It was a sunny day when Twilight robbed her first bank.
She spent the first few hours of it wasting away in her bed, sobbing over a picture of her and Rarity in front of the boutique taken just before the war. In it, they wore matching blue sun hats with a big plastic flower blooming on the rim. Twilight had her old army jacket slung across her back. It had been a warm day. Spring, probably. They had gone out for lunch, or walked around the park--what they did exactly, Twilight couldn’t remember, but she knew it had been a warm day.
Spike came around once to see if she was okay, but he went away when he saw the picture.
The past felt alive, trapped between the two dimensions of the photograph. She closed her eyes and imagined spring. For an instant she could feel an otherworldly breeze tickle her back, but that just turned out to be an open window across the room.
Twilight got up and looked outside. The clouds were tall and white and far away. She could see the thatched roofs of old Ponyville laid out in winding rows before her, stretching all the way to the stream on the other side of town. Soft music from down the block drifted across the air. Was it today, or was it seven years ago? She wondered.
The alarm clock chirped a tritone. Twilight trotted over to the other side of the room and picked it up off the floor. The plastic screen had been dented slightly, preventing the hour hand from cycling into the new hour. The clock read 10:57.
Through the window, Ponyville came alive. It always did during spring.
She set the clock on the nightstand without bothering to fix the time, grabbed her coat, and teleported.
The reaction was instantaneous. Twilight’s imagination became reality. Vague shapes, sketches of faraway places, solidified into metal and stone draped in tall shadows. Color bubbled from the blank spaces. A thought became the curved ionic columns of the Ponyville bank, and her accomplice crouched over a black bag with a multitool in his hoof, and a flock of birds a block over. Autocarriages pushed air down the alleyway. The atmospheric tapestry lay still above her, blue and static. Wings, Twilight thought. What good were wings?
Caramel Apple threw down his tools and fell over. “Gods--shit,” he barked, dragging himself away from Twilight on his back.
“I’m so sorry,” Twilight replied automatically as she offered her hoof. “I hope you don’t mind I’m early.”
Caramel sprung to his hooves on his own and glanced down the alleyway, then along the rooftops. “No, I don’t mind.” He tapped his hoof awkwardly eight to the bar, then said, “Moment of truth, I suppose--what are you here to do?”
“I’m here to help,” Twilight replied.
“You’re here to help, okay,” Caramel nodded. “You’re not here to arrest me?”
Twilight shook her head.
Caramel threw his head back and let out a long sigh. A block away, the birds chirped at a passing pegasus, all sharps and flats and no melody. “That’s very good to hear,” he finally said. “I knew you were a smart pony, Twilight. And a compassionate one, to care about your friend so much.”
“Okay.” Twilight clapped her hooves together. “So, what’s the plan? Are we gonna scope the place out? Draw up some employee analysis?”
Caramel shifted his saddlebag. “The plan is, I’m gonna wave a gun around and demand money. The teller will give it to me. You’ll keep an eye on the customers. We’ll exit the same way we came in. From there, for lack of a more eloquent explanation, we’ll run away.”
“Oh,” Twilight stumbled over a response. “So, we’re doing it now.”
“Yup.”
“Shouldn’t there be more thought going into this?”
“We’re just robbing a bank. This isn’t diplomacy.”
Two autocarriages honked simultaneously a few blocks away. The tritone skidded across the rooftops.
“Apathy,” Caramel explained as he returned to his work. “ Keeps folks like us in business. What would you do if you walked down the street one day, looked down an alleyway purely by chance, and saw a hobo with a stick of dynamite in his hoof? Would you get closer? Certainly not. You’d just keep on walking right by. Not a second thought given.” He glanced at Twilight. “We'll have to figure out some sort of disguise for you, too. That coat won't cover it.”
“I thought of that too, and I’m happy to say I have a solution.”
With that, Twilight closed her eyes and dreamed up a face. A coltish mare, no older than she was now, with big round glasses and dreamy eyes came to mind. Her lips curled up naturally, but never split. A smooth purple mane fell across her face and was corrected into a loose bun. Little white freckles burned away the orange of her fur. The eyes flickered a few different shades of blue before settling on a shade just darker than midnight. They shined in the void, the blue like the dark, the whites like streetlights.
“Neat,” Caramel mused.
Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes and inspected herself for any errors. “I’m keeping the jacket,” she said in somepony else’s voice.
“Fine by me,” Caramel said with a comical shrug. “One last thing--no real names. You can’t risk incriminating yourself, and me, well, that won’t do me too much good, but I still want to go back to work at Applejack’s farm when this is all over.”
“You do?” Twilight asked. “I figured you were a criminal full-time. No offence.”
“None taken, none at all. I’ll be just as happy to put my criminality behind me. We’re in the same boat there,” he chuckled. “Believe it or not, I used to be handsome.” The scar tissue on his face creased and folded as he smiled. “Not anymore. Now I want to pick apples and be wealthy.”
“So, what should our names be?”
“I was thinking I could be Sunrise, on account of my coat being yellow. And hey, since you’re purple, you could be Sunset.” He tossed her a black ski mask. “Put that on. It’ll make the schtick more believable.”
