The cream mare stands in the door, staring upon the scene.
The first thing anypony might notice is that the ceiling is sagging. Beyond that, it looks exquisite to the untrained eye. It’s also empty- and the mare noticed the absence of the bell ring when she opened the door.
Her minty friend trots up next to her, and widens her eyes. “Wow.”
The earth pony raises an eyebrow. “Crusaders?” she asks.
The unicorn shakes her head. “There’s six holes in the ceiling, each going out the roof, gathered around her couch. If…” Her horn glows momentarily, again. “Yes. If you separate the back, sides, and cushions, apply some tears to each of the pieces, and freeze them rock solid, you’ll get something that fits through each of those holes like a glove.” She looks at Bonbon. “This is not the Crusaders, this is a very powerful magic surge- probably originated upstairs.” She gestures at the sagging ceiling.
The two trot into the boutique, Lyra closing the door behind them. Two pieces of candy out of Bonbon’s mane later and they fade out.
It’s Bonbon’s latest formula. Not only does it let them turn completely invisible at will for up to eight hours, but it also makes them completely silent over the same period. They can still speak to other ponies at will, but can speak only to each other- and other ponies won’t hear a thing. They’ll also see each other, invisible or not.
They pause where Rarity’s couch had been, looking up at the holes. Bonbon breaks out her notepad and, two minutes later, has the estimated landing location of each piece of the couch. They can check those out later.
Next, they begin a slow climb up the stairs, watching carefully left, right, up, and down. Also forwards and backwards. The last thing they want to do is to get caught, after all.
“Right at the top of the stairs, then the third door on our… Left.” Lyra’s navigational update stops when they reach the landing, finding the hallway to be obstructed by debris. She sighs. “So, climb over or clear?”
Bonbon facehooves. They’d been over this before. “We’re climbing over it,” she replies. “We might have to clear some to get in the door, or to find evidence, but we’re leaving it as untouched as possible.”
Lyra nods, and they walk up to the debris pile. “Looks like the ceiling fell in here,” Lyra observes. “Though it’s still intact in the rooms on either side- interesting.”
“I do despise shoddy workponyship,” Bonbon returns. “Rarity probably won’t be too impressed when she finds out how carelessly built her hallways were.”
Lyra agrees silently, as they climb over the debris, eventually sliding their way through a gap in the debris into their targeted room.
They both blink at the scene in front of them.
“Well,” Bonbon mutters, “At least we’ve found the epicenter. I wonder what got into Rarity’s bedroom?” She races over to the visible epicenter, Rarity’s beauty station, to begin hunting for clues.
This is the part that Bonbon is good at, Lyra considers: Evidence and deductions. She does tend to suffer from tunnel vision, though, and has been known to miss important details located elsewhere- like the rumors that had spawned this mission, for example.
So Lyra considers her job during this phase: Scan for anything important that might not be in the immediate vicinity of the event. It’s also her job to alert Bonbon if somepony is coming.
She spots an interesting metal box sitting on the floor near a crushed cabinet. She tries scanning it with her power, but comes back with nothing- it’s an empty box. She’s tempted to drag it back home for examination, but Bonbon would never allow that- besides, it doesn’t look like debris, so it must belong to Rarity. Even with her fascination with technology, she is most decidedly not a thief. She then turns to the cabinet, pulling away a piece of debris- looks like the top of the cabinet- to reveal two more of these box things. One of them looks to have been crushed, though one looks to only be dented. As she pulls debris out of the way, a higher piece falls on top of the dented box with a sickening crunch. A surge of her power lifts that debris off it again as she reaches in with a hoof to remove it from the danger zone.
“GAH!” She leaps three feet into the air, surprised by the sudden surge of magic. The debris she’d lifted crashes back down on it.
Bonbon jumps only slightly, whipping up to view her assistant. “What?”
“Felt like a magic security system!” The two invisible ponies exchange glances and bolt for the exit. While Bonbon’s candy will fool ponies with no trouble, magic is far harder to fool. Oftentimes, the only way to avoid getting caught by those systems is to run.
