> The SCP Foundation: Field Agent Dash
>  by waywardfallout
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: In which a princess fixes an ID card
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The recently crowned Princess Twilight Sparkle was happy, ecstatic even. 

After weeks of constant tweaking to make sure each part of the spell was correct, she had finished it. She had eagerly cast the spell, on what once was, a pile of the cut up pieces of an ID card and was now a fixed ID card. Said ID card was laying on one of library basements many lab tables. 




Twilight grabbed out a brown notebook with her magic. This notebook was meant for one purpose and that was just for writing about the secret Rainbow Dash was hiding. It held all the clues she had found and all the theories she had wrote over the past two years. The notebook itself was in pristine condition untouched by dirt or grime. The inside however was a mess of writing, full of crossed out notes, various clues, drawings and things only Twilight could read.

Twilight had done many things over the two years since she started noticing the small things that made the rainbow pegasus different. It off small, timing coincidences, namely with the weather pegasi and how Rainbow almost never set hoof in the Ponyville headquarters but still did the required work. 

Then Twilight noticed that Rainbow spent the most time of all her friends in the Everfree forest, more then Fluttershy who lived next to the forest. Sometimes the pegasus would even be in the dangerous forest for most of the day, not leaving till way past dark. On multiple occasions the, at the time, unicorn had heard a loud banging sound akin to an explosion come from the forest. Twilight had tried following Rainbow Dash in to the forest many different times, each time she got caught by the pegasus or lost her in the thick forest. A few times she had even woken up in the Everfree forest with Rainbow over her looking asking if she was alright.

But finally she had solid evidence. This ID card had to be her best work yet, she had put it back together using a complex spell  after she had stolen the chipped up pieces from Rainbow without her knowing. That day had been nerve racking. She was getting flying lessons from Dash as her flying need practice, still did. Then they had stopped in Rainbow’s house for a break. 

At some point the pegasus had left the room to go check on something. Twilight had spotted a paper bag labeled Dispose. Being curious she had peaked in the bag and found the aforementioned chipped up ID card. She quickly guessed the weight of all the chips, teleported back to the library with the chips and put them in a box. Then grabbed a mass of paper that weighed the same as the chips and replaced them. Rainbow had walked into the room moments later and took the bag to who knows where.

Looking back at her prize she took out a quill and ink pot and got to trying to decipher what was on the identification card. 

“SCP Foundation. Must be the group Rainbow works for and going by the the words Secure, Contain, Protect matching the letters SCP, it must be an acronym.” Twilight bit her lip in thought then continued thinking aloud.

“So the Secure, Contain, Protect Foundation? But what could this group be possibly containing? They also aren’t doing much protecting going by Ponyville’s record of monster attacks.” In the back of Twilight's mind she noted that whenever a monster did attack Ponyville no pony died. Which she had always found strange but never really questioned as it was a good thing.

The roar of thunder shook the tree library. Twilight briefly worried that Spike might have been scared by the thunder considering how loud the sound was. But the alicorn remembered Spike was a dragon and he had slept through much worse. Honestly he would need the lightning to strike right next to him to wake in up, even then she wondered.

Getting back to deciphering the card Twilight continued talking to herself. “Senior Field Agent: Rainbow, HighLight?, Dash. She is a Senior which most likely means she’s been at this for a while. Field Agent most likely means she works on the ground or in the field and going by how secretive she is, Rainbow’s clearly undercover. So maybe a spy? No Rainbow’s too loyal for that, right?” The fact she was questioning Rainbow’s loyalty scared Twilight in a weird way.

“Wait if she’s undercover maybe she has a secret room in her house. That would explain why I never caught her doing anything suspicious and why her cloud house is so big and isolated from the rest of Ponyville. Hmmmm, screw it, I’ll search her house as soon as I can.” It was a necessary evil the alicorn reasoned. She had to get to the bottom of this.

“HighLight must be Rainbow Dash’s code name or something to that effect. Going by the parentheses at least.” After a second Twilight gained a small smirk. She had an idea, she was going to call Rainbow by her code name randomly. The alicorn hoped the pegasus’s reaction would give her a clue, a piece of information. Maybe she would react with shock and end up blowing her cover in the process. 

Somewhere along the line of trying to figure out what the rainbow maned pegasus was up to Twilight had ended up developing something akin to a light crush for Rainbow, although Cadence may call it infatuation. For Twilight the mystery of Rainbow Dash as the most interesting and challenging puzzle she had ever undertaken. Every little piece of information she added to her notebook came with a rush of excitement and joy. That she was just a bit closer to the truth.

Like when she realized Rainbow’s morning fight practice took her over the entirety of Ponyville, every street, building and park. She was patrolling, sure her fight pattern looked random but she always covered all of Ponyville. Dash most likely did it to make her patrolling look a lot less obvious, even throwing in crashes and accidents for good measure. 

Twilight had figured out other things too. The spot Rainbow napped during her self proclaimed morning and afternoon naps was almost always in line of sight of the street that led from the Schoolhouse to the Ponyville orphanage. But she only stayed there ‘napping’ while Scootaloo was on her way to or from school. Rainbow almost acted like a Silent Sentinel. At one point Twilight had theorized that Rainbow was Scootaloo’s mother. But quickly shot that idea down as Scootaloo is 13 and Rainbow is 24. Which would mean Rainbow had the filly at ten to eleven years old which was impossible. 

However the ID card claimed her age was 27, a full three years older than Rainbow said she was. No wait Rainbow had her birthday three days ago but couldn’t be in Ponyville due to ‘Wonderbolt training’. They even had Pinkie’s early birthday party before Rainbow left. Maybe that’s why she was going to throw out the ID card, she was getting a new one. So Rainbow could possibly by a full four years older than the pegasus said she was. 

“How deep does this rabbit hole go?” Twilight wondered aloud. If Rainbow was 28 years old that met all of Equestria’s documents about the cyan mare were wrong. Twilight, being a princess now, had secretly asked for all the documents about Rainbow Dash. All of them stated she was born on the date October 25 and the 980th year after banishment (AB). But if this card was correct she was born in the year 976. 

This card also said Clearance Level 3 which was pretty self-explanatory. It was her access level, but what did Class C mean? The alicorn wrote that down in her notebook. She then read the next bit of text. “Cognitohazard/ Memetic Resistance level: Immune. What in the world is a Cognitohazard or Memetic?” Twilight immediately started looking in the books she had. After almost an hour of searching through book after book she found, nothing. Absolutely nothing.

In frustration Twilight flipped the card over and read the back “We die in the dark so others may live in the light. Huh” Then she spotted what appeared to be the faded runes of a spell at the bottom of the card. She charged the rune with her magic curious as to what secret it might reveal. As soon as the alicorn refueled the enchantment the spell activated.

Twilight let out a shriek. 

The spell was attacking her mind. It was banging it’s way through her magic. Making the sound of a hammer hitting a solid object ring in her head as it did so. Twilight tried to cast a counterspell but the constant banging prevented her from being able to focus in any way. Twilight ended up collapsing to the floor with a thud while clutching her head in pain. She couldn’t think, the ringing hurt to much. If felt like her head was splitting open.

Then She felt the spell search through her memories, each one flashing in front of her eyes. Her being accepted as Princess Celestia’s personal student, tests she had taken throughout the years. Meeting her friends, Nightmare moon, Discord and more. Then it stopped at her coronation a few months ago and examined the memory in detail, like it was searching for a phrase or a specific moment in time. After almost a minute she felt the spell talk to her.

Equestrian, Alicorn ruling class, designation Class A. Memory Removed Function disarming due to Class A designation. 

Princess Twilight Sparkle return this document to the nearest SCP Foundation personnel immediately. 

This message will repeat.
> Chapter 1: A Field Agent Wakes up early
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow woke up early, again. “I hate this.” Rainbow groaned as she turned in bed and closed her magenta eyes desperate to get at least some more sleep tonight. 

….

Nope, she wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight. Groaning Rainbow threw the blanket covering her off and flew into the air and stenched her body out. She landed on the cloud floor looking around her room for something to do. She had read her Daring Do collection four times over so she wasn’t interested in doing that again. While Daring’s adventures were awesome, they were calm compared to what she had dealt with. Especially compared to the containment breaches she had found herself in. 

Rainbow looked around her room for Tank but remembered Fluttershy was taking care of him because Rainbow had been “training for the Wonderbolts” this past week.

Pfft yeah right she was wayyy overqualified for the Wonderbolts, sure they had been a foal hood dream, but that was a long time ago. They made for an excellent cover story though. Rainbow disliked lying to Fluttershy or the rest of her friends for that matter. But it was a necessary evil. They couldn’t find out about her true job, for their own safety mainly.  

In truth Rainbow had gone to Protected Site 59 for her 28th birthday, while the Foundation as a whole didn’t care if it was her birthday. Her friends in the Foundation did care, enough to organize their schedules so the four of them could throw her a small party. While that was the highlight of her trip she had been sent to Protected Site 59 for other reasons. She had an in person report to attend and a seminar about new equipment to also attend.

She was also informed that one of her friends, Cogsworth, would be stopping by in two days and staying in Ponyville for a week. He was experimenting on something in the Everfree forest from what she knew and she would be responsible for giving the dragon a place to sleep. Which was fine, she had the safe room for a reason.

At the end she had also been informed that one of Dr. Wondertainment’s many toys was running around the Ponyville area. Its reported anomalous property was the ability to let any creature fly for a set amount of time. Rainbow couldn’t remember the rest of the report but she had the file in her safe room. 

Reading it would give her something to do at least and knowing that she would probably come across it. She might as well know more about it, as something as simple as the object turning red on Saturday could get her killed. 

“At least it isn’t some Church of Fifthism artifact so you won’t be cleaning up to many bodies this time Dash. It could always be worse.” The pegasus said to herself. The saying ‘it could always be worse’ had become something of a way of coping with the horrific things she had seen throughout the years. 50 ponies dead? It’s not a hundred. Coughing up blood? Good that least it’s blood and not something else.

Rainbow left her room behind and walked down the hallway. She started to pass her kitchen and paused. “Why not.” She walked in and made her way to the frigid. She opened it with a foreleg and using a wing she grabbed a bottle of cider. She then pulled the cork out with her teeth and took a drink. Was it Apple family cider, no. But would it work for now? Yes it would.

Rainbow also took this moment to check the enchantments on her frigid, they were running low a magic. Rainbow would have to ask Twilight to refresh the enchantments in the morning. As the unicorn, no wait, alicorn would probably be happy to help. For free too, Twilight was helpful like that.

Rainbow closed the frigid and started walking to her safe room after her little interruption. Rainbow wasn’t even phased by Twilight’s transformation into an alicorn. But while she wasn’t the Foundation was both interested and annoyed. 

Alicorn’s weren’t anomalous; they were just a weird quirk of magic and genetics and while Twilight becoming an alicorn was weird. She still wasn’t anomalous as Rainbow had copied the spell Twilight had used and sent it to the Foundation. It was determined to only work on Twilight Sparkle because Twilight was basically an alicorn when born. She was just missing a small change in her magic signature and genetic structure, which the spell fixed. The process was even reversible with a few minor changes to the spell.  

But because of their weird genetics and magical signature they were immune to Class A and Class B amnestics. Which is a problem for obvious reasons namely that Twilight of all ponies could no longer be amnestied. Out of all of her friends Twilight was the one who Rainbow had to use amnestics on the most and by a large margin. The nosy little unicorn was always sticking her muzzle where it shouldn’t belong. 

But now Twilight was a ruler of Equestria which meant she was to be informed of the Foundations existence whether Rainbow herself, Celestia or any creature else liked it or not. Rainbow had actually been assigned to tell the new alicorn about the SCP Foundation herself, when she asked why, She of all ponies, was going to tell her about the anomalous. They told her Twilight would be more receptive to a friend then some random creature and she was also to attempt to recruit the mare into the Foundation. 

They knew Twilight was absolutely brilliant and having her as an asset would be very useful. Knowing Twilight though she would probably leap at the opportunity to learn about the anomalous, and get herself killed in the process. 

So Rainbow had come up with an idea, that when the deadline came around at the end of the year. Rainbow herself would teach the alicorn about the Foundation. She had suggested this idea due to being Twilight’s friend and a follow element of harmony. 

