Pilot
This story follows the misadventures of two agents within the Equestrian Intelligence Agency as they try to protect Equestrian harmony and Sovereignty.
-=[ Doctor Conquistador ]=-
Mwahahaha!
My plan to take over Equestria is finally at hand! All I need to do is press the big red activation button. With a giant smile, I look at the button and reach my hoof out to press it. Life is about to get great for me.
CLUNK
I drop my smile and look over the door- it’s gone! In place of my door is a pony. A male unicorn in a suit and sunglasses, greenish-blue coat, with an almost grey mane accented with a light blue. His magic is active, and he is holding some odd metal object with it. It’s barrel is pointed at me.. He must be here to stop me.
“Stop. Back away from it.” He says.
“NEVER!” I yell and I look back at my machine with renewed ambition, I lunge my hoof to press the activation button when…
BANG BANG
Something has struck me, intense pain. “Blarg!” is all I can manage to yelp as I fall to the ground. I look to my side, where I feel the pain, blood is spewing out of two holes in me. Everything is getting cold.. this must be what dying feels like..
-=[ Agent E. ]=-
I look over and the mad scientist, analysing the situation. I’ve forgotten something that I was supposed to say, but it doesn’t matter. I need to destroy that machine. Before I begin to trot over to it, the program begins to end. Everything, the room I’m in, the scientist, even the building fade away. I now stand in a large room, orange lines all over the walls form the outlines of squares. I begin to holster my firearm, but then I realise that even it was from the program, as are my sunglasses... My earpiece notifies me that I have a message, it must be about debrief and test results. I allow my tactical glasses to display the message. It’s actually from Obsidia, the Director’s administrative assistant.
The Director needs to see you, Agent E.
Looks like results can wait, I’m sure the field readiness team will understand. The message dissipates as I trot over to the door to the simulation room. It opens upon scanning me to verify my identity, and then it’s on to the Director.
The trip was short, the Director is just a floor above the sim rooms. As I enter the waiting room, I see nopony is actually here, not even Obsidia. I’ve never seen it like this actually. Nevertheless, I go to the door and push it open and then enter the Director’s Room. The room itself is a large cube, and the Director is in the spot he is always in, not exactly in the center, but near the center. There’s a desk for his visitors to sit at with 5 chairs. They’re all empty, Obsidia must have forgotten to move them to the storage room that is adjacent to the Director’s Room. I sit in the middle chair and await the Director to notice me.
“Agent E, thank you for coming.” The Director says in his stoic tone. He usually takes a minute or two to notice me, but this time was fairly quick. This puts me on edge.. I don’t know what he has planned.
“You’re welcome, Director. Is there anything I can do for you?” I say, knowing the answer already.
“Yes, Agent E. You’ve failed your exam again. It’s quite tiresome to see you fail the same exact exam 3 separate times now.. But fear not Agent E, for I have a solution for you.” As he finishes his sentence, the door opens and another Agent walks in. He is a pegasus with a light blue coat, and half light teal and half cyan mane. Like myself, he has a suit on except his tie is green. His mark is a power button, a stark contrast from my E. “Agent V, thank you for coming.” the Director says.
Agent V takes a seat next to me, before I could ask what was happening, or V to ask the same thing; the Director speaks. “You both have failed the Field Readiness Exam. This is acceptable, for I have other plans for you two.”
I look at Agent V before looking back at the Director. What is he planning for us? How is failing the exam acceptable? Agents who can’t pass are dismissed, never to be seen again. Is this how the Director gets rid of undesirable agents?
“Effective immediately, Agents E and V will be partners. You two will make up for the other’s defects. Retake the Field Readiness Exam; Failure is no longer an option. Dismissed.”
Agent V gets out of his chair and begins to trot to the door, I quickly follow. We leave the Director and report to the sim room. The Field Readiness Team is at the entrance of the sim room. Each of them have one of their hooves on their earpiece. The team is composed of scientists with the experimental E.I.E Mk. 2 (Electronic Identification Enhancement). Like the previous model, it allows E.I.A. personnel to communicate with each other via text messages, the Mk. 2 however, is restricted to Special Agents and recently was allowed to be tested by the scientists. Rumors say the Mk. 2. has a database synced to it for easier intelligence gathering. It’s impossible to tell what they’re thinking about behind their E.I.E. Glasses as they are darkened to retain anonymity. The team leader, a purple pegasus mare with black mane named Violet Night approaches us with her E.I.E. deactivated. Her mark is hidden behind her holster. She carries a .50 caliber pistol, making her a badass. “The Director has informed us of the situation. Enter when ready.” She steps aside before rejoining the group as they make their way to the observation room. I look to Agent V, he gives me a smile and a quick nod. We march up to the door, get scanned, and the door opens into the spacious room. As we enter, the program loads up. The same test as before…
-=[ Doctor Conquistador ]=-
Mwahahaha!
My plan to take over Equestria is finally at hand! All I need to do is press the big red activation button. With a giant smile, I look at the button and reach my hoof out to press it. Life is about to get great for me.
