Twilight Sparkle and the Master Thief

by DungeonMiner

Chapter 23

Twilight sighed as she worked in her office before checking the clock. She had to raise the moon shortly, and the evening light was starting to die. She had nearly spent the entire day working through document after document, signing signature after signature, and stamping approval after approval.

She sighed, resting her head on her hoof as she scanned over another document, before casually signing the form and sliding it over to the side.

She glanced over to her inbox, and her eyes widened as she realized that she had only one more document left. A smile began to grow on her face as skimmed through, referencing Spike’s notations in the margins. She flipped through the pages, working through them as fast as she could before she found the last line for her signature.

With a flick of her quill and a splash of ink, she signed the last paper and felt the shackles of her responsibilities shatter.

“Ah! Good to see you’ve caught up!” Raven said, sliding a new stack of documents into her inbox within seconds of entering the office.

Twilight sighed. “What’s this?” she asked.

“There’s a proposal for renaming Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns to the Celestial Academy for Gifted unicorns, as well as a proposal to split it from the crown as the official royal school, to move into a more public domain.”

Twilight sighed again and began to work through the new packet, which was sadly un-notated.

“By the way, Your Highness,” Raven said. “I do appreciate that you’ve come to your senses and have returned to work.”

Twilight glanced up at her. “You're welcome, but you could choose your words better.”

“Uh...yes, Your Highness,” Raven said, as she suddenly realized she had basically insulted her. “Forgive me, I meant no offense.”

Twilight waved it off. “Just...just get me what I need to sign,” she ordered, sadly.

“Yes, Your Highness,” she replied before Raven took her leave to head for more papers to sign.

Twilight sighed again and wondered if she was becoming an old mare already.

“Psst! Princess!”

Twilight’s head snapped up, and her ears stood on end as she began to look around.

“Twilight, over here!”

Twilight looked around before she found Night, hanging out of her window sill. “Night?” she asked. “What are you doing hanging outside of my window?”

“Trying to get your attention,” he said.

“Well, sure, but why are you climbing up my window.”

“Because I can?” Night offered.

Twilight was about to sigh but caught herself. “What is it?”

“I found something,” he said, before sliding her the Obsidian Hoof Guards he stole only a few nights before. “Keep those safe, by the way. But this is only a part of the problem, and I think you need to come with me,” Night told her.

“What?” she asked, taking the artifact that she could swear was humming with power.

“I’ll tell you on the way to Baltimare,” he said. “I’ve got you a train ticket, and I’ll meet you at the station, alright?”

Twilight shook her head. “I mean, I’m sure you can do this—”

“I need your magic expertise, Twilight,” he said. “This isn’t something I can do at all.”

Twilight blinked. “I...I see. Okay. I’ll see you at the station.”

Night nodded. “By the way, you need to have your guards stagger their shift changes. You already change insides and outsides in steps, but you need to cover more ground.”

This time, Twilight missed the sigh as it passed and nodded. “I’ll let Azure know.”

Night smiled and slid down the rope to the courtyard.

---$---

The ride to Baltimare proved informative and worrying. If what Night said was true, then while the collective groups weren’t going after specific artifacts to achieve ultimate power, they were looking at creating counterfeits with at least some magic in them.

This had two outcomes that Twilight could see; the first, it would become nearly impossible to find the artifacts with the black market flooded with fakes, effectively obscuring the trail and hiding any sign of the operations. The second, and arguably worst-case scenario, was that they intended to make hundreds of weaker versions of the artifact to sell to suckers and wannabe collectors.

Night half-way agreed though he was sure that the Triad wanted to sell these items almost exclusively to petty criminals. Promise a desperate pony inconceivable strength, and they might take more risks than they needed to. They might try bigger targets and become bolder in the face of the guard.

Crime would skyrocket, and a thief with any kind of contact with a seller could suddenly take on ten guards before the gems—no doubt cheap and unlicensed—blew and did who-knows-what sort of damage to the ponies around them.

If a pony wanted to start sowing Chaos across Equestria, Twilight was sure only Discord himself could do better.

After dropping off her bags at the safehouse, they both quickly took to scouting out the new warehouse.

With the influx of ponies into the collective group of thieves, they had no shortage of guards, which Twilight noted nearly covered the grounds. The warehouse sat on the Horseshoe Bay, and Night pointed out that the docks were being used, though by private ships. His guess was that the counterfeits were enchanted here and then taken up the coast to be appropriately distributed.

