Ghost In The Educational Facility
“Okay… you got this. No need to be nervous, this is completely standard, nothing to worry about… Just…”
“Princess Sparkle?”
“Eeep!” The purple alicorn jumped a little, stopping in her pacing to stare at the gruff brown earth pony stallion wearing a safety vest and holding a clipboard in one hoof. She quickly shook off her surprise to plaster on a somewhat rictus smile. “I mean, yes! That’s me. You can call me Princess Twilight though. I mean Twilight. Just Twilight.” She held out a hoof.
The stallion glanced down at her hoof, then at the clipboard occupying his own free hoof, and back up at her face. “Baseline Standard from the Equestrian Architectural Association. I’m here to inspect that the School Of Friendship is following the official building and safety guidelines. You’ve been informed?”
“Yes, uhm, absolutely. Headmare Glimmer was supposed to meet you, but, well… there were some complications. Magical complications, from the fight against Tirek, Chrysalis and… Anyway, there are still a few problems from that and Starlight had to go help the Element Bearers with her own expertise so…” She trailed off, blinking a few times as she watched the stone-faced stallion silently staring at her. “Right, not important. Either way, nobody else was available so… here I am. Ready to show you to anything in the school you need to see.” She gave another stiff grin.
The stallion stared at her a moment longer, then shrugged and trotted past her towards the front doors with a grunt. “Fine by me. I’m just here to inspect stuff, write down observations and violations.” He pulled a pen from his jacket with his teeth and started writing onto his clipboard, occasionally glancing up at the front of the building.
The alicorn let out a relieved breath behind him, wiping a hoof across her forehead. She straightened up again as the inspector began to move into the building proper, raising a hoof to follow after him before freezing. Her whole body blurred into a purple cloud of static for half a second before reforming, looking notably more transparent and sparkly than before.
She squeaked and jumped, flailing her hooves and trying to brush the sparkles off her chest and flanks before knocking one hoof against her ear three times. She paused and grimaced, then hit it against her head a bit harder, stumbling sideways a few steps as her eyes spun and flickered into static for a moment, before her whole body flickered back into a more solid and less sparkly purple hue again, looking identical to Princess Twilight.
The alicorn shook her head to clear it, quickly checking her tail, mane and hooves before hurrying off into the school to catch up with the inspector again.
~~~~~
My little pony, my little pony, ah-ah-ah-ahhh~
~~~~~
“So this is the inner lobby.” Not-Twilight trotted after the EAA inspector, looking around with a nervous grin. “We got lots of pillars, high ceilings for the pegasi, uhm… decorative busts?” She trailed off awkwardly, coming to a stop for a moment before quickly catching back up to him again. “Is there anything you need? Blueprints? More information?”
Baseline nodded absentmindedly, pulling out a measuring band and wrapping it around one of the pillars. “Eeyup.”
Not-Twilight waited for a few beats, grin twitching slightly before she forced it back into place. “...any particular kind of information?”
The stallion hummed distractedly, pulling out a small hammer and knocking it lightly against the marble. “Mmmhmm… do these pillars get knocked out often?”
“What? Those pillars are perfectly solid and stable and don’t just get smashed or destroyed or knocked out of place! More than twice a month. On average.” She glanced to the side. “And even if they did have to be… renovated, occasionally, the rooms themselves are perfectly stable even just supported on their walls. This is expert earth pony craftsmareship.”
The inspector nodded and made another note on his clipboard. “And the walls? Any damages of note in the last three months?”
“Damages to the walls?” Not-Twilight blinked, still keeping up her smile. “No. I mean, nothing big. I mean, what exactly constitutes as ‘of note’ anyway? If an above average percentage of a wall is still in place, is that really noteworthy? ...not that I’m saying we have an average percentage of wall not being in place. What I’m saying is-” She was cut off by the sound of smashing stone coming from deeper into the building, her ears and smile twitching. “...excuse me for a second, please.”
Baseline tilted his head slightly, flicking an ear. “What was that?”
“That? That was, uhm… termites! Rare magical rock-eating termites!” Not-Twilight paused, then raised her hooves. “I mean, no! Definitely not termites! We don’t have termites here. Or other kinds of rock-eating creatures. Except maybe dragons. But there aren’t any dragons here either because the school is currently closed.” She paused again. “Excuse me for a second.”
There was a flash of purple and a pew- as she disappeared.
A second later she reappeared in another flash and a small -bang.
“No termites in this school. Magical or otherwise.”
Pew-
~~~~~
-bang.
Another flash of purple magic as the alicorn reappeared in another hallway half a dozen rooms away.