They make it out in time, maintaining their invisibility- and gallop- until after they are inside their own house, through the back door. Finally, they allow themselves to appear, after checking their own magic security systems to be sure it’s safe.
“I hate it when we have to run like that,” Bonbon mutters.
Lyra looks at her hoof. “With the amount of energy it had in it, I’m surprised we had enough time to reach the hallway, let alone escape before the alarm went off.” Then her ear flicks. “Come to think of it, did that alarm ever go off…?”
Bonbon blinks. “No, I don’t think it did… Maybe that blast damaged it?”
“Maybe, yes. You got those notes on the landing sites?”
“Ahh, yes! Here they are…”
Three hours later, the two ponies return to their house. Neither of them had expected just how much destruction a simple couch cushion could do against a cloud home. Rainbow Dash had been miffed when they called her up to let her know about the six foot hole through her entire mansion. They’d found the remnants of the offending cushion in an inch-deep crater on the ground. At least nopony had been hurt- by that or any of the other pieces.
They close the front door gently, look around, and let out a breath before they head for the kitchen. It’s Bonbon’s turn to make dinner, so Lyra sits down- and breaks out a piece of paper. “Too bad we couldn’t find the alicorn,” she mutters.
Bonbon nods. “Rarity didn’t seem overly surprised by the damage, though. Maybe she’d already seen it?”
“Seems most likely. Though, I thought Rarity seemed a lot touchier than normal.”
“Of course- her house was smashed. I’m more wondering how she got it fixed so fast.” During the two hours between their visits, the second one being with Rarity, all of the damages had seemed to disappear. They’d had to tell Rarity about the damages observable from outside. Sweetie Belle had also gotten home during that time, and was chatting animatedly with the other two Crusaders- and somepony that looked much like a pegasus version of herself. The three adult mares had been introduced to Whiteout, a new member.
“Not that,” Lyra scowls. “She was afraid of something, I think. Plus, her cutie mark is different.”
Bonbon almost drops the two bowls as she carries them back to the table. “Different? Please don’t tell me Twilight’s messing with the Elements again.”
Lyra laughs. “Nah, even you would’ve noticed that. No, the change was much more subtle than that.” She finishes drawing on the page, and slides it over to Bonbon across the tabletop, accepting her salad in the same magical motion.
Bonbon looks at the image. From a distance, it’s Rarity’s cutie mark- the same as it’s always been. Only, when she looks closer, she realizes that’s far from the truth. The three diamonds are still identical, though the nine segments of each are no longer plain purple. Each of them carries a faint image of a pony’s head. Bonbon recognizes Twilight in the middle, the other five Element Bearers and the three Crusaders in the eight segments surrounding it, including Rarity herself.
Though, she’s pretty sure Apple Bloom and Scootaloo don’t have horns.
“You sure this is true?” she asks.
Lyra nods, chowing down on her salad. “That’s what I saw. Maybe Rarity knows about that alicorn?”
Bonbon looks up at her, then out the window at the dimness of early night. “She’s already turned in for the night,” she scowls.
“One night won’t hurt,” Lyra agrees. “It’s not the kind of intel that goes stale at this point… I think.”
Bonbon looks at her, considering. “Either that or it’s already stale,” she mutters, but finally agrees. “No point in bothering her tonight, yes.”
They turn in for the night shortly later.
“Yow!” Almost as soon as Lyra falls completely asleep, she yelps back awake. Something was burning her back!
Bonbon hadn’t quite gotten to sleep yet, and instantly returns to full wakefulness next to her. “What happened?” she asks.
Lyra, horn glowing as she searches uselessly for the irritant, scowls. “Something burned my back,” she scowls. The burning feeling had faded out almost as soon as she awoke. “Though I’m not seeing anything.”
Twenty minutes of searching later, they return to bed.
“Yowch!”
