A new chapter

by Ponelover

To Southern Equestria, Part 4

Is Silverstream really an element bearer? Sorry, dumb question, I know. But it’s good for us to make sure that she is one. One needed to be very, very careful when you’re searching for element bearers, or at least that’s what I’m thinking right now. I guess this is just some part of my legacy, being the Princess’s student and all coming into play, all those nights researching about this subject or that subject really turns you into somepony that cares a lot for details.

And something tells me that Silverstream, while she definitely is an element bearer, I can’t shake the fact that this whole adventure down south feels too easy. Maybe it’s just expectations and all that, the first time we found a potential bearer of Generosity, we have to organise a massive rally in front of a building while simultaneously confusing the police force. I don’t expect something as dramatic as that happening, but the lack of conflict really feels unusual.

Something must be wrong with Silverstream, I don’t know what, but i’m sure of it.

“Hey, Sunset? You daydreaming again?”

I snapped out of my trance, yet again. This is getting tiring, I really, really need to stop worrying over the tiniest of details.

“Yeah, you know me Sonata. Why do you keep asking though? You know i’ll probably respond with the same excuse.”

“Yeaaaaahhh.” Sonata replied back, a knowing grin plastered all over her face. She’s also giggling a little bit as she makes her response, it’s the typical response I'd get whenever I'm talking with Sonata and there’s some inside joke we all get. It’s honestly cute now that I think about it. “I remember you when you were so busy studying and I asked you some very embarrassing questions, remember when I asked you whether you’re dating Twilight and you just said…”

My face turned sour, with both Starlight and Tempest now peering into the conversation.

“C’mon Sunset, say it. We’re all friends here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“THERE YA GO!!!” Sonata replied in glee. “Gosh, you were so busy reading all those equations that you just said ‘yes’! I asked the same question, literally 5 seconds after that on whether you were dating Rainbow Dash, and you responded with ‘uh-huh’ again!”

I only stared at Sonata. My face envoying disappointment, betrayal and rapid eye-twitching towards the Blue Siren. “Okay Sonata. I think that’s enough about me, how about-”

“Oh! Oh! Oh! There was this time during the Starswirl Festival, which is just some music festival in case both of you don’t know, and Sunset was busy playing a game with Rainbow Dash. I remember asking her whether she had kissed Twilight before, and her response was the same! She didn’t even flinch at all!”

At this point Starlight was lying on the floor, laughing her brains out, while cracks started appearing in Tempest’s face. Definitely trying to contain her laughter at the expense of my dignity. “Gosh I love it whenever Sunset’s focused on something, she’ll just admit to practically anything. Oh yeah, I remember the time when we are both together, we’re also still playing games, and I started asking questions on Flash Sentry.”

I immediately cast a spell, practically ‘poofing’ out Sonata’s mouth, leaving only muffled sounds coming out from where her mouth was.

“So, Sunset. Who is this Flash Sentry?” Tempest started asking. Now visibly curious more than anything else.

“No-one okay! He’s just a former boyfriend of mine, well, colt-friend to use Pony terms, he isn’t important!”

It took awhile for Tempest to start connecting the dots. But she eventually did, much to my misfortune, in a sudden reversal of her normally stoic self, she grinned at the implications of my conversation with Sonata.

Ugh, kill me now.

---

Sweet Celestia, this facility’s big.

There are multiple buildings that dot the facility, hundreds of Ponies walking about in lab coats, and probably just the same number of guards that are present as well. The Princess was not joking when she said that this project is personally important to her. Who would’ve thought that the Princess of the Sun likes going into space?

Okay, in hindsight, that might have been a bit obvious, still, seeing the various ponies milling about, it just gives you the sense of scale this project has progressed to.

I almost forgot what my objective is while I was gawking all over the place, acting like some kind of tourist or something. I was just walking outside the facility, blending into the crowd of ponies that are still very busy doing touristy stuff. I would bet a lot of savvy sales ponies would make a killing setting up a souvenir shop here, and that was when I noticed her.

A mare with a white coat, wearing jet black glasses, her hair just as white as her coat, and she is busy doing something with her horn. Is that a tracking spell? What is a Scientist casting a tracking spell for?

I broke from the crowd, preparing my S.M.I.L.E agent ID just in case I needed it, this mare seems interested in investigating something, and judging from the lack of weird glances pointed at her, she’s on the staff at the facility.

Admittedly I'm kinda deviating from the initial plan to protect Sunset Shimmer and her friends, but this seems to warrant my attention, S.M.I.L.E agents are protectors of Equestria from threats both internal and external, after all.

I approached the gate to the facility. The guard just simply brushed me off like I was some lost tourist, I rolled my eyes and showed my ID, just as the guard was about to freak out about how a fictional character is somehow alive, I shut him up. Really not wanting the entirety of Equestria knowing that I’m here, my secret identity has always been my greatest asset.

After a short talk with the guard, with assurances of legal repercussions in case he talked about my real identity, I entered in, and immediately came towards the White Mare. Well, it was more like the white mare suddenly bumping her face towards me.

