//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5 
// Story: Watching the Watchers 
// by Ryvaken 
//------------------------------//

	Rainbow resisted the urge to tap her hoof, fidgeting in her chair. She was having lunch with the girls, just like Twilight promised. The regal dining room looked awesome, sure, but she just didn't have the patience to admire Rarity's selection of flowers and tapestries forever.

Especially with actual important stuff they had to talk about. Yeesh, how much time could ponies spend eating, anyway?

"I must say, darling, you do know how to treat your guests," Rarity said as she dabbed her lips with a pristine napkin.

"Y'cin say that again," Applejack agreed with a belch. "That was one heck of a spread, Twi."

Twilight blushed and put her most recent napkin ontop of her others. "Thanks, but it's really Spike and Pinkie that deserve the praise."

Pinkie beamed over the table. "Like Granny Pie said, you can't go wrong if you make sure to stay just below half a lethal dose of sugar."

Fluttershy frowned slightly at her plate. "Um, it didn't taste that sweet, but I might be wrong."

Spike raised a claw. "I may have made some modifications to the recipe."

"My complexion thanks you, Spike," Rarity said.

Rainbow gave up and rapped a hoof on the cloth covered table. "Anyway, now that we're done with the food, Twilight, what are we really doing here?"

Twilight grinned. "I have found a way to map out the Federals' home under Sweet Apple Acres," she declared. "And best of all, you all helped." She scooted her chair back and levitated a large box out from under the table.

"We did?" Pinkie asked. "Hooray! Oblivious helpfulness party time!"

"Maybe later," Twilight said quickly. "I'd like to tell you my plan. It started with Rainbow."

"Which is why we know it's an awesome plan," Rainbow declared, crossing her hooves over her chest and nodding sagely.

"Right," Twilight drawled, holding back a smile. "Rainbow procured some rainbow extract from the rainstorm over Sweet Apple Acres two days ago."

Applejack shook her head. "Twern't no rainbows over th' Acres two days ago, Twi."

"True, but the point is that this," Twilight levitated a clear inkwell filled with rainbow-hued liquid, "is from the same cloud as the rainwater that's been soaking into the ground for two days. According to the principle of identity, they are two parts of a single whole. We can use magic on this rainbow to learn about that rain."

"Well, that's sumptin'," Applejack murmured. "Ah guess. Howzat gonna help?"

Twilight smiled. "By the principle of contagion, the rainwater is now part of the ground."

Rarity frowned. "Darling, you cannot seriously intend to use two links of completely different type. Even if you managed the transfer, the spell itself would simply overwhelm the second link."

Twilight beamed, now well into full lecture mode. "Normally you'd be right," she agreed. "Using any kind of sympathetic resonance is tricky. When a unicorn casts a spell, the parameters of the magic are all definitive. What object to lift, how hard to lift it, its orientation once it is lifted, so on."

"Flying's like that too," Rainbow added. "You gotta provide lift evenly or you'll just tumble tail over pinfeathers." Fluttershy nodded her quiet agreement.

"Ah guess Ah can say the same about applebuckin'. You gotta hit the tree jus' right or them apples ain't gonna land where ya need 'em."

"But with sympathetic magic, you have constraints," Twilight added. "It would be like, like, like pouring a glass of water into a chute instead of directly into the barrel the chute pours into. Once the water's in the chute, you have to hope it goes where you want. And what I'm proposing is like putting the water into a chute that pours into another chute. And the second chute needs the water to flow uphill. And is also made of paper. With holes in it."

"That's a problem?" Pinkie asked.

Twilight was not the only pony to stare blankly at her pink friend and probable demiavatar of all things wacky. She was the first pony to find her voice, though. "For most ponies, Pinkie, yes."

"Huh," Pinkie said flatly. "Weird."

Twilight shook her head and got back on topic. "Moving on. We're going to force the magic to do what we want by using other sympathies in parallel. Connections to the land, to the belonging of the orchard, to the Federals, and to revealing deception."

"I'm lost," Rainbow said, holding up a hoof. "What the hay does all of that mean?"