“Either Manehatten or Fillydelphia if I had to guess. Probably Manehatten, though, more ponies would be interested in buying up there.”

Twilight glanced back over at the warehouse, her eyes enhanced by the same spell that disguised her. “There are at least thirty ponies, just standing on the outside of the building. Why are there so many?”

“Because of us, Twilight. They didn’t like that we hit them before, and they’re doubling down to make sure we don’t hit them again. Not that it’ll stop us, right?”

Twilight gave him a soft smile.

“So, how are we doing this?” Night asked.

“What do you mean?”

“How do you want to do this?” he asked again. “It’s too many things for me to steal without getting the entire warehouse chasing me, and a lot of these ponies aren’t going to be scared by illusions, so how are we going to get in, and how are we going to get what we want? Besides, you’re the Princess. What you say goes.”

Twilight glanced back at the warehouse. “Well, we got the original back, right?”

Night nodded.

She stared back at it for a long second before she cast a Perceive Energy spell. Her vision shifted into a new spectrum, that of magical activity, and she saw the warehouse sparkle as though it were filled with stars. The magical signatures were easy to find, though much weaker. Far weaker than an artifact, at least, but that was basically a given at this point. However, as she focused on them even harder, she saw exactly what she was expected. The signatures were weak, and to Twilight’s practiced eyes, ready to fracture if put under the right pressure.

More unlicensed enchanting gems.

“So all that’s left in there is a bunch of fakes with enchanting gems of questionable quality?” Twilight asked, knowing full well the answer.

He nodded again.

“Then I think the best thing we can do is destroy their products,” she replied.

Night smiled.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, already aware that he was about to mention her original protest against property damage.

“Duly noted, Twilight,” he said. “Let’s head back to the safehouse for some final planning. We’ll need all the time we can get, and the night’s already half over.”

Twilight nodded, and they both slipped into the darkness.

---$---

Twilight was having a hard time sleeping again. She wasn’t sure why tonight was giving her a hard time, though it might have to do with the fact that she would have to raise the sun in three hours.

She muttered darkly to herself and rolled on her back before she heard it.

Night whimpered, somewhere in the darkness.

Twilight moved, without giving it a second thought, and found him lying on his cot, asleep, but very obviously troubled.

“Shh…” Twilight whispered. “Shh, you’re not alone. You’re okay.”

She placed a gentle hoof on his shoulder and gave him the softest touch.

Night’s eyes snapped open, and a panicked gasp escaped him before the world came back into focus.

“Are you alright?” Twilight asked.

He nodded. “It was just a dream.”

“Dreams may not be real, but that doesn’t mean they don’t matter,” Twilight said. “Luna would throw a fit if I said otherwise,” she added with a small smile. “What happened?”

Night didn’t say anything for a long time. He simply sat in the darkness, lying on his cot.

Twilight waited.

“I...I was being chased,” he said. “Chased by Light.”

“By light?” Twilight asked.

For a second, Night could hear the reproach in her voice, the vicious, mocking laugh. “What, are you afraid of the light?” he waited to hear.

But that never came, just the calm, careful, curious question. One that just wanted to know what was wrong.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “I’ve always been in darkness, Princess. It’s where I belong. Light just shines too bright and too harsh. It reaches all the dark places where I can hide and roots me out. I...I don’t belong in the light anymore, Princess.”

Twilight listened.

“I think that’s why I loved that Celestia gave me this job,” he said. “It was the closest I would ever be to being a normal pony. Even then, look at me, I’m living in houses that nopony else would take, sleeping on a cot, waiting for the sun to drop so I can put my life on the line to work in darkness.”

Twilight didn’t say anything.

He smirked. “Listen to me, sounding like some philosopher talking in symbols and metaphors. Don’t worry about me, Princess. I’m fine.”

Twilight shook her head. “No, you’re not, but that’s okay,” she whispered back to him. “It’s okay to be hurt.”

Night snorted. “Since when does being a Princess make you a therapist?”

Twilight smiled. “Celestia and Luna were doing it way longer than I have. It comes with the territory, I’m told.”

“Sure, whatever you say, Princess. Go get to sleep. We have work to do.”

“You too, Night,” she said. “If you need to talk, let me know.”

