The three fillies screamed.
They couldn't help it, the voice was too loud -- too sudden and unexpected and their nerves were already completely frayed. The moment the sound left their mouths, the enchantment vanished.
"THAT'S RIGHT! YOU BETTER BE... scared?"
For a few heartbeats there was only silence save for the whimpering of three very scared fillies, and then...
"For crying out loud!" a familiar raspy voice cried angrily, "you've gone and scared the fillies half to death you crazy mongrel!"
Twilight, Sunset, and Trixie's ear pricked up at the sound of the voice and they all looked at each other with wide disbelieving eyes.
"Is..." Twilight whispered, "is that..."
"Yes it's me, girls," the voice assured. They heard the sound of hooves trotting into the room, "sorry about the scare, but--"
"UNCLE SCROLL!"
The fillies all shouted at once as they peered out from behind the desk. Before the old stallion could properly react, he was assaulted by three pairs of forelegs that wrapped tightly around his own.
Ancient Scroll smiled with both warmth and relief as he listened to each of the fillies babble incoherently -- presumably about what had happened while he was away.
"Alright, alright, settle down now," he said with a chuckle, "you all can tell me about it in a minute, but first..." he turned to a sheepishly grinning Yojimbo, "there's somepony -- or rather somedoggy I want you to meet."
The three looked at Ancient Scroll in confusion before following his gaze to the doorway. Standing there was one of the biggest diamond dogs they had ever seen. To be fair they hadn't seen many diamond dogs before him, but the fact remained, this one was incredibly intimidating.
"Heya... name's Yojimbo, but you can call me Yoji if you want," the husky began awkardly, "sorry about, y'know, freakin' you out like that," he rubbed the back of his neck, "thought you pups were in trouble."
The fillies looked back to Ancient Scroll with unsure frowns and the stallion chuckled again.
"Come on now, girls," he said with a smirk, "he's been a good friend of mine for many years now. He's a bit ruff around the edges, but the old mutt won't bite, trust me."
They heard an exasperated groan from the doorway and when they turned to look, the husky was giving Ancient Scroll a flat look.
"Really, Scroll?" he deadpanned, "I thought we were done with the dog puns?"
"Not a chance in Tartarus, old friend," Ancient Scroll replied with another smirk, "I still get too much amusement out of them."
Twilight and Sunset relaxed somewhat as they witnessed the banter between the two friends, though Trixie was still a bit wary of the diamond dog. Ancient Scroll shook his head and turned back to the girls with a serious frown.
"Now that introductions are out of the way, we need to talk about what happened here tonight," he said as he took a step back from the fillies.
"Alright, but..." Sunset gave Ancient Scroll a bemused frown, "why are you here now? Did you know about the break-in already?"
Ancient Scroll nodded gravely.
"That I did, little filly," he answered, "I rushed back here as soon as I could once I found out."
"But how?" Sunset asked, "how did you know so fast? And how did you get here so quickly? The break-in didn't even happen that long ago."
Ancient Scroll turned and began trotting towards the doorway as he replied.
"We'll discuss it in the main room," he said as he motioned for the fillies to follow him, "i'll tell you all about it while we wait for Rouge to return."
"Wait, Rouge is here?" Twilight cried happily as she and the other two fillies hurried after the old stallion.
"Well no, not yet," Ancient Scroll answered, "but she should be soon. I've got a lot to talk to you girls about, but we need to figure out what happened here first."
As they all made their way into the main room, the fillies could see the still sleeping form of Flibberty Gibbets suspended in midair near the fireplace. She was completely enveloped in shining white, slowly rotating chains made of magic -- much to the fillies amazement.
"Ah, that's right," Ancient Scroll said with an amused chuckle, "you three have never seen me use Light Magic before, have you?"
"What kind of spell is that?" Twilight muttered as she trotted closer to the captured mare, "it looks like some kind of Binding spell, but... there's something... odd about it."
"So you noticed it, did you?" Ancient replied, trotting next to the lavender filly and eyeing the suspended mare, "should have figured you would."
"What did you do to the spell?" Sunset asked as she joined the two in observing Flibberty Gibbets, "that clearly isn't a regular Binding."
Ancient Scroll was silent for a moment, looking as though he was having an internal debate. After a moment he sighed and turned to the two curious fillies.
