//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Principal Celestia 
// Story: Caverns & Cutie Marks: High School, High Stakes 
// by TheColtTrio 
//------------------------------//

“Does it still count as being sent to the principal’s office if we’re brought in by cops?” Wits asked. “I mean, I feel like at this point we’ve gone so far into being in trouble that we should probably just, like, break into some kind of trophy cabinet so that we loop back around to being honor students.” He stared at the two other pony-colored teens. “That’s how high school works, right?”
“Not even remotely,” Light Patch said, having been fairly quiet for most of the walk. “Needs more unnecessary drama, and more angst.” Light Patch attempted to look angsty. “Think this is angsty enough?”
“That looks more like ‘pained gas’ than ‘angst’,” Purple Heart muttered. “Add a touch of frown and you should be set for angst. As for how high school works, don’t ask me. I never had to deal with the typical high school experience of angst, drama, and cheating people.”
“You three think you’re smart, don’t you? Do you think they’re smart, Officer Duty?” Shining Armor asked from behind them as they walked through empty hallways. Officer Duty was leading the group to the principal’s office for their disciplining.
“Yes,” Purple Heart confirmed. “I think we’re smart. I mean, Wits is into computers and coding and ‘If Else’ statements, and Light is a villain in training. As for me...I’m the funny one.”
“Indeed,” Officer Duty snorted from the front. “The face you’re doing now is hysterical.” Purple Heart pouted.
Wits End leaned over to Light Patch and lowered his voice. “Does a burn like that count as police brutality?” Light Patch shook his head.
“Nah, he’d have to do better than that,” he replied quietly. “Just how much further are we to the office anyway?” he asked, addressing the two police officers.
“We’re almost there. We’d be closer if the shortcut wasn’t so long though,” Shining Armor said with a smirk at his superior.
“I’m an officer of the law and head of the town’s police. I’m also old and haven’t been in this school for at least a good fifty to sixty years. How was I supposed to know that they’d have changed the school as much as they had?” Officer Duty grumbled.
“So Canterlot High was around when dinosaurs roamed the earth?” Purple Heart asked in mock awe. “Fascinating. A fossil such as yourself must feel right at home in the History Club methinks.”
Wits leaned across to Shining Armor. “Does a burn like that count as assaulting an officer of the law?” he asked.
Shining sighed. “I’m starting to wonder why I didn’t go into something less stressful… like Emergency Room Surgery…”
“You’d still have to treat severe burn victims,” Purple Heart pointed out gleefully. Duty sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he stopped beside a set of double doors. He turned, leveling a deadpan glare at the purple teen.
“Ha, ha. Inside,” he laughed blandly, jerking a thumb at the door. “If there is one thing I remember, it’s that we’ll want to be out of the way before it starts.” The three teens were prevented from asking for clarification when the bell rang, signaling the ending or beginning of a period. Immediately, the sound of tramping feet echoed through the halls as students set about preparing for their next class. Some even came rushing through the hall the three teens and two officers occupied, ignoring the five males as they hurried along.
Light Patch however noticed a familiar looking character as they walked through the halls and nudged Wits End with his elbow. “Hey look. There goes Fluttershy. You wanna say anything to your waifu?” He paused thoughtfully. “Or should that be crush now?”
A series of emotions passed over Wits’ face in a flash. After a moment, he reached up and tapped Officer Duty on the shoulder. “Just out of curiosity, is murder a federal crime for minors? Unrelated question: would you be willing to give me 5 minutes with your backs turned and no questions asked?” The two officers blinked at the mint-teen, their silence speaking volumes.
“Sorry, pal,” Light Patch said. “No burying us today.”
“I mean, he still could,” Purple Heart offered. “He’d need more students scrambling through the hallway. But that’s unlikely.”
