怪談とポニー Ep1 - Canterton High: Ponynormal

Chapters

1. Plans
2. Acquaintance
3. And off they go...
4. Canterton High
5. First evidence
6. Darkness falls
7. The chase
8. Separated
9. Back on track
10. Closer to the goal
11. Fran's fragile feelings
12. Reunion
13. All cards drawn...
14. ...and laid (Explicit content)
15. Granted solution
16. Sisters with benefits

1. Plans

“So… Are you really going to break into that old wreck of a building?!” Lacy Reins’ green eyes flashed behind the glasses; the earth filly turned away from the field and expected some answer on her totally not a rhetoric question. “It m-may be guarded, even if not truly haunted and… and the profits are questionable.”

Flapping the flags at the edge of the stands behind them, the warm May wind tried to dishevel Lacy’s tight braids fruitlessly. It brought the smell of fresh grass and voices of the fillies and colts from the field – the parallel class had a P.E. lesson, while there was a gap in the friends’ schedule.

“Lacy, I’m not forcing anypony. And I won’t take offence, if any of you stays home,” Misty Lagoon let out a tiny smile. “I’m even ready to go alone if necessary.” She shrugged, putting up a dispassionate look, while curiosity and doubt struggled, making her fidget on the stadium bench. “We can hardly find anything else so promising in our strict and prudent city. And I got tired of only reading about investigations, want to finally have some experience of my own.”

“This case looks like the real deal…” the volleyball match seemed to be the only thing that interested her at the moment, but at least one fluffy ear stretched towards her friend, gave out Misty’s emotions.

“They say, there was a school when the Princesses were fillies, probably somepony who taught them was even working at that place. It’s really… ancient and served as such ever since then, despite being rebuilt a few times. Just imagine, since the time Canterlot was a small town at the foot of the mountain!” Misty used her final bait. The unicorn filly wrapped her arms around the knees, putting her chin on top, letting the lush pink mane come down her shoulders and hands; her light-magenta eyes watched the students tossing the ball over the net, yet quickly squinted at Lacy Reins.

“You know, I’m in anyway,” Lacy pulled up the strap of her large “postman” bag, showing a glimpse of some green leaves under the flap. “I simply have a strange feeling about all this. Hope you know, what you’re doing, Misty… Of what we are doing,” she smiled shyly.

The unicorn filly huffed, straightening up and stretching her legs, she threw her mane back, revealing the white t-shirt with “I want to believe” and the famous blurry UFO print. Misty kept wearing it, even despite that t-shirt constantly served as a joke for some classmates.

“I found out everything I could. Wasn’t overwhelming as the information was limited, to tell the truth,” a little frown told that she would have enjoyed proper research as much as visiting the site itself. “Wanted to gather you all to tell the whole story…”

A loud whistle from the field gained the friends’ attention, the coach announced a short break and the students took advantage of it at once. A few rushed to the stands to drink or take a breath before the next period, some colts kept passing the ball, the rest were simply stretching and taking a walk around. Misty and Lacy watched two pegasi girls in a similar P.E. uniform heading to them across the field. Both look very alike and at the same time different: the fillies were twins, but not identical.

“Killing the time, eh?!” one of the girls, with short, always ruffled red mane reached them faster than her sister. “Isn’t it a bit unfair…” Her turquoise eyes stopped for a moment on the t-shirt tightly stretched over Misty’s chest, as the unicorn girl leaned back on her elbows enjoying the spring sun; the pegasus filly sported a wry grin… mostly to hide her light flush of envy and changed the topic. “Lacy told, we should gather at the stadium because you got a plan. Some promising adventure, right, bud?”

“Slow down, Windy!” her sister hugged Windy Mane’s shoulders from behind, booping her on the nose slightly. “Let Misty tell,” she waved her long chestnut mane. The tomboy filly did what those, who didn’t know her well, would least expect – she leaned on sister’s shoulder with a smile, quickly calming the ardour.

“Well, if I finally may…” Misty straightened and waved to the girls to come closer, taking a look around to guarantee no extra ears. “The plan was mellowing for quite a while, when I thought that I… we needed to have our own experience, instead of only reading about others’. You know it may be interesting of course, but still not the same…” The winged fillies slowly nodded, while Lacy kept her tiny smile; she already knew the result of Misty rhetoric and sisters’ adventurousness combined.

“So, it wasn’t easy to find some… “strange place” in that overly formal city,” Misty smirked and raised one brow, adding proudly. “But I managed to succeed. You all probably know the old abandoned school down in the industrial district…”

“You mean all the way down the mountain, bud?” Windy Mane interrupted her with a quiet whistle. “No way you’re talking about that grey monster!”

“Like if you were scared…” Misty threw a sly glance at her friend. “Yes, that one exactly. Not that much of a monster, a bit rusty and crumbling, but, hey, it stands abandoned for a decade as far as I know…”

“I suppose, not without the reasons,” faint anxiety sounded in Flaunty Mane’s voice.

“Exactly those, causing Misty to poke her cute nose into,” added Lacy Reins meaningfully.

“That’s the point!” shrugged Misty with simulated tranquillity. “The building is really old… ancient, to be exact. Well, maybe not the building, but the place definitely is.”

“Do you mean the area itself under the “place”?!” Windy Mane stared at her. “Come on, spill the beans!”

“The information was quite limited, not to say scarce,” Misty said after a moment of silence. “And I don’t know which part of it is entirely true… So, take the whole lot I could dig out of the library and public archives as is. The school was there even before Canterlot, as we know it, appeared. And that’s one hundred per cent true,” emphasized she. “That means it was there when the two Princesses were fillies.”

“You don’t say…” the pegasi girls gasped simultaneously and Flaunty added widening her eyes. “I had no idea that school was that ancient!”

“Yes, it’s approaching the age of Celestia and Luna, the Royal Sisters!” added Misty to discourage all the doubts. Lacy threw a glance at her friend, noticing a quiet sigh leaving her mouth at the last phrase, while the unicorn girl continued. “There was a small town at the foothill once – Canterton. Later it lost its separate status and practically became the outskirts of growing Canterlot when the latter was built…”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about that…” Flaunty Mane’s eyes lit with remembering.

“…and the subject of our talk was the town school of Canterton. Time flew and the area changed, the school was rebuilt several times as well, but kept its location. The district slowly turned into industrial area and less and less residential buildings remained around the place. However, it managed to live up to nowadays.”

“I wonder how?” muttered Misty aside.

“So, that’s the confirmed history.” She took a breath, seeing that the girls turned all ears. “The rest is less definite information, sometimes on the edge of rumours and urban legends, but that school isn’t… errmmm… “entirely normal”, never was as it seems.”

“The first few years nothing strange happened,” Misty lowered the tone, leaning closer. “Then one of the teachers went missing. Right out of the blue, girls, she was there one day, then nowhere to be found the next one. No relatives, she didn’t leave the town… I… can’t remember the name, sounded somehow… Prench… don’t know… Ehhh! Anyway, the case is still unsolved, a thousand years later!”

Lacy Reins fidgeted on the bench audibly, Windy kept pulling and twirling the right part of the drawstring of her jacket collar. The moment of silence was broken by the forcedly kicked ball, which made all four fillies wince and look at the field.

“Almost the same time weird things started happening,” Misty gestured for their attention again. “Ponies said, strange sounds were coming from the building at night, the furniture found not on the places it was left the day before. There always aren’t many volunteers to visit empty buildings at the dark time of the day; there were even less of those to visit Canterton High after sunset.”

“Especially since things started happening with the students,” added she after a dramatic pause. “Too many accidents through its history, in my opinion, even a few deaths, some students went missing, like that teacher.”

“Well, I said, those were rumours,” Misty sported a bright smile when her friends fell puzzledly silent. “I can neither confirm nor debunk them.”

“But those accidents… They were documented, right?”

Misty huffed strangely under the meaningful glance of Lacy Reins.

“When I said «accidents with the students», I didn’t mean «accidents within the school grounds» each time,” Misty elaborated musingly. “And nopony knew exactly where those, who went missing, disappeared. Besides, it took over a thousand years whole, maybe… maybe nopony gave that deserved attention… in the historical perspective,” added she quietly. “Well… Typically the place came across the same cycle over and over: being closed for a while after each case, repaired… a couple of times even completely rebuilt, then strange things started happening again shortly upon reopening. Last time, because of another incident, it was closed and abandoned for about ten years.”

“Now, when you say, I remember reading about that,” Flaunty Mane rolled her eyes. “Three colts dragged a unicorn filly into the empty school at night. Maybe they wanted to scare her only or maybe they had… something else on their minds.” Windy clenched her fists, while Flaunty continued. “Anyway, she was too shocked to even use her magic for defence, providing them with easy prey. However, she was found by the police in the morning… seemingly not abused, if it can be said about somepony in her place.” Flaunty rubbed her thin nose, recalling. “She told that “some strange mare saved her from those predators”… Actually, she was in ambiguous feelings about that mare, as they wrote… Whatever that was supposed to mean” she chuckled shortly. “The girl looked… well… ruffled, but not as if she was molested or something alike.”

“You mean, that mare… made her way with that filly?” exhaled Lacy Reins, looking up at Flaunty. “Even with her consent?!”

“Who knows…” shrugged the pegasus girl, but her nose and cheeks flushed a little. “The filly seemed to recover fast enough, but she didn’t approach that school ever after, even if she didn’t form a noticeable phobia either.”

“And the colts?..”

“They were never found… neither their bodies.”

“Yeah. They had that coming!” exclaimed Windy contently.

“Did nopony find it utterly strange?” Misty Lagoon was bothered by a more prosaic matter.

“They did investigate, but not very diligently, I suppose,” Flaunty Mane shrugged. “Besides, they supposed, colts might realize, what punishment they called on their heads, and fled.”

“And nopony cared?” big Lacy’s eyes widened behind her glasses.

“Hmmm… I started remembering,” interrupted them Windy Mane. “Two bastards were orphans and… another one… fair chances existed, his relatives helped him flee the justice, covering him.”

“The case is quite shady,” nodded her sister. “But it’s real. I remember touching that topic at school in winter; don’t ask, no idea how that came afloat… So, the main thing was – miss Singularity confirmed everything, even adding a few details to the picture.”

“Miss Singularity!” Misty’s eyes opened widely. “That almost-filly-looking physics teacher, who gives us university-level tasks sometimes?”

“Yeah,” chuckled the sisters. “She says, we are getting better prepared that way. Nopony complains though, as she explains everything thoroughly.”

“She looks a bit above her twenties at most, but seems to know everything,” said Flaunty, rolling her beautiful aquamarine eyes a bit theatrically. “And not only on her subject, mind that. I always wondered if she was the princesses’ coeval indeed. Celestia only knows, how old is she,” giggled the girl.

Miss Singularity was the only teacher-alicorn in their school… moreover, in Canterlot… well, most likely even in entire Equestria. The very young-looking and tall pale-wine mare with long deep-chocolate mane and tail was causing ambivalent feelings in the students: half of them loved her both as a capable teacher and an approachable pony, another half trembled, fearing that she knew about them a bit more, than they would like. Misty always thought that she could equally likely get her name after one of her significant habits – miss Singularity could make her deep blue eyes look almost dark, when those black holes evaluated students, looking seemingly into their souls. The kind “black holes” mostly, but… However, she was a professor of natural science, a professor, who came to high school a year after Misty was transferred… and brought physics to the entirely new level there. And, as Misty could remember, she spotted her cutie mark once in the school swimming pool – a dark-violet shimmering warp-like cloud, quite fitting her name.

“Look,” Misty suddenly remembered. “I met her at the library when I was looking for some information about Canterton High. She interested what I was reading…” the girl squinted. “I was to mumble something about “history and that stuff”,” Misty’s nose flushed. “Now I remember that her smile was, errmmm… kinda too understanding.”

“So, we’re planning to go there,” Lacy’s voice returned them on track. “Tonight, only we four… What do you say?”

“Girls, maybe it looks darker than it is,” chuckled Windy. “It’s closed and abandoned simply because nopony needs a school…”

“…where no residential buildings left in close vicinity!” finished Flaunty for her. “Yet they planned to build something on that place. But the workers met… inexplicable troubles, or so I read in the newspaper.”

“That won’t stop me,” stated Misty firmly. “The question is, are you with me?”

“Hmpf, you know, we’re always for every fuss, except hunger-strike,” smirked Windy and glanced at her sister, after a moment Flaunty nodded in agreement.

“As I said, I’m in!” simply chirped Lacy and moved closer to Misty on the bench.

“So, we decided,” Misty’s eyes shone enthusiastically. “We’ll take flashlights; I’ll take my camera as well. Our cell-phones are charged… Don’t forget about some comfy warm clothes, the nights are still cool.”

“There is one problem though: how do we get there?” pensively said Flaunty Mane. “I mean if we don’t want to attract much attention…”

“Monorail!” simply dropped Misty Lagoon.

The monorail was the latest and most technologically advanced method to get between large Canterlot districts fast, especially down the mountain to the industrial zone they planned to reach without much ado. Everything was automated: one bought a ticket in the automated booth, passed the automated checker and entered the car, exiting the train snaking around the mountain a few minutes later at their destination. The monorail greatly helped to deliver the vast crowds of workers to the factories and back every day and quickly earned the fame of the most reliable portage.

“There are no conductors, unlike on the rest of the transport,” elaborated Misty. “And it’s going almost empty in that direction in the evenings, except for the night shift workers… But they always fill the cars from the head first, so we have a fair chance to pass completely unnoticed.”

“Monorail isn’t a cheap entertainment…” muttered Windy Mane.

“I’ll take all the expenses,” with a wide grin Misty Lagoon swept away all the possible doubts. Then she remembered something and her smile faded a bit. “Now we need to think, what to tell our relatives…”

“That exactly isn’t a problem!” waved Lacy Reins carelessly.

“My parents won’t be at home for a couple of days,” elaborated she under the glance of three pairs of curious eyes. “You can easily tell that we’re gathering for a sleepover at my place.” She added, flashing her cell-phone to the friends. “And I will gladly confirm that you are under my roof and safe if anypony wants to check.”

A loud whistle of the coach made the giggling girls turn to the field.

“Hey, you two! The timeout is over,” called a unicorn colt for the Mane sisters. “Get back on the field or we continue winning without your tails!” He horsed around, spinning the ball and putting it at the tip of his horn balancing and having much fun, pretending that he didn’t notice the admiration of several classmates.

“Misty, did you manage to find your grey extraequestrial ponies yet?!” he laughed accompanied by a few more colts.

“Are you sure, you won’t pierce yet another ball?” Misty wasn’t somepony easy to embarrass.

“Yeah, this time the school won’t take it as an accident,” added Lacy Reins loud enough for the colt to hear. “And the compensation will be laid entirely on your hay-head!”

The colt turned red to the roots of his hay-blond mane and dropped the ball under the loud laughter of the four fillies.

2. Acquaintance

Misty caught herself smiling periodically for the rest of the day. She realized that not many could boast the same achievement and treasure she managed to get – real friends, those who were ready to stand their or even her ground for her if it was necessary. Almost sisterly bonds…

‘How awesome they are – the girls!’

Her family originated from Baltimare, but since her birth Misty changed several places of living and, what was more influencing, of studying – her parents were both oceanologists. Thus till eleven Misty managed to live on a couple of islands and go to schools with local foals. Then mom and dad came to the idea that such a style of life couldn’t fit for a filly still learning her way in this world. However, they could hardly give her any other without completely changing their profession and vocation. Fortunately, a way out was found soon: Misty’s aunt lived in Canterlot, she was single, no foals, but she wholeheartedly agreed to patronize the filly for an undefined period of the student life of the latter. So, Misty got somepony to take care of her, even if the girl was quite independent for her age; she also got a stable educational plan and a chance to have longer time connections, maybe even friends.

It wasn’t that Misty really suffered from the lack of those; being a single foal in her family, she was always of a loner kind, self-sustained, always able to occupy and entertain herself. However, Misty always wanted to have a sister, no matter if the younger or older one; of course, the older one would be better responsibility-wise, as Misty confessed to herself with laughter. But having two foals would mean twice more problems for her parents: planning the expeditions, working in the ocean and constantly thinking about how they could arrange the life of their daughters. Thus Misty got used to being prepared for the simple fact that she might need to change the place of living any time. Besides, her interests, considered specific, if not to say strange, by the others of her age, never helped her in getting friends. Misty wasn’t interested in so-called “typical girly stuff” the school fillies discussed in their free time, instead of that, everything paranormal and mysterious attracted her mind; living on those islands and learning about aborigines’ legends and folklore only heated up that interest. It’s somehow automatically happened that the majority of her peers couldn’t or didn’t want to find common topics with her.

So, Misty moved to Canterlot, ready to start her life there from a blank page and completely psychologically stable about that – a rare quality for the foals to be honest. Her aunt was a kind and loving mare, whose luck simply wasn’t enough to get a family and foals of her own. But she turned her whole unspent stash of attachment to the girl, accepting Misty as her own daughter. The aunt had own job, but the rest of the time she tried to show interest in Misty’s concerns. At the same time, she wasn’t an overly strict and officious patron, being quite fine with knowing at least where Misty was and if she was okay. This way the girl, considered prudent enough to avoid most of the troubles, was granted as much freedom as a filly of her age could only dream of, be it in aunt’s house or the rest of the city.

No wonder that the first two years of Misty’s residence in the capital passed exactly as expected. All her free time Misty spent in the library or walking in the beautiful parks of Canterlot, or at home studying her favourite subject. It seemed she managed to study everything possible about the paranormal, absorbing information like a sponge and constantly enhancing her theoretical knowledge. However, no matter how much Misty looked for, she couldn’t find something really promising for investigation in her area. Misty dreamed about own experience, but it looked that the kingdom of order that was Canterlot couldn’t provide her with one. She studied successfully, communicating with her classmates as much as her school life demanded, yet the girl could hardly say that she got any really close friends among them. Everything changed on her second year in Canterlot Pinewatch High School – one day the supervising teacher introduced a new student to them. Misty’s eyes travelled across the thin grey-bluish earth filly of short stature, her lush lilac mane was gathered into two braids, large green eyes watched the class appraisingly from behind the round glasses, bright lips pursed involuntarily, giving out some tension common for a transferred student. The filly trifled the strap of her large postman-style bag; a big leaf of some actual plant peeked from under the flap, making Misty smile – she probably recognized a soul mate.

At a closer look, when the newcomer spotted a free seat near Misty and asked if it was okay to take it, Misty noted to herself with a little embarrassment, that the filly was quite nicely shaped. The simple jeans looked slinky on her small round butt and her thick sweater couldn’t hide or spoil her firm round breasts as if it was tight-fitting also. Misty nodded to the girl, secretly hoping that she didn’t look as if she stared at the new student laying out her belongings.

Lacy Reins, that’s how the new filly was introduced, moved to Canterlot with her parents a few days before, and Misty wasn’t mistaken defining her as a “soul mate”. Lacy’s parents were architects, and while they could spend their free time at home, they definitely didn’t have enough of it, always being busy with their job. Thus Lacy was accustomed to staying at home alone and never saw any problems in that, being self-sustained as well. Usually quiet and reserved, she found a special interest in botanic. No, not exactly that… She was in love with plants of various shapes, sizes and colours! Saying that Misty seriously thought that Lacy easily agreed to accompany her in that adventure, secretly hoping to dig out something interesting within the old school territory. Her large leather bag amazingly contained not only educational supplies but always some instruments of her “trade” and sometimes even something green, Lacy managed to obtain. The more amazing was that everything stood in order and never mixed the wrong way. So, one could say Lacy Reins was a typical nerd at the first look.

However, the closer watching told that things were not that simple. The round glasses couldn’t spoil Lacy’s fair features, her green eyes were naturally large, lips, when she didn’t purse them out of anxiety, were bright and sensual, lovely shaped. That was Lacy in entirety, beautiful by even really picky standards and even simple comfy clothes couldn’t hide, but rather emphasized that. It came out that the girl could easily transform her two braids or ponytails into a quite complex manedo and Misty could imagine that even undone her mane would look lush and attractive. No wonder that after a few months half of the colts in the school secretly dreamed to gain Lacy’s attention. She seemed not interested much though, watching the most obvious attempts with quiet discerning amusement. Thus despite her obvious attractiveness and elegance, even if a bit special from the first look, Lacy kept being a loner of a kind even after getting comfortable on the new place.

Funny fact, but exactly Lacy’s love to botanic was the first string knitting the girls together, the first common topic they surprisingly found. Plants and their products were taking a deserved place in the world of the unknown and paranormal, especially in some local rituals Misty learned a lot about while living on the islands. To her excitement, Lacy accepted her interest as given, even sincerely enjoying some information unknown to her before. Little by little their talks covered the whole variety of girls’ concerns and Misty realized that she found a true friend in Lacy Reins. One who always shared and supported her little shenanigans, even if usually being the rational component of those.

Both girls couldn’t tell how and when exactly they began treating Mane sisters as their friends. Maybe it was right the day two sporty pegasi girls reined up quite harshly that snobby unicorn colt, who gave both Misty and Lacy some hard time, pestering them with what he supposed to be jokes, actually borderline to bullying. Anyway, his confidence decreased visibly, when the sisters suddenly appeared behind right in the middle of his next “joke”, insinuatingly asking him to mind his own business… elsewhere. Maybe a bit later, when the friends managed to give thanks to them and started sharing a table at the school cafeteria, first simply greeting politely and later actually finding some common ground.

Flaunty and Windy Manes were Canterlot locals, staying there with the parents for their whole life. Strong and fit pegasi fillies, quite tall for their age, attended the parallel class, thus Misty and Lacy knew them only visually first, not crossing much during the studies. Sisters were very close, spending almost all the time together. However, despite the widespread stereotype, the twins were not identical. The pale-olive girls shared the same height, fitness, long slender legs, bright beautiful eyes, but that was mostly all.

One of them, Flaunty Mane, carried her long wavy chestnut mane like a crown and her lush tail like a plume, but there was no tiny shade of groundless pride in her character, that was simply her natural posture. She could wear anything like a fashion dress, was it some sportswear or casual mix, her innate grace made it possible. The latter was greatly helped by the simple fact that Flaunty Mane was very ladylike shaped: large, yet firm standing breasts, nice round butt, accompanied by her family slim frame and long legs made all the heads turn, and not only stallions’ to be honest. Close friends knew that despite her unattainable look, Flaunty Mane (they called her simply – Flo) was an easy pony. Open and kind, thoughtful, she treated them often with motherly attitude and spread the latter entirely at her twin, who was surprisingly fine with that, always quickly pacified by the loving glance of sister’s eyes.

Another, Windy Mane, didn’t pay much attention to the looks, always preferring comfy clothes to fancy ones, braiding her tail tightly, ignoring cosmetics and never suffering from that. However, the most common description for her, easily coming in mind, was “cute”. But… the sane one shouldn’t call her that in the face at least, realizing all the risks. With a bit smaller facial traits, except her turquoise eyes, always ruffled short red mane, Windy looked like a real tomboy. Closer acquaintance only confirmed that: abidingly cheerful and positive, Windy was the heart and soul of various tricks and pranks, frequently needed to be curbed by her sister not to get in trouble. She never protested that care and wholeheartedly loved Flaunty. Sisters’ famous closeness even became the ground for some rumours among students and made Misty feel some faint kind envy, watching their wing cuddles.

As far as Misty knew, only their father was a sportspony and while both pegasi girls showed outstanding results in sports, partially due to the natural talent and friendly competition between them, only Windy considered it as her possible career. Frankly speaking, it seemed that nothing could ever shatter Windy’s confidence and positivity. With maybe one exception: her tomboy shape mercilessly didn’t make an exception of her chest area, becoming her seemingly only weakness and insecurity. Windy Mane was quite flat; however, looking at her sister, she never felt some envy, rather genuinely couldn’t understand, how sharing the same blood could allow that particular endowment to spread so unequally.

Unlike Windy, Flaunty Mane didn’t look as if she decided about her future vocation. She could draw awesomely, following her stylist mother, but that talent didn’t yet bloom in her strongly to define her future choices. She had a very good eye and reaction, qualities beneficial for both an artist and a sportspony.

How the four fillies, so seemingly different at the first glance, could become the proverbial “friends in deed” was an unsolved secret even for Misty; she prudently decided not to dig out the reasons, but rather enjoy what she had.

3. And off they go...

Freshness breathed through the open window from the garden wrapped into young verdure, it brought the scent of cherry and catching it up apple blossom. Full of lazy chirping of the birds roosting and seeing off the daylight, it slowly sank into the shadows. The sun slowly headed to the horizon, painting the treetops golden and the thin veil of light cloudlets into an entire spectrum; the front of heavy rainclouds was rolling from behind the mountain and thunder sounded faintly once or twice in the distance. The loud intense rasp of the first cicadas told unambiguously that one of the spring storms might not rip the sky the next moment but still was imminent.

“What’s taking them so long?” Misty Lagoon raised her eyes from the cell-phone and listened to the screechy voice of some early persistent night bird in the far corner of Lacy’s garden. “I would like to see the place before dark, moreover, hope to take some pictures. Besides, it looks to be rainy tonight, so we better get moving while it’s not.” She checked the screen when the phone let out a melodic ding.

Lacy stopped digging in her bottomless bag and looked inquiringly at her friend sitting on the sunlit windowsill.

