//------------------------------// // Just Call Him Agent G // Story: Gummy the Gator // by Maxes Altho //------------------------------// Tik…tik…tik…tik…BRRRRRIIIINNNNNGGG! CUCKOO! CUCKOO! CUCKOO! AAA! AAA! AAA! AAA! WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! A dozen alarm clocks blare, shattering the morning calm. Inside the (thankfully) soundproofed room above Sugarcube Corner, a familiar pink frizzy-haired pony leaps out of her bed, zipping around and shutting the alarms off one by one. Smashing her hoof down on the last button, she breathes a sigh of relief. “Wow, that must be a new record for me. Now, let’s see about-” Ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding-a- Another alarm rings through the room, muffled. Pinkie looks around in confusion before settling on- “Gummy! That’s not a chewy toy! C’mere, let mommy get that out of there.” Reaching into the alligator’s toothless maw, she dislodges the old fashioned wind-up clock. Glancing at it, she gives an elongated gasp, levitating several feet into the air. “I’M LATE! I have to open the store right now! SorryGummyI’llplaylaterthanksbye!” And just like that, the room is quiet once more as Pinkie all but teleports to the lower floor. Seeing nothing of interest, the wall-eyed gator prattles about the room for a time, stumbling over discarded party hats, streamer piles, and in-progress party cannon repairs. Eventually, though, Gummy comes to the conclusion his owner is not coming back any time soon. His eyes gain a steely glint, and he straightens, standing on his back claws. Moving to the toy chest, he rummages around, eventually coming back up with a small brown fedora. Planting it on his head, he reaches back into the chest, retrieving a small party popper. Aiming it at a wrench near his owner’s party cannon repair shop, he fires, hitting the wrench dead on, causing it to fall on an obscurely placed switch. With a hiss, a hidden floor panel beneath the reptile flips, launching Gummy several feet into the air and forward. Another panel slides back, revealing a small hole. Gummy falls into the hole and the panel closes, leaving no trace the alligator was ever there. The tube he falls down takes him behind a one-way wall, allowing him to see where his owner is. Currently, she is at a table in the shop, along with the purple unicorn and the yellow Pegasus Gummy really likes. The Pegasus has three small bugs on the table and Pinkie is making a disgusted face at them. With a small smile, Gummy drops the rest of the way down the tube and into a large open room. Around the room are various gadgets and equipment, all sized to fit the small gator, and all of it alligator themed. He lands in a small red chair facing a large flat crystal. The crystal hums with energy, and it powers up, working as a crystalline display. An image appears of a brown coated stallion with a neatly trimmed gray mane and moustache. “Ah, good morning, Agent G. It seems the nefarious Professor Pansy is up to his old tricks. For reasons unknown to us he has been seen moving machinery of some sort in and out of White Tail Woods.” Several images appear alongside the stallion, showing a skinny black-maned Earth pony stallion moving something large into a forest, and one picture of him waving towards the picture-taker. “I want you to get over there right away, find out what he’s doing, and put a stop to it. As always, Agent G, it is important that your cover identity as a mindless domestic pet remains intact. Now, get out there. We’re all counting on you.” With a salute, Agent G pulls a lever fixed to the side of the chair and it tilts backwards, sending him down another tube and into an alligator themed flying vehicle. Grabbing the controls in his little claws, he shoots off down the long stone tunnel. As he flies, a small display lights up, showing his superior officer again. “Agent G, for this mission we have supplied you with a new, state of the art IDOWCA issued Watch, outfitted with every possible gadget an Agent should ever need.” A small panel slides back next to the display and an equally small watch rises up. Agent G takes it, slipping it onto his wrist. “There was even supposed to be a button to play a secret agent theme song, but the unpaid intern mixed up the tapes, and it’s stuck on a polka number. Good Luck.” The display powers off. Agent G pulls back on the controls, moving straight up another shaft. Aboveground, the roof of an oblivious pony’s house is pulled back on a hinge, allowing Agent G to exit into the open air. He curves his vehicle expertly through the air, angling himself towards White Tail Woods. However, he spots his owner down below, and pulls his fedora down to cover his face. She seems to be yelling something about needing a tuba. Chalking it up to his owner’s randomness, he flies off to confront his foe. Several minutes later, Agent G touches down just outside of a large clearing holding a large something under a tarp. Peeking out from behind a tree, he spots none other than Professor Pansy. He leaps out from behind the tree, claws balled into fists. “Ah, Gummy the Gator, how unexpected. And, of course, by unexpected I mean completely expected!” Reaching into his lab coat, the stallion pulls out a remote and presses the button. Immediately, a pair of mechanical arms drops out of the tree, grabbing Agent G and sticking him to the trunk. He attempts to pull himself off, but finds he is stuck fast. “Do you like it? I call it the Tree Sap Trap, since everypony knows the stickiest thing in the world is tree sap.” Agent G just blinks, his lips pulled into a snarl. With a smile, Pansy strikes a pose. “Backstory time! “You see, Gummy the Gator, when I was but a young colt back in Hooflstien, my parents were very stingy. I would always get my father's clothes as hand-me-downs, but given my, hehe, lack of muscle, they never fit. Except for one white shirt my mother called a 'lab coat'. I wore it all the time with pride. "Then one day my sister and I were in the market. I had saved up a year's worth of allowance to purchase something. My sister used