Spike walked down the hall debating whether or not he should go to class. It was his first day and he wanted to make a good impression, but still he felt funky after seeing Sweetie Belle so vulnerable.
He always thought of himself as tough, not super tough, but tough enough...but Sweetie, and now that he thought about it the other two, going through stuff like this day after day. Applebloom struggling to pay attention and slow down, Scootaloo dealing with her wheelchair, and Sweetie Belle needing to be careful or else she would just go down.
And on top of all of that the bullying that he assumed they received from those other girls. They were probably the toughest girls that he knew.
He decided that he might as well finish off the day. Right before the bell rang signaling the end of class he got to the science wing and the right classroom. He was the first one in, the teacher looked up briefly before waving him to a seat. Spike sat behind a pile of lab equipment, and a chart of how to best use it without blowing up the room.
The rest of the class filed in. Near the front and making her way towards him was Applebloom, she sat down heavily beside him making the stool screech against the linoleum.
"Hey." He said in greeting.
"Hey, were you there when Sweetie went down? Is she okay?"
"Yeah from the last time I saw her, she was sleeping it off in the nurses office." Applebloom nodded her head, almost as if agreeing to what he was saying.
"So when you guys were put into the course did you know what was...different about each of you?" Applebloom thought for a bit before answering.
"No we knew each other a little bit before hand so that helped a bit. I guess we focused a little bit more on it; seeing as that was the entire point of being in the courses."
The teacher called for attention and began to go over the rules in a monotone, clearly bored by what they were teaching. Spike took out a pencil and paper and began to scribble down what was being said. After around twenty minutes he stopped to rest his hand, he looked over at Applebloom and was surprised to see that she was still going hard at it. The notes might be messy and the words scrunched together but it looked as if she were getting every word down, she stared down at the page intently her pencil flying over it.
In her other hand she was furiously squeezing and depressing the stress ball that she carried around, the poor little thing looked as if it were ready to pop open from the abuse she was feeding it. The teacher paused and began to demonstrate the experiment for the day, once it was done he started to walk around the room looking over other students shoulders and making them uncomfortable.
Spike flipped on his safety glasses before he began to carefully mix the contents on his table for their experiment.
"What's with the ball anyway?" He asked pouring some sort of purple looking chemical in with a green and white speckled one, he had not payed any attention to the names.
"It helps me focus, Cheerilee gave it to me a few years back and it's been helping me ever since. I use up all of my excess energy on that and my mind is free to pay attention to whatever is happening in the room. That's how it works for me anyways." She was still taking down notes and measurements as she spoke, her hand repeatedly depressing the ball.
The girl had enough stamina for a hundred college football players. Spike was wildly impressed.
Applebloom paused and sniffed the air.
"Do you smell something?"
A massive boom came from the back of the classroom, rattling the glass in their panes and causing the equipment all the way at the front of the room to clink together. The two teens looked behind them. Sitting in the immediate splash zone were a soot stained Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara who both looked viciously angry. In ground zero sat the two funny looking boys Spike had seen in homeroom, most of their hair and eyebrows were gone, their shirts were torn apart and all of the equipment on their table was destroyed. Standing next to them was a very cross teacher.
"Snips, Snails. Office. Now."
"How was I supposed to know that we weren't supposed to shake it?!" Shouted the shorter of the two as the teacher escorted them out.
"Those two, they have mush for brains is what they've got." Applebloom said rolling her eyes.
"Does that happen often?"
"This school averages an explosion and/or disaster a week, get used to it." The country girl said as she went back to her notes. Spike shrugged and got back to the mixture which was only supposed to change colors. He heard a snort come from behind him.
"Hmmph most of those emergencies are caused by you spaz." Applebloom pretended not to hear and kept on scribbling. Spike looked behind him to see the two girls furiously wiping at their clothing. Diamond Tiara frowned at being ignored.
"I was talking to you nutcase."
"Well I wasn't listening." Applebloom snapped back.
"Well you should, people of your...kind really should start doing the rest of us favors and do what we ask. Or is a task like that just too much for a simple country folk?"
Spike looked back at Applebloom hoping to get some sort of response. She just gritted her teeth and kept on working. Diamond Tiara gave one more huff and returned to her own work.
"Man what a brat." Spike said as he finished off the concoction.
"Bad parenting is my guess." She responded before closing her notebook and the discussion. She then looked at Spike for a moment before grinning.
"Hey me and the others are going to get something sweet after school, you up for joining us?" Spike thought for a second before he grinned.
"I think I can fit you into my busy schedule somewhere."