"Well, I wasn't gonna tell you girls about this until I though you were ready, but I guess now's as good a time as any," he said, shaking his head once, "for all I know, you might already know of it, but," he turned back to the mare, "this little number is actually something I created years ago through a process known as spellcrafting."
"Spellcrafting..." Twilight repeated with a thoughtful frown, "I... actually think I've read about that at one point, but for some reason, I can't really remember..."
"I've never heard of the process," Sunset added, putting a hoof to her chin, "but it sounds pretty self explanatory to me."
Ancient Scroll nodded with a slight smile.
"Indeed, little filly," he said, not breaking his gaze away from the trapped earth pony, "as the name implies, it's a process by which you can either mix and match existing spells to create new ones, or build them from the ground up -- something I wouldn't recommend unless you've done several years worth of thaumatological study."
"That sounds... like a lot of fun actually," Twilight mused, a small smile crossing her muzzle as she thought about the possibilities, "I'd like to try that."
"That's something you won't be trying for quite some time, little filly," Ancient Scroll replied seriously, "spellcrafting isn't something to mess with if you're unprepared. It's a very difficult and dangerous process that even somepony with a talent for it and years of experience can struggle with."
"So what does this spell do?" Sunset asked, eyeing Ancient Scroll's spell.
"This spell is a mix of Light and Mind Magic I created for just this sort of occasion," the old stallion explained, "it not only renders you completely immobile, but forces you to tell the absolute truth if directly asked a question," he then turned and smirked at the two fillies, "I call it the Chains of Revealing Light."
Twilight and Sunset glanced at each other with raised eyebrows.
"But we're getting ahead of ourselves," Ancient Scroll said with a shake of his head, "we can question Miss Gibbets here once Rouge returns, but for now, I'll tell you how we got back here so fast."
They all trotted to the table where Trixie and Yojimbo were already sitting and conversing with each other -- well Trixie was sitting. Yojimbo opted to stand near the table while they talked.
"...so the trick is to hold your ground and stare em' dead in the eye," Yojimbo was explaining to the azure filly, "you can't show the little rodents any weakness or they'll walk all over you. You gotta let em' know this ain't their territory any--"
"What are you two talking about?" Sunset asked, giving the two a bewildered look.
The filly and diamond dog turned to the three approaching ponies.
"Yojimbo was just giving Trixie a few... pointers, that's all," Trixie replied with grin, "he's actually pretty knowledgeable about... things."
"Really?" Twilight asked, turning a curious eye to the husky, "what kinds of things?"
"Oh, all sorts of things, girl," Yojimbo replied proudly, "I been around. Seen a lot traveling with the old coot there."
"Yes we've seen quite a bit over the years," Ancient Scroll agreed with a nod, "but now isn't the time for stories, Yoji. We need to let the fillies know what's going on."
"Right, you are, pal," the old dog replied with a solemn frown before turning to one of the windows, "here's hoping our angry little kitty gets back safe and sound."
"Angry little kitty?" Twilight asked with a confused tilt of her head, "you mean Rouge?"
"Yup," Yojimbo replied with a smirk, "feline's got one heck of a temper, I'll tell you that much."
Trixie made to comment, but Ancient Scroll cut her off as he spoke first.
"Back to the topic at hoof," he said with a pointed frown in Yojimbo's direction, "we -- Yoji, Rouge, and I -- were all set to turn in for the night over at Yoji's house, when I felt my security spell go off."
"Security spell?" Sunset asked with a raised eyebrow, "what security spell? I didn't hear or see anything when Flibberty Gibbets showed up."
"You wouldn't have, little filly," Ancient Scroll replied with a knowing nod, "it's... something of a silent alarm that goes off whenever there's an intruder. It activates the moment they set hoof inside the house by sending a sort of... ping directly to my location. Think of it like the echolocation of a bat -- the cottage sends a signal out and I receive it."
"Alright, I'm following you so far," Sunset replied with a single nod, "so what you're saying is that the moment that mare entered the cottage it alerted you with a silent signal and you responded?"
"Exactly," Ancient Scroll confirmed, "the signal has radius of ten kilometers so it was more than enough to reach me. Once I received that signal, a magical 'anchor' was formed between Yoji's house and my own cottage."
"I get it," Twilight responded quietly, her eyes widening in both understanding and awe, "an 'anchor' makes it much easier to Teleport long distances because you're essentially setting up the teleport ahead of time at a fixed location. It cuts out a lot of the work you'd normally have to go through when casting a regular Teleportation spell and thus, drastically lowers the mana cost.
