The Amulet Job

by Rambling Writer

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Thorax, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash, Comedy, Other, Starlight Glimmer, Bon-Bon
Length: 125712

After the Alicorn Amulet is stolen, Starlight and Rainbow Dash gather some friends to steal it back. There's no one way to plan a heist, but pulling it out of your butt and fumbling your way through the whole thing seems to work.

Starlight has a problem. Twilight left on an ambassadorial mission to the zebras less than a week ago. Just this morning, a businesspony showed up on the doorstep of the Castle of Friendship and stole the Alicorn Amulet right out from under her nose.

Rainbow Dash has a solution. Steal the Amulet back. How hard could it possibly be, right? Okay, so the Amulet's being kept in one of the most secure vaults in Equestria. And it's surrounded by guards and bystanders. And there's no one in Ponyville who has much experience in heists or robberies or law-breaking of any kind. Oh, and said businesspony is planning on selling the powerful artifact of dark magic on the black market, putting the whole thing on a time crunch. And they don't even have the blueprints to the place. But other than that, it'll be easy!

Starlight has a problem. This is the closest thing to a solution she has.

This can only end well.

Takes place before the season 6 finale.

Published 2019-10-10 14:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-04-30 13:40:31 UTC

1 - I Think I Messed up Big Time

After her colossal screwup, Starlight had gone to Sweets for the Sweet to try and brighten up her day.

“I’m dead,” she said to the table whose top her face was currently attempting to hug. “I am so so, so so, so dead.”

It wasn’t working out.

“How dead are you?” asked Rainbow Dash, sitting down opposite her and dropping a tray of candies between the two.

“So dead. Totally dead. Positively absolutely dead. Completely dead, not mostly dead. Deader than dead. Dead dead dead dead dead.”

“You’re looking pretty peachy for a dead mare.”

Starlight lifted her head enough to glare at Rainbow Dash. “Rainbow, do you even know what I’m talking about?”

“Nope!” Rainbow Dash said with a grin as she popped a few of Bon Bon’s bon bons into her mouth. “I haff vo ivea!”

“I lost the Alicorn Amulet.”

Rainbow Dash stopped chewing and looked like she wasn’t sure whether to go for the “choking, coughing fit” surprised reaction or the “spit take” one. When she eventually managed to swallow the bon bons, she simply said, “Yep, you’re totally dead, alright.”

“Told you,” muttered Starlight, and attempted to merge her face with the tabletop again.

Dead. She was deeeaaad. How could she have done that? It was obvious in hindsight, but so blisteringly, astoundingly, mind-numbingly obvious that she still should’ve seen it. She should’ve been able to see it from the other side of Equestria. Of course, it was easy to say that now, but one of the problems with mental manipulation magic was that its very nature made you ignore it when it was happe-

“So how’d you do it?”

Starlight scowled up at Rainbow Dash. “I’m unambiguously, utterly dead because of it, and you’re asking me how I did it?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged as she chewed on a mouthful of bon bons. “It’s gonna come out eventually. Might as well do it now, am I right?”

With a groan, Starlight glued her face to the table once more. “Can’t you let me wallow in my misery in peace?!”

“Not really.” Chew chew. “…So?”

“Ufff. Fine.” Starlight sat up and rubbed her nose. “It was just this morning…”

So a few days ago, Twilight and Spike had left for the zebra homelands to initiate diplomacy for the first time, and that meant they’d be gone for possibly moons (a few weeks at least), and that meant Starlight had the entire Castle of Friendship all to herself for possibly moons (a few weeks at least). Twilight had left her a stupidly-long list of friendship lessons to work on, so it wasn’t like she had nothing to do (not to mention basic upkeep), but Starlight found the cavernous halls in the castle being not just empty, but completely devoid of sound except her own echoes, to be incredibly intimidating, like she was trespassing on something. When she was working, she mostly stayed in the throne room; with the Map, it felt a bit less empty than everything else. Hopefully, if the Map called somepony, it wouldn’t be Twilight.

It was about a week after departure. Starlight scowled down at the paper she was reading. “Socioeconomic paradoxes of friendship? What damp, encrusted space did you pull that from, Twilight?” She sighed, and tried to flick her quill across the room. Air resistance caught it and it fluttered down to the table right in front of her.

Starlight sighed again and slouched in her chair. She’d been at this fruitlessly for a while (a whole fourteen minutes), and she wanted to do something else, but she needed to work on this, since she’d been skimping on her work for the past few days. Actually, no, what she needed was a good excuse to jump away and do something else.

The doorbell rang. Convenient. Not one to pass up a sign from above like that, Starlight hustled to the door.

She didn’t recognize the three ponies on the doorstep. Two of them, big burly earth ponies with suits and serious sunglasses, were obviously bodyguards. Their charge was a suit-coat-wearing unicorn mare, the slender kind with killer cheekbones (which should’ve been a great big warning sign, in hindsight). Her mane (dark blue) was pulled up into a tight bun and her tail was braided. Her coat was a sort of glossy off-white, clearly well-groomed. Violet eyes looked out from behind rimless glasses. Three neat stacks of bits decorated her flank. Her expression was pinched, as if she had something incredibly smelly right beneath her muzzle. She didn’t say anything, just looked at Starlight.

Subsequent several silent seconds, Starlight surmised she should say something. “Um. Hello?” she said. “Can I help you?”

The mare blinked slowly and looked around the foyer. “This is the castle of Princess Twilight Sparkle, is it not?” Her voice was the hoarse, quiet type that you had to listen to.

“Uh, yeah?” Starlight laughed nervously. “I’m Starlight Glimmer. I’m… kind of her protege.” She had to restrain herself from asking, Who are you and what are you doing here?

“Hmm. I had hoped to meet her before she left for the zebras, but… ah, no matter.” The mare looked Starlight intently in the eye. “I need to see the Alicorn Amulet.”

“The- the what?”

“The Alicorn. Amulet,” the mare said testily. “An artifact of immense power-”

“I know what it is,” said Starlight, “but who are you?”

The mare frowned in annoyance. “I am Goumada. I am an analyst of relics such as this and only heard about the Amulet recently. I am aware that it is currently well-contained and buried, but I wish to ensure that it is not having any adverse effects on the surrounding regions. As such, I will need to see it personally. I was hoping to meet the princess about it, but with her current obligations-”

As Goumada kept talking, the alarm bells started ringing in Starlight’s head. Looking for the Alicorn Amulet and just happening to arrive shortly after Twilight had left Equestria? To call this “suspicious” would imply there was an option where Goumada didn’t have some ulterior motive. Starlight didn’t know what, exactly, Goumada wanted with it, but, well. Evil magical power-boosting thingy. It couldn’t possibly be good. Time for some dissuasion. “Listen,” Starlight said as uncondescending a voice as she could manage, “I appreciate the concern, but as it’s been years since the Amulet was last out and we’ve had no problems since then, I-”

“‘No problems since then’?” asked Goumada snippily. “I beg your pardon? Ponyville has more monster attacks per capita per annum than the next town by an entire order of magnitude. Something is responsible for such a state, and that something is-”

“-the Everfree Forest,” Starlight interrupted. “You know, that scary place right outside the town border where magic doesn’t work right? Riiiight over there?” She pointed at the scary place in question. Goumada barely glanced at it; she huffed, but Starlight cut her off before she could continue. “Besides, those statistics-” -which may or may not have been minotaur crap, but Starlight was leaning towards them being “true”- “-have been there ever since the Nightmare Moon Incident. Maybe even before, I don’t know. I’m… still kinda new here.”

Goumada’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps,” she said, “but nevertheless, any possible arcane emanations from the Amulet-”

“I appreciate the concern,” Starlight said again, “but I don’t think you need to be worried about that. You know the Elements of Harmony, right? Twilight was the Element of Magic before she became a princess, her skill and power have only increased since then, and she doesn’t think there’s any problem with it.” In actuality, Starlight didn’t know how Twilight felt about it, but she doubted Twilight was worried. “Where did you say you were from again?”

Silence. Goumada’s mouth pinched into a line. Her horn glowed briefly, and suddenly Starlight felt absolutely splendiferous. What was she doing, not helping this nice pony? She needed to fix that with a quickness.

Goumada cleared her throat. “I would like to see the Alicorn Amulet,” she said curtly.

“Ooo, yeah, great idea,” said Starlight dreamily. “Like, want me to show you where it is? C’mon, it’ll be fun!”

“That would be nice, yes,” said Goumada. She was smiling, now. Or was it smirking? Nah, it was just smiling. Smirking would be totally evil, and Starlight knew that there was no way Goumada could evil, because of… Reasons. Most righteous Reasons.

“Coooooool,” said Starlight. “Now I totally don’t know where it, like, specifically is, but I can find out, so don’t go all outta whack on me if it, like, takes a while, m’kay? Yeeeaaah.”

“That will suffice,” said Goumada. “Lead on.”

Finding the Amulet was, like, super easy. Use a spell to detect the right vibes of the enchantments, point it at the Everfree, follow the arrow, brah. Twilight had said she’d given it to Zecora, and Zecora had, like, been totally smart enough to not hide it in her hut. Eventually, the spell led Starlight, Goumada, and the bodyguards to an apparently bogus patch of forest where they found a gnarly box buried under a set of gnarled tree roots.

Goumada flicked the box open and levitated the Amulet out. Starlight had never seen it before, not even in pictures, but the design struck her as kind of whack, all red and black and evil all over. It was like they were trying to advertise it as an Artifact of Doom™. Not that Goumada cared. Her eyes were glittering with something that totally wasn’t untempered avarice. Nope. That would be all evil and stuff. “I…” she whispered, “I can feel its power. A well-made fake, this is not.” She tugged at the clasp and frowned. “Has it been glued shut?”

“Yeeeaaah, sorry,” said Starlight, “but there’s this, y’know, it’s kinda like a spell to keep the doohickey closed, so, like, you can’t have a pony just put it on if they, like, found it. I mean, it’s, like, you miiiiight be able to get through it eventually, but I dunno, y’know? No?”

“Hmm. Unfortunate, but understandable.” Goumada shut the box and passed it off to one of her bodyguards, who promptly shut it up in another box. Recursion. Radical. “In any case, I thank you for your cooperation.”

Starlight nodded vigorously. This was an excellent thing. She’d done a most excellent thing.

“…And then, a few hours later, the spell wore off,” said Starlight, staring at the tabletop, “and I came here to reflect on comprehensively dead I am.”

Rainbow Dash nodded slowly. “Yuff,” she said around a mouthful of bon bons. “Da’s weawwy dehd.” She swallowed. “And I know this is a bad time, but see how creepy mind control spells are?”

“Do not remind me of that,” growled Starlight, resuming relations between the table and her face. “I don’t know where to begin on fixing this, and-”

“What was the name of the mare, again?” asked Bon Bon.

“Goumada,” said Starlight, sitting up. “I asked her at least twhen did you get here?!”

For Starlight had just noticed that Bon Bon was sitting right next to her and Rainbow, staring at her with an unusually intense stare. She’d snuck in so completely silently that Starlight had no idea as to how long she’d been sitting there. Even Rainbow Dash twitched in surprise.

“Right at the end,” said Bon Bon. Her voice was surprisingly serious. “You’re positive it was Goumada? She had glasses? Whitish coat? Three stacks of bits for a cutie mark?”

“Definitely,” Starlight replied, nodding. “Why?”

“Because…” Bon Bon paused. “Because Goumada has connections to artifact smuggling and the illegal antiquities trade.”

“Really?” asked Rainbow Dash, who seemed way too happy for that revelation. “Like the Golden Exchange? That underground ring of black markets?”

“She- How’d you know about that?”

“It was in Daring Do and the Iron Phoenix. Yearling really, uh, did her homework on that bit.”

“Well, Goumada’s a small part of that. She’s…” Bon Bon bit her lip. “Short version, she’s kind of a link between various pony artifact collectors and various griffon artifact collectors. Sells one group’s artifacts to the other and vice versa. She’s got basically a base in the northwest, at a trade city between Griffonstone and Equestria. Called, uh, Trotter Gorge. She runs a casino — built on dirty money, obviously — and it’s pretty much its own black market, running relics between ponies and griffons, but there’s never been quite enough evidence to convict her.”

“Heh,” said Starlight. “Great.”

“And if she’s at all smart,” continued Bon Bon, “— which she is — she won’t hesitate to sell a power-boosting artifact like the Amulet on the black market to the highest bidder ASAP and rid herself of all evidence that she was attached to it.” She glowered at Starlight.

“…Is it possible to die twice?” Starlight reinitiated muzzle-table coitus. “ ’Cause I’m coming pretty close.”

“But she can’t sell it immediately, right?” asked Rainbow Dash. “I mean, she just got it today.”

“I guess not,” said Bon Bon. “She’s got to send word out, get customers. But she’d still get it out in a few weeks.”

“And she’d keep it in her base. In that casino.” A grin was clawing its way onto Rainbow Dash’s face.

“I…” Bon Bon frowned. “Probably, I guess, but I don’t see why that matters. You’re not planning on taking this to Celestia, are you? If Goumada sees a single sparkle off a guard’s armor, she’ll move the Amulet faster than you can say ‘hide the evidence’.”

“Nope. Got a way better idea than that.”

“Rainbow,” Starlight asked, sitting up, “just what are you getting at?”

Rainbow Dash smirked and rubbed her front hooves together. “I have a cunning plan.” She zipped out of the building and was away.

“You don’t have any idea what she was talking about, do you?” asked Bon Bon.

“Nope,” said Starlight. “But it’s still infinitely more plans than I have.”

“You’re going to try to come up with one, right?”

“I kinda have to, don’t I?” Starlight asked. She stared at the table. “I mean, it is my fault.”

“Well, yeah.”

Starlight bit back her reply and thought. She’d made complicated plans before, right? She could do this.

And pretty much every one of those had backfired on her. Her village had kicked her out. Equestria had been destroyed several times over because of her petty use of time travel. And that time she used magic to do several friendship lessons at once was… Yeah. She couldn’t do this.

“Listen, it’s been not so nice talking, but I’ve got customers I need to attend to,” said Bon Bon, and left the table.

“Yeah. Whatever,” Starlight said to the air. Maybe, if she started walking, she could come up with an idea. She stood up and slowly loped out of the shop. What a way to spend the rest of the day, stewing about dangerous artifacts she’d lost and the artifact smuggler she’d lost it t-

Hang on… Starlight wheeled around and re-entered the candy shop. “Hey! Bon Bon! How’d you know she had connections to the black market if the Guard can’t pin it on her?”

“Can’t talk right now!” yelled Bon Bon. “Real busy! Lots of customers!” She pointed at all two ponies waiting in line.

Starlight snorted, flicked her ears, and left Sweets for the Sweet. Let Bon Bon keep her secrets. She had being dead to stew over.

2 - The Best We've Got, Unfortunately

Being dead was terrible on Starlight’s attempts to sleep. She’d spent the last two nights tossing and turning and generally failing to get anything resembling rest. In fact, as is its wont in these sorts of situations, the attempts at sleep only made things worse because all Starlight could do then was lie down and brood about the Alicorn Amulet and lie down and brood about the Alicorn Amulet and lie down and brood about…

In an effort to get her mind off being dead, Starlight had worked like lightning on her friendship reports all day yesterday. She blazed through them like a caffeinated wildfire through an oil-soaked lumber mill, but it didn’t help. Some part of her brain stayed detached from the rest, poking at her and going, Hey. What about the Alicorn Amulet? Hey. HEY. She couldn’t keep that activity up, and besides, she’d run out of friendship reports soon.

She wished she knew how to send messages to Spike; Twilight would know what to do. But what would she say? What could she say?

Dear Twilight,

A sleazy unicorn stole the Alicorn Amulet from me and is going to sell it on the black market. Help.

Your faithful student who needs help,
Starlight Glimmer

P.S.: Help.

Yeah, no.

A rooster crowed somewhere around Sweet Apple Acres for the fifth time that morning. Starlight moaned and tried to press the pillow further down her ear canal. She was just so tired, between two sleepless nights and all the work she’d done yesterday. All she wanted to do was get some rest, but her brain kept poking her.

“Hey. Starlight.” Poke.

Wait. That wasn’t her brain…

“Are you awake?” Poke. “C’mon.”

With a yawn, Starlight pushed herself up and blinked the world into semi-focus. Rainbow Dash was standing next to her bed, holding a coffee cup in her hoof and a newspaper under a wing and looking some mixture of nervous and quite pleased with herself. “You are awake!” Rainbow said cheerfully, the nervousness dropping away. She held out the cup. “You look tired. Coffee?”

“Wha’ kin’s i’?” Starlight sleep-slurred.

“Double-triple espresso. Strongest kind Ground Bean has. I still think it’s kinda weak, though.”

Starlight stared at the cup for a bleary second and took a sip. In hindsight, she supposed the only way she could’ve gotten awake faster would be to have pure caffeine injected directly into her arteries. She banged her head a few times to get it sorted out from the drastic gear change and attempted to will her fur to uncurl. “Ooookay, wow,” she said. “That’s… pretty strong.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “ ’S alright.” Sip.

“So, what are you doing in my room at…” Starlight glanced at the clock. “Almost nine in the morning?”

“Just making sure you’re ready.” Rainbow’s pleased-with-herself grin grew an inch wider.

“Ready for what?”

“Ready for the ponies… who’ll answer this!” In what probably should’ve set some record for dexterity, Rainbow Dash flicked open her wing in such a way that the newspaper flew away from her, opened up, and settled on the ground in front of Starlight on a very specific page:

HELP WANTED!
Assistance desired for totally awesome heist:
stealing the Alicorn Amulet back from a casino
in Trotter Gorge. Casino owner is a bad mare, so
we’re not hurting anypony. If this sounds awesome
(and why wouldn’t it?), please be at the throne room
of the Castle of Friendship at 10:00 AM tomorrow.
We’ll make new friends and rob ponies.
But only bad ponies, of course.

It took a few long moments for Starlight to process what she saw, during which she invented several new nonverbal varieties of “NOPE!”, composed an aria entirely out of incoherent screams, imagined a scenario where Twilight returned from her diplomatic mission to find her friendship protege a wanted criminal, and wondered just what the heck was up with the Ponyville Gazette. Finally, she blinked. “You- just- put this out as a classified ad? And you think ponies will show up?!”

“This is Ponyville. ’Course they will.”

“Point taken.” Starlight stared at the paper again. “But… but a heist? Tell me, Rainbow, what the heck are you thinking?”

“That somepony with those kinds of connections is going to want to keep her main source of money under close protection so getting the Amulet back going to take a lot of planning and all the help we can get?” Sip.

“…Rrrright.” Starlight wondered if being dead had shut down the thinking part of her brain. Or maybe it’d been shut off when she gave the Amulet to Goumada. Actually, given the mind-control spell, that was surprisingly likely. “So what’s your plan?”

“Uh, duh?” Rainbow Dash tapped the newspaper. “Get some ponies together and do a heist? And if you’re asking about specifics,” she added as Starlight opened her mouth, “we’ll find those out when we get there.”

“I…” Starlight looked at the newspaper again. “I don’t think-”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

“…Not really.” And Starlight was still beating herself up for that. She needed to learn this sort of thing; living with Twilight, having to save the day at some point would be inevitable. She had to be ready.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Starlight. Look. I know you’re worried, but c’mon! I do this all the time! Twilight and me and the rest, we stopped Nightmare Moon, stopped Discord, stopped Chrysalis-”

“Wasn’t that Cadance and Shining?”

“-stopped Sombra-”

“Also Cadance, plus Spike.”

“-reformed Discord-”

“Just Fluttershy.”

“-helped Daring Do stop Ahuizotl, stopped Tirek, stopped y- the Tantabus…” She chuckled. “This is gonna be easy.”

And if it had been anypony but Rainbow Dash saying that, Starlight might’ve believed her.

Over the next hour, Starlight paced back and forth so much that she wore down the carpet to fibers, magically repaired it, and then repeated. Rainbow’s casual attitude, with her all stretched out on the bed, wasn’t helping things in the slightest; Starlight’s mind seemed to be making her even more nervous to ensure the average atmosphere in the room was still “nervous”.

“They’ll be in the throne room?” Starlight asked for the umpteenth time.

“Yep,” Rainbow answered for the umpteenth time.

Starlight glared at the clock. Still a little early. Time was in that bizarre state where it went by both far too quickly and far too slowly. She could barely remember anything of the past forty-five minutes except that they were the longest forty-five minutes she’d known.

“You wanna just go down there?” Rainbow asked. “I mean, just for starters, it’s harder to wear down crystal than carpet.”

Gulp. “Y-yeah,” said Starlight. “Sure.” It was like ripping off a band-aid: just get it over with, or else it’ll be a lot worse when you actually do it, and it wasn’t like waiting would make the problem any better.

As she walked step by leaden step to the throne room, Starlight dismally reflected that, even assuming Ponyville had the ponies who could actually pull something like this off, the odds of them wanting to do a heist and showing up were pretty slim. She might as well hope that a year go by without some ancient evil from a millennium ago rearing its ugly, probably shadowy, definitely boastful head. The door to the throne room was already open; Starlight could hear some ponies talking inside. She stepped inside with bated breath, praying that whoever was there was competent.

“Muffin?”

Starlight flinched and backed away from the muffin held in her face. Beyond it, Derpy smiled at her, wall-eyed and innocent. “Don’t worry; I’ve got plenty! I thought anypony who came would want a morning snack.” Indeed, a large plate of muffins was sitting on the Cutie Map, several muffins clearly missing.

“Eh… no, thanks,” Starlight said, delicately pushing Derpy’s hoof away. So one of the ponies responding to Rainbow’s call was Derpy. Derpy was good ponies, but Starlight would put more faith in an actual rock being heist material.

“Suit yourself,” Derpy said with a shrug. She took a well-calculated bite and walked back to the Map, where she sat next to Dr. Hooves.

Starlight examined the other ponies in the room besides Derpy: the Doctor (obviously), Lyra, Bon Bon, and… that was it. Four ponies. Well, six, also counting herself and Rainbow Dash. These things were always done in sixes, weren’t they? If Starlight put faith in omens, she would’ve declared the current number to be a good sign.

With Rainbow behind her, Starlight stepped up to the map and cleared her throat. All the ponies turned to her; Lyra was giddy, the Doctor was interested, Derpy was interested in her muffin, and Bon Bon was sullen. “So, um, hi,” she said. “You all read the, the ad, right?”

“What ad?” asked Bon Bon unconvincingly. “I just happen to be at a very specific place at a very specific time without questioning what a bunch of other ponies are doing here.”

“Come on, Bon Bon,” said Lyra. She swatted at Bon Bon. “Lighten up. You didn’t have to come.”

“So!” Starlight said loudly. “A businessmare stole the Alicorn Amulet, and, um…” A sudden bout of schadenfreude seized her. “Rainbow, why don’t you explain it?”

Starlight’s desire to see Rainbow choke withered and died when Rainbow jumped up on the Map and began strutting like she was on a runway. “Listen up, ponies!” she yelled in a halfway-decent drill sergeant voice. “The Alicorn Amulet’s gone, and with Twilight on a diplomatic mission to the zebras, it’s up to us to get it back! The pony who took it has taken it to… to…” She paused and glanced at Bon Bon. “Where’d she take it?”

“Trotter Gorge,” Bon Bon said sullenly. (Lyra swatted her again.)

“To Trotter Gorge!” said Rainbow. “Where she’s got it in… Actually, I don’t know how she’s protecting it. It’s in a… casino, I think?” (It really impressed Starlight how Rainbow could continue to sound confident and boisterous while obviously making it up as she went. Bon Bon, meanwhile, started grinding her teeth.) “And we’ve gotta break in there before she can sell it to whatever dastardly bad guy wants to use it! Oh, it’ll be hard! But I know - I know! -” She stomped a hoof on the Map. “-that we can do it! ’Cause we’re from Ponyville, the hardiest town in Equestria! The Elements of Harmony are from here, and we laugh at the likes of the Everfree Forest! We are not gonna let breaking into a casino stop us!”

Lyra and the Doctor clapped. Derpy tried and failed to whistle through her mouthful of muffin. Bon Bon sulked. Starlight shuffled from hoof to hoof and tried and failed to not blush.

“So!” Rainbow Dash hopped off the map and began walking around its perimeter. “We know what we need to know. We know who we’re doing it with. A-”

Bon Bon raised a hoof. “Um, uh, quick question.” She cleared her throat. “Does anypony really get what we’re doing?”

“Of course!” said the Doctor brightly. “We’re going to take the Alicorn Amulet back from that businessmare and show her what for!”

Bon Bon sighed. “Yeah, no.”

She started pacing around the Map. “We are going to leave Ponyville and go to some trade city way out in the north, near the border of the Griffon Kingdom. Someplace none of us have gone to before. We are going to try to steal a priceless artifact from a businessmare who has ties to organized crime. We are going to steal it from, in all likelihood, a vault. A vault that is undoubtedly heavily guarded. A vault with the best security systems bits can buy. A vault we have no information on. If any of us get caught, we’re all going to jail for, at the bare minimum, however long it takes Twilight to get back from the zebra lands and get us out, which could be moons. Keep in mind, that’s at best, since those organized crime connections mean said businessmare probably won’t have a qualm about having us just ‘disappear’. And to top it off, not one of us has any experience in this sort of thing whatsoever. In short, our chances of success are practically nil.” She looked around at everypony. “You do all get that, right?”

“I know!” said Rainbow Dash. “Isn’t it awesome?”

“…We’re doomed,” muttered Bon Bon.

“Look,” said Starlight, “if you don’t want to do this, that’s, that’s okay. You don’t have to. No hard feelings. But…” She took a deep breath. “The Alicorn Amulet was stolen on my watch. I need to get it back. And… And I can’t think of any other way to do that.”

Bon Bon looked at the door for several seconds. “I should just go,” she mumbled. “Just go off, save my own skin while I still can. This is stupid.”

“Buuuuut…?” Rainbow Dash asked with a grin.

“But…” Bon Bon breathed loudly for a moment. “Someone’s gotta keep watch over you girls. And guy. Considering I’m probably the sanest pony in the room right now, that might as well be me.”

Starlight nodded reluctantly. She suspected she’d be agreeing with Bon Bon a lot in the coming days. “So, um,” she said to the whole room, “you heard what she said. Anypony gonna back out?”

Lyra’s hoof shot into the air. “I’m not!” she said happily. “The Alicorn Amulet’s too dangerous to leave in the wrong hooves and, well, this might be fun. Ponyville hasn’t had a large-scale monster attack in forever.”

“The bugbear attack was less than a year ago!” whispered Bon Bon.

“Yeah! Forever!”

“I’ve recently been wanting to go on an adventure like Twilight and the rest of the Elements,” added the Doctor. “It’s been much too long since I did something out of the ordinary. I don’t think I’m the type to sit down and relax for the rest of my days.”

“I’m here ’cause he’s here,” chirped Derpy. She nudged the Doctor.

“And I’m here ’cause she’s here,” said Bon Bon sullenly. She nudged Lyra.

“All right,” Rainbow said. “So! We’re all in!” She grinned at the assembled ponies. “And… now what?”

Bon Bon decided to introduce the Map to her muzzle repeatedly and at high speed. “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

“Hey, gimme a break! I-”

“If we’re, uh, breaking into a casino,” cut in Starlight, “don’t you think we should, I don’t know, go to the casino and see what it’s like?”

“Yeah,” said Derpy. “Scope it out, steal some blueprints, find weaknesses, find out our specialties to tailor our plans around, an- What? Why are you all looking at me like that? It’s how heist stories go.” She shrugged and took a bite of a muffin. “Diff if duh fedup.”

A vague murmur of agreement rippled around the Map. Her morale bolstered slightly, Starlight said, “So now, let’s, uh, get to Trotter Gorge and check out the casino. Maybe we can take the train there.” Without waiting for a response, Starlight turned around and walked out of the throne room. From the sounds behind her, everypony was following.

And suddenly, Starlight felt that strange sensation of terrified confidence that so often accompanies big events. No, the Alicorn Amulet hadn’t been recovered. Yes, getting it back was still looking about as likely as Twilight not organizing a library just because she could. But some ponies thought they could get the Amulet back, one of whom had already saved Equestria plenty of times. Having several ponies behind her, even if one was doing it kicking and screaming, was a huge pick-me-up for her.

Maybe, just maybe, they could do this.

3 - Familiar Faces Are Always Nice

The train kept a-rollin’, and Bon Bon kept glaring out the window at the landscape as it passed by. If Lyra hadn’t been so insistent, and the situation just a tad less dire, she wouldn’t be here. She’d be sitting back at the shop, nice and cozy, serving the first few customers of the day. But, no, Starlight just had to make a mistake that could potentially threaten all of Equestria (which, from what Bon Bon had heard, seemed to be only slightly unusual for her). So now, here she was, sitting on a train headed for Trotter Gorge in order to break into a casino. Not her first rodeo of this sort, but the last rodeo hadn’t gone so hot, and she didn’t want a repeat.

“Hey. Hey, Bonnie.”

And Lyra didn’t seem to be getting the gravity of the situation. This was all a game to her, like she was the protagonist, or at least a major side character, of some cheesy pulp adventure. (Although if it was a cheesy pulp adventure, at least things were guaranteed to turn out okay.) In fact, Starlight was the only other pony whom the gravity seemed to affect, which was probably because she was the one responsible in the first place (not really, but Bon Bon wasn’t feeling charitable at the moment). Rainbow appeared to be under the delusion that she could punch her way out, the Doctor was almost as disconnected as Lyra, and Derpy was Derpy.

“Bonnie. …Bonnie. …Bo-”

Bon Bon grunted to indicate she’d heard.

“Lighten up, Bonnie.” Lyra managed to squeeze in between Bon Bon and the window, grinning fit to burst. “What’s the big deal?”

“As a former secret agent, I know exactly how badly this can go pear-shaped.” Bon Bon lightly pushed Lyra out of the way and back into her seat. “I’ve seen it happen. I’ve been involved in it. A-”

“I thought you were a monster hunter,” Lyra said curiously, leaning forward. “How do you do a heist on a chimera den?”

“I was a monster hunter when that division got shut down. Before then, I… sometimes got shuffled around.”

“You never told me that!” Her ears twitching back and forth, Lyra was practically bouncing on her seat in excitement. “You never tell me anything about your time as a secret agent mare!”

“Because, for the last time, it’s incredibly illegal,” Bon Bon said with a scowl. “I already broke at least three secrecy statutes telling you about the bugbear.”

“We’re breaking laws now,” Lyra pointed out. “What’s one more? Or two or three? Dozen? How’d your heist go wrong? Pleeeaaase?”

“Lyraaaa…” scolded Bon Bon.

Lyra made big eyes.

“Lyra, I told you not to make that face outside the bedroom.”

Lyra made bigger eyes.

“Lyra Heartstrings, I have quite enough on my plate as it is. Please don’t make me do this.”

Lyra pouted and crossed her front legs. “Well, you’re no fun,” she mumbled, sticking her nose in the air.

“No. I’m not.”

Contrary to (what she assumed was) popular opinion, Rainbow Dash really did grasp what was at stake. In fact, that was half the reason she was so hyped up. It’d been way too long since she’d had a good adventure. The last time anything extraordinary happened to her was, what, Flurry Heart’s Crystalling? And that just involved a snowstorm. Big deal. This was Important.

The only real reason Rainbow was winging it was because she worked best while winging it. She had a plan. The rough outline of a plan. It was even a plan, not just “step 1: steal the Amulet”. First, they had to scope the place out, get an idea of the place they were heisting. (“Heist” was a cool word, punchy and sneaky at the same time.)

Actually, first they needed to know what place they were heisting.

The train had been traveling for a while, the landscape slowly growing less lush and more mountainous as they headed north. Supposedly, the next stop was Trotter Gorge. Rainbow was practically bouncing on her seat, ready to get moving. Starlight was sitting across from her, twisting her hoof around one of the locks of her mane, mumbling. “Why are we doing this? We are we doing this? Why are we do-”

Rainbow leaned forward and bopped Starlight on the muzzle. “Calm down, Starlight. We’ll do fine.”

“You said that already.” Starlight rubbed her nose.

“ ’Cause it’s true! Look, here’s something to get your mind off that: we still need a place to stay while, right? Let’s get a list of hotels. You and the others can find rooms for us, I’ll go and start reconning the casino.”

“Reconnoitering, and how do you know which casino to do it on?”

“I don’t. But how many casinos can there be in a small town like this?”

Starlight gave Rainbow Dash a Look and returned to staring out the window. Rainbow shrugged to herself. Pessimism was overrated.

The train rounded a curve and Trotter Gorge came into view. It was sitting on a long, broad plane at the top of a short cliff. Most of it was unassuming, the usual small town, but there was, of all things, a broad, expensive-looking tower in the middle of town. Rainbow guessed it was about twenty stories tall, give or take. Obvious place to heist? Obvious place to heist.

Once the train pulled into the station, Rainbow zipped out through one of the windows (to avoid the crowds) and snatched up a tourist brochure. She flipped through it, looking for- O-ho. The tower was the “Canyon Rim Casino and Hotel”. Promising. Any other casinos? She fanned through the brochure. Nope, no other casinos. That was easy! She jumped to the hotels. Short list, but it ought to be good. (As long as they avoided the casino, obviously.)

Rainbow Dash snatched up another brochure and zipped back to the train, where the others were only just now managing to get off. She smirked at Starlight. “List of hotels!” she said, holding up one of the pamphlets in Starlight’s face. “And the place we’re robbing is that big tower in the middle of town. I’ll be there.” She saluted and took off for the casino.

(Behind her, Starlight looked at the brochure, looked at Bon Bon, and said, “How’s she going to know which hotel we’re at?” Bon Bon groaned and facehooved.)

From the air, Trotter Gorge looked larger than Rainbow Dash had expected. Not much, but a bit more built-up and not quite so small-towny. But Bon Bon had said it was a trading hub, right? So it shouldn’t be nothing. A rift split the town in two, carved out over the years by a roiling river. Rainbow took in the basic street plan with a glance, then headed for the tower.

The Canyon Rim Casino was big, grandiose, overblown, and out-of-place in a town like this. It was right up next to the canyon, proving just how “creative” whoever named it was. The main entrance faced into Trotter Gorge, while a large deck took up the space between the building and the actual gorge. Nearly every surface was some shade of red.

Rainbow Dash circled the casino, not entirely sure what she was looking for. There were some ponies wearing security-guard-ish uniforms. There weren’t many windows on the bottom three floors. The sign over the front entrance was big and flashy, the entrance itself flanked by small fountains. There were steam-driven machines (not all that different from the design of the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy) driving around some of the streets. There was one entrance in front, one in back, and a few side doors, all watched by at least three guards.And-

“You ponies are all racist!”

No… She knew that voice…

“Ma’am, that was uncalled for, and-”

Not that one, the other one.

“If it was uncalled for, then stop being racist!”

That one. It sounded like-

“I’m not even sure it’s the right word-”

“I can use whatever word I dang well feel like and you saying otherwise is racist!”

“…Just go. I don’t have time to deal with you.”

“Good. Racist.”

Rainbow had narrowed down the source of the sound. She flew around the corner, descended to street level, and there she was: Gilda, of all griffons, was arguing with one of the security guards. They broke off and walked away from each other, Gilda heading towards Rainbow and rolling her eyes at the guard.

“Hey! Gilda!” said Rainbow Dash. She shot forward in excitement. So quickly that she forgot about slowing down and collided with Gilda. They got tangled together and fell to the ground in a tumble, much to the bemusement of onlookers.

“Gah!” squawked Gilda. “Son of a- Watch where you’re-” She forced her head around one of Rainbow’s wings and her beak dropped. “Rainbow Dash?!”

“Hi, Gilda,” said Rainbow. She wiggled slightly and disentangled the two of them. “Sorry about that,” she said with a giggle.

“Heh.” Gilda pushed down her headfeathers. “Nah, I know you didn’t mean it. You’re cool.” She turned in the guard’s direction. “Unlike some people!” She made a strange griffonic gesture at him with one claw.

“Were they being racist?” Rainbow asked, dropping her voice. “Or… specist- Speciesist? Whatever.”

“Not really,” whispered Gilda. She headed away from the building, Rainbow following. “But their boss, Gouda Feta or something, that loser’s gotten in trouble with ponies and griffons around here for actually being… for actually discriminating against griffons, so if you just scream discrimination, she’ll want to get rid of you as soon as possible.”

“I’ll keep- How long have you been here to learn that?”

“I- Ehm…”

“Actually, what’re you doing here in the first place?”

“It’s kind of-” Gilda squinted at Rainbow. “What’re you doing here? I thought you were going to the zebras or wherever.”

“That’s just Twilight,” said Rainbow, waving a hoof noncommittally. She lowered her voice even more. “I’m here for a heist!” Of course she could tell Gilda this. Gilda was a friend — no way she’d blab — and from the looks of things, she liked Goumada just as much as the rest of their motley crew; i.e., less than a root canal without anesthetics.

“…Okay,” Gilda said flatly, “who’d you hear about it from?”

“Hear about what?”

“You know what!”

“No I don’t!”

“Yeah you do! ’Cause there’s no way you’re coming to Casinotown, Nowhere at the same time as me without planning it!”

“Wait, you’re here for a heist, too?” Already, Rainbow Dash’s mind was racing almost as fast as her wings. If that was true, maybe-

“Whaddya mean, ‘too’?”

“…We’re heisting the Alicorn Amulet. What’re you heisting?”

Gilda blinked and looked away. “Idnwntkbtit.”

“C’mooooooon, Gilda!”

“Ntsyngnthn.”

“Pleeeaaase?”

Gilda whirled on Rainbow, her eyes looking particularly hawkish. “Fine. But don’t tell anyone, okay?” she snapped.

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” said Rainbow, making a mental note to tell Starlight ASAP. Help was help, right?

“Short version,” said Gilda. “Gouda Feta conned Griffonstone into giving her money for a bunch of worthless land and nobody cares enough to do anything about it, so I’m stealing the money back.”

“…Why’d you jump straight to theft?”

“ ’Cause.” Gilda shrugged.

That seemed reasonable. “You want some help?”

Gilda’s laugh sounded a lot like a caw. “And you just happen to-”

“Not just me!” protested Rainbow. “There’s like five other ponies with me. I told you we’re trying to get the Alicorn Amulet, right? You help us, we help you, you get your money, we get the Amulet, everyone wins! Except for Goumada, but that’s the point.”

Gilda clicked her beak a few times, then snorted. “Eh. What the heck. Sure. Ain’t like things can get that much worse.” They shook on it. “So, do you guys have a place to stay yet?”

“We’re working on it.”

“ ’Cause there’s a villa near here that a griffon family owns and they’re letting me use it. Cheaper than a hotel, anyway. Don’t mess things up too much and you can stay, too.”

Rainbow stared at Gilda, then laughed. “Heh. That’s convenient. Starlight’ll go nuts.”

“This is nuts,” Starlight muttered, staring at the building in front of her. It wasn’t anything particularly special, but it was free.

Rainbow had tracked them down as they left the second hotel (both it and the first one lacked room for the whole group), told them the whole story, and escorted them to the smallish property Gilda had called a villa. And while Starlight usually associated the term “villa” with houses in warmer properties (Louisianeigh, for instance, or Bitaly), this was definitely a villa. It had the larger-than-strictly-necessary yards, the slightly sprawling floor plan, the squattish design, the “keep out” perimeter wall that did nothing for determined intruders. It was old and could probably use a bit of cleaning, but looked perfectly functional.

“And this other griffon, Ginevra, she just gave it to you?” Starlight asked Gilda.

“To stay in, not to own. But why? Dunno.” Gilda shrugged as she wrestled with the rusty gate lock. “Maybe she just wanted to get rid of me ’cause I- Ha! Got it.” She shoved the gate open in a squeak of unoiled hinges. “Knock yourselves out,” she said, waving the group in.

As the other ponies filed in, Rainbow Dash pulled Starlight aside. “Now that you’re in, I’ve, uh, I’ve got something I need to do.”

“What kind of something?” Starlight asked.

Rainbow grinned. “You’ll see.”

“And you can’t tell me,” Starlight said, rolling her eyes, “because that’ll ruin the surprise, right?”

“Exactly!” Rainbow said brightly. Her voice turned a touch more serious. “But really, trust me. This’ll be great. Be back in an hour, alright?”

For the Element of Loyalty, Rainbow Dash had a very strange sense of loyalty, Starlight decided. Refusing to tell ponies about things because it would be cooler for them to be surprised, borderline narcissism, leaping before she looked no matter how much her friends cautioned her not to. And yet, she always came through in the end. A very strange sense of loyalty, yet loyalty nonetheless. “Alright. I guess I’ll… examine the villa.” What else was there to do yet?

“Great!” Rainbow saluted and rocketed away. Actually, to compare her to rockets would be high praise for the rockets.

Starlight entered the villa and immediately her nose began to itch. No one had been here in a while, and the procession of ponies and griffon was kicking up small clouds of dust. To be honest, given the way things had been going, Starlight wasn’t all that surprised that “clean up villa” had been added to her list of things to do, right under “do friendship reports”, “lose Alicorn Amulet”, and “panic” but before “continue panicking” and “steal Alicorn Amulet (somehow)”. Aside from the dust, the inside was pretty bare. It had the essentials with regards to furniture, a few tacky decorations, and not much else. At least the trim looked nice.

A lot of saddlebags had been dumped in the entry hall. Starlight followed suit. The ponies had dispersed throughout the house, although Gilda was lounging on one of the walls, looking bored, her tail flicking back and forth. Starlight decided the first thing to do was to get to semi-know the new addition to their little team. “Hey,” she said to Gilda. “Thanks for, uh, providing this place for us.”

Gilda shrugged. “Whatever.”

Do something do something do something, Starlight screamed at herself. “Do you, uh, know the ponies here?” Rainbow Dash had vaguely introduced Gilda to them and vice versa, but nothing major.

“Not really. Don’t care to.”

Here we go, friendship training. “Well, if we’re going to be working together, you need to know who you’re working with.” No response from Gilda. “So, um… I’m Starlight Glimmer, and I’m, uh, kinda the reason we’re here.” She attempted to smile and failed so miserably flowers were in danger of wilting.

“I heard.”

“Okay, so, why don’t we-”

Bon Bon slid around a corner, half-trotted half-cantered up to Gilda, and looked her straight in the eye in a way that implied she was quite close to snapping (in other words, normal for the past few days). “So where are the stairs?” she asked.

“The stairs?” Gilda asked skeptically.

“Yes. The stairs. The things used to go from one floor to another?”

“Um, hello? Griffon villa?” Gilda flared her wings. “We don’t do stairs.”

“So seventy percent of us are stuck on the first floor.” Bon Bon sighed and shook her head. “Super.”

Starlight declined to mention her own experience with flight for the moment. “Gilda,” she said quickly, “this is Bon Bon. She’s a candymaker-”

“I can tell,” cut in Gilda. “She’s just so sweet.”

“Oh, look,” said Bon Bon flatly. “My shoelace is untied two rooms over.” She flicked her tail and stomped out of the hall.

“…and she’s also a bit of a pessimist right now,” continued Starlight. “The whole, y’know, heist thing.” Gilda’s beak tightened, but when she didn’t say anything, Starlight pulled her in the opposite direction.

They wound up in the kitchen. Every cabinet and cupboard was open as the Doctor and Derpy combed through them. “Empty…” mumbled the Doctor. “Empty… Empty…” Hearing Starlight and Gilda enter the room, he looked up. “Ah! Starlight. And… Gilda, was it? Charmed. Anyway, good news and bad news, Starlight. Bad news: no food. I hope you enjoy shopping. Good news: we’ve got tea strainers.”

Derpy stood up from behind the counter. “And the icebox, stove, and oven all still work and we’ve got pans and plates and silverware. But the coffee grinder needs to be cleaned. It’s got dust everywhere.”

“Why would we need coffee?” the Doctor snorted. “We are in possession of tea strainers.”

“Because some ponies don’t like tea?”

The Doctor gasped. “That’s like not liking breathing! They must-”

As the Doctor and Derpy bickered good-naturedly, Starlight said, “That’s the Doctor-”

“Doctor who?” asked Gilda.

“Well, Dr. Hooves, actually, but we just call him the Doctor — I’m not sure why, to be honest — and that’s Derpy.”

“How much did her parents hate her?”

“MOVING ON.” Starlight practically shoved Gilda to the next room, a living room with a massive picture window and a huge couch Lyra was sprawled face-down on. “And, finally, this is Lyra. Lyra, this is Gilda.”

Lyra’s ears turned in their direction, but she otherwise didn’t move. “Huh Gihva.”

Gilda shot a Look at Starlight, who laughed nervously. “Is… Is something wrong?”

Lyra lifted her face up, just a little. “This is the best couch in the history of forever…” She rolled onto her back, grinning, eyes closed. “…and I never want to get up never ever.”

“Great team we’ve got, eh?” asked Gilda, her eyebrow raised.

“It’s fine, we’ll be fine,” said Starlight, convincing nobody.

“And, to be fair,” said Lyra, raising a hoof, “this is a damn fine couch.”

Gilda rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh, sure.” She jumped onto the couch next to Lyra. “So fine that- that…” She paused. “Oooh, wow,” Gilda muttered. “This is a comfy couch.” She wriggled a bit further into the cushion and spread her wings. And purred.

Starlight facehooved. “When you’re done,” she enunciated, “we should clean this place up a bit. I’ve never seen so much dust.”

“Yeah, sure, we’ll get to that,” said Lyra. “Eventually.”

Eventually, Starlight had managed to extricate Lyra and Gilda from the couch and corral them (and everypony else) into dusting the house down, or at least the first floor. Getting to the second floor still wasn’t an option for most ponies. There were a few “atriums” where someone who could fly could go up or down a story, but no stairs. As for the ground floor, cleaning it up took the better part of an hour and an awful lot of feather dusters. (Gilda had angrily announced that there was no way they were taking some of her feathers in case they ran out.) Still, they got it done eventually.

But all that work gave Starlight sufficient time to think about how they were really just putting off the real reason they were here, and the more time they wasted, the less time they had for actual heisting.

When all the surfaces were relatively dust-free, everybody was sort of drawn to the living room. Lyra, the Doctor, Derpy, and Gilda got suctioned to the sofa (enormous enough to fit all of them easily) and debated the finer points of couch potatoism. Bon Bon stared out the window, one of her hooves twitching. And Starlight paced back and forth over and over, waiting for Rainbow Dash to return. They needed everyone here to-

The front door slammed open, drawing everyone’s attention. “I’m back!” said Rainbow Dash brightly as she strode into the room. “And I brought friends!”

Starlight groaned internally. More ponies? It was as if Rainbow Dash didn’t know the definition of subtlety (which, okay, was actually a distinct possibility). Starlight turned to her to say something about discretion, only for the protest to die in her throat.

Sunburst was standing in the doorway, shuffling from hoof to hoof and nervously stroking his beard, standing alongside Thorax, currently in his little Crystal Hoof body but unmistakable from that forced smile. Rainbow Dash seemed altogether much too pleased with herself.

“Hi, um,” said Sunburst, “I, I’m Sunburst. I, I’m a friend of Starlight’s. And, um, this…” He and Thorax looked at each other. A second later, Thorax bobbed his head up and down by about an inch. “And,” Sunburst continued, pushing his glasses up his muzzle, “this, this is Thorax. He’s, he’s a changeling.”

“Hi, um,” said Thorax. “I’m Thorax.” His crystal pony body dissolved in a flash of blue into his changeling body. “I’m a changeling.” He did his best to smile warmly, which was complicated a bit by his fangs.

Gilda screeched, jumped several yards straight into the air, and dug her claws into the ceiling. Bon Bon shuffled three or four inches away. The Doctor yelped and somehow managed to fall over the back of the sofa. Derpy just waved. And Lyra hopped off the sofa, grinning broadly. “Hey!” said Lyra. She trotted up to Thorax and held out a hoof. “Twilight told us about you. You didn’t like stealing love and wanted true friendship instead, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Thorax. “The Hive, um… Let’s just say it’s not a nice place.” He nervously reached out and touched his hoof to Lyra’s.

“Well, you’re cool,” Lyra said, shaking hooves. She tilted her head a little to look at the holes in his leg. “You look awesome.”

Thorax twitched, bared his fangs and hissed, and clapped his hooves to his mouth, all within half a second. “Sorrysorrysorry!” he squeaked, shuffling away on his rump. “Instinct! Hardtocontrol! Sorry!”

By the time Lyra had registered Thorax’s actions, he was already apologizing. She laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about it, that’s fine. I’m Lyra-”

“So are we all just gonna ignore,” Gilda shrilled from the ceiling, “that he turned into a giant horse fly thing outta nowhere?!”

“He’s a changeling,” Lyra said, squinting up at her. “That’s kinda his thing.”

“Well, that’s just dandy and not creepy at all!”

“Gilda, Thorax is not going to hurt you,” said Starlight. “Get off the ceiling.”

“No thank you!” shrieked Gilda. “I’m staying right here, where-”

Starlight shot a spell at the ceiling; the plaster around Gilda’s claws crumbled. She fell halfway down, twisted around in the air, and managed to land on her feet. She scrambled to a corner of the room and glared at Thorax. Sunburst quickly stepped between Thorax and Gilda and said loudly, “HI! I’M SUNBURST! AND I-”

Rainbow Dash quickly waved Starlight aside. “Whaddya think?” she said, grinning. “I sent Sunburst a letter a few days ago. I figured we could use the help.”

“Rainbow…” said Starlight disapprovingly. The last thing she needed was even more ponies, particularly ponies close to her, knowing how badly she’d messed up. She’d never live this down at this rate. Was Rainbow going to just shout their plight from the rooftops? “He’s probably-”

“Well, we could!” protested Rainbow. “Sure, he’s not good at casting magic, but he’s super good at developing it, so if he makes the spells and you cast them, it’ll turn out great!”

“You dragged him-”

“I told him he didn’t need to come,” Rainbow said defensively. “He’s only here because he wants to be. And for the record, I didn’t say anything about him bringing Thorax. That’s all him.”

Starlight glanced at the newly-arrived pair, who appeared to be going through introductions. Okay, so it was nice to see Sunburst again. Okay, so his magical knowledge would be useful. Okay, so having a changeling on the team would be a very very very very valuable asset. Okay, so maybe their being here wasn’t the worst thing in the world. “Fine,” she said, “but-” But what? Rainbow was Loyalty. Her heart was in the right place, at the very least.

“But what?” Rainbow asked.

“Nothing.”

Rainbow didn’t reply, and suddenly Starlight was aware of just how quiet the room was. She glanced at the others; introductions seemed to have finished up, and everypony was waiting for somepony else to say something.

After a moment, Bon Bon cleared her throat. “Alright,” she said. “We’re all here. We’ve got a mission. We need to start making a plan.”

4 - Let's Get Down to Business

Everybody, pony or otherwise, was gathered around a coffee table in the living room. Some of them were attempting to push each other away to get more room on the (apparently superbly comfy) couch, but it was restrained. Thorax even felt comfortable enough to stay as a changeling, although he stayed away from most of the crowd and kept shuffling from hoof to hoof. Starlight half-wanted to speak up, but Bon Bon seemed to be taking control of the situation. Considering how resolute she was acting, Starlight was inclined to let her.

“So,” said Bon Bon, “our target is the Canyon Rim Casino, the tallest building in town. You’ve all seen it, right?” Murmurs of assent. “Somewhere in there is the Alicorn Amulet.”

“And my money,” piped up Gilda.

“And her money,” acknowledged Bon Bon. “We’ll get that, too. But we don’t know where in there it is. We don’t know what the layout of the building is. We don’t know what kind of security they have. In short, we know nothing about it. So.” She collapsed onto her rump and looked around at everypony. “Any ideas?”

Derpy’s hoof rose before silence fell. “See if the town hall has blueprints,” she said. “Even if they’re faked, since Goumada is a shady pony and all, they’ll give us some idea of what the inside of the building’s like in the employee areas. Maybe.”

“That’s…” Bon Bon paused. “That’s not bad. And- Is somepony writing this down?”

“Got it,” said Sunburst, who was jotting notes on a sheet of paper. Starlight wondered if he’d come to the meeting prepared or if he’d just happened to be moseying around everywhere with quill and paper ready Just in Case. Probably the latter.

Bon Bon nodded. “Alright. And we can scout out the main casino floor until then, find out where the entrances and exits are. Any other ideas?”

“Well…” Rainbow Dash twisted some of her hair around her hoof, then reluctantly said, “As long as I don’t have to do it… watch the guards for their shift patterns. Like, when would they be ready to go home and be the least attentive? That sorta thing.” She glared at the crowd. “But seriously, don’t make me do it, that stuff’s boring.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” said Bon Bon flatly.

“I would imagine,” the Doctor suddenly spoke up, “that an establishment that large and varied would require, ah, a great deal of food to keep everypony properly refreshed. And if food and drinks are shipped there every days, we could maybe get in as food deliveryponies.”

“Wouldn’t they recognize the usual… deliverers?” asked Lyra.

“We don’t know yet, do we? Perhaps different ponies unload the food each time.”

“Recording that, by the way,” said Sunburst.

A few more ideas were bounced around, but none of them was quite as direct as the ones already presented. Starlight thought that they almost looked like they knew what they were doing. It was something resembling promising. Still, it wasn’t long before the ideas petered out and everyone was more making halfhearted suggestions to fill the silence.

Bon Bon held up a hoof. “Okay, I think we’re done brainstorming for the day. We sho-”

“Hang on,” Gilda spoke up. “One more thing.” She turned to Starlight. “Didn’t you say that Gouda Feta-” (Bon Bon’s cough sounded suspiciously like, Goumada!) “-mind-controlled you? Can you do anything about that? ’Cause I don’t want somepony digging inside my brain and screwing with my thoughts.”

“Um, maybe,” Starlight said. The reminder of her screwup made her flush red; she flicked her ears as she resisted the urge to look away. “I’d need to, um, review the, uh, spell she used on me.”

“I can help with that,” said Sunburst. One of Starlight’s nerves unwound.

“Any other ideas?” asked Bon Bon. No response. “Then let’s split up into groups and get on this. Derpy, you’ve worked in a bureaucracy-”

Derpy’s wings burst open as she got to her feet. “Excuse me?” she said indignantly. “I’ll have you know that the post is efficient. We have the highest prosecution rate of any Equestrian law enforcement branch, you know!”

“…You, um, have experience with… government offices,” continued a shocked Bon Bon, “I’ll go with you to town hall. Gilda, you were already kind of scouting out the building, right? You can keep doing that with Rainbow and Lyra. No, Rainbow, you don’t need to watch the guards just yet. Sunburst and Starlight can start working on that anti-mind-control spell. Thorax, Doctor, you two… You know what, just go shopping. We need some food in these cabinets. Any kind of food.” Bon Bon squinted at Thorax. “Speaking of which-”

“IpromiseIwon’tfeedonanyofyou!” squawked Thorax, pushing away. “And the Crystal Empire’s got so much excess love that I don’t think I’ll even need to because even though I’ve only been taking bits and pieces where it won’t go missing I feel really full so I-”

“Relax, Thorax,” said Sunburst. He gave a mild stinkeye to Bon Bon. “Thorax is completely trustworthy. And, and if you ever imply otherwise, I’ll… I’ll… be very annoyed.” He grimaced and suddenly grew incredibly engrossed in examining his notes.

Bon Bon opened her mouth, paused, and said, “Fine. Any objections?” There weren’t any. “Then let’s get going.”

The group broke apart in something resembling a professional manner, and in less than a minute, Starlight and Sunburst were alone in the living room, Sunburst’s scratching quill making the only sound. Neither of them said anything for a while. Sunburst coughed and said, “Rainbow Dash, she told me what happened, and, um… Well.”

“Yeah,” Starlight mumbled. “Well.” She kicked sullenly at the coffee table and stubbed her hoof for her trouble. “I really can’t go for very long without messing something up, can I? Twilight tells me to make friends, I run into somepony who just wants to use me to get to Twilight. I try to do some homework, I wind up mind-controlling ponies who’re supposed to be my friends. And now…”

“You linger on the past too much, Starlight,” Sunburst said. He pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “You really need to learn to, to let things go. Getting mind-controlled wasn’t even your fault!”

“Easy for you to say,” Starlight snorted. “You’ve never done any of those things.”

“It’s, I’m just saying-”

“Have you let go of flunking out of magic school yet?”

“I’m working on it,” Sunburst said defensively. “I-” He cut himself off, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “I didn’t say it was easy,” he said. “But could you cool all the ‘woe is me’ moaning?”

Breathe deep, breathe deep, breathe deep… You wanted to smack somepony the most when that was the only response left that didn’t involve admitting they were right. And Starlight wanted to smack Sunburst very much right now. But with her friendship GPA dangerously close to tanking, Starlight didn’t want to do any little thing that would risk tipping it over entirely. “I’ll try,” she mumbled. She abruptly stood up straight.“Anyway, mind control,” she said quickly. “Do you really think you can stop it?”

“Maybe, yeah,” Sunburst said nonchalantly. “It’d depend on the type used. What did it feel like when, when you were… you know. Can you remember it?”

“It…” Starlight sighed. “Everything just felt great, no matter what the thing was. Like, if you’d asked me to count every blade of grass in Equestria, I would’ve been thrilled to do something so comprehensive.” The feeling had been so freakishly good that simply thinking about it almost made her long for it again. Almost. “And I just didn’t care about anything, either. I would’ve enjoyed eating lemon cake, and you know how I feel about lemon cake.”

“Incorrectly,” said Sunburst. He pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “So. Complete loosening of, loosening of inhibitions coupled with, with an extreme feeling of pleasure. That, does that sound right?” Starlight nodded, and he continued, “Then it might, it might not be mind control at all, not precisely. See, it’s, it’s kind of like you were high and drunk at the same time. The happiness made you eager to please, and the lack of caring made you open to any form of, you’d do whatever somepony asked you to. It’s not really mind control, more…” He frowned and flicked his tail as he drummed a hoof on the ground. “Extreme susceptibility to suggestion, like plying somepony with beer to make them drunk and, and do what you want. Kinda clever, actually.”

Starlight stared at Sunburst.

“Well, once you get over the whole emotional manipulation thing, obviously!” protested Sunburst. “It, it doesn’t really do anything legal spells don’t! The, the happiness could just come from an extreme version of Felicity’s Pick-Me-Up Spell, and the suggestibility thing is, it’s sometimes used in therapy, always voluntarily, to get patients more willing to talk about-”

Sunburst really hadn’t changed, not one bit. “So,” Starlight cut in, “do you think you can block it?”

“Probably. I’ll, I need a while to review the spells I know that can, that can do that, but come back tomorrow, and, yeah, definitely.” Sunburst half-smiled. “Don’t… ask me to, to cast them, though.”

“Yeah. Do you want some help with review?”

“Not rea- Sure. Yeah, of course. You can add any, any spells I miss and do the casting to see, to see if the countermeasures actually work. So, um…” Sunburst flipped his paper over. “There was Felicity’s…”

Thorax-Changeling had never tasted a stranger confluence of emotions than the haze in the so-called supermarket. Anxiety, joy, despair, happiness, frustration, contentment, hatred, satisfaction, sadness… And that was just in this aisle. He felt like he’d been stuffed in a washing machine with emotions instead of clothes. Ponies passed him and the Doctor-Earth-Brown by, never giving them more than a passing glance, yet never hitting them. It was a weird combination of paying no attention while simultaneously paying all the attention.

The actual content of the store wasn’t helping things. What was food, even? Nothing in the store seemed to have anything in common with anything else. And neither Cadance-Alicorn-Pink nor Shining-Unicorn-White nor Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange had ever been able to satisfactorily explain “food” to him during his time in the Crystal Empire. All he knew was that food went into ponies’ heads and… stuff… came out down… there. It wasn’t easy, like emotions, where you just let your own magic absorb it, work it, and you felt better.

He was glad he had something to do, but he had a nagging suspicion Bon Bon-Earth-Tan had just given this particular job to him to get him out of the way, because he was completely lost traipsing up and down the shelves of this particular store as the Doctor-Earth-Brown picked out what they needed to buy for their team to ingest.

“Do you honestly put these in your mouth?” Thorax-Crystal-Blue asked, examining a head of lettuce. “And just… inhale them?”

“We do not inhale them,” tutted the Doctor-Earth-Brown, “we swallow them. And that’s actually a good-looking collection of lettuce.” He plucked it from the shelf and stuck it in the cart.

“They both go down your throat. What’s the difference?” Thorax-Crystal-Blue asked. He stared at the different kinds of lettuce. That was Romaine, that was Iceberg, that was Summercrisp, that was Butterhead, and they all looked nearly identical: green balls of wrinkly leaves. Screw food. Seriously.

“What do you mean, ‘what’s the difference’?” scoffed the Doctor-Earth-Brown. “Haven’t you ever swallowed anything in your life?”

Thorax-Crystal-Blue looked around. No other ponies were too near to them. “No,” he whispered.

“…Rrrrrright,” said the Doctor-Earth-Brown, flicking his tail. Thorax-Crystal-Blue tasted embarrassment bubbling over inside him. “You, ah, don’t… eat like… right. But, hang on, haven’t you eaten anything during infiltrations, perhaps?”

“I’m not a very good infiltrator,” Thorax-Crystal-Blue mumbled, squirming. He knew he wasn’t supposed to care about that anymore, but he couldn’t help it. “I’m not a good changeling at all. If I was, do you think I’d be living in the Crystal Empire?”

“By Celestia, I’m simply inserting my hoof into my mouth nonstop today, aren’t I?” Whatever that meant. He hid it well, but the Doctor-Earth-Brown was practically dosed in sheepishness.

“It’s alright,” said Thorax-Crystal-Blue. “It’s not like you mean to sound stupid, right? Heh heh heh…” His laugh couldn’t have sounded more forced if it’d been squeezed out of him with a vise.

“Hem. Yes.” The Doctor-Earth-Brown plucked some cabbage from the shelves. (Cabbage was apparently even more different from lettuce than different kinds of lettuce were from each other, even though they were all green balls of wrinkly leaves.) Thorax-Crystal-Blue flinched as lances of surprise shot from the Doctor-Earth-Brown; surprise was too hot for his tastes. The Doctor-Earth-Brown said, “Well, ah… Have you ever gulped?”

“That thing I sometimes do when I’m nervous in pony form? This?” And Thorax-Crystal-Blue forced himself to gulp. The sensation was still as weird as it had ever been, particularly the way it was briefly impossible to breathe.

“That’s swallowing.”

“It is? And you stick food in your mouth when you do it?”

“Exactly!” Happiness flowed from the Doctor-Earth-Brown like a river as he smiled. Thorax-Crystal-Blue wasn’t sure why; the whole idea was beyond bizarre.

“So let me get this straight. You take something like… this…” He waved a box of Hoof Hooves in the Doctor-Earth-Brown’s face. (The Doctor-Earth-Brown quickly snatched them and dropped them in the cart.) “You stuff it into your mouth… Then you swallow… And somehow the food gets into your body and somehow you get energy from that.”

“Well, it does need to go to the back of the mouth to actually get into your throat.”

“Oh, so you need to stuff it so far into your mouth that you can’t even breathe.”

“Ehm… Yes?”

Thorax-Crystal-Blue looked at the Doctor-Earth-Brown. The Doctor-Earth-Brown looked at Thorax-Crystal-Blue. “I think I’ll stick with emotions, thanks,” Thorax-Crystal-Blue said flatly. “There’s less chance of suffocation.”

“Well, your loss if you don’t want to taste jelly foals.”

Bon Bon stared at the building above her, looming ominously like an object of prophecy. Cold dread crept up and down her spine and her heart seemed reluctant to beat. She wiped her forehead down as horrific memories sprang to the forefront of her mind. This had always been one of the worst parts of her life. She was going to have to interact with… shudder… bureaucrats.

It was an unfortunate fact of life, but bureaucracies were everywhere. Even when Bon Bon had been Sweetie Drops, she’d needed to contend with bureaucracies (whether they’d nominally been on her side or not, they’d always been working against her). One of the nice things about a small town like Ponyville was that the few bureaucracies that existed were proportionately smaller, so she needed to spend less time in them.

But here it was. Her old arch-nemesis, leading a collection of her old regular-nemeses.

“You look tense,” Derpy said as they walked into the town hall.

“Bureaucrats,” muttered Bon Bon.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon. Oh, look at those statues! They’re pretty!”

Bon Bon had already noticed the statues, as she had already done the usual unknown-area look-over for entrances and exits out of habit. They were pretty, admittedly, but not what she was concerned with. The entrance lobby didn’t seem too crowded, but Bon Bon hadn’t the slightest clue of where to go. She started pulling Derpy towards the receptionist. “Come on. We’ve got to find where the regional clerk i-”

“Second floor, room 238.”

Coming to a halt with a hoof-on-linoleum squeak, Bon Bon stared at Derpy. “How do you-”

“It’s on the sign. See?” Derpy pointed at a nearby sign, not too far from the statues. Bon Bon skimmed the entries, and sure enough, Derpy was right.

A little more than a minute of navigation later, and the pair was standing right outside the door to room 238. “So, um,” whispered Derpy, “do you know anything about getting bureaucrats to give you blueprints? I don’t. I don’t even know why you brought me here, to be honest…”

Truth be told, former secret agent that she was, Bon Bon had been formulating a plan on the way up. But she wasn’t sure how suspicious a “yes” answer would be, so she just said, “Maybe. I’ve got an idea. Follow me, but let me do the talking, okay?”

The regional clerk’s office was close to empty. Bon Bon and Derpy were quickly shuttled to a secretary, a somewhat thin unicorn who had evidently decided that, since it takes more muscles to frown than to smile, she might as well frown a lot and get some semblance of a workout in while sitting at her desk. She cleared her throat. “How can I help you?”

“Hey,” said Bon Bon, keeping her eyes slightly downcast and her voice at a higher, more vulnerable pitch than usual. “My friend and I — she’s Blueberry Muffins-” Derpy smiled and waved. “-we’re interns at the Canyon Rim Casino, and-”

“Casinos have interns?” asked the secretary, a touch suspiciously.

“Financial analysts,” said Bon Bon, and quickly moved on before the issue could be pressed. “Anyway, they — our bosses, I mean — they wanted us to get the blueprints for the casino for some reason, construction or something, but they-” She groaned, injecting a little despair into the anxiety. “They didn’t even tell us where to look, so I, I was wondering if you could help me.” She tugged on her mane, then leaned forward and whispered, “I think they’re hazing us.”

The secretary’s expression immediately softened. “Sounds like it, and from what I’ve heard of Goumada, it wouldn’t surprise me. We don’t have commercial plans here-” (Bon Bon hitched her breathing.) “-but I can find out the company that built it, and you can stop by their offices once you have a moment. They’ll be able to help you. Give me a minute.” She left her seat and went around to the back.

Bon Bon surreptitiously grinned at Derpy. Derpy unsurreptitiously grinned back.

When the secretary returned, she dropped a single sheet of paper on the desk, a name and address scribbled down. “The casino was built by Steadfast and Holding’s,” the clerk said. “Right here in town. You’ll need to pay a small fee to get the blueprints, but you can put it down as a business expense. …And you know what? Pick up some coffee and muffins and see if you can hide those in the bill, too. Honestly, sending financial interns to get blueprints?” She shook her head, tutting. “And Goumada wonders why her turnover rate is so high.”

O-ho. That was news. And the clerk’s tone of voice… Well. Maybe Trotter Gorge wouldn’t care that much if Goumada got robbed. Bon Bon’s smile wasn’t faked at all. “Thank you so much!” she said, taking the paper. “I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces!”

“And we will definitely get those muffins!” added Derpy. “What place would you recommend?”

“Quick Bread’s,” said the clerk. “Here.” She snatched the paper back and scribbled another address down. “And get the banana bread ones, they’re the best. Thank you for stopping by, and have a nice day.”

Bon Bon and Derpy managed to keep it together until they were outside the town hall, when they strode down the stairs with springs in their steps. Derpy giggled. “That was easy,” she said. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“It’s easy. Politeness mixed with sob stories and puppy-dog eyes,” said Bon Bon, chuckling. “Gets them every time.”

Derpy’s spring became a touch unwound as she stared at Bon Bon.

“Actually, it might work better with you, since you’ll win extra sympathy points.”

“…Good point. So about those muffins…” And Derpy put what she’d learned to the test.

It was effective, honestly. “Sure. Why not?”

Against all odds, she did not like casinos, Rainbow Dash decided. They were loud, gaudy, noisy, crowded, raucous, confusing, and riotous, and not in any cool ways. Awesomeness required a razor-sharp focus. The inside of the Canyon Rim Casino was trying to pull her attention in all directions at once, and gah was it disorienting. It was probably supposed to make you feel like a winner, but Rainbow preferred to feel like a winner via ponies chanting her name (or, y’know, actually winning, which was hard to come by in casinos). She felt pressed in to Gilda and Lyra simply because they weren’t making all the noises all the time.

And then there were the windows, or lack thereof. With no way to see the outside, Rainbow felt like she was being imprisoned. Even Twilight’s throne room had skylights. How could anypony enjoy it in here? This place was oppressive, like everypony was getting herded into a pit by vampires to be drained dry of their blood and loving every second of it. Rainbow Dash would rather have the strictest Wonderbolt training regimen any da-

“Rainbow!”

Rainbow Dash jumped at Gilda squawking in her ear. “What?” she asked as she hit her head a few times. “And don’t yell at me like that!”

“Stop trying to look thoughtful, it doesn’t suit you.”

Punch.

She rubbed her beak, but Gilda was smirking. “Well, it doe-”

A guard was between the two of them so quickly she might as well have teleported if she hadn’t been a pegasus. She planted a hoof on Rainbow Dash’s chest. “Please do not harm the other patrons,” she said in the casually threatening voice of bouncers everywhere, “or you will be ejected from the premises.”

“Hey!” said Rainbow, pushing the hoof away. “I didn’t harm her! She was okay with that! Go ahead and ask her!”

The guard raised an eyebrow, then turned to Gilda.

Gilda puffed up her chest feathers, flared her wings, and bellowed, “It’s how griffons show affection, you ninny! Don’t you know the culture of anybody that doesn’t have hooves? You ponies are all racist!”

“Oh, Celestia, it’s you.” And suddenly the guard was gone.

“That was a pretty fast response,” said Lyra. “These guys must be alert.”

Which was, unfortunately, a pretty accurate point. Ponies of every tribe and color, and even more than a few griffons, were stuffed between the poker tables and slot machines, and yet this guard had picked them out in seconds like Pinkie Pie sniffing out which cupcake had come out the oven last. Fast guards? Rainbow added to her mental checklist she’d just created. Need to confirm. (Over the next minute, she’d accidentally shred that mental checklist, because Rainbow Dash wasn’t very good at keeping track of checklists, mental or otherwise.)

The guard also made Rainbow Dash remember just what they were here for. She looked up; no tribe other than pegasi habitually looked up, making it a perfect spot to hide… something. Right? Apparently so; there were strange black half-globes dotting the ceiling. They were shiny, like they were made of glass, but it was impossible to see anything inside them. “Hey. Lyra.” Rainbow nudged Lyra and glanced up. “You see those?”

Lyra frowned as she examined the ceiling. “Huh. Wonder what they are.”

“Does it matter?” snorted Gilda.

“It might!” said Rainbow. “We’re here for your money as much as our Amulet, so pay attention!”

“There are guards in all four corners of the room,” Gilda said promptly, “no more than two, and they don’t move. Five or six circle around the room at different distances from the center, all going counter-clockwise. There’s another two at the entrance and three over there, at the place where change money for tokens and vice-versa. And finally, another eight or so roam the room at random, to keep things interesting.” She glowered. “Yes, I’m paying attention.”

“That many? Wow,” said Lyra. She craned her neck, trying and failing to look over the heads of everypony else in the room. “How’d you notice them?”

“They’re wearing suits, mostly,” said Gilda. “And they’re wearing something in their-” She pointed at the side of her head, paused, then pointed at one of Lyra’s ears. “-in their ear. Once you see it-”

“Oh, oh, yeah,” said Lyra. “I see them. There’s… Yeah, there’s a lot of them. Whoof.”

“Don’t know where they’re coming from, though. I still haven’t seen any employee entrances yet, though.”

“I think I saw a door over there,” said Rainbow Dash, pointing. “Think I should check it out?”

“Sure,” snorted Gilda.

“Uh-huh,” said Lyra. Of Gilda, she asked, “Random segue: how do you keep track of all those claws?”

“…What?”

“I’llbegoingthen.” Rainbow Dash quickly began working her way through the crowd.

“I don’t have claws,” said Lyra, “so I was wondering how you-”

Their conversation was swallowed up by the rest of the din. It wasn’t long before Rainbow popped out of the mob near the wall, right next to a door marked “Employees Only”. It didn’t have a handle. Rainbow gave it a hesitant shove, but it didn’t budge. Hmm. She trotted a few yards away and leaned against the wall, watching the door.

She didn’t have long to wait. An earth pony trudged up to the door, lugging a wheeled garbage bin behind her. She waved her fetlock at a panel next to the door and it swung open easily; she vanished through it. When it swung closed, Rainbow tried pushing the door again. Locked again. Hmm. She hadn’t caught if the mare had been wearing anything on her fetlock. She waited again, this time for longer. A guard came up and entered after going through the same motions as the handymare. Now that she was looking for it, Rainbow easily spotted the bracelet on the guard’s fetlock and the gem embedded within. It wasn’t large, just… one inch long? One and a half? And it was glowing slightly. Even Rainbow Dash knew it was some kind of arcane key. Clever. It was kinda hard to pick a lock when the lock didn’t physically exist.

But, hey, they had Sunburst and Starlight on their team. They could find a way around this, right? Right.

Rainbow shoved her way back to Lyra and Gilda, but they weren’t there. She checked the entrance, and they were examining a poster. Gilda noticed her and waved her over. “Have you seen this?” Gilda asked, jabbing a claw at the poster.

Rainbow Dash had, but she’d ignored it. Now, she took a closer look at it. Apparently, there was some sort of celebration due in about two weeks, for the tenth anniversary of the casino. It was the usual overblown spiel, promising entertainment, food, games, a big orchestra, all that jazz. It sounded like a PR stunt to Rainbow: an extravaganza for the inhabitants of Trotter Gorge to distract them from… something. “What about it?” asked Rainbow.

“Gilda and I were thinking,” said Lyra. “It’s gonna be pretty busy, right? The guards and staff are gonna be stretched thin trying to handle everything. So if we can get our preparations done in time, this would be a perfect time to-” She twitched and looked around. “You know,” she whispered.

Rainbow’s ears went up and she grinned. “Ooo, yeah. Yeah, that’d be perfect.”

“That’s what we said,” muttered Gilda. She ripped the poster from the wall and rolled it up. “Need some fresh air. Back in a bit. Have fun staring at the guards.” She was out the door before either of them could respond.

“What’s her problem?” asked Lyra. “She hasn’t changed much since she came to Ponyville all those years ago, has she?”

“Nonono, she has!” Rainbow Dash waved her hooves. “She’s not nearly as much of a jerk anymore! At least, she wasn’t the last time I saw her. Maybe- Maybe she’s just stressed! Yeah.”

Lyra gave Rainbow Dash a suspicious look, but then said, “Anyway, Gilda and I kept examining the guards while you were gone, and we saw…”

5 - Because of Course This Can't be Easy

A veritable morass of spell equations lay scattered around Starlight and Sunburst, crossed out and highlighted and circled and underlined and every other method of tweaked. They’d been brainstorming for so long that they’d been flooded with ideas. Now came the dredging, where they pulled up the good spells from the muck of bad ones, dried them off, and put them to good use in the storm of reality. (Weather-based metaphors worked surprisingly well with thoughts.)

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Sunburst said as Starlight layered the fifth attempt at an anti-mind-control spell on him. “It’s great that you can test it on me, but… but why do you know mind control spells in the first place?”

“Hold still,” grunted Starlight as she shaped the spell matrix. “If you-”

“I mean, that’s… Never mind.”

Starlight made an ambivalent noise and polished the spell off. Sparks danced on the tips of Sunburst’s hair before winking out. He looked down at himself. “Well, um, this one’s already better than the others. I don’t have a crippling desire to wear black eyeliner or write angsty poetry.”

“That only happened twice!” said Starlight defensively. “Stop bringing it up!”

“I was going to write some terrible free verse about how the planet would be nothing more than a desert in the, in the distant future after Celestia and Luna lost control of the day and night, with ponies’ corpses getting picked over by buzzards!” protested Sunburst. “And you know what I wanted to call it? ‘Carrion and Wayward Suns’! I don’t even write and, and I know that’s a crime against literature itself!”

Starlight growled and blasted Sunburst with the mind control spell they thought Goumada had used on her. He twitched and shook his head. “Um… okay…” He tilted his head as he stared at nothing in particular. “I… kinda feel… sort of mellow, I… guess?” He shrugged. “Try something.”

“Don’t catch this.” Starlight tossed a cushion at Sunburst.

Sunburst caught it and tossed it back. “No problem,” he said, grinning. “That one was perfect.”

“But only if that’s the spell Goumada’s using,” said Starlight. “We can’t just assume-”

“Will you relax?” asked Sunburst.

“NO! You told me to cool it with the ‘woe is me’ stuff, and believe me, I’m trying, I know this isn’t my fault, but it’s not that easy! I’m-” Starlight took a few deep breaths and muttered, “Cool it, cool it, cooooool iiiiit…” Another breath. “I’m not like you, Sunburst. I’m not the kind of pony who can just… let go of things. I mean, after my town was dismantled, I stalked Twilight and her friends for moons for revenge. I never got over you leaving, even though that wasn’t your fault! I’m- you know.” She rolled her head back and groaned. “And I feel like I should’ve known Goumada was going to hit me with a whammy, even though I couldn’t’ve known, and it’s not like the default guest policy at the Castle of Friendship is to laser ponies in the face.” Although there were a few door-to-door salesmares where she wished it was.

The seconds ticked by. Starlight waited and waited and waited, but Sunburst remained silent. Finally, he gave a little cough and said, “Have… Have you tried the couch? It’s really comfy.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow.

“Really comfy. Like, it’s- it’s the perfect way to unwind. Just…” Sunburst tapped nervously on one of its cushions. “Try it, okay?”

“Fine,” mumbled Starlight. Maybe one second of “her” time could work. She flopped out on the couch and-

-ohCelestiathisisHEAVEN.

The couch wasn’t merely “comfy”. It was the comfy couch to end all comfy couches, a paragon of over-stuffedness, the apotheosis of luxury and relaxation. To compare it to clouds would be like comparing clouds to salt flats: there was no contest. The cushions let her sink enough to envelop her, yet were still rigid enough that if she wanted to get up quickly, she could. Not that she wanted to; she wanted to never have to leave. The slight pressure on her skin, the way the fabric curled around her body, so soft, so supple, was among the most divine feelings Starlight had ever-

“Told you,” Sunburst said, smirking smugly.

“And you were right,” Starlight said, sighing satisfiedly.

“Take your time. I’m gonna, I’ll review our equations a bit, see if there’s, if there’s anything we missed.” Sunburst tiptoed away.

Starlight lay on her little slice of paradise for she didn’t know how long, stretched out like a years-old slinky that had lost its slink. Also like a years-old slinky, she slowly unwound. Yes. Yes, this was quite nice, actually doing something. (Or, to be more precise, taking a break from doing something. Close enough.)

She finally managed to extricate herself from the realm of enchantment when she heard the front door open. Thorax (as a crystal pony) was carrying bags of groceries in as the Doctor unhitched himself from a cart. “Shopping went well!” the Doctor said cheerfully. “Wasn’t sure what to get, so I got a little bit of everything.” He grabbed a few bags in his mouth. “Except for jelly foals, I got a lot of those. Also except for pears. No pears. Hate pears.”

“You and Applejack ought to get together,” said Starlight as she levitated a large bundle of bags from the cart.

The unloading went by quickly and Starlight took it on herself to put the food away. Having a completely empty pantry was weird; she panicked a few times as she tried to remember what went where, even though she was the one who decided that. But Twilight’s fastidious nitpicking must’ve been rubbing off on her because she eventually settled on food group followed by alphabetical order. She could only imagine the response from the others.

“Alrighty,” said the Doctor, dropping his last set of bags on the counter. “Would you like the good news or the bad news?”

“Bad news,” Starlight said. Her heart was already sinking.

“We’ve only got so much money, and take a gander at that.” The Doctor whipped out the receipt and pointed at the total.

“Ooof.” Although not as terrible as Starlight was expecting, it was still bad. Why hadn’t they brought more money up?

“We’ve got enough food for about a week,” said the Doctor, “and enough money for another shopping trip of this size, but after that, I can’t say.”

“We could gamble,” mumbled Thorax as he pushed his own set of bags onto the counter. It sounded like he was talking to himself. “We’re robbing a casino. We-”

“No,” said Starlight and the Doctor at the same time. The Doctor stepped away, and Starlight continued, “The first rule of casinos is that the house always wins.”

“The… house?” Thorax tilted his head. “I thought we were robbing a casino.”