“Alright, what’s going… Yona?”
The yak in question turned around, eyes widening. “Princess Twi-!” She stopped, narrowing her eyes and moving closer, inspecting the alicorn from several angles and poking her cheek. “You’re not Princess Twilight.”
Not-Twilight looked around nervously, backing away a few steps. “What?! Nooo… I mean, of course I am! Who else would I…?” She groaned and slumped. “Okay, yes. I’m not Twilight Sparkle. How could you tell?”
Yona puffed out her chest a little. “Yaks have very good eye for detail. Yaks like having perfect things. Not-Princess’ disguise was good, but was not perfect. Real Princess Twilight would have reacted stronger to smashing sounds.”
Not-Twilight slumped again. “So much for that plan. Look, please don’t tell anyone about this, but I’m actually the Tree Of Harmony.”
“Ohhh… Yona understands.” Yona nodded enthusiastically, then paused. “The Tree Of Harmony is a lot less sparkly and not-Princess than usual. How does Yona know you really are the Tree? Yona thought the Tree only appeared back at the Castle since it was destroyed.”
“I just am, okay? I’m here because there was an emergency.” She shook her head. “And besides, I could just as much ask you what you’re doing here. The school is supposed to be closed for students!”
Yona paused, glancing around. “Yona came back to school to… study. Important friendship studies.”
The Tree Of Harmony slowly leaned to the side to look past Yona at the large hole in the wall behind her.
Yona smiled nervously. “Yona admits it may have been important smashing studies instead. Very important though! Yona’s family is coming to visit and Yona hasn’t practiced her smashing in weeks!”
“And why did you have to practice it in the school building?”
Yona perked up. “Friendship School is best place for smashing today! Hard rock is excellent for smashing, solid foundations and no students to complain about falling rocks.” She kicked out with a hind leg, smashing clean through the base of a decorative pillar.
The holographic alicorn stared blankly, eye twitching and a few strands of her mane jumping loose with a glitch of static.
Yona tilted her head, then smiled and nodded. “Much better, yes. Tree’s Not-Princess Twilight disguise is improving.”
“Yona!” The Tree pointed helplessly at the destroyed pillar, letting out a strangled, frustrated whining.
“Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee~”
“Oh don’t worry.” Yona turned around and started sweeping together the pieces of rock. “Yaks also have very good eye for structural integrity. And Yona will help clean up.”
“Wheeeeeeeeeeeee~”
“That’s not the point! Someone is here to inspect the building and if they see this hole here they’re going to ask- What’s that noise?” She took a step back, looking around.
"Wheeeeeeeeeeee-oof!”
A pink blur slammed into Yona, carrying her down the polished marble floor and through another pillar before coming to a stop.
There was a short pause and a faint groan before Silverstream’s head popped up from the two-creature pile, the hippogriff quickly jumping up and bouncing off of Yona. “Wow Yona, you make a surprisingly soft crash cushion.
“Yona feels that the compliment loses some impact after the fifth time. Yona would prefer if Yona’s friends were the ones losing impact.”
Silverstream walked up to the Not-Twilight watching the scene, staring back at her in turn and squinting before tilting her head. The alicorn waited silently as she tilted her head the other way, letting out a thoughtful hum before perking up. “Hey Princess Twilight! Sorry, I just thought that you should be looking more sparkly for some reason.”
Not-Twilight relaxed slightly. “Ah. That might be because I am in fact not Princess Twilight. I’m the apparition of the Tree of Harmony that you and your friends have met before.”
“Ooooh, that’s really awesome!” Silverstream nodded along excitedly. “I still think that the real Princess Twilight should be more sparkly though.”
The Tree Of Harmony blinked. “...okay? Well…”
“Wait, but wasn’t the Tree Of Harmony destroyed by King Sombra?”
“Yes, well… as you remember, you and your friends helped me regrow as a treehouse so-”
“Oh, so you’re the Treehouse Of Harmony! Or wait, right now you’re here in our school though. So does that make you the School of Harmony?”
“...just call me Harmony.”
“Okay, Miss Harmony!” Silverstream nodded eagerly again, smiling up at her.
“Okay.” Harmony sighed. “I feel like I’ll regret asking, but what are you doing here?”
“Bannisters!”
“Bannisters.”
“I love sliding down bannisters!” Silverstream started hopping in place, wings fluttering in excitement. “We don’t have any in Seaquestria! We have underwaterslides, of course, but they’re just not the same. And nobody really needed bannisters in the hippogriff kingdom! Or stairs, most of the time.”
Harmony stared at her. “So you came here and snuck into the school.”
“Yep!”
