//------------------------------//
// A Rat Reforged 
// Story: The Iridescent Iron Rat 
// by horizon 
//------------------------------//

I gradually stirred to consciousness, opening my eyes to the familiar dimness of my hideout and the decidedly less familiar form of a tall, pudgy white unicorn reclining on my sofa, humming to herself and cleaning a hoof-edge with one of my lockpicks.

As I sat up, wincing at the hopefully-metaphorical fire in my joints, she glanced up at me and set my pick down. "Good evening, darling," she said brightly.

Something about her appearance clicked — probably the curly mane. "You're the unicorn from the bus," I rasped accusingly through a throat that sounded less sandpaper than sand. "What are you doing here?"

"Next time, you really should set a thaum-surge feather on the control panel of the automaton, timed to detonate immediately after you leave. Wiping the settings might have delayed me enough for Spike to get here first, even considering his unnecessary stunt to clear the street and keep civilians out of the line of fire." She gave me a lopsided smile. "He's going to owe me dinner now, you know."

I let out a long breath, heart sinking.

"So you're Rainbow Corps," I said quietly. "Is this Harmonization?"

She stared at me for a few moments. "Come now, Jimmy, you're smarter than that," she said, then stood up to her full height. The pudge of her barrel shifted and deflated, and brilliant white wings unfolded from pouches of pelt and skin on her sides.  Trait pouches.

It took several seconds to click.

My jaw dropped.  "You're Inseam." 

"Correct."

"You know, when they called you the 'Alicorn of Avarice' I thought that was just an honorific."

She winced. "I'm no fan of that title. I should hope, from our conversation, you understand why."

The question I'd wanted to ask all my life leapt to my lips. "So, all the charity work …?  That's the one thing I never understood.  Did you start that after the Rainbow Corps caught you and Harmonized you?"

She shook her head and clucked her tongue. "Jimmy, darling, I was never caught by the Corps. I became the Corps, when larceny no longer served the greater good. All my life, I've served Equestria … or did you somehow miss my face on the money?"

There's a point at which a pony's capacity for surprise simply gets overwhelmed. I'd reached mine. Standing in a room with one of the living, breathing First Five was just another tally on the day's list.

"You're Rarity," I said, then blinked. "Wait. What Spike said … you stole from your childhood friend?"

She chuckled, a hint of a blush on her cheeks. "That's our little in-joke. A century after we drifted apart, when the great thief Inseam sought him out for advice, and he helped me decide to found the Corps … he fell in love with me all over again, but as an adult, and with an adult mature enough to reciprocate. To this day he claims that Inseam's greatest heist was stealing his heart."

I struggled to my hooves and limped to the mirror. Pretty toasty, but any landing you could walk away from was a good one. "So why tell me all this? You know the life I chose. You know I wouldn't have it any other way. Why I turned down Spike's offer."

"That wasn't our job offer, darling," Rarity said. "That was our placement exam. Some ponies, by the time we catch up to them, are ready to grab the gold ring and settle down. You still have the fire for fieldwork. Indeed, I'm confident it's the only work you would be happy doing."

"If that's what you think," I said bitterly, "then Harmonize me now, because I know, like I know my name, that I could never be happy working for other ponies."

"That's nonsense," Rarity said with surprising gentleness. "You and I both know that A.K. Yearling took missions from the Crowns."

I froze. I turned slowly to her, fire in my eyes, a lump in my throat.

She was staring at me, the corners of her eyes downturned, a quiet mixture of sympathy and intent. "It runs in your family, doesn't it? Your father, and your father's mother, and your great-granddam before them, all settled down … but they were never happy, not like Daring was. A spark burns in you, Son of the Great Greymane, and you chose your name to keep that fire alive. Even your Mark is a relic of an age when the world still needed ponies like Daring Do, before all of the frontiers were conquered and the wilds were tamed." Rarity stepped forward and touched my shoulder with a hoof. "You're an adventurer, but you thought the only way to find adventure was to defy society and make your own."

"I'm a rat," I snarled. "And I'll never be anything but."

She smiled. "Then be a rainbow rat. The iridescent iron rat. And let us point you at the problems that only your skills can fix."

I stared at Rarity … at Inseam … and I felt the walls of my cage closing in. The scariest thing was that she wasn't wrong. It was humiliating to think that there was somepony who understood me even better than I did myself … and also strangely exciting.

I said the only thing I could.

"Oh yeah?" I leaned forward, a rakish smirk spreading across my muzzle, charred and plucked wings spreading out. "You really think so, huh? Fine. If you can tell me just one problem only I can fix … I'm in."

I expected Rarity to gloat as the trap sprung shut. She'd won, after all — I was just forcing her to play out the last few moves. But as my challenge sunk in, her expression became oddly subdued.

"Alright," she said quietly. "As you were teleporting here, three billion bits was also stolen from the accounting department of Harmonicorps' Friendshipping Division." 

"Not seeing how that makes it my job."

She floated a photograph out of her saddlebags to me.  It was of a small clockwork rat, which had been left in the Friendshipping office on an accounting table. "Whoever committed this crime seems to think it is."

I snatched the photo from her field and scrutinized it, then furrowed my brow in thought, pacing away. The timing of the heist, the target, the calling card … there was something she wasn't telling me, but nevertheless, she was right: this was a mystery that screamed my name.

"But it wasn't a copycat crime," I finally countered. "Friendshipping doesn't do automaton processing. It's all hoof-sorted. That's the exact reason I went to Honest Teas."

"Indeed … but Honest Teas was not as lucrative." Rarity's muzzle dropped into a frown. "Our mysterious thief took advantage of your chaos for a premeditated large-scale snatch-and-grab — approximately a thousand kilograms of small bills vanished with no teleport signal. In the process, they made an armed assault on a guard post, crippled three witnesses, and poisoned an entire roomful of accountants." 

My jaw dropped. "What?"

Her voice went quiet and icy. "Twenty-seven ponies are in the hospital in critical condition. One, despite our best efforts, may be permanently blind." 

I threw the photo to the floor and pointed an accusing hoof. "Then why did you waste your time coming after me, when a … when a thug in such desperate need of Harmonization is on the loose?"

"I wouldn't have, if I'd had any idea our criminal would stoop so low," Rarity said. "This wasn't the mission I'd intended to tempt you with, but it seems fate has other plans." A hint of a smile crept back onto her muzzle. "Though I must say, you certainly are taking to your new duties quickly."

I stared at Rarity for a moment, then threw back my head and laughed.  She had me there.

I walked over to her and held out a leg with a lopsided grin. "You've got a point. After all, who better than a rat to catch a rat?"

We bumped hooftips, and the Iridescent Iron Rat was born.