Twilight produced two more objects. One was a brush, the other was an easel with white canvas. "I asked Granny Smith which tree was the oldest in the orchard, and collected a fallen branch from it. I then asked Applebloom to carve it into this." She held up the brush.

"That explains their latest crusade," Applejack groaned. "Brush makers. They went out an started cuttin' down li'l branches to carve."

"So much tree sap," Rarity murmured in horrified reminiscence.

"Sorry," Twilight winced. "I then made the bristles from Big Mac's tail."

Applejack gaped. "How'd ya git a holda that?" she demanded.

"I admit nothing!" Pinkie shouted. She slammed one hoof on the table and pointed the other at Applejack. "You can't prove anything! You don't have any evidence! I was framed!"

Twilight shook her head. "Moving swiftly along. Rarity provided this canvas, which has the Federals' energy pattern woven into the material."

Applejack tore her eyes from Pinkie, who was now whistling loudly and wearing a trenchcoat and fedora. "So, uh, how's all that gonna tell you about them spies?"

"They won't tell me anything," Twilight answered. "But they should tell you."

"Me?" Applejack asked, throwing a hoof to her chest.

"Yes, you," Twilight said seriously. "This ink with this brush on that canvas by your hoof should be enough to support my spell."

"Oh," Rarity murmured, studying Applejack the same way she might a new design on a catwalk. "Very clever, darling."

"Thanks," Twilight said.

"Still not getting it," Rainbow protested.

"The canvas resonates with the Federals," Twilight explained. "The magic on it will want to hold like to like, so it will hold an image of the Federals' home. The ink resonates with the soil. The magic on it is made to purify and expel what does not belong, so it will push an image of the Federals' home into the canvas. The brush resonates with the Apple family. The magic on it will draw what Applejack wants to see. And Applejack herself is the Element of Honesty." She turned to Applejack. "The spell I want to put on you will guide you to only paint what is true."

Applejack frowned. "What're the risks o' that spell?" she asked.

Twilight waggled a hoof. "Short term, I can't be sure. Long term, nothing. You probably won't be able to stop painting until the picture is done. If something goes wrong, though, I have an easy counterspell ready and tested."

Applejack nodded. "Okay then. I trust ya, Twi'. When do we get this done?"

"The sooner the better," Twilight admitted. "I made sure that each of these foci are pure, but it wouldn't take much to spoil them. The sooner we do this, the less chance they have to get ruined." She grimaced. "And the last 'log' has Ensign Lorien getting curious about my activities. They're apparently keeping a pretty close eye on me. I don't think I can replace any of these without raising their suspicions."

"Right," Applejack said. She got up from the chair and looked at the paintbrush. She pointed a hoof at the cloth around it and looked at Twilight. "So, how'm Ah gonna use that brush if it's wrapped up like that?"

Twilight smiled. "You can unwrap it. The branch that brush came from hasn't been touched by anypony but Apples."

Applejack nodded. "Ah hear ya." she said. "Not sure Ah see how that's important, but yer the brains o' this here scheme."

Twilight swiftly set up the canvas and opened the inkwell. "Now, hold still a moment. After I cast the spell,pick up the brush and paint, well, hopefully you'll figure it out."

"Great," Applejack muttered. "No pressure."

Twilight got up from the table and walked up to Applejack. She bowed her head slightly and put her horn on Applejack's brow. Purple light exploded from her horn, expanding into a multihued aura that shifted to pink and blinding white for about five seconds before suddenly vanishing.

Rainbow, Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy looked out carefully from behind their hooves after the light had faded. Applejack looked slightly dazed. Twilight was down on her knees gasping for air. "Whoa," Rainbow muttered. "That was pretty intense, Twilight."

Rarity pointed a hoof at Applejack. "Darling, your mane!"

Applejack shook her head and looked down. Her hair felt heavy. She could see faded pink and red stripes in her ponytail, and a ghostly image of a massive green ribbon tied to the end, which was far too close to the floor for as long as her mane should be. She blinked and the ribbon faded away, slowly, to reveal the simple red band she always wore, her mane at its proper length and weight. "Huh," she muttered.

