was a pleasure meeting you today!"

Sky simply nodded and continued on his way. Near a staircase, he stopped to look at his schedule again. Seeing that his next class was on the second floor, he turned and began walking up the stairs.

---

A few hours later, Sky arrived at the school cafeteria for lunch. So far, his first day at Canterlot High had gone smoothly, as all of the teachers seemed to have planned a relaxing first day back for the students. Unfortunately, Sky's last class before lunch was located on the opposite side of the school, so he ended up stuck near the back of the lunch line. "Note to self: next time leave History a few minutes early if you can," he muttered to himself.

After what seemed like an eternity, Sky was able to pick up two chicken parmesan cutlets, a green apple and a carton of chocolate milk. He paid for his food, then began looking around the cafeteria for a place to sit. After a minute of not spotting anyone he recognized, he was about to find an empty table and sit by himself when he heard a familiar voice behind him. "Sky!"

Sky turned around and saw Thunderlane sitting at a table with two lavender-skinned girls. He waved back to Thunderlane and took a seat next to him.

"How you been, Sky?" Thunderlane asked. "Haven't seen you since first period."

"Pretty good," Sky replied. "My first day has gone well so far."

"This is your first day here?" one of the lavender-skinned girls asked. She had spiky silvery-blue hair styled wildly upward, which made her look a bit taller than the average girl. She then realized she forgot to introduce herself. "I'm Cloudchaser, by the way."

"And I'm Flitter!" said the other girl. She had soft mint green hair with a pink bow. "Me and Cloudy are twins."

"But I'm older by seven minutes," Cloudchaser added.

"Nice to meet both of you!" said Sky. "My name's Sky Scraper. And yeah, this is my first day here."

"Welcome to CHS, then!" said Cloudchaser. "Where did you move here from?"

"Well, I didn't move anywhere - I've been living in Canterlot for a couple years now. I transferred here from Crystal Prep."

Cloudchaser and Flitter exchanged a look. "A Shadowbolt transferring over here... since when does that happen?" Flitter asked.

"Since I got expelled from there," Sky replied nonchalantly.

Thunderlane nearly spat out his apple juice. "You got expelled?!" he cried. "For what?!"

Sky sighed. "It's... a bit of a long story. But basically here's what happened: a couple weeks ago, my cousin and I were walking down the hall when this jerk came up and started acting like a creep toward her. She rejected his advances, and then he got mad and called her names. That got me angry too, so I insulted him back, we got in an argument, and then I busted him in the nose. That's what I got expelled for."

"I think getting expelled for that is kind of harsh," said Cloudchaser. "If that guy was being a creep, then he got what was coming to him."

Flitter nodded in agreement, and Thunderlane gave Sky a pat on the back. "Good for you, showing that asshole who's boss!" he chuckled.

"Thanks," Sky said, stifling a laugh. "I'm not too bothered by it anymore, though. I mean, my parents grounded me for a month because of it, but other than that, I'm fine. I'm just glad I can start fresh here."

"I don't blame you for that," said Flitter. "Crystal Prep students are jerks."

"Pretty much," Sky agreed. "And the administration is even worse."

"Did you get a tour of the school last week?" asked Cloudchaser. "Principal Celestia likes to do that for every new student that comes here."

Sky nodded. "Not last week, since the school was closed, but I did get one on the Friday before break. These two girls named Lyra and Bon Bon stayed after school to show me around, which was really nice."

"That's great!" said Cloudchaser. "I know Lyra and Bon Bon, they're pretty nice. Really smart, too."

"They definitely seemed nice when I talked to them!" Sky agreed. "Lyra and I really hit it off. I hope she's in one of my remaining two classes today."

"Ooh, do you like her?" Flitter giggled, causing Sky to blush. "Just kidding, just kidding! I know it's always nice to have friends in your classes."

"So anyway, what kind of things do you do in your free time?" asked Cloudchaser.

"There are a few different things I like to do," said Sky. "I like drawing architectural stuff - buildings, bridges, that sort of thing. I also like just going outside to walk or run when the weather's nice. Thunderlane told me this morning that spring track sign-ups are next week, so I'll definitely sign up for that."

"That's awesome!" said Cloudchaser. "Flitter and I are runners too. Some of the top runners on the girls' track team graduated last year, so we might have a shot at making the varsity team this season."

"Nice!" said Sky. "I hope you do. I might also have a chance of making varsity."

