DOWNTOWN CANTERLOT

“Sunset, you do know that you have to go back to school tomorrow? It’s already close to midnight,” Red unfortunately had to remind me of such an unpleasant idea right when I was about to do something pretty exciting. I was crouched on the edge of a building, peering out into the quiet streets of downtown Canterlot. I can never get enough of this city.

“Oh please, like that’s going to stop me. I was considering just skipping to be honest. I have to plan for the Grand Galloping Gala anyways,” I said. I could hear Red scoff through the earpiece, which admittedly made me grin.

“Absolutely not young lady! Celestia will extend your suspension or just expel you if you do that.”

“I fail to see the issue here.”

“Sunseeeet,” she said with a tone that sounded like an angry mother warning their misbehaved child not to touch something. Rolling my eyes, I stood up, letting my cloak lightly flow with the wind.

“Fine, whatever. No promises to coming back home in time though. AJ called?”

“Sure did. She’ll be back a little later tomorrow, she went to go pick up the family at her Grandpa Pears place, but she says a nasty storm is anchoring them down for the night.” This was at least somewhat relieving to hear... I still didn’t know how I was going to deal with her being involved in this, and I knew she would’ve been huddled right next to Red all-night condemning both of us for this shit, and I didn’t really want her to screw up her sleeping schedule like I’ve already screwed Reds up. Besides, I didn’t want her getting into Red's head. AJ was really bothered that our school nurse was aiding in this, nothing I said could really change that. So, I told her to just get used to it, to which she wasn’t happy about either.

“Damn... I still can’t believe she knows,” I muttered.

“Are you serious? It was only a matter of time before she’d figured it out, and with that eye of yours practically blasted away, I’d be surprised if no one else does.” I stared out down the road, watching as a black pick-up truck slowly drove towards the building I was on.

“Well It’s a good thing you helped restyle my hair. Unfortunately, it’s a little shorter than I’d like it to be, but it should cover my eye up just fine.”

“Yes, and now you look like your fourteen and you listen to The Cure. I just love helping my school kids discover their true selves.” Despite Red’s obvious sarcasm that I’ve grown accustomed to, she was right. The hairstyle wasn’t something that I would personally have done if it weren't for the injury, but I’d lie if I said it didn’t grow on me. It did take a lot of cutting and stylizing to keep it in that general shape, but the end product did have me looking like a young emo girl with half my face covered by my one-sided bangs. Though with Reds shitty nonexistent hair stylist skills, it looked more grunge than emo. But perhaps it did fit right in with my current mood. Besides, I did like The Cure quite a bit... Just Like Heaven was the first song I tried to play on guitar when I first arrived to this world. That song was the catalyst for my awkward transition from using magic and hooves to fingers with instruments... It’s a damn good song too.

“Yeah well, thanks for that, seriously.” The truck came to a stop right below the building the I was standing on. All four of the doors opened, and out exited four men wearing all black with ski masks. The ones on the driver side had crowbars and large empty potato sacks, while the passenger side guys had flashlights and also wielded crowbars. One of them shined the light above the building's doors, illuminating the ‘CANTERLOT FINE JEWERLY’ sign that hung above. Smiling to myself, I stretched my arms out and let out a yawn.

“Alright Red, time to put this shit into our first field test,” I exclaimed, throwing my cloak over my shoulders to reveal my body. More specifically, to reveal what was around my waist. Smiling to myself like a giddy little child, I looked down to the dark purple utility belt that was clasped loosely around my hips, damn I’m a little too skinny. It had multiple large pouches that went all around the belt, its center was latched with a silver buckle. On the side of it, weighing half of it down, was a holster that carried an item I had been working on for a while. I stepped onto the edge of the building, unholstering the makeshift gun and examining it carefully.

The grip was a matte black carbon grip that I took off of a Dan Wesson revolver. But for the frame, I was able to do quite the modifications. It, just like the grip, was also plated in carbon, but at the end of the frame was a bulge where a spool was placed inside of it. Wrapped around and connected to the spool was over fifty feet in length of a strong monofilament wire that was capable of carrying two tons in weight. The barrel of the gun was shorter and thicker, yet the exit hole was smaller in diameter then a normal gun so the wire could run through it smoothly. Sticking out of it, were the wire connected to, was a claw like grapple. Above the frame was a small gas tank the size of my hand, yet with enough pressure to blow up a car... It was difficult connecting it and feeding the small tubes of it to reach the other gizmos and mechanical shit connected to the spool, but after months of reading and understanding the mechanics of gas-powered tools, I was able to finalize it earlier today after my... well, let’s just say my weird mini adventure with a God-like being from back home. I finally understood it all after figuring out how Flim Flam and Shill got their robots to fire their God forsaken claws out. I won’t go into too much detail, but I basically was able to take that design and shrink it. Red still couldn't understand how I was able to figure it out all by just looking at it... but when you’ve read about it since you first put on this stupid costume, shit just falls into place, I guess.