Starlight and the Doctor exchanged glances. “The house is the casino,” said the Doctor. “The staff, the establishment, everything. Haven’t you ever heard-”

“Hey, I’ve got an idea!” Thorax squeaked aggressively (somehow). “Let’s pretend I don’t know what the heck anypony’s talking about when they use slang-” A burst of fire, and he was a changeling again. “-because I’ve only LIVED in pony society for a single moon!” He hissed angrily, clapped his hooves to his face, and mumbled, “Sorry I shouldn’t have said that sorry I’ll shut up now sorry WOW LOOK AT THAT PAINTING.” And suddenly he was two rooms over.

Starlight and the Doctor looked at each other again, then looked away at the same time. “Should you apologize or should I?” muttered Starlight.

“I’ll do it,” said the Doctor. “I was the one who… Yes. M-hmm.” He looked after Thorax and frowned. “I suppose we could always try poker,” he said offhoofedly. “I’ve got a fair skill in it and it’s strictly a player-versus-player game. We don’t need that much money, after all.”

“Right. Why don’t you suggest that and I’ll return the cart to the store, get our deposit back.” Maybe the exercise could help her think a little.

“Sure.” The Doctor flexed his entire body and walked after Thorax. Starlight almost raised a hoof to follow, but she went outside and hitched herself to the cart. She told herself that it was fine, that the Doctor and Thorax could smooth things over before she got back. She surprised herself by believing it.

“Mmff,” muttered Derpy. “Dese muffins ah amaefing.” She took another bite of the banana-nut one she was currently eating — yet she did it slowly, tenderly, like she was a connoisseur of some of the rarest foods in the world and this was the last banana-nut muffin she’d ever have. Better that than gorging on it and being done in a few seconds, Bon Bon decided. And to be fair, they were pretty amazing muffins.

Between the smallish size of Trotter Gorge and a map, Steadfast and Holding’s was easy to find. It was an unassuming two-story office near the edge of town with a nice, big sign. Clean, neat, professional. Perfect. Bon Bon and Derpy strode into the building confidently, Derpy even managing to ignore her muffins and tuck them into her bag.

The place wasn’t very busy, so Bon Bon headed to the first clerk she saw, a biggish, bored-looking earth pony.Hey, it had worked the first time… Hopefully, the clerk hadn’t seen their earlier confidence. “Hey,” said Bon Bon in the same slightly vulnerable voice as before. “My, my friend and I, we’re interns at the casino, and, and our bosses, they want us to get blueprints for the building-”

“Thinking of expanding again, are they?” The clerk grimaced. “I’m not sure why Goumada wanted an airship docking platform added to the roof last year, but there you go.” She shrugged.

“I didn’t get the reason,” Bon Bon said quickly. An airship dock. For her black market guests, maybe? “I… think it was construction. I’m not sure.”

“Don’t worry too much about it. If you’re an intern, you’re not paid enough to bother with whatever she’s planning this time.”

“Heh. No.” Bon Bon hid her grin. She couldn’t believe it. They almost had the plans already. This was too easy. If only the rest of the heist could be like this.

“I’ll just need to see Goumada’s signature, and I’ll go get you the blueprints.”

Bon Bon started believing it. It was too easy. “Her… Her signature?” But now, she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten about verification. Otherwise, any old pony could ask for the building plans. Maybe even thieves planning on breaking in, ha ha.

“Well, of course I need a signature,” said the clerk skeptically. “I’m not going to hand out confidential building plans to any cute mare who waltzes in with a sweet voice, adorable eyes, and money to smelt.” She turned around and yelled over her shoulder, “RIGHT, LANDSCRIPT?”

“Right!” somepony yelled from the back. “…What am I ‘right!’ing about?”

The clerk rolled her eyes and returned her attention to Bon Bon and Derpy. “So, sorry, but I can’t get you any blueprints.”

“But…” Bon Bon made big eyes again. The desperation wasn’t entirely faked. “But we need it now. You don’t understand. If we don’t get-”

“It’s not my fault they didn’t give you a signature. They should’ve-”

“But they didn’t!” said Bon Bon. She went a bit overboard and waved her hooves. “I need those plans now! It’s not my fault they didn’t give me a signature, either!”

“I’d tell you to tell them to get bent, but that’d probably get you fired, right? Look, I’m sorry-” (Bon Bon wasn’t entirely sure she was.) “-but I need a signature. No signature, no plans.” The clerk shrugged.

Derpy lightly nudged Bon Bon aside and sidled up to the clerk. “So,” she said, tossing her mane, “no plans with no signature, right?”

“Have I been saying anything else?” the clerk asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe I could… persuade you otherwise?” Derpy fluttered her eyelashes. Bon Bon wanted to apply sandpaper to her face.

The clerk’s expression didn’t change. “Maybe. How?”

Derpy winked and slowly took a chocolate chip muffin from her bag; the clerk’s eyes widened. Smiling, Derpy slid the muffin in front of the clerk and waited.

The clerk delicately took the muffin. She looked at it. She took a bite. She hummed in contentment. And she said, “Thanks, but I still need a signature.”

“You took a muffin for nothing?” gasped Derpy. “You… monster.”

“Yes. How utterly dreadful of me, to not be bribed.” Munch. “Seriously. Bug off and get a signature.” The clerk’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you need-”

“Fine,” huffed Bon Bon. “If you can’t help us… C’mon, Muffins.” She stalked out of the building. Derpy followed, glaring at the clerk all the while.

They walked a block away before Bon Bon groaned and leaned against a wall. “Great,” she muttered. “Just great. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a copy of her signature on file so we can’t fake it.” She stood up straight and sucked in a breath. “Well. We tried. Now we-”

“Wha’, we’he no’ gunha steaw i’?” Derpy asked through a mouthful of muffin. She swallowed. “It’d be like a practice run!” she said. “We’re going to break into a high-security building, so starting with a low-security building is only logical.”

Pushing herself up, Bon Bon grunted. Weirdly enough, it was logical, if you looked at it sideways. Logical enough that it’d been her next plan, but maybe that was just Sweetie Drops slipping through. She said, “I’ll think about it. We’ll need… the right ponies.” She’d need some excuse to ensure she was the one going. Maybe Lyra, so she could do some more advanced spycraft without raising too many questions.

“But I’m out of ideas for now,” said Derpy. “So… back to the house?”

“I guess,” said Bon Bon. “Come on.”

They were halfway there when something hit Bon Bon. “Hold up…” She came to a halt. “Did that clerk call us cute?”

Thorax-Changeling glared despondently at the wall. When he claimed to have been distracted by a painting, he really should’ve gone to a room with at least one painting.

He wasn’t a pony. Why did ponies act like he was? Was that their attempt at a compliment? Wow, you sure have abandoned your old self and become like us! Granted, he didn’t really miss his old self — that little bugger was lonely and miserable and confused and starving — but still. It was so easy for them to just assume that he knew everything they did, like swallowing and calling casinos “houses”.

But that didn’t give him the right to snap at them. They were as new to him as he was to them, and being assertive without being aggressive was still beyond him, yet. Stupid life under tyranny. They shouldn’t assume that he didn’t know pony things, but he shouldn’t assume that they knew he didn’t know. Time to apologize, then. At least he was getting good at that.

He turned for the door and ran headlong into the Doctor-Earth-Brown. He staggered a few steps back, and the two of them stared at each other.

After a few seconds, the Doctor-Earth-Brown broke the silence. “Hem.” He cleared his throat and pawed at his neck, like he was adjusting a tie. “Thorax, I-”

“I’MSOSORRY!” yelled Thorax-Changeling. He dove and wrapped his legs around the Doctor-Earth-Brown’s hooves. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that but after shopping for ‘food’ I was so frustrated that I couldn’t help myself and PLEASE FORGIVE ME because I-”

“Thorax, Thorax, Thorax!” yelped the Doctor-Earth-Brown. He tried dancing on the spot; tasting his shock, Thorax-Changeling released his legs and scuttled away. “I- I’m the one who should be apologizing!” And now that Thorax-Changeling was paying attention to his emotions, he caught some regret there. “I- I forgot that you barely have any experience with pony culture and that term was so ingrained in my head that I just assumed you knew it, and you know what they say about assuming!”

Thorax-Changeling stared at the Doctor-Earth-Brown.

The Doctor-Earth-Brown facehooved in a wave of embarrassment. “It only makes an ass out of you and me,” he recited quietly. “And I am being quite the ass today.”

“What’s so bad about being a donkey?” Thorax-Changeling said. Poof. “They’re not much different from ponies,” said Thorax-Donkey. “Longer ears and less color, maybe.”

“No, it’s-” Self-exasperation. “It’s another saying. Sorry.”

“Oh.” Poof. Thorax-Changeling twisted his hoof. “And, also sorry. I’m still trying to be assertive after, uh, Chrysalis trained me to be a doormat, and IIIIIII… kinda overdo things sometimes. And, uh, sorry again, about the, um, leg-grabbing. Chrysalis didn’t like it when you… when you failed.” He flinched as a select few of those memories came to the forefront. “So she liked it when you were obsequious. And you… probably don’t.”

“Not especially, but apology accepted. Apologies accepted.”

Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange leaned into the room. “Something up? I thought I heard Thorax yelling.”

“It’s fine, we’re fine,” the Doctor-Earth-Brown said quickly. “We had a- misunderstanding that- got cleared up. We’re good now.” He glanced at Thorax-Changeling. “Right?”

“Right,” responded Thorax-Changeling, just as quickly, and nodded energetically. “Just, um, still learning how to stand up for myself. And doing badly at it.”

“Oh.” But Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange’s emotions weren’t those of one convinced. “You, you sounded pretty loud. Are you hungry?” he asked. “I know I, that I can get… um, unstable when I’m… hungry.”

“Not really.” Thorax-Changeling shook his head. That concern tasted alright, though. It was closely related to love, concern was, a new twist on an old classic. Or something like that.

Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange kicked at the ground. “…Want some comfort food anyway?”

“…Sure.”

Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange pulled Thorax-Changeling into a bear hug, and Thorax-Changeling reciprocated. Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange’s concern poured over Thorax-Changeling, and he gulped the excess down eagerly, humming in contentment. What’d he been getting so worked up for? These ponies were friends of friends of Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange’s. They had to understand.

Suddenly, the Doctor-Earth-Brown joined in, wrapping his own legs around them. Thorax-Changeling tasted lots of things from him: additional concern, anxiety, bewilderment, gratitude, and more. It was an unusual blend, like an ice storm on a clear day. Thorax-Changeling took the opportunity and lapped it up. Probably the only time he’d ever taste something like that again. Yes, this was some very nice company.

The Doctor-Earth-Brown coughed. “…I haven’t the foggiest idea why we’re hugging like this.”

“Thorax says the emotion from a genuine hug tastes good,” said Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange.

“Very,” purred Thorax-Changeling. He buzzed his wings.

“So, um, it’s a physical and gustatory pick-me-up in one. I, I mean it, it tastes good.” Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange swallowed and pulled out of the hug. “‘Gustation’ is another word for taste,” he whispered.

“Right,” said the Doctor-Earth-Brown. “I knew that.” And from the way his emotions had the texture of annoyance, rather than confusion, Thorax-Changeling guessed that was the truth. “Oh! Also, we’re running a bit low on funds. Thorax suggested we gamble-” (Thorax-Changeling was immediately ready to leave the room.) “-and Starlight and I decided that poker is just player-versus-player, so there’s at least no chance of the house winning, so-”

Thorax-Changeling’s ears went up and Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange twisted his goatee. It was strange how much emotions stilled when ponies thought. “Not a… terrible choice,” he muttered. “And, and if we lose everything, we can, we can send Rainbow Dash back to Ponyville and she can, can get some money from Twilight’s castle. …Right?”

Doctor-Earth-Brown shrugged. “Haven’t the faintest. Either-”

“Um, wait, hang on,” said Thorax-Changeling. “How do we make money from poker, anyway? If we’re not playing against the, um, house-”

“Short version,” said Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange. “Every player, they all put a few bits into a, um, a pool. The winner of each round wins all the bits in the, in the pool. Repeat until one player has all the bits.”

“Wait, we’re taking other ponies’ money?”

“Yep.”

“But that sounds like we’re robbing them!” protested Thorax-Changeling.

“No, that’s just casinos,” said the Doctor-Earth-Brown.

“Like we’re hiding a money sink behind fancy curtains to make it look nice!”

“That’s, that’s just casinos,” said Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange.

“Like we’re taking advantage of ponies who just want to have a fun day out and heartlessly squeezing lots of money out of them without caring at all if they might need that money!”

The Doctor-Earth-Brown and Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange looked at each other. “Casinos,” they said simultaneously.

Thorax-Changeling looked back and forth between the two ponies. “Wow. Casinos are messed up.”

“Believe me, we’re hardly scratching the surface,” said the Doctor-Earth-Brown. “But it is what it is, so we might as well use it. At least most ponies know what they’re getting into. Sunburst, do you know how to play poker?”

“Well, I, I could probably use a refresher,” said Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange.

“I guess I could learn, if we’re definitely doing it,” said Thorax-Changeling. “We have cards, right?”

“We picked some up, remember? I wanted to play solitaire and didn’t think this place had any. Let’s get them out and I can teach you.”

Rainbow Dash, Gilda, and Lyra were sitting on a bench across the street from the casino, examining the guards. Or, to be more precise, Rainbow and Gilda were examining the guards.

“Do you think they’re still looking for players?” Lyra asked as she examined the poster. “Maybe I could get in, be the inside mare. Wa-cha!”

“Uh-huh. Sure,” said Gilda. “Like you can learn how to play an instrument in less than a week.”

“She doesn’t need to,” said Rainbow. “She already has an instrument. She plays the harp.”

“Lyre,” said Lyra.

Rainbow whirled on her. “I am not! You do!” she protested, her wings springing out. “You’re really good at it, and-”

Lyra giggled. “No, the instrument is called a lyre. L-Y-R-E.”

“…Ooooooooh. Gotcha.” Rainbow folded her wings in. “Gooootcha.”

Gilda snickered.

“But, really, maybe she could,” Rainbow said to Gilda. “I bet if she got onto the band, she could probably get, I dunno, backstage or something and give us all sorts of info we couldn’t get otherwise! There are some places where nopony would look twice at a harpist-”

“Lyrist,” said Lyra.

“-wandering around! But Lyra, stop congratulating yourself and help us. This is boring, so we should all be bored together.”

“Fine.” Lyra folded up the poster and sat on it.

And so the three of them spent several intolerably long minutes watching the guards and few other visible employees. Occasionally, one of them would go into or come out of a side door, but that was about it except for the time a steam-powered carriage (with the driver in the uniform of the casino) trundled past them. Rainbow wondered how the booger cops could stand stakeouts when so little was happening.

When she finally couldn’t take it anymore, she asked, “Notice anything strange?”

“That guard there seems pretty down,” said Gilda. She pointed at a griffon standing near the main entrance. His wings were slightly looser than the others’ and his eyes looked a little downcast.

“Yeah, I noticed that, too,” said Lyra.

“Oh, great,” scoffed Rainbow. “So you can seduce him and he’ll give you the master key to the place and we can go wherever we want.”

“It’s something strange!” said Gilda. “How the flying feather should I know what ‘good strange’ and ‘bad strange’ are?” She groaned. “This was a waste of time to begin with. We’re not even looking for anything, just staring at griffons and ponies walking in and out of doors! Lame.” She grunted and hopped off the bench.

“Wait, Gilda!” Rainbow zipped in front of her. “I know it seems… okay, it is super boring, but-”

“But what?” Gilda’s wings popped open. “I’ll sit there and be bored when I’m supposed to be doing something, but this is just ‘pony in, pony in, griffon in, pony out, pony in’, all the friggin’ time!”

Rainbow opened her mouth, froze, and bit her lip.

“See? You can’t even deny it!” Gilda groaned, her wings thrashing. “I’m going back to the house. If you two losers wanna sit here and ponywatch, you go right ahead.” A few flaps and she was zipping away.

“Gilda!” yelled Rainbow. “You-” She screamed in frustration.

Lyra coughed quietly. “You can go follow her,” she said. “I’m fine here.”

“Nah. What’s the point?” Rainbow Dash sullenly deposited herself next to Lyra and glared ferociously at the cobblestones. “She’d just come up with some other excuse to stay away. I’m almost ready to come up with an excuse.” She watched as a guard waved her keygem at a side door and it opened. “I mean, what are we even looking for?”

“Dunno.”

“Exactly! I might be up for doing this if we had something to look for-”

Lyra twitched.

“Yeah, no matter how crazy that sounds,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes. “I do pay attention some of the time, you know.”

Eyeing Rainbow suspiciously, Lyra said, “So if we both think there’s nothing here worth doing, I say we head back.”

And there was her excuse. “Sure. Whatever.”

As Lyra walked and Rainbow slowly flew back to the villa, they bounced what few observations they had off each other. The designs of the guards’ uniforms, their routes, where they looked the most. Nothing really interesting came up, and Rainbow couldn’t deny being a little disheartened when she stepped through the front door.

Lyra promptly went to pillage the cabinets and the Doctor’s voice drifted into the hall. “Alright, these hooves.”

Rainbow followed the voice to the living room, where the Doctor and Thorax were examining cards on the coffee table. It looked like they were playing poker; they each had three cards and there were the five cards of a river between them. Rainbow couldn’t make out which cards they were, specifically, but Thorax was deeply invested. “You win,” he said after a moment, “because you’ve got a straight flush and I’ve got four of a kind.”

“Perfect,” said the Doctor, smiling. He scooped up the cards with practiced ease. “One last try…” After fanning through the deck, he plucked out the cards he wanted and laid them out. Rainbow couldn’t see them, but Thorax immediately said, “I win. We’ve both got full houses, but my pair is higher than yours.”

“Ha ha, yes!” The Doctor pumped his hoof in the air. “Splendid! Odd word, ‘splendid’, when you really think about it.”

“Why are you acting like your foal got born?” Rainbow asked.

“Thorax here,” the Doctor said, clapping him on the back, “is a natural at poker.”

“At learning poker hooves!” Thorax squeaked. “I- haven’t actually played anything yet!”

“Took to it like a duck to water,” continued the Doctor. “With an outboard motor and the wind at his back.”

“Hooves,” Thorax mumbled again.

“The short version is we’re a bit short on cash and thinking of playing poker to win it back,” said the Doctor. “So, since Thorax doesn’t know, I figured I’d teach him. Perhaps we should hold our own sort of mini-tournament to see who’s the best.”

“Hey, I’d be in,” Rainbow said, grinning. “I’d probably lose, but it sounds fun. Either of you seen Gilda recently?”

“Yeah, she stomped in a while back,” said the Doctor. “Glared at all of us like we wanted to commit genocide against griffons, went upstairs.” He paused. “You know, when my family’s chickens acted like that, they were usually ready to lay eggs.”

“What?” yelped Rainbow. “Gilda’s just grouchy, you know her! You don’t really think-”

“No!” yelled the Doctor. He looked away and folded his ears back. “I was just pointing out- It seemed odd, is all! I don’t think Gilda’s- that- sort of gal, to- make eggs! You know?”

“But don’t chickens sometimes lay unfertilized eggs?” asked Thorax.

“I- suppose,” said the Doctor thoughtfully. His ears went back up, one at a time. “And if… griffons retain enough avian qualities, then… maybe… Hmm.”

The Doctor looked at Thorax. Thorax looked at the Doctor. They both looked up at the ceiling.

“No, trust me,” said Rainbow. “That’s just Gilda.”

“Mmhmm.”

Starlight leaned in. “Oh, Rainbow’s back? Good. We need to review what we all found.”

6 - Burglary and Other Fine Hobbies

“Ten,” mumbled Starlight as she scrawled the number on a square scrap of paper. “Ten.” Another scrap. “Ten. Ten. Ten. Ten. Ten-”

“Hey,” snapped Gilda, in the middle of her own scrawling. “Could you cool it with the numbers? I keep losing track of how much I’ve done.”

“Sorry,” Starlight muttered. She started scratching out her ones in silence.

Gilda rolled her eyes and scribbled a one. “Thirty-…” She blinked. “Thirty-… Thirty-… For the love of-”

The sun had set a while ago. Everypony had agreed to work together on setting up the poker tournament, with the exception of Bon Bon and Lyra, who had taken it upon themselves to try getting into Steadfast and Holding’s (and they’d been pretty insistent that just the two of them go; Starlight hoped they wouldn’t spend the entire time making out). And setting up the tournament meant making chips to play with, since buying them would’ve used up even more of their limited funds.

“Why do we need to actually write these numbers out?” asked Rainbow. Scribble scribble. “You said you were going to transfigure them into temporary tokens anyway.”

“Because associating each scrap of, scrap of paper with a certain number,” said Sunburst, “alters its physical gestalt sufficiently to, to tweak its morphogenic field enough to allow for, um, for volumetric transmutation via quiddity manipulation significantly faster when performed en masse, even taking the muscle effort needed to write the numbers into account, than when done singularly.”

“…Normal Pony, please?”

Thorax spoke up. “Putting numbers on the paper makes it easier and faster to change them all at once.”

He had written down numbers on four more “tokens” before he realized everyone except Sunburst and Derpy was staring at him. “What?” he squeaked, his fins quivering. “I’m a changeling!” With a flash, he turned into the Doctor. “Knowing-” Flash. Sunburst. “-transfiguration-” Flash. Starlight. “-is kinda-” Rainbow Dash. “-my thing!” Gilda. (The real Gilda squawked, jumped ten feet back, and hissed, her hackles raised.)

“Of course it is,” said Derpy vaguely. “Why wouldn’t it be? It’s like a pegasus not knowing weather manipulation. And you can’t bring that up, Rainbow, it only happened twice!”

“That’s three times too many!” said Rainbow. “Do you have any idea-”

“Sweet Apple Acres got fixed both times!”

“That’s beside the point! You-”

“ARE YOU ALL DONE WITH MAKING YOUR CHIPS,” Starlight said loudly, “OH LOOK YOU ARE LET ME TRANSFIGURE THEM SO WE CAN GET THIS GAME STARTED OKAY.” She telekinetically plucked everyone’s scraps of paper from in front of them and piled them before herself. She pulled and pushed her magic; in a flash, the stacks of paper squares turned into circular things vaguely resembling poker chips. They were white, thin, and undecorated except for the number. They’d hardly do for serious play, but it’d be good for tonight.

As Starlight began dividing up the chips (one hundred for each player), Sunburst stood up. “Uh, listen,” he said. “I already know I, I’m not that great at poker, and we’re kinda, kinda having this to find the best poker player, so I already know it’s me, so I was, um, gonna… just… work on some spells if that’s… okay with everybody?”

Murmurs ranging from “sure” to “whatever” echoed around the table. Sunburst coughed. “I’ll… um… get going, then.” And he got going.

The Doctor retrieved his pack of cards, pulled them out. A few quick half-shuffles, and he looked around the table. “So. Who’s dealing?”

“Eh, what the heck,” Gilda said, reaching out.

After dark, Trotter Gorge didn’t feel right to Bon Bon. It was surprisingly quiet, barring the rush of the central river, but something about the not-quite-silence felt slimy and rotten. It was like, absent the hustle and bustle of the day, the place had absolutely nothing to offer and simply sat around like a raked pile of leaves, got in the way like boxes on moving day. And maybe there was a reason nopony went out at night. Bon Bon guessed that Trotter Gorge was a stinking town, but then, most gambling towns were.

But considering Lyra’s casual gait, it might’ve just been her imagination. After all, barely anypony went out at night in Ponyville, and there was nothing wrong after dark there.

Lyra moseyed on languorously down the street, whistling some tune Bon Bon couldn’t name. Maybe she was composing something. Against all of Bon Bon’s instincts, Lyra insisted on staying out in the open, not once attempting to hide behind fences or in bushes on the few occasions somepony else passed them.

“You look really silly doing that, you know,” Lyra said as Bon Bon brushed twigs out of her mane again.

“You look really obvious doing that,” Bon Bon replied. One of the twigs was bleeding a little bit of sap on the end and took a few strands of Bon Bon’s mane with it.

“Hey, I’m just a pony going for a walk at night. Isn’t obvious and not silly less suspicious than obvious and silly?” Lyra asked.

“I only look obvious to you because you can see me go into hiding,” said Bon Bon. She flicked a leaf from her tail. “Nopony else can see me, so I’m not obvious.”

“Why do we even need to hide? We’re not at the building yet.”

“Reflexes,” Bon Bon admitted. She glowered the rest of the trip and twitched whenever she saw a bush.

The area around Steadfast and Holding’s was dark outside of a few streetlights, quiet, and lonely. “Keep quiet and stay out of sight now,” said Bon Bon. “Any attention we attract now, we don’t want.”

Lyra seemed to get it, because she nodded and whispered, “So do we just go in now, or…?”

“Not yet. We go around the place, looking for lights or movement in the windows in case there’s any late-night security guards. I doubt it, but better safe than sorry.”

The building had plenty of bushes around it, thankfully. Bon Bon and Lyra flitted from cover to cover easily, always looking into the windows. Bon Bon couldn’t see anything, and Lyra didn’t say anything. Lyra proved surprisingly receptive to tips on staying hidden and, now that cover was actually necessary, didn’t say anything about looking silly.

One full circuit told Bon Bon that there weren’t any guards that she could see, so she ran up to the door. She tugged at it, just in case, but the employees had remembered to lock up. No matter; she’d come prepared. She unrolled the lockpicking kit she’d smuggled into her saddlebags on the trip up (a bit of secret agent paraphernalia that she couldn’t bring herself to even stop carrying around; she’d lost the keys to her candy shop one too many times) and selected the right pick for the job. Holding the pick between her hooves and the torsion wrench in her teeth, she started jiggling at the lock.

“So how many places have you broken into?” whispered Lyra, bouncing behind her.

Bon Bon jiggled the torsion wrench. Nothing yet. She muttered, “Shut up, Lyra.”

“A lot? A little?”

“Shut up, Lyra.”

“C’mon, you never-”

“I’ll tell you when I’m done. But right now, I’m trying to focus. Shut up, Lyra.”

“Sorry,” Lyra whispered, and shut up.

A few seconds later, click, the door swung open. Bon Bon stuffed the pick and torsion wrench back into her bags. “I’ve done the breaking-in myself three or four times and been on break-in teams six times more.”

“Were you involved in Haltergate?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! If I was, you wouldn’t know about it.”

Like the outside, the inside of the building was quiet and dark, without the faintest hint of a guard. “No light,” Bon Bon whispered to Lyra as they crept inside. “We don’t want to attract attention.” There was just enough light from outside to see by, anyway.

“Sure,” Lyra whispered back.

Bon Bon scampered to the employee side of the help desks, pulled open a random drawer, and flicked through it. Not even an employee manual about where everything was. She sighed and pushed it closed again. The employee-only doors yielded to her even more quickly than the outside doors. Plenty of drab desks, but no filing cabinets. And still no sign of a guard. “Keep an eye out for a staircase up,” Bon Bon whispered. “The plans are probably on the second floor.”

“Sure thing!”

Prowling around the desks, Bon Bon pawed through memo after memo, report after report, paper after paper, not-blueprint after not-blueprint. She glanced around herself. No guard. Old frustrations, formerly kept in check by training, began bubbling to the surface. Sweetie Drops would’ve been patient, but after years of being out of practice, Bon Bon felt like she had to have found the plans by now. This was impo-

“Hey, Bonnie!” yelled Lyra. “I found stairs!”

Bon Bon crossed the room to Lyra’s location so quickly it was hard to say she hadn’t teleported. “Scream louder,” she hissed, “I don’t think they heard you over in Vanhoover.”

“There’s no guards here,” scoffed Lyra at a normal volume. “We would’ve heard them by now.”

Bon Bon immediately pivoted her ears around. Silence. She looked over her shoulder. Nothing. “Huh,” she said. “Would’ve expected a guard to show up right then. Marephy’s law.”

“Seeeeeee?” Lyra said, grinning. She pranced up the dark staircase, whistling.

“At least keep the lights off!” Bon Bon yelled. Again in violation of Marephy’s law, no lights went on.

The upstairs floor finally had rows of filing cabinets. Big ones, too, with broad, flat drawers. In fact, it was pretty much nothing but those filing cabinets. Bon Bon grinned as she trotted to the nearest one. She squinted up and down the sides until she found a marking: M. “Lyra?” she asked.

Lyra waved over the top of the cabinets a few rows over. “Over here!” she said. “I found C!”

“For ‘Canyon Rim Casino’,” she said when Bon Bon came over. “And ‘G’, for ‘Goumada’,” she added, “is over there. But…” She tugged at the drawer and shrugged. “They don’t want to share. How rude.”

The locks on the cabinets were the simplest ones that night; Bon Bon simply went and unlocked all the ones near “C”. “You stay here,” Bon Bon said as she jimmied one lock after the other open. “I’ll look for ‘G’.”

Soon, she had pulled open one of the G drawers and was leafing back and forth through the prints inside. “G, G, G…” she muttered. “Green Galloper Bar, no… General Arcanics, no… Gold Leaf Something, no… Gourmet Cuisine, no, and way to break the marketing budget, pal…”

“Bonnie!” yelled Lyra. “I got it I got it I got it!”

Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle shuffled the cards like a boss, bridging them in a near-perfect arch and flicking them out to land perfectly in front of each player, and doing it all quickly, to boot. Thorax-Changeling hadn’t even gotten a good look at his cards before betting had begun.

To the left of Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle, Rainbow-Pegasus-Blue put in a five-bit bet. That was the… blind, right? The small blind? Apparently so; Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope put in ten bits. Thorax-Changeling didn’t look at his cards as he put ten bits in. “Cop,” he said.

“Call,” whispered Derpy-Pegasus-Gray.

“Call!” squeaked Thorax-Changeling. “I mean call, I mean call!” He felt his hemolymph rushing to his face and barely prevented himself from ducking under the table.

But no one laughed. Derpy-Pegasus-Gray called, Doctor-Earth-Brown called, Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle called, Rainbow-Pegasus-Blue called, Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope checked. At least it wasn’t too high-scale yet.

As Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle dealt out the flop, Thorax-Changeling examined his cards again. He had a seven of hearts and a jack of… clubs? That didn’t look like a club, but it was black and it definitely wasn’t a spade. He didn’t think they were good cards. He looked at the three cards on the table. Two of clubs (he assumed it was clubs), five of diamonds, queen of hearts. No, not good. Still… “Chafe,” he said, tapping the table.

“Check,” whispered Derpy-Pegasus-Gray.

“Check! I mean check.”

Derpy-Pegasus-Gray called. And Doctor-Earth-Brown raised the pot by ten bits.

Thorax-Changeling managed to hide his grimace. This was going to be a short game for him, wasn’t it? But he was learning, so he could take risks. Once Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle had folded, he’d made his decision, even after Rainbow-Pegasus-Blue called and Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope both raised five bits each. “Call,” he said, depositing his chips.

“Fold,” muttered Derpy-Pegasus-Gray, setting her cards on the table. “What a terrible-”

“Raise ten,” Doctor-Earth-Brown said promptly.

Thorax-Changeling bit his lip. He had no idea what he was looking for. (Rainbow-Pegasus-Blue folded.) Trying to think of what hoof each other person could have was very different than just going “this hoof is good” or “this one is bad”. (Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope folded.) And now everyone was looking at him and he had to make a decision.

Did this qualify as cheating? Well, there weren’t any rules against it… as far as he knew… Thorax-Changeling poked at Doctor-Earth-Brown’s emotions. His face was blank, but if he hadn’t been hiding it, he’d’ve been bouncing around like a superball, whinnying giddily. He must have a good hoof. “Fold,” said Thorax-Changeling. He put down his cards.

Doctor-Earth-Brown grinned. “Well, I’ll be! Knocking everypony out before the turn! This must be my lucky day!” But even as he pulled the tokens to his pile, he tasted of the tangy bitterness of mild disappointment. If he’d had a really good hoof, then he might’ve wanted betting to continue so he could get a larger pot.

As Rainbow-Pegasus-Blue flicked out the cards and Thorax-Changeling pushed his ten bits in for the big blind, he realized he could do a lot with this, if only he was willing to go a bit further. Hesitantly, he began poking at everybody else’s emotions.

When she heard Lyra’s cry, Bon Bon didn’t even bother closing the drawer. She practically flew several aisles over to Lyra, who was grinning and waving a large folio of papers in the air. Bon Bon picked out Canyon Rim Casino: Building Plans on the front. “You’re sure that’s them?” Bon Bon asked, forcing herself to be pragmatic.

“Definitely!” said Lyra. “See-” She flipped past a few pages, to one labelled “Casino — Main Floor”. “-this is definitely the casino we were in today. There were rows of slot machines here, there was a roulette table here, the desk where you could get your chips were here, and I recognize the placement of these two doors right here.” She looked up at Bon Bon, still grinning like a loon. “These are definitely the plans, Bonnie.”

Bon Bon couldn’t hold back her own smile. “Nice.” She slapped Lyra on the back. “Any missing pages?”

“Dunno. Page one, page two, three, four…” Lyra quickly fanned through the papers. “Not when it comes to numbering. You said these might be wrong?”

“Goumada’s part of an artifact-smuggling cartel. Would you want the secret design of your vault to be on public record like this?”

“Heh. Guess not.” Lyra looked at the cover of the folio again. “So we just… walk off with them? I’ve never stolen anything.”

“Hopefully we just walk off with them,” said Bon Bon. She was already closing and relocking the drawers. “But, you know, Marephy’s law. We see if we can get Starlight to make a copy for us — what good’s a unicorn that powerful if she can’t duplicate anything? — and we stick the original back in here so it won’t be missed.”

“Espionage is a lot more boring than I thought it’d be.”

“The hard part was easy this time.”

As Lyra trotted to the steps, Bon Bon relocked the “G” drawers. Down the staircase, locking up all the doors she’d picked. Lyra snorted as they walked to the exit. “I guess making sure the building is nice and locked up is important right after you’ve burglarized it.”

“What do you think they’d think if they came back to work only to find everything unlocked? They’d report a break-in immediately.” Bon Bon put a hoof on the door-

“WAIT!” yelled Lyra, suddenly panicked. “Do you see that? Below the streetlight?”

Fear gripped Bon Bon; a unicorn in the uniform of a police officer was walking down the street, hornlight sweeping the cobblestones. Bon Bon shuffled away from the door and ducked behind the help desks, pulling Lyra with her, already thinking. “Stay down,” Bon Bon whispered.

Lyra curled up behind the desks, hooves over her head. “Do, do you think she saw us? Is she just patrolling?”

Bon Bon peeked over. The cop was leisurely strolling towards the door. “She’s definitely coming here.” Was there an alarm they’d tripped? She was so out of touch that she’d forgotten to check for alarms.

“Heh heh. Great.” Lyra’s voice was high-pitched. “Any chance we can hide here and she’ll ignore us?”

“Not unless you’ve got a really good reason for two grown mares to be in an empty office building after working hours.” Bon Bon crept towards the door to the back room, hoping she could unlock the door again before the cop arrived, trying to remember the best-

And then Lyra, ears quivering, tugged her back. “Actually, yeah,” she whispered.

“Hit me. What is it?”

When the officer eventually pulled the door open, Bon Bon and Lyra were bent over a desk, necking furiously. “Pretend- you don’t- notice her,” Bon Bon whispered to Lyra in between kisses. The blueprints were stuffed in a drawer beneath them.

Finally, the cop coughed, and the pair couldn’t ignore her anymore. They pushed apart, trying to look surprised. Blinking in the glare of the hornlight, Bon Bon plucked a pencil from her mane and said, “Um. Hello. What, what, what seems to be the problem, officer?”

The cop frowned at the two of them and shifted her weight, obviously uncomfortable at the intimacy. “The silent alarm went off not too long ago. You-”

“Sweeeeetieeeeeee,” cajoled Lyra, sounding half-drunk. She rolled over and nibbled at Bon Bon’s neck.

“Cut it out, Heartstrings.” Rolling with it, Bon Bon pushed Lyra away, who made a sad sound of protest. “We’re busy.”

“But,” slurred Lyra, “but I wanna-”

“When we’re done here,” snapped Bon Bon. “Sorry, sorry,” she said to the cop, “but we had to work, and this is a great place for, um, privacy-”

“But you forgot to lock the doooooooooor!” whined Lyra. “And you set off the alarm and you got us! In! TerrUPted!” She beat lightly at Bon Bon.

The cop swallowed. “Um, um, ma’ams…” Bon Bon could almost see the gears turning in her head: arrest the suspects or get out of the situation more quickly? “You two… stay here… I’ll look upstairs.” She darted away.

“Keep calm,” Bon Bon whispered to Lyra. “She won’t find anything.”

Lyra nodded, but she looked on the verge of screaming.

A few eternal minutes later, the cop returned. “Everything, everything seems to be in order up there,” she said, trying to look at them without actually looking at them.“I’ll just put it down as a false alarm and leave you to your… work.”

“Yeah! Work! Professionals do it on desks all the time, if you know what I mean!” Lyra said cheerfully.

“Take care,” the cop said quickly, and was out the door. “First night shift,” Bon Bon heard her grumble, “and I have to deal with that?”

Neither Bon Bon nor Lyra breathed easily again until the cop was gone. In spite of it being “just” a small-town cop, Bon Bon’s heart was racing.

“Sheesh, I’m actually shaking,” whispered Lyra. “Look. I thought those books were making stuff up.”

“Normal. Fight-or-flight response.” Bon Bon forced her breathing to slow. “Good thinking, there.”

“It…” Lyra’s cheeks turned red. “It was the first thing that came to mind.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining.”

Bon Bon looked at Lyra.

Lyra looked at Bon Bon.

“The others can wait a few minutes, right?”

“Right.”

The desk-supported work recommenced.

Thorax-Changeling liked poker very much, he decided.

Once he got into the swing of things, he swung like a champ. He started avoiding emotional sensations and found he was still decent at judging players. Some of them were easier than others — Rainbow-Pegasus-Blue might as well just show you her cards while Doctor-Earth-Brown was only slightly more expressive than a statue — but he still picked up on their little tics, like the way Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope’s right ear twitched whenever she got a bad hoof. He’d managed to pull in the bulk of the chips, with only Doctor-Earth-Brown ahead, and then mainly because Thorax-Changeling occasionally tried to read him visually and always crashed and burned and exploded.

After what didn’t feel like much time, but what he suspected could be hours, Thorax-Changeling had chipped away at everybody else’s bits, along with Doctor-Earth-Brown and Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle. However, the latter had gotten unlucky on a large pot with pocket fives and lost a lot of money to Thorax-Changeling, so now Thorax-Changeling and Doctor-Earth-Brown controlled almost ninety percent of the money on the table between them.

The two of them were the only players left on the current hoof, with a pot of over two hundred bits. Thorax-Changeling had the ace of clubs and the eight of diamonds against a river of the eight of spades, the ace of hearts, the jack of hearts, and the two of hearts. Awful lot of hearts. No way to make a straight. No way to make a full house. Plenty of ways to make a two-pair-beating flush.

The fourth card had been turned over almost a minute ago and Doctor-Earth-Brown still hadn’t made up his mind. Drumming his hoof on the table, he was like a dressmaking donkey as he hemmed and hawed. Thorax-Changeling simply stared at him. “I’m waiting,” he said. Maybe it would work as a taunt? He’d never been good with taunts. They were so mean.

Doctor-Earth-Brown glanced up at Thorax-Changeling and grinned. It was the sort of grin you’d give to a new rival. “Of course you are. You’ve just been full of surprises tonight, haven’t you?”

“I guess,” Thorax-Changeling said with a shrug. He poked at Doctor-Earth-Brown’s emotions. Lots of indecision.

“You’re sure you’ve never played poker before?” Rainbow-Pegasus-Blue asked, half-skeptically, half in wonder. “Because, wow, you’re like a champ.”

“Nah,” said Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle, batting at Rainbow-Pegasus-Blue, “you just suck at it.”

“I do, but he’s still great.”

Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle smirked. “I’ll take that. You probably already know what you’re going to do, right, Thorax?”

“Maybe.”

“So if the other dweeb at the table would move this party along-”

“Yeah, for someone whose cutie mark is related to time,” said Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope to Doctor-Earth-Brown, “you sure do like to waste it.”

“I’m making a decision,” replied Doctor-Earth-Brown. Thorax-Changeling almost expected to see some sweat on his brow, but there was nothing. “This late in the game, it’s not something to be taken lightly.”

He finally tapped the table. “Check,” he said.

Thorax-Changeling had made his decision a long time ago. He moved some tokens to the pot. “Raise twenty.”

He was immediately rewarded with a rush of fear from Doctor-Earth-Brown. His expression didn’t change and he didn’t give any tells, so far as Thorax-Changeling could see, but he was suddenly in a panic. After a second, he said levelly, “Raise you twenty.” He dropped four 10 tokens onto the pile.

Before they’d finished clinking, Thorax-Changeling said, “I’ll raise you fifty.” He flicked the relevant tokens into the pot.

Doctor-Earth-Brown still didn’t change expression, but his emotions wilted in despair. “Ah, booger. I fold.”

And as Thorax-Changeling pulled in over three hundred fake bits’ worth of tokens, he realized he had poker in the bag.

Bon Bon’s and Lyra’s trip back to the villa was easy, even though Bon Bon’s instincts kept telling her to hide in bushes. She wanted to flip through the plans, get a feel for the casino, but she knew that if she started, she’d never stop. (Plus, walking and reading blueprints at the same time was kinda tricky for an earth pony.) Her gaze flitted back and forth, back and forth, but by now, it was late enough that she and Lyra were the only ponies on the dark streets.

“We did it! We did it!” Lyra sang quietly. “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah… Bonnie, stop trying to look like a spy. We broke into a place, got caught, and still got away scot-free. We’re done.”

“It’s not over until it’s over,” said Bon Bon. She looked over her shoulder. Nopony. “Until we’re back at the villa-”

“Hey, look, we’re back at the villa!” Lyra pushed the gate to the villa they were back at open. “You worry way too much. And no saying I don’t worry enough!” She waved a hoof faux-scoldingly at Bon Bon. “That’s really predictable.”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes and drew a hoof across her mouth, but she still didn’t relax until the front door was shut behind them.

Most of the ponies were in the dining room, so naturally that was where Lyra strode to like she was some kind of princess of thieves. You’d’ve thought she’d just won the lottery. “Guess who just robbed some ponies?” she proclaimed cheerfully.

“It was an architectural firm, stop acting like we broke into the Royal Treasury!” snapped Bon Bon, following after her. “But, yeah. Found the plans.” She held up the roll of blueprints for everyone to see.

“Seriously?” Gilda asked, twisting around in her chair. “You two actually found them? Kinda expecting Gouda Feta to just have them destroyed. What a loser of a criminal.”

“Dunno why she didn’t do that,” said Bon Bon. “But we got them.”

“Ha! Nice,” said Rainbow. She fluttered over to get a good look at the blueprints. “And you’ll never guess who’s the best at poker!”

“The Doctor,” said Lyra.

“Nope! Thorax.”

“Thorax?”

Thorax nodded and grinned. “I know, right? That was kinda my reaction, too. But check it out!” He patted his pile of tokens. “I won everything!”

“No, that makes sense,” Bon Bon said slowly. “You’d need to be able to read ponies well enough during an infiltration to know when they were getting suspicious of you, and that’s just a few steps away from reading bluffs.”

“I guess!” Thorax said in a slightly-too-high voice. “S-so, um, I… suppose I’m going to try to gamble at poker tomorrow?”

“Only if it’s hold ’em,” said the Doctor, shuffling the cards, “but I wouldn’t worry about that. Most every casino in Equestria has tables for hold ’em. And if it’s another type, we’ll teach you it. Many poker variants are quite similar. I simply hope we never have to discuss Omahalter 8.” He shook his head and whistled. “Bloody princesses, is that complicated.”

“So now what?” asked Gilda. “We’ve got the stupid plans. Are gonna start making stupid plans of our own?”

“Nah. It’s almost eleven.” Bon Bon tossed the plans on the table. “Why bother? We’ve got tomorrow. I think we need to get some sleep for tonight.”

Starlight leaned into the room. “So, um, Sunburst just brought up a really good point… who’s sleeping where?”

7 - Can't Read My, Can't Read My...

Starlight sipped her coffee. It was far more bitter than she usually had it, but that just meant it banished the last remnants of sleep more thoroughly — through shock, if the caffeine didn’t work. Besides, it’d just been sitting in the pot when she’d woken up, and she wasn’t one to criticize free coffee, particularly when that coffee was still warm. She took another sip. Milk or sugar? Nah, not today.

She’d slept well but woken up early, and, unsure of what to do, had wandered over to the dining room. She wanted to get a look at the blueprints, feel like she was contributing something besides “magic”. She was more than magic. To her not-very-great surprise, Bon Bon was already there, unrolling the blueprints and chewing on a bagel until it resembled vaguely wheat-based pulp and the bread started to turn sweet.

“Morning,” Starlight said, her voice slightly slurred.

Bon Bon looked up. She still had severe bedhead, but her eyes were bright and alert. She swallowed her bit of bagel. “Morning,” she replied.

Starlight held up the mug. “Your coffee?” she asked.

“No. The Doctor’s. He got up… I think an hour ago? And was just leaving when I got up. Left the pot on and told me to help myself.”

“Did he say what he was doing?”

“Erm…” Bon Bon scratched her head. “The hardware store, I think? He said he wanted to build up a list of stuff to buy on the off chance Thorax made a lot of money at poker.”

Starlight shrugged. No skin off her back. “What’re you doing up?”

“I just wanted to take a look at this.” Bon Bon tapped the blueprints. “Kind of a, um…” She twitched and blinked. “…I just want to get a feel for what we’re up against.”

“Yeah. Same here.” Starlight pulled out a chair and sat down opposite Bon Bon. “You know, I never really imagined I’d ever do anything like this,” she said as she examined the plans of the casino floor. “And now I’m just doing it like, ‘yeah, whatever’, even though I’m making it up as I go along.” She took a sip of coffee. A single strand of her mane curled into a corkscrew.

Bon Bon coughed. “Heh. Yeah. Life is weird.”

“Sometimes I think the only difference between ten-year-old me and current me is that everypony demands current me behaves like an adult, even though I barely know how to do that.”

“I know, right?” Bon Bon said. “It’s like we adults have this unspoken agreement with each other: we’re not allowed to admit just how much of life we make up as we go.” She ripped off a piece of bagel. “So let’s make more stuff up and take a look at this.”

“Whatcha taking a look at?” asked Rainbow.

Starlight nearly fell out of her seat at the sudden sound of Rainbow’s voice in her ear. “Did you have to do that?” she snapped.

“Not really,” Rainbow said with a grin, “but did you see the look on your face?”

“We’re looking for the vault,” Bon Bon said. “It’s kind of hard to rob someplace when you don’t know where the place is.”

“Gotcha. Gonna go get some exercise in, be back in… I dunno, half an hour.”

With Rainbow gone, Starlight asked, “Any idea what it’ll look like?” Now that they had her attention, the blueprints were a mess of crisscrossing, intersecting, vanishing and reappearing white lines that didn’t look like anything unless you focused. Although she vaguely recognized the shape of the casino, it took effort to say that this was the lobby, those were probably offices, those were stairs, those were the elevators… Stupid monochromatic design.

“Not really,” Bon Bon admitted. “Could be square, could be round, could be tall, could be short… It’ll probably- I think it’ll be separate from the casino in some way. Maybe not an entire building away, but not in the middle of everything.”

For several minutes, Starlight and Bon Bon stared at the blueprints for the main floor, occasionally making half-hearted suggestions to each other; it was still a bit too early for anything else. But simply looking at the plans made them gradually coalesce into a solid idea of a building, so it wasn’t a total waste. At some point, Derpy showed up, slurping orange juice and gnawing on a blueberry muffin. Bon Bon shushed her; the slurps became nearly-silent sips and the gnaws became quiet nibbles. “Vault?” Derpy whispered to Starlight.

“Vault,” Starlight confirmed.

Another minute or so with no luck, and Starlight cleared her throat. “Wanna start at the bottom and work our way up?”

“Sure. I don’t have any better ideas.” Bon Bon leafed through the pages and pulled out the last one, which showed the basement. But even at a glance, Starlight could tell the vault wasn’t down there. It was all narrow hallways honeycombing the foundation, probably for things like storage and hotel laundry, with nothing that stood out as particularly vault-like. Bon Bon seemed to agree, because she flipped the page aside in seconds. “Definitely not in there,” she said.

“I wouldn’t think it’d be underground,” said Derpy. She leaned forward to get a better look at the plans. “It’s too scary that close to the gorge. You could run into all kinds of unstable ground. Trust me, I know.”

Starlight and Bon Bon exchanged Glances. She did.

“So it’s somewhere in the building itself,” said Bon Bon. She went back to poring over the main casino floor. “And that’ll increase the defenses on it. It’ll have to be big, thick, probably armored in some way. Look for a room with walls that are too thick.”

Given a specific thing to look for and a few more drinks of coffee, Starlight could focus on the blueprints a bit more. It helped that what she was looking for would be easy to spot. But as they ran through the blueprints and the room with too-thick walls consistently failed to appear, Starlight couldn’t help but worry. And suddenly they were on the top floor with no sign of the vault.

After a little less than a minute of looking, Bon Bon frowned. “It’s…” She flipped back a few pages. “I don’t think the vault’s in here.”

“Hoo boy,” said Starlight. She plucked away some of the papers and quickly leafed through them to double-check. She skimmed them faster than she probably should have, she admitted, but she definitely couldn’t see any vault-like room.

“Great,” muttered Bon Bon. “Just great. Of course the criminal lies on their blueprints.”

“Is that easy?” Starlight asked.

“I can’t think of why it wouldn’t be. ‘Hey, bossmare. I know you built this vault for me, but could you leave it off the plans? Here’s a hundred thousand bits.’”

“Maybe it’s not close to the rest of the building?” asked Derpy. “So it’s-”

“No, they need to move money into and out of it daily,” said Bon Bon. She was staring at one of the upper-floor pages, as if that would make the vault appear on it. “If it was too far away, transportation would take too long.”

“So what if it’s on the plans and just covered up? Like they put different rooms in place of it?”

Bon Bon paused, then stared at the plans with a renewed intensity. “That could work,” she said softly. “It’d definitely be easier than drafting a whole new set of plans just to hide the vault… Although if she left it out instead…” She shook her head. “We need to get somepony else to look over this. I’m beat. And, Starlight, do you think you can duplicate this? We don’t want Steadfast and Holding’s to know it’s missing. I’ll return it tonight.”

“Sure. If you’ll give me a second…” Starlight’s horn shimmered and a glow enveloped the plans. She pulled in two directions; the plans went both ways, and Starlight was left holding two copies. “This,” she said, waving one set, “is the original. This-” She waved the other. “-is the copy. They’re physically the same, but the copy has a slight trace of magic that’ll mark it as a duplicate if anypony looks too hard at it. Let’s not get them confused.”

“Then…” Bon Bon grabbed the duplicate plans and scribbled COPY on the top of the first page. She flipped through the others, doing the same for each. “That ought to be good.”

“You’ve got a plan, don’t you, Bon Bon?” Derpy asked. She licked brown sugar off a hoof. “You look determined. Like, real determined, grr, not just, ‘sure, I can do it’.”

“Thorax and Lyra each have their own things, with the poker and trying to get into the band,” Bon Bon said, examining the duplicate plans. “And I also think we should split into two groups: one to examine these, another to do some proper recon. Take a good look at where the guards are, how they move, when their shift changes, that sort of thing. A few vague ideas of what they’re like won’t cut it. I think it’s just getting back into the thick of things feels good.” She tilted her head back and forth. “You know, these are pretty good. I’d never know they’re not the real thing.”

“That’s just the spell,” Starlight said, shrugging. “Twilight can make it last for longer.”

“Uh-huh,” Bon Bon said. One last look, then she said, “We’d better get the others up.”

Thorax-Changeling wasn’t a very good changeling, in more ways than one. He wasn’t especially skilled at acting like somepony; his own personality tended to slip through. He was nervous. He couldn’t put together speeches on the spot. None of them made him a smart choice for an infiltrator. That said, living in the Crystal Empire, surrounded by people who cared about Thorax-Changeling, rather than Disposable Drone 326, had done wonders for his self-confidence, and he felt secure enough to talk to strangers in his changeling form. He was sure he could at least walk into the casino and play a few rounds of low-stakes poker.

He’d reviewed the terms with Doctor-Earth-Brown and Gilda-Griffon and thought he knew them pretty well. And if some of them slipped his mind, Doctor-Earth-Brown pointed out that that was to be expected for new players, such as the one he was pretending to be. Thorax-Changeling surprised himself with his own confidence and even said he didn’t want any company in the casino, just in case he was being watched.

When Thorax-Unicorn-Green walked through the entrance to the casino, the collective emotions hit him like a wall of water, even at 10:30 in the morning. He was smothered beneath the mingled elation and despair, contentment and anger for several moments. He breathed in deeply and exhaled deeply, purging the excess emotion from his system. He couldn’t be distracted. Not now.

The money-changing booths were easy to find. Thorax-Unicorn-Green marched up to the first empty one he saw and cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said to the cashier-pegasus-lavender, “but I was wondering if there were any low-stakes hold ’em poker tables in here I could try? I’m trying to get into playing.” Tentative, but not nervous. Good.

“We’ve got plenty of hold ’em poker tables!” said the cashier-pegasus-lavender cheerfully. And she wasn’t faking, either; Thorax-Unicorn-Green felt a touch more confident simply from all the emotional sunshine she was exuding. “Over thirty, to be precise! They’re in the back, over there, through that door. Our lowest only needs a twenty bit buy-in, and it’s two-four limit. You know what those mean, right?” Thorax-Unicorn-Green nodded, and she continued, “But if you want to add a little bit of risk, we’ve also got buy-ins for a hundred bits, two hundred-”

“One hundred sounds good,” said Thorax-Unicorn-Green. He only had a hundred, anyway. Better to start small.

“Then that’s ten-twenty limit,” said the cashier-pegasus-lavender. “Good?”

“Good.”

“Good! You’ll have to talk with the staff there about open tables, but I’m sure you won’t have any problems. Would you like to exchange your bits for chips now or once you get to the poker room?”

The cashier-pegasus-lavender’s chatter didn’t stop as she dropped Thorax-Unicorn-Green’s hundred bits in the register and counted out chips in denominations of 5. “All of our tables are no-flop, no-drop-” (Thorax-Unicorn-Green didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded good.) “-and slowrolling can lead to you forfeiting your hoof if the casino decides so.” She must’ve seen Thorax-Unicorn-Green’s confusion, because she added, “Some jerks with winning hooves decide to take their sweet time revealing their cards, so the other gal lays out their cards to keep things going — cards they think win the round, mind you — only to get cold cocked by the later hoof. It’s a bit of a, pardon my Prench, dick move. So, to keep things light, we’ve decided that poor etiquette can get you removed from the game.”

“Huh,” said Thorax-Unicorn-Green vaguely as he took his chips. Kind of strange, with somepony who was okay with mind control setting down etiquette rules.

“Enjoy your game!” said the cashier-pegasus-lavender, waving him away.

The door to the poker room was labelled The Artifact Vault. Thorax-Unicorn-Green wondered if that was Goumada-Unicorn-Marble’s idea of a joke. He swallowed and entered. A large room was beyond, stuffed with poker tables, most of them with at least three players. A guard-earth-steel was standing just inside the entrance, blocking him from going further in. “I’d like to play some hold ’em poker,” Thorax-Unicorn-Green said. “I heard there was a table with a hundred-bit buy-in, ten-twenty limit?”

“There’s a game going right now that you can join.” The guard-earth-steel pointed. “Table 11. Do you need chips?”

“Already got them!” Thorax-Unicorn-Green showed the guard-earth-steel his bag. The guard-earth-steel nodded, stepped aside, and waved him on.

Not counting the dealer-unicorn-lilac, there were three other players at the table. They all looked up when Thorax-Unicorn-Green sat down and laid out his chips in front of him. A player-pegasus-pinto chuckled. “Watch out, Corky,” she said. “You might actually have some competition, now.”

“At these tables?” said Corky-Earth-Yellow. “Nooooot likely.” He tipped an imaginary hat to Thorax-Unicorn-Green. “But here’s hoping.” He had no contempt or derision within him, just a casual, easygoing nature.

“Don’t worry,” Thorax-Unicorn-Green replied, dropping his bits in the pot for the first round’s big blind. “I won’t let you down.”

The cards were dealt. Thorax-Unicorn-Green took a glance at his: ten of hearts, nine of clubs. Eh, he’d see. All the other players had the same reaction, both inward and outward. With the exception of Corky-Earth-Yellow. When he looked at his cards, he was grinning, just barely. Any amateur could spot it. What any amateur couldn’t spot was the turmoil cascading from him, the nervousness.

Everypony called. The flop was dealt and Thorax-Unicorn-Green didn’t even get a good look at it before crushing despair swamped him. Apparently, not a single pony had a good hoof. You wouldn’t have guessed it from Corky-Earth-Yellow’s face, though; he kept grinning as if this were a walk in the park. The other ponies folded quickly. “You know,” Corky-Earth-Yellow said, slouching against the back of his chair, “you two really need to-”

“Raise,” said Thorax-Unicorn-Green, and dropped his chips in.

“…Yes, do that. Folding all the time’s boring.” Corky-Earth-Yellow turned and looked Thorax-Unicorn-Green in the eye. Thorax-Unicorn-Green looked back with supreme confidence. Corky-Earth-Yellow’s face didn’t twitch (but his anxiety grew) as he said, “Very well, then. Raise.”

“Raise,” Thorax-Unicorn-Green repeated. Corky-Earth-Yellow’s chips weren’t even in the pot yet.

Low whistles flew around the table. The other two players were looking between Thorax-Unicorn-Green and Corky-Earth-Yellow with a steadily increasing interest. Even the dealer-unicorn-lilac was examining him with above-average attention. Thorax-Unicorn-Green kept his eyes level and his face blank.

Corky-Earth-Yellow held his gaze for a second before sighing. “Like origami, I fold,” he said. His grin tasted of envious appreciation. “Perhaps we do finally have a challenger here!”

“Perhaps,” Thorax-Unicorn-Green said as he scooped his chips up. One single round in and he’d already made sixty bits. This was going to be good.

At the same time Thorax was heading to the poker tables, Lyra was wandering around the casino floor, feeling somewhat lost with her lyre case slung over her withers. Her thoughts had been simple: ask to join the band playing at the anniversary. But ask whom? It wasn’t like there was a sign advertising, “Musicians Sign Up Here!” Maybe there’d been one a few weeks ago, but…

After circling the floor for what felt like the fifth time, Lyra decided there was nothing else for it. She got into line for casino tokens and queued. When she finally reached the front of the line, the cashier didn’t look twice at her unusual baggage, but simply asked, “Yeh?”

“Um. Hi,” said Lyra. “I saw the poster for the anniversary celebration, saw that they were hiring local musicians, and I was… wondering if… there were still seats open?” She smiled. “Or somepony I could ask about seats being open?”

The cashier looked at Lyra, at her lyre case, and shrugged. “I’ll see who I can find, but no promises,” she said. She marched into the back room.

What followed was an epic, hour-long adventure in red tape, where Lyra got bounced around from pony to pony (and occasionally griffon), bounced back, at one point wound up back at the first pony, was briefly thought to have a desire to bartend the event, and was finally shooed into a green room behind a stage and told to wait.

Lyra examined the room for something to do. Not a bad place, all things considered, but it felt a bit cheap. Everything was nice, but nothing more. She tentatively tried the couch. As she’d expected, “not bad” was the best she could say about it. Definitely a far cry from the heaven that was the couch back at the villa.

She tried the door; it was unlocked. She had no intention of leaving, but Lyra leaned out and looked up and down the hall to see if anyone was coming. Some workers, but nopony who looked involved in music. Lyra sighed and stretched out on the not-bad couch.

The minutes slowly ticked by. After five hours, Lyra looked at the clock to see that only five minutes had passed. Some part of her registered that this was the first clock she’d ever seen in the casino. She looked out into the hallways again, just in time to hear some voices quarreling. Voices quarreling about music.

“You said you wouldn’t change the lineup,” grumbled somepony.

“And I’m not!” said somepony else. “I’m simply adding another harmony line!”

“That sounds a rather lot like changing the lineup.”

“That’s because you don’t know a sunblasted thing about conducting orchestras. Everypony else is exactly where you want them. The new pony isn’t changing that.”

The two ponies rounded a corner. One was a severe-looking unicorn in a business suit — Goumada, Lyra guessed. The other one was a pegasus, clearly a conductor. She had the usual prim suit coat, and a baton was in a holster on one of her fetlocks. A folder poked out from under one wing.

“If you don’t do this the way I want,” Goumada said quietly, “maybe I don’t need you.”

“Fine, then, fire me!” snapped the conductor. “Then you can do it because you’re so good at it! Oh, and since I’m the one responsible for managing the orchestra’s paychecks, if you fire me, I’m taking the entire band with me!”

Goumada curled her lip at the conductor as the pair entered the green room. When she saw Lyra, she stopped. “What’re you doing backstage?” she demanded. “Are you so unintelligent to have missed the signs saying ‘Authorized Personnel Only’?”

Before Lyra could take offense, the conductor stepped in. “She’s obviously the mare auditioning. Can’t you see she’s waiting for us? Sorry,” she added quietly to Lyra.

“Hmm.” Goumada spared a single extra glance at Lyra and said, “She’ll do. Make sure her playing isn’t too substandard.” She flicked her tail and strode away.

“I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole,” Lyra chanced, “and I’m guessing I’m not the only one, although somepony’s already stuck one up her butt.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” huffed the conductor. “Don’t mind her, she wouldn’t know class and tact if they showed up at her front door, dancing the can-can with Fancy Pants and Discord, with flashing neon signs hovering above. Why she wanted to look at you, I don’t know. Anyway, I’m Treble Clef, and I’m the conductor of the orchestra.” She looked Lyra up and down. “What instrument did you play, again? I’m afraid I never caught it.”

“Lyre,” said Lyra. She patted her case and held her breath.

Clef stroked her chin and examined the ceiling. “We could use a third lyre,” she mused. “Mind, the pay won’t be the greatest-”

“This is more for the experience,” Lyra said quickly. “Pay’s at the bottom of why I’m doing this. And, yes, I can put up with her.”

“Ah. Excellent. Come along, then.”

Lyra took every opportunity to examine and try to memorize the hallways Clef led her through, even though the trip was short. Every little bit helped, and for all she knew, she could end up getting chased down these by the end of the whole shebang.

Clef opened the door to a smaller room stuffed with chairs, generic music implements — stands, mostly — and a few spare instruments. She pushed aside stuff to make space, and pulled out a chair and a music stand. “Since you’d be third chair, this won’t take long,” she said as Lyra took her seat. “Even with the short time to learn the song.”

Lyra nodded, as if she was just learning this. She’d been in a few last-minute auditions like this before.

“Now, your lyre’s tuned?” Clef pulled out the folder from under her wing and put it on another stand.

“Should be. Let’s double-check.” Lyra pulled out her lyre, went up and down the notes. They were all still tuned. “Sounds good to me.”

“And to me,” said Clef, skimming through her folder. “Now, first song…” She dropped a music sheet onto the lectern in front of Lyra.

Lyra glanced over the notes and immediately knew it was easy. A simple melody, not too fast, no overly-complicated manipulating of the string. She could do this one in her sleep. A C A G, C… F G F E, C… D, E, F, G, F E-F G F… A A-A-

Clef nodded. “Very good, very good.” She wasn’t looking at Lyra, but she sounded appreciative. “Next song…” She switched out sheets.

Okay, wow. Lyra actually knew this one. It was a bit more complicated than the last, but she’d played it loads of times. C C E C F F A G, G G-G-E G E-D C, C C E C F F A-

“Uh-huh, yes, good.” Clef was smiling a little as she rustled through her music. “One last song, and then I’ll see.”

The next song wasn’t… easy, but it wasn’t exactly hard, either. A bit fast, and the notes jumped around a bit, but the overall melody wasn’t that bad and the notes had a steady rhythm. Lyra took a deep breath. E-E-G-A, B-C-C-B-A-A… E-E-G-A-A A-A, E-

“Impressive,” said Clef, snatching the sheet away. “Darn shame you came along now, because if you were around when auditions were first open, you could make first chair, easy. Welcome to the band.”

“Oh, thank you!” said Lyra, grinning from ear to ear. She jumped up and shook hooves with Clef. “You have no idea how much this means to me!”

“I have an idea.” Clef was smiling slightly. “Now, your packet…” She handed Lyra a folder, stuffed with papers. “There’s schedules for our rehearsals, plus your own sheet music. You’ll need to learn it quickly, but it’s quite simple, so I don’t think that’ll be much of a problem for you. There are also… brochures for the casino, if you are so inclined.” Clef’s lips curled. “You’re already performing for Goumada at her own casino, I don’t understand why she can stoop so low as to force promotional materials on you in addition to that.”

“Because she’s arrogant and shameless?”

Clef smirked. “Now, I’ll also need your name…” She pulled out a pen and a piece of scratch paper and looked expectantly at Lyra.

Lyra caught herself halfway. “L- Heartstrings.” Best not to use all of her real name, just in case.

Clef glanced briefly at her, but muttered, “Heart… strings… Lyre… three…” She underlined the name. “And finally, performing here gets you a complimentary room until two days after anniversary and backstage access. If you’ll follow me, we can get you your key and access gem.” She set off down the hall.

As Lyra followed her, she started grinning wider than normal. “Did you say access gem?” she asked, struggling to curb her enthusiasm.

“Only to backstage rooms like this, but yes. It’ll let you into authorized areas so you don’t need to keep finding the staff to let you in.”

“Oh. That’s good.” And by “good”, Lyra meant “much better than anything I expected today holy Celestia’s sugar-laced tail”. She managed to keep it at that.

Clef led Lyra to an area outside the main floor of the casino, got into a shouting match with another staff member over accessibility for band members, and retrieved a key and a gem. “Room 1911,” she said, passing the key to Lyra. “Up near the top. And this-” She passed over the gem. “-will get you through entertainment doors. They’re marked. Just move it near the panel next to the door and it’ll unlock for you.”

“Thank you,” said Lyra, not quite bouncing on her hooves.

“Now, please: don’t make me regret this. You’re cutting it awfully close, but we could use the extra harmony.” Clef inclined her head.“Practice well and have a good day, ma’am.”

“Don’t worry. I will.”

8 - Think Tanks for the Intellectual Criminal

Somepony had to draw the short straws to examine the Canyon Rim Casino’s blueprints more thoroughly, and those someponies had been Sunburst and the Doctor, plus Gilda as a somegriffon. The trio sat around the dining room table, staring at the plans. Somewhere in there, something didn’t add up, something that was hiding a vault full of money and the Alicorn Amulet. For all they knew, the entire operation hinged on their ability to ferret out where the vault might be. They couldn’t let the team down.

“So, um, do either of you know anything about, about architecture?” Sunburst asked.

Gilda snorted. “Do I look like a builder?”

“I know a touch,” said the Doctor. “I’ve studied some architectural magic. Spatial expansion, mostly. You know, bigger-on-the-inside stuff and all that jazz.”

“Anything that might help us here?”

“Only that it’s too expensive to do on these scales. I highly doubt you could hide a vault in here.”

“Hnng.” Sunburst flipped through a few of the middle pages. It being the main part of the hotel, each floor looked almost identical. “Either of you know what, know what a vault could look like? Because I got nothing.”

“If it were me, I’d make it big and thick,” said Gilda. She leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, as if reminiscing about protecting money was the most relaxing thing in the world. “A foot of solid steel on each side, with the most ridiculous lock you can think of, you know.” She made gestures with her paws to demonstrate. “Then I’d stick it in some out-of-the-way place that’s hard to get to. Just to tick any thieves off. Then-”

“Ah, beg pardon,” the Doctor said, raising his hoof, “but does it have to be big and thick? The room in Canterlot Castle that once held the Elements was nigh impenetrable and it didn’t have anything like you’re saying. From the outside, it looked perfectly normal. From the inside, too, for that matter.”

“That room was layered with enough magical power to, to move the sun and woven together with, with more than a millennium of experience,” said Sunburst. “That’s kind of hard to come by outside alicorns.”

“Ah. Right. Never mind, then.”

“But we probably can expect, expect teleport interdiction,” said Sunburst. “That spell’s not too hard, at least, at least not when you have enough money to, to afford someplace like this.” He had actually known a tenured professor at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns who’d had her pencil box teleport-proofed after she’d gotten paranoid about students using teleportation to steal her pencils. Even weirder, she’d been right; the wood they were made of was magically valuable. “And then there’s, you know, there’s magical defenses that wouldn’t show up on blueprints like this.”

“I hate magic,” mumbled Gilda.

“I have something of a love-hate relationship with it, myself,” the Doctor said. “On the one hoof, it can do so much… but on the other, it can do so much.”

Time passed like molasses as they skimmed the plans. Unsure of what they were looking for, most of their discussions were vague and inconclusive. Sunburst found himself going over the same few rooms repeatedly, like a gofer running a conversation between offices for executives who refused to get out of their seats. Eventually, he pushed his glasses up and drummed his hoof on the table. “Do you want to just, just go through this floor by floor, looking for things that don’t fit? I mean, if, if we’re doing this, we might as well run it through some method.”

“No,” said Gilda. “Let’s do it. Wanna split it up and each do seven or eight floors? Good.” She grabbed several pages from the middle of the stack and wandered to another room.

“Don’t skip anything!” Sunburst yelled as he took some pages of his own. “And, and I mean anything!”

“I know!”

Not for the first time, Sunburst bemoaned how terrible he was at reading people. They were so… chaotic and… alive. (Which said super things about his personality.) Magic was magic, and it was always magic. It didn’t change. It didn’t behave differently when you’d been stuck in a room with it for an hour. It was predictable. But Gilda? Sunburst couldn’t tell what was up with her. “Irritable” seemed to be her default setting, but at least she was working. Hopefully it was good work.

Unlike Sunburst, the Doctor could read people, and noticed Sunburst’s reaction. “Don’t worry about her,” the Doctor said. “She stopped by Ponyville last year, and believe it or not, she was even worse then. But she came out here on her own, didn’t she?” He glanced at the door Gilda had disappeared through. “Personally, I think she’s cooled off a bit and just doesn’t like sitting around. Shame she has to do so much of it right now.”

“Here’s hoping,” mumbled Sunburst. Or at least, hopefully he wouldn’t need to sit in a room with her for hours on end again.

The pages Sunburst had grabbed were of the upper floors of the tower. Mostly hotel rooms with an airship landing dock that, as its title pointed out, had been added in later. He went over each square inch separately, examined how it related to each adjacent square inch. Unfortunately, it was a big paper and had a lot of square inches. The labels also left a lot to be desired, especially in the slew of infrastructure on the roof. The lines were so close together that Sunburst actually felt his eyes getting fatigued. He pushed up his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Stupid blueprint monochromaticity.

He flipped down a few pages, into the main part of the hotel. Unlike the platform, it was simple: there were rooms on the outside, ringing a hallway, which in turn ringed more rooms on the inside, plus an elevator bank and some staircases. How creative. Sunburst glanced at the next page: almost exactly the same. Super. Well, at least if there was a difference between floor designs, he’d see it quickly. He began measuring the sizes of the rooms.

He was shocked from his analytical stupor when Gilda suddenly cawed from a few rooms over. Before either he or the Doctor could react, she’d raced back into the dining room, panting and grinning. (How could you grin with a beak?) She flexed her wings and said, “It’s not much, but I think I got something from this stupid paper. Make room.”

Sunburst and the Doctor quickly cleared a section of the table and Gilda plopped down her sheet. “Okay, look,” she said. She traced the outlines of the tower. “The building’s kinda squarish, right?”

“Yeah…” said Sunburst.

“And there are rooms on the outside. They’ve got windows and crap. But check out these rooms.” Gilda pointed at the rooms on the inside of the tower. “Is it just me, or are those shaped weird? I mean, look at how long and thin they are.”

“Hold up…” muttered the Doctor. He raced back to his own set of plans and began flipping through it.

“Huh.” Sunburst pushed his glasses up as he squinted at the rooms. “Those are awfully space-filling. I can’t really picture a bed fitting in them easily.”

“And they won’t have windows, either,” said Gilda. She flipped to the next floor up. Same thing. Even the interior wall was the same size. “So whatever poor schmuck gets that room is gonna be cramped in a place without any sunlight, a crappy stay if there ever was one. There’s no way you can convince me that somepony smart enough to build and run a hotel would make a mistake like that.” Next floor. Same results. She tapped the central square again. “I bet our vault’s in there, probably with some extra security measures.”

“Ah ha! Take a gander at these!” The Doctor laid his plans over top of Gilda’s. “These floors?” he said, grinning. “Supposedly offices and other workspaces. I actually think these are true, given the different requirements for bedrooms and work floors, but if only the spaces with bedrooms are lying-”

Sunburst was already leafing through his pages. “Hey! Look at, look here.” He flattened his wrinkled pages out. “Now, this, these two floors were added later-”

“I can read the bit that says ‘Addition — Airship Landing Pad’, thanks,” said Gilda.

“-added later,” Sunburst said, “but look: a few penthouses on the outside and storage space for any airships in the middle. No space-filling bedrooms.”

“Bingo,” said the Doctor. “Mates, I think we’ve found our vault. Awfully big blighter, though.” He fanned through the pages. “It’s, what? Ten stories tall? Fifteen? And that’s a few dozen yards to a side, that is.” He whistled. “Awful lot of space in there.”

“Bet it’s extra defenses,” Gilda said. “I know I’d stuff that space full of all sorts of nasty magic.”

“And, blimey, with all that space, that’d be an awful lot of nasty magic,” said the Doctor. “Where’s the scale? I want to know how much space exactly… Does magic have a maximum density before it becomes unstable? I never looked too deeply into that…”

“Whatever. Gotcha.” Gilda grinned at the paper like it was a rabbit she was preparing to eat. But then her face (beak?) fell. “So… now what? We found the vault. Kinda. Sorta. Maybe. Vaguely. Ish. Do we just… sit around, or-?”

“I say we brainstorm,” said the Doctor. “What kind of defenses we think there are, maybe ways to get around them? I know they probably won’t be the slightest bit accurate, but it’ll get us into that thieving mindset we so desperately need to be in.”

Gilda immediately stood up. “Then I can’t stay here. Sorry, but I think better when I’m moving and I’m a few pages away from going stir-crazy.”

“Well, um, alright. Are, are you gonna leave the villa?” Sunburst asked.

“Nah. Ten bits says there’s a bow and arrows somewhere in here. If I can find them, I’ll just shoot the crap out of a tree in the yard or something.” Gilda made for one of the back rooms. “At least I’ll be moving!”

“Sounds good!” Sunburst yelled after her. He turned to the Doctor. “So. Any ideas?”

“Strengthening, probably,” the Doctor said immediately. “Fortify it like a modern-day castle. The right enchantments can get things really sturdy nowadays. The room in Canterlot Castle where the Elements of Harmony were kept… I know it was Celestia doing the enchantments, but…” He whistled. “You could shell that place with a warship and a bowl full of water wouldn’t so much as ripple. But if we don’t go-”

Sunburst cleared his throat. “Hey, uh, Doc? What were you doing in Canterlot Castle to know what the Elements room and its enchantments were like? Wasn’t that off-limits to the public?”

The Doctor’s coat lost several shades of brown. “Well, ah…”

That had been good.

Over about fifteen rounds, Thorax-Unicorn-Green and Corky-Earth-Yellow had cleaned out the other two players, who stuck around to watch. Corky-Earth-Yellow clung on valiantly, playing more cautiously, but Thorax-Unicorn-Green slowly whittled him down. Poker was easy when you could literally taste your opponent’s fear or happiness.

One hundred forty bits in the pot at the turn. The four cards out were the queen of diamonds, the ace of spades, the eight of hearts, and the four of hearts. Thorax-Unicorn-Green had the eight of clubs and the queen of spades. Not a bad hoof, but not the greatest.

Corky-Earth-Yellow’s eyes flitted between his cards and Thorax-Unicorn-Green. A little bit of suspicion swam through a sea of anxiety beneath his expressionless exterior. While changeling emotion-tasting couldn’t read minds and get specific thoughts, Thorax-Unicorn-Green had found that he wasn’t half bad at guessing the thoughts that led to those emotions. Take this particular blend: the last time it had happened, Corky-Earth-Yellow had promptly started raising the bet until they hit the cap for the round and the next card was dealt. Thorax-Unicorn-Green had guessed Corky-Earth-Yellow was testing the waters, trying to see how willing he was to go all the way. Thorax-Unicorn-Green’d had a strong hoof then, so he kept going. Sure enough, come the showdown, Corky-Earth-Yellow had had a weak hoof and Thorax-Unicorn-Green had raked in a lot of money. And if he was going that route this time…

“Raise,” Corky-Earth-Yellow said. His voice was level, but his emotions were nervous. He pushed his chips forward-

“Raise,” Thorax-Unicorn-Green promptly said. No pushing for him; he flicked his chips in with a little flippy move, like a boss. He’d gotten quite good at it over the past few games and was irrationally proud of it. It was his move, not something Chrysalis or even any ponies had taught him.

Corky-Earth-Yellow’s emotions nearly ran away screaming, but he didn’t display anything. After a second, he sighed. “Fold,” he said, letting his cards flutter to the tabletop. But although his voice was weary, he was smiling. “I must say, what are you doing here? You could be clearing out the high-stakes tables with your skill!”

“Ehm. Beginner’s luck? I’m… new at this.” Thorax-Unicorn-Green’s went back as he pulled the pile of chips toward himself and his already quite large pile of previously-won chips. Oh, juxtaposition.

“In bluffing, maybe, but in reading ponies? You’re a natural! In all my years of poker, I’ve never seen somepony quite as good as you.”

“And how many years has that been?”

“Almost fifteen. I stopped playing, oh, ten years ago, decided to come back, started at the low-stakes table to see if I still had it. And I thought I had, then you came along.” Corky-Earth-Yellow grinned. “Nothing to take the wind out of your sails like running into a beginner who cleans you out, yeah?” He laughed and got out of his chair. “And speaking of getting cleaned out, I’ll just cut my losses. Sorry, but I’m done.”

“Aw.” But when Thorax-Unicorn-Green counted up his tokens, he had nearly three hundred and fifty. Not bad when each player only started out with a hundred. Going to a higher-stakes table wasn’t a bad idea. It’d probably be best to cash out some of the chips he’d won and ensure he still had some actual, unloseable money, though. Just in case. The next table up had been, what, two hundred?

Thorax-Unicorn-Green hopped out of his chair with… what did ponies call it? A spring in his step? He’d always thought that was just one of those weird pony expressions, but no. Happiness was bubbling out of him, making him involuntarily bounce as he walked, as if his bones had been actually replaced with springs. Not that he minded; the feeling was just strange, in the same way Spike-Dragon-Purple’s friendliness had been strange. It was nice, being able to do things for others, and quite useful things, at that.

He happened to be exiting the poker room just after Corky-Earth-Yellow, who slowed down to let him catch up. “I didn’t catch your name,” he said casually. Not a hint of animosity was swimming in his head. Heck, he was so amiable that animosity would probably have trouble swimming and drown in seconds.

“Sundown Gleam,” Thorax-Unicorn-Green said. After some discussion last night, Bon Bon, Gilda, and Sunburst had deemed it a sufficiently generic pony name that wouldn’t attract much attention.

“Technically, I’m Corquodale, but call me Corky.” Mortification blazed through Corky-Earth-Yellow like a kerosene-fed wildfire and he grimaced. “Please call me Corky. Will you be staying here long?”

“I’m not sure. Probably two weeks.” That had been when the celebration (and their heist) was planned, right?

“Because, assuming I’m not that out of practice and you really are just that good-” (Thorax-Unicorn-Green only barely managed to keep himself from puffing his chest out.) “-I was thinking of going to the high-stakes tables in a few days, and if you’re available, I’d love to play you. Once I get my poker face back up to snuff, of course.” He grinned. The closest thing to a negative emotion in him was his own anxiety at his lack of skill.

“Your poker face wasn’t that bad.” It really wasn’t. It was just that Corky-Earth-Yellow, like most ponies, was terrible at poker emotions (and that wasn’t Thorax-Unicorn-Green’s fault).

“Maybe not, but it needs to be better. Don’t feel pressured, just keep an eye out if you’re interested, alright?”

They parted ways after that, Corky-Earth-Yellow cashing in his chips and walking away listening. Thorax-Unicorn-Green found himself with the same cashier-pegasus-lavender as before. “Hey there!” she said happily. “Short time! No see!”

Stupid ponies and their stupid expressions. It made Thorax-Unicorn-Green’s head spin. “Um. Sure.” He laid some chips on the counter, keeping enough for the high table’s buy-in. “I’d like to cash these, please.”

“Sure thing! Gimme juuuuuust a second…”

The cashier-pegasus-lavender’s movements were quick and precise, bordering on mesmerising. It was just counting tokens and bits out, but she was so good at it that it was hard to not appreciate it. Then something moved behind her, and Thorax-Unicorn-Green’s gaze was pulled over just enough to see an employee-unicorn-beige pushing a cart out of sight. Probably full of money, heading to Goumada-Unicorn-Marble’s vault.

