“Wait, so Bao didn’t make it?” Golden asked, brow furrowed as Fluttershy gave a sad smile.
“No, he was disqualified among a few others who ended up getting lost in the desert, I overheard Amethyst talking with one of the other trainers about it,” Agape, having not met Bao, was currently looking through the pictures that Fluttershy had taken.
“Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said you exhausted all the film,” embarrassed, Fluttershy looked away, ears down, Golden kicked Agape’s shin, “Ow!” but the filly ignored her ‘sister’s’ exclamation, leaning against her embarrassed friend.
“Must’ve been a lot of animals,” the comment knocked Fluttershy out of her embarrassment and with great enthusiasm, she went into a retelling of all the animals she had come across, from tiny insects to the snake, to buzzards hanging around, and even a desert fox.
“They were so cute!” she exclaimed brightly before a yawn escaped her, “Excuse me, um,” Golden led her to the hotel bed (Agape kicked up a stink about staying in an actual hotel and Golden only complied because she knew Fluttershy could use the rest, plus it was part of the package.)
She didn’t want to make a habit of it though, there’s a reason she made the cart for sleeping as well as traveling.
“I’ll take the film from our cameras and develop them tomorrow morning, and afterwards I’ll go to the post office to see if Trade Star received anything,” she had a mailbox set up in every city, not only for her but for Ruffalo and Gaius as well. They had several ponies in their employ who didn’t want to leave even after they were told they could as mining was the only way for them to gain both shelter and food. They had freed other ponies from the Diamond Dogs and when it was clear they were not going to strong arm these ponies in working for them, they gained some loyal informants in every city.
It also didn’t hurt that these ponies could go into the post office without a second glance, which meant that Ruffalo or Gaius didn’t have to do it. The griffin still hunted and cooked for the Ruby Dogs, but somehow, with Ruffalo’s presence, he gained the permission to build a shack near the ocean with a shed filled with various fishing and hunting implements.
She still did not know where Ruffalo came from, or why his presence made the other canines shudder when he was a small dog, but Gaius told her not to think too much into it.
“-lden, Golden!” jumping at Agape’s voice, Golden looked at the annoyed unicorn who had a bucket of water in her aura, “Finally, I’ve been trying to get your attention for five minutes!” Golden stared at the bucket, something that had Agape laughing nervously, “Only as a last resort,” she lowered it and gave her a serious look, “It’s been a month, maybe two, since you left home,” the golden filly frowned, where was her sister going with this?
“What’s your point?” her ‘sister’ gave her a look.
“You managed to get to your ‘zone’ at least once a month to deal with your ‘stress’ build-up, but while we’re in the desert you didn’t take off the binds once (and don’t think I forgot the fact they need a second pony to take them off, which is how I know you didn’t have them off while I was in Los Pegasus.) So, where are you planning on training?” Golden Lotus grimaced. She was kind of hoping Agape wouldn’t notice.
“Technically, these binds work differently and I don’t actually have to take them off?” Agape’s eyes narrowed.
“I. Will. Get. Fluttershy,” the ‘Earth’ filly gulped, staring at the sleeping pegasus and imagining what her reaction would be.
“Fine,” the bonds were getting itchy anyway.
Of course even though she already agreed, Agape still told Fluttershy the next morning and for two hours she was treated to a lecture about taking better care of herself and the whole time she wanted to hide under the bed or push a smug Agape out of the window.
The latter got even more tempting when she saw a popcorn bag hidden behind the curtain and the unicorn eating one at a time while watching.
As revenge she switched the strawberry syrup for her own special chili blend at the breakfast table and watched with satisfaction as Agape Flare took one bite and ran screaming to the water fountain.
A cleared throat made her wince, and she reluctantly handed Fluttershy the chili, pouting as the filly placed it in her saddlebag and resumed her own breakfast of oatmeal.
She hadn’t poured it over her own pancakes yet. Guess she must settle with the jalapenos honey then.