CLUNK
I drop my smile and look over at the door- it’s gone! In place of my door stand two ponies. A male pegasus in a suit with a green tie, his coat is light blue, and half light teal and half cyan mane. He’s holding some weird object in his wings. The other pony is a unicorn, he too is in a suit, but with a purple tie. His coat is a greenish-blue, with grey mane that has blue in the center of it. His magic is holding a different metal object. Both ponies are pointing these things at me..
“E.I.A., step away from the machine!” the pegasus yells at me while they slowly step into the room. I knew it.. They’re here to stop me! I cannot allow this to happen!
“NEVER!” I yell and I look back at my machine with renewed ambition, I lunge my hoof to press the activation button when…
BANG BANG BANG
Something has struck me, intense pain. “Blarg!” is all I can manage to yelp as I fall to the ground. I look to my side, where I feel the pain, blood is spewing out of three holes in me. Everything is getting dark and cold.. this must be what dying feels like.. But I don’t want to die.. I need to take over Equestria..
Suddenly the pain feels better? It’s not as intense as it was before, I manage to open my eyes and see the unicorn is magically removing three small things from me, and is putting white cloths over me. He is fixing me? After the white cloths are on me, he puts hoofcuffs on me. “Never made it this far before,” he says. Then, I feel pain in my neck, something is getting injected into me.. Everything then goes dark..
-=[ Agent V. ]=-
I look over the machine while Agent E is patching up the AI. There ought to be some way to deactivate the machine. I just never could find it before. I turn to Agent E and ask, “Ever manage to turn this off?”
“Never made it this far before” he says, starting to inject the AI with what I only assume could be a sedative. He finishes up with the machine pony, it’s restrained, bandaged, and hopefully not going to die this time, if two of us can’t pass this stupid test then I blame Violet. There weren’t any switches or dials to speak off, just a sleek boxy terminal with one button and a screen. The button was obviously our “push to destroy Equestria” button, and the screen was just blank.
“Any ideas?” I ask, hoping E isn’t as dumb as I feared.
“We could shoot it.” he says. It’s a stupid suggestion, but this one did seem like the shoot first kind of colt. There wasn’t a cable or external power source I could see either, just a tube running all the way up into the ceiling. If there was an access panel, I might be able to disable it by pulling some wires but nothing.
“Why don’t we ask Command?” Agent E suggested. This was a strong improvement from the shooting it idea he put forward before. He raised a hoof and tapped his glasses, connecting a comlink to command. I connected my earpiece to the call, listening in to the conversation while I continued looking over the machine.
“Still having trouble?” Violet’s voice came into my ear, I’m glad I didn’t have the video link, I could hear the smug smile on her face.
“This is Agent E, We have the madpony in custody and need to disable the machine, please advise.”
“Try using your EIE to do something other than giving me a call.” She replied. As quickly as she tuned in, she tuned out, leaving us to our devices, literally.
E just looked at me, his frown telling me that Violet wasn’t any help. Luckily, I realized something he didn’t. The EIE was different, in the simulator, we got all the bells and whistles of the full blown system. I had access to the electronics module as long as I was still in here, I could see everything as long as it had power. I turned on the module, everything turned blue, the outside world appearing much darker than it had before. There were several wires and cables running through the walls of the simulation room lighting up bright blue. More importantly, there were wires on the inside that lit up like a hearth's warming tree.
The very basic machine circuitry of the machine was laid out before me now. There didn’t seem to be a trigger to set off the device if we severed the wires. “Maybe shooting it isn’t a bad idea after all.” I said, pointing a hoof towards a specific wire, not that E could see it. E floated his revolver and aimed it in the general direction where I was pointing. I took my semi-auto .45 pistol in my mouth and put a single round into the machine. The bullet penetrated the metal but was redirected elsewhere, as the wire was undamaged. E had either caught on to what I was doing or just liked to shoot, because he sank every round into the machine one by one into the hole I had made. The first shot he fired cut the wire but didn’t stop him from shooting until his hammer just clicked each time it struck. He shot me a look, shrugging as he dumped the empty brass onto the floor of the room and loaded six rounds to replace them.
The door slid open a good distance behind us, the silhouette of a pegasus mare, clipboard grasped in her wing. Violet Night. She faces the both of us, no smug grin on her face this time. “You both pass. As ordered by the Director, you two will be partners until deemed otherwise.” She then exits. As the door closed, I took a seat there looking at E. I passed, huh? It’s about time. Agent E was sitting too, instead with a grin on his face. He gets up and trotts to the exit. I follow suit, and trail closely behind him as we exit the room. We move past the rest of the Field Readiness personnel on our way to the residential sector. Violet didn’t look happy we passed the test and I bet she was already devising a new one for us to struggle through next time. E went to his own room, the door had a golden plaque that said Agent E. in all black lettering. His room was across from mine but I had never noticed or just never realized who it was. The plaque on my door had changed from what it was this morning.
Agent V.
What a time to be alive, I’ll be out of here soon and in the field with E, doing what I've always been meant to do; Protect Equestrian Harmony and Sovereignty.
