It was… desolate.
That’s the only word she could think of to describe it, when she first saw it. Even though it was filled with ponies, almost to bursting.
They gave her a quick tour of the general areas of the island that day, and sent her back to the ship to prepare. Today is her first day on the job.
The term has only become even more fitting. There’s no more than a dozen ponies on the island right now.
“... You want me to find out what did this?” she asks.
The unicorn that teleported her here from the ship anchored out at sea, the closest any ship or pegasus is allowed to come on pain of death, shrugs. “Pretty sure they do, yes,” he says.
“And they still haven’t found the defensive nodes?”
He nods.
She sighs. “Thank Celestia for teleportation. Do we know if they will attack us on hoof?”
He shakes his head. “We don’t know. We haven’t seen any evidence to suggest they will… or won’t, for that matter.”
She bows her head. “Roger that.” She steps forwards, into the wasteland before her, while he teleports back for the next pony.
She looks down at the blackened structures of the village. It’s almost like the village was burned down.
On her first impression, the village square is huge. At least, until she spots the remains of the far corners of a couple structures near the edge.
This must have been the epicenter.
She searches around the middle for signs of a fixed-position device.
Nothing but the strange black sand covering the entire place.
So she picks a senior to ask; the place is full of them by now. “Anyplace something might have been launched from?” she asks.
He shakes his head. “Not that we’ve been able to find. We have found a few places something might have been pulled from, though.” He proceeds to name a few sectors. “Everypony’s already run over them with a fine-toothed comb, though. There’s nothing to find.”
She bows her head. “Thank you.”
Five minutes later, she picks a time when nopony is looking to slip away from the pack.
Four hours later, she returns empty-hooved.
It takes five minutes for something to catch her attention.
There’s something recognizable on the wall in this cottage. It’s high up, where she can’t reach it for a closer examination. It’s the only recognizable object in any of the huts. The blast marks on the wall seem to be smudged around it, but otherwise continuous- and she’d expect a blast shadow, not a smudging of the blast marks.
It’s a cuckoo clock.
She stares at it for a few minutes. She tilts her head, and stares at it some more. Another Agent, of about her age, seems to notice it too- and joins her in staring at it.
I turn my head, draw the attention of one of the older Agents in the room. There’s two of them.
“Yes?” he asks.
I point at the clock. “There’s something funny about that clock,” I state.
He glances at it. “It’s a cuckoo clock.”
I roll my eyes. “Look at the blast marks. Heck, look at the clock. It’s the only clock on the island!”
He blinks, and whirls to face it. “That… That is true.” He steps closer to it, rearing up on his hind legs to get a closer look. The other grown Agent in the room starts walking over; he was further away, at the opposite side of the building. The young agent next to me seems to be hiding a snicker.
He touches the clock.
Cuck-koo!
And screams, leaping several feet backwards. Honestly, I saw that coming. There’s a reason they call me one of the best Agents around, despite being a fairly junior Agent, and it’s not because of chance.
So of course, I’m laughing my head off. The young Agent next to me is doing exactly the same thing; it would seem she saw it coming too. The other adult agent, after jumping slightly, starts laughing as well.
Cuck-koo! Cuck-koo! Cuck-koo!
Finally, the senior agent that touched the clock starts laughing as well.
By Celestia, he’s going to get teased for that. Other Agents, responding to his scream, are coming in the door, seeing the clock, and joining in the laughter.
Cuck-koo! Cuck-koo! Cuck-koo!
That was the highlight of the day, the cuckoo clock. The only time I smiled all day long.
Save now. I’m back on the ship for the night, staying up late studying the photos we took of the clock and the wall around and behind it. I’m having difficulty containing the snicker as I remember what happened.
I wasn’t able to find that other young agent in the lunchroom at dinner time. If she’s smart enough to see the cuckoo clock coming, we’ll probably get the entire puzzle solved in an afternoon if we put our heads together.
A feat that, aside from her, I alone seem to be capable of. Solving the puzzle at all, that is- forget time constraints. All the other Agents, despite being specially selected ponies from all across Equestria, seem too incompetent.
I’m late to get to the island the following day.
