"Whattyou know about Harmonoids!"
"Eyaagh!" a pegasian mare cried in fright, disappearing into the sky like a bullet. Loose feathers danced in the sky, slowly zig-zagging back and forth, some falling onto the pajama-ninja of a unicorn who had leapt out of a bush to demand answers.
"Achoo!!" Izzy sneezed as a feather landed on her nose. Golly, she stared up with a wince, holding up a hoof to shield her eyes from the sun, These ponies really made the flying thing second nature. She shook her mane before remembering that all of her hair was matted down underneath a black hood. Wait, no, it'd be first nature. Wouldn't it?
Izzy had of course returned to Zephyr Heights, where Hitch had told her the Harmonoids were headquartered. Her "Big-Beeswax-Buster-Kit" was little more than a set of black pajamas, a quill, some paper, and a clipboard. The jammies had a nice little hoodie with a clasp to latch in front of her horn, and she'd sewn in an extra strip of fabric to cover her mouth and nose. With this, Izzy was sure she wouldn't stand out while pursuing the truth.
Izzy Moonbow was a very creative unicorn, but not a very smart one.
She eventually realized after five or six flights-on-sight that her current strategy wasn't working. Because ninjas were invisible, she reasoned that this was because they couldn't see her, so they were startled when she started talking.
So she began to walk through the middle of the street yelling "I'm a ninja! You can't see me but I'm here! Don't tell anyone!"
"What is wrong with you," someone gruffed as she passed by.
Izzy froze on the spot, her cheer diminishing. She bashfully turned to look at him sidelong.
An old stallion squinted and glanced at her head before grumbling. "I tole 'em, I tole everybody unicorns was nothin' but crazies, I knew it." He leaned on his crutch with one foreleg and vaguely trembled the other, perhaps intending to shake it at her menacingly.
Izzy frowned, relaxing. She'd need to get two licenses for her vacuum. "Whattya mean?" she objected. "I'm a ninja. I'm tryin' to learn the truth about the Harmonoids."
"Harmonoids!" He spat, and began coughing.
"Oh, are you okay?" Izzy fretted, stepping forward in case her help was needed.
"I'm fine, crazycorn!" he snapped back. "Harmonoids!" He threw his free hoof skyward. "Scarlet mares, the lot of 'em! Showed up a week or two ago outta nowhere like a thief in the night!"
"Really?" Izzy blinked. "They were a sudden sensation?"
"Spread faster than the fox skip, 'n' that was a heck of a move," he chuckled, shaking his hips. "I was a fine dancer in my day, I'll tell you, perfected the fox skip, aaah, I coulda married the queen..."
"I'm sure you were and did and could have!" Izzy beamed. "Do you know anything else about the Harmonoids?" Her smile grew toothy. "Maaaaybe about who makes 'em?"
"Baaaah I don't stick my nose into such things," he scowled, waving her off. "It's a youngun you want, the kids are obsessed with every little detail of these stupid things."
"Okay!" Izzy chirped. "Have a great day, sir!" she waved and skipped off.
He gave her a small smile before going back to scowling.
"Excuse me, sir, I'm a ninja and you can't see me."
The young stallion, or perhaps older colt, blinked at her. "... Uh, yes I can --"
"Do you know anything about the company who makes Harmonoids?" Izzy continued, tilting her head with a big grin.
He paused to process. "What, HarmoSync?"
"Yep, those bozos!!" She nodded eagerly. "Do they do anything else besides Harmonoids? Liiiiike try to take over the world?" she chirped in a hopeful lilt.
He laughed. "You're serious? Not that I know. They don't do anything. It's just Harmonoids."
"Hmm," Izzy pouted. "Okay! Thank you! Have a great day!"
"My husband does some marketing for Secretary@," the older mare nodded, fondling her pearl necklace. "You know, they make typewriters. They have a cross-promotion with those Harmo-whatever bimbos. A pretty filly can make an old stallion or a young mare buy anything, so I'm sure they must have a deal with other companies, as well."
"Hmm," Izzy pouted again. She looked down at her clipboard. She'd been told the same thing for three companies so far.
Queen Haven made her way through Zephyr Heights, her servants rushing to unfurl the perfect, wrinkle-less, purple carpet for their less perfect, slightly wrinkly, purple leader. None of them dared to ask why she needed a carpet when she was flying, or how they made a carpet that remained smooth despite the many curves in her path, or why she insisted on wearing those stupid sunglasses that made her nearly fly into things every five minutes.
"Yes, yes, thank you," she condescended, carefully adjusting her flight to angle herself perfectly for the many photos being snapped of her on her day out. "Yes, be sure to get my good side and what in the world is that noise?"
Everyone paused, even the paparazzi, their ears pricked to figure out what was making that demonic sound.
