A/N: Forgive me. The first chapter of this isn't even properly a high school AU. It's junior high.

And if that wasn't enough to scare you right off, Chris Thorndyke is in it. SOMEBODY STOP ME.

(Also, a note on the "Eyecatch Card" section at the bottom of each chapter: NATIONALITY refers to the country/place a character comes from within this story. ORIGIN is the canon I am taking them from, though not necessarily the canon in which they first appeared. This distinction really only applies to characters like Charmy, who date back to really obscure places like manga, or cameos in other games. For characters who appear in multiple canons, I will always use SEGA incarnations, when applicable.)

CHAPTER TITLE: First Day
CHARACTER(S): Chris, Amy, Tails

NEXT WEEK: Fun with crayons!

Chris knew the first day of school was probably a little early to be making any kind of snap judgments, but by lunchtime, he was already feeling more hopeful about the coming year than he had the entire summer.

For one, despite everyone's warnings that junior high would be a lot tougher than middle school, all his new teachers seemed pretty nice so far—even Mr. Stewart, the somewhat eccentric man who taught Chris's homeroom. For another, while districting complications had separated Chris from most of his buddies at his old school, he'd been fortunate enough to make one new friend already, Amy Rose, a fellow sixth-grader whose last name had placed her right next to Chris for the morning classes when they were seated alphabetically.

Amy, a petite girl with shocking pink highlights and a red dress, stood out from the other kids in their class like a sore thumb, not least because she approached the world around her (Chris included) with a cheerful, upbeat attitude that was matched only by the swiftness of her temper. Apparently, Amy had something of a fearful reputation already, given the number of students who had attended elementary and middle school alongside her and were already spreading the word that it was generally a terrible idea to be on her bad side.

Amy's companionship came with the added bonus of having someone around who could effortlessly cow into submission the whispering masses that had been indiscreetly following Chris's every movement since he'd stepped onto the school grounds: mainly curious students and teachers, who seemed to just magically appear once they caught wind of the fact that the son of Nelson and Linsey Thorndyke was walking among them like an ordinary person.

That sort of attention wasn't anything new for him, but sometimes, Chris still wanted to shout at them that he was an ordinary person. Just because his mom was an an actress and his dad ran a big computer company didn't mean he was anything special. People were always looking at him like they were waiting for something incredible, as though he was expected to do something to match up to his famous parents. It was a lot of pressure for a twelve-year-old to handle.

Amy, luckily, was prepared to help out in any way she could—as Chris found out yet again when he went to meet her by her locker for lunch like they'd promised before second period. She said she wanted to introduce him to another friend.

"Make way, coming through!" she yelled, dragging him by the hand through the crowded halls of the junior high building. Anyone unlucky enough to get caught in her warpath was unceremoniously sent flying, or slammed against the locker rows like weightless rag dolls instead of sixth- and seventh-grade students. "Sheesh, is it always so crowded in here?"

"Uh, maybe," Chris managed, throwing a few apologetic glances behind him to her unfortunate victims, many of whom still seemed too stunned to comprehend what had happened. "Thanks for helping to keep all those people off my back today, Amy. It really helped me out."

"No problem!" she replied with a smile, letting go of his arm as they stepped into the lunchroom side by side. "Oooh, people like that make me so mad! The second they hear any old name that sounds like someone famous, they all turn into a bunch of screeching, mindless harpies!"

Chris wasn't sure what to say to that, but he was spared the trouble when a new voice piped up from behind them.

"You mean like how you get whenever someone brings up Sonic, Amy?"

Instinctively, Chris turned to look to the speaker, but Amy's reaction was more immediate. "Sonic?" she cried loudly, whipping around as one hand flew up to her heart. "Who said what about Sonic? Where's—oh. It's you."

Her voice abruptly lost its elated quality when she caught sight of the person who had spoken—a short, sandy-haired boy with bright blue eyes, dressed simply in jeans and a polo shirt but wearing a white-and-yellow sweatshirt tied around his waist from the back. Chris thought the kid looked far too young to be in the junior high building, probably no more than eight or nine years old. Had he somehow wandered in from the elementary school across the street?

Amy seemed to know the boy, though. "Tails, you big jerk!" she said, loudly and dramatically, folding her arms over her chest with a glare that could melt steel. "I told you to stop doing that!"

Chris, who still wasn't quite used to the girl's abrupt mood changes, instinctively edged away, but the kid called 'Tails' only shook his head slowly in a long-suffering sort of way. "But you just said..."

