“What the hell is a Bandito?!” I ask, crumpled awkwardly in the corner.
“Are you deaf?” Dust hisses.”We’re trying to escape! Now clean out your ears and listen to me. We have a plan.”
He stands up and flies out the door, which seems like it’s more harm than good, because now everypony knows he’s doing something. Smarter than he is, I go on the down-low to avoid him.
This is just as suspicious as he was, and I garner a few looks. I don’t blame the store’s customers, I would be suspicious, too.
I sneak outside and, thankfully, Dust is standing there with a pained look on his face.
“You are such an idiot, Prancey,” he grumbles.
“I never claimed I was smart!” I reply.
He rolls his eyes and goads me with his hoof somewhere I haven’t seen before. We head over to a building on the outskirts of town, and I slowly follow Dust, hoping that this wasn’t a bad idea. The door opens with a mighty creak, and I step into the building.
Dust flips a switch, and the lights turn on, revealing a dusty, wooden room with plenty of ponies dressed in yellow jumpsuits entertaining themselves. All of the lunar ponies are dressed just like Dust, the jumpsuit is cut at the head, and doesn’t quite cover the whole body. A few pictures of Luna hang on the walls, otherwise, there’s literally nothing.
“I’ve found the famous Prancey!” Dust says.”He’s quite an idiot.”
Everypony looks at me, and I wave sheepishly.
“I mean, we never doubted that,” one mare in the corner says. However, that’s the only sound I hear in the room, maybe except somepony coughing, but that’s it.
“So, what are we doing?” I ask, trying to make it a modicum less awkward.”I’m trying to escape too, you know.”
“Well,” Dust says,”I don’t have the plans, I think Lunar Phase has them.”
The mare from the corner steps up with a scroll in her mouth. She’s brown, and her grey mane is concisely pushed back. She appears a little older, with wrinkles around her eyes. She lays the scroll upon the ground, unrolling it.
The scroll is a 1:1000 recreation of Lema, straight down to the guard’s patrol. Dust looks at the map and says,”Phase, that is not the plans. We have a plan recreation written out somewhere...—“ he trails off, and looks around. He finds another scroll and unrolls it next to Phase’s.
“Now, Phase’s map was a huge asset in us finding out the perfect route to take. Prancey, take notes, because you obviously can’t think of a good plan on your own,” he continues.
“Anyways, here’s the plan, in the easy-to-remember format.” He points his wingtip towards the scroll next to Phase’s map.
I take a look at the writing on the scroll, examining what it says, which happens to be this:
”Toss a razorblade at a guard, make sure to start a riot; a complete diversion, alert the guards, break free, head East.”
“So,” I say,”explain how this plan is going to succeed. Besides, we can’t save everyone.”
“I know, we’ll pick and choose.” Dust says.”I’ll explain how the plan is going to work.
“Step one, we purchase a razorblade from the store, which is simple enough, I was actually about to do it when you interrupted me. We won’t require any id, as it’s just a razorblade, and nothing much to worry about. We want to get the sharpest ones we can find, and everypony here will get one.
“Secondly, we’ll take our razorblades and toss them at the guards. Make sure to toss them at different guards, as we want complete confusion. They’ll wonder why the hell razorblades got tossed at them and will likely be on the alert, the slackers, even.
“Third, a couple of the well-built ponies in here will head into an open clearing in Lema and get into a loud pretend brawl. The guards are trained to focus on breaking people up, mainly because the defenses are so heavily fortified that it’s kind of silly to focus on protecting them. The ponies that we will send out to brawl will be Moon Rock,” Dust motions to a muscular, bald, stallion in the corner,”and Pony Kind.” Dust points to a Black stallion with long, straight, dark brown hair and a goatee.”They will start a pretend brawl, and we’ll exploit it.
“Finally, we’ll break free by knocking out a guard, to the best of our abilities. and shoot the glass. It will set off an alarm, putting them on alert for whoever did it, as that is the ultimate priority. We’ll leave to the west, Prancey, you and Phase will gather up everypony who wants to leave Lema.”
“How do we know which ponies want to leave?” I interject.
“Study Phase’s map carefully.” Dust says, motioning with his wings to the scroll Phase drew out.”Plan an efficient way to hit everypony’s house and state ‘East is up’, they’ll know what you’re talking about. Then, you head out the west hole, we’ll flt around the dome and head East.”
“Me and what army?” I snark.
“The army you’ll gather of course! Now, I’ll meet you in 30 minutes at the general store, be ready.”
I head over to the general store to purchase my razorblade. After purchasing it, the Banditos gather outside.
“Our plan is to be performed in 3, 2, 1!” Dust shouts, and I head off to gather up everypony, hitting the houses along the way. I probably look like an idiot flying through Lema at top speed, but I stop at every house and tell them,”East is up.” Most ponies do not know what I’m talking about, but a select few nod and tag along.
With my army, I head over to the hole on the west side of Lema, where almost every guard is gathered. My improvised army jumps in and then attempt to beat the guards into submission.
Of course, their armor prevents us from doing much damage, the most we can do is crush their helmets in and knock them out.
A guard slices me on the nuzzle, and my lack of weapon allows him to slice me a couple more times. Then I remember, I have the razorblade! I slice the guard with the razorblade, it does nothing, but he’s momentarily confused. I take his gun off of him and try to shoot him, the bullets are armor piercing, so in his confusion, I am able to get a hit off. I decide to help my army fight off some more.
Eventually, we win, but are not without loss, a fourth of my army succumbed to the guards. We decide to bury them, as we have the body, and we silently fly East.
We see a campfire dead East and I thank Luna we found it, I see Dust and Phase, as well as some other ponies sitting there. We had found the Bandito camp.