//------------------------------//
// Chapter Nine - The Joker and The Thief 
// Story: DECEPTION 
// by Christian Harisay 
//------------------------------//

	The thick, heavy stillness that had pervaded the library on previous nights was back again. Spike stood at the kitchen sink, staring at piles of dirty dishes.

He knew he needed to do them, knew he needed to have clean plates for breakfast tomorrow, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t command his arms to move, pick up a plate, and scrub it clean. It felt so pointless to clean dishes when he probably would be in no mood to eat the next morning. He certainly had been in no mood to eat tonight. Even the crystals he’d sprinkled over his lasagna had tasted bland and unappetizing.

So instead he just pushed the lasagna around the plate with a fork, knowing he should eat, but finding himself unable to do so. Under normal circumstances, this would have elicited a response from Twilight, but tonight she dove right into her salad like she hadn’t eaten in days. Owloysius, for whatever reason, had shared the same gusto for some crickets he had caught. The only one who had shared a similar demeanor with Spike had been Pinkie, but she hadn’t even looked across the table with an “I know how you feel” expression. Because, of course, she didn’t know how he felt. Instead, she had just sat sadly at the table, staring into her bowl, and after a couple minutes quietly rose from the table and went to her room, leaving the bowl untouched. Again, Twilight took no notice.

And once again, Twilight had said she was feeling drowsy, headed straight upstairs with Owloysius, and fell asleep, leaving Spike alone in the suffocating silence. He would have gotten angry at her. In fact, he wanted to get angry at her, but he was just too depressed. So instead he had gathered up the dishes with agonizing slowness, carelessly tossed them in the sink, and committed the unthinkable crime of throwing away the uneaten food.

And just doing that had virtually drained all of Spike’s willpower. He didn’t want to finish the dishes, he didn’t want to complete his other chores, and most of all, he didn’t want to disturb the silence. On other nights, it had felt oppressive, but tonight it felt like a protective cocoon, holding him together so he didn’t have to. So he just stood there, staring at the dishes without really looking at them, leaving his protective bubble of silence undisturbed.

Then something disturbed it.

It wasn’t a loud noise at all, but in the quiet stasis of the library it rang out like an explosion: the soft scrape of heavy claws on wood, coming from upstairs... from Twilight’s bedroom.

No! Dear Celestia, no! was all Spike had time to think as he suddenly found himself running, almost flying, up the stairs. He swept through Twilight’s half-open door, dread building in him. Twilight always closed her door when she went to bed. He skidded to a halt upon entering the bedroom, and went numb with terror.

There he was, standing by the edge of her bed, looming over her like a gargoyle, claws reaching out towards her…  to gently grasp the covers, pull them over Twilight, and tuck them gently around her still form, small in comparison to his towering frame. Spike stared in shock as Avarice then continued to carefully fluff the pillow under her head. Twilight reacted by snuggling in closer to the sheets, a slight smile appearing briefly upon her lips. Avarice gave her a gentle pat on the the head. 

Then he gently traced the tip of a claw across her cheek. Twilight giggled softly in her sleep.

Avarice rose from the bed and walked towards the door. He looked at Spike, then donned that same expression that he’d had in the hospital.

“Follow me. It’s time to go,” he said quietly. Then he was out the door, walking down the stairs.

Spike turned to follow, knowing at this point it was better not to do anything that might anger Avarice. Even so, he still paused to look briefly at Twilight before closing the door.

Twilight still lay in her bed: content, peaceful, and ignorant. She shifted, pulling the covers closer around her as she nestled deeper into her pillow, blissfully oblivious, and as complacent as if Spike was the one who had just tucked her into bed.

Spike thought of the night before, and every other time he’d gone out of his way to make Twilight comfortable in her sleep. Each memory was precious to him, and now they were all tarnished and defiled.

An all too familiar molten pocket of hatred started to boil up once more. Spike had to force himself to gently shut the bedroom door before he turned to growl in contempt, his little body trembling from trying to contain his tumultuous levels of fear and loathing.

“I said if you laid a claw on my friends—”

“And that was all you said,” Avarice interrupted as he turned to look at Spike. “You never got to finish threatening me before I pointed out how toothless your words are.”

“Shut up!” Spike hissed quietly through clenched teeth. “I don’t care how little you think of me, or how much bigger you are than me, or that you can beat the crap out of me! Touch my friends again and I will take you on, and this time you’ll have to kill me before I stop!”

As Spike glared at his tormentor with pure hatred, he fully expected another punch to the face, or to get strangled, or at the very least another snide, demeaning comment. Instead, Avarice’s face broke into an amused grin.

“Well then,” Avarice replied, “since you feel so passionately about me just touching the ponies you do care about, I’d hate to think of what you’d do if I pummeled a complete stranger! Come along then, if you’re so passionate about keeping bad old me in check.”

And then Avarice was away, walking down the stairs with his usual irritating swagger. Spike followed, still smoldering with anger, trembling with fear, and a little relieved that he hadn’t taken another wallop to the face.

Avarice strode towards the door leading into the kitchen. At the threshold, he turned around, and looked down at Spike.

“Just so you know, I took the liberty to take something of yours as collateral, just in case the premonition of me putting some pony’s lights out isn’t enough to keep you from withdrawing.” Avarice said as he unfurled one of his wings, and let a small pouch fall out. He caught it, and revealed the contents within to be none other than Spike’s favorite marble.

Spike’s shoulders arched back as his claws dug deeper into his palms. “Why do you keep taking that?” he growled.

“Because it’s valuable to you,” Avarice said with a single blink as he deposited the marble back into the tiny sack and tied it around his claws. “You’ll get it back at the end of the night.”

Then Avarice resumed his stroll, and walked through the door into the kitchen towards the back patio. Spike followed, fuming with even more antipathy.

Spike walked out onto the patio. He stared straight ahead, but didn’t focus on anything. The warm air of the late evening enveloped him, and he vaguely mulled over the similar kind of warmth he’d be feeling had he decided to stay in bed with his soft blanket and thick, noxious haze of depressing thoughts to keep him awake all night.

Part of him wanted to sigh, but he couldn’t even muster the effort to express his despondency.

I can’t believe I’m doing this, Spike thought.

Spike was too busy stewing in his dour thoughts to take note of Avarice’s rummaging through the nearby shed. Avarice finally located the object of his search, Spike’s wagon. With a triumphant chortle, Avarice shoved the wagon towards its owner.

Avarice didn’t even look at Spike as he walked past him. “You’ll need that,” he said.

Spike looked back and forth between his wagon and Avarice as the congealed disdain within him boiled ever fiercer. “I’m not going to drag around stolen things for you,” he spat.

“Exactly,” Avarice replied, still without looking at Spike. “You’re going to pull them around in that. Dragging valuables across the ground would damage them.”

Spike looked back at the wagon again, and grimaced as he slumped his shoulders. He grimly recalled that this was the same wagon he used every time he went out gem hunting with Rarity, and the thought of using it to assist Avarice was just another sacrilegious deadweight to burden himself with.

Avarice finally turned to look at Spike. “Or you could just stay here, guarding your cart from nobody and let Ponyville’s accident rate go up.”

Spike exhaled a heavy, demoralized sigh, then grabbed the handle to the wagon and began pulling as he began to trudge along.

Avarice smirked. “Now then, let’s start this story about the joker and the thief in the night.”

And then Avarice set off with a slight spring in his step, humming a melody of alternating arpeggios to himself. Spike followed behind with a slumped posture, downcast gaze. His frills hung like limp tassels of a wet jester’s cap, making him look even smaller compared to the thief whom he trailed.

Spike followed Avarice into a dark alley. Spike took in his surroundings, and the feeling that something rotten was festering in his stomach increased even more with the realization that this was the same place where he’d futilely attempted to destroy Avarice the other night.

 Avarice had stopped humming tunes to himself, and instead was on one knee, inspecting the ground for something. In dull curiosity, Spike examined the places where he’d attacked Avarice, and to his chagrin saw that he hadn’t even scratched the scales.

Avarice looked back to Spike, and fashioned a slight smirk. “And let the spelunking commence.”

Then Avarice reached down to the cobblestone, pried the cast-iron manhole cover up from the ground, and casually flung it to the side, like it was a pizza box that he’d just stolen the last slice out of.

Putrescent fumes erupted from the inky abyss, making Spike gag as he took a reflexive step back. Spike looked back and forth between the septic drain’s maw and Avarice, mouth pulled tight and brows bunched together.

Avarice casually motioned towards the foul entrance. “After you.”

Spike grimaced. “Don’t be so considerate.”

Avarice’s expression fell to a flat, annoyed pout. “I’m not.”

Avarice whapped Spike against the backside of his skull with a flick of the tail, knocking him into the den of acrid shadow. Spike fell screaming, flailing his arms to grasp something until he smacked into the solid ground.

Spike feebly hoisted himself into a sitting position, whimpering as he cradled his snout. Then he yelped in pain as the wagon fell on his head. Avarice deftly hurtled in after the cart, hanging from the cusp with one hand, then pulled the cover back over the hole, and blew a gentle stream of fire into his free hand, where it swirled into a self-contained sphere of red firelight. Avarice dismounted from the rungs leading down to the sewer walkway and landing next to Spike, who was still clutching his bandaged head.

“Get up,” Avarice calmly ordered. “Your ability to cushion the landings of large objects with your face is just one of the many skills you’ll need tonight.”

Spike glared back up at Avarice. “You didn’t have to throw the wagon at my head!”

“Wasn’t trying to,” Avarice said as he pulled Spike back onto his feet. “You were supposed to catch it.”

Spike just glared at Avarice, struggling to come up with a retort. He failed to conceive one, so he just grumbled and looked away, taking in his surroundings.

All the coarse stone of the dimly lit passage bore a tinted, slimy brown hue. Fortunately, there was a small lip of bricks that served as the walkway down here, so neither of them had to dirty their feet in the small current of foul black water that ran within the parallel bank. Unfortunately, there was still nothing to be done about the offensive, feculent smell.

“Did we really have to come down here?” Spike bemoaned.

“Yep. It’s the most reliable way to prevent being spotted.” Avarice answered.

Spike looked closer at the filthy liquid ebbing along beside them. He had almost subconsciously categorized it as “water,” but actual water wasn’t so imbued with waste materials that it was opaque, nor did it chug along with such a thick viscosity. He felt his stomach clench, and for a brief moment, he actually considered himself fortunate to have not consumed anything, because he most likely would have disgorged whatever he’d eaten into the repulsive stream by now.

“It’s disgusting down here,” Spike said as he scrunched up his nose. “I mean, this is just vile.”

“And suddenly my disdain for ponies has newfound clarity.” Avarice casually stated. “Yeah, you never really can fully despise anyone until you’ve had to put up with their crap all day… ‘Course, you still live with ponies, so you should know all about that.”

