MLPs: Agents of Harmony

by Amante

Awakening

The delicate rays of light entered the room and slowly made their way to face of the blonde, peach-toned girl. The moment the light hit her, she knew exactly what time it was: time to get up. She didn’t always live in the inner city, much less a city as fancy as Canterlot. Before she entered high school, she actually grew up in a quaint little hamlet south of the capital, on a farm to be precise. Sweet Apple Acres. It was there that she gained her humble sensitivities and learned to appreciate the virtues of good ol’ fashioned hard work.

As such, it was almost impossible for her to lose the instinct to get up at the crack of dawn. She stood up and gave herself a mighty morning stretch to oil up her joints. She tried vaguely to remember the events of last night but, try as she might, she couldn’t remember much. She decided to think about it later after a cup of coffee. For the moment, she had to get started for the day.

Step one, walk to the door.

Step two, open the door.

Step three, pry the door off its hinges.

She frowned and looked at the dismembered door being casually held aloft by her hand. She gingerly put it back down and took a step backward. The next moment saw her head get thrown back by a mighty smack from the guilty hand. She learned two things from this endeavor: She was not dreaming. She also really underestimated how hard she could slap.

“Okay, not the best idea, Applejack,” she said to herself.

As her other, non-guilty, hand gently rubbed her cheek, a few memories of the night previous surfaced. Twilight Sparkle. Sunset Shimmer. The crown. The demon. The rainbow of light. The talking dog.

Her hand dropped to her side as she stared at the broken door. She built that thing herself so she knew it was not shoddy craftsmanship. Then she considered that it might have something to do with last night. She’d have to contact the other girls to see if anybody else was experiencing anything. But first of all, door or none, she had to wash up for the day.

BEEP BEEP BEEEEP

A pale white hand rose from the silken covers of the bed and reached over for the clock. With a precise push of a button, the alarm was silenced. Violet curls emerged from the covers as the owner of said hair sat up and gave off a dainty yawn and stretched out her right arm. Her outstretched hand lightly tapped the headboard which she had decorated with a glittery decal of her own name. Some of her friends found it amusing she had such decor, but frankly she enjoyed the idea of sleeping underneath the word Rarity.

Her lips began to curl as she remembered the events of the past few days. It was absolutely grand. She had made a wonderful new friend, reconciled with her old ones, showed up to the school dance absolutely fabulous, and even saved the world from an insane classmate. Really, all she needed was meeting her one true love, her prince charming, and it would have played out like one of her favorite stories.

Her smile faltered when she remembered that she may never see Twilight Sparkle ever again. She said she would come visit when the portal opened again, but that would still be years away. She sighed as came to accept this and chose instead to remember the memories they had shared. She reached for her phone on her nightstand to view the photos taken during the dance.

As she closed her hand to hold her phone, she noticed that she had grasped empty air. Looking at the table, she noticed the phone was slightly farther than she thought. She reached a little further to grab the device. It slid away from her hand.

She withdrew herself as her eyes widened. She looked to her empty palm, then to the phone. Slowly, she once again tried to get her, apparently possessed, phone. She managed to make contact with her palm. As she began to close her fingers around it, though, the phone flew off the nightstand and smacked into the wall.

Rarity got some extra sleep that morning.

Pink eyelids suddenly opened revealing two surprised blue eyes. One of the eyebrows above raised itself as the owner of all these features wondered why she suddenly decided to wake up. Her mind began a race with itself to figure out why. Could it have been too much to drink last night? She didn’t feel a need for the little girls’ room. Did the sandman have some vendetta against her? She was certain she hadn’t offended any mystical spirits lately. Maybe she had insomnia? Ha. Perhaps it was the big rainbow from last night’s fight with evil Sunset? She was reasonably sure it was that last one.

Ringing suddenly filled the room as her attention was drawn to her jumping, obnoxious alarm clock. She shut off the little noise maker and cocked her head to the side. She had never beat her alarm clock before. Not even once.

Oh well! There’s a first time for everything, Pinkie Pie, she mentally told herself.

