"A.K. Yearling"
You're in deep cover, as usual - on a sabbatical, as far as your publishers know. That's actually only partly a lie; there's enough peace and quiet out here to kill a mare.
You've been using your new manuscript to ward ponies off. Ethically, you can't publish it; that's too close to making things public knowledge. Besides, the reviewers probably wouldn't praise the eyepatch, let alone how you got it.
But in the musty middle of nowhere, you've got quarters set aside.
Nice ponies here, even if they're a little simple. Still, you're not one to leave ponies under the threat of danger.
You haven't told them about the arrows, of course. It's need-to-know, until you finally find a means to destroy them permanently...
Well, burn that bridge when you come to it. For now, it's stir-crazy life and casual espionage down on the farm.
Sorry, "rock farm".
But you think you've got your big break! Igneous, the father and steward of this whole shebang, is heading inside from the fields. You lean out the window of your guest shed as he heads in.
With the same effort as a wink, ｢Paperback Writer｣ transfers, and the world enters your consciousness through his left eye. Not the most riveting sight, but you'll cope.
He walks in and kisses his wife on the cheek while she preps dinner. Then he makes a circuit around the house, looking in bedrooms.
Feisty and Monotone are outside working on other fields. Which just leaves...
...A-ha!
Marble Pie
Limestone's room is a mess, as usual!
She may be older than you, but she's not very efficient. You sigh at the discarded quilt and rumpled pillows, and then, discreetly, send out a little of your special power.
She's always telling you, "Don't touch my bed!" Well, now you're not, so there!
Some of ｢Opposite of Thieves｣ scuttles onto the blanket. Three or four of the little silverfish, each stamped with your cutie mark, clamp onto each pillow.
With a rush of air like a giant window opening, everything lifts off the ground. Your Stand rides the bedstuff up into the air, and gently, everything returns to its rightful place.
You realize you're humming to yourself just as the voice comes from behind you.
"Marble Victoria Pie." It's Pa!
You freeze, withers tightening.
"Did you forget the importance of hiding your gifts when we have company?"
"Pa, I'm sure our guest hasn't-"
"Coal strains! You're not sure of anything! Are your sisters disobeying their Pa too?"
You hang your head and turn around.
Daring Do
This is a crucial moment.
Having been in tight scrapes so often, you can feel them coming, and dive immediately into the fast-thinking most ponies only use three or four times in their lives. In the course of two seconds, these thoughts run through your mind:
You designate a new target in sight.
｢Paperback Writer｣ transfers instantaneously to Marble, hiding behind a curtain of her hair. Wow, apparently this mare lives without depth perception.
Marble Pie
"No, Pa, Maud and Limestone have kept it a secret."
Pa continues chewing you out. "I should hope! If anypony outside of the family learned-"
It could ruin the farm.
"-it could ruin the farm!"
I know, Pa. "I know, Pa. I'm sorry."
He looks ready to start again, but then he remembers something and turns away. ”I must check the Fibula.”
You almost snort in irritation. You’re not the most “modern” of your sisters, but even you think it’s obtuse to call it that.
But he’s already turned out the door. ”We’ll talk on this more when Ms. Yearling leaves this homestead. Until that time, you’re not to use that agency on this land!”
You bow your head, and he leaves.
｢Opposite of Thieves｣ retracts, dissolving into the air behind you. You were only using a little of it, it wasn't like you'd covered the floor and started plastering the windows with them...
”What the hell?!”
Ouch. You wince and turn back to the doorway.
”I told you to leave my room alone!” Limestone gets in your face, and you take a step back. ”My bed has to stay set up my way! Do you-” She stops and looks at you for a moment.
Then, a little roughly, she pushes your mane out of the way. You stare back at her while she inspects you. She does most of the first aid on the farm, and she has the same intensity in her eyes as then, the careful calculation.
“Is there something in my eye?”
A couple more seconds of searching and she drops your mane back in place. ”No, I just… thought I saw something. Get out of my room.”
Daring Do
Just in time.
You’ve recalled your Stand, for now, just breathing hard and staring out your window at the Pie home.
