//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Masked Pony: Agent of SECT // by MagnetBolt //------------------------------// “Dash, I told you already it wasn’t any of us! Rarity has all our Mare Do Well costumes and I checked them myself. None of them have been worn lately.” Twilight was looking over her shoulder when she pushed her way into my shop. I had a pretty good guess as to whom she was speaking, which was confirmed as the cyan pegasus hovered in after her. “Masked ponies just bring back a lot of bad memories,” Dash said, frowning. “Can you blame me for being a little suspicious?” “Masked ponies?” I asked. Twilight trotted up to the counter, nodding. “There was a monster attack right in Ponyville! Apparently some masked pony fought it off, but nopony knows who it was, or where the monster went.” Twilight glared back at Rainbow Dash. “She’s convinced it’s one of us trying to play hero again.” “...Again?” I frowned. Twilight’s eyes went wide. “I-it’s nothing! Just forget I said anything about Mare Do Well!” “I think I can manage, as long as you buy some of my new Sugar Star Swirls.” I held up a tray of the candies. “I can do even better than that,” Twilight said. She levitated an improbable number of scrolls out of her saddlebags. “These are for you. I was able to get some research done for you. It was actually very interesting! Did you know the standard guard enchantments from the Lunar Rebellion era were far more complex than enchantments today? Apparently the few suits that remain are prized possessions for--” “Boooring,” Dash said, knocking over a display of boxed chocolates in the midst of trying to figure out a way to do a barrel roll in my shop's limited airspace. I wasn’t sure if the destruction was on purpose or not. All I knew was, I hadn't yet regretted getting pegasus insurance. “Thanks, Princess,” I said. I wrapped up a few of the candies for her. She counted out a dozen bits and put them on the counter. “These are just as a thanks! You don't have to pay me.” “It’s to make up for Dash’s mess,” Twilight said. “Let me know if you need any help with more research. I’m not sure what this has to do with chocolate, but I’m really excited to see what you come up with!” “So am I,” I said. “I’d just better come up with it fast.” “I didn’t know you had a deadline.” “You’d be surprised at how much pressure a candy maker has to deal with.” “Lyra?” I threw my apron on its usual hook, feeling more exhausted from a day working retail than I did from fighting a monster. “Are you here?” “I’m in the basement lab!” Lyra shouted, her voice muffled by distance and hardwood flooring. “We don’t have a basement lab!” I retorted. Even so, I followed the voice downstairs, to what I knew was just storage space. Or at least it had been storage space. Cardboard boxes had been shoved to the side, and a workbench covered in woodworking and engraving tools sat in one corner. Circles were chalked onto the walls and floor apparently at random. Lyra was sitting on the bare stone floor with a map of Ponyville in front of her and the shard of dark armor dangling from a fishing rod like she was going angling in an atlas. “What are you doing?” I asked. “I’m trying out a divination spell I heard about once,” Lyra said. “It usually uses a pendulum and some crystals, but I think this will work if I fiddle with it. And since my cutie mark is for a harp, um…” she frowned. “I was going to say I was good at fiddling, but that’s a violin.” “Right…” I said. “I didn’t even know you had this down here.” “All unicorns have labs,” Lyra said, with a mild shrug. “Ponyville zoning laws mean we can’t have towers, so most of us set ours up in the basement. You should see Princess Twilight’s! She’s got an interocitor with all the expansion packs!” “You’ve been in Princess Twilight’s lab?” I blinked. “Well, yeah,” Lyra said, looking at me oddly. “I went to school with her, Bonnie. We’re old friends.” Sometimes I forgot my marefriend went to a good school and wasn’t just the silly pony I’d fallen for. “Sorry,” I apologized. “It’s fine,” she said, shrugging. “Anyway, I’ve been poking at this thing all day and I just can’t figure it out. It doesn’t do anything. It’s the most boring highly-charged magical object I’ve ever seen.” “Well the GOC want it,” I said. “It has to be worth something.” “It’s made out of a magical material, but you said it’s a part of Nightmare Moon’s armor, so that’s not surprising. There’s some kind of energy in it, but it isn’t reacting to anything I do. I tried casting some scanning spells, heating it, falling asleep with it under my pillow, hitting it with a sledgehammer, you know, all the standard tests.” I nodded along with her. “I’m starting to think it’s sort of like a dead battery,” Lyra said. “Whatever I’m sensing could just be a residual