The Foundation agreed with this proposal as long as it didn’t interfere with her normal tasks or pose a security risk. Which if everything went the way she planned it to, it wouldn’t. The plan was simply to tell her about the Foundation with Celestia in the room, because if she said what Rainbow told her was true in real time. Twilight would hopefully freak out less. But all that could wait till the deadline the longer Twilight was ignorant the better.

Rainbow took a sip of her cider. Although If she was honest with herself the fact Twilight’s new wings made her look hot as hell would make the whole thing easier. Wait where in the world had that thought come from?

Rainbow stopped herself and looked at the cider bottle she held in her wing, non-alcoholic the label read. Rainbow rolled her eyes and continued her way to the living room. It was a little known fact that Rainbow did not drink alcohol, even at Pinkie’s parties. There were a variety of reasons chief among them was the fact that she just didn’t like the taste of alcohol. The others being ‘she needed to stay in shape for the Wonderbolts’ and so she was always ready for action.

The crack of lighting sounded out and rang throughout her house. 

Rainbow briefly looked out the window and watched as it started to rain heavily. “Huh would you look at that CloudKicker did her damn job for once.” With a small chuckle Rainbow walked up to one of the walls and put her forehoof against it in a seemingly random location. Less then a second later with a quiet shimmer of magic and the hiss of steam and steel a door opened and Rainbow walked in the safe room. 

First things first, inventory while it annoyed the pegasus. She knew the one time she didn’t take inventory would be when something was missing. So she started the slow process of taking inventory as she had some time before her ‘morning flight practice’ as it was only three in the morning. 

Her little saferoom was three meters by three meters by two metal box. Oh the right wall was four aluminum shelves that ran across the room wall to wall. The top shelf was high enough that she would have to fly up to get anything off the shelf. It held canned food for herbivores and carnivores, bottled water and extra ammunition should she and/or any other creature need it. 

The next shelf down held ten temporary SCP Storage lock boxes; they were grey in color and were made in varying sizes. Some were bolted to the back of the wall and some were free floating. Each box had its own key that Rainbow was reasonable for.

Should the need arise she could hold minor or benign SCP’s during the construction of a new site or be a pit stop while transferring a SCP to a new site. Rainbow had one such case in box three. In box three was 300 black writing quills that stayed exactly where they were when released. How is unknown but they were made or found by MCD going by the branding. 

The second shelf up from the floor was at wing height with many subdivisions built in. This shelf held medical Items and equipment. Everything from bandages, painkillers, adrenaline to surgical equipment. She even had three SCP-038 copies of SCP-500. They were a last resort gamble but just having them removed the worry of her being killed by some random anomalous disease. 

The shelf also held her supply of amnestics. She mostly had Class A amnestics in both the airborne aerosol and medical injection varieties, leaning more towards the medical injection as she currently had 34 vs airborne aerosols 10. She had a few Class B amnestics as well in storage. 

Rainbow picked up a Class A amnestic syringe with her non cider holding wing and looked at it. The main body of the syringe was a blue plastic with a clear side to let her see the dose she was administering to whoever saw something they shouldn’t have. The syringe was designed so that they could be operated by nearly any creature. After a week of training she could even operate the syringe with a single wing, after she bit off the white plastic cap of course. However with the absolute shit show Ponyville could be sometimes she ended up going through amnestics like water at times.

This had the effect of driving the logistics department mad, they had even sent an investigator once to see how she could possibly go through so many amnestics. The poor griffin showed up on the day Pinkie used the Mirror Pool to make all of her Pinkie clones and ended up watching the chaos from afar. After said chaos the Mirror Pool was discovered, secured and contained the next day. 

Moving on to the bottom shelf had nothing of note as it was personal storage and she hadn’t stored anything there as of late. So she moved on.

The left side of the room was the armory and Communication section of the safe room. Rainbow turned to face the wall taking a drink of her cider as she did so. Then she walked to the right side of the wall. This part of the wall had a wall locker in the corner and had three aluminum shelves connecting to the outside of the locker. The little arrangement took up about 1 meter of wall space. There was also a grey table that took up another third of wall space next to the shelf wall locker system.

Rainbow laughed quietly to herself. “If any of the girls saw how organized I can be.”

Rainbow conducted a brief overlook of her guns. She had quite a few as in truth her home acted as a mix of safe house/ observation post namely for the Everfree forest. Hence the bed directly across from the door.

Rainbow started talking to herself “Let’s see three Epsilon -11 rifles and my personal Epsilon-11 mid shelf. How many 5.56mm bullets do we have for good old E11?” Rainbow opened a box full of preloaded magazines located on the same shelf as the E11. “32 mags 40 rounds each. So 1280 rounds not counting the ammo over there.” Rainbow subconsciously pointed a hoof at the ammo boxes that sat next to the food and water on the other side of the room, as she said the words “over there”. 

“Next, top shelf, five USP claw guns and two silencers? I guess she took one, which means I haven’t noticed the change for two weeks. Fuck’en nailed it Dash.” Dash berated herself.

Dash went over to her desk located at the end of the bed pulled out a form and listed the missing equipment. Then went back to what she had been doing. “My 44 magnum revolver with Cogwork Orthodox improvements. How many bullets do I have left? 24 disks, six each so 144 rounds good. hmmm maybe I could go Timberwolf hunting later.” Rainbow interrupted herself by taking a drink of the cider she still had clutched in her wing. 

After a moment Rainbow decided she would indeed do a bit of Timberwolf hunting. Rainbow levitated her revolver to her and checked it. 

Guns were almost nonexistent on Equis as they invented by the far away Dragon Kingdoms and were mainly kept for themselves. Till the founding of the SCP Foundation where, if the stories are true, but are most likely not. Two gods unified the Sarkic Cults and Mekhanite Kingdoms respectfully then struck a deal with the Administrator himself leading to the Founding of the SCP Foundation.  

With this deal came the manufacture of guns, however guns were made with claws in mind not hooves. Having quadrupeds wield guns while standing on their hind legs was impossible as the recoil alone would knock the user on to their rear. So the Foundation needed a work around. At first the battle saddle was the solution, mount a gun to a saddle with a mouth trigger to fire the gun. However they were bulky and very difficult to reload, sometimes taking thirty seconds to a minute to fully reload. Nor could you hide it on your person unless you had the thing enchanted and that was costly.

Rainbow remembered her early days working at the Foundation when they still used the damn things. She hated them as they got in the way of flying and moving in general. But during her third year at the SCP Foundation they rolled out a system called Crystal Guided Emission Magic or C GEM. But most creatures just called it GEM. 

It had two parts, a varyingly colored gem that was enchanted then embedded in something, armor, clothing, bands, didn’t matter as long as the gem was within a creatures magic field or making direct contact with the skin. Then a gun having a gem with the same enchantment built in, namely near the claw grip or trigger. 

The system acted as makeshift unicorn levitation, letting the user have the same level of control as a dragon or unicorn. It did come with some caveats through. One, you couldn’t be too far from the weapon, a meter at most or it drops to the ground with a clack. Two, while you can’t have your gun taken over by another GEM user while actively using said gun. It doesn’t mean a creature can’t just run up and snatch it or knock it away outside control range. 

As a Field Agent, Rainbow had her control GEM surgically implanted on the upper right side of her right foreleg and given a secondary enchantment that made it visible to only those she wanted to see it. She was undercover after all and constantly having a band with a gem on it would be weird. At least for her, Rarity could probably get away with it just fine. 

All guns made by the SCP Foundation were able to be used by all creatures employed by the Foundation. This fact had saved her life on multiple occasions especially when- The image of a tree with a body hanging, impaled by one of its branches, flashed through her mind. Then the branch going for h-

Rainbow shook her head fighting the memory back. “Stop, get back to what you were doing Rainbow.” 

Rainbow put her revolver back on the third shelf and did as she told herself. “Next bottom shelf, lets see five frag grenades, five flash bangs, five smoke grenades andddd five anti magic grenades.” 

Then Rainbow looked at the new ‘toy’ she had been assigned after the seminar she had just attended and gulped. “One portable Hume Reality Anchor.” The portable HRA was by far the most destructive weapon she had ever held. Even the Anti-material rifle or the Anti-reality rifle that were both in the locker next to her didn’t hold a candle when compared to the portable HRA. 

The thing was a tall rectangle of metal colored a dark gold. And stood at a height of 20 centimeters and had a base of five by five centimeters. It had gears poking out at seemingly random points and along each 20 centimeter side was a piston that connected to four metal flaps that would rest on the surface the portable HRA was deployed on. At the top of the device was what she would describe as two crescents of metal that faced inwards towards the main body and had a pole connecting it to the main body. 

Honestly the top looked an awful lot like the symbol the Cogwork Orthodox used, which was fine with her.

When deployed there were two ways to use it. One was to let it strengthen nearby reality by-

“R-rainbow what's all this, if you don’t mind.”

Rainbow instantly snapped her head towards the voice and saw Fluttershy standing just outside the open doorway. Why didn’t the door automatically close behind her, more importantly why didn’t she check to make sure the door closed. A closed door is a happy door damnit. 

Fluttershy was by far the quietest pony Rainbow had ever known so it didn’t surprise her that she didn’t hear Fluttershy walking around. The storm outside most likely covered the sound she made when she entered her house. Rainbow didn’t care to learn what Fluttershy was doing here early in the morning but it probably had to do with Tank. 

Well this is going to hurt. The field agent thought. 

Rainbow put the bottle of cider down on the table and moved towards Fluttershy. Using her left wing the cyan mare silently grabbed a Class A amnestic as she passed by. 

“It’s fine Fluttershy just give me a second.” Rainbow knew she could over power Fluttershy easily, but she rather not leave any marks on her friend. So she waited till Fluttershy briefly looked at the floor like she always did when she was nervous.

When the yellow Pegasus inevitably did Rainbow bit the cap off and let it fall to the floor. 

“Fluttershy this room is where I store all the pranks me and Pinkie come up with.” 
Rainbow answered as she got closer then stopped “You want to see what Pinkie came up with? it's awesome. “ Rainbow said as she pointed to the room.

“Uh, sure.”

As soon as Fluttershy passed by, Rainbow acted. In less than a second she injected the amnestic into the yellow pegasus’s neck using her wing. At the same time wrapping a hoof around Fluttershy’s mouth holding her neck still. Fluttershy started fighting back trying to get free.

“I’m sorry Fluttershy. You’re going to wake up in your bed ok?” Rainbow Attempted to calm the mare.

She hated seeing Fluttershy cry but this wasn’t the first time she had amnestized the pegasus and it probably wouldn’t be the last time.

After a few seconds Fluttershy passed out thanks to the amnestic. Rainbow gave her a dose that would remove the last three hours of the pegasus’s memory, just to be safe. Once she was done with removing Fluttershy’s memories Rainbow looked out the window. The brief storm had ended and the sun was just beginning to rise. 

Rainbow laid Fluttershy on the floor and went into the safe room. She had to get going, her ‘morning fight practice’ soon. She picked up her prepacked saddle bag, got her revolver, put it in the bag with 18 rounds. Last she went to her desk grabbed the report for the Dr. Wondertainment toy that was somewhere in Ponyville and stored the paper in her bag. As she put the bag on, Rainbow activated the enchantment that made the bag visible to only those the pegasus wanted to see it. 

Rainbow then closed the door to the safe room, picked up the sleeping pegasus in her forelegs. Flew down the stairs to the showroom spotting Tank as she entered. Then Rainbow left her cloud house.
> Chapter 2 A Princess Gets Caught
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Twilight Sparkle return this document to the nearest SCP Foundation personnel immediately. 

This message will repeat.

Twilight was losing her mind. The spell would not stop repeating the same stupid message. Twilight cradled her head in her hooves; this spell had given her a massive headache which made sense, it was shouting in her head after all. 

“Uh Twilight you ok?” 

Twilight lifted her head to look at the voice, it was Spike. He was awake now as it was seven in the morning at this point. He was standing at the top of the stairs that led to the library’s main room which is where she was laying down. She had a book about mind spells out in front of her and was trying to read the book to find a counterspell. The key word was trying as she couldn’t focus on the book in any way, shape or form. Her head just hurt too much. It was like a weight was hanging in her mind constantly reminding her-

Princess Twilight Sparkle return this document to the nearest SCP Foundation personnel immediately. 

