Family Secrets

by Keeper of time RD

Chapter 2: Chasing Shadows

“-and the Hoofer Dam supplies over half of the electrical power used in Las Pegasus,” Apple Bloom finished.

“Very good. A little brief, but good. I have just one question. Wasn’t Scootaloo supposed to be helping you with this?” Cheerilee asked the yellow earth pony filly with the red mane.

“She did her part, Ah swear! Ah… Ah don’t know why she didn’t come to school today,” Bloom answered, not really knowing if her claim was true or not.

The white unicorn filly with the pink and purple mane beside Apple Bloom said, “Maybe she got sick? You’ll still give her credit for this, won’t you?”

“Well, if she really did her part of the work, and she has a good reason for not being here to present the final report with her team, of course I’ll give her credit. But that will have to wait until we know why she’s not here.”

* * * * * * *

“What if she really is sick?” Sweetie Belle asked with a hint of worry in her voice, as she walked along at a hurried pace, trying to keep track of her friend in the crowded afternoon streets.

Weaving her way past a moving cart as they headed to their missing friend’s home, Apple Bloom answered, “Let’s hope she is. That seems to be what Cheerilee is expecting, and Ah don’t want to have to help her with another extra-credit assignment.”

“Wasn’t this whole ‘research paper on Hoofer Dam’ thing because Applejack wanted to excuse you from class for a day?”

A slight blush appeared through the fur on Apple Bloom’s cheek. “Well… yeah. But Cheerilee only made it a group assignment because Scootaloo needed the help with her grades! Ah mean, Celestia knows you don’t! Oh good, we’re here,” she added, quickly reaching up and knocking on the door.

Sweetie Belle soon joined her friend in pounding on the door and calling out for their missing friend.

Their plea was answered, not by the one they were calling out for, but by a sky blue pegasus with a prismatic mane. “Hey guys, is something up with Scoots?” the mare asked as she swooped down, taking up hovering just above the two fillies.

Of the two fillies, Apple Bloom was the one to answer. “Rainbow Dash! We don’t know what’s wrong. Scootaloo didn’t come to school today and no pony seems to know why. And she’s not answering her door. We don’t even know if she’s home or sick or anything. Ah don’t suppose you’ve seen her around today?”

Dash opened her mouth to speak but never started. Instead she turned her gaze to the side and started tapping a hoof on her chin. “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen her lately either.” Giving a quick shrug she added, “No biggie. I’ll just go peek in her window to see if she’s here or not.”

As Rainbow Dash zipped around the side of the house, leaving the two fillies by the front door, Sweetie Belle said, “Look in her window! Why didn’t we think of that?”

“Because her room is on the second floor, and Ah don’t see a ladder just laying around for us to borrow.”

“Oh. Right.”

A moment of silence passed as the two friends awaited the results of Rainbow’s investigation. The sound of a window being slid open and followed by a muffled cry from the elder pony didn’t exactly encourage them. Maybe a full second later the sound of the front door being unlocked gave a fraction of a second’s warning before the door swung open.

Not wasting a second Rainbow Dash grabbed the two fillies, one in each front leg, and zipped back into the house so fast that the back draft alone was enough to close the door behind them.

“What’s… wrong?” The first word had been uttered as they were being flown up the stairs, by the second word Dash had deposited the two fillies in their friend’s room.

“That!” Rainbow Dash said, pointing right in front of them.

There, standing more or less in the middle of the room, was a perfect stone replica of their pegasus friend, glaring angrily at an empty spot near both Scootaloo’s desk and window.

“Ah don’t get it,” Bloom said.

“She has a statue of herself?”

“I don’t think that’s a statue. It’s too perfect,” Dash shared her observation.

Two sets of young eyes suddenly got wide with fear. “Y-You don’t think there’s ah-ah cockatrice lose around town? Do ya?”

“What? No! Maybe, I don’t know. Just keep an eye on her while I go get help,” Rainbow Dash said.

Before either filly could protest the plan Dash had already leapt out the window and taken wing to… to wherever she was planning on getting help from.

When Rainbow returned ‘help’ turned out to be Princess Twilight Sparkle, and even Applejack and Rarity had caught word in time to come running in with her.

Applejack, the orangeish-tan earth pony with the blond mane, sat beside her sister. Also sitting beside her sibling was Rarity, a white unicorn with a flowing, and overly styled, purple mane.

The four onlookers waited and watched as the purple glow of Twilight’s magic pulsed around both her horn and the stone filly. With nothing better to look at, the less magically astute observers had nothing better to do than let their gaze wander back and forth from the stone filly and the princess’ purple coat. Or her darker purple mane with a pink and purple stripe through it. Or even her cutie mark depicting a large pink and white star surrounded by five smaller white stars, that symbolized her talent for magic.

The Alicorn’s magic flickered out. “Well girls, I have good news and bad news.”

“What’s the good news, darling?” Rarity asked.