Spike glowered at Avarice. “‘Putting up with someone’s crap…’ like being forced into silence that’s driving me away from all of my friends?” he snapped.

Avarice’s countenance calcified, and slight edge seeped into his tone. “I was going to say ‘Like being imprisoned in your mind for the almost the entirety of my life.’ So unless you’d like to bring up anything else that will anger the sociopathic dragon, we have other tasks at hand.”

With that, Avarice walked off, leading the way with the orb of magically contained fire in his hand. Spike sighed, reluctantly grasped the wagon’s handle, and began trudge behind, his head hanging. 

“Just so you know, if anyone sees us, I will be forced to knock them out.” Avarice stated.

“Then why did you even bring me along?” Spike tersely asked.

“To act as an extra set of eyes to ensure that we don’t get seen by anyone else’s.” Avarice replied. “So if we get spotted, it’s your fault.”

“My fault?!” Spike repeated in disbelief. “You’re the one breaking into homes and breaking faces! If anypony gets hurt, it’ll be your fault!”

“Or, you could just do your job and we won’t have to waste time arguing over how to divvy up the blame.” Avarices stated.

“Or we could have just gone our separate ways and never have to see each other again,” Spike retorted.

Avarice growled impatiently as he looked back at Spike. “You know, when I offered you a chance to protect your milk-sucking overseers, I wasn’t exactly proposing ‘temporarily keep the dragon from thieving by aggravating him until he beats you into a silent pulp.’”

Spike gulped. “Alright then, where are we going?” he asked, desperate for a change of subject..

“Surprise.” Avarice replied.

Spike’s stomach flipped. “We’re going to go rob Surprise?! Wait, who’s Surprise?”

“No, I mean our first destination is going to be a surprise,” Avarice replied. “I preordain multiple potential targets in advance, then select several at random per night. Helps keep the authorities from establishing a profile.”

A knot formed in Spike’s throat to add to the discomfort of his contorting internal organs. “The cops are after you?”

“Not exactly,” Avarice nonchalantly replied. “They only know that there’s a thief in Ponyville. They just don’t know who they should be looking for… yet. So I won’t pilfer the station for their case evidence until it seems like they might be getting close.”

“You wouldn’t seriously attack the police, would you?” Spike blurted out, then silenced himself upon realizing how imbecilic it was to ask Avarice a question like that.

Avarice seemed to realize it too, because his expression was composed and pragmatic as he looked back at Spike.

“Last time we fought against the authority, I was in an infantile state from waking up after a lifetime of imprisoned slumber in your subconscious, your underdeveloped brain was rattling around in your overgrown skull like a walnut in a septic tank, and the both of us were in a titanic, lumbering body that you could see all the way from Canterlot. Our opponents were the most revered fliers in Equestria’s military… and we won. Easily. A clandestine strike against cops that haven’t even discerned my species would be a cinch.”

Avarice stopped at a set of rungs leading up to another steel cap, and he smirked. “We’re here. Go check to make sure the streets are empty.”

The storm drain cover was only several feet above his head, but Spike looked upon it with abject dread. His frills dipped, his shoulders slumped, and he got the uncanny sense that his feet had been encased in concrete.

“The cover won’t punch you in the face, Spike,” Avarice impatiently stated. “Now go make sure the coast is clear. That’s what you’re here for.”

“W-w-what if… what i-if somep-pony sees me?” Spike stuttered.

Avarice smirked. “That’s what I’m here for.” Then his expression became stern. “Now go. ”

With one final deep breath of nauseating air, Spike unlocked his knees and stepped forward, unaware of how much he’d been shaking until he actually started moving again. He grabbed the protruding rungs with a shaking hand, and pulled himself up the ladder with tremulous steps. 

He gulped one last time, trying to swallow the lump that kept forming in his throat. He finally reached up and with much exertion managed to push the cover off to one side. It rattled against the lip of the opening from his shaking claws. He looked up at the stars in the night sky, and with a quick prayer that Luna or anypony else wasn’t watching him, he slowly lifted his head from the sewer to peer out into the street.

The clean air enticed him from his spot as he meticulously scanned every direction of the street, the front of every house, every window, and every alley. His eyes darted from one sight to the next with pinpoint accuracy to ensure that not even so much as a stray cat was present to witness the villainy about to ensue.

Rows of quaint little houses seated along the lengths of the street, dimly lit by the soft glow of the moon and stars cutting through the overwise indomitable darkness of the evening’s umbra. Not even the leaves in the trees or the flowers in the many gardens stirred in the delicate breeze, and the only sounds to disrupt the silence were Spike’s own heavy breathing and his heart thudding in his ears.

“Is it clear?” Avarice hissed from below.

Spike had to swallow again to force out his reply. “Y-yeah… it’s clear...”

“Good,” Avarice replied, then crushed the sphere of light in his hand. He lunged for the ladder and pushed Spike the rest of the way out of the hole, making the smaller dragon yelp in surprise as he tumbled onto the ground.

Avarice pulled himself out into the empty street, breathing in the fresh air and began walking to a nearby house. “Don’t be so hesitant to act next time, or your usefulness tonight will be limited.”

Spike had barely enough time to stand back up before Avarice had cleared the distance to the nearest house and stepped over the white-picket fence. Spike scampered over, let himself in through the gate, and ran past the flower gardens to the front door, where Avarice had already knelt down to inspect the deadbolt.

A faint red glow illuminated Avarice’s imposing silhouette against the entrance, then the sound of a gentle click wafted through the air. He depressed the handle and carefully swung the door open, quiet as a shadow. 

“After you,” Avarice whispered as he looked back to Spike, and gestured inside.

Spike stared through the dark portal, petrified. His knees locked up and the muscles in his legs began to dissolve while his feverishly palpitating heart churned ice through his veins. The longer he peered into the black entrance, the more it felt like osmium deposits were forming in his stomach. 

Avarice growled. “Since I’ve got to do everything myself...” With another flick of his mighty tail, he shoved Spike inside.

Spike tripped over the threshold. A burst of adrenaline shot through his arteries, accelerating his reaction time enough to catch himself before his face hit the tile of the entryway.

He whipped his head upwards with a gasp, his pulse skyrocketing. His pupils contracted to a razor’s width, frenetically darting across the scene, heart still chugging in panicked thumps out of fear. The setting remained undisturbed by his intrusion.

“Alright, good; you’ve checked the front door. Now make sure the rest of the house is clear,” Avarice ordered from the porch.

Spike got back onto his feet and looked around the that house. He stood in a short hallway abutted by a staircase leading up to a second story. Several pictures hung upon the limonite-colored walls. Oak veneers lined the corners where the walls met the floor and ceiling, adding to the picturesque qualities of the quaint little abode. Spike internally mourned for the sanctity lost by their intrusion.

Avarice glared at him from the front door, prompting Spike to sheepishly slink into the adjoining rooms. Closest to the front door was the living room: a couch set surround a coffee table bedecked with a trough of various potted flowers: tan drapes drawn closed over the large window looking out over the front lawn: oak bookshelves in each corner. Multitudes of framed photographs covered the walls, almost all of which featured the smiling faces of young foals. But there were no signs of anypony.

A slow, terrified peek into the adjoining dining room and kitchen also revealed nopony, just a four-seat table covered in a green cloth, various potted ferns hanging from the ceiling, cedar cabinets, and spice racks atop counters of tile with fringes of flowers and vines.

One last glance into the empty washroom yielded nary a sight of the home’s owner, adding to the tension grating upon Spike’s nerves. The modest little dwelling might have otherwise been warm and inviting, but Spike meandered through its passages with a freezing, terrified shiver akin to a colt exploring a haunted house that was spoken of in hushed whispers.

Spike made his way back to the entrance to Avarice. “O-okay… there’s nopony down here...” 

“Good,” Avarice responded. “Now go check upstairs.”

Spike’s eyes shot wide open and the corners of his mouth pulled tight while his tail stiffened in abject dread. He looked back at those terrifying, oak-railed stairs, and his heart almost fell into cardiac arrest. Avarice might as well have told him to find one of those cursed dwellings of lore and spend the night in the attic.

“Or I’ll use you as a flail if I have to incapacitate whoever lives here.”

Spike tripped over his own feet as he turned. He gripped the railing with a death hold, and made to trudge up the stairs. Each tremulous step was a greater challenge than the last, like each level housed hidden ghouls that were binding his feet with dense, incorporeal ectoplasm, staining every step of his path. 

Another step: the incorporeal muck had become concrete shoes. Another: wails of agony from his mind were ripping apart his brain. One more: Have I really gotten this close to the top already?! One last step: Spike felt like he had nearly gotten to the crest of Bald Mountain.

A final pace to plant both feet on the summit, and Spike had reached the top. His heart and lungs were heaving like he had sprinted up the bluffs of Winsome Falls, though his blood had dropped to freezing temperatures from getting his inner fire kissed by a windigo.

Spike looked over the height he had attained to, half expecting to see the curvature of the world. Instead, all he saw was the same warm, inviting corridor that would haunt his dreams, and Avarice, who scowled up at Spike with impatience.

“You’ve got sixty seconds to clear the space up there or I’m going to put whoever lives here into the emergency room out of spite.”

Spike’s heart was pounding at hypersonic speeds now. Three doors occupied the short hallway here: two to his right and three to his left, all of them closed.

He turned to the closest door, reached for the handle with a shivering hand, then cracked open the entrance. The sliver of the opening revealed what looked like a study: a heavy maple desk under the window; more stuffed oak bookshelves; more picture frames, some housing various certificates and others of more foals. Nopony.

He closed the door, then shuffled his shaking feet across the lush carpet to the end of the hall, and open the second door on his right. He opened the door and peeked through to see the bathroom: marbled tile; sink; mirrors; several decorative towels of various colors hanging from a few mounted racks; toilet; velvet shower curtain drawn half-closed over a porcelain tub. Nopony.

Spike turned to the last door, and felt his courage drain from him. It was just a normal, off-white door, but it loomed over him like it was the portcullis of a holding cell to some unfathomably dreadful demon. There was logically only one place that the door would open up to..

Oh Celestia, there’s going to be somepony on the other side of that door… what if they wake up? What am I going to do? How long has it been already? Has it been—oh no, Avarice is going to beat the snot out of them!

With a huge exertion of will power, Spike reached out with quavering claws, wrapped his little fingers around the handle, and opened. The wooden portal slowly complied to his commands. The gentle noises of the hinges were as loud as the boisterous creaking of a dilapidated drawbridge to his ears. With one last panicked gulp, he looked into the bedroom.

If there were any other features worth noting, Spike didn’t see them. All he could focus on was the bed directly across from him, which was covered in sky blue sheets decorated with yellow-petalled flowers. They were pulled over a lump that was causing the blankets to rhythmically rise and fall, and carried the deep, drawn out, unmistakable sounds of a sleeping mare.

