Fluttershy and the Janitor

The three of them proceeded to school. Few students were there, as they had mutually decided to arrive early to attempt to get in some band practice before first period. Only a few sleepy looking students- -and a few equally sleepy looking teachers- -were meandering into the building.

As the group approached the front of Canterlot High, a pickup truck pulled up. It was belching at least three different colors of smoke, and from the sound of it at least one cylinder was gone, the brakes were bad, and the muffler had fallen off at least three hundred thousand miles earlier. When it stopped, the squeaking was so high in pitch that only Fluttershy could hear it.

Rainbow Dash approached the cab. “Hey Big Mac!” she said, waving. “Did you finally fix the frame?”

“Eeyup!” he smiled and pointed to an area of the truck where the outer surface had corroded away, revealing the truck’s frame beneath. It had indeed been repaired- -with two-by fours.

There was a thump from the rear of the truck as Applejack and Applebloom jumped out of the bed. Applebloom looked extremely groggily.

“I don’t see why I have to be here early too,” she muttered. “I was having the best dream…Scootaloo was in it…”

“Now Applebloom, I won’t be having you havin’ Scootaloo dreams. It just isn’t wholesome. And I already told you, the bus doesn’t go out to Sweet Apple Acres anymore. It’s completely shot. Something about silly string.”

Applebloom groaned, and Applejack pounded on the truck’s exterior, causing a substantial portion of it to crumble into rust. “Let’s go, Big Mac! If you want to flirt with Rainbow you can do it AFTER you get to the harvest!”

Big Mac shuddered. “Eeyup,” he said, grinding what was left of his truck’s transmission as he put it into gear and sped off.

“Aww,” said Rainbow Dash. “I wanted to see more of Big Mac’s wood!”

“Trust me, you’re not missin’ anything,” muttered Applejack.

Applejack greeted and joined her friends while Applebloom wandered off to fall asleep in a pile of leafs somewhere, as farm folk were want to do.

“Big Mac certainly looks nice today,” said Rarity.

“Looks nice as he ever does, I suppose,” said Applejack, shrugging. An expression of realization crossed her face. “Why?”

“No reason,” said Rarity, crossing her hands behind her back. “Although I do have to admit that he is a…straping specimen.”

“My brother ain’t no specimen.”

“You ain’t allowed to say ‘ain’t’,” said Pinkie Pie. “It promotes bad grammar.”

“My point still stands.”

“I’m more interested in whether Big Macintosh’s point stands,” said Rarity, grinning and looking over her shoulder at the still-clearing plume of smoke from Big Mac’s truck.

Applajack glared, and Fluttershy intervened.

“How did the sheering go?” she asked.

“It went fine,” said Applejack.

“I heard it got real hairy,” said Pinkie Pie, inducing groans from the others.

“It kind of did, though,” sighed Applejack. “Had to do the whole thing myself. I don’t know why, but the sheep are absolutely terrified of Big Mac.”

“So you will have the wool on time?” asked Rarity.

“Big Mac will take your order to your house later today.” Rarity began to smile. “BEFORE you get out of class for the day,” noted Applejack. She sighed again. “But hoo boy, that was a tough job.”

“Would you say,” said Pinkie Pie, “that getting it done was sheer luck?”

There were more groans as the group finally reached the new glass door to the school. It had only been reinstalled twice in the last year after its repeated destruction by magical calamity.

They opened the door and nearly ran into Twilight. Twilight jumped back at the sudden sight of them, her glasses nearly falling off in the process.

“Twilight!” said Rainbow Dash, punching her friend in the arm. Twilight winced. “I was wondering where you were!”

“Indeed,” said Rarity, looking around the empty foyer of the school. “You certainly got here early.”

“Early?” Twilight blinked, and then checked her calculator watch. “Oh. No. Not really. I actually stayed overnight. I had some work to finish. Timepoints and all.”

The others looked at each other. “You do know it’s Monday, right?” asked Applejack.

“And it was a three-day weekend,” noted Fluttershy.

Twilight blinked again, and then smiled sheepishly. “I guess I had a lot of things to get done, then?”

Fluttershy looked around. “Where is Spike? Or is it too early for him too?”

“Oh, no, he’s just not here right now,” said Twilight. She adjusted her glasses. “Actually, he’s off with Sunset. She’s not coming in today.”

“I certainly hope nothing is wrong,” said Rarity.

“I don’t think so. Or maybe food poisoning. But not the kind that kills you.” Twilight shrugged. “Or maybe something to do with the magical surges I’ve been detecting lately.”

Twilight continued to talk about her research into magical fields. To the others, though, it came across as pleasant-sounding babble. They had long since learned not to listen too hard to Twilight when she was speaking in jargon.

They proceeded to the seemingly endless halls of lockers that lined the walls of Canterlot High. Of all of them, only Fluttershy’s locker was on the first floor, so that was where they stopped first. It was also important for Fluttershy to check on the colony of bats that had taken up residence there, as well as the marmot that tended to live in the lower half of the locker during the daytime.

As Twilight continued to babble and Fluttershy kissed each of her bats gently on the cheek, her locker-neighbor approached from down one of the long halls. Fluttershy’s locker neighbor was a gray-skinned amblyopic girl. Nobody really knew her name, exactly. In fact, it was highly unlikely that she knew her own name.

“Derpy!” called Rainbow Dash. “How was your weekend?”

“Not so good,” admitted the gray girl. “I’ve been trying to find my locker since last Tuesday.” She looked toward the locker. “Oh. There it is. Now I can finally go home- -”

The locker was opened suddenly and forcefully. It struck Derpy in the face, knocking her back. The group of girls on the other side cried out in surprise, as it was quite clear to them that the locker had been opened form the inside.

