“Oh, oh, is it CANTER? Canterlot’s Army for Neutering Terrorists Equestrian Regiment?”
“No.”
“Oh, oh, is it FLASH maybe? Front-Line Anti-Supervillain Headquarters?”
“No, and that one doesn’t even make any sense. Also, I hope you meant Neutralising and not Neutering with that last one because even for monsters, that's still a step too far.”
“Um, maybe HUMAN? Huge Ultra-sized Monsters Army National?”
“No, and stop talking about humans, they don’t exist.”
“Sure they do, the Princesses are just hiding them from us, and from you too! Er, how about CAKE, for Chefs Against the Kaiju Empire?”
“First off, no unit of the crown, public or secret, would ever name themselves something so silly. Second, the only chefs who are ever deputised are those serving on the front lines as cooks. Third, you’ve been watching too much sci-fi lately, nothing we fought were as big as those imaginary Kaiju.”
“Grrr…maybe ECHOES, for Empress Celestia’s Homeland Organisation for Equestrian Security?”
“Seriously Lyra, stop it. Celestia isn’t a Queen either, let alone an Empress.”
“Oh, maybe SHIELD, for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division? Or UNCLE for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement?”
“Those are from your comics again Lyra, and really, please just stop.”
“SPECTRE! That’s it, SPECTRE! The Secret Protocol Equestrian Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.”
Bon Bon slapped both of her front hooves against her face, because she didn’t feel a single facehoof was sufficient here. Why did she tolerate this mare again? “No Lyra, our agency wasn’t called anything like that, and we weren’t some sort of foreign saboteur unit, either. We were strictly about hunting down monsters.”
“Oh! Oh!” Lyra was giddy again, pronking like crazy. Bon Bon cracked a smile at the sight. That was why, Lyra’s enthusiasm was contagious and despite her eccentricities, she was oddly likeable. “How about MANEGUARD? Monster Attack National Equestrian Guards Unit Active Response Division?”
“No, that wasn-“ Bon Bon paused, and ran the name over in her head, “Actually, that’s not bad. Not bad at all,” She admitted. “Do you mind if I use that?”
“No, not at all!” If Lyra’s smile got any wider, it threatened to push her snout up to her eyes. “But whatcha need it for anyways, Bonnie?”
“Don’t call me that,” Bon Bon groused, as she found her typewriter. “I decided to take up amateur writing as a hobby. I figured if Daring Do can write books about her real-life archaeological expeditions while still working as a treasure hunter, then I should be able to write a semi-fictionalised version of my life as a special agent. I got permission from the Princess herself to be able to write books like that.”
“Wow, Bon Bon, that sounds like a pretty neat neat ide-wait, what?” Lyra stopped jumping up and down, her golden eyes wide with suspicion, “What was that about Daring Do?”
“I said it’d be daring do write books about archaeology, since most ponies would be bored to tears by a real dig. You’d need to be the kind of pony who would enjoy reading a book with thousands of poems about rocks to enjoy the logistics of creating a Wheeler-Kenyon grid for some of the larger sites,” Bon Bon explained.
Lyra frowned. “No, didn’t you say something else about that, about Daring Do and a trea-“
“The Wheeler-Kenyon grid involves creating a rectangular or square grid over terrain,” Bon Bon started, “And as you dig, you extend the grid downwards into a three-dimensional shape. This method allows archaeologists to pinpoint exactly where they found an object, as well as compare it to fellow squares, and am I boring you Lyra Heartstrings?”
The answer to that was obvious, as Lyra had put her hoofs up to plug her ears. Either she was good at reading lips or she could still vaguely hear Bon Bon, because she blew her housemate a raspberry as soon as Bon Bon asked the question.
“Yeah, yeah, archaeology shmarchaeology,” Lyra grumbled. Bon Bon had done far too good a job, because Lyra’s eyes had glazed over, ears drooped, completely forgetting any mention of a treasure hunter, “Well, if none of my guesses were right, then what was your agency’s name?”
“It didn’t have a name.”
Lyra pouted.
Bon Bon rolled her eyes at her housemate’s antics, “Seriously Lyra, we didn’t have a name. Besides, even if we did, I wouldn’t reveal it, not even to you.”
Lyra continued pouting, sitting in her odd way on the couch so she could cross her front legs over her chest.
“You’re just jealous because you want your own agent codename, aren’t you?”
Bon Bon knew Lyra all too well, because the mint-coloured unicorn threw her front limbs up, and screeched, “Yes! Why do you get to have something cool like that and all I get is to be known as that one pony who sits weird on benches sometimes! I want something like, I don't know, but it can't be Harpflanks, that's too obvious!”
