• Published 19th Apr 2015
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The Canterlot Bureau - Lapis-Lazuli and Stitch



Two junior agents of a top-secret unofficial government agency investigate the strange events at Canterlot High School following its disastrous Fall Formal.

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Picking Up The Pieces

Vino Veritas wore a faded gray suit that had probably seen its fair share of shootouts, given the number of discolored patches along the arms and shoulders. His hair was as gray as his suit and had that ageless look guys in their 50’s got if they’d taken care of themselves in life. The son of an Italian immigrant with a terrible sense of humor, Vino’s reddened cheeks and eternally sleepy look did nothing to alleviate the jokes people made about his name..

Lyra sat with her hands folded in the overstuffed leather chair that might’ve been made at some point in the early 1800’s given how ridiculous it looked. “You think you found Site Zero.” Veritas said, very quietly. He turned, placing a hand on the pictures of the very mysterious Twilight Sparkle. “Director Spitfire is busy working with Doctor Spengler and his boys up in New York. She sends her regards, but it’s up to us to handle this one until she can shake herself loose.”

Bon Bon nodded shortly, and Lyra did her best to keep still in her seat. “Our number one problem is the location. Canterlot High School might as well be the moon for all that we can lock it down from outside access.” He thumbed at his nose, sitting down in his own overstuffed chair with all the grace of a sack of concrete. “Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna have got the school board wrapped around their pinkie fingers. Not to mention that the city is still making payments on the renovations they spearheaded three years ago. That school and all of its complications are going nowhere.”

Lyra knew when to pick up what someone was laying down. “Spit it out, Vino. You want little old us to play security guards for your hotspot.” It wasn’t exactly her idea of a choice assignment, even if it did sound more interesting than standing station watches twice a week. She’d have to attend every single high school function no matter how dreary or boring. Ugh.

Bon Bon spared her a scathing look before speaking herself, “Show a little respect, Lyra.” She cleared her throat and lenaed forward. “Due respect, sir. But we’re not exactly combat trained.”

Veritas shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You’re the only two agents of the right age we have available for this. And truthfully, we’re much more interested in what caused this.” He gestured with one hand to a picture of the six oddballs looking like they’d just stepped out of a furry convention. How he’d torn away one of Photo Finish’s shots, Lyra would give a whole lot to know. “And what their relation is to our unknown subject here.”

“What about Sunset Shimmer?” Bon Bon asked, leaning forward. “She was the cause of the damage and by what we could gather seemed to know exactly what she was doing.”

“Demonic possession.” Veritas waved his hand in the air. “An angry teenager who got mixed up in stuff she couldn’t possibly have understood ends up causing havoc and destruction?” He snorted derisively. “Yeah, we’ve heard that story a few times before. We should just be glad no one got hurt this time. You should ask me about the Carrie White incident sometime.” He shook his head firmly, turning around with a dark look on his face. “Or better yet, don’t. Yeesh. Anyway, we’ve got bigger fish to fry than Sunset Shimmer.”

He planted his palms on the desk and glowered at them. “Despite the fact that we’ve got verified witnesses as far as Cleveland, our friendly neighborhood law enforcement are categorically denying anything happened other than a prank gone wrong.” He slammed his palm into the desk and Lyra nearly jumped out of his chair. “They’re calling it the mother of all dry ice bombs and blaming it on the science club.”

Bon Bon’s eyes went wide, and Lyra leaned back. “Let me guess,” she half growled, gripping the arms of her chair, “Captain Sentry, right?” Vino smiled tightly and gave her a cheerful little salute in her direction. Lyra reached up to rub at her temples. “Of course it was, with Flash right in the middle of this mess.”

Captain Steele Sentry was in charge of Canterlot’s small but busy police force. He was the kind of guy you couldn’t make anything stick to even if you had super glue and duct tape. The sort of person who got plastered with labels like ‘paragon of the community’ and ‘shining member of the public service’ and trollop like that. He was also a reality-blind realist of the highest degree.