charge, and it needs a hundred times that to actually do whatever it’s supposed to do.” “If we’re lucky we’ll never find out,” I said. “The GOC was one of the most powerful occult organizations in the world until the fall of the Griffonian Union and the loss of the Idol of Borealis. They started out protecting griffons the same way I was protecting ponies, but when they were cut loose, the higher-ups took all the dangerous stuff they’d been containing and started using it to make a profit. There are rumors they’ve caused droughts, started wars, that their enemies disappear off the streets…” I shook my head. “So whatever they’re doing with this stuff is trouble,” Lyra guessed. I nodded. “Either they were hired to cause trouble, or they’re planning on being paid to make it stop.” “This really sounds like a Princess-level problem…” “No!” I snapped. Lyra flinched like I’d slapped her. “Sorry,” I said, sighing. “I just… this is personal.” “That’s the problem,” Lyra said. “It’s too personal.” “I know.” I took a deep breath. “I promise if I get in over my head, I’ll get help. I mean, I already asked you for help, didn’t I?” I offered her a weak smile. Lyra frowned, then gave a sigh she must have learned from me putting up with some of her crazier ideas. “Okay,” she relented. “As long as you aren’t putting other ponies at risk. I don’t like you getting into trouble, but that’s your choice.” I nodded. “Now the reason I said that,” Lyra continued. “Is because the shard is acting weird.” I looked at the fishing line. It was still swinging, but it was at a definite angle, like it was being pulled by a magnet. “Where’s it pointing?” I asked. “Hold on, we have to let it settle a little,” Lyra said. “It goes slow at first and then it’ll lock into place all at once.” I bit my lip and watched as the pendulum arc got smaller and smaller before turning into small, frantic circles around a single building. “I can’t believe you came with me,” I hissed. “You need a cover story,” Lyra whispered. “Just trust me. We’ll do ‘Get Help.’” “What?” “You know. ‘Get Help!’” “We’re not doing that.” “Do you have a better plan? It’s perfect.” She put her hoof around my shoulders, pushed me into the door, and we stumbled into the Ponyville General Hospital Emergency room. Lyra moaned like she’d gone drinking with Vinyl and I held her up while she slumped and did her best to look even more green than she usually was. “Get help!” I shouted, feeling like an idiot. Lyra made me stumble forward another step, and I just barely held on to the bag we’d shoved my helmet and belt into. “What’s wrong?” Nurse Redheart asked, rushing out from behind the desk to help take Lyra’s weight. “She, um…” I hesitated. “Bad candy…” Lyra groaned. “Oh dear,” Redheart sighed. “Usually I only see this with foals after Nightmare Night. Come along, we’ll make sure it’s nothing serious…” she sighed and rolled her eyes, admitting us into an exam room and helping Lyra sit down before leaving to get something. Hopefully, something that would hurt when she used it. “I don’t make bad candy!” I growled. “Chocolate frogs,” Lyra countered. “We are not having this discussion,” I said. “That was Discord’s fault and you know it.” “They had bones, Bonnie! Bones!” “See if I make you anything special for next Hearts and Hooves day,” I huffed and trotted over to the door, looking out into the hall. “You’ll be fine here on your own. Keep Redheart busy until I get back. I’m going to look around.” “Do you even know what you’re looking for?” “No. But I’ll find it.” “That doesn’t even make sense.” I shrugged and slipped out into the back hallway. I might not have known exactly what I was looking for, but so far the shards had been turning ponies into monsters. It wasn’t a subtle effect. I didn’t hear screaming yet, so maybe we’d gotten here ahead of disaster instead of after it. I heard ponies talking ahead of me and ducked into a closet, keeping the door cracked open to look. “...clean bill of health,” Doctor Horse said, as he turned the corner. “Thank you so much for seeing me,” Cheerilee said. “I just wanted to be sure after… whatever happened.” “Yes, I did hear there was some excitement,” the Doctor said. He chuckled. “Maybe even a new masked hero?” “All I know is, they saved me,” Cheerilee said. They walked past the closet, and I cracked the door a little more to watch them go the rest of the way down the hall. “And the weird thing is, after all that, I stopped being so afraid of snakes…” They took the corner, and I stepped out. It was good to know Cheerilee was doing well, but maybe the shard had just been pointing at the pony it had been infecting. I wasn’t sure what we were going to find, and that might have been it right there. “I don’t need help finding ponies that were already hurt,” I said. “I need to find ones that