Dispose of Carefully

by The Ancestor

The Root Cause

The rhythimic clicking of a cricket song pierced the otherwise silent darkness of a Canterlot night, a fitting sound accompanying the only two people still on school grounds. Two hooded, completely inconspicuous dark figures approached the entrance to Canterlot High, one of them wearing a backpack, the other holding a small, black box in his hands.

"Isn't this breaking and entering?" Alex asked, looking at the staircase leading to the glass doors of Canterlot High.

"Sure it is." Danny replied, fiddling with the Kant counter in his grasp. "Not like it stopped you before." He remarked, tapping the lcd screen a couple of times.

"An abandoned dockyard warehouse is not the same thing as a working school, Danny." Alex replied, adjusting the straps of his backpack.

"Oh relax, Al, this'll get scrubbed from official reports anyways." Daniel said, his face lighting up with a smile as he aimed the device at the doors of the school. "Jackpot."

The olive skinned man practically flew up the short staircase, stopping once he reached the soon-to-be opened doors of CHS, turning towards his friend with a pensive expression once he noticing the lack of the latter's presense.

"Whatcha waitin' for?" An irritated expression dawned on Daniels' features as he rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet."

With a small sigh of defeat and a determined few steps up the staircase, Alex joined his friend's side, his lips pressed into a thin line. "I'm waiting for our backup to arrive, so we could conduct an investigation without interruption," He retorted, taking a knee in front of the door, pulling out a paperclip out of his pocket. "not to mention in broad daylight." He added with a huff, fiddling with the lock.

"Afraid of the dark much?" Daniel teased, fiddling with the device and pointing it at random things around him out of boredom.

"Cautiously mindful is a better way to put it." Alex stated dryly as the lock clicked open, the man getting to his feet and turning to look at his friend. "There you go, open and ready to commit a felony."

"Laugh all you want, but I bet my ass whoever Memory sends from Site 12 will be thankful when they find that we've already scouted the school for potential skips." Daniel retorted, striding past his friend and into the dim confines of the building. A clanking sound of a closing door, followed by rhythmic steps on the laminated floor that sounded a tad eerie in the complete silence of the school. A soft click reverberated through the space around the two, a beam of light illuminating the halls of Canterlot High.

"Whatever you want to do, let's do it quickly." Alex said, shining a light down a hallway. "The less time we spend here, the better." Daniel grunted something in agreement as he tracked the readings on the Kant counter, Alex falling in step just behind him.

"Don't get your hopes up, we need to check the entire building with this thing." Daniel said, shaking the black box in his hands a little. "All the major hallways at least." He grumbled, looking at the less than inviting partially lit hallway in front of him.

"What are we looking for anyway?" Alex wondered aloud, burning away the dark with his flashlight. "It can't be something too obvious, the civvies would've noticed it before us, but it can't be nothing either." He peered at the black box in Daniel's hands, noticing the numbers on it changing from time to time. "This thing of yours is picking up something."

The duo approached a staircase, a small frown appearing on Daniels' face as they finished going through the first floor. "Think of Hume level as a symptom." The man began, carefully ascending the staircase. "It, alongside other, more obvious signs of paranormal activity, can be used to determine the general nature of anomaly at hand." He stepped into an eerie corridor of the second story of the school, the hallway lighting up moments later as Alex caught up to his friend.

"Something simple as, say, a humanoid able to punch through thirty-centimeter concrete walls with ease, would have little to no effect on the ambient Hume level, since while he can bend steel beams like clay, he doesn't affect reality around him on a fundamental level." Another pitch-black hallway passed, another part of the building cleared. "On the other hand, something capable of instantaneous transformation and reorganization of matter, with matter neither appearing nor disappearing, would inadvertanly leave a 'mark' on the local reality."

"What does it mean to us?" Alex inquired, raising a finger before his partner could continue. "And in english, please." He added, the duo rounding another corner.

"Something as powerful as a portal would definently leave a mark, one we're capable of tracking." His face scrunched up as the duo hit the dead end of the final corridor. "That's... troubling." He remarked to himself, knocking on the Kant counter's side.

"Something's wrong?" Alex asked, monitoring the hallway for any abnormalities, while causciously peeking at his friend.

"You can say that again." Danny said, worry slowly creeping into his voice. "The ambient Hume level around the school is higher than normal, sure, but it's surprisingly even."

"Is that bad?" Alex inquired with a raised eyebrow.

