Canterlot Academy Trials

“...what’s going on here?” Blue asked, arms folded.

The young kobold thief would answer, “...W-we have no food, so I took to stealing it. Our parents work day and night in the local mines and are paid horrible pittances for their efforts. We’ve no choice but to steal food whenever we can.”

“...yeesh,” Mei muttered under her breath in disbelief. “...when Geki mentioned there was an inequality of wealth and resources, she wasn’t kidding, huh?”

“So wait a minute, you’re telling me your folks do all the work around here while the rich assholes up top pretty much take everything?”

Mei bumped her hip against the dragon and raised a brow. “...language, Blue. They’re kids.”

“Hey--”

The thief of a kobold went on, “...it’s true. We’re barely kept alive as slave workers in this colony just so we can make them their profits by mining those naturally occurring crystals that appear underground.” He grit his teeth as he gazed over at his siblings who were carefully munching on the bread and savoring every bite. “...it makes me sick.”

“...whatcha think, Mei?” Blue asked, “I don’t think these guys are our targets.”

Mei activated her horn and sent a message to Nebula just as she was sending him one.

‘...hey, where are you guys? You left the dance floor without warning.’

“Sorry, boss,” Mei replied aloud as she paced the floor so Blue could be aware of what was going on, “We just found some kids who stole some bread. We’re not at liberty to turn them in, so we’re gonna ignore them for now.”

“What she said,” Blue added, “Something’s off here, but the fact that our guy could be anyone makes this shit tough.”

“Language, Blue--ughh…” the kirin rolled her eyes and looked up, “Let me know if something happens on your end. We’re gonna hang out around here for the moment.”

Back on Nebula and Rose’s side of things…

“...noted,” Nebula muttered as he ended the magical ‘call’ of sorts, then looked at Grimrose. “We have to be careful, Rose. We’re on high alert, but we don’t need to start attacking random civilians in some sort of game of whack-a-mole.”

Grimrose sighed and hung her head. She knew this would mean things would simply take longer now. “...great.”

“Hey, chin up,” Nebula smiled at her, “Let’s take our time with this, alright? You don’t wanna make a bunch of sloppy mistakes trying to impress your parents, do you?”

The pegasus fell silent as soon as she heard that from Nebula. He had a point. Getting worked up would result in a poor job. While it didn’t cause her to toss away all concerns she had, it at least got her to relax for the moment.

“...thank you, Atomic,” she replied with a smile, “You always know how to cheer me up somehow.”

“No problem. It’s the least I could--”

His ear flicked.

Nebula turned around in his seat on a dime and looked out of the window near the front of the building. Outside, he could’ve sworn he had seen a shadow-like entity running across the darkness of the night.

“What is it, Atomic?” Grimrose asked, “Do you have something?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed as he casually rose out of his seat, “There’s something out there. I’m not sure if it’s our target or not, but I’m not taking any chances. Follow me.”

“Of course.”

Without hesitation, the two ponies quickly, but casually, left their table and headed outside. That’s when Nebula spotted the same shadowy entity jump onto the roof. Due to the dim nature of the night sky, it was rather difficult to see who it was. That’s when Nebula got an idea.

“Grimrose, fly up and use your puppetry threads to box them in.”

“Hm,” with a nod, she flew into the air, and ejected her magical threads from her wings until they were wrapped around the four corners of the rooftop. This created a small wall that would block their target from escaping.

“Okay…” With a flash of his horn, Nebula teleported onto the roof surrounded by the winding aura of the purple magic threads that matched Grimrose’s mane color. There, their shadowy figure would be standing on two legs with a rather bushy tail. “Freeze. We don’t wanna bring any harm to you. Tell us who you are and we won’t have any issues, pal.”

The individual stood tall on two legs with deer-like antlers. But of course, unlike most deer, this individual wasn’t on all fours, so it begged the question of who they were.

“H-hey!” they called out in a rather feminine voice, “I’m just doing a routine roof inspection up here!”

Nebula activated his horn to illuminate the rooftop. There, he’d see a rabbit-like creature on two legs standing in front of him with deer-like antlers on their head. Which only meant one thing.

“...a jackalope? Here?” he questioned aloud.

Indeed. The jackalope was a young woman dressed in a rather sooty set of blue overalls, befitting the appearance of a groundskeeper. She had fuzzy gray fur and dull-brown horns on the sides of her head that rested just in front of her large ears.

But their numbers were exceedingly rare, which immediately put Nebula on edge as he glared at her.

“...state your name and business.”

“I’m the groundskeeper,” she explained with an annoyed tone and a raised brow, “Getting ready to clean the roof.”

“Hrm…” Nebula grit his teeth as he racked his brain. Why did this situation feel so…off?