//------------------------------//
// Mistakes of a Wannabe Villain 
// Story: Passive Antagonism 
// by DrOcsid 
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Pinkie Pie served the last muffin to the last pony of the morning rush as things finally managed to calm down a bit. She'd been stuck out there a good while, serving the long line of ponies with their rather unhealthy breakfasts, to the point where she had started to get a bit worried about the cake she was baking. And so, as soon as she had the chance, she rushed back to the kitchen, only to find Mrs. Cake taking the, well, cake, out of the oven and placing it on the counter.

"Oh! Thanks for getting that for me, Mrs. Cake!" said Pinkie, bouncing over to the counter. "Now we just need to let it cool, and then we can frost it!"

"Oh, yes, about that..." Mrs. Cake's voice adopted a tone of concern. "This is a chocolate cake, right?"

"The chocolatiest of chocolate cakes!"

"Yes, well, that may be a problem."

"A problem? Why?"

"It seems we're completely out of chocolate frosting."

It took Pinkie a second to register the very concept of that. "What?!" She rushed over to the icing drawer to find it distinctly devoid of anything chocolatey. "How did that happen?! We had a bunch of it earlier!"

"Well, this may have something to do with it," replied Mrs. Cake. She reached onto the counter and picked up a certain order sheet, holding it up for Pinkie to view. Pinkie grabbed it from her hoof and held it in front of her face, reading it aloud.

"Dear Pinkie Pie, I'm taking your chocolate frosting. Need it for a... dress? Hope you don't mind. Sincerely... Rarity?!" Pinkie dropped the sheet in astonishment.

"Yes, I was shocked too. Do you think Rarity would really steal frosting, of all things?" said Mrs. Cake.

"No, no, this doesn't make sense! Rarity's the element of generosity! Stealing's, like, the opposite of that! Even if she did want some frosting, she'd just ask, right?"

"Yeah, that's true. Maybe you should go talk to her about it?"

"Right! I'll be right back!" And with that, Pinkie zoomed out the window, making a beeline straight for Carousel Boutique.

At the same time...

Rarity finally reached the front door of her house, a bit tired from carrying two saddlebags full of groceries. It had taken her far too long to find the specific brand of carrot juice Sweetie Belle liked so much, and on top of that she was pretty sure one of the eggs she bought had broken on the way home. Still, she was glad to finally be home.

That is, until she noticed all the chocolate frosting coating her walls, windows, and front door.

"What in Celestia's name?!" cried Rarity, nearly dropping both of her saddlebags onto the ground. "Hi, Rar... ity, your house looks like a cake, so I... decorated it like one? Pinkie Pie?!" With no remote idea of how to process that, she paced around her house, looking at all the various other chocolate-flavored swirls, flowers, and various other designs that had been bestowed upon the place. "What in the world...? Is this frosting?"

Rarity circled back around to the front of the house and went inside. "Sweetie Beeeeeelle!" she called, placing her bags on the floor.

"Coming!" she replied, coming down the stairs at a remarkable speed. "Hi, Rarity! Did you see the surprise?"

"The... surprise?" Rarity wasn't sure she wanted to hear the explanation for this. "Sweetie Belle, did you... decorate the house with frosting?"

"Huh? Oh, no, that wasn't me." Sweetie was talking a lot faster than normal, for some reason.

"What is that around your mouth, then?"

Sweetie Belle realized she'd left a bit of evidence behind on her face from earlier, and started trying to lick it off. "Nothing! It's nothing!"

Rarity sighed and walked up to her. "Sweetie, you know it's not nice to lie to ponies. It's okay, you can tell me if you've been sneaking desserts. Or, well, decorating with them..."

"Okay, okay, I was eating chocolate frosting. But I didn't decorate the house with it, I promise!"

"Well, then, who did?"

"I... can't tell you that."

"And where did you even get that frosting from?"

"I can't tell you that, either."

Rarity continued to look at her confusedly. "You can't tell me? Sweetie, you're not giving me a lot to work with here. Do you mean to say Pinkie Pie did this?"

"Well, she didn't do it exactly, but... Ooh, that's it! You should ask her about it!"

"I should?"

"Yeah, she should have all the answers!"

Rarity wasn't sure if Sweetie Belle was trying to play some sort of game or something along those lines, but she decided to trust her and go along with it for the time being. "Well, alright, Sweetie. I'll go talk to Pinkie. Can you put the groceries away while I'm gone?"

