My Little Sly Cooper: Thievery is Magic

by Deyeaz

XX - Meetings In The Dark, Letters In The Park

A lone pony in a cloak was walking through the Mohaneigh Dessert. He soon came to the entrance of Neighvada, the city that stood on the border of Equestria and the Badlands. He looked up to the sign, grunting to himself. He walked through the streets, looking around at the things he passed. Being so far out from the rest of Equestria, Neighvada wasn’t as... nice... as most other Equestrian towns were. The place was completely filthy, and crime was a very common event. The figure looked down an alley in time to actually see a crime in progress. A black male unicorn, horn glowing, was yelling at a brown Earth pony mare with a face clad in a carapace of makeup like a common prostitute. She could only watch in emotional pain as she was being smack-talked by the offending pony, the black stallion’s lips blasting insult after insult at her as though his mouth were a cannon.

The cloaked colt walked past the couple, a small chuckle escaping his lips. “This is my kind of place.” The shrouded figure glided through the crowd of thugs, pedestrians, ex-convicts, and what have you, exploring the lay of the land and memorising it like the back of his hoof, almost as if his brain... was a machine, one might suggest.

He then entered a bar and walked up to the counter. He removed his hood, revealing his brown fur and sloppy dark brown mane. His sapphire-blue eyes scanned the bar, looking for the back door to lead to an alleyway of some sorts. He smirked when he saw aforementioned back door, and so he slipped towards it like a snake in the grass, meandering through the barfolk.

Once in the alley, the chocolate-coloured stallion walked up to some figures cloaked in the shadows.

“Hey buddy, you can’t go this way,” said one, flipping and fanning a butterfly knife in his hoof. “At least, not without paying the toll.” He grinned as he motioned for the others to follow him. They began to surround the cloak-wearing stallion.

“Trust me, boys, this is something you don’t want to do,” he warned. “I came to get some information out of you, and that’s something that you can still do with some very painful injuries.”

“Oi! Who does this cheeky little git think he is?!” roared another one, his accent thick and foreign, signifying that he hailed from Great Braytain. “Get this little turd!

One by one, the five alleyway thugs withdrew weapons from their jackets and saddlebags, ranging from knives to lead pipes to even chains and black-market musket pistols. “Oh well. Can’t say I didn’t warn you imbeciles.” The victimised stallion’s blue eyes flashed yellow, and in the vicinity, the lights of the streetlamps went out one by one with a little pop, throwing the entire setting in blackness.

“What the?” said one of the thugs. Later came the sickening crack!, followed by the thug’s scream of agony. “MY LEG!”

“Aw, ponyfeathers!” hollered the Braytish pony, before something hard came launching into his face, unhinging his jaw and knocking out some of his teeth. He went down like a bag of wet cement. The first thug who demanded payment started wailing in excruciation as he felt something grab his wings and pull. The sounds of ligaments tearing and more bones breaking went off rapidly as he continued to scream and scream. A hoof to the back of his skull knocked him out.

One of the two remaining delinquents used his horn to fire the musket pistol in his grasp, the bullet missing its target by a huge margin. Knowing that the shot had given away his location, the pony tried to make a break for it, but not before something grabbed him by the throat and began squeezing. The asphyxiating gangster could feel his oxygen run low. His brain felt like it was cooking in his skull from the lack of air. The hooves on his neck relinquished their ironclad grip, and he fell to the floor, alive but out cold.

The last standing thug was shaking in the dark, his comrades down and out for the count. He felt something grab him by the scruff of his neck and pull him up. The gangster almost shrieked like a banshee when he saw the yellow eyes that glared down at him in hatred. “Where is it?!” The owner of those eyes had a... mechanical voice. As though his vocal cords were replaced with machinery.

The thug pointed a quivering hoof at a manhole at the end of the alley. The sickly green light that flared from the holes of the sewer lid confirmed the attacker’s suspicions, making him smirk in wicked joy.

“Get. Lost.” The stallion with the yellow eyes tossed the gangster aside, and watched as he ran from the alley, screaming his lungs off.

“Time to get to business.” The yellow eyes faded back to blue, and just like that, the lights in the streetlamps returned to working order, illuminating the putrid streets of Neighvada. There lay the brown stallion, and four severely injured ponies, bruised and slightly bleeding.