“You don’t think it’ll be too close to my regular name?” Twilight asked as she pulled the mask over her face.
All of a sudden, Caramel was in her face. He put his hooves on her shoulders before she could finish adjusting her ski mask. The mask obscured the bottom of his face, so all she could see was his eyes. His jaw flexed as he spoke.
“It’ll be fine. Listen to me. We are about to do this. We are about to break the law. I know you just got here, but there’s a reason we can’t hang around. I need to know you’re committed to this.”
“I am,” Twilight insisted. “I’m committed.”
“We can’t half-ass this. I’m glad you’re here, but if you’re gonna back out, now’s the time. I need you with me or not at all.” His eyes burned with a predatory look. “If you’re not sure about this, you’d be better off popping back to your castle.”
Here was doubt assailing her. Here was fire and anger she couldn’t grasp. Here was the animal, ready to take control. "I just thought there would be more time," Twilight stated. Her voice hit the concrete and went cold.
Caramel looked behind her one more time, then nodded. “Alright. Okay.” He took a deep breath, but stopped short on the exhale. “Are there any, uh, pre-game rituals, so to speak, that you’d like to perform?”
Twilight shook her head slowly. A long strand of her mane fell across her face. She was quick to fix it. Wearing this disguise always made her feel like she had murdered some stranger's soul and stolen their body. Images of ultra-gory alien movie thrillers flashed through her mind. It seemed like the aliens in the movies always had yellow beaks instead of mouths.
“Good.” Caramel fixed a hoofgun to his foreleg and turned towards the door. “Fix your mask before you go in. Don’t zap anypony, either.”
Caramel did a little stretch, kicked in the door, and shouted something.
Twilight stepped back in shock. A scream ricocheted through the alley. It occurred to her that she was alone in the alley, all alone in a ski mask wearing the body of a mare who didn’t exist.
So she checked her corners and ran into the bank.
The interior looked jagged and oblong, like a modern painting. The customers struggled to suck in the air that had been punched from their guts by the surprise of Caramel’s entrance. Twilight remembered she had cashed a check here a few days ago.
Caramel rushed the counter and pointed at the teller. “Stack as much gold as you can carry onto this counter right now!” he ordered. “Sunset, watch those customers.”
Twilight turned on the other ponies. One look was enough to corral them into the corner, but she lit up her horn anyway. Wrapping her head around the leylines calmed her down. It felt good to tap into the fabric of the magical universe. It gave her strength.
“I don’t normally say this kinda thing because I’m a professional,” Caramel said to the teller, “but you are just the darn cutest thing I’ve seen all week.” He struck a big smile. “What do you think, Sunset? Cute as a button.”
“Yeah,” Twilight replied, unsure of who to focus on--the cute teller or the frightened crowd?--”cute as a button.”
The teller continued to huck rolls of bits across the counter.
Caramel leaned across the counter and pressed his snout between the metal bars of the teller’s station. “I can’t exactly ask you on a date, you understand. It’s not you.”
One of the customers tried to break for the door.
For the first time that day, Twilight was presented with a choice.
With her mind in the leylines, she could anticipate the stallion’s move. He got about two steps before Twilight’s horn spewed purple light like a bright gas torch. An incineration spell would have required less magic and less fine adjustments to keep the spell together, but she picked up the pony with telekinesis and tossed him backwards into the huddle of customers anyway.
“Play nice or she’ll vaporize you,” Caramel tossed over his shoulder. “Listen, can you go any faster? It’s supply and demand--look here, I demand and you supply.”
The crowd was starting to stir. There couldn’t have been more than a dozen ponies, a third of the elderly, but the way they looked at Twilight made her skin crawl. Her horn glowed, and she touched eternity. That calmed her down a little. Somewhere above her head wailed a one-note alarm. Funny, how she missed the little things like that.
“Should we go?” she asked Caramel.
He hopped a couple times, testing the weight of the saddlebags. “Yeah, we’ve about met our goal.” He winked at the teller. “It was a pleasure. A real pleasure.” Turning to Twilight, he nodded to the back door. “Same way we came in, Sunset.”
If Twilight had more time, she would have asked Caramel if it was really that easy--break down a door, stress a few ponies out, and run away. It seemed almost childish in its simplicity. Like a game she used to play with Cadence when she was a child in Canterlot. Cops and robbers. Unreal. How could it be?
All the stress leading up to the moment vaporized. She wasn’t alive. She was dreaming, falling through space into the cradle of her overbearing mind. She could think her way through a lucid dream. She was better off forgetting the alarms and the shouting and the smoke entirely and repeating to herself as she fell into a new, senseless, and perfectly applicable mantra. Forgive yourself, forget yourself. Forgive yourself, forget yourself. Absolve yourself of sin, and you can commit no wrong. Hallelujah! Praise Celestia! Celestia? Who was that? Celestia was a figment of the real life. Forgive yourself, forget yourself. What was real but what was underhoof?
She found out what was real a moment later, when she tripped going out the door and hit the pavement of the back alley face-first.
