I call this an 'unofficial record'—and it is, technically—but really I'm just documenting my personal experiences in an old diary I got from my brother years ago and never touched until now.
Now where to begin...
Well, I've been out of formal training for about a week and a half now, but I suppose it would be more prudent to start from the beginning. Yeah, that's probably a good idea. I'm writing this for nopony but me and I can only pray that my co-workers or anypony else for that matter don't find out about this. That said, if I end up a dark red smear in some remote location miles from civilization and somepony does happen to find this diary record of my work, I'd rather ease them into the madness that was my line of work rather than come out swinging so to speak. I only wish I'd gotten that kind of chance, but that's an entry for a different day. Probably the next entry.
Yeah. Definitely the next entry.
Maybe.
Wait, before that, I should explain why I'm even risking my job to write all this down in the first place.
So to make a long story short, my job isn't exactly for the faint of heart—at least not a lot of the time. I work as part of a certain agency to protect ponies and other creatures across the world from certain 'items of interest' that may or may not—but often do—cause harm or sometimes even death to those that aren't aware of what these certain 'items of interest' are capable of. Most of the time we're successful in obtaining these items before anypony gets hurt or even knows what's going on, but there are times when that's... not the case.
There are times when we're too late and somepony or multiple someponies get hurt or worse. And when I say worse, I mean some ponies suffer fates so horrifying to see that you'll wake up screaming for years to come. Sure, I don't have it nearly as bad as your average SMILE agent, but only a week and a half into my job and I've already seen something that I know is gonna stick with me until the day I die, and maybe even after that.
I'm writing this like I'm some sort of scarred and jaded veteran, but in reality, a lot of these horror stories come from firsthoof accounts from senior agents and some documents we had to read for training purposes. I only had the one case personally so far, and I'll get into it when I next get the chance, but for now, all I'll say is that this particular case is the reason why I decided to document everything I've seen and heard. Yes, this record is against regulations, but somehow I get the feeling I'm not the only pony that's done or is at this very moment, doing this. I know for a fact that there are at least two ponies in SMILE who have their own personal journal.
In fact, I won't name names, but it was one of those ponies that convinced me to keep this little unofficial record. I'm a smart mare, but I've been told before that I can be a bit neurotic. I don't really see it myself, but I do know that when I get overly stressed or anxious about something, putting my problems to pen and parchment or temporarily blotting out reality with a good book helps keep me centered. I chose the former because it's easier for me to pay attention to my surroundings when I write. Getting lost in a book is a problem of mine in and of itself and in this line of work that's one problem you don't want to have. But I think I've rambled on long enough. I said I'd start from the beginning after all, so it's time for a bit of backstory.
Picture a little lavender filly maybe seven or eight years old—smart as a whip for her age, bright amethyst eyes full of wonder and curiosity, a bit of a nut for the thaumic arts. She doesn't really have any friends to speak of aside from an older brother, but she's a happy and energetic filly nonetheless.
Adorable, right?
Okay, so picture that same filly about a year down the road. Entrance exams are coming up and she's studying to get into the one school that all unicorns striving to make it in the field of thaumotology one day hope to get into. Yes, I'm, of course, talking about the Princess' very own School for Gifted Unicorns, naturally. She studies hard day and night for weeks on end, barely getting any rest and worrying her poor mother and father and older brother. They tell her to get some sleep, they tell her to get some fresh air—to go out and play with the other foals her own age. They tell her all this studying isn't healthy and can only hinder her chances rather than help them.
They take away her study materials, they try to bribe her, they ground her, they practically beg her to stop... but nothing works. She doesn't stop. Against her family's wishes and despite their attempts, she always finds some workaround and continues to pour her every waking hour into her notes and textbooks. Mind you, at this point, the filly is still only eight or nine years old and all that studying is most certainly taking its toll. The filly was too blinded by the promise of a rosy and glorious future of magical and scientific greatness, far too eager in her pursuit of the subjects that were close to her heart for as long as she could remember.
And hey, if she played her cards right, she might even get to personally meet the Princess and her genius protégé Sunset Shimmer one day! The Sunset Shimmer! The filly who—at only thirteen years of age—had discovered and proven that interdimensional travel was possible!
As a side note, I found out much later that there was a lot more to this 'discovery' than the general public knows, but that too is an entry for another time.