His heart was pounding with such volume in his ears that he was scared the noise would wake her. He stood there, utterly petrified. His cognition started desperately urging him to do something, but all he could do was remain faceted in place, eyes locked onto the woefully blissful pony.

Seconds crawled with the excruciating pace of eons, and yet the scene before him remained unchanged. The mare still slept, ignorant of the dragon at the threshold to her room, and Spike still stood there, trying to will himself to act. Eventually, he managed to close the door, and turned around right into a scowling visage.

“Took you long enough,” Avarice hissed.

Spike would have sailed screaming through the roof had Avarice not seized him by the muzzle and clenched it shut, muffling his shriek of terror.

“If you plan on dragging this out to increase the chances of us getting spotted, it’s not going to work,” Avarice stated in a hushed tone before motioning towards the bedroom door. “Is she asleep?”

All Spike could do was nod.

“Good,” Avarice muttered, finally letting go as he turned away. “Now it’s play time.”

Spike rubbed his bruised snout a little before his eyes snapped up at Avarice. “What? You’re going to rob this place anyway?! But there’s still somepony here! What if she wakes up?”

“Then either you give the alert to escape, or I’ll put her back to sleep… and be more quiet, unless you actually trying to wake her.” Avarice quietly ordered.

Spike was swaying back and forth on his rolling heels, cradling his tail in unease. “Couldn’t we just go to a house where nopony is home?”

“We could, if anyone was out of town. But not only does merely waiting for opportune targets lack initiative, it’d make these forays too predictable.” Avarice stated. “Besides, I didn’t hear you offering any other suggestions of specific places to hit.”

Spike scowled. “That’s because I’m nothing like you.”

Avarice only smirked at this. “So you say now... alright then, would you care to pick out anything?”

Spike’s displeased visage intensified. “No.”

Avarice titled his head in faux-disappointment. “Aw… don’t you want to know more about the things you’ll be pulling around tonight?”

“No...” Spike growled.

Avarice hummed in amusement. “Too bad.”

That was the only warning Spike got before Avarice picked him up and carried him off to the study. Spike protested, squirming in his grasp, but his struggles quickly proved futile. Avarice took the both of them to the study, and gently shut the door behind them.

“Now then, if we want to figure out what this pony values, we’ll have to ascertain more about them,” Avarice said in a lecturous tone. “Take a look around this room. What do you see?”

“A monster who should be imprisoned in stone,” Spike grumbled.

“You flatter me. Now try and divert your attention from my grandeur and tell me what about this place catches your eye.”

Spike looked away to inspect their surroundings, if only to find relief in the fact that there was something to look at other than Avarice.

“Books,” Spike disinterestedly replied. “I see a lot of books.”

“And what does that tell you about whoever lives here?” Avarice inquired.

Spike sighed. “That they like to read...”

A sudden twinge of guilt struck his already culpable conscious. The site of this quaint little house filled with books suddenly reminded him of home, and gave him the sense that whoever lived here probably would have gotten along very well with Twilight.

“That’s... one observation. Look closer.” Avarice said as he approached the framed documents hanging upon the wall. “Bachelor of Arts on Equish and Literature, awarded from the University of Trotronto. Bachelor of Science for Math, also of UT. This mare doesn’t just enjoy sticking her snout into a book, she’s learned… for whatever passes as intelligence for ponies.”

More slings and arrows of shame afflicted Spike. Whoever this mare was, she was already reminding him more and more of Twilight.

Avarice approached another degree hanging on the wall, and let out a low whistle. “Master of Science, awarded by the University of Trotronto, pertaining to the study of… foal development.”

He looked back and forth between the certification and the pictures of the foals, then smirked. “That explains everything… might as well take them.”

With that, Avarice removed the picture frames from the walls and tucked them under an arm, opening up a pit in Spike’s gut. He knew that Avarice was technically just taking a few sheets of paper, but the sacrilege of the act in of itself felt as blasphemous as actually stealing all the knowledge and intelligence that this mare had worked so hard to attain

Avarice paid Spike no mind as he moved from the picture frames to the book cases, occasionally muttering something to himself when he noticed something of interest. Without a word, Spike turned, crept outside the study, and gently shut the door behind him.

Spike dragged himself across the lonely hall and sat down on the top step of the stairs. He rested his arms across his knees and slouched over, exhaling a quiet, distressed groan. That nauseous feeling had returned. He felt like there was something vile under his scales that couldn’t be washed away.

The faint noise of the doorknob turning behind him met his ears. Spike whipped around to see Avarice gliding like a ghost out from the study with a small stack of frames and textbooks in hand.

“Don’t you want to take anything?” Avarice asked.

“No,” Spike grumbled in reply. “Are we done here?”

“Not quite. We might have found a few things the homeowner cherishes, but not anything that I would consider valuable, and if there is anything to find of material worth in a place like this, it’ll probably be in...” Avarice let his sentence hang as he looked towards the bedroom.

“I wonder,” he spoke before shoving the collection of textbooks and degrees into Spike’s arms. 

Spike reeled back from the weight of the items forced into his grasp. He looked at Avarice, approaching the bedroom door with the strides of a stalking predator. His pulse jettisoned, and he dumped the items of to the side and darted towards Avarice.

“You’re not going in there, are you?” Spike frantically hissed

“Yeah.”

Spike gasped. “Are you crazy?!”

“The word is ‘ambitious.’ We’ve been over this.”

Avarice twisted the handle on the door. The clicks of turning gears and coiling springs made hardly any more noise than a mouse scurrying across tile, but the clatter it made to Spike was as clamorous as an Ursa Major.

Avarice nudged the door open, then smirked at Spike as he silently moved into the bedroom. “Come on in,” he said as he grasped the door handle again. “Or don’t.”

Then Avarice shut the door, leaving Spike alone in the hallway with his frenzy of panicked thoughts. He remained there in that dark hall, little heart pounding like a platoon of hammers upon an anvil, petrified by fear and indecision, unable to move save for his overwhelming trembling or derive a course of action beyond chewing his nails to dust.

Several agonizing minutes passed before the bedroom door swung open again. Spike let out a startled gasp as Avarice emerged with a cylindrical box and a jubilant grin splitting his axed muzzle in half. He closed the door, and gleefully presented his find.

“Look what I found,” he said, then ripped the lid of the box to reveal its contents.

Spike dared to take a peek. Inside the box was a white, snazzy, wide-brimmed fedora with a velvet band wrapped around the base of the crown, from which a single crimson feather protruded.

Spike looked back up at Avarice with confusion. “Is it under the hat?”

Avarice returned with an unamused expression. “It is the hat.”

Spike looked back and forth between the two in disbelief. “No way… this is what got you so excited?”

“Clearly you’ve lost your penchant for fine hats ever since I escaped your vacuous brain,” Avarice scoffed with faux sophistication, blinking once before going back to marveling over the attire. A mischievous twitch crept into his smirk.

“I wonder if it still fits,” Avarice mused as he brushed past Spike into the bathroom, hat in his clutches. He approached the mirror and pulled the fedora over his jagged frill and down onto his crown. Avarice looked in the mirror, and his eyes lit up like colt’s on Hearth’s Warming Day.

“Sweeeet,” he jubilantly prided himself, turning his head to admire himself from every possible angle. “Damn, I look good...”

Spike just scowled at Avarice from the threshold. Avarice in turn just looked back at him and smirked, then left the lavatory.

“No matter what happens, the entire night was worth it just for this. I’m going to go see if I can scrounge up anything else from downstairs. Come along, if you want.”

Spike answered with a growl.

“Or you can just stay up here, thinking angry thoughts. I don’t care, I’m having fun either way.”

Then Avarice mounted the railing and slid down the staircase, humming the tune to ‘Sharp-Dressed Stallion’ as he departed to snatch up any remaining presents from under the tree, leaving Spike with only an empty box and his rage to brood with.

Spike grumbled, crossed his arms, and leaned against the doorframe, the seething sentinel at his post. Fingers drummed a caustic roll of beats while his scowling brow attempted to connect with the bridge of his snout. He sourly dwelt on Avarice’s hubris until it saturated his every thought with a stench like the rank air of the sewers had come all the way upstairs just to say that it still hated him.

Minutes passed with nothing for Spike to do but simmer in indignation. He tried diverting his attention to anything else that would preoccupy his frustrated mind: the fluffy texture of the shag carpet under his feet; the sweeping ridges of the doorframe digging into his back; warm, inviting walls that beseeched him to leave; hatbox; a muffled, groggy yawn emanating from the bedroom.

Spike sucked in a razor-sharp breath and held it, listening with his ear frills raised like red flags. There was a sound of rustling fabric, then small groan from a sweet yet tired voice that was more terrifying than any disembodied wail ever could be.

Another blood-curdling yawn crept like mist through the door, followed by more stirring of sheets and a series of four soft thumps of hooves making contact with the floor. Then came more steps, getting louder, getting towards the door: towards him.

Siren alarms blared in Spike’s head. Terror overloaded his cognitive processes. Fight or flight subroutines kicked in, and Spike flew down the stairs to the living room, then the panic pressure release valve burst open to blare his frantic screams.

“Avarice! She’s awake! SHE’S COMING! We need to get out of here! NOW!”

Avarice fiercely whipped around to glare at Spike. “Are you CRAZY?!” he hissed, tightening his furious grip on a hefty bronze sculpture of a wireframe globe. “Are you TRYING to get us caught?!”

 There sound of a door opening upstairs opened proceeded by hoofsteps in the second story hall. The ghost was hunting them.

“No!” Spike grabbed on of Avarice’s arms and desperately tried to pull him towards the door. “Just… please! Drop whatever you’ve got and lets go before she finds us!”

The muffled clop of hooves on carpet were on the stairs now. Avarice was still staring at the little dragon in contempt while Spike’s heart rate had skyrocketed into the exosphere. With one last conflicted and desperate groan, Spike turned tail and darted for the exit, only to be stopped in his tracks by a mare’s startled gasp.

Spike’s heart and time itself froze at the exact same instant. The flashbulb of a camera went off in his brain, perfectly capturing the image of the lovely mare in every horrifying detail: prickled coat of mulberry fur; ears high in alarm; nostrils unmoving from witheld breaths; corners of her open mouth pulled downward; curled, uncombed mane of light pink stripes hanging like an awning over her beautiful, harlequin green eyes, wide open in shock; her consternated expression horrifically contrasted by the three smiling flowers upon her flanks.

The air escaped her lungs, releasing a single astonished word.

“Spike?”

The bronze globe whizzed over Spike’s head, shattering the stasis of time and smashing into the mare’s cranium, making her cry out in pain. Spike was knocked aside as Avarice charged at the mare. Spike looked back up just in time for his mind to take another picture. Unmitigated terror was carved into every inch of her face, made worse by some terrible wounded look in her eyes.

Avarice closed in, caught the globe in midair, and swung it at her face. She stumbled away from the hit with another howl. Avarice raised his right arm and moved his right leg forward, then twisted his whole body around as used the globe to strike the back of her skull. She collapsed like a ragdoll into the welcoming embrace of the floor.