It was like a light gem ignited in his head. “So, the, uh, the money goes into the vault every night, right?” he asked.

“Twelve hours or so,” the cashier-pegasus-lavender said. “Restocking cash registers…” She tapped her own. “Keeping track of how much money we make, stuff like that. Couldn’t tell you more than that — I just give the guards the money and they take it away.”

“I see,” said Thorax-Unicorn-Green. Gears were already spinning in his head as he took the bag of bits. “Well, have a nice day.”

“Sure thing!” chirped the cashier-pegasus-lavender. “You, too!”

Thorax-Unicorn-Green was having a nice day indeed as he strode back to the poker room. The more his idea took shape, the more he was sure it would work. He just needed some help from his teammates to get the magic sorted out, and it seemed like it was going to be simple magic.

His confidence boosted and his mind on fire, Thorax-Unicorn-Green took a seat at one of the higher-stakes tables like he was playing with pocket change, causing the other players to look up. Simply from the way they moved, their tighter motions and more restrained expressions, Thorax-Unicorn-Green could tell that they were more serious than the previous table. And they kept just as loose a set of reins on their emotions as everypony else.

Don’t get too excited, Thorax-Unicorn-Green reminded himself. You could still lose your head and then your chips. And maybe your disguise. Don’t lose your disguise.

But that reminder merely tempered his confidence rather than destroying it. Thorax-Unicorn-Green laid his chips on the table. “Hit me.”

Starlight had initially assumed that Rainbow Dash had been exaggerating when she ranted about how much stakeouts sucked. Now that it was past noon and she’d been on a stakeout for hours, she was considering giving Rainbow a medal for keeping her rant below fifteen minutes.

She and Derpy were sitting on a bench watching the front of the building while Bon Bon and Rainbow watched the back. Starlight had a notepad and was scribbling her observations down, pitiful as they were. Absolutely nothing was helped by the steam-powered machines that sputtered by on the road every now and then; Starlight had taken to casting a shield as they approached to keep the soot away.

It was hard to tell what Derpy was thinking. She seemed equally invested in her current muffin and the casino. She wasn’t writing anything down and, if she had any questions, definitely wasn’t asking Starlight. But she wasn’t squirming and her ears were pointed in the right direction. Well, she’d worked with Bon Bon that first day and Starlight figured that Bon Bon, pessimist she was, would’ve mentioned anything bad about their time together, but she’d said nothing. Maybe Derpy’s memory was just really good.

After jotting down that a certain guard had just done a fourth circuit of the casino, Starlight felt her eyelids droop and quickly blinked herself awake. Then she yawned widely. In the wrong circumstances, doing nothing was surprisingly draining.

“You look hungry.” Derpy held a cinnamon-encrusted banana nut muffin in front of Starlight. “Come to the derp side. We have muffins.”

Starlight gently, reluctantly nudged the muffin aside. “Thanks, but I’m busy. It’ll take a really good reason for me to have a snack.”

“Muffins are high in carbs, which is the primary source of energy for the brain, while the sugars give your metabolism enough of a kick to keep you going through the day, even if you haven’t eaten much else. And nuts and bananas are both good sources of fiber and protein.”

Okay, wow. That was a really good reason. Reasons, even. “And the cinnamon?”

“I like cinnamon. It’s a morale booster, if you want to get all phosisticated.”

What the heck. “What kinds of muffins do you have?”

“This one, blueberry, red velvet, and carrot cake.”

As Starlight chowed down on the red velvet muffin, she asked, “So, what have you seen?”

“Those steam machine things? They come around every…” Derpy stuck her tongue out a little as she thought. “…at something o’clock, something-fifteen, and something-forty. I think they might belong to the patrol cops. Or maybe the casino. Those four pairs of guards — there, there, there, and there — all have staggered shifts so that one pair changes every two hours. I think those two there will be the next ones to be replaced, since that griffon looks pretty tired; see his wings? Oh, and-”

“You spotted all of that?” Starlight had noticed several of those, but not the times.

“I’m good with details.” Munch. “I need to be, to deliver the mail quickly.” Derpy looked at the beaten-down griffon she’d pointed out. “I wonder if he’s the one we’re going to seduce.”

Starlight shocked several pedestrians by spitting her muffin clear across the street.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that!” Derpy protested preemptively. “Heists always have somepony on the inside! Didn’t you read Eleven Oceans? Tiller was friends with a guard, so when he got locked up-”

By now, Starlight had managed to regain a tiny portion of her breath. “I- I’m sorry,” she wheezed, “what?” Cough cough. “We’re- just gonna- walk up, bat our eyelashes at him, and he’ll do whatever we say?”

It was hard to tell whether Derpy’s grin was clueless or earnest. Maybe both. “Oh, sure! A poor, overworked tiercel like him, he probably just wants some company when his shift’s done, but nogriffon’s available because who goes to the bar at 2 in the afternoon? And suddenly: Gilda.” Her grin faltered. “I… don’t know what happens after that…”

Starlight turned back to the casino and couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Uh-huh. I’m sure Gilda will be thrilled to learn she’s our femme fatale.”

“I could try. He’s kinda cute.”

Fortunately for the other side of the street, Starlight didn’t have any more muffin to spit.

TWANG. Thud

Everypony assumed that brainstorms worked, but sometimes they just made a mess. Sunburst and the Doctor’s brainstorm, rather than irrigating the seeds of ideas to eventually produce fruits of their labor, just left Sunburst feeling tired and washed-out. He borrowed a page from Gilda’s book and got up to walk. Maybe she was doing better.

TWANG. Thud.

And so, Sunburst had abandoned the Doctor and pulled himself to the backyard. Gilda had indeed found a bow and arrows and was repeatedly loosing them at a single tree, as if she hoped the small bits of wood each arrow chipped off would eventually chop it down as surely as any ax.

Gilda glanced over when she heard Sunburst approach. “Yo.” TWANG. Thud. “Any ideas?”

“Pfft. I wish.” Sunburst sat down to watch her shoot. It was fascinating, the things griffons could do with claws. “We don’t know what casino security looks like, so we don’t know what, what to have ideas on. He keeps going on these hypercomplicated ideas where… sheesh, I can’t remember. Do you have any ideas?”

“Not really.” TWANG. Thud. Gilda’s arrows were awfully close together. “I barely know a thing about magic except that it comes from that.” She waved an arrow at Sunburst’s horn. “So I started thinking about security in general. I bet there’s some kind of… I dunno, remote-viewing mumbo-jumbo-” TWANG. Thud. “-do you have that?” Sunburst nodded, and she continued, “We already know there’s those magic key things, so there’s probably some other kind of magical ID. Heck, maybe it senses personal auras or whatever.”

“That’s ridiculous. Auras in that sense don’t, they don’t exist,” said Sunburst. It remained one of the most absurd things Sunburst had heard. You could detect it from interference with a person’s magical signature, obviously, and no such interference had ever been detected.

Gilda glanced sideways at Sunburst, giving him a look like she’d just downed an entire can of rotten peas, then shot off her last arrow. “Whatever.” Once she’d retrieved her arrows, she said, “Sorry, but that’s kinda all I got at the moment. Wish I could sense magic so I could make better plans.” She drew the bow back and aimed. “Well, what I’d really like is to be able to sense magic in the casino-” TWANG. Thud. “-while sitting in a chair here.”

Ding. Sunburst’s ears went up and he grinned. “That, that’s brilliant! Thanks, Gilda!” He raced back inside. For once, being a near-complete failure at the applied parts of magic school wasn’t a bad thing.

“Sure!” TWANG. Thud. “Thanks for what?”

Sunburst ran through the house, going over his idea in his mind again and again. It could work. It’d take a heck of a lot of effort, but it could work. He couldn’t do it on his own, though.

He skidded to a halt in the dining room. The Doctor was still talking to himself. “…would chronolocks be susceptible to time magic? Or are they specifically designed to-”

Sunburst cleared his throat. “Hey, um, Doc? Are you any, any good with math?”

The Doctor stared at Sunburst like the latter had tentacles in place of his eyes. “Any- good?” He snorted. “‘Any good’, he says. My dear stallion, mathematics is the very foundation of… well, everything!” He paced back and forth, making big, grandiose gestures. “Even magic itself runs on it, let alone more mundane things like physics! And as a stallion of science, I could not bear to let mathematics go unexamined in my studies. Why, to ignore mathematics in science would be akin to ignoring narrative in writing, ignoring rhythm in music, ignoring gods in theology!”

“That’s…” Sunburst tilted his head. “That’s not a ‘yes’…”

One of the Doctor’s ears went down. “…Yes. I am quite good at maths.”

“I mean, it’s just,” Sunburst said quickly, “just because you, um, study something doesn’t mean you’re good at it.”

“…So… what do you need?”

“Well, um, Gilda, she suggested we get something to detect magic-”

“And are we supposed to smuggle you, Starlight, and Lyra into the vault to use as thaumaturgical detectors? Waving you around, jabbing your horns at the wall?” But then the Doctor frowned. “I’m not sure Lyra would mind all that much, actually…”

“No,” Sunburst said, shaking his head. “No. Just… no.” He sat down opposite the Doctor. “Have you ever heard of an arcanoscope?”

The Doctor drummed his hoof on the table. “I believe so, yes. Presents a false-color image based on what sorts of magic are being used, right? But aren’t those just teaching tools?”

“Uh… yeah. Y’see…” Sunburst coughed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I, uh, you probably saw this, but I got my cutie mark in magic, so I was enrolled in, in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, then it turned out I was the wrong kind of gifted. I… I’m… I know the theory of magic, it’s just, I’m bad at the actual doing part, and I was assigned an arcanoscope that was supposed to help with that.” He snorted. “As if studying music theory’s going to make you more dextrous for the piano. Flunked out after a few years.”

“Ooh,” the Doctor said. He cringed back a little, like he’d been struck physically rather than emotionally. “So sorry.”

Sunburst mumbled something about not worrying and waved a hoof vaguely, then performed the time-honored art of blazing along and pretending the last embarrassing moment never happened. “But, um, I really liked the idea of the thing, so when I went back home… I… kinda stole it.”

“Why’d you have to steal it?” The Doctor’s went up like springs. “Couldn’t you just buy one?”

“I’d, I’d washed out of one of the most prestigious schools in the, in the country,” Sunburst said flatly. “I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have any, any prospects for one, and I was living with my parents. I couldn’t afford one.”

“Ah. Most unfortunate.”

“But, um,” Sunburst continued in another bout of ignore-embarrassing-moment-jutsu, “while I don’t have it here, I did manage to, to study and reverse-engineer it, so, um, I’m going to write down the equations I remember-”

“-and I check your work? Certainly.”

“Not just that. Turn it into a, a remote scanner that can send its data back to someplace. Then we can, I dunno, stuff it in the air vent or something.” It’d have to be the air vent. Heists and anything that involved sneaking around always utilized air vents in some way. “We can analyze all the magic in the place we want without, without our unicorns being waved around as thaumaturgical detectors.”

The Doctor’s voice immediately turned distant. “…Ah. Huh.” He made little popping noises with his mouth as he thought and stared at the table like it held the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Sunburst fidgeted with his beard while he waited. Beards were good for fidgeting with; it was half the reason he’d grown one.

“So let me see if I have all this correct,” the Doctor said eventually. “You want me, an earth pony with no innate access to thaumic magic, to take equations from some half-remembered dissection of a remedial teaching tool and use them to help design a brand-new invention from scratch with capabilities far beyond said teaching tool, probably using no more materials than what we can procure from hardware and arcanoware stores on a budget, where the ins, outs, ups, downs, and sidewayses of said invention will all rely on actions that are impossible for me to do?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

The Doctor’s face lit up with glee. “Excellent! Positively sensational! And here I thought it was too good to be true! Shall we get started?”

9 - Poking Holes in a Dam

It was a shame Goumada was a cold, cruel criminal responsible for illegally sending artifacts of black magic and worse across Equestria to the highest bidder, Lyra reflected, because the Canyon Rim Casino was actually a really nice hotel.

She’d decided to check out her room before heading back to the villa, and holy schlamoly was it pretty. Everything in it was new. Everything. The bed, the carpet, the table, the bathroom, the drawers, the counters, everything. Put together, the room had that “new hotel room” smell that Lyra hadn’t known existed. And it wasn’t just new, it was tasteful and functional. The drawers were roomier than they looked, the floorplan was very carefully laid out for ease of use, and the bed was comfy (even if it had nothing on the couch at the villa), all decorated in soft, calming colors. She even had a good view of the town from her window; being near the top of the tallest building in the city definitely had its perks. Lyra wouldn’t have minded staying here for the rest of the heist.

Except for the teeny-tiny fact that she had to go up eighteen stories to get there. Elevator or no, she just couldn’t spend that much time going up and down and up and down and…

So once Lyra had determined that her room was a nice room, she resolved to never visit the place again. She locked the door behind her, scooted around a maid doing her rounds, and was heading for the elevator when she passed by another pony. Lyra just gave her a nod and would’ve been on her way, but the pony, a unicorn mare with slightly unruly hair, stopped her. “Hang on,” said the mare. Her eyes went to Lyra’s saddlebag and the lyre case poking out of it. “You play the lyre?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Lyra. “I, um, just got hired to play at the anniversary.” And she immediately wondered if it was a good idea to be that open. Oh, well, too late now.

The mare’s eyes narrowed slightly and when she spoke, her voice was tight. “…What chair?”

Lyra’s hooves twitched. “Third.”

The mare smiled and sighed with relief. “Oh, thank goodness. I’m second lyre.” She ran a hoof through her mane. “I need some experience and I worked my tail off just to get in and I didn’t want to get bumped down at the last minute.” Her voice had lost all of its tension.

“I’m not good enough to learn that much music that quickly,” said Lyra. “And do you really think they’d do that?”

“Treble Clef wouldn’t, but Goumada… Yeegh, some of the things I’ve heard about her…”

Lyra stepped to one side as the maid dragged a bag of dirty sheets down. “Well, don’t worry. Your spot’s not what I’m here to take.” Double entendres were fun.

“Uh-huh.” Second Lyre nodded. “Sorry for being aggressive toward you. Good luck!” She bowed a little to Lyra and half-trotted to her own room.

Lyra waved after her, then looked down the hall and sighed. Who would’ve guessed an elevator ride could be dreaded? But it was just so long. Lyra moved around the maid, who was stuffing the sheets down the laundry chute. She jabbed the Down arrow at the elevator and began waiting.

It looked like a paper bomb had exploded in the living room that Sunburst and the Doctor had turned into an impromptu study space. After pillaging the house for almost every scrap of paper they could get their hooves on (Sunburst had actually started collecting toilet paper rolls before he realized what he was doing), they had sat down and started puzzling out the basics of the arcanoscope from Sunburst’s memory. Fortunately, once his memory had been jogged, it took off running and, between the two of them, they had the design for a basic arcanoscope laid out.

Then came the tricky part.

“So,” asked the Doctor, “how do you want this data to be displayed?” He was sketching out a safe for some strange reason.

“I’m not sure,” said Sunburst. He rubbed his beard as he stared at the last few lines of equations. “We could just have the arcanoscope, have it send the light from its lens to another, identical lens, but that’d just, it’d really limit the field of view. Graphs? But those’re hard to read…”

“Data tables, perhaps? A column for each type of mana, and-”

“Oh, Celestia, no!” yelped Sunburst. “That’d be, do you have any idea how obtuse that’d be? It’d barely be any better than just dragging a unicorn in!”

“I could read them perfectly well, thank you.”

“And you, you’d probably be the only pony who could. We need something simple, like showing the magic on a map of some kind.”

In a moment of pure synchronicity, Sunburst and the Doctor got the exact same idea at the exact same time. Their ears went up and they stared at each other. “Or a blueprint?” the Doctor asked as he slowly began grinning.

“Or a blueprint,” Sunburst confirmed. He grabbed a spare sheet of paper and began scribbling things down. “If we bind the arcanoscope to some kind of illusion transmitter, it shouldn’t be that hard,” he muttered. “I should be able to, to cast some spells to test the theory myself. Just have it mimic something somewhere else. We’re not going photo-real or anything, here. Keeping the two bound at a distance would be trickier, but-”

“Hey,” Gilda said, knocking on the doorframe. “I don’t suppose you’ve got anything I could help with? Shooting arrows gets lame after a while. Plus, the stupid string broke.”

“Sorry, no,” said Sunburst. He barely looked up, he was so entrenched in his math. “We’re, um, we’re still working on the design.”

“Although if you're good with maths,” piped up the Doctor, “you might — might — be able to help with the design.”

“Eh.” Gilda shrugged. “I’m alright. Lemme see.” She grabbed one of the pieces of paper and glanced at it. Then she did a double-take and stared at the equations on it like she was opening up the centerfold in Elder Thing Fancy. “I… think that’s a number…” She pointed at something.

Sunburst took a closer look. “Oh, no, that’s, uh, that’s a marker for a unit of transmorphogenic mana sensitivity.”

Gilda blinked. She wordlessly dropped the paper, letting it flutter to the table, and walked out.

“Wait, hold on!” yelled the Doctor. He ran out after Gilda. Sunburst turned his ears toward the door as he kept up his calculations.

“Yeah?” asked Gilda. She sounded a little perturbed; Sunburst could picture her claws digging grooves in the floor.

“We’ve got an idea we’d like to test on you.”

“…Like, I get what you’re trying to say, but I don’t think there’s any way you could’ve phrased that worse.”

“Eh. Probably not. But you don’t need to be incredibly intelligent or good with magic to-”

“I mean, wow, your phrasing’s crap. But what the heck. Sure.” Gilda walked back into the room and took a seat opposite Sunburst, leaning back to prop her rear legs on the table. “You’re not gonna curse me, are you?”

“Uh, no, no,” Sunburst said as he scribbled away. “We are not casting any magic on you at all.” He glanced up at the Doctor. “Right? I don’t know what you wanted her for.”

“She’s just another test subject,” the Doctor said.

Gilda rolled her eyes. “Seriously, dweeb,” she snorted, “I’m gonna have to keep a list of all the times you need ‘Phrasing!’ screamed at you.”

“For the arcanoscope! The distance arcanoscope thingamawhoosie. We need a name for it. You’ll just be one of the things we test it on to see if the scanner’s working right.”

“Feh. Make sure it doesn’t give me a third eye and I’ll be good.” Gilda’s eyes flicked to Sunburst’s horn for a second and she pushed her chair a little further away.

Sunburst kept writing. Gems. They needed gems. Simple, flawed ones would do for now. Since they were only testing the theory, the spell didn’t need to last or be especially accurate. Weren’t griffons supposed to be greedy? And this villa had belonged to a griffon. Maybe, if they were lucky-

In the entrance hall, the door slammed open. “Guess who won over a thousand bits today, female dogs!” Thorax crowed as he sauntered into the room.

After a few confused seconds, Sunburst facehooved. “Thorax, I, you know I like you, but don’t, please don’t try to be edgy. You’re softer than a cotton ball.”

“Sorry,” Thorax whispered, cringing downward.

“Wait, hang on,” said Gilda. She pulled her legs from the table. Her eyes glittered with only-barely-tempered avarice and her wings were restless. “A thousand? Really?”

And Thorax was standing up straight again. “Poker is a lot easier than I thought,” he said. He grinned and dropped his disguise. “Really, over a thousand.” He waggled a bag of bits at them and dropped it on the table. “Count ’em.”

Gilda and the Doctor muttered to themselves as they shuffled the bits into easily-countable piles. “One thousand… four hundred… ish,” the Doctor said. He blinked and began recounting. “You… started with a hundred, right?” he whispered. Gilda was containing herself but seemed a few bearer bonds away from dissolving into greed-powered cackles as she held a pair of coins to where her ears probably were and rubbed them together.

“Pretty much! I played a few players on a low-stakes table, cleared them out, tried going higher, and…” Thorax giggled. “Even the best players can’t control their emotions.”

“You, you should probably go for a different shape the next time, next time you play, though,” said Sunburst. “If, if you hang around the casino like that and, and keep winning too easily, ponies might accuse you of cheating, and after that…” He shrugged and made “eh” sounds. “Just in case, you, you know?”

Thorax twitched one of his ear fins, then nodded. “Yeah. Low profile. They talked about that in the Hive a lot. So what’re you doing?” He leaned over to stare at Sunburst’s equations and pretended to know what he was looking at.

“We’re developing something to analyze magic,” said the Doctor. “It’ll help scan the casino’s defences. Maybe. Possibly. I think.”

“Uh-huh. I see,” said Thorax, convincing nobody. “I… don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to help?”

“Yes, actually.” Sunburst put his pen down and stood up. “We, we’ll need a gem or two for, for testing this. Any kind will do. And I don’t want to dip into, into all those bits if we don’t have to. Maybe, if there’s one or two in here, we, we won’t need to go shopping. Let’s split up and search the place.”

“Do you honestly think there are going to be any gems in here?” asked the Doctor, spreading his legs wide. “Any at all?”

“I don’t know,” Sunburst said, shrugging. “But, but we can check. Doc, you and I, let’s look downstairs. Thorax, you and Gilda, can you look upstairs?”

Thorax glanced at Gilda, who was still listening to the sound of two coins getting rubbed together. “Um. Maybe?”

“Don’t worry,” Gilda said. Her voice was light, airy, dreamy. “I’ll be done soon.”

Bon Bon had known several kinds of temperaments as Sweetie Drops and couldn’t help filing them into little, simplistic boxes. People being the complex individuals they were, it was distressingly common for Bon Bon to plop somepony in one box, learn more about them, drop them into another box (without reworking her own system, naturally), rinse and repeat. The latest “victim” of such categorization issues was Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash’s problem (or at least, her main problem) wasn’t that she was stupid or inattentive. Rainbow Dash’s problem was that she didn’t have anything resembling an off switch or even a low setting. She just couldn’t sit still for very long. Tell her she’d win a million bits if she did nothing but sit on that chair for five minutes, and she’d be gone before fifteen seconds were up, and that was on a good day. Bon Bon had worked with several ponies like that, and the solution was simple: every now and then, send them out to do recon. Walking (or flying) the same route five dozen times in a row would still be preferable to laying low for them. And Rainbow’s flight memory was shockingly good.

Bon Bon looked up as Rainbow lazily flew around the casino again. This was Rainbow’s… something like her fifth patrol in the past few hours and she wasn’t getting antsy. She’d identified a number of potential entrances and exits, narrowed down guard patrols, and even pointed out several nearby buildings they could zipline over to a hotel room from. (Bon Bon wanted to say that was an overly-romantic view of heists, but they genuinely were good zipline points. Once you broke the windows to zipline into, anyway.) Bon Bon herself was taking a ground-level approach, confirming Rainbow’s observations while making her own. At the moment, she was hanging out on one of the casino’s patios.

Off to one side of the tower, stopping not that far from the edge of the gorge, was a large patio-amphitheatre-showfloor-boardwalk-thing. A broad, flat area, useful for whatever milling about Goumada needed. A stage was being set up for (Bon Bon guessed) an orchestra. The place was filled with ponies and more than a few griffons, chatting or eating lunch or chatting while eating lunch. The crowds were dense enough to make running difficult, but still sparse enough that walking was a breeze. The roar from the river in the canyon was inaudible thanks to some spell or another. A long row of doors led into the casino, surprisingly lightly guarded.

The breeze carried a plume of mist up from the river and across the deck. Some of the snootier guests tutted and brushed at their clothes, but Bon Bon didn’t care. The light sprinkling of water across her face felt good, if a bit cold. Overcome by curiosity, she sidled over to the canyon. It was blocked off by a tall fence and a sign warning guests about the obvious, but it was still an impressive sight. It was thinner than it looked, less than a hundred and fifty feet across, but it was deep. The only way Bon Bon could see down to the bottom was if she went straight up to the edge and looked down, which, yeah, no. Tallish buildings lined the other side. Bon Bon wondered if being that close to a potential collapsing hazard drove the land costs down at all. Maybe there were spells in the land that prevented erosion.

Rainbow Dash swooped down behind her and landed on the patio. “Saw that last pair of guards,” she said. “Changed off right at 2:00, just like you said. A little earlier, actually, like…” She glanced at her watch. “1:58-ish? But maybe this watch is slow.”

“Good,” said Bon Bon. “Did they take any time, or-”

“Nah, they were real quick about it. New gals tapped in, old gals tapped out, boom, done.”

“Hmm.” Bon Bon flicked her tail as she gazed at the other side of the gorge. It was what she’d expected.

“Is that a problem?” Rainbow asked, hanging her hooves over the patio’s railing. Her wings were twitching; miraculously, she was thinking.

“I don’t know. Once we’re done, it might be hard getting ou-”

“Rainbow Dash?”

Bon Bon gasped sharply when she heard the voice. Oh, Celestia, no. She whirled around as if she’d been stabbed, hoping- No luck. Goumada was only a few yards from them, staring at Rainbow Dash with her mouth open.

Bon Bon’s training as Sweetie Drops kicked in almost immediately. “I’m not here, trust me,” she hissed to Rainbow, borderline reflexively. “Lie to her.” Before she got a response or even clarified who she was talking about, Bon Bon had slipped into the crowd, keeping a few ponies between her and Goumada.

As one of the Elements of Harmony and the fastest pony ever, Rainbow Dash was recognizable. Most ponies knew the Elements lived in Ponyville. Goumada was smart enough to guess that Rainbow Dash being up here less than a week after nabbing the Alicorn Amulet wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe she wouldn’t immediately jump straight to “heist”, but she would know that Something was Up. All Bon Bon could do was pray that she’d escaped notice as Rainbow’s friend and wouldn’t be recognized.

“I’ll be! Rainbow Dash! It is you!” said Goumada. She quickly pushed her way through the crowd, grabbed Rainbow’s hoof without it being offered, and shook it. “I’m sorry,” she said in a reverential tone that was a little too slick to be genuine, “but it is an honor to see you here.” She smiled and showed a touch too much teeth. “I am Goumada, the owner of this casino.”

Bon Bon wound her way through the crowd until she was standing behind Goumada, still with a few ponies between the two of them. It was risky, but she wanted to listen in on her conversation with Rainbow. Just in case. She crouched a little and moved to ensure her cutie mark would be blocked if Goumada happened to turn around.

“Huh?” Rainbow managed to get herself together enough to pull her hoof from Goumada’s grasp. She glanced around for a second. “Oh, uh-” She stopped and grinned. “Uh, yeah, that’s me! The one and only.”

“What are you doing here? Don’t you live in Ponyville?”

Bon Bon took a deep breath-

“Yeah, I’m just- visiting a friend who lives up here. A- cousin, actually. She helps manage the weather. Taught me everything I know about the weather. Betcha didn’t know I was a weatherpony before becoming a Wonderbolt!”

-and Bon Bon released her breath. Not the smoothest of cover-ups, but at least Rainbow didn’t put on a song and dance routine about the pleasures of robbery. Apparently, Rainbow could think almost as fast as she flew. (It was a shame she didn’t think all that much.)

“Then I- saw the posters for this place’s anniversary and thought I’d check it out. Pretty cool, and trust me: I know cool.”

Goumada’s laugh didn’t quite suit her. “While I am not usually fond of such language, you are indeed cool.” (The word sounded so unnatural coming from her mouth that Bon Bon’s skin crawled.) “The sonic rainboom? A true work of art. Awe-inspiring.”

“I know, right? Nopony else can come close. Not even Princess Celestia!”

“While we are on the subject, if you are already here, I was wondering: would you be willing to perform a rainboom at the anniversary celebration in two weeks? I can think of no better way to cap it off.”

Bon Bon forced herself to remain calm. Goumada knew. She had to. The offer was too quick. It was a great way to reduce their forces: if Rainbow was working alone, well, it was hard to perform a heist when you were rainbooming. If she had friends, those friends were still down a pony they might’ve been counting on. Easy. Slick. Dastardly. (A small part of Bon Bon’s mind relished being able to use “dastardly” again.)

And Rainbow, being Rainbow, didn’t catch it. Sunblasted show-offyness. “Of course I can!” she said. “Who wouldn’t want to see a bit of this awesomeness?” She hovered a few feet above the patio and posed.

Now, Goumada’s smile was just shy of predatory. “Splendid. Splendid.”

Bon Bon waved her hooves and shook her head, trying to get Rainbow’s attention. Maybe, if she backed out now, she could make up a story about-

“Would you mind if I announced your participation?” Goumada asked. She was already walking for the stage. “Right now?”

No no no no-

“Heh. Go right ahead.”

Rickin’-rackin’ frickin’-frackin’-

Atop the stage, Goumada cleared her throat. “Could I have everypony’s attention?” she yelled. “I have an announcement to make!” You couldn’t fault her voice; the entire crowd had simmered down in seconds. Another throat-clearing, and Goumada continued, “I am pleased to announce the Element of Loyalty herself and fastest pony alive, Rainbow Dash, has agreed to perform at the anniversary celebration!” She waved Rainbow up, but Bon Bon watched her eyes. Goumada’s gaze flicked over the crowd, looking for anyone suspicious. Bon Bon crouched down a little more to avoid detection.

Rainbow didn’t notice anything amiss. She landed next to Goumada, giving a smile and a wave. The crowd soon exploded into cheers and a stampede of applause. Rainbow lapped it up like a dog did water. Of course their heist simply had to include a jackdaw in peacock’s feathers.

Goumada kept talking; although she smiled, it seemed to Bon Bon to be rather self-congratulatory. “When the day comes, she will perform her signature sonic rainboom for all of us! Please give her a big round of applause in thanks!” She walked offstage, bowing and directing the crowd’s attention even more towards Rainbow Dash. But Bon Bon kept watching her and didn’t miss her speaking into some sort of wristband.

As she wiggled through the crowd, trying to leave the patio, Bon Bon turned her attention to the guards at the nearest door. For a long moment, nothing. Then one of them perked up and she put a hoof to her ear. Goumada had seen her, Bon Bon suspected, and had just given an order to have the guards find her. Sure enough, the guard exchanged a few words with her partner and they inconspicuously sidled into the crowd.

But Bon Bon knew who to watch and some tricks to avoid detection. Keep your head down, don’t stop moving, don’t spend too much time watching them. The guards were easy enough to keep track of, and Bon Bon wormed her way through the throng and to the street. Eyes forward, gait confident and not at all paranoid, don’t stop walking. Bon Bon glanced up and down the street, but the only alerted guards seemed to be the ones on the patio, thank goodness.

Up the street, cross the street, down the street. Starlight and Derpy were still looking at the front doors of the casino, talking about something. “…much better balance in the cinnamon and sugar,” Starlight said as she nibbled on a muffin.

“But the bananas give this one a more interesting taste!” protested Derpy.

“And you’re not wrong. I just think that, overall, the red velvet’s more consistent taste-”

Bon Bon tapped both of them on the shoulder. “Hi,” she said. “We need to go.” She immediately began walking down the street.

After a few seconds’ shock, Starlight and Derpy caught up to her. “What’s going on?” asked Starlight. “And where’s Rainbow Dash? Did something happen?”

“Goumada saw Rainbow Dash and I think she might’ve seen me,” said Bon Bon. She turned into the first alley she saw. Anything to get off the street. “She knows ponies are here from Ponyville. She might have Rainbow Dash followed. And she’s probably looking for you.”

“Oh,” said Starlight. A long pause. “Can I start swearing now?”

“Yes.”

And Starlight did so.

Bon Bon glanced behind herself. Nopony was following them. Good. But she couldn’t find Rainbow Dash and warn her about being followed without risking exposing herself to whatever guards were watching her. Bad. Hnng.

The ground became very interesting in these sorts of situations. Bon Bon stared at it as she paced back and forth. “I’d bet money Rainbow’s tail’ll be a pegasus,” she muttered. “For mobility. Goumada probably saw me, so she’ll probably give the guards my description. She’ll definitely give the guards Starlight’s description. So we need to talk to Rainbow without the guards seeing either of us and also somehow lose a pegasus tracking her, maybe from above.”

Derpy spoke up. “I wave Rainbow Dash around the corner and Starlight teleports us back to the villa before the chaser catches up.”

Bon Bon looked up and stared at Derpy. Then she looked at Derpy. From a distance, she wasn’t all that distinctive, actually; blonde, a very ordinary manestyle, plain gray coat. Her eyes were her most notable feature, and it was easy to miss them if you weren’t close. Even if the guards saw her, she could be mistaken for another plain-colored pegasus. And teleportation was a pretty standard part of the repertoire of a super-unicorn like Starlight (or Twilight, when she’d been a unicorn). After her casual proposals of just about every step so far- “Since when did you become Miss Instant-Plan?”

“Delivering Discord’s mail means you learn to think on your hooves very quickly.” Derpy smiled and shrugged, chewing her muffin with the sort of contentment and self-satisfaction that normally only comes once in a lifetime.

“I, uh, can teleport us all to the villa, if you need me to,” offered Starlight. “So, I guess, once Rainbow gets here-”

“Then I’ll go see if I can get her,” said Derpy. “Be back… I dunno.” She trotted back to the street. Bon Bon lifted a hoof, ready to run and stop her, but quickly lowered it. What would she object to? Derpy might’ve been clumsy, but she was proving herself to be smart and quick-witted. She could figure this out on her own. After all, she’d come up with the plan on her own in a few seconds.

Starlight watched Derpy go around the corner. “Any ideas if the guard spots us? Even if we capture her, what then?”

“I don’t know. Unless you know memory-wiping spells.”

“…Well, uh… funny story about that…”

Bon Bon facehooved. “…Seriously, Starlight, what in Celestia’s name is wrong with you?”

“A lot of things,” admitted Starlight. “Although this one wasn’t completely my fault. I was working on them with Twilight a few months ago and we were our own guinea pigs. She said something about wiping a villain’s motivation to be bad would keep them from doing any villainy, but eventually decided that motives were more complicated than that and that brainwashing, even for the greater good, was a bad idea.”

“Well, did they work?”

“I don’t remember.” Pause. “So I guess they must’ve.”

It was better than nothing, at least. Maybe working with somepony whose magic skillset was only two steps away from megalomania wasn’t totally a bad thing.

10 - How to Braid Loose Ends

Thorax-Changeling never would’ve guessed that coins could be musical, but the two hundred-bit coins he was rubbing together were exactly that. The tiny, clinking tones they made as rubbed them together weren’t that different from a triangle’s ring. They were quite nice, actually, and it was easy to see why Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle had loved them so.

“And if you do them in a circle,” said Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle, “you almost get a melody.”

Thorax-Changeling promptly changed his approach. Now, the sounds were like jazz played on an electric guitar: ringing, unpredictable, and never the same way twice. “Wow,” he said. He reversed the rotation and got a tune that was the same, but different. And it’d probably be different still if he flipped one or both of the coins around. “Why’s it like that?” he asked as he passed the coins back to Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle.

“Not a clue,” she said, “but I bet it’s the design. Check it out.” She held up one of the coins close to Thorax-Changeling’s face. “See all those tiny little ridges and crap? I bet they’re there to stop counterfeiting or something.”

Indeed, for how small it was, the imprint on the coin was beyond intricate. It showed a picture of Celestia-Alicorn-White in profile, with so much detail Thorax-Changeling wasn’t sure he couldn’t see her individual strands of fur. Every curve stood out in a smooth relief and some motto was printed around the picture. Still being a bit new to reading, Thorax-Changeling read the words slowly, but the coin was snatched away by Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle before he could get halfway.

“One-bit coins are a lot more boring. Barely any style at all. And if you rub them together, you get nothing.” Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle flipped the coin with a claw, let it spin for a second, then snatched it out of the air. “So I’m thinking that the different bumps on this make that sweet sound as they bounce off each other. One-bit coins don’t have those, so they don’t sound nearly as cool.” She flipped the coin again. “Or maybe it’s some kinda magic to identify real coins. Y’know, fake ones don’t ring like that.” She stared at the coin as she flipped it across her claws, then held it out to Thorax-Changeling. “Can you sense anything?”

“Um. What?”

Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle stared at him. “Sense anything. Sense magic, you dweeb. C’mon, you can shapeshift!”

“Well, um, yes-” Poof. Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle raised her hackles and twitched away from Thorax-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle. Poof. “-but that’s, um, all I know.” Thorax-Changeling looked away. “Even when I’m a unicorn, I can’t really do much besides levitation. And every unicorn can do that. Changeling magic doesn’t work like unicorn magic.”

“Oh, for the love of…” Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle massaged her head. “It’s funny. Every single time I think magic is cool, it throws some stupid curveball at me to make everything more complicated. Changeling magic is different from unicorn magic is different from earth pony magic is different from pegasus magic…”

“Is different from griffon magic?” Thorax-Changeling suggested.

“In the sense that griffons don’t even have magic, sure.”

“But I thought you could sit on clouds, and- Never mind. Let’s go to the next room.”

Thorax-Changeling and Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle’s epic quest for treasure in an abandoned area was proving to be less Daring Do and more picking through an empty house before finally moving away: uninteresting and kind of sad. Most of the second story was still quite dusty, since few of the ponies could access it. There weren’t even any sheets to protect the furniture from the dust. It wasn’t that different from the first story, but with less kitchens and more bedrooms.

The pair was in their second bedroom, having already found lots of abandoned stuff, but no gems. They’d split their search areas: Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle was looking through the dressers while Thorax-Changeling rummaged around in bedside tables or the old steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. A bit of pushing got the lid open, and Thorax-Changeling was confronted with a pile of arrows with strange, crystalline blue arrowheads. He picked one out and turned it over. The arrowhead didn’t look like any gem he’d ever seen, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t one. “Hey, Gilda? What do you think about this?”

Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle looked up. “What do I think about sweet Gideon’s scrambled yolk!” she yowled. She shuffled back, her tail twitching restlessly. “Okay, be really really careful with that thing,” she said in a low voice.

“Why?” Thorax-Changeling looked at the arrow again. It didn’t look that dangerous. But then, magic.

“Those’re arctic arrows,” Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle said. “If you break the arrowhead, it’ll freeze you solid. If it breaks inside your body, it’ll freeze your blood solid.”

“Good thing I don’t have blood, then!” joked Thorax-Changeling. “And are these all that fragile?” He lightly swung the arrow towards the trunk.

“No!” Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle lunged for Thorax-Changeling.

Clink.

Nothing happened. The arrowhead bounced off the trunk. Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle froze in her lunge, claws still outstretched. She blinked at Thorax-Changeling.

“Well, I was- thinking,” said Thorax-Changeling, confident and self-conscious at the same time, “if these broke that easily, would they be kept out in the open?”

Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle lowered her claws slowly. “I guess not,” she admitted. “But seriously, you idiot, be careful. Those things are dangerous. I’m not even completely sure they’re legal for civvies to own.” She squinted into the trunk for a second, then opened up a wardrobe.

Thorax-Changeling shuffled the arrows aside, but it looked like they were all that was in the trunk. He dropped the arrow back in and shut it. Were they making any progress at all? He didn’t know a thing about money. He didn’t know a thing about how gems related to money. He didn’t know a thing about keeping either. So he-

“Wait, wait.” Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle slammed the wardrobe shut. “We’re doing this wrong like idiots. Griffons don’t keep their money in the open like this.” She settled onto her rump, closed her eyes, and scratched her forehead. “If I was a cluster of gems,” she muttered, “where would I hide?”

“Um. I’d hide in a jewelry box,” said Thorax-Changeling. “Or a safe. Or a… piggy bank. Or-”

“The mattress!”

“Or that.” Pause. “Wait, what?”

Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle ripped the sheets from the bed. “Griffons hate banks,” she said as she examined the edges of the mattress closely. “And a jewelry box or safe, well, they’re obvious. But if you stick it in a mattress, nobody can take it from you while you’re sleeping, so- Ha.” She pointed at a prominent seam in the mattress and quickly ripped it apart. She plunged her hand into the mattress and her eyes lit up. “Yes…” she hissed as she drew out a bag. Thorax-Changeling ran over and she upended it.

A small array of gems — rubies, sapphires, emeralds — tumbled onto the floor, along with a small pile of bits.

“Yes! Boom!” Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle pumped a fist in the air and gathered up the mess of shiny things. “I thought they might’ve forgotten about it. I mean, they forgot those arrows. C’mon. Let’s get back to the eggheads.”

Thorax-Changeling looked at the mattress again, stuffing pouring out of the seam Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle had torn open. “Is it just me, or is keeping things in your bed a bad investment?”

“It’s not just you. Trust me, griffons don’t really do investments. That means giving our money to somebody else.”

“…Griffons aren’t very fiscally responsible, are they?”

Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle whistled, an impressive feat with a beak. “You have no idea.”

Much to Rainbow Dash’s disappointment, the adulation the crowds on the casino patio were showering her with was dying a slow, painful death. Time to get back to the old grind. Well, new grind, since she’d never heisted anything before.

Speaking of the new grind, what had Bon Bon been on about? Suddenly she was all “pretend I’m not here” and then she was just gone. Rainbow had gone out on a limb and trusted her — her Element wasn’t Loyalty for nothing — but she had a few questions. Once she managed to find her. How could Bon Bon vanish so quickly?

At least Goumada was happy. She waved off the last few well-wishers and shook Rainbow’s hoof again. “Well, it has been most enlightening speaking with you, Ms. Dash- You don’t mind if I call you Ms. Dash, you do?”

Rainbow’s ears went back, just a little. “It makes me sound like I’m somepony’s stuffy aunt.”

Goumada laughed. “Then you’ll have to live with it, because I’m calling you Ms. Dash anyway! If you’ll stop by my office sometime tomorrow, I can show you the schedule of the anniversary festivities and we can talk about when you’ll perform. Is that acceptable?”

Oh, Celestia. The worst part of any stunt flying: schedules. She couldn’t just be awesome, she had to be awesome at this time at this place for this long. At least flying in formation with the Wonderbolts synergized to create extra awesome via Spitfire’s Theorem of Logarithmic Growth of Awesome. But awesomeness was awesomeness, so Rainbow said, “Sure, sure.”

“Splendid! I’ll have ponies waiting for you. Trust me, you will be well-compensated. Now, I’m afraid I must be off.” Goumada tipped an invisible hat at Rainbow and quickly vanished into the crowd.

Rainbow blinked, then puffed her chest out, grinning. She’d never actually been paid to do the sonic rainboom before. Even at Cadance’s wedding, it’d been a favor to Twilight. And Rainbow didn’t care one whit about getting or not getting paid. She liked doing it, and that was all that mattered.

Except that now she was getting paid, and… Wow. That was awesome. Even if the payer was a totally evil villainess scheming to sell the Alicorn Amulet to the highest bidder, it was pretty cool. It was even during the anniversary celebration, when everypony would be watching and everypony could see how incredible it-

During the anniversary celebration.

When the team planned on doing the actual heist-y part of the heist.

Rainbow wilted a little. Well, paddle her teeth and call her gobsmacked. That wasn’t good.

Still, they had plenty of other ponies and not-ponies to choose from. It wasn’t like one or two ponies missing would destroy the plan. In fact, it couldn’t, because they didn’t even have a plan yet. And everypony else said winging it was a bad idea. But they needed to know, so after another skim of the crowd failed to yield Bon Bon, Rainbow decided it was best to head back to the villa and wait for her to appear.

Even with her oops regarding timing, Rainbow couldn’t stay down for long. Soon, her casual mosey had turned into a confident, self-assured swagger. She was the only one who could perform at the anniversary in the way she was going to. How could she not be proud? She was literally one of a kind.

But as she strutted down the street, her struts weakened and her gait risked caving in. A chill was crawling its way up and down her spine, and it didn’t even have the decency to do it quickly. Ever hair on her body was standing on end and her feathers were quivering. She knew this feeling. This dreadful, unshakeable feeling. She’d felt it plenty of times before.

She was being followed. Followed by somepony implacable, unstoppable. Somepony with a single-minded determination. Somepony who couldn’t be shaken off, for they would just home in on her again. She was being followed by a curious sort of juggernaut, stealthy yet steam-rollery. There was only one reason for her to be followed. Somepony wanted her autograph.

Rainbow Dash kept walking and held her head high, but her autograph-hunter-hunter senses silently engaged. They’d been honed from lots of Wonderbolt stunt flights and subsequent winding-downs to the point that they were closer to reflexes and instincts rather than skills. Autograph hounds were easily among the most dangerous things she’d ever encountered. They didn’t have the decency of most fans, content to watch in crowds or from a distance or in crowds from a distance. No, they felt entitled to a little one-on-one action in dark places. They could be lurking anywhere, waiting, just waiting for the right moment to strike, to jump out while stabbing something small and pointy at her face (to hold in her mouth and use to write, but still). And she even risked going to jail if she socked them in the face! Honestly, Discord may have gotten into her mind and mucked with her very sense of being, but at least she could punch or laserblast him.

She breathed in the air, took in the sounds and the rhythms of the streets. Behind her? No, no, that was too obvious. Name chasers weren’t content to follow that simply. They tried to predict their quarry’s movements. Or maybe, if they were a pegasus- Rainbow Dash looked up. Sure enough, a pony was hovering above her, watching her. The pony’s flight hitched when she saw Rainbow Dash seeing her and she tried to zip away across the rooftops, but she had less chance of that than a grain of sugar escaping Pinkie Pie’s notice. Rainbow was on her in a second, quickly swooping in front of her to force her down to a rooftop.

The guard’s wings twitched as Rainbow glared at her. “I know why you’re following me,” Rainbow said in her best intimidating voice. It was quite good, if she said so herself.

“You…” The guard visibly gulped and shuffled from hoof to hoof. “You do?”

“Yeah. Seriously, dude, if you want my autograph, you can just ask.”

The guard twitched again. “Well, I… Um…”

“I mean, I bet your boss doesn’t want you following me around all day, right?”

“I… Uh…”

“And I don’t want to be followed. So get me some paper, I’ll get you my autograph, and we can both go home happy, alright?”

“…Sure.” The guard smiled, but Rainbow didn’t need to imagine hard to hear the creaks. “Yeah. Absolutely.”

Luckily, the guard had a pen and notepad on her. Rainbow scribbled out her name. “There you go,” she said. “Now stay away from me, and remember: I’m watching.”

The guard gulped as if she’d been struck. “Right. Sure. Sorry.” What was her deal? She’d gotten the autograph she’d wanted, hadn’t she? But she looked at her autograph and looked at Rainbow and didn’t move.

“Scram!”

Finally, the guard was gone, flying back to the casino. Rainbow rolled her eyes and jumped down to the street. To her surprise, she landed right next to Derpy.

“Hi!” said Derpy brightly. “You’re being followed.”

“Yeah, by some pony who wanted an autograph,” snorted Rainbow. “Don’t worry, I sent her packing.”

Derpy blinked. “Okay, then! That’s good. Come on.”

Rainbow kept glancing around as she followed Derpy down the street, but her autograph senses weren’t tingling. Derpy led her up an alley and around a corner, where Starlight and Bon Bon were waiting as if they were some kind of criminals in hiding (which, okay, they were, but not like that). “Um, hey, guys,” said Rainbow. “What’s going-”

Zap.

“-on?” Rainbow blinked. They were back at the villa. And by the time she’d registered that, her eyeballs felt like they’d almost been squeezed out of their sockets. She quickly brought her hooves to her eyes and employed her entire litany of curses, one that’d been considerably expanded after spending time with Spitfire. “Stars above! Sweet Celestia, tabula rasa, stot of a-”

After about a minute, Rainbow’s eyes felt normal enough again for her to open them, she did so. Starlight was lying on the ground, moaning and clutching her horn. Bon Bon was rubbing her head and one of her rear legs kept twitching. And Derpy was sitting by, watching everyone else with concern. Somehow, it didn’t surprise Rainbow that Derpy took being slammed through space in stride. She’d slammed through everything else in Ponyville.

“Sorry,” Starlight eventually mumbled. “My fault.” She groaned and rotated one of her legs like she was afraid it was going to pop out.

“But why’d you do that anyway?” demanded Rainbow. She tried blinking and groaned. “Gaow, my eyes…”

“You might’ve been followed,” said Bon Bon. “And-”

“Yeah, Derpy told me,” replied Rainbow. (Derpy’s smile indicated she was much too proud of herself.) “There was an autograph hunter who-”

“An… An autograph hunter?”

“Well, yeah. Why else would somepony be following me?”

“Because Goumada knows you’re from Ponyville and suspects what you’re up to and was trying to have you followed so she could track you down to your accomplices?”

Rainbow’s mouth narrowed into a tiny little “o”. One of her ears twitched. “Well, uh… When you put it like that…” And then her pride came right back again. “She was a really sucky tail, then. I spotted her less than a minute after we left the casino.”

Bon Bon frowned and licked her lips. “I think we just got lucky. They’re trained to keep buildings secure, not follow ponies and stay out of sight. Look, whenever you leave the casino, try to make sure you’re not being followed, okay? The last thing we need is a bunch of rent-a-cops knocking on our front door.”

“Pfft. Easy-peasy!” Rainbow waved a hoof dismissively. “If all else fails, I’ll just fly away faster than they can follow.” One of the many, many perks of being one of the awesomest ponies in Equestria. “And speaking of which, no, I didn’t tell Gouda Feta-”

“Goumada.”

“-anything about us. I bet she thinks I’m here for the Alicorn Amulet, but she doesn’t know about anypony else. Oh, and, uh, I kinda accidentally got hired to do the sonic rainboom at the anniversary party.” Rainbow grinned. “Heh. Sorry.”

But Bon Bon only responded to wave her off. “It’s not that bad. We don’t even have a plan yet. Thank Celestia we’re winging it, or else we’d be in deep trouble right now.”

And thusly was Rainbow Dash vindicated.

Her head still ringing from her on-the-spot teleportation, Starlight loped into the house. The floor felt like it was tilting beneath her, but it refused to be consistent about which direction it was tilting in. She massaged her head in a vain attempt to mute the ache.

It cleared up her hearing a little, though. She heard voices coming from the living room. “-eel anything?” Probably Sunburst.

“…Nope. Nothing.” Gilda.

“Alright, uh, that’s, that’s good. Now, if we…” Definitely Sunburst.

Even without the caw of surprise, it would’ve been Gilda. “…Okay, whoa. That… That’s cool.”

“Can you, um, wiggle your claws or something?”

Starlight didn’t really “walk” to the living room so much as fall towards it when the floor was tilted in the right direction. Sunburst, the Doctor, Thorax, and Gilda were all sitting around a table, ooooing at something that Starlight couldn’t see. She shuffled around to get a better look.

An emerald, heavily flawed but still suitable for some forms of magic, was sitting on the table. Gilda was holding her paw over it and off to the side. On the other side of the table, as if it’d been rotated around the gem, was a very hazy image of Gilda’s paw, all red and foggy. Gilda twiddled her talons. The image did the same. She pulled her paw away from the gem and the image vanished. “Sweet,” she whispered.

“Now, if our calculations are correct,” said the Doctor, “mine should be white, Sunburst’s purple, and Thorax’s green. So…” He thrust his hoof over the gem. An image of same poofed into existence, completely white, just as vague as Gilda’s. “Ha! Excellent.” He noticed Starlight and waved. “Ah, Starlight! Was your day productive?”

“Technically,” said Starlight. “What’s this?”

“Magic sensor,” said Gilda. “And apparently I’m magic.” She moved her claws in range of the gem again and twiddled her fingers, apparently for the heck of it.

“Well, it’s not like you could sit on clouds otherwise…”

“That’s what I said!” said Thorax, buzzing his wings.

“Let me know when I can chuck lightning and I’ll believe you.” Gilda made a V shape with her claws in the image, then pushed away from the table. “Hungry. Be back in a sec.”

“We’re, uh, we’re trying to see if we can scan magic remotely,” said Sunburst. “You know, see the spells used in, used in the casino’s defenses. It’s, it’s worth a shot, at least.” He remained invested in his paperwork.

“Ah.” If anypony could do something like that, it would be Sunburst.

“Oh!” said Thorax. “And I had an idea earlier today. Starlight, could you put a spell on bits to track them?”

Starlight stopped like she’d run into a clear plastic film stretched over a doorway. “I- Sure, but… But why?”

“It’s simple,” said Thorax. “I, I think. You put a spell on the bits I won today and I go and buy chips for poker. Eventually, the bits get moved into the vault. We track the bits and we find the vault.”

“Actually, um,” said the Doctor, pointing between him and Sunburst, “we already found the vault, me and him. Well, me and him and Gilda. Well, mostly Gilda. Well, all Gilda.” Pause. “Our group found the vault, is what I’m saying! Well, might’ve found the vault.”

Starlight and Thorax stared at the Doctor. “Got anything more to add?” Starlight asked.

“Ah… no.”

Starlight huffed and turned back to Thorax. “Actually, that’s a pretty good idea. Tracking spells aren’t that hard, or at least Twilight ensured they weren’t. That mare does not want to lose her books. And if the casino has something set up to remove enchantments from things going into the vault, well, then we know that it has something to you know the drill. Let’s get it after dinner.”

It was really kind of impressive how Thorax’s pleased-with-himself smile could be so dorky when he still had fangs. He even wiggled his ear-fins. “Good,” he said, nodding serenely. “Good.” Under his breath, he whispered, “I’m helping.”

“Speak, speaking of good,” said Sunburst, “Starlight, do you think you could double-check my math on this?” He pushed a sheet of paper towards her. “It, it’ll send the signals from the sensor to another gem so we can look at it here. I already had the, the Doctor look at it-”

“Double-checked it, actually,” said the Doctor. “Looked fine to me.”

“But, still, it’s, I don’t want anything to go wrong. Because, with this, if it does…” Sunburst cringed.

“Sure.” Starlight shrugged and began examining Sunburst’s work. It was confusing from the very first equation, but after living in Ponyville for several moons, she was used to confusing. Sunburst’s notes helped. “Don’t want you dosing Gilda with polymorphic levels of thaumic radiation.”

Something crashed in the kitchen. “Wait, what?” squawked Gilda.

Starlight wondered if it was just her, but sitting in one place and staring at a building for most of the day turned out to be surprisingly tiring. Lyra returned ten minutes later with good news about her own assignment, so with everyone shuffled back into the villa, there wasn’t much to do for the rest of the day. After taking a minute to charm Thorax’s impressively large pile of bits and connect them with a locator gem, Starlight started whiling her time away by talking about arcanoscope designs with Sunburst and the Doctor, maybe testing some of the more basic ones and remote viewing. But Starlight had found it hard to focus on that topic, and after dinner, she’d turned in almost immediately and fallen asleep soon after.

She didn’t get any nightmares. (And thank goodness for that; what would Princess Luna say if she found out about this?) But she suddenly woke up in dark — past midnight, according to one of the clocks — feeling incredibly thirsty. She licked her lips and rolled out of bed, careful not to wake anyone.

Thankfully, the villa wasn’t the creaky kind, and Starlight made it to the kitchen without a sound. But once she’d retrieved a cup, one of her ears twitched. She wasn’t making any sound, but she could still hear something scratching nearby. Did the house have mice?

Starlight hunted the sound down a hall to one of the rooms no one had been interested in. Sunburst was sitting at a table, hunched over a sheet of paper with more surrounding him, scratching away with a pencil in flickering lamplight. He glanced over his shoulder and gave a little wave. “Hey, Starlight.” And he went right back to whatever his work was.

“Sunburst?” Starlight asked. “You’re still up?”

“Uh, yeah, yeah,” said Sunburst. He didn’t look away from his paper. “I’m just putting together other spells that might be useful for us. Like this one.” He lifted up a sheet with a particularly dense set of equations. “If, if I can make it right, it’ll, it’ll let us communicate at a distance, even through walls, with the right enchanted objects. We really shouldn’t have to regroup just to get each other up to, up to speed.”

“You can do this tomorrow. It’s-” Starlight paused to yawn. At least it helped her point. “It’s past midnight.”

“I know.” Sunburst waved her away. “But I, I’m on a roll right now, and I don’t want to just, to just leave this alone.”

Starlight rubbed a hoof against her leg. “Are you feeling okay?”

Sunburst looked up and his eyes narrowed. “Starlight, we tal-”

“No, I’m not going to go on a ‘woe is me’ whine-fest again,” Starlight said, rolling her eyes. “It’s just nervousness. And I wanted to be sure that you were all right, too. I mean, you’re up pretty late.”

“No, it’s, I’ll be fine.” Sunburst went back to his paper. “I’m used to this. I like it. If I get tired, I’ll make myself some, some coffee.”

“You’ll have to grind them yourself,” Starlight said. “The beans are in the cabinet to the right of the icebox.”

“Yep. I saw. Get some rest, Starlight, and don’t worry about me. I, I’ll be fine.”

“Right. See you in the morning.” Starlight stifled a yawn and closed the door behind her. Sunburst could take care of himself. Now, about that water…

12 - Tight Spots and Escape Methods

Rainbow Dash’s memory was poor in many respects, but it was excellent when it came to spatial awareness. Half the time you were doing a Wonderbolt stunt, you were going so fast that by the time you looked at where the next ring you were supposed to fly through was, you’d already gone through it. (Or around it. Or you’d just hit it.) It was what made stunt flying stunt flying. So Rainbow just remembered where the hoops were and didn’t bother looking, relying on her head to tell her where they were in relation to her. Her head hadn’t let her down yet.

The back hallways of the casino were no exception. They were monotonous, dreary, and so boring, but Rainbow remembered them like the back of her hoof. How long they were (ish), which rooms were where, what arrangement the probably-camera-hiding holes in the ceiling had, and the fact that the door oh so tantalizingly labelled “Security Hub” was unguarded. Rainbow almost tried to see if it was unlocked, but she didn’t want to press her luck too hard.

When she couldn’t convincingly delay any longer, Rainbow went to a certain central office, knocked three times, and waited. No response. She knocked again, louder. Still nothing. Rainbow scowled; at least in the Wonderbolts, if Spitfire was busy when you knocked on her door, she’d let you know she’d heard you.

Rainbow tried again, wham wham wham, and that got a response from inside. A profane one. “I am busy! Come back later!” Goumada didn’t need to make cutting remarks; her tone of voice was cutting enough all on its own.

“Later when?” asked Rainbow Dash. “I don’t wanna have to hang around the casino all day. And didn’t you know I was coming? I was just waving at you through the cameras.”

A pause, another curse, and the door was wrenched open from the inside. Goumada was smiling stiffly, sitting behind an overly elaborate desk in an office that was a little too big and a little too glamorous for its own good. “Ms. Dash,” she said calmly. She waved at a chair in front of the desk. “Please. Take a seat.”

Rainbow took said seat as she glanced around the office. Darkwood panels on the walls. Thick silver (not gray) carpeting. Paintings that were vaguely interesting but undoubtedly from some famous artist Rainbow had never heard of. Bookcases of books with long titles. And a few… things that were probably supposed to be sculptures of modern art. Every square inch of every surface felt like it’d been carefully chosen to scream “expensive!”. Rainbow understood going all-out with decorating when you had an unlimited budget, sure, but Goumada’s own tastes had nothing to do with the decoration. This was all about intimidation, nothing more or less. And what kind of wuss relied on decorations for intimidation? Yeah. She deserved to be stolen from.

Goumada cleared her throat. “Ms. Dash-” (By now, Rainbow wondered if Goumada was deliberately calling her that to try and tick her off.) “-I must apologize for not letting the guard know of your arrival.” (Not for her own bad attitude, Rainbow noted.) “I trust you had no difficulty in finding my office?”

Would Goumada fall for some misinformation? Worth a shot. In a place like this, Rainbow needed to know where everything was, so what Goumada would want to hear was- “Not really. I don’t have much of a sense of direction inside, sorry. I think I got lost twice.” Thank goodness Honesty wasn’t Rainbow’s Element.

Goumada’s smile turned a tiny bit nasty for a fraction of a second, there and gone so fast Rainbow probably wouldn’t have caught it if she wasn’t looking for it. Yep. Hook, line, and sinker. Then Goumada coughed and said, “Hem. Yes. Now, Ms. Dash, do you have any… requests or requirements for your feat?”

“Nope!” Rainbow said. “Just that I look as awesome as possible. I guess I need a wide-open space to do it in, but you knew that already, right?”

Goumada pulled her head back slightly and blinked. Rainbow wasn’t the greatest at body language, but she knew shock when she saw it. “You… desire nothing?” Goumada said.

“Awesomeness is its own reward. Didn’t you know that?”

“Well, I- Suppose…” Goumada’s ears twitched. “I assumed you… might need…” She blinked again. “Ah, never mind. And you have no requirements as to when it is performed?”

“No. Why?”

“As you probably have noticed, on the day of the celebration, I shall be hosting a miniature concert. I was wondering if you could create the rainboom at the peak of the final song.”

Ooo. Villain or not, that was a pretty sweet idea. One awesome would enhance the other. (Assuming it was a good song, of course.) Rainbow nodded. “Yeah. Sure. What’s the song?”

“Fortissima’s Symphony No. 11 in G Major.”

You could almost hear the whooshing as the name went into one of Rainbow’s ears and right out the other, carrying some terms vaguely categorized as “music-related-ish” with it. She blinked and nodded again. “Uh-huh. Cool.”

“Now, of course, you’ll need to attend the band’s rehearsals and perform the rainboom then, for timing’s sake,” continued Goumada. She placed a sheet of paper on the desk. “This shows our schedule for our rehearsals — the next one is tomorrow, incidentally — so I’ll be sure to exp-”

“No.”

“-ect you at… ten…” Goumada blinked, and when she spoke again, her voice was ice-cold. At least, it was compared to most other ponies’. Compared to Nightmare Moon’s and Sombra’s, it was a little lukewarm. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“No,” repeated Rainbow. Before her brain could catch up with her mouth, she continued, “Nay, negatory, nope, nuh-uh, in your dreams, et cetera, et cetera. Nopony’s gonna see the rainboom until I’m ready for it. That means noooooooo rehearsals in the middle of town.”

Goumada’s mouth went thin. “If you refuse to be a team player,” she said quietly, “perhaps I should find somepony who has no such qualms.”

“You wanna get somepony else to do the rainboom?” Rainbow asked. She leaned forward and put her hooves on the desk. “You be my guest, and lemme know who my replacement is, ’cause it’s been a while since I’ve had a good race. Listen, I know exactly how quickly I can get up to speed. I’ll hang around the rehearsals to hear when the climax is-” She grabbed the schedule and tucked it away. “-but don’t expect me to dilute the rainboom’s coolness by doing it every few days.”

Rainbow was quite glad she was irreplaceable, because Goumada looked like she’d pitch her desk into Rainbow’s face otherwise. Her breathing grew distinctly louder, her hooves were twitching, and her horn sparked for a second before she reined herself in. She opened and closed her mouth several times before finally saying, “I… see.” Rainbow recognized that attitude: You can’t tell me what to do! Of course, Goumada was used to that being true, thanks to the piles of money she could throw around. Good thing awesomeness was something money couldn’t buy.

Goumada opened her mouth again, but Rainbow cut her off. “Seriously, this is a super public thing. You really think I’d take a chance that all those ponies could see me screw up?”

“I… suppose… not, Ms. Dash.” Seriously, Goumada was behaving as if not getting her way was against the fabric of reality. She took a long, deep breath, the first clear breath of a drowning mare, and managed to force out, “Very well. You do not have to perform the rainboom at any rehearsals.” She glared at Rainbow such that Rainbow could almost feel her desire to make bodily threats. Rainbow just smiled as cluelessly as possible. Irritating ponies was far more fun than was fair.

“But at least study the music.” Goumada dropped an orchestral score on the desk between them. “It will help you solidify your timing. The moment the rainboom should appear has been marked.”

“Great.” Rainbow snatched the score from the desk. “Anything else?”

“…No. You may go.” Goumada waved at the door a little more forcefully than was polite.

“Super.” In an instant, Rainbow had hopped off her chair and walking into the hall. Her head was already running through various ways the concert could go off, ranging from-

In a voice of sharpened steel, Goumada said, “Rainbow Dash.”

It probably would’ve been threatening to somepony else, but ever since laserblasting a deranged alicorn with weaponized friendship had become just one adventure among many, it barely even registered to Rainbow. She glanced disinterestedly over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

Goumada’s death glare was one that could make the fiercest ponies shake in fear, as long as those ponies hadn’t faced down reality warpers and walked away smiling. “Do not disappoint me,” intoned Goumada.

“Yeah, yeah, or you’ll dock my pay, I know how this goes. Later!” And Rainbow Dash slammed the door in Goumada’s face.

So she was in. Maybe she could haggle her way into the back halls again in the future. But for now, she needed to think about now. (That was almost zen. Almost.) Rainbow flipped absently through the score. She couldn’t read music all that well, but the trumpets seemed easy to follow, with a simple melody. And there was a nice, clear box around a set of notes marked RAINBOOM. Perfect. She still needed to hang around a rehearsal and make sure those notes were where she thought they’d be, though. Even she wasn’t infallible.

Speaking of a lack of infallibility, it’d be a good idea to test her memory on the layout of this place. Rainbow examined the halls as she left. There should be a conference room on her left in five steps (check), an intersection with a fire extinguisher (check), bathrooms on her right (check), a few cramped cells that were supposed to be offices on her right (check)... Yeah. She had this.

Rainbow smiled to herself as she re-entered the casino proper. Easy. Now she just had to lose any tails.

“The knot’s good?” Bon Bon yelled up.

“As it’ll ever be!” Gilda hollered down from the roof of the villa. A rope was leading between the two of them, one end tied to an outcropping on the roof.

“Alright then! Testing now!” Bon Bon adjusted the belt around her trunk and hit a button on the ascender Sunburst had designed. Tiny little arcanic motors whirred; the rope went tight and Bon Bon was lightly tugged across the lawn so abruptly she nearly lost her balance. Once she reached the wall, Bon Bon planted her hooves on it and walked straight up. The sound of the ascender didn’t change and the pull on the rope didn’t become any less strong.

Once she’d pulled herself over the edge of the roof, Bon Bon turned the reel off and sat down. “Well, it works,” she said to Gilda. “Obviously.”

Gilda snorted. “Obviously.”

Bon Bon spared Gilda by not waxing philosophical on just how darn good the ascender was. Similar ones she’d used in S.M.I.L.E. had been bulky things that, while effective, practically took a backpack to lug around. And Sunburst’s was small enough to fit in a purse. It was a bit slower, sure, but that was a small price to pay. Maybe she could talk him into selling the design to the Court.

“Why’re we making this stupid thing, anyway?” asked Gilda. “Like, half our people can fly.” She flared one of her own wings for emphasis. “Just stick them on anything that needs climbing.”

“Rainbow already got herself pulled into a stunt show and we can’t assume that everybody else will be available. This is the next best thing.”

“I guess.”

Bon Bon examined the ascender, twirling the reel back and forth. Even for a crudely thrown-together prototype, it looked nice. And looking at it gave her something to do as she poked at personal issues. “If you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing here? I heard something about land, but that was it.”

“Effh. Short version? Mining rights or something stupid like that.” Gilda snorted. “Gouda Feta-”

“Goumada.”

“No way I’m giving that loser the dignity of using her real name. Gouda Feta claimed this mountain near Griffonstone was filled with gold. And you know griffons: shiny equals good. So a bunch of griffons talked everybody else into getting their bits together and buying the land.”

“That’s…” Bon Bon tilted her head. “You threw a huge chunk of your money away on a whim? Just like that? For nothing but the possibility of gold?”

Gilda shrugged. “Hey, friendship is nice, but it won’t put food on the table.”

“If you ask your friends for some-”

“-it won’t do any good if none of your friends can afford food, either. ’Sides, the griffon version of ‘friendship’-” Gilda made air quotes with claws. “-hasn’t gotten that far yet. We’re still in the ‘not fight on sight’ phase. Anyway, you can guess what happened next: no gold. No money. Lots of unhappy griffons. But since unhappiness is kinda the baseline in Griffonstone, nobody got up off their butt to do something about it. Nobody except me. I want my money back.”

“And you went straight to theft because…?” Bon Bon’s voice wasn’t accusatory, more curious; what was going through Gilda’s head when she came up with that idea?

Gilda ticked off the reasons on her claws. Versatile things, claws. “ ’Cause, A), someone like that wouldn’t just go, ‘oh, sorry, here’s your money back!’, B), I didn’t know what else to do, and C), she deserves it.”

“Hmm.” Bon Bon looked over Trotter Gorge, at the casino in the distance. It stood out over the town like some Dark Lord’s tower (Dark Lady’s tower?) in a cliched fantasy novel. Even with all they’d accomplished, it was still daunting. “What would you have done if we hadn’t come along?”

“Dunno.” Gilda glared at Bon Bon. “And, yes, I know this is proof of how valuable friendship can be. You ponies don’t need to give me a stupid long-winded speech every time I do something remotely friendly.”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything.”

“Bet you were gonna sing it, then.”

Bon Bon wanted to protest, but she had to keep her mouth closed to hide a chuckle. “Anyway, since it obviously works with a single pony, do you want to test how much it can hold, now? You never know when it might need to carry more than one.”

“Whatever. Sure. Not like we’ve got much else to do.”

“So do you need my help now?” Derpy called out from the yard. “Sorry, but I’m bored! And I don’t want these muffins to go to my rump!”

“You know what, sure!” said Bon Bon. “Get up here.”

Thorax-Earth-Beige tried to smile, but it felt so fake he wondered why he was even bothering. He felt like his skin was crying. What was that? Sweating? Sweating was stupid. Who made that you got wet and stinky when stressed? “R-really?” he asked the mare-earth-orange. “Just because I’ve had s-some good hooves, you think I’m cheating?”

“Not just because of that,” said the mare-earth-orange. “You’ve been making players fold all over. Like you know what hooves they have. You!” She pointed at the player-unicorn-sanguine so sharply it was like she was stabbing somepony. You had a royal flush last turn. Remember?”

“I’m not a part of this,” whispered the player-unicorn-sanguine, sliding her chair back a little. “But- yes.”

“And you’ve got a good poker face. But he-” The mare-earth-orange stabbed at Thorax-Earth-Beige. “-folded the second the flop came up. Almost like he knew what you were thinking. Or what cards you had. Oh, you thought I didn’t notice? I was watching you. Once the third card was down, you looked at her-” She was feeling very hoof-stabby today, apparently. “-and folded. You knew.”

One of the players-pegasus-gray got up, mumbled something about a good game, and vanished. The others followed quickly, but Thorax-Earth-Beige stayed put; he didn’t want to know what’d happen if it looked like he was trying to run away. At least he’d stopped smiling. “How c-could I know?” he asked, failing miserably at sounding casual. “I’m, I’m just an earth pony.” Although the way he was stressing out, maybe not for much longer. And even if reading the other players’ emotions technically wasn’t illegal, he could hardly go, I’m just a changeling! and expect it to turn out better.

“Doesn’t matter how you knew.” The mare-earth-orange was practically shaking with rage. “You cheated me.”

“The cards were shuffled every time!” Thorax-Earth-Beige protested. “I c-couldn’t do anything about that! D-do you really think the dealer would work with-”

“What?” gasped the dealer-unicorn-violet. She shivered, but didn’t move away from the table.

The mare-earth-orange narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t say anything about the dealer,” she said. Her gaze snapped to the dealer-unicorn-violet. “You’re working with him too, hmm?”

“What?” The dealer-unicorn-violet’s eyes went wide and she backed up, bumping into another table. “I- I don’t know who he is! I never saw him before today!”

“Uh-huh. Sure. I know your type.” The mare-earth-orange took a step forward. “You can keep track of all the cards you deal. I bet all these hooves were set up beforehoof.” Another step. Thorax-Earth-Beige knew he needed to do something, but he didn’t know what. “So how long have you been planning this? How many ponies have you scammed?” And another. “I bet your boss won’t-”

Suddenly bursting from nowhere, a guard-pegasus-pink grabbed the mare-earth-orange in a headlock and, in spite of being much smaller, forced her to the floor. “Threats against the staff will not be tolerated,” the guard-pegasus-pink said in a bored voice. “Your winnings are forfeit and you will be escorted from the premises immediately. As this is your first offence, you will not be banned, but-”

“Gerroff!” The mare-earth-orange managed to throw the guard-pegasus-pink off her, knocking over a table and disrupting another game in the process. Players and dealer scattered. “I ain’t-”

A guard-earth-green, larger than the guard-pegasus-pink, grabbed her in another headlock and slammed her head against the ground so hard Thorax-Earth-Beige was certain he hard something crack. “Threats against the staff will not be tolerated,” the guard-earth-green said in that same bored voice. “While you will see a manager about your accusations of cheating, if you keep resisting, I will be forced to take drastic measures.” Her smile had far more anticipation than Thorax-Earth-Beige was comfortable with. “Please keep resisting.”

“Geddoff! I’m stoppin’!” yelled the mare-earth-orange, although her voice had desperation in it that hadn’t been there before. Thorax-Earth-Beige didn’t need to taste her sudden burst of fear to hear that.

“Hmph. Stay here.” The guard-earth-green roughly got off the mare-earth-orange. The mare-earth-orange shakily got to her feet, shot one last anger-laced glare at Thorax-Earth-Beige, then fixed that glare on one of the walls. The guard-pegasus-pink got to her hooves and trotted out of the room without a word.

Silence fell throughout the poker room. The other tables stared at the leaving group for a moment, then returned to their games when nothing more happened. A guard-unicorn-teal stepped up to Thorax-Earth-Beige and the dealer-unicorn-violet. “Would you two please remain here? Our manager needs to talk to you about…” His eyes flitted over the remains of the game. “…this.”

The dealer-unicorn-violet nodded wordlessly, shaking a little. “Um. Sure,” said Thorax-Earth-Beige.

“Good.” And the guard-unicorn-teal stepped back as if they were unclean and he didn’t want to spend any more time with them than he had to.

The dealer-unicorn-violet collapsed onto a chair and pulled herself into a tight ball. Thorax-Earth-Beige awkwardly sidled up next to her. “Um. Hey,” he said. “Sorry about, uh, getting you involved.” He nipped bits and pieces of her fear off wherever he could. Fear was one of the most repulsive-tasting emotions, but if it helped calm her down, it’d be worth it.

“Not your fault,” mumbled the dealer-unicorn-violet. “Some ponies can just be…” She took a deep breath. “You know.” She put her hooves on the table. Thorax-Earth-Beige’s fear-eating seemed to be working; by now, she was hardly shaking at all, and her voice was quickly growing calmer. “She probably would’ve come to that conclusion on her own sooner or later.”

“Still. Sorry.”

“It’s ridiculous, anyway,” the dealer-unicorn-violet said with a snort. “Anypony who could count cards that well would be smart enough to not draw attention to themselves by winning big.”

Thorax-Earth-Beige had the vague feeling he was being insulted, but he wasn’t sure how.

“But still. Thanks for apologizing.” The dealer-unicorn-violet glanced at the other few ponies at the table (none of whom was paying them much attention), then quickly shuffled a few high-value chips from the mare-earth-orange’s abandoned pile to Thorax-Earth-Beige’s. Seeing his confused expression, she whispered, “The casino is just going to take that mare’s chips, and they have enough money already. Thanks.”

Thorax-Earth-Beige had barely nodded before the guard-pegasus-pink returned. “Please collect your winnings. Goumada will see you now.”

Lyra had heard that Sunburst was helping take care of Flurry Heart way up north and manage her magic. And after spending a few minutes with him, no wonder; Twilight was smart, sure, but she had a bit of a nasty tendency to forget that she was the smartest mare in the room and that not everypony knew what she was talking about when she said something like “decouple the thaumatic potential from the antineutron flow to induce decoherence”. Sunburst could explain things clearly and easily so that even she could understand the gist of it.

“Now, you need to, to inflate the brane to the, to the boundaries of the bag without, um, actually unfolding it. That’ll, it’ll ensure maximum carrying capacity.”

Usually.

“Maximum capacity?” Lyra asked as she did the thing to the thing in the thing without doing the thing to the thing. (It was easier than it sounded, but only by a little.) “I thought these things were infinite.”

“Common misconception,” said Sunburst. “It’s, bags of holding’re bigger on the inside — huge, even — but there’s, there’s still a limit. The space is, it’s just being expanded, and you can only expand something so far. That one’s, it’s, I think a… hundred duffel bags? Five hundred? Something like that.”

“Uh-huh.” All Lyra had managed to catch was “not infinite”. It’d have to do. When she (thought she) was done with… whatever she was doing, she turned the bag over in her hooves. Formerly, it hadn’t been that large, just enough to hold a good-sized pile of bits. Now… She plunged her hoof into it, all the way up to where her leg connected to her body. She waved her leg around, but didn’t feel any insides. Gawking at where her leg should’ve been, she said, “Okay, I… think it worked.”

Sunburst didn’t share her surprise. “Uh-huh. Good. Give it here, I’ll make sure everything’ll, it’ll all hold when we start using it.” He snatched the bag from Lyra and began poking his horn at it. “Uh-huh… Uh-huh…”

It was amazing how simple it was to make bags of holding, once the math was hammered out. Sure, Starlight still did most of the heavy lifting, but Lyra was sure she could do that in a year or two. It kind of put into perspective just how bad Sunburst was at magic. In fact- “If we can make these on our own time, why aren’t they more common?”

“This won’t last that long,” grunted Sunburst. “Give it, I don’t know, two, three moons, and then it’ll, it’ll just collapse. And if we’re not done after two moons, we, we’re in trouble.” He wiggled his horn into the bag, briefly making it look like he was an earth pony with a purse on his head. “That’s, that’s actually the problem with most enchanted items. Plenty of unicorns can charm a thing, but that thing won’t still be charmed after a few weeks.”

Lyra knew they were flights of fancy, but visions taking baths in bits after she’d unlocked the secret to long-lasting enchantments gamboled through her head. “And I suppose that if I figured out make that charm last, I’d become filthy stinking rich, right?” Either way, now that she knew where to start from, enchanting an object wasn’t that hard. Maybe she could do it on the side, earn a few extra bits every week.

“If you could do that, you, you’d get a lot more than just rich.” Sunburst pulled the bag off his glowing horn. “Anyway, this, this feels like it’ll last long enough. Good job.”

Before Lyra could be proud of herself, the door burst open and Starlight stormed into the room, brandishing a strip of duct tape. “For the last time, Sunburst,” she said, “why do we need thermite tape? It’s dangerous and-”

“Well, I don’t know when we might need it!” protested Sunburst. “But if it turns out we need it, then we have it!”

“And why would we need it?”

The Doctor answered from a room over. “Cutting through steel walls, perhaps? Like those of a safe? Probably like the one we’re breaking into? It’s hardly subtle, but it’d get the job done in a jiffy. Besides, this isn’t really actual thermite. It’s much easier to put out.”

“Whatever,” huffed Starlight. “Just, look. If we’re going to be testing this, we need all the help we can get in case it gets out of control, so I need the two of you to come out back and be a part of the fire brigade. Just in case. And when I’m telling you to be careful with magic, well…” She gave her tail an angry little flick and left the room.

“Thermite tape?” Lyra asked Sunburst. “Cooooool. I bet we could cut through Canterlot Castle’s walls with something like that.”

Sunburst nodded. “Probably, yeah. I, I think that was what I was thinking of when I came up with it. I was high on, on caffeine,” he explained. “Still…” He rolled his shoulders, stretched, and stood up. “Starlight’s right. We, we need to be ready for if, if something goes wrong.”

“Yeah. Knowing her, she’ll end up summoning a fire elemental by mistake.”

Lyra regretted that statement when Sunburst’s brow furrowed in thought.

13 - Flying Beneath the Radar

Thorax-Earth-Beige attempted to memorize the whorls in the conference table, but his mind refused to rest long enough to do so. He needed to speak to Goumada-Unicorn-Marble for… what, exactly? The possibility of cheating? He was going to be found out. He knew he was. He was going to cave and he was going to spill everything and he was going to-

Deep breaths. No, you’re not. Thorax-Earth-Beige put a hoof on his chest and took those deep breaths. It only helped a little. He kept wanting to turn into something like a roc and smash his way out of the casino. But that’d only make things about a bazillion times worse, and he didn’t have enough skill to turn into something so radically different from his normal size anyway. It almost made him wish for Pharynx-Changeling. Almost.

He glanced up. No strong emotions were coming from the dealer-unicorn-violet and she looked almost bored, one hoof propping up her head as she looked vaguely in the direction of the door. At least she’d be fine. The mare-earth-orange still tasted like she wanted to murder Thorax-Earth-Beige, but that was normal at this point. The guard-earth-green and the guard-pegasus-pink didn’t have any emotions, one way or the other; after all, this was just a job to them.

Thorax-Earth-Beige tasted a hint of annoyance from the other side of the door, then Goumada-Unicorn-Marble walked inside. Thorax-Earth-Beige managed to keep himself from bolting; this was the pony they were stealing from, after all. She had to know who he was. She had the right piercing eyes and there was just something about her that smelled like “slimy, sleazy leader”. Maybe it was the way she moved. Maybe it was the way she seemed to look at ponies like they were things to be used. It reminded him far too much of Chrysalis-Changeling. Thorax-Earth-Beige closed his mouth as tightly as he could and looked down.

“I heard there was an accusation concerning cheating,” Goumada-Unicorn-Marble said.

“He was cheating!” yelled the mare-earth-orange, pointing at Thorax-Earth-Beige. “He was doing too well, and-”

Her head snapped to one side as Goumada-Unicorn-Marble backhoofed her hard across the face. “I wasn’t talking to you,” she said. She was actually contemptuous beneath her calm voice. “Do not speak unless you are spoken to.” WIthout waiting for a response (and the mare-earth-orange was too busy nursing her muzzle to respond, anyway), she looked at the guard-earth-green.

