I originally thought she was just wanting to snuggle and play around a little in a non-sexual way, but as her hoof got lower, I began to realize what she was about to do. It was highly unfitting since we'd only known each other for less than a week.

I wanted it so badly... My body was shivering and squirming, telling me to let her hoof do whatever it wanted, but it just didn't feel right in the end. It wasn't that I didn't think she was the one (if that was even possible to know after just a few days). I guess I just didn't want to spoil the relationship and have it burn out in two week’s time, which tended to happen when I let mares get too close to me too fast.

"L- Light, wait..."

"Hm? What's wrong? Don't tell me this is your first time, Angel..." Her hoof didn't come off of my lower belly, but it didn't show any signs of going any lower.

"No, I... I just... I dunno, you think maybe we should... Take all this a little slower?"

Her hoof slid off and I could almost feel her happiness drain from her. I knew I was blue-balling her (or whatever the female version of that saying was) and I felt terrible for it.

I sighed and tried to sound as sincere and non-upset as possible so I wouldn't give the wrong impression. "I'm sorry, Light... I just don't want to spoil anything between us... I mean, we just met a couple of days ago."

She slid down under the covers to where she was before and I laid back on my side.

"You're right..." She closed her eyes, looking somewhat guilty. "I'm sorry, I... It's just been a long time and I couldn't help myself..."

"No, it's alright. I-"

Her voice got slightly unstable and she pulled the sheets over her face. "I'm so terrible... I didn't even think about whether or not you wanted it... I... Nnghh, what was I thinking?"

Whoa... Emotional roller coaster much?

"Hey, hey... Shh." Forced into an awkward situation, I wrapped my hoof around her waist and tried to calm her down. "It's alright, I promise."

She let out a couple of whimpers, hinting that she was on the verge of crying. I couldn't just leave it there, but I didn't really know what to say to calm her down. I couldn't just lie and say it wasn't too much of advancement.

I got an idea and pulled the covers down off of her face. She tried to pull them back, but I didn't let her.

"Hey, how 'bout we go grab dinner tomorrow? There's this place called Gastoire's that looks really fancy."

She wiped her eyes cutely, sniffed and looked up at me with puppy dog eyes. She couldn't have made herself look cuter if she had scripted it. "Y- You mean like... A date?"

"Well... Yeah." My eyes drifted off and I blushed. I never really had an issue with asking mares out before, so I couldn't really explain my nervousness then. "So we can just hang out and get to know each other better. I mean, outside of school and all that... Oof!"

Her smile came back and she returned my hug tight, almost squeezing the life out of me.

"You're the best, Angel..."

"H- Heh... Don't sweat it... Nnghh!"

Light finally realized she was hugging too tight and relaxed with a quick "sorry" and a wobbly grin through her dense blender of emotions she was feeling at the moment.

A couple of awkward silent minutes passed. It was apparent that neither of us were very tired after all that. My eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness and I could easily see the outline of all the furniture in the room, along with the gentle curve of Lightweight's body under the sheets next to me.

"But, um... Hey, don't get the wrong idea. I still like you." I said softly before kissing her tender lips briefly.

"Okay... I really like you too." Her head tucked against my chest and my hoof, almost instinctively, stroked the fur on her back.

"What kind of conditioner do you use?" I said with my muzzle extremely close to her mane.

"Huh? Oh, it's this shampoo my mom always used. It's-"

"Coconut?" I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Yeah... Is it that obvious? If it's too much I can-"

"Nah, it's cool." I used the subject and the intimate embrace we were currently in to stuff my muzzle deeper into her mane and sniff without coming off as creepy and also to segway into learning more about her. "I like it..."

I paused. Her mane was gradually relaxing me.

"What's your mom like, Light? You usually just talk about your dad."

"Oh, my mom died a few years ago."

My ears flattened back a little, but I let her talk it out.

"When she had me, her body never really recovered and... We finally decided to let her go. It was to the point where she was on full life support, so we figured it'd be best to... You know."

"Geez, Light, I'm so sorry, I didn't know..." It made me cringe on my insides to imagine what that must've been like for her. My mom's such a strong mare; just thinking about what it'd be like to see her like that depressed me. It would've crushed my world.

"It's alright. I got to make a lot of good memories with her before she went." Judging by her calmness and lack of hesitation, I could tell that she was over it, though I noted not to push the subject any more than I had to.

"That's good... You're really strong for being able to pull yourself through all that."

"Thanks." She hugged my neck tighter for a second. "My dad took it a lot worse, though."

