//------------------------------// // 10 - The Dance // Story: The Lost Connection // by A bag of plums //------------------------------// The setting sun provided an excellent backdrop for CHS’s Valentine’s Day dance. The last rays of radiant sunlight pattered down upon the banners that Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich had hung up all over the campus, proudly swaying and fluttering in the evening breeze. Pierce Network watched from the entrance as most of the students arrive in pairs, very much excited for the dance. If only they knew what this was really for… Pierce looked at his phone, which he had linked to a few micro cameras he had placed around the school building. He had no idea why Mirror wanted them there and she had refused to tell him why, but at least with these, he could make sure no suspicious characters were to appear at the school dance. With such a huge amount of advertising, there was no telling who might show up. Watching Derpy arrive with a half-eaten muffin in her hands, Pierce grunted and limped back inside, looking at the time. It was almost five and Principal Celestia was nowhere to be found. Pierce grumbled to himself all along the way to a group of tables the party planners had set up. When he eventually got there, he pulled up a chair and sat down, stretching his injured leg out, softly massaging his knee with one hand, while his other kept the phone close to his face to monitor the cameras. “Typical Pierce. A veritable feast in the making, and you choose to look at your phone.” Celestia’s voice reached Pierce’s ears as the principal in question walked toward him. She was wearing her usual attire, though she had added a pair of diamond earrings and a pearl necklace. “Nothing fancy?” he asked her, keeping his eyes on his phone. “I thought perhaps you were coming in something fancy. It is a dance after all. You enjoy parties, don’t you? You used to host them all the time when you were still in Manehattan. A waste of time for me, really, but you seemed to like them a lot. It’s a whole lot of money going down the drain when you organize something like this, isn’t it?” “The party isn’t for me this time.” Celestia sniffed. “It’s for someone far more important.” “Right…” Pierce tried to put the pieces together. “That’s why you asked for the cameras, huh? So that you can find this important someone? Let me guess, it’s your queen you’re trying to look for, am I right? It would make sense to throw such a big dance with such a big advertising to go.” Celestia hissed. “You ask too many questions. Who this party is for is none of your business. You’re just the host here, so get up on stage and host.” Pierce grunted, but pushed to his feet. He slowly made his way towards the stage, trying to make his limp as unnoticeable as possible. He didn’t like it when the students asked him questions, just like how Mirror Match didn’t like him asking her. Bah… Everything’s gone bad since you showed up, Mirror Match… Pierce brought one leg up at a time as he ascended the stairs to get on the stage. Celestia followed closely behind him, but she made no attempt to help him. So much for keeping up appearances. Pierce stopped somewhere in the middle, close to the front, and pulled out a microphone from his coat pocket. “Excuse me. Is this working?” Pierce tested into the microphone. “Alright, good. Welcome, students. As you all know, tonight is the Valentine’s Day dance, and you’re all here today to enjoy yourselves and have fun. Consider yourselves lucky. Back in my day-” Pierce felt the tip of something sharp press against his back before Principal Celestia cleared her throat. She wanted him to stop. “Get to the point,” Celestia whispered in his ear. “Right,” Pierce coughed and looked at all the students. “Let the dancing begin then.” Pierce braced himself as he watched Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich roll a cannon in around the back and fired up a blast of confetti with a massive boom. The computer teacher watched from the stage as the students began spreading out across the gym floor as Vinyl Scratch started the loud music. Most of them began dancing, while some opted to hang around by the refreshments table. Celestia looked around herself and sniffed. “It’s not very strong, is it?” “What’s not very strong?” Pierce replied. “Do you mean the AC? I can simply turn it up on my phone, seeing as I’ve linked most of the school’s systems to it. I never took you for feeling warm. You’re always so cold.” “The love,” Celestia explained impatiently. “It’s insipid. This is hardly a meal at all, much less a feast.” Pierce shrugged and looked through the cameras on his phone again, trying to find anything suspicious or out of the ordinary. It was all mostly quiet, with a few students running in, late for the dance. One girl, by the looks of it, Watermelody, had tripped on her long blue dress, dropping a skull, which rolled along the grass, freaking out another two students. “That girl and her skulls…” Pierce muttered to himself. “I don’t even know why she carries them around. Where does she even get them? They can’t be real, no way she can find real ones. The question is, where does she buy these fake skulls? Kids these days, they do anything to get their hands on weird stuff.” Then something on one of the cameras caught the teacher’s eye. It was a long black car with tinted