//------------------------------//
// Inspection 
// Story: For Want of a Horseshoe Nail 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
//------------------------------//

The three colts watched with round eyes as the butter-yellow filly plummeted toward the ground. “Catch her!”
“You catch her!”
“I can’t go that fast!”
Moments later, a streak of blue shot over the trio, racing toward the plummeting pegasus. The bully colts watched in silent amazement as the figure matched Fluttershy’s speed, gently pulling her into a beautiful parabolic curve toward the ground. “Let’s get out of here before they get back,” one squeaked.
“Good idea,” another agreed fervently.
As one, they turned tail and strode directly into the cream-colored barrel of a very unamused looking mare. A mint green unicorn and a baby dragon stood just behind her. “Stratus,” the tan colt whimpered.


***

When the Doctor returned with Fluttershy, Maple was still berating the three colts. “—and what’s more, you scared the poor thing so bad she jumped off a cloud just to get away from you! Does that make you feel good about yourselves? Hm?”
The Doctor stared as his friend continued to lay into the bullies, whose tails were now tucked firmly between their legs as they stared studiously down at the ground. 
Lyra trotted over, smirking. “You don’t need to bother about those three, Doctor. Maple’s been putting on the Oncoming Storm since she clapped eyes on them.” She glanced over at his passenger and groaned. “Oh, Doctor… really? The fez?”
“Hey!” the Doctor protested. “Don’t diss the fez. Fezzes are cool. Besides, she looks adorable.”
Spike peered over Lyra’s head. “He’s got a point.”
Fluttershy glanced up and her eyes went wide. “Oh my. Are you a baby dragon?”
Spike looked mildly discomforted. “Well, uh, maybe less of the baby,” he said awkwardly. “I mean, I am—”
In an instant, Fluttershy had hopped off the Doctor’s back and fluttered up onto Lyra’s. “Hey!” the unicorn protested, though with no real rancor. “I’m not a sofa, y’know.”
The little filly ignored her. “Um, what’s your name?” she asked shyly.
The purple dragon brightened as the conversation turned to his personal favorite topic: himself. “I’m Spike! This is Lyra, and you’ve already met the Doctor. Over there, that’s Maple Leaf.”
Fluttershy looked at the indicated pegasus and shrunk back. “She’s very, um, loud…”
Spike shook his head. “Only when she’s angry, which isn’t very often. Most of the time, she’s really nice. But kinda bossy…”
Fluttershy giggled. Maple glanced up and looked at the smiling filly, and her face softened slightly. “I believe you three have something to say to our young friend here?” she asked, her face turning sterner once more as she turned to the three colts.
“Sorry, Fluttershy,” the trio groaned in a dissonant chorus.
The yellow pegasus squeaked in surprise. “O-oh… um… thank you… I forgive you… but please don’t do it again…”
“Don’t worry,” Maple said. “They won’t. Will you.” This last part, directed at the trio of troublemakers, was not a question.
“Noma’am, wewon’ma’am.”
Maple nodded once, an obvious dismissal. “Alright then. You can go.”
“Excuse me,” said a new voice. “But who, exactly, are you?”
The three adults turned in surprise. A rotund grey mare in a camp counselor’s outfit looked at them with a mixture of concern and self-righteousness. A pair of young pegasi, one of whom was immediately recognizable as a young Thunderlane, hovered beside her. “Ah,” said the Doctor.


***

“So,” said Maud, placing a card in the center pile. “Apple Bloom. How is my sister?”
The yellow mare blinked. “Uh, what?”
“In your universe. How is Pinkie?”
“Oh. Um, well, she’s pretty much got Lyra’s job,” Apple Bloom said awkwardly. “Element o’ Laughter, an’—” she trailed off. “Well, no. She had t’ give that up after th’ Plunder Vines thing.”
“Plunder Vines?” Thunderlane asked. “Also, got any threes?”
“Go fish,” Bloom replied. “Didn’t ya have ta fight th’ Plunder Vines? Big thorny fellas. Discord planted ‘em afore he got stoned th’ first time. They woke up a little after he got paroled.”
“Discord? Paroled?” Zecora asked, eyebrows raised. “That claim is most bold.”
“Yeah, Fluttershy reformed him. Maud, got any eights?”
The earth pony silently hoofed over a card. And Bloom, grinning triumphantly, set down four eights in the center. Thunderlane looked stony. “I can’t understand why that monster would ever be let go,” he muttered.
“Aw, he ain’t that bad,” Bloom replied. “Well. Not no more, anyhow. He’s just kinda weird.”
“Not that bad?” Thunderlane asked, incredulous. “Not that—” he fell silent, turning away from the group and fuming.
Bloom looked at Zecora, nervous. The zebra shook her head and drew a hoof across her lips in the nigh-universal sign for “Shut up.”
Maud’s eyes flicked from one pony to the others. “Shouldn’t the others be back by now?”
Thunderlane nodded, not turning around. “Something must’ve happened. I’ll go and look.”
Bloom frowned. “But what if you run into yourself? Ah thought that's why y'all stayed back ta start with.”
“I’ll be careful,” the charcoal pegasus said abruptly as he pushed through the TARDIS doors.
The filly glanced around. “Was it somethin’ Ah said?”
Zecora glanced at Maud nervously. The grey mare stared firmly at her cards. “Apple Bloom, you claim to be/ the sister of your world’s Honesty? In that case, surely you know/ Discord’s trick to bring folk low?”
Bloom worked through that in her head. “Y’mean the whole… personality reversal whatchamacallit?”
“Yes, that, if you call it such. Thunderlane hated it very much.”
“Well, y’know, Ah ain’t surprised…”
“While Discord’s curse forced him to tell lies most bitter, he ran across Rumble Cloudchaser, and Flitter.”
Bloom frowned briefly, and then realization dawned. “Oh… An’ he couldn’t explain himself after?”
Zecora looked distinctly uncomfortable. “That story is… unpleasant, and not one that’s mine to tell. I urge that you leave the subject, child, and curiosity you quell.”
Bloom’s jaw tightened. “Ah’m not a child.” she ground out. “Ah’m seventeen, near ‘nuff t’ bein’ a grown mare, and Ah am sick of bein’ treated like a li’l filly!”
She stormed out of the room, leaving Zecora with her mouth agape. The door slammed shut behind her. Maud snorted softly and hauled herself to her hooves. “Let me talk to her,” she said, monotone.