This message will repeat.

“Shut up!!!!” Twilight shouted in anger. For Three hours she had this spell in her head repeating every two minutes. Twilight was on the verge of tears, no wait. The alicorn lifted a hoof up to her muzzle and felt her eyes start to water. 

“Hey what did I do?” Spike complained as he walked down the stairs. Then when he got closer to Twilight he noticed that Twilight was starting to cry. He ran down the stairs worried about her.

“I’m sorry Spike I have a terrible headache.” Twilight said apologetically to the dragon. This apology confused the baby dragon. “You have had magic overuse headaches more times than I can count. What’s different about this one?” 

“I-I don’t know.” She lied, she knew exactly what was different about this headache. The voice in her head that ordered her to find the nearest SCP Foundation Personnel. After all this pain Twilight didn’t care if Rainbow knew that she knew about her other job. 

“Spike please do me a favor and get Rainbow Dash here.” The dragon opened his mouth to question the alicorn but Twilight stopped him. “Don’t question it please just do it.” Spike nodded “Uh, ok.” Spike made his way out the door to look for the rainbow maned pegasus.

The door closed with a thud, leaving Twilight alone. She tried to get up off the floor but was interrupted. 

Princess Twilight Sparkle return this document to the nearest SCP Foundation personnel immediately. 

This message will repeat.

Twilight curdled up and started stroking her tall for comfort.





Rainbow was doing her morning patrol of Ponyville. This time looking for the Doctor Wondertainment toy that was somewhere in the Ponyville area. The file said it looked like a pair of thin wooden wings and the toy was named ‘Grow a wing’. The toy did exactly as on the tin. The user grew a pair of wings using the body mass of whoever put on the toy. This however could kill or maim the user if they didn’t have enough bone or muscle mass and then the user would shed the wings after thirty minutes losing all the blood and bone in the process. 

Rainbow had found a pair of orange wings laying on the ground in the park but no toy or pony. After she disposed of the wings in the Everfree she started looking around the park but no luck so far.

“I don’t have time for this,” Dash muttered, the wings she found meant that somepony had used the artifact nearby. Rainbow looked around quickly checking for anypony. Not seeing any she landed on the ground, reached back into her invisible saddle bag and pulled out what looked like a compass, at least to any other pony who didn’t work for the Foundation.

The compass was a Hume level reader. When opened a little mechanical display would show how many Humes there are where she stood. It’s two ‘compass’ arrows would point to the nearest highest and lowest Hume count respectively. To finish the compass off the outer edge ring had the actual markings of a compass in denominations of 10 degrees with North, South, East and West in their proper places. The whole outer ring would spin to tell her the direction she was facing based on an arrow that pointed forwards at the top of the compass. 

The Reality Compass, as most staff called it, was not super reliable like with most things when dealing with the anomalous. The compass would give her a general direction to look instead of just hoping to come across the anomaly. 

When she opened it the arrows spohn wildly for a moment along with the compass ring, letting out a winding sound of gears and ticking as it did so. Once it settled Rainbow chose to follow the negative arrow at random. It pointed to her right towards a tree that stood with two others just like it. 

Rainbow lifted off the ground and started flying to the trees. As she got closer she started to hear fait crying come from behind the trees. She zipped to the trees as fast as she could. What she found was more sad than anything else. There was an orange earth pony colt crying quietly. He looked emaciated no doubt from the pair of wooden wings laying on the ground next to him. 

Rainbow hated it when young creatures got caught up with the anomalous. It usually ended with their deaths, but it looks like this colt got lucky. There were two stubs where the wings had shedded off making him look more like a dewinged pegasus then an earth pony.

Rainbow silently picked up the anomalous object and put it in her bags along with the Reality Compass, then pulled out an amnestic. Fortunately the colt didn’t even move when Rainbow in injected him, probably was too weak to move with the blood loss and lack of muscle mass.

Rainbow picked up the now sleeping colt and flew to the Ponyville hospital. Once she entered the check in room a unicorn with blue coat and white mane at the desk looked up then gasped. “What happened?” The stallion asked as he ran over to Rainbow. At the same time he levitated a stretcher and moved it in front of the pegasus. “Don’t know I found him like this.” Rainbow answered as she laid the colt on the stretcher.

With that the pony ran off with the emaciated colt. Rainbow was supposed to stay because the hospital would want to know more about the colt from her perspective. But Rainbow flew out of the hospital as some creature in the Department of External Affairs would change the records. Most likely this event would be completely scrubbed off the records, as it was so minor it would be the easiest choice. 

Rainbow took to the skies once again but this time went not to her house but to the post office. She landed outside and quickly looked inside the office. No pony except Derpy Hooves was in the post office, Excellent. 

“Morning Derpy.” Rainbow said as she walked up to the front desk. “Morning Rainbow, what can the Ponyville post office do for you today?” Derpy greeted cheerful as always as she pulled out a quill and paper. “Actually I’m here on more unusual business.” Rainbow answered using the code word. 

“Ok, one second please.” Derpy got up and went to the doorway to the back room, stuck her head in the room.  After a second the grey mare said. “We’re clear.” Derpy went back to the counter and looked up at Dash. “What we got this time.”

Rainbow got right to work. “It's a Safe class anomaly, Doctor Wondertainment.” Rainbow pulled out the pair of wooden wings and put it on the counter with the file of the anomaly as well. Derpy sighed “Any victims?” She asked as she pulled out a box that would fit the object. “Yea I know of one colt, he got lucky.” Rainbow replied casually. 

“That’s good.” Derpy said with cheer returning to her voice. “You got it from here Derpy?” The grey mare nodded having finished packing the wings. “Yea, it's headed for Site 77. Stay safe Dash.” Rainbow nodded at the mail mare. “You too.” 

With that done Rainbow got back to her daily routine. Or at least she would have if she wasn’t interrupted by Spike calling out her name as soon as she left the post office.

“Rainbow!”

Rainbow landed after doing a pointless loop as she landed in front of the baby dragon. The loop was to keep up her appearance as a Wonderbolt reserve. 

“Yeah Spike whats up?” Rainbow asked casually. Blowing a piece of her rainbow mane out of her line of sight. Internally she wondered why Spike would need her this early in the morning?

“Twilight needs you for her headache apparently.” Spike told her, sounding equally  confused and concerned. “Why does Twilight need me?” Rainbow asked confused. “Don’t know, just said she needed you.” Spike answered. 

“Welp see you there.”

“Wait the library’s” Rainbow was already gone “on the other side of town.” Spike groaned and started walking back to the library.





Rainbow opened the door to the library and immediately spotted Twilight Sparkle laying on the library floor, curled up. “Twilight!” Rainbow quickly flew to Twilight concerned for her lavender friend. Rainbow took in Twilight’s state, she had been crying going by the tear stains running down her muzzle. Her mane was a mess, fraying and sticking out in random directions. She was stroking her tail for comfort and her wings. Rainbow cringed, bent feathers all around the alicorn’s wings, she wouldn’t be flying anywhere easily.

“I-I’m sorry Rai-n-nbow.” Twilight basically whimpered out clearly struggling to talk. Rainbow landed in front of Twilight confused. “What why?” Twilight turned her head to look at Rainbow, then looked at a book that was laying in front of her. 

Rainbow taking the hint picked up the book. As she did so something fell out of the book and land on the ground. Dash looked at the object, her face was looking back at her. It was her old SCP Foundation ID card that had fallen out of Twilight's book and the card’s memory removal spell was armed too. 

Two emotions quickly rose taking over Rainbow’s mind, one was absolute anger. She was furious, no, livid with the nosy alicorn so much so Dash wanted to sock her across the face. But another emotion won out for dominance, laughter. She couldn’t stop herself from laughing. 

Rainbow dropped the book in her laughter, she could just barely stand on her hooves. She had no idea why she was laughing but she couldn’t stop. Maybe it was the inevitability of the situation or how she thought she could protect Twilight for just a bit longer from the anomalous.  

After a minute Rainbow managed to stop her laughter enough to fly over to the library door, lock it closed, close the blinds and walk back to the lavender mare. “Of course you would Twilight, of course you of all fucking ponies would continue to shove your muzzle where it shouldn’t belong. Your fucken’ curiosity even drove you to steal from me.” Rainbow’s voice was filled with a mix of mirth and venom. 

Rainbow started pacing around Twilight, the alicorn’s eyes following the angry pegasus as she circled her. “Maybe after two years you would realize there are things you shouldn’t mess with. Things you weren’t supposed to know. But of course not, you’re Twilight Sparkle. You have too SHOVE!” Rainbow stomped the floor with a forehoof cracking the wood apart. 

“YOUR!”

Stomp.

“MUZZLE!” 

Stomp. 

“WHERE IT DOES NOT BELONG!” The last stomp shattered the library floor sending pieces of wood floor into the air. Rainbow was panting slightly, more from anger then actual exertion.

“I’m sorry Da-Dash.” Twilight weakly apologized, dry sobbing at this point. She was scared of Rainbow, terrified even. “Ohhh I bet you are Twilight. I bet you are.” Rainbow ended with a hollow chuckle. Twilight flinched at each hoofstep Rainbow made as she reentered the alicorns line of sight.  

“Please I’m sorry-“ she was cut off by the spell.

Princess Twilight Sparkle, return this document to the nearest SCP Foundation personnel immediately. 

This message will repeat.

“Just make it stop!” Twilight pleaded. Rainbow sighed, her fury calming at Twilight’s pleaded.“I will, but prepare for a long one on one discussion.” The pegasus pulled out an inhibitor ring from her invisible saddle bag, and placed it on the alicorn’s horn. Twilight didn’t even notice the ring on her horn.

Then Rainbow picked up the ID card on the ground and looked at the back where the rune was. After a second Rainbow flipped the card to face Twilight who quickly closed her eyes. “Look at the card Twilight.” Rainbow ordered the mare. Twilight did as ordered and passed out when she looked at the card.

Rainbow let out a loud sigh and she put the card in her bag. She was still angry at Twilight but much less so than before. “Wasn’t expecting to do this today but I have no choice now do I?” Rainbow muttered to herself. Rainbow picked up Twilight in her forelegs and flew her to the basement. Setting her down on a pillow that was next to a stack of books. 

There was a knock at the door. “Rainbow why is the door locked?” It was Spike. Rainbow zipped up the stairs and to the door. She opened it saying “she’s resting right now Spike. She said you’re free to do whatever you want as long as you come back much later, at least give her four to five hours.” Spike nodded and ran off to do something, she didn’t care what. 

With that done she relocked the door to the library and went back to Twilight who was still sleeping. Rainbow knew she would wake up in a few minutes so she waited. “This is going to be fun.”
> Chapter 3: A Princess Signs Up
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight woke up wiping the sleep from her eyes with a hoof. She had a small headache but that was infinitely better then the feeling of the spell that had been her head. Twilight opened her eyes to find she was in the library’s basement laying on one of her floor pillows. Looking up she spotted Rainbow sitting in a chair to her left. In front of Twilight was a lab table, she couldn’t see what was on the table as she was on the floor. 

Twilight's eyes went back to her friend, she looked different but not so much that she was unrecognizable. Rainbow still had her rainbow mane, cyan coat and the such.

Her wings had a change and it was probably the biggest physical difference. Along the leading edge of her wing, namely where the bone should be, was a set of dirty gold colored metal plates. The plating was clearly on top of the bone. The metal plating had joints at each spot where the wing would bend to let the pegasus to have full wing motion. The plating ended just a bit after the spot where her wings met her body. Her feathers looked normal, untouched by this modification. Her other physical difference was a light blue gem that was embedded into the mare’s right foreleg. 

Rainbow heard Twilight shuffling. “Good your up.” Rainbow said as she turned to look at the alicorn. Twilight was almost too nervous to speak after what had happened just before she passed out. But there was a burning question she had to ask, so she forced it out as fast as she could. “Arewestillfriends?” Twilight sounded more like a mix of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie than herself. 

Rainbow chuckled, of course that would be Twilight’s biggest worry. “Yes Twilight of course we’re still friends.” Rainbow answered but then added on “I’m just annoyed about the mess you got yourself into.” Rainbow motioned for Twilight to get up with a hoof. Twilight did so nervously “Sit in the chair provided.” Rainbow pointed to a chair across from her. “Ha, always wanted to say that.” 