The stallion approached the manhole and flung it open, the lid clattering on the concrete and causing huge reverberations of sound along the walls of the alley. He’d better hurry: the commotion he had made would have definitely alerted the authorities. He snaked down the hole in the ground and, quick as he can, resealed it with the manhole, before disappearing into the darkness.

Pulling out a lantern from his cloak and lighting it, the brown stallion stared in awe at the sight of the sewers. The underground sewer channel looked grotesque and warped due to the black mess of carapaces that shelled the walls and floor of the room. Large lumps in the blackness glowed the same sickly green from before, until they faded back to black. Like a heartbeat.

The stallion progressed down the tunnel, taking care not to disturb the egglike lumps around him. The sound of skittering, buzzing, and chattering resonated all around him, the source coming from deep within. The tunnel seemed to go on and on, as if it transcended time and space.

When he came to the end of the tunnel, the stallion was awestruck by the size of the room. It was so spacious that it could fit Canterlot Castle quite cosily inside. Green cocoons dangled from the ceiling, black pony-like shapes curled up in fetal positions inside. Stalagmites and stalactites decorated the room, peppering the floor and ceiling respectively here and there. A black throne, crafted from the shells of many large insectoids, rested at the end of the room, basking in a green light.

What was even more striking than those details of this room were the changelings that teemed it, as well as the queen that they were facing in a crystalline mirror.

“Now is the time to strike, my children!” The queen, with lanky seaweed-green hair, a black insectoid-pony body and transparent wings, a large crooked horn, and a myriad of holes in her body, looked at her changeling armada with her green demonic eyes as she announced her plans through the glass: she was obviously somewhere else. “What’s to stop us from taking over Canterlot?! Once we rule this little castle, all the love of Equestria will be ours!” The changeling audience hollered and whooped and cheered in rejoice. “That’s right, children! Our family is about to grow, grow, GROW!” The queen giggled maliciously at the prospect of a higher changeling–pony ratio, and all the love that she could ever want.

As the changelings continued celebrating their soon-to-be victory, the stallion cleared his throat. “Pardon moi.”

The changeling queen turned to the voice, a horrified look on her face. “He’s heard our plan! Attack, my children!”

“Stop.” The voice from the stallion was mechanical again, his eyes glowing yellow. He glared at each and every one of the changelings that threatened to attack, the changelings freezing in their paths. “Not another step closer.” The glare he emanated towards them was one of inextinguishable hate, forcing the changelings to back away.

“Why do you hesitate?! Attack!” The queen’s fury coagulated into worry for her children’s obedience. “He’s standing right there!”

“Silence, you.” The stallion made his way to the crystal image, the queen flabbergasted by his mechanical bark. The changelings cleared a path for him to walk through, not out of respect, but because of the rage that was seeping through every pore in his body that made the changelings weak-kneed and queasy; they refused to be near anything that could potentially kill them. “Tell me, what is your name?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“I overheard. There’s something about this... Canterlot... that fascinates you. There’s a possibility that the one I seek is there.”

“And why should we help you?”

“Because if you don’t...” the stallion leered hatefully back at the changelings, who recoiled under his gaze. Some even passed out from the fury that he spilled forth. Some of the cocoons above even started to lose their sickly shamrock-green light and shrivel slightly. “I’ll make sure each and every one of your children die.”

“No, wait!” begged the queen. “We’ll help you... just, please, let them alone!”

The stallion grinned, happy to get what he wanted. “Good.” He turned tail and walked back to the exit, the changelings steering clear of him.

“Wait!” called the queen. “What is your name?”

The eyes of the stallion glowed an even brighter yellow. “I... am Clockwerk.”

The brilliant sun hung high above the mane six, Murray, Bentley, and Carmelita as they huddled around their checkerboard blanket and munched cheerily on their lunch, as they were gathered together for a group picnic.

“It’s a shame Sly couldn’t be here for this,” said Rarity, sipping daintily on her tea.

