//------------------------------// // 0.4 The Conflicted Spy // Story: Against the Dark One // by Hidden Brony //------------------------------// “Now can anyone tell me what the six steps to divine magic are?” The instructor paced in front of the classroom, fully not expecting any of his students to know the answer. “That’s ah trick question if ah ever heard one,” a young voice rang out from the back of the lecture hall. “Oh, care to explain?” the instructor asked with minor annoyance. “‘Course ah will.” A short girl stood up. She was one of the older students in the hall, having started her studying late by a few years. She had straw-blonde hair and freckles, with bright green eyes. “First off, it’s called True Magic. Don’t ever let any practitioner of True Magic catch you sayin’ the word ‘divine’ to describe their fancy magicin’. Second off, the steps go as such: loyalty, laughter, generosity, honesty, and kindness. Only after you live those five steps to the best of yer ability, can you use magic. Therefore magic itself ain’t a step, leaving you with only five.” After her short monologue, the girl sat back down. The instructor stared at her for a second, before saying, “Who here agrees with her?” Scattered hands tentatively raised, and a few didn’t remain up. “If you agree with her, stand up.” Even less stood up, and few with any conviction. The girl stood up without pause staring at the instructor with a look that dared him to prove her wrong. “Those of you that are standing come down here.” The students looked at each other in panic, but the blonde girl walked right to the bottom of the lecture hall and stood right in front of the instructor. In the end, only two other students stood with her, the rest having sat back down. One was a boy about her age, and the other was a girl years younger than the two of them. “These three are absolutely right,” the instructor said, patting the girl on the head. Jaws dropped around the lecture hall and the sound of palms impacting foreheads echoed as the doubting students who had lowered their hands and sat back down expressed their annoyance with their own disbelief. “The first step in defeating any enemy is learning about them. Don’t forget that.” He turned to the trio, “What are your names?” The girl spoke up first, “Ah’m Applejack.” She put her arm around the other two. “This here is Mac,” she said, nodding at the boy with golden blonde hair. “He’s mah older brother.” He silently waved, trying to shrug of his sister. It didn’t work. “He don’t talk much. And Bloom here,” she continued, nodding at the young girl with apple-red hair, who was trying to get as much of the older girl between her and the instructor as possible, “is our younger sister.” The instructor nodded, “And how did you know the steps of True Magic?” Applejack released the other two, much to Mac’s relief. Bloom ran behind her sister. “Our granny was good at magicin’ all kinds of scrapes n’ scratches that we got workin’ on the farm. Had us memorise the steps, called ‘em the ‘fundamentals of livin’ well.’ “ “This brings me to my next topic,” the instructor said to the room. “The modes of information acquisition. You just told us the first, and usually most reliable, method. First hand accounts.” He looked at the three. “You may sit down.” Bloom was the first to her seat, followed by Mac and Applejack, who used much less haste to get to their seats. “Looking at these three, I can learn much, even from that small conversation,” he continued. “They have a grandmother who had at least some minor talent in True Magic, for instance. I also learned that they lived on a farm at some point. Their names, relative ages, and relations were learned, and very unlikely to be wrong. “Inaccuracies come from inferences. From what they told me, I can assume that family is important to them. I can assume that Mac doesn’t mince words unless he has to, that Bloom doesn’t do well in interpersonal activities, and that Applejack is very protective of both of them. Now any of these can be wrong—” the instructor continued, but was interrupted. “It ain’t,” Applejack spoke up. “That’s dead accurate.” “That’s where the word ‘can’ comes into play, Miss Applejack. Now, that’s enough of me talking, I can already see the drool running down some of your chins.” Applejack looked at the person sitting next to her, who was fast asleep through the lecture. She smacked them on the back of the head, causing them to exclaim while they sat up. The instructor continued as if nothing had happened. “I have your first homework assignment.” A collective groan came from nearly every mouth, including the siblings’. “Now, now, it’s not anything hard. You have to come in in two days time at the next lecture, and be able to tell me my name.” The students started murmuring amongst themselves. They needed to learn his name? “Come on, now. This is the Baltimare School for the Equestrian Intelligence Agency. Did you expect it to be easy?” Bloom was already formulating a plot in her head as she walked out of the room. This would require all three siblings. —*~*~*— The instructor walked down the streets of Baltimare, unconsciously looking about for any threats. You don’t spend decades as a master infiltrator without learning some habits. That is how he easily saw the young girl trying to sneak up on him. He waited until she had her hands on his keys