As if in spite, the hallway went from being a slow, meandering scenic route to a full blown, twenty-four hours a day freeway. Students poured out of doors and from other hallways to fill the principal’s corridor almost to bursting. Miraculously, about three feet of dead space existed on either side of the massing students separating them from the walls.
“Huh,” Purple grunted. “I stand corrected. Guess burial is on the menu.”
“I forgot this sort of thing happened,” Shining Armor muttered. “It’s like a herd of wildebeest or something.”
Wits End perked up. “Wildebeest, you say?” He turned to the other two teens, a wide grin on his face. “Long. Live. The King.” With that, he gave both Light Patch and Purple Heart a hearty shove, directly into the path of the stream of students.
“Oh god! Redshirt Rule! PH, I need you to redshirt this for me!” Light Patch cried, attempting to get behind his slightly larger friend.
“ACK!” the purple teen squawked as he flailed into the students, knocking teens left and right as he stumbled through the mob. “Leggo!” He rolled Light from behind him and used the centrifugal force to fling his friend through the scrambling and screaming teens to the deadzone opposite. Light came to a sudden stop upon meeting the wall and collapsed against the vertical surface, eyes rolling from the journey.
Purple Heart wasn’t so lucky. His balance was ruined with his timely toss of his friend and he fell forward, eyes squeezed shut as the floor rushed to meet him. When he hit, the students standing around him were knocked away in the tremor that shook the floor. Silence fell on the hallway as all eyes were drawn to the fallen behemoth that was Purple Heart.
“It seems he IS the disaster zone,” Officer Duty hummed, eyeing the purple teen bemusedly.
“Sir,” Shining Armor gulped. “Shouldn’t we help him?”
Duty slung an arm around the young man’s shoulders. “Son,” he whispered. “There are times when some people shouldn’t be helped.”
Purple Heart let out a low groan as his body asked him what the hell his problem was. While his brain tried to deal with all the incoming calls by forwarding them to the back of his mind, he cracked his eyes open. Huh, he thought. Curious… Am I bleeding? Cuz that’s a lot of red. I hope I didn’t kill someone. He tensed his shoulders and flattened his hands in preparation to push himself onto his knees. All upward motion was halted when he heard a moan to his left. Frowning, Purple Heart turned his head, following the pool of red to its source. Several signals converged on his brain at once when he recognized his predicament.
The good news: nobody was dead. Yet.
The bad news: There was a person attached to the red pool. Of hair. A female person. With...parts. One of which his left hand was holding.
All color drained from Purple Heart’s face, leaving his normally purple complexion remarkably white and pale. He tried to resist. He really did. He knew what happened to ALL those boys who couldn’t help themselves. A gasp from some of the girls in the crowd caused him to instinctively cringe. Which in turn flexed his grip. Both grips. There was another moan. Purple Heart winced as the girl opened her eyes and stared up at him with surprise clear in her bright blue eyes. The surprise turned to confusion and then the eyes darkened with rage.
“Halp,” Purple Heart squeaked.
Wits End looked over the situation, his expression turning dour. “Good god, I’ve killed him.”
Before Sunset Shimmer was able to make good on the promise of death glinting in her eyes, Duty hefted Purple Heart off of her and then offered his hand to help her up while also sending a disapproving look towards Wits End. “How's the grey one?” he asked Shining Armor, completing his takeover of the situation.
“I think he might be a few IQ points lower than this morning but he’s still alive for the most part,” he replied after starting out of the stupor he’d been lost to as he’d witnessed the catastrophe play out.
“Good. How about you miss? Are you okay?” Officer Duty said, turning back to look at the girl who’d gotten to her feet by herself at this point.
Sunset Shimmer dusted herself off, keeping her eyes on Purple Heart as if to commit his face to memory. If looks could kill, Duty and Shining Armor would likely be filing a homicide case later that evening. “Fine,” she said tersely, turning her head temporarily to the officer with a charming yet thin smile on her lips. The redhead then shot another glare back at the purple teen with a ‘tsk’, and made a motion that was most likely adjusting the collar of her jacket, but may have also been the universally understood action of drawing her thumb across her throat while maintaining eye contact. “I’ve got to get to class.”