“There, there,” Bon Bon said, patting Lyra upside the head, knowing what to do from experience with several of Lyra’s escapades. Speaking of which… “You know, I could use a researcher for my novels.”
“R-really?” Lyra sniffed through her tears, and Bon Bon refrained from rolling her eyes again, the muscles that allowed her to do so well-exercised already today. “Like doing what?”
“People won’t want to read about an agent sitting at her desk doing paperwork and investigation, which really was ninety percent of our jobs,” Bon Bon gently explained, doing a magnificent job with calming Lyra down as she continued petting her housemate. “They also like to read about the unfamiliar. While I’m sure I could write a few stories about hunting out terrorist cells or fighting villainous red-and-black alicorns, I bet what would really sell like Apple Cider would be books involving me investigating cults that intend to summon humans, or discovering a grand conspiracy of ponies protecting the secrets of a progenitor civilisation.”
“I’ll do it!” Lyra agreed in a heartbeat, completely missing how Bon Bon’s first idea appeared to be making humans out as bad creatures.
“So you just go out there,” Bon Bon told her, bringing Lyra in for a huge hug, “And while you’re doing your daily work, maybe come up with some ideas. The crazier, the better.”
“Oh, oh! I know,” Lyra said, hopping off the couch, pronking like crazy again, “Maybe you’re working for a secret agency that’s hunting down objects left over from the start of Creation! Perhaps you’re helping Princess Luna secretly build an orbital weapons platform capable of disintegrating big monsters from space! Or perhaps all of Equestria is secretly controlled by a dog at a control panel somewhere, who has cameras everywhere!”
It was a good thing Bon Bon was looking at the floor at the moment. While years of training helped her to keep her body steady, she couldn’t help but widen her eyes, and it was in that moment she knew what had to be done.
Carefully, making certain her housemate was gone from the place to her workplace and at no risk of making a sudden, unexpected return, Bon Bon pulled out what was supposedly a wrecked radio from the bottom of a pile of junk in her closet.
Special Agent Sweetie Drops was hardly an expertise in electronics, but every agent was expected to know basic maintenance and repairs for when they were working in the field. Quickly, working her hooves as nimbly as those hands Lyra always talked about, Sweetie Drops changed the placement of a few components in the radio, and it crackled to life with a charged battery.
“This is a private frequency,” A voice came through the radio. “Identify yourself.”
“This is Agent Sweetie Drops reporting in, code Ay-Nine-Ay-Cue-Three” Sweetie Drops said. “Requesting use of a neuralyzer on a civilian pony, named Lyra Heartstrings.”
Several minutes of silence passed. Sweetie Drops expected it, as whomever was on the other end would have to take the time to verify Sweetie Drops was an actual agent, as well as her identification code. Finally, the radio buzzed back, “This is Agent White Night. What are the circumstances?” While the agency may have been dissolved, there were still a couple of agents left behind to make certain there was complete deniability.
“She’s onto us about Shiba Inu,” Sweetie Drops hissed.
There was a silence for a few seconds, before the radio buzzed back, “In that case, permission is granted.”
Bon Bon sighed, and let out a brief “Thank you” before changing the frequency on the radio. She hated to do this, but she really shouldn’t have let out her identity in the first place. It was a moment of weakness that had caused Bon Bon to reveal herself in the first place, when the familiar cry of the Bugbear had shaken her, and her housemate’s confirmation of its identity had completely put her out of her element.
Lyra Heartstrings couldn’t be allowed to discover anything more about S.E.C.R.E.T., the Special Equestrian Creature Response Elimination Taskforce, and its secret canine director. This was the only way to protect her.
Author's Note
I was actually going to use the name MANEGUARD for the agency in my other story Dice of Life. It was one of those little things that didn’t so much get cut as never saw the light of day, but there’s some trivia for you. I didn’t even plan the ending at all. I originally hit Lyra’s silly proclamation about the dog as a reference to a certain game, and then it completely derailed into a downer ending. Originally, I wasn’t going to give the agency a name either, and leave the title as a joke based on Lyra’s acronym guesses. At the last moment, I gave S.E.C.R.E.T. an actual name. It doubles as a bit of a joke since Bon Bon in Slice of Life talks about her ‘secret identity’. In this case it literally IS her ‘S.E.C.R.E.T. identity’.
In the editing stage, with this line “Those are from your comics again Lyra, and really, please just stop.”, the last word was originally spelled ‘top’. I vaguely thought about leaving it in because it was a hilarious typo, but corrected it anyways.
If you post a comment, maybe make your own suggestion for what the agency’s name could be.