Twilight moved over to the chair and instinctively tried to use her magic to pull the chair out, but couldn’t. Twilight reached with a hoof for her horn to check it, she felt an inhibitor ring and her eyes widened in response.

“Rainbow why I have an anti magic ring on.” Twilight asked. She was now very worried, magic was the only way she knew how to defend herself. Sure she was an alicorn and that meant she was as strong if not a bit stronger then most earth ponies. But Twilight had no idea how to use that strength properly, not yet.

Rainbow could feel how hurt Twilight was at the prospect of not being able to use her magic. “Calm down Twi, I just needed to make sure you didn’t panic teleport or something like that.” Twilight nodded. “That makes sense, but can you take it off now.” 

Rainbow thought for a moment. “You promise not to teleport away?” Twilight nodded quickly. She felt the ring lift off her horn and watch it go to Rainbow, who caught it with her wing. “How?“ Twilight was blown away, Rainbow had somehow levitated the ring off her horn. Twilight had felt Rainbow’s pegasus magic pick up the ring. It was extremely faint and weak being overridden by some enchantment. 

Rainbow smirked “So I am right, you are hypersensitive to magic fields.” Rainbow laughed at the face Twilight made. “Whaaa how? Not a single other pony knows about that, not even Celestia or my parents know about it.” Twilight said slack jawed. Her Hypersensitivity to magic fields was something she only found out about recently, after she became an alicorn. So how did Rainbow know about it?

“I’ll Answer both questions later as that's not important now. What’s important is this, how much do you know, Twi?” Rainbow said as she put the ring on the table. 

“Only that you work for something called the SCP Foundation and some of the other stuff on that card.” Twilight answered.

“So basically nothing, good.” Rainbow reached down into her saddle bag on the floor and pulled out her new ID and placed it on the table. The only difference between her old one and new one was her age, twenty eight instead of twenty seven.

Rainbow started “The SCP Foundation is an international covert agency tasked with containing paranormal entities and anomalies. Twilight to put it bluntly the Foundation protects the world, not just Equestria from the things it doesn’t know about nor should know about.”

“The paranormal? Like ghosts?” Twilight asked.

“Not quite as simple, to give you a mundane example: a six sided dice when rolled occasionally lands on a seven or a match, that when, lit spontaneously creates a blizzard that will keep getting bigger the longer as the match is lit. I found that last one myself.” Rainbow added.

“But to give some more examples in containment there’s a rubber ball, designated SCP-018, that when it hits a surface will bounce with roughly twice the speed it hit the surface with.” Rainbow finished.

Twilight jumped up in her chair raising a hoof as she did so. “That’s impossible! That would mean this ball breaks the laws of physics and magic.  Rainbow I’m going to need evidence if you want me to believe you.” Twilight finished, she didn’t believe a bit of what Rainbow just told her. That last once was impossible, the first two could possibly be explained by some really complex enchantments but the ball couldn’t be possible.

Rainbow smirked “Thought you would say something like that. So while you were sleeping I went and grabbed something from my house.” Rainbow pulled out a black quill in her hoof. She then reached up above the table and let go of the quill. 

“Rainbow a quill falling……” Twilight started but stopped when the quill didn’t fall but stayed exactly where Rainbow released the quill. The quill wasn’t slightly bobbing like it would be if it was lifted by magic or floating by an enchantment. Besides Twilight would feel the magic field thanks to her condition. Twilight lit her horn, her lavender magic aura surrounding the floating quill. She then tried to levitate the object over to her but the black quill didn’t move. It stayed floating in the air undisturbed. Twilight tried again with more force behind her magic but it once again didn’t move.

“Twilight, You’re going to have to use your hooves or your mouth if you want to move the quill.” Rainbow explained as she reached up and poked the impossible object as if to demonstrate. Her poke caused the quill to turn slightly then immediately halted when her cyan hoof stopped making physical contact.

Twilight reached up with a hoof and grabbed the quill nervously, half expecting it… well she didn’t know what she was expecting.

Twilight moved the quill so it was in front of her muzzle. She tried turning the writing feather every direction, down, up and other random angles. For her effort she got nothing, the feather always stayed in the location she released it. She casted all sorts of spells on the feather, nothing. To say Twilight was having trouble comprehending what was happening would be an understatement. “How! This is impossible!” 

While Twilight was messing with the quill Rainbow had pulled a packet from her saddle bag in an effort to help her explain the SCP Foundation to her friend. The paper packet had a checklist of things she needed to tell the princess about. She had been given this list right after Twilight's coronation as she was assigned the task of explaining Foundation to Twilight. It made special note to emphasize how little the Foundation cares about politics and little power Celestia or Luna had in the grand scale of things.

“This Quill is physically impossible!” Twilight practically shouted as quill was now upside down in front of Twilight's muzzle.

Rainbow reached across the table and grabbed the quill and put it next to her in the air. “Yes I know that Twilight.” Rainbow wanted to get the conversation back on track. 

Twilight couldn’t get her mind off the quill. “Rainbow you don’t understand this quill is acting like-“

I’m going to have fun this Rainbow thought as she interrupted Twilight. “Like a point object yet doesn’t go flying away smashing into the wall because it somehow keeps the momentum of the planet we walk on. Almost like it’s a point object for some relativistic points such as the planet but not others.” Rainbow finished with a cocky grin.

Rainbow was going to love showing off just how smart she actually was to Twilight. Dash wasn’t a genius but if you worked for the SCP Foundation you were going to learn things if you didn’t want to die. Besides playing the less than smart jock got annoying quickly for Rainbow.

Twilight blinked; she hadn’t expected such a concise answer to come Rainbow of all ponies. “Yea.” 

“Now I have your favorite thing: a checklist of things you as a high-ranking government official has to know.” Rainbow said.

“And Twilight for full disclosure the foundation wishes to recruit you and as a friend I hope you do join the Foundation as your gift for Magic would be a huge boon for The research department. But at same time I don’t want you to just jump in because you can get yourself killed very easily.” Twilight's eyes brighten at the words “research department” then just quickly darkened when she heard the word killed.

“Killed?” Twilight said questioningly. Twilight looked at the floating Quill.

“Yes killed, Now not a single thing I say or have said can be told to any creature who isn’t a SCP Foundation member, understand? There are... consequences if you do.” Rainbow’s voice left no room for questions and left the threat hanging in the air.

“Ok, I understand Rainbow.” Twilight said as she looked back at Rainbow. 

“Good now the checklist says to start with a general overview and has a point by of things to mention or talk about.”  Rainbow pointed at some on the paper that Twilight couldn’t see properly. “But I’m going to start with just how much power the Foundation wields. Twilight, the Foundation lets Princess Celestia control the sun, same thing with Luna.” Twilight didn’t take that statement too well as Rainbow expected, but before Twilight could launch into questions Rainbow continued. 

“Every government document and record is first seen by the Foundation and checked or changed as needed, like for example my birth certificate, which I know you asked for by the way.” Twilight started stuttering and blushing as she tried to come up with a response.  Rainbow just continued.

“As you found out I’m actually twenty eight not twenty four like all my records say I am. Everything that could possibly contradict the idea that I’m twenty four has been changed or removed from record. A whole four years of my history gone, Twilight entire civilizations have been removed from recorded history, all traces gone. Ever heard of the Daevites?” Twi shook her head as she said “No.”

“Good then the SCP Foundation did it’s job, from what little I know they were awful, Cannibalism, ritual sacrifice and so on.” As Rainbow took a breath Twi spoke. “How can you say that so easily Rainbow?”

“Because I have seen much worse. Now the Foundation is not run by any one government or any groups of governments. The Foundation operates beyond jurisdiction only answering to itself.” 

“The SCP Foundation also doesn’t care about the politics of Equestria or any other country in any way. If Sombra was ruling the Crystal Empire they wouldn’t care what he did as long as he worked with the foundation and its allies when needed or ordered to.” 

After Twilight recovered from Rainbow’s nonchalant answer she stated “So the SCP Foundation rules the world.” 

Rainbow shook her head.“No, The Foundation does not rule the world. The Foundation serves the world.” 

Twilight didn’t buy this. “Rainbow, how do they and by extension you ‘serve the world’? To me it sounds like a rich pony club or a secret world government you read about in a story.”

Rainbow signed “As I said the Foundation’s mission statement is to protect the world from the anomalous-“ 

Twilight was confused “These anomalies you keep referring to don’t seem all that dangerous; that quill is not gonna harm any pony.” Twilight pointed with a hoof at the impossible quill next to Rainbow.

Rainbow was losing her patience. “Quiet“ Rainbow didn’t raise her voice, yet the level of authority in it shut the Alicorn princess up. “Twilight I’m a lot nicer than who you would be normally talking to when you are introduced to the Foundation. So stop interrupting me.” Rainbow said with a small bit of venom.

“Now I’m going to address your question about how dangerous the anomalies the Foundation contains are, because I don’t think we’re going to get much further if I don’t.” Rainbow flipped to a page in the packet she was holding. “I’m starting with what I specialize in, Cognitohazards, infohazards or memetic anomalies. Let’s go over each one quickly.”

“A cognitohazard poses a danger when sensed. This can be via any of the classical senses: sight, sound, hearing, taste, touch or magic. Most often take the form of symbols but are most definitely not exclusive to symbols.”

“A memetic agent is "infectious information", knowledge that triggers anomalous behavior or effects. By nature, all memetic agents are cognitohazards; you have to sense something to learn new information.”

“An infohazard is something that is triggered if you simply know about it. It is similar to but distinct from a memetic agent because a memetic agent is pure information whereas an infohazard is generally an object.” Rainbow knew Twilight was going to need example

“For example SCP-426 is -I-there” Twilight watched in horror as blood started to bleed from the corners of Rainbow’s eyes. “I- there is a toaster that when referring to it, I- it makes you refer to it in the first person.” Rainbow grit her teeth and she looked like she was fighting something. “And if any creature is in my-its continuous presents for over two months they will start identifying as a toaster. Then they will attempt an act like a toaster.” 

The bleeding from Rainbow’s eyes stopped. “Doing things like eating a piece of bread and waiting for it to ‘pop’ out or eating so much bread your stomach ruptures and you die.” Rainbow finished.

“Rainbow! You just bled from your eyes!” Twilight shouted. Rainbow had talked about a toaster and just started bleeding for the corner of her eyes.

“Yea sounds right.” Rainbow replied as if it was normal. Rainbow wiped the blood off. Rainbow hoped what she would do next would drive the point home. “Now another example, Hey Twilight the glass is empty could you fill it?”

Whatever worry was on the alicorn’s face was gone. “Sure Rainbow I don’t have any alcohol in the library but I could go buy some wait here.” Twilight apologized, why hadn’t she brought any alcohol, the glass was going to become empty at some point.

So Twilight got out of her chair looking at the door out of the basement as she did so. “Twilight where you going?” Rainbow asked, she had expected this.

Twilight answered like it was obvious as she took a few steps towards the door. “To get a drink to fill the glass.” Twilight would have to get some bits from her room first but after-

“Why?”

Twilight stopped dead in her tracks “Because you asked me too?” Twilight answered questioning herself as she sat down where shestood. A shiver went down the alicorn’s back as she sat down. She had wanted to buy alcohol to fill some glass as soon as Rainbow said that phrase. Everything else became secondary. 

In that moment Twilight Sparkle’s world changed, Rainbow had said some simple words that changed her thinking instantly. She was only thinking about buying some alcohol for some empty glass. Rainbow’s eyes had started bleeding when she talked about a toaster that made ponies believe that they were a toaster. Then they would act like a toaster and if that was anything like what she had just felt. Then….

Twilight started staring at the floor. “Rainbow?” 

Rainbow put the packet in her wing and got off the chair instinctively putting on her saddlebag as she did so. Twilight looked like she was having a revelation She moved to sit next to her friend. “Yes?” 

“How bad are the things you deal with?” Twilight asked.

Rainbow was silent for a moment then the pegasus wrapped a wing around Twilight.

After a second she answered “There are objects and monsters that could kill entire towns, cities even. Hell that's not counting the eldritch horrors I know we have contained, somehow.”

“Eldritch horrors? Like in PH Lovecraft's books?” Twilight asked as she turned her head up to look at Rainbow. 

“Where do you think he got the ideas for his books?” Rainbow answered simply with an apologetic look. 

