//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Masked Pony: Agent of SECT // by MagnetBolt //------------------------------// Drowning in boiling wax was probably one of the least pleasant ways to die. The G4 armor was protecting me pretty well from the heat and suffocation, but I had no leverage and I’d never really learned to swim, especially not against a thick, sticky current like this. The wax was cooling around me, forming a crunchy, candy-like shell. Or maybe more like a fly caught in amber? I couldn't help but go right for the candy comparison. I was never going to be able to explain this to Lyra. Literally. Since I'd be buried alive. Maybe my ghost would haunt her and pass along a message. I’d met a few ghosts, and they didn’t seem to have it all that bad. No Elysian Fields, sure, but you got to spy on your friends and family and occasionally throw a teacup or something. My poltergeist planning session was interrupted by a sudden tug, like gravity suddenly going in another direction. I recognized it instantly - telekinesis, and from a fairly strong unicorn. Was I about to be exposed in front of the Princess’ student? I just hoped it wasn't Trixie. I couldn't bear it if I owed Trixie my life. “Oh wow,” said a familiar voice, though I couldn’t see anything with my face covered in muck. “I hope that’s not stuck to your mane.” The wax sheath around me cracked, and I was suddenly able to move, struggling in midair against yellow magic. It blinked out, and I dropped to the ground, exhausted and unable to stand. I tugged the helmet free, and the suit unraveled, dissolving into tiny lights as the Sol fibers broke down into ambient magical energy. “I’m starting to remember why I was enjoying my retirement,” I mumbled, staring up at the sky until Lyra stepped over me, blocking my wonderful view of the clouds. “You okay?” She frowned. “You look kinda… loopy.” “I’ve been having a bad day,” I sighed. “How did you find me?” “The magic of love,” Lyra said. I glared at her, and she rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay. I put a tracking spell on you so I could watch you kick some flank. Unfortunately…” she coughed. “You sort of got your plot punted, Bonnie.” “Yeah,” I sighed. Then a memory hit me like a brick. “Daisy!” “What about her?” Lyra asked. I rolled my eyes and ran upstream. “I have to make sure she’s okay!” The flower pony was curled up on the grass where I’d left her. “I guess Gerson didn’t care about her…” I muttered. It wasn’t like Glee to leave a potential witness or victim alone in the woods, but it also wasn’t like her to betray Equestria and join our enemies, so maybe I didn’t know her as well as I thought. “Is she alive?” Lyra asked. Before answering, I checked her pulse. It was strong but slow, and she was covered in sweat. “She’s unconscious.” I looked off to the side, where I’d dropped my saddlebags. Lyra saw where I was looking and grabbed them with her magic, dragging them closer. We’d been friends for so long that it was like we could read each other’s minds sometimes. I grabbed my canteen from one of the bags and emptied it over Daisy’s face. She woke up almost instantly, sputtering and panicked. “Spiders!” She screamed, flailing with her hooves. I grabbed her, holding her still until the last remnants of the nightmare faded. “W-what happened? Where am I?” She looked around. “You were…” I paused. My old training kicked in. “You were sleepwalking. We saw you walking into the woods.” “Sleepwalking?” She started to calm down. That was good. “So all of that was a dream…” She took a deep breath, relaxing. “Thank Celestia! That was such a terrible nightmare! And… in the middle of the day?” She frowned, looking up at the blue sky. “I guess you don’t normally sleepwalk?” I said. “Did you… do or see anything strange?” “I remember I was looking for wildflowers in Whitetail Woods,” Daisy said, thinking. I helped her sit up. “Some ponies prefer wild-grown flowers over farmed ones, you know? So I can charge a premium for them! I found these great looking zinnias in a really strange blue color, growing in this little crater. I ate one to make sure it was okay, and then I saw something shiny in the middle of the patch and then…” Daisy shook her head. “That’s the last thing I remember.” “Those flowers must have been bad news,” Lyra said, noticing my expression. “How about we help you get to the hospital and they can make sure it’s all out of your system?” Daisy nodded weakly, and we started back into town. I kept looking over my shoulder, half-expecting