Harmony Lane [Finished]

Kes looked up at the other Gryphon, giving her a quick scan with his eyes. She was far smaller than he was, but it was normal. What with him being a full time soldier and her a civilian. Kes never really judged things by their appearance, the scars on his neck reminded him not to do that ever again.

"Plenty of non-combat jobs." He rumbled out after he finished looking the other gryphon over.

Techno awoke from his absolutely accidental nap with a comical *Harup?!* and took a look around the lobby of the clinic. Once again, there were no ponies that had sneaked in and needed some medical attention, much to his relief. He sighed and walked out the front door to watch the school just across the road. It was a good setup for the clinic, for if anypony was seriously injured in school, all they had to do was cross a street and be practically safe and in the care of experienced hooves.

Hee stepped outside and took a seat on one of the benches out front, the pair of which flanked the front doors. The clinic was a very nice building in general. It had two floors, but the upper room was mostly for storage and the staff break room, along with a couple of offices. Techno spent most of his time in the lobby, though, since being head doctor sometimes acquitted no time to hastle with running through a bunch of file cabinets and down stairs. He knew this from experience. As he recalled the incident, he rubbed his head, feeling the small bump that remained from the incident. Out front were the benches, on the outside edges of which, leading to the corner of the building, were flowerbeds, which held colorful flowers of every kind, which stood out well against the soft blue of the building itself.

Tech didn't notice anymore. He'd seen it hundreds of times, and would see it hundreds of times more. He kept a watch on the school building from his place, relaxed on the bench, waiting for something to happen.

With that school, something ALWAYS happened eventually.

"Why..." Cross's eyes grew wide and he let out a huge smile..."What a great idea Violet, I guess great minds do think alike!!! even as we speak, currently half a dozen Rangers are on their way to search Mr. Amity's Dwelling" Cross then turned to the rest of the foals.

"Now children, remember stay in school, Love Equestria, and always do what your teacher tells you! Equestria's most precious resource are ponies like you who live, grow, learn, and love!!"

"Now Starry- I mean, Miss Night, maybe you should begin their lesson now? wouldn't want them to miss precious knowledge that they may need, because as the M. A. S. says....'Science is the Future!'"

Violet’s eyes widened as she heard Cross say rangers were already on there way, although she was able to quickly mask it with a look of excitement. She didn’t think that Cross would actually follow through with her suggestion! Who sends Steel Rangers to find evidence of potato theft?

This wasn’t good, if the rangers did find Mr. Zebra, they could kill him! And she couldn’t be sure if that would be permanent or not, as she still did not know the nature of this place, if it was a computer simulation or not. And even if it was, it could still kill him in the real world!

Mr. Amity probably couldn’t get away, and nopony else would be able to warn Athanix...

There was only one thing she could do.

She moved to put her notebook away, and presumably grab another one, while also poking at her own stomach with her magic, upsetting it. The increase of glow on her horn was barely noticeable as she felt a wave of nausea come on.

“Uh, M-Ms St-Starry? I don’t feel so-”

And that’s when she vomited all over her desk. Not pretty, but it should get the job done.

"Why, thank you, Mr. Cross! Okay then class, we're going to review the syllabus to see what I should be teaching you today!" Starry opened the bottom drawer of her desk with her magic, and levitated out an incredibly dusty manual. She blew off the dust, and opened it to a random page.

"What day is it?" she asked the class, before whispering to herself. "Let's see... I was late seventeen days this month, so adding for weekends, that's... 23! So it's the 24th!"

Starry flipped a few pages of the manual, "Okay, let's see... today's lesson plan is... Zebra History, the Revised Version." Starry sighed, that wasn't even science!

Violet caught her attention, as she vomited all over her desk. The school didn't have a nurse, but they just sent students to the clinic next door, typically with a chaperon. "Hmm, that looks pretty bad. Violet, you can go ahead and visit the clinic if you like. Oh! Unless you want to take part in a medical experiment for extra credit! It will be a great help, would you like that? It might even fix your vomiting problem!"

Upon seeing Violet vomit upon the desk, another student raised their hoof. "Oh, you're feeling sick too? Alright, you can visit the clinic as well." Upon giving a free pass to the second student, everypony in the class raised their hooves.

"Alright, you know what? That's a lot of sick fillies and colts, why doesn't everypony head to the clinic, and just come back in when they're feeling all better, okay? Class dismissed!"

