There is no greater despair to be felt by a young scholar than that of hearing the teacher say "Pass up your homework!" and being empty-hooved. Of course I forgot to do my homework. I had zero time to do it the night before! Geez... I bet if those teachers had homework like we had, they'd be complaining just as much.

I passed over the stack of handouts from the pony behind me to Lightweight in front who somehow managed to do hers. No clue how that happened, but oh well. My backpack still had the archaic spell book that Twilight gave me, but there was something different about it from the night before. After pulling out my magic history one-oh-one textbook, the only other textbook in my bag, the spell book opened up slightly and I saw a loose piece of paper sticking out from the middle of its pages.

I had nothing better to do at the moment; all the homework was still being passed up, so I humored myself and took it out. My heart filled with glittery explosions when I saw what it was.

It was a fully completed copy of the homework handout, fully answered with neat hoof-writing. There was a smaller paper taped to it, though. I had to squint to focus on the tiny words written on it.

At first, I was worrying over whether or not the answers were right, but my conscience was sealed once I saw who initialed the note. There's no way Twilight would get any of these wrong... Right?

I quickly passed the paper up, nearly forgetting to turn it in due to how surprised I was at the whole ordeal. I had to tap Lightweights shoulder to get her attention. It was almost as if she wasn't even worried about me since she apparently knew I didn't do it.

That's right, old fart... I glared at the teacher and gave a triumphant smirk as I talked to him in my head. I've got Twilight on my side now.

My vengeful mental ranting derailed as Lightweight swung her mane from the left side to her right, giving me a heavenly whiff of the same coconut shampoo I smelled on her the first time we met. It was almost enough to make my eyes roll back in my head and I wouldn't have been surprised if she did that little stunt on purpose just to tease me.

"Alright..." The teacher mumbled to himself whilst stacking the papers neatly on his desk and then slicking back his old grey mane. "So today, I won't be lecturing-"

Half the class uttered a hushed "Yes!" which made the professor stop and clear his throat deliberately. His aged eyes stared at us through his reading glasses harshly.

"I won't be lecturing today... But instead, we're required to give diagnostic testing. There are two parts to this examination: a written portion and a field portion. Both of them will determine where you all are in terms of aptitude and skill."

He got up from his desk and started passing out papers to the front row students who all took one and sent the rest back.

"These will not be counted as a grade on your total class score, but please do try your best at answering each question as if it did."

My first instinct, as I pulled out my own paper out of the stack of many and passed it on, was to just answer with meaningless and mindless responses so I wouldn't have to bore myself with it, but it was an instinct that I had developed during High school: a place where I learned nothing and that I didn't care for. This was different. This school actually meant something to me, not only then, but to this day.

I looked at the first question, a quill already in hoof. It was a true/false question, easy enough to begin with.

"The first and most important priority for healing magic is to make your healing spells as powerful as possible."

Wow, really? I thought to myself and smirked, imagining what moron would actually have trouble with it.

On the black space to the right, I wrote "false" and moved on. The second question wasn't as soft-ball.

"Historically, fire spells have been the most effective in combat."

It felt like a trick question. I knew for a fact that there wasn't just one type of spell that trumped the rest; all types of spells excelled in specific circumstances and they all had weaknesses that went with them. Though, fire spells were commonly known to get out of hoof and create disasters.

I answered "false" again to be safe. When I was young, my mom and dad both told me that my first guess to a question was usually the best one and that I should trust my intuition, so that's exactly what I did.

Third question. It was multiple choice this time, which still wasn't as bad as fill-in-the-blank. "Approximately how many joules does an average lightning spell produce?"

There was no point in reading the possible answers because I had no clue. I knew that normal lightning that came from the sky was somewhere between two and eight billion, but magic lightning was totally different.

You know that one question on a test that makes you think "Oh shit... I should've studied more..."? Yeah. That was that question. I took a deep breath and tried to reassure myself that none of it counted. Still I felt terrible for not knowing something so simple, especially since it had to do with lightning magic.

And, of course, Lightweight was already halfway through her test.