"Sure thing, Rarity!"

Sweetie Belle had already made two trips back and forth between the bags and the kitchen by the time Rarity made it out the door. Once she did make it outside, she stepped back and looked over the decorations again. This whole situation seemed off. She was having a hard time trusting that note on the front door, first and foremost. Aside from doubting that Pinkie Pie would just randomly decorate her house with frosting for seemingly no reason, her name was also misspelled in the message. Surely Pinkie Pie of all ponies would do a better job with frosting than this.

Nevertheless, Rarity had to know for sure. And so, she set off towards Sugarcube Corner, hoping she wasn't wasting either Pinkie's time or her own with this. Thinking to herself how bizarre of a situation this was, she managed to walk a total of five steps before Pinkie Pie zoomed right into the space in front of her, stopping on a dime.

"Ooh, a dime!" Pinkie said, looking down and picking it up from under her hoof. Realizing she was momentarily distracted, she looked back up at Rarity. "Oh, Rarity! Good thing you're home, I need to ask you something important!"

Rarity, as with most other ponies, tended to need a second to think up a response whenever Pinkie Pie appeared in front of them. "O-Oh, really? I was just on the way to ask you something, actually."

"Wow, what a coinky-dink! Well, which one of us should go first, huh?" Before Rarity could answer, Pinkie caught a glimpse of the frosted house behind her. "Oooh, that answers my question! I was gonna ask if you knew where all my frosting went!"

"Your frosting? Well, I suppose that answers where this came from. Your frosting went missing, then?"

"Yep! I was just in the middle of making a good old Super Deluxe Ultimate Quad-triple Chocolate Cake Supreme when I found out that, gasp, all our chocolate frosting was gone! But that's not all! The culprit left this note!" Pinkie held up the order sheet to Rarity's face.

Rarity could have sworn Pinkie had been holding a dime with that hoof, but shrugged off that thought as she read the sheet. "Taking your chocolate frosting... Need it for... a dress? Signed... ME?!" Rarity stepped back, astonished. "That's ridiculous! I would never use frosting for a dress, let alone steal it!"

"I know, right? This doesn't even look like your hoofwriting! Yours is all fancy and stuff!"

"Well, you're not the only one who got a note, Pinkie. Come look at the front door." Rarity led Pinkie to the door so she could better make out the poorly-written frosting message.

Pinkie read over the note silently for a moment, now getting more invested in the whole situation, then stepped back, wide-eyed. "What?! Your house doesn't look like a cake!"

"Well, I suppose this clears things up. I didn't take your frosting, and you didn't cover my house with it, correct?"

"Yep, that's right!" Pinkie said, turning back to Rarity. "This is so weird! Why would someone try to frame both of us... at each other?"

"I honestly have no idea," said Rarity. She was getting more and more sure that Sweetie Belle wasn't behind this. There was no way she could orchestrate something so... convoluted. "Hmm... Pinkie, would you mind stepping inside with me for a moment?"

"Sure!"

Rarity led Pinkie inside and shut the door. "Sweetie Belle!" she called out. She looked around at the interior of the house and realized that everything looked decidedly... cleaner than before. Not only did Sweetie Belle put away the groceries, she also put away Rarity's saddlebags, and evidently sprayed the place with air freshener. Looking around some more, Rarity noticed that the floor had been sweeped, the kitchen had been mopped, and everything was completely free of dust.

"What in the world?" Rarity finally caught eye of Sweetie Belle, who had fallen asleep on the couch. She walked over to her and nudged her a bit, barely managing to wake her. "Sweetie, are you alright?"

"H-Huh?" she replied, waking up and letting out a yawn. "Oh, yeah, I'm okay. I was just feeling really excited for some reason, so I went around and cleaned a few things while you were gone. I don't remember anything after that, though."

"It seems you've experienced a sugar crash, Sweetie. See, this is why I don't let you eat a lot of sweets at once."

"Well, it was chocolate frosting, Rarity! Can you really blame me?"

"Wait, what?!" Pinkie said, running up to Sweetie. "You ate the frosting?! That was, like, triple-chocolate, triple-sugar frosting! No wonder you got so worked up!"

"Well, the guy told me I could have the frosting if- Oh, wait." Sweetie hit her forehead with her hoof. "Now I ruined the surprise. Sorry, Pinkie."

