One Bad Day...

"So, it's all set for sometime before Christmas right?" He asked looking to the other two guys at the burger joint. It smelled of unwashed homeless people and awful food, the greasy burgers and fries, it wasn't hard to imagine rats not too far away. Younger Jack Moore looked to the two trouble makers. They were beyond the type of making trouble in school. They stole, picked fights and held dog fights. The kids you're warned about and he was with them.

"Yeah yeah...we'll take good care of you pal, don't you worry." The one on his left in the Lakers shirt and cap said as he friend in the ratty clothes chuckled along with him.

"Yeah, real good care of, personally we never finished school so we don't know just why you want to spend your cut on the senior dues." He said helping himself to Jack's own fries. Jack and the two of them where planning a simple job, break into the real estate office and hold it up for the Christmas bonuses on the last day before the Holidays, then lose the fuzz by running through the DOW chemical plant, then the sewage treatment plant until they made a break for the river. A motor boat on the derelict docks near the treatment tanks their break to freedom.

"It's not just that to be honest, my grandparents are in the hospital and well...I think the money can help them more than the meager restitution of Medicare." He said as the one on the left of him sticks a hot apple pie in his mouth.

"Don't worry bro, me and Jonesy here are gonna make sure you're taken care of real good, not just your gran-mama and granddad, but you'll be sitting by the Hurricane Harbor wave pool with Sunset on the senior trip."

"you do gotta mask for this job right?...right?...right?

"Excuse me? I'd like to speak with the sheriff." Twilight said to the officer on duty. The Canterlot City Police Department was bustling with activity; suspects being lead into custody, reports and case files being filled and filed, and Twilight was on the trail of her old "friend" turned patient. "Is sheriff Spitfire in today?" Spitfire initially wanted to be a women's soccer champ, but her first year in college lead her change her mind and join the police academy, six months then eight years and she was one of the first female sheriffs on the force.

"I'm afraid you missed her by a bout a week. I'm in charge until we find her." A familiar lime green girl in a uniform said, she wore the uniform with a deputy sheriff's badge on her chest.

"Lighting!? woo the years have been good to you girl." she said hugging her old friend tight. Even after that time Lighting Dusk's reckless behavior as a school team archer the last time they held the friendship games nearly got her and her friends hurt.

"Thanks Twi." She said as they made their way along the station to the office. "Like I said, Spitz went awol a while back, no one's seen her for like three days and well, the departments worried.

"I know this might be a difficult time...but there something I need to ask you...I need your help."

"Jack?...Is that you snook ums?" An elderly lady in a hospital bed asked as her heart monitor beeped with a steady and a telltale rhtym. He entered his hospital room, a sugar free granola bar in his hand for her, because of the diabetes.

"Yes grandma it's me. " The young Jack Jolly Moore said to the eldery woman, she smiled a toothless smile at him as he handed her the treat."

"Why Jacky boy this is sweet of you...but you know grandma doesn't care anymore...I"ll see your great grand pappy sargassi soon, and I'll be in the arms of the Virgin Mary." He stiffled a soft cry and placed her snack on the side table before leaning in for a hug.

"Now don't say that Grandma, you'll get better soon, and then you can make that macaroni sauce again, and grandpa can take me fishing on the Canterlot bay. I promise you...I know it."

"Oh Jack...it's our time, why can't you just accept that?"

The older Jack stands in what had once been Principal Celestia's office, the floor still cleaner where the desk had stood blocking the dust build up and grime. He held a picture in his hands, it was the last know photo of his grandma before she was declared dead from diabetic complications. "This is how I"ll always remember you...oh maybe I'll remember another way? I really don't know anymore." He slipped the photo into the paper shredder and started it up, the print out rendered into strips as it was fed to the blades. "Anyway...Time to start the first day of summer school!"

Pain, the was the first thing she felt in her abdomen where the rubber rounds had socked her in the gut. Her body was sore then it felt like her intestines were on fire. Bon Bon gripped at her stomach and did her best to make the soreness and burning pass, when it finally did she took a loot around. She was back in her hold Classroom; Mr. Fitzgerald's math class, only it was different. The room was desheveled and very dirty; dirt and dust had accumulated on the old desks and grim had mucked up the windows, though on the outside one could see that purple and green paint had been covered up the windows.

"OH...Oh God...hello? is anyone else here? She said getting up and looking around. Her eyes adjusted to the lack of light as the bright florescent lights clicked on blinding her. She shielded her eyes from the harsh light as the room came into focus. It was filthy, the whole room hadn't been properly cleaned in what must have been ages; the teacher's old stacks of National Geographic and Time had been thrown around and the the books were all knocked from the shelves. A TV set had been mounted into the wall just above the blackboard, it clicked on.

He slowly came into focus, his Glasgow smile still scarred up, though he didn't have the real Joker's green hair or red lips. He still wore a purple button up like a suit jacket over a purple long sleeve shirt, and a green tee shirt under that. He had a dead rose pinned to chest of his shirt, and purple pants to truly bring his joker motif to full circle. "Hello Bon Bon, long time no see is it? How long has it been since we last had the class together? Like what I've done with the place?"

"You freaking pschyopath...What are you going to do to us?" She asked not knowing if he could hear her, though as if in awnser he got up from his chair and laughed.

"I'm, throwing a class reunion my dear friends, As soon as everyone's been assembled, it'll be just like old times. In the meantime feel free to mingle with the rest of the class...but don't bother leaving, this place is sealed up tight, bathrooms are...oh wait you should now where they are and lunch will be in an hour...fish fillets...and tartar sauce today, Ciao." The screen flickered off and she was alone, no Lyra; no Celestia, no one but herself, as far as she could tell she was all alone in this madhouse...a serious house on earth.