Melting of the Minds
Wallflower Blush led an interesting life.
This was generally true across the whole of probability space. The humans tended to peak in their teenage years, at least in terms of their interactions with uncontrolled Equestrian magic. The ponies took longer, but almost always found themselves in some form of clandestine work. The dryads… well, that’s a matter for a different story.
This tale focuses on the Wallflower of the world where Sunset Shimmer stumbled into not-quite-godhood, the laws of physics were amended, and humanity was updated for magic compatibility. Variously known in realms beyond as Universe Seven-Zero-Upsilon, Earth Shimmer, or simply the Oversaturated World, it is a place of wonder, horror, staggering brilliance and even more staggering stupidity.
In short, it’s a world full of humans. The magic just magnifies things, for good and for ill.
Wallflower’s personal experience with this magnification often occurred at Ravnica High, where she’d been transferred after her own unusual magic wiped most of her records from Canterlot High’s database. Ravnica High took the cliques of a typical school, turned them up to eleven, and then incorporated them into the framework of the school until it couldn’t operate without them.
(If this seems suspiciously familiar, it may help to know that Canterlot and the town of Dominia are both in Hassenfeld County, Califoalnia. The county is also home to, among other things, Cybertron Polytechnical University and the town of Free Parking, which for twenty years had a Mayor Pennybags who’d made his fortune in Saddlantic City real estate. The world was a patchwork even before Sunset slapped on bits of nearby realities to seal the cracks.)
Wallflower in particular got snapped up by the Dimir, a megaclique of goths, techies, student journalists, gossipmongers, and general busybodies. Her first and best friend at her new school, White Hat, qualified as at least three of those, and Wallflower wasn’t sure about two of them. But three years at CHS, even on the sidelines, made her a titan of charisma compared to her guildmates, so she wasn’t complaining.
Not about that, anyway.
“Come on. Come on!” Wallflower smacked the vending machine, the enlarged fingernails that marked her as an earth aspect clacking against it. The thing had accepted her money just fine, sure, but actually registering her selection was proving difficult.
Earth pony magic mixed oddly with humanity, becoming less about communing with the world and more about communing with the tools man made from it. Or, in Wallflower’s case, going as unnoticed by those tools as she was by most people.
She focused her thoughts, trying to project them at the vending machine. Usually, all Wallflower needed was a light touch against a device’s psychic presence for it to notice her, the mental equivalent of clearing her throat or brushing against someone. But this time, instead of receiving a feeling of surprise and a bag of sunflower seeds, all she got was the sense of slipping off of something.
Wallflower grabbed the machine. She didn’t shake it per se, more like her quivering with rage made it rattle in kind. “I gave you my money! What more do you want from me?” She knew people were staring at her at this point, near-invisibility or not. At this point, she just didn’t care.
“Technical problems, Miss Blush?”
She froze in mid-shake. Okay, she didn’t care in most cases. “Oh, uh, hi, Vice Principal Beleren. Sir. Just having a problem getting the vending machine to, um, notice me.”
The blue-skinned man nodded, the oval jewel in the center of his forehead, as with all unicorn aspects, glinting in the overhead lights. “I see. Have you been studying the applications of your more unique magic?”
Wallflower bit her lip. She still wasn't sure what magic being "blue" was supposed to mean beyond the color of the blur covering her in camera feeds. “It’s been… tricky, sir.”
“It’s not a very intuitive subject, I admit. Still, best to work at it. You’ll find it very useful in the future.”
“Yes, sir,” Wallflower said, gaze fixed on the floor.
“Of course." Vice Principal Beleren hummed to himself. "Also, I believe the machine noticed you.”
“Huh?” Wallflower turned, grinned, and grabbed her snack. “Great! Thanks, Vice Prin—” By the time she looked back, he was gone. “Oh. Uh, okay then.”