“The good news is that Rainbow Dash was right.”

“And the bad news?”

“That Rainbow Dash was right. This is Scootaloo and she’s been hit by a petrifaction spell.”

Stepping forward, her eyes glistening with that watery pleading look that only a foal can pull off, Sweetie Belle asked, “You can change her back, right?”

“Of course, Sweetie. But it’s going to take some time.”

“If you know how to change her back, why can’t you just do it now!” Rainbow Dash said with a touch of annoyance and a lot of impatience in her voice.

Almost immediately the pegasus regretted her question. No, make that immediately, as Twilight took the excuse to launch into lecture mode. “Well you can think of a petrifaction spell as being like both a lock and cement.”

“It’s like a lock in that the primary point of the spell is to lock the target away for a while. And just like a lock, the easiest way to open the lock is with the key. In the case of a petrifaction spell, the source of the spell becomes the key. Usually whoever cast the spell can dismiss it fairly easily.”

“Just like when Fluttershy had the cockatrice turn you back from stone in the Everfree Forest!”

“Yes, Apple Bloom. Just like a cockatrice dismissing its own spell. But just like a physical lock you don’t have to use the key to open it. With enough force you can just brake the lock. And since we don’t know who put this spell on Scootaloo that’s what we’re going to have to do.”

“And that brings us to the part where a petrifaction spell is like cement. The longer a petrifaction spell is allowed to sit the more stable its magic become and the harder it becomes to brake it through raw magical force. Just like it’s easier to pull a pony out of wet cement than to have to get a jackhammer to free them from hardened cement.”

Looking back to the stone Scootaloo, Twilight gave a deep sigh before finishing. “The spell on Scootaloo is perfectly stable, so I’d say she’s been this way for more then a day. Anyway, she’s going to need a lot of magic therapy to… soften the petrifaction spell, so to speak, before I’ll be able to break it outright.”

Right about then was when a heavy clop sounded out from the doorway. “Why does there seem to be a convention in my daughter’s room?” the orange pegasus stallion, with a red and yellow mane, and a cutie mark of white flames, standing there asked in a less than friendly tone.

“Oh, well, um. You see… Scootaloo didn’t go to school today. So her friends came to check on her and well…” Twilight’s voice trailed off as she realized that where she was she was blocking the stallion’s view of his daughter. Stepping aside she added, “They found her like this.”

“I see,” he said with his voice suddenly calm, to the point of being so cold that it was clearly forced calmness. “How long until you have her back in action and she can tell us who did this to her?” he added, walking past his daughter and following her frozen gaze.

“As I was about to say, it will take at least a full day, so my best guess would be sometime tomorrow afternoon, maybe evening. If you don’t mind, I’d like permission to move Scootaloo to my castle. I’ll need to call in some help from Canterlot to maintain the spell array that will be needed, and I’d rather not have to cram an entire squad of unicorns into your home. Not to mention that having a larger room to set up a proper array would probably help.”

“Do whatever you need to do to help my Scootaloo,” the stallion said, seemingly more interested in the floorboards than his daughter.

Then Scootaloo’s father turned and opened his wings, as if he were getting ready to fly out the window. Although he stopped himself and was about to say something more, but Twilight Sparkle spoke first.

“Wait! Aren’t you going to stay by her side? She was just turned to stone. I’m sure she’d really like to see her friends and family when she comes out of it.”

For a moment he merely looked at the princess as if that was the dumbest question ever asked, even waving a hoof over his horn-less forehead. “In case you didn’t notice, I don’t do magic. I can’t help you cure my daughter.” Shaking his head slightly he added, “No, by her side I’m useless to her, and she’s stronger than you give her credit for. But there is somewhere else I can be that can be of use to her.”

After a short pause to re-gather his thoughts Scootaloo’s dad added, “Before I go, I need to ask two things of you. Lock up when you’re done here. And once Scootaloo is back to normal, tell her that if she deems it necessary she has permission to use it.”

“It?” Just about everypony else in the room echoed.

“She’ll know what I’m talking about,” Scootaloo’s dad said just before he finally jumped out the window and took flight, disappearing into the sky.

* * * * * * *

“I hope Scootaloo’s better now,” Sweetie Belle said as she and Apple Bloom were running to Twilight’s castle, the next day.

“Actually Ah was hoping we’d get to see them break the spell, myself.” Even as she said it a slight blush appeared on Apple Bloom’s cheek as she realized what she was implying. “Ah-Ah mean… Ah just wanted to see the magic. Not that Ah want Scootaloo to be stone any longer then she has to be.”

Sweetie Belle giggled. “It’s okay. I know what you meant.”

Despite its name Twilight’s Castle lacked the fortified walls, or guards, or any form of security that usually made a castle a more defendable structure than non-castles. Of course with Canterlot Castle, the capital of Equestria, only a few hours away by ground and only a few minutes by air there truly was no real tactical value to the newest castle in the land. A fact that was further testified to by the two fillies who went right up to the front door and let themselves in completely unchallenged.