“Hey there.”

“Oh, sorry. I was busy doing something, don’t mind me.”

“Actually, miss, would you like to step over here for a second?”

The white pony raised an eyebrow, seemingly confused, but she shrugged and did so anyway. Great! Now to find out what she’s been doing.

“I’ve noticed that you are running a particularly powerful tracking spell, miss…”

“Poindexter, and who might you be?”

“Oh, me? I’m Compass Point, but, back to the question, what are you doing? Are you busy tracking something you lost?”

“Umm, why do you think I would share that info? Wait, you don’t seem like staff around here, are you lost? Ugh, I probably need to call security to escort you out.”

“Oh, not at all miss Poindexter, you see, i’m from S.M.I.L.E, and my name’s actually.”

I unfurled something from my wings, the black coat I’m wearing providing convenient cover for my cutie mark. Poindexter’s horn lighted up, and she herself was curious to find out who I was. The moment she did though…

“D-d-d-d-d-d-d da-”

I forced a hoof onto her mouth, only shaking my head as the white pony freaks out over my true identity.

“Listen ma’am. I don’t want anypony to know who I truly am, but it seems that you are doing something very important. Would you mind telling me what you're doing? Oh, and please, use the name Compass Point from now on.”

“Oh, uh, okay. I assume you’ve heard of this, but there was an incident last night within the facility. Someone, not sure if this individual’s a pony or some other species, broke into our facility in the dead of night, and left just as mysteriously as well. 2 guards were shot with tranquilizer darts while this mysterious individual wandered off into Celestia knows where to do, well, something, well I’m investigating that something as of right now. Don’t want to leave this incident unattended for too long.”

“Huh, and you’re using the tracking spell to pick up any magical residue?”

“Yeah, but i’ve been receiving no indication of where he/she is during that fateful night. Must be some powerful spell. He/she is definitely flying, I can read that, but where he/she’s going is a mystery to me.”

Interesting, someone just flew into a heavily guarded facility, darted two guards, and then did something fast before flying off? That’s unusual. “Say, do you know the location where the two guards are darted at?”

“I, huh, I actually don’t know. I might wanna check them out on that.”

It didn’t take long for us to eventually arrive at the location, after pestering some more guards and a little bit of deduction on our part. The location was unassuming, just some space between two large buildings housing laboratories to the left and testing facilities to the right, but something was up here, it was enough to warrant this white mare to start investigating on her own.

“So, and I’m assuming here, the two guards ponies were darted from up high, because from your previous interview with them they said that they felt a weird prickly feeling without seeing the attacker.”

“Yeah.”

“So the attacker must’ve come from either the building right or left of the guards, and considering that the building on the left just leads to the gate. I’m assuming that the assailant is moving deeper into the facility.”

“To the testing facilities? Probably, you wouldn’t just dart the guards and go away. But there are many buildings to the left of this space, Stalwart, how are we supposed to go and investigate an entire facility?”

“Well. How about we start reducing the possibilities. What are the most important buildings you would think of in this space? Any sites of particular importance.”

“Well, there is the testing facility for the crew module, the rocket facility, fuel research labs, magical testing labs. In all honesty, they’re all important.”

“Well, why don’t we pick one site out? Like, hmmmm, the Rocket Facility?”

Poindexter looked at me with incredulity, it’s as if I just said something offensive to her, her retracted facial expressions really says everything that I need to hear. “Did I just say something wrong?”

“No, it’s just. Picking one facility at random seems… uhh, not methodical.”

“Well, we gotta start somewhere right?”

“Well… I guess that’s true enough.”

---

Jeez, what’s taking Poindexter so long?

Sure she’s a perfectionist when it comes to everything, but it’s really nearing lunch break and I still haven’t seen her. Just where in the world is she? I probably have to get her some take-away, she seems really busy doing this investigating stuff.

I reckon she would be really great at being a detective or something, Detective Poindexter of Canterlot! A nerdy mare by day, a dashing police officer by night! Defeating all manner of ne’er-do-wells and criminals as she waltzes beautifully with those thick rimmed glasses of hers. Yeah!

I really need to stop fantasizing.

Well, with work practically half done, I decided to grab myself some lunch. “Hey everyone, so uhh, it’s almost 12 midday, so you can probably take your 1 and a half hour break now. See-ya in a bit!” I declared, much to the relief and cheers of my coworkers. I don’t signal an early break often, but with progress in life support going this moothly, I might as well give some leeway to my coworkers. They’ve been doing fantastically these past few months.

Poindexter included of course.

But really, all I need now is a good bowl of kelp noodle soup, anything to get my mind off of the coming drudgery of doing both mine and Poindexter’s workload in the coming couple hours. So, in a typical me fashion, I sauntered off of the facility, heavily intent on getting my fill of some Southern Equestrian delights, and who did I bumped into but Sunset Shimmer and her pals.

