//------------------------------// // The Sweetest Of Heists // Story: The Crusader King // by naturalbornderpy //------------------------------// INTERVIEWER: Just tell me what you remember. Anything at all.                  BON BON: It was terrible, I tell you. Just terrible! They came out of nowhere and ransacked the whole place. I was terrified. I just stopped by the shop to get some lemon drops—Lyra loves those, you know? And then I watched them through the shop window and they came in and just started—”                  INTERVIEWER: Maybe it would be best to take a breath and start at the beginning. Can you do that for me?                  BON BON: Sure, yeah, fine. I got it.   ***   Sombra spoke into his mask’s intercom to halt Scootaloo on her scooter. That morning they’d secured it to their new over-sized and reinforced wagon, long strips of steel carefully welded across its sides and corners. When they came to a stop in the center of the street, thick smoke wafted from their vehicle’s massive exhaust port. Sombra took a breath to calm himself, momentarily gagging on the breath trapped inside his mask.                  He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d brushed his teeth.                  With a hoof, he pressed a button on the front console of the wagon that sent a carpet of thick fog billowing out from underneath their vehicle. Ponies that had been watching the four masked ponies with interest immediately began to hack and cough and back away.                  “Let’s see what wonders we might find inside, my fine fillies.” Sombra gripped the long metallic instrument attached to his belt and exited the wagon. Over his back and around his head was a cloak as dark as his fur. He clicked a tiny button attached to the side of his mask, both to alter his voice and to add a haunting red glow behind both of his mask’s eyeholes. Before entering the shop, he knelt down and did the same with the other three’s masks, waving away the thick fog with a hoof so he could see what he was doing.                  “You ready?” he asked them, all with their own matching dark cloaks.                  Scootaloo looked up at him. “We’re not going to hurt anyone, are we?”                  Sombra shook his head. “Not unless they need a good slap in the face. Then again, most ponies in this town need a good slap in the face.” He gripped the side of her mask, twisting a knob. “Your voice isn’t low enough. Now say something.”                  “What should I say?” Now her voice sounded as if the very gates of Tartarus had been shattered open and the very mountain that held its prisoners were moaning in terror.                  It was good enough for Sombra. “Can everyone hear me through the intercom?”                  The three nodded.                  “Then here we go.”                  Sombra climbed the first step to the shop, spun and bucked with both legs. The door ripped off its hinges and flew inward, crashing to the floor and making those inside shriek in surprise.                  “Good morning, ladies and gentlecolts,” Sombra announced once inside, brandishing the metallic weapon in the corner of one leg. “The four of us have come here today for many reasons: to scare, to intimidate, to learn, and most importantly, to rob this place of all its confectionary delights.”                  The interior of Sugarcube Corner was small, but each nook and cranny was packed to the gills with candies and sweets. Shelves and showcases displayed trays filled with pastries and hard candies; others had gummy ponies, sugar pops, sour balls, and some of that black licorice that was plainly ignored by all customers until it had to be thrown away.                  Mr. Cake manned the register by the back, his under-bite already wobbling. Mrs. Cake had just come out from the back, a tray of delicacies in hoof. Since the moment Sombra’s crew had entered, she’d frozen in place, as if remaining motionless would somehow make her invisible to them.                  Two stallions stood to the right of the shop, one with a small basket of candy bars. A mare with a light yellow coat and pink and blue mane stood to the left, a thin bag of yellow balls in one hoof.                  Sombra leisurely paced the room, the aroma of fear touching his nostrils even through his tight mask. “If one of you decides to be a hero today—which, to be perfectly honest, would be insane because all we’re taking here is candy and candy can always be remade—this is what one can expect to happen to you.”                  In an instant, Sombra aimed his candy cannon at the mare with the yellow sweets. Using his horn, he set the dial to “STICKY” and pressed the trigger. From the end of the tube shot out a perfectly circular ball of brown toffee that quickly expanded and dispersed until it was akin to a spider’s web.                  