“Just standard procedure, ma’am,” said the guard-earth-green. “The orange mare accused the tan stallion of cheating, then the dealer of colluding with him, then she made a move and had to be restrained.” She shrugged. “I don’t think she had any evidence at all besides her own messed-up mind-” (The mare-earth-orange made an angry sound of protest, but shut up when Goumada-Unicorn-Marble glared at her) “-but you want us to bring all accused cheaters to you, so…”

“Mmhmm.” Goumada-Unicorn-Marble wasn’t feeling anything besides annoyed. This was just a chore for her. “Let’s hear each pony’s version of the incident. You first.” She pointed at the mare-earth-orange. “And give me your name.”

The mare-earth-orange flinched, then held her head high. It was hard to tell how much of her anger was directed towards Thorax-Earth-Beige and how much was directed towards Goumada-Unicorn-Marble. “Autumn Glade. I played a few rounds of poker, nothing special. Then he comes in-” She point-stabbed at Thorax-Earth-Beige. “-and suddenly he starts cleaning up. And I know you can’t be that good of a player-”

“Correction,” said Goumada-Unicorn-Marble. “You can’t be that good of a player.”

Glade-Earth-Orange opened her mouth, closed it again, then yelled, “There’s too much randomness in poker! But it was like he knew every hoof the others had! And I was getting bad hoof after bad hoof, and- He was too lucky!”

“Mmhmm,” said Goumada-Unicorn-Marble. She pointed at the dealer-unicorn-violet. “You are… Riffle Wash, correct?”

“Yes’m,” said Riffle-Unicorn-Violet automatically.

“And how did you see events play out?”

“We were in the Artifact Room, playing hold ’em at one of the five-hundred-bit buy-in tables,” Riffle-Unicorn-Violet said. “It was uneventful until he-” She pointed at Thorax-Earth-Beige. “-arrived and started winning most of the hooves. And I’d like to add that most of the rounds never went to the showdown, so I don’t know what cards they had. Most of the players accepted it gracefully, but Glade accused him of cheating. Then she accused me of working with him, made a move towards me, and then-” She didn’t place any special emphasis on that word, but Thorax-Earth-Beige tasted a brief spike of anger when she said it. “-the guards moved in to capture her.” Maybe she was angry that the guards hadn’t moved in before. “One of the guards went to fetch you. We waited and- were brought here.”

Goumada-Unicorn-Marble’s gaze flitted to the guard-earth-green behind them. Whether she nodded or not, Thorax-Earth-Beige couldn’t say, but Goumada-Unicorn-Marble seemed satisfied. “And you’ve been working here… two years, yes?”

“This is my third, actually.”

“Hmm.” Goumada-Unicorn-Marble pointed at Thorax-Earth-Beige. “And you?”

Managing to not squirm in his chair, Thorax-Earth-Beige said, “I picked up some tokens-”

“Your name?” snapped Goumada-Unicorn-Marble.

Thorax-Earth-Beige almost bolted right there. “Hmm? Oh, um, Lucent Sunrise. Anyway, I, I got some tokens from the register. I, uh, went to the table and played a few rounds. Then Glade decided to take out her bad luck on me and the dealer, and, uh, things got nasty.” He did his best to look innocent. “Then the guards intervened, and, yeah.”

“I see.” Goumada-Unicorn-Marble’s emotions were still. She didn’t really care about this. By now, she didn’t even care enough to be annoyed. She paced around the room a few times, staring at the floor, then said to Glade-Earth-Orange, “And what was your proof of him cheating, again? He was doing better than you?”

“He was too good,” snapped Glade-Earth-Orange. “It was like he knew everything, and-”

“So… he was doing better than you.”

Thorax-Earth-Beige almost reeled from the indignation coming from Glade-Earth-Orange. “…I… guess, if you simplify it down to meaninglessness, yeah. But-”

“Silence.” Glade-Earth-Orange shut up and Goumada-Unicorn-Marble did another few moments of pacing. “As I have no reason to believe otherwise, I will assume the aggressive player was simply deluding herself of her skill and luck, or lack thereof.”

“What?!” Glade-Earth-Orange jumped to her feet. “I am not deluding myself! He-”

Goumada-Unicorn-Marble clicked her tongue; the guard-earth-green lunged forward, tackled Glade-Earth-Orange to the ground, and clocked her on the head. As the guard-earth-green kept Glade-Earth-Orange pinned, Goumada-Unicorn-Marble leaned down and looked Glade-Earth-Orange in the eye. “I take the hiring of my dealers very seriously,” she said. “You should, too. If Riffle was going to work with somepony, she wouldn’t make it so obvious. And suppose she was working with Lucent over there. You still attempted to handle it yourself rather than having it brought to my or the guards’ attention. I do not tolerate actions against my staff. Consider your winnings forfeit and yourself banned for the remainder of today and tomorrow.” She clicked her tongue again. “Steadfast Watch, kindly escort this miscreant from the premises.”

Glade-Earth-Orange attempted to protest, but Steadfast-Earth-Green forced her head against the floor. Normally, Thorax-Earth-Beige liked the taste of happiness, but in this context, it was sickening. “And if she resists?”

“Feel free to use any force necessary.” Goumada-Unicorn-Marble’s sheer lack of emotional response was almost impressive.

“You hear that?” Steadfast-Earth-Green asked Glade-Earth-Orange. “Play nice.” He let her up, then roughly shoved her out the door.

Goumada-Unicorn-Marble didn’t even glance after them. “Skysight, please escort these ponies back to the casino floor. You-” She pointed at Thorax-Earth-Beige. “-are free to go with your winnings, while you-” At Riffle-Unicorn-Violet. “-will go back to dealing. You may take whatever remains of Glade’s winnings as a bonus. Good day. ”

Anger spiked from Riffle-Unicorn-Violet, but she kept her face blank and her voice level. “And to you.” But as they were shuttled out of the offices by Skysight-Pegasus-Pink, Thorax-Earth-Beige heard her mutter, “Not even a ten-minute break. Nooooo, she’s gotta-”

Unsure of what to say, Thorax-Earth-Beige remained silent as they returned to the table. It looked untouched, and with a guard-unicorn-yellow standing watch over it, it probably was. Still muttering angrily, Riffle-Unicorn-Violet shuffled Glade-Earth-Orange’s chips into one of her pockets, then took a long, steadying breath and said to Thorax-Earth-Beige, “You should probably find another table. It might be a while before anypony else comes back here.”

“Okay. Um… Be seeing you.” Thorax-Earth-Beige gave a little wave. “Or not. Probably not.”

Riffle-Unicorn-Violet furrowed her brow, then smiled slightly. A little bit of happiness wormed its way to the forefront of her mind. “Probably not. Be seeing you.”

But Thorax-Earth-Beige wasn’t interested in sticking around with gambling. He’d won another thousand easily and wanted some time to cool off. He pulled a certain gem from his pocket. A plethora of bright lights shone around the edge; they were pointed at the bits Starlight had put the tracking spell on, the bits he’d used to pay for his token, the bits that would be moved to the vault and maybe already had been.

Time to do some tracking.

Starlight would be the first to admit that her common sense was a bit low. That she could be impulsive. That she could be self-indulgent. That she had an alarming tendency to use magic like a hammer while looking at the world like it was made of nails.

And even she thought thermite tape was dangerous.

It was only the Doctor’s incessant talking that made her think of doing it in the first place. He just would not shut up about it. “Just think of the potential!” “It’d be really handy to have if we ever need to cut through something quick-like.” “It’s a way to flex your arcane muscles.” “I would really like to see it and I’m going to keep bugging you about it until you make it.” “Bugging you bugging you bugging you…”

Technically, thermite tape was just a name Sunburst had slapped on because it sounded cool; no real thermite was used and enchantments just made the tape extremely hot when triggered. But based on the arcane equations, the “extremely hot” of the tape was still close enough to the reaction temperature of thermite to make Starlight nervous. She had a ceramic flower pot to help hold the tape before it heated up, but thermite could still melt ceramics like butter.

There was more to be done, but no way in Tartarus was Starlight going to be doing all of it alone.

“It’s just, I really don’t see what the big deal is,” Sunburst said as followed Starlight out, levitating a planter behind him. “I ran the numbers repeatedly, and as long as you did it right, it’s, it’s quite safe.”

“Uh-huh,” said Starlight. Sunburst had always had a… problem with priorities. Tell him that his house had exploded because of a badly-brewed potion, and he’d be more concerned about which potion had gone bad than, you know. “And what happens if I didn’t do it right?”

The gravity of the situation still failed to grab him. “Well, ah, that, um, depends on what you didn’t do right. Probably just fizzle out. I put in a bunch of failsafes, just in case.” Which explained some of the weird not-quite redundancies Starlight had seen. Luckily, she’d figured they were there for a reason and hadn’t removed them.

Sunburst plonked the planter in the most open part of the yard. “Wait here, and I’ll, I’ll check if Lyra and the Doctor have found any, any shovels yet,” he said. He trotted back into the house.

Starlight took a seat next to the planter and stared at her flower pot. More specifically, the line of tape stuck to the bottom of the inside of the pot. If it worked, the tape would melt right through the pot in seconds. There was a lot of heat in there, and Starlight didn’t want to touch it for risk of setting it off. One way to dissuade certain spell-happy ponies from using magic was to have them risk physical disfigurement — or worse — if that happened.

She heard some scuffle above and looked up. Bon Bon was lowering herself down from the roof with a rope attached to… something, while Gilda and Derpy dangled off her like some kind of strange (and angry and foul-mouthed, in Gilda’s case) fruit. Whatever Bon Bon was using, it seemed to be working; since her going was slow but steady. Noticing the pony below, Derpy managed to wave. “Hi, Starlight!”

“Hey,” said Starlight. “What’s up?”

“Pun predictability,” said Derpy. “Also weight testing. This reel thingy can hold a lot of weight without slowing down.” She nodded as sagely as she could in that position.

Right, the ascender. “Yeah, I’m not surprised. Sunburst said he put a lot of work into that and he does not do things by halves.”

“You know what, you two can just let go now,” said Bon Bon. “I-”

The first sentence had only barely gotten out before Gilda had dropped to the ground, flexing her claws. “That’s gonna be sore tomorrow,” she muttered. She glanced at the empty planter and raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”

“You that thermite tape stuff Sunburst kept going on about this morning?” Starlight asked. “We’re testing it.”

“Then hang on a sec.” Gilda vanished inside the house. Soon after, she reappeared with a bow and a pile of blue-tipped arrows. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“Where in the sunblasted Tartarus-born blazes did you find arctic arrows?” yelped Bon Bon. “I don’t think they’re legal!”

“North bedroom, second floor,” said Gilda casually. “Buggy and I found ’em while we were looking for gems. Last griff who was here must’ve left them. And if you care that much about legality, sweetie, what’re you doing here?”

“Well-” spluttered Bon Bon. “That’s- I guess-” She kept looking at the tape, then at Gilda, and repeating. “I suppose- Maybe- Just be careful, alright?”

“Don’t look at me. They’re the ones working with thermite.”

“I told Sunburst it was a stupid idea,” Starlight said defensively, “but nooooo, he was all-”

“If it’s stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid!” Sunburst said, showing impeccable timing as he returned from inside the house, a shovel over his withers. “It’s just, it’s just risky!”

The Doctor followed Sunburst out with a shovel of his own. “And risk brings reward, as they say.” He and Sunburst began digging up random clumps of dirt and dumping them into the planter. “Fortune favors the bold. No pain, no gain. Et cetera, et cetera.”

“Witty saying!” Lyra added as she trotted out. “Starlight, is it normal to taste blue after casting a lot of magic?” She ran her tongue over her lips. “Because sweet mother duck, am I tasting blue.”

“That just means you’re pushing yourself harder than usual,” said Starlight. “You’ll be fine as long as you’re not tasting high-pitched fuschia.”

“Gotcha.” Lyra smacked her lips.

It was simple: Starlight would hang the flower pot, and the tape inside, from a rope. They’d trigger the tape, with the elevated position of the pot allowing for better observation of how well it was working. The molten ceramic would be caught it the planter below to keep it from lighting the grass on fire and doing Bad Things to the house. Once Sunburst and the Doctor had a good amount of dirt in the planter and shaped it into a vague bowl, Starlight grabbed the end of the rope tied to the pot and dangled it above the planter. She didn’t know how her magic would deal with that temperature from holding the pot directly, and she didn’t want to.

Everybody was ready as Sunburst made the final adjustments, watching as if it were a play (or in Starlight’s case, a trainwreck about to happen). Finally, Sunburst took twenty steps back from the planter and his horn started glowing.

“Are you sure that’s far enough? Thermite burns at over four thousand degrees Mahrenheit, you know!” yelled Starlight.

“I know!” Sunburst yelled back. “But part of the spell is keeping the heat from, from spreading too far!” He turned back to the pot. He paused. He took twenty more steps back from the planter. His horn sparked; for a second, nothing happened. Starlight held her breath, waiting for-

Something glowed dimly in the pot. Then it glowed brightly. Then the entire bottom began melting away.

Starlight instinctively cringed away; even from such a small source, the heat hit her like a furnace. Luckily, she kept the rope steady. Sunburst, the Doctor, and Bon Bon leaned forward, watching intently and Oooooooing. Gilda had an arrow notched, but she hadn’t drawn the bow back yet. And Lyra and Derpy were splitting a muffin, chowing down on it like it was popcorn.

Even extreme as it was, the heat didn’t do anything to Starlight’s magic, and she held the rope steady. Soon, the reaction had burnt itself out. All that was left of the flower pot was the upper rim, dripping molten ceramic. The planter had caught all of the runoff and Starlight guessed it was making some pretty nice glass in there. Or maybe pretty bad glass, what with all the impurities. Sunburst raced up to the planter as cautiously as he could, blocking his face with a leg. Leaning over, he looked into the planter and giggled. “I think it works,” he said.

“Heads up!” yelled Gilda. TWANG. Thud. An arrow zipped across the yard and buried itself in the dirt right near the top of the planter. Immediately, a wave of ice washed out, smothering the bucket in a frigid blanket; Sunburst jumped back with a yelp. Sheer heat meant the ice barely lasted a few seconds, but that was enough for she to notch and release another arrow.

“I… I really don’t think that was necessary,” Sunburst said quietly, pushing his glasses up his muzzle.

“Don’t care.” TWANG. Thud. “I am not taking any chances.” (Starlight’s opinion of Gilda promptly went up.)

“You can make this easily, right?” asked Bon Bon. She was tilting her head this way and that as she stared into the planter, trying to see the melted ceramic and molten glass beneath the ice. And were her eyes glittering?

“Well, um, I can’t, but, Starlight can. If you can browbeat her into it.”

“I’ll help!” the Doctor said brightly. “This worked out just as well as we could have hoped! It heated up quickly, burnt itself out in the right time, didn’t spread… You see, Starlight? Not everything that can be incredibly dangerous actually is!” (Maybe that’s just me, thought Starlight.)

Gilda glanced at Starlight, a skeptical expression on her face, and made a “cuckoo” motion while pointing at the Doctor.

A prismatic streak plummeted from the sky and landed right next to Starlight.“Whatcha doin’?” asked Rainbow.

“Almost burning the house down with thermite,” answered Starlight.

“Cool. But then shouldn’t we be doing this at the casino?”

Heh.

“Anyway,” continued Rainbow, “Goumada’s more than a bit of a jerk, but I think I got some good info. I had to go into the back to get to her office, and- Y’know, where’re those blueprints? I wanna check them.”

Tracking the bits down wasn’t a pain, but it was definitely harder than the phrase “tracking spell” made it sound. First, Thorax-Earth-Beige had to deduce which lights pointed to bits that had actually made it into the vault and which were in the possession of other ponies after being used for change (he’d almost chased a light clear out of the casino before he realized his mistake). Then, since the spell didn’t take distance into account, he had to figure out where they were so he didn’t walk himself into walls. And then he had to figure out which floor they were on.

And so, Thorax-Earth-Beige found himself rolling back and forth on his hooves as he stood in front of the elevator bank, waiting for a car to arrive. He looked at the gem again. Still pointing inwards and up. Pretty steeply, too, although not so steep that the vault would be near the top. Hopefully.

Inside the elevator, Thorax-Earth-Beige realized he didn’t have any idea about which floor the vault might be on. So he went for the best option: hit all the buttons for all the floors, lighting the control panel up like a Hearth’s Warming tree. The doors closed-

“Wait!” A stallion-unicorn-white sprinted over and waved his hoof between the doors; they stopped and reopened to let him in. “Sorry,” the stallion-unicorn-white (Thorax-Earth-Beige couldn’t taste any sorrow there), “but I’m quite busy and can’t afford to wait for the next elevator.” The doors closed and the elevator started moving up.

Thorax-Earth-Beige only picked up a few words; he was too busy staring at the tracking gem. “Mmhmm.”

“Now,” the stallion-unicorn-white said to himself as he turned to the panel, “where’s th-” He looked at the light show of elevator buttons. He lowered his hoof. He blinked. He looked at Thorax-Earth-Beige. He wordlessly started punching the “Door Open” button. When he got off on the second, his relief was such that you’d have thought his lifelong cancer had been cured.

Of course, Thorax-Earth-Beige realized with a cringe, maybe he himself should’ve done this on the stairs.

At the sixth floor, the light was mostly horizontal. At the seventh, it still wasn’t quite horizontal, but now, “not quite” was pointing down rather than up. Thorax-Earth-Beige quickly got off, praying that no poor soul would need to use that elevator before it reached the top floor. The light was pointing towards the insides of the hotel, exactly where the others had said it would be. Thorax-Earth-Beige set off down one hallway; the light began moving, but only a little, and still pointed in.

He turned a corner and kept walking. Still the light pointed inward. Once he was halfway between each end of the hallway, the light was aimed straight in. Just to be sure, Thorax-Earth-Beige completed his circuit of the building. The vault was definitely surrounded by the interior walls, just like they’d guessed. Perfect.

Except that they didn’t know how to get into the vault.

Thorax-Earth-Beige pocketed the gem and glared at one of the inside hotel rooms. These were supposed to be fake, weren’t they? Maybe they were actually the entrance. Almost definitely not, but whatever. Thorax-Earth-Beige tested the doorknob of one. It jiggled like that of any locked door. Right? He tested one of the real rooms. Right. But maybe that was just for authenticity.

He looked left and right. Nopony was coming. He shifted one of his front hooves to the long, thin tentacle of an octopus and squeezed it under the edge of one of the fake doors. Far too soon (about an inch, to be exact), he bumped into a wall. Right? He prayed his selected room was empty and slid the tentacle under one of the real doors. Right; he soon felt the open air of the room on the other side of the door and pulled his leg back out after he’d gone a foot.

At least one door was a fake. But testing all of the others? Yeah, right. Thorax-Earth-Beige didn’t have the time, patience, or security to try them all safely. They’d have to do that some other way. But! At least he’d confirmed the location of the vault. Now they had to figure out how to get into it. And find its entrance.

After some time away from the Artifact Vault, Thorax-Earth-Beige felt ready to go back to poker and try a few more games. As somepony else, this time, and more subtly. Apparently, amateurs could put repeated losses down to their own lack of skill, but pros, not so much. One last look to be sure that the hallway was still clear, a flash, and Thorax-Pegasus-Blue poked at the Down arrow for the elevator.

An all-too-familiar stallion-unicorn-white staggered out when the doors opened, his mind overflowing with exhaustion and done-ness. “Watch out,” he said. “There’s a khaki earth pony who’s going around punching all the buttons. Apparently he thinks it’s funny. I had to wait five minutes for another elevator.”

The words were out before Thorax-Pegasus-Blue could stop them. “Couldn’t you have taken the stairs?”

“Stairs? Stairs?” The stallion-unicorn-white rolled his eyes. “Who has time for those?” He snorted. “But he’ll stand out in a crowd, and I swear, when I find him…”

Thorax-Pegasus-Blue stepped into the elevator and set it on a downward course. “Well, good luck,” he said as the doors closed. “I hope you don’t miss him.” And he was away.

Lyra had volunteered to help the Doctor find any kinks in the thermite tape, so Starlight was helping Sunburst with the arcanoscope. They were working on the first steps towards shrinking its output so the entire casino’s readout could fit inside a room.

Had she really been so nervous only a few days ago? So despondent? So sure that this would never work? And yet here she was, casually working with Sunburst on a long-range magic sensor with a very clear idea of scanning the casino’s magic. It was amazing how much taking that first step could bolster your confidence.

“And, um, make sure the ruby and the emerald, that they’re not touching,” said Sunburst. “It’ll cause magic to bleed from one to the other. Maybe we should just stick some tape between them.” Good thing tape was magically neutral. Except for duct tape. Duct tape was the most magical thing in the universe, with WD-40 close behind.

As Starlight wiggled the piece of tape between the two gems, she said, “Speaking of tape, sorry I was so loud about the thermite tape before. I’ve just seen magic get out of control too many times to try making something so dangerous without much testing.”

Sunburst waved her off. “Eh, you’re fine. I know I’m, that I’m not exactly what you’d call, uh…” One of his ears went down. “What would you call it? Focused? Alert?”

“…Prudent?”

“Close enough. But you know what, what I’m talking about, right?” Sunburst reached into the frame of the arcanoscope and jiggled something; Starlight’s coat stood on end for a second as magic hummed. “I just get so involved in something, it’s, it’s like I have blinders on and I ignore the obvious and-” Something went zap and Sunburst pulled his hoof out with a yelp. “I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine,” he said quickly. “Just- surprised.” He stuck his hoof in his mouth and sucked. Starlight couldn’t help smirking.

When Sunburst stopped sucking, he said, “Anyway, maybe, maybe I should have somepony call me out a bit more just to make sure that I’ve, I’ve covered all my bases.”

“Just remember to listen,” teased Starlight.

“What was that? I wasn’t listening.”

Starlight chuckled. It was so easy, with even just one companion at her side. No wonder Twilight and the others talked about saving Equestria so casually; Starlight knew that what they were attempting was difficult, but she felt like she could take on the world. To get by, all she needed was a little help from her friends.

And she almost hadn’t done it. It’d taken Rainbow Dash and (what seemed to be) a phenomenally bone-headed move to even take the first step. Meanwhile, the results were speaking for themselves, even if they weren’t done quite yet. How had she ever done anything when she’d spent all her time looking out for number one? Maybe she really hadn’t. The first time her town had faced opposition, it’d fallen ri-

“-arlight?” said Sunburst. “Do you think you can entangle these?” He waved two gems at her.

Starlight twitched as her train of thought derailed. “Hmm? Oh, yeah. Give them here.”

“You alright? You kinda zoned out there for a sec.”

“…You know what, yeah. I’m alright.”

14 - Playing With the Hoof You've Got

Bon Bon unrolled the blueprints of the casino’s back rooms between her and Rainbow Dash and held her breath. Impromptu recons like this were always a bit sketchy. “You remember all of this?” she asked. “Is this accurate?”

Rainbow looked over the blueprint, her ears twitching. Every now and then, she’d make an angle with her hooves, like she was trying to remember something. “Pretty close, yeah,” she said eventually. “There was a big elevator here-” She pointed at a blank spot directly opposite the public elevator bank. “-but I think that’s it.” She ran her eyes over the paper. “Yeah, and all the rooms have the right names, too. We’ll be fine working from this.”

Rainbow was going through another categorical reshuffle in Bon Bon’s head. By this point, Rainbow was probably one of the smartest ponies Bon Bon knew, and simply highly selective about how she chose to apply that intelligence. She wasn’t even sure Rainbow knew just how smart she was.

“Oh,” added Rainbow, “and the security room or hub or whatever here was unguarded. Not a single pony in sight. I didn’t see if it was locked, though. I think I saw one of those gem panel things, but-”

“They’d be stupid to not have one,” Bon Bon said. Already, her mind was spinning with ideas. All of which, unfortunately, weren’t much good if they couldn’t unlock any of the doors. It’d only take some social engineering to get inside the main employee area, but getting into the hub itself was another matter. Maybe.

Her eyes flicked to one of the nearby bathrooms. Although, depending on how lax they were with infrastructure…

“You’re thinking, ain’tcha?” Rainbow said with a grin. “You’ve got that little bit of sparkle Twilight always has when she gets an idea. No, no,” she added, holding up a hoof, “you don’t need to tell me. I wanna be surprised.”

It wasn’t fully-formed yet, anyway. Still, Bon Bon could get set up. “The guards’ uniforms were just suits with gold undershirts, right?”

“Yeah. You thinking of a disguise?”

“Maybe.”

Rainbow reared, sticking her tongue out and framing Bon Bon with her hooves. “When was the last time you got a dress from Rarity?” she asked. “If she’s still got your measurements, I bet I could fly back to Ponyville and convince her to bang out a tailored coat for you in a few hours.”

“I don’t think we’ll need to go that far,” said Bon Bon. “We can just get some cheap suit coat for a day or two.” In all her time as Sweetie Drops, one of her more unexpected lessons, right up there with “there are less calories in celery than the body burns to digest it”, was how little ponies paid attention to uniforms, even their own. As long as it looked close, it was often good enough.

“Cool. I wish I could be the one in disguise, but…” Rainbow laughed. “That’s not really an option. Oh, and there were barely any cameras in the back. I mean, there were two or three of them, but way less than in the casino.”

“Good. Good.”

It was kind of hard to believe how well things were coming together, considering. Their fastest member had been taken out of commission before anyone noticed, and yet she’d still been able to do recon. Their changeling was making money hoof over tail with minimal disguising needed. All of their little homemade gadgets were working. Their blueprints were reasonably accurate. It was hardly perfect, but then, what was? As long as they all kept their heads on straight, they could probably pull this off. Probably.

“Quick question,” said Rainbow. “Is this as cool as I think it is? I mean, we’re not ten seconds away from crashing and I just can’t see it, right?”

“No,” said Bon Bon distractedly. “Why?” The staff area wasn’t that big. Maybe-

“ ’Cause you’ve really got it together. I swear, it’s like you’ve done this before. You’re not a spy, are you?”

The tone was teasing and playful, but Bon Bon’s heart rate still hitched. She kept her breathing level and her eyes glued to the blueprint. “No.” Not anymore, to be precise.

Rainbow laughed. “Bummer. Can you imagine how cool it would’ve been to have an actual spy with us?”

Lyra wasn’t as squicked out at meat as some other ponies, but watching Gilda devour flesh that night at dinner was… strange. It was all stringy, Gilda had insisted on cooking it, and there wasn’t even any blood. It barely looked like flesh at all. And yet… it was flesh. Hmm.

Dinner was done in what Gilda had said was the traditional griffon manner: everyone for themselves, and tough tooties if you didn’t get food. She and Lyra had unofficially settled on a nonverbal, uneasy truce to share the beautiful, beautiful couch of the gods, and Lyra found herself watching Gilda a lot. As the name implied, Ponyville was a very ponyish town, and Lyra had never seen a lot of non-ponies in her life (she didn’t think Zecora counted that much; zebras looked too much like striped ponies). Only now did she really get how radically different all the creatures of the world could be and her mind was brimming with questions. How did Gilda keep track of all those claws? Did she fit under mammals or birds, biologically speaking? Was there a biological reason she had to eat meat? Why was she asking why Lyra was staring at her? If she had babies, did she puke up food for them to eat like some birds did? Did she hear or see things differently from ponies because of different biology?

“No, seriously, why are you staring at me?”

Lyra twitched. Gilda was looking very hawklike right now and her tail was twitching like she was about to pounce. “I, uh, just haven’t seen a lot of griffons,” said Lyra. “You’re, um, new to me. Kinda.”

“Ah.” Gilda sounded like she was walking on broken glass, but she didn’t complain. She squinted at Lyra for a second before swallowing a large chunk of meat whole.

What the heck. Might as well ask her. “What does meat taste like?”

“This?” Gilda looked at her slab of meat and shrugged. “Dunno. Tastes like chicken, I guess.”

“And what does chicken taste like?”

Gilda blinked, then banged herself on the head a few times. “It’s kinda bland, to be honest. Dunno why everygriff uses that as what things taste like.”

“Oh.” When Gilda didn’t say anything else, Lyra knew she needed to say something to keep the conversation flowing. In her infinite smoothness, she blurted, “Do you eat mice?”

“What are you, crazy?” Gilda scowled. “Of course I don’t eat mice! They’ll all bony and they’ve barely got any meat once you take those bones away. Rats are way plumper and juicier, but they’re harder to catch.” She ripped off a chunk of meat and swallowed it whole. “I don’t think this place has either, anyway. I haven’t seen any little mouse turds in the corners. Maybe there’s some anti-rodent spells on it.”

“Hmm.” And the conversation was dammed again.

Gilda’s tongue snaked out and flicked a string of meat from the hook of her beak. She sucked it down and asked, “So do you do this a lot or something? You’ve been super chill this whole time. I mean, Dash has, too, but she’s Dash.”

“I don’t,” said Lyra, “but Dash has. Or something like it. It seems like she and Twilight and their friends are saving Equestria once or twice a season. Sometimes just Ponyville, though. This is the fir-”

“Equestria need saving a lot, does it?” interrupted Gilda. “I mean, four times a year? Even Griffonstone doesn’t have it that bad. …Probably because Griffonstone doesn’t have anything worth taking over, but-”

“I… Huh.” One of Lyra’s ears went down. She’d never thought about it before, but half the things Ponyville deemed “normal” really, really weren’t. And, yeah, what was going on in Equestria? “I guess it does. I mean, it always gets wrapped up in a day or so, but wow.”

“Still, it does get wrapped up in a day,” said Gilda, almost grudgingly. “The apocalypse happening every weekend isn’t really a problem if it gets fixed before lunch.” She took a long drink of water, and continued,“And it’s always those six first. If beating up the villainous dork of the day only ever needs six random schmucks from a small town, how bad could those baddies possibly be, right?”

“Twilight’s a princess. There’s no way she’s a schmuck.”

“Maybe not now, but she was when I was last in Ponyville.”

“Okay, yeah.” Twilight’s and Rainbow’s world-saving really had begun when they were neck-deep in schmuckdom. Lyra figured that she was still a schmuck, so maybe, if she was lucky… “Anyway, this is my first time doing something ‘big’. And I think it’s great!” She smiled and flicked her tail. “Watching a monster attack is fun and all, but it’s nothing like being in the thick of it. Even if this is a heist, not a monster attack. You know, ‘heist’ is a fun word. Heist.”

“Eh.” Gilda shrugged and became engrossed in her meal. “It’s alright,” she mumbled.

“Just ‘alright’? You sound like Bon Bon.”

“Then maybe she’s got it right. Hooray for optimism and all-” Gilda mimed waving a flag. “-but you that if we mess up, we could die, right?” She flared her wings. “Like, dead dead? Gouda Feta’s not some mustache-twirler who’ll shake her hoof while yelling, ‘Curse you!’ once she loses, and not just ’cause she’s a mare and doesn’t have a mustache. She’s-”

Lyra cut Gilda off by putting a hoof on her beak. “You do sound like Bon Bon. She already went over this like five or six times. You don’t think we got this?”

“I think,” Gilda said as she smacked Lyra’s hoof away, “that we don’t know how deep we’re in it and we won’t be able to get out once we do. I mean, come on, Gouda Feta’s got like a bazillion bits to spend on security, all so she can protect even more bits! I bet career thieves have tried getting in. And you think all the weirdos in here-” She gestured vaguely around the room. “-can sit around thinking for a few weeks and just break in?”

“Yeah.”

“And-” Gilda froze. “That…” She clicked her beak. “That was a rhetorical question,” she muttered.

“I know,” said Lyra. “And I still think that we can do it. Nobody else is quite as crazy as us. And look at who we’ve got! Equestria’s fastest pony, one of Equestria’s smartest ponies, one of Equestria’s most powerful ponies…” She wanted to add on “a retired spy”, but then she could say goodbye to Bon Bon’s friendship for the rest of forever. “We’ve even got a changeling!”

“Yeah, don’t remind me of that,” shuddered Gilda.

“Really, most of our people are unique.” Lyra started grinning. “Even if other ponies have tried, none of them have the same mix of ponies as we do. Everyone’s contributing something no one else has and the mixture is alchemical.” Almost literally, even. They weren’t turning lead into gold or looking for an elixir of life, but they were getting gold (somepony else’s, but she deserved it) and a heist this big would totally get them immortality through legend if anyone else heard about it. Which they couldn’t, because, y’know, illegal. But close enough, right?”

“I guess,” said Gilda. “Friendship, friendship, rah rah rah, whatever.” She squinted at Lyra, like she was examining her. “So what do you have to offer?”

Lyra’s smile didn’t slip an inch as she said, “I have no idea. Moral support?”

Gilda huffed. It might’ve been a chuckle. “Well, it’s more than I got.”

Between the two of them, Starlight and Bon Bon had asked for another assembly that night. A lot had happened in the past few days, and it was good to get everyone on the same page. And Bon Bon had said that talking helped her think. Starlight decided to let Bon Bon take the helm; she seemed good at that.

“I know things are going well right now,” said Bon Bon to everyone, “but we can’t afford to get overconfident. We’ll start making stupid mistakes, Goumada will catch us, and then we won’t be around to make mistakes anymore.”

“Yay,” whispered Thorax.

“But we’re still on track,” Bon Bon said quickly, “so let’s get everything we’ve learned in the past few days together and maybe do some brainstorming. You’re taking notes, right, Sunburst? Good. Lyra? Have you learned anything from getting on the band?”

Lyra twitched at being put on the spot but gathered herself quickly. “Okay, so, um, not much. We haven’t really done enough for me to learn anything. But I did see that Goumada is more than a bit of a jerk, as if we needed to learn that.” She paused, then sheepishly added in a small voice, “Also I got one of those key gem things to let me into entertainment back rooms. Did I mention I got one of those key gem things to let me into entertainment back rooms?”

“No, Lyra,” said Bon Bon flatly. “You did not mention that you got one of those key gem things to let you into entertainment back rooms. Why not?”

“Um.” Lyra rubbed the back of her neck; she seemed to be forcing herself to not look away as she didn’t really smile. “I forgot?”

“Fair enough.”

“It’s not a guard key or anything,” Lyra said more confidently, “but maybe we can study it. Or you three-” She pointed at Starlight, Sunburst, and the Doctor. “-can study it, because I don’t know a thing about this.”

One of the Doctor’s eyes twitched. “She didn’t know how to perform arcanodynamic parametrization!” he whispered in Sunburst’s ear.

“I don’t, either,” Sunburst whispered back. “Bad at magic, remember?” And suddenly the Doctor became very interested in a picture conveniently placed in such a way that meant he didn’t have to look at Sunburst.

“Good,” Bon Bon said as she eyed the Doctor. “Thorax, you were doing the thing with the tracking coins, right? How’d that turn out?”

“The coins didn’t have any problems finding the vault,” said Thorax. “It’s right where we thought it was, on I think the sixth or seventh floor, and when I tried one of the doors on the inside, it was a fake.”

“And if the spell is still active, that means there’s nothing removing any enchantments entering the vault.” Bon Bon tapped her chin thoughtfully.

“I thought you said she was an artifact collector,” Gilda spoke up. “Why would somepony be stupid enough to remove magic from things when she’s selling the things for their magic?”

“To avoid magical contamination from outside objects. It might not be done to all objects entering the vault, just unchecked ones. But the magic stays, so it’s a moot point anyway. Rainbow?”

“So, uh, I already told Bon Bon this, but the blueprints of the back rooms — the ones I saw, anyway — are pretty close to good. There’re a few things missing, but the layout’s the same.”

“Including,” said Bon Bon, “the security room. Which is unguarded. We don’t know what’s in there yet, but we will.”

“How’re we gonna do that?” demanded Gilda.

“I’m working on it.” Bon Bon changed topics quickly, turning to Starlight and Sunburst. “How’s the arcanoscope coming?”

Starlight and Sunburst looked at each other. “It’s… coming,” said Sunburst evasively. He went back to his notes, very intently writing not much.

“We’ve got the 3D modeling done,” said Starlight, “but we’re still working on range. Based on Sunburst’s equations, it’ll start looking weird when the receiver is around three hundred feet away from the sensor unless it uses so much power that it’ll be drained and stop working in a few minutes.”

“Give or take a, a few dozen feet,” added Sunburst. “We’re refining it, extending the range, making it more efficient, but, but that’s gonna take a while.”

“Hmm. No good yet,” Bon Bon said. “We’re too far from the casino?”

“So we go somewhere closer,” said Derpy. “Like booking a hotel room? In the hotel we’re robbing? Where we know the vault is?” She hit herself on the side of head and made the most effective “duh!” face in the history of Equestria.

“Oh!” Lyra’s hoof shot up. “We don’t even need to book a room. I got a complimentary one when I got into the orchestra. If we drop the arcanoscope down the laundry chute-”

“Hey!” Sunburst jumped to his feet and pointed a shaking hoof at Lyra. “I spent a lot of time on that, you are not dropping it down the laundry chute! It’s a very valuable piece of equipment and I do not want to-”

Starlight’s horn sparked and a bubble popped up around Sunburst as he continued his rant, now silent. “He doesn’t want you breaking it,” said Starlight.

“And what do you think the staff would do if they found a strange machine come out in the wash?” asked Derpy. A pause. “No, really, what do you think? I sure don’t know.”

“Tie it to a rope,” piped in the Doctor. “I mean we tie it to a rope, not the staff. Somepony can lower it down the chute to wherever they want and pull it back up when they’re done. Or just stick it in their pocket and walk up and down the stairs a few times for whoever’s in Lyra’s room. For, ah, ‘exercise’.”

“How would either of those do, Sunburst?” asked Bon Bon.

But Sunburst was still encased in Starlight’s bubble, ranting away. Starlight dispelled the shield. “-made out of chocolate pudding!” he bellowed. He noticed everyone staring at him and casually pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “Sorry. Sometimes I, I get weird.”

Bon Bon took a look breath in through her nose and let it out through her mouth. “Sunburst,” she said suspiciously levelly, “would having somepony sit in Lyra’s room watching the arcanoscope while somepony else goes up and down the stairs work at all?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” said Sunburst. “As long as you’re not, you know, dropping it twenty stories. It’s, it’d still not be as good as getting it into the vault itself, but, but that’s a pipe dream and a half.”

“Why?”

Everyone looked at Derpy as if she’d declared that they should break into the vault tomorrow. “I’m just saying,” Derpy said saliently, “we’ve already broken into a building company and scammed the casino out of a few thousand bits. Why can’t we disguise the arcanoscope as something and see if Goumada would store it?”

Everyone looked at each other; tiny murmured discussions broke out. Bon Bon looked like they were breaking out like hives. “That’s not going to happen unless we team up with some crusty old businesspony to store an artifact in there. An artifact we don’t have.”

“Well, um, actually…” Starlight coughed. “A few weeks ago, Twilight forbade Spike from eating in the library. It would make a lot more of a mess that she’d need to clean up. So Spike got me to make some hollow ‘rare books’ to hide gems in all over the library. I’m pretty sure Twilight doesn’t know about it. If we can just borrow one for a day-”

“I can be there and back in a few hours, no problem!” Rainbow declared. “Just tell me where to look!”

Bon Bon frowned, then nodded. “That could work. Rare book collectors can be pretty defensive of their wares. If one were just passing through… Those books do look like real rare books, right?”

“They have to be, in order to fool Twilight,” confirmed Starlight. “The inside of any one is large enough to hide the arcanoscope in. And if we’re worried about Goumada taking a look at the magic, any energy from the arcanoscope can be passed off as, I don’t know, the remnants of a curse from its creation or something. All original copies old, rare books of magic have curses on them.”

“I thought that article said it was ninety percent, not all,” Lyra said with a frown.

“Yes, it was ninety,” said the Doctor. “And that was after rounding up, remember. Still, a fascinating read.”

Sunburst’s ears went up. “What was this from? I, that sounds like something I’d want to read.”

“It was in Popular Arcanics a few moons ago,” said Starlight. “Part of a larger article about-”

Bon Bon waved her hooves, and everypony quieted down. “Okay. Not a bad idea. Let’s suppose it works. But we still need a businesspony to convince.”

A long pause. Then everybody looked at Thorax.

His fins wilted. “Bugger,” he whispered.

“I bet you could do it, Thorax,” Lyra said brightly. “Look big and talk tough and you’re home free!”

“I’m not good of either of those things,” Thorax said quietly. “I was barely able to stare down somepony who called me a cheater today. I’m- I’m not a good changeling, okay? If I was, I- I wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

“Oh, come on, you’d do great!” Rainbow swooped next to him and threw a leg around his shoulder. “Think about it!” she said, cheerfully oblivious to Thorax’s halfhearted struggles to get free. “You’re already doing more than most changelings ever could. Did you play poker before this week? I bet you didn’t! So we’ll give you a few days to psych yourself up, and-”

“And we might not need you to do anything,” Bon Bon said loudly.

Thorax finally managed to lever himself out of Rainbow’s friendship sleeper hold. “I like that plan, let’s use that plan,” he said.

“We still haven’t tried going through the staircases,” said Bon Bon. “That might give us enough information that Thorax won’t need to talk to anypony. We shouldn’t make plans for something we might not even need unless that plan is an escape plan.”

“Aw.” Rainbow’s ears drooped. “We’ll never get to do any serious disguises.”

“Which means we’re staying away from the staff,” said Starlight, “which means there’s less chance of being recognized, which is good.”

Rainbow Dash wasn’t particularly happy about safety, but what else was new?

“And speaking of changing the subject,” Gilda said suddenly, “I really wanna know what’s up with those road train things. They keep passing the casino and we’re all kinda assuming they belong to the police, but does anybody know anything about them?”

Nobody did. “Maybe somepony should, should follow them tomorrow,” Sunburst said as he jotted the notes down. “They have to, I don’t know, refuel or something, right?”

It wasn’t long before they banged out a list of things to do the next day. Lyra and Rainbow had to be at the rehearsal for the concert, so they couldn’t do much, but everypony else seemed to be free for whatever. Top priority was taking the arcanoscope to do what scanning they could and figuring out who, exactly, the trackless trains belonged to.

“And another thing,” said Bon Bon. “Do you think you could throw together another arcanoscope for tomorrow? One of the original sight-based ones?”

“Sure, the hard part was the math,” said Starlight. “But why?”

“Because I’ve got an idea. With somepony’s help, I bet I can get us into the security hub.”

Everyone sat up a little straighter. “Yeah?” asked Starlight, leaning forward.

“First?” Bon Bon rubbed her hooves together. “We’re going clothes shopping.”

15 - In Which Defenses are Properly Probed

“This is a bad idea,” moaned Sunburst.

“It’s also the only idea,” whispered Bon Bon. She pushed past another knot of gamblers and inched closer to the Employees Only door.

“Why me? Why me?”

“Because we needed a unicorn to fake being an arcane repairmare, Lyra’s at the rehearsal, there’s no way Starlight’s going anywhere near the casino, and Thorax doesn’t know enough about magic.”

“That, that was rhetorical.”

“I don’t care.”

Less than an hour ago, Bon Bon had dragged Sunburst to a clothing store and used some of Thorax’s hard-earned bits to go shopping: a cheap suit and gold shirt for her, a blue work shirt for Sunburst. After stuffing some random junk into a bag and giving Sunburst a clipboard, the two of them looked like a guard escorting some kind of technician as long as you didn’t look too closely. But that shouldn’t be a problem; once ponies thought they saw something, it was hard to convince them otherwise. And thank Celestia the casino was so busy the guards couldn’t stay in one place for too long, doing things such as looking at a random guard and her escort. They still didn’t have a keygem, but Bon Bon had a way around that. Hopefully.

“This is, it is not going to work,” Sunburst said yet again. “We look like idiots. I miss my robe.”

“It won’t if you keep talking about it,” snapped Bon Bon. “I don’t care how loud it is in here, somepony’s going to overhear you if you don’t shut up.”

“Shuttingupnow.”

The casino was busy and nopony gave them more than a passing glance. Bon Bon tried to keep her gait strong and purposeful, but every few seconds, she’d have to push somepony aside and start from scratch. She didn’t try coaching Sunburst; he wasn’t the kind to watch how he walked for more than a few seconds. And honestly, Bon Bon would’ve preferred almost anyone else. He was ill-suited to be a field agent and really should’ve been the guy who bragged about all the gadgets he made and reprimanded agents for losing them. At least he didn’t need to try to act like a guard.

Finally, they emerged from the crowd at the relevant door. Sunburst glanced at the locking panel and shot a Look at Bon Bon; he still wasn’t convinced with her explanation of how to get in. Luckily, he wasn’t the one she needed to convince.

Taking a deep breath, Bon Bon waved her fetlock at the panel. When nothing happened, she frowned, pulled her sleeve back to expose her bare ankle, and cursed. A perfect act, perfectly timed; the guard stopped as she passed them by and glanced at them. Bon Bon seized the moment to flag her down. “Hey, um, a little help?” she said nervously. “I, um, it’s my first week here and I forgot my- key.” Was the right term? Well, too late now. Bon Bon showed her lack of a gem to the guard and grimaced. “And I’ve got to watch this guy do some maintenance work on the security system, and fuuuuuuuudge.” She glanced at Sunburst; he was doing a very good job of looking self-conscious. Of course, it probably wasn’t an act.

The guard rolled her eyes as she walked over. “Sheesh. Make sure you don’t forget it again, okay? You know how the boss can get.”

“No, I don’t,” said Bon Bon. “First week, remember?”

“You’ve managed to go a whole week without having her chew you out? Lucky.” The guard placed her fetlock near the door, beep, and it opened right up. “Get in before somepony else spots us.” She hustled Bon Bon and Sunburst through the door and quickly shut it behind them.

They were in. Easy.

Sunburst stared at Bon Bon. “How-?”

“Nopony wants to be the jerk who didn’t let the rookie in,” said Bon Bon. She ran over the directions to the security hub. Pass one hallway, take a right, go around the corner at the end- “Ponies aren’t as alert as you probably think they are,” she said as she set off. “Be a little bit of gum in their mane, and they’ll do anything to get you out.”

“Wow. Um. Okay.” Sunburst scurried after her, pushing his glasses back into place. “How, how did you know that?”

“I read about it in a lot of books.” SMILE had plenty of field training and social engineering manuals, after all, and Sweetie Drops had devoured them like candy.

Nopony looked twice at them as they walked through halls. Rainbow was right; the blueprints were accurate. When Bon Bon looked up, the ceiling was a dropped ceiling, infrastructure covered by the usual fiberglass tiles. Good. Very few signs of cameras. Also good. Right… then left… and there was the sign, just like Rainbow and the blueprints had said: Security Hub. A guard was approaching from the other side. Yes.

“Hey!” Bon Bon waved down the guard. “Do you think you could help me for a second? I left my keygem at home and I need to get this guy-” She nudged Sunburst; he smiled nervously. “-into the security hub. We’re doing maintenance.”

“Maintenance?” asked the guard. She looked at Sunburst who, to his credit, didn’t flinch. “Uh-huh. What sort of maintenance?”

“I’m- not sure,” said Bon Bon, cringing inside. She’d wanted to come up with an explanation last night, but they couldn’t do that without knowing how the security system actually worked. “He’s the tech. I’m just supposed to watch him while he works.”

Sunburst pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “You, you wouldn’t understand. Very technical. Very complicated. It wouldn’t mean anything to you.” Was his voice a bit deeper?

“Uh-huh,” the guard said again. She looked back and forth between Sunburst and Bon Bon, her ears flicking. Finally, she said, “I’ll let you in, but I’ll need to watch you both. For security’s sake. Just in case.”

Bon Bon wasn’t sure if she should be panicked. The guard was a pegasus, so she wouldn’t know what kind of magic Sunburst was casting to scan the system, but that kind of depended on the system being largely magic in nature. (Which, okay, was pretty darn likely, but still.) “That won’t be a problem, will it?” she asked while thinking about what she really meant very hard in Sunburst’s direction and praying she was telepathic.

Maybe she was. She could see the exact instant realization hit; Sunburst’s eyes widened for a second before he recomposed himself. “Of course not,” he said. “I’m just… seeing what’s up with the system. Somepony watching won’t bother me.”

“Uh-huh,” said the guard yet again. Another look at Sunburst, then she unlocked the door and not-quite-shoved them in.

Bon Bon didn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t quite like this. Row after row of (lockers? Cabinets? Racks?) racks stood in long, claustrophobic aisles in an unadorned room. The floor was cold metal, the walls were bare, the lights weren’t as bright as outside, and the wiring conduits were undisguised, all very utilitarian. Speaking of wiring conduits, there were far more than Bon Bon would have expected, almost a dozen. They came down from the ceiling and spilled strange glass wires over the tops of the racks. The racks themselves were labelled things like Floors 1 - 5 or Roulette Wheels or Artifact Vault. To distract herself from the fact that she had no idea what she was looking at, Bon Bon glanced up. The security room still had a dropped ceiling. That was something.

Sunburst twitched, then kept walking. Impressively, he managed to look like he knew what he was doing. Bon Bon followed him to one of the racks (she didn’t know how he chose that one). Inside was a tangle of more of those glass wires running through a hole in the top of the rack and plugged into some sort of crystalline lattice. Sunburst twitched again, but he was smiling. Igniting his horn, he pushed some of the wires away and plunged his head into the racks to examine one of the lattices more closely. Well, that was what Bon Bon hoped was happening.

“So,” said the guard, leaning against one of the racks, “what’re you working on?”

“Oh, you know,” Bon Bon said as casually as she could. “Security stuff. It’ll be boring, you don’t need to stay here.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” snapped the guard.

“She, she’s right,” Sunburst said before Bon Bon could respond. “Most of the work will just, it’ll just look like my horn glowing as I poke glass wires. Really boring.”

Apparently, the guard had a catchphrase. “Uh-huh.” She nodded. “So what’re you working on?”

“Increasing the silica’s overlapping thaum throughput and decreasing its attenuation while simultaneously ensuring frequency stabilization and coherence to prevent informational corruption,” Sunburst said casually. He glanced up at the two of them and, seeing the looks on their faces, added, “The system can, it can handle more stuff at once and still work fine.”

The guard blinked once, twice, thrice. “Oh… kay…” she said. She shuffled for the door. “I’ll, um, leave you… to it… then.” And she was gone.

“That was incredible!” Bon Bon whispered to Sunburst. “It almost sounded like it meant something.”

“That’s because it did, if, if you know the jargon,” said Sunburst. “I recognize the system. These are fiber arcanics.”

“Fiber whatsits?” asked Bon Bon. The term was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

“It’s, it’s a way of transporting magic. You know how crystals like quartz can, they can hold magical energy? If you melt them and, and you extend them into a wire like this, it’s, the structure allows for near-lossless transmission of magical energy over long distances. Or short ones, I guess.” Sunburst shoved his head into one of the racks on the other side of the aisle and began picking through the wires. He poked one of them with his horn and twitched. “And, wow, they’ve got a lot of magic running through, running through here. This one’s wind magic for A/C, but I bet there’s also visual spells for cameras, audio spells for loudspeakers and radios, base magic to just keep things working… Every single thaum of magic used the building, probably.” He glanced at Bon Bon and grinned. “Yes, including whatever security systems are on the, the vault.” He turned back to the rack and kept muttering. “If they’ve got something generating hydrothaumatic energy in the gorge, then… Yes, that’d work nicely.”

All the magic in the building. All of it. Getting pumped through here. If it’d been on her side, Bon Bon would’ve been ranting about the single-point-of-failure design. But it wasn’t, so she wasn’t. In fact, she was ecstatic about the chance to fiddle with… everything, really. Although- “You know fiber… arcanics?”

“Know them? I wrote a paper on them! Huge paper! Thirty pages long! Thesis-level! Perfect grade.” Sunburst smirked and pushed his glasses into position with a bit more firmness than usual. “Best grade I ever got. Heck, based on some citations I’ve gotten, it’s one of the more important papers in the field. Yeah, I, I’d say I know a bit about them.” He rummaged through the bags, pulled out the arcanoscope, and ran it over the wires, constantly making “ah” and “hm” noises. But he was smiling, so Bon Bon figured it was good.

Eventually, Sunburst stuffed the arcanoscope away. “So do you want the, the good news or the bad news?”

Ah, yes. Good news/bad news. How despicable, yet expected. “Good news.”

“The good news is that there’s no… obfuscation of the magic coming in. It, it’s as easy to read as, as any spell a unicorn can cast.”

But Bon Bon knew a double-edged blessing when she saw one. This was too easy, even if they’d had to con their way past two locked doors to get here. “So they just have it lying bare for any unicorn to read?” she asked. “Why is it okay that their security barely has any security?”

“Because this is cutting-edge stuff,” Sunburst said, patting the rack. “Most ponies who would know what the wires are, are even for would be hardcore futurists or neck-deep in research. I, I’m honestly surprised they could make the system this big to begin with, let alone having it actually work. Plus, I laid some of the groundwork in the first place, so, so I already know what to look for. Its security is pure esotericism.”

Reasonable enough. Bon Bon gave Sunburst the benefit of the doubt. “And the bad news?”

“I don’t have any real bad news, so this bit doesn’t work. Instead, I have better news: I think I know how to reroute a copy of the signals to us.”

Someone somewhere in the universe was having a very bad day. That was the only explanation for the streak of luck they were having.

“It’s almost the same thing as, as the arcanoscope,” continued Sunburst. “It’s just the, you know, the source of the signals that’s different. It’s, I mean, I can’t do it now, but if we come back here later-”

“Won’t the range matter? Like we discussed last night?”

Sunburst rolled his eyes. “I needed to fit a power source that could cross miles in a gem this big. Here, we’ve got the power source handed to us on a crystalline platter.” He gestured at the rack. “Unfortunately, we can’t do anything like that here, now, so…” He looked down the aisle. “Let’s see what other kinds of magic are in here.” He went to the next rack and poked around. “Visual magic from cameras. Mmhmm. And-”

“Think you can cover for us if another guard shows up?” asked Bon Bon. She didn’t like asking so many questions; being left in the dust was a tad disconcerting.

“Bon Bon, please,” Sunburst tutted. “I’m a scientist. I can pull more technical arcanobabble from my butt than any science-fiction writer you can name. So: yes.” He went to another rack, performed his poking routine, and whispered, “Probably the intercom system… completely bare like this? That is asking for so much trouble. Bon Bon, could, could you get the notepad from my bag?”

“So you’ve got a train,” said Gilda. “You take it off its tracks so it can go anywhere. But you take away the cars it pulls so it’s a lot smaller. And then you run it in the same loop anyway.” She kneaded her temples. “Tell me why that makes any sort of sense.”

Starlight watched the latest steam vehicle — she’d decided to call it a locomotive — turn a corner some distance away. “Because you don’t need train cars to carry just one pony, patrols usually follow the same routes anyway, and you can change courses quickly if you want to.” She rubbed at the telepathy anklet around her fetlock.

Starlight and Gilda were standing some distance down the road from the casino, watching the locomotives pass every now and then, trying to get some information from them. It wasn’t going too well; the locomotives never stopped long enough for them to get more than a vague image of them. Derpy had flown off to follow one along its route some time ago, and she hadn’t returned, although she was giving occasional updates on where the locomotive was moving.

Privately, Starlight wondered how much this truly mattered. Even assuming the inside of the casino had been teleport-proofed, that didn’t apply outside. The locomotives could all be in Goumada’s employ and Starlight could still blip the group to the train station — maybe even further — with no problem. (Okay, maybe a small problem, that was a long distance. But only a small problem!) They wouldn’t do anything in the heist itself. So why bother?

Gilda clacked her beak. “Hmph. Still seems stupid.”

“Not all ponies can fly.”

“I guess.” Gilda sat and waited for the next locomotive, but her tail kept twitching like she was ready to pounce something, anything. Starlight sympathized.

The minutes ticked by. Ponies came and went. The locomotive didn’t arrive. Gilda groaned. “Mind if I get something to eat? I swear, I’ve been sitting here for so long, I’ll even settle for your rabbit food.”

“Go ahead, but be quick about it,” said Starlight. “You need-” But Gilda was already bolting for a food cart over a block away. Starlight rolled her eyes and huffed.

Derpy fluttered down next to her. “Sorry,” she said, “but I didn’t see anything. The train just went in a loop and now it’s coming around again.” She pointed down the street; sure enough, the hulking shape of a locomotive was fast approaching.

Starlight groaned. “I was afraid of that. Unless we actually talk to the driver or wait until they return to wherever for the night, we’re probably not learning anything.”

Derpy looked down the road at the approaching locomotive. She rustled her wings. She furrowed her brow in thought. “…Starlight?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t follow me.” Derpy stepped out into the street.

Where she was immediately creamed by the locomotive.

Starlight and just about everyone else froze as Derpy yelped; she rolled down the street a good ten feet away. The locomotive screeched to a halt and the pony driving it was off in a second. “Oh no, oh no, I didn’t mean to…” she whispered. A crowd quickly gathered around Derpy; Starlight would’ve joined them if she hadn’t been told not to. Derpy had a plan. Right?

Starlight couldn’t see Derpy through the ponies surrounding her, but she could hear her. “I’m okay!” Derpy chirped. “Mostly okay! Pretty okay!” A pause, a grunt of effort. “Yep! Pretty okay! Could be worse, am I right?”

“Oh, Celestia, I am so sorry,” somepony — the driver? — said. “I should’ve-”

Derpy sounded way too happy for someone who’d been hit that hard and nearly run over. “Nope! It’s my fault. I didn’t watch where I was going. And I’m okay! Really!”

“But I should’ve-”

Gilda chose that moment to return, a bag of fried carrots in her beak and the claws of one forefoot holding a cup of soda. “I got you something,” she said, tossing the carrots at Starlight. They bounced off her head. “What’s going on?”

“Derpy got hit by a train!” Starlight whisper-screamed.

“Oh.” Gilda took a sip of soda and promptly spat it back out. “What?!”

“That road vehicle thing, that locomotive-” Starlight said breathlessly, “she just- told me not to follow her, and then she-” She flung her hoof out. “-went into the street, and wham!”

“And- you’re not helping her or checking to see if she’s okay?” Gilda hissed, crushing the cup in her claws..

Derpy’s voice filtered through the crowd. “How many times do I have to say I’m okay?” She was annoyed for the first time Starlight had met her. “Well, don’t do that, that hurts even when you’re at your best!”

“She’s got a plan,” said Starlight, not remotely confidently. “Probably. Maybe. Hopefully.”

“Look, is there anything I can do for you?” asked the driver. “Anything at all?”

“Well… if you could take me home, I guess that’d be nice.” Derpy sounded reluctant. “But I don’t need it.”

“Wait, is she showing that mook to our house?” The muscles on Gilda’s talons were standing out so much it was a wonder she wasn’t digging into the concrete. “If she screws this all up, I swear I’ll-”

“I can do that!” the driver said, sounding very eager-to-please, almost desperately so.

“It’s on the edge of town, on the other side of the gorge,” said Derpy. “It’s a long trip.”

Gilda blinked and loosened up. “Okay. That’s not our house.” She glanced back and forth between Starlight and the crowd surrounding Derpy. “What is she up to?”

“If I knew, I’d tell you. Let’s move back.”

“Don’t worry!” said the driver. “This engine’s got plenty of energy left and room for you! Come on!” An unassuming unicorn in what was probably a policemare’s uniform pushed out of the crowd, leading Derpy by the hoof, and pulled her toward the locomotive.

“This is too weird,” whispered Gilda. “Even for you ponies. Should we help her?”

Derpy put a hoof on a set of steps leading to some seats on the locomotive. She glanced out over the crowd; her eyes met Starlight’s. Starlight made her best questioning expression and pointed at her horn. Almost unnoticeably, Derpy shook her head. The driver helped her onto the locomotive; a few blasts from a horn to make the crowd disperse, a few lever pulls in the right pattern, and the machine was off, Derpy with it.

“No,” said Starlight. “We shouldn’t.” Why, she couldn’t say. But Derpy had been trustworthy so far, and there was no reason to stop now.

Derpy’s voice came through the anklet. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Is it expensive?”

“What’s she doing?” asked Gilda. “Those’re the bad guys!”

“The casino pays for it? Do you work for them?”

“I don’t know!” said Starlight. “But she seemed-”

“Do the police need to do anything in return?”

“-pretty sure of…” Ding. Starlight smiled at the departing locomotive. “Oh. Oh, that’s good.”

“What’s good?” demanded Gilda. “Glim-Glam, what is go-”

Snap-crack, and they were back in the villa’s living room. Derpy’s voice was still coming through loud and clear. Starlight’s horn was still smoking and her head was still spinning, but she barely noticed as she grabbed a quill and one of Sunburst’s pieces of scratch paper.

“-ing on?” finished Gilda. She blinked, then curled into a ball, clutching her head. “OW! A little warning would be nice, sparklebutt!”

“No time. We need to write this down.” Starlight had already scribbled enough to fill half a sheet of paper.

“Oh. But shouldn’t the cops… Never mind. How does this run?”

“Derpy’s getting the driver to tell her everything.”

11.

12.

13.

The elevator doors opened. A few mares got out. Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe hammered the “Close Door” button with his hoof. The elevator doors closed.

15.

16.

Thorax-Unicron-Taupe hammered the wall with his head.

18.

The elevator doors opened. Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe and the Doctor-Earth-Brown got out of the elevator. He hadn’t moved at all, and yet Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe felt like he’d run a mile. Who would’ve guessed that standing in one place could be so exhausting? He missed flight.

“You know what skyscrapers need?” he muttered to the Doctor-Earth-Brown as they walked down the hall. “Shafts. Big shafts that go from the tops of the buildings to the bottom so that pegasi can fly up without needing to use elevators that take a whole minute to get to the tops of buildings and are cramped and get stuffed with other ponies and are awkward and-”

“Couldn’t you have simply been a pegasus and flown to the airship landing pad at the top of the building?” asked the Doctor-Earth-Brown. “See, there’s a sign for it. Right over there.” He pointed at the sign: an upward-pointing arrow that said To Airship Landing Pad.

Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe blinked at the sign. Then he tossed his head back and groaned. “Let’s just get to the room,” he mumbled.

The keygem Lyra had given them worked just fine and soon the Doctor-Earth-Brown was making some last-minute adjustments to the arcanoscope. “Bit finicky, these things are,” he muttered. “Have to let Sunburst know… We never did test transporting them, did we? Ah, well.” He finally flipped a switch and a big illusion popped from the gem. Multicolored lines, faint dots, and a dim haze were etched in the air over an area about six feet cubed, give or take. Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe could barely tell what it all meant, although the lines looked like they were tracing out a building, maybe. The lines vaguely pulsed with… something, while most of the dots moved around, seemingly at random (but mostly horizontally).

Whatever it was, it made sense to the Doctor-Earth-Brown. “Everything seems to be in order,” he said, “and that’s us, right there.” He pointed to an unmoving pair of dots, one white and one green. “You’re the green one.”

“I am?” Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe took several steps to one side. The green dot moved a few inches over. Then it clicked: the lines were currents of magic running throughout the building while the dots were ponies (or changelings, or griffons, or…), with the colors indicating what type. Just like that, he could see the hotel in the figure the lines traced out and everything made sense. “Oh, wow.”

“That’s, what, five floors?” asked the Doctor-Earth-Brown. “Six? I think it’s six. Do you think it’s six? Indeed it is six. Do you want to do the scouting, or should I go while you sit in this nice, comfy room?”

“I’ll go out,” said Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe, arching his back.

The Doctor-Earth-Brown shrugged and made for the door. “Ah, well. Better luck ne-” His hoof was on the knob when he stopped himself. “Wait, what?”

“I need to stretch my legs,” said Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe, rolling said legs one by one, “and you can read that scope thing better than me. It makes more sense for you to stay here. Unless you want to go out.” He ducked his head into the straps of the arcanoscope’s bag.

The Doctor-Earth-Brown made a small O with his mouth. “Ah. I see. I… merely assumed-”

“You know what they say about assuming!” Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe said brightly. “Something about donkeys. Keep your anklet on.”

The halls were still empty. Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe almost slipped through several different shapes just to stretch his gestalt, but he didn’t want to risk anything. He spared a moment to glare at the sign pointing up to the airship landing pad, though. The stairwell beyond that sign was cold. Why were staircases like this always cold? He even thought it got to him more than it did to ponies, since bugs always went away during the winter, and he was, well.

The Doctor-Earth-Brown’s voice flitted through his head as he headed down. “So, ah, Thorax. You still doing alright? You hear me just fine?”

“Yep.” Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe’s footsteps echoed down the stairwell like he was in a cave or a mine shaft. “Why? You worried?”

“Not yet. Just checking that these anklets are working properly, since this is their first real field test. But I can hear you like you’re standing right next to me. Arcanoscope’s also swell. I’ll let you know if things look off.”

“Good. See you soon, then.”

After the confines of the elevator, even the boring staircase felt great. Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe could actually move his legs. Even the arcanoscope bumping lightly at his side had turned into something new and exciting. He noticed that his each of his hooves made a different sound on the steps, so he started making a simple song by timing his hoof falls correctly. At least until he passed somepony coming up and got a weird look.

The Doctor-Earth-Brown inhaled sharply. “Ah, Thorax… What, what story are you on?”

“Um… Eleventh. Why? Is there a problem?”

“I don’t believe so. But if I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing, then I think I’m seeing the Alicorn Amulet. And a mess of other things as well. Keep going. We need to confirm this.”

Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe opened his mouth, then closed it. Now wasn’t the time to ask questions. Even though he had many of them. He swallowed and convinced himself to keep walking.

He didn’t hear anything bad from the Doctor-Earth-Brown, so he assumed everything was acceptable. Finally, he said, “I’m at the bottom. Coming back up.”

“Stop when you reach the sixth floor,” the Doctor-Earth-Brown said. He sounded out of breath and a little excited. “You’ll want to see this. I’ll meet you there.”

“See what?” asked Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe. But all he could hear was the Doctor-Earth-Brown’s pants of exertion.

Somehow, the Doctor-Earth-Brown managed to reach the landing before Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe. He was bouncing on his hooves and grinning from ear to ear. “This is brilliant,” he said. “Absolutely brilliant.” He flicked on the projector of the arcanoscope, quickly adjusting it so the image could fit in the narrow stairwell. “If I’m seeing things correctly, we’re here-” That was the only set of a green dot and a white dot in view. “-and the vault is right here.”

Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe flinched when he looked at where the Doctor-Earth-Brown was pointing. The magic displayed in the illusion was twisted and sickening, an ugly red color disturbingly similar to blood. Purple and green hues twisted around the red and each other into bizarre intertwined spirals. The whole thing pulsed like a heartbeat and Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe felt like it was barely restrained, like a few small pinpricks would let it burst open and slather everything with capital-E Evil. He felt nauseous just looking at it, and he didn’t even have anything in his stomach to be nauseous with.

“Call me crazy,” said Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe, “but I think that’s the Alicorn Amulet.”

“I concur, Crazy,” said the Doctor-Earth-Brown. “Probably a load more evil artifacts in there as well.”

“Are we stealing those, too?” asked Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe.

The Doctor-Earth-Brown shrugged. “Might as well. Get those problems off the streets, bankrupt a criminal mastermind, and solve our original problem in the process. A smashing way to go out, and highly efficient, too.”

Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe would preferred to not go out at all, thanks, but he kept his mouth shut. the Doctor-Earth-Brown was in a Mood. “So what do all these mean?” He gestured vaguely at the image.

“Well, ah, you see this brownish haze throughout the whole building? That’s-”

“In small words,” Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe added hurriedly.

“It blocks teleporting. These lines here move magical energy throughout the building. This green cloud here around the Amulet is… Well, I’m not exactly sure, but I’m pretty sure it’s some sort of wind magic. And this cluster of red lines? Those are all highly-tuned detection spells.” Then the Doctor-Earth-Brown frowned. “Where are they?” He tapped his chin. “I’ve never seen them in here before.”

Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe tried to place the lines in relation to himself, but he was having a hard time of it. They were too far into the building. Then his eyes fell on some dots nearby. Some dots that were moving vertically. “Is that in the elevator shaft?”

“I- I… believe so.” The Doctor-Earth-Brown rubbed his chin and squinted at the lines, leaning in so close one of them passed through his muzzle. “Yes, it’s on the right level… You’d need to get the money into the vault somehow. Hmm. Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmmmmmmmmmm.” He turned to Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe with a not-completely-reassuring look on his face. “We need to get closer for a more precise reading.”

“How would we do that?” scoffed Thorax-Unicorn-Taupe. “Do you want to break into the elevator shaft?”

“What a splendid idea! I was simply going to suggest we take the arcanoscope into the elevator, but that will provide much less interference!”

16 - You Can't Solve Jigsaws With Hammers

Sunburst closed the final rack and stomped the dust off his hooves. “Alright,” he said, “that’s, that was just more visual spells.”

Bon Bon scribbled Visual at the designated rack on her diagram. “And you’re positive you can get us access in?” she asked. It was still hard to believe, no matter how much Sunburst knew his stuff.

“Definitely,” said Sunburst. “We just need to get back to the villa and I can start work on it.”

“Never, ever, ever say something that begins with ‘we just need to’,” Bon Bon said darkly, shooting Sunburst a stinkeye. “You’re tempting fate so hard.”

“Mmhmm. Sure.”

And yet, once they left, the worst that happened was that they got turned around a little and wound up in some hallways they didn’t recognize. Nobody paid them any attention. Not even when they were looking lost. Jerks.

As they passed an elevator, Bon Bon said, “Wait, stop. We need to think this through.”

“So you, you don’t know the way out,” whispered Sunburst.

“I thought I did! Did you do mazes as a kid?”

“Um. Kinda. I don’t- Oh, never mind. You can, you cheat them by following one wall all the way to the end.” Sunburst tapped the wall next to the elevator. “Like this one. Maybe.”

What the heck. It was better than any plan she had. “Alright. Let’s-”

Bon Bon looked at the elevator again. That elevator wasn’t on the plans… but Rainbow had noticed it… and they had yet to figure out how the cash was getting into the vault in the first place…

“That’s it,” she whispered.

“What’s it?” asked Sunburst.

“I’ll tell you when we’re out. Come on.”

Her brain shifted into orientation mode; Rainbow Dash had pointed to a point opposite the external elevator banks, but it wouldn’t hurt to be sure. Bon Bon began registering every single step she took, its distance and direction. It wasn’t long before she managed to lead Sunburst out of the back hallways and returned to the casino proper. From there, she moved with a purpose, turning for the elevators, and- Yeah, the mysterious employees-only elevator was right on the other side of the public ones. If that wasn’t the entrance to the vault, she’d eat her hat. Well, buy a hat so she could eat it.

“Thorax and the Doctor are still up in the hotel, right?” she asked Sunburst.

“I, I think so. Why?”

“That elevator we saw back there? I bet that’s the way into the vault. If we find those two and the arcanoscope, we can get a look at the magic around the vault.”

“Oh. Are we, um, going to change out of these?” Sunburst tugged at his collar.

“Follow me.”

Lyra wasn’t happy, per se, but she was certainly content. Ponyville was a nice town, but it was occasionally lacking in the orchestral department, especially in the way Octavia pooh-poohed brass sections. As the band tuned up for the rehearsal, she was reminded of the richness in sound that came from having a full band.

Her own lyre was sounding nice. Second Lyre’s was sounding nice. The entire band was sounding nice. (Except for Fourth Trumpet.) Her part wasn’t too difficult. The room they were practicing in had phenomenal acoustics. Yes, this was going to be a good rehearsal. As the conductor prepared to take the stand, she idly strummed out a scale on her lyre, so in tune (fnah fnah) with the idea of music that she didn’t even need to think about what she was doing.

Second Lyre’s ear twitched toward her, then she turned to look. She got her first good glimpse of Lyra’s lyre and her ears turned forward. “Oooh,” she said, “is that a Bumper Privateer? I heard those are made out of maple.”

“Yeah,” said Lyra, half proud, half embarrassed. “I inherited some money and splurged.” She held her instrument out for Second Lyre to get a closer look.

“Lucky. I’ve just got a Yamahay Virtuoso. I mean, it’s not bad, but…” Second Lyre’s hooves twitched, like she wanted to hold the lyre. “Look at those curves.”

“Honestly, I think half the cost is being able to say, ‘I own a Privateer’,” said Lyra. “It’s a good lyre, but it doesn’t do much a cheaper lyre can’t. If you want to compare-”

Click, click, click. The conductor (Treble Clef, right?) was tapping her baton against the lectern. “Alright, everypony ready?” she yelled.

“Later?” whispered Lyra.

“Later,” agreed Second Lyre.

Bon Bon lead Sunburst to the hotel’s stairwell. A quick check confirmed that it was empty and camera-free, like so many of its brethren elsewhere. Bon Bon and Sunburst quickly pulled their outfits off and stuffed them into his bag.

“I miss my robe,” mumbled Sunburst. Indeed, he looked incomplete without it. “What sort of big, important wizard doesn’t have a, have a robe?”

“Twilight? Celestia? Luna? Starlight?” suggested Bon Bon, not entirely facetiously.

“…I miss my robe.”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. She was about to start climbing when her ear twitched. She could barely make out voices coming down the stairs. They were too hushed for her to make out their words, but she recognized the sound. “I think Thorax and the Doctor are above us,” she said. “Come on.”

The two going up met the two going down on a landing between the third and fourth floors. Bon Bon was about to ask what was going on when Thorax said, “The Doctor wants to climb into the elevator shaft.”

Bon Bon and Sunburst stared at the Doctor.

“In the elevator shaft,” the Doctor said calmly, “we saw detection spells at around the same level as the vault. I thought we could ride the elevator up, but Thorax suggested we climb into the shaft to get closer, and-”

“That was a joke,” hissed Thorax.

“Of course, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any value!” protested the Doctor. “It’ll reduce the interference from any other nearby magic. If it’s stupid but it works, it is not stupid.”

“That’s… not the worst idea,” Bon Bon said slowly.

“Wha-? But- I thought you were smart!” wailed Thorax.

“We need to get the best view of it we can, sooner or later,” said Bon Bon. “Why not now and get it over with? And if we get caught, we can just say we were, I don’t know, um…” She nibbled on her hoof.

“Elevator surfing,” said Sunburst quietly.

“Right, that,” said Bon Bon. “So we I’m sorry, what? Never mind. So if we get it done now, then we know what’s up. And, more importantly, we don’t have to do it again later.” It was like putting off studying for a test. If failing the test meant getting jailed on trumped-up charges by a crime boss.

“…Fine,” Thorax said glumly. “But how would we even get into the shaft?”

“Isn’t there a ceiling hatch we can open from the inside of the car?” asked the Doctor.

“Well, yes, but no,” said Sunburst. “That hatch, it, it’s locked from the outside for, you know, maintenance crews and rescue services. You, you’ll need to pry open the doors on the, the outside of the elevator, in the halls.”

Everyone stared at Sunburst.

He turned bright red, looked down, and mumbled, “I… did some… stupid things as a teen.”

Once her thoughts were back in order, Bon Bon said, “That might work, as long as there are no cameras in the halls. Let me check.” One quick glance, and- “No good. There are cameras at every corner and watching the elevators.” Unfortunate, but incredibly expected. At least nopony had done anything attention-grabbing in the halls yet. “A bunch of ponies prying open the doors would look suspicious. We’ll need to find another way into ”

“Vents,” said the Doctor absently. Noticing the looks on everyone else, he clarified, “Through the ventilation.” He pointed at a small vent on their very landing. “It always happens in these sorts of tales! It’s what Derpy would suggest, anyway.”

“That’s not, it’s not a bad idea,” said Sunburst. He investigated the vent more thoroughly and used magic to jiggle the screws that seemed to be all that was holding the cover on. “I mean, opening and closing vents is, that’s no problem with magic.”

“Yeah, but they’re not big enough for a pony to fit through,” said Bon Bon, “so we’ll-”

Thorax coughed. “Um.”

“Duh,” Bon Bon said, clapping herself on the head. “You’d do that? What if you get stuck?”

“It’s,” Thorax said, “I mean-” Poof, and he was a rather large rat, still wearing his telepathy anklet, now rat-sized. “How can I get stuck when I’m this big?”

“Wow.” Bon Bon leaned down. Somehow, she could still make out something of Thorax in the rat’s eyes, assuming she wasn’t just imagining things. “I didn’t know changelings could get that small.”

“I could go smaller if I was better at shifting,” said Thorax. “This is the best I can do.”

“It’s way more than enough.”

Sunburst’s magic worked wonders on the screws securing the vent covers and Thorax scurried in. Pointing out directions, Bon Bon said, “Go several yards that way, then take a left and head that way until you hit the shaft. I think.”

“I’m bad at being a changeling, not with direction,” squeaked Thorax, sounding a touch peeved. “I can find my way to the elevators.” He scurried away. The scratch of his little mouse claws on the metal ductwork made Bon Bon’s coat crawl; she’d spent a winter in a rodent-infested house, and that was not fun.

Sunburst sealed the vent back up and they waited. Thorax didn’t respond. The Doctor passed the anklet off to Bon Bon. (“You’d probably put it to better use than I can.”) Thorax didn’t respond. They waited some more. Thorax didn’t respond.

“You don’t suppose he got lost, did he?” the Doctor said. His ears were back and he was tapping his hooves together. “It’s not like there are maps in there, and all the, ah, ‘hallways’ look the same.”

“It, it can’t be that hard,” said Sunburst. “Wouldn’t ducting be designed to be efficient? Not much intersections, straight lines-”

“Perhaps, but still.” The Doctor sighed. “I never thought I’d be worried about a changeling.”

“He’s reforming!” Sunburst said defensively. “You know, like Discord? The guy who betrayed the whole country a while back and Twilight still trusts? The guards never saw him even try anything! And Flurry Heart likes him! Honestly, the only reason he isn’t one of the nicest ponies I know is because he isn’t a pony!”

“I know, but…” The Doctor shrugged. “It’s a hard feeling to shake.”

Bon Bon knew Thorax wasn’t the greatest infiltrator, but he was still genuinely trying. That was more than could be said for an awful lot of changelings. That was more than could be said for an awful lot of ponies. And outside of the heist, from what little she’d seen of him, he was so… endearingly awkward. Like a not-genius Twilight. Thorax wasn’t a pony, but he was good people. “I think he’s doing fine,” said Bon Bon. “I trust him.”

She jumped as Thorax’s voice drifted through her mind. “You’re wearing the anklet, Bon Bon,” he said, slight annoyance in his voice, “so you know I can hear you, right?”

“Sorry,” Bon Bon said quickly. “We were just worried about you.” To the Doctor and Sunburst, she mouthed, He’s still going.

“Well, I’m fine. Nothing bad yet. It’s kinda cozy.”

“Cozy?” asked Bon Bon incredulously.

“There were tunnels in the hive that I crawled through when I was a nymph — and, um, sometimes when I wasn’t — and these remind me of those. If those tunnels were cold, metallic, dusty, and windy. At least these don’t change.”

“Wait, what do you mean, ‘change’?”

“Oh, hang on. I think… Yeah, I’m at the shaft. Nothing stopping me from getting in. Wow, this is tall…”

“We’ll call an elevator. Get on top of the one that’s stopping at the… third floor, then keep quiet.”

“Sure.”

Bon Bon, the Doctor, and Sunburst went to the elevator bank and waited. “Is this, um, isn’t this a little, I don’t know, impulsive?” asked Sunburst. “We see that there’s magic in the elevators and suddenly we’re going elevator surfing to find out what magic and-”

“We’ve got to do it at some point,” said Bon Bon. “We’ve got less than two weeks to figure out what it is, so why not now?”

“It’s, I don’t know.” Sunburst pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “It feels like, we could just-”

Ding. One set of elevator doors opened. “Feel free to stay out here if you want,” said Bon Bon. She entered the elevator car, the Doctor close behind, Sunburst not-so-close behind. As the doors closed, Thorax said, “One of the elevators just stopped at the third floor. Is that you?”

“Is it the one on the right if you’re entering it?”

“Um… Yeah, that’s the one,” said Thorax. “Give me a second. Here’s the panel… Here’s the latch… And-” The ceiling rattled and a panel swung upwards. A pegasus that could only be Thorax stuck his head in and grinned. “I did it!” He swung a hoof down. “So who’s coming up?”

Sunburst opted to stay inside, letting Bon Bon and the Doctor climb on up. Light bulbs were set into the walls, dim, but at least bright enough to see by. It was cramped in the shaft, thanks to the small size of the car, so Thorax quickly climbed back down. Bon Bon shut the hatch behind him and swung herself onto the maintenance ladder. Turning to the Doctor, she asked, “You got the arcanoscope transmitter?”

But the Doctor was paying her no attention, instead staring up the shaft. “I… don’t think that’ll be necessary.” He pointed.

Bon Bon followed his hoof, and- “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” she said.

Several stories up, the shaft was crisscrossed with laser beams, covering every possible way one could get through that particular area. In the darkness of the shaft, they glowed red and ominous. The fact that the beams were visible wasn’t any help to any burglars (or heisters): they were packed so closely together even a fly would have trouble slipping through without tripping at least one. It was a miracle the cables managed to slip through.

“A laser grid,” said Bon Bon flatly. “All the cliches they could’ve used, and they went with a freaking laser grid. That is so last decade.” Even if it was a little better laid-out than the ones she’d usually encountered as Sweetie Drops.

