A Lief Of Depressions

“Are you sure about this job?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that they hate me and…”

“Oh, them, here, sit down…”

Starlight was reasonably asleep somewhere. It was dead midnight, and she had a big day tomorrow of doing nothing. Y’know, I bet she’s dreaming of that Sunburst dude, or was it a girl? I can’t remember and I’m too lazy to check the MLP Wiki.

Meanwhile, a blue flash of light had appeared in the sky. It swirled around the black night sky, and landed in a nearby forest. The Evergreen Forest, to be precise. There was a thunder sound, a loud crash, some hushed whispering, and some rapid footsteps.

A small, sorta-brown pony who lacked a mane and looked like a child, having a black and yellow scruff of hair patterned on his head and no cutie mark looked at a shadowy figure under a cloak, who was extremely small. Both of them walking through the forest, being absolutely quiet and not talking, not even whispering to each other. The cloaked figure checked his map when they were near the edge of the forest and said “Well, I think this might be the place we’re looking for. Buttermoon, you remember the plan?”

“Yes, and stop calling me Buttermoon!” the pony sort of yell-whispered. “Isn’t there a better name for me?”

“Now’s not the time for this crap, Buttermoon. Get out there and, uh, do the thing you always do. Go wreak havoc on a town or something. I’ll see if this place has some safe place to set up camp. If I find a place, I’ll give you the signal. If you don’t see the signal, meet back here.”

Buttermoon saluted and snuck off through the forest into the town of Ponyville, where some real character development and story elements were about to unfold.

Starlight woke up from a long night’s sleep. She rose from the tree she had fallen asleep under somehow. Starlight looked ahead and saw Ponyville and immediately noticed that there was loud buzzing and screaming coming from there. Wondering where the Mane 6 was at this type of time, she quickly got on her feet and ran off to the village in chaos.

She screeched to a halt at the gate and realized the the loud buzzing was none other than bees, probably the worst type of insectghtsfef, like, ever. All around, townspeople were using sensible methods to try and get rid of them, like flamethrowers, but to no avail. Starlight suddenly caught a view of a foal-looking pony standing on a rooftop, opening a glowing jar of honey that streamed out endless bees.

Starlight tried to think of a way to get up there without suffering endless beestings. Just then, her homeslice, Trixie, came up next to her. “I caught sight of you rushing over here and just wanted to-- what the horny hooberjoobles is going on?”

“Gaze to the heavens. Apparently some pony up there is playing a 2016 standard prank on the town. I can’t make it through the bees.”

“Don’t you have a horn?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think I have anything to get through the bees powerful-ly enough. They’re endless!”

Trixie looked at all the bees. “Well, I guess we COULD try to combine our magic. I'll use some blast, and you use another blast.”

Starlight readied a blast of magic. “Alright, you ready?”

Trixie did the same. “Ye.”

Starlight counted down from three. “3...2...1!”

Both of them shot their blasts, combining them into an unholy giant blast that blasted some of the bees, causing them to retreat into the sky, blasted and confused.

“Now!” Starlight and Trixie ran through the town and utilized trash cans and ladders to reach the same rooftop that the mischievous pony was on.

“Huh, why the skeevin’ skibbergabbers are they retreating?” Buttermoon looked to the sky and looked at all the bees resisting to go back to terrorizing the townspeo-- ponies. “Hey, everybee! What’s the holdup?”

“We’re the matter.” Buttermoon snapped his neck around and found himself facing a light blue pony and a light purple pony. The light purple one spoke, “What are you even doing? You can still get criminal punishment even if you’re a child, y’know.”

Buttermoon turned fully around. “I’m not a child and I’m not from here.” The bees began to retreat inside of the glowing pot they had come from.

The other one piped up. “Where from, then? Manehattan? Little Junction?”

“What even are those funky-sounding pla-” As Buttermoon prepared to say more, he noticed a smog of smoke go up in the sky. “Well, gee, looks like I’ve gotta run.” Buttermoon leaped off the building as he threw a smokebomb and dashed off from the town to the smoke signal.

“C’mon, clearly the Mane 6 isn’t handling this, so I guess we’ll have to.” Trixie looked at the pony dashing off and saw he had no cutie mark, or any features that would imply he was from here. Both of them slid down from the roof carefully, and set off in the direction of dying smoke.

“I just pray that Discord or someone like that isn’t hiding up there.” gulped Starlight.

The cloaked figure had set up a now extinguished fire, and was waiting for Buttermoon to get back.

“Egh, it’s hot out here.” and he started to take off his cloak. As soon as he had finished taking it off, Buttermoon had already gotten back.

“How’d you get here so quickly?” asked the figure.

“Oh, just by means of a shortcut that nobody will ever find and-- Oh, hey, I’ve never seen you without your cloak.”

Without his cloak, the figure had gray fur on his entire body, a hairline that was quite odd, a head that was a tad bit too big for his body, and stubby legs, as well as black eyes with pupils that were on-off visible.

“Egh. Now you see why I don’t take it off at all.”

Buttermoon shook his head. “Nah, nah, but I can see why you’re named Nano. Anyways, what now?”

“Well, firstly, just to make sure, were you followed?”

Buttermoon shook his head again. “Some other ponies stopped my bee swarm while I was terrorizing some town, but I don’t think they can follow me that far.”

“Y’know I didn't mean wreak havoc on a town literally! Especially not bees, dude!” Nano groaned. “Egh, I guess we have some new enemies.”

Buttermoon rolled his eyes. “Whatever, just get to the plan. They had flamethrowers, I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

“Fine enough. Now…”