Masked Pony: Agent of SECT

by MagnetBolt

Chapter 8

“So, that’s five,” Lyra said. “How many are there?”

She was trying to make the two shards we had fit together, but no matter how she turned them, the edges didn’t quite match.

“I don’t know. That’s half the problem.” I sighed and picked up a different scroll. I had to give Princess Twilight some credit - her research was really thorough and her hornwriting was impeccable. I could read every individual word perfectly, even if I couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was actually trying to say.

“Maybe we should just like, drop the ones we have in a bucket of concrete and then throw the bucket into Tartarus,” Lyra sighed. “If they’re important to these ponies, getting rid of them should mess up their plans, right?”

“That depends on what their plan is,” I said. “Maybe they don’t need every single shard. Plus, we need these shards for your tracking spell. If more show up and we don’t know where or when, ponies could get hurt.”

“I hate not having clear answers,” Lyra said. “Is this a bad time to ask if you’ve thought about telling Twilight?”

“I thought about it.”

“And?”

I took a deep breath. “We’ll tell her. That last fight was… the whole town was trapped by that monster. If something had gone wrong, I don’t know what would have happened to those ponies. The GOC might want these Nightmare Shards, but they haven’t even been trying to defeat the Phobias.”

Lyra smiled. “Great! I was really worried, Bonnie. I love you, but other ponies are more important than pride.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, smiling weakly. “I don’t look forward to answering all the questions she’s going to have, but I guess she’s technically allowed to know any classified information I have.”

“Unlike me,” Lyra pointed out.

“You know, there was actually a clause in the SECT charter about spouses and marefriends,” I said. “Too bad I couldn’t get you sworn in before Celestia disavowed us.”

Lyra smiled. “You know, I could get in at the Guild of Buskers, Street Magicians, and Escorts. Then we could be part of my secret society. You only get kicked out if you reveal a trick to a non-member.”

“Do you mean card tricks, or the kind escorts do?”

“Let’s just say there are things you can do with a grapefruit no non-member is allowed to discover.”

“I don’t even want to know.”

Distantly, I heard the clock tower strike eight.

“I need to go open the store,” I said. “Are you going to be okay here?”

Lyra shrugged. “Sure. I’ll go over Twilight’s notes again to see if I can figure anything out. If the tracking spell picks anything up, the first thing I’ll do is come get you, I promise.”

“Good. I love my smart marefriend.” I kissed her on the cheek and ran out the door. Even secret agents had to pay bills.

---

I liked working in my little store. Making candy helped me get my mind off things. It was a form of meditation, heating sugar syrup just the right amount, adding just so much color, a touch of citric acid, a twist of flavor. It wasn’t like the candy you’d get at Barnyard Bargains, made in a factory by ponies whose special talents involved pulling levers and pushing buttons all day.

I emptied the copper kettle onto the cooling table and let it sit for a bit. This batch was tangerine, which to a discerning pony was considerably different than a mere orange. It needed to be tart and sweet and just a little more refined. Then I brought out the bench scrapers and started working the cooling mass.

Something I’ve never been asked (but I wish somepony would ask because it’s one of those conversations I’ve had in my head a hundred times) is how a world-class secret agent could also be a world-class candymaker. Both professions take a huge amount of work, and there’s almost no overlap between them.

It all has to do with the time I got my cutie mark. Ironically, at the time I was trying to make a sandwich--

The door burst open in the middle of my internal monologue.

“We’re not open for another hour,” I called out. “If that’s you, Derpy, just leave the packages next to the counter.”

“Bon-bon?” Princess Twilight called out.

“I’m in the kitchen,” I said. “Sorry, I’m working with hard candy right now, so I can’t leave it for long.”

Things were nearly silent for a few seconds, and I could hear the hesitation in the quiet.

“Now, you need to stay calm and listen,” she started. I dropped the bench scraper I was holding and stormed out. When somepony was telling you to stay calm it was because they knew you were about to be very un-calm.

“What happened?” I demanded.

Twilight cleared her throat and scratched her foreleg nervously. “I know this is going to sound bad, but do you remember when I warned you about Lyra the other day? We need to bring her in to answer a few questions.”

“We?” I glanced over at the door. Two of Ace’s fake guards were standing there.

“She’s connected to all this, and it’s important to find out how. It’s going to be fine. Commander Ace went to speak with her himself--”

“You did what?!”