“So world ending.” Twilight said as she looked back at the floor. 

Rainbow laid the packet on the floor then turned to a page that was enchanted and looked like sign up form. Rainbow also took out an enchanted quill and put it on the paper then slid the whole thing to Twilight with a hoof. “Twilight that's why I want you to join the Foundation you’re a genius when it comes to magic. You may be able to come up with counter measures against dangerous anomalies that no pony else would think of.”

Twilight picked up the paper and quill in her magic and studied it. “Is this?” Twilight let the question hang in the air.

“Yes it's a one time offer from the SCP Foundation to join. I wish I could tell you more about the Foundation but you need to sign the paper first as I have already told you more than you were supposed to know.” Rainbow said she pointed to the form. “Twilight there’s no going back if you sign this paper and you don’t get time to sleep on it, the Foundation isn’t a patient group.”

“What if I don’t join?” Twilight asked as she looked over the agreement. 

“Then we stop here, you won’t learn anything more.” 

“So if I join the SCP Foundation I could save lives?”  To Twilight that was the most important question.

“Countless, that's what keeps me going. Twi, after all the shit I’ve seen and done” Rainbow let out a sigh. “Twilight I have done terrible things working with the Foundation  and you will too. It’s unavoidable when working with SCP’s.” 

Twilight was silent for a solid minute then asked “Will you still be teaching me about the Foundation?” 

“Yeah I believe so.” Rainbow answered.

“I’m going to do it.” Twilight started to fill out the form but was stopped by Rainbow’s wing grabbing the enchanted quill stopping it.

“Twi, Are you sure about this?”

Twilight was surprised by the worry in Rainbow’s voice, but she had already made her decision. “Yes, If there’s a way I can help prevent ponies from dying Rainbow I will do it.” Twilight answered with determination. Rainbow nodded softly. “Then Twilight I want you to promise me something, don’t get yourself killed. Please I don’t want to lose another friend.” 

“Rainbow I will be careful.” Twilight promised.

Rainbow released the quill and Twilight got back to filling out the form. After a moment she finished filling the form. When she put the paper down it caught fire burning in a flash of orange. “It’s like Spike’s dragon fire.” Rainbow said before Twilight could ask. 

Rainbow had two conflicting emotions battling it out one was trepidation over what may happen to her friend, would Twi be able to handle the dark? But the other emotion was some mix of excitement and determination. Rainbow was going to make sure Twilight would be able to handle the anomalous.

“Let’s continue and sense you officially signed up. I can go into detail and give you some actual answers.” Rainbow said as she stood up with a hint of joy in her voice. 

Rainbow stood next to the alicorn “Twilight I would suggest you get a notebook but make sure to hide it better than the notebook that held all of your theories about me.” Twilight hid her face in her wings. 

“Please tell me you didn’t read it.” Twi practically begged Rainbow.

Rainbow started laughing and stuck a pose akin to Rarity. “Hmmm lets see I’m apparently, The sexiest mystery?”

Twilight let out whine of embarrassment.
> Chapter 4 Lessons for a Princess Pt 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With the mood in the library’s basement significantly lightened both ponies got comfortable. Twilight was now sitting on a pillow overlooking a wooden desk she normally had in her bedroom. She had levitated the desk down from her room to the basement so she could write down notes. 

Twilight was looking at her desk with Disappointment. “I want Flash cards.” Twilight said dejectedly. On the desk was one of the many extra notebooks Twilight owned along with a inkwell and quill to write in said notebook 

“No you only get one notebook“ Rainbow said half heartedly with a roll of her eyes. ”Besides Twilight you won’t get in trouble for not knowing this stuff right off the bat.” Dash added on as she stood in front of the alicorn. Rainbow was preparing to well…  attempt to teach her friend about the SCP Foundation. There is just so much to cover.

There was some big stuff Rainbow had to make sure to go over today so Twilight had basic knowledge about the Foundation with the first one being how the Foundation was structured.

“You Ready Twilight?” 

Twilight nodded 

“Ok there are three..” Rainbow hesitated looking for the right word. “I guess you could call them ruling bodies or main branches of authority, either work, in the SCP Foundation. All of them are shrouded in some level of mystery. Just as a heads up Twilight.” Twilight looked up from her desk at Rainbow.

“In most cases getting an answer will lead to more questions and that is most likely by design. Remember that sometimes just knowing about something is dangerous.” Twilight let out a huff. “Fine”

“Ok first of the big names is the O5 Council. They are a council of 13 creatures. Their Identities are a mystery and are only referred to as O1, O2, O3 and so on till O13. From what I know they judge what is and is not safe. Obviously you’re going to be assigned to the research department.”

“So if you ever plan on doing an experiment that you think may be risky or unsafe. It is, and I can not stress this enough, your job to request permission from one or more of the O5. Let it be also their fault if something goes wrong not just yours. You're much less likely to get in trouble.” Twilight sighed “Does that mean I‘ll have to wait months to get one experiment approved?”

Rainbow shook her at Twilight’s question. “Nope, the Foundation is not Canterlot where it takes years to get anything done. No nobles too fight about everything. The Foundation moves fast, the longest I’ve heard is a month and that was for a big, complicated experiment.”  

Rainbow then added on “They are also the first to know when shit hits the fan.”

Twilights quill finished writing in her notebook. “Next?”

Rainbow nodded “The Ethics Committee. Now most creatures start off thinking this idea of a Ethics Committee is a joke due to the amount of torture and murder that happens in the SCP Foundation.”

Twilight looked shocked, “Torture? Murder?” 

Rainbow once again nodded. “Twilight, remember how I said you’d end up doing horrible, awful things while you work for the Foundation. It's one of the unavoidable consequences when working with SCPs.”

“You said that. But how you said it makes it sound like you're the bad guys, even evil.” Twilight replied sternly, understandably the alicorn didn’t like this idea of murder and torture being accepted.

Rainbow knew this would come up so she planned to quote a friend. “To quote a friend, Remember this: The Foundation is not evil. The Foundation does not torture creatures ‘just because’. The Foundation is against unnecessary cruelty. Which means some creature has to decide when cruelty is necessary. Those creatures are the Ethics Committee.”

Twilight nodded skeptically, quill still writing. 

Rainbow continued “Now I know more than most about the Committee because a friend of mine is on the Ethics Committee as I said. And he put it like this, while the O5 judge what is and is not safe. The Ethics Committee judge what is and is not acceptable. And my friend told me that there is always some creature on the Committee on site.”  

Twilight finished writing that down with a sour look on her muzzle. “Rainbow are you sure any murder and torture is necessary?” 

Rainbow sighed looking at the library floor. “ Believe me Twi if there was a way to avoid killing I would, but I can’t when it’s me or them. Or sometimes the Anomaly requires a sacrifice of one creature once every three months so millions don’t die.” 

Rainbow looked back up at Twilight. “I wish I was joking but I’m not.”

Rainbow moved on “Thirdly the Administrator, supposedly he created the Foundation and signed the pact. That's all that’s known about him.”

“Wait that's it? All you know about this ‘Administrator’ is that it's a he and he made the Foundation and signed some pact?” Twilight said incredulously.

Rainbow rubbed the back off her neck nervously  “yea.”

Rainbow quickly got back on track. “Now the pact of Steel and Blood. The recommended way to explain the pact is to tell the story so that's what I will do.” Rainbow shot Twilight a look causing Twilight to lower her hoof. 

“The story will also answer why I have metal plating on my wings, which I know you have been sneaking looks at my augmentation.” Rainbow said this as she spread out her wings highlighting her biggest physical difference.

Twilight looked apologetic. “Sorry Rainbow but it's just such a difference from your normal look. I can’t help but be interested in your wings. Like aren't they painful?” 

Rainbow looked at her wings “No not at all.” Rainbow said honestly .“I don’t even think about them now. I’ve had this augmentation for seven years now.” 

Twilight nearly jumped “Seven years! Rainbow how long have you been working for the Foundation?” Rainbow thought for a moment. “Five years in the field and five here in Ponyville, so ten years.” 

Twilight was shocked by this information “Wait, you joined the Foundation at eighteen years old?” The alicorn questioned. 

“Yeah after half a year of training but let's get back on track” Rainbow said knowing this would quickly lead to her past, something she’d rather avoid talking about if it can be helped.

Rainbow began “So the story may or may not be true or maybe just some bits of the story are true. Either way this is how it goes.

A long time ago there were two groups of creatures well… more like factions. One was the Mekhanites who worshipped Mekhane. He’s the god of metal, machines and is claimed to have given sapient creatures their intelligence at the time. The other was the Sarkics who worshipped Yaldabaoth the god flesh, blood and disease. She’s claimed to have given us our bodies.

These two groups didn’t like each other at all in fact they hated each other so much they went to war. The first war of the flesh it was called. The Mekhanites fought using machines of all sizes. With weapons that could rain fire from the sky or even bend reality itself. While the Sarkics would spread disease across the battlefield and beyond. They could turn themselves into flesh abominations at will.

The war destroyed towns and villages. Whole mountains were leveled, reduced to shallow pits. Land rendered uninhabitable. Rumors even say an entire continent was lost and the sky turned black with ash and spores.

It was so devastating that the planet started to freeze over. Both Mekhane and Yaldabaoth saw this devastation and demanded both groups to stop, lest they bring the end of the world with their war. Which would mean no creature wins.

This demand from the two gods split both sides. Some of the Mekhanites believed Yaldabaoth had broken Mekhane in some form. They went and made The Church of the Broken God with the purpose of fixing him. For the Sarkics they split into the many Sarkic cults with dozens of differences between them. 

But regardless the main two sides stopped their war with each other and entered an uneasy peace for a hundred years. Supposedly both gods took a direct act in ruling their respective groups to ensure their peace would last. It's said a golden age occurred during these a hundred years.

Then something happened, both gods disappeared. Obviously each side first thought the other one did it, almost going to war again. But they quickly found out Discord had sealed both of them away using his chaos magic.

Both sides went to war with Discord immediately hoping to break the seal that had locked away their respective gods. They ended up working with Celestia and Luna to take down Discord. They were hoping that the princesses would use the elementals of harmony to free both Mekhane and Yaldabaoth.

This is where the story’s biggest unknown is, some accounts say the two sisters couldn’t. Others say they wouldn’t, because they were scared of the two. All that’s known is the gods were not freed. 

This led to the decline of both groups fading into obscurity as Mekhanite technology was forgotten and Sarkic rituals were lost to time. The faraway dragon kingdoms being the only Mekhanites who remembered Mekhane due to a dragon's ability to live for centuries. Kingdom Dragons are different from dragons that come from the Dragon Lands. As they evolved in a winter climate and don’t get much bigger than Celestia in height or size. 

For the Sarkics cults they fell apart into isolated groups across the world. Forming even more cults in the process with creatures of all kinds in these cults.

Things stayed this way till supposedly, two hundred and some years ago. When the Administrator somehow freed both Mekhane and Yaldabaoth. Working with the Administrator they created the SCP Foundation and signed the Pact Steel and Blood. Mekhane reunited some of Mekhanite Kingdoms while Yaldabaoth did the same with what Sarkic Cults she could find. This pact allowed the Foundation access to the knowledge and capabilities of Mekhanites and the Sarkics. 

“For a direct example, my wings.” Rainbow flared her wings showing the metal augmentation. 

“Do they make you fly faster?” Twilight guessed. 

“Yes, enough that when I really push it I have been told I teleported, but pushing it really hurts.” Rainbow said with a smirk. 

“What else do they do?” Twilight asked, incredibly curious about the pegasus’s wings.

“They also allow me to fly without my pegasus magic which is really useful when magic stops working, which will happen by the way. Actually write this down.” Rainbow got a serious look on her face. 

“Do not rely on your magic at any point when dealing with the anomalous. Always have a backup plan or way to defend yourself. Your magic can and will just all of a sudden stop working.” Rainbow continued on somberly “I watched a pegasus lose his magic as…. something chased him. Obviously he died.” 

A shiver went down Twilight’s back. The idea of just losing her magic terrified her. “Got it” Twilight said as she wrote down what Rainbow told her to.

Rainbow noticed Twilight’s change in attitude and wanted to prevent everything from getting too serious as it wasn’t her preferred style. So she continued to talk about her wings in hopes of avoiding a super serious atmosphere. “Also another cool thing about my improvement is there not actually fully metal, there part biological metal.” 