“What do you mean by that?” asked the Doctor.

“Nothing. I’m getting a closer look. Could I see the transmitter?”

As Bon Bon climbed the ladder, the transmitter in her mouth, she examined the layout of the shaft more closely. Three elevators, side-by-side for the public, and one extra one behind them. The vault shaft was cut off from the main one with metal grating, but nothing more. Cut through the grating, and you were into the vault shaft. Of course, the grating was thick enough to render that difficult, but it was a start.

Bon Bon stopped just below the lasers. Yes, they were packed impressively tightly together. She couldn’t even get her hoof past the first row; there just wasn’t enough space. She craned her neck to see that, yes, the lasers were on both sides of the grating, passing through the holes with barely a millimeter to spare. She squinted at the walls; no obvious “off” switch, but then, she wasn’t expecting one. Heck, she wasn’t expecting a non-obvious one. If they were unlucky, it wasn’t even controlled from security hub.

The Doctor’s hooves clicked on the ladder beneath her. “Ah, sorry,” he said, “but I was hoping-”

“Hang on.” Bon Bon placed her rear hooves on a girder, hooked her front hooves around a higher one, and shimmied over to give him some space. “That better?” For keeping her mouth tight around the transmitter, she was quite articulate.

“Very.” The Doctor climbed up to her level and frowned at the lasers. “Certainly a cliche. But how do the elevators get through?”

“I bet the beams turn off at the right time. Maybe they’re automated.”

“Most likely.” The Doctor looked at the lasers again, then looked down the shaft. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll be heading down. Tall places and I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye.”

“Go ahead.” Bon Bon didn’t look away from the lasers.

“Thank you.” And the Doctor was clambering back down like a monkey.

Lasers. Fricking lasers. If there was a good reason for using them, Bon Bon couldn’t think of it at the moment. She glared up at the beams, like she could learn something from a visual analysis; the beams hummed back, as if they were pleased by the stymieing of her visual analysis. Another job for the arcanoscope. Stupid reliance on gadgets. That was the problem with magic: it gradually became your solution to everything, but not everyone could use it as easily as unicorns without help. She glanced across to the sectioned-off portion of the shaft; whatever door there was, she couldn’t see it beyond the lasers. Bon Bon sighed and climbed down.

When Bon Bon opened the elevator hatch, Sunburst and Thorax were in deep, whispered, worried-sounding discussion and the Doctor was standing in a corner, doing his best to not look at them. They all looked up when they heard Bon Bon. “Those are not happy sounds,” she said. She jumped into the elevator, pulling the hatch shut behind her. “Why am I not hearing happy sounds?”

“Well, ah,” said Sunburst, “you, you know how you said there were cameras in the hallways?” He exchanged glances with Thorax and took a deep breath. “Yesterday, Thorax forgot to check when, when he was tracking down those, um, coins, so he… kinda shapeshifted in full view of them.”

It wasn’t every day Bon Bon felt the bottom of her stomach fall out. It was like she’d just been slapped in the face. Dread coursed through her; if they lost their changeling, half the plans she was making were dead in the water. “What?” she gasped.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Thorax. “I-”

“No, wait, not here.” Bon Bon punched the button for the top floor. “We need some real privacy. Let’s go to your room.”

“Lyra’s room, actually,” said Sunburst.

“Whatever.” Bon Bon stared at the floor indicator, willing it to go faster. Sadly, since she wasn’t a unicorn, that wasn’t an option. 3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

“Sorry,” mumbled Thorax.

“Save it.”

8.

9.

Bon Bon was already ready to chew her own tail off.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t bored, per se, but- Actually, yeah. She was. She so was. Band rehearsals sounded so stupid. Oh, sure, some of the time, they’d play together nicely, but just as often, the conductor would talk to this one set of instruments or that and try to coax something out of them. Rainbow didn’t know much about musical theory (or even that musical theory existed), so she didn’t know what that “something” was called, so she couldn’t even think about the song itself. Most of what she could do amounted to skulking in a corner of the rehearsal room and listening.

But she had her sheet music and could read it well enough to know where they were when the band was actually playing the whole thing. At least it was a good song, very upbeat and triumphant. The point at which Goumada had scheduled the rainboom was nearly perfect, at the very peak of a crescendo.

So when would be the best time to actually start flying? That was always tricky, depending on how good or bad her day was going. But once she knew how good or bad her day was going, her acceleration was easy to predict. She set up a range of notes to start from, going from “least awesome” to “most awesome”. She suspected she’d be closer to the right, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared.

The band stopped playing and the conductor focused on the trumpets. Trumpets were cool but a full band was cooler. Rainbow groaned and gnawed on her tail.

Having the space to pace in Lyra’s suite did miracles to cool Bon Bon’s nerves. The situation still wasn’t great, but it wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. She was barely listening to Thorax as his explanation came out in a barely-controlled torrent.

“So I came out of the elevator on the sixth floor,” he babbled as he sat on the bed, “and then I went around the floor, and then I gave myself an octopus limb to probe under the door, and then I turned into another pony so I wouldn’t be recognized in poker, and nopony saw me up here, but I forgot to check for cameras and I’m sorryyyyyyyyy.” He cringed and looked down. Bon Bon suspected he wanted nothing better than to hide beneath the covers.

Sunburst reached over and awkwardly patted Thorax’s shoulder. “It’s, um, I’m sure it’s not… that bad,” he said, sounding as confident as an earth pony at Wonderbolts tryouts. “I bet they just- forgot about it! Yyyyyyeah.” His grin looked more like a grimace.

Bon Bon kept pacing. Sunburst might’ve been closer than he realized. “You said this happened before noon, right?” she asked Thorax.

“Um. Yes?” asked Thorax. His fins twitched. “Why?”

“I don’t think they noticed you in the first place.” Bon Bon took a deep breath and let it out again. “Look, we haven’t heard a thing about changelings running amok around the casino, right? Nopony ran up yesterday to try to catch you. And nopony was tested that much when Sunburst and I went in. So, I-” She ran a hoof through her mane. “I think you managed to get lucky and nopony saw you shift.”

“Really?” squeaked Thorax hopefully.

“Think about it.” Bon Bon gestured around the room. “You’re a security guard looking over dozens of cameras. You pay the most attention to the ones in the casino, because that’s where the action is. You see a flash of light on one of the hotel cameras, but when you look, there’s just a pony. So you go back to the casino and never imagine that the light you saw was a changing changeling.” It was a division of attention that’d saved her haycon too many times. (Just once, but that was still too many.) Watchers weren’t infallible, but it wasn’t a bad strategy to treat them like they were. “And a changeling’s the sort of threat that ponies need to be on the lookout for.”

“I know I’d sound the alarm ASAP if I saw a changeling,” said the Doctor. He twitched and his voice sped up. “Um. Besides you, of course, no offense.”

“None taken,” said Thorax.

“But listen,” said Bon Bon, her voice growing hard. She lightly jabbed Thorax in the chest. “If this is true, you got very, very lucky. You can’t just assume that they’re not watching now because they weren’t watching then.”

Thorax nodded vigorously. “Don’t worry, I won’t forget.” And Bon Bon was sure he wouldn’t, not after this. The burned hoof teaches best.

“Try changing in a bathroom stall or the stairwell next time,” Bon Bon suggested. “Oh, if you do it in a bathroom, remember to stay the same gender. The last thing we need is a stallion walking out of the mare’s room.”

“Right.”

“Good.”

There was a brief silence, then the Doctor added, “So, ah, Sunburst, did you see the readout on the detection spell they’re using? Bon Bon and I, we saw it. Actually, physically saw it, by the way, it’s-”

Sunburst sharply sucked in some air. “It’s visible? Hoo, boy.” Then he coughed. “Um. Sorry. Continue.”

The dread that’d been banished after Bon Bon had reasoned that Thorax probably hadn’t been seen was creeping back in. Anything that made their magic expert act like that was Bad News. What sort of Bad News, however, still needed to be seen.

The Doctor kept talking. “It’s a… You know those laser grids that always appear in books? Visible for some reason and wide enough to be climbed around? Kind of like that, except not wide enough to be climbed around.”

“Ah.” Sunburst squirmed a little, like he knew he had to say something but really didn’t want to.

“So,” said Bon Bon, “how bad is it?”

“Well, if, if the magic’s visible like that,” said Sunburst, “then it, it’s very potent and very sensitive. We couldn’t trick those spells at all. They’d detect whatever magic we were trying to use to circumvent them and go off.”

“I don’t suppose,” suggested the Doctor, “that Starlight could turn us invisible, and-”

“Wouldn’t work,” Sunburst said. “It’s, it’s the sort of spell that detects life, regardless of if it’s, it’s visible or not. The fact that it is visible is, is just due to the magic being…” He began mashing something together with his hooves. “…so ridiculously concentrated that the spillover is, it’s energizing the air and making it glow. It’s probably in lasers rather than blanketing a region to, in order to save on power.”

“The elevators get through,” said Bon Bon. “Could the elevators themselves be enchanted or would the spells need to be turned off?”

“Ehm…” Sunburst scratched his head. “It’s, I mean, you could enchant the elevators to have their contents be ignored, but, but that’s a lot of work. Like, years-to-set-up a lot. And you two-” He pointed at Thorax and the Doctor. “-didn’t see anything in the arcanoscope for the elevators, right?”

“No,” said Thorax.

“As in, ‘we didn’t see anything’,” the Doctor added.

Bon Bon resumed her pacing. “So, to recap: a spell in the shafts that detects life, probably turns off when elevators pass by it. Hmm.” No bright ideas jumped out at her, but she hadn’t expected them to. If they came that quickly, this system would’ve been defeated years ago. “And do you think we’ll need to smuggle an arcanoscope into the vault?”

Thorax tensed up, but Sunburst laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. The only magic protecting the vault is, it’s wind magic. Somehow. There isn’t even any magic in the door. We don’t need anything more.” (Thorax wilted in relief.)

“Good. We’ve done all we can here, let’s get back to the villa. By the elevator.”

Close examination of the arcanoscope as the elevator descended revealed that, yes, the detection spells were switched off as the car passed through them. Pieces were slowly coming together. The time for surveying was reaching an end. Now, they needed to actually plan.

Too bad planning was always the hard part, second only to the execution itself. But Bon Bon was willing to take her victories where she could get them.

17 - Taking Stock of the Situation

Starlight was still writing stuff down when Derpy walked into the living room. Without looking up, she said, “I love you forever.”

“Sorry,” said Derpy. “I’m taken.”

That didn’t matter to Starlight, and not in any sense related to polyamory. It was a miracle, all the information she’d managed to wring out of Derpy. Actually, that she’d managed to wring out of Derpy’s responses to the locomotive driver (engineer?). Those responses were far from comprehensive, and yet she felt like she’d managed to fill a book with the information in them. (A small book, to be frank, a short novella at best, but a book nonetheless.) And how much more had Derpy herself heard?

“I’ll stay out of your way, then,” said Starlight. She looked up, grinning from ear to ear. “Thank you so much for getting that information. I don’t know where you get you ideas, but they’re good ones.”

Gilda wasn’t as happy. She didn’t have the benefit of a nonphysical appendage to write with and her claws looked like they were cramping something fierce as she nursed them. “Uh-huh, sure,” she muttered as she clenched and unclenched her fingers for the tenth time that minute. “And I’m the one that spends hours recording everything, and…” Her voice trailed off into angry mutters.

“Don’t mind her,” said Starlight. “She’s just a bit angry. So…” She fanned out the papers in front of her, pulled up a fresh sheet, and re-inked her quill. “I recorded what I could from your responses, but I don’t think I got everything. Could you elaborate?”

“Sure!” Derpy retrieved a muffin from the kitchen, cut the top off, and thought as she buttered both halves. “You heard they’re owned by the police but were a gift from Goumada, right?”

“Not directly,” said Starlight, “but I gathered that.” Still, confirmation was nice.

“Well, they came with all sorts of conditions.” Derpy nibbled a crumb off her muffin and continued, “If something happens at the casino, the police are supposed to prioritize that, rather than anything else.”

“And the cops are okay with that?”

“Most of them actually aren’t, or so I heard.” Munch. “The patrols those locomotives allow do cause some deterrence, which means less overall crime, but a lot of cops still don’t like Goumada. And they don’t even know she’s an artifact smuggler; they just think she’s slimy.”

“Well, she is. But they still have to go to any crimes in progress at the casino.”

“Yep.” Munch.

“Super,” moaned Gilda. “So we can’t even cause a distraction to keep the cops away while we’re heisting, ’cause they’ll drop everything to get to us if we’re spotted.”

“And tell me, Gilda,” said Starlight, “what would we do for that distraction?”

“Dunno. Blow something up? …Don’t give me that look, I ain’t much of a planner! I bet one of you ponies could come up with a better distraction if you tried!”

“Uh-huh,” said Starlight. But she didn’t stop staring at Gilda. “Anything else, Derpy?”

Munch. “They’re mostly magic-powered, with these big gems in the back for batteries. Apparently, they could run for days without running out of energy, but they’re supposed to be brought in at the end of every shift for recharging, just in case.”

“Right.” Not that surprising. “All at the police station, right?”

“Well, there’s also one or two at the casino. You know…” Derpy made a face and rolled her eyes. “If something comes up. At the casino. Just the casino. They’re not even trying to hide it, are they?”

“Why did this have to happen in Equestria?” mumbled Gilda to herself. “Of all the places for the dark magic artifact to get stolen, it had to be in the sunshiniest, ranbowiest place in the world.”

“Well, sunshine and rainbows come from magic,” said Starlight, “so Equestria being the sunshiniest and rainbowiest place in the world would also mean it’s the magicest place in the world, making it the most likely place to have dark magic artifacts to be stolen in the first place.”

“I mean, that’s just common sense,” snorted Derpy.

“Besides, what’s so bad about sunshine and rainbows?”

As she thought, Gilda twisted one of her headfeathers back and forth. “I don’t know,” she grumbled. “It’s just- Hooray for Pax Equestriana and all or whatever it’s called, but I think it’s left you dweebs more than a little clueless about things that don’t have to do with singing, friendship and singing about friendship. I mean, you two are talking about our target bribing the police force like it’s nothing!”

Starlight and Derpy looked at each other. Derpy shrugged. “Yeah. So?”

“Weh- You- She-” Gilda took several long, deep breaths. “Look,” she said in a low voice as she rubbed her temples, “does- Do you two, like, get what we’re doing? Gouda Feta’s two steps away from having the police force in her pocket, and we’re still thinking of robbing her? Screw any criminal connections she has, one wrong move and she’ll have us legally arrested!”

“Which is why we’re being careful about it,” said Derpy. “I mean, duh?”

“She still has the Alicorn Amulet,” said Starlight. “We can’t let her sell it to… to anypony. She knows what it’s like and anypony she sells it to either won’t know or won’t care about its side effects. Either way, it’s bad news once they put it on.”

Gilda flared her wings in frustration. “Why even keep something like that around?” she screeched. “You should’ve just smashed the dang thing to pieces and gotten rid of it completely! If there’s one thing in Griffonstone that I do like, it’s that if you don’t like something, you hit it with a hammer until it’s gone.”

“Including griffons?” asked Derpy, frowning.

“Sometimes, yeah! Dash is writing letters to me, and I swear, it’s like every other week, these goons are coming back from the distant past to make your life miserable. Which wouldn’t be a problem if you’d hit him with a hammer until he stopped moving in the first place!”

“Equestria doesn’t work that way,” said Starlight. “We don’t… kill somepony just because we don’t like them.” If we did, I’d be dead. “Those’re just the worst of the worst. All the others throughout history got reformed. The ones we remember are the ones who repeatedly turned down the chance to turn away from evil and accept friendship. If that never happened, Equestria would be a lot worse off.”

“Fine.” Gilda didn’t look very convinced, but she had apparently decided to not press the issue at the risk of getting a long-winded friendship speech. “But the Amulet?”

“Taking a hammer to it would release all the dark magic inside it, and-”

Gilda didn’t twitch, but her pupils shrank. “Never mind. I got it. Stupid magic frgrfr…”

“Of course, even that might not work,” said Derpy. “Nightmare Moon tried destroying the Elements of Harmony, and they got fixed in like two seconds. I wouldn’t be surprised if somepony’s tried to destroy the Alicorn Amulet and it repaired itself. Or maybe it’s indestructible. Powerful evil things like that are usually indestructible.”

“Have a lot of experience with that, do you?” said Gilda.

“Well, kinda. This one time-”

“I’m sorry, what?” gawped Starlight.

“-Twilight had me take this cursed music box — why do ponies even make music boxes anymore? They’re just going to get cursed or possessed or something! — take the box to Canterlot for the princesses to secure.”

“When did this happen?”

“I dunno, a year ago? Before you came. I was taking the box to Canterlot and I ran into this really bad storm. Turns out, it was scheduled and I just forgot about it. Anyway, I lost control and crashed in a forest. I landed on my bag and should’ve crushed the music box, but nope! I spun the drum around and it played just fine. I stayed under shelter until the storm passed, and-”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Starlight was surprised at how easy it was to get lost in such a simple story. “You listen to it? When it was cursed?” Even Gilda, as unknowledgeable in magic as she was, looked a bit freaked out at that.

“Yep!”

“That’s how music box curses usually manifest!” said Starlight. “Didn’t it offer you power or something? Or even just try to keep you playing it forever?”

Derpy shrugged. “Well, it tried the second one. But the box didn’t play synthwave, so I didn’t see the point. Why do you think Twilight had me take it?”

“…Maybe you should’ve been the guardian of the Amulet.”

“Maybe.” Derpy nodded sagely. “Maybe.”

Gilda coughed. “Hey, um, change of subject, but didn’t whatsherface, Lyra, have a key gem thing for getting into certain back rooms? Have we done anything with that?”

Starlight smiled and raised a hoof. “Actually, we…” Her smile turned into a frown. “…haven’t… done… anything. Huh.” Hadn’t they? No. “Guess we should.” Lyra had her gem at the moment, but there were still some leftover gems from the arcanoscope lying about that they could use for testing.

“You should. I’d help, but…” Gilda wiggled her claws. “No magic. It’s not like we can just make a wax casting of it.”

“Buuuuut…” Starlight’s smile was back. “If we take the principles of the arcanoscope to make wax hold the frame of a spell within it, we can use that to reverse-engineer the spell! So if we can get our hooves on another gem in the future, even if only for a minute, we can figure out how to make a copy of that based on its residual thaumatic aura!”

“I’ll pretend I know what you’re talking about and nod,” said Gilda, nodding. “Want me to get some candles to melt?”

Lyra appeared to be having fun. Rainbow Dash couldn’t care less. The rehearsal was making her so freaking bored. She knew the timing. She had the song memorized. (Enough.) She would totally know when to rainboom. She bailed halfway through, when the conductor was talking to the clarinets(?) about something called a “suspended chord” or whatever.

She quickly swooped above the casino, looking behind her for any tails. Nope. None. Thank goodness. She wanted to see if she could find Bon Bon or Thorax or anypony else who’d been in the casino, but she didn’t want to push her luck and risk having a guard see her talking with one of the other heist members. It was unlikely they’d put two and two together, but you never knew.

Rainbow settled for some long, lazy loops. Anything to get her wings moving; she’d been sitting still for far too long (a whole thirty minutes! How was that possible?). Heists were a strange kind of adventure, when you thought about it. The books never talked about how much waiting a pony had to do. Oh, sure, the main character got to run around accomplishing this or that, but what about all the side characters who were super good at one thing (cough flying cough) but couldn’t, say, cast magic? They had to sit around in the background doing nothing while the main characters did their thing and couldn’t even enjoy the spotlight on them.

The pumping of her heart felt nice. Rainbow did a few laps of Trotter Gorge.

Come to think of it, what sort of stuff like that did Daring Do run into? The book might say something like “hours passed” when Daring was captured, but ye princesses would that be boring. She’d always managed to get involved with Daring at or near the climax, so she never experience the horrible, horrible waiting. Daring was even more of a hero than Rainbow had thought, if she had to suffer through that.

Her need for speed temporarily quenched, Rainbow swooped lazily down over the casino and examined the surrounding streets, not looking for anything in particular. There were still guards hanging about, as always, doing that guarding thing. No more or less than the last time she’d seen them.

Rainbow idly wondered just how long she would last if she walked in and punched the first guard she saw. She was under no delusions that she’d hold out against the guards forever — even she wasn’t that awesome — but she’d last a while, right? Long enough to make an impression, definitely.

And attract Goumada’s attention, scoring herself a mind control spell in the face. Or worse. And probably get her friends captured. Or worse. Again.

Yeah, no. Another glanced around to be sure she wasn’t being followed, and Rainbow peeled away from the casino, aiming for the villa.

Just in case, Bon Bon and Sunburst had left the casino at different times and going in different directions than Thorax and the Doctor. Several “casual” looks confirmed they weren’t being followed, and the two groups met back up about halfway to the villa. They still stuck to side roads.

“So, ah,” said the Doctor, “I presume everything went well, judging by the lack of guard escort on your part. What did you two find?”

“They’ve actually got a, a fiber arcanics network up and running!” Considering he was talking about the security system they had to tackle, Sunburst sounded far too gleeful. “It’s, it’s all run through a centralized hub, but, but preliminary scans say it covers the whole building!”

“I say! Really? Quite fascinating. And you don’t sound too put out by it, so-”

“Put out? Me? By that? Ha!” Sunburst smirked and stroked his goatee. “I’m actually coming up with a way too…”

Bon Bon let the geeks geek out. All she needed to know at the moment was that they could get in, if they had a key. Just in case. It was a learned skill, knowing only what you needed to know and nothing more. Otherwise, your head would just get stuffed full of all sorts of useless knowledge. (Bon Bon never, ever, ever stood a chance in Trivia Trot.)

Next to her, Thorax (still in pony shape) coughed. “Bon Bon? If you can, I, I’d like you to teach me how to… act like a pony.”

Amid the slew of obvious questions to that, one possible answer pulled its way to the front of Bon Bon’s mind. “Like a pony?” she asked. “Or like a different pony?”

“The second one.” Thorax looked away and ran his tongue over his teeth. Bon Bon wondered if he was trying to feel his fangs that weren’t there at the moment. When he turned back, he said, “I… I’ve said this before, but I’m not a very good changeling. And… um, yesterday, when I was playing poker, I… Somepony accused me of cheating, one thing led to another, and we had to talk to Goumada. I-”

“What?” Bon Bon whisper-screamed, whirling on Thorax. “Thorax, why didn’t you say something? What happened? Did-”

“Let me talk!” squeaked Thorax. “Nothing happened! The other pony got thrown out and I didn’t tell Goumada anything about us and she didn’t even suspect anything! If it’d been bad, I would’ve told you!”

“Right.” Deep breath in, deep breath out. Bon Bon’s reflexes were still screaming, but, well, Thorax was right. He wasn’t a good changeling, but he wasn’t stupid. “Sorry. So what does that have to do with… this?”

“I want to learn how to act,” said Thorax. “I want to be able to talk my way out of a situation. If something goes wrong, I don’t want to fumble my way through it. I- I want some control. And if we ever, um, wind up needing me to pose as somepony important, then…” He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

“You’re sure?” asked Bon Bon. “You probably won’t need it.”

Thorax’s voice was determined, with not a hint of hesitation. “I know. But I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”

More caution than most ponies showed. Including the ones in their team, probably. Definitely including some of the ones she’d worked with. Was this Thorax learning the ropes or some long-dormant changeling instinct? Either way, Bon Bon thought it was a good idea. “Okay, but why me?”

Thorax still looked like a pony, but Bon Bon couldn’t help but wonder what his eyes would’ve looked like if he was still a changeling, he looked so shocked. “Why you? Bon Bon, have you seen yourself? You’ve been on top of things this whole time! You’ve been making half the plans, you broke into a building on the first night, you just walked into the main security room and left without anyone noticing anything! You’re great! If anypony can teach me how to act, it’s you!” Thorax looked at her with wide, expectant eyes.

Part of Bon Bon was surprised she hadn’t been found out before now. The rest of her reminded that part that she was working with people whose idea of “espionage” boiled down to “Pinkie sneaking an early look at Mrs. Cake’s latest flan recipe”. She still wasn’t sure she should just go out and say, “FYI, I am a spy”, but what was the point in hiding it? Half- No, two-thirds of the party lived in Ponyville, a place where the meekest pony could turn a manticore to purring putty in seconds and had a princess to smack down anyone who didn’t fall for the former’s charms. Honestly, telling everypony would probably just result in a game of whack-a-vengeance-seeking-beast for a few weeks. Nothing Twilight couldn’t handle.

But what about the trust issues? That was one of the times where Bon Bon had appreciated Lyra’s total nonchalance towards… darn near everything. Lies that could’ve caused a rift in their relationship had been smoothed over in about twenty minutes, thanks to that. It was at least evidence that just one lie wouldn’t cause ponies to turn away from you.

Bon Bon managed to compromise. “No promises,” she said, “but I’ll try my best.”

Thorax smiled, just a little. “Thanks.”

“Mmhmm.”

Peace and quiet. Starlight had been wanting those two things for a while, ever since running around and planning a heist meant they were routinely denied. But now, she could just let her mind drift, do magic in the best way she could think of, and not have to worry about much. Besides the impending shadow of the upcoming and yet-unplanned heist looming over her, slowly and inexorably growing ever closer with each passing day. But that was a small thing. (Really.)

The arcanoscope was nice, but it wasn’t very precise. It could only give basic spell designs and mana concentrations; anything more sophisticated (that might be needed in, say, magical keys for magical locks) would just appear as a multicolored smear. It was surprisingly pretty, but not very useful.

But part of the reason for the arcanoscope’s blunt visualization was that it was dynamic and real-time. You could only get so detailed when you might want to change the view at any second. On the other hoof, having a static imprint of an enchantment held in time? You could get ludicrously detailed with that, if you knew how to do it. Luckily, Twilight, being the blanket jill-of-all-trades teacher she was (and master of more than quite a few), had insisted Starlight learn enchantment-reading spells of just this type.

So with a little melted candle wax and the right spells, Starlight could hopefully be able to detect, hold, and reverse-engineer the spells in the key gems for their own use. Not unlike casting a physical key from a mold, really. Wax even worked well, due to its high thaumatic viscosity when properly charmed (laymare’s terms: magic fields in treated wax didn’t change at all over short periods of time). They only had a few gems left; maybe Thorax would need to swing by the poker tables again and win them some more money.

The first tests on the gems Starlight semi-randomly charged went smoothly. The wax held the magic field lines strongly enough, but she needed someone to cast spells without her knowing which ones they were to really test them. She settled for waiting to see how long the field lines stuck around; they needed to be coherent long enough to at least be recorded. And the only way to record that was wait.

Meaning relaxing on the heavenly couch really was the best thing she could be doing right now. Seriously.

Sweet mother of Celestia, was this couch so fickin’ soft.

Starlight deigned to raise her head when she heard Gilda walk in. The latter was squinting at a still-steaming muffin like it was either about to eat her or tell her the meaning of life. Possibly both. She took a small bite. She chewed, then took a larger bite. “That pony sure does love muffins,” she said.

“That she does,” said Starlight. She managed to pull herself into a sitting position and glanced at the clock. An hour and a half since the wax imprinting. She ran a scan on the makeshift mold sitting on a side table. The magic was still holding strong. Perfect.

“So, uh…” Gilda coughed and sidled up to Starlight in that incredibly forced way that meant she was trying to look nonchalant. Sitting on the sofa, she took a nibble of her muffin and asked, “What does it feel like… up here?” She pointed at her forehead. “When you’re casting magic.”

“Well, it’s…” Starlight frowned. She’d never had to talk about magic like this before. She knew how magic felt. Every unicorn knew how magic felt. But how could she explain it in non-magical terms? It was probably like Rainbow Dash trying to explain the feeling of wings to her: how could you explain something when the other person just didn’t have the ability to feel it at all? “It’s… uh…”

Gilda raised an eyebrow. “Yeeee-esss?”

“…kinda… tingly?” Starlight grinned nervously. “I’m sorry, but that’s the best I can do. It’s… not something I really think of. The same you don’t really think of what flying feels like.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“The same way you don’t really think of the up-and-down motion of-”

“Yeah, I do, you dweeb.” Gilda was looking increasingly concerned.

“…The… same way you don’t really think of what flying would feel like if you didn’t have wings?”

“…Oh.” Gilda looked over her shoulder and flared one of her wings. She flexed it, rolled it, rubbed it. “Okay. That I get.”

“It’s, um… It’s kind of an… awareness, I guess?… of the… mana around me. And I can, uh… feel it — not tactile-feel it, more like, um, mystical-feel it — I can sorta feel it when I push it around, and… um…” Considering about a third of the population could use magic, Ponish was remarkably crap at describing the way magic felt. Or maybe that was just Starlight’s own lack of skill at wordsmithing. “Okay, it’s… Sorry, it’s just really hard to describe magic when you don’t have a point of reference-”

“Then forget it.” Gilda settled back on the couch. “It sounds like you’re going into a bunch of mystic malarkey and I like things I can see or touch, thanks.”

“Alright.” Starlight had wondered, more than a few times, what it would be like to have no unicorn magic — not in the sense of losing it, but having never had it in the first place. Being able to loosely sense magic was something so second-nature to her that she’d never really considered it, like being able to touch things. But earth ponies and pegasi had their own magic; did they sense things in the same way? Unless Twilight had access to some kind of body-swap spell (which, admittedly, wasn’t too much of a stretch), she’d never know. And being without magic was so second-nature to Gilda that she was in the exact same situation in reverse.

Of course, now that they had exhausted that line of conversation, an awkward silence fell between them. Gilda’s beak twitched, like she almost said something but decided not to. Starlight coughed. Nothing came to mind, but she still said, “So… uh…”

Derpy attempted to buck the door open. Considering the doorway didn’t have an actual door to buck, that proved less than dramatic. “Stop!” she yelled, and dropped a baking tray on the table. “Muffin time.”

Gilda swiped one of the middle ones, daintily holding it with the tips of her claws to keep from being burned. “So how do you get these so dang fluffy?” she asked after taking a nibble. “I make griffonscones, and they’re too chunky.”

Starlight grabbed a muffin of her own. Yes, that was quite fluffy.

“It’s a bit of an art,” Derpy said vaguely, waving her hoof in a circular motion, “but it mostly involves watching the muffins as they’re baking. Once they start rising, you need to…”

18 - The Art of Conversation

The band’s rehearsal had gone well, all instrumentalists performing satisfactorily (including herself, Lyra was proud to say. But then again, Third Lyre). Rainbow Dash had been in a corner of the room at some point, but Lyra had only noticed when she was leaving a third of the way through. With the rehearsal done now, ponies and griffons had been filing out for a while. In fact, by now, the room was mostly empty, except for two ponies.

Second Lyre plucked the strings of Lyra’s lyre once, twice, thrice. She strummed up, then down. She frowned. “It’s…” She bit her lip. “I mean, it’s a good sound, but from something this expensive, I would’ve expected a bit more.”

“I know, right?” said Lyra. “It sounds better on the higher or lower ends of the scale, though. Listen.” She plucked a few of the highest-pitched strings to demonstrate.

Second Lyre watched the string intently, her ears turned towards it. As the sound began to die off, she said, “Okay, that was nice. Barely any distortion, very crisp.” She strummed a few nearby strings and grinned at the harmonics. “Yeah, those tones are super pure.”

“It’s too bad most songs don’t go that high,” said Lyra. “Otherwise I bet I’d get a lot more bang for my bit.”

“What’re you even paying for? You could get a lyre that’s almost as good for a lot less.”

“I dunno. Brand recognition?”

“Brand recognition. For… a lyre.”

“You were jealous the first time you saw it! It must be working! It’s not that different from fashion. You wear a polo work shirt and nopony looks twice at you. You slap a tag on it declaring it’s from some famous designer and suddenly you’re a trendsetter.”

Second Lyre rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure, but that’s fashion, and fashion is stupid.”

Lyra thought of a certain pony’s tendency to go into relentless histrionics whenever a fabric was two shades too light or too dark and was about to agree. Then she remembered said pony’s ability to make a ten-bit hat make it look like it was worth a thousand and changed her tack. “Is it really that different, though? It’s all marketing, anyway. They-”

A staff member leaned into the room and knocked on the doorframe. “Hate to break this up,” she said, “but we need to lock this room. And, yes, it is all marketing.”

Once Lyra and Second Lyre had exhausted the guard’s conversational options regarding fashion and lyres, they made their way back for the casino. “Thanks for giving me a look at it,” said Second Lyre. “Even if it wasn’t what I’d hoped.”

“No problem. Out of curiosity, do you know of any good places to play around here? Outside of our rooms and…” Lyra jerked her head back towards the band’s rehearsal room. “I could use a change of scenery.”

Second Lyre shook her head. “Not in the casino, no. And even our rooms aren’t the best. You know they’re right below the airship landing pad? I’m paranoid a ship’s gonna come in while I’m practicing and drown my music out with its wind.”

Right. The airships. Lyra had spent so much time in the villa she’d forgotten about that. “They don’t come often, do they?”

“Nah. I’m just a worrywart.” Second Lyre’s grin was stuffed to the brim with self-deprecation. “I went up there once — the doors’re unlocked and the guards I saw didn’t stop me — and didn’t see any airship around for miles. Anyway, outside the casino, I found some pretty good places…”

“A laser grid?” Starlight asked. “Are you serious?”

“Apparently,” said Sunburst. “I, I didn’t see it myself, but, yeah. A laser grid.”

“But they’re easy to get by! That’s why they appear in heist stories so often! I mean, for Celestia’s sake, elevators can get by this one!”

‘Well, this one, it’s, it’s apparently really tightly packed with the, uh, beams and such.”

“Still…”

Sometimes, Starlight wondered if the universe was laughing at her. She really, truly did. Need help for a heist? Put out a classified ad in the paper. A hodgepodge collection of ponies shows up? The perpetually-cross-eyed mare seemed to know all the tricks simply through reading, and that was just the start. The casino’s defenses? Including a laser grid. She hadn’t even gotten started on her Ponyville life.

“Anyway, uh…” Sunburst looked through her notes and her first wax impressions again. “These’re, this looks pretty good. Using candles, that, that was creative.” He picked up one of the molds and squinted at it while turning it over and over in his magic.

“Tell that to Gilda,” said Starlight. “She’s the one who came up with the idea. I just mentioned we could use wax.”

“She did? Hmm. We were lucky these candles weren’t, weren’t tallow.” Sunburst glanced up. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Sure. Why?” Starlight hadn’t thought she’d looked out of it in any way. She definitely didn’t feel out of it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this, this… mellow.” Sunburst made wavy motions with his hooves. “Smooth and, and chill and… relaxed.”

“I can be relaxed!” protested Starlight.

Sunburst’s eyebrow might as well have had a rocket attached to it, it went up so fast. “Oh, really?” He started tapping his frog with his other hoof. “When we were young, you were hyper and super excitable.”

“So were you! That’s how kids are supposed to be!”

“And I wish Flurry Heart wasn’t. When we met again in the Crystal Empire, you were high-strung and evasive.”

“Can you blame me? After what I did?”

“And about a week ago, when this all began, you were a nervous, self-hating wreck. But now, you’re so… Yeah.”

“You forgot about how I was chilling just fine when Spike met Thorax. And what about when Trixie- No, you weren’t in Ponyville. Or maybe- Still not in Ponyville. Or…” Starlight stared at nothing and flicked her ears. “Wow, you have not been around much.”

“But seriously,” said Sunburst, “it’s- You almost feel like a whole new mare. Kinda. Sorta. Maybe. What did you do today?”

“Watched those locomotive things, watched Derpy let herself get hit by a train, and worked on the magic in this.” Starlight tapped the wax mold. “I think it’s the magic. I worked on magic a lot with Twilight, so being able to just kick back and cast some spells is… It feels like home.” It was easy. It was useful. It was interesting. How could she not love it?

“Yep, that’d explain it,” Sunburst said, nodding. “Anyway, the, uh, I think these molds’ll work just fine, so if you can help me with these fiber-arcanic rerouters, we can- Wait. Did you say Derpy got hit by a train?”

Educating somepony (someling?) on deception. Not exactly what Bon Bon had expected when moving to a small country town. True, about ninety-seven point four three percent (rounding down) of what she’d experienced in the past few years hadn’t been what she’d expected, but this was too weird, with its intersection with her old training.

She was in one of the villa’s unused side rooms, all the furniture pushed up against the walls. Bon Bon paced back and forth in front of Thorax, who shuffled his hooves (was that the right term for the things on the ends of his legs?) and buzzed his wings. Bon Bon sighed and said to him, “You know, you’re the one who ought to be teaching me this.”

“I, I know,” said Thorax. “But I-”

Bon Bon waved him off. “Don’t worry, we’ll make it work. I’m not completely helpless when it comes to pretending to be somepony I’m not.” She squinted at Thorax and tapped her chin. “But you have the advantage of being able to change what you look like… Appearance might not be everything, but it’s a lot.” She frowned. “Give me an unassuming pony.”

With a blue flash, Thorax changed into his little Crystal Hoof ponysona. He rubbed one leg against the other and smiled hopefully up at Bon Bon.

“Not bad, but nope,” Bon Bon said, shaking her head. “You’re a crystal pony, those’re rare outs-”

Another flash. Crystal Hoof was gone and had changed into a slightly larger earth pony version of himself. But even with that connection, Bon Bon couldn’t find any specific feature to identify him. The shade of his coat was the most average blue you could imagine. His mane was straight and of average length. He wasn’t tall and he wasn’t short. He wasn’t big and he wasn’t small. He was perfectly, utterly forgettable.

A smile slowly crept onto Bon Bon’s face. “Good,” she said, nodding. “Good. Smug pony.”

A snow-white mare with a monocle and a ridiculously embroidered dress looked down her nose at Bon Bon, raising an eyebrow.

“Nice. Non-noble smug.”

A tall stallion in a business suit with a smirk Bon Bon already wanted to slug.

“Yes! Important and aloof.”

Another stallion in a different business suit who didn’t hold himself as high, was much more groomed, and cast an eye of disdain over everything.

“Smart but not nerdy.”

A glasses-wearing mare with her mane in a bun, wearing slightly rumpled business casual.

“Sexy.”

Lyra.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I meant generally sexy.”

A sleek, lithe mare with a flowing mane to rival Celestia’s and a perfectly sculpted face and body combo that’d turn straight mares gay and gay stallions straight. Bon Bon felt her heartbeat speed up. “Okay,” she said, “at least you know how ponies respond to looks.”

The mare dissolved into Thorax. “Really?” he asked hopefully. He somehow managed to look adorably dorky in spite of his fangs, which seemed to be a talent of his.

“Definitely,” said Bon Bon. “With how quickly you went to each shape, you’ve really got a handle on how to make a first impression on looks alone.”

Thorax stared at Bon Bon, blinked, then bared his fangs and hissed loudly.

Two point seven violent seconds later, before the dust had settled, Bon Bon was on her back, the tip of Thorax’s tongue clamped between her front hooves, pinning Thorax to the wall by his throat with one of her rear hooves.

“Tholly,” Thorax choked out. “Inthtinct.”

Bon Bon blinked and released Thorax’s tongue. “Sorry. Reflex.” She withdrew her hoof and Thorax fell to the ground with a gasp.

“Just-” Thorax coughed and rubbed his neck. “Just what kind of reflex was that?” he wheezed.

Monster hunter’s reflex, said Sweetie Drops’s mind. “Long story,” said Bon Bon’s mouth. “I’ll get to it later.” Right after ‘never’.

Thorax coughed again and rolled his legs. “Just… please don’t do it again.”

“Sure.” After a moment’s awkward silence, Bon Bon continued. “Anyway, body language can say a lot, just as much as the actual words. The way you stand tells the listener a lot about what you’re thinking. For instance, somepony asks you a question you don’t know the answer to. Where do you look?”

Thorax rustled his hooves and-

“Don’t shift your weight. You’ll look uneasy and they’ll know you’re lying.”

Thorax blinked and looked down.

“Don’t look down. You’ll look guilty and they’ll know you’re lying.”

Thorax clenched his teeth and looked up.

“Don’t look up. You’ll look like you’re trying to think of the answer and they’ll know you’re lying.”

“Well, where do I look?” snapped Thorax. “It’s not like there’s a lot of other places to look!”

“That’s simple,” said Bon Bon. She gently grabbed Thorax’s head between her front hooves and pointed it at her. “Look at your mark. Keep looking at your mark.” She released him.

“But if I’m looking at her all the time,” asked Thorax, “won’t she be able to tell I’m lying from my expressions?”

Bon Bon shook her head. “Some ponies can, but knowing when someone’s lying just from their face is a lot harder than it’s made out to be. Nearly impossible with a complete stranger, like you. Just try not to do anything like bite your lip. And even that can be shrugged off if you mutter something like, ‘What was it?’, like you’re just having trouble remembering.”

“So…” Thorax murmured, “just… talk?”

“Right,” said Bon Bon. “But don’t stare. Staring is memorable, and you don’t want to be memorable.” She started pacing, never taking her eyes off of Thorax. As she kept talking, Thorax started nodding. “Don’t use seven words when four will do, but don’t condense it to two. Be funny, but don’t make her laugh. Be that guy, but never anything more; she has to like you and forget you the moment you’re gone. And whatever you do, for Celestia’s sake, don’t, under any circumstances, ever-”

Sunburst poked his head into the room. “Um, uh, hey? Bon Bon? Can, can you come here for a second?”

“Sure.” Bon Bon trotted after Sunburst. “What’s up?”

He led her into a room where Starlight was firing some spells at a gem and those same spells were coming out of a different gem. A mirror had been swiped from one of the bathrooms, but it wasn’t reflecting the room from the right angle. Bon Bon noticed another gem sitting on top of a painting where the reflection was seemingly coming from. “So, um, obviously,” Sunburst said, “we’ve got the fiber arcanic transference spell done-”

“Already?”

“Ninety percent of visualization spells run on the same basic principles and ninety percent of what’s left runs on the same slightly more advanced principles,” said Sunburst. “If you know how it works-”

“Which he does! Like, a lot!” piped in Starlight.

“-it’s not that hard. Trust me. It works.”

“So now what?” asked Bon Bon.

“Now, we need to get back into that, into that room to place the transference gems,” said Sunburst. “Like we just did-”

“I’d rather not do it that way, if we have other options,” said Bon Bon. “A new guard forgetting her key once is nothing special, forgetting it twice is suspicious.” Ponies were good at noticing patterns, unfortunately. It was something that’d tripped her up several times before.

“Then we’ll need a key,” said Sunburst. “Which, which we can make-” Starlight held up a large chunk of wax. “-but we, we’ll need a real one to copy.”

“Mmhmm.” Always the tricky part. Snatch the original, make a copy, return the original before anypony noticed it was missing. But, hey, copying the plans had gone alright; maybe they could go two for two.

“Also,” said Starlight, “we don’t have many gems left and not enough bits to buy more, so I think Thorax needs to-”

“Hey!”

Bon Bon, Sunburst, and Starlight looked up. Thorax was standing in the doorway, glaring at Bon Bon and baring his fangs. “What,” he asked, “am I never supposed to do?”

“Leave a sentence unfinished.”

Thorax cocked his head. “…Did you all plan that?”

“No. But it was a good lesson anyway, don’t you think?”

It seemed to Bon Bon that Thorax’s grin was very reluctant. “Sure. But can we get back to the, um, training now?”

“Brainstorm, I’ll get back to you,” Bon Bon whispered to Sunburst.

Rainbow spiraled down towards the villa lazily, still keeping an eye out for tails. None besides her own (and a fine tail it was, too). But she knew she wasn’t getting worked up over nothing; it’d already happened once and it could happen again.

She landed lightly on the villa’s doorstep. After about a minute of searching, she found Gilda on the magnificent couch, eating a muffin with all the grace and poise of a rabid wolf tearing at a carcass. “Hey, Vaff,” Gilda said.

“Good muffin?” Rainbow asked.

“Vewwy.”

“Yeah, Derpy’s good at baking them.” Rainbow settled onto the cushioned utopia beside Gilda. “Although I think she took up baking so she could just make muffins whenever she wanted.”

Gilda swallowed. “Not a bad idea.”

“Anything cool happen while I was gone?”

“Only if you count note-taking and getting hit by a train ‘cool’.” Gilda snatched a ball from the floor, bounced it against the opposite wall, and caught it on the return. “Everything’s about magic at the moment, and I can’t do magic, so: bored.” Bounce. “But the eggheads are having fun.”

“Hoo, wow. Don’t stay too long around Twilight, then. Say ‘magic’ at her, and she’ll lock up to study it for, like, days. And when she comes back out, I can barely understand anything she’s talking about.”

“Pfeh.” Bounce. “I guess it wouldn’t be that bad if I knew a dang thing about magic and could help. I’ve barely done anything this whole trip!” Bounce.

“Knock knock,” Starlight said as she leaned in. “Hey, Gilda? Any chance you can seduce a guy?”

Gilda froze mid-throw. The ball fell from her claws as she went as still as a statue, except for her tail, constantly flicking. She slowly pivoted her head so she could stare at Starlight. “Ex-ca-yuse me?” she screeched.

“Seduce a guy. Specifically, one of the casino guards.”

“You’re sounding even more bonkers than ponies usually do, and I didn’t think that was even possible.”

“We could use a key to copy to get into the back rooms of the casino again.” Starlight sounded spectacularly patient. “If you distract a guard on his off time, maybe-”

“Can’t you have the changeling do it?” Gilda pointed out the door. “You know, the dude from the species known for seducing people?”

“Thorax can barely keep himself from running when somepony looks at him funny. I don’t think he knows how to keep somepony distracted that long.”

“She’s got a point,” muttered Rainbow, desperate to inject something of her own into this conversation. Although seduction for infiltration purposes was pretty common in stories like this. Daring Do had even done it herself a few times. Rainbow wondered whether, if Gilda wasn’t interested, she could give it a whirl.

“Plus,” added Starlight, “we’ll probably need him to win us some more money tomorrow.”

“I swear…” Gilda massaged her temples. “Okay, okay, okay, can you please give me a more detailed explanation? I… Mother’s egg, I don’t even know where to start.”

“Fine.” Starlight sat down in a chair opposite Gilda. “Bon Bon wants to avoid faking losing her keygem again so we don’t attract any more attention. We have spells that can probably copy the gems the guards use, but we need a gem to start with. One of the guards standing outside, who’s been covering the night shift, has been looking a bit down. We were thinking you could take him to the bar or something after his shift and sweet-talk him while we steal his key and copy it.”

“Even though I’m not a pony sort of bird?” Gilda demanded.

“Yes, because he’s a griffon.” (Rainbow didn’t revise her speculation that maybe she could do it.) “Why do you think we went to you?”

“Okay. Better.” Gilda sounded reluctant, but Rainbow thought she was also a bit interested. “Let me think.” She stood up and walked out of the room, her wings rustling.

Rainbow jumped up and trotted after her. “So what’ll you do?”

“Dunno,” Gilda grunted. She didn’t look away from her path.

“Oh, come on! You gotta-”

Gilda spun around and pushed Rainbow away.“I- I’m thinking!” she squawked. “It’s a lot to take in, and I- Look, I don’t know, okay? And you’re not helping. Give me some space.” She shoved off and stalked away, flicking her tail in Rainbow’s face.

Scowling and rubbing her nose, Rainbow went back to the room. Starlight was still there; she’d taken up Gilda’s ball and wall-bouncing activity. “So what’s the plan?” Rainbow asked. “If she does it.”

“We’re not sure yet,” Starlight said. “We were thinking she takes him to a bar, buys him a few drinks, I steal his key while he’s distracted-” She teleported the ball halfway across the room mid-bounce, then back again. “-we get the magic readings on the key, get it back to him before he leaves. If he doesn’t have the key with him or Gilda doesn’t agree… Well, I don’t know.”

“If she doesn’t want to do it, I could.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.” Bounce.

After apparently doing a circuit of the house, Gilda returned, clacking her beak and rustling her wings. Starlight glanced at her expectantly, but didn’t say anything. Finally, Gilda said, “Is he cute, at least?”

“Derpy thinks so.”

“She’s smart. What the heck, I’ll give it a try.”

“Great! I’ll go tell Bon Bon, and we can talk about it once she’s done teaching Thorax how to lie.”

Gilda blinked. “The changeling is getting lying lessons? I- That’s- Hwehbeh.”

“I told you he wasn’t a good changeling.”

Once Starlight was gone, Gilda sighed and shook her head. “I gotta say, Dash, this has been one of the weirdest weeks of my life.”

Rainbow grinned. “Get used to it. This is how ponies roll.”

“Fudge.”

19 - Borrow Anything as Long as You Give it Back

They needed more money. The night after the whole thing with the elevator, they’d tallied up the bits they had and found their wallets wanting. Apparently, buying random junk from hardware stores and gems galore to jury-rig up homemade inventions as well as paying for drinks for disconsolate guards to fleece wasn’t financially sustainable. And so, as their main source of income, Thorax-Changeling had been selected to go back to poker and win some more bits. He’d be less obvious about it this time.

Thorax-Changeling had a bit of a hard time comprehending money. He knew perfectly well what it was and what it was for, just not why it was necessary. In short, ponies sold stuff to get money to buy other stuff. But why not just barter and trade the stuff for the other stuff directly? It was how things had worked in the Hive. (When it wasn’t, “I’m bigger than you and I want your stuff, I’ll trade you not getting your head smashed in for all of your valuables.” Which was most of the time.) But while Chrysalis-Changeling-Queen had dismissed it as one of those silly pony things, ponies were running the country using silly pony things. Maybe they were onto something.

Thorax-Unicorn-Green was Sundown Gleam again. He didn’t have a lot of time to prepare a new ponysona, so he went with the less obvious of his two players, and Sundown already had a reputation as a good player. If too many ponies with a knack for poker suddenly showed up, well, Thorax-Unicorn-Green didn’t want to know. But he had one of the telepathy anklets in case he needed to call for help or let the others know about something quickly, just in case. Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange was on the other side talking with Bon Bon-Earth-Tan about something. Locks? Whatever it was, Thorax-Unicorn-Green ignored it easily. He collected his chips and headed over to the high-stakes tables in the Artifact Vault, where-

“Hey! Sundown!”

Thorax-Unicorn-Green twitched and spun around. A vaguely familiar stallion-earth-yellow was trotting towards him, smiling broadly, happiness bubbling from him like a fountain. Panicking, Thorax-Unicorn-Green raked his mind and pulled out- “Corky?” he guessed.

“Yes, indeed!” Corky-Earth-Yellow said cheerfully. “I’ve been brushing up on my skills after your little display, and I can absolutely say that I wasn’t rusty, you were simply that good!”

“Um…” Look at him. Keep looking at him. Don’t stare. “Right! Of course I was! What did you expect? That the other players just happened to have an off day at the same time as you?”

“Them? Psht.” Corky-Earth-Yellow waved a hoof dismissively and leaned in close, lowering his voice. “Between you and me, their playing was more than a little subpar. My off days were their hot streaks. But here…” He pointed at one of the tables and grinned. “Here, we might see some action!”

“Or lose money,” Thorax-Unicorn-Green said before he could stop himself.

“But that’s all part of the fun! C’mon.” And Corky-Earth-Yellow lightly tugged Thorax-Unicorn-Green to one of the closer tables.

The high-stakes tables weren’t busy yet. Corky-Earth-Yellow took Thorax-Unicorn-Green to one of the empty ones, where a bored dealer-griffon-tiger-red falcon kept shuffling his cards over and over as he waited for players. When the two arrived, he said, “You should probably head to another table. One that has actual players, y’know?”

“Probably,” admitted Corky-Earth-Yellow, “but I’ve got a good feeling about this.” He patted the table, almost affectionately.

“I’m just following him,” said Thorax-Unicorn-Green.

The dealer-griffon-tiger-red falcon shrugged. “Your call.” He pressed the cards together, making a pristine arch that collapsed into a perfect deck.

Corky-Earth-Yellow stared at the cards, entranced, his emotions shifting to wonder. A second’s thought, then he pulled a five-bit token from his bag and flipped it over to the dealer-griffon-tiger-red falcon. “Any chance you could show us some interesting ways of shuffling while we wait?”

“More than you’d think.” The dealer-griffon-tiger-red falcon pocketed the token. “Most of these take too long to deal, but they’re fun to watch.” He cut the deck into two piles.

Ten more bits and four different shuffling techniques later (griffon claws were stupidly, stupidly dextrous), the dealer-griffon-tiger-red falcon was saying, “This next one is a stage mage’s trick, called the Yarrow shuffle, but it doesn’t actually-” when two more ponies arrived and took their seats. One was a stallion-pegasus-blue while the other-

Oh.

The other player was Glade-Earth-Orange.

Thorax-Unicorn-Green thought she looked less like she’d been force-fed a lemon than two days ago, but that was probably just him being hopeful. He did his best not to look at her. Why here? Why now? Hadn’t she been banned? No, Goumada-Unicorn-Marble had only banned her the rest of that day and the day after. This was the day after the day after. Friggety. Should he contact Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange through the anklet? But, no, he needed to say something aloud for that. How would he make it innocuous? Double friggety.

He called up Bon Bon-Earth-Tan’s lessons. Keep breathing. Don’t focus too much on anything. Ignore them and they’ll ignore you. Okay. Not bad. What were Glade-Earth-Orange’s emotions? Nothing too big. Some mild anticipation. Not like that one time, when she’d been angry since pretty much minute one. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“All right!” Corky-Earth-Yellow grinned and rubbed his hooves together. “Let’s get this game going, shall we?”

The cards were dealt, the bets were made. Once the flop was dealt (a three of clubs, a three of hearts, a jack of spades), Glade-Earth-Orange was gleeful, but her face didn’t show it. Corky-Earth-Yellow and the other player-pegasus-blue were both ambivalent. Thorax-Unicorn-Green’s hoof was… alright. Nothing special. A queen of diamonds and a two of hearts. When Glade-Earth-Orange jumped the gun and raised twenty, the other two players both folded; Glade-Earth-Orange’s disposition turned a little sour on the inside. Thorax-Unicorn-Green opened his mouth to fold-

-and stopped.

Glade-Earth-Orange had been angry because of a losing streak. Now that she had a good hoof, ponies were bowing out. So maybe, if she didn’t just win, but won more- “Raise ten,” said Thorax-Unicorn-Green. He pushed his chips in. He could spare a few losses here and there as long as he watched how much he was actually losing, right?

Glade-Earth-Orange looked at him, her face blank, but her spirits a little higher. “Call,” she said.

The turn. A two of clubs. Glade-Earth-Orange slipped a little. And still- “Raise ten,” she said.

“Call,” said Thorax-Unicorn-Green. He was already down fifty chips. But he had a good feeling about this.

The river. A two of spades. Corky-Earth-Yellow’s shock flared; Thorax-Unicorn-Green guessed he was regretting bowing out. He looked at Glade-Earth-Orange again as she checked. She’d gotten a bit more nervous, but her emotions were still high. Thorax-Unicorn-Green could bow out now or take a chance on giving her a win in the showdown. Which would be more satisfying?

“Check,” he said.

He and Glade-Earth-Orange stared at each other, with no emotion and lots of intensity. Thorax-Unicorn-Green laid his cards down. The river gave him two threes and three twos; a full house.

Glade-Earth-Orange’s joy sang as she put down two threes of her own. Four of a kind; she’d won.

As she pulled in her winnings, Thorax-Unicorn-Green tasted some smugness welling up inside her. Bad days were more tolerable when they started out well, he knew from experience. As long as he tossed her a bone every now and then, she ought to be fine.

…Sweet Queen below, what sort of emotional manipulation was this? Was he learning to be an actual changeling?

Well, as long as it worked. Thorax-Unicorn-Green picked up his next set of cards.

“That griffon,” said Starlight. “Right there. The one who looks like his dog ran away and got run over by a train that derailed after hitting the dog and was also carrying his parents who died in the crash and that’s just the good news.”

“…That is both stupidly specific and totally accurate,” muttered Gilda.

“It’s a gift.”

“Weird gift. And he is kinda cute.”

Starlight took her word for it. Her idea of a cute bird was a parakeet. Those little cheek floofs.

Starlight and Gilda were sitting at a bench across the street and down a ways from the casino, where they had a clear view of the front entrance. The guard Derpy had pointed out several days earlier was still there and looked just as disconsolate as ever. His keygem was quite visible on his ankle. Maybe even more so, but Starlight bet that was just her mind making stuff up. Based on their old notes, he was due for a shift change in a few minutes, and Gilda was going to be there to greet him. And then… that was up to Gilda. She seemed confident, and Starlight didn’t pry.

“How do you think guards… um, guard?” asked Gilda. She drummed her claws on the bench. “It’s just… standing there for hours. And you said some of them did it overnight?” She whistled. “No wonder that guy’s so downbeat. I couldn’t last five minutes in that job.”

“Me neither.”

The minute came, the guard glanced at his watch, and he walked back into the casino. More minutes ticked by.

“That is where he’s supposed to come out, right?” Gilda asked.

“Yeah,” said Starlight. But if he came out through a different way- No, wait, “There he is.” And there he was, exiting the casino; his suit jacket was unbuttoned and his headfeathers seemed to have lost all organization in the last few minutes. Yep, that was definitely a done-with-shift look. “And…” Starlight squinted and managed to pick out a slight glint down near his ankle. “Yeah, he’s still got his key with him.”

“Sweetness.” Gilda breathed onto her claws and sniffed. (How could you sniff with a beak?) Apparently satisfied with the result, she said, “Wish me luck,” and set off toward the guard.

Starlight watched, her hooves twitching. She kept her ears angled towards the pair. As the guard walked, Starlight recognized a lot of signs of fatigue: the hard way his feet hit the ground, the way he kept swerving just a little, the look in his eyes… Yeah, he needed a pick-me-up. Hopefully, Gilda was smooth.

The two griffons passed by each other, and Gilda cleared her throat. “Hey,” she said. The guard looked up at her. “I’ve seen you around and you’d be cute if you didn’t look like crap.”

Starlight facehooved.

“And I feel like crap at the moment. So let’s be crap together. Wanna get smashed? I’ll pay.”

The guard didn’t need a second to think. “Sure,” he grunted in a voice of absolute doneness.

“Pick a bar, any bar. I’m open.”

“Fine. There’s one not far from here. Follow me.”

Sadly, facehooves were non-returnable. What the heck was up with griffon culture?

Starlight trailed beneath the two lovebirds (“lovebirds” was probably too strong. Semiaffectionatepassiveaggressionbirds? Whatever) as they took to the sky. She didn’t need to lift herself; teleporting around on rooftops kept her out of sight from the ground, and whatever Gilda was saying to the guard, it was keeping him occupied enough to not look down. Their flight was slow and easy on both the wing muscles and the stalker’s magic use.

The griffons spiralled to earth at a place called the Ale Aerie, not too far from the gorge. Starlight panicked for a second — obviously it was a griffon-only place — but then two ponies walked out and she let herself breathe a little easier. Gilda and the guard went in; Starlight gave herself two minutes before she followed.

It was cleaner than she was expecting, probably because it wasn’t as full as bars usually were (it being not even noon did that). The floors were nice, smooth wood, litter was nowhere to be seen, and although the decor definitely leaned towards more griffonic sensibilities, with lots of shiny things and airborne pictures, there were enough ponies that Starlight wouldn’t stand out so long as she kept her head a little bit down.

She picked a dirty, empty table near the wall. Gilda and the guard were sitting at the bar, both with cups of beer in front of them. Starlight didn’t even need to turn her ears to make out the guard’s ranting, and she probably would’ve gotten the gist of it from his wild gestures. Either he couldn’t hold his liquor or he needed someone to rant at. Probably the latter.

“I mean,” snapped the guard, “that little- shell-cracked- stot. I don’t even get weekends off!”

“Stinks, huh?”

“She makes crap smell like the sweetest perfume!” The guard took a long drink from his cup.

“So why’re you working for her?”

The guard snorted. “Why do you think? Money. I’m trying to build up a nest egg, ha ha, and she pays well.” Another drink. Already, the cup was almost empty. “But I’ll be gone in a few weeks, max.”

“Dang. You hate the job that much?” Gilda took a drink of her own. Her cup, Starlight noticed, was more than five times as full.

“Nah, I just got enough money. Giving myself a little buffer, and then fwit.” The guard made a sort of stabbing motion with his claws. His keygem still glinted from his ankle. “Outta here, straight back to Griffonstone.” He drained the last of his cup. “You paying for refills?”

“Sure.” Gilda slapped a few bits on the bartop. “Hey. Can my friend here get another cup?”

Starlight wasn’t sure whether Gilda was just being nice or if she was just plying the guard with more and more alcohol to ensure he was as drunk as possible. Either way, she waited a few minutes for the alcohol to get into his system. He didn’t get louder, but his gestures got wilder. Targeting got to be a pain, but at one point, the guard put his gemmed claw on the bartop while gesturing fiercely at Gilda with the other. Seizing the opportunity, Starlight closed her eyes and concentrated.

Thank Celestia for alcohol, because the guard didn’t notice a thing. The gem vanished from his ankle in a blue flash and appeared on Starlight’s table in an identical one. Figuring she didn’t have a lot of time, Starlight quickly examined it. It was quartz (thank heavens), cut in a roughly hexagonal cylindrical shape. It glowed slightly in its setting on the anklet. Starlight sent a few quick pulses of magic through it. The spell was too complicated for her to memorize in a few seconds, but it was static; the wax would do just fine in capturing it. So far, so good.

She wiggled the gem out of its setting, slid it into the mold-to-be, and charged said mold. The wax nearly melted around the gem as its thaumic field loosened. Within seconds, the gem was completely enveloped and it was hard to tell there were two pieces of wax at all.

But with that ease came a problem: waiting. The thaumic field lines needed time to set, during which the guard could, at any moment, notice he was missing his key. Starlight turned her attention to the nearest clock and began counting out eleven minutes. She put one of her hooves on the table but it started beating out a drumbeat of anxiety. She bit her lip.

Gilda and the guard were still talking.

Different levels of happiness certainly existed — getting a free chocolate bar versus winning the lottery — but outside of extreme cases, it could be hard to differentiate between them. Was Glade-Earth-Orange’s vague surprise from a full house or two pair? Nevertheless, Thorax-Unicorn-Green was learning. Properly leveraging the faux-empathy of changelings, he soon realized, was an art. Every pony, every creature, had their own quirks, their own ways of expressing their emotions. After a few minutes of “reading” a pony with enough different emotions, Thorax-Unicorn-Green could semi-accurately-ish guess a pony’s hoof in poker.

And it was so manipulative that he borderline hated it.

Yes, it was for a good cause. No, it wasn’t hurting anyone. No, it wasn’t anything more sophisticated than letting Glade-Earth-Orange feel good about her cards. But he was pushing ponies to feel certain ways for his own gain without them knowing and, magic or no, that was icky. Even when Cadance-Alicorn-Pink had been young and impulsive, she had ponies’ best interests at heart when it came to her love powers. It was only the fact that he still had some bits to win that kept Thorax-Unicorn-Green at the table.

Because, apparently, emotional manipulation didn’t come cheap. He was still notching up bits, but between playing more subtly and occasionally letting Glade-Earth-Orange win big, at a much slower rate than the other days. It’d take a while to get all the bits he needed for the team. To avoid drawing suspicion, Thorax-Unicorn-Green just kept his head down and pretended to be playing conservatively.

Which, unfortunately, got him noticed by Corky-Earth-Yellow, since playing conservatively was the polar opposite of how he’d played a few days ago. When Thorax-Unicorn-Green pulled in a small pile of bits, Corky-Earth-Yellow sighed and leaned over to him. “You know, Sundown,” he said, “this is not how I thought you’d play.” His words were wrapped in disappointment, of all things.

Thorax-Unicorn-Green stalled for time. “Hmm?”

“You were so… brash that first day. You were playing like a pro. Now you’re playing like an amateur who’s just gotten the wind knocked out of his sails for the first. An extraordinarily lucky amateur, I’ll admit-”

A flash of surprise ran through Glade-Earth-Orange and made Thorax-Unicorn-Green hiccup. She didn’t react, but one of her ears whipped around towards Thorax-Unicorn-Green and Corky-Earth-Yellow.

“-but that’s still just luck. What’s gotten into you?” Corky-Earth-Yellow frowned disapprovingly, as if Thorax-Unicorn-Green had just failed a test of some kind. How were you supposed to study for tests you didn’t know were coming?

Thorax-Unicorn-Green gulped his pounding heart back down into his chest. Bon Bon-Earth-Tan’s lessons kept flitting in and out of his memory, not helping by Sunburst droning on about something in the back of his head through the anklet. Luckily, one of the lessons that stayed the longest was, Keep your excuses simple and vague. They’ll be hard to disprove. If somepony presses the issue, you can complain they’re arguing semantics. So what was a simple difference between then and now?

“I dunno,” he said vaguely. “I guess I’m- just nervous. I’m… going up against better players now.” On a whim, he added, “Like her. Did you see that first hoof of hers?” He pointed at Glade-Earth-Orange. She gave no outward sign that she’d heard, but her mild shock turned to smugness.

“Still…”

Before he could stop himself, Thorax-Unicorn-Green said, “Besides, even if my playstyle’s boring, I’m still doing better than you.”

Just as what he’d said hit him and he was about to apologize, Corky-Earth-Yellow smirked. “True. Very, very true.”

The next hoof was dealt. Glade-Earth-Orange was a bit happier than usual, probably from the ego-stroking. Perfect. Thorax-Unicorn-Green looked at his own pile of bits. Kinda small. Not perfect. But maybe he could afford to push himself a little, now. Glade-Earth-Orange had been appeased for the moment and any changes in his playing style, he could attribute to Corky-Earth-Yellow egging him on. Yeah.

So… Thorax-Unicorn-Green’s own cards were bad, Corky-Earth-Yellow was upset but bluffing like a pro, Glade-Earth-Orange was happy and anxious at the same time, and the last player-pegasus-blue was a mixture of bored and miffed. Time to push, and push hard.

With some restrained token-pushing, the pot was increased a solid amount. With some aggressive token-pushing, everypony else had folded before the turn. Thorax-Unicorn-Green pulled his tokens back in as Corky-Earth-Yellow chuckled. “There’s the Sundown I kinda-sorta know,” he whispered to himself.

Thorax-Unicorn-Green ignored him and turned his direction towards Glade-Earth-Orange. A bit upset, but not that quiet, boiling rage that she’d had yesterday. Good. Yes, he could afford to be a bit more aggressive now. But not too much.

Another hoof. Poker was fast becoming his groove, Thorax-Unicorn-Green decided, that thing he settled into comfortably and was good at. Maybe he could get some bits from the guards back in the Crystal Empire. He looked at his cards and, satisfied with the result, recommenced grooving.

Starlight waited for the wax to settle with sweat rolling down her muzzle one drop at a time, and yet the guard just got drunker and drunker and kept running his mouth like he was trying to win a marathon. She could probably smash a barstool over his head and he wouldn’t have noticed.

But she wasn’t going to take her chances.

“Oh, and those accusations of tribalism Goumada’s battling with?” snapped the guard. He seemed to be one of those guys that somehow only got more articulate as more alcohol was pumped into them. “Totally true.”

“Really,” Gilda said, propping her head up on her talons. Starlight suspected she wasn’t entirely faking her interest.

“Really!” The guard downed a large gulp of whiskey(!). “She doesn’t trust any griffons with the good jobs — you know, the ones that actually pay decently — and we always get the crap ones. Like staying up all night because your stupid blasted casino won’t fricking close for some goldforsaken reason. You think I’ve got it bad? At least my shift ends during the day!” Another gulp. “Some gulls, their shift starts at 8.”

Gilda tilted her head. “What’s so crappy about-”

“PM.”

“So crappy it’d clog the toilet.”

“Aaaaaand now I’m gonna lose my lunch.” The guard squinted into his cup and hiccuped. “Yep. Here comes the food train. Pardon.” He pushed away from the bar and staggered to the bathroom.

Gilda glanced at Starlight, but quickly looked away. Starlight glanced around the bar. Not many ponies or griffons were around, none of them looking interested in her or Gilda. Taking a chance, Starlight walked over and sat down next to Gilda, keeping the wax close. “How’s it going?” she whispered.

“Fabulous. We’re planning a June wedding.” Gilda took a sip of beer, then added, “But seriously, it’s going fine. I could keep him talking for hours if I needed to. He’s interesting enough for a drinking buddy. Haaaaaates Gouda Feta, which is nice. Bet if we needed someone on the inside, he’d do it for free outta spite.”

“Good.” Starlight probed the mold with her magic. “This is still setting, but it should be done soon, so keep-”

“Who’s your friend?”

Starlight twitched and spun around. The guard was back already, slightly steadier, and looking right at her. “W-well, um…”

“Hey!” said Gilda, a touch higher-pitched than usual. “That was fast!”

“Didn’t have much to eat, so didn’t have much to puke,” said the guard. “Felt worse than it was.” He poked a claw at Starlight. “So…”

“I’m just- a friend of hers,” Starlight said, struggling to keep her voice level. “Noticed her, thought I’d say hi, leaving now, sorry to bother you, bye now.” She grinned and backed away, but bumped into a table. She dropped the mold; it split into its two halves when it hit the floor, one bouncing beneath the barstools, the other sliding to a halt at the guard’s feet. And the guard’s half held the gem inside.

“I got it,” said the guard. “Here.” He picked up the mold half and held it out. He frowned when he saw the gem. “Hang on-”

“I’ll take that thanks!” Starlight half-squeaked. She grabbed the mold in her magic and pulled.

But the guard kept a firm grip on it and was dragged a few feet across the floor. He looked at his wrist. His bare wrist. He stopped resisting the mold’s pull and was in Starlight’s face in an instant, claws still wrapped around the wax. “What’re you doing with my key?” he asked in a low voice.

“Well… Um…” Starlight gulped and began pulling magic into her horn.

“Whoa, hey!” Gilda lightly rapped Starlight on the horn, dispelling her magic. “Easy, dude!” she said, shoving him away. “We’re not hurting anyone! We’re just- You want a cut?”

“What?” asked Starlight.

“What?” hissed the guard.

“Outside, now,” said Gilda.

To Starlight’s very great surprise, the guard followed them outside without a word, but with lots of suspicious and/or angry glares. They went into a back alley; Gilda muttered to Starlight, “Be ready if he tries something.” Then, more loudly, she said, “We’re giving Gouda Feta what’s coming to her.”

Silence for an uncomfortably long moment. The guard looked at his gem, rubbed it, and said, “Go on.”

Before Starlight could object, Gilda continued, “You know that mine thing she scammed a bunch of griffons out of? Me and some friends’re stealing the money back next week. Keep quiet about this — literally just that, nothing else — and you’ll get a cut. We don’t have much now, but you’ll have your money once we’re done. Promise.”

As the guard kept staring at his gem, apparently deep in thought, Starlight hissed, “Gilda, what’re you doing?”

“Knowing griffons, numbnuts,” snapped Gilda. “Gouda Feta barely pays him anything and she’s grinding him down like whoa. He’s-”

“When you’re done, I want twenty thousand bits,” said the guard, looking up. “Yes, that’s it. It’s enough to get me away early without having griffons constantly pestering me for money. Goumada doesn’t pay me enough to care, so as far as I’m concerned, she can go die in a fire.”

“Sweet,” said Gilda. “Promise you won’t say anything?”

“Oh, please,” snorted the guard. “The only reason I would is for a reward, and Goumada’s idea of a reward is a coupon for Quesadilla Shack if she’s generous, and even Quesadilla Shack’s not that good. I won’t tell anyone.” He spat in his hand and held it out to Gilda. “I swear by my own egg.”

Gilda returned the favor, “And I swear by my egg that you’ll get paid.” Then she said to Starlight, “He’s good. That’s a big swear.” Her voice didn’t have the usual sardonic cynicism Starlight was used to, so Starlight decided to believe her. Friendship, right? Even if it was friendship grown from a hatred of somebody else.

The guard wiped his claws on the ground and glanced at Starlight’s horn. “Were you copying the key somehow? It’ll get you into the main employee area, but not the security hub. I don’t have the clearance for that.” He paused, then held out the gem. “Actually, why don’t you just borrow it for the day? I’ll give you my address, you can do whatever you need with it, get it back by dinner, everyone’s happy!”

“Um. Sure. Thanks,” Starlight said, plucking the gem from his claws. Quick and easy betrayals, today only, get them while they’re hot.

“On one more condition,” said the guard. He pointed to Gilda. “You buy one last round of drinks and some cheesy fries.”

“They have cheesy fries?” gasped Gilda. “I’d’ve bought those on my own if I’d known this place had them!”

“Not just cheesy fries. The cheese itself is the fries.”

“Oh, dang…”

“I’m. Um.” Starlight coughed. “I’m gonna get this back to Bon Bon, okay, Gilda?”

“Sure, sure,” said Gilda, waving dismissively to Starlight. “I’ll get his address, you run along and do your magic pony things.”

Starlight stared after Gilda and the guard as they walked back into the bar. Sometimes, one of the best things about friendship was that you didn’t have to worry about ponies (or griffons) stabbing you in the back. Which was one heck of a thing to have to worry about, but when you were as controlling as Goumada, apparently still a thing.

She looked at the gem and the now-pointless halves of the mold. Speaking of singular hecks of things, she had one heck of a story for Bon Bon.

20 - Come Back Again Sometime

Unlike Starlight, Bon Bon wasn’t the least bit surprised that a guard had decided to turn on Goumada when given the chance. From what she’d seen, ponies and griffons weren’t people to Goumada; they were just things that danced when she played the right tune. Treat people like things, and you shouldn’t be surprised if they struck back. Especially your own security guards. The only ponies it was stupider to anger were waitresses. Did you really want to piss off someone guarding your valuables or handling your food?

She was walking into the casino, back in her fake guard’s uniform, her borrowed key wrapped around her fetlock. In her pockets clinked enchanted gems (Sunburst called them “seeds”), ready to be put into the security system and reroute some signals. She was alone since Sunburst’s route into the security system was (supposedly) almost completely automated once she stuck it in, and she’d argued that the same technician needing to be let into the security hub by the same guard two days in a row would’ve been suspicious where one guard wouldn’t be. Also, she didn’t want to admit it, but, freed from having to babysit Sunburst, the only pony Bon Bon had to worry about was herself, and she knew herself. She didn’t have to fake any excuses for why she knew this or that. She didn’t have to come up with backstories for teammates. She didn’t have to justify anything to anyone. She could infiltrate however she wanted, and wow was it a good feeling.

Okay, so maybe she wanted to admit it a little.

“You, uh, holding up?” asked Sunburst in her head. She had the telepathy anklet on, just in case.

Bon Bon barely managed to not roll her eyes, remembered he couldn’t see her, and rolled them anyway. “Unless I say otherwise, yes, I’m fine, Sunburst. Entering the casino now.”

“Um. Good. Any, any idea when-”

“I’ll let you know when I’m in the security hub. Out.”

Bon Bon scanned the casino floor intently as she walked. There were more guards than her previous visits. Had Goumada noticed something was up and decided to beef up security? How had she known? Maybe she had seen Thorax shapeshift on the cameras. Maybe she was keeping it secret to keep attendance to the anniversary festival high; a venue like this getting infiltrated by a changeling would drive ponies away. Goumada seemed like the kind who’d allow the world to go to Tartarus on a tanning rack as long as she wasn’t hurt.

Two guards were standing at the back doors, up from one on previous days. Bon Bon didn’t spare them a glance as she let herself in and they didn’t spare her one, either. So she hadn’t been recognized yet.

“In the staff halls,” she whispered to Sunburst, following a familiar path. “Security must’ve been upped, by the way. There’re more guards than usual, but nothing too bad yet.”

“Hmm. Hmm hmm. I’ll, I’ll make a note of that.”

“Also, I wish this telepathy stuff worked through actual telepathy.”

“If I could do that in a, in a few days without having your private thoughts intrude, I, I’d’ve won the Neighbel Prize a long time ago.”

She found the security hub without much trouble. As she headed for the bathrooms, she counted her steps and made sure to keep her strides as evenly-spaced as she could manage. When she reached the bathroom, she looked both ways. No one was coming. She pulled open the door, only to get brushed aside by a griffon exiting, still shaking water from her claws. Bon Bon kept herself from yelling about how there were paper towels right there, let herself in, and quickly locked herself in one of the stalls.

Standing on the toilet and praying nopony would come in, Bon Bon turned her suit jacket inside out, clambered on top of the walls of the stall, pushed one of the ceiling tiles up, and poked her head into the crawlspace. It was dusty, musty, cramped, and downright terrible. Ducting and wires wound through the gap, reducing the space even more. Still, worth a shot. Bon Bon ducked down to reorient herself, then climbed into the crawlspace and, supporting herself on the infrastructure, replaced the tile.

Her hooves hooked around the main girders and aiming for the security hub, Bon Bon slowly pulled along through the crawlspace. She avoided putting weight on the tiles at all costs; they were hardly strong. She knew that sound was amplified in the narrow space and that the tiles were meant to absorb sound from reaching the outside, but she still winced every time she heard the clink of hoof-on-steel echo through the space. Dust swirled through the air, and if she hadn’t had the kerchief, she would’ve been coughing up a fit in moments. Even with that protection, the back of her throat tickled tremendously. The only light in the darkness poked up through tiny, tiny holes in the tiles. Bon Bon kept moving on, hoof over hoof, slow as a sloth. She was careful to only move a distance of one foot at a time and counted each step. Seven, eight, nine…

It was tight in there, and fostered a very strange kind of claustrophobia. If she was just hemmed in, Bon Bon wouldn’t have minded. But she also had to not touch the tiles to keep from getting found out. She had to sucker herself as close to the real ceiling as possible, and if she slipped, the entire operation could be a bust. Alone in the dark, dust making her breaths sound like wheezing, she kept moving. Thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four…

Come fifty-nine, Bon Bon stopped. She listened; nothing. Carefully, carefully, she pulled up a tile. Room: security hub. Status: empty. Cameras: none. Secret agent: pleased. She delicately lowered herself onto one of the racks, replaced the tile, and dropped to the floor. “I’m in the hub,” she said as she re-reversed her jacket, hiding the dust it’d picked up.

“You, you are?” asked Sunburst. “Wow. That’s, uh, that’s impressive. It was really that easy? You said you were going, going through the crawlspace, right? There wasn’t anything, uh, blocking you?”

Nopony could see her, but Bon Bon still shrugged. “Happens all the time. You get the strongest door money can buy, then somepony just breaks through the drywall next to it. There really should’ve been concrete going all the way up. My guess is that Goumada cut corners in all the wrong places. She was probably oversold the keygem system and only separated the back rooms and main floor.” Bon Bon prowled up and down the aisles, looking for the right rack. “We only got back here by swiping someone else’s key, remember.”

She instinctively reached to open the nearest set of racks, but her hoof bumped against something shiny and new. She took a look and saw- “Bad news,” said Bon Bon. “The racks now have locks on them. Must’ve been added at the same time security was bumped up.”

She could almost see the shocked look on Sunburst’s face. “Well. Um. Crap. Do you-”

“Good news. The locks look cheap and I’ve got a screwdriver.” If by “screwdriver”, she meant “lockpick kit that I’ve been carrying everywhere Just in Case”. Which she did. “Give me a minute and I’ll be in.” She selected the right pick and slotted it and the torsion wrench into the lock.

“…What. It’s, I mean, seriously, Bon Bon, why, why do you KNOW stuff like this?”

Bon Bon jiggled the pick around. Not as cheap as she’d expected, but still cheap enough that she could train somepony in opening it with a screwdriver. That was the problem with protecting money: if you wanted to go all-out, you might not have any money left to protect. “What, you never broke into lockers when you were in high school?” That was a skill she’d had before joining SMILE.

“No.”

“What a boring childhood yours must’ve been.” The door swung open and Bon Bon was confronted with a loom of glass thread. “I’m in. Now what?”

“Okay, um, take one of the seeds — any one will do — put it into, into the fibers, right on top of the lattice, and wait. Anywhere’s fine, but close to the center’s best.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah, the enchantments Starlight and I put in it’ll, they’ll handle everything. See, by extending the projection filaments into-”

“Because magic. Got it.” Bon Bon grabbed one of the seed from her pocket. Delicately pushing fibers aside (was it her imagination, or did touching them make her hoof tingle?), she wormed the seed into the racks. When she thought it was far enough in, she just let it rest on top of the crystal lattice for several moments and wondering if she’d know when-

Suddenly, a tiny needle poked her in the frog. She gasped and instinctively pulled her hoof out; the seed didn’t come with it. After a quick check to be sure she wasn’t bleeding, she pushed the fibers aside. The seed was glowing, had absorbed some of the fibers, and was already melting into the lattice, where it’d be undetectable. She let the fibers fall back into place. Nothing out of the ordinary. “It looks like it’s working,” she said. “It’s glowing, anyway.” (Why did active magic always glow? Couldn’t it hum? Or even have a smell?)

“And… Okay, good, we’ve got- Oh, sweet mother-ducking Celestia, this is GREAT.” Sunburst giggled the slightly-evil giggle that comes from overwhelming giddiness. “It’s all coming through PERFECTLY. I, I think. I can test it quick a minute. Maybe if I… Holy alicorns, yes! WHOO!”

