Chapter 6 - Witching Hour Activities
“Well it’s another day of class,” Scootaloo grumbled.
She and Sweetie Belle had just met up at their usual street corner and began to trot their way to their second day of class.
“Oh come on, Scoots, school isn’t so bad,” Sweetie Belle replied, slowing herself down to meet the more lackadaisical pace of her friend.
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t really mean much coming from a brainiac like you,” she muttered loud enough for Sweetie Belle to hear.
‘Maybe she is still upset about the test yesterday?’ Sweetie Belle thought. Deciding that a change of topic was for the best, she inquired, “How did flying with Rainbow Dash go yesterday?”
“Oh yeah!” Scootaloo exclaimed, her demeanor shifting from morose to ecstatic in an instant, “Rainbow Dash said I was so awesome, she wanted me to be involved in her Wonderbolt Training Regimen! I’m not sure how much The Flying Crusader can take, but I’m sure I can fix it if I crash or anything.”
“I don’t know, Scoots,” Sweetie Belle hesitated. “That sounds pretty dangerous, even for you. If Rainbow Dash is going to be too busy with her training, wouldn’t that mean she won’t be able to rescue you in time if anything happens?”
Scootaloo dismissed the criticism with a wave of her hoof. “Oh please, like Rainbow Dash even needs to worry about that. Did you think all I did yesterday was fly? I already added a spring-loaded seat to force me out of a crash if it happens and a personal parachute. All this on top of the parachute for the glider. Not that any of that will probably even matter. Rainbow Dash crashes at super-fast speeds all the time and always comes out fine.” She smirked. “Jeez, Sweetie, you almost sounded like your big sister for a moment there.”
Sweetie Belle’s cheeks puffed up in annoyance but she nevertheless said nothing to that. ‘Well, that all sounds perfectly safe,’ she thought. “But wait,” Sweetie Belle considered, “wouldn’t that mean that you’re going to be spending less time with Apple Bloom and me?”
Scootaloo scratched her neck nervously, “Yeah,” she admitted before sighing, “I guess that would mean I’d be spending less time with you girls.” She groaned, kicking stopping her trotting to kick a rock in the dirt. “Jeez, I’m sorry Sweetie Belle. I didn’t even consider what my friends would think about all this. What kind of friend does that make me? Look, why don’t we—”
“It’s alright, Scoots, really,” Sweetie Belle reassured amidst giggles, “it’s actually a good thing that you’ll be too busy to hang out with us right now.”
“Good?!” Scootaloo repeated with a confused expression and a faint hint of anger, “How could not crusading with my friends possibly be a good thing?”
Sweetie Belle realized that she might have been a little too vague and decided to clear things up before Scootaloo came to the wrong conclusion. “Well, actually, yeah. Twilight said that you might want some time to yourself to use your new special talent, so she gave us an offer to work with her as lab assistants in the castle!” Sweetie Belle clarified eagerly.
“Really?” Scootaloo asked skeptically, “I don’t remember there being a lab. Did she build it just for you or something?”
Sweetie Belle put a hoof to her chin. “Maybe? I didn’t ask. She did sound like she was really excited to have it, though,” Sweetie Belle clarified. “She said she would have offered to make us lab assistants earlier, but it wouldn’t have made any sense since Apple Bloom was the only one of us into that stuff. But now—”
“But now I’m doing awesome air stuff and you’re super smart,” Scootaloo finished with a smile. “Well, I guess leave it to Twilight to somehow schedule all that perfectly, I guess.” She breathed a sigh of relief, “So we’re good?”
“More than good, Scoots, great!” Sweetie Belle replied emphatically, “It’s not like you’re going to be gone forever or anything, right?” She smirked, “In fact, I bet you won’t even last a week before you come back begging me for my fluid dynamic equations."
Scootaloo had attempted to put on faux anger at the tease, but she actually looked visibly worried. She had a pretty good grasp of the graphs and classical mechanics that Sweetie Belle taught her during that week of non-stop glider construction and from Sweetie’s notes, but she still had a very hard time wrapping her head around the calculus and laminar/turbulent flow concepts Sweetie used to flesh-out the basic wing design. Still, Scootaloo wouldn’t back down. “Ha! You wish, Sweetie. I actually have a bunch of ideas of my own I got from watching Rainbow Dash fly that will blow you away. Just you wait!”
They both giggled at each other’s antics for a few moments before they finally arrived at school.
Seeing that Apple Bloom wasn’t anywhere to be seen, they both began to wait for her at their usual spot in front of the schoolyard gate.
“So, Sweetie Belle,” Scootaloo began, “how did Twilight Time go? I mean did you—”
Scootaloo unfortunately couldn't get another word in edgewise as Diamond Tiara walking up from behind them.
“Hello, you two,” Diamond Tiara spoke in a sing-song voice, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes at the blatant taunt while Scootaloo huffed, saying, “Yeah you are, not like you care. We’re waiting for a friend, which—of course—doesn’t have anything to do with you, so why don’t you just buzz off.”
“Oh come on, Scoots,” Diamond Tiara pouted in a facetious manner, “why are you being so mean. Spoon and I haven’t done anything to you in months.”
“Yeah, except calling me a liar about my Cutie Mark to my face,” Scootaloo maintained, “not that I even need a reason at this point, considering how much a jerk you usually are.”
Contrary to the reaction she expected Diamond Tiara to take—talking back in a passive-aggressive or angry way—instead she took a deep breath, calmed down, and smiled. “That’s all in the past now. I don’t want to be enemies with you. Sweetie Belle on the other hoof, well, she said some pretty hurtful things and I want her to apologize.”
“I already did, but you didn’t accept it,” Sweetie Belle contended, sighing. “If you want, I can say it again. I’m—”
“Nah-ah-ah,” Diamond Tiara cut-off, shaking her head, “I want you to say it in front of everypony in class.”
“Really…” Sweetie Belle deadpanned, letting out a sigh. “You know what, fine; that’s actually not so bad. Can we at least wait for Apple Bloom to show up? I have some thing I want to talk to her about before class starts.”
“Of course!” Diamond Tiara smirked, “The more ponies to see you humiliated, the better!”
Sweetie Belle didn’t even deign to respond.
“…and so that’s what happened while you were away, Apple Bloom,” Sweetie Belle finished, catching her friend up on what Scootaloo was planning to do and that they were fine with it.
“Yeah, and now Sweetie Belle’s going to apologize to the troublesome twosome in front of the whole class for some dumb reason,” Scootaloo groaned, pointing a hoof at Diamond Tiara who giggled at her mentioning the whole class.
“Really?” Apple Bloom gawped. “Well that’s awfully good of ya, Sweetie Belle,” she said before muttering, “although that sounds entirely unnecessary.”
“Yeah,” Diamond Tiara smirked, “we are all so proud of her.”
“Why you—” Scootaloo retorted, glaring at the bully before she was cut-off by Sweetie Belle’s foreleg.
“Why don’t we all go inside now and get this over with,” Sweetie Belle invited with a small grin, moving the leg that held her back in a gesture for Diamond to go to the door.
“No, Sweetie Belle, I insist, after you,” Diamond Tiara giggled, using the same gesture.
Not planning on playing any more games, Sweetie Belle grumbled under her breath and did the easy thing; marching on across the yard, up to the schoolhouse steps, and through the door.
Just as she did so, she felt something hit her head.
“What the—,” Sweetie Belle got out before her vision was suddenly clouded by a noxious white cloud. She stumbled a bit, waving the white dust from her face as she coughed it in and out of her lungs.
‘Is that—’ she thought while she tried to remove the remaining dust from her airway and her eyes quickly cleaned and restored her vision. She then looked up at where whatever it is came from and as she did, she felt a weight fall from her head and onto the floor. Turning back, she looked to see the culprit: a blackboard chalk eraser. Upon her realization, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon—the latter of whom had been inside the entire time—were giggling at her misfortune.
“Seriously,” Sweetie Belle gagged with a vicious stare. Unfortunately this did not have the intended effect and only resulted in another round of laughter by the two.
“What the hay was that for?!” Apple Bloom stated, marching past Sweetie Belle and coming face-to-face with the two. “Sweetie Belle was coming in to apologize to the whole class for you; and you do that?!”
Silver Spoon sobered up a bit at that, but Diamond Tiara—still in a fit of giggles—managed to reply, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was with you the whole time."
“Then Silver Spoon did it,” Scootaloo accused, standing next to Apple Bloom. “Whoever it was, you were still the one that told Sweetie Belle to come through the door first so don’t go saying you’re innocent.”
Silver Spoon looked troubled, “DT, I thought you said that if she agreed to—”
“Come on, Spoon,” Diamond nudged, “do you think somepony like her,” she emphasized with a hoof to Sweetie Belle, “would mean anything she says?”
“You take that back, you jerk!” Scootaloo exclaimed before rushing at Diamond. She was about to push her when Apple Bloom held her back from turning it into a brawl.
“Girls, forget it!” Sweetie Belle advised, highlighting her remark by calmly taking her seat and brushing the last of the chalk from her hair.