Even Bon Bon, for all of her skepticism, admitted there were things out there that science couldn’t yet explain. But try to prove that to Captain Sentry, and you’d get a lecture about spreading misinformation and lies leading to superstitions and panic. His son, Flash Sentry, also happened to be one of the students at Canterlot High. And Captain Sentry had mighty big plans for his ‘talented and charismatic’ son that most certainly did not include his name ever appearing on police reports, regardless of how extreme the situation.

Fortunately for the rest of humanity, Flash was an all-around decent guy even if he was as dense as a fruitcake. Lyra eagerly awaited the day when his dad tried to take away his son’s guitar, only to find his boy was a dyed-in-the-wool wannabe rocker and that was just not gonna happen. “Ahem. Focus, Lyra,” Vino grumbled at her, and Lyra muttered an apology at him. Not her fault this was getting complicated.

“We can’t do a damn thing about Captain Sentry, so we can’t start poking around there officially speaking. Fortunately, you’re both already students.” Vino grinned, his very straight white teeth gleaming at her like a shark’s. “So we don’t hafta get official until the Director comes down here and settles his hash.” He seemed awfully pleased with himself at his little cleverness. Unfortunately, Lyra knew what was coming next.

Lyra crossed her arms and glowered at him. She had a really good glower—Bonnie had told her so. This nonsense had gone on long enough, it was time to make a point before he tried to rationalize his next obvious move. “Sir,” She drawled, in her finest working-class Dublin. That got Bonnie’s attention really fast, of course. She knew what was coming. “For sure ye got our attention, but I’d suggest ye stop muck rakin’ an tell me why in the good lord’s name I ought’er not start takin’ a tire iron to ye for wastin’ my time!” It was hard to keep the melodious lilt out of her voice, like her Da had told her to when she was using the accent for maximum effect, but it came through anyway.

Better add some physicality to make up for it. She stood up all at once, and despite being about a foot and a half shorter than Vino sent the poor man backing up into his chair. “In case you hadn’ heard me the first thirty times I said it, let me shake the cobwebs loose.” She slammed her hands into the desk, and he jumped. Vino was a good man, and Lyra liked him on a personal level, but there were some things you didn’t compromise on. Da had told her that too. “I don’ do work off the clock, ye sorry git!” She growled, leaning in on him and rolling her r’s for maximum effect. “An’ I sure as God’s blood do not go int’a a job not intendin t’ do it the right way. We either do this under orders, or we don’t do none of it!”

It took her a moment to realize Bonnie was grabbing her shoulder and trying to haul her back, and that perhaps she had gone a teensy-tiny bit too far over the desk for propriety's sake. Vino, for his part, was even more flushed than usual and looked properly chastised. Da would’a been proud of her for that. “Alright, alright,” He muttered, dry washing his hands. “Fine, I’ll write up the orders. But this stays strictly under the rose, you hear me? Unless kids are getting hurt, I don’t want any overt action. This is strictly intel gathering.” He hauled open one of the drawers on his desk with a trifle more force than was necessary and started hauling out the paperwork. “Last thing I need is Captain Sentry crawling up my ass with a warrant.”

Satisfied, Lyra turned back to her partner who was giving her the kind of look one might give an errant child. “I can’t take you anywhere, can I, Lyra?” Bonnie said in a half-whisper voice, then sighed while rubbing at her temples. “Not that I disagree with you, but you really need to not let your temper get the better of you like that. Someday you’re going to do that to the Director and-”