Bon Bon flinched and massaged her temples. “Sunburst, please don’t give me a migraine with your yelling.”

“Sorry, sorry,” laughed Sunburst, “it’s just- You, you’re good. A-at least on those cameras. Keep, keep moving.”

“Alright. Going to the next rack.”

Thorax-Unicorn-Green was feeling good. No, not just good, goooooooooooood. He was chipping away at the other players’ pots, “flubbing” just enough hooves to keep them interested, and not accidentally driving Glade-Earth-Orange into a nigh-homicidal rage (that last one was an especially big plus). In fact, Thorax-Unicorn-Green didn’t taste a single whiff of suspicion in Glade-Earth-Orange’s emotions. Yes, life was good. Or at least the poker table was. Even Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange and Bon Bon-Earth-Tan’s conversation in his head couldn’t stop that.

As Thorax-Unicorn-Green pulled yet another stack of bits towards him, Corky-Earth-Yellow leaned over and asked, “So where did you learn to play?”

“Friends,” said Thorax-Unicorn-Green vaguely. “They thought I’d be good at it, they taught me, and, well, here I am.” Which both absolutely true and quite misleading. Bon Bon-Earth-Tan would’ve loved that answer.

“They certainly taught you well. How good are they?”

“Not very.” Technically accurate.

“Really,” said Glade-Earth-Orange. “Then how come you’re so good at it?” Thorax-Unicorn-Green had a brief moment of panic before he realized he still couldn’t taste any suspicion, just curiosity.

“Dunno. I… guess I’m just good at it?”

Thorax-Unicorn-Green felt a slight spike of interest, and for the first time in what felt like ages, the dealer-griffon-tiger-red falcon spoke up. “That happens. I’m just good at this.” He flicked the cards off the deck in such a way that they spun at the players, coming to a stop in exactly the right spots. “Don’t practice much. Don’t need to.” He gave the deck an extra flick; the card spun off and did a tight circle in the air before the dealer-griffon-tiger-red falcon easily caught it. “It just comes. Maybe I’m magic. You can’t look for any magical butt tattoos, though. I’ve already checked.”

“Cutie marks are not tattoos,” snorted Corky-Earth-Yellow. He peeked at his cards; Thorax-Unicorn-Green got a mild rush of joy.

The dealer-griffon-tiger-red falcon smirked. “Permanent patterns of different colors against your coat? They’re pretty darn close.”

“They’re natural! Tattoos aren’t. Cutie marks come when-”

“I know how cutie marks work, thank you. Now, please…” The dealer-griffon-tiger-red falcon gestured across the table. “Make your calls.”

Thorax-Unicorn-Green looked at his cards. Ace of hearts, jack of diamonds. Solid. The others, unfortunately, had enough confidence that their hooves were also solid. Everypony only called, though.

The flop. Two of clubs, eight of spades, nine of diamonds. If he got lucky on the turn and the river, he could still get a straight, but otherwise, Thorax-Unicorn-Green wasn’t holding his breath. Neither of the others were, either. So he took a risk and, when his turn came, raised.

It was a strange feeling, when the emotions of multiple people turned the same way at once. Like being caught in a river of feelings. Even ponies could notice something that blatant. Everypony’s mind went still for a moment. Corky-Earth-Yellow called, then the other players did so, too. But everypony started looking at each other, well aware of the shift around the table.

The turn. Five of diamonds. No straight today. Everypony else roiled with nervousness; this was not a good hoof for anyone at all, it seemed. So Thorax-Unicorn-Green raised again. What was the harm, right? They’d fold.

“Raise,” said Corky-Earth-Yellow.

Poop.

The other players, with some slight hesitation, checked. Back to Thorax-Unicorn-Green. He looked between his cards and the turn again. They weren’t great. But… he’d spent this game playing with a relatively restrained, safe strategy. The other players probably thought of him as cautious. So maybe- “Raise.” He pushed his tokens in. Suddenly turning aggressive would make him look confident. Blatantly confident.

Sure enough, the emotions of Corky-Earth-Yellow and the player-pegasus-blue flinched; after some thought, they both folded. But- “Raise,” Glade-Earth-Orange said the second it was her turn. She was nervous, but not as bad as the other two.

“Raise,” repeated Thorax-Unicorn-Green, just as quickly. Corky-Earth-Yellow had kept talking about how he was a good player. Maybe that would keep Glade-Earth-Orange from thinking this was a bluff.

Apparently so. Concern emanated from Glade-Earth-Orange like heat from a fireplace. If he hadn’t been looking closely for it, Thorax-Unicorn-Green probably would’ve missed her blink and her ear-flick when she said, “Raise.”

“Raise,” said Thorax-Unicorn-Green.

The other players looked back and forth between the two. Corky-Earth-Yellow was probably chuckling inside, based on his glee, and the dealer-griffon-tiger-red falcon was completely invested.

Glade-Earth-Orange had apparently learned something from two days ago; her anger flared up, but it was smothered beneath resignation. “Fold,” she sighed.

Yes. Corky-Earth-Yellow smirked at Thorax-Unicorn-Green as the latter gathered his winnings. He looked at the pile of tokens in front of him. They’d probably bought all their stuff for the heist already, right? They wouldn’t need anything more. And if they did, he could come back later. Time to cash out. “Well,” he said as he dumped his tokens into his bag, “it’s been fun, but I think I’ll be going.” He hopped off his chair and waved, hoping he didn’t look condescending.

The other players gave him strange looks, except for Corky-Earth-Yellow, who waved back. “Nice game! Hope to see you again soon!” Then the other players gave him strange looks. Thorax-Unicorn-Green nodded to Corky-Earth-Yellow and left for the cashier. Good day today. Good day.

“Oh, my, aren’t YOU a sweet little A/V datastream…”

Bon Bon almost made a joke about Sunburst marrying that datastream if he loved it so much, but from the way he was talking, she wasn’t completely sure he wouldn’t decide that was a good idea. Twilight was like that at times. (And to think she was a princess…)

The process was so easy, she quickly settled into a rhythm. By the end, she could put the seed into place and re-lock the rack within fifteen seconds. Nobody came inside; this was probably the kind of room nobody was supposed to come into unless something went wrong. Fine by her. Sunburst got a little bit louder and more approving with each new interface.

“Last one,” Bon Bon said, jiggling the pick to put the tumblers back.

Sunburst giggled. “Holy Celestia, this is GREAT. We, we don’t just have cameras. You know how the guards have those earpieces? We’re getting audio from those, too. Starlight and Lyra, they’re working on sorting the, the different frequencies out so we don’t get blasted by, by everything when we try to look through the, through the cameras.”

“Awesome. Anything more I need to do here?”

“No, I, I don’t think so. Just, just get out of there and back here.”

Bon Bon grinned. “Copy that.” Easy and simple. Why couldn’t all infiltrations be like this? She exited the hub with her head high and her heart soaring. A little bit of a strut made its way into her stride and it was hard for her to not start spontaneously whistling.

It became much easier a few moments later, when she realized she’d come out of a door she hadn’t gone into.

She was safe. Nopony had noticed. Right? They wouldn’t attach anything to it. Right? They probably wouldn’t even think anything of it Right?

As right as left. Bon Bon glanced over her shoulder. The guard at the end of the hall seemed to be watching her, but it was hard to tell if that was from suspicion or coincidence. Bon Bon went with “suspicion”, faced forward again, and kept walking. “Sunburst,” she whispered, “just so you know, I might’ve been spotted. I made a mistake in coming out of the security room and they miight’ve noticed. But I don’t know for sure.”

A long pause. A long, long pause. A bead of sweat rolled down Bon Bon’s muzzle. She cleared her throat. “Sunburst? You there?”

“…Well, that’s one mother of a bombshell to drop right now!” Sunburst yelled.

“I don’t see any guards following me yet, but I don’t know that there aren’t any. I’ll keep you posted.”

Jitters ran down Bon Bon’s legs to her hooves. Keeping herself at a walk was an effort. It’s happened before, her mind said, nothing bad happened then, her mind said, but she knew better. Acting like it was nothing was the fastest way to ensure it would turn into something, whether because she got messy or because she was tempting fate something fierce.

She glanced over her shoulder. The guard was still looking at her, still standing in the same place. But right before Bon Bon turned the corner, the guard started walking towards her.

The second she was around the corner, Bon Bon picked up her pace a little. She was in a bit of a hurry, others would think, but definitely not running. She turned her ears back. Someone was coming around the corner behind her. They were picking up their pace, too.

Bon Bon turned another corner. The doors back to the casino were right in front of her. Doing her very very best to not break into a sprint, Bon Bon strode down the hall towards them. Twelve yards… Eight yards… Four yards…

“Hey!” someone yelled behind her. “You there! Tanny!”

Bon Bon pretended it couldn’t be directed at her and lightly shoved her way through the door onto the casino floor. The guards outside didn’t even blink. Although she sighed in relief, she also felt a gnawing trepidation. The crowd could cover her, but it could also cover anyone coming after her. She kept her head moving, always on the lookout for security. She spotted a guard in one direction and quickly scooched away, putting some ponies between the two of them.

She was about to look away when the guard twitched and put a hoof to her earpiece, pushing it in deeper to hear it better. She was getting orders. And Bon Bon had a good idea of what those orders were.

But it wasn’t that bad just yet. One guard? Maybe nothing to worry about. The order could’ve been anything. Two guards? Definitely something to worry about. Too coincidental. Bon Bon looked around-

Another guard was touching his earpiece. Yet another one right next to him.

And those were just the ones that made it obvious.

She looked at the entrance. Several guards were moving towards it. She swallowed. “Uh, Sunburst?” she whispered. She could barely hear her own voice above the sound of the casino.

“That, that doesn’t sound good.”

“The guards are looking for me. They haven’t spotted me yet, but, um… Yeah.”

“Ehm. Great.” Sunburst sounded like his jaw was stiff.

“So if you could put together some kind of distraction, any kind of distraction, that’d be nice.” Bon Bon risked poking her head above the crowd. None of the guards were looking at her, but the ones she saw were moving quickly. “And it needs to be fast.”

“I’ll, um, I’ll see what I can do.”

Bon Bon wasn’t holding her breath. Everyone else was at the villa, and even with Starlight’s teleportation, they could only get here so fast. And whatever distraction they used couldn’t get anyone else captured. But the main entrance wasn’t the only way in. Hadn’t Lyra said there were back rooms for entertainment rather than staff? Maybe she could get out through a service exit in there. Or maybe she’d just be running herself into a dead end. If only she’d memorized those parts of the blueprints, too. She looked around again. No guards nearby.

Her mind wrapped up in worry, Bon Bon ran headlong into a mare. As she staggered back and rubbed her mane down, she said, “Oh, Celestia, I am so sorry. That’s my-”

But her throat went dry when she saw who she was speaking to.

“Ah, hello. I’ve been looking for you,” said Goumada.

21 - What to do When Things Fall Apart

The thing with being a spy was the possibility of being captured. Bon Bon hadn’t run into it that much; she was usually more concerned with monsters and other arcane critters, and the non-monster missions she’d been on had run as smooth as butter. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been worried about her freedom.

But now, staring up at Goumada, the very mare they were robbing, the very mare whose security system she’d just broken into, the mare who’d just said she’d been looking for her, Bon Bon wished that had actually happened once or twice. She couldn’t remember what she was supposed to do in times like this. Play it cool and try to deflect Goumada’s attention? Deny everything? Run away? Make up some excuse and try to sidle off? Break into an impromptu song and dance routine and hope the rest of the casino got caught up in it? She settled on cluelessness. Or, to be more precise, her malfunctioning brain threw out no clues, which she took to heart. “You have?” she asked. Her voice was far more steady than it had any right to be.

Goumada nodded. “I heard of your problems and came over to help.” She leaned in close. Bon Bon didn’t shy away, but it was a struggle to keep her ears in their casual positions and her tail refused to keep still. And what was Goumada talking about, anyway? “Being able to look like the head bad guy has its perks.”

For the second time in half as many minutes, Bon Bon’s heart stopped. No. No way. That wasn’t possible. And yet- “Thorax?” she dared to whisper.

Goumada’s grin was far too dorky to be from Goumada. “I heard about what was going on through the anklet while cashing my poker chips,” he whispered. “And if those guards see you’re with her, they won’t bother you!”

“No, just- You need to get out of here! You’re worth more than me!”

“But I can’t leave you behind!” Thorax protested. It was downright surreal to hear Goumada talking like that. “What about friendship?”

“What about- Look, just-” Bon Bon hurriedly scanned the crowd. She didn’t see any guards nearby. And she didn’t see Goumada, either. “We need to get out of here before you’re found out! Head for the exit, now.”

“You’re welcome,” mumbled Thorax, his ears drooping.

Ponies got out of their way as they walked for the exit, but Bon Bon knew knew knew knew KNEW that that was a sign everything was just going to go downhill hard sooner or later. Probably sooner. That was how things worked. Thorax kept trying to ask questions (“Did it go good? Sunburst sounded happy.”) and she kept rebuffing him to stay alert (“Keep your head down.”). She wanted to run, but that would draw too much attention.

“Hey!” someone yelled. “You! Next to Goumada! Stop walking or I’ll jinx you!”

Bon Bon bit her tongue and turned around. A snarling unicorn guard was running towards her. She slid to a stop before them. “Ma’am,” she said to Goumada, “I-”

“-have no further business here,” said Thorax, holding his head high. “Begone.” He waved a hoof dismissively.

One of the guard’s ears drooped and she made an “eh?” sound. She cleared her throat and said, “Ma’am, I saw this pony-”

“That is irrelevant, whatever it is,” snapped Thorax. His voice was surprisingly hard. Not quite up to the real Goumada’s level, but pretty darn close. “I know her. She is trustworthy. Whatever you said about her, call it off.”

“Ma’am-”

“Now.”

“Yes’m,” the guard said quickly. She glanced at Bon Bon, frowning, then walked away, muttering, “I don’t give the orders, I follow them, doesn’t she remember…”

Bon Bon gaped at Thorax. He grinned and winked at her (and almost made her run for the hills, because a crime boss was grinning and winking at her). “Your lessons were good,” he whispered. “Come on.” He started walking for the exit.

After a second of blinking, Bon Bon followed. “I didn’t tell you how to sound murderous,” she said. “Which, I mean, good job, but…”

“I just did my best to channel Chrysalis. She was nasty.” Thorax turned to look Bon Bon in the eye. “And that wasn’t even half of her. I’m not-”

Thorax collided with another pony. As they staggered away from each other, they both fell into the crowd, which barely paid them any attention. Bon Bon was quickly at Thorax’s side, pulling him back to his feet. “I’m alright,” he whispered.

Guards swarmed around the other pony, helping her up. “Watch your path!” she snapped.

“You need to watch yours!” Thorax snapped back. Less strongly, but good enough. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“And you do not know who I am? I own this establishment!” And Goumada pushed her way out of the crowd to stand in front of Thorax.

If swears were a fuel source, Bon Bon’s thoughts alone could’ve powered Equestria for the next century.

Thorax stared at Goumada.

Goumada stared at Thorax.

Long-dormant reflexes kicked on. Bon Bon bolted, shoving her way into the crowd as Goumada bellowed, “Guards! Seize that changeling!”

The crowd’s attention spread out like a ripple as those words echoed above the din. Everything that wasn’t Bon Bon slowed down. Ponies seemed to congeal into each other as they turned to look at Goumada and Thorax, and Bon Bon had to fight to push ponies aside. She heard the flamelike whoosh of Thorax’s shapeshifting, but didn’t turn around. She couldn’t stop. She could only pray that-

“There it goes! Earth pony stallion, blue coat, blue mane! Stop it!”

Okay. Thorax seemed to be doing okay. Honestly, Thorax might’ve had it better than her. At least he could poof into another shape to confuse the guards for a few seconds. She was stuck as herself. The same herself that Goumada and all the other guards had seen, keeping her from entering the casino in the normal way ever again. Goose’s son of a stot-blasting hayseed crapbucket. (Whatever the hay that meant.)

She burst out into a lucky open area. On the other side, a guard pulled himself from the crowd. He noticed her and pointed. “You!” he bellowed. “Halt!”

She would’ve preferred the Elements of Harmony, but the only element Bon Bon had was that of surprise. She charged, her head low, and before the guard could brace, Bon Bon had closed the gap. She jinked in one direction, stuck a leg out in the other, and reared to catch the guard in the neck. Momentum carried the guard up onto her own rear legs, then still onwards onto her back. Bon Bon gave gravity a little help and smashed the guard into the floor as she kept moving. She hadn’t broken her stride and it hadn’t taken two seconds.

Somepony in the crowd started screaming. Of course. Bon Bon figured she looked like some kind of violent robber, clotheslining a guard with no problem. Then more people screamed, then more, and pandemonium took hold. Ponies began running every which way, only some heading for the exit. The throng buffeted Bon Bon about like she was caught in a riptide and her hearing bled into tinnitus.

Another guard materialized from the crowd and noticed her. Bon Bon bodyslammed him back into the crowd, fell on him as hard as she could, rolled, and kept running. She was almost at the door.

By now, panicked ponies were streaming out of the casino, most probably not even aware what they were running from. But once everypony started running from something, it was a good idea to follow. Once she was through the doors and outside, Bon Bon slowed her pace just enough to move at the same pace as them. She ripped off her suit coat, buttons popping, and tossed it away. Then her undershirt. Hopefully, the guards would start by looking for somepony wearing their uniforms. It might just be enough for her to get away.

The second she had the space to, Bon Bon galloped away. She crossed the street, ducked into an alley, took the most winding route she could think of. She kept her ears moving; she could still hear the yells from the crowd. But no close hoofbeats. She looked up. No pegasi seemed to be following her, either.

She collapsed against a wall, holding her face in her hooves, and slowly slid down. She screamed; she was too angry to cry. One single mistake, and the element of surprise was dead, gone, found again, cremated, and scattered to the wind. Goumada knew a changeling was around. It wouldn’t be long before she looked over the cameras and recognized Bon Bon and knew that somepony was trying to break in. Goodbye, anonymity. Hello, tightened security. Goodbye, easy casino entry. Hello, constantly surveilled entr-

Somepony tapped her on the shoulder. “Bon Bon?”

Bon Bon reflexively grabbed the hoof, hauled the guard over her shoulder, threw him to the ground, and was about to put him in a triangle choke when he put up his hooves and squealed, “It’s me! It’s Thorax! Don’t hurt me!”

“Thorax?”

The guard vanished in a cloud of blue fire. “I’m okay,” Thorax whispered, keeping his hooves up. “I wasn’t followed. I looked. Constantly. I could find you because I followed your emotions.” His voice got even quieter. “Those weren’t hard to miss.”

Bon Bon stuck her head up and looked around. They were the only people in this alley. Bon Bon let herself rest a fraction less tensely and helped Thorax to his feet. “You’re not hurt?”

“Not physically, but-” Thorax collapsed onto his rump and hung his head in his hooves. “Sweet Chrysalis, I can’t do anything right,” he moaned. “I play poker, I get accused of cheating. I try to get you out safely, and I-” He cringed and buzzed his wings. “I should just go,” he said quietly. “Back to the Crystal Empire. Why did I think I could do this? I’m just a-”

Bon Bon slapped him across the face, just hard enough to knock him out of his self-pity loop. She’d seen it plenty of times before.

Rubbing his cheek, Thorax stared at Bon Bon, blinking slowly. “Ow,” he protested in a clear I’m-not-that-hurt-but-I-don’t-know-what-else-to-say voice.

“I’ll be frank,” said Bon Bon. “You screwed up. Like, a lot. But you still came up with the plan to get those tracking bits into the vault, right?”

“Yeah,” mumbled Thorax, “but-”

“You were still the first one to find the vault, right?”

“Yeah, but-”

“You still got the bits from poker, right?”

“Yeah, but-”

“You still got through the vents and into the elevator, right?”

“Yeah, but-”

“Those things, you did great!” Bon Bon sat down next to Thorax. “I know this seems bad, but we’re not dead yet. We just- got a concussion. A bad one. But we’re not out of this yet.” She nudged Thorax lightly. “Did you really think it’d stay as easy as it’s been?”

“Yes.”

Ah, innocence. Bon Bon didn’t have the heart to tell him that they’d been lucky to get this far without anything getting screwed up. Which was probably why their luck had run out so quickly today.

A voice came in over the anklet; she made a “Wait a moment” gesture to Thorax. “Bon Bon?” asked Sunburst, a few bad reports away from completely aghast.

“Yes, Sunburst?” asked Bon Bon, a few bad reports away from completely despondent.

“Why are the casino’s communications are blazing with reports about a changeling?”

Bon Bon swallowed. Best to get it over with. “After Thorax heard that- Wait, you’re listening in on their communications?”

“Well, yeah. See, after you implanted the gems, all of the different, um, flavors of magic got pushed through to the receiver here, so if I tune it in the right way, I can isolate-”

“SUNBURST!” Starlight screamed. “Ask her what the heck is going on in there!”

“Um. Anyway. What’s going on in there?”

“Thorax heard that I was being followed,” Bon Bon said, “and he turned into Goumada to make it look like I was with her. And then… we ran into the real Goumada.”

“Oooooh…” You didn’t need to imagine hard to hear the unsaid curse that followed.

“We both escaped, but now Goumada knows there’s a changeling around her casino, and I think she spotted me as a thief.”

“…”

“Thorax and I are coming back to the villa. We’ll explain then.” Without waiting for a response, Bon Bon unbuckled her anklet. She needed to think her own thoughts.

Thorax was lightly kicking at the ground. He looked up when Bon Bon stopped talking. He didn’t say anything, but he seemed smaller than usual and his ear fins were quivering. Bon Bon wanted to reassure him, but the only words that wanted to come out of her mouth were, “Come on. Let’s get back to the others.”

Starlight had thought she’d felt bad before. That was a weekend resort compared to this. A weekend resort compared to this. A resort with a water park, with inner tubes and water slides and lazy rivers. And every single drink had those stupid little umbrellas in it.

Celestia, she needed a break.

Everyone was in the living room. Bon Bon was pacing back and forth, explaining what had happened. Thorax was sitting in the corner and looking like he was valiantly fighting the urge to turn into a chair.

“…then I got out, and Thorax followed my emotions to track me down,” said Bon Bon. “And…” She shrugged. “Here we are.”

“Sorry,” mumbled Thorax. His ears drooped.

“No one’s blaming you, Thorax,” said Starlight.

Gilda raised her claws. “I am.”

“Shut up,” snapped Rainbow.

The entire room went silent. You could cut the tension with a butter knife. From the way Thorax was squirming, Starlight guessed the emotions he was feeling weren’t just unpleasant, but intense. That could probably describe her alone, to boot.

To think she’d been confident. What was she thinking? That she’d swoop in like Twilight, save the day, and walk away smiling? Against somepony who had the police force in her pocket and wouldn’t hesitate to use it? Did she really think she could outwit ponies who were trained to make buildings as secure as possible?

Did she really think she could’ve led some podunk ponies in doing this in the first place?

Somepony coughed. Sunburst. “So, u-um…” He pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “Now what?”

Everyone looked at Bon Bon; she took a step back. “Don’t look at me,” she said quickly. “This is Starlight’s rodeo.”

Everyone looked at Starlight; she swallowed. The best option was — always had been — to just walk away. Could she, in good conscience, do that? They were so close, but what little remained had just gotten hard. She started straightening her mane with her hooves. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “Maybe… if we just-”

“Is this really that bad?” Derpy suddenly asked.

Everyone looked at Derpy. “That… bad…” said Bon Bon. One of her ears twitched. “Yes it’s that bad! What do you think just happened?”

“None of our plans got broken because of it.”

“We didn’t have any plans yet.”

“Exactly! We were making it up as we went already, and now we’ll just need to do a little more making up and be a bit more careful about what we do. And we know where just about everything is, so do we need to do any more infiltrating before the heist?”

“I- We-” Bon Bon frowned. “I… guess not… probably…”

“So we might not even need to set foot in the casino until the heist, which means we can stay out of trouble! Yeah, it’s bad, just not as bad as we think.”

Silence fell over the room again. Nobody looked at anybody else, everyone being caught up in their own thoughts (except for Derpy, already caught up and already back out, who was nibbling at a muffin).

Starlight stared at the floor. Goumada knew a changeling was around… but who would imagine a changeling was trying to steal money, rather than love? She knew somepony was trying to get into the security hub… but would she imagine that that pony was specifically trying to steal the Alicorn Amulet back? (Probably, if only from paranoia. But Starlight was trying to stay positive.) Bon Bon couldn’t get back into the casino through the main entrance… but what did she need to get back in for? (The heist itself. But then, the entrance had never been much of an option for Starlight, so they probably would’ve had to find another way in anyway.) And they’d been worried about security before. The only difference now was that it was tighter. A lot tighter. Tighter than they could’ve thought.

Upon making her decision, Starlight stood up. “Take an hour or two to do whatever you want, okay? We need to clear our heads before we make another move. Brainstorm if you want, veg out and eat Cheez Whiz on the couch if you want, I don’t care. Just calm down for a bit. Me, I’m going to pig out on jelly foals.” She turned around and walked to the kitchen.

Suddenly, she realized the Doctor was walking alongside her. “Can’t let you have all the jelly foals, ah?” he said. He smiled, but it wasn’t as wide as it usually was. “Together, our glorious indulgence and self-pity shall know no bounds!”

“That’s probably true already,” said Starlight. “I’m pretty darn good at self-pity.”

They broke open one of the larger bags of jelly foals, dumped it on the table, and began chowing away. The faux-fruit taste rolled around Starlight’s mouth, slowing her thoughts down. Only now did she realize just how much they’d been taking for granted: Goumada’s ignorance, security not knowing somepony was trying to break in, simply being able to walk in the front door… Yeah. This was going to be tricky.

And the anniversary was in a week.

Starlight swallowed. “So. Got any ideas?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Not at the moment, sadly. Perhaps I need some sugar to get my brain started.” He started chewing on a jelly foal, then whispered loudly, “Even though carbs, not sugars, are what get your brain started.”

“Hmm.” Starlight looked at one of the foals. It kind of looked like Goumada, maybe? She bit its head off and felt a bit better. “Ways in?” she muttered to herself. “Main entrance: ha ha, nope. Service entrances: probably not, especially if Goumada ups security. Airship landing platform: definitely not. Second most-obvious way in, and most of us can’t fly, anyway.”

“Can’t you?” asked the Doctor. “Self-levitation and all?”

“Yep. Not too hard, once you get the hang of it.”

“Wish I could,” mumbled the Doctor. He rubbed his flat forehead.

“So,” Starlight continued to herself, “we need an entrance that isn’t on the ground floor or the roof. Through one of the hotel rooms?” She devoured the rest of her Goumada effigy. “Too bad they don’t have balconies.”

“Maybe Rainbow can ‘accidentally’ break through one of the windows during the rainboom,” joked the Doctor. “You know she’d survive.”

“That mare could slam into the ground at rainboom speeds and walk away smiling,” said Starlight. “But where would we start, anyway?”

Gilda suddenly stomped into the room and dropped herself into the chair next to Starlight. “Hey, so, uh, can I be excused? Like, completely? I mean, this whole thing just kinda went sideways and pear-shaped at the same time, and I want to get back to Griffonstone while I’m behind.”

“What about your money?” asked the Doctor.

“I like my life more than money, thanks,” said Gilda, rolling her eyes. “C’mon, even griffons aren’t that greedy, you dweeb. …Well, most griffons. Like, sixty percent. If you round up.” She rustled her wings and attempted to look away without actually looking away.

“Not yet,” said Starlight. “We could still find a way to do this, and we need all the help we can get.” She wasn’t even being blindly optimistic to keep up morale; she really did think they could recover this, even if they needed to be extra creative about everything.

“Uh-huh. Great.” Gilda grabbed a fistful of jelly foals, stuffed them in her mouth, and managed to swallow them without chewing. “So should I mail my epitaph back to Griffonstone now or tomorrow? Not that it’ll matter, since nogriff’d visit my grave, anyway.” She blinked and grabbed some more jelly foals. “I mean, seriously. Most of our recon for the past, what, week? That just got flushed down the toilet. We don’t know what’s happening or where most of the guards are. And they’ll be alert for real this time, so anybody suspicious hanging around is gonna attract attention. Tell me, how’re we gonna get information on the guards with all that?”

A lightbulb went off in Starlight’s head. “Your boyfriend.”

“…Could I have a minute to scream into a pillow?”

“Go ahead.”

“Thank you.”

Once Gilda was gone, Starlight turned to the Doctor, who was chewing thoughtfully. “Do you think it’ll work?”

“Don’t see why it wouldn’t,” the Doctor replied. “Just tell him, ‘hey, stuff went down, let us know what Goumada thinks’. It’s not even like he needs to do anything more than telling us what’s up, right?”

“Dunno. Let’s see what Bon Bon thinks.”

Starlight quickly found Bon Bon, sat her down in the dining room, and told her the plan. Bon Bon frowned, staring at the table and fiddling with a placemat. “I don’t know,” she said eventually. “I’m not too keen on getting a guard involved this deeply-”

“For the last time, Gilda was pretty confident about him!” said Starlight.

“-but if he was telling the truth, then… Yeah, this isn’t half bad.” Bon Bon looked Starlight in the eye. “But you’re the one going with Gilda to get him to do it.”

Starlight hadn’t imagined it any other way. “Of course!” she said. “I can do this, no problem.” Maybe. Probably. And she could try some magic on him if she couldn’t. Bad idea, but at that point, it’d be the only idea.

“Good.” Bon Bon eyed the pile of candy on the table. “You two aren’t going to eat all of that, are you?”

“Help yourself,” said the Doctor.

22 - Any Landing You Can Walk Away From

Starlight couldn’t believe they were doing this. But there’d been a lot of things she couldn’t believe that had happened anyway, so she sort of knew how to roll with it.

It was early afternoon, and she and Gilda were walking up to the guard’s house. His small “I don’t wanna share with anyone” house. It didn’t look half bad, but Starlight didn’t like how tiny it was. Too unwelcoming. At her side, Gilda twirled the guard’s key around her claws; they’d completed the copying (just in case) a while ago. It was still weird to think that they were just going to go and ask a security guard to betray his employer.

“Let me handle this,” Gilda muttered to Starlight once they reached the door. “You don’t know him.” She licked one of her paws and ran it through her headfeathers. Knock knockknockknock-knock. Ding-dong.

After several moments, the door was flung open, a familiar groggy-looking griffon inside. He blinked tiredness out of his eyes when he saw who was there. “Gilda?” he asked. “And… whatsyourface, Starfight? What’re-” Then he perked up almost immediately. “Key. You got my key, right?”

“Right here, Gus.” Gilda held up the keygem. “But we’ve hit a snag and need some more of your help.”

“Oh, pumpernickel.”

“You’ve been around ponies too long. Don’t you remember how to curse like a real griffon?”

“Sure, but I like to save those for real emergencies, you noodge.” Gus lightly banged his head against the doorframe a few times. “Anyway, come on in and tell me how deep you’re in it.”

Once Gus had led them to the somewhat spacious closet masquerading as a living room, Starlight self-consciously laid out their situation. Gus didn’t look particularly happy at anything she said, but he didn’t look ready to turn snitch, either. And an old, tyrannical part of Starlight knew about turning snitch.

“…so we were wondering if you could tell us what’s changing about the security,” finished Starlight. “I mean, since you’re… not really a big fan of Goumada and… stuff.” She smiled lamely.

“Uh, go back a bit,” said Gus, frowning. “You know, to the part where you told a changeling impersonate Goumada. And it actually did.”

“Yes, he did,” said Starlight. “His name is Thorax and he’s a friend.”

“You’re working with a changeling,” Gus said to Gilda, “and you’re saying I’ve been around ponies too long?”

“We’re just workmates. We ain’t friends,” scowled Gilda.

Gus rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to Starlight. “Anyway, just to recap… You were planning on breaking on Goumada’s vault, one of the most secure vaults in Equestria. I’ve heard she contracted different companies to build each part just so no one group would have all the plans. So you were doing that. Then you got found out, with a changeling and one of your best gals, just…” He made a popping motion with his claws. “Poof. Out in the open for all to see. And you’re still going through with your plan. Which you don’t have yet. And only have about a week to make.” He paused.“Are all ponies this bonkers?”

“Nope!” Starlight said. “Some of us are worse.”

“Heh. Lucky for you, I like bonkers. Sure, I can do some poking around.” Gus poked a claw at Gilda. “Buy me lunch after my shift tomorrow and we have a deal. My own egg, yadda yadda, all that jazz.”

“Lunch. Yep.” Gilda nodded.

Inspiration hit Starlight. “And one more thing,” she said. “If you can get us a key into the security hub, that’d be great. If you can’t, we’ll understand.”

After nibbling on a claw, Gus said, “Bet I can, but I’ll need more money, and I’ll need it now. Or tomorrow, or whenever I get you the key, whatever. Just, like, a hundred bits would do.”

Thorax had scrounged up a decent amount of money in his last poker game, so- “A hundred bits is fine. Bribes?” said Starlight.

Gus nodded. “Bribes. No promises, but I’ll do my best. Now get outta my house.”

In and out in less than five minutes. Starlight was still surprised. After all the skulking around they’d been doing, it was practically a relief. “Are griffons usually that straightforward?” she asked Gilda.

“Eh. Pretty much,” said Gilda, shrugging. “Quibbling and discussion get in the way of money, so it’s best to lay everything out ASAP. Everyone likes money but no one likes a cheat.”

“What about loopholes? Shouldn’t you close them?”

“Usually, we reason that someone who uses loopholes obviously likes holes so much that…” Gilda bared her claws. “…they should have holes in them.”

Starlight liked that idea far more than she wanted to admit.

Even after Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope had gotten the idea that the guard-griffon might be able to help them, Thorax-Changeling couldn’t stop worrying. This was all his fault, after all. Why shouldn’t he worry?

Hive etiquette (what little that existed, anyway) said nervous changelings should find some other place to go to avoid bothering other changelings with their feelings. Ponies were more open, but, his nerves in tatters, Thorax-Changeling found himself reverting to ingrained instincts and hiding upstairs. Nobody went upstairs.

One of the closets was nice and dark and quiet. Almost like a cocoon. Perfect for stewing in. Thorax-Changeling ignored the dust attempting to storm his nose and stayed curled up in the bottom. His emotions were out of control — even worse for a changeling than for a pony. He wanted to believe Bon Bon-Earth-Tan and her claim that they could still pull this off, he really did, but he’d just shot a hole in it the size of a stadium. He felt worthless, yet everyone kept insisting he stay (except for Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle, which probably meant she was smart). He was a terrible changeling and felt even worse than he was. It all came down to one thing: Goumada-Unicorn-Marble knew.

The effectiveness of changelings came from ponies not knowing when one was around. The second they did know, it was better to just skip town for the rest of forever. Knowing meant ponies could plan, and even something as simple as trust passwords could screw changelings over. The heist was similar, and who knew what Goumada-Unicorn-Marble would do? They might change the guards’ uniforms the day before the robbery without anyone knowing. And it was all his fault.

So Thorax-Changeling was feeling sorry for himself in the closet. Nobody would need his presence as a reminder that things had gone downhill faster than an avalanche. Nope. He was safe. Nobody would look for him. Nobody would find him.

The door cracked open. A pause, then Lyra-Unicorn-Mint yelled, “Never mind! You can stop looking! Found him!”

Fornication.

“Go ’way,” mumbled Thorax-Changeling.

“No. Get up.” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint’s voice was stern, but Thorax-Changeling thought he tasted bits of concern there. Concern? For who? Him? Psht. Yeah, right. “You can’t stay in here forever.”

“Watch me.” He didn’t even have the energy to get up and hiss.

“We can still do this. C’mon, get up.” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint nudged Thorax-Changeling with her hoof. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“Feels like it.”

“…You wanna talk about it?”

“Nope.”

“Too bad!” Thump. Thorax-Changeling risked cracking open an eye. Lyra-Unicorn-Mint was sitting outside the closet, staring disapprovingly at him. And that concern tasted a bit stronger. Huh. “Now. What do I need to say to get you to come out?”

Thorax-Changeling uncoiled and slouched against the back wall of the closet. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I… You know what I did.”

“Yeah.” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint shifted on her tail. “And, it’s… Yeah, it’s bad. And, yeah, we’ll have to do things differently from now on. But c’mon, you can’t keep beating yourself up about it! At least you got Bon Bon out safely! Kinda. Sorta. Ish.” She paused. “Close enough! She’s out and you were around when she got out so it counts!”

“But I-!” Thorax-Changeling’s ears twitched. “And- it’s- I’m- I’m also… not a…” His voice dropped. “It’s more than that. I’m, I’m not a very good changeling.”

“So freaking what?” asked Lyra-Unicorn-Mint. “Who cares if you’re not a good changeling? I don’t. Is a good changeling something you wanna be, anyway?”

“Kinda… I mean… I am a changeling…”

“So?”

Thorax-Changeling stared at Lyra-Unicorn-Mint. Lyra-Unicorn-Mint stared back. What was she thinking? “Well, um,” he mumbled, wringing his hooves around each other, “I’m… a changeling, so, um… I’ve… kinda gotta be a… good changeling.”

“Says who?”

Thorax-Changeling opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. Said who? Well, Chrysalis-Changeling-Queen, but by now, she was the kind of person who you paid very close attention to so you could do the opposite of what she said. Spike-Dragon-Purple certainly didn’t care whether or not he was a good changeling. Flurry-Alicorn-Pink didn’t care. Why should he?

Because, being good at being a changeling or not, he was still a changeling. He should be good at being who he was. But that meant being a conniving, lying, backstabbing dastard, and if you weren’t a changeling, that was pretty universally a Bad Thing to be. Even griffons, jerkish and greedy as they were, were at least honest and forward being jerkish and greedy.

So if being who he was meant being a bad person, did he really want to be who he was?

Lyra-Unicorn-Mint must’ve noticed his internal conflict, because she said, “You wanna know something?” She pulled herself into the closet and sat next to Thorax-Changeling, her back against the wall. “I’m a terrible graduate of CSGU.”

“Um. Thanks?” Thorax-Changeling’s ears twitched. “I… don’t know what that means.”

Lyra-Unicorn-Mint laughed. Thorax-Changeling would’ve guessed it was to brush off her mistake if he hadn’t tasted her amusement. “Right. Sorry. Anyway, it’s the Canterlot School for Gifted Unicorns. Kind of a big deal in Equestria. It’s where all the smart unicorn foals go to flex their magic muscles. I got accepted in. I even kinda-sorta knew Twilight while we were growing up. Anyway, there I was in the best school in the country. And you know what? I was bored.” She shifted to another wall so she could better look at Thorax-Changeling. “I’m good at magic, but I don’t like doing it. All those…” She made a twirling sort of motion with her hooves. “…equations and instructions and wlah. It’s boring.”

“So what were you doing there?”

“Parents made me. My grades were fine, so I couldn’t get them to let me drop out.” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint shrugged. “Then I graduated, and since then, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about a single thing I learned back then. I mean, I play the lyre. That’s like Princess Celestia’s personal student becoming a plumber or a librarian!”

“Um. Wasn’t Twilight…?”

“Right, bad example. But you get what I’m saying, right?”

Thorax-Changeling did, kinda. Who you were wasn’t completely who you were. (Ehm. He reworked the phrase in his head.) The role you were given didn’t define you. He could be a changeling, sure. He could shapeshift, nip at emotions, all that jazz, but just because changelings were other things as well didn’t mean he needed to be those other things. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“And if you ever want to just mope and cry, I’m here to listen.” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint moved next to Thorax-Changeling again and tentatively put a leg around his shoulders. He scooted a bit closer to her; she tightened her hug. “I’m a good listener, and I totally promise that I won’t tell you to get over it.” Her smile was so winning that Thorax-Changeling half-expected a visible twinkle to glint off her teeth. He’d never tasted anypony quite so… open. Except maybe Spike-Dragon-Purple.

“Thanks.”

“Need a… like, a hug or… something?” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint frowned. “How do you even eat emotions, anyway?”

“It’s… magic. I can’t really explain it.” Mostly because Thorax-Changeling had never really thought about it beyond pulling the emotions in. “And, yeah, I could use a hug.” He wasn’t hungry, but he was still feeling so love-deprived that instinct made him slip into a form better suited for getting love from ponies.

Lyra-Unicorn-Mint blinked at him and her emotions did a magnificent double backflip straight into confusion. “Okay, that’s… I guess I can work with that.”

“Work with what?” asked Thorax-Earth-Tan. “I don’t- OhhiveI’msosorry!” Poof. “That was an accident!” Thorax-Changeling said breathlessly. “It’s just, I, it’s easier for me to-”

“No no, keep it!” said Lyra-Unicorn-Mint. Her feelings triple-axeled back into… excitement? “If it’s easier for you, then do it! I’m sure Bon Bon won’t mind. It’s not like we’re gonna keep this up after today, right?”

“I… um…” Thorax-Changeling rubbed his hooves together, alternately looking Lyra-Unicorn-Mint in the eye and looking everywhere but her. Was posing as somepony’s special somepony really that bad when the first somepony knew what you were doing? “It’s… I…” Poof. “I guess not,” said Thorax-Earth-Tan.

And then Lyra-Unicorn-Mint was hugging Thorax-Earth-Tan so tightly he almost couldn’t breathe. Love was pouring off of her in waves; love for both Bon Bon-Earth-Tan and for him, surprisingly enough. He returned the hug, steadily drinking up the love, and would’ve buzzed his wings in contentment if he’d still had them. Lyra-Unicorn-Mint ran her hooves up and down his back, through his mane; he could hear her humming with pleasure.

After a moment, she asked, “So, you feeling better?”

“Mmm. Yep.”

“Awesome. You wanna keep going?”

“Sure. Should we kiss?” he asked before he realized it. To his surprise, he didn’t regret it.

“Would it get you feeling even better?” respond Lyra-Unicorn-Mint.

“Ehm… Maybe.”

“Then let’s try it. Okay?”

“…Okay.”

Lyra-Unicorn-Mint mashed their lips together, hard. After a brief moment of shock and self-consciousness, Thorax-Earth-Tan mashed back and lost himself. This was nice. He didn’t need to worry about much of anything. Lyra-Unicorn-Mint was a gigantic font of love. He felt better by the second, his love reserves creeping up inch by-

A shadow passed over them from outside; they quickly broke apart to see Bon Bon-Earth-Tan standing over them. She blinked. “Lyra. Why are you playing Seven Minutes in Elysium with Thorax disguised as me?”

Thorax-Earth-Tan immediately struggled to come up with an answer, but Lyra-Unicorn-Mint just said, “Thorax is having a bad day and needs a pick-me-up.”

Bon Bon-Earth-Tan blinked again. Her emotions were interlocked gears each trying to turn in opposite directions; Thorax-Earth-Tan couldn’t even distinguish them all. But finally, she said, “If he needs it.” She twitched, then added, “Feel free to experiment and let me know how it turns out.” Her emotions were still hard to read, but Thorax-Earth-Tan thought she left rather quickly.

“Sweetness.” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint turned back to Thrax-Earth-Tan. “So, where were-”

“You want to keep going?” squeaked Thorax-Earth-Tan. “After- she- saw us?”

“She’s okay with it. What’s the problem?” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint ran a hoof across her lips, pursing them. “Is my technique bad? Bonnie says it’s good, but she might just be trying to flatter me…”

“Well- It’s-” Thorax-Earth-Tan shuffled away. “It was fine at first, and then she came and it just got weird! She- She walked in on you cheating on me looking like her and- she’s all- What?” He ran his hooves through his mane and looked away. “I, I think I’ve got enough love for now. Um. Thanks.”

Lyra-Unicorn-Mint chuckled. “Yeah. The changeling life is not for you. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.” She got up and left the closet, still laughing.

Thorax-Earth-Tan rolled his eyes. Ponies were weird.

Bon Bon stared at her half-empty soup bowl, her train of thought a runaway. Good spycraft wasn’t just about being sneaky; you also needed to improvise when things nigh-inevitably went into the toilet. And Bon Bon’s improvisational skills had always been a bit… lacking. Heck, once the bugbear had first appeared in Ponyville, she’d immediately told Lyra everything, without one single attempt at an excuse. In hindsight, pretty stupid. She could’ve made something up about going to check that her house wasn’t destroyed (it hadn’t been) or talked about a phobia of bugbears (which, in a way, she had). She was lucky she’d never been captured while on the job.

And for all Derpy said about them never having a plan in the first place, Bon Bon had still assumed certain things would be true. Being able to walk into the front door without being recognized and clubbed to death or worse, for instance. Entering a building was a bit required for robbing it. Bon Bon didn’t put that much stock on any service entrances, either. All it would take was one guard to notice her. She practically needed to enter the hotel on or near the same floor as the vault.

If she was even going along with the main break-in party. She was kind of assuming she was, but who knew? She was just treading water at the moment, trying not to drown in a sea of crime bosses.

She sipped at her soup. At least dinner was good.

“So what do you think?” she asked the pony across from her, apropos of nothing.

“Neightzsche was right and Trotcrates really wasn’t all that great a philosopher but depended heavily on straw mares because he didn’t have confidence in his own arguments?” asked said pony (Sunburst, as it turned out).

“Well, that, too. But the, y’know, the heist.”

“Oh. Right.” Sunburst pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “Well, um, regardless of, of what’s going on, rolling over and letting Goumada keep the Alicorn Amulet is, is kind of a bad thing.”

Bon Bon grunted. Stupid logic. “Got any actual plans?”

“N-not at the moment, no. But I’m thinking,” Sunburst added defensively.

“We might need to get into the hotel somewhere in the middle,” she said, half to Sunburst, half to try to jar her brain. “The front entrance is going to be more secure than Rarity’s bobbins and the airship port is just the next most obvious place to go. And none of the rooms have balconies.” She sipped at her soup. “And we’ve only got four people who can fly: Gilda, Rainbow, Derpy, and Thorax. Rainbow’s occupied, Derpy is… um… and I don’t know if Thorax is going to want to come.”

“What, what about Starlight?”

Bon Bon blinked. “Starlight can fly?” Of course she could.

“Well, it’s, uh, technically self-levitation,” said Sunburst, “but, um, I guess that’s close enough.”

Even self-levitation was good. A spellcaster who could (sort of) fly, especially one as powerful as Starlight, was almost as good as an alicorn in this. If Starlight actually had the self-confidence to follow through. Bon Bon drained the rest of her soup and said, “What’s the news on the cameras, by the way? I heard they were working well, but not much else.”

Sunburst’s ears went up and he grinned. “Oh, those! Yeah, the seeds’re working great. The picture’s crystal clear, we can switch between them easily- Why don’t I show you?”

And with a speed and strength only available to excited nerds, he dragged Bon Bon into one of the sitting rooms they hadn’t been using. The improperly-reflecting mirror she’d seen earlier was still up, but now it was split into square sections, each one “reflecting” scenes from the casino: games, hallways, the main casino floor, and more. The images were so clear Bon Bon had to convince herself that she wasn’t looking through a window (although she was, technically speaking in a roundabout way). But there weren’t anywhere near enough images for the whole casino. Before Bon Bon could ask about the rest of the cameras, Sunburst had bounded forward and dragged his hoof across one of the squares. The image literally slid out of sight, replaced by another one. Grinning at Bon Bon, Sunburst kept swiping. More and more and more images zipped by. “You like?” asked Sunburst in a tone that probably shouldn’t have left the bedroom.

“Sure,” said Bon Bon vaguely, still staring at the mirror. She tentatively poked it; it felt just like any other mirror. She slid her hoof across, and the image changed just as it had for Sunburst, no magic required. Swipe swipe swipe, change change change. “Wow,” she said, the best she could manage. “This is… This is great.”

“I know!” Sunburst patted the mirror affectionately. “Easy to set up, easy to use, and smoooooth. There’s a, a similar system to the anklets to, to let you hear communications, and I might be able to override their, the signals the cameras are sending out to whatever security rooms they, they have!”

Bon Bon whipped around and stared at Sunburst, her jaw hanging open. Where had this guy been hiding? If he was half as good at casting magic as Starlight, he knew enough about magic that could probably rob the casino himself. “Seriously?”

Sunburst’s grin grew a little wooden. “W-well, um… Not, not right now. I’d need to, uh, get another seed into the, the racks again, to, to, y’know, send out the, the signals from here. Which, which would mean… going into casino security. At- the- worst possible time to try getting into casino security.”

“But assuming we could do that-”

“Then, oh, yeah, definitely!” Sunburst nodded vigorously. “We could, I don’t know, send illusions, or maybe just record a, a few minutes of empty hallway from one of those cameras and send that. It’d barely even require us to, to buy anything!” He tilted his head at Bon Bon. “I mean, the visual spells are basic, and it’s, it’s the same idea as sending the magic from the casino to here, just in, in reverse. Stop acting like I’m a genius because of this.”

“You are a genius!”

“Yeah, but not because of this,” Sunburst said without a trace of either humility or arrogance. “Anypony could do it if they knew refractional glass thauma transference.”

Bon Bon turned back to the mirror, idly flicking through cameras. There were a lot less invasions of privacy than she’d have expected from a crime boss, but maybe that was just because Goumada still had to keep up a pretense of civility, and somepony trying to sleep in a room with a camera staring at them from the ceiling didn’t exactly produce glowing recommendations. Either way, there was enough coverage for all the main areas of the casino and hotel.

“I mean, the most complicated thing in, thing in this is the fiber arcanics themselves,” Sunburst rambled. He didn’t seem to care that Bon Bon wasn’t listening to him anymore. “And that’s not, it’s not that complicated, just incredibly niche and, and new.”

“Let me know if you come up with any more ideas. This is great.” Complete access to cameras and the possibility to fake the images. As she left the room, Bon Bon’s spirits were just a little bit higher.

23 - Walking a Tightrope of Knives

Maybe it was paranoia talking, but overnight, Starlight had a revelation about Goumada. A bad one, but one they’d tackled already and forgotten about. So that morning at breakfast, she sat down across from Lyra.“You still have to attend those band rehearsals, right?” asked Starlight.

“Yeah. Why?” said Lyra.

“If Goumada gets paranoid about infiltrators, she might try her mind-control spell on the band to get them to talk, since they’re all outside ponies. So I want to cast that anti-mind-control spell we came up with a few days ago on you, just to be sure she can’t get anything. Is that okay?”

Lyra blinked. “Gee, I dunno. Why would keeping me from being mind-controlled not be good?”

“Experience has taught me that casting spells on people without their permission is…” Starlight clenched her teeth together and sucked in a breath. “…not a good thing.”

Lyra looked like she was going to make a joke, but she quickly closed her mouth before that happened. Instead, she said, “Alright, then. Go ahead.”

Luckily, Starlight remembered the spell clearly; it was cast in moments. “There. You should be all set.”

“Huh.” Lyra rubbed the side of her head, rapped it with a hoof. “I thought I’d feel different. Don’t ask me why. But I guess when it comes to mental magic, not feeling anything is a good thing. Except when it’s a bad thing.” She saw the look on Starlight’s face and quickly added, “But this is one of the times it’s a good thing!”

Doing her best to prevent any philosophizing on a topic she didn’t want to touch, Starlight said, “We need to find Rainbow Dash, too. She might-”

“Why do you need me?” asked Rainbow from two feet away, making Starlight jump. It was amazing how somepony that blunt could be that quiet.

“Mind control resistance,” said Lyra. “In case Goumada tries to get into your head.” Then she blinked and turned her attention to Starlight. “You really think she needs it? She’s barely even been at the casino at all. Will Goumada try anything on her?”

“Probably, even if it’s just the day of the anniversary celebration,” said Starlight. “She got the Alicorn Amulet from Ponyville, she knows that Rainbow’s from Ponyville, things start getting weird not long after Rainbow shows up… Anypony could put two and two together.” To Rainbow, she said, “So, yeah. If you don’t mind…”

Rainbow snorted. “Psht, come on!” she said. “You really think I couldn’t throw it off? I’m strong-willed! I’m Loyalty! I can resist mind control like that!” She stomped on the ground and flared her wings. “Boom.”

“Just like last time, hmm?” asked Lyra, grinning.

“Allllthoooouuuugh,” Rainbow said, not looking at Starlight or Lyra, “IIII… guess it wouldn’t hurt to do it… just, just, y’know, just in caaaase…”

Starlight rolled her eyes and readied the spell.

Meat meat meat meat meat. Griffon restaurants had a lot of meat. A lot of different kinds of meat. And, supposedly, each one was different from the others. Bon Bon wasn’t so sure; it wasn’t like cabbage and lettuce, where the differences were obvious. Unfortunately, the location meant that, for a mostly-plant-eater like herself, her options were limited. Luckily, ponies being the dominant species in Equestria still meant something, and so the restaurant still had an okay variety of meat-free foods.

Bon Bon had decided to tag along with Gilda and Starlight to the lunch that was his fee; she knew the questions she wanted to ask better than either of them. The restaurant Gus had chosen was (hopefully) one of those where the budget for presentation was a few scraps of belly button lint (griffons probably didn’t even have belly buttons, considering they hatched) and a neat bug one guy’s kid found, with all the rest going to the food. The place was plain and a bit dirty, but the non-meat stuff Bon Bon sniffed at smelled good enough. And the descriptions on the menus sounded good. Usually.

“So it’s Prench toast stuffed with whipped cream?” Bon Bon asked as she stared at one order. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to puke or order ten. Probably the latter.

“Pretty much, yeah,” said Gus. “Pretty awesome if you’re into sweet stuff.” He hadn’t even glanced at his menu, apparently already knowing what he wanted to order. “Oh, and their pancakes? Dang. Even the plain ones are some of the best pancakes I’ve ever had.”

Pancakes sounded good. Simple but delicious. Bon Bon folded up her menu.

Gilda nudged Gus in the ribs. “So, how’s it going? Guarding gotten any less boring yet?”

Gus’s good mood evaporated like spit on a stove. “Unfortunately,” he growled. He took a long drink of orange juice like it was alcohol. “She’s gotten so-”

Their waiter chose that minute to return. His uniform managed to be prim and ratty at the same time. He clicked a pen and said, “I take it you’re all ready to order?”

“Right,” said Bon Bon. “I’ll have the pancake stack.”

“Prench toast,” said Starlight. “Regular.”

“Sausage biscuit,” said Gilda.

“Squishy Nuggets,” said Gus, the Capital Letters clearly Audible.

Bon Bon didn’t get it, but literally everyone else stared at Gus, who stared defiantly back at the waiter. After a second, the waiter coughed and said, “Classic or homestyle?”

“Homestyle, obviously.”

It might’ve been Bon Bon’s imagination, but it looked like the waiter twitched as he pushed his pen back into the notepad’s ring. “I see. I’ll be out with your food shortly.”

Once the waiter was gone, Starlight raised an eyebrow. “You ordered from the kids’ menu?”

Gus shrugged. “Comfort food.” He lowered his voice. “Because, holy guacamole, from the way Goumada went on at the start of my shift, you’d think someone had gutted her family and danced through the streets bathed in their blood. And that she actually liked her family enough to care about them.”

Bon Bon cringed internally while Starlight cringed externally. “That bad, huh?” muttered Starlight.

“She was raaaaaaaaaaanTY,” said Gus with a whistle. “And not just ‘drop a lot of curse words’ ranty, I mean, like, Shakespintoan-florid ranty, the kind where it takes five paragraphs to tell someone that they’re a mean person.” He cleared his throat and began in a bad falsetto, “‘Those miserable curs shall rue the day their parents first breathed the air of this world, first drank the water of life, first suckled their mothers’ teat! Their pleasure shall turn to ash in their-’”

Gilda clouted Gus with a wing. “Hey! Can the theatricality, would ya?”

“I ain’t theatrical, she is,” protested Gus. “Anyway, Goumada just went on and on and on about what terrible people you were. I bet she’s still going.” He took a sip of orange juice. “And that means you’re alright.”

“So what’s security like?” Bon Bon did her best to not get in Gus’s face.

“She’d’ve doubled the amount of guards if she’d had enough,” said Gus. “But she had to settle for one-point-fiving it and increasing the length of shifts.” He rolled his eyes. “Yaaaaaaaaay.”

“Sorry.” Bon Bon’s response was almost reflexive.

“Eh, don’t worry about it. I only have to put up with it for like a week, anyway. But, yeah, lots more guards everywhere, especially at the entrances to the staff rooms. Less so at the entrance to the casino itself — y’know, the place where a changeling is most likely to be.” Gus snorted. “Gotta make that money somehow, right?”

Maybe it was just paranoia talking, but Bon Bon wasn’t so sure. It didn’t take a genius to ask what Thorax had been doing disguised as Goumada, of all ponies. She was big, obvious, and hadn’t even been restrained. Meanwhile, ponies on the casino floor weren’t looking for company, but jackpots. Just about the worst possible pony to disguise yourself as in the worst possible place to look for targets… but only if you were trying to get love. If you were trying to get something else… And Goumada had also noticed Bon Bon that day. A fake guard being escorted out by a fake Goumada. Definitely not a typical changeling.

What if the guards weren’t meant for changelings at all, but for thieves? They were all right at the most important weak points. Anyone trying to get in would have a harder time bluffing their way past the guards at the staff entrance. Goumada had seen the little incongruities in everything and decided to take a gamble that the changeling she’d seen was working with the thieves she’d seen. And that gamble was paying off; Bon Bon had to reshuffle her assumptions for her plan again.

Of course, you’d think Goumada would also put up a little more defense against the usual sorts of changelings, just in case. But Bon Bon wasn’t going to complain.

Gus was still talking. “And if you’re gonna try to get into the staff rooms, you gotta be careful — Goumada’s having the guards get a good look at everyone who enters. If they don’t recognize you, you’re not getting in, even if your key works. Speaking of which…” Gus dropped a keygem on the table and slid it to Starlight. “Rented it from a friend. Get it back to me, same time as yesterday, and everything’s hunky-dory. Yes, it opens the hub; tested it myself. Now, my bits?”

Starlight set a few high-value coins in front of him, totalling a hundred. Gus counted them — thrice — and pocketed them. “Thaaaaaank you,” he said.

“So do you have anything specific? Any details?” asked Bon Bon. She was practically jumping in place. Briefing was usually quicker than this, which meant she could start planning faster. She felt every second she lost and held her breath for the moment when Gus would say he couldn’t remember.

Which never came. “Sure,” said Gus. “Like, just outside the entrance…”

The wait for their food passed quickly. Bon Bon used her napkin (and Starlight’s, and Gilda’s, and Gus’s…) to take notes as Gus laid out all he remembered. (“I mean, Goumada went over them so many times, I better remember them all!”) It was only slightly less bad than she’d feared. Guard numbers upped, guard shifts lengthened, guard densities increased, the works. If she or Starlight were on the infiltration team, the front entrance wasn’t just out, it was banned from ever re-entering her thoughts. The closest thing to a positive would be if Gus’s not-infrequent tangents were right and the higher workload would make the guards more tired and less alert.

Someone coughed; the waiter had returned with their food. But one of the four plates was empty. Bon Bon kept her eye on it as the food was passed out; Gus wound up being the one without a plate before the waiter said, “And, finally, your nuggets.” He pounded on his chest for a moment, picked up the empty plate, and vomited onto it.

Bon Bon pushed away from the table; nobody else batted an eye. The waiter retched, puked up another mass of half-digested… stuff, and handed Gus’s plate to him. “Thanks,” said Gus.

“Uh-huh.” The waiter took what Bon Bon sincerely hoped was some kind of sterilizing cloth from a container on his belt and wiped his beak down. “I’ll be around in a few minutes if you need anything more.”

“Yep,” said Gus. And everyone dug into their food.

Except for Bon Bon, who kept staring at Gus in morbid, bilious fascination. “That’s barf,” she said unhelpfully. “You’re eating barf.”

Gus gave Bon Bon a confused look. “Well, yeah, what did ya think ‘homestyle’ meant?” he said. He nibbled at a slimy glob of something. “Mmm. Just like Mom used to puke.”

“Eh-heh.” Bon Bon pushed her own plate away. Her appetite had committed suicide.

Gilda snickered. “Not everything’s as neat as you ponies like to pretend it is, you know.”

“Yeah. Right. Sure.” And Bon Bon’s stomach continued its gold-medal gymnastics routine.

Lyra tried to stay focused during band practice. She really did. But with the threat of possible attempted mind control hanging over her, her playing suffered a little. Luckily, as third lyre, she could rip half the strings off her instrument and still play just fine, then rip half the remainder off and play well enough to at least escape notice. So she played and prayed nothing would happen.

But once the rehearsal was done, a security guard blocked her from leaving. “Goumada would like to see you.”

Swallowing and doing her best to look innocent, Lyra said, “Why me? I’m just a lyrist.”

“Dunno,” the guard replied with a shrug. “But she wants to see you.”

Lyra let herself get led to Goumada’s office, an opulent place that Lyra almost wanted for herself. The guard waited outside as Lyra and Goumada took their seats. Lyra’s chair was just a little uncomfortable. Knowing Goumada, that was probably deliberate.

Before Lyra could say anything, Goumada’s horn glowed and a wave of… something washed lightly over her mind. She felt… kind of mellow? Maybe a little buzzed. Definitely not super-great, like Starlight had said it felt like. Yeah, she could resist this, easy.

“Now,” said Goumada. “When you were first hired to play in my band, you came… late.”

Part of Lyra’s head said Goumada was right and smart. The vast majority of Lyra’s head said Goumada was right and so obvious it didn’t bear mentioning. She went with the latter.

“Shortly after you arrived, my security started experiencing some… Let’s call them ‘difficulties’. This might be a coincidence. It might not be.”

Annoyed by the intrusion on her mind, Lyra took a moment to channel her inner Twilight. “It’s a coincidence,” she said, recalling long-gone lessons from CSGU. “By definition. It’s two events that happened at the same time. They’re co… incidences. Really, it’s just basic etymology!” She smiled and, before Goumada could regain control of the conversation, said, “Now, whether they’re correlated…”

Goumada blinked once, twice, and scowled. “These two events may or may not be correlated. Are you familiar with a pony named Starlight?”

Holy flagstaff, was Goumada blunt. Normally, mind control would probably make the victim go along with her, but did she just think they’d forget about their head being played like a harmonica? Maybe she thought they’d be too scared to do anything about it. Whatever. Lyra already had a story lined up. (Being a spy and making up histories was fun!) “Oh- Oh, yeah, Starlight!” she said brightly. “Yeah, I remember him! Kinda.”

Goumada smirked, just a little. “Good. What can you tell me about-” The smirk vanished as quickly as it had arrived. “-him?”

“Starlight Shade’s an astrologer!” said Lyra. “And no, I don’t mean astronomer. I mean astrologer, with the signs of the zodiac and horoscopes and telling the future and all.”

“Starlight… Shade,” said Goumada tonelessly.

“He went on and on about his ‘job’ a lot. And also the animal years in Chaidamu culture.” Lyra began ticking them off. “Rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake-”

“Can we return to the topic at hoof?” Goumada’s voice was strained.

“-goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig!” Lyra finished triumphantly. Ish. “Wait. That’s only eleven. There was always one I could never remember… What was it?…”

“Starlight,” snapped Goumada. Her spell fruitlessly pushed a little harder at Lyra’s mind. “Can we return to her?”

“But Starlight’s a dude,” said Lyra. “Kind of a cute one, too.” (Real Starlight was kind of cute, too, if she was being honest. Not very cute, though.)

“Very well. Can we return to him?”

“Well, he was an alright guy as long as you didn’t try to point out the inconsistencies in astrology. Like, the Equestrian zodiac predicts different things from the Chaidamun one, but apparently they’re both true?” Lyra grinned broadly. “Seriously, whatup with that?”

“Is that all you can remember of him?” Goumada put her hooves on the table and leaned forward. “He wasn’t, for example, a mage of great renown and might?”

“Why the booger would he be a super-powerful mage?” Lyra asked, cocking her head. “He was a pegasus.”

Goumada took a long breath in through her nose. She leaned back in her chair and sighed. “We seem to be thinking of different ponies.”

“Hey, not my fault. You just gave me a name, and different ponies can have the same name.”

“Indeed.” Goumada didn’t smile. She bared her teeth while the sides of her mouth curled upward. Lyra’s demeanor changed in an instant; it was all she could do to not shudder and bolt. She managed to stay in her chair and keep looking vaguely curious. Goumada waved Lyra to the door. “You may go. I seem to have been mistaken.”

As she got up, that not-smile meant Lyra handily resisted the urge to chirp, “You got that right!” Instead, she just shrugged and walked out.

As she was being escorted back to the casino, she glanced over her shoulder. Nothing. The possibility that she was in the clear grew more and more with every step. Then she was shoved onto the casino floor, the door slammed shut behind her, and that possibility hit 100%. Lyra grinned to herself as she strode to the exit. Easy.

And once she was out-out, that feeling nearly exploded as the wind ran through her mane. She threw back her head and laughed, drawing quizzical stares from everyone around her. She’d just outsmarted a crime boss and gotten away scott-free! Nothing could stop her! She was-

Was she being followed? She quickly glanced behind herself. No, she was not. Her skin wasn’t crawling with a Bad Feeling, anyway. And as she kept walking, she still wasn’t followed. Very good. Very good.

Swipe. Swipe. Swipe.

In spite of having free access to the entire casino, Sunburst had no interest in being a voyeur. Pony-watching was boring. No, he was flipping through cameras purely through the joy of flipping through cameras. The arcanotechnology in the casino’s security system was nothing short of incredible. It had required almost no work on his end to sort the different views out. Categorizing them was going to be a pain, but he could do that later. Now, he just wanted to look at his handiwork.

Swipe. Swipe. Swipe.

Well, technically it wasn’t all his handiwork — he hadn’t actually cast the spells for it — but he’d come up with the designs. So, ninety percent his handiwork, then. It’d turned out just as good as he’d imagined. It was kind of amazing, really, how well the magic responded to just a touch. And considering it’d responded just as well to Bon Bon, it didn’t even have anything to do with him being a unicorn. Perfect.

Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. View after view flashed past. Sunburst didn’t linger on any of them for more than a second.

“You know,” the Doctor said with a cough, “if you do that for long enough, you’ll go blind.”

Swipe. Swipe. Swipe.

“…Actually, I think this is looking more like an addiction than anything else.”

Swipe. Swipe. Swipe.

“…You do know I’m talking to you, yes?”

“Absolutely,” said Sunburst. He didn’t turn away from the mirror. “I also do not care.” Swipe. Swipe. Swipe.

“Derpy, any chance I could get some help?”

Swipe. Swipe. Swipe.

“Hey, swiper,” said Derpy. Something soft bounced off Sunburst’s head. “No swiping.”

Sunburst blinked himself out of his swipe-induced haze and looked down. A muffin was at his feet. Scowling, he turned to the Doctor and Derpy. The latter had the blueprints folded beneath a wing. “Do, do you need something?” he asked.

“We were, ah, wondering if we could do some actual work with the resources at our disposal,” said the Doctor, “rather than drooling over them like… that.”

“It’s really unbecoming,” Derpy said sagely. She flared a wing and unfolded the blueprints on the floor before retrieving the discarded muffin.

“Right, right,” mumbled Sunburst. He gave one last forlorn look at the mirror that was a Haytonic ideal of arcane engineering and stepped away from it.

“So, ah, just move your hoof left or right, was it?” the Doctor asked. He stepped up and delicately dragged a hoof across one of the images. It flipped to the next camera. “Ah! Perfect. So-” He spun around. “Where should we start?” he asked the other two.

“The back rooms,” Derpy said promptly. She wasn’t looking at anypony, instead picking dust off her muffin with more care than somepony sifting for gold. “We need to see if there’s any more security there, too, and not just outside.” She held the muffin up to the light and began appraising it. “Just in case.”

“Perfect!” The Doctor picked a frame and began swiping through it.

And swiping and swiping and swiping.

He coughed. “Ah, Sunburst? Where are the back-room views? These are all casino floors or hotel halls.”

“Dunno,” Sunburst said with a shrug. “I haven’t gotten around to, to sorting everything yet. It’s, um, all just kinda…” He made some vague gestures with his hooves. “…jumbled up.”

“Joy.” But the Doctor persisted and eventually found a shot that Sunburst recognized as from the staff section. “Ah! Here we are. So…” The Doctor squinted at the image on the mirror, stroking his chin, and looked at the blueprints. “Where do you think this is actually pointed?”

The camera was aimed at a four-way intersection. All they had to do was find a four-way intersection and they were good to go. Sunburst looked at the blueprints and saw four four-way intersections without even searching. Hooray. So… if this door was here… and that door was there… But, no, that couldn’t be, because there wasn’t-

Derpy glanced up. She glanced at the blueprints. “That camera’s right here, pointing this way,” she said casually. “See, these doors match, and so do these, and no one’s coming out from under the camera because there really isn’t anything in this hallway, and you can see the elevator doors that don’t appear on the blueprints right over there. Also, this door here and this room on the blueprints share the same label.”

Sunburst and the Doctor stared at Derpy.

“I’m a mailmare! I know how to read maps! Geez…” Derpy rolled her eyes in opposite directions.

Sunburst and the Doctor looked at each other. The Doctor shrugged. “She surprises you a lot. Now, you were back here before; how many guards did you see then?”

Sunburst blinked, shook his head, and returned his attention back to the mirror. “Well, uh, not, not this many… I think, um, two-thirds? And the ponies standing at, standing guard at this door, they weren’t there before…”

24 - Aim for the Finish

“No, Bon Bon, I can’t cast any practical invisibility spells,” said Starlight. “Invisibility’s tricky; the most I can manage is if the pony is standing still. I can do some illusions that kind of look like invisibility, but only from a distance. Up close, you’ll be spotted instantly.”

Bon Bon didn’t look away from the blueprints or the notes Sunburst and his group had taken. “Dang. Maybe-” She blinked and looked up, frowning. “How did you know I was thinking about that?”

Starlight shrugged. “It seemed like the kind of thing you’d be thinking about. Especially with that look on your face.”

“Well, you’re right,” said Bon Bon. Her attention returned to the blueprints. “No offense, but what is it with super-unicorns like you and Twilight? You either know exactly the right spell for the incredibly specific situation du jour or you can’t do anything about it.”

“Like I said, invisibility’s tricky. It took Twilight six whole tries to master it.”

“Wow. Six? Huh. That is a lot. But my point still stands.”

“Yeah. Dunno.”

After she, Bon Bon, and Gilda had returned from getting Gus’s key (the copying was already underway), an odd feeling had come over Starlight. They’d done just about all the recon they could do with the casino. There were still some gaps — any locks between the cordoned-off elevator shaft and the vault itself, just for starters — but those gaps were deep enough that she and her team would only be able to deal with them as they came up during the heist itself. Not the best course of action, but she would take what she could get.

And with recon done, there was only one thing left to do: plan the heist.

That seemed to be the tricky part.

Starlight knew she… wasn’t the greatest at being good. But even if this was for a good cause, it was still robbing a casino. Where was she supposed to begin? Outside in? Inside out? She didn’t even know what the vault itself was like. It could be a hallway of magic-resistant flamethrowers for all she knew. But aside from that… Starlight hoped she wasn’t jinxing them by thinking that they had a pretty good idea of the security. It was tough, but it didn’t seem totally impenetrable. Yet, anyway. (Plus, being away from Twilight for a little while and the subsequent reminder that she outclassed most of the unicorns of Equestria, including the ones the security had planned for, was more of a pick-me-up for Starlight than she really wanted to admit.)

“What’re you thinking of?” Starlight asked. “Besides invisibility.” If anybody was going to be making a plan, it’d be Bon Bon.

“I don’t know. Just… thinking.” Bon Bon shrugged.

“Of a plan? Or a scheme? Or a tactical shenanigan? It’s what Pinkie would call it,” Starlight added upon seeing Bon Bon’s expression.

“Maybe. Kind of the beginnings of one.” Bon Bon shrugged again.

Which meant not really. Starlight had grown quite accustomed to evasive answers while living with Twilight. (Mostly from herself, but Twilight could get cheerfully vague when she wanted to.) Bon Bon was having trouble coming up with a plan and she didn’t want to admit it, especially not to herself. Starlight didn’t blame her.

Abruptly, Sunburst came in and sat next to Starlight. “Did, did you know the elevator controls get routed through the, through the security hub?”

“They do?”

“They do. I was, I was working on sorting through some of, some of the datastreams, and there were four that, that just seemed to be two-digit numbers. A little bit more digging and, and I noticed they corresponded to the elevator floors.” Sunburst shrugged. “So I guess that, that once we hack into the security systems, we can, we’ll also be able to control the elevators.”

“Huh.”

“Huh indeed,” Bon Bon said. She frowned at Sunburst. “I thought you said that-”

“I was simplifying,” Sunburst said exasperatedly. “I assumed you wouldn’t want the full details of all the magic signals getting sent over here. I talked about visuals because that was, those signals made up most of it. Like I said, I’m still, still sorting through everything.”

“Huh.” Bon Bon wrinkled her muzzle a little, but seemed satisfied. Sunburst didn’t continue.

Did everyone else realize that recon was over? Probably. It was in the ways they just kept trying to fill time. Everyone was looking sideways at everyone else, waiting for someone to take the final step so they all could follow them down. But with everyone waiting, no one ever would.

Well, that one might as well be her. Time to get to it.

Starlight stood up. “Bon Bon, Sunburst? Get everyone in the living room. We need to make a plan for the heist.”

Starlight felt strange once everyone was gathered. Was she still the leader? Everyone was looking at her like she was. Was that just because she’d set herself up as the leader? No one else had. Bon Bon seemed ready, willing, and able to take up that mantle, yet she never actually did. Whatever. Starlight felt confident. Ish. Almost.

A huge array of eyes was staring at her. The usual technicolor blend of pony eyes, plus Derpy’s. Thorax’s absolute blues (how did he even see without pupils?). Gilda’s golden ones, which had a subtle difference between pony golds that Starlight couldn’t put her hoof on. All looking at her. All waiting on her for some kind of sign or plan. Starlight took a deep breath.

“Alright. So. Here’s the deal. The Alicorn Amulet is kept in this vault, here. The area around the vault is coursing with wind magic. What for, we don’t know, and I doubt we’ll know until we actually get to the vault. The only way into the vault is through a door hidden in a secret elevator shaft, separated from the main shaft by a thick metal lattice and otherwise accessible only from a door in the security area. A door that undoubtedly needs credentials we don’t have to open. Meanwhile, within the shaft itself, we’ve got a laser grid an ant couldn’t crawl through, although it shuts off to allow elevators in the main shaft passage. If there are any locks between the elevator and the vault, we don’t know of them. And cameras are mounted just about everywhere.”

She looked at everybody. They were all at least pretending to listen, even Gilda.

“Security has been increased since the, um, incident with Thorax and Goumada.” (Thorax, miraculously, didn’t cringe away in shame.) “They’re probably going to be distracted by the anniversary celebrations, but they’re still going to be there. If me or Bon Bon are part of the main break-in team, we can’t go through any of the usual entrances, including the airship port, since Goumada’s security forces are definitely looking for us; we probably can’t even be anywhere near the building on the ground. They’re probably also going to be on the lookout for changelings. Lyra and Rainbow Dash can’t be part of the break-in team at all, because they’ve got to perform for Goumada at the ceremony. And we can’t just fake our way through the door into the employee area because there are guards at that entrance, checking just about everyone who tries to come in. And, within the casino’s grounds, teleportation is impossible.”

Starlight licked her lips and swallowed to wet her throat. She really wished she’d brought something to drink.

“But it’s not all bad. We have access to the casino’s security cameras, and Sunburst’s sure that if we can get into the security hub again, he can fake the images going out. We also have a key that’ll unlock the door to the hub, assuming we can get there without being spotted. And we have all the gadgets Sunburst designed for us.”

Another look over the room. Everyone seemed to be sitting up a little bit more. “This might be our only chance, everybody. We don’t know how soon Goumada’s going to sell the Amulet, and if we screw this up, who knows what she’ll do to us. But we need to do this. We need a plan. And so far, we’ve got nothing. But we’ve also got a week to change that.”

She settled back in her chair. “So. Anybody got any ideas?”

Silence. Somebody coughed. Then Derpy raised a hoof.

The days to the anniversary passed in a vague haze of work and thought. Plans were brought up, discarded, refined, turned inside-out, repurposed, rejiggered, accepted, rejected, hammered out, screwed in, cut apart, stitched together, and everything in between. But they had something workable. Something plausible. Something very touch-and-go, but still something they could use. Everyone had chipped in. Everyone agreed that it was… a plan. Everyone agreed to go through with it, at least. They didn’t even need to go into the casino again or buy anything else to make some other weird device.

And so the week passed, both too fast and too slow at the same time. Starlight worked on refinements for their gear, mostly with Sunburst. There wasn’t much she could do, though; you could make a rope retractor only so much better. What really mattered was that it was something to do, something that could keep her occupied. Every second she was occupied, she wasn’t stressing out. She was good at stressing out. She’d learned too much from Twilight.

Before she knew it, her time was almost up.

It was the night before the heist. Starlight’s nerves were so high and so taut you could use them as a tightrope. The same was probably true of everyone else. An unusual silence had fallen over the villa. Starlight was sitting in the dining room, studying the whorls in the table as a way to keep her mind busy and away from the fact that holy schlamoly they were doing a heist tomorrow.

It wasn’t very effective, mainly because holy schlamoly they were doing a heist tomorrow.

Starlight’s hoof twitched on the table, beating out an erratic drumline. Her skin felt small, like any wrong or sudden movement would tear it open. But she wasn’t going to be one for sudden movements, not during the heist. Everything would be planned. She needed to be precise. She needed to focus. She needed to keep a clear head. She needed to be ready.

Gilda sat down across from her. “Rainbow and I were thinking of buying some beer for everyone and getting drunk. That okay with you?”

“Sure.”

“Sweet.”

An hour-ish later, Rainbow and Gilda had returned with various cases of beer or cider. (Was cider even in season? Apparently.) Everyone was gravitating towards the dining room, waiting for their chance to get stinking drunk (or hopefully just sweet-smelling buzzed) on the intoxicant of their choice. It was almost a party, but just enough of not being a party that they weren’t at risk of Pinkie bursting out of the fridge with two dozen personalized cupcakes.

“Alllllllllrighty.” Gilda hefted a case of beer onto the table. “Pick your poison.”

The Doctor frowned at the label on the bottles, a frown that deepened with each new case laid on the table. “I’ve never heard of any of these brands.”

“They’re craft brews,” said Gilda. “Or microbrews, maybe? Whatever. Privately owned, emphasis on being good rather than chucking their franchise to every corner of the country. I figure maybe they’ll taste a bit less like crap than regular beer.”

“And, of course, we got cider!” Rainbow put a gallon jug on the table with a rattle. “It ain’t Sweet Apple Cider, but it’ll be good enough for tonight.”

After a bit of hesitation, Thorax tentatively sniffed at a bottle, gagged, and covered his nose. “And ponies actually drink that?” he squeaked. “Sweet hive, that smells like lamp runoff! Only worse!”

“I know, right?” said Derpy.

“Ponies don’t drink beer because it tastes good,” said Starlight. With all the not-brand names meaningless to her, she decided to drink whichever bottle had the nicest-looking label. “It’s a way to unwind and relax. Alcohol calms you down.”

“How can it when it smells like that?” asked Thorax. “It smells like potion failure and self-loathing! I’d never be able to relax if I had to drink that to do it!”

“Why are you complaining?” asked the Doctor. He’d already popped the cap off his bottle. “I thought you didn’t eat or drink pony foodstuffs.”

“Because in ten minutes, this place is going to smell like a barn! A dirty barn! And I would know, I once spent a week hiding out in one!”

The conversation faded into the background as Starlight took a long drink from her bottle. At least they weren’t so on-edge anymore. Maybe they could actually get to sleep tonight. She kept drinking and the not-party grew hazy. She didn’t pay enough attention to remember much of what happened next. Not that there was much to remember, apparently, since once memory reasserted itself, the place was still neat and all the lamps still had their lampshades. She blinked until a group of ponies came into focus.

“…need to stretch the time out a little,” Lyra was saying. “That’ll give them more time to rise. But turn the temperature down in the oven, too, or else you’ll burn them.”

“Huh,” said Gilda. “Derpy said that, too.”

“Well, then, you know it’s good advice!”

Starlight nodded vaguely at that. She looked at another group. Or at least, at one pony. Bon Bon was looking up; Starlight followed her gaze to find Thorax standing on the ceiling.

“No, I’m not sticky at all,” said Thorax. He pulled a leg from the ceiling. “See? Nothing’s breaking. I just… It’s like I want to walk up walls, so I can.”

“Huh,” said Bon Bon, frowning. “That sounds like magic. How do you shapeshift? By just being somebody else?”

“I…” Thorax tilted his head. “I guess so. Kinda. Maybe.”

“Huh. Get down here. Maybe we can get you to stick to some paper.”

Starlight went to the next group. The Doctor was scribbling equations down on a sheet of paper while Rainbow looked on with something resembling interest (which was saying something, given her usual approach to math). “And that thing you’re hitting?” the Doctor said. “That’s the sound barrier.”

