Elements of Larceny

by TheManWithTwoNames

Rating: teen
Tags: Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Original Character, Spike, Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders
Length: 20781

Two Manehattan thieves pull the greatest jewel heist in history.

Greed can drive a pony to do crazy things. And when Manehattan con artist Masky catches wind of a story about the flashiest gems in all of Equestria, the smell of bits is just too strong to pass up. He'll drag his dragon accomplice through the hell that is an innocent rural town, contending with lecherous grannies, fresh country air, belligerent farmers, a score of hysterical dames, screaming children, and a dangerously business-minded Pinkie Pie to get his hooves on those jewels, or get somepony else to die trying.

Published 2012-03-18 18:24:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-07-27 02:17:02 UTC

Welcome Wagon

Elements of Larceny

A “My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic” fanfiction

By TheManWithTwoNames

“My Little Pony” and all subsequent properties used to belong to Hasbro and Lauren Faust, but some weird green pony showed up and now they can’t find it anywhere.
Masky and Patsy are the results of some insane fever dream I had one time.

It wasn’t fair! By Celestia’s beard, it just wasn’t fair! He was so close! He could practically taste those gems, and they had slipped through his hooves like a greased up purse. Was it too much to ask for just one little heist to go off without a hitch? But it didn’t matter now, not when it had all gone so wrong.

“Would you get off the ground and quit your moaning already?”

“My hooves are killing me, Patsy!” Masky cried in agony.

“You’re the one who said we couldn’t stop until we got to the place.”

“It’s the air,” Masky rasped. Patsy took a deep breath and visibly relaxed.

“Country air does have a much fresher taste to it,” Patsy conceded.

“I swear it’s toxic,” Masky manage to say between coughing fits. “It’s so empty. It’s like I’m not even breathing anything. This is it. This is hack the end. I’m going to suffocate out here. Come ‘ere, Patsy,” he beckoned his apathetic partner closer. “When I’m gone... promise me... huhack... promise me... you won’t touch my stuff.”

Patsy rolled his eye and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He felt a small flame churning in the back of his throat and simply let it burn for a bit before he extinguished it with his tongue. He exhaled and spewed a thick, black smoke at Masky, completely shrouding him in the smog.

After a few seconds, Masky happily trotted out of the cloud, a few traces of smoke trailing from him. “Aaaah,” he sighed, breathing out a small plume of black smoke, “tastes like the air back home. That’s air with substance, lemme tell ya. Not like this filtered, organic gunk they got out here.”

“This really speaks volumes about the environment in the city,” Patsy said dully as the two resumed their march.

“Horseradish! That sounds like hippie talk to me, and I won’t hear any of it,” Masky growled warningly. “Those tree huggers are up to something, mark my words.”

“Maybe they just want to plant more trees to hug.”

“Fat chance. You can’t trust anypony who’d chain themselves up to stop some overgrown twigs from being cut down. Or some dame who’d dip their hair in a vat of paint and say that ‘it’s for the animals.’ That kind of thinking isn’t natural.” Masky grit his teeth in the telltale sign that his train of thought was about to skip a few tracks. “If they had their way, we’d be back to the Stone Age, kicking rocks around and nibbling on grass next to some rabbits! Hippies are all enemies of ponykind, and once the big cheeses in Canterlot realize it, they’re all going down.”

Having lived with Masky long enough to know when a conversation could only get worse, Patsy quickly changed the subject.

“Have you ever thought of taking up smoking?”

“What’s got you going now?” Masky grunted.

“If you like that Manehattan air so much, maybe you should think of taking up smoking while we’re out on your wild goose chase.”

“Criminy, Patsy, I would have thought I’d have raised you better,” Masky said, rubbing his temples in frustration. “I ain’t putting those death sticks anywhere near me. Those quacks in the news say that the smoke is murder on the lungs.”

“You have to be kidding me right now,” Patsy said flatly, doing his best to hide his incredulity and utter bafflement at the claim.

“Dead serious.”

Patsy stared at him in silence for a while, trying to determine if Masky didn’t listen to himself when he talked, if he actually believed everything that came out of his mouth, or if he was just trying to get him worked up for a sick laugh. He’d known the con artist for all his life, and Patsy still had trouble figuring out how his accomplice ticked. And while part of him hoped Masky really was as pigheaded as he seemed, just so he could cash in on a lifetime’s worth of ‘I told you so’s’, another part reluctantly reminded him that things generally worked out for the two of them. Which would imply either some method to his madness or just plain dumb luck. A third part of him encouraged him to eat everything in sight and burn whatever was left, but he made a point to ignore his primal instincts until he had the muscle to get away with it.

But after a day of non-stop trekking from the big city to the middle of nowhere, Patsy had begun to wonder if Masky knew something about their targets that he wasn’t sharing. The dragon had already expressed his doubts that the most valuable treasures in Equestria would be kept in some backwater farm town, and his thoughts were carefully considered and immediately shrugged off with an aggravated “Bah.” Patsy weighed his courses of action, and the decision to ask what Masky had planned just narrowly beat out the decision to roast and eat him.

“So what exactly makes you think that the Elements of Harmony are going to be in...?” his voice waned as he tried to remember the name of the town.

“Ponyville,” Masky finished the thought.

“Ponyville? Seriously? Who’s the genius who came up with that name?”

“Probably some hick farmers,” he said with a shrug.

“That sounds about right. So why are we going to Ponyville instead of Canterlot where they keep all of the important stuff? I’m not saying that plan would be any less moronic, but it still would make more sense than this.”

“The word on the street is—egh, let’s stop for a second, my hooves are killing me again. Hey, quit giving me that look. The word on the street is when that Discord nut popped up, first thing he did was snatch the elements right out from under the princess’ nose. And it’s obvious to anypony with two braincells to rub together that they wouldn’t stash them in the same place twice, so where else could they be?” Masky explained, grinning smugly at his explanation.

“By that logic, literally anywhere in Equestria,” Patsy said tensely.

“Well, boo on you,” he snapped back. “The other word on the street is that the princess’ go to gals live in Ponyville, so we can get them to squeal about where the goods are tucked away.”

“And where did you hear that little nugget?” the juvenile dragon asked skeptically. Masky responded by clearing his throat and looking at a very interesting cloud. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“...Chet Rippo?”

“Oh! Well then, how could I have ever doubted our mission? I never knew we got our information from Chet Rippo himself! This changes everything!” Patsy cried out, throwing his arms to the sky and taking a daring step closer to Masky. “What other grains of wisdom did he bequeath on you? Any advice on how to keep a trashcan fire burning for twice as long? Or maybe how to stop the Illuminati from reading your thoughts? Or perhaps he just mumbled something along the lines of ‘escrow re-financing with the tin can down at the bus stamp.’ Tell me if I’m close.”

“There’s no need to get your tail in a twist.”

“You dragged us out to the middle of bumbuck nowhere because of the ramblings of a crazy homeless guy!” Patsy shouted.

“To his credit, he’s usually pretty accurate with his tips,” Masky said defensively.

“Just how many times have you gone to him for information?” Patsy growled.

“I don’t think I have to tell you,” Masky said coolly as he strode past his accomplice to put as much distance between himself and the fire-spitting reptile as possible. He watched from the corner of his eye as Patsy stomped around in circles, sputtering some incoherent syllables and kicking up dirt, and could only wonder where he learned to be so crabby when he had such a level-headed character for a role model.

“So, what’s our plan, anyway?” Patsy grumbled after he caught up.

“We steal the elements and then get filthy rich,” his partner explained while internally cursing the crumb who had the bright idea to lay down a road over a hill big enough to hide a train inside. He considered the idea for later use when Patsy was big enough to put a new twist on train robberies.

“That’s really more of a goal than a plan.”

“Fine! First, we steal the elements. Second, we get filthy rich!” Masky’s excitement was enhanced by the satisfaction of reaching the top of the hill.

“Ah, well that’s much clearer.” Patsy grunted when a hoof caught him in the chest and stopped him in his tracks. He followed the Masky’s eyes to what he imagined was their destination standing just a few miles in the distance.

Masky and Patsy shared a groan when they looked down at the buildings and wondered what kind of monkey they had in charge of zoning to wind up with everything all so thoughtlessly scattered about. Some buildings were completely isolated on the very outskirts of the town with nothing but open space for a quarter of a mile in every direction, while in other places there were some so tightly bunched together that it wouldn’t have surprised them to learn if they were trying to build a tower and the top half just fell off. Every wooden cottage looked like it had snuck away from a filly’s disgustingly saccharine fairy tale. All were painted the same blinding shade of white, topped with thatched roofs and plastered with cheery little windows. Trees dotted the sides of the grass roads that wound around Ponyville, and there was just a single peaceful stream that passed close to the edge of the town.

A few of the buildings did break the mold. Conspicuously so, Patsy thought. One corner of the town was dominated by acres upon acres of farmland. He would have to start thinking of a few redneck jokes on the chance they stopped by the farmhouse to snatch some food. His whining stomach reminded him that he hadn’t gotten the chance to eat for over a day, and the combination of hunger and exhaustion made him wonder if he was hallucinating the building made out of candy and frosting. His private theory about the village escaping from a fairy tale was getting stronger by the second.

“I’m gonna blow my wig if I wait any longer. Shake a leg, Patsy,” Masky called over his shoulder as he trotted down the hill. “We’ll slip in, grab the goods, and slip out and be like eggs in coffee.”

“Easy there, Masky. You don’t want to add too many steps to the plan. Its beauty was in its simplicity,” he said as he ran just behind him. Masky came to a stop faster than Patsy could react, earning him a face full of pony posterior before he fell onto his back with a pained wheeze.

Masky rubbed his chin in thought for a few seconds before his eyes lit up and his mouth warped into his signature grin.

“Thanks for reminding me. Can’t be using real names while on the job or we’ll lead the cops right to us, see? So when we’re out in the field, you call me Slick.”

“And what’s my alias?”

“You’re Patsy,” Masky said simply.

“Oh no, I’m not going be the one left holding the bag when this all goes to bits,” Patsy said, waving a claw at Masky’s snout. “I’ll be Smoke.”

“I’m still calling you Patsy.”

“Then I’m not calling you Slick!”

“You will if you know what’s good for you! I could get a lot of scratch from selling dragon bones, you get me?” The two thieves butted heads, their eyes locked, daring the other one to try to be tough. Finally, Patsy snorted a tuft of hot air at Masky’s face and turned his head away indignantly.

“Fine. But you can’t be wearing your mask when we’re there or ponies will start to ask questions,” he said. It wasn’t often that Patsy was able to stun Masky into silence, and even then, then the pony’s very nature wouldn’t allow him to stay quiet for long, but Patsy always relished those special periods of silence. It was like someone had taken a big, obnoxious, loud-mouthed vice off his head.

“What the hay is this booshwash?”

Clamp.

“If you go in there wearing that, you might as well be wearing a shirt that says ‘Hello, Ponyville! I’m a crook! Please arrest me!’”

“Well seeing as my name’s Masky, I think I can explain that away.”

“A-ha!” Patsy shouted, his mouth cocked into a grin of his own. “So there you go. You can either be Slick or keep the mask. Take your pick.”

Patsy could practically smell the smoke coming out of Masky's ears as he ground his teeth together in a twisted grimace. It was the first time he ever had to choose between ensuring that he could pull off a con and making sure he kept his stylish flair while doing it. After much thought and even more swearing, Masky made the wisest possibl edecision.

“Fine. No aliases,” he grunted as he brushed past the smug dragon, making sure to bump into him and knock him a step back as he went. “But now we have to be extra covert, you read me?”

“I’m not allowed to read, remember?”

Patsy smiled innocently at Masky's growl.

==========

“Welcome to Ponyville, The Apple of Equestria’s Eye!” Patsy read aloud as they stood in front of the gate to the town. A painfully colorful billboard stood proudly outside of the town, depicting a scene of smiling ponies laughing and playing together under a sunny sky. It was the kind of complete harmony and friendship you’d only ever see in a school foal’s arts and crafts project, or in a cultist colony.

“Population: Four hundred ninety-five,” he continued, “I’m surprised. I hadn’t expected the locals to be able to count that high.”

“Enough mucking around, Patsy, we got work to do,” Masky said with a trace of excitement as he began dragging his accomplice by the arm toward the gate.

“Do you think we could get something to eat before we get started? I feel like I’m self-digesting here.”

“Again? We just ate.”

“We haven’t eaten in two days!”

“Huh. Fine, we’ll grab a bite if there’s time,” Masky shrugged as he crossed through the gate and entered the town. “But I don’t want anypony recognizing us. We’re being covert, remember?”