are in trouble right now.” Because we live in a universe founded on the Strong Narrative Principle, that was when I heard the scream. I pulled the belt out of the bag. I touched the battery test, and it blinked with a red warning light. If there was trouble, I wasn’t going to have a lot of time to deal with it. Nurse Tenderheart threw herself out of an exam room in clear panic, terrified beyond the ability to even coordinate her legs correctly. I ran to her, trying to help her up. She couldn’t stand, even with help. “What’s wrong?” I asked. She pointed. Something made of metal and glass and looking like somepony had turned the concept of sharpness into a living being screeched at me. I yanked Tenderheart away, down the hallway. Spikes as long as my leg sank into the floor where we’d been standing like they were fired from a crossbow. I pulled her into the closet I’d vacated a few moments ago, making her sit down at the back. “It was Cloud Kicker,” she whispered, struggling for breath in the middle of her panic attack. “I needed to get a blood sample, but when I pulled the needle out she acted terrified, and then--” “And then she changed?” I asked. Tenderheart nodded. “Stay here,” I said. “I’m going to get help. She won’t find you here, okay? Don’t be afraid.” If she could manage not to be afraid, I’d ask her for lessons. I left her in there when I went out into the hall, locking the door behind me. “Just work for a little while longer,” I whispered, pulling the helmet on and activating my belt. “Henshin!” The Sol Fiber formed just as the monster managed to figure out how to fit through a doorway and get into the wider hallway, buzzing like a mosquito with wings made of a latticework of razors. A long glass-bodied syringe hung under it from where the pony’s tail should have been, curled around under it like an angry wasp’s stinger. “Why couldn’t it have been another snake monster?” I whispered. It screeched again and fired the needle from that huge syringe at me. I reacted on instinct, raising a hoof, half-stepping to the side, and letting it deflect off my armored fetlock almost entirely by luck. Hoss had been right - I’d forgotten almost all my CQC training. She charged at me, wings buzzing. Even her snout was as sharp as a scalpel, cutting through the air like a scythe. I jumped, touching down on her back and bouncing off, slamming her into the tile floor hard enough to crack it and getting behind the creature. “How was that?” I asked, like she could answer. I didn’t think she could even understand what I was saying. The needle monster lunged at me, not bothering to turn. It just came at me tail first, that huge steel spear aiming right for my chest. “Catch!” A fire extinguisher arced through the air towards me. I caught it on instinct, holding it up like a shield. The monster hit it needle-first and everything went white. The monster buzzed past me, and I lost track of it in the haze that filled the hallway. A shadow appeared at my side and I almost kicked it out of reflex. “Are you okay?” Lyra asked, coughing and trying to cover her mouth. “I can’t see anything!” “I’m fine, but which way did it go?” I asked. “It didn’t go that way,” Lyra said. “It must have gone past you.” “Come on, let’s get you out of this. It can’t be good for you to breathe it in.” I took her hoof and guided her out into the clear. “Thank you for the save.” “I thought you’d be yelling at me for getting involved,” Lyra said, shaking dust out of her coat once she could see and breathe again. “I’m starting to think you were right that I can’t do it all alone. You found the monster, and you probably just saved my life.” I smiled, not that she could see it. “Just take cover once we do find it again. I don’t want you getting extra holes for my sake.” “Deal,” Lyra promised. I nodded and we trotted down the hallway. “Where would I go if I was a huge monster…” I muttered. “It was flying, so we should think like a pegasus,” Lyra suggested. “Look for open spaces and anything shiny. Pegasus ponies love shiny things.” “Makes sense,” I agreed, kicking it into high gear. We took two turns, sticking to the widest hallways, and I was starting to think we were going the wrong way until I heard the scream. Doors to the hospital’s atrium hung open. I charged in and saw ponies scattering. Where was the monster? “Bonnie! Duck!” Lyra shouted. I threw myself down, and the monster swooped through where I’d been. I caught a glimpse of it as it passed - the huge syringe tail was shattered, just a mess of broken glass now. The fire extinguisher explosion hadn’t been kind to it. “Right, flyer. I should have looked up,” I said. It was a hard habit to get into for an earth pony. My brain worked better in two dimensions than three. I watched it buzz back up, high out of reach. It flew into a