In the midst of the old Manehatten docks sat a red brick square.
Outwardly, this particular red brick square wasn't that much different from any of the other brick squares around it. Like many of them, it was a former warehouse. Again, not being used as a warehouse anymore didn't make this brick square special. Almost none of the old warehouses were in use anymore.
No. What made it special was what it had been turned into.
Years ago, the Old Manehattan Docks were still known just as the Manehattan docks. But Manehatten was a great, big and growing city and the old harbor soon became too small to keep up with its needs. Thus began the construction of the newer, much bigger docks, rather sensibly named the New Docks. (Celestia really needs to get better with names)
And so the story of the Old Docks ended and with it, the warehouse abandoned as the old docks began bleeding business. The warehouses here seemingly fated for either demolition or dereliction.
Except that didn't happen. Something much worse did.
The Old Docks became popular with tourists.
The docks had their own unique architecture, style and feel, something that inevitably invited ponies who chased new things - despite the best attempts of the locals to dissuade them. And these thrill chasers, who were looking for things that are new, then in turn invited the ponies who make new things into things that are popular.
Though many would argue that a slow, painful transformation into a tourist trap was a fate worse than merely fading away into blessed obscurity, many ponies inflicted with a more…entrepreneurial spirit saw the opportunity and grabbed it. And then they milked it. And then continued milking it until all that remained was a shriveled husk. (But that's enough about the Manehatten tourism board.)
Some of those spirited ponies saw just what the Old Docks were becoming and bought that red brick square in those docks with the intention of turning it into a nightclub, which became fairly successful, gaining popularity with locals and tourists alike.
Or at least, that was the story they were trying to sell.
Sweetie Drops put away a stack of papers - mostly building permits and blueprints. She wouldn't want to get lost in the building she was supposed to break into, after all, like she almost did when she snuck into the archive to ‘retrieve’ them.
Yes, she could technically just ask them to give her the papers, but there was always a risk of a mole warning the conspirators that she was onto them.
And also, where would be the fun in that?
Now, this is interesting, the agent thought as she arrived at a particular part of the paperwork relating or mentioning the Cauliflower. Or more importantly, the part that was conspicuous due to its absence of any mentions of Cauliflower.
There were no write-ups or issues in any of the paperwork she stole.
Anypony working for city administration should have just glanced at the place’s lack of records and immediately investigated them for possible money laundering or drug trafficking. At some point, life would just happen. A drunken brawl, a bad review by the hygiene inspection, ESHA (Equestrian Safety and Health Administration) writing them up for having a fire extinguisher two months out of date, a tax mishap. Anything.
And yet, nothing. The Cauliflower had a pristine record.
Impossible. In Manehattan?
She was sure she didn't miss anything. To Sweetie Drop, this lack of record could only mean one thing. Somepony went through great lengths to not stand out. To never rock the boat, being extremely careful not to bring any attention to themself. Why?
Because they were hiding something.
And stepping into the neon light cast by the Cauliflowers entrance sign, was Sweetie Drops, looking to find exactly what that was.
The agent furrowed her brow and hid the documents she was reading (Well, for a very loose definition of ‘hide’. She rolled them in a newspaper and then threw them into a dumpster, she had the blueprints memorized by now and found no reason to haul them around anymore) before looking up at the sign and sighing.
The sign was a giant, ugly green thing glowing in the early hours of a misty Manehattan morning.
It looked like a mare holding a cauliflower.
Because of course it did.
Well, at least I know I got the right address.
Standing under said sign was a large stallion with an even larger mustache in a fitting suit. The bouncer was trying his best to look intimidating and not bored out of his mind, only succeeding partially.
And behind him were the big metal double doors she needed to go through.
Sweetie Drops put on a smile and straightened her shoulders.
Hope this works.
The agent had already disposed of the first disguise she used to get into the Manehattan archive unnoticed. (It consisted of a terrible shirt with a red heart and the words 'I love Manehattan' written over it, saddlebags full of the clunkiest, loudest stuff she could find. Because if she could ever rely on something, it was the fact that ponies had an uncanny ability to excuse tourists wandering into places they shouldn't.) She had shed that disguise in favor of a simple, yet very elegant and tasteful cocktail dress from Rarity, alongside some very untasteful and garish earrings and large and obnoxious golden necklace.
