"No wait. You're the last pony that could lie to his face. You take it." Rainbow Dash handed the revolver to Applejack. "Try to dip your head below the aisle when I start talking to him. I'll be in about two minutes after you."
Applejack nodded and stuffed the weapon and dark rag into her saddle bag. Without saying anything else, she calmly entered the store. Rainbow Dash simply leaned against the building, staying out of view of the window so the shopkeeper couldn't see her. She heard Applejack and the clerk exchange greetings just before the door closed.
Rainbow gave a nod to Pinkie from across the street, who returned the gesture, teeming with energy. Pinkie disappeared around a corner in her search for some taxi to pick them up. She needed to be waiting around the corner of the block with a stallion, who would be oblivious to what's going on, ready to pull them to their escape. Rainbow knew she could count on Pinkie.
Deciding that two minutes had passed, Rainbow took a deep breath and entered the shop.
Before anything, she made eye contact with Applejack. Was that smart? Should Dash have pretended to be oblivious to Applejack? In any case, Dash's accomplice didn't seem to think so. The farm pony furrowed her brow and watched Rainbow Dash intently as she pretended to browse some canned food. She wasn't wearing her Stetson like usual; they both decided that it was too much of a memorable accessory for her to wear. In fact, Dash herself donned an elegant purple wig that took her some convincing to wear.
Dash gave the clerk a quick smile as he greeted her. She consciously avoided his eyes. She made her way to an aisle and blankly stared at some shampoo.
Now the whole plan had relied on one thing: the clerk's carelessness. Both of them had not put on masks before entering the shop because they needed to catch the clerk completely off guard. The moment they walked in with masks on, everypony in the building would know exactly what's going down, and there would be a huge commotion. And after a bit of thought, Applejack and Rainbow Dash agreed that they probably couldn't handle that situation.
Rainbow Dash moved further down the aisle. She tried to count any cameras she could see. She counted two--one behind the clerk, and one in the opposite corner. Just as they had planned, the cameras were the type that don't feed the recordings into a system somewhere else. They were big and bulky, with nothing attached to the camera aside from the wall mount. All the data was held within the camera itself. Rainbow Dash let her head droop down below the aisle. All she could see were locks of her purple wig swinging softly before her eyes.
She stopped moving about halfway down the aisle to think again. The plan was to isolate the clerk amongst the larger aisles--the tall ones a pony couldn't peek over--and rob him there. Pony A (Rainbow) was to ask the clerk for some assistance. She would lead him to the hidden aisles, where Pony B (Applejack in this case) would mask themselves and threaten the poor clerk with the revolver. The clerk would be instructed to go back to the counter, empty the register, and hand it all over to Pony A, who would follow him back to the counter. Any identifying characteristics were hidden. AJ's stetson and Dash's hair were both nonexistent. They both had also used colored tape on their cutie marks. Nevertheless, Pony B was to shoot the cameras just before booking it. Dash reassured herself that AJ should be Pony B. It was her revolver that she kept for the farm, so she should be the best with it. And Pony A would have to lie to the clerk to get him to go into the hidden away aisles... and Pony A could stand for Pony Awesome, of course.
The clerk was a central part of the plan. They both doubted he paid much attention to the average customer entering the store. They also hoped he didn't make any stupid moves. Above all, this robbery relied on the justice system of Equestria. The police definitely do hold searches for thieves, but if no pony was really hurt, and if the amount lost is small enough, no extensive searches would be made.
Sure, Twilight could come up with a better plan, but this plan was pretty cool. The robbery should be easy and quiet up until the cameras had to be destroyed. At first, Dash wanted to try the crazy way. She wanted to barge in and terrify the clerk into total submission. The temptation of the adrenaline was too much for her to refuse it. But AJ talked her into this quieter plan instead. When it came to anything else, Dash would have been stubborn. But this was pretty dangerous... there was a line to draw. Being stupid this time was too risky.
Dash peeked over the aisle to see Applejack. She caught the pony as she made her way to the large hidden aisle. Dash took the signal. She approached the counter, wearing what was probably one of the most forced-looking grins ever.
"Um... h-hi. I, uh, need help with your...soda. I don't know if the prices are right on them," Rainbow said.
"Certainly!" The clerk's eagerness made Dash wince.
"This way..." Dash's legs were shaking from nervousness on the way to the aisle. Her chest felt funny. It felt like she flew up really high and started to let herself fall. By the time she rounded the aisle, her face was sweating. She looked up and dropped her jaw.
AJ stood on her hind legs fumbling around with the mask. Apparently she couldn't get the mask on right. It was halfway on her face, so that it covered one eye and wrapped up into her upper jaw, making her speech muffled a bit. Upon noticing that Dash and the clerk were there, she snapped into position, mask halfway on, and held up the gun.
"Don'd moobe now..." she said in a low voice. Dash wasn't sure that AJ was seeing straight because the gun was pointed at some bags of dog food.
"A little to your left," Rainbow said. Applejack moved the gun a bit to meet the clerk's face.
"Thang you."
Rainbow Dash turned around to face the clerk. "Face the wall." She commanded.
