Under The Radar

Chapter 1

New Assignment

“Hey Jim, wake up.”

I almost leaped out of my seat when I heard the chief call me. I must have fallen asleep at my desk.

“Yes chief?” I asked nonchalantly.

“I need to see you in my office. Come on.” He turned and walked off towards his office.

I really hoped he wasn’t grilling me for sleeping on the job. True, it was midday and everypony else was alert and wake, but I had stayed up all night to finally close the Ericson case which had taken me over a month or so to crack. See this pony had broken into the castle and tried to steal some top secret work that this stallion named Joe Ericson was-

“JIM!” The chief called, a little irritated that I had just sat at my desk when he had given me a direct order.

I quickly jumped up, ran into the office, and sat down on the chair on the other side of the chief’s desk (a very nice mahogany piece). The chief closed the door and walked over to his seat. “There’s not much time so I’ll get straight to the point. Jim, you’re about to go undercover in the most important mission of your life.”

“Sir?” I asked with complete confusion.

“I’m sure you know who the Elements of Harmony are.” He pulled out a folder and opened it on his desk revealing its contents: Pictures of by now all too familiar girls, either alone, or together.

“Well yeah, everypony’s heard of them. Saved all of Equestria more than once I believe. Are they suspects in something?” I asked. It didn’t seem right. These girls had done so much good, yet I was supposed to go undercover to watch them?

“No, in fact, it’s the complete opposite. We discovered a syringe in the Princess’ chambers after the Gala, it was filled with a poison that would kill her almost instantly. It was a special brand to, I think you know who I’m talking about.” The Chief explained, giving me his trademark, ‘No Bullcrap’ look.

“Silent Hoof,” I growled recognizing the mark of the most infamous assassin in history. “But what stopped him?”

“We believe the chaos that the Ponyville gang caused during last night’s Gala might have thrown him off, and since the princess stayed out with them while the guards cleaned up, the assassin had to leave before he could do his job.”

“So, what’s our plan then?” I asked not sure where this was headed.

“This was discovered in the room he had been staying in. Like usual he had cleaned it better than the normal services, but he left something.” The chief pulled out a picture; it was a picture of the girls, each one of them with a red circle around their head.

“Why would he have this? Is he going after them?” I was baffled by this. Sure, they had caused Silent Hoof to fail his latest mission, but he was never one for revenge. It just didn’t fit his MO (Mode of Operations for those of you who aren’t in the know).

“Come on Jim, you’re the best detective here, you figure it out.” The chief said impatiently.

Suddenly, I felt like I could go for another nap. Sleep deprivation was my one weakness. No sleep means my thoughts weren’t clear, and as a detective that was something you couldn’t afford to lose. I closed my eyes and concentrated. Pretty soon the answers came to me.

“So far, every plan to take out the princess or the kingdom entirely has been foiled by them. If somepony were to get to her, they would need to dispose of the Elements first,” I deduced, going off of the evidence at hoof. This wasn’t an act of revenge at all. Silent Hoof never failed a job we know of, and he wasn’t going to on this one. He was planning to make another attempt on the princess, but in order for that to happen he would need to eliminate the Elements of Harmony.

“Good. Now here,” He closed up the file and handed it to me. “This contains all the girls’ info and the location of your new home. Your mission is to go undercover into Ponyville. While there, you will watch them, make sure nothing happens to them, and figure out everything you need to in order to uncover and stop this guy. Now I want you to report to the lab where they’ll gear you up.” He said, his tone clearly stating that there weren’t going to be any arguments.

“Why me, Chief?” I argued anyways. I didn’t want to go undercover, and I especially didn’t want to go up against SH, the greatest criminal we ever faced. Granted, I didn’t have very many friends and I wasn’t close to my family, but all my stuff was here! Canterlot was a great home and I had no intention of living in a small country town like Ponyville.

“I told you: you’re the best,” The Chief said tiredly. “Right now, we have no idea how long Silent Hoof has been living there, and those Girls’ lives are in danger as we speak. This guy is the best assassin we’ve ever faced, but no matter how good they make mistakes, if anyone’s gonna notice them it’s going to be you. Be careful though: if he finds out we’re onto him, he may jump town, or worst.”