Glee to show up and finish the job. “You could go to the Princess,” Lyra suggested. “Which one?” I asked. “Celestia,” Lyra said. “She disbanded SECT. She wouldn’t be too happy I was still hanging onto government property and, technically, disobeying a direct order.” “Twilight, then. She fights monsters all the time.” “She worships the ground Celestia walks on. That’s the same as telling Celestia, just with extra steps.” Lyra groaned. “Luna, whatever! If Nightmare stuff is involved, she should be--” “Kept away from it,” I said. “She could be vulnerable to possession!” I shivered. “That could even be their endgame! Bring back Nightmare Moon to destabilize Equestria!” “Ooookay…” Lyra looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “You don’t know the GOC like I do. They’ve done lots of awful things. They tried to start famines, ruined crops, once they even tried to bring the windigos back to Equestria!” “Cadance?” Lyra asked. "Not asking if she's a windigo, just saying we could tell her." “It’ll take too long to get word to the Crystal Empire,” I said. “Well great, I'm out of ideas unless you want to staple a horn to Derpy and make her the Princess of Muffins.” Lyra huffed. “I have to take care of it myself,” I said. “It’s the only option.” “It’s not the only option, you’re just being stubborn!” Lyra said, standing up. “Take care of what?” Pinkie Pie asked. She hadn’t been at the end of the table a moment ago, but she was there now. Oh right. Maybe we shouldn’t have gotten into an argument at Sugarcube Corner. After getting my flank kicked I just needed something sweet, you know? I had two milkshakes in front of me already, and Pinkie had a third in her hooves. It wasn’t even the first time this had happened. Not as awkward as when she appeared at our breakfast table, at least. Or the time she thought I was pregnant. “Work stuff,” I said. “It’s no big deal. I just had a bad day and Lyra is… helping me cope.” “That’s good!” Pinkie smiled. “You two make a cute couple!” That was silly, of course. Lyra and I were just best friends. Best friends that lived together and slept in the same bed and sometimes-- The important thing is that neither of us had actually proposed yet, so we filed taxes separately. “Thanks, Pinkie,” I said, not wanting to start an argument. She bounced away, taking one of the empty glasses with her. “You’re going to get fat,” Lyra noted. “I got a lot of exercise today,” I replied. “Look, all I have to do is find Gerson, find Glee, stop them from doing whatever they’re doing, and make sure nopony finds out. It’s easy.” I hesitated. “Yeah. Easy. I can do it.” I couldn’t do it, and all of Equestria was doomed. How was I supposed to stop one of Equestria’s greatest heroes? Glee Club had saved Equestria a dozen times without stepping out of the shadows, and she’d taught me everything I knew. Not everything she knew, clearly, given how easily she’d beaten me. The Fortress of Friendship, the Castle of Magical Acquaintances with Benefits, Twilight Sparkle’s Demesne. Or as some of us had taken to calling it, the crystal eyesore that had lowered all of our property values. I was standing right at the doorway. All it would take was one knock, a quick explanation, and she and her friends would go off and save the world. I didn’t even need to be involved. She was the real reason SECT was gone, after all. Twilight Sparkle and the Elements had clearly always been meant as our successors, and they’d defeated foes that SECT would never have stood a chance against. Nightmare Moon, Tirek, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, terrible threats to the stability of Equestria. I didn’t even need to knock. Just a short letter would do. I could even preserve my anonymity. It’s what Princess Celestia would do. Had done. Lyra would be disappointed. She really wanted to think of me as a hero, and she just got so excited about things sometimes. I knocked on the door. It was the stupid thing to do but I was just full of stupid ideas. “Hello?” Spike opened the door. I briefly wondered if a baby dragon could help, and if he'd be able to resist the urge to tell everypony what was going on. “Oh hey! You’re Lyra’s friend, right?” “Best friend,” I agreed, smiling. “Is Princess Sparkle in?” “Yeah, she’s just in the lab. Well, actually, I think it’s supposed to be a ballroom, but she moved all her lab equipment in there because ‘science is more important than dancing.’” He scratched his head. “Do you want me to get her?” “Not if she’s busy,” I said. “Do you think she’d mind if I used