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Sweetflank and Harps

by Blueshift

Chapter 2: Interlude: Bad Night

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Bad Night 1

“Again!”

“No!” Bon-Bon threw her hooves into the air in a fit of pique. She had been sitting in the H.A.A.R.P. chamber for what seemed like half the night, with only Lyra’s harp and an increasingly grumpy Lyra for company. “I’m sorry Lyra; it’s not happening, okay? You get it?”

“Fine, yeah, waste my special skills!” Lyra scowled back. “It’s not like everyone’s relying on you or anything, Bon-Bon! It’s not like you’re squandering my abilities! It’s not like-“

“You do it then!” Bon-Bon pushed the harp in Lyra’s face. “If you think you’re so smart!”

“Well, maybe I will!” Lyra half-yelled at her friend, face reddening as her horn glowed with magic. The harp made a pained ‘sploing’ noise, and one of the springs broke. Without another word, she turned on her hoof and stormed out.

“Fine!” Bon-Bon shouted after her, screwing her face in distaste as she looked over the broken harp. As she calmed down, she poked her head out of the door. “Lyra? Hey, I’m sorry. Lyra?”

But Lyra was gone.

Bon-Bon knew she should go after her friend.

But she also knew she had work to do.



Bad Night 2

“Yes, it’s deserted all right.”

Trixie kept close to the walls as she crept into the underground hanger. As a M.A.R.E agent, she expected a certain degree of danger and excitement with each mission, but she didn’t like to push her luck. Tonight though, she had struck gold. Before her was what remained of a S.O.M.B.R.A base, completely deserted apart from row upon row of brand new Terror Tanks. Some of them even had that little plastic coating still on the windows.

“Okay,” Octavia’s voice hissed into her headset from M.A.R.E HQ. “Get what you need and get out, we’ll send a full team in later to secure the place!”

“Trixie knows what she is doing!” Trixie muttered back, heading deeper into the base. There was something strange on one of the walls, something that caught her attention. One of the monitor screens was still active, its grainy display showing a large, white circle.

She stood in front of the screen for a few moments, eyes adjusting. Then she realised what it was. It wasn’t a circle. It was the moon. “Base, come in!” she hissed into her microphone. “I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but- ” She was cut off by the heavy tread of a hoof behind her.

She wheeled, and her mouth dropped open in surprise. “But – but I thought you were – “

“Yeah,” the figure smiled. “Ever been had?”

A shot rang out.

A moment later, a hoof gently picked up Trixie’s headset and smashed it into the floor.



Bad Night 3

Nurse Redheart sat slumped in her chair in the infirmary, a half empty bottle of whisky laying before her on the desk. She sipped it as she listened to the voice on the other end of the phone.

“No, no, I get it,” she grumbled into the receiver. “I just want to say, thank you. For the money. Celestia knows I need it now. It was just, such an odd request, and from you, of all ponies. Cutie Mark transplantation isn’t the sort of thing that’s done on the books, if you know what I mean, I just don’t get…” She paused as the voice interrupted. “No, no, of course not. I won’t tell anyone it was you.”

She took another sip of the whisky. It tasted funny.

Nurse Redheart toppled to the floor, taking half the contents of her desk with her. A particularly memorable snowglobe dashed itself to pieces next to her head, but it didn’t matter anymore.

“No,” the voice on the line said. “No, you won’t.”



Bad Night 4

“What is it?”

Starry Night shook the box in his hooves. “I don’t know. No-one ever sends mail here anymore, but it’s an internal one! Hoof-delivered!”

At one point, when the crazed Princess Luna had been terrorizing Metropony City with her army of Lunatrons, the M.A.R.E observatory had been a veritable hive of activity. There was always something going on, some new plot that needed a super-powered telescope pointed at it. Now though, it was just Starry Night and Comet, whiling away their time waiting for their pensions to kick in and playing cards. With all the bad guys gone, soon, they felt, that would be the fate of the whole M.A.R.E organisation; they were just getting the practice in first.

“Open it then!” Comet snatched at the box, but Starry Night kept it out of the way of his subordinate.

“I’m in charge!” he turned his nose up, angled the box away from Comet, and carefully tore the wrapping off. “Ooh!” he exclaimed.

“What is it?” Comet peered round Starry Night’s shoulder. “Oh! Sweets! Hey, give me one!” She lunged a hoof into the packet greedily.

And then the observatory was no more.



Bad Night 5

Octavia paused beneath the gigantic head of the Crystal Emperor as it hung suspended in M.A.R.E headquarters. She knew she needed to get back to work, all hell was about to break loose. But there was something about that sad, lonely robot head that had once held Equestria to ransom in a grip of terror, which now hung disembowelled at the mercy of its enemies, a gutted remain of the technological marvel it once was. Its master dead and gone. Alone.

She blinked back a tear. No, she wasn’t going to cry. Not for that.

She hurried off in the direction of the Comms centre. Commander Derpy would want to know about Trixie.



Bad Night 6

Rook sat in his cell. He did not sleep. Some of the guards swore he never slept, though perhaps he did, under his mask. If it even was a mask. M.A.R.E knew they had won. They knew they had killed King Sombra. They knew that had broken the S.O.M.B.R.A organisation. They knew nothing.

They had no idea about the queen.

The thing that could have been a mask cracked into a silver smile. All things came to those who waited.

And he had waited so very long.



Bad Night 7

Far, far above the sleeping Metropony City, the moon hung, bright and clear, its dusty, pitted surface laying undisturbed and serene.

For the moment.

Next Chapter: Whatever Happened To The Mares Of Tomorrow? Estimated time remaining: 25 Minutes
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