She furrowed her brow. “I took the time to come down here and talk to you myself because I knew you’d be upset. Bon-Bon, Lyra is one of my old friends but--”

“You dumb bucking mule!” I snapped. Twilight’s ears folded back. “Ace isn’t a real Royal Guard!”

“Now I understand you’re upset so I’m not going to get mad at you for calling me names--”

I shoved her aside, and she hit the wall, a jar of lemon drops shattering at her hooves. I stormed over to the guards standing next to my front door.

“You can get out of the way or you can regret it,” I warned them.

“Bon-bon, you need to stop!” Twilight yelled. Princess Twilight. Just by shoving her like that, I’d committed a pretty serious crime. “We can go together and get this all sorted out!”

I was losing too much time. Ace had sent her here to keep her from knowing what he was doing and to delay me. All he’d really done was taunt me enough to get me really mad.

The jar of caramels was next to me. I grabbed it and threw it at one of the guards. It shattered against the hoof he raised to protect his face. Both of them flinched when glass shards exploded everywhere.

Mercenaries and soldiers were very different, and don’t let a merc lie to you and tell you otherwise. A mercenary only fought when it meant profit. Their first instinct was to retreat from overwhelming force.

I grabbed the hoof the first pony was holding up and threw him backwards over my shoulder. I wasn’t a unicorn, so I couldn’t sense the spell coming, but you develop a kind of intuition about things when you’ve been a field agent long enough. He took Twilight’s stun spell for me with a loud yelp.

“Thanks!” I yelled to both him and the Princess. They’d done great work solving each other as problems. The second guard grabbed for a baton and came out swinging with, really, surprising discipline considering he was here in unfamiliar gear and trying to pretend to be an actual Royal Guard.

He probably didn’t expect me to use his height to my advantage. I ducked down inside his swing and reared up, headbutting his chin. The helmets were great protection against stray rocks and sticks, not so much for a hit to the jaw. He crumpled. If there hadn’t been an alicorn just about literally on my tail, I would have stopped to grab his baton.

I kicked open my own front door and ducked and rolled out of it, trying to avoid any stray stun spells even if I was pretty sure Twilight wasn’t going to try it again after a little friendly fire.

The house wasn’t far from the shop. Our house. A few years ago I’d been living above the shop and Lyra had spent half her nights in hotels and the other half crashing on couches or the local Guild hall. We’d gotten it together, so I could stop living in an attic and she could have a real roof over her head.

And now the front door was lying in the street.

Two ponies in gold armor dragged Lyra outside.

“Lyra!” I shouted, bolting for her.

She saw me and tried to fight her way free, but she was a musician and scholar, exactly the sort of pony these mercenaries felt safe marehandling. One of them punched her in the side, knocking the wind out of her.

“Get away from her!” I yelled.

If I’d been thinking clearly I might have remembered that there was an alicorn on my tail. I don’t know if moving serpentine would have actually helped, but maybe I would have at least avoided the stun spell that hit me in the back and knocked me to the ground in a twitching mess.

“Lyra…” I groaned.

A pony stepped over me, smirking down at me.

“That’s a good look for you,” Ace whispered so only I could hear it. “Down in the dirt where you belong. This is what happens when you decide to interfere in my ops.”

“Is she okay?” Twilight asked. “I wasn’t sure how much it would take to stun her, so I sort of--”

“She’s fine,” Ace assured her, looking for all the world like a caring, responsible civil servant. “You did well, Princess.”

“And you’re sure Lyra is the pony behind it all?” Twilight asked. I was half-sure she was doing it here because she wanted me to hear it. The way she looked down at me only confirmed that.

“You saw what was in the basement,” Ace said. “Parts of Nightmare Moon’s armor, spell circles dedicated to tracking them down, that research she tricked poor Bon-Bon into gathering for her… really, it’s just so much evidence I don’t think anypony could come to another conclusion.”

“But she was one of my first friends…” Twilight muttered.

“And that’s why we’re going to treat her gently and get all our questions answered before we make any decisions,” Ace said.

“I’ll go with you. She might talk to me.”

Ace shook his head. “I’m sorry, Princess, but you’re too close to her. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it.”

“What about Bon-Bon?” Twilight asked. “She’s just caught up in all this. It’s not her fault.”