Lyra snorted to interrupt her, as loudly as she possibly could without sounding like a pig, and settled down in her chair to wait for the proper paperwork. “Director knows not t’ get me Irish up.” She drawled before settling back down to her proper American english. “And besides, Bonnie me lass,” She teased, keeping her tone sweet and syrupy, “One of us has to be willing to get violent. How ever else would we ever deal with trouble when it comes rolling our way?”

~~~~~~~~~

Lyra did not like Sunset Shimmer. Not one iota. Nope. She did not.

And yet, she could not keep herself from having a little sympathy for the bitch right this moment. Oh she wanted to hate her just as much as ever given what she’d heard had happened during the Fall Formal, but now that she was getting the story in person, well… It was starting to sound more and more like Vino had put it. Another teenager who’d gotten caught up in something they couldn’t possibly have understood the consequences of.

Her bonafides hadn’t hurt either. She’d come to meet Sunset in the band room with Rainbow Dash and Applejack, and the pair of them had stood beside her like rock-solid pillars of support. Rainbow Dash had even spoken up for her. Rainbow Freakin Dash of all the people in this school had the most reason to hate Sunset Shimmer, and she was standing up for the girl. That said something, even if Lyra wasn’t one hundred percent sure what it said.

Sunset had wrapped her arms around her legs where she sat, leaning against one of the band-stands. Lyra wanted to snarl in frustration at the obvious sign of emotional vulnerability and smack her across the head, but Bonnie would probably kick her butt if she did. “I can’t tell you much more than that,” Sunset drifted off, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “After I put the crown on, things get kind of blurry for me.” Her story hadn’t been much different from the rest of the school, but...

The problem here was authority and opportunity. The only reason she’d gotten this opportunity was because of Applejack. She wasn’t on the Bureau’s payroll, but she knew the score. Her family orchards had been the backdrop for a number of incidents the Bureau had handled over the years, and they had been mighty appreciative of the time Lyra’s Da had cleaned out an infestation of werewolves about two decades ago.

The downside was Applejack hated that this was ‘covert’. Not that she’d spill the beans, Granny Smith would kill her for that, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t give Lyra some stares of disapproval at the whole ‘we’re just asking questions’ bollocks. In the harshest of terms, Lyra didn’t exactly have the authority to be doing much beyond ‘asking questions’ but Applejack wouldn’t buy that. Dash being here complicated matters further, but Lyra was sure she could count on Dash to forget pretty much anything that didn’t involve sports or being ‘awesome’. Since government work was neither, that wasn’t a problem.

Ergh. She was getting side tracked. “I understand, Sunset.” She tried to keep her voice soothing. The last thing she needed was for Sunset to start crying again. “Our biggest concern right now is making sure we’ve got all the angles covered. Would you be willing to tell us a few things about our, ah… Fall Formal Princess, as it were?” That got Dash and Applejack’s razor-sharp attention. She’d have to be asking them questions next, but maybe Sunset could give her some insight.

“Sure, I guess,” Sunset muttered, looking up in surprise. “It’s a little hard to describe, honestly. She’s… well, you already know she isn’t from around these parts.” She unfolded her legs, and her voice picked up considerably. Positive signs. She liked thinking about where this girl was from. Hm. “Telling you where she’s from might make you think I’m crazy, though, so…”

“Trust me,” Lyra cut in, putting on her best professional smile. It wasn’t terribly good, unlike her glower. “I can guarantee you I’ve heard crazier and from people with more of a history than you.” That got a raised eyebrow from Sunset and Applejack just looked away. Lyra bit at her lip and made a quick decision, “Look, I don’t have anything against her. My job is to get info and relay it to the people who can make decisions, and she helped fix what could’ve been a very messy problem. I want to paint her in the best light possible, okay?”