“And we’ve got to get these three to the principal,” Shining Armor said quickly, putting a hand on Wits End’s shoulder. “I think to avoid any future incidents, we should keep this one away from the other two. He seems to be quite the… instigator.”
Wits sighed. “Great. I’ve committed second-hand murder, and now I’m a high school villain trope.”
“Atlantis was not my fault, the FBI are lying through their toofs, officers,” Light Patch mumbled dazedly. He smacked himself to bring his coherency back “Thank you, Mythbusters,” he said rubbing his cheek and looking around. “What’d I miss?”
“Oh, nothing much,” Purple Heart mumbled, eyes looking everywhere but at Sunset Shimmer. “I saved your sorry butt from getting trampled at the cost of my continued existence. I’m not very well versed in teen gestures. I have no idea why she wants to put her finger on my throat.” Sunset’s eyes flared with contained rage and she unconsciously took a step towards the impertinent male to give him a piece of her mind. Only the restraining hand of Applejack prevented her from delivering Purple Heart to his swift and painful end. Officer Duty watched this byplay with mild interest and suppressed a chuckle at the girl’s fury.
“Calm down, Miss Shimmer,” he soothed. “I assure you, Principal Celestia will deal with this matter swiftly and humanely.” His eyes glanced over Wits End and Lp, “Instigators included. Now, I believe we both as mentioned earlier have places to be.” He pushed the teen still in his grasp towards the doors to the principal’s office. A loud cough from the elder officer prompted everyone to remember they had things to do and breaking up the ring of observers that had formed.


* * *


“I’m just saying,” Principal Celestia said, prodding her salad with the business end of her for, “You should consider the opportunity while it’s available.”
Vice-Principal Luna looked up from her fries. “Why would I want to oversee the drama club while Dramatis Personae is on vacation?”
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Say what you said before.”
“...Pass the ketchup?”
“Nice try, but no.” The sisters were interrupted by a knock at the door. “Come in!” Celestia smiled at the appearance of Just Duty in the doorway. “Ah, Mr. Duty. Would you please help me convince my dear sister to embrace her inner thespian?”
“I’d have as much luck convincing her of doing that as I would making the line ‘halt in the name of the law’ actually work for once,” Duty said, stepping through the door and to the side as Shining Armor ushered the three teens in. “I’m sorry about what this is going to do to your lunch time, but I got three teens,” he waved at the small group, “one of which I know is playing hooky and the other two I suspect might be.”
“Aha, might, he said,” Purple Heart said thoughtfully, stroking his chin dramatically. “Hence, his proof is lacking. And based on appearance, we are not high school attending students. Therefore, hooky is not a game we play. I prefer Aging Empires. Twice.” Celestia arched an eyebrow at the purple skinned teen and looked to Luna.
“I think you’ve found an actor for your troupe,” the principal said.
Purple Heart blinked. “Wait, wat? When did this happen?! I haven’t even auditioned properly!”
“So you’re not adverse to the idea?” Officer Duty probed. “Excellent. I believe this is one of your erstwhile drama students then.”
“Fudge bollocks.”
“Oh the drama,” Wits said dryly. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. That seems to be happening a lot recently.” He took a seat in one of the chairs along the wall, crossing one leg over the other. “On the other hand, this can solve this whole thing once and for all. Just take a look in your records, and I think you’ll find that not one, not two, but a whopping NONE of us are students here, or any school.”
“He has a point, sister,” Luna said. “I have no recollection of either of these two in our school.”
Wits smiled. “Q.E.D., I believe.”
“However,” the vice-principal continued, producing a stack of documents, “registrations are still open this week, so if you really are unregistered, then we can take care of that over a few hours.”
