//------------------------------// // 4: Peeking In a Shattered Looking Glass // Story: Friendship is Deception // by Your Antagonist //------------------------------// Warning: the following chapter contains possibly irrational concepts. Friendship Is Deception By: Your Antagonist (VegaKS03) Edited By: TheWattsMan Act I: Re-Introductions Chapter 4: A Glimpse Into the Shattered Looking Glass Opinions, views, perspectives, norms, expectations; these things give birth to societal structure, and are also integral in shaping the personalities of sentient beings based on the opinions of other sentient beings. This concept is called the Looking-Glass Self: looking at oneself through the perspective of another. What can be seen through a shattered looking glass one has to wonder... It was an especially busy day in Sugarcube Corner, as Mr. And Mrs. cake had an exceptionally large order to fill. The couple relished the rare peace and silence on this particular morning as they baked contentedly without any distractions, namely a pink pastry graveyard that lived in the upper level of the bakery and went by the name of Pinkie Pie. The cakes certainly didn't hate Pinkie, much to the contrary; they loved her as though she were their own daughter, but at times her presence could be more than a bit irking. Needless to say this tranquility was golden to the cakes as long as--- They looked out the window and saw a cloud of dust and commotion that seemed to be barreling its way down to the shop, and also over several other bystanders. “Well it was nice while it lasted,” both muttered simultaneously. “Oh my gosh I'm so late!” Pinkie Pie burst into Sugarcube corner like a bolt of lightning, ducking and sliding  underneath a massive cake the cakes had supported between two counters,  (she decided she was going to have to “sample it for quality” later), and greeted the couple while she zoomed through “HELLOGOTTAGOSEEYOULATERKAYBYE”, she had other things to take care of now. She rolled in recovery and was back galloping at full force. She spotted the stairs to the 2nd floor, when she noticed a customer browsing for pastries trotted up to a shelf right in front of her; there wasn't enough room for her to stop, and she was moving too fast to change direction. The cakes began to shout “PINKIAMENA DIANE P---” But ceased themselves abruptly when they saw Pinkie leap over the customer. From her airborne state she managed to angle herself to a position that allowed her to plant a hoof on the banister, kick off the wall and  continue to rush up the stairs. The cakes were dumbfounded, impressed, and relieved that nopony was hurt, and resumed baking the massive cake in peace pondering what could have Pinkie Pie all riled up. Pinkie made it to her room and took a deep breath, she wondered what she should call what she had just done, maybe Le' Pinkour or Free-galloping... “No! Stop distracting me brain!” she shouted. She heard her brain retaliate: ‘NEVER!’  Deciding to drop this argument, she began collecting her thoughts about what needed to be done: feed gummy, play with gummy, love gummy.... ‘No, not those priorities, I mean yes those priorities, I mean... Uggghhh....’ Pinkie Pie sat on her haunches, pressed her hooves to her forehead, took a deep breath before letting them slide off her muzzle, and proceeding to organize her thoughts. She walked over to a green lump on her pink bed and poked it with a fore-hoof; almost instantly the lump whirled around, took to the air and chomped down on the pink pony’s mane. “Oh Gummy,” Pinkie giggled as she reached up to stroke the alligator that was currently biting her mane; she found it cute that even with no teeth he would still bite in a vicious manner. With gummy still hanging off her mane, she reached underneath her bed and pulled out an orange bag full of gator food to which Gummy's attention was drawn immediately; he instinctively released Pinkie's mane, landed on the floor, crawled over to his bowl in the corner of the room, and wagged his tail back and forth while staring intently at the wall. Pinkie filled the bowl and began to stroke Gummy's scales while the alligator chowed down heartily. “Hey Gummy, I've got to go so I'll see you later,” she said while leaning down to plant a soft kiss on the gator. Now she turned her attention to her closet and ran through a mental checklist of things she'd need, however this thought process was cut short by a crackling sound  that came from her mane. She reached into the poofy mess and pulled out a small ear piece that she carefully pressed into her ear and a familiar voice blared through: “Manic 1, this is Shaded Lady do you copy, over?” Pinkie pressed a button on the head set “March-day! April-day! Shady Lady, this is agent Pinkie Pie, Ten-four over” A disgruntled sigh could be heard over the radio “Agent Manic, please remember that May-day is an emergency code, my name is Shaded Lady, all you need to say is over, never use your name over the comms-net and stop saying Ten-four, just 'over' will suffice, over.” “But what if over is last thing I say? How will you know when the conversation is over? “Then you would say over twice, over.” “But why don't I just say under instead of over? Under.” “Because...wait, wh-- I--I DON'T KNOW, JUST SAY OVER, OVER!”  