The clerk's face was twisted into a look of fear. Dash could see that he was scared for his life. Yet she felt a little relief that he was too shocked to cry out.
"Pl-please don't..." he whimpered as he complied and faced the wall. He actually went as far to put his hooves against the wall.
Dash could see it. The pony truly believed the end of his life was upon him. The couple of seconds of eye contact the two made spoke endlessly to Rainbow. Tears streamed down from his eyes that were open wide, unblinking. They wouldn't dare blink in case of missing anything. They were alert, not pleading or sad. To be pleading in this situation would mean that he believed in the kindness and goodwill of Dash and Applejack. His eyes told Dash that he had no faith in justice--he believed he was dealing with two savages that would kill him without so much as a second thought. They were monsters to him. The clerk Applejack had at gunpoint was in fight or flight mode, actively anticipating his own death.
"D-don't look at us... we don't want to hurt you..." Dash's voice cracked a bit. She sounded scared too, and that seemed to make the clerk calm down a bit.
"We want this to be easy." Dash regained some confidence. She wanted this to be over quick, and there was no backing down. She stole a look at AJ. Applejack stood on her strong hind legs so she could hold the farm pistol. But her green eyes were wide open in shock, and the gun was madly shaking. She was freaking out. But then again, how else could the Element of Honesty react to committing such a dishonest crime? Rainbow herself nearly lost it by looking into the clerk's eyes, but she didn't forget Granny Smith at the hospital. Dash had to hurry before things got out of hand.
"You're going to go open the register and put it in a bag and give it to me. Don't even think about looking at us. We don't want to hurt you, so just make this easy. Please."
The clerk nodded and slowly put all four legs on the floor. He was trembling still, but he managed to get moving towards the register. Dash followed behind.
"Get to the door," she said to Applejack.
They were quiet enough to not attract any attention. None of the other ponies (Dash only counted two) in the store paid any attention. She heard the clerk sniffle a couple of times as she followed him.
"Don't look at us..." Rainbow reiterated.
He got behind the counter while Rainbow took position in front of it, acting like a customer. He opened the register, and emptied it out. While he did that, Rainbow noticed a large metal box in the very corner of the floor behind the counter.
"And, and open that too... give me half of what's in there." The clerk was about to look up at Dash, but Dash expected this. "Don't look."
His eyes reverted back down to the register. After he emptied its contents into a black plastic bag, he went over to the safe and fumbled around with the lock a bit before opening it. He was pretty quick, because no other customers noticed a thing as he hoisted himself up with a second bag. This bag was a lot plumper than the other one. He pushed them across the counter to Dash, and Dash took them. The two bags together were actually really heavy.
"Thanks," Dash said. She thought for a minute as she opened the contents of the bag to look inside. "I-...I'm sorry."
She called for Applejack who emerged from the aisle with the mask finally on right. Dash could see that she had been crying. Rainbow waited for her at the door. When she arrived she motioned at the two cameras.
Applejack stood on her hind legs again, and took aim. Rainbow Dash braced herself for the sound of the revolver. It rang out, and a little bit of hot air breezed passed Dash's purple bangs, forcing her to shut her eyes. When she opened them, she saw that all the shoppers had instinctively dropped down behind the aisles. The clerk disappeared under his aisle too, crying out loud this time. AJ had missed the camera by a full meter.
Without a word, Dash dropped the bits and snatched the revolver from her hooves, and pointed the gun firmly at the camera. She squeezed the trigger, and the camera exploded into a mess of plastic and wires. She took aim at the second camera, and hit that one even quicker. She was a natural of course. Normally she'd tease AJ a bit, but all she wanted to do was get the hell out. She tucked away the revolver, patted Applejack on the shoulder, and sprinted out the door. She turned to see if AJ was following, only to almost slam into AJ's face. The farmer was running faster than Dash had ever seen her run.
Using her wings a little, she kept up and they soon reached the corner.
They rounded the corner to find a desolate street. Pinkie was over five minutes late.
"Oh no..." Rainbow said aloud. Applejack was trembling so hard that she looked like the clerk.
She whirled around to peek over the corner down the street they had just sprinted down. A couple of officers were rushing to the shop. No...
A fire was burning in Rainbow's chest, fueled by her fear. It made its way into her throat. AJ took off her mask. She looked horrible. Just as Dash was about to try to fly them both out of there at her very best speed, she heard Pinkie's voice.
"OH YOU MEANT THAT CORNER?!"
Across the street, on the adjacent corner, Pinkie sat in a stallion-operated carriage. A relief like no other hit Rainbow Dash. The carriage quickly pulled up to them, and the two thieves scrambled into the back seats.
After the carriage turned into a busy street, Pinkie turned around from the front seats.
"Sooo, how did it--Oh." Pinkie stopped in the middle of her sentence. Her glee melted into concern as she saw how shocked both of the thieves looked.
Twilight was lost in a book when the door blew itself open. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie marched in. Rainbow Dash threw the two bags at Twilight's hooves. They hit the ground with a thud. Golden bits spilled out of the bags.
"You wanted proof?" Twilight averted her eyes to Rainbow Dash. "There is your proof Twilight. All twelve thousand pieces of it. And with your help, we can turn that into enough to save a life."