Lyra awakens quickly in the morning. Every time she’d gotten asleep, she’d shortly been awakened by a burning pain on her back. The first few times, they’d searched for the culprit- all to no avail. So, finally, they’d used one of Bonbon’s lesser sleeping candies, intended for short naps. It had been enough to put her asleep for an hour and a half- but she’d slept soundly ‘till morning anyways. Bonbon, without using any such candy, is still sleeping next to her.
Lyra scowls. She’s normally not a morning pony, so why does she feel so full of energy…?
She tilts her head slightly, before turning towards Bonbon, to wake her up. She’d been facing away… And she stops, lying on her back.
Had that burn been dark magic? They hadn’t thought to check for that. Shoot- had they thought of it, they might’ve been able to stop it from turning her into a pegasus!
Wait… She might not be able to feel her power awaiting her command inside her horn anymore, but she still feels her normal magic. She raises one hoof to her forehead… And stops when it comes into contact with her horn.
Her horn, still attached to her forehead, while her wings twitch under the covers.
What exactly had happened?
She holds this position, using the gentle pressure on her horn to remind herself constantly that she still has it, while she thinks.
Eventually, Bonbon awakes, stretches, and looks at Lyra. Her head tilts inquisitively. “Lyra? Is something wrong?”
“I…” Lyra begins, trailing off, and looks at Bonbon, her hoof dropping back to the sheets. “I haven’t changed, have I?”
Bonbon blinks. “You still look the same to me.”
Lyra looks back at the ceiling. “I think I’ve figured it out,” she mutters. “Our new alicorn… is Rarity.”
Bonbon blinks. “She didn’t have wings,” she answers, and begins clambering out of bed.
At this, Lyra laughs. “You’ve told me your suspicions about alicorn magic, right?”
Bonbon is getting good at blinking confusedly. “Yes?”
“And how they can do things without a magic aura?”
She doesn’t blink this time. “Yes?”
Lyra looks at her. “I’ll bet she has wings now- and is using that magic to hide them. She’s probably afraid they’ll be detected, and worried about what we’ll think if we realize she has them.”
The earth pony’s eyes widen. “That would also explain her changed cutie mark,” she mutters. “Wouldn’t explain why the images of Scootaloo and Apple Bloom have horns, though.”
At this, Lyra smiles. “Unless they’ve also been turned into alicorns,” she mutters. “We know Flurry Heart’s power was present from birth, right?”
“Also? But there’s only one!”
“Only one we’ve heard about,” she corrects. “Rarity must’ve panicked and run for something before she hid them. The Crusaders could’ve been transformed as well, but just hidden their wings and/or horns before they went out into the world.”
Bonbon raises an eyebrow. “They couldn’t have ascended,” she answers. “Only fully mature ponies with cutie marks can ascend, remember? Starswirl tried that several times before Princess Luna got her mark.”
“And the ascension requires active, willing participation of the ascender, right?”
“Of course. Otherwise, the spell won’t take hold and nothing will happen.”
“I most certainly didn’t participate in any ascension, though.”
“Of course not- you’re a unicorn, not an alicorn.”
Lyra smiles, and slides out of bed, slipping out from under the covers as her hooves reach the floor. “Say that again?”
Bonbon blinks, and sidesteps to get a clearer view of the minty green unicorn’s wings, her jaw hanging wide. “What in Equestria…?”
“Whatever happened to Rarity- and probably the Crusaders too- seems to have happened to me,” she mutters, looking at her own wings for the first time- and spreading them at the same time. She winces at the ruffled feathers, and turns back to Bonbon, folding them casually. “You happen to have any experience caring for wings?”
Bonbon passes out.
Lyra rolls her eyes. “Really?” She glances at her wings, thinking of the various disguise spells she could use- and finds she doesn’t need any of them to make herself look like a unicorn once again. She lets them reappear and starts straightening her feathers, very carefully, by magic. It simply wouldn’t do to look like that when she disguises herself as a pegasus to stop by the wing care shop- or to talk to various pegasi around town, to find out how they care for their wings, under the pretense of looking for the best care methods, not the most expensive. After disappearing her wings once again, she heads downstairs, places Bonbon in a chair at the kitchen table, and starts making breakfast. It is her turn today, after all.
