“Fine! But we’re going to talk about this later!”
I backed into a watching crowd of ponies, doing my best to melt into the background. Maybe the sunglasses worked against that, but under no circumstances could I allow that bugbear to recognize me. Fortunately, its attention at the moment was quite focused on the Element Bearers.
My eyes glanced back at the window I just exited. Lyra chose that moment to slam the window shut. I’m so sorry, Lyra. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.
“I need my ring today, no matter the cost!” said Cranky, only a few feet behind me. “As long as it doesn’t cost any extra.”
I almost snorted in disbelief. Maybe—just maybe—there were more important things to worry about?
Yet was it really that unbelievable? Monsters attacking Ponyville had become surprisingly common in recent years. Without exception, each had been defeated in turn, consequence-free. Ponies had become blasé. The only reason Pinkie Pie wasn’t throwing a watch-a-monster-be-defeated party was because she was too busy trying to defeat one herself.
Twilight aimed her horn and blasted the bugbear, slamming it into the ground. She only succeeded in annoying it. Didn’t matter she was a freaking alicorn and the Element of Magic.
Applejack quickly lassoed it. That had about as much effect. Didn’t stop the ponies around me from oohing and aahing. Rainbow Dash bucked it as it broke free of the rope, barely knocking it off-balance. After a few more blows and blasts, the bugbear flew off to a different part of town. The Element Bearers lost no time giving chase.
The action having gone elsewhere, the crowd around me slowly dispersed, everypony returning to their lives in progress. I looked back at the Town Hall. Inside, without me, Lyra would be setting up the ballroom for Cranky and Mathilda’s wedding. Tempting as it was to go back, until that monster was dealt with I had to stay away. It was here for me and I couldn’t lead it back to Lyra.
I started walking in no particular direction. Where didn’t matter, so long as it was away from that bugbear and away from my very best friend.
The battle was out of sight, but not out of hearing. Something crashed into a building. Nopony really paid it any attention. Of course the princess and her friends would prevail. As absurdly overpowered as these monsters could be, they always lost in the end. Even I had managed to capture that bugbear. If only I had my highly classified anti-monster gear…
But my help was not wanted. Princess Celestia had made that quite clear when she shut down The Agency. As embarrassing as it was when that bugbear had escaped from Tartarus, all of us thought she had absurdly overreacted in shutting us down. In hindsight, maybe not; ever since, the monsters had been dealt with just fine without us—even parasprites.
I found myself standing in front of my closed candy store. Somehow I had wandered back to our home. Real smart. At least the bugbear was far away and quite occupied. I stared at the shelves full of candy, what had been my life for the past few years.
I knew what I had to do. Not wasting any more time, I went inside and headed for the stairs in the back. I would leave town for a few days, until I was sure the danger had passed.
After a quick gallop up the stairs, I trotted towards the kitchen to leave a note for Lyra. My sudden departure would only upset her further, but that was far better than the possible alternative.
Halfway across the living room… it was like I was trying to move through water, water that was quickly turning into molasses then concrete.
What the…
I couldn’t move any of my legs. I was stuck there. Not even my full earth pony strength would break them free. At least I could breath and move my head.
My training asserted itself. This was a magical attack. On the same day the bugbear turned up. Fat chance it was a coincidence.
First step was to identify the source of the attack. A quick scan around me revealed no others. I looked up… “Bingo,” I muttered.
On the ceiling was a large circle of glowing green gemstones, and inside that circle were numerous, complex and alien runes, of a type I had never seen before.
The runes now began to glow an unpleasant visceral violet.
“Oh crap.”
Obviously, it was the gems that were holding me. What did those runes do? Like it or not, I was about to find out.
Desperately, I looked around for my attackers. Somepony was powering those spells. They had to be close by. I had no idea what I’d do to stop them if I found them, but one step at a time.
Yet I was alone, as far as I could tell.
The runes grew steadily brighter.
Who’s powering them? What could possibly be their connection to the bugbear?
The room about me began to waver, like ripples across the fabric of reality.
There was only one bright spot in all this: if they, whoever “they” were, had wanted me dead, there were much easier ways to go about it. They wanted me alive, and there had to be a reason for that. It was only a matter of time before I discovered what that reason was and somehow used it against them.
Everything around me was fading to gray, as swirling waves washed color, brightness and darkness away. It was becoming hard to maintain my focus. Reality was dissolving around me, and with it my ability to function.
A disembodied glowing horn, suspended in the air in front of me, came into being. Is that what’s powering the spells? Unlike everything else, its reality was solidifying. But why just a horn?
I tried to speak, but couldn’t. Probably wouldn’t have made a difference anyway.
A body seemingly sprouted from the horn. It was difficult, at first, to make out what it was. Certainly a quadruped, somewhat smaller than the average pony, but it didn’t appear to be a unicorn. Yet what else could it be? I had to be seeing things. I was struggling to stay conscious as it was.
My presumed attacker became increasing real as everything else faded to gray. I fought to hold on, until I could make out what it was.
I thought I succeeded.
