1 | Your Normal Everyday Criminals
Pinkie Pie sighed.
It was a slow day for business.
Most days yield at least fifty customers.
Today was different.
It was already 6:21 p.m., and she had only seen three customers. One had bought an eclair. The next, a chocolate donut. The last, a slice of lemon meringue pie. All had taken their orders to-go.
Today was slow, indeed.
Pinkie longingly looked at the door to Sugarcube Corner. If only a customer would walk in. Maybe he’d buy a cake. Maybe some coffee, or even pick up an order, even though none had been placed.
“Oh, hey, Pinkie,” a voice called from the stairs. Pinkie turned her head around and saw Pound Cake standing on the final step. “How’s business?”
“Not very good,” she said. “There’s only been three customers today.”
“Huh. That sucks.” He ran a hand through his curly brown hair and stepped towards the counter.
“Today’s not all that bad! It’s still your seventeenth birthday!”
He smirked. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“By the way, Pound, where’d you get the clothes? Haven’t seen them on you before.”
He looked down at himself. “Oh, these?” He was wearing a black leather vest over a grey hoodie, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, over a blue plaid button-up shirt. On his legs were black, boot-cut jeans, and on his feet were grey skate shoes. Completing the outfit was a small, silver pendant cut in the shape of a four-leaf clover hanging around his neck. “I got ‘em as presents.”
“Well, they look good on you.”
He blushed, waving his hand. “Nah.”
Pinkie giggled. “No, really, they do.”
“Well, if you say so.” He put his hands in his pockets. “So, what’s new with you?”
Pinkie bit her lip. “Not much, actually.”
“Don’t you have your birthday coming up?”
“In a few months, silly,” she said, giggling to herself.
He laughed. “I know, I know. You’re turning twenty, right?”
“Yep!”
“Planning on getting drunk?”
“Maybe. Why, you planning on it?”
“Well, planning on me. I just hit the legal age today, after all.”
“Why not just get drunk today, then?”
“I never said I wasn’t.”
“Oh, I see. Just, be warned, hangovers are a bitch.”
Pound laughed. “You know, for one of my closest friends and legal guardian, you’re a terrible role model.”
Pinkie feigned offense, putting one hand over her upper torso and the other arm on her forehead. “You wound me so!”
Pound chuckled for a moment. “But, I can count on you as a drinking buddy, then?”
“Sure thing. We can start tonight.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Then, the bell that was a telltale sign of the door opening rang. “Alright, Pound, I gotta get back to work. I’ll talk to you later,” Pinkie said.
“See ya, Pinks,” he replied. He walked off, heading upstairs to his room.
Pinkie turned to the customer who walked in. “Hello, welcome to Sugarcube Corner! How can I-” She was abruptly cut off when the customer brandished a shotgun from the inside of his trench coat and fired a blast into the wall to his left. He pointed the gun at Pinkie.
“I’ll keep this simple. Money, in bag, now.”
“Geez, is that all you wanted? You could’ve just asked!” she cheerfully complied. Taking a brown paper bag from under the counter, she started shoveling money from the register into the bag, smiling all the way. When she was done, and the register was empty, she stuck the bag out towards the robber. “Here you go!”
He smirked, lowering the gun. “Well, that was easy!” He walked towards the counter and reached out towards the bag. He stuck his arm out to grab the money.
Instead of his payday, he was met with Pinkie Pie grabbing his arm and snapping his radius.
He screamed in pain, instinctively raising his shotgun. Pinkie was quicker, though. She vaulted over the countertop, swinging her feet and knocking the gun out of his hand. It clattered to the floor. Pinkie let go of the thug, and bent over to pick up the shotgun. The robber swung his good arm, but Pinkie dove out of the way and fired a shell at him. Needless to say, it ended him faster than you could say ‘messy’.
Pound ran down the stairs, and came just in time to see the robber’s body go tumbling over the countertop and onto the wooden floor below. “Whoa! Pinkie! What the hell happened?”
“Well… we were almost just robbed, I think.”
“That’s not really what I was referring to. That’s pretty obvious.” He threw his hands up, resting them on his head. “I was referring to the problem of us having to clean this up in time for tomorrow.”
“Oh. Well, we could always…” She bit her lip, trying to think of ways to get the smell of blood and death out of the shop. “I got nothing.” She smirked. “But I know someone who just might know what to do.”
“Alright, Dash. I’ll be waiting out here. Get in, do the job, and get out.”