“Oh, Sunset Shimmer, hello there!” I greeted. “Wow, what are you doing back here? Oh, are you in some kind of seeeecret adventure? Probably thwarting enemy spies from stealing our research notes or something? Or maybe you’re like, in some sappy romance where you are desperate to find your one true love within this sea of tourists and people really not interested in that sappy romance stuff?”

The fiery haired Pony only laughed at my antics. “No, nothing too dramatic. I actually wanted to talk to you! And also grab some dinner, but mostly talk to you.”

Sweet! It’s like we’re on the same wavelength, I can definitely hang out with friends over lunch. I do wonder what Sunset has in store for today though.

---

“So, Sunset. Whatchu wanna talk about?” I asked, slurping the noodles that the server brought for me. We went to a different restaurant, more southern equestrian rather than seaquestrian, still good though. No doubt about that.

“Well, it’s less what I want to talk about, but more about what you have in store.”

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

“I meant in the sense that we should honestly talk about you. How’s your day going? Are you doing well? Do you have any concerns?”

“... Aaaaahhhh! Wow, you really sure you just wanna come here and talk about that?”

I looked at everypony, and their response, all the way from Starlight to Tempest was vigorous nods. (especially vigorous on Sonata’s part), well, if they really wanted to listen to my story.

“Okay, so, do you know that I am a headmare for the Life Support department right?”

They all nodded.

“Alright, so there’s this mare called Poindexter, and honestly, even though she’s been working with me for many, many years now. I still feel that we don’t click.”

“Why so?” Sunset asked.

“Well, that’s the problem. I don’t know, I really really don’t know, there’s something about Poindexter that makes all my moves for her seem to deflect, it’s honestly a lil bit frustrating, but yeah, I honestly don’t know what to do with her.”

“Well uhh, what do you wanna do with her Silverstream?” Starlight now taking the turn asking. “Do you wanna be friends with her? Do you wanna be just professional partners? What do you want?”

“Well, Headmare Starlight. that’s the other problem, I DON’T KNOW! I really want Poindexter to be my new friend, I've practically made all the staff within my department my friends, we have monthly dinners together, we play board games sometimes, I even once organized a trip down to Seaquestria for all of ‘em! But Poindexter… she seems to be just, well, absorbed in her job. It’s like I have a bad feeling for her, she seems like the mare that would run herself to the ground.”

“Well, if that’s your concern, then why don’t you let her do the talking. I mean, I have a ton of experience dealing with friends that tend to be noncooperative, but let me tell ya, just give that girl some breathing room and she’ll open up to you. Mean girls are mean usually for a reason.”

“Hmmm, you might be right Sonata. But, I don’t know, I feel like i’m leaving everything to fate.”

I slurped another batch of noodles from the bowl, I was just confused by Poindexter’s behaviour before, I mean, everypony wanted to be friends with me when they first met me, so why is she different? I tried my damndest to be a good friend with all my other coworkers. Heck, there was this one time that I even bought cake for a birthday a coworker of mine forgot about! But I don’t think Poindexter would’ve appreciated it much if I did that for her.

If trying so hard didn’t work, maybe I should try harder? Or maybe… just forget about it? No! Bad Silverstream! I will not rest until I make a friend out of Poindexter!

But, but how? I don’t want to become known as Silverstream the Restless!

“Silverstream. I know that I am still new in this friendship business, but it seems to me that you have a rather bad case of over-control, you try so hard to be friendly with other ponies, that you forget their personal boundaries altogether. You might wanna change that, everyone needs their personal space, Silverstream, even mares like me.”

The rest of the group turned their heads towards Tempest, her face, formerly stoic as she delivered that advice to me. Suddenly, it turned embarrassing as she stared at all the eyes looking at her.

“Didn’t think that you had it in you, Tempest.”

“Wow, that’s… that’s really good advice!”

“Buck yeah! Tempest, you rock!”

The Crimson Mare only blushed as I saw her three friends react to her advice. Reactions and embarrassment aside, that… makes sense. I….I haven’t cared much about the personal space of my coworkers, I think I might need to fix that. I have to make it up to Poindexter.

And I think I know just the way to do it.

Author's Note:

Next chapter will be published Friday this week.

Comments

[Melody Song]

Another great chapter! Heh, poor little embarrassed Tempest at the end though. Looking forward to the next chapter!

[Yoshifan30]

I reckon she would be really great at being a detective or something, Detective Poindexter of Canterlot! A nerdy mare by day, a dashing police officer by night! Defeating all manner of ne’er-do-wells and criminals as she waltzes beautifully with those thick rimmed glasses of hers. Yeah!

Wow silverstream you almost nerd out about that lol 🤣

[Yoshifan30]

So apparently a lot of things have been happening first of all Sunset is having some thought about silverstream to be one of the barriers then Daring Do finally made it to the island and asking Poindexter about what happened last night and checking every building about the break-in silverstream is having some thoughts about trying to making friends with Poindexter but apparently she's been kind of distant away from silverstream but then sunset and the others to give other ponies or creatures from space like what fizzlepop said that's actually a pretty good advice hopefully this will stick on silverstream