The Bon Supremacy

by CherryRush


3: Revelations

Location Unknown
21 Harvest, 1502
0930 Local Time

When she woke the next morning, Lyra found herself in a decrepit-looking room with bare brick walls and little furniture except for a couple of rickety, hay-covered beds and a wooden table that looked like it had been gnawed on by something. A small fire burned in a pit in the middle of the room, wafting smoke up to a chimney in the ceiling. She tried to stand and felt a wave of dizziness that pushed her back down to her belly; the room spun and her head was pounding, and even though she just woke up she felt as tired as if she'd been awake for days. Catching sight of her leg, she realized that her coat had taken a sickly grey color that barely resembled her pretty teal fur, and she quickly turned her head around to look at her flank. There, in place of her golden lyre cutie mark, was a black equal sign. They'd really done it... suddenly it all came back to her in a wash of memory.

She'd been woken up before the dawn and dragged out of her cell by two huge earth ponies with dull coats, glassy eyes, and equal sign cutie marks. She had tried to struggle, of course, but they were much stronger than her, and she'd never really developed her talent for magic despite being good enough as a foal to get into Celestia's private classes. Eventually, she'd just let herself go limp and be dragged down narrow, dimly lit hallways into a large room, where she was unceremoniously dumped onto a a magic circle that looked like it had been crudely scorched with horn beams. She recognized the design, a six-pointed star within two concentric circles meant to amplify magic directed at a target within, from school (it had been a favorite of Moondancer's, after all, who'd wanted every boost she could get to compete with Twilight Sparkle's raw talent), but the runes etched between the circles seemed... wrong somehow.

She tore her eyes away from the floor to realize that she was surrounded by ponies just like the ones who had taken her here - dull and dazed-seeming, like sleepwalkers. Except for him, of course - their leader's coat was still in full color, and he approached her with purposeful menace. "My friends," he said for the benefit of the room, "We are gathered here today for the cutie un-marking of our new friend Lyra Heartstrings. She did not come to us willingly, but few understand the virtues of our way of life until they have lived it for themselves - let us not judge her for her past." Lyra tried to scamper out of the circle and escape, but found herself paralyzed by his magic, unable to move or even speak. "No, let all of her past crimes and sins be forgiven as ours were. Let us offer her TRUE friendship through equality as Starlight Glimmer taught us."

He began to prime the circle with a beam of pale green magic, and as the runes and geometric lines glowed in the same color, Lyra felt like she was dying. The feeling was indescribable and painful in ways that had nothing to do with bodily inury, and she clung on desperately as everything that she was slowly seemed to slip away. Beautiful classical melodies became atonal noise and her friends' faces faded away and all of the light and color she had ever seen in the world seemed to fade to grey. In the end, all Lyra was left with was her love for Bon-Bon, and that she refused to let go of. The one-eyed unicorn had been right, of course - struggling only made it hurt worse. But struggle she did, and she held onto that love with everything she had even as the pain felt like it would overwhelm her. Even as everything she was crumbled away, she held onto Bon-Bon with everything she had, until the pain finally grew too great and unconsciousness claimed her.

"Oh, you're awake. I'm... I'm glad." Lost in painful memories, Lyra hadn't noticed the pony enter. She looked so much like Pinkie Pie, and yet... not. Her mane was flat and limp, tied in a loose tail, and heavy-looking rings of steel and polished jade weighed down her ears. A black scar traced down the side of her muzzle, and when she pulled off her brown trench coat, Lyra saw swirling black fur-mark tattoos tracing down her front legs. "I'm... um, I know who I look like, but my name is Rose Quartz. I wish I could say it was nice to meet you."

"You..." Lyra thought hard for a moment. This pony seemed familiar, more than just because she looked like she could be Pinkie's twin sister, but her memories seemed fuzzy and hard to reach. "You're the pony who took me," she finally managed. Lyra thought should be frightened, but somehow she couldn't manage the emotional energy to feel anything at all.

"I'm sorry," Rose muttered as she set a small pot over the fire and started cutting vegetables into it from a bag she'd been carrying. "I don't have anything against you, I just do what they tell me."

