//------------------------------// // Part 1: Grand Heist // Story: Grand Heist vs The Mysterious Mare Do Well // by aceotaku //------------------------------// Captain Blueblood marched into Celestia’s throne room, a stern frown on his features. “I don’t take this as a family matter...” Celestia sighed with a softer, more resigned frown of her own. “I’m afraid not, Princess. I am concerned that you have not received my reports.” “I can assure you I and several other high ranking ponies carefully read each and every report you send to us, Blueblood.” “I would prefer to be called by my rank, Princess, I am here on duty and formal protocol must be maintained, regardless of our relation by blood.” “I...I suppose I can do that, Captain, however I will admit I don’t enjoy talking to you like a stranger.” The Princess said quietly. Blueblood continued, ignoring her statement. “Despite what you say, you seem to have made no attempt as to the potential situation regarding Grand Heist.” “And I already made my statement about that. Grand Heist isn’t a threat to Equestria, and thus the involvement of the Royal Guard into his arrest is unnecessary.” “Why do you say that?” Blueblood glared. “He is a criminal and it is our job to capture criminals.” “He’s harmless!” Celestia splayed her hooves out in exasperation. “He has yet to steal anything of real value and has yet to harm anypony! I am positive that the more we ignore him, the sooner his crime spree will end.” “SOME of his crimes seem like harmless pranks, but for all we know he could become more dangerous with time rather than less, and besides that, if we give ponies like him leeway, then that will just give others the excuse to abuse the system and think they can do as they please with no consequence!” “That is not true and you know it! We punish those who break the law; however, I believe a firm hoof is needed to guide ponies. The moment we start arresting everypony for the smallest of offences, then we fall into tyranny and oppression!” “I am not suggesting we declare martial law or anything of that nature.” Captain Blueblood said evenly. “However, you are being far too lenient here, and the more we leave Grand Heist to his devices, the likelihood of him escaping unpunished with his crimes will grow and the worse his actions and their consequences will become. We know he is in Ponyville, we just need your approval to set up a sting operation to capture him.” “I don’t want to impact on the lives of the citizens of that small village more than they had been on the Summer Sun Celebration.” Celestia countered. “Mayor Mare herself assures me the town is perfectly safe and secure and has been for generations.” “The town is right next to the Everfree! How is that ‘safe’!?” Blueblood sputtered. “They don’t even have a local law enforcement force there!” “I trust the Mayor’s decisions; she didn’t get her position for no reason. And on the off chance a creature from the Everfree does wander into the town, an event that study has shown to be rare and unlikely at worst, the town does have the Element Bearers living among the populace and they can inform me of such an event, and then I can make a decision.” Blueblood stood his ground. “What is Princess Luna’s opinion on this?” “She is still recovering from her ordeals. Her...possession and years of banishment have not done her body any favours, and she still needs lots of time for rest and relaxation.” “How convenient.” Blueblood growled and turned away. “You used to be a lot less lenient and forgiving.” “The Sparkles crossed a line, nephew, they seriously hurt the people of Canterlot and betrayed the trust of hundreds, if not thousands, for their own personal gain. The Grand Heist and Ponyville situations are completely different.” “So I take it you still refuse to believe Prosecutor Shining Armour’s theory that they were framed by Grand Heist?” “You are correct in that assumption. Grand Heist wasn’t even active at that point or several years after, not to mention there is no evidence to support it, the prosecutor’s reputation does not give him reign for frivolous theories just so he can exonerate his family.” “That’s my point, Princess.” Blueblood stated. “Noone, pony or otherwise, is above the law. Not me. Not Shining Armour. Not Grand Heist.” He then added with a cold growl, “nor you.” He turned and walked off in frustration. Celestia sighed. Why couldn’t her nephew, or Shining Armour even, understand? She had been alive for a long time, fought many battles, and had grown to know the folly of absolutes and extremes. She saw real evil, real criminals, and knew that she had to take action only as a last resort. These days of peace and harmony, forgiveness and understanding were needed. Grand Heist wasn’t a threat, he wasn’t like Discord or Tirek or Nightmare Moon even. He was just a harmless prankster, and her nephew’s zealousness