Luckily not every group was in the same hotel, so they did not have to deal with any of the sleazy ones trying to mess with the cart that North put in one of the storage containers underneath the hotel (a lot of travelers came with their carts.) Unfortunately, Fluttershy had to let the rattlesnake go, which Golden found unfair, but Amethyst had a point about taking an animal out of their environment. Though seeing one of the ‘weaker’ trainees with a poisonous snake around her neck changed a lot of opinions about her, and her group seemed less dismissive of her. Golden still hoped Fluttershy found another dangerous animal to befriend, maybe a spider, or a ferocious tiger? Because while her group might have changed their minds, it did not mean they were going to be nice to her, and there were other groups to consider.
If what she suspected was true, Bao and the others getting lost was not an accident, and she wondered if maybe this program failed in the original universe because of all the sabotage; or because no one wanted trainees who sabotaged others who were training to rescue ponies. The ‘whittling’ down part of the program was being taken too literally, and she wanted to despair at the fact none of the saboteurs thought about the fact Cross Shield was only talking about letting trainees go if they weren’t up to the rescue training; not because there was a grand prize for the finalists. This program not only trained Rangers, but also Police and other professions involved in the rescue process, and if a trainee proved their worth in a certain section of training, they could still get recruited even if they dropped out.
Then again, it could be their ego telling them that the ones with best performance would get the best offers, or something.
She can tell that Amethyst is impressed by Fluttershy more than the others in her group, so there’s a chance that Amethyst might take her as an apprentice afterwards, or help open doors to others who could help her.
Speaking of Amethyst- as soon as all the groups were gone, Golden went to the post office, Agape Flare right behind her (the unicorn didn’t want to admit her curiosity, she tended to overreact at the thought of any underground dealings that North Wind did; which the reincarnation decided not to elaborate on. Hm, should she tell Agape that there are mailboxes set up for their covers as well? Or that ‘Trade Star’ set up bank vaults for them as well?
(Nah, Agape would try to strangle her again if Golden told her that, best save it for a later date.)
The office was nearly empty as they went in, Agape staring at the envelopes and scrolls, contemplating whether to buy one while Golden trotted up to the clerk and asked for access to the Trade Star mailbox.
“Huh, you too? I get a lot of the requests dealing with that one,” the clerk said, peering down at her suspiciously, but she gave an innocent smile.
“Hm, Mama has a lot of workers!” she exclaimed, tail wagging. The clerk raised an eyebrow and put a paper in front of her, looking almost apologetic.
“You’ll have to answer this correctly if you want access,” giving the question a once over, Golden grabbed the pencil he handed her, grimacing at the taste, and wrote the answer in a very messy scrawl that was almost legible.
“There you go!” he read the answer and with a shrug led them to the mailbox which was right at the bottom in the corner, with a combination lock.
“Wait, if there are combination locks, why did you have to answer the question?” Agape demanded, incredulous as Golden did the combination.
“Because if the one who did it got the answer wrong, the clerk pushes a button that sucks the mail out of the box into a secret compartment in case the pony still tries to get to the mailbox, or burns the letters instead of it’s really bad,” red ears flattening, Agape felt her eye twitch.
“Is this your doing or the clerks?” because this did not seem like a normal thing at all.
“Hm, the security measure itself is one of the highest and most expensive, and Mama doesn’t want any unauthorized ponies getting to it,” Agape decided not to ask anything else. She already had a headache.
The trip to the bank was similar except for Golden depositing some pearls and sea glass that she found, telling the bank clerk about her adventure at the beach and running into an octopus which distracted him from wondering how a filly got a hold of five pearls and a pound of sea glass. Agape figured telling him there were thirty more pearls and even more sea glass back in their room would invite unwanted attention. Especially since she did not want to recount how they found a chest at the bottom of a sea-cave buried under seaweed and rocks with a leather (she did not want to think about what it was from) bag filled with them. Or the fact Golden spent two days scraping off barnacles and restoring the trunk to a better state and had yet to open it.
Or the fact the trunk had a skeleton in a straightjacket chained to it.
Instead of leaving it like Agape wanted her to after taking out all the pearls and sea glass, Golden wanted to practice her carpentry skills using the tools she brought in the trunk. Agape just chalked it up to Golden’s mild OCD that always led to her wanting to restore old objects and just told her to be careful about not letting others see it.