Spike still lay on the floor, propped up on one arm, statuesque save for his fevered shaking.

Avarice loomed over the fuzzy heap on the ground. His only movements were the steady rise and fall of his chest as he leered at the unconscious pony. Avarice turned his attention to Spike, and he snarled. He bent down to grab the limp mare by a hind leg, then dragged her over the the base of the stairs and dumped her onto the lower steps. Then he shot one last incisive look at Spike before procuring the small collection of items and turning to the door.

“Get up. We’re leaving.”

Spike was on his feet and abjectly skirring towards the door before he could process or countermand the command. Spike sheepishly sent one last glance to the mare, still slumped on the stairs, another monument on his collage of failures.

Avarice’s imposing silhouette slashed from the serene moonlight pouring forth from the open door accentuated its aggressive stance. Spike scurried out the exit and into the street, eager to find solace in the offensive stench of the sewers.

Spike’s heart was still pounding and his breath heaved as he high-tailed it down the ladder, giving no regard to the foul stink of feces filling his lungs even as he bordered on hyperventilating. Avarice gave the shaken dragon little concern as he swept into the shadowy sewers and landed on Spike’s head, nor did he cease sneering as he stepped down and set the stolen items into the awaiting wagon.

“Way to screw that one up,” Avarice brusquely stated.

Spike rediscovered his voice with a vengeance. “Me?! You’re the reason we were in her house in the first place! That was all YOUR fault!”

Avarice snorted derisively. “Least I recall, I established that if we were spotted, it’d be on you.”

Spike had arched his shoulders and balled his hands into fists. “And I said that it’d be your fault if anypony got hurt!”

Avarice adopted a pompous pose and cast an arm out over the enclosed tunnel. “So pick a corner and send me on time-out. Consider us fortunate that I didn’t have to knock out the neighbors too because you don’t know how to give a warning without screaming it.”

Avarice paused mid-breath, then began to scratch his chin, ponderous. “Actually, come to think of it, we probably should have agreed upon an exit signal before we broke in…” He shrugged his shoulders as he turned around. “Oh well...”

Spike stood with mouth agape. It was only when Avarice tried walking away that he ran up to yank back on the thief’s tail, trying in vain to keep the two of them from going any further.

“Hey, don’t just try to walk away, Mr. ‘no mere pony can sneak up on me!’ We’re not taking another step until—wait… that day in the hospital… you said that you could hear a squirrel walking down the end of a hall...” Spike gasped. “You wanted an opportunity to knock that mare’s lights out...”

Avarice stopped, then looked over his shoulder at Spike with a regarding eye, and responded with a smirk. “Figured that one out all by yourself, did ya’?”

Spike once again could only gawk at Avarice’s admitted aggressions, only for his fury to set his mind back on fire.

“How dare you… How DARE you!”

“How? Well, it’s simple, really—” 

“No! I don’t want to hear it!” Spike yelled. “You bring me along so I can protect ponies from you, and then you intentionally attack one when I say that we need to leave!”

“No, you were screaming like a howler monkey that we should run away with our collective tails between the legs.” Avarice leaned in closer to Spike, wearing a malevolent expression. “And if you don’t keep it down, you might wake up one of those flea-bitten filth-sacks, who might then wonder what all that racket coming from the sewers is, and then I’ll need to find something to stage their limp body on.”

Spike glowered. “You’re a monster.”

“Oh, don’t be so prudish,” Avarice waved. “Besides, all I did was apply some blunt force trauma in a way that temporarily disrupts her ability to process short-term memories. When she wakes up, she won’t even remember that we were there. It’s most likely her brain damage won’t even be permanent.”

“Is this just fun and games to you!?” Spike exploded in rage.

“Yeah,” Avarice nodded.

Spike’s brow hardened, wishing to be a weapon Spike could strip from his face and beat Avarice to a pulp with. “Well I’m not playing anymore,” he tersely said as he crossed his arms and petulantly turned away.

Avarice let Spike stew in his frustrations for a few seconds before speaking. “Fine, go ahead. Go back ‘home’ and crawl into your cocoon of insomnia while the dragon who just admitted to assaulting ponies for fun prowls the placid night completely unsupervised.”

Spike’s scowl fell and his eyes shot wide open.

“Or, if you still want a chance to keep some pony safe, be it a home owner that hasn’t fallen asleep or a foal waking up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water, you’ll have to keep playing our little game.”

Spike’s whole body tensed over becoming a battleground for every conflicting thought, emotion, moral, and sense of loyalty. Cohesive concepts were torn apart in the maelstrom for him to look at their guts and wonder which left him less repulsed: depart and leave somepony to their violent fate, or have a chance at protecting them at the price on continued subservience to Avarice. He was damned either way.

Might as well try to keep the count of the doomed as low as possible, he thought.

Spike turned his head to speak with Avarice, but not enough to look at him. “If I stay, the next time we’re in danger of getting caught, when I say that we should leave, we leave immediately. No ifs, ands, buts, taking anything extra, or waiting on purpose just so you can beat them up. We go when I say we do, alright?”

Avarice chuckled. “Making demands again… spunky, but you should know by now that I offer nothing unless offered something equal in return. If you want my word that we’ll escape the second the scene gets hot, then I’ve got a stipulation of my own.”

Spike grumbled in disconcertion. “What?”

“You have to take something from the next house.”

Spike whipped around. “What?!”

“And it can’t just be something menial, like jacking a container of yogurt from the fridge. It has to be something valuable.”

“I’m not doing your dirty work!” Spike blurted.

Avarice titled his head and looked at Spike a half-lidded, smug stare. “Have it your way. I’ll just procure whatever it was that you would have taken and incapacitate its original owner in the process.”

“Argh... alright, fine!” Spike groaned. “But if we’re in danger of getting caught, we leave when I say we do. Deal?”

Avarice smirked. “Deal. So what’s the code phrase?”

“What code phrase?” Spike asked.

“The one that entails the two of us are in danger of being discovered and must skedaddle.“ Avarice answered.

“What, I can’t just say ‘we need to go?’”

“No, because that’s indistinguishable from you just being a pusillanimous poltroon who’s getting frigid feet.”

“Puss… what?”

“Means ‘contemptibly craven.’”

“Stop insulting me with words I don’t know the meaning of!”

“They’re synonyms for a deplorable coward, you milksop,” Avarice curtly explained. “So what’s the code phrase?”

Spike just stood there with an open mouth and spinning wheels. “Uh...”

“How about ‘enact abscondance algorithms?’” Avarice suggested.

“Enact… what? Are you trying to use words that’ll take longer to pronounce than they will to escape?”

Avarice smirked. “You’re learning.”

Spike furrowed his brow. “No. I’m the one in charge of lookout duties, I should be the one to come up with something.” Spike scratched his chin in contemplation. “We’ll go with ‘abort mission.’ It’s short, simple, and doesn’t take so long to pronounce that you’ll get to beat up somepony else.”

Avarice grimaced. “Malcontent spoilsport… fine. Now grab the cart and let’s go.”

“Me? You’re the one using it to dump everything you’re stealing, you pull it!”

“And you’re still arguing with the dragon three times your size why?” Avarice leered.

Spike wanted to say something back, but he didn’t know what to say, and was afraid that whatever he did would provoke Avarice again. So he kept quiet and kept to pulling the wagon.

They came to an intersection, and Avarice led them left. Then another left, then a right, then left, right, right, left, right. All that could be heard was the soft scrape of claws and the squeaking of wagon wheels. The foul stench continued its relentless invasion of their nostrils, determined to drive them out of its home.Finally, they came to a ladder.

Avarice turned to Spike. “You’re up, lookout,” he said tersely.

Spike scrambled up the ladder, braced his shoulder against the manhole cover, and grunted with exertion as he raised it a few inches and looked up at Ponyville again.

He saw a worm’s eye view of a cobblestone street, completely still, lit only by the moonlight and a solitary lamp. Dark rows of houses lined either side of the street. Not a soul was to be seen.

Spike looked down at Avarice “Okay it’s clear. Did you have someone specific in mind to rob, or were you just going to randomly—”

The sound of laughter drifting down the street cut him off. Looking up, Spike saw two ponies staggering around a corner, muttering and giggling incoherently. Though it was unclear in the dark who they were, it was clear from their laughter and their ability to just barely stay on their hooves that they’d been drinking hard. As they trotted haphazardly down the street, it was also very clear there was foreplay going on was well. A nuzzle against the neck was returned by a lick behind the ear, which then elicited a brush of one flank against the other. Then the ponies finally stumbled into the lamplight.

It was Vinyl Scratch, and a mare Spike couldn’t recall having ever seen before. She had a grey coat, a flowing charcoal mane, and a contrasting pink treble clef cutie mark. As she continued her intimate play with Vinyl, Spike suddenly realized that his heart was pounding again. Then he realized this was the first time he’d ever seen ponies, much less two mares, acting this frisky.

He was contemplating what he should do next, but what they did next pretty much ensured that he was going to keep watching. Vinyl pushed the other mare up onto her hind legs, then pushed her back up against the lamppost. Then they looked deep into each other’s eyes, and Spike had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping all the way back down the ladder as they began to make out.

“Enjoying the show?”

The manhole cover would have slammed shut with a deafening clang had Avarice not caught it at the last second. Spike would have also given a startled yelp, but Avarice had jammed a clawed hand against his mouth.

“See?” he whispered to Spike, amused. “Karma has rewarded you for coming with me.”

Spike peeled Avarice’s claws off of his mouth. “Please, since when did you believe in karma?”

Avarice’s expression hardened. “Believe me, we could sit here all night while I educate you about karma. But then I’d miss out on my fun and you’d miss out on your little peep show. Speaking of which…”

Avarice broke eye contact with Spike to look back to the enamored mares. Spike looked in time to see them come down off the light post and stumble to the front door of a house, presumably Vinyl’s as she took a key from her mane behind her ear. As she fiddled haphazardly with the lock, the other mare made a bold move, leaning forward and biting her playfully right on her haunches. Vinyl let out a startled, albeit delighted yelp, and Spike nearly fell down the ladder.

Vinyl finally got the door open and they disappeared inside so fast that if Spike had blinked he would have missed it. The grey mare kicked the door shut, and the resulting slam rang out like a gunshot in the still night. Then silence.

Spike made to push the manhole cover up so he could get out, but Avarice held him back. “Planning from going from a lookout to a peeping Tom, are we?” Avarice said.

“What? No! It’s just the coast is clear now, so I figured…”

“I’ll do the figuring for now. Now wait here for a second, I want to see what they do.”

Spike grumbled under his breath, but he did as Avarice told him. They waited in uncomfortable silence as seconds passed. Avarice never took his eyes off of the house, like a cat waiting in the bushes for the right moment to pounce on a blissfully ignorant mouse. Then, just when the wait was becoming unbearable, a warm flicker of candlelight appeared in the second story window.

