For many years, it had been the same way for Thunderzolt and her close friends. There were many days, sometimes multiple days in a week, in which school wasn't even school - there were no educational purposes some days. The close-knit group of friends that surrounded Thunderzolt lived in a small town in Equestria known as Ponyville - the town never got any attention in terms of Queen Celestia and Luna or well-known ponies that traveled the country. It had been a quiet town for the first few years of Thunderzolt's life, but once she had become a teenager things started to change, significantly. The small town of Ponyville started gaining the attention of not ponies, but monsters. There were many horrific creatures all around Equestria, but some of the most horrific of all lived in the Everfree forest - a huge forest that reached a very long way from Ponyville, but Ponyville sat right on the edge of it. As you can imagine, it wasn't too rare for monsters to escape the forest and to attack Ponyville. You would think Queen Celestia or Luna would possibly have guards in Ponyville to make sure no ponies perished, but this was not the case. Perhaps Queen Celestia and Luna were incompetent, or perhaps there were even worse situations at their hooves. Regardless, Ponyville had rarely ever heard from Celestia or Luna and therefore, they were left to fend for themselves in most cases. By the time a letter could even reach Celestia without the help of a dragon or some other mythical creature, which did not reside in Ponyville, the ponies could all very well be dead anyway. Celestia should have known what was going on in Ponyville, and it was extremely likely she did. Many ponies would spend their days wondering why she never did send help, or come to help, herself. Wondering never helped the ponies of Ponyville, anyway.
For such a small, quiet town as Ponyville, it was surprising how big the main school of the small town was. Many years prior, the founders of Ponyville knew that there should be some sort of education system, and in that time, Ponyville was much poorer than it was at present. The founders had decided that they could only afford one school building. For that reason, the entire Ponyville School District was simply one school building. All 13 grades in one. There was a preschool established fairly recently - before then, preschoolers were either forced to go to Kindergarten too early or they would be forced to travel to another city to do so.
That was not this time, however. There was a preschool now, although that is the least of our worries here. The fact is that the ponies of Ponyville had each other, and only each other, to get rid of whatever monster may come.
This, of course, made it a bit difficult on school days. The teachers were constantly forced to make a difficult decision - should they continue teaching their students cursive or should they try and make sure the giant succubus that had just broken in didn't consume the young ponies?
That was a joke, of course.
Succubi don't eat their victims.
Thunderzolt was a student who was in the eighth grade. On days where there weren't demons coming to attack her and her friends, she enjoyed her days at school. When a monster attacked the school, everypony, no matter how young or how old, mattered and nopony was discredited when they had to come up with ideas in their blind panic. Because of this, a bond was almost forced to form between everypony in the school. Despite a significant number of students and teachers, many of them coming from nearby cities instead of just Ponyville, they all knew each other by name. At times like this, teachers and students weren't teachers and students. They were a sort of alliance.
That sort of forced bond was hard to get rid of, even when there was nothing eccentric about a day at school. It was hard to put aside the fact that every teacher had saved every student at least once. Everypony owed their life to everypony - it was understandable why nopony ruled over anypony in the school. Everypony had become, all of a sudden, equal.
Thunderzolt had a small group of friends other than her teachers. There was Froize, an eccentric pegasus that looked strikingly similar to her although neither were related; then Kynder, who had a pale maroon coat with long and curly purple hair with white streaks through the middle. She was quiet when you weren't well acquainted with her; and Duske Opaque Rose (Dusk Rose or Dusky for short) who had strikingly pink hair and a black coat. This particular pony wasn't often around Thunderzolt or the rest of the group, as she wasn't on the same 'team' of the grade.
Thunderzolt was a unique pony to anyone who knew her. She carried stuffed animals with her in her bag, for a variety of reasons, and she was confident in herself only publicly. When the door closed, when she was just out of eyesight to anypony else, she wasn't nearly as strong as she appeared to be. She could face demons and horrific abominations with more confidence than she could ever look in the mirror. She enjoyed making other ponies laugh and telling eccentric stories. It wasn't just Froize and Kynder and Duske that were her friends - there were also Fruit Snacks and Milkshake, and many others that she liked to laugh with. But not many of them knew her completely.
For hours at a time, after school ended, Thunderzolt sat in her room, staring at the ceiling or out the window, sometimes listening to music, but always thinking. Sometimes her thoughts were happy, but it was often that she thought about trivial things, like the universe, and her place in it. She lost control of her thoughts at this time, and even just one wrong thought could bring her to tears. She was sensitive at times like this.
Only one situation at school could bring her to such sensitivity - and that was when she was alone at school. Completely alone in the classroom or the hallway or wherever else she may be. She already had a mild fear of being alone in a room, sometimes to the point of her having panic attacks at extremely sensitive times. When she was alone, she thought, and these thoughts had a mind of their own, and it was easy when Zolt was anxious for them to take a dark turn, and for her to be upset by it. It seemed that the only obstacle in her way was herself.
