The Cutie Mark Allocation Agency

Chapters

Welcome to the CMAA.
Field Frustrations
Partners. Celestia help us all.
Rivals..?
The oatmeal thickens
Secrets, lies, and a pegasus in the sky
The Event
The Aftermath
Politics is a lovely business.
Simmer and stir
Boiling over
Desperate Times
A funny thing happened on the way to the office
This is how it all ends
Author's notes

Welcome to the CMAA.

"Control, do you read? I have eyes on target. Repeat, eyes on target."

"Confirmed, Agent Seven. Maintain surveillance and await further instructions."

Star Dasher sighed and flexed his tiny grey wings, feeling like he'd be the last pony in Trottingham to fly. Most of the other pegasi in his class were already flitting around. Slowly, sure. Clumsily, also sure. But at least they could get off the ground for more than a few seconds!

He scuffed his hooves along the ground as he walked morosely along. At this rate, he'd also be the last in his class to get his cutie mark.

"Agent Seven, do you copy?"

"Copy, Control."

"Target approaching scene. Epiphometer is at 40%. Possibility of deployment, 40%"

"Confirmed, Control."

Thinking gloomy thoughts, Star Dasher was momentarily broken out of his reverie by a slight rustling in some nearby bushes. He glanced over, pushing his wild blue mane out of his eyes, but nothing further happened. He shrugged and continued on his way.

"Dammit, Agent Seven! That was too close. You need to be more careful.

"Sorry, Control."

The tiny colt went along his way for a few minutes, then stopped and sighed.

'This is doing me no good,' he decided, and shook his head. His dad always said that a positive outlook brought positive things to you. Star Dasher produced a wan smile and continued on his way.

And that was when he saw the tiny black kitten, clinging desperately to a branch halfway up a huge tree, mewing piteously.

"Target has entered scene. Repeat, target has entered the scene. Do you copy, Agent Seven?"

"Copy that, Control."

"Epiphometer at 73% and climbing. Prepare to fire, await further instructions."

"Confirmed, Control."

"H-hey, little guy," Star Dasher said hesitantly. The kitten mewed at him, looking at him with big eyes. "Are you stuck? I can go get help..."

Star looked around, but there was nopony nearby. Once again, he cursed himself for not being able to fly. If he could fly, he could get that poor kitten down with no problems. Instead, here he was, a pegasus stuck on the ground.

Just then, the kitten shifted, then squeaked in terror as its back legs slid off the branch it was clinging to, back feet windmilling frantically as it tried, and failed, to find a purchase on the rough bark. Its front claws were slipping, and Star Dasher was panicking.

"Oh, no! Hold on, kitty!" he said, then shouted as loud as he could, "Help! Somepony, help! There's a kitten—"

He cut off and watched in horror as the kitten fell from the branch.

"Epiphometer is at 84%, Agent Seven. Prepare to fire, hold for my order."

"Target in sight, shot is ready, Waiting on your go, Control."

He didn't think, he just reacted. His legs pedaled as he ran, and his tiny wings buzzed. Self-doubt wasn't even an option for him now, and that last barrier fell away as he launched himself into the air.

The kitten landed safely on his back and latched into his skin with needle-sharp claws. Star Dasher didn't even notice the pain, he was too focused on getting back to the ground with his delicate cargo intact.

A few seconds later, he glided to the ground and landed softly.

"Epiphometer at 94%. Hold your fire until 100%"

"Confirmed, Control. This isn't my first rodeo."

"Cut the back-talk, Agent Seven. Maintain visual and hold."

"Confirmed, control."

"Are you okay, little guy?" Star Dasher said, looking back at the wide-eyed kitten still attached to his back. Now he started feeling the claws, and with a pained chuckle, he said, "How about letting go of my coat?"

The kitten slowly retracted its claws as it started to realize that it was safe on the ground. It looked around, mewed happily, and jumped off of the colt's back.

Star Dasher smiled at it, and then looked back at the tree.

"Wow..." he said, wide-eyed. The tree was thirty feet away now. The branch that the kitten had fallen from was a good twenty feet up.

Star Dasher realized that he'd actually flown. For the first time in his young life, he'd flown. And not just for a little while, but for a pretty good distance, at least for a colt!

"Wait here," he told the kitten, which was ignoring him in favor of the much more important task of cleaning itself. Star leapt into the air, cautiously at first, and then with more confidence.

"I'm flying!" he shouted joyfully. He didn't have much in the way of endurance yet, and his wings were starting to hurt, but he was definitely flying!

"Ruby Racer can just stuff it!" he crowed as he banked, referring to a particularly obnoxious filly in his class who made sure to tease him at every opportunity about his lack of flying skills.

He landed and smiled at the kitten, who was regarding him solemnly.

"Thanks, little guy," he said. "If it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have ever learned to fly. And all because I needed to help you..."

He trailed off, thinking.

"Epiphometer at 98%! Prepare to fire, on my mark!"

"Firing solution prepared and ready, Control!"

The kitten stared up at him, absolute trust in its eyes. Star Dasher thought about how good it felt using his wings to save the small animal from harm. He realized that he'd never felt better about himself than he did right now.

Rescuing animals wasn't something that he could do every day, he realized. There were only a certain number of cats in the world, and only a few of them got stuck in trees at any given moment. But that didn't mean that he couldn't figure out other ways to help animals and ponies out, now that he could fly!

Why, it could be the whole purpose of his life, using his wings to help others...

"100% confirmed! Fire!"

"Firing Cutie Cannon!"

Star Dasher felt a slight tingling on his backside and turned to see what it was, expecting to see a leaf had brushed up against him, or an insect had landed on him briefly. Instead, he was stunned to see a shooting star adorning his otherwise plain grey hide.

"My cutie mark," he whispered in wonder. Then he shouted, "Yes!" and launched himself high in the air.

"I got my cutie mark! I got my cutie mark!" he yelled triumphantly, then laughed with pure joy. Back on the ground, the kitten stared at him as if he were a madpony.

"Cutie Mark deployment confirmed. Good work, Agent Seven. Return to base."

"Confirmed, Control. And, thanks."

"You earned it. First cup of cider is on me."

"You're on!"

After a few victory laps, all while whooping and shouting at the top of his lungs, an exhausted Star Dasher landed and grinned at the cat.

"You know what?" he said to the feline. "You're lucky. I'm going to call you Lucky. Would you like to come home with me and get something to eat, Lucky?"

Lucky mewed what Star chose to assume was a 'yes'. He picked the kitten up and deposited it on his back.

"Ruby is going to be so mad," Star confided in his new pet. "She doesn't even have her cutie mark yet!"

Star Dasher walked the rest of the way home with a spring in his step, a whole world of possibilities stretching out before him.

Field Frustrations

Apple Bloom tapped the nail gently with a hammer, repeating the process until the head was flush with the surface of the wood. She eyed her work critically, then smiled.

"Lookin' good!" she said. She'd gotten the new board for the stair to the clubhouse installed, perfectly level and without so much as a scuff. Of course, as soon as her filly friends showed up, they'd end up scuffing up her work anyway, but that wasn't important. A step was made to be stepped on, after all. What was important was that it was well-made and well-done.

"Epiphometer at 67%, Agent 13. Are you in place?"

"Confirmed, Control. Set up and ready to take the shot, on your orders."

"Stand by."

Apple Bloom smiled contentedly, helping herself to a bottle of crisp, cold apple cider from this year's newest batch. Flim and Flam, dirty conmen that they were, had given the filly some ideas with that fancy contraption of theirs, ideas that she was eager to try out next year, assuming she could convince Applejack and Big Macintosh.

She ran her hoof gently over the newly installed stair, then looked over at the rope-and-pulley elevator that she'd installed earlier that day. The elevator was to allow the fillies to get supplies up to the main floor more easily, and it worked perfectly.

"You know, I think I'm kinda good at buildin' things," she said quietly to herself.

"Epiphometer at 79% and climbing! Get set, Agent 13!"

"Good Celestia, this might finally be it!" Agent 13 replied. Sensing silent disapproval over the line, he added, "Cutie Cannon deployed and ready for the shot, waiting on your go."

Visions of the traveling salesponies' contraption flittered through the filly's head. There were nearly endless possibilities.

"Maybe I could... "

"Epiphometer at 90%! Prepare to fire, hold on my mark!"

"Confirmed, Control!"

"Maybe my special talent is..."

"Epiphometer at 94%... 95%..." Control said, and Agent 13 felt his finger tightening on the trigger. He forced himself to relax. Premature firing could have disastrous consequences, such as that unicorn filly who now thought her special talent was making mud pies.

That hadn't been one of his better days. Premature Epiphination wasn't fun for anyone.

"Maybe my special talent is... Bein' a travelin salespony!" Apple Bloom said excitedly.

"Epiphometer at 42% and falling! Abort! Abort!"

Agent 13 cursed and began the process of breaking down the Cutie Cannon.

"Yeah, a travelin' salespony! I bet that's it! I gotta go tell Sweetie and Scootaloo!"

With that, Apple Bloom scampered off happily to find her friends.

In some nearby bushes, a tiny figure deactivated his 'See and Hear Me Not' cloaking device and stepped out into view, glaring after the filly while wearing a perturbed expression on his face.

"One of these days, Apple Bloom," he said, shaking a tiny little fist. "I'll get you one of these days!"

~~*~~

The Ponyville branch of the Cutie Mark Allocation Agency was located on the outskirts of the underground city of Gnomington, hidden near the border of the Everfree forest. To a passing observer, it would look like nothing more than a slightly overgrown gopher mound.

There were no gophers here. However, there was the CMAA satellite office, and the gnomes who worked there.

Agent 13, or Glummwriggle as he was known when off-duty, trudged his way into the CMAA HQ, making sure to drop of the Cutie Cannon at the armory as he went. Of course, that was no simple procedure. Checking in a Cute Cannon required filling out almost as much paperwork as checking one out. The fact that it hadn't been fired required its own form, with its own fields to fill out.

Glummwriggle, or Glumm as he was sometimes called by his few friends, had discovered the hard way that 'Target is a clueless idiot' wasn't something that the higher-ups appreciated on the 'Explanation of Unused Cutie Mark Ordinance' form. Instead, he fell back to his old standby when dealing with Apple Bloom and the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

Target failed to reach proper epiphany at this time, he wrote, while muttering "Again" under his breath. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his bulbous nose with his fingers, then turned to see the smirking Quartermaster behind the counter waiting for him. He glared menacingly at the other gnome, who was quite obviously wracking his brain for what he was sure to think was a witty remark.

"Sooo... Still no cutie mark for little Apple Bloom, eh?" the gnome behind the counter finally said.

Glumm rolled his eyes.

"Get stuffed, Flufferduff," he said. "I need a drink."

"Go get one, then," Fluff said, unfazed by Glumm's attitude. He'd seen much worse from the gruff gnome, after all. Like when Glumm had returned in frustration after Sweetie Belle had left choir practice after school one day and had decided that she'd like nothing better in life than to be an impressionist painter.

"I think I will," Glumm replied, passing over the last of the forms. He waved at Fluff, who was a good friend, or at least as good of a friend as Glumm was willing to make. Gnomes in general were far too cheery for him. Maybe he'd just been in this job too long.

~~*~~

The office was a cluttered mess, with the papers stacked in the overflowing inbox threatening to collapse upon the many nearly-empty coffee cups that were leaving indelible rings and stains on the ancient oak that made up what could have been a priceless antique desk, if it weren't gnome-sized, and if the Chief hadn't carved his name into it in several locations. There weren't too many folks willing to pay for a desk that had the name 'Tallywaddle' carved into it, after all.

That was the way the Chief liked it, though. This desk was his. This job was his. Anygnome who came after him would have to deal with using a desk that had his name staring back at them from several different angles.

Chief Tallywaddle leaned back in his chair and grinned over the heaps of paperwork at the newest applicant. He could just barely see the kid's eyebrows underneath his pointy red hat. He liked it that way, too. He barely knew anygnome that worked here, and he sure as fudge wouldn't be able to recognize them out of uniform. Detachment, he believed, made for effective leadership, and Tallywaddle liked to be as detached as possible. That was Rule of Effective Gnome Management #3.

"So, you want to join the CMAA," he asked the young sprout on the other side of his desk.

"Yes, sir!" the gnome squeaked eagerly. "I like the pony folk, and it would be an honor to help with such an important job!"

"We don't just let anygnome join us," Chief Tallywaddle said sternly, though he'd already made up his mind to hire the young sprout. Still, he never passed up a chance for a self-important speech. That was Rule of Effective Gnome Management #4.

"Oh, I know sir!" the eager gnomeling cried out. "Only the best of the best of the very very best!"

"And you think that's you, do you?" Tallywaddle roared. "You think you're that good?!"

"No sir!" the applicant said. "But I'll try my best to be! And I'm sure, under your fine leadership, that I'll get there some day!"

Tallywaddle blinked in surprise. The gnome was trying to butter him up! Win him over with flattery! For a few seconds, the Chief was outraged. Who'd told this impertinent sprout about Rule #2?

He got up from his desk, and waddled (thus the name) over to the flag hung up proudly on the wall. It was the official flag of the CMAA, and to the unobservant, it was a simple green cloth with no other distinguishing marks. The motto of the CMAA was 'Unseen and unheard: They must never know'. In keeping with that motto, the flag was actually meant to represent an invisible gnome on a grassy field. Only the well educated like Tallywaddle could tell the difference.

"This particular branch of the CMAA only received our charter a little over a century ago," he told the applicant, while facing the flag so as to avoid any possible viewing and potential accidental memorization of the other gnome's features. "Celestia herself signed it, and I was hired by the Gnome King himself. But the CMAA has existed for over three thousand years, dear boy... you are a boy, right?"

"Yes, sir! That's why I have the beard, sir!"

"Good deal. Though, come to think of it, my sister has a beard. Anyway, three thousand years, and not one pony has failed to get a cutie mark at their allotted time. Nor has any pony ever known of our existence. Apart from the Princesses, of course. Well, them and Pinkie Pie. We are the unseen. The unheard. That's history, boy. That's what we're about, here. And if you think you can't hack it..."

He trailed off, and predictably enough, the sprout took the bait.

"I'm sure I can handle it, sir! I promise, I won't let you down!"

The young gnome was full of vim and vigor, ready to take on the world and the bureaucracy. And eventually fail miserably, of course. Tallywaddle smiled. The boy reminded him of himself at a younger age. Wait, no. Not himself, that other gnome. What was his name... Jingle... something-or-other. Eh, it wasn't important.

"I know you won't, boy. I know you won't," The Chief said, wandering back to his desk and collapsing into his chair with a sigh. "Now, to find you a training partner. Let's see, who's the best fit?"

And by 'best fit', the Chief was really thinking of who most deserved to be saddled with a new recruit with far more enthusiasm than brains. It would have to be some gnome who'd recently annoyed him (Rule #17). Some gnome, possibly with a bad attitude...

Ah. Of course. The answer was obvious as soon as he thought of it.

"Boy, do I have the partner for you, young... er... what was your name, again?"

"Tinseltoes, sir!"

"Tinseltoes. Yes. I have the perfect partner for you!"

~~*~~

Deep in the underground city of Gnomington, in a seedy bar off of the main drag, Glumm shivered violently as a sense of terrible foreboding came over him.

"You all right, buddy?" the bartender asked.

Glumm shook himself. He wasn't a superstitious gnome, but it felt like the somegnome had just walked over his grave.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," he told the bartender. "Can I get another ginger ale?"

"You sure, buddy? That's your fourth one."

"Hey, I'll worry about my sobriety, and you just keep them coming until I can't see straight anymore. Got it?"

"Fine, fine," the bartender said. "Your funeral."

Glumm stared at him in surprise. Surely, the reference to a funeral so soon after thinking of someone walking across his grave was just random happenstance. That, along with the feeling of dread that had passed through him. Surely it was all just a massive coincidence. Right?

Glumm turned back to his ginger ale, and whatever comfort he could find in its bubbly embrace.

Partners. Celestia help us all.

The coffee cup tumbled in a graceful arc through the air before shattering on the far wall of the cafeteria, the pieces making an almost musical sound as they tinkled to the floor. Fortunately, the lack of actual coffee in the cup meant that there was a minimum of mess to clean up for the grumbling cafeteria staff. Glumm would be the first to admit to a bad attitude, but there was no need to waste coffee just to make a point.

The gnome who'd relayed the cup-flinging-worthy news to him, his immediate supervisor, just blinked slowly. The look on his face portayed the thought that he couldn't believe what had just happened. To Glumm, his boss' lack of belief wasn't at all surprising. The number of things that he imagined Merriwinkle couldn't believe probably included gravity, light, and the fact that the sun rose every single morning.

"Did... Did you just throw a coffee cup at me?" Merri asked slowly.

"No," Glumm replied. "I threw a coffee cup near you. If I'd thrown it at you, it would have hit you."

"Oh," Merriwinkle said, parsing that statement. It took a few seconds, but it finally made sense to him. "All right, then. Anyway, your new partner—"

"Is unnecessary, Boss," Glumm said. "I don't want, and I don't need a partner."

"Oh." The gears in the Boss's head had started turning again, and Glumm settled himself down to wait with a sigh. "Well, it ain't my call, Glumm. The Chief said he's your new partner. Get him trained up and ready for solo work."

The Chief. Of course. Somehow, he must have found out about the unflattering statements that somegnome had written across the motivational pictures that Tallywaddle had posted all over the office, featuring his face staring slightly to the left of the camera in what was supposed to be a thoughtful expression.

To Glumm, the expression simply looked mildly constipated. The mysterious vandal had apparently agreed, writing 'I sure wish I could find the bathroom', 'My only regret was that today was taco day' and other such gems on every single poster in the office. All seventy-three of them. Glumm had counted.

The Chief probably thought that Glumm had something to do with the vandalizations, but he was pretty sure he was in the clear on that. After all, he was pretty sure that nobody had seen him, or rather, the mysterious gnome with the black marker, actually write anything on the posters.

"What if I said I didn't want a partner?"

Merri blinked at him, then looked down at he packet in his hand, then back up at him.

"It's orders. Gotta follow orders."

Glumm sighed. It was going to be a long day.

~~*~~

"And this is where the magic happens," Claribelle said as she escorted Tinseltoes into the outer offices CMAA Control. Row after row of desks greeted the young gnome's slightly frog-like eyes as he looked around in fascination. The several dozen gnomes hunched over their desks, sensing the presence of unauthorized enthusiasm, looked up at him coldly before returning to their work.

"This particular area is Research, where we register and track the young ponies as they begin their exciting journeys of self-discovery," Clari continued. "Here, information is brought in by our field agents or scryed directly from the source. It's amazing how often a pony's special talent is obvious to everyone but themselves."

The young gnomette smiled warmly at the new recruit, who was far too busy with observing the surrounding area to even notice the favorable attention of a pretty girl, the poor sad goofball.

"This is all so incredible!" he said. "What's that?" he asked, pointing. Before Clari could even answer, though, he was pointing at something else. "What's that? No! What's that! Oh, never mind that, this thing is amazing, what is it?"

"A potted plant," Clari said, slightly miffed. "Look, why don't I show you the Epiphany Room?"

"Oh, wow! Seriously?" Tinseltoes was practically bouncing, he was so excited. "That would be wonderful! Thank you so much!"

"This way, then," she said, treating him to another fine display of dimpled smiling, which he again totally failed to pick up on.

The Epiphany Room was a marvel of modern magical technology. Row after row of desks were arrayed in a stadium-style, with busy gnomes wearing magical headsets, and staring at special magical crystal displays on their desks.

The most noticeable thing was the large map that dominated one wall, behind a pane of glass. But this was no ordinary map: overlayed on it were the names of various ponies, with colors ranging all the way through the rainbow, from a cool blue all the way to a very rare red

"The yellow, orange or red ones are the ones we're the most concerned with," Clari said, as Tinseltoes looked around with his mouth gaping open. "The yellow are at 40% on the Epiphometer and climbing. Whenever one turns red, we scramble an agent to their location. If it goes to 100%, we hit them with the Cutie Cannon."

"Ooooh," Tinseltoes said. "Then what happens?"

"They... Uh, they get their cutie marks," Clari replied. She was rapidly reaching the conclusion that Tinseltoes wasn't too bright, which was a pity, as he didn't exactly have looks to fall back on, either.

He was a gangly thing, looking rather like a regular gnome if it were half-starved and rolled out long. Most gnomes tended towards short and pudgy, whereas Tinseltoes was tall and lanky. His greater height was a point in his favor, but he looked like he'd been constructed from far too many knees and elbows, features that not even his neatly pressed uniform successfully managed to hide.

His clothes, a bright yellow jacket with red pants, were clean and with creases so sharp that they could easily slice bread, and were draped awkwardly across his gangly frame. His bright blue eyes glittered with keen interest and what Clari assumed to be a near-total lack of comprehension. Curly ginger hair overflowed from the bottom of his cap, matching the hair of his neatly-trimmed beard.

Clari sighed. There weren't a lot of choices around the office. Most of the available gnomes she worked with were far too old, far too weird, or just plain smelled funny. As sad as it was to say, poor, skinny Tinseltoes might just be the best of the bunch when the pickings were this, ha-ha, slim.

She slapped another smile on her face and shored up her resolution.

"So what happens after they get their cutie marks?"

"Uh... Well, then we're done. We file the paperwork, mark it as complete, and send the reports to the Princess."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Apparently, Celestia really enjoys reading the cutie mark stories of each of her little ponies."

"Wooow. That must take a while," Tinseltoes said, his eyes bugging out slightly.

"Yeah. I hear she had to create a timeless pocket dimension in order to be able to read them all in a single day."

"Neat!"

