//------------------------------// // Virtuous Visitor Vouches // Story: Vee for Vendetta // by Melon Hunter //------------------------------// Vee for Vendetta By Melon Hunter Chapter 2: Virtuous Visitor Vouches Veggie hummed to herself happily in the evening sunshine. She had been expecting some sort of resistance from the mayor; after all, it would make sense such a backward town would have elected an equally ignorant official. However, she had been pleasantly surprised by Mayor Mare's receptiveness to her plans, and now, walking through the town, greeting various locals, she couldn't help but feel the quest for a healthy Ponyville would be a piece of cak—piece of fruit. Her ears perked up as she realised the sound of hoofsteps beside her had fallen silent. Veggie's head whipped around. "Hurry up, Quango!" she exclaimed. "Uggghhh... yes, Ms. Vee," Quango groaned. Fortunately, he had volunteered himself to pull the cart full of luggage, leaving Veggie to trot along happily, barely encumbered at all while she chattered to the mayor. The vehicle—in defiance of all transit conventions—lacked wheels; some odd quirk she supposed was just part and parcel of the primitive rural life. She felt a flicker of sympathy as he strained with his shoulders, continuing to carve a shallow furrow in the street. The life of a civil servant could be brutal indeed. "So, what exactly is our accommodation?" Veggie asked, turning her attention back to Mayor Mare. "The town library," the mayor replied. "It has a few guest rooms built—well, carved into it." Vee gave her a quizzical look. "It's a living tree, you see." Veggie chuckled and shook her head. "Oh, I forget how quaint rural Equestria can be sometimes! Books made from dead trees, stored in a tree? Marvellous! Such inventive ways of telling nature who's boss!" She pursed her lips. "And you say somepony lives there already?" Mayor Mare nodded. "Why, yes! I'm quite surprised you don't know who it is, actually..." Vee shrugged. "Not my department. That would be under Libraries and Municipal Academic Organisations." "No, no, it's a rather famous case, actually—" "Isn't everypony's town feted for some reason?" Veggie said. "I'm sure they're very famous around these parts for the record-breaking marrow they grew or such, but of course, that sort of news doesn't spread far, you realise?" "But she was in Canterlot, don't you remember?" Mayor Mare protested. Veggie smiled, and nodded slowly. “Yeees...” she said with all the speed of a glacier. “She went to Canterlot? I’m sure that makes her a local celebrity. But, really, it's not something we would register. Never mind; I'm sure she's a lovely pony nonetheless." Mayor Mare opened her mouth, before apparently thinking better of it, and promptly shut it again. A few moments later, they reached the tree in question, and the earth pony rapped smartly on the door. There was the sound of footsteps, and the door was opened, not by a pony, but by a diminutive baby dragon. "Uhhh... Hi?" he said tentatively. "Ah, hello, Spike," the mayor said. "The visitors I told you about have arrived!" She motioned to Vee, who was standing there with an awkward, frozen smile on her face, and to Quango, who was still lagging behind with the bags. "Could you go and get Twilight so we can sign this off, please?" She widened her grin and cocked her head toward Veggie a few times, a pleading look in her eyes. Spike scratched his head. "Well, if you're sure. I mean, Twi's kinda busy right now—" "Please?" Mayor Mare said. The dragon sighed, and trailed off into the library. Veggie turned to the mayor, frozen grin still there. "Well! Why didn't you say it was a dragon?" she asked. "Uh... I didn't?" "I mean, it's so wonderful to see rural folk embracing diversity these days and I—" Veggie's speech was suddenly arrested. Her eyes widened, and every muscle in her body went taut, a foreleg rising into a perfect military salute. Quango finally caught up with the luggage. "Whew! And I thought spring-cleaning the archives was hard work!" he said. He dumped the cart's harness on the ground, before peering suspiciously up at his immobile superior. "What's up with her?" Veggie trembled for a second, before she erupted with a near-incomprehensible string of noise. "PrincessTwilightSparklehappytoservema'ampleasuretobeinyourpresencema'amVeggieVeeatyourservicema'am!" "Ah... Yes." In the library's lobby stood a purple alicorn, half a head taller than the other assembled ponies. It struck Veggie that she was unadorned with ornaments or clothing, and she lacked