Wits End’s smile wilted much in the same way that Celestia’s untouched salad was doing. “Are all of those the entry forms?”
“The first set, yes.”
“The first set of how many?” Wits watched as Luna frowned and set to counting on her fingers. “Oh, that’s not a good sign.” Light Patch looked towards Luna and frowned.
“You know, that's kind of a big leap in logic to assume that just because your school doesn’t have us on file as students, that none of the other colleges around here don’t,” he mentioned.
“So you admit you're in the system somewhere then?” Shining Armor chimed in with a thoughtful look. “Maybe we should be taking them into juvie after all.”
“Let’s hold off on that until we’re sure that they can’t find any files here,” Duty replied as he watched Luna finally set her lunch down and stand up to walk over to her computer.
“What are the names I should check for?” she asked once she’d opened up a database.
“Well, go on, introduce yourselves,” Just Duty said, looking at the three.
“Tom Ato, Anne Chovie, and Caesar Salad,” Wits End deadpanned.
“Big, Little, and Crazy,” Purple Heart intoned.
“Patt-” Just Duty frowned and stepped forward directly in front of Light Patch, cutting both him and Luna off. “What color is the sky?” Light Patch fish-mouthed for a few moments before Just Duty quickly asked again, “What color is the sky?”
“Why is grass green?” Duty asked, cutting off Light Patch’s answer. “What makes rain? What is two plus two? What do bees live in? What are the largest bodies of water?” He continued rapid-firing the questions, barely giving the teen a chance to finish his answer before the next question. “And your names are?”
“Light Patch, Wits End, Purple Heart,” Light Patch said, moments before a look of distrust crossed his face followed quickly by surprise as he realized he’d already answered.
A series of sounds that could have been any combination of “No”, “Stop”, and “Don’t” tumbled out of Wits End’s mouth in a rush, before settling on a groan. “You are,” he said, slumping forward in the chair dramatically, “the weakest link.”
“We’re doomed,” Purple Heart groaned, leaning against a wall and slumping to the floor. “If only we’d told him the odds.”
“I can’t believe that still works,” Just Duty said, chuckling as Luna entered the names into the Inter-School Student Registry. Seconds passed as the system searched for the three teens, during which Celestia and Luna ignored the groaning boys in favor of watching the monitor. Three names popped up on the listings, and Luna opened all three.
“First,” she started, looking at the slumped purple teen, “we have Purple Heart of Daring Do’s School for Physically Gifted Youngsters. Seventeen years old, Senior, member of the first string baseball team. Plays right field and...Dee-Aytch...” She looked expectantly at the purple teen, eyebrow arched as she waited for clarification or correct.
Purple Heart blinked. “Ehm, Dee-Aytch stands for Designated Hitter,” he said. Luna inclined her head and moved to the next name.
“Light Patch of DigiQuill Magnet School, fifteen, is the head of the UI/UX Club, and is apparently a part of their BAX team this year.”
Light Patch sighed quietly under his breath, and murmured to his friends, “I was half afraid she’d have said The Mighty Jingles Military Academy of Tankary, Shipary, and Misidentification.” Luna shrugged and moved onto the last of the three in the room,
“And finally,” Luna continued, “we have Wits End of your very own Crystal Prep Academy, Mr. Armor. No clubs, no extracurricular activities, but a 4.3 GPA. Impressive for a 16-year old.”
Wits’ mouth formed a thin line. “Ah, the Straight Home After School club. I’m an eternal member, it appears.”
Shining Armor put a hand on the mint-colored teen’s shoulder, prompting him the jump an inch off of the seat. “Well, it looks like we can take these three back to their respective schools then. Thank you, Ms. Principal, Ms. Vice Principal.”
“Ehpupuhpuhpuh!” Purple Heart waved his hands vigorously, rolling to his feet. “That shan’t be necessary! I’d actually like to transfer from Daring Do’s School for Physically Gifted Youngsters to Canterlot High! I’ve heard simply marvelous things about your Theatre Programme and would like to register poste haste!”
