On her first day in the sleepy borough of Stability, Quantum had managed to get hit in the face with a dodgeball, throw up on herself, navigate uncomfortable social faux-pas, and learn to dance the way foals learned to paint - by number.

Her second day felt like the rebirth of a phoenix.

Armed with the cheat-code that was her best holographic friend, Quantum slipped into the social scene at Twin Pines Municipal High School as smoothly as foam through a macchiato. Totally ignorant of the rueful glances of the social hierarchy, she aced chemistry, mathematics, and political science. She dodged a bullet in social studies when the poor colt next to her was called on to recite all the capitals of the various city-states in ancient feudal Saddle-Arabia. With Hal’s bookbag at her side, she flopped down at the end of the first available table in the cafeteria to fish around for the lovingly-packed plastic lunchbox in colors so garish, she began to understand where Hal’s penchant for gaudy turtlenecks came from. She was halfway through her liverwurst and swiss on rye before she noticed the eight stallions at the table. They were all wearing caps with their hoofball team numbers on them. And they weren’t eating.

“...whuff?” Quantum stared, crumbs leaking from her famished maw. The eyes of one of the burlier earth colts narrowed.

“This is a hoofball table,” the youth threatened.

“Scram!” Another jeered, “You got the geeks OR the fillies to choose from, Twinklehooves!”

“Tch, yeah right,” A third cut in, “He’d rather be a filly than pick them up!”

Quantum felt her anger boiling in the face of the raucous laughter that was drawing attention from the other tables. She was just about to tell every last member of the hoofball team’s starting lineup that she wouldn’t date a single one of them if they were the last ponies on earth, when a gentle tap at her shoulder became a rough grip. Spinning, her quivering lips were silenced only by the unexpected visage of Hal’s elder sister Gloryrise, who was staring her down with a firm look that went well outside the bounds of sibling rivalry.

“Hal, knock it off,” Gloryrise muttered under her breath. “Come and sit with me.”

“B-but--”

Glory cut Quantum off with a firm pomfing of her proud wings. The fierceness of Glory’s glare, coupled with her considerable height and proud poise, was enough to encourage Quantum to begrudgingly shove her meal back into Hal’s bag and rise from the table.

Quantum found herself at another table to the tune of the cackling jocks before she could get a word in edgewise. She glanced sidelong at the fillies at the other end of the new table, who were now staring at her. She blushed and went about rummaging around for the rest of her meal.

“What was that all about?” Glory questioned, also digging through her less juvenile bag for sustenance. “Since when do you pick a fight with half the hoofball team?”

“Pick a fight!?” Quantum stammered, “I was just sitting there! They were the ones picking the fight, and I was ready to give it to them!”

Gloryrise had a look on her face that made her appear disturbingly similar to Hal’s doting mother. She reached out and ruffled Quantum’s mane too roughly. “Yeah, and that’s gonna mean a lot to you after you end up with two black eyes and a broken foreleg.” The crisp corners of her smile wilted. “Be more careful where you sit.”

Indignant for her friend, Quantum didn’t give an inch. “Why? Because I like to dance I can’t sit wherever I want? It’s a free school isn’t it?”

Glory lowered her voice and drew in close from the other side of the table, beckoning with her hoof. Quantum, expecting to hear a secret, leaned in...and yelped when Hal’s sister summarily bapped her muzzle instead.

“You know that, and I know that, but you know how it is around here Hal, and...” Glory groaned. “Oh please, I don’t have to explain this to you. Just please don’t do that again, okay? I don’t wanna have to peel your face off the sidewalk or something.”

Quantum inspected Hal’s elder sister and wondered why she, of all ponies, would say such a thing. Glory was a tall, fit senior who carried herself with a countenance that suggested she would have stood her ground against more than a mere half of the hoofball team. The curl of her luscious mane around her left eye put a cunning twist in her smile, to the point that it wouldn’t take much effort to make herself look intimidating.

Unless she was simply trying to...protect her little brother.

“Here,” Glory pushed a small round container across the table. “You forgot your boats.”

Quantum stared down at the little container. Her mind began to wander into thoughts of what a room-temperature soft-boiled egg with pieces of toast in it would taste like, until she soon realized that she had little choice but to open it and find out.

“Eat up,” Glory chided playfully. “You’re not gonna be worth my time to race later if you don’t have any energy. Plus you have dance after this right? I’ll give you one thing - I dunno how you all handle that on a full stomach.”

Quantum looked up. “Wait...what?”

