Breaking In

Time couldn’t have passed any slower; the patience of the EQD team had been worn thin enough so that no card game could keep their attention satisfied. Nevertheless, Cal dealt the cards out again in hopes of playing another game, but Seth shied away from the group to earn a little more sleep.

Seth walked over to his cot and lay down. He recalled the events that had brought him here. Unfortunately, due to his short-term memory-loss that he had had ever since he could “remember,” Seth couldn’t remember anything. A short saying popped into his head “any information left out of the matrix is gone forever.” Seth had no idea where he had heard that saying before, or what that saying had to do with his current situation. For some reason though, he decided to recall the little he did remember, out of fear that he could forget it again.

He started with the basics: a portal to a land called Equestria was recently opened. This land was apparently inhabited by ponies (ponies, not horses) and not humans. For some reason, the humans and the ponies were at war with each other. Seth was at a loss to remember why they were, the only things about it that he could recall was that: he was assigned to the EQD team by the human war-commander Paul; the EQD’s mission was to end the war “peacefully;” the humans appeared to be losing; the humans were suffering from battles lead by the commander Shining Armor; apparently there were only 2 days before the ponies attacked again; and the final thing he could recall was that the humans had done some severe damage to the line of Equestrian troops by killing princess…

Princess who? The name was at the edge of his mind, but he couldn’t remember her name. He nodded his head, it wasn’t like her name was that important, he could always ask someone later, it wasn’t like the name of the dead princess could change depending on whether or not he remembered it right now…

Right now, Seth was lying in his cot in a tent marked “EQD.” His squad consisted of 4 people: Cereal, the squad commander; Cal, the tech expert, Phoebe, the group’s nurse; and finally the newest recruit: Seth himself, the only person in the group who could use magic. The group was waiting for 9:30, when they were to move out to a pre-determined place to meet Trixie, the great and powerful unicorn, at 10:00. The great unicorn had agreed to help the squad by teleporting them into Canterlot, where it was rumored (a rumor that was created by the great Trixie herself) that a spell there would be able to close the portal to the human world.

Seth, realizing that he recalled all he was able to, was now ready to sleep. He wasn’t going to get any sleep though. Soon after he decided that he was ready for sleep, he was rudely tossed out of his cot. He barely had time to stretch out his hands to protect his face from hitting the floor, but he managed to somehow. Wondering who threw him out of his cot, Seth looked up to see an angry Phoebe. Seth, thinking that it was time to go, quickly took a glance at his watch: 7:36. With about two hours until time to leave, Seth shot a confused glance at Phoebe, wondering why she had flipped his cot over.
Phoebe didn’t wait for Seth to recover before she explained her actions: “You got up rather slowly this morning, if you were to fall asleep now it would be difficult to wake you up. I figured it would be for the best to wake you up.” With that, she turned around and walked away from the stunned Seth.

“Bu- but, was it necessary to wake me up like that!?” Seth questioned of Phoebe.

Phoebe sighed. She shot a glance over her shoulder and spoke these simple ten words: “No, I just wanted to get back to my card game.”

* * *

Seth used magic to light a small fire above his watch. It read 10:11. The small fire was quickly scattered into nothingness by a small breeze. It wasn’t too long ago that Trixie had teleported the squad into Canterlot, but with all the sneaking around, it seemed like an eternity. Cal gave him a nudge, pointing at the spot where the fire was just a few seconds ago and shaking his head no. Nodding his head, Seth slowly made his way from under the bush the group was hiding in to the nearby wall that posed a problem to them. Trixie, lacking the magic to teleport them over the wall, had left the group to make her way around to the library, without the stealth that the squad needed to walk around Canterlot as humans.

The wall, although made out of stone, was smooth, there were no handholds. Taking a quick look around for guards, Seth closed his eyes and put his hands to the wall. Seth cleared his head, and he felt the stone move around his hands to give him a handhold. “There are benefits to being able to use magic,” Seth thought to himself as he started climbing, quickly creating footholds and handholds as needed. Before long, Seth had reached the top of the wall, but with his eyes closed how could he have known? Unfortunately for Seth, he kept attempting to climb and nearly stumbled over the ledge. He quickly regained his composure though and jumped down onto the opposite side of the wall. All this was done before Seth remembered that Cal had a grappling hook.

The rest of the Squad had followed Seth’s lead and used the handholds he created to get over the wall without questioning his methods. After all was said and done, the group had slowly made their way around the citadel to the side where the Canterlot archives were held. Conveniently, all of the 2nd floor windows – the floor where the archives could be found - were open, and the absence of light streaming out of them hinted at the idea that no one was inside. The group made their way up the wall, this time using the grappling hook that Cal had brought.