I had two more mini gas tanks in one of my belt's pouches, along with a mini tool kit in case I had to repair the grapple gun or use for any other means. The belt carried a lot of things that would make my life easier. Lock picks, a multipurpose flash light that had infrared and black light, finger dusting kit, a portable camera, hidden recorder, mini torch, an extra earpiece, tracker, portable charger and four custom made steel handcuffs. It took a while to put all this shit together. But one thing that I was putting a lot of time into, almost as much as the grappling gun, was the baggie of small black pellets in the front pouch. With the gun in one hand, I took a handful of the pellets in the other, watching as the men down below began to break through the window of the jewelry store. I began to get excited when the stores security alarm blared out. That left me five minutes before the police would come... with my new artillery, I’ll have these punks wrapped up in a nice little present in half that time.

“Oh... please be careful Sunset. Your arm could tear if you don’t use that grappling gun right. Remember, I just stitched up your arm after that dog attacked you this morning.” I grimaced a bit, remembering the strange day that I had.

“Yeah... dog,” I repeated. Fucking Discord. Brushing it off, I waited as the guys down below finished up stealing as much jewelry as they could. These guys must’ve been experts because it didn’t take any longer then forty-five seconds for them to jump out of the store through the broken window. The two empty potato sacks were now large and full, I could see the glistening reflection of diamonds, pearls, silver and gold peeking out from the top of the bags.

“Alright... here goes nothing.” Taking a deep breath, I let my body lean forward before diving off of the building. It felt a lot harder during midflight from such a height, but I was able to keep my nerves at edge and fire the gun towards the quickly fading rooftop, a spark of steam shot from behind the tank and towards my face. As before when I was testing it, the grappling hook shot out from the barrel, the thin wire following in pursuit as its speed ruptured the sound barrier. Much to my relief, the hook lodged itself into the buildings side, and quickly I began to take some pressure off of the trigger.

“Remember Shimmer, to quickly add slack, hold the trigger down. To repel and lose the slack, let go of the trigger. To control the speed, alternate in pressure,” I quickly reminded myself. With barely any pressure on the trigger, the wire stiffened and became tight as the grappling gun slowly gave slack, and just like that, I found myself slowly floating down to the ground. The smile that was stretched from ear to ear under my mask could rival Pinkies right now. Getting me even more excited was the second tool in my other hand.

As I slowly descended towards the group, I threw half of the pellets in my hand down at them, each of them popped and let out a cloud of black smoke as they crashed into the ground.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” The guys stopped and began to freak out as the black smoke from the pellets began to engulf them. Using this element of surprise, I let go of the trigger entirely, yanking the rope to take the hook out of the wall and let myself fall into the middle of the group. Amongst the night sky and black smoke, they didn’t even notice I was there... my tools were working perfectly. I threw a right punch at the guy in front of me, knocking him to the ground before lunging with a side kick to the head of the guy behind me, knocking him out next. With the smoke still in the air, the other two hadn't even realized what just happened. But the smoke was slowly dissipating, so I threw down the remaining pellets in my hand, shooting up a brand-new cloud of smoke.

“HEY WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON?” Another rapid fire of punches at another one, knocking him down before finally leaving the last terrified thief. He lunged out of the smoke, panicking as his eyes darted everywhere.

“What the fuck? Hey where the fuck are you guys?” As he was nervously looking around, I jumped out of the smoke and landed on top of him, his screams of fear were muffled as I grabbed his face and smashed it into the ground once, knocking the final thief out. Just like that, what usually took me at least ten minutes to do, I did in less than thirty seconds. All with the new tools at my disposal. As the smoke disappeared, I rounded up all four punks, handcuffing their hands together and leaving them in a nice little circle. I was able to connect them all together with two of my custom handcuffs, I would have to make more since I was most likely not getting these back. Its just that the material for them took a while to get since I was making it with untraceable metals, which weren’t easy to obtain. Still, it was totally worth it. Standing up straight with my fist on my hips, I felt a sort of pride that I haven’t felt in a very long time. Is it fucked up it’s for the one thing that’s going to kill me? Probably, but my new grappling gun and utility belt is going to bring a whole new edge to this life of mine.

“I don’t hear any more cries of pain or anything... so I’m assuming the test run was a success?” Red asked, breaking my little proud moment.

“Correcto. It worked incredibly.”

“That’s good to hear, now get back home, both of us have to go into school tomorrow.” I listened as the police sirens grew closer and closer, the smile on my face never leaving.

“You kidding? Hell no, I still have plenty of pellets and three full gas tanks. This field test is far from over,” I joyfully exclaimed, aiming my grappling gun up ahead at the building's roof before firing it. Once I felt the hook connect to the building, I let go of the trigger entirely and began to ascend up the side of the building... no more having to climb emergency ladders or stairs, or waste my energy on parkour. I could hear Red sighing in defeat.

“I don’t know why I even bother. Fine, let me make some coffee.”

Author's Note

Seriously, "Just Like Heaven" by The Cure is a really damn good song!