Rarity and Pinkie both looked at each other, then back to Sweetie Belle, and replied at the same time. "Huh?"

"The guy you had come to the house to decorate it. He told me not to tell anyone about it."

"What?! I didn't tell anyone to frost your house!" Pinkie said, shocked at this revelation.

"Who is this 'guy'? What happened?" asked Rarity, equally shocked that a stranger had come to her house without her knowledge.

"Well, while you were getting groceries, this guy came to the house and started putting frosting everywhere, so I poked my head out a window and asked him what he was doing. He told me that Pinkie hired him to decorate the house with frosting, as a surprise for Rarity. He also told me not to tell anyone he came here, or else it would ruin the surprise."

"...And he also gave you some icing?" asked Rarity.

"Yep, a whole bag of it!" Sweetie replied. "Sorry, Pinkie, I didn't know it was yours."

"That's okay, I can just get some more. More importantly" - Pinkie turned to Rarity and grabbed her by the shoulders - "do you know what this means?!"

"I believe I do, yes. I knew there was no way Sweetie would do something like stealing your frosting, even if she was capable of getting all the way to Sugarcube Corner and back with it."

"Right! That means someone tried to frame her!" Pinkie said, and turned back to Sweetie Belle. "Sweetie Belle, do you remember what the guy looked like?"

"Um... He was wearing a red cape. I don't remember much else."

That set off something in Pinkie's brain. She seemed to zone out for a moment as the events of this morning - just a matter of hours ago - replayed in her head.

"...Pinkie, are you alright?" Rarity said, reaching out and poking her head with her hoof. No response. "Oh, dear. She must be having one of those moments."

To her surprise, though, Pinkie leapt out of her zone just as quickly as she'd fallen into it. "Oh. My. GOSH!" She turned around, grabbing Rarity by the shoulders again. "I know who that is!"

"Wait, you do? Really?"

"Yes! Red cape, orange coat, blue mane! He just came to town yesterday! I met him at Sugarcube Corner!"

"Yesterday?!" Rarity said, wide-eyed. "Isn't that when Twilight's home was broken into?"

"Yeah! And Applejack's barn was burned down that very same night! You heard about that, right?"

"Yes, of course! Do you think these events could all be connected?"

"They've gotta be!" said Pinkie. "What do we all have in common, after all?"

"The Elements?"

"Right! And as the Elements of Harmony, we fight evil! This means there could be a new force of evil in Ponyville as we speak!"

"...Not a very competent one, if that's true," said Rarity. She turned to Sweetie Belle, who seemed to have been spooked a bit by this conversation. "Sweetie, do you remember anything else about the pony who came and defaced the house?"

"No, it was just the weird-looking cape. Looked kinda like ours!"

"Well," said Rarity, "I believe it's time we get the rest of the girls together for this. We need to figure out what's going on. Sweetie, I want you to come with us. I'm not leaving you home alone when there could be some ruffian going around stirring up trouble."

"Ooh, cool!" said Sweetie, having regained a bit of her energy. She always enjoyed going to Twilight's castle, after all. It was so big, and... crystal-y. And with that, the three ponies headed out toward Twilight's castle, for the sake of hopefully getting to the bottom of all this nonsense.

~Some Time Later...~

Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were all collected together in the castle's throne room, along with Spike and Sweetie Belle. The element bearers were each seated in their respective thrones, aside from Twilight, who had brought a large blackboard into the room, for the sake of organizing all of their collective information.

"So," said Twilight, standing in front of the blackboard next to Spike, "As of now, a total of four of us have had something bad happen to us since yesterday. Yesterday, I had my house broken into, and that same night, Applejack's barn was burned down. And today, Pinkie Pie's frosting was stolen, and Rarity's house was vandalized with said frosting."

"They covered your house with frosting?!" Rainbow said, turning to Rarity. "Pfft, that's great!"

"It was not great," said Rarity, who had Sweetie Belle seated next to her. "They took advantage of my poor little sister, and tried to frame her for frosting theft!"

"Yeah, and my barn got burned down too. That part ain't so funny, is it?" said Applejack.

"Yeah, yeah, I guess not," said Rainbow. "Still, are we absolutely, positively sure Discord isn't behind this? Seems like when something's this fishy, he's got to have something to do with it."

Rainbow crossed her front legs and sat back in her seat, but straightened back up again when a familiar voice entered her ears. "Well, that's just not nice."

