Harpflank and Sweets: The Lost Episodes

by Supersheep64

Episode 33: Surprise Party - Part 1

HARPFLANK AND SWEETS

Created by Arcainum
Written by Supersheep64

Opening Titles

Metropony City! Mighty skyscrapers towering over the millions of ponies going about their lives on the streets below! Working, playing or just taking in the weather, Metropony bustles as only the big city can. But! All is not well in this equine metropolis! Below the streets lies a threat - a threat to the happiness and friendship of good ponies everywhere! And the name of that threat is Luna, the exiled Princess who has returned with vengeance in her eyes! With the aid of Her villainous helper Trixie and her army of terrible Lunatrons, She will stop at nothing to destroy the pony way of life! Standing against her, however, are two heroic mares, known only to the citizens of Metropony as...

HARPFLANK AND SWEETS: EPISODE 33- SURPRISE PARTY

Scene 1

However begrudgingly it may be, recent developments had forced Trixie to admit that she may be in over her head. Mere minutes after her first incarceration, Trixie’s prison break had turned into yet another unpleasant prison transfer... Only this time, she had exchanged prison vans for tree monsters and restraining hoofcuffs for viscous tree sap.

The hulking abomination referred to as ‘Leaf Monster’ had ruined Trixie’s beautiful coat and mane with a thick coating of adhesive slobber that rendered her immobile. Now Trixie’s limbs were irresistibly glued together by the salival sap, keeping her still while also firmly adhering her to the beast’s shoulder like a fly caught on paper.

The thick goop also coated Trixie’s magnificent horn, an unwelcome and revolting sensation that rendered even this perfect example of unicorn biology completely useless. Every one of Trixie’s attempts to cast a spell had failed, as her magic had simply dispersed into the sap rather than take form as she commanded.

Letting out a mewl of displeasure, Trixie once more looked around at her captors. After being pulled out of her cell at the correctional facility, that perverse pegasus and her beasts had dragged Trixie deep into the woods and descended into a large, newly-dug cavern.

Although the Titanwolves and their master had soon curled up to sleep, Trixie had spent the night devising a way to escape. Used to long bouts of insomnia in the service of her Lady Luna, sleepless nights meant nothing to the Alert and Lucid Trixie, as her vigilance was without peer.

Yet now, as her Lady’s most hated sunlight was starting to shine through from the mouth of the cavern, Trixie found she had not thought of a single means of absconding from this dire predicament. She had used up the last of her tricks when trying to blast her way out of her last prison, and now was stuck in an unknown situation with a deranged captor and a botanical bestiary.

Wilting as much as the sap would allow, Trixie muttered under her breath.

“Trixie would have been better off staying in her cell...”

Trixie’s ears perked when her minor utterance prompted a stirring from the sleeping pegasus laying atop the skull of the wooden beast not twenty hooves away from her.

Surprise uncurled from her bed of ivy and nettles, seemingly unfazed by the itchy rash coating the entire half of her body that had pressed up against her all-natural mattress. Instead, a more pressing pain weighed heavily on her mind as she pressed her hooves in her forehead and growled in a manner that even the wolves would have a hard time replicating.

Holding her white wings protectively around herself, Surprise broke a large twig off of Twig Monster’s nearby ear and vehemently hurled it across the cavern. A loud yelp echoed off of the stone walls as, across the chamber, a sleeping Diamond Dog received a sudden awakening.

Clutching her skull in agony, Surprise yelled at her henchpet with hoarse, impatient words.

“Dog, if I don’t see my medication in the next two minutes, I’m taking you to the vet to get ‘fixed’! You hear me?!”

As the sound of hurried scuffling echoed back at them, Trixie couldn’t help but to comment.

“Trixie is somewhat baffled that a pony as far-gone as you would even bother taking medication.”

Giving a pained half grin, Surprise brushed her rats-nest of curls out of her face and rose to a stand.

“This isn’t exactly a perscripted dose... It’s mostly to help me forget.”

Foolishly, Trixie pursued her curiosity.

“Forge-”

“-Forget what? Heh... shut up... Basically, everything.”

Ignoring the rude interruption, Trixie bolstered her arrogant persona to hide a growing sense of fear.

“Well if there’s one thing you shouldn’t have forgotten, it’s that the Great and Powerful Trixie is the most feared unicorn in all of Equestria! By deigning to interfere with Trixie’s ongoing affairs, you have made yourself an enemy of the Great Lunar Empire!”

Still rubbing at her forehead, Surprise rolled her eyes and laughed.

“Riiight... The whole ‘supervillain’ thing... Even if your only ‘superpower’ is the one where you somehow managed to trick an alicorn into supplying your sorry flank with as many second chances and expensive robot parts as you care to throw away on dumb plans and failed projects.”

Surprise grinned wider when Trixie recoiled as if struck.

“If this is the might of 'The Great and Powerful Trixie', then colour me disappointed."

Trixie gave her the traditional deadpan glare of total dissatisfaction.

"Disappointment isn't a colour."

"Well it should be!"

Sighing, Trixie decided to grace the demented degenerate dunce with an explanation for her blatant superiority.

"If you want to put in such crude terms, then yes... Trixie does have the ‘super’ to go with her ‘villain’. It shouldn't need saying that Trixie has unparalleled mechanical and scientific genius. Her creations are feared and envied by every lesser mind on the planet. A simple glance at my work should be sufficient proof that Trixie has every right to be considered as possessing superior power."

She gave a look of textbook condescension.

"And what of you, harlequin? What do you have that could make you worthy of such a title? You mock Trixie, but what-"

“-What superpower do I have? Shut up Shut up... Heh, you’d... You’d be surprised.”

Trixie’s frown deepened as she realised this conversation was getting her nowhere. Filled with annoyance, she decided to change track.

“Why-”

“-Why did you even capture me, you insipid clown? Stop it, stop... Well that’s because I’m trying to do a thing. You know, the thing where I break the cycle of the city and the robots and the colorful costumes... The whole thing that you do! It’s a bit of an... Experiment, you could say, to see if I can change things. Change that damnably predictable flow of ‘destiny’ that pulls us ponies along.”

Trixie huffed, her eyes following the madmare as she took flight and began floating in circles above the Titanwolf’s head.

“And Wh-”

“Why would a degenerate like you care about changing destiny? Stop... Well, it matters more than you know. You could say that I have to do this... For the good of my... Heh, ‘mental health.’”

Surprise broke out into pained laughter at her sad joke. She began to twitch, her flight becoming erratic as whatever was happening in her broken mind began to slip out of her control.

“If it’s any consolidation, you did a fairly good job of defying the norm for a while there. You just needed to avoid becoming the norm yourself and I wouldn’t have had to kill you! But now in order to break this repetitive cycle, you just gotta go.”

Heedless of Surprise’s instability, Trixie growled out a response.

“It’s supposed to be ‘consolation’, you brainless lout.”

Surprise tilted her head in confusion.

“What the hay do the stars have to do with anything?”

“That-”

“That’s constellation, right, right... Of course.”

Surprise twitched, her face darkening to a murderous degree.

“Because what room is there for ignorance in a world where fact can be so easily shoved in your face?”

For a moment, Surprise looked completely defeated.

“I just want to be surprised. Is that so much to ask?”

Fed up with the bizarre tangents and constant interruptions, Trixie began to tell her captor exactly what she thought of her.

“Y-”

“-You're a petty child that does nothing but whine and complain that the world doesn’t cater to your infantile whims! You blame destiny for the course of your pitiful life because you are too weak to admit your own failures!”

Before Trixie could even take a breath, Surprise continued to pull her intended words right out of her mouth, preempting Trixie’s entire rant before she could say it. Surprise’s mimicry increased in volume, layering a mocking tone over the stolen words so as to further highlight their predictability.

“You allude to Trixie’s weakness, yet if a pony is not a master of their own destiny, then what power do they have at all? Trixie does not call herself Great and Powerful just for her skills and charisma alone! It’s because she saw a destiny where her brilliance would go unnoticed, where she would become lost in an unfeeling crowd! But Trixie denied that destiny and made one where everypony in Equestria knows who she is!”

