Harmony's Thieves

by 4428Gamer

Read All About It

Joe's POV
Outside of the Schoolhouse

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After Applebloom spent a few minutes searching the schoolhouse, she finally fished out what looked like a hand-sized brass key before leading me outside.

When I stepped foot outside I noticed that dome again. It was hard to force myself from staring at the purple color covering every inch of the sky. Applebloom, on the other hand, spent a few seconds staring at it before continuing on her way.

I gawked for a moment before walking in step behind her. "Why is it that you don't seem nearly as shocked about that?"

"Compared ta bein' a weird, hairless, two-leg thing with claws?" She asked over her shoulder.

"Again, we're called humans," I corrected. "And those are hands. Not claws."

She lifted her shoulders, rounding the corner. Huh. She sure picked up shrugging fast enough, I thought.

"Well, Ah guess that's cause this ain't the weirdest thing that's happened ta Ponyville," she explained. "Ah an' my family ain't much fer it, but Ah always figured everything Ponyville goes through is thanks ta magic."

I furrowed my brow. "So 'magic bowl in the sky' is automatically filed under business as usual?"

Applebloom took a second to think about that as she stopped at a trapdoor built into the side of the schoolhouse. It was pretty big and keeping the entire thing closed was this industrial sized padlock.

"Huh," she finally answered. "Ah guess so. Ah mean, usually there's somethin' big that happens every week. Ah think this is the third...No, second time Ponyville got stuck in a bubble."

I stared at her in mild confusion, waiting for a punchline that wasn't coming. Applebloom didn't even seem to notice though as she got to work on the lock.

When the lock came loose with a clang, she signaled me to help her and we got to work opening the doors. Beyond them was a set of stairs leading down towards some sort of basement.

“Down here’s where the Foal Free Press gets made,” she explained. “Me an’ mah friends stopped bein’ a part of it ever since the...Uh, thing, happened,” she mumbled.

“Err, but.” She brushed whatever thought went through her head and continued. “Since we did a lot for the school paper, Ms. Cheerilee gave us permission ta come down whenever we'd like. Just in case we wanted ta give it another shot.”

“Foal Free Press is the name of the paper.” I closed my eyes and quickly tried to forget I heard that name. “Alright. Now I get what you meant by knowing where cameras were.”

She started walking down the stairs with me behind her. It was a little awkward since the steps were deep and the roof was low. Not to mention there was no handrail which meant Applebloom had to hold onto the walls or ceiling as she walked down.

When we finally reached the bottom she opened up an oak door to reveal an entire office space. On one side were odd-looking typewriters with bookshelves of paper stuffed within. Then the other side had a printing press with ink stains all over it and the floor.

Next, the entrance to the room we came through was flanked with two doors. One unlabeled and one with ‘Red Room’ written on a sign. Under that was another sign that showed whether it was in use or not.

Finally, opposite of the entrance was an office desk with a comically large office chair. It seemed large enough for a normal human to sit in it comfortably.

“Huh,” I huh’ed. “Not what I expected.”

“Right?!” Applebloom took that as a good thing. “The Press kinda fell outta everypony’s minds after the. Popular...ity stopped, but this place has everything it needs ta run the paper on its own. The school even saved up enough ta get them polar cameras.”

“Polar?” I looked at her. “Tell me you mean polaroid.”

“Y-Yeah, those! " Her excitement sort of waived. "Like Ah said, it was after Ah stopped comin’ here. Ms. Cheerilee was pretty happy for ‘em too. She always got nervous whenever Featherweight spent so long in that red room.”

We both took some time to look over the room. I did it to find anything useful but I think Applebloom did it half out of plain interest.

The walls around the office desk had a few issues of the school paper in frames with one of the more recent of the bunch having an image of two male ponies stuck together with gum.

...Okay…

Tearing my attention away from that, I noticed that the office desk was left bare save for two things. One was a camera, non-polaroid, kept in incredible condition from within a glass case that had dust on it. A plaque near the bottom of the case read ‘Property of Editor-in-Chief.’