windows, stopped right outside on the road facing the school’s entrance. Pierce watched it closely. For many minutes, the car didn’t move, nor did anyone get out. “What are you staring at so intently?” Celestia stepped behind him to have a look. “There’s this car outside that’s just been waiting there,” he moved his arm to let her see the phone screen more clearly. Celestia seemed to freeze. “Where is this car? Exactly.” “Front lawn, just a little to the left of the Wondercolt statue,” Pierce told her. “Now if this is-” The flickering of the lights cut off his sentence as he looked around. Even his cameras fuzzed out whenever the lights blacked out. All the students had gone quiet, including Vinyl Scratch and her music. It was like the flickering had plunged the entire gym into silence. Almost as quickly as it had started, the lights came on again and stayed on, like nothing had happened. “That was weird…” Pierce looked at his phone again. His cameras had all come back online, displaying the sides of the school and the mysterious black car, still where it was. “You need to call someone to check the lighting in this building, Principal Celestia. It could be faulty wiring or perhaps even a short circuit. Lightning isn’t always accompanied by thunder. Perhaps there’s a storm coming.” Celestia was about to reply when her nostrils flared and she stumbled back a step. There was a new scent in the air, overpowering almost every other smell. “What?” Pierce watched her face change. “I don’t smell anything. Is something on fire? Maybe the blackout caused something to burn out. I’ll check the cameras. If there’s a fire, we’ll have to quell it before it gets out of hand.” Pierce cycled through his cameras when the gym lights flickered again, causing a few murmurs to erupt from the students. “It’s not fire, you dolt!” Celestia’s mouth was open, breathing through it in pants. “It’s… hate. Something in here is giving off a strong aura of hatred. Very strong.” “Hate? Who could possibly-” Then the gym disappeared into darkness once again, this time, staying for a few seconds. “What…?” Pierce looked around. If it weren’t for his phone’s light, he wouldn’t even be able to see anything. Almost as if nothing had happened, the lights came back on instantly, but the silence stayed. Pierce eyed the DJ, but she made no move to start the music again. Instead, her eyes, along with the eyes of the other students and Principal Celestia, were focused on something below one of the basketball hoops. At first, the teacher had thought it was a shadow, cast by the hoop, but then it started smoking and expanding, like a small campfire, but without the fire. “I need to go,” Celestia whispered. “Now.” “Go where? What is that thing over there?” “She’s out there! I can feel it. Her majesty.” Celestia seemed to move as if in a trance. “Wait, what about that?” Pierce grabbed her arm and pointed to the shadow, which was now as large as a human. “You have an image to keep up. You’re the principal. You can’t abandon your students and staff just like that. Your job would be on the line if you don’t handle this well. And Luna, look at her.” The vice principal was still by the punch table, but she looked like she had fallen asleep standing up. “You have to keep her safe as well. She’s your sister after all.” Then to Pierce’s astonishment and even Celestia’s, a few of the students had folded out a sleek metallic armor over themselves, now resembling something he’d seen on TV a few weeks ago. If he hadn’t seen it fold around the students, he would’ve thought they were robots. They were of various shapes and colors, each one sporting a faceless mask. Pierce had also seen Mr. Loregiver, the history teacher, enter one of those things, brandishing a razor sharp sword in his hand. Whatever was going on here, it looked big, bigger than Mirror Match’s search for her queen. These suits of armor were definitely not from law-enforcement. They looked almost… alien, but it couldn’t possibly be alien. Pierce never believed in them. He figured it was a tale the government had concocted. Celestia growled, a sound which the real Celestia would have never made. “This had better be a real emergency and not some prank, or I’ll have your head, Network.” “Do I look like I know what’s going on?” Pierce pointed a finger at the robots and shadow. “A few students and a teacher just turned into those things and they seem to be waiting for something in that shadow. Robots. Do you think I have something to do with this? If you do, you’re wasting your time. This isn’t my doing. This looks like more trouble. More trouble than anything I’ve seen before.” “Oh, will you just shut up?!” Celestia ran to Vice Principal Luna and pulled her along to the doors of the gym, which she swiftly threw open. “Students! Quickly find your way out of the gym. Do not panic! Move in an orderly fashion.” Pierce kept an eye on the shadow, which had suddenly been shrugged off like a cape as another one of those armored suits stood up, a pair of knives in its hands. As with most life-threatening events, most of the students completely ignored Celestia’s warning, immediately screaming and running for their lives. The shadowy figure chucked his knives at the other group, but missed, lodging them in the wall on the far side, almost skewering a group of students. “Go!” Pierce yelled at them. “Move! You don’t want to get killed here like this.” He would’ve rushed over and pushed them on, but his injury prevented any of that. Instead, Pierce focused on getting away, looking for a good place to bunker down, preferably behind something solid. As his foot touched the bottom of the third step, a pair of armored hands grabbed him by the right arm and the back as one of the armored suits helped him move down, pulling the teacher so fast that he ended up hopping along. “You gotta get out of here, Mr. Pierce,” he told him. