Monday, October 19, 2015

2015
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Today's Horoscope (Virgo): Others' trust in you will be tested today.

Early Morning

When I head downstairs for breakfast, I find a grim-faced group of girls sitting in the dining room. "What's up?" I ask.

Twilight looks up at me miserably. "Check Canterbook," she says.

I pull out my phone and open Canterbook. Immediately upon logging in, I receive this message:

"Uhh...wow," I say. "Are we...in trouble?"

"I don't know how we could possibly all be in trouble," Fluttershy says shakily. "I haven't done anything..."

"Nor have I," Rarity says.

"Yeah, we've only got two troublemakers here, plus that drama with Nurse Cadance and Coach," Applejack says. "Uhh...no offense."

Cadance comes rushing in a few minutes later, face pale. "Did you all—"

"Yeah, we know," Twilight says.

"Hurry up and get ready," she says. "I'll drive us all over to the school."

We arrive at the school a short while later. We're all nervous.

Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna are waiting for us in the office. When we enter, Celestia stands. She looks straight at me. "Flash Sentry," she says.

"Yes ma'am?"

"Before I say anything else, I must ask: are you the one who posted that picture to Canterbook?"

I frown. "What picture?"

Vice-Principal Luna glares at me, arms folded. "Do not feign ignorance," she says.

"I...really don't know what you're talking about," I say. "I've been way too busy this weekend to post anything to Canterbook."

"What's this all about?" Twilight asks.

"A rather embarrassing and candid photograph of my sister and I, from our college days, has found its way onto Canterbook," Luna says. "The poster of the image is identified as Flash Sentry."

Twilight's eyes widen and she stares at me. "You didn't!"

"Of course I didn't!" I reply. "Twilight, you follow me on Canterbook. If I'd...posted something like that..."

Everybody has their phones out. They're all looking at their feeds. "Nope, no pictures from Flash," Pinkie says. "Oh, no, wait...I see it now. It's on a public..." She blinks. "Holy cow!"

I pull my phone out and search the public boards. Sure enough, there it is...the spring break photo Twilight and I found on Friday. And it's posted under my name.

"I didn't post this," I say, looking up and around. "I didn't!"

"Um...excuse me," Fluttershy says quietly. "Flash's name has a lowercase L in it..."

"You seem to recognize that picture, though," Celestia says, frowning.

"I've seen people on the Internet use an uppercase I to spoof accounts..."

I only faintly hear Fluttershy. The weight of Celestia and Luna's accusatory stares feels like a mountain. The others are staring at me curiously...except for Twilight, who has her face in her hands.

I cough. "Umm...yeah. Twilight and I...sort of ran into that picture Friday night. But I didn't post it on Canterbook!"

"It's possible maybe...somebody spoofed Flash's name..."

Rarity raises an eyebrow. "Exactly what were you two up to that you found a picture like that?"

"It's Vice-Principal Luna's fault!" Twilight shouts.

Luna blinks. "My fault? Exactly how is this my fault?"

Twilight blushes. "On Friday...you were talking about...about the two of you in college..." She ducks her head. "We...we were just curious...what you two looked like when you were younger. And...we needed a distraction after that whole thing with my brother, so we looked you two up on the Internet. And...we found that."

"That's pretty much the whole story, yeah," I agree. "It was just one of those 'what your teachers were like back then' things."

Cadance stares at us. "Both of you?"

Twilight shrugs. "We thought we'd find like, a yearbook photo or something, not something like...that."

Fluttershy raises her hand. "Excuse me," she says.

Celestia looks at her. "Yes, Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy fiddles with her phone. "Umm...I just...names with lowercase Ls in them can be easily spoofed on the Internet...you just use a capital I in the username..."

Luna nods. "That's true, except that Canterbook is a far more secure system, and administrative access is severely restricted. It's not possible to change user names at all on the system..."

"Unless it was hacked," Celestia says suddenly, a look of dread on her face.

Then it clicks. I look at Twilight. "And if Canterbook was hacked..."

"So was your computer," she says. "Somebody hacked into your Internet history."

"Luna," Celestia says, looking at her sister.

"I'm on it, sister," Luna replies, her phone already out. She walks over to the corner.