Once inside the two were stopped, not by any form of security, but by a question.

“Uh, Sweetie Belle, do you remember which room they put Scootaloo in?”

A similar ‘uh’ answered as the unicorn filly in question started looking at the hallway full of seemingly identical doors.

“Third door on the right,” Twilight said, as she emerged from a different door, and quickly followed her words with a yawn and a stretch of her wings.

“Thanks Twi. But are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I was just up most of the night channeling the spell on Scootaloo before I handed the spell work off to the unicorns from Canterlot. I seem to have spent most of the day sleeping, and just woke up a minute ago.”

After rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Twilight’s horn flickered to life for a second and then she added, “Would you like to come with me to see how Scootaloo is doing?”

“Yes, please!” the two fillies answered together, and quickly zipped to the princess’ side.

A set of emerald green doors opened. A princess and two fillies entered the room. And the first thing they saw were two Rainbow Dashes standing side by side in the same aggressive stance. Eyes boggled, eyebrows were raised, heads were tilted, and mouths hung open as if to speak but never uttering a sound.

That lasted all of a second, and then the larger Rainbow Dash finally moved, rolling over onto her side, giggling.

With that the three newcomers to the room shifted their gaze to the smaller Rainbow Dash and quickly realized that it was Scootaloo, still stone, and merely painted in Rainbow Dash’s colors.

“You painted her?!” Twilight yelled, admonishing the elder pegasus.

Rainbow Dash gave an innocent smile and said, “What? Luna said that when a stone curse is broken the outer layer shatters off like an eggshell. So it’s not like the paint will stay on Scootaloo.”

Twilight stood with her mouth open and a hoof raised as if ready to launch into a lecture. The only thing stopping her was that Dash was right, there was no harm in painting the petrified filly. It was rude maybe, but harmless. Then she caught one of the names uttered by the pegasus. Looking back to Scootaloo, Twilight found that not only was the filly glowing in soft-blue magic light, but so was the ring of magic runes drawn on the floor around her and the horn of the nearby princess of the night.

Looking to the alicorn with midnight-blue fur and an ethereal mane that flowed in an unfelt wind and looked like a vision of the stars, Twilight almost yelled, “You let her paint Scootaloo?!”

Only the tiniest of smiles marred Luna’s otherwise perfectly stoic exposition. “What? Rainbow Dash and I were talking, and she mentioned that stone gray wasn’t a fitting color for Scootaloo. I merely agreed. And given how often that filly dreams of being like Rainbow Dash I doubt that she would mind the attempt to give her petrified form a brighter color scheme more befitting her youthful spirit.”

“Ah bet she’d think she looks cool right now.”

“She’s got you there,” Sweetie said to Twilight, agreeing with Luna.

Bowing her head slightly, Twilight shook it slowly it in defeat. “Fine. Silliness aside, Luna, seeing as you’re channeling the spell, how much longer until Scootaloo can be cured?”

A bit of a sarcastic smile formed on Luna’s face. “Well if you want me to finish by myself, I’d say another hour or two. However, now that you are rested, I suspect there’s enough magical power in this building to cure her now.”

“Alright then,” Twilight said, as she gave a nod.

As Twilight Sparkle walked over to one side of the runic pattern Luna gave a sharp whistle that made everypony in the room flatten their ears. Within moments eight unicorns marched swiftly into the room, all of them had gray coats and were sporting the golden armor of the Canterlot royal guard.

“It is time.” Was all Luna had to say to get the unicorn guards to gather around the edge of the magic circle surrounding Scootaloo.

Rainbow Dash and the two fillies shuffled themselves into a corner, where they still had a clean line of sight of Scootaloo and waited for the magic users to do their thing.

They didn’t have to wait long before every unicorn and alicorn horn in the room was aglow with magic. The runic pattern on the floor surged with power as the colored glows from the different magic users merged into one radiant, white light. A wave of white light washed over Scootaloo and in its wake glowing cracks began to form in the stone. Finally, the stone filly shattered as if it had been nothing more than a shell all along, revealing the flesh and blood pegasus beneath.

At first Scootaloo started to collapse. On instinct she caught herself an inch before allowing her belly to hit the floor. As she stood back up the look of rage that had been frozen on her face for days was gone, replaced with one of weary confusion.

“Wha-huh…what happened?” Scootaloo asked, even as the fog of thoughts in her mind started to clear.

Twilight answered, “We were hoping you could tell us.”

Anger flared up in Scootaloo’s eyes as she snarled, “Diamond Tiara!”

“What?” both princesses asked.

“Diamond Tiara! She snuck into my house! Surprised me in my room! Pulled a cockatrice out of her bag, and turned me to stone with it!”

“What?”

“Really?”

The mixed responses came from around the room.

“Are you sure?” Twilight amended her question.

