Lower Class

"Catalyst?" a male voice said from behind Dark Wing as she was reviewing her calculus notes in a remote corner of the school library. While the school's investigation had played out, she had spent the past two weeks attending only her own classes, and scrupulously sticking to a single disguise—an uninjured version of herself. But it hadn't quelled the whispers, or the occasional direct questions.

"Brittle Horn is gone," Dark said automatically.

"She's not, actually. She left campus, but she's still in town. And she said I needed to talk to you."

Dark Wing turned and looked. The man—dark buzz cut, thin goatee, smelling of nervousness and hope—was wearing a jacket over his tank top.

She craned her head around. Her floor of the library was otherwise entirely deserted, and she wasn't picking up any scents except for his nervous energy. "Brittle Horn is a liar and an asshole," she growled, "but on the specific point that we need to talk, she was correct." Dark gathered her notes, hurriedly stuffing them in her pack, then turned to the man and stuck out a hoof. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Dark Wing."

"Tony," Tank-Top said, shaking her hoof with a firm grip rather than doing the knuckle-tap of those more familiar with Equestrians. "But, you, uh." His face crinkled up. "She said you’re Catalyst. And that means we've already talked. A lot."

"I am not Catalyst. And that’s why we need to talk." Dark Wing sat up straight, focusing on Tank-Top. "Also—and I must stress, this is purely a secondary concern—ever since they arrested Harvey Chutney for assaulting Brittle Horn, there has been an ongoing, active investigation into Catalyst’s business. So, even if I were her, I certainly wouldn't admit it, not even to friends." Dark Wing stared into his eyes, her expression neutral.

"I get it. I think. Sorry." Tank-Top dragged a chair over from a nearby table to her study desk, and then curiosity shaded into his scent. "And, uh… friends?"

"Like you, I hope."

"Thanks. But what I meant is, you said"—he hesitated at her glare, then sighed—"Catalyst said that your kind doesn't do friendship. She was pretty clear on that."

"Then I'm sorry Catalyst gave you such a poor impression of our race." Dark Wing smiled. "Friendship isn't a dirty word. Freedom Hive certainly seems to think so, but, well, they've made a big point of paying for my college degree to expose me to new ideas, and I want to make certain they're getting their money's worth." Her smile grew fangs.

An undertone of worry entered Tank-Top's scent, though he smiled and his tone turned jocular. "It sounds kinda ominous when you say it like that."

"Don't worry, just venting about family drama." Dark Wing waved a hoof, her expression re-lightening to match his. "I mentioned that Brittle Horn is the worst kind of liar, right? As you might have noticed, unredeemed changelings are jerks. When they do you a favor, the only thing in their mind is what they will get out of it. Having recently been on the receiving end of that…" She trailed off, then shook her head and looked back at Tank-Top with an unreadable expression. "Anyhow, I needed to talk to you because Catalyst was no exception."

"Oh." Tank-Top stared at her for several seconds. Then his face fell, and uncertainty took over his scent.

"Is that why you tried so hard to find me?" he asked. "You did something nice to make me owe you, and now that everything's gone to shit it's time to pay up?"

Dark's eyes widened. "What? No! The opposite, damn it. I am trying to apologize."

His odor intensified into a sharp spike of relief, but the uncertainty lingered. "Why? I don't get it. You aren't the one who went homicidal. That’s not on you."

"Nevertheless, Catalyst wronged you."

Tank-Top sighed. "Listen, if you aren’t actually Catalyst, I don't want you apologizing for her. Let me talk to her again."

Dark pressed a hoof to her forehead. "Ugh. If you have to think of me as Catalyst to make this work, then do that. Because no one else is her, either. But if you overlap us like that, it’s not going to end well."

"So I’m talking to the right person." Tank-Top’s scent of suspicion grew an acrid whiff of disappointment, and Dark’s heart sank. "But… a few minutes ago I would have said you sacrificed to set us up despite the whole I-don't-do-friends thing. There's nothing to apologize for there. So that means—" His scent intensified. "You knew it would go wrong."

"No!" Dark Wing's voice rose in agitation. "Shit, no. Please, let me explain before I blow this up too."

Tank-Top leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. He nodded for her to continue, but it smelled like the explosion had already occurred.

"Have you ever done the right thing, but for shitty reasons?" Dark said. "Unredeemed changelings don't have a model for goodness, only a rainbow-colored living doormat who believes friendship means never saying no. We've got a fantastic model for evil, though. So when we stumble in the direction of good it's by facing the example of Chrysalis and backing away. All we know about good is what it isn’t."

Tank-Top said nothing. Dark Wing felt her panic rise.

"Point is," Dark continued, "when Catalyst smelled two people who needed to be together, and when she said to meet her in the Bicentennial—"

"You."