Sunset frowned for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. Okay, so… She’s not just a dance princess. She’s an actual princess.” And in that moment, Lyra felt her heart hit her shoes. Transdimensional royalty? The director was going to flip her lid all the way to the moon. “I um… I stole that crown from her. I…” Sunset hesitated, then burst like a busted dam. “I’m from the same place she was from, okay? A place called Equestria.”

Lyra had talked to a lot of witnesses, but not many of them had a look of equal parts longing and regret cross their face quite like Sunset’s had in that moment. Lyra needed to focus though. Now wasn’t the time for psychoanalysis, and Dash looked like she was ready to take a piece out of Lyra. Fortunately, Applejack was holding Dash’s shoulder in a vise grip. Lyra had to move fast. “How did she get here? And how did you get there and back again?” Lyra asked, keeping as calm as she could. This was bad. Sunset was from another dimension? Could this actually be Site Zero?

“There’s a magic mirror,” Sunset began, her voice hurried. “It opens for four days and then closes for about a year here, and opens every three years over there. Well, close to three years. Time works very differently here.” She bit her lip, shaking her head firmly. “Here it’s always the same day, first day of fall. But I don’t know when it opens over there.”

Lyra could feel her heart pumping faster by the moment. A yearly portal opening between two worlds, with absolutely no one watching that portal for anything coming through? “Could anything come through it?” She asked, hoping her nerves weren’t getting the better of her. She wasn’t going to get too many other questions.

Sunset stared at her, jaw a little slack. “Well, I suppose so, but the portal was always somewhere safe and contained. Usually in Canterlot Castle, under the protection of another Princess. It was moved the last time I’d used it, but it was still being protected by a Princess.” The way she said Princess made Lyra think that title meant a heck of a lot more there than it did here on Earth, but that was small potatoes.

“Enough, sugarcube. You got yer answers, Lyra.” In one movement, Applejack had positioned herself between her and Sunset. She’d planted both of her fists on her hips to make her point, too. “Ain’t nothin’ more she can tell ya. None of us know ‘xactly what happened that night, but no-one got hurt.” She jutted her jaw out stubbornly, glaring at her.

If it had been anyone else Lyra might’ve gotten angry with them, but Lyra knew better than the rouse Applejack’s ire. She could put her fist clean through a wall of two-by-fours without flinching, and Lyra had no intention of seeing what it could do to her face. “I’m just trying to make sure no one gets hurt, AJ,” she muttered quietly, crossing her arms over her chest. “This is serious business here, you know that.”

Dash cocked an eyebrow at them before hunkering down next to Sunset to chatter with her. AJ spared them a look before speaking low. “I know, Shamrock. But I’m tellin’ ya Twilight ain’t a danger to nobody.” She reached out and patted Lyra’s shoulder firmly. “We lucked out on this one an’ got some backup from the away team this time. Take the good fortune fer what it is an’ let it go.”

Lyra refrained from a snide comment about who was playing for which team now and walked out of the room. Those two, and by extension the rest of their crew, had formed ranks around Sunset Shimmer. They weren’t going to break those ranks anytime soon either, if Lyra knew them at all.

That meant they were going to have to get the rest of this information the hard way. Bon Bon was standing outside the band room, raising her own eyebrow. “Problem?” she asked quietly.

Lyra sighed heavily, scrubbing a hand through her hair. “We’re gonna need to break out the recorders if we want anything substantial out of them, Bonnie.” She winced at the thought of what she was going to have to do now. Hours upon hours upon hours of whiny and boring teenagers living their whiny and boring lives she’d have to listen to. “God, I hate surveillance.”

Bonnie shrugged, then smiled faintly. “Well, we do still have to talk to the principal. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and she’ll be in a garrulous mood today.”

Lyra wanted to smack her. “Why can’t you just say ‘talkative’ like everyone else, Bonnie?” Then she actually considered what her partner had said and laughed. “And yeah, Celestia is gonna be talkative. And maybe we’ll have to fight Q from Star Trek next. HA!”