“Move, we’re going in.” Avarice whispered.

“Wait, we’re going in their house?” Spike hissed back. “But there’s plenty of other houses on the street!”

“Yes, but we don’t know for sure what or who is in them. We know who’s in there, and we know that they’re going to be occupied for some time. This has presented us with a unique opportunity. Now if you would stop wasting our time…”

“Are you crazy!? You’re going in while they’re… um… well…”

“While they’re giving each other a helping hoof?” Avarice shot back. “Yeah. Why are you so concerned about it now? Just a second ago, your eyes were practically shooting out of their sockets.”

“Yeah, well…” Spike foundered. “Look, I’ve never seen that much… uhm… you know, that  before, okay?”

“I know.”

“I know that you know! It’s just, seeing that much... I’m just not ready for that yet, alright?”

“Oh, stop being so noble! Don’t pretend you’ve never daydreamed about getting something similar from a certain dressmaker. Besides, if you’re so concerned about it, it’s not like I was planning on going upstairs with them.”

“So… we’re just… staying downstairs.” Spike exhaled, only slightly relieved.

“Yes. Now grab the cart.”

Two shadows sidled from the inky blackness of the manhole, one small and dragging a cart behind it moved quickly into the shadows between the houses. The other, large and dangerous, loomed briefly over the manhole before silently putting the cover back, then flitted with unnatural speed across the street to the same place. 

“Okay, now what?” Spike asked as Avarice fell into place next to him.

“We let ourselves in.” Avarice replied casually as he grasped at the window. It didn’t budge. Avarice tugged a little harder. The window remained unmoving.

“Looks like it’s latched shut. Oh well, we tried. Now let’s go,” Spike hurriedly said, and made to go back to the manhole, but Avarice put a restraining claw on his shoulder.

“Oh no, you’re not getting out of this that easily. Besides, I came prepared for this sort of thing. Now sit back and watch the master work.”

Avarice extended a razor-sharp claw and pressed the tip against the glass. Slowly, making only the faintest scraping noise, he made a near-perfect circle etch in the glass. He traced his claw over the exact same path a few more times, then pushed in. The circle of glass, about twice the circumference of his arm, fell in easily. Spike reflexively sucked in his breath, sure that it would hit the floor and shatter, but Avarice deftly reached in and caught it. He then reached in further and undid the window latch.

“Leave the wagon just under the window,” Avarice instructed as he raised it. “Just a quick in and out, leave them wondering how we got in.”

“Wondering, huh?” Spike retorted. “Then what about the hole in the glass?”

Saying nothing, but adopting his trademark irritating smirk, Avarice took the circle of glass and blew a small, concentrated stream of fire around the edges of the circle, heating it until it started to glow. Then he did the same thing with the hole in the window. Taking the superheated disk, he inserted it back into place, then pressed his palms flat against both sides of the window. When he removed them, a glowing, dull red circle was all that remained, leaving no trace of the cut as it cooled and disappeared. He gave Spike a ‘told-you-so’ look, then slipped inside the house. Spike groaned, then used the wagon as a stepstool and followed suit.

The inside of the house was dark, but a very faint light could be seen drifting down from the stairs. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, Spike could see that Vinyl was not what one would describe as an organized pony. Stacks of unused equipment stood like misshapen sentinels in the darkness, and every available flat surface had some kind of clutter on it. Turning his head, he saw a shaft of moonlight in the far side of the kitchen illuminating piles of dirty dishes in the sink, making him wince. He made a mental note to ensure that neither Twilight nor Rarity ever saw the inside of this house, otherwise there might be a public trial. Then his spirits sank a little more, as he pictured the both of them asking how he knew what the inside of Vinyl’s house looked like.

“Wow, I can almost respect her a little,” Avarice whispered in the darkness. “We really should have brought a bigger wagon.”

“Let’s just grab some stuff, okay?” Spike whispered back, moving towards one of the piles. Avarice’s iron grasp gripped his arm in an instant.

“Are you really that stupid?” Avarice fiercely whispered. “Don’t touch anything that was made to make noise, especially that drum kit with the precariously balanced cymbals on top that you were about to topple over.”

Before Spike could answer, Avarice released his arm and went back to inspecting the clutter on a nearby end table. “And don’t bother answering that question. I already know the answer.”

It took Spike a second to figure out that his intelligence had been insulted. For another second, he considered going to the drum kit anyway and pushing the cymbals over on purpose, forcing an emergency evacuation and leaving Vinyl’s belongings untouched.

Then he thought of Avarice, face etched with cold rage, fist repeatedly smashing into his face. He thought of Avarice letting him go just to enjoy watching him feebly trying to crawl away. He thought of Avarice saying words to him that he couldn’t hear through his bleeding ears. He thought of Avarice bending down and grabbing the back of his skull and plunging his face into the filthy water. He thought of seeing stars explode behind his eyelids and his lungs burning in agony as he fought for air…

He couldn’t think about it anymore. Instead he walked past Avarice and further into the house, taking him past the base of the stairs. The soft sounds of heavy sighs and gentle moans drifted down them like an audible fog. He paused, looking up the staircase, but then continued on his way before Avarice had time to notice him.

He shuffled sullenly through the darkened house, knowing he should take something to placate Avarice, but not wanting to see anything worth taking. His eyes wandered over the shadowy clutter of objects. Here, an electric guitar leaning against an amp. There, a DJ’s portable mixing booth. Hither, a weaponized set of speakers that could probably wake the dead. Thither, bookcase full of old records…

He paused. They didn’t just look old, they looked like they were vintage, and in mint condition. For a moment, he stood indecisively, knowing he shouldn’t touch these. Then he went over to the bookcase and started thumbing through the records.

It was a treasure trove. He was no musical expert, but from the looks of it, these were all originals. Shimmy Hendricks, Hoovus Presley, Fun n’ Roses: everything was here, each lovingly encased in a clear plastic sleeve. Then he noticed one that had a small sticker with a heart on it, and pulled it off the shelf. It was a copy of the Spice Mares first album, signed in rainbows of glittery ink by each member of the band. He turned it over, and on the back, in the same glittery letters was written: 

“To our biggest fan, follow your dreams and you’ll rock Equestria!
With Love, The Spice Mares.”

This was it. Vinyl Scratch’s most prized possession, probably the very thing that made her become a DJ. He held it gingerly, knowing he should put this back, knowing that losing this would probably be heartbreaking for her. He tucked it under his arm and then flipped through several more of the records, taking each one that had been autographed, then returned to the window with immense sorrow in his heart.

He ran into Avarice at their exit, who was wearing Vinyl’s signature shades and clutching a phonograph with several other items stacked on top of it. Avarice took note of Spike, then looked to the albums Spike held and put on a feigned air of surprise.

“Doth mine eyes deceive me? You actually took something?” he inquired.

Avarice extended an empty hand, gesturing for him to relinquish Vinyl’s cherished possessions. Feeling like a crony handing over ill-gotten gains, Spike gave him the records, trying to ignore the retching twisting in his gut and Vinyl's more audible fevered moans drifting down from on high.

“Hmm,” Avarice mused at the Spice Mares album, paying no mind to the louder moans coming from upstairs. “Not really my taste in music, but this will do perfectly. Maybe we can come back for a return visit! Of course, my guess is you’ll probably want to bring a camera next time…”

Spike glared unamused at Avarice, wanting nothing more than to say that there wouldn’t be a next time. He tried to come up with something really snarky, but Vinyl was proving very distracting. Spike and Avarice both looked up the stairs towards the bedroom and just stared as the wild symphony above built up to a screaming crescendo.

Spike shook his head and turned away, fiddling with his own fingers as his face blushed cherry red and his innards twisted themselves into a noose for which he could hang himself in effigy. Avarice’s smirk quivered from the howling laughter he was trying to contain.

The bedroom door cracked open, illuminating the upstairs hallway with candlelight and releasing a fog bank of estrus fumes into the rest of the house. The sweet-talk from one mare to another followed, but Spike couldn’t decipher the words being exchanged over the pounding of his heart that had leaped all the way to his skull.

“Abort mission! ABORT MISSION!” Spike urgently whispered.

Avarice nodded and darted towards the window. He slid the glass panel open and slipped outside with a shadow’s deftness while Spike haphazardly hurdled over the sill, hitting the ground outside like a sack of potatoes. Avarice ducked his head back inside and blew circles of fire at the latch before shutting the window behind them.

Three runes appeared in the rings of fire imposed over the lock, then disappeared in sequence with each passing second. When the last glyph dispersed, the latch swung shut and the lingering fire vanished, just as the silver-coated mare stumbled down the stairs. Her once primed mane was now a matted, disheveled curtain over the depraved, hungry look in her violet eyes. She fondly licked her lips and giggled as she reached the bottom of the stairs and gaited into the kitchen. A few moments passed before she appeared again, carrying a can of whipped cream, a bottle of chocolate syrup, a quart of ice cream, several large bananas and a blender in an inebriated canter back up the stairs without ever noticing either of them peeking through the window.

Spike urgently jerked his head towards the direction of the sewers before making a break for them, Avarice following close behind. Spike pried open the cover and hastily climbed down the ladder, leaving Avarice to hoist the wagon over his shoulder and descend into the putrescent pipelines. He set the cart on the paved walkway, then lit another orb of fire and sealed the entrance above them.

Avarice folded his arms and leaned against the wall, staring off at nothing. Then he started to shudder with suppressed laughter, his chest quaking. For a moment, he seemed to gain control of himself, but then he caught Spike’s eye and burst out in howling guffaws, his laughter echoing through the sewers as he slumped against the wall.

“Oh,” Avarice managed to gasp after a minute, wiping a tear from his eye, “I may detest ponies with a vehement passion, but damn it if they aren’t a riot sometimes.”

Spike responded with an exasperated sigh. “Are you done yet?”

Avarice stole one last deep inhalation. “Yeah, for now… but seriously, that was amazing. Almost as amazing as the fact that you actually managed to hold up your ends of the bargain,” he said, gesturing to Spike’s cache before picking up the stack of records to flip through them.

“Let’s see… aside from those washed-up has-beens, you also managed to get signed work by Horsepower, Skilless, Pendulous, Deft Punk, Seven Inch Screws, The Dusty Brothers—hey, I actually like that one...” Avarice turned to the next record, and his eyes went wide in surprise.

“Rigoletto?!” he exclaimed, then delved back into chortles. ”Well, considering who Ms. P0N-3 was clopping down the red brick road to Pound Town with, I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised. 

“Seriously,” Avarice said, turning the cover to Spike, revealing an image of a court jester scowling at an immaculate duke who was busy seducing a beautiful young mare. “She even signed it with lipstick.”

Surely enough, written in glossy velvet cursive was the inscription: “One of my favorite operas for my favorite mare in Equestria. Sincerely, your dearest sweetheart, Octavia.” There was even an imprint of a kiss to seal the deal.

