Greetings everypony. Was looking through some old stories that I didn't really get around to publishing/took down and found this one. I reread it and hopefully, am going to continue to add chapters to this story, though it will not be as frequent as some of my others most likely. This story is also different from my other ones, as I want to focus on the lives and relationships of the characters, versus just an action fic like I normally do. Anyways, I hope that you enjoy this story and I look forward to your responses. Remember to stay safe and make smart choices. -Asianpon3-
Learning Curve
Canterlot Castle (9:00pm)
"Haha, take that Silentst-strider38. Your loot now belongs to me," an exhilarated Luna exclaimed. Pushing forward on her controller, Luna made her way over to the dead body of her victim and began to scavenge anything of value.
"I am most displeased. Almost nothing worth looting; what a pity," Luna commented, taking the only thing worthwhile and placing it into her inventory. Standing up from dead body, a loud and vicious noise rang through the headset and speakers of the flat-screen T.V. . A moment later, the entire screen was filled with an outer layer of red splotches, followed by the animation of Luna's character falling to the ground. The words 'You Are Dead' were shown clearly across the screen before diverting Luna back to the start menu of the multiplayer screen.
Before Luna could restart the multiplayer search, a few knocks came from her bedroom door, which resonated throughout her large room.
Standing up from her comfortable beanbag chair, Luna set down her controller and headset and made her way over to the door. A moment later, Luna opened the door to reveal Celestia standing in the doorway.
"Sister, I did not expect to see you here. Is there trouble?" Luna asked, followed by Celestia shaking her head with a warm smile on her face.
"There is not trouble to be found, rest assured Luna. Though I do need to talk to you about a few personal matters," Celestia added, causing Luna to tilt her head slightly, accompanied with a bemused expression.
"Personal matters. What ever do you mean?" Luna asked inquisitively. Celestia made her way into Luna's room before closing the door behind her. Celestia looked towards her sister before giving a heavy sigh.
"Dearest Luna. Please do not take this the wrong way, but I feel as if you may be troubled." Luna stared at Celestia with her bemused expression still adorning her face.
"Sister, I am not troubled. What would make you think that I would be?" Luna asked, Celestia sighing slightly before giving her response.
"Well, Luna, you have been gone for over a thousand years on the moon. When you came back to Equestria, I was so overjoyed. It was the happiest day of my life to see you again, as the real you. And even though you have done marvelously fitting back in with society, I do not think you have fully adjusted yet," Celestia claimed.
"And what do you mean by that sister?" Luna asked, a hint of distaste at that last part.
"Luna, please. I am just a little worried. All you do during your nights is sit in your room and play videogames with other random people over the Internet. Even though you might be socializing, it isn't the same as face to face."
"And your point with all of this is?" Luna asked.
"My point is that I want you to get out from your boring room and go meet some other people. Make some friends and socialize outside of videogames," Celestia recommended.
"And how would you suppose I do that sister?" Celestia smiled as her sister asked this question.
"For starters, I have enrolled you in the University of Canterlot," Celestia replied, receiving a daft stare from her sister.
"You what?" Luna yelled, transitioning into her Royal Canterlot Voice during the process.
"Calm down Luna, it is only three times a week at night. I have signed you up for two classes each night. You have Calculus from six to seven thirty, followed by Physics from eight to nine. Both of these classes will help improve your understanding of Equestria."
"Sister... how could you do something like this without my permission. Not only are you forcing me to do this against my will, but people will treat me differently because I'm a Princess," Luna commented, followed by Celestia smiling coyly at her sister once again.
"That would be the case if I had registered you with your real name. Since I figured you wouldn't want any special treatment, I registered you under an alias. Once you find yourself a disguise, it should be no problem at all to fit in with other college students. This will give you the perfect opportunity to make some friends and become accustomed to modern fashions and social habits," Celestia stated, starting to walk towards Luna's door.
"Classes start in one week Luna... or should I say, Crystal," Celestia corrected herself, stifling a little giggle as she exited her sister's room.
Luna stood motionless as she began to let the full reality of the situation sink in.
"I guess it wouldn't be so bad. After all, it's only two classes. How hard could they be?"
Two Weeks Later
"Arg! I'm not understanding any of this," A frustrated Luna shouted before falling back into her seat.
"I don't understand. How could subjects like this change so much while I was gone? It just doesn't make any sense," Luna sighed.