“She was like four feet in front of me! So, yeah I’m sure.”

Twilight Sparkle passed Luna a concerned glance. The aggressive use of banishment or petrifaction spells were one step below murder as far as ranking the seriousness of crimes was concerned. Especially since it could take hundreds of years to notice the difference between a petrified pony and a pony statue enchanted to resist erosion if no one familiar with petrifaction spells thought to check specifically for that.

With a sideways nod and wave of her hoof Luna dismissed the unicorns of the royal guard. “Perhaps a visit from two displeased princesses will help dissuade this Diamond Tiara from such a destructive path?”

“Certainly a matter that bears investigation,” Twilight said, breathing a sigh of relief.

Even as two princesses, three fillies, and Rainbow Dash were heading for the door, Dash’s curiosity got the better of her. “Hold up a second, squirt. When your dad saw that you were stone, he said that ‘If you thought you needed it, you had permission to use it.’ He didn’t say what it was, but he seemed to think you’d know what he was talking about.”

That stopped Scootaloo in her tracks. “What? That… That doesn’t make any sense,” she said, with all eyes on her.

“Oh? Why not?” Twilight Sparkle couldn’t help but ask.

Scootaloo’s eyes had become unconfused the moment she seemed to comprehend her father’s message, and whether by intent or happenstance her eyes came back onto focus on Twilight’s wings. “Forget it! It’s not important!” she claimed in a tone of voice that made it clear that she was hiding something, but that something else ensured she wouldn’t be giving an honest answer any time soon.

* * * * * * *

Filthy Rich had been reading in his study when he noticed the sound of unexpected guests in his foyer. Considering that the butler was usually the one to answer the door that wasn’t too unusual, but what struck Mr. Rich as odd was the fact that a good twenty seconds had gone by and Randolph had yet to tell him who these unexpected guests were. Why would his butler let strangers into the mansion and then not fetch the master of the house?

Seeking out the answer for himself, Filthy Rich found a most unexpected group of visitors waiting in his entrance room, namely two princesses, a weather pony and three fillies. Of the fillies he only knew the name of one of them, and only then because she was the granddaughter of one of his business partners.

“Hello. It is always a pleasure to have such guests in my home, but to what do I owe this unexpected visit from two princesses?”

“I’m afraid that our visit is not a cordial one. We wish to speak with Miss Diamond Tiara,” Princess Luna answered the business tycoon.

Suddenly the presence of fillies his daughter’s age made sense to Filthy Rich. It probably didn’t hurt that the animosity between his daughter and these three fillies wasn’t exactly a secret. But he could have sworn that that was water under the bridge, as he vaguely recalled Diamond inviting the trio to a pool party or something not too long ago. Ironically enough that also made the adults here even more of a mystery. After all, if this was about kid’s stuff he would have expected Cheerilee to be the visitor, so what did this have to do with royalty and a weather pony?

Before Rich could put his thoughts to words the angelic voice of his daughter came from the top of the stairs.

“Well hello, Princess Twilight, Princess Luna!” Diamond Tiara greeted in a most pleasant tone. “And others,” she added in a much less welcoming voice on seeing those with the royalty. Yet looking back to the princesses Diamond’s voice perked back up, becoming almost smug. “I must admit, I thought Randolph was joking when he said two princesses wanted to talk to me. So what was it that not one, but two princesses wanted to talk to me about?”

“You know darn well what this is about! Your little payback for us carrying the flag at the Equestra Games!” Scootaloo shouted, slamming a hoof on the marble floor.

From the look on Tiara’s face she was either genuinely surprised or a master actress, or maybe both. Regardless she answered, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not mad that you and your friends got to carry the flag at the games, and even if I was, shouldn’t I be mad that the judges that chose your routine over mine?”

“Stop playing dumb! You broke into my house! I was standing right there when you pulled that cockatrice out and turned me to stone! Did you really think I wouldn’t tell on you?!”

Now it was Diamond Tiara’s turn to yell and slam a hoof down. “Is that why you missed school the last two days? Look, as much as I would love to see you turned to stone, there are two huge problems with your featherbrained theory! First, I thought you lived under a bridge or something. So I couldn’t have broken into your house when I didn’t even know you had one, forget where it is! Second, I don’t even know what a cockatrice is, let alone how to use one to turn somepony to stone!”

By the time Tiara had finished her rant she and Scootaloo were standing at most a foot apart, glaring at each other. The adults in the room stood silently, with the exception of Rainbow Dash who hovered silently, all waiting to see what came of this staring contest.

If the fact that she’d been turned to stone wasn’t enough to make Scootaloo’s blood boil the fact that she’s just realized what day it was and that her weekend had been totally ruined was. But as much as she wanted to blame Diamond Tiara anyway, every fiber in Scootaloo’s body was saying that the crusaders’ mortal enemy was telling the truth. But the final nail in the coffin was the message from her dad and the implication that whatever was going on was way bigger than Diamond Tiara. And that thought made another possibility occur to the young pegasus.

