Early on in her academic career, Twilight Sparkle had been taught about the need for project management. Princess Celestia said it the best, “it doesn’t matter if you’re planning a birthday party or world conquest, you need to make sure you have a plan. And, a list of what you need to do, every step along the way. And, alternatives when you need it.”
Or, as the scarred-up Royal Guardsman that was her PE instructor put it, “Plan! Prior planning prevents piss poor performance!” His favorite habit was to chase her around the track, shouting out all sorts of pithy little sayings and concepts, not even breathing hard, as Twilight Sparkle panted. “Always have a plan! And, be ready when your plans fail to come up with a new plan for when you need it!”
Another one of his pithy sayings got handed out during the time when Twilight Sparkle had to do hoof lifts because she was behind in her exercise program. “Plans fail. You cannot plan for everything. What does the wise pony do? She sets goals for herself, listens to the wind, stocks her ship, prepares her crew, trims her sails, and steers.”
So, the moment they all got back to the library, Twilight Sparkle dragged out one of her infinite number of chalkboards and started to write on it, holding the chalk with her magic. “Okay, first things first. We need to have a full team, and that means…” she drew up a list and put on it the model names of each of the Jaegers that was in the base. For the five Sigurnd and the two Brynhildr, she numbered them. “We’ll need for each of the Brynhildr a crew of two ponies-a Princeps and a Moderati. The Sigurnd need a crew of three-a Princeps and two Moderati. And, for the Odin, we’ll need four ponies-a Princeps, two Moderati, and a Princepis Primus. So, that means at least twenty-three ponies.”
“That’s easy,” Scootaloo said, “I think we got about sixty or so students in school this year. Shouldn’t be hard to find nineteen ponies to pull this off.”
“Nineteen?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Well, of course!” Apple Bloom replied, cheerfully. “We thought it up, so the Cutie Mark Crusaders have to be a part of this!”
There was a soft, “oh no” groan from Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, but they pushed onwards. “We’ll need to find somepony to help us train. And, we have to get permission from ponies' parents to do this in the first place,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Which is what we’ll do tomorrow. I think I know one pony that can find out if we have somebody that can teach Jaegery in town. Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo will start grabbing every magazine and book they can find on the teams in this district, so we can know who we’ll be going up against.”
“Hey, why do we have to do that?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking upset.
“You two are the most competitive ponies I know,” Twilight Sparkle said with a smile. “There are nine teams that we’ll have to face, and you’ll want to know how to so thoroughly kick their flanks their grandmother’s cutie marks have bruises. The rest of us...will make the most of our one particular resource in finding people. And, we’ll do that, tomorrow!”
Twilight Sparkle promptly started to walk everybody out of the tree. She was going to need a long night’s sleep for her meeting tomorrow.
The next day, the Cuite Mark Crusaders were at the front door the library when it opened. Rainbow Dash made it there just as Twilight Sparkle was opening up the door. “Lyra,” Twilight Sparkle said, talking to one of the volunteer ponies. “I’ll be out for a bit. Put up the flags if you need me.”
“Sure thing,” Lyra Heartstrings replied, and started to let the patrons in. While Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo were getting to work on the research, the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders and Twilight Sparkle headed down to Sugarcube Corner. As they walked over, Twilight Sparkle touched one of the nearby foundation stones of a nearby building with her magic, a touch so light that only the most skilled of unicorns or alicorns would have been able to have seen her touch. And, the result-the rock flashed (for her eyes alone) in a sequence of three green pulses and a single blue pulse.
Twilight Sparkle smiled inside her own mind. Ever since she had first dealt with the Pinky Sense and the various issues that Pinkie Pie had, Twilight Sparkle had been looking for some kind of warning or at least hint when Pinkie Pie was going to do something like build a confetti cannon that could blot out the sun. Once she became an alicorn, her understanding of the theoretical magic needed was converted into a practical result-and thus the “indicator” system she invented.
Hidden in the Cake’s house (with their blessing, and Twilight Sparkle reinforcing the floors after the last incident) was a wide variety of detectors that only tracked one thing-Pinkie Pie. How long did she sleep, when did she last eat and what were the most common compounds around her. The compounds were tracked on a time and quantity basis, and all of this was fed into a database Twilight Sparkle created, and the database relayed it’s findings to a number of “indicator” stones around town. When she “brushed” the stone on her way to the Cake’s shop, it would flash in a four-indicator sequence of colors that indicated how Pinkie Pie was doing.
Three greens-she’d gotten enough sleep, eaten well, and was in good health. Blue-working on a project that only might violate the laws of physics.
