The Unusual Tale of a Human Thief in Equestria

The Unusual Tale of a Human Thief in Equestria

An Unlikely Hero.

Interlude 2 - The small fry.

It would be an understatement to say that Crafty Spark's life had not turned the way he hoped it would. When he was a child he envisioned many futures for himself. He dreamed of being an adventurer, travelling through all sorts of dangerous places in search of riches and glory, or perhaps he would become a powerful mage, unveiling the secrets of the universe and inventing amazing spells just like Starswirl the Bearded. Or maybe he would grow up to become one of the most renowned soldiers in the Royal Guard, putting his life on the line for the sake of his fellow ponies.

But laying there, in a dirty cot on a dungeon cell it was very clear which direction his life took. Spark's dreams did not last long, very soon he realized those kind of lives are reserved to very few ponies, usually those who are extremely wealthy or those who are extremely talented, and Crafty Spark was none of those. He came from a family of nobodies and, unless he did something about it, he would go on to be a nobody.

So he made some choices, and those choices led him down a particular kind of path. The kind that once you start walking, stopping becomes very dangerous.

But none of that mattered now he supposed. He was in jail, and not just any jail for that matter, his refusal to cooperated had landed in one of the most secure jails of Equestria. Located inside Canterlot Mountain itself, The Hollows, as the people called it, has housed the most despicable and most dangerous criminals in Equestrian history.

Today it was mostly empty, it had been nearly a century since Equestria saw a pony evil enough to find himself sent to this place. As was expected from a country going through such a prosperous time. The ponies of Equestria have been at peace for nearly a thousand years now, though some may argue that such this golden age will soon come to an end, considering the changeling attack on Canterlot some months ago.

And now here he was, rotting away in a dark cold cell with only the rats and his own thoughts to keep him company. At least he figured he would be safe from his old employer. That minotaur may be tough but nopony would be able to get through the security in this glorified cave.

Unfortunately for Crafty Spark he would soon be proved wrong. As he laid there attempting, and failing, to fall asleep a the faint sound of what seemed to be hoofsteps reached his ears. Despite being used to hearing the guards moving about frequently, he was intrigued by these particular steps.

They were definitely the sounds of somepony making his way towards his cell, but they were strange, didn't sound quite like a hoof hitting hard stone as he was used to hearing, these steps were softer as if the pony coming closer was wearing some kind of soft material on his hooves, thus muffling the sound of his hooves. There was also the fact that the guards would usually casually stroll around. This pony was running, as if he had some urgent business to take care off. They could be the result of some guard running to deliver some report to a superior or perhaps some sort of emergency was taking place.

But then, he wondered, why would a guard go through the trouble of muffling his steps? As Crafty Spark realized what was happening all vestige of sleep left his body. He was immediately jolted awake, quickly turning his head to the solid steel door of his cell door. Apparently somepony can get through the security of this place, and whoever that crazy pony is he was coming for Crafty.

But before the panicking unicorn could think of a plan or even yell for help, he noticed the halls were silent once again. Crafty held in his breath in anticipation. Was he just imagining things? Or perhaps he was just overreacting, and the intruder was merely a guard after all. Yes! Nothing is wrong here, this is just his nerves getting the better of him.

As Crafty Spark sighed in relief he heard something that got the fur on the back of his neck standing up. The sound of somepony unlocking his cell door.

As the door slowly opened, he began to back away until he stumbled on his cot and fell on his rump. And as the door opened Crafty saw the intruder casually enter his cell. If he hadn't seen this creature before he would think the solitude finally drove him mad. Before him, now locking the door behind him while whistling cheerfully, stood a tall creature, at first glance anypony would mistake him for a minotaur, but the lack of horns and his strange lower limbs made it impossible for him to be one.

The intruder turned around to face Crafty, his face obscured under a hood but Spark knew that was the same creature that attacked him in Canterlot, the same one who got him and his partner in this mess and almost tore off Crafty's leg with his strange weapon in the process. "Well." The creature finally spoke, breaking the silence that had begun to set in. "At least I'm not interrupting your sleep." His deep voice echoed through the cell stone walls.

Crafty Spark had no words left, his mouth left agape he stared at his 'guest' in disbelief while a million questions ran through his mind. Who was this creature? What was this creature? What did he want with Crafty? Was he here to finish the job? Or was this the Princess's newest attempt to coerce Crafty into talking?

"Hey!" The creature called out to him, waving a hand in front of Crafty's eyes. The unicorn flinched and recoiled as he found the creature standing so close to him. "Celestia didn't whack you in the head too hard did she? Everybody knows you're not supposed to go for the head, only confuses and disorients the victim."

"P-Please don't hur- hurt me." Crafty managed to croak out, stuttering.