Ace rubbed his chin. “Put her in the local jail. It’s better to separate them anyway. Once she cools down, you can explain things to her. It’s a bad situation, but like you said, it’s not her fault.” He looked down at me and smiled, then fired his own stun spell right between my eyes.

---

I woke up with an awful headache. A real guard might have at least pretended they weren’t just shooting spells at helpless ponies. Ace wanted me unconscious instead of just stunned. If Princess Twilight hadn’t been there, I probably wouldn’t be waking up at all.

Not that I was happy about where I woke up.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been in Ponyville Jail, but last time I’d been bailing Lyra out. The cot was even less comfortable than it looked. I pulled myself to my hooves and trotted over to the bars, rattling them. They were too strong for me to break. At least there wasn’t a guard standing there to deliver some sarcastic message about the GOC’s evil plan and how I’d fallen right into their clutches.

Instead, and this was even worse, after a few hours spent alone and wondering if I was going to end up dying of thirst, I had a personal visit from royalty.

I would have been flattered if I wasn’t thinking about strangling her.

“So, first,” Princess Twilight started. “I wanted to tell you I forgive you. I know you wouldn’t normally attack me, and you were worried about somepony you care about.”

I folded my hooves and said nothing.

Twilight cleared her throat. “Because I didn’t want you to get in trouble for a misunderstanding, I contacted Princess Celestia to ask her about a pardon. I was… somewhat surprised by her reply.”

I glared through the bars. Twilight pulled out a scroll, holding it like a shield between us.

“As it turns out… she didn’t actually assign any guards to Ponyville,” Twilight said, laughing nervously, her ears flat back. “Which means they were… fakes. Which you knew about before I did.”

She fiddled with the parchment, rolling and unrolling it like it was going to change what was written on it.

“So it turns out that Lyra might have been kidnapped,” Twilight said. “And it might be slightly my fault. But in my defense, you didn’t explain anything, and they had paperwork that looked really official, and I thought they were guards!”

“And?” I asked. Twilight jumped a little at the sound of my voice.

“Princess Celestia also said… I should just listen to you and do whatever you say.” Twilight frowned. “She knew you by name, which is a little weird. Not that she doesn’t know a lot of ponies or that you’re not important, it’s just that you make candy, and that’s not really--”

“Just open the bucking cell,” I sighed.

“Oh, right. I just have to--”

I watched her struggle for a few moments. “It’s a magic-proof lock. The keys are behind you.”

“Haha, right,” Twilight laughed. “Otherwise unicorns could just walk right out, couldn’t they?”

I rattled the bars pointedly.

Twilight fumbled with the keys and eventually let me out. Most of the time I really liked Princess Twilight. Aside from having saved the world once or twice, she was among the rare members of royalty that didn’t throw their title around. When she wasn’t responsible for stun-spell hangovers she was even pretty good company.

“Great,” I said. “Thanks.”

I started trotting away. She lost a few seconds to her need for neatness, putting the keys back where she’d found them and closing the cell door.

“So…” Twilight said, when she’d caught up. She was such a smart pony but she couldn’t take a hint.

“I already thanked you for opening the door.”

“No, I mean, what are we doing? What’s the plan? I’ve got the girls ready back at the castle and-- Bon-Bon? The castle is in the other direction.”

“I’m not going to the castle,” I said. “And you’re not coming with me.”

“Whatever happened, it’s my fault, and I want to help,” Twilight said. “Please? I need to at least try to make this right. Lyra is my friend and--”

“You didn’t act like it.”

My front door was still lying in the street where the mercenaries had left it. Nopony had even bothered moving it. They’d just gone around it, pretending it wasn’t there. Inside wasn’t much better. Ace had clearly told them to have a little fun. Just about everything they could break was broken.

“I didn’t…” Twilight hesitated. “I can fix all this! I know some spells--”

I ignored her and went upstairs. The pulldown stairs for the attic were still shut, so they probably hadn’t bothered going in there. I yanked the cord and stormed up there while Princess Twilight was busy throwing magic around.

Thankfully, what I needed was still there. I grabbed the old hatbox and brushed a layer of dust off the top before taking it down with me.

Twilight had just about gotten the hoofprint-covered door back on its hinges.

I pulled the kitchen table upright and sat the box down on top of it, opening it up and removing the contents. I didn’t need the darts or the tiny injector, so they went to the side. A thin book was under them, and I pulled that free.

