//------------------------------// // Praise Lord Smooze // Story: The Delta Dilemma // by Sunka //------------------------------// It wasn't there. He'd gotten the rest of the papers, read them all three times, to make sure, but the final piece he needed wasn't there. Twilight had done quite a bit of research on the Elements of Harmony and how friendship powered them. Since the Elements themselves had disappeared and the Elementals were dead or scattered, this research was the only way to find out about their magics. The good news was he'd found a passage about Spike being in charge of keeping the Element research notes. Great, now he just needed to find a dragon no pony had seen in ten years. Delta sat on her pallet reading a book. The library seemed to have distracted her from any further amorous attentions, though she did often stand very close to him and watch him work. At least now, with a steady stream of new romances and celebrity gossip rags, she left him alone most of the day. There was a knock at the barn door. “Yards...” called Apple. Her voice was shaken. When she walked in the worry was clear on her face. There was a note in her mouth as she walked over to his work bench. Delta picked up on the problem signals and trotted over. Apple pulled the letter from her mouth and held it out to her employee. “This message came for you. It's URGENT.” Yards picked up the note and unfolded it. “Agent Fields, Lord Smooze has awoken. Rapid progress is essential.” He dropped the note and it immolated. Stunned shock numbed him. How could they have done something so stupid? He sighed. Well, that meant that he had to head out immediately. “Girls, I've got to go.” They blinked and looked at each other, then to him. He grabbed his saddlebags and started levitating supplies into it. “Where are we going?” Delta asked. “It's too dangerous. I've got to do this alone.” “Oh no you don't. If you die so will I. I really doubt the next pony they ship me to will be so keen on letting me live.” “And I'm not going to let a friend go it alone.” Hmm, could it be? “Alright, then, girls we've got to get ready. I'm not sure how long this trip is going to be or even where we're going.” “Where to first?” asked Delta. “Well, we've got to go find Spike, so we'll start at the library.” “Alright, I'll meet you there after I get a few things packed,” said Apple. She turned and left. “Delta, are you sure? You could stay here. I'll even unlock the basement. You could hide there.” She nodded. “As our hostess might say, 'I'm hitching my wagon to yours.' Even if this all ends horribly, I'm through with being locked away.” “Alright.” He could hardly keep from smiling; the plan was working. Would he be able to get all three? They packed Delta's new bags and walked into town. With the girls he wouldn't be able to break out his secret tech, so the flight packs were a no-no. Pity, he really did enjoy them, and it'd been a while since he'd last gotten to use them, but he only had one and doubted that Delta would want to break her cover and fly. That, and who would carry Apple? “Hey, Yards!” He jumped at the squeak behind him. Little Rhu had sneaked behind him. “Rhu! What are you doing in town?” “School let ahught and I sawer you two here. Aren't y'all here ta get me?” “Run,” Delta whispered. “We're on our way to the library.” Rhu gulped. “Awh.” Obediently she fell in behind the two, prattling on about some boy or another. Toffee Chip was at the information desk, checking in books. “Done already, Delta?” The two had bonded over some cheesy were-human romance series. “Not yet. Book five is just so AMAZING!” The girls squealed. “I know, right? Isn't Bit Chomper just so incredible?” Toffee practically swooned over her make believe lover. “He's a little too emo. Brilliant Lance can pierce me any day,” the changeling tittered. “But he's not Heart Sworn's True Love.” “Fine with me, that way he can be all mine.” The two girls giggled again. “Well, then what do you need today?” “Spike,” Yards broke in smoothly. Toffee looked at him with her head cocked in confusion. “We need to find something Spike-” “Hey, Toffee, I finished book three.” “Hi, Apple.” “Everypony here?” Yards tried to hide the annoyance in his voice, but from the looks of the mares, had failed. “Just because I like a take charge stallion doesn't give you the right to be all rude.” Delta glared. Yards closed his eyes and tried to remind himself they didn't know any better. “Look. What I'm about to tell you is so far above Top Secret I could have you all killed just knowing me. Alright, look.” He sighed, trying to figure out how to say it. Telekenetically he barred the doors and windows. “Well, you've all either