the air of pomp and circumstance that always seemed to surround the elder Princesses of Equestria. To somepony who found said pomp and circumstance rather comforting, this was utterly terrifying. "Welcome to Ponyville!" she said. A bemused expression appeared on her face as she regarded the statuesque Vee. "You can stop saluting now," she said with a giggle. With great delicacy, Veggie lowered her foreleg to the ground. "Yes, Your Highness," she murmured. Twilight shook her head and smiled. "Please, call me Twilight," she said. "I know you're Civil Service, but really, I try to keep myself apart from politics and hierarchy." She reached out with a hoof. The pegasus shook it. "I'm Quango, her assistant," he said. He shot Vee a meaningful glance. Veggie reached up delicately, her muscles so tight it was almost possible to hear them creaking as they flexed. She barely touched Twilight's hoof, before snatching her limb away as though she'd brushed a hot stove. "Vee, Veggie Vee." She suddenly blanched. "That is, my name is Veggie Vee. I said 'Vee Comma Veggie Vee'. I realise a few ponies have three-word names, but that's not me. I mean, it would be strange to have two of the same words in your name, wouldn't it? Oh, Celestia, I mean—" She slapped her hoof against her mouth. "Ididn'tmeantoblaspheme!" she squeaked. "It's fine," Twilight said. "I had everything explained to me earlier. Please, make yourself at home." She shot a glare at Mayor Mare. "After all, this library that is also my home is still public property, isn't it?" "If you want the place, then make Equestria a republic," the Mayor muttered. She gave a wide smile to Twilight. "Why, yes!" Twilight frowned, and indicated to an open door on the second floor of the library. "Your room is up—" Veggie scampered past her, up the stairs, into the bedroom and slammed the door. "—there." She looked down at the dragon beside her. “Now, I'm afraid I have a magical experiment I need to urgently attend to, but if you need something, don't hesitate to ask my assistant Spike." Her horn lit up, and she vanished in a flash. Quango blinked, and looked behind him, only to find that Mayor Mare had already wandered off. "Was it something I said?" he muttered. "Good ol' Sidekick Syndrome, huh?" Spike said. The little dragon had walked up to stand beside the pegasus, and was regarding the mountain of luggage beside him. He let out a low whistle. "Man, your boss could give Rarity a run for her money in overpacking! Need a helping hoof?" "That would be appreciated." The pair seized up a couple of bags each, and began to haul them into the hollowed tree. "I really am sorry in advance for anything Miss Vee does, says, asks, changes or looks at. She's one of those very particular ponies..." Spike grinned. "Everything's gotta be just so? And if it isn't, the whole world gets turned upside-down by her trying to make it right?" Quango nodded. "However did you guess?" "Lifetime's service to Equestria's most neurotic unicorn, and now, alicorn. You get to know that type." Spike clapped Quango on the shoulder. "I reckon we're gonna get on just fine..." They dumped the bags and went to retrieve the rest. "So, Quango, huh? Unusual name." "That's about right." The pegasus looked down at his cutie mark. "I think my parents knew I was going into bureaucracy from the day I was born. I'll admit"—he adjusted the glasses on his face—"I'm probably one of ‘those ponies’ to some degree, too." The dragon shrugged. "Well, as long you don't insist on recataloguing the library, it won't really matter." They brought the rest of the luggage up to the room. "So, you wanna check on her?" he asked, indicating the door. Quango nodded, and bit his lip as he opened the door, hearing a weird, faint gasping noise coming from inside the room. He pushed it open, only to see Veggie lying on her side on one of the twin beds, her eyes staring unseeingly at the far wall, a paper bag wrapped around her snout. "Uh... Ms. Vee?" "Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh I've ruined everything," Veggie moaned, her voice muffled by the bag. "I used Celestia's name in vain right in front of her and the campaign's not going to be good enough for her, she'll turn me into a frog or something and then I'll spend the rest of my life sat on a lily pad..." "Ms. Vee!"  "How am I supposed to catch flies with my tongue?!" The exclamation was enough to shock Veggie's body, if not her mind, out of its catatonic state, as the unicorn sprang up and seized Quango by his torso, pinning the pegasus to the wall with her forelegs and her madmare's glare. She blinked a few times, and backed down. "Er... I mean, thank you, Quango. For bringing the bags up." She sat in the middle of the room, tapping a hoof against the ground. Quango sighed. "Is everything alright?" "Fine! Just fine!" Veggie let out a nervous giggle. her voice began to rise to a crescendo. "I mean, it's not like we're under the same roof as Equestria's newest princess, are we? And it's not like we're about to announce that her townsponies are a bunch of lardflanks right in front of her, is it? And we're about to have a party surrounded by the same ponies we're about to try and convert to healthy eating while they guzzle cake and punch and... and... whatever else it is fat ponies guzzle!" She suddenly realised she was near-shouting and clamped a hoof over her muzzle. "Do you think they heard that?" she whimpered. The pegasus went and grabbed Veggie's saddlebags, and brought them over, before gently guiding Vee to a writing desk. "I don't think they heard a thing," he said reassuringly. "Now why don't you just sit down and have a nice planning session, hmm? Get your thoughts in order?" "Y-Yes... A nice b-bit of planning," Veggie said hesitantly. "You're such a good second-in-command, Quango..." "Um... sure," the stallion said. "Now, why don't I leave you to it, and I'll go with Spike to get ready for the party." "And to do some explaining," Spike glowered. "Lardflanks?" he asked, as he walked off with Quango, shutting the door behind him. Veggie let out a long, shuddering breath, pulling out some paper and the all-important statistical memo from her saddlebags. She smoothed out the stationary on the desk, and inked a quill, sketching out some plans for the days ahead. She came up with soundbites and one-liners to deliver to worried citizens, and prototypes of posters and pamphlets. As she returned to her comfort zone, Vee slowly felt herself calming down. Perhaps Quango was right, that nothing untoward would come from Princess Twilight being their host. She just wished that whoever was making all that noise in the library would be quiet... The unicorn gave a start as a knock came at the door. "Come in!" she called. There was no answer, but another knock came. "I heard you the first time; come in!" Yet another knock. "Hello?" Veggie jumped to her hooves with an irritated snort and walked to the doorway, pulling the door open. "I said—" "SURPRRRRRISE!" "Aiiieeeeeeeee~!" On the face of it, Pinkie felt that her Surprisingly Secretive Secret Surprise Welcome Party had been a resounding success; Spike had managed to keep Quango out of the way of the library while they were setting up, and Veggie Vee had apparently locked herself away while preparations were going on. Neither had suspected a thing! Of course, there had been the slight complication of Veggie being so surprised by the SSSSWP, she had leapt out of the window in fright, sustaining multiple lacerations from the shattered glass and spraining her ankle as she hit the ground. There had then been a half-hour delay as the partygoers attempted to catch the skittish unicorn, who had tried to escape the town, limping in the direction of the Everfree Forest while yelling something about princesses and frogs. Now though, everypony was back in the swing of things, Pinkie hovering by Veggie as the unicorn had her wounds tended to by Nurse Redheart. "Please hold still," Redheart implored Veggie, swabbing the final facial wound with iodine. "I'm tryin—ow!" Vee grimaced from the stinging antiseptic, and sighed as the nurse put a sticking plaster over the cut. "Keep the plasters on overnight, and the healing enchantment should take care of the rest," the earth pony said. "Take care of yourself, now!" She packed up her first aid kit and walked away, leaving Veggie with Pinkie. Pinkie hopped closer to Veggie, fixing the unicorn with her biggest, brightest smile. "Hi!" She exclaimed. "How d'you like your surprise party?" "It was very... um, surprising," Veggie ventured. She gazed around the library, which was now chock full of ponies dancing and chatting. “Where’s Princess Twilight?” “Oh, she’s busy!” Pinkie said. “She’s doing some experiment in the basement and won’t let anypony down there. I snuck in there for a bit, and saw some glowy thing. There was a flying city, and Twilight kept throwing salt and food and stuff at it and kept saying things about a lighthouse…” She scratched her head. “I dunno! Science-y things, I guess!” Veggie looked around desperately for something to distract