The Mare Who Loved Me (Boncord II)

"Quickly, before we miss the train!" Discord called out. He had shrunk himself and was riding on Bon Bon's back as she galloped toward the rail platform at the Appleoosa train station.

"This is ridiculous!" Bon Bon complained with a labored pant.

"Well we couldn't take the same balloon as Candy-Gram, she would have seen us!" Discord explained.

"Why did we have to take a balloon in the first place?" Bon Bon rolled her eyes.

"Ahem! The promise." Discord rolled his eyes right back.

"Your interpretation of that promise feels a little arbitrary." Bon Bon complained.

Discord snapped his fingers and changed to the same size of a pony, standing beside Bon Bon as they reached the platform and passed their tickets over to the conductor and scrambled on.

"All aboard!" The conductor stallion called out as a tall mare obscured in a heavy cloak arrived just in time behind them. He took her ticket and then waved her on board before climbing on, himself.

"Like this. How is this not using magic to intrude on a pony?" Bon Bon muttered to him as they searched for their seats.

"I never promised not to use my magic to have a more comfortable train ride." Discord muttered back.

"Here we are." Bon Bon sighed as they squeezed themselves into two adjacent seats, deep within the economy section of the train. Discord took the aisle seat and Bon Bon was seated by the window. "Where is Candy-Gram seated anyway?"

"Oh, she's up in first-class."

"Really!?" Bon Bon buried her face in one of her front hooves. "Why are we back here then?"

"We don't want to be seen, do we?" Discord chided. "We can go look for her once the seat-belt light is off."

"Seat-belt light?" Bon Bon flashed him a confounded look as the train jerked from the cars pulling taut as the train began rolling forward.

As the train reached its cruising speed attendants started pushing carts down the aisles, selling snacks to the passengers. The rhythmic clatter of the train wheels synced up with suspenseful and dramatic sounding music. The music created tension and unease for the duo. They looked around- the music was coming from a pony across the aisle from Bon Bon and Discord; a young colt was listening to it on a portable phonograph.

"Must you listen to that so loudly!?" Discord complained to the colt. "That music makes me think something terrible is about to happen!" The colt responded by flashing Discord a rude gesture and turning the music up even louder.

"Let's just go find Candy-Gram!" Bon Bon urged with a hoof on Discord's shoulder.

"Very well." Discord sighed as the duo shuffled into the aisle and headed forward toward the first-class cars. Nearly all of the passengers they passed by were earth-ponies, as expected since the train was coming from Appleoosa.

The two found themselves standing out on the platform linking the economy cars to the first class car, the sound of rushing wind drowned out their thoughts. Discord slid the door open and peered in with his long neck.

"There she is!" He whispered urgently back to Bon Bon.

Bon Bon peered in and Discord pointed at Candy-Gram, who was sitting on her own half way up the car. "She's coming!" Bon Bon said in a panic as Candy-Gram got up and started heading their way. The duo ducked back into the economy section and hid in an alcove full of various dining supplies.

Candy-Gram passed by and ducked into an empty seat in the economy section and looked at a watch around one of her front hooves.

"What is she up to?" Discord pondered.

Without warning two masked ponies burst in from the first-class car. They didn't notice Bon Bon and Discord hiding in the supply alcove on their way by.

"This is a hold up!" A masked mare shouted. "Everypony to the front of the train!"

Bon Bon and Discord watched as the passengers broke into a rabble as they started getting up and filing forward down the narrow aisle as the masked ponies worked their way toward the back of the train. As they got to Candy-Gram she started following the crowd briefly but then doubled back toward the masked ponies.

"Well there you have it." Discord said with a smirk. "This has nothing to do with either of us."

"I guess maybe I did over-react a little." Bon Bon sighed.

"Well, shall we follow?" Discord asked with a wink.

"Let's just try not to be seen." Bon Bon begged with a roll of her eyes.

Bon Bon and Discord kept their distance as they tailed Candy-Gram toward the back of the train, ducking behind rows of seats for cover along the way.

"Wait!" Candy-Gram ordered as they reached the end of the last passenger car; between it and the caboose there was a boxcar whose door was barred tight with a heavy-duty padlock.

"What do you think is in there?" Discord whispered to Bon Bon.

