Diamond Tiara and the C-ECIOA
Notamiracle
Diamond Tiara was getting bored. She swung her hooves back and forth from the too-big folding chair she sat in, the only movement in the small waiting room. She had actually started counting the seconds on the clock behind her, tracking the audible ticks just so she wouldn’t have to turn her head to check the time anymore. The waiting room was hardly to a level at which she was comfortable with. A few mismatched chairs, along with a dirty-looking couch, were placed with almost no care around the room, like they had been thrown there in a hurry. Flickering florescent lights created a quiet but continuous buzz, but gave just enough light to view the posters on the walls.
Sickly green and black, printed with the intention to both frighten and awe, was a glorified headshot of Queen Chrysalis, leader of the Changelings. She smiled in the picture, showing sharp teeth and a long tongue. Right below her read the words VICTORY IS ASSURED THIS TIME, written in an attention-grabbing font.
With an impatient sigh, Diamond Tiara took her fuzzy gaze off the far wall of the waiting room and looked down at the green pamphlet that rested on her lap. She picked it up for the umpteenth time and read it over once more, remembering how she had gotten here in the first place;
***
She was walking through a quiet Ponyville, avoiding the crowded market area and sticking to the business end of town, where it was less likely for a pony to bother asking her why she wasn’t in school. Her stormy eyes were burning down to the ground, deciding that she didn’t even care if anypony where to try and stop her, because she’d just like to see them try.
Diamond Tiara felt pouty and didn’t care. The night before, she had had another argument with her father, this time about not getting her very own pony for her birthday. She had yelled at him, he had grounded her for a literal month, and sent her to bed without dinner. It might have been her bad attitude, but it always seemed to Diamond Tiara that he punished her far harder than a normal parent would. She would then try to convince herself that that was just what parents did, and that he didn't hate her. But today, Diamond Tiara was convinced that he didn’t really love her, and that he made her do things like put on those ridiculous bunny ears and jump around the watering cans with Apple Bloom’s crazy Grandmother not because he loved her, but because he wanted to make her do something she really didn’t want to do.
Contrary to the norm, Silver Spoon wasn't with Diamond Tiara on this boring jaunt of hooky. Diamond Tiara had told her before class started that morning that the two of them were going to ditch school, and that she (Silver Spoon) was going to listen to all Diamond Tiara’s problems like the friend she was. But Silver Spoon, Diamond Tiara remembered with a slightly deeper scowl, had grumbled that her parents were disappointed with her grades, and had threatened her with her allowance if they continued to drop. She then had the nerve to suggest that it was mostly Diamond Tiara's fault, by distracting her in class and forcing her to carry her bags after a weekly shopping trip. They had then bickered rather harshly for a minute, ending with Diamond Tiara storming off alone. She now began to doubt her sidekick’s allegiance to her as well.
In all actuality, Diamond Tiara wasn't as angry as she was worried that she herself really was the root of her problems, and that maybe if she was nicer, other ponies would be nice to her in turn...
Then she remembered that she was perfect in every way, and that everypony else could screw off.
She then looked up suddenly, dropping her whiny thoughts to find that she had wandered into the middle of the nearly deserted Ponyville Red-light District. She could never figure out why she was always drawn to this place. But, she reminded herself, it was where she had gotten her cutie mark.
Down the street a little ways, who Diamond Tiara had not noticed until right this moment, was Derpy, the Ponyville mailmare. She stood on the side of the street, her mail bag stuffed full of paper, waving a green pamphlet to the desolate streets, smiling at nopony.
Not wanting to talk to her, Diamond Tiara began to turn away, but heard the Pegasus call behind her.
“Hi there! Would you like to join a noble cause?”
She began walking at a smart pace, pretending to ignore her, but she kept calling from behind her.
“We need valiant ponies to make our dreams a reality!”
Diamond Tiara was now running, really not wanting to talk to the cross-eyed weirdo, but suddenly, the grey Pegasus landed in front of her, eyes askew, all smiles, and holding one of the green pamphlets in her hoof. “Would you like to be a part of our hostile takeover?”
“Hostile takeover? What the…”
She trailed off as she began to read the cover;
Victory is Assured With Support From You!!!
The C-ECIOA is an underground, Queen Chrysalis-approved intelligence group and war effort dedicated to the conquering and enslavement of the Equestrian population. Soon after the failure of the large scale invasion of the Equestrian capitol, Canterlot, a new idea was conceived by some of the most cunning military strategists in the Changeling Kingdom. Your job is simple; allow one of our highly-trained stealth agents to impersonate your life to feed off your family and friends’ love for you. This love will then be used to feed the next fleet of soldiers for what will be the biggest frontal assault in Equestrian history. And, for their troubles, all Pony volunteers will be guaranteed a life of comfort and (limited) political power under the future new leader of the Earth, Queen Chrysalis.
