Solar Sails: Marooned In Equestria

by Bluecho

07 - Black Spot

Ch. 7 - Black Spot

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Pinkie Pie thought she felt a twitchy twitch coming on, but it subsided too quickly for a fix. She looked around wildly, searching for that now familiar cloak.

"Where are you, spy?" she asked.

Reluctantly, Pinkemena Diane Pie gave up the search. That silly spy was getting better at dodging her. Oh well, she's probably just shy. A Shy Spy.

“He he he! Shy Spy!” she chuckled, unkempt mane bouncing up and down. Then her smile dropped, Pinkie placing her hoof against her chin. “What was I doing again? Oh right!” She slammed one hoof against the other in emphasis. Rising from the haunches she sat on during her contemplation, Pinkie bounced over to the library.

The door opened as she approached, revealing Spike the dragon on his way out. Pinkie bounced along as he passed, saying, “Hey Spike!”

“Hey Pinkie,” he responded, dragging a red wagon behind him. “Going gem hunting with Rarity. Catch ya later!”

“You bet you will! Have fun!” Pinkie bounded into the library, zoning in on her target. “Hey Twilight!”

Twilight sat at her work table, fumbling with test tubes while levitating a half-dozen books around her. She winced for just a second when Pinkie called her name, making sure to put everything down safely. “Hey Pinkie,” she said, not taking her eyes off the delicate experiment. “What's up? Another party?”

“Oh my gosh, how did you know?” Pinkie gasped, waving her hooves in the air. Then she smiled wider somehow, saying, “But yeah, big party tonight. I'm delivering invitations to everypony. It's gonna be great!”

Twilight looked up at the clock, then to Pinkie Pie before giving a sympathetic smile. “If you're going to invite me Pinkie...”

“Which I totally am!” Pinkie said, holding up a paper slip.

“...then I have to apologize, and decline.”

Pinkie Pie's smile dropped. Her eyes began to water. Even her wild hair threatened to deflate.

“No no no!” said Twilight, waving her hooves to avert the onset of a patented Pinkie Pie sadness spiral. “I mean I would totally go to your party! I love them.” She put on a big reassuring smile. “It's just that this research is really important and I want to get it down tonight before I head out tomorrow.”

This seemed to mollify the demi-fiend of chaos, who lightened up considerably. She even took up another smile, albeit a more subdued one. “Oh, okay...you've been going out a lot lately. What's that about?”

“Oh, that's actually something related to this research,” Twilight explained. She picked up a small silk bag and held it up. “A few weeks ago, I found a piece of wood with some blood on it, near a place where Rainbow Dash says something crashed. I've been back and forth there and here trying to figure out what happened.” She poured a little dust from the bag onto her hoof, then brought out the wood block. A considerable amount of the blood flakes had been removed for experiments, and she gently used tweezers to remove another flake. She planted the flake onto the sand pile.

Pinkie looked on, mezmerized by the deep magical science no doubt going on. Probably. Pinkie Pie was never good at magical science, but she trusted Twilight to know her way around it. Just like Twilight trusted Pinkie to block her mouth so as not to repeat that one time Twilight showed Pinkie a powder experiment.

It was such a big, pretty fire. Too bad for Twilight's mane, though.

Behind her hooves, Pinkie said, “So what's this stuff do?”

“I did some studying on ways to identify creatures by their blood, and found how to make this stuff,” Twilight explained, lifting a vial of green stuff so it was poised over the powder in her hand. “Just a drop of this...” she said as the drop fell to the sand, “...then add a little magic...” Here she lit up her horn, enveloping the pile of dust in her hooves. It slowly started to fizzle and pop, until her horn stopped glowing. The glow on the dust remained. “...we can see what kind of being shed this blood.”

With that, she cast the powder into the room. Pinkie Pie looked on with amazement behind her mouth-stopping hooves. The sand swirled in the air. Then it started to settle, taking the shape of a tall biped. It was gray as the sand it was made of, and was more a silhuette than a sculpture, but it held its shape perfectly. The figure stood on its two legs, fingered hands to its sides. The face lacked the pronounced muzzle of a pony, and its ears were long and pointy. Pointy ears!

“Wow!” said Pinkie. “What is it?”

“I have no idea,” shrugged Twilight, throwing her hooves into the air. “I've done that a dozen times now.” Twilight stopped at this and retrieved a clipboard, jotting down notes. “This makes it fourteen to be exact. No matter how hard I try though, I can't find any record of a creature like this in Equestria.”

Pinkie stared at the figure, it now slowly losing dimension as it dissolved. Shy spy? “You think one of these is out there? Like right now? And maybe in need of a party?” Her face lift up with this.