When they came around the corner, the new chimney in the Cake’s bakery was going at full blast. For last few months, with a new Princess in town and all the parties and events and conferences and gatherings, the Cakes had been able to do land-office business. So much so that they had to hire two more assistants and were able to put new ovens in. Pinkie Pie had convinced them to let her (with the help of a reputable firm of contractor ponies) to expand the basement and move the old oven and baking equipment into the basement, where she could do cooking experiments without interfering with the work upstairs. And, a door that lead directly from the back street to the basement.
At least she got the stains from the last attempt to make a Yorkshire Pudding (and may have only summoned a small Shoggoth) off the steps. Twilight Sparkle pulled on the bell cord attached to the door and heard the bell ring. “Come in!” Pinkie Pie yelled through the door, just loud enough over the sound of...something like the world’s biggest sheep being combed.
When she opened the door, Twilight Sparkle and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Bell were confronted by a basement kitchen full of...string. In white, yellow, and a number of other colors, all woven in an intricate web of odd-colored items. The whole kitchen smelled of cheese and existential despair. “Pinkie Pie, what are you doing?” Twilight Sparkle asked carefully, an eyebrow and an ear raised.
Pinkie Pie came bouncing over, wearing an apron and covered with spots that looked like whey and bits of string. She had a smile on her face and a bit of cheddar stuck behind her ear. “Hi, Twilight!” she said cheerfully, looking around at the kitchen. “I borrowed your book on quantum string theory last week, and I got to thinking about it, and if you can make those quantum thingies into strings, why not something tasty? So, I’m trying to make string cheese! Once I can get enough string cheese, I’ll start braiding the strings together to make a rope cheese, and that will be so delicious to try…”
“Oookay,” Twilight Sparkle said, stepping back carefully. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something. SInce you know just about every pony in Ponyville…”
“Silly Twilight Sparkle,” Pinkie Pie interrupted, patting Twilight Sparkle’s right hoof with her right hoof. “I know every pony in Ponyville! Well, except for the one that lives out in the corn field, I don’t think that pony likes me very much.”
“Well, as I was saying,” Twilight Sparkle struggled to get the conversation back on track. “I was wondering if you knew anybody that is living in town that was a Jaeger pilot or trained people in being Jaeger pilots. We need to find somebody that is, so we can start a Jaegery program at the Ponyville school.”
“Hm…,” Pinkie Pie replied, sitting down on her flank and tapping her head with her front left hoof. Twilight Sparkle swore, but could never prove, that she thought she could hear a hard drive starting to spool up inside Pinkie Pie’s head. A few seconds, then the fireflies of inspiration lit. “I’ve got it! I know the exact pony you want to talk to. Better yet, I’ll introduce you!”
“No, no,” Twilight Sparkle said, “I’ll be good with a location…”
“It’s no trouble at all! You’ll love him, and he’ll be so interested in Jaegery!”
Once upon a time, back during the time when Jaeger Princeps knew they had no other responsibility the next day beyond sobering up via pure oxygen, Cranky Doodle Dandy and one of his fellow Jaeger Princeps had somehow talked about retirement. His friend had talked about the huge plot of land that he’d gotten in Aridzona and how he was going to love it. “Why don’t you just go back home,” Cranky had asked, curious.
“Because, if I went back home to the family farm…which I ran away from as soon as I could because I was tired of seeing the southbound end of my Dad going north with the plow on his harness...I’d have to do something with it. Plow. Weed. Plant crops. Argue with the bank for a loan. Fix the harvester. I just want a whole bunch of land,” he said, waving around his mug of cider with increasingly messy arcs, “that I have to do flankall with. I can just sit on my porch and look at all the terrain, and not have to do a thing about it.”
Which, in a nutshell, was why Cranky was in Ponyville. It was quiet. The school had so far been able to escape having a Jaegery program, so he didn’t have to hear kids trying to stomp around in Jaegers trying to learn Jaegery. And, by the purest of coincidences, he had found Matilda. And the two were definitely making up for lost time.
So, when Cranky heard that the school was going to close down because it didn’t have a Jaegery program, he was definitely of two minds. A big shame for the kids, of course. They didn’t deserve to get ground up in a bureaucratic machine determined to turn every foal into pony sausage. But, if somepony was going to get pulled into trying to fix the missing issue of Ponyville’s missing Jaegery program, it was probably going to be one retired Cranky Doodle Dandy.
Which was why he wasn’t going to do anything.