Scootaloo gave them a sharp glare but eventually pulled herself out of Apple Bloom’s grasp and they both made it to their seats.
“Don’t expect your apology now,” Sweetie Belle glared at Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon in turn.
Diamond Tiara just grinned.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get it eventually anyway.”
The rest of the day proceeded much like that, to the chagrin of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were relentless with their ‘pranks.’
After the chalk brush “accident,” Diamond Tiara raised a hoof during class and told Cheerilee that Sweetie Belle had hidden something bad in her desk. When the teacher came over, she found a convincingly forged note Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had planted there earlier—addressed from Sweetie Belle to the two—stating how she would beat them up at lunch for not backing down from her blackmail attempt. Sweetie Belle denied both the letter’s legitimacy and the contents and claimed that Diamond Tiara had forged it. Seeing no evidence that either case was true, she chastised them both.
That attempt may not have worked as Diamond Tiara had expected, but she did not stop there.
During the first break, Sweetie Belle went into the yard with her friends, only to find herself at the center of a rumor that she had lied about her disability. The rumor said that she had convinced Cheerilee it was true to hide the fact that she was just lazy and terrible with magic. The CMC confronted Diamond about it, but as usual she denied the allegations. Instead, Diamond Tiara turned the questioning back on Sweetie Belle in front of the class during the recess, asking her to prove her disability is real. Realizing that there was no way to prove a lack of magic, Sweetie Belle had to back off, only further infuriating her and her friends.
Not even lunch was safe. As Sweetie Belle opened her lunchbox, she found it covered in worms. Luckily Granny Smith had packed—as usual—far too much food for Apple Bloom and they still managed to make do by eating the other two meals between the three of them.
It was beginning to become all too clear to the crusaders that Sweetie Belle was the intended target of these incidents.
“What did you do, Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom asked worriedly, “Ah don’t mean ta say it’s your fault or nothin’ but this can’t just be because of what ya said yesterday, right?”
“I don’t know,” Sweetie Belle groaned, clearly fed up, “I was in the hospital to two months before this. There’s no way I could have done anything then. The only time I’ve seen them at all since then was yesterday with you girls.”
“Why are you two even looking for reasons at all?” Scootaloo objected, “They’re bullies, plain and simple. They have been bullying us for fun for years. Have you thought that maybe they’re just making up for the past two months? Maybe they are just doing it all because of what Sweetie Belle said yesterday. Whatever it is, we’ve got to do something!”
“But what can we do?” Apple Bloom asked, conflicted that her family’s brand of ethics wasn’t helping the situation, “We can’t just bully’em back! That’d make us as bad as they are!”
“No, they would just be the rotten bullies that started it and we would be getting justice and stuff,” Scootaloo retorted, causing Apple Bloom to pause and reconsider her position.
“Why don’t we just leave things alone for now?” Sweetie Belle asked the two plainly during the lull in her friends’ conversation. Throughout this conversation, Sweetie Belle was surprising calm, not seeming to look at all concerned about the situation. She was still most certainly annoyed, but not to the degree the other two had come to expect.
“Huh? Why?!” Scootaloo protested, “They aren’t going to stop if we don’t do something! I’ve never seen them being as annoying as they are now. Even when you and I ‘ruined’ her cute-ceañera!"
‘You’re probably right, Scoots, she won’t stop,’ Sweetie Belle thought. ’*Past experience dictates that she is likely to continue until graduation.* That being said, I can’t get you two involved, especially now that I know they are only going after me.’ She shook her head, “Maybe after a few days she’ll see that I’m not bothered by any of their dumb ‘pranks’ and they’ll stop,” she pointed out. ‘It’s true. They’ll stop, one way or another.’
“Yeah, Ah think Sweetie Belle’s right,” Apple Bloom chipped in, “besides, there’s no way they can get away with doin’ what they’re doin’ forever. Once Cheerilee catches ’em she’ll be keepin’ an eye out. They’d have ta cut it out then.”
“Well, I guess it’s your decision, Sweetie,” Scootaloo sighed, “Just let me know if you ever decide that you’re actually going to do something.”
Sweetie Belle looked away grimly, ‘I won’t…’ she thought.
As expected, the bullying continued for the rest of the day.
Between lunch and when they finally left for home, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had managed to somehow deflate a ball the CMC were playing with when Sweetie Belle caught it, “accidentally” trip her on the way back from recess, and replaced all of her pencils with quills—which without ink were pretty useless. None of these were particularly severe, but Sweetie Belle had had enough. If she didn’t get back at them soon, she might do something she would really regret. Despite as much as she considered what she could do, she realized that with her friends still around, she couldn’t escalate the conflict the way she wanted. So as Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon left together to go home—completely free of any retribution—she glared at them in quiet fury.
Sensing her frustration, Scootaloo asked, “Sweetie Belle, are you alright? Just say the word and I’ll be right with you for some awesome payback! I was actually thinking of this sweet idea of dyeing their—”
“No,” Sweetie Belle reluctantly denied, “it’s…no big deal. We can talk more about stuff like that if it gets any worse. For now, just…let them go.”
“Are you sure? Like sure-sure?” Scootaloo insisted, “I really wouldn’t mind if—”
“Yes, I’m fine,” Sweetie Belle affirmed, although her clenched teeth she had while responding did not agree with her words, “Why don’t we all head out. You’ve got practice with Rainbow Dash, and Apple Bloom and I have to talk to Twilight about stuff.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Don’t push it, Scoots,” Apple Bloom cautioned, “Ah know that Sweetie Belle’s pretty upset right now—Ah know Ah would be—but she’s tryin’ ta be the better pony. Besides, Sweetie’s right. If we don’t get over ta Twilight’s and talk about her plans for teachin’ us about her lab equipment right away, we might not be able ta talk to her at all today.”
Scootaloo sighed, “Alright, fine, I’ll drop it. I won’t lie, there are a lot of things Rainbow Dash and I wanted to do today.” At the thought, her outlook immediately brightened. “I’ve been having some problems with the propeller pressure while trying to keep up with Rainbow at high speeds. What I was thinking is that maybe I could use that high pressure air somehow, but apart from completely changing the aerodynamics of the glider, I’m not sure how that would work.”
That went right over Apple Bloom’s head, but Sweetie Belle seemed to understand. “I think I might be able to help,” Sweetie Belle offered, “I know I joked about it earlier, but you don’t need to beg me to help you understand fluid dynamics. If you want any help at all, just ask.”
“I will,” Scootaloo replied shyly before turning back. Before she set off though, she stopped and seemed to think for a moment. “Oh! Before I go,” Scootaloo added, still facing away from the two, “Dash and I were thinking of having an airshow sometime soon to show off our awesome flying.”
“We’ll be there!” Apple Bloom promised.
She turned back to them with a smirk. “What I mean is, you two better have something worth celebrating by then or Rainbow Dash and I are just going to completely show you up, and that would be lame.” With that last word, she galloped away, ensuring she had the last word.
“Why that little—” Apple Bloom muttered with a small smirk herself.
“She’s right. I mean, Twilight probably is making the best lab in Equestria,” Sweetie Belle specified, “We’ve got to make something awesome at some point or we really will look lame. Something that will make even Scootaloo’s jaw drop.”
Apple Bloom grinned, chuckling a bit at the thought of Scootaloo’s amazement, “Well, what are we waiting for?”
“Goodbye, Twilight,” Sweetie Belle said, finally leaving out the door to the princess’ castle with Apple Bloom in tow.
“Goodbye, girls! I hope to see you early next week with the good news!” Twilight replied, her drowsiness from a long day—evident on her face—reducing the rest of what she said into enthusiastic mutterings involving “science” and “fun.” When it was clear the fillies were no longer paying attention, she went back into the castle and shut its enormous doors.
“Well that took a long time,” Apple Bloom remarked once they were safely out of earshot.
“I don’t know what we expected,” Sweetie Belle sighed, “we were lucky we needed to wait only an hour to talk to Twilight. From what Spike was telling me, that with how she has booked her schedule, she hasn’t had any free time for the past two weeks. I think she actually had to cancel a meeting to talk to us.”
“At least we were able to get some stuff done,” Apple Bloom sighed, “I at least made some progress on the soil potion—though I’m not sure how ‘awesome’ that will be for the airshow—and you got to read some stuff.” Apple Bloom then put a hoof to her chin in contemplation. “Actually now that I think about it, you were reading something near Twilight’s desk. I hope it wasn’t any of her ‘off-limits’ stuff. You know how she is when we—”
“No of course not,” Sweetie Belle answered quickly, “she just had a book that would help with something I’m planning.”
“Something for the airshow?”
“Well, it could help,” Sweetie Belle hesitated, “but anyway, Twilight seemed pretty busy.”
“Yeah, Ah kinda feel bad for her,” Apple Bloom lamented, before a breaking out into a small grin, “although she seemed a little too happy to cancel that meeting.” Her mirth dropped again at the implications, “It’s actually not that surprising that she would be that happy. My Sis was tellin’ me about how she ain’t seen hide or hair of Twilight all month!”