On this particular occasion, Zolt was left alone in a classroom to eat lunch. She wasn't left there out of malicious intent - how was anypony else supposed to know she was afraid of being alone in a room when they didn't even know how she felt about herself? - but that didn't stop the fact that she felt extremely on edge in this situation. For that entire day, she had told her friends that she had felt a constant weight on her shoulders, a constant cold feeling like she was being watched, observed closely, even when there was nopony there. Especially when there was nopony there, such as this exact moment. The absence of even just one pony resulted in the sensation of thousands of eyes on her, and the most chilling sensation she had felt yet. Her entire core felt as if it was freezing over, and it was so painful that she lurched backward in her seat. She couldn't bring herself to eat, she could only panic. She didn't want to leave the room in search for somepony because the teacher could come back at any moment, and if they saw that she was missing it could cause chaos. So Thunderzolt sat and waited, wishing for the teacher to come back. Pleading in her own mind, wishing to whatever deity might exist with the capability, to just make the teacher come back. Now, it wasn't just her core that was freezing cold. It was spreading throughout her entire body. It had reached her hooves. She rubbed them together, trying to create some sort of friction, but it didn't work. It was useless.
She could feel the back of her eyes freezing; no tears could escape. Just before she could scream, her mouth went numb - the only sensation that existed now was freezing cold and pure, raw terror. This wasn't normal. This wasn't simply her fear. This was something else, something she didn't know, something she was unfamiliar with. Something she couldn't defeat. In one last, wasted outburst of energy, she threw her head back, and an earsplitting shriek escaped her lips. Tears managed to escape the freezing cold behind her eyes, and freely ran down her cheeks in that one last moment of tangible existence.
Mr. Sourire tripped over himself multiple times. He wouldn't have been satisfied with the speed at which he was traveling if he had been going a million miles per hour - the moment he had heard Thunderzolt's shriek of terror, he dropped everything he was doing (quite literally), and had even gone so far as to fly inside of the school halls in order to reach his room as fast as possible. He knew it was against the rules, but after hearing such a chilling scream, who wouldn't use their wings if they had them? He landed just outside of his classroom so he could unlock the door - he had locked it just so nopony could enter the room to harm Thunderzolt. It had seemed like a brilliant decision at the time, but right now all it did was slow Mr. Sourire down, and whatever attempts he had to keep Zolt safe clearly weren't working.
He threw the door open, only to see that Zolt was gone. The windows were closed and locked, and so it was basically impossible for her to have escaped. He was completely dumbfounded—and panic-stricken. He quickly searched the room, and hadn't found anything for a few minutes when he almost stepped on something as flat and as thin as paper. It was a playing card. Mr. Sourire looked closer. It was a Queen of Hearts... But Zolt. She was the image on the card.
As most of you probably know, playing cards such as the kings and queens have images of the kings and queens on them. Usually, the card looks the same upside-up as it does upside-down, with the top half of the card showing the right-sided image and the bottom half showing the wrong-sided image of the king or queen.
But in this case, Zolt as Mr. Sourire knew her was only on the top half. She appeared to be screaming, tears screaming down her face. On the bottom half was a much more sinister-looking Zolt. She was grinning and she was no longer wearing her dark grey suit and red bowtie. Instead, she was in a more formal, dark purple suit, with golden... Buttons? He assumed they were buttons.
Normally, Thunderzolt had a lazy eye. Her left eye's Iris was blue and the other was a striking yellow. But in the Sinister Zolt image, her eyes were perfectly aligned, and a disturbing, glowing red. Even with the sunlight pouring into the room, Mr. Sourire could see that the red eyes were glowing.
In Mr. Sourire's heart, he knew that this wasn't just some sort of prank. He knew that this wasn't just some card Zolt had decided to design, mainly because the sinister red eyes were truly glowing, and no art supply could have such an effect. He gingerly picked up the card, and felt tears well up in his eyes. There had to be something, anything - some way to fix this.
But Mr. Sourire could think of nothing. He tried to hold himself together. The only thing he knew to do was to tell somepony - a fellow teacher or somepony similar. They might be able to help. He held the card gingerly for a few moments longer, before slipping it carefully into his shirt pocket. He then galloped down the hall to Mrs. Gavelloire's room. He quickly explained what he had heard and seen, showing Mrs. Gavelloire the card eagerly. "And I really, really need help figuring out how to get her back!" Mr. Sourire was almost hysterical. Then, Mrs. Gavelloire laughed.