“I thought that was just an expression,” said Rainbow. She squinted at the Doctor’s scribblings. “The sound barrier’s a physical thing?”

“Oh, absolutely. Well, more an emergent property, but most certainly a thing. And, see-” The Doctor jotted something else down. “-if you compress it too much, its thaumic density changes, which…”

Rainbow smiled and nodded, but Starlight could see her eyes glazing over. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

And finally, Starlight looked at the last two, Sunburst and Derpy. They were deep in discussion, gesturing animatedly. “But according to the Clopenhagen interpretation,” said Sunburst, “the systems don’t have any values before being measured, but then wavefunction collapse-”

“I know the Clopenhagen interpretation,” interrupted Derpy, “but it doesn’t provide any evidence for parallel universes! Which I’ve-”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Sunburst, grinning. He wagged a hoof at Derpy. “But it doesn’t preclude parallel universes, either! They just can’t come from quantum effects. And, of course, the Clopenhagen interpretation could be wrong.”

“Ooh. Right. I forgot about that.”

Everyone she’d gathered, plus a few people someone else had gathered, simply relaxing. Weird to think of how far they’d come. How far they might go tomorrow. Their little dysfunctional team was alright.

She needed to let them know.

Without thinking much (which was something of a theme with her, even without alcohol), Starlight stood up and tapped her glass a few times to draw attention to herself. Once everyone’s attention was on her, she cleared her throat.“I, um…” Alcohol deviously conspired with her lack of public-speaking experience. “…uh, well, I-” Gulp. “-I, uh…” Persistence broke them up. “I, I just wanted to say, thank you for, uh, for- being here and helping me. I know these last few days haven’t been the easiest, but you’ve stuck with me the whole way through, and, um… Well, just, thanks.” Her face grew warm as she sat back down.

“You know what, yeah,” Bon Bon said. She also stood up. “I didn’t think this would be possible, but look at this team we’ve built. This…” She blinked a few times, her eyes not completely focused. “…team,” she repeated. “I don’t think we could’ve collected a weirder collection of people if we trawled everywhere in Equestria, but we’re doing just fine. Good job. Or… something.”

“A toast!” bellowed the Doctor, holding his cup high. “To- everyone! To all you wonderful folks! To robbery and adventure and- and- and friendship!”

“To that!” yelled Lyra. “And drinks!”

Gilda lifted up her own cup, paused, and said, “I was gonna say something sappy and ponyish, but now I just wanna get drunk.”

“I’ll drink to that,” chuckled Rainbow. She held up her cup.

Everyone made semi-distinct noises of assent as they raised their cups (Thorax grabbed an empty one to look like he was participating). Even Gilda was doing it without too much reluctance. For a brief second, everyone was united in the same (rather silly) desire, doing the same thing, working the same way, thinking together as one.

And for that brief second, Starlight’s nerves vanished.

25 - Get the Ball Rolling

Making good decisions was not high on Starlight’s list of strengths at the moment.

Because seriously. Everybody getting drunk the night before they had to pull off some big heist? Yeah, no. She really should’ve seen the hangover coming. Her head was pounding and it felt like blinking was going to give her a migraine. And this was just her. What about, well, everybody else? The plan, such as it was, was already touch-and-go enough without everybody having a headache and nausea and all that stupid crap.

So yeah. Getting drunk? Stupid.

Seriously.

Someone coughed loudly enough to give her a concussion. Starlight somehow marshaled her thoughts into position to guess: Sunburst. Too loud. She jammed her face into her pillow. “Ngguffuh,” she responded, waving a hoof in something vaguely resembling his direction if you tilted your head and squinted.

“Starlight,” boomed Sunburst. “Bon Bon. Get up. We, we need to get ready.” In spite of the volume, his voice was strangely muffled, like he was speaking with his mouth full.

“Ngguffuh!” Starlight repeated eloquently.

“Wha’ she sai’,” mumbled Bon Bon. “Fi’e mo’ min’tes.”

“You said that ten minutes ago.”

“…I di’?… Fine.” Something thumped, probably Bon Bon rolling out of bed, and Starlight’s head was squished between a hammer and anvil.

“W-well, no, I, I just needed to get you out.”

“Wha’e’er. …Wha’re y’eating?”

“Protein-bar-and-mayo sandwich.”

Protein-bar-and-mayo sandwich.

Something about that just felt wrong to Starlight. There was no way Sunburst, any sane pony, any sane individual, could create something so horrid, so disgusting, so vile. It… just… eww. That wrongness permeated into Starlight’s brain and managed to drive away the worst of the hangover. Light no longer drove nails into her eyes, and she was no longer getting a between-the-ears enema with barbed wire. She pushed herself up on her front knees and managed to focus on Sunburst.

He was nervous and disheveled (so, perfectly normal). He looked alert and already had his blue robe on. And there, encased in his magic, was the horrific thing he was calling a sandwich. Already, in defiance of all natural laws, several bites had been taken out of it. Worse, Sunburst was chewing. Starlight couldn’t believe such a thing was happening.

Evidently, Bon Bon agreed with her; they were sharing the same “what the frig?” look. “I’m sorry,” said Bon Bon, “what?”

Sunburst swallowed. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” he said. “It’s, it’s not for the taste or, or anything.” He looked at the not-sandwich, grimaced (as it should be), and took another bite (as it should NOT be). “It’s a, it’s a hangover cure.”

Even Starlight thought that was too much to cure a hangover. How was such a thing even possible, with that grotesque monstrosity? “Uh?” she asked.

“Biology,” said Sunburst. “It’s got fats and carbs and, and proteins to help replenish the, the ones lost from binge-drinking and kickstart the brain. Clears your head right out, especially if, if you drink some water to help with dehydration. Gilda’s making bacon sandwiches for the same thing, but…” He cringed and folded his ears back. “Ugh. Meat.”

Meat was still preferable to what Sunburst was calling “food”. And it still seemed Bon Bon agreed. She blinked and mumbled at him, “That’s stupid. You’re stupid.”

“Maybe. You know what else I am? Not hungover.” Sunburst took a big bite of his unholy abomination masquerading as a sandwich and chewed, staring Bon Bon in the eye.

Bon Bon stared back at him for a moment and tilted her head in one direction. “…Got any other sandwiches?”

In spite of almost definitely being an infernal creation of demonic beings from beyond the pale, the protein-bar-and-mayo not-sandwich actually did a decent job of getting rid of Starlight’s hangover. By the time everyone was assembled in the kitchen, she had nothing worse that a mild headache that throbbed infrequently. Everyone else seemed to be alert enough.

In the time they had, they ran over the plan again. And again. And again. And again. Everyone knew their parts, but Starlight wanted to be sure.

“You know,” she said, staring at the blueprints for the casino, “that’s good, but I think we should go over it one last time.”

Really wanted to be sure.

Several ponies surreptitiously exchanged glances or twitched. Rainbow Dash started mumbling something to Sunburst. Gilda didn’t even bother hiding her reaction; she glared at Starlight as if the latter had taken up baby-murdering as a hobby. “As if,” Gilda said. “We’ve been over this like five times.”

“Four, actually,” mumbled Starlight.

“We know how it goes,” said Gilda. “I know my part, I know his part, I know her part, I know her part… We’re going in circles! Our circles are going in circles!”

The Doctor cleared his throat. “I, ah, actually wholeheartedly agree with her,” he said. “While checking the plan for flaws and being sure our knowledge of it is tip-top is well and all, there comes a time when doing that is just being redundant. I, for one, think that time came after the second run-through.”

“I know every part of the plan,” said Derpy. “And if I know the plan, then it’s safe to say that everypony else-” (Gilda coughed. Derpy didn’t notice.) “-knows it, too.”

“Well, it’s, I, just-” Starlight swallowed. “I want to be certain of this. I don’t know-”

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash flapped over the table and stuffed her hoof in Starlight’s mouth. “Seriously. You gotta stop worrying about this. We know you’re nervous; we’re all nervous, you’re just the most vocal about it. And if going over the plan four times didn’t help, do you really think the fifth time will? I mean, come on.”

“Nnuhngfuhuh,” said Starlight around Rainbow’s hoof.

“I know how you’re feeling,” said Rainbow Dash. “Believe me. I know exactly what it’s like to have everypony watching. But you know the best way to get over a problem like this? Get out there and kick it in the flank!” She jumped back, reared, and jabbed at the air with both front hooves. “You think it’s tough? Well, we’ll show it! We’ll make it look easy! We’ll make Goumada rue the day she thought she could steal the Alicorn Amulet! Because we’re the- the- Dang, we never did get a sweet name, did we?”

“We had more important things to do,” said Bon Bon, her ears folded back.

Rainbow Dash didn’t even turn to face her when she waved it off. “Oh, shut up. Starlight. Seriously. The only way you’re going to feel prepared about doing this is if you actually do it.”

Looking down at the plans laid before her, Starlight swallowed again. She didn’t like the feeling, but Rainbow was right. It was like tearing off a Band-Aid: you had to do it all at once to minimize the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. All she could do was hope this didn’t collapse around her ears.

Starlight swallowed yet again and (to the visible relief of everyone in the room) rolled up the blueprints with a burst of magic. “Well… let’s do this, then.”

Several hours later, Starlight was, along with Gilda and Bon Bon, perched on top of a building across the gorge from the casino. She was looking through a set of binoculars, surveying the casino and getting a feel for the situation.

“Any problems?” asked Bon Bon. “No sudden hotel guests?”

“Not that I can see,” said Starlight. “All the rooms in the middle of the building look empty and I don’t see any blinds drawn. But…” She pulled the binoculars away and hoofed them to Bon Bon. “Why don’t you take a look?”

“Fine.” Bon Bon put the binoculars to her eyes and began scanning the building.

Actually starting the heist wasn’t doing anything for Starlight’s heart rate except elevating it. At least in the lodge, they could still theoretically bail. Now, it was all or nothing. Everyone was in position (or at least close), the clock was ticking, and there was an Alicorn Amulet to steal.

As Starlight waited, her mind kept straying back to the villa and Gilda’s objections. Gilda hadn’t said much after that. Had it been her usual surliness that made her speak up? Or was Starlight just that much of a nervous wreck that she needed someone to verbally slap her to her senses? Or even a bit of both? Gilda wasn’t saying anything. Starlight was more keen on option one, but the more she thought about it, the more option two seemed likelier. And what better way to kick this whole thing off by having the unofficial leader nearly go to pieces before it even began? Hoo-freaking-ray.

Waiting only let Starlight stew on that more and more. It wasn’t a very tasty stew to begin with, and waiting didn’t improve its flavor at all. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she decided to speak up, to try to find out which one it really was. “You were kinda vocal back at the villa,” she said to Gilda.

“Yep,” said Gilda. And that was it. Her voice was completely emotionless. She drummed her claws on the roof and didn’t take her eyes from the hotel.

“You, uh…” Starlight cleared her throat. “Were you planning on, you know, apologizing anytime soon?”

Gilda shrugged. “Why? I ain’t sorry. If I hadn’t spoken up, we’d still be in there. Ponies are too nice for their own good sometimes.”

Yeah, that was more or less true, Starlight had to admit. She glanced at Bon Bon, who made the same kind of reluctant admittance face she imagined herself having. “Well, um, alright,” mumbled Starlight. If she was freaking out that much, it wasn’t alright, but she couldn’t let Gilda know just how bad it was getting. “Then, uh, thanks, I, I guess.” It wasn’t much, just something to fill the void of silence.

“Uh-huh,” said Gilda, who couldn’t’ve sounded more disinterested if she’d tried.

And so the void of silence returned. It wouldn’t’ve been half so awkward if they’d concluded on a different topic. Starlight tried to think up another conversational thread, one that wasn’t quite so dramatic.

That was when Bon Bon spoke up. “Hey, you wanna check in on Thorax? Just in case?”

Starlight knew when an out was being given to her. “Alright.” She tapped her earpiece. “Hey, Thorax-”

“-how’s it going?”

“Not bad,” Thorax-Earth-Red said to Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope. “No problems.”

“Hey, Thorax!” said Derpy-Pegasus-Gray. “Look at those balloons! They’re pretty.”

Thorax-Earth-Red winced. “Yet,” he muttered to himself.

Thorax-Earth-Red and Derpy-Pegasus-Gray were on the main gaming floor. If the previous days were packed, that was nothing compared to now. There was barely enough space to move. Thorax-Earth-Red couldn’t take a single step without a pony bumping into him, and he had to cling to his bag to make sure it didn’t get lost by accident. Somehow, Derpy-Pegasus-Gray still managed to stay close to him without the aid of her wings.

Enough decorations had been put up that it was hard for Thorax-Earth-Red to find his way around the place, even after being in it half a dozen times over the past two weeks. Countless streamers hung from every column obscured the ceiling and banners proclaiming the casino’s first anniversary kept him from looking over the slot machines and getting his bearings. He had only the vaguest idea of where they were. And the noise. By the Hive, the noise. Everypony was saying something to everypony, and it blended together into one loud morass of sound. That wasn’t even getting into the rings and dings of the slots or the slaps of cards or the rolling of roulette balls. Thorax-Earth-Red could barely hear himself think. Fortunately, that also meant nopony had heard Derpy-Pegasus-Gray’s brief slipup.

And even if they had, and managed to guess she was talking to a changeling, there was no way they could put two and two together and say he was that changeling. He was an earth pony mare at the moment, with a quiet, subdued red coat and a short dirty-yellow mane and tail. Perfectly normal. His disguise included a magitech-support uniform and a bag filled with convincing-looking tools for his “work”. Hopefully, it’d be enough.

As long as Derpy-Pegasus-Gray actually did her job.

“I’m gonna go get some!” said Derpy-Pegasus-Gray.

“No!” said Thorax-Earth-Red. “Don’t-” But she was already gone.

He sighed and continued pushing his way through the crowd, hoping she’d follow him. It was hard to tell with her. Half the time, she was perpetually distracted, but it was impossible to tell what she was distracted by. It could be an interesting picture on the other side of the room, it could be a brilliantly simple solution to whatever problem they were facing at the moment, it could be an internal debate on where Thorax-Earth-Red’s mass differential went to or came from when he changed into somepony smaller or bigger than himself.

Which, to be fair, was a very interesting conundrum, but not one that had any relevance to what they were trying to d-

“Look!” said Derpy-Pegasus-Gray from behind him, shocking him. “Aren’t they neat?”

Thorax-Earth-Red tried to glare over his shoulder at her, but was prevented from doing so by the balloons between the two of them. Lots and lots of balloons. He followed the string down; it was loosely tied around her fetlock and almost looked like a small jostle could release them. They were neat, though, and that just increased Thorax-Earth-Red’s annoyance all the more.

“Sure,” he mumbled. “Let’s get going.” He pushed against the crowd some more.

“No, wait!” said Derpy-Pegasus-Gray. She reached around his shoulder and yanked him away. “This way! There’s less ponies.”

Thorax-Earth-Red stumbled as she pulled him through the crowd. “And just where-” he asked as he struggled to get his hooves under him, “-are we going?”

“The edge!” said Derpy-Pegasus-Gray. “It’s easier if you go around the crowd rather than through it.”

Indeed, by the time they’d reached the outer walls of the room, the crowd was noticeably thinner and less busy. Of course, “less busy” here still meant “very busy”; even at its thinnest, the casino was crowded and movement was slow. As Thorax-Earth-Red edged around the room, he hoped things were calmer behind the scenes.

Things weren’t much calmer behind the scenes.

Just because the weather pegasi had guaranteed a sunny day didn’t mean Lyra liked playing outside. She could tune out the crowd noise, easy, but the muffled roar of the waterfall was something else, making it hard to hear what her bandmates were doing and what her instrument was doing. Even without those, the acoustics were all wrong. The few winds the pegasi missed could turn over the sheet music. The sun was almost too bright for her to read the pages. With no defined entrances and exits to a “stage”, band members were running every which way, making last-minute adjustments and getting in everypony’s faces. And as she sat in her chair as third lyre, Lyra’s instrument stubbornly refused to be tuned so a D could be a D.

A buzz came through her anklet. “Khhkt. Team Awesome to Team String. What’s your status? Over.”

Lyra scowled and turned the tuning knob another degree. “Rainbow, stop saying ‘khhkt’.” She plucked the string. Still a little low.

“Khhkt. Team Awesome to Team String. I like saying ‘khhkt’. Over.”

“And I can’t hear myself tune when you do that!” hissed Lyra. “Shut up for a moment!”

“Khhkt. Team Awesome to Team String. Shutting up. Over.”

Lyra rolled her eyes and tweaked the tuning knob another degree. She plucked the string again, and- “Oh, come on!” she whispered to herself. “It was low, I breathe on it, and now it’s high?!” It was strange. Her friends were about to break into a casino’s vault, and she was most upset about her lyre not being tuned. It wasn’t even that important; she wouldn’t be heard much at all, she was third lyre. Third string. Ha ha.

Second Lyre danced her way between Lyra’s stand and the chair in front of her and slid into her seat on the left. She scooped up her own lyre and twanged each string in turn. All perfect.

No such luck for Lyra. Twist. Pluck. Low. Facehoof. “Son of mmgffl!”

“Want some help?” asked Second Lyre, leaning over.

“Please,” said Lyra. She hoofed her lyre over. “Mid D string.”

Taking it, Second Lyre twisted the knob a quarter-turn to start from scratch. “Not played outside much?”

“Not as much as I should.”

“Heh. Yeah, tuning outside sucks.” Second Lyre’s horn glowed and the string started vibrating. A pure tone pierced through the air, wavering in pitch as Second Lyre began fiddling with the knob. “Just… heat, humidity, wind, all that crap. Nice day for everything but playing. So, naturally, that’s what we do. Still, we signed up for it, so we’re not really in any position to complain.” Second Lyre frowned and stopped moving the knob while keeping the string vibrating. “That’s a D, right?”

Lyra leaned in and tilted her ear towards the string. It sounded pretty darn close. “I think so. Lemme see.” The A string below it had been tuned properly, so she began strumming out a bassline. D, D, D, D-D-D A. D, D, D, D-D-D A. “Perfect. Thank you!”

Second Lyre smiled and nodded. “Think nothing of it.”

Lyra nodded back and went through a few scales. Yes, everything was in perfect tune. She plucked out a simple s-

“Khhkt,” broke in Rainbow Dash, annoyed. “Team Awesome to Team String. What’s your status now? Over.”

“Tuned and waiting,” whispered Lyra. “We should be ready in-”

A band assistant stepped up to the conductor’s stand, reared up, and tapped at her (bare) fetlock. “Ten minutes, ponies!”

“-ten minutes. And why are you asking me? Don’t you have a timer of your own?”

“Khhkt. Team Awesome to Team String. Spy communication like this is pretty sweet, no matter how pointless it is. Over.”

“Khhkt. Copy that. Over.”

Second Lyre threw a Look at Lyra.

In the villa, Sunburst and the Doctor looked at each other. “Get ready?” asked the Doctor. “I don’t know, I’ve never done this sort of thing before.”

“I, I haven’t either,” said Sunburst. He pushed his glasses up his muzzle and batted at one of the candies on the table in front of them. “Is, is going now too early? Too late? What if somepony notices?” He started to hyperventilate. “What if Thorax can’t get into the security room? What if-”

He stopped when the Doctor stuffed a chocolate into his mouth. As Sunburst chewed, the Doctor said, “Okay, so neither of us knows what the bloody Tartarus we’re doing. That means it’s a new experience for both of us, right?”

“Uh guff foh,” mumbled Sunburst.

“And I know from experience that the best way to learn how to do things is by doing them. So, since we don’t know what to do, let’s do the least bad thing we agree on and learn from it.”

Sunburst raised an eyebrow as he swallowed his chocolate. “Then I, uh, I really hope the least bad you’re thinking of is, it’s telling Thorax to get to the security room now so we have time to plant the seeds.”

“Oh, absolutely,” said the Doctor. “Splendid, we do think alike. Allons-y!”

“Uh…” Sunburst pushed his glasses up his muzzle. Again. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s Prench. For ‘let’s go’.” The Doctor grinned.

“W-well, um, in that case… allons-y!” Sunburst returned the grin, not quite as confidently.

“Fantastic.” The Doctor nodded and tapped the communication gem. “Alright, Thorax-”

“-time to get this show on the road.”

Thorax-Earth-Red took a few deep breaths. Here we go, he told himself. The door to “backstage” was only a few yards away from him. Of course, a guard-earth-teal was standing watch at it, and a camera was nestled somewhere in the alcoves above. They couldn’t do anything about the camera, and hopefully Derpy-Pegasus-Gray could divert the attention of the guard-earth-teal. Thorax-Earth-Red realized, with some dismay, that they didn’t really have a plan besides “distraction”. He glanced sidelong at Derpy-Pegasus-Gray and opened his mouth.

Derpy-Pegasus-Gray was already on it. “Wait five seconds, okay?” she said with far too much confidence. “I got this.” She broke off from Thorax-Earth-Red and headed towards the guard-earth-teal.

“Wait!” hissed Thorax-Earth-Red. “What’re-” But she was already gone. Hive dang it, what was with her?

The guard-earth-teal just happened to be looking the other way when Derpy-Pegasus-Gray collided with her, hard. The balloons disentangled from around her hoof and drifted up to the ceiling. Derpy-Pegasus-Gray and the guard-earth-teal staggered for a moment before toppling to the floor.

“Hey!” snapped the guard-earth-teal as she pushed away from Derpy-Pegasus-Gray. “Can’t you watch where you’re-” And then she saw Derpy-Pegasus-Gray’s eyes.

Cue the waterworks. “I am so sorry!” sobbed Derpy-Pegasus-Gray. “I’ve been trying to get better at it, I swear, but ever since the accident, I-”

“Hey,” said the guard-earth-teal, in a much less harsh voice, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” She helped Derpy-Pegasus-Gray to her hooves. “Ma’am, I-”

“And I’ve been trying to make money for the operation quickly,” wailed Derpy-Pegasus-Gray, “but I can never seem to win anything, and…” Her eyes suddenly grew wide. “You work here! Maybe you could help me-”

The guard-earth-teal coughed and took a step back. “I, that’s not what I- Ma’am, ma’am, please- I can’t- Ma’am, don’t, don’t cry- P-please stop-” But Derpy-Pegasus-Gray was convincingly inconsolable and ponies were beginning to stare.

And nopony was looking at the door.

Thorax-Earth-Red released a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Is the door clear on the cameras?” he whispered.

“I- Oh, blast it,” muttered Doctor-Earth-Brown, “Derpy’s go-”

“GO!” said Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange suddenly. “She, her balloons are, they’re blocking the cameras, and we, we can’t see you, see you all. If, if nopony’s watching you there-”

Whether or not Derpy-Pegasus-Gray had planned it that way, that was all Thorax-Earth-Red needed to hear. One last quick look to see if any guards were watching — nope, the few there were all occupied with Derpy-Pegasus-Gray — and he strode up to the door like he’d been hired by the mare who owned the place. He fished the keygem out of his jumpsuit and touched it to the sensor. He held his breath, and-

Bee-beep. The light clicked to green and the door swung open an inch. Thorax-Earth-Red quickly pushed his way inside, lightly kicking the door shut behind him. “I’m in,” he whispered.

“Great. Sensational,” said Doctor-Earth-Brown. “I presume you know-”

“Second hall on the right,” Thorax-Earth-Red said, already setting off, “take it all the way down, go around the corner, first door on the left.”

“Yes. Precisely right.”

At least he had that much down. Thorax-Earth-Red wiped a bead of sweat as he walked down the second hall on the right. No one, guard or otherwise, had looked twice at him, not once they saw his bag. One guard-griffon-panther-redtailed’s gaze had lingered a bit longer than usual, but she turned away in the end. That didn’t mean his heart rate didn’t pick up every time someone glanced in his direction.

He rounded the corner right before the security hub, then did an about-face and rounded it again. Planting himself against the corner, he hissed, “There’s a mare in front of the door. Why is there a mare in front of the door.”

“There, there is?” asked Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange. “Oh. Oh, boy.” His gulp was audible through the anklet. “When Bon Bon and I went, she, um, wasn’t there before.”

The mare-pegasus-khaki in front of the door looked bored, but she was definitely a security guard. She was standing in the loose, knees-locked pose of somepony who’d already been there a good long while and would be there a good long while longer. “Why’s she there?” Thorax-Earth-Red whispered.

“Stepping up security, I presume,” said Doctor-Earth-Brown. “We haven’t been exactly subtle in our preparations. They already know there’s a changeling running around, for starters.”

Great. Thorax-Earth-Red ruffled his mane. Think, think, think. He needed to get that guard out of the way, fast. Every second he spent out here was another second he couldn’t spend in there, trying to find the right way to stick the magical doodad into the arcane thingamajig. If he stayed out here too long, he could throw the whole operation off. And any moment now, for all he knew, another guard could come and-

Hold on.

Wait a minute. Yeah, that could work. And there weren’t any cameras around, either. Maybe… He poked his head around the corner for a few seconds, just long enough to get a good look at the guard-pegasus-khaki’s nametag. Fortunately, he could just barely read it and she never noticed him. According to the tag, she was Watchful Eye. Why were pony names always so on-the-muzzle? At least it made them easy to remember. Thorax-Earth-Red took a deep breath and focused on the griffon who’d eyed him a bit longer than usual. A second later, Thorax-Griffon-Pather-Redtailed stepped around the corner and approached Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki. “Hey! Watchful!” he called.

Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki turned to the sound. She didn’t look any less bored, but now, Thorax-Griffon-Pather-Redtailed could see a slight tension all over. Even if she was bored, she was still very much alert. “Yeah?”

“The bossmare wants to see you in her office. I’ll take over for you until you get back.”

Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki blinked. The tension increased a little and Thorax-Griffon-Pather-Redtailed began to feel little drops of suspicion coming from her. “Really?” she asked. “Did she say why?”

“Nope. Sorry,” Thorax-Griffon-Pather-Redtailed said with a shrug. “Just that she needed to talk to you ASAP.”

“Goumada was pretty insistent I stay here all day,” said Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki. Her voice hadn’t changed, but the suspicion had increased. “And I don’t want to-” She made air quotes. “-‘disappoint’ her.”

Right. Goumada-Unicorn-Marble was the controlling type, wasn’t she? Just great. Thorax-Griffon-Pather-Redtailed floundered for a second, but Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki’s own statement came to his rescue. “She was pretty insistent you go talk to her. I don’t want you to ‘disappoint’ her that way.”

Swing and a hit. The suspicion was replaced with nervousness. Goumada-Unicorn-Marble being the controlling type meant there were multiple ways to let her down. Now it was just a matter of which way was the less bad way. “Well, I don’t know,” said Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki, kicking at the floor. “She was pretty-”

Now for the followup. “And if you ‘disappoint’ her because you abandoned your post, just tell her it’s my fault. ’Cause, well, it is.”

Home run. “Fine,” huffed Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki. “But don’t let anyone in and don’t leave. Not for anything, okay? This is urgent.”

“I promise you, with all my heart,” said Thorax-Griffon-Pather-Redtailed, “that I will not leave this room.”

Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki nodded and walked off, leaving Thorax-Griffon-Pather-Redtailed alone.

After waiting a few seconds to be sure they were alone, Thorax-Griffon-Pather-Redtailed touched his keygem to the lock panel. Since they hadn’t tested it yet, he was so anxious that he was still holding his breath when he realized the door had already unlocked. He pulled it open and Thorax-Earth-Red walked into the room. He didn’t recognize a single thing; there were shelves, cabinets, banks of stuff, with wires snaking around the floor and through everything. He didn’t know where to begin. But, still- “Guard’s gone. I’m in.”

“How,” asked Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange, “how did you- N-never mind. Tell me later. Now, look at the, at the shelves. Do you see a, an aisle marked ‘Visuals’?”

One glance up the rows. “Yeah.”

“Alright. Go down that, third rack on the… on the left, yeah. It, it should be marked ‘Floors 11-20’ or something like that. Open it up.”

“Visuals” aisle, third rack on the left. The label was right. Good sign. With the help of a screwdriver, Thorax-Earth-Red jimmied the door open and- Gulp. “That is a lot of wires.”

“There’s, there’s a lot of information they need to carry. Move the, start moving the arcanoscope. I’ll tell you what to, what to do from there.”

Thorax-Earth-Red gulped again and hefted his bag of stuff off his shoulder. He began rooting around in the bag, feeling for the sharp-edged shape of the arcanoscope. But whenever he found it, he kept fumbling it; his hoof was shaking and its blunt shape wasn’t helping things at a-

He stared at his hoof. Why was he…? He rolled his eyes. He shifted it to a griffon claw and plucked the scope out in a second. He began moving it around the mess of fiber arcanics as Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange talked him through it.

26 - A Rich Mare's World

Bon Bon’s mind crackled. “Alrighty then,” said the Doctor, “Thorax got into the security room just fine, and he and Sunburst are working on it. You all should get ready to go when Rainbow does her thing.”

“Alright,” said Starlight. “Gilda, you-”

“I know,” snapped Gilda, “I heard.” She picked up the bow on the roof next to her and twanged the string. “You don’t need to micromanage me.” She grabbed an arrow — a normal one, Bon Bon noticed, not an arctic arrow. “Now, here we…” She nocked the arrow and pulled.

Bon Bon had seen some strange things in her day, even some bipedal monsters and creatures, but she still found Gilda pulling the bow to be bizarre. How in Tartarus could she balance like that? Her entire body was vertical, she had only two legs on the ground, her other two legs were occupied with somehow keeping the bow and arrow in line with her eyes… She didn’t even need to spread her wings to distribute her weight. It wouldn’t have mattered so much if she’d been bipedal to begin with, but since griffons were quadrupedal-

“-go.” Gilda released the arrow with a twang. It whistled gracefully through the air before hitting one of the hotel’s windows and bouncing off. Gilda smirked. “Ha! Got the range right the first time. Easy-peasy.” She pulled the arctic arrows a bit closer to her. The first one she fired hit in almost the exact same location as the normal arrow, but when its arrowhead shattered, the magic inside sent a thin sheet of ice spiderwebbing across the wall. Gilda pulled and released several more arrows, and soon the entire region was coated with ice.

“Do you think we should’ve waited a bit?” asked Starlight. “What if it melts?”

“There’s enchantments in them to keep the cold,” said Bon Bon, “so it won’t melt for a while. We need as much time as possible for them to cool the windows down.” She glanced at Starlight. “Shouldn’t you know this already, Ms. Magic Student?”

“I study friendship, not magic,” Starlight said testily. “And when I do study magic, it’s in general, not its specific implementation in arctic arrows.”

“But you know how to travel through time, you should-”

Neither of them noticed as Gilda stuffed her head in the bag and moaned.

The argument was cut short as the opening notes of an overture sounded from the band down below. Right on time. Not being a fan of classical music, Bon Bon didn’t recognize the song, but it was pretty good. Lots of big, brassy sounds, but not so much they overwhelmed everything else.

After a few minutes of above average music, Rainbow Dash’s voice sounded in her head as she started talking with a staff member about… something. Bon Bon couldn’t tell; thanks to the design of the anklet, she could only hear Rainbow’s side of the conversation. Bon Bon wasn’t even sure Rainbow Dash remembered everyone could hear everything she heard. “Oh, shut up, will ya? I know what I’m doing. … But they’re not at the right spot in the song yet. … You bet I have enough time to get up to speed! … Uh-huh, because you know sooo much about rainbooming. … Well, yeah, I’ve been, uh, practicing. … Um, uh, outside of town! Yeah, so, uh, so you wouldn’t’ve seen it. I, I didn’t want my awesomeness to start being everyday and boring, y’know? … Well, how would you know? You weren’t there! … Are you s- That’smycuegottago.” In the distance, Bon Bon spotted a particular prismatic pony rocket into the sky from near the band. As the music grew louder and louder, Rainbow Dash flew away from town, then looped around and started accelerating back.

On the other side of the gorge, the band began crescendoing. The trumpets reached their brassiest, the drums boomed, the strings thrummed. And right at the peak, perfectly timed in spite of herself, was when Rainbow Dash rainboomed.

The compressional shockwave from the rainboom traveled much farther than the chromatic one. Even at this distance, Bon Bon felt it blow her mane back. It traveled over the guests at the casino, over the infiltrators on the roof, over the casino itself. Not that this was a problem; it didn’t do any physical harm to any of the individuals watching, and the windows were strong enough to not be affected by it.

Except in one case.

Thanks to the sudden temperature change, the glass in the windows Gilda had fired at with her arctic arrows had shrunk oh-so-slightly and become more rigid as it approached the ductile-to-brittle transition temperature. But the temperature wasn’t low enough to actually fracture them, not yet. To break them completely required a large external force.

Hence, the rainboom.

The windows all over the casino vibrated. Most of them held together easily, but the stress was too much for the iced-over windows. They shattered and fell right out of their frames, taking the ice with them. One of the hotel rooms was left wide open to the outside world. A way in.

“Nice shots,” said Bon Bon.

“Yep,” Gilda said without a trace of humility. She was already rummaging around in their bags. “Now, rope, rope… here’s that rope.” She plucked out a stake and a coil of rope. Starlight drove the stake into the building’s roof with magic and tied one end of the rope to the top. Another burst of magic covered the rope in something that almost resembled invisibility. Its color shifted to match what was behind it, but Bon Bon could still see the shape of the rope if she looked hard. However, it’d be fine from a distance (such as six stories down on the balcony) or if somepony was distracted by something else (such as a rainboom).

Gilda tied the other end of the rope, around one of her legs and the illusion spread to her, too. “One screech for good, two for bad, okay?” Aiming at the hotel, she flared her wings, pawed at the ground, and took a running leap over the gorge, the rope trailing behind her. Bon Bon could dimly make out her shape as a few quick flaps took her over through the broken window easily. The rope quickly went taut, and a few seconds later, a single eagle’s caw rent the air. A long pause, then another. Starlight quickly doused Bon Bon in not-quite invisibility.

Bon Bon nodded to herself, pulled the zipline hook out of the bag, and slapped it onto her leg, around the fetlock. As she mentally prepared herself, she took a few steps forward and looked over the edge of the roof. Hundreds of vertigo-inducing feet below her, the rapids roiled and churned. Some spray even made it all the way up into Bon Bon’s mane, wetting it oh so slightly. The sides of the gorge had been worn slick and smooth over the decades, offering no claw- or hoofholds. If you fell into that, you weren’t getting back out. Not ever.

Bon Bon had never felt restricted when she was forced to go undercover. Ponyville was a nice town, even without Lyra. It was out-of-the-way enough to not be busy, and yet not so out-of-the-way that it was stagnant. It had things going on without being too hectic (at least until it started getting weird after the Nightmare Moon incident). She wouldn’t have minded living in that quiet town for the rest of her quiet life.

But she’d be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy this life at least a little.

Bon Bon took a few steps back. She pawed at the ground for a moment. Then, grinning like a madmare, she ran and leaped over the edge, soaring over the gorge without a care in the world. She hooked onto the zipline so easily it barely bent at all from the added weight. The wind nipped at her eyes and bit at her fur as she coasted down the line, but she took it as a challenge and started laughing in glee.

Half a second before she reached the end of the rope, Bon Bon yanked on the hook, and yanked hard. She flew off the zipline, flipped, twisted in the air. She sailed into the room backwards; her front hooves hit the floor, then her back hooves, and she slid to a stop right next to the door on all fours. She smirked to herself. “Boom,” she whispered.

“Weirdo,” muttered Gilda. To Starlight, she hollered, “She’s good! Take the rope over!” She untied the end of the rope from around a particularly imposing bed.

As Starlight untied her end of the rope and levitated herself over the gorge, Bon Bon tapped her anklet. “Hey, Home Base. We’re in. What’s going on with the cameras?”

“Oh, so we’re ‘Home Base’, now?” mused the Doctor. “Sounds quite lovely, actually. I like the idea of-”

“Thorax just, he just finished planting the last seed a few seconds ago,” cut in Sunburst. “It’s, we’re prepping the last moments of the loop. We, we still need, give us a second.”

“But, really,” continued the Doctor, “Ponyville’s our actual home base, isn’t it? I suppose we’re more of a, ah, ‘Forward Operating Base’? Is that the term?”

“FOB, yeah,” said Bon Bon.

“Effff. Oooh. Beeeeeeeee.” Bon Bon could almost hear the Doctor grinning. “I likey.”

“And… there were are.” Bon Bon could almost hear Sunburst rolling his eyes. “The loops, they’re all set on your floor. You should be, should be good.”

“Great.”

Encased in her own aura, the rope and stake trailing behind her, Starlight floated through the window frame and alighted on the floor. “S-so, Sunburst and the Doctor, do they-”

“They’re fine,” said Bon Bon. “The loops should be running.”

“Should be?” said Gilda. “I don’t wanna stick my neck out unless they are.”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes and stepped out of the hotel room. “Hey. Guys. I’m out. You see me?”

“Let… me…” Sunburst clicked his tongue a few times, then chuckled. “Nope. You, you’re good. I can see you just fine on the, on the base feed, but you, you’re nowhere in the faked feed.”

“They are,” Bon Bon said to Gilda.

“You know I can hear you and him talking over my medal thingy, right?”

“Given how little you trust magic, you probably thought you were hallucinating.”

“Well, excuse me if I-”

“Hey!” Starlight stepped in between the two of them, hooves held up. “Will you two shut up? We need to keep moving, and we’re not gonna get anywhere if you keep arguing!”

“We’re not gonna get anywhere if you keep telling us to make nice,” said Bon Bon.

“This- This is different!” protested Starlight. “It’s- Gah!” She stomped out of the room. “If you’re gonna argue, at least walk and argue!”

Bon Bon threw a death glare at Gilda and followed Starlight out.

Swell. Absolutely swell. Two-thirds of the infiltration group already wanted to kill each other, and they were barely past step one. If Starlight was being honest with herself, she was sorely tempted to slap some mind control magic on them, if only to get them to be quiet for two seconds on end. But, of course, based on her luck from the last time she tried that… Well. Nothing good could come of that.

“-like relying on things I can feel, not some mystic mumbo-jumbo!” hissed Gilda.

The hallway was empty, just as it was supposed to be. Unfortunately, that just meant the only things Starlight heard were Bon Bon and Gilda. She could see the elevator bank way over there, and it was taking all her self-control to not gallop down there, pry open the doors, and hurl herself down the shaft in the hope that the lasers were already deactivated.

“That ‘mystic mumbo-jumbo’,” Bon Bon hissed back, “has centuries of study behind it, and-”

The Doctor’s voice trickled into Starlight’s head. “Wow, uh, please tell me they are not going at it as bad as it looks like they are.”

“Worse,” mumbled Starlight. “At least you don’t have to hear them.”

“Ooo. Uh. Wow. Um. Woo. Yeah.”

“So how’re things going over there?” A segue so awkward you could hear the gears crunching, but Starlight was willing to do anything to get away from that topic. The elevator bank was closer, but not close enough.

“-can’t do anything to fix it if something goes wrong!” said Gilda.

“Um, not bad, not bad at all,” said the Doctor. He sounded honest, at least. “Sunburst’s talking Thorax through hijacking the elevators to get past the laser grid- You know, of all the places to put a classic like the laser grid, why an elevator shaft? Yes, I know, to stop ponies from rappelling down, but it’s such a blasted waste to put it all vertical and awkward like that.”

“And it won’t go wrong!” said Bon Bon.

“Makes it harder to get through,” said Starlight, “and that’s really the whole point of it, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” sighed the Doctor. “Still a shame.”

“Easy for you to say,” said Gilda, “but I have no idea how-”

They were at the elevators. Starlight half-expected Bon Bon and Gilda to walk right on past it as they argued, but they both stopped at the doors without any signs of ceasing their verbal assaults. Starlight cleared her throat. “So, uh, how long until Sunburst and Thorax get into the elevator controls?” Please don’t be too long, please don’t be too long…

“Uh, still looking like a few minutes. It’s a bit more complicated than we expected, but we’re carrying on.”

A few more minutes. Starlight wasn’t sure she could take one more minute of Bon Bon and Gilda sniping at each other. She clenched her teeth and took a deep breath. “Well, just tell me when it’s done, okay?”

“Will do.”

And so Starlight was left alone with her two bickering partners-in-crime. She put her hooves over her ears, but that didn’t shut them out enough. Think, Starlight. How can you get them to shut up? You’re the protegé of the Princess of Friendship. You can figure this out.

Ideas came. Ideas went. None of them were very good. But since it was all she had, she picked one at random and decided to run headlong with it.

“-and I like being able to have some control over my own problems,” said Gilda, “so you can-”

Starlight stepped in between Bon Bon and Gilda and gave them both a telekinetic smack on the head. “Alright,” she said as firmly as she could manage. “We’re in the middle of a high-risk operation and you two are bickering like foals. What’s up?”

“Are…” Gilda blinked twice. “Are you honestly trying to sit us down and talk about our feelings?”

“Yes. I. Am,” said Starlight. “It’s better than just sitting around, talking about how much you hate each other.”

Bon Bon and Gilda exchanged glares for a second. “Fine,” whispered Bon Bon. “I’ll go first. Starlight, I-”

“No,” said Gilda suddenly. And a bit sheepishly? “This… This is on me. Totally. I… I like being able to control stuff, and that- thing with Gus, that was… really the most I’ve been able to contribute this entire trip.” Her voice grew a little wistful. “It felt nice.” She blinked and shook her head. “And now I- just have to pray that you nerds all know what you’re doing, because I sure can’t look at anything and see. Frigging magic…”

“That’s- That’s it?” asked Bon Bon. “You’ve been acting like- that just because you wanted something to do?”

“Well, duh.” Gilda rolled her eyes. “Something like this, I wanna feel like I can make my own decisions, so if this all goes sideways, at least it’s my fault. I mean, I’m stressed! What did you expect from a random schmuck deciding to break into one of the most secure vaults in Equestria?”

“Gee, I don’t know, a little more professionalism? You chose to come here, after all.”

“Not really,” snorted Gilda. “Griffonstone, it- Friendship is spreading, but it’s not like griffons are going to stop being greedy morons overnight. Bits still matter. They matter a lot. And with all the bits Goumada conned out of us… Well. Griffonstone could fall apart without them, and no one else was going to get off their fat butt and go get them. Too risky. If I didn’t do it, no one would.”

Starlight and Bon Bon exchanged glances. Starlight had never imagined the situation would be quite that bad, not after the friendship audiences Twilight had gushed about. Maybe they were putting on a show for her. And Gilda had never exactly acted like she wanted to be here, after all. “Still,” said Bon Bon, somewhat slowly, “would it kill you to be a bit less-”

“Look,” snapped Gilda, “I know you gals are from Ponyville, a weird place in a weird country. That you’ve got a princess living next door who’s saved the world a lotta times before. That this is your whole thing. But you know what I am? I’m a frigging baker. I barely make enough bits to keep a roof over my head. And I don’t live in a town where you can go, ‘Giant monster trashing city hall? Must be Saturday. Ho-hum.’ I’m-” She clenched her teeth, curled a set of talons into a ball, and looked away. After a long pause, she mumbled, “Mfkrd.”

Bon Bon tilted an ear towards her. “Hmm?”

“I’m scared!” snapped Gilda, whirling on Bon Bon with flared wings. “I feel like any moment, some guard’s gonna come around a corner and this’ll all go right down the toilet! I am so far out of my depth I’m in the wrong pool altogether and I think I’m the only one who gets that!”

“I get that,” Bon Bon said, her hoof rocketing up.

“Oh, like you’ve been a ray of sunshine,” said Gilda. “You spent the first few days rolling your eyes, sighing, and going, ‘Uuuuugh, fiiiiiiine.’ During that time, the only real difference between you and me was our species.”

“…” Bon Bon opened her mouth, closed it, thought for a second, and said, “Fine. Point. But you haven’t changed much.”

Gilda snorted. “Of course not, I’m a griffon. Our natural response to a problem is to be a colossal jerk and hope it’ll go away in annoyance.”

“What about… What about that gray one, whatsherface, Gabby or whatever?”

“Gabby’s weird.”

“Right.” Bon Bon swallowed. “Sorry for snapping at you.” She tentatively extended a hoof.

“Sorry for, uh, being a snap-attable jerkwad.” Gilda hesitantly grabbed Bon Bon’s hoof. A moment’s pause, and they shook. They withdrew their respective limbs quickly. They looked at each other, then looked away. Silence reigned. Gilda coughed and rubbed her arm.

“HOW ’BOUT THAT WEATHER, HUH?” asked Starlight.

But like a sign from heaven, the Doctor started talking again. “Alrighty. Elevators controlled. We should be good to go. Get one of the doors open, would you? Just so we can confirm.”

“On it.” Gilda worked her talons into the gap between one set of elevator doors and, with a deep breath, tugged. She only pulled them open an inch, but it was enough; Bon Bon pulled a crowbar out from one of her saddlebags, wiggled it into the inch, and levered. Gilda got a better grip, pulled harder, and it wasn’t long before Gilda was holding one door open, Bon Bon on the other. With a gulp, Starlight peered down the shaft.

The shaft was long, dark, and narrow; Starlight couldn’t see the bottom. Lights dotted the walls at every floor, but they were pathetic things that barely illuminated anything. Most of what little light there was came from the lasers. They were about five stories down, crisscrossing the shaft like a spiderweb and glowing red. No set of cables slunk down this shaft; the elevator must’ve been above her. Starlight looked up. A few stories above her, she could see the bottom of an elevator car.

“Do you see the car?” asked the Doctor.

“Yep,” said Starlight. She glanced at the floor number on the elevator doorframe. 10. “It’s at floor 15 or 16, I think.”

“Okay, uh, that’s good,” said Sunburst. “The data we’re getting says, says it’s at 15. So, uh, hang, hang on a second, and…”

Machinery whirred, and the car began descending. “Coming down,” Starlight said as she stepped back from the door.

“Alrighty,” said the Doctor. “Perfect. You’re up, Gilda.”

Starlight replaced Gilda at the elevator door. Gilda rolled her shoulders, then charged and jumped downwards into the elevator shaft. She went to the side, so the car wouldn’t hit her on the way down. She didn’t so much “climb down” the shaft as “drop down”; she’d grab onto something on the wall, let go with her wings flared, fall down a story, grab onto something else, and repeat. Before she reached the lasers, the elevator blocked her from view.

“How do you think she’s doing?” Starlight asked as she braced her hooves a little more.

“Fine,” said Bon Bon without a thought. “She’s whiny, but she gets the job done.” She shrugged.

Gilda’s voice came through the anklet and echoed up the shaft at the same time. “Alright, stop it!” Motors rumbled and the elevator stopped. “Yeah, we’re good! The lasers turn off to let the elevators by and we’ve got like five feet of clearance! If you could let it down just a little more, for like five seconds… Stop! Awesome! Starlight, Bonnie, come on down!”

Starlight took a deep breath, leaned into the shaft, and looked to the side. There was the service ladder. The completely vertical ladder. In the dark. She swallowed, lit her horn, and pulled herself over. Rung over rung, hoof over hoof, she descended, forcing herself to look down every now and then so she could see how close she was to the elevator car and something resembling solid ground. She gave a prayer of thanks when she finally reached the car’s roof.

Once everyone was on top, Sunburst lowered the elevator down through the lasers; the surfers stayed plastered flat against the roof, watching as the spells flicked back on just above them. When they had a good ten feet of clearance, the elevator stopped. Right across from them was the grille separating the public shafts from the vault shaft. It was big. It was thick. It was imposing. It was strong. It was no match for thermite. Everyone seized a roll of thermite tape and began tracing out a hole.

“Hey, Glimmy,” snickered Gilda. “Remember when you said this stuff was a bad idea?”

“Yep.” Starlight pressed a strip of tape around one of the bars in the grille. “Remember how I ate my words when this was suggested?”

“Yeah. The look on your face was priceless.”

The thermite burned through the grille in seconds and filled the shaft with a reeking stench. The vault elevator was brought up (Sunburst said it ran on the same systems) and the trio crawled through the hole into the adjacent shaft. Something in the back of Starlight’s mind buzzed. They had just gotten closer to their goal than they had ever been before.

As Bon Bon fiddled with the maintenance hatch on the shaft, Starlight glanced at the inside walls, the walls that ought to have been for the vault. Even in an elevator shaft, they managed to look thick. None of the infrastructure in the main shaft, just plain, hard metal. She poked a probe in. Layers upon layers of enchantments were stuffed into every possible cubic inch, warding off external magic intrusion. Twilight would have trouble getting through, even if she had a year to prepare. How long had something like this taken to build?

She explained this to Bon Bon and Gilda as they climbed into the car and rode the hijacked elevator up. Bon Bon frowned. “Hmm. So the only way we’re getting into or out of the vault is through the door, even if you use all the magic you can.”

“Looks like it.”

“Great. If something goes wrong, we’ll be bottlenecked.”

Ding went the elevator. “Can we worry about that later?” Gilda asked. “We’re at the freaking vault right now.”

Except they weren’t. Once the elevator doors parted, they revealed another set of doors less than a foot away, doors one would normally expect in a secret military base. Set into these doors was a numeric keypad.

“Fudgenuggets,” whispered Bon Bon. “Of course Goumada focuses all her security on the vault when she neglects everything else. Any guesses?”

“Money,” said Gilda.

“Can’t. It’s ten digits. I… think.”

“I’ve got nothing,” said Starlight. “And-” A quick probe. “No, the keypad and the door are just as heavily enchanted as the walls. And I don’t know what kind of signal the keypad sends out, so I can’t fake it in the system.”

“Thermite tape?” Bon Bon suggested.

“Not in someplace this tight. Besides, we don’t know how thick it is, so it might take a while to burn through.”

“Any chance Sunburst-”

“Magic the lock,” Gilda said suddenly.

Starlight sighed. “We said it’s-”

“Not the door, the lock. Or the frame. Like, the- hinges or whatever this thing has. It’s thick, there’s probably something like, I dunno, pistons holding it shut, right? Something that uses magic even if the walls don’t. If you zap them directly, maybe you can open the door without touching the keypad.”

It was worth a shot; Starlight was thaumatically probing the walls before Gilda was halfway done. The enchantments in the vault walls were indeed potent things, but they mostly kept magic from being used on them. Magic could pass through them just fine. Acting hazily on a sort of instinct, she followed the mana currents from the panel to a place in the walls, where-

Yes. There was an arcanic hole there, an empty spell waiting to be filled up with a load of magic so it could act. All it did was pull the doors apart, but it did that very well. Starlight decided to oblige it and filled it up with a load of magic. A clunk, a whirr, and the doors began parting. One couldn’t slap a magic-damping enchantment on a mechanism that needed magic to work.

But when the doors were just an inch apart, gale-force winds blasted through the crack, disrupting Starlight’s concentration. Everyone was slammed against the walls of the elevator by the force of the enclosed storm. “What did you do, Starlight?” screamed Bon Bon over the howling wind.

“Nothing!” Starlight screamed back. “Just- gimme a-” She reversed her spell to shut the door again. The wind cut off, leaving everyone shaken but alive.

Gilda shook herself down and flexed her wings. “Uffh. What was that?” she mumbled, pushing her headfeathers back down.

“The wind spells,” Bon Bon said, her ears going up. “Remember those? They were in the vault and we didn’t know what they were for. I guess this is what.”

“Swell. Any chance you can shut it down, Glimmy?”

“Give me ten hours, a hunk of iron ore, a chisel, a desk, and ten reams of paper to work it all out. I can block it with a shield, though.” Starlight paused. “Probably.”

“It’s better than nothing,” said Bon Bon. “Let’s give it a shot.”

Deep breath. Starlight managed the juggling act of holding up a shield while dumping magic into the pistons. The wind smashed into her dome like a freight train, but her magic held (barely) and kept out the worst of the blast. “It’s working!” she yelled over the howling gale. “I’ll go first, you get behind me!” She opened the doors just enough to squeeze through; Bon Bon and Gilda soon followed.

Starlight stumbled into a sitting position on the metal floor. Bon Bon was at her side in a second. “Are you okay?”

“A bit of a headache, but I’m fine,” said Starlight. “Don’t worry about me.” She deliberately broke away from Bon Bon to examine the vault.

And what a vault it was.

It was a giant, cavernous, sheer metal box, nothing more than four flat walls with a floor and ceiling, stretching several stories both above and below them and all across the interior of the hotel. Several small houses could’ve fit inside with room to spare. It was almost menacing in its size and simplicity. Sourceless wind screamed through the whole inside, making a tornado around the center. And in the center, suspended from the ceiling by a single beam, was the safe. It matched the vault in scale, an enormous steel cube about twelve feet to a side with a huge wheel opening mechanism. A narrow (and railless, of course) bridge connected the platform the trio was on with the safe.

“I get it,” said Gilda. “Ten bits says the code doesn’t just open the door. It also shuts off the tornado so you can cross the bridge without getting splattered against the walls by the wind.”

“Yep,” said Bon Bon. She tentatively stuck her hoof out around Starlight’s shield, only to yank it back in a second. “And that’s way too strong for us to get across in the open.” She glanced at Starlight.

“I can keep my shield up, but there’s an easier way.” Starlight cleared her throat and focused on her anklet. “Thorax?-”

“-Are you still there?”

“Nervous but alive,” said Thorax-Earth-Red, since he was both. He couldn’t just leave the security hub, unfortunately; something else might come up. Like this.

“You know those wind enchantments in the vault? They’re another defense measure. Any chance you can turn them off? I figure the signal to switch them on and off is going through there as well.”

“Probably!” added Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange. “It’s, it’s a very centralized system. Do you have a, another seed?”

“I think so.” Thorax-Earth-Red began rooting through his bag. They’d all packed plenty of override seeds, just in case. “Just in case” seemed to be coming up a lot.

“If you, if you do, once you find one, get the arcanoscope and-”

“Hey!”

Thorax-Earth-Red jumped and quickly shifted his griffon claws back to pony hooves. When he looked up, Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki was glaring at him. He quickly tried to sound nervous. It wasn’t too difficult. “Uh, yes’m?”

“Just what’re you doing in here?” snapped Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki.

Deep breath, Thorax-Earth-Red told himself. You can do this. “Maintenance,” he said. He fished out his clipboard from his saddlebags and held it up. As Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki snatched it away, he continued, “It’s, we were scheduled for a quick checkup today, and I’m right in the middle of it.” Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange and Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope were both talking, but he tried to ignore them, keep himself in the now.

Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki went through several emotions as she skimmed the clipboard, all almost too fast to catch. Anger, apprehension, fear, annoyance, and much more. “Didn’t you hear?” she said. “No one’s supposed to come into this room.” Her voice was so neutral that if Thorax-Earth-Red hadn’t tasted her rage, he never would’ve guessed how angry she was. Hopefully, that anger wasn’t directed at him.

Look at your mark. Keep looking at your mark. “Really?” Thorax-Earth-Red asked, not looking away from Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki. He tried to sound the this-might-be-bad-but-I’m-not-sure-yet nervous of an interrupted worker, and not the CRAP-THIS-ALL-JUST-WENT-PEAR-SHAPED-NOW-I’M-TOTALLY-SCREWED-OH-HIVE-OH-HIVE-OH-HIVE nervous of an infiltrator. “The guard at the door let me through just fine when I showed her the schedule.”

Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki’s brow furrowed. She looked up at Thorax-Earth-Red, down at the clipboard again. Thorax-Earth-Red tasted waves of suspicion cascading off of her. Eventually, she said, “She made a mistake. Checkup or no checkup, nopony’s supposed to be in here.”

“I never heard about that,” Thorax-Earth-Red said defensively. “I just-”

“You’re coming with me.”

Thorax-Earth-Red’s hemolymph froze. “…Sorry?”

“Standard procedure,” said Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki. “We just need to check you out a bit, be sure you really are who you say you are.” She handed the clipboard back to Thorax-Earth-Red. Or, to be more precise, she held it out to him and it fell to the ground when he didn’t take it, frozen in shock.

“Oh, oh, what?” Thorax-Earth-Red scoffed, trying to sound disbelieving. “That guard let me in, remember. You think I, I’m a changeling or something?”

“You might be. We’ve had problems with them in the past week.”

Thorax-Earth-Red’s thoughts became a combination of terrified screaming and the most colorful expletives he could conjure mixed into a near-unending stream of Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap crap- He only barely managed to hold his composure.

Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki tapped her earpiece. “Detail, this is Security Four. I found an intruder in the security room and need somepony to replace me while I take her to Goumada.”

Part of the reason Thorax-Earth-Red had never been a good changeling was because he had trouble thinking on the fly; he could make plans, but once they fell apart, he might as well just raise his hooves and surrender. Even with his mind working overtime now, he was having trouble thinking of something to escape that would still let him shut down the wind.

“It’s a long story, I can’t-” Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki fell silent and frowned. “No, she is a pony- I mean, she looks like a pony, but she might be a changeling- … No, I didn’t fall asleep on the job, not like you last week! Just send me somepony, stat!”

Maybe, if he’d knocked out Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki the moment he saw her again, then maybe he’d have a chance. But with guards already called, probably on the way, he wouldn’t have enough time. She wasn’t the kind to be bluffed into letting him stay. Every single idea of Thorax-Earth-Red’s stalled out midway.

“Copy that,” Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki sighed. She lowered her hoof and muttered something incomprehensible.

One last shot. “I-is this safe?” Thorax-Earth-Red asked, his voice squeakier than he intended. “I-I really don’t think you need to go that far, I can-”

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki in a nonchalant way that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “As long as you’re honest with us, we’ll let you go once we’re done talking to you.” She eyed him; Thorax-Earth-Red tasted a sort of vindictive happiness flowing from her. “You are being honest with us… right?”

It was all Thorax-Earth-Red could do to not gulp.

“It’s, we were scheduled for a quick checkup today, and I’m right in the middle of it.”

“Thorax?” asked Starlight. But she already knew what was up. Anxiety gripped her heart. “Frig,” she muttered.

“What’s going on?” asked Bon Bon. “This isn’t good, is it?”

Starlight swallowed. “I think Thorax got found out. We’re on our own.”

27 - Stealing Honey From Killer Bees

Starlight, Bon Bon, and Gilda inched across the vault’s bridge, slowly heading towards the safe, keeping low to stay stable. Starlight had made her shield semi-permeable to take some of the stress off it; now, rather than blocking all the wind, she was only blocking something like eighty percent of it. The wind that made it through wasn’t enough to risk knocking anybody off the bridge, but they stayed down anyway.

Even with the reduced load on her shield, Starlight found it hard to keep it up, and not just because of the storm. How was Thorax doing? Was he going to be okay? She knew there wasn’t anything good. And getting dogpiled into Tartarus in the process. That was the problem with being a magical powerhouse focused on flashy spells: when something more subtle was needed, you couldn’t do much of anything.

“He’ll be fine,” said Gilda, surprisingly solidly. “The changeling, whatisface, Thorax.”

“You really think so?” grunted Starlight. It was all she could manage.

“Sure.” Gilda said it in a casual voice Starlight had learned to associate with being so assured about something that it shouldn’t even warrant a mention. “He can shapeshift and it sounds like he’s good at panic-planning. He’ll get out. It might not be pretty, but he’ll get out.”

Starlight and Bon Bon exchanged a glance. “He might,” Bon Bon said tentatively.

Inch by inch, they crawled down the bridge. After what felt like an eternity of getting battered by winds, they reached the safe. Everyone plastered themselves flat against the door. “Any chance you can scan this?” Bon Bon asked, slapping her hoof against the safe.

“Not without dropping the shield,” said Starlight. She blinked to focus her eyes. Even without the split attention needed to cast two spells like this at once, the effort needed to keep the shield up had just given birth to a tiny little headache, the kind that grew quickly.

“Poop.”

“Wanna just try to open it?” said Gilda. “I don’t see any locks on here.”

“She’s a unicorn. That doesn’t mean much.”

“And that’s a reason to not try it?”

“…Not really, no.”

Bon Bon and Gilda grabbed the door handles and tugged. Starlight held her breath; surely the safe was locked, right? But, no, with a bit of effort, the handles turned. They kept pushing; the handles turned faster and faster as Starlight’s heartbeat got faster and faster. Finally, the door swung open, revealing the contents of the safe.

And what contents they were.

Money boxes lined the inside of the safe across all three walls, ceiling to floor. Sometimes they were two or even three deep. Closer to the inside were display cases, of all things, showing off Goumada’s… artifact acquisitions for potential buyers. Starlight didn’t recognize any of them, but chances were that a tiara that looked like it’d been molded from bloodstained barbed wire wasn’t anything nice even though it was one of the nicer-looking ones. She could almost feel black magic congealing in the air like slime. (Why did something so ugly tempt ponies, again?) And right in the middle of it all was the Alicorn Amulet, still looking like some broody teen’s fashion statement.

Perfection.

She stepped into the safe — the walls were three inches thick, she noticed — and set up her shield across the opening. It was a little easier to maintain that way. “So where do we start?” she asked, mostly to herself.

“I’ve been thinking: let’s wipe her out,” said Gilda eagerly. “Take all her bits and doodads — I mean all of them — pay off who we need to, donate the money to charity or something, and give your princesses the evil magical crap.”

“Sure, what the heck,” said Starlight vaguely. She didn’t care what they did as long as they were out quickly. The headache her constant shielding had birthed had already grown into a little girl of a headache that would eventually grow into the mother of all headaches.

“She… is a vital part of the smuggling business around here,” Bon Bon said slowly. “Hitting her this hard would do a lot to cut down on it… She’d lose so much money it’d be hard for her to come back… Even if she did come back, none of her clients would trust her… We’d get a lot of dangerous artifacts out of circulation-”

“Also it’s fun,” prompted Gilda.

“Mostly it’s fun,” said Bon Bon semi-guiltily. Then she grinned. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

“Sweetness,” said Gilda. “That amulet in the center’s what you ponies came for, right? Let’s start with that.” She promptly pulled the glass cover off of the Amulet’s pedestal.

Immediately, the wind died. Magic buzzed through the room, and before Starlight could trace it, sound emanated from the vault’s walls.

“To you miserable little thieves who have broken into my vault,” said Goumada’s voice. “If you are hearing this recording, you are so far up a creek without a paddle that you have passed the spring and are high and dry. The elevator is gone. The doors have been sealed shut. Guards are en route. You have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. You can deal with me, or you can make it easy on yourselves and jump off the bridge. It’s plenty far enough to end your pathetic lives. Don’t worry, the floor of the vault is easy to clean.”

After the constant gale, the silence was deafening. Starlight’s heart made an Equestrian Games sport out of dropping deeper and deeper into her ribcage. She and Bon Bon both slowly turned to look at Gilda.

Still holding the cover, Gilda blinked. “Um. Oops?”

Thorax-Earth-Red was brusquely led to an austere conference room where Goumada-Unicorn-Marble was waiting. Her emotions were seething but her face was blank. Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki unceremoniously dumped him in a chair before Goumada-Unicorn-Marble pulled her aside. Goumada-Unicorn-Marble’s horn glowed and the two started talking in silence. Stupid magic.

Thorax-Earth-Red fidgeted with his anklet. At least Sunburst-Unicorn-Orange or Doctor-Earth-Brown or anyone else could listen in to what he was saying. With any luck, they’d fit the pieces together already. Not that that mattered at all right now.

As Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki talked, Goumada-Unicorn-Marble’s anger shifted. It wasn’t directed at her anymore. No, it was directed at Thorax-Earth-Red. Even if you couldn’t sense emotions, that much was obvious from the way she looked at him. They exchanged a few last words and Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki passed Thorax-Earth-Red’s clipboard over to Goumada-Unicorn-Marble. She looked over it a second, nodded, and said something; Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki immediately backed into a corner of the room.

Goumada-Unicorn-Marble turned her full attention to Thorax-Earth-Red and he was struck with a sudden, intense desire to melt into the floor. He forced it down and kept his head high. She walked up next to him and roughly turned his chair to face her. “So,” she said, “you say you’re here for a checkup, Ms. …?” She looked at the clipboard.

“Wrench, ma’am,” Thorax-Earth-Red said. “Socket Wrench.”

“Mmhmm,” Goudama-Unicorn-Marble said vaguely. “And what company do you work for, again?”

If he hadn’t been so stressed, Thorax-Earth-Red would’ve been quite insulted that she was asking these questions while staring at the clipboard that held the answers. Obviously he would’ve made sure he knew all the answers to all the typical questions. “Thauma Locks,” he said. “We’re a security firm specializing in arcane security systems like your fiber arcanic network.”

“There’s no Thauma Locks in Trotter Gorge.”

“We’re out-of-town. Didn’t you see the address?”

Goumada-Unicorn-Marble’s eyes flicked up. “Hmm.” And if she checked the businesses of the relevant town, she’d actually find them; Thauma Locks was a real company, and they did specialize in arcane security systems, although more in the vein of enchanting locks to be pick-resistant rather than, well, fiber arcanic networks. “And do you have an invoice for this visit?”

“Ma’am, I don’t carry invoices with me,” Thorax-Earth-Red said innocently, wondering just what the heck an “invoice” was. “I’m just a maintenance worker.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“For whom?”

“Thauma Locks.”

“And what are you doing here?”

“Working on the security system.”

“Really?” One of Goumada-Unicorn-Marble’s eyebrows went up. “Because we have an in-house technician for that.”

Thorax-Earth-Red really really really really really really really really really really really really really wished he could teleport.

“Grab everything,” Starlight heard herself say. “It’s not like we can make things worse for ourselves.” She scooped a couple of Sunburst’s bags of holding from her own bag and tossed them at Bon Bon and Gilda. “I’m going to see what I can do about the door.”

Bon Bon opened her mouth, closed it, and began stuffing artifacts into a bag. Gilda ripped entire drawers from the walls and dumped them into her own bag. Bits bounced and rolled across the floor, scattered in her haste.

The bridge seemed to grow as Starlight sprinted across it. When she probed the doors, it was just as bad as she’d feared: huge amounts of mana were being dumped into the pistons, holding them shut with a might she couldn’t hope to match. Not that she didn’t try. Oh, she tried. She pushed and shoved and did this and that and the doors didn’t budge one millimeter. Crap on a crap sandwich.

Sunburst’s voice came through her anklet. “Um. Starlight. What did you do?”

“Gilda got excited and triggered an alarm,” said Starlight. She took a deep breath. “How bad is it?”

“Um. Like. Real bad,” said Sunburst. “There are, there’re guards gathering at the vault elevator. Lots of them, too. It’s, we’re keeping the car from, um, from moving, but, but I don’t know how long that’ll last. If they, like, reboot the system-”

“We’re working on getting out,” said Starlight, trying and failing to reassure herself. “Calm down.”

“…Um. How?”

“If we knew, we wouldn’t be working on it.”

“But-”

Starlight pulled her anklet off and stuffed it into her bag. She needed a clear head and Sunburst wouldn’t help with that. When she returned to the safe, Gilda was stomping one last drawer into her bag and Bon Bon was pulling her drawstrings shut. The two of them had worked quickly and the vault was clean as could be. Which would only make things work for them if they got caught. “Any ideas yet?” Starlight asked.

“Teleport,” Gilda said immediately.

“Can’t while in the casino,” said Starlight.

“Make the walls vanish.”

“Magic-resistant.”

“Burn through them. With our thermite tape, not magic.”

“Too thick. Take too long.”

“Fight the guards.”

“Too many and I’ve got too much of a headache to keep it up for long.”

“Phase through the walls?”

“Don’t know that spell yet.”

“…Seal the door so the guards can’t get in?”

“Still magic-resistant.”

“What’s the freaking point of being an archmage if not everything can be solved with magic?!” Gilda screeched.

“Long story.”

Starlight started pacing as best she could. The only good thing about this was that there was only one way the guards could come in. And even that was sullied by the fact that it was the only way she, Bon Bon, and Gilda could get out. The walls of the vault were huge, flat, and plain, offering absolutely no options for… anything. The only remotely offensive thing in their gear was the thermite tape, and no way was she using that against anything living. Think, Starlight. Think, think, think…

“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” asked Gilda. “Ah, well,” she sighed, “it was fun while it lasted. Too bad it chose now to come crashing down.”

“There’s another floor between the bottom of the vault and the casino, right?” Bon Bon asked suddenly. Her ears were standing straight up and quivering.

“I- I think so,” said Starlight, taken aback. Was that right? Yeah, she remembered it from the plans. A plain floor with some low-level offices, probably empty right now. “Yes, there is. Why? What’re you thinking?”

Bon Bon didn’t respond. She just looked at the safe as an evil, evil grin spread across her face.

Thorax-Earth-Red had heard horror stories around the fire about what angry unicorns could do. Turning you into a frog, permanently blinding you, messing with your head, making your legs shrink, all sorts of fun stuff. And those spells had the happiest of names, too, like Tenebra’s Hoofrot Hex or Mental Polymorphism or the Osteonecrosis Curses. The possibilities were as varied as they were horrible.

Goumada-Unicorn-Marble opted for the Chair Over the Head Jinx. Simple, but effective.

He wasn’t bleeding, but it was a close thing. Iron bees were attempting to break out of his head and the world refused to stay upright. He attempted to gather his hooves under him, but Goumada-Unicorn-Marble pinned his foot to the ground. “Now, pay very close attention,” she whispered emotionlessly in his ear. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” She wrenched his head around so they were looking each other in the eye. “Who do you work for?”

“I told you!” wheezed Thorax-Earth-Red. “Thauma-”

No magic. Goumada-Unicorn-Marble just punched him in the jaw. Thorax-Earth-Red’s head smashed against the ground and he bit his tongue. Something warm dribbled into his mouth. He quickly locked his lips shut; he didn’t know if changeling blood looked like pony blood or not when he was a pony and now wasn’t the right time to find out.

“Please do not insult me.” Goumada-Unicorn-Marble’s voice was still flat and expressionless. “I know you do not work for them, assuming they even exist.” She put a hoof on Thorax-Earth-Red’s neck and pressed just hard enough that breathing was an effort. “And you know I know that. You are wasting both our times, trying to keep yourself in the clear.” She pushed her face into his, her breath hot and moist. “And I do not like my time being wasted.”

“Do you need any help, ma’am?” asked Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki. Her voice was light and Thorax-Earth-Red tasted a disturbing amount of glee coming from her.

“Not yet,” said Goumada-Unicorn-Marble. “But perhaps soon.” Her eyes narrowed. “Well, Ms. ‘Wrench’? Is it soon?”

“Hllhhkhlklalk,” Thorax-Earth-Red gurgled in response. He pointed at Goumada-Unicorn-Marble’s hoof.

“You can nod or shake your head,” said Goumada-Unicorn-Marble. Her hoof didn’t move. If anything, she pressed harder. “So: is it soon?”

Thorax-Earth-Red’s mind tried to race, but it was uncoordinated and kept flopping about. Should he change into something else? Would that make things worse? It would probably make things worse. Knowing Goumada-Unicorn-Marble, it’d be an excuse to hit him with a huge, probably illegal spell. Knowing her, she might not need that excuse to begin with.

Goumada-Unicorn-Marble pressed harder. “I am not going to ask aga-”

The entire building shook. It wasn’t a meager, light twitch; it was like the place had gotten shelled by some landbound battleship. Entire panels fell from the ceiling, lights flickered, pictures dropped from the walls, Goumada-Unicorn-Marble and Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki reflexively spread out their hooves for balance, chairs rolled several inches. And the noise. The unspeakable noise. There was this single colossal, unearthly CLANG like a train smashing through a metal wall at top speed that made everyone nearly bite their tongue off in surprise. Thorax-Earth-Red thought his teeth were going to shatter from the reverberations. Then there was the building’s response, a horrific, Tartarus-birthed groaning from stress like the entire place was going to bend in on itself and collapse on them.

Dust and silence fell. Fear rolled in from all sides, not just the conference room; everyone in the building had heard it and their terror had spiked like never before. But within seconds, Goumada-Unicorn-Marble was up again. “What in the PUS-STAINED MANE OF CELESTIA was that?” she shrieked.

“I don’t- I don’t know,” gasped Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki. “Is…” She inched towards the table. “Is the hotel going to come down?”

“If it does, heads will roll,” growled Goumada-Unicorn-Marble. “The price tag on it was significant.” She brushed herself off. “I shall take some guards and investigate. This must have been deliberate, the responsible party is most likely still there, and I am in need of stress relief.”

“Should I come with you?”

“No. You stay here. Keep her-” Goumada-Unicorn-Marble jabbed a hoof at Thorax-Earth-Red. “-from leaving. However you want. Just ensure she can still speak when I return. I would not be surprised if she is associated with them.” Her horn sparked and glowing manacles fashioned themselves around Thorax-Earth-Red’s fetlocks. When he tugged at them, a jolt of electricity zapped through his body. By the time stars stopped going supernova in his eyes, Goumada-Unicorn-Marble was gone.

Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki watched after Goumada-Unicorn-Marble’s departure. She raised one of her hooves, like she was going to follow her, but put it back down. She sighed and shook her head. “This is all your fault, you know,” she said to Thorax-Earth-Red. “I bet there’s something really impressive — really, really impressive — going on up there.” She nodded at the ceiling. “And because of you, I can’t see it.” She put a hoof on his head and pressed, just hard enough to make a point. “So you’d best behave,” she hissed.

Like Thorax-Earth-Red had any other possibilities. She was a trained security guard and he was tied up on the floor. Pissing her off was the smart thing to do. He did his best to look contrite as she stomped to a corner, took a seat, and scowled at him. Experience with Chrysalis-Changeling-Queen made it easy.

“Thorax?” It was Doctor-Earth-Brown. Kind of a shock, to hear his own name after all this time. Even though it’d only been, what, fifteen minutes since he first went into the security room? Twenty? “Ah, are things, um, going well for you?”

Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki’s ears were angled back in that way ponies showed anger. Praying she’d have a hard time hearing him, Thorax-Earth-Red whispered, as loudly as he dared, “No. Short answers.”

“Ah. Ah. Aaaaaaaaaaah. Hmm. Well, um, Starlight and her group are… We’re not quite sure what, Starlight took off her communicator, and a bunch of cameras just went offline.”

Thorax-Earth-Red grunted. It was all he wanted to risk.

“Sunburst is trying to keep it together, but he’s not really that, ah, sort of person. So, um, bear with us, we’re working on getting you out of there. Maybe.”

Uh-huh. Great. Like they could do anything. Thorax-Earth-Red guessed that, with their limited access to the casino, all they could do was bear with him and ho-

Bear with him.

Bear.

Everyone was pretty certain he was a changeling already, so it wasn’t like he had much left to lose…

“Think that’s enough tape?” Bon Bon asked.

“We’ve gone around that beam fifteen freaking times!” yelled Gilda.

“…You’re right, let’s do two more.” She glanced meaningfully at Starlight, who sighed and unrolled another strip of thermite tape.

“Ponies are crazy,” muttered Gilda. “Ponies. Are. Cuh-razy.”

Starlight didn’t deny it. She was probably the craziest one. Or least, she thought that until Bon Bon had suggested her plan: burn through the supporting rod with thermite tape and drop the safe through the vault floor.

“Look at the size of that thing!” she’d said. “Look at how far it’ll fall! It’ll punch straight through!”

“And the next floor,” Starlight had said, “to go right into the very crowded casino beneath us.”

“Nah,” Bon Bon had said, “the vault will absorb most of the impact, the next floor the rest, there’s just offices and maintenance all the way down, and ten bits says they’ll be empty anyway. Besides, you got any better ideas?”

Starlight didn’t, so Bon Bon half-browbeat her into wrapping the support with tape. And wrapping it and wrapping it and wrapping it and wrapping it…

“You know,” Starlight said, still wrapping, “if we do too much of this, we might get roasted alive. You do know how hot thermite gets, right?”

“That’s what your shield is for,” responded Bon Bon.

“At least it’s good for something,” mumbled Gilda.

Starlight groaned and kept wrapping.

After Bon Bon permitted Starlight to stop, the three of them backed up to the vault doors, still sealed. The beam looked uneven from the mess of tape stuck to it. “What do you think?” Starlight said. “Good?” She didn’t add Please?

Bon Bon nodded. “Good,” she said. “Hit it.”

And, after taking a deep breath, hit it Starlight did.

Heat blasted out from the coils like a wall; Starlight put up a shield and still felt like she might start sweating. The light wasn’t blinding, but still bright enough that she had to look away. Gilda gave a weird chirp-like yelp and covered her head with her wings. But Bon Bon squinted at it, her grin slowly getting wider and wider.

After an eternal fifteen seconds, the worst of the light died down. Starlight blinked. The rod was glowing white, already looking thinner. In fact, the floor of the safe didn’t match up with the bridge anymore.Then, without any warning, the safe fell.

It was a titanic, gargantuan thing, as hard and solid as a boulder. Trailing a few drops of molten steel, it plummeted like nothing else; Starlight swore she could feel the air pressure changing as it was displaced. It slammed into the floor of the vault like a freight train and the entire building quaked. Starlight stumbled several feet forward, her fall from the bridge only barely avoided. Gilda did fall off, but caught herself within a few feet. She yelled something, but Starlight couldn’t hear her. Whatever sound the safe had made when it hit, it must’ve been so loud she’d been deafened before she could hear it. Gilda flapped back up to the bridge, her beak still working soundlessly, and excitedly pointed down.

The safe hadn’t plowed clean through the vault walls — they were too thick for that — but it was still resting askew in a very definitive hole, the military-armor-thick metal around it curved like putty. Metal from the pole, still red-hot, was splattered around the floor. Even as Starlight watched, the safe slipped down a foot and the entire building rattled. There ought to be enough space for them to crawl out.

Gilda didn’t seem to notice Starlight’s lack of audible response. If she’d been deafened, too, she didn’t hear her own lack of voice. She pointed again, threw back her head in what was probably a laugh, and jumped down to the safe. Starlight glanced at Bon Bon, who was rubbing her head and muttering. A quick burst of magic and sound returned to the world. Bon Bon’s ears twitched and she looked at Starlight, opening her mouth.

“Just used a spell to fix our deafness,” preempted Starlight.

“…How remarkably specific.”

“I live with Twilight.”

“Point.”

After Bon Bon spared a second to gawk at the damage she’d wrought, Starlight levitated the two of them down to the floor. After using the hearing spell on Gilda (not that she noticed) and scooping most of the molten metal away with magic, she said, “Look for a hole we can slip through.” Her heart was pounding. The worst possible screw-up imaginable, and they might just wriggle out of it. No, they weren’t out of the woods yet, but they could see the light of the town.

“Um… Here, maybe?” asked Gilda. She waved them over to a gap between safe and floor that looked promising, if tight. Starlight couldn’t see anything beyond the rift. Gilda dropped onto her stomach and wriggled forward. Her head vanished, then her wings. Her rear claws scrabbled at the smooth floor before they, too, were gone. “I’m fine!” called Gilda. “You should be good!”

With a little help from Bon Bon, Starlight forced herself through, slid down a steep, foot-long slope, fell two more feet, and landed on a thick layer of dust that had once been fiberglass panels. To her semi-disbelief, the safe wasn’t even touching the floor of the next story down. The vault was just that strong. Still, the entire ceiling had buckled like a giant had sat on it and dropped at least three feet, even in the distance. Around the safe, there was barely any clearance at all.

Wherever they were, it was unrecognizable in the debris strewn about. The ceiling had lost its tiles (which had lost their shape), lights hung loose, and retaining walls had been reduced to rubble. A few ponies were coughing, but there were (astonishingly) no screams of pain. Starlight vaguely walked over to one of the nearest intact doors and brushed the dust off its plaque. It was a sufficiently corporate title that she knew they were in offices. Which offices, she didn’t know, and at the moment, it didn’t really matter.

Gilda and Bon Bon stood up, brushing themselves off. They stared at the safe, at each other, and collapsed into the humorless laughter of relief. “I told you so!” said Bon Bon. “I told you so!”

“Crazy’s been right so much that maybe I’m the one who’s crazy!” said Gilda.

Starlight found herself grinning. “Well, come on. We’ve gotta-”

“Um. Can I get some security in the second-floor offices?”

It was like a needle to Starlight’s rump. She whirled around to see a dazed guard in the halls, slowly walking towards them; he must’ve just come around a corner. He had a hoof to his earpiece. “Like, all of them,” he said, his voice just as hazy as his expression. “Literally all.” Pause. “Yes. Really. … It’s… complicated.”

Finally, something she could blast. Starlight launched a spell at him — nothing major, not with her headache, just enough to put him down for a few minutes. It caught the guard in the chest mid-sentence and he cartwheeled away down the hall.

Only to expose another guard behind him, her eyes wide. “Holy-!”

“RUN!” yelled Starlight. She bolted around the safe and down the hallway, Bon Bon and Gilda close behind.

28 - Grab the Money and Run (Or Not)

With Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki looking like a doll in his paws, Thorax-Bear-Grizzly plowed through the wall of the conference room. His restraints had shattered like sugar glass when he shifted, drywall was reduced to dust, people scattered like sand in a gale, and what ponies and griffons weren’t on the ground were sent running when he roared. A group of guards came from one end of the hallway, and from the other, a griffon-leopard-vulture charged, claws bared. Thorax-Bear-Grizzly bowled over the group by chucking Watchful-Pegasus-Khaki at them, then batted the griffon-leopard-vulture’s claws aside easily and bull-rushed her all the way to the end of the hallway.

