Caponey and Morbits Break the Bank
"...given that the rate of manifestation of supervillain symptoms seems rather higher than expected, I find the effectiveness of our group of friends to be stretched thin. Therefore, please go and patrol the town, keeping an eye out for any suspicious or strange behavior. If you find a pony that's succumbed to their symptoms, do what you can to subdue them nonviolently or distract them until backup can arrive. Remember, they're not really evil, just sick.
Sincerely,
Twilight Sparkle (P.O.E.)
Starlight Glimmer set down the letter that had burned into existence in the middle of her lunch. "I guess it's just as well that the school's on holiday," she mused, "I can't imagine the kind of diplomatic incident it would cause if one of the foreign students got sick with evil."
"What does she mean 'patrol the town'?" Trixie held the message by a corner with her magic. The rest of her magic was busy parading the remains of lunch through a process of washing, drying, and storage. "Who does she think you are, Batmare?"
Starlight gave her a look. "Since when did you become such a comic book expert?"
Trixie fiddled with the letter and turned her eyes away. "It... may be the case that Trixie's guest room in the castle might also be where Spike keeps the overflow of his comic collection. And it may also be that Trixie has taken to reading one or two, late at night, when she is unable to fall asleep."
Starlight grinned, but said nothing. The grin said enough. "So this sounds like it might be interesting. You want to go 'patrol the town' for supervillains with me? Mix things up a little?"
Trixie reclined back in her chair as her magic finished up the last few dishes. "Trixie is... somewhat occupied now, and not in the mood for volunteer hero work."
"You can be my... uh... friendship deputy?" Starlight offered. She wasn't entirely confident that being a princess's pupil gave her any sort of power, let alone the power to deputize others, but a bribe was a bribe. And if she knew Trixie as well as she thought she did...
The showmare's eyes sparkled and revealed her true excitement. "The Great and Powerful Trixie accepts this position of power with the upmost grace and humbleness."
"Suure you do. Come on, let's see what it's like to actually take down a villain."
"This is boooring..." Trixie moaned. "We've been walking for hoours and there isn't the smallest hint of evil anywhere!"
Starlight rolled her eyes. "Trixie, it's been half an hour. Forty-five minutes tops. How do you possibly pull your wagon across the country if you get bored of walking this quickly."
"That's different." The azure unicorn straightened up. "Walking with the wagon has a purpose, to get from point A to point B. Not like this... aimless wandering through town, hoping we find something interesting."
Starlight nudged her. "I think you may have just gotten your wish. Take a look at that."
Off to one side, Town Hall seemed far busier than usual. Ponies rushed in and out so quickly they nearly collided with each other. There was a general rumble of noise and conversation that could be heard well outside it's walls. As well as shouting. Quite a good deal of shouting.
"It could be nothing, but it might be worth checking out." Starlight offered.
"Fine," Trixie consented, "Anything to break from this wandering."
When they got inside, the noise was even louder. The office was crowded, far more so than usual , and a by a lot of young stallions Starlight swore she'd never seen before. Not that she made it a habit to visit the town's hub of bureaucracy, but it was still a relatively small town. At the very center of it all was Mayor Mare, looking decidedly different today. Her usual collar had been replaced by a full jacket and tie, both pinstripe. She'd slicked back her mane with enough grease to make it shine in the light. At least the back of her mane, that is, for the front was covered by an equally pinstriped fedora. She also talked around a cigar she held in the corner of her mouth. It wasn't lit, in fact, the end hadn't even been snipped off. She just kept moving it from side to side as she spoke, like how some 'bad colts' would use a toothpick. She shouted orders at every passing colt with a strange affectation to her voice.
"And you tell Filthy that if he wants to see that sales tax kept down, he'd better start paying his protection money, see!"
Starlight and Trixie shared a look. It wasn't quite supervillainry, certainly not what they had personal experience with anyhow, but it certainly was out of the ordinary.
"Hello there Mayor Mare," Starlight greeted with only a slight nervous hitch to her voice. "What's... going on with you?"