“That’s what Rarity was saying too,” Sweetie Belle agreed, “They only meet when there’s a disaster or if that table thing sends them on some adventure or another. I hope that once she gets the new lab working, she can spend more time with her friends.”
“Ah don’t know how she does it,” Apple Bloom said with a shake of her head, “Just havin’ Scoots flyin’ her glider without us these past two days has me missin’ her something fierce, and we see her every day at school!”
“Well, Twilight said that we could get started on the special lab training tomorrow and that the lab might actually be open as early as next week! Hopefully we’ll be ready in time. I want to get started right now!”
As Sweetie Belle finished speaking, they both noticed Carousel Boutique in the distance.
“Well, I guess this is my stop,” Sweetie Belle said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Apple Bloom.” With that, she went towards the shop.
“Yeah, see ya Sweetie!” Apple Bloom responded back with a wave of goodbye, “Don’t forget to think of something awesome for the airshow!”
Sweetie Belle nodded her affirmation before entering the Boutique and shutting the door. As soon as she was inside, she scowled. “Well that was a terrible day,” she muttered.
“Is that you, Sweetie?” Rarity said from the kitchen, having heard the bell above the door chime.
“Yeah, Sis, I’m back,” Sweetie Belle replied, removing her once-spoiled lunchbox and headed straight to her room.
‘Still,’ Sweetie Belle thought with a smirk, ‘I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be much better. I’ll make sure of it.’
“Lyra! What did I tell you?!” Lyra’s boss, the burgundy-maned, brown-coated mare Malted Wheat, yelled. “I told you that if you want time off, you have to give me notice! You can’t just tell me that you need time off on the same day that you ask for it! You try that again and you’re gone! This is your last warning, Lyra, you do this to me every time!”
Lyra winced at the verbal assault. ‘I knew I forgot something with this brilliant plan of mine,’ she groaned internally, ‘I know I said that I didn’t have much time to save those poor fillies Rarity and Sweetie Belle and to expose the truth, but is it really worth losing my job or increasing the likelihood of getting caught just to avoid leaving it off for just one night?’
She rolled her jaw, desperately trying to “pop” more hearing back into her ears. “I’m sorry, Boss. I forgot—”
“Lyra,” the bartender growled, “you didn’t forget. I’ve given you too many warnings already. I’ve let you off easy, I’ve cut you slack for all those times you’ve come in late, if at all! Then, the moment I reign you in and give you just a little leeway? You abuse that slack for all its worth! Other workers would beg for a boss as nice as me!” She punctuated that last sentence by slapping the towel she wore on her withers to the bar in front of her in a great “fwap” while staring the mint-green mare dead in the eyes.
“No! I forgot, honest!” Lyra pleaded, waving her hooves in front of her face. She genuinely did forget in this case. All that stalking watching she had done with the fillies the past week as well as her plans and documentation of everything she had heard and seen had taken up all of her free time and left her a very distracted mare. She could note a drop in the level of thought she had put into her truth-seeking recently.
Malted Wheat sighed, picking up the towel back up from off the bar’s counter and went back to drying the glasses from the noon-day crowd. “Well if you forgot, then I will forget we had this conversation.”
Lyra couldn’t back down that easily though if she wanted her plan to work flawlessly. Still, she knew that with her current predicament, she would need to make concessions. “What about tomorrow?” she bargained, “If I get off work early tomorrow—or rather Wednesday morning—at 12:30am, I’ll make it up whenever. I promise!”
Her boss looked like she was about to chew out the unicorn again, but instead gritted her teeth in silence. After calming herself down for a few moments, she rolled her eyes. “Well, I suppose we can do this one foal step at a time. Fine, you can get off work and I’ll have you working the kitchen Friday night. I could use some help preparing for the weekend, I guess, so count yourself lucky. See? Aren’t I a stand-up gal when you ask me ahead of time?” The evil smirk she gave was telling of what this “kitchen work” would likely detail.
“Right! Well, I better get to work then,” Lyra responded with perhaps more gusto than necessary, “Don’t want you thinking I’m a bad worker!”
“What did I say, Boss, it’s 12:30am and not a single complaint!” Lyra beamed. Everypony else might have been dead tired at such an hour, but Lyra got up at 2pm every day; midnight was barely evening for her.
“Lyra, you’ve never had a complaint, except from me,” Malted Wheat groaned. “You’re a great musician, everypony knows it—and it will be a sad day if I ever lose you—but it’s your consistency that’s on review right now.” She pointed to the door. “Well, a deal’s a deal, get out of here. I don’t want to see you until tomorrow. We can discuss your extra kitchen duties then.”
”Thanks a lot, Boss,” Lyra replied as she quickly exited the Silly Filly bar.
“I wasn’t kidding, Lyra,” her boss muttered. “One wrong move and you’re gone.”
Lyra crept into her shared home/business and quietly shut the door behind her.
It wasn’t the first time entering this way, in fact due to her late hours, she always had to. Bon Bon was a very light sleeper and so Lyra had to be dead quiet on arrival from work or else she would wake her. ‘It probably had something to do with being a spy. Probably why she doesn’t care about all my quirks either,’ Lyra once mused. She never asked to be certain. That was a part of her friend’s life they very rarely discussed.
That light sleeper was going to be an issue tonight.
Lyra slowly sneaked her way up the stairs—avoiding the second, seventh, and eleventh steps which she knew would creak—and then went to her roommate’s door. Lyra had been oiling up the doors hinges for the past week to avoid detection for this day. While Bon Bon had been away during the afternoon for various errands, Lyra had been practicing opening the knob in complete silence. Now by both turning the knob while simultaneously holding the internal mechanism in her telekinesis, the door swung open with only a dull “whoosh” before finally resting on a rubber doorstop. The occupant of the room only slightly stirred from the pressure difference.
Succeeding in the easy part of the plan, Lyra bent on all fours; distributing her weight as she slowly slunk towards the wardrobe. She opened the door—whose hinges she also oiled—with the delicate grace of her magic. The closet door was a lot less bothersome thanks to the bedroom’s carpet floor muffling the opening sounds and the lack of any lock or mechanism keeping it closed. Herein lay her prize: Sweetie Drop’s all-black cat suit, grappling hook, and rope.
Lyra didn’t dare remove these items before now. If Bon Bon had caught a whiff of what she was about to do tonight, she would probably hate her forever if she was lucky. ‘She doesn’t need to know,’ Lyra rationalized as she carefully took the objects out with her magic, ‘besides, it would take too long to explain to her how important this all is! That’s even if she was willing to listen to me!’
Leaving the way she had entered, Lyra moved to her own bedroom where she put on the cat suit and tied the rope and hook together around her waist. In addition to this, she put on a black ski mask she kept under her bed as well as some yellow winter boots she hadn’t worn since Winter Wrap Up. The latter wouldn’t do much to help her blend into the night, but it would keep her coat color concealed as the cat suit only went to the neck and fetlocks. It also helped to keep possible dirt and mud off the suit; Lyra wouldn’t be able to explain that to Bon Bon if she found out.
For the security of the package she aimed to retrieve that morning, she also brought a thin piece of canvas she had sewn herself. It would protect the document from any wear-and-tear should she need to leave in a hurry. It also would enable her to place the canvas in her suit without it being detected. If anypony saw her flee, they wouldn’t even know what she was up to.
With everything ready, she moved out to her target: the Carousel Boutique.
‘The plan is simple,’ she thought as she crept into the backyard and began to prowl amidst the bushes of her neighbors, ‘I just need to climb into Sweetie Belle’s bedroom on the second floor—where she is staying while her parents are on vacation—take her notes on that “magic crystal” research she was working on, and escape without being seen. Then all I need to do is give it to my mathematician friend at Canterlot University who owes me a favor. Once it’s out in academia and in the media, Twilight will be forced to reveal Sweetie Belle’s intelligence to the world! By her own admission, Sweetie Belle is the only pony who understands what’s written there. If she tries to hide Sweetie Belle and claim ownership herself, it will be easy to get the media’s attention on it and reveal the truth!’
She was now only a few blocks from the Boutique and just climbed over the seventh backyard fence that night only to find herself amid a carefully planned garden. She recognized it as the one the flower sisters: Daisy, Roseluck and Lily Valley. She couldn’t just go through the well-kept garden; not without one the sisters finding out about it. Deciding to play it safe, she instead took the longer route through the neighbor’s yard.
‘The plan isn’t foolproof, though. Twilight could easily deny that she had anything to do with the paper. If I tell the media everything I know—with a mathematician’s assessment and the research providing credible proof—everything would be proven eventually. This conspiracy won’t be able to hold weight for long under scrutiny; I know it didn’t when I was looking into it. Still, I need this proof; without something important like this, it’s just one mare’s word against the princess and hero of Equestria. The only thing I regret about this is it might make poor Sweetie Belle a celebrity without really giving her a choice. Still, it’s better than what’s happening now, and if it means that the truth is revealed, it’s worth it.’