“Forget it. She didn’t do it.”

Scootaloo didn’t think her declaration that they were wasting their time here was that big a deal. But apparently she was mistaken as she was suddenly wrapped in Twilight’s magic and pulled to the side in such a way that Rainbow Dash, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom all rallied defensively to her side.

“Scootaloo, you can’t go accusing ponies of crimes like that just because you don’t like them!”

More than Twilight’s words, her disappointed and admonishing tone and look sent Scootaloo’s mind spinning. Why did it sound like she was being treated like the bad guy all of a sudden? Then she realized that Twilight, the spirit of magic, hadn’t jumped to the same conclusion as she had.

“No! I saw Diamond Tiara turn me to stone! But I also believe her. She is too stupid to know what a cockatrice is-”

“Hey!”

“-So whoever turned me to stone must have been using some kind of illusion magic to make themselves look like Diamond Tiara.”

“I suppose that makes sense. But illusion magic like that is fairly high level, which begs the question, why would a high-level magic user want to turn Scootaloo to stone?” Twilight asked.

“Maybe it was a changeling? All of them can look like anypony they want,” Apple Bloom suggested.

“Also possible. But same question, why would a high-level magic user or a changeling want to turn Scootaloo to stone?”

Turning her back to the pondering princess, the mysterious permission given by her dad made it clear to Scootaloo that he was the one pony who might know what was really going on. A small smile graced her face as it dawned on her that the princess of the night might know where he was.

“Luna?”

“Yes, Scootaloo?”

“My dad’s a royal guard. He works for you. So, do you know where he is?”

A slight glimmer in Luna’s eye hinted at a sudden understanding, and yet she answered, “I am sorry. But I can not tell you where he is.”

Scootaloo may have had an ace-in-the-hole with her father, but not only did she have no such thing with Luna, but what the filly did know had to be kept secret from the princess of the night. So all she could do was to do her best puppy-dog face and plead, “Please, I think he might know what’s going on.”

“You misunderstand me, Scootaloo. I literally can not tell you. Given the nature of your father’s… investigation, he could be anywhere in Equestria right now. I will not know when he was where until his investigation is complete and he files his mission report.”

“Oh. How about Captain Cloud Wall?”

The shake of a head didn’t bode well for the answer to Scootaloo’s question.

After a moment of tapping her chin Luna answered, “Same problem I’m afraid. I believe he was investigating a crime ring that has been smuggling illegal magic artifacts. So again he could be anywhere at the moment.”

A frown crept onto Scootaloo’s face. Then a single eyebrow went up as the princess’s words filtered through the filly’s mind. Luna refused to mention the nature of her dad’s mission, but she volunteered Cloud Wall’s. Did that mean Cloud’s mission had him openly acting like a member of the royal guard? And did that mean she might find him by asking around the guard stations?

A smile flashed on the young pegasus’ face before she remember that Luna’s answer was meant to be heard as a negative one. Bowing her head and sighing in mock disappointment, Scootaloo turned and walked away, heading for the door.

Seeing their friend about to leave the Rich manor, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom went after her.

“Wait up!”

“Where are ya going?”

Scootaloo gave a two-word answer. “My house.”

Seeing the three crusaders leaving, Rainbow Dash nodded her head toward the trio. A quick unspoken conversation followed with Twilight giving an approving nod and Dash responding with a salute and flying after the three fillies, leaving the princesses to diplomatically apologize for the hastily made accusations.

* * * * * * *

Had it been any other day Scootaloo would have been thrilled that her best friends and her personal hero and honorary big sister seemed to think they needed to hang out with and comfort her. But today she had a lot on her mind, and that last thought just made her add ‘think of a shorter but still suitably awesome title for Rainbow Dash’ to that list. Okay maybe it wasn’t a long list as the new addition brought her to-do list up to three items, but the first two were important enough to count as a lot.

Regardless, what mattered was that Scootaloo’s dad had given her permission to use it. And that meant that he had known all along that this was way bigger than Diamond Tiara. It also meant that her dad thought that it might be needed, which realistically meant that by giving her permission to use it, he was really asking her to bring it to him. And most importantly this was the first time since Las Pegasus that her dad had asked her to do anything even remotely shadow-ops related for him. And to top it all off this wasn’t just anything, this was the biggest, most important secret she knew.

But now that Scootaloo was standing in her room surrounded by friends that weren’t allowed to know her family’s secrets, there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Or maybe there was. If she was going to deliver it to her dad, first she needed to figure out where he was. The filly’s first instinct was to check her window, but her outside windowsill proved to be note-less. So much for getting lucky, she thought to herself.

Next Scootaloo turned back to her room, namely the spot where she’s seen Diamond Tiara.

“That’s new.”