spurred on by his friend’s arrogance would only lead to even worse outcomes. She sighed, hoping somepony would understand, one day. Perhaps her sister, once she recovered properly...times like these, she wished she still had a faithful student guide and to learn from. ------------------------------------- Mayor Mare massaged her temples with her hooves as Rainbow Dash, resident owner of what was once an old abandoned library, stood in front of her for what was possibly the fourth time in a row. “Mayor Mare, what are you going to do about Grand Heist!?” The Pegasus exploded in frustration. “The past few days have been absolute mayhem with him around!” “Rainbow Dash, we have been over this...” “I thought I saw the last of him on that train, and that he’d be captured and imprisoned shortly, only to find that he is now here in Ponyville, stealing from ponies and causing a scene! First there was Bon Bon’s carpet, then he stole some rocks at Pinkie’s farm, two weeks ago he plastered portraits of himself on the wall of every house in Ponyville and to top it all off I’m pretty sure he’s the one who took all of Fluttershy’s animal books.” “So he’s a minor nuisance, I’m sure you have much bigger problems to deal with than all that.” Mayor Mare said. “How can you be so blasé about this!? You’re the Mayor for Celestia’s sake, shouldn’t you be more concerned about public safety!? Hay, why don’t we even have a branch of the royalguard or a police force or something here!?” “We had a police force, a small one, several years ago, Miss Rainbow Dash,” Mayor Mare said testily, “however, the stress of living so close to the Everfree and the fear of a potential monster attack made them unable to work and eventually we found that the natural magical layout made ponyville the safest place from the forest, the creatures in it are naturally driven away from the town unless provoked or led here by outside forces, and thus it was determined that there wasn’t really any need for one.” “But what if somepony decided to break the law?” Rainbow Dash pointed out. “What then? How would you enforce the law without the guard or a police force or even a Sherriff?” Mayor Mare smiled, clasping her hooves together. “Because for generations, Ponyville has been named ‘the safest place in Equestria’, and everypony knows everypony else. If something does happen, I’ll be sure to inform the Princess to do something about it, but until that time, there is no need, we can take care of ourselves. Trust me, this place isn’t like Canterlot or Cloudsdale or wherever you’re used to, everyone is friendly here and would never think of breaking the law.” “What about Grand Heist?” “Forget Grand Heist, he’s harmless, he can never do any lasting harm to Ponyville, and eventually he’ll leave and be out of our hair and everything will be back to normal. Trust me. Now go home and do something more productive with your time.” Mayor Mare smiled, gesturing towards the door to her office. Rainbow Dash grumbled, giving the mayor once last glare of frustration and giving a quick glance at the trophy on her desk before stomping off out of the building, face scrunched in annoyance. She was starting to get real sick of ponies telling her to forget about Grand Heist, as if it was none of her business. She just didn’t like the idea of somepony out there doing others wrong and going unpunished for it, and besides, when she spoke to the thief on the train she felt something...off about him, something...dangerous. As she trotted back home to cool off and clear her head, her friend Rarity walked over to her....wearing a large double sided sign on her back. “Do I want to know?” Rainbow asked with a raised brow. “Oh it’s just some advertising for a new store I was hired to help promote.” Rarity replied with a smirk. “It’s pretty easy, tell the truth. I just need to stand around and talk to ponies, plus this sign is giving me some ideas for my next flight attempt. Anyway, how’d it go with the mayor?” “What do you think? She blew me off and said that Grand Heist is harmless and I shouldn’t worry about it.” “Well he’s a nuisance sure, but he hasn’t hurt anypony yet.” Rarity pointed. “I mean, yeah, he did ruin Mrs Cake’s chances at winning, but I think we can all agree seeing Mayor Mare smile like that when she won was a nice consolation! I didn’t even know she had entered, let alone baked!” “yeah it was a pleasant surprise, but it’s still not fair that nopony else got to compete...” Rainbow sighed. “Mayor Mare really only won cause she entered at the last second and all the remaining contestants had FAR WORSE entries than a simple cupcake like hers.” Rarity frowned before smirking mischievously. “Alright, let’s forget about all that before you get grumpy again, how about those tickets? Pretty exciting huh?” Rainbow facehoofed. “Please don’t bring those up again, I have no intention of using those