The Secret Agent

by SecretAgentPlotTwist

The Day After

The rest of the party went off swimmingly. Drops headed back inside to see Derpy’s first musical saw performance, which was backed up by Blueberry playing spoons. She and the rest of the crowd laughed and clapped along to the enjoyable and, in Blueberry’s case especially, enthusiastic display.

She then spent the next hour talking and having fun with Derpy, consistently brushing off any ‘thank you’ that came her way. She was just so happy to see Derpy in such high spirits.

The party reached its peak of excitement when seventies music started playing and Raspberry challenged Drops to a dance battle. Something she would have turned down had she not been in such a good mood.

The battle had been fairly even, with Drops managing to push ahead with some physically impressive moves. This was until she noticed Lyra watching her intently and she began to falter.

In the end, she happily declared Raspberry the better dancer, and went on to have a little and fairly uncoordinated dance with Derpy.

Once they had finished and managed to stop laughing at the muddled mess of a dance they had performed, Derpy stepped aside and Drops continued alone until Lyra came up to her and offered her a dance.

Drops couldn't think of anything smart to say and just accepted the request. The dance went… alright. Minus the nervous stiffness, the fumbled talking, and the fact her face was bright red the entire time. But all that was fine.

What wasn’t fine, was that Derpy noticed all this and asked Pinkie, who was in charge of the music, to put on a romantic song next.

Drops would rather not recall that part of the night and has actively tried to repress those memories. But safe to say it was embarrassing enough that Derpy and her new-old friends all teased her about it for the rest of the night.

The party did wind down eventually with people leaving one after the other. It soon just left Drops, Derpy, and her new gang all just talking and catching up with each other. But soon enough they all left too.

It ended with just Derpy and Sweetie Drops, both feeling a bit worn out from the whole experience. They talked for a bit. Derpy teased Drops one last time, and Drops brushed off one last “thank you”, before she left.

The next morning she began to work on her weekly report, having not had the chance to get it done for friday night. And while it was tricky twisting the week's events in a way that made it look like the mission required such an investment in Derpy’s party, they couldn’t deny she got results.

Though she knew the report would also panic her mentors. Going on the information she had gathered, this low stakes recon mission looked more like a security threat. Five civilians with access to magic was a serious issue, not to mention an unsupervised cover-up opened many more problems.

Once she had finished and sent off the report, she took a break from sitting by her laptop and made herself a vitamin shake. She hadn’t eaten properly last night and was still making up for it.

Taking little sips at a time, as to not make herself vomit from the taste, she took out her phone and started looking through her messages. Doing her best to ignore Lyra’s lingering message, and the fact she promised to reply, she strolled straight to Pinkie Pie.

She and Pinkie had exchanged numbers to keep up to date on party preparations. They had updated each other regularly over the past week.

With Pinkie and her friends all now becoming people of interest and potential problems that needed to be solved, Drops viewed their working relationship as a chance to prod for more info.

Hey Pinkie, I was just thinking about all the effort and work that went into making the party such a success and thought it would be a good idea to have a little celebratory meet up at a cafe or something.

Let me know if you’re free. I can do anytime.

It was a few hours until Drops got a reply, something she expected as the text was sent so early in the morning. She finished up the exercises she was doing before taking a look.

SOUNDS GREAT :D

I can’t do today though, as me and the gang are doing some band practise, and I’ve already got plans tomorrow. I should have some free time next weekend once the music contest is over. I’ve kinda promised to practise all this week for it. Hope that’s okay :)

Drops frowned, a little annoyed that her plan didn’t work as well as she’d hoped.

Yeah, that’s fine. Just let me know nearer the time.

Drops put her phone away. She thought for a moment, and a little sly smile appeared on her face.

Having seen Rainbow Dash set up all her band equipment in a specific music room at school, she guessed that they were all practicing there. This meant that she knew a room where all people of interest would hang out on a daily basis after school and at lunchtimes.

A little room that could easily have a secret camera placed there.

Drops made her way over to her work desk, once more in high spirits with her new plan. She looked through her gadgets and quickly found a micro-camera with a microphone and began testing it to make sure it worked.

While she did this she looked over some of the notes she made on her new suspects.

They were all pretty conclusive analyses of their character, with Pinkie’s and Rarity’s being the most detailed. But judging on the notes she had collected, none of them really seemed like the type to have magic powers, and if they did, they weren’t using them for anything.

All of them were living fairly normal lives. She would expect Rainbow to use some kind of magic to help her in athletics, but she remained just an above average football player according to her records.

There was also no evidence of a productivity boost at Applejack's farm. Surely whatever magic they had could be used to pick apples in some way.

The more she thought about it, the more she thought whatever magic they used to defeat a potentially dangerous magic user, which she guessed Sunset must have been, they couldn’t possibly still have it.

While this should ease her worry, it did the opposite. If they didn’t have it, where did it go, and how would she find out where it came from? What if there's more dangerous magic that could emerge from it?

Drops frowned. She didn’t like all this speculation, she liked reliable information. And holding up the micro camera in her hand, fully checked to confirm it worked, she was hopeful that this would get her that info.

She spent the next few minutes wondering how exactly to spend her weekend, intent on not wasting it like last week. She looked over her notes and considered her options.

‘Bumping into’ some of her targets was an option, but she was getting the feeling she had squeezed as much info out of them as she possibly could. Her best bet was probably waiting to get the band room recording info.

