• Published 20th Aug 2012
  • 14,004 Views, 633 Comments

Mission: Improbable - The card holder



A certain handsome rogue lives in plain sight in Equestria, with no one the wiser.

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Hunted

Celestia took advantage of this moment of peace. Ever since the wedding incident, she was figuratively (and in one case, quite literally) buried in paperwork, mainly from the occasional changeling popping up and getting caught. On top of that, they had started finding dead changelings recently, and it's fairly obvious that they hadn't starved to death.

As she rubbed her temples with her hooves, she heard the familiar noise of a letter being received. However, instead of the usual tidy scroll that her student normally sent, it was a crumpled up piece of paper that quickly fell to the ground. Confused, she unravels the crumpled paper and starts reading.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Hope you're doing alright. This is just your old friend Saxton, here. I kinda wanted to know how you had been, after the last time I went to your place. I never will forget how, not two hours after my arrival, you pounced me and started to-

A deep blush came over the Princess's face as she skimmed through the letter.

...took me straight to your chambers...

...never will forget your face when you saw the size of...

...before it got all over the place. Anyway, enough reminiscing; time to get to the real reason I sent this letter, instead of arriving in person. I won't bore you with details, but just know that it involves a yeti and an army of robots. Anyway, I re-hired some mercenaries to help me with the aforementioned robot problem, as I am currently dealing with the yeti problem. It has come to my attention that one of those mercenaries has gone missing. After doing some extensive searching, I have concluded that he is currently in that one place, "Ponytown" or something. I'm not gonna sugar-coat it: I need you to find him and deport his French ass back to my dimension. I know that you have the means to do so, after our last meeting, and I trust that you will set to work on finding this merc. Be warned though: He's a wily one, and makes a habit of running and hiding, rather than fighting things head-on like I would. He can even blend in among your pony subjects. And don't worry about missing him. Without any disguises, I'd say he's pretty damn distinct in that world of yours. There's no deadline for this favor, but the sooner, the better.

P.S. Please excuse any yeti blood on this letter. I had to write this while fighting it. Don't worry about me: I'm a master in all 47 kinds of kick-boxing.

This was surprising to Celestia. Not only had one of her interdimensional friends sent her a letter out of the blue, but informed her that there was one of the people under his employment hiding among her subjects. At just that time, a guard came in.

"Your majesty, there's a pony asking to see yo- Are you alright, Princess?"

"Yes, I'm fine." Her gaze hardened. "Bring me the best guards you can find. We're going on a spy hunt."

"Yes, Princess." The guard left, and the Princess began to write a letter to her faithful student.


After leaving Lyra to question what just happened, the Spy headed towards the Carousel Boutique. It was a good source of information- Except it wasn't. It was a good place to hide out- No, it wasn't that, either. Maybe he could go there and-

Oh, who am I kidding. He wanted to look at what hats Rarity had made lately. He had yet to find any that fit his interest, but it never hurt to check. After all, what better souvenir to bring from another dimension?

Silently stalking inside, he scopes out the building. Rarity was working on some dresses, which he mostly ignored. Instead, he went to another room, where he knew she kept her current projects. There were the usual assortment of half-done dresses, as well as a few unfinished headwear items laying around, although none of them suited the Spy's tastes. He was about to give up on another hat search, when he saw it.

It was a plain white fedora. Judging by the nearby piles of gems, it was early in development. Still, the way it was right now was just perfect.

Making sure there was no one around, the Spy uncloaks and picks up the hat. He admires it for a while, then puts it on. It's a little small, but he could get used to it. His team won't be able to do anything but envy this hat.

...At least, if he can get back. That was still a bit of a problem.

Fitting the new acquisition on his head, he uncloaks and slips out the window. Figuring that Rarity would be busy for the next few hours, he ducked into a back alley and put on her likeness. Once out in the street, properly disguised, he made his way to the rear of the library. Taking a quick peak in the windows, he sees nothing out of the ordinary and goes to the door. He knocks, then waits. After a few moments, Spike opens the door and immediately begins going head over heels over his disguise. "Hi, Rarity..."

The Spy was no stranger to people fawning over him, both in and out of disguise (especially out of disguise), but it still made him a bit uncomfortable. "Hello, Spike. Is Twilight here?"

Spike murmurs something similar to a "yes" and leads 'Rarity' inside. After a few awkward seconds, Twilight comes up from the basement.

"Hello, Twilight. Have you found anything out about what happened last night?"

"Not yet, Rarity. I was knocked out before anything happened, though; are you sure that there really was some pumpkin monster thing, and you and the girls aren't just playing an elaborate prank on me?"

"Oh heavens no!" The Spy began to emulate Rarity's overly dramatic tendencies. "I saw it with my own two eyes! I would never lie to you about something like this, Twilight!"

Twilight is about to say something else, when Spike suddenly burped up a scroll in a burst of green flame. A bit of it caught on the Spy's suit, which he quickly patted out; luckily, neither of them saw.

"A letter from the princess?" Twilight picked up the scroll with her magic and unrolled it. She then started reading it out loud. "'My faithful student, it has come to my attention that a certain individual from another dimension is hiding out in Ponyville. This being is able to blend in almost seamlessly with the population, so be on the look out. Please note that this creature is not a changeling, but something else entirely. If you find anything, please let me know. I will be sending a group of spy hunters, the best of the Royal Guard, to Ponyville in order to search for this being. Good luck, Princess Celestia.'"

The Spy was internally panicking. They knew. He didn't know how they had found out about him, but somehow, the princess had learned of his existence here.

"Oooh, spy hunters?!" The sudden appearance of Pinkie Pie made Twilight, the Spy, and Spike all jump in surprise. "Oh, oh, do they have cool cars with rockets and stuff?!"

"Pinkie, why would-"

"Ooh, please tell me they at least have a theme song!" She then took a record player out of nowhere and put on a vaugely familiar tune. Twilight snatched up the record.

"We don't have time for this, Pinkie! We could have a serious problem on our hooves!" Suddenly, there's more knocking at the door.

"Twilight, darling, are you in there?"

The Spy's blood went cold. This is exactly what he wanted to avoid.

"Wait, if that's Rarity out there, then why is-" Pinkie's thinking was interrupted by 'Rarity' making a mad dash out the window. The situation was desperate; he didn't care for being subtle at the moment. As he crashed through the glass, he cloaked as fast as he could. While he was still visible, he made an all out run in a random direction. Once he was fully transparent, however, he stopped dead in his tracks and ducked into an alley. He hoped that his little maneuver faked them out, made them think he was still running away, and it seemed to work. Twilight ran outside and explained things quickly to the nearby ponies, causing them to go on a search for the Spy.

As the Soldier would say it, things have gone FUBAR. At least his team didn't have to deal with this...


Meanwhile...

"'Ey, Hardhat."

"Yeah?"

"I've been wond'rin', why does th' author keep cuttin' to us at th' end o' chapters?"

"I figure it's 'cause the gimmick was funny the first couple times, and now he's hopin' to get a runnin' gag made of it."

"At least it's a decently funny runnin' gag..."

"Say, Scout, something just occurred t' me."

"What?"

"If you're here, who's collectin' all that money?"

"...aw, crap."