Before another word could be said, the whine of a siren tore through the air, a sound that the criminals had heard far too often to ever mistake. A cart with flashing red and blue lights flew down the streets heading directly for the entrance of the town. The sole pony riding on the vehicle had her eyes narrowed on the new arrivals with an intense purpose.

“Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! A fine welcome to you!”

Masky wasted no time in dashing for the nearest alleyway, barreling into confused ponies and knocking them to the ground in his frantic escape. He cursed the town as the alley did nothing to disorient their pursuer, being little more than just the space between two buildings rather than an extension of a labyrinthian safe haven. No sooner had he tumbled out of the alley than they found the cart fast upon him again, swerving around terrified locals with pinpoint precision.

“You’ll never take me alive, coppers!” Masky shouted theatrically as he galloped down the road, kicking up as much dirt as possible in an attempt to hide his escape which only served to cover a pair of squealing purple and silver fillies with dust. His mind was racing as he snapped his head back and forth, trying to find someplace with a large enough mob to vanish into. He was completely baffled when he could only find wide, open streets with any ponies walking around giving a respectful berth to anyone around them.

“What kind of savages live in this place? Haven’t they ever heard of crowding?!”

“Check it out!” Patsy shouted over the growing cry of sirens, his single eye wide with excitement as he dashed down a new road. Masky swore and doubled back after his accomplice, finding a long street lined with tables, each displaying all kinds of fruits and vegetables and other goods. He spotted Patsy rushing toward a table of eggs, claws greedily bared to grab himself a quick snack. Masky ran at him just in time to swipe the eggs out of his hands.

“Good thinking, kid!” Masky cheered as he threw the carton of eggs at the approaching wagon. The white shells exploded and covered the rider with gooey yolks, blinding her and making her lose control of her vehicle. Masky wasn’t sure what made him laugh harder, the sound of the wagon crashing into a tomato stand or the cry of the market owner demanding that he pay for the eggs.

“I was going to eat those, you mule!” Patsy huffed as the two resumed their escape.

“Then I just saved your tail again!” Masky retorted. “You can’t just wolf down eggs raw! They come out of a bird’s ass, you gotta clean off all the crap first!”

The two didn’t stop until they were far from the market stands and ran to the outskirts of town, the sound of sirens was completely lost. The pair leaned up against a stone well as they tried to catch their breath.

“I think... hah... hah... I think we shook ‘em...” Masky said.

“Yeah... huh... huh...”

Patsy threw his fist out to his side, catching Masky in the side.

“Ow! What’s the big idea?”

“That’s for throwing my eggs!”

“Oh, come off it already,” Masky grunted, rubbing his sore ribs as he hobbled back toward Ponyville. “We’ve still got work to do.”

“Are you nuts?” Patsy challenged as he joined him. “This place is crawling with cops! They already knew who we are!”

“This wouldn’t have been a problem if we had aliases,” Masky said darkly.

“Don’t you start that. We can’t stay here. We should head back to—”

“Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! I say how do you do?”

Both slowly turned their heads toward the well, their frustrations completely replaced with a terrible dread as a sinisterly pleasant voice echoed from inside the stone tunnel. Two hooves rose out from the edge, followed by a mare whose entire face was covered by her soaked and dirty mane. Everything except a manic smile.

“I told you zombies were real!” It was all Masky could say as the two ran for their lives toward town as the pink abomination stalked after them. His instincts led him down another alley, and Masky skidded to a stop when he saw a garbage can standing underneath an open window. He leapt onto the can and, with another quick jump, got stuck halfway through the window. He fell onto his face when two claws pushed on his flank and forced him through. Masky quickly shut the window behind Patsy and leaned against a wall, thanking his luck that somepony was dim enough to leave their house wide open.

“Hi! Who are you?” a bubbly voice asked.

“Who’s asking?” Masky sneered.

“Oh, sorry. My name’s Derpy Hooves! And you sort of jumped through my window,” the gray pegasus explained, sounding surprisingly cheerful for a mare who just saw two strangers break into her house.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” Patsy asked.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” Derpy returned innocently.

“Hah! She got you good!” Masky laughed. “Yeah. I’m Masky, this grubber here is Patsy, and it looks like we’ll be staying here until the zombie apocalypse settles down.”

“Well that sounds fine to me,” she said with a smile. “Oh, hi, Pinkie Pie!”

“Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! I say ‘Hip-Hip-Hooray!’”

The two didn’t waste time turning around. Masky lead the charge out of the house, nearly throwing the door off its hinges.

“You forgot to lock the window?!” Masky barked.

"You were the one who closed it!”

A sudden explosion of confetti and streamers knocked the two on their backsides. They watched in fear as a pink pony came dancing out of the blast, gleefully hopping toward them. And with not a soul in sight to save them.

“Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! To Ponyville toda~ay!”

“Who are you?” Patsy asked, his voice trembling.

“I’m Pinkie Pie! I’m just here to make sure that you had a super funtastical Ponyville welcome!” she said with a giggle. “But wow, do you guys like to play tag! That had to be the most exciting welcome I gave anypony in the last month!”

“Yeah, we're pretty good at running away.”

“Hey, how come your friend is sleeping?”

Patsy turned to Masky and saw him lying motionless on the ground again, his legs spread out to his sides. His tongue hung limply out of the corner of his mouth and his eyes were glazed and lifeless. Patsy rose to his feet and gave Masky a light nudge in the ribs with his foot.

“Come on, you bum, get up,” he said testily. “I know you aren’t dead, Luna forbid you make it that easy for me.” Silence. “I can’t believe you sometimes...” Patsy inhaled deeply, his chest swelling with air, and released a gust of black smoke over the prone stallion. After a few seconds, Masky sprung out of the cloud, looking like a million bucks.

“Yowza, that hits the spot!”

“Heeey,” Pinkie began, tugging on Patsy’s tail and flicking a few of his spines, “are you a dragon?”

“That depends,” Masky said, stepping between Patsy and the bubbly mare, “are you a cop?”

“Nope! I’m a baker! But on the weekends I work on the Ponyville zoning committee.”

“Well that explains that,” Patsy muttered before her words completely sunk in and fell to his knees at Pinkie’s hooves. “Wait, you’re a baker? Like a chef? Like with food?”

“You betcha! I can whip up pies and cupcakes and all sorts of other tasty stuff!”

“Got any meat?” Patsy asked with a hopeful look.

“Nope. Sorry. I got gummy bears,” Pinkie offered, handing the crestfallen dragon a single piece of candy.

“You really don’t have any meat?”

“Well I tried that one time with Rainbow Dash, but folks got all upset so I’m not supposed to do it anymore,” she said with a shrug.

“Just so we all get each other,” Masky butted in again, “you said you ain’t a cop, yeah?”

“Yuppers! In fact, I don’t think we even have any police in Ponyville. Weeell, Rarity mentions the fashion police sometimes, but I’ve never even seen them. I think it’s because it probably isn’t a crime to not wear clothes, but it’s weird that Rarity always says she’s so busy filling orders since I’ve never seen anypony wear anything around here except on super special occasions, and even then there aren’t many. But she’s always bringing stallions in for private fittings, so maybe there’s a secret club or OH! Do you think that those ponies might be the fashion police?”

Patsy’s head was spinning as he tried to process the barrage of squeaky noises that escaped from Pinkie's mouth.

Masky had been paralyzed, his yellow eyes as wide as the Hope Diamond.

“Did you say,” he spoke unusually softly, “there’s no cops?”

“Rightaroonie!” Pinkie chirped.

According to local legend, Pinkie Pie was gifted with an entire arsenal of unexplainable and surreal abilities. And while she herself most prized her ability to recite the entire alphabet backwards, the citizens of Ponyville unanimously agreed that the most marvelous power she possesed was her ability to immediately cheer up a room with just the simplest of smiles. Celestia’s sun could scarcely compare to the brightness that Pinkie Pie’s smile could spread.

But even the jubilant pony’s greatest, most overjoyed smile was dwarfed by the grin that now threatened to completely dominate Masky’s face.

“I love this town.”

“I do too! Ponyville’s just the best best best!” Pinkie sang as he pulled her two new best friends against her for a tight hug. “Oh! I still need to get ready for your party tonight!”

“Party?” Patsy questioned as he tried to force his accomplice’s lips shut to hide his terrifying grin.

“The ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party for you both! And I’ll have to make it a ‘Super Fun Game of Tag’ party! And a ‘Brand New Best Dragon Buddy’ party!” Pinkie clapped her hooves together in excitement. “With all these things to celebrate, we’re gonna be partying all night!”

Finally back to his senses, Masky gave the mare a simple shrug.

“We’ll try to make it. We might be busy tonight, toni—hanh?” Masky blinked in surprise at Pinkie Pie who was now wrapped around his leg, her begging eyes burning into whatever crummy bit of his soul was still sticking around.

“But you just gotta come! You’re the guests of honor!”

“Alright, alright, criminy!” Masky shouted, shaking his leg free. “We’ll crash your little shingdig.”

“Do you Pinkie Promise?”

“What the hay is a Pinkie Promise?”

“It’s a special promise that you never ever break,” she explained, crossing her chest with hoof and lightly poking herself in the eye.

“That’s it?” Masky asked flatly. “Look, dollface, I’m a stallion who’s well acquainted with the law and all sorts of legal mumbo jumbo. And where I come from, there ain’t nothing binding about doing a dance and gouging my eye out. What’s supposed to make me take that kiddy stuff seriously?”

“Well everypony here takes it seriously,” Pinkie defended weakly. “My friend Twilight... no, she broke hers... and Applejack sort of cheated with hers...”

“Is she still talking to us? Because I’m lost,” Patsy whispered to Masky. Both Manehattanites jumped when their greeter suddenly cried out.

“I’ll just make a new and improved Pinkie Promise! With legal humba wumba!”

“You mean mumbo jumbo.”

“Him too! Come on!” Pinkie grabbed Patsy by the tail and flung him onto her back. “We can go ask Twilight to help. I’m sure she’ll know all sorts of stuff about promises! Or she’ll have a book. She kind of has a book about everything.” Pinkie didn’t give the two a chance to object and immediately bounced off.

“Hey, where you do you think you’re going with my lizard?” Masky called as he scrambled after the two.

“To see my friend Twilight! I just said that, duh!” Pinkie answered without slowing a beat. “She lives in the library. Well, it’s a tree, but we use it as a library.”

“You really got ponies still living in trees out here?”

“Not everypony. Just the smart one.”

“Of course.”

“And she has a baby dragon, too! You and Patsy just have to meet Twilight and Spike! They’re going to just love you!”

Hayseeds

Elements of Larceny

A “My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic” fanfiction

By TheManWithTwoNames

Elements of Larceny: Officially Too Great For Equestria Daily To Handle!

“No cops! I still can’t get over it, Patsy!” Masky guffawed as he left the library and the purple narwhal behind him. “This whole town is like one big potato just waiting to be peeled!”

“Where do you even come up with these?”

Masky just gave a shrug and continued his push toward Sweet Apple Acres. The plan was the same as before: snoop around the place, find where they were keeping the goods, and then come back later when no one was around. The corners of Masky’s mouth pulled up every time he thought about how he was able to turn that catastrophe in the library into his ticket to pulling off the biggest heist of his career. There were no flies on Masky. He would have charged them rent.

The only thing that was ruining his mood was his partner’s constant bellyaching. He had hoped Patsy would stop talking if he just ignored him, but it after a while it was apparent that he would have to shut up the dragon more directly.

“What’s eating you now?”

“This town is giving me the creeps,” Patsy said quietly, his tone almost nervous.

“Big bad dragon’s afraid of a little pony town? Some beastie you’re growing into.”

“I’m serious, Masky. This isn’t right.” He turned his head around his shoulder and glared at the ponies behind him in case someone was eavesdropping. “Look around you. Haven’t you noticed it?”

“Noticed what?”

“The ponies!” Patsy immediately lowered his voice again. “They’re everywhere!”

“I knew it,” Masky said acusationally. “You ate that herb from that pincushion when I wasn’t looking. And now you’re going to be tripping all day.”

“I’m not high. Look at this pony walking by us. Orange top, yellow coat, carrots on her flank.”

“It’s a nice flank.” Masky let his eyes hang on the passing mare for a few seconds before looking back to Patsy. “What about it?”

“Well, look over there.” Patsy grabbed Masky’s face and pointed it towards a group of mares gossiping on the side of the road. “Doesn’t one of them look familiar?”

Masky’s eyes widened when the truth struck him.

“It’s Carrot Bottom again!”

“Keep it down,” Patsy hissed. “Don’t say anything, but I’ve seen that purple unicorn with the diamonds three times today, too. Now do you see why we have to get out of this loony bin?”