before grabbing her wrist. He turned to her. “This is not the best way of doing this, you understand?” Applejack struggled in his vice-like grip, but to no avail. She wouldn’t be leaving until he wanted her to. She sighed, “Ah understand. Can ah go now?” He chuckled, releasing her arm, “Don’t think I didn’t see you, Applejack. You’re good for your age, but not good enough for that to work on me.” She rubbed her wrist, a look of distaste on her face. She sighed, “Sorry, instructor.” He smiled at her. “You’re forgiven, but don’t think that you will get away with trying to steal from a teacher so easily.” She kicked the ground, “Shucks.” He smiled, “Yep. If you can’t complete this assignment, you have a week of detention and have to admit your failure in front of the class. If you do complete it, there is no problem, and you’re forgiven. Deal?” He stretched out his hand. She smirked, shaking his hand. “Deal.” After saying this, she walked off with confidence. The instructor watched her walk off, shaking his head. This was an assignment to see how they dealt with insurmountable odds, and after that predictable attempt, she was on the border of failing. He turned and walked to his house, grabbing his keys and unlocking the third lock on the door. The two locks above and one below were enchanted to give him a warning that someone was attempting to break into his house. The rest of the night passed without incident. —*~*~*— “You were not supposed to pass this assignment,” the instructor announced to the class at the beginning of their next lecture, causing the class, save three siblings, to breathe a collective sigh of relief. “If you asked around town, nobody told you my name. They are under orders from the Light One herself to not interfere with this school, and we told them not to tell you any names. “One of you, though, tried to steal from me and got caught,” he continued, smirking at Applejack. He was confused when he saw her and her siblings grinning at him. “Care to come down here, Applejack? We have a deal to complete.” “Eeyup, we do,” she said, still smiling at him. She walked to the front of the classroom. “Fellow students, I have something to say.” She paused, waiting for quiet. She turned to the instructor and her smile widened. “Your name is Shadowstep.” Instructor Shadowstep blinked, taken aback. This was unusual. “So it is. How did you learn this?” “Mac, Bloom, get up here.” She beckoned to her siblings. Bloom let out an “eep!” and flushed bright red. Mac sighed in annoyance, walking to the front of the classroom shadowed by his youngest sister. “Now, it’s all fairly simple. Mac, don’t let him confuse ya, is great with people. We had him go out and ask around, make sure that everyone knew we were lookin’ for a name.” She shot an annoyed glance at Shadowstep. “As ya said, it weren’t that easy. That’s where Bloom n’ ah came in. We were plan ‘B’ “Ah tried to sneak up on ya to steal your keys. As he said, ah was caught. Ya didn’t know that ah was countin’ on this.” Shadowstep smiled at her, shaking his head. She continued, “Bloom is much quieter than I am. Ah distracted ya while she got to yer keys.” “My keys were still on my belt when I got to my house, Miss Applejack,” Shadowstep pointed out, already knowing what they did. He was impressed that they came up with this plan. Bloom couldn’t have been older than eight, Mac was in his early teens, tops, and Applejack was no older than eleven. “Eeyup they were. That’s what this handy dandy thingamajig is for.” Bloom pulled out what looked like clay, handing it to her older sister. She popped apart the two halves, showing the perfect imprint of a full ring’s worth of keys in the middle. “All we had ta do was wait until you showed us how to get into your house, which you did very helpfully,” Applejack said, handing the imprints back to Bloom. “Then we just checked yer mail, lookin for a name. Saw Shadowstep on there quite a lot.” “Very good, you three,” Shadowstep said, clapping. The applause carried around the theater, slowly getting louder as other students joined in clapping. When the applause ended, the instructor spoke up again, “What do you three want to do?” Applejack spoke up first, no nobody’s surprise, “Ah want to learn to fight all fancy like, just like the EIA spies fighting the Dark One to the south. Help out there.” Mac spoke up with a single word, “Protect.” “Ah, ya big lug. Use yer words,” Applejack scolded. Shadowstep held up a hand, “It’s quite alright. He told me everything I need to know.” Applejack looked at her instructor sideways, before shrugging and backing down. Bloom stared at Shadowstep, eyes wide and looking around swiftly for a way out of speaking in front of the whole class. “Bloom, what did granny say?” Applejack asked. “Ta use my words,” Bloom said. Her voice caused some hearts to appear in some of the students’ eyes in the front row or two, where she could be heard. She took a deep breath, and said in a loud, for her, voice, “I want to gather information, help those that are going both Mac’s and Jack’s ways.” “A noble goal,” the instructor spoke up. “It is very early for this, but I believe we found a team of future operatives. Which of you came up with the plan?” Both Applejack and Mac immediately pointed at Bloom, who gave out another ‘eep!’ and looked like she wanted to crawl down a hole. “Impressive for one so