Your body continues making noise, worrying at itself. Internally, you’re calm.
You were hoping to transfer your eye back to Igneous, but the curtain of hair made it impossible. You were close to hopeless, in fact! Too many clues slip away from you into nothingness.
But he hasn’t left the house. Wherever it is, it’s not buried anywhere, thank goodness.
Honestly, this is probably the least glamorous mission you’ve set for yourself. Most of the treasure you find has been neatly set up by long-dead ponies. You’ve never really had to burglarize from someone living before.
Well, someone living who didn't seriously have it coming.
You tighten the eyepatch reassuringly.
An hour later, you attend a terse and quiet dinner, and answer polite questions about publishing. Feisty spends most of the dinner staring at your patch, but Marble listens intently. (A mare of letters, maybe?)
Evening descends. Given that they’re farmers, you bid them goodnight with the sunset.
Then, returning to your cabin, you plot your infiltration.
* * *
In the annals of the Family Pie, collected from many journals now crumbled away, this history is written:
The Pies stretch back many generations, much further than any among them can know for certain. They came from the Old Country, before the formation of Equestria, with only pilgrim badges for treasure and ballastellas for navigation. They were the first to till the land time wouldn’t touch; in the wasteland which was once part of the Badlands, they brought up beauty.
A dozen fads of jewelry and mining came and went in the interim, but they stuck to tradition over being changeable. They lived with and off of the land, coaxing out and harvesting enough to feed themselves. It was a stoic existence, and a humble one.
If any had asked how they managed it, they would demure. However, if legend and rumor should be believed, the secret lay in their family charm, which dated back possibly to the first excavation of their farm, but never faded or tarnished.
Made of a material which modern analysis would say came from a meteorite, carefully chipped, cut, polished, cleaned and protected. A brooch, the symbol of steady willpower and unity. The secret root of the Pie rock-farm, and the source of the family’s extreme success.
And three feet away from its thief.
Daring Do
You're in the heart of the Pie household, standing next to the bed of Igneous and Cloudy Quartz. Most of the other doors have been closed up until now, but the heads of the family keep theirs open. You close it behind you when you’re sure the coast is clear.
It's important to make sure they’re dreaming, so you transfer ｢Paperback Writer｣ to each of them and yo-yo it back. It can’t actually see dreams, unfortunately, but you can tell by the rolling motion of their eyes that both of them are dormant.
Even asleep in each other’s embrace, neither of them look exactly peaceful. They seem naturally... calloused, in some way. You don’t know if they’re heavy sleepers or not, so you expend a couple of emergency sleeping darts on them to play it safe.
It takes a couple minutes of searching to find the “Fibula” - again, most of the puzzles you’ve solved in your lifetime have been much more explicit than this. But find it you do.
It’s just in the bottom drawer of their nightstand, in a featureless rectangular box. Once you get close enough, you can feel the power radiating off of it.
It’s arrow-shaped, but not an arrow. Just a large, bulky ornament of some kind. It looks like it’s just for fastening clothes together, instead of combat or unlocking things.
But you’re wearing your saddlebags, and it clunks into them.
You take a few steps away from the bed back the way you came, and you feel it thrum softly. It glows from inside, the power like heat touching your skin. You hoof it back to the door, open and close it behind you.
Somepony’s immediately in front of you. It’s Monotone.
”Why were you in my parents’ room.”
“Oh, I was just announcing that I was leaving. I didn’t want to wake anypony I didn’t have to.” You smile.
She tilts her head a fraction to the right and then points a hoof at your pack. ”What’s in your bag.”
If you weren’t all mild-mannered right now you’d be able to pass it off as a hundred different things! “It’s a, uh, magical beacon. My publisher needs me for a meeting in Manehattan immediately.” That’s it, smile apologetically, maybe she’s buying it…
”You’re lying.”
Geez, that’s spooky. “...Alright. I’m a concerned adventurer, and I need to take your family artifact to a safe location where it can be studied and understood.”
Her face tightens a little. ”Okay, go.” The response surprises you, but you don’t make a big deal out of it, except she doesn’t move out of the way.