Masky’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he shook his head fiercely, letting a few strands of his mane slip out from under his hat.

“The only thing I see is that I’m getting some kinda contact high from your scaly hide. Now quit playing around, we’ve got to cover this whole town in one day. I want to see some hustle out of you,” Masky barked as he kicked up dust in Patsy’s face and strode off.

“I told you I didn’t eat anything!” Patsy cupped his hands and shouted after him. He lowered his hands when his stomach roared noisily. “I keep telling him, but he doesn’t believe us. Tell you what, if he keeps going with this,” he said as he softly patted his stomach, “we can just eat him.”

==========

Apples as far as the eyes could see. Red Delicious apples, Honeycrisp apples, Jonagold apples. Paula Reds, Wealthys, Golden Delicious, Ginger Golds, McIntoshes, Cortlands. Ambrosia apples, Gala Supreme apples, Goof apples, Saturn apples, Shinsei apples, Opalescent apples. Keepsakes, Junamis, Topazes, Mutsus, Pink Ladies, Jonagolds. For acres and acres in every direction, apples hung on every branch of every tree. Some of the trees had wooden buckets placed at their bases should any of the fruit fall from the branches prematurely.

And as Masky and Patsy passed under the shade of Sweet Apple Acres’ bread and butter, the stallion twisted his head left and right just to find if there was even one single orange or a turnip anywhere in the whole farm.

“I think I’m going to be smelling like apples for the rest of my life because of this,” Masky said as he glared at the offensive fruit. “These hicks really can’t be making their whole living offa just peddling apples, can they? They’ve gotta have some other veggies around here. What, does the entire town just eat apples? If not, then there ain’t no way they could ever turn this place into a profit. But I’ll tell ya, I always think it should be a crime to sell something that grows from the ground. What, is there gonna be a tax on eating grass next?”

“That’s it, I can’t take it anymore,” Patsy declared, swinging his arms out to his side. “Prop me up, I’ve got to eat something or I’ll die.”

Masky only gave him an accusatory jab in the chest.

“I knew it! You’ve got the munchies now!”

“I’m not high! I’m malnourished! Now help me up or I swear I’ll rat you out to the next chump we meet.”

“Fine,” he spat darkly as he helped his partner climb onto his back, “if it’s really that important to you.” While the two threatened each other more often than they said “hello” to one another, they never said something drastic unless they were really serious. When Patsy wanted his bandana, he gave Masky the choice of either getting it for him or having the pictures scorched out of his private magazines. That day, Masky bought him an eyepatch and another magazine just for good measure.

“Hurry it up, gecko,” Masky grunted as he shifted his back muscles to something more comfortable under Patsy’s rough foot scales. “When was the last time you filed your claws?”

“Come to Papa Patsy,” he whispered to a shining apple dangling just a few inches in front of him. After struggling to reach, he jumped onto the tree trunk and clambered up and vanished inside the leaves. The branches rustled and shook as the dragon greedily snatched every apple he saw and shoved them into his mouth. He swallowed five in a single gulp before he took a moment to pause and look at his reflection in an apple. He was a dragon, and he was reduced to stealing apples for food.

“Dear sweet holy Ryūjin, what’s happening to me?”

He turned his palm over and let the apple drop, bopping Masky on the head. Masky rubbed his head with a grumble before scooping up the apple, inspecting it for any sort of flaws, any bruises or pocks in it. Nothing. Great. He didn’t like eating “perfect” food. Anyone who worked that hard on perfection either had a screw loose or something to hide. Maybe there’d be a worm inside it.

“Eh. If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em.”

There were three crunches. The first was the sound of Masky biting down into the apple (and finding a worm). The second was the sound of Masky crashing into the tree. The third was the sound of Patsy falling out of the tree and landing directly on his tail.

“You stinkin’ varmints are in for it now!” Masky didn’t see the speaker yet, as his mask and hat had fallen over his eyes when he was brutally smashed into the tree, and he imagined he would have a difficult time seeing straight at the moment anyway. The voice was feminine with a thick accent, which completely betrayed the strength behind those steam pistons for gams the dame must have been sporting. He was really hoping that Patsy would do the talking for him, seeing as it really hurt to breathe.

“You crazy barnyard bimbo! I think you broke my tail!” Patsy cried out, delicately cradling the bent green extension so it wouldn’t fall on the ground.

“Ya both got more comin’ to ya, ya lowdown snakes!”

“You broke my tail!”

So much for letting Patsy take control of the situation. Masky pulled himself to his hooves and straightened out his effects to return the orange and yellow earth pony’s glare with his own sneer.

“Criminy! Lady, what is your problem?!” he barked as he stretched his mouth into a frown. However unsightly Masky’s smile was, it had nothing on how repulsive he could make himself look when he was angry. Usually, it was enough to make any pony giving him the business back down. Unfortunately for him, the loyalest and most dependable pony in Ponyville did not knuckle under others so easily. Applejack butted her head against his own. The two stubborn ponies pushed each other back and forth, their hats grappling on top of their heads with Applejack’s stetson taking the upper hand over Masky’s newsboy cap.

“Ah don’t tolerate thieves on my farm.”

“You can’t prove anything.”

“Ah saw yer little varmint steal an apple! You’re takin’ bits right outta our family business!”

“You broke my tail over a stinking apple?!” Patsy threw his claws in the air, accidentally releasing his tail and letting it smack the ground. He yowled in pain and quickly scooped it up again. “You sent me to the hospital over a few bits?!”

Applejack lost some footing in her battle of wills when she momentarily considered that she might have been an smidge overzealous in her protection of her farm. She stepped to the side towards the dragon and roughly examined his tail, making him wince and whine in protest.

“Ah don’t think this is a break. Ah think ya just sprained it, is all.”

“You think I sprained it?!” Patsy snarled as he stole his tail back, holding it away from the bumpkin to protect it and letting some licks of flame slip from the corners of his mouth. “That’s not how I remember it.”

“What the hay are y’all doing snooping around my farm, anydangway?” she asked, quickly changing the subject.

“Twilight sent us over to find some dame named Applejack who lived here.”

The mare’s ears folded down in embarrassment. “Well, ya see,” she said, biting down on her gum, “that’d be me.”

“I knew it!” Masky exploded. “That purple tomato set us up! Ugh. And ponies have the gall to ask me why I don’t like unicorns.”

“Now just hold on a minute, don’t go flying off the handle now! Twi’ didn’t have nothin’ to do with this! She’s a good pony and a good friend a’ mine.”

“Yeah, with a stable full of assassins for friends. What kinda barn were you were raised in?”

“That one over there.” Masky followed Applejack’s hoof toward a towering red barn that stood proudly on top of a hill overlooking all of the farm, visible even through the branches of the rows of apple trees.

“You set up your barn on the far end of the farm away from town? Not very neighborly, is it?”

“What? Shucks, no. Y’all took the long way around and wandered in here through the back of the farm.”

“I told you we were going the wrong way,” Patsy said smugly into Masky’s ear. The pony frowned and smacked his tail out of his claws, feeling satisfied by the yelp he received.

“Anyhow, ya both’ve gotta come with me now.”

“What, are you giving us a tour?” Masky snarked.

“Sorry, we don’t run tours of the farm on weekdays.” Masky gave a low internal moan once he realized the sort of mind he was dealing with. “Ah’ve gotta take you to see the head of the Apple family to talk about what we’re gonna do with you for stealin’ our apples.”

“What, slugging me and snapping Patsy wasn’t enough?”

“Sorry, fellers, but it’s just the way we do things here,” Applejack said as she began to slacken a rope lasso tied to her hip.

Masky arched an eyebrow. “And what if I don’t want to?”

“That’s what the rope is for.”

==========

“And this here is a very special tree ta me. It was the first time Ah was ever able to take down every apple on a tree on a single buck. Ah was bouncin’ around the farm that whole day, Ah was so excited. Ah’m still waitin’ for Apple Bloom to get big enough to start bucking the farm. It’s tough enough with just Big Mac an’ me doing most of the work. A’course, she’s always runnin’ off with her friends tryin’ ta find her cutie mark. An’ Ah told her, Ah told her that ya can’t rush these kinds of things, but she’s more headstrong than a bull with a helmet...”

“I think there’s blood in my ears,” Masky thought out loud, if only to remind himself what his own voice sounded like. It felt like years since he had heard it. What was it about this town that encouraged its mares to blabber on and on? The dames in Manehattan never talked this much. They always kept it succinct. “Help! Police!”, or, “He stole my purse!” Short and sweet like that.

“What was that?” Applejack asked over her shoulder, checking to see if the ropes connected from her harness tied around her prisoners were still tight. The both of them were powerfully and vocally opposed to the usual practice of being hog-tied and dragged to the farmhouse, and seeing as they were friends of Twilight, she supposed that it wouldn’t be unforgivable if she cut them a tiny bit of slack and let them just walk themselves. The three were marching in single file, with Applejack in the front, Masky in the middle, and Patsy at the rear. Masky constantly scratched at the rope tied around his neck, partially to try to loosen the rope so he could scram, but mostly because it itched like a mean mother. Patsy grumbled along with his wrists bound, which he found made it exceedingly difficult to keep his crooked tail from dragging on the ground.

“I said I think there’s blood in my ears,” Masky answered bluntly.

“Well, it ain’t that much farther to the farm. So just hold on a little bit longer, alright, pard? Hey, come to think, Ah don’t think Ah ever caught your names.”

“Are you always this polite to ponies you tie up, or are we just special?”

“Bein’ polite was letting ya walk instead of dragging ya,” Applejack said irritably. “Asking for yer names is just a bit of common courtesy.”

“Masky.”

“I‘m Patsy.”

“Nice ta meet’cha. An’ you already know I’m Applejack. So, where are you two from?”

“Manehattan,” Masky answered begrudgingly. He hated to tell the truth whenever he could avoid it, but he had to keep his story straight if he wanted to avoid trouble later on. He’d heard plenty of stories of stallions who tried to stitch together half a dozen lies when they were confronted by half a dozen angry mares who discovered they were all sharing the same boyfriend. There were no happy endings.

“The Big Apple? Well how do ya like that? My Aunt and Uncle Orange live out there. Ah actually lived there a long time ago.” Applejack lost some enthusiasm in her voice for a moment. “Judging by the duds you’re wearing, it must’ve been even longer than Ah thought. Does everypony over there dress like that now?”

“It’s Black Sheep Chic.”

“Ah’ll take yer word on it. We don’t get many folk traveling through here. So, Manehattan boys.”

“And proud.”

“Ah’m glad y’all both like it. Everypony should have a place they can feel safe to call home.” Patsy gave a little snort that went unnoticed by the cowgirl. “Ah just never could get used ta it. Never much cared for all that steel and concrete. And it always had that... smell in the air.”

“I know,” Masky sighed wistfully as his face spread with a dreamy smile. “Speaking of, hold up for a second. Hey, Patsy, top me off.”

It took Applejack by surprise when Patsy clicked his tongue in the back of his throat and bellowed a thick spray of black smoke that completely absorbed the pony in front of him. After enjoying his revitalizing breath of fresh air, Masky strolled out with a happy grin.

“Ah never could quite get over all the strange characters, either,” the farmer muttered to herself before resuming her march. And though Masky might have ignored the comment, it did not escape Patsy’s acute hearing.

“Speaking of strange,” the dragon began, surprising Applejack, “what’s with the accent?”

“Ah don’t know what ya mean,” she said with a shrug.

“That. That thing you’re doing with your voice when you talk. Are you from somewhere else?”

“Nope, Ah’m a Ponyville girl, born and raised,” Applejack answered, her voice swelling with pride. “We Apples have been livin’ here in Ponyville since our family founded it.”

Masky raised an eyebrow. “So Ponyville was started and named by farmers?”

“Yer right on the money.”

“Called it.”

“What do you mean, pard?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he said hurriedly. “So, if this town was built around those original hayseeds, then why are you the only one who’s got that accent?”

“Huh. Ya know, Ah never put much thought to it...”

While Applejack contemplated her vocal tic, Patsy took the momentary distraction to begin chewing through the ropes binding his wrists. His dragon’s pride had been raging against him for his ready submission to being a pony’s prisoner. But even more compelling than that was how, over a lifetime of being a career criminal, he had gained a heavy aversion to being put in handcuffs. Masky noticed his partner’s scheme and silently moved himself to better hide Patsy from view. It didn’t take long until Masky felt the rope slacken around his neck. He smiled with pride knowing that Patsy was only out to save his own tail and that the dragon wouldn’t be coming back to help him.

“Eenope!”