Although Trixie was stunned at the perfect prediction, she had no time to dwell on it before a feral cry echoed across the cavern as Surprise flew right up in Trixie’s face. Surprise’s machete seemingly appeared in her hooves as she held it milimeters from Trixie’s muzzle, her eyes wide with madness.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, STOP IT! Stop trying to say the words I already know you’re gonna say! Why can’t you just... Why can’t...”

She twitched, spinning in mid-air to glare at the Diamond Dog cowering behind one of Leaf Monster’s legs.

“Give me my freaking pills!”

Surprise descended like a hawk snatching up its prey. Kicking Spot in the face, she snatched her pills out of the air and downed the whole bottle in one gulp.

Putting head in hooves, Surprise leaned against her wooden monstrosity and waited for her breathing to slow. After an awkward minute of silence, Leaf Monster, awoken by the yelling, leaned his colossal head down to tentatively lick at his master in concern.

Getting her breath back, Surprise affectionately patted him on the nose, appreciating the cooling saliva-sap that eased the rash she’d picked up from his nettle-strewn ‘fur’. Calmed down, she looked down at Spot, now sporting a brand-new black eye.

“Get these to me sooner next time.”

While she was talking with Trixie, the rest of the dogs had woken up and were now looking at her with mixed expressions of terror. Putting her smile back on, Surprise rose to her hooves and addressed them.

“Well after that little slip up, I actually remembered the next stage of my plan.”

Rover tentatively spoke up.

“Oh, that’s... good?”

“No, it isn’t. Now, I have to do something really dumb and impulsive to try and cancel out the predictability of the next few hours.”

She turned her eyes skyward in thought before shaking her head and striding towards the wall of the cavern.

“Whatever. We’ll just dig in a random direction and see what we run into.”

After just a few moments of trotting, she looked back over her shoulder and called to her lackeys.

“When I said ‘dig’ I wasn’t intending to do it myself, y’know.”

Gulping at the vague sense of threat hanging over them, Fido, Rover and Spot shared anxious glances before scampering off in pursuit.

Left to dangle on the Titanwolf’s side, Trixie let out a breath she had been holding and began to consider if the normally blasphemous notion of keeping her perfect mouth shut might be something she try implementing for the duration of her captivity.

After weighing the risks, Trixie finally shook her head.

“No, Equestria would never survive without the melodic tones of Trixie’s soothing voice. Trixie’s silence is not something that shall ever come to pass.”

Above her, Leaf Monster rolled his luminous eyes, huffing as he laid his head back down for another nap.

Scene 2

Derpy sat at her desk, slowly scrolling through some files on her computer. Looking over the holographic screen with a deepening frown, she tapped her hoof on the desk thoughtfully and hummed to herself. It wasn’t a musical hum, but more like the hum of a newly-heated radiator, a low and constant sound that spoke of discomfort and displeasure.

Bringing a halt to her hum, Derpy closed the files and straightened out her uniform before turning to face her desk camera with an impatient frown. A few moments later, her impatience was rewarded with the holographic emitter blazing out the enraged face of Director Harshwhinny.

“Hooves! You incompetent, impudent imbecile-”

“Ah, Harshwhinny. I thought I told you to never make me wait for you... My agent must have left that message in your bed a good twelve hours ago. If this is the EDA’s response time, then it’s no wonder the Princess needs M.A.R.E. to protect Equestria from the Empire.”

Harshwhinny whinnied, harshly. Folding back her ears with rage, her scowl solidified into the very picture of fury.

“You sent your agents to infiltrate the head EDA facility, incapacitated several EDA personnel and stole top-level government secrets and yet you have the gall to leave a message claiming responsibility for these treasonous acts just so you could rub it in my face?! I swear Hooves, that underground base of yours is nothing compared to the pit I am going to throw you into for this insanity!”

Completely nonplussed, Derpy pointed a hoof loosely towards the camera as she listed off her points.

“Ok, first; I only sent one agent. Your security is just that bad that no more were necessary. Second, I’m not doing this to rub it in your face, but to get you to answer for your misconduct. And finally, by ‘top-level government secrets’, I take it you mean these files on the illegal program to attempt to train a genetically-spliced super-soldier cloned from the DNA of my top agents. Files which I liberated as they directly concern the safety of my city, agents and nation and as we speak are now being sent to a very, very disappointed head-of-state who is sure to have some very concerned questions for you and your department.”

Derpy re-opened the files on her computer, once again looking over the details of ‘Project Maredowell’ and making sure that Harshwhinny saw the files as well.

Harshwhinny tightened her lips like a body bag zipping shut.

“Don’t think I’ll forget this Hooves. A maverick like you can’t be allowed to be in charge of mavericks like Harpflank and Sweets. Sooner or later, we will have a response to those super-powered freaks of yours. Project Maredowell was only the beginning.”

“As soon as you think of a ‘response’ Director, I’d love to hear it. In fact, I’d prefer it if you actually bothered to tell me about a lot of things, rather than poorly try to hide them.”

Twitching with rage, Harshwhinny cut the feed and left Derpy looking at the files in concern. Sweeping her eyes over the data, she couldn’t help but notice all the details that didn't add up. Derpy sighed and rubbed her eyes with a hoof.

“The EDA was keeping her locked up for her entire life... But even they didn't really know what she is...”

She lowered her hoof and left her eyes drift.

“Which now gives me the feeling that we’re about to learn even less...”

Scene 3

Lyra and Bon-Bon stood outside the med-bay, waiting for somepony to talk to them. They had been waiting a while, as the general aura surrounding the pair was so borderline frightening that no medical staff was even willing to spend more than a second glancing in their direction.

Eventually, however, Vinyl, Octavia and Redheart broke off from the crowd to present their findings. Leaving the side of the bed bearing their mystery patient, the trio waved Lyra and Bon-Bon over to them and reluctantly prepared for an unpleasant conversation.

"How is she?"

Octavia looked over her notes, shuffling the papers in an uncomfortable fashion.

"She's stable... Still not talking, however."

Lyra didn't mince words.

"Who is she?"

Octavia shared a glance with Redheart, both wondering if there even was a correct way to answer that. Eventually, Vinyl was the one who dared to respond.

“Well, she’s not entirely you, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning that when we ran the tests, we found that she had three completely different sets of DNA in her.

Bon-Bon caught on quickly.

“A unicorn, pegasus and earth pony, right?”

Vinyl nodded.

“Yeah... And I'm sure you've already figured out who two of her 'relatives' are."

"What about the third?"

Octavia cleared her throat.

"The third didn't match with anypony in our database, but whoever it is must have been chosen because they possess abilities comparable to yours. It would defeat the objective to make a modular creation like this and have one of its forms not match up to the others."

Bon-Bon shuffled in place, switching her gaze between targets as she tried to secure eye contact with one of them.

“A creation? So we know for sure that she was made in a lab somewhere?”

“Yes, her body is completely different from a regular pony... It’s actually kind of similar to our nanosuits, just realised through biology, rather than technology. Certainly not natural."

Lyra had suspected as much, but it was still strange to hear it said out loud.

“I’m guessing that’s why she’s as strong as we are, with the suits on top, right?”

Vinyl actually seemed to be getting excited by the scientific potential represented in the specimen that had been handed to her.

“Yeah, and it’s how she transforms, too. Physical reconstruction, rather than that temporary magical nonsense... Not that she could even cast those sorts of spells out of your horn, Lyra.”

Lyra shuddered with revulsion and gritted her teeth, not even rising to the jab against her.

“Stop calling it that... She’s not me, whatever powers or genes she may have.”

Vinyl lowered her shades and gazed at her bluntly.

“Philosophy aside, Lyra, the fact is that your skull-bones are basically identical. Why do you think you feel so uncomfortable around her? Your horn can instinctively sense its own magic in somepony else’s body, and it’s freaking the heck out!”

“Yeah, well I’m freaking the heck out now, so stop talking about it!”

Octavia winced sympathetically.

"It would also explain why she kept following you. Her magic also thinks it should be inside you, so it was drawing her to you even when she didn't know why she was doing it."

Lyra visibly tensed around the point where Octavia mentioned it wanting to 'be inside her'.

"Oh wow, you just made it even creepier... How did you manage to make it creepier?!"