“While it was closed and off-limits to students.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Because you can’t slide down the bannisters when there’s other students around?”
“Well, it would be a little rude when everyone else needs them. And teachers might see.”
“...right.” Harmony rubbed her forehead. “Okay. I can still work with this. It’s not so bad, I’ll just steer the EAA inspector around this hole in the wall. As long as you two sneak out of the school again right away and nobody else-”
“Headmare Twilight?”
“I didn’t even finish the sentence…” Harmony sighed and turned around. “Hello Ocellus. I’m afraid I’m not headmare anymore. Or Twilight. I mean Twilight isn’t headmare anymore and I’m not Twilight.” She shook her head. “Just call me Harmony. What’s wrong?”
“Oh, uhm… nothing’s wrong, really. I just overheard you talking about blueprints to that stallion earlier?” Ocellus turned her head to pull several folded sheets of oversized blue paper out of her saddlebags. “So… I went to your office to get them for you.”
“Oh, that’s… actually quite nice and helpful of you.” Harmony blinked, taking the blueprints from her and unfolding the top one. “I mean, you went into the headmare’s office without permission and probably looked through the locked away and possibly confidential files in her filing cabinet, but you had good intentions and at least now we have what is this.” She froze, staring at an old blueprint covered in annotations, arrows and a disturbingly large number of markings accurately drawn in pink glitter pen.
“Oh, uhm… I think those were the revisions.” Ocellus shuffled her hooves. “This school has been renovated and partially rebuilt a lot, and there’s been a lot of powerful magicks and strong emotions and, uhm… it’s had some effects?”
“These doors just have a bunch of arrows drawn between them.” Harmony pointed at a section of hallway. She looked up, watching as Silverstream went in one door and came out another two doors down and on the other side of the hallway. “Okay… this here is just a spiral with ‘Endless Staircase’ written next to it.”
“Oh yeah, that one’s been around since King Sombra tried to take over the place.” Silverstream popped out from a door in the ceiling above them. “That’s where I was, actually. Just picture it: endless banisters! Well, they did have an end eventually. And the end had a Yona.”
“That explains a lot.” Yona nodded sagely.
“And what is… this supposed to mean?” Harmony pointed at a bunch of squiggly lines.
“Only one reason to find out!” Silverstream bounced over to the indicated door, pulling it wide open. There was a loud roar along with a wave of seawater and several large black and pink tentacles reaching out from the door.
“Hi Callie! Sorry for bothering you!” Silverstream slammed the door shut again on the tentacles, turning back to the group. “False alarm, it’s just Callie.”
“...right.” Harmony folded up the blueprints. “So we should maybe not show these to the EAA inspector.” She blinked. “As soon as we find the EAA inspector.”
“The pony guy with the clipboard? Last I saw him he went into the library wing.”
She slowly turned her head to look at Gallus. “Do I want to know why you’re here?”
Gallus shrugged faintly, holding the eye contact. “Dunno. On an unrelated note, you should probably avoid Professor Dash’s classroom. For no particular reason.”
“Charming.” Harmony slumped before straightening up again and looking between them. “I’ll try to find him and lead him back on track. You four…”
“Yona and friends follow and help Tree Of Harmony?” Yona perked up, smiling at her.
Harmony emphatically waved off. “What? No! No offense to you all but why would you even think that that’s a good idea?”
“Because everything that could go wrong already went wrong?” Silverstream chirped.
“...why would you say that?” Harmony shook her head. “Nevermind. You four have to go. Maybe you can ask Princess Twilight to let you come back after the inspector is done here, with permission this time. But for now you can’t run around in a closed school.” She gave each of them a stern look before disappearing with another flash and pew.
The four students traded some looks.
“We’re going after her, right?”
“Well, one of our friendship lessons in class was about how you should respect boundaries and give your friends space if they ask for it.”
“But another lesson said that sometimes friends have to help friend accept help.”
“There’s always a fitting friendship lesson for every situation. Isn’t that great?”
The four shared another look, then started flying and galloping towards the library, only slowing down again when they came around a bookshelf and found the purple alicorn projection standing in the middle of an aisle. Several more strands of her mane were standing on end and she was staring blankly at a large golden grate that had been pushed aside to allow access to the hole leading down into the catacombs beneath the school.
“Sooo… was this that thing ponies call a jinx? Because I feel a bit like I jinxed this.” Silverstream looked between Harmony and the hole for a few seconds before leaning over to whisper at her friends; “...do you think I can use that for my essay on things of cultural heritage of other species I learned over the break?”
