The lesson was underway; Sugarcoat was focused on the book in front of her, reading about string theory. She just gotten to the unification of the five versions of the superstring theory and was on her way to M-theory, when she realised that someone kept watching her.

“Lemon,” she whispered, her eyes still focused on the pages. “If you didn’t disturb me, I’d probably reach enlightenment and come up with a way of tying all those theories together and create the theory of everything.”

“Forty-two,” Lemon replied. “There, problem solved. Now, can we talk about Indigo?”

“After the lesson,” Sugarcoat replied. “Physics is more interesting than what’s going on with her, even though on the basic level it’s all about bodies attracting each other.”

“The bodies are no longer attracting each other.” Lemon sighed.

“Oh, chill the fuck out,” Sugarcoat hissed, hiding her face behind the book. “I really liked you when you were a kid and could be confused with a complicated enough word. Also, I’d like to remind you that you hit me last time we met and unlike some other people, I’m not cool with being someone’s punching bag.”

“You’re trying to push all my buttons at once, huh?” Lemon rolled her eyes. “Try harder.”

“I see you took my advice, though,” Sugarcoat muttered. “At least that’s what I guess from that sudden change of attitude.”

“You wish.” Lemon crossed her arms and turned away.

Sugarcoat smirked and went back to reading about physics.

The physics lesson was over, though Sugarcoat was still thinking about it when she wandered down the corridor to another classroom. Groups of students passed by her, but she couldn’t exactly see them as people anymore; more like elementary particles. Zephyr was a charm quark – charming, but still third most massive of all the quarks. Lemon was most definitely a strange quark. Sugarcoat thought she got weird recently, not to mention that just like strange quarks didn’t naturally occur in matter, Lemon was not quite a student one’d associate with Crystal Prep.

Fleur and her friends were various assorted leptons – they came in six flavours and didn’t undergo any strong interactions. As far as Sugarcoat knew, all of them were pretty shallow, even Fleur and her relationship with her British boyfriend. On the other hand, Celery Stalk was definitely a muon – according to Alizarin Bubblegum, he was full of energy and could penetrate deeper than any other particle.

Sugarcoat turned and faced Indigo, who was standing by the wall, her head slightly lowered. “And there we have an electron,” she muttered. “Small and negative.”

“What is wrong with you?” Indigo asked.

“There’s no such thing as right or wrong in physics,” Sugarcoat replied. “Also, you went bowling with Lemon Zest and you thought no one would know what happened there? Seems that you messed up big time.”

“I didn’t,” Indigo replied. “He basically friendzoned himself, somehow. Did he really think I broke up with him? Or was he just looking for an occasion to finish it?”

“Now you’re reading too deep into it,” Sugarcoat said.

“Even if I do, he humiliated me!” Indigo exclaimed. “He said I keep yelling and running away and that somehow made him think–”

“Currently, you’re yelling a lot.” Sugarcoat rolled her eyes. “If you say something rude and walk away from me, I’ll start thinking that he was right.”

“I can also break you some bone,” Indigo growled.

Sugarcoat raised her finger. “I suggest a better solution. After the soccer training, we’ll go to the school’s gym because there’s no way you’ll meet Bulk there. Then, you can vent as much as you can...”

Sugarcoat lowered the physics textbook she was reading and looked at Indigo. The large headphones Sugarcoat wore drowned most of the noise, replacing it with an upbeat rap song, but thanks to her somewhat mediocre lip reading skills, she could easily tell that Indigo was yelling a lot of things about ducks, hits, and runts. She raised her hands in boxing gloves and unleashed another barrage of blows on an innocent punching bag, pausing only to wipe sweat from her forehead. Occasionally, she’d hit the bag with her elbow or knee, sometimes finishing the series with a roundhouse kick.

“Good,” Sugarcoat whispered. “Let the hate flow through you…”

Indigo stood in front of the punching bag, clenching her fists and panting. She screamed and charged at the bag and began pummeling it with a series of well-placed hits, culminating with a few right hooks, followed by grabbing the bag and headbutting it. This was, however, the definite end of the fight – Indigo staggered and dropped on the ground, rubbing her forehead and gasping for air.

“Idiot.” Sugarcoat took the headphones off. “Sorry, Indigo, seems that the training equipment won another battle. It’d go better if you didn’t knock yourself out.”

Indigo’s response was slightly incomprehensible due to her panting, but Sugarcoat managed to catch a suggestion to jump naked on a cactus, as well as an insinuation regarding her relations with stray dogs.

“Quite,” Sugarcoat said, standing above Indigo. “So, are you done now?”

Indigo nodded and sat on the floor. “More or less. And now I know what to do.”

“That is?” Sugarcoat asked.

“I’m not gonna fight.”