"What's with all the goons?" Trixie asked with her usual bluntness. "Where did you even get goons? Trixie spent ages trying to get goons back when she... uh... back before."
The Mayor smiled, though her current fashion tastes made it look more sinister than she'd probably intended. "Nah, nah, no goons, ya see? Interns. Interns who'll do anything for the promise of employment, see?"
"Uh-huh." Starlight nodded in understanding, not that she did. "And what do you need so many interns for? What are you doing?"
"Why, I'm governing, see? I finally figured out why it seems so hard to get anything done around here." She paused to blow her nose violently into a thoroughly overused hanky. "Too many ponies looking out for nopony but themselves, you see. So I'm going to fix things, see. If the law won't back me up, then a couple of butch young stallions might."
Mayor Mare stood up to her full height (which was still a good half-hoof shorter than Starlight) as her impassioned speech went full monologue. "And then they'll see, they'll all see! Mayor Pencil Pusher from Fillydelphia, Mayor Pork Barrel from Whinnyapolis, even old uptight Mayor Marplot from Trottingham who thinks his town has more rustic charm than mine! No town has more rustic charm than Ponyville, see!"
Putting the Mayor's speech aside, as the rest seemed to be generally more of the same, Trixie leaned in to whisper to her compatriot. "So... what exactly are we supposed to do?"
"Should we do anything?" Starlight asked back, "I'm pretty sure she's infected, but weird motivations and shady practices aside, has she done anything illegal?"
"...because you know what they say," the Mayor continued, "Sometimes to make a beautiful omelette, you have the break a few legs, see."
"...Did she say legs?"
"I'm pretty sure she said legs."
"But so what if you have to break a few limbs or burn a few houses. If that's what it takes get my point across then that's what it takes, see?" She removed her fedora and placed it over her heart. "But it's okay, cause it's all for the greater good."
"The greater good..." all the interns murmured with freakish synchronicity.
Mayor Mare grinned as the two unicorns jumped. "I pay them extra to do that. Well, I promised to."
"Okay, that's enough. I am shutting this down." Starlight declared as she literally put her hoof down. All the unnecessarily muscular interns stopped moving and, as one, they turned to face their boss.
"Oh you are, are you?" Mayor Mare walked around her desk, blowing her nose once more in passing. Her voice dropped to a harsh whisper as she got right up in Starlight's face. "I think you might want to... reconsider that. See?"
"I.. I... why would that be?" Starlight's eyes darted, landing anywhere except the hardened eyes before her.
"Because this is my town, see? And I say what happens in my town. Maybe your taxes just up and disappear one day. Maybe you suddenly receive notice of several large high-interest loans taken out in your name. Who knows? Bureaucracy is more art than science. Sometimes these things just... happen, see?"
Starlight crumbled like a sand castle under the high tide of Mayor Mare's piercing gaze. Even with the 'experience' she gained as a guidance counselor of talking to ponies and trying to relate to them, this was too much. Had the mayor always had this presence that filled the room and made Starlight feel like a foal in a principal's office?
Trixie noticed the telltale signs of Starlight's self-esteem beginning to collapse and realized it was time to intervene. While she was, self-admittedly, not the best at relating to others, the one thing she could do well was out on a show. And assuming this supervillain virus played by comic book rules, then a bit a theatrics wouldn't go amiss. Perhaps a few words of advice from a former tyrant to a budding one.
She waltzed up to Mayor Mare's desk, cocky as anything, and leaned a lazy foreleg on it. "Mayor Mare, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that this is a social call."
The Mayor raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And what is it then?"
Trixie ignored the question and inspected the polish on her hoof. "You've got a nice racket here. Good plans, big plans. I can see a lot of bits passing through this office." She finally looked away from her hooves and made eye contact. "But you've forgotten something very important: your place in the pecking order."
Color seemed to drain from Mayor Mare's face. "You don't mean..."
"That's right." Trixie hopped around the desk and leaned back in the Mayor's chair. "We're here on the authority of Princess Twilight Sparkle." Rooting through a drawer, Trixie produced and put on a pair of sunglasses. "And there's going to be some changes around here."