Clari dimpled yet another winsome smile his way, and then gestured to the rows of desks across from the large Epiphany screen.

"These are the Epiphany Directors," she said, indicating the rows of gnomes who were staring into the strange devices on their desks. "These scrying devices, directly linked to the Epihometer, give a readout on an individual pony on how close they are to reaching the life-changing epiphany that would earn them a cutie mark. They then relay instructions to the field agents on when to fire the Cutie Cannon."

"Cool!"

"It's all very technical. It takes a lot of research, work and monitoring to determine exactly when and where a young pony will have that epiphany. The Epiphometer helps, but it can't do all the work for us."

"How do we decide what cutie mark they get?" Tinseltoes asked, and Clari looked at him in surprise. That was actually good question. The young gnome may not be as dumb as he looked.

"That would be the Cutie Art department, working in tandem with the research group, with the final decision made by each pony's individual Cutie Mark Counselor. That gnome will have a portfolio of several different young colts and fillies, and will carefully select the one that best suits their name and talent."

"But... how does the Cutie Cannon know what the cutie mark is for a given pony?" Tinsel asked, confused.

"Magic!" Clari replied, smiling happily.

"Oh, right."

Clari looked up at one of the clocks on the wall, then sighed.

"Well, it looks like this is all we have time for. I'll take you to the briefing room, where you'll meet your new partner, okay?"

"Um. Sounds good!"

The brief moment of apprehension was smothered by Tinseltoes' usual energetic enthusiasm so quickly that Clari wasn't even sure she'd seen it. She shrugged and led the young gnome out of the Control center towards the briefing room.

~~*~~

Figgwaggle was a plump, smooth-bearded gnome, and one of the senior Cutie Mark Counselors. His desk was immaculate, everything neatly in its place and perfectly aligned. The gnome himself was almost obsessively well-groomed, an interesting contrast to Glumm's general dishevelment.

Glumm reflected that Figg probably thought that his wrinkled clothes and messy beard were an indication of laziness, but that wasn't the case. It took time and effort to get himself this frumpy without actually breaking the dress code. Each wrinkle, each nearly-invisible stain, every frayed cuff, all were carefully designed and measured to cause just enough offense to get under other gnomes' skins without earning himself a reprimand.

It was exhausting, looking this lazy.

"I swear, Glummwriggle. It's like you're not even trying." the counselor said with an air of evident disappointment. He was looking at Apple Bloom's portfolio, a picture of the filly featuring large and center amidst a veritable door-stopper of a novel's worth of field notes.

"I... what?!" Glumm exploded with affronted confusion. "How is it my fault if the filly doesn't get an epiphany?"

"I just think you could take this a little more seriously, that's all."

"I take it plenty seriously!"

"You don't think you could try harder?" Figg asked, and Glumm saw the trap just before he tripped into it. One does not say they can't work harder in the CMAA.

"I'm open to suggestions," he replied through gritted teeth. "Go on and tell me how you think I could 'work harder' to have Apple Bloom achieve the epiphany that will determine the course of the rest of her life."

"Well, I don't know, I'm sure," Figg said with a disdainful sniff. "That's your job, isn't it?"

Glumm stared at the other gnome in furious disbelief.

"Right. I suppose you'd like it if I gave it one hundred and ten percent, too."

"Only if you think you can't go as high as one hundred and twenty!" Figg said with a smile, apparently glad that Glumm had caught on.

"Right. Is that all?"

"Yes, thank you. And I hope you do better next time."

Glumm managed to not slam the door on the way out, but it was a near thing. He made his way to the briefing room, where the field agents would meet for the upcoming day's events. He made his way inside, noting as he always did the not-quite-pleasant shade of green that coated the walls, and the temperature, which perpetually stayed just a few degrees too cold for comfort, no matter the weather outside.

He sank into his seat with a sigh, facing forward. Not a minute too soon, because right then Merriwinkle came marching in, with a young and unfamiliar gnome in tow. Glumm stared at the young gnome in shock. It couldn't be...

"Gnomes and gnomettes, please have a seat," Merriwinkle said, and the noise in the room died down. "First order of business. I'd like to introduce young Tinseltoes, a new cadet—"

He was cut off then, both by a groan from Glummwriggle at the gnome's name, and from Tinseltoes himself, who caught sight of his new partner.

"Ohmigosh!" Tinseltoes said excitedly. "Hi, Uncle Glummy!"

Glumm buried his face in his hands and began crying softly.

Rivals..?

"Oh, wow, I was hoping I'd meet you, but I never thought I'd actually get to be your partner!" Tinseltoes gushed, post-briefing. "We're going to have just the best time, Uncle Glummy!"

Glumm grumbled a response that may have meant just about anything.

"I'm so excited to learn all about being a field agent!"

"That's great, kid."

"This is going to be great, in spite of what mom said about working here!"

"Oh?" Glumm was intrigued in spite of himself. "What did my dear sister say about the CMAA?"

"That it's a dead-end job for losers. But we'll prove her wrong, won't we, Uncle?"

Before Glumm could answer, another voice broke in from behind them.

"While I'm sure your mother is a wonderful lady," the voice said smoothly, "in this particular case, she is completely wrong. In fact, this is the most important job in Equestria, young fellow."

Glumm sighed, pinching his bulbous nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Lumwinkle," he said, not turning around. "This is my nephew Tinseltoes."

"Hi!" said Tinseltoes.

"Ah. Hello young fellow. Glumm, I'm surprised at you. Nepotism in the workplace?" Lumwinkle said in a mildly disapproving tone.

"Not my idea," Glumm said, scowling and refusing to face the other gnome.

"I just never expected you'd have to cheat to win," Lumwinkle said, stepping around in front of Glumm while Tinseltoes just gawped back and forth between the two of them.

What Tinseltoes saw were two gnomes who were so completely unalike that they almost could have been twisted mirror images of each other. Where Glumm's beard was frazzled and iron-grey, Lumwinkle's was a well-groomed, almost oily-looking black. His uncle's unkempt, faded clothing came out much the worst in comparison to the newcomer's uniform-like crispness. Glumm stood slouching and hunched, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, whereas Lumwinkle stood ramrod straight, as if defying the world to have any impact on him at all. In addition, the newcomer had a look of frowning disappointment on his face, as opposed to Glumm's look of resigned irritability.

"For the last time, you idiot," Glumm said with a world-weary sigh, "we are not rivals."

"How could we not be, Glummwriggle? You and I, graduating at the top of our class—"

"It was a one-day orientation."

"—and now we're the number one and number two here at the Ponyville branch of the CMAA? How could we be anything but rivals for the top!"

"There's no way to compete, you moron!" Glumm snapped. "We can't control when our charges get their cutie marks! Keeping score is just ridiculous!"

"It's not like you to admit defeat! Come on, Glumm! Our competition keeps us both on our toes!"

"Oh, for the love of..." Glumm took off his pointy gnome hat and ran his thick fingers through his already untidy hair. "I'm not competing with you, Lum!"

Lumwinkle stared for a long moment, then chuckled. "I see. An interesting stratagem, indeed! Trying to get me to lower my guard, it seems. Well, it won't work!" He started walking away, waving at the pair of them from over his shoulder. "Fare well, my worthy adversary!"

Nephew and uncle stood in silence for a moment until Tinseltoes said, in a disbelieving voice, "Is he crazy, or something?"

Glumm chuckled and slapped his nephew lightly on the shoulder.

"There may be hope for you yet, kid," he said. "Come on, kid. Let's show you your gear."

~~*~~

Everygnome in the room was early, of course. There were... consequences ... to being late. So, in order to ensure that no lateness occurred, the meeting room was typically full to bursting at least fifteen minutes before the meeting was actually due to start.

It used to only be five. But then she started showing up five minutes early as well, so it became ten for everyone else. When she began showing up ten minutes early as well, it then became fifteen. There was no such thing as too early for these meetings. "On time" was when she showed up, and not a second later.

The idle chit-chat in the meeting room ceased as a middle-aged gnomette, wearing a severe black blouse-and-pants combo, marched in, thrust her folders towards the table and sat down. Ignoring the other inhabitants of the room, all of whom were staring at her respectfully (and, some would say, nervously), the gnomette began flipping through the folders, reading several papers apparently at random, and then continuing on to flip through still more.

For several minutes, this continued. None of the gnomes in the room so much as made a peep as the gnomette, her greying hair constricted into a tight bun on the back of her head, went through her paperwork. Finally, she looked up sharply, causing the other inhabitants to all lean back reflexively.

"Well? Are we ready to get started?" she said crisply, as if everygnome in the room hadn't been waiting for her to acknowledge them.

"Uh, yes ma'am!" a young gnome said.

"Excellent. What is the status on the new push for the sashes?"

"Ma'am!" another gnome said, bolting upright. "The Sash Committee are stalled at the moment, waiting on advice from the Fashion Steering Committee, in order to determine what color, or indeed, colors, the new sashes should be."

"Unacceptable," the gnomette, whose name was Sarabonn, said in a flat voice. "Resolve the situation. I don't care if you have to meet with the heads of each department hourly until this is resolved, just get it done. How about the Charity Drive?"

The gnome sat down, and a fidgeting gnomette stood up and started speaking.

"Uh, well, we're having trouble getting enough volunteers to fill our quota," the young gnomette said nervously. "We only have about thirty percent of—"

"Honestly!" Sarabonn snapped, slapping a hand down on the desk. The room flinched in perfect synchronization. "Do I have to do everything myself? Get the names of everygnome under Grade 14 who's not volunteering, and talk to them one at a time. Let them know that, while the Charity Drive is voluntary, volunteering for it is not."

The young gnomette squeaked out what sounded like an affirmative and sat down meekly.

"How about the Quarter-end meetings? Do we have everygnome on board for those?"

"Um..." Claribelle said, then shrunk back in her chair as Sarabonn's eyes bored into her. "For the Quarter-end meeting itself, yes. I've gotten all but two confirmed for the Pre-meeting for the Quarter-end meeting, but I'm having some difficulty getting the department heads to commit to a time for the Check-in meeting to discuss the Pre-meeting for the Quarter-end Meeting. Most of them are saying that they have better things to do."

Dead quiet filled the room while Sara glared holes in Clari. Finally, the older gnomette spoke in tones of ice. "I have given you one task, Claribelle. One. Task. And you can't even get that done?"

"I'm doing my best!" Clari protested, feeling miserable and, in fact, slightly resentful. "After all, I can't make them commit!" Not to mention, as far as Clari was concerned, a pre-meeting to discuss a pre-meeting was, indeed, redundant and stupid.

"Persuade them," Sara snapped, then turned her attention to another page in her folder. "What about—?"

Something snapped in Clari's brain. "How am I supposed to do that?" Clari asked sharply, interrupting her boss. The entire room gasped in shock, with the exception of the two gnomettes, one of whom stared in quiet disbelief at the growing defiance in the other's eyes. "Every one of the department heads, every one of them is buried behind a nearly impenetrable wall of administrative assistants and red tape! I can't even get face time with any of them, and for most of them, their personal assistants are at least three grades higher than me!"

Clari felt her face heating up as she talked, fear and anger mingling as the last several weeks' worth of frustration spilled out all at once. "I have no leverage! I have no pull! I can't persuade a department head if the assistant's assistant won't even book a time for me to talk to his personal assistant so I can arrange a time to talk to them! I'm stuck! I told you that two weeks ago! I told you that last week! I told you yesterday! If you want me to somehow 'persuade' them, fine! But tell me how I'm supposed to do that if I can't even talk to them!"

Clari was standing now, she was surprised to notice. She was breathing heavily, her hands bunched up in fists and her knuckles pressed firmly into the wood of the table while everygnome around her stared in total shock. Sarabonn's eyes slowly narrowed as she processed Clari's outburst, and the younger gnomette regretfully said goodbye to her career.

"You know, I do believe you're right," Sarabonn said evenly. "I think this is too much for you. I'll get some other gnome to do it. Why don't you go wait outside. I'll be out after this meeting to give you another task more... suited to your abilities and temperament."

Clari quailed inside, but tried to keep her face composed. Mustering as much dignity as she could, she waded through a sea of disbelieving stares to the door, closing it as gently as she could after she stepped outside.

~~*~~

In a darkened meeting room, two figures arrived at almost the same time. They shared measuring glances before they both nodded and had a seat at the table in the empty room. A tense silence reigned for almost a minute before one of them spoke.

"I have to think that things are going well," one of them said. The other snorted derisively.

"For you, maybe."

"You can't blame me for having better tools," the first one said, leaning back smugly.

"Perhaps. Though I have to wonder..."

"Yes?"

"What if, just what if, certain things came to light?"

The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock on the wall as the implications of that statement settled heavily over the room.

"I'm not sure I know what you're suggesting," the first one said, finally. "But, hypothetically, if they did... that would destroy everything. For both of us."

"It might almost be worth it," the first one said, scowling. "I know what you're doing. I know how you've achieved what you have so far."

"We did say 'anything goes', did we not?"

"We certainly did," the other said. "But perhaps you've gone too far?"

A sharp laugh came from the first as he stood. "Too far? For what I've accomplished? Hypothetically, of course. My dear friend, you know what's at stake, here. Nothing is 'too far' for that prize."

"So you say. I have no idea how you got them to cooperate."

"Got who to cooperate?" The first gnome said with blatantly false innocence. "I thought we were speaking hypothetically?" The gnome stood and leaned forward menacingly, and the second shrunk back slightly before his resolve firmed and he defiantly sat back up. "Keep in mind that if I go down, you go down with me. That's not hypothetical."

"I understand that."

"Good. Then we can agree to keep our arrangement private in a manner befitting gentlegnomes such as ourselves?"

There was a tense silence, ending when the second gnome nodded and stood. "Agreed," he said, and they shook hands on it.

The oatmeal thickens

Four staccato sneezes were followed by a hearty amount of cursing as Claribelle scrambled in her pocket for a handkerchief. The storeroom was full of dust, having not been cleaned in living memory. And now, it was her job and her punishment to go through the files, cleaning and organizing as she went.

In a way, it was a relief. No more stupid meetings with impossible tasks and a boss who didn't understand that demanding something didn't automatically make it possible. On the other hand, being up to your ankles in dust and mildew wasn't fun for anygnome, and the resentment she felt towards her management was taken out in a myriad small ways in the storage room as she slammed down boxes, rifled roughly through folders, and generally handled ancient documents with as little care as possible without actively destroying them.

There was almost no filing system to speak of. The best there was were date ranges written on the outside of each storage box, going back to the founding of Ponyville.

All the while Clari was working, she was grumbling in frustration. She'd worked so hard to advance in this stupid organization, and now she was doing work that no gnome anywhere could consider even remotely important. There hadn't even been a head of Records or any staff in decades, which meant that she was now a department of one. As if that weren't enough by itself, her memory kept replaying the dressing-down she'd gotten after her outburst at the Planning Session meeting.

Not to mention that she was getting her outfit just filthy.

Clari spent a few more minutes flinging boxes around and taking inventory before she stalked off. She returned a half-hour later with a rolling, portable table, several file cabinets, and an entire department's worth of office supplies.

Demeaning busy-work or not, if she was going to be stuck organizing and auditing the CMAA's filing system, she was going to do it right.

~~*~~

"Now, once again: what's the most important rule?"

"Umm..." Tinseltoes tilted his head back and scrunched up his face in earnest concentration. "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes?" he ventured.

"What? No!" Glumm took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Stay..?" he prompted, and Tinseltoes beamed as he got it.

"Stay inside the cloaking field!" he crowed.

"That's right!" Glumm said, relieved. "That's within three paces of me at all times. We can't allow the ponies to see or hear us, remember?"

"Right, Uncle!"

"All right, now. That one up there, that's one of the three banes of my existence, Sweetie Belle. She's currently at 60% epiphany and rising slowly."

"What's she doing?" Tinseltoes asked, peeking over his uncle's shoulder.

"Looks like she's hanging a bunch of items out on a clothes line," Glumm replied. "Probably doing some chores for her sister."

They watched the happily humming filly for a short while longer.

"So, what now?" Tinseltoes asked.

"We wait."

"For what?"

"For her to reach at least 80% epiphany, and then we set up the Cutie Cannon."

"And then what?"

"And then we wait until she hits 100% epiphany, and we fire the Cutie Cannon."

"And then what?"

"And then we go back to the office and fill out a ton of paperwork."

"And then—"

"Look, kid," Glumm interrupted, "this will all go much faster if you keep your mouth shut and just wait patiently."

"Oh, okay," Tinseltoes said, looking abashed. They waited for a few more minutes. "What's her epiphany score now?"

Glumm sighed. It was turning out to be an even longer day than he'd expected.

~~*~~

"Ah, Sarabonn," Tiddwiddle said, putting aside his latest case and grinning hugely. "Do come in!"

"Thanks, Tidd," Sara said, easing her way into the cluttered office of the Cutie Mark Counselor. "I'm here about the Quarter-end check-in meeting for the pre-meeting."

Tiddwiddle sighed, feeling vexed. "And here I thought I'd neatly dodged that particular problem," he said. "I'd given your subordinate... er..."

"Claribelle," Sara supplied, her face as rigid as a mask.

"Her, yes. I was quite clear to her that I wouldn't be able to attend."

"She's been... reassigned. I wanted to try and convince you myself."

"Ah, I see," Tidd said, leaning back in his overstuffed office chair. "I hope you understand, I'm so very busy these days. My office and agents are currently handling the highest volume of newly-deployed cutie marks in recent history. Taking time out for a meeting to discuss a pre-meeting isn't an effective use of my time at the moment."

"It's of critical importance that we have all of our ducks in a row before we have the actual meeting," Sara urged. "Come on, Tidd. We go way back. Do this for me, please?"

Tiddwiddle gaped in surprised as Sarabonn apparently had a stroke, right there in his office. Then he realized that she was trying to flutter her eyelashes at him, an activity that looked severely out of place on her stern face, with its severe hair style and minimalist makeup. It was as if a pike had popped up out of the water to blow kisses at him. With a shudder, he tried to shake off that image and answer her, before it got any worse.

"It's not that I want to make your life more difficult," Tidd said, trying to sound reasonable and gentle, and unknowingly coming across as condescending instead. "It's just that... well, I have so much work here to do. But!" he said, urgently, as it looked like Sara might try the puppy-dog eyes, which likely would have given him nightmares for a week. "But, I'll see what I can do. I'll have my assistant see if she can clear up some time on my calendar."

"Thank you," Sara said, once again all business. "That's all I ask."

She said her goodbyes and was almost out the door when Tiddwiddle stopped her with a question.

"By the way, this Claribelle. Just out of curiosity, where was she reassigned?"

Clari, through sheer determination and pluck, had actually managed to get on his calendar more than once to talk with him. Of course, he'd dropped those appointments as soon as he'd seen them, but anygnome with that kind of tenacity was a gnome he liked to keep track of.

"Oh, just busywork," Sara said dismissively. "I've got her going through and auditing the records in the storeroom."

If Sara had been paying attention, she might have notice Tiddwiddle's face go from a jolly, flushed red to an ashen, waxy pale in two heartbeats.

"Oh," Tiddwiddle said shakily. "You don't say?"

~~*~~

A short time later, a voice piped up, saying, "What's the percentage now?"

"Sixty two percent."

A few more minutes passed, and the first voice sounded out again, "How about now?"

"Still sixty two, kid."

After a few more minutes, there was the sound of young gnome lungs inflating in preparation to ask a question.

"Still sixty two and will you stop asking!" Glumm shouted.

~~*~~

Organization and planning. Those were the two keys to make any job reasonably easy. Clari smiled in satisfaction at her current set up.

The first thing she had done was scrap the old tracking system. That was so last century. These days, everything should be cross-referenced and indexed, rather than just stuffed into a box and quietly ignored.

The second thing she'd done was to pull out all of the boxes in the room and stack them in the hallway, then clean the floor and all of the shelves, in order to give herself a reasonably dust-free environment. And now she was retrieving a single box at a time from the hallway, cataloging the contents, labeling the folders, and finally entering names, dates, cutie marks and assigned personnel from each case onto a single spreadsheet.

Granted, this was adding a considerable amount of work to the whole process, but if there was anything Claribelle loved, it was paperwork. She was in her element now, happily sorting through and recording things. When she was done, a gnome would be able to simply look at her index, find whatever information they wanted, and immediately know what file in what box to look in to get that information.

It was funny, really. She'd worked so hard to get ahead in the cutthroat world of meetings and agendas, and here she was, happier than she'd been in a long time, just focusing on a job that any other gnome would have considered beneath them. Maybe she'd been focusing on the wrong things all this time?

Humming happily to herself, she went and put her most recently indexed box back on the shelf. As she was pushing the box in, though, something caught her eye: a stray folder, stuck outside of its box, wedged and crinkled behind the shelves. She carefully removed it and glanced at the contents.

Hmm... this is pretty recent, she thought, flipping through the folder. Inside were pictures of an adorable little blank-flanked earth pony filly, along with her designated cutie mark, and the Counselor's notes for that particular case: Subject is from a wealthy family, but shows signs of early maturity and generosity. It is expected that subject's epiphany will involve kindness and a giving spirit towards those ponies less fortunate than she is.

"Well, I guess that explains the cutie mark. She must be some sort of princess among ponies, or something." Clari said. "Well, I suppose I'd better put you off to one side until I find your home, little folder!"

Eventually, she'd come across the box that this folder belonged to, and she'd get it back where it belonged. For now, Clari just stuck Diamond Tiara's folder under her table for the moment and got back to work.

Secrets, lies, and a pegasus in the sky

A rustling from the hallway broke Clari's concentration. She looked up from the carefully-written spreadsheet with a frown on her face, and made her way towards the storeroom door. When she poked her head out into the hallway, she was amazed to see a familiar, if somewhat flushed and sweaty, face, apparently frantic as he pulled out and looked at box after box stacked in the hallway.

