The Everfree forest was experiencing a rather hot afternoon. The images of different plants growing in it appeared fuzzy from heat exhausting from the ground. One figure, in particular, seemed to stick out like a sore thumb from the forest’s flora because of the high heat.
It was the Bureau of Secrecies’ Extraterrestrial Watchtower. A structure specially designed by the Bureau to act as a guiding beacon for interstellar beings wishing to land on Equestrian soil. Due to the rise of temperature within the forest, the magical force field that shrouded it from getting seen by anypony was acting up. Instead of full invisibility, it now looked like a giant apparition, something that a severely dehydrated pony would see.
Inside the malfunctioning invisibility field, two figures can be seen resting at the tower’s rooftop. Each of them was sitting on a deck chair, under the shade of a beach umbrella. Despite the sweltering heat, they were wearing black suits. They were in the middle of a tic-tac-toe game while munching on a bowl full of deep-fried spring rolls.
“The Hydra?” Foxtrot asked. Even though the scorching afternoon heat can now melt a full bar of chocolate in minutes, his look still didn’t falter. Not a strand of hair was astray from his perfectly combed cyan mane. His blue fur was still cool and dry, untouched by sweat. His black glasses showed the reflection of his colleague, Rocket. He’s a perfect contrast of his form.
Rocket’s dark red mane was unkempt with spikes pointing in every direction. The sleeves of his forelegs were rolled backward, mainly to keep the grease of the rolls from touching the fabric. Both of his white wings were unfurled. And he was using them as fans to cool himself. Foxtrot was a little bit pleased that some of the breezes had hit him. It’s a welcome sensation to this afternoon heat.
“Still kicking.” Rocket replied and proceeded to take another bite from his spring roll.
“The Poison Joke fields?” With the quill wrapped in his blue magic, Foxtrot levitated it towards the paper to write another ‘x’ in one of the boxes.
“The same as the ones surrounding our tower. Its status is at ninety-six percent. The seeds are expected to sprout next month.” Rocket ended his reply by drawing a line in one of the drawn boxes, another win for him.
“The Parasprites?” Foxtrot asked, sounding slightly frustrated.
“Quarantined as always.” Rocket drew another circle. “It’ll be a while before another one breaks out and visits the town again.”
Foxtrot drew another ‘x’ besides Rocket’s circle. “And the Timberwolves?”
“The main pack is moving north. The sentries are itching to follow them.” Rocket finished the roll he was holding. “Poor things.”
Foxtrot laid his quill on the table. He leaned back to his seat and let out a long sigh.
“This sucks.”
Rocket’s ears perked. “That’s a rather simplistic word coming from you. Is it the rolls? Are they that bad that they made you break character?”
“I disagree.” With his magic, Foxtrot levitated another spring roll to his mouth and took a generous bite out of it. “They’re as delectable as ever. Too bad you’ve only narrowed your culinary range down to a single dish. Our living conditions could’ve benefitted more from your cooking if you’d just expanded your menu just a little bit. But I digress.” He took another bite from the roll, relishing in its crunch.
“The thing that sucks is not even this blasted game of tic-tac-toe that for some reason, I keep losing to you. What I’m talking abou-”
“You wanna play chess again?” Rocket quickly replied, spring roll on hoof.
“No, that’s not the point. I already defeated you several times with that game. Tic-tac-toe, however, I haven’t scored a single point against you. Which is completely absurd considering that this game is far simpler compared to chess! I mean, there are only two to three ways to win this game, and the results are already determined from the first move. But no matter how I position myself within these boxes, you still manage to beat me at the end.”
“And I kept on telling you, it’s just luck.” Rocket chomped on his roll again.
“That’s not how luck works.”
With a hum, Rocket shrugged at Foxtrot’s reply and quickly finished the remainder of his spring roll.
“Dang it, now I lost my train of thought. What the heck was I talking about?”
“Tic-tac-toe?” Rocket said after swallowing.
“Before that.”
“My cooking?”
“One step further.”
“Why you said ‘it sucks?’”
“There it is.” Foxtrot rose from his seat. “You see, ‘tedium’ is the keyword here. As ironic as this may be, we’re members of the most involved Bureau to have ever existed in Equestria, having branches that deal with a wide range of operations such as espionage, cover-ups, and usurpations. Yet here we are acting as glorified groundskeepers in this small patch of land.”
“At least we get to see a couple of aliens here.”
Foxtrot’s ears perked again. “Which reminds me. What’s the status of the alien landing site traffic?”
“It’s currently clear. And there’s only one ship docked at the site today.”
“The Sapiens again?”
“Yeah. They’re here for another probing session.”
“Well as long as they’re only probing that mare Lyra, then there’s no problem at all. Now back to what I was saying.”
