"Good you could make it." Don was smiling at Trixie, cigar dangling from his teeth casually. He looked over the other gathered criminal ponies casually. "Here's the next job. It'll be a team hit, but no offense from their end, promise, right?"

Long nodded softly. "Right, oh, I'm not Trixie anymore."

"Eh? What are ya? You still look like Trixie to me." He frowned a little, peering at should-be-Trixie.

"Long Story." She gestured to herself. "Nice to meet you, again. So, uh, where to?"

"Right." He turned and pointed a hoof at a map of Manehattan. "Gonna knock over a bank. Not jus' any bank, mind. This one's a real piece of work, messing with good ponies in the neighborhood and getting away with anything the law lets 'em get away with. The cops can't do a darn thing, so we will. Make the community a step better, and rake in more bits than we know what to do with."

"Ain't no such thing," interrupted Rags with a smirk. "We'll find a use for 'em."

"Glad to hear you say that." Don tapped the icon of the building that would be the target. "So make it happen. Your cut'll be sweet. Standard rules, ya know? No roughin' up ponies that don't deserve it none, and the guards are on that list. They're just workin' for a paycheck. You see a bank exec, you can give them a kick."

Long was studying the map and the buildings around it. "This is a real Robin Hood kind ot thing." Stealing from the rich to give to the poor, even if a lot of it would go to themselves. "When do we go?"

Don shook her head at Long. "Yer talkin' odder than normal today. You sure you're ready?"

Long's ears went up. For just a moment she was tempted to use the excuse and get out of things, but he kept right on talking.

"Clear your head. This is a group task, so you can all plan it out, just get it done before mid-week. They'll be moving their reserves out, and we want those." He stepped away from the wall, slipping past them all. "Make me proud."

Tr--Long looked to Rags, a familiar face among many strange ones. "So... are we after piles of bits?"

Another pony, a mare, cut in, speaking in technical tones, "while the number of bits is considerable, a good portion of their holdings are in the form of processed jewelry, ledgers, and other lighter goods. If we were to secure those, we could consider the mission a success."

"This is Number Runner," introduced Rags, waving towards the slight mare. "She's good at her job."

Number extended a hoof towards Long. "A pleasure. I predict a 65% chance of success. This will raise if my lead is followed precisely. Your arcane knowledge is a key part of my plan. Are you prepared?"

Long met the hoof with one of her own, clopping lightly. "Nice to meet you. I'm Long Story, as I said."

Number blinked softly. "I thought you were saying your name change was the long story."

Rags shrugged in agreement. "I thought that too, huh, Long Story, nice to meetcha again."

Number adjusted her half-rim glasses in a fidget. "Regardless of your title, are you prepared fully? The sooner we act, the higher our odds of success."

Long nodded towards the map, eyes weandering over it. "Do you know what the inside's like?"

Number turned away from the map, approaching one of the windows instead to look down at the street far below. "I was informed of this mission before you two and have had a chance to survey things. I know what we want and I know where it is. With your magic, this should be simple." She had no such magic, being a slender earth pony.

Rags stepped between Number and Long. "She ain't carrying too much, right?"

Long's cheeks warmed, realizing she was being protected by Rags. "Not too much, right?"

Number nudged her glasses. "If I did that, Don would be most irate with me, with a 79% chance of reprisal. You are considered a valuable asset and are not to be squandered. My calculations include a reasonable limit in your abilities." She pointed up and behind herself, directing attention back at the map she was not facing. "All factors have been accounted for."

Long nodded with increasing confidence. "I'm ready then. If we're not fighting, I feel better about this."

"Excellent." She fidgeted with her glasses, jostling them in place. "We begin tonight then." She reached a hoof back and pulled out a collection of papers. "Examine these." She dropped them in front of Long and was already reaching for another set. "You too." Flop went a second collection in Rag's direction. "We must all move with precision to maximize our odds of success."

Rags snatched up his papers. "Yeah huh, so if the timing's so important, why tonight?"

"Why not tomorrow?" continued Long with the same thought. "This isn't much time to study." Her magic lifted her papers into view.

"Because tonight is our best opportunity." Numbers turned away from the window and the board, starting for the exit. "I will be in position at the allotted time. Do the same, follow the plan, and we will end this task before the don even thinks we've started it. The acclaim will be considerable."

Rags let her leave the room before nudging Long. "You sure you're up for this?"

No. "Yes." She read over the first sheet of her packet, taking it in. There was a map and guard routes and everything. Number had been incredibly thorough in her work. "This is impressive... If she had been with us on the last one, it would have gone differently."

Rags brushed aside the papers Long was reading to look her in the eyes. "Hittin' high-profile targets with heavy security is her thing. Against a bunch of thugs, she ain't so hot, ya know? Don ain't perfect, but he knows what ponies gets a job done, and we'z it."