The creature only laughed at his pleads. "Relax dude, I'm not here for that." He said, still sounding very amused at Crafty's behavior. He then lowered his hood, allowing the unicorn to see his face. There was no mistaking it, that was the same creature. The dark mane, the facial scar. With the exception of the white beard he looked exactly like Spark remembered. "Take it you remember me?" The creature asked eliciting a small nod from Spark.

The creature then backed away from the quivering unicorn and sat down against the door. Spark noticed he had a knife strapped to his leg. "Name's Janos, and in case you're wondering I'm a human." He said.

Crafty Spark calmed down a bit as the intruder gave him some space. He took a few deep breaths and introduced himself, choosing to play along and avoiding angering the creature. "Crafty Spark." He spoke, his voice cracking.

"I know." Janos told him. "Read your file Sparky." The intruder continued. "Robbery, smuggling, shaking down businesses. Might be just light stuff but you been busy huh?"

Crafty just stared at this human, unsure of where he was going with this.

"And now you got stalking a princess to add to the list, or whatever the technical term for that is. What got my attention though was the fact that in all these crimes, you were always working for someone. You were never the brains, always the brawn." The human continued speaking, after Crafty failed to answer his question. "So my question is." Janos crossed his legs, inching his face forward to stare the unicorn in his eyes. The milky eye and that facial scar making him look that much more intimidating in the dark. "Why would such a small fry like you want to keep tabs on Princess Twilight?"

So the Princess had sent him! Crafty Spark breathed another sigh of relief. Princess Celestia would never allow one of her ponies to torture a prisoner. Crafty knew for a fact that information gathered this way wouldn't count for towards an investigation. He was safe, at least for now.

"You're not out of the fire Sparky." The human's casual tone suddenly turned dark, taking away any illusion of safety from Crafty Spark's mind. "I may be working for the princesses but you can rest assured I don't play by their rules."

"But you said-" Crafty instinctively tried to argue back but was quickly interrupted by the human.

"I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to get information." Janos said, "But I'll have no problem breaking a couple of bones to get what I want if you don't cooperate. Celestia doesn't even know I'm here and I made sure the guards aren't going to bother us, so you can be sure no one's coming to save you Sparky."

Crafty's eyes shrunk to pinpricks. This was it, the end of the road. Tortured to death by a strange creature in a dark dungeon cell. Or he could talk, but what difference would that make? The minotaur would have him killed the minute he stepped hooves beyond the castle walls.

"Lemme show you something." The human grinned darkly, glanced down on his lap and carefully removed his knife from it's scabbard. "See this?" He lifted the knife so Crafty could see it. It was a small thing, the blade was hardly any bigger than the handle. But the blade had a strange shape, it was a little more curved than the usual knife and the tip had a small hook like shape. "This is a skinning knife." The human explained, "Hunters use it to strip the skin off of their preys."

Crafty Spark swallowed nervously, he really did not like where this was going.

"And I very skilled with one of these." Janos continued. "So why don't we make this easier on the both of us and behave like civilized people?"

Crafty opened his mouth to speak, but felt it suddenly too dry to talk. He closed it again and began looking around the room in a panic, trying desperately to find some way out of this situation. But the human quickly convinced him to remain still and quiet.

"Don't even think about it Sparky." The human warned him. "You try anything funny and you'll find me to be a lot more violent than usual. Now I hate unnecessary violence so I'm giving you the chance to keep those pearly white teeth of yours. Question is... Will you take that chance?"

Crafty didn't waste a second. "No no! No need for that!" He said. "No violence."

"Good." The human returned to his casual and carefree self in a heartbeat. "So, who hired you to follow Princess Twilight?"

What could he say? There was only one thing he could say that could keep this human from skinning him alive and that minotaur from keeping true to his threats. "I don't know." Crafty quickly replied. "He never showed up, I just got letters and intermediaries."

"Bull." The human stood up and slowly approached the quivering unicorn. "Shit." He dropped down on his knees, with his face inches away from Crafty. He tried to look away but the human forcefully grabbed the unicorn's muzzle and forced him to look in his eyes.

There was no anger in those eyes, nor was there kindness. There was nothing in the human's eyes, as if this had become merely routine for him, as if he had done this sort of thing so often he was now completely desensitized from it. He found no joy in it but he found no aversion either. It was a part of his job, a part of his life now. He would get the information he wanted one way or the other.

"A job like this, no one would rely on letters to hire people to do it." The human spoke slowly, "A job like this would be carried out by people on his own group, he wouldn't leave it to some random small time crook." He then let go of the unicorn and stood up, looking down on Crafty with his knife dancing between his fingers. "So either you reported directly to the head crook or to one of his lieutenants. Which was it?"

Crafty tried to speak, ending up only stammering nonsense. He didn't know what to say, how could he satisfy this maniac while not betraying the other maniac? There had to be some way to make it to the end of the month alive. "I- I didn't-" The human swiftly slapped Crafty's face with the back of his hand.

"That's strike two." Janos warned him. "Next time I start breaking bones." He threatened.