The other thing on the desk was a newspaper, also with a thin layer of dust on it, that had an image of a pony figure in a black costume stepping out of the shadows. The only amount of color on it was its eyes which were white thanks to the mask it wore as well as its ‘mane’ that was the same stark white. It looked like some superhero co—

Wait.

I picked up the paper and looked closer at the front page. Underneath the newspaper was the very comic book the picture referred to but I was more focused on the paper. I couldn’t believe it.

“Found ‘em!” Applebloom called out.

Stepping out from the one door that was unlabeled, she had two polaroid cameras and a small box labeled ‘film.’ “Anypony that’s part of the paper’s allowed ta check out cameras an’ stuff whenever they need 'em. I can jus’ sign these out and we’ll be...What’cha lookin’ at?”

“...” I kept staring a hole through the paper. Then, to be sure, I flipped a couple of pages around. It was all confirming the same thing.

Applebloom walked over and placed the camera and film on the table before trying to look over my shoulder. “Somethin’ wrong?”

I took a deep breath and turned to hold the paper out. “Ms. Bloom? Can you tell me what’s wrong with this picture?”

She took the paper from me and studied it carefully. “The Shadow?” She read the comic’s name aloud. “Um. Never heard of it. But Ah ain’t much of a comic reader anyhow. That’s more Scootaloo’s thi—”

“I didn’t mean the literal picture,” I cut in. “Ignore the Batman rip-off. Do you see what’s wrong with that paper itself? Specifically, the date?”

Bloom moved the paper so she could read out what was printed on the corner. “April 13th, 1004?!”

“Thank you,” I breathed. Then I moved past the desk to look at the other papers framed on the wall. “It has to be a typo or something.”

“Definitely.” Bloom nodded along. “I mean, there’s no way it’s 1004! We’re barely into 1002,” she finished.

I felt my breath get knocked out of my lungs.

“No,” I breathed. “It is not 1002 either.”

“What?” She started looking concerned. “Th-Then what year is it?”

“It’s 2015,” I clarified. But that just made Applebloom all the more confused.

“Now what made ya come up with a random number like that?”

“Maybe because I was born in 1998,” I explained. “And, I think you’ll notice, I’m not negative 994 years old.”

Applebloom’s expression turned sour. Then, without warning, she walked over to a nearby filing cabinet. After a little digging, she pulled out a paper and tossed it onto the desk.

“There.” She pointed at it as she closed the cabinet. “Look at the front page.”

Desperate to see what her proof was, I glanced over and read the headline aloud. “An Open Letter to Ponyville, By Gabby Gums.”

“Gabby Gums was a name my friends and Ah made up,” she told me, using the proper grammar. “That’s me on the left.”

I didn’t bother reading the actual story. I instead looked to the date. “March 30th. 1000...”

“Now Ah'm right sure it’s been more than a year since that happened. And June was right around the corner back then. Which means it should be 1002.”

That planner the teacher had, I recalled. It started on June.

“Your years start on June?”

“‘Course,” Bloom stated as though it were common knowledge. For her maybe. “The year starts with Princess Celestia’s Summer Sun Celebration.”

I backed away from her to gather my thoughts. Princess. Summer Sun. The faulty calendar. What?

According to Cheerilee’s planner, every month had thirty days exactly. Which would mean that the year was 360 days long. If that was the case then that would mean their calendar should be years ahead of the regular calendar.

I turned back to Bloom. “What happened in the year 0?”

“Huh?” She blinked.

“Year 0. One thousand plus years ago,” I explained. “What happened to make the calendar start there?”

Applebloom, rather than answer, just started to look at me worried. “You...Ya really think it’s year two thousand somethin’, don’tcha?”

“What.” I repeated. “Happened?”

