One

After the initial capture of Bugbear, Bon Bon (aka special agent Sweetie Drops), was assigned to do consulting work for the Canterlot anti-monster agency. This is around the same time that Discord was enlisted to help re-capture Tirek. The timing of these two events of course no accident.

"Princess Celestia thinks YOU, a mere pony, an earth pony with no magic at that, can teach ME a thing or two about dealing with MAGICAL threats." Discord chided. Bon Bon simply rolled her eyes. Not even an introduction. A laughable attempt at a first impression she thought. She hadn't even made her way to the security checkpoint at the headquarters to check-in and in a flash of light she was standing beside the towering draconequus being insulted straight to her face. Perhaps she would cut straight to the lesson.

"Well clearly you're right. I have nothing to teach you. Take the day off. I'll just make up a report for Princess Celestia saying we did some training together and I'll take the day off too." Bonbon shot him a conspicuous wink and just as quickly he vanished in another flash of light.

Not long into his 'day off' Discord found himself confronted by a very unhappy Princess Celestia, ambushed in the middle of a nap.

"If you aren't going to take this job seriously then perhaps you can better serve Equestria in the royal statue garden!" Her voice boomed angrily. She meant business.

"She ratted me out?" his voice cracked with surprise. Perhaps he needed to brush up on his nuances he thought. He also felt an ironic little spark of respect for Bon Bon for as quickly as he could have snapped his fingers she had devised a clever ruse to put him on the defensive. A successful ruse at that.

Discord snapped his fingers and there Bon Bon was standing with him and Celestia.

"Well played." He patted her on the head. "If your playbook goes beyond just tattling then maybe I CAN learn a tiny little thing or two from you."
Bon Bon just gave him an icy expression. A being as powerful as 'The Lord of Chaos' was not one she could afford to give any tells to.

"I'll handle him from here, Princess" she bowed respectfully.

"What did you learn?" She asked Discord curtly once Celestia had made her way.

"Not to trust you." He said mockingly.

"Then we're on the same page. Are you hungry?" Bon Bon asked. It was coming up time for supper by now.

"Oh I know the perfect place in Ponyville!" Bon Bon noted an uncharacteristic longing in Discord's eyes as he snapped his fingers, the both of them materializing on the streets of Ponyville by a little outdoor bistro in the marketplace.

"Funny. I've spent most my life in Ponyville and I've never come here. You sure know your way around here for somepony who can be anywhere he wants."

"Well sometimes I come here with F-" he glared at her and rolled his eyes. "This is just another ruse so you can profile me isn't it? Aren't you supposed to be training me? Not capturing me?"

"Dinner's on me." Bon Bon flashed him a fake smile and walked in ahead of him.

"Not with your usual company?" The waiter pony asked Discord as he lead the two of them to a table. Bon Bon snickered at him.

"I didn't come here to be mocked."Discord grumbled. "You're lucky I'm not one to walk away from a free meal."

"You're worried about confronting Tirek." Bon Bon stated coldly.

"What makes you say that?"

"You're still here." She grinned slyly as she flipped through the menu.
"From what I know about him he can steal the strongest and most destructive of magics with ease. It's no wonder he escaped and every wonder how he was ever even caught in the first place." Discord explained. "Even if I had him in chains I'm not even sure Princess Celestia herself could lock him back up without trouble."

"You must feel like a lowly earth pony up against the lord of chaos." Bon Bon smirked. "Any recommendations?" she continued.

"That's what I'm supposed to be asking you." Discord belted.

"I'm talking about the menu."

It was impossible for Discord to maintain his rasp demeanor as he thought back to his many visits to the restaurant with Fluttershy. Bon Bon noted his surreal expression as he spoke up.

"The double hayburger with the side salad always fills me right up." he recommended.

"Sounds like a taste you'd inherit from a pony" Bon Bon pressed.

"What I'd really like to know is what you're playing at with all these personal questions." he protested, blushing slightly.

"Sometimes to win a fight it's important to know who and what you're fighting for." she explained.
They paused their conversation as the waiter came by and took their orders. Bon Bon could see as the waiter made off that Discord looked eager to speak.