When I arrive, I immediately notice there seems to be a flurry of activity around the middle of the town. The center of the blast site.
When I show up, I find Agents shuffling around a shallow pit in the middle of the blast site. There’s a couple of piles of the blackened sand off to the sides.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
While the senior Agent I asked is digging in his pockets, another young Agent steps up next to me, looking at him. Upon closer inspection, I realize she’s the same young Agent from yesterday.
He comes up with a picture. “There was an X,” he states, showing it. “We haven’t found anything yet- the rock under this sand is very hard.”
In the picture, a large, red X is visible on the black sand, right in the middle of the blast zone. At the epicenter.
I look at the picture for a second longer. I look back up at him, and back down at the picture.
I hold back my comment. It wouldn’t be helpful.
The other young Agent doesn’t hold back her comment. “You’re looking in the wrong spot,” she states.
“What?” he demands.
I cringe; he’s going to be pounding on her when we get back to base tonight. She stands about a ninety percent chance of surviving.
She points at the photo. “Whoever drew the X did it to mislead. Look at the sand- the stuff in the lower left corner of the X is visibly disturbed, but not in the middle.”
True. I didn’t notice that right off; she must have good eyes.
He studies the photo for several seconds, scowls at her, and turns to go find the corresponding corner of the X.
She’s not off the hook.
I mutter into her ear. “You know he’s going to kill you for that at dinner, right?”
She smiles. “No he won’t.”
Cuck-koo!
Ahh, this would be today’s highlight. The buried object was the cuckoo clock- and Agents went flying in every direction when it went off, screaming their lungs out at the same time. After a half-seconds’ look, I start laughing. She joins me, before the other Agents start realizing what happened and laughing as well.
Scared by a cuckoo clock again.
Later, at dinner, I scan the lunchroom for her again, finding nothing. I do find that senior agent, prowling the lunchroom, searching for her.
She must be good at hiding.
On the third day, I’m the first pony back out to the island- and he’s the second. He camps the jump point, waiting for her.
I’ll have to make a note on my report- but unless I can get his name, they won’t be able to do anything about him. That’s the most annoying thing about these group assignments.
Half an hour passes. I glance over between buildings; there is nothing in any of these, and I don’t have a horn to detect the magic traces that whatever it was would have left. Of course, they could have faded by now, but still.
He’s still sitting next to the jump point, staring at the ring they placed on the sand.
She’s sitting behind him, making faces at the back of his head.
I blink. She’s a unicorn. Handy.
I make my way over, silently get her attention. She raises an eyebrow; I gesture back away. She shrugs, before dipping a hoof briefly into a pile of sand to pull out a cuckoo clock, which she places so it’s almost touching him. And so it’ll open up right into him.
Funny, that pile wasn’t there last night- but if I remember right, it was there when I arrived today. She must have seen this coming and prepared.
That’ll be priceless to watch.
She snickers silently into a hoof, before turning to trot away behind him, in the direction I gestured.
Well… Not quite. She walks up to the top of a hill, where there’s a small pile of sand.
… Or, it would be more accurate to call it a sand castle. It certainly wasn’t here before, but I might have missed it last night. I notice a piece of wire sticking out of the side of it opposite the jump point.
It’s here that she stops, and smiles at me. “Yes?”
I blink. “I was wondering, have you seen any spell remnants around here?”
She blinks. “Uh, no? Not unless you count whatever those idiots keep throwing around.” She waves a hoof down at the village. Then she grins, touching the wire, and pointing down to the warp point. “Watch!”
I look.
She pulls the wire.
Cuck-koo!
“He had to have made it at least ten feet!” I exclaim.
“Fifteen and a half,” she laughs- but I notice she keeps her gaze locked onto him.
I look at him again. After recovering from his fright, rather than laughing like the rest of the Agents (none of which seem to realize the clock wasn’t there before), he charges up the hill at us.
She giggles. “Aaaand…. Now!” She gives the wire a sharp pull.
Cuck-koo!
A second cuckoo clock, under a low mound in the sand, throws a large wad of sand right into his face.
She really prepared for it.
… I wonder where she got the cuckoo clocks.