Yes, the filly had high hopes for her future, too high by far. Her family had been right when they told her she was pushing herself to the breaking point and that she needed to stop. They'd been spot on when they said that if she continued at this pace, she would crash and burn when it mattered the most. She should've stopped, but by the time she realized all of this, it was too late.
Not only was the filly a smart cookie, but she wasn't a slouch when it came to magical aptitude either. Flash forward to the day of the exam and the filly is practically dead on her hooves. She's clearly in no shape to take any kind of test and her family—and anypony with eyes in their head, really—could see it. The only pony that doesn't see it is the filly herself. Yeah, she's a little tired, but she's confident that with all her studying she's ready for anything CSGU can throw at her.
And then the overseers of the exam plop a dragon egg down in front of the filly and tell her to try and hatch it using raw magical power.
Now, I should point out that none of the CSGU hopefuls or their families were told about what the exam would entail. This was, of course, to prevent any unlawful chicanery—although it didn't stop the wealthier parents from attempting to bribe the school staff into either accepting their foals no matter the outcome of the exam or telling them outright what the exam was. The filly, whose parents did not attempt to bribe the more influential members of the school board, only had assumptions to go off of. Common sense told the filly that the exam would be written, and that's exactly what she'd studied herself into a near coma for.
She was, in fact, not prepared for a practical exam—not one like this at least.
Oh, she understood the reasoning behind the test, there was no confusion there. Dragons were notoriously resistant to thaumic radiation in all but the rarest cases. This meant that most spells cast on or at them would simply bounce right off their scaly hides. A dragon's egg was no exception and making a foal whose magical strength—while somewhat exceptional—was still developing crack such an egg open using magic alone was asking for a bit too much. Not only that, but there was no need for any of the knowledge the filly had so desperately crammed into her head.
This exam was, in essence, the thaumatological equivalent of smashing a hammer against a rock with enough force to break it into smaller rocks! How stupid is that??? Seriously, just thinking about that asinine test still infuriates me to this day. All that studying, all for nothing. And you can bet I wasn't the only one who was mad about the way the exam was handled. Evidently the examiners were given the okay by Princess Celestia herself, but the school still got a lot of flak at the time for that little stunt.
Okay, I think I'm getting off-topic here and it's what happened during and after the exam that's important. Also, if you hadn't already guessed, I was that adorable little lavender filly.
So, I knew this was a lost cause the moment I laid my sunken, bloodshot eyes on the egg, but me being who I am, I tried to hatch the thing anyway. I tried as hard as I could, even as all the hope I'd had of getting into Princess Celestia's school died in my chest. I pumped every bit of magic I had in my wellspring into my horn and let loose, but it was all for naught... or so I thought at first.
Then came the 'incident'.
I was so focused on hatching the egg that it took me a minute to register a strange ringing in my ears. It was the kind of ringing sound you'd hear after an explosion if you were close enough. Somewhere in my sleep-deprived brain, I noticed the sound getting steadily louder and thought it meant I was actually having an effect on the egg. I pushed myself even harder, but this proved to be a mistake because a second later the ringing in my head gave way to an explosive migraine and everything went white for a solid minute or two.
I was vaguely aware of a ridiculous amount of magic leaking out of my horn—far more than I actually should've had. Well, it was less a leak and more a raging torrent of raw thaumic energy, but the point is that I had no idea what was happening or why. All I knew was that I felt like I was actually going to explode and that it was the worst pain I'd ever felt in my life. I really thought I was going to die then, but lo and behold, who comes to my rescue but Princess Celestia of all ponies!
Given my dog tired state and single-minded focus on success at the time, I hadn't even noticed, but apparently both the Princess and her star pupil had been in attendance. It was Celestia that saved me and reversed the rather alarming effects of my unorthodox magic surge. I don't remember it all that well due to some residual trauma, but apparently one of those effects happened to be not only hatching the egg but drastically accelerating the growth of the dragon inside.
While Celestia had come to the rescue and nopony else was seriously injured as a result, the school and I didn't exactly come out unscathed. The surge had put me in and out of a coma for about a week afterward and the school had to be temporarily shut down due to some major damages to the main building. The whole thing was a PR nightmare for the school and the Princess to some extent. Some ponies blamed her for allowing the event to happen in the first place and given that she gave the go-ahead for the exam, I can kind of understand their sentiments.
This is where things get interesting though.