She struggled not to raise her voice.

"How did somepony even get a hold of my DNA, let alone go to this sort of extreme with it?"

Vinyl grinned with a certain tactless enthusiasm, levitating over a holographic tablet from the bedside and booting it up.

"That's actually where this gets even weirder. Check this out!"

Flipping through some files, Vinyl twitched her head in Redheart's direction.

"A bunch of the files Redheart swiped from the EDA seemed to have been intentionally corrupted at around about the same time as Maredowell first appeared here in Metropony. We figure she must have been working for them, on like, black-ops stuff but then fried their intel on her when she went rouge."

Octavia flicked her tail, wearing a face of distastefulness.

"...Which would explain why they were so insistent that M.A.R.E try to take her down, rather than recruit her. They mustn't have wanted her to spill any of their secrets, even to 'allies' like us."

Lyra 'pfffft'd'.

"Spill their secrets? She doesn't even talk! What kind of a nutcase do you have to be to just stay silent all the time?"

Lyra paused, froze, and shot Redheart a sheepish look.

"Uh, no offense."

Redheart watched Lyra squirm as she began staring her down. She began to slowly tap her hoof on the floor, raising her eyebrow as each tap made Lyra more and more nervous. In the same awkward moment, Vinyl scratched at her head, pondering why she had the sudden, inexplicable feeling that she was also being offended by that statement.

Octavia snatched the device from her perplexed partner and flicked through into another image.

"Although we couldn't get a whole lot from the EDA, having now seen her without her costume, we ran a search to see if we could come across anything with a pony that matches her 'unique' appearance. Surprisingly, we found something."

The image was of a local newspaper clipping from somewhere near Baltimare. The headline picture was slightly distorted, but unmistakably showed the mis-matched colors of a younger, unclothed Maredowell.

"Fifteen years ago, there was an incident at a local orphanage about a young filly that hospitalized one of the staff after they attacked her. Apparently the attacker swore that he had seen the filly 'transform' and believed she was actually a Changeling. Soon after, he was seemingly flung through a wall and the filly disappeared before an official inquiry could be made. All other records of the foal also vanished around the same time, so I suspect that's when the EDA first took an interest in her. Maybe even when they first took her in."

Bon-Bon's ears folded back, a horrified look on her face.

"She was raised by a secret agency? As what, some sort of weapon? And our government did this? That's not right... Not to a pony that young."

Bon-Bon blinked as something occurred to her.

"Wait... young?"

She snapped her head up, feeling confused as all heck.

"If this happened fifteen years ago, then she must be almost as old as we are! Lyra and I only got our powers a few months ago! Why would somepony have cloned us all the way back then? And for that matter, why would a pony cloned from us from back then also have the same powers we only got recently? It doesn't make any sense!"

Vinyl nodded and shut off the projection and took the opportunity to snark some more.

"Yep. Definitely in the top five strangest phenomena we've come across regarding your bonkers superpowers. Once again, we have no freaking clue how you managed it, but you somehow spawned a retroactive super-clone. The mystery of Harpflank and Sweets continues."

Crossing her hooves, Lyra glanced over at the familiar face sleeping on the bed. Being this close to her clone, she had to suppress a shudder of ‘uncanny’ revulsion.

“What are we doing with her now?”

Octavia brushed back her mane and took a deep breath.

“We had to sedate her after she tried to punch Vinyl in the face.”

The DJ huffed.

“Clearly a sign of insanity.”

Octavia glared at her.

“Actually, I think it may have been because she saw herself in your glasses. She was perfectly calm right up until you got close and then immediately after lashing out, her first thought was to try and get her mask back on.”

Her ears drooping, Lyra looked again at the mismatched doppelgänger.

“Yeah... I guess neither of us like the idea of sharing a face.”

Both Lyra and Bon-Bon jumped as their communicators bleeped, interrupting the conversation.

Pulling the devices out of their saddlebags, they turned them on and were greeted by a double-image of the Commander in holographic form.

“All of you had better come to my office right now. Something has come up that needs our immediate attention.”

“All right, Commander. We’re on our way.”

As the others began to file out of the med bay, Lyra still kept her eyes on the sleeping Maredowell. Shaking her head and frowning, she pushed back her feelings and trotted to catch up with the rest.

Scene 4

As she dashed into the Command Center, Bon-Bon’s eyes immediately locked onto The Commander, who was standing in front of the main screen with wings spread and a worried look on her face.

“Commander, what’s going on?”

With a grim frown, Derpy folded her wings and turned around, facing Bon-Bon as Lyra, Vinyl and the others hastily filed into the room.

Taking a deep breath, Derpy walked up to the main console and slapped a hoof down on the controls.

“A few minutes ago, this was broadcast across the city on all the channels.”

The main screen flickered into life, displaying a low-quality image of Surprise hovering in front of a wood background, dressed in an ill-fitting police uniform. Oriented at a 45 degree angle, the maniacal pegasus scowled at the camera, yelling in a muffled voice as she waved her hooves.

“No, you have to... You-you just... Hold it straight you lumbering mutt!”

Quickly, the image righted itself, prompting Surprise to break out in a toothy smile and flick her tail in satisfaction. Sticking her hoof out, one of her minions tossed her a microphone which she tapped distractedly before turning back to the camera with a winning smile.

“Hello Metropony. I’m Surprise, and I’ll be your villain this week. You may remember me from such terror attacks as: Burning down the Scientific Expo Center and, attempting to burn the whole city with a soporific gas cloud!”

The smile went away as Surprise put on an expression of severe concern.

“But I’m not here today to talk to you about burning. I’m here to talk about a problem that affects all of us here in this great city.”

Folding her ears back, Lyra moaned out a sentiment they were all thinking.

“I already don’t like where this is going.”

On the screen, Surprise began flapping towards the right, letting the camera follow her as she did.

“I’m here to talk about justice. And the specific lack of it, in regards to a certain slippery little showmare that has long escaped her due punishment.”

Surprise came to a halt, stopping in front of a gooped-up Trixie, who was hatefully glaring at her captor. Indignant, Trixie clearly resented the use of her own balled-up cape as a gag, crammed into her mouth with careless force.

Raising a hoof to her forehead in an overdramatic pose, Surprise continued.

“Yes, Trixie. The very cornerstone of Metropony’s woes. She keeps the cycle going, pushed into an inescapable rut by her sheer refusal to just give it up already!”

Surprise smacked Trixie with her tail, landing and fluffing her wings as she adjusted her police hat with pride.

“Luckily, your good buddy Surprise is here to put a stop to all that. I caught our little escapee, fresh on her way to yet another clean getaway, and decided to do my civic duty by ensuring that she face her long overdue... Judgement.”

A dark chuckle emerged from the depths of her throat as Trixie heavily protested through the thick gag.

“I don’t really want to feed her ego any more than it already is, but she really is the most important pony in Metropony. Once she’s gone, things will finally be different... Very different.”

Suddenly, Surprise flung the microphone to one side, eliciting a whimper as it smacked one of her dogs in the nose. Then, she dashed in for an extreme close up, snatching the camera out of the paws of her henchdog and holding it up to her face.

“No longer will you have to worry about the same predictable strife week after week. Instead, you’ll have me! Keeping you all on your non-existent toes with something fresh and original! Week, after week, after week, after week...”

She giggled.

“Or maybe I’ll do something completely different. Wouldn’t do to break this cycle, just to slap on another tire and keep pedaling. No, maybe one week I might try something... Well. I don’t want to spoil it for you.”

Waving goodbye, Surprise graced the lens with a big sloppy kiss before signing off.

“Hugs and kisses! Goodbye everypony!”

Smiling with shrunken pupils, Surprise lifted the police hat off of her head and gently laid it over the camera lens, blocking off the image and bringing an end to her vlog.

As the video came to a close, Derpy gave a huge sigh and sat down, rubbing her temples with her hoof.

“So yeah. That was a thing that happened.”

Breaking the uncomfortable silence, Lyra glanced around at everypony and spoke.

"So what do we do now?"

Bon-Bon crossed her hooves over her chest.

"Well, we can't just let her kill Trixie..."

Vinyl slumped and rubbed at her forehead.

