Colts will be Thieves

“How did you take your approach to Olympus? Was it like an ambush or you confronted him verbally first?”
“It was sort of an ambush, I’d say. I had a feeling he was expecting it, but didn’t think it would actually happen.”
“What made you think he was expecting it?”
“Sometime before it happened, he had actually invited me to have a drink with him, so he could try to apologize.”

Although it was late at night in Los Pegasus, the city was still as busy as it is in the day, taking on a more recreative atmosphere than the commercial counterpart.

“I’m still going to drive, since I have a working horn.” Scept said jokingly as the two walked out Speck’s apartment complex to get in his automobile.

“Hilarious.” Speck said sarcastically. “I’m going to be homeless out of insanity because of how clever that joke was.”
After they got in, Scept gave a small bolt of energy from his horn and started the car.

“What was the name of the place you were going to?”
“Spit of Fire, some bar I would occasionally go to. It was in Upper Los Pegasus, pretty far from my apartment.”

“So what more do you know about the stallion?” Scept asked as he drove. “Well, other than him breaking your horn.”

“Shut up. Nah, there wasn’t much else than that. I don’t think he was here in the city his whole life, though, because in the letter he sent me, he said he was visiting from Ponyville.”

“Ah, Ponyville.” Scept smiled. “I remember fucking some mare at the b-”

“Yes, that is TOTALLY an appropriate thing to bring up. And what a nice way for transitioning to such a topic.”

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to get that off my chest for a while now, I didn’t even tell Cise about it.”

“Yeah, because it’s even a little reasonable to share one-night-stand stories, even with your cousin.”

“It wasn’t even a one-night-stand. We got to talk to each other a lot for a few days, then I stayed after hours one night, then I-”

“DUDE!”

“What?!”

“I’m about to confront some asshole who basically traumatized me my whole foalhood, then here you are, casually going on about how you got to fuck some mare in Ponyville, whom you probably never even saw again after that. Ok, just shut up, we’re almost there anyways.”

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After 10 minutes, they arrived at the Spit of Fire. Between two stores, which were closed, the whole street didn’t look so busy compared to inside, which were filled with merry or sad unicorns, pegasi and/or earth ponies, depending on whatever or whoever they drank to.

“You’re gonna stay here.” Speck said sharply, as he stepped out the car.

“Aw, why?”

“Because I don’t want you to somehow segway to a story where you fought a dragon in Fillydelphia.”, he slammed the door and walked inside.

After he greeted the bartender, he walked around the bar, looking for Olympus, where along the way, he was greeted by other ponies he has met.

“Hey Speck!” a voice called out from the back of the bar. He looked behind him to see a bright-red pegasus looking at him, sitting with a blue pegasus, who looked jittery when Speck looked at their direction. The sight of the blue pegasus evoked a small feeling of anger rising over fear. He knew who this stallion was.

“I guess you were looking for this pony?”, the red pegasus said, “He seemed to mention your name a lot when I came to talk to him.”

“That’s right.” he replied. He was still staring at the blue pegasus as he took a seat. “Thanks, Hotfoot. This is going to be a private conversation, if you don’t mind.

Hotfoot now noticed the way Speck was staring at the other pegasus.

“Uh, I don’t mind at all. Don’t let me bother you two.” he walked back slowly. Speck continued to stare at the pegasus.

Even though Hotfoot was out of range, the two still stayed silent. Both of them expected the other to speak first. Speck’s constant glare started to persuade him otherwise.

“We’ve grown to be pretty big, have we?”, the pegasus implied softly.

“We have, Olympus. I didn’t know I’d end up being taller than you, too.”

He then slowly looked up at Speck, while he was still holding his stare. He noticed how his horn was broken.

“Oh... uh... up until now, I thought horns did grow back...”

“So did I.”

Speck was getting tired of Olympus trying to start with small talk, so he cut him off the next time he was about to say something.

“What was going through your head at that time?”

Olympus didn’t answer.

“Did you think you would have won anything by doing that?”

“No, I di-”

“Look at my horn.”

“I alre-”

“Well, I want you to take a good look at it again.”

Olympus then took a 10-second stare at Speck’s broken horn. The wave of shame slamming into his mind was stronger than he thought.

“Yeah, you know it’s pretty much a large part of a unicorn’s lifestyle to use their horn? Well, I never got to. I would try to use something as a simple telekinesis spell to lift a something as light as a book, but no, that would already make me exhausted.” Speck then exerted a sigh of contentment. “Ok, I’ve pretty much vented myself right there. Go ahead.”

Olympus was having trouble listening with the events finally catching up to him.

“Alright, Speck.”, he affirmed, “We were both very young at that time, though I was slowly growing to a colt first. I had those ridiculous foal-thoughts that I would use actions like that as a story to make me look ‘great’ and ‘powerful’, then I realized that it just made me some stuck-up, braggy prick. I also had no idea of the long-term consequences I would leave. If, and that’s an if, you did have those same motives, you would want to do what I did.”