Lunch at Ravnica High was always an adventure. The entire student body of the sprawling school ate at the same time, which meant it was a race for any available table, chair, bit of hallway, or patch of grass. Actually buying lunch meant forfeiting any hope of sitting unless one had a few friends reserving a spot.
Today Wallflower ate in one of the stairwells, along with White Hat, who did indeed wear a white newsie cap that matched her skin tone. After Wallflower told her of the struggle with the vending machine, White brushed her cobalt bangs aside, looked Wallflower straight in the eye, and said, “You realize he played you.”
“Huh?”
White rolled her eyes as she always did when she thought Wallflower was being too naive. “Come on, you don’t think vending machines just randomly ignore you even when you try to get their attention, do you?”
Wallflower shrugged. “I mean, we’re having a conversation where that’s a valid question. I’m definitely willing to believe it.”
“I’ve seen the VP pull that kind of thing in the past. He’ll put up a spell that makes magic just slide off, or makes you think it’s doing that, or sucks it in, or…" White trailed off and shrugged. "I mean, I don’t know the specifics. Asking a unicorn aspect how they magic things just gets you a bunch of nonsense about their headgems. We've got it simple; just tell computers what to do.”
“Chloroplast… kind of made sense when I asked him in the Gardening Club," said Wallflower. "Have you tried asking someone who isn’t Dimir?”
White drew back, eyes wide with incredulity. “What, and give away that I don’t already know how it works?”
Wallflower took a deep breath. She was used to this sort of circular reasoning from White, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating. “So what should I do about it? Get even with the vice principal?”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
After a few moments of shocked silence—or what passed for it in Ravnica High—Wallflower said, “I was joking.”
“I know. But he’s been stringing you around since he got you to transfer. You gotta show him you’re not just some puppet he can jerk around however he likes.” White made motions with her hands like she was controlling invisible marionettes.
Wallflower gave her a flat look. "You have literally said 'Dance, puppet, dance' when you get me to agree to something."
"Yeah, but at least I'm up front about it," White said with a shameless grin.
“Sometimes. And how am I supposed to get even with the vice principal? Preferably without getting a month’s detention.”
White held up a pair of fingers. “Two words: Malicious compliance. You do exactly what he told you to do in a way that throws it back in his smug face. So if he wants you to refine your weird color magic, do it in a way that gets back at him.”
Wallflower took a deep breath. “You are a terrible influence, you know that?”
“You already have an idea, don’t you?” said White, her grin widening.
And Wallflower had to nod. “Yeah. Yeah I do.”
Jace walked into his office the next day armed with coffee and the knowledge that without him, Principal Mizzet would probably forget the school even existed. The coffee was much more comforting and motivating in terms of getting his workday started. He booted up his computer, opened his email, and—
"AH! AH!"
His eyes went wide as a very explicit video started playing at full blast. Jace scrambled for the volume controls, then trying to close the window, going back and forth for almost twenty seconds before he managed to get the sound to stop.
Then, slowly, agonizingly slowly, he looked up at his still-open office door. Two dozen secretaries and Azorius students looked back, all with the same horrified expression Jace felt frozen on his own face.
For a moment, Jace seriously considered wiping the witnesses' short-term memory. But no, that would be wrong. Without moving a muscle, he lit his headgem and telekinetically shoved the door closed instead.
A new email entered his inbox. One from Principal Mizzet himself. One with the subject "Appropriate Use of the Workplace."
Jace massaged his temples. "Well," he said to himself, "I have been meaning to work on my psychometry."
The rumor swept through Ravnica High like a fire through a crowded tenement block. By the time it got to Wallflower and White, they just giggled, much as any other students would.
At lunch—this time in one of the unused classrooms the Dimir kept reserved for such purposes through methods so clandestine that they had to chase out a freshman first—White said, "You're sure it was untraceable?"
Wallflower nodded. "Completely. I may still be getting a grasp on this magic, but I ran a few tests first. No way to track where it came from. Even the IP address comes out as a string of question marks."
Then her phone buzzed. Both looked at it, then at one another.