After screaming in fright, he then runs for the shoreline to wash the sand out of his eyes. All the other Agents just laugh.
I am only barely able to fend him off, come dinner. I think he noticed that I was laughing with her, with nopony else nearby. He’s probably assumed we’re close, and is trying to get at her through me.
The idiot! He knows they purposely don’t send Agents that know each other to group sites like this!
… which in my opinion is just as stupid of a decision. Which means, if someone smart is in control of the assignments, that rule was flat-out ignored.
Again, she doesn’t show up for dinner. I take the time after dinner to find the Agent List- the list of all agents assigned to the station. It’s got descriptions of them on it as well. I scan down it.
I’m near the bottom. She…
I go over the list again, and a third time.
I can’t find her description.
Something is wrong.
I go straight to my commanding officer. Request permission to work the night at the island.
He shakes his head. “As much as I’d love to approve that, I can’t,” he states. “Everypony’s already off of transit duty. I can approve it for tomorrow, in lieu of your dayshift if you’d like. Though be warned- nopony’s on transit duty from ten ‘till eight!”
I scowl. “Um… Can I waive day after tomorrow’s dayshift in favor of tomorrow’s night?”
He tilts his head. “You know, if you want, I don’t have to waive any shifts for it.”
I nod. “Yeah, then I’ll do that. The one night only, right now, though.”
“Alright,” he states. “Approved. You’ve got tomorrow’s night in addition to the regular days. Thank you, for your dedication.”
Day four is… interesting. In a weird way. He tried making a swing or two at me, but I dodged easily. He might be stronger but, especially out on the island where there is plenty of room to move, I have the mobility advantage.
Before I even arrive, they’re doing a headcount. Did something happen? I ask, and am quickly pointed to the village.
One of the previously intact buildings has been blown up, and there’s a trail of blood leading out of it, to…
I follow the trail with my eyes. It goes out into the main blast zone, does a loop de loop, moves over, does another, moves again… I crouch down, look closer at it. Sniff it.
I don’t touch it. I don’t need to.
It’s not blood.
It’s red paint.
Wet red paint.
I glance back at the headcounting idiots and follow the trail.
At the end of the trail, I find her. She’s tying the rope in place on a gallows, hanging…
It’s not a pony. It’s got oversized buttons for eyes.
She glances up at me as I approach, pulls the knot tight, and puts a bag over the paint-stained lifesize doll’s head before jumping down. “Think it’ll drive them crazy?” she asks.
I look at the doll once again. It looks like a real pony, when the head is covered. Then I look at her. “They’re already crazy.”
She snickers, glancing up at her doll. “It’s a bag full of wet paint,” she states. “I used a frag grenade in that house to puncture it before dragging it here.” She grins at me. “It’s stitched to the noose so it won’t fall- and so I could drag it without getting covered in paint.”
I tilt my head. “Frag grenade?”
She blinks. “You know, a hoofheld bomb designed to fragment apart when it goes off?”
“Uh…” I mutter. “I’ve never heard of them.”
She shrugs. “Anyways, we probably don’t want to be too close to here when they come hunting. Don’t want to be blamed for killing a plastic doll, do we?” She grins mischievously.
I smile. “True. So, Thataway, full sail!” I gesture in the direction behind the gallows.
She giggles and leads the way.
We participate in the investigation of the blood trail and everything, but we don’t take leading roles. Three cuckoo clocks I hadn’t noticed before attack the Agents as they travel down the path, each time eliciting high-pitched screams and long jumps.
Especially when the last one turns out to be three times the size of the others, with a red… shape coming out to the sound of a loose spring. Every time an Agent walks past, it invariably bursts out and smacks them.
Except for us, because she points out the trigger- a thread strewn across the path- to me. We just step over it, while they try to figure out why it keeps hitting them- even when they try to time it.
I missed it the first time through because I didn’t follow right next to the trail; rather, I followed it visually, taking high ground so I could see where it went faster. They weren’t smart enough to do that, so by the time they reached the doll, it was as limp as spaghetti with a large pile of red paint under it.
I have my suspicions. I may be able to confirm them tonight.