Nerves of Steal

by The Accursed One

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Changelings, Original Character
Length: 1200

A less than competent thief gets better at his job with practice and breaking laws.

"It's always easier to take something than to work for it..." - Alexandra Bracken
Xerox is a changeling thief that lives in a cave outside Ponyville with a few other thieves. They steal what they need, fence it, and then steal some more. All of them, that is, except Xerox. His ability to break into safes and locks leaves nothing to be desired, but he always manages to botch every heist. Of course, all until his little guild's leader has had enough...

Published 2015-02-24 00:00:03 UTC
Last updated 2015-02-24 00:00:03 UTC

Chapter 1: Diamonds are a Thief's Best Friend

Nerves of Steal

Chapter 1: Diamonds are a Thief’s Best Friend

By The Accursed One

I creeped down a hall in the dead of night, my hooves enchanted to make less sound against the hardwood floor I was making my way across. Two guards, both unicorns and a necessary inconvenience, lay unconscious in my wake. ‘Oh, the papers are going to have so much fun with this,’ I thought as I creeped along the now silent halls. I was going to take the prized diamonds of one Filthy Rich, probably the biggest small heist this month. If only I had the floor plan, this would be much easier...

An almost empty room appeared through the keyhole I stared through. Luckily, a safe was there behind a locked door. I grabbed my set of lockpicks and got to work. I put torque on the lock with the tension wrench and started moving the lock around to see which way it turned. After that, the pins started getting pushed into their places as the lock slowly became forcibly unlocked.

Another pin set into place as I started to hear the guards stirring. Thankfully, the lock was almost picked by then. I quickly jammed the last pin into place and darted into the room. A closet made itself my home until the guards were safely away. The safe was about to reveal its secrets to me!

A greenish light came from my horn as I amplified the sounds I heard. I turned the dial of the safe to reset the lock, then turned the dial until I heard a couple clicks. After turning the lock a bit more, I found that the combination had six numbers. I reset the lock again, this time setting it to zero to start finding the specific numbers. Slowly, the dial turned until I heard a couple clicks, making sure I remembered what the numbers it clicked at. Then another reset of the lock, setting it to 3 instead. I continued in this fashion until I got through the numbers on the lock by threes.

After I got through the dial, which took quite a long time, I figured out where the values all intersected to find what numbers were in the combination: 8, 32, 51, and 24. ‘Four numbers… that’ll be what, 24 combinations? Shouldn’t take too terribly long to crack…’ I thought, wishing I could just have a magical key to unlock everything I’d ever face.

At long last—ten minutes later―with the combination 32-8-51-24, the safe opened. Inside lay a bag of gems, which felt like it weighed at least 10 pounds! I quickly grabbed the bag and turned to the door. There were at least a few hundred bits in a pile by the exit, and I decided it would make an excellent haul. Now, how to get out..., I thought as I scanned the hallway for the guards I knocked out.

They must have returned to their posts when they couldn't find me since I saw neither hide nor hair of either guard. That admittedly complicated things a little; nothing I couldn't handle, though. I started channeling a knockout spell to get past the guards, then hit a hoof on the door frame to lure a single guard towards me. He walked around the corner to the door frame where I was waiting.

I wrapped my forelegs around the guard in a chokehold, then dragged him into the room. The knockout spell wasn't needed, so its stored energies dissolved into the miasma ready to be used again. After the guard wasn't going to get up any time soon, green fire enveloped my body as my face became that of the guard in front of me.

I walked out of the room after donning the armour of my disguise and hiding the bag of gems under the armour. The guard's shift was almost complete, so my escape became much easier. "Hey, sorry, but I'm not feeling the best right now. Can you hold the fort until the next guy gets here? The thief must have gotten away," I told the other guard, who simply nodded in approval.

I thanked him and walked off. The night was still young, so the other thieves might be out stealing their dues to keep our little guild out of the water. 'Good, I could use some alone time,' I thought. Leaving the area proved less of a challenge than originally thought: none of the guards thought anything of me as I walked outside. After I safely found my way off of the property, I found an alley to drop my disguise in.

The armour came off first, then more fire enveloped my body as I became Night Breeze, my pegasus alter ego. I picked up the bag of gems and took flight, heading towards the Everfree Forest to the cave that became my home so many years ago. At the cave, I dropped my other disguise, becoming my true self: Xerox the changeling. I walked inside, gems in tow yet hidden as I neared the desk of our de facto leader.

"Hey Lock Pick, check this haul out," I told the leader while putting the bag of gems on his desk.

"Whose was it? Looks important."

"They belonged to a stallion, Filthy Rich. From the weight and the owner, I bet there'll be some money in it."

He opened the bag which, to our dismay, was full... of worthless rocks. Instantly, my heart sank. I fell for a damned ruse! My boss, Lock Pick, had a look of severe disappointment on his face, and I knew what sort of deep trouble I was in after this. An expulsion from the guild maybe?

“Listen, Xerox… You’re an asset to this guild. We all are. But you have a history of mistakes like this. They may not happen often, but they happen. There’s no way we can afford to feed everybody here with you pulling this sort of stunt almost every other month, sometimes even more often. One more time and you’re out on the streets, okay? This is your last chance, no exceptions,” he scolded.

“S- sorry sir. It won’t happen again, I promise,” I replied, nervous as all hell.

After that whole discourse cleared up, I headed straight to my bunk. A chest in front of it lay empty, while every other chest in the area was full of spoils kept from past escapades by their owners. Turning in early seemed like a good idea, so I stopped to pray for luck in my next adventure before climbing into my bed and falling asleep.

Author's Note

And here it is: the story I promised you all by March. I had the idea for the title originally and couldn't think of the story behind it for a while. Sorry to keep all of you guys waiting. :twilightsheepish:

Big thanks to Listener for the main character's name and some editing stuff.
More thanks to Seven81493 for editing stuff as well.

If you liked the chapter and story title, fear not! I plan on making every chapter title something like those.