Dispose of Carefully

by The Ancestor

Deceptive Reunion

"And that is why honeybees are much less likely to sting a person. Any questions, class?" Cheerilee, a ceriece skinned primary school teacher, asked her students with a genuene smile.

"No, Miss Cheerilee!" Was the unanimous answer, one that was followed by a lond riinging sound of the school bell.

"If that is so, then you are all dismissed." A wave of yay's assaulted her senses, as the students gathered their belongings and pouring towards the exit, but not before saying goodbye to their favourite teacher. Silence would've fallen upon the now empty classroom, if not for a quiet snoring sound eminating from the sole male occupant of the room.

"So, Mr. Damien, what do you think?" Cheerily approached Daniel with a smile, awaiting his reaction.

"W-what... were we talking about? No... It... It wasn't round..." He mumbled in his sleep, not listening to the teacher.

"Ahem." Principal Celestia, who was sitting at the desk to his right tapped his shoulder, stirring him out of sleep.

"Wuh?" He opened his drowsy eyes, looking around like he didn't know where he was. When his eyes fell on the expecting teacher, he straighted his posture and cleared his throat. "Oh, right. That was a most wonderful lesson, Miss Cheerilee. I believe you meet all of the ASA guidelines." He said with a confident smile, hoping she'll buy his lie. It was only a half-lie, to be honest, since he hadn't the foggiest idea what the ASA guidelines actually are.

"Thank you!" Cheerilee replied, packing her things and moving for the exit. "I've got another class in ten minutes, goodbye."

The door shut behind her with a soft click, leaving only Daniel and Celestia present, plunging the classroom into silence once again. Celestia was currently looking at the man with a rather pensive exprsession, her hands crossed. Feeling a little uncomfortable under her gaze, Daniel thought it best to say something.

"So, Principal Celestia, I think I've seen enough to make a descision." He said in a serious tone, pulling out a clipboard full of immature sketches. The past few hours were really boring. "I'll inform the commitee your school is up to the high standarts set by the ASA." He said with a smile, drawing a doodle of Celestia getting hit by a car. "I'll be heading out now, my time is money, after all."

He prepared to stad up, but the Principle's hand laying on his shoulder stopped him from doing so, prompting the man to look at Celeatia instead.

"I'm afraid you won't be going anywhere, Daniel." Despite the warm tone of her voice, the words that it carried sent a chill down Daniel's spine.

"My name's Damien, I think you're mistaken." He replied as calmly as he could under the piercing gaze of his ex-principal.

"Did you really think I wouldn't recognise you?" She said with a small chuckle, a bead of sweat rolling down Daniels' brow. "You were always a great student, and I'm glad to see you've landed a job at AMA!" She praised, making Daniel's heart skip a beat.

"At least my cover's not blow." He thought, inwardly sighing with relief. "Hope this buys you enough time, Al."

"Come on, don't be shy, tell me how's your life been!" She asked in a cheery, motherly tone, one that Daniel always felt guilty lying to.

"It's been alright," Daniel began, trying to sound as inconspicuous as possible. "after school I went to University, graduated with a degree in biology. Wanted to work in that sphere..." He trailed off, looking down at his suit. "but it didn't work out." He but his tongue, hoping she wouldn't see through his lie. "It's only half a lie, cryptozoology isn't something they teach you in uni."

"Still, it's impressive you've got a government job, especially in the modern job market." Celestia encouraged with a warm smile, and it took all of Daniel's resolve not to say 'you don't know half of it' out loud. "Say, are you still in contact with any of your classmates? I know your class wasn't the most close-knit one, but still..." She trailed off with a certain hope in her voice, one that made Daniel's heart pang with guilt.

"I've been staying in contact with Alex, if you remember him..." Daniel said, hoping that she actualy doesn't remember. To his dismay, the woman looked at him hopefully, a small smile on her face.

"The one that won us our first Hoofball cup? Of course I remember him!" Celestia's smile widened as she remembered her student, a nostalgic feeling creeping into her soul. "What's he up to now? She asked, genuenly curious.