"Counselor Tiddwiddle?" Clari said, and the gnome shrieked and jumped. Clari stared, mouth hanging open, while the older gnome leaned against the wall, gasping for breath and pressing a hand to his chest.

"Don't do that!" Counselor Tiddwiddle exclaimed. "You nearly scared the britches off of me!"

"Sorry, sir! I didn't mean to startle you. Only... is there something I can help you with?"

"No! Wait! Yes! Why are these boxes all out in the hallway?"

"Oh, well," Clari said, smiling. "See, I've been given the task of sorting through and indexing all of the old files. And, since there was really no order at all, I thought it would be easier if I just started by clearing out the old and putting everything in with a new system!"

She beamed at the older gnome, who stared back at her as if she were spouting gibberish. Clari's smile slowly faded, and then she said, "Um, anyway. What can I help you with?"

"I'm just... I'm looking for a particular file, that's all."

"Oh? I could help you look, if you like."

"No!" Tidd yelped, eyes bulging. "I mean... No. Thank you. I don't want to waste your time looking for something so silly. Hah hah ha ha!"

Clari regarded the grinning gnome in front of her with some confusion. Why would a Counselor, one of the highest ranking members of the CMAA, come down to the archive, of all places, looking for a file? Why not send one of his assistants? Why did he look like he was forcing a smile? Why was his left eye twitching like that?

"Um. Well, if you know what box number it was in, or a date range, I could probably help you find it," Clari offered weakly.

"No! That's alright, really. I'll find it on my own, ha ha."

"You're sure? Because there's over four hundred boxes out here. It might take you a while. Even if you just have a date range, I could help."

"There is no date range," Tiddwaddle said. Then his eyes widened. "I mean! No! That's not what I meant! I meant that I don't know the date range! But I'll know the box when I see it! Please, just... go on about your work!"

"All right," Clari said doubtfully, and slowly eased her way back inside the room. For the next two hours, she tried to ignore the counselor as he rustled around in the hallway, moving boxes around and occasionally cursing under his breath. Finally, she went out into the hallway for yet another new box and noticed that he was gone.

And so was a single box, the gap in the row like a missing tooth on the smile of a foal.

Why would he take a whole box if he only needed a file? Clari wondered.

~~*~~

"What is it now?"

"Sixty-five percent."

"Okay."

A few more minutes passed, and then the younger gnome said, "What's it at now?"

"Sixty-four percent."

"Aww, it's gone backwards!"

"It does that sometimes, kid," Glumm said, gritting his teeth. Tinseltoes had been asking about the epiphany percentage every few minutes for the last two hours, and it was really starting to get to him. If it hadn't been a breach of protocol, he'd have given the trainee his earpiece, so that Tinseltoes could get the updates himself and just leave him alone.

"Look, kid," Glumm said, watching as Sweetie Belle swept the front steps of her sister's Carousel Boutique, "I hate to break it to you, but this is the job. Most of it, at least."

"Really? Just... sitting around and waiting like this?"

"You got it. It's only ever exciting after a colt or filly hits 85% or more. Otherwise, we're just on standby, in case something happens."

"Oh."

"You learn to like it, kid. The peace and quiet is relaxing."

"I suppose," Tinseltoes said glumly.

"Sorry, kid. The sad truth is that this job is usually pretty boring."

Tinseltoes was about to reply, but just then some excitement actually did happen, in the form of an excitable pegasus filly running up to talk to Sweetie Belle.

"Guess what? Guess what?" the pegasus said, her wings buzzing so excitedly that she actually managed to get a foot or so off the ground.

"What?" Sweetie Belle asked, dropping the broom she'd been using.

"Remember how Rainbow Dash said she'd take me under her wing? And, remember how she said that she'd show me some cool moves?"

"Uh-huh?" said Sweetie Belle expectantly.

"Oh, no..." said Glummwriggle, clearly alarmed.

"Well, she promised that she's going to start out with a Sonic Rainboom!"

"By the Gnome King's wooly beard!" Glummwriggle exclaimed, unheard by the two fillies.

"Oooh, neat! Where?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"South of Ponyville, in about ten minutes!" Scootaloo said, grinning hugely. "Want to come and watch?"

"Oh, yes! Let me just tell Rarity..."

The two fillies went inside, chattering excitedly. Glumm cursed loudly, and immediately began trying to raise Control. Tinseltoes, feeling more than a little confused, asked, "What's the problem, Uncle Glumm?"

Glumm held up a finger for silence and spoke urgently into his headset. "Control, do you copy? We have a confirmed Rainbow Dash event! ETA, approximately ten minutes, location, somewhere south of Ponyville. She's using the Rainboom! Repeat, she's using the Rainboom!"

~~*~~

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Tiddwiddle said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "I didn't take any box."

Claribelle frowned and thrust a clipboard under his nose. "Four hundred and seventeen boxes were removed from the storeroom, sir. I only counted Four hundred and sixteen after you left. One box is missing."

"Well, you miscounted, then." the gnome said, pretending to focus on the piles of paperwork on his desk. "I have lots of work to do, so if you'll excuse—"

"No, sir, I did not 'miscount' the boxes. I added a serial number to every single box down there, and wrote them down on my spreadsheet with the listed date ranges. The box itself that's missing is one that didn't have a date range on it. I made a special note of it, see?"

Clari tapped the line in question. Tiddwiddle, currently enjoying a nice, cold sweat, didn't bother looking at the clipboard.

"Maybe some other gnome took it, then," he said, blindly signing several papers, many of which didn't require signatures at all. His hands were trembling so much that his ordinarily smooth signature came out as an illegible scrawl. He was prepared to wait out the impertinent gnomette, no matter how long it took.

What he wasn't prepared for was for that same gnomette to slap her hands palms-down on his desk, making him jump. He shrank back in his chair as she leaned over him and said, "Look. You took the box. You know it. I know it. And I will find out why."

Tiddwiddle spluttered incredulously at the gnomette's audacity. "My dear, you're at least a dozen grade levels below me! You have no idea—"

"What I am," Clari said firmly, "is the only employee working in the Records Department. And, while it's also true that I'm currently quite a bit beneath you in seniority, being the sole employee for Records makes me a Department Head. It's true, I looked it up before I came here. Which means that, even though I'm a relatively low rank, I can go directly to Chief Tallywaddle if I feel the need to. You don't want that, do you? Let's just give me the box back so I can do my job."

Tiddwiddle's mouth hung open uselessly as he was pinned to his seat by the gimlet glare of the young gnomette. He was about to speak, to offer some reasonable explanation of some sort, when a loud klaxon made everygnome in the vicinity jump, followed shortly after by an announcement over the PA system.

"Alert! Alert! We have a confirmed Rainbow Dash event! All Cutie Teams scramble! All Cutie Teams scramble! This is not a drill!"

"Ah!" Tiddwiddle said, never before having been so glad to have an emergency dropped in his lap. "Looks like I need to go take care of this. Protocol, you know." He heaved himself out of his chair and ushered the protesting gnomette out of his office. "Thank you so much for dropping by, I do hope that you find the box you've misplaced. Ta-ta, now!"

Claribelle glared at him for a few seconds, then stomped off with a scowl on her face. Tiddwiddle watched her go.

Something needs to be done about that girl, he thought darkly.

The Event

Glumm was still on the radio with Control when Sweetie Belle emerged. The filly was now wearing a pink sundress and a hat with a wide, round rim. When Scootaloo saw her friend, she rolled her eyes and made a snide comment about the other filly's getup. The little white unicorn grinned, turned her nose up in the air and pranced by her friend, stating that it was only normal for the orange filly to be jealous of such fabulosity.

Scootaloo shouted something rude and chased after Sweetie Belle, who shrieked and ran giggling into town, the pegasus hot on her hooves. On the way, they ran into Apple Bloom and filled her in on the upcoming airshow. The earth pony filly eagerly joined the other two, and the three trotted happily off, unaware of the presence of two gnomes struggling desperately to keep up with them.

The three Crusaders, chatting animatedly, made their to the designated clearing and sat down to wait a short distance away from where two gnomes, panting for breath, were hiding in an unkempt shrubbery.

"I think... I'm getting... too old for this," Glumm managed finally. Tinseltoes, performing a grand imitation of a fish on dry land, gasped and wheezed in response.

A minute or two crept by, and the younger gnome staggered to his feet as Glumm was bringing out the Cutie Cannon.

"Their epiphany levels are high enough to set that up?" Tinseltoes asked, though still a little breathlessly.

"Not at the moment," Glumm said, nearly recovered from his jog through town. "But we have a Rainbow Dash Event coming up."

A moment passed, with the only sounds being the chattering of the fillies and the click-clack of Glumm loading extra ordinance into the Cutie Cannon.

"I don't get it."

Glum sighed and looked up at his nephew.

"The first time that Rainbow Dash used that blasted Rainboom of hers, I was a fresh new recruit. I remember it like it was yesterday, though." He returned his attention back to the maintenance of the Cannon while relating his story. "Out of nowhere, Epiphometers were going crazy all over Equestria. Mostly near Cloudsale, but also in Ponyville, Manehatten, Trottingham, Canterlot... It was all over. Ponies that were barely registering on the Epiphometers were all of a sudden spiking up to sixty, seventy, even eighty percent. A couple even went straight to a hundred. All gnomes were scrambled. Even me, half-trained though I was."

Glumm finished loading a third round into the cannon and took a firing position, locking onto Apple Bloom, who was sitting in the middle of the three Crusaders while they waited for Rainbow Dash to show up.

"I was airlifted out to a rock farm, of all places. Can you believe that? A rock farm. They farmed rocks. These ponies are crazy."

"How does... Wait, rocks?"

Glumm shot a humorless grin at his nephew's extremely confused face.

"Don't ask me, kid. I was just there for Pinkie Pie."

"Pinkie Pie... that name is familiar," Tinseltoes said, not noticing Glumm's wince. "Oh! The Chief said she's the only pony besides the Princesses who knows about us!"

"Yeah... No idea how that happened," Glumm lied, glad that the cloaking technology had been vastly improved over the last few years. Not to mention that pony seemed to have some weird sixth sense when it came to being watched.

"So, when Rainbow Dash does a Rainboom," Tinseltoes said, putting it all together, "ponies start getting epiphanies?"

"Yeah. Every time that crazy mare does one, there's a spike of new cutie marks." Glumm sighed, looking at the three excited fillies. "Hopefully, these three finally get theirs."

"Don't think that will put you ahead of me," a new voice broke in, startling the other two. Lumwinkle, looking as sharp and crisp as ever, approached them calmly and took out his own cannon. "I'm here to back you up, Glummwriggle."

"Don't need it," Glumm said shortly.

"Ah, but it's orders," Lum said smoothly. "Not that I'm complaining, as three young fillies getting their marks would put you in range to pass me on the leader board. Tell you what, Glummwriggle. I'll take two and leave the third to you."

Glumm snorted irritably. "You don't know these fillies, Lum. They're completely clueless. No matter how much of an epiphany spike they get, I'm pretty sure that no more than one of them will get to a hundred percent."

"Should we make a little wager on that?" Lum said with a tight grin, settling into a firing position of his own.

"Um, guys?" Tinseltoes said, interrupting what was sure to be an angry retort from his uncle. "Is Rainbow Dash a pegasus with a rainbow-colored mane and tail?"

"Yeah," Glumm replied sourly. "Why?"

"Because she just flew overhead."

~~*~~

Claribelle was in "something of a mood", for lack of a better term, when she returned to the archive storage.

""Oh, thank you so much for dropping by!" she said in a simpering imitation of Counselor Tiddwiddle. She pulled a box from the hallway and slammed it down on her work table. "Oh, I do so hope that you find the box you've misplaced!"

She flipped the lid off of the box and pulled out a folder. "I'll show him, that fat, condescending piece of..."

Clari spent the next ten minutes devoted to exploring every facet of language that a young lady gnome shouldn't know, applying various unflattering descriptions to the absent Counselor. Only when she realized that she'd made several mistakes in her latest entries did she force herself to calm down. Several deep breaths later, she was herself again.

It was true that a Rainbow Dash Event was a big deal. Not that it was any less outrageous of Tiddwiddle to rush her out of his office without answering her questions, but it was a valid excuse to avoid talking to her now. Which, naturally, only helped to make Clari even more frustrated with the entire situation.

Still, there was work to be done, here. The records were still a mess, and there were hundreds of boxes to go through. She erased the error-ridden entries she'd just recorded, took the first folder once again, and began writing things down once more.

"All right. Let's start with the date... Hmm... This one's pretty recent. Ponies who've gotten their marks within the last five years." She rolled up her sleeves, cracked her knuckles, and said, "Right, let's get started."

~~*~~

Counselor Figgwaggle looked up from the well-ordered chaos of the Epiphany Room as a familiar and wholly unwelcome face approached. He frowned in irritation as the potbelly that was attached to the face invaded his personal space.

"We need to talk," Tiddwiddle told him in a low whisper. "There's a problem."

"No, we don't," Figg said. "We have a Rainbow Dash Event to monitor. That takes priority. Besides, whatever problems you're having with your end are your problems. I think I made that clear during our last meeting."

"And I believe that I made it clear, during our last meeting, that if I went down, then you would be going down with me."

Figgwaggle frowned mightily. "You don't need to remind me." Tiddwiddle simply stared at him, and Figg relented with a sigh. "Very well. We don't need to be here at this exact moment. Come along, then."

He allowed himself a terse grin as Tiddwiddle fell in behind him with bad grace while grumbling something or other about how Figg was taking charge. They arrived at a conference room, mercifully empty, and co-opted it immediately. Figgwaggle wasted no time once he'd sat down. "What's all this about then?"

"Are you sure you're done dragging me all over the compound?" Figgwaggle simply raised an eyebrow at his compatriot's comment. Tiddwiddle relented and said, "There is a young gnomette who is apparently tasked with organizing the records in the storage archive. I was able to get a box of... shall we say, 'undesirable files' out from underneath her, but she knows I took it. She has no proof, but she knows."

"Ah, I see." Figgwaggle stood up, enjoying the rush as he realized just how much trouble his rival was in. Potentially, of course. Not that it would do him a great deal of good, of course, seeing as he was somewhat complicit in whatever secrets Tiddwiddle was trying to hide. "And why do these files even exist?"

"Expedience. Easier to hide them than to destroy them, though I imagine that I haven't much of a choice now."

"And what do you expect me to do?"

"Help me hide the damned box, of course!" Tiddwiddle shouted, surging to his feet. "That way, she can search my office all she likes and never find a thing!"

"Ah. I see." Figgwaggle toyed idly with his beard. "If I do as you ask, I shall necessarily become encumbered with certain... risks. I don't see how that is at all to my benefit."

The other Counselor sat down with a sigh. "All right. What do you want in exchange?"

"What do I want?" Figgwaggle pressed a hand to his chest dramatically. "My friend, you wound me! As if I would take advantage of your precarious situation in order to gain advantage for myself." He let Tiddwiddle stew for a moment before continuing. "It occurs to me, though, that, if we are now such good friends that we can rely on each other in this fashion, it would be merely the friendly thing to do to let me know how you've managed to have your agent successfully rack up such a high number of cutie marks in such a short period of time."

Tiddwiddle sighed. "I suppose I should have expected this. Fine, I'll tell you." He fished around in an over-sized jacket pocket and eventually pulled out a small device.

"That's not... It can't be!" Figgwaggle stared at his fellow Counselor, feeling a mixture of awe and reluctant admiration. "You clever bastard."

"Yes, well. Whatever is necessary, we agreed," Tiddwiddle said, waving his hand dismissively.

"I'd wondered why you spent all that time in the Epiphany room during normal operations. Just like that, eh?"

"Just like that."

Figgwaggle picked up the device. It was a stubby grey rod, about the length of his finger and the width of his thumb. It had a small slider and a button on one side. "So. You simply aim this at the Epiphometer display you wish to influence and push the button. Correct?"

"Yes. And it adds anywhere up to ten percent Epiphany to the meter. Artificial, of course."

"I'm borrowing this," Figgwaggle said, slipping the device into his pocket. Tiddwiddle began to protest, of course, but Figg simply held up a hand until the other gnome quieted down. "You've received quite the advantage with this little device. It's my turn to even the score a little. You asked to know what I want for my cooperation? Well, this is it."

Tiddwiddle nodded tersely. "Fine, then. But I get it back after today's Event."

"Understood. But I think it would be only sporting if we traded this off. Shall we say daily?" Figg smiled as the other gnome squirmed. "It's only sporting, after all."

"Very well," Tiddwiddle said with bad grace. "Give me the keys to your office, and I'll get the box in there right away."

"Good idea," Figg said jauntily, handing them over.

The two gnomes exited the conference room and went their separate ways. Figg himself hurried back to the Epiphany Room, hoping to get there before his absence was noted. When he arrived, he allowed himself a moment to bask in the near-panic that flooded the gnomes around him. He toyed with the device in his pocket as he looked around, finally finding the controller who was relaying epiphany information to his agent, Glummwriggle, out in the field.

All he had to do now was wait.

~~*~~

"Epiphometer reads as follows: Apple Bloom, fifty percent, steady. Sweetie Belle, forty-three percent, dropping. Scootaloo, sixty percent, rising."

"Confirmed, control," Glumm said into his headset. "Rainbow Dash is still on the ground."

"Confirmed, Agent 13. Let us know when she's back in the air."

Amongst the gnomes, a tense silence followed. The nearby fillies, however, were chatting excitedly with Rainbow Dash, who was preening and strutting back and forth in front of them. Eventually, the pegasus launched herself into the air.

"Control, Rainbow Dash is up," Glumm said, somehow keeping his voice steady. "Repeat: Rainbow Dash is in the air. Do you copy?"

"Copy, Agent 13. Will relay status as needed. Good luck out there."

The gnomes and fillies watched as a rainbow contrail shot up into the sky. Now even the fillies were silent, watching for the pegasus to come back down.

"There she is!" Scootaloo shouted, pointing with a hoof. All eyes locked on the rapidly descending pegasus, a multi-colored cone forming in front of her. Glumm felt his fingers tighten on the trigger. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax, becoming conscious of his breathing as he tried keep it steady. These three had been nothing but pure frustration to him for the last year, always coming so close and yet always missing. Even if only one or two of them got their marks today, he'd call it a good day.

But he had to do it right. No mistakes.

~~*~~

"Copy, Agent 13. Will relay status as needed. Good luck out there," the control agent said, nodding to Figgwaggle as the Counselor wandered over to "observe" the screen. Figg's hands were sweaty as he fiddled with the device hidden in his jacket pocket, running his thumb over the button as he watched the screen. At least one of the fillies was up over sixty percent Epiphany, and a Rainboom commonly added anywhere from twenty to fifty percent. He might not even need to use the device, a thought that filled him with both relief and regret.

A minute or so passed, and then the controller shouted, "We have a confirmed Rainboom! Repeat, we have a confirmed Rainboom! Everygnome on high alert!"

On the big map, alarms started going off in an ever-expanding circle, with the epicenter being a point just slightly to the south of Ponyville. CMAA agents on high alert scrambled all across the region, trying to keep up with the rapidly spreading wave of rising epiphany. Within a minute, no less than two agents had been ordered to fire, deploying cutie marks to a colt in downtown Ponyville, and a young filly whose family was having a picnic by Whitetail Woods.

Figgwaggle frowned at the controller's screen. So far, the three fillies who made up the Cutie Mark Crusaders weren't near enough to epiphany for the device in his pocket to be useful. The best of the bunch was the one called Scootaloo, who was up to eighty-four percent, with Apple Bloom trailing behind at seventy-one, and Sweetie Belle somehow managed to drop to thirty percent. He grumbled with irritation. It was enough to drive him crazy!

The controller kept reading the results to Glumm in the field. Scootaloo had crept up to eighty-five with agonizing slowness. Just another five percent, and he could trigger the device and get this troublesome little filly's file off of his desk forever.

~~*~~

"Whoah, that was awesome!" Scootaloo was shouting. Next to her, an excited Apple Bloom was squealing and clapping her hooves in delight. Sweetie Belle was the only one who wasn't ecstatically happy.

"Ahh! I spilled my grape soda on my sundress!" the little unicorn wailed. "Rarity's gonna kill me!"

As he looked out from between a couple of scraggly branches, Glummwriggle allowed himself a rare, brief smile. As much trouble as these Rainbooms caused, they were something else to see. Next to him, his nephew was staring in awe at the rippling waves of color that washed across the sky.

"Apple Bloom at seventy-seven percent and steady. Scootaloo at eighty-five percent and climbing!"

"Confirmed, Control," Glumm replied. "Firing solution primed and ready."

"I suppose it's only fair that I let you have the first shot," Lumwinkle said graciously. "These fillies are your cases, after all."

"Thanks," Glumm muttered, barely paying attention. He was fixated on the young pegasus in his sites. Apple Bloom began consoling Sweetie Belle over the spilling of her grape soda, but Scootaloo only had eyes for Rainbow Dash as she flashed away in a prismatic blur.

"Sweetie Belle at twenty-five percent. Apple Bloom at seventy-five percent and falling. Scootaloo at eighty-eight percent and rising!"

"Confirmed, Control. Holding on your orders."

The world narrowed down to just him, the voice of Control, the filly before him, and the trigger under his finger. He was just barely aware of what the three of them were saying.

"Soda is bad fer your teeth anyway," Apple Bloom said. "Hey! Maybe we could be Cutie Mark Crusader Dentists!"

Apple Bloom at seventy percent, falling. Scootaloo at eighty-nine percent, steady."