"Unexpected," Twilight wheezed, finding her way to her hooves. "Applejack, how do you feel?"

Applejack shrugged. "Not like much o' anything. Different fer sure. Should Ah get to painting now?"

Twilight frowned and nodded. "Yeah, you probably should."

Without a word, Applejack unwrapped the paintbrush and took it in her teeth. Turning from the table she ambled up to the easel and dipped the brush into the inkwell.

Rainbow drifted up to Twilight. "Hey Twi, I know you did your egghead best to make sure this was safe, but are you sure she's really okay?"

Twilight grimaced. "Dash, remember what it felt like when we took down Tirek? After we opened the box?"

Rainbow grinned. "Yeah, that was awesome. It was like I knew exactly what to do. I didn't even have to think about it."

Twilight nodded, still staring at Applejack. "My spell isn't nearly that powerful, but I based it on that feeling. Applejack's in a trance where she, well, doesn't really have a choice but to do what Honesty wants her to."

Rainbow frowned. "This is sounding pretty Smarty Pantsish, Twilight."

Twilight blushed. "Um, maybe. A little. But that's why I made sure to have a foalproof counterspell ready. As long as we're keeping an eye on her, nothing should go wrong."

Applejack's brush soaked up the rainbow ink readily and she put it to the canvas. The magical nature of the paint was instantly obvious as it left a pencil-thin line behind it, quite unlike the wide bristles that pressed against the canvas. Applejack quickly sketched many straight lines with sharp corners. After a minute the lines resolved into shapes.

"Oooo I think it's working," Twilight squealed. She reared up and clapped her hooves together. "I can't wait to see how detailed it gets."

"That's not a normal cave," Fluttershy mumbled. "All those sharp corners and lines."

Applejack's sketch showed a single long corridor that connected three large rooms, one on each end and one in the rough middle. To either side of that corridor were smaller rooms. The middle large room had two branching paths shooting off at right angles which had their own, even smaller rooms. 

Twilight pointed a hoof at the smallest rooms. "Tiny, equally sized rooms on side halls. Dormitory?"

"Perhaps storage," Rarity offered. "That central room could be a dining room."

"Maybe one of each?" Twilight mused. "I'd expect a good sized room for a kitchen, though."

After Applejack finished the outline she started to work on the interior. The rainbow paint flowed and changed color with each pass of the brush, and when Applejack finished with a bit of her painting what was left looked like a blurry photograph, or at least that's what the realistic colors suggested. Applejack went room by room, seemingly at random, to the ongoing commentary of her friends.

"That has to be a bed. I was right," Twilight pointed to the obvious dorms.

"Mmm, more cafeteria than fine dining," Rarity sniffed as the central room filled with small, plain tables and chairs.

"No kitchen?" Pinkie gasped. "How can they bake without a kitchen?" The other side corridor was more sleeping rooms.

"I think those shiny side rooms on each is a private bathroom," Twilight mused. "They're very lucky."

Rarity shuddered. "I will take your word for it, darling. They have a lot to learn about interior decorating. Anything that is not just cut rock is just plain white."

"What about those dark panels?" Twilight asked.

"Windows?" Rainbow snorted. "What could they see underground?"

"That's why I don't think they're windows." Twilight grinned. She had no idea what else they could be, but maybe they'd find out.

Most of the side rooms to the main corridor turned out to be office space, with desks and comfortable chairs in evidence. "But where's the paper?" Twilight asked. "The ink, the quills? The books? How can they do office work without books?"

Others were full of machinery that made no sense to the ponies. Rainbow pointed at one. "That looks like a cloud crucible. What is it doing underground?"

One of the large rooms turned out to be a large, confusing assortment of long metal desks, lots of chairs, more of those not-windows built into nearly every surface, and a single large not-window built into the wall to the left of the corridor.

"What is that?" Rainbow asked. "Egghead central?"