"We don't talk much about work, but last I heard he's got a lot on his plate." He said with an awkaward smile. "Field agents do have a lot of work..."

"I do hope he's doing alright, I'd hate to see-" Whatever Celestia was about to say was cut short by a sudden ringing noise coming from her phone. "Oh dear, I'm sorry, but I have to answer the phone, it might be something important." She excused herself, taking her phone out and answering it.

"Alright, this just might be my chance." Daniel thought, quitly standing up and taking the first step towards the door as Celestia turned her back to him.

"Hello? Sunset Shimmer, it's great to hear from you." Her words made the man stop dead in his tracks. Perhaps finding more about what Sunset is doing is worth lying to his ex-principal's face.

"Oh? You want to show me something? Alright, I'll turn the video chat on." Daniel heard a soft click, followed by a voice that made his heart sink.

"For the second time, I'm Allen, a part of the ASA inspection. I was sent here to gauge the school's capability to take care of their students, including housing." Alex recited his cover story, Daniel's hands getting colder with each word. "Principal? Principal Celestia!?" The man asked in a higher voice as the video feed turned on. "One of your students assaulted me with a table leg, I demand an explanation!"

"It's nice to see you too, Alex." Celestia replied in a half-amused voice, Daniel turning to face her. "It seems we've got outselves an impromptu reunion."

---

A deafening ringing filled Alex's ears as he came to, slowly forcing his eyes open, only to shut them once more when a cavalcade of black and white dots filled his vision.

A throbbing pain radiated from the back of his head, the hair feeling wet. He tried to move his hands, only to find them cuffed behind his back.

"Feels like agent training all over again." He thought mirthlessly, tugging at the cuffs. "Except Major Gurlukovich knew what she was doing when she set up our final exam." He reached into the back pocket of his pants, trying to find a paperclip. "Come on, I know you're there somewhere... Aha!" He celebrated inwardly, leaving the paperclip in his pocket for the time being. "Now to look around."

He slowly opened his eyes, the familiar dingy-looking interior of the warehouse greeting him. He was sitting in a corner, his two captors standing beside a sofa, a heated discussion between them. One of them he knew, the bacon-haired demon-turned-girl was hard to forget even outside of supernatural circumstances, but the girl she was arguing with was completely unknown to him.

The bright pink skirt coupled with a white t-shirt and a blue short jacket went well with the ever-present pink color, the fluffy hairstyle adding to her extravagant look. All in all, the two girls clashed violently with the enviornment around them, looking very out of place amidst the dilapidation around them.

"No one in the right mind would live here if they had other options... Just who the hell is this girl?" Alex thought, taking the paperclip and straightening it out, before beginning his attempts to open the lock. He closed his eyes as he worked on the lock, all the while straining his hearing in an attempt to hear what the debate was about. Try as he might, only brief parts of the conversation reached his ears, mostly accented and heated reprimands.

He cheered inwardly as he felt the lock click open, the handcuffs releasing their hold on him. He began thinking up a way to escape, when he heard footsteps approaching him, thinking it best to remain still, for a while longer at least. He steadied his breath, slowing it to imitate sleep and relaxed his muscles, thoughtfully stuffing the paperclip into his back pocket.

"See, I told you he's still asleep." Sunset said with a huff. "Still, he looks like a tough guy, thought he'd be up by now." She said in a somewhat irritated voice.

"Hmm..." A second voice, one that Alex presumed belong to the second girl, sounded inches away from his face. "Let's see if that's true!" She chirped happily in a gleeful tone that didn't bode well with the man.

"Pinkie, wait-" Sunset's attempt to stop her firend from doing something drastic were in vain, as Pinkie pulled out an airhorn, put it next to Alex's ear, and pressed the button.

Now, Alex thought himself as a professional, and having gone through many a field mission, from infiltration to first contact, pretty resistant to loud, unexpected sounds. He, however, took refuge in the fact that Daniel wasn't present to see him flinch at the deafening sound that left his ears ringing.