"I was afraid you were going to say that... Urgggh... Being the good guys really sucks sometimes."

Ears lowered, Octavia vocalised her thoughts.

“After an announcement like that, I highly doubt this execution will be a quiet affair. Surprise has shown little fondness for the use of subtlety. The only trouble will be in managing to find her before she bombastically does the deed.”

“Does anypony else think it’s kind of strange for her to announce her plans like this?”

All eyes turned to Bon-Bon as she elaborated.

“All of her previous attacks have come out of nowhere. Taking ponies by ‘surprise’ is literally her ‘thing’, so why would she suddenly tell us what she’s about to do?”

Vinyl scratched her head.

“Maybe because telling us exactly what she’s going to do is exactly the thing we would never expect?”

With rising trepidation, Octavia followed the train of thought.

“Or maybe she’s trying to get us so caught up thinking about what she’s going to do, that we won’t be prepared for what she's doing right now?”

Just then, an alarm started ringing. Immediately, Vinyl facehooved.

“I hate it when you're right.”

Looking down at the main computer, Derpy’s eyes widened in shock.

“There's been a security breach!”

Flipping open her communicator, the Commander began yelling out on an open channel.

“All agents to the labs! We have intruders in the base!”

“What?!”

With a yell of shared horror, Vinyl and Octavia dashed from the office with speed that even Lyra and Bon-Bon would be hard-pressed to match. They certainly tried though, zipping through the halls with Derpy and Redheart hot on their hocks behind them.

Bursting into ExTech’s main lab, Lyra and Bon-Bon beheld a scene of devastation. Squads of M.A.R.E agents had opened fire on a wooden beast large enough to scrape the ceiling of the expansive laboratory.

By concentrating their fire on the Titanwolf’s face, they had kept the beast at bay, leaving the creature too occupied with pawing at its stinging nose and eyes to launch any counterattacks. However, whatever damage their bullets did was soon repaired by the waves of green magic reconstructing the splintered wood as fast as it could be broken.

Gawping at the huge beast, Bon-Bon struggled to make sense of this unwelcome intrusion.

“What?... How did that thing even get in here?!”

Her question was answered when a deafening rattle emerged out from a hole that had been tunneled through the far wall. With a clatter of tumbling wood, another forest's worth of plants and timber erupted out from the hole, floating into the cavernous room and reforming piece by piece into a second wolf standing besides the first.

Before the M.A.R.E agents could react, this wolf pounced on them, batting them aside with playful slaps of its giant paws. Any ponies not bowled over by their sheer size were ensnared by lightning fast lashes of plundervines snaking out from the leafy lupines and bashing aside any machines or equipment in their way.

Frozen in shock, Vinyl didn’t even notice when her stunned posture caused her shades to fall off her face and hit the ground.

“O-our stuff...”

She turned to her partner.

“Tavi, they’re wrecking our stuff!”

Octavia gritted her teeth.

“I know Vinyl... I know.”

Arriving on the scene, the Commander flew over their heads and began barking orders.

“Vinyl, Octavia, whatever dangerous projects you had on the go, make sure this mayhem doesn’t cause them to become a problem. Redheart, with me. We’re opening the armory.“

She paused to look at Lyra and Bon-Bon before pointing a hoof at the chaos.

“Harpflank and Sweets... Take ‘em.”

Sharing a quick nod, Lyra and Bon-Bon dashed into action, leaping and flipping over equipment and workstations as they zipped across the labs. By the time they had reached the breach point, most of the M.A.R.E agents had already been battered or ensnared, leaving little in the way of friendly fire for them to avoid.

As they neared, Lyra and Bon-Bon immediately locked onto the plight of one brave agent who was moments from death. Struggling to escape Bark Monster’s coiling vines, the unlucky stallion found himself dangling headfirst above the waiting jaws of the ferocious beast. As he saw his death coming, the pony cried out in a mix of terror and frustration.

“It’s only my first day!”

Seeing his distress, Harpflank and Sweets grit their teeth and accelerated, taking a flying leap just as the agent began to fall. Mouth wide and awaiting a tasty morsel, Bark Monster was completely blindsided when Lyra and Bon-Bon struck. Instead of snapping shut around his little snack, the wolf’s jaws simply snapped, full stop, turning to splinters as the heroic mares shoulder-slammed the side of his face hard enough to snap his muzzle clean off.

Flinching back with what would have been a yelp, had he still possessed the mouth to cry it, Bark Monster turned all of his focus to Harpflank and Sweets, his luminous eyes glaring with feral hatred. Bounding after them, he took a swipe at the tiny ponies with his paws, only to miss as they darted off in separate directions.

“Split up!”

“Roger!”

Deciding to give Lyra some space to work, Bon-Bon attracted the beast’s attention by tossing three grenades into his side as she rushed behind him. Flinching again, Bark Monster chased after her, the beginnings of snarl starting to be heard as the magic flowing out of him began to slowly reconstruct his dismantled jaw.

While Bon-Bon was keeping one wolf busy, Lyra took it on herself to pique the interest of the other. Her method of doing so involved an inspired flash of cruelty, one of Ex-Tech’s often-used fire extinguishers and Twig Monster’s backside.

As Lyra darted behind the arboreal atrocity, she let out an evil grin and took aim.

“I’m not sure if you’ve ever been to a vet, big guy... But this next part should give you a good taste of what to expect.”

And in the exact moment Twig monster lifted his tail just right, Lyra broke the end off the extinguisher and let it fly.

For next twenty seconds, the agents that the Titanwolf had been previously terrorising had ample time to fall back while Twig Monster curled up, whimpering in pain.

Patting herself on the back, Lyra reveled in her success.

“Wow, I gotta do that to a Lunatron sometime. Trixie’s reaction will probably be even funnier!”

Her reveling drew to a halt as Twig Monster twisted his head over his shoulder and gave her a glare that was positively murderous. She winced, ready to run.

“I guess he doesn’t see the humour...”

With a single ‘yipe’, Lyra scrambled away as a wave of thorns and cacti exploded out of the ground, flinging aside tables and experiments alike as it tried to pen her in and impale her.

Lyra ducked, flipped and sprinted through the overzealous overgrowth, trying to outpace Twig Monster’s magic even as the malicious maze herded her back in the creature’s direction.

All of a sudden, Lyra’s run came to stumbling halt when she made a blind turn and tripped over a pile of metal pipes from a now-wrecked hydraulics experiment. Seeing his opportunity, Twig monster pounced, eager to either crush her beneath his weight, or tear her to shreds with his monstrous teeth.

With little time to react, Lyra had no chance to get out of the way before the wolf reached her. So instead, she didn't even try to. Grabbing one of the treacherous pipes off the ground, Lyra changed direction and leapt right into his mouth, using the pole to painfully jam the beast’s jaws wide open. Immediately upon entrance, Lyra retched at the smell, vacating the orifice and flipping up onto the wolf’s snout as fast as she could to evade his unbearably rancid breath.

“Oh Celestia, that’s bad!”

Flipping up onto the wolf’s forehead, Lyra attempted to spit out the repulsive taste, still gagging as she reared back and began to smash into Twig Monster’s skull with punch after punch.

“Pttth.. Ptoo... What the hay to do you even eat to get a stink like that?”

Snarling, Leaf Monster sprouted another wave of vines, which lashed and grabbed at Lyra as she backflipped off of his muzzle and landed in a crouch.

“Well whatever you eat, I can assure you that pony is officially off the menu!”

Lyra leaped to the side again, avoiding another swiping wolf paw. This one demolished a large gyroscope that Vinyl had been using as a pet project, snapping the bands of metal into razor sharp blades that clattered to the tiled lab floor.

Seeing the mangled metal, Lyra couldn’t help but grin.

“That could come in handy...”

Reaching with her magic, Lyra snatched up the jagged blades off the floor, before using them to defend herself as dozens of plundervines broke through the concrete floor and surrounded her.

Although Lyra had never been magically skilled, her super senses and combat training had given her an exceptional reaction time that, when combined with basic levitation, allowed her to unflinchingly slice through every vine that got within a two meter radius.