Even if Pinkie Pie was able to get into the house via the mail slot.
Which she didn’t, of course.
She got in by the back door, when Matilda had let her, Twilight Sparkle, and two of the school kids in.
Cranky was not impressed by royalty. He did like Twilight Sparkle, and thought that she was a damn good foal working her little flank off to be the best new princess she could be. So, as long as Pinkie Pie didn’t say anything too stupid, he’d give her a chance to explain before he said no.
As gently as he could, of course, for the kids.
“So,” he said, going for pure grumble, “What can I do for you all today?”
“Weeeellll….,” Pinkie Pie said, in her most innocent tone of voice, before it shifted to “full speed ahead” on her tongue, “I remembered you had pictures of you standing in front of what looked like a Jaeger in a really neat uniform and I thought you might know somebody that might know how to teach Jaegery, because the kids need a Jaegery teacher and…”
Twilight Sparkle stuck a hoof in Pinkie Pie’s mouth, to quiet her for a minute. “Well, what she said. If you were a Jaeger pilot, I was wondering if you could help us find somebody to teach Jaegery for the Ponyville school. We were able to find a full octo of Jaegers, and any suggestions you have might let us get the program started in the enough time so we can have a team ready.”
Cranky sighed. “Wish I could help you,” he said, dropping his head down a little too much. “But, I kind of got out of all that when I retired. I can make some calls, but I’m not sure…”
“Cranky!” Matilda chided. “I think they deserve at least some of your insights. Cookie?” Matilda held up a plate in her mouth with cookies on them. All of Cranky’s guests took one and Pinkie Pie looked at it in joy.
“This is awesome! Never had a snicker doodle like this before!” Pinkie Pie dashed over to Matilda and mock-whispered to her conspiratorially, holding the cookie plate in her hoof, “What’s your secret?”
“Bit more vanilla than usual and I put the dough in the fridge until it gets solid. Also, you should be very careful to not over-blend it,” Matilda replied and looked at Cranky. “You’ve been complaining-by not complaining-how bored you are.”
“I’m not bored,” Cranky huffed. “I’ve got golf, I’ve got bonsai, I’ve got a few other things I’m doing, including getting to know you…”
“And, you’re bored,” Matilda gently interrupted. “I don’t mean that you’re not welcome to do those things, but I can feel how underutilized you feel. And, you told me a few stories of when you were a Jaeger jockey. I think you had some of the best fun of your life when you were doing that. It’s a quiet day, you don’t have any real plans-worse case, it’s a good walk to where the Jaegers are being held, right?”
“That’s right,” Apple Bloom said, smiling. “It’s down around Old Gulch Mine, a great walk and it looks very pretty out there.”
Cranky had earned his name fairly, but he wasn’t stupid. Sometimes, you had to bow to the inevitable. “Okay, let me get my hat. But, I’m just going to look! No promises!”
“No problem,” Twilight Sparkle replied, and carefully used her magic to drag Pinkie Pie out, still eating a hoof-full of the snickerdoodles.
Cranky took a deep breath and went for his hat. Sooner done, sooner over with.
Cranky, years ago, was able to put his ego away and pull off the greatest of all tricks-admitting without brow beating that he was wrong.
Which wasn’t quite right.
The cranky urges that he had previously went fully away-and he was feeling like a little foal again when he came into the Jaeger bay.
“Fafnir Jaegers!” Cranky gasped. Twilight Sparkle had roped in a few of her friends to help pull the plastic sheeting off the Jaegers. “You were telling me that some silly pony put a full octo of Fafnir Jaegers in a hole in the ground for the last twenty years?!?!”
“Is that...bad?” Twilight Sparkle asked. She was seriously wondering if Cranky was angry, disappointed, frustrated, or about to have a heart attack.
“Twilight, when I started out as a Moderati, I wanted to marry my Sigurnd. They just had to retire the Fafnirs when I became a Principes. Mind you, the Yamato Jaegers that replaced them were good-all of them could be fitted with flight packs, even the command Jaegers. Controls were a bit smoother and they finally got the whole crystal mana plant integration done properly. But, the Fafnirs...they were responsive and agile and if I had to choose between them, I’d have gone with a Fafnir over a Yamato any day of the week-and twice on Sundays,” Cranky replied, “They said that piloting a Fafnir is better than…,” then Cranky realized there were two little foals around, “...ah, better than belly rubs. I always said that if was better than belly rubs, you’re clearly doing your belly rubs wrong. But…”
Cranky looked around, caught Twilight Sparkle’s eyes, and said with a huge smile, “The only way this could be better is if you had my old Sigurnd. Train the kids here on Jaegery in Fafnirs? Twilight, you’d have to have the Princesses build a barrier in front of that door to stop me. And, I’d still find a way in, even if I had to dig! I’ll start pulling my old manuals out of storage, and tomorrow I’ll help with the paperwork for the IECC.”