Trixie could be seen crouching under a nearby windowsill. She drew in breath to say something along the lines of “Ha-ha! The great and powerful Trixie knew you could do it,” but Cereal placed his hand over her mouth, and all she could muster was an “mm-mph.”

The group, after some quick hand signals, decided to search the library for the spell. Trixie was ordered to search the shelves closest to the Archive’s entrance, since she could easily make contact with any pony without getting arrested. Cereal took the middle of the library, where he thought he would be the most vulnerable to detection if somepony were to enter; Cal got the left; Phoebe got the right; and Seth got the back. They agreed to notify Cereal first if the spell was found, and he would go and notify everyone else.

Seth went to his assigned location in the library and started skimming the shelves. There was a lot of interesting material on the shelf, from the migratory patterns of butterflies to how the alot’s digestive system worked, but nothing about spells in the shelving section that he was in. He decided to move over to the next set of shelves, where he started having better luck. The titles included: “Spells to amuse your friends,” “Setting up a security system using magic,” “Proper use of levitation…” Seth stopped; the title of one of the books caught his eye. He backtracked over to “Setting up a security system using magic,” pulled it off of the shelf and started reading. The book was very short, but it described very helpful spells that could notify a guard whenever somepony/someone entered a certain area. The spells were simple, although they took a lot of time to set up. It would make sense if somepony set up one of these spells on the castle, but if that was the case, they would have already been found out already. What was going on?

Seth thought back to when Trixie first presented herself. Her behavior – besides from being entirely self-absorbed – did seem a little suspicious. On one hand: it would be unlikely for a self-absorbed pony to go over and help the other side of a war; and on the other: Trixie did seem to push the group to find this spell, even though she had no idea if it even existed! Oh, and if Trixie could make it this easily into the Canterlot Archives, would it not make more sense for a pony, if they needed to give a spell to someone who couldn’t enter the library, to enter the library and copy the spell down and then give it to said person? Trixie’s behavior was too suspicious to ignore, there was no doubt in his mind that the pony had set up some form of trap.

Suddenly, Seth heard the sound of someone attempting to walk quietly on the opposite side of the shelf he was on. Seth now realized what had happened, Trixie presented herself as a double agent (wait, she already came to them as a double agent first, she would have to be a triple agent) to the group in order to set up some sort of trap. The benefits for capturing one of the leading squadrons of the human army were likely too big for this vein pony to ignore.

Seth moved carefully to avoid detection. He was walking to the opposite side of the shelf, to check out the source of the noise. He moved slowly to the end of the shelf and after making it around, he pressed his chest against the edge of the shelf, he couldn’t see anything, anyone, or anypony on the other side of the shelf. Listening carefully, he could hear nothing, but that didn’t ease his mind, he had to see for himself. Slowly, he peeked over the corner to look at the opposite side of the shelf: all that was there was a line of books.

Seth was confused; he had most definitely heard something. He slowly walked out from the corner to get a closer look at the line of books, but there was nothing, no one, and no pony there. Confused, Seth turned around to put the book he was holding back, and he made it around the shelf without event. But, as he went to put the book back on the shelf, his world flashed white for a split second and quickly faded to black.

* * *

Seth woke up to a familiar smell. As he slowly came to his senses, he slowly realized what it was that he smelled: hay. Slowly, he opened his eyes to see hay, unquestionably the source of the odor. After a few more seconds, Seth realized that he was lying face down in a pile of it. Seth slowly rose up and out of the pile of hay and immediately realized where he was: a cell. It was made obvious from the stone walls and the bars. Seth got up slowly and walked towards the bars that served as the sole entrance and exit to his cell, he didn’t even have the luxury of a window.

Seth examined the bars closely; it appeared that the entire set of bars didn’t make up the gate: there was a smaller section to the right of the cell that made up a door and that made the exit. He slowly walked up to the middle of the wall of bars and peered out. An earth pony was standing off to the side. From the blue uniform that covered her cutie-mark, it was apparent that she was the guard for the cell he was in. She was somehow spinning a set of keys on the end of her hoof. All of her fur was pink, but her poorly-kept mane was a slightly darker shade. Her light-blue eyes, for the moment, were dully staring at the key ring. The pony, realizing that the prisoner was awake, stopped spinning the key ring and spoke with little-to-no expression: “so, what’re you in for?”

Seth was confused. “Shouldn’t you know? After all, you are the security guard here…”

The pony thought for a moment, and suddenly her expression drastically changed from a boring monotone to a cheery grin. “Oh, no silly, I’m not a guard. I just thought that it would be fun to dress up in this uniform.”

Seth was now surprised. He didn’t know what to think about this pony, and she seemed mysterious. He decided to ask another question: “Well, why are you standing there then?”