The gooey wad hit the mare and propelled her into the wall behind her, her bag of sweets tumbling to the floor and rolling all over the place.                  Sombra blew at the tip of his smoking weapon. “Stick around, if you’d be so kind.”   ***   INTERVIEWER: He didn’t honestly say that, did he?                  BON BON: I’m afraid so. He even left a pause, as if someone was supposed to laugh at it. To make matters worse, he even starting explaining it to the other three ponies in masks.                  INTERVIEWER: That sounds terrible.                  BON BON: It was. He was all like, “You get that? I said ‘Stick around’ because she’s stuck to the wall now. And I did that. I made her stick to the wall.” And the three of them nodded. But then he continued anyways. “Sometimes, when villains do really villainous activities, it’s nice to lighten the atmosphere with a well placed quip. Why isn’t anyone writing this down? This is important stuff here.”                  INTERVIEWER: Did the other three ever say anything?                  BON BON: Not a lot. Right after I was hit with the toffee, one of them came over and whispered they were sorry about sticking me to a wall. I asked who they were and they said, “Apple Doom: the Endbringer.”                  INTERVIEWER: Did they happen to mention when they’d be bringing the end or how they’d be doing it?                  BON BON: Afraid not.                  INTERVIEWER: Too bad. That would’ve been a nice break to have in this case. So what happened next?   ***   “Slaughter Belle, rough up those two stallions.”                  Sombra looked at Sweetie Belle, then indicated the two stallions by the window, butts pressed up against the window glass.                  Sweetie Belle took a step back. “Really? That doesn’t seem very nice.”                  “Of course it’s not nice—it’s intimidating.” He waved a hoof. “But come here first. Your mask isn’t doing anything to your voice.”                  Sweetie Belle came over and Sombra spun the dial on her mask.                  “IS THAT BETTER!?”                  Sweetie Belle’s voice pierced the eardrums of everyone around, causing all of Sugarcube Corner’s windows to shatter outward and even create thin cracks along the display cases. Sombra tried to knock away the ringing in his ears.                  He must’ve spun the dial the wrong way. Sweetie Belle’s normal speaking voice was hard to listen to already. That same sweet and infectious voice heightened and amplified a hundred times? It was a miracle no one’s head had exploded like a soft watermelon from the sheer magnitude of her voice.                  Hurriedly, Sombra spun her mask’s dial down.                  “Is that better?” she whispered.                  Sombra patted her head. “Sorry about that. Yes, that’s fine. But I believe I gave you a task.” He pointed to the two shaken stallions, one still chewing on a thick wad of gum. He must’ve forgotten he was chewing it at all.                  “Spit that out!” Sombra roared. “Don’t you understand you’re in the middle of a robbery?”                  The stallion stopped chewing. “If I spit it on the floor, then someone might step on it. You know how hard it is to get gum off of hooves?”                  “Then swallow it. I won’t be distracted by your incessant chewing while I go about my business.”                  The stallion’s friend nudged him in the ribs. “Just swallow it, dude! Can’t you tell this guy's nuts? He’s shooting toffee out of a mini-cannon! What if he’s packing hot fudge in that thing? You wanna try and get that out of your coat?”                  The stallion with the gum awkwardly swallowed his gum before turning to his friend. “Hot fudge? That’s kind of ridiculous. How do you even know that thing shoots anything besides toffee? And why does it need to be food-based? He could shoot us with rocks next for all we know.”                  His friend scratched at his mane. “Rocks? In that case, I’d rather have hot fudge. Unless it’s the kind that had almonds in it. Those could hurt.” He looked at Sombra. “Does your hot fudge cannon come with—”                  Something small and white collided with his gut, making him double over. He wheezed out a shuddery breath.                  Sombra tipped his weapon upwards and loaded in another projectile. “Hot fudge? Afraid not. You’ll have to settle with hard-packed marshmallows. Care for another? If you open wide enough, I might be able to lodge it down your throat. Or are you two done squabbling for the moment?”                  