Operation: Alicorn

Sharktooth stood in the shower, her head not feeling much better than it had before. Her cheek was still a bit swollen, but the impact the weirdo spell hit with was beyond any she had felt at an indirect impact. Normally, she could shrug off damage like it was a fly, but this was the real deal. She turned on the water and got it to just hot enough to give herself goosebumps. Her orange hair turned darker as she closed her eyes and sighed. Then two hands came out from behind her and hugged her across her waist. Her body went rigid from the touch and she scowled back at Vertigo. The blue pegasus smiled as cute as she could to offset the green pony’s anger. However, the reveal of her razor sharp teeth told her it wasn’t working.

“‘Ey! I said you could shower with me to save time, I didn’t say we were snogging!” The shark-like earth pony snarled. “I don’t need you to wash my back, so keep your hands to y’self!”

“Awww, come on, Shark! At least let me use a luffa?” Vertigo asked, and put on a pouty face. Sharktooth rolled her eyes and turned back around to face the shower head.

“Fine, but watch where your hands g--oi!” Shark was interrupted as two soapy hands came from behind and groped her tits, starting to caress them. “You’ve got two seconds before get a shark tooth in your-”

Both of them were interrupted by a ringing phone on the counter next to the sink. It wasn’t the normal text notification. It was a custom notification.

“That’s Proxy!” Vertigo said as she got out of the shower and Sharktooth turned it off after rinsing her tits in annoyance. The blue pegasus dried off her hands and arms as she picked up Sharktooth’s phone. She could hear her own phone going off in her pants on the ground as well, but she unlocked her partner’s phone and her face twisted in confusion. “What the hell? Why would she send us this?”

Without a word, Sharktooth took her phone back and studied the text. It was an advertisement for a mail-order anal dildo especially for stallions. The page started with the low low price of 30 bits and went on to describe the patented vibrating action complete with remote control and straps for easy use and connection to any bluetooth.

“It’s our emergency encryption, you simp! Don’t you remember?” Shark asked, and left Verti with a blank look on her face. She rolled her eyes at the blue mare. “If it’s a sex ad, then it’s an emergency. If it starts with a price, then we use cipher number 3.”

She opened the cipher on her phone and it began to show all of the symbols and tells that the message should have. Still naked, she went into the living room and swept off all of the snacks, cans and bottles from the small table they had in their main area. As it hit the floor Vertigo whined a bit and tried to find the bags of oat chips that were still full.

Shark got a notepad and a pen. She started doing the calculations in her head as she read the two together. Her pen began to work on the pad as she put the whole thing together.

“Shit, station three is compromised!” Sharktooth spat as she kept reading into the encryption. Verti let out an “Oh, no!” sound with a mouth full of chips. Her wet, orange mane covering her eyes as she looked up, so she combed it out of the way. “Those bastards traced her bug’s signal back to her. Proxy got out unharmed and was able to destroy all of the data in her harddrives.”

“Does it say where she is now?” Vertigo asked and Shark waved for her to shut up while she thought and kept writing down the message. That’s when the pegasus saw that she was still naked and started to contemplate whether or not to finish showering.

“Get dressed.” Sharktooth answered her unspoken question. “The bastards traced her bug, but she traced them right back.” Sharktooth held up the piece of paper and showed it to her pegasus partner. “It’s a power station.”

“But what about Proxy?” Vertigo asked as she started the search for where she threw her sports bra.

“She specifically told us not to go looking for her. It’s too dangerous. We gotta go after these bastards now, or they’re going to get away with everything. We’re not going to let that happen.” Shark said as she got on her gear, ignoring the fact that her head was still pounding. “This time,” The green mare said as she strapped on her combat knife. “It’s fucking personal.”

Vertigo seemed to take a second to acknowledge this. Then she nodded and got her fingerless gloves on. The two of them bolted out the door and into the night.

Sky opened her door before Grem could even knock. The two guards stood outside of her house in the afternoon. Both of them were taken aback by the fact that the blue unicorn with dark orange hair was completely naked. Her pale blue nipples were hard as the cool breeze hit them from the outside. There was a pause as she stood at her door and looked them both over. The two of them had been working that entire day, and it was pretty obvious that they were both tired from such a long day. This made Sky Blue smile. Both Grem and Diamond Sword couldn’t help but notice that her breasts were very perky and were quite large without sagging.