"And who do you fight for? Any special somepony?" He countered.
She hesitated for a moment. She wasn't sure if she should let her guard down with her present company but it was something she wanted to talk to somepony about for along time and she couldn't hold back her reply.

"Yeah. Well. Things are a little gray with where we stand sometimes it seems. If you went asking around these parts everypony would have a different answer for you." She gave out a longing sigh and placed her hoof atop the table fidgeting around with her empty plate.

Discord gazed off at the fading light in the silky dusk that shrouded the humble little outdoor bistro. Stars were beginning to emerge and he could see Fluttershy in the constellations. He reached across the table and placed his paw on Bon Bon's restless hoof. She blushed.

"We have more in common than either of us anticipated." he said softly. They both sat silent for a moment and then their eyes wandered toward each others. As their eyes met they both let go of each other and reeled themselves in, quickly forcing themselves to look away.

"Looks like our food is here." Bon Bon deflected as the waiter pony approached from the other end of the scene.

"Yes." He laughed meekly. "I'm so hungry I could eat an entire dimension."

From there a very silent meal followed. Dinner seemed like a good place to discuss strategy for the battle ahead but both Bon Bon and Discord were at a loss to confront their conflicted hearts. It wasn't until their plates were empty once again that Bonbon had fought back her nerves to speak up.

"So who do you fight for?" Bon Bon asked.

"My first and best friend." He placed his hands together and fidgeted.

"But a word like 'friend' just doesn't cut it?" She asked. Casting her eyes out to the stars.

Discord nodded. "But there are those who would shake their fist and sneer at you if you called it anything else?"

Bon Bon nodded back."And you just want to scream it from the rooftops." her voice became more empowered.

"But you don't. It's not your nature to hold your tongue but it's what they want. And most days it's not too much to ask." His voice became forlorn.

"But some days it just hurts! Who cares what anypony else thinks!" Bon Bon shouted as she jumped up to attention. Everypony at the restaurant now looked in their direction and the room fell silent. She blushed when she saw all the eyes beaming toward her and sunk back down.

"And it just seems like no matter how many times you run it through your head it seems there is no easy answer. Like how to subdue an enemy that has you hopelessly outmatched. And yet you've done it a hundred times." Discords mind returned to the inevitable confrontation with Tirek.

"That's when you have to get creative. Know your friends. Know your enemies." Bon Bon resumed her cool demeanor, relieved by the change in topic.

"Know your friends... There's a book deep in the top secret section of the Canterlot archives." Discord snapped his fingers and the book appeared in his hands.

"Put it back." Bon Bon said.

"But why?"

"Just do it".
Discord snapped his fingers and the book disappeared again.

"Now let's go sneak in there and get it." Bon Bon said adventurously.

"That just seems like a waste of time when I can-"

"Do you think I just clapped my hooves together to send Bugbear to Tartarus? I don't have magic. I didn't have that choice. And there might come a time when neither do you. But I know in good time Tirek will be back there to keep him company." She explained.

"Can I at least take us to Canterlot so we aren't up all night?"
Bon Bon nodded and Discord snapped his fingers.

They ended up in a hedge just outside an old unassuming brick building.
"Up there!" Bon Bon pointed her hoof at a window on the second floor and then pulled a grappling hook from her pack.
She twirled the rope and cast it up. The barbs on the hook bit into the window sill. She gave it a quick tug to make sure it was secure. Bon Bon went up first. The window was locked from the inside. Discord caught up. Bon Bon cocked her head to the side to quietly point out the situation with the window lock. Discord used one of his claws to cut a small hole in the window glass so that they could unlock it from the outside.

"At least your special somepony knows this is what you REALLY do when you're out at night." Bon Bon whispered to Discord as they pulled the rope up and climbed through the window.

"There's a big difference between managing the forces of chaos and petty burglary." he whispered back in protest. She hushed him and motioned at a glow down the hallway. Guard unicorns were on patrol.

The duo ducked into the darkness and waited for the lights to pass into another row. Each floor of the archives was row upon row of shelves containing all kinds of historical records.

"The top secret section is in the basement level." Discord whispered.
Bon Bon nodded. They slowly and quietly crept their way to the stairwell and down the stairs. At the basement level they were confronted by a heavy metal door.