“What is that?” Twilight asked.

“It’s what I need to find Lyra,” I muttered, opening the book. The pages had the slightly unpleasant, plasticy feel of waterproofing. The first few were instructions on how to use the injector, the next were on how to figure out if someone had used one on you. In the middle of the book was what I really wanted - a slick-surfaced map of Equestria, with a few dots scattered over it.

“These are enchanted,” Twilight noted, picking up one of the darts. “Where did you even get them?”

“They were standard-issue,” I said absently. “The dart is for targets at range, the injector is for close-in work. They inject a small metal chip under the skin for tracking.”

“You implanted a tracking chip in your marefriend?!”

“It’s called being a good, thoughtful partner!” I snapped.

Twilight sucked air between her teeth but, very wisely, didn’t refute that.

“Besides, you’ve got an embedded tracker too,” I said.

“What?!” Twilight sputtered and looked at her own flank. “Where? When?!”

“Celestia’s personal students always get one,” I told her. I went over the scattered dots on the map and found the one I was looking for and groaned when I saw where it was. Twilight tried to look over my shoulder. I closed the book. I hated ponies doing that. It was bad for operational security, and it was just plain rude.

“So, where are we going next?”

“You go get your friends and stay in the castle,” I said. “I didn’t want you involved in the first place. Lyra was the one who wanted to tell you about everything.”

Twilight frowned. “Doing things alone is a mistake. Celestia wanted me to listen to you, but I’m sure she meant to help you, not just get out of the way and make you do it yourself.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“Maybe. But I want to help, and I don’t want Lyra to get hurt because you’re being stubborn.”

That made me match her frown. I was being stubborn. She was one of Equestria’s greatest heroes and I was refusing her help because… why? Because somepony I knew was a manipulative jerk had tricked her? Because Celestia had hung me out to dry and I didn’t want help from any Princess?

Probably that last thing.

“Okay. You’re right,” I sighed. “You get your friends, I’ll find an airship.”

“An airship? Why do we need an airship? Bon-bon? Bon-bon!"

Comments

[Thought Prism]

Okay, thanks to Ace's uncommon cunning, by MLP standards, Twilight and company are getting involved for real. Excellent character work. Bon-Bon and Twilight are both heroes, but other than that the way they operate is totally opposite. I wonder if Pinkie already knew about Bon-Bon's history?

[Herald of Opera]

whose special talents involved pulling levers and pushing buttons all day

There would actually be ponies that boring, wouldn't there? I mean, Mudbriar doesn't even need a relevant cutie mark...

After-chapter notes: Ace is getting a field execution, straight-up. Bon Bon won't even be punished for it because every part of this, including her being trained to kill and then burn noticed, is completely Celestia's fault. And Equestrian law probably has a lot of clemency with regards to things done in the name of true love, at least insofar as Equestria has laws in the first place. (Canonwise, that's not much of an extent)

[FanOfMostEverything]

It wasn’t like the candy you’d get at Barnyard Bargains, made in a factory by ponies whose special talents involved pulling levers and pushing buttons all day.

What a depressing destiny... though I suppose they wouldn't get those marks if they didn't enjoy the work. Would they? Questions as old as the concept of the cutie mark there...

“You implanted a tracking chip in your marefriend?!”

Oh hey, that's also my headcanon. Likewise with the Bearers. (She has to keep placing Pinkie's. This is what happens when your trackers are made of candy.)

Yeah, I really can't blame Twilight on this one. If Bonbon had involved her from the word go, or literally any point before this, Ace wouldn't have ever gotten the hoofhold he needed to execute this plan. Still, the princesses have been alerted to the situation, plural intended. If Twilight shared any details with Celestia, the diarchs know ponies are going after Nightmare Moon's remnants. This is excellent news. Sun or moon, roaches flee from the light. But while they spin up their response, Bonbon and her new sidekick have an extraction to perform.

[hypervelocity]

Ugh, see Bon Bon, this is why Riders end up with some bad communication kills plots.

But time to confront these jerks with the power of Kamen Rider and friendship!

....so...I guess we're sending in Fourze?

[Zestium]

As a fan of the Kamen Rider Series, I can't tell how much I love this story. I really want to see what's going to happen next.

[raven618]

Just reread this and it's just as good as I remember.