The foals quickly got out of their seats and rushed out of the classroom. Why was it that everypony always got sick, or had to use the bathroom during her class? Starry shrugged it off. The class was quickly vacated, until it was just Starry and Cross, Amity, and possibly Violet left. "So, Mr. Cross," Starry said, as she hid the dusty manual away in the bottom drawer, "How're you enjoying life on Harmony Lane?"

Cross watch as all the little colts and fillies ran outside, he stood up and placed his forelegs behind his back, a couple of them, Violet being one, actually went over to Doc Tech's clinic, but many dozens of them just scattered into the rest of Harmony Lane.

"Umm Starry do you think that was wise?" regardless it appeared she didn't hear him, so he just got back on his legs and turned to watch her as she cleaned up her desk.

"So Mr. Cross.....How're you enjoying life on Harmony Lane?

Cross let out a small grin.

"Well its nice Star-, I mean Miss Starry. The atmosphere is peferect, I have the job I've been dreaming of my whole life, I have alot of friends...its like everything is perfect, almost like I couldn't ask for anything more....but yes its truly a dream come true in every aspect" Cross walked around and stood in front of the desk.

"But please, Cross or Crossopher will do, I don't like it being so formal all the time...."

"Oh, you can just call me Starry," Starry said to him, as she picked a brush off the top of the desk with magic and started brushing back her mane. "It is pretty awesome having friends. Speaking of friends, I was actually thinking of holding a bit of a get-together over at my place later tonight. It's not gonna be much, maybe just some snacks and some TV, but, you know, I mean, I'm not trying to make you come, but that'd be pretty cool, you know? And if maybe you could bring some friends, 'cause uh, you know, I don't really have any, being me and all. Eheh,"

Starry would have to do some major cleaning around her apartment, it was all a mess. In truth, she didn't really have any plans for a party, but now was as good a time as any to try her hoof at connecting with her neighbors, since she always had had a hard time connecting with other ponies. She'd like to know this Cross pony better, and this Amity pony, to be quite honest.

"You're invited too, of course," she said, turning to Amity.

Violet nodded gratefully and wobbled out of the room, her unsteadiness only partially faked, still feeling queasy and lightheaded from her little stunt. She knew it would go away in a few minutes, so there was no time to worry about that. She made a beeline for the door that lead to the clinic, but never went inside, opting to trot past it and vanish into an alleyway.

She waited a minute for her stomach to settle, before pulling out an apple out of her saddlebags and starting to munch on it as she made her way through the back alleys, eventually reaching the back of the apartment building that everypony in Harmony Lane lived in. She tossed the apple core into the nearby dumpster and took off her saddlebags, hiding them in a nearby nook that she commonly used for this, they make it a bit harder to navigate the airducts. And with that, she opened up a nearby grating and entered the building’s ventilation system.

Inside, she silently crawled her way to Mr. Amity’s apartment, silver eyes shining as she kept a lookout for any power armored ponies stomping through the building, they should be easy to spot, even for somepony who couldn’t see right through the ductwork like Violet. They weren’t exactly quiet.

Athanix could hear the rangers from miles away as they stormed the building looking for him. He had already been briefed on what to do when this would happen. He knew the routine by heart now since he had to do it every so often. Not to mention Amity constantly drilling it into his head.

All of these ran through Athanix's head as he locked the attics door and began to pile his sofa and other furniture on top of the door while he began to pull the papers and charts of the walls and stuffing thm into numerous bags. Those were the most important out of all the other junk in this annex of his. If he lost those he would spend months in this attic once more.

And Nix hated being cooped up with no one to talk too...

"Not that many jobs for a gryphon as one would think." She answered the other bigger gryphon, if they had been that many non-combat jobs around Harmony Lane she would not had that much problem finding this job she had. That reminded her that she had to get to the clinic to help repair that auto-doc again, it was strange how it always broke down when no one used it.

"Yeah but see you later solder, oh and the names Kira." She was about to wave goodbye when she saw the group of Steel Ranger came stomping in to the apartment building, this was strange why were the Rangers here but was even more strange that she only noticed now it was always the same five Ranger. They armour looked that same but they moved in a special way that she had learned to recognized. "Hey solder, do those rangers look a bit strange to you?"

(Right guy it is time for us with High Perception not notice small strange stuff.)

Techno gave an inward sigh as some schoolcolts and fillies ran out the doors to the school. He knew that there was only one teacher in that entire school that would ever be so lenient, and that was Starry. He smiled a bit as a few of the small ponies ran over to the clinic. He always had a few things to entertain the little guys in the clinic, most of which were the results of his tinkering with equipment and such. Besides, what pony doesn't love RC carts?