“With Bulk?” Sugarcoat shrugged. “Well, he’s slower than you and probably fights like a cow, but it’d take a while before he’d even feel anything.”

“I don’t mean it literally,” Indigo said, crossing her arms. “I just don’t feel like fighting for him either. Like, who needs all those stupid relationships anyway?” She got up. “Seriously, I’m just, like, so done with it all. I already see the good sides of just getting a cat and chilling out watching some TV show.”

“You hit yourself harder than I thought,” Sugarcoat deadpanned, shaking her head.

Flash groaned, rubbing his arm. The new training program would probably do wonders to his biceps in the near future, but for now, his muscles hurt. Taking a few deep breaths, he started to stretch his arms in front of the mirror. Next to him, Bulk threw the dumbbells on the rack with a sigh.

“What’s up?” Flash asked. “Aside from you and Indigo, that is.”

Bulk frowned, looking at him. Flash shrugged in response. “One doesn’t simply go bowling with Muffins and hope she doesn’t spill the beans.”

“I see you two are talking again,” Bulk muttered. “Go on and maybe she’ll give you another chance.”

Flash shook his head. “And that’s what I wanted to tell you, actually. Muffins is fun and all, but too crazy for me. To be together, that is. Being friends is alright, but that’s it.”

Bulk cracked his fingers before grabbing the dumbbells again. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You should never stick anything in crazy, you know,” Flash said. “Trust me, I know what I’m saying.”

Bulk chuckled. “Yeah, because you have so much experience…”

Flash smiled sheepishly. “Well, actually…”

Flash stormed into the room, furrowing his eyebrows. “What is this?” he asked.

Sunset rolled on her bed and looked at the huge bag of some half-dried plants Flash was holding. “Umm… I’m sorry, I must’ve left it–”

“– on the couch.” Flash groaned. “I never knew you were smoking pot, Sunset.”

Sunset raised her eyebrows. “Smoking pot? You’re an idiot, Flash.”

Flash crossed his arms, approaching Sunset. “Then what is it?”

“My lunch.” Sunset snatched the bag from Flash’s hand, took a handful of dry straws from it, and started to munch on it. “What? You’ve never ate hay?”

“Umm…” Flash scratched his chin. “No?”

“You don’t eat hay?” Sunset shrugged and took another bite. “Strange. Everyone in my family ate hay.”

Flash nodded slowly, backpedalling slightly. “Remind me, where are you from?”

“Hollywood,” Sunset replied. “I already told you about it, like, hundred times.”

“Ah, that explains a lot.” Flash opened the door. “I’ll go and take a short walk. Or maybe a longer one.”

“Sure, no problem.” Sunset lay down on her bed, still munching hay.

“And then it turned out she wasn’t from Hollywood. She just heard the name and saw on the map that it was very far from Canterlot City,” Flash said.

“Well, she’s definitely not from here.” Bulk shrugged. “But I still don’t get this. Indigo isn’t crazy. Not hay-eating crazy.”

“She may not be,” Flash replied. “It’s the environment she’s in. All those guys in Crystal Prep are crazy and she, like, embraced it. She thinks it’s all about her. No wonder, given that they’re all a bunch of egoists…” He sighed. “I kinda feel bad for Lemon Zest. She’s not like them and I’d really like to–”

“She’s gay,” Bulk muttered. "Even you must've heard about it by now."

“Too bad.” Flash shook his head. “But anyway, it’s not really surprising she took it that way.”

“Well, it seemed she wanted to bury the hatchet, no matter what Muffins says,” Bulk said. “But then she kinda flipped…”

“See?” Flash nodded. “She didn’t know what to do, so she started yelling at people, as usual. It’s not rocket science.”

“You heard that from Sandalwood, didn’t you?” Bulk asked. "Sounds like his opinion about her."

“So what?” Flash grabbed the kettlebell and winced before managing to lift it. “In this case, he’s right. Since that whole thing with Sunny, Sour Sweet, and everyone else, she's not the most stable person around. In fact, none of them is.”

“I'd like to remind you that Sandalwood is still with Sugarcoat… I think.” Bulk shrugged. “That makes him the one to talk, huh?”

“You know him,” Flash said. “Do what I say, not what I do.”

“Oh yeah…” Bulk chuckled, grabbing the dumbbells.

“On the plus side,” Sugarcoat said, “you didn’t take a cat from a shelter yet.”

Soon after they left the gym, they somehow ended up in the shopping mall. Sugarcoat, always quick to find herself in the situation, called Sandalwood, who soon joined them. Much to his displeasure, though, it seemed that they went there to do, well, some shopping.

Normally, Sandalwood wouldn’t mind, especially since Indigo, unlike many girls he knew, seemed to choose things quickly rather than spend endless hours trying on different outfits. However, instead of shopping for normal clothes, Indigo and Sugarcoat decided to buy some bras and Sandalwood suddenly found himself exposed to strange looks given to him by other customers. Besides, he was sure that the cashier was suspecting him of stealing catalogues. It wasn’t quite exactly groundless.

