It was a Monday morning, and Mind Palace was walking from his home to school. He had heard some interesting things through social media (which, despite his aversion to it, he kept tabs on) over the weekend, namely that there would be a new student attending the school. As he did with everyone he met, he planned to create basic profile of this new student, as one never knows when that information will be needed.
Looking up from his phone to cross the street, he saw Flame standing on the sidewalk, ready to cross the street.
"OH, hi Mind Palace! Did you have a good weekend?" she asked as they crossed the street.
"Yup. Not much happened, but it was quite relaxing," he replied. In truth, he often enjoyed school days as much as weekends (a quality not many people understood), so, though weekends were relaxing, they lacked the enjoyment and activities of a classroom.
"Hey, did you hear about the new student?", Flame asked as they walked through the campus gates. Of course, she knows about the new student, Mind Palace thought. Her circle of friends was much larger than his, after all.
"Yes, I did actually. I wonder what they'll be like," he replied. Looking around, he saw a student he didn't recognize. Pointing the student, a girl, out to Flame, he said, "In fact, isn't that her?"
The first thing Flame noticed about the girl she saw as her head turned was her eyes. They were a piercing green, with dark pupils. The eyes looked cold, calculating. She had seen the same look on Mind Palace whenever she played chess with him. The rest of her was just as intimidating: she was tall, with dark gray, nearly black, skin. She had dark cerulean hair, that flowed down to her back. She wore a dress, which was the same electric green as her eyes, along with a belt, which was dark cerulean, and black heeled boots, outlined with dark cerulean, same as her hair and belt. That, along with the green eye shadow, green lipstick, and black arm warmers, seemed to have one, unanimous purpose: to show that she was not to be trifled with.
This message was enhanced by her body language, which Flame picked up on quite quickly. Her posture was perfect, and she walked with purposeful but unhurried strides, like she knew what she was doing, but didn't care much. Her eyes, which Flame already noticed before, appeared to be constantly scanning everyone, scanning them from top to bottom.
As Flame analyzed her body language, Mind Palace analyzed the more obvious parts about her. After all, everyone was quite predictable: it was all this to that, cause and effect, ones and zeroes. Her makeup was perfectly applied, meaning she spent a lot of time on it. She wore the 'evil queen' style clothes very well, as if she chose them with extreme care. This meant she put heavy emphasis on social interactions. He recognized the brand of the belt she was wearing: it was a very high-quality belt, which cost quite a bit. So, social and wealthy enough to back it up. Her bag, though stylish, appeared to be next to empty, meaning she cared more for friends than doing well in academics (unless she had put her books in the lockers over the weekend, but she didn't seem to be that type of person). When she pulled out her smartphone to check the time, Mind Palace noticed the brand: it was the very expensive, overly popular type. It was popular among, well, the popular kids, but people like Mind Palace hated them: those phones were notorious for being impossible to play around with. What you saw was what you got: no rooting or hacking.
After the quick analysis, Flame turned her head back to Mind Palace. "Should we go say hi?" before he could even open his mouth ti say "no", she grabbed his arm and pulled him backward, toward the girl.
Mind Palace sighed. Figures. Though Flame kept to herself quite a bit (a trait she and Mind Palace shared), she was definitely not antisocial. She knew the importance of getting to know other people, even if she might not talk to them much afterward. Mind Palace on the other hand, would have just avoided her. There wasn't even any assurance they would meet after this.
As they reached her, Flame let go of Mind Palace. They settled to a walk alongside her for a few moments before Flame cleared her throat and said, "Hi there!"
The girl looked up from her phone (she had begun to check her texts) and replied, "Hello, who might you be?"
"I'm Flame, this is Mind Palace. What's you name?" Flame asked.
"Chrysalis," she replied. As she said it, she smirked slightly, as if savoring the sound of her own name. "I'm a new student here."
Flame smiled. "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you two as well," she replied. "I'd like to make some friends as quickly as possible. After all, connections are everything."
At this point, the school bell rang, signaling that classes were to start in five minutes. Flame and Mind Palace waved goodbye to the girl and began to walk quicker. As they hurried to their respective classes, they each thought about the girl they had just met. Though she was nice enough on the outside, even suggesting that they were friends, they both felt like they had missed something about the girl.
Come lunch time, they realized what they had missed.
When the bell rang signifying the end of lunch time, the four Service Club members met at the same table, as they had grown accustomed to doing. They struck up a small conversation, talking about the random things that popped into their head (Their conversations were often quite weird. Topics ranged from aliens to the zombie apocalypse). As they ate, the discussion moved to the new girl.
"Me and Flame met her earlier. She seemed okay." Mind Palace said, sipping his coffee.
Frost looked up from his phone (He appeared to be reading a guide. Mind Palace glanced at the screen: 'Zer0 sniper build' was displayed on it.) "Okay? Usually, when people say that, things aren't actually okay."
