“Well, it's definitely inside there,” Lancie said in a bored tone gesturing at the enormous safe. “So, if I were you, I'd start digging.”
“With what. My beak?!” Rainbow incredulously snarled.
“Whatever works, gurl.”
“The hay do you take me for? A griffin?”
“Don't you wanna be?”
“Dang it—nopony said anything about a friggin' safe!”
“Nopony said anything about anything, but I figured you for a pegasus who could think on her feet... even if those feet are thick, round, plasticky, and lacking in toes.”
“Lancie, no amount of headbutting is gonna make this darn thing pop open and give me the shard!”
“That isn't exactly proven, now is it...?”
“Grrrrrrr...”
Lancie paced across the brightly-lit panic room. “Time's a-waistin', Sparky. Might I suggest you do something dramatic.”
“Like what?!”
“Oh, I dunno. You're the Element of Loyalty, yes?”
“So?”
“Maybe you could use that fancy necklace of yours to—I dunno—blast a hole in the safe or something.”
“Pfffft! My Element doesn't work like that! Even if I had it, it wouldn't be of much use without the rest of the girls, and they sure as heck aren't helping me break into lock boxes belonging to other ponies whose apartments I've just broken into!”
“Awwwww... and you call them 'friends?'”
“I just gotta figure out a way to open this thing on my own.” Rainbow stepped up to the safe until her muzzle was a few inches from the numberpad. She squinted, then brought a hoof up, pressing random buttons. After only four presses, she heard an electronic razzing sound. “Huh. Okay.” She gulped. “It only takes four inputs. So... like... I gotta figure out a four digit number.”
“Really, now...?”
“Uhhhh...” Rainbow Dash brought a hoof up and pressed the keys with corresponding bleeps. “One, One, One... One.”
Razz.
“Seriously?” Lancie raised a stone eyebrow.
“Well, it's the number I would use!” Rainbow snarled.
“You're just asking to be robbed, girl.”
“Look, I wouldn't even have a Celestia-darn safe to begin with!”
“That's because your poor-flank can't even afford one!”
“Or maybe I'm not a paranoid wuss like Manehattan ponies!” Rainbow took a deep breath. “Okay... just gotta calm down and go about this patiently.” She gulped, raised her hoof again, and pressed the numberpad. “One, One, One, Two.”
Razz.
“If you go about it like that, then you'll be older than I am by the time you're done!” Lancie exclaimed.
“Well excuuuuuuuuuuuse me, poopstain!” Rainbow frowned. “I don't know who owns this thing! How can I read their head and figure out their combination?!”
“Think of something common! Something popular!”
“Uhhhh...” Rainbow fidgeted, then slapped her hoof across four buttons.
Razz.
Lancie blinked. “What's so special about 'Zero, Zero, One, Four?'”
“Ugh...” Rainbow blushed furiously. “I really shouldn't have let you seen that...”
“I've only one question.” Lancie smirked. “All at once?”
“Look, will you shut up and try to help me?”
“By doing what?”
“Anything.”
“Try 'One, Seven, Zero, One.'”
Rainbow did so, her hoof blurring.
Razz.
“What's the significance of that number anyways?” Rainbow asked with a scrunched muzzle.
“Heheheh...” Lancie chuckled. “That's the number of times I've kicked cats off of ledges.”
“Oh.” Rainbow blinked. “Huh.” She blinked again. “You kept count of that?”
“I'm more of a dog person.”
“Just how friggin' old are you anyway?”
“Oh! I know!” Lancie pointed. “'Zero, Four, Three, Two.'”
Rainbow pressed it into the numberpad.
Razz.
“The hay was that number?” she asked.
“Heheheheheheh...” Lancie hugged himself and smirked. “Princess Celestia's weight when we last spoke to one another several millennia go.”
“No...” Rainbow Dash blinked, then squinted at him. “Nooooooooooo...”
“Hey, she's a big space horse.”
“Yeah, okay, you got me there...”
“Hey, how about 'Two, One, Nine, Nine?'”
“What's that number supposed to represent?”
