Surprise slouched on a bench while sipping cofee, her laptop buzzed with electricity.
The earpiece bleeped "Talk to me."
"Right so you know how you asked me to find a little 'present' for your 'friends'"
"What do you have?"
"Well,I found a little something called the hourglass phantom, figured it was just what you wanted."
"brilliant, send through a link."a message sounded on her computer
She grinned "That is Fantastic."
Two weeks had past since Derpy had been taken to R.I.F.T.
Two extremely dull weeks, She had been interrogated a few times, but she hadn't seen Lyra,or the journal in days. Ethan tried to keep Derpy in the loop of what Lyra was doing, but that was extremely difficult, as he wasn't in the loop himself. Which lead Derpy to realise why he was the one they sent to take care of her,in a sense. It was the perfect job for him, he would be on the case, but not on the case, and he was told to answer all of Derpys questions, which he couldn't.
All he knew was that Lyra had been in her office for two straight days, never sleeping, With Bon Bon going in and out constantly bringing coffee, which concerned everypony a great deal. Bon Bon hadn't said what she was doing, just that she had not been sleeping at all.
And despite that, the last few weeks nothing had happened.
Until Derpy woke up in the middle of the night.
She woke up to the sound of screaming.
With a mighty flap of her wings, she propelled herself quickly into the ceiling.
"Ow, forehead, bruise, ow." she plopped down holding her head
The screaming continued, she heard hoofsteps rushing down the hall, with a complaint of "I told her!"
Derpy crashed into the door, as she could not be bothered banging on it "What's happening?"
Flitters voice came out of the intercom"Don't worry, go back to sleep."
The grey mailmare snorted "Not likely with that racket." but nopony heard her.
A few minutes later she heard them come back up the hall "I told you you need to sleep, It's just not healthy to obsess about this
There was a snort "Right, trying to stop an apocalypse is not healthy."
"This kind of obsession can drive ponies insane."
"I'm not obsessing okay!"
"You haven't slept in two days, you are going in the spare room and sleeping tillyou are fully rested, then you are going to have the day off."
"But..."
"If there's an emergency you'll be contacted, trust me. it will be good for you."
"And what if I wake up screaming again, Derpy is bound to want to know what's happening!"
"Oh she already does."
"What! If that's the case then she's been listening to this whole conversation." everything went silent.
Derpy woke up later that morning to the rapid sound of banging on her door
Grumbling, she rose her head. The clock face read 6:42 "Wha...?"
Cloudchaser was above her, glaring "Get up. Now."
"But what..."
"Now."
She rubbed her eyes and the followed the periwinkle agent down the hallway, into a room which she didn't recognise.
It was huge, with at least ten slim silver desks supporting very modern looking computer monitors, On each monitor there was an hourglass turning over, as if something was loading.
Cloudchaser lead Derpy to the largest computer screen up in the front of the room, now when I say largest, I mean it was the hugest computer screen you would ever have seen. Take an elephant, picture it in your mind.
Now through that image out because Its a completely rubbish comparison.
The size of that thing was roughly 150 inches across, 75 inches down, with a very thin framing around it. in covered at least half the wall.
In other words, It was the flippen biggest computer screen in the history of the universe, or at least the Pony universe, But would there be a computer screen this big in the Human universe?There probably is, But why would someone (or Pony) need a screen that big? Having a monitor this big was probably just one of Lyras ways to through around ridiculously large wads of money (R.I.F.T. had a surprising amount of ridiculously large wads of money)
What was happening? Oh yes, Lyra was rapidly putting in commands on said computer with huge monitor, but no matter what she did, the hourglass stayed
"SOMEPONY GET ME SOME RIDICULOUSLY OVER CAFFEINATED DRINKS OR I SWEAR TO CELESTIA I WILL..." The green unicorn was interupted by Bon Bon bringing over a can a caffeinated cola flavoured soda "Thank you!"
Lyra Turned to Derpy suddenly "What the hay did you?"
"What did I do? You're the one with broken computers!"
"Don't try to be smart, I'm the smart one here. Now what did you do?"
"I didn't do anything!"
They started talking at the same time
"Well of course you're going to say that! It's not like..."
"No, I really didn't..."
"I mean I supposing that you really were..."
"...Could I mess with your computers anyways?"
"...Then you obviously would not be stupid enough to..."
"...is it? Last time I even touched a computer it..."
"...no way to know if you're telling the truth or not..."
"You're not listening to me are you?"
"Unless..." Lyra eyes lit up
"No." said Bon Bon
"But..."
"No."
"But I'm your boss!"
"And I am in contact with your boss, you would most certainly agree that no."
"You suck!" Lyra poked her tounge out "Now, computers! Virus of some sort, It's not damaging the files, That's good, It's accessing the files,
That's good, I mean bad, I think I can firewall it, that's good, oh never mind I can't, that's bad,"
She started at the green numbers for a few minutes that dragged on like they were centuries.
"Alright, I have good news and bad news." She looked more tired than she had all the time that Derpy had been there
"What would that be?" Derpy was getting more and more nervous, the dark circles under the unicorns eyes made her look like she would kill the mailmare in an instant without blinking
"Well," with a deep breath Lyra looked calmer, yet with a distinct hint of terror in her eyes "The files aren't being accessed anymore."