"Whaddaya think, Scoots?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Wha..?" the distracted filly said, still staring in awe at her idol, who was now coming in for a landing.

"You want a cutie mark in dentistry?"

"Scootaloo at ninety per... wait..."

"Sure, dentist. Whatever," Scootaloo said, obviously not paying attention.

"Scootaloo now at one hundred percent Epiphany! Fire! Fire!"

Glumm was thinking "Dentist? That's not right, I read her file" even as his trigger finger, conditioned as it was to respond to that one particular word from Control, squeezed the trigger.

With a roar, the cannon went off.

The Aftermath

His finger may have been conditioned to squeeze when he heard the word “Fire!”, but Glumm had spent the last few years undergoing an additional kind of conditioning. One which, while it wasn’t part of the normal training regimen of an agent of the CMAA, carried a lot more weight.

In his memory, Glumm once again heard the shocked and disbelieving voice of a filly shouting, “My special talent is making mud pies?!” The conditioned reflex of his trigger finger was neatly countered by the remembered shame of failing that young pony. Not to mention the hours and hours of paperwork that had been the result.

The old ingrained shame had caused his arm to jerk the cannon up and sideways at the same time his finger had tightened on the trigger, launching the Cutie Cannon ordinance over the distracted Scootaloo’s left shoulder. Unbeknownst to anyone there, the ordinance went on to strike a nearby fox lurking in some bushes. This fox became the first non-pony in history to have a cutie mark, a fact would cause much turmoil in the upcoming mating season, but that was a story for another time.

“I can’t believe you’d miss an easy shot like that!” Lumwinkle said, sounding more disbelieving than disappointed. The other gnome brought his cannon around only to be obscured by Glumm, who moved directly into his line of fire.

“Stand down,” the grizzled gnome snapped. Ignoring the other agent’s spluttering protests, he reached up and tapped his headset. “Control, confirm epiphany status on subject: Scootaloo. I believe your count may be wrong.”

”You didn’t take the shot?!” the Controller yelled into Glumm’s ear. ”You were ordered to fire! Epiphany levels... Great, now they’re at 87% and falling.” There was a pause, after which the Controller’s voice, obviously attempting to control a great deal of anger, said, ”Return to base immediately, Agent 13. No deviations, no delays. Return your gear and head immediately to your superior’s office.”

“Understood, Control,” Glumm said, gritting his teeth as self-doubt settled in. His instincts had overridden his training and all known protocol, and now he was going to pay for it.

And the worst part was that he wasn’t even sure if he’d been right.

~~*~~

A less experienced gnome might look at the Epiphany Room and see nothing but utter chaos. Controllers shouted at agents, agents shouted back at the controllers, and earnest young interns ran about higgledy-piggledy on whatever mysterious errands that they always seemed to be occupied with.

The truth was that for all the shouting and hectic activity, the gnomes involved were all working together like the springs and gears of a complicated and chaotic clock.

Figgwaggle, his hand still on the device, glowered in fury over the controller’s shoulder at the screen which showed a very definite falling in Scootaloo’s epiphany scores. Glumm had failed him.

Figg glanced up at the big screen and scowled. The Rainboom had spread out over several miles, bringing spikes of epiphany as it went, but those spikes had already hit their peak and were on their way down.

“Call Security,” Figgwaggle growled at the Controller before him. “Agent 13 is to be taken into custody the moment he enters the compound.”

“Yes, sir,” the Controller said. The salute he directed towards the Counselor was crisp, precise, and completely unnecessary, as the CMAA wasn’t actually a military organization. Figg returned the salute before he stalked out of the Control Room, seething, and made his way to Gnome Resources to file a complaint.

~~*~~

Sweat plastered Tidwiddle’s jacket to his back as he rushed back to his office, gasping and panting for breath. He'd been a senior gnome for a long time, and he was no longer used to rushing anywhere. The hallways of the CMAA compound were strangely empty, with all gnomes on duty at the various workstations. There would be no better time to transport a box of damning files from one location to another.

As he hurried, he allowed himself a small, fierce grin. Figg wasn’t as clever as he’d thought he was. The device he'd taken from Gnome Tech was called an Epiphany Tuner, used to test and calibrate Epiphometers as part of the regular maintenance. And, once he actually used the thing, he'd be just as culpable in this whole mess as Tiddwiddle, himself.

All of the vague “I’ll take you with me” threats that Tidd had thrown at Figg were completely unenforceable, a bluff. All the other Counselor would have had to do was to simply deny all knowledge, and any investigation would have cleared him of any wrongdoing.

Until now, that is. Until he actually used the device himself. Oh, and once he became an accomplice in hiding the evidence, as well.

Tiddwiddle giggled slightly to himself as he let himself into his office, unlocking the door with a huge, heavy key that was one of several dozen on a massively oversized keyring that typically weighed down his right pocket. He shoved his chair aside and reached under his desk, pulling out the box full of dirty secrets.

His secretary... strike that, his Administrative Assistant, as the Gnome Resources department was insisting they be called these days, had a wheeled cart by her desk for when she needed to bring files down to the archive. Tiddwiddle heaved the box onto it and hurried down the hallway, making his way as quickly as he could to Figgwaggle’s office.

~~*~~

Chief Tallywaddle solemnly regarded the gnome sitting on the other side of his desk. He was almost absolutely certain that he had his features under control, and that the smirking joy he felt in no way showed up on his face.

He was completely wrong, of course, but Tallywaddle wouldn’t have been greatly bothered to know that.

“Yes,” he continued, picking up the report in front of him. “A serious, serious breach of protocol.”

“Yes, sir,” Glummwriggle said stiffly.

“Serious, indeed. Very, very... serious.”

“Yes... sir.” Glumm said, even more stiffly. “You’ve mentioned.”

“Well, it won’t do!” Tallywaddle said, slapping the complaint down on the desk. This was followed by what was intended to be a dramatic surge to his feet as the Chief bolted up out of his chair, the effect of which was hampered by his plump waistline getting stuck in his chair’s armrests. A frantic few seconds of rump-shaking, swearing and pushing on the chair got it to fall back to the floor with a loud thunk, freeing the Chief's expansive posterior..

Tallywaddle’s eyes snapped up to see a not-at-all-amused-really Glummwriggle sitting in front of him with a face that was, perhaps, a little too straight, his gaze firmly attached to a point just over the Chief’s left shoulder. Tally grunted and smoothed down his jacket before confronting the other gnome once again.

“Do you have any idea what we must do now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh?” Tallywaddle said, stiffening his back and crossing his arms. “Pray, do tell.”

“In a typical situation,” Glumm intoned stonily, “this case would be referred to the Cutie Mark Intervention department. CMI specialists would work behind the scenes to recreate the mindset and epiphany level that would bring young Scootaloo back to the proper state to receive her epiphany, and therefore her cutie mark.” His eyes snapped over to the Chief, who took a step back out of pure reflex. “Which would, apparently, make her a dentist in spite of the fact that she’s never shown any inclination towards dentistry, was doing nothing dentist-related at the time, and the fact that her file definitely indicates she’s not going to be a dentist. It was a false positive.”

“Pssh!” Tallywaddle replied, releasing a noise that sounded like steam escaping from an old and unstable boiler. “Pshaw! There has never, never been a false-positive in the entire history of the CMAA! On what do you base this ridiculous claim?”

“On the basis that I know those kids. My instincts tell me that the fire command was premature. Control was in error.”

“Indeed!” Tallywaddle said, his face now resembling that same ill-made boiler. His face was an alarming shade of read, and sweat poured profusely from his brow and down his face as he flopped heavily back into his chair. “Indeed? Instincts, is it? Well, I think all of this... this... nonsense is simply an attempt to cover up for your own incompetence!”

Unlike the senior gnome, Glumm’s chair didn’t get stuck on his backside as he surged to his feet while slamming his fists knuckles-down on the desk.

“I may be many things,” Glummwriggle growled, the coldness of his voice countering the heat of the Chief’s, who leaned warily back, “but I am not a liar, and I don’t make excuses for when I screw up. I didn’t screw up. Control was wrong.”

“So you say,” the Chief said, still leaning back.

“So I say,” Glumm replied.

“Well, then,” Chief Tallywaddle said, slumping back down into his creaking office chair. “I’m afraid you give me no choice.” He didn’t bother trying to stop the grin that spread across his face as he said, “Effective immediately, you are on unpaid suspension, pending review of this case and subsequent termination.”

He could hear the disgraced field agent’s teeth grinding together. He watched as Glumm’s eyes ranged across his desk and around the room, and the Chief had a sudden moment of panic as he realized that he had a distressingly large variety of blunt objects cluttering his office, very close at hand.

The word “bludgeoning” occurred to the Chief, followed shortly thereafter by the words “bruising” and “grievous bodily harm”. Those words, coupled with the look on Glumm's face, caused him to sweat even more profusely than before, the sweat running in an icy river down his back.

Then, to his immense relief, Glumm spun on his heel and stalked out the door without another word.

~~*~~

“This... this can’t be right,” Claribelle said. “You can’t be right!” she added, pointing an accusing finger at the folder lying open on her desk.

The folder just sat there, quietly refusing to acknowledge its wrongness or to change and suddenly start making sense. Clari leaned down and pulled the rumpled folder she'd found earlier out from underneath her desk and placed it beside the new, crisp, and utterly wrong one.

Everything was the same in the two folders. All of the research notes, the dates, the names of the gnomes on the committee who worked on this particular case... Clari’s eyes hesitated one specific name, a frown slowly creeping across her face as certain thoughts began vying for attention.

Apart from the damage and neglect to the one folder, all of the contents were completely identical. Except, that is, for the Counselor’s summary.

“Subject is from a wealthy family,” Claribelle read, slowly and out loud, “but shows signs of early maturity, grace and poise. It is expected that subject's epiphany will involve her special uniqueness and her rightful place in the top tier of pony society.”

The gnomette stared at the summary, thoughts whirling. She had a sick feeling that she knew what had happened and, by extension, what it was that was in the box that had so mysteriously disappeared. What she didn’t know was why.

“Oh, Diamond Tiara,” she whispered into the storeroom. “You poor thing. What did they do to you?” She felt a creeping horror as she added, "And how many more like you are there?"

Politics is a lovely business.

Clari’s heels clicked rapidly against the floor as she walked down the tiled hallway. In her arms were two folders, one rumpled and one pristine, both clutched tightly to her chest. She rounded a corner at speed, nearly taking out a poor pimply-faced and scraggle-bearded gnome who was pushing a mail cart.

“Sorry!” Clari called over her shoulder without slowing down. She heard muttering from the gnome behind her, but she didn't stop for that, either.

Ahead were Tallywaddle’s offices, featuring the only glass door in the entire facility. This door led to a small reception area, where the Chief’s administrative assistant Ninabella would stop anygnome who tried to violate the sanctity of the boss gnome’s private sanctum.

The middle-aged gnomette fixed her with a gimlet glare and her cold voice said, “What possible reason could you- Hey!” she shouted, as Clari simply ignored her and walked past her desk. She didn’t have time to deal with Nina, either.

“You can’t just—”

“Bup!” Clari said, raising a hand palm-out and placing it in front of the shocked assistant’s face. “No time!”

Ninabella, who was suddenly very conscious of exactly how much of her authority rested on every other gnome actually acknowledging that her authority actually existed, was only able to manage a weak-sounding “Hey, what?” as Clari marched past at full speed.

She threw the door open with gusto, causing the heavyset gnome inside to flinch. Tallywaddle, finding his sanctum suddenly violated, looked up with a mixture of startled fear and annoyance on his puffy features. After gaping incredulously for a moment, he managed to surge to his feet and bellow, “What is the meaning of this?!”

Clari was still riding the high from her success in dealing with the ever-unpleasant Ninabella and shoved her hand in her boss' shocked face.

“Bup!” Clari said. A moment later she had a sudden moment of clarity. The warm feeling of success faded away to the chill of impending doom as she slowly lowered her hand to reveal the volcanic features of the Chief’s face.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said quickly, before he could blow. “but this is an absolute emergency! I’ve discovered a violation of the CMAA’s primary charter! Someone’s been changing cutie marks!”

“Of all the nerve!” Tallywaddle shouted, now good and enraged. “For a low-ranking gnomette to just barge in here and start yelling at me about rules violations! You’re facing the sack, young lady, I can tell you that! Some nonsense about...”

The Chief blinked as what Clari had told him slowly sunk in. “Wait, what was that about violating our charter?”

~~*~~

“Hey, so, what happened?” Tinseltoes asked.

A low grunt was his only answer.

“You’re not in trouble, are you?”

This time, the answer he received came in the form of the other gnome gulping back half a glass of ginger ale in one go. The younger gnome watched his uncle drink, eyes wide.

“Golly,” he said, awestruck. A long moment passed as Glumm hacked and coughed, followed by the glass being put roughly back on the counter and the bartender being signalled for a refill. “Uh, don’t you think you’ve had enough, uncle?”

“Enough?” Glumm said, sounding confused. He repeated the word, this time sounding offended. “Enough?! Why, yes, my boy! I do think I’ve had enough! Not you,” he added to the bartender, who’d begun to turn away. “I haven’t had nearly enough of that.”

The bartender sighed and took the glass, refilling it and returning it to the slightly-wobbly gnome at the bar.

“Ten years I’ve sunk into this place, kid,” Glumm said. “Ten years, and I know the business as well as anygnome. You know what I did before this job?”

“No,” Tinseltoes said, though that was a complete lie. Some instinct told him that it was important to keep his uncle talking.

“I was a miner. For almost twenty years, I went down into the dark with a pickaxe and shovel, no light except what we brought with us. It was grueling, back-breaking work. And you know what I’ve learned, kid?”

Tinseltoes once again feigned ignorance.

“Mining is a much more difficult job than working for a gnome like Tallywaddle.” He slammed back another glass of ginger ale. “But not by nearly as much as it should be.”

The grizzled gnome stood woozily to his feet, only giving a peremptory curse and jerking his arm away when Tinseltoes grabbed hold of his elbow to help steady him.

“You going to be okay, Uncle?” Tinsel asked.

“Meh.” Glumm shook his head like a bear. “Bah!” he said. “Gotta use the gents.”

There was only so much assistance that Tinseltoes was willing to give to his inebriated uncle. He pointed him in the direction of the bathroom and gave him a gentle nudge.

“He’s your uncle, kid?” the bartender asked as Glumm tottered away. He was using a grubby cloth to spread the dirt around on an empty glass.

“Yeah,” Tinseltoes said. “Does he do this often?”

“Come in and drink? Sure.” The bar gnome shrugged. “This much drinking in a night? No.”

Tinseltoes absorbed that information. He chewed his lower lip, concerned. Things were rapidly getting out of hand, as far as he could see. The disaster out on the field, the presumed chewing-out that he’d gotten from the Chief... those were both things that could be survived. But if he let Glumm drink himself to death, the next family reunion would be all kinds of awkward.

Grandma would probably get involved, he realized with a shudder.

A minute later, Glumm staggered back out of the little gnome’s room, looking slightly better.

“So,” Tinsel ventured as delicately as possible, “do you think you’re going to lose your job?”

“It’s up to Gnome Resources, now,” he replied, swaying slightly as he resumed his seat. “For the moment, it’s the next best thing: Suspended without pay.”

The bartender, who’d done a very poor job of pretending not to eavesdrop, cleared his throat roughly. “Sooo,” he drawled. “You’ll be settling up your tab tonight, then?”

~~*~~

Chief Tallywaddle now knew exactly what it would feel like if his guts had suddenly all vanished only to be replaced by a large ball of sloshing ice water. That was precisely what looking at the two folders lying on his desk felt like.

“And you’re certain?” he asked.

“As I can be, sir,” Claribelle replied. “This rumpled one was wedged back behind the boxes. I think it got missed. But I believe there’s a whole box full of them. Why else would Tiddwiddle take off with the whole box?”

“And you have proof that it was him?”

“No, sir,” Clari said with a sigh. “But it’s pretty likely, all things considered. The evidence sure supports that conclusion. Tiddwiddle is the counselor assigned to Diamond Tiara’s case, and he was the one going through the stacks looking for a particular box. A box which, I would like to add, is now missing and most likely hidden in his office.”

“I see.”

Tallywaddle stood up and paced over to the CMAA flag hanging on his wall. Emotions boiled within him as he considered his next steps.

Regardless of how this played out, his life was about to get a lot more complicated. Tallywaddle didn’t like complicated. He was keenly aware of the gnomette behind him, though she was staying as still and quiet as she could.

Something would have to be done. Something bold. Something decisive. Something that would prevent Central Command from ever wondering if he actually knew what he was doing out here.

With a startling sense of clarity, the course of action he’d have to take laid itself out before him. He turned and offered a smile to the gnomette seated at his desk.

“Young... Claribelle, was it?” he asked. She nodded. “My dear, I have to thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for bringing this to me. You’re quite right, of course. This is a problem of simply enormous magnitude. I can only assure you that I will treat this with all due urgency.”

“Thank you, sir,” Claribelle said, standing as he approached. He escorted her out to the outer office and spoke with just the proper urgency to his Assistant, Ninabella.

“Nina, dear, could you please get a message to Tiddwiddle that I will see him in my office, immediately? He’s to drop whatever it is he’s working on and get here as fast as possible.”

Nina blinked in surprise and then nodded. She pressed a button on her desk, causing the PA system to click on.

“Counselor Tiddwiddle to the Chief’s office. Tiddwiddle to the Chief’s office for an urgent matter. Meaning now.”

“There,” he said to Claribelle. “I’ll take it from here. You said you work in the archives, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Clari said, smiling.

“Well, I have to say, you’re doing a bang-up job, if you’re finding discrepancies like this! But I won’t keep you. I’m sure you have a lot more work to complete.”

Clari’s smile faded slightly. “Um. Yes sir, but... I was hoping I could...”

“Now, Claribelle,” Tallywaddle said, putting a paternal hand on her shoulder. “You’ve done well in bringing this to me, and I truly appreciate it. However, what will happen next is between the Counselor and myself. Disciplinary action like this is supposed to be kept private.”

“Oh... Yes. Of course.”

“You’ll be down in the Archives if I need you, yes?” Tallywaddle smiled at her again, putting just a small amount of pain into it to show that he was contemplating something unpleasant. “I’d like to know where to find you, just in case I need you to repeat any of your testimony here.”

“Oh! Yes, sir!” Clari’s smile recovered and once again beamed out of her eager face. “Here, sir,” she said, holding out a clipboard.

“Er. What’s this?” Tally took the board with with all the enthusiasm he’d have had in picking up a dead minnow.

“A receipt, sir. A new policy I’ve implemented, as head of the Archives. Whenever a file is removed, it has to be signed for by the one taking it.” There was a moment of leaden silence, after which Clari added, “It’s to stop further discrepancies, sir.”

“Ah. I see.” With a quick flick of his wrist, he signed the form on the clipboard. Clari took out the yellow copy from the middle and handed it to him.

“Thank you, sir!” Clari chirped, tucking the clipboard under her arm.

“You’re quite welcome, my dear. And, once again, I thank you for bringing this matter to my attention.”

He watched with a fond smile as the gnomette left his reception room. Then he nodded to Nina, walked back into his office and shut the door. As soon as the door clicked shut, his shoulders slumped and the smile fell from his face.

Rule of Effective Gnome Management #19: The warm, loving grandpa routine. It had served him well once again.

His face now set into grim lines, the Chief walked around his desk and sat down with a sigh. He leaned forward, opening the rumpled folder and flipping through a few pages. He closed it, lifted the folder and, without any ceremony whatsoever, calmly dumped the entire thing into his waste basket.

That done, he set his elbows on the desk, pressed his fingers together between his second and third chins and waited for his misbehaving Counselor to arrive. They had a lot to discuss.

Simmer and stir

Glumm was feeling… well, pretty glum, all things considered. Being a Field Agent wasn’t much of a job, granted, but he’d been able to find some small amounts of satisfaction by thumbing his nose at those higher up the ladder than he was. And, in spite of the frustrations he felt daily, whenever he did manage to give a colt or filly a new cutie mark, the joy they felt was enough to warm his crusty old heart.

And now he was going to get fired. And the maddening thing was, out of all the things he’d done in the past that should have gotten him fired, it was something that wasn’t even his fault that would see him out the door!

Glum sat on the increasingly-wobbly barstool, sullenly nursing yet another ginger ale. Around him, the hubble and bubble of gnome life faded in and out of his consciousness. CMAA employees made up the bulk of the clientele of this bar, mainly due to its close proximity to headquarters and the cheapness of the drinks, both of which were big selling points for Glummwriggle. It certainly wasn’t the decor; there were layers of filth on the floor dating back to the founding of Gnomington itself.

The conversation of two gnomes at a table behind him caught his ear as he drank. Concluding that eavesdropping was at least marginally better than wallowing in his own thoughts, Glumm listened in.

“Eh, I was only out there for a couple of weeks,” one of the gnomes was saying. “They were a bit short-staffed, is all.”

“Yeah, and the first thing that happens when you get back is a Rainbow Dash event,” the second one said with a snickering laugh.

“Hey, now, it weren’t all fun and games out in the Hoofington branch, either!” the first gnome whined.

Glumm snorted angrily into his ginger ale as he took another drink.

“Like it’s so hard out there,” the second gnome replied dismissively.

“I’m serious! I had one case, weirdest case I ever saw or heard of!”

“Do tell?”

Glumm’s world came to a quick stop. Something was very wrong. It took his mind a moment or two to identify what it could be before his admittedly-somewhat-fuzzy reasoning skills finally zeroed in on the core of the problem.

Somehow or other, he slowly came to realize, his glass was empty. He scowled into the glass and considered buying another. However, the ginger ale that was working its way through his system had other ideas. The strange alchemy of strong drink swamped the the portions of Glumm’s brain that regulated self-control and self-preservation, while at the same time adding fuel to the fires of resentment and self-righteous indignation.