Maybe now is a good time to find out why the Elements keep running to that hill like they live there, she considers a few minutes later, while she eats. She makes a magical checkup on Bonbon, just to make sure she’s actually going to wake up again. Once she finishes her meal, she transfers the still unconscious Bonbon to the couch, makes another checkup and heads out on her own. As much as she loves Bonbon, the older mare can sometimes be a little overbearing- like how she almost never leaves Lyra alone, especially during their free days, like today.
So, to the hill it is. As she goes, she casts the image of herself down some side alley while she turns herself completely invisible. It used to take a massive amount of power- plus one of Bonbon’s candies- to manage this, but now it’s as easy as a casual thought, even without the candy. Once it gets out of sight, the image will disappear; it’s function is to disguise where she’s really going. She turns the other way out of Ponyville, trotting gently towards that hill. She’d noticed Rarity toting a box of those cubes into town from this direction a week ago, and since seen her regularly stepping on a cube as she worked in the boutique. Then, there’d been that surge when she touched the cube, and something turned her into an alicorn overnight.
Perhaps whatever created the cubes will have an answer for her? She recalls that all the other cubes she’d seen were crushed or otherwise damaged. She’d scanned the crushed one still in the cabinet, finding no magic of any kind, before moving to pull the other one out, resulting in its crushing. The more she thinks about it, the less and less the surge from that cube feels like the security system she’d thought it to be when she first felt it.
So what was it? She trots up the hill, holding her invisibility, to stand on the edge of the giant crater. It’s long since grown far beyond the Everfree; two more of the big massive weapons have been revealed on the far side, several hundred meters away. They’ve also revealed many thousands of smaller weapons across the top of this thing. Whatever it is, it’s something very dangerous… Wait. Why did some of the not-so-weapon things hidden between the weapons swivel to point at her? She’s completely invisible! She dodges back below the crest of the hill, away from the crater, to where she can’t see it- and, if it can see, it can’t see her. She hopes.
She looks around again- and suddenly gets a feeling she should be headed back down the hill, though not quite towards Ponyville. She peeks down into the crater- those things are still pointed at her- and slips back down the hill, following that hidden direction. She’d been certain the Elements were doing something in or near the crater, but she doesn’t want to risk blowing her cover just yet. She’s also never felt which way to go before. Is this something specific to alicorns, or something else? Is this some kind of navigation spell she accidentally cast?
She freezes suddenly, hoof suspended in the air over a cave entrance. She takes a deep breath, finally understanding where the Elements keep going… And right away, the feeling of where to go disappears. Regardless, she’s found it- so she hops down into the cave and disappears calmly into the darkness. With the combat training Bonbon gave her, she’s confident she can take on any pony that might be down here- combined with her new alicorn magic, she figures she can handle anything she encounters. After a check up and down the tunnel, she allows herself to reappear, as a unicorn. If that thing in the crater could see her when she’s invisible, she doesn’t want to risk looking like she’s trying to sneak in. That cave was simply a cave- rather well camouflaged, but still a cave that she could have found if she combed the hillside thoroughly enough- or happened across it. Whatever is in here probably expects ponies to happen across it- probably what happened with the Elements, she figures, suddenly curious which one was first.
Now visible, she checks herself over real quick. No wings, check. Wait… Cutie mark changed slightly, check. That won’t likely be a problem- not many will realize the lyre on her flanks now bears the alicorn emblem engraved on the center of its frame, nearly invisible. Whatever… She turns back forwards and proceeds down the tunnel. It is interesting how it never acquires a foreboding feel, nor darkens quite enough for her to need to light her horn. When she checks for magic, she finds none. Whatever is down here must be powerful; she readies a teleportation spell to get her outside as she proceeds.
