Operation Exquisite Corpse

by The Red Parade

Chapter Ten (Jarvy Jared)

Bon-Bon knew how her words sounded. It had been part of her training—getting the non-combatants to listen to her when she needed them to. The trick was to sound both authoritarian and uncompromising. It was a tactic the Agency had developed when they had a joint operation with the Diamond Dogs down in the southern Badlands. To get the unruly native herbivore population to listen, the predatory species assumed such a stance, though in their case a literal one, and each had fallen in line.

Bon-Bon hated to sound like this. It was the demeanor of carnivores, in her view, never mind that Lyra never seemed quite bothered by the term. She hated having to command ponies like they were little more than dumb animals to be herded into line, but unfortunately—and this she knew well, just by living in Ponyville—ponies had a nasty habit of becoming hysterical without proper direction.

And having to say it to Derpy, of all ponies!

Of course whenever she was on-assignment and had to employ such a method, she rarely had time to consider the ethical ramifications. Especially when the device she was holding just started to fail her.

Darn it, Turner… you and your lame-brained ideas might actually get me killed!

Her only reprieve was the fact that the thing she was fighting seemed limited by its large scope of abilities. Mentally she checked them off from her hidden position behind a large boulder, the weapon wrapped tightly in her hooves. It had some degree of light and shadow manipulation—that had been how it had started to spread so promiscuously. It could mimic voices—the Agency had several reports to demonstrate this. This all suggested that it was capable of several wavelength adjustments, both visual and auditory, which meant that it might be related to the Clickers in the northern ice caps, or perhaps even the Strangle-Shuffles out west—

“Mom? Is that you? Help me!”

Bon-Bon shivered. Celestia, it was uncanny how close to Dinky that sounded.

As to whether or not that the thing merely copied the voice of its victims, or otherwise stole more than that from them…

The tool started to hum, and Bon-Bon gave a triumphant grin. Just as the thing started its crooning, cruel mimicry, she leaped around the boulder and pulled the trigger. A beam of translucent azulean energy shot out. But the creature was wilier than she’d expected. Its distant shadowy nothingness coalesced into a central point, narrowly dodging the blast.

That was fine. She just needed to draw its attention long enough for Derpy to get away.

Bon-Bon began to run a perimeter around it, firing off whatever blasts she could. She did not fire at random; her shots were designed to force it in a certain direction backward, and for the moment it seemed to be working. But she knew that she could not stay for long. Pack-driven as they were, to find these creatures alone could only mean that their members were close-by.

Bon-Bon ducked behind a tree just as the shadows misted out and darted at her. She felt the tendrils miss her tail by centimeters. Through a dense foliage she shot precisely three shots, and each one tagged only the edge of the creature. But that tagging was enough. Turner’s weapon, designed, he said, “from a recurring nightmare I’ve been having for three years,” finally paid off—though it had barely touched the thing, a light smoke started to spread from where it had tapped it, and the thing shrieked.

Bon-Bon doubted she’d ever forget that sound. But for the moment, she felt relieved—they had something that could hurt these things, finally!

And that meant that now was as good of a time as any to make like a banana and—well, she wouldn’t waste her time on such an easy joke.

She turned and dashed through the woods, and the thing’s cries grew fainter and fainter. She had not killed it, but that was all right—she hadn’t planned on trying. Right now, Derpy—and therefore Princess Celestia—needed her to join them.

The forest blurred around her. Her heart was in her throat; she had not realized how pumped of adrenaline she had been, and she was already beginning to feel fatigue deep in her legs. When she thought she had covered enough distance for a breath, she slowed behind a thick tree trunk and waited, hoping the thing would not show.

“Bon-Bon?”

That must have been its sister—brother—fellow thing. She didn’t hesitate. She whirled around and fired.

But the fellow thing let out a decidedly non-thing scream, and when the light faded, Bon-Bon’s vision was filled with the quaking form of an all too familiar sight. Her eyes widened.

“Lyra?”

“Bon-Bon, what’s going on? What is that?” She pointed a hoof at the weapon. “Why’d you almost shoot me, you jerk?”

No. This… this has to be a trick. She raised the weapon again.

“Whoa, whoa! Calm down! It’s me, okay? I-I’m not a Changeling! I swear!”

The weapon hummed, but Bon-Bon hesitated. It looked and sounded like Lyra, and yet…

“Okay, what do I have to do to convince you?”

Bon-Bon quirked a brow. She didn’t think that the thing knew anything more beyond a few miscellaneous phrases here and there. And besides, this Lyra had her color—the thing she’d been fighting was all shadow, no form, an anomaly of perceptive reality.

She slowly lowered the weapon, and let out a breath. “Lyra.”

“What’s going on, Bon-Bon? What are you doing out here? What—” Lyra gulped. “Is this about what happened to Ponyville?”

She would have answered, but just then something faint reached her ears. It was a shrill cry, distant but growing undoubtedly nearer. Her eyes widened, and Lyra, reading her fear, reacted just the same.

“There’s no time,” Bon-Bon said breathlessly. “We need to go.”

“But—”

“Now, Lyra!”

She moved to grab her friend, only to be struck by her eyes shrinking into pinpricks, and an unsteady hoof raising to point. “B-B-B—”

“Bon-Bon, what’s going on? What’s—Is that me?”

Bon-Bon, feeling her hair stand on end, and against her better judgement, felt herself turn to look.

Author's Note:

Written by Jarvy Jared