“What?” Glory repeated. “I said dance class. How you handle dance class right after you eat. It’s like the cruelest scheduling joke possible, isn’t it?”

Quantum stiffened. “Dance...class? I have to go to dance class?”

“Unless you want to flunk and go back to your comic books and long division. Nopony ever knows with you. You should just pick something and make mom and dad stop wondering what you wanna do with your life. But if you ask me?” She grinned and reached out to prod Quantum’s chest. “I think you ought to stick with it. You’re darn good at it, you could use the exercise, and science is boring. Plus that one filly in your class is totally into you. You’re a colt. Don’t tell me you don’t like that idea.”

“I uh...um...” Quantum felt the butterflies in her stomach tickling away any words she tried to employ. The conversation was one thing, but her thoughts were caught up in the idea of dancing in front of a class. And with a full stomach, to boot.

“Come on, eat already. Lunch is almost over.”

Quantum located the back hall of the gymnasium with a flatness in her step and the taste of room-temperature eggs on her lips. The main gymnasium, where she had been playing dodgeball the day before, opened into a well-lit hallway with a number of doors. Each of these led into smaller rooms dedicated either to storage, or a physical pursuit other than sports that had somehow made it into the curriculum.

The layout of the narrow ‘dance room’ was unsurprising. One long wall of windows shed the afternoon light upon a smooth hardwood floor and an opposite wall that was composed entirely of floor to ceiling mirrors. Mounted before the mirrors was a balance bar, raised to waist height and presiding over a number of rolled up tumbling mats that were most likely storage overflow. An antiquated record player on a student desk provided the cadence for practice.

Also crammed in the room were no less than fifteen fillies in various stages of warm up and dance practice. Quantum swallowed.

“Psst!” A familiar voice hissed. Quantum turned to the mirrors, saw nothing, and jolted when she turned back around to find Hal floating there before her.

“You don’t have to keep your voice down,” Quantum muttered softly. “Nopony can hear you. And...get a reflection or something.”

“Listen,” Hal continued to whisper, ignoring his classmate’s complaints, “I’ve got this. When I started at C.A.S. I brought an old high school notebook with me because there was still space in it. I found an old schedule in it. You’re gonna be doing tap today.”

Quantum rolled her eyes dramatically. “Tap? We didn’t practice tap! And I’ve got a belly full of your weird egg boat thingies that were so cold they felt like eating snot! There’s no way I’m gonna--”

“Snot?”

Quantum’s tirade was cut short by familiar, coral pink muzzle that simply emerged from Hal’s face as though his entire body were a mere costume. Twitter Step, her honeysuckle fragrance as strong as ever and her grin unnervingly confident, stepped straight through her former dance partner to address her current one with a wrinkle in her muzzle.

“Eww. Why are you talking about snot?”

Quantum’s eyes were pulled back by Twitter’s piercing stare whenever they began to dart around. “I was, uh...just saying I...um...snot...I...”

Quantum felt the web she was attempting to weave unravel like wet spaghetti. Hal flitted above the conversation and rested his forehead in one hoof, sighing dramatically enough to make himself heard by the only pony present who was capable of hearing him. To the minty mare’s relief, Twitter Step only giggled.

“You’re such a weirdo sometimes. Come dance with me.”

“With you?” Quantum suddenly felt thick with confusion, “Isn’t tap dancing a solo thing?”

“Oh for--!” Hal nearly swooned, “Cutie, haven’t you ever heard of--”

“Couples tap dancing, silly!” Twitter finished the thought for the hologram. “You’re not getting out of it just by playing dumb either. Come on, get your shoes on!”

Quantum let out a yelp as the deceptively strong young dancer looped a foreleg in hers and dragged her over towards a small row of lockers, each labeled with the name of a student. She opened the appropriate little metal cubby and set about nabbing the first of four hoof-coverings with metal horseshoes nailed to the bottom in her magic. Hal was by her side in an instant, making a furious cut-throat gesture.

“Ixnay on the magic-ay!” He warned.

The light went out abruptly and Quantum began the painstakingly annoying task of shoeing all four of her limbs. She hunched her body over on the small provided bench to focus her whispers away from the students.

“Hal, I have no idea how to tap dance! I’m gonna take a header into this locker and go home!”

“Like hell you are,” Hal scoffed. “Look at me.”

When Quantum stubbornly refused to take her attention from her work, Hal’s holographic face suddenly emerged right from the locker. He continued.

