怪談とポニー Ep1 - Canterton High: Ponynormal

“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.