"Hmm..." Came Daniel's thoughtfull reply as he cupped his chin and stroked his stubble. "When you turn over the hourglass, the sand slowly starts to seep to the other side, and for a short while it forms a hill, that's our initial 'spike' in the ambient Hume level." He began to pace in circles, thinking aloud. "But what happens when, say, a minute passes? Ten minutes? An hour?"

"All the sand seeps to the other side," Alex began, following his friend's line of thought. "until it eventially..."

"Evens out." The two said in unison, looking at each other, worry clear on their faces.

"That's a big hourglass to fill, though." Alex said, a sense of unease creeping into his heart.

"So it must've been open for a long time." Daniel finished, a panicked gleam in his eyes as he resumed his pacing. "If we presume that the 'sand' cannot seep in while the portal is closed, and the portal opens once in a couple of moon cycles..." His face fell at the realisation. "It's been open for a long time." His gaze flicked to the Kant counter once more, before hurriedly switching to look at his friend.

"We need to get out of here, right now. You were right, we should've waited for backup to arrive." He said, the duo making their way down the hall and towards the exit.

Alex had something witty to say in responce, but his answer died in his throat when another voice came from down the hall.

"Don't move a muscle."

---

The steady hum of overhead lights melded with the steady ticking of a wall-mounted clock, the resulting background noise a little too mind-numbing to call manageable.

A figure, hunched over a worktable in a position that couldn't have been comfortable, was writing something in the myriads of papers sprawled before her. She tore her eyes from her work momentarily, flexing her shoulders and castng her eyes to the clock, groaning when she found she stayed late again.

"Tia will have my head if I she finds me here after hours... Again." Luna mumbled to herself, rubbing the bridge of her nose, a yawn threatening to break her expression. Her eyelids turned heavier with each passing moment her attention lingered on the ASA papers Tia left in her office a good three hours ago, Luna having stayed later than usual to finish the mountain of forms and applications needed to request information from the association.

Her brows furrowed as her mind wandered to the reason behind her late-night early-morning crunch, her lips curving downwards just a tad. Her sister told her of the impromptu student-teacher reunion that took place a day ago, and despite the older sister's assurances, Luna wasn't too keen on letting the whole incident go.

"What are the chances ASA sends two people to check things out so soon? Same as them keeping their word." The thought of news of the situation spreading outside Canterlot both scared and infuriated her. "All the years of hard work, thousands of graduated students, all of that ruined just because Tia's a bleeding heart that took in a Jane Doe that just happened to be an alien?" The absurdity of the situation almost made the woman chuckle. Almost.

The deputy director shook her head, turning to the documentation with renewed determination. She had to know if these two were legit or not, and even if they were, the paperwork would grind things down to a halt for the time being, hopefully giving Tia enough time to-

"...in english, please...

Luna's eyes darted towards the ajar door of her office, her mind racing to figure out whether she was hearing things or not. The woman held her breath for prescious few seconds, listening to the distant sounds of the empty school. Supposedly empty.

The tips of her fingers tingled as she heard distant footsteps, followed by the sound of conversation. Indistinct and hushed, but still discernable in the quiet of the night. Luna slowly stood up from her chair, careful not to make a sound as she tiptoed towards the door, her breath still and her muscles taut as she leaned over the precipice, listening in on the gradually approaching source of the noise.

"That's a big hourglass to fill, though." The voice was strained, concerened as the man spoke, two figures rounding the corner far down the hall. Luna squinted in an attempt to discern the duo's features, the attempt vain in the darkness of the halls.

"So it must've been open for a long time." The man's partner replied, the same worry in his tone mixed with curiosity as he continued his line of thought. While Luna couldn't see the details, she could see the duo's postures were tense, but not for any appropriate reason. If they were afraid of getting spotted, they would've been less talkative.

A tinge of dread entered the seconf man's voice as he spoke, fidgeting in place as called out to his partner. "We need to get out of here, right now. You were right, we should've waited for backup to arrive."

Luna's mind went into overdrive as she processed the words. "Did they spot me? Doesn't look like it. Is the school in danger? He did sound awfully worried..." Luna shook her head as she saw the two making moves to escape. "Can't let them escape, tresspassing's still a thing."

Gathering all the gusto she had in her Luna stepped out of her cover, mustering her voice to be as intimidating as possible, she adressed the two intruders.

"Don't move a muscle."

---

Daniel's eyes darted towards the source of the noise, sillouethe of a woman standing just beyond the doorframe her arms crossed on her chest. Her posture appeared confident, and the tone of her voice reminded Daniel of being scolded by his parents and teacher any time they caught him skipping class.