It hurt her soul to wear a nice dress and ruin it with bad jewelry, but she had appearances to make. Too classy and she wouldn't fit in with this kind of a business. She had to balance it somehow.
The agent sighed again, promising herself to make it up to Rarity - even if the mare would never know. It was about the principle of the matter.
I wonder if she would design a wedding gown…
Sweetie Drops shook her head. She would have time for that later. Right now, she had to get past the bouncer.
The agent took a confident step forward, doing her best to not slow down even as the bouncer got in her way.
"Excuse me? I believe there is a party past these doors, one I should very much like to attend,” Sweetie Drops said in her best imitation of a Canterlot accent - which sounded almost the same as her very real Canterlot accent. She had grown up in Canterlot, after all–but just a little more obvious so that others who heard it realized it was a Canterlot accent.
"It’s a private party,” the bouncer said, tapping at the clipboard with his front hoof. “Your name?"
The bouncer paused and looked up from the clipboard with the empty, uninterested stare of a stallion who regretted many things in his life, but mainly the lack of caffeine in said life at the moment. "The name also needs to be on the list. Just so we’re clear."
The agent smiled.
The bouncer, for reasons only known to him, had decided to adhere to a certain stereotype and wear sunglasses, despite there being no need to wear sunglasses at five in the morning.
More importantly, the sunglasses had the reflection of the clipboard in them and, while the names there were hard to read, she didn't need to get it spot on, only close enough.
"Candy Floss,” the agent lied effortlessly. “Does that happen a lot? Ponies trying to get in?"
The bouncer's shoulders sagged as he let out a long- suffering sigh.
“More often than I would like,” he muttered, before shaking his head and suddenly stopping. His nostrils flared and his expression changed.
The agent grit her teeth, reaching a hoof into her mane for a hidden weapon, muscles tensing and on hair trigger.
The bouncer suddenly leaned forward, his mustache twitching like an angry caterpillar. The agent stiffened, weapon nearly drawn,
Then the guard sniffed.
"Oh, you're- You know you could have just gone through the back, right?”
The agent stared at the bouncer, barely able to hide her confusion.
“I–”
“Wait, don't tell me,” the bouncer inputted, face-hoofing. “You forgot the password. Again.”
A few things clicked in the agent's mind.
He thinks I'm one of them.
Sweetie Drops held herself from smiling. It could have been a trap but, if they really had genuinely mistaken her for one of their own, her job just got a whole lot easier.
“Well, I just-” the agent tried.
“Nope,” the burly bouncer cut her off. “Go in. I can’t deal with that now,” he looked from side to side, making sure nopony else was listening. “We have quotas to fill after all.”
The bouncer quickly scribbled something on a piece of paper.
It was a four-digit code. One that led, presumably, through the back entrance.
“Well?” the bouncer said, the paper held in his hoof expectantly while the agent stared in mute shock.
“Ehm, thanks,” she finally managed.
“Don't let this happen again,” the bouncer chastised her as he opened the doors.
“Don’t worry,” the agent said with a hidden smile. “It won’t.”
The agent waited when the bouncer opened the door for her, stepping into the building - part of her expected an ambush, but after a few moments of awkward tension, nothing happened.
That…went suspiciously well.
The agent smirked.
Now comes the fun part.
Sweetie Drops had to admit. The inside of the Cauliflower looked much more impressive than what she expected seeing it from the outside.
That didn't mean much by itself; It'd be hard to not be more impressive than a bare brick square with a flat roof. But the night club really did look good and far more alive than what she thought for this type of place. The dance floor was glowing with green and purple lights, the tables and chairs looked brand new and very comfortable and the artwork on the walls was certainly…there.
All in all, It seemed like the kind of place Vinyl Scratch would enjoy. The DJ there was even playing something very similar to her music - rhythmic electronic beats that were reverberating through everypony and everything, including the dancing crowd.
A dancing crowd. That surprised the agent.