Out from the rows of trees came the sound of cannon fire. Masky had no time to react before a screaming green missile exploded toward him, blasting him with enough force to lift him off his hooves.

Masky wasn’t sure if he was dead or not. He didn’t think being dead would hurt quite this much, but he didn’t have much first-hand knowledge about the subject. Even second-hand knowledge was very difficult to come by. If being dead meant feeling like he was being buried under a pile of bowling balls then he wanted nothing to do with it. Besides, with his record, he didn’t expect to wind up anywhere but Tatarus which was a decidedly unsavory place to spend the rest of eternity. Especially when he would likely have to meet a lot of ponies he owed a small mountain of bits and a few of his limbs to. He hoped his Nana wouldn’t be there. Tatarus would be agonizing without that face-stretching old bird, rest her soul.

Then it came. A horrible, drawling, slurring sound that he foolishly hoped he would never hear again.

“Now what in tarnation were y’all just tryin’ ta pull?”

For the love of all things dark and shifty, he hated these country hicks.

“I’m gonna wizz red,” Masky moaned as he gently put his hoof against his kidneys. After bracing himself, he shakily climbed to his hooves and blinked his eyes open.

Once his vision cleared, he found himself staring into a red mass of fur and solid muscle. He had to check just to make sure that it wasn’t just a hairy brick wall. Masky had seen plenty of stallions--and in some more disturbing cases, mares--in Manehattan who were on the juice to help give them that extra level of disgusting musculature you just couldn’t get the honest way. But none of them could hold a candle to the pony he was facing. There was no doubt in his mind that this giant had become overinflated through years of hard work and good health.

‘If I ever meet the pony who said hard work is good for you,’ Masky thought to himself, ‘I’m gonna break his jaw.’

“Ain’t ya gonna answer me?” Applejack said impatiently. Once Masky was finished accepting that the red goliath was truly a living creature, he turned his attention to the farmer.

“I feel like I got run over by a cart, give me a minute! Criminy...” He ran a hoof over his head and growled when he felt his messy black mane. He turned his head and found Patsy lying spread on his stomach, his bent tail pointing up in the air with Masky’s cap hanging from the tip. He roughly snatched the hat and dropped it in its rightful place before facing the two farmers again.

“Well?”

“‘Well’ what?”

“Are ya gonna explain why my brother caught Patsy tryin’ to run off?”

“Because your brother isn’t blind, how about that?” The Apples didn’t seem to be interested in jokes. “Fine, he was trying to vamoose. But you shouldn’t have tied him up. He’s terrified of ropes. Ain’t that right, Patsy?”

“Grooah...”

“Great. Thanks, drip, you went and busted my dragon. So how are you planning to pay for this?”

“Now you listen here,” Applejack cut in, narrowing her eyes venomously. “Ah don’t know how you ponies get along in Manehattan, but here on Sweet Apple Acres we care about the importance of honesty. Honest work, honest words, and honest living. Now, Ah’ve got a nose for this sorta thing, and mister, you smell more rotten than a bad apple in a pig trough.”

Masky chose his next words carefully. “So would you say that you’re in your element with honesty?” The farmer’s brief hesitation told him everything he needed to know.

“You’d better listen real close. Ah don’t care if Twilight sent you, because as far as Ah’m concerned, you an’ yer friend are thieves. And yer gonna work off the trouble and time you’ve cost us with whatever punishment Granny Smith picks for you! Now get a move on!”

Applejack swatted Masky in the nose as she turned back for the farmhouse and nearly began dragging him by the throat. He checked on Patsy over his shoulder and was relieved to see that he was looking considerably more conscious. And even better, the big red drip was carrying him for him.

“Thanks, mac. But holy cow, your sister needs to take it down a few notches.” Masky frowned when Big Macintosh stayed quiet and kept his eyes forward. “The brunos don’t talk and the dames never stop in this town. What, do they ration words here and just let the girls get all the speaking time?”

“Eeyup.”

==========

Pinkie jumped in the air with a frightened eep when a loud thud boomed around her room. She rubbed a hoof against her eye and was shocked to feel some crust in the corner of her eye. Looking on the floor, she saw her book laying underneath her table.

“Pinkie?” came the voice of Mrs. Cake from downstairs. “Is everything alright up there?”

“I’m fine, Mrs. Cake!” Pinkie called back. “I guess I just fell asleep reading.” She scrunched her nose at the words. She had never fallen asleep before a party before. That was no good. She brushed past a few streamers she had left scattered around and put the book back on the table. With a grunt of effort, she opened the book back to where she remembered leaving it. To her disappointment, she had hardly made a dent in the book so far. Even worse, she hardly had started planning the party, and she had even less progress getting the new Pinkie Promise written. But she couldn’t finish the Pinkie Promise until she had read enough of the book, and she couldn’t get Masky and Patsy to come to the party until the promise was ready.

“This is all making my head all itchy, Gummy,” she said to the baby alligator waddling around her room who stopped to look up at her at the mention of his name. “I guess I’ll just have to kick it up a notch!”

Gummy seemed uninspired.

“Chapter Fifty-Nine: Proper Regalia... Hm... I bet Rarity could help with this! I’ll just run over real quick and ask her!” Pinkie picked up Gummy to give him a hug before she left like always. “I’m sure I’ll still have enough time. Right, Gummy?”

Gummy remained pensive on the issue and decided to keep his silence.

“You’re right. I can totally handle this!”

Pinkie gave a little twitch before walking out the door.

==========

It didn’t take much longer for the four to reach the farmhouse. Patsy had recovered from his punch-drunkeness and had progressed to punch-hangover and was able to stand on his own two feet again, though the slightest noise felt like someone lighting a warehouse of illegal fireworks on fire. Now he almost felt bad for that one time he blew up that warehouse full of fireworks.

“Now you two just wait right there where Big Mac can keep an eye on you,” Applejack ordered, “and wait while Ah go get somepony who’s going to want to have a nice long chat with you. And after that, you’re gonna be workin’ until you’ve paid for all the trouble you’ve caused ‘round here.”

“Half a dozen apples, what’s that gonna be? Half an hour?” Masky said cheekily, unfazed by the farmer’s glare as she left the room. In any other situation, he would have already been out the door and carrying off the nearest object that hadn’t been nailed down. But after seeing Red Menace’s adjustments to Patsy’s complexion, he decided to play along. He gave a nicker and began to idly look around the little living room. It was quaint and rustic, which to him, meant it smelled like old people and didn’t have anything worth stealing. Just photo albums, magazines, and knick-knacks resting on the coffee table and the fireplace. He could always just steal them for the pleasure, he supposed.

The sounds of hoofsteps and an agonizingl voice warned Masky that his favorite mare was coming back. And if he was going to get an earful from these Reubens, he thought as he laid down on his back on the throw rug in the center of the room, he decided he might as well make himself comfortable for it. He shifted himself a bit and closed his eyes to get a few seconds of peace while he still could.

“And that’s about the whole story,” he heard Applejack conclude over the sound of two sets of hooves clopping against the wood floor. “So what do you reckon we do with them?”

Masky prepared himself for the racket. After listening to the younger farmer talk all day, he shuddered to imagine whatever the loud-mouthed wheat that spawned her would sound like. But after several long seconds of waiting, he was pleasantly surprised when nothing came. He couldn’t hide a smirk. After hearing how dumb the story sounded, he figured that the big guy in charge would be giving her a dead glare about now.

“Granny? Are you alright?” Applejack asked. “You look like you got your head up in Cloudsdale.”

It took Masky a few seconds longer than he’d care to admit for the pieces to click together. He had never moved faster than he did jumping up to hide himself. His cheeks burned as he let a small groan escape him. He couldn’t just have some loud old stallion shout at him for a few minutes, no.

Granny Smith blinked a few times and closed her mouth. She pursed her lips in thought for a few moments before taking a few slow steps closer to the suddenly unnerved stallion.

“You must be that Masky feller I’ve read so much about,” Granny began in a creaky voice.

“Everything she told you is a dirty lie, see?” Masky sputtered louder than he had wanted. “And I... wait a Manehattan minute, did you say ‘read’?”

“Applejack’s been telling me you and your friend have been causing some excitement here on Sweet Apple Acres,” the old mare continued.

Applejack flashed a cocky grin, eager to see justice be done.

“Now, we don’t mind folks sampling a few apples, but we prefer to be asked first. But there’s no harm done.”

Applejack’s grin dropped like a chunk of lead. She shook her head a few times, unable to believe what she was hearing.

“Granny, you’re not really just gonna let them off the hook just like that, are ya?” she asked beggingly. “What about all the time working they cost us?”

“The apples aren’t going anywhere any time soon.”

“Except fer maybe into a sneaky lizard’s belly,” Applejack said bitterly as she watched Patsy flip through some of the magazines sitting in a pile on a table. One in particular caught Patsy’s eye and he flipped open to a random page. He took one glance at the page and he looked like he was about to split in half from laughter. Applejack tilted her head to try to get a better look at what was so interesting for the ankle-biter in Granny’s magazines, but could only get a glimpse of the title: Something-xy Grandma Weekly. She shrugged it off and tuned back to what the others were talking about.

“So, how did you like the farm?”

“This place would be great if it weren’t for all the beatings,” Masky said as he took a step back from the old mare after she “accidentally” bumped up next to him.

“Maybe consanguineous mating affects the temper?” Patsy offered from behind his reading material.

“Consarnawhatnow? And we barely roughed y’all up,” Applejack objected. “Ya know, for an earth pony, ya sure are kinda flimsy.”

“Hey! I’m strong where it counts!” Masky hurriedly scuttled away when he saw Granny Smith’s eyes bob down just the slightest bit. She gave a smile that may have passed for being coy sixty years ago.

“I’m sorry about my grandkids. Is there anything I could do to make it up to you?”

“Maybe if you have some jewelery...” Masky and Applejack exchanged sharp looks for a brief moment before Granny Smith stepped between them.

“We don’t have anything fancy like that. But I could point you in the direction of a nice young mare who can take care of your little dragern on Applejack’s dollar. And while she works, you can come back and we can talk some more...”

Patsy rolled off his chair laughing.

===========

“Patsy,” Masky said as they rushed away from Sweet Apple Acres toward the next Element of Harmony, “you have my full permission to burn that place down when this is all over.”

The Big Idea

Elements of Larceny

A “My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic” fanfiction

By TheManWithTwoNames

“My Little Pony” and all subsequent properties belong to Hasbr— Masky’s taking this show now, see? Myah, see!
Masky and Patsy are my own little brain babies.

Not many ponies appreciated just how full Manehattan really is, and how it seemed to just have an endless supply of nearly everything someone would never want. The urbanites could cram themselves around a bus stop in such numbers one would start listing off the benefits a killing spree might bring to society. The city had a proud history of being known as Equestria’s most-visited landfill, where ponies would travel from far and wide to take one look at the sprawling city, take two sniffs, and then immediately turn tail and vow to never complain about their hometowns ever again. The obtrusive and gauche skyline was mercifully hidden by endless forests of steel and concrete towers that aimed to pierce the heavens and shame Canterlot in their magnitude. And the spaces between those metal giants was positively filled the most pervasive labyrinth in all the known world: the Manehattan Underground.

Most ponies thought of the expansive halls of the hidden city as merely the ugly alleyways where the homeless spent their lives alternating between warming their hooves over a trash fire and drinking a mystery substance that was carefully guarded secret mixture of sludge, muck, and ooze. But the more in the know ponies understood it for what it was: the seedy underbelly of the city and the true society that ruled the lives of Manehattan’s citizens. Which, admittedly, had a bit of a homeless problem.

Every crook, cheapskate, con artist, hustler, criminal, fink, rat, rat-fink, bastard, swindler, and son of a mule roamed freely through the city, as kings in the Underground and as ghosts in the light. It was a place where a pony could rest comfortably knowing that they wouldn’t be woken up as thugs stripped them of ever last bit they held to their name in the dead of night. It was a place where the clever could make a killing without the typical nasty business of making a killing, and where the dim could do just as well if they didn’t mind washing out their fur after the nasty business.

It was a paradise for ponies like Masky, who was happily applying his trade in such an alley.

“You really don’t want to be doing this,” the green pony insisted as his back hooves pressed up against the brick of a dim alleyway.

“Guy shink hai dooh,” the mugger replied with vicious smirk as he stalked his prey.

“Beg pardon?”

“Ai shed ah hink hai due!”

“You’re gonna have to drop the knife, mac, I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

With a roll of his eyes, the mugger spat and let his knife clatter to the filthy ground below. “I said I think I do!”

“But are you positive?”

“What?”