“Just texted them to hurry up and not to forget the flashlights and warmer clothes,” said Misty, shoving the phone into her pocket. She changed into another simpler t-shirt, keeping her favourite shorts, the jean jacket rested casually on the large dresser next to the digital photo-camera. “The nights are still chilly and the place is most likely blown through by all the winds.”

“And?”

“Well…” Misty hopped off the sill and approached the dresser mirror. “Windy answered. And you know her – “Oki! Coming soon…” and that’s all!” She smirked, spinning around and looking over herself from different angles.

“It’s strange,” nodded Lacy. “They are usually light on hoof.” She finished repacking her bag and stood up thinking. That meant that the filly took out the school stuff and replaced it with a flashlight, small bottle of water and a medkit; guided by the practical sense, Lacy threw in a pair of leather work gloves also (who knew, what they might find there). With a smile, Misty noted that her friend managed to keep some of her gardening tools as well – again, who knew, what she could probably find on the territory.

“Speaking of cold…” Lacy opened up the wardrobe and pondered for a few seconds, then she took out another sweater of the tighter knit; Misty watched in the mirror, how she crossed the room back to her bed.

Before Misty could make a move, Lacy put her glasses on the bed accurately and grabbed her blouse edge. Frozen on the spot, Misty watched, how it slid off the girl’s back, feeling the hot flush rising to her neck and face – there was nothing underneath. As if on purpose Lacy raised her arms and stretched, arching her back, then quickly changed. Despite her embarrassment, Misty kept watching from the corner of her eye; now she understood why Lacy’s clothes always fit like the second skin – they actually were sort of.

“What’s bothering you, Misty?”

Misty woke up fumbling the strap of her camera, all of a sudden Lacy snuggled her from behind, standing on tips of her hooves. “You look lost in the thoughts” Her head leaned on Misty’s shoulder and Lacy rubbed her cheek on the pink mane.

Misty’s heart skipped a beat, as she felt Lacy’s hard nipples through the thin t-shirt and her warm breath on the shoulder. The girl swallowed, taking a breath, and fruitlessly tried to fight the flush painting her cheeks again.

“I…”

The doorbell served as Misty’s saviour, removing the urge to think out a plausible answer; moreover, it shooed away the world-shattering thought to return the cuddle and… Misty even squinted from the quick image.

“Here they are!” Lacy released and pulled her friend out of the room; Misty barely managed to pick up her camera and jacket.

The bell rang once more.

“Come in, it’s unlocked!” called out Lacy, when they rushed down, hopping over two stairs at once. The door opened, letting pegasi sisters inside in a gust of evening breeze.

“Are you ready?” Misty finally coped with feelings, returning to more practical matters.

“Sure thing!” the girls waved their flashlights.

Misty’s critical glance slid over Flaunty Mane in her casual shirt put over the school uniform skirt, a jacket and black knit stockings and stopped on Windy Mane inquiringly – the girl chose white legwarmers, the same blue uniform skirt and a tight tank-top, squeezing her small breasts together, under the half-zipped sport jacket, and making Misty smirk inwardly.

“I thought we decided to wear something warmer in case of night chill…” Lacy appeared to be bothered by the same question as her friend.

“Don’t you worry! I have own means to warm up,” Windy did a few quick jumps, letting out a wide grin; Misty squinted seeing Windy’s skirt fluttering up and down. “But I need nothing preventing me from fleeing fast… if that appears necessary.”

“Girls, did you get home as usual, as if… nopony was watching?” suddenly asked Flaunty Mane; her wings discomposedly ruffled.

“Yeah…” slowly said Misty. “I told my aunt, I was going to Lacy for a sleepover and she was fine with that, even not asking any questions. Why are you asking, Flo?” she looked at the girl puzzledly.

“We had Physics as the last lesson. Of course, we didn’t drop a word to anypony and tried to behave as usual… But I had a strong feeling that miss Singularity was watching us fixedly all the time,” Flaunty Mane stared into space pensively. “I don’t think, we talked more than usually… Wonder, what she might notice…”

“Later we saw her in the schoolyard while heading home,” added Windy Mane. “She saw us off with that smile, you know, when she predicts some students’ shenanigans!” the girl cringed lightly.

“That made us worried and turn around all the way home,” her sister sighed. “We didn’t spot any watchful eye though. Yet decided to wait and check if the road was clear. That’s what held us late if you ask.” Windy nodded, hugging Flaunty around the shoulders. “But nopony followed us here either.”

‘So different and at the same time best friends…’ Misty watched them two with an absently pensive look.

“Hey, where are you floating, bud?” Windy nudged Misty, with a wink. “Daydreaming again? Well, instead of one sister you have us two,” she smirked brightly.

“Windyyyy!” Flaunty glared at her sister reproachfully. “You can be so tactless sometimes!!!”

“Well, this is what you all like me for as well!” the redhead pegasus snorted proudly.

“Okay…” Misty pretended that she didn’t notice Windy’s joke, knowing that it was genuinely kind. She didn’t hesitate for long, bracing herself up. “If we decided, then off to the monorail station!”

“Yeah!”

However, the girls opened the door slightly and first took an attentive look over the front garden and the street behind – nothing suspicious: a few neighbours returning home, a car passed by, nopony was mucking about suspiciously.

“Let’s hurry!” Misty slid out first. “The sun will set in about two hours and I need to check the place while it’s still lit.”

“You keep smiling, Windy,” Lacy threw a quick glance at her friend when they crossed the front garden. “What made you shine as a polished horseshoe?”

“She hit that hay-head colt in the muzzle,” answered Flaunty Mane for her sister. “Obviously, that was before miss Singularity could see, otherwise we wouldn’t get away with that so easily.”

“No way!” breathed out both Misty and Lacy. “Why?! I mean, he is a jerk – yes, but…” added Misty, smiling involuntarily.

“He had that coming!” huffed Windy, then cracked a laughter again. “For his long tongue especially. Can you imagine, he spread rumours that Lacy had more than some sibling relations with her cousin when her family lived with the relatives?” the disgust to the gossipers was written on her face.

Everypony knew that Lacy’s parents and her uncle’s family lived in one large house, before moving to Canterlot, but there were hardly any reasons for such wicked rumours.

“You shouldn’t bother,” waved Lacy Reins, chuckling a little. “I don’t give a sneeze about what his boneless tongue is blabbering.” She shrugged and looked at the pegasi girls. “One day he said about you, that being twins you got used to sharing one bed, one tub… and so on…”

“Well…” slowly said Windy Mane, making both Lacy and Misty turn around and stare at the sisters sharing a wing-hug for the moment; Misty blinked a few times, glancing at Lacy. “I mean, why not?!”

“Oh…” Misty felt the slowly rising flush again.

The girls burst laughing as them three hugged her; chattering and giggling the “curious four” headed up the street.

4. Canterton High

“Here we are!” Misty reached for the camera. “Hmmm… The place looks gloomier compared to the official photos…”

Less than ten minutes of monorail ride – the transport so fast that at least Misty avoided looking into the windows, fearing the dizziness. Choosing an almost empty car, they covered an insane distance in nearly a wink, not attracting much attention. About twelve minutes on hooves through the industrial district, mostly around the high wall of a single large factory. The surrounding area looked deserted at that hour; a couple of heavy-load trucks passed by on the road, distant mechanical sounds and muffled voices reached their ears from behind the factory walls, otherwise they were alone in the street.

The girls reached the corner and… stopped, unsure if they took the proper route, so suddenly different the opening view was. Trees and bushes occupied the whole block area, forming a dense park around the supposed school and contrasting with strictly measured hand-planted purposely shade-giving trees along the streets. A short driveway opened to the eyes in a couple of minutes.

“An area that large, surrounded by the factories and storage…” muttered Lacy, when they stepped on it. “I wonder, why they never cleared it up and used since the school placement here turned impractical.” She threw a quick glance at the empty bus stop further down the road.

“As far as I know,” Flaunty Mane peered intently into the green tunnel ahead, as the overgrown trees almost shared a handshake above the driveway, “this ground is still city property. Perhaps the removal expenses are too high, making any changes unprofitable.”

“According to what I read, no business volunteered to acquire the ownership, maybe for the reasons you mentioned,” Misty turned on her camera and casually took a couple of photos, then waved the rest to follow. “Strange though, indeed…”

“Or maybe they decided to leave a green area that large on purpose,” shrugged Windy Mane when the dried last year’s leaves rustled under their hooves. She chuckled. “Anyway, the ponies need air to breathe even here!”

“That’s actually good for them,” pulling up the strap, Lacy sported a smile; some metal dinging sounded from inside of her bag.

“Don’t forget about the real aim of our visit, okay?” Misty glanced at her fixedly causing the pegasi sisters to giggle. “I’m sure there are some ordinary elms, maples and birches around, nothing fancy.”

The old school met them with its dull dark-red wall: in better days its brick columns were connected by the openwork grates, but with the supposed reconstruction large sheets of the thin grey metal profile were attached over to completely hide the yard from the casual eyes. The high double gate looked intimidating, covered by the same metal sheets with a large plate on them.

“KEEP OUT! RECONSTRUCTION IN PROGRESS.”

Thin metalwork writing “Canterton High School” on the arch above the gate looked insignificant compared to that strict, red on yellow prescription.

Lovingly treated once, the vegetation behind the fence took all the advantage it could of the years of unattended, filling the yard with foliage and even growing over the wall in some places. No wonder the girls felt small and insecure in its thick shade, making the narrow space around the fence almost dark. Strangely with all that green, the wind brought only smells of dust and soil.

However, the upper floors of the building, lit by the setting sun, towered above the wall and foliage and made a slightly less depressive impression at that moment. A few birds in the nearest tree crowns broke the silence, they didn’t care about the rare intruders; no other sounds or presence around made Misty inwardly smile at her recent feelings – the place looked as peaceful as it probably could.

“I doubt I know magic strong enough to crack this open,” Misty yanked the large lock keeping together the ends of the thick chain, the loops of gates were tied with.

“This is the moment one appreciates being born a pegasus!” chuckled Windy Mane, stretching her arms and wings. “We will bring you over… if you are ready, of course.” She threw a glance at her sister, Flaunty Mane nodded with a smile.

“If you don’t mind, mates,” Misty’s ears dropped. “I didn’t yet manage to master any flight spells…”

But first Windy soared accurately above the gate and took a look around the visible yard, the wall, the school façade. Everything remained quiet, only a couple of the nearest birds shut up, disturbed by her wings flapping.

“It’s clear!” stated Windy, returning to the girls. “I hope you’re not air-sick, Misty.”

Before Misty could say something, she found herself soaring above the school gate, firmly picked under the arms by her pegasus friend, whose ruffled mane tickled Misty’s cheek. That sudden snuggle made Misty’s heart startle sweetly skipping a beat, causing another blush. In a gust of wind raised by the large wings, they crossed the wall, heading to the building entrance. Misty looked back, Lacy Reins followed, cuddled by Flaunty. In a minute Misty’s hooves touched the ground in front of the wide double doors, the momentary weightlessness feeling vanished; Lacy landed seconds later, looking a little bewildered.

“Wow! That was quite… a thing, even if I mostly prefer to stay on the solid ground,” she kept holding on Flaunty’s arm for a while, making both sisters sport a wide grin. “Thanks, Flo!” breathed out Lacy with a tender smile.

“Hmmm… It looks larger than I thought,” pensively stated Misty to the accompaniment of screeching cicadas, answering them with the shutter sound of her camera as she took a picture of the façade. “And they must have completely rebuilt it last time when it worked.”

The girls examined the glass doors, the smooth walls of the high three-storey building towering above them, windows boasting the untouched glass, the grate on one window next to the entrance. From their spot they couldn’t clearly see the edges of the façade, so indeed the building appeared unexpectedly large. A few windows on the first and second floors were open, the casements trembled in the wind with faint creaking. Amazingly, almost all the glass was intact, only a small shard was missing in the barred window on the ground floor.

“Strange, there is nopony around…” muttered Flaunty Mane, turning her head. But the yard remained empty and quiet as before. “Has the place been completely unguarded in the last decade? It looks too clean and undamaged for something abandoned for that long. But if there was any watchful eye, we would already know…”

“Maybe the place guards itself?!” Windy raised one brow, pensively pulling the jacket drawstring; Lacy let out a tiny nervous chuckle.

“Well, isn’t it exactly why we came here in the first place?” the earth filly adjusted her glasses.

“Okay, mates,” Misty took a deep breath, grabbing the door handle, “let’s check inside.”

Surprisingly the doors opened, unlocked and only slightly creaking in the hinges; same with the next pair at the end of the tiny vestibule. One by one, the girls stepped into the shadows of the corridor. The evening light couldn’t reach there and twilight became quite dense a few steps from the entrance, making the girls take out and use their flashlights to be able to look around properly. Misty couldn’t hold a giggle, noticing Lacy’s vintage-themed lamp – that was another soft spot of her friend, not that significant as botanic, but still persistent.

“Hmmm… It’s rusty and dusty, but the lamps look undamaged,” guided by Misty’s hand, the cone of light with dancing specks swept across the floor, across the stains of dirt and old leaves brought in by the wind, fell on the ceiling with the shabby lamp cases with dull tubes of lamps inside, then searched on the walls, stopping on the large switch. “Fat chance, but…”

“Yeah, what did I expect?” chuckled Misty, when the click brought nothing, the circuits were dead without electricity, cut off by the workers somewhere in the building. “That is why I wanted to take the first look during the day, mates. I hope, there is more light on the upper floors though.”

“Then maybe we go find the stairs?” Lacy’s light examined the opposite wall of the intersection with the long corridor crossing the whole building supposedly. “I mean, I’ve changed the batteries, but they aren’t endless.”

“Of course, we do! But first…” Misty approached the simple door at the sidewall, which must lead to the room with the barred window. “Let me check here. It may provide some aid for our further investigation.”

The door opened surprisingly lightly after her trying push, letting Misty and closely following Lacy inside; the cloud of dust from the table made Lacy sneeze loudly.

“Oh, sorry, girls!” she sniffed and rubbed her nose, preventing another one coming.

“Yeah, the school is definitely unguarded,” Flaunty listened to the echo fading in the hallway behind. “Yet, keeping this place unlocked is… like literally opening the entire building to the strangers. This doesn’t look right, girls…” she wrapped her free arm around Windy’s shoulders and frowned slightly.

The rays of light poked around the small room, spotting a table, a stand with some dusty devices with wires hanging behind, a couch at another wall.

“Hey, they had some surveillance,” exclaimed Misty, who deepened into the room and illuminated another table near the shaded and dusty window. The chair was missing, but the monitor still remained on the desk. She turned her flashlight to point on the stand with supposedly recording devices. “It’s dead anyway without the power… and I doubt the cameras are still operable.”

“This is it!” The light spot stopped over some scheme on the wall, next to a narrow locker; Misty huffed contentedly when her friends came closer. “Mates! We scored!”

The scheme appeared to be advanced key storage upon closer inspection: it consisted of the detailed plan of all school premises – three floors and a basement, with all the rooms numbered and signed. Moreover, each section was equipped with a hook of the obvious purpose, some keys managed to survive the mess and decay, still hanging on their places. Just a few, here and there; the basement section hooks were all empty though.

“Give me some light, please!” Misty took a picture of the plan first on her camera, then on the phone. “I want to be able to check it anytime,” explained she.

“Cool, Misty!” Windy patted her shoulder. “Now we can open at least some closed doors.”

“Maybe some doors are locked with a reason… to stay locked, you see?” Lacy alternated between Misty and Windy, pursing her lips.

“We’ll take your advice into the account when we come across a locked greenhouse!” Windy grinned widely, aiming the flashlight on her face from below.

“Oh!..” Lacy squeaked when Flaunty suddenly cuddled her from behind; the tip of Lacy’s nose reddened, but she visibly relaxed in a warm feathery hug, looking up at her friend.

“Okay! The time…” remembered Windy Mane, while Misty was picking the providently marked keys, filling her pockets. “It’s a bit over an hour till sunset, remember.”

Despite their best attempts, girls’ hoofsteps sounded boomingly in the long hallway crossing the floor, completely overtaking the rare birds’ sounds from outside. The latter significantly faded with the first few steps into the dark corridor. The doors along were closed, even if unlocked, the only dim light came in through a couple of large windows on the opposite ends; the girls were to shade their eyes from the flash of the camera. There must be some open windows nearby, as the faint draught swept rare leaves and some papers under their hooves, bringing the smell of dust and desolation. Their flashlights alternately snatched out from the darkness some dust on the floor, rows of metal lockers along the walls, doorknobs, nameplates and the same worn-out lamps above.

“Look, it’s rather good that the electricity is dead,” quietly chuckled Windy Mane, even the slightest sound tried to wake an echo there.

“Why so?” Misty and Lacy glanced at her inquiringly.

“Because if the lamps worked,” meaningfully stated the pegasus filly, examining the lockers, “they would have blinked and buzzed obligatorily. Simply must be doing that… to remind us of a movie, we watched last week.” Windy squinted. “Remember that horror about the xenopony monster bursting through the sternum of some astronauts, its hooves upfront?..”

“Is it absolutely necessary to remind us RIGHT NOW?” quietly hissed Lacy, her flashlight wavered a bit.

“Oh, come on, Windy!” Flaunty Mane reproachfully glanced at her snorting sister. “It’s really not the best time and place…”

“It depends!” Windy rolled her eyes theatrically. “Okay, okay… So, where should we start from, Misty?”

Instead of an answer, Misty directed her flashlight to the left side of the long hallway, the spot of light jumped from object to object, revealing the plates above the doors and stopped on the first to the left – Medical Office. Misty approached the door and the rest of the girls automatically followed her, lighting the hallway around.

“Locked!” Misty tried the door, but it moved only slightly producing a barely audible metal click out of its lock’s innards. “I kinda expected this room to be… in the current conditions. As it looks like the workers didn’t have time to remove the furniture and things before they stopped the reconstruction. Naturally, they must have locked all the medical stuff inside, and there wasn’t a key to that door.” She waved her hand. “Well, I guess we have to leave it as is, maybe there is nothing interesting there.”

Next door led to a completely empty Storage room, there was an advantage in the form of the unobstructed window there and the girls left the door open to add a bit of light to the hallway. Misty took another look around, the spot of light jumped from one plate to another: Manager office, a large Technology class, then another one. Following her plan meticulously, Misty took a photo of each room upon opening. The girls yanked manager’s door to find it also unlocked, but the large desk and cabinets were empty; there was a stationary phone outlet, but no actual device to be found. Meanwhile, the large window at the end of the hallway slowly darkened, shaded by the wild foliage outside.

“I doubt we can find something worthy here either,” Misty shook her head, her flashlight traced over unambiguous WC sign, another closed Storage door; the rest of the left wing was the large students’ lobby – open space with columns, time-worn couches along the walls and a few empty plant buckets. Darker rectangles on the painted walls told about some informational billboards removed by unknown barbarian hand. “Let’s check another wing.”

“Let’s keep the time in mind,” suggested Lacy, shielding her face, when Misty turned around and accidentally lighted her. “There must be enough sunlight on the upper floors to look for… for… whatever. But it will change shortly.”

“Right,” Misty quickly crossed the lobby, pulling Lacy with her; the sisters already examined something next to the Security room. “There are staircases in both ends of the building, I thought we might go to the right wing end, get on the second storey, cross it and get higher on the opposite stairs, then search through the third storey and even check the roof. I think I have a key from the roof entrance in that heap. And… we should stick together, even if we spend more time that way.”

Lacy silently showed her a thumb up.

“Are you okay with that plan, mates?”

“Yeah. Better tell, if you have the key from Principal’s office, bud?” carelessly waved Windy Mane, when they approached; the filly kneeled in front of the door and examined the keyhole she was lighting. “No? What a pity…” Windy sighed and jerked the knob lightly as if she wanted to make sure it was locked indeed. She kept measuring the door almost aiming at it. “Would you give me a hand, Flo?”

“What?” Misty’s eyes rounded, this time Flaunty Mane was completely on her side, patting her sister on the shoulder lightly.

“Misty is right. Let’s not break anything on our first visit, who knows, what we find further… At the moment we were simply walking and curiously looked in, just in case… and if we break into somewhere, it’ll be another story,” Flaunty Mane winked.

“I got it,” shrugged Windy, reluctantly leaving the door alone. “I just meant that the principal office could definitely contain things worth seeing… Especially the locked one.”

5. First evidence

“Maybe we can find the key in the other offices,” Misty leaned her face against the huge glass next to another locked Storage door, her flashlight travelled across the large room filled with tables and chairs, a counter on the opposite side. “Must be the school cafeteria,” concluded she. “And it is empty as well, nothing except furniture as far as I can see, not even a single glass left.”

“Psst! Girls, have a look!” Lacy waved to them energetically, beaconing at another nameplate – Teacher room.

“This one I have,” the smile curled Misty’s lips, while she sorted through the keys on her palm. “Here!” She picked one with the green label and shoved it into the lock. Misty glanced over her friends inquiringly.

“Well, that’s technically not breaking-in,” smirked Flaunty. “So…”

“Go, girl!” with a wide grin Windy threw up her fist.

“Okay!” feeling Lacy’s fingers suddenly squeezing her forearm, Misty pulled the door, forcefully turning the key, then pushed, wondering that it took some effort as if fighting some pressure from inside.

A strong gust of wind escaped the room, sending the dust and papers fly from under their hooves, storming through the long hallway and making the lockers alongside the walls jingle and creak. Misty involuntarily squeaked, feeling the sudden draught against her face and fluttering mane.

“Woah, woah! Easy!”

Misty turned to the girls just in time to notice both pegasi sisters holding their skirts down, their cheeks colour saturated; Lacy swallowed and adjusted her glasses, holding on her bag as some lifebuoy. However, that sudden disturbance failed to make her less observant.

“Errmmm… Nice colour, Flo, finely contrasting with your stockings by the way,” eyes sparkled behind the glasses. “I hope this shape is comfortable.”

“Yeah, ahem… Thanks!” Flaunty Mane downcasted, with her nose flaming; Windy snorted, muffling herself with both hands. “I wouldn’t buy them otherwise…”

“Better look here, girls!” Coping with the flush, Misty turned back to the room, what she saw made her forget about embarrassment at once. “This one isn’t empty.”

The locked room contents seemed untouched by whoever might be clearing the rooms they saw previously. The desks held writing materials, notebooks and journals, large cabinets were full of books, maps and posters on the walls remained intact. If it was something valuable for their investigation, it definitely might reside there.

“Let’s split up and look,” Misty confidently headed to one of the desks after taking the overall picture. “Anything that may refer to the cases of the school closure, any keys obviously, anything strange in general. Simply be careful, okay.”

“Aye, ma-am!” Windy widely grinned; papers on the nearest desk were already rustling under her fingers.

Lacy looked interested by the bookcase at one of the workplaces, Flaunty headed to the farther corner of the room. Something gained girl’s attention – it was a bit lighter there as the windows seemed cleaner. Her flashlight slowly travelled across a large desk, an easel nearby and a cabinet behind.

After five minutes of thorough digging Misty was to confess that unfortunately she could spot nothing, related to the missing students or any other strange, let alone paranormal, activity in the school. Nothing about the school closure for reconstruction either. “Her” desk offered only boring notebooks, a class journal, none of the names in which brought any associations. Same can be told about the drawers and the cabinet. The most valuable find was a calculator in one of the drawers. The model became outdated ten years ago.

“Well,” sighed Misty, pondering aloud, “no luck here. But we have more rooms to look in. Found anything?” she turned to Windy, who stormed through more than one desk already.

“Only a couple of keys, supposedly from the classrooms above,” Windy shrugged with the wings and handed her loot to Misty. “Nothing else fancy. Textbooks, notebooks, pencils and other boring stuff. There is a computer on one of the tables, but…” she glanced at her friend meaningfully.

“I fought the temptation to borrow a couple of books,” confessed Lacy Reins, the girl looked slightly embarrassed. “It looks like a biology teacher place… but… don’t know if I want to take anything from the supposedly haunted school… Besides, it’s simply impolite to the whole… you know…” dropped she, biting her lip.

Together they quickly brushed a few more desks, but with the same minimalistic result, finding one more key to the classroom. Then girls’ eyes addressed their fourth mate – Flaunty was still fiddling around her desk of choice. Closer look explained her interest. That must be the Arts Teacher place: brushes and crayons left in the drawers, large sheets of paper remained on the easel for drafting, thematic books and albums in the bookcase – Flaunty found her soulmate’s place.

“Got something, sis?” Windy called her pensive sibling, but Flaunty looked distant, examining something on the desk. “Hey!”

The girls came closer, gathering around Flaunty to look, what captured her attention completely. On the black polished surface a simple pencil draft – simple but masterful, very clear, almost single line contour, only the mane and tail were shaded with various tints of black – made the girls freeze and stare at it for a minute. A young mare sitting on the chair on some pedestal in a classic pose – sideways, she was completely naked, barely covering her high breasts with one arm and looking somewhere off the observer.

“Yeah,” Flaunty woke up turning to her stunned and embarrassed at the same time friends. “First, it’s really well done… and, second, I thought the same at the first glance… but there are no wings… Still,” she cleared her throat, “it looked to me a lot like miss Singu…”

“Maybe it was simply unfinished,” Windy looked an epitome of slyness, while Misty took another picture, making them all blink.