Avarice put the albums back into the wagon then turned to Spike and directed a triumphant grin his way. “You even managed not to alert those tramps to our presence. For the first time, I think you’ve actually impressed me.”

“Don’t think anything of it,” Spike sneered.

“I don’t. I’m just giving credit where credit is due,” Avarice replied, walking past the frustrated little dragon. “Keep this up, and you just might make for an excellent thief.”

“NO!” Spike yelled back. “I’ll NEVER be anything like you! EVER!”

Avarice just returned with that copywritten smirk. “You’re participating in this little night errand. That’s more than you were willing to do just yesterday.”

Spike’s brow furrowed again. “I’m only here to protect anypony that I can from you.”

“And you taking some of most Vinyl’s treasured possessions has everything to do with that,” Avarice slyly retorted.

Spike’s throat began to dry. “I only did because it was part of the deal. Besides, you would have just taken them anyway.”

“So those records would have never left Vinyl’s house if you weren’t here...” Avarice derisively questioned. “Or, you just don’t want to admit that you’ve accomplished something.”

“Or we could just go home now and not waste more time arguing how to divvy up the blame,” Spike shot back, then grabbed the wagon handle and began walking.

Avarice impeded Spike’s path with his tail. “And where do you think you’re going?”

“I just said home,” Spike sneered. “Are your ears clogged?”

“That was a rhetorical question,” Avarice answered. “You have no idea how to get back the library from here.”

“Yeah I do! It’s… um...” Spike’s sentence petered out as he looked back and forth in opposite directions of the tunnel. He scowled. “It’s whatever direction leads away from you.”

Avarice snorted out a dry chuckle. “Delightfully snide, but save it. We’re not done for tonight.”

Spike’s shoulders slumped and his mouth fell open. “What? But we just… argh… when will your stealing end?!”

Avarice chuckled again. “When you can barely pull the cart anymore, then I’ll consider it.”

“No, I meant—well, I was also asking about tonight but… ugh… won’t you ever be satisfied? Are you ever going to reach a point where you’ve taken enough, or are you going to try and fit everything valuable in Equestria into a cave?”

That smug expression of cavalier understanding which Spike hated so much was back on Avarice’s face. “So many questions… but since they all entail me getting to talk about my favorite subject, you’ll get this one for free.” Avarice smirked. “And you say I don’t give anything back.”

Spike scowled at the haughty reply, but it hardly disrupted his companion.

“So, last time you asked what it means to be a dragon since you obviously don’t know, I explained that we hoard to establish our superiority. But there’s more finesse to the method than just taking whatever catches your fancy, it’s a process of gathering items that get incrementally more valuable. Say I had a penchant for precious metals. I would start with something moderately nifty like bronze, then I’d work my way up to stuff like silver or palladium, then gold and platinum.”

“Okay, but when is that enough?” Spike asked. “It’s tough to find metals that are more valuable than platinum.“

“And that, my little dragon-in-training, is where the concept of the crown jewel applies. Once a trove has accumulated enough worth, it needs a grand finish to consummate its owner. To use the rare earth metal hoarding as an example, the final piece would be something like, say… a throne made primarily of rhodium.

“Maredrake though you may be, deep down, you’re still a dragon, so you’re the exact same way, no matter how ardently you try to deny it. For that one day which you shed your metaphorical furry skin, you were just taking whatever you could grab, even if it was as meaningless as the leaves of the trees in Sweet Apple Acres.”

Avarice derisively smirked at Spike “Actually, I do have a question of my own. What were you going to do with all that foliage? Make tinder?”

Spike answered with a glare.

Avarice just waved his hand. “It doesn’t matter. Point is, you started out collecting meaningless trash, and I’m finishing what you started by moving up to personal items and then sentimental treasures. It’s why I’m content while you wallow in misery.”

“No, I’m not happy because you won’t let me talk to my friends!” Spike shot back.

“And that’s exactly the problem: you have friends.”

Spike crossed his arms and looked away. “If you’re just going to turn this into another case for why you hate friendship—”

“No,” Avarice interrupted “I was going to make a case for why it’s bad for you. Dragons are a precocial species, Spike. Shortly after we’ve hatched, we can walk, think, hoard, and hunt independently.  Ponies, however, are altricial. At their disgusting births, the foal can’t do anything but cry and crap itself… for years. They voraciously leech off others throughout their entire adolescence, and that process has tempered their species-wide psyche to be reliant upon social interaction. Ponies literally can’t function unless they’re around other ponies. You ever seen what happens to a foal that ends up locked in a closet for its entire life? They’re all inconsolably insane.”

“And what does that have to do with me?” Spike growled back.

“You’re a dragon whose been raised by ponies to live like a pony. They’ve dragged you into their friendship abyss, and you love them for it. A real dragon can live in solitude for decades whereas you can’t even think straight if you’ve been alone for several days.”

Spike raised a hand to object. “Because—”

“Because living among ponies has warped your mentality. But no matter how much you try and refute it, there’s some part of you that will always be a dragon that refuses to take ‘no’ for an answer or be denied what it craves… which makes you a tragedy among dragons if ever there was one, because you value friendship. That’s why you’re really so miserable. You want to metaphorically hoard friendship, but now you’ve been deprived of it, and there’s no way to push a dragon to despair faster than to deny them what they covet.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Spike grumbled as he crossed his arms and turned away.

“And how are things between you and Twilight?” Avarice asked.

Spike didn’t answer, just dug his claws into where he was gripping his biceps.

“Or what about you and Pinkie? How’s that working out?”

“It’s a little tense, but that doesn’t mean—”

Avarice put on a devious smirk. “Or you and… her.”

Spike responded with obstinate silence, even as rage was boiling in his brain and the was steam clamouring to escape. Avarice, however, wasn’t content to take a cold shoulder for an answer.

“It wasn’t just painful, it was agony. After everything you’ve done, she repays your kindness by making it abundantly clear that she doesn’t need you...”

“And how was I supposed to take it?!” Spike yelled as he reeled around. “Just smile and say, ‘Oh, that’s alright—it’s fine if you don’t feel anything for me even though you’re breaking my heart?!’ That doesn’t mean I’m going to become a monster like you because somepony I care about doesn’t care about me! By Tartarus, I’d like to see you find anyone who wouldn’t be upset to be deprived of something they love!”

“Though when a pony gets double-crossed or when a dragon is deprived of something valuable, they might get sad or fly into a rage, but they don’t black out and wake up hours later in another place with no memory of how they got there. I’ve figured you out, maredrake. The biggest reason for your despondence is because Rarity isn’t just a friend or a romantic interest, she’s your crown jewel... but you’re just an itemized friend to her.”

Avarice began to turn away. “Come on. You’ve wasted enough of my time, and there are still places to visit.”

Spike let out a groan. “So when we get this crown jewel of your’s, then can I go home?”

Avarice released an exacerbated grumble. “Do I have to stipulate a new threat to make you listen? No. I’m still working up to that.”

Spike looked back at the mismatched items. “Yeah, well so far, I’ve only seen you take things that somepony else finds valuable: not what you find valuable. What are you even ultimately out to get?”

Avarice looked back down at Spike with that signature cocksure smirk. “You already got your one free question, nor would I even otherwise be so generous as to disclose that information. You haven’t earned the privilege to know... yet.”

Spike slumped his shoulders. “Could you at least tell me what you intend to do once you get it?”

Avarice stole a moment to stop and stare dreamily off into the distant, ideal future. “Sleep, in the most perfect, complacent slumber.” And then he was back on his merry way again.

Without the opportunity to submit another thought in edgewise, Spike just uttered a sour grumble, took the cart by the handle, and followed along, even as Avarice’s words still resonated in his ears and besmirched him with their all-too apt condescensions.

He didn’t want to believe what Avarice had said about Rarity. He wouldn’t believe what Avarice said about Rarity. But with nothing besides the echoes of contempt to accompany him, Spike started think about the arguments his companion had left him with: trying to pick them apart and repurpose them to suit his own stance, like how Avarice so deftly did with him.

Several minutes passed in silence as Spike tried to deconstruct Avarice’s philosophy. In his ponderings, a few select passages stuck out to him, and when he put them together, a mischievous light bulb lit up over his head, darkening his expression.

“You know, I think I’ve figured you out too,” Spike said to break the silence.

“What, how I’m right about everything? Took you long enough.” Avarice replied.

“No, about why you’re insane,” Spike corrected.

Avarice let out a little grumble. “Oh, I can’t wait to hear this one.”

Spike couldn’t help but feel slightly encouraged. Finally, for once, Avarice was dreading what he had to say.

“Yeah; all that time you spent locked up in my mind drove you nuts.”

“I believe it’s been established I didn’t enjoy being imprisoned in your subconscious,” Avarice replied, his tone stiff.

“But it’s not just that, is it?” Spike asked, feeling more bold. “You said dragons don’t need company to be happy. No, what really got you mad was that you didn’t have anything to prove how great you supposedly are.”

Avarice replied with silence. Spike, sensing his adversary had in an unprecedented instance gone on defense, got more daring.

“Actually, that’s not entirely true, is it?” Spike pressed. “The one thing you did have to hoard was all my memories of how great a time I was having with all my friends, which only reminded you of how you had nothing. So all this stealing and making me cover for you is just your way of making up for lost time while trying to get petty revenge on me—”

Spike was cut off when he bumped into the back of Avarice. The larger dragon had come to a standstill, becoming statuesque with a posture devoid of expression. Even knowing how tentative he had to tread during these talks, Spike couldn’t help but smirk that for once he’d gotten to turn the tables.

“Yeah, not so fun when the horseshoe is on the other hoof, is it?” Spike gibed as he moved to pass Avarice. “For all your talk about dragon superiority, all it got you was a six-month-long slumber while I got to stay in the world where your crown jewel i—”

The broadside of Avarice’s tail swung into the right side of Spike’s head with explosive force. Spike crashed into the abutting wall, the stone cracking on impact. Before he could even collapse to the ground in a crumpled heap, Avarice lunged him and laid waste to his face with a flurry of jackhammer punches.

Avarice threw Spike back towards the walkway with such power that Spike bounced off the stone path. Avarice pounced and caught him by the neck in midair, then slammed him into the brick and mortar of the wall.

Spike desperately tried to pry away the hand constricting his throat. His efforts proved futile, nails not even scratching the scales of the claws tightening their choke hold. He looked at Avarice, a mouse in the grasp of a python, eyes begging for mercy.

Avarice skewered him with a glare of murderer’s contempt, rows of spear teeth bared and dagger pupils ripping through his flesh with more animosity than Spike had even seen. Avarice’s brow furrowed and the carved hardness around his eyes faltered, exposing an emotion that terrified Spike in a way that all of Avarice’s truculence never could: anguish.