Lyra came over to sit across the firepit from her. "Why, though? You look tough, but you don't seem like the kind of pony who would hurt me." It felt like a reasonable assumption, though it was hard to be certain of anything through the haze that seemed to grip her mind. A vague, black-and-white memory came to her of trying pipe-weed from the Mysterious South - mostly the way it fuzzed her mind and seemed to drain her energy... and Bon-Bon, in full color, scolding her for bringing it into their home. Bon-Bon had seemed so angry, but she'd also tucked Lyra up in bed and tolerated her addled babbling to give her a spoonful of bitter-tasting potion she'd called a universal antidote, and had stayed with Lyra until she fell asleep.

Rose Quartz sighed. "That pony who took your cutie mark, the one they call 'Master'. He has things on me." She poured some water into the pot. "It's how he operates... Blackmail and coercion and hostages. He knew that Sweetie Drops cared about you, so he took you to get to her. I don't have anypony I'm close to, but..."

"But what?" Lyra frowned at this. "What does he have on you that you'd be willing to do all of this?"

"I'm just trying to survive," Rose said. "It's all I've ever done as long as I can remember. Ever since..." She took a heavy breath and sighed sadly. "Ever since Twilight Sparkle killed all of my sisters."

It suddenly clicked for Lyra where she really remembered this pony from. "Pinkie duplicated herself a year and a half ago. You're one of them, aren't you? I thought she banished you all, but you got away, didn't you?"

"If you can call getting lost in the Everfree Forest by accident getting away." The pink mare shook her head. "I was just lucky enough to not be there when the others were all rounded up. I got to watch their life essence flying back where it came from, and then I was all alone, a grown mare with the mind of a child lost in the forest. I grew up pretty fast, I'll tell you that, but I've always had to live with the worry that I'd be found out." She stirred the soup as she continued, "He's got conclusive proof that I'm a duplicate. If I don't cooperate, all that proof goes straight to Princess Twilight."

They sat in silence for a while as Lyra digested this information. Finally, she said, "So what are you going to do to me?"

"Well... I guess I'll start by making you soup. And then I keep you here and safe, which is fine by me. I'd rather not tangle with your friend Sweetie Drops again if I can help it. Thunder and Lightning actually have the training, so I'll be glad to let them handle it."

"Who..." Lyra sighed and shook her head. "Nevermind... She's going to come for me, you know. She's probably looking right now."


Fillydelphia
21 Harvest, 1502
0945 Local Time

"Where are they?!" Sweetie Drops slammed the brown stallion's head into a shelf full of goods with a satisfying thunk and loud clattering as wrenches and screwdrivers fell to the ground. She let go long enough to let him slide limply to the floor and then pressed a hoof down on his back. "I'm done playing games with you, Twister!"

"Please!" He sobbed. "I just run a hardware store! I haven't seen your face," he pleaded, "just take the bits and go!"

She pressed her back leg down into the small of his back and took hold of the end of one of his wings with her front hooves. "You know every pony in this town. You think I don't know who you are? You think I'm stupid?!" She twisted hard and felt the hollow bones snap between her hooves, followed by a howl of pain from Twister. "You used to collect intel for EI:6! You used to be somepony! And now what? Now you open your fat mouth to anyone who'll pay you!" She moved her hooves down to the next joint. "All the scum of Equestria passes through this shop, and as far as I'm concerned you're just as filthy as the rest of them. Now, if you ever want to fly again... you're going to read that note again, very carefully, and tell me who they are." She let up just enough that he could pick up the note off of the floor - the same one she'd gotten on the train, though with her name scratched out.

"I, I, um..." He quickly read through the note. "I, shouldn't! I can't, please!" He cried out loudly as she broke the next joint down on his wing. "Alright! Please just stop! They call themselves the Equality Party, but everypony who knows about them just calls them Glimmerites! Please don't make me say more! Th-those two big ponies said they'd take my cutie mark if I talked!"

"Take..." She was surprised enough to actually let go of him. "Take your cutie mark? Is that even possible?"

"I... I don't know!" He scrambled back against the wall, turning so his wings were pinned back out of her reach. "But they seemed pretty certain that this 'Master' pony of theirs could do it, and I'm not going to take any chances!"

Sweetie Drops stared him down for a moment before sighing and pulling off the mask covering her muzzle, and then taking off her mirror shades to clip them to her shirt. "Twister..." Giving away her identity was a risk at this point, but he was clearly more scared of them than he was of her. Playing for his sympathy might be the better option.