Celestia smiled widely and clapped once enthusiastically. “Wonderful!” she cheered. “A new student! I think you should be introduced to our Drama club!”
“Huzzah!” Luna exclaimed. “The club has been doubled!” She glanced around at the staring faces. “I mean- I am not overseeing the drama club.”
“I’m also interested in transferring,” Light Patch chimed in, ending the awkward pause caused by Luna’s statement. “DigiQuill is a great school but it’s also grueling, and the pressure to succeed can be incredibly high.”
Luna nodded. “High pressure schools can put out highly skilled graduates, but not everyone can take the pressure. We would be happy to have you transfer.” She looked between the two transfer students, and a small gleam lit her eyes up. “Let’s get the paperwork started right now, shall we?” she said, prompting a gulp from the two teens.
Wits End raised his hand. “Um, me too? You know, what with the peer pressure and the high stress and the whatnot.”
Celestia shook her head sadly. “Unfortunately, Crystal Prep’s rules are a bit more strict when it comes to transferring schools. You’ll need permission from your parents and a note from the principal.” She leaned in, lowering her voice to a faux whisper. “And between you and me, Principal Cinch isn’t really a fan of students transferring into Canterlot High in particular.”
Wits’ face fell. “Great. Once again, I have been failed by both politics and the school system. My government tax dollars at work, coming to ruin my life.”
“Yes yes, woe is me, things aren’t going the how I want them to right now. Back in my day,” Officer Duty ignored the groans of just about everyone in the room, “if you wanted something done, you had to kill a T-Rex and use its hide to fill out every a form in quadruplicate, just to get the triplicate forms you needed,” he finished, motioning for Wits End to stand up
“In this particular case, could we go with the T-Rex option?”
“Sure, we’ll just stop by the local dino reserve and use my hunting license,”
Officer Duty deadpanned before he noticed the smile on Shining Armor’s face, promptly scowling at the younger officer. 
Luna cleared her throat softly. “My apologies, but I just now realized that Officer Duty and I have never been formally introduced.” She crossed the room to where Duty was standing, holding her hand out. “I am Vice-Principal Luna. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
“Captain Just Duty, soon to be retired if I’m lucky,” Just Duty returned with a smile clasping her hand with his. Neither of them nor Celestia or Shining Armor noticed the reprise of startled glances between the three teens as they heard his name.
Celestia chuckled. “Once again,” she said with a smile, “thank you for your service, Officer Armor, Captain Duty.” She motioned, prompting them to collect Wits End and leave the room. Just Duty paused before he left the room, and looked back in at Light Patch.
“It’s good to see you caring about your health for a change,” he said, striding out into the hallway before Light Patch could look surprised at the words..
“So, dinosaurs did walk the earth when you joined the force?” Shining Armor asked when Just Duty joined them in the hall, “What was it like back then? Did you just shout ‘Oog’ and club anything nearby?” the remaining two teens heard at the end.
There was the sound of a short scuffle, and Wits’ head appeared back in the doorway. “Look to my coming, at first light on the fifth day!” he called, the hands of the two officers coming in to pry his fingers away from the doorframe. “At dawn, look to the East!” With that, he was gone.
Purple Heart growled deep in his throat. “Jerk stole my thunder,” he grumbled. “I am displeased.”
“Now now, no need to get violent,” Luna soothed. “You both need to sign here, initial here, initial here, personal information here, sign here...” As the vice-principal continued to point out the places in the paperwork requiring some form of identification, Purple Heart whispered aside to Light Patch.
“If I called her a tree killer, d’you think she’d lessen the amount of paperwork?” he asked softly.
“Unlikely. She’d probably just drop a tree on us,” Light Patch quietly responded.
Celestia giggled behind her hand and settled back into her chair to finished her salad while Luna continued transferring the two boys to Canterlot High.