The stallion rubbed at his injury. “We’re done. Please, no more marshmallows.”                  Behind his mask, Sombra sneered. “Just one more for you. A much cuter one.”                  Sombra had to physically shove Sweetie Belle over to them. Once she stood in front of the pair, she anxiously rubbed at a leg. “What am I supposed to do again?”                  Sombra sighed. “Rough them up.”                  “How do I do that?”                  “By making sure they never forget what happened here today; burning this memory onto their hearts for the rest of their days.”                  “That doesn’t sound very pleasant.”                  “It’s not supposed to be.”                  Sweetie Belle lowered her head in thought, then went to the stallion that had swallowed the gum and walked on to one of his hooves. She started to jump up and down.                  “Take that! And this! And…”                  The stallion regarded her wearily.                  Sweetie Belle turned to him, whispered, “Could you please pretend this hurts? I’d rather not rough you up too bad, but Mr. Sombra says I’m supposed to.”                  The stallion’s eyes darted from side to side. “Uhh. Yeah, sure, no prob.”                  Sweetie Belle jumped on his hoof a single time more and the stallion collapsed to the ground in a spasm of pain, clutching his hoof. “Oh, Celestia no! It hurts! Please, won’t someone stop this horror! I doubt I’ll ever be able to walk again after this! And that’s even more terrible because I’m, umm… a professional runner!”                  Apple Bloom stood to Sweetie Belle’s side and gasped. “How could you do that Swee—Slaughter Belle? Now he’ll never be able to run again.”                  The stallion continued to writhe on the floor. “And here I was preparing to ask my marefriend to marry me. I was going to profess my love at the top of a hill, but now I doubt I’ll ever be able to meet her at the top!”                  Scootaloo came to join her friends. “Sounds like you completely messed up his life, Slaughter Belle. Jeeze, I really didn’t think you had it in you. By the sounds of it, you must’ve broken his hoof in like a hundred places. I had no idea you even weighed that much.”                  Sweetie Belle blanched. “Hey! I do not weigh that much! He’s just pretending to be hurt!”                  The stallion stopped screaming for a moment to look at her. “It’s true. But good performance, right? I do improv on the weekends. Can you believe last week’s suggestion was candy store robbery? Crazy world, am I right?”                  Sombra shot a hard-packed marshmallow into his gut, silencing him.                  “Well, that didn’t work out as planned,” he muttered, before he trotted to the counter, slugging his weapon over his shoulder. He propped a hoof on the counter, eyeing up the trembling Mr. Cake. “I’ll take one of everything, if you’d be so kind. But when I say ‘one,’ I actually mean all. So give. Now.”                  Jerkily, Mr. Cake hit a button on the register, popping out the bottom metal tray. In one swift motion, he slammed down several small pouches of bits. “Here! Take it and go! I don’t want any trouble.”                  Sombra eyed the stacks of coins for a moment. “You think I came all this way for money?”                  Mr. Cake quivered. “Didn’t you?”                  With a hoof, Sombra lowered his voice another few notches. “This isn’t about money. It’s about candy. It’s about sending a message.”                  “What message?”                  “Let me check.”                  Sombra brought his hoof to his ear, angling his head towards it.                  “Bring-bring. Bring-bring.” He pretended to press a button on his hoof. “Hello? Oh, yes, Mr. Cake is here. A message, you say? Well, I’ll be sure he gets it.” Sombra listened for a moment, nodded, then closed the cover on his make-believe phone.                  Mr. Cake brought a hoof to his temple. “I’m dealing with a completely insane pony, aren’t I?”                  “Obviously.”                  Mr. Cake sighed. “So what was the message?”                  “Blam.”                  He furrowed his brows. “Blam?”                  BLAM!                  Sombra discharged his weapon into Mr. Cake’s face, staggering him into the counter behind him, upending several jars of multi-colored jellybeans. Plastered to his face was a thick mound of heavy whipped cream. Once Mr. Cake bounced off the counter, he fell to the floor.                  Sombra went around the counter to stand over him. “Why so grim?” Using his horn, he levitated over a banana and two cherries, placing them in the center of the whip cream circle to form a makeshift smile. He even added two bits of licorice for eyebrows and a half-dozen chocolate chips for freckles.                  