The words biological metal catch Twilights attention just like Rainbow hoped it would. “Biological metal?” Twilight questioned.

“Yes biological metal, if you were to place a piece of my wing improvement under a microscope you would see cells.” Rainbow explained, poking her wing with a hoof.

“So you grow your augment with your body?” 

“Yes and no. Some parts of my augment are actual metal. Like the pins and gears in my humerus bone. But for the parts that are bio metal yes I do grow then. Thankfully they don’t just keep growing as biological metal acts just like metal and has all the properties of metal. So I would need a blow torch or something of that nature to trim or cut the metal off.” Rainbow finished by hitting her wing edge with her hoof making a clank sound.

“So because your body is growing the metal using cell division? I assume your genetic code is changed in some way to allow you to grow metal.” The alicorn guessed. 

“Nope they have the same genetic code as the rest of my body. They are an anomalous augmentation. Having metal on the leading edge of my wings should not make me fly faster yet it does.”

“I thought the Foundation contained anomalous objects?” Twilight asked confused. 

“They do, but we are not afraid of using anomalies to help contain other anomalies. Like in the case ….I don't know if I have the clearance to tell you that.” Rainbow thought for a second. “Not gonna risk it, sorry.”

Twilight nodded “It's ok I understand.”

“Yea it's some you're gonna have to get used to.” Rainbow said with a shrug.

“Now obviously I’m Mekhanite ...well kind of, you see the SCP Foundation has a system called ‘leaning’. After your first few years and you have proven yourself to be loyal, mostly competent and are in need of an augment. You can’t be a janitor or have Clearance level below two and get an Anomalous augment. “ Rainbow said with a roll of her eyes. 

“Anyway” Rainbow said with the wave of a hoof “You can choose a side to lean into. I chose to get the Cogwork Orthodox wing improvement in order to get this improvement.The downside is I can no longer get Sarkic augments or other kinds of improvements.”

“So you can't have both?” Twilight asked.

“Yep.”

“Now that the groundwork has been laid. Let’s go over the really important Stuff. I would recommend Twilight you make an entire page of that notebook dedicated to what we are about to talk about. “

Twilight did as Rainbow said.

“This is something you’ll be quizzed on often and is something new must know instinctively. Objects Classes, each SCP is given a class based on how difficult they are to contain. There are as follows. Safe, Euclid, Keter and one more that I have special clearance to tell you about Thaumiel.”

A Safe Class classification does not mean the object Isn’t dangerous or its effects aren’t dangerous, it simply means that if you put it in a box it will stay in the box. 

Euclid Class objects are anomalies that if put in a box, may leave the box. This is the most broad classification of SCPs. Objects or entities that show the ability to think for themselves are almost always classified as Euclid, due to the inherit unpredictably of an object with the capability to think and act for itself.

Keter Class objects are SCPs that if put in a box and left alone. It will leave the box or is incredibly complicated to contain and/or costs a ridiculous amount of money to keep locked away. This does not mean the SCP is super dangerous, just really difficult to contain. 

Thaumiel class objects are SCPs that can be used to make a box to contain other SCPs. Do not confuse these with SCPs that have potential benefits. And under no circumstances are you to tell any creature about the classification of Thaumiel.

Got all of that.” Rainbow asked.

“Yea.” Twilight said as her quill stopped writing.

“Good now If am correct, didn't you plan on joining the CMC on their last camping trip before the running of leaves?” Rainbow asked as she stretched out. 

“Yes I did, I plan on teaching them about-” Rainbow Interrupted the alicorn. 

“You're supposed to meet the CMC, Rarity and Applejack at the entrance to the White Tailed woods in two hours. Going by the schedule that’s hanging in your kitchen.”  Rainbow said with a grin.

Twilight proceeded to teleport most likely to check the kitchen. 

A second later Twilight reappeared in a lavender flash of light looking panicked. Before the alicorn could speak Rainbow talked. “We’re done for today Twilight, go pack up. And hide that notebook well.” Twilight nodded and disappeared once again this time with the notebook in hoof. 

“Rarity is going to lose her mind when she hears about this.” Rainbow said to herself as she headed home to grab civilian camping gear.
> Chapter 5 A Field Agent Talks To A Informant
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Rainbow closed in on the entrance path into the White Tailed woods. She spotted Rarity waiting alone at said entrance and this time she only had one small cart partially full of suitcases and bags. 

Rainbow came in from the sky above landing next to the white unicorn.

Rarity was surprised to see Rainbow here at all. She had said she was going to be busy today and was supposed to meet them halfway up the trail late at night. Going by the saddlebags she had on the pegasus was planning to join them, forty five minutes early no less. This was very unusual for the pegasus.

“Rainbow is everything normal?” Rarity said as she briefly looked around but nopony was around their location for at least a good distance. 

“Everything is mostly normal.” Rainbow answered as she turned to look closer at the cart. “Are we clear?” Rainbow asked as she inspected Rarity’s luggage from a distance.

“Yes I believe so.” Rarity answers curious to why things were ‘mostly normal’. But when Rarity looked closer at Rainbow she realized she was actually expressing a true emotion. Trepidation with a bit of cautious optimism thrown in. Rainbow rarely showed her actual true feelings. As Rainbow was a far better actor than her when she needed to be. Which wasn’t often thankfully. 

Rarity didn’t know much about Rainbow’s past, not that she couldn’t know Dash’s past if needed. Thanks to her employer if she really needed to know more about Rainbow’s past. She could find out … a decent amount of info on the pegasus. But as a friend she respected her enough to leave her past alone. 

Rarity didn’t exactly want Rainbow to ask her friends for information on her past as well. Rainbow probably could find out most if not all of her past if she wanted to.

Besides, Rarity already knew that Rainbow had been part of a Mobile Task Force. That alone answered many questions while making even more. But Rarity would let Rainbow tell her when she wanted to. She was a lady after all. 

Fortunately for Rarity she wouldn’t have to wait all that long for Rainbow to talk. 

Rainbow turned her head to look at Rarity. “There’s no subtle way to put it so I will say it bluntly. Twilight has just joined the SCP Foundation.”

Rainbow knew how Rarity would likely react so she covered her ears with her forelegs.

“What!” Rarity almost shouted. “She joined the Foundation? Better question is how did she find out?” 

Rainbow gave Rarity a flat look. 

“She pulled a Twilight didn’t she?” Rarity answered. Pulling a Twilight was a term both mares had agreed on to describe when Twilight actively attempted to learn more about Rainbow or sometimes Rarity herself. Twilight has done everything from trying to spy on Rainbow too following her into the Everfree Forest. 

“Yea she did.” Rainbow said. 

“Why didn’t you remove her memory with your amnestics.” Rarity asked.

“Couldn’t, she’s an alicorn now and I didn’t feel like using your equivalent, a bullet.” Rainbow said in a half mocking tone. 

Rarity let out a very unladylike short of laughter. “I wouldn’t, but can’t say the same for others.” 

“Could you do me a favor and not report this.” Rainbow asked the unicorn.

Rarity nodded “The most I can give you darling is four weeks. Otherwise questions will be asked and I don’t want to deal with that.” Rainbow was more than happy with four weeks.

Rainbow let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Thanks Rarity I guess I’m just worried Twilight will do something incredibly stupid. And having you as another pair of eyes to look out for her would be awesome.”

Rarity had always been good at reading other ponies, it's what helped her tell if a client she was making a dress for actually liked what she suggested or were just being polite. It’s also why she had the job to collect information and report it. As she could get more information from a normal conversation then most. 

This meant while it was hard to read Rainbow accurately, she could tell there was more to the words ‘Twilight will do something incredibly stupid’. Like Rainbow wasn’t actually worried about ‘Twilight’s stupidity’. Rarity’s best guess would be she was worried about Twilight in a general sense. Or she was worried about losing a friend to the anomalous. 

But Rarity once again would not push it; out of respect and the tiniest bit of fear. She did not want to truly get on the Field Agent’s bad side by trying to push Rainbow.

“How much does she know?” Rarity asked.

“Barely anything. So there’s no point in trying to get extra information out of her.” Rainbow answered with a tone that held a tiny hidden warning.

Rarity sighed. “Rainbow I know our... employers have their differences, but we are friends Dash. At least I hope we are.” 

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “We are friends, Rarity.” Rainbow almost sounded offended.

“Then you know I won’t push her like I don’t push you. Rainbow honestly, regardless of how our employer’s differ. We both have similar objectives at the end of the day. Darling,” Rarity said as she put a hoof on Rainbows shoulder. “Keeping the anomalous death count to a minimum.” 

Rainbow turned back to Rarity's cart, pushing Rarity’s hoof off in the process. “Sorry, Rarity you know how I can get sometimes.” 

“Rainbow you have seen things that I could not possibly understand and some of it would quite literally kill me.” Rarity said the last part of her sentence with an air of dark humor.  

“You being worried about Twilight is understandable, now chin up darling, being all mopey is a bad look on you.” Rarity said.

Rainbow simply nodded. 

Rainbow spotted a green suitcase with a tag that had a small blue five pointed star. “Expecting trouble?” Rainbow asked curious as to why Rarity was bringing along her sniper rifle. 

“One can never be too safe.” Rarity answered as she walked over to the cart. ”Besides Rainbow I know you have your invisible saddlebag on, since you never leave your cloud house without it.” Rarity pointed out. 

“Fair enough.” Rainbow admitted as Rarity was correct. 

The sound of three filly’s talking excitedly started to reach the mare's ears.

This caused Rainbow to take to the air to act more in character with what the CMC and Applejack expected of her. While Rarity simply stayed where she was.

Rainbow flew towards the CMC low as to fly over the three filly’s heads “What took you four so long?” She asked as she passed by.

Applejack opened her mouth to answer the pegasus but an excited orange filly spoke first. “Rainbow you're here?! I thought you couldn’t make it.” Scootaloo yelled up to the sky.

Rainbow turned around to pass over their heads once again. “Turns out I can.” Dash answered as she landed in front of the group with a small flourish. 

“Awesome.” Scootaloo said as she zipped up to Rainbow using her scooter. 

“Y’all sure? Ah thought you had just come back from Wonderbolt Reserve training. Ain’t you tired?” Applejack asked. She had on her saddle bags filled with camping gear.

“Ppfff, it was nothing I couldn’t handle.” Rainbow replied with the wave of a dismissive hoof.

“If you're sure. Now where is Twilight?, she’s normally really early to things like this.” Applejack asked. 

“Darling she’s always early to all appointments, but maybe she’s been given some last minute princess task. I’m sure she will show up.” Rarity answered.  As if summoning her, a lavender flash of light appeared to the right side of Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, scaring the daylights out of the poor fillies. 

“Am I late?” Twilight asked looking around nervously. She was wearing saddlebags that looked like they were packed in a hurry. There was also a very annoyed looking Spike next to the alicorn as well. He had his own backpack on as well. 

“No you're not late Twilight.” Spike said, crossing his arms letting out a huff. Spike walked over to Sweetie Belle, who was getting up after the jump scare of Twilight teleporting in.

“What are we waiting for!? Let’s get going!” Scootaloo shouted excitedly as she zipped around the group on her scooter.

“I reckon we’re good to go.” Applejack said in agreement with the young pegasus. Everypony else gave signs of agreement as Applejack moved forward to take the lead. The rest of the group followed.

But a certain alicorn seemed to purposely be at the back of the group.
> Chapter 6 A Princess talks to both GOC and SCP.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Of course you're still awake.”  Rainbow commented as she turned her head to see Twilight standing at the opening of her tent. All the tents were laying in a cave with the smoking remains of a campfire in the middle. Rainbow herself was sitting in front of the cave opening in a small dirt clearing. She had her Reality Compass laying on the ground in front of her. With her bag still on her barrel.

Twilight looked apologetic as she started to walk out of the cave. She was taking care not to make much noise so she didn’t wake up anypony as she left. Once she was next to Rainbow she sat down on her rump with a sheepish look on her muzzle.  

“I can’t sleep, S-sorry.” 

“It’s understandable.” Rainbow answered as she turned her head to overlook the cave. 

“I’m still trying to process the idea that I’m part of a group that deals with the supernatural.” Twilight admitted as she hoofed the dirt in front of her drawing small lines as she did so.