“Yay!” Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle said, dancing behind Twilight Sparkle. “Cutie Mark Crusaders, first victory!”
“Thank you,” Twilight Sparkle said. “If you can come by the library tomorrow, I’ll start getting the paperwork together.”
“Will do,” Cranky nodded. He walked over to one of the Sigurnd Fafnirs and lovingly stroked it’s foot with his front right hoof. “The lovely ladies here will get their chance to shine again.”
By the time they had gotten back to the library, Twilight Sparkle had seen no flags from Lyra, Pinkie Pie bounced off to work on a gouda thread, and it was about an hour until closing. Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo had done something nearly miraculous-they had actually done research. Without being forced! They had found a corner nook of the library and were writing up city and school names on a chalkboard, books and magazines on Jaegery scattered all around them. “Wow…,” Twilight Sparkle said, looking at them. “I don’t think I’ve seen a mess like this since that wild study session a few months ago when I was researching the Universal Theorem of Magic! So, what did we find out?”
Rainbow Dash had the decency to look sheepish. She remembered what happened with that study session, and if those books were ponies, the only difference between “studying” and “orgy” would have been a lack of whipped cream. “Well, there are nine teams in our district. If any of them really worries me, it’s the team from Saint Megana-they’ve been the undefeated team in the district and placed consistently second in the regionals for the last fifteen years. And, they have some of the newest models of Jaegers-all Yamatos. Those were just taken off front-line service fifteen years ago, and they’re still some of the most modern ones around. And, they’re a really good team. Ever hear of Callie Steelheart?”
Twilight Sparkle twitched her ears in confusion. “Never heard of her. Is she important in Jaegery circles?”
“Twilight, Callie Steelheart is to Jaegery what Ponyacci is to clowns or Starswirl is to magic,” Rainbow Dash sighed, looking for a photo. “She’s the head of the Steelheart School of Jaegery, one of the most respected and the third oldest Jaegery schools in Equestria. There’s been no less than four members of the Royal Guard Wings that are Steelheart students, and her daughters are team leaders in the Saint Megana Jaegery team. So, they’ve had to have been trained by her to a high mirror shine.”
“Here,” Scootaloo said, pulling out a photo. They all came around to look at the magazine article on Callie and her two daughters, Lisa and Michelle Steelheart.
“Wow…,” Twilight Sparkle said, looking at Callie. “She looks, well...severe.” All of the ponies looked at her. “I mean, she looks like she’s really dedicated and so do her daughters. So, we just have to place with them? I mean, hold third place against them?”
“Yea. If I had to make a guess, we can do that,” Rainbow Dash shrugged her wings. “The other teams in the district are good, but they’ve got older model Jaegers. Of the teams, the only ones that worry me is the Saint Megana and the Hearth’s Fire team out of Fillydelphia. Heart’s Fire has been holding their own with Saint Megana, and very nearly won first place last year. They use Yaga Jaegers, so I think we might be more mobile.”
Sweetie Belle had laid out the magazine and was putting her hoofs around the photo of Michelle Sweetheart. “Hey, Apple Blossom, do you think she looks familiar?”
“What do you mean,” Apple Blossom asked.
“We had a couple new students in school this year. And, if you change the mane and the tail a bit and make her a year older, don’t you think that Michelle Bluebottle looks like Michelle Steelheart?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Yea, but why would she be here in our school?” Apple Blossom asked.
“Wait a minute…,” Rainbow Dash pulled out a magazine from one of the piles. “According to this, there was some sort of issue with the district finals. Saint Megana and Hearth’s Fire were going up against each other, and there was an incident. Some ponies nearly got killed over it, and afterwards...Hearth’s Fire wanted to have a rematch?” Rainbow Dash scratched her head curiously. “I wonder what happened.”
“Well, we can always ask her on Monday. Got your notes written down?” Twilight Sparkle asked.
“Sure,” Rainbow Dash replied, pulling out a notebook. “Been around you long enough to realize I need one of these with me, always.”
“Good! Because now, we have to clean up, and I think Spike is making lasagna for dinner tonight,” Twilight Sparkle smiled and started to pick up the various books with her magic. “And, I asked him to make enough to share.”