He did take note of one little filly who slid into one of the alleyways between his clinic and the large buildings surrounding it. He knew that bad things happened when kids sneaked off like that. He gave another sigh and went inside to retrieve the carts and their controllers to entertain the kids.

Kes glanced over at the thundering mass of steel and terror that was the Steel Ranger team with all the emotion of an marble slab. He glanced them over, running over the details of the group. Armor looked right, weapons too. But there was something...off.

The way they moved was far to robotic, stiff, cold. Not at all fluid like the Rangers Kes had seen on base during his time there.

"Yeah...movement is too stiff."

Sky finally made it to her Cloud Factory, a big place she really loved to be. Although Something didn't seem right, For as long Sky could remember, Everypony seemed fine until today. There is something odd as everypony here worked like clock work, passing ponies who told the same jokes day in and out, for the past week. Pondering her thoughts, Sky noticed a mare who dropped a crate, again. 'Wait was it' Sky thought to herself, as she looked to see who it was. That pegasus, always dropped something at the same time, same day, every week. "Strange." Sky said to herself.

Scrap was still fuming over his encounter with Bakewell by the time he got to work. He flashed his keycard to the pony at the machine and entered the Robronco Building.

He said hi to his co-workers just like he did everyday, grabbed his jumpsuit just like he did everyday and headed to his lab just like he did everyday. Still something felt off.

Pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind, he soon lost himself in the inner workings of a sentry bot's weapon matrix.

"Umm...Yea sure I would love to come!..." Cross smiled and just held his posture, but deep down he was getting nervous

'...friends, friends.....does knowing everything about another pony make use friends??....I mean its not like I actually TALK to most of them....just make sure their loyal...' While Starry had her backed turned, Cross quickly turned to Amity and made sure to whisper

"Alright Amity, you better get home, get dressed and be AT the party alright?!? We are going to be very best of friends otherwise its her Majesty's 1st Penal Company for you potato thief, Got it?!!? Alright now hurry up and get ready"

*FLASH*

And then Amber was gone...

Starry looked back at Cross and Amity. She had her back turned while she was checking her schedule, it was just a bunch of deadlines for bills and and student progress reports, nothing that Starry needed to worry about. Regardless, when she turned to look back, she only saw Cross there!

"Oh, damn! What happened to Amity? I guess he's not coming to the party, huh? Well... a party is still a party, even if there's only one guest! You're still coming, right?"

"Umm don't worry, he said he wanted...to get ready or something along those lines...But don't worry! I promise I'll be there, I wouldn't miss it for the world!"
Cross was a bit distracted by Starrt but it suddenly dawned on him...The Steel Rangers would be marching right into Amity's apartment at this minute....right when he just sent him back into his living room ' oh shoot..' Looks like it was just going to be Cross, those steel rangers would be completely 'thorough'
and if Amity was caught with the evidence then that'd...be a bad thing for him.

Course who could blame Cross? he had a party to go to!

Starry couldn't look happier. So TWO ponies would be coming to her party! That's two times as many friends to play with! Starry hopped out from behind her desk, and trotted gleefully toward the door with the widest grin on her face.

"Okay, I'd better get ready for the party, then! I'm heading toward the locker room to take a quick shower, I'll see you there!" Starry trotted out the door and headed toward the locker rooms.

'I can't wait for the party! It's gonna be so much fun, with singing and dancing and a pinata, and we can play truth or dare! That ministry mare Pinkie Pie would be SO jealous!'

Before Cross could answer, Starry ran out of the room, leaving him there alone, blushing

"...take a quick shower, I'll see you at there!"....what an strangely thing to say, Cross chuckled to himself, that was horribly open to misinterpretation...right? well rather than take that chance, he imagined he better hop home and get ready for the party...did he really need to?, he was already set in his MoM uniform. He was pretty sure Starry wouldn't mind but still, it might be impolite.

*FLASH* Cross now stood in his living room, he took off his badge and anything work-related but he wanted something a bit more, so he turned towards his closet and started digging through, nothing really too casual since he always usually wore clothes for work....ahh there.

Cross donned his red cloak from his days of learning magic.

Now all he had to do was wait....? Help Starry? or ...then it dawned on him yet again, Cross just remembered about Amity, he should probably go down there and call the steel rangers off or what not......but then he'd have to change back into his uniform.

"Meh, I'm sure he'll be fine, the boy could use some tough love"

Amity opened his eyes as he was teleported to his apartment building. He rubbed his eyes with a hoof trying to stave away the bright lights of his apartment. He stopped though as he perked his ears up to hear the thundering sounds of armored hoofsteps race through the building.