Pinkie. She took one look at the large table in the corner, the surface positively sagging under the weight of cakes, confectionary, pastries and a large bowl of syrupy punch. An involuntary shudder passed through her body. "Hungry?" Pinkie asked. Before Vee had a chance to respond, she dragged the unicorn over to the table. The glucose-spiked air made Veggie swoon, and it took a will of iron to ignore every fibre of her being screaming at her to sweep the whole tooth-rotting lot to the floor. "Pick out anything you want! I baked this all myself!" Veggie blinked at the mountain of treats. "All of it?" she asked weakly. "But we only got here three hours ago!" Pinkie gave a pfft and waved a hoof dismissively. "Eh, y'know, it's not that hard once you work out the oven settings." She whipped a cream cake off the top of the pile and pressed it into Vee's hooves before the unicorn could react. "Here, try this if you're having trouble deciding!" Veggie stared at the horrifying object she was now holding, a reedy whine of panic emerging from the back of her throat as she realised she was going to have to eat the toxic thing. Vee's body was a temple, and now the Daring Do of cakes was going to raid her digestive system! She looked up to see Pinkie smiling at her expectantly, and knew, just knew, that whatever excuse she trotted out not to have to eat the cake wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the mania shining in those bright blue eyes. Resigning herself to her fate, Veggie brought the cake toward her face with all the speed of a glacier. Her tongue poked out, and she licked the tiniest morsel of cream for the top of the cake. The sugar and the fat sent her taste-buds into overload, leaving the unicorn immobilised and unable to swallow. She whimpered in fear as the miniscule dollop of dairy product sat in her mouth. “No, silly, that’s not how you eat a cake!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Like this!” Her hoof came up, and shoved the confection fully into Veggie’s mouth. Vee reared up as she realised she was choking on the mass of pastry. No! I can’t go this way! Not by cake! She stumbled backward until she hit a wall, and slumped to the ground, the shock of the impact being enough to make her swallow the confectionary. She sat on the floor, shivering. “Feels like I just ate a concrete bowling ball…” she groaned, rubbing her aching stomach. “Wow! I’ve never anypony act like that when they ate one of my cakes before!” Pinkie said. She bounced over to the collapsed unicorn and bounced up and down excitedly. “Didja like it? Huh? Huh?” Veggie glowered up at her. “You startled me to the point that I jumped through a window pane, and now you’ve nearly asphyxiated me with a cake. Please, for the love of Celestia, go and bother my co-worker before you actually succeed in killing me.” She pointed at Quango, who was stood by himself at the foot of the staircase, looking uncomfortable. “But—” “Just go.” Pinkie grinned. “Okie dokie lokie! Hope you have fun!” She hopped away, apparently completely unaware of the death glare Veggie was giving her. Vee sat back and sighed heavily. It was worse than she thought; not only were the eating habits of these ponies utterly ruinous, they were all utterly insane! She thought she could hold back the tide, but now she’d count herself lucky to survive the week. “Heh. Needed a little rest after your first encounter with Pinkie as well?” a voice asked. It had an accented twang; a sound you wouldn’t hear in the culturally sterile halls of the Civil Service. Vee looked up at a smiling orange earth pony. A slightly shorter yellow mare with a curly orange mane stood beside her. “Uh… yes,” Veggie said cautiously. She squinted at the two earth ponies’ cutie marks. Three apples, and a bunch of carrots. Yes. OH YES. I’ve found somepony sane. “Yes!” she suddenly exclaimed. “Oh gosh, I thought I was doomed! I thought everypony was in league with her!” The orange mare laughed, and fiddled with her Stetson hat. “Whoa there, missy. Now Ah realise it might be a bit of a culture shock havin’ a party like this to your hoity-toity Canterlot sensibilities, but Pinkie’s as good a pony as any, and everypony’s her friend. Nothing suspicious about it.” “She tried to murder me with a cake!” Veggie hissed. “Just Pinkie bein’ Pinkie,” she said with a shrug. Just Pinkie being Pinkie?! They justify this madmare’s actions? Veggie gaped at the two earth ponies, before smiling. “Well, as long as Pinkie is being Pinkie a healthy distance away from me, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she said. The larger mare grinned, and held out a hoof to pull Veggie to her hooves. “Eh, you’ll get used to her,” she said. She tipped her hat toward Vee. “Name’s Applejack, by the way. And this is mah neighbour Golden Harvest, though everypony calls her Carrot Top, for obvious reasons. Your associate said you were down here on some Civil Service job? Mind tellin’ us what it is?” “Of… of course.” Veggie said. She breathed an internal sigh of relief that ‘her associate’ hadn’t blabbed any more, and cast a furtive glance around. “Is there anywhere more private we could talk about this? You’re exactly the sort of ponies I want to talk to about this, but I’d rather not be overheard by somepony less… supportive.” She glared at Pinkie, who was now assailing a startled Quango with her friendship offensive. “Well, the kitchen seemed pretty quiet,” Carrot Top piped up. “Perfect!” Vee snatched up a few napkins from the cake table, as well as a convenient—if inexplicably placed—quill. Carrot led the trio towards the kitchen. “I’m sure you’re going to love this.” Pinkie wiped her brow with a hoof. It had been a couple of hours since the party had wrapped up, and she’d offered her help in clearing up. Quango had hung around her all evening; whether it was out of friendliness or fascination about her baking, she couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter to her; she was happy to have made a new friend. "You know, I can't remember the last time I went to something as festive as this!" Quango exclaimed. His wings drooped as looked at the detritus covering every surface in the kitchen. "I can't really remember the last time I saw a mess like this, either..." "All part of the party!" Pinkie replied. "Besides, who says that clean-up can't be fun?" She picked up a spare mop and tossed it to the pegasus, before rearing up on her hind legs and taking up her own broom. She nodded to Quango, who stared at her for a moment, slowly adopting the same posture as her. Pinkie grinned, and began to sweep her broom back and forth rhythmically. She opened her mouth and burst into song. "You can clean it if you try, It'll be a rush, The mess will go bye-bye, With a mop, sweep and a brush!" She began to walk to and fro, using her bushy tail to sweep the counters clean. Quango elected not to brush, instead staring at her open-mouthed. "It’s not very much, Just put it in the bin, That's the magic touch, Don't forget the recycl...ing?" Pinkie's song came to a stop as a certain napkin was caught in an updraught from her broom and propelled onto her nose. It had some kind of drawing on it, but she couldn't tell what, staring cross-eyed down her snout. She pulled the refuse off and unfolded it. As Quango tentatively took up the cleaning—and singing—duties behind her, Pinkie's eyes widened as she read the paper. Something about tax breaks... fruit and vegetable farmers... government funding... sugar restrictions... Wait, sugar restrictions?! Candy taxes... Sugarcube Corner being shut down?! Her eyes flitted about the page in panic. Veggie Vee... Her name was written in the top corner. Of course it would be her! The paper rustled as Pinkie quivered in anger. Not just that, but under a heading of 'Key Allies' were the names of Applejack and Carrot Top. Her own friends had betrayed her. They were going to kill Mr. and Mrs. Cake's business, all for a hoofful of bits! How dare they? How dare they?! "Uh... Are you alright, Miss Pie?" Quango asked. He had stopped singing and was leaning on his mop. "One moment you were singing about cleaning, the next you're staring at that paper and muttering 'how dare they?'" Pinkie stayed silent for a second, before letting out a snort of laughter. "Oh, just somepony drawing something mean on this napkin! It's nothing!" She made a show of screwing it into a ball, tossing it into the air and kicking it away with a hind hoof—kicking it in just the right way so that it would fly through the open window into the flowerbed, where she could retrieve it later. "If you insist," he said. His face lit up, and he clutched his mop eagerly. "Could you teach me some more of that song?" "Sure!" Pinkie began sweeping and singing again, Quango in tow. But behind her cheerful facade, a plan of retribution began to form. Something that would require the might of the Ponyville Bakers and Sweetmakers Committee, and something that would make sure that Veggie Vee never dared darken the doorway of Sugarcube Corner again. Sweet Apple Acres would never know what hit it.