"Observation room," Twilight said quickly. "See the terracing? The steps? The majority of those seats and most of the floorspace has line of sight to that large window. That must be the focus of their observational efforts."

Rarity looked at Twilight. "Darling, they're underground. I know they're spying on Ponyville, but I do not think they're using a window to do it."

"Maybe it's the source of their scrying spell?" Twilight mused. "I'd use a setup like that. And the other not-window things built into those long metal tables are exactly like the ones built into the desks. That room just has to be where they watch us and take notes and scans and studies."

"So I was right," Rainbow deadpanned. "Egghead central."

"Rrrrgh." The ponies turned to Applejack, who was growling at the painting. She was working on the last large room, and it was a catastrophe. Thick rainbow hued paint clung to the canvas. Applejack stabbed it with the brush and rapidly drew hexagonal patterns, spreading more paint and twisting the riot of colors into a new, equally useless riot of colors.

Applejack stared at her work for a moment. Then she threw the brush down and reared up.

"Something's wrong with the spell!" Twilight shouted, throwing up a shield around the canvas just as Applejack spun around and bucked at it. The out of control pony bucked again and again, as singleminded in her rage as she had been in her painting. "She's going berserk! Everypony keep your distance."

"I thought you said it was safe!" Rainbow shouted.

Twilight didn't answer Rainbow. "Rarity, can you pull the canvas out of Applejack's reach?"

Rarity frowned and watched Applejack's crazed kicks for a moment. "I think so, darling. If you drop the shield when I say."

Twilight nodded. "Okay then. Tell me when."

"Very well. Three. Two. One." Rarity's horn flared. "Now!"

In a single smooth motion the shield dropped and Rarity swept the painting up and into the air. Rainbow flew in to grab it, far above Applejack's reach.

With the painting safe and Applejack impotently flailing at the air, Twilight had time to shape her counterspell and fire it. Applejack's trance broke and the mare toppled over, unmoving.

"Applejack!" Fluttershy screamed. She raced to her fallen friend and put her wingtips on her throat and barrel. After a moment Fluttershy sighed in relief. "She's just sleeping," she reported.

Twilight grimaced. "She burned a lot of her magic channeling my spells. Especially in those last few seconds."

"Darling, what just happened?" Rarity asked.

Twilight looked up at the painting and the insane, meaningless streaks of colors in that last room. "I don't know, Rarity. Something about that last room made a...a conflict. The spells wanted to do different things. Applejack was just caught in the middle."

Rainbow gently put the painting back on the easel and hovered in front of it. "So what do we do with this, anyway?"

Twilight scrunched her muzzle. "I was hoping we'd find a library. The transcripts we've made all sound like they're doing some kind of scientific research. They're studying our magic by watching how we use it. They're collaborating with each other and referencing material from...well wherever they come from. They have to have some kind of, of archive in those machines."

"Why does that matter?" Rainbow asked.

"Well, all we've been doing is making guesses about them. If we could get a look at that archive, then we'd know."

Rarity frowned. "What are you planning?" she asked.

Twilight shrugged. "I don't think we can learn much else without getting in there."



Twilight, Rainbow, and Applejack gathered again that evening. Their focus was on a copy of Applejack's painting, enlarged and spread out over the Cutie Map's table. It also had a lot of writing on it.

"Ah don't remember nothin' after you cast that spell, Twi," Applejack grumbled. "You sure I painted this here thing?"

"Well, this is just a copy, I have the original safely sealed so it doesn't get damaged. But yeah, you did this," Twilight affirmed.

Rainbow slapped a hoof on Applejack's back. "And it was cool. Until you went nuts. That was less cool." She turned her attention to Twilight. "So, how are we breaking in to this place?"

Twilight frowned. "There are no obvious entrances," she said. She traced a hoof around the perimeter. "No stairs, no ladders, no tunnels. That leaves teleportation."

"How'd they get in there?" Applejack wondered.

"I think teleportation," Twilight said again. "We know they're capable of high energy magic." She frowned and pointed a hoof at one room, labeled Room A and, below that, Unknown 17. "The recordings tell us this room's name is untranslatable, but from context of that unknown word in the transcripts I think it's an arrival and departure point. Possibly a designated safe area for teleporters."

