When a Plan Comes Together

“Well I must say you took your sweet time in calling me. I was beginning to wonder if you forgot about me.” Discord said as he stretched his back until it released a pop in is spine. “So who are you again exactly?”

Lyra leapt up in disbelief at Discord’s comment. “What do you mean? How can you forget who we are, you gave us the Whistle of Chaos after all!” Lyra exclaimed as she held the whistle up to Discord.

Discord glanced down at the whistle and looked it over. He the clutched his stomach and busted into laughter. “You think that thing means anything, I gave out like twenty of those things,” Discord chuckled as he whipped a tear from his eye. “You ponies truly are something else, let me tell you.”

Gritting her teeth, Lyra slammed her hoof into the floor, aloud clash echoed in the room. “So you’re telling me that your whole proposal was a LIE!”

Discord’s laughter began to subside as he glanced at Lyra’s irritated glare. He gave one last chuckle, “Oh alright, no need to lose your cool. I stand by what I said… what did I say to you again? Let me think for a sec… was it moonshining? Cock-fighting? No, that wasn’t it. Insurance fraud perhaps…”

Discord leaned down to get a closer look at Lyra. He then focused on the other two ponies in the room. Discord then smacked his paw into his claws as his memory returned. “Oh yes, silly me how could I forget. You’re the human obsessed unicorn and your incredibly boring friend!”

Bon-Bon frowned at Discords remark as he continued his thought. “Yes yes yes, I remember now. My star criminals, I proposed to you the wonderfully exhilarating art of heist. Oh I bet you have already concocted a most ingenious plan! Well don’t keep me waiting, I do want to hear your thoughts,” Discord exclaimed as he pulled out a director’s chair out of thin air which he then plopped down into with a bag of popcorn and sporting a pair of 3D glasses.

Lyra stared in confusion at Discord and his absurd magic and habits. “Wait what? I don’t have any plan, that’s why I called you! So you can help us create a plan!”

Discord pouted in his chair as he stared through the red and blue lenses of his glasses. “Look, you can’t expect me to hold your hand all the time you know. And yes that hand pun was for you. If you truly want to succeed then you will need to learn to walk on your own two feet… four feet.”

“Stop with the human puns already,” Bon-Bon said as she brought her hoof to her face, still in disbelief that they were even talking with Discord again in the first place.

Lyra put her front two hoofs on Discord’s legs as she pulled herself up to look him in the eye. “You said you would teach us, and I expect you to do just that!”

Discord let out a drawn out sigh, lowering his 3D glasses as he stared Lyra in the eyes. “Oh alright, I’ll teach you. You will still be doing all the planning though, after all this is your show.” Discord snapped his claws, instantly disappearing, chair and all as Lyra plummeted down to the floor. Discord reappeared in the middle of the room next to Derpy who was sitting down on a stool. Discord opened his mouth to speak only to pause and turned his attention to Derpy. He immediately knocked the little grey pegasus off the stool and sat down in her place.

“The first thing you will need is a target,” Discord said as a smirk ran across his face, snapping his claw.

Lyra, Bon-Bon, and Derpy rubbed their eyes after the blinding flash of light from Discords spell began to wear off. The three found themselves in the middle of a parking lot in front of a large convenient store. The skyline was not that of ponyville, but rather that of a large metropolis area. Sunlight gleamed off the large glass skyscrapers back in the horizon as the mid-day sun reached its peak.

“Where are we?” Bon-Bon asked as she glanced around at the unfamiliar landscape.

“Why we are at Mare-Mart, the perfect place for your first score!” Discord shouted. The three ponies glanced around to spot the source of the voice. Lyra looked upward and noticed Discord, hanging upside-down from a lamppost.

“I can see that, what city is this?” Lyra asks as she squinted her eyes, looking up at Discord all while the sun shined in her eyes.

“Eh… Fillydelphia if my memory serves me correctly,” Discord replied as he teleported down from the pole, looking around at the city while he scratched his head in confusion.

“Fillydelphia? You brought us all the way out to Fillydelphia to rob a store?!” Bon-Bon responded in disbelief as she glanced back and forth between Discord and the skyscrapers that dotted the horizon.

“Why so far away Mr. Discord,” Derpy asked curiously, “why not somewhere in Ponyville?”

“You don’t want to rob anypony who knows you, that’s one of the basic rules about being a good thief.”