Shrugging off her sudden punctuality, she bounced out of bed and took a deep breath. Her cheeks inflated as she struggled to blow the wind out of her with her mouth closed. Her messy, flat head of curly hair suddenly inflated into a messy, mess of curlier hair. She took a glance at the mirror and gave herself a thumbs up for the day. She merrily skipped out of her room to prepare for the day.

A young yellow girl was ready for the day and descended the stairs, her long pink hair bouncing behind her. The sun wasn’t even up yet. It was something she had already gotten used to. She learned to do this for two reasons: One, it was hard not too considering that if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to see her parents off before they had to show up for work. Two, a number of her animal friends needed to be fed at the crack of dawn. She had to admit, one of the best perks of being the daughter of two high ranking military officers was that they had a huge personal lot; within the secondary wall of Canterlot Castle even.

It was large enough that she was able to use it as an, unofficial, second animal shelter for the city. When she first brought home an injured puppy, her parents had been skeptical, but as she showed both the responsibility and skill necessary, they supported her new ‘hobby’ wholeheartedly.

After greeting her parents and having a light breakfast, she went outside towards the food shed. She grabbed what was necessary and went to the animals that were awake. The first little friend she approached was a particularly yappy terrier she had named Terrence. After giving him his meal, she watched him eat for a moment. Terrence then looked at her and pointed to the water bowl outside his cage. She smiled as she brought the water to rest beside his food. She closed the door and realized something.

Did Terrence just point at the waterbowl?

As she worked through the animals, she noticed some wave as she passed by, others looked like they were smiling at her, and some of the birds produced a sound that was suspiciously close to her name, Fluttershy. Once she was certain that their needs were taken care of, she stepped aside with a blank expression.

Am I dreaming?

The animals, for their part, had apparently taken notice of their caretaker’s discomfort. Those in the cages went as close as they could to Fluttershy, whilst those that she allowed to roam around had crowded around her. She had no idea how to react and so, decided to think about what exactly could have happened. Did something get in the water? Did she hit her head again? Did Rainbow-

DOOT DOOT! DOOT DOOT!

She drew her phone out and saw that Applejack was calling her.

The sun was a fourth of the way across its journey in the sky when an unkempt head of prismatic hair emerged from the prismatic sheets. With eyes still half-lidded the young blue girl smacked her lips and glanced out the window. It was a Saturday so she knew she didn’t have to rush. The prismatically named girl lazily slid out of bed.

She approached the window and took a look outside. It was a quiet mid-morning with almost no one out on the street. Across the street was a lush, green park that had a fairly large playground. She smiled as she saw the kids play and enjoy their youth. She figured she’d follow their example and get out and do something fun. She turned around, closed her eyes, took a breath and took a step towards the door.

She smacked face first into it.

Rainbow rubbed her nose and cursed in frustration. Then she noticed that she had traveled the distance from her window to her door, a good two-and-a-half meters, in one-and-a-half steps. She may not have been the best at numbers, but even she knew that did not add up.

She looked down at her feet and carefully took a step forward. Nothing. She took another step. Again, nothing. She scratched her head in bewilderment. Shrugging, she stepped out of her room and onto the hall. The bathroom was at the end past her parents room, easily seven meters. She took out her phone as she walked and noticed a number of missed calls from her friends. Her face soon became much better acquainted with the texture of the bathroom door.

She glared at the offending slab of wood as she nursed her twice-beat nose. She slammed the door open and stomped inside. Thankfully her parents had left earlier in the morning preventing the need to answer questions like, “What’s wrong dear?” or “Why did you slam the door, Rainbow?”

Her eyes widened as she saw her much bluer nose in the mirror. She sighed as searched for some ointment for it.

Never before had she concentrated so hard. Every twitch of her muscles had to be accounted for. She let out a quick breath as she gently wrapped her fingers around the glistening red fruit.

“You okay, AJ?” said a deep voice behind her.

Applejack nearly jumped out of her skin. Instead, the apple decided to jump out of her hand. On instinct, she reached out and grabbed the fruit- and subsequently got a handful of mashed apples.