“Grem,” She nodded to her, then looked at the stallion with a smile. “Sword, so nice of you to come. You’re late.” She said as she held the door open for them both. “Come in.”

She walked back into the living area of her house, past her kitchen. It was a very nicely laid out house. The carpet was a bright gray, while the walls were painted a rustic, dark red. She had a very large white stone fireplace, which was lit. She also had a very nice looking set of books lining the wall in three bookshelves. All of her books looked like they either had something to do with magic or some very dark, cryptic fantasy novels.

“Ummm, did we come at a bad time?” Diamond Sword asked as the unicorn mare held up one finger for him to hold on.

She walked to the hallway and opened the door of the first room, poking her head into it. She said something too low for either of them to hear, then walked back into the room.

“Now then, to answer your question, no. Aside from the fact that you’re slightly late, we still have ample time to do what needs to be done.” She said as she stood in front of them as they were still in her entry way. “What were you here for?” She glanced at the two of them.

“Wait,” Grem said, “You knew we were coming, but you don’t know why we’re here? Didn’t Sylvia tell you we were coming?” As she said the name, Sky’s green eyes almost burst from their sockets. The whites of her orbs in plain view.

“Sylvia Windmane?!” She said. Her hands went to her mouth as both of them nodded. The white stallion and batpony glanced at each other in complete confusion. “Oh my God! That’s awesome! Tell me everything!” Sky squealed with glee.

“Sup, babe?” There came a tall, very muscular stallion from the room, who was strangely also very much naked. His cock was only partially hard, which led both of them to believe that they had, in fact, come at a bad time. He was a burnt orange furred pegasus with long, raven black hair. That’s when he caught sight of Grem, and his brown cock twitched a bit to life.

“Printer!” She turned to him and began jogging in place a bit, making her boobs bounce. “They said Sylvia Windmane wants me for a job!”

“Whoa! THE Sylvia Windmane? That’s awesome! She is a total babe.” Print said as his eyes went back to Grem and he nodded. “Hey, I’m Color Printer.”

“Hi, I’m Grem,” The gray batpony said with a smile and a blush as his cock was now at a semi-hard state. “It’s spelled with an ‘e.’”

“Go on!” Sky said to them both. “Tell me what she wants! Ooohh, you’ve got me all excited again! Printer!” She turned away from him and got on all fours. Then she motioned him toward her. Then her attention was fixed on the two royal guards as they looked on with some surprise and a great deal of arousal. Printer mounted Sky from behind and reinserted himself into her, making her shiver with delight.

“Well, she wants you to go to some collector guy and--” Grem stopped talking as Sky exasperated in disgust. This made the orange stallion stop for a moment, but then she motioned him on. He continued to hump steadily.

“Damnit, I should have known she’d want something inconvenient and uncomfortable as hell.” Sky rolled her eyes, but then closed them for a moment as she gave a grunt in pleasure. “That damn collector guy…” She sighed. “Go on, I’m listening--nmm!”

“Ummm, yes, she says he knows things about Crimson Magic that we need to find out.” Grem brushed her hand against her own breast and drew in a sharp breath as she ran her fingers through her hair. “It looks like we came at a bad time, maybe we should come back?”

“Crimson Magic…” Sky looked off to the side and still gave tiny little grunts as Print started to fuck her harder. Her eyes began to waver and she let out a small gasp and a solid moan. “That’s awful. Yeah, if anyone knows anyth-ooohh!-about this, it’s Ruby Red.”

“Didn’t you say they would join in?” He whispered to her, but loud enough for them to hear. This drew strange looks from both of them as they were beginning to sweat, and Sword’s sex organ was becoming a contusion in his trousers.

“I said that most of the futures--ennmm!!--had them--Oh! Go harder!” Then she looked over to Diamond Sword with a grin. “I need a--mouth plug!”

Before he could even reply, Grem was working on her uniform to get it off. Her gigantic tits bounced out of her blouse and her jiggly ass was soon to come into view with her very wet panties almost see-through at that point.

“Well? Go on.” Grem said as she slipped her undies off to her ankle and kicked them to her pile of clothes.

Sword wanted to remind her that they were on duty, but she was quicker to grab her phone from her pants and show him that it was well after their work hours should be over. Their days only got longer as they went deeper into this whole farce.