“Yea it was a bit much to take in when I first joined the Foundation.” Rainbow gained a faraway look in her eyes like she was looking through Twilight. “Sometimes it still is.” Rainbow answered her eyes refocusing on the alicorn.  She then turned to look out at the forest.

“I’m not going to be teaching you anything else about the SCP Foundation right now, Twi, sorry.” Rainbow said assuming what Twilight was going to say next. 

“I wasn’t going to ask about that.” The alicorn corrected. “Then what?” Rainbow questioned not bothering to look but at the alicorn.

“Is the Rainbow I know real?” Twilight questioned.  

“Hmm? What’s that suppos’t mean?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow. 

“Is the Rainbow I know, the mare I have known for four years now is she real?, or is she some kind of cover story? A false identity you put on to keep your cover.” Twilight asked, sounding almost scared of the answer. 

Rainbow let out a quiet whistle “Honestly Twi, that is a question I don’t even know the true answer of.” Rainbow crossed her forelegs thinking. 

“I have taken on a ridiculous number of identities over the years... and by you asking that question you're also asking what I do for the Foundation.” Twilight flinched at the accusation, she hadn’t meant to sneak that question in.

“I didn’t mean that Rainbow sorry.” Twilight apologized.  

Rainbow’s ears twitched as she heard the sound of a tent opening in the cave. Rainbow once again turned to look at the cave spotting a certain dressmaker who was making her way over to the two mares. Twilight had frozen up when she heard the sound of hoof steps behind her thinking the pony had been woken up by her and Rainbow’s conversation. 

Rarity levitated a green blanket in her magic as she approached. She then put the blanket down on the ground then sat down the same way both Twilight and Dash were sitting, just to Rainbow’s left side. 

“Waiting for something?” Rarity asked pointing towards the Compass in front of Rainbow. 

“Yea Bloodraven is stopping by in Ponyville.” The pegasus explained looking at Rarity. With Twilight gaining a confused look on her muzzle who was Bloodraven?

“Oh dear, is she heading here?” Rarity pointed at the ground with a hoof. 

“She has to check in with me in a few minutes. But knowing her, she will either not show up till hours later or…. hey Twi?” Rainbow turned back to face the alicorn. 

“Y-yea?” Twilight asked.

“Do me favor and cast a barrier spell that can block sound over the cave entrance.” Rainbow asked.

Twilight’s brain took a full second to register the request. “Uhh Sure.” She didn’t really understand why but Twilight casted the spell to cover the cave anyway.

“At least Sweetie Belle, nor the others, will wake up now.” Rarity said appreciatively to her lavender friend. “So Rainbow what is Bloodraven up to? Sarkics don’t normally come to Ponyville of all places.“

“Class-e-fide.” Rainbow answered jokingly while giving Rarity a flat look and added “Really? Why would you even bother asking?” 

“It was worth a shot.” Rarity answered. 

Twilight was more confused than before, Rarity had said the word Sarkic, which meant she was with the Foundation. But Rainbow had acted annoyed at her question. 

“Wait Is Rarity with the SCP Foundation?” Twilight asked the mares. 

Before Rainbow could answer Rarity did. “No Darling I’m GOC not SCP.” 

Twilight was now justifiably confused, wasn’t the Foundation the only one that dealt with anomalies? “I thought only the Foundation was dealing with the anomalous?” 

“Rainbow!” Rarity said indignantly.

Rainbow retaliated “What, hey! I total you she’s super green. She knows basically nothing!” Rainbow let out an annoyed huff crossing her forelegs. “Besides I didn’t want to tell her about you without your approval.” 

Rarity nodded “I suppose that is fair.” The unicorn turned to look at Twilight. “Well Twilight I’m a part of the GOC, the Global Occult Coalition.”

“Wait I don’t have anything to write this down with or on!” Twilight whined as she got up “Be right back” Twilight disappeared in a lavender flash of teleportation magic. 

“Fucken Hell Rares.” Rainbow groaned in clear annoyance, facehooving as she spoke. 

Rarity blankly blinked “I should have expected that, shouldn't have I?” Rarity stated more than asked the Foundation agent.

“Have you met Twilight Sparkle?” Rainbow replied with sarcasm dripping from her voice.  

“No I haven’t, my first time what’s she like?” Rarity answered with her own brand of sarcasm.  

Rainbow answered in kind “She’s too curious for her own good, very smart, an alicorn, good looking” -

“Ooh really? Tell me more-“ Rarity commented. 

“fuck off, annoying at times, likely to get herself hurt, I could continue.” Rainbow finished with a roll of her eyes. 

“No need. I think I know her.” Rarity said with an air of comedy. 

Twilight reappeared with her notebook floating next to her surrounded by a glow of lavender magic. “I’m back.” 

“May I?” Rarity asked. 

“She doesn’t even know about personnel ranking yet.” Dash groaned but she knew she would have to tell Twi about it later so might as well. “But fine give her the hoof notes. No more.” 

“Wonderful, as I said Twilight I’m a part of the Global Occult Coalition. Another Organization that deals with the anomalous or as we say parathreats.” Rarity explained. 

“So does the SCP Foundation work with the Global Occult Coalition like the Sarckic cults or the Mekhanites.” Twilight asked. 

“Not exactly, the Foundation and have a more tense relationship.” Rarity answered.

“Neither one likes the other one that much but will reluctantly work together when needed.”  Rainbow added. 

This didn’t make sense to Twilight, weren’t they on the same side? “Why reluctantly?”

Rainbow spoke first “Short version, Because the GOC is a group of gun wielding idiots who shoot first and ask questions later. It doesn’t matter how dangerous the anomaly is, the conclusion is the same, Destroy Destroy Destroy.” 

Rarity gave Rainbow an exasperated look. “Excuse me?” 

“It's what the Foundation would have wanted me to tell her.” Dash answered. “And it's not entirely wrong in some cases either you have to agree.” 

Rarity got up and gave the pegasus a glare. “And the GOC would say SCP Foundation is a group of idiots who think they can keep everything locked up in a box. Then somehow keep it from getting out and killing everything in sight. Need I speak about 096 and how you needed our help killing it. And that was only after it ended up killing how many?” 

Rainbow let out a growl getting up herself as if to challenge Rarity. “The GOC will kill innocent creatures simply because they were born with anomalous properties that they didn’t ask for.“

Twilight had never really seen Rainbow and Rarity argue like this. The two never hung out like the rest of them did. Rainbow would prank with Pinkie while Rarity would go to the spa with Fluttershy. Was this why the two of them never really did anything together? It would make sense.

“Oh? Your D-class-“ Rarity stopped herself; she knew this wasn’t helpful. “Rainbow lets not have this argument now. Especially in front of Twilight. We have had this same argument hundreds of times and probably will a hundred times more, neither of us are going to budge. So let’s just move on.” 

Dash hesitated briefly, she looked like she wanted to say something but chose not to and nodded sitting back down with Rarity doing the same.

Rarity cleared her throat and looked back at Twilight who had a concerned expression on her face. “Twilight you alright?”  

Twilight was a little bit concerned. “Yea I’m fine just not used to seeing you two fight. You two interact the least out of us six. I almost never have seen you two interacting. Is this why?” 

Both mares nodded. With Rainbow elaborating “And before you ask We’re friends Twi.” 

“We just have a nuanced friendship.” Rarity said looking at the field agent to see if she described it correctly. Rainbow gave a shrug of good enough. “I’ve saved her life and she’s saved mine. Not including when she was falling from the sky during the young flyers Competition.” 

Rarity laughed nervously rubbing the back of her neck. “Imagine that’s what had killed me, not some reality bender or some anomalous monster. A simple fall.” 

“Not a bad way to go compared to many things.” Rainbow added absentmindedly. To which Rarity visibly bounced the idea in her head then nodded. “True.”

“So is this like Rainbow’s true age again?” Twilight asked, starting to feel like she was in over her head,... again. 

“No I’m actually thirty years old, no years of disappearing off the face of the world.”  

Twilight nodded accepting the situation for what it was. “So I’m guessing the difference between the SCP Foundation and GOC is their ideologie when dealing with anomalies.” 

“Yes darling, that is the biggest difference between our employers.” Rarity confirmed. “We have the same overall goal but we go about completing that goal quite differently. As you saw it can easily lead to arguments about the proper way to do things.”

“Sorry.” Rainbow interjected quickly.  

“Same here.” Rarity replied giving Rainbow a nod and continued “I would prefer to not go into specifics as that will start another argument. Rest assured that the GOC will work with the Foundation when needed or when it is seen as helpful.” The unicorn looked at the pegasus giving her permission to add on, which Rainbow did. 

“Also by the lack of us shooting at each other we were not openly or in any way hostile to each other. Just wary of each other. As part of the Foundation Twilight the rules are simple when talking to GOC that are met in the field or by accident. Don’t give them any information unless necessary to complete the mission. Do not consider them hostile unless they prove themselves to be and you are to support them if needed to complete the mission as they will do the same.” Rarity nodded in agreement with Rainbow. 

“So does this change how we talk on a day to day basis?” Twilight asked as she wasn’t too worried about her overall relationship with the unicorn. Just the way she interacted with Rarity sounded like it would change. 

“Darling as long as we don’t actively discuss the paranormal, nothing changes between you and me. I’m the same Rarity you knew yesterday and will know a week from now.” The unicorn said. “Rainbow should I say more? Or is that enough?” 

Rainbow didn’t get a chance to answer the question as a roar rang out across the quiet forest. 

Twilight reacted by jumping into the air dropping her notebook in the process. Then with Rarity getting to her hooves. “I’m hoping that’s Bloodraven.”

Rainbow got up with a weirdly blank expression on her muzzle. “That was Bloodraven’s roar, which meant she found something she didn’t like and now wants me to help her with what she found.”  Dash picked up her Reality Compass, closed it and put it in her bag. 

“Darling I hope you know I will be following you.” Rarity stated, there was no room for discussion in her voice.  

“Not going to be able to stop you.” Dash conceded and watched as Rarity ran into the cave going through Twilight’s barrier in the process. Then picked up her green suitcase in her magic and ran back out. 

Once Twilight was able to calm herself down and land she asked. “What’s going on?” 

“Bloodraven found something which means it’s dangerous and most likely anomalous. With Cogsworth most likely not far behind her, those two might as well be married.” Rainbow answered.

Twilight felt the pieces fall into place “So… we’re going to check it out aren’t we?” The alicorn concluded. 

“Yep and follow me.”
> Chapter 7:  A Princess walks through.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight was doing her best to keep up with Rainbow as she followed the cyan mare, flying over the trees. The night air was surprisingly cold on her coat as she flew, but the alicorn didn’t care. Her mind was too busy worrying about seeing her first anomaly. 

Thousands of ideas of what they were going to find ran through her mind. Rainbow had talked about monsters and creatures that didn’t obey logic.That they were anomalous in nature and they could be as safe as a Fly or as dangerous as an Ursa Major. Was she going to run into one? The heavy instinctual fear of the unknown ran through her as she flew.

But the same sense of unknown filled her with wonder and excitement. To see this hidden world of the impossible, masked in plain sight. To learn the impossible- Twilight’s thoughts stopped as she heard music playing. 

Not just any music, it sounded like old fashioned carnival music, in the middle of the forest. Twilight started paying far more attention to her surroundings now as the nearest carnival or amusement park she knew of was nowhere near Ponyville. 

“You hear that too Twi?” Rainbow looked over her shoulder asking the alicorn. 

“The carnival music?” Twilight replied, unsure of her own answer as she looked around her trying to find the source of the music. But all she could see was more forest ahead and below her. 

“Yeah. The music.”Rainbow came to a stop mid air. She then used her control GEM to pull a small bronze box with a short pole extending out the top. The box had several small buttons along the left side, a bunch of dials on the front and another gem on the back. Along with a strap that was big enough for the alicorn to hang the box from her neck. 

Twilight quickly realized that it was a hoof held radio.  

“Rarity do you hear the carnival music as well? '' Rainbow said into the radio after hitting a button or two and turning a dial. 

“Indeed, but for the life of me I cannot hear its source and no matter where I go it stays the same volume!” Rarity huffed back presumably through her own radio.

“I’m going to try to reach Cogsworth.” Rainbow replied as another roar rang out over the forest. 