"See, I knew he wasn't sleeping!" The words of the pink girl barely reached Alex's ears as he tried his best to hear past the ringing. He slowly opened his eyes, looking at Pinkie as she stood with a proud expression on her face.

"No shit, Pinkie! Only a deaf could stay asleep through that!" Sunset retorted, turning to look at the man. She narrowed her eyes, taking a few steps toward Alex, givning him an appraising look. "Still, it's a good thing he's woken up at last."

"So, tell me Allen, who are you and what are you doing in my house." Sunset tried to give her voice an edge to seem intimidating, and Alex had to give it to her: coupled with the crossed arms and the hard expression she was giving him and Alex's disadvantageous position, it probably would've worked on any ordinary person.

Fortunately, Alex wasn't an ordinary person. Unfortunately, Sunset was a she-demon in disguise, a reality bender, or something a few magnitudes worse than that, which made her intimidation attempts actually successful. "And here comes a choice. If I manage o hit her temple, that'll at least stun her enough for me to get away... If she's got the same anatomy as a human, at least. Alternatively, I can try to get her to talk, and get the jump on her when she's distrated..."

Alex groaned, looking around with a shocked expression on his face. "W-what? Where am I?! What have you done to me?!" He asked in a disstressed tone of voice, struggling against the handcuffs. He breathed an inward sigh of relief as the girl seemed to have bought his lie, if her smug expression was anything to go off.

"Oh, you know exactly where you are!" Sunset retorted, jabbing a finger at his chest. "Just what were you doing in my house?!"

"H-house?" Alex said weakly, blinking a couple of times as if trying to concentrate before answering. "You mean the abandoned warehouse?" He asked, tilting his head. "I'm part of the ASA inspection..." He finished, taking a deep breath.

"ASA?" Pinkie replied from beside him, looking at him quizzaly. "Aren't they supposed to look into wether the school is competent or not? Why'd you go snooping around Sunny's house?"

"They are." Sunset said, not giving Alex a word. "And he has no right to be here." She finished coldly, crossing her arms on her chest, glaring at the man.

"Judging a school's competence requires looking into the well-being of its students..." He said, looking around the dilapidated surroundings. "And what I see doesn't inspire much confidence. Abhorrent living conditions? Battery of a government official?" He shook his head with a morose expression. "Seems like CHS has got some explaining to do."

"Don't change the subject!" Sunset retorted, poking the middle of his chest. "You were rummaging through my journal when I came in, that's a violation of privacy!"

"I did no such thing." He said in a calm and even voice. "I merely picked it up to see what it was, no harm done."

"He has a point." Pinkie interrupted, grabbing everyone's attention. "When you bonked him on the head, your journal fell to the ground, it could be a coincidence it was open." She said, adressing Sunset, who rolled her eyes in reply.

"Doesn't matter, I know you're up to something, you and your friend." She said in a smug tone of voice, expecting a reaction.

"I beg your pardon?" He asked innocently.

"Don't play coy, when you asked Applejack and I for directions a yesterday, you had a friend with you. Where is he now!?"

"He is a part of the ASA inspection, just like me. He's probably busy with inspecting the school grounds right now." He said in an even voice, looking directly at Sunset.

"Oh, really? So you wouldn't mind if I called the Principal to see if what you're saying is true?" She said, whipping out an old looking smartphone, dialing the number.

"Only if you're ready to explain tying up a government official." He shot back, hoping she wouldn't see through his bluff.

"Hmpf." Was Sunset's reply as she began her call, walking away from the tied man to talk, leaving him in Pinkie's company.

The girl stayed surprisingly silent, choosing instead to stare intently at Alex, seemingly trying to burn a hole through his face. Somehow that was even worse than if she started talking, and as the seconds passed under her unblinking gaze, Alex felt a chill go down his spine.

"Should've guessed there's something wrong with her friend." He thought, his gaze drifting back to Pinkie, who, upon squinting her eyes and giving him a final look-over, spoke.