Speck was listening to every word he said. “Well, it is reasonable to have those thoughts, but, no, I wouldn’t go as far to mercilessly beat another pony for it.”

“And we both know, we got older, and what we’ve experienced got our mind more mature. I grew up past those sick thoughts years ago, but it’s completely understandable why you’re still antagonized about it.”

“So that’s it?”

“Yes, I know just saying that couldn’t have possibly redeemed myself, but it’s all I have in my defense.”

“Ok, then.”, Speck started to get up from his seat and held out his hoof to Olympus. “It’s... nice we were able to settle this.”

Olympus was very surprised to have him give this gesture after only being barely able to give anything close of an apology. He shook his hoof with a nod.

“So, how will you get back to wherever?”

“I’m staying at a hotel a couple blocks from here, I’ll just be waiting outside in a few.”

“Alright, then. Have a good night.” Speck strolled out the bar.

When he got out, he quickly paced to the car, where Scept was barely falling asleep.

“Oh shit!... oh.”, he muttered drowsily. “Are we going now?”

“Not yet.” he answered with a dark look on his face. “We’re going to wait for that piece of crap to get out the bar.”

“Whoa, I thought you two made up?”

“He thought he did. To me, he just made the half-assed, ‘I was young and stupid’ excuse.”

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Just a minute later, Olympus got out the bar and started walking across the street. He didn’t see Speck get in the car, so he was oblivious that he was being stared down.

“Start the car now.”, Speck commanded. Scept used his horn to get the engine started.

“Uh, okay. I don’t know what you’re going for but-”

Speck then stomped on the gas pedal and steered towards Olympus. He didn’t have any time to react, so he just stood there as he was slammed by the car.

“What. The fuck. Is wrong with you!?”, Scept yelled in shock, “And my car, my car has a huge dent just right there!”

“No matter what he said,” Speck muttered as he got out the car to Olympus’s body, kicking him in the head unconscious before he could barely get up, “expecting an apology from me wasn’t going to make things even. Help me drag him to that alley way over there.”

“Arrgghh!... Fuck it. Ok, I will.”

The two then dragged Olympus’s body out of the streetlights into the darkness. Once they were far enough into the alley, Speck shoved his body away from Scept’s front legs and threw him against a wall.

He then proceeded to buck-kick and punch him in the face, going all over his body. Years of fear vented upon this beating. This whole time, Scept stood back, blown away at how violent he could ever get.

“DOES! THIS! FEEL! GOOD?! I! HOPE! SO!”, he shouted with every kick to the body. “Give me that switchblade you carry around.” he ordered.

“Wait, why?”, Scept took only a few seconds for him to become aware of what he was going for. “No!”

“Fuck you, I said give it!”, he charged towards him.

To keep him back, Scept used a strong force spell to send him against the wall. The impact seemed to finally take all the energy from Speck.

“I understand you’re pissed. Hay, I even understand you’ve been wanting to kill this guy for years, but if you don’t want to have to talk about this in a police station, we’d better get back home right now.”
After staying down for half a minute, Speck silently got up and started to walk back to the car, with Scept soon following. Neither of them didn’t look back at Olympus as he laid there bleeding.

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“How long has it been since you would hear of him again, media-wise?”
“Well, that story didn’t catch much attention around other than on the newspapers, where it was only on the front page for a few days, then it was just shrugged off. The police officers and detectives did jack-shit about anything unless it happened right in front of them, which is funny, considering those ‘Report to the L.P.P.D. anytime, anywhere whenever you see a crime’ advertisements which were all over the place.”
“It says on this letter,” Songbird read, “that he eventually became part of the Laserteeth Crime Family. Tell me who they are.”
“Wow, haven’t heard that name for a while. As far as I knew, they were originally just a group of unicorns that followed their own code of conduct that formed way back in Manehattan when was almost growing to what it is now. They then generally migrated to Los Pegasus, where the name suggests, they conjoined with pegasi. The word ‘crime’ was naturally added to their name when they started doing things like forcing store owners to pay for protection. They kept their main base of operations in L.P., while they had small associations to Fillydelphia, Manehattan and even Cloudsdale, according to Scept and Cise, that is.”
“You mean Scept and Cise know where they work? Or that they knew everything you just mentioned.”
“Yes, they knew where they were.”
“How long after that night would you hear of Olympus taking part of their organization?”
“Seven months... after we traded gems that we... had.”
Songbird smirked looking at the letter, “As in ‘had’, you meant stealing and trading gems from the Bank of Los Pegasus?”
Speck sighed, “...that’s right.”
“Tell me how this plan came to mind.
“Speck, Cerebrate and I were having lunch one noon a month before that, then Cise meets us to tell us about some ‘amazing’ way to get rich...”