***

Thunderlane pressed himself flat against the wall, silently willing himself invisible as he heard his younger self trotting by with Fluttershy and Sassaflash. “So,” he heard himself say. “Who d’you think those guys were?”
“Well,” Fluttershy began in a murmur, but Sassaflash interrupted her.
“They were superheroes,” she said with all the conviction and surety that a seven-year-old could possess. “They beat up the bullies an’ made ‘em leave you alone. I bet if the counselors hadn’t turned up, they woulda zapped ‘em with laser beam eyes.”
Fluttershy had gone ghostly pale. “L-laser beam eyes?” she squeaked.
Sassaflash, oblivious, continued. “Yeah, or else they’d’a just picked ‘em up an’ chucked ‘em around,” she said with childish relish.
Young Thunderlane, as his future self mentally labelled him, looked at the other two pegasi with an appraising eye. “Uh, Flash?”
“Yeah?”
The colt nodded at Fluttershy, whose eyes had gone wide and slightly teary.
Thunderlane peered around the corner. I remember this. This was the day I met Fluttershy for the first time. Man, that hat looked good—  he choked as he suddenly realized that the filly was wearing a fez, and that the three were discussing the weird adults that had helped the filly with her bully problem. The adults who had, the last Thunderlane remembered, been having a very intense discussion with a counsellor.
...How did I never notice that my friends looked exactly like— no, never mind, I really don’t wanna think about that. Okay. Okay. Stratus. The Doc, Lyra, and Maple… where would they be?
“Hey, who’s that?” Sassaflash asked.
Young Thunderlane swivelled his head around to follow his friend’s pointing hoof, but his older self had already ducked back into the shadows. “I don’t see anypony.”
Fluttershy shook her head. “Me, neither.”
Sassaflash squinted more closely at the alley. “Huh. Trick of the light, I guess.”
The three foals fluttered on. Slowly, Thunderlane raised his head up, peering around. He let out a breath of relief and pulled himself free from the dumpster he’d hidden behind. Okay. Okay. So his friends had been taken somewhere. Where? Three grown ponies and a baby dragon sneaking around flight camp was more than a little suspicious, particularly when half the party didn’t even have wings. Stratus, would the counselors call the police? Tartarus. They probably would. He had to find them, fast.
He trotted out of the alley, squinting in the sudden sunlight. Where would they be? Probably the counselor’s office. He just had to find the counselor’s office. There, he’d have to subtly enter, find his friends, and then break them out.
But how could he do that? Pretending to be a police officer was out. He couldn’t act to save his life.
“Thunderlane?”
Similarly, he couldn’t just lie to get them out. Oh, Element of Honesty, thou art a cruel mistress.
“Thunderlane.”
Therefore, the only option was a good-old-fashioned jailbreak. It would be tricky, particularly in keeping Lyra and Spike from falling to a grisly death, but if he tunneled in at enough of an angle…
“Thunderlane!”
“Who-hah-wha?” He whirled around. Maple was staring at him. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “The timestream—”
“Where were you?” Thunderlane interrupted. “How long does it take to—”
Maple shoved a hoof over his mouth. “No. No talkie. We’re treading a thin, delicate line. The Doctor’s managed to convince the counselors that we’re here doing a surprise health inspection.”
Thunderlane resisted the urge to facehoof. Psychic paper. Of course. “How did you manage to explain away Spike?”
“Internship program. Anyway, now you’re here, screwing everything up, so now you’re the fifth member of our group of inspectors. Try not to mess up our covers or run into your younger self.”
“Don’t worry, I just saw him go that way,” Thunderlane said, waving an idle hoof. “I don’t remember this day very well, but I think as long as we stay away from the cabins, there won’t be much risk.”
Maple chuckled drily and gestured over her shoulder. “Good luck explaining that to the Doctor.”
The stallion winced and glanced in the direction her hoof pointed. The tropical-blue Time Lord’s brow was furrowed, and his mouth formed a tight line. His bow tie was askew, and his tail was swishing back and forth with restless energy. His eyes met Thunderlane’s and in their hazel depths, a storm swirled and rumbled like howling clouds of sand. The Doctor was Not Happy. “Ah, Cysies,” Thunderlane swore under his breath.
“Don’t go taking names in vain. You’re in trouble with enough ponies as it is,” Maple smirked.
With a heavy sigh, Thunderlane trotted over to his group of friends.