Now she was finally within visual distance of the Boutique. Unfortunately this was the most difficult part: infiltration. If her timing was poor, she might end up getting caught by one of the Ponyville Patrols when she was making her escape. Between Twilight’s coronation, monster attacks, and Sweetie Belle’s escape from a cordon that had been placed around Ponyville, Twilight’s patrols had only gotten stricter. The only time she knew that she would be in the clear was at 1:15am when the patrol changed shifts. She knew this confidential knowledge because half the patrol filled her bar at the end of her shift. If she left in time for this rotation, she knew the coast would be clear regardless of how the home invasion turned out.
This was the reason for her to leave early; the final insurance that even the worst case got her home without being found out.
‘This is it,’ Lyra thought as she nervously stuck her head out from one of the bushes she was using for cover. She looked down the wide-open plain to her left and right for guards. This was one of the main reasons for this careful planning; Carousel Boutique was on the edge of the town’s limits and so there was no bushes or houses for cover. Once she committed, it would be difficult to flee if she was discovered. Cat suit or no.
‘The coast is clear, this time is,’ she checked her watch, ‘12:58. This is it, now or never!’
With a great leap, she galloped across the field as fast as she could, quickly going around to the back of the shop. She then stood up against the wall—between two of the windows—in an attempt to make herself as obscure as possible. As she did this, she also checked her surroundings; looking for anypony who might have spotted her.
There were none to be seen.
Satisfied that there was nopony around, she took her grappling hook attached to the rope and threw it at the smaller, second-story balcony. Unfortunately, her aim was off and so it took three tries before it successfully latched to the balcony ledge. Luckily for Lyra, these failures were of little consequence as the cloth roof of the building dampened most of the noise. She tugged at the rope and—confident that the hook would hold—slowly climbed her way to the second floor.
It was during this ascent that Lyra reminded herself why she was doing it in an attempt to assuage her frustration with the idea in the first place. ‘Remember Lyra,’ she thought, ‘you need to climb to avoid being caught. You learned this from your observations last night; while Sweetie Belle is in her sister’s room sleeping, Rarity is on the couch right next to the stairs. If I don’t do this, we will probably wake her up. That’s not even taking into account that the front door has a bell on it. Rarity might not be a powerful unicorn alicorn like Princess Twilight, but the things she’s done with the other Elements are not something I could compare to. Having to face her is a risk I’m not willing to take.’
It took Lyra almost two minutes, but she finally made it up and over the second floor railing and onto the balcony. As an aside, Lyra was surprised that the balcony had no doors leading to the bedroom, but rather two large windows. Regrettably for Lyra—as with most indoor spaces at night—the partial moon outside was lighter than the inside, resulting in the bedroom’s interior being mostly obscured by the reflection of the window. Nonetheless, she checked the window and was satisfied with the lack of movement inside. Taking the necessary risk, Lyra slowly opened the window with her magic—cringing at a quick squeak it made—and slid inside.
As she closed the window softly and turned, she froze as she found herself immediately confronted with several ponies.
‘What! That’s impossible!’ she thought, frantically waving her legs in front of her to dissuade any attempts these new individuals could have at grabbing her. Upon realizing she was still disguised, she figured the best bet would be to flee the scene before she was caught. Turning hurriedly, she was about to open the recently closed window when she found herself again encountered by a pony at the window. She stopped in her tracks, now finding herself completely surrounded.
“I—umm, that is…this all just a mistake—” she got out, her mind going into overdrive. It was at this point that she realized the ponies had not moved at all since she entered. ‘What are they waiting for?!’ she thought, ‘They must know that they have me where they want me. So why—’
Looking closer, she found out why. The ponies were all an identical pale white, their features faded and expressionless in the dim moonlight and they all were undergoing the same fantastical leaping pose. ‘Dummies?! What kind of sadistic pony would—’ she facehooved, ‘fabric models, right. Jeez I’m such an idiot…’
She then heard a noise behind her and nearly jumped to the ceiling. She turned quickly around but found everything as it was. Then a sudden flap of the curtain on the window beside her gave her another shock. Deciding it best to calm her nerves for a moment before she gave herself another panic attack, she distracted herself by looking around the room again.
Directly in front of her was a half door leading downstairs, both top and bottom sections left firmly shut. On her right was the bed where the sleeping form of the filly lay, still thankfully motionless despite the commotion. On the left end of the room was a small workstation and sewing machine where Rarity did her craft. Next to it was a shelf piled high with various fabrics, threads and writing materials. Beside the desk was a full length mirror and another table where she drew up new designs; some of these designs were still there, left unfinished. On the other two walls behind her were the windows she came from; pale moonlight entering through them being the only source of illumination the room had.
She moved to the door and opening the top portion quietly—surprised that both sections didn’t open together—and finding nopony outside who could have caused the noise she had heard. She sighed, turning back to go to the desk where she was sure to find the research paper. It was nowhere in sight, however.
‘Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no-oh-no-oh-no-oh-no!’ Lyra thought, again panicking. Moving carefully but swiftly around the room, she searched for any sign of the research. ‘I know she came back here right after showing it to Twilight, it has to be here! She wouldn’t have just given it to her friends or given it to her parents when they visited a few days ago, right? Oh no, did I make such a stupid mistake? There’s no way I could have known she wouldn’t keep it here! This isn’t fair!’
She heard another noise as she went back to search for the paper on the desk again. Turning around, she found that—just had been the case after her previous panic—she could not see the source of the disturbance. ‘Stop jumping at noises, Lyra!’ she thought, chastising herself, ‘You don’t have time for this!’
Still, she had to make sure.
She went back to open the door, when she was briefly distracted by some paper on the bedside table on the opposite side of the bed. ‘Hey, I didn’t check over there. Maybe the research paper is in that pile!’ Despite the distraction, though, she had to investigate the noise just to be sure. Turning back to the task at hoof, she opened the upper door and looked out left, right, and center into the hallway, finding it just as it was before: deserted. ‘Well, that’s enough of that,’ she thought, moving slowly back to the other side of the bed.
Right next to the bed on a small table was the small pile of paper sitting at the base of an alarm clock. Carefully sorting through the paper—so as not to stir the sleeping form to the filly not one meter away—she delved past the assorted documents ranging from a crude map of Ponyville to some plan to take something or another. She wasted little time on these, instead uncovering a small group of papers at the bottom entitled Atomic Lattice Structure Manipulation using Thaumic Field Effects. It was covered almost exclusively in complex diagrams and large sophisticated formulas; only small scribblings in the margins attempted to explain what everything meant.
‘This is it! This is the document!’ she thought, frantically pulling out the thin canvas sheet from her suit and placing the paper gingerly inside its protective covers. She finally took the moment to breathe a sigh of relief, ‘Take that Bon Bon, or should I say Sweetie Drops! I can be a super-secret spy pony too! Special Agent Heartstrings, oh yeah!’
She had just placed the canvas back into her suit when the door beside the bed suddenly burst open, producing Rarity and Sweetie Belle from the room outside.
“Come out, villain!” Rarity cried out, looking towards the open window and her desk at the other end of the room. She held a ceramic vase in her magic and—with her nervous but angry expression—looked very intent to use it.
More than the shock of the sudden development unfolding was the fact that the filly wasn’t in her bed. Lyra took a brief moment again to check back-and-forth both at the white unicorn filly and the form of the filly still in the bed. ‘What? How is—but why—this doesn’t make sense!’ Lyra thought. Remembering her panic just moments earlier, she decided that while she was still disguised, it was best to flee before she could be caught. She had the research paper, all she needed to do now was get out of there.
This would prove to be a mistake.
Rarity—who until now had not seen the hard figure on the other side of the bed—was started by the sudden movement beside her and let out a shriek in fright, throwing the vase as hard as she could at the perpetrator. Her aim was true—thanks to years of fine-detail telekinesis—and the vase collided directly with Lyra’s forehead and horn, breaking the ceramic construction into pieces.
At the impact, Lyra stumbled forward, clearly dazed by the impact. Turning she gave the pair a final shocked look before her legs gave out and she collapsed. As unconsciousness began to overtake her, her focus again was on the filly whom not only was not where she should be, but whom had also been replaced by a fake in the bed. A filly that looked back at the thief with equal confusion.
‘How could…she have known? What…happened?’
“Goodnight, Sweetie,” Rarity cooed as she tucked her little sister into her bed for the night. ‘It’s only right she sleep in my bed,’ Rarity thought, ‘with Mother and Father away on vacation again, Sweetie Belle needs—no deserves to sleep in a comfy bed. It also doesn’t hurt that her sleeping here forces me to leave my Fall Line for later; I know I tend to overdo it when deadlines start to creep closer.’
“Yeah, Rarity, goodnight and everything,” Sweetie Belle replied, embarrassed by the—in her opinion needless—doting by her sister, “can I just get to sleep now?”
“Oh, of course, darling,” Rarity smiled, “still, I don’t know why you’re so tired that you went to bed this early. Why, we just had supper! It isn’t because I interrupted your therapy with Twilight is it?!” She looked to the side with guilt, “If I had known I would have just waited patiently for you here. Oh I’m so, so sorry about—”
“I’m just tired, that’s all,” Sweetie Belle asserted, followed by a yawn. “You didn’t really interrupt anything anyway,” Sweetie Belle added, “all the important tests were already done by then.”
