“Yeah, you heard correctly... My name is Bun Button.” Bun tediously fidgeted with her hooves and her belly fur.
“Where have I heard that name before...” The royal guard at the other end of the convoy vehicle looked to the air puzzled.
“I dunno... Maybe the news? Or something...” Bun shifted a few centimetres in her seat, she sat with her back straight up against the truck’s walls in the back on a simple wooden bench.
The royal guard on the other bench shook his head softly. “No no... I think it was in a video game or something.”
“Oh uh... Detrot: Become Equine?”
“Yeah, yeah! That's... That was it. What were you in it again?”
“Um.. My team and I helped with all of the robot stuff... Making it look realistic... As an additional favour they let me play a research pony... I only had like four lines though.”
“Oh well... Cool... That's... Cool. You know, me and my son really liked that game.”
“Yeah, it was. I played it too.”
“Yup... Haha... Ah...”
“Yeah... Mn...”
The guard coughed.
Bun noted that the road was becoming a bit less bumpy. They were probably close to ponyville.
“So...” The guard said under his breath.
“Yeah... So... Hmm... Y-you think we're close?”
“Probably yeah, you know...”
“Yeah... Uh... So do you... Like... Does your son... Play other video games?”
“Yeah he does... He likes them.”
“Cool...”
“Mn... yup.”
Bun lowered her head by about a centimeter. “Sorry I'm not much of a talker... Haha...”
“Yeah no, I get it, no worries... It's... Cool.”
They exchanged looks.
Bun ran her lower lip under her teeth while her eyes settled on the truck’s floor.
In about ten more minutes the truck stopped; they had arrived at Twilight's castle.
“Oh look, I guess we're here.” Bun said with some, well, a lot of relief.
“Yeah! Seems so...” The guard stood up and opened the back panel.
Bun smiled and hopped down out of the small military truck. The guard hopping down right after her, then the two in the front seats joined them.
Bun looked to the sky with an open jaw, she stood at the hoof of Princess Twilight Sparkle's castle. It was made nearly entirely out of thick, perfectly smoothed crystal, which the sun gleamed almost blindingly off of. The magnificent golden entrance was wide and tall enough to welcome in dragons or minotaurs. The colours blended like fluid paint, the architecture immensely impressive, the stone cutting smooth and utterly satisfying, like wholesome fine art. It was a powerful sight, only partly spoiled by having seen pictures of it online like all the fucking time in those dumb ads about top ten secrets about Twilight's castle she doesn't want you to know about.
Regardless, Bun was led to the castle doors and through by her three guard escorts. She found herself crossing the royal carpets laid out all over the gargantuan home, her hooves tingling against the soft flowery fur. She was brought down the largest corridor directly straight, and before she knew it two more guards standing at another glorious golden door opened the entrance to the room they guarded.
Inside stood a massive table, carved from a boulder sized crystal to an elegant set of furniture. To the right side, slightly out of the way, a chair with twilight's cutie mark sat, made from the same crystal substance, though Bun felt kinda weird. As if she expected at least five more seats with cutie marks, but she shrugged it off; her new robot brain must have just been acting up funny.
The carpet led further into the room past the table, rolling out to the hoof of a throne. Twilight Sparkle's own high seat. It was etched from a unique stone to the rest of the castle, a pure white marble that was smoothed to the grain. The throne rose up a few meters high with Twilight's cutie mark on its back in a light purple. The seat had a cushion, and it had some parts covered in soft wool. The entire thing was somewhat inviting and warm, it made Bun smile.
“Twilight will be here with you shortly.” The guard escorting her let her know and then walked off with his compadres, and Bun stood alone.
From another side entrance the clanking of hard metal on crystalised floor rung the air like a harsh, ancient gong. The steps grew closer, their cold nature worrying Bun, putting fear into her heart, too scared to beat.
Everyone knew that the accident at Cardinal forest over a dozen years ago left princess Twilight relying on robotics to sustain her life, Bun read somewhere online that she was nearly ninety percent cybernetic, which she just now seemed to remember as Twilight's face came through the doorway, it's parts gleaming in the sunlight unlike any flesh. She walked in with her legs animated rigidly, every step was in motion to a clock, each foreleg moved in sync to its opposite and hind leg partner.