"C-could it be a... a dragon?" one of the guards trembled.
"Don't be silly, Quillspear," the queen huffed, "Dragons are but legends to scare foals." Then she gave it some thought. "... but I suppose so were unicorns and earth ponies..." She landed on her carpet with a hoof on her chin before barking out orders. "Soldiers! Locate the source of that sound at once!"
"A-ha!" Izzy Moonbow cried in trumph, standing on top of a giant lollipop jutting from over the horizon against a backdrop of swirling colors. "Your doom is at hoof, Harmonoids!"
All six of them were real mares, without any creepy ball joints or anything, and they were all in their underwear, even though ponies went naked most of the time.
"Eyaaaagh~!" Merciful☆ whined. "We've been caught with our pantsu down, girls!"
"Pants," Izzy corrected with narrow eyes.
"Izzy Moonbow has exposed our heinous scheme and unfashionable unmentionables!" Generous☆ drawled, then threw one hoof over her head and swooned, falling over the other horizon. "Especially Loyal☆'s," she raised her head and opened an eye to add before sticking her tongue out and pretending to be dead.
"Don't look, none of you broads look," Loyal☆ spun around in circles like a dog chasing her tail, trying to cover her white-and-pink striped panties.
"Izzy did a really good job," Kind☆ praised, hiding under her several yards of long, sakura-pink hair and smiling bashfully with her one uncovered eye. Izzy had to admit she was indeed quite gorgeous.
"Dang," Honest☆ conceded, standing comfortably in bloomers, her mouth moving from one side to the other in a frustrated, how do I get outta this one pout.
Cheerful☆ stared up at Izzy with a big smile and said nothing, completely frozen from her plump, dimpled pink cheeks to her wild, untamed, deep velvet jungle of a mane and tail.
"U-um," Izzy fidgeted. "Don't you have any last words?"
"Wake up, you sputtering engine!" Cheerful☆ suddenly snarled, and hurled a bucket of water at her.
"Waaagh-huck-ggff --" Izzy sputtered and coughed, sitting up in a confused panic.
"Izzy Moonglow, if I recall," Queen Haven stared down her nose at her, passing her now-empty bucket off to an attendant. She pouted as a second leaned in and whispered, then grimaced. "Moonbow. My apologies."
"Wha? Y-your majesty..?" Izzy recognized, blinking and recovering her breath.
"I am told," the Queen drawled with her chin raised as a third attendant polished her sunglasses while they were still on her face, "That a certain someone has been harassing my people, asking after the recent trend, the Harmonoids. And lo and behold, I find you sleeping on our fountainside bench like a bum, dressed like a ragamuffin, and snoring like my late husband."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Izzy answered at once, rubbing at her eyes.
"Am I correct to presume that you are the quote-unquote 'crazy unicorn running all over town asking a lot of questions'?"
"That's not how you use that," Izzy objected, getting up and stretching. ""It makes no sense to unquote before you say what the quote is. That's like writing both the quotation marks before a character's dialogue line. See? Like I just did.
"What?" Queen Haven wrinkled her nose.
"Your Majesty," Izzy bowed. "I'm sorry for being a pest. I'm investigating the Harmonoids 'cause I think they're up to somethin'."
"Oh?" the Queen raised an eyebrow, "The world of pop culture can be quite cutthroat, but we in Zephyr Heights hold our businesses to a high degree of accountability, Miss Moonbow."
"I know," Izzy accepted, "But it's so suspicious! I can't even figure out who voices the dumb things."
"Of course you can't," the Queen gave a throaty laugh. "No one knows! Not even me. They're a well-kept secret. They call them their 'Twin Souls', and act like one lives and dies with the other." She waved with one wing. "These mares would be in great danger if their identities were discovered. Rabid fans might kidnap them."
"What!" Izzy's eyes went wide. "Ponies would kidnap them? Why?"
"There is a reason we were so quick to think ill of your people, Miss Moonbow," the Queen sighed. "There are plenty of pegasians who are absolutely crazy. Dangerously so. In fact, I do believe someone already kidnapped a mare who was incorrectly identified as a Harmonoid actress..."
"Already?" Izzy's eyes darted around in thought. "But haven't they only been around for a couple weeks?"
Queen Haven nodded stoically. "Dedicated fans are very fast, and dedication and madness are only a few wingbeats apart, Miss Moonglow." She cringed as an aide leaned in to whisper again. "Miss Moonbow."
"Has she been found?" Izzy worried.
"She was indeed," the Queen tapped her chin, "But I've forgotten her name..."
Izzy leapt up and grabbed her clipboard.
"Stop!" the Queen commanded with a hoof raised. "Just stop. I will look into it for you. If you would please, you're scaring ponies..."
Izzy smiled bashfully and nodded.