"Bizarrerie, I know crazy stuff happens here pretty often, but that is one of the most unbelievable things I have ever heard. Ponies can't be trapped in cards - there's no way there's magic powerful enough. And even then, who would want to turn ponies into playing cards, of all things? I don't believe it, Biza, but nice try."
Mr. Sourire felt the hope drain out of him. Yes, he had known the idea sounded insane, and yes, had he made it even more difficult by being almost overdramatically panicked. Except, it's not overdramatic, he thought to himself. This is serious... But it's obvious that I'm alone on this. Mr. Sourire examined the card closer. The Sinister Zolt had to give some sort of clue as to who had done this. He wasn't sure whether or not anypony would believe him - he had been constantly on edge since the last 'adventure' the entire town had been on, when a Chupacabra had almost gotten to many of the ponies he knew and cared about, including Zolt, who it seemed to take a particular interest in. None of the other teachers would really believe him, anyway - how insane would it be to say that Zolt had been turned into a playing card when they didn't understand that there was no other possible explanation?
Other teachers might not believe him... but what if her friends would? Kynder and Froize and Duske - at least one of them had to take into account what he said. They were personally connected to her and maybe they would be able to explain it more than other ponies who knew virtually nothing about Zolt.
Mr. Sourire replaced the card in his shirt pocket and galloped towards the room he was looking for. It was an abandoned classroom that a teacher used to work in, who had quit many years prior. Mr. Sourire never knew them. The classroom wasn't dilapidated or anything of the sort, however, it hadn't been used for its actual purpose since the teacher had quit. Now, it was used as a room for a lunch club. The room was dark - he could just barely see into the room through the small window on the door. It was even more difficult, as you can imagine, because of the general darkness in the room. Mr. Sourire squinted his eyes, trying to figure out whether or not Kynder, Froize, and Duske were in the room. He could see Kynder for sure, but he couldn't determine anything else.
Slowly, as quietly as possible, he opened the door. Some ponies, to his dismay, looked over to stare at him with wide eyes. The hallway he was coming from was brightly lit and the light had suddenly streamed into the small classroom. In all fairness, it was sort of incompetent of me to think that I would be able to go mostly unnoticed. Most of the ponies looked back towards the screen once they saw that it was only Mr. Sourire. Some kept their eyes on him. He smiled sheepishly, nervously, and quickly moved towards Kynder, who was sitting next to Froize. He couldn't see Duske in the room. "I need you two to come with me," Mr. Sourire asked. He brushed his hoof against his shirt pocket, just to make sure the card was still there and felt himself relax a bit more when he felt the smooth material against the small cleft of his hoof. He allowed himself to exhale a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding in.
He could still feel the feeling of terror. The sensation of shock. It felt like something was right behind him at all times, staring him down. Creeping up just close enough to attack... it felt like he constantly had to be on the move. Constantly had to run. Constantly had to stay away from whatever had taken Zolt away, and whatever was now coming after him. He realized that he might not have much time before it took him away, too. He shuddered. The previous moment of serenity had disappeared completely now.
Kynder looked worried, whereas Froize simply looked annoyed. He had been invested in the movie, and now he was being pulled away for some groundbreakingly-important conversation? What a drag. Kynder glared at Froize once she noticed his expression of disappointment, and practically dragged him outside of the classroom, following closely behind Mr. Sourire. Mr. Sourire was nervous all over again now, unsure of how to approach this particular situation. Once the door was closed behind them, he started walking, slower now, towards his own classroom. It was where the event had happened, so he figured that that was where the situation should be explained.
Depending on the type of person you are, you will react to unfamiliar, panic-inducing situations in a particular way. For many ponies, the situation would lead you to believe even the most ludicrous things a lot easier than when you are completely calm. At a time like this where there were no realistic conclusions to draw, Mr. Sourire might appear to be somewhat gullible to you readers. Him drawing the conclusion that Thunderzolt had been transformed into a playing card might seem like a crazy conclusion to draw so quickly, whether or not it's the truth. But, the fact of the matter is, this situation was much like panic when climbing a mountain. Imagine you are scaling the side of a very steep cliff, and you are going steadily, calmly at first. Maybe for the first few minutes, everything is perfectly calm and serene. But then you slip. You are attached to a rope, of course, but slipping still lead you to start falling. In a situation like this, you would more than likely start clawing at the side of the cliff, trying to find some sort of stable ground for you to stop falling. In this act of desperation, you are more likely to rest your foot on a flat edge that you wouldn't normally rest it upon. You are more likely to risk an unstable bit of rock to balance yourself on, rather than no rock at all. This situation was much like this. Something so panic-inducing had arisen, something that felt like it needed to be resolved in the shortest amount of time possible. So, of course Mr. Sourire would draw an unsteady, whimsical conclusion rather than one that might seem more believable because it was all he had. It was better than no conclusion at all.