young,” Shadowstep commented. “She was always the one to allocate the farm work after our parents passed,” Applejack said with some residual sadness. “I assume—” he started to say, when someone burst through the door. “Shadow! Shadow!” the new man yelled. “We need you now.” Shadowstep glared at the newcomer, “Guile, I swear if this is not something as damned serious as the Dark One attacking Everfree itself, we are going to have words.” “That’s just it, sir,” Guile said, blood drained from his face. “The Dark One got past the Order. It’s in Everfree.” Shadowstep gave a wordless exclamation, disappearing in a flash of smoke. He reappeared right next to Guile. “Go. I want to be wherever you’re taking me an hour ago.” He turned to the class. “Class dismissed. Go home, I’ll contact you when class resumes.” —*~*~*— Nearly ten years later, Applejack stalked behind an ogre as the lumbering beast walked at the back of a mass of goblins. She shot a look to her left, catching a nod from Mac. She looked right, seeing Bloom’s thumbs up. Setting her jaw, she got into position right behind the big one. She shouted, “Hey you big lug, look behind you!” The ogre spun around with a dumb expression on its face. Seeing the young woman standing, alone, it bellowed in rage, “Get ‘er!” The near-dozen goblins around it were more than happy to acquiesce to its request. They emitted chittering giggles as they charged the leather-clad woman. She stood there calmly as the goblins closed in. One of the goblins swung a sword at her midsection. She made no move to stop it as it closed in. Right as it was about to contact, she vanished in a flash of smoke. The goblin looked at its sword, before giving out a half-confused cheer, “Yay?” There was another puff of smoke above the ogre, and Applejack dropped in with her full weight behind the point of her sword. The poor dumb beast didn’t stand a chance as the sharp blade parted bone as easily as flesh and buried itself into its grey matter. It didn’t make any noise as it fell, and there was another flash before it hit the ground. The goblins turned around to see their leader dead with a sword in its head, and no assailant to be seen. Suddenly, there was the sound of a blade parting flesh. The goblins jumped, looking back at where the sound came from. Applejack walked past the now-dead body of a goblin, pulling her dagger out of its neck as she passed. The creatures rushed her. She quickly buried the dagger in her hand into the eye of one of the front goblins, easily dodging the clumsy swings of the miniscule beasts. One charged her, attempting to skewer her with a spear, but she grabbed the weapon, disarming it, and with a spin buried it into the back of the offending beast. She ducked under the two-handed swing of one goblin, smacking it with the the hilt of another dagger. With a grunt, she buried the dagger into the chest of her opponent. She spun in time to catch three running at her from behind. Bringing her hands to her thighs, she grabbed two throwing daggers. Each was buried into the chest of one of the side goblins, while the third one hefted a large mace. She managed to catch the mace’s shaft with her left forearm, earning a nice thunk as the wood hit the metal-reinforced bracer. As she grabbed the hand that held the mace, she jabbed her right hand up, driving a dagger into the belly of the beast. She kept the momentum of her arm moving, using the mace-holding hand as a fulcrum of sorts to flip the beast over her. While the creature was prone, she dropped to a knee, using the extra downwards momentum that gave her to drive the dagger deep into the goblin’s brain. She spun around, catching the remaining three goblins running away. She grabbed a throwing knife before she brought her fingers up to her mouth and gave a loud whistle. From seemingly nowhere, two throwing knives joined in her throw, ending with three knives burying themselves in the backs of the fleeing creatures. The young woman walked up to the center goblin, pulling her knife out of its back and burying it into its skull. The other two goblins tried to crawl away, but a large form picked them both up and smashed their heads together, shattering their skulls and spines. The corpses and gore vanished as the clearing they were fighting in faded into a large room with no windows and a single doorway. Shadowstep walked in through the door, clapping slowly. “I’m impressed with you three. Nice plan, Bloom. As always.” The shy girl shrank into herself, blushing. “It weren’t nothing.” The instructor turned to Mac. “Beautiful job at managing to talk in monosyllabic sentences and still get the job done. As always.” Mac nodded, adjusting the wide-brimmed stetson on his head. “And Applejack, dare I say it? Another perfect execution.” He gave her a nod. “There was a bit of arrogance and more than a bit of danger in that opening move, but the confusion it caused, making the goblin think his weapon was enchanted without his knowledge, was marvelous. I may have to teach that in future years.” He handed her a well worn stetson. “As per our bet, here’s your hat back. Try not to lose it this time.” He regarded the three as a whole. “You’re ready for a graduation exercise. “ Applejack nodded, placing the hat back over her tied back ponytail. “Yer darn right we’re ready for a graduation exercise.” “Confident as always, I see. Be careful