Sunset stared at the thugs and groaned as she shook her head. One of them stepped forward with a pipe. "You better leave if you know what's good for you."
Sunset gave him an unseen deadpan expression behind her mask. "I can't even- you're seriously- ugh." They looked like your usual, boring things. Heavy jackets with deep pockets, baklava for hiding the face and thankfully no guns. The guy with the pipe looked confident. The other guy looked really nervous and - who gave the nervous guy a knife?! He was looking between her and- of course the clerk was Jen. No wonder she wanted a night shift.
She didn't like this situation. Not one bit. She liked money, not violence. She didn't like surprises and that shaky thug looked like he could give out an unwanted surprise at any time.
"Dammit." She cursed and that one utterance seemed to send the skittish one into overdrive. He turned and started to move towards Jen with his knife out.
Time seemed to move slowly as Sunset's mind moved on instinct. She wasn't a hero. She wasn't. But, this was ruining all her plans. Making all the time she'd spent go to waste. She'd been learning human martial arts since she arrived but it wasn't instinctual yet. So when she dropped to all fours it threw the pipe off enough that he didn't do anything when she launched herself towards his buddy and upon getting close to him, turned around in a quick and fluid movement as she left both hands on the floor and brought both feet to the knife idiot's chest.
Time's flow came back to normal as he flew a few feet away and she stood back up and wiped her gloves off on her legs. She looked around and found the knife on the ground. She kicked it under one of the shelves before making her way back to him.
He was wheezing. "That hurt?" She asked impassively as she grabbed his head. "I hope so. Cause you were doing something really dumb."
Pipe thug seemed to come out of his stupor as he came rushing to heroically help his poor idiot. "H-hey! Bug off!"
"Bug off? Really?" Sunset mumbled to herself before slamming Knife Thug's head against the floor. Not horribly hard. She'd used some magic to put him into an unconscious state too. No reason to take chances that she might not do it too hard or not hard enough.
She stood up and cracked her neck, spreading her arms and creating some fire from her fingertips. "Alright. You're going to be my punching bag then. Cause I'm really pissed off right now." She said before sending a few fireballs to the nearby cameras. Just because she didn't like violence didn't mean she couldn't use it in a way that benefited her.
Pipe Thug's eyes widened at the sight of the fire. "It was you! In the alley!"
Now Sunset's eyes widened before she let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness! I was worried that this place had three groups that wanted to rob it." She chuckled a little and got a little more of her confidence back "Well at least now I know my luck isn't that bad." She said before rushing at him. This time she consciously focused on using human martial arts.
Wanting to stay away from the fire, the thug stepped back and swung the pipe. Sunset superheated a very small range around her hand and reached for it. The pipe melted before the force even reached her. "Ooh. Sorry. Too bad."
The thug panicked and dropped the pipe, trying to run but that big jacket worked against him as Sunset grabbed the hood and kicked the back of his leg. Once he was in range she put an arm around his neck. "I'm gonna need you to sleep." She made a show of jerking his head to the side as she cast the same spell as she did on his buddy.
"Hey! Do you have an extension cable?!" Sunset called out to Jen, who seemed to have hidden behind the counter once she was out of danger of being targeted right away, as she started to drag Pipe Thug towards the other one.
Jen jumped at being addressed but once she realized everything seemed over she rushed into action. Though her version of action was very different from the action of what just happened. She walked up and handed off the extension cord to what she could only see as her savior. "Thank you so much for your help. I was already worried about taking a night shift. I know this neighborhood is better than some but I don't like being out late and-" she cut herself off with a sigh. "I'm rambling. Thank you so much."
Sunset chuckled. She felt a little uncomfortable. It was also a bit funny. Once she was sure the thugs were tied good enough she put a bit of heat into the cables. Enough to melt the rubber to itself and make sure getting out was harder.
"Don't thank me." She said as she stood up. She was just a little taller than Jen. "I'm not exactly much better."
Jen raised a brow "what do you mean?"
Sunset chuckled again. "This is gonna be really awkward after all this but… I'm going to need you to open the safe. Now." She ordered. She watched as Jen's face fell at the realization that she hadn't exactly been saved. "Look. Just do it and I won't hurt you. Those morons first instinct was to threaten you. Which, you already are by the situation itself. So just do what I'm asking, don't go near that button under the count-" Sunset stopped.
The counter. The place where she'd been hiding during the fight. The place where the panic button was.
"Shit," She cursed. She couldn't even get mad. Jen already hit the panic button, so she put her to sleep by casting a nicer version of the spell she used on the thugs on her and helped to make sure she didn't crumple to the floor.
She grabbed the bag she'd dropped at the entrance and rushed to the safe, barely paying attention as she blasted the cameras. Her "fight" if you could call it that, with the Knife Thug reminded her of the days with Celestia. Back then she'd demanded some training with the royal guards. In her mind her reasoning was that a future princess would need to defend herself if her magic was ever cut off. She was often paired up with a recruit who was really good with shields so she wouldn't hurt him since she had a tendency to go overboard. Which she used as an opportunity to train both physically and magically even harder. Eventually she came up with a spell to break his shield. It worked for all of two days until she had to rework it.
She may be a genius but when it came to magic shields, whatever his name was, was dang close. Every time she broke it, he'd fix it soon afterwards.
That very spell was what would get her into the safe now. She recalled the blueprints she found online and her magic took the form of a drill. It pushed in like the metal was butter. His shields were way better. If she ever got back she'd really have to spar with him again.
She stepped out of the way as the thick door fell. She quickly pushed the money into her bag as she heard the tell-tale sounds of sirens nearby. All her planning and everything fell apart. Maybe burglary wasn't all that bad of an idea after all.
She made her way to the back door and melted the lock out, kicking it open afterwards. She heard someone shouting at her to stop. Memories of her sparring partner and her first botched job mixed together in her head, causing her to create a shield behind her. Luckily it wasn't the bright pink she remembered from the training grounds but instead a transparent shimmer in the air.
She didn't hear any shots. But she heard someone chasing her. Annoying but she could deal with that. A bit of magic into her legs and she moved faster. She was already outrunning them but now the distance was even bigger.
She couldn't even smirk though. This whole thing was one screw up after another. She'd have to look into a new avenue of theft. She still wanted money because finding someone to buy stolen goods was a pain in the ass.
Long after outrunning the police and taking a scenic route to change, she found herself home. She felt wiped out. That drill spell was a bit tougher to use than she remembered. She sighed and lit a little ball of fire on her fingertip. She watched as it bounced from finger to finger. She still didn't understand why pyrokinesis was the only magic that didn't wear her out. The bouncing flame took the form of a familiar filly, a smile full of hope and joy. She was looking up at-
She snuffed the flame out. She had research to do. Convenience store heists weren't working out. She needed something with a big enough score that if it went bad she could still hide out long enough with her ill gotten gains for the heat to die down and be comfortable.
She needed to go bigger.