Lyra kept quiet for a moment as she observed the store. Derpy and Bon-Bon glanced over at her; Discord crouched down beside her with a smile running across his face. “Do tell, what’s going on in that little pony brain of yours?”

Lyra looked over to Discord who was right beside her; she then turned to look at her friends. “We’re going to need a large take. Bon-Bon, Derpy, any ideas on how we can pull this off?”

“Wha… uh… we could bust open the front registers and grab what we need,” Bon-Bon suggested, still in shock that they were actually planning on going through with this.

“They might keep a safe in the back for all the stores profits. We could try cracking that,” Derpy said, expressing little confidence in her idea.

Lyra sat there thinking on both suggestions while Bon-Bon and Derpy waited on a response. “Well… if we hit each register individually then that would take too long and the police would be on use in minutes. As for the safe idea, I don’t think any of us can crack it without raising any alarms… we would need to get all the money at one time without the hassle of… THAT’S IT!” Lyra exclaimed, turning round to face her friends who looked on at her anxiously. “We hit them after hours when they are in the middle of transferring all the money from the registers to the safe!”

“How are we going to do that?” Bon-Bon asked curiously.

“I don’t know, but there has to be something we can do,” Lyra replied as she sat down, pondering the idea for a feasible plan.

“Well that’s all we need for now, back to your place then,” Discord replied with a smirk as he snapped his fingers.

Bon-Bon and the others quickly looked up at Discord in confusion. “Wait what... ” and with a snap of his claws they all vanished from the parking lot.

“You could at least warn us before you do that!” Bon-Bon shouted, not use to the effects of teleportation.

“HA! See, I knew you had a knack for this kind of thing!” Discord exclaimed, dancing around the room in joy. “Now you just need a planning room and you’ll be set!”

“Planning room? There is that vacant room in the basement we can use,” Lyra mentioned as she rubbed the side of her head.

“Oh a basement! I like the way you think my dear.”

The stairwell door creaked as the ponies opened it up and made their way into the cellar. The area was well kept and clean. Shelves and display cases lined the walls, filled with odd ends and bits. In the back corner of the basement, across from the vacant room entrance, sat a large steel cabinet with a massive lock on it.

“Oh, what’s in here?” Discord said as he used magic to pop the lock off. He reached in and starter rummaging through the contents inside. “OH, If Celestia knew you had this, she’d have you thrown in a dungeon immediately!”

“Hey! Get out of there! Those are rare human artifacts,” Lyra yelled as she rushed over to the cage, trying to pry whatever object Discord may have gotten his claws on.

“I must commend you for finding this. A fine example of human technology right here!” Discord replied as he swung the object loose from Lyra’s grip and pointed it down the room.

“Careful! According to my tomes, that’s called a shotgun and you DO NOT want to aim it at anypony!”

“Are you two done screwing around so we can get this whole ordeal out of our way?” Bon-Bon asked with a scowl as she opened the door to the vacant room.

Discord batted an eye-brow back at her while Lyra was hopping up and down trying to retrieve the gun from Discord. “Oh alright,” Discord pouted as he flung the weapon behind him back into its cage. There was a loud clash as the gun landed back in the cabinet, knocking everything else in there out of place. This left Lyra with a horrified look on her face.

“Yes, this will do nicely,” Discord proceeded to prep the room for planning. Snapping his claws, he placed a rectangular table and some chairs into the middle of the room. He then placed a large white board in the far right corner of the room. Lyra and Derpy entered the room as Discord was finishing up decorating. Including the tables and the white board, Discord also teleported one of Lyra’s bookshelves and a large vase in the back corner, mainly for aesthetic purposes. “Ladies, your new planning room.”

Lyra trotted up to the board, which already had a map of Fillydelphia and a basic layout of the store taped onto it. Bon-Bon, Derpy, and Discord took a seat at the table. “So Lyra, you’re in charge, what’s the plan?” Bon-Bon asked.

Lyra glanced over the layout once more before turning to face her friends. “Ok, I see two ways we can do this. Either way we’re going to have to intercept the money as it’s on its way to the safe,” Lyra glanced between Bon-Bon and Derpy momentarily.

“Option A, We go in aggressively. We hold the employees up at weapon point, demand the money. At that point we tie them up and secure the cash and make a break for it. It won’t be long before they call for help but we should have enough time to make our escape.”