It took no time at all to plug Sky’s mouth with his long, bright skinned dick into her mouth. She was taken by surprise with how much it filled her mouth completely. Sky wasn’t sure if she could handle two big dicks on either end, but she also wasn’t going to give up this opportunity. Grem watched as her lover fucked the unicorn in the mouth. She helped him get off his shirt to show off his chiseled physique and reached down to cup his balls.

“So, you think you could help us with this guy a bit?” Grem asked as she gently rubbed his scrotum and caused his dick to throb against her tongue. Behind Sky, Printer was still thrumming away at her cunt. The extra added weight to her lust caused her to relubricate herself, smearing juices all over her lover’s steely cock as it thrust within her.

“Hey, tiger.” Grem said to the orange stallion as she took up the same position next to Sky and showed off her curvy ass cheeks and her very wet quim. She gave it a little wiggle and giggled. “You wanted us to join in.” She said with a bit of a melodic tone.

Sky hummed her agreement and Print simply shrugged his shoulders. He switched over to the batpony, who welcomed his cock with open lips and a tight grip that he had to fight against. In no time, he was banging the gray mare with a passion. His tempo took no time at all to return as she clenched her eyes shut and lowered her head. The two guards hadn’t relieved themselves the whole day and she couldn’t help but cry out.

The white unicorn was pleasantly surprised as Sky slipped her mouth off of his head and began to jerk him with a skillful hand.

“This job is only going to get worse. You know that, right?” Sky said in all seriousness to the two of them. “I can’t know what’s going to happen, but all of the possibilities look rather gloomy.”

“Yeah, we figured that.” Sword said, his dick was at full depth and precum drizzled down his shaft over her fingers. She smiled and began to lap it up to its source, sucking on his glans. This made him draw in a sharp breath. “It needs to be done, though.” He strained to say.

“I know.” She chuckled and kissed his tip. “Another thing that needs to happen is this needs to go deep into me. I’ve been edged twice now and this has gotten out of hand.”

Without another word, she turned around and nestled her firm ass against his groin as she slid him deep into her sheathe.

“We should--really---hurry--uuunnn!!!” Grem gritted her teeth as she worked her way through her first orgasm. Printer wasn’t as big as her favorite unicorn, but he had enough spirit to make up for it. Her tits bobbed back and forth below her as she felt him burst inside of her. Using his spurting jizz as extra lube, he banged her with his hips slapping against her ass.

“You heard the lady.” Sky said as she looked back at Sword with a grin. “Fuck me faster!”

To her surprise, he slid even more of himself into her and began to kiss her cervix with a newfound gusto. He wasn’t gentle, nor was he rhythmic. He was rough! Sky wasn’t sure if she came once or came twice in instantaneous succession.

To her surprise, he pulled out. Grem was quick to get her mouth on top of his tip. She jerked his long, bright skinned shaft. Sky's wetness made this easy. Her palm glided over his skin and her tongue welcomed a wonderful spout of jizz. Her tongue worked his head over as he twitched against her touch. She drank him in gulps until he was finished.

The blue unicorn sat up as she watched this. Her jaw dropped when she noticed the bat didn't let a drop escape her. Grem licked her lips, smiling up at Sword. He shivered a little as she kissed his very sensitive dick.

Both Printer and Sky glanced at each other, a little amazed at their prowess.

The guards met in a kiss as he helped her up.

"We should get going." Grem proclaimed as she started to gather her clothes. It took a moment for Sky to finally snap out of her stupor. She nodded, and all three got ready to leave.

"Sorry, dear, looks like I'm not off today." Sky went into her bedroom. "There's lasagna in the freezer!"

It took very little time for her to get ready, but they were quick to leave. Printer stood there with his arms crossed, thinking. Then the idea hit him. She still had those choc-

The door opened and she looked in. "And no eating my chocolate cherries!" Sky closed the door and he cursed. This was the cost of dating a clairvoyant.

‐--------

The lady horse hummed as she watered her garden. The green house was now in full swing after surviving a harsh winter in Ranchtown. Once Hearth’s Warming rolled around, her daisies were having a hard time with so little sunlight, so she had to put in another UV lamp. Then her roses started to lose color in their stems, so she had to get them a bit more of a specialized growth chemical. However, all of her worked paid off. Spring was in bloom and now her plants were having happy pedals all over.

Princess Lemniscate took a step back as she finished watering, and saw all of her lovely plants in full. It was always her favorite part of the day to get a long gaze at her lovely plants. She only wished that she had more time to do so. She hated the fact that she had to give them care near the end of the day. Her mornings were just too busy.