“And what’s this?” The investigator instinct took over the abashment and Misty pointed at the dusty sheet of paper.

Bringing their flashlights closer the girls could see the lower corner of the draft being smudged a bit; some transparent stain covered the paper and spoiled the thin lines. What it was, nopony could tell. Water, paint thinner? Maybe… tears?..

Following her inner voice telling her it was the first real find, Misty blew the dust off the draft, accurately folding she put it in her pocket under the fixed glances of her friends: surprised Flaunty’s, mocking Windy’s and almost terrified – Lacy’s.

“Just confess, you simply liked it, bud!” Windy nudged her lightly, Misty waved her off.

“Remember I said anything unusual? So, this is unusual enough to be left on the teacher desk casually for years. I… simply feel that.”

“Or maybe you want to ask our physics teacher if she ever tried modelling…” Windy kept snickering on their way out.

That last suggestion sounded so outrageous, it made all the girls feel the chills first, imagining the possible outcome, then snort, waking another echo in the hallway. They passed a couple more locked rooms and reached the staircase, when Windy noticed that the long corridor turned after the stairs, leading to a few more doors. Naturally, she pulled everypony after her.

The first door they tried appeared to be unlocked and opened into the huge better lit room. More light came in through the high windows on the right wall and partially transparent roof resting on the plexus of metalwork; the girls didn’t even need their flashlights to see, they entered the school swimming pool. It breathed dampness and chill onto their faces, while the friends looked around, over the benches by the perimeter, starting stands on one edge of the basin and the towering three-level high-board on another deeper edge. Empty now, the large basin with stains of dirt and moss on the partially broken tiling wasn’t completely dry, pools of water glistened in the deeper end, the quiet regular dripping sound broke the ringing silence.

“Ahem…” Windy’s huff deafened them, echoing in the large empty space; she didn’t waste time and took a walk along the pool checking the rest of the doors, while the girls silently stared at the local desolation. Her quick hoofsteps boomed on the floor on her way back.

“Dressing rooms and showers,” reported she, lowering her voice as any phrase came out amplified and echoed there. “I guess they open into the hall as well. And the opposite doors must be the gym…”

“Shhh…” Lacy waved at them, putting a finger to her lips. “I think… I heard somepony crying,” whispered she, widening her eyes even more. Flaunty pulled her sister by the skirt, interrupting her snort.

In the silence that followed the girls clearly heard faint distant sounds easily muffled by anything said or moved in the pool otherwise. It sounded most like somepony was indeed quietly sighing, taking an intermittent breath, or whimpering from their quiet but none the less deep grief. The involuntary chills crawled up four backs at once, the girls expected the place to be empty and, frankly speaking, got used to nopony interrupting their investigation. Besides, the mere thought that somepony, most likely a filly or mare – the sounds came of high enough tone – wandered into that deserted place to quietly cry over their troubles, was unnerving. Shivers ran over Misty when something touched her, but the next moment she realized that was Flaunty. Large wings pulled them closer, wrapping the friends into a warm feathery hug.

“Buds, errmmm…” Windy Mane was the first to find the prosaic nature of the sounds, she glanced up meaningfully. “The hole in the roof…”

The girls left the entrance door open and the wind, coming through the opening and shattered web of the metalwork, tried its best to be spooky, whistling and sighing on the edges of armature. Now when they saw the source of the sounds, the latter seemed less resembling a living thing, definitely sounding like the draughts of wind should.

“Anyway, this place gives me the creeps,” muttered Lacy, relaxing visibly, but still disturbed. “Let’s go upstairs…”

‘If not go home, which I would do more willingly!’ confessed she inwardly, adding aloud. “I hope it will be lighter and warmer up there.”

This time Misty was completely agreed with her friend and even Windy said nothing salty, as the girls left the pool, followed by Flaunty and unwittingly glancing over their shoulders. And personally, Misty was thankful for a warm hand on her shoulder.

Without realizing it, the girls almost raced up the dark echoing stairs, turning on their flashlights again. Misty shooed away the persistent feeling that the stairwell boomed with more hoofsteps than it should from the four fillies running.

Luckily for them, the next floor was actually lit better: the foliage outside became thinner letting more evening light through the large windows, a few classroom doors were wide open and a smaller lobby in the middle of the hall additionally gave more brightness. Misty noticed how her friends, including Windy normally enjoying her dark jokes, took a breath and cheered up.

Followed by the echo of their hoofsteps, regardless of how quiet they attempted to move, four girls examined classroom after classroom as those prevailed on that floor. So far the doors were unlocked and searching around became easier and faster. However, these rooms contained more furniture and other things, than the ground floor ones. Misty took photos of each room, before they entered, not to miss something. Some classes looked abandoned in a hurry: even notebooks and pencils left on some desks, some desks were budged or placed in an irregular manner, the cabinets stood open, letting their contents catch dust or spilling it on the floor and creaking their doors when somepony passed them by. These rooms left a surreal feeling, as the reconstruction had to be a planned act, not something calling for an evacuation, as Misty always thought. Room by room the girls found nothing worth their attention and even fell silent feeling light disappointment; compared to the ground floor, this one looked almost normal, with certain signs of abandonment.

“Hey, look!” Lacy stooped at one desk, attracted by another sheet of paper on it. “It’s the same hand, I think.” She took off and wiped her suddenly misted glasses.

Another drawing, this time a fully finished portrait of a unicorn mare, large beautiful eyes, dark mane gathered in a tight high manedo, the collar of the dress, same precise pencil lines, lied before their sight.

“Yes, most likely of the same author,” confirmed Flaunty, leaning closer to the desk. “I wonder one thing: the school was closed ten years before, some windows are open and we definitely noticed draughts in the building… Was it lying comfortably on that desk the whole decade? Kinda… weird, if you ask me.”

“Not weirder than it’s being drawn on the paper, which isn’t in use nowadays… not even a decade ago. Blimey, I’m not an expert, but I saw sheets like that only in the pictures in history books! Quite thick and yellowish…” Windy rubbed the paper between her fingers before Misty took it and pocketed. “That’s why it probably survived the years.”

“What?!” inquired the red-head filly, when the girls stared at her fixedly. “Sometimes I do study as well,” she blew a raspberry, making the friends snicker.

“Ouch!” The girls already turned away, when Lacy squeaked loudly, startling them. “Oh, no…” groaned she, studying the long cut through the jeans at the outer side of her hip – she must have caught a nail or splinter protruding from the desk.

“Oh, dear!” Flaunty Mane quickly kneeled, accurately spreading the edges of the cut and examining Lacy’s leg; thankfully the skin was unwounded, only the cloth suffered. “Better be careful next time,” she looked up at Lacy’s flushing face.

“Errmmm… And what’s that,” Flaunty started getting up when something attracted her attention on the blackboard; something they didn’t pay attention before because of the sunlight reflection on the matte surface.

“Bullies are always the same!” Windy Mane frowned, standing akimbo in front of the crude chalk drawing depicting a unicorn mare hugging a filly, with small hearts over their heads. “Fillycuddler” was written below.

“I wonder, whom…” started Misty. “Well… It doesn’t matter…” following the sudden urge, she quickly wiped the drawing under the surprised glance of her friends.

“Hey, you didn’t document it!” it wasn’t obvious if Windy spoke seriously this time.

“Maybe its better that way…” frowned Misty, inwardly puzzled by own sensual act.

The computer class, and there was such, as the girls could ascertain, even had a couple of computers left: quite prehistoric by their look, it wasn’t evident if they could turn on, even if electricity had been present. The thick layer of dust clearly told that nopony poked their snoots in for the last decade. The broken diskettes crunched under their hooves when the fillies left the room.

The next door, Misty got a key from, led to the biology class, as they might judge by the posters and schemes on the walls, books in the cabinets and… a life-size pegasus skeleton with the spread wing bones on a stand. The colour of the latter and the shine it produced in the light of the setting sun, told them that it was…

“Plastic!” Lacy breathed out with relief, coming closer and knocking on the ribs; the “bones” produced a sonant hollow sound. Windy let out a small laughter.

“Come on, girls!” Misty was with one hoof on the stairs already, she showed them with her eyes. “We have one more to check. I wonder if we find something… I’m a bit disappointed, frankly speaking.”

“Yeah, we looked for something paranormal, but so far came across the story of an artistic soul being abused,” said Flaunty with a sad smile.

“Anyway, the place gives a weird feeling, to say the least,” Misty shook her head, leading them upstairs, and this time all the girls were to agree with her. But the first door they came across on the next (and the last) floor completely changed their mind, making Flaunty’s eyes light with interest and Misty’s heart flutter of expectation.

“Art class” stated the nameplate. Misty quickly searched through her keys and…

“Yay!” she actually had one supposed to fit. It took her a few moments to cope with the lock; Misty’s hands trembled from excitement, surprising her by the strong inner conviction that there was something important at last.

The new room made the fillies sigh in awe. High ceiling, large windows on both side walls; taking the whole wing width, it was larger than any of the classes they saw before. Everything for the students to be able to work, not disturbing each other, and more important clearly see what was presented by the teacher or suggested as the current class example.

The girls slowly examined the large room, reverently moving from one workplace to another, even Windy sported a seemingly groundless happy smile, not bothering about her tough girl’s reputation. The rays of golden light danced on the easels, warming them and filling the air with thin scents of wood, paper and oil paints – some must be stored in the cabinets at the far end of the class. None of them even asked themselves, how those could still smell after all the presumably passed years.

The easels were providently placed to form an amphitheatre, surrounding the low pedestal in the middle of the class with a simple chair on it. The place wasn’t chaotically chosen, it must be perfectly lit almost every time of the day.

“Yeah, here is the place it was drawn from… unless anypony moved or turned the platform,” Flaunty Mane leaned over one of the easels at the right-middle window, throwing an estimating glance at the chair. “Not the best place for the artist, as the light was falling from behind their back, but… it didn’t make the result worse,” she let out a tiny smile, then took a look from the window behind. “I can see the gym and the pool from here. Makes me wonder, how large is that wing… There must be something on the ground floor either,” added she pensively.

“The whole room,” Misty’s camera clicked without a delay, as the girl turned on the spot examining the large class, “its size and the placement of things make me think that the art teacher…”

“…took their work very seriously.” Finished for her Lacy, nodding understandingly. “Even maybe on the professional level of art, not average school tutoring.”

“Interesting, how many talented students did they manage to prepare?” Flaunty watched the overgrown schoolyard musingly, when Windy, who was seemingly more interested by the class interior itself, than the thoughts it provoked, interrupted their sentiments.

“Hey, and what’s over there?” she was the first to spot something again, signalling them to come closer.

Some dark object rested on the model’s chair. It looked soft and fabric-like, casually put on the backrest it didn’t even catch their attention before.

Finally, Misty found the courage to approach and take a closer look.

“It’s a bra…” she turned to her gathered friends, feeling the flush involuntarily rising up her cheeks. “A black silky lacy bra, mates!” Misty looked at strangely smiling Flaunty, frozen on spot Lacy, on Windy… and decided that specifying its supposed fourth size would be excessive.

“What, sorry?” Lacy blinked a few times from behind her glasses.

“A bra, as I said!” repeated Misty, inwardly feeling the absurdity of situation she took a picture nevertheless. Then an idea came to her mind; accurately placing the camera on the chair, the unicorn filly joined her friends, pulling them closer. “Just a moment! I remembered that we had no photo of us at the site… so… for the history,” Misty broke into a smile, reaching the shutter button with her magic.

“That teacher must have taken her work seriously enough… to model for her class,” slowly said Lacy, pursing her lips pensively.

“Won’t you take it with you as well?” giggled Windy, when Misty picked the camera, not touching the fancy underwear piece, yet catching a faint sweet aroma of perfume coming from it to her surprise.

The snide reply which undoubtedly was ready to leave Misty’s mouth was interrupted by a sudden noise, the frightened girls thought that it sounded from within the large art class, freezing for a few seconds in terror. Only moments after they realized that the sound as if something heavy was moved forcefully against the floor, came from the hallway. All the furniture in the room, as far as they could recall, was in its places.

Released from the initial shock, the girls carefully peeked outside of the class; ready to hide or burst down the stairs any moment, their nerves strained like tight ropes. However, the empty corridor met them with silence, the muffled sound of the train whistle reached their ears from outside; somewhere in the city life went on at the usual pace.

“But it wasn’t in my head,” muttered Flaunty Mane, when the girls finally found the nerves to exit the class. They were trying to hear anything strange, to no result though. “We all heard that, right?”

“Maybe, something fell over?” Misty closed the eyes for a second, remembering the sound.

“Come on!” quietly huffed Windy, bravely peeking into the nearest room. “It sounded like somepony moved a desk, not something dropped…”

Keeping close, the girls quickly but carefully checked the remaining classes, only to confirm that there was nopony except them on that floor. There was the same disorder everywhere: things remained in the rooms but were definitely off their usual places. Nopony places the desks and cabinets, chairs and boards in the classes that, totally uncomfortable for studying, way.

“It looks to me, as if the stuff was once moved that way, it could help somepony to hide?” Flaunty pensively watched the furniture labyrinth in another class. “We can never see the whole room from the entrance, have you noticed, girls?”

Now when her friend drew their attention to that, Misty tended to agree with Flaunty – elements of the interior were indeed placed to provide safe nooks, while normally desks were to be lined, facing the blackboard and teacher’s place.

“Huh! This time it’s even not my suggestion, buds!” Windy stated meaningfully. “Do you think we may need that as well, sis?”

“Don’t know. I seriously hope we won’t!”

No wonder the girls reached the last locked door a bit nervous. Misty found the necessary key in her pocket but was held back by Windy. The pegasus girl rushed to the previous room and returned with a chair.

“Better than nothing,” shrugged she casually, taking the strategic position in front of the door and rising her improvised weapon above the head. “It’s the last unexamined room on the floor, so, who knows… Ready? Then open it!” whispered Windy shortly.

Misty did her best to turn the key silently, then quickly stepped aside; Lacy held her breath behind.

The door crunched under the dashing hoof strike, flung open and… Windy froze on the spot with the chair over her head. At first, the girls thought that some deafening tidal wave was coming their way, their hearts dropped a beat and breaths stuttered. Misty felt the crowd of goosebumps running up her back and neck, making her mane stand on the nape.

The sound of flapping wings and frightened babbling dumbfounded the fillies, it flickered in their eyes from the small shadows flouncing in the sunlit rectangle of the door. Windy was ready to smack anypony behind the door with her chair but instead blinked a few times surprisedly.

“Shit!” she breathed out with the sound of a deflated balloon, throwing the chair into the room, as the adrenaline slowly left her blood. “Stupid pigeons!” Windy watched the rushing birds leaving the class through the open windows.

Other girls shared her feelings, Misty giggled nervously, when her shock left with the last frightened bird soaring from the sill.

“I’m okay, thanks!” Lacy looked into Flaunty’s eyes, feeling her calming hands on the shoulders.

The quick glance around the corners told the investigators, there was nothing interesting left. Dust, raised in the air by the feathery trespassers, danced in the slanting rays; the girls threw long shadows on the class’ floor, so did the surprisingly survived curtains, flailing in the wind.

“Well… That’s…” Windy shook her head. “Let’s check the roof if you want and that’s it; I think I had enough school for today, any of them.”

“Yeah…” Misty followed the girls to the exit, not forgetting to take yet another picture. Lingering for a second, she stared at the shadow stretching into the hall: the filly held onto the door frame, her horn bowed in thoughts and wings spread widely in the doorway. Misty shook her head, shooing away the strange vision and throwing one last glance over the shoulder at the curtains fanned up by the breeze.

“To the roof!”

6. Darkness falls

“That’s another story!” Windy stretched with pleasure, shaking her short red mane and inhaling deeply. “Couldn’t imagine me saying that, but even the industrial district air seems fresh… after that…” she moved aside, giving the path for the rest of girls; the stairwell ended by a small bulkhead with a narrow door.

“Finally!” Lacy took a few steps on the roof still warm from sunlight; she smiled faintly. “My heart is still beating faster after those… birds…”

“Don’t you say, we all were scared,” Flaunty hugged her and Misty’s shoulders. “Silly, right?”

“Errmmm…” Windy looked away to hide her light embarrassment of the simple fact she was a bit scared as well. “Hey… It seems… your dream may come true, Lacy! Have a look.” With a chuckle the pegasus girl pointed at the long metal and glass structure, occupying the middle of the roof surface. The dome-shaped top covered the construction; its transparent walls looked dark-green, lit by the setting sun. “If something valuable still survived there after all these years, of course…”

In a wink, faster than anypony expected, Lacy Reins dashed to the greenhouse, finding the thin framed glass door at once. Struggling with a rusty latch for a second, she flung it open.

“Ooooh…” Disappointment mixed with surprise in her sigh. “It’s completely overgrown inside. Impossible to get through this mess inside, what a pity!”

“Wow, what a salad!” Misty took a look over friend’s shoulder at the wall of branches and leaves barricading the opening and trembling in the wind. “Ahem… Don’t be sad, we would have needed a whole day to cut through anyway. Not this time, okay?” she caught herself on the impulse to nuzzle Lacy’s cheek, lightly patting her on the shoulder instead.

“Well…” joyfully Windy unfurled her wings and soared, she made a vertical loop in the air then hovered for a while over the roof. “Hey, buds, what a sight?!”

Misty and Lacy joined Flaunty, who approached the parapet and peered in the distance. In a second Windy landed noisily near them.

Despite the school was situated at the foot of the mountain, the ground was still slanted there; a perfect view opened to the girls’ eyes from their considerably high observation point. Lush, wild and almost dark already park, evidently increased its density for the last years and surrounded the building and the school stadium laying in front of their eyes below. A few small trees and bushes grew up even on the long unmanaged training field. Behind the park, which crowns became bronze in the sunset, lied the city district. Factories and plants: the more to the right, closer to the mountain, the larger and more complex they were; to the left, down the valley, the buildings became lower, including more storage and transport facilities distanced from the centre. Squeezed between the forest on the south and hills on the north, the rest of the valley looked like some colourful patchwork of fields with single houses and farms scattered here and there. Greener and darker near the mountain, lighter and golden further to the west, lit by the setting sun, which painted the rare clouds above the horizon pink. Mixed noises brought by the wind reached the girls’ ears. The hum of voices from the nearest factory to the east – the day shift prepared to leave, the rumble of trucks on the roads, the sound of passing bus somewhere behind. Distant whistles of the locomotives could be heard from the railway station and in a moment the girls recognized the hissing of the speeding up monorail train.

Misty tirelessly clicked the shutter of her camera, keeping the most inspiring views. This time not for the investigation sake, but simply for visual pleasure. She turned to the girls for a moment and took another picture of them lined up on the edge of the roof, watching the sunset. The wind ruffled wings of the pegasi sisters and their flowing manes and skirts, Windy leaned on the parapet, Flaunty crossed her hands on the chest looking into the distance musingly. Lacy’s fluttering braids; she glanced at Misty and waved on camera. The colours looked so contrasting in the direct sunlight, small barrettes shone in the girls’ manes, keeping the most disobedient strands in place. Misty remembered, how Flaunty Mane generously shared the plenty of them with the friends once; the unicorn filly took another picture, feeling warm inside.

“However…” noticing Misty photographing and smiling, Flaunty looked over the shoulder at the mountain. “The weather’s being serious, girls!”

Dark clouds wrapped around the top, frequent lightnings were snaking in their heavy mass; the wind brought smells of dampness and ozone and, despite the sky was still clear above them, a few first raindrops reached the warm roof together with the very distant sound of thunder.

The sun almost set, leaving a narrow glowing stripe at the west edge of the sky, painted all the tints of yellow, pink, red and magenta. Twilight quickly covered the surroundings, here and there the lightening turned on already, making the area woven with bright threads and sparkles.

“Girls!” Flaunty the first realized what that meant. “I’m not insisting… but we still have to leave, through the three floors without electricity, and get to the monorail in time.”

“Oops…” the girls watched off the narrowing golden stripe, remembering that the monorail was closed nightly from midnight to four due to various sorts of maintenance. Another closer thunder strike made them unfreeze, squealing and giggling the friends raced to the roof exit, hiding a second before the rain fell.

“Nearly got caught!” laughed Windy and ruffled her mane quickly becoming fluffy in the dampening air.

They turned on the flashlights and headed downstairs, there was quite dark on the third floor, except the moments it was flashed by the lightning outside – the sun rolled over horizon, leaving the area to the night and storm reign. Hunger and fatigue reminded of themselves suddenly fast and the girls would be glad to reach home as soon as possible. They actually decided to stay at Lacy’s place for that night, but it called for the ride anyway; moreover, it was now a little problem to get anywhere, staying dry.

“It wouldn’t be the best thing to ride out the rain under this roof!” Flaunty Mane managed to read everypony’s mind. “But…” She crossed the landing and raised her hoof over the next flight of stairs.

“Just a second, please,” with the camera in one hand Misty already held on the door to the hallway.

“Oh, no, not another photo!” Windy rolled her eyes jokingly. Lacy stopped, alternating between sisters.

However, out of pure curiosity, the girls followed Misty, entering the hallway of the third storey again. The unicorn filly already fiddled with the settings, levitating her flashlight: she turned on the camera flash and made an overall photo of the dark corridor with doors throwing lighter rectangles on the dusty floor.

“What the…” Misty prepared to make another picture but frowned and looked at the display closer. She shook the camera lightly, then turned it off and on again, as the wave of faint digital distortion went across the display. “Strange… I’m sure I’ve charged it completely,” she puzzledly stared at three-quarters-full energy meter, then took another photo.

“Looks fine to me…” she compared, alternating between two images on the camera display. “Hmmm…” Misty’s friends, all three, looked her over the shoulder, trying to guess what puzzled her.

The next second the hallway lit up with another lightning flash reaching in through the windows at the ends and the open doors. Lacy produced a muffled gasp, grabbing Misty’s shoulder and pointing forward.

Freezing on the spot, the girls noticed a tall figure in the opposite end of the hallway, in the light coming through the large window and the door of the art class they visited on their way up. The whole image took only a fraction of second before the hall darkened again. But it seemed an eternity for the fillies, who were able to grasp all the details as if they could thoroughly examine the pony.

Pale-tan unicorn mare, whose horn glowed in the flash of light, just like the metal buttons on her white blouse and the belt buckle over her dark slightly-above-the-knee skirt. She appeared there, her long slender legs were veiled in deep shadows; the girls couldn’t tell for sure if she noticed them, was looking at them… or her attention was entirely drawn to a clipboard, she held in the right hand. The left one was pressed to her high breasts under the pristine white cloth, probably touching the small pendant on her neck. Long black with greyish strands mane was gathered on top of her head into a long sumptuous ponytail which fanned out behind her shoulders and back, thrown up by the sudden gust.

Then, with the dying lightning, the corridor plunged into darkness. Mixing with the earsplitting thunderstrike – the storm came over the school at full force, the factory horn, signalling the shift end, reached their hearing from outside. It sounded like the harbinger of doom, making the girls wince and cover with goosebumps all over.

“And you said about the school being unwatched…” squeezed out Windy Mane, her eyes still wide open.

“Quickly! Before we get noticed… Run!” Flaunty Mane whispered loudly, grabbing arms of both girls, she pulled them back to the stairs; Windy followed close. None of the friends dared to look back, inwardly wishing that treacherous lightning didn’t highlight them through the window behind just like it did with that… teacher?

But as soon as the floor door closed behind them, despite Windy did her best to close it gently, the girls heard the booming sound of hoofsteps heading their way, racing faster and faster through the hallway, up to almost impossible for a pony speed.

“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” Windy rushed them, despite the girls jumped over two or three stairs at once already.

They stormed through the door on the lower floor and shut it.

“Here we go…” Windy shoved a leg of an accidental chair into the door handles.

“Oh dear!” whispered Lacy, leaning against the wall and holding over her heart. “It’s… still racing! Who was that? What do you think? Misty, Flaunty?” she took a breath fitfully.

“I don’t know…” Misty almost slid down the wall next to her. “For a short moment, I thought… But, not, that can’t be… ” she glanced at the girls. “Have you seen any wings?”

“Nope. And the colours were different…” the pegasi sisters slowly shook their heads.

“So didn’t I,” nodded Misty. “Most likely somepony from the school personnel or… I don’t know… municipal employee?”

“She was dressed like a teacher, as far as I noticed!” said Windy Mane.

“Anyway, she didn’t look like some security pony.” The unicorn filly closed her eyes, reaching her hand to hug still shaking Lacy, but instead of the shoulder, her palm met something very warm, round and bouncy, making Misty squeak, widening her eyes, and… let go Lacy’s right breast. “S-s-sorry!...” squeezed out Misty, flushing like a ripe tomato.

“It’s okay,” Lacy took Misty’s fingers and squeezed lightly. “I feel better already…”

“Shhhh! Quiet…” Flaunty pressed her ear against the door, trying to catch the faintest sound from the other side; she didn’t saw the reason of Misty’s embarrassment, unlike her sister, who tried her best to close the mouth at that moment. “Security or not, we need to get out of here. Right? I can’t hear a thing,” added she in a moment, ready to take a risk.

The slightly opened door revealed them the completely empty landing and stairs, lit by their flashlights. No sounds disturbed the silence except muffled thunder and rain from outside.

“Let’s go. But be quiet for Celestia’s sake!” Flaunty slid through the doorway, beckoning her friends.