Lyra gave a quick look to see if everyone was following along. “Option B, similar to option A yet instead of holding them up with weapons, we knock them out with an anesthetic. Once they are out cold we can then sneak the money out without drawn as much attention to ourselves.”

Lyra gave a short sigh as she took a moment to let it all sink in. “Regardless of which strategy we go with our escape is pretty much the same. When we exit the building we will make our way to a nearby storm drain located here,” Lyra explained as she pointed to the city map. “Once in the drain we will make our way through the canal out into the woods to the west. We destroy all the gear and make our way back to Ponyville before the break of dawn.”

Derpy and Bon-Bon glanced at each other before returning their focus to Lyra. “I really think we should do this without any violence,” Bon-Bon said while Derpy nodded in agreement. Lyra nudged her head, agreeing with their decision as well.

“In that case, we’ll need a fast acting sedative such as chloroform. We can’t risk buying it, so we’ll have to steal some instead. We can probably get some from the dentist office. We will also need some disguises to conceal our identities. Again we can’t risk buying them so we will have to source the clothes from somewhere else.”

“So what are we going to do then?” Derpy asked as she raised her hoof as if she were in a classroom. Lyra paused for a moment as she gave it some thought.

“Bon-Bon and I will get the chloroform from the dentist office, you will head to the Fillydelphia store and gather info on the stores routine. Find out where their last register stop is and how long it takes them to get the money into the back room. Also keep an eye out for anything else important such as security, possible store exits and what not.”

“What about me?” Discord asked as he raised his paw up, imitating Derpy.

“I didn’t know you were going to help out.”

“Oh I wasn’t. I just wanted to make sure you knew that,” Discord responded sarcastically as he leaned back in his chair.

Lyra gave Discord a short glare in response to his comment, she then returned her gaze back to Bon-Bon and Derpy. “Alright, that’s the plan. Rest up today because tomorrow we start our prep work.”

“Lyra… Lyra are you awake?... Lyra?... LYRA!”

Opening up her tired eyes, Lyra rolled over in her bed to get a look the culprit who dared to wake her. Bon-Bon stood by a window as she drew back the curtains to let the light rain in. Still groggy, Lyra pulled the covers over her head as she hid from the rays of the sun.

“Bon-Bon, what are you doing? I’m trying to sleep.”

Grasping the corner of the comforter with her teeth, Bon-Bon yanked the covers off the bed. Lyra sprang forward, her eyes half open and bloodshot. “What are you doing in my room? Quit messing up my bed!”

“Pfhh, please, your bed is always a mess. You never make it up, unlike me; I always make my bed up in the morning. It’s part of being a clean, responsible pony; something you could learn from.” Bon-Bon replied in a snooty matter. “Now hurry up and get ready, we going to be late!”

“Late? Late for what?” asked Lyra, slowly rubbing her eyes as she fought off the urge to pull the blankets back and return her head to the pillow.

“Duh, hello, your dental appointment, remember?”

Lyra sat there propped up in her bed as she continued to rub her eyes. “What dental appointment?”

There was a loud, sudden smack as Bon-Bon’s fore hoof impacted Lyra’s muzzle, her teeth clashing as her body fell backwards onto the floor. “That dental appointment!” Bon-Bon replied in a dead serious tone.

“AHHH! FUUUUUUU…”

“So you tripped and hit your mouth on a chair?” asked a curious blue unicorn as she washed her hooves and proceeded to put on a surgical mask.

Lyra nodded slowly as she held an ice pack to her jaw, scowling at Bon-Bon the whole time. The two sat in the waiting room as the blue pony examined the dental tools. The room was nice and clean, award plaques and framed newspaper articles lined the waiting room. ‘Ponyville gets new dental coverage!’, ‘Minuette Colgate brings much need service to small town’,’Ponyville Dental office declared as one of the finest in Equestria’. Behind the front counter was the main operating area. Its walls where covered with oral health care and tips posters as well as some expensive looking X-ray monitors. There was a large hallway in the back right side of the room.

“So how did you fall over in the first place? I bet it must have been quite the ordeal,” the unicorn asked as she chuckled in a polite manner, motioning Lyra over to the work bench.

“Yeah, she was fixing some cereal and wasn’t paying attention when she slipped and fell. Slammed her face right into the chair,” Bon-Bon commented, mean while trying to ignore Lyra’s intimidating stare.