Then a man stepped out. He was clad completely in a blue jumpsuit, and quite clearly too old to be a student. His hair was long and gray, and he had a long and unkempt beard that sprouted from his lower chin and hung down over his grease-stained collar. As he stepped out of the locker which by any reasonable standard should have been vastly too small for him, it became apparent that he was eating something.

“Boysenberry,” he said, dropping the wrapper of the muffin he had just eaten onto Derpy’s face. “A little to dry. And yeasty. I don’t like them with yeast.”

“My…my muffins…” whined Derpy, her eyes growing wide when she realized that this man had decimated her entire stock.

“Hey!” said Rainbow Dash, stepping forward. “Who the buck are you?”

For the first time, the man seemed to realize that there was a group of girls standing next to him. His strangely red eyes darted from one to the other before settling on Fluttershy. “Oh my,” he said as a strange grin began to cross his face.

“This is a school!” said Rainbow Dash. “That means no trespassing! Get out before we throw you out!”

“Trespassing?” the man feigned dramatic insult. “You wound me, dear blue girl! Such insult! Such depravity!”

“I’m going to call the office,” said Twilight.

“Don’t bother,” said the man, suddenly leaning forward. He was tall, and seemed to loom over them. He reached for the nametag on his jumpsuit and pulled it forward, showing all of them.

“Bob?” read Rarity, recoiling at the very thought of being near a jumpsuit of any kind.

The man looked down at the nametag. “Oh. Yes. Well. She had the job before I did.” He shrugged. “You have no idea how hard it was to get her out of the suit.” He paused. “No, I take that back. Getting her nude was pretty easy. Not getting any part of my body bitten off was the hard part!” He laughed hard, nearly keeling over in the process.

“Job?” said Fluttershy.

“Why, aren’t you just the most adorable thing?” said the man, leaning in and putting his arm around her. He tapped her pink hair with his free finger. “Pink hair, pastel skin, and…” He smelled her hair deeply, and a sadistic grin crossed his face. “…and you smell like pure Innocence.”

Applejack forcibly removed the man’s hand from Fluttershy. “You didn’t exactly say who you are, stranger. And I’ve still got a mind to see if I trust you as far as I can throw you.”

“Who am I?” the man bowed deeply. “My name is Darius Schlootenbergerhuegenstandarkotenopolis D. Kord. Or D.S. Kord. Or Discord, if you like.” He looked up and grinned. For some reason his eyes did not leave Fluttershy.

Fluttershy seemed to consider for a moment. “D…S…” she frowned. “But where’s the ‘D’?”

Discord leaned in extremely close and laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“You’re the new janitor,” said Pinkie, who was currently cramming Derpy’s few remaining muffins into her mouth as she kneeled in front of the still open locker. “You know, because the last one kept trying to eat students!”

“Janitor!” cried Discord. “Why, I am a custodial engineer! An artist! A bastion of light in a land of crusts and unidentifiable stains! In fact, I have three PhD’s in the janitorial sciences!”

“Why would you have three PhDs in the same subject?” asked Twilight. “Wouldn’t you just get a postdoc position?”

“More to the point,” said Applejack. “None of those things are real.”

“I’m more interested in how you fit in the locker,” said Twilight, eyeing the tiny gap. “And why.”

“Why? Why, why else! Where is a janitor supposed to sleep?” Discord reached into the locker and removed a mop bucket, complete with a mop, a broom, and a bucket filled with filthy high school mop water.

“How did you- -but the width- -”

Discord leaned close to Fluttershy, ignoring Twilight. “It’s actually something of a specialty of mine,” he said.

“Specialty?”

“Yes. Fitting very large things into tiny, tight little holes.” He chuckled, not once taking his eyes off of Fluttershy. “I can show you, if you like.” He grasped her arm. “In fact, I can give you a personal tour of my janitor’s closet.”

“Oh,” said Fluttershy. “I’m sorry. I need to practice in our band. I play the tambourine. Maybe after class?”

“Oh, I promise, it won’t take longer than a few minutes! And I do believe you will just adore it…yes…you’ll leave feeling quite satisfied indeed…heh heh heh…”

“Excuse me!” cried Rarity, angrily tugging at Fluttershy’s free arm. “Get your hands off of her!”

“Yeah!” shouted Rainbow Dash, also grabbing her arm. “The only one who takes Fluttershy in the closet is ME!”

“Takes her? How vulgar,” said Discord. “I wasn’t taking her anywhere. I don’t operate that way. She was going to come quite willingly.”

“Please don’t pull me!” squeaked Fluttershy. “I bruise easily!”

“Oh, my apologies,” said Discord, releasing her.

Discord was surprisingly strong, and when he released her Fluttershy reeled forward into Rarity and Rainbow Dash. Rarity promptly fell outright, but Rainbow Dash was agile enough to maintain her balance, knocking Fluttershy back in the process. Fluttershy took several steps back, pinwheeling her amrs, and promptly fell to the ground. As she did, she knocked over Discord’s mop bucket, promptly covering her head and upper body entirely with the dirty gray water.

Fluttershy coughed. The water did not taste good at all, but it did taste like what she had expected janitor’s mop water to taste like. She was comforted by the lack of surprise. Still, it was quite unpleasant.

With a groan, she wiped her eyes and her formerly perfectly clean pink hair away from her face. When she looked up, all of her friends- -and Discord- -were staring at her wide eyed.

“Wh…why are you looking at me like that?”

They did not answer, but all of their eyes suddenly moved from Fluttershy’s face. They focused on something slightly lower. Fluttershy, now quite soaked, looked down. In that moment, she realized something that she had never considered before: it was perhaps not her best idea to go braless when she was wearing a tight, all-white shirt.