Spike’s vision began to blur. Stars exploded before his eyes. His frantic attempts to escape became more feeble as a peculiar warmth spread through his veins. The only sight in the world became a darkening, amethyst haze.

Avarice released his grip, and Spike fell on his hands and knees to the ground, gasping for the glorious mephitic air. Spike remained there until his chest heaved only from fear. He dared not look up, and instead remained keeled over, fixated upon the ground in a silent grovel.

Avarice leaned down to Spike’s level and whispered in a sinister growel, “Change of plans. We’re going back to the library… after one more stop for tonight.”

With that, Avarice grasped Spike by the head and lifted him back to his feet. He gestured towards the cart, to which Spike eventually turned and took hold of the handle with a trembling fist. Avarice turned, deliberately ensuring the spade of his tail came within inches of Spike’s face, and set off with a tense stride. Spike followed in abject servility.

Their course through the reeking tunnels seemed to last for hours, on account of the trek being the longest of any they had ventured on thus far and of Avarice’s protracted pace, neither of which lent to easing Spike’s frayed and tenuous nerves. Still they carried on, until the gentle rattle of the wagon wheels against the coarse cement clashed against Spike’s ears with the ruckus of an avalanche.

Just when Spike began to wonder if Avarice was intent on resigning them to a subterranean existence, a column of rungs emerged from the ubiquitous darkness. Avarice perked up like a predator catching sight of prey, then darted up the rundles with that same fervor of a colt jolting down the stairs to the tree on Hearth’s Warming mourning. Avarice extinguished his light, then all but punched the cover out of the rim, peered into the evening above, and looked back down a Spike with wild eyes and an oblique, devilish grin.

“We’ve arrived,” Avarice said with barely contained excitement.

“Arrived where?” Spike dared ask, his constricted voice scarce more than a whisper.

“Why, don’t tell me you haven’t already realized where we are,” Avarice said as he jumped down from the ladder to grab Spike and hoist both of them to the surface level. “After all, you’ve been coming here so often...”

Spike’s skull lost all cabin pressure, forming a vacuum of fear inside him that made his freezing blood boil over. Standing in the clearing from which they had risen into, its magnificence oblivious to their presence, was Carousel Boutique. A single light shone from the utmost window.

“No… no…” Spike stammered out at the insolence.

“Yep,” Avarice grinned. “Hey, so long as we’re here, do you want to try in vain to steal her heart? Again?”

“NO!” Spike hissed. “We are… you’re… NO!”

Avarice just gave him and impertinent smirk. “So then go tell on me.”

Then Avarice dropped Spike back into the sewers. Spike hit the ground, then looked back up just in time to see Avarice climb out of the hole. His blood went from tepid to scalding, and he scampered up without even closing the opening behind them. He ran up and snatched Avarice by the tail, intent on pulling him all the way back into the disgusting aqueducts to kick him into the filth therein. Avarice just looked down at him and chuckled, marching towards the fabulous abode as Spike dug his heels into the ground, trying in vain to halt their progress, sputtering in fury all the way.

“Abort mission! ABORT MISSION!”

Avarice just grunted in disgust. “Poltroon.”

A single flick of the tail cast Spike off his extremity and onto the ground when Avarice reached the front door. Avarice got down on one knee and pulled back the doormatt to reveal a polished key. He picked up the key and twiddled it in his fingers, regarding its presence.

“Such a rustic solution for ever-forgetful foals,” Avarice commented, the looked back to Spike and smirked deviously. “Good thing it’s here for close friends.”

Spike got back upright and made to stop Avarice. With a few deft motions, the key was in the lock, twisting, the door cracking silently open just enough as to not ring the bell mounted over the threshold, and Avarice had slipped into the shadows.

Spike just stood there, taken aback at the sacrilege Avarice tracked in, utterly desecrating the most sacred of holy places. For a moment he contemplated not following the demon into the temple, least his trespass defile Her with his own transgression, but then he thought of Sweetie Belle waking up in the middle of the night, thirsty for a glass of water, or of an obsessive, insomniac Rarity working late into the night, wondering if she just heard the front door open…

All second thoughts of hesitation evaporated, and Spike bolted into Carousel Boutique.

One look at the dim interior of the exquisite little shop left no room for speculation as to the lack of recent permitted visitors. The high humidity of creativity and the low pressure wind shear of a pre-sales quarter had met at an epicenter over a steamy ocean of consumer demand, thus creating tropical storm Hurricane Rarity—the ferocity of which the outlet had never before suffered.

Yet even in the calamitous wake of fabric and capriciousness, several scattered mannequins bedecked in the lush fruits of the fashionista’s labor stood undisturbed by the disaster. Some wore garments of pragmatic simplicity that still boasted highly intelligent design, others were dressed in fine, intricate wares that would be sure to capture the attention of anypony within sight. But above all others was a matching suit and gown fit for a married couple of deities.

Words like grace, elegance, and perfection seemed like an injustice against them. The immaculate white fabric shined like north stars through the shadows from the diamond dust sewn directly into the silk. Platelets of gold adorned with inset decorations of jewels were perfectly placed to emphasize features like the face or gender-specific traits, such as strength for the suit or the intricate curvatures for the dress.

The ensemble was a magnum opus if ever Spike saw one. And just a few paces away, in his own little eye of the storm, stood Avarice, posed to blaspheme the works of a goddess with the most unspeakable of atrocities.

Avarice inhaled a breath of air as deep as the pit from which he rose, intent on stealing as much of the smell as his lungs could carry. He looked back at Spike, eyes full of malicious intent and teeth flashing the most wicked grin they’d ever delivered. Without a word, he stepped out from his circle of evil, and headed straight for the display stage at the end of the room.

Spike charged across the layers of discarded cloth scattered about the floor and seized Avarice by his tail, snarling.

“Don’t you DA—”

Avarice whipped around and grabbed Spike by the snout, silencing all descent. His wings flared out like the demon of Bald Mountain.

“Oh, I would dare,” Avarice sneered. “And what could you do to stop me?”

Avarice reached out to touch the fabric of the pristine dress. Spike growled, fighting against the clasp with newfound wrath, but to no avail. Avarice just stood there, admiring the smooth silk under the gentle caress of his claws. He gazed upon the prestigious gown until his expression became wistful, then looked back at the insignificant dragon in his grasp.

“You have no idea how much I want to,” Avarice said, then withdrew his hand from Rarity’s creation. “But not tonight.”

Spike’s eyes darted between the dress and Avarice, too bewildered for words, temporary inability to speak legibly through his spite notwithstanding.

“There’s an ascending order to these things, remember?” Avarice said with a sly tilt of his head. “Besides, this isn’t about her. For once, it’s not even about me. This moment right now is about you. And that’s why we’re here to take something insignificant… something that she’d never miss...”

Avarice looked over to a locked treasure chest that had been cast into a corner and partially buried beneath several scraps of cloth. He smirked, then casually walked over to the chest, Spike still in hand, and snorted a whisp of flame at the lock. The lid cracked open with a soft clink, revealing a small trove of assorted gems.

In spite of Spike’s persistent and fervent protests, Avarice began to rummage through the array of jewels, fishing out three frosty, four-point bipyramid diamonds.

“Recognize these?” Avarice finally asked, gesturing to the diamonds he held and the jewels still in the chest. “These are all the stones that you dug out of the ground for her the last time the two of you went gem hunting. They’re all still here, all still unused.”

Spike clawed at the withholding hand again in a futile fit. Avarice just chuckled, tossing the diamonds up in the the air and letting them fall back down into his awaiting claws, admiring their refractions during their short-lived flights.

“They really are quite beautiful...” Avarice stated, then looked up towards the light seeping through the bedroom door and stole another deep breath.

Avarice looked back to Spike, who was still trying to tear his way out of the restraining grasp. Avarice just smirked at him, then closed the chest with his tail, locked it with another puff of fire, then headed back towards the front door. The two slipped back outside, Avarice twisted the key to put the deadbolt back in place, hid it back under the worn rug, then walked back to the stench-ridden sewers in silence.

Spike was still trying to tear Avarice’s digits to tatters. Avarice just looked at him with a crooked grin, then dropped him down into the noisome pit. Spike let out a short scream before hitting the bottom of the tunnel. Avarice followed after, bracing against the crossbars as he resealed the opening, breathed another light into existence, then hopped over Spike to the awaiting wagon and gently placed the three diamonds atop the collection. He took a moment to look upon them, regarding their presence with a contented grin. Avarice turned to deposit his treasures, only to find there was still another dragon in his way.

Spike’s entire body was shaking from truculence too vast for his little form to contain. His chest heaved, his fangs were bared, his fists had balled into maces, and he glared at Avarice with a look that could have made a basilisk wither and die.

Avarice, being no basilisk, just looked back with an impertinent smirk. “Problem?”

Spike only continued to attempt incinerating Avarice by leering at him.

All Avarice did was chuckle, then push the cart towards Spike. “Come on. I’ve had my fun for the night, and I know you want to go ‘home.’ So unless you’d like to try and figure your way out of this labyrinth by yourself, you’ll follow me.”

Much to Spike’s displeasure, Avarice still hadn’t caught fire.

“Or you can just sulk in the smell of rotten excrement until the authorities find you down here with a cart full of stolen property, some of which belongs to a mare who was just assaulted,” Avarice quipped.

Spike looked back at his wagon, stocked with ill-gotten gains. He thought of grabbing it by the sides and capsizing its load into the river of waste oozing parallel to him, but then he really looked at the things they’d taken: the mulberry mare’s hard-earned degrees and the smiling faces of foals she’d  taught; Vinyl’s equipment and the most prized records in her collection; the gems he’d so enthusiastically dug out of the ground for Rarity. None of these things belonged to either of them, and dumping them into the sludge would accomplish nothing but ruining them for good… on top of Avarice beating the snot out of him again.

If I just let these go back to the library, I can just give them back after I eventually tell Twilight and she imprisons Avarice in stone, he rationalized.

With a begrudging grumble, Spike took the wagon by the handle, and trudged towards Avarice, who just smirked at his compliance.

“Good.” Avarice started flipping through the albums he’d made Spike steal. “Now then, how about some music?”

Spike responded with his glower.

“I agree. I too am feeling a touch partial to classics of Itailian opera,” Avarice said to Spike as he got to the last album in the stack, removed Rigoletto from its plastic sleeve, and placed one of the records on the magically-enabled player.

“Act three, scene one,” Avarice off-handedly mentioned as he adjusted the needle to a particular spot, then looked up at Spike with a smirk. “I know that you’re familiar with this one...”

As Avarice passed with a cocksure stride, Spike just dubiously sneered back at him. Then the song started, and Spike’s eyes shot wide open in shock: he did recognize it. He snapped his head back and forth between the record player and Avarice, who just snickered in response, then hummed a few bars before straightening his posture and clearing his throat.

Spike’s mouth fell open. He’s not…

In a perfect tenor’s voice, Avarice did.

“La donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento,
Muta d'accento
E di pensiero.

