Two years ago
Out skirts of Manehattan, Equestria
Equestrian Royal Credit Union
"Recent statistics suggest the incursion will only become a greater and greater threat as time progresses. The Changeling situation is getting out of hoof-" The voices on the radio went on about some conflict nopony cared about in someplace nopony's ever been. "Are you implying the-"
"Hey." I was awakened from my daydream by Peaches, the mare in the driver's seat. "Truck's moving." She cut off the radio. "That was like, a whole thirty minutes longer than usual. Are you sure you wanna do this today?"
"Doesn't matter, it has to be today. We're running out of time," I replied.
I checked the bags in the back seat. I'd already checked them maybe a dozen times, but this time it mattered. I levitated one to Peaches with my magic, then the other to myself.
I looked at the truck as it pulled away from the bank. They were offloading bills in exchange for bits. Most of the first world had already converted to fiat currency, but Equestria being as obsessed with tradition as it was, we were only just getting around to using bills rather than gold coins or writing out checks.
The time was crucial, the location and everything. Crucial. We'd picked a Royal bank for a specific reason, their security was lax. They never got hit, so they never expected a hit. The bank was near a main road, with lots of straights. Easy to pick up some serious speed if we needed to get away quick. The time was necessary because any later and we'd be stuck at work again, lifting our tails for strangers. I wasn't going back to that.
"I dunno Lunes, I have a feeling..." Peaches said.
"Don't do that, we're fine. We're going to do fine. This is it, Peaches. After today we're out. No more Clover, no more Manehattan, no more anything!" I opened my door and threw my bag over my back. "Let's go."
The bank wasn't busy yet, still early enough in the morning. We had a plan, it was plain and would go off without a hitch. Before we came close enough to the door for anypony to see us, we pulled our guns from our bags. Two cheap nine-millimeter pistols, easy enough to discard if need be, reliable enough to do what we need them to do.
"Start the clock," I said, and stepped through the front door. Immediately I shot two rounds into the upper corner of the room, where the only camera was. We'd triple-checked to make sure it was the only one, and it was. Relatively small bank, so the security was even less prevalent than average. Perfect for us.
All the ponies in the place immediately began their routine of screaming and panicking. "Alright, alright!" Peaches shouted. "Everypony knows what this is. Everypony knows what to do. Shut up, sit still and stay out of our way. You!" She said, and pointed at the pony behind the counter. There were supposed to be two back there, their cars were in the parking lot. "Step away from the counter."
"Where's your coworker?" I asked the clerk as she nervously stepped backwards. She stammered, not managing to get a word out. "Relax. We're not here to hurt anypony. You know exactly how this works." I looked at the few ponies in the foyer. They were all scared. "Everything we're going to be taking from this place is insured. Nopony is losing a dime of their own money today. As long as everypony plays along, we'll be done and gone without having to hurt any of you."
A few of the ponies nodded. Most just stared, wide eyed. "Alright, come unlock the door," Peaches said, gesturing at the door to the kiosk. The Clerk did as she was told, slowly. The lock went, and Peaches opened the door and grabbed the mare by the collar of her shirt, before pulling her through and shoving her towards me. I took her, pushed her to the corner where most of the other ponies were, and shoved her to the floor. She got the idea, and stayed put.
"Let's go," I said to Peaches as I walked past her, and through the threshold. The vault was behind the kiosk, but it had a timer on it before it locked solid after each time it got accessed. This meant we just needed the key, and not a remote authorization. Just had to find the other clerk. "Answer my question," I said from the inside of the kiosk. "Where's the other clerk?"
The mare just stammered again, before managing to whimper, "b-back. In back."
"Thanks." We walked around the corner into the back room.
WHAM! A fire extinguisher swung short of my face and impacted the wall behind me. I raised my pistol at the old buck standing in the corner of the next room. "You sure that's how you want to do this?" He had the key. The younger mare was a basic employee, couldn't give her control of the vault. This guy was a manager or something. "Key."
"You can't get away with this," he said as he tried to back further into the corner he was already backed into.