Leaping and cleaving her way through the aggressive undergrowth, Lyra’s flashing blades almost seemed to once again resemble the gyroscope they had been repurposed from, as they impenetrably orbited her at every possible angle.

Dashing in circles around a furious Twig Monster, Lyra adjusted her course, passing by ensnared agents and cutting them loose with her dancing blades.

“C’mon, retreat! Fall back! Whatever, just get out of here!”

Heeding her advice, the agents turned tail and fled, steering clear of further vines as they fell back to the far side of the laboratories. To a casual observer, this may seem an act of cowardice, however justified it may have been. Yet this was not the case, as once they had successfully regrouped, they rallied to the side of their Commander, who had just returned with a crate load of heavy weapons.

“Alright agents, we’ve got enough explosives to last a week-long siege. Yet somehow, I don’t expect the enemy will last long enough to give us the chance to use it all. You know what to do, now move it!”

The agents leapt into action, arming themselves with RPG’s and grenade launchers as they formed into squads and moved into position. Yet out of all of them, none were more reckless than Redheart. Overloaded with ordnance, she charged into battle, unloading twin machine guns into Bark Monster as she gave Sweets some back up.

The Commander was not far behind. Wielding a grenade launcher, she flew high above the reaching plundervines, peppering Twig Monster’s spine and tail with explosions as she gave her troops opportunity to move in.

Backing up from Bark Monster’s furious swipes, Bon-Bon turned to Redheart and held out her hooves.

“Want a boost?”

Without a word, the impassioned battlenurse jumped into Bon-Bon’s grasp. With all the grace and majesty of a trebuchet, Sweets chucked her between the two wolves, her uncanny strength allowing this earth pony to briefly experience what it is like to fly. Firing her guns as she flew, Redheart span around, spraying the wolves with stinging shots and relentlessly peppering their hides with bullets until the magazines ran dry.

Landing into a roll, Redheart dropped the empty guns and unslung an RPG off of her back, standing up as she saw that one of the easily-distracted wolves had turned around, no doubt to put an end to her annoying bullet stings.

As the wolf turned to her, Redheart’s lips tweaked upwards into a smile, letting out a low chuckle at the beat’s naivete. It was almost as if it had somehow gotten the idea that she was an easier target.

Redheart decided to relieve him of that notion.

Her hooves steady and expression unshaken, Redheart fired, sending the rocket spiraling away before impacting directly into the side of Bark Monster’s head. The Titanwolf yelped as the explosion’s impact rocked his head to one side... Just in time to meet Bon-Bon’s hoof smashing into him from the other direction.

Crippled by this one-two punch, Bark Monster's head snapped clean off, following the rest of him as his body crumbled into a pile of wooden chunks. A faint glow surrounded the pieces as he tried to reform, but as the squads of M.A.R.E. agents advanced on him, they unleashed a barrage of grenades that blasted him apart faster than he could rebuild.

Turning to his pack mate, Twig Monster tried to rush to his aid, but was thwarted by the Commander’s bombing runs, as her unerring aim blasted off both his ears before making him lose his tail in kind.

Seeing that things were well in hoof, Lyra dropped her impromptu swords and trotted up to Bon-Bon. Catching their breath, the two of them watched as Derpy and the rocket squads began to push Twig Monster back towards the breach, crippling him with concentrated explosive strikes.

Brushing away a strand of mane, Lyra felt a rising cheer at their organisation’s skill in battle.

“That actually wasn’t as bad as I expected. Seriously, why would Surprise take it this easy on us?”

Lyra froze as somepony whispered in her ear.

“Because the moment you think it’s over is the moment you let your guard down.”

Before the chill could even finish traveling down her spine, Surprise wrapped her hooves around Lyra’s chest, taking her for a ride as she flew straight up as high as she could. Upon reaching the top of the room, Surprise spun around and kicked off the ceiling like a swimmer doing lengths before plummeting right back down and slamming Lyra face-first into the floor.

Struggling to get her bearings, Lyra lashed out and tried to kick her off, but the slippery pegasus simply ducked behind her and quite painfully grabbed her by the ears. Spurred on by the cries of pain, Surprise spun around three times before letting go, hurling Lyra through a nearby workstation with a crash of glass and metal.

Grinning, Surprise clapped her hooves together.

“Oh I’ve missed this...”

Her grinning didn’t even stop when Sweets smashed a hoof in her face. Taking the brunt of a strike that could crumple Lunatron armor, Surprise stumbled back, almost seeming to topple before bouncing back into position with blazing eyes.

“... I’ve missed that too.”

Seeing Surprise’s masochistic enthusiasm, Bon-Bon snarled, pouncing on Surprise with unrelenting brutality.

“‘She’s just a regular crook’, ‘I’d better hold back so I don’t hurt her too badly...’”

Sweets slammed a hoof into Surprise’s gut and then followed it with another.

“... That’s what I thought when we last fought. Now I know better!”

Grabbing Surprise, she slammed her into the ground, only to pick her up and keep hitting her.

“Now I know that if I hold back, you’ll just slip away again! This time, I’m not worried about breaking you... I’m counting on it!”

Surprise opened her mouth, no doubt trying to utter another line of inane gibberish, only to have her mouth forcibly shut again as Sweets’ hoof met the underside of her chin hard enough to launch her into the air. Then, spinning 180 degrees, she grabbed Surprise’s tail with her other hoof and brought her slamming down to the ground.

Rising from the debris of a wrecked workstation, Lyra’s abused ears folded back as she watched Bon-Bon pick Surprise up off the floor and go to town on her ribcage.

“Hey Sweets, that’s... a little excessive there. Do you maybe wanna-”

Sweets whirled around, consumed by the rage brought on by the stressful weeks she’d had to endure.

“No! Don’t even start telling me to hold back! I’m not going to go easy on her after everything she’s done! She’s pure evil!”

Surprise raised a hoof.

“Ehh... I’d say I’m closer to ‘dilute evil’"

“Shut up!”

Sweets hit her again. Rolling with the punch, Surprise got back up and grimaced.

“Alright, you’ve had your fun, can you please just stick to the plan?!”

Not really caring what Surprise was rambling about, Sweets hit her again.

“Aww, come on, I know you guys aren’t actually this stupid!”

Tapping her hoof on the ground, Surprise spoke through gritted teeth as she struggled to avoid another punch.

“I’m. Giving. You. The. Signal. Now.”

At about this time an array of chunky paws burst out of the concrete and grabbed Sweets by the hocks. As Sweets looked down in shock, Surprise rolled her eyes.

“Finally...”

In unison, the Diamond Dogs pulled, dragging Sweets underground as the lab’s concrete floor broke apart, revealing dense soil that parted and swallowed her whole. Nursing her bruises, Surprise turned to Harpflank with an exasperated look.

“Good help is so hard to find...”

Reeling from Bon-Bon’s disappearance, Lyra defaulted to a standard exclamation of fury.

“You... You’re going to pay for that.”

Surprise shrugged.

“Left my purse at home. Sorry Harpy, this date’s on you.”

She leaned forwards, grinning lecherously.

“You’ll show me a good time, right?”

Growling, Lyra pounced at her, only to hit... Absolutely nothing, as Surprise ducked out of sight and vanished. Whirling around, Lyra spotted her by the entrance to the labs, beckoning playfully as she darted out into the halls of M.A.R.E.

Hesitating, Lyra paused to glance at the pile of dirt that Bon-Bon had disappeared into.

“... I don’t have a shovel.”

Figuring that this simple statement fully encompassed her inability to assist, Lyra bit her lip and took off in pursuit of Surprise.

“Sorry, BB... I can’t help you now.”

Scene 5

M.A.R.E. headquarters was constructed about a mile beneath the surface of Metropony city. Standing inside the large hangars and reinforced hallways of M.A.R.E, it was easy to forget just how much earth and rock was pressing down on you at any moment.

Yet as Bon-Bon found herself being helplessly dragged deeper and deeper into the planet’s crust, to the point where HQ may have well been built in the clouds for all she could reach it... Then, the weight of the earth pressing down on her became all too noticeable.

Bon-Bon was not the sort of earth pony that felt at home underground, like the miners of remote rock farms. Instead, she was the kind that felt more at home in a kitchen, working on something sweet, or beneath a gently shaded tree on a summer's day.