Night nodded. “Sure,” he said before dropping his head back on the pillow. There, he lay awake, watching the shadows play across the wall.

---$---

The next night came quickly. Both ponies had to take naps during the day to be awake and ready to go, and it paid dividends now.

They traveled to the warehouse by sea, totally undetected as they moved beneath the waves, walking on the sandy bottom of the bay in a pocket of air that Twilight held together with a Control Matter spell.

“You know,” Night said. “If anything could convince me that alicorns had ridiculous reserves, this would probably be it.”

“Try not to waste air,” Twilight answered, “but thank you.”

The silt proved challenging to maneuver through, especially with the moonlight streaming through the water casting long, shifting shadows across the ground. Despite that, they were making good time and would finish crossing the bay in another ten minutes. Occasionally, Twilight would lift the bubble, and the pair would swim over more severe obstacles, which certainly helped.

“There’s the dock,” Night said as they climbed a boulder that lay on the seafloor.

Twilight glanced back at him with a glare that said, “I just told you not to waste air,” before she stared up at the wall of cut blocks of stone that made the dock. “We’re going up,” she said, speaking up for a moment. “Get ready to swim.”

The bubble began to rise up, and the pair started to tread water as they raised up to the surface.

Twilight suddenly felt a tap on her shoulder.

“Twilight! Twilight, stop.”

“What?” she asked.

“Look,” he said, pointing to the water above them.

She glanced up and saw a large shadow cut across the moonlight above them.

“That’s a boat,” Night said. “They might be moving stuff out tonight.”

Twilight nodded. They just might need to blow that up too.

They both sat in the water for a second or two, watching the boat move past them before Twilight began to raise the bubble once again until they both breached the surface. Using Night’s hook, they managed to climb up over the wall and hide behind some crates that had been moved to the docks outside.

“My towel’s soaked,” Night said. “If we go inside, we’ll drip everywhere. So we need to either wait here and dry off, or—”

Twilight cast a spell, and he suddenly dried.

“Or that…” he replied.

“You’d be surprised how many ponies know that one,” Twilight said. “It’s great for drying out your mane.”

“Huh…”

They both went quiet as they quickly took stock of the warehouse. Far too many ponies were still watching the grounds, and they’d have to creep silently through the yard if they didn’t want to get caught before they even got inside.

“How close do we need to get to the gems?” Night asked.

“Close enough to overload them,” she replied.

“Which is?”

“About three feet,” she said. “The bigger problem is that I can’t cast another spell while feeding enchanting gems. Unless I have a place to hide, anypony looking for me can find me.”

“Even if you’re using Transform Image?” he asked.

“Well, I mean, I’ll still be an inch tall, but I’m not going to be looking out for anything. A pony could walk right into me, and I probably wouldn’t notice until I got inside.”

Night nodded before both ponies went silent as a guard walked up to the crates.

They both cast their Image spells, hiding their visible forms as they slowly began to slide around the crate as the guard patrolled around them.

They made a full rotation before the guard began to walk away, leaving them to continue their planning.

“We need to get in there,” Night whispered. “Staying outside is only going to waste time and give them a better chance of finding us.”

Twilight nodded. “The side door?” she asked, referencing the way in they found from the day before.

Night nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

They moved from cover to cover, hiding between the crates and shipping containers until the warehouse loomed above them, and the side door was within reach. Taking stock one last time around them, Night nodded. “Can you see what’s just behind the door?” he asked.

“I have a spell for that, yes,” she replied before she cast a Perceive Matter spell. The warehouse behind the door came into sharp focus and a quick look around revealed tables on tables of unicorns enchanting gems with new spell matrixes. Twilight took another moment to look around, trying to find where they piled the fresh gemstones that hadn’t been enchanted sat when she saw a guard. He stood next to the side door, waiting for it to open, and Twilight sighed when she realized their way in was being watched.

She spoke in a whisper. “A pony is watching the door,” she explained.

“Can you see another way in?” Night asked.

Twilight’s sight moved around the room, checking the walls and ceiling.

“There’s a skylight,” she said. “There are a few ponies that keep glancing at it, but I don’t think that—”

She felt Night’s hoof on her lips, and she immediately went silent, cutting her spell as she ducked low to the ground.

Still approaching them, a guard made his past the crates and boxes that made a part of their hiding spot. He glanced around occasionally, his ears flicking as he listened for any sign or sound of an intruder.