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Pierce couldn’t remember which student this was. “It’s not safe.” “You don’t have to tell me twice,” he answered. “What are these things? These suits. They look like they can fight all kinds of threats. Where did you get one? They look almost organic, like they have a mind of their own.” “Too many questions, Mr. Pierce!” the suit pushed Pierce down as a dagger flew overhead. “For now, just focus on getting to the exit!” “Flash!” one of the other suits yelled and projected a green barrier around herself as she stood between Pierce and a trio of knives. “Go, get him out of the gym! I’ll cover you!” “Thanks, Twilight! Come on, Mr. Pierce, you heard her.” Suddenly, the computer teacher was swept up in armored arms and sped out to the entrance, almost like he had just been shot out of a cannon. It was so fast that it left Pierce wondering how he actually got to the door. “Stay out here until we’ve dealt with this,” he was told before the suit ran back in with a burst of lightning. Most of the students were already gathered here, some even taking their phones out to take pictures of the battle inside the gym. The staff were busy counting the kids, trying to account for them. Pierce dusted down his attire and limped out, noticing Principal Celestia by the Wondercolt statue, looking out at the road. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and viewed the camera feed. The black car that had been in front of the statue was now gone. He looked at all the other cameras, but the car had likely left the area after the thing attacked them. “Did you find her?” Pierce asked the false principal when he got close enough for her to hear him. “Did you make it out in time?” Principal Celestia’s shoulder were shaking, and a small sniffle could be heard. Pierce crept closer, only for Celestia to screech in anger and grab him by the throat with her left hand. The computer teacher struggled against her grip, but she was far stronger than he was. “W-What…?” he croaked. He was unable to say anything else. “You knew this would happen…” Celestia growled, holding out her right index finger. It began to smoke and burst into emerald flames, leaving Celestia with a talon on the end of her blackened finger. She pressed the claw against his throat, angry tears in her eyes. Pierce choked and gagged, feeling his consciousness begin to drift away. Finally, after what felt like forever, Celestia let go, dropping him to the ground against the Wondercolt statue. The teacher grabbed for his throat and breathed in as deeply as he could before a series of coughs emerged from his mouth. “I… didn’t… know…” Pierce said in between breaths. “How would I…? What… was that thing…?” “Don’t lie to me! Somehow, this is your doing. You’re the reason I missed the queen!” “How do you… think I would’ve… managed to get… something like that?” Pierce was shocked. If only it was his doing. “It almost… killed me. I wouldn’t… kill myself, would I?” Celestia closed in on him, flicking him with her clawed finger. “And still you show no fear…” she said, flicking her tongue at the air. “I know it was you. Now get out of my sight. I may have missed the queen, but by my blade I will not tolerate any more tomfoolery from you tonight!” Celestia stalked off back towards the gym where the rest of the students were gathered. Pierce continued to breathe, refilling his lungs with the oxygen he had lost. Things were looking bad. Because of that strange armored suit, now Mirror Match thought he was the one at fault. Pierce shook his head. To think all this was his fault was ridiculous. If he had somehow acquired suits of metal like that, he would’ve already tried to kill her. His circumstances weren’t looking great, but at least he had a backup plan in the works. His traps were already set, just in case, and he told Morning Blade and Keila to be ready when he called. He didn’t know if they listened, but he had no one else to fallback to. The only problem now was locating the real Principal Celestia. If his plans did manage to work, he still had no idea where she was and as Mirror had said, she would starve to death. Pierce grunted. That was the only thing keeping his plans from working. Somehow, he needed to know where Mirror Match had hidden her. Then an idea struck him. Perhaps he could figure it out if he slipped one of his bugs into the false Celestia’s pockets. He could always follow the signal with his phone and see where she went. It’s better than nothing, especially when my life is now probably on the line, all because of that shadowy armored thing. Things these days… You come to expect the irregular when you work here long enough. Pierce could still hear the sounds of battle from within the gym, along with the occasional hole appearing in the walls. Whatever these thing were, they were powerful. Discord lumbered over, half