“Please, please don’t hurt me,” the bank teller squeaked.

“Shh… quiet!” the masked earth pony lifted a hoof to his lips and hissed out. He pointed the grubby, rusted, silver revolver toward the ground. “Nopony is going to hurt you. Calm down!”

The robber looked across the somewhat empty Ponyville Bank lobby and nodded at his compatriot, standing near the door. He’d been preventing any other ponies from entering behind them, standard procedure for a bank robbery like this. Strangely, however, he was also allowing the startled customers to exit as well, even holding the door open for them to vacate the premises as quickly as they could. He didn’t even blink as one of the ponies exiting strode past him with a bulging brown bag of bits in his mouth, easy pickings in such a robbery.

“I-I’ll do whatever you want. I can’t access the vault, but the cash drawers have—”

“I said quiet!” the robber hissed again, though without much venom. If anything, it almost sounded like he was sorry. “You don’t need to worry, I don’t want any bits, or anything from the vault.”

The teller gulped, then looked down at herself. She shivered, imagining just what ‘else’ the robbers might want from her. “Th-then… m-me?”

“No! No,” the robber chuckled, shaking his head. “No, ma’am. I mean, you’re very beautiful and all, don’t get me wrong but… anyway…” The stallion pawed awkwardly at the ground, if he wasn’t wearing a mask the teller might have seen him blushing. “I… uh… I just need you to press the alarm button.”

“Do what now?” the teller tilted her head, arching an eyebrow with confusion.

“The alarm button. Silent or loud, I don’t really care.” He paused, tapping his chin as if considering. “Actually, silent alarm, if you please. I imagine the regular alarm is fairly ‘clang-y’ and loud. Press it, please!”

“But… you know what that will do, right?”

“JUST DO IT!” he barked, huffing.

“OK! I… I actually did do it already.” The teller shrugged sheepishly. “Back when you were pulling your masks on in line, I probably should tell you we already have you on camera, pre-mask, too.” She gestured at a couple of cameras on the ceiling. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. These are prop guns anyway, see?” The stallion pulled his mask up over his face as he leaned in to show the filly the revolver, clearly made out of plastic and painted to look metallic. “Here, you can hold this for me.”

“I don’t unders—”

*KER-POP*

The air pressure in the bank surged for a moment, shaking the windows and sending paper scattering up in a small whorl of madness. Everypony winced as their eardrums popped, like they had just gone up the Canterlonian mountainside in an Express Train.

Standing before them in full superheroine status, shimmering with magical power, was Mystic Magician: the mare formerly known to the public as Princess Twilight Sparkle.

“Everypony freeze!” Twilight shouted, her voice enhanced with enough magical energy to make the assorted quills and paper pages explode into a swirl of little debris-tornados that clattered about as they made a mess of the bank lobby. “As stated by Equestrian law five-point-oh-point-one of the Superheroine Act, I am required to advise you of your ri—”

“Princess Twilight!”

“Twilight!”

The two robbers gleefully threw their masks to the floor and giddily trotted in place as if they had just won a lottery prize.

“It’s really you!”

“We’re your biggest fans!”

Twilight faltered for half a moment, as if unsure about what she was witnessing. “... Your rights. If you do not surrender immediately you risk grave bodily harm and even d—... Look, are you guys for real?” Twilight groaned, stopping mid-recitation as the two robbers walked up to her, smiling, with their hooves held out and ready to be cuffed.

“We tried to reach you by fan-mail. Apple Core here even waited outside one of your events for two hours in the snow.” The stallion who had accosted the teller stepped forward and reached his hoof out. “I’m Steel, Steel Trap. Nice to meet you.”

Twilight took the stallion’s hoof automatically, still confused as to why she was shaking hooves with the criminal she was supposed to be apprehending.

“Wh-what are you two doing?” Twilight finally found her words. “This is a serious criminal offence! You’re going to go to jail for years. Maybe even be statued!”

“We know!” Steel nodded excitedly, “We tried to choose the most minor offence that would classify us as more than just minor villains.”

“W-why!?”

“We’ve read your biography! We’ve seen that every villain you go up against eventually becomes your friend, and then goes on to great success!” Steel looked over at his buddy, who also nodded his head with enthusiasm. “We figure we put up a little fight, you sing us a friendship song, and then we can come work for you. Even if we have to do some jail time, it’s better than what we’re dealing with now.”

Twilight glanced around the bank, carefully checking to make sure this wasn’t some kind of elaborate trap, the shiny bodysuit wrapping her body glimmered as it reflected the humming fluorescent lights. The curves of Twilight’s buttocks and teats, gripped by the tight elastic of the purple-blue lycra, were particularly eye-catching.

“Dealing with now?” Twilight asked, apparently satisfied this wasn’t some kind of trick.