“It’s okay,” said Bentley, swallowing his mouthful of egg salad before speaking. “Sly is used to hiding from the cops. Of course... Murray and I are usually hiding with him.” The magic blue aura of his horn brought another spoonful of egg salad to his mouth, and he ate it eagerly.

“I can vouch for that,” said Carmelita, nibbling on a cookie.

“Guys, we’re here to have fun, not talk about Sly’s criminal record,” said Twilight, letting go of the hay fries she was partaking in.

“Exactly!” Applejack declared happily, eating her daffodil sandwich in great earnest.

“Huff huff huff huff huff-!”

“What’s that sound?” Rainbow Dash looked up from position on the ground, lifting up her giant sunglasses.

“It looks like–”

“SLY!” cheered Pinkie Pie, cutting across Fluttershy’s statement. “SPIKE!”

Sure enough, the ex-raccoon and baby dragon appeared over the hill, huffing and puffing as they sprinted to their friends.

Sly was wearing a disguise, so as not to raise suspicion on himself. He was wearing his black and red clothes, and had moved his saddlebags so that they covered his cutie mark. Over the past few days, he had grown a small goatee, and he was wearing orange sunglasses to hide his eyes.

“Twi– *huff* –light– *huff*,” said Sly as he tried to catch his breath.

“We– *huff* have– *huff* a... let me just–” said Spike, who was much more exhausted than Sly. When he had finally regained his breath, he began to say something, but was interrupted as he opened his mouth and belched out a scroll into Twilight’s face, whacking her on the nose. “Sorry.”

Twilight, rubbing her nose from how hard the scroll had crashed into her muzzle, picked up the offending bit of parchment and opened it up, noticing the golden seal of Princess Celestia emblazoned upon it. She read the letter while the two faux-messengers puffed and panted to regain their oxygen.

Dear Twilight Sparkle and friends,

It has come to my attention that the thief from a few days prior, Sly Cooper, has escaped from Canterlot's dungeons.

I know it was you.

I know you came to break him out.

Don’t worry: I’m not mad. If the letter you sent to me about Discord being behind all this is true, then you have nothing to worry about, my student. I’ve dropped the charges on Sly’s head, just make sure Shining Armour doesn’t see him, or there might be Tartarus to pay. See, Shining is so proud of his military that even the slightest mention of a breakout would be deemed impossible.

But since that has actually happened, Shining Armour is beside himself with anger.

Just stay on your hooves and make sure Shining doesn’t pummel your poor coltfriend to a pulp.

Sincerely,
~Princess Celestia

P.S.: If you wanted some cake, Sly, you should have just asked~ ❤

Sly’s calf-brown eyes contracted to pinpoints, confused by the postscript. “Er.... okay... that’s not at all weird and borderline creepy.”

“Ack!” Spike clutched his belly as his face contorted in slight pain, and he belched out two more scrolls, both hitting Twilight in the face again.

“What am I, a bullseye?” She asked frustratedly. “Those ballistic scrolls could’ve taken out my eyes!” She opened the scrolls as she read their contents silently to herself. With each passing sentence, her expression grew more surprised. She rolled up the scrolls, eyes bugged out.

“Twilight, what’s wrong?” inquired Sly, genuinely worried for the unicorn.

“Did something happen?” Spike asked.

“Is Sly in trouble?” Carmelita looked a bit gleeful.

“No...” Twilight turned and faced them all. “My brother is getting married!”

“Oh, that’s what all the hubbub was about?” Bentley asked, throwing his hooves up at the incredulity of it all. “You’re getting all worked up over your brother getting married?! What is this I don’t even–”

“That’s not it, Bentley,” deadpanned Twilight. “He’s getting married and he just told me, when he should’ve confided to me about it months ago! Hay, I don’t even know who this Princess Mi Amore Cadenza that he’s tying the knot with is!”

“...Oh.” Bentley shrunk down, but not before he pointed a hoof at Twilight. “Your girlfriend is downright scary sometimes, man,” he said to Sly.

“What? No, she’s not!” However, secretly, he nodded in agreement behind Twilight’s back. “Yes, she is,” he mouthed.

“Let’s just go to this stupid wedding...” Carmelita sighed.

“Agreed.” And so, all ten ponies and one dragon cleaned up their picnic blanket and made way for the train.