It was, ironically, a bit late for a nightclub to be this active. At five in the morning, she would expect that the only activity the members of the crowd would be doing is evacuating the contents of their stomachs into a toilet, or failing that, any nearby flower pots. She wouldn't expect them…well, Sweetie Drops wouldn't exactly call it dancing. It looked more like convulsing to the beat of the music, but the club was definitely far more active than what she would expect at this hour
She filed this information away for later and headed straight for the bar.
Sweetie Drops sat down on an uncomfortable bar stool and started looking for a target - somepony who had the right combination of familiarity with the bar, drunkenness and openness to a stranger asking them a few innocent questions.
She instead found something far more interesting.
Looking around the lounge, sitting on one of the cushioned seats lining the walls, was a brown earth pony stallion with a winged horseshoe for a cutie mark. Said stallion had a droopy smile and was currently drinking a colorful cocktail from a glass that looked like the glassblower had hiccups while making it. This wasn’t what was strange about him, though.What was strange was the lack of color in his eyes and in his coat. He looked tired and like he was about to fall asleep at any time. Not that unusual in ponies who had probably just spent their night partying, but…
Weakness, lack of energy, vanishing colors…
Sweetie Drops didn't need to be an expert to recognize symptoms of magical exhaustion when she saw them.
"Hey, is this seat free?" Sweetie Drops asked the stallion while pointing at an empty seat at his table. The stallion gave a lazy shrug. His eyes went over the agent before he snorted and waved his hoof.
"Probably not,” he said, chuckling. “Somepony had to pay for it at some point, right?”
Sweetie Drops gave a small, fake smile, mostly choosing to ignore the offensively-bad joke.
She had enough of that back home.
“Name Quick Step, by the way,” the now-identified stallion said. “Yours?”
“Floss,” the agent lied easily. “Candy Floss.”
The agent settled into the seat, instantly feeling watched. She sat and absorbed the sounds and sights for a while - the dancing ponies, the bright lights, the beats of the music that made her wanna move to the rhythm.
Something stirred in her, something that wanted to join the crowd under the stage and dance with them.
And some other part of her wanted to scream, run, and never look back.
She went over those feelings, trying to find their shape. She at least recognized that part of her that wanted her to run. That ancient instinct of her prey species ancestor, developed in the untold millennia when recognizing kin was key to survival. Now it mostly made puppets and ponnyquins look creepy and wrong. Uncanny was the word she was looking for. The whole club place made her feel like that. It was false. Not a real place, but as a convincing imitation of a place. A stage. A trap.
But that didn't worry the agent. The opposite, really; wanting to run from a den of monsters only meant that she was still sane.
What worried her was the part that wasn't afraid. The alien, strange part that wanted to join the dance and throw her concerns away.
She was mostly worried that said part wasn't even hers to begin with.
"Nice place, ain't it?" Quick Step suddenly said. Jarred out of her musings, the agent flinched and faced him. He was staring at her through glazed, tired eyes.
"It does have its…charm,” the agent replied slowly, choosing and weighing each word carefully.
She did not know who was listening, after all.
"Yeah, once you visit the Cauliflower, you just have to keep coming back,” Quick said, sipping on his drink while staring at the little umbrella stuck in it. “It's great."
Well, that's not ominous at all, Sweetie Drops thought while nodding along.
"Though, I probably need to curb my drinking,'' Quick continued, oblivious to Sweetie Drops’ discomfort. “It's getting annoying not remembering anything in the morning."
The agent tilted her head.
"That doesn't sound healthy. How many did you have?"
Quick waved his hoof dismissively at her. "Oh, just the one."The agent shot him an incredulous look.
"The one," Sweetie drops said, staring at the blabbering, swooning-in-chair, clearly-inebriated stallion.
"Yup,” agreed Quick with an easy nod. “I just like dancing and the music. I'm not a big drinker myself. But I always have one drink before I leave. The stallion scratched the back of his head nervously. “I, eh, feel bad otherwise."
Not a hangover amnesia then. He must have been under the influence of whatever is draining ponies here.
"Interesting," the agent muttered.
"Really? To me, it sounds kinda boring," Quick admitted, taking another sip of his probably-poisoned drink. The agent grimaced–internally, of course. She had to keep her composure while on a mission.