“Well you’re not the first pony to smash their face into some furniture. Let’s just hope you didn’t chip a tooth or anything,” the dentist replied as she began to examine Lyra’s mouth. A cold, piercing gaze turned to Bon-Bon after hearing those words.

“Hey, Minuette, can you excuse me for a moment? I need to go to the little filly’s room.” Bon-Bon asked, seizing her opportunity to collect the chemicals.

“Sure, the bathroom is down the hall, third door on the right.”

“Thank you,” Bon-Bon replied with a smile, trotting over to the hallway in the back. Passing by the first door which was nothing more than a janitor’s closet, she made her way to the two doors in the middle or the hallway. The one on the left was open; taking a peek inside, Bon-Bon saw that it was a large office. A nice mahogany desk sat in the middle of the room with a comfy looking office chair stationed behind it. There was a door farther back in the office, but it wasn’t clear as to where it led. Bon-Bon glanced over at the second hallway door on her right. It was labeled as storage.

Quietly as she could, Bon-Bon opened up the storage room door and toke a step inside. The shelves where filled with dental equipment, brushes, toothpaste, mask, yet not sign of chloroform or any other suitable sedative. Shutting the door, Bon-Bon quickly glanced back down the hallway, her heart racing as she fought for control of her nerves. The only other door was the bathroom at the end of the hall. Taking one last look to make sure nopony was coming, Bon-Bon slipped into Minuette’s office. The Desk was large and impressive, documents and folders where spread out across the surface. There were some filing cabinets in the back left corner behind the desk, however none of them seemed suited to storing any kind of chemical.

Bon-Bon approached the door in the back of the office. Her heart racing, skipping a beat to every little sound she heard. With one last glance behind her, Bon-Bon proceeded to opening the door. Inside were a large wall safe and a medicine cabinet filled with brown glass bottles. As quickly as she could, Bon-Bon skimmed through the different labels.

“Penicillin… Morphine… ah ha, Chloroform!” Bon-Bon whispered to herself upon finding the right bottle. As she grabbed the handle to open the case, Bon-Bon suddenly found herself in a situation. Realizing the cabinet was locked, Bon-Bon heart sank into her stomach. Immediately she peeked out the door. With no one around she quickly made her way to the desk, searching the draws for a key. She rummaged through each draw one by one, combing through rows of paperwork. Pulling out the top middle draw, Bon-Bon noticed something. Sitting in the middle of some folders was a bronze key. Bon-Bon swiped the key up and returned to the closet. Sticking the key into the slot, she heard a click as the cabinet door swung loose. Not wasting a moment, Bon-Bon grabbed the bottle of Chloroform and stuffed it in her mane.

Locking the cabinet back, she turned to face the door. As she cracked it open, hoof steps could be heard as somepony entered the room. “I’ll be one moment, I just need to grab your files so I can check your previous visits,” Minuette shouted as she entered the office. Bon-Bon dropped her head down as she backed away from the crack in the door, her heart beat echoed in her ears as it began to beat faster and faster. The sound of metal could be heard as Minuette opened one of the filing cabinets and searched through the folders. “H… Heartstrings… ah, here we go!” The cabinet draw rattled as it rolled back into place. Minuette, now with the files she needed, trotted out of the room. Taking a moment to catch her breath, Bon-Bon checked to make sure the coast was clear. Shutting the door and returning the key to its rightful place, Bon-Bon exited the office.

“Sorry it took me so long. What did I miss, is everything ok?” Bon-Bon inquired as she trotted back into the main room.

Colgate turned to face Bon-Bon, removing the mask as she levitated the folder filled with Lyra’s dental history. “Well I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that there was no real damage done to her teeth. The bad news is that Miss Heartstrings hasn’t been flossing as much as she needs to, and by that I mean it looks like she hasn’t flossed once since her last appointment. Other than that, all is good. Just watch your step next time and floss regularly and everything will be fine,” Minuette explained with a smile as she folded up the files and laid them down on a near by counter.

“Do come again!” Minuette said as she waved from the front door of the office. Lyra and Bon-Bon waved back as they made their way down the street. After Minuette returned inside, Bon-Bon gave Lyra a grin as she pulled the little brown bottle out from here mane.

“Here it is, chloroform, just like you asked.”