I used my magic to pat at his pockets. Vest pocket. I pulled out a key attached to a lanyard, the key came out but the lanyard didn't. I tugged harder and something gave. I had the key. "Stay put. Move and you're collateral."
Next was the vault. We still had plenty of time, no major issues so far. The vault was built into the building, in the back. The door was in the wall of this room. I put the key in, turned it, and peaches helped me move the door. We swung it open, and inside was our target. The one uncertainty in all of this, how much money we'd actually collect today. We were lucky, the thing was flush with cash. I set my pistol down, and we both put our bags on the floor. Peaches kept her weapon ready, in case she needed it. I used my magic to stuff the bags full. It didn't take long, we weren't robbing the place dry. I zipped the bags closed and picked up my weapon after we both put our bags back on our back. They were comfortably heavier now.
The biggest challenge would be getting out. We had to assume somepony called the police considering we had to leave them all unattended in the foyer. We'd considered leaving one of us in the foyer to watch them, but that risked the scenario we just encountered with the fire extinguisher going much worse. We knew somepony would try something, probably in the back room, so we both went there. Easier to outrun the cops than treat a concussion.
We came back out of the vault and back room, and found all of the ponies still where we'd left them. Hadn't expected that, but it made things easier.
One of them had a smug look on his face. A younger buck, wearing a fitted suit. Of course he was smug. "You're in for it now," he said through his grin.
"Yeah," I said back. I looked out the front of the building, nothing yet. Cops probably on the way though, Manehattan didn't play around. "Peaches, cover the front." I grabbed the clerk mare and dragged her to her hooves before taking her to the back room with her manager. He was on his phone, naturally. I pointed my gun at them. "Stay here until the police arrive. Don't run out, it won't be safe." I lowered the weapon and left them there.
I came back to the foyer and could hear the sirens approaching. Go time. "You ready?" I asked peaches.
She put her pistol in her bag and closed it again. "Yep." I concentrated on the appearances of the two clerks. Their features, coat and mane colors, the clothes they were wearing. It took a few moments, but I got the images in my head. Then I focused on the two of us, myself and Peaches. I began to cast my spell.
After a second or two, we looked like the clerks. Me the manager, her the other one. "Everypony out," I said, and opened the door. Peaches and I ran out first, and the other ponies followed. We ran straight for the car as the other ponies ran to the police line that had begun to form at the front entrance to the parking lot.
Next crucial factor, had they blocked the back entrance? Once we got to the car we could see it. All clear, the rear of the building opened up into another parking lot, which was vacant. I got into the driver's seat, Peaches got into the passenger seat. We'd left the car running. I threw it into gear and pulled away. The turbo V12 engine barely made a noise as we came around the back of the building and to our exit.
Once we were out of view of the police, I released my spells. Our disguises left us, and the true appearance of our car revealed itself. A one of ten Baybus E-V12. Marecedes engineering, Baybus upgrades. Peaches had stolen it from one of our 'clients.'
"And that's the worst of it, girl!" I said, my focus returning to the real world. Holding an illusion spell on an entire car for that long really was a drain. Ahead of us was the way out, the police hadn't blocked the entrance to this lot - it was vacant after all.
"Northbound is where they came from, could be some coming from Southbound too though," Peaches told me as I pulled out onto the road. I looked in the rear view mirror to see a few of the ponies at the bank pointing at us.
"Doesn't matter, we're had. Just gotta drive faster than them now." I opened up the throttle and we accelerated, hard. This motor was nothing to sneeze at, to be sure, but neither was the rest of the car really. A few of the police cruisers had peeled off to pursue, but we were already building distance. I picked Southbound on a whim, because it didn't matter which route we took, we just had to drive far enough to be out of sight.
"Did those cops look weird to you?" Peaches asked me as she looked behind us. I could still see one cruiser far behind, the little red and blue lights the only real indication of it being there at all.
"Couldn't really focus on that, sorry. What was weird about them?" I asked her. The traffic ahead was super light, barely anypony out at all.