"This train carries the weekly bank deposits from Appleoosa to the Canterlot Trust Bank" Bon Bon whispered back. "There must be a million bits in there."

One of the masked ponies wrenched out the pin that was coupling the boxcar and the caboose from the rest of the train. The train jerked as it began to accelerate away from the detached cars.

"I said wait!" Candy-Gram shouted as she heroically jumped the gap to the boxcar. The scene slowly vanished from sight as the hijacked cars slowed down.

"Aren't you going to do something!?" Bon Bon swatted at Discord with a front hoof.

"If the very fate of Equestria were at stake the promise would be null. This is a train robbery that has nothing to do with us." Discord snarled.

"I can't stand not being able to do something!" Bon Bon complained.

"How about brunch in Canterlot? That's something." Discord offered.

"I don't get you sometimes." Bon Bon fumed and shook her head.

The duo staggered as the train surged forward again. Bon Bon rushed over and looked out a window.

"Something's wrong!" Bon Bon panicked. "I've taken this train before. We should be slowing down for the widows hairpin by now- not speeding up. There's no way we can slow down on time!" Sure enough, a few miles down the track the track came to a tight bend as it entered a rocky valley.

"Well I suppose this is one of those situations." Discord said as he snapped his fingers. The duo materialized inside the engineers compartment. A stallion in engineers attire cowered in the corner. An electrical discharge immediately struck Discord who reverted to his normal size and winced in pain.

"Agh!" Discord screeched in pain and doubled down before forcing himself tall again. He took up most of the compartment at his normal size.

"We're stuck! They cut the brake-line and sealed the door!" The engineer explained.

"Well we're here to help!" Bon Bon explained.

"Look out at the boiler." Discord said in a strained voice as he gestured outside toward the boiler of the locomotive. Bon Bon's eyes converged on a circular rune etched into the boiler.

"What is that?" Bon Bon asked.

"It's a spell absorption rune." Discord explained. "Crystal Pony magic."

"Crystal Pony magic?" Bon Bon asked as she looked around the cramped engineer compartment for a solution.

"Yes. Just as Earth Ponies have their strength; Pegasi, their flight and Unicorns their spellcasting. Crystal Ponies can use magical runes." Discord explained.

"Why have I never heard about this?" Bon Bon asked.

"Because King Sombra shut down the last school of runecasters over a thousand years ago. This is hardly the time for a history lesson!" Discord complained. "I have just enough strength to save one of us."

"Send him outside of the compartment." Bon Bon ordered as she observed the boiler pressure gauge, closed a nearby valve and then started stoking coal into the firebox.

"Are you insane? You'll blow that boiler sky-high!" The engineer warned.

"Just uncouple the passenger cars and tell everypony to brace themselves." Bon Bon ordered. She then looked over to Discord who nodded and then snapped his fingers, sending the engineer outside of the compartment. Discord cringed in pain as the last of his magic was drained by the rune.

"That's the last of my magic. I hope you have something brilliant planned." Discord sighed.

With a metallic clunk the passenger cars began falling behind on the tracks as the locomotive surged forward even quicker.

"How long will it take you to recover once that rune is destroyed!?" Bon Bon asked loudly over the escalating roar of the locomotive.

"Even if we weren't trapped in here with the rune out there, in case you haven't noticed, it's etched deeply into the side of the boil- oh." Discord sighed and paused for a moment. "My zany cartoonish antics will return immediately but it will be at least a few hours before I can do any serious spellcasting again."

"Well those zany cartoonish antics are going to have to save us." Bon Bon said in a deeply serious tone as she watched the needle on the boiler gauge hit the red-line.

Discord squirmed around the tight compartment so that he was facing Bon Bon as the boiler groaned and stretched from the pressure. "You know I really wish you would have run this plan by me before committing to it." Discord complained.

"Well I guess we're even now." Bon Bon replied with a smug smirk as rivets began to fire out of the side of the boiler.

In an instant, a deafening shockwave shattered the the boiler. Discord stretched his body around Bon Bon as a torrent of searing, super-heated steam and shrapnel disintegrated the entire locomotive. A torus of billowing black smoke and orange flames rolled up into the sky above the scene and the booming crackle of the explosion echoed through the nearby valley. Large pieces of metallic debris rained from the sky in all directions.

