“A flood, of course!” Bard said.
For once, Rainbow Dash shared a gawking expression with Theanim Mane. “A flood?!”
“Are you daft?!” Theanim wheezed.
“Naw, for real, though!” Bard pointed down at the canals from where they stood. An early morning dawn rose over the outer iron gates of Rust, casting a silver sheen across the aluminum roof shingles around them. “Accordin' to yer buddy Echo, the bottom three floors of the Syndicate's HQ are below the water line. If we could find a way to bust open the walls down there, then that would give the whole building somethin' to panic about!” He smiled proudly. “They'd forget about their precious bounty and their bits in a heartbeat!”
“I hardly think the Syndicate's in any position to forget about their bits anytime soon,” Theanim said in a dull tone.
“Well, even if we do get it to flood down there,” Rainbow Dash said, “Won't that make... y'know... getting the money out of there hard?”
“It's all a matter of timin',” Bard said. “You see, the way I sees it, these mobos probably built all of those underground chambers for a reason. In case of a flood, they'd act as emergency reservoirs to protect the rest of the tower from collapsing in on itself. I mean... the place needs a foundation, right?”
Theanim nodded. “I suppose he does have a point.” He looked at Rainbow. “If you can get it to flood at the bottom two floors, then you'll have a window of opportunity to get your job done on the third one. But a very narrow window.”
“Just... how narrow?”
Theanim blinked. “Why... it'd be minutes before the water reached the floor where the vault's located.” He shrugged. “Maybe even seconds. The ocean doessurround us, after all.”
“If anypony can empty that place up in time, it's Wildcard,” Bard said with a wink. “He's faster than greased lightning! And ya ain't half-bad yerself, pretty Missy!”
Rainbow gulped. She turned and glanced at the jagged spires of the Syndicate's main building. “...and, y'know, about the vault...”
“Mrmmmfff...” Echo gulped down a tall glass and wiped his fanged muzzle. “What about it?”
Rainbow sat across from him in the protective shade of their hotel room. “How do we get in and out of that? I mean... these thugs protect the fourth and ninth floor entrances like they're the passages to their honeymoon suites. You'd think that they'd be just as hardcore about maintaining the vault as well.”
“Mmm... a little bit of less and a little bit of no,” the sarosian said.
Rainbow gritted her teeth. “Could you be a little bit more precise than that?”
“Look, it's not exactly a dayum science!” he hissed. “Not to us and certainly not to the Syndicate. Do they protect their vault? Yes.” He shrugged. “But... they have to open the stupid thing up so much on account of all the business transactions they perform. Just short of keeping it wide open the whole time, they use a very rudimentary locking mechanism.”
“Exactly how 'rudimentary?'”
“They hire a friggin' unicorn to walk up and shove his horn into a keyhole.”
Rainbow Dash blinked. “For real?”
“As real as it is stupid.” Echo took another sip and exhaled. “The Syndicate's Boss has only so few ponies he can trust. The most elite of the elite are his unicorn buddies. They make the secret-but-not-so-secret bombs for him... and they make love to his vault door. It's not written anywhere that a thug life has to be a complicated one.”
“What guarantee does he have that these dudes won't just... turn their flank on him?”
“Pffft. With the amount of bits he's shoveling their way?”
Rainbow nodded. “Fair enough. So... uh...”
“You and the griffon are going to have to... convince one of these unicorns to apply his magic to the vault door.”
“And if they don't comply?”
Echo shrugged. “Offer him or her a piece of the cut. By the time you two get there, most of the lower stories will have been flooded, right? So the guard on scene will know that the Syndicate's properly boned. Use this to your advantage and offer them a new future.”
Rainbow's muzzle twisted. “Bard and Wildcard aren't going to like that idea.”
“Why? Cuz it means they'll get a smaller cut in the end?” Echo's eyeslits narrowed. “Well, tough shit on a shit cracker. It's my head being put on the line. Mrmmf...” He nibbled on the edge of the glass, his fangs making tiny fractures. “...was never a fan of this idea to begin with, but everypony else in this party could cripple me with so much as a sneeze, and it could mean a new future for me outside of the Syndicate's reach. So why try and argue?”
“Right right right... all one big happy team.” Rainbow cleared her throat. “But what if the unicorn doesn't bite?”
“Huh?” Echo blinked. “Not everypony's got the Mother of Nightmare's fanged gift...”
“No no... I-I mean...” Rainbow leaned forward. “...what if the dude or dudette's so loyal that they don't accept our bribe?”
Echo shrugged. “I never said we actually needed the unicorn. Just his horn.”
Rainbow's ears folded. “I'm not sure I like that answer.”
“Well I'm pretty sure I don't like your face!” Echo spat. “But it's not like there's anything I can do about it!”
Rainbow sighed. She glanced lethargically at two fixed spots in the air, then muttered, “We'll think about it.”
“Just because I bring up the Mother of Nightmares doesn't mean you gotta use the royal 'we.'”
“Oh hush.” Rainbow slicked her mane back, gazing off in thought. “What else... what else...” Rainbow bit her lip. “Have we covered everything?”
“Pfft. Hardly.”
“Hmmm?”
Echo's leathery wings twitched. “You've still gotta come up with an exit strategy, smarthole.”
First to read it!!!
Of course they have to get a pony on the inside on their side.
Odds are they'll join the party.
Syndicate is going to be so pissed off when they find out.
I expect epic sea chase afterwards.
I wonder how possible it is to get Spookle involved with this magic lock business.
This is adorable and slightly scary at the same time.
Sneaky updates. Didn't even realize the story got updated until now. Usually, it's around 7-9 at night...
This... is too clever to work.
Oh... and come to think of it, shouldn't Twilight be a main character in the description, now? She is kind of permanent...