"You- you can't possibly-"
"Trixie can and Trixie is." She cut off Mayor Mare's sputtering refusal. If a pony could have two special talents, then Trixie's secondary would undoubtedly by swaggering bravado. "The Princess's word is law, remember? What she says goes, and we have the permission to act in her stead." She held up the letter from earlier, just long enough for the signature and seal at the bottom to be seen before whisking it away in a flash of magic.
With a kick, she gave the chair a slow spin. "Don't you worry your little head though, the Princess isn't interested in shutting your operation down. You just need to learn to show the proper... respect."
"Respect? Respect?" Mayor Mare's voice practically shook in anger. "You come into my office, into my hall, in my city-"
"In the Princess's land." Trixie interrupted sternly. "The fact that you're still here at all is a charity that she does for you. After all, like you said, sometimes things happen unexpectedly. It'd be a terrible shame if you came into work one morning and found the whole town hall gone, replaced with a statue to her glory. She can do that. Trixie is not saying she will... but never forget that she can."
Emotions warred across the mayor's face. Anger, worry, even a small tinge of respect. Her body tensed, relaxed, and tensed again as options ran through her mind. She had been unprepared to have her own script flipped on her, and she well knew that that was exactly what Trixie was doing. Didn't make her argument any less sound though. After a long minute of silence, the Mayor bowed her head in defeat. "Alright, you've made your point, I see. What does the princess want?"
Now it was Trixie's turn to tense. Luckily the Mayor was still looking away. With a quick gesture, she motioned for Starlight to come over. She did and the pair entered a whispering huddle.
"That was amazing Trixie!" Starlight couldn't help but gush. "We have her right in the frog of our hoof!"
"Thank you," Trixie preened at the praise despite the circumstances. "That's years of acting and showmareship for you. But we have a problem."
She rubbed the back of her neck. "As Great and Talented as Trixie is, she was not totally sure that this would work. Trixie has no idea what to do now."
Slarlight's eyes widened. "You mean you came up with all that on the spot?"
"Yes! Trixie is the best at improv. Seriously though, Trixie has no idea where to go from here."
"Okay, uhhh..." Starlight's mind raced. What could she possibly say that would be believable and stop the Mayor from doing any unnecessary evil? "So, all this evil is a side effect of the flu, right? So once she recovers from the flu, she should be back to normal and not our problem anymore, right?"
"Sounds good enough for Trixie."
The two spun back around to the Mayor who had used the break to not-so-discretely blow her nose again. Starlight approached her while Trixie began edging for the door, just in case things went south. "Alright, here's what you should do. Shut down your operations for the next... ah... three days. Any schemes or rackets or exploits or anything. Then Twi- Princess Twilight will come make an assessment to decide just how much you should be paying her if you want to keep this operation running at all."
Mayor Mare growled under her breath, but refrained from complaining. "Fine," she spat before turning to her technically-not-hired goons. "Pack it in boys, you're getting a half-day."
One stallion raised a hoof. "Uh...I need to get a certain number of hours for this to count for class credit, so...?"
His boss rolled her eyes at his incompetency. "Just mark it as a whole day, see? I'll sign off on it."
His raised hoof dropped into a fist pump and a very quiet "Yes!". Starlight and Trixie took the chance to leave as everypony began packing up their things.
"I think that went rather well, don't you?" Starlight commented as she and Trixie trotted away from the much less busy Town Hall.
"After a few hiccups, yes. It occurs to Trixie that the hero business might not be so tough after all."
"Pull!" a voice suddenly called from ahead of them, "I said pull you whiny twerps!"
"But we're tired!" a nasally second voice replied.
"And hungry!" added a huskier third.
"You stop," the first one picked back up again, low and menacing, "And I destroy Ponyville. Now," there was a sound like something being smacked against a hoof. "Do you want to stop, or do you want houses, and roads, and neighbors?"
"Full speed ahead!" The other two cried, followed by the sound of something grinding against the dirt.