"Because I’m positive that you don’t want to do this.” The stallion watched as the mugger lowered his head down to pick up his blade and gave a disapproving cough. “Are you positive you want to pick that up? The streets are filthy.”

“I think I do,” he grunted, glaring hideously at the smarmy victim.

"But are you positive?”

“Yes! Yes, already! I’m positive!” he roared before snatching up his weapon again and stalking closer to the grinning target.

“I’m glad to hear that. I like positivity.”

Masky put a heavy value in Positivity. With a little positivity, you could turn the worst situation into a blessing or have an upper hand when things got messy. Masky truly enjoyed Positivity. He was such a helpful little accomplice. Though typically, the thief called the little dragon by his nickname, Patsy.

The moss green juvenile dragon gave two swift punches to the back of the mugger’s head, dropping the pony to the ground. He rubbed his hands and slipped off his two brass knuckledusters as he stepped over the unconscious pony and strutted over to Masky with a critical glare.

“So, what did you do to set this one off?” Patsy asked, tapping a clawed foot.

“Would you believe me if I said I was just minding my own business?” Masky asked sweetly.

“You know, if you stopped minding your own business, I wouldn’t have to save your tail so much.”

“Yeah, but then you’d be bored outta your gourd with nothing but an empty stomach to think about,” Masky said smugly as he slipped a brown coin purse off the waist of the would-be mugger. “I do this because I care about you.”

Patsy simply rolled his eye and gave the mugger a quick kick to the ribs. “So, what now?”

Masky thought for a moment and weighed the bag in his hoof. “Let’s go to the market. Ey ey ey! No guff. I don’t wanna hear it.” He slid the bag underneath his purple newsboy cap and dusted his hooves off on the back of the snoozing mugger. “And next time,” he said to the thug, his voice taking on a nasally sneer, “you’ll dig twice before you try to chisel with me, see? Myah, see?”

“Really? The voice? You’re practicing the voice on somepony who’s out cold?”

“Stuff it. Now let’s get a wiggle on, Payzme’s got some new goodies in stock and I don’t want any early birds to beat me to them.”

“Ten bits says it’s junk. It’s always junk,” Patsy said.

“You don’t even have ten bits to bet.”

“I will once you pay me back for when you left me with the bill at Rex’s Diner last week.”

“It was a dine and dash! S’not my problem if you can’t pick up the pace!”

“I’m warning you, Masky. One of these days you’re going to wake up on fire.”

Masky only gave a sharp laugh and brushed past his partner, eager to get to Payzme's market as quick as he could.

Masky wouldn’t call himself the smartest crook in the Manehattan Underground, but only because ponies who go flapping their gums about that kind of stuff typically get clubbed in the head a few times until they aren’t so bright anymore. So for his own sake, Masky proudly spread a reputation for himself as the dumbest swindler who would ever make a pony look like a sap. In a place where fame generally meant being the Underground’s most wanted, he was more than happy to live in obscurity and nick the goods while everyone was focused on taking down whatever new hotshot who wasn’t smart enough to keep his head down.

That isn’t to say he wasn’t proud of his sense of style and flair. “No one likes getting mugged,” he would explain to his uninterested assistant time and time again, “but everyone loves a good con. A little bamboozle here and never hurt nopony, and it leaves ‘em with a better story than ‘I was walking down the street when I got bucked in the side of the head and woke up without my watch.’” Masky was proud to be a thief, and wore his purple cap and purple striped vest like a uniform at all times. His ensemble was completed by a purple mask which wrapped over his lemon yellow eyes, resting on his nose, and neatly tied just over his short black mane. His coat was a rich green, and he was fortunate enough to have a cutie mark that was ambiguous enough to not immediately identify him as a scoundrel: a brown bag with a gold bit on the face of it. Depending on the crowd, it was either one of those money bag cutie marks those well-to-dos in Canterlot paraded about as a show of his business skills, or a good old-fashioned looting bag.

Patsy was a rare spectacle in Manehattan, as most citizens found dragons to be too grotesque, greedy, grouchy, or inedible (in the case of the small Diamond Dog population) to want to keep around. Greedy was a fair accusation. Grouchy, maybe. Inedible, he certainly hoped so. But he drew the line at grotesque. Sure, the black eyepatch over his left eye was a bit off-putting to some ponies, but it wasn’t like he actually needed it. It served as much of a function the red bandanna he wrapped around his neck. But Masky always insisted that presence was half the scam, so he kept the accessories. And as a bonus, he thought they made him look pretty tough to compensate for his smaller stature. He was lean and trim, and his muddy brown pointed spines left him just barely shorter than an average pony. He was reaching the age where he was beginning to stretch out, and to his chagrin, Masky often joked that soon he’d be big enough to steal a building for him. The fins on the side of his head and the spines that extended from his back and down his tail were much sharper than an infant dragon’s. Even his tail was even getting a bit of a snap to it for when he wanted to knock a pony off their feet.

“Hey! Hold it right there! Thief! Help! Somepony call the police!”

The two crooks instinctively flinched at the cry, but they continued their pace while listening carefully to the sound of hooves clapping against concrete. Without even looking, Masky could already deduce that some unlucky target had gotten their purse or necklace snatched by some desperate hoodlum. It never reflected well on a pony’s financial situation when they had to take to the street to make a living, which was as true for thieves as it was for any other “working mare.” Masky and Patsy merely stepped to the side a bit and waved to the large pony who blazed past them with a purse clenched in his teeth.

“How’s it hanging, Clubber?” Masky asked pleasantly.

“Get bent, green bean!” Clubber shouted over his shoulder as he vanished among the impassive crowd of Manehattanites.

“Everypony’s in such a rush these days,” Patsy whistled.

“You’re telling me. Clubber didn’t even notice he lost this,” Masky replied with a devious smile, catching a brown bag in his hoof that jingled as it rose and fell. “Clumsy Clubber.”

“Ugh, you know it terrifies me when you do that, right?”

“Do what?”

“Smile,” Patsy said, smothering the word with disdain. “Hasn’t anypony ever told you it looks like the top half of your head’s about to fall off?”

“You’re gonna razz me about my winning pearls? When you got that little snaggletooth peeping outta your mouth?”

“I’m a dragon, I’m supposed to be ugly. What’s your excuse?”

“I oughta take you for a ride and leave you for the buzzards, you know that, you little grubber?”

The two bickered for the better part of an hour, their tempers burning hotter and hotter with every passing minute. It was already dark and right around the time Masky was threatening to skin Patsy and turn him into a coat when the pair became suddenly aware of their surroundings.

“They’ve got to fix the streets on this part of the city already,” Patsy grumbled as he pushed himself off the ground, rubbing his forehead with one claw and massaging his stubbed toes with the other. “I’m tired of tripping on the sidewalks.”

“You could always just look where you’re walking. Maybe take off that patch so you could see where you’re going,” Masky said snidely.

“You’re the one who said I should—you know what? Forget it. Let’s just get there already and go.”

“Don’t be such a putz, Patsy,” Masky said, giving him a light jab to the shoulder. “It’s just gonna be a quick visit, don’t go getting your tail in a twist. Besides, Payzme always loves checking in on old merchandise.”

===========

“You’re late,” Payzme grunted as he folded his newspaper and pushed it to the side of his desk. He glared at the duo approaching down the alley from over the edges of his sunglasses.

“It’s always a kick seeing you too, Payz,” Masky said as he sauntered up to the repurposed newspaper kiosk and leaned on the counter. “And a little birdie told me that you’ve got some new toys in stock.”

“Oh, you got that tip, did you?” the gray unicorn said apathetically as he rifled under the counter for something. “I’m glad. I’ve been wanting to see you for a while now.” He raised his eyes over the counter to glare at the two. “Since your last visit, actually.”

“You really shouldn’t hold a grudge, it’s not—ah.” Masky’s words died in his throat when he came face to face with a metal pellet hovering finely between his eyes. “What’s this, some kind of fancy acorn?”

“Just a little tool I’ve been working on,” Payzme said. “I call it a Gunne. As in, I want you to pay your debt and then I want you gunne, or I launch this through your skull.”

“I like the name,” Masky grumbled. He took the two coin bags out of his hat and spilled their contents onto the counter. Payzme swept the bits into a drawer and tossed the Gunne over his shoulder. It clattered and quickly vanished among the piles of merchandise the shifty pony had accumulated while running his black market.

“Before I make tracks, you wouldn’t mind if I just snoop around, would ya?” Masky asked innocently. “You did bait me all the way out here to shake me down, the least you could do is show me some goodies.”

“And just how do you plan on paying for anything?”

“Maybe I have something expensive I can pawn off, ever think of that?” The expression on Payzme’s face told Masky that the idea truly never crossed his mind for a number of reasons. “Fair enough. But Patsy can spot me,” he said with a convincing smile as he leaned over the desk to try to get a peek at the piles of dirty tricks just lying on the ground, practically begging him to slip a few of them into a pocket and slink away.

“Forget it.”

Masky was thrown off his hooves by a blast of magic that sent him tumbling down the alley.

“I told you I hate that glittery magic bunk!” he shouted. He shivered as the last few traces of telekinetic magic left him and snarled at the unicorn. “Hate it! How could you treat your number one customer like that? Oof... Patsy, give me a hoof here. I think I’m gonna toss my cookies.”

“Can you make him do a flip?” Patsy asked Payzme as he hopped up on the counter.

“You dirty rat! When I get my hooves on you, you’ll wi-waha-wahwoah!”

The world turned into a merry-go-round from hell for Masky as he kicked his legs uselessly against the magic aura. Colors and lights swirled together as he was tossed about by the spiteful shopkeeper. He was held still only long enough to see a malicious grin on Payzme’s face.

“Let’s play make believe for a minute. I’ll be Princess Celestia, and you be Princess Luna.”

“You’re kind of ugly to be a princess, aren’t you?” Masky slurred.

“Bing bang boom, straight to the moon.”

Masky blinked at his new surroundings. The ground was a good way below him. The situation reminded him of some movie he had seen once, about an earth pony who had a dream every night about being a pegasus and flying through the skies, sleeping on the clouds, dancing in the rain, all sorts of namby pamby garbage. It was cheesy, it was terrible, and he had Patsy start a fire in the theater when they wouldn’t give him his money back just because “He didn’t buy a ticket.” And as he plummeted back to the ground, he vowed to burn the theater twice for making his last thoughts on Celestia’s earth be about that lousy movie.

He froze in the air just an inch above the ground before falling square on his head. He patted himself down and found with pleasure that his mask and hat had managed to cling to him during his acrobat routine. Satisfied, he allowed his legs to buckle under him, leaving him spread on his stomach in front of the black market as Payzme and Patsy howled with laughter. The laughter subsided a bit when Masky made good on his previous threat and gave a technicolor yawn at the foot of the stand.

“That’s real pretty,” Patsy said with a sigh as he helped his dizzy partner to his feet.

“Hey... hey you,” Masky mumbled as he jabbed a hoof at the space a few feet to the left of the amused unicorn and nearly falling over from the sudden imbalance. “You shut your mouf. I’d if... hurgh... I’d kick your ass if there weresn’t five of you... Patsy, I’m hungry.”

“You did just enjoy your breakfast in reverse, so I’d imagine.”

Patsy helped his accomplice to his feet again and guided the pony down the alleyway and back into Manehattan proper. Masky shook his head a few times, dislodging his namesake from its proper place. Retching one more time, he fixed the mask and cracked his neck.

“Well, that was a laugh and a half. What did you manage to swipe?” he asked. Patsy held up a finger to silence his partner as he began to heave and gag, his throat bobbing grotesquely. Masky had to avert his eyes or risk joining in with another round of tossing up green. With a final heave, several black balls dropped out of the toothy maw. Patsy quickly caught the balls before they dropped onto the ground and shook the slime off of them.

“I got... I got some... some smoke bombs an’... and his newspaper,” he panted. “I gotta get better at doing this.”

“Stealing? Yeah, I’d say so, too,” Masky snapped. “He was all over me with that creepy-crawly squiggly noodle glitter! I risked my neck back there! Damn narwhal could’a bumped me off if he had the mind to, and all you could nab was this kiddie stuff? I say next time, we just thump the wet sock and be done with it.”

“I was talking about the stomach pocket,” Patsy said shrilly.

“Yeah, you suck at that, too.” The comment earned him a kick to the stomach that nearly started a whole new digestion crisis. He mumbled something along the lines of “dugging dragons” and snatched the newspaper. “Where were you hiding this one?”

“You don’t want to know.”