Long folded the papers into a curl, rolling it up and tucking it away into the pocket she was increasingly familiar with. "Well, good then. Let's trust her and do our part. If this is as valuable as everypony's making it out to be, we'll score another vacation if we do it right."

Rags cleared his throat, looking around awkwardly. "Um, yeah, um... say... if we... you know... wanna do it together?"

Long blinked at the larger stallion. "Do it together? Aren't we already?"

"No! I mean, you know, taking time off? Together? Hanging out?" He had pinkened, but only mildly. His nervousness broadcasted through his speech and some mild amounts of fidgeting in his hooves and legs. "It'll be fun."

Long smiled at him. She didn't dislike him. She didn't like like him either. He was strong, she knew that, and he was sincere in his liking of her, but was that enough? She remembered Vinyl's view on it. "We could watch a movie, sure. Um, Rags, no offense, but you don't know me, and I don't really know you. We should... fix that before we try to make more of it."

Rags blinked, looking disarmed in a moment of awkward silence. He sank to his haunches. "But... we can?" He smiled a little shyly, an odd look for his tough face. "Alright then. We'll meet for real, Long Story. Let's get this done, and we can take our time."

Long felt a smile spreading on her face, matching his. That had gone well, she decided. They would give it an honest try, like two adult ponies. That was perfectly reasonable, yes? "Let's. First, we have a bank to rob."

"Right." He pointed at his paper, then at Long's pocket. "Why don't we read it togetha like? Teamwork, right?"

"Right," agreed Trix--Long. She drew her packet free of her pocket and set it beside his as she came around so they could both see what was written easily.

They pored over the details. Every action had a precise time and location. The guards would be at specific places, doing specific things that required exact counter-actions to get around and circumvent. There were traps and locks that would need to be overcome, but none of the sheet had any 'improvise' moment. It was all clearly laid out. When you saw this, do that, proceed for 20 seconds forward, take a left, advance for 30 more seconds.

"She scares me," admitted Rags. "Always figured if she wanted me outta the picture, she could get it done." He tapped halfway down on his side of the plan. "Here I pick up what you got."

Long nodded towards it. "And here's where I leave it for you to find." She tapped with her magic at a point on her side on the paper just a step before his. "We never even see each other. This plan is amazing."

"That's Number Runner for you." He stood up, eyes sweeping left and right rapidly. "We do our parts just right, and everything falls inta place. It's like magic, just not as direct as yours."

Long turned to the next page. "And... this is when I leave." The instructions had her escape point, a multi-jump teleport. She would be carrying nothing, so they should not be problematic. "Looks like you'll be doing the hauling."

"Yeah, that's fine." Rags reached for his paper and began folding them in half. "No more big teleports. Don't need you getting hurt again. Seriously, that wasn't cool." He suddenly pat her once on the back. "Get back in one piece."

Long tensed slightly at the contact, but didn't ward him away. It was kind of nice having someone worrying about her. "Let's make this a long story worth sharing, perhaps with the names changed to protect the guilty,"

He laughed, hoof coming right back down to swat her where he had so gently pat her. "That reminds me, what's up with your name? You seem comfortable with it." A thought seemed to click in him even as he spoke. "You never were Trixie, were ya?"

Long's mouth opened to argue her case, but... Did she? Was she? "No... I really wasn't... I hope you'll be alright working with Long Story and not Trixie the Great and Powerful."

"You're you." His hoof reached for her. Not her back, but her face. The great hoof filled her vision a moment as he cupped her face between his hooves, trailing gently along one of the lines she'd earned in her last great heist. "You earned that, and it ain't somethin' that'll come clear with just a swapped name tag."

Long felt heat reflecting off his hooves, though it took it a precious moment for her to realize it was not his hooves that were the source of the heat. Her cheeks were on fire. Being held in those gentle hooves, gazing into his caring eyes... For just a moment, she just wanted to stay there, and never move again.

His hooves drew away, the spell broken. She remembered where she was, in a small private room of the Don, working out the plan to break the law in the biggest heist she'd done so far. She wasn't stealing from other gansters. She wasn't taking from some single organization even. It was a bank! It held money that belong to many many many ponies. "Thank you," she said in a voice that felt too small and far away.

She rolled up her papers and slipped them away out of sight. "I'll be ready. Let's do this by the numbers." She tapped her furry pocket, invisible as it was. "If she did her part, we'll do ours, and we'll be done, right?"

"Yeah, exactly. She did the hard part." He lifted one hoof at a time in a sort of rolling stretching of his limbs. "We can follow instructions, right? No sweat."

Author's Note

Typed in a hotel, then on a plane flying home from Bronycon 2018 (reportedly the second to last, what?!).

I hope you are enjoying the tale. How will Long Story do with this job?