“You’re gonna be fine. Think of this like a science project, and when have you ever walked away from a science project? Watch this--”

Hal spread his wings to their full span and took to the air. Booping a few buttons on his device, he turned it upside down and held it as close to the ceiling as possible. A moment later Quantum found herself unable to look at him due to a blinding beam of red light emitting from the tip of the colorful little box. She was about to ask what purpose blinding her would serve when her eyes caught the mirrored wall, and then turned to the floor. Every single divided plank of the hardwood dance floor was now marked with a projected number made entirely from red light.

“Like I said before,” Hal spoke up, “You and me, we’re really smart. But, Tissy? She’s a technological savant. She made this modification overnight, and I happen to know you can memorize numbers faster than a computer. You’ve got about half a minute to learn this floor. Then all you gotta do is follow what I call out.”

Quantum clattered out onto the floor in her new shoes, desperately filling her brain with the position of every digit. Even for her the task was a challenge, but she was determined not to fail when Hal’s future was on the line. It took fifteen distracted seconds for her to bowl over the nearest dancer in the already crowded room. A moment later, she was buried under a pileup of fillies, in mock travesty of the wildest dreams of any teenage colt. Flailing and gasping for breath against the constant undulations of coats and rumps, a familiar pink foreleg wrapped around hers and dragged her from the fray.

Quantum felt Twitter’s hoof on her forehead as if to check for fever. “Are you sure that ball didn’t scramble your brain?”

“I, uh, err...” Quantum wilted under the accusatory stares of the dancing high school fillies in various stages of untying their limbs from one another. “Sorry, I guess...maybe I’m still not feeling so hot?” She found herself going there despite Hal’s warning. Anything to get out of this mortifying scene. She let out a breath. Now all she would have to do is sit it out, or maybe even go home--

“You’re right, you aren’t!” Twitter sang, “And the best medicine to forget your troubles is dancing!”

Another tall filly in legwarmers and a headband leaned up against the balance pole. “Yeah Hal, show us how its done, huh? You and Twit have like the best grades in class!”

Quantum flashed the real Hal a damning stare.

“Yeah Hal!” Another filly with a workout suit called excitedly, “Cut a rug!”

Quantum found herself swirling in a wind of colorful fillies until the dance floor was empty, Hoofloose was playing on the phonograph, and Twitter Step was striking a pose right in front of her. The pink filly grinned broadly and bowed her head just enough to let a wayward strand of golden mane slip over her eye.

“Let’s show ‘em how its done.”

Quantum had no time to argue.

“Thirty-four!” Hal shouted. “Eighteen! Twenty-seven! Three!”

With no mind for flair, Quantum rapped her hooves loudly in time with the auction-calls from above. What she lacked in style she made up for with the sheer pigheaded determination that had carried her through every hurdle in her life - up until the decision that cost her what was left of it back home. The result was a dance that was so bizarrely unique, the rest of the class couldn’t help but think of it as the opus of a more talented star.

The pair kicked and beat out their rhythm in a swirling melee of percussion, Twitter taking over the lead at the assumption that her knowledgeable partner was just offering her extra practice. Quantum covered for every mistake by riding the coattails of Hal’s reputation. When the two came together, Twitter caught the scrawny, minty mare in her forelegs, dipped her...

...and kissed her full on the lips.

A rouse of catcalls punctuated the end of the song. When Twitter finally let Quantum up for air, the dazed and confused older mare sunk to the floor flat on her back, gazing up at her dance partner with a look of bewildered stupidity as the bell for class went off.

Twitter Step licked her lips and traded cunning grins with those among her classmates who were bold enough to congratulate her. She smiled down just before disappearing into the crowd.

“And that’s how it’s done,” She called. “I totally win!”

As the mingling fillies began to disperse to their next classes, Quantum sat up and took to pumping air through her lungs.

“You’re blushing,” Hal observed.

“Shut up,” Quantum growled. “You didn’t tell me you were the best dancer in class.”

“So?” Hal grinned, “When you have a reputation, everything counts as art! Even that...weird thing you did!”

“How are the numbers?” Quantum rolled her eyes and sought to change the subject. Curiously, Hal didn’t look at his device. He merely waved a hoof dismissively and smiled.

“They’re fine. Keep this up and this whole vault will be a cinch. You’ll be on your way in a couple days, and...you’ll really be doing something huge for me, Cutie.” He paused, “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Hal, why--”

The bell rang again.

“Get to class,” Hal chimed, floating back up into the air. He fell in with the retreating Twitter Step, who had a bag slung over her shoulder and was giving Quantum the eye on her way out. “Everything’s gonna be fine.”

Quantum sat in thought until she was almost late for next period.