“Well okay,” Rarity conceded, worry still on her brow, “just remember that if you need anything—anything at all—that you’ll let me know, okay?”
“Yeah, got it, Mom,” Sweetie Belle grumbled, her eyes now beginning to droop as she rolled them.
Rarity frowned at the sarcasm, but didn’t want to argue now that Sweetie Belle was showing the telltale signs of her drowsiness. Instead, she closed the door behind her and went back down the steps to the first floor of the Boutique.
‘Alright, time to start the plan!’ Sweetie Belle thought, dropping the fake “tired” act and sitting up in bed.
She grabbed the alarm clock from next to the bed and twisted off the two bells that sat atop the clock face. ‘Even without the bells, the gem encased in the clock will still vibrate at the right time,’ she noted. She set the clock to midnight and placed it in her pillow. She had tested it three times the week before and—despite the discomfort of sleeping on a metal clock and the vibrations going on underneath the pillow—she found she could both fall asleep and wake up as expected. In this way, she could wake up in complete silence; the usual alarm being loud enough that even her sister downstairs might wake up from it. A risk she didn’t want to take.
To complete the setup, she placed the bells she had taken off onto the floor beneath the bedside table. That way, even if her sister were to come it, she would be unlikely to find anything amiss. Even if she notices the alarm clock is missing, she wouldn’t want to disturb Sweetie Belle by looking for it.
Now with everything ready, Sweetie Belle finally went to bed for real. She felt nervous and restless atop the metal clock but still felt herself fall asleep quickly nevertheless. After what the Tablet had done to her mind, she never had a problem sleeping. Going to sleep early and resting for six whole hours, she knew that—even after her plans tonight—nopony would be the wiser. When her sister came to wake her up the next morning, everything would already be done.
The perfect alibi.
Just as with those previous “test” nights, she was indeed awoken by her silent alarm; its intense vibrations burrowing into her skull directly like a pile driver. It was like a million snakes all coiling around her head and hissing.
“Sweet Celestia!” Sweetie said in strident susurration, suddenly springing separate. She sought sweet sanctuary from such a ceaseless, skull-striking system as swiftly as speed sanctioned.
Moving out of the bed, she put her hooves to her head in an attempt to ease a literal and ‘alliteral’ migraine that had formed. ‘Why do—do I do this to myself,’ she thought through the pain. She turned to the pillow, opened it up, and clicked the button atop the clock, stopping its shaking.
Getting back on track, she took the bells from the floor and once again attached them to the alarm. For added security, she also set the alarm to her sister’s usual wakeup time. Although it was unlikely for her sister to take such small details to heart, Sweetie Belle wasn’t a pony to take unnecessary risks anymore. With everything back the way it was, she picked up the sheets on the small bedside table, reviewing again the plan she would implement that night.
She had tried doing something similar to this a year ago; it was how she invented the clock trick in the first place. When she was grounded—after she and Apple Bloom had converted one of Rarity’s bolts of fine silk into canvas in an alchemy accident—she attempted to get a ninja Cutie Mark. She woke up before the sun came out and snuck around town. Even with a similar six hours of sleep she still felt sluggish at night. She barely made it home after just an hour of “ninja-ing” so every minute of her plan would have to be vital.
‘That plan is extremely simple, but it will be tough to do without getting caught,’ she thought to herself. She looked at the notes she had made and the crude map of Ponyville and committed all the details once again to memory. She didn’t want to bring her plans with her. Not only would the pieces of paper be awkward to carry without needless additional baggage like a saddlebags, but it would be hard to work her way out of getting caught if her entire scheme was only one read away.
With her plans stored again in her memory, she went over to Rarity’s workbench on the other end of the room. There she grabbed a pair of scissors Rarity used in her dressmaking, a small spade she had retrieved earlier from the garden shed, and a small cotton ball; the only things she would need. In addition, she took a few bolts of fabric and tucked them into her bed to create a facsimile of her sleeping form. It wouldn’t stand to close scrutiny, but in the dim light it would be good enough for somepony like Rarity who wouldn’t suspect anything.
With her preparations complete, Sweetie Belle slowly trotted down the stairs. She didn’t need to worry about her sister waking up just from the slight squeaks of the stairs or her dull hoofsteps; Rarity was a heavy sleeper. Sweetie Belle was actually worried once that her sister might even dream right through a fire with how deep she slept. The time she burnt juice when her parents came over assuaged that fear.
Once she was on the main floor, she crept by Rarity on the couch—who was mumbling in her sleep about mulled apple cider of all things—and over to the kitchen where she grabbed a hoofstool. Moving it beside the door, she stood up on it and placed the cotton ball into the doorbell’s clapper. ‘Now it won’t make any sound,’’ she observed, grinning to herself for her forward thinking.
Now with the bell silenced, she would be free to enter and leave through the front door without waking up her sister. Taking the opportunity this granted, she immediately headed out to her destinations: the Rich and Silver residences.
Sweetie Belle’s first stop on her little midnight “tour” of Ponyville were the Silvers; Silver Spoon’s family. They lived only a short trot from her house in the south-west end of Ponyville, near her own family’s house.
‘I’m not sure if it’s bad luck or what,’ Sweetie Belle mused wistfully on her way, ‘but if it wasn’t for Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon and I would have probably been the best of friends; I had even visited her house once. We lived almost right next to each other and Sis still asks Mr and Mrs Silver for help with some of the fine filigree work if she even needs special jewelry for her rich clients. Unfortunately, I was pretty shy back then and Diamond Tiara was not.’ She giggled, feeling a deep pit in her stomach form at the sudden guilt. ‘Now because of that I’m going to break into her house.’
‘No!’ she thought, trying in vain to shake the awful feeling away, ‘I shouldn’t feel guilty for them. *Diamond Tiara is the one at fault for taking these acts of aggression far too seriously. This is the logical response, there is no reason to be upset.* They’ll never back down if I don’t do this.’
With that thought finally out of her mind, she focused her outlook and determination on the task at hoof; she marched onwards to the house. She had to be careful of the guard patrols, but doing so was very easy now that she knew about their schedules. While she was waiting for Twilight today—or yesterday as it now was—she had committed all the pertinent routes of the guards to memory. She luckily was able to distract Apple Bloom with an idea of using a basic—rather than acidic—solution for her new soil potion and then later after they had left with Twilight’s lack of free time. *It is useful to know how to distract a friend when necessary* Sweetie Belle noted.
Continuing on to the Silver residence, she made the choice to walk down the main street. She knew the schedule of the guards and this neighborhood was mostly filled with young families. That meant that even for her clandestine stroll, she could use the main street with little fear of being noticed. There was of course the outside risk of being spotted, but she needed to be quick; her stamina was already depleting. Not being caught wouldn’t mean much if she fell asleep before she could make it back home.
The guards would make their rounds of the street at 11:18pm, 11:50pm, 12:22pm, and 1:34am, taking 9 minutes to go from one end of the street to the other. Normally there might have been some deviation in these times depending on how fast or slow a particular guard is, but not with this schedule. Twilight was extremely distraught when Sweetie Belle—a filly—had managed to escape her cordon the last time. Now every guard checked their watches to keep up with the schedule and rotated regularly so that they knew where every guard would be at any given time. If Twilight needed to find a guard or if another guard needed backup, they would know where to find it.
Of course, this played right into Sweetie Belle’s hooves; she had no fear of being caught by a guard on this stretch of road from 12:00-12:15 or at 12:45-1:00 when she returned.
When she reached the house, she took a moment to convince herself of its layout once again. Like many of Ponyville’s more recent developments, the Silver residence was a two-story townhouse which shared both its walls with its neighbors. This resulted in the three being terraced with the Silvers in the middle. As it turned out, the left neighbor had changed the typical layout to incorporate two distinct floors which allowed one pony to own a separate floor for cheaper than a typical one-story cottage elsewhere in the town.
What made the latter information particularly useful was that from the backyard—which had not been fenced in yet—the second-floor was accessible via a flight of wooden steps to the balcony; a balcony which was flush to the one the Silvers owned. By going through the backyard, walking quietly up the steps, and then climbing over the small wooden railing, Sweetie Belle could make her way to the second floor of the Silvers’ house and have direct access to Silver Spoon’s bedroom’s rear window.
‘That’s all I could find out in one night, unfortunately,’ Sweetie Belle thought in dismay, ‘I couldn’t check to see what type of window Silver Spoon had or even trying a test-run before tonight. They only just started bullying me at school after all and there was no way I could sneak into their backyard during the day or ask them without looking conspicuous. If I can’t open the window somehow, then I’ll have to try again another time. There are only so many risks I can take before it’s too risky. If they bought their windows from the same place Rarity did, however…’
It was as she thought, fortunately. Just as with her sister’s home/business, the windows that kept the elements away from Silver Spoon’s bedroom were bought from the same manufacturer: Whinny’s Windows. This setup was so necessary to her plan because all of the company windows used the same latch to lock the window from the inside. A latch Sweetie Belle was all too familiar with.