~~~~~
~~~~~
“Is it just me or is there more crystal-y stuff down here than last time we were here?” Gallus looked up, watching the faintly flickering lights of the numerous crystal veins running across the ceiling of the caves.
“Really? Yona was thinking that there are less crystals than before.” Yona looked around at the broken and crumbling remains of crystal structures across the first cavern they were in. “Like yak came down to smash. But Yona didn’t smash any crystals because Yona didn’t want to accidentally hurt any of her spider friends.”
“You know, that’s something pretty intimate you’re discussing there.” Harmony turned her head to glare at the two.
“Oh, sorry.” Gallus winced, then paused. “Wait… is it really? Or are you just saying that because those are your roots?”
“It is, really.” Harmony huffed and quickened her pace a bit.
“I think I hear someone!” Ocellus spread her wings and flew ahead a bit, stopping and pointing down another cave tunnel.
“If it’s the EAA inspector, stay back and don’t show yourselves.” Harmony moved past Ocellus again and headed down the tunnel, slowly sneaking around a corner before stopping to take in the scene in front of her.
“Smolder?!”
The young dragoness paused and looked up from where she was laying down a savage beatdown on a large sandbag. She was wearing a thin black bandana and wraps around her claws. “Princess Twilight?”
“No, it’s… I’m the Tree Of Harmony. That is, the projection of it. If you remember.” Harmony shuffled her hooves a little, looking around at the small but well-equipped gym area. “So, this is… unexpected.”
Smolder raised an eyebrow, giving the sandbag in front of her another punch. “What? I wanted to let off some steam in these weird not-really-dream caves.”
“No, it’s… fine? I was just surprised that you weren’t…” Harmony cleared her throat, shuffling her hooves awkwardly and making a dress shape with her magic.
“Oh, that?” Smolder waved off. “Nah. Cutesy tea parties are a sometimes food, you know. I admit I like, ugh… cute stuff. Sometimes. But I’m still a dragon and most of the time I just want to punch something in the face. But ponies always get kind of weird when I start talking about that and try to find someplace to do that.”
Harmony nodded slowly, glancing over at the pile of already mangled sandbags with obvious signs of having been attacked with fists, claws, fire and occasionally teeth. “I can see that, yes.”
“Exactly.” Smolder stretched her back, giving the still hanging sandbag one last kick before unwrapping her claws and dusting them off. “So, uhm... what are you doing here? There’s not another friendship problem, is there? We’ve only just gotten rid of the Terrible Three.”
“No! Nope, no problems here!” Harmony shook her head, quickly waving off and grinning nervously. “I’ll just… stop bothering you. Also, you didn’t happen to see a brown earth pony stallion around?”
“Oh, that guy?” Smolder pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “Yeah, he came through here, looked at all the stuff in the cave. It seemed a little weird to me, but, well… this place is weird.” She shrugged.
Harmony groaned and hurried through the cave to head out the other side, muttering to herself.
“Any idea what that was all about?” Smolder turned to her friends, raising an eyebrow. “That was weird, right?”
“Yona thinks that the Tree Of Harmony is trying to act more like Princess Twilight.” Yona paused, looking down the way Harmony had gone. “Although Yona admits she is probably not choosing the best parts of Princess Twilight to emulate.”
“We’re going to help her, right?” Smolder tilted her head.
“Well, on one hoof she told us that we shouldn’t try to help…” Ocellus glanced between the rest of her friends.
Smolder nodded. “Yeah. This seems like a case for lesson zero: ‘Listen to your friends, except when they tell you they’re fine’.”
The others shared a look. “Yona doesn’t think that was actually called lesson zero.”
“Potato, topaz-o.” Smolder waved off, heading through the exit of her cave and towards the surprisingly bright and natural light at the end of the next tunnel. “Hey, does anyone else hear waves?”
The five students blinked and squinted against the light, stepping into the next cave and stopping to take in the new scenery. The ceiling was painted to look like a sunny sky complete with a glowing sun, about a third of the cave was taken up by a mostly shallow water basin and the rest of it was covered in fine white sand gradually leading into the water. Two small palm trees had a hammock strung up between them, with Sandbar sitting on the edge of the hammock and awkwardly patting Harmony’s back. The alicorn projection herself was curled up against one of the palm trees and breathing into a paper bag, her whole body blurring and glitching irregularly between breaths.
Sandbar looked up at them, looking rather out of his depth. “Hey guys. Do any of you know what’s wrong with Princess Twilight?”
“Not Princess Twilight. That’s the Tree Of Harmony.” Gallus shook his head, then paused in thought. “I’m not actually sure where the actual Princess Twilight is. Or why the Tree looks like her. You know, more like Princess Twilight than usual.”