“Oh yeah.” Rocket grabbed another roll from the bowl but dipped it in a small saucer filled with sweet and spicy sauce first before taking a bite. Foxtrot didn’t touch the sauce during the meal in fear of sweating profusely. “About that tedium thing.”
“Which is further reinforced by the comings and goings of aliens in this forest. Seriously, literal aliens visit us here in a frequent manner and our recent reactions can just be boiled down to one word, meh. Imagine this. Aliens, interstellar beings from another world, living pieces of evidence that prove that we’re not entirely alone in this universe, and that life can thrive in other planets, would just be summed up as meh. They don’t even do anything remotely interesting. They just conduct interviews and leave. Yeah, yeah, of course I know that it’s the only thing they’re allowed to do here. Bureau Policy, break one and bid goodbye to your visiting privileges. But that’s what makes it tedious. There’s always something that keeps things from getting a little interesting. Not that I don’t value public safety but I just want things to spice themselves up a bit from time to time, if you know what I mean.”
Foxtrot levitated another roll towards his face. He let out a small sigh. “Patrolling the Everfree almost makes you wish to get reassigned to the Search and Destroy Division.”
“You mean the SaD Division?” Rocket jokingly asked.
“Yes. Its acronym is literally SaD.”
“That’s sad.”
“Don’t push it.”
“I kinda disagree with you though.” Rocket placed his half-eaten roll back to the bowl. “I like the way things are going here. I think it’s a smooth mix of interesting and relaxing. It’s the fact that you keep on doing something again and again, and it’s still as interesting as the first time you did it. It’s one of these things that only something like the Bureau could provide. Daily orders state that you must feed a certain animal three times a day to keep it from starving. But said animal is a towering monster that swallows ponies whole. And cutting its head off won’t kill it, two more would just take its place. See? See what I did there? I just showed an example of a balanced mixture of interesting tedium. Should I give another? Because I definitely have mo-”
Foxtrot waved him off. “Yeah, yeah, I get the gist. But caring for such supposedly horrifying monster day in and day out loses its novelty eventually. And sooner or later, you’ll just treat it the same as every other animal.”
“Nah, speak for yourself. And as for me, when I feed the Hydra, what I see is a Hydra, not some cutesy domesticated dog.” Rocket leaned closer to Foxtrot as if to prove a point. “It’s the risk you’re forgetting here, Foxy!”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“Whatever. You’re forgetting the risks at stake here! It’s mostly because we follow protocol by the letter here that the chance of a screw up happening is less than zero percent. But let’s just say that things do get out of hoof here for the sake of argument. Then real lives would suddenly be in danger! Especially that town over there.”
Rocket points a hoof towards Ponyville’s direction while still focusing eye contact on Foxtrot.
“That town for some reason, attracts trouble like a magnet is to metal. And if things did indeed go south down there, then they’d likely to be the first to suffer! This is why I really love our posts here in Everfree. We’re like a deterrent of some sort, the small fine line that holds things together. We keep the bad things away from folks, and we keep the folks away from the bad things.”
“But we’re only keeping them away from already benign aliens. I think the creatures that we use to safeguard their existence from the public hurt the public more than the aliens themselves.”
“I think you just made a contradiction there.”
“What? No I don’t think I di-”
Before Foxtrot could continue the sentry wolves suddenly howled in alarm.
“An intruder!” Foxtrot cried. He looked at the direction to where the Timberwolves were howling. He then looked back at Rocket. “To be continued.”
“I’m getting the weapons.” Rocket said as he dashed towards the stairs. Foxtrot went in the opposite direction, opting to look at who this intruder was.
“Mr. Jump?” A feminine voice called down from below. “Can I see you? I believe you’re the pony to talk to regarding this issue.”
Foxtrot ceased his panicked trampling, relief finally running down his body. He quickly turned to look at Rocket to stop him.
“Wait!” Rocket immediately stopped and looked back at Foxtrot. He raised both eyebrows in confusion. “Scratch that, it’s just that Zebra lady again. She’s calling for you.”
“Zecora?” Rocket said. There’s a hint of excitement in his voice. He quickly rolled down the sleeves of his jacket, clumsily straightened the wrinkles of his suit, and combed his hair to no avail. “Okay, so how do I look?” He asked Foxtrot.
Rocket may not see it, but Foxtrot was rolling his eyes behind those glasses of his. “Like a giddy schoolgirl.” He responded dryly.
“Good enough.” Rocket hastened the pace of his trots to look down at Zecora. He gave her wave but soon lowered it slowly upon seeing the creature standing next to her.
“Is that our missing Cockatrice? And why does it look so darn terrified?”
Foxtrot’s interest was piqued. He looked down at where Rocket was looking. A small snort came out from his throat. “This is not the kind of spice I’m looking for, but I’ll take it.”