“...Alr-”
A hoof appears from the shadows, slamming into your face. You roll with it, flipping sideways in the air and crouching against a wall.
Before gravity remembers you, you kick off and drive both forelegs into your attacker. But they touch only air; Monotone’s instantly on your right, still in sight. Super-speed?
No, you didn’t feel a rush of air. She just teleported, instantly. You brace yourself and transfer ｢Paperback Writer｣ to her.
Another hit and you’re thrown into the door. Surprisingly, it holds, and you slump to the floor. She looks down on you, still expressionless, like she’s waiting for you to say “Uncle”.
You spin and kick for her legs. She reappears just outside of the range, and her Stand tries to stomp your foot. It looks like a pony made entirely from jagged featureless dark-gray stone. You file that in the back of your head, alongside your new observation that the teleport didn’t look any different from her end.
You pull back and unfurl your wings. They’re a little sore, but you can’t do any stretching right now. Then you close your eyes and flap upwards, navigating with her vision. The ceiling grazes your feathers, but you dodge around another kick. She doesn't even teleport to follow you.
Wait… could it be as simple as that?
Monotone leaps in the air to grab your tail in her teeth. You somersault away easily, but your pack comes loose and the Fibula falls out onto the floor. She rushes over and grabs it.
You swear, turn around and land, eyes still closed. You’re in the kitchen, now.
It’s not a big house.
A quick inventory flashes through your mind as your wings snap back. There are two darts left, and a whip in your saddlebag. She's staring at you, still waiting for your next move to create an opening.
Calmly, you take a deep breath. Then you reach up and adjust your eyepatch, switching eyes.
Your left eye’s usually replaced with your inactive Stand, or otherwise hidden. When you open it, the world swims around you. No sooner have you done that than she teleports in front of you, lashing out.
Except she appears slightly to the left, and the hit goes wild. You close your eye and respond with one of your own, hitting her upside the head. She grunts, slightly.
You open your eye again, a little clearer now, and jump back away from her Stand. She rushes for you, and you sidestep her, only for her to appear again. Then you land another hit, connecting even though her Stand blocks the damage.
The blood’s rushes in your ears as you back up into a cabinet. From her point-of-view, you realize you’re in a corner.
She approaches you cautiously, relentlessly. Your attacks aren't doing much to her, and it would only take a few strikes from her or her Stand to smash one of your bones into paste. Besides which, this needs to get wrapped up before you make any more noise.
You snap open your left wing and drape it over your face like you’re in a melodrama, and through your feathers, you speak. “This is my final attack! I know the secret of your Stand, and I’m going to defeat you without leaving this spot!”
And then, using your Stand to measure the angles, you throw a dart straight for her, and shift your feathers.
When Monotone teleports this time, you’ve got your second dart ready in your hoof. She jumps directly into it.
Her eyes widen, slightly. Yes, you figured it out.
In cases of sudden danger, Stands usually act automatically, or alter their user’s reflexes to allow for an escape. Hers let her move anywhere within your line of sight, which meant it could dodge anything you aimed. If you started aiming with your eyes closed, she’d have gotten suspicious that you figured her out, but while you had that golden advantage, you could cover all your vision but two spots and force her out of one of them.
She couldn’t have dodged if she wanted to.
While the sedative activates, you see her trying to summon her Stand. Better to not take chances; you recall your own, shut your eyes firmly, and roundhouse her into unconsciousness.
She goes down like a sack of potatoes.
Phew. That was good exercise. You trot over and grab the Fibula, returning it to your pack. It seems a little dimmer, now. With a smooth drop, it’s back in your saddlebags, and you’re ready to hit the road again.
It’s then that you realize somepony else is watching you.
Marble Pie
Ms. Yearling’s standing a few feet from your oldest sister’s fallen body. Her eyepatch is on the wrong eye, and the one you see doesn’t look right. There’s a word written above the pupil, like a little rainbow - ”DARE”. She’s got something glowing in her pack.
Your head spins at the thought of your Pa actually being right.
She stares at you with her not-eye for a half-minute, and you’re frozen.
It’s absurd, but his words come back to you. ”We’ll talk on this more when Ms. Yearling leaves this homestead. Until that time, you’re not to use that agency on this land!”
