All three left the apartment separately, with the sun just setting in the distance as they were leaving. So it was that, by the time they arrived at their meeting place, an alleyway across from the Reach building with full view of the door, the sun had long since dipped beneath the horizon. The three lingered in the dark, nodding to one another in complete silence.
Ruby was the first to emerge, with the other two hanging back, silent, and waiting for her to do her part. Ruby had put on a hat and coat as to make herself unrecognizable to any passerby who may happen to see her. She casually strolled up to the door and knocked on it, like a customer who was quite late. After noting zero response after 30 seconds, she knocked again, and began covertly picking the lock as she looked at the open to closed times listed on the door. Anyone who had happened to watch her would have merely thought her a confused, late customer, resting their hooves on a door while reading.
After a short few seconds, the door clicked, and she very covertly left a small crack in it, unnoticeable from any distance. She dropped the thin lock pick in the crack to keep it open, and walked away from the door, with a fairly convincing look of defeat worn upon her face. Any nosy people nearby would merely see a customer who would have to come back tomorrow.
Ruby walked around to the other side of the alley and folded up her hat and coat, putting them in her saddlebag. "Ready?" Twilight looked back to her approaching and nodded, then did the same to Gravel. Both formed up on her sides, and with a quiet grunt, she focused carefully on the three of them, and they suddenly disappeared, completely invisible.
Normally she could have tried teleporting in, but not only was teleportation a skill known only to high level unicorns, so it may have blown her cover with them, but she also ran the risk of running into any secret security that she wouldn't have known of, not to mention that energy detection was certainly not unheard of, and teleportation have off a very large energy signature.
The three invisible invaders walked over to the door, and gently pushed it open, as if the wind had caught it. Ruby covertly stooped and grabbed her lock-pick, and just as soon as they had slipped into the foyer, the door gently swung shut, with no evidence that it had ever been opened.
They traveled a little further until they were well out of the view of the front door before returning to a visible state. Twilight was panting a little bit from having to use a lot of energy to keep them invisible, but better a lot of hidden energy over a long time, than one easy burst of energy that might be noticed.
After catching her breath, Gravel turned to her. "You good?" he asked quietly, and she nodded. They began to walk onward, with Twilight leading the pack, until they reached the door to the big office that she had seen before.
"This is it, Ruby," Twilight whispered, her horn glowing as she searched for anything off in the halls. After a few seconds, a sharp click was heard, but Twilight could have sworn she heard another dull thud somewhere in the building at the same moment. She scanned, but found... nothing.
This is no time to start losing it, the princess thought to herself, as she cautiously stuck her head into the room to scan it as well. Nothing wrong here. She motioned for Gravel to come in, and trotted gently inside.
"Watch the door Ruby," Gray said simply in a hushed tone, eliciting a nod from the girl. He entered the room, and saw the large safe that contained the file. Just as his eyes fell upon it, his face lit up while he walked over.
"Ah, a 2600 series Everfree safe, one of the hardest ones to crack in its day. This brings me back..." he said all this with a very reminiscent tone, as he pulled out his tools and delicately got to work.
This sparked some curiosity in Twilight, who still didn't know too much about these ponies personally. "Say, how did you get into crime anyway?" she questioned, her tone still kept down.
"Well, see, before the whole 'sealed away' thing, Sombra had all the stallions mandated to do work. And my mum... bless her soul, she passed on when I was just a kid. Now a kid can get hungry in the empire, and old Grey Gravel here was NOT about to starve! So I taught myself how to take what I needed. I was crafty enough to either not get caught, or to talk myself out of a sticky situation. But this here safe... when I was a young Foal, I knew a place where a general of Sombra's had a lot of money. Safes weren't nearly this complex back then, it was just a lockbox, but I cracked it. That's when I got my Mark," he said, gesturing with his head to his rear. She looked at it: a lock and some tools.
"A criminal cutie mark?" Twilight asked in surprise. She had never see a mark specifically for a crime before. He quickly cleared things up though.
"Nah, it turns out I'm actually a born locksmith. Ironic, am I right? But that came in handy when I was picking locks... and when I got my Mark, I was sent to work making locks for the jails and the houses. What they don't know is that I hid a release mechanism in each of my locks. Very specific, very hard to find, but if I ever get locked up, I can get out on my own. Only reason I didn't bust out was 'cuz Ruby was in another wing. Couldn't leave without her." He finished on that note, which gave him a bit more honor in Twilight's eyes. He stole from others... but he was loyal to those he trusted.