“”That’s Bloodraven right?” Twilight asked, hoping to confirm what she had heard earlier. 

“Yes, that's Bloodraven, she’s a griffin.” Rainbow explained, fiddling with her radio controls attempting to contact Cogsworth.

“Why is she roaring so loud? Won’t that just bring more attention to her and what we’re trying to hide?” Twilight asked, concerned.  

“The roar serves a few purposes.  Her roar has a low level memetic property that triggers a creature's instinctual fight or flight response and chooses flight for them. It kinda like… scares them off if you know what I mean.” Rainbow continued. “Plus if you need to send a message no matter what, you can't do better than a loud roar.”

Rainbow continued messing with the radio trying to reach her friend till it made a click of static and a voice started speaking.

“Hello There! And Welcome To Pinkie Pie’s Wonderiffic Amusement Park! Made Possible By Dr. Wondertainment. Bring the whole family for a day of Wondertainment! Ride the famous Sky Cloud ferris wheel or the thrilling Thriller Chiller!  And only for seven bits per creature! What a bargain!” The message then started repeating itself. 

Twilight looked at the radio in disbelief, Pinkie Pie’s Wonderiffic Amusement Park? A part of her briefly wondered if the past few days had been an elaborate prank by Rainbow and Pinkie.  But the look on Rainbow’s face mixed with the seriousness Rarity displayed earlier convinced her otherwise. 

“What was that?” Twilight asked. “And why did it say Pinkie Pie’s Wonderiffic Amusement Park?” Twilight added as confusion ran through her head.  

“Whatever it is it mentioned Dr. Wondertainment, and that is not a good sign.”  Rainbow looked around looking for any changes in the landscape, nothing. The field agent went back to messing with her radio. 

“Who’s Dr. Wondertainment?” Twilight asked instinctively as she continued looking at Rainbow as if the pegasus was physically wearing the answer. 

Rainbow wouldn't normally give a full explanation in the field but since they were dealing with Wondertainment directly it seems, she decided to. 

“Dr. Wondertainment is the name given for an anonymous entity. The SCP Foundation believes it's either an individual or a business that makes toys and other things to entertain young creatures and adults. In most if not all cases their stuff is anomalous in some way. Sometimes in dangerous ways, sometimes not. In many cases it appears unintentional when the object is possibly dangerous or harmful.” As Rainbow recited from memory of a thousand briefings her radio made another static filled click.

Then a male voice played over the radio. “This is a secure channel, state your identity immediately or-“ Rainbow rolled her eyes and interrupted the displeased voice. “It’s Rainbow Cogsworth.”  

“By Mekhane! Finally!” Shouted the voice from the radio who Twilight assumed was Cogsworth. “It seems the anomaly messes with radio communications.” Rainbow stated. 

“Affirmative. Have you gotten the radio advertisement?”

“Yea, we’re dealing with a Dr. Wondertainment anomaly, right?” Rainbow asked. 

“Affirmative, Command has ordered us to scout out the anomaly for the containment team. Us three have been designated MTF Beta 72 Codename ‘Amusement Seekers’. Sending coordinates to your compass.”

Rainbow let out a huff. “There are two others with me, one blue vest and a bright green recruit.” The pegasus pulled out her Realty Compass and started flying to the coordinates sent to her. With Twilight keeping pace.

Cogsworth spoke again. “Is the blue vest Diamond?” 

“Yup, it's Diamond. And the bright green is coming for their psychological profile. It’s safer to have them come with me, knowing her she'll probably get too curious and try to explore alone.” Rainbow said, beating Cogsworth to the punch. “It's who I warned you about earlier this year. “

Twilight didn’t know if she should feel insulted but kept her muzzle shut. 

“Understood. Holding position until you arrive at our location. Cogsworth out.”  

“Rainbow out.” With a click, Rainbow changed channels back to Rarity. “Rarity follow my radio beacon.” Rainbow said.

“Ok Darling.” The fashionista replied. “Over and out.”

Rainbow turned to look at Twilight. “Now I want you to do exactly what I say at all times. Got it Twilight?” Rainbow’s tone was harsh and direct. 

“o-ok Rainbow...” Twilight said, looking away nervous and unsure of herself.

Twilight, look at me.” Rainbow firmly stated. Twilight looked back at her as steady as she could muster.

“Stay next to me at all times. Do not at any point, for any reason, leave my side.” Rainbow command evenly. Her expression serious as her eyes stared directly into Twilight’s soul.

“I’m gonna be straight with you Princess. Where we’re going? I’m not going to have any explanation for it. Why? Because I’ve seen things, things that would turn your head upside down and give you night terrors for the rest of your life that even Luna can’t fix. ” Rainbow stopped for a moment, drilling the thought into Twilight with her eyes. “I want you to drop the curiosity, for now, please. You’re not gonna find any answers tonight.”

Twilight nodded, glupping. “G-got It.” She was now far more nervous than before.  

“Good,we’re here.” Rainbow said, pointing to a small clearing and started flying down towards the small clearing.  As Twilight landed with Rainbow she could see two figures.and what looked like a stone structure.

The thing stood out like a sore hoof in the forest. It looked like an entrance to an amusement park designed by Pinkie personally. The stone was painted a pure pink that looked like it had been sun bleached over decades of exposure. With metal that had rusted completely over time. The entrance had four separated stone archways each with their own set of rusted Turnstiles. 

Two of the archways had rusted iron bars blocking the entrance. With the two other iron bars heavily damaged. One having been torn from its hinges and the other being bent inwards. 

Above the arches the words Pinkie Pie’s Wonderiffic Amusement Park!, was written in one big sign that was just as sun bleached as the stone below it. There were a few much smaller metal signs that were near impossible to read thanks to time and rust. 

The ancient entrance stood in stark juxtaposition to the surrounding lively forest.. As if it was displaced in time. Shaking off the oddness. Twilight turned her attention to the first figure.

It was a griffin named Bloodraven if she remembered correctly. She had grey feathers on her neck and head. The griffiness was wearing a dark brown leather cloak with engravings and runes that were colored with red.

Twilight was an expert in magic. But the alicorn didn’t recognize any of the runes, and some of the runes didn’t follow some of the most basic laws of rune magic or even rune assisted magic. Like having seven lines intersecting in a single point or making shapes with more than twenty sides. Some of the runes even looked like faces.. that were looking back at her. The painted faces were looking her In the eye. Some were even grinning at her. Twilight looked away from the cloak battling to keep her mouth shut and turned to pay attention to the other figure. 

Next was a dragon who stood at roughly Celestia’s head if Twilight had to estimate. He had dull orange scales coloring his face along with dirty gold colored eyes. He didn’t have the Nightmare Moon reptile like pupils. In the same way Spike didn’t. He was wearing a dark brown duster that had gold ornate gears painted all along and down the sides. On the dragon’s back was a long golden-bronze staff and what had to be a rifle as well. Twilight concluded that the dragon had to be Cogsworth by process of elimination. 

The alicorn heard the sounds of hooves and the rustle of leaves behind her and spotted Rarity emerging from the tree line. She was wearing a blue vest that had numerous pockets and places to hold objects. In the unicorn's magic was a large gun. A sniper from its size and profile Twilight assumed. The gun itself was pitch black and long enough to be bigger than her own wing. The immediate question forced itself into Twilight's mind as to where she got the equipment from. 

Twilight had to remember that she couldn’t question everything. Twilight was broken from her inspection of Rarity’s new look by the griffin speaking. 

“So Celestia’s little pet is working for the Foundation, now?” Bloodraven more stated then asked with a level of venom that made Twilight shiver. 

Rainbow turned to glare daggers at Bloodraven. Bloodraven took a step back, startled from the act before quickly regaining herself.

“Do you have some problem with me?” Twilight asked with a raised eyebrow. Upon asking a dragon popped up next to the perturbed griffiness.

“Ignore her Princess, she's got a chip on her shoulder for Princesses.” Said the dragon sarcastically as he started walking towards the alicorn. “Nice to meet you Princess Twilight.Welcome to the SCP Foundation, I’m Cogsworth.” He raised his claw to shake her hoof. 

Twilight nodded and shook the dragon's claw much happier to talk to the less aggressive dragon. “Thank you Cogsworth, but just call me Twilight.” Twilight replied instinctively. Rarity muzzle curled into a sarcastic smile.

“My dearest Twilight, are you enjoying your first night of cuddly horrors?” Rarity joked noting the pink walls that stood in front of them. Twilight chuckled.

“It’s certainly… interesting Rarity.” Twilight quietly retorted. Cogsworth took this moment to jump in.

“So you're joining us again, Rarity?” Cogsworth calmly asked the GOC informant. 

“Yes that is the case.”  Rarity affirmed. “What should I know?” She asked in a general manner. 

“Well we’re not going by codenames as there’s no point in doing so at the moment and-“ He was interrupted by Dash.

“So what do we know at this moment, Cogsworth?” Rainbow asked.

“Oi, I was getting there.”  The dragon sounded rather displeased but continued on. 

“No codenames, command approved, and command wants radio silence as Gamma-5 is occupied and can’t run interference at this time.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Red Herrings are occupied? With what?” 

“Don’t know, they didn’t say.” Cogsworth answered. 

The dragon continued. “Next is that the skip appears to be a pocket dimension anomaly.” He then pointed towards the entrance. “The gate appears to be the entrance. However, it's an all access entrance. For the newcomer that means that anything can go through.” 

The dragon picked up a small branch and gently tossed it towards the gate. Twilight watched as soon as it passed the turnstile it just disappeared. Twilight didn’t feel any magic when it vanished but from where the branch had gone a few small bits of confetti started drifting to the ground.  

“We checked if the portal was safe to travel and it is. Therefore we are being ordered to explore the local area inside the portal.” 

Rainbow spoke up. “Why am I required? I know command won’t radio me to not break my cover, unless it's a Keneq disruption class or higher?” Dash asked. 

Cogsworth shrugged. “My guess is for memetic/cognitohazard coverage.” He answered.

“You’re probably right”. Rainbow responded coldly. Annoyed at the whole situation at large.

Cogsworth nodded sympathetically before continuing. “The plan is to go in as soon as possible. So no time for full introductions or small talk. That can be done after.” The dragon finished.

Rarity spoke next. “I assume Twilight has been told the rules?” 

“Drilled it into her myself.” The cyan pegasus answered seriously. Rarity smiled at that genuinely before Rainbow turned to the gate, staring at its rusted bars and bleached stone. 

“I’m taking point.” Rainbow said as she started walking to the front of the gate. Rainbow looked at the gate as she drew her revolver out and loaded the cylinder with six rounds. 

Twilight knew she had her magic to defend herself. But remembered Rainbow talking about how magic sometimes didn’t work when the anomalous was at play and she didn’t want to be left defenseless against some monster. 

“If magic can’t be relied upon for self defense. Can I have something to protect myself with?” Twilight asked.

“It’s not a bad idea.” Rarity agreed with the alicorn. Looking to Rainbow for the final word. Rainbow looked at the sign for a moment thoughtfully before turning to Twilight and pulling out a spare clawgun.

“I have an extra USP, but do you even know how to use a gun?” Rainbow asked with worry.

Twilight looked at Rainbow.  “Yes I Do, my brother taught me. He was the captain of the Guard after all. Princess Celestia also had me do an essay on firearms and their effects on-“

“Do you know how to shoot one without killing yourself?” Rainbow interrupted Twilight’s explanation, she didn’t need to know why Twilight knew how to shoot a gun just that she could. 

“Yes, I can properly use a gun, Rainbow.” Twilight said, putting confidence in her voice.

“Don’t use it unless you have to.” Rainbow said as she hoofed the gun over to Twilight along with a holster and two magazines. Twilight floated the weighty clawgun with her magic as she quickly checked the magazine and chamber.

“I will Dash.” Twilight assured her as she put the gun on safety and put it in its holster. 

After a brief explanation on how the USP was operated the group gathered in front of the gate. Ready to go in. 

Twilight had to suppress her fear and excitement as she watched Rainbow walk past the turnstile and disappear in a shower of confetti. Twilight then watched Bloodraven do the same and she disappeared as well with her own shower of confetti. Then Rarity gently nudged the alicorn, reminding her she was next. 

After a breath of air Twilight walked through the turnstile and disappeared.