It would be wrong to call on your power here.
Conflict passes over her face. Evaluation. Then, under her red dress, two wings unfurl, and she darts out through the front door.
”RAAAUGH!”
There’s a crash.
Daring Do
Somepony jumped onto you from the roof. Judging by the shout, and process of elimination, it’s Feisty.
She breathes hot, close to your ear. ”Did you really think nopony was paying attention when you went sneaking into my parents’ room?”
Yup.
She bends you, applying more pressure. ”Thought the rubes would make an easy target?”
She’s a pretty good wrestler, but your wings are already out. You flap them, kicking up dust, starting to lift yourself.
She spits, and suddenly something’s penetrating your feathers. You can’t see it, but it smarts. Shards of something, multiple impacts. You strain your head to make sure your wings aren't permanently damaged, and she forces it against the ground.
But you can see her limbs.
You transfer ｢Paperback Writer｣. From her eyes, you see her spit again. Small bits of black rock explode from her mouth instead of saliva. You retract your wing away from them, and she stomps on it to hold it still.
Something snaps under her hoof, and you see yourself cry out through her half-lidded eyes.
Alright. Enough playing around.
You shove against the ground with all four legs. She stays on your back, but retracting your wings makes her wobble. Then you turn on one hoof and throw yourself against the house. She lets go then, finally, and you roll over.
On the ground again, you kick out at her face. But something slices into your hoof, and you have to pull it back. In the starlight you see more tiny chunks of black rock, dribbling from her skin as she leers.
You snake a hoof into your pack and recall your Stand. Below her, your eye becomes a glass thing with a word on it, and she looks at it more closely on reflex. Then you snap the whip out of your pack, smacking her in the neck.
She hisses and grabs at it, but it’s staying anyway. It’s enchanted to stick to what the end touches - no self-respecting grappler would leave home without one. And, in this case, you use it to fling your enemy back into the house, straight through the open door.
No chance of not causing a commotion now, but you can at least get away before you start a boxing match with Mom and Pop, you hope. Whatever Stand you were just fighting, you don't have enough information on it, and you high-tail it eagerly.
After a minute, you decide you must have knocked Feisty out, since she wouldn't have come after you subtly. You take off and stow the patch for the time being. Then, you focus on the positive. The farm’s a good size, and your wings are going to need some attention, but you’re nearly out!
You’ve got the civilization-threatening magical item in hoof, and all you had to do was temporarily knock out half of a family. That's, like, a regular morning.
It’s only when you near the outskirts of the fields that you see somepony else. Somepony running ahead of you, like you’re racing.
Abruptly, she stops and turns around, facing you.
Marble
Ms. Yearling slides to a stop close to you. For a moment she looks like your mother, impatient with some bit of childishness.
You clear your throat. “My Pa...”
You’re mumbling. Cough, cough.
You raise your voice. “My Pa told me I wasn’t supposed to use my ability on the farm while you were around to see it. But I couldn’t let you leave without trying to stop you. So now we’re not on the farm any more.”
The words hang limp in the air. Before she can respond, you shout, “｢Opposite of Thieves｣!”
Your voice isn’t usually that loud, and it squeaks a little when you summon your Stand. But it comes.
A dozen of the long white insects scuttle into existence around her pack, and the brooch lifts itself up and flies to you. You catch it, feeling its reassuring weight and the intensity of its glow. It’s not supposed to be this far away from the center of the farm. Looking in it, you see your reflection.
It has her glass eye.
You jump at that, and see both of hers are normal, and she’s charging you. It takes a moment of strain, but a mass of your creatures appears on both sides of her, lifting her into the air. Before they can set her back at square one, she lets out her wings and spins in the air. Your bugs fall off and evaporate, and then she swoops and dives for you, hoof outstretched for a kick.
You close your eyes and hold the brooch between you and the fist.
There’s no collision. The impact happens over your shoulder, a couple hooves behind you.
When you turn around, she’s already getting up again. Where in Equestria does this mare work out?