~~~~~~~~~

‘Principal’ Celestia Solaris gently shut the door behind them as the final bell of the day rang out through the school. “Thank you for being discreet, girls,” she said quietly, sitting down behind her desk with a remarkable amount of calm. “How is Director Spitfire doing, by the way? I haven’t had lunch with her in ages.” She folded her hands on the desk, and leaned her head to one side.

Not for the first time, Lyra itched to ask her how the heck she got her hair to look like it did. “She sends her best wishes, Principal. She’s currently busy consulting with some other experts on a recent problem in New York City,” Bon Bon said, putting on a very faint smile. “Something to do with an ancient Assyrian god, I think. I’m afraid we’re not privy to the details.”

Lyra tried very hard not to pull at the collar of the shirt she was wearing. She hated formal wear, but putting on a decent suit to do her job sometimes made doing the job easier. It also made dealing with her principal a little easier when she looked like a professional instead of a high school student. “Well, send my best, if you would,” Celestia said with a smile, quietly eyeballing the window. “I was under the impression that Captain Sentry had declared this mess a non-issue, actually. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

Lyra snapped her trap shut around her sass and let Bonnie do the talking. She was good with bureaucratic bullpucky. “Crossing our t’s and dotting our i’s, mostly,” Bonnie said smoothly, still with that faint not-quite-a-smile. “There was some serious property damage, and some of that property was ours. If we don’t have a complete report for the Director when she gets back, we’ll end up doing station duty in Alaska until we’ve graduated college.”

That got a titter of a laugh out of the principal. Actually, describing it as a titter was a little rude. Principal Celestia had a good, hearty laugh that Lyra quite liked. She just wished it wasn’t so often directed at them. “Regardless,” Bonnie pressed on smoothly, “I do need to ask you if there is anything you’d be willing to disclose. Strictly off the record, of course.” Bonnie turned the smile up a few notches. “We have some intelligence about a visitor we were hoping you could shed a little light on.”

Principal Celestia folded her hands and gazed at them inscrutably. It was really the only word Lyra could come up with to describe that neutral, nonplussed, unreadable look she had on her face. One of these days she was going to crack open the principal’s sealed file and find out where she’d learned how to do that. “I’m afraid there isn’t much I can say,” she began slowly, looking between them. “I’m afraid I have certain obligations to keep the confidences placed with me, but I assure you I am always keeping the safety of my students foremost in my mind.”

That was her usual bullhockey, of course. But for once, Lyra had leverage. She already knew Sunset was not of this Earth, and she was gonna use that to finally crack that shell wide open. Unfortunately, Bonnie had already headed her off at the pass. “I’m sorry to hear that, Principal, but I understand your position.” She had grabbed Lyra’s arm and was squeezing it very firmly. “I hope you will understand that we do need to do a little more investigating, but we shall keep things very quiet as we do.”

Principal Celestia’s face broke into a warm smile. “Of course. I am sorry I cannot help you more, and I understand your need to have the complete picture. Spitfire can be quite the handful when she doesn’t have her paperwork filled out.” She laughed again, that warm gentle sound. “To thank you both for your discretion, I shall make sure Captain Sentry understands the need for you to speak with his son. Off the record, of course.” The way she said that, Lyra could swear she was being mocked.

But Bonnie was having none of her guff today. “We very much appreciate that Principal Celestia. Have a nice evening.” She smiled professionally, then dragged Lyra out of the room with no small amount of force.

By the time they reached the front gate of the school, Lyra was ready to get her Irish up again. And once again, Bonnie cut her off. “She doesn’t know we know about Sunset, and that might be the only thing that gives us a chance to find out the connection between them.” She glanced at the school. “I’ll call in that favor with Langley, and we’ll see if the principal has anything she might be trying to hide about her and Sunset.” She shook her head and tugged at Lyra’s wrist. “Come on, I’m tired and hungry and you’re going to buy me dinner.”

“And then what?” Lyra snarled, unable to muster up her accent even now.

Bon Bon turned and smiled smokily at her. “And then we’re going back to my place, and you’re going to stay the night, and we are not talking about work tonight. We’ll pick this up tomorrow after you’ve had a good nights sleep. Comprende?”

Lyra couldn’t find the words to object to that, so she just nodded.