The Secret Agent

by SecretAgentPlotTwist

A Mission well done

Drops slowly limped towards the park bench she had agreed to meet Lyra at. She continued to message the Agency as she did so. They had just managed to stop the response division coming in guns blazing once the Sirens were defeated and were now in the very stressful process of demobilizing.

She had recorded the whole thing on her phone and streamed it straight to the HQ in front of all the High Generals. None of them could believe what they were seeing. She still didn’t quite believe it.

A group of teenagers beating dangerous equestrian creatures with the power of music and friendship. It didn’t feel sane.

But as she approached the bench, seeing Lyra there waiting for her, she placed her phone back in her pocket. It had already gotten pretty dark, but she could see her perfectly due to the street light above her head.

Drops took a seat next to her with a groan. Now that the adrenaline had worn off all her injuries were really starting to hurt.

Lyra looked up at her. She looked distressed but managed a smile when she saw her. “You alright?” She asked.

“Yeah, I’ve had worse,” Drops replied with a chuckle. “What about you? I know all this must be pretty weird.”

“Yeah… well, to be honest, we already had a really weird thing at the Fall Formal.”

“That’s right, you saw that whole Sunset Shimmer demon thing,” Drops said, still holding onto some of her stomach injuries.

Lyra raised an eyebrow at her. “Someone told you about that?”

“I wish. I spent two weeks trying to figure that one out,” Drops moaned. “I would have loved for someone to just tell me that.”

Lyra giggled. “Oh yeah, that makes sense. ‘Hey Bon-bon, just letting you know that one of our students turned into a she-demon and tried to enslave our school’. That doesn’t sound like a crazy thing to say at all.”

They both laughed, but Lyra’s expression turned more serious. “But that wouldn’t have been a weird thing for you to hear, would it?”

Drops straightened up slightly. “No, it wouldn’t have,” she confirmed.

Lyra stared at her for a few more moments but then straightened up herself. “Mind telling me why that is?”

“I guess I do owe you that, don’t I. Just so you know I’m breaking pretty much every rule by doing this, so it can not be repeated to anyone.” Drops sighed. “I guess I should start by saying my real name isn’t Bon-Bon.”

---

Drops woke up late for the first time in years. She then skipped half her exercises and made herself a simple breakfast with a cup of tea, neither of which were agency protocol.

Once she was ready and dressed she notified the school to say she wouldn’t be attending due to sickness and set out for her assignment.

The agency had set up a cleanup team for the quick cover-up and analysis of yesterday's events. They were at that moment cleaning up the stadium and had requested Drops’ help.

Once she arrived, she quickly scanned over the scene. There were about twenty operatives, mainly low-level junior recruits with a few higher level supervisors. The bulk of them were searching and cleaning up the stadium floor, with a few of them picking up the little remnants of the Sirens’ necklaces and putting them into little plastic bags.

Drops ducked under the police yellow tape that circled the whole area and made her way over to them, specifically the heavily bandaged agent in the large trench coat supervising the crystal collection.

“Hello, Sir,” she said as she approached.

Fast Glider turned slowly, revealing a face that bore more bruises and cuts than she had ever seen him carry before. He, nevertheless, shot her a smile upon seeing her.

“What the bloody hell happened to your face?” Drops asked with a chuckle.

He chuckled too, although his was more croaky, before telling his men to carry on as they were before walking to meet Drops halfway.

“It’s good to see your alive and well Sir,” Drops said with a smile.

“Same goes for you. Although I’m not exactly well. Technically I should still be in the infirmary, but when have we let anything like that stop us.” He turned to look outwards over the operation. “We’ve got quite a job cleaning all this mess up, though it could have been a lot worse.”

Drops nodded. “That’s an understatement. This could have been a war.”

Fast Glider frowned. “I’m talking about if you’d gone ahead with that plan of yours.”

A flash of worry spread across her face. “Ah.”

“Do me a favor and never do anything stupid like that again,” he continued. “You should be apologising to your friends yourself.”

“Sorry, Sir.” Drops glanced away awkwardly but then caught a glimpse of some agents putting the crystals into a cardboard box to be filed into the agency vault. “So what’s going to happen to the Sirens?”

“They’ll most likely be left alone from now on. They’ll have to figure out how to live a normal life if they want to stay out of trouble.”

Drops raised an eyebrow. “We’re not going to have them arrested?”

