//------------------------------// // Chapter 13 : Messages and Strangers // Story: Friends With a Spy // by cakestealer //------------------------------// Receiving a message from a stranger that said to lock your door next time you leave the house, to Vinyl, seemed oddly related to the recent events involving the P.O.N.E. organization. Because of this suspicion Vinyl waited until Derpy came home. When Derpy finally arrived at the house around five o’clock Vinyl rushed over to tell her about the strange event. “Derpy I need to tell you something important.” Vinyl exclaimed in a panic. “Ok, what is it?” “Well I started planning for the Gala this morning and I had a piece of paper and a pencil out on the table over there. After a while I went to go get the groceries from the list you left out. When I got back I sat down to think about my dress, because we both know Octavia will make me dress up, and I looked down at the paper and it said Lock your door next time you leave the house, Vinyl. I think it might have something to do with the spy stuff.” “Wait, what? That’s really creepy. I don’t have any idea who would be doing that. Ok I’m sort of freaking out inside so I gotta calm down. Look, here’s what we’ll do, I’m gonna go ask somebody over my communications system if they know anything about it. Do you want to come since you are an official member now?” “Yeah, sure.” Vinyl and Derpy opened the entrance to the base and walked over to it. They climbed down and Derpy started doing something on her computer. “Did I ever tell you that this place is really cool?” Vinyl said while looking at the switches as if they were tempting her. “No, but you did now. Thanks, I always wanted a secret room in our house as a filly so when I got into P.O.N.E. I really wanted a base. The only problem was that they only had one base to share at the university because obviously they can’t install secret rooms in the dorm buildings.” “What? There was a secret base at the university?” “Yeah, but it wasn’t huge or anything because, well, not that many ponies are in P.O.N.E. We can’t have tons of people in the organization because then the secret would get out. Anywho, I’m about to pull up a chat with somepony from the agency so just stay quiet unless it’s important.” Derpy clicked something on the computer, typed something in, and suddenly there was a huge silhouette of a pony on the wall. “Hello, this is agent D Hooves. I have a situation.” Derpy said. “What is the problem?” “Well, my roommate, who just got accepted into the agency, came back from grocery shopping and found a note that said, Lock your door next time you leave the house, Vinyl.” “I see… is that all that was there?” Vinyl nodded at Derpy who replied, “Yes, there was nothing else there.” “Okay, I’m looking through the database. Oh no…” “What’s wrong?” “This has happened before. It seems to indicate a warning of some kind from an agency who is against us. Last time the agent who warned us was… assassinated. Just 2 hours after they warned us.” Vinyl’s eyes went wide. Derpy gasped. “Derpy, this is a serious situation, we will be sending another agent to your house. I recommend staying together and being extremely cautious. Lock all your doors and shut the windows.” Upstairs, Vinyl and Derpy heard the front door open. They went white. They heard hoofsteps walk to the kitchen. “Somebody is in the house.” Vinyl stuttered. “Stay calm Vinyl, Derpy get the weapons.” The pony on the screen said. Derpy flipped a switch and the armory rose out of the ground. She grabbed a gun and gave it to Vinyl. “Press this down to be able to shoot and press this to spray bullets.” Derpy grabbed another gun for herself and a grenade. She slung the gun on her back and put the grenade on the front of the sling. She grabbed some sort of device and put it over her face. “Heat signal from the kitchen.” She started climbing up the ladder. Vinyl wanted to ask what she was doing but was too shocked to say anything. She heard Derpy reach the top. Then it was silent. Ten seconds went by and then thirty. All of the sudden came a scream from upstairs. “Wait, that scream sounded like… OCTAVIA!” Vinyl yelled out. “What are you doing?” Yelled the pony on the screen. “I think the intruder is just my roommate getting home.” Then Vinyl heard somepony climbing down the ladder. Derpy came in followed by Octavia, who looked like she had just seen a ghost. “It was just our other roommate coming home from Orchestra.” Said Derpy. “Well that’s good news. I was really scared there for a second. She should know what’s happening too so after this meeting tell her what’s going on. So, like I said, shut the doors, lock