==========

There’s a lot that could be said about Diamond Dogs. It could be pointed out how they were freakish ghouls who slunk around in caves as if they were afraid of seeing themselves in the light of day. Someone could mention that they were barely sentient shrieking husks of fur and claws who couldn’t tell a face from an ass without shoving their nose in it and hoping really hard it was a face. And if someone was feeling particularly mean-spirited, they might even say that they were mangy, flea bitten bottom feeders who survived off the scraps of the scum of the earth and most likely were the result of some hideous amount of unholy magic striking what could have otherwise been an ordinary dog who could go a day without trying to communicate with voices like horns scraping on a chalkboard while they wallowed in their own filth until the day merciful Luna finally descended upon them and put them out of everypony’s misery.

“You’re thinking awful things about Diamond Dogs again, aren’t you?” Patsy said from his seat at the grungy table as he looked over the menu.

Rex’s Diner was an oasis for the scum of Manehattan. It was dark enough to hide in if someone was looking for someone who couldn't afford to be found, it had that special amount of grime and a reputation for violence that kept the straight-laced Manehattanites from butting in and classing up the joint, and the cooks could sling up some some negotiably edible slop for any customers with a vegetarian or carnivorous diet.

“I just don’t see why they have to yell every time they talk—”

“FOOD ORDER READY UP! BRING FOOD, PONY! PONY FETCH!”

“I can hear it in my nightmares,” Masky said wearily over the sound of three chefs yapping at the sound of a bell. One of the pony waitresses finished pouring a cup of coffee for a burly stallion, ducked under an airborne plate, and brought a bowl of the Cream of Don’t Ask soup to the table next to the two. In the far corner of the diner, a glass shattered. In response, the waitress grouchily seized a chair, hovered up a few feet above the perpetrator, and broke the chair over the rowdy customer’s head.

“NO PLAYING WITH PONIES, PONY! PONY FETCH ORDERS! FETCH!” came the orders from the kitchen over a cacophony of crashes and pots pounding against one another. “ROVER! DROP! NOT FOR EATING! FOR PONIES TO EATING! DROP!”

“It’s pretty mellow today,” Patsy said as he took a look at his mug of water and wisely chose against drinking.

“Hello, boys,” a voice cooed.

Masky shuddered a bit and turned to look at the wrinkled yellow mare smiling at him.

“And what can I get you two strapping men today?”

“Veggie burger for me and regular ground cow for the squirt,” Masky said curtly, sliding the menus at the mare and taking a sudden interest in the rusted and empty napkin dispenser.

“So, what’s your name, dearie?” the waitress asked Masky innocently, sliding a little closer.

“Is this really professional?”

“No need to be so shy. I don’t bite...” she said, leaning in further, her smile morphing into what might have once been a more inviting expression a hundred years ago. Patsy chomped down on his tongue, fighting with all his might to not laugh simply so he wouldn’t miss a word of this unholy courtship.

“You still haven’t rung up our orders yet,” Masky said, his voice finally beginning to waver a bit. He risked a glance at the gray old mare’s face in hopes he could scare her off.

He only made her more powerful.

“I’ll bet you like wine.”

“I... hanh?” He had a feeling that this was all going to get worse before it got better.

“You know how wine gets better with age?” There it was.

“Lady, enough!” Masky prayed his namesake granted him some anonymity as more of the amused patrons paused their efforts to choke down their slop to watch the spectacle.

“You know, you look a lot like my grandson.”

“Sto-ho-hop it! I’m! I’m gon-gon-gonna peeee hahahaha!” Patsy squealed as he rolled on the floor.

“Ey, green bean,” a plump mare sitting at the counter shouted. “How’s about giving the old bird a little peck?” Masky didn’t enjoy the suggestion as much as the rest of the customers did. He would have loved to push the old waitress off of him, but he didn’t quite feel like being earning a reputation as a granny beater and a granny shagger. So he settled for hurling the napkin dispenser at the pony who heckled him.

The metal box missed its mark, but managed to get a solid hit on the pegasus waitress as she flew by with a pot of what passed for coffee. Knocked off balance, she did a tumble in the air, spilling the scalding liquid on a number of patrons too distracted by Masky’s marefriend to react in time. The ponies all howled and tried to rush out from their seats, flipping over their tables and chairs in the process. One chair rocketed across the restaurant, slammed into another table, and knocked a single bowl of over-ripened salad to the floor. The disturbed eater rose up to buck the nearest pony in the head, only to step down in his bowl and slip and land square on his back.

The bowl arced into the air, showering lettuce and dressing across the room before breaking on the head of a stallion who had chosen to ignore the brawl. He rose to his hooves, seemingly inflating to twice his size. With a roar, he charged at the crowd of fighting ponies who all had the sense to move out of the way of the crazed horse and let him barrel into a table of innocent (relatively speaking) bystanders. The offended customers threw the wild horse off their table and began to pummel the giant to the best of their ability before their victim regained some sense and tossed them all across the diner.

In a matter of minutes, Rex’s Diner had descended into the greatest disaster zone Manehattan had seen since Fillydelphia had dumped their parasprite problem on the city. Food, ponies, and harsh words flew in a whirlwind of anarchy until the kitchen door was finally kicked open and a small Diamond Dog jumped up onto a table that had been miraculously overlooked when the customers were searching for weapons. He put a whistle to his mouth and blew with all the strength he had in him.

Few beings in Equestria were even aware there was a painful frequency of sound that only ponies could hear. That number grew to include the patrons of the diner who all immediately collapsed to the ground, clutching their ears in agony.

“FOOD NOT FOR FIGHTING!” Rex screeched at the top of his horrid little lungs. “WHERE IS PONY? WHERE IS PONY WHO START TROUBLE?”

==========

“This is why we can’t have nice things,” Masky huffed as he rounded a street corner.

“Because you have serious anger management issues?” Patsy asked tensely as he rubbed the tip of his tail gently. It had gotten caught in the door during their escape, but considering the chaos they had unleashed in the diner, he counted himself lucky to have gotten away with just that. Well, lucky would have been getting away with a full stomach and a tail that hadn’t been fractured by a metal door, but he had to settle with what he got.

“What?” Masky gasped as if he had just been asked to spare a bit for charity. “I’m great! It’s those damn grannies always trying to start with me! They’ve got to be passing notes about me somehow.”

“So there’s a conspiracy of old mares all trying to get you, is that right?”

“Not old mares. Just grannies. Specifically grannies. Maybe they’re throwing some big granny shindig and they all talk there. Maybe they have a newsletter or something, I don’t know!” he cried as he headed down an alley and took a seat on a trash can.

“That makes much more sense. ‘Foxy Grandma Weekly’ is a pretty popular magazine, I hear,” Patsy said with a snort as he unfolded the newspaper he had managed to hold onto.

“No, it would have to be something less frequent. They can’t read that fast, they have old eyes,” he said. Patsy found it uncomfortable how he couldn’t find the least bit of irony in his partner’s voice. “Maybe ‘Plastic Hip Monthly.’ And hey!” Masky shouted, snatching the paper out of his claws. “Just what do you think you’re doing with that?”

“I’m reading. That’s sort of what you do with the newspaper.”

“Who taught you how to read?” he asked suspiciously as he began flipping through the pages.

“Well it wasn’t you, you horse’s a—” Patsy wasn’t sure how Masky managed to pinch his lips shut with a hoof.

“Patsy, shut up for a second. Or a minute, even better. Feast your eyes on this!”

“‘Audience Says “Me-WOW” To Drug Bust At Cat Show.’ Yeah, that’s... that’s something."

“Not the rotten cat article! This one!” Patsy moved the green hoof out of the way to read an article on the opposite page.

“Princess Celestia Commissions Statues,” he read aloud. “In honor of the heroic defeat of Discord, the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony who had plunged Equestria into madness months ago, Princess Celestia, our glorious leader, has ordered sculptures of the six bearers of the legendary Elements of Harmony to be placed around the wicked spirit in the Canterlot Sculpture Garden.

When asked why the beautiful and kind Princess would spend the national budget to pay for the marble statues, which are to be gilded with purest gold and studded precious stones, in blatant disregard to the growing welfare issue and food shortage spreading across the nation, our great and glorious leader had banished the treasonous slanderer to the far reaches of the globe. All Hail Princess Celestia.

The six mares of interest declined comment on the issue, but all agreed that Princess Celestia is great and wonderful to all.”

“This rag took a conservative turn lately,” Patsy lamented as he handed the paper back to the madly grinning Masky.

“Never mind that! I just cooked up something brilliant, see?”

“Oh good, the voice. I can’t wait to hear this one.”

Masky’s smile threatened to conquer his entire face as he drummed his hooves against the trash can lid, providing his own drumroll. “We’re going to swipe them!”

“The statues. Real funny. Hey, pass me the crosswords.”

“Not the statues, you maroon!” Masky shouted as he jumped to his hooves, his yellow eyes glinting with devilish intent. “We’re gonna pinch the Elements of Harmony!”

Street Smarts and Book Smarts

Elements of Larceny

A “My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic” fanfiction

By TheManWithTwoNames

“My Little Pony” and all subsequent properties used to belong to Hasbro and Lauren Faust, then it belonged to some green pony who swiped the rights, but now we can’t find them, so I guess the show’s up for grabs.
Masky and Patsy are my brain babies.

If I had a bit every time FiMfiction messed up the formatting or dropped out entire lines of text during the import from Google Docs, I'd have... well, probably enough to buy me breakfast and half of a lunch.

Whoo, I've already made you do a lot of reading. Go take a break before you keep going, you've earned it, slugger.

“Ta-da! We’re here!” Pinkie Pie announced cheerfully.

“About time,” Masky grumbled loud enough to make sure his obnoxiously cheerful escort heard him. He honestly had no idea how long it had taken them to finally get to the damned library. His sense of time and space had abandoned him, likely to find a new home with someone who wasn’t being vocally assaulted by the only pony in Equestria who had evolved beyond the need for lungs. At least, that was his only explanation for why the hyperactive pink pony could gab for as long as she did without ever needing to stop for air. The experience had nearly driven him to madness. She would yammer on and on for what felt like an eternity about nothing. It was a type of agony usually exclusive to grown men receiving a call from their mothers.

He noticed with a mix of frustration and cruel satisfaction that Patsy endured his captivity just as miserably. Patsy had made several attempts to hop off Pinkie’s back so the two could give her the slip, but every time she proved to be worryingly aware of her prisoner’s efforts to escape, bouncing him back into place whenever he shifted his weight. Even now that they had arrived, she refused to let him down. It wasn’t a smooth trip for Patsy by any means, and when the bouncy ride was over, his face was an even deeper shade of green than usual.

Pinkie, either oblivious or uncaring to her new friends’ unhappiness, threw open the bright red door set in the repurposed tree, revealing a large circular room. The walls were carved into wooden shelves that were crammed with more books than Masky could count. At one end, the shelves transformed into a staircase that led upward to some private room. At the foot of the stairs was another closed door that likely hid some storage room.

“Twiliiight! Hey, girl, whatcha doing?” Pinkie Pie sang as she bounded toward the startled purple unicorn bent over a desk in the center of the room. Twilight’s irritation quickly faded once she saw her friend’s happy face and gave a smile of her own.

“Hi, Pinkie Pie. Oh, who’s this?” Twilight asked as she set down her scroll and quill on the desk and approached the Manehattanites. Masky narrowed his eye on the Twilight's horn and leaned backward, giving Pinkie Pie just enough room to stick her face in between the two.

“This is Masky! He’s new in town! And this,” Pinkie said as she suddenly bounced Patsy off of her back, “is Patsy! He’s new, too.”

The nauseous dragon pulled himself off of his stomach and retreated back to Masky’s side, desperately leaning on his partner as he tried to ease his stomach. Masky responded by taking a step to the side and sending him falling back to the floor.

“I ain’t a stinkin’ lean-to! There’s a wall right there, get your claws offa me,” Masky shouted, smoothing out his purple vest with a hoof.

“A lean-to isn’t something you lean on, actually,” Twilight corrected, earning herself an unimpressed glower from the new visitor. “And I haven’t introduced myself yet. I’m Twilight Sparkle. It’s nice to meet you both. What brings you to Ponyville?”

“Just looking for a little spree away from home,” Masky said with a shrug. “Just two Joes out for some excitement.”

“So you came to a little town like Ponyville?” Twilight asked, perplexed.

“...yes.” Masky relaxed a bit when it looked like she had bought it. ‘You magic pinheads aren’t as smart you think, are ya?’

“Is he going to be alright?” Twilight motioning her head toward the queasy Patsy leaning in the doorway, desperately filling his lungs with as much fresh air as he could steal.