As she thought, her mind kept wandering back to the school's musical contest. These talent shows never really caught her interest, as most schools tend to have very few applicants, but something about this one seemed different.

She recalled a surprising number of people at the party last night were going to be attending, many who had no formal training in music of any kind. Even Raspberry and Blueberry had convinced Derpy to compete with them using her new musical saw. What they were going to play she had no idea.

Drops flipped through one of her folders and quickly found the music contest’s poster, something she had taken in one of her routine info collections around the school. ’Canterlot High School Musical Showcase’ was the full name.

The longer she thought it over, the more reasons she could think of to throw her hat into the ring. The people of interest were competing together and may mention critical information. It would actually be foolish to miss such a big event and competing would just get her closer to the action.

Yes, she had convinced herself.

But who with? Derpy had her own band now, weird as it may be. She could play by herself, there’s no rule against solo acts. But that might lead to her gaining too much attention. She was still Miss Mystery to the school after all. The last thing she needed was people gathering around, hoping to see a legendary performance.

Who else did she know who plays an instrument? Of course there’s Lyra who plays the… who plays…

---

“It’s not fair.” Drops plopped her body onto her friend’s bright yellow bed, using the numerous teddy bears and soft toys that littered the whole room as a makeshift pillow. “Why won’t you play for me?”

Drops glanced over to her friend, who was nervously sitting by her desk, hugging one of the bigger teddy bears in the room. She could hardly see her behind it as the small girl used it as a shield to hide her embarrassment.

She poked her head out from behind it, revealing her young face and long straight mint hair. Drops had always been slightly jealous of her hair. Hers could never be straightened no matter how hard she tried, and the curled look she had wasn’t anywhere near as pretty.

“It’s just embarrassing,” she said timidly.

“Come on, I’ve played music for you so many times. It’s only fair.”

Drops could just see her frown above the bear. “That’s different Bon-bon. You’re learning piano for your weird school. It’s just a hobby for you. Me playing the lyre is my, you know, my thing.”

Drops rolled onto her side to better look at her friend. “I know, I know. But I constantly hear from your mum how amazing you are at it, so I wanted to see you in action.”

“She really exaggerates my talents. I’m not even that good.”

Drops groaned. “Alright, I admit it. I don’t care if you're good or not. I know you’re passionate about it, so I wanted to see it.” Drops rolled over so that she wasn’t facing Lyra anymore. “I just wanted to be part of something that was special to you.”

The room went quiet. Drops quickly began to regret making it such a big deal.

“But you are special too…” she heard Lyra say.

Drops turned once more to face her. She was blushing heavily.

“Alright, fine. I’ll play for you.”

Drops shot up. “Really?” she asked with a huge smile.

“Yes, but you better not laugh if I mess up, okay?”

“Yes ma’am.” She happily moved into a sitting position, looking at Lyra patiently.

Lyra slowly placed her bear on the ground and picked up her lyre, which was leaning against the wall. It was small and golden, and she held it perfectly still in her arm. With one long breath, she readied her hand.

Then her hand moved and her little fingers delicately struck the strings as her hand flowed from side to side of the lyre. A soft and calming sound engulfed the room, leaving Drops to hold back a gasp at just how wonderful the song was.

As Lyra continued to play, Drops felt as though she was in a trance. She couldn’t take her eyes off her. Her long hair brushed across her back as she slightly waved her body from side to side. Her eyes were closed and she looked so calm, like there was nothing else but her and her music, a music that was so soft it felt like soothing warmth.

Once Lyra had stopped she took one last breath and opened her eyes. She instinctively blushed when she saw Drops staring at her with a look close to awe.

“So... was it any good?” She asked.

Drops continued to stare for a couple more seconds. “You’re beautiful.”

Lyra’s blush brightened. “Don’t you mean the song was beautiful?”

“Both.”

---

“Ahh!”

Drops quickly steadied herself, managing to avoid falling back on her chair. She hadn’t realised just how far she was leaning back.

She pressed her hand against her cheek. Hot. She was blushing profusely.

Despite being alone, she was still embarrassed at the fact she got so caught up on her own memory. That memory specifically.

It made her feel like a child again.

She had thought back to the first time she heard Lyra play a lot during her first year of full-time training. She wanted so desperately to see her again, listen to her play just one more time, but knew that was impossible.

“Impossible,” she muttered, repeating the conclusion she had bitterly come to at such a young age.

She started rubbing her temple. Her head was beginning to hurt. None of this was worth thinking about. It was just another distraction from a misguided youth.

She had already come to grips with the fact she’d never hear Lyra play the lyre again. Why am I questioning it now? She thought.

The Musical contest caught her eye for a moment, and her headache eased. She picked it up to stare at it a bit more, then took out her phone and started looking through her messages.

Because it may no longer be impossible.

Her breathing had practically stopped. She stared down at her phone as she firmly clicked on Lyra’s name. She typed out each word slowly, thinking carefully about her choice of wording as she did so.

Then, once she was satisfied, she took one long breath and hit send.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Sweetie Drops's secret organization is also the main villain, right?

[AMuffinlover]

hurray Lyra and Bonbon shipping

[Cybershadowninja2]

Having seen Rainbow Dash set up all her band equipment in a specific music room at school, she guessed that they were all practicing there. This meant that she knew a room where all people of interest would hang out on a daily basis after school and at lunchtimes.

A little room that could easily have a secret camera placed there.

*remembers the last time someone tried to spy on Pinkie Pie* Oh this is going to be fun.