Night and Twilight didn’t make a sound.

The guard paused for a second, and Twilight watched, eyes wide, as the guard began to look around.

Then his head stopped, and Twilight couldn’t tell if he was looking at her Image or not.

His mouth opened wide, and he took a deep breath.

And then sneezed.

The guard sniffed, groaned, and then continued on his way.

Night waited until he turned the corner before speaking again. “The skylight sounds like our best bet,” he whispered. “Besides, when we get up there, it’ll give me the chance to drop this spell for a second or two.”

Twilight nodded before whispering to him. “Grab on, and I’ll catapult us up there, so you won’t have to drop your spell.”

Night must have nodded because the next thing she felt was two forelegs wrap around her chest and barrel.

Twilight tried not to think about it before she pushed them both into the air, to land as softly as she could manage onto the roof. Specifically, she aimed for one of the beams she saw from the inside, so the corrugated steel roof wouldn’t bend under their weight.

It creaked slightly, and in a panic, Twilight cast her Perceive Matter spell again to peek inside the warehouse, where only two ponies were still looking up, watching for any signs of movement.

“Don’t move,” she whispered.

Night didn’t. He didn’t even drop his spell.

Twilight watched as second by agonizing second passed by.

She didn’t move.

They continued to stare up at the ceiling.

She didn’t speak.

Someone muttered something, though she couldn’t hear them.

Silence.

And then finally, the ponies returned to their tasks. Twilight released a breath she didn’t realize she was holding and sighed.

“Are we good?” Night whispered.

“Yes, we’re good, but we need to move slowly.”

Night released her and was about to drop his spell when he suddenly froze. “Horseapples,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Pegasus guard, 3 o’clock.”

Twilight turned to the right and saw a pegasus casually fly up to peek over the roof. They were still being watched, and their landing had no doubt warned someone of their arrival. Twilight whispered into the darkness toward Night was supposed to be. “Are you going to be able to keep up your spell?” she asked.

“I can keep it for an hour and a half without rest,” he said. “The bigger problem is that I’m hamstrung without being able to cast another spell.”

Which wouldn’t help anypony when he needed to watch her while she overloaded gems. Twilight cursed before she whispered back to him. “Do you trust me?”

Night was silent for a moment. “I...I do,” he said. “Why?”

“Drop your spell,” she said.

“What?”

“Just drop it. I’ll take care of the rest.”

There was silence for another second before Night complied and shimmered back into existence. Twilight was already moving by the time he appeared and reached out with Transform Image. Being careful to only touch the size of Night’s Image, she scaled him down, silently hoping to herself that she didn’t mess anything up until he was an inch tall like her.

“Getting this reversed is going to be awkward,” she said. “But we’re going to have to make this work.”

Night looked down at “himself,” faintly aware that this could be a permanent change, before nodding. “Alright. Let’s get in there.”

They climbed up the roof, walking along the beam below them until they reached the skylight. Glancing down, the pair could see all the ponies beneath them, moving and enchanting, before Night spoke up. “I see the gems,” he said.

“Where?” Twilight asked.

“See that office in the back?” Night asked. “It is in the alcove directly beneath it.”

Twilight followed his directions best she could and did, indeed, see the gems sitting there, with a bit of a line forming from it.

“So, you just need to get close to that?” Night asked.

Twilight frowned. “I never said it’d be easy.”

Night nodded. “Then we best get to work.”

He reached out, and with his magic, undid the latch to the window. Carefully, he raised it up, unleashing the noise from inside. The near-constant casting of magic permeated the room with a low hum, betraying the normal near-silence of casting a spell, but more importantly, it revealed a voice.

“And I don’t care that you lost the originals,” a mare’s voice yelled. “You’re not dragging me down with you.”

Both thieves searched for the source of the voice before their eyes fell on two ponies. A small pegasus stallion with a powder blue coat and a mare with a purple mane and a dull red coat argued beneath the window, audible over the hum of magic.

“But, Ms. Blackjack!” the pegasus cried. “If you don’t help us, then—”

“Then what?” she demanded. “You’re not one of mine. I don’t care what happens to you.”

“But, but The Boss will have my head!”

“Well, that’s between you and that silver-flanked whore. I don’t care.”

Twilight blinked at the exchange but continued to watch.

“Ms. Blackjack!” the stallion whined.