“What. The. Hay?” quietly and meaningfully pronounced Windy.

Their flashlights lit the stairway to the ground floor… barricaded, or better say filled with a tangled mess of furniture: desks and chairs were piled up that way, nopony could separate one by one from the heap to clear the path. The latter the girls made sure of, when Windy tried to pull one of the chairs from the edge of that pile – the whole construction creaked but didn’t move a iota.

“We went through here an hour ago…” the quiet rage flushed Windy’s face, she pulled the jacket drawstring stunningly. “What the actual shit, girls?”

“Let’s check the other ways!” Flaunty preferred the pragmatic approach, pulling them all to the hallway and shoving the chair back into the handles of the closed door, just in case.

“It doesn’t budge! Seriously though…” She tried the end window, turning to the girls with a puzzled face. “What’s wrong with that place?” Yet she stopped her sister from breaking the glass. “We need to check the opposite stairs,” simply said Flaunty. “No need to break something, especially now, when we might get noticed… but probably still are not!” she flailed her wings subconsciously.

The girls turned to the long hallway, periodically lit by the lightning flashes; unwittingly they snuggled closer to each other, slowly progressing. The four flashlights scanned every inch of the walls, floor and ceiling.

Every lightning strike made the girls shudder. Not from the thunder sound, but from the suspense. The sun rolled over the horizon completely during their escape from somepony, looking like a teacher most likely, and only then the girls noticed how dark it actually became. What could be lit by every next flash made their imagination run wild and turned friends’ tension top high. That sudden encounter, followed by the strange barricade on the stairs, was leaving an uneasy taste, especially at the place they got into.

“Don’t you feel… it’s getting colder in here?” Lacy visibly cringed despite her sweater and jeans.

“Sweet Celestia! I thought that was me feeling things…” Flaunty threw a quick glance on her sister. “How are you, Windy?”

“I felt as if a draught passed under my skirt,” Windy’s grumpy reply might sound funny under the different circumstances.

“It must be the rainstorm, cooling the air after the sunset,” Misty listened to the noise of rain outside, not sure if she was trying to convince the girls or herself.

“Isn’t it dropping a bit too fast for the rain-affected?” tensely muttered Windy, directing the flashlight on her legs covered by goose-bumps.

But before she could add anything, the surrounding corridor blurred in Misty’s sight. Feeling as if she was hit on the head softly but quite effectively, the girl tried to blink back to some clearness.

The hallway around her changed in a wink: it was not dark, periodically lit by the flashes, but rather poorly lit by the dull evening light, getting in through the far window mostly, as the majority of the doors were closed. She could see everything perfectly clear, despite Misty wasn’t sure she was entirely in control of her own movements, let alone the circumstances.

The girl felt her own legs and arms filled with lead, somehow she was sure that if she tried to use her magic, even the simplest spell, that wouldn’t work. Misty couldn’t turn left or right and kept looking forward, thus she rather felt the presence of her friends than saw them beside and even the air seemed unyielding to her.

The next thing she noticed made Misty Lagoon inwardly shudder: she… they were not alone in the school corridor, right in the middle of it three colts pulled somewhere a unicorn filly they held restrained. The girl looked too exhausted to call for help, her moans sounded more like quiet unintelligible pleas for the kidnappers, more automatic at that moment than voiced in hope for their mercy.

“Shut it!” dropped one of the earth colts, nudging the faltering filly under her ribs and pulling her hand forcefully. “If you end up waking the janitor…” added he with a sudden and undoubted threat, that the filly fell silent losing her breath for a moment.

“LEAVE HER ALONE! YOU FUCKING MORONS!!!” Misty could never expect herself saying something alike, moreover, shouting that in the situation like the one happening. She failed to think about what might happen if those actually heard her, but the evident fact, that they didn’t, made her freeze inwardly. Sudden guess pierced her mind like the lightning bolt the skies above the school…

“What next?” so casually, that it sounded insane, asked another one, pulling filly’s another arm. “All the doors are closed… or…” he muttered something and Misty could only hear, “… right in the hallway?”

“Calm down,” the leading unicorn colt grinned, waking cold fear in Misty’s heart. “I managed to get copies of a few keys. From that class in particular!” he pointed at the door slightly further, looking seemingly through Misty and making her wince, despite she understood that by some miraculous reason they couldn’t percept her, or her friends’ presence.

Meanwhile, the victim of the molesters let out another weak moan.

“Come on,” chuckled the unicorn git coldly. “We are supposed to “establish relationships between classes”, aren’t we? I don’t see that method being any worse than others…” The three predators burst laughing, causing blood rushing up Misty’s head.

But some part of her conscious kept watching with eyes widely open: in their fiendish joy, neither of the three colts noticed something even more wicked started happening. Behind their backs, further in the hallway, a part of gray dull wall rippled, as if watched through the hot airwave. The small dark stain appeared on the surface; growing and spreading fast, soon it became visible that the colour of that formation was rather dark red and violet than black, and the whole thing looked like a spreading under the skin hematoma with snaking darker veins. The centre of it remained almost black though. The moment it started distending, the bright flash blinded her for a second and… Misty woke in the dark corridor, levitating her flashlight and grasping her camera to the whitening fingers.

“What…” she looked around. “Did you…” She couldn’t cope with a lump in her throat and rushing pulse for a while.

To her relief, her friends were beside; to her even greater relief, they definitely saw something as well. Both sisters gloomed and clenched their fists, Windy’s clenched teeth glowed in the light of the lamp, Lacy’s pursed lips trembled, her eyes glistened with tears.

“Bastards!” breathed out Windy with tears in her voice, the ray of her flashlight wavered.

“It’s okay, Lacy,” Flaunty Mane hugged the girl lightly on the shoulders. “Don’t think of it… It was… just a vision?”

“I’m fine…” Lacy sniffed loudly in a second. “You know… I’m not some prude… But I believe that the main thing is consent! Regardless of the number of… sides.”

“What did you see?” Misty felt adrenaline slowly leaving her blood, letting the strained muscles relax.

“Ehh! Everything was blurry… We better saw your reaction, bud!” Windy glanced at the unicorn girl. “You staggered first, then started to shout like mad… somepony… those shady figures to “let her go”. Then grabbed your camera. Did you want to take evidence?” smirked she bitterly, as the girls finally found the strength to walk further.

“Windy?!” Misty had no idea if she should take offence by that remark or find that idea reasonable.

“Seriously, bud…” Windy wiped her forehead with the back of her free hand, then jerked the drawstring again. “I had no doubt it would be scary, but not at that degree of scary. I mean,” she raised the tone, not bothering about the echo, “over-the-top-scary! That’s some serious shit, Misty! When you planned to come here… Did you expect it to be like that?!”

“Windy!” Flaunty threw a reproachful glance at her sister, but Misty felt that inwardly she was on the sister’s side.

“What?! One thing is to read and discuss some… “scary stories”, ramble around some bucking school with the flashlights and completely another – to come across something… weird, unnatural. Okay, okay, supernatural!” Windy exhaled through her teeth. “Here, I said that…”

“I’m sorry!” Maybe Misty wanted to say something else, but that came out first. “The whole thing looked like urban legend…”

“What happened a minute before looked like a vision of yours to me! And I assume we all saw something, more or less, so strong it was. Dunno, kinda creepy… And from what I could understand, it didn’t tell a funny story,” Windy helplessly clenched and unclenched her fists. “Poor girl!”

“Girls, please, don’t quarrel! It would be quite nice to get home unscratched,” Lacy’s quiet voice interrupted Windy, who inhaled already to retort… but reconsidered. “That pony above and the blocked stairs… Honestly, wasn’t that enough for you to understand – we should stick together, not altercate like that.”

“She is right!” Flaunty shook her mane. “That’s more important than quarrelling. We knew, what we could come across potentially, yet we agreed to go willingly… Our expectations were different, different from what we got, I guess.” She sighed. “But we are all in the same position now! Right, sis?”

“Yeah…” slowly and tensely confessed Windy, putting her hand on Misty’s shoulder. “But I feel like we are in some bucking kaidan, only it’s not on the screen or comics, but happening in reality. Not sure I like where it goes!”

“Ehhhhh…” Misty gawped at her friend, she noticed from the corner of her eyes that other girls are equally surprised; even Flaunty found something new about her sister. “You like anime?”

“Who said about “liking”…” the redhead ruffian downcasted with flushing nose. “Simply… eh… Aw, come on!!!”

“I guess, the rumours are indeed lying… and the sisters don’t spend all the time together,” slyly smirked Lacy.

The pegasi girls blinked a few times, alternating between themselves and friends; Flaunty cracked a smile first and in a moment all four fillies started giggling, muffling themselves.

“I’m sorry, Misty!” simply said Windy Mane, calming down and looking at her friend apologetically. “We chose to join you here… and we’ll stick together, bud.”

Instead of an answer, Misty grabbed and pulled her friends in a hug.

“Sorry, I put you all into that,” she sniffed loudly and wiped her eyes. “Let’s get out of here before things get any worse.”

“The stairs must be here somewhere… Yeah, that’s the biology class,” Flaunty Mane peeked into the room on their right: the flashlight slid over the posters and anatomical aids next to the blackboard, dimly shone in the horn of one of them, then jumped to the next opening. “Yay!” the quiet joy in her voice was self-explanatory. “What did I say? This path is clear.”

7. The chase

“I just figured it out.” Flaunty kept lighting the steps under their hooves, as the girls carefully headed down, listening. “The scene I saw… It was that incident, the school got closed after. What we know about it at least…”

“Did you all see…” Misty threw a quick glance at the girls.

“…the growing crap on the wall?” Windy finished for her gloomily, Lacy and Flaunty nodded. “Yes. I saw… something. The stain, whatever it was… It looked most of all like a giant bruise to me,” added she with the confidence of experienced. “The hay I want to find out, what it actually was!” she shook the bangs.

The ground floor seemed pitch black, despite their flashlights – the foliage outside and the dirt on the windows ate out half of the scarce light coming through and even the lightning couldn’t dispel the darkness completely. But at the same time, it was enough to cast long crooked surreal shadows of the girls and everything else in the hallway, be it an open door or some debris on the floor.

Quickly checking around as far as the flashlights allowed, the girls turned left to the entrance doors, doing their best not to produce any sound: the acoustics there was wild, maybe due to the tiled floor or some other reason.

“Shhhh…” faint dry creak from behind made them freeze, Misty put a finger to her lips, squinting. The sound of dripping liquid reached their ears, but otherwise the hallway remained quiet.

Silently Misty pushed the girls forward, Flaunty lifted Lacy and both sisters soared, flying as quick and quiet as they could while staying that low. Their unicorn friend tried to follow them hoof to hoof, not walking but rather sliding her hooves along the floor and fighting with the stupid idea to look at the toilet doors, where the sound they heard came from.

When she caught up with them, the girls crowded at the exit door; the latter trembled and dinged lightly, mercilessly shaken by Windy. The pouring rain outside muffled all the sounds, gathering into a large pool in front of the entrance.

“It doesn’t open!” hissed Windy Mane, rubbing her elbow, which she just tried to break the glass with. “And the glass is too thick…” She looked around nervously, the right end of the drawstring hung below girl’s chest, the left almost hid in the hood of her jacket.

They could see the exit, they could hear the rain behind the thin obstacle, but they couldn’t use the exit no matter what the girls did.

“What about trying this?!” hiding in the darkness for a second, Flaunty returned with a large flame extinguisher in her hands.

“It doesn’t matter now if we break something,” answered she on the silent question in sister’s wide-open eyes. “We are too close, not to try. Stand back you all!”

Grabbing the metal cylinder more comfortably, Flaunty raised it higher, inhaling and aiming at the glass part of the door. Three girls obediently stepped back and unwittingly squinted, expecting the loud crash.

“Hhhhhhuh!!!” she brought down the extinguisher, looking away to protect herself from the glass shards.

That gave some unexpected result, the glass caved in slightly with a boing, as if it was made from rubber ten times thicker, and sprung the projectile back. Flaunty couldn’t hold it, jumping aside not to hit her legs badly; the flame extinguisher slammed heavily onto the floor and rolled aside with loud metal rumble… not leaving a notch on the door!

“What the actual hay?!!” Flaunty threw up her fists, glaring on the unharmed glass wildly. “Unbelievable!”

The girls froze on the place, staring at the doors like thunderstruck: the simple glass being able to endure such a strike was beyond their comprehension. Misty wanted to say something, when her ears registered again the same sound similar to the dripping liquid as before, making her almost jump-turn to the dark hallway.

Ready to hide at every moment it could be necessary, the girls approached the hallway crossing, scanning the space around with the flashlights. Following the sound, they could finally locate its source close to the students’ lobby. Brightly lit by their four flashlights, a dark dot appeared on the time-worn grey wall near the left wing stairs. It grew quickly and spread on the surface, in a few seconds it became apparent that most of the stain was actually not black, but rather maroon with darker violet veins passing through it and snaking on the wall as the terrifying thing swelled. It now looked like an actual fresh large bruise with a black spot in the centre, as if the gigantic hit was directed exactly there.

“Go back!” breathed out Misty, grabbing Lacy’s hand and pushing the pegasi sisters back into the long hallway. Sticking to the opposite wall to keep maximum distance with the horrible phenomenon, the girls slid out of the entryway and desperately looked around, searching for some hiding spot.

“Yeah,” Flaunty bleached and looked nauseous. “It… looks… Nevermind!”

“I don’t know what it is, Flo,” Misty tried to calm her racing heart, pulling her friends further into the corridor – the nearest rooms were perfect traps, small, without another exit. “But I guess it didn’t end well for those molesters…”

However, the girls couldn’t hold themselves from glancing back and lighting the creepy thing. During the last few moments it underwent considerable changes: grew larger, becoming thinner on edges, with its bloody nature becoming more visible. The centre spot of that giant “wall bruise” bulged out, the whole thing pulsating and glistening wetly.

“I think I’m going to get cranky…” sobbed Lacy, clinging to Misty. The girls couldn’t get their eyes from the bloody stain on the wall, time stopped.

The central bulge stretched out even more as if being pushed from inside. With an inexpressible sound of ripping flesh, it burst open and a palm with slim fingers appeared. It could be called elegant, if not the long sharp claws on them. The blood-covered arm followed, somepony tried forcefully to get out. When their lights glowed on the horn appearing after the arm out of that strange “hematoma”, long, helical and covered in dark blood, something inside the girls faltered, turning them breathless for a second.

Meanwhile, somepony kept squeezing themselves out of that terrifying warp. The head, shoulder, another palm, grabbing the edge of the supposed opening it came out of. The hair – pitch black, long, wet-looking – seemed endless; framing the face with thin traits, they flowed from the fleshy hole after their owner. The sound of the body squeezing through the soft matter soaked in blood made the backs of four investigators crawl with goosebumps.

When another arm and the shoulders came out completely, the creature pushed against the edges of the opening, pulling its shapely body outside to the waist. The warp appeared at about three-foot height, thus the figure was to lean on the floor; its back arched, revealing the voluptuous breasts and thin waistline. It was a mare, which could be seen as beautiful no doubt, if not for the dark blood covering all over her and her long black hair, which clung moistly to her body.

The long slender legs followed her firm shapely hips and the mare picked herself up to a kneel on the floor, while her pitch black tail still streamed out of the wall. On her elbows and knees, she arched like a cat, raising her mane-framed face to the light and inhaling loudly, feeling the floor with her delicate yet dangerous fingers. A smile curled her lips, nose trembled and the large eyes opened wide. Darkness was splashing in them. The smile became wider, her mouth opened seemingly from one ear to another, distorting her fair features, making the skin on jawbones stretch and revealing the multitude of needle-sharp teeth.

“RUN!!!” Letting out a loud squeak and momentarily unfreezing, when the bloody mare started to get up to her hooves with a cold hiss, Misty Lagoon pulled the girls back and the four friends rushed like mad into the dark hallway. One flashlight hit the floor and went out, bursting into splinters.

Perhaps Misty never ever before ran like that: she flashed through the hallway, pulling Lacy by her hand, Mane sisters following on the tips of their hooves. Measured confident echoing hoofsteps behind were the best stimulus for the girls. The high pitch, girly, anticipant laughter from the darkness behind made them miraculously double the speed.

The blocked exit doors. The security room – small, with the single door. The locked principal’s office. Misty’s thoughts raced, outrunning her legs, she tried to think for herself and the friends who trusted her. There was the common room with two doors, but they opened to the same hallway, delivering the girls perfect ability to run in circles before somepony fell. Unhurried steps clearly told them that the creature they met had plenty of time for fun and wasn’t going to give up easily.

‘There must be another way out!’ tense breathing of the friends urged Misty to savvy faster. ‘There in the park, we can easily outrun that… thing!’

Thus Misty relied on the most prudent, as she thought, idea – she rushed to the cafeteria, pulling her friends with her. There must be more places to hide, some storage room, a kitchen and finally an obligatory door outside. Deep in her soul, she rejected the thought that the latter could be blocked like the main entrance.

Jetting the last few meters of the corridor, pulling Lacy by the hand, Misty stormed into the luckily unlocked cafeteria door. Seeing that some of her preys were escaping, the unicorn creature let out a blood-chilling hiss, long fingers grabbed one of the lockers; appearing very strong, they ripped it off the wall with its fastenings. Fortunately for them, Flaunty and Windy threw a glance over the shoulder right in time to notice the locker being launched into the air easily with one powerful throw.

“Eeee!” the girls managed to jump back to the opposite wall before the heap of metal slammed against the cafeteria door and fell across, blocking it firmly.

‘That road is cut!’ Windy jerked sister’s hand, whispering in her ear. “Quickly! To the pool!” And the girls ran like mad, totally forgetting about their wings, the use of which was, frankly speaking, doubtful in those circumstances.

Sliding on the floor tiles, sisters reached the hallway end, barely avoiding crashing into the windowsill, turned left sharply and whisked into the short corridor to the pool, noting for themselves that the chasing hoofsteps fell behind at least. The next moment they dashed through the pool door and closed it.

“That will buy us some time!” Windy Mane looked around, she snatched a forgotten by somepony cleaning brush and shoved it through the door handles. “Maybe…”

The deafening crash made Misty brake and look behind, she noticed how the locker, thrown by their chaser, blocked the door from outside. But not that image made Misty freeze for a second, her fingers unclenched, letting go Lacy’s palm.

The ghost… And Misty was one hundred per cent sure it was a ghost due to the way it appeared. The ghost mare slowed down her chase; instead of catching up with the pegasi fillies, she stopped behind the cafeteria glass wall. Leaning on the thick glass, as if she was trying hard to see something through it, the horrendous unicorn mare snuggled to its surface, pressing her palms against it and peering into the darkness of the room. When Misty’s ray of light fell on her, the stunned girls could perfectly watch her silhouette in tiniest details: hands slid on the surface feeling it, gorgeous even in that situation breasts pressed against the glass, flattening just a little bit, boasting their firmness, her slim frame shone, glistening with blood. The mare brought her face closer, strangely it looked almost normal at that moment; with a tiny smile, which could even look friendly otherwise, she knocked on the glass with her fingernail.

The sound seemed to reach the depths of their hearts. With a loud squeak Misty unfroze and rushed to the door she spotted behind the counter deeper in the room.

“Misty!” Lacy was only a step behind, following her friend, as the latter seemingly had a plan.

Giving up to a fierce kick the door flung open. Almost unconscious Misty tumbled inside. The next moment she felt as if she was hit on the head with something soft and heavy. The last thing she registered was the light of her lamp tossing up to the ceiling, as her consciousness fell into the whirlpool of darkness…

Lacy noticed her friend bursting into the back room and rushed after her without a second thought. What was waiting behind was a thousand times scarier than the palpable darkness in the storage or kitchen ahead. She was to hurry for one more reason – it was Lacy’s lamp, which fell and crashed on the floor of the hallway. They had one light for two with Misty, Lacy inwardly noted that she couldn’t see it in the doorway. She ran inside by inertia, already doubting that decision, when the floor slipped from under her hooves, taking away balance and confidence along with itself…

8. Separated

‘Apparently, I’m still alive!’ Lacy tried to blink when the darkness in her sight became thinner. She was unsure, but the last feeling she could remember resembled being hit in the face by a pillow… with a short blackout afterwards. At least Lacy wanted to think it was short.

‘Where am I then?’ Lacy took another look around the dark room. ‘Still in the school, in the storage room? It seems not!’

The sound, which distracted her from the thoughts, were the raindrops frequently hitting the glass and metal, but it was too dark around to discern anything. Dispersing somehow, the light reached that interior as very faint, but the sound of thunder, reaching her ears, told her that she found herself rather outside of the school building walls. Even if it was the reason…

‘Where is Misty?!’ flashed in the girl’s mind. ‘Where are the girls? If we managed to leave the school with Misty, then where is she… And what’s that place?’ she got up slowly, feeling residual vertigo. ‘I’m not under the clear sky for sure!’ she squinted into the darkness, catching a quiet rustle ahead.

‘So-o-o-o…’ Lacy wasn’t sure that she was to fear that sound or pay the primal attention to it; at the end of the day, if they managed to get out with Misty, the latter could be in the same or worse shaken condition as her. However, being entirely trustful wasn’t the smartest idea either. ‘It’s not the end of the… adventure.’

When her eyes accommodated a bit to the surrounding darkness, Lacy suspected where she got.

‘That sound of the rain on the glass… But how that was even possible?’

The following lightning flash confirmed her assumption, revealing the branches and twigs, all the mass of the various foliage, which filled the school greenhouse, making its glass walls almost opaque and blocking the only entrance and simultaneously exit.

‘Weird!’ Lacy rubbed her forehead and adjusted the glasses. ‘How did I get here… Well, scratch that! How will I get out?’

Light trembling of the leaves told Lacy that there was at least some opening or a weak spot in the construction, which let the wind in and which she could use for her escape. But as soon as she made a first small step aside, the rustling intensified suddenly. Before Lacy could analyze that fact, she felt that something was wrapping around her, trying to tie her up and restrain seemingly. Her hand stretched to push the sudden attacker aback met a thick rough vine, snaking around her body and scratching her clothes. Lacy Reins squeaked surprisedly, finding out that her legs were almost tied one to another already. However, she kept enough composure, dealing with plants was a common occupation for her.

‘Oh, come on! You must be kidding me…’ Lacy felt the attempt to lift her from the ground and completely deprive of any opportunities to fight back. Fortunately, her arms were still free.

‘Got it!’ the girl whipped the so appositely taken knife out of her bag. A few quick cuts and she felt the grasp of the strange vines failing; pulling and tearing off herself the pieces of the nasty herb, she inwardly thanked her usual sweater and jeans as the stalks appeared to be quite rough and even spiky perhaps.

Freeing her torso, even if the vines detached very unwillingly, taking bits and pieces of the clothes, Lacy dropped on her butt. Arching incredibly, she could untie her legs as well. But judging by the grumpy rustling and movement around, the nasty thing wasn’t going to give up yet.

Lacy decided to retreat to the spot, which seemed at least better lit. Swaying the knife like mad, she managed to severe a few more vines, trying to reach her, and after a few minutes of the intense bout, the green molesters left her alone, leaving numerous pieces of themselves on the ground.

That part of the wall and a small area of the floor were concrete, providing certain disadvantages for the vegetal hooligans, thus the filly could take a breath. Leaning on the wall, Lacy settled down in that corner, estimating the losses. The jeans received more cuts and holes, in addition to the one made by the nail, the sweater became completely out of commission, holding on her only as if by magic.

‘Great!’ the girl flushed, examining the large cut under the left breast, which almost made it exposed. The lower part of the sweater turned into some scallops.

‘So, I’m trapped now,’ confessed Lacy, nesting on the floor with more comfort, but keeping an eye. ‘And the others… oh…’ At that thought her chest ached. She had no idea, where the girls were, but somehow she thought that they hardly were given better treatment. ‘How could I leave Misty alone! If only we kept holding hands…’ Tears ran down the mauve cheeks, Lacy wiped them with her free hand, keeping the knife ready, in case the nasty vines decided to make another attempt. Minutes passed, but nothing disturbed her grief; little by little the girl began composing herself.

‘Stop it, foal! Before your glasses misted and you couldn’t see a thing clearly. The tears won’t help you fix everything.’

“Girls… I need to get out and find you!” Lacy sniffed with a sigh.

There was more light coming in through the unobstructed part of the glass roof, she could even see the clouds, passing by in the sky and lit by the lightning. Scratched, ruffled and exhausted, Lacy pulled her knees to her chin, wrapping her arms around them, and thought deeply, listening to the rain outside.

***

The lightning flash, followed by the earsplitting sound of thunder returned the girl to reality. Expecting to see the dark storage room around, or some kitchen semblance, which could connect to the cafeteria on the ground floor, Misty blinked several times. The open window frame trembled in the wind, dinging lightly, frequent lightnings lit the easels placed in amphitheatre order. The rain poured mercilessly, veiling everything outside, its sounds and freshness were getting into the art class through the window, driving out the smell of paints.

“How did I get here?” whispered Misty, not believing her own eyes. “We were all the way back to the exit a moment ago…”

They were.

They were holding hands with Lacy, minutes before it happened, and broke the contact for a second, shocked by the view of the ghost. And then… Apparently, the door behind the counter worked as some portal, which transferred both girls into different places, following somepony’s wicked will. Deep inside the girl felt, or wanted to believe wholeheartedly, that her friends were okay. But she couldn’t predict what would happen to them without somepony coming to the rescue. Without her coming to their rescue!