Sombra chuckled to himself. “Girls! Come look what I did! It’s rather amusing, it—”                  Sombra spotted a small blinking red light underneath the counter that held the register.                  He knelt beside the fallen Mr. Cake. “What did you do?”                  “Pressed the alarm,” said the whipped cream smiley face. “They’ll be here before you can even make it out the door.”                  Sombra tilted his head. “Ponyville police?”                  One of Mr. Cake’s cherry eyes slid down the side of his head. “Worse.”                  “Who called for Pinkie!?”                  Sombra spun to find Pinkie Pie leaving the backroom, the tray of sweets balanced on her back instantly flung to the floor. Her usual jolly disposition melted away as she surveyed the scene—notably, poor Mr. Cake all helpless and sticky on the floor.                  “What are you doing!?” she yelled. “Wasting good candy! What did candy ever do to you?”                  Sombra spoke to the girls, “We need to split, banana style. Grab what you can and meet me outside. I’ll deal with the pink menace.”                  Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom exchanged a single look before running in opposite directions. Each of them went to a display of sweets and started loading them into the saddlebags they’d kept hidden underneath their cloaks.                  Sombra watched in annoyance as Sweetie Belle took her time picking and choosing which colored gummies to loot. “You can pick the ones you like after we’ve made our escape!”                  She turned to him. “But I don’t like the sour kind.”                  “I’ll take anything sour,” Apple Bloom told her. “If you like stuff with coconut, that’s what I’m getting. We can trade afterwards, if you like.”                  “That sounds like a good idea. What’s Scoota—I mean, what’s Saw Blade getting?”                  Sombra clamped both hooves to his ears for fear of brain rot. “Just take everything! Now is not the time to care about what you grab!”                  Sweetie Belle asked him, “Oh, I almost forgot. What do you want, Mr. Sombra?”                  Sombra dropped his hooves and moaned. “Anything dark chocolate.”                  Pop! Fizz!                  A wall of bubbly, sticky liquid slammed into Sombra’s chest, toppling him to the ground and propelling him towards the other end of the store. He shielded his face from the harsh blast of soda until it died off. He watched as Pinkie Pie grabbed another cherry drink and shook it up and down with alarming speed.                  “Give the candy back and no one gets hurt!” she shouted.                  Sombra got to his legs and shook what soda he could from his coat. “Too bad ponies have already been hurt.” He aimed his candy cannon and shot a hardened marshmallow at the mare. Pinkie Pie curved her middle to warp around it easily. Sombra fired twice more, the first sailing over her head and the second disappearing into her mouth to never be seen again.                  “So be it!” Sombra screamed, flipping his weapon’s dial to “STICKY.”                  He fired again and a thick ball of toffee expanded into a web that stood much taller than Pinkie Pie, hitting her right on target. Her shaken can of soda crashed to the floor and zoomed off to parts unknown.                  Sombra pumped one of his forelegs. “Ha! Stick around, pink pony!”                  “You said that already!”                  Sombra viewed the mare he stuck to the wall from earlier, busily munching on a bit of the sugary toffee that confined her. Sombra growled, but choose to ignore her. Bigger things were happening at the moment.                  He took his time walking over to the pink mare trapped in his web, gingerly stepping over the fallen Mr. Cake while scooping up one of his cherry eyes to pop under his mask and devour.                  Sombra hooked a hoof under Pinkie Pie’s chin. “Looks like you’re in some trouble, aren’t you, my dear?”                  She smiled at him. “Not really. Not when I can do this!”                  Sombra recoiled in horror as her tongue shot out and went over her head, lapping at her toffee prison until every inch of the gooey matter had vanished. It somehow even left her with a buffer-like shine.                  Sombra almost choked on his words. “How did you…? That had to be forty pounds worth of compacted toffee. That’s just not possible!”                  