"Looked different I guess. Not county, not state. Might have been some special division of City?" Peaches was definitely not handling this as well as she needed to. I put my hoof on hers, and she looked at me.
"We're free and clear now hun. It's over, we're out of this hell hole!" I assured her. We'd developed a sort of half comradery, half romantic interest over the years of working side by side. Our employer, a crime syndicate named Red Clover, brought both of us to Equestria from overseas, myself from Itailia and Peaches from Prance. The cost for that favor was ten years of service to the Clover. After that, we were free. We'd served six before deciding we wouldn't do it anymore.
"What the fu-" Peaches exclaimed, before the rear glass shattered. I got control of the car again after swerving, and looked in the rear view. Something was keeping up with us!
"What kind of..." I murmured. I laid on the throttle, and all eight hundred Thestrelian horsepower poured into the tires. We were nearing a hundred and seventy miles an hour, and there was a vehicle on our tail! Worse, they'd shot at us. I didn't see any sort of indication it was a typical police vehicle, it didn't even have emergency lights. What the hell was it? "Don't worry babe! I've got this!"
I thought I heard more gunshots, but none were hitting us or our vehicle so I just kept driving. I kept both my hooves on the steering wheel and my eyes forward, but I desperately wanted to look at Peaches. We came to a crest in the road and as we began the downhill I looked over. She was looking at me in such an odd way. She was trying to say something. "You've got to-"
THUD. We got rammed. Whatever was behind us had caught up, and was trying a pit maneuver. I looked at it again, starting to feel pissed off. It looked like an old muscle car, but updated and refreshed. Some sort of custom build? But why was it chasing us? Peaches was trying to whisper or something, I couldn't tell. She was making some odd noises. I had to focus on driving, had to get away from this thing!
"Lunes..." Peaches said, and I looked at her again. Why was there-
THUD. We got hit again, harder. I tried to steady the car, but they'd hit the rear hard enough that we were skidding. I was really pissed now. We went off the road and off the side, into a dirt lot where a few vehicles were parked. I levitated out my pistol, this was personal now.
We were turned around so my side of the car was towards the road. "Stay in the car!" I shouted to Peaches, before
hopping out and raising my weapon at the other vehicle. It looked a lot like an old Buckler Challenger, only with a modern twist. What the hell... I had eleven more shots left. I couldn't see the ponies in the car, and even if I shot through their windows, the rounds probably wouldn't go where I wanted them to.
I made my way to the other side of the engine compartment and used my magic to open the passenger door so Peaches could get out. I looked back at the other vehicle and sure enough, they were getting out. I waited until they were both outside the vehicle, then shot. Two in the driver, he went down. The passenger panicked and ran away, shooting blindly behind himself. He was hitting the pavement in front of me, had to be careful of ricochets. I lined up my sights, and took another shot. Hit him in the behind, but he dropped. Another two shots at him and he didn't move.
"Peaches?" I asked. She wasn't getting out. I came around to look at her.
Ah, fuck.
She was hit. Went through her chest, must have come through the back of her seat. Sucking chest wound, needed to-
"Lunes," she wheezed. There was a lot of blood. From her chest, from her mouth. Her face was pale. "Take it. Take it and go. I'm sorry. I wanted a future... with you." She stared at me. I stared at her.
I felt so full of rage, so full of hate and fear and I wanted to scream. Maybe I did.
Peaches pulled herself out of the car. She tried to stand, to raise her weapon, but ended up slumping back to her rump. Her pretty white shirt was dark red, her beautiful coat was stained the same. It was supposed to match her name. It wasn't supposed to be red. This wasn't supposed to happen. I felt dizzy.
Peaches raised her gun at the hill we'd come down from. "They'll be coming," she whispered. "Go."
I opened my mouth to protest, but she shook her head. "We promised each other, remember?" She smiled at me. Her golden mane was covering half of her face. I brushed it aside.
I acted on impulse, and kissed her. Deep, full. Like I meant it, because I did.