You know that feeling when you're ninety-eight hardball questions into an exam and you don't know if you have the mental fortitude to answer the last two? I was feeling that right about then. I stopped thinking about the right answer to questions I didn't know about halfway through. Since I had no clue, I figured that thinking about it would just be a waste of time.

The last question, even though I was expecting it to be a propaganda-like question such as: "Do you like C.A.A.M.?" or something like that, was fairly simple in and of itself, and even with the worn down mentality that I had, I was able to answer it effectively enough. I let out a sigh and put down my quill, leaning back into my chair and closing my eyes. A quarter of the way through the test, the questions became fill-in-the-blank: infamously known to all students everywhere as the worst thing to ever happen to exams.

Lightweight had her head down on her desk with her front hooves serving as a make-shift pillow. I couldn't tell if she was asleep, but I figured it was possible since she finished so long ago.

"Times up. Please put your quills down and pass your papers to the front." The professor called out within two minutes of me finishing.

As I turned back halfway to take the papers from everyone behind me, I realized that Lightweight still hadn't picked her head up yet.

"Psst." I gestured whilst tapping the back of her shoulder gently.

Her body jolted as if she awoke from a falling dream and her head turned left and right. I couldn't help but chuckle under my breath at how cute the sight was. She hastily turned and realized what was going on, taking my stack of papers as I winked at her.

"Now that that's done and good, we'll move on to the practical portion. Everyone please stand and follow me."

We all did so and I helped Lightweight up since she obviously was in need of it; she was so drowsy that I could almost smell it on her. I had no clue as to why, though. Since we were so close in bed, I would've known if she wasn't able to sleep the night before. Or, maybe she was too excited to sleep and just didn't tell me? I didn't blame her either way.

I had to help her up from her desk a little, but it wasn't long before we were out of the classroom and following the professor down the halls and out into the cold air and cloudy skies.

There were already some ponies from other classes doing the drill we were about to do; some were levitating things while others were throwing their magic at targets whilst professors were behind them taking careful notes.

"You nervous?" I asked Lightweight quietly as a couple of loud *boom!*s made us flinch.

"Well, a little..."

"It's alright; I guess... Think of them as a way for them to figure out what you need to work on." I don't know why I was being so patronizing. I was jumpy, too.

We formed a line behind the students that were currently going through their test and it was then that we started to understand what we needed to do. From what I saw, there were four parts. On my left, we were going to balance a heavy object and see how long we could keep it in a certain area. There were several sizes of rock lined up next to each other with a ginormously huge one behind it that I thought not even Twilight could lift. Next to that, there was a station with several targets in front of it at varying distances that I assumed would test accuracy, another next to that with some sort of strange orb that ponies were shooting powerful spells at, and a final one where ponies were just doing.... Well, I didn't know what they were doing. To me, all they were doing is spamming a bunch of random spells at things.

After a minute or two, the students in front of us walked off with their professor looking exhausted.

"Now class, those students were all going at once. Would you rather go one at a time so we can... Push my lecturing back a few minutes?"

All my class mates replied with a unanimous "yes!” I guessed that the teacher didn't want to lecture just as much as we didn't want to listen to it.

"Very well!" He said with a hearty laugh. "Let's see... First up is Afterburner. Step up, if you please."

Oh, this'll be interesting...

This guy sounded like a hotshot with no bite and all bark and, like most fire mages, I figured he'd cast two really powerful spells and then pass out.

His levitation skills weren't great, but that was to be expected from somepony that specialized in fire magic. He couldn't even lift one of the fifty pound rocks for a couple of seconds before putting it down. There was some snickering, but he seemed to ignore it well enough and move on. The targets on the next part were at ten, twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred yards respectively and his small fireballs hit the first two decently. At the two further targets, he didn't even come close. I even heard somepony in the background yelling to put a fire out after he was done, which caused us all to laugh.

The third test was apparently some sort of spell power test. When he shot a larger fireball at it, the white glowing orb absorbed it and turned a light shade of orange. From my intuition, I guessed that it absorbed the spell and showed how powerful it was via colors. If that assumption was correct, the spell he cast was pretty powerful.

