@Crimson Lionheart 4U ---- "Hey! Get up, little man!" A teenage boy sat up slowly in his bed, brushing back his thick, lightish-brown hair with his dark silver hand. His dark brown eyes darted across the room, looking for his thick-rimmed glasses. "C'mon, Circuit, it's your first day at your new school!" Circuit Breaker sighed. "Right," he replied tiredly. He looked at his alarm clock. 5:15 AM. Of course... he thought, I forgot to change the clock to account for different time zones. Circuit and his adoptive father, Rugburn Rash, had recently moved to Canterlot, Colorado from a small town in southern California, near Los Angeles. Cheaper housing was part of the reason, but mostly it was to escape from the high temperatures and rude people.
At that same moment, on the other side of the city, another teenage boy was fast asleep in his bed. The bedroom currently had nothing but a bed and a desk at the moment, while boxes upon boxes of stuff were still in the room. The teenage boy rolled over and lazily placed a hand on his alarm once it started to ring. He grumbled at the time. 5.15am... The teenage boy then yawned before sitting upright on his bed, clad in pyjamas. He had the shoulders of a quarterback, along with short purple hair with yellow streaks that sat nicely on his blood red skin. But he grumbled. At that moment, a woman with shining orange hair walked into the room clad in a police uniform and flicked on the light. "First day of your new life, sport." The woman said before smiling. "Time to get up." Crimson looked at his mother, still half asleep. "Okay..."
As Circuit went to the garage, dressed in a green polo tee, baggy khaki jeans, and white high-top sneakers, he approached his car, a baby blue 1992 Geo Metro. He knew it was a piece of crap, but it was his piece of crap, and he wasn't the type to just throw the $4,000 he paid for it down the drain. Besides, all that mattered was that it got from point A to point B. He got in and headed off to school, waving goodbye to his adoptive father on his way out.
For his first day, Crimson wanted to look at least somewhat respectable yet not feel restricted by his clothing choice. He work a sharp blue shirt on a worn pair of jeans and a pair of sneakers. In the garage was a black 1986 Chrysler Laser XT Turbo that he managed to get for an almost dirt-cheap price for only $7,000. He decided for most of the morning so that he could catch the bus to his new High School instead, almost avoiding whatever nerves he had whenever possible An hour or two later, the new student hopped into his car and drove onto the side street for his trip to school. The local radio station was playing something fitting to his current feelings. Feelings of being in an almost alien country, expecting to settle into his new life, and doing whatever he could to not make enemies... For Crimson Lionheart, a former boy from Down Under who grew up in a crime ridden city that would have made even Detroit blush, this was one of his greatest fears....
Circuit pulled into the parking lot of Canterlot High School, being very careful with the doors of his vehicle; not so much out of fear of damaging the adjacent vehicle (though damaging a yellow 1988 Chevrolet Camaro wasn't entirely beyond his concerns), but more out of fear for the doors of his own vehicle falling off, which had happened several times before. However, before he could step out of the vehicle, he could hear a car alarm going off. Oh, thought Circuit, crap... "HEY! MY CAR!" shouted a voice. The voice, like the car, belonged to a young woman, and a beautiful one at that; multicolored strands of hair flowed from her head to her shoulders, accentuating her magenta eyes, athletic physique, and sky blue skin. Her blue jacket adorned a white T-shirt bearing a stylized, multicolored lightning bolt, while a white and hot pink miniskirt draped over black athletic shorts. Covering her feet were blue knee-high Converse shoes over rainbow-striped socks. However, no amount of beauty could disguise the angry glare she gave Circuit. If looks could kill, he would've been vaporized. "Look, I'm so sorry, I should've been more careful--" Circuit stammered, but before he could continue, the girl cut him off. "Yeah, you should've," she replied condescendingly, "Do you know how much this thing costs? And now you've gone and dented it with your little motorized rustbox!" Before Circuit could respond, she slapped him across the face. "It'll take me weeks to get this fixed," she muttered angrily under her breath as she walked away. As Circuit held his hand up to his face, he wondered if he should have gone out the other door. However, this thought was soon replaced with the girl. For whatever reason, he was starting to like her...
