Harmonics

by ezra09

Return to the Center

Scootaloo was in the air before she’d made the conscious decision to move. Her upended bag lie forgotten on the ancient stone below. She barely heard Thistleroot call Mimic’s name, and was only half aware of the changeling following her up a handful of seconds later.

She punched through the hole in the canopy directly over the sealed building and turned south. She could see the break in the trees where Greenhaven Grotto began.

Mimic called something, but the words fell on deaf ears as she raced toward town. Her wings burned with the effort, and she felt the tension in the air around her. Any faster and she’d reach the all or nothing point of a sonic rainboom.

Trees became houses as she reached the town, and she pulled up, eyes scouring the road ahead for the research center. They had come down that road before. There was the town center. Which building was it? There! She tilted forward into a dive.

Something hit her hard from behind, driving her down a dozen feet. She flailed, taken completely by surprise. She tried to regain altitude, but felt somepony pin her wings to her side. She realized who it must have been a moment before she and Mimic began free falling.

Her stomach dropped and she struggled for control of the fall, but the changeling had her. Thirty feet from the ground, Mimic pulled up, converting their fall into forward motion. They hit the ground hard. Scootaloo’s side hit with enough force to leave her breathless. They rolled, and then Mimic released her. She tumbled wings over hooves.

She came to a stop half a dozen feet away, dizzy, hurting, and barely able to get a breath. She could already feel the tender spot on her side that was sure to bruise.

Mimic regained her hooves first, looking not much better than Scootaloo felt.

“Have I,” Mimic panted, “got your attention now?”

Scootaloo tried to speak, to ask Mimic what she thought she was doing, but she still couldn’t manage more than quick, shallow breaths after getting the wind knocked out of her.

“What are you doing?” Mimic asked. “Were you just going to leave everyone behind? Didn’t you hear any of them calling? Asking you to wait?”

“You don’t understand,” Scootaloo managed to say. She took another few breaths. “We need that fragment. To save Twilight.”

Mimic shook her head. Her expression sour, similar to the looks she gave Scootaloo when they first met. “No, I do get it. You ponies love to go on about friendship and harmony, and then the second something goes wrong you have to rush off to play hero without any thought of letting your friends help.”

Scootaloo hesitated.

“It’s the same rash thinking that made you think you could out fly Queen Lirian before you were brought to the hive. And if that’s how you handle everything, you’re going to get yourself killed. Then I risked everything for nothing.”

“It’s not like that,” Scootaloo said, pushing herself onto her hooves. “We don’t know why they went through our things, or why they took it. If we wait, it might be too late.”

“Your friends are too slow, so you had to leave them behind?” Mimic asked.

Scootaloo’s next words froze in her throat. Was that what she’d done? No. She had no idea what was happening back at the research center. It was possible that Midlight or whoever had taken the fragment of harmony had already rendered it unusable or expended. Or that they hadn’t yet, but every second counted.

On the other hoof, if she ran into a situation she wasn’t able to handle by herself, she could have ruined their chance of getting it back. What would Rainbow Dash do? Her sister’s first instinct would to be to rush in, but in the end she’d trust her friends.

Scootaloo closed her eyes and sat back on her haunches. She heard Mimic drop into a sitting position as well.

They waited. Every second that passed pushed Scootaloo closer to screaming in frustration. She glanced over her shoulder toward the center of town once. Then again. She stood. Pawed at the ground. Sat again.

A faint glow illuminated the path leading toward Libiris. Scootaloo jumped back to her hooves.

Apple Bloom came galloping out of the forest first, followed by Spike and Sweetie Belle, and finally by Thistleroot. They were all out of breath, but came to a halt when they saw Scootaloo and Mimic.

“Sorry for bolting like that,” Scootaloo said. “I uh…”

“Apologies later,” Mimic said, turning and starting for the town center.

“Glad ya waited for us here,” Apple Bloom said with a smile before following. Sweetie Belle and Spike were right behind her, and Scootaloo followed.

“I’m... right behind… you,” Thistleroot gasped, shakily bringing up the rear.

*****

“Anypony have a plan?” Apple Bloom asked minutes later. The group stood at the far end of the town center, out of view of the research center.

Scootaloo could just make out motion in the second floor windows. Ponies were bustling about up there. More ponies than they’d seen in the town so far.

“Hard to come up with a plan when we don’t know anything,” Scootaloo said. “They’re just a bunch of eggheads, right? We might be able to just bust in.”

“Maybe, but there’s a lot of them. We should go for a subtle approach first,” Thistleroot said. “Then if that fails we can try bucking down the door.”