"Very good, Afterburner. Euh... Ah! Angel Scratch is next."

I gulped, not realizing how early I'd go until just then and frankly, feeling a little annoyed that he didn't say "Angel Bolt" instead. The grass felt even colder when I stepped up to the first lane and I took a deep breath, staring at the same rock Afterburner couldn't handle.

I grunted as I picked it up, but once I got it in the air, it was easy enough to maintain. I even managed to pick up another fifty pound rock and hold it next to the other one, but I got tired from that pretty quickly and put them down slowly.

"Very good, Angel. On to the next one, please."

The professor’s voice snapped me out of my hesitation and I moved over.

Yes! I grinned to myself as I looked at the targets, reassured because of my training the night before.

Without waiting too long, I charged up a bolt and sent it flying at the first target and then quickly followed it up with a second one at the twenty-five meter target. Both of them hit pretty much dead center. I had to concentrate a second or two before trying the farther ones.

Another bolt charged up; another hit. This time, it was a couple inches high and right. I was beginning to realize that was how I usually missed. Nevertheless, I shook it off and took a deep breath, trying to focus on the farthest one. I could barely even see the bulls-eye on it, but I let a bolt fly anyway. I know I shouldn't have, but instead of trying to straighten my bolt, I compensated by aiming a foot low and left.

"Whoa!" Somepony behind me couldn't contain his awe as I punched a four inch hole right through the middle of the 100 yard target. I felt my insides bursting with enthusiasm and joy as I moved to the next one.

It'd been a long time since I went all-out with one of my bolts, so I was looking forward to putting my all in to this one. I licked my lips and charged up a big bolt, then let it fly right into the center of the orb. To be honest, it would've missed if it was more than five yards away, but it didn't really need to do much aiming because of how close it was.

A large arc, about two feet thick, cracked into the orb and it vibrated a little before turning orange. It was a darker shade of orange than Afterburner's, so I was content.

I started to come up with some spells that weren't lightning spells and I had to admit, despite my criticism of that fire mage earlier, I had trouble coming up with any.

I looked down at the ground and cast one of the few odd spells I was good at; an enlarging spell at a butterfly that was resting on the grass. It grew and grew until it became a little larger than the diameter of a basketball. I was pleased enough with the results, but I knew I couldn't stop there. I-

"Time's up!"

"Wait, what?! Already? Come on, you're kidding me!" Admittedly, I was a little upset since I only got to cast one spell at the last station. It'd definitely take points off.

The professor didn't respond, though, and I grumbled a little as I stepped down to Afterburner to the right of everypony else. I tossed my bangs to the side in frustration.

"Hey, that was awesome!" Afterburner turned and whispered to me.

Wait, what? Did a fire mage just give me a compliment?!

"Oh, Thanks." I didn't really know what to say since I was taken aback. Everything about him, his red slicked back retro red mane, a flame cutie mark on his orange fur... Everything yelled out "pretentious douchebag", but his tone of voice and his smile as I looked at him just... Didn't fit.

"Where did you learn that size changing spell?"

I tried to return a slight smile to be polite. "One of my friends in middle school taught me."

"I wish I could do that. But I guess that's to be expected from somepony like you." He shook his head and looked down. "I made a fool of myself up there."

"Oh come on, you weren't that bad." I said despite my thoughts while he was performing. "I've seen worse, trust me."

He stayed silent as we both watched Backdraft try the course. He performed about the same as Afterburner, but a little worse.

"Hey, you know, to be honest, you're not really as bad as I thought you were."

"Huh?" I turned back to Afterburner.

"I thought you'd be pretty stuck up and spoiled rotten because of your parents... But you seem pretty cool. I guess I shouldn't have assumed." He held out his hoof to me. "Afterburner. I guess we never got formally introduced."

Wow... He's pretty polite, too.

I shook his hoof and smiled. "Angel Bolt."

We both giggled a little as Backdraft completely missed the orb that was five feet in front of him.

"So, you like Angel Bolt or Angel Scratch more? I don't wanna offend you or anything..."