"Why would they need a whole room just for that?" Rainbow asked.

Twilight flashed back to her own lessons in teleportation. Two textbooks and a five page essay on the logistical difficulties of practical teleportation. She could already hear Dash snoring. Twilight decided to try and invent a shorter answer. "Teleporting is a lot like flying," Twilight said. "You have to pay attention to a lot of things, at the same time, even when you might not exactly exist in the classical sense. If you always teleport to and from the same locations, however, you make it a lot easier."

"But you zap around all the time," Rainbow objected.

Twilight lifted her nose and turned her head with a huff. "I," she said grandly, "am an egghead."

Rainbow snorted a laugh in surprise, shoving two hooves on her muzzle. Applejack chuckled quietly while Twilight managed to hold the pose for another two heartbeats before collapsing into giggles.

After a moment's break Twilight swiped her muzzle with a hoof. "Back on task. I think Room A is some kind of pre-arranged teleportation chamber. Probably using that platform in it, specifically."

Rainbow frowned at the painting. "I thought that was carpet."

"It might be," Twilight admitted. "We're making a lot of guesses here." She was treating Applejack's painting as a true-to-life image of what was really down there, mostly because in the absence of other evidence she had no way of finding, or fixing, any flaws. "Until I get in there and look around, we'll just have to keep in mind we could be wrong about everything."

"Reckon that ain't the best place to pop in," Applejack said. "It'd be like knockin' on somepony's front door and askin' if ya could sneak around for a few minutes."

"Right," Twilight said crisply. "The offices are out, too. With their communication spells, we can't figure out who is in what office when."

"What's their spell do?" Rainbow asked.

"It makes their voice come from multiple places at once," Twilight explained. "One where the person is, one where whoever he's speaking to is. With the gear we have in place, we can't tell the difference." She pointed a hoof at one of the bathrooms in the western dormitory wing. "I'm going to try and arrive there. Lowest possible chance of running into anyone when I teleport in."

"I am still so not cool with you going in alone, Twilight," Rainbow argued.

"Ah'm none too settled with it neither," Applejack added.

Twilight grimaced. "That makes three of us. But what would anypony be able to do to help?" She held up a hoof just as Rainbow opened her mouth. "If I get spotted, I can teleport out of there faster if I'm alone. More ponies means more chances to be spotted and more time casting a teleport spell to get us out. I'm safer going in alone."

Rainbow crossed her hooves and huffed. "Fine," she snapped. "But if you're not back in fifteen minutes, we're coming after you like a pack of diamond dogs after a diamond."

Twilight grinned. "That almost might be worth it to see."

Rainbow snorted and looked away, but didn't hide her smirk.





The tiny metal room flashed with magenta light, and Twilight didn't even dare to breathe. The room was dark, like she'd hoped. Dark and quiet. She sniffed the air quietly. Clean, with some undertones she couldn't even guess at. Her failsafe spells didn't react -- if the air had been fouled she would have instantly been teleported back to her castle.

So. She was in the Federals' home, she hadn't been spotted yet, and she could breathe their air. So far, so good. She looked around in the darkness...

And as soon as she moved her head the lights blazed into full illumination. Twilight scrambled off the strange bowl-shaped chair she was perched over and tried to hide against a wall. She had been found already!?

But the room was empty, and the strange metal panel she guessed was a door was closed. No one could see her. She took a few deep breaths to still her heart. Something had triggered the lights. A motion sensor of some kind? A few of Canterlot's oldest districts used spells like that on streetlamps, to save lamp oil for when it was needed.

If they had such spells active in their home, her movements could be monitored. She decided to speak as little as possible and updated her mental timer. Rainbow wanted her out in fifteen minutes. Twilight planned to end this expedition in five. She would much rather hear them report an unknown intruder in their daily logs than experience whatever they did with such intruders firsthoof.