But also similar to the previous mountain-climbing scenario, when balancing on an unsteady rock, you might be relieved that you are no longer falling, but you are still completely aware of the fact that the rock you are balancing on is extremely unstable. You are not going to put your full trust in this unstable-stability. That was how it was with Mr. Sourire as well. He was glad to have some sort of idea of what happened, but that didn't make him blind to the fact that he was standing on unstable ground. He knew that trying to explain this to anypony would make him seem insane. But if anypony was going to believe him, it was somepony who was a close friend of Thunderzolt's.
Once the group of three had reached Mr. Sourire's room and stepped inside, they all had a sort of creepy feeling. Kynder and Froize automatically thought it was simply being in an empty classroom, a room which was known for being filled with loud teenagers almost 100% of the time. However, Mr. Sourire associated this creepy feeling with what he had just experienced. "I had left Thunderzolt in here for just a few moments..." Mr. Sourire said. "Maybe five minutes at most. I had locked the door so nopony could get in if they weren't another staff member. I was in the next room over, waiting for a few papers to print, when I heard the most horrific scream... and it had come from her." Mr. Sourire shuddered as he remembered the sound. The sound had replayed over and over in his mind and it filled him with more and more dread each time. "I ran back here as fast as I could, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. But Zolt was completely gone. I looked all around the room and there was no possible way she was hiding anywhere." Mr. Sourire sighed.
He was about to continue when Froize interrupted. "A-Are you sure that she didn't just escape through the window? She has wings, you know, she could have flown away." Froize suggested. Kynder and Froize weren't discrediting Mr. Sourire like Mrs. Gavelloire had. They stared at him in awe and shock, their eyes wide. They were both trying to grasp onto an explanation as well, just like he had maybe ten minutes before.
"No, that's not possible. The windows can only be locked from the inside, and without some sort of magic, it would be impossible for her to unlock the window, open the window, fly through the window, close the window, and lock it again. She doesn't have a horn, she can't use magic. The windows were completely shut and locked when I walked in to look for her. Also, why would she try and escape the room? She was perfectly safe in here." Mr. Sourire said, trying his best to remain calm. It wasn't working out that well. "I found this card... where she had been sitting when I left her. On the top, it's her... seeming very distressed. And on the bttom, it's her, looking... sinister. I think it's a different version of her, and if not, I think it's whatever did this to her-"
"Zolt has Autophobia," Kynder interrupted, clearly the best at remaining calm out of everypony in the room. "Which means she's afraid of being in rooms alone, physically. Classrooms and other commonly-busy areas would be even worse for her, I imagine, because then it feels even more offputting." Mr. Sourire's eyes widened behind his glasses.
"Really? A-Are you sure?" He asked, horrified. "She had never told me! I had asked her if she would be alright with me leaving her behind here and she said yes. Although... she did seem really nervous about it, but I honestly didn't think that she had some sort of phobia about it... if I would have known, I wouldn't have left her here... I mean, it wouldn't have been that big of a deal if I had just taken her along with me to the Teacher's Lounge to get the papers. It was a lot better than--"
"Mr. Sourire."
"--me just walking away, letting her be sucked into a freaking - a playing card or something. I'd much rather the first option with a mild punishment rather than Zolt dying,"
"Mr. Sourire."
"--Oh, God, is she dead? She has to be, if she's in this card, she can't be alive... oh ... No,"
"MR. SOURIRE!" Kynder reached forward and hit Mr. Sourire on the cheek - not nearly hard enough to actually hurt, but enough to get his attention. This was probably the only situation in which she would strike anypony without being particularly provoked. "We don't know for sure that she's dead," Kynder said calmly. "In fact, we don't even know for sure for sure that she's in this card," She took the hand from Mr. Sourire's hoof. "All we know is that she disappeared and this card was replaced with it. She could have been teleported away, kidnapped, and this card could be like the kidnapper's signature. That seems a lot more plausible than this. But even if she was put into this card, we can't just sit around and panic like this."
Mr. Sourire tried to take deep breaths but they only came out as shallow. "I'm trying to be calm, but I just - I've never seen anything like this before. Zolt was under my supervision, and if she's dead - that's such a big tragedy in itself - but - it's my fault, isn't it? I'm the reason she's dead... or, at least, in danger," Mr. Sourire amended when he saw Kynder's piercing glare. "I just don't know what to think, what to do. I've never faced anything like this before."
"First thing's first," Kynder said authoritatively. "Duske reads books all the time, she's probably read every single book in the school library and the public Library three times over. If any of us are going to have any idea what's going on, it's her. She doesn't go to the lunch club Froize and I do. If we want to get to her before Lunch ends, we have to go to the Cafeteria to find her ourselves."