her money to buy ice cream, and when she turned around, she inexplicably slipped on a wayward banana peel! She fell, and the ice cream landed on me, completely ruining my lab coat! It was on that day I swore revenge; I went to the Revenge stall and even had it notarized. "Today, I learned my sister, the honorable Mayor Mare," he spits out the name, "is going to be at the grand opening of a new ice cream parlor down in Ponyville. So, I am going to use this," he pulls on the tarp, revealing a large laser-like contraption, "the Meltinate-Inator! Able to melt anything with the concentrated power of the sun!" He rubs his hooves together evilly. "I will use it to melt the wall holding back the Chasm of Endless Ice Cream, thereby flooding Ponyville in the wettest, stickiest flood of all time! My sister will be disgraced, and I, Persnickety Pansy, will become Grand Mayor of all of Ponyville! What do you say about that, Gummy the Gator?" Agent G just blinks. Pansy hope up and down with glee. "Ha! My plan is so brilliant, it has rendered you speechless! Now, the Meltinate-Inator just has to absorb enough energy from the sun to power its melting beam." He turns to a small dial on the side of the machine. "Any minute now." Ten minutes later... "Any second now..." One hour later... "Any time now..." Several hours later... Professor Pansy paws at the ground, yawning. "Man, this is taking a while. Do you want a snack, Gummy the Gator?" Receiving a nod, Pansy presses the button on the remote, releasing Gummy from the Tree Sap Trap. Pansy produces a basket, and the two enjoy a few snacks while the machine keeps trying to power up. Sighing, Pansy looks up. "Dang it! The sun is going down, and the Meltinate-Inator isn't charged yet! What do you say, Gummy the Gator, same time tomorrow?" With another nod, Agent G retreats to his vehicle, heading back to his owner. The next day... "Ah, Gummy the Gator, how unsurprising. And by unsurprising, of course, I mean completely surprising!" With his foe secured (again) to the Tree Sap Trap, Pansy paces back and forth. "Turns out there is a change of plans. Princess Celestia is visiting Ponyville today. Well, that’s the only thing that has changed. The plan is basically the same. Melt the dam, flood Ponyville, become Grand Mayor. Oh! I even figured out what was wrong with the Meltinate-Inator!” He prances over to a small metallic sheet. “I forgot to plug the solar panel in!” He sticks a small plug connected to the Meltinate-Inator to the panel. Almost immediately, the machine dings. “Perfect.” Professor Pansy hovers one hoof over a large red button. “Now, Ponyville, prepare for the worst ice cream headache of all time!” Just as his hoof lands on the button, a large, chittering, buggy, multicolored ball rolls into the clearing, knocking the Meltinate-Inator askew. The machine fires, melting the Tree Sap Trap and freeing Agent G. The reptile immediately leaps at Professor Pansy, fist first. “Wow. Wait, were those para-” POW! With a resounding smack, Agent G’s fist connects with Pansy’s muzzle, knocking the stallion out cold. With a nod, Agent G begins walking back to his hovercraft. Suddenly, his wristwatch begins vibrating. Tapping the face with a claw brings up an image of Agent G’s superior officer. “Agent G, I have grave news. An unstoppable ball of parasprites has been sighted rolling straight towards the Chasm of Endless Ice Cream dam! If nothing is done, the wall will break, potentially flooding all of Equestria in a cold, delicious mess! You must do something to stop it!” Grimacing, Agent G dashes back to his hovercraft, swiping Professor Pansy’s solar panel on the way. Taking flight, Gummy jets straight for the dam. Upon reaching the dam, Agent G realizes he is too late. The parasprites are slowly drifting into the air from the point of impact, large cracks lancing up the wall from the base. With a resounding thunder, a part of the dam gives way, crashing to the ground and widening the cracks with the impact tremor. Another chunk falls, and that proved to be the final straw for the wall. It gives way completely, endless miles of ice cream pouring out of the massive gap. Thinking fast, Agent G grabs the solar panel and leaps high into the air. He comes down panel first, landing it on the wave of ice cream. He surfs the tide of treat, frantically searching for a way to stem the flood. Then, he remembers his CO’s words. He taps on the watch, and a peppy polka tune blares from the tiny speakers. Parasprites immediately swarm his location, settling anywhere they could and chowing down on the endless feast. So, there Agent G was, surfing a wave from the Chasm of Endless Ice Cream peppered with parasprites, when… “Pinkie, stop. Just stop.” Pinkie looked down at her friends; somehow she had ended up on top of the table while retelling her epic tale of her awesome pet. “But I didn’t get to the best part!” Twilight sighed, blowing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. “Pinkie, what you are proposing is profoundly preposterous! Underground secret lairs, organizations clearly operating outside of the law, hyper intelligent pets, evil doctor ponies? It makes no sense! And you know as well as I do that Mayor Mare is an only child from Manehattan.” “Yeah, and what the hay is an ‘Iwadca’ anyways?” Rainbow asked, folding her hooves in front of her chest. “It’s ‘IDOWCA’, Dashie. It stands for ‘Inter-Dimensional Organization Without a Cool Acronym’. It all started on Earth, with the original OWCA. After a strange incident involving two brothers, their sister, pet, an evil scientist, and a dimension hopper-” “Pinkie, that’s enough. I’ve come to expect crazy from you, but this is far beyond any of that! If nopony else minds, there’s a new shipment of books I need to sort.” With a pinkish flash, Twilight teleports out. Pinkie’s other friends make their own excuses and exit Sugarcube Corner, leaving the pink mare alone. She bounces over to the window, leaning against it with her head on her hooves. She smiles when she spots a small green object flying through the sky. “Go get ‘em, Agent G.”