//------------------------------//
// Theives: A History 
// Story: Friendship is Illegal 
// by Raymanguy 
//------------------------------//

"Let's start at the top, shall we? We can start with the best and work our way down."

"Uh, no we can't." 

Twilight raised an eyebrow, "Why not?"

"Well," Spike began as he turned to face the computer, "The top five don't have an order. They are arranged as the top five but equally. All an equal amount of threat, I suppose."

Twilight let out a hmph,  then sighed, "Ok, then what do you suggest?"

Spike faced the rather menacing stack of files he brought out, "Well, we could just start with the one in which we have the most info." He reached for the massive folder placed conviently on top of the pile. It slid slowly off the stack and, with audible thump, landed heavily in the dragon's tiny claws. With minimal grunts of effort (that being many, many grunts of effort later), spike traversed the room and made it into the kitchen where he slammed the folder down upon the table. "We really need a table in the main room." Spike muttered under his breath. Twilight stood beside him, staring at the folder curiously.

"Uh, is that-"

"A very large folder containing a ridiculous amount of information on one the most dangerous criminal clans in Equestria history that one of the Five happens to be apart of? Why yes, yes it is." Spike smugly proclaimed. "I was actually saving it for your birthday, since you started looking into Equestria's history. I heard somewhere that one of the top Five was in a family that's criminal activites span centuries. Naturally, I thought you'd wanna read it."

Twilight's eyes were wide and began to well up. She threw her forelegs around Spike's neck and squeezed him tightly, a gesture he returned in kind. Twilight released him at trotted to the table, her horn glowing as she open the folder and skimmed it's contents.

"How did you get this?"

Spike couldn't hide his pride if he tried, "Well, considering that I am one the greatest hackers of our time, It was rather easy to get all this on her."

Twilight rolled her eyes. Sortly thereafter, three heavy knocks came from the door followed by pause and then a soft single knock. Spike licked his lips.


~~~


The pizza break they enjoyed gave Twilight time to look over the information she now had on one of the Five: Applejack.

Applejack was not your common crook. She had a pedigree in stealing. Applejack was one of the youngest members of the Apple family (or clan if you so wish).The Apple family have been stealing things throughout history and the world. That, however, was not what made them interesting. What made them interesting was who they stole from. They didn't steal from common folk. No, they stole from the those who stole themselves, master criminals and crime lords, large mega corps, and occaisionally from Council themselves. Accordding to them there's "No honor, no challenge, no fun stealing from ordinary ponies. When you rip off a master criminal, you know you're a master thief." How that infomation was retrived is unknown.

It is said that there are two family hierlooms passed down from generation to generation. One is a legendary book holding secrets from previous owners. Each member of the family has special skills they developed unique to them and when they have the book they write them down and how to do it so that their skills aren't lost in time. The book appearently dates back to pre-Council times, maybe even before then.

The second isn't really passed down as much as it is a signuture weapon. Every subsequnt member is give a rope of some sort. It is unknown if the rope is actually passed down or just purchased from a local hardware store. It must have some signifecince but whatever it may be is known only to the Apple family.

Applejack is known for her "get-ups on the go" or in simpler terms, vehicular robberies. Things like train robbery or convoy ambushes. She started young, her first job that ambushing a small convoy belonging to big time crime syndicate the Pegasy. She was also instrumental in their subsuqent downfall (which transpired do to an incident involving a large amount of rope, an apple pie, four wagon wheels, a lake filled with aligators, and seventeen barrels of maple syrup). Her location is known but is strange for not many know her name to be Applejack, she tends to use false names and to cover face so even few know what she looks like. Her location is in Ponyville.


~~~


Twilight smiled at her new found knowlegde. She knew both her name and her location. Now all she needed was a ride. Twilight looked about the kitchen to see it empty with the table cleared and the dishes done. She stood up and walked into the main room. The lights were out except for a small flickering one coming from ther computer screen. The tiny form a dragon resting peacefully on the keyboard. Twilight smiled and moved the mouse to shut down the machine, before doing so she checked the time, "Huh, 2:45 am. I guess I was reading for longer than I thought." 

Her horn glowed as she picked up Spike and put him on her back. Twilight had a thought and opened up the web browser. The glow of her horn came over the keyboard as she typed in 'trains to ponyville'. She frowned, pressed backspace, and typed 'Trains going to Ponyville'. then pressed enter. She skimed the list and found the next time the train left from Cantorlot to Ponyville. The very next time was at 3:10 am, less than half an hour from now. The time after that was 4:10 pm, exactly one month from now. 

Twilight's jaw dropped, "Well, there goes my good night sleep."