"What? Oh, nah. It's no big deal. I kinda prefer Bolt, though since I kinda want my parents to be kept a secret as much as possible."

"Cool. Yeah, I can imagine that'd get pretty annoying after a while." He smirked with a voice that hinted that either had a throat cold or he had just hit puberty yesterday.

"I know, right?" I rolled my eyes.

There was only a few ponies left and Lightweight was up next. She looked super nervous.

"You got this, Light!" I cheered and she turned to wave with an awkward geeky smile that I couldn't help but chuckle at. It seemed as if her level of cuteness knew no bounds.

"That your friend?" Afterburner asked me as the rest of the class talked up a storm behind us.

"Hm? Yeah." I smiled, not wanting to give any more information than I needed to. Didn't want to telegraph the whole school that I had a thing for her.

I chose to ignore the fact that he was obviously ogling her.

When I looked back, I could see why the other students were talking so much; Lightweight was lifting up the one huge boulder that was easily twenty times her weight.

"Holy shit!" I couldn't help spurting out.

A single bead of sweat trickled down the back of her neck but other than that, it almost seemed as if she wasn't putting forth any effort whatsoever. Once she put it down, she let out a sigh and moved on to the targets. Everypony around me went silent.

I had been wondering for a while what she'd use for the accuracy targets, but she picked up a few hoof-sized rocks from the station to her left with her magic and put them down in front of her.

Duh, Angel...

I could've sworn she was humming a little as she zipped the rocks forward, going so fast that I could barely see them before they made a loud *crack!* on the targets. The only one she didn't bulls-eye was the farthest one, but I had a feeling that it wasn't far off.

I saw a look on her face like "Oh shit..." when she reached the orb; there wasn't really a way to measure levitation power with it from what I imagined and it didn't seem like she knew as many higher level spells that weren't associated with levitation and telekinesis.

"Um... Er, Lightweight?" The professor awkwardly spoke up and adjusted his black-rimmed glasses. "T- That won't be necessary. Please move on."

Apparently, lifting the rock was evidence enough of her power. Her "Oh shit" face was quickly replaced with a cheerful one when she went to the last lane.

The big butterfly I made was still flapping around in front of her and she admired it a little before wrapping it in her magic and concentrating. Before too long, I noticed the bug changing color and texture in a way that I, to this day, couldn't fully explain.

When a little cloud of smoke puffed up in front of it and it began to clear, my suspicions were confirmed, but in a degree much greater than I anticipated.

What came out of the smoke puff wasn't a butterfly; it was a tiny blue jay that sang happily and perched on her back.

"Oh my... Well, Lightweight, a very impressive display. Well done." The professor looked just as stunned as I was. He wrote down a few things on his clip board and gestured for the next pony to come up.

Lightweight trotted over to the rest of the group and she took a second to look around for me before joining. Her smile was still stuck to her face.

"Hey! Did I do okay?" She asked. Either she was being way too modest or she didn't have any clue how talented she was.

"Okay?!"

"Yeah, that was awesome!" Afterburner chimed in after me.

Lightweight blushed. "Oh... Was it really that good? I think I missed one of those targets..."

It hadn't struck me until just then, but it was funny how much she reminded me of one of my dad's friends. I think her name was Fluttershy, if I remember correctly.

"Lightweight, trust me. You blew the competition out of the water." I winked at her and her hoof played with the grass bashfully.

"Thanks, Angel... Oh! I'm sorry, who are you again?"

"Afterburner." He said as the two shook hooves.

"Oh! Right... Sorry, nice to meet you."

"Same. Hey, that reminds me." He said as another pony went up and performed less than mediocre. "Some of my friends and I are starting up a club for ponies who want to learn spells that they probably won't teach in our entry level classes. You know, so we'll be more prepared for more advanced ones. It'd be sweet if you two could drop by. You don't have to join if you don't want to, but we're trying really hard to get some more members and you two showing up might give us some positive attention."