“Sempre un amabile,
Leggiadro viso,
In pianto o in riso,
È menzognero.

“La donna è mobil'.
Qual piuma al vento,
Muta d'accento
E di pensier'!
E di pensier'!
Eeeeeeeeeeeee-eee-EEE di pensier'!

Spike was so enraged with fiery wrath that the cart handle had begun to glow red-hot with his hate. Avarice just shot him a sideways glance, snickered at the sight of Spike quaking like a volcano, then went back into his own little world.

“È sempre misero
Chi a lei s'affida,
Chi le confida,
Mal cauto il cuore!

“Pur mai non sentesi
Felice appieno
Chi su quel seno
Non liba amore!

“La donna è mobil'
Qual piuma al vento,
Muta d'aaaaaaaccento
E di pensier'!
E di pensier'!
Eeeeeeeeeeee-eeEEeeeeEEEE DI
PENSIEEEEEEEEEEEER’!”


- - - - - -


In a back alley nearby Golden Oaks library, the steel cover for the sewers slowly twisted open, then was shoved to one side. A few seconds passed before a wagon full of various items emerged from the darkness and was pushed ahead, followed shortly by Ponyville’s most wanted thief, with its resident scribe making up the rear.

“Now then,” Avarice explained as he replaced the cover, “let’s recap: by now, she’s put the entire Royal Guard on high alert while on a stealth mission, failed at impersonating the pony she was disguised as, twice compromised herself to Twilight, then ‘imprisoned’ her with the mare she was doubling as in a place they could easily escape from, and finally engaged in a battle against Celestia that she didn’t even know if she could survive. Yet despite all that, the changeling queen successfully seized Canterlot, captured you and your friends, and then instead of encasing you all in cocoons like she did with Celestia, she dismisses her guards and turns her back to gloat some more, giving Twilight enough time to reunite the hapless couple and pull a victory out from their collective asses. And while the two take an age to charge up a love-bomb powered by the same force that she just used to defeat Celestia, she just stands there, doing absolutely nothing!”

Spike replied the same way that he had to every opening throughout the conversation: with a cold scowl.

“I know, right?” Avarice gawked. “Stood there! Doing nothing! For thirty-five seconds! And yet the majority of Equestria seems to think she and the changelings were a legitimate threat, enough so that everyone and their mother’s has fabricated their own cockamamie story about them!”

Avarice stopped in his tracks, looking off in the distance to his right as he tapped his chin thoughtfully. “In fact, did anyone even get the queen’s name? She was as much of a narcissistic braggart as Trixie, and yet she never once even mentioned her own name… you wouldn’t happen to have caught it, would you?”

Spike answered with the same perpetual leer.

“No?” Avarice turned back around and huffed. “So all of Equestria was nearly conquered by an equinsect whose name nobody even knows. Smooth. You know, I’d like to bring this up to somepony who believes in that old myth about the Pantheon of Fates. Because if there is a collective of gods whose writings constitute all existence, the only explanation is that the quill was given to an idiot who subsequently wrote themselves into a corner… twice.”

Avarice looked back at Spike with a devious smirk. “In fact, you’d better hope that’s the case, since it means the actions of you and your so-called friends are just as reprehensible.”

Spike scoffed.

“Oh, don’t just dismiss this as more flippant ravings from the big mean dragon,” Avarice riposted. “The only reason Queen Ridiculous Sentiment even had a chance is because all of you were so intent on beating yourselves senseless with the stupidity stick. Whether or not Twilight was right, none of you even bothered to so much as pull her aside to ask, ‘What in Tartarus is wrong with you?’ Which puts you and Celestia especially at fault, because the both of you have known her for years, and yet you abandoned her for some floozy that you’d been around for only a day.”

Avarice let out a dark chortle. “For all those lessons the lot of you have had about friendship, you sure suck at it.”

“And who are you to lecture me?!” Spike finally retorted. “All you ever do is talk down about friendship, but what do you know about it?”

Avarice swerved back at Spike. “Everything that you do. I was trapped in your head for six months, remember? Incarcerated in a cell made of every memory that you used trying to suppress and indoctrinate me. What do you know about living in subjugation while something that you’re not imposes its ways on you?” He looked back to the library, then returned his gaze to Spike with a snort. “Never mind, I forgot who I was talking to.”

“Yeah,” Spike growled, “to the dragon who you’ve forced to serve you.”

Avarice smirked at Spike. “Not so fun when the horseshoe is on the other hoof, is it?”

“Don’t even think that makes us even.” Spike glowered back.

“Not even close,” Avarice replied. “You haven’t been trapped in my subservience for a relative lifetime yet. But hey, if friendship really is as all-important as you think it is, then you should survive with your idiosyncratic purviews as uncompromised as mine are, shouldn’t you?”

The corners of Spike’s mouth peeled back in abhoring disgust. “I wish Celestia would find out about you.”

“Well, if you want, you can buy out of our compromise for a handful of easy payments of a dead friend,” Avarice replied. “Even then, you can’t count on Celestia to save you.”

“Celestia beat Discord and Nightmare Moon,” Spike growled. “She’d have no trouble dealing with you.”

Avarice chuckled. “Those victories were over a millenium ago, Spike. She’s not bound to the Elements Ex Machina anymore, and I’m not the ‘stand there and do nothing’ type. And speaking of Celestia, that’s one other thing about the fallout of the Canterlot wedding incident-slash-fiasco which is another elephant to the herd in the room that one one wants to talk about. Queen What’s-Her-Name’s plan had more holes in it than her legs, yet she managed to deceive Celestia before defeating her with nothing more than a power boost from a useless, meatheaded stallion.”

“We’ve been over this,” Spike grumbled. “So what?”

“So what? The entire stability of the Equestrian oligarchy has been torn asunder! Celestia is looked upon as an impeccable goddess, and yet she turned her back on the very principles of friendship that the nation was supposedly founded upon just to show up Twilight after her tantrum at the rehearsals. Celestia has the power to perpetuate day and night, only to get her plot kicked by a changeling with nothing but an idiot ball and a dream. That wedding day disaster showed everyone whose eyes weren’t sewn shut that Celestia isn’t as eternal and perfect as everyone thinks she is. She can be fooled. She can be overpowered. She can be defeated.”

“Don’t go getting any funny ideas,” Spike growled, trying to sound threatening.

They had reached the back door of the library by now. Avarice put a claw to the entrance, then turned to Spike and smirked.

“Too late. They’re nice to fancy over, but that’s all they are: ideas. Last time I was still just a bad dream, I confirmed to your subconscious projection of Twilight that I’m not after Celestia,” he recalled, blinking once.

Avarice opened the door, then reached down to scoop up all the stolen valuables before crossing the threshold into the dark interior. That left Spike alone on the patio to put his wagon back into the shed before he went back inside and shut the door behind him.

Spike took a moment for himself, looking over the otherwise unoccupied kitchen and dining room without actually focusing on anything. The smell of his disposed lasagna still lingered in the air, but even hours later, he didn’t feel like eating anything.

That feeling of being out of place in his own home saturated him. He didn’t even think he could bear to look at anypony now, let alone be around his friends, or Twilight. He couldn’t even bring himself to think about Rarity at the moment.

With a sense that his feet were being weighted down and his heart feeling even heavier, Spike eventually left the kitchen to head upstairs. Unfortunately, that meant passing by Avarice, but he was too enthralled with carefully rearranging the materials hidden under the floorboards to pay Spike any acknowledgement, allowing the young drake to trudge up the staircase uncontested.

Spike approached the bedroom door, but all his forward energy dissipated before he could even reach out for the handle. He couldn’t bear to be anywhere near anypony, least of all one as magnificent as Twilight.

I don’t deserve friends like her, he morosely thought. Spike let out one last dreary sigh, then depressed the door handle, only for a whoosh to to rise from behind him and a steely arm to block the door from opening.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Avarice grilled.

“To bed,” Spike acerbically replied.

“Not yet, you’re not. Get in the shower, you smell like crap.”

Several seconds passed without Spike complying. Avarice let out a slight growl, grabbed Spike, and carried the struggling dragon into the bathroom, stripping the bandage off Spike’s head as he flipped on the light, ripped back the shower curtain and dumped him in the bathtub. Avarice reached down to crank on the hot water while his tail whipped up to knock the defiant Spike back into the tub when he tried to climb back out.

“Now just stay there until you’ve washed the smell off,” Avarice commanded as he walked back towards the door. He stopped at the counter to untie the pouch he’d dropped from his wing, then placed Spike’s marble on the countertop.

Avarice ducked down under the threshold, then turned to face Spike one more time with a jeering grin. “Try to get some rest. You’re going to need your energy again for tonight.”

The bathroom door closed before Spike could get a word in edgewise, leaving him alone, staring at the wooden entryway with an open mouth while jets of otherwise scalding water cascaded across his scales.

Again? Tonight?! What have I gotten myself into?

He looked away from the door, once more looking off in his mile-long stare to nowhere, mind reeling from the prospect of acting as an accessory to multiple felonies for an indefinite number of nights.

In that moment Spike realized that his heart rate was rising as his breaths were becoming swallow and frantic. He shut his eyes, trying to calm himself as he remembered his personal endeavor, and summoned the thought of his imaginary Twilight.

“Twilight—” His throat seized up almost immediately, just like it had the other night, paranoid that somepony might hear his confessions and pleas before he was ready to share them. Spike forced himself to slow his breathing, letting the hot steam soften his vocal chords.

“Twilight, I… need to tell you something… I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you earlier, but...” Spike’s larynx locked up again, forcing him to pause before continuing. “I got wrapped up in something terrible. I never meant for any of it to happen, but...”

His thyroid cramped as his fresh memories of the evening bit and tore at his thoughts. Stealing Vinyl Scratch’s most cherished records whilst she screamed in the ignorant bliss of fornication. Avarice pummeling him for picking at scars. Violating the serenity of Rarity’s sacred abode. That horrific look of shock and betrayal on that poor mare’s face, her voice echoing up through the mire of his mind.

“Spike?”

He flinched. His own name felt wretched to him, and hearing it spoken in the face of his treachery skewered him right to his heart. The fact that she knew his name just made her wounded expression all the more deleterious, and the way she looked up at Avarice with all the unbridled dread as if he was an executioner just as scarring.

The longer he dwelt on her, the more Spike could feel a gnawing void open up within him. She knew his name... and yet he didn’t know her’s, even though he had the uncanny notion that he should.

Spike tried thinking of any times that he might have seen her before now. He tried to remember if they had ever interacted. He attempted to recollect if there was a name out on her mailbox, or if he ever caught sight of a moniker that surely would have been written on her degrees. He tried to think of any reason why Avarice was so thrilled about her hat. He desperately tried to remember if he knew the mare’s name from anywhere.

Nothing. But that unprecedented sense that he somehow knew her still lingered, and Spike couldn’t figure out why.