her library? I need to do some research and Canterlot is pretty far away.” “As long as you put the books back,” Spike frowned. “I already have to reshelve enough with Twilight. You’d think she could manage it herself, what with having all the power of a goddess and telekinesis and teleportation, but no, I have to do it with my bare claws. Do you know dragons can still get papercuts?” “No I, um, didn’t know that,” I admitted, forcing myself to keep smiling. “I didn’t either until the first time I was in a bookalanche. I couldn’t tell which way was up and I was worried I’d have to start eating pages from the thesaurus just to stay alive!” “The library, though?” I prompted, interrupting his story. He sighed and waved for me to follow him. An hour later I’d found a lot of books and had more questions than answers. Celestia had almost erased Nightmare Moon from history at some point in the past, and her deliberate sabotage along with the passing of a thousand years made it almost impossible to get any real information. “You’d think they’d put all the relevant information somewhere just in case it was needed,” I mumbled, as I flipped a page. It was a book on magical armor, though it didn’t have anything on shattered bits of an ancient godlike creature’s barding. “Bon-Bon? What are you doing here?” Asked a voice from directly behind me. I shot up to attention as Twilight looked past me at the books that were open in front of me. “Ancient Equestrian Myths, Encyclopedia Magicka, The Spookytime Ledgers- what’s all this about?” “Well…” I hesitated. I could still just tell her. She gave me a confused look. Was it treason if I lied to her? She was a Princess now, and it was usually treason to lie to royalty. Then again, she was indirectly responsible for me losing my last job. “I was researching Nightmare Moon,” I said. “For candy reasons.” Candy reasons. Good work, Sweetie Drops. No wonder you never got promoted into management. “Oh right, Nightmare Night is coming up in… two and a half months?” “Right!” I said, grasping onto the rope she’d thrown me to pull myself out of the hole I’d dug. “For Nightmare Night. I thought reading into the ancient legends would give me some inspiration.” “But magical armor? And… possession magic?” Twilight frowned. I was going to have to think fast to make sure she didn’t suspect anything. “Twilight,” I said, cutting her off, deliberately not using her title. She might remember that she could give me an order if I used her title. “Surely you agree that accurate and detailed research is important to any endeavor?” “Well of course it is!” Twilight agreed, nodding quickly. “Then you know I need any information you have on Nightmare Moon, her armor, and any other Nightmare-related magic. And you can’t tell Celestia or Luna. It’s…” “A Nightmare Night surprise?” Twilight guessed. “That sounds great!” I said, patting her shoulder. “I knew you’d understand. Also don’t tell your friends.” There wasn’t much point in staying while the finely-tuned fact machine called Twilight Sparkle was on the job. Worse, I’d already had to lie to her and I was halfway sure that was technically treason. So, I found something else I could do that would help pass the time and get something useful done. “...Why are you digging a hole?” Golden Harvest asked, as she looked over the fence into my backyard. “I’m putting in a garden,” I said, though with the shovel in my mouth that was muffled a little. I hated digging holes. I wasn’t sure why we were called earth ponies when we were clearly not built for actual earth moving. “That’s kind of deep for a garden,” Golden Harvest said, skeptical. “That hole’s deep enough to bury somepony.” She paused, I moved more dirt out of the growing hole. “Did you kill somepony? Was it Lyra? Because she’s kind of annoying and if you need help moving a body, I can totally keep quiet.” I stopped what I was doing to look at her. Golden kept going, despite the look on my face. “I mean, she’s cute, I guess, but you deserve better. Maybe somepony who has toned flanks from working for a living, who knows what it’s like to grow up in Ponyville…” “Goldie, I didn’t grow up in Ponyville.” “Well, still, you know. If you ever need company.” She winked. The back door opened, and Lyra trotted out, with two drinks. “Hi Carrot Top!” Lyra smiled, waving. “Oh, yes. Hi, Lyra. That's still not my name.” Golden Harvest frowned. “I’ll just… be going, then.” “You know, she’s kind of grumpy but she has nice flanks,” Lyra commented. She passed one of the glasses over to me and I grabbed