Monday, May 23, 2016

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Today's Horoscope (Virgo): Sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight.

Early Morning

I wake up to the warmth and comforting, familiar fragrance of Twilight. She shifts around; I brush her hair out of her face and kiss her.

"Mmm," she mumbles.

"Wake up," I say. "It's..." I grab my phone and check the time. "It's time to get up."

Twilight stirs and blinks her eyes open. "Hey," she says. She sits up, stretches, and yawns. "Sun's not even up yet," she says with a pout.

"It will be soon," I say. "Anyway, we've got prep week today, so we'd better get washed up and get a good breakfast."

"Breakfast sounds good," she says. "Especially after I didn't even get to digest mine from yesterday."

"Ugh, don't remind me," I say. I frown. "By the way."

"Hm?"

I give Twilight a flat stare. "What was that shit about Silver Spoon?"

Twilight blinks. "Eh?"

"The 'little loli friend' crack," I say, crossing my arms. "What the hell, Twi?"

Twi blinks, tilting her head. "Oh!" She shakes her head. "Sorry, that...that was really wrong of me."

I raise an eyebrow. "You're not getting off that easy," I say. "I want a real answer."

Twilight rolls her eyes and blows upward on her bangs. "If you must know," she says, "it bothered me that a cute girl in a swimsuit was clinging to you like that, okay?" She frowns. "Especially when she's, well...in junior high. I mean, the girls here in the dorm, I can kind of forgive you for, but...her? Really?"

"What?" I ask. "We're friends. Half the pretty stuff I've bought you, I bought from her dad, and she works in his shop." I shake my head. "You don't seriously think—"

"Well," Twilight says in a plaintive tone, flinching. "I can't help it, okay? Whenever a new girl throws herself at you, I worry."

I shake my head. "Twi..." I stand up, pull her into a hug, and kiss her. "Do me a favor and wait until we're at least forty before you start freaking out over being dumped for a younger girl, alright?"

Twilight giggles. "Okay." She sticks her tongue out at me. "Go make me breakfast."

At breakfast, everyone is quiet and introspective. We've all got so much on our minds—final exams, Sunset Shimmer, Zodiac...

Morning

During homeroom, Principal Celestia makes a few announcements.

"Good morning, students! We're in the home stretch. Final exams are next week. Please note that there will be no club or team activities after school this week, so that you may all devote your full time and attention to studying for your final exams.

"The girls' tennis team will be exempt from their last class this week so that they can train for the upcoming Nationals this weekend. Wish them luck! And girls, don't forget to study on your own time.

"And now, the bad news. As you know, we've used up our bad weather days this year, which means we'll have a full week of school after exams instead of the half week that's on the calendar. I do apologize for this, but it can't be helped.

"Study hard, everyone! Good luck on your exams."

This is going to be a long, exhausting week of review...

Lunch

During lunch I text Silver Spoon to check up on her. She doesn't really remember anything that happened yesterday; she says she passed out in the pool and had a really weird nightmare, and when she woke up, she felt queasy and cold, but she got over it and had a halfway decent birthday. I promise to drop by the shop and chat with her as soon as I get a chance.

After School

Today was mentally exhausting. After school, I'm headed for the school exit when I bump into Juan. He grins toothily at me.

"Well, if it isn't Flash Sentry! I expect this is the last time we'll be bumping into one another in the halls," he says. "I'm retiring." He pops his back. "Effective immediately, as a matter of fact." He sighs. "I've put a lot of work into this school. I'm going to miss seeing all your fresh-scrubbed, shining faces. I'm especially going to miss watching kids like Sunset Shimmer stir up trouble." He chuckles. "She's a spitfire, that one. The things I've heard about her..."

"She's an evil, manipulative, sadistic, psychotic bitch," I say.

Juan shrugs. "Hmm. Yes. Well. Nobody's perfect." He looks around. "Still, this has been a more eventful year than most. I almost regret that it's time for me to move on." He smiles. "Oh, don't worry. You'll be seeing me around town over the summer. I guarantee it." He claps me on the shoulder. "Good luck with your final exams!"

---

Juan strolls away, whistling tunelessly to himself. He stops suddenly, then turns.

"By the way!" he calls back to me. "You really don't want to mess with Sunset Shimmer and her Persona until around her birthday!" He waves, then turns to walk away.

...wait. WHAT?!

I hurry and give chase as Juan turns a corner. But when I round the same corner, only seconds behind him...he's gone.

Heart hammering in my chest, I hurry back to the dorm.

Evening

As soon as I'm back to the dorm, I rush upstairs and pound on Fluttershy's door.

She opens it; she's clearly in the middle of changing. She blushes and covers herself. "Gah!" She slams the door in my face. After a minute, she opens it; she's changed into worn-out jeans and a faded pink T-shirt. She crosses her arms. "What?"

"What do you know about Juan? The janitor at school?"

Fluttershy frowns. "The old guy with the creepy eyes? Not much, aside from his having way too high an access level for a janitor. Why?"

