Friendship is Optimal but Sanity is Optional

by BlazingSaddles69

Chapter 12, Of Mice and Stallions

I surveyed the marketplace from a nearby rooftop. The building was perfectly placed with open sightlines on every part of the market plaza. It also had great acoustics. I could hear almost everything going on in the entire market. Like a majestic pigeon stalking its popcorn prey, the ponies below were blissfully unaware of my presence.

Gaining access to the roof had presented its own challenge however.

---

A small bell rang when I opened the door to the clothing store and stepped inside.

There were mannequins wearing dresses everywhere I looked. The dresses were certainly much puffier than the modern day super revealing dresses that I’ve seen in the Human Realm. Not to mention they looked more than a little odd to my human sensibilities. The dress on the nearest pony shaped mannequin looked like a strange combination of Victorian ballgown, quinceañera dress, and horse tack.

I couldn’t bad mouth just the dresses though. At least they weren’t as bad as the tuxedos I’d seen on display in some Canterlot stores. Why didn’t any of them have pants? Logic like that only served to emphasize the fact that this world was based off a cartoon. I couldn’t imagine showing up to a black-tie event without any pants on. I had a weird uncle that made that mistake once. It did not end well for him.

“Welcome to the Elegant Derby! We’ll help you win the race of love!” A short unicorn mare greeted me with the corporate slogan, “My name is Silk Spinner, how can I help you today, Sir? Are you looking to buy a dress for your special somepony?”

“No, I was actually wondering if I could borrow the roof of your building. I want to use it to spy on the ponies in the market,” I asked, turning my attention back to the mare, “I assume that you have a rooftop access somewhere. It’s probably in your attic. I promise that I’ll be very quiet. You won’t even know I’m up there.”

Silk Spinner’s left eye twitched.

Was it something I said?

---

After she tossed me out of the store with her magic, I’d been forced to improvise.

Climbing up here had been difficult. There was no direct access to the roof from the outside of the building. Not even a single conveniently placed fire escape. I couldn’t just climb up the side of the building. I was an earth pony damn it, not a mountain goat!

My experience playing Minecraft provided me with the solution to that particular problem. Namely, I’d pushed a dumpster up against the rear of the building and then stacked boxes on top of it to create a staircase to the roof. Not exactly a professional construction effort, but it got the job done.

Not completely satisfied, I tried to improve the visual look of the improvised staircase. Namely, I drew upon all the knowledge I learned in kindergarten arts and crafts class. First, I covered the boxes in glue and glitter, but that just made the problem of aesthetics even worse. Adding dried pieces of macaroni and hoof style fingerpaint to the mix didn’t help either. Especially when the glue, glitter, macaroni, and paint smeared onto the building that the boxes were pressed up against. Some of the boxes themselves had even adhered to the wall of the building, because I used way too much glue. The end result was an unbelievable eyesore.

In hindsight, I should have just bought a ladder.

It was in the afternoon, exactly when Charlatan liked to prowl the area. My traps had been placed. Setting up all those traps had been both slow going and nerve racking. But now it was time to wait and see what nibbled.

The Princess had been incorrect. The term figurative idiom, as the name suggested, only applies when you are speaking figuratively. I was thinking more in terms of a literal idiom.

*Snap!*

“Ow! Son of a diamond dog!” A pegasus stallion on the street below swore.

He pulled his hoof out of his saddlebag revealing a mousetrap clamped onto the tip of his hoof. It was one of those simple kinds of mousetraps. Just a rectangular piece of wood with a metal arm kept under tension with a tightly wound spring. He pulled the trap off with an annoyed snort and tossed it into a trashcan. He looked around for the culprit, but gave up when nopony came forward.

How do you win a game of cat and mouse? With a mousetrap! With my pickpocketing skills, I had snuck rigged mousetraps into the saddlebags of more than twenty random ponies. I had been able to get the mousetraps for cheap, because I bought them in bulk. With the bits to serve as bait, it was only a matter of time until Charlatan stumbled into my clever trap. I’d also wanted my plan to involve a horde of feral cats, but I couldn’t figure out the logistics of it, so I’d been forced to settle for just using the mousetraps.

Sometimes my genius astounds even me. Although Princess Celestia gave me a weird look when I explained my plan to her. I guess my smartness was too much for her to wrap her mind around. Sure, my plan was causing some…

*Snap!*

“Yowchie!” This time it was an earth pony mare that cried out.

Collateral damage. But I was willing to heroically allow other ponies to make unwitting noble sacrifices for the sake of helping me to achieve my goals. That’s what teamwork was all about. Even if the ponies below didn’t know that they were on my team… or that they were even playing.

Like the old saying goes, there is no ‘i’ in ‘team’ but there is a ‘u’ in ‘suffer in the name of my success’ (two of them actually) and there was also a ‘u’ in ‘this is going to suck.’

Where was I going with that train of thought again?

Boredom was beginning to set in, which was why my mind was wandering. The waiting was killing me. I’d been standing around on this roof for three whole minutes now. Why hadn’t Charlatan shown up yet? My patience was wearing thin.