“What do we look like, an independent judiciary? We don’t hand out jail time, we deal with magic. Now that they don’t have any, they’re not our problem.” He rubbed his chest slightly. “And as much as I would like to pay them back for breaking my rib, I’d say taking away their immortality and powers is punishment enough for them.”

Drops gave him an understanding nod. “So what’s going to happen here. High Schoolers with magic, an equestrian, this is the biggest security risk we have.”

“In a way, yes, but they at least seem to be on our side, in a way. There’s no point in stopping them when all they're doing is stopping actual dangers.” He gave Drops a little grin. “The agency was made to help people, remember. If that’s what they're doing then we should let them.”

Drops thought for a second.”I guess you’re right,” she said hesitantly.

“Though that’s not to say they’ll be left alone. We’ve already got an agent assigned to keep tabs on them. Someone suitable to deal with them if they go rogue.”

“Who’s the agent?” Drops asked.

“A pretty good one. She’s the only Level Silver junior recruit to be awarded the Grand Cross.”

“That’s impressive. A junior recruit with the highest honor of the agency. She must be one hell of an agent.”

“I guess. She gets on my nerves a bit though. But that does remind me.” He reached into his coat pocket. “Here is your promotion towards Level Silver and your Grand Cross.”

Drops almost jumped back at the statement. “What? But that—I’m the one who got the mission?”

“My god holmes, you’ve cracked it.”

Drops stared at the Level Silver ribbon and the large iron badge of the Grand Cross that were being held out to her. “But why me?”

“The Grand Cross. ‘To be awarded only to those who have shown immense courage in the face of overwhelming odds.’ If what you did wasn’t that, I don’t know what is.” He gave her a smile. “And we couldn’t let you do all that without a promotion.”

Drops gave the Cross a closer inspection. For those who lived, fought, and died for the greater good, it read.

“But why the mission? Surely there are people better suited to dealing with equestrian magic. I don’t even have access to equestrian files.”

“You do now. Which reminds me, you have a ton of reading to get done, some of which in old English, so have fun with that.” He chuckled. “And to be fair, we haven’t had a case of equestrian magic in fifty years. Anyone who’s dealt with it is retired. You literally have the most experience in the agency.”

Drops stared at him in disbelief. The cross, the mission, everything was so overwhelming that she couldn’t think of anything to say. Anything except “Thank you, Fast Glider.”

“Thanks for what?” he rebuked, doing up the buttons in his coat. “Don’t go thinking I had anything to with this. I was against the whole idea. I thought Swift Strike should get the job.”

Drops grinned. “Swift Strike? The first girl I beat in top group combat training?”

“Yes, not that I remember that, or the distinct feeling that I was right about you after it happened.” He shook her head at her. “You’re very weird sometimes. You’ll end up thinking I care about you or some nonsense like that.”

He started walking back to his team. “The mission officially starts next Monday by the way, so take the week off,” he said as he walked. “It’s at least a year-long mission and will probably be reinstated.”

Drops smiled at him as he walked off. She felt a warm blissfulness that she wasn’t used to. She glanced at her medals. First Level Silver Junior recruit to be awarded the Grand Cross, huh.

Her thought was interrupted when she felt her phone vibrate. She took it out and saw a message from Lyra.

Hey, just wanted to say thank you for everything last night. It was a lot to take in at the time, but I’m glad you trusted me enough to tell me.

I was also wondering if you were up to coming round mine tonight. I still owe you a lyre performance ;)

Drops smiled at her phone for a little bit before finally replying with an affirmative response.

“Oh, by the way, Drops,” She heard Fast Glider call from his team. “I know you’ve got a year, but don’t spend it all pretending you don’t have a thing for that Lyra girl.”

She blushed slightly but kept her posture tall. “Will do,” she called back.

“That’s my girl,” he said with a little thumbs up.

Drops turned around and started making her way back to her apartment. On the way, she made a little detour into town and started looking through some home improvement stores.

Now that her apartment was no longer a short-term base, she thought it might be good to make it a bit more homely. It was a silly thought, but she liked the idea of living somewhere that didn’t have cold grey walls again, at least for a little bit.

This was just one extra job to be done though. She had a lot on her plate starting now. Lots of research had to be done. She had to organize all her notes. Her final report on her recon mission had to be completed, and it was probably the most important report she’d done so far.