“He’s just being a drama queen,” Masky said dismissively before snapping his attention to the lizard. “Patsy! If you plan on having anything come outta your yap, you’d better be ready to put it all back in, you read me?” Masky turned back to the uncertain Twilight and gave her a knowing nod. “Brats. Am I right?”

“That seemed a little mean,” Twilight replied, suddenly looking a bit uncomfortable with having him around. “I have some herbs from Zecora that could settle his stomach if he’d like them.”

It was not his proudest moment. In fact, Patsy strongly believed that it would be a blight on his memory as the most un-dragonlike thing he’d ever done (not including his tolerating the company of a fat-mouthed pony for all his young life). But at the mention of the herb, he was powerless to stop his mouth from watering. He promised himself that it was just a result of desperate circumstances and that he wasn’t really going completely native. It would just be one little bite and then he’d be back on his strict diet of raw meat and cheap jewelry.

“Patsy doesn’t like to eat things from ponies he doesn’t know,” Masky interjected, speaking especially deliberately as a subtle hint to his partner to let Patsy know that he shouldn’t say a word. “He’ll be fine, he won’t be making any messes if he knows what’s good for him.”

“I won’t be making a mess because I’ve got nothing left to upchuck at this point,” Patsy muttered darkly. After a few moments, he managed to pull himself together and sulked back to his partner.

“Alright, Pancake Pie,” Masky began, putting the kibosh on the Pinkie before she could follow her primary directive and obliterate the new trace of gloom. “Is there any reason you strung me out here?”

“Whoops! I almost forgot,” Pinkie giggled as she hopped toward a bookshelf. “Hey, Twilight, if you’re not too busy, could you help me find a book?”

Masky’s face twisted into an unseen scowl at the airhead. First she let half of the town get a good look at him during her little chase, then the weasel stole his partner, scatted about nothing until his ears bled, and turned his whole operation into a mess, just so he could meet this chunk of lead unicorn and find some book? He decided he had let the broad waste enough of his time. He snapped his tail in contempt at the pair as he turned for the door.

“Of course. I was just finishing a report to Princess Celestia, but I’d be happy to help,” Twilight said pleasantly.

A blinding light forced Twilight to raise a hoof to shield her eyes. Squinting an eye open, she saw Masky looking at her with a sudden excitement. She wasn’t sure if her eyes were just playing tricks on her, but she thought it looked like the light was reflected off of his teeth.

“Did you just say you’re scribbling to the Big Cheese herself?” he asked as he slid closer to her.

“Yes,” Twilight affirmed with more than a little pride in her voice, “I’m the princess’s number one pupil, and she asks me to send her reports about my studies.”

“If you needed a pen, why didn’t you just say so? Here, use mine." Masky offered a black pen he slipped out from his vest.

“Why does it have that string of metal beads on the end of it?”

“I got it from a bank.”

“I appreciate it, but I already have plenty of quills and ink.” Twilight did her best to be polite as she retreated from the breach of her personal space. She did not want to hurt his feelings. Judging on how grouchy he was just before, it looked like he had a hard time making new friends. She would feel just awful if she shut him down when he was trying to be friendly to her. “But if you’d like, after I help Pinkie find her book, I would love to talk and get to know you better.”

“You and me both,” Masky said with a smile that forced Twilight to avert her eyes again. Once Twilight had joined her friend on the other side of the room, Patsy flicked his partner behind the ear to catch his attention.

“What was that all about?”

“Lady Luck is smiling on us, Patsy,” Masky replied with a wicked chuckle.

“You mean the joymare who hangs around on the corner of Fifth and Main?”

“I mean the one who does you favors for free.” He checked to make sure the other two ponies weren’t listening in before whispering, “I think that these two might be part of that glorified turkey’s special team. And I’d bet your left eye that they know where the elements are.”

“So what’s the plan?” Patsy rubbed his eyepatch, the choice of words making him too uncomfortable to remind his accomplice how stupid the whole scheme was.

“I’m gonna keep the purple narwhal busy while you snoop around. Don’t swipe anything if you find one just yet, I wanna know where they all are before we make the pull. And don’t make me wait for too long. I think she wants a piece of me, if you catch my drift.”

“I think you’re dreaming.”

“I’m not dreaming,” Masky hissed. “She said she ‘wants to get to know me better.’ I know what that means.”

“Weird. She doesn’t really look like she has grandkids.”

“Watch it, runt.”

While the two conspired, Twilight was busy helping Pinkie find the perfect book. She was proud of the collection that the Ponyville library offered. While it certainly couldn’t compare to the virtually endless inventory that the Canterlot royal library boasted, she had yet to be confronted with a challenge that could not be overcome with the help of her leather-bound sages. Chemistry, astronomy, history, magic, cooking, gardening, weight-loss guides, fiction, non-fiction, she had enough books on every subject to satisfy any need (including the awkward requests she would sometimes get from embarassed ponies asking for something from the more risque collection she kept in the basement).

And though she had no doubt that she would always prevail in her pursuit of sharing knowledge, Twilight knew that this would be her most difficult task yet. The request had come as a surprise. Granted, Pinkie surprised most ponies with about half of the things she did or said, but she still could not help but think that the request was particularly unusual.

“Out of curiosity,” Twilight asked as she climbed up a sliding ladder to look at the books on the higher shelves, “why are you interested in a book about Equestrian law?”

“Well, it all started when I woke up this morning. My mane was all extra frizzle-frazzled, which meant that I was going to meet somepony new today! So I had to make sure to be super-extra excited so I could give them a proper Pinkie Pie welcome, so I had to load up the welcome wagon...”

Twilight just nodded and hummed every few seconds while Pinkie happily relayed her entire morning in painstaking detail. She knew better than to try to get her friend to stop once she got started. It was easier on everyone to just zone her out until she was finished, however long that might take. She took advantage of the time by scanning over the titles of whatever book was nearby and making a note of which ones she hadn’t read yet for later.

She didn’t like to think poorly of her friends, but she was worried that whatever Pinkie was looking for would be too far beyond her to be of any help. She wasn’t stupid by any means, but Twilight didn’t honestly expect too much from any of her friends in terms of formal education. Other than the local schoolhouse, Ponyville didn’t have much to offer its citizens in terms of higher learning. (And more than once, Twilight had been grateful to have received such a comprehensive education after a day of talking with some of the other townsfolk.)

Her eyes lit up when she found what she was certain would be the perfect choice to suit Pinkie’s specific mental faculty. Pulling the book off the shelf with some simple magic, Twilight carefully climbed back down the ladder. She always paid close attention to keeping her hooves on the rungs ever since an incident that left her with a twisted ankle. In her concentration, she wasn’t able to hear the faint creaking of wood as a small figure scuttled up the stairs, but she did dismount the ladder just in time to catch the end of the story.

“And then the stallion says, ‘I’m a little hoarse!’” Pinkie concluded before bursting into giggles at her own joke.

“Good one, Pinkie,” Twilight said with a forced laugh, not concerned enough to wonder how her train of thought managed to fly so far off its tracks. “So, I think that I found just the book for you.” Twilight held the book out for her friend to see. The brief moment of excitement the two shared was ended as Pinkie’s smile faded into an uncomfortable frown.

“Umm... that’s great and all, but I don’t think that’s what I’m looking for.”

Twilight was caught somewhere between shocked and disappointed. “Really? I thought it would have been perfect for you. What’s wrong?”

“It’s a little kiddy, don’t you think?” Pinkie replied, pointing to the colorful block letters and cartoonish artwork decorating the cover.

“There’s an old librarian expression, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’,” Twilight replied.

“I guess, and I’m really sorry, but I just don’t think that ‘My Little Proctor’s Big Settlement Adventure’ is gonna help me much.” Pinkie quickly climbed up the ladder to find a book for herself while Twilight still tried to argue her case.

“It’s not that bad, look! Don’t you want Larry the Litigation Lizard to teach you about sexual harassment?” Twilight jumped back and shouted when a book twice the size of her head dropped off the shelf and slammed to the floor in a cloud of dust. She coughed a few times and twisted her head to read the title of the book.

“The Comprehensive Omnibus of Equestrian Law, by Powdered Wig?”

“Ya-huh!”

“Pinkie, this book is enormous.”

“Probably because it’s so full of smart ideas! That’s what I always say about you, you know."

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Twilight said flatly as she leafed through the pages of the monstrous guide. She couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the book. She had to squint just to read the tiny font, and of the few words that she could read, she could only understand about half of them. She never even knew some of these words existed.

“Chapter five hundred and nine, palliating on a chattel mortgage?”

“Twilight, I can see you through the paper!” Pinkie giggled from the other side of the tissue-thin page. “Thanks so much for helping, Twilight! I’ll have this done in a jiffy, and then I’ll see you all at the party tonight!” She hefted the book on her back with some effort and bounced out of the library, her head already buzzing with new ideas.

“So random,” she sighed as walked back to her desk to finish her letter. She gathered her thoughts for a moment, wet the tip of her quill with fresh ink, and brought the tip of her pen to the scroll. A sudden breeze broke her focus, and Twilight frowned when she looked up to see the front door swinging wide open. “She always forgets to close the door.” She brought her attention back to her letter, using her subconscious magic to slam the door.

“Shite!”

Twilight jumped at the abrupt shout and lost control of her magic. Her quill slashed across the parchment and knocked the inkwell off the desk. The bottle broke and the black ink exploded across the floor, staining the wood. She lamented the mess for a moment before turning her head to the ceiling and shouting.

“Spike, what have I told you about watching your language?” Confusion gripped her for a second when she remembered that Spike was out running errands. Something clicked in her head and she turned her head around to see a green stallion sucking on his front hoof.

“What about somepony telling you to not slam doors?” Masky cursed as he withdrew his hoof to examine it with displeasure. “Lousy paper cuts. This is why I don’t read.”

“Sorry about that.” Twilight’s cheeks turned red. She got so focused on helping Pinkie that she had completely forgotten about the pony she brought with her. “You were so quiet I almost forgot you were here.”

“You sure know how to make a guy feel welcome,” Masky said sarcastically as he shoved the book back on the shelf. He casually made his way to the round desk at the center of the library and leaned on it, trying to breathe in as much of the smell of ink as he could. It wasn’t close to the air back in Manehattan, but it was still better than whatever disgusting hippie air the town had been pumping into him. He looked at the mare giving him a pleasant smile and snorted. It wasn’t even funny how easy it was to read the ponies in this town. Sure, she looked pleasant enough, but he had enough experience to pick up on the little signs. The tensed neck and shoulder muscles, the locked jaw, the little creases over the side of her mouth, the ever-so-slight quiver of the eyes toward the door. They all added up to mean one thing.

‘Criminy, this dame’s really got the hots for me. Pick up the pace, Patsy.’

Masky saw Twilight’s mouth start to open and hurriedly spat out the first thing he could think of to stall her.

“Hey hey! We got the same laundry!”

“I don’t think I know what you mean.”

“You’re wearing purple, I’m wearing purple,” he explained, demonstrating by pulling on his vest and tapping his mask. “We’re like brother and sister over here.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Twilight fought back a groan. She just wanted to be left alone and finish her letter to Princess Celestia, but it was looking like her guest wasn’t going anywhere in any hurry. “But I’ve never seen anypony around here dressed quite like you.”

“It’s Black Sheep Chic. It’s all the rage in Manehattan.” He couldn’t believe he just said that. He felt like biting his own tongue off for making such an amateur slip and then swatting Patsy in the back of the head for good measure. “Really, everypony’s wearing it.”

“Hey, didn’t you have a friend with you?” Twilight asked, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

“The loud pink one? She left, remember?” What was taking Patsy so long?!

“No, not Pinkie. You had a baby dragon with you!” She hadn’t meant to shout, but she couldn’t help but be a little excited. This was the only other pony she had ever met who had a baby dragon for a companion, and she had always wished she had someone she could talk about raising a dragon with. It was just awful luck that the opportunity finally appeared now when she only wanted to get some work done.

“Yeah, that’d be Patsy.”

“Wow. For the longest time, I thought I was the only pony in Equestria who was raising a baby dragon. I thought you were Spike when I shouted before.”

“So, where’s your lizard?” Masky asked, innocently twisting his head around as though the dragon would appear at the question. He hid it well, but he was not happy to learn that a rogue factor was just added into the mix. The last thing he needed was another gecko running around and mucking everything up.

“He should be out running errands,” Twilight answered, ignoring the lizard comment until she could be certain if it was offensive or not. “Come to think of it, where’s Patsy?”

“He likes to run off every now and then, but I wouldn’t get all bothered about it,” Masky said cooly. “He always finds his way back. He knows he’d be bunny without me. We’re a power duo, see? Like those drips in that ‘The Manticore, the Windigo, and the Wardrobe’ book.”