Shaded Lady bellowed. “Chester, over.” A sigh could be heard through the earpiece before Shaded Lady continued: “Manic, grab your gear and meet the rest of the team at the rendezvous point, we'll discuss our plan of action there; and it's Roger, not Chester, over.” “Okie Doki Loki, heading over, under!” Pinkie replied while fishing through her dresser for a black saddle bag. She promptly opened it only to find it filled with smashed pastries and frosting “Oops, wrong bag,” she stated, and promptly fished around for her other saddle bag which was pink in color. She opened this one to find it filled with various tools, holsters, and other gadgets. This one she promptly wrapped around her flank, and made her way to the window in her room -she couldn't let the Cakes see her leave with all of this, they might get suspicious- and she jumped, hit the ground, bent her knees and proceeded to gallop as fast as she could  towards cafe' La Rosada. She arrived at the Cafe' fifteen minutes later, adjusted her gallop to a canter, and then to her usual bounce. She spotted her ponies at the table, about three of them, all wearing sunglasses and hadn't ordered anything. Shaded Lady was not there, but she hadn't expected to see her at the table; she was most likely in an unmarked carriage somewhere about a few blocks away. She bounced over and got re-acquainted with her team; she never knew them by name, only alias: there was an older graying Earth-Stallion with a cutie mark of a hammer who went by 'Strong', a simple fitting title as the only Pony pinkie could compare him to was a more stern looking Big Macintosh with a shaven Mane. The red unicorn Mare at the table went by the name of 'Shroud'; Pinkie had only seen her in action a couple of times, she specialized at stealth with a cloaking magic that Twilight would probably kill to learn, and her cutie mark was of a cloak. The final pony was a green Pegasus mare sporting an unkempt pink mane, with a cutie mark of a cloud with an eye in the center; she went by the title 'Overwatch'. They all glanced at Pinkie, who began to order an immense amount of food from a passing waiter on account that she had skipped breakfast. When she offered to buy for them they claimed to have already eaten. As soon as the waiter left, Strong began to detail the mission explaining everypony's part: Overwatch was to keep reconnaissance from storm cloud cover, and warn the rest of the team of any incoming hostiles; Shroud was to advance forth into the mansion and detail the pathway to the objective for Pinkie; and Pinkie's job was to infiltrate, find the target, take him out, and initiate clean-up protocols: plain and simple. Shroud and Overwatch nodded and left to prepare for their assignments, leaving Strong to look on, bemused, as he watched  Pinkie wolf down an immense amount of Daffodil sandwiches. When she finished, she left some bits on the table, and hopped to the pre-planned mission site. Strong stood up slowly and muttered “I'm getting too old for this,” under his breath as he followed suit. The site in question was a massive street-side mansion protected by a giant gate that was adorned with the symbol of a Heart with thorns branching from the center in an 'X' pattern. Shortly before arriving Pinkie had changed into the dress she wore at the gala, and fished out a tray of fresh pastries she had whipped up from a local bakery this side of Ponyville. Their ingredients weren't top-quality like Sugarcube corner, but they were decent enough to work with. She approached the gate where a group of Stallions were standing guard, all of them wearing sunglasses. Only 4 at the gate and no others in the immediate vicinity? Amateurs... She thought as she approached them. “Hi! I'm from Honeylump Bakery and we received an order request for this address,” she said quite cheerfully. The stallions looked at one another and talked amongst themselves for a moment. They hadn't heard anything about a delivery, but would be more than glad to take the pastries out of this young filly's hands. One of the four spoke up with a northern slang accent  “Yea', we did get some news aboud' a deliv'ry, so how about youse be a good liddle filly, and drop dat box so nobody gets hurt?” He walked up to Pinkie, pushed her down with both his fore-hooves, and picked up the box after she dropped it. He then proceeded to tear it open, and he and his fellow goons proceeded to chow down. Pinkie merely grinned at the simplistic nature of these foalish guards; they were a dime a baker's dozen. How many times had she used this ploy and it worked flawlessly every time? After they finished devouring the box, they looked up and noticed this Mare wasn't running or scared, she actually looked quite pleased. “You  know, you certainly aren't very good guards if you fall asleep on the job,” she stated with a wink, while dusting off her dress. One of the four began to fire an rhetorical inquiry at her, but darkness took his sight and his balance all at once, and soon his fellow guards joined him on the ground napping quite blissfully. Wasting no time, Pinkie signaled to strong and they began throwing the bodies into some thick bushes one at a time, and as they finished Pinkie removed her dress to reveal she was sporting a tactical vest with several gadgets secured tightly to it. The Pink Pony nodded to Strong and hopped over the wall only to hear the Stallion complain about something regarding his back and his age. The headset crackled back to life in Pinkie's ear as she landed in some bushes and scanned the area. “Manic, this