Somepony was screaming orders, but Thorax-Bear-Grizzly barely heard them. Emotions were running high and he was caught up in the flux. He tossed the unconscious griffon-leopard-vulture aside, his gaze jumping over the ponies and griffons in the halls. Bears were big and powerful and very easy to target. Once the guards managed to regroup, he’d be swamped. He needed a different shape, someone who could slip under the radar, someone who-

There. That terrified worker-earth-mint looked unassuming enough. She spotted the way he was eyeing her and bolted. Thorax-Bear-Grizzly scrambled after her and any ponies in his way were tossed into the wall. Nothing slowed him down; bears were fast and big, among the freight trains of the animal world. (If you ignored dragons and tatzelwurms and maulwurfs and manticores and… a whole oodle of other things. Man, Equestria’s predatory scene was fierce.) She attempted to turn a corner, but bumped into an oncoming guard-unicorn-pinto and tripped. Thorax-Bear-Grizzly dodged around the guard-unicorn-pinto and pounced.

Mid-jump, he slipped out of the bear’s shape and into hers. Changeling and worker alike tumbled tail over tail down the hall. Thorax-Earth-Mint wound up on the bottom, which was fine. As the mare-earth-mint stared down at him in confusion, he pointed at her and screamed hysterically, “That’s him! That’s him, he’s the changeling!”

Before the mare-earth-mint could protest, the few guards still on their hooves or claws had ripped her off Thorax-Earth-Mint and dogpiled her. Thorax-Earth-Mint cringed as he wiggled away, even before the shock pouring from her almost made him vomit, and wished he’d had a way to apologize to her.

Somepony put a hoof on Thorax-Earth-Mint’s shoulders. He nearly had a panic attack and tried to throw it off, but the somepony said, “Come on, we’ve got to get you away from the changeling!” He gave in and was quickly hustled down several halls, far from the commotion.

The somepony doing the hustling was a guard-unicorn-pinto, probably the same one he’d pushed past getting to the mare-earth-mint. He quickly patted Thorax-Earth-Mint down and gave him a once-over. “Are you hurt?” His emotions were genuine concern. “It didn’t hurt you, did it?”

“No, no,” Thorax-Earth-Mint said quickly. “I’m fine.” He took a deep breath. “Can- Can I go home?” He didn’t entirely fake his shaking voice.

The guard-unicorn-pinto grimaced. “Uh, no, sorry. Goumada’ll want to talk to you.”

Thorax-Earth-Mint’s fear spiked for a brief moment before the rush of smashing through guards as a bear overtook him. He could get away from this. He just needed to… “W-what?” he stammered (completely-fake stammered, this time). “B-but… But I… Didn’t you see what happened?”

“Yeah, sorry,” said the guard-unicorn-pinto — and Thorax-Earth-Mint tasted some genuine embarrassment there — “but you’ll have to-”

With a left hook, Thorax-Earth-Mint hit the guard-unicorn-pinto. The guard-unicorn-pinto hit the wall. The guard-unicorn-pinto hit the ground. Five seconds later, Thorax-Earth-Steel was running down the hallway, keeping his head down. He retraced the steps he had taken to get in and was quickly back on the casino floor. He slunk into an out-of-the-way corner, keeping his head down while still keeping his shape. You never knew when being a guard might come in handy.

“Doc?” he whispered. “It’s Thorax. I’m out.”

“You are? Splendid!” said the Doctor-Earth-Brown. “Starlight and Bon Bon are in a, ah, bit of a pickle at the moment, but we think they’re fine.”

“You think?”

“Well, it’s complicated. See-”

Thorax-Earth-Steel let the Doctor-Earth-Brown ramble. If Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope and Bon Bon-Earth-Tan were in trouble, he needed to help. And he needed to give better help than he had with pretending to be Goumada-Unicorn-Marble. But he didn’t have anyone he could ask for advi-

Who was that guard they’d talked with? Gus-Griffon? He was outside, right? Maybe he could help. Maybe. His bits were on the line, and if Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle had taught him anything, griffons loved bits. Thorax-Earth-Steel trotted out of the casino.

There were worse ways to spend a weekend. Probably. Maybe. At least they were getting exercise.

Starlight, Bon Bon, and Gilda raced pell mell through the offices, walls blurring around them, confused workers jumping out of the way. Somewhere behind them, somewhere around them, guards were closing in. And none of them knew the way out. They kept jinking around corners to try to lose their pursuers, which meant they never got a good handle on where they were.

Starlight’s heart was pounding in her ears and her legs were burning, and yet she kept on running. This was probably her most physically active day in… ever, really. She needed to build up some muscle. Living with Twilight helped absolutely nothing. When this is over, she resolved, I’m going to exercise every day. Cardio. Endurance. More. Whatever kinds of training there are. I’ll do them all.

Of course, if her muscles gave out, she’d never have the chance.

They rounded another corner and a T-junction loomed ahead of them. In spite of the guards behind them, Bon Bon slid to a halt, trying to read the signs on the wall. “Left or right?” she mumbled. “Left or right?”

A massive spell sailed down the hall and blew a hole right through the signs. Goumada herself had forced her way through the guards and was running at them, horn aglow and murder in her eyes. Gilda squawked and bolted down one hallway while Bon Bon pulled Starlight down the other. When a unicorn charged at you looking like that, you wanted to put as much space between the two of you as possible.

“Ignore the griffon!” yelled Goumada. “After the ponies! They have what’s mine!”

Well, at least Gilda would be safe. Maybe.

Bon Bon smashed a door open at the end of their hall, finally stumbling back into the hotel. Starlight shot out after her and slammed the door behind them, a quick spell further sealing it to keep it from opening again. Dull thuds marked when guards collided with it and failed to open it. Jiggling the knob did them nothing. But haste and headaches had made it a simple, weak spell that wouldn’t last long, and that was without guards coming from elsewhere.

Like the two quartets exiting the stairwell at one end of the hallway.

Bon Bon pulled Starlight along, away from the guards, only to stop when she saw another set of guards coming from the opposite end. “For peat’s sake, how many guards are in this place?” half-squealed Bon Bon. She turned around, then half-unturned. They were right by a small panel in the wall. “Laundry chute?” She yanked it open and looked down. “Laundry chute. Bye!” And she dove in headfirst.

Starlight wasn’t about to ask questions. She almost dropped their bag down the chute first, then a thought hit her like a frisbee. After pulling the anklet out, she cast a quick spell on the bag to reverse the gravity and dropped it up the chute instead. Then, bracing herself, Starlight clambered into the chute and let herself fall.

It was narrow, barely large enough for her to fit. As she slid down, her head kept banging against the walls, exacerbating her headache even more every inch. She was sure her coat was getting delicately peeled off her back from the way it scraped along the metal. Down and down and down. And just when she was wondering where the bottom was, the chute turned a tight corner and she dropped out through a flap, onto a pile of sheets.

“-and here’s another one!” someone screamed. “See? I told you! That’s four today! FOUR! We need some kind of locks on the doors, I don’t CARE what! That stupid sunblasted…”

The chute had dumped Starlight out into a large laundry room, an angry mare and a befuddled mare staring at her. Bon Bon was nowhere to be seen. “Follow your friend and just go,” said the first mare in exasperation. She pointed at a door. “I need to get those washed and you don’t know who’s slept in them.”

Starlight quickly scrambled off the sheets and put her anklet back on, only to have Sunburst screaming in her head. “-at’s going on, the, the second floor looks like-”

“Shut up, Sunburst,” said Starlight.

“Starlight! Oh, thank Celestia. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Bon Bon and I are in the laundry room.” (The two workers exchanged glances; the angry one rolled her eyes and went to work on the sheets.) “We got separated from Gilda, but I don’t know if she got captured.”

“I, I don’t think so. She, it looked like she forced her way into one of the, one of the elevator shafts. The Doctor, he, he’s trying to find her now. Starlight, you’ve got the WHOLE BUILDING looking for you. You’re not gonna slip away; they’ve got your colors, your tribes, your, your cutie marks, everything. I don’t-”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Keep quiet; I need to think.” Starlight almost ripped her anklet off again, but it was too risky in case she needed to contact him for some reason.

“Um. O-okay.”

Bon Bon was hanging out right outside the laundry room, pacing a rut in the hall. Her head whipped up when she heard the door open, but she went slack when she saw it was just Starlight. “Hey,” she said vaguely. “Anypony follow you?”

Starlight looked over her shoulder. The laundry room was still empty except for the two workers she’d run into and there were no sounds indicating a guard was sliding down the laundry chute after them. “I don’t think so. We-”

“Where’s your bag?”

“What?”

“Your bag.” Bon Bon’s voice sped up. “Your bag that we were using to carry the Amulet that was the entire reason we did this in the first place. THAT bag.”

“Oh. Right. I didn’t want it to get taken away if we were caught, so I reversed the gravity on it in the laundry chute. It’s sitting on the ceiling of the chute right now. Lyra can get it later.”

“You just chucked all our stuff away?!” Bon Bon shrieked. “Not just the Amulet, but all of our gear, all of our-”

“Like we’d need it while on the run!”

“…Okay, maybe. Come on.”

They ran off.

“…Do you know where we’re going?”

“…No, do you?”

“Oh, boy.”

There was a guard at each side of the casino entrance, neither of them a griffon. Thorax-Earth-Steel tasted some nervousness from them, but nothing too potent. They stood at their posts, watching ponies come and go, and didn’t give him a second glance.

Thorax-Earth-Steel pretended to be on a meandering patrol route around the casino. He watched closely at the guards he passed. That one wasn’t a griffon… Neither was that one… That one was, but he was nervous just-

No. That guard-griffon-lion-bald eagle wasn’t nervous in the same way as the others. The others were nervous in that distant way about something that only loosely affected them; this guard-griffon-lion-bald eagle was nervous in that close way about something that very much affected him but was out of his control. If he hadn’t spent so much time in poker, Thorax-Earth-Steel probably wouldn’t have noticed the difference.

Promising start. Thorax-Earth-Steel walked up to him. “Hey,” he said. “Gus, right?”

“Yeah,” the guard-griffon-lion-bald eagle grunted, not looking directly at him. His temper sounded like what Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle had described. “Do I know you?”

“Probably not.” No time for subtlety. “But do you know a griffon named Gilda? Maybe a unicorn named Starlight?”

Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle’s anxiety spiked and he twitched, but he managed to keep it together, sort of. “D-don’t really sound familiar,” he said, his voice a half-step higher. “Why do you ask?”

Praying that the pony aptitude for friendship had worked its magic, Thorax-Earth-Steel whispered, “Because they need help. I’m the changeling they’re working with.”

A flurry of emotions buzzsawed its way through Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle’s head and his face went blank; Thorax-Earth-Steel was ready to see his brain leaking out of his ears (wherever those ears were). He slowly turned his head to look Thorax-Earth-Steel in the eye. “What’s your name?” he asked quietly.

“Thorax.”

Some of the suspicion vanished from the flurry. Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle further lowered his voice. “What are they stealing?”

“The Alicorn Amulet.”

Even more. “How much are they paying me?”

Wait, he was supposed to remember that? “Um. Ten thousand bits? Fifteen?”

“Close enough. Where are they?”

“I don’t know exactly. Somewhere in the casino.”

As they spoke, several of those steam machines pulled up the road and came to a stop in front of the casino, each one with a cop or two. As the cops ran inside, Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle frowned. “Then we better get in there quick.”

They made for the casino as quickly as they dared. But just as they were about to head inside, a guard-pegasus-yellow trotted up to them from her side of the doorframe and put a hoof on Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle’s chest.“Hey, Gus. Where do you think you’re going? You need to stay out here.”

Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle was silent for a second before he said, “Um, Spear here needs my help with something inside. It’ll only take a sec.”

“Does he.” The guard-pegasus-yellow narrowed his eyes at Thorax-Earth-Steel. “What if that’s the changeling we need to look out for?”

“Nah, he’s good,” Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle said promptly. “I asked him a question only he would know. Several. What kinda idiot do you take me for?”

The guard-pegasus-yellow blinked and slouched back to her post. “Sorry. Just… being cautious,” he mumbled.

And so the two re-entered the casino. “You better figure out where they are fast, ’cause there’s a lot of ground to cover,” whispered Gus-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle. “And I don’t want to find them after the cops do.”

“Right.” Thorax-Earth-Steel cleared his throat. “Um. Doc? Where are Starlight and Bon Bon?”

Starlight did not like mazes. The Castle of Friendship, Name Pending, was a maze. The offices in the upper floors had been a maze. And now these halls were a maze. It was almost enough to make one consider becoming a tyrant (again) so she could ban labyrinthine floorplans altogether. Almost.

“You used a lot of magic in the vault,” Bon Bon said as they ran. “And I didn’t notice a lot of magic missiles up there. Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” said Starlight. “Just…” A vein in her temple throbbed and she massaged it. “Just a headache.”

“And your magic?”

“Don’t expect anything too complicated too quick. My head hurts and I think I’m almost tasting colors.”

“Hmm.”

“Give me, I don’t know, ten, fifteen minutes.”

The pair ran through the halls, completely unsure of what they were looking for. They didn’t even have the benefit of signage. Whatever maintenance halls they were in were sparsely populated, the few ponies they met often pushing broken gambling machines and definitely not guards. But that was only temporary. The guards upstairs had seen them go down the laundry chute, so they knew where they were.

At least the running gave Starlight’s headache time to go down.

“Wait, wait,” said Bon Bon. Her trot slowed to a walk slowed to a stop. “We need to think this through. I mean, how many halls can this place have?”

Starlight thought back to the Castle of Friendship. “You’d be surprised.”

Bon Bon tapped herself on the forehead as she thought. “Okay, let’s just follow this hall straight. If it dead-ends, turn… right. Do the same, except turn left. Repeat. We’ll at least reach the edge. Come on.”

And they were off, much more thoroughly and a bit more slowly. They zigged and zagged and Starlight felt less lost and more merely disorientated. It wasn’t long before they saw a door to the stairwell, the bright red EXIT sign glowing above it.

Naturally, that was when a unicorn guard stepped out of the stairwell and noticed them. Out of pure frustration-born rage, Starlight tried to blast her. But with her headache, she couldn’t muster much, and this guard was (naturally) one of the only ones with the mind and skill to put up a shield. It wobbled under the impact of Starlight’s spell, but held.

“Rippitey riggety friggety…” muttered Bon Bon.

“You!” yelled the guard. “Stop right there!”

Bon Bon pulled Starlight back down their hallway. Starlight stumbled after her, her mind still racing. Okay. What do you know? Magic. Lots of magic. Lots of magic that isn’t nearly as effective because of my headache. Offensive magic that’ll scream out, “We’re the thieves!” Teleportation that doesn’t work. Shields. Removing cutie marks. Half-effective invisibility-

Wait. Sunburst said they had our cutie marks. Maybe-

Starlight slammed into Bon Bon when the latter stopped on a bit. She looked up; there was another guard, a pegasus at the other end of the hallway, charging them. She looked behind them. The unicorn guard was quickly narrowing the gap between them. “We’re dead,” mumbled Bon Bon.

Maybe not.

It was only adrenaline and a near-lifetime of casting the spell that let Starlight gather enough willpower to cast the cutie mark removal spell through her headache. She’d never cast the spell on herself before and didn’t know what it felt like. When she pulled her cutie mark off, she felt like she was pulling away a part of herself, bit by bit. But of course she was; that was the point of the spell, to remove a pony’s talent. Without sparing a second to ponder the implications, Starlight did the same to Bon Bon.Separated from their ponies, the marks swirled around, trying to find something to attach to. Without anything stopping them, they’d naturally be attracted back to their original ponies.

So Starlight instead stuck her cutie mark on Bon Bon and Bon Bon’s on herself.

She felt something change in her, deep down, on a metaphysical level. She couldn’t say what, but she knew something was wrong, like Twilight turning down a book or Fluttershy ignoring animals. It made her coat stand on end and her skin crawl, and she felt sick to her stomach. If this wasn’t the only possible way to get out of this situation, she wouldn’t even think of it. (Part of her nagged that she’d been doing this to ponies all the time back in her town, but her survival instinct beat that down.)

It was hard to tell if Bon Bon was having it any better. She didn’t seem to be reacting as viscerally, but her pupils were contracting and dilating wildly and out of sync. She snapped around to look at her rump. Then she glared at Starlight with barely-restrained rage. “Do the world a favor,” whispered Bon Bon, “and never do that again, or I will murder you in your sleep.” Given everything that had happened recently, Starlight didn’t doubt her. “You better know what you’re doing.”

Starlight hoped so, too.

The guards closed in on them, the unicorn slapping a suppressor ring on Starlight’s horn as soon as possible. “Finally,” she grunted. “Do you two know how much trouble you’ve caused? Don’t answer that,” she added when Starlight opened her mouth. “A rhetorical question.”

“But can you imagine the bonus we’ll get?” the pegasus said, grinning. “I mean, did you hear what they did to the-”

“Wait a second…” The unicorn leaned down and examined Starlight’s rump. “The cutie marks were supposed to be candy and a glimmer, right?”

“I’m pretty sure it was more of a sparkle. Or maybe a shimmer? Or a twinkle…”

“Whatever. But the pink unicorn had the glimmer, right?”

“The heliotrope unicorn had the sparkle.” (Starlight managed to keep her mouth shut.)

“Either way, this isn’t her, because she’s got candy.”

“Really?” The pegasus glanced down. “So she does. So what?”

“So she’s the wrong mare, obviously.”

Bon Bon stared at Starlight, looking as surprised as one possibly could without actually looking surprised. Starlight wasn’t sure how she was pulling it off. Starlight herself just tried to look mildly confused.

“Is she? We’ve got a tan earth pony and a heliotrope unicorn, one of which has a candy cutie mark and the other with a sparkly cutie mark.”

“Glimmery,” mumbled the unicorn.

“Whatever. They’re the same marks on the same ponies. Let’s-”

“They’re just similar cutie marks, not the same ones.”

“Come on, two candy cutie marks?” scoffed the pegasus. “Marks are unique.”

“I’m sure there’s a pony out there with a peppermint cutie mark that’s got fifteen stripes and another with a peppermint cutie mark that’s got sixteen stripes. They’re technically different-”

“Fun fact!” the pegasus said mock-brightly. “If you ignore everything that has ‘technically’ in front of it, the world is a much better place! Look, they’re close enough.”

“We just spent a minute arguing over whether that was a glimmer, a sparkle, a shimmer, or a twinkle! They are not close enough.”

“It was hardly a minute. More like-”

Bon Bon cleared her throat. “So, um, can we go?”

“I- I mean,” Starlight offered, “if we don’t have the cutie marks you’re looking for-”

The unicorn said, “Yes,” at the same time the pegasus said, “No.” They looked at each other.

“It’s not them,” said the unicorn.

“It might be them,” said the pegasus.

“When Goumada hears about this, she’ll want to see them. And if you want to argue with her that there’s a spell out there that can change cutie marks, you be my guest!”

“Fine!” The pegasus flared her wings. “I will! I’ll tell her I was just being careful. Like she wants us to be! And besides, one way or another, they’re trespassing. Don’t you think that’s a little coincidental?”

“With ponies breaking into the vault, we need to prioritize. What if these aren’t the thieves?”

“What if they are? Let’s take them and you can just lay all the blame on me.”

“Fine, whatever.” The unicorn glared at Starlight and Bon Bon. “Run and you’re dead.”

“Goumada won’t like that,” said the pegasus.

“…Run and I break your legs.”

Starlight and Bon Bon were half-dragged, half-led through the halls and up the stairs, collecting a few more guards along the way. Starlight glanced sidelong at Bon Bon, who just shrugged helplessly. At least the Amulet was safe. Hopefully.

At the top of the stairs, they were pulled onto the main casino floor. Starlight immediately noticed that it was just as packed as it had been earlier in the week, even though it was slightly less high-energy. She was honestly surprised there was anyone left at all, after the impact of that safe. Maybe Goumada had been able to calm everyone down.

Through the crowds, Starlight spotted Goumada arguing with some cops. Cops. Of course. Starlight tried to drag her feet, but was shoved forward. Towards the cops. Towards Goumada.

As they slowly pushed their way through the throng, Starlight’s heart sank a little more with every step. The Alicorn Amulet was safe-ish, but she wasn’t. She had no magic. She didn’t know where anyone was. She couldn’t talk to Sunburst without drawing attention to herself. Her only plan had failed. She had nothing. She was going to be handed over to a psychotic crime boss and there was nothing she could do about it.

29 - Falling Apart and Coming Together

For one second, Starlight’s voice flickered through Sunburst’s anklet. “I- I mean, if we don’t have the cutie marks you’re looking for-” He frowned. “Huh.”

“‘Huh’? What sort ‘huh’ is that?” asked the Doctor. “Is it a good ‘huh’?”

“I’m not sure. Starlight said something about not having the right cutie marks, but, but I couldn’t make out anything else. Do you have, do you know where they are?”

“Not yet, I’m afraid. It doesn’t look like the basement has many cameras.”

“Great.”

So maybe Starlight and Bon Bon had been captured. Maybe Starlight had tried to stall their captors by switching her and Bon Bon’s cutie marks. Maybe not. Best to assume the worst. He’d heard Thorax talking to Gus, so maybe-

“A-ha! There they are!” The Doctor pointed at a screen. “Coming out of the basement now. Are you hearing this, Thorax? Right side of the room as you come in, about halfway down. You see them? … Great! Oh, and, ah, they’re, um, under guard. Good luck!”

Sunburst nudged the Doctor aside to get a better look at that particular screen. Starlight and Bon Bon were being escorted by four guards out from some kind of maintenance hall and onto the casino floor. He squinted at the image, but couldn’t make out their cutie marks. Still, it was worth a shot. “Um, hey, Thorax? One more thing.”

The one good thing about the crowd, Starlight figured, was the way it swamped their progress. Getting to Goumada seemed to be taking forever. Of course, when she couldn’t do anything, that made it all the worse, a perfect double-edged sword. They inched forward.

She looked to Bon Bon and got a shrug in response. No way out. Falling back on old habits, her mind began composing grand schemes involving elaborate plots that always fell apart because she didn’t have any magic. Why did law enforcement types have to deprive criminals of their magic?

She spotted a vaguely-familiar griffon and an unfamiliar pony, both guards, heading towards them, practically shoving their way through the crowd. Great. Just what she needed. She might as well just shut her brain off; it wasn’t like it’d helped them yet.

The griffon and pony stopped some distance away, exchanged words, pointed. They nodded at each other and the griffon swaggered up. “Hey, guys,” he said with all the nonchalance of buying groceries. “Caught the thieves, have you?”

Once she heard his voice, Starlight could place the griffon: Gus. But what was he doing? He’d lose out on his money this way. Unless he thought he could get a reward for turning them in.

Or maybe…

“Must’ve been quite a fight,” Gus said. He not-entirely-casually looked at Starlight and Bon Bon. “I was sent to give you help.”

“We don’t need help,” growled the first pegasus guard.

“You sure? Tartarus, I heard the building shake out- Hang on.” He leaned in close and squinted as Starlight’s rump, rubbing what technically qualified as his chin exaggeratedly. He stood back up again and said, “Doesn’t she have the wrong butt tattoo?”

The pegasus facepalmed (“Oh, for the love of…”) as the first unicorn said, “Thank you!”

Starlight glanced at Bon Bon, who pursed her lips, shook her head a tiny, tiny bit, and tapped her hoof on the floor. Starlight took that to mean, Don’t do anything yet. A wise decision.

“I mean, they don’t even have bags!” Gus did a double-take at them and blinked twice. “Where could they hide the Amulet? Or any other loot?” His eyes narrowed a little as he glared at Starlight, but none of the other guards caught it. “Unless you’re saying they stuffed it all up their-”

“Maybe they hid it somewhere!” said the pegasus. “I’d rather capture them and be wrong than let them go and be wrong! Look, we don’t have time for-” Her ears folded back and she clamped her wings tightly to her sides. “Who sent you?” she demanded.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Gus. But his eyes were a little bit wider.

“You said you were sent here,” said the pegasus. “Who told you we needed help?”

“I don’t see why that matters,” replied Gus, “you guys’re so stupid you caught the wrong ponies!”

“Listen,” snapped the pegasus, jabbing Gus in the chest, “if you don’t tell us who sent you, I swear I’ll-”

Something shook outside the front doors, drawing everyone’s attention. Starlight couldn’t see much, but with another boom, the crowd began shying away. Two guards raced in, screaming something, urging people away. Slowly, everyone drew back.

And that was when the entrance exploded.

Glass and wood flew as one of the road locomotives barrelled through the front entrance, narrowly missing hitting anybody. It plowed through a row of slot machines, two rows, three; each one was batted aside like it was part of a house of cards. The crowd scattered as it continued on its way and mangled remains of games, twisted decorations, and piles of casino chips were strewn in its wake.

One of the guards regained his senses. “What in the-”

Gus pounced, hitting him in the side and smashing him into the floor. When another guard turned on him, the guard who’d come with Gus clouted her on the back of the head. Thorax?

The locomotive’s path of destruction finally took it into a supporting pillar. It shuddered to a halt as its front half crumpled around the pillar, but its wheels were still turning and mulching up the carpet. Steam hissed from a rupture in the boiler and began filling the room. The crowd twisted around itself, some people fleeing in fear, others overcome with curiosity and trying to get a closer look.

A guard readied a spell for either Gus or Probably-Thorax, but the second he took his eyes off Bon Bon, she wrapped her legs around his trunk and suplexed him with a vengeance. And then Gilda blurred out of the crowd and bodyslammed the last guard.

“Come on,” said Gus. He kicked at one of the guards on the ground. “Let’s get you and my money out of here.”

The group fell in with the retreating mob and ran. Starlight’s head was swimming as she tried to take in what had happened. Explosions? Locomotive through the front door. Guard beatdown. And now they were getting out. Was that right? It seemed right.

They rushed out of the casino amid the crowd and took a sharp turn down the street. Across from the casino were several road locomotives, two or three of them reduced to mangled husks after boiler explosions. The crowd slowly petered out and sort of congealed a distance from the casino. Starlight’s group ran a bit farther before coming to a stop.

Suddenly, a familiar pegasus swooped down. “Hey!” said Derpy. “You’re okay! I was in the crowd when you came out of the basement and you looked like you were in trouble there for a moment.”

Starlight looked at Derpy. She looked at the hole in the casino. She looked at Derpy again, pointed, and said, “That was you, right?”

Derpy shrugged. “You needed a distraction and that was distracting. Remember how that one guard took me home on one of these that one time? I just remembered what he did to drive it and hoped for the best. And it worked!”

Derpy, Starlight decided, was probably one of the most unorthodoxically intelligent mares she’d ever met. She couldn’t find north with a compass and sometimes seemed incapable of finding solid ground to sit on, yet she’d known the basic gist of the heist ever since Ponyville, she’d never needed anything explained to her, and this whole time, she’d kept coming up with bonkers plans in seconds that invariably worked.

And now, when they’d needed a distraction? Oh, nothing too complicated, she’d just driven a train through a building.

“Thanks,” said Starlight. “I’m not sure-”

BOOM.

The boiler on one of the remaining locomotives blew, blasting steam into the air and twisting the vehicle’s entire frame into the pavement with its force. Starlight could feel the shockwave as she staggered back a few steps. Agape, she stared at Derpy.

“Oh, yeah, I also closed some of the wrong steam valves on those. Just in case.” BOOM. Derpy smiled as another locomotive exploded behind her. “Very distracting.”

Starlight made a Face at Bon Bon.

“Hang on,” said Gus, “lemme get…” He grabbed Starlight’s mane and semi-roughly pulled her head down. Before she could protest, he’d waved his keygem next to the suppression ring and it’d popped off. Feeling rushed back into Starlight’s horn. Not necessarily good feeling (it still ached after the vault, if a lot less potently), but Starlight was going to take what she could get.

“Thanks,” Starlight said.

“Sure thing. So where’s my stuff?”

Starlight took a deep breath. “Waiting for retrieval. We hid the… loot in-”

“Hid?! You dropped it up a laundry chute!” hissed Bon Bon.

“We hid it in a safe space so it wouldn’t be found if we were captured,” said Starlight, a touch more loudly. “Somepony’ll retrieve it soon.”

Gus’s eye twitched. He raised a claw declaratively, only to say nothing. He glanced at the casino and the crowd milling around it. “You better pull through,” he snarled, poking Starlight in the chest.

Wings crossed, Starlight didn’t say. Partly because she needed wings for that. Maybe some quick alicornication was in order. “We’ll pull through,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

“We will, I promise,” said the guard who, by now, could only be Thorax.

Gilda made a face and wiggled her hand with an “Ehh…” sort of sound.

Starlight glared at her. “So what happened with you after we split up?”

“Dunno.” Gilda shrugged. “Guards must’ve stopped chasing me to go for you. Got into the hotel, ran up a story, pulled the elevator doors open and jumped down. Once I was back in the casino, I was about to skedaddle when I saw that you needed help, and, yeah.”

“Can we get back to the villa?” Bon Bon glanced at the casino and shifted her weight from hoof to hoof to hoof. “I don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to. Any chance of teleporting?”

“Not yet.” Starlight rubbed at the base of her horn. Her headache was still throbbing. “We’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. Are you coming with us?” she asked Gus.

“What the heck, sure,” said Gus. “At least I’m leaving with a-” He paused and stared at one of the intact locomotives. A few seconds passed and he didn’t continue.

“I didn’t have time to get all of them,” said Derpy apologetically.

Gus rolled his eyes and said, “-with a bang.”

The motley crew began running back to the villa. “Hey, Sunburst?” Starlight asked.

“Oh, thank Celestia. Is, is everyone alright?”

“Yes, but-”

“And you’ve got the Amulet?”

“No, but-”

“SON OF A-”

“But Goumada doesn’t have it either! It’s safe, we just had to hide it.”

“On the casino grounds?!”

“Well. Yes. Listen, can you get Lyra and Rainbow?”

When the entire heist suddenly depended on her, Lyra felt less cocky about their chances. Not a lot, though. It was simple: get to the chute, grab the bag inside, get out. The simplicity of it was the reason she only felt a little less cocky. It was also the reason she felt less cocky at all. Things were only that simple when something would absolutely go wrong.

But she was walking towards the laundry chute on the top floor and it was all up to her. Starlight’s bags were in there and she just needed to get them. It was easy.

She guessed the meteor was about a minute away.

She’d heard the terrible CLANG that was probably the safe hitting the floor just after the band had finished up and she was milling with the crowd. The guards managed to calm everyone down and, soon after, reassure them that their rooms were still safe, but that sort of sound kind of killed the mood with a sledgehammer. Sunburst had contacted her not long after that, explaining the situation, and when the guards let her return to her room without incident, well, here she was.

Lyra stared at the door to the laundry chute. Weird how something so banal was suddenly so important. She took a deep breath and reached for the handle. Luckily, it was unlocked. She looked up, and there it was: Starlight’s bag, resting on the ceiling. She pulled it down, dispelled the spell, and felt around inside. All of her gear was still there, several loose piles of bits, and… oho…

The feeling of dark magic on it made her cringe, but Lyra pulled out the Amulet, just to check. Yep, it was the Amulet she remembered. Dark voices whispered to her without bothering with her ears, giving her promises of power beyond her wildest dreams. But the hyperbolic language with which they wove their overinflated visions of perfection reminded her too much of junk mail and ads, so she just stuffed the Amulet back into the bag. “Got it,” she whispered into her anklet. Perfect. Now-

“What’re you doing?”

Lyra spun around. Second Lyre was looking at her with the vague interest of somepony who has nothing better to do. Unfortunately, that attention combined with the stress of everything being on her short-circuited Lyra’s brain and she imagined she was sweating like a faucet. “Um…” she said as she tried to compose a plausible lie. “Uh… Heist!”

Smooth.

Second Lyre pulled back slightly. “Heist?” She leaned forward in interest, a small smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “What’re you heisting?”

“Nothing!” yelped Lyra. Her sweat was coming out like a firehose, it had to be. “Nothing at all! Nope! No heist!” She failed horrendously at hiding the bag behind herself. “Why, why, why would you- think that? I didn’t say anything!”

As Celestia-blessed silk.

“Oh. Shame, that would’ve been neat and Goumada would’ve absolutely deserved it.” Second Lyre smiled innocently. “But since you’re not, I’ll leave you to your… not-heist business.” She winked, waved, and walked away.

…And not sarcastic, apparently. Huh.

“Um. Lyra?” asked Sunburst. “What’s-”

“Nothing,” said Lyra. “There’s no problem. There was, but it’s gone. I’m fine.”

“Okay. Um. If you get down to the entrance, Rainbow will pick you up.”

“Got it.”

Lyra knew better than to trust that her luck would hold. She did her best to keep her steps loose and natural. She’d been stupid not checking the hallway before; she wouldn’t be that stupid again. Nopony was around now, at least. As she strode toward the steps, she had to fight to not hold her bag tight. She wasn’t a thief, no siree. She was just an instrumentalist in the band, heading out for… some rest. The last few days, preparing for the anniversary celebration, had been stressful (they really had been) and she needed to unwind.

But as Lyra stepped into the stairwell, she heard some voices coming up. At the bottom of the first flight were four guards coming up. When they saw her, they quietly exchanged words, and before Lyra could get down, they’d spread out to keep her from slipping by and were marching up the steps like they were part of the Royal Guard.

The unicorn who appeared to be leading them stepped onto the landing, forcing Lyra a few steps back to give her space. “There’s been an… incident,” the guard said. “Thieves have broken into the vault and we suspect they may have hidden their loot on hotel grounds. We’re combing the area.”

“Oh, come on,” said Lyra. “I’m a lyrist, not a thief. I can get my lyre out right now and show you.”

“Mmhmm. That won’t be necessary.” The guard’s eyes flicked downwards. “What’s in the bag?”

“What, this?” Lyra wiggled her bag. “Psht. It’s nothing.” But she realized too late that she might as well have just told them she was carrying the Amulet. With these sorts of guys and gals, it was never nothing.

The guard glanced at one of the others. They both nodded. “Open your bag,” said the first guard. “Dump everything.”

“It’s nothing!” said Lyra. “Just- personal stuff!” Clutching the bag close, she took a step back. “Can’t a mare have her privacy?” At this rate, a neon sign would be less conspicuous.

“Open. Your bag,” demanded the guard. Her horn started glowing.

“Um…” Idea. Lyra widened her eyes and pointed. “Behind you! The changeling!”

And her yell was so urgent that the guards spun around as one.

Lyra took off in the opposite direction, running back into the hotel. “Plan B!” she gasped. “Plan B!”

“Plan B, got it!” said Rainbow. “On my way!”

“Stop right now and put the bag on the ground!” one of the guards yelled. Lyra paid him less attention than she had last year’s bugbear and kept running like her life depended on it. (It probably did.) She crossed the hotel, reached the other stairwell, and legged it up the stairs to the roof.

When she slammed open the door to the airship landing platform, the wind hit her in the face like a solid object. She squinted through it, not that there was much to see. A flat platform for passengers to disembark, some huge bollards for securing an airship, railings to keep the stupid away from the edges. Somepony was working at a junction box; they didn’t glance at Lyra. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, although there were a few pegasi. But none of those pegasi were Rainbow.

Voices pounded up the stairwell. “She went to the landing pad! Send some pegasi up outside!” Footsteps soon followed.

“Rainboooow,” said Lyra, jumping from hoof to hoof, “where aaaare yoooou?”

“I’m coming!” said Rainbow. “North side! Gorge on your left!”

Where was the gorge? There was the gorge. Lyra bolted for the north side, her hooves pounding against the ground like never before. She heard somepony yell behind her; what they yelled, she neither knew nor cared. She vaulted over the railing and kept running. No Rainbow. “How close?!”

“Almost there! Five seconds!”

A spell zipped over Lyra’s shoulder, so close it singed her coat. And another. She didn’t have five seconds.

So once she reached the edge of the building, she jumped.

The ground fell away beneath her. All of Trotter Gorge was laid out in front of her. For a second, with nothing holding her down, Lyra felt oddly peaceful. Was this what it was like to be a pegasus? It was nice. She could almost see it from a distance, the towering spire of the casino and the little speck that was her detaching itself from it. Now, there was nothing else. Just her and the air.

…Holy crap, twenty stories was high up.

Then gravity kicked in and she started falling.

But just as she plummeted past the shocked pegasus guards on the outside, a different pegasus zipped around and snatched her out of the air. “Heh! Sorry!” said Rainbow. Her flight speed hadn’t slowed at all. “Got tired of waiting for me?” She tightened her grip around Lyra’s body.

“Yeah, I decided to take the short way down!” said Lyra.

“You’ve got the Amulet?”

“Yep!”

“Perfect! Let’s get gone!”

Several pegasi guards had been called up, literally and metaphorically, to corner Lyra at the airship pad. They had been trained to catch runners (or fliers) quickly. They were unloaded. They were strong. They were sleek. They were driven.

They were also not Rainbow Dash. They never stood a chance. Never even sat one. Even with her handicaps, she was gone in an instant, the casino a distant memory.

Lyra looked down; even at this height, the ground blurred past. Trotter Gorge was quickly a speck in the distance. And all the time, Rainbow’s flapping didn’t waver, didn’t so much as twitch. It didn’t even feel like she was working that hard. If she hadn’t been loosely clinging to a single pony, Lyra figured, it might’ve been a whole lot of fun. Less so when slipping and splattering across the ground at high speeds was a very distinct possibility. But only a little less so.

She looked ahead for their target. And there it was, winding its way across the land, its path marked by a clear cloud of smoke: their train. Even Goumada couldn’t stop trains. It’d been a just-in-case measure: buy some tickets for a certain train at a certain time and they could bug out once the heist was over.

Rainbow swooped down, matched speeds with the train, and landed on the platforms between two cars. As soon as Lyra had her hooves on something resembling solid ground, she began rummaging in her bags. Her coat stood on end when she touched a certain distinctly-shaped hunk of metal. Yep. The Amulet was safe.

They entered one of the cars and Rainbow collapsed against the door, laughing. “Ha! That was great! Those chumps didn’t stand a chance!”

Lyra giggled. She hadn’t realized how tightly her nerves were wound until they were unwound. “I knew you were fast, but not that fast.”

“Hey, I can sonic rainboom. Do you know how-”

“Ahem.”

They both looked up. A unicorn conductor, disapprovingly tapping her hoof, was staring at them with a stern expression and a raised eyebrow.“You probably think you’re being clever,” she said in a tight voice, “but trainhopping pegasi have been a thing for as long as trains have, and-”

“That’s why we’ve got our tickets!” Rainbow said, whipping said tickets out. “It’s been…” She and Lyra looked at each other. “It’s been a pret-ty crazy day today and we were just late.”

The conductor’s ears twitched. She plucked the tickets from Rainbow and examined them. “Huh. That’s a new one.” Punch, punch, and she handed the tickets back. “Do I want to know how crazy?”

“Nope!”

“Ah. Well, have a good day, ma’ams.”

Bad news: with her cutie mark gone, Starlight’s aptitude for magic had dropped significantly. Good news: since cutie marks wanted to go to their original ponies, the cutie-mark-swapping spell that had required a unique mind to cast could be reversed by a sufficiently-competent unicorn. Bad news: the only other unicorn in their group at the moment was Sunburst.

Starlight was sweating as she held her side of the spell, something she’d never done before on something this simple. “And remember,” she said, “hold the stands-”

“I know!” gasped Sunburst. “The train keeps twitching and, and throwing off my focus!”

Not for the first time, Starlight wondered if she should just wait for Lyra to (hopefully) return.

Sunburst took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said a bit more levelly. “I, I think I’ve got it this time.”

“Do you?” asked Bon Bon sullenly.

“Yes.” Sunburst’s horn started glowing again, and this time, finally, Starlight’s and Bon Bon’s cutie marks peeled themselves from their irrespective ponies. A bit of magical floating around and they found their proper positions again. Starlight shivered as some inexplicable part of her felt right again.

“Finally,” said Bon Bon. She grunted and flexed her entire body. “You have a really weird mind, Starlight.”

“We already established that ages ago,” Starlight said.

Bon Bon rolled her eyes and turned to Sunburst. “Any news on Lyra and Rainbow?” Her voice was a little tighter than usual.

“Not, not yet,” said Sunburst. “But, um, that includes them getting captured, so… here’s hoping?” He grinned nervously.

“Yeah. Sure.”

The others in their group were almost as tense as Bon Bon, sitting around their car silently and trying to not look at each other, as if that would broadcast to the world what they were doing. Gus, also on the train with them, had an easier time than the others, but you could still pluck the atmosphere and call it a guitar. Well, except for Derpy, who was watching the scenery drift by without a care in the world. (Thorax seemed to be taking up her slack.)

Starlight nearly melted with relief when Rainbow Dash and Lyra walked into their car a few minutes later. Even better, Rainbow had one of the smuggest looks possible on her face, which, considering this was Rainbow Dash, was probably setting some kind of world record. “Hey, guys!” said Rainbow.

Everyone in the team turned at the sound of her voice. “Lyra!” Bon Bon charged forward and grabbed Lyra in a hug. “I was so worried, and- Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Bonnie. Better than fine.” Once she’d pulled herself from Bon Bon’s hug, Lyra smiled and levitated from her bag the Alicorn Amulet.

Everyone breathed out a sigh of relief. Even Gus, although Starlight suspected that was just because he was definitely getting his bits now. They’d done it. They’d gotten the Amulet. No one had gotten caught. They were away. They were free. They’d done it.

And Starlight was an idiot if she thought Goumada was going to let it rest there, but she wanted to have her moment.

“You weren’t followed, were you?” asked Bon Bon, killing the mood harder than an axe murderer.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “No, we weren’t, Mom. You really think they could catch up with me? Look, I’ll even check outside again just to show you!” She zipped out one of the windows.

Lyra passed the bag over to Starlight. Starlight examined the Amulet intently, one tiny part of her still utterly paranoid she’d been had somehow. But the Amulet looked good and felt bad, just as it should.

“May I see that?” asked the Doctor; he snatched the Amulet from Starlight’s magical grasp. After a few moments of turning it over, he huffed. “I can only hope the design is necessary for it to work in some way, because you couldn’t make this look more evil if you tried.” He passed the Amulet back to Starlight. “Short of some spikes. What is it with evil and spikes?”

Rainbow zipped back into the train. “No followers,” she said to Bon Bon smugly. “Told ya.”

“Good,” said Bon Bon. But when she went to the window, she looked out intently, as if she was searching the skies.

“So how’s everyone else doing?” asked Lyra.

“Tense, but fine,” said Starlight. “You getting back was a huge relief.”

“Nice. And the villa?”

“Clean as a whistle. We didn’t leave anything behind for Goumada to find.” That’d been one of their hastier actions in the whole heist: getting all their stuff back together so they could get to the train on time. If Goumada was going to try to chase them, they definitely weren’t going to make it easy for her.

Lyra glanced at Bon Bon, then lowered her voice. “That includes that couch, right?” she whispered.

“Absolutely,” whispered Starlight.

11 - Where They Get Those Wonderful Toys

The morning was evil.

Sunlight invaded and pillaged the room, brutally piercing through the blinds and Starlight’s eyelids, stabbing her in the retinas, going straight through to storm her brain. It roasted her mind, incinerating every thought she tried to make that wasn’t, “I want to go back to sleep.” She could feel it running down her neurons, gleefully shoving aside everything else in favor of more painful sunlight. It was too early in the morning to be early in the morning. It was too early in the morning to be too early in the morning to be early in the morning.

Starlight wondered just how many anti-Celestia factions had been started to get the sun to rise a bit later.

“Haaaaaaaappy moooooooorniiiiiiiing!”

And now there was a morning pony in the room, too. Great.

Starlight cracked open her eye a millimeter. Sunburst was standing over her, grinning wide enough to swallow a watermelon. “It’s time to get out of bed, you sleepyhead!” he sang brightly. Why was he singing? “You can sleep when you are dead!”

“Mmffll,” Starlight said sagely. She clamped her eye shut again.

“Come on, Starlight, get up! We’ve got lots to do today! Lots of magic! Lots of mystical wonder-working! That’s where ‘thaumaturgy’ comes from, you know. It’s literally Thessalian for ‘wonder-working’! Boo-yah! Etymology!” Sunburst moonwalked away from the bed, bobbing his head to some silent beat. “Aow, aow…”

Starlight attempted to bury her pillow in one ear and her sheets in the other. Morning ponies needed to be burned at the stake. Or hanged, drawn, and quartered. Or keelhauled while skimming a reef. Or tied to railroad tracks by the most mustachioed guard around. Or maybe just bucked in the stomach. Any one of those worked. Perhaps Luna hadn’t become Nightmare Moon because ponies shunned the night, but because morning ponies were just that annoying.

Sunburst pronked back up to the bed and shook it. “Are you excited? I’m excited! And eager. And nervous. And terrified. And gleeful. And a lot of things! I’m just so full of all of the emotions!” Trotting in place, he threw his head back and whinnied. “I feel like they’re about to explode out of me! I sure hope they don’t explode out of my butt.”

“Quiet down, Sunburst,” mumbled Starlight. “’M still tired.” She yawned. “And how’re you up already?”

“Not already! Still!”

“Uhnfh.” Starlight pushed herself up onto her forelegs and blinked blearily at her pillow. “Still? Y’were up all night?”

Sunburst nodded like a bobblehead in a blender. “Allllll night! Got a lot of work done! Totally awesome!”

“Sunburst, you really should get so-”

“Don’t worry! I ate looooooooots of coffee!”

“Ate?”

“If I drank it, I’d have to get up every five minutes to pee.”

“Is… issat-” Starlight cut herself off with a yawn. “Is that healthy?”

“Aaaaaaabsolutely! More antioxidants! Less calories! And since the grounds are absorbed through the mucus membranes in your mouth, you get the caffeine even faster!” Sunburst pumped a hoof in the air. “Heck yeah! Biology!”

If this was just Sunburst on coffee beans, Starlight either really wanted to know what he was like on something stronger, or didn’t want to know in the slightest, and she wasn’t sure which.

“I designed so much last night!” gushed Sunburst. “At least I think I did. I’ll have to check with you and Lyra today. New arcanoscope transmission methods! Telepathy communication medallions! Rope-retractors in case we ever go climbing! Bags of holding because why not! And of course: thermite tape!”

And suddenly Starlight was attempting to imitate a skyscraper, she was sitting up so straight. “…Why,” she asked slowly, “would we want thermite tape?” Even she knew about thermite. Namely, that it was bonkers hot and mishandling it meant she was in for a Very Bad Time.

Sunburst shrugged as if creating extremely-high-temperature incendiary devices that bordered on explosives was something he did every day. “No idea. But we have it! Or at least a design for it. And it’s awesome! If it works. And I hope it does, because otherwise, we might just burn the house down!” Sunburst leaned in and whispered in Starlight’s ear, “I think that might be bad.”

“Oooooookay then.” Any thoughts of sleep banished like Luna to the moon after the talk of thermite tape, Starlight reluctantly got out of bed. “What time is it?” she asked, dreading looking at the clock.

“Quarter to eight. I wanted us to have a lot of day in the day today, so today I decided to get you up early in the day today. Sort of early. Not really that early! But yeah, sorta early.” Sunburst was actually wagging his tail as he leaned in and smiled at Starlight. “Ready to work? I am. My mind won’t stop! And it was lonely during the night. I mean, holy crap, no wonder Luna went psycho bonkers crazy. I wonder what kind of capital-N Nightmare I’d be? Especially with this color. I think I’ll get our friends up. See you soon!” Either Sunburst had learned teleportation or the coffee was really getting to him, because as soon as he’d said that, he was gone.

By the time Starlight had managed to pull herself to the dining room, Bon Bon was already there, staring at a cup of coffee like she wanted to murder its family in front of it. “Morning, Starlight,” she said.

“Morning, Bon Bon,” Starlight replied. She grabbed the coffee pot and took a swig. Heavenly, life-giving caffeine flooded her veins from head to hoof. It even tasted alright, as far as coffee went.

“You didn’t tell us your best friend was a mad scientist.”

“He’s usually not,” said Starlight. “And knowing me, are you honestly surprised?”

“Not really, no.” Sip. “At least his plans look alright.”

“Did somepony say ‘plans’?” Sunburst practically materialized on the other side of the table. “Let me know when you’re ready, Starlight!” he said happily. “I’ve got a lot of work that needs to be done and not enough skill to do it myself! Just like CEOs! So why aren’t I rich?”

Bon Bon shot a Look at Starlight and took a long drink of her coffee.

Meet with the bad guy. Do as she says. Don’t compromise your allies. Don’t let the bad guy get suspicious. Gather as much intel as possible. Look awesome while doing it.

Rainbow Dash was living a spy story, and it was sweet.

The sounds of the casino annoyed her once again as she entered the building, but for once, Rainbow Dash didn’t care. She was high on the experience and her own capital-L Loyalty. She was holding her head aloft, looking over the place with an easy yet alert eye. If only somepony was watching her, swooning. If only she had a breeze to send her mane sweeping out like Celestia’s and Luna’s. If only-

…Where the deucenugget was Goumada’s office?

Rainbow went straight into panic mode. Had she been told where Goumada’s office was? She ran through the conversations again. Panic mode disengaged; no, she hadn’t been told. All the fault on this lay right at Goumada’s feet. She’d just said, Meet me at my office sometime tomorrow. Nothing like, My office is over here… Sadly, the villain being responsible for Rainbow’s current predicament did nothing to actually fix said predicament. She had (shudder) a meeting to attend and no idea where it was.

Time to ask a guard. Which guard? Eenie-meenie… That guard next to that door, that earth stallion with legs like tree trunks and a jawline that could cut steel. His key gem was glinting near his fetlock; up close, it looked like some kind of diamond. Rainbow sidled over to him and leaned against the wall. Her grin was the cocksurest it’d ever been, and that was saying something. “Hey,” she said.

The stallion glanced at Rainbow. He might’ve blinked; he was wearing sunglasses, so Rainbow couldn’t tell. But his only reaction was to look away. “It tastes alright,” he said blandly. “What about it?”

It was only through a monstrous amount of self-control and pure luck that Rainbow managed to not beat his head in over that pun. But her grin was no longer a record-breaking amount of cocksure as she said, “I need to meet Goumada. You know where her office is?”

“She’s busy.”

“I can wait.” Not for long, though.

“And I suppose you want me to just take it on your word that you need to meet with her,” droned the guard. “I presume you’re a last-minute addition to the anniversary’s entertainment?”

“Stunt flier, to be precise.” Rainbow laughed and flared her wings. “This babies can outfly sound itself. Let’s see the princesses do that.”

“Right.” The guard didn’t move.

Rainbow scrapped her grin, trading it in for a scowl. She trotted in front of the guard. “Seriously, dude, what’s your problem?” she asked, poking him in the chest. “I need to see your bossmare. You got a camera or something I can wave at to get her attention?”

“Sure,” monotoned the guard. “Right there.” He pointed at a small hole in the ceiling. “And there.” Another. “And there and there and there. We’re always watching you.”

“Well, good! This’ll just take a sec.”

One pencil theft and several napkin thefts later, Rainbow stood under the hole and held up a napkin. IT’S RAINBOW DASH was scribbled on the first one. THIS STUPID GUARD WON’T LET ME IN said the next. TELL GOUMADA I’M HERE. And finally, PLEASE. She waved at the hole to get the attention of whatever poor schmuck was stuck on the other side, then went through the cycle several more times. That had to work. Right?

“I hope you’re having fun,” said the guard. He still didn’t move.

“Not really.” Rainbow crumpled up the napkins and tossed them in a trash can. “Seriously, I’m not leaving until you let me in.” As long as “letting her in” happened in the next ten minutes. It wasn’t her fault Goumada wasn’t on top of things.

“Mmhmm.”

The seconds ticked by and the sounds of the casino got ever more on Rainbow’s nerves. The miniscule rolling of roulette wheels, the crank-clatter-ting of slot machines, the muffled rumbling of craps dice, the cheering and/or raging of ponies as they won and/or lost big (usually the latter)... Sweet Celestia. Screw the heist. Rainbow Dash was leaning towards committing arson. Of course, they could do both. Yes, both was good.

Suddenly, the guard yelped something uncouth and put a hoof to his earpiece. He kept opening his mouth, like he was going to say something, only to get cut off by whoever was on the other end. “Ma’am,” he protested, “I-”

He snapped his mouth shut. Then: “Ma’am, you didn’t-”

He grit his teeth and breathed slowly. “Ma’am. It’s not my fault if-”

His mouth became pinched. He took a long, long breath to compose himself. His voice was level but about as stable as a balanced egg. “I’ll send her in, ma’am,” he said, rolling his eyes. He waved his fetlock at a panel on the wall, pulled the door open, and waved Rainbow through as if this was a special form of torture.

Rainbow grinned. “Told ya,” she whispered, and trotted through the door. The hallways on the other side were a lot more visually boring than the casino, but the silence was pure, distilled heavenly bliss. The place was mostly empty, with only a few ponies and griffons going this way and that. Rainbow set off, heading for-

…Where the DEUCENUGGET was Goumada’s office? It could be anywhere in this maze.

Which… actually gave Rainbow Dash a good excuse for recon. “What’re you doing here?” “I’m looking for Goumada’s office, but I’m lost.” “This is the cafeteria.” “I’m REALLY lost.”

She vaguely remembered from the blueprints that this part of the casino was supposed to be laid out in a grid pattern. Boring, but at least it made a systematic search easy. Rainbow Dash turned left at the first chance she could and did her best to commit the layout to memory.

In his caffeine-powered mania, Sunburst had done one thing very right: he’d simplified the spells as much as possible so Starlight could foist some of the heavy lifting onto Lyra, or at least teach her how to do it. Starlight was strong, but she knew from experience that casting spells all day could leave her drained and probably hallucinating. And Lyra managed to be a quick (ish) learner.

At the moment, the two of them were working on linking a set of cheap anklets (the original design had called for necklaces, but these would be less conspicuous on the stallions, just in case). Sunburst had said they’d allow for sound-based telepathy between wearers (or something) so they could talk at a distance. And for some reason, the foundation of a love potion formed the basis of the spell. At least there wasn’t a risk of Starlight and Lyra falling for each other. Supposedly.

“Now,” Starlight said, “you feel the glow of the second anklet?”

“Yeah,” Lyra replied, keeping her eyes closed as the two anklets hung in the air before her.

“Use the spell I showed you to mold the two together. And don’t rush it! You’ll break the matrix and we’ll have to start from scratch.”

Rushing was exactly what Lyra didn’t do. She took it slow — maybe a bit too slow, but it was working — and twisted the spells in the anklets together smoothly. When Starlight swore she heard a ringing from the resonance, Lyra gasped and her eyes flew open. She took a deep breath, grinning like a loon. “I think I got it,” she whispered. “It… It felt right.”

“More advanced magic often does, if you do it the right way.” Starlight poked at the spell connecting the two anklets. It seemed strong enough. “If you force the spell, it’s like putting a square peg in a round hole. You be able to do it technically, but anypony who looks at it will know that that’s not how it’s supposed to be. Let’s test them out.” She put one of the anklets on and it was like an incredibly thin veil went over her ears. She was hearing things differently, but didn’t know how they were different.

Still smiling a little, Lyra put on the other anklet. “So now what?”

Starlight twitched in surprise. She’d heard Lyra’s voice, but Lyra’s voice had also just appeared in her head without bothering with the ears, and the double hearing was distracting. She held up a hoof. “Wait, don’t say anything.”

Based on the way Lyra’s eyes and then grin widened, it was working for her, too. She quickly pulled the anklet off. “I’m going to the other room, okay?” she said quickly, and was off before Starlight could reply. A few seconds later, Lyra’s voice drifted through Starlight’s mind (and thankfully not her ears). “Okay. Can you still hear me?”

“Yeah,” said Starlight. Her tail began buzzing with excitement. “Can you hear me?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Starlight’s ears went down. “Well, come back here, we’ll-” She blinked. “-have to…” She groaned and planted her face in her hoof. “Did I really just say that?” she mumbled.

Lyra’s laugh was loud enough to hear from the room over. “Oh, wow, you COMPLETELY fell for that. Just… heh. Hang on.”

After a few seconds of shame, Starlight was grinning again. Sure, there were other commercially-available objects enchanted for long-range communication, but she’d made this set, and its operation was smooth as silk. It was barely even noticeable, since plenty of ponies wore anklets, and these weren’t especially attention-grabbing. Sunburst was what was termed a Smart Pony.

Lyra’s voice cut through Starlight’s thoughts (almost literally). “Okay. Did you hear that?”

“No. Hear what?” Starlight said. “And that’s not getting back at you, I really didn’t hear anything.”

“Hmm. I thought, maybe if I thought at you really hard, it’d pick up my thoughts and, I dunno, send them to you. Guess not.”

“Why don’t we ask Sunburst about it? I’ll meet you in the living room.”

The living room was where Sunburst and the Doctor were hard at work, cobbling together their modified arcanoscope from the materials a morning hardware store run had picked up. After Starlight had spent the better part of an hour enchanting the right parts (and Lyra spent the worse part of an hour doing the same), the two stallions had thrown themselves into the act of constructing a proper magic sensor.

Starlight hoped that the Doctor pressing a mess of wires against a wall and giggling while Sunburst hid on the other side of the wall had something to do with their objective. You could never tell with scientist-types.

“Alright,” said Sunburst, “move it ten inches to the right. Your right, remember.”

“I only made that mistake once in the last minute!” protested the Doctor. He moved the thingy ten inches to the right. About halfway across, the thingy suddenly went ding. “We’ve got one reading at six inches.”

“Perfect! Which is exactly what we wanted!”

“Ha ha! Victory!” crowed the Doctor. He held the machine aloft like he’d discovered fire. “We’ve done it. We’ve finally done it.”

Starlight and Lyra exchanged glances. The former cleared her throat. “So, Doc, why do you look like you’re having a religious experience?”

“Because…” The Doctor held the machine up to the wall. It went ding. “Ding.”

“What’s that?” asked Lyra.

“It’s a machine that goes ding.” The Machine That Went Ding went ding. “It’s an enhanced version of the arcanoscope. Can go through walls, goes ding when it senses the right magic at up to, oh, forty paces, right, Sunburst?”

“That’s what the math says, at least,” Sunburst said from the other side of the wall. He sounded like he’d come down from his caffeine high, but only slightly. “And the math doesn’t lie. It can’t, no matter how much you might want it to! Although I might be misinterpreting it. But I’ve double-checked and I don’t think so. And, remember, this is just a prototype, so it’ll totally be way better once we’ve worked more on it.”

“Also, we think it might double as a hair-straightener. Whether you want it to or not, actually. Check out Sunburst’s beard once he gets back here. It ought to be a bit wavier.”

Slowly but surely, Lyra began grinning. She opened her mouth, but Starlight cut her off. “No, we are not hiding that underneath Rarity’s pillow.” To the Doctor, “So what are you testing it on?”

Sunburst poked his head around a doorway. His beard was definitely straighter than it ought to have been. “Just charged gems. They’re easy to get. C’mere.”

On the opposite side of the wall as the Doctor was a large array of subtly glowing gems taped to the wall. “Just some concentrated magic for the arcanoscope to detect. Any sort of magic at this point. It’s still a little temperamental. Or was. The Doc had an epiphany and it sounds like it’s working. How’re the anklets coming along?”

“They’re working out great. We just finished up a pair, actually. But Lyra and I were wondering? Do they pick up thoughts, or just sound? Lyra and I were trying-”

Sunburst shook his head. “No, unfortunately. I tried to make it like that, but it turns out, enabling telepathy is a lot harder than it looks. So I just stuck your own voice into your head. I hope that’s fine.”

“It is. Just wondering.”

On the other side of the wall, Lyra yelled, “You want me to do what? With what?!”

“You know,” Sunburst said with a sigh, “working with the Doctor’s great and all, but since he can’t use unicorn magic, it’s sometimes hard for him to realize just what most unicorns can and can’t do.”

“What’s he asking Lyra to do?”

“Probably long-range thaumatic resonance transference coupling.”

Starlight scoffed. “Well, that’s not that hard.”

Sunburst pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “Easy for you to say. C’mon. Let’s go help. And by ‘us’, I mean ‘you’.”

Not for the first time, Thorax-Earth-Beige wondered: if he could feed on his own emotions, would that qualify as autocannibalism?

Changeling biology was exceptionally weird.

Thorax-Earth-Beige was wondering that because, as he sauntered to the Artifact Vault again, he was just about in love with himself. Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope had enchanted the bits just like he’d suggested, the changeover to poker tokens had gone swimmingly — no, flyingly — and the tracker gem with the lights pointing at the coins was reading loud and clear. And now he was going to win another few thousand bits for their little adventure. He was helping and it was easy. His self-confidence was so high he could literally taste it. (It was a mix of apples, happiness, and chocolate.)

He struggled to keep his swagger down. Get the other players to underestimate him. Or maybe, if he kept his swagger up, they’d think he was overestimating himself, and then underestimate him. Actually, that sounded good. He didn’t want to look confident; he wanted to look cocky. Cocky and stupid and easy prey.

And so, his chips clinking distractingly in his bag, Thorax-Earth-Beige walked to a table with so much swing in his hips you’d think he was a reincarnation of Elkvis. The other four players were stone-faced and the dealer-unicorn-violet looked at him with a little concern. Thorax-Earth-Beige grinned as cluelessly as he could as he put his chips on the table. “Well, hey!” he said. “Why the long faces, everypony? Can’t we have some fun?”

The emotions of the players were largely the same: derision and amused disbelief. Thorax-Earth-Beige prayed it was because such an easy target had just walked up to them; one of the (minor, admittedly) problems with tasting emotions was that it was hard to tell what the thoughts behind those emotions were. But when two of the players exchanged sharklike smirks, Thorax-Earth-Beige was pretty sure he was on the right track. Oh, if only they knew- Wait, no. That’d be terrible, terrible, terrible. Right to his left, a mare-earth-orange who had seemingly replaced her muscles with boulders stared at him blankly even as suspicion bubbled over in her. But Thorax-Earth-Beige held his naïve smile as the next round’s cards were dealt and that suspicion slipped away.

If anything, the emotions of the better players were more potent than those of amateurs because these players refused to let them out. Then those emotions turned back in on themselves and if you were even remotely metaphysically sensitive to them, you could feel them a mile away. And now that he was paying close attention to the players’ emotions, Thorax-Earth-Beige had started picking up subtle differences between feelings and what they meant (anxious happiness tasted almost the same as happy anxiety, but they were two very different beasts in practice). He could almost play this game blindfolded.

After he’d bluffed his way through half a dozen rounds and neatly come out on top, the table’s attitude towards Thorax-Earth-Beige had shifted like whoa. Everypony spent almost as much time looking at him as they did their own cards. One player-pegasus-gray was so shocked that it’d rolled over into despair. Another was thrilled, probably because she finally had a good player to test her skills with (she’d been one of the better players). And the mare-earth-orange’s suspicion had returned with friends. And just a hint of anger.

Uh-oh.

It was hard to separate her churning emotions from her emotionless expression; that poker face suddenly more closely resembled the blank, stupid look of a sociopath on the verge of caving in your skull to use your scalp as a stylish hat. Thorax-Earth-Beige tried to keep up his smile, but there was no way he could look into those eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. He started averting his face from her. And he knew she noticed.

Thorax-Earth-Beige deliberately botched his next hoof and wound up playing two pair against four of a kind (thankfully not losing too many chips in the process). Most of the players seemed to be relieved that the newcomer wasn’t completely infallible. Except for the mare-earth-orange. She was even more dubious than before.

The cards were dealt again. The mare-earth-orange was focused so completely on Thorax-Earth-Beige that her emotions didn’t change at all when she looked at her cards; she just didn’t care. Thorax-Earth-Beige’s own cards were decent, a ten of diamonds and a nine of hearts. Then the flop came: a king of spades, a queen of spades, and a jack of spades. That was a straight, right there. Good.

Or at least, it would’ve been, if the player-unicorn-sanguine across from him hadn’t had a burst of joy so potent it could’ve only come from a royal flush. Daggit. The second his turn came up, Thorax-Earth-Beige said, “I fold.”

Just as promptly, the mare-earth-orange said, “Also fold.”

Huh. Interesting. And her emotions had turned to those of… anticipation? At each player’s turn, she stared at them like she’d been hired to kill them. Her tail was twitching.

Just as Thorax-Earth-Beige had expected, the player-unicorn-sanguine did indeed have a royal flush, to the other players’ disappointment. And to the mare-earth-orange’s rage. Butter his biscuits, what was up with her?

The cards were dealt. The mare-earth-orange didn’t even look at hers. She just stared at the center of the table, brooding so much she was practically a stormcloud generator. Everypony else was ambivalent about their hooves, although nopony folded. Thorax-Earth-Beige had a two of spades and a seven of hearts, which was a pretty dismal hoof. If anypony else had been remotely satisfied, he would’ve folded.

Then came the flop, and wow did it get reactions. Everypony despaired almost immediately. At least, everypony except the obvious. She was still angry about something. The first two players folded. Thorax-Earth-Beige glanced at the orange-earth-mare, probing her feelings. But she was just a big, seething ball of angry. There was nothing there that could remotely tell him what she was feeling about- Wait, no. Just beneath all that pissed-offness was a hint of resignation. She’d almost definitely gotten a bad hoof, too. After a tiny bit of hesitation, Thorax-Earth-Beige said, “Raise.”

“Effh,” said the mare-earth-orange. “Fold.” She flicked her cards to the center of the table. The last player also folded. As Thorax-Earth-Beige collected his chips and the dealer-unicorn-violet gathered the cards up again, the mare-earth-orange looked straight at Thorax-Earth-Beige. “You’re awfully… good,” she said, pronouncing the last word like it was some kind of curse.

Thorax-Earth-Beige did his best to smile. “Yep!” But the word didn’t come out as peppy as he’d wanted it to. He immediately became incredibly interested in examining the cards he’d been dealt.

“You’ve also been getting some good hooves.” The mare-earth-orange glanced at her own cards. Thorax-Earth-Beige nearly felt her blood begin boiling. “While mine have been… lacking.” The other players exchanged looks with one another and quietly moved their chairs a few inches away from the table.

Seizing on a term he’d heard Shining-Unicorn-White use once, Thorax-Earth-Beige said, “Well, what did you do to annoy the Random Number God?” Whatever that was. “Forget to blow on your dice? Call.”

“It just seems a bit… convenient, is all.”

Thorax-Earth-Beige could do without certain pony instincts, such as gulping when nervous. Being unable to breathe only made things worse. “Well- that’s- just how the cards fall!” His voice was high-pitched. He glanced at the other players, but any emotions about their own cards were drowned out by anxiety over the mare-earth-orange.

“Maybe.” The mare-earth-orange’s voice was the rumble of an approaching avalanche. “Maybe not. You seem to know an awful lot about everypony else’s cards. Especially two hooves ago, at that royal flush.”

“Ma’am?” asked the dealer-unicorn-violet. “Are you calling or folding?”

“Oh, come on!” blurted Thorax-Earth-Beige. “It’s not my fault your hooves have sucked. What, do you think I’m cheating?”

And just like that, Thorax-Earth-Beige could taste the mare-earth-orange’s composure snap.

“…You know what?” The mare-earth-orange stood up, pushing her chair away so roughly it nearly fell over. She leaned over the table, looked Thorax-Earth-Beige in the eye, and growled, “Yeah. I think you are.” She twisted her neck; it cracked audibly. Barely restrained wrath flowed from her like a waterfall. When she spoke, each word fell with the force of a ten-ton weight. “And I. Do not. Like cheaters.”

30 - I Think This Worked Out Alright

The train pulled into Ponyville with no problems. No guards chased them down. No cops ordered the train to stop. No homicidal mob bosses teleported onto the train and blew it to bits. (Did Goumada even know how to teleport? Probably not.) It was almost anticlimactic when Starlight’s hoof touched the platform. They were home, they were safe, and the Alicorn Amulet was about to go very far away.

With nothing better to do, Starlight invited everyone to the Castle of Friendship to unwind. (“So how much money could I make if I broke this off and sold it?” Gus asked as he pawed at a crystalline handle. “Like fifteen bits, max,” said Bon Bon, “have you seen Equestria’s gem prices?”) Everyone collapsed onto various couches in one of the lounges, and Starlight just stared up at the ceiling.

For all she’d done, she still had a huge feeling of, “Now what?” They had the Amulet. So what? They were safe in Ponyville. So what? They were right back where they were when Twilight had left for the zebras. She’d expected to feel more… triumphant or accomplished or something. Not just, “Eh. Whatever.” Was this how Twilight and her friends felt after every world-saving?

Rainbow perched on the couch’s leg rest and cocked her head. “You look pretty down, Starlight,” she said, grinning. “C’mon, what we did was awesome! How can you look like that at a time like this?”

Apparently not.

“I dunno,” said Starlight. “Just… tired, I guess.”

“Well, if that’s the way you want it.” Rainbow laughed. “Listen, I gotta get back to training and really put these babies-” She wiggled her wings. “-through their paces again. They’ve had it easy for too long. See ya!”

“Alright,” said Starlight, “goodb-” But Rainbow was already gone.

Starlight was about to return to her hazy version of relaxing when Gilda walked up. “So… uh…” she said, “remember how I joined up with you ponies ’cause of money? Well…”

“Want some help counting?” asked Starlight. She also needed to count out the money for Gus, too. Twenty thousand, right?

“Please,” groaned Gilda. “At this point, I don’t even wanna take more than my fair share because that’d mean even more counting.”

Starlight dragged their bags over to a far corner of the room, where Bon Bon was squinting at the dark relics they’d retrieved. “This one is trying to sound sexy,” she said absently. She pointed at a bloodstained locket with some nasty-looking runes inscribed on its surface. “It’s talking to me with all the breathy, sultry tones of some wannabe vixen and doesn’t get that talking about disembowelment in that kind of voice is one of the least sexy things out there.” She glanced at Gilda, at the bags, and said, “Money counting?”

Starlight nodded. “Money counting.”

“I’ll help. I need something to do.”

They pulled up a table and dumped the bits onto it. Gilda took up one end, Starlight and Bon Bon another, and between the three of them, started the tedious process of counting out thousands of bits. It was a shame Griffonstone didn’t take checks.

After several long moments of nothing but clink clink clink as the coins bounced off the table and each other, Starlight decided to stave off madness by turning to Bon Bon.“So what do you think about Goumada? Think she’ll come here or something?”

Clink clink clink. “Honestly?” One of Bon Bon’s ears twitched. “She’s not done-done, but she’s definitely not going to be the big-shot smuggler she was. I mean, not after a group of thieves break into her vault and steal literally everything and escape her grasp. I don’t think she’ll even send ponies here to try and get the Amulet back; she’ll be all tied up fixing her casino.” She grinned. “Insurance on that thing is gonna be a nightmare.”

Clink clink clink. “So we’re safe.”

Clink clink clink. “For a few months, at least. And Twilight’s supposed to be back before then, right? So I think so. Unless she goes and gets herself tangled up in some plot to kill her.”

Clink clink clink. “Knowing Twilight? She’d unravel it in a few days.”

Clink clink clink. “Heh. True.”

After what felt like hours of clink clink clinking, the amounts for Griffonstone as a whole and Gus specifically were sorted out. The respective bits were shoveled into bags of holding for easier transport. Starlight and Sunburst had spent some time on the train shoring up the enchantments on said bags; each of them would last a lot longer, now.

When Starlight found him, Gus was examining one of the pillars like he was debating trying to rip it from the foundation and take it home with him to sell. He looked up when she tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey,” she said, and held out the bag. “Your money, as promised. Thanks for helping us.”

“This is it?” grunted Gus. He held the bag at a distance, between the tips of two talons, like it was diseased. “There’s no way there’s twenty thousand bits in here.”

“Reach inside,” said Starlight. “Do it.”

Gus rolled his eyes and put his talons into the bag. Then his elbow. Then all the way up to his shoulder. He blinked and pulled his arm back out. He wiggled his talons, then plunged them back in. “Can I keep the bag?” he asked. “This is way better than twenty thousand bits.”

“Sure. Keep the money, too.”

“Sweetness.” Gus swung the bag over his shoulder like he was ready for a big journey, but it was less than dramatic when the bag was barely the size of his fist. “Hey. Gilda. Wanna head back to Griffonstone with me?”

“If it’s now, yes,” Gilda said emphatically. “I feel like I’m gonna break something in this stupid shiny place. So, um, Glimmy.” She shuffled her wings, her feet, then tentatively held out a claw. “Thanks for an… interesting couple of weeks. And. Um. Thanks for help with the whole ‘money’ thing.”

“Sure.” Starlight extended a hoof and they shook. “Um. Anytime.”

“If this happens again, Griffonstone’s really going down the crapper. But okay.” Gilda flashed an awkward smile that looked like she didn’t want to admit to smiling. It quickly vanished. “C’mon, Gus,” she said as she exited the room.

Gus grinned and waved. “Later, raiders.” And he was gone, too.

“I should get going, too,” said Bon Bon. “The shop needs to be reopened.”

She made to leave, but Starlight pulled her to a stop. “Hang on. Bon Bon, I know you didn’t want to do this, so thanks for sticking through to the end. And keeping your cynicism down.”

Bon Bon lightly pulled out of Starlight’s grip. “It needed to be done,” she said gruffly. Her voice softened as she added, “But I guess it could’ve gone worse. And… being… on an adventure was kinda fun.” She blinked and shook her head. “But don’t even think about needing it again, okay? I don’t want that sort of stress again.”

Starlight grinned. “I’ll do my best, so: terribly. See you.” Bon Bon gave her a nod and left.

Before she could retire to a sofa, Thorax slowly came up to her, one step at a time. “Um. Starlight?” He took a deep breath. “I, I just wanted to say, um…” He rubbed one leg against the other. “Thank you for- letting me help. I-”

“Letting you help?” said Starlight. “Thorax, without you, we never would’ve made it! You got us money, you got us into the security room, you-”

“But you still trusted me enough to do those things in the first place!” said Thorax. “And- it’s kinda weird to… be wanted. Bad hive memories,” he added quickly and quietly, “don’t worry about it.”

“Of course I trusted you,” scoffed Starlight. “Sunburst trusted you, and I trust him, and I think trust is kinda transitive.”

“I know.” Thorax smiled. He had fangs and still looked utterly unthreatening. “Thanks anyway.”

After a second’s thought, Starlight grabbed Thorax in a hug. He could probably use it. And if he didn’t? Well, she was feeling huggy at the moment. “And thanks for being willing to go into the casino so many times,” she said. “I know that wasn’t easy for you.”

“It’s easier in hindsight,” trilled Thorax, his wings buzzing. “You’re welcome.”

Sunburst poked his head over Thorax’s shoulder. “And, um, Starlight?” he said, pushing his glasses up. “I’m, I’m glad we could help. Sometime, I, I’d like to just- get together and brainstorm spells with you. It was, it was fun. Kinda. Sorta. Ish. When we weren’t about to be captured.” He frowned. “Which was a lot more often for you than it was for me, so… Hmm.”

“Being with you was fun, don’t worry,” said Starlight. She nudged Thorax, and he reluctantly relinquished his hold on her. “I just wish it could’ve been under better circumstances. Talking about magic sounds fun. Maybe-”

“I’ll join!” piped in the Doctor. “I’ve always been a stallion of science, but my eyes have been opened to the possibilities of combining it with magic! Ah, the things we can build… If we three just-”

Derpy swatted the Doctor. “No! Bad doctor. No randomly inserting yourself into other ponies’ lives again!”

“But they’re just talking about magic!” protested the Doctor. “I don’t see why- Oh! Ooooooooh.” He turned beet red. “I’ll- just be going then, shall I?” He sidled backwards for the door. “I thank you and your companions for a most interesting couple of weeks!” he said to Starlight without looking at her.

“What he said, but less cluelessly,” said Derpy. She smiled and waved at Starlight as she left.

“We’d, uh, we’d better get going, too,” Sunburst said to Thorax. “I think the next train for the Crystal Empire leaves in, in twenty minutes.”

Thorax nodded and poofed back into Crystal Hoof. “See you, Starlight. Thanks for… everything.”

Once they were gone, the only pony left was Lyra, lying facedown on the heavenly couch like she wanted to be absorbed by it. Starlight lightly poked at her. “You gonna be there a while?”

“Probably.” Lyra rolled onto her back and wiggled her way deeper into its cushions. After a second, she reluctantly added, “Unless you want me to leave-”

“No, that’s fine, I just needed to know if you were going to hang around. I’ve got something to do, anyway.”

“Really? We’ve already got the stuff. What’re you gonna do?”

“Something I should’ve done in the first place. I’m going to write a letter.”

Princess Luna remained impassive as Starlight explained everything to her. Goumada showing up on her doorstep, the loss of the Alicorn Amulet, the heist, the recovery of the other dark artifacts in the process, everything. Her wings didn’t so much as twitch, although Starlight got the strangest feeling Luna was holding back a smile the whole time.

“…and once we got back to Ponyville,” continued Starlight, “I figured that, since all that dark magic stuff needed to go somewhere safe, I might as well bring it all to you.” She lifted up the bag filled with artifacts; concentrated dark essence was causing something unspeakable and noisome to drip from the seams and burn holes in the floor. “Sorry about the slime.”

For a moment, Luna merely looked pensive. She flexed her wings and sighed. “What. An. Idiot.”

“Sorry,” said Starlight reflexively.

“Not you,” said Luna. Pause. “Well, yes you. But mostly Twilight. She ought to have turned the Amulet over to us the second Trixie abandoned it. An amusing fact about dark artifacts such as this: they always manage to find their way into the hooves of those who would abuse them. Merely burying the past ensures that it will eventually be dug up again, and what is lost shall always be found. Rest assured, my sister and I shall keep these items properly secured. But, ah, try to keep the slime off the throw rug, would you please? It’s new, and the company would be quite upset if I had to exchange another rug under their return policy.”

“Right.” Starlight put the bag back on the floor, careful to avoid the rug. Considering the quality of the stone floor she was putting it on, it wasn’t much of an improvement. “And I… guess we probably should’ve come to you first?” She grinned nervously and her ears twitched. “I just didn’t want to embarass myself any more than I already had, which-”

But Luna shook her head. “I doubt the Crown could have offered much in the way of assistance. Goumada possesses an army of lawyers ready to head off any attempts at investigating her properly, we have very little usable evidence against her, and the Guard always draws attention to itself some way or another. But a hodgepodge assemblage from a rural town such as yourself, particularly one with no experience in elaborate burglary? It is not for no reason she never saw you coming. She may have designed her system to be foolproof, but one must never underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”

Starlight opened her mouth to protest, but that statement was distressingly accurate, so she closed it again.

“Furthermore, going for broke and stealing everything in that vault will undoubtedly hurt her reputation as one who can secure artifacts — and in that sort of business, ponies live and die on their reputation.” Luna’s face was impassive as she added, “Sometimes literally. With her main source of income in tatters and the repairs to her casino draining her coffers like a sieve, I find it unlikely that she will ever be able to regain her former sway. And a major smuggling link between Equestria and Griffonstone severed, to boot. All because of one highly illegal act the Crown could never do.”

“So, uh… thievery, ho?” Starlight tentatively pumped a hoof in the air.

Luna smiled. “Thievery, ho, indeed. Still, in case she seeks some form of vengeance, no matter how small, I shall arrange to have a small guard detachment deployed to Ponyville, for…” She waved a hoof vaguely. “…something, something, Everfree Forest, danger, protection. If she returns for you, they shall stop her.”

“Thank you.”

“And ultimately, with the only harm done being to an artifact smuggler, I am willing to keep this under wraps if you are.” Luna smiled and winked. “After courting the zebras — you know I mean diplomatically, do not give me that look! — I think Twilight could use a bit less stress in her life.”

In her attempt to quickly bow, Starlight accidentally smashed her head into the table. She didn’t care. “ThankyouYourHighness!” she gasped, half from relief, half from pain. “I didn’t know what I was going to say to Twilight when-”

She cut herself off as Luna raised a hoof. “I understand,” said Luna, “when it is best to keep secrets. You most certainly could tell Twilight about it-” (Starlight blanched.) “-and demonstrate that you have grown into a team player-” (Starlight’s blanch grew a bit less so.) “-but I shall leave that to your discretion.”

“Absolutely,” said Starlight. She was absolutely never going to speak of this again, ever.

When she finally got back to the Castle of Friendship, Starlight was alone. The ponies and nonponies she’d spent two weeks living in such close proximity with were gone and the Castle was larger than the villa. Every step she made echoed through the crystalline hallways several times over and every room felt empty. She kept thinking she was about to run into somepony, ready to talk about something or other. Some sneaky spell or newfangled, half-conceived homemade gadget they could use. It’d been nice, having someone to talk to around all the time. Kind of weird to think that she’d be missing the days when she was neck-deep in a heist. Still, friendship and all.

Speaking of friendship, she had a lot of friendship lessons to write essays on. The heist of the season hadn’t changed that. After some searching, she’d collected all the papers she’d written and Twilight had assigned. The first one she picked up was awfully familiar. “Socioeconomic paradoxes of friendship,” she muttered to herself. Snort. “Easy.”

Except she caught herself writing down, In sufficient density, friendship can deprive the friendless of large quantities of material wealth. I know this personally, for- Then she sighed and crossed it out. It was going to be a long time before Twilight came back.