The Animation Bureau

by Chaotic Dreams

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Lauren darted forward and jabbed the teleportation ring onto Discord’s writhing form.

“NO!” the draconequus wailed as the flashing lights of the device engaged, whirred to life, and with a flash noticeably free of the chimaera’s magic, Discord was gone.

In his place was something twice as scary.

. . .

“Ah, Discord, welcome back. It seems we have a new member of the Senior Circle after all.”

“Fine, you got your stupid new recruit, now get this thing off of me! I am a creature of chaos, and we DON’T like to be imprisoned!”

“Duly noted, Discord. However, I’m afraid that your usefulness is at an end.”

“What?! What are you talking about?! I did everything you ever forced me—oh, excuse me, I did everything you ever ‘kindly asked’ of me!”

“Indeed you did, Discord, but Agent Lauren was the final recruit needed to execute the next phase of our plan. And you know I can’t have you running loose in the worlds. A creature of your power is far too likely to complicate matters regarding our cause.”

“What?! No, you can’t do this—”

“I’m afraid it’s necessary Discord. But don’t worry, even an immortal like you won’t have to suffer long, after we’re finished. In the meantime, it’s back to the Box—”

“NO!”

“—and I have a new Senior Agent to congratulate. Until next time, Discord, if there is one. And, if we’re successful, there won’t be.”

. . .

“Director?!” Lauren gasped, unable to believe what her eyes were telling her brain.

“Greetings, Agent Lauren Faust,” replied the only other human the ponies had ever seen, though they immediately decided that they liked this one considerably less than they did Lauren. “Or, should I say, SENIOR Agent Lauren Faust?”

“S-senior…?”

The newcomer smiled, and the room seemed to grow a little darker as a result.

“You see, Lauren—”

“Hey Lauren, who’s this guy?” interjected Rainbow Dash, hovering over to inspect the short, shriveled bald man in a black suit. The Director didn’t so much as flinch as the pegasus pony leaned in to look him in the eye. Not liking what she saw, and understandably so, she quickly darted away.

The Director blinked, making all the ponies flinch.

“He’s the Director of the Animation Bureau,” Lauren breathed, awed at the sight of him. The Agent had never actually seen him in person, only his signature on official documents and his speeches on the importance of inter-world regulation on telecasts.

“The Director?” Twilight wondered aloud. “You mean, he’s in charge of the organization you work for?”

“Indeed I am, Twilight Sparkle,” the Director answered for Lauren, though it was clear Twilight wished that Lauren had replied instead.

“Wait—how do you know my name?” the lavender unicorn inquired suspiciously. “And how did you get in here, anyway?”

“The teleportation rings, which Agent Lauren used to send Discord to a Detention Center on Earth, can go both ways. When he teleported out, I teleported in. As to how I knew your name, dear unicorn, the Bureau has actually known about the existence of your world for some time, though it was kept a secret from most. We always scope out our testing grounds in advance.”

“Testing grounds?” Lauren echoed, confused herself this time. “What do you mean, sir?”

“You see, Agent Lauren,” the Director explained, leaning against the wall and causing cracks to appear in it despite his slight weight. “The Animation Bureau is more than what it appears to be in our propaganda.”

“Propaganda?”

“What else would you call it?” the Director went on. “True, on the surface the Animation Bureau does indeed carry out all of the services the government created it for—regulating inter-world traffic, incorporating new worlds into the portal networks, and overseeing all laws concerning Animated beings on the Earth. But that’s just a fraction of what we REALLY do.

“You see, Agent Lauren, the Animation Bureau is power. It is the power to control the flow of living beings between worlds, the power to choose which Animated life-forms are allowed to roam the Earth and which are locked away for as long as we wish. It is the power to control not just the Animated beings on Earth and the Earthlings in Animated worlds, but to control each world those very creatures hail from as well.

“The government is a shadow of what we at the Bureau are truly capable of. Soon, we will break free of them entirely and become the new government—of all the worlds we are in contact with, as well as all the worlds we ever discover. But even a new worlds order needs a ruling body in and of itself, and that’s where the Senior Circle comes in—composed of me and the other senior officers of the Bureau, which now includes you, Agent Lauren. Your catching Discord was the final test, and you passed.