The princess brushed her luscious red, yellow and white hair off to the side of her ear, getting it out from in front of her face where it hung from her single horn. Her royal blue fur was in perfect form that morning, now it was all messy and grimy from the day. It was such a pity that she had to leave, but her responsibilities called her elsewhere.

“Your highness.” A man walked into her greenhouse, causing her to furrow her brow. “Mr. Star is here to see you in your main hall.” He bowed to her in utmost respect and admiration, but she did not even turn to acknowledge him.

“What does he want?” She asked, obviously not wanting to see him after she’d already paid such attention to her lavish garden.

“He says that it is a matter of two problems getting closer and a third one newly discovered.” The stallion was dressed in a suit of the finest fabric. It was a deep purple with a green shirt underneath that gave him something of a renaissance vibe. His tie, however, was blue. Out of her peripheral vision, she could see that tie stand out. It clashed with everything in his suit and she sneered.

She took a deep breath then. She put her water can off to the side and took off her work gloves, which went with her beautiful purple dress, laced with gold twine and toggles. Lemni fixed her hair as best she could and straightened her blouse. In an instant, she put both of her hands onto the stallion’s tie, one on the knot and one on the stem. She pulled it as tight as she could do it in one jerking motion.

His eyes went wide as it became tight enough to choke him. Her eyes glared down at him as he leaned forward and tried to breath and his complexion became very red.

“After you gain back some airflow, would you be so kind as to never wear that tie again? It was an eyesore that I will no longer allow it to exist.” She watched as he untied the tie and began to remove it. “Now, leave.”

She stepped around him and walked out of the door to the main part of her residence. She walked down the hall to the main room, where two guards stood with scimitars at their waists. They were dressed in the appropriate attire. They meshed with the white walls in their red jackets and white button-up shirts. As she approached the very large blue doors, the guards opened them to reveal a beige stallion with a silver mane waiting by her bejeweled throne.

The main hall was as empty as she could make it. The walls were lined with sconces full of jasmine flower plants that were replaced every week. Pillars lined the path to her throne and a great fireplace centered the wall on the other side of the room. Her sour expression softened only a little bit as she approached the chair in the very center of the black and white checkered floor.

Noble Star knelt before her, the knuckles of his left hand touching the floor as he bowed his head. The man was a depiction of regal splendor in his attire. He loved putting black, red and white together like playing cards. Whether he wore spades, hearts, clovers or diamonds in his suits seemed to change as often as the moon. It wasn’t his clothes she was worried about, though.

“I am forever in your service, my queen.” He said to her, and looked up as she rolled her eyes at him.

“You mentioned three problems, Noble. I will not have you mince words. Tell me what we are dealing with. I would very much like to sleep tonight.” She turned and sat in her throne as he rose to his feet.

“It seems the pink pony was a bit more resourceful than we originally thought. Whoever she has at her beck and call, they have already thwarted our collection at the warehouse. Because of this, we are forced to expedite our original plan.” Noble Star kept himself as straight as possible in his stance as he spoke.

“Who are they?” She asked, already growing frustrated with his speaking.

“We don’t know.” Noble admitted, his face bracing. “What little info we have on them is questionable by itself. They obviously have great combat prowess which includes stealth, use of weapons and a database that was tracked but promptly lost.”

There was a long pause. The stoneface she gave him made him more than a little nervous. Then her expression softened as she looked off to the right, thinking. She hummed a bit and took a deep breath, shaking her head.

“What of the necklace?” She asked, still wishing she could hold it in her possession. The implications of it being in her own chateau were entirely too dire, though. Any chance that they could find her were unthinkable to say the least. That was when she got a glimpse of his trousers and gave a small grunt.

“It is safe. We know they are looking for it. As for their database, she has gone silent.” His face turned grim then. “There were… complications.”

“And you are mincing words again.” Lemniscate furrowed her brow at him.

“The information on the event is scanty, but the task force involved could only describe it as ‘a nightmare.’” He saw that he had her full attention now. “They said it was an automaton of some sort. Like a monster.”

“Noble,” She said as soon as he was done talking. That was when she lifted her skirt and revealed her thong that barely covered her naughty bits. “Come service your princess while I tell you what is going to happen now.”

Without a single word, he knelt down in front of her and spread her legs wider. Her purple lace thong perfectly wrapped around her mound that framed her very pink lips. He stretched the thong off to the side and lunged his tongue against her labia folds. She didn’t even utter a small groan. Her eyes, however, went half open.

