Mini None Pizza With Left Plot

SCP – Super Cheese Parameters

One crucial tactic to muddling through a crazy situation, Sunset Shimmer knew well, is to start by running down a list of facts.

This was already true when she first landed in this world, where the only sapients were bipedal primates and, stranger still, she’d found herself turned into one, thanks to some quirk of the Crystal Mirror. She’d had a few years to get used to the idea. Not sure how many, after signing up multiple times for a high school which never seemed to look too hard at her birth certificate, or kick up a fuss about her parents’ poor track record of attending PTC meetings.

Of course, that is small potatoes compared to finding the person you ran away from – mentor, tutor, legal guardian and, dare she say it, mother-figure all in one – recast into the role of your high school’s principal.

A role in which Principal Celestia had been flanked (‘Hah!’) by someone Sunset had never met, at least not before leaving Equestria. The same person who was currently sitting opposite her, here in one of those cheap-yet-slightly-overpriced theme restaurants, part-and-parcel for shopping plazas everywhere across the country.

Luna hadn’t spoken a word since they’d entered Buck-E Cheddars, besides a curt affirmation to Wallflower Blush that of course she needn’t eat the olives if she didn’t want to. Sour Sweet hadn’t exactly taken five different people’s tastes into account when picking the topping, although it was a safe enough bet that Pinkie Pie would eat anything.

Wallflower happened to be the one who’d picked the spot next to Sunset at the table. Even her chews were as quiet as a mouse’s, the thought of which briefly amused Sunset, in view of this restaurant’s mascot. She may not even have noticed the girl’s presence, hadn’t the recent excitement kicked all of her senses into high gear.

‘High gear… Yeah, that’s a good one,’ Sunset thought, trying to focus on her slice of paprika-and-artichoke pizza. ‘Still got to ask your Vice-Principal why she thrust us into an impromptu motorcycle chase, one where you might’ve nearly got your ‘teammates’ killed over a miscommunication.’

With Sour Sweet, whom Sunset saw biting at her slice in aggressively large chunks, it was hard to tell if she’d been forgiven yet for that.

For that matter, what exactly was Luna up to with those two? A student from a rival school, possibly afflicted by a manic-depressive or bipolar disorder, and a bundle of social anxieties who couldn’t have been more aptly baptised if her name was ‘Shrinking Violet’. Odd pair to get enrolled by the Vice-Principal as special agents of some kind.

Now was a slow hour at Buck-E’s, devoid of fellow clientele. Maybe this was why Twilight had texted that the others should come and wait for her there, knowing they’d enjoy some privacy. It made for an awkward silence, punctuated only by the occasional sound of munching.

But after both the unexplained explosion at Canterlot High and the motorcycle chase, Sunset found this an improvement, if only for the time it gave her adrenaline rush to wear off.

Luckily everyone was here in one piece. Including the three bikes and Luna’s midnight-blue car, now at rest in the plaza’s parking lot. Sunset felt slightly reassured to see them from the window. Should circumstance again force a getaway, their means were right outside and within range.

The minutes wore on, however, and silence reigned. If not even Pinkie Pie, off eating in her own little spot (‘Little– hah again, aren’t you on a roll today, Sunny…’) was going to speak up, too busy tackling the challenge brought on to her infamously bottomless appetite by her recent affliction, then Sunset realised she’d be the one required to break the ice. At this table, she was easily the most socially-dominant personality. Luna, despite her status as a teacher and an adult, had a tendency to leave the talking to Celestia, outside the office.

“So…” began Sunset. “Someone gonna tell me what’s going on here?”

Vice-Principal Luna exchanged glances with Sour Sweet.

“I dunno, boss,” said Sour Sweet, setting down the lemon smoothie she’d been sipping from. “Shouldn’t we wait until Twilight gets here? I mean, she–” this was said while gesturing towards Sunset, “hasn’t been properly initiated yet, and let’s not forget, she did almost run me down, ‘cause that’s what ignorance does to you–”

“Hey!” Sunset cried, feeling her indignation return. “It’s not my fault if your idea of a friendly hand-gesture translates into most cultures as ‘Your days are numbered, I put a hit out on you’!”

‘And you’re the one here who was born with hands, so this just boggles the mind…’

“That’s quite enough,” said Luna, and Sunset immediately shut up. While not quite on par with her illustrious sister, Luna had a way of conveying a lot with a firm tone, even when it wasn’t enhanced over the loudspeaker.