Exhausted Misty slid down to the floor, leaning on the class’ door and wrapped her arms around the knees, tears started streaming from her eyes.

‘Girls! Lacy! That was entirely my fault! How could I be so careless? I… I should have prepared better not to fail your trust!..’

Several minutes passed, with silence being disturbed only by quiet sobs of despair. The easels mutely guarded girl’s woeful solitude, throwing long shadows with each lightning flash.

‘NO! It won’t work that way… Nopony saves you out of the blue!’ Misty sniffed loudly and wiped her eyes with the jacket sleeve. ‘I need… I need to find my friends first. And for that, it seems…’

Misty inhaled, bracing herself at the inevitable conclusion; the tears dried out, there wasn’t time for them.

‘For that I need to find out everything about that place, what had happened here and why!’

Finally, she was ready to move on, Misty even thought that she had a working plan. Another blackout was completely unexpected for her: girls vision darkened, she leaned on the door limply.

When the light returned, becoming strangely bright for the abandoned school at night, Misty realized that she couldn’t recognize the place. Blinded at first, she kept blinking until the world around her regained sharpness enough to distinguish the objects, turning from the smudged opal spot in her sight into some furnished room.

The first thing Misty could clearly see was a peculiar, completely wooden and beautifully carved table to her right. Its sunlit surface made an impression of warmth and the ripe fruits in the crystal vase spread sweet aroma so strong, Misty suppressed the first impulse to grab the one specifically tasty looking apple. She felt the familiar strange stiffness in movement as if she did and did not belong to that world at once; raising a hand would have taken lots of effort most likely. Nevertheless, the warm wind touched her face so realistically, she even squinted in an attempt to shake her head. The joyful sounds of some birds were reaching the exquisitely but laconically furnished room through the open window, accompanied by the bright sunlight; the wind playing with freely waving curtains brought the aroma and feel exactly as if the happening with her was real.

‘It can’t be happening,’ Misty took a look over the ornate walls, high ceiling, distant bright blue sky in the window. ‘It was far past 10 PM…’

The voice pulled Misty from her thoughts; further in the room, left to the table with the vase, a filly was sitting on a high, rich, but at the same time not artsy chair with a straight backrest. That filly looked only a bit older than Misty, and… Misty gasped soundlessly: she could easily think that it was herself, maybe a couple of years older. The girl was very light grey, almost white, the lush pink mane flowed almost to the floor, covering her shoulders and the backrest, the tail of the same colour funnily curled around the graceful stretched aside leg with the gold-shod hoof, peeking from under the snow-white negligee with complex golden embroidered pattern. Her long horn leaned to the easel, the filly was examining something with laudable attention, while her thin fingers kept fluttering over the canvas with the thin brush.

Misty blinked a couple of times: the only difference was a couple of large tightly folded wings, the tops trembled slightly, as the girl worked alternating between the canvas and the subject of her art.

‘Sweet Celestia! It’s her… only… only in my age! Even before the conflict between the Royal Sisters, judging by her mane colour…’ Misty stood like thunderstruck, forced to confess that there could be only one variant of an alicorn looking that way. ‘Another vision… but… why?’ curiosity easily took over the first-moment abashment and Misty already tried to figure what was actually going on… Not only with her, but in her evident vision as well.

She followed “young princess” (as she named the filly for herself) glance and felt how her mouth opened unwittingly. Misty had seen that pony already.

There was a comfy couch of golden wood with purple upholstery under the next large window, and it wasn’t empty. Misty froze admiringly, it was the same mare she saw on the sketch in Canterton school: tall, gracile and at the same time amazingly curvy in the right places, she lay freely on the couch putting one arm on the backrest. Two waterfalls of black with greyish strands mane and tail streamed to the floor, the high firm breasts trembled tenderly with her breathing. The beautiful dark-crimson eyes looked somewhere far and a faint smile accompanied the tranquil look on her face. And, like on that pencil sketch, she was completely nude!

‘I c-can’t take my eyes off her long tan-coloured legs… and… and… Squee!’ her face began to burn, Misty swallowed, yet unable to make herself look aside. A hot wave of some unknown to that moment feeling was building inside, going to flood the girl with her head. Her heart became large and loud, having not enough space in the chest, it was beating somewhere near girl’s collarbones.

“Teacher! I can’t master some shades,” Misty heard the rueful call of the apprentice, like through a thick layer of cotton. “No matter how much I try, it’s always not what I need…”

“Celly, dear, did you finish with the general pose?” not a single muscle moved on the shapely body, the mare spoke with her lips only, keeping her position unchanged. Only her eyes glanced vividly at Misty, making her wince.

‘They looked through me, of course. Silly filly!’ little by little her hearing, breath and ability to think rationally returned to Misty; however they risked, balancing on the thin line.

“Well, it won’t turn into a calamity if I leave the place for a while,” smiling with the corner of her mouth, the mare sat straight on the couch. “I can help you, dear, but you must finally obtain the skill on your own.”

Enthralled, Misty watched the mare, who got around the easel and stopped behind the princess.

“Here, here and here. Celly, you need to…” the naked beauty leaned over her student, taking the brush and demonstrating something right on the canvas. Misty felt dumbfounded, flashing like a carrot, she kept and kept staring at the bulged round firm butt, the dark wave of the tail curling around the elegant legs, the slim arching body. “Do you see the difference?” the mare leaned closer pointing at the work, her heavy breasts almost touched the shoulder of the filly. The latter looked as if she was going to boil at that moment and release a couple of steamy streams out of her rock hard perked ears, trying to look at the canvas and squint back on her teacher at the same time.

‘Errmmm…’ Misty understood Celestia well at that moment, then the princess finally unfroze.

“Um… t-teacher,” barely audibly started she looking at the easel fixedly, her thin fingers trembled lightly and her white cheeks started flaming. “M-m-may I ask one thing?”

“Certainly, dear,” heartily smiled the mare, straightening up and examining the work from some distance. “And… we seem to have agreed on that – Fran is more than enough, as you asked me not to call you “Your Highness” all the time.”

“Oh! Of course,” whispered Celestia, for a moment her eyes met at the nose bridge, while her entire face, moreover, neck and shoulders, the part Misty could see in the negligee neckline, flushed brightly. The princess finally found some strength to turn around, her shy glance met her mentor’s; her clothes slid dangerously low from her shoulder when she timidly held out the delicate hand. The girl’s fingers froze midair, not daring to touch. She squinted from her suddenly inspired courage, with her ears flattened. “Tea… miss… Oh!..” Celestia blurted out after a fitful sigh. “Fran, may I… pose-next-time-for-you?!!”

‘So, this is what happened!’ Misty blinked several times after the vision had faded. The girl suddenly felt very hot, falling ablush, but the anticipated revelation made her curiosity itch. “Fran…” unconsciously she pronounced it loud. ‘Fran… I… I think that missing teacher name was Fran. And that mare definitely looked like the one in the sketches we found. So she was actually teaching Celestia and Luna… Amazing! But how old is…’ Misty took out and spread the paper, looking at it incredulously. ‘It can’t be…’

***

Despite the terror and tension of the chase, Flaunty Mane couldn’t avoid looking back right in time to notice, how the locker fell and blocked the cafeteria door and how their, literally bloody, chaser stopped. The next moment the ghost mare leaned against the glass, looking out something inside.

Flaunty’s fists clenched, she almost turned back, but Windy was relentless: with the speed of a good mail train, the sister pulled Flaunty according to her previous plan, making her grit the teeth and obey with the aching heart. The girls flashed through the rest of the corridor, almost bumping onto the windowsill in the end, and stormed the swimming pool door, gasping for breath.

“There!” Windy slammed the door, she grabbed some metal rod from the floor and shove it through the handles. “I thought my heart jumps out of my throat, Flo! So much for the training…” she let out a nervous laughter. “Well, it fell back… Dunno, if that thing can help, I mean, hey it’s a ghost,” she inhaled deeply, trying to cope with the adrenaline rush in her blood and threw a doubtful glance at the cleaning brush she used as a lock.

“What’s up, Flo?” Windy slowly turned, feeling how her sister, all that time silent, pulled her by the sleeve. “The hell is…” quietly dropped the pegasus filly under the impression, noticing what exactly Flaunty was observing for a few seconds already, unable to say a word.

The swimming pool generally remained the same: tiled floor and basin, here and there dirt and broken tiles, old benches and dusty windows, lit by the lightning flashes, heavy clouds visible through the transparent part of the roof washed by the rain mercilessly. Two things changed though, two very important things. First of all, the pool wasn’t empty anymore, now the dark rippling surface almost reached the edges of the basin; the sound of dripping became more pronounced.

Before the girls, exchanging the puzzled glances, thought that rain even that hard couldn’t fill the entire pool in less than an hour, another flash made them want to mistake. Even crave to be mistaking. In the silvery light flooding the room for a fraction of second, the liquid appeared dark red, thick, least resembling the water.

“Do you see what I see?” feeling the goosebumps running up her legs, Windy asked. “Is it…”

“…blood,” swallowing a lump whispered Flaunty with a tiny nod.

“Shhhiiit!”

A faint moan sounded in the large empty room like a nail ran on the glass, making the pegasi sisters feel their hair standing on ends and wings fluffed from terror. The girls realized where the sound of dripping was coming from, following it; the find chilled them to the bones.

High above the centre of the pool, almost under its transparent roof, there was a naked body… floating in the air. Arched back as if it was hung on under the chest, seemingly soft and motionless. The legs and arms of the mare dangled limply, her mane and tail flowed down like a black waterfall, her thrown back face couldn’t be seen, and the sisters were truly thankful for that. The blood, covering her entire body, dripped and fell into the pool. There was nopony else, who could produce that moan, but deep inside Flaunty and Windy were to confess – they would have preferred that mare to be dead to any other variant.

“CLACK!”

Unwittingly Windy made a small step aside, suddenly producing quite a loud echo.

As if that was the only thing it waited for, the body slowly straightened in the air. Flaunty felt how her teeth started rattling against her will. The mare leaned forward, staring at them with her large dark eyes. For a short moment another lightning made her perfectly visible: blood-soaked body, drips falling from the high breasts, arms outstretched as if she was going to grab them. A sudden gust of wind fanned her mane, forming a flowing halo around her head; the dark eyes shone and the mare produced a heartbreaking shrill, overshadowing even the sound of thunder rolling above the school. The next moment her body went limp, like being shot through… and collapsed into the pool. A column of blood shot up and fell, sending the small drops fly.

“Let’s run, Flo!” creaked Windy in a breaking voice, fighting the tremor in her knees. “I don’t want… to stay here, when that… thing climbs out!”

The sisters dashed around the pool, without taking their eyes off its surface, which noticeably calmed. Fortunately, one of the doors on the far side was still open and the girls stormed in, finding themselves in the large shower room. The large latch from that side was a stroke of even more unbelievable luck, even if inwardly the girls admitted that it was futile against the ghost if she decided to visit them at all costs.

Snuggling into the dark corner, the girls fell silent, fearing that their heartbeat could easily give out their hiding spot.

“Eh… Is this normal?” whispered Flaunty; a few minutes passed, but nothing spoke about somepony or something really threatening them.

“No! Don’t go close!” Windy pulled her sister back.

“Shhh!” Flaunty’s fingers covered Windy’s lips gently. “I’ll just listen…”

She slid to the entrance like a shadow and pressed to the wall, providently not appearing behind the door itself. Leaning her perked ear to the small gap at the frame, Flaunty held her breath.

“Nothing…” she turned her surprised eyes to Windy. “Nothing seems to be moving there.”

“Bet it’s a trap!” quietly huffed Windy; getting up from the floor, she carefully approached and snuggled to the gap slightly below her sister. Then tried to peek through. “Damn! I can’t see anything, the frame curves behind.”

Her active nature demanded some action and moments later Windy already alternated from hoof to hoof in an attempt to decide what to do next.

“There must be another door to the dressing room!” She moved around, examining the shower stalls, the time-worn walls, the tubes touched by rust, the dirt-stained floor.

“Umm…” the girl loudly muttered, reaching the opposite wall. “I have a strong impression that everything looked way cleaner before… Oh, here it is!” she reached for the handle cautiously, as if it was the lid of Ponedora’s Box.

“I’ve noticed, sis,” Flaunty nodded, keeping her watching post for a while longer. “The pool looked shabby, I just realized, it wasn’t that bad when we first visited…”

“By the way, have you noticed?”

Windy looked over her shoulder, Flaunty stopped at the centre of the room, pointing at the ceiling.

“Nothing was working, when we first came,” she noted, swaying the chestnut mane back. “And now, look.”

The girls stared at a couple of working lamps above, in the heat of the chase and later hiding they paid absolutely no attention that the shower room was actually lit by them. Dim, blinking randomly with a faint buzzing but still functioning, otherwise the sisters couldn’t see anything without windows.

“I said, it was a trap,” Windy Mane gloomed, nervously jerking the drawstring, another end of which almost disappeared in the cape; she chuckled grimly. “At least they left us the light!” She bit her lips, weighing something. “Anyway, we won’t find out otherwise!”

“What?” quietly asked Flaunty after a moment of silence.

Windy turned away from the door and her right eyebrow twitched, Flaunty watched how her sister clenched the fists.

“Nothing! It’s locked…”

Before Flaunty could react, her sister quickly and determinedly crossed the room; with her mouth open, Flaunty watched how Windy inhaled and grabbed the handle. She quickly turned the latch-lock and pulled the door.

That door didn’t budge either.

“Both doors are locked, but nopony except us touched that one…” slowly started Windy, boiling inwardly. “And the electricity is working… It wasn’t when we tried first. I ask, What! The actual! Fuck?!!”

“Somepony must be messing with us!” Windy’s breath hardened, Flaunty tried another door, finding out it was actually locked. “Maybe it was all set up on purpose, maybe not… but that doesn’t matter now!”

“Some fucking lunatic tries to give us trouble… Okay then!”

“Careful!” Flaunty raised her hand, remembering her own futile fight with the… glass door, but before she could explain…

“Let’s see…” stepping back a little, Windy gathered her strength into one monstrous blow. “Kyaaa!!!” With the force enough to break manticore skull, her hoof hit the door near the lock, the air fanned girl’s uniform skirt giving a glimpse of her white-blue striped panties, but Windy gave no damn about that.

The loud dry sound of wood being heavily hit echoed in the room, but no visible damage registered on the door surface.

“Ugh!” Windy cringed, jumping on one hoof, shaking another in the air, then carefully stepped on both legs.

“Are you okay?” Flaunty’s wings fluttered, she watched the sister compassionately.

“No, I’m not. We all are not!” Windy rushed around the room, still limping a little, she jumped to the locker-room door and shook it mercilessly, to no result though. “We’re trapped here… and somepony… I’m sure that’s a trick and somepony is after Misty and Lacy. Damn it, the whole and all the parts in particular!” She desperately hit the tiled stall wall with her palm, leaning on it and closing her eyes.

The next moment Flaunty witnessed something unexpected. Tears flowed from under her long eyelashes, forming two affluent streams on Windy’s cheeks.

“I’m such an idiot… Girls are in danger!” sobbed she, breathing irregularly. “Maybe in worse one than we are…” she shook her head. “We should keep together… And… And I blamed her for bringing us here… Foal!”

“Calm down, Windy,” soft wings cuddled her from behind. “Nopony could predict. We all treated the whole thing too lightly. It’s neither Misty’s fault nor yours.”

“But we came here to give her a hand, Flo. Isn’t that what the friends normally do?”

“Then we must figure out how to…” Flaunty turned her still sobbing sister, wrapping her tightly in the feathery embrace and stroking her unruly mane. “…provide that help.”

9. Back on track

‘Okay, back to our plan: turn this place inside out and find what horrible mystery lead to that… corruption!’

Upon that thought, the unicorn filly found the strength to raise on her hooves finally. The quick “consistency check” showed that her camera was still on her neck, but what was more important – she kept holding the flashlight. The click called a beam of light to life and allowed Misty to see that everything in the class remained as they left it.

‘That’s maybe the neatest place in the whole abandoned building,’ that thought made Misty smile faintly. ‘Interesting… isn’t it directly connected to the character of its “owner”?’ The sudden remembrance that the place could have changed the endless array of owners throughout that thousand years struck her; however, the girl felt that her initial assumption must be right despite all its incredibility.

‘So, you really taught the Princesses,’ Misty sighed. ‘Maybe more the one, than another…’ she felt, how she began blushing again. ‘But you were to leave that prestigious job… I guess, there were reasons for that… escape.’

‘What made you come all the way down to…’ deep inside Misty was sure that the mare from her vision and the ghost, chasing them, was the same pony. That had sense. But what lead to that striking difference sprouting?

Before opening the door, Misty turned off her flashlight, letting her eyes accommodate to the darkness again. It would be an epitome of carelessness – to exit into the dark corridor with some light source, signalling at once of her presence and location. One thing she learned for sure – that place wasn’t simple; nopony knew who could wait for her, there wasn’t any reason to ease their task.

Carefully, trying to avoid the tiniest sound of the latch, Misty opened the class door… and froze. The old school managed to surprise her again. The hallway wasn’t pitch black, as she could expect that late in the night. A few lamps on the ceiling, scattered here and there, worked, strobing a little and giving the faint uneven light.

“So, it’s getting progressively worse,” muttered Misty. The mere fact that everything around her turned more time-beaten than on their previous visit, dramatically contrasting the neatness of the art class interior, revealed that the school must have been living its own life. The girl even looked over her shoulder to confirm that the class was still looking the same. Outside of it, the walls looked peeled and scratched, the doors time-worn and dried out on their rusty hinges.

‘If they screech, that’ll be the worst fail!’ glimpsed in Misty’s mind.

She decided not to test her luck and use the nearest stairs instead. On the tips of her hooves, Misty headed left and accurately pushed the door. Fortunately, there were no obstacles within sight. The dim light from the hallway seemed to emphasize the twilight in the corners, not dispelling it. Remembering about the suddenly appearing barricade, Misty turned on her flashlight and examined the stairs as far as the eye reached.

A lamp buzzed and went out in the far end of the long corridor, catching Misty amidst bracing herself before the descent. The light gust of wind made the hallway sigh audibly, disturbing the dust on the floor. Grasping the flashlight tighter, Misty rushed down without the second thought.

The first floor met her with the same progressing decay and gloom: the blinking light barely allowed to see the hallway with toppled and broken furniture, which appeared here and there, partially blocking the passage, some doors were still open and the flashes told about ongoing thunderstorm outside. The air there seemed especially stuffy, smelling of dust and old paper, the feeling she didn’t have before.

Anyway, finding the suitable hiding place was the more urgent problem, as Misty was sure that the ghostly mare was after her and hearing the lone confident hoofsteps nearby was the matter of time. However, being caught wasn’t in the girl’s plans, regardless of the ghost’s motives and aims. Finding her friends was her priority; supposedly, that called for staying safe as long as she could and searching for clues.

Misty was to admit that she didn’t have guts to hide in the biology class, where the skeletons would judgingly watch her moves through their empty eye-sockets. Her flashlight slid across them, leaving the girl a faint thought that she was losing sight of something important. But some gut feeling that she couldn’t waste time made her proceed.

The first room suiting her needs was the large open class they examined before. Throwing two quick glances into both ends of the hallway, Misty directed her flashlight inside. She was expecting that already, yet winced slightly anyway. Evidently, the room changed, the desks, chairs and cabinets were scattered around chaotically. Surprisingly, it gave more opportunities for hiding, not leaving an unobstructed look from the door to every corner of the classroom.

Deciding to check one idea, Misty reached and turned the light switch on the wall. Half of the lamps suddenly turned on, lighting the class and revealing better its ravaged state.

‘Strange, no lights worked before…’ flew in her head, but with the aid of light Misty recognized the room at once, when she saw the familiar drawing on the large blackboard. Two figures and “Fillycuddler”. But she had wiped them off!

‘What the…’

The sound reaching her ears from the stairs didn’t let the filly analyze the situation. Slowly opening door apparently made Misty’s blood freeze in the veins for a fraction of second. The next moment the girl hit the switch, inwardly praying for the change of light not being too visible; throwing a chair off her way, she rushed under the piled-up desks at the opposite wall near the window. One, the largest, had the closed construction, capable of hiding the filly huddled under it.

Trembling, Misty turned off the flashlight, trying to hold her mouth closed to avoid teeth-rattling or an accident groan of fear – she fancied the familiar hoofsteps from the hallway already.

The hoofsteps slowly approached, but she heard them worse and worse because of the increasing noise of rushing blood in her ears.

‘Is she searching for me?!’

The steps stopped, supposedly at the door of the nearest room, and fell silent for a while, then began approaching to her class.

Closer.

And closer.

Somepony entered the room and stopped again. The next moment something, that Misty least expected, happened – the lights turned on again. Without the click of the switch, simply as by itself. And the hoofsteps moved along the room. Somepony sighed; it sounded almost like a normal mare sigh, full of sadness and anguish. Misty felt as if somepony was whispering in her ears when the steps passed her hiding spot, or maybe it was the blood noise at its loudest.

Another sigh sounded like “TIAAAAAAAAAHHHH!” for the scared and almost fainting girl.

And then… Misty heard the girly gasp of wrath. The hoofsteps rattled to the far end of the class, where the large blackboard was.

A loud hit on wood!

Silence blanketed Misty as she fainted.

***

“…and you may rely on full support from me personally and the teaching staff, mademoiselle Von Selle,” a tall stallion in a very old-fashioned suit watched the streams of water, running down the small glass panels in the peculiar wooden window frame. Far away, across the freshly planted and growing park, behind the brick wall with forged metalwork, the wooden houses, varied in size and form, stood veiled with the foggy cloak of rain. The low grey sky full of running clouds told that it was at least the middle of autumn. “Our school is new and developing, but the enthusiasm of the colleagues is truly inspiring, just what the growing town needs. The only position we were missing was the art teacher, but…”

The stallion turned back to his large and broad like a landing line desk to face the young unicorn mare sitting across in the comfortable armchair. Her elegant dress was probably even more old-fashioned than her collocutor’s clothes; bringing her thin fingers together, she watched and listened to the principal with polite interest.

“But I could never imagine getting somepony as skilled and famous as you, miss!” the stallion beamed a smile, still unsure of his luck. “I beg your pardon, but I can’t manage to lay in my head that you left your position in the castle. Teaching the Royal Sisters! Isn’t it something any of us may only dream to approach.” He spread his arms, shaking his long mane cut; the glasses shone, reflecting the light of several gas lamps on the walls of the large study, surrounded by the bookcases and filing boxes.

“Believe me, sir, there were reasons,” the mare quietly downcasted. “Not because of the princesses. Harmony forbid! If it was purely up to my will, I would never leave my dear girls.”

“I see,” nodded the principal, taking his seat. “So, forgive me some lack of tact, the information about problems between you, miss Von Selle, and your fiancé…”

“Not anymore,” she allowed herself a tiny smile, while the faint shadow glimpsed in her beautiful eyes. “The veil finally fell from my view.”

“I’m ready to give myself to the new work entirely,” the mare nodded determinedly. “Despite the remaining sadness,” added she under her breath.

“Awesome!” principal’s eyes shone behind the glasses, then he hesitated, remembering something. “However, I can’t guarantee your safety, miss, except maybe within the school grounds. Apologies!”

“Oh! I extend my hope that won’t be necessary! I’m heartily grateful for the concern, sir!”

“So, it’s a deal. Do you like the conditions? Please, tell you do and plan to accept!” the stallion blinked, watching her hopefully.

“Of course, I do!” the long eyelashes batted, miss Von Selle got up from the armchair with the light rustle of her dress. “Thank you, sir!”

“Oh, I’m not sure if you are the one who needs to be thankful here,” the principal almost jumped to his hooves, following the mare to the door. “Go and create, mademoiselle. I have high hopes for the results of your work!”

***

Cheerful singing of the birds in the lush spring foliage behind the window couldn’t dispel the depressive and gloomy atmosphere in the office. The bright sunlight danced on the large table, littered with the papers as if nopony touched them for several days at least. But it couldn’t dissolve the deep shadows clouding around the hunched figure of the principal. The stallion sat in his armchair, leaning on the desk heavily and running his fingers through the mane, which looked greyed to those who knew him well.

Probably he sat that way for a while, as one of the guards in recognizable antique police uniform, standing in front of principal’s desk, decided to remind of themselves and coughed tactfully. The stallion winced and raised his glance, looking seemingly through the guards. Slowly, as if specifically making some effort for that, he rubbed his nose bridge and picked up the glasses from the papers in front of him. Gaining his attention the police officer continued.

“You shouldn’t worry, we’re doing everything possible… Including avoidance of excessive information leakage.”

“Damn the school’s reputation!” closing his eyes again, the stallion slowly started to boil, a small vein throbbed on his temple from barely restraining temper. “One of our best teachers went missing! Better or worse reputation won’t return miss Von Selle… And the police tells me I shouldn’t worry?!”

“Excuse me, but I should worry!” he grabbed the edge of the desk, forcefully leaning forward and glaring at the officials. “I must know what’s going on! What you found… if you did…” he smirked bitterly.