“Whoever these neusances are, they are to be taken care of…” She drew in a sharp breath as he began to work her upper lips. His tongue nestled into her inner labia, just under her swelling clitoris as her legs twitched. “First, what was that about a… ‘monster?’”

Focus had already gone over all of the data twenty times. The pictures of the Crimson Magic residue were spread all through out her coffee table. On top of that was the broken bottles of perfume that she could still smell on the clothes she had on that night. Then there was the destroyed truck and the suspect in custody that was giving literally no statement without a lawyer. So, no statement at all, more or less. It all pointed to very large and wealthy resources pulling off these crimes. All of them seemed to be targeting Pearl Necklace herself. When Focus tried to get in touch with her to ask her some questions, she was not available for comment.

Already, Focus had grown quite fond of Coin Purse, Miss Pearl’s lovely assistant. The three sentence conversations they had were a high point of her day. Already, she was wanting to go to her favorite club and just unwind for a bit. However, that club was now a reminder of him.

Rain Shadow hadn’t spoken to her since their run-in at the precinct. The mere fact that he was actually a part of all of this was beyond coincidental. It was these sort of coincidences that drove her apeshit. She was taught to never believe-in coincidences but this was just too much of a sharp edge to even think of it as a setup. It was, however, a potential blessing in disguise. Rain’s number was on her phone now and she had the ability to ask him for more information, but what kind of bitch would she be to ask him?

Conflicts of interest existed for a reason, after all. Asking him to sell out his own brother could blow the whole deal for her. Both in professional and personal terms, she was damned either way. The mere thought of going back into that wormhole brought a serious migraine. Her lights were already turned off. She couldn’t look at pictures anymore. She didn’t want to get drunk and she didn’t want to watch people dance with glowing paint all over them.

This would all be so much easier if she could just build up the energy to make one damn phone call and--

She yelped as there was a knock at her door. Focus blinked a couple of times and shook her head. She placed the photo back on the coffee table and got up. As she opened the door, her heart caught in her throat. There was Rain Shadow standing there with a box in his arms. His face looked somber, but for the most part, he didn’t look angry. He held up the box toward her and shook it a tiny bit.

“This is what you asked for. This is everything I could find in his apartment. There wasn’t a lot, but some of the books looked like they might be what you’re looking for.” He said as he pushed it toward her, and she took it from him. She looked into the top, and there were some smaller books that looked like they were rather old, as well as what looked like a journal.

Focus Sight looked at all of the items in the box then looked back up at him. He shrugged.

“Yeah, I’m not leaving it here. So, if you want to do your investigation things, you’ll have to bare with me.” Rain said as he looked off to the side a little. His chin drooped a bit as his lips pursed. “I’m sorry about--”

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked in the first place. Come in.” She left the door open for him as she put the box on her coffee table. He closed the door behind him and followed her to her couch. He watched the purple bat pony as she began to pull out the books and examine them.

She noted that they were quite old, about as old as they looked. The binding on them wasn’t made with a process that was used nowadays. The paper also sounded like it had been made many ages ago. It must have been worth well into the tens of thousands of bits. The cover was raw leather. It looked as if they didn’t even bother to make it pretty, just made sure that it was sturdy and functional. It looked like it was both burnt and rotten from age.

“Your brother had very expensive tastes in books, it looks like.” Focus said as she looked over at Rain, who sat beside her, studying the book as well. “Was this hidden?”

“It was the last in a stack of books. He was never really good at hiding things in his room. I always found whatever it was.” Rain said, then he noticed a small symbol on the corner of the inner cover. “What is this?”

They both looked closely at it, and it was the brand of a pony’s head with a mane of flame. If she didn’t miss her guess, that meant that it belonged to Ranchtown way way back in the days of its founding. That meant it could only come from one place.

Diamond Sword opened the door for the two ladies to walk through. All three of them were hit with the smell of stale pages from books, incense, petrified wood and oils from all over the world. The shop looked like something of a pawn shop from the 18th century. There was very little light other than a few dim ones in two sides of the very large room, and the windows were covered up with black to keep the sun and heat out. Everything was scattered. There was no organization that they could see. There were pieces of armor with the sage, and knives with the books as well as carved statuettes with the shiny stones.