“Seriously, it’d be more exciting if you tried them on,” Sandalwood muttered.

“You can wait for us outside,” Indigo replied. “Besides, I need to grab a few…”

“I’d rather grab boobs, but to each their own,” Sandalwood muttered, earning a nasty glare from Sugarcoat.

Indigo rolled her eyes. “Seriously, it seems that all of mine got tighter.”

Sugarcoat chuckled. “You’re finally growing, then. Soon you’ll no longer have to look for bras in kids’ section.”

“That’s almost as funny as when you first said that,” Indigo muttered, turning to Sandalwood. “What are you looking at?”

“It’d really be much more interesting if you two were trying them on,” Sandalwood replied. “I mean–”

“You can do that with Sugarcoat.” Indigo smirked. “You’re not my type and neither is she.”

“Yeah, we all know your type,” Sandalwood replied. “Also, knowing Sugarcoat, she’d make me try on bras.”

“Eww…” Indigo winced.

“And now I know what we'll do later. But that’s not everything,” Sugarcoat said. “Too bad you probably didn’t get to try it with Bulk now, but–” She whispered the rest of the sentence into Indigo’s ear. With each word, Indigo’s eyes widened more, until she backpedalled and turned to Sugarcoat, blushing.

“Why’d I do that?” Indigo shuddered. “Stop corrupting my innocent mind!”

Sugarcoat smirked. “Never…”

While Sandalwood was suffering the pains of bra shopping, Bulk and Flash settled for a more interesting way to spend the afternoon. After getting back from the gym, they ended up in Bulk’s house, supposedly to do some homework. The plans, however, didn’t survive the meeting with Featherweight.

“Too bad Indigo isn’t here.” Featherweight clicked the mouse button. On the screen of his computer, his elite soldier just lit Flash’s character on fire, causing him to run around, flailing his arms. “She actually posed some serious challenge.”

“You can always invite her, I guess.” Flash shrugged, seeing that someone else just ended his soldier’s suffering by blasting him with a grenade launcher. “Bonus points for making Bulk lose his–”

“Oh, quit it, Flash,” Bulk muttered. “If you focused on playing as much as you talk, you wouldn’t die fifteen times in last five minutes.”

“I’d totally put out the flames, if it wasn’t for that other dude…” Flash muttered.

“Hardly a dude.” Bulk aimed at the soldier with a grenade launcher and shot in his head. The speakers filled with high-pitched screams that, surprisingly, weren’t in Russian.

“You cowardly goat! Stop hiding there and fight me like a real man!”

“Hello, Muffins,” Bulk said to the microphone.

“How did you know it was me?” Muffins asked.

“You use ‘The_Muffin_Queen’ name in every game you play,” Bulk replied. “While we’re at it, can you do me a favour and shoot my brother? He needs more challenge since Indigo and I–”

“Oh, man, don’t get me started,” Muffins said. “You fucked up big time.”

Bulk sighed. “But you wasted no time telling everyone about that.”

“Can you two get a room?” another player asked.

“Indeed.” Muffins’ freshly respawned character shoot at the complainer with the grenade launcher, missing him and ruining a part of the nearby wall. “But seriously, man, I told you not to get me started, but it seems that I started myself.” She finally buried the complainer under debris and shot a few more grenades around. “You guys are crazy! And I don’t even like this game!”

“You just shoot my leg off,” Flash muttered, staring at the screen of his laptop. Another grenade blew his character to bloody pieces.

“You know what?” Muffins asked. “We should totally try again.”

“First time we tried, you tried judo on me,” Flash replied. “Now you’re shooting me with a grenade launcher. I fear to think what’ll happen later.”

“A dinner with my mom would be the most logical consequence,” Muffins replied, off-handedly shooting Featherweight, who was trying to sneak to her with his flamethrower.

Flash turned to Bulk. “Hmm, weren’t we supposed to do homework?”

“Deal with it.” Bulk chuckled.

“This also applies to you,” Muffins muttered.

“What, dinner with your mom?” Bulk asked.

“Nah,” Muffins replied. “You and Indigo should at least apologise to each other.”

“Yeah, do that,” said the recently-respawned player Muffins had buried under the ruins. “Or she won’t stop…”

Bulk sighed. “First Indigo would have to talk with me…”

“Don’t worry, I got this!” Muffins exclaimed, casually sending the other player flying with her grenade launcher, causing his character to be blown off the map. "Just give me some time..."

Author's Notes:

The background music for the punching bag scene is Fatty Boom Boom by Die Antwoord. I'm pretty sure it's not wise to link the music video on fimfiction, if only because of a bit involving Lady Gaga and a prawn.