Mind Palace shrugged. "I don't know, something about her seemed off."
It was as at this point in their conversation that Chrysalis entered the cafeteria. She was already surrounded by quite a few people: she seemed to be the type of person who made friends quickly. As she walked towards the counter to get her meal, Derpy who had been carrying her food back to her own table, befitting her name, tripped, losing a grip on the food tray she was holding.
Unfortunately, Derpy picked that day to eat chicken, gravy, and mashed potatoes.
The tray splattered onto Chrysalis' dress, smearing it with food. Derpy looked up, and seeing what she had done, began to apologize"
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to," she said. Getting up, she moved to try and clean Chrysalis' dress up.
The look Chrysalis gave her was terrifying, at least to someone like Derpy. "Get away from me, freak! Do you know how expensive this dress it?" she said, pushing Derpy away. Derpy reddened and looked down.
"I-I'm sorry, it w-was and accident," she said, ashamed. She had always been clumsy, and it always seemed to land her in situations like this. Chrysalis looked at her, the green in her eyes taking a deadly tone.
"You better be sorry, moron. What, your eyes too screwed up for you to see where you're going?" Chrysalis said in a cutting voice. She started toward Derpy, looking as if she was about to shove her. Before she could, however, a hand grabbed her wrist.
"That's enough, Chrysalis," said Flame. During the interaction, she had made her way up towards them. She knew how these things turned out. After all, she had seen her fair share of bullies.
Chrysalis turned towards her, anger in her eyes. "Let me go. That idiot is going to get what she deserves."
"Derpy is not an idiot," Flame said, not letting go. " And I'm not going to let you hurt her."
Chrysalis considered the situation. Seeing that it would be unwise to continue, she pulled her hand free and took a step back. However, the anger in her eyes did not subside.
"You're going to regret making me your enemy," she said. With that, she turned and left the cafeteria, her group of friends following her.
After the encounter in the cafeteria, Flame had accompanied Derpy to the Principal's office, with the rest of the Club following her. They were walking from the office now, and the discussion was about the new student.
Each of them had encountered bullies before, to varying degrees. And they all hated them. To see a new one enter the school was saddening, to say the least.
"Great, a bully. As if this school needed more of them," said Frost bitterly. "I hope Principal Celestia expels her."
"Unlikely," Mind Palace replied. "It's only her first day, and she didn't do anything to warrant a full-blown expulsion. Plus, this girl seems like someone who can manipulate people to her liking. Did you see how many friends she had around her?"
Summer frowned. "So, you're saying the Principal won't do anything to her?"
"No, no. The Principal is a smart woman. She will probably keep an eye on Chrysalis for a while, meaning Chrysalis won't do anything as big as this for a while. But, once this subsides, I think we can expect more bullying."
"So, what do we do?" Flame asked. "We can't just let this slide."
"We have to. It's up to the school to decide what to do with her. We can report anything we see her do, but we aren't allowed to take direct action against her," Mind Palace replied. He pushed up his glasses. "We, sadly, have to stand by. No hero work."
School ended, and the Service Club went there separate ways for the day. Hours passed, and, for a time, the school was lifeless except for a few guards, the night laying undisturbed.
Then, a figure darted across the road in front of the school. Dressed in a dark blue jacket with the hood turned up, the figure stealthily made it's way through the school's front grounds. Crouching behind the statue (famous for its role as a supposed portal to another dimension), the figure took out a phone from the messenger bag it had. Connecting to the school's wifi, the figure pressed a button marked 'SCAN' on the phone's screen. After a minute or so, several numbers were listed on the screen. The figure then pressed the button marked 'DEACTIVATE'.
Around the school, security camera lights blinked off. Putting the phone back, the figure ran up to the school's entrance, knowing it wouldn't take long for the school's guards to realize that they're screens were fine and that it was the cameras that were off. Picking the lock to the entrance (three tumblers: child's play.), the figure entered the school, closing the doors behind itself. Running through the halls as quietly as possible, the figure finally found the door marked 'Principal's Office".
Opening the door (slightly harder to pick, but still doable), the figure took out a laptop from it's bag. Connecting a cable from the laptop to the Principal's computer, the laptop prompted it for a password. After an hour, the laptop's brute force program cracked the password (interestingly, the password was 'Luna my Love'. The figure decided to investigate further when it had the time.), and the principal's files were it's for the taking. As the figure searched through the files, it found what it was looking for: the file titled 'Student profile: Chrysalis 'Queen' Quinessa'
As the files copied to it's computer, the faint glow of the screen illuminated the figures face, which had a smug smile on it.
"No, Chrysalis, Flame won't regret making an enemy of you. You'll regret threatening my friend," said Mind Palace, pushing up his glasses.