Diamond Sword stopped to take a gander at one of the clear crystal balls, but was interrupted as an older blue unicorn stallion came from the back. His hair was black with tiny lines of gray in it. His eyes were purple and they widened at the sight of Sky Blue.

“Sky! Hello! Welcome to my sho--” He looked over at the two guards and frowned. “What’s going on?” He turned a skeptical eye over to Sky, who grinned.

“Hello, Red. I need some information from you, and I thought I’d bring some friends to come and look for a few items of interest in your shop.” Sky said as she fiddled with a letter-opener on his front counter in the shape of a broadsword.

“What sort of items do you mean?” Red’s skeptical glare grew a bit more furrow browed.

“You got a crystal ball that’s more of a purple shade?” Sword asked as he picked up the clear ball.

“Other side, by the wind chimes.” Ruby Red said, pointing to the far side of his shop. Then Sky pulled out one of the pictures in Grem’s file. It highlighted the residue that was left by the Crimson Magic on the concrete floor. Red took the picture and studied it. “Well, this is a rare find, indeed.”

“We were told that you would have some information on where a couple of crooks had access to such forbidden magic. I want to know which scroll it came from and where that scroll is now.” Grem interjected, noting his false ignorance that he attempted in his voice. “We’re not here to get you in trouble, we just want to know where they got this.”

There was a long pause as Ruby Red stared at the picture. It wasn’t clear what exactly he was thinking, but he also didn’t look worried. He turned the picture upside down and kept looking closely. Grem looked over at Sky, who she could see was growing physically agitated, her fingers tapping on her arm as they were crossed over her chest. The blue unicorn brushed her red hair off to the side and then grabbed the picture from him.

“You already know where it’s from. Now you’re just wasting our time.” Sky looked at him, and then looked off behind him, toward his back room. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

“Crimson Magic is not something to be taken lightly. Its very existence is forbidden and the teaching of it is considered treason or even terrorism in some cases.” Ruby Red said. Before he could open his mouth to say anything else, Sky stepped up to his counter and leaned on it closer.

“You’re stalling. We didn’t come here to talk about the punishment for using the stuff. We came here to learn who taught it to a suspect in custody. You don’t happen to know a Lime Grass, do you? He was able to use Crimson Magic at the age of twenty two, making him something of a prodigy in the arts.” Sky looked at him and saw that his expression was not changing. In fact, he seemed to know exactly why they were there from the start. The fact that he was not sweating it meant he had an ace up his sleeve.

Then both Grem and Sword twitched their ears and snapped to their guard as they heard something in the back room. Red lifted his hand upward, but was promptly stopped by the letter-opener in Sky’s hand going straight up to his throat. The point of it barely pricked the skin. It didn’t draw any blood, but it made sure he knew it was there. His jaw locked up and he drew in a strained breath as he gritted his teeth. Sky couldn’t help but smirk as his arrogant smile left his face, as well as a great deal of his complexion.

The ones in the back room were all dressed in black armored kevlar, and came out wielding swords and daggers. There were what looked like five unicorns among the eight of them and they revealed themselves in force.

“Looks like we ruffled some feathers.” Sword commented and Grem hummed her agreement.

Every one of them glared toward Sky, who was holding Red by his shoulder and keeping his neck nice and close to her tiny blade.

“One move or start shining your horn and this guy goes down first.” Sky growled at all of them. “Don’t think I won’t because once he goes down, one of you will be next.”

This brought a smile to their faces and they all began to chuckle. Sky arched an eyebrow. Their apathy was genuine enough, it seemed.

“Go ahead, whether he lives or not, we still get paid.” The mare in the center of all of the kevlar armored team said as she angled a throwing dagger aimed straight for her.

Sky blinked at her, then glanced over at Ruby Red, who seemed to sweat even more profusely than before. All the sudden, he was wondering what he got out of this deal other than a whole lot of trouble and exposure of his dirty laundry. The sudden image of his throat getting slit or his head getting stabbed came to mind and he began to shake.

Then the instant came when the center mare’s horn began to shine. In one instant, the whole thing was driven to chaos! Sky Blue stopped her casting immediately as a green energy caged her horn. The mare’s face strained as her magic was stopped in its tracks. Before any of the other unicorns began their own casting, Diamond Sword pitched the purple crystal ball in his hand directly into the face of a stallion whose spell almost went off. His snout was pushed in and the back of his head smashed into the back wall.