“Aw, c’mon, Thunderlane. Don’t be so serious all of a sudden.” Rainbow Dash playfully punched him on the shoulder.
“I mean it. I almost got killed last time you fucked around, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. Wait, are you talking about the time I went rug-surfing down the guy’s stairs, or the time I decided crawling through the vents was the best way to go?”
“The rug-surfing one.”
“It was still pretty fun, Thunder, you gotta admit.”
His lips turned up in a small smirk. “Yeah, I guess it kinda was.” He frowned. “But, we still have a time constraint. The Don wants us back within the hour, so we really gotta get moving.”
“Within the hour?”
“Yeah, I know. So, no messing around. Please.”
She sighed. “Fine. I won’t mess around. I’ll be quick.”
“Thank you.”
Rainbow opened the passenger side door of the car she and Thunderlane were sitting in. Checking her cheater holster, she unloaded her gun and peered inside the clip. Full.
Opening the door to the apartment complex the mark was in, she checked her phone for the e-mail the buyer had sent her with the details. The mark was an average guy who had happened to run across a suitcase of money that didn’t belong to him. Her instructions were to get the case back, and to try not to kill anybody unless absolutely necessary.
She studied the mailboxes in the first floor, looking for her mark. After a few seconds of searching, she found the name.
Red Herring, Room 256.
She opened the door to the main complex. She ran up the stairs to the second floor, keeping her footfalls as quiet as possible.
Alright, let’s see… Room 252.. 254… here we are. 256. She reached into her leather jacket’s side pocket and pulled out a tension wrench and pick. Alright, let’s see… Rainbow placed the tension wrench in the bottom portion of the keyhole, feeling for resistance on either side when she turned it. Alright, this bad boy turns left. She took her pick out and, placing it inside the lock, felt around inside. Finding the cylinder with the most resistance, she pressed on it with the pick until she heard it click into place. Repeating this process with the rest of the cylinders, she made short work of the lock.
“Alright, door. Time to open,” Rainbow said, pushing against the door.
It didn’t move.
“The fuck?” she griped, pushing against the door with her shoulder. “Come on… open!”
Rainbow let out a sigh. “Fuck it.”
She placed her hands on either side of the door frame, wound up her knee, and kicked the door in as hard as she could. The door splintered off the hinges, wooden shrapnel flying into the room.
Rainbow drew her gun and checked the door. She was met with what looked like a wooden board, or at least its remnants, that had been nailed across the door. “What, you were expecting company?” she called into the apartment. “Listen, I don’t want to hurt you if I don’t have to. All you need to do is give me the briefcase you found, and we can both go back to living our lives.” She slowly made her way into the apartment, tip-toeing her way over the poor door’s remains.
A quivering voice met her call. “Are you saying you don’t want to hurt me because you’ve been instructed not to, or are you trying to keep innocent blood off your hands?”
“Buddy, you’re hardly innocent,” she snorted. “If it’s any reassurance, if I do have to kill you, it’s only mildly personal.”
“Wait, what?”
“As in, ‘I really want to keep my job, and I will not hesitate to blow your head off’.” She turned the corner into a living room, and was met with a small man pointing a small gun at her. He was peering over a wooden table, and Dash eyed a leather briefcase in the far-off hallway.
“D-Don’t come any c-closer, or I’ll sh-sh-shoot you!” the small man said.
Rainbow raised a single eyebrow and aimed her gun at the small man. “If you’re going to shoot me, you better not miss.”
He shot.
He missed.
Rainbow peered over her shoulder at the freshly-made bullet hole in the wall behind her. “Ouch. Today is not your lucky day.” She turned back to the small man, his eyes wide. “Like I said, it’s only mildly personal,” she said as she put a slug in the man’s face.
She sighed, rubbing her temple. “Alright, the briefcase is secure. Now for extraction.” She vaulted over the overturned table and into the hallway, and grabbed the briefcase. As she stepped over the corpse of her victim, she sighed. “I gave you a chance, pal.”
As soon as she exited the apartment, she quickly broke into a sprint, letting a small selection of curse words trail behind her.
She crashed shoulder-first into the door to the apartments, the door swinging open to accommodate her exit. As Dash neared the car, the familiar buzz of sirens neared as well.
She jumped in the car, and punched Thunderlane in the arm, shouting “Fucking drive!” Thunderlane floored it, and Rainbow jerked back in her seat. She put her head out of the window, only to pull it back in as a bullet whizzed by it. “Shit, Thunder. PDCs tailing us.”