Now I'm being scolded for not skipping class.

"I don't know who you are, but you have no right to be on school grounds after hours."

Danny turned to look at his friend, his face obscured by shadows, yet leaving just enough details visible for Danny to discern a look of recognition on Alex's face.

"Well, are you going to explain yourself, or am I going to have to call the police?"

It happened so fast, Danny barely managed to stay on gis feet.

In a blink of an eye, an iron grasp settled over Daniel's arm, the shape of his friend turning into a blur as he darted in the general direction of the exit, dragging Daniel with him, who was clinging to the Kant counter for dear life.

A distant stop! echoed down the hall as tge duo sprinted through the halls of Canterlot high, their footsteps overlapping with the ones following in their stead.

He all but tumbled down the stairs, panting and gasping as the he breached the entrance of the school, Alex standing still for a moment, his head on a swivel, before dragging him behind the horse statue in the middle of the yard.

Hitting the ground hard, Danny leaned against the statue, his hand over his frantically beating heart. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead as he put it agsist the cold stone of the statue, a pleasant coolness spreading at the contact.

He crscked one eye open to see his Alex peeking out of the corner of their hiding place, his posture tense as he syrveyed the school yard.

Daniel watched the agitation drain from his friend's frame with an exhale, the world around him turning just a tad sharper as Danny's heartbeat slowed and breathing steadied.

The rush of blood in his ears has quieted enough for the man to notice a faint beeping coming from the device in his grasp, the sound causing the researcher to stumble away from the statue with a strangled yelp.

Alex turned with a quirk of an eyebrow to notice his friend's victorious yet terrified expression.

"Relax, she's not following us." He rubbed his chin, casting a dubious look at the building before his gaze returned to Daniel. "The worst she can do now is call the police. Still, we better get moving."

His words had a commanding air to them, yet the researxher didn't move, his gaze glued to the Kant counter in his grasp.

"Danny, I said we need to scram, ASAP." Alex said, cautiously approaching his friend when the words failed to stir the man out of his near catatonic state. "Are you deaf? I said we need to-"

"Scram." Danny replied, shaking his head and stuffing the Kant counter into his pocket. "Let's get the hell out of here." He said with a nod, following Alex's footsteps as the duo made their way off of CHS grounds.

---

From: [e-mail] 20.09.2016
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Entry Point

To Research Site 12 Director, Burning Memory.

Entry point located. Horse statue on the grounds of CHS.

See calculations regarding the portal's age and Hume disturbance output in the attached document.

Send reinforcements ASAP.

-Daniel Miller

From: [e-mail] 20.09.2016
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re:Entry Point

O5 Command has authorised a full lockdown of Canterolt City. You are to establish and take command of a temporary Site on the premices. For further details regroup with reinforcements at 497 North Parker Drive.

Secure. Contain. Protect.

Burning Memory, Site 12 Director.

Comments

[CheshireCat19]

This is so good, I can't wait for more

[The Ancestor]

11402020
Glad to see you're enjoying the story!

I can't wait for more

I'll try not to disappear for three months before posting the next chapter

[Booster Spice]

Dannys Kant sensor keeps displaying Cupcakes and Party occasionally and randomly?

Even though its a basic LED digit diisplay?

[gapty]

It has come! The next chapter! Wohoo!

O5 Command has authorised a full lockdown of Canterolt City. You are to establish and take command of a temporary Site on the premices. For further details regroup with reinforcements at 497 North Parker Drive.

Oh boy, full lockdown of Canterlot City. Let's see if they keep doing it or release it once they figured out the reasons/causes.

Looking forward to the next chapters!

[The Ancestor]

11402070
Glad to see people are excited to see this, I swear one day I'll try to stick to some semblance of an update schedule.

Oh boy, full lockdown of Canterlot City. Let's see if they keep doing it or release it once they figured out the reasons/causes.

Despite these restrictions Pinkie will somehow have enough imported supplies to last Sugarcube corner indefinently. Nobody knows how she keeps getting thesse packages past the lockdown. Investigation is still ongoing.

For real though, I've got some big things planned in the next, say 3-4 chapters, so stay tuned for that!

[Smugleaf]

Woah. 😯 I wasn’t expecting things to ramp up that quickly.

Also, are our boys big shots now? They get their own temporary site, is that much of a leap from their ranks before?

[Warrior of Virtue]

"Afraid of the dark much?"

Well, considering that you're both fully aware that the things that go bump in the night are in fact real, you should be too.