Starlight and Trixie shared a look. Whoever or whatever it was, it certainly sounded supervillainous. 'And I'll destroy Ponyville' isn't exactly a phrase that crops up often in normal conversation. Outside of smack talk from rival sports teams, at least. They thought about rushing forward to meet the threat, but there was no need. The grinding was getting louder and seemed to be coming from a nearby side street.
The first things two enter their view was two local colts. Starlight thought she recognized them, but only vaguely. Trixie however, knew them far too well. One was short and fat with a teal coat, while the other was tall and lean and colored like a banana just a shade or two past ripeness. Snips and Snails. The foals that had inadvertently led to her being run out of town for the first time. They were struggling to pull something that clearly did not want to move via a rope harness. Their hooves dug into the ground with every step, but they made progress, if barely.
Slowly, the thing they pulled came into view. To call it a cart or wagon would be inaccurate, as both of those have wheels. A large sled would be closer, but sleds at least had runners. This could best be described as a Princess sized bed, four posters and all, constructed of mahogany, gold, and red velvet. It was a beautiful piece of craftsponyship, with sculpted feline-esque heads and giant golden wings. The only less impressive parts were a section at the front where some sort of figurehead or hood ornament had clearly been broken off, and a portion along the sides where a pink paint job covered something up.
Trixie was about to comment when Starlight beat her to it. "Wow that is gaudy! I mean... just wow. Are you seeing this Trixie? I mean, what kind of pony does it take to even design something like that?"
Trixie swallowed her words, whistled, and looked absolutely anywhere else.
Meanwhile, the blast from Trixie's past continued to slowly slide along, finally revealing it's rider: A young filly with a pink coat, two-tone mane, megaphone, and thoroughly well-bedazzled box of tissues.
"Faster you nitwits!" she yelled through her megaphone, "Unless you like the idea of living in rubble!"
"Yes Diamond Tiara!" they both yelped as they struggled to pull faster.
"That's Princess Diamond you morons, get it right! Now," she turned the dial on her megaphone up a notch, "Tell me I'm pretty!"
"Very pretty!"
"The prettiest!"
Princess Diamond's bloodshot eyes surveyed her domain until they landed on two unicorns who were most decidedly not bowing in respect as she passed. She scowled at the insolent inferior lifeforms. How dare they not acknowledge her greatness?
Trixie broke eye contact from the filly's withering gaze and turned to Starlight. "Trixie will let you take point. This feels more like a guidance counselor case."
Starlight nodded and stepped up to the palanquin, the angry filly's eyes never leaving her. "Hi there!" Starlight greeted as disarmingly as she could muster. "Diamond... Tiara, isn't it? You don't have to to this. You're sick. Why don't you come down from there and we'll take you home. "
The filly scowled. "Don't have to do this? You insolent little bug, I want to do this! It's my right, my destiny!"
Starlight moved to back away, but suddenly found herself pulled even closer by a red aura. Since she wasn't very familiar with the filly, Starlight hadn't noticed that she'd swapped her silver tiara for a large golden crown with a red gemstone in the middle. A gemstone which was now glowing furiously. Diamond pulled their faces so close together that they were almost touching noses. "Look at me." she ordered, "I am your Princess now." She held up a strange black book in the aura of her crown's magic. "And with this on my side, there's nothing you can do to me. I can turn this town to rubble if I want."
She threw Starlight aside, back to the ground where Trixie stood in shock. "Okay," she groaned as she picked herself up. "What's plan B? Do we have a plan B?"
"The obvious solution for a supervillain is to fight them," Trixie said as a touch of nervousness entered her voice, "However the Great and Powerful Trixie feels conflicted about being asked to fight a small sick filly."
"Sounds to me like you're scared, lesser and forgettable Trixie!" Princess Diamond sneered from her high ground.
A look came over Trixie's face as her expression hardened. "...the Great and Powerful Trixie is over her conflicted feelings ."
"No!" Starlight cried, jumping between the pair, "We can't fight her! No matter how evil she is, she's still just a sick, confused filly. Plus, what if she's serious about a town-destroying superweapon?"
"Trixie is open to suggestions," the showmare said impatiently. "Would you like Trixie to find a rock for you to bang on her throne with? That worked so well last time."