"Wait..." He looked over her face and then his purple eyes went wide in recognition. "Sweetie Drops? Is that you? What in Celestia's name happened to you?"

"I'm on the job again, Twister. I'm sorry I hurt you, but they've got somepony I love, and I'm desperate." She shook her head and approached him. He cowered back against the wall in fear as she reached into her bag, but she only pulled out a roll of bandages. "I've got to save her... with everything that I've done, my Lyra's the only good thing I've got to show for it." She started straightening the broken bones in his wing, ignoring his little winces of pain.

"Were... were you really going to go all the way just then?" He managed to ask between small whimpers.

"I don't know. I... I want to say I wasn't really going to cripple you, but..." She pulled a couple of wooden dowels off of a shelf and returned to start splinting his wing. "...but I don't know. You know what I used to be like when I worked for the crown."

"Yeah..." He managed a weak chuckle. "I remember cleaning that back room a few times after you were done with it. But you always caught the real villain in the end."

"Maybe I haven't made as much progress as I'd thought," Sweetie Drops admitted. "There's a part of me that likes hurting ponies, so long as I can tell myself they did something wrong."

"Well, I can't say that I'm happy about you breaking my wing, but I kind of get it." Twister sighed and folded back his wing as best he could when she'd finished splinting it. "Listen, whatever you might have done to other ponies, you were always there for me. I don't know where your friend is, but I can tell you that the two who threatened me were Thunder and Lightning, our old friends from the agency."

Sweetie Drops frowned at this information. Thunder and Lightning were a pair of twins, a pegasus and a unicorn, who had been an unstoppable field team back in the day. The fake Pinkie Pie had been a clear amateur, but they could pose a serious problem. "And where does Pinkie Pie fit into this?"

"Your Pinkie..." He sighed and shook his head. "I promised I wouldn't tell anypony who she really was. She goes by Rose Quartz. She's a mercenary, hired hoof." He gestured vaguely. "I've hired her a couple of times when I needed extra muscle around, but I don't know what she's up to now. Getting involved like this isn't her style. Whatever she's doing, I don't think she's really one of them... ideology isn't really her thing."

She thought about this, offering him a helping hoof up. "Do you think I can turn her?"

He shrugged as he stood. "I honestly have no idea... it would depend on why Rose is involved. She's not really close to any pony and she only really cares about herself. If you knew what they were giving her, maybe you could make a better offer, but that's a big 'if'."

"Do you have anything else, Twister? Anything that might help me find these ponies?"

"I don't.... I mean, I'm not sure." He looked up at a tower of filing cabinets before seeming to remember he couldn't fly, then went to grab a ladder. He pushed it back with a scraping of metal wheels that badly needed grease, before starting to climb up towards the top. "I think they're planning something today. They've been asking about things like police presence and the like. I'd be willing to bet it's going to be some kind of attack or demonstration. Maybe they want to prove they can take cutie marks away. I might have something in my files here."

"Forget the files." Sweetie growled in frustration. "The pony who wrote this note - this 'Master' figure, I'm guessing... he's got this hangup on sins. He's going to target somepony with a past. You've already got a list off of the top of your head, I'm sure."

"Maybe..." He slid back down. "Most of them are pretty private, I can't imagine attacking them would make for a good spectacle. Wait, I might have somepony who fits the bill." He shot back up the ladder and came down with a poster held in his mouth. "There's going to be a big stage show tonight at the expo center, and look at the opening act," he said when he deposited it at her hooves. "The 'Great and Powerful' Trixie Lulamoon. Supposedly reformed criminal... real piece of work with an ego big enough to see from the moon."

"I remember you..." Sweetie Drops muttered before raising her voice a little to address Twister, "She terrorized Ponyville a year ago with an artifact called the Alicorn Amulet. I was there, but I couldn't do anything without blowing my cover identity."

"Yeah, it was all over the papers here, too." He rolled up the poster. "A lot of ponies think that she got way too light of a sentence. If I was going to punish someone by taking their cutie mark, I'd start with her."

"Thanks for the help, Twister." She gave him a careful hug. "With any luck, she'll be the perfect bait."