• Published 16th Jul 2012
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Secret of Andalantis - Fizzy Orange



Lunaverse, On a trip to the beach Ditzy dissapears underwater, adventure ensue. COMPLETE!

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Chapter 7

Ditzy gasped at the idea that a third party could be involved in the war devastating the lives of her new seapony friends. This would certainly be a good thing if it meant the two aquatic tribes didn’t have to fight each other anymore. Maybe with Trixie’s help they could find Andalantis all together and broker a new era of peace? Possibly defeat whoever was behind this evil plot. Charybdis, Sea Cucumber, and all the others deserved to live without being constantly chased.

“You expect me to believe that wild theory of yours?” asked Scylla, angrily.

Charybdis eyed the spy pony with suspicion, she was clearly not sure if she should be so trusting of this dry pony. “I’m not sure I’m ready to believe it either.”

“Please Charybdis… wouldn’t you prefer if it was true?” pleaded Ditzy, “that this feud was all but a ploy by somepony else and not the fault of the merponies?” she said, also glancing back at the merpony leader, “and you Scylla, wouldn’t you rather be at peace? Why don’t you give Zizanie’s idea a chance? If she’s right we could all go home friends instead of enemies, and if she’s wrong…”

“And if she’s wrong?” asked Charybdis.

“If she’s wrong… either the merponies took your daughter away, or you have been lying about it to get on my good side,” the pegasus said, her eyes allowing her to perform the incredible feet of glaring at both leaders at once, “either way whoever is in the wrong will get a very STERN talking to from me!”

There was a tense silence until Trixie cleared her voice to ask a question. “So why don’t you explain how this whole thing works if you’ve done it before?”

“I’d rather not reveal all of my secrets to you,” said Zizanie.

“How about you keep it vague then?” replied Trixie, clearly annoyed.

“Very well then. The principle is simple: fabricate a conflict between two allies while making sure neither of them realizes you are behind it. You create an original incident in confusing circumstances, then make sure to control communications between the two groups, lie to both sides, set up other cons, or in this case ambushes, until they no longer talk to each other on their own. From then on you just keep fabricating minor events and proof of the other’s involvement. After a while it kind of sustain itself fairly easily, the hardest part is to get it started. When was the last time you tried to communicate with one another?”

“Before I was born,” answered Scylla, getting a nod from Charybdis.

Zizanie allowed herself a smirk. “See what I mean?”

“Why would anyone do this?” asked Sea Racer.

“Normally, in the political games I am but a small bit player,” said Zizanie, causing a derisive snort to come from Trixie, “you break apart allies so they cannot push their agenda as effectively as they could together, allowing you to gain center stage.”

Dusky Jack was the next one to pipe up “So it’s to weaken us then?”

The spy nodded, “That would make sense to me.”

Trixie was the first to ask the obvious question “How many of those things are out there anyway?”

“There’s the one with the octopus tentacles, the one with the hairy limbs, the one with the crab pincers, the one with the weird face…” began to list Sea Youaround.

“Last time they attacked our camp there was 10 of them,” said Scylla, interrupting the seapony.

“Sounds about right,” replied Charybdis.

“They’re stronger than any of us though, there’s no way we could stand up to them,” said Sea Racer.

“But together you might be able to,” pointed out Ditzy.

“Friendship’s done wonder for us,” added Trixie.

“Why would they keep this going for a hundred years? Who could play out a long game like that? Shouldn’t they be coming for us already? There’s barely any of my clan left,” said the merpony leader, sounding frustrated.

“Our family…my clan… it’s also very small, we can’t do nothing but flee before their attacks,” added Charybdis.

“I doubt the originator is still around. If I had to guess I’d say whatever objective they had was already accomplished and they let the whole thing runs itself before ditching you guys to your squabble,” said the spy.

“Why would the kaosharks still be around then?” asked Dusky.

“He makes a good point. The kaosharks I’ve encountered before weren’t particularly bright, I doubt they could run this sort of con by themselves after some mastermind left,” agreed Sea Racer.