"Normally, you'd need somepony on standby to activate the 'anchor'," Twilight eyed her caretaker with a newfound respect as she continued to explain, "but you somehow managed to make it so that the 'anchor' activates on it's own through a 'trigger' that itself is activated whenever there's an intruder."
As Twilight spoke, Yojimbo turned a questioning gaze to Trixie who only shrugged in response. The azure filly more or less got the gist of the explanation, but didn't quite understand how it all fit together.
"But, if that's true," Sunset added, looking at Ancient Scroll with the same admiration as Twilight, "how did you manage to make the 'trigger' differentiate the intruder from a guest or one of us?"
"Through an almost excruciating amount of trial and error, little filly," Ancient Scroll replied, "this security spell is something else I created, but unlike the Chains of Revealing Light, this spell was made completely from scratch."
"Did you make a name for this one?" Twilight asked curiously.
"FIlly, by the time I finished creating that blasted spell I was so frustrated I didn't even bother," Ancient Scroll answered, rubbing a hoof down his face, "you can give it a name if you want."
As Twilight tapped her chin in thought, Ancient Scroll decided to move on.
"We're getting off topic again," he said with a shake of his head, "basically, since the 'anchor' was connected to the entirety of Yoji's house and we were all there, I decided to Teleport us all back to the cottage," Ancient Scroll glanced out the window with a frown, "unfortunately, something was blocking me from actually Teleporting inside and we all ended up a little ways away."
"Good thing, too," the old husky added, tapping his nose, "I sniffed out a couple of ponies scopin' out the place nearby and we got the jump on em'."
"I knew it," Sunset muttered, "so there were other ponies out there..."
"Yes there were," Ancient Scroll said with a nod, "but though we had the element of surprise, they still managed to get away and on top of that, we weren't able to get a very good look at who they were."
"Rouge did though," Yoji added with a deep chuckle, "spotted em' as they were tryin' to escape and took off after em' shoutin' all kinds of stuff that would make your little ears burn," he laughed out loud, "and here I thought cats were supposed to be stealthy!"
"We decided to let Rouge handle the ponies out there while Yojimbo and I checked on the three of you," Ancient Scroll smirked and glanced back towards the sleeping mare, "imagine my surprise when I come home to find Miss Gibbets fast asleep on my floor."
"You can thank Trixie for that one," Twilight said as she gestured to the azure filly with a proud smile, "she used a Deep Sleep spell to knock her out."
Ancient Scroll turned to Trixie with an impressed nod and a proud smile of his own.
"Well done, little filly," he said warmly, "couldn't have done it better myself."
"W-Well of course," Trixie replied with a flip of her mane and a red tinge in her cheeks, "Trixie is a natural with Mind Magic you know," she cleared her throat and looked towards the other two fillies, "and besides, as amazing as she is, Trixie can't take all the credit."
"Oh?" Ancient Scroll raised an eyebrow as he turned to the others, "and what does she mean by that I wonder?"
"Well, um..." Twilight shfited in her seat and seeing this, Sunset rolled her eyes and spoke on the lavender filly's behalf.
"Twilight cast a Shadow Cloaking spell on me so we could find out if there was somepony in the house, and I... well..." here she hesitated before frowning and speaking again, "I... incapacitated Flibberty Gibbets by thinning the air around her until she passed out."
"Risky," Ancient Scroll replied with a nonetheless impressed nod, "but well done all the same," he swept his gaze across each of the three fillies with a warm smile, "I have to say, I'm proud of each and every one of you girls. If this had been an exam, you all would've passed with flying colors."
Each of the fillies either smiled or looked away in embarrassment at the praise.
It was then that there was a knock on the front door. Ancient Scroll and Yojimbo glanced at each other before the husky nodded and quietly walked over to the door. Just as he was about to throw it open a feminine voice called out.
"It's Rouge. If you're in there, Scroll would you please let me in?"
Yojimbo looked back to Ancient Scroll before opening the door to reveal a tall grey and irritated looking Abyssinian holding an unconscious mocha brown unicorn stallion by the neck. She threw the stallion into the house and stepped inside before Yojimbo closed the door.
"The rest of them fled like the cowards they are, but I managed to catch one."
There was moment of shocked silence before Yojimbo clapped his paws together and beamed at them all with a toothy grin.
"Alrighty then! Let the interrogation begin!"