“I think I’ve got an idea,” Mimic said. She disappeared in a wash of changeling magic, and a moment later Star Charmer stood in her place. “I can get inside and look around without raising suspicion. Maybe grab the fragment and get out, or at least find out where it is and what they’re doing with it.”

“Unless you run into the real Star Charmer,” Scootaloo said. “Remember, her dad needed her help today.”

Apple Bloom shook her head. “Ah don’t think she’ll be up there. She’s probably waiting for us to come back.” She tilted her head toward the research center. “They know we’re gonna figure out it’s gone at some point, so they’ll want somepony we know waiting up front, to keep us busy for as long as they can when we get back. Remember the Cutie Mark Crusaders home decorators fiasco?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Scootaloo said while Sweetie Belle winced.

“If Mimic goes in through the back, she shouldn’t run into Star Charmer right away,” Apple Bloom said.

“It is the best plan we have,” Sweetie Belle said.

“Yeah. And then if Star Charmer is waiting for us, we can walk up to the front after Mimic leaves,” Spike said. “Then we make sure she’s busy so she can’t go back in. And if Mimic needs help, we’ll be close enough to hear her call.”

Scootaloo looked from Mimic to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, and then back again. “Alright, we’ll try it like this first.”

“Okay. Give me two minutes to get around back, then start walking toward the door,” Mimic said before turning and trotting back up the street. She rounded the corner to an alley and was out of sight.

Two minutes later, Scootaloo stepped out into the town center and began making her way toward the SEA Research Center.

Just as Apple Bloom predicted, Star Charmer exited the center when they were within thirty feet. Her expression was guarded as she came to a stop. When she spoke, her voice was flat. “You’re back earlier than we expected.”

“Yeah,” Scootaloo said. “We checked out Libiris. We thought now that we’ve got an idea of what we’re trying to get into, we can start asking around for advice.”

Star Charmer seemed to relax just a bit. “Great. I can show you to the Mayor’s house, if you want to start with him,” she said.

“Actually, we wanted to talk to Midlight first. About the technical details he mentioned yesterday,” Scootaloo said, stepping closer. Star Charmer took a small step back.

“Dad’s actually really busy today. Maybe you can talk to him over dinner. I’m sure he’ll…” Star Charmer trailed off. She took another step back. Her eyes broke away from Scootaloo’s for just a moment, glancing at Scootaloo’s side. She stepped again, this time moving right in front of the door to the research center.

Scootaloo sighed. She hadn’t even considered taking the precious few seconds she would need to put her saddlebags back on, let alone repacking them. Nopony moved. Scootaloo wasn’t sure if her friends had realized her mistake, but everypony had caught on to the sudden tension in the air.

“We need to go inside, Star Charmer,” Scootaloo said.

Star Charmer shook her head. “Dad told me not to let you back in.”

“Move out of the way,” Scootaloo said, taking another step closer.

Star Charmer shook her head again. “You don’t need to come in. Just go away.” Her voice was faint, and it was obvious she was scared. Scootaloo hesitated.

The young unicorn’s eyes were shut tight, but Scootaloo could see tears welling up at the corners. Still, she held her ground, hooves planted firmly just outside the door, tail twitching nervously. Her horn glowed with the beautiful silver color of starlight. “Just go away.”

Scootaloo stepped back. She hadn’t meant to scare the girl. She looked to her friends. Apple Bloom wore a similar expression of hesitance. Sweetie Belle and Thistleroot had already begun to turn.

“Just go.” The glow of Star Charmer’s horn brightened with the words.

“Maybe we should just leave,” Sweetie Belle said.

Maybe… Yeah. Sweetie Belle was right. What else could they do? Right?

But, didn’t they come for something? Wasn’t there something they had to do?

Scootaloo looked back toward Star Charmer. The unicorn still stood, eyes closed, shoulders hunched, horn glowing. A faint speck of black appeared floating near the base of the unicorn’s horn. A line of black smoke drifted up in a spiral around her horn from the speck. Another line of black smoke appeared, and then a third. The smoke swirled about in the silver magic. The beautiful color became tarnished.

Scootaloo frowned. That didn’t seem right. Had other unicorns magic ever looked like that? Or was it happening because of a specific spell that Star Charmer was casting? What spell was she casting?

A solid thought coalesced in the haze of Scootaloo’s mind. Star Charmer was using magic! In that moment, the fog that had begun creeping into her thoughts vanished. It was replaced immediately by a hot anger, and Scootaloo stepped toward the girl, only to hesitate again.