Sweetie Drops was about to continue asking innocuous questions when from the corner of her eye she noticed something strange. A mare –earth pony, like herself– walked up to a pony sitting by a table behind Quick Step, briefly talking to the stallion before getting up and leading him towards the back of the nightclub.
Which wouldn't be so suspicious until a server stumbled while carrying drinks, spilling them all over a group of ponies and creating quite a scene.It could have been a coincidence. Ponies went about doing their… activities in nightclubs and servers spilled drinks. Nothing strange about it.
That was until the server smirked and winked towards the mare leading the other pony away.
“Sorry, be right back,” Sweetie Drops said towards Quick, getting up and following the mysterious mare towards where she was heading.
For about three steps until she was stopped by yet another stranger.
"Hey there pretty,” drawled yet another mare in what Sweetie Drops guessed was supposed to be a sultry voice, but had too much spit in her mouth to pull it off.
“I don't have time for this,” the agent muttered while trying to push around her and not to lose a line of sight on the mystery mare leading the other pony away.
And then she shivered as she felt something brush against her mind.
Wait, were her eyes always green?
"Oh c'mon. You know you want me," the strange mare attempted again. Sweetie Drops took a deep breath, stepping away from the mare.
The other mare's muzzle turned into a frown and then into a snarl “What is happening, why it isn't working? What are you-”
The mare's eyes grew wide. It was there, for a second, where she realized that Sweetie Drops knew, and then Sweetie Drops realized that she knew that she knew. And then she realized that Sweetie Drops knew, that she knew, that she knew.
Mind control can be confusing.
The mare opened her mouth, clearly about to shout something. But Sweetie Drops was already prepared.
With one impossibly fast motion of the agent's front hoof, the other mare found her legs pulled out from under her and falling into Sweetie Drops embrace.
Where the agent pressed a key nerve point in her neck in an effort to painlessly immobilize her.
The mare went stiff.
And promptly started snoring.
The agent curled a brow at the now soundly-sleeping mare and then shrugged.
Strange. That's not what that nerve is supposed to do in ponies, but I’ll take it.
Sweetie Drops quickly scanned her surroundings, trying to see if anypony watched the scene unfold. Seeing that the party continued without anypony paying her much attention, she released a breath she didn't know she’d held.
she hefted the unconscious mare onto her shoulder.
The mare she originally went after meanwhile made it to the emergency exit. The bouncer standing there simply let both her and the stallion she was leading away through like it was nothing,
The agent's expression hardened.
Whatever operation the Cauliflower was a front for, it had already cost lives. She was going to stop it, wherever it would take.
To do that, she would pretend to be one of them.
And she now had a plan.
With that, the agent hefted the unconscious mare onto her shoulder and began carrying off her unwilling cargo to the bathroom.
Strong Hoof had had a boring day.
Of course, Strong Hoof wasn't even his name, just what his name tag told ponies his name was, but it didn't change the fact that his job was boring.
His job was to open doors.
Of course, that was a gross oversimplification.
He also had to look intimidating while he opened them.
“I’ve wasted my life,” Strong Hoof muttered.
But again, he wasn't even really Strong Hoof, so it wasn't even his life he was wasting, really.
“Ehm,” a blue earth pony mare suddenly standing in front of him cleared her throat, not really to get rid of any blockage but to get his attention.
"Excuse me sir,” said Sweetie Drops sweetly, hoping that her make-up skills were up to snuff and her plan worked. She motioned at the now-beige mare slung over her shoulder. “I think my friend needs some fresh air."
Strange. He looks exactly like the front door guard. Are they brothers?
The bouncer snickered and went to open the door for her.
“Well, that was fast,” the bouncer commented as he went over to the doors again, laughing a little as the unconscious mare started to drool on Sweetie Drope’s shoulder. "She is really out of it, huh? Just don’t turn her into a vegetable. We had enough incidents for one week."
Sweetie Drops gave a curt nod, fighting the urge to turn the bouncer's face into a concave.
"Not much of a talker, are ya?" the bouncer asked, fishing for something in his pocket, the agent doing her best not to stare at what it was without being too obvious.