“What is?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“This is where Diamond Tiara was standing when she turned me to stone. But I don’t remember these scratches in the floor,” Scootaloo answered, motioning to the fresh scars in her wooden floorboards.

“They don’t look like the kind of scratches you make with the edge of your hooves either,” Sweetie Belle observed.

Landing beside the spot in question, Rainbow Dash gave the scratches a look.

“That because they’re talon marks. And judging from the size, I’d say they’re a griffin’s.”

“That… doesn’t help. I don’t know any griffins,” Scootaloo said, frowning.

“Are there any griffins in Ponyville?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Off the top of my head, the only one I can think of is that Le Grand guy.”

“Who’s that?” the three fillies couldn’t help but ask.

“Oh, some chef that entered a baking contest against Pinkie Pie. We rode the train to Canterlot together. He makes some pretty good eclairs. Don’t suppose you did anything to tick him off lately, squirt?” Dash asked.

Scootaloo shook her head. “Not that I know of. I haven’t crashed my scooter into anything lately. Do you really think he’d turn me to stone over something like that?”

“Probably not,” Rainbow Dash conceded. Then her eyes lit up with revelation. “Maybe it wasn’t anything you did!” The excited remark drew only questioning looks from the three younger ponies, prompting Dash to explain. “You said Diamond Tiara said that this was ‘revenge for the Equestria Games’ didn’t you? Well, Ponyville did win the metal count in the games! And you three were the flag bearers for Ponyville at the opening ceremony.”

“Ah guess that makes sense,” Apple Bloom said, nodding.

“I don’t know. Sounds kind of petty for a professional sports team.”

“I’m with Sweetie Belle on this one. Why come after me when the flag bearers were the only ones who couldn’t win medals in the games?” Scootaloo voiced her concerns with the theory.

“Well, have you three got any better ideas?” Rainbow asked, half honestly and half impatiently.

Rainbow Dash waited a moment, but with no timely responses she opened her wings and said, “Then I’m going to tell Twilight about this. Knowing we might be looking for a griffin should help her investigate.” With that she opened Scootaloo’s window and leapt out.

In the back of her mind, Scootaloo gave a sigh of relief once Rainbow Dash had left. Now she just needed to get her friends to leave her alone, so she could tend to the secret stuff her dad seemed to have tasked her with.

Dang, the young pegasus thought to herself as she realized her friends had that look in their eyes. The one that said ‘something bad happened to you, so now we won’t leave your side until we think you feel better.’

“So what do we do now?” Apple Bloom asked, breaking the silence that had formed in the wake of Rainbow Dash’s departure.

Bloom’s gaze had been on Scootaloo when she asked the question, but after the pegasus didn’t respond Sweetie Belle answered instead. “There’s always crusading for our cutie marks. What haven’t we tried?”

Both of Scootaloo’s friends started tapping a hoof to their chins, not so much thinking about what they wanted to try to earn their cutie marks, as they were pondering what they thought Scootaloo would enjoy doing in the name of earning their cutie marks.

“If you two want to crusade for your cutie marks, fine. But I’m not in the mood for that right now.”

Scootaloo’s declaration was met with a swift and identical response from both of her friends.

“Okay. What do you want to do?”

“Uh…” Scootaloo hesitated. She didn’t want to lie to her friends, but given the nature of the task she believed her father had left her, she certainly couldn’t tell them what she wanted to do. Not completely anyway. “I…I think I need to take something to my dad,” she finally answered.

Apple Bloom was quick to ask, “You’re talking about that mysterious ‘it’ your dad mentioned aren’t ya?”

Somewhere in the back of Scootaloo’s mind she knew if their positions were reversed her curiosity would be just as bad. Bowing her head in defeat, Scootaloo sighed and said, “Yes. But it’s a secret. I can’t tell you what it is, and I can’t show it to you, or I’d be in big trouble.”

Sweetie Belle seemed ready to back down and give her friend some privacy, but then Apple Bloom said, “That’s fine. You don’t need to do either of those for us to help you.”

She didn’t? Scootaloo’s eyes fell on an empty set of saddlebags. Bloom was right, she didn’t. As long as… “You two promise not to try and peek in my bags once I have it?” she asked.

Once both of her friends had given their word that they would respect her secret, the young pegasus took her saddlebags and said, “Okay… just stay in my room while I go get it.”

Scootaloo had barely gotten into position in the hall when she had to say, “I said stay in my room.”

“What? We are!” Apple Bloom said, as she and Sweetie Belle sat in the doorway to Scootaloo’s room.

In hindsight it didn’t matter if her friends saw what was about to happen, so Scootaloo just coiled her legs and brought her wings to life. Above her was a frame with a flat panel that looked much like the rest of the ceiling.

Although Scootaloo’s wings may not have given her flight they did cancel out most of her weight. So when she finally jumped she shot through the frame in the ceiling with ease, knocking the unsecured panel out of the way in the process.