*Snap!*

“Gah!”

“Huh? Hey, get out of my saddlebag! Help, guards!” A voice cried out.

We got a live one! I looked in the direction that the voices were coming from and spotted my quarry. Charlatan stumbled backwards, mousetrap still attached, as her would be victim shoved her away. She stumbled backwards, losing her balance before collapsing to the ground.

“Mwehehehe!” I chuckled quietly. I had outwitted and embarrassed her. Revenge is mine!

I must not have been quiet enough. Charlatan looked up at the roof and made eye contact with me, “Dark Mask?”

The look of betrayal in her eyes cut me deeply. All the way to my soul.

Some guards at the other end of the market spotted the commotion and began to move in her direction. That was not a part of the plan! I wanted to outsmart her, not get her arrested. Maybe I didn’t think this through all the way?

Struggling back to her hooves, Charlatan ripped the mousetrap off with her teeth. The mousetrap had nailed her right on the frog of her hoof. She let out a pained gasp when she put weight on the injured limb. She limped as she attempted to flee, but she wasn’t going anywhere fast.

The guards were approaching quickly. In seconds they had her boxed in. An earth pony guard dive tackled her to the ground. Charlatan struggled, but as a unicorn going up against an earth pony in close quarters, she didn’t stand a chance.

I ducked down low so the guards wouldn’t see me. Peeking over the edge of the roof, I watched as the guards clapped a pair of hoofcuffs on her. Once she was pacified, they dragged her away.

What have I done? I had just caused a fellow thief to get caught by the city guard. I had broken the Thieves’ Code, dishonored myself and violated my own deeply held ethical beliefs. What about my pride as the soon-to-be greatest thief in Equestria? Did I have no sense of shame or self-respect?

*Snap!*

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” A thestral stallion screamed.

I needed to make this right. I opened my inventory and pulled out my journal. It was time to pencil in a new quest. My pony held the pencil in his teeth as I put a checkmark next to the entry for Get Revenge, then I added a new item below that: Bust Frenemy Out of Jail.

I got the feeling that I was forgetting something else. Some other mess that I had caused and should probably clean up. My mind was drawing a blank though. This was driving me crazy. What could it be?

*Snap!*

“Eeeeee! It hurts!”

By this time, some ponies in the crowd had noticed and were warily ogling their own saddlebags.

Oh right, the other mousetraps! There were still more than fifteen traps left out there. Those saddlebags were like ticking time bombs. It was only a matter of time until their owners stuck their hoof inside and set it off. I should probably do something about that.

Now that I thought about it, discreetly disarming the other traps was going to be difficult. Especially since I hadn’t bothered to remember which ponies I had bobby trapped.

Hmmm… nope! I didn’t have time for that. I would just leave the other traps where they were and hope for the best. Sure, all those ponies were in for a world of hurt, but time was of the essence.

I had caused Charlatan to get arrested. My sense of ethics was clear. I had a (not so innocent) mare to save from jail.

Moving to the edge of the roof, I climbed down the staircase made of boxes. Nearing the bottom, the whole structure wobbled precariously. As soon as I reached solid ground, it leaned dangerously to the side. Like a Jenga tower, it slowly toppled over with a thunderous crash. More glue, glitter, macaroni, paint, and chunks of wood from the boxes splattered on the wall of the clothing store. It was probably the most bizarre act of vandalism that Canterlot had ever witnessed. I didn’t envy the building’s owner when the time came for them to clean up the disaster I had just made.

Speaking of which, I could now hear somepony moving around inside the store. They were likely about to come outside to investigate the source of the noise. It was time to make myself scarce. Slinking out of the alleyway, I blended in with the oblivious crowd.

Moments later, Silk Spinner’s voice cried out, “What the buck is this!? Who created this mess?”

Not my problem.

I needed to focus all my attention on pulling off a jail break.

This was going to be my most difficult undertaking in this game yet. But I already had the beginnings of a plan in my mind. All I needed was a fedora, a counterfeit reporter’s press pass, two bags full of live snakes, and a notepad. I could buy all of those things here at the market. Well, maybe not the fake press pass, but I’m sure that Cut Purse could use his connections to hook me up with one.

But before I could start my shopping spree, I needed to obtain some more spending money. It was time for the ponies of Canterlot to “donate” to the Get Charlatan out of Jail Fund.

A pegasus mare with a neon green mane and a bullseye for a booty mark was the first kind hearted donor that I singled out of the crowd. Initiating the minigame, I stuck my hoof into her bag.

*Snap!*

What did I do to deserve this? Had I wronged someone in a past life? That was the only thing I could think of that would cause such bad karma.

The mousetrap had taken off about five percent of my health bar. Thankfully, the pony I had tried to rob was too busy staring at the ranting mare from the clothing store to notice. It was a good thing that pain cannot be transmitted through a PonyPad. That was the only reason why I didn’t scream.

Comments

[TheJacksonFive]

Incredible