“I bet this whole war is actually ran by a secret cabal of merchants who want to keep a strangle hold on all seaweed export to Equestria,” began Trixie, much to everypony’s confusion. “You know the spa ponies are always complaining about the monopoly on good seaweed for beauty wraps that Zaldian merchants have! It’s probably them. They have some sort of sorcerer controlling the kaosharks. Maybe it’s the tapirs! They’ve been known to have views on nearby coastal areas and have a strong navy. It’s possible the kaosharks are some sort of secret weapon they want to use against Equestrian and Cavallian ships and your war is a long-winded trial run! Maybe both are allied!”

There was a moment of silence as nopony was sure how to interpret Trixie’s outburst. Mostly the seaponies and merponies didn’t have much concept of the troubles found in the surface world.

Finally Zizanie’s laugh cut through the silence. “Your imagination is getting ahead of yourself, Lulamoon. Why don’t you leave the conspiracy theories to those with some actual knowledge of the political world?”

“Don’t patronize me, blackmailer! It could totally happen!” insisted Trixie.

“You’re just a delusional kid who thinks she can make it in the big league!”

Charybdis decided to interrupt the exchange before it could devolve further. “Let’s assume for now that this common enemy of ours still exists in one form or another. One thing interests me Miss Zizanie: how does one control communication in the early days of this… con of yours?”

“Easy, you have ponies on the inside, on either side, to send fake messages and intercept the real ones,” simply answered Zizanie.

The implication hung in the waters around the group like a dark cloud.

“That’s an outrageous claim!” shouted Scylla. “Who in their right mind in my people would side with someone like the kaosharks?”

“I have to concur,” said Charybdis “Plus it would require someone to stay with the same group for years, while it never happened in my life time it did happen at multiple times during the last century that we tried to exchange messages.”

The white unicorn simply shook her head; “It can’t be the same pony during the entire time…”

“It would be way too easy to figure out! Would make the operation risky,” added Trixie, getting where Zizanie was getting at.

“Of course when I say ‘same pony’ I mean,” continued the spy, smirking at the blue unicorn.

Trixie returned the smirk with a glare, before finishing Zizanie’s sentence “the same identity. It can be the same spy but under a different name and different magical disguise. That’s the sort of thing you do for a price, isn’t it?”

The white unicorn just smiled mysteriously at that statement.

“But we don’t have magic,” pointed out Sea Youaround.

“Point taken,” agreed Zizanie, “I suppose in your case it’s probably a group of spies sharing duties. Some leaving, probably as one of the victims, just before or after a new spy comes in.”

There was an uncomfortable silence once again. Ditzy felt a sense of dread in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t want to speak up about it, but she knew the seaponies probably wouldn’t raise that point themselves.

“Charybdis…” she began.

The seapony leader interrupted her, “Miss Doo, I know what you are about to say, and I fully trust her. She’s way too young to be some sort of spy! ”

“I wasn’t… I mean I would never…she saved me!”

“What are you two babbling about?” asked Scylla.

Ditzy sighed. “Charybdis told me she took in a stray seapony a while back.”

Dusky and Scylla shared a look, before the merpony leader spoke up. “We’ve done that sort of thing from time to time.”

“No way! I won’t believe that!” said Sea Youaround, getting a nod from Sea Racer.

“Sea cucumber is too young to be a spy, that’s ridiculous and I’ll have none of that,” said Charybdis in a tone that clearly stated she would not entertain the thought further, ”The point still stand that at many points in our history…we probably let some sort of spy into our midst…”

“Same here,” said Scylla with a sigh.

“We still don’t have a motive,” pointed Trixie, rubbing her chin with her hoof, “what have you guys been up to for the last hundred years, beside being chased by monsters?”

Both leaders looked at each other, engaging in some sort of staring contest. Silently they seemed to be trying to convince the other to speak up first. The two were clearly not used to the idea of having such casual conversation in the middle of nowhere with their enemy of many generations.

Trixie crossed her forehooves over her barrel, “One of you is going to have to speak out first.”

“Ah oyster shell! I’ll go first,” declared Scylla angrily, “I can’t let miss calm and fancy over there get all the good parts. I’m a leader too so maybe I should show I can be mature too. We’ve been looking for Andalantis.”

Charybdis gasped. “We’ve been doing the same thing!”