Steel sighed. “You don’t have any idea how hard it is for stallions out there, Princess. Nopony wants to hire a male, not since it came out that none of us have the ‘F-gene’.” He shook his head sadly. “It’s like we’re back to fifty years ago, where stallions were meant to stay quiet and keep the bed warm, or be studded out to another mare.” Once again he gestured over to his friend. “Apple Core here was about to be gelded by his wife so she could use him without fear of pregnancy — and he can’t even do anything about it!”

Twilight grimaced, shaking her head sadly. “I… I know. I know it’s bad. I’m so sorry about that. But you can’t do this—it won’t solve anything.”

“But we planned everything! We know every villain you captured eventually ended up your friend, or getting a job, or a new lease on life. Nightmare Moon, Discord, Trixie, Starlight, Flim and Flam...”

“Flam is not my friend.” Twilight snarled, the temperature in the bank actually rising a couple of degrees from the surge of angry thaumic energy from the alicorn.

“B-but… you work for Flamco. You’re like, their star superheroine. You were one of the first to take compound F.”

“Flam is notmy friend,” Twilight stated again. “And I don’t always make villains my friends… Just ask Chrysalis, Cozy, and Tirek. Except you can’t. Because they’re made of rock.”

“Better to be a statue than have my balls cut off,” Apple Core growled, piping up for the first time.

Twilight glanced over at the stallion, sighing and shaking her head again. “Guys, I know it’s hard. But do you know just how dangerous this was? I could’ve come in here and vaporized you both before you even said a word.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You’d never!”

Both stallions piped up at the same time, smiling with admiration at their idol.

“Maybe.” Twilight didn’t seem so sure of herself, “But if somepony else had…”

“We planned for that!” Steel piped up. “Rob a bank in Ponyville, too far away from the Crystal Empire… right in the middle of your jurisdiction. It’s the middle of the day so Starlight Lightstar and Trixter the Great and Powerful are both teaching classes... and Rainbow Blitzer is on hiatus for accidentally splattering that Cloudsdale kindergartner with her super-rainboom… so—”

“Stop,” Twilight barked. “You don’t understand. She could have shown up.”

“Who, Sun-lander?” Steel shrugged. “She’s in Neighpon, other side of Equus. Way out of teleport range.”

“Shh!” Twilight hissed, “Don’t even mention her name. She listens.” Twilight glanced around warily. “For the record, she can teleport anywhere in this solar system, and she could do that even before compound F. Imagine what she could do now.” Twilight nervously continued to inspect the ceiling, her eyes starting wider once they noticed the cameras. With a quick flash of her horn, she vaporised them.

“She could still show up at any moment. She would just cut you in half with her plasma vision. You don’t understand just how risky it was to do this.”

“Again, worth it.” Apple Core gestured down at his dangling bits. Twilight’s glance flickered over the stallion’s package and then away with a blush. “I’m about to be cut in half anyway.”

“Guys… I’m sorry.” Twilight shook her head.

“It’s not your fault, Princess.” Steel piped up, “We know you didn’t want this. We know that you wanted everyone to enjoy the magic of friendship, not this… superheroine police-state.”

Twilight stared hard at Steel. “No… I’m sorry for what I have to do to you two. You don’t understand — I’m not the Princess of Friendship anymore, I can’t be. She won’t let me. Now I’m the Mystic Magician.” Her horn began to charge up, “... and pursuant to the Superheroine Act, I’m required to pronounce summary spot-justice, auto-waiving your right to a jury trial: I hereby pronounce you both guilty. I have no choice but to send you to the Flamco’s Eastern Seaboard Private Penitentiary facility for essence draining or until fifteen years have passed, whichever is longer.”

“Wait! No! What about a song—”

With a crackling rip, both ponies were easily engulfed in a white flash and vanished from the bank, their departure almost equalizing the air pressure from moments earlier. Aside from the mess of papers and quills, it was almost like the pair of stallions had never existed.

Twilight could feel tears beading in the corners of her eyes.

“Wow! Stallions really are crazy, huh?” the young, teenaged filly-teller chuckled, stepping back up from where she’d been hiding. “Maybe it was their ‘time of the season’, huh, Mystic? I heard stallions in rut do crazy things, but this was ridiculous! I can’t believe ponies used to treat colts just like mar— *hrk*!”

“Shut up.” Twilight barked coldly, squeezing the filly’s neck and restricting her breathing. “Just shut the hell up. If you say even a word about what happened here today, I’ll pop your empty skull off your body. Understand?”

The filly nodded nervously, her eyes taking in the Princess with a new level of respect.

“Good.”

Author's Note

Hey everyone, hope you like my take on 'The BOYS' set in MLP.

If you are liking it so far... please take the time to hit the thumbs up button! Makes a big difference!

Thanks!