She shook her hand to remove some of the squashed produce as she turned to face her older brother, Big Macintosh. His green eyes were wide open as he stared at his little sister’s hand.

“AJ, you been workin’ out?” he asked.

Applejack grinned as she reached for a paper towel wipe off the last of the offending fruit. “He he, I guess ya’ll could say that, Big Mac.”

Her brother raised an inquisitive brow at her sister’s uneasiness.

“Hey, Big Mac, ya’ll remember whut happened last night at the dance?” she said, quickly changing the subject.

“What about?” he said, brow unyielding.

“You know,” Applejack began. “The whole Sunset turnin’ ‘to a fiery demon bent on conquerin’ Equestria?”

The brows leveled out and furrowed. “Eexcuse me?” Big Macintosh asked as his head tilted slightly.

Applejack, for her part, just stood and stared at her big brother. Did he forget? Could it have been the-

“AJ, did Rainbow make you try some weird shrooms again?”

“Wha’?” She shook her head vigorously. “No. Nonono. Ugh. You know, I think I better git goin’. I was supposed to meet them soon anyway.” She quickly made her way around the large guy and briskly walked to the front door. Right before she opened the door she turned and said, “And I never once tried that stuff, Big Mac!”

The brow had returned to being raised as Big Mac approached the door. He heard the sounds of AJ’s pickup startup and drive off. The moment he stepped out, he saw the tail of the truck make a quick left. He was heading to his vehicle when he caught sight of his cousin, Red Gala, approaching.

She was slightly older than Big Mac and, unlike Big mac, had lived in Canterlot most of her life. She had cream skin and rosy red hair. She was also wearing a midnight blue blazer. “Hey, Big Macintosh!” she said as she raised her hand—which was wearing a white glove—for a family high five.

Big Mac smiled in return and high fived his cousin. He approached is car and he… He…

He had no idea what he was going to do. Looking left and right, he realized that he was the only one on the street at that hour. Scratching his head, he shrugged and returned back inside. He really needed to get something to eat. After all, he still had to check out the new machines for the bottling plant.

She did it. Despite the morning’s surprises, she managed to do it. Rarity was prim, proper and ready for the day. She took one last glance the mirror. Satisfied with her coiffure, she checked the time on her phone.

She admitted to herself that, had Applejack not called her earlier, she might still have been in bed. Apparently she was experiencing unnatural super-strength and Fluttershy’s charges began directly communicating with her. She related the story of her burst of telekinesis and, after confirming that things were still flying away from her hand, agreed to meet up at Memorial park on the east side of Canterlot.

At the very least, she had a fairly good assumption as to why this was happening. This was related to the rainbow of light from last night. Did it have some kind of side effect that gave them all superpowers? She had to admit it to herself, the idea itself wasn’t that bad. She descended the stairs and entered her boutique. Her parents had been very supportive when she decided to try her hand in fashion design and even helped her put up her, now successful, dress shop.

As she passed the racks of cloth and several mannequins wearing unfinished designs, she paused and scanned the room. Finally, her eyes found her keys sitting quietly on one of her work tables. She made to get them but stopped herself.

She raised her arm and extended her hand. Her face scrunched in concentration but the keys only went further away and slammed against the wall. Puffing her cheeks, she tried again and the keys came flying towards her. Much faster than she would have liked, though. Dropping to her knees, she heard the distinct sound of something embedding itself into the wall. Sure enough, when she turned her head she saw that her car key was halfway into wall behind her.

Sighing to herself, Rarity stood up and, with much more effort than she would have liked, retrieved her keys and went out the door. The shop would have to be closed today as she had more important matters to look in to. The moment she stepped outside, she was greeted by one fo her more stylish friends, Star Catcher. Her skin was a slight tinge of green, hardly noticeable, and she had long, flowing, green hair. The two smiled at each other.

“Hey, Rarity! Closed today?” she asked.

“I’m afraid so,” said Rarity. “I have a few errands that simply cannot go undone.”

Star nodded in understanding. “I get what you mean.”

Rarity decided to see what her opinion was on last night. “Star, has anything strange happened to you this morning?”