This is all well planed and thought out. IT WILL NEVER WORK.
She may be a smarthole, but she's our smarthole. And we get a lot of use out of
ither.Signed, the Prismatic Harem.
6175028
No. Just. No.
Let Dash get her
fifteen minutes...stories. Once Applejack gets back in the scene the rest of them won't matter to me."Keep Out of Direct Sunlight", "Fragile Equipment", "This Side Up", etc.
So let me get this straight. Not only are they going to rob the syndicate blind, but they're going to flood the place at the same time? Yeah, that sure sounds like a good plan that won't go wrong at all
Daww Echo is so cute~
6175380 Well, honestly Applejack probably won't be revived Ynanhluutr. After all, Pinkie Pie is the one Rainbow is going for next, and seeing how Applejack is obviously going to be saved for last, Fluttershy stands to be after Pinkie, which means that in the 90 some chapters left, saving Applejack just doesn't sound plausible. Unless IC rushed it, which just wouldn't feel right. Maybe in the next installment, the Mane 6 will have their own tag. Midnight just thinks that since Twilight has been in Ynanhluutr since the beginning, it stands to reason that she'd have a main character tag. Then again, given the very nature of Austreaoh, IC may decide not to give any of the Mane 6 a tag besides Rainbow, since it might be a little bit of a spoiler for those who haven't read any of the previous installments, and see the current story in the featured box(Since it's obviously that awesome), then notice that the Mane 6 are in the story when they weren't earlier. We just have to wait and see. After all, IC did change the OC tag to being other. So the other tag may be the Mane 6.
Besides, Rainbow and Applejack being reunited would be too big for only a few chapters at the end of Ynanhluutr.
Uhh... that wasn't intended as an argument. It wasn't really meant to be. Appledashery can do these things to people. Applejack and Rainbow Dash isn't a ship that Midnight ever actually looked at until they browsed Fimfiction on Valentine's Day, 2015. And then the ship set sail. This... doesn't really have anything to do with Austreaoh...
Verlax still looms on the horizon. Hopefully we don't get stuck in this land for 400 chapters(No offence, Ledomare), because Verlax has a potential to take up quite a few chapters, and seeing how we are already over half way with Ynanhluutr, we may not get to the dark side of the plane until the next installment. Not that the story would suddenly be bad. Innavedr had extremely important character building that just wouldn't have happened without staying in Ledomare and Xona. With a little luck, Verlax may actually just be a nice Divine. Right? No? Yeah, probably not.
By the way, has anyone else noticed the position of the Sun over the course of the series? In Austreaoh, it was a beautiful sunrise. In Eljunbyro, the sun was higher in the sky. In Innavedr, it was roughly noon; Odrsjot it was early evening. In Urohringr, the sun was starting to set on the horizon, and in Yaerfaerda, it was twilight. Now, in Ynanhluutr, the sun is almost submerged under the horizon. IC, you, sir, are a genius.
6175554
Ummm, I was being facetious. Well thought out.. This is one of the few stories I read that isn't Applecentric.
Break open the vault and then flood it? Wasnt that the plot of Die Hard with a Vengence?
Also, if they are going to have to pick up a physical unicron, if it ends up coming along with them, they would next have to collect a Minotaur.
Who would pick up said unicorn.
and hug them and squeeze them, and call them Sasha.
Actually, it was written in the Lil B[ible];
Ouch, noxious scalding.
Exit strategy :
(puts on shades)
They just wing it.
This whole scenario has far too many ifs, ands, and butts for me to feel comfortable with.
Please let there be a scene where a unicorn claims "I didn't choose the thug life, it chose me"
"You forget a thousand things everyday...make sure this is one of them."
If WC could talk, I can imagine him saying that to the unicorn they bribe.
-Memories given light, ease a lonely flight. Ynanhluutr.
6176098 Love that movie!
6175855
He's got you there, Fruit Basket.
Well, punch your way out obviously.
Reminds me of my average Shadowrun experience. "We go in all sneaky-beaky like" turns to just pumping the entire building full of lead on the way out anyway.
6175665 Picking up a physical Unicron is hard, even if you are Primus or some other being of planetary scale.
Rainbow Dash doesn't need an exit strategy.
-Spirit (Yeast and Treacle)
6177529
the trick about exiting a flooding building is to look like everyone trying to escape. For the most part people fleeing won't tend to stop you for identification. You'll only ever need to punch the two twits that try and stop you.
I feel like we're planning a GTA heist or something
6178346 More like Ocean's 11
A flood, huh? Wow, these guys really know how to make waves with the Syndicate.
...Welp, time to grab my bindle stick and leave.
mmmm
loving the ocean's eleven feel
feeling dashie as danny, really am
6174832 please don't do that
please
No plan survives first encounter with the enemy.
6178940 I apologize for that. Sometimes I get overexcited.
Currently, instead of there just being a Noble Jury 2.0, we also are assembling the Ghostly Jury.
I keep reading The Big Dayum Rust Caper as the The Big Dayum Rust Chapter.
6175554 Actually, I think all the images are (or at least are supposed to be) of sunrises. Imploding Colon would have to confirm.
Also, IC, Yaerfaerda doesn't link forward to Ynanhluutr.
One way in, one way out.
Let's hope they can find the right Unicorn, it's a good thing RD can be pretty persuasive.
6178690 Holy kimchi, you're on board the Jury?!? You're even quieter than Rust!
Oh. Yeah. Exit plan.
...
Can't we just wing it?
And damn, like Wanderer pointed out, it does feel like Ocean's 11.
Wait.
Ocean's 11
Belle probably told her about how Shell kept Imre's horn with him, so I don't blame her for not liking the idea.
Rust was an inside job!
...And that song's stuck in my head again. go greased lightning, go
....no, you're joking right???
Plan: Part 2!