As I said, I was in and out of a coma for about a week and, naturally, spent all that time in a hospital. During the times that I was awake, I started to notice some odd things happening around me. Ponies in clean, pressed black suits started showing up at the hospital where I was staying. Unbeknownst to anypony, I heard them talking to all sorts of ponies. They talked to my doctors, they talked to my parents, and I could've sworn one of them even tried to talking to me directly, but I'm still a bit hazy on that one. I do remember that at one point, one of them entered my room accompanied by the Princess.
I probably shouldn't have remembered any of this, but it was all so strange that it stuck with me even after I recovered. I remember certain words and phrases the black-suited ponies used too, things like black box and sonic rainboom and reflection deflection and find the pegasus and other things that didn't sit right with me even as a partially comatose filly. Looking back on it, I suppose the ponies in black thought I would be too out of it to remember anything about my stay in the hospital, so I wasn't wiped. That's the only reason I could think of as to why I was allowed to remember what they'd said.
When I eventually got out of the hospital I later told and asked my parents about the ponies in black, but they just smiled and dodged the question by offering me ice cream as a celebration for getting my cutie mark, which had happened sometime during the incident. I thought their reaction was weird and was smart enough not to bring it up again. I kept what I'd heard to myself and tried to focus on other things, but what happened during the exam and things I heard and saw in the hospital continued to gnaw at me for the next few years. Due to the circumstances surrounding Celestia's school, most students, including myself, chose to enroll elsewhere.
I managed to get into a somewhat less prestigious, but still very highly rated private school focusing on thaumatology and other sciences. I was doing well enough for myself, but I couldn't forget what all had happened back then even if I'd wanted to. I mentioned before that I was a curious little filly, but I feel as though I might've understated the fact; I was a very curious filly. If something caught my interest, I'd pursue it to the ends of the earth and back, heading into Tartarus if I had to in order to uncover how it worked and what secrets it hid. I wouldn't let it go until I was satisfied with my answer.
That was true then and despite my misgivings about my current job, it's still true now.
So when one of those ponies in black showed up at my family's doorstep one night, you can imagine my shock and excitement at the prospect of finally getting some closure. I didn't know why this stallion had chosen to show up out of the blue so long after the incident, but I didn't particularly care either. All that mattered to me was seizing the moment, and I tried. By this point, my older brother had left to start his military training at the castle so it was just me and my parents.
Oh yeah, my brother, Shining Armor, is the current Captain of the Royal Guard. He's one of the very few ponies outside my own circle who actually knows what I do for a living.
Anyway, my very nervous parents invited the stallion in for tea while they talked and it wasn't long before he asked, by name, to speak to me. He wanted to know how I'd been getting along and if anything strange had happened to me at all since the exam. Very nice stallion, handsome too. That still didn't stop me from asking some questions of my own. Questions that had been burning a hole in my psyche for the better part of five years by that point. Was it a bad move? Most likely, judging by the look on his and my mom and dad's faces as I went on.
I knew it wasn't a smart move to ask about the mysterious ringing in my ears or the 'sonic rainboom' or the supposed 'black box' that caused both that and my magic surge. I'd worked a few things out based on what I heard and had long ago come to the conclusion that what happened to me and this pegasus they mentioned was due to some outside element and not, in fact, a result of some hidden power awakening from within suddenly. I also surmised that we weren't likely to be the only ones affected at the time either. I had nothing concrete to base any of this off of save for what was said in the hospital, so it was all pure conjecture from my standpoint.
It was all just stuff I thought about every so often when I wasn't really doing anything important, conclusions I'd reached using basic reasoning skills. I knew it wasn't wise to just blurt all that out, but once I started, I couldn't stop. It felt like the stallion was tearing the words from my throat, and again, looking back on it, he very well may have been doing just that somehow. What finally made me realize that I might've really messed up was the reaction of everypony involved. I'll never forget the horrified look my parents gave me and the handsome, well-dressed stallion sitting across from me.
I'll never forget the utterly blank stare I got from the stallion and how he just suddenly burst into laughter when I was finally done spilling my guts. It was a deep and genuine belly laugh, too, like the whole thing had been one big elaborate joke that only he was in on. When he saw the confused looks my parents and I gave him, he only laughed that much harder before pulling a small white business card from his suit and handing it to me—not my mom or my dad but me. The card had a (fake) name, a business address I'd never heard of, and the word POUT printed on it.