“That must be why they took Lyra! She’s super knowledgeable on tons of legends, she probably knows a thing or two about Andalantis that could be useful!” declared Trixie, “How they knew she knew that stuff though…”

“I still think you’re wrong thinking there is still a mastermind at work on this,” said Zizanie, shaking her head.

Ditzy placed a hoof on Charybdis shoulder to grab her attention. She looked at her and the pegasus motioned to the seapony’s bag and then at Trixie. The silent exchange was enough for Charybdis to understand.

“In fact, my search for Andalantis is the very reason I’m even out here today,” she began, “I have something important to show Miss Trixie here. Something that might very well help us find our missing friends. If our enemies are indeed looking to solve the secret of Andalantis, they will certainly be exploring some of the areas on the map I’m carrying with me.”

The merponies, and Ditzy’s friends, gasped as one. “You have a map to Andalantis?!” asked Scylla.

“Yes, or more precisely, I have a star chart,” replied the seapony leader.

Trixie realized what this meant rather quickly. “Oh! You need the Great and Powerful Trixie’s secret to unveil another secret? Well as personal student to her majesty Princess Luna, it is true I know the secrets to her star charts and I will be happy to help, but…”

“But?” asked Zizanie.

“But I’ll need a more recent map to compare it to…”

“I don’t see the problem, Captain Sunset Beard surely has one on the Autumn Delight. Let’s go see him, and I can see my little muffin again,” said Ditzy with a smile.

“But… but…” began to stammer the blue unicorn.

“Spit it our already, would you? Real politicians don’t stammer in public!” berated the white unicorn.

“I don’t want to tell Bon Bon I lost her marefriend!” finally admitted Trixie.


Lyra, Rock Beauty and Sea Shanty were making some good progress on the song. There were a few symbols that were chipped and so they weren’t quite sure which way it would go, but the song had a relatively simple structure and they extrapolated from other segments. There were an awful lot of silences though, and Lyra felt it was a tad odd to include so much early on in a song. She also just couldn’t shake the feeling that what they had worked out was somehow familiar. Then they hit the main chorus and it clicked.

“I know that song! Or at least a song that’s very similar to it,” she declared.

Both the seapony and merpony expressed surprise at the statement and asked her to elaborate.

“It was in the musical play, Legend of Andalantis I played in back in school. The play is a few hundred years old and the songs are supposed to be based on actual seapony and merpony music. This chorus is part of the opening song of the play! The beginning was a little richer though. I wish I had an instrument with me so I could make you listen to it…” she said rubbing her chin with a hoof.

She looked around, taking stock of what was available to her. There were mostly just rocks and a few pieces of broken coral. She considered summoning her lyre but she wanted to keep that as a last resort surprise, and she didn’t want anyone nearby to hear it well enough. She positioned herself and began to tap a hoof on a stone to create a beat. Once satisfied she began to whip her tail making a soft and barely audible whooshing sound. Once that was done she began to hum the melody of the song, her tail adding accents from time to time. When she got to the chorus, Sea Shanty and Rock Beauty stopped her.

“It reminds me of an old traditional song!” said Sea Shanty.

“My grandma used to sing me a song like that too,” added Rock Beauty.

“Why don’t you go first?” suggested the seapony.

Rock Beauty nodded and began to sing. It didn’t have any lyrics, only sounds. To Lyra it sounded rather soothing. She had to remind Rock Beauty not to sing too loudly, but in the whole the performance seemed flawless. There was definitely something similar about this song, but also some bits were different. Of course being limited to one note at a time created silence.

As Sea Shanty began to sing her own song, once again very similar, even down to the chorus section. All the while she sang Lyra had her eyes closed and counted time in her head, visualizing the song as sheet music in her mind. The song itself was certainly similar to the opening to the play, but it was much closer in simplicity to the song on the wall.

Once Sea Shanty was finished, Lyra asked Rock Beauty to repeat her performance. Once against Lyra counted the notes and visualized the song in her mind. When that was finished she went to examine the wall once more. She smiled broadly and turned to the pair.

“Whoever this Sea Cucumber really is, she picked the right ponies to tackle this. Cracking this little mystery was fun, but I think it’s about time we planned our escape!” she said.

“Wait…what?” asked a confused Rock Beauty.

“How are we going to get past the guards?” asked Sea Shanty.