The dark smoke that had begun to swirl about her horn had replaced the silver light entirely. Dark lines, like veins, were beginning to spread across the silvery blue fur around the base of her horn.

“That is not normal,” Thistleroot said from behind Scootaloo. His voice sounded lucid, and Scootaloo guessed that whatever spell Star Charmer was casting had ended for everypony.

The dark smoke around her horn whipped about violently once, as though caught in a sudden gail, and then dispersed. Her body stiffened, and then she collapsed.

*****

The heavy deadbolt glowed green with changeling magic and turned. Mimic, still in the guise of Star Charmer, eased open the side door of the SEA research center and went inside.

The hall inside was dark, but several muted voices drifted in from a nearby stairwell. She followed them up, quickly going over what little she knew of the unicorn and what questions she might have to answer. As she reached the second floor and entered a well lit hall, she began to focus on keeping the gnawing worry from showing on her face. Despite her name, as a gatherer she’d not often been called upon to practice her mimicry.

If the ponies discovered what she was, she could have a fight on her hooves. She didn’t know if she could bring herself to fight back, should things go wrong. In her mind she saw the crumpled form of a pony on the ground before her, this time with wings and a dark coat. She closed her eyes, forcing the thoughts from her head. This wasn’t the time for that.

The voices were louder up ahead. Mimic stepped through the next doorway before she could change her mind.

Half a dozen ponies stood in the room. None spared her a passing glance, save for Midlight, who waved her over with one wing. She approached.

“Anything happen?” He asked, only glancing up for a second. On the desk before him was a battered notebook filled with tiny scrawl. Mimic looked at the other ponies. They all seemed similarly occupied. Two unicorns spoke over a heavy tome, while an earth pony and a pegasus had taken to a dry erase board in the corner.

“They came back,” Mimic said. “I don’t think they noticed yet. They wanted to talk to the townsponies about Libiris, so I pointed them toward the mayor.”

“Excellent. Hopefully he’s feeling long winded today,” Midlight said.

Mimic took a stab in the dark. "Isn't he always?"

"True. It shouldn't be much longer now, at any rate."

Mimic watched the ponies work for a few minutes, afraid to make any move that would give her away. The fragment of harmony wasn't in the room, as far as she could tell, but her best bet was to simply observe until she found out enough to act on.

A unicorn mare entered the room after a little less than five minutes. “Midlight.”

“Yes, Marble?”

“I just finished up with the Sitrest testing. Ivy’s running a light spectrum analysis now, but it’s looking like your initial thoughts were on the money.” She offered a clipboard to Midlight. “That crystal is resonating on six readable frequencies at once, and the energy density is higher than anything I’ve measured before.”

Midlight’s eyes darted across the clipboard. “Good. We have a bit longer than I thought we would, but there’s no telling how long. Will you be able to unravel it?”

“I think so. Once Ivy’s done mapping out the structure I’ll know for sure.”

Mimic swallowed, looking between them. Unravel? That didn’t sound good. “Do you think Ivy needs any help?” she asked.

The mare, Marble, shook her head. “He just has to wait for the machine to do its job.” She turned back to Midlight. “I’ll come back when we’re ready, boss. It’ll be just a minute.” He nodded and she walked away.

Mimic watched her go and considered following. Would it be suspicious? If she could just see the fragment of harmony, she could grab it and dash. But the mare had said something about a machine. Would she be able to get it out? Or should she wait for a better moment?

Midlight sighed. She looked back to see him reading over the clipboard. “I know what you’re thinking.”

Mimic’s heart skipped a beat before she realized he didn’t mean literally. Pony expressions were just weird like that. She replied with a noncommittal “Hmm?”

“Star, magic like that isn’t something that comes around every day, especially if the source of that magic has been captured. This is an opportunity we may never get again. We need to take it.”

Mimic glanced back toward the door. Marble had left the room, and the chance to follow her without raising undue suspicion had gone with her. For now, best to play into his expectations, right? By the sound of it, he was trying to justify his actions, as though she wouldn’t agree with them.

“I know, but what if they need it too? You heard what they said happened to Canterlot.”

Midlight shook his head, one hoof rubbing at his temple. For a moment, he looked much older. “I… the magic is powerful, but there’s not much good it can do in a situation like that. It’s not enough to save the world.”

“Boss?” Marble’s voice called out from across the room. “The analysis is done. Good news.”

Midlight smiled. “But maybe it’s enough to save mine.” With that, he set the clipboard down and made his way out of the room.

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” Mimic asked under her breath before following.

Comments

[the other sans]

Scootaloo could just make out motion in the second floor windows. Ponies were bustling about up their.

1. There.