“The vague evidence doesn’t allow to build a clear image. The police are still working,” calmly stated one of the guards, those two got used to the wide variety of reactions, keeping unflappable face regardless of their real feelings. “Unfortunately the existing trails are scarce… A few blood stains in the swimming pool allow us to assume that the incident might have started there. But the trails in the left wing are massive, whoever that was, they were heavily wounded. However, no other evidence is yet found.”

“We recommend to restrict students and staff access to these areas for a while longer, while the investigation is still in progress,” added another guard after principal’s heavy sigh and put a tagged ring of keys onto the papers.

“I can restrict the pool usage as long as it’s necessary,” the principal raised his glance at them again. “But the left wing… I can’t stop the students using our library, that would break the studying process.”

“We understand, sir,” with imperturbable look nodded the officer. “Restrict the basement access at least. That’s the area to be examined thoroughly yet!”

The principal only waved his hand tiredly.

10. Closer to the goal

“Ohhhh!” Misty Lagoon winced, regaining the consciousness; her entire body went numb, curled under the table. ‘How long did I stay senseless?’

She carefully listened for a while, until the signals of necessity to straighten became painful. With a quiet moan Misty half-rolled half-crawled from under her confined cover. Nothing disturbed the dark silence around. Misty raised on her hooves and was to grab onto the edge of the furniture pile, as millions of tiny needles pricked her legs – her blood flow was finally restoring. The familiar rainstorm behind the window told her that she wasn’t out of senses too long.

Terror chilled girl’s blood at the thought, what could have happened if she had been found during her unconscious time. Checking her flashlight, Misty found out that it was still working. Thankfully she held it close to her chest, when fainted, thus managed not to crash it against the floor. Examining the room with the beam of light, the girl froze shining the blackboard, goosebumps ran up her back again – there was a large indentation at the place of former drawing, the wood concaved covering in a web of cracks. How much force and rage one needed to put into that blow?

However, she was still alive. The girl wanted to believe the same regarding her friends. But there should be some reason for such strange behaviour of the ghost.

‘That vision. It was so vivid!’ Misty remembered the details, waiting till she could feel her legs entirely. The image of that mare stood in front of her inner sight, tying the parts into the coherent whole. ‘So, the mare on the sketches they found, princesses’ teacher and the missing teacher of Canterton High are the one actual pony – Fran Von Selle… No wonder I recalled the name sounding Prench…’

Getting around the furniture barricade, the girl took a few more confident steps to the class door.

‘I need to get into the principal’s office!’ that thought was the most natural within given circumstances. ‘There is a chance, I can find the missing details.’ Her heart skipped a beat from the next daring thought. ‘Knowing everything I may be able to face the ghost and help my friends getting out!’ Her own sudden teleportation to the art class told Misty that her friends may easily be scattered somewhere inside that creepy building, unable to find the exit.

‘Anyway, I’d better have the ghost of Fran (she called her that, almost assured of the correctness of the assumption) behind me, than somewhere ahead in the unknown place,’ Misty was to admit, approaching the door and bracing herself to grab the handle.

However, the hallway, when she peeked through the slightly opened door, was empty, except the same furniture rubble, barely lit by slowly blinking lamps. The girl pocketed her flashlight and sneaked to the stairs, doing her best not to pull or hit anything. Misty entirely turned into ears, ready to rush into the nearest nook at the first strange sound. It seemed to take her an eternity to reach the aim, moving that slowly.

‘Now, careful!’ she tried to calm down the racing heart, putting both hands on the door handle; biting her lip from tension, Misty slowly pulled the door upwards a bit, turning the knob and opening at the same time not to produce even the tiniest sound.

The stairwell was echoing. Too loud to be safe. Holding her breath, Misty was to plan each step, each movement. When she reached the landing between floors, sound from the hallway above almost gave her a seizure. First, something fell on the floor and rolled, followed by the sound of flapping wings, panicky flouncing among the obstacles they occasionally bumped into. The high pitch shriek, ripping the silence shortly after, made Misty shiver all over. Rattling hoofsteps rushed towards the sounds, thankfully they receded from the girl, which felt dying inside a little. Something large hit the wall with a deafening crash as if a bookcase was thrown across the room. The glass shards rained on the floor.

By some miracle, Misty unfroze during the moment of raging destruction above; the idea to use it for cover dawned at her and the girl dashed downstairs, jumping over several steps at once.

‘Finally! The ground floor!’ Misty snuggled to the wall of the students’ lobby, hiding behind the column, and listened. ‘Never ever I will now say anything bad about the birds,’ chuckled she inwardly. Meanwhile, the rumbling above faded, but at least she knew, where the enemy was last time.

‘Was she an enemy ever?’ wondered Misty genuinely. At times she felt as if guided by the ghost. ‘By all means, she could do that in a more civilized way though!’

From her place Misty saw the locked principal’s office. Pondering in her hideout couldn’t solve the main problem: she was to open that door without the key, simply saying, break through. Naturally, that gave Misty a few seconds, before the ghostly mare could reach her.

‘One or two actually…’

That called for some planning. The filly already decided to use the same flame extinguisher shimmering in the flashes of lightning on the school vestibule floor.

‘I have time for one strong hit!’ decided Misty, examining the office door closer. A row of lockers behind her back offered a hideout of some kind. Pretty lame as the girl was to admit, but she wouldn’t be able to reach anything else in time.

The metal cylinder was truly heavy: dragging it to the door Misty regretted that she wasn’t as strong as Windy or Flaunty. She swallowed a lump, driving the concerns and tears deeper inside, and inhaled.

The extinguisher hit the lock downwards with a loud crash, knocking out a spark: the lock fell in two parts, one fell inside and the metal handle dinged under Misty’s hooves.

“HIYA!” miraculously not dropping the heavy thing, Misty forcefully threw it further into the corridor, producing even more noise. What she heard from the upper floor told her to hurry. In a wink Misty rushed into one of the lockers; catching the small barred window on top, she forcefully slammed it. Thankfully the doors were tight enough to stay closed.

With bated breath, Misty could see a small part of the hallway through the slanted metal slats. The followed silence, broken only by the muffled thunder outside, was deafening. In a moment, seeming eternity for her, the girl heard the familiar dripping, the metallic smell trailed up her nostrils. It sounded as if somepony squeezed themselves through a narrow fleshy gap and softly fell on the floor right from the ceiling on the left, outside of her view. Misty was on the verge of fainting when the barely discernible whispering reached her ears. Or maybe they were groans of pain. Or maybe they were just in her head…

The girl felt herself again when the hoofsteps began approaching slowly. Somepony ran something sharp across the locker doors, making them tremble and rattle. Misty choked on air.

‘Pull yourself together, you foal!’ gritting her teeth, Misty backed up into the shadow, doing her best not to touch the locker walls or door. ‘A bit more and I turn into plaice… Please, please, just don’t look inside!’

Misty muffled herself with both hands not to squeal like mad when with a heavy sigh the fingers dragged and scratched on the surface of her locker… She could see the flowing mane of the ghost mare overshadowing the barred opening; the glint of light in her wide-open eyes peering along the hallway. Then, as suddenly as it clawed, the terror released her, girl’s head cleared, as the shadowy figure left her view, the rattling of the lockers distanced and finally faded.

Feeling like a jelly, Misty leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment; her body slowly remembered how to breathe and drive the blood through the veins. It started brightening under her closed eyelids…

The corridor seemed endless, blending into the smudged array of doors, lockers and dim lamps under the ceiling. She ran like never did in her life. Her breath trembled from terror and daze, her heart thumped heavily, tears trailed down her cheeks. On that race for her life, she looked over the shoulder once, throwing away from her face several strands escaping her manedo – the hoofsteps, echoing in the hallway, were not only her own. Unable to hold a scream inside, she found out that her chaser was closer than she thought. Pressing one hand to her billowing chest, she picked up the hem of her long old-fashioned dress in the desperate attempt to double the speed. The silhouette behind her back was shortening the distance menacingly.

Gasping for air, she dashed around the corner, storming into the double doors and entering the swimming pool. Something forcefully hit the doors from another side, making her stagger.

“Caught ya! End of the story…” a dark stallion figure tumbled into the room behind her. He breathed heavily, but found the effort to squeeze out an insane grin; dim light shone in his eyes. “Did you think you could get away with that?” the tint of festivity in his voice was unbearable.

“What else do you need?” she inhaled, sucking the air convulsively, trying to stay calm and reasonable, but realizing at the sound of her voice that she failed terribly. “It’s all history. I left them before we met, the rest is none of your business. I broke… with her completely, understanding the reasons against our feelings. I left Celly!!!”

“Celly? You still call her Celly,” bitterly muttered the stallion. Then his eyes shone bright and he shouted, unable to hold it. “That was never enough! You always loved her! You always belonged to her! Don’t lie to yourself at least… And I… I was the backup resort, right? RIGHT?! Every time I caressed you, Fran, I saw her reflection in your eyes,” for the short moment he looked pitiful and devastated, almost adequate.

“I tried…” quietly repeated she, finally regaining her breath. “But you ruined everything! You exactly convinced yourself of losing to a filly…”

“Shut it!” a strong hit threw her on the floor; filling with blood a scratch swelled on her cheekbone, making “Misty” raise the hand to shield her face. Amazedly she stared at the unfamiliar thin delicate fingers trying to protect her from the stranger’s rage. The stallion glared at his ring and pulled it off the finger furiously, throwing away with a clang. “Shut up, Fran!”

“I know the reasons making you reconsider going out with that filly!” there was nothing normal left in his look at that moment. “Know what, I can make you capable to wait, till the alicorn princess becomes legal!” a long thin curved stiletto appeared in his hand, shining as one with his mad glance and grin.

“AHHH!!!” Misty couldn’t hold her gasp inside, her heart was ready to jump out of her chest and a few seconds she simply caught the air like a fish thrown on the shore. Shivering, she raised her hand and tried to push the locker door with the trembling fingers… succeeding from the third attempt only.

That vision frazzled her completely, at the same time, it gave almost all of the answers. Even the grimmest ones. Except for maybe one answer – ‘Where’. But Misty thought, she managed to find that one herself.

11. Fran's fragile feelings

The key to that answer, literally, might be in a few steps from her. But it took a titanic effort to gather herself and try leaving the locker on unbending legs. At first, Misty couldn’t… The simple feeling that something held her almost gave the girl a heart attack when she pulled and felt that her jean jacket was caught by something.

Misty pulled spastically: hearing the sound of tearing cloth was a blessing, as she realized that she caught some screw or metal burr with her clothes. Taking the flashlight in her mouth, the girl simply slid out of the jacket, leaving it hanging inside the hapless locker. She threw a quick glance back, almost automatically noting the four deep lines of scratches across the whole row of lockers. Strangely, that didn’t scare Misty anymore, an impulse of compassion squeezed her heart instead.

‘If I were Fran, I certainly would have run amok as well! Dealing with such visitors like those three colts for a thousand years…’

The principal’s office looked very similar to what Misty imagined, or better say, to what she saw in her vision. The decoration and the lightening changed, becoming modern, but the desk remained wide and occupied, the bookcases still rowed the walls, only their style changed, not the quantity and contents.

The keyring with several keys rested on the desk over some file, as if it was left there by the principal a day before. Misty grabbed it in a wink, then picked up the file, devoting it some attention.

‘Mademoiselle Fran Von Selle… date of birth…’ Misty stared on the year separated from hers with more than a thousand. ‘Region of birth: Prance… Career history…’ the short but impressive list was crowned by the expected “Private tutoring of Royal sisters, princesses Celestia Aurora of Equestria and Luna Selena of Equestria.”

‘How many realities… or levels of one reality… does that school exist in?’ flashed in Misty’s head.

The cold draught brushed the sheets of the personal file left on the immense desk, while the finally confident hoofsteps receded along the hallway. Misty didn’t know how she would act exactly, but she decided that it wouldn’t become an obstacle on her road to the truth and friends’ freedom.

‘I will do as the situation demands and… Harmony help me please!’

The first door into the left wing was unlocked and opened easily by the simple push of the girl’s hand. The new corridor strangely had only a few doors on the left and the single one in the far end. The light was the same – dim and blinking as if the lamps got tired of years of lighting the desolation. Misty quickly found out that all the doors on her left led to the library: large, long, filled with desks on the front edge and a huge labyrinth of bookcases on its background. Those doors were unlocked. Naturally, Misty headed to the only door left, which might give her desired answers.

She was to try almost the whole ring of the unmarked keys when one of them suited the lock.

‘The rest of the building was rebuilt several times, if there is a part, which may bear some real remnants of the past, it’s the basement most likely!’ Misty turned the key, feeling the easiness of surprisingly well-maintained mechanism; with a quiet click the door opened, revealing the long stairs.

Surprisingly, the lighting was better there, more pronounced at least; pocketing the useless now flashlight, Misty put her hoof on the first step.

Nothing awful happened.

However, the further she descended the stronger was her feeling that she did right, that everything must be sorted out there, in the long unevenly lit basement.

Misty stopped on the last step, taking a look around. The basement was definitely refurbished at least once. Modern materials covered the walls of the long, low in comparison to the upper floors, hall. If there were any ancient parts, they were somewhat decorated and modernized. The long room was mostly filled with the furniture of varied wear-out degree, leaving a spacious enough passage in the middle. The left wall was blank, several doors were to the right, leading supposedly to the storage rooms. Suitable passages led to each to provide room for transporting things in and out.

The filly forced a lump down her throat – the familiar tall figure with flowing mane and tail was minding her business in the middle of the long hall. It looked hovering above the floor, but not that menacing in the light. For the first time, Misty felt something resembling sympathy for this creature, cursed to ramble the old school grounds for ages. Neither Misty’s feelings, nor the image of the blood-covered naked mare, nothing could shatter her determination.

‘Thinking of it, she isn’t that frightening, rather truly deserving compassion at last…’ taking her breath, Misty walked into the spot of brighter light under the ceiling lamp. She thought that without obvious signs of threatening the mare looked almost beautiful if one could ignore the blood covering her all over.

“Errmmm… Fran?” her voice sounded to Misty too unconfident and she took an effort to clear her throat and repeat. “Fran? Miss Von Selle, right?!”

To her surprise, the ghostly figure almost winced at the sound of her name. In a wink, with a light hiss, she turned to the newcomer, leaning forward and glaring at the filly. The dark eyes of the mare focused on the girl, standing in the light, and something new shone in them. Her sight travelled along Misty’s figure, noting the details, and the lips of the ghostly mare trembled.

Did Misty just spot two small dimples on the blood-stained cheeks?!

The figure suddenly lit from inside brightly, making Misty shade her eyes with the hand. When the glow faded, the dumbfounded girl was able to watch a tall mare in a relatively modern suit: a white blouse, a belted black skirt, stockings and low-heeled shoes – the same image they with girls saw on the upper floor, running from the rainstorm.

“You’re not her… But you resemble her so much!” the dark-crimson eyes took another look over Misty and the mare let out a tiny smile. “I wasn’t mistaken in you… Misty, right?”

Misty nodded convulsively, then braced herself and made a few steps more towards the ghost, having to admit the latter looked almost like a common teacher, Misty could meet every day in her own school. Probably except miss Singularity, who was anything but common.

“You’re Fran Von Selle?” semi-affirmatively asked the girl. “An artist, model, art teacher here in Canterton High.” The mare looked at her evaluatively. “You’ve tutored the princesses, miss Von Selle… and were to leave that job for this one suddenly. And then… then…” Misty felt that she couldn’t continue, as if some hand squeezed her throat; she swallowed. “Did you want me to do something?”

The long eyelashes fluttered.

‘Why is she silent?’ Misty couldn’t comprehend. ‘She didn’t show me all those things for nothing!’ She asked aloud. “You can’t tell? You are still here, Fran, and… your silence… it’s the part of the… thing, curse binding you with the place.”

The same barely noticeable gesture again.

“Can I come closer?” Misty felt suddenly braver.

“Of course, you can… dear,” Fran glanced at her with wide-open eyes, astounding the girl with the depth of sadness filling them. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Actually, you are even free to leave, if you decide,” added the mare quietly. “I’m not going to stop you… Not anymore…”

For a moment Misty froze like thunderstruck. She was free to go! Were her friends also?

“I want to help! That is what you need, miss Von Selle. But I don’t know yet how to…” Misty shook her head, approaching. Then she did what she would consider absolutely insane only an hour ago.

Misty outstretched her arm.

Dropped it halfway in the air confusedly. But the curiosity and some other, unbeknown yet to her, impulse made Misty reconsider and dare.

She raised her arm again and… touched the mare lightly.

To her surprise, Misty’s fingers met the solid object. No, not exactly that. They met the soft and… warm arm; Misty felt as if her hand was lit by the direct sunlight.

“It takes quite an effort to stay like that!” with a tiny smile Fran seemed to read the reason for Misty’s bewilderment in her widened eyes. “And I’m fine with being called Fran, dear.” The hand touched the girl’s cheek gently. “But it’s easier to stay warm and sensible with your proximity and touch…” sparkles danced in Fran’s eyes.

“I-I have a request though… You don’t need all of us, miss… Fran. Please, let my friends go. I will do what I can…” Misty caught herself on stroking lightly mare’s arm first, then shoulder. She flushed brightly on realization… but didn’t remove her hand. Somehow Misty didn’t want to remove it.

“That can be done easily,” nodded miss Von Selle. “As I said, I’m not going to hold any of you. I’ll guide the girls to the school entrance at once,” she watched Misty with interest.

“They can leave freely, can’t they?” the unicorn girl kept insisting.

“Let’s see, what happens. I don’t think that your friends are primitive.” Miss Von Selle added in half-tone, running her thin fingers through Misty’s mane, brushing it musingly.

“Thank you, Fran!” whispered Misty, she looked up into the mare’s eyes. “Tell me please, what… what you can tell?”

“You already made proper conclusions, dear,” the mare stepped back a little and took a seat on the edge of a large table pushed against the wall, “ with one small exception. It took me a couple of years between leaving the castle and getting that particular job in Canterton High. The school had just opened and I would probably never apply, under different circumstances, because of my sentiments.” Fran downcasted and elaborated after a short moment of silence. “I tried to recompose, to cut some period out of my life, to forget and release. I met a stallion, who first looked reliable and level-headed to me…”

Misty climbed on the table and sat there with legs tucked under herself, she hesitated for a second and then took Fran’s hand, making the mare glance at her amazedly.

“Sweet Ce… Oh!” Fran flushed in confusion, shocking Misty, who thought that ghosts, despite how realistic they looked, couldn’t show their sentiments in such a complex way. “I was so mistaken… Somehow he found out about my relationship with Celly. That completely changed everything about us… I tried as much as I could, seeing things getting only worse – he interpreted each of my acts as the evidence of my continued binding to the girl – I decided to part ways with him.”

“But how one can completely cut the part of their memories, especially the happy ones?” Misty sat with wide-open eyes. “At the end of the day, they are just that… memories.”

“I wanted to keep them to myself,” sadly nodded Fran. “And move on. But I guess I failed at choosing the one to support me.” She waved her mane dispelling the memory. “I left, he didn’t want to leave everything as it was and started hunting me. This school was my hideout and at the same time the only method to keep sane and go on. A few students were truly amazing, both like growing artists and personality-wise. I felt that I started breathing finally…” Fran let out a tiny smile. “But I couldn’t stop thinking of her… I saw her inspiration and passion in some of my new students and tried to cultivate it.”

“We saw a couple of drafts,” confessed Misty, looking at Fran admiringly, “quite masterful.”

“I guess, one of them ironically ruined my life,” the mare-artist let out a sad smile.

“How come?..” flushing brightly, Misty moved closer and squeezed Fran’s hand.

“One day, after the lessons, colleagues told me that a stallion was asking about me,” Fran sighed. “They offered him to wait, but he left shortly after. However, he visited the Teacher Room and… Well, you girls, might have noticed that my desk was easy to distinguish,” she smirked sadly.

“I didn’t pay due attention to that… to my own doom. Was working on the study plan and stayed late. Not the first time, but… it appeared to be the last one,” Fran fell silent for a while, Misty’s eyes glistened strangely. “I don’t know how he got in, the doors were locked… The rest… well, you saw, Misty.”

“W-what… what’s about that “can make you wait” thing?” Misty asked, coping with her voice and sniffing loudly.

A faint shadow ran across mare’s face, her eyes darkened for a fraction of second, but when she raised her eyes on Misty, she looked at her almost tenderly.

“Oh!” Fran smirked bitterly. “He got into his head that the main reasons I left the princess were her age and position…” She glanced at the filly seriously. “He knew well what would happen… and came with the perfectly thought-out plan. That was his revenge and… as no doubt he considered it, his twisted gift!” the mare closed her eyes.

Some noise from the basement stairs made them both turn their heads…

12. Reunion

The tiled floor was cold, but Flaunty Mane didn’t notice that; exhausted she sat in the corner of one of the shower booths, leaning on the wall and holding Windy in her soft embrace. For the last half of an hour, the sisters tried seemingly everything to escape that damp dimly lit prison. They tried their best to break one of the doors or at least the lock on it, but by some sinister will those doors held as steadfastly as the exit doors of the school. Hooves didn’t make a dent on them, the torn off plank from one of the booths, put into the frame gap and used as a lever, didn’t make much difference either.

“Know what?” after trying everything tiredly said Windy. “Somepony led us into that trap and now has time to deal with Misty and Lacy freely… What if we try to distract them… or even better, attract her or him here. Let’s make some noise, Flo! Maybe they think that we are escaping… I hope they come to check up on us and then…” Windy raised the eyebrow meaningfully.

Not losing time, she strained her arms and ripped a long metal-coated shower hose from the wall, quickly reeling it on her fist and arm like improvised brass knuckles. They had no better plan anyway and Flaunty gripped the plank more handily.

“Let’s do it!” commanded Windy promisingly.

The next few minutes they produced the noise as if the whole showers was devastated from inside by some carpet bombing, at the same time not inflicting much damage, but shouting and brattling like mad. When considerable forces were spent and the stash of the most horrible swearwords, the girls could afford using within each other witness, was depleted, yet nopony came to check out, what the hell was going on there, the pegasi fillies felt certainly discouraged.

“What do you think? Will anypony react?” Windy tiredly leaned on the wall and listened up to the door. “I would like to hope that we at least distracted whomever it was from Misty and Lacy a bit…”

“Can’t tell…” frankly replied Flaunty; she held the plank like a spear, but visibly fizzled out. Tiredly she sat into the corner of one booth and leaned back, closing her eyes. In a moment she felt the soft cuddle of her sister resting her head on Flaunty’s shoulder.

“Sorry, sis. I’m out of ideas either…”

The girls fell silent, sitting that way for an indefinite time, until Flaunty realized that Windy travelled off to Lunaland in her arms, twitching nervously in her superficial sleep. Flaunty held herself awake with the last bits of strength, occasionally feeling that she is about to slip into the dreamy abyss as well.

The shower started working all of a sudden, unexpectedly the sprinklers erupted the streams of warm water, which soaked into the girls’ clothes before they could gather with thoughts.

“What the actual hay?!” Windy muttered grumpily through her sleep, trying to snuggle a hideout from the sudden bath on sister’s chest. “Blimey!” she woke up completely, shielding the face from the running water.

In a second the girls jumped on their hooves, Flaunty picked up the plank, Windy clenched the wrapped with the hose fist. The room quickly filled with the dense steam, making it completely opaque at the minimal distance.

“Don’t you tell, it’s that shit starts happening again!” blurted Windy. “Flaunty! Sis!” her palm grabbed the void. The next moment she felt as if she was jerked and dragged somewhere forcefully but accurately, through the milky haze.

An hour passed or maybe more, Lacy lost the feeling of time already, as she lost count to the vines she managed to cut. Almost becoming akin with her knife, the girl made numerous attempts to reach the exit. The vegetal enemy suffered considerable losses during each of her attacks, littering the floor of the greenhouse with leaves and parts of its stems, but didn’t let her through to the walls. As if it knew that Lacy ditched her scrupulosity long ago and would break any of the windows, if she got near them, not needing the door.

Lacy felt that her efforts were like watering the sand: the vines didn’t show any aggression themselves so far, but the girl exhausted herself, becoming slower with each try. She couldn’t chop them endlessly, but each time Lacy retreated, the vines left her alone, patching the gaps she made so hard. In their turn, the vines clung to her clothes each time she confronted them. Thus Lacy’s jeans were covered with numerous cuts and holes; the lower half of her sweater was ripped to shreds already, a few tears flaunted on its top, making it reveal more than it was supposed to cover. During one the timeouts, she tore off all the scallops, so her sweater was ending now barely under her breasts.

At the same time Lacy was to admit that, except several accidental scratches, the vines didn’t do her much personal damage. Maybe her self-esteem a little. It looked as if their main purpose was to hold her at that place, making the girl waste energy only.

Lacy took a rest, returning to her safe corner. Again. Watching the still vines, she pondered.

‘Maybe the sole purpose of those is to keep me away from my friends… What an irony in that chosen method,’ she chuckled inwardly. ‘Interesting, what are Misty, Flaunty and Windy experiencing in their turn?’

The thought about the girls cheered Lacy up and she planned to undertake another sortie, pondering if trying to cut through the very edge of verdure near her resting spot was more perspective for reaching the glass parts of the greenhouse and pushing them out.