Glum stood unsteadily, belched loudly, and straightened his pants. A moment later, he was out the door, a gnome with a mission.

Still, there was a nagging feeling he’d forgotten something. He leaned against a helpful streetlamp for a moment before giving a shrug. Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t all that important.

~~*~~

It’s entirely possible that Tinseltoes had, at some point in his short life, found himself in less pleasant places than in the bathroom at the Whole in the Wall pub. However, as he gingerly tried to clean his hands and exit without, and this was very important to him, actually touching anything, he was hard pressed to think of a single one that even came close.

Finally, with the creative use of elbows, the toes of his boots, and the sacrifice of a handkerchief, he managed to leave the restroom with hands that felt suitably clean. His momentary sense of triumph was immediately displaced by the large gnome-shaped space at the bar that no longer contained his inebriated uncle.

Reminding himself that there was no need to panic quite yet, young Tinseltoes made his way up to the surly bartender, who was busily making certain that the glasses were all equally dirty.

“Excuse me,” he said.

When the bargnome ignored him, and then also ignored Tinseltoes’ urgent throat-clearing, he grudgingly pulled a few coins out of his pocket and placed them on the bartop.

The bargnome was suddenly able to register Tinseltoes’ presence. “What can I do fer ya?”

“Did my uncle leave?”

“Old Glummy? Yeah, just a few minutes ago.” He reached for the coins, only to scowl thunderously as Tinseltoes cupped his hand over them.

“Where did he go?”

“No idea,” the bargnome said irritably. “May ask them as is over there,” he added, nodding towards a pair of gnomes in CMAA uniforms. “They might’ve seen somethin’.”

“Right,” Tinseltoes said. He was about to take his hand away when another thought occurred to him. “Why is the ‘Whole’ in the bar’s name spelled with a ‘W’?”

“Well, it’s a pun, isn’t it?” the bargnome said. “The whole thing is in the wall.”

Tinseltoes was ordinarily a very easy-going gnome. Very little got under his skin, which was something that, oddly enough, irritated most girls he’d ever tried dating. However, that particular statement brought his eyebrows knitting together in a fashion that the bartender decided was a little unpleasant. When the young gnomed leaned forward, the bartender leaned back out of pure reflex.

“Did you know,” Tinseltoes said intently, “that puns are the lowest form of verbal humor?”

“Er, no?”

“Well, now you do.”

He took his hand away from the small pile of coins on the bar, which the bargnome scooped up in spite of his previous intimidation.

“Very good, young sir,” the crusty older gnome said, his voice suddenly respectful.

Tinseltoes ignored him, his focus on the two gnomes speaking loudly at a small table nearby. As he approached, he heard the tail end of what sounded like what might have been an interesting story.

“She took one look at it, said something about it not being the one she wanted, and fainted dead away, right there on the spot!”

“You’re joking,” the second gnome scoffed. “I’ve never heard of a young filly not even wanting their cutie mark.”

“I wish I were,” the first gnome grumbled as he scowled into his glass. “You wouldn’t believe the paperwork I had to fill out afterwards. Something about a duplicate name, and…”

He trailed off as he noticed Tinseltoes standing there.

“Er, something I can help you with, lad?”

Tinseltoes put on his best apologetic smile. “Terribly sorry to bother you, but my uncle seems to have wandered off. I’m a little concerned, because he’s had quite a lot to drink. You haven’t any idea where he might have staggered off to, have you?”

“Ah, terribly sorry, youngster,” the second gnome said. “All I can remember is him saying something about ‘showing them’ as he wandered off.”

“Ah, I see,” Tinseltoes said, maintaining an expected level of politeness even as alarm bells rang in his ears. “Well, thank you very much. I’ve, ah… I’ve got to go.”

As he bolted towards the door, he heard one of the gnomes say to the other, “There’s a good kid, looking out for his uncle. Did I ever tell you about the time…”

Tinseltoes exited the bar and scanned the street frantically left and right for his uncle. No sign of the older gnome. With a sigh, Tinseltoes took off at a brisk jog, hoping he’d find Glumm before he did something that put his career in even further jeopardy.

He was young and in decent shape, with long legs for a gnome. So, he might have had a chance, if only he knew the streets in this part of Gnomington a little better. Instead, he quickly found himself hopelessly lost.

~~*~~

Chief Tallywaddle steepled his hands under his many chins, a gesture that he had intended to look intimidating. It might have worked, if it weren’t for the fact that his head looked a bit too much like an overripe apple to really pull it off.

On the other side of his incredibly cluttered desk sat two very nervous Counselors. Tidwiddle looked just about ready to wet himself. Figgwaggle, on the other hand, looked like he was perfectly calm, though the effect was spoiled somewhat by the prodigious amount of sweat soaking into the collar of his very expensive suit.

“So, what is the explanation for this?” Tallywaddle demanded imperiously.

Figgwaggle arched an eyebrow. “Would you care to clarify what ‘this’ is, sir?”

“This!” Tallywaddle reached into his trash bin and pulled out two folders, one pristine and one rumpled. “Two folders, both for the same filly, but with different motivations written in the Counselor’s notes!”

He waved the folders at the two Counselors. Tiddwiddle leaned back as if they were diseased. Figgwaggle raised his other eyebrow and reached out to snag them. As the Chief leaned back, the Counselor glanced through first the rumpled folder, and then the pristine one. Then he passed them back with a very careful look on his face.

“Obviously this first one was an early draft,” Figgwaggle said. “It happens sometimes. New research shows that the initial analysis was wrong, and an updated form is filled out.”

The relief that washed over Tiddwiddle’s face as his compatriot lied for him did nothing but inflame the Chief’s anger. He threw the two folders back in the waste bin and rose from his seat, his face like a thunderstorm.

“I am not a fool!” he bellowed. “When a Counselor changes his notes, it requires a form 10-77a, Revision to Counselor Notes, not an entirely new folder! Where’s form 10-77a, Figgwaggle?” He leaned down and snatched the two folders out of the bin again and waved them in Figgwaggle’s direction. “I don’t see them in here, do you?!”

Figgwaggle recoiled in his seat before rallying. “I, uh, well, you’ll need to ask Tiddwiddle about that. He’s the one that filled out the second form. I had nothing to do with it!”

“You bastard!” Tiddwiddle cried.

“Enough!” Tallywaddle pointed a trembling, sausage-like finger at Figgwaggle. “Tiddwiddle already told me you were involved.”

“You bastard!” Figgwaggle cried.

“Enough, I said!” Tallywaddle sighed and put the folders down on his desk before slumping back down in his chair. “I’m going to level with you two. This is already enough to start an inquest. And, if the investigation goes the way I think it will, you two will be out on your ears before you can blink twice. And that’s only to start with. It will get much worse, believe you me.”

The Chief leaned forward and began shuffling through several of the piles on his cluttered desk, all the while muttering, “Where is it, where is it?” before a triumphant shout of “Ah-ha!” as he pulled a large book out from underneath a pile of urgent, though still unread, reports.

The two Counselors exchanged a nervous glance as the Chief thumbed his way through the nearly-pristine book. Upon finding the section he was looking for, Tallywaddle held the open book out towards the two Counselors while tapping on the pertinent section with an index finger.

“See? This is a total failure of our charter. If the investigation decides that this issue is big enough, we have to inform our client.” He let that information sink in, watching with some satisfaction as the faces of the two Counselors rapidly drained of all color. “That’s right, gentlemen. Celestia herself would have to be informed. And you know how… touchy she can get when someone messes too much with her ponies. Remember the Empire of Spideria?”

After a long pause, Figgwaggle ventured to say, “No?”

“Exactly,” Tallywaddle said as he snapped the book shut, making the pair of them jump in their seats. He replaced the book on his desk and sank back in his chair. “So. I think it’s best for everygnome if she simply… doesn’t find out about this. Do you understand?”

It took a few seconds for the pair of them to get what he was suggesting, after which they tripped all over themselves to assure him that they did, in fact, understand completely.

“So,” Tallywaddle said, reclining in his seat. “Start at the beginning, and leave nothing out. Tell me everything.”

~~*~~

The underground roads of Gnomington were a marvel of modern technology. Lined with cobbles, and with excellent drainage, the roads were level, clean and dry. During the day, a series of cleverly aligned mirrors reflected daylight into the tunnels. Right now they were lit by gas lamps on posts that cast the entire area in a flickering yellow glow. The faint but omnipresent smell of rotten eggs was a small price to pay for that.

Had Glummwriggle been asked, he would have assured the asker that no, he wasn’t drunk. He’d been drinking, certainly, but he wasn’t drunk. If that hypothetical person had then pointed out the way he swayed and stumbled as he walked along, he would have told them that he was simply tired. It had been a long day, after all.

And, assuming these answers hadn’t satisfied the questioner, who then went on to mention that he was slurring his words when he spoke, then Glumm would have mentioned that maybe certain hypothetical people should mind their own damned hypothetical business.

Glumm felt oddly disappointed by that nobody was around in order for him to make these arguments.

“Unpaid shuspenshun, ha!” Glumm said angrily. “I’ll unpay him, that fat… hey, watch it,” he said to a lightpost that had suddenly leaped out in front of him. A friendly wall leaned over and kept him from toppling into the street. He patted the bricks gratefully. “Thanks.”

Glumm’s brain may have been addled, but his feet knew the path between the bar and the CMAA headquarters intimately by this time, leading him weavingly but unerringly back towards the office. Once there, though, the whole of him was at a loss. He stood in the middle of a gently-swaying hallway, trying to remember where it was he was heading. Something about being yelled at, he remembered.

Resentment smoldering in his chest and ale sloshing through his veins, Glumwriggle set off with every intention of making things much, much worse.

~~*~~

“Obviously, then, the first order of business is to destroy that box,” Tallywaddle said. The other two gnomes nodded fervently. “Burn it, if you have to. Not a trace to remain, you understand? Not. A. Trace.”

“Yes, sir!” both gnomes replied in tandem.

“Alright,” Tallywaddle said. “Now that I know the ‘how’, all I need to know is the ‘why’. Why do all this? Why this risk?”

The two Counselors exchanged an embarrassed glance.

“Well, sir,” Tiddwiddle said, “You know the annual Counselor’s meeting banquet up next month?”

“Yes?”

“It’s just that…” Tiddwiddle trailed off and looked at his fellow Counselor for support.

Figgwaggle sighed and shrugged. “Whichever gnome gets the most successfully completed cases before the meeting gets to sit at the high table and make a speech.”

Tallywaddle felt like he was missing something. “And..?”

“And they also get a nice plaque,” Tiddwiddle said. He added, “With their name on it, and everything!”

Tallywaddle gaped at the pair of them, who at least had the decency to look sheepish. “That’s it?!”

“Well…” Figgwaggle looked at Tiddwiddle, who shrugged. “There’s also a private bet between the pair of us.”

“Loser has to buy the winner lunch!” Tiddwiddle said with a grin, which wilted under the heat-lamp of the Chief’s glare.

Tallywaddle shook his head slowly. “All this risk. All those destinies, changed. For what? For a nice dinner, a plaque and a lunch?”

Figgwaggle cleared his throat, flushing a deep red. “Well, now that you put it like that, it does seem a tad… disproportionate?”

There was no response that Tallywaddle could make to that. With a groan, he slumped forward and rested his head in his hands. An uncomfortable silence stretched out between the three of them before Tiddwiddle finally cleared his throat.

“Um, sir? What are we going to do about the girl?”

Tallywaddle looked up, mind awhirl with the disaster that was threatening to swamp him. “Girl? Oh, young Claribelle. Of course.”

Thick fingers drummed on the one clear spot on the cluttered desk as he stared blankly at the wall. Finally, he sighed, leaned forward, and pressed a button on his intercom.

“Nina, dear?”

His assistant’s voice crackled back a moment later. “Yes, sir?”

“Could you send for Mister Shadeswell, if you would be so kind?”

“Oh, my,” Figgwaggle whispered, his eyes wide.

There was a long pause before Nina’s voice came back over the intercom. When she did reply, there was a little quiver of fear. “Yes, sir.”

Icy silence reigned in the Chief’s office for a very long and uncomfortable moment.

“Isn’t… isn’t that a bit far, sir?” Figgwaggle eventually managed. “I mean, I know she’ll cause troubles, but… Shadeswell?”

Tallywaddle shook his head. “It’s a pity, I know. But that girl knows too much. She needs to be… removed.”

“O-of course, sir.”

Another uncomfortable silence spread between the three of them. Finally, Tallywaddle snorted and shook his head.

“Alright. We know what we have to do. Get to it, right?”

“Yes sir!” the two Counselors said in unison as they stood. Then the two of them practically ran out of the office.

Tallywaddle leaned back in his chair and massaged his temples. Shadeswell. He couldn’t believe it had come to this. Sometimes being in charge wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

~~*~~

Clari was in her element. Boxes didn’t talk back, and folders didn’t schedule endless meetings. All there was to do was organize, organize, organize, which was something she was very good at. And once a thing was sorted, she would see that it stayed sorted.

It was the closest thing to heaven she’d yet encountered.

She was humming a happy tuneless tune, something that she made up moment to moment as she sorted, filed, labeled and recorded. It was all just about perfect.

If she hadn’t been so focused, she might have noticed when the shadows in the room seemed to darken. Still, the tune trailed off as she shivered, the room suddenly feeling colder than it had a moment before. A sense of desperate unease crept up on her, and she started glancing around nervously, feeling like a fool even while unable to shake the sense that someone was watching her.

When the silence of the Records Room was broken by the sound of a shoe scuffing across the floor, Clari shrieked and jumped practically halfway out of her skin. She spun to see a tall figure, dressed all in black, looming up behind her.

“Excuse me,” a mournful voice intoned from the dark figure. “Are you Claribelle?”

Clari had her hand pressed to her breastbone to keep her heart from beating its way out of her ribcage. “Y-yes?” she managed after a moment.

“Name’s Shadeswell, Miss,” the figure said before reaching into it’s jacket. Clari flinched when the hand came out, even though all that it was holding was an envelope. “This is for you.”

Clari reached out a trembling hand and took the letter.

Shadeswell tipped his hat and said, in doleful tones, “Sorry about this.” He walked towards the entrance to the Records Room and, a moment later, was gone.

Once her pulse returned to nearly-normal levels, Clari felt able to open it. It contained a single page of paper with only a few lines on it. Clari read it. Then, unable to believe what she’d read, she read it again.

“Fired?” she said, disbelieving. “For insubordination?!”

Her pulse began climbing again, though for different reasons this time. Also, her eyes narrowed, and her jaw clenched as her mouth settled into a thin line.

When Clari was finally able to speak once again, her voice came out in a furious grating growl that was diametrically opposed to the happy, lilting voice she usually affected.

“Heads are going to roll for this,” she vowed.

Boiling over

Upon examination, it turned out that there was no box. Figgwaggle's desk, immaculate as always, hid no secrets. The underside of the desk was as clear and pristine as the top. The credenza in the corner had nothing unexpected in it. His never-used typewriter sat lonely upon its stand. And still, there was no box.

Just to be sure, Figgwaggle checked his office again. And then again. There absolutely was no box containing evidence of misallocated cutie marks anywhere in his office.

The last hour Figgwaggle’s life had passed in something of a blur. He remembered the sinking feeling of being caught breaking the rules, of being chewed out by Tallywaddle. And he thought he remembered Tiddwiddle saying he’d brought the box to his office.

Or, had Tiddwiddle said that he had been planning on bringing the box over? Figgwaggle honestly couldn't recall.

Regardless, there was no box. So, obviously Tiddwiddle hadn’t brought the box over yet, Figgwaggle decided. The realization caught him halfway between relief and annoyance. Still, he decided, it would be a good idea to follow up with his fellow Counselor to make sure the box was destroyed as Tallywaddle had ordered.

Tiddwiddle was eventually located in the Research, with its rows of desks and its hard-eyed gnomes pouring over documentation and field reports. The aftermath of a Rainbow Dash event was always busy, even in comparison to a normal day.

The Research clerks that were here now weren't the same ones that had been here earlier, of course. The CMAA ran twenty-four hours a day, typically, though there was that one time that Celestia had slept in and they had worked twenty-six.

Figgwaggle sidled up next to Tiddwiddle and hissed “Psst!” into his ear, causing the heavier Counselor to yelp jump in surprise, completely destroying the pretense of subtlety that Figgy had been going for. Gimlet glares from nearby researchers turned their way from the nearby desks for a few seconds before the researchers focused back on the task at hand.

“What is it?” Tiddwiddle hissed back.

“About the box,” Figgwaggle said, sotto voce, “It’s gone?”

The problem with speaking softly, especially in a room as buzzing with noise and activity as the Research Department, is that it will often obscure any inflection to a word. For example, the gnome next to you might not pick up on the fact that there was a question mark at the end of your sentence, and instead assume that it was a statement.

In this case, Tiddwiddle assumed that Figgwaggle was telling him that he’d destroyed the box, which prompted him to say, “What box would that be?” and follow up by tipping his fellow counselor a conspicuous wink.

“Right.” Figgwaggle said, feeling vastly relieved. “So, that’s it, then?”

“It would seem so,” Tiddwiddle replied airily, obviously quite pleased.

“Well, then,” Figgy said. “Have a good night!”

“You as well!” Tiddwiddle replied with a grin and a wave.

As they went their separate ways, each of them were thinking the same thing: Thank goodness that’s over!

~~*~~

Tinseltoes was definitely, definitively lost in the twisting back-alleyways of Gnomington. He had long since given up any thought of finding his wayward uncle, and was now simply trying to find a landmark, any landmark, that would allow him to find his way back to his little one-room apartment.

Flickering yellow street lamps cast odd shadows across the walls and cobbles as Tinseltoes walked with increasing unease. It could be considered a sign of his extreme distress that, when he finally spotted the Whole in the Wall pub, his first thoughts weren’t of disgust but rather of relief.

The thought occurred, as he hurried towards the pub, that perhaps his uncle had returned. Tinseltoes thought up some choice words to deliver to Glummwriggle that, while he would never actually say them out loud, were nevertheless quite cutting indeed.

He was so pre-occupied with reaching the front door that he didn’t notice a young gnomette arriving at almost the same moment as him. He pulled up short, and so did she, and it was with great surprise that he realized that he knew her. There weren’t many young, pretty gnomettes in Tinseltoes’ life, which made this a very shocking occasion.

“You!” he blurted, the suddenness of it making her recoil. “Uh, sorry. Claribelle, right?”

The look of startled suspicion on her face faded, making way for curiosity and, finally, recognition.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “You’re Tinseltoes.”

“Yeah.” He took a closer look at her, noting that the cheerful smile she’d worn when they’d first met was gone, replaced by a tired scowl. “Rough day?”

“Don’t get me started,” she growled.

“I get it,” he said, holding up his hands defensively. “I just got lost in the back alleys of Gnomington while looking for my drunk uncle.”

Claribelle stared at him for a moment. “I got fired,” she replied flatly.

“Oh. Uh.” Tinseltoes fidgeted for a moment. “You win?”

“Yay for me. You going to keep on blocking this door? I need a drink.”

“Oh? Oh!” He looked at the door, then back at Claribelle in alarm. “You don’t want to go in there. This place is a dive.”

“Hey!” came the distant voice of the bartender. Both young gnomes ignored him.

“I don’t care,” Claribelle said. “The ale is cheap, which is good because that means I can buy a lot of it. And also, I don’t have a job anymore, so I have to save some money. So, move it, string bean.”

She pushed on his chest, shoving him aside before she made her way into the bar. Tinseltoes felt some growing spark within him, which may or may not have been ignited by the fact that Clari’s hand to his chest was the first physical contact with a female he’d had in years. At least, with a female who wasn’t his mother. He followed her into the bar.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked.

She snorted as she hopped up into a barstool and signaled for a drink. “Not unless you can get them to change their minds. They escorted me out and won’t even let me back in to talk to Gnome Resources!”

Tinseltoes, who had helped himself to a barstool next to her, offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Well, perhaps I could take a message to them? I still work there, after all.”

Claribelle stopped with her mug of ginger ale halfway up to her mouth, giving him a weighing look. She put the mug back down on the scarred and dingy bar top. “Yes. Yes, you do, don’t you?”

She tapped a finger on her chin while humming and staring at him. Tinseltoes felt his reassuring smile start to wither around the edges as she kept staring with that calculating expression.

“Uh…” he said eventually, which seemed to prompt Claribelle back into motion.

“Look. This is important,” she said. “This is a really big deal. I know why I was fired, and it wasn’t for insubordination.” Claribelle looked to her left, then to her right, then leaned in thrillingly close to Tinseltoes’ left ear. “There’s a conspiracy to hide an incorrectly assigned cutie mark.”

“What?!”

“Shh!” she said, grabbing his arm. “Nobody can know what we’re planning!”

“We?” Tinseltoes asked weakly.

“Yes! You have to get me back inside. Tonight! Before they have a chance to hide the evidence. We can use your identification. We find the folders, maybe ransack Tiddwiddle’s office to find the box, and we can report them all to CMAA HQ!”

Not a lot of what Claribelle was telling Tinseltoes was making a lot of sense. For example, what folders? What box? Who was Tiddwiddle, and why did they have to ransack his office? For some reason, though, none of these questions found a voice. Instead, most of his attention was focused on the small, warm hand that was gripping his forearm.

“Okay,” he said.

“Yes!” Claribelle released his arm and gave a victorious punch in the air.

Sanity briefly surfaced once again in Tinseltoes’ mind. “Oh, wait. Except we can’t.”

“What?”