As soon as they got back into the hotel room, Golden shut the curtains and opened the first letter while Agape went over to practice her magic by creating her own lyre harp. Sonic Recorder had suggested it, saying if she went into making her own instruments that she might gain better insight into playing music.
She was the only one of his musical students to actually want to do it, all the others wanted to do was play music, but she loved all kinds of music and didn’t want to limit herself.
There were tons of wood used to make instruments which affected the sounds that they made, and she learned the basics from private tutoring that he gave during the year.
Right now she was using washed up beach wood to create the lyre harp along with some cherry and pear wood pieces that Golden had gathered on the walk up to this town.
“Hm,” Golden was staring at a letter, a pensive look on her face
“Something wrong?” the filly jerked up, blinking, and rubbed the back of her head with one hoof.
“Oh nothing, just a new errand I need to go do for Ruffalo. I’ll be right- hey!” she lunged for the letter but Agape’s magic brought it out of her reach as the unicorn read the letter.
Golden tried to take it from her but Agape just wrapped the flailing filly in her aura while she read the letter.
“Agape!” Golden did not like the feeling of being restrained in the air and tried to break out of it.
It did not work.
The letter burst into flames and Golden yelped as she was dropped to the floor, groaning and freezing at the shadow of Agape standing over her.
“Golden Lotus,” Agape hissed, “Why is this errand of yours involving Diamond Dogs?” eyes darting around for escape, Golden gulped at the dark look in her ‘sister’s’ eyes.
This would not end well.
Maybe Agape should’ve left Golden to her ‘errand’ instead of acting overprotective.
Because this? This was mind-numbingly boring.
“They’re just mining, can’t w-” Golden shushed her and Agape pouted, sinking back to her position behind the rock and huffing, she couldn’t even work on making the lyre harp because it might get the canines’ attention.
This was their third day of reconnaissance and so far all they did was watch a bunch of dumb, bulky canines with bad grammar, bad work ethic, and even worse, smell. They just went in and out of the ground, occasionally bringing out carts filled with gems that were then taken away, sometimes knocking it over and having to pick it all up.
From what she heard, compared to the other tribes, the Diamond Dogs were the ones that were the most disorganized, with no ambition for improvement and no records since they destroyed them centuries ago.
Something that North ranted about whenever the subject of the Jewel Dog archives came up so the rest of their quartet didn’t bring it up (unless Pinkie decided she wanted to see North’s rant again because of how funny it was.
Sometimes that filly worried her.)
“Moth Spell,” Golden hissed and Agape did so with a roll of her eyes, antennae growing on her and Golden’s heads and bringing the voices of the canines from barely heard to right next to their ears.
She still didn’t know how Golden found that spell, but considering it was a sound spell she found it easier to learn than the others.
Even if the accessories were unwanted.
Grimacing at the nasally voice of the ‘leader’, it didn’t take long for Agape to realize why her sister wanted her to do the spell.
The Diamond Dogs were planning on tunneling underneath the nearby town to get into a vault rumored to have gems in chests and gems growing in the walls.
The only issue was, if they dig underneath the town, there’s a chance of them causing a sinkhole or causing a mass flooding of broken pipes.
Wind Scar’s name appeared and Golden’s lips thinned, Agape paling and nudging Golden till they both retreated from the spot. As soon as they were a safe distance away, she cancelled the spell, and they returned to their hotel room with heavy thoughts.
“Send an urgent message, now.” where the hell was the contact in this place? They should be the ones dealing with this, not Golden.
“Right, the next message pickup is two days from now and the dogs are planning on their break in tomorrow,” Agape gaped at her, seeing the look on her face and narrowed her eyes.
“Golden, no, Golden this is a bad idea,” but those blue eyes were unwaveringa as they glared at her.
“This is our only chance, unless you want this entire town to become a sinkhole?” Agape frowned, seeing her point but not liking it.
“I’m guessing that going to the police is out of the question?” Golden just raised her eyebrow, “Ugh fine, but after this you will be taking those binders off,” she watched the flinch with some satisfaction. Hah, she didn’t think she was going to get away with that, was she?
