Canterlot Academy Trials

And just as Zesty hid behind those who happened to agree with her, the other Canterlot nobles were pretty much the same, opting to call for their subordinates and workers to take care of their problems instead.

In this case, it was their servants. Young mares and stallions of the college students’ age who stood in to fight for their employers. Such a sight caused our heroes to hesitate for a moment as the various unicorns prepared to fire off magic spells from their horns.

“...Should we do this?” Trickster muttered apprehensively while looking at the young ponies their age. “They’re just like us…”

“It’s horrible,” Priestess shook her head, “But this is simply how Canterlotians view each other. Tools to forward their own ambitions.”

“We need to enact social change,” Archsage added as he lifted his recorder from its sheath via his magic, “But we gotta get through these guys first!”

Archsage blew a note into his recorder that came out as a treble clef that was on fire. It exploded into shockwaves which blew all of the servant ponies backwards.

This was then followed by Wyvern tackling one of them to separate them from the group, causing the rest to scatter as Priestess used the magic in her tome to cast a paralysis spell on another.

Trickster would teleport behind the last two and grab hold of them via her magic before hitting them with beams of her multi-colored nirik fire which put them all in a pile as the rest of the noble ponies disappeared once they had them cornered.

“Tch,” Wyvern scoffed as he landed in front of the servants, “Even in Zesty’s head the rich bastards around here just abandon their workers when it’s convenient.”

“Come on, let’s focus on what’s important,” Archsage spoke up to keep everyone on track as they surrounded the servant ponies. “Do you guys know where Zesty’s memories of the past are?”

“...”

All four ponies pointed in a direction that led to a blurry photograph of sorts before they all disappeared. Following these directions, the team hurried over to the blurry photo and when they got closer they could see it was suffering from static akin to that of a failing security camera feed.

“I guess this is a repressed memory?” Trickster mused aloud as she approached it. “How do we awaken it?”

Archsage then had an idea. Remembering the conversation they had with Mr. Anzac, it gave him a clue as to what to say. “Ah…maybe if we speak up about certain things from her past, her mind will be forced to remember.”

Wyvern shrugged his shoulders, then stood in front of the static image. “Worth a shot I guess. Alright, so…how about, ‘Moreton Anzac’!” he cupped his claws around his mouth to project his voice further.

WOOSH!

Suddenly, in response to the name of her ex-husband, the static image slowly faded into what appeared to be a moving image--a video of one of Zesty’s memories. In that memory, the group was able to witness Zesty’s first-person view as she slept with Anzac for the first time. The two ponies could be seen cuddling in bed and were perfectly content with each other.

“Dammit…” Wyvern huffed as he watched the memory unfold, “Looks like they really loved each other, huh?”

“It’s very unfortunate,” Trickster replied as she looked on with a disappointed look on her face. “If I ever get married, I don’t want it to end up like that.”

As much as he felt bad, Archsage didn’t want his team to fall into despair and get distracted. “Come on, everyone. We need to look for another memory.” He then looked to Priestess, “Think we could do something similar that was done to Gaea?”

“I’m not sure,” the pegasus replied, “But we won’t know unless we keep going.”

“Lead the way, Arch,” Wyvern added with an excited tone, “I wanna make her see just how ridiculous she’s been.”

Once everyone was in agreement, the group traveled deeper into Zesty’s mind. As they got further, the Mindscape would shift as a new memory popped up before them. Another static image that was essentially unreadable.

The group took a moment to come up with possible triggers until…

“Harissa?” Trickster spoke the name of Zesty’s daughter.

And moments later, the static would fade out and show them the day that the filly was born in the hospital with both the young Zesty and the young Anzac gazing at their new child with hope and wonder in their eyes.

The image was enough to make them shed a tear or two before Archsage spoke up.

“...I think the saddest part is that she’s genuinely trying to forget everything about her past,” he commented with a disappointed tone. “As if she’s someone completely different and wants to cut ties with her former self.”

“If Harissa could see this, she’d feel terrible, and might finally understand what her mother thinks of her…” Trickster added, then thought of something else entirely as something caught her attention from the corner of her eye. “...the tipping point. This way!”

Suddenly, the kirin mare started galloping off in a direction with her friends close behind her. The next memory they saw was far less cryptic and much more easily visible with audio…

“You either take the gig or you don’t get paid,” the boss of her modeling agency spoke to her from within her office. A rather lanky unicorn mare. “You want your child to have a bright future with a lot of money saved up for her college courses, don’t you?”

The young Zesty nodded slowly. “Yes. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Good. Then you can start by losing some weight. That trunk of yours is unsightly and unacceptable in my photo shoots.”

Zesty looked down at her rear end, and sighed. “Well…it’s for my daughter.”

“Excellent. We have a deal. And if your husband starts to question you about it, tell him off. It’s a mare’s job to earn money for her family and if he doesn’t like it, he can quit it.”

“...that’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”

Priestess would comment first. “So she did have a conscience at one point and even found the idea of losing her extra butt weight something she didn’t want to do…but she caved in due to her boss’s manipulation.”

“Rrrgh! I can’t take this shit anymore!” Wyvern huffed smoke through his nostrils, having become fed up with the memories of the mare’s sad life and seeing how she threw away what she had going for herself and her family. “We need to find her inner self and--”

Just then, a voice would call out to them. “...please…remember me…someone…”