Taking out her scissors, she carefully stuck it into the bottom of the window frame. When the scissors were opened, they were just slim enough to make it through the crack that was flush with the windowsill and into the room beyond. Moving left to right, Sweetie Belle passed the scissors under the latch, creating a faint “click” as the latch popped out of a hole in the windowsill and became unlocked. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve used this trick to get out of being grounded,’ Sweetie Belle giggled softly to herself as she put the scissors away again. Her amusement was short lived, however, as she opened the window and—looking inside—was reminded once again of the severity of what she was undertaking.
On the other side of the room slept Silver Spoon, snoring softly. Her mane was undone of its usual braids and draped messily about the bed. Her glasses placed carefully on the bedside table, but Sweetie Belle’s goal weren’t these. As much as her glasses were such a clear identifier of who she was, she didn’t want to impair the bully. ‘Stealing her glasses would be dumb anyway,’ she thought, repudiating the idea entirely, ‘she probably has extras and she probably wears them because she has to. She wouldn’t care if they were gone. No, for her it would have to be these.’
The objects of her focus was on a small workbench that sat right next to the window: a heat-gem soldering gun, tweezers, pliers, a magnifying glass stand, various hooked tools, different sized chisel solder tips, and a cleaning tray filled with what looked like iron gauze and sponge, each showing significant signs of use. The way that the tools were neatly placed in a mahogany box labeled Silver Spoon on a brass nameplate despite being well used made it clear that the tools were highly practical and sentimental to the filly sleeping only a few meters away. ‘This is it, Silver Spoon’s filigree tools,’ Sweetie Belle thought with a malevolent grin, ‘I can already imagine her face at school tomorrow.’
The grin faded as she looked to find a small note engraved on the inside of the lid:
To our loving daughter,
Work hard and have patience. No matter the challenges life throws your way, remember that we will be always with you. —Mom & Dad
She didn’t know what it was about the sentence, but it completely ruined the mood she had built up over the course of the night. The feelings of sweet revenge, the cold rationality and necessity of what she had to do, even the anger and betrayal she felt for a filly she thought could be her friend; they were all downplayed by a feeling of guilt.
“Why does this need to be so difficult!” she whispered, turning to the sleeping filly behind her. “This is necessary!” she said, pointing an accusatory hoof, “I need to show you I’m not all talk or you won’t ever leave me alone!”
The sleeping filly’s only response was to roll slightly to the side and to proceed with her faint snoring again.
‘What am I getting all worked up for?’ she thought, unconsciously drying her tearing eyes with a hoof, ‘She’s going to get it back once she leaves me alone. It’s her fault that I have to resort to this in the first place!’
Taking the tools, she put them into the box and—closed the lid gently—placed it outside on the balcony. With the box out of the room, she climbed over the windowsill once again, cautiously closing the window shut behind her. Using the scissors—this time moving right to left—she locked the latch again, leaving no trace of how she entered.
Now safely outside again with her prize, she looked for a place to hide it. There was no way she would carry the tools home with her, just to leave such criminal evidence laying around where it could be connected to her. After hopping over the balcony railing and back down into the neighbor’s backyard, she found a freshly dug plot of soil near some bushes further back; likely dug up for gardening.
With the spade she had brought from the Boutique, she dug into the patch, creating a small, deep hole. She placed the box into it which left a good foot of dirt above it. The box had a good veneer so it would probably last a week or two before it became really damaged. ‘If she and Diamond Tiara don’t stop all this by then, then I don’t care what happens,’ Sweetie Belle thought bitterly.
She then buried the hole and spread the excess dirt around the rest of the patch to avoid leaving an obvious mound. The hole was deep enough that it could only be discovered if the neighbor planted a tree in the spot. Still, it wasn’t perfect. The deeper soil mixed in with the topsoil to leave the area of dirt slightly discolored; but with the spreading around she did, the area to cover was much larger and it was unnoticeable unless one was looking for it.
With her job done to her satisfaction, she left for her second target: Diamond’s tiara.
It was a little before 12:40am when she arrived at the Rich mansion on the east side of town, near the train station. It wasn’t a “mansion” mansion where one might expect a film star to live, but it was still much larger than the rest of the regular houses in town—although still smaller than the hospital or town hall. It was two stories tall with the same timber-framed walls and thatched roof that was the typical Ponyville aesthetic, but instead of the usual wattle-and-daub for the infill that the rest of Ponyville used it used plaster making it look more uniform and smooth than the other buildings. The column support structure on the first floor and the enclosed backyard pool also helped to separate it from the "unwashed masses."
Luckily enough, the infiltration and theft for this mission would be easy compared to the earlier one. This was good because Sweetie Belle was running out of both time and energy. If she did not complete the mission and get back home in 20 minutes, she would be unsure how much longer she could keep awake. The reason for why was apparent to anypony who wandered up to the residence after dark: Diamond Tiara’s bedroom window was open and a tree branch hung only a few centimeters from the ledge.
Sweetie Belle had initially been confused as to why such a blatant flaw was allowed to exist, even before she thought of this plan—not that she never fantasized about going into her room at night and dyeing her hair or drawing “stupid” on her forehead. She was able to get context when trying to distract her father, Filthy Rich, after he cornered her for more information on economics last week:
~~~
“Oh that?” Filthy Rich replied, smiling with a small chuckle in good humor, “Well that’s all thanks to my Little Angel. She can be really creative when she wants to.”
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes.
“Oh it’s true!” Filthy asserted, “When I built the house, I had decided to leave the big tree next to the plot intact; it reminded me of one just like it next to the house my father had built. I didn’t think of it at the time, but a branch rubbed up right against my poor daughter’s window! Well as you can imagine, I insisted that we remove it immediately, but to my surprise, My Darling Daughter would have none of it. Instead, she suggested I just keep the window open at night to keep it from scratching.
“I agreed, but it was only a couple of nights later that I found out why. When I grounded her for some reason—oh I forget why now—but when I grounded her, I caught both her and her friend, Silver Spoon, playing in her room. Of course, I sent her friend right home—Diamond was being grounded after all—but it didn’t take me long to put two-and-two together. Silver Spoon had snuck in using the branch and open window.” He laughed. “I couldn’t exactly take down the branch after I had learned that! Of course I had to leave that for her. Every child needs a secret or two of their own.”
Upon finishing his little monologue, he quickly realized his audience and coughed into his hoof embarrassingly, “Ahem, well sorry about that. Let’s get back to this ‘supply-side’ economic policy you were discussing.”
Sweetie Belle could only groan.
~~~
Of course, Sweetie Belle didn’t let Filthy in on the other reason he should have taken that branch down. ‘Luckily I’m no blabber mouth; only he, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon and I know about such a security flaw. Thankfully, I would never let something so sensitive get into the hooves of somepony who might use such information for personal gain—or revenge,’ Sweetie Belle thought sarcastically with a grin.
Sweetie Belle made her way up the tree, over the branch, and into the room. The room was what she expected; dolls everywhere, pink and white decorations that matched her princess ponysona to a tee. Unlike Silver Spoon, Sweetie Belle felt no twinge of guilt as she looked at the extravagance; exacting her revenge on Diamond Tiara would be as easy as breathing. She quietly snuck to the bed where Diamond was sleeping and took her tiara from the bedside table and quickly made her exit the way she came.
Also unlike Silver Spoon’s house, she quickly realized she couldn’t just bury the tiara nearby. ‘It wouldn’t be a good idea to put it here,’ she thought as she looked around at the well maintained and manicured plot of land, ‘I’m pretty sure they have gardeners regularly come through here. Even the smallest change could be spotted and all of my hard work would be for nothing.’ While the discolored dirt wouldn’t be noticed by Silver Spoon’s neighbor—who was no gardener if his/her lack of flowers were any indication—professionals would probably notice that immediately.
Instead, Sweetie Belle decided to head back home, tiara in tow. Just like with the box of tools, she couldn’t exactly leave the tiara laying around her home just waiting for somepony to find it. Passing the train station, she noticed a patch of mismatched dirt near the base of the station. Figuring it was a good a place as any, she took her spade and again dug a deep hole, placing the tiara in, and then reburying it. The discolored dirt around the hole helped camouflage it enough, although it was still different enough that she could find it again if she looked…probably. ‘I’ll worry about those minor details when I’m less tired,’ she thought.
With all the evidence out of her hooves and buried, she did not hesitate to gallop back home—guard patrols or no. The feelings of sleep coming on was the best motivator, ironically, to get home and to bed as fast as possible. If she was caught now, it might look suspicious but nopony would be able to find proof she did anything, especially if she threw the spade away.
At 1:04am, she arrived back at the Boutique. She was so dead tired, she completely missed the rope dangling from the back of her home and instead she simply trotted inside.
As was the case when she left, the bell atop the door didn’t chime. With her sluggish mind, it took a moment for Sweetie Belle to remember that she had put a cotton ball against the bell’s clapper. Despite her drowsiness, however, Sweetie Belle wanted to see her plan to the end, and so brought the hoofstool back to the door and removed the cotton, throwing it in the garbage before replacing the stool again.