Pinkie Pie giggled. “Mmm! And what a delicious forty pounds it was! Does that candy thing of yours happen to shoot sprinkles? I could really go for some sprinkles right now. Or any time really. Like five minutes ago. Where were you five minutes ago with my sprinkles?”                  Sombra looked from his weapon to the mare, pondering his current chances. After careful deliberation, he eventually made up his mind and made his choice well-known to all those around.                  “ABORT MISSION!”   ***   INTERVIEWER: How was the toffee?                  BON BON: It was good, but is that really relevant?                  INTERVIEWER: No. But all this talk about toffee has me thinking about it now.                  BON BON: There’s probably some of it left in my mane. You want some of that?                  INTERVIEWER: I’ll pass. Anyways, after the leader of the group said to abort the mission, what did he do?                  BON BON: He ran away. Not all that menacingly, really. He’s kind of a prancer. He grabbed his three accomplices off the floor and threw them on his back. Then he charged out the door.                  INTERVIEWER: But they still got away with the candy, didn’t they?                  BON BON: More or less. But I really have no idea what all happened once they got outside.   ***   Sombra stared into the blackened abyss and shuddered. It could never be full, he was starting to believe. It would never stop hunting him, either, as long as he had the candy. It was a force of nature he had been unprepared for and now it might cost him everything he held dear. Including the painstaking lengths he’d gone to prepare his little fillies for their lifetime of villainy, and with any luck, their cutie marks.                  The abyss in question being Pinkie Pie’s gaping maw, which took everything his candy cannon could shoot and more.                  As Scootaloo guided their powerful vehicle through the congested streets of Ponyville, Sombra stood on the back of their wagon, weapon raised and supported on his shoulder.                  “Take that!” he screamed, aiming a chocolate cupcake at her eye.                  Pinkie Pie jumped into the air and caught the cupcake with ease, not even wasting time to chew. She smiled at him. “More, please!”                  By that point he had already blasted her with everything he had: sprinkles, marshmallows, peanuts, hard-impact gummy balls, hot fudge (even Sombra was surprised to find hot fudge available—what was even keeping it at such a perfect temperature?). Each time, the pink monster only swallowed it whole, with no noticeable bulge on her belly. Perhaps scariest of all, Sombra had the oddest of feelings that all that sugar-based ammunition was giving her more energy with which to pursue them with.                  As their wagon rounded a sharp corner, Sombra had to cling to one side of the wagon as their vehicle drifted on two wheels. With a thud, the wheels came back down and Sombra shook his hoof at the trailing Pinkie Pie, hardly out of breath yet.                  “Curse you, you meddlesome mare! Take the hint! You’re not wanted here!”                  Pinkie Pie ground her hooves into the dirt, momentarily gaining on them. “Then give back the candy you took!”                  Sombra laughed. “I’d rather die than give it back!”                  He spun around to face Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom in the back of the wagon. “I don’t really mean that, girls. I’m sure we’ll make it out all right.”                  To Pinkie Pie, he roared, “You’ll need to pry this candy from our cold, dead hooves!”                  To Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, he then clarified, “That’s a worst case scenario, mind you. Most likely I’d turn us all in before things get that far.”                  Scootaloo revved the handlebar on her scooter, making the engine growl. She looked back at them. “We’re almost at the spot! Should I hit the button?”                  “Not yet,” Sombra said. “We can’t have her possibly trailing us back to the hideout. Give me just a moment more.”                  He lifted his candy cannon to inspect the dial, checking for one setting he might not have tried. He smirked as he spotted the last possible one listed. Too bad his newfound euphoria blew away in the breeze as his weapon was snatched from him.                  “Gotcha!” Pinkie Pie said, holding the candy cannon up to Sombra’s face. She must’ve caught up with the speeding wagon while he was checking the setting.                  Sombra held a hoof up. “Wait—”                  SPLAT!                  Sombra’s mask was coated with a thick wad of whipped cream, so much so, he found the mask’s air holes quickly covered as he soon ran out of air. In fury, he ripped off the mask, sweat drenched locks of mane stuck to his forehead.                  