“Eh, dammit,” the bouncer swore.
“What?” Sweetie Drops asked.
The bouncer wilted.
“I forgot my keycard inside,” he sighed, then he gave the agent a sheepish look. “Eh, you know the password, perchance?”
Sweetie Drops started at the bouncer for a second, before stepping forward and punching in the code the first bouncer told her. The doors beeped and opened.
He gave her a thankful nod.
“Leave her in the back and dump what you gathered,” the guard said. “And you can take a break too, if you want.”
The agent shot him a look, tilting her head.
“Though we’re busy filling the quotas,” she spoke slowly and confidently - hoping she didn't accidentally break her cover.
Use the info they themself revealed. Appear calm and never panic.
The guard waved her off.
“Don't worry, chief won't bust ya. He’s too busy talking to higher ups,” he paused, looking around. “I heard the queen herself is getting involved.”
Queen? The agent thought. Queen of who?
Or what?
Despite her surprise at the revelation that this plot probably had backing of some unknown foreign government, Sweetie Drops kept her true emotions buried, cutting the guard a short nod and a thankful smile.
She carried the unconscious mare through the more muted and bare backstage area. The sounds of muffled music still came through the wall, but otherwise it was almost eerily quiet. Nothing out of the ordinary or that interesting jumped at her as worthy of further investigation.
Have to explore more.
But first she would have to find a safe spot to leave her unwilling cargo.
Dragging the unconscious mare along, she went into a long hall lined with doors and a stairwell at the end - undoubtedly leading into the upper office overlooking the podium.
Just by listening and smelling, she could deduce that the closest doors to her left led to the kitchen. So she slowly opened the doors to the right.
It was a broom closet.
The keys to it were still in the lock.
Smiling to herself, the agent swiftly went in, gagging the mare and binding her. It would take them some time to find her, judging by the dust around there, but she wanted to be extra sure. She broke the keys, throwing them at the unconscious mare. She then casually left the closet, locking it behind her with a motion of her hoof.
Sweetie Drops casually walked past them, avoiding eye contact and simply walking as if she belonged there.
The second she was behind the corner she let out a relieved sigh. This place rubbed her the wrong way. Why was everything in here a vomit shade of green?
The agent shifted in her disguise. This was all far too risky. And she had already seen enough to more than confirm their worst fears.
She looked up the stairs and at the doors inevitably learning into the room overlooking the dance floor.
Sweetie Drops expression grew grim.
She hadn’t become the best agent S.M.I.L.E.had by doing ‘enough’.
Slowly, she walked up the stairs, internally thanking the, of course, green carpet for muffling her hoof steps until she stood by the doors.
The doors themself appeared as fairly mundane, if sturdy, security doors with even sturdier locks. Her little trick with her hoof grip manipulating the insides of the lock wouldn’t help her here. The pins were too many and too heavy for it to work.
Sweetie Drops smiled.
Luckily for her, she wasn't a one trick pony.
It took a little digging to find it in her stolen saddlebag, but she did.The device looked like a large, silver coin, inscribed with meticulously carved runes.
Now, she just needed to get it through the still very locked doors.
Luckily, she already found the way.
The agent, once again, thanked whoever decided that installing a carpet in the secret base was not only not tacky but also a great idea that could not backfire in any way.
She slipped the enchanted coin under the carpet until its magic reached behind the soundproofed doors.
The bug successfully installed and her task here accomplished for the time being, she stepped back, walking away and looking for a safe space to activate the device.
She then noticed the doors next to the broom closet. Or more importantly, the green light escaping from under it.
The agent raised a brow.
Well, that looks important and interesting.
Still as casually as she could manage, Sweetie Drops opened the doors and walked in.
And then, she almost screamed.
The room was empty of anypony. Other than how painfully green it was, it looked almost boring.
As long as she ignored that, it appeared almost mundane. Brick walls, some chairs and benches with pillows haphazardly thrown onto them. Ponies laying on them in different stages of unconsciousness, their coats universally muted and almost without color.
And in the middle, it.
The best description she could come up with at the moment was a vat of vile, green liquid.