“Busy… magic… cleanup…” Harmony wheezed through her paper bag. “Needs to… be here… building inspection!”
“...right. So this guy from the Equestrian Building Club… or something like that. Anyway, that stallion with the clipboard is here to take a look at the school or something I guess.”
Smolder crossed her arms, frowning. “What, so you mean he’s like that Chancellor Neighsay guy? Maybe I should’ve tossed a sandbag at his face after all.”
“No!” Harmony popped her paper bag and glitched up onto all four hooves to face the six. “I mean, yes, he’s from the Equestrian Architectural Association. But no throwing anything at him!” She took another deep breath, glitching and vibrating slightly as she counted down from 100 in a second to calm down. “The school had a building permit, but the actual building has never been inspected for safety and building standards. And they’re actually important and we can’t just disregard the EAA like we did the EEA and-” She pulled out another paper bag and hyperventilated a little before calming down a bit again. “...and Princess Twilight and Headmare Starlight and everyone is busy with the aftermath of Tirek and Chrysalis and Cozy Glow but someone had to meet him and let him in and guide him around and I can’t fail this inspection or he’s going to close me down and-”
“Whoa whoa whoa, slow down.” Sandbar moved over to lightly rub her back. “What do you mean, close you down?”
“I, well… I’m the school!” Harmony squeaked, staring at her hooves. “I mean, I’m not just the school but I’m also the school and… you know how I said my roots went all the way underneath the school? Then the thing with Cozy Glow and the magic happened and I had to use a lot of magic to help you six out which meant growing more roots and… basically I’m not just under the school anymore, I’m in the school! And that means I can actually watch you and all the other students moving around and sitting in class and learning about friendship and making friends with each other, instead of just sitting around alone and getting vague impressions. It’s how I was able to hear Starlight Glimmer and Princess Twilight talk about this upcoming inspection in the first place.” She sniffled lightly. “A-and I could even attend maybe, in disguise, or just talk to someone from time to time, maybe make some friends myself… I-I mean, the Treehouse is wonderful, but it’s in the middle of the Everfree and nobody except you ever really comes to visit and even you can’t be there very often so it’s just…”
“Whoa…” Sandbar stared at her for a moment. “We didn’t know this was stressing you out so much.” He glanced over at his friends who all nodded their assent.
Harmony flickered a bit more, the light overhead dimming along with it. “It wasn’t… I mean, it shouldn’t be, but I had to look and act like Princess Twilight so the inspector coming by wouldn’t know that it was me leading them around the school, but to look more like her and act more like her I had to be more like her and… usually I’m a mix of all the Bearers of Harmony who are connected to me but now I’m mostly just Twilight Sparkle and I’m in a very important situation here a-and it’s kind of really stressing me out, I don’t know-”
“Yeah, no. Princess Twilight and stressful situations.” Smolder nodded. “We’ve all heard the stories, you don’t need to explain any further.”
Harmony winced, picking up the paper bag again. “A-and now everything is going wrong, there’s holes in the walls and students in the halls and he found the catacombs under the school that can’t possibly be adhering to all the safety standards for students-”
Ocellus blinked. “Wait, what?”
“-and now I literally can’t even keep it together because Sombra damaged my roots when he destroyed the tree and channeling all that magic against Tirek and Chrysalis and Cozy Glow didn’t do them any favors either, after that. I’m glitching and I’m spiralling and I’m literally falling apart!” Another paper bag popped under her hooves.
The students winced, slowly coming closer to awkwardly pat her shoulders and back and try to offer emotional support to the sentient tree projection that looked like their former headmare.
“I’m sure it’s not going to be as bad as you make it sound?” Gallus glanced up and pointed across the cave. “See? There’s that Ee-yaw inspector pony or whatever his name is.”
The stallion in question pocketed his pen, holding his clipboard in front of him as he stoically walked up to them. “Miss Concordiae?”
Harmony winced-glitched before nodding. “Y-yes?”
Smolder blinked. “Wait, Miss Whatnow?”
The stallion ripped the topmost paper off his clipboard, holding it out. “I’m afraid the school does not fulfil even basic safety standards, or most of the other standards and guidelines set for it, for that matter. As such we’ll have to close it for an indeterminate amount of time, most likely permanently.”
Smolder yelped. “Wait, what?! You can’t be serious!”
“Furthermore I will have to restrict your contact to any students, staff or visitors for the future due to the numerous safety violations.” He ripped another paper off the clipboard. “This is your notarized restraining order barring you from contact with students, staff, royalty or pony- and sapientkind in general, be it physically, through dreams or through magical-spiritual connections, both prophesied and not.”