"That's completely different!" Amy said haughtily. "I was only talking about people who go gaga over someone because they have a famous name. I love Sonic because he's strong and courageous and a hero and my soulmate and—"

"Amy," the boy said wearily.

"—so fast and unbelievably handsome and—oh, hang on a second!" she said, rounding on Chris and pointing at the new boy. "Chris, this is my friend I was telling you about! His name is Miles Prower, but everyone just calls him Tails. He's a real-live genius! He just turned eight years old but he's already in the eighth grade!"

"Wow, that's incredible!" Chris said, reaching out with a smile to shake the kid's hand. "Nice to meet you, Miles—uh, Tails. I'm Chris. Hey, um, if you don't mind me asking, what's with the nickname?"

The kid grinned sheepishly and motioned toward the arms of his fluffly sweatshirt. "Miss Vanilla used to have to tie it backward on me so I didn't forget to take it to school," he said. "Everyone said it looked like I had two tails when I was running, so they called me Tails."

"Oh. Who's Miss Vanilla?" Chris asked, as they all sat down together at an empty table with their lunch bags. Amy spoke up before Tails could.

"She's the lady who runs the group home a few blocks down from here," Amy said. "You know, for kids who are between houses, or who've lost their families and stuff. She and her daughter are the nicest people you'll ever meet."

She said all this in the same chatty sort of tone other people might use to talk about the weather. Chris, however, went wide-eyed as the meaning of her words sunk in.

"Group home? You—You don't have a family?" Chris blurted out without thinking to Tails. Immediately, he realized how insensitive a question this was, and tried frantically to backtrack in compensation. "W-Wait! I didn't mean—that was really rude, I'm so sorry—"

"Don't worry about it," Tails and Amy said at the same time, like they were used to fielding this question.

"We're both orphans, actually," Amy explained, for some reason sounding apologetic, though not particularly upset. "Well, as far as we know, at least. It's kind of a long story. We've been on our own for as long as we can remember, but Miss Vanilla's been taking care of us the past few years. We live at her house with a bunch of other kids like us."

"Including Sonic," Tails chimed in, arranging his very practical-looking lunch into groups of sliced meats, cheeses, and vegetables. "Not that it makes Amy any less crazy over him."

"Because he's never there!" she shrieked indignantly. "He keeps running away whenever he feels like it!"

Tails winced. "Yeah, I've been trying to talk to him about that..."

"Well, you should talk louder then!"

From a distance, Chris doubted anyone watching the bickering unfolding before him would have known that the two students were talking about anything close to what life was like without having any families. He suddenly felt quite horrible for complaining to Amy about his own parents. He wondered if being on her own for so long was the reason Amy was so fearless, not to mention relentlessly optimistic.

Chris also wondered about the boy they were talking about, some upperclassman from the adjoining high school—Sonic, they'd said. Tails spoke very highly of him, like the two were close, and obviously Amy was head over heels for the guy. What might he be like? Chris doubted he would ever meet him, but he had to admit he was at least a little curious.

Either way, it seemed like Christopher Thorndyke was in for a very interesting year...

EYECATCH CARD #1

NAME: Christopher Thorndyke
ORIGIN: Sonic X
AGE: 12
EDUCATION: Station Square Junior High
GRADE LEVEL: Sixth
NATIONALITY: United Federation
TRAITS: Shy but friendly and courageous. Will do anything for a friend. Can be obsessive about those close to his heart.
TRIVIA: Fears subconsciously that his famous parents will one day forget him and leave for good.

EYECATCH CARD #2

NAME: Amy Rose
ORIGIN: SEGA
AGE: 12
EDUCATION: Station Square Junior High
GRADE LEVEL: Sixth
NATIONALITY: Eggman Islands
TRAITS: Bubbly and friendly, with a bit of a temper. Believes in the power of love! Her heart forever belongs to Sonic.
TRIVIA: Claims to be a tarot card reader. This ability allows her to divine the location of people or lost items.

EYECATCH CARD #3

NAME: Miles "Tails" Prower
ORIGIN: SEGA
AGE: 8
EDUCATION: Station Square Junior High
GRADE LEVEL: Eighth
NATIONALITY: Eggman Islands
TRAITS: Kindhearted, slightly naive. Always helpful to others. Recognizes others' faults, but doesn't hold it against them.
TRIVIA: He is a child prodigy, with a mechanical genius to match Dr. Eggman's.