is Overwatch, do you read me? Over.” “Overwatch, how am I supposed to read you? Do you have words on you or something? Because if so you should probably wash them off before they stain your coat, Over” “Wh—wha--- HUH? What are yo talking abo-- oh forget it, the courtyard is clear, make your way to the mansion, over.” “Okie doki!, Over” It was early afternoon as she made her way through the courtyard, and the brightly illuminated atmosphere wouldn't help to conceal her conspicuously colored coat, so she opted to stay low sticking to the walls and the shadows, marveling at the fountains and plants as she moved. She finished the trek to the actual mansion itself, hid on the side behind a corner, and radioed Shroud: “Shroud, this is Pinkie Pie, come in, over.” “Manic, please stop using your real name over the net, over.” ‘That wasn't Shroud, that was Shaded Lady’ Pinkie noticed “Shadow Lady, where's shroud?” Pinkie inquired “She's deep inside, and maintaining radio silence; we're using a sight share spell, so I can see what she sees, so I should be able to guide you in, over.” “Robert, I'm on my wa---” She felt a twitch, no this was a combo. Her ears flopped, her eyes fluttered, and lastly her knees twitched, she hadn't noticed it before, but she was 10 feet away from a door, and now that she noticed this she saw the knob begin to turn and panicked her eyes darting around her environment, if her she was seen now this mission was screwed. Finally she noticed a ventilation shaft which she promptly bucked in and dashed inside,apparently just fast enough; she heard steps from behind that just wandered past and heard somepony mutter: “buckin’ cats...” She reached into her vest and decided this was a good place to set some of those packages that were needed for the clean up protocols. She pressed the switches on the packages, and she decided to press on through the ventilation system; it was a tight fit, but luckily she didn't keep sugar fat like Mrs. Cake even though she ate twice as many sweets, so she managed slip through with only minor problems. Eventually the vents went up at an angle and branched off into three paths: one heading forward, one heading left, and the other right. After consulting Shadow Lady, she opted to choose the left path as it would take her closer towards the center of the mansion. She eventually found herself looking down through a grate. The area was clear, so she carefully pulled it inside the ventilation shaft and lowered herself down, hitting the floor and rolling to her hooves she crouched and ducked into the first nook she could find, ensuring she was out of sight in the hallway. She immediately contacted Shaded Lady. “Shaded Lady this is Manic, I need directions” “Roger, Manic, what features stick out about your location? I'll try and match them with Shroud’s earlier intel. Over.” “Ummm... well there's a lot of Statues and paintings on the wall, and they're really pret--”   “I get the picture Manic, let me just check these notes I made... Ahhh... you're not too far away actually, you're just under his office, it seems like your little detour has allowed you to bypass most of the security. Go ahead and plant your charges at your current location, over.” Pinkie reached into her tactical vest and removed a few small packages from  a pouch, pushed a small button on each of them and laid them on the ground. And proceeded to make her way towards the stair case at the end of the hall. She forgot what was in those little packages, white... poppers? Phone wires? She pondered this while she made her way up the spiral stairs, approaching slowly and cautiously, until she saw a hoof coming down the stairs, her reflexes took over: she quickly sank down with her back arched around the closest bend of the stairs and waited until she saw  a hoof, which she swept with her own right fore-leg which resulted in causing the other party to trip. She swung her left fore-leg around the neck of her prey the moment it was presented to her, and she dragged the poor thing down the stairs after wrapping both fore-legs around it's neck with enough pressure to quickly cut off the blood flow. She was ready to take this one out of the game permanently until she noticed she was choking a red unicorn; her red unicorn. Quickly releasing Shroud and apologizing she had some questions to ask. “How many are up there?” Pinkie Whispered. “Not too many, just 8 guards in the hall, maybe 4 in the room, the rest are downstairs.... How did you get in?” Pinkie said simply, “Air ducts.” “Well, I'm getting out of here before this place gets 'cleaned', rendezvous in the courtyard, got it?” “Okie Doki Loki.” Pinkie said nonchalantly. Shroud had gone invisible yet again, and Pinkie made her way to the top of the stairs which ended at a curve down a long hallway. She put her back to the wall closest to the hallway, pulled a mirror out of her vest, admired herself for a minute, and then turned it so she could see down the hall without being noticed. Shroud was right; there were 8 guards, 1 of whom was alert, while the other 7 were wrapped up in conversation. She put the mirror back in her vest, reached into another pocket, and pulled out a knife and a small ball. She reared up on her haunches and bounced the ball off of the wall at an angle she couldn't be directly tracked from, put the knife in her mouth and covered her ears. 3 seconds later, there was a flash of light