“...no really, you can’t be serious now.”
“There have also been a considerable number of safety and building code violations not to mention a lack of building permit on file for the object titled Treehouse Of Harmony in the Everfree Forest. I’m afraid we will have to uproot or demolish-”
“Okay, what the Hauyne is going on here?!”
“Uhh… guys?” Sandbar poked Ocellus’ shoulder, gesturing around at the lack of beach and palm trees and instead jagged dark rocks and gloomy lighting throughout the cave. “I think that’s not actually the building inspector.”
“Sandbar thinks he comes from Tree Of Harmony’s thoughts? Yona didn’t even know that was possible for these caverns.”
“Possible or not, it sure seems to be happening.” Gallus grit his beak, stepping between the fake inspector and Harmony, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her as the stallion’s droning turned more and more into a deep, low rumble. “Hey! Hey, snap out of it! It’s not real! Keep it together! None of that is real!”
Harmony squeaked, glitching around his talons even as the stallion started to blur and fade away. “C-can’t… can’t keep it together… literally falling apart…”
Smolder moved in from the other side. “Come on, mare, it was just a bad dream, okay? The real inspector isn’t like that. I’m sure once we explain everything to him he’ll overlook a few glitches and one or two missing walls.”
“N-no, I…” Harmony glitched again, eyes wide. “I’m literally, literally falling apart!”
The students all flinched in surprise as the rumble got even louder, going on for several seconds before cutting off rather quickly.
“Uhm, guys?” Silverstream poked her head around the corner of the nearest cave exit. “Miss Harmony said that she was the school, right?”
There was a short moment of silence as the others all followed her around the corner, Gallus and Silverstream blowing away a cloud of dust with their wings until they could see back up through the entrance of the catacombs.
“I don’t suppose that inspector would be willing to overlook four missing walls? And a missing ceiling? And several missing floors?”
~~~~~
~~~~~
“Okay. Okay okay okay. We can fix this.” Ocellus fluttered her wings in agitation, looking around at the debris of the former school.
“Fix this?!” Smolder gestured around. “How?!? There isn’t even anything left to fix?”
“Well, the books are surprisingly unharmed. And the furniture.” Silverstream looked around, blowing some dust off of a bookshelf. “Really, it looks like the only thing that was really completely destroyed were the… well, the school. Walls, ceiling…”
“So what, are we supposed to pretend this is a new, innovative open air school?” Smolder waved her arms. “We had that in the Dragonlands and it sucked. A lot of stuff in the Dragonlands sucked, actually, and this place here, right now, looks a lot like the Dragonlands!” She picked up a broken piece of rock and waved it around.
“Come on, guys, we can still come up with something!” Sandbar moved between them, raising a hoof. “I mean, we still have a bit of time. That inspector hasn’t seen what happened here yet, right?”
There was a short beat of silence as everyone turned to look back at the hole to the catacombs and the brown stallion poking his head and half of his now rather dusty safety vest out of it. The stallion stared back at them for a moment, then silently turned his attention back to his clipboard and started writing on it.
Silverstream glanced between the stallion and her friends. “Soooo… Plan B?”
“I’m pretty sure Plan B went up in flames twenty minutes ago, whatever it was.” Smolder snorted a bit of fire from her nose.
“Maybe Plan F? F for friendship?” Ocellus looked around, buzzing his wings uncertainly.
“Didn’t we already try that?” Gallus frowned. “What do you do when friendship fails?”
“Did we, though?” Sandbar tilted his head. “I mean, we tried to be supportive, sure… but we were also kind of the reason Miss, uh, Harmony? Miss Harmony got that stressed out in the first place, right? No really, I missed most of it so I’m kind of just guessing what happened here.”
Yona stood up straighter, stomping a hoof. “Sandbar is right! So far Yona only tried to be good friend to Miss Harmony. But Yona is not supposed to be good at friendship, Yona is supposed to be best at friendship! And so are Yona’s friends!” She stomped her hoof again. “Friendship School is already all smashed up. So now Yona can solve this problem with all her friendship and all her smashing!”
Ocellus fluttered back for a little more distance. “I’m not so sure if more smashing is actually what we need here…”
“No…” Smolder pinched her forehead, thinking. “No, that’s actually… that’s brilliant!” She jumped up, running over to give Yona a hug. “You’re a genius, Yona!” She quickly pulled away again. “And I’m not a hugger. But you’re a genius!”
“Yona always says that Yona is smarter than Yona looks.” She smiled and puffed out her chest. “And Yona is a yak so Yona already looks smart.”
