//------------------------------// // Day 2: New School, New Friends // Story: The Story of Emerald Key // by Golden Flare //------------------------------// Emerald groaned as Celestia's sun shone in through his window, waking him up from Dream Land, the only place that he can go to get away from this "One-horse Town", as he calls it. "Emeeeeerald, breakfast is reeeeeaaaaaaady!" Topaz cheerfully called for him. "Uggggggggh." Emerald moaned as he tried to get out of bed. "I wish this was a nightmare, at least I can wake up from nightmares and be glad that it wasn't happening. AT ALL!!!" Emerald thought to himself. Emerald came out of his room and lazily walked into the kitchen, where on the table awaits a stack of pancakes drenched in maple syrup. Emerald rushed to the table like a flash the moment he saw his breakfast and he began chowing down like Nightmare Moon was going to take it away from him. Amber came into the kitchen soon after Emerald did, he stopped for a second to scowl at his sister and she winced a little bit, Emerald soon resumed eating. "Oh! Morning, Amber!" Topaz said. "Your dad just went to work and Emerald has to go to school, it's his first day at Ponyville Elementary! So it'll just be us girls!" "Yeah. Great." Emerald commented. Emerald finished his breakfast, grabbed his saddlebags, and headed to school. And he was dreading this the entire time. He made to the schoolhouse and was stopped by the schoolteacher, Cheerilee. "You must be the new student, Emerald Key, right? Wait here while I introduce you to the class." Cheerilee said. "Oh goodie, another problem to add to my ever-growing list. Now, a bunch of kids, who live in this terrible place, are gonna know who I am and make me into some kind of lame farm colt. This is going to be like living in Tartarus." Emerald thought to himself. Everypony in the classroom were chattering away until their teacher spoke up, there was hardly any students in class that day. "Attention, everypony!" Cheerilee called out. "Today, we have a new student joining us, and he's come all the way from Manehattan!" "Heh, I betcha whoever it is has GOT to be a stuck up snob." an orange Pegasus filly commented. "Yeah! Ah heard from ma sister that TONS ah ponies there are jus' like that!" a yellow earth pony filly agreed. "Let's hope whoever it is isn't like that at all." a white unicorn filly stated. "Fillies and gentlecolts, please welcome, Emerald Key!" Cheerilee introduced. Emerald walked into the classroom with extreme caution, hoping that nopony would pounce on him for being a city colt. "Oh... ma stars." the yellow earth pony filly said, staring at him with an unreadable look. "Now Emerald, why don't you tell everypony a little bit about yourself?" Cheerilee asked. "How bout we start with why you moved HERE, of all places, for a city boy like you? Had enough of the FANCY big city, and all it's FANCINESS?" the orange filly suggested. Out of nowhere, she was gripped by a yellow magical aura and pulled close to Emerald. "SAY THAT AGAIN!!!!" Emerald shouted. "Emerald! Put Scootaloo down!" Cheerilee chastised. Emerald soon realized what he did and let his magic die down. "I-I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me." Emerald apologized. "It's all good." Scootaloo said, walking back to her desk. "I can't believe I just did that." Emerald thought to himself. "Well, to answer your question... Scootaloo, right?" Emerald said. "Yup." Scootaloo replied. "Anyway, the reason I'm here is that my dad switched jobs." Emerald said, answering the question from before. "Well, that's not so bad." the white filly said. "Who does your dad work for?" "Um, some guy named, 'Filthy Rich'." Emerald replied. "WHAT?!!" the three screeched in unison. Emerald flinched instantly. "That's Diamond Tiara's dad!" the yellow filly said. "Oh, that's just prefect! Another colt who's gonna suffer!" the white filly commented. "If you need any help, I will back you up 100 percent!!" Scootaloo stated. "Right, girls?" "Right!" the yellow filly and white filly agreed. "Oh, um, my name's Sweetie Belle." the white filly said. "Um... My name's Apple Bloom." the yellow filly said, blushing slightly. "..." Emerald stood there, completely silent, just staring at them. "Guess this place is a little different from what I imagined it would be. At least now I have some friends to help me through this." Emerald thought to himself. "Ok! Um, Emerald, could you take your seat?" Cheerilee said. Emerald nodded and walked up to the seat next to Apple Bloom and sat down. "Ok, class, today we'll studying about..." The day progressed quicker than Emerald had expected. Amber came to the schoolhouse to pick Emerald up, along with a rainbow-maned Pegasus, a purple curly-haired unicorn, and an orange earth pony with a cowgirl hat. "You must be the new girl, I'm Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in all of Equestria!" the rainbow-maned Pegasus said, introducing herself. "I'm Applejack, nice ta meet ya!" the orange earth pony introduced herself as well. "I'm Rarity, charmed." the white unicorn did the same. "Hello, I'm Amber Shine." Amber said. The school bell rang and the few kids that showed up left the schoolhouse. "Hey, Applejack!" Apple Bloom said. "Hi, Rarity!" Sweetie Belle said. "Sup, Rainbow Dash?" Scootaloo said. Emerald just walked past the three fillies. "Hey there, Emerald! I see you made some new friends." Amber said. "Keep your mouth shut." Emerald said as he walk past his sister. Everypony just stared him in shock by what he said. "What was THAT all about?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Emerald's mad at me." Amber answered. "Whatever for, Amber?" Rarity asked. "I've teased him since he was a little kid." Amber answered. Rainbow Dash facehoofed. "I never thought I was hurting his feelings! I was just playing around!" Amber defended. "Right now, I'm trying to think of a way to make it up to him." "Well, good luck with that." Applejack said. "We'll probably see ya tomorrow, bye!" With that, everypony went back home. Amber was walking back to her house while gathering her thoughts. "Emerald's pretty peeved off at me, which means I'm gonna need to do something REALLY special for him. But what? None of my ideas are good enough to cheer him up, and he's getting even madder every day! I need to brainstorm ten times harder than before if I'm going to-" "Oof!" Amber exclaimed as she walked right into the door of her house. "Heh-heh, oopsie." She opened the door with her magic and walked in. Emerald took the long way around to avoid her sister and went in the house a few minutes after Amber did. When he did, he saw an unfamiliar sight. "Ah, Emerald, you're home." Mineral said. "Son, meet my temporary boss, Filthy Rich." "Nice to meet you, Emerald." Filthy Rich said, holding his hoof out. Emerald reached out, grabbed his hoof, and shook it. He then went back to his room. "Not much of a talker, is he?" Filthy asked. "He's still upset about the move." Topaz replied. "I see." Filthy said. "I would be too, if I had to leave behind my hometown, my friends, a lot of things that I care for." "That's the thing," Topaz began, "his friends told him that Ponyville was a 'One-horse Town', but I don't understand why, this place seems pretty peaceful, definitely a refreshing change from the hustle and bustle of a big city like Manehattan, that's for sure." "That's the high-class for you, they hate anything regarding the lower class. ANYTHING." Filthy replied. "Wow." Mineral said. "Glad we got outta there, huh?" "Yup." Filthy said. "You seem like a nice guy, I look forward to see you at work. Good night!" "Good night, Mr. Rich!" Mineral called. "Finally! Somepony who says my name right! I think we'll get along just fine, Mineral Stone." Filthy thought to himself. Amber sat in her room, writing in her journal, Day 2, Thursday, September 16 Dear Diary, I spent my day helping mom with a lot of the chores at our new house, we managed to get the place cleaned up before everyone got home. Unfortunately, Emerald's still mad at me, and I'm still trying to think of how I can lift his spirits. I'm sure something will come to me. Amber Shine