Twilight's life has been much, much suckier ever since her accident. Her senses were almost lost, her vision missed its colour and life, her sense of touch didn’t have pressure, it was either on or off. She had no sense of taste, her smell felt completely unnatural and worst of all, she no longer had the pleasure of taking a piss anymore.
Over the years, robotic scientists had offered to make improvements to her, but she seemed to detest her robotic form so much, she refused to get any more add ons, she was only looking for solutions to make her more pony, not more cybernetic.
So, she sat down on her throne with whatever pride she had left, holding her head high to Bun, and giving her a soft, friendly smile.
Twilight spoke out, her voice completely artificial, though doing a fairly good job of portraying her original accent. “Thank you for coming, Bun Button. I'm sorry for my complexion... I don't get much sun nowadays.” Twilight faintly giggled, despite well... Everything.
“T-thank you for having me, Your Highness... Um... M-may I ask... W-why did you summon me, may I ask?”
“You can call me Twilight, I'm the Princess of Friendship not the Princess of high majesty, I never liked all that official speak anyhow.” Twilight slowly leaned forward and stood from her throne, trotting up a few paces. “I summoned you because not too long ago my arcane signal receiver was hit with a jolt of chaos energy strong enough to wipe out a city coming from space, but I'm fully aware of how that happened, what confused me was when it then received a second, still shockingly powerful chaos pulse from somewhere inside Manehattan... After sending some of my ponies over they tracked it down to have happened at your work address while you were there, but you were already on your way home at that point so they had to go to your apartment to get you. So... Tell me what you know.” Twilight teleported in a notebook and quill, still incredibly old fashioned.
“Right... Well... Twilight. I know exactly where the magic came from... It was from a camera feed I was watching, attached to Odin's vision...” Bun rubbed her foreleg while avoiding direct eye contact.
“Hmm? Odin? The robot you built to pilot the ship? Weren't all the signals cut by the power of the magic?” Twilight furiously kept notes of every single word.
“W-well... I don't know about the other signals... But mine wasn't cut... Then all the magic came down and... It gets a bit blurry after that.” Bun bit her lip.
“Blurry? Like you passed out..?” Twilight inquired.
“No... I... Well I died.” Bun failed to fake a confident smile.
“Died..? Metaphorically..?”
“No like... I died. My entire head, it... Just was melted to a crisp you know. Saw the afterlife for a few seconds and all... I... I think.”
“Bun... I'd like to ask you to cease your joking please.”
“No, I'm one hundred percent serious.” Bun nodded to her own statement, just being blunt about it now.
“You're not dead, Bun, I'm speaking to you currently. And I know for very... Very certain resurrection is not possible. So what in all of Equestria do you mean by what you are saying?” Twilight's pen lulled as a frown grew on her face.
“R-right... Well I may not have... Died fully... B-but my entire body was destroyed and um... As that happened my soul was transferred into some gem and then my body was... Fixed up... With robot parts... Kinda... Like you...” She blushed, feeling awkward that her body upgrade excelled Twilight's in every conceivable way.
“You... Are not like me... Y-you... Look indistinguishable from a regular pony!” Twilight looked her up and down for any imperfection and gaped, incredibly impressed by the lack of any.
“Yeah... I think it's changeling DNA that lets me look like this... But I'm mostly cybernetic.” She flashed her eyes on and off like a confused light switch speaking in Morse code. “See..?”
Twilight leaped from her throne and stuck her face inches away from Bun, nearly frothing at the mouth in her desperately confused state. “C-changeling DNA... I... I completely overlooked that... I-it was deemed unsafe in the chemical field due to high cancer rates... Though... This may be the solution I've been dreaming of...”
Bun froze up as the Princess surveyed her. “U-umm... R-right w-w-”
“I need to go begin testing immediately; my royal inspector will continue this. Bye!” In a flash of her horn she was gone.