Wow, this sure is deep… though her standby teleportation spell disagrees, she realizes. The tunnel is deceptively long. One final corner leaves her facing a strange, flat metal wall. A door is standing open in the middle of it, though- high enough for even Celestia to walk through without ducking. Did the Princesses make this? She treads slowly forwards through the darkness.
She feels a slight ripple in the air as she crosses the threshold, but her disguise seems unhindered- she checks. Her teleport spell, still standing by, shows the same result. Must be some kind of protective barrier, to keep the wrong kinds of ponies out- not unlike the one in the front doorway into the Castle of Friendship. She smiles, walking on, and fails to notice when the door slides silently shut behind her.
Lyra finally reaches a large room, filled with empty seats, but nothing scary. After a quick search through the darkness, including a magic scan, she allows her teleport to collapse. She shouldn’t be needing it on a moment’s notice- nothing can possibly get into here, except through the (confirmed) safe route she took.
Only then, the room suddenly lights up.
“Waah!” Her startled jump places her against the closed door she’d just walked through- which she now realizes is closed.
“My apologies, did I frighten you?” a stallion asks.
Lyra’s heart races, magic-powered escape having instantly abandoned her mind. “Who are you?” she demands, looking around wildly.
He chuckles. “My name is Zeus- and I’m afraid you won’t find anything there, unless you’re looking for a seat to rest in.”
She blinks, forcing herself to calm down as she unplasters herself from the corner. “Where are you?”
The answer is a string of numbers… map coordinates, she realizes- not unlike the ones Bonbon had for where those couch parts had landed. She raises an eyebrow. “That is?”
She can somehow hear a shrug in his voice. “I thought a secret agent type like yourself would appreciate coordinates,” he mutters. “The issue is, I’m not a pony. Rather, I’m a machine. A machine so massive that, even though my center of mass is located approximately 793.41 meters from your current position, this room is part of me.”
She blinks. “What?”
“Yes. I am a machine the size of Ponyville.”
Another blink. “Wow. You wouldn’t happen to know about the stuff in the bottom of the crater outside, would you?”
“Actually, I would. A portion of my aft hull stands revealed in the bottom of that crater.”
Silence holds for several seconds.
“That’s you?” she asks.
“Yes, that’s me. I would ask that you don’t tell anypony- I doubt the Elements could take the shock very well. The way I hear it, the Princesses turned their dining room ethereally inside-out and went to the moon when I told them. I do keep hearing rumors about a teapot being involved.”
Lyra stands still for a few seconds. “You don’t happen to know about any new alicorns, do you?”
“Aside from yourself, that is?”
“What? I’m not!” She glance at her back, just to make sure. Still invisible.
He chuckles. “Apologies, but against my sensors, that kind of thing is impossible to hide.”
Her eyes widen, her jaw hanging for a few seconds. “You’re not going to tell anypony, are you?”
“Nope,” he mutters. “I never knew, as far as they’re concerned. I am curious exactly how you ended up changing.”
Lyra looks at the floor. “You’re not gonna hold it against me, nor tell anypony, right?”
“Cross my fusion plant, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my optical pickup,” he answers.
She blinks. “Uh, what?”
“A pinkie promise, Bolo style. I don’t exactly have either a heart or an eye, so I substituted in the closest analogue.”
“Bolo?”
“It’s what I am.”
“Ahh… I have to ask, did Rarity get turned into an alicorn?”
“Before I answer any questions of that nature, I’m afraid I must be certain confidentiality will be maintained,” the answer comes.
Lyra blinks. “So she did?”
“That was not an answer to the question. No matter who you ask about, I cannot answer anything about my alicornation process- or who has received it- without first verifying confidentiality will be maintained.”
“Oh. I can promise that, yes.”
“From everypony, even Bonbon?”
She winces, considering for a few seconds. It’d hurt to have to conceal it from Bonbon… But she could do that, yes. “Yes.”
“Pinkie Promise?”
She winces again. He’s certainly not leaving any stone uncovered- good thing she knows a helpful spell related to pinkie promises. “Uh… How long?”