Lyra’s smile turned into a smirk. “A little cunning, a little luck, and a little helping of magic!”

At that her horn began to glow, much to the fascination of the two aquatic ponies.


“Lass, ya better stop pacing before you wear a hole in me boat!” complained Sunset Beard.

“Sorry…” said Bon Bon sheepishly, sitting down beside Sparkler.

The captain grunted before turning back to Dinky as he regaled her with tall tales of the high sea.

“You shouldn’t worry so much, I’m sure… I’m sure everything will be fine,” said the unicorn, sounding only half-convinced herself. “It hasn’t even been two hours yet.”

“I know… normally I don’t get this worried but right now there really isn’t anything to take my mind off the situation,” said the earth pony, looking forlornly at Lyra’s lyre.

As soon as they had come back to the boat, Bon Bon had taken the instrument out of its storage bag so she could see it disappear, should Lyra call for it.

Amethyst Star turned to where the captain was entertaining Dinky. “I’m glad Mr. Sunset Beard is helping on that front, maybe you should go listen to his stories too?”

Bon Bon hung her head. “I tried earlier, but his talk of storms made me feel seasick again, so I had to bail.”

“When was that?” asked the Unicorn.

“When you were fluttering your eyelashes at Wind Sailor,” replied Bon Bon with a smirk.

Sparkler began to stammer and blush. “I was just worried! It’s a long flight back to Cayo El Bayo without a map and I was making sure he was taking some water with him to keep him hydrated!”

“He’s a pegasus, he could easily drink water right out of a cloud,” replied Bon Bon, rolling her eyes “and it’s not that far for a young, athletic, pony like him.”

“Oh yes, very athletic…” replied the blushing younger mare, staring into the distance.

Bon Bon chuckled. “I see someone’s caught the feather flu… you do remember he came here with Rarity, right? Unless you’re banking on a threesome.”

Sparkler gasped, “Bon Bon!”

Bon Bon’s giggling was interrupted by the voice of someone calling Dinky’s name. It was very faint at first but it was getting closer and closer. The little unicorn raced out to the edge of the boat, looking expectantly at the sky.

“Momma!” she called out, spotting the familiar grey form flying towards them.

Hearing her daughter’s voice seemed to multiply Ditzy’s speed and with a burst of acceleration she was on the deck of the boat, hugging her daughter, fast enough to make Rainbow Dash jealous.

“Momma!"

“My little muffin!”

“Ditzy! I’m so glad to see you!” said Amethyst Star.

Bon Bon came up and gave the mailmare a friendly pat on the shoulder “Same here! You had us all worried. Where were you? Did you see the others? They went looking for you. Oh geez! We forgot to think up of a way to contact htem if you returned on your own what are we going to do?”

“Don’t worry Bon Bon,” began Ditzy, “the others found me. They just sent me ahead.”

“What happened down there?” asked Sparkler.

Ditzy finally let go of her little Dinky, “Muffin, why don’t you go get us that bottle of apple juice in my bag?”

“Will do Momma!” said Dinky with a smile that could melt a glacier as she sped up to the bags.

“It began when I was separated from the others and got attacked by a couple of strange shark creatures…” Ditzy began, quickly getting through the scarier parts of her tale before Dinky could hear it.

She told those present of her encounter with the seaponies, their dire situation and their war. She told of how they had met up with Trixie’s group who had encountered the merponies on their own, and, with some difficulty, about how Lyra and two of the merponies disappeared. Before Bon Bon could voice too much concern, Ditzy quickly mentioned Rarity not actually being Rarity and how she had deduced the war between the two groups was staged.

“And now Trixie is coming over here to compare the seaponie’s map to your maps, Captain,” finally concluded Ditzy.

The captain looked a tad stunned. “Well I’ll be…actual seaponies and merponies! I’ve never even caught glimpses of one before!”

“Oh Lyra, you fool, you crazy beautiful and charming fool, what have you gotten yourself into this time?” asked Bon Bon, looking up at the sky with a heavy sigh.