"How do we get by this without magic?" Discord quizzed.
Bon Bon casually poked her hoof at Discord's mouth to silence him and then reached into her pack and pulled out a lockpick set and went to work on the door's lock. 'How does she do that without fingers?' Discord thought to himself.
Eventually there was a click and Bon Bon swung the door open. They both crept in and then closed and locked it behind them.

"I bet even those guards aren't allowed in here." Bon Bon said with a sigh of relief. The shelves in the top secret area were fewer in number and less of them contained the usual record folders and more of them were stacked sparsely with strange artifacts and musty tomes.

"So why don't you just tell her?" Discord pried her as he poked around the artifacts on one of the shelves.

"Because I'm not supposed to. It's a top secret position." She insisted.

"Not so top secret that you can come in here without breaking in which I'd wager you aren't supposed to do either." he said mockingly.

"And yours. She doesn't even know just how deeply you feel does she? She's given you her heart but you hold off on an answer, I bet." she snapped back. "A draconequus and a pony. It seems more absurd than two mares. Besides how do you know my special somepony is a she?"

"Ponyville is a small town. Small towns just love to pass around juicy gossip whether you ask for it or not." He explained.

"Great. I'm the talk of the town. All the more reason I could never tell her. It's too dangerous for her to know."

"What if something happened that made it more dangerous for her NOT to know? Hypothetically of course" Discord quizzed.

"Over there. That book looks familiar." She pointed her hoof at a book on a shelf that looked like the one he had materialized earlier. She breathed a sigh of relief at a chance to change the subject again.

"Ah yes." Discord picked up the book and started casually flipping the pages around. "Princess Celestia's own study notes on the elements of harmony. So long ago she probably doesn't even remember this ragged tome even exists." he chuckled nostalgically.

"Good now let's get out of here." She motioned for the door and he followed, book in hand.
Just as they reached the door a piercing alarm sounded and armored hoofsteps began to clatter through the halls and into the stairwell. "Looks like they found our handy work upstairs." Bon Bon looked around. "And it looks like the only way out is the way we came."

"Perhaps now is a good time to let me use my magic?" Discord grinned and Bon Bon nodded. "Where to?" he asked.

"Anywhere but here!"

He snapped his fingers and the two of them vanished in a flash. They reappeared at their table in the restaurant but it was much later and everypony had long since gone home. Both their hearts still throbbed with exhilaration.

"I can almost understand the thrill of doing things your way." Discord joked. Bon Bon smiled. "I said almost" he corrected.

Bon Bon jabbed at him playfully with her hoof. "You had fun, admit it." they smiled at each other.

"Goodness, look how late it is." Discord looked up at the night sky and motioned to snap his fingers.

"Wait!" Bon Bon said. "Why do you have to snap your fingers to do magic? Aren't you an all powerful lord of chaos?" she asked playfully.

"I don't HAVE to snap my fingers. Surely you of all ponies understand the need to do things with a little... panache."

Bon Bon gave Discord a quick hug. Both blushed; even she was surprised by her actions. "I guess we can pick this up in the morning." she said.

"If you're not ready to sleep just yet I was planning to do some more sneaking around... and well.. I've found your unique perspective kind of helpful." he smiled and gently raked a claw through her mane returning her hug.

"Kind of?" she smirked. "Sure I'm in." they both let go of each other.

Discord snapped his fingers and the two of them re-materialized in Tartarus. A feeling of dread washed over Bon Bon's heart while for Discord it just seemed like any other intrusion. She wasn't expecting such a stark change of venues. Before them was the now empty shackles that once bound Tirek.

"Not one for subtlety. What are we doing here?" Bon Bon trembled as Discord eyeballed the shackles.

"These shackles should have prevented his escape. They are enchanted to block tampering by magic." He explained.

Bon Bon slipped a hoof into one of the shackles. Discord didn't follow her thinking and just stared, flustered at the sight of the bound pony. "But we hardly know each other." he joked meekly.

"I'm not that kind of pony. See if you can get these shackles off with your magic."

Discord snapped his fingers and the shackles loosened and fell to the floor.

"He absorbed the enchantment..." Discord scratched his head.