The rest of the pamphlet showed artistic imaginings of Changelings living in comfort, a gooey nest filled with sickly green eggs ornamented with teddy bears and colorful mobiles, a wealthy-looking Pony standing on top of a pile of other, love-drained ponies. The bottom of the page included an address for the volunteers to commune to, and a small space reserved for the program’s “generous sponsors”. Diamond Tiara continued to stare at the pamphlet long after she finished reading it. Finally, her gaze panned up to the smiling mare before her, looking as calm and relaxed as if this were a harmless charity. Questions exploded in the filly’s mind like firecrackers, but one stood out to her the most;
“Why the hay are you involved in this? Nopony I know would ever purposefully hire you for anything!”
The Pegasus smiled. “I’m the only Changeling that would volunteer!”
Diamond Tiara’s jaw dropped as the pony in front of her lit up with a glowing green glow, subsiding to reveal a lazy-eyed changeling. It smiled for a second, and then reverted back to Derpy’s form. After collecting her thoughts again, Diamond Tiara looked down again at the pamphlet, then back up at Der- the changeling.
“I’m telling”, she said with all the snarky superiority she could muster. She began to walk off again, but was stopped by the Change-Derp.
“Aw, come on. This is the deal of a lifetime. Changelings don’t have many needs for precious minerals, so those would all go to pony volunteers like you! Imagine, all the gold, gems, diamonds in the land, divided out to a few!”
“Well…” said Diamond Tiara, suddenly interested in this proposal.
“Not to mention a representative position in the Queen’s council for all ponies, placing you in high political power with your Princesses out of the way!”
“When you put it like that…” drawled the filly, slipping into a wonderful fantasy.
“
And all of the ponies you hate would become soulless slaves, with only enough breath to breath their final breathe!”, the Derpling concluded happily.
Diamond Tiara snickered, thinking of her father, who humiliated her, Silver Spoon, who abandoned her, Cheerilee, who educated her against her will, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, who annoyed her, Twilight Sparkle, who showed up to her Cute-ceneara uninvited, and everyone else in Ponyville at her mercy…
She paused, thinking of something she hadn’t thought before; “It doesn’t really seem fair to be a part of the destruction of a county just because I hate the ponies in my town,” she admitted.
“
Well,” said the Changeling-Who-Looked-Like-Derpy-But-Wasn’t, “is there anypony outside of Ponyville you hate?”
An image of a dark-orange Earth Pony pushing her into a mud puddle splashed into her mind.
“There we go!” she cried triumphantly. “My known enemies are national! Thanks a lot… uh, what’s your real name?”
“Ditzy,” she answered happily.
There was a short pause.
“I like ‘Derpy’ better.”
“Yeah, most people do.”
***
She finished rereading the pamphlet, sighed, dropped it onto the seat beside her, let out an even bigger sigh, and counted the last few seconds to two o’clock, AM. She had already had a rough night. It had been stressful sneaking out of her house as soon as her father had fallen asleep, and she had been put off when she discovered the night train to Canterlot was more expensive than a day trip for whatever reason. She didn’t have a lot of trouble convincing the ticket pony to sell her a ticket, as she made trips alone to Canterlot every other weekend to see her mother.
After a long train ride with little sleep, and a scary walk through a moonlit Canterlot, she had finally reached the iffy-looking office space the pamphlet specified.
That had been two hours ago.
Then, a door in the waiting room opened, revealing a small changeling in a white shirt, tie and glasses. He smiled a big smile and spoke in a high, nerdy voice;
“Hellooo, there! Come right in, and sorry if we kept you waiting!”
Choosing not to answer, Diamond Tiara grabbed her purse, straightened her tiara, and followed him into a brightly-lit office space. There were rows of desks, each cumbered with a sleeping changeling. The chirpy nerdy one who had let her in led her to the only unseated desk, neat and organized with a computer, color printer, and a picture of a pet lizard. He took a moment to settle in, invited her to sit in a chair across from her, and stared at her with his chin in his hooves and that excited smile on his face.
“We are so glad to have you! My name is Travis…,” he took a second to gesture to the laminated ID card on his lanyard, “and we are so grateful for your support!”
"How come it took you so long?" asked Diamond Tiara, rubbing a tight spot on her neck. "There's literally nopony in here."
"Oh, we're sorry about that. You know what's funny? We didn't eve know anyone was out there!"
“Uh, yeah…”
“We’re going to start just by getting to know you better, then I’ll have to get your personal information, and, if we’re lucky, you’ll walk out of here an official member of the C-ECIOA!”