“No! I didn’t come here to bail you out. I came because ‘Ms. Gleaming needed somepony to check the merchandise.”

Twilight heard Night inhale sharply at the name, and she gave him a look.

“Now get out of my way,” Blackjack said. “I’m going to test these and let you hang yourself with the rope you were given.”

The earth pony mare stomped away with the pegasus to follow after her, leaving Night and Twilight on the roof with the skylight still open. “Are you alright, Night?” she asked.

“L-later. We need to focus on getting the gems,” Night said, his voice shaking in the wind.

Twilight slowly nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this. Do you want to start the distraction?”

Night nodded, which Twilight barely caught from his miniature Image. “Yeah, yeah, let’s go.”

They dropped in, landing on a catwalk that shook from their landing but didn’t creak with a careful cast of Destroy Image from Twilight to silence it.

Nopony even looked up.

“See you at the front door,” Night whispered.

Twilight smiled and nodded.

They split off from each other, both running in opposite directions down the catwalk. Night moved as quickly as he dared before he found exactly what he was looking for. Above him was one of the fire suppression sprinklers. He wasn’t even sure that this warehouse had them, but it made the perfect distraction.

He reached out with his telekinesis to shatter the bulb before quickly checking to see if there was a place he could hide for when the water came down, but then again, this wasn’t going to be the cleanest getaway anyway.

He crushed the bulb, and the sprinklers all turned on, spraying the entire area with black, discolored water that stank of burnt nose hairs. Ponies everywhere started to panic, running as the possibility of a fire spreading forced them out of the building.

Night made his way down the stairs, water running off his invisible body, and made his way to the front door. He waited, off to the side, as ponies pushed their way through, many nearly trampling their fellow criminals as they tried to escape.

Night waited, listening for the explosion that would mark that Twilight had done her job and—

Green, blue, and orange light shot up from the warehouse’s back, nearly tearing a hole in the roof.

“Okay, let’s go!” A voice said in his ear.

He turned and looked down to see Twilight’s Image. “That was fast.”

“I wasn’t sticking around there,” she said.

“Right, I don’t want to wait in a burning building.”

“Catapult into the bay,” Twilight said. “We’ll make our way back across, along the bottom.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Night said before they both shot into the air. They both catapulted themselves through the door, out over the courtyard, and into the water below.

The second they hit the surface, Twilight began to shape the water into a bubble, and they quickly sank to the bottom.

“Well,” Twilight said as her hooves sunk into the silt, and she glanced up to see the colorful explosion of the enchanting gems. “That went better than I expected,” she said.

Night nodded. “I’ll say,” he said, his Image nearly disappearing into the darkness.

“So,” Twilight began. “Who’s Gleaming?”

Night didn’t say anything as they stood beneath the bay.

“We need to save air,” he said.

Comments

[Scyphi]

“Yes, Your Highness,” she replied before Raven took her leave to head for more papers to sign.

Well, no mentions or even hints of any missing letters that she may or may not have found.

Hmm.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, already aware that he was about to mention her original protest against property damage.

In Twilight's defense, these are unusual circumstances. Just because she's permitting it now doesn't mean they get to make a habit out of it henceforth.

“So,” Twilight began. “Who’s Gleaming?”

Night didn’t say anything as they stood beneath the bay.

“We need to save air,” he said.

Yeah, she's not letting that one go that easily, Night. She'll need to know too, because she's just as involved in this mess now as you are.

[FanficReader920]

This story is starting to remind me of Aladdin. Twilight is basically Jasmine, only she’s actually a head of state with responsibilities which acts as differentiation from Aladdin.

[Xanni]

Great chapter!

Your welcome

- typo for "you're welcome" (you are welcome).

as though suddenly realized

- typo for "as though she suddenly realised", or just "as she suddenly realised" if she's not faking it. If she is faking it, Raven is insulting Twilight on purpose!

inconvincible

- a typo for "inconcievable", or "invincible"?

We’ll need all the time we need

- all the time we can get?

“How close do we need to get to the gems?” Night asked.
“Close enough to get to the gems and overload them,” she replied.

- Delete the second "get to the gems and", that's just redundant.

the sprinkles all turned on

- typo for "sprinklers".

[MoonlightRift]

NGL, with this reread, I had completely forgotten about Gleaming and Night's relations, but it's slowly coming back to me, aaaa, love this fic c: