“Tell me why we’re doing this again, Night?”
“What?”
The woman lifted her headset. “You said that you and Wildcat took me in for my skills and knowledge. You still haven’t told me what you’re even doing. I left a pretty well-paying job for this, y’know… and… well… I disappointed my parents, too…”
“You’ll see in time. Get back to work.”
~~~
“Ellie?”
“Yes?”
“Why do you want to take those classes? You know that they’re entirely optional.”
Elise watched Robert cannonball into the pool. He whooped, climbing out to do it again.
Damian waved his bookmark in front of her. “Elise?”
“Mm,” the girl rubbed her chin. “I… well, you two already know that I look up to Lisa, first of all.”
“Yes, we do. Doesn’t explain why you go above and beyond to fast-track your way through the program, though.”
Elise chuckled, shaking her head. “To be honest, I really don’t know myself, actually. It just kinda… happened. I never expected to be singled out as her protégé, of all things!”
“Hmph.” Damian stuck his face back into his textbook. “Your performance in class said otherwise. Lisa said that she’d be picking by merit, after all.”
“Heh. I guess you’re right there,” she laid down in her seat, closing her eyes. “Let’s not worry about our classes for now, Damian. Even you need to take a break sometimes, don’t you?”
“I don’t need a break. I’m doing this for my mom.”
Elise mentally rolled her eyes. For all the hardheadedness he showed off, at least Damian was doing what he did for the right reasons. Robert, on the other hand…
“Can I see your notes later, Damian?” the boy waved his hand from the pool. “I forgot to take some myself!”
“How about you stop trying to mooch off of me and Ellie, huh?”
“Whaaaaaat—no, I’m not trying to mooch off of you! Does it look like I’m trying to? All I’m saying is that you two should help a friend out and let me copy some of your no—"
…He was just lazy. And loud.
“So, what about your… other class?” Damian peeked over the pages, ignoring Robert’s yelling. “I know that your time with Lisa is split into two sections. You never seem to talk about the other one. Is it taught by someone else?”
Elise hesitated before nodding. “So, you know that old simulation that was popular for a while? The one with the ponies and stuff?”
“Oh, that one?”
“Yeah.”
Damian set down his textbook, adjusting his glasses. “What about it? I heard that it’s been winding down ever since Lisa logged out of it.”
“My other teacher is Lisa’s former character. She…” Elise looked away. “…She teaches me magic.”
“Magic.”
Elise chuckled nervously, still avoiding Damian’s cold stare. “Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s weird. You’d think that I’d be spending all my time studying real things, but… I guess it’s just Lisa’s way of telling me that I should be a little more creative.”
“Okay.”
Damian returned his focus to his textbook, much to Elise’s relief. If it were Robert that she’d talked to just then, he’d definitely be laughing his butt off by now. Magic? That was just for fairy tales and little kids. Then again, wasn’t Lisa saying that Twilight was supposed to teach something else alongside her weird pony magic?
~~~
“How goes, Lis? Still looking at user stats?”
Lisa raised her headset. “Nope. I was chatting a little with Twilight. Just catching up on stuff, y’know?”
Samantha gave a silent nod, wandering off again. Especially on days like this when there wasn’t anything else to do, it was pretty common for her to just… show up somewhere, regardless of what was going on at the moment.
A loud pop ripped through the building, followed by rapid footsteps.
“ZOEY!” Samantha ran past the room. “DID YOU BLOW UP THE COFFEE MACHINE AGAIN?”
It was absurd how quickly things changed. There was hardly any time to ever reflect on the past, whether she wanted to or not. Not too long ago the biggest thing that happened was being disconnected from Equestria. Now, though? On top of the classes she ran with Samantha, she spent nearly every waking hour of her life thinking up wild new ideas for what to do next.
The ceiling sprinklers turned on. Lisa looked up, brushing a wet lock of hair out of the way. Zoey really blew up the machine this time around, if even the sprinklers were on. At least the computers in the building were all water-resistant. They ended up learning to implement that the hard way after the second time the coffee machine went up in smoke.
Lisa tapped her chin, staring out her office window. Maybe someone should start reminding Zoey to put water into the machine before she tried to make herself another mug of hot cocoa. Or at the very least put up a note, or a sign of some sort. It’d save at least a couple thousand a year in coffee machine replacements.
Looking forward. That’s what she was doing right now. Anticipating the future, and planning for its arrival. Whether it was keeping Zoey from exploding another coffee machine, or unveiling the next hit product on a stage, it was what mattered the most in her life now. She couldn’t afford to simply let things sit the way they were. Not anymore.
A smile grew on her face. Then again, when had she ever let things be? Certainly not when she was still working on the simulations, that’s for sure. Even if it was only for selfish reasons back then, her drive to make things happen was admirable.
Her headset began to sag from the water in her hair. The sprinklers finally began to turn off one-by-one, retracting back into the ceiling now that they’d thoroughly soaked everything the eye could see.