"Yeah, I can't even imagine... But he's okay, right?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah. He gets a bit spacey from time to time thinking about her but other than that, he's fine." She took a deep breath. "What about your mom? I mean, I know who she is, obviously, but..."

I chuckled softly. "She's like me, I guess. We'd always get into trouble together back at home and try to hide it from dad. Sometimes it felt like she was my best friend more than she was my mom. We didn't really do stuff like makeup or shopping together because she hated that, but we do just about everything together."

"She sounds really fun to be around..." Lightweight was looking up at me and listening attentively as if she was actually interested in what I was saying. "You do seem a little less... Um, out there than your mom, though." She smirked teasingly.

"Well, my dad keeps me in check for the most part. He's kinda like my buffer when I get too far away from what's safe. He lets me do what I want and lets me have fun with mom, but he'll put a stop to it if it goes too far."

"Really? He kinda seems like that passive type to me."

"Oh, trust me. He's pretty chill but when mom or I are in danger or in trouble, he turns into super protecto-dad nine-thousand."

She laughed a little harder and covered her mouth with the sheets.

"Super protecto-dad, huh?"

"Heh. Yup. He's a big sweetheart, though."

"He sounds that way... I kinda thought being married to Vinyl and being so important would go to his head, but I guess not."

"Nah. He's always been the same. Actually, he kinda helps mom keep her ego in check sometimes. It's pretty funny."

I felt her hoof play with the fur on my chest and she let out a yawn.

"I'm sure you've got tons of stories to tell..."

"Mhmm. Tons. I'll tell ya a few tomorrow night... If you behave." I booped my nose against hers and she giggled lightly.

"Mkay... S- Sorry again about earlier... I guess finding out more about each other can be just as fun." She admitted as her body relaxed into the sheets. I tried not to crack up from how corny it sounded, but she was right.

"Hey, don't worry about it. It's all under the bridge. Let's just get some sleep for now."

"Yeah... Right."

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on her scent to lull me to sleep.

"Night, Light."

"Night, Angel." She kissed my cheek and I rubbed her back a few times in an affectionate reply.

The bell ringing usually meant a sigh of relief for me, but it meant more than that on that day. Our plan to try and practice at the rec building was still a go and I have to admit, I was getting nervous despite my strong front the night before. The only threats I ever had to face with ass-hats like that were just rocks and punches being thrown at me, but the factor of them using dark magic made me more unsettled than usual.

Burnie and Heat were both in my end-of-the-day class, but Light and Lance weren't, so we had to wait outside for them.

"We're still doing this, right? I mean, you know there's a good chance-" Heat actually sounded a bit timid.

"Dude, just don't act afraid around them and it'll be fine. Trust me. Ponies like them tend to gravitate towards scaredy-cats." I tried to act as reassuringly as I could.

"Hey! What'cha mean scaredy-cat?!"

"I'm not calling you one, I'm just saying not to act like one."

Heat gave up, grumbled and pouted.

"I mean, there're teachers there, right? It's not like they can get away with everything." I turned to Burnie, the more level headed of the two.

"Eh... Yeah, but they're kinda tight-knit with some of them." He lazily replied whilst staring into one of his textbooks.

I rolled my eyes, knowing there was nothing I could really do about that. We ended up strolling around to the front of the building so it'd make it easier for Light and Lance to spot us.

"Actually, we might get lucky. I know most of the clubs have meetings tonight, so maybe they’ll be doing that instead." Burnie closed his book and looked out the window at the mid-afternoon sky.

"Then why did we have ours yesterday?" I raised my eyebrow.

"Well, since we're not an official club yet, we don't really need to have weekly meetings, so it doesn't matter. Oh, that reminds me: any ideas for a name?"

"I was thinking the 'Adepts'." I somewhat lied, thinking of the name on the spot. I had to give myself credit; it wasn't bad for the first thing that popped into my head.

"Hm... I like that. Nice and simple."

"Aw come on, that's lame. I sill think 'Fire-nado' is the best."

I was about to say something smart, but I felt something nudge me. Light was directly at my side when I turned and it made me jump a little.

"See? Even Angel's nervous. I'm telling you, this is a bad idea." Heat kept complaining and I was getting tired of it.

"Am not! I-"

Lightweight cut me off and smiled. "Let's just go. I'm sure if we're polite, they won't get mad."

Either her fear was being excellently hidden, or she had an admirable amount of optimism. Either way, I was glad she was coming with me. I stuffed my pride away and took a deep breath.