But that description lacked several important details. Like the fact that the vat was made from a jet black material that, impossibly, appeared to be pulsing, organic and alive. Or how the liquid was seemingly the only light source in the room.
And most importantly: there was a pony floating inside.
The agent rushed towards the floating pony. She tried to get, clawing and punching, even biting. She turned all her earth pony might into an effort to get them but the vat was far more resilient than it looked. Resisting each attempt at damaging it, the agent slump next to the vat, rage building in her with no way out. She had failed. She had failed. She had-
Then she noticed that the pony inside was breathing, their chest rising and falling rhythmically.
Sweetie Drops, ever so calmly and completely in control, walked backwards out of the room, her heart thrumming in her chest and her breakfast halfway to the exit already.
She needed to get out of here and alert the guards as fast as possible. Maybe even get the Princesses here. She was an agent of S.M.I.L.E, a good one, but she was still only one pony.
It was then she bumped into the bounce.
The stallion was apparently taking his own advice and took a break from guarding the back entrance.
“Eh, are you okay?” He asked hesitantly. “You don't look good.”
“Yeah, just…shook up,” the agent answered weakly.
The bouncer gave her a significant look. The agent steeled herself for what was about to come.
“Oh, I get it,” he said with sudden realization, taking the agent utterly off guard. “Sorry, you can't feed now. We have to wait for our rations.”
The agent gave an almost absent minded nod before the full weight of those words struck her.
Feed.
Bile raised in the agent's throat. Do they…eat ponies? Eat magic? Was that what they were doing? Gathering ponies and eating their magic?
And then entered one of the mares from the club proper - the short earth pony in a pretty, but ill-fitting pink dress she saw dragging off a stallion somewhere.
"Hey Palp,” the bouncer called out towards her. “How was your shift?”
Palp? What kind of name is Palp?
“Shut up,” was the grumbling response as the pink pony went straight towards the coffee machine.
The bouncer made a face.
“Ouch, that's bad?” he asked. An angry glare from Palp his answer.
“You’re lucky that you got put on guard duty and don't have to interact with ponies,” Palp shuddered. ”I hate when they get touchy. I get it. We need them, but I feel so dirty afterwards.”
She sighed and turned towards Sweetie Drops, the agent was trying to blend in with the wall and avoid the suspicious gaze of the strangely named mare .
“Tarsus, who is this?” Palp asked. “They have the standard disguise, but I don't know her smell.”
“A newbie,” Tarsus said casually. “Actually, I think she might be an infiltrator.”
Sweetie Drops froze.
The agent gulped, hidden weapon nearly out, every muscle of a hair trigger, ready to answer any aggression from them with adhesion of her own.
“Infiltrator?” Palp said incredulously, taking a step towards Sweetie Drops, the agent prepared to strike, muscles tensing and coiling like a snake ready to attack. “That's great!”
Sweetie Drops blinked.
…
What?
“Yeah, it was about time we got someling actually trained for undercover operations here,” the bouncer agreed. “I think right now it's just chief upstairs, and that's it for ‘lings trained for this stuff.”
The agent stared at them, glossing over their strange vocabulary (what does ‘someling’ mean?) while she went through a whole cocktail of emotions from the vague feeling of dread, confusion to professional anger.
It was almost offensive to her. An undercover operation manned by civilians? It explained the, quite frankly, frightening amount of security issues, but her professional pride demanded satisfaction!
“You’re not trained?” she almost hissed.
“Nope,” said Tarsus before he gave an awkward pause at the blank look he received from Sweetie Drops. ”I mean, we’re not totally without training. There was a course.” More silence, the giant started to shift uncomfortably under the weight of Sweetie Drops disapproving glare.
“A course,” the agent said slowly and with incredible incredulity.
“Well, yeah?” Tarsus answered, while tugging at his suddenly very tight shirt collar. “I’m supposed to be a builder, ya know? But with how things are back home, not many things are getting built, so I got pulled and resigned here to do security.”
Back home? So they are foreign, but from where?
“Same here. I wanted to be a nurse,” Palp piped up with a sheepish smile. “I always wanted to care for hatchlings, but with so little food,” she shivered before sighing sadly. “There just aren't enough little ones to justify having more nurses, so I got re-trained as a gatherer.”