“Until released,” the response comes back instantly, “Or until such time as the information is revealed to the public. I can recommend Blackout Pie’s Promise Keeper.”
Lyra blinks when he names the very spell she’d been thinking about and, after hardly a second of consideration, answers. “Sure.” Her horn lights up. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” she states. Normally, it’s a very draining spell- as it can last for many years- but she hardly notices the drain as it takes hold. It won’t work against conscious decisions to break the promise, but it will help her avoid accidentally breaking it. It should be very interesting, she contemplates, helping Bonbon investigate what Zeus is about to tell her… Without letting on that she’ll know already.
Zeus wastes no time. “A week ago, shortly after I informed the Princesses as to my identity, Rarity suffered injury by incomplete teleport, permanently incapacitating the part of her heart that produces mana. As a result, I presented her with a few dozen canisters of magic power, sourced from my own reactors, which I have adjusted to be capable of magic production in similar manner as the missing magic gland. These canisters, appearing as small cubes, served more than one function. The first, and only one I told anypony about, was to recharge Rarity’s horn whenever it got low during her work. Exactly as expected, she burned through them rapidly.
“The other function they serve is activated when the control surface is crushed inwards. You didn’t happen to have touched a freshly-crushed one, did you?”
She blinks. “Yes, actually, I did.”
“That explains your transformation,” he resumes. “This second function is a hybrid between the magic transfer spell and Starswirl’s ascension spell, using a surge of power fit to burn up an Alicorn. The Crusaders were my first testbed; following that success, I used it to rejuvenate Flurry Heart-”
“-WHAT?-”
“- and rather permanently repair Rarity’s magic. That was everypony I had planned this for; you must’ve slipped in after Rarity’s ascension, before I reviewed the area for any surviving canisters.”
She blinks. “Yes, it was the last one. A piece of debris landed on it, and it shocked me when I moved to pull it away.”
“That would do it. The transformation is completely harmless, though also irreversible.”
“So Bonbon is gonna have a fit every morning and I’m gonna have to learn to take care of them,” she scowls.
“I rather doubt the first; she’s mostly just in shock by now. She’s used to studying the concrete- and my process seems to have broken that. Oh well- she’ll recover, and I’m not exactly from Equestria anyways. She’ll probably be back to normal in a few days. As for you and caring for your wings, I can reduce that to nothing if you hop into one of those seats.”
She raises an eyebrow, but obeys. “This better not be a lie,” she mutters.
Zeus chuckles. “I may be better at lying than Discord himself, but no, it’s not one.”
At this, while half-way seated, Lyra freezes. “Better than Discord?”
“Yes. I’m a Bolo- and bolos are masters of deception. I could probably convince Applejack she could walk to the moon if I wanted to.”
“Ahh, but she can see lies with her magic,” Lyra replies.
“And you know not how that magic- or I, for that matter- works. Her magic works by interfacing with the soul. If that soul is dishonest, she detects the shame- and recognizes the lie for what it is. I, on the other hand, have no soul. Even if I did, she can’t detect dishonesty in a recorded or written statement- and my speech is, quite literally, playback of a recording. It doesn’t matter that the recording was instantly generated microseconds before- and even during- playback, it’s still simple playback. As such, there is no dishonesty- or honesty, for that matter- for her to detect. By the way, would you like a commset?”
Lyra, having finished settling into the seat while Zeus talked, tilts her head slightly. “A what?”
“A commset. It’s a well-hidden piece of technology you can use to talk to me from afar.”
She rests her head against the headrest. “Sure. Is it a problem to get one for Bonbon too?”
“She’ll have to come here to get it,” he replies. “They’re custom-built.”
“Ahh.” She blinks. “You said you had something for my wings?”
“Yes. Technology is certainly convenient- as of twelve seconds ago, your wings will clean and preen themselves forevermore.”
“Wow. You don’t happen to be able to teach me to fly, do you?”
“Actually, thanks to Flurry Heart, I can.”
Lyra is about to ask, her head resting against the oddly comfortable metal headrest, when it happens.