Celestia sighs. "Alright...for now, we're going to assume this is a cyber attack. But that brings me to the second part of why I called all of you here this morning." She sits behind her desk again, folding her hands. "Since the beginning of the year, there have been an inordinate number of incidents involving the residents of Applewood Dorm." She scans each of us with her eyes. "This latest incident is disturbing on a number of levels. Combined with all the previous incidents, and the numerous reports of bullying and harassment you've all been subjected to..." She takes a deep breath. "Luna and I have decided to monitor all of you more closely. Beginning this week, one of us will stay at Applewood Dorm on weeknights. We're going to alternate weeks observing all of you and interviewing you in detail about your activities and any altercations you've had with other students." She looks at me and Rainbow Dash in particular when she says this. "It's our duty to provide a safe and secure environment for our students, an environment that's conducive to learning. At the moment, your situation seems to be conducive to chaos and confusion. We're going to do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of everything happening with all of you." She sits back in her desk. "I'll be staying at Applewood Dorm this week, starting tonight."

"We'll...we'll prepare a room for you," Cadance says.

Luna walks back over to the desk. "They're switching services over to the backup server in five minutes," she says. "Canterbook will be down for about twenty minutes."

"Good," Celestia says. "And the investigation?"

"Will begin as soon as the main server is taken offline."

Outside, we hear the dull roar of students flooding the halls.

Celestia rubs the bridge of her nose. "Today is going to be hell," she mutters. She looks up at us. "All of you, get to class. And Flash, Twilight? Please don't go looking for old pictures of your teachers again."

"We won't," Twilight says, ducking her head.

"Yeah, no worries there," I agree.

Morning

All morning long, I get dirty looks from most of the girls and a few of the boys, while a lot of boys are laughing and trying to pal around with me, like I'm some great hero.

I seem to be on most of the teachers' shit lists.

By third period, I give up proclaiming my innocence. Nobody believes me anyway...

Lunch

I join my friends at lunch. The attention I've been getting all morning is magnified a hundred fold, with a wave of applause and laughter breaking out as I enter the cafeteria, and the dirty scowls of over half the girls at school following me.

Twilight gives me a miserable, sympathetic look. "Has it been like this all day?"

"Oh yeah," I say. Out of habit, I glance over at Sunset Shimmer's table. She's watching me with a cold, superior smirk.

Twilight follows my gaze. "You don't think...?"

"I don't know," I say. "But it'd make sense."

Pinkie gasps. "Her dad owns Canterbook! It totally makes sense!"

"But we'd need to be able to prove it," Twilight says. "And one thing I know about Sunset Shimmer is she's very good at covering her tracks."

After School

I head straight back to the dorm after school. There's a package waiting in the lounge. It's addressed to me...it's Pinkie's cookbook. I take it upstairs and hide it in my closet. I'll buy wrapping paper and wrap it later.

I'm practicing my guitar when Twilight and Cadance walk in. "Are you alright?" Twilight asks.

I shake my head. "Not really, no."

"I don't think we should go to Zodiac today," Cadance says. "We do need to go before Pinkie's birthday, but..." She looks at me. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to go when you're this wound up."

I nod. "Yeah, I agree."

Twilight fidgets. "Hey, um...Cadance?"

"Yes?"

"While I've got you alone...well, alone enough..." She looks Cadance in the eye. "I know you had sex with Flash." She frowns. "I've forgiven you for a lot in the past...probably more than I should have. And...I guess I'm probably going to forgive you for this too. But..." She looks down. "You doing what you did...with my boyfriend...that hurts. It's pretty much the worst thing you've ever done, and you've done some pretty messed up things."

Cadance sighs. "Twilight...I'm sorry..."

"I don't want an apology, I want a promise," Twilight says. "I want you to stop acting like a slut whenever you're mad at my brother. You're a married woman now, Cadance. You need to start acting like it." She shifts her weight. "I'm going to go get a room ready for Principal Celestia." She turns and leaves.

Cadance hangs her head. "Leave it to my favorite sister-in-law to make me feel like the world's biggest whore," she says.

"She loves you," I say. "She's just upset and disappointed." I sigh. "She's upset with me too...she doesn't show it, but I'm gonna be on eggshells around her for a while now."

"It's all my fault," Cadance says with a sigh. "I—"

"Hey, it's not like I didn't..." I pause. "I could've..." I shake my head. "I'm just as much to blame as you are."

"No," Cadance says, shaking her head. "I never should've..." She looks down. "Did...did either of them tell you I—"

"They told me you...have a habit of cheating on Coach," I say.