”It’s no use trying to hide anything from me, Marble Pie. I can see everything you do.” She dusts herself off in a single motion, and adds, ”And your father was right not to trust you.”
You blink.
You blink again.
And then you charge at her.
You throw a right hook, and she blocks casually, probably already thinking of how to grab the brooch. But you’ve sparred with Limestone, you’ve played games with Maud. You’re the youngest sister on a rock farm, by the earth! The hook breaks through her defenses effortlessly, and you smash her solidly in the cheek, forcing her whole body to roll with the craning of her neck.
She stumbles, and then replies with a kick of her own. You bear it and try another straight hit, but she blocks it for real this time. No more element of surprise.
One of her hooves lands on the brooch, clawing for it, and when you try to twist it away from her she starts to pummel you with fast kicks, her hooves hammering your barrel until your concentration breaks, and you're forced to let go. Another hoof joins the first, and she prizes the heirloom off of you.
Then she turns her back to you, to inspect it. ”That’s a very interesting Stand you have. In another life, maybe we could’ve used them together.”
You spring to your hooves and rush her, hair falling back against the wind. She kicks out a back leg without turning, and you’re down again. You can't help but notice that there’s something fluid, trained and professional about all of her movements.
”You can’t sneak up on me. You're strong, but you've never been trained, and you've probably never been outside of this farm for long. I've had to deal with a lot of nasty things that are stronger than me, and right now I know where you’re moving at the same time you do. I know you saw the reflection.”
Those words are all the confirmation you needed. “｢Opposite of Thieves｣.”
She sighs and starts walking away. One bug, clutching something in its tiny mandibles, crawls out of your hair and latches onto your left eye.
Suddenly the eye moves back to its original owner, and the bug moves with it. Yearling raises a hoof to shove it away, but it reels back and slams its cargo into her forehead first.
A dart you found in the kitchen, matching the one you found on Maud in your brief check of her vitals. A tranquilizer, or something else that stops ponies from moving and makes them sleep.
She freezes. You sink back to the earth, feeling your exhaustion. It’s too late at night for fighting...
And then she just brushes the bug off, and pulls out the dart.
She turns to you, with her magical eye and her prize in hoof, smiling. ”You know, kid, if I didn’t immunize myself to the things I carry, that would’ve done a real number on me.”
You summon up more of the bugs around the brooch, covering it. It hovers towards you, and she ignores it while she grabs the dart off the ground and eyeballs it. ”Looks like enough… Note to self: always carry five...”
It’s closer…! You stand and lean and reach out a hoof for it.
”If it makes you feel better, this is all a part of saving the world.”
You make contact. And then the dart hits your foreleg.
You look at your opponent’s face. Blood trickling down from her scalp. Yourself, reflected in her eyes.
The farm stretching and distorting away behind her smile. ”Tell your sisters thanks, for a good match. And, uh, I didn’t mean that thing about your dad. Sorry.”
You slump to the ground. She turns, trots off toward the distance...
And your vision goes black.
10 Days to the Collapse of the Pie Family Rock Farm
Stand: ｢Paperback Writer｣
User: A.K. Yearling / Daring Do
Ability: Replaces the user's left eye except when in use, and resembles a typical glass eye apart from the word "DARE" above the pupil. When activated, replaces the left eye of any target within line of sight of the user or the eye itself, allowing them to see and hear through it at any distance. The user has an eidetic memory of anything seen by the Stand while active - e.g. in someone else's head. Non-Stand users only see a regular eye.
Stand: ｢Opposite of Thieves｣
User: Marble Pie
Ability: Consists of a swarm of silverfish-like creatures. When they cover an object, it gently "resets", floating back to its owner, placing itself in an earlier position, or erasing some recent usage. Does not reverse damage.
Stand: ｢OK Go｣
User: Maud Pie
Ability: While visible to a target, can teleport the user anywhere within that target’s field of vision.
Stand: ｢Down With the Sickness｣
User: Limestone Pie
Ability: Any harmful material or toxin taken into the user’s body has no effect; instead, it can be incorporated into their body, so that it makes up part of their breath, sweat, saliva, et cetera. If the material is not expelled from the body after a few hours, this effect wears off.