As the sting began to spread across his face, Crafty Spark wondered why his life turned out like this? It was only supposed to be a couple of jobs for a local gang leader for pony's sake! How did it go from that to locked up in the Hollows with a creature he never heard of before beating him to the death unless he spilled everything he knew?

This couldn't be happening, the unicorn thought. It just couldn't, it had to be a dream or something, this couldn't be how it ended. This human was just a figment of his imagination or something , this wasn't real, none of it was. He would wake up any moment now back in his dirty old cot, alone and unharmed.

"I'm really running out of patience here Sparky..." The human warned him once again. "If you don't start coughing up some answers this just might get ugly."

"Please." Crafty pleaded. "He'll kill me. You have no idea what they're capable off."

The human took a step back and sat down again, this time in the middle of the room just a short distance away from Crafty Spark. "So you do know who's behind it?"

"No." The unicorn answered, fighting back the tears and sobs. "I got hired by a couple of friends. They said they found this job, real good stuff, good pay and all that." The human nodded and motioned for him to continue. "They said if I did well with this job, I could become part of the gang you know?"

The human nodded again. "Which gang?"

"I just really needed the money dude. You have any idea how many ponies I owe money to?"

"Which gang Sparky?"

"Please don't make me say it, they'll kill me."

"The Princess's will protect you, you don't have to worry about that anymore." The human tried to reassure him, but he only ended up getting a few chuckles out of the terrified unicorn.

"The guard will protect me?" He laughed. "Half the guard's in on it! I'll be dead as soon as they turn around."

"So they do have people in the guard." Janos muttered to himself, he paused to think for a bit and continued his questions. "You know any of these guards?"

"No! Like I said they gave us this job as a test or something, I was never in the gang." Crafty quickly replied, hoping that the human believed him.

"Then how do you know half the guard's in it?"

"They were boasting about it, trying to convince me to take the job." He answered, "I don't even know if it's really half, but they do have people on the inside, I'm sure of it."

"How are you so sure?"

"They wouldn't lie about it. I could find out they were just saying whatever I wanted to hear and bail out, or end up giving them up to the guard as payback."

"Hmm" The human hummed to himself, clearly contemplating whether or not Spark was lying. "Ok then, back to my original question. Who hired you?"

Crafty Spark groaned loudly and cursed to himself. This Janos guy wouldn't back off! "I can't dude, please." He pleaded, desperately trying get this 'stallion' to leave him alone.

"Sparky." Janos called his attention. "I can help you here, but you got to give me something to work with. Celestia won't lift a hoof to help you unless you give us some solid info."

"The Princess will help me?" Crafty asked, with a guarded hope. "The Princess herself? I won't just be sent off to witness protection or something?"

The human nodded, "Yeah, Celestia and Luna herself will see to it that you're safe."

If the Princesses themselves would take care of him then he would be safe right? Those ponies that hired him might be powerful, but nopony is more powerful than the Princesses! Unless, they did have that many ponies in the guard working for them, then could the Princesses really keep him safe for long? All they needed was one pony working for them for Crafty to be done for after all.

"Time's running out Sparky." The human warned him. "This offer won't be up for long."

"Ok, ok." Crafty caved in. "But you have to promise me." He demanded, not looking as confident as he was trying to sound like.

"I promise it." The human assured it. "I'll talk with them myself, you'll be safe."

"Fine." Crafty Spark, took a deep breath, getting more and more anxious at the prospect of going against that monster of a minotaur. "I don't know anything else about their gang, they wouldn't go into details, saying they would tell me more once I joined up." Janos didn't look happy, but allowed the unicorn to continue. "But the guy who hired me was this enormous minotaur. He didn't tell me his name but I did get a good look at him. He was taller than you, by a couple of heads at least, very strong looking too, like he lifted a pony on each arm every morning or something."

"Go on"

The unicorn though hard on the day he met said minotaur. He had no trouble remembering that mountain of meat but he wanted to make sure he left nothing out for this human. If he's going to spill, he might as well go all in. "He had a broken horn, the left one I think. He replaced the broken part with an iron horn. And he had this huge scar on his face, like a manticore clawed his face up. He also had this huge sword on his back, the thing was bigger than me."

"You sure you didn't get a name?"

"I'm sure, please this is all I know." He pleaded. "Ask that pegasus that was with me, they sent him to keep an eye one me."

"Don't worry I will." Janos assured him. "And you better hope your stories line up, because if I find out you're holding out on me, I'll come back here and I won't even bother asking the questions this time. We clear?" The human waved a finger at him for emphasis.

Crafty Spark nodded with enthusiasm this time, bobbing his head up and down faster than somepony probably should. "Crystal Clear!"

"Good. I'll be seeing you Sparky." And with that the human got up, sheathed his knife and turned around to unlock the door. He opened it halfway before looking back at Spark. "And I better not have to come back here."