tickets at all.” Rarity pouted testily. “Why not? It’ll be fun, and I can meet the wonderbolts in person!” “The Gran Galloping Gala is NOT what you’re imaging it will be let me assure you.” The Pegasus replied matter-of-factly. “I know you girls will not enjoy it and I wanna spare you some disappointment.” “Oh what would you know?” Rainbow raised a brow with an even expression. “Apart from living in Canterlot for a large portion of my life and attending the thing a couple times because, just like recently, Princess Cadence invited me? Whearas you have never set foot outside of ponyville since you were a filly?” Rarity blinked, thinking for a minute. “Yes.” Rainbow chuckled. “Look, if you girls REALLY want to go, I’ll think about it, but seriously, I know none of you will enjoy it. It’s not exactly a ‘lower-to-middle class’ event, after all.” Ah yes, the tickets. After helping Princess Cadence with a play for Hearth’s Warming, the Princess had given Rainbow and her friends tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala. It was a nice gesture and very much appreciated, but Rainbow and Spike had never been interested in going, it was not their scene. The girls were excited of course, but they never lived in Canterlot, they didn’t know what Rainbow knew, and knowing her friends, Rainbow knew they would not enjoy themselves, especially since they were hyping up the event to such big extremes in their minds. Rarity shrugged. “At the very least, it’ll help ya relax, especially with all this worrying about Grand Heist. Trust me, you really need a breather or something, you’ll end up stressing out and having a breakdown if you keep this up.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah...” Rainbow waved her wing flippantly, but smiling wryly, her home just in sight. “Anyway, this is my stop, I gotta see how Spike’s doing.” “Oh right see ya around Rainbow Dash I gotta get back to work!” Rarity smirked and ran off back to her post. Rainbow Dash chuckled softly and began to open the door to her home when..bursts of green flame shot out through each window in turn and she could hear Spike yelling loudly. “Spike!” Rainbow gasped and rushed in. “What happend!? Are you okay!? You better not have teleported that copy of Starswirl the Bearded’s biography like last time! I know when a book is missing, I have a sixth sense about it!” However, Spike was too busy chasing after a pony garbed in garish gold, white and red to respond, blasting flames at the intruder. “get out of here you creep!” “Blast!” Grand Heist exclaimed, jumping out through the window at Rainbow’s left. “I’ll be back! Grand Heist always get what he wants!” the thief quickly vanished before their eyes in a blink of light. “Was...” Rainbow dash said numbly, face pale. “Was Grand Heist....in our tree!?” “Yeah.” Spike admitted with an angry frown. “Not sure what he was after, though.” “Grand Heist...was in our home...” Rainbow Dash gripped Spike’s head, face pressed to his. “What did he steal? The Daring Do collection? Our books on thaumaturgical phsyics and effects!? OUR CUPCAKE RECIPES!??!?” Spike merely sighed and slapped her on the face. “Calm down Dash, I caught him in our room and chased him off before he could grab anything.” The Pegasus nodded, rubbing her cheek. “Our....room...there’s nothing worth stealing except...the tickets...” Spike raised a brow. “The tickets Cadence gave us? But why?” “I don’t know but...I...Don’t really wanna think about it right now...this has kinda left me freaked out and I kinda wanna just go curl up with a book...” Spike nodded sagely, patting the mare on the back reassuringly. “Do you want me to read with you?” Rainbow nodded with a soft smile. “I’d like that...” -------------------------- Grand heist fumed, throwing his hat onto a stand, stomping over to his desk, looking over the newspaper. He took a complete risk, going about it differently from normal, and that damn dragon had to get in his way. Why did that Pegasus have to have a pet dragon!? Is she insane!? His grip tightened around the newspaper as he fumed. He needed those tickets. Time was getting tight, and those tickets would be vital to his biggest heist yet, one that’ll make his name known throughout Equestria for years to come! Everything he always wanted is in his grasp, he just needed to secure it. He sighed, calming himself down. No, he didn’t need to get too hasty, there was still plenty of time until the Gala. He could wait, spend some time spreading his name in Ponyville, using the trains to get to his next crime. He just needed to be patient. The problem was Rainbow Dash. That girl was obsessed with him, and for what? One little theft on a train and suddenly he’s on some winged jerk’s list!? No, he had to do something about that mare, who totally didn’t deserve those tickets anyhow! A cruel smile formed on his lips as he came up with a plan.