window, cracking the glass but not quite breaking through. Thank Celestia the insurance companies had made them invest in Rainbow-proof glass. Their pegasus insurance premiums were even higher than mine. “We need to keep it from getting outside!” I yelled. “There’s no way I can fight it if it can just fly away!” “There’s another door over there,” Lyra pointed. “If you can wrestle it inside, I can cast a mage lock on the doors so it can’t escape!” “Good plan!” I agreed. I just had to make it angry. I grabbed one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs and kicked it up at the buzzing horror. It smashed into the needle hornet like a catapult stone, the monster bouncing off a wall and barely catching itself before hitting the ground. It glared at me, hissing through a face like an angry butcher’s knifemare. “Didn’t like that?” I asked, grabbing another seat designed to make ponies need to see a back specialist and kicking it into the monster. This time, it had plenty of time to see it coming, and it caught the plywood and burlap cannonball, tearing it in half before screeching and flying at me. I bolted for the doors Lyra had pointed out. I could feel it hot on my trail. Some sixth sense told me to duck, and I threw myself to the ground and rolled through the double doors, the flying blender missing me by inches when it flew through where I’d been. Ponies screamed and cleared the hallway. The monster slammed into a wall, unable to turn quickly enough in the tight space. I looked back. Lyra was almost at the doors. I closed them before she got there, twisting the manual lock. I saw her shocked look through the thin windows in the door. “What are you doing?” she asked, jiggling the handle. “You need to keep it locked,” I said. “If you’re out there, it can’t get to you! If something happens, get Princess Twilight, okay?” She nodded reluctantly, and a golden glow wrapped around the doors. I turned back to the monster. “Now I just need to figure out how to actually deal with you,” I said. It made a sound like knives being sharpened and launched itself at me, slamming into Lyra’s wizard locked doors, bouncing off them with obvious surprise and hitting the wall. Black film prints imprinted with ghostly skeletal shadows fluttered down around it. I glanced up at the sign hanging down from the ceiling. “Imaging…” I whispered. I’d been here before. It was only briefly, after I’d pulled my shoulder out of socket working taffy too much, but I remembered one particular machine and all the warnings that they’d given me before going into it. I had a bad idea, but it might just work. “Come and get me!” I yelled. I gave private thanks to whatever regulatory body made hospitals put up clear signs. The monster got up on unsteady hooves, sparks flying from the sharp edges, and it saw me wiggling my rump at it in what I hoped was enough of a taunt to make it forget about escaping. From the sound, it was working. I couldn’t chance a look back, and after that screech I took off like Nightmare Moon herself was at my heels. I had to let it stay close so it would follow me where I needed it to go. I spotted the doors, and the warning tape on the floor showing the minimum safe distance. The monster’s screech sounded like it was coming from inches behind my head. I threw myself down, and it went right over me again and through the doors, into the large exam room. The technician inside screamed from his station. “Turn it on!” I shouted. “Now!” The stallion slapped at a button surrounded by warning signs, and the lights flickered. There was a deep hum you could almost feel in your bones, and the monster was sucked sideways, slamming into a huge donut-shaped machine and sticking to it like flypaper. “MRI,” I said, panting. My armor wasn’t magnetic, so when I stepped inside I didn’t feel a thing. The monster, on the other hoof, was stuck so firmly the blades that made up its wings were actually bending as I watched. “Magnetic Resonance Imaging. For a monster made out of steel like you, that translates to checkmate.” It screeched. The magnet made a strained sound. “Jawbreaker Punch!” I shouted, slamming a hoof into its chest. There was a flash of light and sparks flew from the impact. Cloud Kicker dropped to the ground. The ominous sound of the electromagnet quieted to a background hum. I turned to the tech. “Shut it off. Thanks for the help.” He nodded mutely, and the machine fell into silence. With a clatter like somepony dropping a fork, a twisted shard of dark metal fell out of the core of the machine. I grabbed it before anypony else could see. “Call somepony to look after her,” I told the tech. “She’ll be fine.” “What? Where…?” Cloud Kicker groaned. She looked up at me. “Who are you?” “Just somepony that was passing through.” I bowed politely and excused myself.