Suddenly the vines attacked. As a fact, it wasn’t a surprise for Lacy, as she predicted something alike to happen at some point of their confrontation. However, the number of simultaneous enemies that time was incomparable, the stems seemed to rush towards her from all the directions at once. With a loud battle cry and doubled frenzy, the filly began to chop off the vines reaching out to her…

The fight was unbalanced though: too many directions to control lead to Lacy finding herself completely swaddled after a few minutes of hot battle. Her right arm with the knife was accurately restrained and kept at a distance from her body.

‘Damned weeds!’ with darkening sight, Lacy registered some movement downwards, when the dense mist clouded everything.

Surprisingly nothing awful happened, when her vision returned fully, Lacy found herself in front of the vestibule, on the ground floor of the infamous school. The familiar voice from behind made her jump on the spot.

“Wow! Look who’s back! Flo, it returned Lacy as well…”

The pegasi sisters stared at Lacy, who cautiously kept her knife on guard. They exchanged glances and Windy scratched the nape, addressing nopony in particular, more like pondering aloud.

“Is it really you? You seemed to fall through the ceiling…”

With those words, Windy approached and poked Lacy with her finger a little as if checking if that wasn’t an illusion.

“Oh!” exclaimed both. Lacy unfroze from the sudden poke in her bare stomach and lowered her knife, Windy finally noticed the look of her friend and snorted. “Looks that you had your own bit of adventure…” she flushed lightly. “Are you okay, Lacy?”

“Would you look at yourself then?” sarcastically noted the earth filly, fruitlessly trying to pull the remnants of her sweater a bit lower and almost making it fall apart instead.

The sisters didn’t look any tidier. Knee-socks and legwarmers were soaking wet, Windy’s jacket hung on her shoulders like a shapeless sack, dripping water on the floor, wet skirts stuck to the hips. In addition to that, the wet manes become fluffy. Flaunty’s shirt and Windy’s top became transparent from all the water – sticking tight to their bodies and breasts, making the pink hardened nipples protrude through the wet stretched fabric. Small water drops glistened on their skin in the flashes of thunderstorm, which started to die out.

“Well, okay, it doesn’t matter!” At first, Windy flushed brightly, but ignored that in a moment and squeezed Lacy in a hug.

“Girls!” Flaunty dropped over her shoulder. She stood with arms crossed on her chest and watched the exit pensively, not being distracted by the hugging fillies behind. “I think I won’t be mistaken, assuming that the doors aren’t locked now.”

“Huh?!” Windy stopped ruffling Lacy’s mane and looked at her sister. “I’m not going to leave without Misty anyway…”

“So do I!” Lacy’s arms were still wrapped around her pegasus friend.

“I’m not suggesting the opposite. On the contrary, we need to find Misty as soon as possible,” Flaunty turned to them, glancing at the girls seriously. “I mean that it’s most likely her actions leading to these changes… Things become more and more interesting,” she smirked, swaying her long mane back.

The girls rushed into the main hallway already. Lacy spoke first.

“Look! The principal’s office is open!”

They gathered around the knocked out door and exchanged glances.

“We visited all the places in this building,” muttered Flaunty. “First we supposed, this office could conceal more clues or even real keys, missing on the key holder. If it’s open, moreover, if that’s Misty, who broke in, then it means…”

“…that some other part of the school, we haven’t been to, may be opened now,” Windy ended for her, squinting.

“The left wing…” quietly but firmly suggested Lacy, pointing her thumb over the shoulder. “Let’s check it.”

“Are you ready?” she took out her knife again, probing the blade.

“Aye, ma’am!” smirked Windy, examining the metalized hose still wrapped around her arm; Flaunty grabbed the plank more handily for the better sway.

13. All cards drawn...

“…I don’t know, what exactly happened. Perhaps, if I weren’t a unicorn, the whole curse wouldn’t get that strong… maybe I could simply leave for the better world...”

“But didn’t you try to reach to princess Celestia,” Misty’s voice sounded so compassionately, the girls even exchanged glances of surprise. “She might have thought something out.”

“I can affect the school to a certain extent, but can’t leave the school grounds,” another voice was full of becoming habitual sorrow. “The first few decades I really thought it would be marvellous to reach out to her, but… whatever he had done, that was keeping me grounded.”

“Besides, after a while I was to admit, I would never meet the same girl I knew and loved. I decided against that,” the mare sighed, then added in brighter voice. “You look so similar to her at your age. And at the same time you’re not her, a completely new page in my… afterlife. I… I don’t think I could talk to Celly that freely.”

“What makes you think you can palaver Misty then?!” dropped Windy Mane toughly, emerging from the shadow of the basement stairs. She stepped forward, letting Lacy and Flaunty enter the light as well.

The view of their friend, sitting on the table, cheek by jowl with the unknown mare, which looked like a common teacher, and talking so casually, perplexed all three at first. The mare raised her eyes on them and couldn’t hold a small giggle, watching their widened eyes and confused expressions. The fillies evidently expected some different picture. Giving them their due, they recomposed fast enough, showing their resolve and readiness for the battle.

“See, dear, your friends are ready to stand for you without the second thought!”

“Wait, girls, hold on. I’m okay!” with a disarming smile Misty raised her hand, then waved them to approach.

“Are you really fine, Misty?” Windy shook her wet mane, peering into friend’s eyes intently.

“Not doing anything against your will?..” added Flaunty, her eyes examined both Misty and her collocutor thoroughly.

“Because if… t-that’s the same mare we saw… anything is possible, I guess!” Lacy squeezed the handle of her knife unambiguously.

“It’s fine. I’m okay and… totally conscious about my actions,” Misty repeated meaningfully, while the unicorn mare smiled, visibly having fun because of the fillies suspicions. “Fine enough to notice that you stopped calling me “bud” out of tension, Windy… Nopony is going to hurt you here. Definitely not me or Fran.”

“Are you sure? Because we… met certain communicational difficulties!” insisted Flaunty Mane, but lowered her wooden plank a bit. Noticing that Misty was holding hands with that mare all the time confused the girls. “Assuming that you may be controlled or something was only natural.”

“I beg your pardon, girls,” Fran decided to take part in the negotiation, “unfortunately, I’m bound by certain conventionalities,” she sighed sadly. “Normally I don’t favour the visitors… You see, they come here mostly with nefarious or plain stupid intents, providing disturbance only. You four looked differently almost from the beginning. So, I watched and, truth be told, what I saw started appealing to me. But I needed to be absolutely sure… otherwise it wasn’t worth even trying. Believe me, girls, I would never hurt you, not after the Teacher Room, when I saw, what kind of ponies you were.”

“What’s with all the scaring and chasing and locking us out then?!” Windy stared right into mare’s eyes, finally coming closer.

“I was to be sure, needed to know your own unclouded intentions…” Fran downcasted and, before the girls pondered whether the ghosts could blush, her cheeks started gaining colour. “It was a kind of test for each of you. I’m truly sorry!”

“Believe me, I had plenty of opportunities to harm or banish you from the building, like I did all the time with the lounging or plain felonious visitors,” added she quietly, “but I resorted to none of them.”

“Which can’t be said about our clothes!” said Flaunty, driving Fran into flush even more, when the latter took a better look of the girls. However, Flaunty was smirking already, both her and Lacy came closer. “We’ll see then if we can forgive you!” added she jokingly.

“M-m-may I…” Lacy suddenly asked, stumbling of embarrassment. She held out her arm hesitantly. ‘She looks so unbearably cute when she blushes that way! Squee!!!’

“Sure,” Fran raised her hand with a tiny smile. “If you’re not afraid of me anymore.”

“Oooohhhh!” squeaked Lacy, when their fingers met tenderly. “It’s warm!!!” She looked as if she managed to found a rare, unknown to science flower.

“The warmer the more of you around, not fleeing me,” said Fran and her eyes sparkled wet.

Watching, how two girls already were snuggling to the mare, Flaunty and Misty couldn’t hold back the smile, finally relaxing; Fran closed her eyes and the girls could see how her beautiful lips trembled lightly. Misty woke first, remembering their interrupted talk.

“Fran needs help!” stated she categorically. “She is bound to that school, forced to suffer here,” her voice faltered.

“Then what’s the problem,” Windy looked around actively. “There must be a way to set you free…” she stared at Fran inquiringly. The mare replied with a bright glance, clear and hopeful, her eyelashes trembled slightly and Windy realized that the answer was most certainly “Yes”, but… The filly turned abashed. “I’m sorry…” barely whispered she.

“The worst thing is, she can’t hint me more definitely, than she already did,” Misty regained her breath. “Damn! I feel my hands tied, but it can’t be compared with what you’re constantly going through. This school is your prison…” She watched Fran understandingly, then slid from the table on her hooves, fists clenched in despair.

“Well, girls…” Fran made an effort to brace herself and soften the situation. “It’s not that horrible all the time… I even managed to catch up with times considerably, watching the life passing by. Look,” with an artificially cheerful smile she straightened her blouse.

A bright idea dawned on Misty at that moment.

“Fran,” asked she semi-affirmative, choosing the words carefully to get the desired answer despite the stipulations the ghostly artist was to abide, “it’s the oldest part of the building surviving to present days, right? The least affected by the repairs… not completely rebuilt, right?”

The long eyelashes slowly batted once.

“We will come back!” declared Misty akimbo. “But we need to prepare. This place looks large enough to take much time for the thorough search!” she took a look around the basement. Lacy, Flaunty and Windy quickly nodded in agreement, catching the course of her thoughts at once.

“We will need special equipment to check the walls,” Lacy rubbed her nose.

“Girls!” Fran interrupted their sudden impulse softly, her eyes shone. “You aren’t obliged to do anything… I-I will understand if you abandon that burden.” She hugged Lacy’s shoulders with one arm. “I… simply want to remember you as you are… before you leave!” falling silent, she reached out to Misty’s cheek, touching lightly.

‘I would part with so much for having an older sister like her’ flashed in Misty’s head. ‘Although, with a consanguine sister, I would probably never do, what I’m going to! Who knows…’

Misty bit her lip, light flush flooded her cheeks and nose, the process of making a hard decision was so clearly written in her entire look and posture. The dim lamp on the ceiling right above the company buzzed, then lit brighter with a dry electrical click…

In a flurry Misty rushed to the unicorn mare, her hands fell on Fran’s shoulders. Squinting from that dare, she covered Fran’s lips with her own, running her fingers through the lush mane and nestling with her whole body. Three girls watched in bewilderment, how those two shared their breath, snuggling closer and closer into each other.

With all the vigour Misty gave her entire self to that novel pleasure, her hands slowly travelled all over Fran’s mane and shoulders. When a faint moan escaped Fran’s lips and the delicate hand squeezed Misty tenderly between her shoulder blades, the girl couldn’t hold herself any longer; she moved closer, accidentally but forcefully pushing the table with sitting on it Fran and Lacy, making it bump the wall behind. The pegasi sisters froze, mouths opened in surprise.

14. ...and laid (Explicit content)

“Mhhhh…” Misty staggered, when they parted for air, and snuggled to Fran even closer not to fall; the girl’s cheeks were flaming brightly, eyes hazed from pleasure. “You said… it’s easier to stay warm-h-h… when we are n-near…”

Unable to divert her glance from Misty’s eyes with widened pupils, Fran could only nod faintly, her fingers travelled dreamily across girl’s back. The mare licked her lips, inhaling intermittently.

“Nopony knows, how long it will take…” Misty snuggled her forehead to Fran’s, “to find, what we are looking for and help you. I… I th-thought… maybe I could make the anticipation… easier to overcome!”

Not waiting for an answer, the unicorn filly brought her lips together with Fran’s again, barely touching, feeling them softly, travelling her lips across the mare ones, slowly and sweetly teasing them both. Fran let out a moanful and at the same time lustful sound, catching the girl’s lips yearningly, her breath deepened.

“Misty…” whispered she, eyes half-lidded and cheeks starting to flush. “Misty… Ah… Ah haven’t…” she gasped, when Misty caught her lower lip and bit it tenderly, words became barely discernible, “for… than ten years… Ahhhh… D-don’t… Mmmmm…” her words sank in the sound of delight.

The mare leaned to Misty’s shoulder, kissing her neck and making the girl squeak in surprise; Fran’s knees opened, letting Misty closer and squeezing her hips. Fran’s hands began to caress the girl’s shoulder blades stronger, with growing fervency.

“That was… my first one,” breathed out Misty in Fran’s ear, while the mare showered her neck with kisses. “And the first one with a mare! I… hope, I’m doing decently…”

Without a word, Fran dug into girl’s lips ardently, her tongue fluttered, seeking for Misty’s, teasing and dancing. Flaunty and Windy’s wings ruffled, the girls shared a bedazzled glance, both gulping noisily.

“Did I answer your question?” breathed out Fran parting lips with the girl.

“Yes… Fran!” whispered Misty under her breath, a shimmering thread connected their almost touching lips.

“Aaahhhhhh!..” the mare threw her head back suddenly, arching her whole body and squeezing Misty harder with her knees. Finally unfreezing, Lacy “attacked” her from behind, kissing the mare behind the ear, wrapping her arms around and cupping Fran’s large breasts tenderly. Lacy’s palms lifted them slightly, her index fingers barely touching the already hardening nipples.

“You forgot about me! That’s unfair, Misty…” Lacy snuggled, pressing her firm round breasts to the mare’s back and teasing Fran’s ear with her tongue, her hands started fondling Fran’s lady hills confidently. “I’m not greedy either, you know. Mmmmm…” she gave Fran’s neck a slow lick.

“Girls… Wait… Mhhhh…” Squeezed between two young and heated girls Fran started wriggling under their touch. She was biting her lip and throwing her sumptuous mane back, as Misty leaned covering the front of Fran’s neck and her collar-bones with small kisses.

“I… Ohhhh…” shining flush was rising from under her blouse, spreading from the breasts tenderly kneaded by Lacy to the strained neck, flooding Fran’s face. “Can’t hold…” She fluttered weakly in girls’ hands, her breath becoming deeper and deeper with breaking out moans of lust. The pegasi sisters watched that scene with wide-open eyes and mouths, their hands met involuntarily, fingers tangled together.

With a deep loud cry, the mare suddenly arched with her entire body, making tightly cuddling Lacy almost hang on her shoulders; Fran’s legs wrapped in a lock around Misty’s and a storm of contractions took over the shivering mare.

‘What is that? Is she… already…’ Tightly held by her shoulders, Misty watched Fran’s stomach contracting rhythmically under the blouse and confessed to herself of the strong wish to remove that cloth obstacle. Her and Lacy were to hold the shaking mare gently, waiting for the early release to fade.

“I’m sorry… dear… I…” weakly breathed out Fran, when she regained the ability to think and speak coherently. She was to lean on Lacy still, who snuggled to the mare even tighter, rubbing her cheek on Fran’s cheek slowly. “I didn’t have… anypony… for so long! Sorry…” she looked at Misty meekly.

“That’s okay, we can imagine,” Lacy pulled her stunned friend closer, so they warmly cuddle the mare from both sides. “We understand,” whispered she softly in Fran’s ear.

“Next time simply go slower, Misty,” Lacy winked slyly behind her glasses. “You both are overly sensitive, I see.” All that time she kept slowly rubbing against Fran’s back, teasing herself and shortly making the unicorn mare flutter and snuggle into her again from growing excitement.

“Aw! Buds, I’m speechless!” Windy finally regained the ability to express herself verbally. The same was true for Flaunty, whose eyes lit with genuine interest. “I rather join you, than comment!” In a wink, Windy’s jacket came to be thrown on the nearest desk and Misty felt another pair of hot palms on her shoulders, while Windy dived her face into the pink mane, inhaling and sending a new bunch of goosebumps down Misty’s neck. In her turn, Flaunty smoothly slid to sitting Lacy and Fran.

“I could never think…” started she, then simply planted a soft tender kiss on Lacy’s cheek instead, then lips, placing the hand on girl’s hip dominantly. Seeing the sparkles of appetence in her friend’s eyes and growing bolder, Flaunty decided to steal Fran’s attention from Misty for a moment. The unicorn artist could only squeak in surprise before her lips were being tasted by the tall pegasus filly, whose left palm ran across mare’s cheek and chin, pulling Fran into another lock of sweetness, as Flaunty’s silky mane shaded her entire view.

Evidently, Fran wasn’t going to capitulate at ease, as while her and Flaunty’s tongues met in the moist fervent duel, her delicate fingers blindly found their way to Misty’s t-shirt and began pulling it off the girl gently but demandingly. At the same, the girls could witness an extraordinary view: Fran’s clothes, being a part of her apparition, started fading, dissolving in the thin air, thus in less than ten seconds revealing miss Von Selle in her entire natural glory.

“Let me help…” with a tiny giggle Windy picked up Misty’s shirt from mare’s fingers; Misty could barely raise her arms, finding herself topless in a wink, as her pegasus friend didn’t lose time, unclipping and removing the bra next.

“Wi…” Misty choked on words, feeling two hot palms cupping her breasts, rocking them tenderly; the pleasant ticklish sensation was filling her, girl’s nipples started hardening, increasing the pleasure of touch. Throwing a bewildered glance down, Misty met the lustful gaze of Fran’s dark-crimson eyes, when mare’s tongue slowly travelled between her caressed hills, ending in Misty’s mouth, tenderly attacking her own. Feeling Windy’s hot breath in her mane, Misty closed the eyes and offered herself to the sensual whirlpool.

Meanwhile, Lacy grabbed and pulled off what remained of her sweater, throwing it aside and pressing her round breasts into Fran’s back again. Flaunty, apparently, considered the image incomplete, as she reached and was already unbuttoning Lacy’s jeans. With some effort, the girl jerked and pulled off that tight part of clothing, soon liberating her friend of it and rushing to enjoy Lacy’s bare skin instead.

Flaunty’s tongue was already fluttering around Lacy’s navel, along the contracting muscles of girl’s flat stomach, teasing her, hinting its further path only, but lingering to go lower, while Flaunty’s hands stroked the firm hips lovingly. The pegasus girl, unnoticed by others, got rid of her shirt and bra already, letting her large breasts rub on Lacy’s legs freely. Her teasing was driving Lacy progressively wild, the earth filly breathed harder, snuggling her face into Fran’s neck, sending shivers on mare’s skin and making the soft peach fuzz rise.

Flaunty’s sister decided to discard her complexes, sending her own tank-top follow Misty’s t-shirt on the table, with a sigh of pleasure the redhead pegasus pressed her small breasts against her friend’s shoulder blades, enjoying the nipples becoming diamonds on Misty’s smooth heated skin. Windy’s right hand sneaked lower, finding its way under Misty’s shorts and panties; her fingertips brushed lightly on girl’s venus hill, sending Misty into shivers and making her moan into their with Fran endless kiss. The back of her hand accidentally contacted through the cloth with Fran’s anticipating marehood, leaving a wet stain on Misty’s shorts. The next moment Windy felt Fran’s palms on her skirt, pulling and pressing both girls into the mare eagerly, making Windy giggle ruffianly and stick our her butt more to enjoy the touch fully.

“Girls… Mhhhh… You… Ahhh… You are… Incredible!” exclaimed Fran in the short time between kisses, the mare slowly started flaming again and so was Misty, mercilessly teased by Windy’s naughty hands.

Lacy could only moan, as another pegasus filly finally reached her aim, kneeling in front of the table; Flaunty’s tongue fluttered around and about Lacy’s clean-shaven pussy, whose legs were long ago placed on Flaunty’s shoulders straining and raising on tips of the hooves with each pleasure wave. One hand firmly gripped Lacy’s hip, another one, driven by Flaunty’s arousal, travelled its way between girl’s inner thighs, reaching her own trigger point. Taken away by caressing Lacy and responsiveness of the latter, Flaunty couldn’t help but teasing herself sweetly as well.

“Don’t get away!” Windy almost begged, when Fran tried to switch her attention from girl’s butt to some other parts of her and Misty. “It lashes me up big time…” confessed she with flaming cheeks and ears, holding down one hand of the mare on own hip. With an excited giggle, the redhead pegasus slid her fingers along Misty’s heating slit, tenderly pressing against it and enjoying the moist and palpable pulse. The frolicsome finger found the pleasure button and began drawing “O”s and eights around it, ever and anon barely diving in girl’s flower for her ample juices. Misty moaned deeper and deeper, feeling how her panties became sodden with her love nectar.

The fidgeting back of Windy’s palm bossing between Misty’s legs rubbed against Fran’s marehood rhythmically, making her press to the girls closer and closer in her desire to receive more of their touch. Flaunty was lapping Lacy’s flower, making the girl not even moan, but breathe in small short gasps, rocking her hips. Flaunty’s thighs were squeezing her own hand rhythmically. Both Misty and Lacy, delirious of pleasure, kissed and caressed the fluttering unicorn mare all over.

“Ahh can’t… hold straight! Nghhhh… Girlssssss…” moaned Fran throwing back her head and shivering strongly. “So… closehhhhhh!” She started to recline on the table, not controlling herself entirely.

“Flo-o-ahhhh! Darling…” breathed out Lacy one the verge of losing control, she ran her fingers deep through the chestnut mane, caressing her insatiable lover, but this time used that to softly stop Flaunty for a second. “Give m-me a breath…”

For their own amazement, Misty and Lacy could find some miraculous reserve to move and lay Fran tenderly, helping her get on the tabletop completely. By joint efforts of the fillies, the bright flush was already spreading all over the mare’s body, flooding her abdomen and chest, rising to Fran’s cheeks through her tense neck and shivering shoulders. Both girls couldn’t deprive themselves of the pleasure of running their sensitive fingers on mare’s breasts and stomach from pure sexual mischief, sending her into another wave of fluttering and excited moans.

“Misty, maybe we should switch places?” Lacy gave her friend a wet kiss of extreme tenderness, her eyes became dreamy, veiled with desire. “I… ummm… am a bit more experienced, so… we may deliver and receive more pleasure that way.”

“I… What do you w-want to suggest?.. Oh!” gazing down on soft and heated Fran between them, Misty got Lacy’s idea, that made her neck and cheeks flame, but the filly nodded eagerly. Even imagining the whole shamelessness of the suggested position, Misty couldn’t and, frankly speaking, didn’t want to hide her anticipation of being taken by the artist-mare. Preferably that way exactly.

‘To receive this kind of fondling from the older sis… Oh! What am I thinking about?!’ the unicorn filly squeaked from her own thoughts, but her body already decided for her. She gave a tender and promising kiss to Windy, sliding out of her embrace softly and climbing onto the table; Misty was to help Lacy, as the earth filly felt quite melted after extended attention of her pegasus friend.

Like enthralled, all three fillies watched Lacy taking the place between Fran’s legs, so Fran’s and her own became combined like two pairs of scissors, directed towards each other. Windy and Flaunty understood long ago, what exactly their, suddenly turning out quite kinky, friend was planning; both sisters were rather devising what they should do to take part in that, getting maximum possible pleasure as the result. However, it fared a revelation for Misty, whose head was at once captured in a whirlpool of thoughts, one darer and more exciting than another.

Abashed by her own sudden bravery, the unicorn girl tenderly let go Fran’s shoulders she supported before, allowing the mare freely recline on the desk surface. She flamed brightly, not only on her face, neck and breasts, as Misty heatedly realized, but on her abdominal and even lower regions. That ticklish sensation was so strong and pleasant, that she barely stopped her hand already sneaking to girl’s moist and eagerly opening flower. Instead of that, quickly getting rid of the rest of her clothes, the girl squatted on her knees, placing her slit, craving for attention and touch, over Fran’s face, over hot and dried by rapid breath lips.

The mare wasn’t going to lose her, so aptly rendered, opportunity. In a second, tearing a whimpering cry of lust from Misty’s mouth, Fran’s gently tongue touched the girl’s anticipating marehood. Completely conquered by that novel and extremely sharp feeling, Misty was unable to think and hold straight, thrown on her hands and barely keeping her sliding apart knees close enough to give Fran space for action. The cuteness of Misty’s arched back, stretched neck and face, distorted by keen pleasure, didn’t give Lacy a chance to resist the urge: speeding her hips thrusts, the earth filly cupped her friend under the chin and stamped a long fervent kiss of pure filly love on those burning lips. Both of them were already rhythmically moving, doing their best to sync with Fran’s half-conscious caresses.

“Mmmmmfffff…” tangling the tongues with Lacy, Misty couldn’t hold a moan, escaping their engrossing kiss, when mare’s hot tongue entered her coral grotto deeply and confidently. The girl was to break contact and instinctively leaned back to give her lover the deepest access and best touch of her most sensitive spot.

In a momentary decision, Windy and Flaunty appeared on both sides of thrusting and fluttering mare and “attacked” her large rocking breasts with doubled diligence and ardour. They kissed, licked and massaged with lips their generously offered treat, occasionally catching the large erect nipples, sucking, squeezing them and tickling with tongues. That made Fran sultry to the extreme: squeezing Lacy between her thighs and thrusting recklessly, the mare started to drill Misty’s succumbing pussy as if there was no tomorrow, making the girl moan and cry from the waves of delight. By the sound of them, the latter were going to merge into the strongest flood-tide at any moment. Lacy was on the edge as well: with closed eyes and dishevelled braids, she was biting her lip and arching back, perking her firm round tits and pressing herself tighter into Fran’s crotch.