"You don't think..." White trailed off, going even paler.
Wallflower focused on her phone, chills running down her spine. "It, uh, doesn't know who it's from."
"If I were you, I'd just run the thing through a factory reset. I can show you how to do it without unlocking it."
"No, no. I deserve this."
"We've got to work on that conscience."
"What, that I have one?"
"Did I stutter?"
Wallflower took a deep breath. "Might as well rip off the bandage." Eyes shut, she unlocked her phone.
Nothing happened. Not audibly, anyway.
Swallowing against the lump in her throat, Wallflower cracked an eye open. Then she immediately wished she hadn't. "Ack!"
She knew then she'd made a terrible mistake: She'd piqued White's curiosity. "What— My eyes! My technically innocent eyes!"
"What even is that?"
"Change your wallpaper! Change it!"
"I'm doing it, I'm doing it!"
"I can still see it! I can almost smell it!"
"Why would anyone take a picture of that?"
Jace didn't take joy in making his students suffer, but he couldn't deny that there was something satisfying in revenge. Especially with Goatse.
Don't look it up. Just don't.
That being said:
Hey, Group Precipitation would update today if there were any submissions in the thread. 
But yeah, Jace never stopped being vice principal of Ravnica High. And when he gets called out personally, my options are limited. Especially when the other card is also right up his alley.
If you’re wondering what the deal is with this Wallflower and the Memory Stone, the short answer is “It’s complicated.” The long answer involves multiple factions work towards various vaguely nefarious ends. And the Fay. Trust me, you probably don’t want to deal with the Fay.
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She's in Ravnica (High), she can't take a dump without that being true. Especially given that she's Dimir.
Not that anyone who does is really given a choice.
Pfft. Jayce is almost as much a troll as Celestia.
As an aside, anytime I hear the name Jayce, I get flashbacks to Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors. Even for a product placement show in the 80s, it was a wierd one.
I don't need to look it up, I already know.
Jace just can't not be sneaky about things. Sometimes he should be.
10284710
Fair enough. I would still contend that they should at least have had some inkling that something would go sideways. I mean, how often have things gone off smoothly in their lives since Twilight first arived Ponyville? I would venture it's a pretty rare occurence.
10284722
I'm just going to go with the latter. Thanks for clarifying.
I think Niv needs to send Jace that email again.
I am aware of all internet traditions.
Malicious compliance and petty revenge, all in one story? This is a good day.
10284656
Old Man Jarad's toilet brush is as much a staff of office as any Stirropean king's scepter, and almost as old.
(And no, Vraska didn't kill him in this timeline. She's busy doing... call it "private security" work. Also, her wedding's coming up. Jace's drinking buddies will have to drag him in somewhere to get a new suit.)
10284671
Entirely fair. I think of a member of the Ginyu Force. (Presented here at maximum schlock.)
10284713
Hey, when you're the original blue 'walker, you don't do overt.
10284991
It technically falls under the umbrella of student discipline. Plus, it isn't disrupting Niv's concentration by happening a door down from his own office. He's just fine with it.
Wallflower's proving a slow learner, I see. She didn't even try to get a secondary opinion regarding the vending machine being "just the sort of thing Jace does with people", and didn't even review that thought when presented with a prepared plan for "getting back at him". I doubt it's coincidence payback came right when White was present to appreciate it.
Have thought about Group Precipitation, but over the past year I've only came up with one potential thread to insert there, and so far it's seemed to be both completely unnecessary and too self-indulgent to be worth touching a keyboard over.
Normally I'm all for hurting Jace, but Oversaturation Jace actually is a good person and I trust him far more then White Hat. Who is clearly trying to damage Wallflower's trust in Jace so she's easier to manipulate(Lazav is gone right? Who replaced him? Also I know its not true but I choose to believe that White Hat is secretly Yagmoth or some other big bad.)
Also Jace not erasing people's memory, defintily Good Jace not normal Jace.
What were the cards for this chapter?