A couple of splashing sound brought her attention back to the sea, where two horned head were popping out of the water. One was Trixie’s; the other was the mysterious impostor’s. Behind them, beneath the surface of the water, were two groups of shapes. Bon Bon and the others who had stayed on the boat gaped at their first sight of seaponies and merponies. A violet colored merpony waved a hoof while a magenta seapony did a flip under the water as a form of greeting. A broadly smiling Dinky happily returned the greeting with an excited wave.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie has returned! She brings back the lost tribes of aquatic ponies! And a blackmailer,” declared the blue unicorn, glaring at her white companion.

“Hiya Miss Trixie!” greeted Dinky. “Hi lady who’s not Rarity!”

“Guys, this is Zizanie, Zizanie you’ve deceived the guys before right?” dryly said a very wet Trixie as she climbed back onto the boat.

“Charmed,” simply said Sparkler, glaring at the older unicorn.

Zizanie proceeded to do the most annoying thing possible: ignoring the jeweler and grabbing a towel to dry her mane.

“I see Wind Sailor is off to find the coast guards?” she asked Bon Bon.

“Yes,” the candy maker replied, still gazing in surprise at their aquatic friends.

“Don’t think I won’t tell him about you when we meet each other again,” shouted Trixie from the captain’s piloting station.

“Why aren’t they coming up to meet us?” asked Dinky, referring to the seaponies and merponies.

“They lost the ability to breathe air when they lost their magic long ago,” explained Trixie, a hint of sadness in her voice, “but, with what we have, we might even solve that problem!”

“And find Lyra?” asked Bon Bon, icily.

“Of course!”

Trixie signaled to one of the seaponies, presumable their leader Charybdis, who then proceeded to bring a stone carved map up to the underside of the boat’s glass floor. From this position Trixie could study the map without bringing it out of the water, which would risk damaging the centuries old artifact. She and the captain began to compare the two star charts and the Autumn Delight’s modern map of the Cayo El Bayo region. Meanwhile, Dinky had begun a funny face contest with the magenta seapony that Ditzy identified as Sea Youaround.

“I don’t get it…” began Trixie, looking off the side of the boat towards Lucky Seagull Island. “It’s not on the old map. Is the island volcanic?”

“I doubt it, this isn’t a volcanic area,” commented Sparkler, peering at the map inquisitively. “This entire region is a leviathonic cove formation that was carved out of sedimentary rock that was revealed after the last flood age.”

Trixie looked at the jeweler.

“What?! I work with gem stones, I need a basic knowledge of geology for my job!”

“Well whatever this island is, it’s right next to where the star chart says you can find Andalantis,” commented Sunset Beard.

Ditzy came over to the group, but kept an eye out on Seagull Island. “Are you telling me we were this close to their lost city? Could it really be this easy?”

Trixie shrugged “I don’t know Ditzy, our best bet is to go check it out.”

“Trixie!” came Bon Bon’s panicked call.

Everypony turned toward the confectioner in time to see Lyra’s instrument be surrounded by a golden light and lift from the ground before it vanished into thin air. It took a second for everyone to process what that meant.

“Lyra!” gasped Bon Bon, Ditzy, Sparkler and Trixie.

The latter’s horn quickly flashed as her eyes took on their blue glow once more. Trixie took a second to realize this was the first time she ever used this spell so intensively over such a short period of time.

“I got a lock on her strands of magic, we have to go before it fades!” she declared, turning toward Lucky Seagull Island, “She’s that way! Ditzy, Zizanie, let’s go!”

A cream colored hoof held on to her shoulder before she could jump back in the water.

“I’m coming with you,” said the earth pony, in a tone so matter-of-factly that she might have been stating the color of her fur or Princess Luna’s name.

Trixie only took a second to make sure that Bon Bon’s water breathing spell was still properly bonding to her before nodding.

“Good luck momma!” called Dinky as two unicorns, a pegasus and an earth pony disappeared back beneath the water.

Author's Note:

Back to a shorter chapter, in RECORD time though, but I felt this was a decent cutoff point. Next time things might be a bit more frantic you see?

I know I don't have GrassandClouds2's talent for the musical scene, but I hope this is enough. As always I'm looking for someone to tell me where I made odious crimes against grammar and synthax so feel free to point them out so I can fix things. Now I'm heading to bed and I'm leaving you with a little something I felt might be appropriate.

Shoo bee doo shoo shoo bee doo