A few minutes had passed before there was a short knock on Luna's door. Luna didn't even have time to answer as Celestia walked through with a dinner tray levitating next to her.
"How goes the studying Luna?" A curious Celestia inquired. Just by looking at Luna, she could tell her sister was very frustrated.
"Not well at all sister. I thought I could handle this, but I never knew it would be this hard. This is all new material to me and I haven't the faintest idea of how to do any of it," Luna unwillingly admitted.
"Have you tried asking anyone from your classes for help? Or what about one of your friends?" Celestia inquired. Luna responded with a simple shake of her head.
"Oh. Ok Luna. Well, I will leave you to your studies. I just came by to say goodnight and to bring you some dinner." Celestia then levitated the dinner tray on top of Luna's desk before giving her sister a kiss on the head goodnight. With that, Celestia took her leave to let Luna focus on her schoolwork.
The Next Night
"Alright class. Please clear everything off of your desks, besides a calculator and something to write with. This will be your first quiz, and as such, you are allowed to work on it in groups as per usual with all my quizzes; though you may not use your notes or any electronic devices that may connect to the internet," a middle aged woman said, levitating a quiz in front of every student in the lecture hall. With one glance at the quiz, Luna cringed at what she saw.
An asteroid has an elliptical orbit around a planet with known mass of 9.54E29 kg. At the point closest to the planet along the asteroid's orbit, the asteroid has a velocity of 5.2E4 m/s and is a distance of 7E4 km away from the planet. At some point during the asteroid's orbit, it becomes 8.13E6 Km away from the planet. Using this information, calculate the velocity of asteroid at this new point. All work must be shown to receive credit. Explain how you arrived at this answer. (By the way, 5.2E4 is the same as 5.2 x 10^4. It is just easier to write it the other way, and when you start taking physics in college, you will see this notation used all the time.)
Luna continued to stare blankly at her paper, completely lost on how to solve this problem. Slowly looking over to her left, she noticed a young man, in his early twenties with jet-black hair, vigorously working the problem. What Luna thought was strange though, was not how quickly and fluently the young man worked through the problem, but the animal that was lying it's head across his lap. A German Sheppard, most likely around ten years of age, was quietly resting his head in his owner's lap. The animal continued to baffle Luna, all the while contemplating why the owner had brought his dog into the classroom.
Luna continued to stare at the two for another minute or so before the young man turned his attention to Luna with a small smile. Luna's face was tinted with the hint of a blush as she quickly turned her attention back to her quiz.
(Change of POV from third to first person.)
Standing up from my seat, I gently lowered my dog's head so that it rested steadily in the chair I was occupying. I then slowly made my way over to the girl that I had caught staring at me. Looking down at her paper, I noticed that she had not written anything down, and that she was trying her best to avoid an awkward situation, though this wouldn't stop me.
"Would you like some help?" I asked, taking a seat next to the girl, while trying to sound as polite as possible. The girl continued to stare down at her paper, the presence of a blush still noticeable on her half-tan skin, though she nodded at my offer.
"Alright then, do you know where to begin?" I asked, receiving a shake of the girl's head.
"Ok, well for this problem, we are going to be using the energy principle. Do you remember what that is?"
"I do. Isn't that where the change in energy of a system is equal to the work done by the system?" I nodded my head with a warm smile.
"That is it. And since the energy of a system is constant, what can we conclude about the work done on the system?" I asked, trying to only give certain pieces of information, but letting her figure the rest out herself.
"We... we get that the work done on the system is zero, correct?" I nodded in approval as a small smile found it's way across the girl's face.
"Now that we know the change in energy is equal to zero, we can set up our real equation, which would be?"
"It would be that Energy final is equal to Energy initial?"
"Yes. And from there we can break down the two energies even further. So we will now have..." I paused, giving the girl a chance to answer the question.
"We have that Kinetic final plus Potential final is equal to Kinetic initial plus Potential initial," Luna commented, sounding more confident in her answer than from the first two.
"Good. Now here is the tricky part. We have to solve for the velocity at point B on the orbit. Since the velocity for B is unknown, we are going to assign point B to be Kinetic initial plus Potential initial, and the other point be Kinetic final plus Potential final."
"Ok, I understand so far. So, since we know that at point A, the asteroid is closest to the planet, then that means we have all Kinetic energy in the system at that given point. So the equation will now be Kinetic energy at point A is equal to Kinetic energy at point B plus Potential energy at point B?" Luna asked aloud. I nodded my head in acknowledgement, as I could see the thought process slowly show itself from the girl.