…Hatchlings? What hatch-
“But why did they send an infiltrator here now?” Tarsus asked, interrupting the agent's train of thoughts. “Like a real one.”
Sweetie Drops paused. Things were clicking into place. This place didn't start as a catastrophe manned by untrained civies who barely knew what they were doing. The operation was too well entrenched and running flawlessly for too long for it to be the case. It turned into one, probably very recently, because whoever made decisions here had bigger plans and needed their trained pony-power elsewhere.
Cauliflower was just the tip of the iceberg. They were planning something bigger. And she still had no idea what. They had to bust this down, probably today because of what she saw - the pony floating in that pod was reason enough - but if they did so, it wouldn't stop the bigger plan.
She needed to know more. She needed to make them talk.
A mare found dead. One of their own murdered…
“There was a security breach,” the agent said, gauging their reaction as she spoke. “Few ponies from here were found incapacitated by Equestrian authorities, and it raised some suspicions.”
Palp shifted, averting her eyes from the agent. Sweetie Drops turned to her, her eyes narrowing.
“You know something,” Sweetie Drops said. It wasn't a question.
“I-I…It's not my fault,” Palp said, her voice shaking and weak.
“Palp, calm down,” Tarsus attempted, but the smaller mare flinched as he moved towards her.
“I was hungry!” She defended herself from accusations that were not coming. “I…we don't get enough rations and I- I didn't want to hurt them! I just wanted to eat!”
“And what about the mare?” Sweetie Drops cut her off, voice cold as ice.
Palp mouth went shut, hear head hanging in shame.
This was her best chance to learn what in Tartarus was happening in this place. It was risky, but she was already on her way out.
“This incident gathered…attention,” Sweetie Drops continued. “Attention we want to avoid, “ she motioned her hoof towards upstarts nonchalantly.. “Actually, I'm pretty sure the call from our queen is about this.”
“You-” Tarsus began.
“Now, you wouldn't threaten me, would you?” Sweetie Drops said sweetly. “Because that would be very…foolish.”
Tarsus snarled, coming forward - ready to give the agent a piece of his mind.
“She is dead, isn't she? Tenna is dead”
Both of them stopped, Tarsus' face softened. The agent simply stared at the smaller mare.
“Palp, It's not your fault.” Tarsus said, but Palp only gave a laugh - a single, pathetic, hysterical laugh.
“You’re wrong,” she said, her voice breaking, she was on the verge of crying. “I…Tenna saw me feed on them. She didn't want to leave those… those ponies to die. She-she wanted to save them and…she called for help.”
Palp turned towards Sweetie Drops.
“That's why Tenna vanished, didn't she?” she said sadly. “Because she couldn’t do the smart thing. And I… I did.”
Tarsus froze, staring at her. Suddenly, something clicked in the giant bouncer's mind and the anger - still bubbling at the surface from his near confirmation with the agent - reemerged anew.
“You- you ratted her out,” Tarsus said in quiet disbelief, hoping that Palp will at least try to convince him otherwise.
She just nodded.
“Tenna was our friend!” he spat. “How could you!”
“I had to!” Palp finally spoke. “If I didn't, they would go after me!”
“What's going on here?”
Tarsus and Palp froze, gulping. Their eyes wide with fear.
Sweetie Drops simply turned to face the newcomer.
Dignified was the first word that came to mind while looking at him.
The second was dangerous.
A unicorn - at least outwardly, Sweetie Drops wasn't sure that they even were ponies at this point - with minty green fur and red eyes that bore into her with almost palpable force.
“Who is she?” he said towards the now trembling Palp and Tarsus, the two shrinking and backing away from him in fear. Even Sweetie Drops had to suppress an urge to shudder as he spoke.
It was his voice.
There wasn't a dangerous edge to it. No barely hidden contempt or hatred.. His voice was utterly and absolutely blank, devoid of anything. No hint of personality or emotion. Listening to him speak was like being forced to hear and understand static.
It made the agent skin crawl and head ring.
“She is the new arrival?” Tarsus said unsurely.