“I mean, I want to, but… I’m a rookie. I can’t bring in guests. I’m still on my trial period!”

“Oh, damn.” Clari pouted, and Tinseltoes’ brain short-circuited again. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Maybe my uncle could?” He offered her a hopeful grin. “I mean, he’s on unpaid suspension, but that doesn’t mean he can’t go back into the office. Right?”

“Hmm…” Claribelle tapped her chin again while she considered it. “Nothing against it in the rules, as far as I know.” She nodded and stood up. “Let’s go see your uncle!”

“Yes!” Tinseltoes said, standing as well. “Except… I have no idea where he lives!”

Claribelle stared at him. “You’re a little useless, aren’t you?”

A few seconds of hurt silence passed.

“Um… Ouch?” Tinseltoes ventured.

“Sorry! I only meant…” Claribelle shook her head. “This isn’t me,” she muttered. “I’m not rude like this.” She sighed and massaged her temples. “Tinseltoes. I’m sorry. It’s been a long and frustrating day. Do you know of any way we could find your uncle?”

“A mug of ale on a string should do it. We can go fishing!” Tinseltoes’ smile faltered at her utter lack of response and he cleared his throat. “Actually, we can go and ask my mother. She’ll know his address.”

A sunny smile appeared on Claribelle’s face. “Alright, then! Off to meet your mother!”

She marched out of the dingy bar, leaving her ale behind. Tinseltoes stared after her for a moment before hurrying to catch up. The thought that he was bringing a girl home to meet his mother popped into his head, bringing with it hysterical giggles that he tried desperately to clamp down on.

“What’s so funny?” Claribelle asked him.

“Nothing, nothing,” he said, red-faced but still grinning. “Let’s go see my mom!”

~~*~~

There was a tired old tatty sofa. Threadbare cushions and an unappealing design, though the design was partially obscured by disquieting and disturbing stains. Threads hung off of this sofa as the fabric unraveled, dangling towards the floor like moss. The center sagged mightily, even when unoccupied, thanks to some damage that had broken part of the frame. It was lumpy, it was ugly, and it was, simply, the most comfortable couch in the world.

At least, that’s what Glummwriggle would say if anygnome had asked him, which none did, as he never had anygnome over to what he liked to call his “bachelor’s pad”.

The gnome currently asleep and snoring greatly resembled the sofa he was currently sleeping on. He, also, was threadbare and lumpy and sagged a bit in the middle. He was also dreaming. In this dream, Glumm had stormed into Tallywaddle’s office, shoved the great fat gnome out of his chair, and berated him soundly for a period of indeterminate time.

The aftermath of this was that Tallywaddle was sobbing his eyes out while sitting on the floor, all while begging him desperately to come back to work. When Dream-Glumm had crossed his arms and said no, Tallywaddle had banged his head on the floor three times in rapid succession, bang, bang, bang!, startling Glumm to no end.

“Stop that,” Glumm ordered his boss, who ignored him and banged his head on the floor once again. Bang, bang, bang!

It was disturbing, and it made Glumm uncomfortable, even though he pretty much hated his old boss.

Bang, bang, bang!

Glumm jerked awake. Something had happened. He looked around his cluttered living room in the dim light let in through his windows. Menacing shapes lurked around him on all sides, obscured in shadows. Glumm relaxed. That was to be expected.

Bang, bang, bang!

That, however, was not. Something was making a loud banging noise. Glumm groaned and sat up, feeling his night's worth of ginger ale sloshing around his guts. He put his aching head between his hands, hoping that the noise would just stop.

Bang, bang, bang!

“Oi! Shut up!” one of his neighbors shouted.

“You shut up!” a female voice shouted back.

“Terribly sorry about this!” a vaguely familiar male voice added.

Bang, bang, bang!

Glumm blinked and realized that the noise was coming from his front door. Grumbling and cursing, he levered himself off of his dilapidated couch, took two staggering steps towards the door, and tripped over an unexpected object that was in his way. Glumm, now laying on the floor, cursed and kicked the object, which skid some ways across his floor.

Bang, bang, bang!

“Open up in there!” the female voice called. “It’s an emergency!”

“Damned well better be,” Glumm muttered as he got back up.

He staggered to the door and flung it open just before the young and pretty gnomette on the other side was about to knock again. Instead of hitting the door, she punched him in the nose.

“Argh!” Glumm shouted, staggering back.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” the gnomette said, reaching out to steady him.

Glumm angrily slapped her hands away with his left hand while cradling his bruised nose in his right.

“Whaddayawant?” he managed to say.

“Hi, Uncle!” Tinseltoes said from behind the gnomette. “This is Claribelle! Clari, this is my uncle, Glumm.”

“He sure is,” Clari said, eying him warily.

“Well? What is it?” Glumm demanded. “Waking gnomes up in the middle of the night—”

“It’s nine-thirty in the evening, Uncle,” Tinseltoes supplied helpfully, wilting somewhat when Glumm glared at him.

“Fine. Whatever. What is it?”

“We need you to sneak me into the CMAA headquarters,” Claribelle said.

Glumm gawked at her, burst into laughter, then groaned and cradled his aching head. “Why would I do that? I’m already on thin ice.”

“There’s a conspiracy we have to uncover,” Claribelle said crisply. “A young filly by the name of Diamond Tiara got the wrong cutie mark, and Counselor Tiddwiddle is covering it up. I think Chief Tallywaddle is, too.”

“Huh.” Glumm blinked his grit-filled eyes at her. “Why do you think that?”

“Well, you see…” Clari began, and launched into an eager explanation as Glumm stood in his front doorway, swaying a little and trying not to fall over.

He tried to pay attention, he really did. But, between the ginger ale soaking his brain and the throbbing in his head and nose, he pretty much lost the thread of the conversation instantly. Something about a box full of evidence, as well as a pair of folders that proved it beyond a doubt. A memory tingled at the back of Glumm’s head at the mention of a box, but for the life of him, he couldn’t quite place it.

“And that’s why we have to get into the CMAA headquarters,” Claribelle said, her voice earnest.

“Huh.” Glumm scratched his belly. “Nah.”

“What? But you—”

“Come back tomorrow morning. Too drunk to be any good now.” Glumm belched loudly, just to show her, and slammed the door in her face.

“But tomorrow might be too late!” Claribelle said frantically on the other side of his door. “Please!”

“Come back tomorrow!” he shouted through the door.

A scream of frustration sounded outside, followed by the stomping of the gnomette’s passage down the hallway of his apartment building. Tinseltoes’ voice was offering what sounded like hasty assurances as he followed her.

Glumm allowed himself a chuckle. At least something had gone right, he decided. Yawning, he made his way towards his bedroom, deftly dodging the usual clutter in the dim light.

His bed would have given his couch a run for its money when it came to sagging and lumpy, but Glumm didn’t care. He crawled into bed and was out like a light within minutes.

Glummwriggle woke again hours later with a painfully full bladder. He stumbled into the restroom, did his business, and was in the process of walking back to bed when he once again tripped over the mystery object in the middle of his floor.

“Okay, just what the heck is this thing?” he muttered as he got up. He fumbled in a desk drawer until he found his box of matches. Then he turned on the gas lamps in his apartment, lit a match, and soon had a comfortable warm glow suffusing his apartment.

He then turned to spot the object that had twice tripped him. It was a box, he noted. A box full of file folders. Glumm frowned and pulled one out. It was a case file, he noted, for a young filly by the name of Silver Spoon. Who, according to this report, was likely to be a kind and giving pony, the silver spoon on her flank indicating her desire to feed the hungry and unfortunate of the world.

Images of the actual Silver Spoon ran through his memories. He’d followed the Cutie Mark Crusaders around for quite a while, and they’d had a few run-ins with Silver Spoon and her friend Diamond Tiara. And, if there was one thing Silver Spoon didn’t seem to care much about, it was the unfortunate of the world.

Vague recollections of drunkenly staggering around the CMAA HQ the previous night filtered back into his head. This box had been in Counselor Figgwaggle’s office, and he’d taken it. A chill ran through him as he realized that Claribelle wasn’t just making up stories. She was right. There was a conspiracy going on to hide incorrectly assigned cutie marks.

Glumm hauled himself back to his feet and glanced at the clock. It was now four thirty-seven in the morning, far too early for any sensible gnome to be up and about. He staggered his way into the kitchen and started making a pot of extra-strong coffee.

He needed to plan, and for that he needed to be awake and alert. The pounding in his head faded as a righteous anger began to grow. These ponies had had their lives toyed with and the evidence hidden. And, as his fury mounted, a wolfish grin began to spread across his face. Because, in addition to the evidence of wrongdoing, the box also held one irrevocable truth.

Figgwaggle and Tallywaddle were going down.

Author's Note

Dun dun dunnnn!!!

Desperate Times

The early-morning sunlight shone into the tunnels that led into Gnomington. This sunlight was gathered and redirected by meticulously hand-crafted mirrors, marvels of modern gnomish craftwork. From there, the light was sent to other mirrors throughout the city before finally being captured and diffused by certain rare crystals. It was a beautiful, awe-inspiring sight. Unfortunately, most gnomes slept right through it.

A pair of exceptions made their way to a run-down apartment building, stopping once they reached a particularly ratty-looking door at ground level.

There was a pounding at the door, followed by the raised voice of a slightly agitated young gnomette. The pause that followed was met with silence, and the silence was met with a more vigorous pounding and some angry shouting from the gnomette, much to the mortification of her otherwise loyal young gnome companion, who had arranged to meet her here at the crack of dawn.

The pounding continued until Glummwriggle’s upstairs neighbor poked his head out of his window and added some shouting of his own. Claribelle returned fire, thus guaranteeing that the entire apartment block would be woken by the shouting of the two gnomes.

Naturally enough, a few of these unfairly-woken gnomes went to their own windows in order to join in their little game. This game was called “Why don’t we all start shouting at too-damned-early-o’clock”, and variants of this game are played in cities and towns across the multiverse.

Tinseltoes tried to interject the occasional apology, but the shouting was much too prevalent. Eventually, he just gave up and relegated himself to fading into the background as much as was possible.

After about ten minutes of this, and repeated threats of calling the police coming from both sides, one of the residents got the clever idea of filling a pitcher with ice-cold water and flinging it at Claribelle and Tinseltoes. This didn’t achieve the desired level of quiet, at least not at first. Instead, it produced a shrill shriek, somewhat like a train whistle, followed by more shouting that was, if anything, even more abusive than it had been a moment before.

The enterprising apartment-dweller went back for a second pitcher-full, and several other neighbors caught on and ran back to their own kitchens for pitchers of ice water of their own. This was enough to finally convince the two young gnomes to take to their heels, steadfastly ignoring the jeers of the inhabitants of the apartment complex.

Still, the damage had been done. The apartment gnomes now found themselves far too wound up to go back to bed. Many a pot of coffee was brewed and, amidst much angry muttering, drained. Thus it was that a few gnomes who were habitually late for work managed to surprise their supervisors by showing up incredibly early.

This was because average gnome would sleep in well past nine in the morning, provided that gnome had no sadistic bosses who were forcing them to do otherwise. The exception to this was the headquarters of the CMAA, and this was only because a little blank-flanked pony could reach epiphany at any time, day or night. The skeleton crew that manned the security posts overnight tended to get a little squirrelly towards the end of their shifts, as no amount of coffee truly made up for their predilection to sleep until the day was nicely broken in and breakfast was due.

Thus it was that Claribelle and Tinseltoes found themselves marching up to the tired-eyed guards drooping listlessly outside of the CMAA Headquarters. Claribelle’s expression brooked no dissent, her attitude indicating that, if someone were to put a brick wall in her way, she’d push straight through it face-first if she had to.

“So, uh… what are we gonna do?” Tinseltoes whispered to Clari as they approached the guards, who were staring at them with dull-eyed exhaustion.

“We? No. I am going in. You are going to keep your mouth shut and follow my lead.”

Tinseltoes sighed, mentally waving goodbye to his newborn career. He supposed that there was always work with his Uncle Stinky, though a life in Sewage Management was less than appealing to a bright-eyed young gnome.

The guard at the doorway straightened as he approached. Just as they reached him, Claribelle jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Tinseltoes, who was walking a short distance behind her.

“Don’t worry, he’s with me,” she said, her voice full of brisk authority. And then she kept on walking, much to the guard’s obvious befuddlement.

“Hey..?” the guard protested weakly.

“Here’s my identification!” Tinseltoes said chipperly.

The guard blinked his tired eyes and looked back at him. He took Tinsel’s ID, scowled at it for a moment, then shrugged and passed it back.

“Go on, then,” the guard said.

Tinseltoes caught up with Claribelle a few seconds later, though he had to jog to do it. “I can’t believe that worked!”

Clari winked at him. “The key to getting into places you don’t belong is to act like you do.”

“Huh. So, do you do this often?” Tinseltoes asked. The thought of Claribelle being some sort of spy or infiltrator was strangely compelling, and didn’t dampen his enthusiasm to help her out in the slightest.

“No. I just figured it out yesterday, actually.”

“So, where to now?” Tinseltoes asked, looking around the dimly-lit hallway they found themselves in. The bulk of the staff wasn’t due to arrive for over an hour, yet, which gave them some time to… well, to do whatever it was that Claribelle had planned.

Clari’s voice was thoughtful as she replied. “Well, I would like to get Diamond Tiara’s folders back from Tallywaddle’s office, but if he’s involved, he probably destroyed them already. So, the first place would be to go downstairs to the Records Department and get a copy of the receipt he signed for them. That’s at least some evidence.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Tinseltoes said, feeling both relieved and vaguely disappointed that they wouldn’t be doing more daring activities.

“And then, after I get that receipt, we’re going to go through Counselor Tiddwiddle’s office like a tornado, just to see if there’s any trace of that box that he stole.”

Ah. That’s more like it, Tinseltoes thought.

~~*~~

Counselor Tiddwiddle had just arrived, yawning but well-rested, having had the best night’s sleep he’d remembered having in weeks. And, as was his tradition, his first stop was the company cafeteria for a fresh coffee and pastry.

The box was gone, which was a massive load off of Tidwiddle's shoulders. The constant, lingering fear of being found out had come to pass, but with the best possible outcome, which was that the Chief himself was now complicit in the cover-up.

There was no possible way, as far as Tiddwiddle was concerned, that things could go wrong.

It was then that he saw his fellow Counselor and rival, Figgwaggle, enter the cafeteria, casting about as if he was looking for somegnome before finally settling on Tiddwiddle, who put on a decent approximation of a pleasant smile.

“Good morning, Figgwaggle! Fine day, isn’t it?”

“It is, indeed!” Figgwaggle replied jauntily, also sporting something that resembled a smile.

“Would you care to join me?”

“Ah, I’m afraid I can’t,” Figgwaggle said, shaking his head as if in sadness. “I only stopped by to get my keys back.”

For a moment, Tiddwiddle’s face froze in confusion. “Keys? Ah! Oh, yes. You loaned me your office keys yesterday.” He began rummaging around in one pocket after another. “Let’s see… No, that’s not it. No, that’s not it, either. I think… yes, I think this is part of my lunch from yesterday. Ah! Here we go! One set of keys.”

He passed them over, and Figgwaggle took them with a smile of carefully-maintained civility. “Thank you. Though, I do wish you hadn’t left my doors unlocked.”

“Did I? Oh, my apologies. Won’t happen again, my dear Figgwaggle.”

Figgwaggle laughed. “Hopefully, there won’t be any occasion for it… to… Wait.” A strange look crossed over Figgwaggle’s face.

“I say, are you feeling alright?”

When Figgwaggle spoke, it was in a monotone whisper through a fixed, plastic smile. “Why did you leave the door to my office unlocked if you took care of the box yourself?”

Tiddwiddle looked around in a near-panic at the mention of the box. Fortunately, there weren’t any gnomes around close enough to hear. “Don’t mention the box, you idiot!” he hissed through his own ersatz grin.

“I know I locked my door,” Figgwaggle said, his plastic smile melting. “But it was unlocked when I got back to my office.”

“And..?”

“So, why did you even go to my office if you were going to take care of the… thing yourself?”

“What in blazes are you talking about?” Tiddwiddle asked, not bothering to fake a grin anymore.

“When we talked yesterday. After Tallywaddle’s office. You remember?”

Tiddwiddle snorted. “As if I could forget!”

“You said you took care of the box yourself.”

There was a dangerous moment of silence, one of those moments where, if you listen very carefully, you could hear a fuse burning down towards a stack of high explosives.

“I most certainly did not!” Tiddwiddle shouted. Which, naturally enough, drew the attention of every gnome in the cafeteria, as well as several who had just been walking by.

“You said you did!” Figgwaggle shouted back, panic making his voice reedy and unpleasant.

“When in blazes did I say that?”

“You said..!” Figgwaggle looked around and lowered his voice to a hiss. “When I asked you if the box was gone, you said ‘What box?’ and winked at me!”

Tiddwiddle’s box opened and closed a few times before he managed to say, “I thought you meant that you got rid of the box!”

“I thought that meant you did!” Figgwaggle shot back.

“No! I left it in your office!”

“It’s not in my office!” Figgwaggle rasped in an attempt to whisper-shout. “Believe me, I checked! Three times!”

“Well, I don’t have it!”

“Neither do I!”

The two gnomes glared at each other furiously for a few seconds before simultaneous horrified realization set in. As one, both of them abandoned any pretense of dignity as they bolted towards the cafeteria room door.

~~*~~

Tinseltoes sighed wearily. It had been a long day, yesterday. It had been a longer night before he’d managed to return home and get a few precious hours of sleep. Then he’d been up again before the crack of dawn to try and track down his uncle Glumm, who apparently disappeared from his apartment. Either that, or he was really good at ignoring Claribelle at her most insistent.

As the aforementioned gnomette argued loudly with Ninabella, Chief Tallywaddle’s personal assistant, he decided that it was much more likely that Glumm was out of the apartment. Either that, or dead.

“I told you, I am not leaving until you get that tub of lard out here! He’s got those folders, and I have the receipt to prove it!” Claribelle shouted, her face flushed and her eyes nearly glowing as she waved a white piece of paper in the scowling assistant’s face.

On second thought, Tinseltoes decided as he listened in awe to Clari’s ongoing tirade, even if his uncle had been dead, Glumm probably would have still answered the door when the gnomette had started shouting.

Several loud thumps came from behind the closed office door. Tinseltoes stiffened and tried to fade back even further into the wall as the door was flung open, revealing an apoplectic Tallywaddle, who strode into the office and added his own shouting voice to the mix.

So far, everything had gone according to Claribelle’s plan. Well, except for not finding the mysterious box of potential evidence in Tiddwiddle’s office. The receipt that Clari was waving around was a fake, a distraction just for this moment, when everygnome’s attention would be focused on her and her “evidence”, without sparing one iota of thought for the completely unremarkable Tinseltoes.

He was already quite good at not attracting attention. With Claribelle running interference, he was practically invisible. As the shouting reached a fever pitch, Tinseltoes quietly slipped inside the Chief’s office.

This was their last gambit, an act of complete desperation. A receipt for a pair of missing folders could be spun in any number of ways, and almost certainly wouldn’t do anything to bring attention to their cause. They needed hard evidence. And, Claribelle had hoped, that evidence would be somewhere in the massive, disorganized piles on Tallywaddle’s desk.

He knew what he was looking for: A crumpled folder and a pristine one. Both would have bright new labels attached with numbers from Claribelle’s revamped filing system. Still, the mountain of paperwork was daunting, and Tinseltoes could only stare in despondent shock for a long moment as he wondered how he was going to find those two particular needles in this metaphorical haystack.

Just then, the shouting from the outer office reached a fever pitch. Tinseltoes started.

“Well, I guess I’m as good as well as fired already,” he muttered. “May as well have some fun.”

And, with that, Tinseltoes began sorting quickly through the mounds of paperwork on the desk, carelessly dropping anything that wasn’t Diamond Tiara’s folder onto the office floor.

~~*~~

“What in the blue blazes happened to my office?!” Tiddwiddle shrieked.

“How should I know?” Figgwaggle glanced around at the destruction. Drawers had been opened, cabinets had been ransacked. Papers and folders were strewn across the floor. “It looks like a tornado’s gone through it.”

Tiddwiddle looked around frantically. “Well, the box isn’t here, just like I said. What are we going to do?”

“Maybe… Maybe we should tell Tallywaddle?”

Disbelieving laughter exploded out of Tiddwiddle. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Well, what else do you suggest?”

Tiddwiddle considered that honestly for a long moment. “Maybe we can just ignore it and hope it goes away?”

Figgwaggle sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I guess I don’t mind doing that. After all, it’s your name on all those files, right?”

“Uh…” Tiddwiddle licked his lips and looked around his devastated office once again. “Maybe we should tell Tallywaddle.”

“Right. Let’s go, then.”

~~*~~

The shouting in the outer office had reached a fever pitch by the time Tinseltoes found one crumpled manilla corner sticking out from underneath a precariously piled stack of papers. He brushed everything onto the floor and snatched the folder up, hardly daring to believe that this could be it until he opened it and read the name “Diamond Tiara” across the top. Another file, this one pristine, lay underneath the first one, and proved to have Diamond Tiara’s name across the front page as well.

Tinseltoes did a happy little dance, which he cut off when he heard the Chief bellow for Ninabella to call Security. With a startled yelp, he bolted out of the Chief’s office, waving the folders over his head and shouting, “I’ve got them! I’ve got them both!”

The three gnomes in the outer office stopped to stare at him, Tallywaddle red-faced and sweating, Ninabella scowling and pale, and Claribelle looking like she could cut diamonds with her eyes.

“Give those here!” Tallywaddle shouted, lumbering towards Tinseltoes, who froze in momentary panic, holding the folders in front of his chest as if they were some kind of shield.