Cadance sighs. "Yeah. I..." She sits down on my bed, putting her face in her hands. "I don't know why, I just...whenever I need to blow off some steam, I find some guy to fuck..." She sniffles. "But...I should've known better...you're a student under my care, and...and you're my sister's boyfriend..." She looks up at me. "I'm sorry, Flash. I...I'm sorry..."

"You're not the only one to blame here," I insist. "I could've...I didn't have to..." I shake my head. "I was an idiot," I say lamely. "But, since you brought up what Twilight and Coach both told me, and it sounds like he doesn't even know about most of the times you cheat on him...maybe you should get some help."

Cadance wilts. "I hate therapists." She sighs. "I'll...I'll think about it though. Twilight's probably right..." She stands up. "Twilight...how mad is she? And Shiny?"

"At me or at you?"

"Both..."

"We both got off lucky," I say. "Mostly because they both expected this. Twilight...she's just glad it only happened once. I'm not out of the woods with her yet, but...she's let me off with a warning. Coach...I think he's just glad things are getting back to normal."

Cadance sighs. "I'm sorry I put you in the middle of all this. Umm...we'll go to Zodiac tomorrow...probably."

Evening

An hour before dinner, Celestia arrives with two suitcases. Twilight and Cadance show her to her room, which is down the hall from mine. A little while later, Pinkie comes home from work, right as Applejack and Fluttershy finish preparing dinner.

Everybody is nervous. Fluttershy looks like she's afraid to even eat.

Celestia looks around at us. "Please, don't be nervous," she says. "I didn't come here to treat you all like criminals. I came here to try to find out why so many unusual things are happening to this group of students specifically. I don't want you to act any differently than you normally do while I'm here."

Right, like that's going to happen...

"With all due respect, Principal Celestia," Twilight says, "that wasn't what it sounded like in your office this morning."

Celestia sighs. "My apologies," she says. "I was upset and I was tense." She looks around the table. "I do think something strange is happening here, but I don't necessarily think any of you are bad kids. It's just that...it does seem like most of the trouble at school lately seems to center around residents of this particular dorm, and it troubles me. That's why Luna and I are doing this. We want to get to the bottom of whatever's happening."

"You should be investigating Sunset Shimmer," I say. "She's behind at least half the crap we've been through."

"But none of you can prove that," Celestia says. "I'm well aware that Sunset Shimmer is frequently accused of bullying and other activities—"

"You mean like hacking her dad's network?" Rainbow says. "Because she sure was acting smug at lunch today."

"That isn't proof that she's the one who hacked Canterbook," Cadance says. "It's just proof that she's a mean-spirited little bi—" She trails off, flushing. "Sorry," she says.

"I'm well aware that Sunset Shimmer has an attitude problem," Celestia says. "I've tried to reach out to her. But I can't take disciplinary action against a student when I can't prove she's done anything wrong. And so far...there just isn't any evidence for me to go on."

"We understand," Twilight says.

"So, I understand you've reconciled with your husband?" Celestia says to Cadance.

"Yes, we...we took some time this weekend to work out our differences. I've moved back in with him."

"Yeah, and he cleared the air with me too," I say. "We've come to an understanding."

"That's good to hear," Celestia says. "I'm relieved you've been able to make peace. Both for your own sakes, and because it's one less issue I need to address." She frowns. "Still, I don't think I can lift the restriction keeping him out of the dorm at this time."

"Actually, he and I have mutually agreed that him staying out of the dorm is for the best," Cadance says. "If only because he could walk in on something really awkward around here." She looks at Rainbow Dash. The others do as well.

Rainbow blinks. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Pinkie says with a giggle.

Celestia smirks. "I've been led to believe that from time to time, this dorm has a habit of being...shall we say...clothing-optional?"

"Hey now. That's just Rainbow an' Pinkie," Applejack says. "The rest of us ain't like that."

"Way to throw me under the bus, AJ!" Rainbow cries.

"Jes' bein' honest," Applejack says with a shrug.

"Hey!" Pinkie says. "I've only ever walked around naked one time, and that was when the hot water heater on our floor broke! I wasn't gonna get my towel all wet before I took a hot shower!"

Twilight rolls her eyes. "You knew Flash was in there," she says. "You did that on purpose and you know it."

Cadance facepalms. "Girls...don't do this...not now..."

Celestia laughs. "It's quite alright," she says. "I remember quite well what it was like living in a dorm with other girls..." She sips her water. "Ahem. As the entire school is now aware, I was exactly like all of you once."