“So what do you say, Ms. Faust?”

The room was dead silent.

“You want me to join you…in a plot to rule Earth and the Animated worlds?” Lauren concisely summarized what she had just heard.

“Indeed I do, Agent Lauren,” the Director smiled, causing the lights in the room to flicker once more.

“And you unleashed a dangerous convict on an innocent Animated world just to see if I was ‘worthy’ of this plan?” Lauren whispered.

“It was necessary to see if you were indeed Senior Circle material, and you passed all of our considerably high expectations with flying colors.”

All eyes were on Lauren now.

“L…Lauren?” squeaked a high-pitched voice that almost rose above the scope of human hearing despite how lightly it was spoken. All eyes suddenly turned to Fluttershy in the far corner of the room, as far from the Director as possible. “You’re not going to be an evil dictator, are you…?”

“No, My Little Pony,” Lauren said with equal parts comfort towards the creamy pegasus and defiance towards the Director. “No, I’m not.”

“I’m sorry to say I am very disappointed Lauren,” the Director shook his head sadly. Everyone—especially Lauren—noticed the absence of ‘Agent’ from his address of the young woman. “You have so much potential, and you could’ve been so useful to us.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Lauren spat, quivering with a growing rage. “You’re just a bully, bloodthirsty for power. But it’s not about power. It’s about how you USE IT!”

Lauren launched into a high-flying karate kick that would’ve made Goku proud, her foot on a split-second collision course for the Director’s face…

…Which wasn’t there when she arrived.

“Lauren, did you really think I’d come so unprepared? That I was so weak and slow as to fall at the first sign of defiance?” the Director uttered disapprovingly. “I’m not just some pencil-pushing bureaucrat elected to office, dear child. I was selected by the president herself because of my past experience as an AGENT.”

Suddenly the roof of the cottage was ripped off, showering debris down on all assembled in the room formerly beneath it. A massive, dark hand crushed the remains of the roof in its shadowy claws, while the hand’s twin curled into a fist and soared down into the bedroom. The yellow eyes of the monster watched in silent, unemotional observance as its fist buried itself through the cottage and deep into the earth beneath.

“What’s THAT?!” Twilight gasped, looking up in horror as the thing, noticing it its prey had fled to the sides of the room rather than become buried under its crushing claws, retracted its arm and prepared for a second swipe.

“It’s Chernabog!” Lauren yelled over the sound of collapsing cottage as she and the ponies began to slide into the gaping hole the monster had punched in what used to be Fluttershy’s house. “The Director must have copied his Animation scheme and used some kind of shape-shifting technique!”

“It’s wonderful that you can figure that out and all, darling,” Rarity called from across the remains of the room, her grip on the curtains slipping as she too tottered over the edge of the chasm. “BUT HOW DOES THAT HELP US TO NOT BE SQUISHED?!”

“It won’t,” Lauren called back, but THIS will!”

Lauren reached into her pocket (larger on the inside) and withdrew her most prized possession. At first glance, it looked like a flat piece of congealed tar. At second glance, it still looked like a flat piece of congealed tar, and it would probably always look that way no matter how many times it was glanced at.

But there was something slightly ‘off’ about its appearance all the same, as for one thing, it didn’t reflect a single shimmer of light. Nor did it emanate any sound, even when Lauren stretched it wide with both her hands and her teeth. In fact, if anything, the thing-that-looked-like-tar-but-wasn’t seemed to be getting bigger, making more of itself without getting any thinner or even transparent, blatantly giving the bird to Einstein’s Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy…or, did it?

For the thing, instead of making more of itself, was actually making LESS of everything else. It wasn’t, in fact, a THING at all, but the exact opposite. It was nothing.

“Catch this!” Lauren yelled, tossing one end of the not-thing to Rarity at the other end of the room and then proceeding to do the same to the other ponies with other corners of the absence of matter.

“Whoa, it’s all squishy!” called Rainbow Dash, catching it with her front hooves while hovering in the air.

“And it feels simply awful!” Rarity wailed. “It’s like I’m not touching anything at all!”

“That’s because you AREN’T touching anything at all,” Twilight breathed, a look of awed realization dawning on her face. “I can’t believe it! This is only theoretical magic at best!”

