BridgeWorld

[Eqestria: 993AB Day 190]
"I must say, Miss Alfalfa Ponyworth, you come highly recommended," Thomas Mane said to the sky-blue coated pegasus mare with a light-green mane and tail who was sitting on the other side of his office desk. He closed the file he had taken a moment to glance over once more during the interview for the position that she had applied for. "But a Butler isn't exactly one regarded as appealing to somepony with credentials as prestigious as yours."

"Thank you for your kind words, Mister Mane," she replied to the wealthy earth pony stallion with a mahogany-colored coat and jet-black mane and tail. "But when one gets to the level I reached with the Royal Guard, being a soldier becomes less important than being a diplomat, yet both fields of service requires one to be a manager first and foremost. I hope I can serve you well in your household. And while we can always hope that my combat skills will never need to be called upon, it never hurts to have somepony able and ready to raise their hoof in your defense. Unfortunately, one never knows until it's too late to wish we had such when we're lacking. And many who might try, they would not expect somepony in the position of Butler to have such skills as I possess."

"So true," Mane acknowledged with a nod. "So very true. Despite the Guard Services and Princess Celestia's best efforts, there are always—untoward incidents occurring."

"Well, I would be honored and happy to have you in my services, Alfalfa," he announced, reaching his hoof out to her. "Welcome to Mane Industries. Please call me Thomas, or Tom, whichever you prefer. Report for work here tomorrow, and I'll introduce you to my wife and son."

"I am honored and happy to be of service, sir," she said in gratitude as she took his hoof, and they shook in agreement.

After Thomas Mane saw her out, he went back and opened up the folder and reread the enclosed letter one last time.

My Dearest Friend,

Yes, Thomas, I do indeed know of Alfalfa Ponyworth.

And it is only to my deepest sorrow that she is leaving my services in the Royal Guard, but not everypony can be as long-lived as I am, and I do understand the need for somepony in her situation to finally seek for greener pastures. The job she currently holds with the Royal Guard is one, regrettably, one best suited for the young, and unfortunately, Alfalfa is no longer young. My loss, however, is your substantial gain, as I've seen her performance over many years, and every assignment and campaign she has ever been on was a resounding success. She has had assignments in the RG as diverse as Drill Instructor, Combat Hoof-to-Hoof trainer, Infantry and Artillery Combat Weapons Instructor, Central Intelligence Operations, and Special Assignments Service, and I trust that I need not elaborate just how prestigious those last two branches are if you seriously wish to consider her for any position with Mane Industries.

And given that you are a major supplier of Royal and Equestrian Guard equipment, I am sure that her contributions to your business will also continue her substantial services to Equestria through her advice and insights regarding the needs of the Guards, which you would be very wise to take under advisement.

It would give me great joy if you were to seriously consider to hire Alfalfa as she is a tremendous fount of wisdom as well as a very capable soldier. I trust that you will not be disappointed in her performance.

Yours, Truly and With Warmest Regards,
Princess Celestia

"Yes, she should do very nicely," he said as he closed the folder. Smiling, he fed it into the waiting shredder. After that, he took the basket and sprinkled the remains into the flames of the lit fireplace….

[993AB Day 191]
The next day, Alfalfa Ponyworth knocked on the door, and Thomas Mane answered the door. She cocked an ear at him.

"I believe, sir, that answering the door is supposed to be my job," she greeted.

"If you wish, I can always dock your pay for it," he shot back with a grin.

"I think we can overlook this incident just this once, sir," she responded, also grinning.

"Well played, Alfalfa," Thomas Mane laughed, as he invited her in. "Mareta, Buck," he said to the ponies waiting in the Foyer, "this is Alfalfa Ponyworth, the pegasus mare I hired to be our Butler."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," the sea-green earth pony mare with a dark green mane and tail greeted, raising her hoof to the pegasus. "Thomas informed us of your qualifications and accomplishments, Alfalfa. I must say, I am very impressed."

"Are you really a spy?" the young light-tan colt with dark brown mane and tail excitedly inquired.

"The proper term would be former spy, Master Buck," Alfalfa politely responded as she shook the colt's hoof. "And 'spy' is really a misnomer for what I did with most of my time at the CIO. My job was—mostly analytical—in nature. I would get the reports from the field, and after consulting with a number of subject matter experts, we would devise what we hoped would be the most appropriate action for our field operatives should take."