“That’s not...” Twilight could only stammer at her guest in sheer bewilderment. “Those aren’t even...”

Luckily for Twilight Sparkle’s sanity, but not so much for her nerves, a loud series of crashes, snarls, and thumps exploded above her. She whipped her head this way and that, trying to figure out what in the world was happening.

“What is that noise?” she shouted in alarm.

“I don’t hear nothing,” Masky replied uninterestedly as he examined a hoof. He finally flinched at the last crash as the upstairs door exploded open and a writhing ball of green and purple slammed down the stairs. Twilight levitated the clump up in the air and separated it into two struggling dragons hissing and clawing the air.

“Oooh, you meant that noise.”

Twilight ignored Masky's cheesy grin and instead focused on giving her still-writhing assistant a disapproving glower. Once Spike was finally lowered back to the ground, he caught the Twilight’s expression and settled slightly. But he made sure his muscles were still tensed and his knees were bent, ready to pounce.

“Twilight! There’s another dragon in the house! He broke in to try to steal all my gems!” Spike whined. He leaped into the air to continue his brawl with the intruder and harmlessly stabbed at thin air as Twilight once again suspended him.

“Spike, I am so disappointed with you!” Twilight scolded as she firmly dropped Spike back on the floor. “How could you just attack a guest like that?”

“He’s not a guest, he’s a thief!”

“That’s a malicious fabrication,” Masky called from the other side of the room as he inspected his own partner. Patsy was sending his fair share of dirty looks the other dragon’s way, but a lifetime of bottling up his hostility had given him the self-restraint necessary to walk away from a fight (and the cunning to start it up again when the other jerk wasn’t expecting it).

“You had one job, Patsy. One job,” Masky growled as he straightened out Patsy’s neckerchief.

“He got the drop on me,” Patsy snipped. “The twerp was hiding. I would have taken him out if I could’ve gotten my knuckles...”

“We’ll worry about how you blew everything later. How you hanging in there, palooka?” Masky asked, looking a bit amused at the scratches and cuts that tarnished his partner's scales.

“I think I broke my hand going down the stairs.” He demonstrated by lifting his left hand up, revealing a perfectly intact claw.

“Looks fine to me. Can you move your fingers?”

Patsy only gave Masky a flat look as he complied. A sickening crack accompanied each bend as the four green claws popped and snapped in disgusting angles.

“See? What did I say? You’re fine.”

He only finally gave a yelp of pain when a purple aura surrounded his claw and all four fingers were magically forced back into their sockets. Patsy flapped the healed fingers as if trying to shake out the explosive pain that was now burning in his joints before opting to just stick his fingers in his mouth.

“I am so sorry about Spike,” Twilight apologized as she trotted over to the pair. “It would appear that my lazy assistant was taking a nap instead of running his errands,” she added nastily. “Please forgive him, most times he meets a new dragon it ends in some fiasco. I think it's left him a little jaded. But if you don’t mind me asking, why were you in our room?”

“I was looking for a book.”

“A book?”

“This is a library, isn’t it?”

“He was looking under your bed!” Spike shouted and was quickly glared back into silence.

“Yes, this is a library,” Twilight explained as patiently as she could, “but books are usually kept down here on shelves. Not under pony’s beds.”

“I don’t go to many libraries,” Patsy shrugged. This was really just too easy for him. The sad little mare was trying so hard to be accommodating and patient. That purple runt must have been some sort of moron if she really didn’t have any trouble believing a dragon could be that stupid. Dragons! The oldest, most powerful species in the world, predating even the evolution of the pony race, with elder leaders still boasting about their victories over the princesses and Starswirl the Bearded in battles of wit. But he could break into a ponies house and get off scott-free with just ‘Nope dope I don’t know what liberries are! A-hyuck!’ Honestly pitiful. At least this failure could just be used to prove that this whole scheme was a waste of time and they could get something to eat and convince Masky to go back to Manehattan. Like there was any chance of that actually happening.

“Really? Well that is kind of odd. I always thought that The Manehattan Public Library was one of the most renowned libraries in Equestria.”

Patsy hid his scowl and only gave his chagrined partner the briefest of glances as he spoke very clearly, making sure to over-enunciate every syllable, “Yes it is. But we do not go to that end of the city that often.”

Twilight cleared her throat as she surveyed the scene. Spike was in some sort of territorial dragon bloodlust after spending all day getting out of doing work. Patsy was banged up pretty decently, had been poking around in her bedroom, and by the way he was talking it sounded like he had some sort of stroke. And then there was Masky, who was now refusing to make eye contact with anyone in the room after spending the afternoon making her uncertain if he was awkward or just unpleasant.

She was going to get Pinkie Pie back for this.

“So,” she ventured awkwardly, “how long have you and Patsy been together?”

“Well, I hatched him when I was six,” Masky said, “so that’d be about twenty long years now.”

“That’s kind of a coincidence,” Twilight said, her initial excitement of finding another dragon-rearing pony rekindling. “That’s about how long I’ve raised Spike.”

“Let me stop you right there. He’s twenty? And you’re still calling him a baby dragon?”

“Well, nineteen, technically. That’s still infancy for dragons. Isn’t it?” Twilight was suddenly feeling much less secure with her understanding of dragon biology.

“Dragons leave infancy at fifteen,” Patsy explained flatly.

“Then why are you so much bigger than Spike?”

“I take it you mean taller. He’s a chubby little hatchling, isn’t he?” Patsy said snidely, earning a warning growl from the younger creature. “You overfeed him. I don’t want to see what he’ll be like once he hits his growth spurt in the next few years. All that fat is going to explode out everywhere and turn him into a big mess.”

Patsy took no small amount of pleasure in watching the color drain away from Spike’s scales, his mouth hanging limply in unspeakable stammers. If he only knew the nightmares that were playing out in the smaller dragon’s mind, scenes of a beautiful white and purple unicorn squealing in disgust at his hideously bloated form, it would have been enough to get a genuine laugh out of him for the first time in years.

Masky had no trouble telling when his accomplice was lying. After all, he taught the sprout everything he knew about deception. And there was no mistaking the look of someone who was seeing their dreams fall apart before their very eyes on Spork or whoever’s face. But as far as he was concerned, the gecko borked his only chance at casing the joint, so he was lucky to get out of this with just a heart attack and a few kicks to the crotch. Now he had to defuse the situation so the purple egghead wouldn’t start getting suspicious, so it was once again time for him to dance into that mental minefield of confusion and chicanery that was small talk.

“So, how did you get your egg?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your dragon. How’d you get your dragon?”

“Well that’s really a wonderful story.” A nostalgic warmth crossed Twilight’s face as she stirred up the memories of what was without doubt the greatest day of her life. “I was just a little filly in Canterlot when I had enrolled in Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. I was so excited, but I had to pass an... entrance exam.” Masky wasn’t sure if she added the nervous gulp for some dramatic tension or if she was really that terrified of the thought of tests. Either way, he hated her a little more for it.

“I was so nervous when one of the proctors wheeled in a little wooden cart, and on the top of it was a purple speckled egg. I had to hatch the dragon egg to pass, but I just couldn’t! It was the most important day of my life, and I was about to blow it! But then...”

That was about all of this snore Masky could stand to take. He let his eyes glaze over a bit while the flat tire hissed out her life story. Rainbow magic explosion plants blah blah blah big whoop! Surrounded by books and she couldn’t figure out how to tell a good story to save her life. It just proved that movies were better. Once she finished yapping, he didn’t even wait to be asked to start telling his story.

“So when I was just a little tyke, I was already taking care of myself like a real stallion. Anyway, I was all primed and ready to go. I had my peppers, I had my onions, I had some feta cheese, I was all set to make one heckuva omelet! Only thing missing was an egg, see? So I swung by the, eh, market and I procured myself a big honkin’ egg. I was just over the moon for it. So I ran home, diced up everything just right, heat up the pan, got everything ready for brinner—you know that that is? It’s breakfast for dinner, it’s the tops. I bet all the fatcats in Canterlot have it every night, the bastards.

“Anyhoo, I grabbed the egg and I crack it open over the pan, and wouldn’t ya know it, no yolk, but this ugly fried chicken fetus looking thing plops out. The second it hit the pan, it let out the most unbelievable noise I ever heard. It was like horns on a chalkboard. Completely otherworldly, loud enough to wake the dead. It sounded like somepony dancing on a bunch of cats. The point I’m trying to make is that it was just the worst. So that noise is going on right in front of my face since the little imp was clawing and biting at me. Understandably, I lost my cool for just a tick, and we’re crashing all around the hideo—er, apartment, making a big ruckus of the place. After we both settled down and shared a drink, I decided to keep the little ankle-biter.”

Masky concluded by tossling Patsy’s brown spines in a half-aggressive noogie. “And sometimes he even makes me glad I did.”

“That story gets more heart warming every time I hear it,” Patsy said flatly, swatting the hoof away.

“So you guys really get along then?” Twilight asked, looking between the two as they took turns swiping at each other, feinting and punching at one another wherever they could.

“Oh, we get along great!” Masky said as he crushed Patsy in a headlock. “We’re like two peas in a pod.”

“Or grape juice and glue,” Patsy grunted as he slipped free again, stumbling back from the sudden shift in balance and crashing into a bookshelf. A few books were knocked loose and bopped Masky on the head.

“Are you sure you two are okay with each other?” Twilight asked as she flinched away at the sight of Masky pelting Patsy with a few of the books. She managed to catch them all in the air before any more damage could be done to them. “You two seem a little eristic.”

“I’ve always been good at painting,” Masky agreed as he straightened out his hat and mask.

“Not artistic, I said... ugh, never mind.” She abandoned hope of moving that conversation anywhere positive. She decided that she had entertained the two of them long enough and began to try to steer the discussion to its conclusion. “Well, the day is getting on, and I really should get back to work on my report to the princess. So I think that I’m going to have to say goodbye for now.”

“Aw, so soon?” Masky asked so sincerely. “Why don’t you let Patsy and Spank play around upstairs a bit more? They could play some hide and seek and get a nice look around the place.”

“I actually think Spike is getting a little too territorial to have any guests right now,” Twilight urged, glancing over at her assistant still struggling between the shocking depression of his romance with Rarity crumbling and the strange new desire to rip this stranger apart. “So maybe you should just leave.”

Masky recoiled at the command. His eyes dulled and his ears fell limply, slapping himself in the forehead as he lowered his head. He scratched the back of his head with his hoof and sadly looked up at Twilight with watery eyes. “Oh. Oh, alright then. I can take a hint. No need to tell me twice, no ma’am.”

Twilight bit her lip, feeling guilty for her crudeness. She tried to turn her head away but her eyes were still tracing the sad pony as he sulked toward the door, his head nearly dragging against the floor.

“Come on, Patsy. Let’s not bother her anymore. She’s too busy for the likes of us.”

Patsy only gave Twilight one disapproving shake of his head as he opened the door, the hinges creaking with a sad whine. The traveling pair sighed together before turning in perfect synchronization to give the conscience stricken unicorn one last despondent gaze before crossing through the threshold.

“Wait!” she called, reaching out for them. The two paused but did not turn around, and silently waited for Twilight to finish wracking her brains. “I mean, I’ll still see you at whatever party Pinkie’s throwing tonight, right? And you could visit some of my other friends in the meantime.”

“Who are they?” Masky said, still with his back turned. For some reason, though, all the ponies walking in front of him were squinting and covering their eyes.

“Well, there’s Applejack. She lives over on Sweet Apple Acres, and she used to live in Manehattan, too. And then there’s Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and you’ve already met Pinkie Pie...” Twilight listed off, hoping that she could spare his feelings and at the very least introduce him to some new friends.

“Sounds like a blast,” Masky said with a laugh, his sudden shift in mood once again disorienting the librarian as he galloped off for Sweet Apple Acres. “Come on, Patsy, we’ve got some ponies to say hello to...”

===========

Pinkie Pie looked over her room with a satisfied smile. She had rolled out all of her essential party provisions, with balloons, streamers, confetti, games, and more all just waiting to be arranged into the perfect alignment to bring out the fun in everyone who’d be attending.

“Sorry, guys,” she apologized to a baggie of uninflated balloons as she pushed them off a table to make room. “But you’ll have to wait just a teeny tiny bit longer for me to finish reading.” The Comprehensive Omnibus of Equestrian Law slammed down on the table and caused the wood to bend under the sheer girth of it. Pinkie hummed to herself as she flipped open to the first page and excitedly began to read. She would have to work quick to finish legitimizing the Pinkie Promise and still have time to set up the party, but she knew if anyone could get it done in time, it was her.