Lyra levitated the bottle closer to get a better look. Bon-Bon was cantering right beside her, her head held high from success of her first mission. “That wasn’t too bad I guess. Overall I’d say we did a pretty good job back there, me retrieving the stuff while you played distraction, it was perfect. Plus I know that you’re still mad about me hitting you and all but in the end it paid off. Besides you needed a visit to the dentist anyway, with your lazy habits and all, it’s no wonder why…” Suddenly Lyra smacked Bon-Bon upside the head, causing her to fall face forward right into the ground. “OWWW! LYRA! WHAT THE FUC…”

“Ahahaha! What in the world happen to you two?” Discord asked laughingly as he pointed towards Lyra and Bon-Bon. Both mares held ice packs against their faces, glaring each other in the eye. The three sat in the planning room, securing the chloroform until it was ready for the heist.

“Swo nwow awl we nweed to dro iz wait un Dwerpy?” Lyra mumbled as she pressed the ice pack to her face.

Bon-Bon raised an eyebrow after hearing Lyra’s jumbled question “What?”

Removing the ice pack from her mouth, Lyra repeated herself. “So now all we need to do is wait on Derpy?”

“So do tell? What intriguing circumstances unfolded that requires you two in the need of ice packs?” Discord inquired with a grin. He sat there with a bag of popcorn as he waited to hear the details. Lyra and Bon-Bon locked eyes for a moment.

“Bon-Bon punched me in the face and I knocked her to the ground.”

Bon-Bon chuckled with a smirk, “Oh I didn’t punch you, I bitch slapped you good.”

“Yeah and you dropped like a brick, face first and plot last.”

“You were just grudgeful, I hit you first so we had an excuse to go to the dentist!”

The two bickered on as Discord laughed the whole time. Moments later Derpy came trotting down the stairs with a saddlebag full of clothes. Entering the planning room, her cheerful smile vanished upon seeing Lyra and Bon-Bon arguing. “Did I miss something?” Derpy asked curiously as everyone else shifted their attention to her.

“Oh Derpy, no it’s nothing. So you have the disguises?” Lyra asked; springing back up with excitement and eagerness to get the plan moving forward.

Derpy wearing a grin tossed the saddlebag onto the table. Lyra and Bon-Bon immediately started rummaging through the clothes. Upon pulling out the outfits, Lyra’s excitement turned to confusion at the sight of it. Bon-Bon just cringed at the idea of wearing it.

“Derpy, where did you get these from?” Lyra questioned as she unfolded the outfit even more.

Putting her hooves on her hips and holding her head up high, “I got them from the attic in my house!” Derpy replied with a smirk.

"I'm not even going to question why you have outfits like these."

“Ehh, I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing something like this,” Bon-Bon commented as she stuffed her disguise back into the bag.

“Good, if everything goes according to plan, nopony will even know it was you in that getup.” Lyra examined her disguise a bit more. “All though, that style does seem to fit you.”

“Haha, very funny.”

“Alright, so now we just need to scope out the place to get an idea of when to stike,” Lyra said turning her focus to Derpy.

Derpy just smiled, “Already ahead of you, I took care of that last night. They start collecting at 11:00 and end with the register by the camping gear in the back. There’s also a fire exit in that department as well.”

“Wow, great work Derpy, I’m impressed,” Lyra applauded.

“Ponies always think I’m dump or stupid because of my eyes or because I’m a bit clumsiness sometimes. But after they hear how I helped pull of a super awesome store heist, they’ll think twice!”

“Uh Derpy, that’s not something you should go telling ponies,” Bon-Bon commented in disbelief.

Lyra turned to face the planning board, letting it all sink in. “Ok everypony, that’s it. Tomorrow, after I get off work, we leave for Fillydelphia. If you want out, now’s the time!”

Bon-Bon and Derpy glanced at each other for a brief moment, Discord sat in the back grinning. “We came this far. We’re with you Lyra,” Bon-Bon replied with a faithful smile.

“Like I said, you helped me out, time for me to return the favor!” Derpy hoof pumped in excitement.

As rush of warmth and comfort washed over Lyra, knowing she could count on her friends to stand by her side during these hard times. Even though what they were about to do would be seen as a heinous crime. Even though they are risking arrest, they were willing to stick with her. “Alright then, tomorrow night, we take our first score!”