“We’re not scheduled for any new personnel,” the newcomer said, dashing the agent's hopes of fooling him with one sentence. “Who is she?”
And then he moved forward, his nostrils flaring.
He stopped and blinked.
“Impossible,” he said, voice still monotone, but with some hidden edge lurking underneath it. “You're dead. My daughter is dead-”
And finally, his face betrayed a hint of emotion:
Rage.
“Who are you?” he snarled.
The change in his demeanor was so abrupt the agent was thrown for a loop. Same for the two conspirators, who just stared in shock.
It was in that moment of genuine surprise she let her emotions get the better of her, forgetting her training and letting the wall of will and determination she built to hide them crumble just a little.
But just a little was more than enough.
She felt it, she was trained to notice it. The little foreign presence poked at her mind. She put up her defense. It wasn't enough.
Their minds met.
His was stronger.
The unicorn tore through Sweetie Dropse’s thoughts. It was a spell he had mastered over the years. He had to, in his line of work. Couldn't leave ponies remember things they didn't want them to remember, after all. This one was just…more extreme than his usual fare.
The agent staggered backwards, the strength suddenly gone from under her legs. She fell and stared at the green light enveloping everything.
Mind related magics are a subtle art. Unpredictable in a sense.
The vast majority of minds do not work solely in terms of language. Emotions, pictures, concepts and ideas are all there.
Sweetie Drops thought of many things in that moment as the not-unicorn standing above her tried to erase her mind - she thought of her duty, of her friends. Of the life she wanted.
Of Anon and Spring Break. Of a green filly that had every right to be angry, but deserved to be happy.
The agent grit her teeth, the green glow started to envelop her mind, new thoughts and feelings started to emerge. Feelings that were not hers. Thoughts that felt alien but also not…wrong.
And she thought of Lyra. Of the song she wrote for their first date. Of her face when she smiled.
Let go, something else thought,
Bon Bon took a long, deep breath.
No.
Tarsus' eyes grew wide. He took a step back - good, more space for her to move.
Bon Bon moved.
“Sir, I think it isn't working!” Tarsus yelled, but the commander stayed still. His expression turned back to a blank mask. But in his eyes, there was something. A realization.
Something in his mind clicked. A puzzle piece falling into place to create the full picture.
Bon Bon stood up. Freed from the pressure on her mind, the green glow of the commander's horn fading.
Sweetie Drops saw the opportunity in the split second the commander was distracted, calculated her odds and chose the most rational course of action available to her in the heat of the moment.
Sweetie Drops kicked him in the throat.
She spun, using her hindlegs to deliver the strongest blow she could right into the chief neck. The green unicorn folded like a house of cards, choking and gasping for air on the floor a few feets further back where he was thrown by the sheer force of the agent's kick.
Green flames. A body of an insect, looking like something out of a horror story. Amber eyes.
Palp shrieked. Tarsus did something almost as useless - he dove in to avenge his fallen commander.
Sweetie Drops dodged, tripping the charging guard and knocking him out with a single strike to the back of his head.
Get to the exit, contact the guards, fast!
The agent let the unconscious body of Tarsus slump to the ground with a loud thud, not wasting a second to look behind her, simply gunning it for the exit.
A rather loud click sounded from behind the agent. Sweetie Drops turned sharply expecting to see a coming enemy, only to see the doors were now locked shut. There didn't need to be a blaring alarm or a red emergency light to tell her she was discovered.
In the corner of the room, Sweetie Drops finally noticed Palp, shivering and trying to hide herself and the broken glass that previously covered the “fire” alarm button.
Sweetie Drops seriously doubted it called the fire brigade.
Silent alarm, of course I missed that they have a silent alarm!
Palp whimpered as Sweetie Drops slowly approached, ready for the pain.
It never came.
Palp blinked, only seeing the reopened emergency exit, the lock and the armored doors proving inadequate obstacles.
Carefully, she got up and looked outside, searching for the agent.
She did not find Sweetie Drops in the back alley behind the Cauliflower, or out in the slowly filling streets of the waking city of Manehattan. The agent had vanished into the morning mist whence she came, leaving Palp-the-changeling alone with a hard decision to make.