"And..."Bon bon cringed
"And..." Lyra bit her lip
"And...?" Cloudchaser Cringed
"And..." Lyra sounded like she wasn't breathing
"And...?!" Flitter was frustrated
"And..." Lyra was on the verge of panicking
"And...?"Derpy narrowed her eyes
"Whoever hacked into our system has complete access to all of our systems" Lyra let out a nervous laugh "Whatever virus they sent into the system isn't affected by anything I throw at it!"
"So the only way we can get them out of the system is to..."
"Find the pony that's accessing the system. But it's not that simple, they've locked us out and changed the password."
"Are you sure you just haven't forgotten it again?"
"Of course I'm sure!" Lyra scowled then turned back to the computer
"But you're the only pony capable of getting into those computers by force, does this mean..."
"I hope not." She was silent for a few minutes.
The hourglass disappeared, and after Lyra slumped in her chair, she proceeded to lean towards Derpy " Do you know what we are faced with here?"
"Uh, a problem?"
"We are faced with something called the Parasprite Predicament, any idea what that is?"
"Sorry, no."
"Its a term, used when two opposing forces have to work together to abolish an particularly dangerous threat, however if they work together, they both lose something that in the long run,will take it's toll. There is no right answer."
"It's a double trap."
"Exactly, except one threat is more prominent than the other."
"So what have I got to lose?"
"Your chance of getting out of this before your stuck in it for the rest of your live, never getting out, and even though you're life might seem normal again, it never will be."
"And what do you have to lose?"
Lyra backed away "That is a story I'll save for a rainy day."
Derpy noticed a red book sitting on Lyras over sized desk "Why do you need that?"
"Hmm, Well we were hoping it would answer some of our questions,but so far it's only confused us more."
"And why's that?"
Just then, the journal started to glow.
Derpy looked at it.
Lyra looked at it.
Derpy looked at Lyra.
Lyra looked at Derpy.
They both looked at the journal.
At the exact same instant they leaped for it, wrestling for a minute or so, until Derpy kicked Lyra in the face, scooped up the journal, then took off down the hallway. Lyra levitated the book out of her mouth and calmly stood her ground
"I am a level five mage with combat experience and a team of at least fifteen agents ready to mobilise at any given time, do you really think you stand a chance?"
Derpy looked both ways. Cloudchaser and Flitter flanked either side of her, Tazers at the ready. Bon bon was walking down the hallway with a cardboard drink holder holding a coffee cup in her jaws, along with a newspaper, at the other side of the hallway more ponies were rushing down towards them, in full combat uniform, ready to support Lyra, who was staring down Derpy calmly, levitating the journal .
"Well." She took a deep breath. She knew what she was about to do required perfect timing, a certain level of coordination, some amount of skill, and was completly insane. "I'm a wall eyed mailmare with no backup, very little coordination, no experience in combat..."
She wacked an unsuspecting Bon Bon in the face, which spilt the coffee all over the newspaper, which read: 15 ponies disappear in one week! and also Flitter, who dropped her tazer in... well this was freshly made coffee, of course she was gonna drop the tazer, which Derpy picked up
"And a tazer, I say I've got a fair chance."
She lept out of Cloudchasers range, narrowly avoiding being hit with the white hot sparks of electricity and aimed at Lyra, who made shield just in time.
The unicorn sent a few bolts of magic out, which lead our young hero to do the most impressive back-flip we will ever see in the history of any universe. It was so awesome that time itself slowed to observe this amazing phenomenon. all the R.I.F.T. personnel present, dropped whatever they were holding and gaped in awe of the glorious feat of dodging, Rainbow Dash herself would be jealous of this amazing back flip.
That's how awesome it was.
So most of the agents that were coming were in a dazed stupior , But not Lyra, she was all game.
Not hesitating For an instant, she went at Derpy with all of the power she could put into a spell.
The mailmare flew backwards as a painful green light seared her chest What am I doing? she thought desperatly, her mind foggy.
She looked up and Lyra was charging at her, horn glowing. She rolled out of the way, sticking her leg out, which tripped her up.
Meanwhile the agents had been released from their stupor, and were reading their weapons
Derpy scooped up the journal as soon as Lyra hit the ground. But as soon as Derpy had picked it up, the unicron was back on her hooves, calmly striding across the floor. The air crackled with energy, both magic and electricity, as the mares circled each other, both waiting for the moment to strike. The back up agents held their ground, knowing that intervening at this point would be the worst thing they could do.
Derpy attacked first, but Lyra was blinking, she cast a jet of water, knocking the tazer out of Derpys hoof, then with a dramatic spin she kicked the mailmare in the head.
Which caused Derpys eyes to cross.
And we all know what happens when Derpys eyes cross.
Chaos ensued. Within minutes Lyra was knocked out, all the agents had one, if not two, black eyes, one pegasus had a dead wing, an earth pony had a dislocated shoulder (don't ask.) two other ponies had been knocked out and a huge mess had been made, she didn't intend to cause damage, she was only trying to gain her footing, which wasn't as easy as it seemed, and it was getting worse and worse until finally she felt a blunt thud on her forehead.
Everything went black