Currently, neither of those things were present.

Instead, she was choking on rocks and sediment, blinded in darkness as she struggled with the all-consuming terror of blind panic. The Dogs dug through rock like a fish in water, moving with a speed that Bon-Bon had not the frame of reference, or mental inclination to measure.

Trying to hold her breath, Bon-Bon forced her brain to work, hoping against all hope that those calloused paws did not let go of her legs... Leaving her here to... to.

Fighting back a new wave of panic, Bon-Bon thought harder. Three paws. She could feel one on each leg, the other, no doubt being used to dig. Three paws means three dogs. Three dogs for four legs. One leg free.

A spark of hope lit up and forced back the terror. Even though she could barely move from the crushing pressure of the dirt around her, her passage had cleared just enough space to worm her foreleg down by her side. Reaching down, she shoved her free hoof into her saddlebag. While she clearly hadn’t the technical knowledge of Octavia, she knew enough about the operation of her communicator to know how to change its sound frequency... in this case, change it to something within the canine range of hearing. And then... Turn up the volume.

The Diamond dogs whined in agony as the painful white noise drilled into their skulls. The vibrations carried better through earth than air, and soon, the whimpering mutts forgot their mission and turned tail and tunneled away as fast as they could.

Although Rover and Fido made a clean escape, Spot was not so lucky. He had had the displeasure of taking hold of Sweets’ other foreleg, and as he tried to release that grip, found that that hoof had taken a much tighter hold of him than he had of it.

Still taking Sweets along for the ride, he changed direction and made haste for an underground cavern he knew was nearby.

Bursting into an open space, Bon-Bon deeply inhaled the stale cavern air, blinking the dirt from her eyes as she tumbled. Immediately, she pounced on Spot, pinning him to the ground and holding her whining communicator right up to his ear.

“You’re gonna take me back to the surface, or this goes all the way into your ear.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll do anything, pony! Just stop the noises!”

Safely hooking herself around the dog’s smaller frame, Bon-Bon took another deep breath, hoping she would be able to make it back in time.

Scene 6

Surprise led Lyra on a merry chase through the corridors of M.A.R.E, avoiding every makeshift projectile Lyra threw at her, disappearing and reappearing behind or inside of various objects and generally flying in such an erratic pattern as to be unassailable. Flapping backwards, Surprise cackled, showing off what was probably a rude gesture when performed by a species with opposable digits.

“Ha! You can’t even beat me with the home-field advantage! Come on, where’s the unexpected flair I’ve come to know and love!”

On the last word, Surprise reversed her momentum, flying straight at Lyra as she pulled her machete from her tail, sweeping the buttery blade in a wide, sweeping arc.

Lyra barely ducked under the slash, rising up with a headbutt that jammed her horn into her opponent's ribs hard enough to crack bone. But somehow the bone didn’t crack, and Lyra was forced to fall back as the blade swung back at her once more. Retreating down the corridor, Lyra ducked and weaved past a deranged onslaught of hacks and slashes as Surprise chased her down.

Seeing her moment, Lyra pivoted on her back hooves. An over-eager stab whisked past her chest, scratching her saddlebags as it passed. Striking with precision, Lyra struck the flat of the blade hard enough to snap it off at the handle, relishing the look of shock on Surprise’s face just before Lyra smashed it in, finishing her spin with a roundhouse kick that knocked Surprise flat on her back, skidding down the corridor.

Huffing, Lyra brushed her mane aside.

“Sweets wasn’t kidding about not holding back... You really are nothing but trouble.”

Sitting up, Surprise dropped the handle and gave an unconvincing smile.

“Oh no no-no-no no. You’ve got it all wrong, Harpy. This time, I’m not here to cause trouble! I’m actually just here to talk to you about your problems. The biggest one being me killing you in the next five minutes.”

Lyra rolled her eyes.

“... And how do you plan on doing that?”

Giggling childishly, Surprise got back on her hooves.

“Really, Harpy? You think I’d just tell you? I would have thought you’d know what I’m all about by now, or was my name not enough of a tip-off?”

She grinned in what could have been called a smile, had it not been so predatory.

“You’re going to have to find out... For... Yourself. That’s how this works, remember?”

For a moment, Lyra froze. In that moment, she realised why Bon-Bon considered this lone madmare to be such a potent threat. The madness behind those eyes... was capable of anything. Any depravity, any cruelty, any unexpected horror. Surprise was the embodiment of the darkest aspect of her namesake. She was the unknown... and all of the fear thereof, made manifest in pony form.

The Empire was a great threat to Equestria, but they were a known threat. Surprise was something different. She was a threat that nopony could be prepared for.

Lyra moved without thinking. Like Bon-Bon had before her, something within her instinctively knew that she needed to strike this pony down. Right now.

Lyra shot through the air, hoof pulled back to strike. Then, in the next instant, she was sprawling on her back, her stomach heaving from the nauseating effects of gravitational distortion.

Lyra looked up, horrified at the blurry haze that separated her from her foe.

“A repulsion field? But how could...”

Surprise laughed, spreading her hooves wide as twin rivulets of red and blue ooze snaked their way out from under her mane and spread all across her body. Harpflank-blue and Sweets-red mingled and fused together into a deep purple that hardened into armor plates, almost plastic-like in their gloss and texture. Surprise grinned, flaring her wings as she flexed.

“Nanomachines, son.”

Leaping back to her hooves, Lyra shook her head.

“But that’s impossible!”

Surprise set her hooves back on the ground, relishing in the sensation of power. Her nanosuit seemed to forgo the protective helmet, instead focusing all of its mass on her legs and body in order to bring her up to the physical standard of a superpony.

“Your little science buddies had almost finished fixing your suits, but... they had a little extra unprogrammed nano-goo left over. They were so desperate to finish their work, they just left it out. Lying there, waiting to imprint on a host. A little wolfy misdirection to lure everyone to the main lab, a little neural link with the nanotech to get it thinking on my ‘unique’ wavelength... and here we are.”

She cocked her head.

“Now then, I think I still have about half of those five minutes left. Let’s make up for lost time.”

Faster than an unenhanced pony could move, Surprise flew straight at Lyra, covering the distance incredibly fast before physically slamming her with the repulsion field. Lyra once again felt the gut-roiling sensation of the barrier as she helplessly rode the gravitational distortion all the way down the corridor before being bodily smashed through a reinforced wall.

Lyra rolled along the floor of one of M.A.R.E’s agent barracks, wincing as she tried to stand back up. She looked up and saw Surprise standing a meter away, an insufferable smirk on her face.

“Fish on.”

“Fish what?

The nanosuit glowed as the machines around her right hoof began to replicate and grow, splitting off from the main suit to form into a huge chunk of hardened, dense metal shaped in the perfect image of a monstrously oversized haddock. With lighting speed, Surprise swung her hoof, clobbering Lyra with the metallic fish hard enough to throw her through another wall.

Dazed, Lyra bounced back up, swaying in place as she frantically looked for the next attack.

“Scissors on.”

Lyra yelped and hit the deck as an oversized set of shears sliced through the air above her and embedded themselves in the door behind her. Stumbling, Lyra hurled a bed in Surprise’s direction before darting out of the barracks through the ruined door and back into another corridor.

Lifting a hoof, Surprise deflected the bed with another repulsion field. Pulling that same hoof back, her suit once more began to glow as it began to form yet another unorthodox weapon. Fleeing down the corridor, Lyra realized that Surprise was not utilizing any sort of placeholder program as she and Sweets had, but instead was forming objects derived directly from her own deranged imagination.

Lyra ducked around a corner just as a boulder-sized chrome bowling ball demolished the storeroom she had been contemplating hiding inside. Lyra leaned on the wall, breathing heavily as Surprise called out to her.

“Wow, full marks for you, Harpy. You actually did manage to do something I didn’t predict! Well done. I mean honestly, running like a coward was the last thing I would have expected from you! Such impressive innovation.”

Ignoring the barbed words, Lyra caught her breath. Weighing her options, she realised her best hope was to keep Surprise distracted enough that she wouldn’t be able to think any more commands to the nanosuit. Calling out, Lyra moved into position.