Surprisingly, Wallflower of all people took the brief lull as an invitation to speak, albeit in a characteristically faltering way.

“Um, Sour’s got a point, Miss,” Wallflower said, clutching her smoothie. “A-actually, we rushed so fast to get here, I– I think we may have overshot Twilight.”

Luna sighed, taking stock of the teenagers’ collective expressions.

“That’s true,” Luna conceded. “But after all the trouble Miss Shimmer’s been through… Perhaps it’s only fair to start supplying some answers.”

‘Oh goodie,’ thought Sunset, ‘here it comes.’

Her expectations about getting explanations for why the growns-up in her life did what they did, hadn’t exactly got raised by her years of apprenticeship in Equestria.

“Best if I get someone to help me out here,” said Luna, apparently having noticed the dubious expression on Sunset’s face. She waved, calling over the waiter who’d served them earlier. “Excuse me, if you’ll please fetch the manager? Tell him I’d like a word. Nothing bad, I assure you. Just… business from Canterlot High.”

The waiter nodded and departed.

Meanwhile, Wallflower was nervously eyeing a life-size automaton of the restaurant’s mascot. Buck-E himself stood on the nearby stage, idle, as it was too early in the day to entertain the children whom analysts in some corporate boardroom had decided would be delighted by a giant two-legged rat playing guitar.

“I don’t like those things…” Wallflower murmured. “When I look at them, half of me’s convinced they’re gonna get up at night and bite a kid’s head off…”

“That’s a morbid imagination you got, Wally,” Sour Sweet said indifferently. “Miss Bubblegum-and-Laughs looks happy enough, don’t you think?”

Sunset peered at the stage. Rather than join them at the table, Pinkie Pie, still shrunk down to ten sizes smaller than her normal height, had chosen Buck-E’s snout as a perch, upon which she was busily gorging on tiny chunks of pizza.

“M-maybe? I dunno,” mumbled Wallflower. “Just something spooky about them, is what I think.”

Sour shrugged. “Eh, figures Miss Blue Moon here would pick a place that could moonlight as a Nightmare Night attraction for a meeting place.”

“Call it a base of operations, rather,” said Luna. She was looking at Sunset as she said so. “Because that’s what this is, Miss Shimmer. If you’ll allow my associate to demonstrate…”

Someone else had appeared onstage, Sunset saw then. A young guy, a little older than she or the other students, but who looked as though he couldn't have left school so very long ago. Three, maybe five years’ difference, with his innocent green eyes and boyish curls of brown hair. Judging by the white shirt, complete with the obligatory two pens – red and blue – in one pocket, Sunset assumed this had to be the manager.

That was when a realisation struck Sunset. Amidst all the earlier madness, she’d failed to notice how the nameless waiter hadn’t batted an eye at serving a Lilliputian pink party planner, which even by Pinkie Pie standards ranked as ‘really fucking weird’. And nor did the manager, now, betray any sign of bewilderment at the sight of her.

“Mister Sandwich,” spoke Luna. “If you’ll please?”

Winking at her, the manager pulled a lever by the stage. Promptly, what else should happen, but for the wall behind Buck-E Rat and his equally colourful yet unsettling friends to pull away, revealing a darkened staircase leading down goodness knows where.

While Sunset was processing this latest insanity, she heard Luna give a cough.

“Sunset,” Luna told her, flicking back a little of her hair. “I’m sorry you had to find out about it this way. Twilight and I have been holding back, waiting for what seemed like the right moment– We, well, we figured you’ve had enough going on in the past year, without saddling you with this on top of it all– and I assure you, that pun wasn’t intended.”

Sunset turned back to stare at her, gawping. “... What’s this? H-how do you build…”

Luna smiled mirthlessly. “Sunset, although I wish it could be under better circumstances, allow me to welcome you into C.H.E.E.S.E. That’s to say, the Canterlot High Equestrian Educational Society for Enthusiasts. And if Twilight is right, that explosion at the school may trace back to an opponent of Equestria’s with a… stormy disposition. You must have a lot of questions.”

Acting on instinct more than anything, of the sort of body language she’d learned in the undefinable time of her stay in this world, Sunset raised a finger. This got Luna to smile a bit, recognising it as a student’s query to a teacher, but Sunset wasn’t in a mood to see the joke.

“I do have one question, actually,” Sunset said slowly. “If you’ve got that kind of money, to– to set up a place like this in a mall– what are you doing working as a teacher?”