But she didn’t feel like doing any of that right now.

She took out her phone, scrolled through her contacts and began to type.

Hey Derpy. I’ve just had some good news and am in the mood to celebrate. Want to go to a cafe or something tomorrow?

She hit send and put it away again.

---

“Make yourself at home.”

Drops did as instructed and took a seat on Lyra bed. It felt a bit odd without all the little, stuffed toys to hug from way back, but she quickly got comfortable. That said, she still had a rather noticeable blush from being in Lyra’s room once more.

Lyra was initially quite nervous about showing Drops her room, but that quickly turned to embarrassment once Drops apologetically told her she’d already seen it. While she couldn’t tell Lyra all her agency secrets, Drops had decided to be as honest as she could be with her.

Taking a seat in the chair by her desk, Lyra let out a content sigh, even if she was still a little annoyed to find out about Drops’ previous intrusion.

“So, how long will this new mission of yours last?”

Drops thought for a second. “It has to be reinstated every year, but I’d imagine it’ll probably carry on till graduation. Once the Rainbooms start going off to college I don’t know what will happen.

Lyra thought for a moment, a sly grin appearing on her face. “Graduation huh. Looks like I’ve got you trapped for two years.”

“I wouldn’t call it being trapped,” Drops chuckled, but then turned a little sad. “I won’t be able to stay here forever though.”

Lyra shrugged. “Nothing lasts forever. I’m happy to make the most of the time we’ve got now.”

Drops couldn’t help but give Lyra a wide, genuine smile. She felt content for the first time in as long as she could remember.

“Now,” Lyra began, once again gaining her sly smile, “I distinctly remember promising you a lyre performance.”

The very word ‘lyre’ filled Drops with an excitement that she couldn't hide. She gave Lyra an uncharacteristic giddy nod, something Lyra couldn’t help but giggle at.

She picked up her small golden lyre from the side of her desk. “Just promise you won’t laugh.”

Drops gave her a little salute. “Yes mamm.”

Lyra smiled and ever so delicately moved her hand over her lyre. With one seamless movement, she struck the first note and played more beautifully than Drops could remember.

In the little time she’d been back in her hometown she’d done a lot of stupid things, even for her. And while she knew the agency wouldn’t hold any of it against her, especially given the circumstances, it would all add on to her reputation of being far too recklessly emotional.

Had it not been for the Sirens she imagined she would have to read through a few stern words over her actions, as she normally found herself doing at the end of an assignment. ‘You shouldn’t have spent so much time helping Derpy when you could have used your time more effectively’ or ‘you wasted far too much time with that Lyra girl’ were all things she would have most likely seen.

Though sitting in Lyra’s room, just being there as she played for her like she once did, she didn’t regret a single thing.

Comments

[SecretAgentPlotTwist]

Alright guys, it's finally done. I hope you've all enjoyed reading it. I've certainly had a great time writing it, reading all your comments, and forgetting to reply to most of them. There will be a little epilogue coming very soon, but for now, I hope you liked how the story turned out

[Twilight_Shimmer]

My head cannon is the Agency's TOP Brass so to speak are a pair of Princesses from Equestria. Aka Celestia and Luna

[D48]

9088719
Ah, I was going to say it looks like it needs a one-shot sequel where the agency brings the girls on board at graduation (probably with Bons bringing them to meet that general from earlier), but it sounds like that's coming in spite of the marked status.

[superfun]

This was a great ending.

[FinalFan]

9088719
I saw this for the first time just a few days ago, and it's been a blast. Nice action, the show's main characters are present without taking away from the story's focus, and just very enjoyable overall. The biggest complaint I have is that a few chapters in it started to seem to me like Drops was rather too multitalented. Amazing fitness and martial prowess? Perfect. Amazing math skills? Well, I don't know how much use she'd get out of advanced math training, but I can see how being very proficient in basic math would help an agent, and it is still high school, so sure. And they have to memorize Shakespeare? OK, whatever. AND she plays an instrument? No, a LOT of instruments? This is the point where my suspension of disbelief was sorely strained. But the hits stopped coming so I was able to settle down.

There's one thing I don't get—and I don't blame you for this but I'm hoping you can clear it up. I had thought that Lyra knew her from before she joined the agency in the first place. So why didn't she know her real name?

[fanreader999999]

Kaboom.