that doesn’t turn to arrogance.” His face suddenly got very serious. “This will test all your strengths, and if you mess up, there are no second chances.” The three looked at him in confusion. “You’re doing a field test.” Applejack pumped her fist in excitement, “ ‘Bout time!” “Hold on the excitement. This mission is commissioned by the Headmaster of the Order of Light,” Shadowstep said, holding up a hand. “We’re doin’ spyin’ for a paladin order?” Applejack asked, cocking an eyebrow. “You’re spying on one of their members,” the instructor corrected. “What do you know about Pinkie?” Bloom spoke up, “She’s nineteen years old, having spent nearly ten years with the Order in their monastery training t’ become a paladin. She’s the only survivor of the Dark One’s attack on Everfree near a decade ago, which was the main reason for her decision to join the Order.” He nodded, “She’s doing her own graduation exercise over the next few weeks. The Order are sending paladins to patrol the border of the Griffon Empire to look for signs of the Dark One.” He paused, seeing the looks of distaste on the siblings faces. “It must be done. You are to befriend Pinkie and determine if she is a threat to their mission were the Dark One truly be there. “Let me be clear, there are to be no true feelings of camaraderie to color your opinion of her. You are to be a neutral party in her judgement.” “We’re supposed to pretend t’ be her friend without actually doin’ it?” Applejack exclaimed. “I don’t like it any more than you do, believe me, but it must be done,” Shadowstep sighed. “Also, the paladins are not to know that you’re EIA.” “So let me get this straight,” Applejack said, voice rising. “We’re supposed to lie to a bunch of Order paladins, the same guys who are keeping us from dying an early death, then get all buddy buddy with one of the junior members while not givin’ two shits about ‘er? Is that what yer tellin’ me?” “Jack,” Mac said softly. Applejack sighed, deflating. “Ah don’t like it. Ah don’t. Not one bit. ” “None of us like it, Applejack,” Shadowstep sighed. “I always hate these missions, but they need to be done. How would you feel if she was truly a danger to herself, and charged the second she saw a corrupted? What if that became a danger to those around her? What if her negligence caused all kinds of problems for the other paladins?” “Ah don’t like it,” Applejack mumbled. “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like for the good of those around us,” Shadowstep said. “You have your mission. Get to it.” As he was leaving, Applejack called out to him, making him turn around, “Why us?” “The Headmaster wanted someone that wasn’t a full EIA member so that there was no chance that any of his paladins would know you.” Applejack nodded. “Alright. Ah’ll do it.” Shadowstep smiled, but she continued, raising a finger, “But if ah deem her not a threat, ah’ll feel no guilt being her friend. Damn the mission details.” “And I’d expect nothing less from you, Applejack. You guys are going in under the guise of extra protection for one some healer they are bringing along in case Pinkie does end up causing damage. They want you there yesterday, so you have full permission to use the school’s horses.” The instructor nodded at the trio. “Get your stuff. When you get to the door, I’ll give you the map of the healer’s route. You’re to join her and the bodyguard her father supplied on the way.” —*~*~*— Applejack was adjusting the saddle on her horse to make sure it fit properly when he approached her. She looked up to see Shadowstep making sure they were unseen. He pulled a necklace from under his robes. It was gold, with three gems, one orange and two green, forming the shape of an apple and its leaves. He held the necklace out to her, “I’ll be frank. I don’t know what’s telling me to give this to you. It should be in the vault with the other enchanted and infamous items the school has gathered.” He looked at the necklace dangling from his hand. “However, something is telling me that you need to take this with you, and I think it’s the necklace.” Applejack took the necklace, but felt no such feelings coming from the object. She cocked an eyebrow at him, and he just smiled. “One last lesson, permanent magic items have personality. Some don’t like to back down from a challenge, some just like to make bad puns, but some, like the one in your hand, have full personalities. It wants to be with you right now.” “Ah don’t feel anything,” Applejack scoffed. He held out his hand. “Then give it back.” She shrugged and started handing him the necklace, before she pulled it to her chest. “No.” “Why not?” he asked. “It don’t feel right,” she said absentmindedly, before her eyes widened. “Oh.” He nodded, “It’s not malicious, I can promise you that. Something big is going to happen by the borders of the Empire. I would bet my life on it. Make sure to come back and tell me all about it, alright?” She smiled, “Of course. I’ll try not to die, just for you.” He smiled back, “Take care of yourself, Applejack.” She held a hand up, “Just Jack to my friends, Jackie if yer lucky, or ‘bout to be.” Shadowstep laughed at that. “Alright then, Jack. I think I’m a little too old to be calling you ‘Jackie’ in that case then.” She laughed, hopping up on the horse. “Yeah. See you when I get back, Shadowstep. C’mon, ya’ll! We got a healer to protect.”