“According Calvin Q. Calculus, it’s a best seller!” Lauren called to the purple unicorn. “Now, get IN it!”

“WHAT?!” Rarity screamed.

“I’m not getting in there, it’s cold and dark and scary!” Fluttershy whimpered.

“It’s either that or be squashed flat by THAT!” Lauren shouted, pointing up to where the Director, still in the form of Chernabog, had seen and instantly recognized what the black non-substance was.

“That’s impossible!” the monster roared as his hand came slamming down again, each claw extended so that they would slice open Lauren and at least four of the ponies surrounding the hole in the floor as well as the one they held in their hands and hooves. “That item was not allowed on this mission!”

“I always keep a Portable Hole on hand,” Lauren smirked. “It was a gift from an old... friend of mine!”

And with that, Lauren slipped into the nothingness, followed swiftly by the ponies as they saw what awaited them if they didn’t follow suit, and the hole collapsed in on itself into nonexistence. Which is, to say, that it allowed regular existence back into its proper place, leaving only Fluttershy’s collapsing cottage to be smashed even further by the Director’s rage at having let his quarry slip through his fingers.

. . .

It was indeed cold on the other side, and dark, and especially scary as Fluttershy had said. The nothingness seemed to go on forever, but in reality it went on for no length at all, and in the blink of an endless span of time Lauren and the ponies landed on a hardwood floor.

Hard.

“Ow!” screamed Rainbow Dash. “My wings! Get off me!”

“It was SO dark!” Fluttershy wailed, burying her face in her hooves as she sobbed almost comically.

“That was FUN!” Pinkie Pie laughed. “Let’s do it again!”

From the midst of the dog pile—pony and human pile?—Lauren burst like a breaching dolphin.

“Hey, watch it, cowpoke!” Applejack complained, rubbing a sore spot on her noggin, which Lauren had conveniently used as a springboard in her escape from the pile.

“Oh, this is bad, this is bad, bad, bad…” Lauren muttered to herself, walking across the dark room the septet had landed in. Reaching a cupboard, Lauren hastily began pulling out the drawers and dumping their contents onto the floor. Not to be unexpected by this point, many of the drawers seemed to have held more than could’ve possibly fit into them. “And now there’re innocents involved! Scratch that, everyone in every world we're in contact with is involved! This could compromise everything!”

“That was incredible!” Twilight laughed, picking herself off the floor. “inter-world travel! I never thought I would be among the first ponies to experience such advanced magic!”

“Lauren said it wasn’t magic anyway,” Pinkie Pie pointed out. “She said it was called psy-ents!”

“What’s she doing, anyway?” Rainbow Dash wondered, jumping into the air and zooming over to see the piles of items Lauren was accumulating around her. “Whoa, you got a lot of stuff! What’s this thing do?”

“Don’t touch that!” Lauren gasped, darting forward when she saw what the cyan flier had picked up from the stash, but of course it was too late. The large Animated hammer in Rainbow’s hooves opened up at one end and out shot a boxing glove on a spring, effectively knocking the pegasus against the wall so hard she saw stars, which orbited her head for a few moments while Dash reoriented herself.

“Are all these horrid things…weapons?” Rarity asked, trotting up to inspect the peculiar items, though with a tad more caution than Rainbow Dash had used.

“They’re the result of a life-time of accumulating Animated paraphernalia, some useless and some extremely handy in the operation I’m about to undertake,” Lauren explained, though she was only half-paying attention as she rifled through the scattered junk. “Most of them were gifts from my family, back before…well, from a long time ago.”

“Back before what?” Rainbow Dash inquired curiously, only to receive a punch in the side from Fluttershy. “Hey, what was that for?”

“Can’t you tell she doesn’t want to talk about it?” Fluttershy scolded. “She’s sorry, Lauren, Rainbow just doesn’t always think before talking.”

“I do too!” Dash exasperated. “And if she didn’t want to talk about it, then she shouldn’t have brought it up!”

“Aha! Found it!” Lauren exclaimed, holding up what appeared to be a satchel filled with different whistles, each having their own separate mini-holster. Strapping it on, Lauren then proceeded to add this and that to her Agent uniform, ending the ensemble with a carrot she stuck into her side pocket so that it stuck out like a loaded gun, waiting for action.