it, draining the lemonade. Digging was thirsty work. “So why are you digging a hole? Is it a trap? For a monster?” “No, Lyra,” I sighed. “I just… buried a few things here.” “Is it a corpse?” “Why does everypony think I kill ponies and bury them in my backyard?” I growled and started digging again, the tip of my shovel finally hitting something more solid than dirt. I dropped it and started moving dirt with my hooves. “You’re just grumpy sometimes,” Lyra shrugged. “And what else would you bury? Unless… is it treasure? I bet it’s treasure!” She clapped her hooves in excitement as she looked in and saw the rectangular shape I was outlining. “It’s--” I sighed. “Just help me with this.” I stepped aside and let her grab it with her magic, pulling it free and dropping it on the lawn. “Why didn’t you tell me you had buried treasure?” Lyra asked. “It’s not treasure.” I pulled myself out of the hole with some difficulty and looked at what we’d uncovered, pulling away the tarp I’d wrapped around the old footlocker. There was a big tear in it, probably from one of the dozens of disasters that seemed to strike Ponyville on a regular basis. The metal locker was rusted, and I was starting to feel worried. “Then what is it? More secret spy stuff?” She looked over my shoulder as I checked the locker. “I thought it was too dangerous to keep weapons in the house,” I explained. “And it felt right to bury them, you know? Like somepony in need would find them in a hundred years.” I sighed. “Instead I needed them in less than ten.” “The box looks pretty messed up,” Lyra noted. “I’m sure it’s fine,” I said, though I was definitely not sure. I hadn’t bothered locking the box - anypony who had a shovel and a strong enough back to get to it already had the tools and strength to just lever it open, so it seemed pretty pointless. I flipped the catches open and lifted the lid, only to be greeted with a musty smell of rust and rot. “Horseapples,” I mumbled. There had been all sorts of useful things in there. A mouthblade, a flail, and even a crossbow. Had been. Now there were just scraps lying in a puddle of rusty water and mud. I picked up the crossbow to look at it, and the entire mechanism fell off of the handle, falling back into the water with a spash that sent very unpleasant water splattering onto my face. “...It’s junk, Bonnie,” Lyra said. “Yes, Lyra,” I grumbled, trying to find something that was still useful. The edge on the blade was still okay, a thick layer of grease having protected it in the sheath, but the wooden handle had cracked away from the tang. The flail had suffered almost as badly, the three chained balls twisted together and screeching as they moved. The crossbow was a total write-off. I slammed the trunk shut. “I’m guessing it wasn’t like that before?” Lyra asked. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to fight monsters bare-hooved.” I sighed, kicking the trunk in frustration. “I could help!” Lyra said. I gave her a very skeptical look. “Building instruments was part of the advanced magical music course I took at the school for gifted unicorns. I built my own lyre, you know.” I looked at where it was sitting in its stand. It was, admittedly, very well-made. “Okay, and it does look good, but there’s a big difference between building a guitar and building a weapon,” I said. “Remember Mare Do Well?” Lyra asked. “How could I forget,” I muttered. Rumors were that at least two or three ponies were still operating under the identity across Equestria. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to thank them or punch them out. Maybe I was just jealous that they still got to live the dream of being a hero. “Back in Canterlot, we had somepony like her named El Kabong! She would swoop out of nowhere and bash evil-doers with her trusty combat guitar! I actually saw her a couple of times. Fighting for the weak and unprivileged, stealing from the rich to give to the poor!” Lyra swooned. I could see why she was so excited about me wearing a mask now. “Right. El Kabong…” I frowned. The name was vaguely familiar. Not as famous as the Mare Do Well these days, at least in Ponyville. I’d read a few stories but never bothered really looking into it. A lot of ponies naturally had a hero complex, though most of them went into the Guard. “The point is, I know how to work metal and wood, and I know some spells that might help repair some of the damage.” She picked up the box. “Just wait! It’s gonna be great!” “I won’t hold my breath.” I sighed and started pushing the dirt back into the hole.