Pinkie Pie gasped. “So it was you all along! Beneath the Sombra mask was actually Sombra!? What are the odds?” She brought a hoof to her chin. “But if you’re here… then who’s trying to take over the Empire?”                  Sombra rolled his eyes. “No one. Now get off my wagon!”                  He lunged forward and ripped the cannon from her grip, spinning it around and turning its dial to its last setting. He fired, and a hooful of gumballs slammed into Pinkie Pie’s gut, sending her spiraling off the edge.                  Pinkie Pie bounced off the dirt, not much worse for wear. When she tried to begin the chase anew, her hooves slid from under her due to the gumballs, and she face-planted back onto the road. Sombra laughed, then he laughed some more.                  Scootaloo looked back. “Ramp’s dead ahead!”                  Sombra sneered. “Then hit the rocket boosts!”                  Scootaloo undid the plastic cover on her scooter’s handlebars, revealing a tiny red button. She pressed it, then latched on tight as her scooter and the wagon behind it zoomed up the road and quickly onto a hill. At the lip of the hill was a smooth wooden ramp, before a cliff. The other side of the cliff sat a full eighty feet across.                  As the wagon rocketed forward, Sombra stumbled back, his back hoof slipping on the goo-covered surface of his mask and causing him to topple off. Before he hit the dirt, he hooked a leg around the wagon’s edge and held on for dear life. His cloak was hurriedly stripped from him as it dragged against the rough, rock speckled road. Soon only his legs and torso bounced against the dirt.                  He bit his tongue and grumbled his displeasure. “Oh, Celestia that hurts.”                  The moment he got a better grip on the edge of the wagon, the wagon tilted upward and the surface underneath him became smooth. They’d already hit the ramp.                  As Scootaloo cheered while flying in mid-air, Sweetie Belle held two hooves over her eyes, and Apple Bloom held on to the three large sacks of candy. Sombra, instead of enjoying the view as he thought he might’ve while planning this all out, began to scream as one of his hooves let go of the wagon and he was forced to hang on with just the one.                  Scootaloo’s scooter hit the grass on the other side and it skidded to a halt, the wagon trailing behind her doing close to the same. Once she killed the engine, she took off her mask and went to the others, who had already removed their own masks and set them aside. Together, they jumped up and down and hollered.                  “We did it! We actually did it!” Scootaloo shouted. “I didn’t know if we were all gonna clear that gap, but—” She raised a brow. “Shouldn’t Sombra have been in the wagon with you guys?”                  Sweetie Belle looked around for him. “Mr. Sombra? Are you okay?”                  “I’m okay…” someone whispered out from behind them.                  All three fillies trotted to the edge of the cliff, where Sombra’s head, chest, and forelegs rested on the lip of the cliff. Sombra didn’t look as charismatic as usual, as he inhaled and exhaled thinly.                  “What happened?” Apple Bloom asked.                  Sombra just continued to stare forward, his face blank. He whispered, “Fell off the wagon… continued to soar into the cliff… hit near the top… ribs first… I’m sure I’ll be all right in a moment.”                  Scootaloo raised a brow. “You want us to pull you up?”                  Sombra shook his head. “No… I’m good… I’ll just dangle here for a while… try not to cry… figure out which major organs might be badly damaged… might be fun… always liked pony anatomy…”                  The Crusaders gathered together, heads bent. Sweetie Belle said, “So what do you want to do until Sombra feels better?”                  “We could eat some candy,” Scootaloo suggested.                  “Got anything with dark chocolate?” Sombra asked softly, his face going pale.   ***   INTERVIEWER: Any idea where they’ll strike next? Soda shop? Ice cream stand?                  BON BON: No idea. They all seemed so unhinged—deranged, even!                  INTERVIEWER: Perfectly understandable. But that’s all the questions I’ve got, although I’ve been told there’s someone else that wants to speak with you. I hear she’ll be leading the Sombra Squad crime case from here on out.                  BON BON: Oh?                  INTERVIEWER: Here she is now. Bon Bon, this is Twilight Sparkle.                  BON BON: Hello.                  TWILIGHT SPARKLE: Hello. Now, how about you start from the beginning again?