the windows, stay cautious. The agent should be at your house in approximately thirty minutes. I wish you the best of luck Derpy.” With that the screen clicked off and the three ponies were left standing there with Derpy looking slightly troubled, Vinyl looking confused and scared, and Octavia looked… like she had survived being pushed out of a plane into the arctic. Vinyl spoke up, “So, uh… Octavia, basically what happened is I got home from grocery shopping and there was a note saying to lock your door next time which apparently means that somepony is coming to kill us.” Octavia stood still with her mouth closed and shook a little. Then out of nowhere she fell on the ground with her eyes closed. “Maybe you should have taken a slower approach, Vinyl.” “Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have told her somepony was going to kill us after she had showed up at home only to see you with a grenade and a gun watching her. But I mean that pony on the screen did say to tell her what happened.” “I DON’T THINK SHE MEANT THAT DIRECTLY VINYL!” Derpy yelled. I got Derpy mad. “Okay, I’m sincerely sorry that I did that. I should have been more careful.” “Yeah! You really should have! Now we have to bring her up that ladder somehow.” After managing to lay Octavia down in her bed they shut all the window curtains and locked the door like they were instructed. Derpy brought all the weapons upstairs and put them behind some pillows on the couch. They waited for the agent to arrive but he didn’t after thirty minutes. “Do you think the agent should have got here by now?” “They probably should have but maybe they’re just running late.” They sat there for another fifteen minutes until they heard a knock at the door. Vinyl went white and started moving her hoof slowly closer to where the guns were hidden. All of the sudden a mare came crashing through the door and slammed into the wall. “Wait, Vinyl that pony was thrown through the door. She has a P.O.N.E. badge. GET DOWN!” A storm of bullets came flying at where Vinyl’s head had been just a second ago. Derpy leaped up grabbed a gun and started shooting at the entrance. Vinyl slowly got up and moved to the wall. Bullets were flying back and forth. Somepony rolled to the other side of the stairs. Vinyl ran over to her and Derpy’s side of the stairs. “VINYL NO!” It was too late. Vinyl had ran around to the other side of the stairs and tried to tackle the intruder. The masked stallion grabbed Vinyl by the arms and flipped her over his head. She landed on the ground only to look up and see the stallion pointing a gun right at her face. He was about to pull the trigger right as Octavia came flying over the railing and hit him over the head with a chair. A resounding thunk was heard and all went silent. The stallion fell on the ground. “Vinyl are you okay?” Asked Derpy frantically. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Derpy hugged her tightly. “Don’t be stupid Vinyl! You can’t pull that sort of stunt! You almost died!” “I’m sorry I didn’t mean-” Octavia spoke up. “You didn’t mean to what Vinyl? You can’t keep being so reckless all the time! Everything you do, you never think of the consequences! If I hadn’t came in when I did you would’ve been dead!” Vinyl started sobbing. “I-It’s true. You’re right I never think of the consequences of my actions.” Derpy checked the pulses of the P.O.N.E. agent and the intruder. “They’re both alive. Just passed out. I’m going to go chain up this guy. You two should wait until she wakes up.” Derpy said, still sounding angry about Vinyl. Octavia glared at Vinyl then walked over to the knocked out agent. The mare was a cherry colored pegasus with mint green hair. Octavia carried her to the sofa and laid her down. After a while the agent woke up. “What’s going on?” “You got knocked out by some guy and he threw you into the wall and judging by the shape in our door I can guess what happened there.” Octavia told the mare “No wonder everything hurts. Wait, did you take the guy down?” The agent asked. “Yeah, I hit him on the head with a chair. Our friend is chaining him up in the… spy room, I guess you could call it.” “Oh yeah! I think I remember now! I was coming to help agent D Hooves. Where is she?” “I don’t think you should go looking for her I mean you did get knocked out.” “I’m fine, just tell me where she is I need to talk to her.” Octavia looked troubled but still responded with, “She’s upstairs second room on the right in the underground secret room looking hatch.” “Thank you.” Said the agent before limping upstairs. That left Octavia and Vinyl. The second of whom was left with a shameful feeling in their stomach.