Her friend tilted her head in thought. “Not really. Everything was pretty normal.”

“So nothing else unusual happened after Sunset Shimmer got hit by the big rainbow?”

Star Catcher stared at her. “Rares… Did Rainbow Dash make you try something last night?”

“Pardon?” Rarity was baffled. Suddenly, her eyes widened as she realized another possibility. She really needed to see her friends now. “No she did not. Sorry, I suppose I’m just a bit tuckered out from last night. I really should get going,” she said as she gave a weak laugh to excuse herself.

Star looked to her friend, worried. “Alright, Rares. Drive safe, okay?”

“Of course, darling,” Rarity said before getting into her car.

This was going to be a long day.

For whatever inexplicable reason, Pinkie Pie had the strangest urge to go downstairs, get two baby bottles and go back upstairs. Following her (even more) bizarre urges, she found herself standing in the hall with the bottles. When she heard Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake starting to cry, she entered their room and, like any good (practically) sister, gave them the two bottles.

She was quite perplexed at what just happened and decided to just go back downstairs. She scratched her ear as she approached the back door of the kitchen. Opening it, she found the thin and mustard yellow Mister Cake, owner and proprietor of of Sugarcube Corner, as well as her legal guardian within Canterlot, carrying several bags of groceries.

For a moment, they both stood there and looked at each other in surprise. “Well good morning, Pinkie. What are you doing up so early?” asked Mister Cake.

Pinkie shrugged, “Not really sure.” She grabbed some of the bags and brought them to the counter. “I woke up ahead of my alarm and just couldn’t get back to sleep.”

She held her chin as she thought of everything that had happened that morning. “I really don’t know, Mister Cake,” she replied.

“Anything wrong, Pinkie?” Mister Cake asked.

The two looked at each other with wide eyes once more. “Uh, I think I’m just gonna go lie down for a minute,” Pinkie said as she made her way to the stairs. When she was gone, Mister Cake returned his focus to the groceries. After all, he still had to get the shop ready for the day.

When she entered her room, she immediately locked the door. Her left index finger started twitching. She looked at her phone on the nearby desk. Then her phone started singing. Grabbing it and placing close to her face, she answered the call.

“Hey AJ!” she practically shouted.

A slight groan could be heard on the other line. “Mornin’ Pinkie. Just callin’ to ask if anything weird’s been happening to you lately.”

“Hmmm.” Pinkie’s eyes narrowed as she raised her lower lip in thought. “AJ…”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m psychic,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

“Ya mean you can tell when somethin’s about to happen?”

“Pretty much,” Pinkie said, happily.

“And this has never happened before?” Applejack inquired.

“Just started this morning.”

A sigh was heard on Applejack’s side. She started to explain to Pinkie the events of her morning, as well as her discussion with Rarity and Fluttershy.

Pinkie gasped a great gasp. “AJ! Does that mean we’re becoming superheroes?”

“I- I don’t know, Pinkie. All I know is that we’re all meetin’ at the park on the east side of the city.”

“Memorial Park?”

“Yup,” Applejack said. “Also, could you try callin’ Rainbow. She never picked up my calls and she could very well be goin’ through the same thing we all are.”

“No problemo, AJ! See ya.”

“Bye.”

The call ended and Pinkie could not be more excited. She jumped up and down as she thought of the idea that she and her friends would be… SUPER FRIENDS!

But first, she needed to call her spectral friend.

Rainbow Dash was splayed out on the couch as she aimlessly scanned the channels on the television. Her stomach growled and she went to the kitchen. She noticed a note on top a hard plastic shell. Reading it, it was from her parents saying that they left her breakfast underneath the aforementioned shell. Looking underneath, she found a nice looking sandwich. Grabbing a glass, she poured herself some juice and returned to couch. She was gone and back in ten seconds flat.

Settling on a cornball movie about friendship and magic, she sunk her teeth into the sandwich. Delight washed over her tongue as she chewed. The sandwich was relatively mundane except for the spread which her mother personally made. For her, nothing was tastier. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like if her mom became a professional cook rather than an engineer. Meals would be more awesome, that’s one thing. Although, her dad would probably be a bit lonelier without her at the office.

