Unshaken

by The 24th Pegasus

Chapter 96

Go without Trixie’s illusions and trust the disguises: 9 Votes

“Magic’s a beacon that’ll draw them Pinks to us,” Kestrel said, thinking things through. “Our whole purpose grabbin’ the disguises and movin’ ‘round the conference with ‘em was to make sure that nothin’ draws attention to us. Goin’ with our faces exposed means that we won’t have the Pinks after us, not unless we get close enough for them to recognize us face to face.”

“But what about everypony else?” Silver asked. “If we got our faces exposed, then somepony might recognize us.”

“There’s a chance,” Kestrel admitted. “But I don’t think it’s gonna be a big one. We’ll be wearin’ security and wait staff uniforms, right? Ain’t gonna be a pony in the crowd who’s gonna look at us closely, expectin’ to see an outlaw under the getup. So long as we don’t give nopony reason to look at us, then we ain’t gonna be under any suspicion.”

At that, though, Starlight pointed to Kestrel’s wings. “You might want to cover those up, though,” she said. “You have a remarkably striking feather patterning for a pegasus. If anypony is familiar with you, they’ll recognize who you are as soon as they see the dappling on your wings.”

Kestrel extended one of her wings and gave it a look over. She’d always considered her wings as a point of pride, but she’d been on the run from the Law long enough to know that they made her perhaps a little too recognizable. Her wings were brown like the rest of her body toward the crests, but the feathers soon shifted to gray with black dappling spots intermixed in them towards the tips. Where most pegasi had wings that were a solid color, or at the very most a faint gradient toward the wingtips, the unique speckling and mixture of three colors on her wings gave her an appearance that would stand out anywhere.

As much as she hated it, she nodded in agreement. “I’ll keep my wings contained under the uniform,” she said. “Least until we start the job. If needs be, I’ll have my knife on me to go cut open some wing slits in a pinch. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Least, that’s what I’m hopin’.”

“Good,” Starlight said, nodding. “Then do we have a plan for moving about the conference? The auction is happening at noon inside of the central tent. We should be in position shortly before then.”

“Right.” Tumbleweed tapped the center tent scratched into the dirt with a stick. “Let’s try to be there, say, ten minutes ‘fore the auction is supposed to start. That’ll give us time to look the place over and get into position. We can also try to lie to any other security ponies or wait staff inside the tent to get them to go someplace else. I reckon Starlight and me can handle that. Anypony that we can’t move, Kestrel, I want you and Silvie to deal with. Quietly. Make sure you two have some rope on yourselves for tyin’ anypony up that needs tyin’. There’ll probably be a few.”

“I can probably fit some in under this wait staff uniform,” Silver said, lifting it up with a wingtip. “It’s gonna be a little bit big on me anyway.”

“Good. I’ll leave the actual details up to the two of you. Now, assumin’ everythin’ goes well, we’ll be in place ‘round the perimeter of the tent as the auction starts.” He then turned to Roughshod and Trixie. “Rough, you all on the distraction team should kick things off at noon, sharp. We’ll give you ten, fifteen minutes to make enough of a fuss to draw Pinks away from the conference. Once that’s done, and we got the auction house secure, we’ll make our go at it.”

He pointed toward Wanderer and Party Favor. “Wanderer and Favor, you two’ll make sure nopony leaves the tent. Can’t have anypony runnin’ off and raisin’ the alarm. Kessie and Silvie, you two work the crowd down for money. Starlight and me’ll take a look at what this grand auction prize is supposed to be. If we need your help movin’ it, we’ll call you over.”

“Hopefully we ain’t gonna have to move it,” Kestrel said. “If it’s big and cumbersome enough that we can’t just smash and grab, then we ain’t gonna get very far with the damn thing ‘fore the Law or the Pinks are on us.”

“At the very least, there should be gemstones you can pry out of it,” Starlight said. “I’m sure you can take care of that, Tumbleweed. I, on the other hoof, need to make sure the word of the revolution spreads across the tent loud and clear. The fat cats need to hear that their time is coming, and the workers of the world need to hear it too. Something that will generate as much publicity as this stunt will make ponies near and far realize that they can be free from the brutal capitalists that keep them held down.”

Kestrel and Tumbleweed shared a look, though neither mustered the energy to say anything or shake their heads at the revolutionary fervor. They needed Starlight and her cronies for this job just as much as they needed the Gang. Maybe when things were over, they’d talk about it more and maybe cut ties. Or maybe not. Depending on how things went, Starlight and her friends could prove to be massively useful allies for the Gang, allowing them to tackle jobs that would be far too risky for just seven or eight ponies alone…

But that was for the future, not for the present. Right now, the Gang needed to focus on making sure that they could rob from the richest ponies in Equestria, protected by the most ruthless detective agency in Equestria, and escape with their lives. If they couldn’t even do that… then, well, the future was irrelevant to them, because they’d all be buried six feet under—if they were lucky.

A few last details were hashed out, but Kestrel let her mind wander by the end. By then, all she was interested in was making sure her belly was full and finishing off a beer to settle herself before bed. There wasn’t much in the way of talk that night—they’d done all their talk and chatter the night before—and she forced herself to go to bed early. After all, she needed to be well rested knowing what was to come tomorrow.

It took her longer than she would have liked to finally fall asleep, but fall asleep she finally did.

[NO POLL FOR THIS CHAPTER]

Author's Note:

This story is a CYOA comment-driven story, where you, the readers, decide the outcome of the story. Each poll contains several options, each with sub-optimal choices thrown into the mix, with nothing but the prose to clue the readers into what each option entails. The will of the masses, alongside a few unbiased dice rolls, will decide the outcome of the story.

You can find Kestrel's character sheet, along with some key information about her and the Gang, here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xAGDlcd5mlMTAHwexlsrXOffQMMLoQc12u9itAa-io0/edit?usp=sharing

If you want to see the dice rolls in action, check out my Discord server: https://discord.gg/RsVkdD

Comments

[djthomp]

At that, though, Starlight pointed to Kestrel’s wings. “You might want to cover those up, though,” she said. “You have a remarkably striking feather patterning for a pegasus. If anypony is familiar with you, they’ll recognize who you are as soon as they see the dappling on your wings.”

The curse of having a classic OC character design that's maybe just a little too special.

“Hopefully we ain’t gonna have to move it,” Kestrel said. “If it’s big and cumbersome enough that we can’t just smash and grab, then we ain’t gonna get very far with the damn thing ‘fore the Law or the Pinks are on us.”

I'm still hoping for an airship.