“Oh, I wanted a quiet spot to practice my key twirling.” With that, the pony started twirling her key ring again and changed her expression back to her monotone form. “Now, enough questions about me, what’re you in for?”
Seth lowered his gaze. “I was caught breaking into the Canterlot Archives,” he responded. “I was looking for a spell to close the portal to the human world.”

The pony’s face brightened to such a happy state that it seemed impossible for anyone – much less a pony – to put themselves into. “Oh, that’s easy to do. If that was what you wanted, you should have come to me.”

Seth was confused, so he looked again. Yes, this was undoubtedly an earth-pony, but she claimed that she could close the portal to the human world. He had no idea what to expect with this pony, so he decided to roll with the punches. “So, when do I stand trial, if I get one,” he asked, trying to change the subject.

“Idk,” the pony responded. She actually spoke in text-speak, Seth was annoyed, he hated it when people did that, he hated it when ponies did that too. “Princess Twilight’s been rather busy lately talking to Shining Armor about battle strategies. Don’t worry, she finished planning now and Shining Armor is readying his troops, your trial should be soon.” The pony started to perform more complex tricks with her key ring, like spinning it on her nose or spinning it on her hoof like a basketball. It was mesmerizing, but Seth had to stay focused, he needed a way to get out of this cell to stop Shining Armor’s Army.

“Are the other members of my squad in the cells next to me?” He asked, hoping that they could somehow form a plan to escape.

“Cells?” the pony asked confused, “these are the hay storage rooms.”

“What am I doing in here then?” Seth wondered why the Canterlot palace didn’t have a cell to put him in. After all, it was a palace.

“Oh, I heard that the guards were going up to the library to arrest some intruders, so I decided to have a little fun by going there myself and taking one of the intruders down. I couldn’t put the intruder in the cell though, so I moved him down here to where the guards wouldn’t be able to steal my haul.”

“…Wait, huh?”

What this pony said made sense, but didn’t quite fit with what she said earlier. “So, what’re you in for?” Why would she say that if she was the very person who put him in here? Now that he thought about it, she never did deny that she knew why Seth was in here. The other part of what she said was insulting, saying that Seth was her “haul” and throwing him in the hay storage room like a…

Wait, who would put a lock on a room that was only meant to be used to store hay? Seth, with a little bit of hope, walked over to the door and gave it a little nudge…

…It opened.

“Hey! Don’t run away, you’re my haul!” with that, she suddenly turned into a blur of pink and blue, and that figure didn’t clarify until her lower left hoof made contact with what would have been Seth’s face.

“Ow!” Seth exclaimed. Fortunately for Seth, he was in the pose that most internet users would call a “facepalm,” so aside from his sore nose, his hand took the brunt of the damage. Better his hand than his face though. “Why would I run away from you, you’re the only person I know of who can help me!” OK, he did doubt her abilities, and with the earlier incident with Trixie, a bit weary of ponies (Trojan or not), he just wanted to stall the pony before she kicked him again.

“Help you? How?” the pony appeared clueless, even though she had stated the reason that Seth was stalling with only a short while ago.

“Look, I have no idea how you could do this without being a unicorn, but you claimed that you could close the portal to the human world. If you can do that, then I know that you’d be able to help me.”

“Oh, yeah. That!” the pony suddenly realized. “Yes, I can help you, but I need to get something in my room in the east of the Canterlot Palace in order to close it.”

“Where are we now?”

“We’re in the hay room, you silly.” The pony stated again.

“No, I mean to ask ‘where is the hay room located in the palace?’ you silly.” Seth added the “you silly” on for good measure, even though he really had no reason to.

“Oh, it’s right below the grand hall. We can’t go in there now though; a bunch of human prisoners that the guard caught in the archives will be standing trial before Princess Twilight later this evening.”

Wait, that his squad-mates were about to stand trial? He needed to rescue them, but this pony offered him help with his mission. Should he go with this pony to close the portal, likely leaving his squad mates behind? At first, he thought the answer was obvious. This pony could be tricking him like Trixie. After some further thought though, he ruled out the idea of a trick. After all, what motive would this pony have? He’s already been locked up, and he could hardly give out much information: he just joined the group and didn’t know anything about the human’s plans (except that they had none). The only remaining motive would be to humiliate him, but with the war going on, time spent humiliating him would be wasted time. Either way, Shining Armor would be attacking the human army soon, so Seth had to make a decision, and fast.

“Oh, by the way, I never got your name…” Seth asked one last question before he decided.

Now, in an extremely cheery voice that Seth was not able to associate with any other living creature he had ever met before, the pony lifted its front hooves high in the air and spoke from the top of her lungs: “Pinkie Pie’s the name, and partying’s my game!”

Author's Note

Pinkie Pie: Breaking into fanfiction all over the place. I wonder if Seth can use her to his advantage before she shatters the fourth wall into irreplaceable shards.