"Oh, and from there we can cancel the masses of the asteroid and... oh!" Luna excitedly exclaimed, finally able to understand how the problem was supposed to be solved. I continued to watch as the girl excitedly wrote down step after step, with each moment coming closer to solving the problem. During this time, I couldn't help but sneak a few quick glances of the girl. One of her most notable features was her short blue hair, along with rather formal attire for class.
When the girl was finally finished, she circled her answer and looked back down at her work. Smiling after seeing her answer, I flipped my quiz paper over to help verify that she was right. When the girl looked over at my quiz, she was elated as both of our answers were identical.
"Yes! I finally understand. Thank you!" The girl yelled aloud, receiving many questionable stares from the people around her. I just decided to go with it and smiled back with a light chuckle.
"You are welcome, Miss...?"
"Crystal. My name is Crystal."
"Crystal, I will remember that. Name's Gear," I said, holding out my hand and shaking Crystal's right hand.
With Crystal able to understand the problem, I let her think about the explanation part, even though we verbally walked her through each step, for the most part.
"Well, it was fun miss Crystal. I will see you Friday during class," I said, walking away from the girl and over towards my loyal companion. With a gentle rub of Apollo's side, the dog instantly woke from his nap he had been partaking in since the very beginning of class.
"Come on boy, time to go," I said, slinging my backpack over my shoulder and grabbing Apollo's leash. Apollo happily began to wag his tail as he led me down the stairs and to the front of the lecture hall, where I placed my paper face down on top of the many other quizzes that had already been turned in. Smiling towards my teacher, I bid her a goodnight before making my way out of the classroom and towards the parking lot.
A few minutes had gone by, as I was leisurely strolling through campus with Apollo happily wagging his tail, until I heard a voice from behind. I stopped and turned to see a familiar person running up to me.
"Oh, Crystal... hi?" I said, not sure why she was running after me. As soon as the girl met me, she slouched over slightly, with her hands on her knees for support and began to catch her breath as I continued to stand in front of her. Another minute went by before the girl was looking up at me with a normal breathing rate.
"I just wanted to say thank you again for helping me out on that quiz. This stuff is just so hard to learn," she commented, receiving a light chuckle from myself.
"I agree. It takes me around four to five hours a night to do all my Physics homework. Then after that, I have to do my calculus homework," I said, Crystal beaming with joy as she heard that I was taking Calculus.
"You are taking Calculus as well?" she asked. I nodded my head in confirmation before she smiled at me again.
"Awesome. Hey, I was wondering... would you like to maybe, help me with calculus and physics?" Crystal asked. I stared at Crystal for a moment before shaking my head.
"I'm sorry, but I can't. I have almost no free time as it is. I have work early in the mornings, till around five in the afternoon. After that, I grab something quick to eat and come straight here for my classes," I told Crystal, seeing the happiness in her facial expression flatten a little.
"Oh, ok. Just forget I asked then. Anyways, thank you again for helping me tonight. I will see you in class Friday," Crystal said, starting to walk off, but I stopped her.
"Hey, wait." At this, Crystal turned around to face me again.
"Tell you what. I only work morning shift on Fridays. That means I usually get to school a few hours earlier than normal. If you would like, I could meet you in the library from around four to five thirty in the afternoon? How does that sound?" I asked, seeing Crystal beam with joy again.
"That would be most helpful. Thank you so much," she said, breathing somewhat of a sigh of relief.
"Ok then. I will see you in the library at around four. I am usually on the third floor near the back stairwell. I will have Apollo here with me as well, so you can't miss us," I said, giving Apollo a pat on the side as he let out a bark of confirmation. Crystal giggled lightly and a sincere smile adorned her face.
"Thank you. I will be sure to see you at four on Friday then," Crystal said, watching as I smiled back at her and nodded my head.
"Alright. Well, see you then Crystal," I said, turning around and beginning to walk towards the parking lot with Apollo walking along side of me.
Crystal continued to stand and watch as I walked away. Smiling to herself, she barely noticed that she was awkwardly standing in the middle of the sidewalk, watching as I walked away. Another blush soon adorned her face as she began to walk towards the nearest building and into the girls' bathroom. Making sure that nobody else was occupying a stall, or in the general vicinity, Crystal's hands began to glow as a blue aura of magic encased the Princess. Once the magic fully encased Crystal, her eyes glowed a bright blue before she disappeared from the campus.