Halfway through, she found the movie to quite enjoyable. Who knew that talking magic ponies would be so cool? Eventually, though, she realized that she really ought to do something else. Forgetting that her television also had a clock feature, she searched for her phone to check the time. Seeing it nowhere in sight, she realized that she left it in her room. Rainbow dashed up the stairs and back and was about to lie back down when the phone began to buzz as a call came in. Right before she answered it, she noticed that she already had three missed calls from her other friends.

“Hey, Pinks!” she greeted.

“Rainbow! I’m psychic now!” exclaimed her excitable friend.

“Huh?”

“I can tell when certain things are going to happen. As a matter of fact, it’s been happening to me all morning. You know, when I got out of my room, for some reason I had this really big urge to go down and get two baby bottles. So I did and when I got back upstairs, the twins started crying. They were hungry and I knew that before they did! And earlier when-”

Rainbow cut her off. “Pinkie! That’s great and all but do you have any idea why our other friends were calling me earlier?”

“Oh, right! Do you have superpowers? AJ’s got strength, Rarity’s got telekinesis, and Fluttershy can talk to animals now, as in literally talk to animals.”

This piqued Rainbow’s curiosity. After exchanging stories of this mornings events, the two said their farewells. Now she knew what she was going to do today. She was about to grab her keys when she decided to try something else. She went upstairs and put on a runners outfit. She might as well see what her apparent superpower really could do.

As she stepped outside, she once again took notice of the kids playing across the street. She smiled as she dropped down to a starting position. She gave herself a mental countdown.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

To any observers, she was a blur. A passing streak of colors, vaguely in the shape of a person. To her, it was bliss. The speed, the rush, the adrenaline. She zoomed through the streets and lived up to the ‘Dash’ part of her name.

Interestingly enough, even though she was moving at incredible speeds, her senses were still able to pick up and impressive amount of detail. She saw a mother scolding an errant child. An elder reading the entertainment section of a newspaper. She even spotted a couple showing affection on a bench.

What she did not, or perhaps could not, observe as she sped by the world were several people wearing dark blue blazers. She also didn’t see a number of them slap their forehead or groan in annoyance as she passed.

Fluttershy thought back to her conversation with Applejack.

“We’re all going to meet at the east park, okay?”

“Alright.”

“Also, we’re all meeting alone. Got it, Fluttershy?”

Alone. Well that would be a bit problematic. Since her parents were in the air force (and were pretty high up the ladder) and since she was also rather shy, her parents had assigned her a bodyguard, a soldier named Stonefist, to shadow her throughout her day. At first she felt uncomfortable with the idea, but she never said anything because she didn’t want to cause an argument. Eventually, she warmed up to her guardian and felt safe knowing that someone was watching over her. It was also convenient that he acted as her chauffeur.

It did, however, make attending secret meetings troublesome. Usually she’d lose him through the more labyrinthine places in the city before going where she needed, but she always hated doing that. She knew it made his job really difficult and added unnecessary stress to the poor soldier. She really hated being a burden on anybody, but she supposed that this time, it was a necessity.

Once she finished making sure her animals were fed and happy, she got dressed and asked Stone to take her to the Shopping Center. That place was close enough to Memorial Park. When they arrived, she immediately entered the closest shop. She browsed the shirts, blouses and pants on display. When she had gone through everything the shop had to offer, she left and went to the next one. She glanced behind and saw that Stonefist was still there, ever vigilant.

She entered the next store and did the same thing. When she had seen their inventory, she left, checking every once in a while behind her. Luckily there were still plenty of shops to go. She entered the next and found that it was a lingerie shop. Blushing fiercely, she slowly walked back out and rushed to the next store.

After several more clothing shops, a video store, and even an electronics shop, she leaned on an unremarkable spot of wall and looked around. She lost him. Satisfied that she managed to shave her shadow, she proceeded to her real goal. Unbeknownst to her, when she had left, a figure emerged from a corner, not too far from where she was standing. It was Stonefist, but rather than wearing his army casual attire, he was wearing a grey blazer.