“Alright, I think that’s enough.” Smolder chuckled and gave her a light noogie before heading back towards the entrance to the catacombs. “Don’t let your head get too big for your braids, we still have work to do.”
“Nope. Yona is a genius, Yona is definitely going to remind Smolder of that again.” Yona grinned and bounded after Smolder, followed by the rest of their friends, quickly making their way back to the cavern with Harmony.
The projection was curled up in a corner, glitching and blurring with her forelegs crossed over her head - most of the time. “Go away. Just leave me alone. I ruined everything for everyone and now nobody’s ever going to want to talk to me again or let me do anything except seal evil so I might as well get back into practice.”
“Harmony shouldn’t worry! Yona had an idea that’ll fix everything!” Yona jumped forward and struck a pose, holding it for a few moments before shuffling back again. “Yona doesn’t know exactly what her idea was though so Yona will let Smolder explain.”
“Right! So, it’s easy really.” Smolder grinned, lightly poking the alicorn to get a reaction. “All we have to do is rebuild the school! You built that huge crystal castle tree, right?”
Harmony shook her head, glitching back and forth. “I-it doesn’t work like that. That was a one-time thing, and… and I can’t just grow another tree even if I could. I destroyed the whole school! I can’t just offer a replacement and hope that people won’t notice!”
“Right, right. But what if it wasn’t just another tree!” Smolder grinned. “What if you could rebuild the whole school, just the way it was except better?!”
“Ohhh, I think I get it.” Ocellus stepped forward. “We’re all connected. And all six of us have been living in this school since it was first opened! This is practically a second home to us!”
“That’s not…” Harmony frowned. “It can’t be that easy… It’s a massive building complex, and it would need to fulfill all the building code requirements, and it would need to meet all the safety requirements and it would be made of crystal so it would look completely different from what Princess Twilight built, what she got the permission for, what she wanted-”
“What, is that all?” Smolder smirked, crossing her arms. “In case the tea parties didn’t clue you in, I’m a bit of a con osser.”
Ocellus nudged her from the side. “I think you mean connoisseur.”
“Really? I thought it was like a con artist but for food.” Smolder shrugged. “Point is, I know my stuff about crystals and gemstones. What goes into what and what the difference is. Just tell me how something looked and I’ll help you make it look exactly like that. Except shinier. And tastier.”
Ocellus stepped forward, smiling. “I’m a changeling and I lived most of my life in the old, constantly shifting version of our hive. Memorizing the complete layout of the school down to the exact measurements isn’t actually that hard for me by comparison.” She fluttered her wings proudly. “You taught me that I don’t have to be scared or ashamed of my past, so now I want to use what that past taught me to help you.”
“I don’t know if I have quite as much as that to contribute.” Gallus shrugged. “But I know a fair bit about assessing anything of value, so, uhh… This school has pretty fancy furniture and decorations, I probably remember the exact placing of most of that. In case one of my relatives ever tries to swipe it.” He waved off. “Look, we can’t all have noble and character building revelations in this. I also fly around a lot so I can help with the outside view, maybe.”
“Yona is going to contribute smashing!” Yona reared up and stomped both her hooves down. “Yona and Smolder working together will make the school the safest and best aniyak has ever seen! Trying to smash through one of those walls will be a challenge of Yona’s lifetime!”
Silverstream bounced in front of her and continued bouncing in a circle around them. “Stairs stairs stairs stair stairs bannisters stairs stairs… Oooh, maybe an escalator! I don’t even know what that is but it sounds like an escalation of stairs and I WANT IT!”
“And I’ll make sure that everything is up to code.” Sandbar took a step forward. “I read the Equestrian Building Code last summer.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Good idea.”
“Uh-huh.”
“That makes sense.”
He huffed, pouting a bit. “You know, you could at least pretend to be surprised.” He looked around at the others, then puffed out his cheeks at the continued lack of reaction. “Law literature is interesting. And I like clearly defined rules.”
“Yeah, no. We kinda figured.”
“No surprise here.”
“Entirely predictable.”
“Yona remembers Sandbar asking Yona about the Federal Yax Code.”
“You’re the only one I’ve ever sensed getting excited about the political literature course.”
“Your worst nightmare… was having to choose… between equally tasty cupcakes…”
“Wow, I’m feeling so attacked right now.” Sandbar blew them all a raspberry before stepping back again with a chuckle.
“All that said, though, would you be willing to try? With us?” Ocellus gave Harmony a shy smile, offering her a hoof and helping the projection up when she took it.