Bun looked around, felt awkward, decided to sit down then walked around a few minutes not confident enough to actually sit anywhere. Only to be interrupted by a neat, official looking mare who came into the room via a side door. She had a white suit top with an elegant large collar and black buttons down the middle, a tiny name tag pinned into the top of her left side pocket. She also had a notepad floating in her unicorn magic, an earpiece in her left ear and a wonderfully smooth white furred body and a neat, square cut dark crimson mane.
“H-hey, hi...” Bun squeaked.
The prim and proper pony trotted like a Queen in her own right all the way up to Bun. “You must be Bun Button.” She smiled... Too politely. It was almost violent.
“Y-yup! That's me... Are you the inspector?” She gulped as she asked.
“Inspector Rosewater, present.”
“R-rosewater..? Is... That your name?” Bun lifted an utterly confused eyebrow.
“Yes... It is? I don't know what else it would be.” Her pen flicked at her notes swiftly.
“Right... Duh... Obviously.” Bun stroked her own shaky leg.
“Would you please follow me to my office?” Bun nodded and Rosewater trotted off with her down the hall and three offices to the left, until they were there. The two entered the tiny little paper-stacked office space and the Unicorn slid around her desk and into her tiny seat.
“N-n... Nice place...”
“Thank you, it is quite cosy. Now, please make yourself comfortable, Miss Bun.” Rosewater gleamed with a perfect white smile.
“Thank you.” Bun half grinned, then sat down, bearing the tiny, ass-annoyingly hard oak seat with a sad, fake, dead-on-the-inside smile.
“Why don't we begin... Can you confirm this is you?” Bun was given a long checklist of her name, age, home address, work address, family members, credit card information, favorite colour, least favourite animal and allergies.
Bun nodded as she started reading down, “Yeah this all seems corr... Wait what?!”
The form was slid away from her hooves' grasp. “Thank you... Now, I have a few questions to ask...”
Rosewater and Bun went on to discuss and recount in great detail every moment of the event she could still remember. The inspector was persistently picky with every single detail Bun regaled her with, writing at least at double the speed which Bun spoke at. Bun even explained her new cyborg body, which the inspector took very great interest in.
And like a strike of lightning, it was suddenly over as Rosewater dropped her pen and notebook. “Right, Bun, this was all incredibly informative... Our field officers have also done their reports through your workplace so we have gotten everything we need to know about the event. Twilight will be very happy as this will be quite useful in our studies.”
“Thank you for having me... I guess.” Bun half smiled, but it was closer to a quarter smile.
“It's very important that we document all of these magical anomalies; it helps prevent future disasters and deaths.” Rosewater happily added.
“Uh... Cool. Glad I could help... Can I go now..?” Bun's legs twitched, ready to be released.
“Well... There is one more thing we could have done. It is perfectly optional, though is... Highly encouraged.” For once Redwater's strong professionalism had a sly tone.
“W-what... what thing?” Bun choked up.
“Oh, just a physical and magical strength evaluation, see how your body is coping after your incident.” The slyness had mostly faded.
“Right... W-well as I said before... This isn't my original body... It's barely recognisable physically speaking... Despite appearances.”
“All the more reason to have these tests done. So, do you give consent for me to begin the evaluation?” She stood from her seat.
“S-sure... I don't have anything else to do...” Bun watched Rosewater glide over to her side as she whipped out some scanner with a black plastic strip that she ran over Bun's body. It made beeping noises and flashed lights on a screen the inspector read from.
“Mmm Hmm... Oo... yes... Quite... Mmm... Very interesting.” Seemed like Rosewater enjoyed whatever was happening.
“What's uh... Interesting..?” Bun asked with worry.
“Well you seemed to have absorbed enough chaos magic to be legally classed as a live explosive... So, very good so far.” The mare set down her magic detector and dragged Bun by the hoof out the door telekinetically.
“W-what?! Am I going to explode?!” Bun's eyes nearly shot out of her head.
Rosewater did not even slow down, pulling her along to the castle fitness facility. “No, of course not, well... As long as you aren't stabbed with a magic igniter, in which case you will explode, yes, though there's no worries, you'd die so quickly it'll be painless.”
“I hope not! I nearly had a heart attack!” Bun also thought it would be a pretty dumb way to end her story, to just blow up.