Bloom rolled her eyes but was kind enough to play along. “Well...The years started up back when Princess Celestia banished Nightmare Moon ta the. Well, ta the moon.”

“...”

I walked away from her to the other side of the room, taking off my glasses to wipe my face.

"Alright. I need a second," I told her, unable to hide the exhaustion in my tone.

There was no way I heard that right, I thought. I did not hear that. Or maybe I'm taking her too literally. There's no way. That sounded like some sort of creation story. It doesn't make sense.

I kept racking my brain to figure out if any of what she said could be interpreted differently. When that didn't work I tried mumbling my way through it but that only made Applebloom seem concerned.

“Um. Joe—” “What?” I wasn't looking at her but given the sounds I heard I knew she was scratching at her shirt.

“Ah can show ya all these other papers if ya want,” she offered. “Ah’m tellin’ the truth. Promi—” “I now you're..."

I took a second to calm down. I hadn't raised my voice or anything but I knew my thoughts were getting to me a bit. With the unexplainable dome and now the newspapers and what Applebloom said, everything sounded like I was going mad.

From Applebloom's perspective, she probably thought I was having a breakdown. She would be right.

“Sorry,” I apologized. “I know you’re telling the truth. I don't doubt that. But what I know and what I’m hearing are total opposites. It doesn't make sense.”

“It. It’s okay,” she tried to speak calmly but I could still hear the worry. “Ah’m kinda gettin’ scared too. J-Jus’ a little,” she defended. “But now Ah’m startin’ ta get worried ‘bout some of mah friends an’ family. Ah don’t even know what’s goin’ on outside.”

I took a deep breath and held it.

“We were gonna check out Sweet Apple Acres, right? Can we still head there? Ah wanna let mah family know Ah’m alright.”

Then, I exhaled.

She’s right. We need to go, I thought. Staying at this school is only making more questions. There might be answers somewhere else.

“A good idea,” I told her. “Finding your family should be first. Then, I should try finding out if mine woke up anywhere around here.”

“You got family too?” Applebloom started walking over.

“Two brothers. I’m the oldest.” I let out another breath and put my glasses back on. Then I folded my arms behind my back. Like I always did. “It’s ironic, though. I’m the oldest but I'm also the shortest.”

Applebloom let out a faint chuckle. “Well, Ah’m the youngest and the shortest. But Ah only got the one brother. If anythin’ happened ta him, Ah’d be tryin’ ta find him all over.”

When I turned to face her she was trying to give me a brave smile. “So. What do ya say ta findin' our family’s ‘fore they lose their heads? Sound good?”

She held out a fist towards me.

I watched it for a moment and took another breath. “I think you're right." I reached out at met her fist with my own.

"Well. We have a goal now.” I walked over to the desk and picked up the two papers and the comic book. “Go ahead and sign out the cameras like you wanted. Then we’ll head for your farm.”

Her smile turned a little more genuine before she tried running over to a clipboard on the wall. It took her some time, and a lesson from me on how to hold a pencil without your mouth, but when she finished signing out, we loaded film in the cameras, pocketed the rest, and left the basement behind.

When we locked the basement back up, I told her to keep the key in case we needed to come back. She had gotten us each five dozen sets of film, so more than 100 pictures worth, but you never knew when you’d run out.

Finally, as we struck out on the path towards the farmsteads, I took a second to cut down a decent sized branch from one of the trees with my knife.

After cutting the twigs from it, the branch was good for Bloom to use as a walking stick.

Even with the purple dome over our heads, being able to leave and follow Applebloom to this apple farm gave me plenty of time to think. With the homework that school gave me, I was going to use every second I had.

Author's Note:

Something I think you've probably noticed is that each group are on opposite sides of the town. After they all find each other that theme won't be sticking around too often.

QotC: People stopped using Polaroid cameras a long time ago but I know some people still used them. Has anyone ever had the chance to try out on of those things before? I think they're kinda cool.

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I hope you all enjoyed and I'll see you next chapter!

-Zeke