"If that's the answer you're looking for now would be a good time..." Bon Bon urged. The two could see Cerberus looking over, catching their scent across the open expanse.

Discord snapped his fingers and the two re-materialized in an unlit room. Discord fell on his back with a thud and Bon Bon immediately on top of him.

"I told you I'm not that kind of pony." Tiny bars of light came through sparse boards on the walls around them and she could see just enough that she was staring into Discord's eyes.

"It's not me!" Discord insisted. "Tirek must have left an enchantment of his own on those shackles."

"So we're his prisoners!?" Bon Bon trembled.

"No. We're in a boxcar." Discord said calmly.

"A boxcar?" Bon Bon was confused.

"A boxcar. Sometimes I come here to think. I felt Tirek's enchantment 'go off' when I teleported us out of Tartarus. It was like he reached out to me and grabbed the magic right from my hands. I panicked and sent us here. The Ponyville train station."

"You do your thinking in a boxcar?" Bon Bon giggled, relieved that the situation wasn't as dire as she had imagined, still on top of Discord.

"Where else would the Lord of Chaos go to think? A library? You can get up there's plenty of space for both of us you know." Discord wriggled beneath her.

"Getting a little too excited are you?" Bon Bon giggled again as she got up and started examining the gaps in the boards on the walls.

"It's barred shut from the outside and I'm going to need some time to recover before I can get us out of here." He sighed.

"Might as well get comfortable. I hope you're not afraid of the dark."
Bon Bon produced a lantern from her pack and lit it, bringing a dim wash of orange light to the boxcar.
"You should know by now you're not going to win this one with magic." she smirked. "But it looks like we aren't getting out of here without it." she sighed and slumped down against one of the walls. Discord sat next to her and just stared at the flickering lantern. Bon Bon reached her hoof over and placed it on his paw.

"I'm new to this whole love and kindness and friendship business..." Discord said quietly. "but I've watched from the sidelines for centuries and it's times like this that play tricks on the heart." he continued, turning his head to face hers.
Her heart pounded as she slung her hooves around his long neck and pulled her face up to his and delivered a passionate kiss.

Discord could not sort the excitement from the guilt and the pain of his own heart racing out of control. "But Fluttershy..." he thought to himself as he pulled his face away. His retreat only fueled Bon Bon's desires further and she pursued him with another kiss, her hoofs now wandering. She was already lost in the moment and Discord's mind grew tired racing in circles pondering the meaning of love and lust and was powerless but to surrender to his base desires. The boxcar rocked with the throes of passion. In the end though they both lay together in an awkward silence.

"Are we supposed to talk about our feelings now?" Discord was the first to break the silence.

"What just happened was- Look, I love Lyra." she sobbed in response as she positioned herself further away from him.

"I don't understand." Discord said.

"You put some kind of spell on me didn't you? I knew you couldn't be trusted!" Her sadness became anger in a flash.

"What we both did we both did because we wanted to." Discord snapped back. He gestured his hand toward Bon Bon and the boxcar stretched to twice it's length, placing her at the other end.

"I now have two world-shattering secrets to keep from her. This one for sure she will not forgive me." she went back to sobbing.

The gravity of the situation began to hit Discord. "Then Fluttershy..." he said quietly.

"How can a being so ancient be so naive?!" Bon Bon snapped.

"What about you and I? Our feelings for one another?"

"We hardly know each other. And this is as well as we ever will! I'm requesting a discharge from this assignment first thing in the morning. Then I have to tell Lyra. I can't keep this from her." She stood up. "Your magic is working again, let me out." she cried.

Discord snapped his fingers and the boxcar returned to normal and Bon Bon stood outside. He could hear the patter of hooves on the ground as she ran off into the night. He let out a forlorn sigh. Bon Bon had left her pack behind, her lantern still flickered on. He pulled a handkerchief from her pack and sniffed it. It still held the subtle scent of her perfume.