"He says he was an average runner at Crystal Prep," put in Thunderlane. "As much as we don't like them, their team is insanely good."

"Oh yeah, then you'll do well here," agreed Cloudchaser. "What's your best 5K time?"

Sky scratched the back of his head. "I think it was around twenty minutes? I don't remember exactly."

"That's pretty good," said Cloudchaser. "I'm usually in the high 20s or low 21s. I've been training a lot, though, so you can expect some PRs from me this fall."

"What track events do you think you'll run?" asked Flitter. "I hate sprinting, so I run either the mile or two-mile."

"Probably a mid-distance event, like the 800," Sky replied. "I also hate sprinting, and running for too many laps around an oval track would probably bore me to sleep. I mainly do track just to train for cross-country."

"That is honestly understandable," Flitter chuckled. "Running on trails and streets with different scenery is a lot more interesting. One of the perks of being a distance runner."

"Indeed!" said Sky. "Canterlot has a lot of nice running routes, too."

"Yeah, there are a lot of pretty places in Canterlot," said Flitter. "This city has so much to offer."

"It really does," Sky agreed. "I feel like this is going to be a good spring." He looked out the window. Even though none of the trees had sprouted buds yet, the sun was shining and the grass was looking green again. Spring would be on its way soon, no doubt about that.

Eventually, Sky and his new friends had finished their lunches and were getting ready to head out of the cafeteria. "All right, I'm gonna head off," said Thunderlane. "I have to meet up with my Geometry teacher in a few minutes because I am not doing well in that class."

Sky raised an eyebrow. "Geometry? I took that last year. I'm taking Algebra 2 now."

"Well, I'm stupid at math, so I'm a level below you," Thunderlane laughed. "Anyway, see you later!" He emptied his lunch tray into the trash, then hurried out of the cafeteria.

Cloudchaser and Flitter then got ready to leave. "Flitter and I are going to go shoot some hoops in the gym," said Cloudchaser. "Do you want to come?"

Sky shook his head. "No, thanks. I suck at basketball."

"Ah, that's all right," Cloudchaser chuckled. "See you around, Sky! Nice meeting you today."

"You too!" As the twins left the cafeteria, Sky threw the core of his apple in the trash and tossed his empty milk carton in the recycling bin. He went to the bathroom to wash his hands, then headed to the library. The lunch period at CHS was the same length as any other class period, which gave Sky half an hour to get some homework done. Today, all he had was a set of algebra problems, which he figured wouldn't take him too long.

In the library, Sky found a small table on the mezzanine and sat down. His Algebra 2 class that morning had basically been a review of stuff he'd already learned, and the same was true for the homework assignment. He finished the problem set within twenty minutes. Going home with no homework was a great feeling, and one that he'd almost never experienced at Crystal Prep.

For the rest of his free period, Sky walked around the mezzanine browsing the bookshelves. He soon found and became immersed in a book about famous skyscrapers around the world. After reading for quite some time, Sky looked up at the clock and saw that his free period was nearly over. He quickly returned the book to where he'd found it, then pulled his schedule out of his pocket. His next class was on the first floor, so he grabbed his backpack and walked down the stairs.

As Sky exited the library, he ran into someone he'd been hoping to see all day. "Hi, Sky!" Lyra said with a smile. "I haven't seen you all day! How's your first day been?"

Sky blushed lightly upon seeing Lyra again. She looked just as pretty as she had when he'd last seen her. "My first day has been great!" he replied. "I don't have any homework tonight!"

"Really? Good for you!" said Lyra. "Say, what class do you have next?"

"I have Chemistry in room 129."

"Hey, so do I! Do you want to walk there together?"

Sky smiled. "I'd be happy to." And he and Lyra walked down the hall, enjoying each other's company.

Comments

[Bronycommander]

nicely done!

[Sky Scraper]

11049477
Thank you!

[Bronycommander]

11049479
You're welcome! Say, if Sky needs more friends, i might have an OC idea for you, just a friendly suggestion/offer

[Sky Scraper]

11049485
Sure, I might be able to fit another friend into the story! Feel free to DM me with the details.

[Djtheking]

Nice enjoying this slow burn story I should've read sooner

[Sky Scraper]

11063486
Glad you're enjoying it!

[Funkierparty]

Room 117?
Chief you mind telling me what you're doing in this fanfiction?
Sir, ponies

[Sky Scraper]

11138839
The room numbers aren't references to anything, I just like odd numbers.