Now Sweetie Belle could get caught without penalty; after all, she’s just “getting up for a glass of water” or some other excuse. Too tired to care, she trotted lazily up the stairs and opened the bottom section of the door—causing both parts to open—and immediately shutting it as soon as she saw a dark figure near the desk on the far right side of the room.
‘Who the hay is that!’ Sweetie Belle thought, placing both her hooves over her mouth to prevent a scream that was ready to burst from her gut. If she hadn’t been so scared of being caught earlier and trying to keep her voice down all night, she might have let out that scream, but luckily her reflexes did her a service. ‘Who knows what that pony might do if they found out I was here?!’ she thought frantically, hearing hoofsteps coming closer from the other side of the door, ‘well I can’t wait to find out, I need to go now!’
Her fear got the best of her, however, and she found herself unable to move from the door. ‘Come on, Sweetie Belle, move!’ she thought frantically, her panic only making her want to move less. The intruder wasted little time getting there and opened the upper half of the half door, looking out into the hall directly behind her. ‘Do they not know you need to use the bottom handle to open a half door?’ she thought, her curiosity overriding her fear momentarily. She was close enough that she could hear the masked pony’s breathing, the rhythm causing the filly’s own breath to catch tightly in her throat.
The perpetrator seemed to be satisfied with what it saw and so shut the door again.
‘Alright, no more fear, Sweetie Belle!’ she thought, ‘I need to get my Sis right now!’ She slowly got back on her hooves and made her way quickly down the stairs.
When she got to the ground floor, she made her way to the Chaise Lounge Rarity was using for a bed; a black eye mask covering her face. Sweetie Belle—tired, afraid and desperate—paid little heed to subtlety and vigorously shook her sister awake, whispering, “Wake up! Wake up, please!”
“Wha—whazzat—” Rarity muttered, shivering and jittering awake. She sat up and looked around, “Who’s’ere?” she said, her vision still completely obscured by the eye mask.
Sweetie Belle reached up and pulled the black covering away. “Rarity, it’s me,” Sweetie Belle whispered.
“Huh? Sweetie Belle, what are you—” She looked at the clock. “What are you doing up so late!” she hissed.
“That’s not important,” she dodged, “there is a pony in my room! I’m not sure if it’s a mare or a stallion, though. They were all covered in black clothes and—”
Rarity’s eyes went wide and she toned out the rest of what her little sister had to say. Instead, she got up, moved to the other end of the room, picked up a vase—the closest, heaviest object she could hold in her magic—and quickly climbed the stairs. Sweetie Belle barely able to follow behind.
“Rarity, you shouldn’t do this!” Sweetie Belle whispered, not wanting to get the attention of the pony in the bedroom, “We should just get the guard and let them handle it.”
Rarity had stopped listening; the adrenaline drowning everything out. ‘I’ll protect you, Sweetie, don’t worry!’ she thought. She swung the bedroom door open. “Come out villain!” she cried out, looking towards the open window and her desk at the other end of the room.
Suddenly in her peripheral vision, she saw a black form leap out from behind the bed. ‘Who—’ she thought before instinct took over. Seeing the black form suddenly come into view caused her to close her eyes, yell, and throw the vase at it as hard as she could with her magic in the form’s general direction. She wasn’t even looking when she heard a sickening crash of ceramic. By the time she opened her eyes, the mare beside her had collapsed onto the ground.
Suddenly realizing what she had done, Rarity rushed over to thief, the pony’s eyes closing shut. “Oh my goodness! I didn’t mean—it was—the pony came out of nowhere and—” Rarity got out frantically, unable to get her wits about her.
She turned to her sister who—for some reason or another—was moving rolls of fabric off of the bed. “There’s no time for that Sweetie Belle!” she yelled, “The whole room is a mess! Just go to Twilight’s and get the guard…” She looked at the thief, then back at her sister. “…and get them to bring a doctor too. She’s unconscious or…” she shivered, not willing to contemplate the possibility. “I’d go but I don’t want to leave you alone with…whoever this is.”
She pulled the ski mask that had been on the pony’s face to reveal none other than…
“Lyra?”
Gosh darn show messin' up with mah canon!
Twilight and Lyra being friends before coming to Ponyville is canon? Well Lyra and Twilight are no longer friends (as should be apparent from the previous chapter)! Take that show!
No matter what you throw at me, I can take it!
This story will be canon!
(Please writers, if you have any shred of human decency, please don't break my story with all your canon Lyra details... The story could barely handle Lyra knowing about Bon Bon being a monster hunter before coming to Ponyville...
)
Also, Filthy Rich's house is also now canon?! Well fine, it isn't like I described his house for a paragraph and had to rewrite that section or anything...(stupid writers and their...writing)
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another great chapter. hope Lyra gets into big trouble.
can't wait for next chapter.
well you can still say lyra and twilight used to be friends but since she wasn't invited to the dinner with moondancer and her other friends she doesn't consider twilight her friend anymore, anyways she was an horrible friend before, no wonder celestia made her study friendship, she still sucks at it and rainbow is right she is an egghead(once you learn the word meaning you realize it fits her so perfectly that her picture should be put beside on every dictionary)
6196923
Yeah, that's what I meant to say when I said: "Well they are not friends anymore" although now I realize that the way it was worded might make you think I meant that they were never friends.
That episode actually made the confrontation between them in the next chapter a lot better
Now not only does Lyra think that Twilight betrayed the trust of the ponies of Equestria, but her friendship too! Isn't that just great! 
Hmm, I wonder if the Tiara and the tools are valuable, if so Lyra might be in more trouble than she already is (sneaking into a foals room) as thievery is added to the list.
6196938 not to mention pretty sure twilight always dismissed and maybe even mocked lyra theories about the precursors/humans
About Filthy Rich's house... It has been suggested by local ponythread (though I haven't researched it myself to confirm the viability) that we have seen that Diamond Tiara lives in a mansion (in Twilight Time, I think), which has interesting ramifications as to what Rich may have been doing in that other house (childhood home, maybe, or memories of a happier time?) and also that DT was not seen fleeing it...
Also... Bad Sweetie! We do not nick stuff!
(Perhaps because I have more kinship to Stuff than People, I view her actions this chapter as quite reprehensible.. I'd honsetly have been less bothered if she'd just pummled then unconsious or carted their unconscious forms out into the Everfree or something...)
6197062
, I don't know how that completely slipped my mind (since I use the Twilight Time episode so much). I knew I had based the original mansion design I had made off of something but after seeing the most recent episode I got it in my head that that house there was their house. I'm going to fix it to what I had before (it really doesn't change much, just some minor aesthetics).
Oh ponyfeathers
Jeez writers, can you keep some consistency (or at least consistency that doesn't involve Filthy Rich being in some random mare's house in his dreams
)
Uh-oh, Lyra you screwed up. I hope you can smooth talk your w- Hahaha! Fat chance. She is totally going to just explode in Twilight's face with absolutely no tact at all!
6197062 Yeah. Material objects can have such value to someone that they might feel like they died a little inside if you got rid of it. I think I would have a heart attack if someone went and deleted, somehow, all my back ups to my FL studio project files.
6197136
Indeed, I would cheerfully mete out a punishment not repeatable in polite company were anyone or anything to damage my precious starships.
Even more so the literal thirty man/lich years[1] of data stored on my computer, And on the other harddrive. And the external hard drive. and two flash drives. And regular DVD back ups, including several to off-site locations[2].
[1]We have verifyiable data backing to 1998 on the erlies CD backup and some of my files date back to my Atari ST, which places them around the mid-1990s.
[2]I take my data storage VERY seriously. (In fact, as of today, I have to do so, as it is my unlivelyhood.)
Awesome update!
To be or not to be...
I think you mean bed.
I have to take the assumption that there is a certain level of beleive and behaviour for a so called bully, that beyond which, not only can they not be talked down, but in trying to do so is seen as counterproductive and provocative in the extreme.
After all, no god like to be called puny, especially when it can be repeatadly demonstrated.
Sweetiebell couldve just posted the stuff off. I mean, if its used for highly sensitive material, because you wuld have to follow up and check every parcel and pacckage in teh system, then either its secure, or you know Celestia or another group has spent the effort on making a way to scan every piece of mail.
I wonder if Bonbon is so good, she is already waiting outside the door when everyone else is sent off for. After all, Someone stole her gear.
6197436
Thanks for that; fixed.
If someone took my prized possession *shudders* nope, no one takes 5 years of work, glue, paint, and $2000 in gifts, savings, and purchases from my cabinet. Screw that. I would stab em, or put my Paintball gun on 600 Psi. Try to walk that off
6197802
Yep, it's called fanaticism; in this case though, I don't think that's the problem.