his hair blackened from soot and debris and part of his lab coat had been torn off. “My, what a turn of events we have here…” He dusted his now grey coat. “You alright, Pierce? With your leg like that, I’m surprised you got out with barely a stain on your outfit. Not that I wanted you to be trapped in there, of course.” Discord waved his hands innocently. “I’m decent enough,” Pierce grunted and rubbed his throat. “Are the students safe? Are they all out? In circumstances like these, some of them are bound to hide under the tables or worse, stay frozen-” “They’re all out, Pierce.” Discord stuck a finger in his ear and twisted it. “Cheerilee and Bray are watching them now. I just thought you needed some help, especially after Celestia stormed off from you furiously. What did you do to make her so mad?” Pierce sighed and scratched his cheek. “Honestly, I don’t exactly know. Seeing as I had a part in planning this event, perhaps she thinks it’s all my fault that this happened. Maybe I should’ve known better and refused. With all the strange things going on in the last month, maybe I should’ve thought over it more.” “Maybe, maybe, maybe.” Discord threw his hands up and pulled his yellow work glove tighter over his fingers. “There are so many different ways events can play out. There’s no way to know them all, Pierce. What’s done is done. Unless you can reverse time, I suggest looking ahead.” “Insightful words, Discord.” Pierce fiddled with the bug in his pocket. The whacky science teacher was right. Without another moment’s thought, Pierce walked over to where Celestia was standing, taking the tiny device out of his pocket as he got closer. Celestia wheeled around, flames flashing in her eyes. “Just what in the queen’s name do you think you’re doing?” she hissed. Pierce noticed that her right hand was now in her pocket, concealing the claw on her index finger. “I told you to get out of my sight!” Pierce sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. I know, strange right? Pierce isn’t sorry for anything, but I do acknowledge my faults even if I don’t show it. I should’ve made sure the dance was safer, considering the amount of advertising we put up, obviously outside parties were going to show up.” Just then an explosion sounded from inside the gym. “I suppose I should go see what’s left of the gym…” Celestia muttered to herself. “It’s what the real me would do.” “Wait!” Pierce grabbed on to her arm and pulled her down, just as a chunk of debris flew out the main doors, bouncing away and stopping close to the Wondercolt statue. A few students shrieked and moved away. “Don’t you hear them? They’re still in there. Unless you want to join the battle yourself, you should wait out here like the rest of us.” “Since when do you care about my well-being?” Celestia snapped. “I’m going to have a look. You can do me a favor by getting the hay out of my way.” Pierce stepped aside and joined the rest of the school body, watching the gym entrance anxiously. The computer teacher could make out shapes inside, flying around and clashing with each other, but he couldn’t see very well in the dark. Flipping his palm up, he let a small smile creep across his mouth. It was empty, the bug now in Celestia’s jacket pocket. Now it was only a matter of seeing where she goes to try to determine where she was keeping the real Principal Celestia. Then there were more rumbles from within the gym, one such shock sending a tremor under their feet. The students began murmuring, some even moving off towards the back of the school to get away from the gym’s surroundings. Pierce didn’t blame them and for the time being, it seemed like a good idea. Cheerilee also thought the same, now directing the students to follow their classmates. Pierce stood in his spot, watching Principal Celestia. Just then, smoke began to fill the gym, pouring out through the doors and into the night sky. “Did something catch on fire?” he said out loud. “Though that’s not hard with all the fighting going on inside.” Then the group of suits began running out, some helping others as they headed for the Wondercolt statue. The last suit coming out was carrying Trixie with him. Pierce widened his eyes for a second. He hadn’t seen the white haired girl enter the gym at anytime. The other teachers seemed sure they had accounted for all the students as well. “Trixie?” a pink haired suit asked the same question. “What are you doing here?” Pierce watched them, his eyes taking in everything, but his mind still trying to tell him it was all a dream. How could any of this even exist? Surely they hadn’t come up with such advanced technology already? Pierce looked at his phone. His gadgets definitely couldn’t match up to those slim robotic suits. Almost as abruptly as they had rushed out of the gym, they disappeared through the statue’s base, heading to that Twilight Sparkle’s world. Celestia watched all this happen, then she rubbed her face with her left hand and gave a dismissive wave at the statue’s general direction. “You know what, I’m not even going to ask. I don’t care.” Pierce looked at her and then back at the statue. “You’re not? All my life, I’ve never seen technology like that. And- oh yes, you’re not the real Principal Celestia. Twilight Sparkle, the girl with purple skin, she’s from the other world. That’s how she comes and goes. It’s normally closed, so I haven’t been