"Yes, well, we shouldn't burden Miss Alfalfa with too many questions, Buck," Thomas Mane told his son, chuckling. "I'm afraid I asked enough questions of her last night during the job interview."

The rest of the day was spent introducing her to the mansion's staff. Thereafter, she began reviewing records of the household expenses. It didn't take her long to find some discrepancies, albeit minor ones. However, it was the nature of the discrepancies that stood out. Food stuffs and other consumables were one matter, as variations due to haggling are a normal part of society. Things such as the types of tools and construction material being requisitioned were another. Especially when a number of items were being listed as being requisitioned for use at Mane Industries. As she understood the situation when Mister Mane explained her duties during the job interview, anything to do with the family's corporation was supposed to be completely separate from the household.

Thomas Mane hummed as he looked over the report that Alfalfa had put together and brought to his attention. "So, what exactly am I looking at?" he finally asked after reading through the complete file.

"Sir, I'm rather concerned there are some activities that are untoward in these purchases," Alfalfa explained. "And seeing as how they all bear your signature—Sir, if you don't know about them, then I'm afraid there might be somepony using your name in an attempt to embezzle funds from the household. If those purchases were truly for Mane Industries, then they should be made with corporate accounts and be considered corporate assets."

"That's true," Mane nodded in agreement. "Any idea of how to find out who is involved?"

"Unfortunately, thus far I've only seen a few samples of your signature, sir," she told him. "While the signatures on these purchases are close, they don't seem to be done with the same hoofwriting as your own. Except for these," she said, pointing to six of the earliest requisitions. "Their signatures are almost spot on for your hoofwriting. It's as if the forger is having more problems imitating your writing as time goes on. Usually, forgeries get better as they try to copy their targets' signatures."

"And what is your recommendation when we find out who it is?"

"Why, immediate termination, sir!" Alfalfa exclaimed. "We can't have a thief working for the household in any capacity!"

"Of course," Mane nodded. He sat there for a few moments, tapping his hoof to his chin while Alfalfa awaited his orders.

"Please come with me," he finally said, moving out from behind his desk to walk over to one wall that was covered over by book shelving. He used a hoof to tap a spot that Alfalfa didn't pick up on its significance, until Mister Mane stepped back and waited for a section to finish moving. To Alfalfa's surprise, a large section of the shelving slid out then swung to the side, revealing a metal-lined room behind it.

"This way, Alfalfa," Mane nonchalantly told her as he stepped toward the small room and turned around once fully inside. After she followed, Mane pressed a button on the inside wall. She could see the bookshelf begin to reverse its earlier motions, but the view was soon cut off by a sliding metal panel that completely enclosed the metal room. Then the room began to move.

"A secret elevator, sir?" she asked, puzzled.

"It leads to some caverns below the mansion," Mane explained as they rode it down. "I found them years ago, and thought they'd come in useful."

"'Useful'?" Alfalfa inquired, but Mane held his tongue the rest of the way down, and she was forced to politely wait until her employer was ready to elaborate further.

The elevator finished descending and the door opened up.

"Ah, Lucius! Just who I wanted to see!" Mane called out as he led the way out onto a catwalk before stopping a short distance. Alfalfa walked up beside him, a hoofstep back, as was proper. "And you're wearing one of the armor suits that's been giving us such problems? Perfect! Could you come stand here, please?" Mane pointed to a spot just before him.

"Uhhh—there, sir?" the non-pony identified as Lucius asked. There was a very nervous tenor to his voice.

"Yes, there," Mane cheerfully confirmed.

With a look of resignation, bordering on dread, Lucius donned a helmet and stepped up to face the two ponies. He wore what Alfalfa knew just from looking, that it was one of the Royal Guard enchanted chainmail suits. Although Lucius wasn't a pony, the style of armor was performing as expected in that it would fit the wearer, no matter the species. But something clearly wasn't right with the suit. There was supposed to be an illusion that activated whenever the helm was donned, one that was supposed to hide cutie marks on ponies or any other identifying features that might exist on the wearer. As a result, the creature standing before her was wearing a dark-gray, formfitting outfit and helm that covered most of the creature's face. In the darkened space, it was rather hard to make out exactly what 'Lucius' was, in fact. What she could tell about him was he was quadrupedal, nearly had a pony's height at the shoulders but had a substantially smaller head, he had with small feet—more like paws, he had three tails, and that before he had put the helmet on, his face had thick luxurious orange fur.