The park was three blocks away from the mall. By the time she got there, she saw her four friends sitting on a pair of benches. She sighed inwardly as she realized she was late again. Though, her friends didn’t seem to be bothered as they were all talking excitedly amongst themselves as they motioned for Fluttershy to hurry and join in.

“Hi, girls,” she said as she approached the group.

“Hey, Fluttershy!” greeted Pinkie.

“Good afternoon, darling,” greeted Rarity.

“‘Bout time you got here, Shy,” remarked a smiling Rainbow.

“Hi, Flutters,” greeted Applejack.

“So apparently you can talk to animals?” asked Pinkie, getting straight to the point.

“Um. Well,” Fluttershy began. “It’s not so much talk, as it is I can understand them. Like, if they want something like water or food, they would point to their bowls and give me this look that just reads, ‘I want some, please.’”

“And you are capable of doing this with all your animals?” asked Rarity.

Fluttershy nodded in response.

The four nodded in agreement.

“Well you should have seen Dashie get here!” Pinkie said.

“I must admit, Rainbow, you made quite an entrance,” added Rarity.

Rainbow puffed her chest at the praise.

“Seriously,” Pinkie continued as she started to run in place. “Out of nowhere she came. Swoosh, boom, and then she zoomed around place, then she saw us and came heading straight for us. She was actually going really really fast and Iactuallythoughtshewasgoingtocrashintousbutthenshesloweddownandstoppedperfectlyinfrontofus and basically it was AWESOME!” She jumped into the air at exclamation of the last word.

“Oh my.” Fluttershy squeaked.

“Eh. What can I say? I am awesome,” flaunted Rainbow.

Applejack cleared her throat. “Anyway. Rarity, ya’ll said you had telekinesis?”

It was Rarity’s turn to beam. “Quite, darling! Actually, I think I can demonstrate to you what I mean.”

She took out her keys and dangled the in front of her friends. When she released them, they entered free fall. Halfway through its journey it stopped. Above it, the white hand was spread out, its owner’s face scrunched up as she poured all her focus into what she was doing. Slowly, the set of keys began to rise. Before they made contact with her hand, they fell once more. Halfway down, they began to rise. Rarity began to relax as she felt the rhythm of her ability sync up with her mind. This was actually much easier than she thought it’d be. After a bit of telekinetic yoyo, she grabbed her keys and smiled at her friends.

Fluttershy was wide eyed. Rainbow had her brows raised and her hand on her chin in approving contemplation. Pinkie stared at Rarity in awe at what she could do. Applejack decided to speak up. “Mighty impressive, Rares. You ever tried it with something a little bigger?”

“Oh, heavens no!” said Rarity, slightly mortified. “At least not yet. To be honest, I nearly impaled myself when I tried doing something similar to what I did, earlier this morning.”

Applejack nodded. “Alright, Pinkie. Could’ya tell us a little more what you mean by, ‘I’m psychic?’”

Pinkie grinned. “Well, as far as I can tell, it works by my body doing little tiny signals that mean something. Like, earlier this morning, ear got itchy and I really wanted to open the door for some reason. Then I did and there was Mister Cake, just about to put his key in the lock. Then a little after that, my finger got twitchy and I got really interested in my phone. Then it started ringing and that’s when I talked to Applejack about my crazy morning. Then I learned that we all were having crazy mornings!”

“So what you’re telling us is that your body can somehow predict immediate events?” inquired Rarity.

“Pretty mu-” Pinkie was interrupted by her entire body suddenly undergoing a violent shivering fit. When she stopped, her friends stared at her in worry.

Fluttershy held her friends arm. “Pinkie, are you okay?”

“Yeah. I think so,” she replied.

“Ya’ll think that was related to your psychicness?” Applejack asked, more than a little worried.

“Maybe?” Pinkie said just before engaging in another fit of shivering.

Behind the girls, deep within a dense cluster of trees, an explosion of light erupted, making the five friends jump.

That’s when the ground started to shake.

Comments

[GS4]

This is epic!