//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Forgery // by DarthMaul22 //------------------------------// I lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling as I mulled over the implications. Was Bon Bon a plant? If so, for how long? Since we met? Since I moved in? No, that didn’t make sense. If she were watching me for that long, she would’ve been sending information the whole time, not just recently. Unless she’s just been more secretive about the letters until today. …I was going to have to think about this before I confronted her. The next morning, I was awoken by an earthquake. At least, that’s what my dream interpreted it as. Somewhere in the middle of it all, I heard somepony calling my name. I ignored it, though. I was too busy with my Piratey Killing Spree. The earthquake became more intense, and the voice called my name again, louder this time. “Yarr…five more minutes…matey…” I mumbled out to the voice. Didn’t it know there was plunder to be had? Suddenly the earthquake stopped, as did the voice yelling my name. Once again on stable hoofing, I returned my gaze to the stragglers before me. “Alright, ye scallywags,” I said to them, “Show me where the loot is, and I may consider sparing yer lives!” If my gaze wasn’t striking fear into them, then my awesome hat and eye patch combo certainly was. “Yes, er, cap’n!” the lead stallion said. He was brown with an hourglass cutie mark and one of them educated accents. Probably the ship’s navigator, or something. I motioned for him to lead the way. We were making good time over the land. The pirate ponies in front of me were starting to get nervous. We were getting close. The brown one with the funny accent stopped at the crest of a hill and turned to me. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead of words escaping his sorry muzzle, out came a wail pitched high enough to boil the seven seas. I shut my eyes, trying to block out the sound, but to no avail. After a few moments, it stopped, and I dared a peek at my surroundings. It was gone. All of it. The ponies leading the way, the soil underneath my hooves – even me ship back at the shore had gone missin’, all replaced by the sight of my room and a very angry-looking roommate. Yarr… I blinked a few times to clear my vision. After I was able to get a clear look at her, I noticed a cylinder in her hooves. “An air horn? Really, Bon Bon?” That wasn’t fair at all. She smiled at my expense. “I guess I should be thanking you, really. I was beginning to think I was never going to get the chance to use this.” I resisted the urge to scowl at her. Instead, I groaned and lay my head back down. “What do you even want from me, this early?” “I need you to run and get some groceries.” Making me do chores? I was gonna give her a piece of my mind. “Why can’t you do it?” “Because I went last time, remember?” Curses, foiled again! “Oh, yeah…that was a nice nap.” I put on a goofy smile. I blame my drowsy state. “Now, Lyra!” She poked me in the side. It kinda hurt a little… “Fine, I’m up…” I grumbled and started to roll off my bed. As I neared the edge, gravity got impatient and decided I might like to taste the floor. Oh, how wrong it was. My room wasn’t exactly the cleanest. “Come on.” Bon Bon nudged my ribs again. Why was everything so impatient? I could get things done! Just at my own pace… I grumbled again, this time pretty incoherently, as I forced my legs to wake up and raise their master off the bad-tasting floor. Bon Bon started tapping her hoof. Oh, how I hated that. She knew I hated it, too. I took my time to stretch, doing my best to annoy her back. I swear I sounded like a fireworks stand catching fire. Speaking of fireworks, Nightmare Night was coming up in a month… She started tapping harder. “I’m going, I’m going!” I groaned, walking out my bedroom door and grabbing my saddlebags on the way. Now that I was awake, I noticed she was a little more eager than usual for me to get out of the house. I let that thought sink in as I headed out the front door. I had also left her in my room. Was she going to go through my stuff? Would she look for stuff to report? Should I confront her? No, I decided. The evidence I had, while convincing, wasn’t concrete. If I was going to call her out on it, I’d need a solid case…and the more she thought I wasn’t on to her, the more mistakes she was liable to make. Luckily, I didn’t go any more than a block before it hit me… …I had forgotten the grocery list. Oops~! I turned and headed back, thankful I hadn’t realized it any later. As I entered the front door again, I didn’t see her in the living room, so I called out. “Bon Bon?” I heard a muted “Eep!”, followed by a hesitant “Yeah?” coming from…my room? “Where’s the shopping list?” I had already been gone a couple minutes. What was she still doing back there? And just how many times had this been going on without me knowing?! “It’s, uh…it’s on the counter next to the sink.” She called back. I looked, and there it was. This was pre-meditated. “Alright, thanks.” I grabbed the list and headed back out. I’d leave her there for now. For all I knew, she could’ve been dusting the bed or combing the windows (as if cleaning my room was a worthwhile endeavor). I was gonna need to catch her in the act, one that couldn’t be turned around like that. I was about halfway through the list. I had just purchased the lettuce, so next came the asparagus. I started looking for a stall that had them, but instead my gaze landed on a purple mare rushing at me. “Hey, Twilight!” I waved a hoof at her as she closed the distance. “Hey, Lyra,” she said, panting a little, “I’m glad I caught you out here, actually. I found a spell that could work, but it uses a ritual.” I wasn’t stupid (despite what my neighbors think). I certainly didn’t have Twilight’s level of training and knowledge, but I at least knew the basics when it came to magic. Rituals were used in older spells, ones that required a ton of energy to cast. This came out of necessity. Otherwise, the energy used would easily knock out the caster, or in a few cases, even kill them. They usually required ingredients for some mixture or another, and more often than not, at least one of them was incredibly hard to get. All of the books claimed they were rare because of their magical properties, but I figured it was just so the unicorns of old could send adventurous ponies out on dangerous quests for their general amusement. “Well, you should be able to get most of the stuff here.” I gestured to the innumerable stalls surrounding the market. Most of the ingredients for those rituals tended to be inconspicuous, everyday items. Probably to add to the frustration of only those one or two other ingredients being hard to get. “Well, some of them, at least.” She finally managed to catch her breath. “It’s going to take me a bit to get the rest of them, though. I think I should be able to get them within the week.” I broke out in a smile. “That’s great! Thanks for telling me!” I was gonna get my human sooner than I expected! I wondered if I was going to be able to teach it any tricks? “I still need your help, though.” How dare she interrupt my euphoria rush? “Yeah, what?” The sooner I could get my human, the better! “You know those books about humans you checked out forever ago and never returned?” Was that where those came from? I couldn’t remember. “I…think?” I said with hesitation. “Well, those were all the books on the subject that the library had. While I’m getting the ingredients, could you look into them and find any information concerning their anatomy? I’ll need a good idea of what they’re supposed to look like for the spell.” Had I really checked out all the human books? Thinking back, I remembered that yes, I had. I only looked into one or two of them after that for some reason, though… “Lyra?” “Huh?” What were we talking about? Oh, right, research. “Oh, yeah, I can do that. No problem!” She smiled and turned to leave. “Great. I’ll swing by when I’ve got everything ready.” “Alright, cool.” I waved goodbye as she left. The rest of my shopping went by in a blur. Within the week! I couldn’t believe it. All I had to do was look through the books I had apparently borrowed a while back. I frowned. There were at least a good dozen books, if I remembered correctly. Then there was the part of actually finding the things. I think I had shoved them under my bed or something… I waltzed in the front door, not even bothering with knocking or announcing my presence. I was on Cloud Nine, and by Luna (the sister who didn’t try to covertly silence ponies), I was going to enjoy it! I headed to my room, levitating my vegetable-stocked saddlebags to the table as an afterthought. I entered my room, ready to start looking. I had my work cut out for me, really. I was fully prepared to turn my room upside-down, too. Except they weren’t under my bed. They were resting right on top, in neat piles.