I think the key problem is that there is no way for a victim (Sweetie Belle in this case) to create a "consequence" for a bully so that they want to stop. The only thing that would likely stop a bully (like Diamond Tiara) for good would be if a parent takes away privileges (toys, allowance, etc.). Any other effort not trying to make this happen is either useless, counter-productive or (in this case) dangerous. Sweetie Belle unfortunately does not have the experience to know this, so instead, she uses the knowledge she learned to get the best outcome on her own.
The problem is that by doing that, you lose the power of control. If she buries it, once Sweetie Belle forgives Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, she simply needs to send them an anonymous note telling them the location of their stuff. If it's in the post, SB has to tell DT & SS that she does not know where it is, resulting in them likely not stopping their bullying.
Well considering that Bon Bon sleeps regular hours and so won't get up for another 4-or-so hours, that's probably not the case.
Still, I doubt she will be pleased. 
6197136
6197172
6197868
I'm glad so many people are empathizing with the bullies here. I was worried that people would either side strongly with SB or DT&SS but I'm getting a good mix. Will make this back-and-forth much more interesting.
6197912
I've never commented on this trilogy's stories before but I just want to say that you have spun a wonderful story broseph. This is definitly in my top 3 favorite stories! Keep up the good work!
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw9286-1357354024508434.gif
6198124
I really appreciate it and you can look forward to more soon.
Aww, thanks
Holy alliteration, Batman!
Nitpicks:
Close the quotation.
Something is wrong here: perhaps "for" should be "to"? Otherwise, perhaps something along the lines of "for help in understanding fluid dynamics".
"While" and "but" are redundant; remove either one.
6198223
Thanks for the corrections as usual FinalFan, I appreciate it. Fixed.
So, Lyra was caught sneaking into somepony's house, the same night that some precious items from another two houses went missing, in a town that barely have any theft at all... I hope Lyra has a good lawyer.
Sweetie Belle's plans may not go as she wanted. That may be good or bad, we'll have to wait till next chapter to find out.
DT and SS's first strike just does not make sense. They could really fake Sweetie Belle's writing that well? And Cheerilee didn't find the idea of Sweetie Belle threatening people with physical violence or blackmail implausible? That part simply fails to hold my credibility.
Why did she not then make this night a test run?
used, it used
Sweetie Belle should have thought this plan through more. She didn't have to go after both of them, and she didn't have to steal their precious items. She's adding charges to a probable future record when she could simply leave an object next to their precious items to send them a message, with total deniability. The entire purpose of this is to send a message in the first place, so why add the liability that a theft will result in?
In fact, after reading 6198892, I think you're handing Sweetie the idiot ball just so Lyra will be accused of serial theft and give Sweetie a crisis of conscience. You should rework this, at the very least the timeline and Sweetie's reasoning. I know you have your plot set out, so please make this more plausible. This chapter does not make sense.
6197172
Pshaw, I have files going back to 1988. That's right, text files from my commodore 64 days.
Oh boy, this isn't going to be good, for both Sweetie and Lyra. Can't wait to see how this is going to play out.
C&Cs: [If you see any that another reader found already, don't worry about it.]
“What the hay was that for?!” Apple bloom stated, marching past Sweetie Belle...
> Capitalize ‘bloom’.
I’ve never seen them being as annoying as they are not
> Replace ‘not’ with ‘now’.
‘You’re probably right, Scoots, she won’t stop,’ Sweetie Belle thought, ’*past experience dictates that she is likely to continue until graduation* …'
> Need an end marking after ‘graduation’. Also, what are the ‘*’ for?
Thanks a lot, Boss,” Lyra replied as she quickly exited the Silly Filly bar.
> Missing the beginning quotation mark.
“Yeah, got it, mom,” Sweetie Belle grumbled, her eyes now beginning to droop as she rolled them.
> Capitalize (and maybe italicize, for sarcasm) ‘mom’ here.
6198144
I have to ask....
How soon...?
But in seriousness, I'll echo The Lunar Brony; I'm loving the stories thus far. If I haven't said so before, now you know. The touch of world crafting in Tablet, to the pleasing completion of engineering Cutie Marks (not that I'm biased or anything
).
6198124
)
Same
stream1.gifsoup.com/view6/4068869/rainbow-projectile-vomiting-o.gif
(... But my gif is a bit more violent
I just want to know one thing; Why? I don't have a problem with it, I would just like to know why there was so much alliteration there.
Anyway, keep up the good work. I really enjoyed the first story and I'm enjoying this one too.
6199612
If you look just before that, I mention:
I wanted to get that point across: the "hissing", headache-inducing vibrations. Halfway through writing the next sentence, I realized just saying it "buzzed" or whatever wasn't really doing it. Then I remembered that alliteration was a common theme in MLP and went with that.
6199296
Thanks for the corrections, fixed
The end " ' " comes a bit later in that sentence. As for the *, who knows
6199137
That's actually a bit of foreshadowing, I'm surprised you noticed. I'll be explaining that in Chapter 8.
Well why would she? Sweetie Belle has never threatened physical violence or blackmail on another pony in the show, right? The first one in the story happened just a day before and Cheerilee wasn't around to see it.
I also think that Cheerilee is even more of an idealist then most ponies and wouldn't blame her even is she knew it was true. Even when one of her students is bullying another one, she seems to be the type of pony to assume the best: that nopony is to blame and with enough understanding anypony can be a good pony.
Love the note.
6200755
Wow, a double edged chapter! 2 subplots will now fight for dominance! Huzzah!
6200031
When I said end marking, I mean the period, exclamation, and the question mark.
6201444
; fixed.
Ah, I see what you mean
6200031
I said implausible, not plausible.
6197118
For general reference for the interested parties, as I work my way through my MLP DVDs, I happened to watch Twilight Time today and made particular note that DT's house is definitely a mansion (seen as the CMC flee the garden), so it is emphatically not the same building as Rich jumped out of in the dream.
What that means (which could be anything as innoculus as it being one of his friend's houses (who just happens to be a mare) or his childhood home to his secret fillyfriend-love nest or anything in between) is up for us all to guess, ponder and abuse the heck out of in fan interpretations!
6201960
Ah, my mistake, the double-negative tricked me. Yeah, looking back, Cheerilee is a bit too harsh on Sweetie Belle. I've corrected it to have her verbally chastise both ponies instead.
As for what you said about the Sweetie Belle idiot ball, I don't understand what you mean. How was Sweetie Belle an idiot here? Remember that (at least in her mind), the only way to ensure the bullying stops means going (morally) farther than her friends might want so that DT&SS concede defeat. Simply leaving a message/item only tells them to strengthen their security and prevent any chance at future theft and wouldn't really be much of an escalation on a days-worth of bullying. Not only that, but anything she left would be evidence. Taking something out is one thing but adding something that never belonged in the room is probably far easier to track. In either case, the likelihood of getting caught isn't much different and the severity of the crimes (breaking-and-entering and burglary) aren't much different either (especially if SB gives the things she stole back if she is caught).
The coincidence between their two plans, on the other hand, was only set up so that 1) Lyra's perfect plan fails, and 2) to show how the planning between the two main characters of the story differ despite having the exact same plan. That's it. I mean, there are a million ways I could have caused Lyra's plan to fail, but in every case it would either mean that Lyra had failed to plan for something obvious or some fluke chance occurred. This "coincidence" seemed to kill two birds with one stone: SB got revenge and Lyra was caught because of it.
I can assure you, though---for reasons I can't explain without spoilers---that a "crisis of conscience" on Sweetie Belle's part will not occur (at least, not because of this).
6202133
Okay. I disagree with you fairly entirely in the second paragraph. But okay.
6200031 Oh ok. Thanks for responding.
6204889 Oops, I missed that line.
I really need to watch the new episode. From what we saw of Diamond's house in Twilight Time it looked rather big ... welp it's time that I see what's new. Oh and we see Lyra invite Twilight to a party in S1 E1 [the same party mentioned in the one with Moon Dancer, where they saw that Lyra was her friend] so that's kinda been canon. Although I wonder why Twilight never hooked up with Lyra after she moved to Ponyville? After all she's seen her tons of times, yet has only kept in touch with her new friends rather than her old ones.
show pandering
The good news is now Lyra can get the help she needs! The bad news is they're going to be so mad, they're just going to stick her in jail and forget about her. Then Sweetie is going to get away scot free with exactly what Lyra was doing except Lyra wasn't being malicious. So Sweetie's malicious burglary was what caused Lyra's misguided but well meaning burglary to be considered malicious. Then Sweetie Belle goes to school, and learns all about the magic of threat escalation, with her face.
Funny thing. The house Filthy gets ripped out of. Is completely different from his actual house as shown in Twilight Time. Still, good work on the latest chapter.
OH NO! A hiatus! For how long?
6375382
I have no clue, but the work is piling on and I don't see working on this for at least the next month.
6375481 Understood.
6375481 I can empathize with that, whereas at times my life just gets too crazy hectic and busy. And my bro, who is writing Blue Angel, has been pulling 60+ hour weeks for about a year now.
Just let us know when you're able to. I think that is all we could ask.
As for your struggles with keeping the fic consistent with show canon, I personally feel that when a show's canon suddenly differs from the plans for the fic, write it as the fic demands, for the story comes first.