"We might as well go now before the rec center closes." Light walked ahead and opened the door for us with her magic. "Come on."

As she turned back and gave me a wink, I couldn't avoid noticing that she was just like me in several ways; not that I was narcissistic or anything, but I felt like I was talking to myself when we were together. Albeit, she was somewhat shyer and had more sensitive emotions.

We all looked at each other and then left, knowing that there was no turning back. Sure, I didn't want my nose to disappear via dark magic, but I'd rather that than just sitting at my dorm room fiddling my hooves whilst not making any progress with my magic at all. I think it was safe to say that the others felt the same.

As Burnie predicted, there weren't a lot of ponies out and about given the time of day. It was beginning to grow apparent that he knew a lot about this school that the rest of us didn't. I didn't know whether or not he was a freshman. If so, he obviously learned a lot about the school quickly. Either way, I didn't know because I forgot to ask him. Although... He did seem pretty mature despite his younger appearance.

None of us said a word as we crossed the courtyard to the rec center. Light and Lance were acceptable culprits of this, but it seemed a little out of character for Burnie and Heat. Especially Heat.

I didn't think much of it earlier because I was hyped up with motivation, but I was starting to grow a little worried myself the closer I got to the two story tall brick building that I took from context clues to be the rec center. I could've just convinced myself that Heat was chicken even though he put up a strong front, but my gut was telling me that it probably took a significant amount of unfortunate and disturbing situations to get somepony like that so worked up over a club.

One thing was for sure, though. No matter what happened, I wouldn't let anypony lay a hoof on Light.

"Alright... Here we go..." Burnie opened the the double glass doors with "C.A.A.M." and the logo on them in fogged material.

Most of my anxiety faded away when I stepped into the building where the main lobby was. It was something that I always did as far back as I could remember: being super nervous about something all the way until the actual event, then feeling fine when it came to happen. In that circumstance, as Burnie walked forward and talked to the semi-attractive mare working at the front desk, I thanked myself for having that trait because I knew that any visible anxiety still left in me would make me bully bait fast.

"Yes ma'am." He kept talking while the rest of us scouted around. It was impossible to see who was practicing in the gym-like area to our right due to a wall cutting off the view of everything behind it, but we could see the glossed wooden floors that resembled a basketball court, as well as hear one or two *cracks* and *pops* of spells. There were ponies in there, but thankfully, it sounded like there were only one or two.

"Thank you!" He thanked the mare behind the counter with a sweet smile and then went back to us, the smile fading into him biting his lip and looking into the gym. "Alright, we have an hour. You guys ready?"

The second we rounded the corner, our fears diminished drastically. There were about fifty or so lanes on the far end of the gym, each one wide enough to fit one pony, but we could only see one tail sticking out of them. Almost by instinct, we all went for the lanes on the opposite side of the one pony, putting as much distance as we could from whoever he or she was.

"Alright, so we're gonna work on accuracy, right?" Light said as she took her lane and sized up the targets, finding a bucket filled with stone spheres and placing them on the table in her little booth.

"Yeah, but since you and Angel seem to already have it down, you mind giving us a few pointers?" Lance humbly said while taking his glasses off and cleaning them. From context clues, I assumed that he was nearsighted.

"W-Well... Angel could do that, but I'm just good at throwing rocks straight..." Lightweight shyly and humbly shrugged the responsibility of helping onto me. I was never one to be braggy. I probably got it from my dad, but at the same time, I liked being a leader and helping ponies learn what I already knew.

"Alright, if you say so. Um..." I tried to think of what to start with as they all stared at me awkwardly. Even Heat, who came across as bossy and rash, seemed compliant enough to listen to what I had to say.

Thinking back to Twilight's lesson, I figured that the same principles would apply even though the type of magic changed.

Worth a shot, I guess...

"Alright, well... I guess go ahead and start shooting spells, and I'll... Tell 'ya if there's anything you're doing wrong? That sound good?" I said with an awkward sense of uncertainty, trying hard not to come off as bossy.

"Gotcha."

"Yep!"

Lance nodded his head silently, and they all went at it. In the beginning, Lightweight was just casually lobbing rocks at targets and humming to herself, but the velocity of her telekinesis increased the more she threw. After a while, though, I stopped watching the stones and taking the opportunity to take peeks at her plot. Her tail was slightly in the way of the money shot, but that was only to be expected since it would've been weird of she was lifting it up for everypony to see.