“What’s with all them whistles, sugar cube?” Applejack asked. “And why are y’all jumpy-like?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s due to the fact that in addition to having to go up against the Director of the most powerful government organization on the planet and stopping him from trying to take over all worlds Earth is connected to, I let outsiders into our home AND got innocents tangled up in my mess!”

Lauren paused for a moment to catch her breath, then seemed to cool off a bit.

“I mean, I’m sorry,” the former Agent sighed. “I just, things were going so well, and now everything’s…”

“BUBAR?” Rainbow Dash suggested. “Bucked Up Beyond All Recognition?”

“Yes, that,” Lauren agreed with a wry smile. “Now all of you are involved in this, and it’s all my fault. You can’t return to your home world or this so-called ‘Senior Circle’ will arrest you on sight just for having anything to do with me. If the Director has his way, I’ll be dead and you all will be tortured for information before being thinned out of existence. It’s not an understatement that your lives will never be the same after this. I am very, very sorry…”

Lauren cut herself off, her voice cutting into a soft whisper before all remaining illusion of calm broke down and the rogue Agent sat down on the cupboard and began to cry.

“Oh, don’t be upset Lauren!” Fluttershy said comfortingly, flying over to the young woman and landing beside her on the cupboard before draping a wing around Lauren’s shoulder. “There, there. Don’t worry! This isn’t the first time we’ve been in a bad situation! Besides, you’re not alone in this! You’ve got your friends to help you!”

“All I ever wanted to do in this life was help the Animated, because that’s all they ever did for me when all humanity just did the opposite…” Lauren sobbed quietly. “And now I’ve endangered every Animated being who’s ever been in contact with me! Wait…what friends? All of my friends are back in their home worlds obliviously awaiting their doom, and my family’s all…well…”

Lauren looked up at the ponies surrounding her, their consoling smiles beaming up at the toughened rogue Agent.

“You mean you guys?” Lauren sniffed, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “But, I just met you, and I’m the one who got you all into this!”

“That don’t matter none, sugar cube!” Applejack insisted. “Just because you’re a new friend instead of an old friend don’t make no difference! Friends stick together!”

“That’s right!” Rainbow Dash agreed.

“Certainly!” Rarity added.

“You betcha!” Pinkie joined in.

“Of course we’ll help,” Fluttershy smiled.

“Besides,” Twilight finished. “It wasn’t your fault any of this happened. Just because this Director was evil didn’t mean you knew about it! It’s not your fault that we just happened to be around when he revealed his scheme and attacked you, but it was you who saved us all from him!”

“Yeah, Lauren! You rock!” Rainbow Dash heartily thanked the former Agent. “I’ve saved a few ponies’ lives in my time as the local town hero—”

The other ponies coughed rather loudly at this.

“—But none of the them have ever been able save my life back, especially right after I saved theirs!” Rainbow finished.

“You all mean it?” Lauren smiled, genuinely this time.

“Do we have to spell it out for you?” Pinkie Pie laughed. “We’re your friends now, through thick and thin! We’ve taken on big meanies before! We’ve fought dragons, diamond dogs, Ursa Majors, Nightmare Moon and even Discord! We’ll help you take down this Director doody-head too!”

“I…I don’t know what to say,” Lauren said graciously. “I’ve never had friends so willing to help me with my own problems, even when it shouldn’t have involved them in the first place… Thank you. Now…

“Let’s get that Director!”

Comments

[krahe]

Ok, I'm out
It too much WHAT for my shaky mind

[Hearthfire]

Lauren reached into her pocket (larger on the inside) and withdrew her most prized possession
I do believe it's supposed to be "Bigger on the inside".

[Venatus75]

So... me gusta.... Mucho. Very, very strange and entertaining. loving all the references, even if I don't get all of them XD

[EvilEnchantress]

Pinkie it was an ursa minor not major

[Latch]

I have a feeling that the "Hole" Is from The Beatles Yellow Submarine movie which she got from Ringo.

That's my assumption anyways... On a side note, "I have a hole in me pocket."

[Zervziel]

What?! No "There's a hole in me pocket!" line?!

[1stChosenStar]

at first I was like:
then I was like:
and now i'm like:
yay classic cartoon references!!!!