Since Canterlot High School only allotted an hour for the students' lunch break, there wasn't much time left after having lunch and chatting with Trixie for a while.
Sunset Shimmer hurried off to her afternoon classroom.
But before they parted ways, Sunset Shimmer had practically coerced Trixie into giving her a list.
It couldn't be helped; if she could be a bit quicker and more efficient, Sunset Shimmer wouldn't have had to pressure her so much.
And even then, it had almost caused her to be late for class.
The afternoon consisted of two math classes, leaving many students feeling drowsy; after all, they really couldn't make heads or tails of the scribbles the teacher put on the blackboard.
Upon realizing that the material was all things she had already learned, Sunset Shimmer stopped paying attention to the lecture and instead turned her focus to the list Trixie had given her—a list of students whom Trixie considered reliable at this school.
Moreover, Sunset Shimmer noticed a couple of names that looked particularly familiar.
"Applejack and Rarity..."
These were the names of the ponies they had met during their last trip to Ponyville, though it remained to be seen if these were their human counterparts.
But since they looked familiar to Sunset Shimmer, she decided to start with these two after school. She just hoped they wouldn't rush home the moment classes ended.
"Rainbow Dash, please come up and solve this problem."
Cherry tapped on the blackboard as she called out Rainbow Dash's name, and the student sitting next to her immediately shook her awake.
"Huh?! Okay..."
Sunset Shimmer had just seen the name Rainbow Dash in the Friendship Games commemorative book; she hadn't expected to be attending the same math class as her.
Watching the rainbow-haired tomboy stand up abruptly from a seat in the back row, she rubbed her sleep-heavy eyes and reluctantly walked to the chalkboard at the front of the room, picking up a piece of chalk.
She wrote an equal sign on the blackboard but couldn't proceed, looking at Cherry with embarrassment.
"Very well... is there any student willing to help her?"
Cherry was well aware of Rainbow Dash's math skills; calling her up was just a minor punishment for sleeping in class. Even if she was a star athlete, she couldn't just sleep in class openly.
However, after Cherry asked, not a single student raised their hand. After all, this was a trick question and quite difficult; no one was confident enough to think they could definitely get it right.
Just as Cherry was about to scan her list for a student with better math grades, her eyes suddenly caught someone raising a hand in the back row by the window.
"Hmm... let me see... Sunset Shimmer, please come up and solve this problem."
Since Sunset Shimmer was a new student, Cherry couldn't recall the red-haired student's name and had to search the new student list for a moment before calling it out.
"So, can I go back to my seat now?"
"No, you need to watch how she finishes solving this problem for you."
Cherry looked at Rainbow Dash with a slightly stern expression and said earnestly.
"You really need to study seriously. I don't want to see your name on the list for the next remedial math exam."
"Oh... alright..."
Rainbow Dash curled her lip. She truly hated studying this stuff; it was far less practical than running a few extra laps on the track.
Watching the stranger walk toward her, Rainbow Dash didn't recognize her. She looked pretty cool—not like a nerd at all. But since she had the confidence to raise her hand, her grades must be decent.
Sunset Shimmer came to a stop in front of Rainbow Dash, and it was only then that Rainbow Dash realized she had to look up to see her face.
'What did she eat to get so tall?'
She felt an inexplicable annoyance. Rainbow Dash handed the chalk, which only had two lines drawn on it, to Sunset Shimmer like she was offering a cigarette, then stepped aside to watch how Sunset Shimmer would perform.
(Rainbow Dash doesn't smoke; she's only ever had candy cigarettes. She learned the gesture from TV because she thought it looked cool. Don't flame me.)
Sunset Shimmer took the chalk, erased the equal sign Rainbow Dash had drawn, and wrote "Given"...
After filling about half a small section of the blackboard, Sunset Shimmer stopped and signaled to Cherry that she had finished.
"The process is correct, and the answer is right..."
Cherry had watched Sunset Shimmer work through it step by step, without a single moment of hesitation.
She knew the difficulty of this problem. Her initial expectation was that the students would only get half of it right, and she would then step in to correct them, thereby reinforcing their understanding of this type of problem.
But she hadn't expected that someone would actually be able to get it all right without a single error.
Moreover, Sunset Shimmer looked completely relaxed after finishing; she simply clapped her hands together and brushed off the chalk dust, as if she had just written "1+1=2." This forced Cherry to look at Sunset Shimmer with a newfound respect.
Since when did Canterlot High School start enrolling students like this?
"Excellent problem-solving approach, Sunset Shimmer."
Except for the slightly messy handwriting.
"You may return to your seats. Next, I will go over the common mistakes made with this problem."
With Cherry's permission, Sunset Shimmer and Rainbow Dash returned to their respective seats. However, just before that, Sunset Shimmer, who was following behind Rainbow Dash, leaned in slightly and whispered in her ear.
"Can we talk for a while after school?"
Taken aback by being approached so suddenly at such a moment, Rainbow Dash paused and glanced suspiciously at Sunset Shimmer, who had returned to her seat with a calm expression.
But since class was still in session, Rainbow Dash quickly returned to her seat and sat down to avoid being called out by the teacher again.
She didn't know what this new student, Sunset Shimmer, wanted with her, but it gave her a bad feeling.
In particular, she sensed an aura of someone not to be messed with coming from Sunset Shimmer, which made her instinctively assume that Sunset Shimmer was looking for a fight.
Didn't anyone think that what Sunset Shimmer said sounded exactly like "Don't go anywhere after school"?
But even if it really was a fight, Rainbow Dash wouldn't back down. She was the captain of the school's sports team, after all. So what if Sunset Shimmer was half a head taller than her? Was being tall supposed to be impressive?
Rainbow Dash would show her what "small but mighty" meant.
No, wait, she wasn't short! It was just that the giant Sunset Shimmer had grown too much.
At this moment, Sunset Shimmer had no idea that Rainbow Dash had completely misunderstood her intentions and was even sharpening her metaphorical knives for the "battle" after school.
The reason she had approached Rainbow Dash was that the list Trixie had given her explicitly noted that she and four other people were very close friends.
In other words, if she could just sway one of them to help out, there was a high probability of gaining four more pairs of hands at once.
Such is the way of the world.
Sunset Shimmer and Trixie were in desperate need of help at the moment, so they naturally couldn't afford to miss out on this group. This was one of the reasons Sunset Shimmer had chosen to step in and help Rainbow Dash with the problem.
She hoped that, in return for helping her solve that difficult math problem, Rainbow Dash would agree to introduce her to her four friends.
Thinking of this, Sunset Shimmer looked up toward Rainbow Dash. When their eyes met, it felt as though sparks were flying.
Rainbow Dash glared fiercely at Sunset Shimmer before turning her head away in a huff.
Sunset Shimmer:?
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