The old car pulled into the school's carpark and parked as close to the front of the school as possible, stopping to a halt. The newfound student sat in the car for a moment as students started to walk into the building, leaving the Aussie sitting for the car almost dumbfounded at the sheer culture difference. His mother never wanted him to attend a public school in the neighborhood, mostly out of a notorious reputation that his old home of Sunshine Valley had with education. Many kids got into fights, dealt with drugs, and plenty of nasty stuff. Teachers were often powerless to stop them, and sometimes when students had an outburst or things spiraled out of control, the teachers feared for the own safety, if not their lives. The moment high school usually hit, things were so bad with education, that parents legitimately feared that their own children might have been risked with attending a deathtrap. Therefore, Crimson and many students happened to be privately educated via tutor, which was popular for those who could afford it. Being in a new part of the world was a culture shock. He didn't expect things to be so peaceful at all. As his car shut-down, he sighed as he went to lock it before opening the glove-box to check if he accidentally forgot to take something out of it. Inside was a photo of his mother dressed in a skirt, Winter Rush, his adopted single mother who did everything she could to ensure her son had a happy life. The photo was sticky taped to a note. "Crimson. I'm incredibly proud of you today, no matter what happens today, I know how hard you have worked to get this far in life. I hope you have a great first time at school, as I know this is possibly for your day of school. I know things would come to you, but knowing you, I'm sure you are bound to make some easily! Stay safe sweetheart, see you tonight. Love, Mum. xoxoxo" Crim smiled at the photo and the note before delicately taking the photo and placing it in his wallet, while holding the note and placing it back in the glove-box. He soon locked his car up and carried a school bag on his shoulders, looking towards the imposing building of Canterlot High School. This was it. This was his first step into a new life. He had to leave his old life behind, and from now on, there are no repeats... And with that, he took his first step into High School...
As Circuit prepared for his first class, he couldn't stop thinking about the girl he just ran into. Sure, she'd been mad at him, but could he blame her? It was his fault, after all. Why did he even like her anyway? He hadn't made the best of first impressions, and more importantly, she was out of his league. This train of thought came to an abrupt stop as he realized he just bumped into someone. A young man, about his age, with maroon skin and purple hair with streaks of yellow in it, wearing a blue long-sleeved shirt with worn denim blue jeans and a pair of black sneakers. "Oh, sorry about that," said Circuit nervously, "Wasn't looking where I was going." "No worries, mate," the boy replied in a thick Australian accent, "I kinda got sidetracked myself. Say, you wouldn't happen to know where Algebra II is, would ya?" "You too, huh?" replied Circuit. "Nope, just as lost as you are."
"No worries, lemme give you a hand" Crimson reached out to pull Circuit. He didn't look like it with clothes, but he had always been surprisingly strong. Circuit was back onto his feet with little to no effort whatsoever. "Yeah, I have no idea where I'm supposed to be going or whereabouts I'm supposed to be heading...bloody hate math..." The new student reached his hand out towards Circuit. "Howdy, Crimson Lionheart. I'm new around here" He happily introduced himself.
"Circuit Breaker," Circuit replied, taking Crimson's hand, "Just moved here from the Los Angeles area."
"Well..." Crimson carefully thought about his next words. "I just moved over from Sunshine Valley about a month ago....suppose today happens to be my first day of attending a public school.
---- Circuit and math never really got along, being one of the few subjects he could barely earn above a C+ in terms of grades. As he looked around the room, he noticed that Crimson was sitting in front of him, and sitting two rows to the left from him was the girl from earlier. His eyes returned to his textbook, which he considered doodling in briefly, before shuttering the idea entirely.
While he diligently began to start doing his work, there seemed to have been something that was stuck to his back. He didn't even notice that it was stuck to him until he leaned back, only to feel it pressing against the chair awkwardly. He reached behind it while everyone was working, opening it up, then immediately closing it. Crimson turned around to find a girl in the corner of the class with vibrant pink hair, who immediately tried to hide what she was doing and pretend that she was doing work. He didn't know what it was, all he got was a note that said "G'day mate" with an adorable cartoon drawing of himself underneath. He pretended to ignore it and pass it on...yet...he found the drawing kinda cute...
---- Later that day, there was a small note pinned to the message board in the main hall. Being surrounded by other students, Circuit had to squeeze through to get to it. "Soccer tryouts, huh?" he said to himself, "This oughta be fun."