“Fine, but we cannot let ourselves be discovered, or let our description be given to their boss,” Agape deadpanned.
“Something tells me that won’t be an issue,” the Diamond Dogs giving an accurate description?
Yeah right.
Crispy did not know why things kept going wrong, or why his pack was having so many issues with a simple task.
All they had to do was dig straight into the city! Straight, and yet somehow they ended up digging a hole in the same area, and somehow the ceiling collapsed as they were getting out. Their carts were becoming harder and harder to move, and he really wanted to find the cook responsible for the mess that was lunch.
If they did not complete their task, Wind Scar was going to take his displeasure out on them. He was still fuming over the dragon and griffin eggs being stolen, and his temper worsened at the news of his niece disappearing without a trace. Diamond Dogs had been sent after her, but none had found her through her scent. Crispy shuddered as he recalled the male pony’s reaction at the news.
Something reached his ears and he cocked his head, looking towards the source and spotting a red and gold coats, that did not belong to any of their Diamond Dogs.
And none of their pony-slaves had those colors either, or were that small.
“Hey!” the ponies jumped and ran, and he growled at the rest of his pack, “Get them!” they dropped their mining tools and ran, Crispy taking a different path to catch those pony-pups, particularly the horned one.
He used a collapse part of the mine to get to the surface, tracking the scent of the pony-pups who had found themselves surrounded by his pack.
The closer he got, the easier it was to make out their scent, and he growled, recognizing it as a scent that had been around their area for moons now.
“So you are the pups that have been sabotaging Crispy’s operation,” the golden pup stood in front of the red one, blue eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Crispy wondered why they looked so familiar, and why it sent a shiver down his spine.
One of the dogs growled, the fur on his head completely gone after one of the incidents, one that Crispy tried not to recall, before lunging towards the golden pony-pup who leaned on her front pony-paws and kicked with a back one, sending the dog flying into the sky.
Triggered, the rest of the pack charged, and Crispy could only watch, flabbergasted, as one after the other they were sent yelping into the distance or punted into the ground so hard they went through it into the mine shafts below.
Seeing how easily they were taken down made his eyes narrow, and with his own growl, he charged at the gold filly, only for a strange sound to reach his ears, making everything fuzzy and he stumbled, falling to the ground and finding his strength leaving him.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the remains of his pack falling to the ground, one of them even snoring, and the only ones unaffected were the pony-pups.
Wind Scar was not going to be happy about this.
----------------
She did not know why she chose that spell of all things, but when she saw how Golden was lagging, she thought of a way to take care of all the dogs.
Now, how did her nanny do it? The one that quit after six months dealing with her mother?
Agape recalled the sound of that spell, a lyre made out of magic appearing above her head as she recounted how it was cast.
The lyre started playing and the music notes emitted from it surrounded the dogs who started falling asleep one by one. The chief dog charging at them also fell asleep, but Agape did not let up till Golden was nudging her.
“Agape, Agape you did it, they’re out,” the unicorn blinked tired eyes, magic fading and feeling drained.
She needed to lie down.
Thankfully, Golden took care of the rest, tying up the dogs using their own rope and cutting off the tips of their nails to make it harder for them to dig. Agape stumbled over to the cart, collapsing inside of it and closing her eyes.
This Master Ruffalo should pay her for taking care of his problems, even if she ended up helping save the town.
But she definitely wanted to talk to him about using a nine-year-old filly as his personal agent.
Even if No- Golden did not seem to mind doing it.
“Alright,” Golden’s voice sounded from outside the cart, before it jerked and started moving forward, Agape groaned under her breath, “Don’t worry, with the message sent early this morning, the messenger should get it sometime tomorrow, and they’ll be able to deal with the trapped dogs, though whether they’ll still be there by the time they arrive is unknown,” Golden’s voice started fading out, and before she knew it, Agape fell asleep.
Cold water woke her up, and she squealed, glaring at Golden, who was filling the hotel’s bathtub and filling it with many soaps.
“Was that necessary?” she complained, but the need to get all the dirt off overwhelmed her and she hopped into the water.
Her fake Cutie Mark melted away, and soon she had another reason to squeal.
This time in happiness.