I figured POUT was an acronym for something, but when I asked what it meant and what the card was for, he just smiled as he got up from the loveseat and told me to 'find him and ask again in six years'. He also told me to keep my suppositions to myself and that I wouldn't be getting another card if I lost that one. Needless to say, that answer was far from satisfactory. I had a mind to find the place right then and there, and the only reason I didn't start searching for the address on the card the very next day was because my parents convinced me to at least wait until I was older to find out what the stallion wanted.
I mostly backed down out of surprise more than anything else. I was certain they'd object and tell me about the importance of stranger danger and whatnot, but they didn't. My dad had told me that, while he didn't know exactly what the stallion did, he was in the employ of the Crown and it was that stallion who had tried to talk to me back when I was lying semi-conscious in my hospital bed. My mom guessed that he was offering me some kind of important government desk job when I was old enough to work and to hang on to that card if I was really interested.
I told them I was most definitely interested and all things considered, they were strangely supportive of my immediate decision to work a shady desk job right out of school. Then again, my mom and dad had always been the supportive type and were fairly laid back when it came to parenting, so I guess it didn't come as that much of a surprise.
There isn't really much more to tell than that, honestly—nothing all that interesting anyway.
I switched to a much more difficult set of accelerated courses over the next six years and ended up graduating early at the top of my class. It was a bit of a nightmare, but I got through it all so that I could take up that stallion's offer as soon as possible. I figured it would be worth it in the end, and whether or not I still feel that way is... well...
Let's just say it's still up for debate at the moment.
I won't mention the name of where I'd gone or the address, but I will say that I'd actually passed by the place a fair number of times and never once suspected that it could hide the kind of secrets that it did. The experience was like something right out of a pulpy sci-fi novel; an innocent and unassuming front hiding the real facility deep below. I was placed in an empty, dimly lit room with what I assumed was a two-way mirror like some criminal suspect under investigation and thoroughly screened by some suited mare with an attitude problem.
It was a harrowing, but thankfully brief affair and the exam they had me take was written, albeit rife with very weird questions that even now still have me scratching my head. I wasn't sure what would come of my time there, but after all was said and done they told me they'd be in touch within the week and of course not mention any of what I'd seen and heard. I waited and sure enough, within the week I was escorted from my house to a closed-off sector of Canterlot Castle.
There, my official induction into the POUT agency as a trainee was overseen by the Princess, the mare with the attitude problem, the handsome stallion I'd met six years ago, and a couple of other suits that would end up becoming my seniors. It was all... kind of underwhelming actually. It was a bit intimidating seeing all those suits and the Princess lined up like that with all eyes on me, but aside from that, there was no real fanfare. I was congratulated on passing the screening, shown the badge and black suit I would receive once I finished training, and... that's it.
I started my training a few days later and the rest is history.
Oh, and that handsome stallion is now my boss and one of a small number of agents I've seen in this profession who can go around wearing a genuine smile from time to time. I've made a couple of friends along the way who are... normal enough. At the very least, the senior agent I'm currently partnered up with seems like a decent enough sort, but in general, I tend to stick to my own devices and stay out of the way of other agents most of the time.
I only now realize reading back on what I've written so far that I haven't really given away too much regarding specific names and places. I guess I'm still nervous about writing out my thoughts like this. It's either that or the training.
Probably both.
Well, I guess it's fine for now, and I do feel a bit better after getting all this off my chest. Maybe I'll feel more comfortable writing about my job and my colleagues later down the road. And who knows? I might even stop shaking in my suit long enough to actually write about my first case!
Only time will tell, but until then I think I'm done for the night. I've got a lot to do tomorrow and I'll probably be too tired to write anything. As long as I'm careful about keeping this thing out of sight though, I think I can safely say that yes, I'll be coming back to write more entries again in the near future. I just really hope the boss doesn't find out about these 'unofficial records'.
Oh, and before I forget, I never actually found out what the 'black box' that caused the CSGU incident was, but I know that one of the wealthy parents in the audience during the exam had it in their possession. I don't know how he got ahold of the thing, but I was able to get ahold of some of the classified documents. Apparently, once a pony generates thaumic waves of a certain frequency the device 'activates' and causes some rather interesting things to happen within a radius of approximately 500 miles. I guess the pony who'd brought the thing thought he could use it to boost his son's chances to succeed?
I don't know, it's stupid, but this is just one of the things I'll have to deal with, so now you know a bit more about what I do. There's still a lot more to the job that I'm not quite comfortable discussing just yet, but I'll get there... eventually.
Maybe.