On the other end of the jump her hooves came down on the floor of the attic. Like most attics this one was clearly a storage space for long forgotten things. Maybe a little sparse compared to most, but it still had some random boxes, some storage chests, a couple of bookshelves and the like.

In one corner there was even a large heavy-duty safe, containing a few documents from her dad’s work if what she’d been told about it was right. Just little things like out-dated patrol routes, a map showing the location of secret military installations, (most of which didn’t actually exist.) and maybe a few old records that were too embarrassing for the government to leave in official archives but too important to destroy. Despite all of that, Scootaloo knew that the safe was a decoy, a tantalizing treasure to convince any thief that they had already found the greatest secret within the house.

Instead the filly made her way over to a bookshelf that was only about as tall as the average stallion and only had enough room for three shelves. Seeing as the wall behind the bookshelf had to match the angle of the roof, there was a gap between the bookshelf and wall that made a decent crawlspace.

Hidden away within that crawlspace was a lever. A lever that was now held in a small orange hoof, and yet, Scootaloo hesitated for a moment. Was this really what her father wanted? In his message he’d only given her permission to use it after all. Shaking the doubt from her mind she assured herself that this was how shadow ops worked, and of course he’d been vague, he had to pass the message to her through ponies who weren’t allowed to know what was truly going on.

She pulled the lever and a distinct click was heard from somewhere below.

Returning to the entrance to the attic, Scootaloo propped up the panel that once covered it so that it would fall back into place as soon as she got out of the way and then jumped back down into the living space of the house.

Even though she felt the gaze of her friends from the doorway to her room, Scootaloo gave no acknowledgement of them as she made her way downstairs. Thankfully her friends correctly interpreted that to mean they were still supposed to stay in her room.

As for Scootaloo, she made her way to the first-floor hallway and opened a small closet. Reaching under a shelf at the back of the closet, she turned the right most support to the side and the click of something unlocking was heard.

With a push the back wall swung open, revealing that the closet was about two feet deeper then it first appeared to be. And in that hidden space was a steep, narrow stairwell descending into the ground beneath the house.

At the bottom of the stairs the underground passageway opened up a little. Not much, but enough that an adult could comfortably walk through it. Although the passageway before her went on for a few hundred yards, Scootaloo didn’t go more than twenty feet before she stopped.

The only thing keeping the infinite darkness at bay were a few enchanted glow stones embedded into the ceiling of the tunnel. Sparsely spaced as they were, they were still enough for Scootaloo to spot the small wooden panel in the wall that was ajar.

Opening the panel she then punched in a three-digit code on the keypad behind it, causing a section of the wall beside the keypad to open up. In addition to revealing the new pathway, putting the code in had caused the sound of a small motor to turn on from somewhere in the newly revealed tunnel.

An adult would have had to crawl on their belly through the secret passage within a secret passage, and even Scootaloo had to walk with her keens bent to the point where her belly was almost touching the floor.

She hadn’t gotten far when she felt the dirt floor become a metal grate. Knowing what was below, Scootaloo couldn’t help but tense her muscles as she crawled out onto the grate. Halfway across the grate a click sounded and with a much louder clang the grate below swung open, allowing the filly to fall to her doom.

Or she would have if not for the layer fog in the pit below, courtesy of the fog machine chugging away within said pit. That and being a pegasus helped, as her ability to walk on clouds meant that Scootaloo barely moved at all when the trapdoor gave out beneath her.

Continuing to crawl across the top of the fog-machine-made cloud, Scootaloo easily reached the far side of the pit, and with the last line of defense behind her she continued down the remainder of the secret tunnel.

The room at the end of the passageway was a simple one, with sturdy wooden support beams and stone walls giving the place a very mine-like feel. Even though she was alone down here, as Scootaloo emerged into the room the ghosts of the past appeared in her mind’s eye, and she could still hear them as they played out the only memories she had down here.

* * * * * * *

A Scootaloo, from over a year ago crawled out of the passageway, and looked up to her father, who was standing off to one side, brushing off the dirt he’d acquired crawling through that same passage.

“What’s that?” Scootaloo asked, pointing to the only other thing in the room.

The lone, mostly silver object sat on a small stone block in the middle of the room. With its silver rings, frames and shoe it looked halfway between a boot and a knee-high leg brace, a fancy one given the metal it appeared to be made of. On the bottom of the boot part of the device was a clear crystal lens. The supports that would go up the sides of the leg also had a long thin crystal embedded in the silver, that revealed a chamber with liquid rainbow was housed in the supports. Near the top of one of the side supports was a white button. The device ended in a silver ring that seemed like it was meant to fit around the leg just below the knee.

Looking down at the device Scootaloo’s father said, “It’s the secret I’m sworn to keep and protect. A secret that has been passed from parent to child for generations, a secret that has been kept hidden for over a thousand years.”

“I get it, dad. But what is it?”

“A weapon.”

“So, who are we keeping it secret from?”