"Sorry, what?"

Tank-Top shifted in his seat. "When you invited me to the Bicentennial. If you’re actually trying to apologize for what you did, can you quit your bullshit on that?"

"I keep telling you, I'm not…" Dark trailed off, then exhaled heavily. "Look, can you just let that go for a moment? This really isn't easy."

"I can tell. You keep evading what you're actually apologizing for."

"You keep interrupting me."

Tank-Top massaged his temples for a moment. "Fine. Go ahead."

Dark took a breath to steady herself. "Okay. So part of me immediately—" She stopped midsentence, muzzle curling in distaste. "Sorry, misspoke. Part of Catalyst immediately figured out what—"

"Oh, come on."

"Let me talk. Before you two ever talked she knew what she could have charged you for her help. I'm not apologizing for that, because that's who unredeemed changelings are, it's a reflex like breathing. But more importantly, because Catalyst never followed through on that. She told herself she was better than that."

The library fell into silence for a moment. "…And?" Tank-Top said.

Dark Wing took a breath. "And, well. Helping you was proof she was better than that. So she got very, very invested in you two working out, and she ignored the red flags."

"Invested?" Tank-Top said, scent shifting to disbelief. "You shut me up when I tried to introduce myself! You blocked my number!"

"Because Catalyst was trying to fix everything and then vanish without taking credit. Because that's what good people do. That only works when you do a good thing, though. She kind of screwed that part up."

Tank-Top, smelling of disappointment, gestured with an open palm. "Okay, see, you say you're apologizing, but then you keep insisting something awful happened to me which was entirely the fault of your evil twin, and that is really not helping your case."

"But I'm not Catalyst. How many times do I have to say it?" Dark's voice tightened again. "I’ve cut her entirely out of being. Do you understand what it means for someone to exist for that long and then, suddenly, never again? She’s dead. Murdered. I’m so serious about fixing things that I have blood on my hooves."

"If you’re willing to go to that extreme then just say it! You’re sorry for what you did to me!"

"You are entirely too hung up on some extremely specific and incorrect words."

Tank-Top's frown deepened. "Real talk? You're sitting here talking about metaphorical murder while Harv almost actually killed me. This conversation has gone very fucking weird. I thought this was just going to be a chance to commiserate about him going off the deep end.” He shook his head. “You were clear he was deep in the closet, and I never thought about blaming you for anything. But you’re trying so hard to evade this that I'm beginning to wonder."

"I am literally apologizing!" Dark Wing lifted her hinds from the chair, standing atop it. "I've gone out of my way to track you down and demonstrate to you that Catalyst was bad and I’m backing as far away from that as I can! What part of that is unclear?"

Tank-Top, too, stood up. "The part where you take any responsibility for anything you did."

Dark's muzzle curled up to reveal fangs. "I thought we were going to commiserate about Harvey, too. But you are misunderstanding me so willfully that now I'm beginning to wonder how you fucked up to turn him homicidal."

"Oh, fantastic apology there," Tank-Top said, his scent beginning to smolder.

Dark's wings flared. "Don't throw it back in my face then get all high-hooved—"

She stopped herself midsentence. Then she closed her eyes and glanced away. When her head swiveled back, her eyes were calm.

"No," she said. "I am better than this." She retucked her wings and sat back down, pulling her classwork back out of her backpack.

"Are you?" Tank-Top said. "You thought that last time too."

Dark Wing pulled out a pen and turned to her notes. "I'm glad you're unharmed. Good day. I won't contact you again."

"There. Right there. You're literally doing the Catalyst thing again."

"You haven’t heard a thing I’ve said." The pen began to tremble in her horngrip. "I assure you I'm not."

"You absolutely are. Once again you just wanted me here as proof you're a good person." Tank-Top put his hands on the desk and leaned in. "I get it now. You think the act of apologizing makes you good, so just like when you didn’t charge me anything to set me up with a psychopath, you do the thing which you think earns you goodness points. Then, having scored them, you refuse to engage with what's actually going on, and block any possibility of follow-up so nobody can challenge you on it. You’re going to get punched in the face again someday, and you will deserve it, and you will once again learn jack shit."

Dark Wing stared up impassively into Tank-Top's eyes, setting the trembling pen down and extinguishing her hornglow. He stared back, eyes challenging her for a response.

"I'm sorry you expected better from an unredeemed changeling," she finally said.

"I didn't," Tank-Top said. "But I expected better from you."

Without another word, she lowered her muzzle to her schoolwork.

After some time, footsteps receded. And when she looked back up a full minute later, Tank-Top was gone.

Dark Wing glanced around, sniffing the air, making certain she was alone. Then a smile slowly spread across her muzzle.

"He actually did," she murmured to the empty room. "I guess Brittle wasn’t lying after all."