He was almost done cracking the safe, and Ruby showed no sign of any danger thus far. Twilight scanned again carefully, still finding nothing. Given that everything was going so well, she had time to clear up one final point.
"You said the 2600 here took you back... but the Empire has been gone for 1,000 years! This safe was invented about 10 years ago, how could this take you back?" she asked, confused.
"Oh, well when the Empire returned and was freed, I didn't quite have a stable income yet and... well, old habits die hard. This here was the first type of safe I ever broke into to get money. Pretty sure old Lotso didn't miss it though, they never found me," he said with a chuckle and a wink.
In the next second, a distinct click was heard inside the safe, and it creaked open slowly. Gray gave a slight bow as he opened it for her, revealing multiple files, with the chemical file right on top: the latest addition to their safe's contents.
"Let's see here..." Twilight started quietly, with Gravel looking over her shoulder to read as well. Inside, the file contained just a few papers, and one was a purchase record. It stated that a barrel was purchased directly from the manufacturer by one "Mr. Flak", and that all expenses were paid in full, meaning it would not be entered into the balance sheets. It looked very formal, nothing was too off for the most part... except for one little sheet inside the folder. It was typed, and it looked extremely official, moreso than the purchase record sheet. It read simply "The transaction permitted on this date was approved, and formally authorized at the behest of the council." The bottom of the sheet bore a formal stamped seal, that depicted what appeared to be three parallel arrows, pointing up, but that were attached on the bottom to one, central line, so that it seemed the middle arrow was the largest, with two small arrows attached to the sides.
Twilight was confused, and decided to look for other files with a similar insignia, and she found quite a few. Almost all of them were similarly written off transactions, paid in full, not entered into public record, and approved by some council. Many were purchases of steel and other building materials, but one file seemed very different from the others. She put the transaction files back and read the stand alone file, whose folder was a dark blue color instead of the typical tan or brown.
She opened it up, and saw what looked like some of the other records, but it was prefaced with what looked like an urgent typed paper.
It read simply: "Brander Repair Mandate: Reach Division Responsibilities", with each front letter capitalized and very evenly spaced. This one bore a whole list of materials, markedly more than the other small requests, and it called for steel, strong gems, and other things that would be difficult to just write off.
Then she thought about the title itself. "Brander Repair Mandate."
Brander... Brander! Twilight instantly recalled one of her notes: a history book calling the Equestrians of its time the "Branded peoples of today". "I need to copy these!" she exclaimed quickly, pulling out the files as Grey watched.
"I'm afraid that would be most unwise," a deep voice said from behind them. They wheeled around to see a very strong, blank-flanked black unicorn standing in the doorway, with Ruby knocked out cold, a gash on her right temple. Twilight recognized the voice: she had heard it in this very office when she had been here. He strolled in and the door slammed behind him, sealing the four of them in.
Twilight, panicked, fired a powerful blast straight at him, but he used some barrier she had never seen before. It reflected back at her, and she instinctively jumped out of the way... but the blast curved, hitting her square in the horn, and sending her flying into the back wall. Gray turned to see her fall. "TARA! I--" he froze. Her cloak had fallen off, revealing her wings. "But... only princesses can have wings and a horn! ...Princess?" he questioned, confused.
Twilight nodded weakly in the direction of the unicorn, indicating that they had more to worry about right now. He was walking towards Ruby's crumpled form, and his horn glowed with a powerful energy.
Gravel wasted no time, and although not as built, Gray was certainly no weakling. He jumped and slammed a hoof at top speed into the unicorn's jaw to keep him away from Ruby.
His feet never moved. Nor did his body. In fact, his head only slightly turned to absorb the powerful punch, and based on Gravel's shocked expression, it must've felt like punching concrete. The unicorn's horn had stopped glowing, and in one lightning speed move, he slugged Gravel out cold, leaving a bloodied imprint on his head.
Twilight struggled to move, but taking a direct blast to the horn is not easy to recover from. She could hardly scoot herself over before he was standing over her, looking down with an almost angry expression. "You're lucky someone wants to talk to you," he said plainly, and fired a green aura around her. He walked away, and she began to lose consciousness as she saw the door open, letting ponies in with simple white suits and masks.
"Take these two and put them with the others. Prepare the princess for transport to the facility..."
That was all she could make out before her vision blurred, and her whole world turned to black.