A 'Villainous' Friend

Chapter 3

At last Deviro’s wishes have been answered. Pinkie Pie guides him through the darkened town along the lonely dirt roads to a rather tall oak tree that has been transformed into a building. It is complete with windows, doors, and even a balcony outstretching along the longest and strongest branch of the tree. Deviro is puzzled by the peculiar modification of this piece of plant life, he wonders just who in the right mind would feel the need to live and breathe inside the trunk of a tree? Nevertheless, the mare has guided him to this odd structure and so this surely must be the place she promised to take him. The windows are empty and shield the shadows behind the glass. It must be too late in the day to expect anypony to be awake, or perhaps they’ve gone.

“Well here we are! May I present to you Twilight’s strawberry!” Pinkie introduces with glee.

“. . . Pardon? What was that you said?” Deviro asks mystified.

“Behold! The canary!”

“Miss Pie this clearly is not a berry nor an avian mammal.”

“Well duh! I thought we were playing a game where we think of how many things can rhyme with library!”

“. . . I don’t recall anything of the sort.”

“Oh . . . well this is Twilight’s library. I’ll just knock on the door and see if she’s awake.”

Pinkie Pie walks up to the front door and lifts her hoof ready to knock, until she suddenly starts slamming her head into the door. The loud sounds of her forehead banging against the wood jars Deviro as he worries that if indeed somepony is asleep inside the tree structure then this may wake them.

“Miss Pie! Just what exactly are you doing?!”

“Huh? Oh! Well Twilight told me that I should try using my head more often, especially when I come to her house.”

“. . . I see.”

“Hmm, well I guess she’s too busy sleeping. We’ll just have to come by another time I guess.”

“Well wait just one moment.” Says Deviro taking Pinkie Pie’s place in front of the door.

He tests the knob of the door and finds that it is locked. Deviro isn’t ready to leave this place empty hoofed, not after the anguish he’s been through thus far. The only way to get inside would have to be to force his way inside, but just how is he going to sneak in with this mare as a witness. Surely her trust of him would be shattered if she knew he was attempting to break into the house. He needs to think of a way to persuade the mare into thinking that this will be a harmless act. He understands that her mind is simple, but yet complex at the same time. He needs to find a way to appeal to her nature, and he feels he has just the answer.

“Um, Miss Pie?”

“Hm?”

“You enjoy to part-take in games correct?”

“Oh yes! I love all sorts of games!”

“Then how about we play a game of . . . spies?”

“Ooh! Do you mean we get to dress up in black and wear night-vision goggles with walkie-talkies?!”

“. . . Not quite, what we have to do is we have to enter and navigate through this library as quietly as possible without being detected.”

“Ooh stealth! I like where this is going. This sounds like fun! I wanna play!”

“Very well then-but first you must understand the two most important rules of the game. You cannot be seen, and you must be quiet.”

“Aye aye!” She shouts while saluting Deviro.

“Miss Pie!” He whispers urgently.

“Oh right, ahem, aye aye!” She whispers.

“Excellent, then are you ready to play?”

“Yes! Let’s get into the burglary!”

“Th-The what?” Deviro asks stunned by her mention of the word ‘burglary’.

“Oh, I thought we were still playing the rhyming game!”

“Oh. . .” He says while calming his heart. “No that-that game is over.”

“Okay, well I’m ready! Oh! Can we have code names?”

“Code names?”

“Yeah! Oh, oh! I want mine to be . . . Pinkie Spy!”

“Very well, that will be your ‘code name’.”

“Yay! Now what’s yours?”

“I do not need a code name Miss Pie.”

“It’s Pinkie Spy now! And of course you have to have a code name, all spies have code names!”

“Well, I don’t have an idea so let’s just use my regular na—”

“I got it! How about Black Eye?” She asks in a foreboding tone of voice.

“Black Eye?”

“Yeah! It’s dark and mysterious, a fitting spy name!”

“Fine, you may refer to me as Black Eye. Are you ready to begin the game?”

“Yes! I do believe we have all the necessary components . . . except night-vision goggles, but let’s go!”

“Perfect, now the first step in this game is to get inside the house; but how?”

“Oh! I have an idea!”

Deviro finds his shoulders being crushed by Pinkie Pie’s hind hooves as she reaches up to the window. For a mare he thought that she would be lighter than expected, but he was horribly wrong. However, Deviro cannot quite remember a time where he exercised to build up his strength, so perhaps it’s just his physical weakness that’s destroying him. Pinkie Pie has been taking an awfully long time just to open a simple window, and if he were to wait any longer his shoulders just might shatter.

“Miss Pie!” He painfully mutters. “Have you gotten the window open yet?”

“Huh? Oh sorry, I was just looking inside and I gotta say Twilight really needs to tidy up the place. It’s a total pig-sty in there!”

“Well could you please just open the window now?!”