I sit down on Fluttershy's bed. I go over what I want to say...

I've been thinking about all the creepy, cryptic things Juan has said to me all year. It's all starting to fall into place now, after that parting shot. I take a deep breath. "Juan knows about Zodiac," I say.

Fluttershy's eyes widen. "What?"

I tell her about all the little encounters I've had with Juan all year long. About his past involvement with CHS's old social network. "Today, he retired," I say when I'm done. "On his way out, he warned me not to try to fight Sunset until her birthday. He wasn't even cryptic or subtle about it. He just...said it. Straight out. And then he was gone."

"You didn't chase him down?"

"I tried to. He just disappeared."

Fluttershy frowns. "That's..." She shakes her head. "I won't say 'impossible', if he knows about Zodiac and..." She starts pacing nervously. "This doesn't make any sense."

"You've gotta know something about him. Since you've got dirt on everybody at school."

Fluttershy shakes her head. "I never bothered looking into him," she says. "I mean, he's just the janitor. Besides, he never posts anything to Canterbook, ever. He doesn't even seem to use it for anything. I mean, his having that tier three access always confused me, but I never saw any reason to look into it. I mean, like I said...he's just a janitor."

"Apparently not," I say. "Apparently he used to be pretty important."

Fluttershy nods. "I'll look into it," she says, moving over to sit down at her desk. "After dinner, we'll round up everybody and talk about this."

Once dinner is over, we all assemble in the lounge. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle are upstairs studying.

"What's going on?" Twilight asks. "We should really be studying right now."

"Yeah, I'm not gonna get to stay on all my teams if I blow these exams," Rainbow says.

"We can all go back to studying later, but this is important," I say. I recount my encounter with Juan to everyone, and add the things he's said over the course of the school year. "And now that I think about it," I add, "I always seem to run into him not long after we've fought a Hunter."

Stunned silence follows my story.

"Whoa. That skeevy old dude...knows about Zodiac?" Rainbow says.

Cadance frowns. "I...honestly never paid any attention to him. I mean, he's just...an old, kooky janitor."

"He's a lot more than that," Fluttershy says. "I did some checking into this Project Wondercolt thing, and everything Flash said checks out. His name isn't even Juan; he changed it after the whole Wondercolt scandal to distance himself from it. His real name is Red Flag. Twenty years ago, he was a major player in security and social networking systems. He even handled some government contracts. Then he got into developing systems and software for education, and he started slipping off the grid.

"And then he developed Project Wondercolt. And within two years of its implementation, CHS had one tragedy after another. Kids were dying, the school's morale was in complete and total chaos. Red Flag and his company were thrown under the bus, Wondercolt was shut down...Principal Celestia had to do a lot of damage control."

"But she never blamed him for things getting out of hand," I say. "At least, that's what he says. That's why she hired him back as a janitor."

There's silence for a time as everybody digests this.

"So...all that's fascinatin' an' all," Applejack says slowly, "but whut's it got t' do with th' problems we got right now?"

"I'm not sure," I admit.

"I'm going to keep looking into Red Flag," Fluttershy says. "This whole thing really bothers me."

"Keep us up to speed," Twilight says. Her brow furrows. "Now, that warning about Sunset Shimmer..."

"He could be setting us up," Fluttershy says. "Sunset Shimmer is a Leo."

"Leo," Cadance says with a frown. "The only Hunter Shadow I've never seen..."

"You don't suppose she's already killed that one, do you?" Rarity says. "I mean, if her Persona is as powerful as all that?"

"It's possible," Fluttershy says. "Or it could be she has control over the Shadows and they won't touch her. In which case..." She frowns. "I don't know."

"Well, I like the idea of waiting," I say. "We need to be ready. We need to be stronger than we are now. If we train, and I mean train hard, between now and then..." I look at Fluttershy.

She swallows and nods. "We might have a shot."

"Then that's what we'll do," Twilight says.

Twilight sighs. "I guess it means we can't make any big summer plans, huh?"

"I wouldn't say that," Cadance says. "I mean, just because we're busy getting ready to put an end to Sunset Shimmer doesn't mean we have to put our lives on hold. Besides, I'm looking forward to another week or two somewhere...not here." She looks down at her midsection and frowns. "Even though I'm about to lose my bikini body for a while..."

"So...business as usual then?" Rarity asks.

"For now," Fluttershy says. "At least until I can dig up anything new about Red Flag, Project Wondercolt, and whether or not there's any connection between him and Zodiac."

"In the meantime, you kids all have finals to study for," Cadance says. "Don't let your grades slip because of all this!"

"Our next best chance to train in Zodiac will be Monday," Twilight says. "It's a holiday, there's no school, Pinkie will have rested up from Nationals."

We all agree to go to Zodiac on Monday, then turn our attention to studying. Fluttershy and Twilight are pensive and quiet for the rest of the evening...

It's half past eleven when I finally go to bed, too exhausted to think anymore.