Rosewater threw her over into the middle of a large matted fitness training hall, then floated over another tool. Some large metal plate box with a counter on the side, a small soft red striking area in the center. “Hit this as hard as you can.” The inspectors face was completely disinterested as she focused on measuring Bun from every side with a measuring tape.
“R-right...” Buns right foreleg rose softly to align with the target, then she reered it back. A few deadly clicks rung as her leg racketed into a position of maximum force.
All it took was her releasing the mechanism and her hoof rocketed towards the target, a flash of movement leading up to a cracking of machinery as the strength gauge flew off a dozen meters down the hall. The only thing remaining being the readout which was magically held in place and detached by Rosewater.
The inspector took a glance at the dissevered gauge, “Hmm... Above average.”
Bun shot pure disbelief at the mare via her robot eyes.
The inspector feigned interest and moved on. “Now... Speed test.” Through magic, a harness was strapped around Bun's belly, it had a bungee rope attached. “Run in that direction as fast as you can.”
“Fine...” Bun said with a half grumble; her previous test's failure to get a good response from Rosewater infuriated her to the core.
“Go ahead.” Rosewater let her begin and Bun exploded off into a gallop with her pent up pistons, accelerating at a rate that would make most drag racers blush. Within seconds she had crossed over thirty meters before snapping the rope holding her back, shortly after which she stopped completely with a harsh grind.
“Fast enough for ya!?” Bun whipped her tail and made a cracking noise in the air, a quite uncharacteristic cocky smile on her face.
Rosewater calmly read from her little speed graph. “Fast enough to still legally drive on a motorway, apparently.” She noted down a grade.
“Grr...” Bun wasn't pleased.
Over the next dozen tests Bun became unquenchably angry at the concept of exercise as every single one reaction Rosewater bore was more underwhelming than the last. Bun showed off her super-equine accuracy, strength, reaction times and agility that could possibly even compete with the top tier of legendary fighters and athletes, and Rosewater acted like this was a regular work day for her.
Bun lifted so much weight that the bar was bending, she broke over half of the instruments used to measure her, and she wasn't even tired after it all. But nothing impressed the inspector.
“And... That's us finished. Thank you for your time, Miss Bun Button.” She clipped up her notes and that was it.
“Wait... Is... Was that it?” Bun really wasn't ready to throw in the towel and just say that was it.
“Yes. That was it.” Rosewater told Bun that was definitely it.
“Fine... How did I do then?” Bun huffed.
“Hmm... By the Equestrian sports administration standards..? Better than should be physically possible under these conditions... And...” The inspector gave Bun the cocky grin from before.
“And what..?” Bun said skeptically.
“And by my standards... Not too bad. Even passable.” Rosewater fixed her collar.
“Passable?! What are you on about! This new body is incredible!” Bun reared up and then bucked in the air just to show off.
“Yes... It is. Which is why I'd like to make you a proposition.” Rosewater started trotting Bun back to her office.
“W-what proposition? Inspector explain what is happening! Right now... Please.” Bun softly demanded, now standing yet again at her office door.
“Bun... You seem to have obtained a powerful gift. And... We are always looking for individuals with powerful gifts.” The mare leaned into the door, lit up her horn and pressed a small button hidden in the carvings of the doorframe, then she whispered to it. “We have blood in the water.”
Bun took a cautious step back. “Who is... We?”
“We may resume discussion once we are inside.” The inspector pressed open her door a few inches, nothing but blackness on the other end of the door.
Bun sighed, knowing that curiosity might just end up killing this cat. “Fine...” She stepped in, being met with a metal floor and an odd echo. The inspector walking in right after and shutting the door tight.
Then the lights turned on. Bun found herself inside a wide, black-panelled elevator with a large solid mirror on all but the exiting wall. It was easy on the eyes, had slick and smooth walls and was very satisfying.
“W-woah...” Bun was speechless... Still greatly, if not more confused, but speechless.
“Bun Button... I am Agent Blood Diamond. I am the chief recruitment officer for The Shadow Service.”
“W-what..? T-the... The what?!” Bun begged for answers with her eyes.