“Oh yeah sure!”

Deviro listens to the pleasing sound of the window latch coming undone and the sliding of the window pane. The tension is lifted from his shoulders as she climbs up and into the higher room, now all she has to do is come along down and unlock the door.

“Okay! Come on up!” Pinkie calls out from the window.

Suddenly something smacks Deviro in the face, and upon grabbing it he finds that it’s a rope handing from the windowsill up above.

“Um . . . Miss Pie!” He calls, but he receives no answer. “Miss Pie!” He calls once more, but still no answer. “Miss Pie!”

“Black Eye! We’re supposed to call each other by our code names! I am not Pinkie Pie anymore, I’m Pinkie Spy!” Says Pinkie Pie popping up in the window.

“Ugh, fine. Miss ‘Spy’?”

“Yes Black Eye?”

“Just where did you get this rope from?”

“All good spies have rope silly!”

“. . . Yes uh, right.” He says not wanting to question her.

Deviro grips onto the rope and begins his climb up the rigid trunk of the tree. Exhaustedly he pulls his body over the windowsill and lays his back onto the floor as he regains his breath. He has found himself in a sort of living room with wooden chairs and shelves built into the inside of the tree’s walls. Along the floor are books all sprawled out with their covers opened to random pages.

“Let’s do this thing! Beginning stealth mission Alpha Charlie!”

Devrio lifts his tired head up from the floor and sees that Pinkie Pie is in a fighting stance and dressed up in a dark skin tight outfit that covers the majority of her body except for her eyes. Puzzled by her sudden change in appearance he wonders just where she could have gotten that black garment from, but he contemplates even asking as he can already guess just the sort of answer he will receive.

“Miss Pie, why are you dressed in that outfit?”

“Agent Black Eye are you sure you’re up to date on the mission briefing? We’re spies! We need to make sure we can blend in with the shadows.”

“Of course, just what was I thinking? Say, I propose an idea. Why don’t you go on ahead and investigate the downstairs portion of the house?”

“Right! Current objective: secure the lower level. Agent Black Eye, we’ll rendezvous once it’s secure.” She whispers before sneaking out and creeping down the nearby stairway.

Relieved that finally he can now have a moment to investigate the house he dusts off himself and checks out the room further. All of the books seem to have been ripped off the shelves with quite a fair amount of urgency. This Twilight Sparkle must’ve been searching for something in a hurry, but what and why? Deviro lightly lays his hooves against the floor with every step he takes toward the stairway leading to the upper level of the house. At the top of the staircase he peers around the corner and finds a large bedroom lined with even more shelves stuffed with books. More books seem to have been torn from the shelves and scattered about the floor.

The house feels eerily empty, but Deviro isn’t ready to let his guard down just yet. He notices that desks are cluttered with papers and scribbled notes. At the end of the room is a small stairway that leads up to a bed covered by a starry blanket and lies near a window. To his surprise the bed appears to be empty, which gets him to believe that she must be somewhere else in the house. He could assume that she instead isn’t home, but he wouldn’t rather take the chance. He searches through the papers and inside the drawers of the desks for anything that could point him in the right direction for the location of the Elements of Harmony. He squints his eyes attempting to read the writing on the paper, but it is too dark to make out. Although, he does notice something appearing before his eyes. A big black dot lowering itself down from above, and he finds that it is a spider descending by a strand of webbing from the ceiling.

Every muscle in Deviro’s body tenses as he holds his breath back out of fear. He has never been fond of such insects, and to have one directly in his face raises his need to swat it away. However, he fears he’ll make too much noise and alert Twilight Sparkle if she is indeed in the house. The spider sets its thin eight legs down onto Deviro’s snout as he stares into its eight emotionless black eyes. He locks his mouth shut from his need to shout at the top of his lungs and tries to come up with a solution to rid himself of this malicious pest. With all these books around the answer comes easy; without moving a single muscle in his face he reaches out and grabs a book from the desk, and readies it in front of his face. He counts down from three in his head, and as soon as he reaches one he smashes the book as hard as he can onto his snout.

Prying the book from his face he is in pain, but relieved to see that the spider is gone. Although, he realizes that the spider’s smashed corpse is not on the cover of the book. He then feels a tickling sensation along his shoulder, he is horrified to find that the spider has survived, and proceeds to crawl about on his body. Frantically he tries to smash the spider himself desperately keeping the noise levels to a minimum, until a new problem hoots and causes Deviro to freeze like a statue. Perched on the windowsill near the bed an owl sits and stares at him. The sudden appearance of this winged creature puts him on the edge. He hopes not to disturb it until he realizes that it must see the spider on his shoulder, and spiders are a part of an owl’s diet. He glances back at the exit thinking that he can escape before the owl decides to strike, and as he cautiously backs away it swoops into the bedroom and hovers near Deviro.