“You’ll never succeed, you nutcase! Even if you did reach whatever deranged goal you’re aiming for, it still wouldn’t satisfy you! Everything you do is pointless!”

Thoroughly baited, Surprise surged around the corner, face twitching as she slid to a halt.

“You haven't the slightest idea just what I’m trying to prove, or how much it means!”

Looking around, Surprise didn’t notice as Lyra dropped from the ceiling to strike her from above. Instead she just rolled her shoulders as Lyra bounced off another repulsion field. Turning, she sneered a little.

“Really, Harpflank? I'm insulted. There's no other way to say it, I am genuinely insulted by that. You actually tried to surprise me, and that was what you came up with."

She rubbed a hoof on her face.

"This... This is my craft, Harpflank. You come at me with a flimsy sneak attack like that and you expect me to not see it coming? I... I can't even look at you right now. You're making a mockery of my passion. I'm here trying to give a real seat-of-your-pants experience, and you can't even be bothered to-"

It was at this point, the large light fixture Lyra had been hanging from fell on Surprise's head.

Taking her opening, Lyra dived in, throwing a barrage of punches at the stunned madmare as she drove her into a wall. But despite Lyra's ferocity, Surprise remained standing, tanking every strike as any blows not absorbed by her armor were soaked up by her freakish elasticity. Soon enough, Surprise planted a leg in Lyra's gut and kicked her off, chuckling as she rubbed at her bruised cheeks in wonder.

"Ok, ok. I was wrong. I guess you really are something special after all."

Flaring her wings, Surprise let out a slow clap.

"That was a worthy shock, Harpy. You work well when you're cornered. But... Perhaps I can get better from you if I raise the stakes just a liiii-tle bit more. How about we try...”

Seeing the suit begin glowing again, Lyra turned and ran. This time, the nanobots didn’t stop at just a single object. They actively pursued Lyra, chasing after her as they leapt from surface to surface. Gaining ground, the nanomachines stabbed into every floor, wall and ceiling as they replicated, filling the tight corridor with an interconnected metallic web of razor-sharp strands, each seeking to impale themselves into lyre-emblazoned flesh.

At the last second, Lyra leapt off of a wall as she turned a corner, narrowly avoiding the onrushing tide of metallic nano-death. Barely slowing down as they pursued her, the seeker spikes eviscerated the entire corridor, piercing and rending everything in their path. Metal, wood, plastic, concrete, nothing mattered to the nanometal except its target, who remained one trot ahead only by virtue of the desperate mantra she was yelling as she ran.

“Nope-nope-nope-nope-nope-nope-nope!”

Panting, Lyra’s tactical thinking finally kicked in as she decided to add direction the truly exhausting level of ‘maximum retreat’ she was employing. Struggling to keep up this extreme pace in such an enclosed space, Lyra set a course back to the labs, following a faint trace of hope.

“Just gotta find Vinyl and Octavia. They’ll know what to-”

Metal spikes slammed down in front of her like the bars of a cage, immediately and painfully bringing her to a clanging halt. Cut off in front and with more nanobots advancing from the rear, Lyra lashed out in desperation, struggling to keep from being trapped.

However, and to her mounting horror, bashing her hooves on the bars turned out to be futile as the nanobots simply regenerated whatever damage she dealt. In full panic, Lyra whirled around, frantically watching as the nanomachines surrounded her on all sides, coating the floor and the walls as the already cramped space began to compress, closing in tighter and tighter and tighter-

“Wait, wait. Time out.”

The cage stopped shrinking.

Surprise navigated the web of metal lacerating the corridor with the skill of a natural-born contortionist, twisting and pivoting around the many metallic strands as she approached. Reaching the cage Surprise let out a sigh, greeting Lyra with a conflicted look.

“This won’t do at all. It’s just so unsatisfying... You can’t die this easily!”

She clapped one hoof atop the other.

“Ah, I know!”

She issued another thought-command to the machines. The cage resumed its compression, but at a glacial pace.

“There, that should give you enough time to try and escape! Now, at least I’ll still have the anticipation of seeing you again. Or, conversely, not seeing you, depending on how... quickly you find a way out.”

She leered, rubbing her hooves together.

“I look forward to finding out which.”

Giggling, Surprise turned and flew away, giving herself a congratulatory hoofbump as she did so.

Watching her leave, Lyra grit her teeth and pounded the bars, infuriated less at her own failure, but more at the simple fact that Surprise had once more gotten away, this time even stronger and more capable of harming other ponies.

Swishing her tail, Lyra closed her eyes and tried to control her temper.

“... Can’t stop her from here. I need to think of a way out of this.”

Looking around her slowly dwindling prison, Lyra scrambled for a way to break free from the self-repairing nanometal intent on mercilessly compacting her.

“It’s made of nanomachines. An EMP? No, Vinyl and Octavia fixed that weakness... Then what? How do you escape from a cage that knows how to fix itself?”

As minutes passed, sweat began to drip down Lyra’s face. Fighting back panic, Lyra rubbed her temples, desperate for some sort of idea, some way out. Throwing back her head, she grunted in frustration.

“Come on... I know I’m not that smart, but I have to be smarter than a bunch of dumb machines-”

She paused as a light turned on behind her eyes.

“It’s not just metal... It’s metal that can think. And if it can think, then I can trick it!”

As the bars of her cage began to press into her pale green fur, Lyra closed her eyes and concentrated, putting her crazy plan into action.

It was no great secret that Lyra had a dismal lack of aptitude for spellcraft. In her many years of being a magical unicorn, Lyra had yet to pick up on anything more complicated than the basic remote manipulation spell inherently learned by her one-horned brethren.

However, it is precisely because of her ignorance in all things magical that Lyra was able to conceive of her escape plan. Had she the requisite arcane knowledge to understand the nature of her actions, even she would have hesitated to attempt such an insane plan.

But Lyra was not acting on wizardly knowledge, she was acting on instinct. She focused on that instinct, focused on the dull ache at the base of her horn, and let the feeling of inherent wrongness be her guide. Lyra reached out across the halls of M.A.R.E, seeking out the source of the strange, repulsive feeling she hadn’t been able to shake. Her pool of magic connected with another, identical pool, and a stream flowed between them.

In the base’s medical bay, there was a flash of light as a horn appeared on the head of the clone resting there.

Instantly, the nanometal recoiled and contorted, its simple programming thrown into confusion by the notion of its target being in two different locations at once. After a moment's calculation, the cage holding Lyra swirled into action, coiling around her hind legs and dragging her away as it slithered down the corridor towards the medical wing.

Grunting at the painfully constricting cocoon, Lyra grit her teeth as the metal smashed her into wall after wall as it made its way through the base.

“Not so fast, slimeball... This is where I get off!”

Sliding along the ground, Lyra pulled back her right hoof and punched, following moments later with her left as she dug her two hooves deep into the concrete floor and anchored herself in place. She yelped at the sudden halt, feeling the metal straining to pull her limbs out of their sockets as it struggled to drag Lyra along for the ride.

The metal pulled and pulled and pulled, but Lyra refused to budge. Eyes watering from the pain, Lyra felt the seconds drag on and on as the nanomachines stretched themselves thinner and thinner, winding through the complex as they struggled to contain both targets.

Then, gradually, the strain lessened. Blinking the moisture away, Lyra extricated herself from the ground and stood up, glancing back at the silvery spider-thread clinging onto her hind leg and extending deep off into the corridor.

“Aaaand that actually worked. Huh. I know my crazy strategies have alway been a bit of a ‘divisive’ subject, but this is ridiculous.”

Lyra paused in silence for a moment before remembering that there was nopony around to hear her terrible pun. Frowning a little, Lyra took a single step back, snapping the connection and leaving the little thread desperately waving to try and latch back onto her.

“I’m sure Vinyl and Octavia can think of a way to contain you properly. I guess I’d better get back to the labs to regroup.”

As she turned to depart, Lyra paused and looked back in the direction that the string was leading. She bit her lip as her thoughts turned to the other ‘unicorn’ who she had so briefly connected with. Somehow, acknowledging the link had made her feel less... Disgusted? Repulsed? As if she had somehow trained her horn to accept this unnatural feeling as not a threat. Or perhaps it was just that simple association was hard at work, her mind adapting to the concept of Maredowell being a thing that frequently saved her from certain death time and again.