Finding his first day comfortable, Crim didn't really do anything noteworthy just yet. While he understood that like any high school, they had social groups of friends or clubs, he was the new kid and didn't feel like he belonged at all. Not even the freshmen students had as much problems as he did, at least they didn't move to the other side of the world like he did. Crimson sat at an empty table, just drinking milk while he studied the students. Strangely enough, he could almost read them like a book. One table was the gossip queens, another were sports jocks, the others were the more artistic types and so on. To them, he was virtually unknown to them. He was a relative nobody with a funny accent. Until he noticed a pair of eyes starting at him from maybe four tables away. ------------------------------------- Pinkie Pie was looking at the new student carefully, although she didn't wish to get his attention or get caught out. She drew him a picture before to get his attention, but she was drawn to him like a bee to a flower. She'd been looking at him the moment he walked into class. "Pinkie, what's up with you?" Rainbow Dash asked her friend. The pink haired girl squinted her eyes to focus on him, as if aiming down her sights. "Something's off about him. I just know it!" Pinkie told her group of friends. Around her at the table was Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Sunset Shimmer and Pinkie Pie herself. "I want to know what it is"
"Oh come now, dearie," replied Rarity, "He's just moved here from Australia, he has enough on his plate without you spying on him." "If ya want his attention, hun, y'all have to earn it," noted Applejack. Pinkie Pie simply shrugged. "My car door is more damaged than I thought it was," said Rainbow Dash. "Mark my words... the guy who damaged it... he's going to pay..." "I hope you're not going to beat him up or anything..." whimpered Fluttershy nervously. Rainbow Dash was taken aback by this statement. "What? No way! He's literally going to pay for the replacement door! With cold, hard cash!" The others simply sat in silence. "Well, I've got soccer tryouts to oversee later," said Rainbow Dash as she finshed eating, "since I am the team captain and all. Later, girls." As Rainbow Dash left the table, Sunset Shimmer sighed. "Australian kid looks like he's had it rough," she said. "Eh, I think it's kinda cute," replied Pinkie.
As the two girls decided to discuss how hostile and grumpy that Rainbow Dash has been all day, while Sunset and Applejack soon strayed away from other topics, Pinkie couldn't help but periodically make eye-contact from time to time with the boy near the end of the cafeteria, who shook his milk and got up to walk to the bin. "Excuse me girls, don't mind me" Pinkie said before standing up with her lunch tray and started to walk off. "I just nee-" She never finished her sentence as all of a sudden, she completely lost balance and fell backwards, her metal tray being thrown into the air. Pinkie yelped suddenly before feeling herself fall backwards. While not far away, he hooked an empty chair towards Pinkie as she fell, managing to get it to slide to her and to soften the girl's landing by making her land on it. The tray wasn't a total success, as some of the stuff spilt onto the floor, but the new kid managed to save Pinkie from embarrassing herself by pushing a chair to literally stop her from landing. For a moment, Pinkie was stunned with what just happened as her friends and several students looked at what was going on. Crimson leaned over to see if anything serious had happened. "Hey, are you okay Miss?" The boy asked her. Pinkie sheepishly nodded. "I....um....you...
---- "Well, look at what we've got here," said Rainbow Dash as she examined the candidates for the soccer tryouts. Oh hell, thought Circuit, sweating profusely from anxiety, SHE'S team captain?! "Here's the deal," she explained, "there's only one opening on the team this year, so only one of you will make it in. I'm not just looking for just anyone, though. I'm looking for the best this school has to offer. You have to prove your worthiness to wear the Wondercolts blue and yellow on the field! And to do that... you have to beat me in a one-on-one match." Circuit grew even more afraid. I have to defeat HER?! he thought.
After lunch, some of the students went to other classes and separated. While some of them went to one thing, Crimson's class after lunch was writing and literacy, which wasn't anything practically remarkable. Unlike math class, students were encouraged to talk to one another to make a social atmosphere. Most of the girls from Lunch shared the same class as him, quietly impressed with how the new kid stopped Pinkie from embarsssing herself in the cafeteria before. Pinkie Pie couldn't take her eyes off him. Before she was merely glancing at him, but now she was looking at him for quite a long time....
As soccer tryouts drew to a close, Circuit was the only one left. "You, huh?" said Rainbow Dash, looking at him somewhat condescendingly. "Hope you don't expect to win, Mr. Accident Prone, let alone get on the team. You'll still have to pay for the car door if you win, and that's a very big 'if.'" Unbeknownst to them, the other girls and Crimson went out to the bleachers to watch them. "This the guy ya told me about, Crimson?" asked Applejack, "Poor guy. Rainbow's still mad at him about her darn car door. Ah'd be worried if ah were you. Girl can quite literally kick a ball so hard it bursts into flames!" "Which would require propelling the ball to the speed of a spacecraft upon re-entering the atmosphere," noted Sunset.
Crimson was baffled at the thought of a soccer ball being kicked hard enough to catch on fire, almost afraid of picturing how much it'd hurt if that happened to hit someone. "Wha? B~but how?" He said confused before sighting. "You know what, I don't wanna hear it. She's clearly never skipped 'leg day'." Two of the girls couldn't help but try and suppress a giggle at the comment. Applejack looked at Rainbow as if she was about to give him a beatdown, although Pinkie was nearby Crim and Fluttershy and stood behind him. She felt nervous, which was something she never felt very often. Maybe she was feeling nervous around Crimson after what just happened? Unless it was something else entirely.