Claribelle was faster, though. She scooted past the Chief and snatched the folders out of Tinsel’s numb hands. She turned, a fierce smile of triumph on her face as she clutched the file folders to her front.

“We win, Chief. And you’re going down,” Clari said.

There was a moment of tense silence. When the Chief spoke again, it was with a terrifyingly icy calm.

“I don’t think so,” Tallywaddle said as he walked forward.

As he reached a grasping hand towards the folder, Claribelle dodged back. Then, much to Tinseltoes’ combined delight and horror, she grabbed the neck of her sensible grey sweater, pulled it out to reveal a slender neck and part of a rounded shoulder that made Tinseltoes’ mouth feel suddenly very dry. Clari dropped the folders into her sweater and grinned victoriously.

“What now, Chief?” she asked smugly. “You’re going to assault me to get these files back?

The small spark that had started burning in Tinseltoes’ chest since he’d first run into Clari the previous day flared into a smoldering ember at the thought of the Chief going after those files. Much to his surprise, he found that his hands had balled themselves into fists.

“Of course not,” Tallywaddle said dismissively. “That would be something a gentlegnome like myself could never do.”

Clari relaxed just a hair. “Well… good.”

“Instead, I’ll have Ninabella do it,” Tallywaddle said with a smirk.

“What?!” Clari said, her voice a squeak of outrage.

“What?” Nina said, her voice flat and disbelieving.

“Go on, then. Those files are vital to the future of the CMAA, and they can’t be allowed to leave this office.”

Ninabella glared daggers at her boss before sighing and walking slowly towards Clari, who eyed her warily.

“Uh. Stay back?” Clari said hopefully.

“Sorry,” Nina replied with a grimace. “I kind of need this job. Plus, I don’t like you very much.”

As the two gnomettes reluctantly squared off against each other, Tinseltoes instinctively backed off. Every instinct he had was telling him he had to do something, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what that should be.

Much to his discomfort, Tallywaddle had somehow ended up next to him. He had his arms folded across his voluminous chest as he watched the two gnomettes with an almost predatory gaze.

Nina’s arm suddenly shot out, her fingers managing to snag the bottom hem of Clari’s sweater for a brief moment before the other gnomette let out an indignant squawk and batted her hand away.

“Well,” Tallywaddle said with a leering wink in Tinseltoes’ direction. “Whichever one of those girls wins, at least we get a nice show!”

At that, the spark that had been growing in Tinseltoes’ chest shot directly into his brain, where it caught fire before zipping down into his right arm, causing his balled-up fist to launch itself directly into Tallywaddle’s potato of a nose.

The memory of the resulting crunch, followed by a howl of pain and no small amount of blood, would serve to keep Tinseltoes warm on many a cold night in the future.

~~*~~

The commotion could be heard from far down the hallway, well before the Chief’s office came into view. The pair of Counselors stopped outside the reception area, exchanged a wary glance, and opened the door just in time to see the Chief stagger backwards, blood spurting out of his nose as he collapsed to the floor with a surprised wail. A young gnome, all knees and elbows, was standing in front of him, staring at his still-raised fist as if it had just performed an extremely impressive magic trick.

Figgwaggle decided that this situation quite obviously called for a take-charge kind of gnome. “What is the meaning of this?!” he bellowed.

It was a bellow that would have made a sergeant in the Gnome King’s army jealous. All activity in the room halted as every eye fixed on him. In the silence that followed, the two gnomettes in the corner exchanged what looked like an embarrassed glance, and then moved to opposite ends of the office.

“He hibbee!” Tallywaddle said, pointing with the hand that wasn’t cradling his nose.

Figgwaggle blinked, unable to make heads or tails of what the Chief had just said. “Beg pardon?”

“He hib be!” Tallywaddle repeated, enunciating as much as his possibly-broken nose would allow.

“Yes, I can see that,” Figgwaggle said dryly. “Hmm… You look familiar… Ah, young Tinseltoes, was it? I trust you have a good reason for hitting the Chief?”

Tinseltoes looked at him, his eyes looking disturbingly glazed over. “Because he deserved it,” he said shortly.

“Dey god de folbers,” Chief Tallywaddle blubbered from where he sat on the floor. Tiddwiddle sighed and went to help him up.

“Beg pardon?” Figgwaggle said again.

“I think,” Tiddwiddle said as he slowly managed to lug the Chief back to his feet, “that he said ‘They’ve got the folders.’”

Figgwaggle frowned. “Which folders?”

“Diabohd Tiara’s,” the Chief said, adding an urgent, “You godda geddum bag!”

Icewater ran down Figgwaggle's back. “Diamond Tiara’s folders?”

“Yeth! Diabohd Tiara! I forgod to dethroy dem!” Tallywaddle began the laborious process of heaving himself back up to his feet. “Dey cahd leave wid dem!”

Figgwaggle and Tiddwiddle exchanged a glance. Between the pair of them, they fully blocked any access to the doorway.

“I don’t think anygnome is going anywhere until we figure this all out,” Tiddwiddle said.

Tinseltoes exchanged a glance with the gnomette that Figgwaggle recognized as Claribelle, then he turned back to face the Counselors. Slowly, his clenched fist began to rise.

“I’m warning you,” Tinseltoes said in a voice that was trying for hardness but failed utterly to hide his nervous quaver, “I’ve got a fist, and I’m not afraid to use it!” He gave the fist an experimental waggle.

“Why don’t we just talk this out?” Figgwaggle said, doing his best to sound reasonable as he approached Tinseltoes. The young gnome blanched and backed towards Claribelle.

Claribelle spoke up, saying, “Tell you what, why don’t you get out of the way, and maybe Internal Investigations will go easy on you. Your best bet is to cooperate.”

“Well, let’s see,” Tiddwiddle said, advancing shoulder-to-shoulder with Figgwaggle. He held up a hand and began counting off points on his fingers. “One, you break into the CMAA when you’ve been fired. That’s trespassing. Two, you assaulted the Chief. Three, unless I miss my guess, you’re threatening to steal CMAA property.”

“Yes,” Figgwaggle said smoothly. “So, why don’t you give us the folders, before we have to take them from you. We’ll let you both leave, and we won’t even press charges.”

“Whad?!” came Tallywaddle's muffled shout. Figgwaggle shot him a frantic look and then winked. “Oh… Oh! Yedth. We wohd not preth chargeth.”

Claribelle scowled at that. “If you think that I’m going to allow you to—”

“Excuse me,” a voice interrupted from the doorway of the Chief’s office.

Figgwaggle turned to see Glummwriggle leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. Glumm was wearing a clean uniform for once, and his normally dour face was bright and cheerful. One foot was resting on a somewhat-abused filing box on the floor next to him.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Glummwriggle asked, grinning hugely.

A funny thing happened on the way to the office

For a long moment, the gnomes in the office all froze, staring at Glumm with expressions ranging from wide-eyed shock, to confusion, to outright terror. The one most terrified was Claribelle, who broke the silence by shrieking and pointing at the box that Glumm was resting a booted foot on.

“You have to get that box out of here!” Claribelle screamed.

Glumm looked down at the box, his expression changing to one of mock surprise. “What, this old thing? It’s just an old box, isn’t it?”

In the corner of the office, Claribelle was busy making a variety of strangling noises. Chief Tallywaddle, a calculating look in his face and his fingers pinching his nostrils shut, turned to the two counselors in the office.

“Dat da box?” the Chief asked. Tiddwiddle nodded, his eyes wide and fearful. “Right,” the Chief said. He took a couple of deep breaths, cleared his throat a few times, and then made an effort to speak clearly, in spite of his swollen nose. “Good work, Glummwriggle!”

Everygnome in the office gaped at the Chief. Well, everygnome except for Glumm, who smirked and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, it was nothing,” Glumm said. “I came across this box, figured it was important, thought I would bring it back to the office.”

Chief Tallywaddle nodded. “Yes, you did well. Why don’t you leave that box with me, and—”

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t think of it,” Glumm said, his grin growing even larger. “If this box is truly so important, I should make sure it gets taken care of properly, right?”

Tallywaddle did his best to keep a fatherly grin on his face, an effort that was severely undermined both by his swollen nose and his glaring eyes. He knew the beginnings of a shakedown when he heard one.

“That’s right,” the Chief said. “Very responsible. Just as I’d expect for a gnome in your position.”

“My position?” Glumm echoed, his grin faltering slightly.

“Yes. Naturally, your contributions require a promotion. How does Lead Field Operative sound?”

Rule of Effective Gnome Management #12: Use promotions to ensure loyalty.

“Sounds made up,” Glumm said doubtfully. “Besides, aren’t I suspended?”

“Suspended? Pah!” Tallywaddle waved a hand dismissively. “You’ve obviously proven your worth.” He waited while Glumm absorbed that information before adding enticingly, “And it comes with a large pay increase.”

Glumm frowned suspiciously. “How large?”

“Let’s say…” And here, the Chief hesitated. He couldn’t make the raise too large at the outset, or there would be no room for negotiations. And he couldn’t make it too low, or Glumm might just leave, insulted. “Let’s say a thirty percent raise?”

“Huh,” Glumm said, looking at the box. “Seems an awful lot for just a box. What’s in it?”

“Nothing you need to be concerned about,” the Chief stated flatly.

“It has the files containing the original cutie mark research for a couple dozen Ponyville colts and fillies,” Claribelle shouted from behind him. “They’re going to destroy it!”

“Why would they do that?” Glumm asked.

“Because they’ve been giving fake cutie marks to a bunch of poor ponies!”

Ninabella uttered a soft “What?” at that, but was mostly disregarded by the rest of the room.

Any lingering vestige of Glumm’s grin vanished. “Is that true?”

Chief Tallywaddle scoffed. “Of course not!”

“The girl is insane,” Tiddwiddle said quickly.

“Completely lost her mind,” Figgwaggle added.

“Totally bonkeroos,” Tiddwiddle ventured. He was starting to get into the swing of it. “Cracked her nut. Off her rocker. Completely out to—”

“I am not!” Clari shouted again.

“Well, that’s good,” Glumm said, his grin returning, though with a slightly harder edge to it. “I suppose, though, that it would be a good idea to bring this to the Auditing Department, just to have them give it a look-through.”

“No!” came the shout from three different gnomes.

“Oh?” Glumm’s eyes were glittering dangerously as he looked at all three in turn. “Well, why not?”

The three conspirators exchanged an uneasy glance. It was the Chief who responded with a reluctant “Well, it’s true that there are some… irregularities, you could say, with the files in that box.” Tallywaddle fit a long-suffering, tired-looking smile onto his face. It was a look he'd often practiced in a mirror. “You know how it can be. We rile up the Auditing Department, and they’ll bring in Compliance. Then the next thing you know, Internal Investigations shows up and we’re firing gnomes left and right. It’s much better to take care of these things… discreetly, if you get my drift?”

The Chief winked and tapped the side of his nose, his face freezing when that tap caused a bolt of pain to spike through his skull.

“And… how are we going to take care of this discreetly, boss?” Glummwriggle asked, scowling.

“You don’t need to know that,” Tallywaddle said smoothly. “By the way, did I say a raise of thirty percent? I meant forty.”

“Wow… that’s… that’s a lot of money.” Glumm looked torn for a moment, then his shoulders slumped as he sighed. “Deal.”

Glumm set the box down on the floor and shoved it with one booted foot, causing it to skitter over to bump against the Chief’s leg.

“Yes!” the two counselors shouted, giving each other awkward high-fives.

“Noooo….” Claribelle moaned. Next to her, Tinseltoes just looked shocked and betrayed.

“Well, well, well,” the Chief said with a chuckle as he bent over and picked up the box. “Looks like I win.” He shot an evil grin Glumm’s way. “And, you? You’re fired.”

Glummwriggle’s eyes bulged as he shouted, “What?!”

“You really should have gotten my offer in writing before handing the box over.” Tallywaddle winked again and added, “Idiot.”

“So, what, you’re actually going to destroy the box, like Clari said?” Glumm snarled. “You’re just going to hide the evidence regarding the misallocated cutie marks?”

“You got it!” the Chief crowed. “First thing I’m going to do is tip this box into an incinerator!”

Glumm smiled suddenly. “Well. I guess I can understand that, considering what’s actually in the box. Oh, and Chief?”

“Yes?” Tallywaddle asked warily, taken aback by Glummwriggle’s sudden change in demeanor.

“While we’re on the topic of ‘should-haves’, you really shoulda checked the contents of that box before spilling your whole evil plan in a room full of witnesses.”

As Glummwriggle winked at him, Chief Tallywaddle felt a chill run down his body. He ripped the top of the box and saw that it was filled with regular file-folders, each stuffed with papers. Holding the box with one hand, Tallywaddle removed one of the papers from a random folder.

He recognized it instantly. It was one of the motivational posters of himself that had been posted all around the CMAA Headquarters. He had a thoughtful look on his face, and was looking slightly to the left of the camera as it had snapped the picture.

Somegnome with a childish sense of humor and a black marker had vandalized many of these posters, apparently thinking that the Chief’s thoughtful expression looked made him look like a gnome with a case of severe abdominal distress. This particular one had its original motivational phrase crossed out and “I have hot air coming from both ends” written in its place.

Hands trembling, the Chief pulled out another paper at random. Another poster, this one with “If you have a question, pull my finger and I’ll have an answer” scrawled across it.

“What…”

“Oh, wait! That’s not all!” Glummwriggle said gleefully as he rushed forward. He pushed the folders back and reached into the box. “Check this out!” he said triumphantly as he pulled a Field Agent’s communication device out of the box. A rubber band was holding the “Transmit” key down.

A great deal of strength left the Chief’s legs at the sight of the device. The air left his lungs in a whoosh, and his heart lurched painfully for a few beats. “What..?” was all he managed to say.

Glummwriggle took the band off of the communicator, thumbed the Transmit key, and said, “Did you get all that?”

“I sure did,” came the voice at the other end.

Tiddwiddle and Figgwaggle were staring with pale, disbelieving faces at the device in Glumm’s hand. Behind them, Claribelle laughed gleefully and clapped her hands, and Tinseltoes sagged with relief.

With lips that felt suddenly numb and cold, the Chief asked, in a voice hoarse and disbelieving, “What did you do with the files?”

Glummwriggle answered with a smirk.

In the back of Tallywaddle’s mind was the thought that the situation was still salvageable, somehow, if he could only find the files. Maybe he could write off the whole thing as a joke… But now he needed the files more than ever. And Glumm’s smirking face pushed him over the line.

With a wordless snarl, he rushed forward, gathering Glummwriggle’s collar in his fist. “Where are the files?!” he bellowed.

Glumm’s only reply was an insolent grin.

~~*~~

Two hours earlier…

A small, shadowy shape darted from place to place, seeking cover wherever it could be found. This early in the morning, there weren’t many ponies about. Still, it wasn’t wise to take unnecessary chances.

Glummwriggle stopped momentarily under a convenient hedge as he planned out his next set of moves. His target was across a wide street, which he ran across as quickly as he could. Breathing heavily, he leaned against the pastel trim of the building, rendered a dark grey in the moonlight.

Nopony had seen him. So far, so good. But the real risk was beginning right now.

A quick circuit showed him that there was an open window on the first floor of the building. With a grimace, Glumm began scaling. After several minutes, and some muffled cursing, he finally reached the windowsill, where he lay on his back and panted until the stitch in his side went away and his arms stopped feeling like jelly. Once recovered, he popped the screen out of the window and gently lowered it to the ground.

His heart pounding, Glumm ran across a countertop and then climbed down a set of drawers until he reached a well-scrubbed kitchen floor. Doing this without a stealth field was beyond nerve-wracking, and Glumm gulped against a rising nausea. It was best to get this over with, he decided.

~~*~~

“Where are they?!” Chief Tallywaddle roared.

Glumm’s grin slipped away as he sighed and shook his head. “Do you want to know when I realized that I’m a bad gnome?”

Chief Tallywaddle blinked, confused. “What?”

“I know what you did was wrong, you see. And the thought of all those ponies with the wrong cutie marks makes me sick to my stomach, it really does.” Glumm shook his head sadly. “But I’m still a bad gnome. And that’s because, in spite of how sick I am looking at the three of you, there’s a mean little voice in my head that’s telling me that it’s almost worth it to see the looks on your faces when you realize what’s going to happen now.”

~~*~~

Ninety minutes earlier...

The stairs had nearly killed him. Each one nearly as tall as he was, they required a climb that the out-of-shape Glummwriggle found himself barely able to complete. Not for the first time, he considered just dropping the whole thing and going back to bed. Each time he did, though, he found himself remembering the frequent dressing-downs he’d gotten from Figgwaggle or Tallywaddle. Somehow, he found the strength to go on.

Glumm made his way cautiously down the hallway and into a small bedroom. He stepped lightly, making almost no noise at all. He made it all the way to the bed in the room without incident, and found himself climbing once again.

The pony was asleep under a pile of blankets, a tuft of mane showing out the top. This, Glumm knew, was it. His mind was clear, as he walked over to the sleeping pony’s face. He was about to break the most sacred rule of the CMAA. After all, amongst the ponies, only the Princesses knew about the gnomes and the services they provided.

The Princesses… and one other.

Glumm poked the pony rudely on the forehead. She stopped snoring with a snort, pale blue eyes shooting open with muddled confusion that washed quickly away in recognition.

“Glummwriggle?” the pony asked.

“Hey, Pinkie Pie,” Glumm said. “I need a favor.”

~~*~~

“What do you mean?” Tallywaddle asked, giving Glumm a little shake. His stomach was sinking even as his rage was building. “Where are the damned files, Glummwriggle?!”

Glumm resumed his spiteful grin. “Oh, don’t worry. I made sure they were in good hooves.”

The Chief’s face froze in horror. “Hooves?” he whispered, his hands going slack on Glumm’s collar. Slow, stately hoofbeats could be heard approaching from the hallway outside of the Chief’s office. “You fool… what have you done?”

Glumm’s answering grin threatened to cut his face in two, it was so wide.

~~*~~

Sixty minutes earlier...

Glummwriggle sat uncomfortably in the middle of Pinkie’s now-empty bed, feeling horribly exposed. Every instinct was urging him to find something to hide behind, or under. Instead, he sat on Pinkie Pie’s obnoxiously pink bedspread and tried his best to ignore the alligator.

Gummy was sitting on the corner of Pinkie’s bed, staring at him with what Glumm could only assume was a hungry expression. The toothless alligator wasn’t a threat to a pony, but to a gnome that only outweighed it by an ounce or so, it was a dangerous animal.

“You just stay back, you lizard,” Glumm warned the alligator.

Gummy responded by blinking his left eye while simultaneously licking his right.

“Aww… That means he likes you!” Pinkie said unexpectedly as she popped up from the other side of the bed.

Glummwriggle’s manly cry of alarm could almost be interpreted as a piercingly high shriek of panic. Pinkie gaped at him for a moment before bursting into giggles.

“You’re silly!” she said.

“And you’re gonna give me a heart attack!” Glumm replied, clutching at his chest. He took a couple of calming breaths. “Is it done?”

“Yuppers!” Pinkie said with a nod. “Though, poor Spikey was sound asleep when I woke him.” She frowned. “I’ll have to give him some apology cupcakes.” Her face transformed as she grinned happily. “With emerald sprinkles! He loves emeralds.”

Glumm swallowed against the lump in his throat. He was committed, then. No going back now.

“How long to you think—” he started to ask.

A loud “whump!” from outside Sugarcube Corner answered him, as bright light flooded through the windows. Morning had come early to Ponyville.

“Not long at all,” Pinkie said with a sharp nod.

~~*~~

Clip-clop, clip-clop.

The sounds came closer, echoing through the hallway like the approaching of the Horses of the Apocalypse. Through the large glass wall on the front of the Chief’s office, a brilliant white light began to rise, growing in intensity as the sound of hoofsteps grew ever louder. The light soon became too bright to look at directly, forcing every gnome in the office to look away, shielding their eyes with their hands or, in Ninabella’s case, diving underneath her desk.

Chief Tallywaddle’s door opened. The light came through first, blinding at first but dimming considerably a moment later. It was followed by a gnome-high figure, which looked around the room with eyes like frozen fire.

“Good morning, my little gnomes,” said Princess Celestia in precise, even tones. “We have many things to discuss.”

Chief Tallywaddle, old campaigner that he was, was the first to recover. Instincts honed over decades of ladder-climbing, influence-gathering and backstabbing came to mind. He lifted his left arm, which was feeling oddly numb, and pointed a thick finger at the unfortunate Tiddwiddle, who looked just about ready to wet himself.

“It’s his fault,” Tallywaddle said, with every appearance of complete confidence.

Rule of Effective Gnome Management #1, the most important rule of them all: Make sure some other gnome takes the fall.

It took all of three seconds for Tiddwiddle to get past his shock. “What?!” he shrieked.

“It’s true,” Figgwaggle said hurriedly. He saw the value in the Chief’s declaration immediately, of course. “I tried to talk him out of it, but—”

“Save it,” a harsh voice grated from the doorway. A black-suited gnome stood there, his expression carved from granite. With all eyes on Celestia, his less-obtrusive entrance had gone unnoticed.

Tallywaddle staggered sideways, his breath coming in wheezing gasps and his voice coming out in a dull whisper. “Director Grimwold?”

Next to him, Figgwaggle gaped and Tiddwiddle was making little mewling sounds in the back of his throat.

“That’s right, Tallywaddle,” Grimwold said, his voice tightly controlled. “Don’t bother lying. I heard the whole thing over the communicator.”

It was too much. Chief Tallywaddle collapsed slowly but inevitably to the floor, clutching at his chest. The pain from before had returned to knife its way through his ribs, swallowing the resulting gasp of agony before it escaped his lips. As he lay on the floor, his vision greying around the edges and his lungs unable to draw enough air for him to breathe, he realized that he was finally having that heart attack his doctor had warned him about.

