Conversions
-Disclaimer: Hasbro owns all recognizable characters, most unrecognizable characters, and no, I'm not profiting off of this.
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A little over fifty years ago, Princess Celestia had finished organizing and passing into law a standardized education system in Equestria.

It held the benchmarks of what could be called a basic education standard for her little ponies. A basic understanding of relevant historic literature both fictional and non, mathematics skills including multiplication and division and a basic comprehension of the magical arts.

Particularly talented ponies could find their way into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns in Canterlot or up in Cloudsdale for the Wonderbolts Preperatory Academy for Young Fliers.

No such school seemed to exist for Earth Ponies.

Or at least Spike hadn't heard anything about it.

Either way, there was something of a formal education system in the land. It didn't have publicly accessible records beyond the basics of pass or fail. Class rankings weren't listed, specific grades weren't listed, all it said was that this pony or that pony passed school.

One of the local newspapers had an article in it though. Talks were going on in Canterlot to make the system more inclusive, expand the breadth of education offered.

The young dragon wanted to feel ambivalent. He'd never been to school. He didn't know anything about classical literature. His mathematics were just fine if he did say so himself. What use would he get out of knowing how pegasi flew or unicorns cast spells?

He wanted to be ambivalent, but he knew he couldn't. He hadn't tried to keep up with Twilight after he'd been assigned to be her assistant and the young filly's breathless questioning of theoretical dwemer construction of untested spells flew right over his head.

He wondered if she was disappointed back then, back when Celestia assigned him to the bright eyed and excitable little mage.

He wondered what she would think now, if she knew what he was paying for out of his first paycheck.

"That'll be eighty-five bits, please. If you'd like, we can throw in a pack of pencils and erasers for another three?" Mid-level basic education books. Math, reading, writing, science, magic and history. He'd picked up most of the basics in the past through association rather than anything resembling actual study.

"That'd be great, thanks!" Something cold and ancient felt a sting of displeasure within the small dragon, however he wasn't too concerned about his pride feeling insulted over something as small as a third of his pay.

It was something his boss told him after a few days, that he'd been reluctant to hire the dragon because he hadn't been sure he even knew how to read. No references, no education history. Spike simply wasn't earmarked as being a potential boon instead of a risk.

It was how most dragons came to the city. Most didn't feel bothered to change it, either.

"Say?" Spike stopped halfway to the door of the bookshop, hardly able to see over the stack in his arms. "Are there any other books you'd suggest?"

"Why yes, actually." The earth pony in charge of the store stepped out from behind the counter. He had a deep red coat, his cutie mark being an old style grandfather clock. Spike followed behind him as he began searching through the rows and stacks for something. "I don't believe I saw any notebooks in your purchase there. If you plan on working through those, you're going to need some scratch paper. Now where did those get off to..."

The pony shuffled around a few books before moving on, seemingly unsure of where things got around to in his own store. It took almost five minutes before Spike heard an 'Ah-ha!' from the pony.

"There we are." The pony held up three notebooks with spiral binders. Two were plain, colored blue and red. The third had an action pose of Daring Do swinging off on a vine. "These oughtta do you just fine, yes-sirree. Four bits for the lot of em, Mister Dragon."

"Wow, thanks! I didn't even think about notebooks." Spike gleefully paid for his new acquisitions and headed back ho-

To the bakery.

Back to the bakery. He'd get these organized in his room with the rest of his purchases. Between those and these, he still had a fair amount of bits left. At least enough to pay for food for the rest of the week.

----

Spikes enthusiasm petered out instantly when he opened the math workbook. The addition and subtraction didn't look too bad, but it was four digits long.

He opened it up further to a page in the middle and blinked at what he saw.

Why were there letters in the math problem?

What was a sin?

Why did ponies worry over dark magic with something this evil taught in their schools?

Spike closed the pages back to the first and grabbed a pencil.

He wasn't gonna let some numbers beat him!

Pencil met paper and scritch-scratched late into the night.

----

A hollow snap echoed in the woods. Dry branches covered the ground. Celestia's Sun had no purchase here.

Wet, ragged gasps were the only other sound as the forest watched silently.

Dry, cracked lips did not hide white teeth.

Red teeth.

Green swallowed to its core.

Empty eyes turned towards screaming. Blue eyes wide in fear. Horn sparking. Hooves running.

Fur fell to the soil. Iron stained the ground black. Steel walked with weight anew.

South.

----

The crystal walls were gleaming, polished to a shine. They were familiar now when not so long past they felt cold and barren.

Bone deep exhaustion had settled in long ago but that was held at bay, just enough, by the relief of coming home.

Hooves pushed, grand doors opened, three sets of eyes looked to her eagerly from within, a matching salute on them all.

"Um, pardon me but who are you?" Three new ponies, none that she expected.

"We" The ink black stallion in the middle stepped forth, his orange mane blocking his eyes. "are the replacements Spike hired. I'm Raggy, the janitor."

"I'm Pumpkin Spice. Spike hired me to be your chef." The pink pegasus said from his left. Her bright orange mane was cut short.

"And I would be Slide Rule. My outlined duties involved maintaining your accounts and keeping your library in order." Said the last, a green unicorn mare with glasses and her mane done up in a bun.

"What?!"