“Maybe,” mused Twilight, putting down her clipboard with a sigh. “But I do think something is or was out in the woods.” She stretched her wings with a few flaps, getting the kinks out. “And I don't know if we want to meet it.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“Because I think it killed something,” Twilight said, grimly. When Pinkie's frown appeared again, Twilight elaborated, “A few days ago, I ran into some woodsponies who said the forest was dangerous. They said they found the body of a Leucrota buried somewhere in there. They only found it when they started digging a hole for a few signs. It had exsanguinated from a neck laceration.”

“It what from a what?” said Pinkie. “Also, what's a lewd crouton?”

“It's a monster that eats ponies, Pinkie,” Twilight explained, visually uncomfortable with having to show off these particular bits of knowledge. “And it means it got cut in the throat and bled to death.”

“Oh...” responded Pinkie, now seeming much less chipper or silly. “...uh...”

“See what I mean? Not necessarily something we want to meet.” The alicorn shook her head, taking one last look at the dust clone as it completely fell apart in a loose scattering of particles on the floor. With a sigh, she rose from her seat and went to retrieve the broom. Again.

Pinkie meanwhile look worried. “So you think that thing,” she gestured to the space the powder double occurpied, “was the one who ex-penguin ate-d the lewd crouton?”

Princess Twilight sighed again, levitating over the broom and dust pan. “Either that, or this came from another of those two-legged creatures that died. I'm working under the theory one or more of them might have crashed in the forest. If it's more, the blood might come from ones who didn't make it. And if that's true, we've got another one running around.” She considered for a moment. “Of course all of this is a theory. This creature might not be related at all to the Leucrota slaying. In might just be a pony who took revenge for an eaten loved one.” Not that that possibility sat good on Twilight's stomach. She swept the dust into the dustbin. “All I do know is that in that forest is a section of land recently dug up, and the blood of a mysterious creature. There might be something buried there. I've kind of been putting it off, not wanting to see for sure, but tomorrow I'll do it for sure.” She emptied the bin into the magical waste bucket near her desk. “It's kind of for that reason I'm not feeling up for a party tonight. Is that not okay?”

But Pinkie Pie barely caught the words. “Oh...yeah, it's okay...no problem...”

She was really worried now. She walked, not bounced, out the door of the library, deep in thought as she is not want to do. Finally she looked up to the roof tops, scanning them for signs she knew weren't there.

“Oh Shy Spy. What's going on with you?”

…

Sarin picked through the tools she had back at the abandoned house – titled Base Two. She would need the knife...and the light pistol. She checked the charges; five shots.

Hopefully it would be enough. What amounted to her master plan hinged on these five shots doing the impossible.

She sat down on the bedroll she'd made from the salvaged parachute and a blanket found in a dumpster. Her watch was set to go off at sundown; Sarin needed her rest for the night ahead. She had two destinations that night: the Ponyville library, and the Royal Canterlot Observatory. Sarin looked through her items again, and saw the newspaper. She'd underlined the address. She'd even scoped the place out from a distance using her telescope. Honestly she wouldn't need to bring the newspaper with her – she'd already memorized the address and the route – but she might need it as an...example.

Sarin wasn't sure whether she was hopeful or fearful of somepony being in the facility that late. At least she knew for sure Twilight and the dragon would be at the library and asleep.

Her entire body shook. She couldn't quiet her heart. Sarin shut her eyes, desperately trying to force sleep on herself. At the same time, she had a vague dread about sleep. She couldn't understand why.

A moot point anyway. The watch began loosing noise around sundown. Sarin Miles jumped up and moved out. She hadn't slept a wink.

Comments

[Dubious]

Hmm, are you going to make it so that Luna can visit the main characters dreams? If so, then I'm out.

[Bluecho]

3749037 Sorry. Might I ask why Luna's dream interference upsets you?

[Dubious]

3750674 Everyone does it, and it's just a lame incredibly overused plot device. Also it goes against one of my, admittedly very few, codes of ethics, which is do not enter a beings mind without permission. Dream walking by an alien horse princess is classified as without permission.

[Bluecho]

3752410 Yeah I can't argue with that. Wish I could defend myself, but it is pretty not cool. Still, I've set things up too far to stop the plans now.

I hope you at least enjoyed everything else.

[Dubious]

3752797 At least make the character have control over the dream then.

[Bluecho]

3753678 Can't. It's a dream, and more importantly a memory. More or less. She can't control it, because it already happened.

But don't worry. Luna doesn't control it either. She's just there to observe.

[Dubious]

3753869 Well at least none of my OCs are in this, they wouldn't stop hunting Luna until she's a red smear on the ground if they found out about her magic.

[Bluecho]

3753994 You should write that fic.

[Dubious]

3757070 Can't write. Though even if I did, could you imagine the downvotes it'd get? I'd have to move to korea for it to be a positive number.