//------------------------------// // Chapter twenty eight, Manehattan Menageries Part Deux: Wait… WHAT was stolen?! // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Jade- Our herd date yesterday went really well, but now it was the next night and I had my heist plan to carry out. I was pleasantly surprised that nothing went over the top wrong yesterday, today had also been pretty tame and yet we still hadn’t had time to go to the comic convention. Today we spent most of our time on Arizona’s cultural activity, cow networking. It wasn’t boring and I got to meet Daisy Jo, who would be a good friend of Pinkie’s since she primarily lived in Ponyville, met and learned a lot about how cows knew all about the current word on the streets. Arizona’s activity counted to Cheerilee and sure it might not be as cool both literally and figuratively as Velvet’s ice sculpture, but there was a respectable amount of time spent on this activity. Getting back to my task at hand, I had a museum to sneak into and rob of a specific object. I was doing this alone, I didn’t want to make anyone accomplice to this and I always wanted to rob a museum. Now the first order of business was to get up to the roof without wings or outside help. Which is why I pulled out an industrial strength rubber band, better known as a bungie cord. I got it from a cow that had a somewhat more extreme mindset than the others. I was up on the roof of a building and the museum was a good distance away from where I was. I tied the bungie cord up tightly to a sturdy metal stove pipe and a brick chimney. This roof had both that were a good enough distance from another for a slingshot maneuver. Taking a griffon feather out of my pack and inserting it into my teeth, I started to pulling back the cord with my body towards the edge of the roof facing away from the museum until I couldn’t pull it anymore. I cast the feather in my mouth and promptly swallowed the feather falling magic, then I retracted the claws on my feet and kicked off. I shot high up into the air and vaguely towards the museum, my cloak billowing in the night as I flew towards the roof. Basically started gliding when my upward arc turned slightly downwards, the feather fall effect kicked into full gear. If I missed then I had several more feathers to do this with again. I didn’t really need to aim my launch at all, I just needed to end up over the museum. For when I did get over the museum and would have overshot it otherwise, I grabbed the edges of my cloak and held onto them. The cloak filled with air and using it as a brake, I halted and started to slowly drift down until I landed on the roof where I let go of the edges of my cloak and smiled. Looking around for a pegasus pony or an invisible unicorn pony using the heat vision ability of a salamander scale, I didn’t see anything amiss or anyone coming to see why I was on the roof. Skylights to any museum made for a good entry point. I made my way over to my access point that I marked on the blue prints I got back in Canterlot, I’ve poured over them numerous times to make sure I knew the layout of the museum so that I could get around much more easily. Okay time to test the window for magical protections, I bent down and placed my hand on it and tried to partial cast the window away. A portion of the window faded from existence into energy and I saw a wire running through the area I where was converting glass to cast energy. The window didn’t have magical protections, but it did have wires in case the glass was broken. Sensitive wires that would likely have activated an alarm had I just shattered the window. I dropped the cast and once the glass was back in place, the wire was invisible. The wire had magic protecting it from sight when looking through the window. Interesting fact, partial casting prevented finger prints for forensics to find so touching the glass and then releasing it with magical alchemy was safe. Second entry possibility test, I popped the claws on my left hand, put them to the glass and twisting my hand one hundred and eighty degrees sharply and then lifted away a perfect circle of glass with a little bit of awe. It’s amazing that that can actually even work! No alarm, so cutting and pulling the glass out didn’t set it off. Pulling my claws back in and carefully setting the circle of glass off to the side without leaving any prints on the glass. I reached my arm through the hole in the glass and flicked the lock on the window with a claw and carefully slid it open. I took out a notepad and started jotting down my observations about the security, a unicorn and a pegasus working in concert could get by this way too easily if they knew about the wired windows. Also the museums shouldn’t have moving windows for skylights, ponies weren’t always architecturally smart and it kind of showed with the housing in Ponyville. I pulled another griffon feather and cast it upon myself and dropped gently to the floor without making a sound, I looked left and right. Nobody here, no night guards suddenly coming into sight, time to get a move on! I sustained my cloak, since I have recently figured out what the cloak does. I was on the third floor and in the right place. The museum wasn’t well lit so I could use the sustain effect the cloak had to do something fun, I was going for a swim! I dove forward into the shadows in the area and started swimming through the darkness like an inky squid. Well I did have to paddle and holding my breath was also a requirement, I could only do this for about thirty seconds and if I were Jacky, it would be about ten minutes because apparently holding your breath was a good pirate skill to learn. There were a lot of restrictions to this ability and it was always a bit weird to use. If I were hit with any bright enough light directly, like moonlight, I would immediately lose the ability my magical sustain was giving me and would separate from the shadows. I moved along the walls and eventually spotting an earth pony guard looking about with a flashlight, the museum wasn’t heavily protected and its security seemed lacking. Though I would have to avoid the stallion as I came out for air. Unlike my water breathing, I did not breathe shadows. I quickly swam towards the floor, then moved over to and popped out of the shadows behind a large display of Rock Hoof while remaining out of sight of the guard. I always wondered why Rock Hoof had a cutie mark usually relegated to mythological Norse, it basically means ‘slain warrior knot’. Did that mean Rock Hoof died and came back with muscles or he had somehow acquired the powers of a god? More likely a demi-god, because there is no way rock Hoof should have suddenly gained that much power in so little time otherwise to be able to divert a volcanoes pyroclastic flow. I just looked at the ‘Valknut’ symbol on the flank of the statue that also had another meaning to contemplate. An earth pony with the