Friday, December 11, 2015
Friday, December 11, 2015
2015
Today's Horoscope (Virgo): Birds of a feather flock together.
Lunch
I'm on the way to the cafeteria when Rainbow Dash walks up to me.
"Uhh...hey," she says. "Wanna hang out after school? I...kinda wanna do some shopping. You know, Christmas stuff mostly. And..."
"Sure," I say.
"Great, thanks," she says. "Meet me at the school entrance, okay?"
After School
Canterlot Mall...
Rainbow's leading me all over the mall, asking my opinion on things to buy for everybody at the dorm.
After an hour of shopping, we drop by the food court to get a snack and rest up.
"So...Fluttershy's easing up on me a little," she says. "Man, I really screwed up..."
"Your heart was in the right place," I say.
"Yeah, but my hands were all over her pu—" Rainbow catches herself, grimacing, and smacks her forehead with a palm. "Dammit! I really gotta think before I say stupid shit."
"Uhh...yeah," I say, taking a long sip of my soda. "So, uhh..."
"Well well, if it isn't Rainbow Trash!"
"Craptain of the Blunderdolts!"
Two girls just walked up to us and are flanking Rainbow. One has pale jade skin and slicked-back orange hair with lighter orange streaks, and is wearing green boots, green shorts over black tights, and a green jacket over a black T-shirt. The other has tan skin, short white hair which is swept forward and frosted lavender at the tips, a hawklike face, and cruel gold eyes. She's wearing fatigues and heavy combat boots.
Rainbow groans. "Oh, for the love of..."
The white-haired girl pushes me off my chair. "Take a hike, nutsack," she says.
I stand up and get in her face. "Excuse me?" I ask. "Exactly who do you think you are?"
"We're old friends of Rainbow Derp here," orange-hair says.
"We were never friends, Lightning Dust," Rainbow says.
Lightning Dust...?
The girl that Rainbow got in a fight with?
"So this is Lightning Dust," I say, eyeing the orange-haired girl.
Lightning Dust smirks. "Heard of me? What, Dash can't stop talking about the way I kicked her ass?"
"Actually, I heard about you from Principal Celestia," I say. "I heard you used to pick on Fluttershy and Rainbow kicked your ass for it."
Lightning Dust snorts. "SHE kicked MY ass? Tcheah." She eyes me up and down. "So, you some kinda teacher's pet?"
"What are you two losers even doing in Canterlot?" Rainbow asks.
The white-haired girl snorts. "Like it's any of your business."
"It is when you start messing with me and my friends!"
"Causing problems, girls?"
A tall, muscular man with light blue skin and long orange-and-gold hair just walked up behind Lightning Dust and her cohort.
Lightning Dust stiffens. "Oh, uh...hey Dad..."
"You know, if you're gonna cut school and skip town, you miiiiiight wanna turn your phones off so we can't find you," the man says. "Do you know how screwed you are right now, young lady? And you, Gilda," he says, glaring at the white-haired girl, "your mother's so pissed off she says she doesn't even want you to come home."
"Tch...like I give a fuck," Gilda says.
"So it's okay with you if I hand you over to the cops?"
Gilda scowls. "Fuck you," she says.
The man sighs. "Have it your way..." He grabs both girls by the arm and drags them away.
I stare after them. "What the hell was that?"
Rainbow sighs. "Gilda and Lightning Dust," she says. "They're army brats. Emphasis on the brat part. That was Lightning Dust's dad that just hauled them off. He's in the service. So's Gilda's dad, but he's deployed." She looks down at her cold, soggy fries. "Gilda used to be my friend...but she was always kind of a bitch. Lightning Dust...she's just a selfish piece of shit that thinks she's better than everybody else.
"Back when we were freshmen, Lightning Dust used to pick on Fluttershy all the time. I'd find Fluttershy crying in bathrooms all over school. She never talked about it, but...but I knew.
"Then one day...Fluttershy was feeding a stray dog, and...Lightning Dust came along and kicked the dog. Hard. She nearly killed it. It was just a puppy." Rainbow frowns. "Fluttershy screamed and cried and...and she slapped Lightning Dust...and Lightning Dust just started laughing at her and calling her all kinds of names, saying...saying really awful stuff."
"And then you had enough and got in a fight with Lightning Dust," I say.
"Yeah," Rainbow says. "Celestia really told you about that?"
I nod.
"I gave her a split lip and two black eyes. She cut my face up pretty bad. I needed stitches...I'm lucky I don't have scars." Rainbow sighs. "I was so afraid Dad would kick my ass for fighting at school, but when I explained what happened, he...he just smiled. He said that sometimes, you gotta do something wrong to stand up for something right.
"Anyway...that summer, Gilda's dad got transferred to Cloudsdale, and the next year, Lightning Dust's dad moved to Cloudsdale too. Everybody was happy to see Lightning Dust and Gilda go..." Rainbow sighs. "I...realized, after what happened with Lightning Dust, that Gilda was a bad seed, and..." She shakes her head. "Anyway, they're both on the Cloudsdale team, so...they like to gang up on me, talk shit, get me all stirred up." She sighs. "They musta heard about my leg, thought they could kick me while I'm down."
"Well then they missed the mark by a couple of months," I say. "You're not down anymore."
Rainbow grins. "Yeah. You're right." She stands up, stretching. "Let's get some more shopping done, okay?"
The Rainbow Dash Social Link of the Chariot Arcana has reached rank 7!
Your power to create Personas of the Chariot Arcana has grown!
I finish off my soda and we get back to shopping. I've already done most of my Christmas shopping online, but I pick up a few things for a few special people...
As we pass by a jewelry store, it suddenly occurs to me that I should drop by Sterling Silver's shop again sometime and place another custom order. I've already bought Twilight's Christmas present, but...maybe for Valentine's? I take out my phone and make a note of it.
Evening
Twilight, Cadance, Rarity, and I are watching television in the lounge after dinner. Everyone else is upstairs.
"So where are we going on our date tomorrow?" Twilight asks. "I hope you've got something better in mind than a movie." She blushes. "I mean, I don't mind, but..."
"We've kinda done that bit, yeah," I say. "I'm kicking around a few ideas...I'll have something planned by tomorrow morning, but I'll keep it a surprise."
"Okay," Twilight says with a smile.
"Wherever you go, you'd better dress warm," Rarity says. "We're supposed to have the first snow of the season tomorrow."
"Oooh, snow," Twilight says.
"A date in the snow sounds positively romantic," Rarity says, smiling. "I'm taking my darling little sister out for the day tomorrow..." She tilts her head. "Perhaps I'll take her ice skating...it's been quite a while..."
Ice skating, huh...?
Now that I think about it, ice skating is a great date activity...
I head upstairs to do some research on Canterbook, then turn in early.