It begins to peck at his body, and the spider continues to crawl around him. He has no other options, he must lose the owl, and he cannot contain himself any longer. He lets out his cries and trots away down the stairs with the owl still pecking furiously at him. His hooves lose their balance sending him tumbling painfully down the rest of the stairs with the owl following behind. He passes the living room where Pinkie Pie is investigating a little cookie jar. The sounds alarm her, but as soon as she turns Deviro has already passed by. Shrugging she digs in the jar and pulls out a cookie followed by a cheerful grin.

The ride of pain finally ends as he reaches the bottom of the stairs and skids his face along the dirt floor. Clouds of dust and dirt fill the air as he coughs trying to swat them away from his mouth. Feeling bruised and battered he stands and examines the room he’s found himself in. He must be under the tree as long thick roots extend from the ceiling and along the dirt walls. The room is filled with all sorts of lab equipment such as beakers, test tubes, pipes and other kinds of scientific tools that have been tipped over and sprawled across the room. The only source of light is a large glass jar filled with fluorescent green fluid that connects to a generator of some sort. He turns his strained neck back to see the owl hovering behind him. He can feel himself filling with fury, and explodes irately at the owl.

“Why you pestilent winged annoyance! When I get my hooves on you I’m going to roast you and serve you on a platter!” He shouts.

Deviro dashes toward the owl who fearfully flies around the lab leaving behind feathers that fall from the violent flapping of its wings. Around and around he chases the bird kicking about the mess on the floor. He jumps up to grab the bird, but it escapes just barely. Deviro crashes into a little wooden table causing it to tip over with his body draped over its edge. With his breath forced from his lungs by the impact he sees two glass beakers have fallen off the table and broken apart. The two liquids contained in them meet and soon begin to sizzle. It starts to smoke and bubble increasingly, alarming Deviro that the chemicals are reacting, and he has little time to react.

Pinkie Pie, after finishing all that was in the cookie jar, jolts as the floor shakes along with a loud explosion down below. Deviro has been sent flying across the room and his body is dug into the dirt. The table had flown with him and is pressing against him. He pushes the table away from him and can smell nothing but smoke. His body is covered in black ash, and his skin feels burnt. He looks up and sees that the owl is sitting atop a root sticking out from the wall, unharmed by the explosion. Deviro feels mocked by its blank stare and growls in anger. Suddenly he hears something trotting down the stairs. Pinkie Pie emerges with a bucket, and as soon as she spots him she tosses the water in it over his charred body. Spitting out the water and taste of smoke he stands infuriated even further.

“Miss Pie!” He shouts.

“I told you to call me Pinkie Sp—”

“I don’t care about that right now at the moment! What I want to know is why you splashed water over me?!”

“Well, I heard something explode, then I smelled smoke, so I figured there was a fire! Also, you might want to keep it down, I thought the mission involved being quiet. Oh! That reminds me, I don’t think Twilight is home, she must be gone for the night.”

Dripping with water and brimming with frustration he rests his hooves on his face in defeat. He hasn’t found a single clue on her location, and instead all he received was anguish.

“Oh, hi Owlowiscious! I see you’ve met Deviro!”

“Hoo.”

“Oh he’s a friend of mine, we were just playing a game. Say, do you know where Twilight is? We’ve been trying to find her.”

“Hoo.”

“Owlowiscious we always go through this, Twilight is the one who lives here!”

As Pinkie Pie continues her pointless conversation with the bird Deviro’s eyes are caught be something glimmering on the floor near the green glow of the fluid stored in the glass jar. Upon closer inspection he finds a white dress coated in soot, but it is lined with sparkling blue gems along the cuffs and collar.

“Well now, what is something such as this doing down here?” Deviro asks.

“Hm? Oh that looks like one of the dresses Rarity made!” Says Pinkie Pie.

“Rarity? Just who would that be?”

“She’s a friend of ours. She makes these amazing dresses for everypony!”

“Would she perchance know where Miss Sparkle has gone to?”

“Hey that’s a great idea! Let’s go ask Rarity, and in the mean time you can get to know her! I think that you two will become friends right away!”

“Yes, of course. I can hardly contain my enthusiasm.”

Perhaps it isn’t that time to give in, with this next step in locating Twilight Sparkle his faith in his mission has been reinvigorated. So much so that he barely recognizes the pain his body has endured. He walks over to Pinkie Pie ready to move on.

“Well then, let us not waste any more time. Let’s go to this ‘Rarity’s’ place of dwelling.”

“Alrighty! Then follow me . . .” Pinkie Pie trails off while examining Deviro.

“What? What is the matter now?”

“Umm . . . You might want to see for yourself.”

Pinkie Pie reaches behind her back and brings out a little mirror to show him his face. Deviro is distraught to find that the color around one of his eye has darkened and bruised.

“Hey, at least your code name fits you perfectly now!” Pinkie Pie chuckles nervously.