He felt oddly mixed feelings about that, he decided as the pain faded.

His vision dimmed, and cold started creeping up his limbs. His view of the ceiling was suddenly interrupted by Celestia’s face, who regarded him with an almost idle curiosity, as if he were some kind of bug that she had almost stepped on.

The Princess’ horn glowed, and warmth returned to Tallywaddle’s limbs. His breathing eased and his heart, after giving one or two painful thumps, went back into its normal rhythm.

Princess Celestia leaned down and whispered in his ear, “Oh, no. You’re not getting out of this that easily.”

This is how it all ends

The drama was over, at least for now. Regional Director Grimwold, who had been called in by Celestia, had taken over the scene with a ruthless efficiency. He was aided by a group of serious-faced, black-suited gnomes in very discreet caps. Chief Tallywaddle—currently ex-Chief—had been escorted out of the room, along with a stunned-looking Tiddwiddle and a vociferously protesting Figgwaggle.

The Director’s stone-faced clerks had then stormed into Tallywaddle’s office, clearing it out of all paperwork in a tide of boxes and loaded carts. It took several minutes before the stream of gnomes going into and out of the office stopped.

Grimwold had then taken over the office itself in order to get statements from everygnome involved, starting with the stunned-looking Ninabella. Glummwriggle had felt a brief moment of sympathy for the gnomette. She obviously hadn’t had any idea what the Chief had been up to, and now she was smack-dab in the middle of an investigation that could end her career.

When her interview was over, Ninabella had walked quickly over to her desk while obviously struggling not to cry. She’d recovered her purse from a drawer and started walking out without looking at or speaking to anygnome in the room. Claribelle had darted up, caught her elbow, and had a brief, whispered conversation with the receptionist. Glumm wasn’t sure, but he thought he’d heard the words “bar” and “drinks” and “lots”. Ninabella had looked at Clari with blank confusion before breaking into a wan smile and nodding.

Then Claribelle was brought into the former-Chief’s office to give her statement, leaving a fidgeting Tinseltoes and an worn out Glummwriggle waiting behind. A few minutes later, Claribelle emerged from her interview looking both a little lost and somewhat thoughtful. She’d left the reception area without a word to anyone.

Tinseltoes, on seeing Clari exit the office, had stood and seemed ready to go after her. Grimwold’s voice from the other side of the office door had stopped him. With a sigh, he went in, closing the door behind him, leaving Glumm sitting awkwardly on a chair in the reception area, waiting for his own interview.

While he waited, he couldn’t help but look at Princess Celestia out of the corner of his eye. The Princess had lain down on her belly, folding her legs underneath her. Her face held an expression of serene calm, her eyes closed. Glumm couldn’t decide if she was asleep or just meditating.

Whatever magic the pony princess had used to shrink herself down to gnome size was certainly impressive, and far beyond even the best the gnome engineers could replicate. That said, he couldn’t help but wonder what it meant that she could shrink herself to gnome-size, and yet she was still taller than the next-tallest person in the room, even lying down.

The clock ticked off another minute. Glumm shifted in his seat, washing his hands together as he waited for whatever would happen next.

“I should thank you,” Princess Celestia said so unexpectedly that Glumm jumped a little. “All three of you, actually. You’ve done a great service to me and my little ponies.”

Glumm grunted, turning away so that the Princess wouldn’t see his blush. “I just wish we’d have stopped it sooner, Princess.”

“True. However, now that we know about the situation, we can take steps to address it.”

Glumm flinched and ran a nervous hand along his upper thigh. “Begging your pardon, Princess, but how are we supposed to fix this? The Cutie Mark Intervention Department only gets two or three misallocated cutie marks to fix a year, tops. This is dozens!”

“The department may have to be expanded,” Celestia said, her voice still calm. “I’ll leave that up to Director Grimwold. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders.”

Glummwriggle shrugged, not having ever met the Regional Director before today. He was contemplating what else he could say to the immortal ruler of Equestria when the door to the former Chief’s office opened, revealing a stunned-looking Tinseltoes.

The lad may have been foisted off on him against his wishes, but he was still family. Glumm stood up quickly and went over to the boy, putting a firm hand on his upper arm to steady him.

“Everything alright?” he asked.

Tinseltoes shook himself. “Yeah. Uh. My probation is over, apparently. I’ve been promoted to full Field Agent, effective immediately.”

“Oh, that’s…” Glumm trailed off. His own probationary period had taken months to get through. Months, and Pinkie Pie. “That’s great,” he said, trying to summon up a little enthusiasm for the young gnome’s sake.

Tinseltoes offered up a trembling smile. “Yeah. I think… I think I want to go find Claribelle and tell her the good news.” He started walking towards the door when he stopped. “Oh, yeah. The director said for you to go in.”

“Right,” Glummwriggle replied. His nephew waved, and he waved back. Glumm watched the boy leave, then hurriedly tucked in his shirt and smoothed his beard a little. Then he took a deep breath. “Right,” he said again, and let himself into the office.

Director Grimwold was frowning down at a few papers on his desk when Glumm entered. Except for those papers, the desk was remarkably clean. Tallywaddle’s mountains of paperwork were gone, along with the half-empty disposable coffee cups that usually littered the desktop. The dust and grime had been wiped away, and the desk gleamed. Well, at least it gleamed everywhere the name “Tallywaddle” wasn’t carved into it.

Without looking up, Grimwold said “Have a seat.”

Glummwriggle sat quickly. He couldn’t help but remember the last time he’d sat in this chair. The fear of losing his job, and the frustration of having to answer to a prat like Tallywaddle for his actions. This was an entirely different situation, of course, and he wasn’t angry or upset, but he was much more nervous. He waited, trying not to fidget while the Director shuffled through the papers, making little “Hmm… Hmm…” noises as he did so.

Finally, Director Grimwold looked up, his expression stoic and unreadable.

“So. You revealed yourself to the ponies,” he stated flatly.

Glumm grimaced. “Sir, I did.”

“‘They must never know.’ It’s our primary law, Glummwriggle,” Grimwold stated flatly. “Explain why you felt you had to break it.”

“Well, sir, I didn’t know how far Tallywaddle’s influence ran. And, according to what I heard from Claribelle and Tinseltoes, time was of the essence.” Glumm sweated into his jacket for a few seconds before adding, “Besides, Pinkie Pie… well, she already knew about us. Specifically, me.”

“So I see,” Grimwold said, indicating the paperwork on his desk. With mute horror, Glumm realized that it was his personnel file. “And Princess Celestia vouches for her. Especially since she made…” Grimwold shuffled through the paperwork again and squinted at a specific line. “...a Pinkie Promise not to tell anypony.”

“Sir,” Glumm said. It seemed to be the safest thing to say.

Grimwold looked up at him for a few more seconds. “It also says here that you were responsible for your own misallocation shortly after you started. Managed to convince a filly that her special talent was making mud pies.”

Glumm couldn’t stop a wince at the memory. “Yes, sir. Fortunately, the Cutie Mark Intervention Department was able to get her back on track into a study of general mineralogy.”

“So I see. You also disobeyed a direct order to fire from Control yesterday.”

“Sir, I did,” Glumm said. In spite of his absolute terror of the gnome in front of him, he began feeling slightly irritated. “It turns out, it was a good thing I did.”

“Field agents follow orders,” Grimwold said bluntly. “Explain your actions.”

A scowl drifted across Glumm’s features before he managed to squash it. “That filly you mentioned, the one who was making mud pies? Well, I never forgave myself for that. It was on my mind every time I went out into the field. I’m dead set against making a mistake like that again in the future. When I heard the order to fire, the filly in question was talking about dentistry. I had studied her case file. Dentistry went against everything I knew about her. Sir.”

“Hmm. I see.” Director Grimwold picked up a pen and began writing on the bottom of one of the papers in front of him. The papers from Glumm’s personnel records.

The minutes stretched on until finally Glumm couldn’t take it anymore. “Did you need anything else, sir?”

Grimwold stopped writing, put down his pen and sighed. “Yes. I need a full audit of everything this office has done for the last ten years. I need to figure out how I’m going to get a couple dozen young ponies back on the track their lives were intended to take... though fortunately, it looks like many of them are very close to their original destinies and just need a little nudge.”

Director Grimwold ran a finger along one of the carved names in the top of the desk. “I need to replace this desk, which that idiot Tallywaddle seems to have taken a liking to. I think I’ll take the cost of a new one out of his final paycheck.” He looked up and stared Glummwriggle right in the eye. “And, speaking of Tallywaddle, I need a new Chief to run this place.”

Glumm’s brain went into neutral as he realized what it was that the Director seemed to be implying. After a few seconds, he blurted out, “Me?! You want me to—”

Grimwold’s barking laugh cut him off. “No. No, of course not you. I already have somegnome in mind.” His eyes twinkled as, for the first time since he arrived, the Director smiled. The smile was a cold, pitiless thing, and Glumm felt a rush of cold down his back. “No, I have other plans for you.”

As he swallowed against the lump in his throat, Glumm wondered helplessly about what that meant. Barely any thought at all was left over to wonder who Grimwold had in mind to take over the Ponyville branch of the CMAA.

~~*~~

The two gnomettes sat at a table, and already several empty glasses sat between them. The bar they were in wasn’t the Whole in the Wall. What with everything that had happened, Claribelle had decided that the day’s events warranted stopping somewhere a little nicer.

The gnomette across from her was wearing a look of mingled hope and confusion. “Say that again?” she asked.

“Work for me,” Claribelle repeated. “Same hours, same pay, same everything.”

“But I thought you hated me,” Ninabella said.

“Pff!” Clari waved a hand dismissively, though Nina wasn’t far off from the truth. “No, of course not!”

The truth was, everygnome in the CMAA tended to dislike the Chief’s personal assistant. It was her job to be a gatekeeper, after all, and to be the voice of the boss whenever he couldn’t be bothered to do something himself. But, after everything that had happened, Claribelle wasn’t about to hold onto a grudge.

“And I thought I was going to get fired,” Ninabella said.

“Nope. I asked old Grim-face about it, and he said that he didn’t think you had any prior knowledge of Tallywaddle’s actions.”

“Of course I didn’t!” Nina’s face flushed from more than just the alcohol they’d had. “I never would have gone along with it.” She sniffled. “Those poor foals…”

Clari offered a sympathetic smile and a hand-pat as Nina sniffled. The truth was, she had been likely to be fired. Grimwold had told her so when he had offered her Tallywaddle’s job. Clari had told him that if she decided to take the job, she wanted Nina to keep her position. It was non-negotiable, as far as she was concerned.

“So, you’re really going to be the new Chief?” Ninabella asked.

Claribelle took a few seconds to think about it. “You know what? I think I will.”

“Sorry, what?” came an awkward, surprised voice from behind her.

Clari turned to see a wide-eyed Tinseltoes standing behind her. The skinny young gnome had a look of disbelief on his face. She sighed and turned in her seat to address him.

“Yes, that’s right. It turns out that Grimwold wanted someone who was good at organization, and he was really impressed when I told him about the filing system I made for the records.” Clari offered him a winning smile.

“Well.” Tinseltoes blinked a few times. “Well.” Then he smiled. “I suppose ‘congratulations’ are in order. Chief!”

Tinseltoes saluted, and Clari giggled. After a few seconds, Ninabella joined in. The young gnome grinned and relaxed, and Clari’s heart skipped a beat. He really isn’t bad-looking, in an odd sort of way, she decided. And he did pop Tallywaddle in the nose!

She made up her mind.

“Say, um. Tinseltoes.” Clari cleared her throat, heavily conscious of Nina listening in behind her. She put the other gnomette out of her mind before she lost her nerve and chickened out on this completely. “You did a great job today.”

“Thanks!”

“And I was wondering…” Clari hesitated, blushed, and then blurted out, “Well, would you like to go out and get drinks sometime?”

Tinseltoes gaped at her like a fish. Ninabella uttered a quiet gasp behind her. The world constricted down to a narrow point as she waited for Tinseltoes to answer.

“Rule 337-A,” Tinseltoes said eventually, a mournful note in his voice. “It’s on page forty-four of the CMAA handbook.”

Clari blinked. “Which one is that again?”

It was Nina who answered, annoyingly enough. “Er… it’s the one that prevents a manager from dating anyone who reports to him.” She cleared her throat. “Or, in this case, her.” Ninabella grimaced and added, "After my third day of working for Tallywaddle, I printed that page out and had it pinned up on my wall."

That took a few seconds to sink in, after which Clari said, “Oh…” in a very small voice. Very nearly everygnome she knew worked at the CMAA. If she wasn’t allowed to date anyone who reported up to her, her dating prospects were starting to look a little slim.

“Well, I suppose I could always fire you, first!” she said. “I’m kidding!” she quickly added, when Tinsel’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

“Oh… Well… Good?” Tinseltoes said weakly.

Clari sighed. She hadn’t even started the job, yet, and already she was bungling it up. “It’s okay. We can just be friends.” She smiled up at him as he stood there uncertainly. “Come on. Join us for drinks?” When he hesitated, she hastily added, “It’s not a date. It’s a work outing.”

Tinseltoes managed another smile. “Alright,” he said as he joined them.

~~*~~

Several weeks later...

“Agent 13, do you copy?”

Glummwriggle, hiding behind a barrel at the train station, pressed a button on his communicator. “Copy, Dispatch. Target Alpha is in sight. Target Beta is with her. I think I can get them both at once.”

There was a long pause before Dispatch replied. "Confirmed. Target Alpha is still primary, but if you can get Beta in the mix, then go for it.”

Glumm grinned. “Confirmed, Dispatch. Ready to deploy.”

He strode out confidently from behind his barrel, trusting in his fancy new “Don’t Notice Me” field generator to keep the ponies from noticing him. It made what he’d used as a CMAA Field Agent seem like a bad joke.

The Cutie Mark Intervention Department got all the coolest toys.

Behind another set of boxes, he could make out his nephew. Tinseltoes had a Cutie Cannon out, pointed at the Cutie Mark Crusaders as he spoke into his own communicator. Even though Glumm seriously doubted that any of the fillies on the train station’s platform would get a cutie mark that day, he still wished his nephew luck. He offered him a nod, one professional to another, and got a nod in return.

Glumm didn’t envy Tinseltoes. The CMC were a handful when there were only three of them. Now with four, things would be even harder. Fortunately for the sake of everygnome’s sanity, it seemed like one of them would be leaving on the next train.

“So, you’re leaving, huh?” Target Alpha said as she and Beta came around the corner of the platform. “Great! Now we’re stuck here with these lame blank-flanks!”

That seemed to annoy the newest member of the Crusaders, who replied angrily, “Hey! That’s not how you talk to my friends!”

Dispatch once again started talking through Glumm’s headset once again, distracting him from the arguing fillies for a few moments. “Correction Opportunity approaching within 19 seconds, counting down.”

“Confirmed, Dispatch. I’ll be ready.”

Glumm quickly broke out his Fate Rifle, a device built by the greatest Gnome engineers, assisted by the mighty magic and arcane knowledge both Princess Luna and Celestia. He wasn’t sure exactly how it did what it did. Something about a dose of concentrated, controlled chaos being released during specific times of temporal flux in order to incrementally re-align the subject with the harmonic grid, or some such thing. Most of the seminar where it was explained had gone over his head. Not that he minded, as he had mostly been there for the donuts.

“What are you gonna do about it?” Target Alpha asked in her snotty voice.

There was a pause, during which Dispatch kept counting down the time.

The newest member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders smiled. “Tell your mothers about your bad attitudes!”

That prospect seemed to terrify both Alpha and Beta.

”Two… One... Fire!”

Glumm snapped off a shot, hitting Diamond Tiara straight in the chest. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, he quickly reloaded the Fate Ordinance and snapped off another shot, this one hitting her crony, Silver Spoon. Both fillies tumbled backwards off of the train station’s platform, falling gracelessly into a large patch of mud. And, whether it was the effect of the rifle, or just plain irony, Diamond Tiara’s namesake tiara wound up on the head of a pig, who turned and seemed to grin at a horrified Silver Spoon.

“Dispatch, I got both targets,” Glum said into his headset. “Repeat: I got both Alpha and Beta.”

”Copy, Agent 13. It doesn’t look like there will be another Correction Opportunity today. Come on back to HQ. I think we put those poor fillies through the wringer enough for one day.”

“Copy that, Dispatch. Agent 13 out.”

Glumm quickly disassembled his Fate Rifle, which was a much more elegant and portable device than the Cutie Cannon. When he was done, he waved to his nephew, who nodded back.

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, along with many other colts and fillies in Ponyville, were on their way back to their true destinies. Over a dozen were already there, only needing a gentle nudge in the right direction. These two, though, were a special case. Their true destinies were almost completely opposed to what the fillies thought they were supposed to be. And, even though he felt like a bully sometimes, Grimwold had explained it to him.

“First thing, these two need to be reminded that they aren’t better than any other pony,” the Director had said.

So it was that the Fate Rifle deployed negative reinforcement whenever they acted against their true destiny, and positive for when they embraced it. The Fate Rifle Ordinance could reward, just as easily as it could punish. Though, it said something about the fillies in question that the negative reinforcement outnumbered the positive by a five-to-one ratio.

Glummwriggle felt pretty bad for the fillies. It wasn’t entirely their fault they were bullies. It certainly wasn’t fair that they, and other ponies their age, had to suffer for what a few stupid, greedy gnomes had done.

Just for a moment, he allowed himself to wonder exactly what happened to the three gnomes involved.

~~*~~

“Figgwaggle, I’m warning you! Keep your stuff to your side of the cell!”

“This is my side of the cell, Tiddwiddle! It’s not my fault you drew the line all crooked!”

~~*~~

A knock on the door roused Tallywaddle from a deep sleep. With a groan, he levered himself up off of his loudly-protesting bed and shuffled to the door. On the way, he glanced at a clock. It was barely past noon, and already some inconsiderate lout had decided to wake him up!

“Better not be another court officer,” he muttered darkly. His own trial, which he’d demanded be seperate from Tiddwiddle’s and Figgwaggle’s, was coming up next week. He’d started out rather optimistic about his chances, only to see all of his carefully gathered influence in the gnome community dry up and blow away. Now, his greatest fear was ending up in a jail cell with those two louts.

He opened the front door to his house and was surprised to see a delivery gnome standing there. Behind him was a large wooden crate on a four-wheeled dolly.

“Sign here, please, sir,” the gnome said, holding out a clipboard.

“What is this?” Tallywaddle asked him.

“Not sure, sir. Letter came with it.”

Tallywaddle grunted and took the letter. While the young gnome moved the crate into his living room, he opened the envelope. He almost swore out loud when he saw the letterhead.

From the desk of Grimwold, Regional Director of CMAA, Greater Canterlot Region.

Tallywaddle,

I hope this letter finds you in poor health. Here’s that damned desk you marked up. You paid for it, you may as well keep it. The new desk is much nicer, anyway. Young Claribelle is doing a bang-up job as your replacement, keeps the thing nice and cleared off. This branch has never been run so efficiently!

Yours disdainfully,

Grimwold.

Tallywaddle snorted and crumpled up the letter. He tried to go back to bed, but the damned crate kept popping up in his mind, disturbing his sleep. Finally, he grabbed a hammer and crowbar and opened the box, revealing the beat-up desk that he’d used for years.

His eyes bugged out at the sight of it. Just as he remembered, there were multiple places where his name had been carved into the thing. But somegnome had taken the time to carve various insults after each instance of his name.

Tallywaddle is a gasbag
Tallywaddle is an idiot
Tallywaddle is a giant bowl of guts

And so on, and so on.

“Who did this?!” Tallywaddle roared at nobody in particular.

~~*~~

“Your ginger ale, sir,” the waiter said, leaving the glass of sparkling bubbly on the table in front of him.

Glummwriggle, who had been busily cleaning his nails with his ancient pen-knife to the mute horror of the wait staff, nodded his thanks.

His new job sure paid a lot more, that was for sure. He’d never been able to afford to eat at a place like this on his old salary. And, as he sipped his ale, he allowed himself a smile.

Life, he decided, was good.

Author's notes

This was a story that just popped into my head one day, while wondering idly where cutie marks actually came from. I started writing it with great enthusiasm, got distracted for a while (okay, a year) and eventually came back to it. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, and I hope you all enjoy the ending!

Much of the bureaucracy in this story is drawn from my own experience, having worked in a corporate environment for most of my adult life. It really can get crazy here, especially if you've got... shall we say, less than ideal management?

Just for fun, here are Tallywaddle's Rules of Effective Gnome Management:

1: Make sure some other gnome takes the fall.
2: Flattery gets you everywhere.
3: Detachment is the key to effective management.
4: Never pass up the opportunity to tell others how great you are.
5: Everygnome has his price.
6: An effectively complex bureaucracy can hide a multitude of sins.
7: Always ask for a bigger budget. Always.
8: If it works, it was your idea.
9: If it doesn’t work, it was some other gnome’s idea.
10: Make sure to practice your sincerity every day, and deploy it as needed.
11: A smile goes a long way towards hiding your true intent.
12: Use promotions to ensure loyalty.
13: The best privileges to give are the ones that cost nothing.
14: Threaten to take away privileges if productivity slackens.
15: Confidence is more important than actual expertise.
16: Get someone else to do it
17: Unpleasant tasks go to the gnomes that annoy you the most
18: Transfer the troublemakers. Let them be some other gnome’s problem.
19: If you remind them of a kindly old grandpa, they’re more likely to trust you.
20: Whatever you do, do NOT draw Celestia’s attention!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it!

~Hoopy