My instinct based on my antisocial tendencies was to tell him I'd show up and then ditch. But, I decided if Lightweight wanted to go, then-

"Yeah, that sounds great! What do you think, Angel?" She gave me a look that I just couldn't say "no" to.

"Uh..." I looked at the both of them and they were like cute puppies asking for a treat. Twilight did say she wanted us to stick together, right? "Sure, why not."

"Yes!" Afterburner pumped his hoof victoriously and Lightweight giggled. "You guys wanna meet up tonight? I think we're gonna be in the physics building.

I didn't recall Twilight saying anything about lessons that night, so I figured it wouldn't hurt.

"Yeah."

"And it'd be awesome to have you two join. You guys obviously know a lot about magic already, so maybe you could help some of us?"

"Pfft. Me? Teach? You're kidding, right? Ow!"

Lightweight stepped on my hoof and cleared her throat. "We'd be happy to help however we can, er... Is 'Burnie' okay?"

"That's fine. Most of my friends call me that anyways." He laughed, but I felt as if it was just a knee jerk reaction to make the conversation flavorful.

My hoof throbbed a little from the pain but I smiled too, albeit it wasn't entirely genuine.

The last pony finished up and the professor took a few moments to write some notes down while the rest of us chatted up a storm. Well, everypony except me. If you hadn't noticed already, I'm not much of a chatter-box. Lightweight seemed to get along with Burnie for the most part. To be honest, it made me a little jealous even though I knew she wasn't into guys. Old habits die hard, I guess.

"Alright! We have about fifteen minutes left in class, but since you all did so swell today, you're dismissed early." He said before trotting off, notepad and pencil above his head from his magic.

It didn't hit me until after I stepped outside that I forgot my textbooks. Lightweight brought hers, of course, but I didn't like bothering others by having to borrow them.

In reality, I probably didn't need them. It was just supposed to be a club meeting, so I didn't expect there to be many activities, only talking and plan-making. Looking back, it's a good thing I forgot to bring them. Otherwise, I would've brought Twilight's spell book with me, which wasn't a great idea, but the thought that I probably shouldn't have shown it off in public didn't hit me until we were already halfway to the physics building.

The place looked totally different at night. Even though the light pollution from the city blocked the view of most of the lesser stars, the ambient surroundings of the silent courtyards and walkways were amazingly tranquil. The light posts were like a cherry on top. Not only were they floating in mid-air and had a sleek and elegant design, but they also cast purple lights from them down at the sidewalks which made the place seem that much more magical, in more ways than one.

I snapped back to reality and realized that Lightweight had been calling for me for the past few minutes.

"Oh! S- Sorry... What?"

She giggled. "It's alright. This place really is beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yeah... It's like I'm in another world or something. Us Ponyville folk are certainly fish out of the water here, huh?"

"Yup! But I kinda like that. Ponyville was sorta getting boring, anyways." She took a deep breath. "A breath of fresh air is always nice every once and a while and I don't think I'll be getting bored of this place anytime soon."

"You got that right. If I had to move in here after I graduate, I wouldn't complain one bit."

We rounded the corner to the physics building and we could see one light still on in one of the windows. There wasn't that much sound coming from it as we passed by to get to the front doors, so I just thought they were in the middle of a meeting or something.

The lobby and the hallways were almost completely dark except for the moonlight and the ambient light from the purple lamp posts outside leaking in through the window at the end of the halls. The room that they were in was simple enough to find; it was the only one with a thin sliver of yellow light coming from underneath the door.

"I hope this isn't awkward..." I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"Oh come on, it'll be fun! Don't you like meeting new poni-" She stopped herself, realizing that she was about to say something completely false. "Never mind."

I chuckled a little and nudged her shoulder teasingly. "I like meeting new ponies when they're like you, but otherwise, nah."

Lightweight smiled from my obvious flirting, but didn't respond. We got to the door and she paused a second before opening it.

"You ready?"

I took a deep breath and grinned, knowing that I was unable to back out at that point.

"Sure, why not."

Author's Notes:

If there are any errors, please send me a PRIVATE MESSAGE and let me know so that I can fix them asap. Thanks for reading! <3

Oh, and Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!