Sharing a hot lustful kiss above the laid down but still not surrendering mare, both sisters rounded their eyes from the flashy sensation of tender fingers moving aside the narrow strips of their panties, soaked of the love juices already, and finding their way into two tight desirous holes of theirs. With their cherished wish to receive their own share of passion and pleasure granted, the sisters clinched to Fran’s delicious breasts with even greater resolve. Rocking their hips, holding and squeezing Fran’s awesome fingers inside, practically skewering themselves on them, the girls quickly caught up with their friends on the race to satisfaction. Thinly moaning with pleasure, Windy and Flaunty came into resonance with the throbbing mare softly but strongly pressing first one and then two fingers to their sweet spots.

In the next few minutes the room filled with accelerating breathing, moans of delight and explicit sounds of moist silky softness kissing. Lacy kept thrusting faster and faster, catching her desired rhythm and moaning deeply. Misty was simply melting on Fran’s miraculous tongue, throwing her mane back and caressing her own breasts, finally in peace with herself and her desires. Windy and Flaunty merged in a feverish osculation of extreme sisterly love, relished by the world-shattering combination of Fran’s tender touch and own effort. The unicorn mare became seemingly a part of each of the girls, ecstatically melding with them.

In their shared bliss, savouring the tastes and sounds of desire, none of the five noticed, how the table they nested on, oscillated by their combined effort, started thumping into the basement wall rhythmically. Busy by each other, the girls couldn’t hear the light sounds of plaster flakes and small rocks falling on the desk behind them.

Amazingly, they managed to reach the desired acme almost simultaneously. Misty, squeezing her nipples and mewling from orgasm, and the sisters, kissing deliriously, while their blooming roses squeezed and flooded Fran’s palms with love juices, came first. Lacy and Fran followed in a couple of seconds: the earth filly reclined back, running one hand into her mane passionately and swaying her hips in short strong thrusts, loving the unicorn mare who first arched in ecstasy, then relaxed with delight, written in her smile, closed eyes and affectionate sigh, and… slowly faded in the thin air.

15. Granted solution

“Disappeared…” slowly uttered the pegasi sisters simultaneously. They looked completely stunned as if cuddling with the ghostly mare wasn’t what they did a moment earlier.

“She… must have spent… too much energy,” Misty sank to the table, as her knees trembled. “Ohhhh…”

She and Lacy found themselves sitting there almost cross-eyed of pleasure; when Fran’s ghost suddenly vanished, the girls were to hold hands not to fall.

“It’s okay, Fran will return as she… regains the ability to materialize,” breathed out Misty, she leaned forward and they snuggled forehead to forehead with Lacy, breathing heavily and moving closer to each other for support and cuddle, natural in their blissful afterglow.

“I feel I’m going to melt,” whispered Lacy, when both Windy and Flaunty embraced the girls, warming them with their large wings.

Misty wrapped the arms around her friends, pulling them together, and the girls silently nuzzled each other for a few minutes, letting their heartbeat return to normal. Lacy noticed that first, raising her head from the fluffy cuddle of their manes, arms and wings, she focused on something behind girls’ backs.

“Hey, what’s that? The wall was intact when we came…” she pointed at the small notch behind the collapsed paint flakes and plaster.

Misty looked over the shoulder: a few small pieces of ancient stone fell out from the wall with the newer plaster. The surface inside was covered in snaking thin cracks, that section of the wall didn’t look rock-solid.

“Looks like some really ancient masonry under the modern decoration!” on her turn back Misty was caught and kissed from both sides by Windy and Flaunty; girls’ warm lips made her squint and flush. “Awwwwww!!! Squee!”

“We… Ummm… We must have moved the table quite intensively,” supposed Misty, making three girls’ faces in her view become pinkish, yet their eyes shone.

The fillies slid off, it took Lacy and Misty some effort, as they still felt soft and fuzzy inside; by joint efforts, they managed to move the large heavy table from the wall and gathered around the small indentation.

“Hmm… It gives in,” Lacy poked the hole with the tip of her knife and shook the stones. “There must be something beneath…”

“Girls, give me some space!” Windy Mane darted back and returned with the wooden stick Flaunty left on the floor. She held it as a lance now and thrust it into the gap hard when the girls stepped aside; the muffled crunch of the ancient masonry told the girls, they were on the right way. “Well, sis, let’s kick some…”

Together with Flaunty they pushed and pulled another long end of the plank, swaying it back and forth, after a few moments of forced shaking, accompanied by huffing, the stones started to give up under girls’ push. A couple of bricks fell out at their hooves, revealing an opening a bit smaller than an average pony head.

“There is a room inside,” Windy turned on her flashlight, directing it through the hole. “Small one – I can see the opposite wall.”

“Must be some old storage room or closet,” Flaunty dropped the stick and peeked inside as well. “Strange, how the workers didn’t notice it, refurbishing the place…”

“The basement looks like it wasn’t touched ten years ago,” Lacy looked around pensively, then pointed at the lamps on the ceiling. “These look quite old, I won’t wonder if the basement wasn’t repaired the last time… More likely it was unchanged for the last thirty or forty years, and the masonry could be in better shape back then.”

“Likely,” said Misty, she tried the edge of the hole and looked at her fingers covered in rust-coloured mud; the stone dust turned into some stone paste. “And then water started seeping in or the general humidity in the basement increased and the wall began to crumble.” She wiped her hand on the hip. “We’re lucky accidentally finding it instead of tapping the walls here for a few days. Or maybe it wasn’t entirely accidental…”

Starting from the edges of the opening, the girls slowly demounted the wall by hands, trying their best not to drop any stones inside not to damage anything in the room. The stonework appeared weak enough, the seams were dampened and broke apart easily, so the work went briskly. In a couple of minutes, when the girls cleared the hole, which could let their shoulders through, Lacy took Flaunty’s flashlight and shone inside, standing on the tips of her hooves and peeking through the opening.

“There is something on the floor. Some chest, sort of… and nothing else!”

The fillies began disassembling the wall even faster, dampness breathed onto their faces; in the next five minutes they made an opening suitable to step through almost without bending. Three rays of light scanned the new small room to find the low ceiling, grey walls covered in small drips of condensed water and dusty floor.

One by one the girls entered and stared at the single object in the room: old metal chest, dirty and rusty in places, it was a bit shorter than enough to fit an average pony inside. In the light of three flashlights, Misty and the girls could clearly see the faded stains here and there on the chest, mostly near the line separating the base and the lid.

Chills rushed up Misty’s spine. Judging by the other girls’ faces, they also realized what could be inside.

“We must have found her,” whispered Misty, examining the chest around and spotting a couple of keyholes, but no keys in observable vicinity.

“Well, even if we had them, I doubt I want to have a look inside,” added she and the girls quickly nodded in agreement.

“But I’m sure of one thing,” declared Misty in unequivocal tone. “We must take this chest out.”

“Out of the school building,” elaborated she under the stunned glances of her friends, “and even bury it! I’m more than sure that it is what Fran would have wanted us to do.”

“Well, theoretically…” muttered Lacy, crossing her hands; her firm round breasts lifted even more. “Theoretically, we could break the… curse that way… whatever is binding Fran’s ghost to that school, right? Set her free, so to speak. But this chest…” she threw a doubtful glance on the long metal object.

“Easier to say than to do,” Windy and Flaunty exchanged glances. “But we came that far…”

“I’d say, why the hell not…” smirked Windy in conclusion. “Let’s take it out and then we’ll see.”

“If we plan to show up outside, we all need to put ourselves in order,” noticed Flaunty meaningfully, slowly buttoning her shirt. “Especially you two,” she glanced slyly at Misty and Lacy, stifling a smile at the look of two flushing but giggling girls.

“Here, something tells me you need it more!” Windy brought her jacket and put it on Lacy, even wet it was better than the miserable tatters, remaining of her sweater.

Remembering something, Misty whisked out to the large hall, returning with her camera.

“Let’s save some evidence, just in case…” she took a couple of pictures, of the disassembled wall and the rusty chest itself.

Taking the latter outside of its limbo appeared to be a harder task than the girls thought. The metal thing wasn’t very heavy to lift, but it was quite large and considerably unhandy to carry, having no handles or anything suitable for grabbing it firmly.

First, the friends were to kick more bricks out of the destroyed wall to widen the opening and making it reach the floor level: as they couldn’t carry the chest through the gap, they decided to drag it on the floor slowly. Thus Flaunty and Windy pulled it through, while Lacy and Misty pushed the chest from behind with all their might to make it slide on the rough dusty floor.

Then, getting the plank underneath to make a gap wide enough to pick up the chest, the girls lifted it carefully not to pinch or snap their fingers. It was harder to do because hands had nothing to catch on the flat rusty surface, but at least there was more room to operate in the large hall. The rust powdered down, filling the air with its smell.

“I hope it won’t fall apart in our hands,” Flaunty shook her head. “Granted, it was in a closed compartment, but I read that artefacts taken out to the open atmosphere can deteriorate in a matter of hours, so we must sort thing out fast.”

“Anyway, if you feel tired or your hands giving up, tell at once. I don’t want that rusty thing to fall and injure any of you!” warned she with a meaningfully glance at each of the girls.

It took the eternity to carry the chest to the stairs; the fillies thought they scratched and beat off their sides, threading with it among the old furniture. They were to stop twice to take a breath and flex their hands, the difference in height didn’t make their job easier.

On the small clear spot at the exit Flaunty measured the steeply rising stairs, signalling the girls to stop again and lower one end of the chest.

“Nope, that won’t work!” she and Windy held the chest diagonally, helping Lacy and Misty to balance the weight. “It’s time to remember about physics, as miss Singularity likes to say. You two take the front and we’ll take the rear end, thus you can climb up easier with less weight on your hands and we’ll back you up from behind if something goes wrong.”

“It seems, her company is really beneficial for you,” Misty measured the sisters with an appraising look.

“Let’s say, some of her advice has singular practical value, if you start thinking of them in everyday life,” smirked Windy.

However, the narrow stairs became a real nightmare for the girls, Misty and Lacy felt their arms were almost tearing off, despite the smart trick; the chest tried to slide out of their grip at each occasion and the lack of space didn’t let them pick it up in a more handy way. They were forced to move their backs forward, pulling the load and accurately choosing, where to place their hooves. Looking at the tense faces of her friends, Misty thought that if the stairs were at least twice longer, they probably would have dropped their burden and rolled down with it.

The long hallway past the library doors seemed a walk in the park after the stairs. They could finally pick up the chest from both sides and carry it normally, stopping to draw breath only once.

“Finally, homestretch!” exhaled Misty, opening the left wing doors with her shoulder, as she did her best not to drop her side of the metal box. She felt sweaty and even her hands seemed to get wet, making it harder to carry the weight. The heavy breathing of her friends could hardly tell if they agreed with her definition.

The ground floor met them with coal darkness, as the lamps went out again and Misty was to turn on the flashlight picking it in her mouth to let them see the way, not slipping on something. The storm must have subsided, the flashes of lightning didn’t illuminate the surroundings and no single thunder strike ripped the silence, subtly broken by quiet sounds of rain only.

“Homestretch?” returned to that topic Flaunty Mane, when the girls were taking a rest in the school vestibule, sitting around the chest leaning their backs on it in absence of better support. “A bit early to call it such, to my mind.” She pushed the exit doors, which opened without any resistance, letting the fresh, damp and smelling of ozone air inside, and flopped next to her friends. For a while, the girls simply watched the darkness outside, lined with streams of rain.

“Let’s sum up what we have,” elaborated Flaunty after a while. “Four high school fillies, a bit wet, ragged and dirty, take out a metal chest with supposedly ancient remnants out of the abandoned school building in the middle of the night under the pouring rain. Thanks Celestia, the thunderstorm is over,” added she meaningfully. “I didn’t miss anything, did I?”

Misty silently shook her head, getting what her friend wanted to imply, accompanied by an understanding sigh of Lacy and Windy’s noisy fidgeting. Girls tried to imagine vividly, how it looked for a foreign eye.

“I get it that we must bury the chest, right?” continued Flaunty brushing off a few hair strands sticking to her face. “And something tells me that doing it within that school grounds isn’t an option.”

“Yeah,” breathed out Misty. “As a matter of fact, the further from Canterton High, the better… so, I’m not entirely sure if the park around fits either.”

“Cool!” smirked Windy, assessing the situation. “We’re lucky that the school wasn’t actually guarded and nopony called the police… with all the noise and stuff.”

“We have yet a fair chance to run into them after we get outside,” Lacy Reins shrugged with excellent calmness, she let out a tiny smile.

Misty imagined how stupid must be their attempt to sort out the problem right there and at that moment and couldn’t hold herself from shaking of silent laughter.

“I’m sorry, girls,” muttered she. “That was… indeed…” she dropped her head guiltily.

“That won’t change much,” Lacy moved closer, nudging Misty with her shoulder, “if we take it out any other day, even better prepared for that.”

“Oh, come on, bud! Don’t start again,” Windy squeezed Misty’s shoulder. “Nopony stopped you. We all wanted to help! So… did it a bit… hastily.”

“Yeah,” chuckled Flaunty. “Well, what’s done is done. It’s not like we were going to drag it back,” she nodded towards the chest, returning to the practical aspects. “So, we can’t open the gates, no way we could do anything with that chain or lock. And I doubt we two can carry the chest over the fence… What about your magic, Misty?”

“To tell the truth, I never tried to lift something that large,” Misty downcasted. “But I’ll do my best. If you two give me a hand, probably together we can get it over. And then…”

“Then,” Misty wasn’t overly happy with that decision, but they had no real alternative, “we’ll hide it somewhere in the park and return later, better prepared… Anyway, that’ll be better than leaving her in that school any longer!” she finished crumpledly.

“Okay, what we are waiting for then…” Flaunty got up, throwing back her still damp mane. “Heave ho!”

Thankfully the rain wasn’t cold, but standing in front of the high gate and thinking about using her magic to carry a large chest over it made Misty tremble a little. The pegasi sisters took both ends of it, waiting for her signal; Lacy kept aside, as she was unable to help in that situation. The pouring rain quickly made four girls soaking wet again.

The bright flash was so sudden, it blinded the friends for a moment, but didn’t have time to scare them. Covering from the light, the girls thought that it was another lightning strike, low and close, but surprisingly they heard no sound. When they regained the ability to see, the girls realized that the flash was caused by the teleportation spell.

Above the gate, widely spreading the large wings, somepony descended to the hesitantly frozen girls. When the figure landed in front of them, fanning them with the wind and folding the wings with soft feathery noise, the four friends “in crime” felt the urge to become smaller and hide behind the metal chest.

With an impenetrable look on her usually serious face, miss Singularity watched her four wet and messy students. However, the closer look revealed the sparks of amusement dancing in her dark blue eyes and the girls perked up in hope that they might not get morally fried right at that moment.

“Are you okay, girls?” bringing her fingers together and raising one eyebrow, she inquired of their condition casually. “I began worrying a little… By the way, miss Mane, your jacket’s integrity would only benefit, if you pay attention to the left end of the drawstring equally…”

That was the least possible reaction the girls expected to get; despite the risk of being reprimanded, first Misty and then the rest of the girls snorted, then started laughing. Suddenly the feeling of relief blanketed them, confirmed by a tiny smile curling miss Singularity’s lips.

“Aye, ma’am! We’re fine now, ma’am!”

Right at that moment the fillies suddenly realized that the pouring rain wasn’t flowing down their manes and shoulders or getting behind their collars, while still falling around; they were shielded by some prudently cast magic. Apparently, getting wet wasn’t in their teacher plans.

“Hmm… Nevertheless, we have a little problem,” miss Singularity made a tiny emphasis on “we”. “You did well, trying to free miss Von Selle from her unfortunate prison but to complete that we need to bury the remnants. And I highly doubt that any place would fit…”

The girls stood like thunderstruck, myriads of questions, one more unexpected than the other, swarmed in their heads like disturbed bees; the friends were unsure if they could ask any of them directly. Misty, Lacy, Flaunty and Windy, exchanged the abashed glances, silently asking each other if any of them understood, what was happening.

‘How did she find out? Scratch that, she always finds out! What does she have to do with that story? Does she really know about Fran? And she did nothing before? What is she going to do now? Why?! Aaaaah, I can’t comprehend!!!’

Meanwhile, miss Singularity threw an estimating glance at the overcast sky, which mercilessly poured water on the surroundings.

“What about taking our conversation to a drier place?” she spread her arms in a welcoming gesture and, not waiting for their answer, her horn lit with magic again, making another bright flash cover them all and the chest.

When the sparkles stopped shining in their eyes, the girls found themselves standing together with miss Singularity on a small hill, in the shade of widely spread branches of some lush tree. The metal chest slowly lowered on the soft grass at their hooves. Apparently, that place was quite far from the Canterton school – the girls could see the low clouds far away down the mountain slope. The sky above their heads was clear, woven with thousands of stars on its dark blue silk. The light wind barely moved the young leaves on the large tree, bringing the scent of early flowers, of many different flowers, so it felt like a garden laid nearby.

However, the first glance downhill told the girls where they travelled: the valley below was incrusted with tombstones of various forms and sizes throwing long shadows in the light of the rising moon. Some night bird tried to bawl in the tree crown, making the girls flinch in surprise, but their alicorn teacher hushed at it shortly and… the troublemaker shut up ashamedly. Suddenly, the girls found themselves shielded from the night wind with the vast wings.

“Canterlot Old Cemetery. I think this place fits our goal better,” noticed miss Singularity. “I’ll take it from here if you four don’t mind.” The girls quickly shook their heads, showing their complete trust in her competence. “I’ll notify her Highness as well… in case she wants to honour her former mentor.”

“Teacher…” Misty addressed miss Singularity timidly, “what’s going to happen to Fran… miss Von Selle?” corrected she.

“Well, souls remain in the world of living, if something binds them,” the alicorn mare looked at the friends seriously. “Either some forceful bonds… or their own aspirations, unfinished business for example or affection,” she threw a quick glance at Misty, making the latter drop her eyes. “You presented her with the best gift you could, girls! Gave Fran the freedom of will. It’s now up to her to decide. Rest assured, you did what you could. I won’t lie, saying that I’m proud of our students!”

“Miss Singu…” started Windy, but the mare interrupted her with a small understanding smile.

“Your appearance, girls, leaves much to be desired for the filly students of our school, of course…” seeing that the girls’ ears flattened, miss Singularity added cheerfully. “But I’m not entitled to regulate, what the students do outside of the school boundaries and at the extracurricular time,” she winked at jaw-dropped friends.

“I’m of the opinion that you four need to address what you undoubtedly planned – the sleepover,” she added suddenly jocosely, causing complete confusion in girls’ heads. “Where to exactly I’m going to send you. Misty, Lacy, Windy, Flaunty, I wish you four a good night!”

16. Sisters with benefits

‘Ahhh… That was the weirdest “sleepover” I ever had, but definitely the best one in my life…’ Misty brushed the fingers through her wet mane, taking off the soaked towel from her head. She felt all fuzzy, floating in the air and, truth be told, the hot relaxing shower wasn’t the main reason. Some events of the last but one night seemed so unbelievable that the filly began wondering if they actually befell to her.

The thing was, Misty could find neither of the drafts, she was sure of taking with her. Later in the morning, the girls searched all their belongings brought from Canterton High, the sheets of ancient paper nowhere to be found.

The camera rested on the dresser, left there when the girl returned home from Lacy’s; Misty picked it up, turning on the Display mode with a sinking heart. The overgrown park, school gate, key-holder, hallways and classes, easels in the art room – everything was there, confirming their adventure. Even the creepily stained chest in the walled-up room. The whole folio, however, put Misty into even deeper pondering.

‘I wonder what was the actual role miss Singularity played in that case,’ she grabbed a hairbrush. ‘If she knew the details of Fran’s perish – sweet Celestia, how old she must be then! – and didn’t mind us helping her, then… again, why didn’t she do it on her own? Or was she also abiding by some strange rules?..’

Clearly, she had more questions than answers now, even despite the “Canterton High case” might be considered solved; however, some answers she got, were worth the trouble. The mirror reflected a slightly flushing, but otherwise quite pleased with herself and confident unicorn filly, her face framed with the fluffy wet mane.

‘Maybe the next mysterious case, we should investigate, is miss Singularity role in that story?’ Misty kept recalling the recent events under the pacifying buzzing of the hairdryer, brushing her pink hair musingly. ‘Or even the mere fact and reasons for her appearance in our school.’ One half of her mind considered that a great idea, excited by the perspective, another though kept telling Misty that the actual perspective might differ and in that particular case extreme curiosity could be unsafe, just like with the proverbial cat.

Seriously, the final accords of their adventure looked as if their teacher was well informed about everything from the very beginning, which was least expected by the girls. Misty could easily admit that miss Singularity found out somehow, what and where they planned to undertake. Even if the possibility of that was almost impossible – after all, that was their mysterious physics teacher. But nevertheless both the timing and… the complete absence of seemingly natural and imminent consequences puzzled the unicorn girl the most. Expecting everything up to their expulsion, the fillies were shocked to hear no mention of them behaving unruly or upcoming reprimand. Instead of that, miss Singularity looked worried if the girls were fine and needed any help, at least nothing than polite interest in their condition was written in her eyes. Almost… Misty was unsure, she didn’t spot something else deeper, but…

‘I’m sure, she won’t mention anything later at school,’ Misty smirked to her reflection, she finished combing the hair tips and began brushing the mane through the entire length gently. ‘Not publicly at least. Naturally, I won’t do either, and the others – likewise, I think.’

‘It’s awesome that we could help Fran get out of that endless misery cycle!’ Misty let out a tiny sigh. ‘I can’t imagine how horrible must be the inability to leave one place for… Blimey! For more than a thousand years at least. Even if she could joke about her “keeping up with the times”…’ thinking of Fran’s fate the girl gloomed, but in a few seconds a happy smile found its way back. ‘But we did it! We set her free finally… whatever she implied under that.’

Exiting the abandoned school with the chest, the girls moved on pure enthusiasm rather, as they had absolutely no idea how to arrange the last part of the duty they had taken. Placing the remnants to rest, not being caught by the police, because they wouldn’t be properly understood for sure – the friends preferred not to think of those at the very moment, inwardly admitting perhaps that it could easily make their hands drop. The appearance of their teacher was truly a gift. With the passionless face, miss Singularity solved their last, yet looking inextricable trouble, then simply sent them four to Lacy’s house in a wink. She only reminded with a tiny smile that it was the time to address the sleepover, they supposed to be planning. How she could guess that, was out of Misty’s capabilities to realize.

Before they could say a thing, the four fillies found themselves in the hallway of Lacy’s house and the closed front door left behind the wind and noise of rain. That was the moment they started feeling shivers and fatigue. Sharing a glance at each other the girls raced to the bathroom, pulling off the wet clothes on the run.

Misty closed her eyes, the smell of Lacy’s floral bath foam and its touch on her warm skin became almost palpable at that moment. Maybe because she actually still exuded that aroma in addition to her own shampoo. The girls were impressed by Lacy’s large tub, almost a small basin, capable to hold them all offering plenty of extra space.

Windy sat in the fragrant clouds, leaning back on the heated tub edge; an expression of extreme pleasure and peace shone on her slightly smiling face. Eyes closed, she nuzzled Lacy’s unbraided mane minute by minute: the earth filly comfortably reclined on her friend’s chest, cuddled and softly massaged by the pegasus girl, squinting and biting her lip each time Windy’s palms, as if by accident, touched her round perky breasts.

Misty and Flaunty nested beside, face to face and Misty began washing her friend, tenderly soaping and rubbing her long, shapely legs, which Flaunty raised vertically from the water one by one. To reach the full length of those beautiful strong legs, the unicorn filly was to raise to her knees, thus snuggling to them with her whole body. She let Flaunty’s legs slide between her breasts and watched, how the pegasus filly squinted and let out tiny moans of pleasure, throwing back her mane, which Flaunty gathered into the high chestnut crown to keep it safe from water.

Little by little the four fillies warmed up and washed away the day dust and strain, they started horsing around, splashing, tickling and squeezing each other jokingly. They moved closer and closer until finally cuddled tightly in the large hot tub, warming each other, tangling their arms, legs and bodies together. It was an awesome intimate feeling – her best friends so close.

Their hugs. Their wings. Their skin.

Their… kisses.

Their…

“I’m so going to continue with you…” whispered Windy at her ear, while Lacy and Flaunty were tenderly soaping Misty in return.

Misty felt slightly weak in the knees, she surfaced from her memories, pressing her hand over the racing heart.

Exhausted, the girls simply fell on Lacy’s bed, its considerable size came in handy. Misty smiled falling asleep with Lacy’s head resting on her right shoulder and Windy’s unruly hair tickling her neck and left breast, while Flo nuzzled Misty’s mane, cooing something in her deepening sleep. Misty smiled in the morning when the sunlight danced on her nose waking up the filly entwined with girls’ arms and legs. And even the necessity to wipe a large pool of water under the window which they with Lacy forgot to close on the eve, was unable to spoil her mood.

‘I wouldn’t mind investigating more of the mysteries if the rest of the cases end up like that! All of the parts and the last in particular!’ with the shining face Misty pulled the fresh underwear from the drawer. Something on the bed attracted her attention, calling to approach an take a closer look.

“How strange!” pensively said Misty, undecided if touching the thing was entirely safe.

‘I was sure, it was left in the locker…’ she finally picked up her jean jacket.

Unbelievably clean and completely undamaged!

Suddenly a warm touch on her drying shoulders made Misty’s heart jump from surprise and excitement.

“I decided to stay… little sister!”