“Perhaps you would enjoy a more in depth explanation.”
Bun nodded.
Blood took a deep breath.
“Initially, over two thousand years ago, the Shadow Service was just a group of hyper powerful unicorn assassins during the Hearth’s Warming war, but after they were officially "disbanded" the newly formed Equestrian government turned the operation into an all race accepting group of spies, mercenaries and agents of all sorts to span the whole world, involved in the search and elimination of anyone the government deems a problem... Which is what we've been ever since... The only criteria to join is that you have a highly powerful and unique specialty. Some form of quirk that makes you different than a normal soldier or government spy - since if a pony wanted to be a special agent they could just be one of those regular boring ones that track down serial killers and terrorists - this was supposed to be an elite group for the supernaturally elite, to deal with the biggest problems before we call in Twilight or Celestia. And as an example of what we mean by specialised power... Take the founder of the whole thing. He was originally a con-pony, until one day he lied to some Zebra tribe and scammed them out of their homes, so one of the zebras put a hex on him... The hex made it so he could never make another sound or write another word. This was to make sure he could never scam anyone else ever again... But... He quickly learned he couldn't make any noise. His hoofsteps were silent, his banging on a door was a negative for decibels and even creating explosions with his horn yielded no noise. And... Being a pony of opportunity, he became an assassin. Quite good too... Until he was caught, that is... He faced execution until the war broke out, so they gave him a deal to become a secretive mercenary, and being a pony of opportunity... Yeah, so anyways, they faked his execution and he went on to lead the first group to be known as The Shadow Service. Oh and fun little factoid, no one knew his real name because he couldn't ever tell anyone. We later found out his real name was Whisper which is both painfully ironic and amazingly fitting.” Blood Diamond smiled.
Bun gulped softly. “Well... That's a lot of exposition... Um... S-so... You want... Me?”
“Yes, I have found you to be worthy of a trial period as an agent.”
“R-really? Why though?! Sure... I'm strong... But I'm not special.” Bun's head fell in a fit of shame.
“Oh... Yes. You very well may not be uniquely specialised enough for us to have a place for you. Though you do have something with potential... Your body is harbouring a mass of chaos magic... With training, perhaps we can teach you to void drift or mind shatter... Maybe even pre-sense but Maverick already does that—Somewhat—Reliably.” Blood Diamond took a relaxed breath and looked eyes forward at the door, then the elevator stopped.
“T-this is ridiculous... I can't be a super spy!” Bun trotted in front of her and pleaded.
“Miss Bun. If at any point you wish to reject this offer and leave, you may just say the word and I will wipe your memory clean of all of this and you may go on with your daily life as normal... But if you wish to uncover the true power of this gift you were given and fight evil... Come right this way.” The elevator beeped and the doors slid open, a long wide lobby opening up in front of them, filled with lovely carpets and sleek furniture. It was very pleasing and welcoming, though surprisingly empty of any ponies. Blood Diamond walked right out, after her fourth step she turned her head back to the uncertain Bun.
“I... Ugh... But...” Bun's jaw was down and wobbling.
“Huh. I guess you aren't cut out to fight...” Blood slyly smiled and turned away her face from bun.
“N-no! I am totally cut out to fight!” Bun stomped out after her in a rage.
The elevator snapped shut behind her, Blood Diamond chuckled. “Welcome to the Shadow Service, Agent Bun Button, let's see if you prove valuable.”
“Y-yeah... That's not going to happen.” Bun shook her head to Blood Diamond, as they had just finished forcibly getting Bun into a uniform and signing paperwork in another tiny office in this underground complex. Paperwork that barred Bun from ever speaking word of the Shadow Service to anyone, ever, or else the chip in her head would be primed and she would explode. The chip which was apparently put into her without her prior knowledge or agreement.
Bun was now in a light-yellow, skin tight latex jumpsuit with a big dumb L printed on her chest, showing everyone she was a "learner", and totally not any other word begining with L.
“Why, what's the issue?” Blood didn't seem amused by her lack of confidence.