She led her towards the others, Harmony’s glitching notably calming down as Sandbar took her hoof on the other side, fully dying down as the others one by one joined the circle. There was a short moment of calm before the magic surged, rushing through their bodies and collecting between them, eyes glowing a bright white as they slowly lifted off the ground.
Above, the rubble of the school slowly started to grow and shiver, first small pieces and then larger chunks lifting off the ground and beginning to move around in a whirlwind of debris, somehow staying clear of all the still undamaged furniture and goods to instead focus towards the middle and funnel into a glowing circle on the ground. Rainbow lines were already spreading from the circle, changing direction at right angles or curving around more gradually, lines and curves slowly drawing themselves into the blueprint of the building’s ground floor. Crystal began to grow along the lines, rising up and coming together to form a ceiling and from there growing onwards to form the first and second floor and anything above it. Trace elements and minerals slowly spread across the crystal to give it the necessary color, mixing and layering until the walls and floors and ceilings looked nearly identical to how they were, aside from looking much shinier and much more solid than before.
Within minutes the whole building was restored to its former glory, the sunlight reflecting off the towers and roofs. Furniture and decorations had been replaced to their former positions as closely as possible and windows were clearer than ever before.
The six students slowly touched the ground again, stumbling a bit as the magic cut off and quickly moving to steady Harmony who had quite a bit more taken out of her. The alicorn projection quickly waved them off, though, and made her way over to the exit of the catacombs, climbing back out into the library ahead of them.
Baseline Standard was already waiting for them, clipboard in hoof and pen tucked into his safety vest as he took in their slightly bedraggled appearances. “Princess Twilight? I’ve finished my inspection of the building.”
Harmony swallowed hard, shuffling half a step forward. “And? Did the school pass the inspection?”
The inspector leafed through the pages on his clipboard slowly before pausing about three fourths to the end. “I’m afraid there is still one major safety violation that is unresolved as far as I could tell.”
“WHAT?!”
Harmony jumped as the students behind her shouted as one and moved in front of her to yell at the inspector. The stallion let them yell over each other for a minute before raising a hoof. “The rules in this case are clear. I can’t just ignore a serious violation like that and hope that nopony gets hurt.” He lightly pushed the students aside to step towards Harmony.
Harmony swallowed again, taking a step back on instinct. “You mean…”
Baseline walked past her, bending down to pick up the ornamental golden grate place it back onto the access hatch to the catacombs. “This school’s basement should not be accessible to random students. The grate will need to be properly secured.”
Harmony blinked. “...what?”
“A padlock should suffice, or maybe a combination lock.”
Harmony blinked again, then nodded numbly, horn shimmering faintly. An indentation in the hatch’s frame appeared and was locked to the grate with a shiny emerald padlock.
The inspector nodded, pulling out his pen and crossing off something on his clipboard. “Excellent. That should be all then.”
“That’s… it?” Harmony stared at him. “The entire building collapsed. The school literally fell apart while you were watching.”
Smolder elbowed her in the side, muttering “Shut uuuuup…”
“Well, yes. But the building is standing again now, isn’t it?” Baseline looked up at seven confused faces. “I’m sorry, I thought that was explained in the original letter announcing this inspection? The requirements for safety fluctuate across Equestria and depending on several factors and, well… this is Ponyville. The old schoolhouse has claimed serious damages on average three times a year. Just these last years we had claims for parasprites, an Ursa Minor attack, something just titled ‘CMC’, something about a hurricane, CMC again, Discord, something about a doll? A cerberus, CMC, CMC, Tirek, plundervines, a bugbear… Point is, we have a very loose understanding of rules and regulations when it comes to this town. Mostly it comes down to, is there a plan to avoid injuries, and can things be rebuilt quickly if necessary.”
He shrugged and pulled out a stamp, pressing it onto the clipboard before ripping the paper off and handing it to Harmony. “This is your certificate. The next inspection will be at some point in the next ten years, but probably later than sooner. Have a good day and maybe get some rest after that display of magic.” He tilted his head. “Although I don’t know much about alicorn capabilities. Anyway, cheerio, Your Highness, kids.” He saluted with his clipboard and turned around, making his way out the front doors and back into town.
There was a long moment of silence, undermined only by the way Silverstream was vibrating increasingly quickly.
“Eeeeeee I can’t take it anymore! I have a confession to make! I actually did change something when we rebuilt the school! Something fundamental! Something that will change the course of this entire school!” She took a deep breath. “Slinkiesatthetopofeverystaircase!”
There was a poof that left only a Silverstream-shaped cloud, the only sign of her aside from the distant cry of “Slinkiesslinkiesslinkiesslinkies” echoing down the hall.
“SLINKIES!”