There was no way he would just take on Steel Rangers. Not now, not for a while.

He usually knew what he was dealing with whenever he dealt with an enemy, but with not being at his apartment when the Rangers arrived, he did not know what he was dealing with. He briefly considered bailing out the window to escape and let it all blow over. In fact, that is exactly what he was going to do.

Amity began to put on his duster on and opened the window when he heard a sound coming from the ceiling. It sounded like someone was dragging something heavy across the ceiling.

Hearing this Amity slammed the window shut.

'Well looks like Nix is still here... I can't leave him here when the Rangers sweep. Amity thought to himself. He usually didn't have to deal with this since Athanix was usually out doing whatever random crap he did to get himself in trouble. Or more realistically, get Amity in trouble.

The hoofsteps were getting louder now. The rangers would be at his doorstep any moment now. Thinking quickly, Amity flung his duster back onto a nearby coat rack and jumped onto the couch trying to look as casual as possible. He then flipped the radio on and picked up a random book that was lying on a desk near by. And after taking a quick look around his relativity clean apartment, he continued on with his act. If he was lucky the rangers would just ask a few questions and sweep through his house and be done with it.

Kes continued to watch the Rangers with a careful eye, the more he stared the more it became obvious to him. Something was...off. He couldn't really place it however.

He would have interfered with the assault team, but he knew better than to do that. He may be one hell of a fighter, but to take on an armored group of Steel Rangers, in full gear, with nothing but your talons was suicide.

Shutter let out a sigh, as he looked through the scope of his camera...he had wandered about for a little bit by this time, and those 'Photo Ops' he had been looking for were once again, completely uninspiring...It wasn't that Shutter wasn't finding good pictures...but he could have sworn he had taken these pictures before, day after day! ...To be honest, even the clouds looked like they were always in the same position through his camera scope.

Shutter gave a sigh as he moved his head away from the camera and trotted over to a nearby bench outside of a clinic, taking a seat. It was same-same pictures like this that had caused his writer's block in the first place...not that this headache was helping today.

Giving a groan as he rubbed his head once more with his hoof, Shutter looked over at the clinic he was now sitting outside...this headache probably should have passed by now...maybe he should get it checked out...

Slowly, Shutter got back on his hooves, as he approached the clinic, pushing open the door as he stepped inside.

Starry emerged from the locker room feeling clean and refreshed. She checked her wristwatch, it was time to call it a day. It was still very early in the school day, but Starry had a party to plan! She had made it to school on time, so she'd allow herself to leave early.

Starry hopped outside of the school building. A lot of the foals from her class were out and about. She smiled and waved to some of them, who smiled and waved back. Starry looked over toward the clinic. Maybe she should check in, just to make sure that her students really were sick, and not just faking it to get out of class.

She merrily cantered over toward the clinic, and opened the door to see the foals playing with remote-controlled carts! That looked fun! "Hey, can I get one of those carts? I wanna play!" Starry said to Techno, who appeared to have a crate of them.

'Oh Cripe... Cross just remembered that Starry expected him to get some more guests to the party. His pupils grew wide and he rushed to put on his boots and launched himself out the door, this was such a horribly short notice, where was he going to find party ponies at this this hour...but then he remembered, he had his badge!! Cross let out a huge grin and went 10 feet down the hall to the front of Amity's door and knocked

"Amity we better get going soon!!" As soon as Cross finished, 6 heavily armored figures came up the stairway, trying to make sure they shifted their weight as not to fall through the floor, without batting an eye, revealing his badge for the rangers to see.

"Sub-Director Cross of H23, belay my last message, you six are to be my invited guests to a party upstairs, so forget about the potato thief, his execution can wait, now hold up here while I go get him.

*FLASH*

"AMITY!!! FRONT AND CENTER!!!"

(OCC, we are now neighbors Amba)

Kira had totally forgot that she had a job to do after the rangers had stormed in to her apartment building, even if these ranger had been around Harmony lane of sometime she had not seen them storm a building for who knows what probably some zebra sympathizers or anything of that kind. But now she really had to get over to the clinic, quickly saying goodbye to Kes she ran over to the clinic hoping she would not get in to trouble for being late again.

When she got over to the clinic she saw there was actually lots of colts and fillies over at the clinic, they were probably from the school and she could guess they were also from Starry Nights class as only she would let an entire class leave.

"Sorry I am late I got hold up." She said as she entered. "Ow you are here also miss Starry." She said when she saw her being in the clinic. "Letting the children leave early again?"