For a split second, I almost regretted stopping her last night.

When I turned back to the other three, I blushed and tried to play it off because Lance was looking right at me. He must've seen me checking out Light's ass because I wasn't trying to hide it; I thought nopony was looking.

"Um... Y-You need help with something...?" I smiled awkwardly and trotted over to him. He returned it with a creepy grin like he knew exactly what was going through my mind and whispered back.

"You like her, don't you?"

Nervously, I glanced over at the rest of the group and made a *shh* sound. Thankfully, he wasn't cruel enough to spill the beans. At least, at the moment.

"Actually, there is something you could help me with..." He flicked off some sort of ice bolt that I'd never seen before and it went straight for a few yards, but then quickly spiraled off and struck the side of the wall, leaving a dense splatter of ice where it hit. "I don't know what it is... I'm firing them straight, but..."

I asked him to shoot another and studied it closer that time. To me, it seemed like he was concentrating hard enough before and at the time of him firing it, but he lost all interest the spell as soon as it left his horn. It was a common mistake I used to do with my bolts all the time, even though it wasn't as much of an issue with me since a vast majority of my spells didn't include actual projectiles.

"Are you like... Concentrating on the path of it after you shoot it, or just doing a 'fire and forget' thing?"

"Fire and forget..." He replied as if I were asking a silly question.

"Um, try and stay focused on the spell while it’s in mid-flight and think of it like you're pushing it forward; see what happens."

"Uh... Alright." If his general character wasn't the shy and sweet type, I would've taken his reaction as snotty, but I'm sure it was just because I was telling him something he'd never heard of before.

I stepped back and looked at Heat and Burnie, leaving Lance to practice by himself. I knew from experience that having somepony hover over you for too long got annoying real quick when you were practicing. The other two didn't seem too too bad, but they were clearly lacking in the accuracy department, as I predicted.

The cool thing I noticed about Heat Wave was that he wasn't just using conventional fire spells. Instead, judging by the distortion of the air in front of him after he cast spells, he was heating up the air molecules. It was an ingenious idea that I'd never thought of or seen before and I had to give him credit for stepping outside the norm. I could see where he got his name from, too. Still, it was obvious that his spells were completely unpredictable in both direction and strength. Burnie had the same problem. I didn't even have to look his way to know; I had his performance at the diagnostics to prove it.

On the off chance Heat hit the target, the heat that he generated was so hot that the target instantly combusted into flames. Luckily, the floor and the lining of the walls were made of some sort of fire retardant material; the spells that missed simply *poofed*, causing no visible damage.

I sighed and tried to strengthen my patience since I figured I'd be spending more time helping the three boys practice rather than practicing myself.

Looking around the gym and trying not to hover too much, I saw that the area was polished to the highest degree. The bright white stadium-grade lights above shone on the wooden floor, revealing a spotless and unblemished surface. The nicest touch, though, was the giant C.A.A.M. emblem on the middle of the floor with elegant old english lettering. The only time I had ever seen it was on the small brochure my dad gave to me a few days prior. It was nice, though. It made the school seem more royal and elite.

My attention directed to the one pony at the end stepping back and packing up. I wondered what I'd do and honestly, the only two options I had were both attractive. A: I would give a friendly smile and then turn back to my friends or B: I would completely ignore her.

It turned out I had to go with option A when she trotted right in my direction, her eyes fixated on me. The prolonged eye contact made me a little uneasy and I tried to snap my eyes away a few times to keep from making things more awkward.

Conversation was unavoidable.

"Hey." I smiled as casually as I could.

"Angel Bolt, huh? I thought you'd be a little more intimidating." She grinned smartly and brushed her jet black emo mane aside. Her voice made her sound like she had just hit puberty and was trying to act deep-voiced and mature even though she was clearly just as old as me or maybe older.

"Oh, w- well..." I giggled nervously, not knowing what to respond with.

"And what are you doing hanging around with these losers? You should be practicing with ponies your level." She glanced at my friends and held her hoof to the side of her muzzle.

Okay... Obviously not the nice type... I thought to myself. Still, I tried my best not to be ugly back.

"Eh, they're cool."

"Pfft." She chuckled and glanced over at my friends again right in time to see Burnie shank a fireball off and almost escape outside the lane, going haywire. To make the image worse, Lightweight was tossing around rocks like she was playing rather than practicing. "You sure about that?"

I didn't respond; I was a bit embarrassed, to be honest, despite my gut telling me not to be.

