//------------------------------//
// Visciously.  Arranged.  Tragedy.  Scenario. 
// Story: Appledashery 
// by Just Essay 
//------------------------------//

	Panting, Rainbow galloped out of the armory and down the long, narrow corridor.  Listing hobbled out of the armory, balancing an off-set bag of random junk over her flank.

"Where the heck are yo going, booger?!" Listing Breeze exclaimed.

"Didn't you hear their shouts just now?!"  Rainbow wheezed, entering the stairwell.  "I'm pretty sure they're coming this way!"

"Pffft!  Please!  Mules are idiots!  They couldn't possibly realize—"

"Will you just shut up for one second?!"  Rainbow snarled.  At last, she reached the vault dor.  The pegasus froze in place.

Several galloping shadows grew thick and thicker from the second story of the warehouse above.  Before she knew it, Rainbow found herself staring down an angry phalanx of no less than thirty thugs sprinting her way.

"Look!"

"There's another one!"

"The stupid pony brought a friend!"

"We're gonna rip their guts out and feed them to each other!"

"Damned pegasi!"

The air flashed with angry eyes and yellow teeth.  A sea of pointed ears surged Rainbow's way.

"Megacrud!"  Without hesitating, she flew up, crossed her forelimbs over the support bars of the vault door, and flapped her wings in reverse.  "Grnnnnngh!"

Through sheer wing power, she was able to pull the vault door slowwwwwwwly back.  The Hump Gang charged in, screaming and shouting.  When at last their heated breaths billowed through the remaining door crack—

THUDDD!

—the vault was sealed entirely.  The support bars rattled in place, locking.  Rainbow's forelimbs slipped, and she fell numbly on her flank.  "Oomf!"

Whud!  Wham!  Thud!  Angry hooves banged on the outside of the vault door.

Rainbow stood up, panting.

Seconds later, muffled voices grumbled to one another:

"Dammit!  She closed it!"

"Do you know the combination?!"

"Of course not!  Those ratty ass jerks the boss drove out didn't tell it to him!"

"Quick!  Around the compound!"

"Yeah!  The back entrance!"

"We'll charge those two flankholes from the other side!"

With dozens of thundering hooves, the Hump Gang drew away from the door.

Grimacing, Rainbow clambered back to her hooves and rushed back down the hallway.

She nearly bumped into Listing stumbling in the opposite direction.

"Whoah... you closed the vault door?" Listing remarked.

"Of course I did!" Rainbow's voice cracked.  Wings flapping, she glided towards the far end.  "Come on!"

"What's the hurry?!"  Listing shrugged.  "You locked them out!  I bet we could grab even more goods—"

"Listy will you shut up about the armory?!"  Rainbow Dash frowned over her shoulder in mid-flight.  "Those jerk faces are galloping around the compound!  They're gonna come in through the secret entrance and ambush us from the west!"

"Hoshit..."  Gulping, Listing flapped her wings and glided after her—a sluggish feat with so much loot in her possession.  "Yeah.  Okay.  Perhaps it is time to go."

"Hurry the buck up!" Rainbow shouted from a distance.





Fwoooosh!  Rainbow Dash flew the full length of the corridor.  Lights flickered faintly above her as she zeroed in on a rusted door at the end of the hallway.

"Come on... come on..."  She gnashed her teeth, sweating as she touched down.  "Please don't let mules be magically quicker than cheetahs..."  Spitting on her numb hooves, she clasped the large rotary handle of the door, struggling to spin it loose.  "Grnnnngghh... dang it!"

The strength in her forelimbs was too diminished.  All she could feel was a tingling sensation at best.  There was no way to tell if she was making any progress with the dial, but from the severe lack of motion... Rainbow knew she was wasting far too much time.

"For crying out loud..."  Rainbow hissed.  "Why... c-can't opening be as easy as cl-closing?"  With a shudder, she spun and frowned down the corridor at Listing's distant red figure.  "Listy!  Get over here!"

"I'm... tr-trying!"  Listing's voice sputtered from a distance.  "Don't go so far ahead of me—"

"Listing, if we don't get a move on, the only place we'll both be headed to is the grave!"  Rainbow spat, then grasped the handle once again.  "Now hurry up!  I'm going to need you to open this—"

There was a slender shadow of something rising... and falling.

CLANNNG!  A heavy metal crowbar belted Rainbow across her shoulders.

"Aaaaaugh!"  The mare lost the breath from her lungs... and collapsed across the floor.  As her vision faded in and out, she made out the unshorn fetlocks of two mules wandering out of an adjacent room.

"Damn thieves!  How in Tartarus did she get in here?"

"Who cares.  Crush her skull in."

"Will do..."

And the slender shadow rose again...