Or maybe it was an hallucination.
Which would be the bigger joke, I didn’t know.
I could have sworn it was an oversized, unicorn rabbit.
A hoof shook me awake.
“What are you doing on the floor?” a familiar voice demanded.
I scrambled to my hooves and hurriedly scanned my surroundings.
An angry mint green unicorn glared at me.
“L-Lyra?”
“Where have you been for the past two days?”
Two days?
I gave the room another look. Everything was as it should be.
Wait. I can move.
I looked up. The circle of gemstones and the runes inscribed within them were gone, as if they had never been there.
Did any of that happen? Maybe it was just a bad dream. I must have left town as intended, and Lyra was reacting to the note I left her.
One small problem…
Why can’t I remember any of that?
“Bon Bon, you’re scaring me.”
I returned my gaze to my best friend. “I-I’m sorry… I thought it was best for me to leave town until the bugbear was returned to Tartarus, like I explained in the note I left you.”
She looked at me like I was crazy. “What are you talking about?”
I had left her a note, right? I couldn’t remember writing one, or leaving town for that matter, but even so… “You do remember what I told you about the bugbear, at the Town Hall, right?”
Lyra backed up a step. “Now you’re really scaring me.”
I looked up again at the ceiling. What if it hadn’t been a dream?
Once more I looked at the worried unicorn. “Can you at least tell me they got the bugbear?”
“What bugbear?!” she shouted. “You were never at the Town Hall. You went missing the previous day. I had to do all the decorations by myself. You even skipped the wedding! And now I find you sleeping on the living room floor? When did you get home?”
None of it made any sense. I had no answer for that last question, at least an answer Lyra would accept.
The unicorn carefully stepped forward and put a hoof on my withers. “M-Maybe you should go to the Ponyville Hospital.”
“Yeah…” I needed help, all right, but not that kind of help. Probably. I hoped. But it was as good an excuse as any to end this painfully awkward conversation. “I’ll go right now.”
A lavender glow slowly swept me from head to tail and back again, then dissipated.
“You can get up now.”
I did so, glad to be off the hard, crystalline floor, and stoically awaited the verdict.
“I can’t sense anything out of the ordinary,” Twilight said. “It would help if you were less… mysterious about your concern.”
My luck had not changed for the better. I had been trying to say as little as possible, trying to avoid a repeat of my earlier conversation with Lyra.
I headed over to a table where I had previously spotted paper and quill. Taking quill to mouth, I drew a few of the runes I had seen. I doubted I could ever forget them.
As soon as I put the quill down, the sheet of paper levitated over to the alicorn. “Do any of them look familiar?” I asked.
“I… can’t say that they do.” The sheet floated to the side as she looked at me. “What do they do?”
“I was rather hoping you could tell me.”
The princess gave me a considered look, then walked towards a particular shelf in her library, my drawing of the runes floating beside her. I followed her.
“You can trust me, you know. Obviously you think these runes have done something to you.”
She had me there. But if a princess decided I was crazy, it was game over.
Not waiting for a response, Twilight pulled down a thick and dusty tome and began flipping through its pages.
I decided to risk it. “Has the bugbear been spotted around here recently?”
The book dropped a foot before she recovered. Jerking her head in my direction, she demanded, “How do you know about that?”
I wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t seen you battling the monster with my own eyes. They had done a good job of keeping it under wraps until then. There was only one possible conclusion: because I “disappeared” two days ago, the bugbear never came into Ponyville and the battle never took place. Quite simply, history changed.
Regardless, I now had her attention. The risk of being declared crazy was greatly reduced. “Do you know I was the one who captured it several years ago?”
She barked a skeptical laugh. “No offense, Bon Bon, but making candy and capturing a bugbear are two very different skill sets.”
So she didn’t know, which might mean she wasn’t authorized to know, and I could get into serious trouble by telling her. But then, that all happened before her ascension and coronation, and perhaps the subject had simply never since come up.
I considered snarking that those two skill sets were not mutually exclusive.
Buck it. Pissing off Princess Celestia could well be the least of my problems, and Twilight’s the only one who could help me.
“Princess Celestia will confirm it.”
I hope. There was no turning back now.
Twilight grabbed another sheet of paper and a quill from the distant table.
“I must warn you: this is an extremely sensitive subject. Consider that even you have not been informed.”
The summoned objects had arrived, patiently floating in front of the alicorn. “Princess Celestia has complete trust in me,” she insisted. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation as to why I haven’t been told—if what you’re claiming is true.”
I had to admit she was probably right. For my sake I certainly hoped so.
“Inform Her Royal Highness that Special Agent Sweetie Drops requests permission to tell you what you need to know.” I knew, of course, that she would immediately summon Spike to send the message.
She looked askance at me. “Sweetie Drops?”
“That’s my real name,” I simply said.
With a determined sigh, she wrote the message to her mentor. More words were written than what I had given her. Many more. Finally, she rolled it up and slapped a seal on it that had come from who knew where.
“SPIKE!”
“Coming!”