"GAH!" Rainbow jumped out of her seat and turned around, finding herself hovering in front of the apparently upside-down face of Discord himself. "Hey, I told you to stop doing that! And why are you upside-down?!"

"Why, Rainbow, I'm not upside down. You are!"

"What? No I'm not-" Rainbow looked to the side briefly to find that she indeed was upside down. "What the-?!" She quickly righted herself and looked back at everyone else. "What was that?! Did you guys see what he just did?"

"Well, he is right," said Applejack. "You were upside down."

"What?!" said Rainbow, not remotely understanding what just happened. "How did-?!"

"Come now, Rainbow," said Discord, floating down to the ground behind her chair. "Do you honestly think I would stoop this low? Home invasion, arson, theft, vandalism... Why, these read more like straight-up crimes than simple pranks."

"Yes," said Twilight, trying to redirect attention back to herself, "We've ruled out Discord by this point. This doesn't at all align with the chaos he would cause, even before he was reformed. And even then, there's also the fact that we have no less than two eyewitness accounts proving that this was the work of not a draconequis, but a pony!"

"A pony with a red cape!" added Pinkie.

"A red cape? Huh. I guess that makes sense," said Rainbow. "I can't think of any cape-wearers I know that aren't total weirdos. Adult ones, anyway."

"Yes, that's right. The red cape is important, because it links my home invasion with Rarity's vandalism. Sweetie Belle, you said the guy who vandalized your house had this red cape, right?"

Sweetie Belle was clearly enjoying sitting next to Rarity on her throne. "Yep! That was the only thing I remembered about him."

"Right. Now, when all this started happening, I thought there might be some connection between these events. But, I never had anything concrete... until about one hour ago!" That clearly got everyone else in the room more invested, which Twilight was subconsciously a little proud of. "You see, I was outside my house this morning, when I spotted a certain something hanging off one of the trees nearby. Spike, would you care to do the honors?" She looked down at Spike, who seemed to be looking around for the exact thing he was supposed to show off.

"Uh, one second," said Spike, as he got on all fours and crawled under the blackboard. "Aha, here it is!" He tried to stand up, only to hit his head on the underside of it. "OW!"

Spike eventually managed to get out from under the blackboard, and he stood up and held the object in the air for everyone to see - a torn piece of red fabric. This elicited a good few gasps from the ponies present.

"Thank you, Spike," said Twilight, levitating the cloth piece from his claw. "This piece of evidence singlehoofedly links my home invasion with Pinkie's frosting theft and Rarity's home vandalism. And, while no evidence we know of was left at Applejack's barn, we can believe that's linked too by sheer virtue of these things happening so close together."

"So, wait, are you saying some pony is targeting the six of us?" said Rainbow, smacking her hooves onto the table. "Who would even do that?"

"That's what we're here to find out. By Pinkie's description, he sports an orange coat and a blue mane." She brought up a few pieces of differently-colored chalk, and scribbled together a rough side-view of what their culprit might look like. "Pinkie, do you remember what type of pony he was, or what his cutie mark looked like?"

"Hmm. I don't think I remember seeing a horn, but he might've had wings under that cape. And I think the cape covered his cutie mark, too," said Pinkie. "Oh, and his mane was a different shade of blue than that. It was more of, like, a cerulean, with maybe a little cornflower blue mixed in."

"Uh, alright," said Twilight, surprised both that Pinkie's memory was so good, and that she was so well-versed in the color blue. She turned back to the board and concentrated on the mane she had drawn, magically altering its color a bit. "Is that closer to what you remember?"

"The spitting image!" said Pinkie.

"Alright, so we can rule out 'unicorn' for now," said Twilight, as she wrote "Earth pony or pegasus?" on the board. "Did he give you any kind of name?"

"Yep!" said Pinkie. "He said his name is 'Pony Guy'." That got a mixture of laughter and confused comments from the rest of the room.

"Pony Guy? Seriously?" Rainbow exclaimed.

"Well, that's obviously a fake name," said Twilight. "A bad one, at that. Still, I'll write it down anyway." Twilight wrote "Pony Guy" in particularly large quotation marks underneath the drawing of him. "And, just to be sure, Fluttershy, Rainbow, you two haven't had anything happen to you yet?"

"Nope," said Rainbow, "Nothing. Besides, if he's not a pegasus, he's gonna have a hard time getting to my house anyway. What about you, Fluttershy?"