cutie mark that gave him the power to alter history, life and death. I shook my head, not important to think about in depth right now. Taking in a few quiet breaths or two of air, I then dove back into the shadows and swam up and along the walls towards the stairwell. Looking around from my shadowy blob of darkness, I swam to the floor and then came out of the shadows standing at the top of the steps. Carefully walking down them making as little noise as possible, I needed to get to the second floor exhibits. My target was specifically a Zephyr’s Gunbai replica and Daring probably kept the real one for herself, no way would she leave something dangerous like that just laying around. I reached the entrance to the second floor of the museum and was about to step out when I saw a light in front of me, I fell backwards into the shadows and swam into a corner by the doorway. A unicorn with a levitating flashlight patrolled past me and I waited a few seconds, I popped out of the shadows to breathe and dove back into them to start swimming for the exhibit I would be taking the replica from. I was quite silent and there was no way I should be caught trespassing, though I did keep looking up trying to see if there were any pegasus guards patrolling the museum. Not many people looked up when something dangerous was around, living near a forest full of drop bears will make anyone paranoid about things being above them. In a world of airships, griffons, dragons, rocs and all manner of flying beasts… looking up every now and then was a rather prudent action. I was almost there, I popped up behind a statue of Commander Hurricane and looked around it towards what I was going for. I haven’t seen very much in the way of magical protections on any of the exhibits yet, otherwise I would have tripped an alarm by now by getting so close to them like this. The case with the fake gunbai in it was just in the next room over, I started writing more notes down in my notepad. I looked about for a sign of anything, my ears were perked up and flicking every now and then straining to hear any sound of movement, breathing or otherwise near me. I was quite alert when I started to slink towards the room with the gunbai in it. I suddenly stopped and eyed a statue that looked like one of the ones that had been watching Sekhet in the story of Somnambula, it probably came from Sekhet’s old legendary haunting ground where no winged creature could fly to this day. The anugyptian statues eyes weren’t glowing blue, so I didn’t think a god or goddess was watching this space. I started moving forward again and kept my senses wide open and crawled my way to the room with the gunbai. “Let’s see.” I used the salamander scale to see anything I normally would be incapable of, nothing overly magical was protecting the replica gunbai. I next put a griffon mask on my face and started to zoom in on every aspect of the room. Nothing. I dove into the shadows and started to swim towards the gunbai in the glass case. I looked behind me, above me and around me. Again nothing to see around me, I rose up from the shadows and studied the glass case. Cast test, it was wired like the skylight windows, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t work around. I noted where the wires were and returned the glass to its original position and carefully climbed up on top of the glass case. Once there, I lowered my right hand popped my claws, one twist and I pulled out another circular piece of glass. Looking about, as I grabbed the gunbai and tried to cast with it. It turned into energy, so yeah, it was definitely a fake gunbai and I was taking it. Returning it to a solid state I stowed it in my pack and started to slowly make my way for the stairs. Once I exited the room I almost got caught by a flashlight sweeping the area, I quickly swam to a corner and popped up to see the pegasus I had been worrying about. I took a few breaths and dove back into the shadows and swam out of the way of the flashlight as it suddenly swept to the spot I had been a second ago. Pegasus ponies had great spatial awareness and this one almost caught me, my movements in the shadows weren’t as secure with this pony flying around. I started to slowly swim away as the alert Pegasus swept her flashlight around as if she saw something, but she didn’t seem entirely sure she did. I slowly swam backwards out of the room past the Hurricane statue and into the stairway. I couldn’t go out back through the roof, so I had to go down to the first floor and figure a way out on the bottom floor. I carefully started to step down the stairs, so far so good. It was just unfortunate that shadow swimming wouldn’t allow me to move through cracks or small holes. Though I most certainly did not want to know what drowning in darkness felt like. I swam towards the closed metal gate to the front of the museum and popped up looking around for something… anything… when I remembered something. Isn’t there a sewer access in the middle of the floor here? I looked to the circular metal disk on the floor in the darkness, it couldn’t be moved from below… but from above... did I have anything in my arsenal that could do that quietly? Rubber chicken, you are my savior! I sustained my rubber chicken and forced my now rubbery claws into the holes of the heavy metal lid and pulled, it snapped up into my face knocking me to the floor. I managed to prevent the lid from making any noise by hitting the floor, I carefully pulled my fingers out of the holes and looked down the circular opening in the floor. There was no ladder leading up here, which is why it was impossible to open from below. Nothing but slippery tube leading up to the museum. I was going to have to drop down the storm drain into the sewers while pulling the lid back into place and then I’d be home free. I easily accomplished this and the lid clacked into place as I got it back in position then I pulled my fingers free and swapped sustain to the cloak as I fell down into darkness. I hit the bottom with a splash and then rose from shadows in the sewers of Manehattan, mission accomplished! -A minute later- I lifted the lid and climbed out the sewer, which was when I was noticed by someone. I even heard alarms coming from the museums direction and was curious as to what was going on, but before I could start running I was encased in a barrier. “Got you!” It was none other than Shining Armor, but what had set off the alarms? I didn’t say anything as I was dragged to the curator. “I believe I have your culprit right here!” “Where is it?” Curator Old Time asked me, I pulled the gunbai from my pack and showed it to him. “No, not that! Where is the ‘Alicorn Amulet’, the one that was locked away in the storage vault?” “Wait... what!? There was an ‘Alicorn Amulet’ here?!” My shock made the two stallions look at me in surprise. “If you didn’t know… then who took it?!” I’d let you know when I find out Old Time.