“I am not going to introduce myself wearing this... This... This loser suit!” Bun waved her legs like a wacky inflatable wavy leg pony.
Blood Diamond's horn sparked up with its deep red magical flame and picked up Bun by the collar. “We've all worn the loser suit, Bun, now quit your whining and come out here with me.”
“W-who am I going to be introducing myself to anyways?! It's been over an hour of nothing but signing dumb contracts, can you please explain anything to me!” Bun scrambled her hooves against the floor trying to resist, stretching her latex collar.
“When I said I'll be introducing you to everyone, I did mean everyone. You know how the building was empty when we arrived? Well that's because business hours start at high noon, which was ten minutes ago. The other fifty six agents are currently waiting on me to arrive before we can begin the day's meeting! Now will you please stop delaying me, I do not take kindly to being tardy!” As Blood Diamond finished her sentence her eyes began glowing an aggressive, violent red colour. They also flickered like a burning flame. After concluding her statement about tardiness, she ground her teeth together like a wild, rabies infested mutt staring at a baby. She had made a whole transition from the most proper of ponies to ravenous werewolf in a frankly impressive timeframe.
Bun was very scared of the scary lady. “F-fine, I'll go, please don't eat me!!!”
“Fucking... Grr... Good...” Blood took a big breath and then after a big release of air, she returned to normal, fixing her collar with a kind smile. “Please excuse me; sometimes it's difficult to keep control over my Blood Frenzy.”
“R-right...” Bun didn't feel like asking any questions and walked out of Blood Diamond's office.
Blood walked Bun quickly down a side corridor of the main lobby, which now had the clear print of dozens of ponies’ scuff marks having came and gone fairly recently.
The two mares almost immediately found themselves at a large metal set of sliding doors. Blood sparked her horn to slide her permit card against a scanner off to the left, and with a green flash the doors spread wide open.
Bun's view was now filled with dozens of agents of every race known to pony kind. They all sat around in a large circle around a stage, their chairs being long curved white benches with soft cushions. The large hall was lit with soft blue lights and it was lined with nice luscious green plants. She swallowed her pride before a sigh, being led up the room by Blood Diamond.
The room went silent of chatter and every single pony, every single creature in the entire room stared over to Bun with light smirks and cheeky subtle laughs.
Bun was escorted up the middle of the room past the three rows of seats, her cheeks were flushed red and she had a teeny tiny panic attack.
Blood continued to push Bun forward and up the two steps of the center stage, climbing atop it.
There was a single other pony standing there in the very, very middle. He was an earth pony, orangish, brownish fur, a dark brown mane with a well aged face, something like... Fifty one years old, Bun guessed. He had soft, confident grey eyes that made him look like he knew what he was doing. He wore a brown, neat suit - probably as old as him - that fit him like a glove too, and made him feel chummy, yet in charge. Oddly, his cutie mark was of a burning lemon.
The stallion smiled like a friendly uncle. “Ah! Agent Diamond. We may finally begin, and I believe this is the new trainee..?” His voice was like that of a charming and well-intentioned lion.
Blood Diamond nodded. “Yes this is, shall I begin by introducing her?”
Bun Button stood behind Blood, kinda curled up in a ball of embarrassed energy as she shielded every part of her body from the audience she could in a fit of shyness.
“Of course, you know me, I'm always excited to see new faces here.” The stallion trotted around and forcibly shook Bun’s hoof. “Hello, recruit, let me introduce myself; I am Chariots Jobstone, I own the place.”
“N-nice to meet you, sir... I... Have a feeling I know you from somewhere... Is... Isn't it something related to... Portals?” Bun inquired, another strange hunch of hers.
“Heh, perhaps yes! I've dabbled in that field... Though let's chit chat after the meeting.” He patted her back twice and walked off the stage and sat down, Blood dragging Bun to the middle like an uncooperative toddler.
Blood Diamond took a deep breath. “Fellow Agents, I would like to introduce our newest agent in training, Agent Bun Button, the chaos-infused Earth Pony cyborg.” Blood could not hold back her giggle when she saw Bun's stage fright intensify.
She wrapped her leg around Bun's shoulders kindly. “Say hello, Bun.”