Feeling the increased pressure of a ticking clock, Twilight looked around the bathroom and catalogued everything. Shower, lacking a water spigot but still obviously a shower assembly. Seat, probably a toilet. She opened the lid and confirmed plumbing inside. She'd used similar sanitation at Canterlot High. Speaking of which, the scale of everything was closer to human than pony. A quadruped big enough to need a door that large could never fit in that shower.

The strange glass panel on one wall was a mystery. It was very high on the wall, far above Twilight's eye level. It showed letters and glowed with its own light and the images and words on it moved. Some kind of computer, then. The Federals had far more advanced technology than Equestria. Again, Twilight was glad to have come alone. Only Spike had her level of expertise with the human devices, and she didn't have time to explain what they were.

Even if most of those explanations would actually be confessions of ignorance.

Using the computers at Canterlot High had been slow, challenging work, and they had at least used Equestrian language. Tampering with the Federation computer built into the wall was sure to get her nowhere and might even trigger a bigger alarm than she had already tripped, so Twilight ignored it. But, that seemed to be the end of the list of things in the bathroom. She walked to the door and flinched when it opened for her with a loud hiss. Fortunately, the room beyond was empty, and she saw the lights flick on as the door opened, inviting her forwards.

Twilight smiled as her expectations of dormitory conditions were confirmed. The single bed was a luxury in its own right, but other than a table and a few chairs, the room had little furniture or space for more. Twilight noted a few paintings hung on the walls, but decided those were mostly to break up the monotony of the walls. Most showed skyscapes of some kind, starry nights and buildings silhouetted against a rising sun, that sort of thing. An obvious response to being forced to live underground.

Having given herself little time to work with, Twilight turned her attention from the expected to the unexpected.

Several wall-mounted computers were moved from the latter category to the former -- if a single room required this many control surfaces they had to be ubiquitous, and unless she risked a translation spell the gibberish on their screens was meaningless. Twilight guessed all the window-panels on Applejack's painting were more computers. 

Another door that doubtless led to the corridor and could easily be triggered by moving closer to it; Twilight dared not risk that. Not this trip.

Shelves of trinkets. Most appeared nonfunctional and decorative, but Twilight didn't bother to examine them. She needed obvious, useful information this trip. Detailed investigation could wait.

A portrait, now that was interesting! Twilight trotted over to the framed picture. Looking out at her was...well she wasn't sure. She immediately thought of humans, but this creature would have been a grossly deformed specimen of the species. It only showed the neck up, but she could already see that the head was either tiny or the neck was massive. His eyes were similarly undersized and dully colored. His mane was not the shortest she had ever seen, but it was thin and lacked the volume of a healthy head of hair.

Twilight shook her head slowly. The Federals were deformed humans. That was a piece to this puzzle, she was sure. She had no idea how, but it was a piece.

Twilight examined the bed and chairs. The basic furnishings were familiar but the materials were beyond her. Rarity might have some answers...but it would be hard to get her a swatch.

That left the table. Twilight wanted to leave in less than a minute, but there was just one stack of objects to go. They were grey and thin, about half the size of a book cover. She picked one up in her magic and discovered, to her amazement, a small, hoof-held computer screen.

Cell phones. Sunset Shimmer had mentioned them. They could access massive amounts of information at a great distance and were supposed to look like this. Twilight stared at the machine in her magic and licked her lips. "If only I could read you," she whispered to the small machine. She winced at the sound of her voice, but no alarms sounded.

She was about to put the "cell" down when the strange Federation language changed on its screen, becoming Equestrian script. Twilight stared, stunned, at a detailed report of observations of Rainbow Dash in flight, provided by...somepony named LARS?

Her time was up. True, nothing was forcing to her to leave except prudence, but that was enough. But now there was a complication. This "cell phone" had reacted to her. Whoever came back for it would know instantly that a pony had tampered with it. She couldn't leave that kind of evidence. But...steal the "cell?" Take it with her? Would it be noticed?

Maybe. But it was the best she had. With a flare of her horn she vanished from the Federation compound. She took the "cell" with her.