and a loud bang, followed by screams: this was her cue. She galloped around the corner and through the dazed and confused ponies, and saw the door at the end of the hallway, which had began to pry itself open. In response, she hopped to the right, stepped off the wall, crashed into the unfortunate blue unicorn opening the door, reared up on both her hind legs, and smashed her fore-hooves into his neck. She missed the vertebrae, however: death would not come swift for him. She was close enough to the second pony trying to get through to cut him with the knife in her mouth, and thinking quickly she saw a third guard attempt to brandish some weapon of his own. Pinkie whipped her neck and let the knife fly, catching him square in the chest. She now turned her attention towards the remaining two in the room: there was a guard and her target sitting behind a desk it would seem. upon seeing her target, her poofy mane deflated and became straight and long. She turned to the guard and glared; he simply cowered into a little gibbering ball and covered his head with his hooves, not wanting to end up like his acquaintances. The Stallion behind the desk looked on in fear as Pinkie retrieved her knife, reached into the tactical vest, pulled out an apple and proceeded to peel it. “Wh-wh-what d-do you want? Is it money? Yes, yes that must be it” The Stallion whipped out a case full of bits and pushed it across the desk towards Pinkie. She walked forward and swatted it to the floor shaking her head in a disapproving fashion as she did so. “Uhhh-uhh.... Power! I could make you one of my Lieutenants! Yes?” Pinkie merely stared at him and resumed cutting the apple wordlessly. The colt began to panic even harder, tears welling up. “W-what do y-you want? Please don't k-kill me... I'll be good, I won't hurt nobody no more.” He choked and pleaded through the tears. Pinkie merely sighed and beaned him with the apple, which only resulted in more tears from him. “You know what I want?” she asked coldly. “W-w-what?” He sniveled. “I want my family back... I want you horrible people to leave innocent Ponies alone.... but most of all, I want to shut you down, and destroy this horrible organization. I want all of you scum to pay.” She pulled out a small switch from her vest and pressed it. Somewhere outside the room they were in an explosion could be heard, and a fire started in the mansion. “Oh that's right.... It's called white phosphorus,” Pinkie said finally having recalled what was in those packages she placed earlier. She walked over to the stallion behind the desk and stabbed him in the knee all the way through to the chair he was sitting in, causing him to whinny in pain. “Please stay seated; you don't want to miss the fireworks,” she sneered as she whipped out a length of wire from her vest. She secured a good length of the wire around the stallions torso. She walked over to the window, climbed on top while clasping the wire in her hooves, and began to rappel down the side of the mansion. She hit the ground galloping to get away from the flames that were beginning to pick up intensity, reuniting with her team in the process. She began to celebrate, her mane poofing back to its normal volume in no time. A voice chirped through her headset “Well done Manic, another Crossheart headquarters has been destroyed.” “Awwww, it was no biggie Shadow Lady.” “Agent Manic, remember to take your medication, the agency wouldn't take too kindly to having one of their top agents getting sick from neglecting their good health.” Awww.... Do I have to?” She glanced at her teammates who merely smiled back at her. “Fine...” She popped open another pocket on her vest, took out two small pills, and knocked them both back. She closed her eyes, felt that head rush she always got when those pills hit her system and opened her eyes. She was facing the mansion and watched it slowly burn, she figured now would be just as good a time as any to crack a fire-related joke or burst into song to Shaded Lady. “Shaded Lady, this is Pinkie Pi-- I mean Manic 1, come in, over..” No response.   “Shadow Lady?” Still no response She decided to see if her teammates were having the same comms. problem, and she turned around and saw only 3 dolls laying on the ground, one was a gray earth pony, one was a red unicorn, and the other was a green pegasus. She sighed and removed the headset. It was a toy she'd gotten from her parents one day in town after watching an old spy movie. That headset was what had saved her life when the Crosshearts came and attacked the rock farm, and it was the only thing she had to remember her parents by; everything else went up in flames. The doctors who had found her diagnosed her with multiple mental disorders, and noticed she often gave sentient value to several inanimate objects, and with several case studies and tests found she could ascertain information from them regarding events she should have no reasonable way of knowing. Some theorized that it had to do with her strong susceptibility to Earth pony premonition.     Over time they found she made remarkable recovery getting back to an almost healthy mental state.  Before she was released to live with the Cakes who had volunteered to take care of and shelter her so she could live a normal life, the doctors prescribed her a special medication to prevent those disorders from creeping back, and if she didn't take those pills, well....