Caramel hit the pavement with his hooves a few lengths beside her. “Almost done. Let’s find a dark corner someplace far from here.”
From across town came a siren. They had time, but they ran all the same.
“People are inclined to look away,” Caramel puffed as they went. “Apathy!”
That was her comfort as she darted from side street to side street until they reached a musty tunnel beneath the big stone bridge leading out of town. Behind her, the outline of Greater Ponyville jutted from the ground. Sweet Apple Acres was not far away. Twilight remembered her talk with Applejack a few weeks ago. Or was it a few days? Time flew with the pace of the times until there was nothing left to do but look back and wonder if any of it really happened.
Caramel took a moment to compose himself. “I think we’re in the clear,” he panted. “Congratulations, Twilight.”
They regarded each other with a strange kind of dignity. “Well,” Twilight finally said, “that’s that. I hope we don’t have to do too many more of those.”
Did she mean it? It didn’t matter. Caramel was already peeling off his saddlebag. She was already the villain.
Where did that put them? Where was the line. Behind them--but where was it? Caramel seemed not to care. The line fell wherever it was most convenient, wherever it would slice off the largest piece of the pie for him. For Twilight, the line came down directly on top of her.
Caramel fell into silence as he unzipped his saddlebag and divvied up the take. Here was the lie that kept him going: right and wrong were separate entities. Robbing and lying was bad to one pony yet good to another. And justifiable to a third! So long as the majority believed it, the minority could abuse it. And if the majority got wise--well, he didn’t want to think about that.
Sirens shattered the silence. Caramel stood up to find his bag wasn’t so heavy anymore. The light of the sky dazzled all the more.
“Three thousand bits,” he announced. “That’s a good cut. Next time we’ll get more. Maybe we’ll hit a jewelry shop, just to keep things interesting for us. You’ll get your twenty thousand yet.”
The present caught up to Twilight all at once. The disguise shattered. The coltish mare with orange fur and purple hair fell apart around her. “Would Applejack mind if I waited at the farm until things died down in town?”
“That would be a bad idea,” Caramel replied. “I’m going back there myself. It would be much safer for the both of us if we went our separate ways here.” Noticing the hesitation on her face, he added, “No one will stop you. Don’t stop walking until you get to your castle. Don’t open up the bag for any reason until you’re in the castle. You’ll be fine.”
“How will we contact each other?” she asked.
“Always thinking ahead. You’re a smart mare, Twilight. Swing by the Acres tomorrow whenever time allows. We’ll discuss the next job there.” He paused for a moment to take in a cool breeze funneling through their hiding place, then stole away. “Until then.”
Twilight elected to wait five minutes before following suite. Once she was sure nopony else was around, she stepped out of the dark and into the shade. She looked up to find banks of long clouds moving across town, dulling the reflections of Ponyville’s skyscrapers to grey. The picture of herself and Rarity in the sun hats reappeared in her mind. It wasn’t from before the war, she realized--it had been a Victory Day celebration. Not lunch, or a walk in the park. The blue hats matched the blue of the Equestrian flag.
Even with the sirens, the town felt more subdued than before. Twilight elected to take a roundabout route through the old Ponyville market square. Anything to put distance between her and the bank.
As she made her way through the market, somepony called out to her.
“Peace, Princess,” Roseluck shouted from across the street. “Wonderful weather today. Thank you!”
Twilight stopped and stared. “Come again?” she asked, craning her neck.
“I said, nice weather today. Thanks for scheduling it,” Roseluck repeated. “I was worried for my begonias, but the cold front will do wonders for them.”
“Oh.” The diplomatic side of her kicked in on instinct. “You are very welcome. Enjoy your day.”
Roseluck held out an orange blossom. “Please.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t, please,” Twilight waved her off. “I couldn’t impose.”
Roseluck tucked the flower behind her ear anyway. “You’re too modest, Princess. Orange is in this season.” She closed her eyes and bowed softly. Twilight flinched. “You’ll be the coolest mare in court, Your Majesty.”
Twilight didn’t feel cooler. More clouds rolled in atop the old ones. Their ancient churning bodies reached out towards the reflective glass of Ponyville’s skyscrapers, clawing for life. They reached for the ground and tumbled off the edge of the glass into open space. She briefly wondered if she had been stabbed, or if she was going crazy. She took off her jacket and slung it across her back. What would she do next? She had options. Stray beams of sunlight cut through the overcast like memories of spring. Grabbing lunch or walking through the park--she would have to go home eventually. Or Rarity’s.
More sunlight came through. Strange lights flickered across the horizon, mirrored on the clouds. The sky moved faster. She was starving--hadn’t she eaten today?
The memory rolled over her like an overcast afternoon. She and Rarity had gone to the hayburger restaurant a few blocks from the castle, where one of the smaller skyscrapers now stood. The food wasn’t great, but they were running a half-off sale for military personnel. Twilight wasn’t sure whether she would need her old military ID or her current civilian ID to claim the discount, so she brought both and her jacket too, just in case. Rarity, not to be outdone by Twilight picking up the tab, brought her the sun hat as a thank-you.
The flower in her hat was orange, too.