"Who are you really?"

"For the second time, I'm Allen, a part of the ASA inspection. I was sent here to gauge the school's capability to take care of their students, including housing." Alex recited his cover story, just as Sunset returned with her phone, Celestia's patient expression looking at him through the screen. "Principal? Principal Celestia!?" Alex called out, grabbing the woman's attention. "One of your students assaulted me with a table leg, I demand an explanation!"

"It's nice to see you too, Alex." Celestia replied in a half-amused voice, the sudden name drop leaving Alex speechless. "It seems we've got outselves an impromptu reunion." She said, turning her phone to face the uncomfortable-looking Daniel, a bead of sweat rolling down his forehead as he froze in the middle of his attempt to leave the room.

"My, uh... My name is Allen." Alex managed to say, finding it hard to lie under Celestia's scrutinizing gaze. "And I'm afraid it's the first time we meet face to face." He said in as calm a voice as he could muster.

"You're a better liar than Daniel, I'll give you that." She said with a tsk, turning the phone to herself. "But he's already told me why you're here." Worry boiled inside Alex, but he contained it best he could.

"He did?" He said evenly, thinking through how fast he could get to his car, and to Danny. "Right hook to the temple, grab chair, knock the second girl out, run to the car... Ten to fifteen seconds to get to it, ten minutes to get back to the school. Twenty more to get backup from the nearest Site, if they send any, that is. Too bad we don't have Iota-10 in this shithole, would've been a whole lotta easier to contact DEA. Still, not bad, if Sunset doesn't go demon-mode again."

"Of course, what are the odds of you both getting a job at ASA?" She said excitedly, derailing Alex's train of thought straight into a bottomless ravine. "I'm so proud of the both of you!" She said with a warm smile, further confusing him.

"I... uh..." Alex caught himself speechless, desperately trying to find something to say.

"But no matter how proud you make me feel..." She began with a sigh, her tone changing to one of a mother reprimanding her child. "You've still broken into Sunset's house, and no, 'ASA inspection' excuse isn't going to cut it." She said with a stern expression. "There's something more to it, isn't there?"

"Fuck. FUCK FUCK FUCK. Alright, calm down, she doesn't know the whole truth, you can still spin the story your way."

"Truth be told... There is." He said with a sigh, carefully choosing what to say is. "Your ASA inspection wouldn't be due until a few years later. It would've been, that is, if a certain video didn't catch our attention." He said in a steely voice.

"Ah, so you've seen the courtyard recording." Celestia said, a ting of regret in her voice. "I knew people might've seen it, but someone from that high up..." She shook her head. "No matter, I believe I owe you an explanation, on one condition."

"Condition? What condition?" Alex asked, silently praying it wasn't a blood pact. "I am not looking forward to changing my blood type again."

"Promise me not to tell any of what you hear to your superiors." She said with an almost pleading look on her face. "No one can know about what happened here, I shudder to imagine if the world finds out about..." She caught herself before she said too much, once again adressing the two men listening to her. "Do you agree to these terms, the both of you?"

"Is she relying on me being honest? No tricks, no pacts, no contracts? Biggest mistake of her life."

"I promise not to-"

"Do a Pinkie promise." Alex turned to the source of the voice, finding an uncharacteristically serious Pinkie Pie looking back at him.

"Excuse me? I don't know if you noticed, but my hands are tied." Alex retorted, not sure if he liked the look on Pinkie's face.

"No, not like that." Pinkie shook her head. "Repeat after me: Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." She finished, going through the motions.

"What the hell-"

"Just do it." Sunset cut in, a tired expression on her face. "She'll keep her pestering until you do."

"Fine." Alex said, repeating what Pinkie said, looking at her expectingly. "You happy?"

"Your friend has to do it to." She said in a determined voice.

"Really? Fine, Danny! Do what she said!" Alex yelled at the phone, causing Celestia to turn the camera towards Daniel who, after a second of stuffing something into his pocket, repeated the action.