“The average price of half-a-dozen sticks of dynamite these days,” Lancie said with a frown. “Because neither your brain nor mine is gonna make this thing open.”
“I came here to get a stone shard,” Rainbow said with a frown. “Not a bounty on my head.”
“Well, unless your hooves can turn into drills, I'm afraid we're at a loss.”
“Dude, I was at a loss before I even spread my wings and flew to this Celestia-forsaken maretropolis!” Rainbow sighed and slumped back against the side wall of the panic room. “There's gotta be another way. If... like... I only knew who it was who owned this place... and—like—observed them in their natural habitat or something.”
“Or maybe buddied up with them.”
“Huh?”
Lancie smirked. “If the madame or sir in question has a number in their head that only they know to open this vault-thingy, then perhaps you could drop in on their lives, rub elbows with them, and get on their good side!”
“Ew. That's totally not my style.”
“And why not?”
“The only thing I'm good at doing in the spotlight is backflips, barrel rolls, and sonic rainbooms!” Rainbow frowned. “Being an actress is soooooooooo a Rarity thing.”
“Alright, then go to her for lessons!”
“Pffft. Even if the Sun and the Moon blew up, I couldn't ever possibly become that desperate.”
“You think the underworld's gonna be adopting puppies and kittens with their hooves on so many powerful stones?”
“Well... erm... buhhh...”
“Hey, I don't like it any more than you do, Sparky, but when push comes to shove...”
“Lancie, read my fuzzy lips...” Rainbow frowned at him. “I am not going to saddle up to some strange pony like a hollow coward and—” Suddenly, she froze, eyes wide.
“What? Did breakfast catch up to your pony entrails?”
“Hoofsteps...” Rainbow murmured, the very tips of her feathers flouncing. “Through the wall. Lots of them.” She gulped. “A bunch of ponies are coming home!”
“Must have been one heck of a ball game.”
“Buck!” Rainbow kicked off the wall, giving the vault one last nervous glance. “We gotta get out of here!”
“Awwwwwwww, and I was just getting used to the exquisite décor, too!”
“Lancie, I'm not kidding!” Rainbow Dash soared across the room. She turned back to frown at him. “Now move your talons! We got less than a minute at best to make this place look just like it was when we found it—” WHAM! She slammed hard into the wall—only it wasn't the wall. A giant canvas with an abstract painting of a mare shook, wobbled, and fell off its supports. The enormous painting slid down and collapsed across the floor, canvass-up.
Rainbow, in the meantime, was reeling backwards from the impact. She struck the opposite wall, knocking loose a series of shelves full of multi-colored paint cans.
“Ooof!” Rainbow winced, then gasped as two of the cans ricocheted across her flank. She plummeted forward, then slammed belly-first against the painting.
Meanwhile, the paint cans exploded all around her, sending goopy fountains of color across both her and the painting. She tried getting up, only to slip multiple times with frustrated grunts and squeaks. The mare rolled over, staining herself in a dozen places. At last, she scampered to her hooves, trotted in a random direction, bumped into a wall, backtrotted, and finally slipped off the canvas in a grunt.
“Ooomf...” Rainbow winced, clutching her head as paint dribbled off her forelimbs and muzzle. “Unnngh...”
“Seriously...” Lancie paced over to her side. “What is it with you and flying into things?”
“Who in their right mind stows away so much paint and crud inside a panic room?” Rainbow rubbed her stained head. “Were they planning to make modern art past Ragneighrok—?” She glanced straight down. “Luna's nipple!”
The once-immaculate painting was covered from top to bottom in hoofprints, feather-strokes, and pony-outlines. A haphazard mess of clashing colors and intersecting lines had permanently blemished the work of art, transforming it into something chaotic and indiscernible. What's more, it had a certain pegasus' signature written all over it.
“Crud...” Rainbow hissed, her muzzle twisting into the most hideous wince conceivable. “Megacrud...”
Just then, she heard the apartment door opening, followed by a myriad of pony voices.
She looked up, gasping with quivering eyes. “Ultracrud!”