“That’s three times... Or four?”

She sighed, conflicted.

“One of these days I’m going to have to pay her back.”

And with that, she galloped off down the passageway.

Scene 7

In the cavernous expanse of Ex-Tech’s main lab, the conflict had reached a stalemate. For the intrepid agents of M.A.R.E, fighting back the Titanwolves was proving to be difficult. It wasn’t so bad when they had managed to keep the beasts pinned down, but as soon as Twig Monster had managed to trip up some agents with his summoned vines, he broke out of Derpy’s explosive corral and rushed to his pack-mate’s aid.

Leaping in front of Bark Monster’s wood pile, Twig Monster began blocking the suppressing shots that were keeping him from reforming. All too soon, Bark Monster was reconstructed and back on the prowl as the two pack-brothers fought back in unison, which in turn sent the little ponies fleeing for their lives.

Only Derpy and Redheart held the line, covering the retreat with rockets and grenades to try and keep the Titans distracted. Cursing, Derpy reloaded her grenade launcher, dodging angry vines with her twisting flight.

“This isn’t working! We need something bigger! Where are Harpflank and Sweets?”

Redheart shrugged, backing up another few steps before firing another rocket into Bark Monster’s leg.

Suddenly their attack ground to a halt as both the Nurse and the Commander turned their heads towards a cry of inarticulate rage being bellowed out as Vinyl and Octavia pushed another one of their ‘pet projects’ out of one of the side labs.

Face grim, Octavia dragged the trailing cables over to Ex-Tech’s extra-strength mad-science-grade power batteries and plugged them in. Grinning with an uncharacteristic desire for vengeance, Octavia watched as their super laser began to gather power.

“Hey you overgrown mutts!”

Vinyl leapt into position atop the machine, wrestling the unwieldy device to point squarely at Bark Monster’s face.

“This is for our stuff!”

An escalating hum filled the air as power coursed through the cables hooked up to the base of the machine. Vinyl flipped her shades down and grinned wildly as she partook in the activity she relished most about her job. Utilising science for the purposes of extreme destruction.

The superheated beam struck the Titan right between the eyes, swiftly drilling a hole through his skull and body as everything around the point of contact burned, utterly immolated by the unnatural heat.

Eyes flickering, Bark Monster raised his head and howled, locking his legs as his sinister green magic sprung to life. The sorcerous light danced over his body, frantically dowsing the flames and bringing the beast back from the brink of disintegration. That is, right until Derpy flew right up to him, grenade at the ready.

“-And this is why you don’t mess with M.A.R.E!”

And with that, she huffed, and she puffed and she blew the wolf up.

Firing into the center of mass, the flame-weakened wood turned to sawdust in the blast. Writhing, the magic animating him struggled to regenerate, but had nothing to put back together. What little chunks remained continued to burn, collapsing into formless mounds of charcoal. Eventually, the dark magic itself was the only thing left, before it too was was burnt away in cleansing fire.

Punching the air, Vinyl turned the weapon to the other Titan, eagerly anticipating a second charge to build up in their mighty weapon.

“Heck yeah! We make it look easy! What do you think of that, wolfy?”

Ears folded back, Twig Monster looked down at the ashen pile and whimpered, unable to comprehend this sudden sense of loss. Trembling with anger, the Titanwolf prepared himself for one last, suicidal attack. But it never came.

Before Twig Monster could pounce, one of the Diamond Dogs popped out from the gaping breach in the far wall. Glancing over at the fallen monster, Rover gave a summoning whistle before making his own retreat and scurrying out of sight. Twig Monster raised an ear at his master’s call, and begrudgingly accepted defeat.

Shooting one last hateful, growling glance back at the agents of M.A.R.E, Leaf Monster dismantled himself, beating a retreat as the various forested components of his body flew back into the tunnel and vanished into the darkness.

Rallying, a group of M.A.R.E agents tried to give pursuit after the criminals, but were cut off when the dogs worked together to collapse the tunnel, sealing it off and ensuring their escape.

Raising her shades, Vinyl glowered in disappointment.

“Pah, way to ruin my fun. That really sucks.”

She glanced down at her laser as something occurred to her.

“... Especially seeing as I never built any way for this thing to power down once it was charged. Oh boy.”

The Commander sighed as Vinyl hastily tried to redirect the beam before it fired once more, lancing upwards as it melted part of the ceiling along with several light fittings.

“That could have gone a lot worse... but it still wasn’t great.”

Her eyes drifted apart as a sudden chilling feeling shot down her spine.

“-And now I have a sinking feeling that I’m wrong about it not being as bad as it could have been.”

Trotting over, Octavia met Derpy’s pessimism with an offering of bad news.

“I think you may be right about being wrong. When we slipped into the side lab, I think I saw Lyra chasing after Surprise.”

“She was here?!”

As if in response to this revelation, the Commander’s communicator began beeping insistently. With some trepidation, Derpy reached into a pocket of her uniform and pulled out the device, flicking it open so she could look down at the alarm she was being directly notified of.

“The forced entry alarms are going off in my office. That’s... Oh you have got to be kidding me.”

Filled with weary trepidation, Vinyl slouched up to the Commander’s side.

“Please tell me she didn’t...”

“Bubbles has gone missing.”

Putting her head in her hooves, Vinyl groaned in frustration.

“Arrrgh. As if she didn’t have enough of an arsenal already. She’s got giant, regenerating death wolves, a crew of insta-tunneling here-there-and-everywhere henchdogs, the most powerful single-shot weapon in Equestria-”

The Commander chipped in as her communicator again bleeped, bringing in a status report from Lyra.

“-She took a Nanosuit.”

Raising her hooves in the air Vinyl growled.

“-And then there’s this nonsense! Seriously, what next? Is she going to do a tag-team with Luna so they can freaking do consecutive elbow-drops on us from the top of Celestia Tower? Was she the one who took the Alicorn Amulet out of the vault just so she can pull that out of her tail-end at the last moment? Is she gonna, like use it to power up a portal to a dimension filled with nothing but mutant killer-bees that she shoots at us? How about-”

“Vinyl!”

The DJ clammed up at a harsh stare from Octavia.

“This is not the time for your rambling. As erratic as she may be, I have no doubt that she really does intend to execute Trixie, and we’re still no closer to discovering where and how she means to do so. So kindly clam up and use that worthless imagination to help us figure out how to catch her.”

Pouting, Vinyl nodded.

“Fine. But remind me about that bee-portal thing. I actually kind of want to try that.”

Ears twitching, Derpy returned her communicator to its pocket.

“Well while you’re thinking, the two of you have better search through his rubble and find something we can give to our agents to keep the next battle from going this poorly.”

Vinyl mockingly raised a salute.

“Aye, Aye, captain...”

She flinched as she caught sight of the Commander’s roaming pupils.

“I didn’t mean ‘eye, eye’, I was just-”

“Yes, I am aware, Vinyl.”

She rubbed the back of her head.

“Sorry Commander.”

Turning, Derpy pointed a hoof in Redheart’s direction.

“I trust you can gather up all our injured troops?”

Redheart nodded. Taking to the air, Derpy continued.

“Then I’ll take the uninjured ones and search the rest of the base to see if Surprise left us any more... gifts. We all regroup in an hour, got it?”

“Yep.”

“Certainly.”

“Understood.”

With a determined scowl, Derpy pointed a hoof.

“Alright. Let get M.A.R.E back in business.”

--------------------

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Comments

[UniqueSKD]

So are these meant to be superheroes or BDSM ponies? Because those costumes look really similar to stuff I've seen in other stories on this site. I'm not saying you stole designs, mind you - I'm saying they look like sex outfits that other people put up as their clopfiction cover art. It's really distracting and weird.

[ShadowLDrago]

“Nanomachines, son.”

That aside, I really love how Surprise is kinda like Joker from Dark Knight, she just wants anarchy, the end of predictability and destiny, just pure chaos, she'd love Discord, and how Derpy, despite being somewhat silly at times, is EXTREMELY competent.