able to see what it’s like on the other side.” “I already said I don’t give a damn about it, so stop informing me. Go home, go to the pub, go anywhere. I don’t care anymore.” Pierce began to leave, but something hit him in the back of the head. It was his bug. “And the next time you decide to bug someone, don’t put it in their pockets!” Pierce rubbed his head and bent down to pick up his device. Maybe he should’ve thought of a better place to put it. Pierce Network stepped into the school’s gymnasium, curious as to what damage had been caused within. The students had also thought the same, reappearing from behind the corner where they had gone to hide. They must have heard the commotion before and the silence they had been left with. “The horror! The horror!” Pierce watched as Roseluck leaned back and fainted in Lightning Rain’s arms. Way to add the dramatic effect, kid. Pierce had expected to see a mess when he went back into the gym, but the robots had been sure to exceed his expectations. There were craters in the gym’s flooring, and enough holes in the walls to make the building look like a life-sized swiss cheese. All the decorations in the room had been torn to shreds, including the punch table, which now lay on its side, in half, the ice sculpture that had been on it was now a puddle across the floor. Debris of all shapes and sizes dotted the gym, making it look like some sort of airsoft arena. This was all going to take a lot of time and money to fix back up. Pierce watched the students as they explored the mess. Some of them took it harder than others, likely because they needed the gym to play their sports games. “I’ll tell you what they were.” From behind Pierce, Jetstream swaggered in, his suit caked with dust with a few tears around the legs. “Well, now that we’ve got a moment to calm down, I think we all can look at the facts. One, our school was once again attacked by a something. We’ll call it the Creeper, because it reminds me of ol’ Lightning here-” “Hey!” Lightning Rain interrupted him. “Well, it’s true,” Jetstream continued, unfazed. “Anyway, it's obvious what that thing was. It was a robot.” Pierce had thought the same, but then he remembered the suits folding over some of the students and Loregiver, meaning they couldn’t be robots. Whatever it was they were fighting, it looked like it resembled their suits, so it could’ve very well been someone else in a suit, not a robot. Suddenly, the Jetstream boy waved a hand through the gym’s ruined space and yelled, “Could a guy in a suit have done all this?” “Yes!” All the other students yelled at the same time. Pierce watched as they began arguing and throwing all kinds of conspiracy theories about what could’ve happened. The kids have imagination, I’ll give them that… “Pierce…” It was Principal Celestia. She was now standing behind him, her voice frosty. “Send them home. I’ve had enough for one night.” “Right.” The computer teacher limped over to the crowd of students. “Alright, that's about it, kids… Discuss what happened away from here. In your homes, on your way back. I declare this dance over. Have a nice rest of the evening kids. I need to take care of some business first.” Pierce watched the students begin to leave the gymnasium, sighing at how oblivious they all were to a threat before them. Principal Celestia had been replaced, but so far, no one seems to have picked that up. Mirror Match had done a really good job in replacing her. “So what are we going to do about the gym?” Pierce asked the Canterlot High principal. “I’ll call a contractor to start sorting this out right now, but what about the money? You’ll have to deal with that on your part, seeing as you’re masquerading as the principal here.” “Just shut up, Pierce.” Celestia rubbed her face with her left hand, keeping her right hand in her pocket. “I’ll pay for the gym, but you’re going to pay for ruining my chances at meeting my queen again.” “I told you-” “I don’t care what you told me!” Celestia’s eyes flared green, like there was fire behind them. “As far as I’m concerned, you sabotaged this dance. I’m going to go home to think and mark my words, if you were really the one behind this, you can kiss your freedom goodbye, because you’ll never be seeing anything ever again.” Celestia turned and stomped out of the gym, leaving Pierce by himself. The teacher reached a hand into his coat and retrieved his phone, opening up his message app. Cracking his knuckles, he began typing: We might have to act soon. Mirror Match is furious about what happened at the Valentine’s Day dance. I’ll explain that later, but I don’t think she has much more use for me. This is going to end soon, so I think it’s time we get ready. Standby for instructions. Pierce Network Stowing his phone, the former Assassin looked up at the moon through a hole in the roof. Time wasn’t something they had, but he had to make do with what he had left. Earlier, after Celestia had discovered his bug, he had gone over to her car and hidden it underneath, close to the brake lines. Unless she was paranoid, there wasn’t any chance she was going to find it this time, so Pierce had high hopes he was going to finally learn where the real Principal Celestia was being kept. Then after that, it was all a matter of getting Mirror Match in the right place to end it all. “This time, Mirror Match…” he breathed. “I’m one step ahead of you.”