"Huh? Oh, no. I didn't even know all this was going on until this morning."

"Well," said Twilight, putting the chalk down, "I think that's all the information we have. So, just to summarize, we're on the lookout for a pony with a blue mane, orange coat, and most importantly, a red cape."

"And, just out of curiosity, what do we plan on doing when we find him?" asked Rarity.

"Well, ask him why he's doing what he's doing, for one thing," said Twilight. "Then we can try and talk some sense into him."

"And get some compensation for burnin' down my barn!" said Applejack. "Boy, I can't wait to hear how he tries to explain that."

"And if he doesn't cooperate, we can start teaching him some good old 'friendship lessons'!" Rainbow said, punching her hooves together.

"We'll just have to see once we know exactly what we're dealing with," said Twilight. "This is the first pony we've ever had fight against us without any kind of magic. Whatever his motivations are, he seems determined."

"Determined to do what, though?" said Rainbow, hovering up into the air. "This is just a bunch of random annoying stuff he's doing to us! What's he even trying to do, here?"

"I really don't know," said Twilight. "But whatever his reasons are, we've gotta put a stop to it. So, my best idea is that we should all go around asking ponies if they've seen this guy anywhere, and if so, where they've seen him last. Does that sound fine to the rest of you?"

"Well, I suppose we don't really have any other options," said Rarity. "Besides, the day is still young. We should have plenty of time to find this pony if he's anywhere in town."

"What about me? Do I get to come too?" asked Sweetie Belle, who certainly seemed like she wanted to.

"Sweetie, this pony could be dangerous," said Rarity. "You should stay here with Spike. The security of a castle - and a dragon guarding you - gives me more peace of mind than our own house."

"Yeah, as long as Twilight actually locks her windows this time," said Rainbow.

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Right. Discord, would you be willing to help us look?"

Discord, however, had evidently fallen asleep, or at least pretended to. "W-Huh?" He said, jolting awake. "Oh, right. What's that, Twilight?"

Twilight sighed. "Are you going to help us look for him?"

"Oh!" Discord said, surprised. "Well, sure. I suppose I don't have anything better to do. Let me just clear my schedule," he said, conjuring up a notepad and hastily erasing some things off it.

"Great. In that case, ponies, and draconequis, let's move out!" Each pony got up from their thrones and started to file out.

"What about me?" said Spike. "I wanna find out who this guy is too!"

"Spike, he might end up coming back here. We need you to watch Sweetie Belle and the castle while we're gone. Is that okay with you?"

"Oh, alright, fine."

- * - * - * -

Guy sat in his motel room, pacing around and imagining the various sorts of possibilities his latest escapade might have led to. Man, I bet that's gonna be so confusing for them, he thought. I wish I was there to see it.

He went over to his bed and laid down on it, mostly pleased with how well his plan was going so far. "Who says you need magic to be a villain?" he said to himself, laughing. "No, wait, I gotta do better than that. Guy let out a much louder laugh this time, one that he thought was far more menacingly evil-sounding. Now that was a laugh he was satisfied with.

"Hey, shut up down there!" he heard someone say from upstairs.

Guy ignored them, however, and continued in his self-reflecting. While not all his pranks had gone particularly well - that barn thing was just about the worst thing he'd ever done - he was still pretty confident that both the book rearranging and the icing pranks weren't too bad. Two out of three is fine, right?

Still, Guy would at least admit he might have jumped into this whole thing a little too fast. Back in Canterlot he always took the time to properly plan out his schemes, but here he's just kinda been improvising on the spot. That would probably explain why his successes were more... sporadic here. Besides, he was probably kinda rusty on the whole thing. He hadn't done this stuff for years, after all. Regardless of that, though, he was having fun, and that was what counted, right?

"Man, I should go into theater. I bet I could play a villain pretty well," he said. Clearly, out of everything this villain business was doing for him, it certainly wasn't boosting his modesty. He started imagining the various villain-esque roles he could play, but stopped suddenly. He sat up in his bed as an unusually uneasy feeling overtook him.

Something was wrong. He didn't know what it was, but he had that feeling. That feeling you get that something bad is going to happen soon, but you don't have the slightest idea what it is. He didn't know what had brought this upon him, but he sure as heck didn't like it.

"Yeesh," Guy said, getting off his bed. "I need to get some fresh air."