He grimaced. “Take the rifle out of the back and keep them off of us while I lose them.”
Rainbow reached behind her into the back seat and felt around, finally resting her hand on the barrel. Pulling the gun out of the back, she found an assault rifle in good condition. “Where’d you get this thing?”
“Took it off a PDC shock trooper. It’s nice, isn’t it?”
Popping her head out of the window, she aimed the rifle at the tire of one of the trailing armored vehicles. Firing a single shot, the car swerved and crashed into the side of the road, bringing another vehicle with it. They exploded into a huge fireball, blowing a hole in the brick factory it had crashed into.
“Holy shit! This thing just popped one of those tires! How’d it do that?” Rainbow said, in total awe of the gun’s power.
“Well, PDC tires are auxiliary-supported. They’ve got an extra ring inside them that can support the car if the tire bursts. The rifle you’re using uses custom-made rounds. They’re high-explosive and armor-piercing. Bandie said he put a lot of effort into them, and it cost me a fortune, so make them count.”
“Wait, Bandie made these?”
“Yes, Bandie did make them. I know, you thought he was dead. I’ll explain later. Now, keep them off of me!”
“Applejack, please! I really need your help with this!” Carrot Top pleaded.
Applejack sighed. “Remember the last time I helped you with your business?” Applejack sighed again at her friend’s blank expression. “I almost died. That’s what happened.”
“Oh, that? That was nothing! The bullet hardly grazed you.”
“By a millimeter! It missed by one millimeter!”
“So?”
“So? So…” Applejack sighed once more. “Screw it. I’ll help you.”
Carrot Top fist pumped. “Yes! Thanks! So, uh, you have your piece with you, right?”
Applejack brandished a pistol out of the waist of her worn blue jeans. “Yes, I do.” Placing the gun back into its makeshift holster, she covered the handle with her red-plaid shirt. “Do you?”
Carrot scratched the back of her neck. “Well, um, no. But I do have a switchblade, if that counts.”
Applejack rubbed her temple. “Have I ever told you that you’re a moron?”
“Multiple times, actually.”
“Well, then, you do know.” Applejack started walking down the trodden dirt path out of Sweet Apple Acres. “Where we going?”
“I’ve got a client waiting at Sugarcube Corner for us. Said he’d grab some cash and make the deal there.”
“Alrighty, then. Lead the way.” Applejack turned her head towards the home and cupped her hands over her mouth: “I’m heading out, Granny! Be back soon!”
Carrot laughed. “Think she heard you?”
“She better’ve. I’m not shouting it again.”
“Hey, what’s gotten into you lately? You’ve really been acting like a total bitch.” As Applejack shot a death glare at her, Carrot put the pieces together. “When was the last time you got laid?”
“Dammit, Goldie!”
“Oh, switching to my formal name, are we?” Carrot gave AJ a playful punch to the shoulder. “Am I in trouble?”
“Fuck. You.”
“Maybe you should. It’d do you some good.” AJ let out a small chuckle at that one. “You should laugh more, too. Maybe you should get fucked and tickled at the same time.”
Applejack looked at her friend. “You know that I have too much work to do to worry about things like sex, right?”
“You could at least laugh.”
“If I wanted laughter, I’d go see Pinkie Pie.”
“Then I suppose it’s a good thing we’re going to Sugarcube Corner!” Carrot Top held out a hand to stop Applejack. “Actually, we are at Sugarcube Corner.”
Applejack turned her gaze upwards, and sure enough, she was looking at a neon sign that read ‘Sugarcube Corner: Ponyville’s #1 Bakery!’
Applejack then put her gaze and saw the body of a beefy male lying on the floor. Looking over at Carrot Top, she saw her mouth, “Fuck…”
“Was that your client?”
“Yes, it was.”
Applejack looked back at the body. “Why do you think he’s dead?”
“Because he tried to rob me, silly!” Pinkie Pie said as she appeared out of nowhere and threw an arm around Applejack, who totally did not jump in fear.
Carrot Top scratched the back of her neck. “So, uh, you killed him?”
“I did, yes. Why?”
Carrot Top sighed, and pulled out a bag packed with green leaves. “I was gonna sell this to him. He said he was gonna get some money and meet me here.” Carrot paused, looking upwards as if to view her brain. “Said he’d get money… tried to rob Pinkie Pie… Well, I think I figured out where he was going to get his money from.”
There was a long silence, which Carrot Top broke by holding her bag up.
“... Wanna buy some weed?”