I couldn’t argue with The Chief, the whole plan made sense. Get into Ponyville, watch the locals, uncover SH, and bring him in.

“So what’s my alias?” I asked, silently accepting the mission.

“Since no one there knows anything about you, you can keep your name and save yourself the trouble of learning a new one. Your story will be simple: you recently moved in from Manehattan looking to get away from the city life,” The chief explained.

“Well that’s extremely average. And how do we explain my cutie mark of a badge?” I asked sensing that a major problem would come from this.

“Say it’s a star, I mean it looks more like that than a badge really,” He suggested, giving me the, “It’s your problem, not mine” shrug.

“And what will it stand for?”

“I don’t’ know, an actor, a singer, I mean, a star can mean many things. You’re clever, I’m sure you can think of something. Plus you could really pass off as anything; I mean a teacher there has flowers for her cutie mark, what does flowers have to do with teaching? ” He joked, trying to lighten the mood it seemed.

“Well then, I guess we better stop wasting time.” I stood up and headed for the door.

Well I’ve left you all in the dark long enough, I’ll explain as much as I can to you. My name is Jim Green, and as you can guess I work for the EBI, Equestrian Bureau of Investigation. Yes, I know I sound a lot like Mr. Green from that freakin’ board game but I swear if one more pony calls me that…Sorry off topic. I’m a green Earth pony (as if the name didn’t give that away) with a white-yellow mane that usually covers my right eye. I’m not sure why, and frankly I don’t care, hair is not my top priority. My cutie mark, as explained earlier, is a badge. Well not really, it’s a dark gold star. But I like to think it’s a badge. As for the chief, he’s pretty generic. Light brown with a dark brown mane that’s shaved to almost non-existence, and he constantly has a cigar in his mouth. No, really, I mean I’m surprised that Pony doesn’t have a cigar for a cutie mark, he smokes so much. And then there’s Silent Hoof. He/She is the number one on our most wanted list, yet we’ve never seen them before. We’ve figured out how he/she works however: They kill two targets. The one he’s hired for, and another that he/she then disguises as and becomes for the next year or month until his work is off the paper. Now you may be wondering why I’m telling you all this, but that’s not important. And come on, you’re about to see a story of an undercover agent fighting against an assassin master mind with both his hooves and his wits. Well what’s left of them, but we’ll get into that when we get there. Now I left off at the lab…

The technicians fitted me with probably the most advanced gear to date. Since I could only have something that didn’t scream “Agent,” they gave me a super high tech watch. It could not only tell time, but it was also a communicator to keep in touch with command, an analyzer to make sure I wasn’t going to be poisoned, and of course the standard laser. They also gave me a laptop, (I’m sure you all know what laptops do and why I would need one so I don’t have to say much). After they gave me a saddle bag with a camera built into it, I headed for home.

My house, or apartment, wasn’t really that big a deal. It had one bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen and a living room that was basically combined, and a small balcony. It was strange really, I never had anyone over and nothing amazing had every happened in this dump, but it was still my home. I had no idea how long I would go without and it made me feel just sick. I packed only the most important things to me. My trusty revolver (Yes, it’s a COLT, you can all stop laughing now), a picture of my parents before they passed on, and my toaster (That toaster and I have been together for a long time okay). Once I was loaded up I headed towards the train station, and from there it would be a quick trip to Ponyville. Not quick enough though, it felt like it took forever and I wished I had brought a pillow. Sleep could wait again though; I needed to know all I could about the pony gang. I opened their files on my laptop, and read them over and over. When the train finally did stop I got up and rushed for the door.

I don’t remember how I got there, but I found myself at my new house. I must have been too focused on the fact that I had no clue about anything in this town, yet I was supposed to look for any hints that would lead me to SH. With a deep sigh, I opened up the door. It was a lot like my old place, one bedroom equipped with a bed and a desk for me to work on, a living room and kitchen combined into almost the same room with a couch right on the border, two bath-TWO BATHROOMS!? What was I supposed to do with two of those? I mean two bedrooms I could see, but what made them think two bathrooms was a good idea? Well I figured I had to get used to it, so I unpacked what I brought and took a seat on my couch. It was finally time to get some sleep, ‘cause as soon as I woke up I knew I would have to get to work.