He must have been in a nearby room. It wasn’t long before the baby dragon was by our sides. Twilight floated the scroll over to him. A quick burst of green flame and it was on its way.
“We’ll continue this conversation after I get my response,” she declared, and returned her attention to that book.
Fair enough, I supposed.
That response took its sweet time coming, giving me plenty of time to torture myself with worst case scenarios. I did my best to take my mind off it, wandering about the library. I even found a book on the history of candy, going back a thousand years. Even that failed to capture my full attention.
Leaving was not an option; Twilight saw to that. The door to the library was closed and magically sealed.
It was a full half-hour before Spike burped up the reply. Twilight lost no time unrolling it. She read it, then read it again. Finally, she asked, “What’s your code name?”
Relief flooded over me. “Ginger Tartare.”
Twilight next addressed her number one assistant. “I’m sorry, Spike, but we need to be alone. We’ll be in the throne room if something important comes up.”
“No problem,” he replied.
Next thing I knew, I was in the aforementioned throne room, struggling to stay upright. Teleportation was disconcerting enough when it was anticipated. Twilight set down the book and my drawing of the runes, and closed the doors. A few spells later and we had assured privacy.
She sat on her throne before speaking. “Princess Celestia has granted your request. She expects a full explanation from you, personally, but that can wait.”
I nodded. Can’t say I was surprised.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning.”
So I did, starting with how I had originally captured the bugbear. How its escape from Tartarus convinced Celestia to shutdown the super-secret anti-monster agency I had worked for and destroy all evidence it had ever existed. That I had been living under an assumed identity ever since, praying that the bugbear never found me.
Until it did. I concluded with the events of that fateful day.
The silence was deafening.
“So you saw me and my friends fighting the bugbear,” she finally said. “In this… alternate timeline that may or may not still exist.”
Does it still exist? That wasn’t something I had considered. Did it matter? Anyway, I nodded.
“And we weren’t winning.”
“The battle seemed evenly matched,” I admitted. “What I saw of it, anyway.”
That gave her pause.
“Now that you’re here again, do you think the bugbear will come after you, putting Ponyville in danger once more?”
That was the million bit question, wasn’t it?
“I… can’t rule that out, but I suspect the whole bugbear thing was just a diversion. Perhaps it has served its purpose.”
“Which brings us back to those runes.” Twilight turned her gaze to the drawing, but did not retrieve them. “I couldn’t find anything about them.”
Not what I wanted to hear.
“I’ll have to do some research in the Canterlot Archives.” She returned her gaze to me. “I think it is best that you stay in my castle until at least tomorrow. That way I can hide you from the bugbear, keeping it out of Ponyville, and, quite honestly, to keep an eye on you to see what other effects there might be from those runes.”
I didn’t want to hear that either. “I know she can’t be told much, but could you let Lyra know that I didn’t disappear again?”
A smile graced her face, the first in a long while. “Of course.”
“One more thing…” I hesitantly began.
Did I really want to mention that? I could have been hallucinating. I probably was. I was barely hanging on at the time.
But what if I wasn’t. Twilight’s smile had faded as she waited for me to continue. I sighed. Why hold back now.
“Right before I lost consciousness, I saw… something.”
Her silence was encouraging me to continue.
“It was…” I gulped. “an oversized rabbit with a unicorn-like horn. I think it was powering the spell.”
Please tell me you know of such a thing.
But she didn’t. Twilight looked at me as if she expected a “gotcha!” from me. When it didn’t come, she exhaled, saying, “I suppose we have to consider every possibility.”
She walked to the door, lost in her thoughts. It opened before her. “I’ll show you the guest room you’ll be staying in.”
The morning light poured in through the crystalline window that was set in the crystalline wall. Just about everything in the guest room was crystalline—but not the bedsheets, fortunately, and very fine sheets they were too. I pulled them back, got out of the bed and onto the crystalline floor.
I’d been half afraid I’d be up all night. Twilight could not uncover anything about those runes in her personal library, and she hadn’t had the opportunity to go to Canterlot. She did run more tests on me, a few quite invasive, and also ran other tests in my home—what she had told Lyra, I hadn’t a clue—but all to no avail. Hopefully, she’d visit the Archives today.
Perhaps it was even safe enough for Lyra to visit me here, for the bugbear had stayed out of town. I really was hidden from it in this castle. As far as anypony knew—the few who knew anything at all, that is—it was deep in the Everfree Forest, biding its time. It had been one of the factors keeping Twilight in Ponyville, unfortunately.
Nevertheless, I had fallen without trouble into a deep sleep, a sleep so deep that I couldn’t even remember dreaming.
Once I had made myself presentable and taken care of other business, I left the room. Breakfast would be served in the kitchen. As I turned a corner, the smell of hay and daffodil omelets made my mouth water.
I found both of them inside the kitchen, Spike doing the cooking and Twilight doing the reading. At the sound of my approaching hooves, Twilight looked up from one of several open books.
Her eyes went wide, as if seeing a ghost. “Bon Bon?!”
That… could not have been a good sign.
“Where have you been for the last four days?”