Discord felt conflicted by both his longing toward Bon Bon and his guilt about Fluttershy. He needed a distraction. He pulled out Celestia's notes on the Elements of Harmony and went to work. Before long the inside walls of the boxcar were covered by his own notes. "A-ha." he gloated to himself, certain that he had solved the mystery of the Chest of Harmony. He thought perhaps it at least would be key to a plan-B should his confrontation with Tirek fail. And in perfect parallel to life it seems the answer involved tough lessons and even tougher decisions. To simply give the Mane-6 the answer would negate his findings so he would have to be a little more cryptic about it. Dawn began to break and there was a knock on the side of the boxcar.

"Excuse me. Discord." a soft, sweet, familiar voice called to him from the outside. It was Fluttershy. He wasn't ready to talk to her about his indiscretions.

"How did you know I was here?" He asked indignantly.

"Just a guess" She was barely audible through the side of the boxcar. "Did you forget? You were supposed to meet me at my Cottage before dawn. We were going to go to the hill and watch the sun rise. You sound mad"

"I was up all night working. Princess Celestia has me working on a top secret assignment. I probably shouldn't even have told you that much. We should take a rain-check." He belted out curtly.

"Okay sorry... I'll leave you to your work." her soft, slow steps beat off into the horizon. He swear he could hear her sobbing.

'Was one silly little sunrise really so important to her?' he thought to himself. He felt that clearly he had a lot more left to learn about friendship. Perhaps this was just the beginning of his own tough lesson on tough decisions. The sunrise became like a ticking clock. Soon Bon Bon would tell Lyra and hearts would be broken.

Bon Bon waited for Lyra on their favorite bench. She thought perhaps such a setting would lessen the impact of what she was about to confess. But as she waited the dread only grew. Dread became anger when Discord appeared before her.

"What are you doing here?" She snapped.

"Have you told her yet?" He asked softly.

"I will as soon as she gets here. It's better if you're not around."

"Splendid. I'm not too late." Discord cupped his hands together.

"What do you mean?" A look of grave concern washed over Bon Bon's face.

"Soon everything will be made right." Discord boasted with an ominous glee.

"What did you do!?" Bon Bon demanded.

"Well I went back to Tartarus to take one last look at Tirek's shackles after staying up all night solving some silly riddle about keys. And I could hear rattling against the bars of a distant cage. It would seem Bugbear could smell your handkerchief that I had with me. He is very unhappy with you it seems. Your dilemma about having two world-shattering secrets to confess echoed in my head. And I thought how if he was after you, you would have no choice but to tell Lyra about your... unique profession."

"You didn't..." Bon Bon trembled.

"Well I couldn't just teleport him out of the cage. It's enchanted to block magical tampering." He explained as Bon Bon breathed a fleeting sigh of relief.

"Then I thought about my little key riddle again." He scratched his chin. Bon Bon's eyes widened with fear. "I used the enchantment Tirek left on his shackles to short-out the enchantment on the cage and it opened up just like a key." he continued, sounding proud of himself. Bon Bon just stared quietly at him.

"Relax. I have powerful friends. When Bugbear makes his way to Ponyville after you I will alert them. No harm will come to anypony." His words brought no comfort.

"What about my other secret?" Bon Bon trembled in fear of the answer.
Discord held out Bon Bon's forgotten pack to her and she reached out her hoof to grab it from him.
As she took her pack Discord reached out and touched her forehead.

"When you wake up you won't remember us ever having worked together. How can you carry guilt for something you don't even know about?" He snickered.

Bon Bon gasped sharply for air and rolled out of bed, hitting the floor with a thud.

"BON BON!" Lyra shouted with concern, waking up to the sound. "Are you okay?" It was now night.

"I don't know. I feel like I just woke up from an awful nightmare. But I don't remember dreaming about anything. In fact the whole day is a blur." Her voice sounded weak. Her head throbbed with pain.

"Well you did drink an awful lot of cider on our picnic today!" Lyra giggled. She helped Bon Bon back into bed and wrapped her hooves around her comfortingly.

"I love you." Bon Bon said with a smile.

"I love you too." Lyra kissed her softly on the cheek.

Discord watched the scene unfold in the form of a fly on the wall. A tear rolled down his cheek. "I'll confess to Fluttershy when the time is right. I will lose her as a friend. The rest of them will see no reason to keep me around." He thought to himself. But for now he had to focus on his confrontation with Tirek.

Author's Note

This was the first of three stories.