"Lucius, I'd like to introduce you to Alfalfa Ponyworth, the new Butler of the Mansion," Thomas Mane said. "Alfalfa, this is Lucius, one of my top researchers at Mane Industries. He's been looking into a small problem that we've been having with the enchantments going into our suits."

"Oh?" Alfalfa inquired. She was puzzled as to what, if anything, this had to do with the matter she had brought to Mister Mane's attention a little while ago.

"Yes, as you can see, the normal enchantment that is supposed to render the suit invisible whenever the helmet is worn isn't working properly," Lucius said. "As you know that same function is supposed to disguise the wearer to hide identifying features, like cutie marks."

"Yes, I can see this is a major flaw in its operation," Alfalfa replied.

"Indeed," Lucius said. "Every so often, when we make a suit at the company, the enchantments don't take properly. And we end up with a suit that won't meet the government's Quality Assurance standards, no matter how we fiddle with the spells we use to try improving that success ratio."

"What isn't so obvious," Mane spoke up, "is that, every once in a while, we get a suit—that—does something quite unexpected. Which brings us here."

"And that is?" Alfalfa inquired.

"As you know, government contracts are rigorously scrutinized for any signs of misappropriation of funds," Lucius explained. "Any product that fails to meet QA standards are considered to be an acceptable loss on the part of the contractor, therefore, any funds that are applied to research into repairing such an item that has already failed QA inspection is considered to fall under—misappropriations."

"So—you're misappropriating household funds to do your research?" Alfalfa surmised.

"Which creates a small problem of its own," Lucius muttered.

"Indeed," Mane said. "And seeing as how Alfalfa so quickly discovered that problem, sorry, Lucius, but it seems I have to fire you," he said, yanking on a rope that she hadn't noticed before. At the same moment, Lucius grimaced and braced—

WHAM

—and just like that, Lucius was gone.

Alfalfa couldn't believe her eyes, even as the large battering ram swung back across the spot where Lucius had been standing on the catwalk bridge; nor her ears, as she heard something crashing and bouncing off several levels of metal grated floors below.

Then there an eerily yipping laughter coming from the depths of the cavern. Spooky in that it was getting louder as the source was randomly moving about down there as it steadily approached.

"Wh—wha—what just happened!?" Alfalfa demanded.

Thomas Mane calmly waited until the swinging battering ram slowed its pendulous movements to where he reached out a hoof to finally bring it to a halt and hang from its supports just to the side of the catwalk.

"He was the one forging my signatures," Mane said. "Of course, that was after Lucius had alerted me to the fact that if the government ever did an audit of my household funds, any signatures authorizing this work could be legally used against me. So, that's where I told him to forge my signing so that there would plausible deniability. And, fortunately or unfortunately, you found the records straight away. What I'd like for you to do, Alfalfa, is help me clean up those records to make sure any auditors won't ever find such tampering."

"But—why—do that to him, if he was following your orders!?"

"Oh, that is only tangentially related to what we were discussing before, Alfalfa," Mane explained. "Your services come, very, very highly recommended. And I'd like for you to help us with tracing down the issues regarding the enchantments," he told her.

By that time, the source of the utterly and creepy yipping laughter had finally reached their level and was coming closer from the other end of the catwalk bridge. Into what little lighting there was, stepped Lucius, prancing toward them.

"Another one that works just the last, Mister Mane!" Lucius happily announced as he removed the helm to reveal his orange furred face.

"Six over the past three years, and no discernible pattern to these—mutations—to the enchantments," Mane sighed.

"As you can see, the flaw in the enchantment sometimes gives us a suit that can do far better than the normal suit could ever do," Lucius told her. "Anypony, even an earth pony, would be killed with a hit like that," he said, pointing a paw to the battering ram, "with a normal Royal Guard suit. But I didn't feel a thing, other than a bit of discomfort where I was hit. About the same as what I could expect from a hoof fight from a normal pony."

"We'd like to be able to isolate and make use of those more beneficial flaws to the enhancements, and hopefully fix them to allow the illusions to take hold on them, as well," Mane explained. "That's been Lucius' role, as chief researcher."

"Just what sort of creature are you!?" Alfalfa demanded.

"Oh, I'm kitsune," Lucius replied with a toothy grin.

Alfalfa groaned as she facehooved.