“How come you’re an Agency and an Organization?” Diamond Tiara interrupted with a cocked eyebrow.
“Oh, that was the Queen’s idea,” replied Travis happily. “She has a thing for triple-vowel acronyms.”
“I see.”
“Well okey-doke!” Travis cried, dramatically pulling out a clipboard and clicking his pen into writing position. “Now, for a small, personal interview.
“Name.”
“Diamond Tiara.”
“Species, as general as possible.”
“Uh, pony?”
“Alrighty!” Travis tore off the sheet he was working on and placed it onto the scanner on his printer. It hummed to life and scanned her, indeed, small personal interview.
“Now, I’m just gonna ask you to fill these out,” he said, placing a rather threatening looking stack of paper on front of her. “This is just some more of your personal information that we’ll need, explaining your town, who’s close to you, and any other connections that we can use in our favor when the time of crusade shall come!”
“But we could have just done all this in the interview,” Diamond Tiara whined, a hater of paper work, file work, busy work, and an kind of work in general.
"Sorry, but we can't be a successful terrorist organization if we're a messy organization!"
A wet snore from one of the sleeping changelings added comedic irony to Travis' previous statement.
The massive paperwork that Diamond Tiara spent the next half-hour on turned out to be not as horrible as she suspected. It was mostly small-print blood-oaths that would bind her to loyalty to the Queen of the Changelings forever, which she mostly skimmed over and tiredly signed her name at the bottom, a skill that she had learned in school. She even managed to have some fun with one of the last sections, describing the ponies in the town she lived in. Just because she could, she wrote that Scootaloo was an orphaned street bum, Applejack was in a relationship with Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie was a homicidal schizophrenic.
When she finally finished the last section of the last page of the packet, she carefully straightened it, stapled it together, and slid it over to Travis' unholy, holey hooves.
"Thank you, my dear" said Travis, as he dropped them casually into a shredder. "This is to protect your identity", he yelled over the noise to a shocked-looking Diamond Tiara.
A small "ding" kissed the silence after the shredder fell silent. "Ah", exclaimed Travis. "There's your official file from the Changeling Intelligence Agency (CIA)!"
"Bu...but..."
"Oh, I sent in your name when you gave it to me when you first came in! Easy Peasy"
"Bu... but why did you have me through all that stupid paperwork, and keep me waiting out in that creepy waiting room when there's nopony in here?!?" asked furious, teary-eyed Diamond Tiara.
"Yes, I understand it's a drag, but this process was made for you by Changelings, aaaand we kinda hate all your guts."
Diamond Tiara crossed her forelegs in a grumpy huff.
"Well, let's see how you rack up!", cried Travis, as he began reading the computer screen. He dropped his cheerful attitude slightly as he began to read the computer screen. Every so often, he'd scroll down slightly and no his head, muttering "Good, good" under his breath.
Diamond Tiara was beginning to feel reinvigorated like she had been after talking with the Derpy Changeling. After all she'd been through lately, it would be nice to finally get revenge on the ponies in her life. She began to smile, thinking of ambushing Ponyville on the back of the Queen Chrysalis, watching the faces of every mare and stallion, colt and filly, even little foals staring wide-eyed in horror as the green life was sucked out of them, while a Bedazzled Diamond Tiara stood on top of them, shrieking with laugher, wearing Princess Celestia's golden crown on top of her head...
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh dear", came Travis' voice from behind the computer screen.
"Huh? What? What is it?" asked Diamond Tiara, jolting out of her fantasy.
Travis looked very uncomfortable. He refused to make eye contact with the young filly as he straightened his tie, shined his glasses, picked at a little hole on his desk.
"What is it?" asked Diamond Tiara, with a little more force.
Travis jumped. "Well," he began, uncertainly. "You would actually make the perfect candidate for the C-ECIOA. You live in a highly populated town, which houses a large apple orchard that is rather important to Equestira's ecology. A town that's filled with plenty of friendly ponies, six of which are the Elements of Harmony, one of them whom is the Princess Twilight Sparkle. If we managed to sneak in a Changeling disguised as you tonight, it would be a huge step in our plan to murder your entire species."
"So what's the problem?"
Travis cleared his throat and licked his lips. He grabbed a water bottle from behind his desk and drank it with one gulp. When it was empty, he threw it in the trash and grabbed another, but only got halfway before he was interrupted with a "Hey!", causing him to gag and choke, spewing water everywhere. He sighed.
"Well... as you know, the point of this Organization/Agency is to sneak Changelings into pony society and collect the love that others feel for them. The problem with you is...
"Nopony loves you."