“Everyone. When your grandma handed it down to me she said that when the princess ordered it hidden away she gave the first guardian strict instructions that it was to be kept secret even from her, so that not even she would know where it had gone. It is something that time is meant to forget. But we weren’t, somepony had to keep it around because even though it is truly dangerous, it is my understanding it that was once used to do something truly good, and the princess wanted it kept around so that it could be used that way again. When the time was right.”

“But if the princess isn’t allowed to know about it, who gets to say when the time is right?”

“Only the guardian watching over it can make that call. So right now me, and someday, when you’re old enough, you.”

Little Scootaloo gazed into the silver of the device deeply enough to see her own reflection before asking, “So how do you know when the right time is?”

Her father laughed. “Like I said, it’s been kept secret for over a thousand years. Wars have come and gone, and as far as I can tell the guardians at the time have kept this hidden, so whatever it is needs to be really important if war alone isn’t a good enough reason. From the rumors it’s probably something that’s meant to be used against powerful dark magic. Save the world stuff, like your comic books or something.”

“Rumors?”

“Yeah. Turns out when you pass something down through the generations, under conditions of secrecy, the details get lost along the way. Even your grandma didn’t know how much of what she’d been told was true or just the myths that formed about it.”

The pure awe glowing in the filly’s eyes slowly faded as she gazed down at the object before her, slowly being replaced with a lone eyebrow raised in curiosity. “Dad, why are you telling me all of this now?”

A genuine smile graced the stallion’s face. “Because you’ve known the true nature of my job for three months now, and I haven’t heard a single rumor floating around town about how special Scootaloo’s dad is. So obviously you’ve kept my secret. And more importantly you’ve proved that you are a big enough filly that you can stay home alone now. But if you’re going to do that then you need to know this is here.”

Tilting her head to the side Scootaloo asked, “Why?”

“Because seeing as it’s a weapon you can use it to protect it. Or if it looks like you need to abandon the house, this is the one thing you need to escape with.” After pausing for a moment the stallion added, “I’d prefer if you tried to escape first. Fight only if you don’t see any other way out. Here I’ll show you how it works.”

As he went through the motions of demonstrating the basic use of the artifact he said, “All you have to know is how to turn it on, and that it shoots out of the lens on the bottom. So just point your hoof at the target and push the button to fire. And be careful, I’m told it’s pretty powerful.”

“How powerful?”

Returning the device to its place he told his daughter, “I have no idea. I’ve never had a reason to fire it. And from what I was told it hasn’t been fired since it was first used eons ago. So hopefully you’ll never have a reason to fire it either.”

With a bit of a grin he added, “For now, just keep this secret. And who knows, if you do a good job at that, maybe I’ll let you come to work with me for once.”

* * * * * * *

As the memories of the past faded from her mind’s eye, Scootaloo couldn’t help but wonder how long had it been since that day? She couldn’t remember exactly, but she could remember that she hadn’t met Apple Bloom by then.

Regardless, that had been the day Scootaloo had earned her father’s trust as a secret keeper. Ironically enough, when he’s made good on his word, that would become the day she lost his confidence as a secret agent, and been doomed to forever be left behind to ‘guard the fort’ as he always said. That was until today, anyway.

Closing her eyes for a second she refocused her mind, and then reached down and put her leg into the device. Being the magical artifact that it was, it glowed slightly with a soft white light and shrank down until it fit her perfectly. With its smaller, more convent size she took it off the pedestal and slipped it into her right side saddlebag.

Emerging back into her house she closed the secret passage at the back of the closet and returned to her room.

Apple Bloom greeted her with, “So are ya ready?”

A nod answered the question.

“So what do we do to find your dad?” Sweetie asked.

Scootaloo couldn’t help but grin before answering. “We track him down the hard way. How are you feeling about Cutie Mark Crusader Detectives?”

Comments

[NIchtraucher]

I liked the prequel to this and I also like where this one is going. Upvoting it.
I know its a rather old story (by internet time standarts) but I still want to point out something in this chapter that felt wierd to me.

A Scootaloo, from over a year ago crawled out of the passageway, and looked up to her father, who was standing off to one side, brushing off the dirt he’d acquired crawling through that same passage.

As the memories of the past faded from her mind’s eye, Scootaloo couldn’t help but wonder how long had it been since that day? She couldn’t remember exactly, but she could remember that she hadn’t met Apple Bloom by then.

I know that technically those two sentences don't contradict each other but the first one pretty accurately states the timeframe we are looking at while the second seems to suggest a longer time than that. I know it's a fillys point of view but if that "for a young one a year is a long time" was the intention, the second part feels exaggerated.

[Keeper of time RD]

8258375

The first one is written for the 'camera' so the reader can make a proper mental image of the scene.

The second line is written from Scootaloo's point of view, to point out that she didn't remember how long ago that memory was from.

Also there's about a half a year margin of error you can work with given the first line.