"Now I'm happy!" She chirped, before her face turned dead-serious for a second. "Nobody breaks a Pinkie promise." She finished, before flashing Alex a wild smile, and plopping down on a nearby couch.

"I feel like I've just made a grievous mistake." The two men thought in unison, completely unaware of their synchronicity.

"To begin with, there is one crucial fact you need to understand." Celestia began, her voice regaining it's motherly chime. "Our world isn't the only one out there." She paused to give the men time to come to terms with this revelation, continuing a suspiciously short amount of seconds later. "There is at least one other, a land of Kingdoms and Princess', of sentient ponies and mythical creatures. A land of Magic. Our worlds are connected through a mirror, a portal of sorts that opens once every couple of moons. As you might have guessed, Sunset came to us from the other side."

"She's an alien?" Alex asked, giving Sunset an unsure look. "A demon alien kind of thing?"

"An alien, yes. A demon alien, no." Celestia answered, ignoring the dirty look Sunset shot at Alex. "She came here a year ago, integrating into CHS with my help."

"How'd you manage that? I doubt she has any documents on her person." Alex noted, before asking another question. "You helped an alien from another world?"

"It's been a challenge, but I did my best, and we made it work. And I didn't know she was an alien until not too long ago." Celestia said with a sigh. "To make a long story short, Sunset stole a powerful artifact from her world to gain power in order to conquer it." Sunset was visibly uncomfortable at Celestia's words, but remained silent.

"That artifact's responcible for the demon we saw on the video?" Alex asked.

"Yes, but it won't be a problem anymore. A Princess from the other side of the mirror came here to stop Sunset."

"I take it she succeeded?" Alex glanced at Sunset, who currently tried to look anywhere but at the man.

"Yes, Twilight showed Sunset the way of friendship, and went home, closing the mirror behind her." Celestia finished, letting the information sink in.

"That's the whole story?" Daniel broke the silence first, standing beside Celestia. "Sunset doesn't have any magical powers, no world conquering tendencies anymore?" He asked in a disbelieving tone.

"People change, Daniel." Celestia said sternly. "It's a lesson I've hoped you learned after your time in CHS."

"All of this is well and good, but can we go now? It's been a hot minute since my last report, the bosses at ASA might get twitchy if I don't report in time." Alex stated, flexing his arms behind his back.

"You're free to go, but please, keep your word." Celestia's tone had an unusual pleading inflection to it, one that little to no people ever got to hear. "The world isn't ready to know about magic, I shudder to imagine the consequences..."

"I'll keep that in mind." Alex said, standing up and putting the hancuffs on the chair, much to Sunset's shock.

"How? When?" She manage to say as Alex walked past her towards the exit.

"Whoever sold you those hadcuffs is a scammer." Alex said, before walking through the door, out of the warehouse.

---

"I knew it, I fucking knew that things were worse than I expected." Daniel said, nervously pacing around the the hotel room the two friends were renting. "A portal to another world, aliens, magical artifacts... This is another 1322 waiting to happen!"

"No kidding." Alex replied, sketching a report on his phone. "And we've almost missed it too."

"A Universal Overlap class scenarios are usually hard to miss... What the hell was DEA doing?" Daniel ranted, growing more agitated by the minute.

"What if they missed it for the same reason Mike did?" Alex proposed, putting his phone down on the bedside table.

"If it's antimemetic and is targeting non-canterlonians..." Daniel stopped, rubbing his chin. "That would explain a lot, but it'd also make it a pain in the ass to deal with." He said, resuming his pacing in an accelerated rate. "Before we can get in contact with someone from the Memetic Division, and convince them to start working on a memetic vaccine, they'll have to use mnestics. A lot of mnestics." Daniel concluded, plopping down onto his bed.

"That's one hell of a way to start a vacation."

"Amen."

Author's Note:

Yay, this fic is not dead!

Sorry for the very long wait between chapters, had a nasty writers block that has (hopefully passed).

Let us hope then next chapter comes out sooner, rather than later.

Comments

[Teraunce]

nice first three chapters.