Both Grem and Diamond drew their swords. Spells began to go off in both directions, two of them blasted Ruby Red in the back as Sky used him as a shield, and then lit them up with one of her own. She quickly powered up a large beam from her horn and blared a gigantic purple energy into them and the backroom. They were thrown in all directions, and the door to the backroom was now a gigantic gaping hole in the wall.

Grem locked sword with one of them immediately, a young pegasus stallion who swiped his blade off of hers and was about to strike until she used her wing to slap his face with its edge. With one swift move, she jabbed the base of her sword handle into his wrist, rendering his hand temporarily useless. Her other fist came around in a haymaker that smacked him where his cheek met his jaw, knocking him out.

Diamond brought up a shield as he jumped in front of Grem in order to catch the last enemy unicorn’s spell. He was knocked back some by the spell some, but the shield held strong. With a push, he thrust the shield straight into him and smashed him against the crumbling wall behind him. He was forced to end his shield spell, though. It took a great deal of concentration to keep charged.

The unicorn left standing kept his footing, though, and Sword kept his sword in the guarding position. Both he and Grem were caught in a standoff with the unicorn. Before he could charge for another spell, though, Sky stood up and cast a green holding spell, shooting spikes into his sleeves and pants. Then with one flick of her horn, she caged his magic like the others.

“You bitch! I swear, when I get out of this--” He was interrupted by Grem’s right cross, which promptly knocked him unconscious. Grem cursed and shook her hand, having punched one too many chins in that little combat.

“I was wanting to keep him as a talker.” Sky said, but then heard the shaking and whimpering on the floor. That’s when she remembered Ruby Red was still semi-conscious. She grinned and lifted him off of the floor with her magical aura surrounding him. Lo and behold, he didn’t seem to high and mighty anymore. In fact, he was a bit more of a manchild now. “Oh, hi, Ruby. I think we should have ourselves a bit more of a truthful interview.”

Ruby gulped.

Sharktooth let out a loud kia as she smashed the hatch down into the small structure. Circuits, wires, power grids and maps lined every wall. In the rows of machines all through the room, little lights and buttons flashed on and off while shining lines connected them to one another to make a complete link. Vertigo slid down the ladder and looked around for anyone who was alerted to the intrusion. She slapped down her visor that changed all of her sight into heat vision.

“Clear.” She called up to Shark, who was already making her descent down the ladder. “Man,” She looked at all of the machinery. The humming was nearly deafening and the constant beeping all around them was a tad unnerving. “You’re sure none of this is on the power grid?”

“Not in any conventional sense. This is all privately owned.” Shark took two looks around. “Someone’s bloody loaded, it seems.”

Vertigo pulled out her handheld computer and turned it on. She clicked it a couple of times, typing in the IP address that Proxy sent them. She lifted her finger, keeping an eye on the location very closely. Verti pointed off to the other side of the room, making Shark look.

“It’s in that vicinity.” She looked up to see that there were, in fact both of them let out an “Ooooo…” as they both saw two candybar wrappers and three empty cans of Strawberry Squish.

“I’d say this is a safe bet.” Sharktooth pulled out a USB port and connected it to where the computer was at one point. “There we go, now we just need to--” Her eyes went wide open as she saw the statistics come onto the screen. Shark and Vertigo gazed at the handheld. All of the data levels came, as well as the powergrid. “Is that thing for real?! All of that power and data going to two locations?!”

“Yeah, and whoever did it did their homework. One location is encrypted out the wazoo. It’d have to be if this thing doesn’t locate it. The other one is taking up ridiculous amounts of filespace, not to mention sucking enough energy out of the grid to power half the city.” The blue pegasus honed in on the location in short order. “Bingo--oooohh, wow. That’s new.”

“You’re fucking kidding me…” Sharktooth said as she made sure the address was right. “You’re telling me these bastards have been coming from--”

“The magic school, Moon Beam Academy. All of this crap is happening inside one of the most prestigious schools for unicorns in Equestria. My guess? The necklace is there.” Vertigo wore the same grim expression that Shark did. They both looked back at the screen as the data finally capped off at 60 exobytes.

An academy that you not only have to pass a nigh impossible entrance exam. The kind of school that you need to be making six figures a year to pay for tuition and even then, the chances of passing are sketchy at best. The security in that building would be blindingly difficult to break through, let alone find a necklace in a safe and crack it. Escaping the place after breaking in would be just as impossible.

“Bloody hell.” Shark muttered.