Bon Bon and Discord were left standing in the middle of the tracks.

"Well that wasn't so bad." Discord said as he coughed up a cloud of black smoke. He was covered from head-to-toe in soot.

"Look out!" Bon Bon shouted as she pointed to the rest of the train cars which were quickly catching up.

Discord braced his legs against a railway tie and reached out toward the oncoming cars. The railway ties broke one-by-one as he was pushed back along the path of the train, still embracing Bon Bon. The path of carnage began to glow red as the heat of the friction built up. The train came to a stop right before the sharp corner known as The Widows Hairpin began.

Bon Bon broke from Discord's embrace. "We did it!" She cheered.

"I could use a nice, hot, shower." Discord said with a sigh as he wiped the soot from his face.

Passengers began to emerge from the train and survey the situation. The tall, cloaked mare who had boarded the train right after them rushed to the front of the crowd. With a shake of her head she cast the hood of the cloak off of her head revealing her true identity; Princess Luna.

"Princess Luna!?" Bon Bon exclaimed as Luna neared the duo.

"You are under arrest on suspicion of terrorism!" Luna called out conspicuously. "Just play along." She whispered under her breath as she cast magical chains onto Discord and Bon Bon.

In a blink of magic the trio re-appeared, unbound, behind a nearby boulder, comfortably away from the scene.

"What's going on here!?" Discord demanded. "That little trap there felt like it was meant for Bon Bon and I, personally."

"Somepony has been assassinating agents, both active and inactive." Luna explained.

"Agent Candy-Gram..." Bon Bon contemplated.

"We don't know for sure who is behind it. But whoever it was knew you would be there. There is definitely a mole in the agency. I can't trust anypony within the agency so I am calling you two back into service." Luna said.

"Wait, can she do that? We both resigned long ago." Discord complained.

"Didn't you read the hoofbook before you signed up?" Bon Bon smacked her hoof against her face. "Section 105 Subparagraph B- Emergency Recruitment."

"Runecasters." Discord said to Luna. "This trap was set up with a spell absorption rune. This makes no sense."

"The Sleepless Dusk." Luna pondered.

"The Sleepless Dusk?" Discord asked.

"A crystal empire separatist group." Bon Bon explained.

"How come I've never heard of such a thing?" Discord asked as he raked his beard.

"Are you familiar with the Harmony Gazette?" Luna asked.

"You mean that publication Canterlot has put out 26 times a year ever since Twilight Sparkle and her friends restored the Elements of Harmony, which chronicles important friendship related events around Equestria?" Discord asked.

"Yes." Bon Bon piped in. "Haven't you ever wondered why there's only 13 issues covering the third year?"

"To be honest I never finished the first year. I got tired of reading about Twilight Sparkle in every issue even when she has nothing to contribute to the overall plot." Discord explained.

"Well not every pony was happy about the provisional government that Canterlot set up when the Crystal Empire returned." Luna began explaining. "A group formed calling themselves, The Sleepless Dusk. They made it their mission to restore the old ways of the Crystal Empire"

"Whether or not anypony agreed." Bon Bon chimed in.

"After a lengthy campaign of terror we were finally able to weaken their organization and their activity stopped." Luna continued. "I worked with agent Candy-Gram on some of those missions." A tear came to Luna's eye as she mentioned Candy-Gram. "But all issues related to The Sleepless Dusk were classified to avoid animosity towards the crystal ponies. We just let the public go on believing that it was because of internal disputes between the writers."

"But why are they back now? And why are they robbing trains out in the middle of nowhere?" Bon Bon pondered.

"They must be planning something big. Something that requires a lot of funding." Princess Luna explained with a tone of dread.

"All the most important ponies. In one place." Discord said ominously as he passed a copy of the brochure for the fundraiser to Princess Luna.

"Of course. I'll take over security arrangements for the event. I need you two to tail agent Candy-Gram to see what she's up to. I can't trust anypony inside the agency right now and neither should you." Luna ordered.

"Got it." Bon Bon said as she and Discord gave a nod.

"And try to keep a low profile." Luna added. "It's better if whoever set that trap for you goes on believing that it worked."