"Especially like Pinkie," Rainbow says with a smirk.

"Hush, Rainbow Flash," Pinkie says, sticking out her tongue.

"Still, it is surprising that you'd carry on like this when the dorm is effectively co-ed now," Celestia says.

"Oh, we don't mind Flash at all," Rarity says. "True, when he first arrived, some of us were rather...confused and put out, but we adjusted to him rather quickly. None of us are the least bit afraid to be ourselves around him." She looks at Rainbow Dash. "Although some of us could stand to be a bit less..."

"Okay! I get it!" Rainbow cries. "And I ain't gone around without underwear in like, over a month! Jeez!"

"Yes, this is exactly like my old college dorm," Celestia says, shaking her head.

After dinner, I head upstairs to do my homework. I've just started on history when there's a knock at the door. "Come in."

"I was wondering if I could speak with you for a moment?"

It's Principal Celestia.

"Of course," I say. I move to sit on the bed and offer her my desk chair.

She sits down. "That's quite a nice guitar," she says, looking over at where my guitar and amp are set up in the corner.

"Thank you," I say. "It was a gift from my parents."

Celestia nods. "I've been looking over your transcripts and records from your old school and speaking with some of your teachers from Seaddle," she says. "Everybody says the same thing. You never stood out. Your grades were decent, but not outstanding, you weren't involved in any extracurricular activities, and if you had friends at all, none of your teachers were aware of it. Your entire history of discipline boils down to two tardies." She tilts her head. "I find it curious that a student who, for all intents and purposes, faded into the background at his old school has found himself in some of the situations you've been involved in here."

I sigh and shrug. "I didn't have friends in Seaddle. I didn't...really have anything I cared about, except my guitar."

"And then you came here."

"And I made friends," I say. "I became involved in their lives...I have friends, I have a girlfriend..." I look up. "I caught the attention of a lot of the jerks running loose at CHS. Your school is diseased."

Celestia sighs. "I know," she says. "That's...actually why Luna and I are doing what we're doing here." She looks up at me. "Flash...I'm sorry for accusing you of posting that picture, and for letting the entire school believe you're the culprit."

"Huh?"

"Luna and I already knew Canterbook had been hacked," she says. "I'm afraid we're using you to draw out the individuals responsible."

"Using me?"

"Not just you," Celestia says. "As I said earlier...it does seem that the negative elements at CHS have it in for the students in this dorm. Whether it's coincidence, or..." She shrugs. "We don't know. That's what I intend to find out."

"So...you knew I didn't post that picture...but you acted like you thought I did?"

"Yes, and again, I apologize for that," she says. "Although..." She raises an eyebrow. "I was surprised to learn you had in fact seen that picture. That...caught both my sister and I off guard. Although...learning that your own computer has been compromised is certainly useful to the investigation." She tilts her head. "Would you mind answering a question, honestly?"

I nod.

"You and your girlfriend both said you were just curious what my sister and I looked like when we were younger. Is that the whole truth? Is that really what led you to that particular picture?"

I cough. "Umm...it's part of the truth," I say. "I...don't want to make you mad at me, though..."

"I won't be, I assure you," Celestia says calmly. "So long as you're truthful with me."

"Well..." I can't quite meet her eyes. "We were actually...the reason we did that Internet search was because...we wondered if your legs were always that long."

Celestia blinks. Then, she starts laughing.

"I'm sorry!" I say. "It...it was just..."

"There's no need for apologies," Celestia says, wiping tears from her eyes. "It's hardly the first time that particular topic has been addressed, and I'm certain it won't be the last." She smiles. "Even if you were only looking into that particular issue for...reasons of personal interest..." She raises an eyebrow. "I wouldn't be offended. I've long since learned to accept the attention my legs tend to draw with grace and dignity. After all, I do run a high school where half the student body is composed of hormonal teenage boys."

"That wasn't why...!"

"Of course it wasn't," Celestia says mildly. "In any case...yes, I've had unusually long legs since I was about eleven years old. Sometimes it's awkward, sometimes I'm proud of them...most of the time, it's just a fact of life. There are some vascular issues I have to contend with, but..." She stands. "In any case...I appreciate your honesty, and I'm sorry to have put you through all this, but it was necessary. Goodnight, Flash."

---

Once she leaves, I finish up my homework and go to bed.