"Anyway-" She leaned close and gave me a smirk. "If you ever wanna join a real club where ponies actually practice, go try out for the Night Society. You'd fit in perfectly there."

Not with ponies like you there, I wouldn't... I suppressed my urge to talk back and defend my friends.

"We use magic for real. Not like little fillies do at playgrounds." She started to trot off and her dark green tail swished in my face rudely.

"Seeya there, Bolt. That is, if you're unicorn enough."

"Um... Okay..." I raised an eyebrow at her as she walked away and she simply responded with a short chuckle as if what I said was lame or pathetic.

It wasn't the type of behavior most bullies used, but it was still enough to aggravate me. My friends didn't seem to notice the altercation since they were still whizzing away spells.

Still, she made me admit something that I had been pushing back for a long time. With the exception of Lightweight, the ponies I picked as friends... Kinda sucked at magic. It felt bad to put myself above them but the truth was, if this kept up, they'd end up holding me back.

For a moment, I thought of dropping by one of their meetings just to humor myself. The instant mental reaction of "Don't do that, they're bullies" flashed in my head, but I had to give them the benefit of the doubt. I mean, there had to be at least one pony in that club that wasn't a jerk, right?

I let out a large exhale of pent up tension from the encounter and made my way back to the others, doing my best to push down that feeling you get when you finally convince yourself of something you denied for so long. When I looked back at my friends, I didn't see them with the same optimistic and helpful attitude I did before; I looked at them like they were below my level and not worth my time if I wanted to get better.

And I hated myself for thinking like that, so much that it almost made me vomit. Lightweight was a beacon of hope in that regard since it was obvious that she had just as much skill as I did, but the others...

"Hey, Angel? You alright over there?" Light was the first to notice that I was still standing back, obviously in deep thought.

"Y- Yeah! I'm good!" I trotted back towards them, hiding my conflicting emotions.

Once Heat Burnie and Lance split up and headed off towards the boy's dorm, the conversation took a quiet turn between Lightweight and I. We casually walked through the lobby of our dorm and I couldn't avert my eyes fast enough to miss the same Night Society mare I met at the rec center sitting on the sofa, chatting with some of her friends that looked even darker than she did. She gave me a wink and a grin and I tried to smile back, but I had to hide it significantly to avoid Light's detection. I was quick enough to look away to miss the rest of them turning and looking at me, which would've been just too embarrassing and awkward.

"So how did the boys do? I didn't see because of the lanes." Light finally broke the silence.

"Eh. They were okay. They're not as good as us." I nudged her shoulder teasingly, trotting down the smooth carpet in the hallway towards our room.

"Aw, I don't think so. I'm sure they'll be great once they practice more!"

I had to give her credit for her optimism and I couldn't quite admit that she was entirely wrong. Besides that, it was tough to disagree with her on just about everything; I didn't have the heart to tell her.

"Ooh! Brr..." Lightweight shivered as the door opened and a blast of cold air escaped. "Forgot to turn the a/c off..."

I smiled and shook my head at her comically while she quickly went to the other side of the room to flip off the switch to the unit affixed underneath the large window overlooking the courtyard. I mentally questioned why she turned it on in the first place.

I had almost forgotten about our little "date" to Gastoires. It only occurred to me then that I should've made a reservation.

"Ah, shit..."

"What's wrong?" Lightweight closed the curtains with her magic and sat down on the couch.

"Well, we should've made reservations for tonight. I didn't even think about it."

"Oh..." She looked troubled but her face lit up again promptly. "Hey, maybe they'll let you in because of your dad!"

I gave her a "Really...?" look.

"Or... Not. Well, we can always try someplace else."

"Yeah..."

I picked up one of the little brochures on the kitchen counter that had been sitting there since we arrived. Flipping through, it was challenging to find a place that didn't cost two hundred bits but wasn't shady or a hole in the wall.

"I got it." Lightweight jumped up from the couch and trotted towards the door. Somepony had been knocking at it, but I had just then noticed it.

I didn't have time to really contemplate why I didn't hear it at first before Light unlocked and opened it. Her face had awe and shock written all over it before I could even see who was there, and when I trotted around to see, I understood Light's reaction.

It wasn't until I saw her insanely pampered mane and eyelashes that I realized who it was. When she saw me, she picked me up in a big warm hug.

"There's my little Angel!" Rarity said whilst squeezing the life out of me. I almost had to cough from the dense amount of perfume she was wearing.

"Nnghh... H- Hi, Rarity..."

Oh Luna, help me...

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