chosen to be here,” he looked at the the Rhubarbs and Delta, “or have specialized information desperately needed for this mission,” he looked over at Toffee. “The government has restarted their research in a Smooze weapon.” The girls all looked at each other. None of the trio had any idea. “Ta Lord of ta Underworld?” asked Little Rhu. Yards looked down at the filly. “Yes, it's named after the mythological Lord of the Underworld.” Little Rhu beamed with pride. “Ms. Cheerilee just went over that yesterday.” “Good job paying attention. Anypony know about him?” The girls started scratching their heads, while Rhu was waving her hoof frantically. “Sorry, I don't really study mythology,” Toffee apologized. “Rhu, what do you remember?” “Well, it was a lake that ate bad ponies.” “Almost. It absorbed their essence and added it to it's own, growing more powerful with each unkindness. The Smooze bomb was the Solari answer to the siege of Los Pegasus. They'd planned to dump it over the city where it would absorb the moisture in the clouds and convert it into more smooze, thereby denying the Lunari pegasi cover to attack from.” He paused, letting the knowledge sink in. “So they were going to destroy the entire city that the Lunari ended up crashing anyway?” Even Toffee was having trouble grasping just how incredibly bad this was. “The problem was that it didn't just absorb water from the clouds, it absorbed water from everything. EVERYTHING.” Toffee shook her head. “No, no, no. The Princess would never have allowed that. You're talking about a weapon that could chain reaction into killing everything.” “Yes, I am.” “The Lunari I could see as being so short sighted, but not the Princess.” Apple almost interjected something,but Yards broke her off. “Both sides were developing horrible weapons. There were things even those of us in R&D, the R&D of both sides, stopped once we saw the lines we were crossing. We saw the danger that such a weapon would pose and besought our brethren to stop. There were very few times when we listened to one another, but mercifully this was one of them. Though we were fighting, we didn't want to kill all life everywhere.” A terrible truth was dawning on Toffee's face. “You're a Lunari?” Yards hung his head. Here he was trying to save the world and she was getting caught up in partisanship. “Yes, I was a Lunari. But that doesn't matter. What matters now is that we stop whoever it is that's trying to destroy the world.” Her eyes narrowed. “You're a Lunari; how can I trust you? I'd be a traitor, the same as you.” “Toffee, I, look...gah!” He facehoofed hard. “Toffee,” he looked her in the eye, pleading, “look, I need to know how the Elements were powered, to create an alternate power source that potentially means ponies other than unicorns could create harnessable magical power. Imagine all the good that could come of this! Farms of Earth ponies that could use technology to quickly pick crops without killing themselves from all that physical labor. Hospitals where teams of pegasi and earth ponies can manipulate items with the fine control of a unicorn's psychokinetic scalpel.” “And how does the Lunari military plan on using this power?” “In terrible ways.” “So, this new power source, it will be provided to both sides?” “No, it will be provided to all ponies. You'll see to that.” “And Twilight never did this-?” “Because she was trained in magic, not engineering.” “Alright, but you better never lie to me again.” “I never lied in the first place,” he mumbled under his breath. “Does everypony understand now?” They all nodded their heads. “Alright, so we're looking for Twilight's research on the Elements themselves. She entrusted them with Spike. So we should start by looking through his things. Toffee, I don't suppose you've found them?” “Nooooo.” She looked away. “Now who's holding out?” asked Apple. “I promised,” she mumbled. Apple walked over to the librarian. “Hun, we really need to find this thing. A lot of ponies lives depends on this. I respect you made a promise; so what exactly did you promise?” “I promised that I wouldn't tell anypony where he was.” “Spike?” She nodded. “Spike's alive?” She nodded again. “Why doesn't he want to be found?” Toffee pawed at the ground. “If you can't tell anypony can you show us?” asked Delta. Toffee considered the idea. “It's pretty far away.” “I'm packed.” Delta pulled out a scarf from her bags. “Alright,” the pegasi said in a small voice. Yards sighed. “Thank you, Toffee.” She began to pack her own bag. “How long will we be gone?” Apple asked. “We can get there overnight, but as late as we're heading out, probably two days.” The others milled about while the pegasus packed her things.