Starlight gave her a stonefaced stare but said nothing. She cast a spell and the magic crown disappeared from Diamond's head and reappeared in Starlight's hoof.
"Hey!" the recently de-royaled princess protested, "Give that back! That was a birthday present from Daddy!"
"Oh." Said Trixie, embarrassed for having overlooked such a simple solution to their problem. She lit her horn as well and a black book appeared in her hoof. Another spell, and the terrible superweapon was transmogrified into a teacup.
"Noooooo!" her cries were a plaintive wail now, "Not Daddy's checkbook! Now how am I supposed to buy up the town then pay for it to be demolished to make way for my palace?"
Starlight rolled her eyes. Of course it was something like that. Why had she been so worried? All in all, it was only just a filly with an overblown ego. Both Twilight and the newspaper had said that the sickness didn't give you any special powers. She wrapped the still protesting Diamond Tiara in a magical bubble and hoisted her off her platform. "Trixie, I'll take her back to her house for her parents to deal with. Could you do something with this... thing?" She gestured to the golden monument of shame. "Also," she addressed the colts, "You can stop pulling now, I've disarmed her."
They collapsed to the ground immediately, huffing and puffing. Trixie offered them her tea, which they gratefully drank (even though it tasted ever so slightly of ink).
With two for two villains subdued or disarmed, both Trixie and Starlight were feeling pretty good about themselves.
If only they'd realized at the time that these events were only the overture to the main event, then maybe they could have stopped it.
But they didn't, and so the band played on.
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OK that sounds ominous or would if it wasn't for how well all the 'villians' are doing in this story. Ponders how Filthy is going to react to the checkbook thing
I have to appreciate how the word "humility" literally isn't in Trixie's vocabulary.
In any case, excellent show by both Friendship Patrolmares. (It's a working title.)
Everyone always does the same thing to Mayor Mare.
Hm.
I mean at least your solution was brilliant.
I take it this means that things are gonna get interesting?
Seriously, though, I don't think anything is going to top Applejacknife from the beginning.
Next week: It's Starlight vs Starlight as her infected self arrives...from THE FUTURE!
The Boulder greatly appreciates this reference!
Also, it was great to see Trixie turn the tables on Mayor Don. She's got a great point about the power of a Princess vs a mayor.
9171104
I have only one thing to say to this:
Pinkemena.
Diane
Pie.
I'm extremely disappointed Starlight didn't dress as Batmare to patrol the city against supervillains. I mean, c'mon, she was TOLD to do it! By royalty! She has the PERFECT excuse!!
Specially considering she could get her waifu to dress up skimply to be her sidekick. For shame Starlight, for shame!
9171211
oh no! CUPCAKES!!!
Well then, play on, band! After all, we can't have supervillains being villainous without some music to set the mood, right?
can i just say that my sides hurt like crazy from the laughter
9171211
The big question is: which one?
Cupcakes
Smile HD (earned my personal badge of GG: GORE GALORE)
And of course let’s not forget Scissor Twilight, Rainbow “you’re dead to cloudsdale” Dash, Lil Miss Rarity, and fuckign Murdershy. If you know any more, tell me. I want to know them all...
Question. Have you seen the movie Hot Fuzz? If not you must see it.... for the greater good!
Twerps ok is this Jessie or James?
Alondro, severely infected with the virus, decides to create a virus to destroy all life in the universe!
"To think, with the slightest pressure of my finger, enough to break the glass, would be the end of... EVERYTHING! Yes... I WOULD do it! That power would put me above the gods! AND THROUGH THE HARLOCKS, I SHALL HAVE THAT POWER!!"
3.bp.blogspot.com/-q3XkMHWlr5Y/UafOsxYiQrI/AAAAAAAAHks/RS_ooq8yTuQ/s1600/davros+horsing++around+-trotsworth.png
"But so what if you have to break a few limbs or burn a few houses. If that's what it takes get my point across then that's what it takes, see?" She removed her fedora and placed it over her heart. "But it's okay, cause it's all for the greater good."
I'm not sure what it says about me that my first thought when reading that was that somepony was shooting clay pigeons.