The Amulet Job

by Rambling Writer

22 - Any Landing You Can Walk Away From

Starlight couldn’t believe they were doing this. But there’d been a lot of things she couldn’t believe that had happened anyway, so she sort of knew how to roll with it.

It was early afternoon, and she and Gilda were walking up to the guard’s house. His small “I don’t wanna share with anyone” house. It didn’t look half bad, but Starlight didn’t like how tiny it was. Too unwelcoming. At her side, Gilda twirled the guard’s key around her claws; they’d completed the copying (just in case) a while ago. It was still weird to think that they were just going to go and ask a security guard to betray his employer.

“Let me handle this,” Gilda muttered to Starlight once they reached the door. “You don’t know him.” She licked one of her paws and ran it through her headfeathers. Knock knockknockknock-knock. Ding-dong.

After several moments, the door was flung open, a familiar groggy-looking griffon inside. He blinked tiredness out of his eyes when he saw who was there. “Gilda?” he asked. “And… whatsyourface, Starfight? What’re-” Then he perked up almost immediately. “Key. You got my key, right?”

“Right here, Gus.” Gilda held up the keygem. “But we’ve hit a snag and need some more of your help.”

“Oh, pumpernickel.”

“You’ve been around ponies too long. Don’t you remember how to curse like a real griffon?”

“Sure, but I like to save those for real emergencies, you noodge.” Gus lightly banged his head against the doorframe a few times. “Anyway, come on in and tell me how deep you’re in it.”

Once Gus had led them to the somewhat spacious closet masquerading as a living room, Starlight self-consciously laid out their situation. Gus didn’t look particularly happy at anything she said, but he didn’t look ready to turn snitch, either. And an old, tyrannical part of Starlight knew about turning snitch.

“…so we were wondering if you could tell us what’s changing about the security,” finished Starlight. “I mean, since you’re… not really a big fan of Goumada and… stuff.” She smiled lamely.

“Uh, go back a bit,” said Gus, frowning. “You know, to the part where you told a changeling impersonate Goumada. And it actually did.”

“Yes, he did,” said Starlight. “His name is Thorax and he’s a friend.”

“You’re working with a changeling,” Gus said to Gilda, “and you’re saying I’ve been around ponies too long?”

“We’re just workmates. We ain’t friends,” scowled Gilda.

Gus rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to Starlight. “Anyway, just to recap… You were planning on breaking on Goumada’s vault, one of the most secure vaults in Equestria. I’ve heard she contracted different companies to build each part just so no one group would have all the plans. So you were doing that. Then you got found out, with a changeling and one of your best gals, just…” He made a popping motion with his claws. “Poof. Out in the open for all to see. And you’re still going through with your plan. Which you don’t have yet. And only have about a week to make.” He paused. “Are all ponies this bonkers?”

“Nope!” Starlight said. “Some of us are worse.”

“Heh. Lucky for you, I like bonkers. Sure, I can do some poking around.” Gus poked a claw at Gilda. “Buy me lunch after my shift tomorrow and we have a deal. My own egg, yadda yadda, all that jazz.”

“Lunch. Yep.” Gilda nodded.

Inspiration hit Starlight. “And one more thing,” she said. “If you can get us a key into the security hub, that’d be great. If you can’t, we’ll understand.”

After nibbling on a claw, Gus said, “Bet I can, but I’ll need more money, and I’ll need it now. Or tomorrow, or whenever I get you the key, whatever. Just, like, a hundred bits would do.”

Thorax had scrounged up a decent amount of money in his last poker game, so- “A hundred bits is fine. Bribes?” said Starlight.

Gus nodded. “Bribes. No promises, but I’ll do my best. Now get outta my house.”

In and out in less than five minutes. Starlight was still surprised. After all the skulking around they’d been doing, it was practically a relief. “Are griffons usually that straightforward?” she asked Gilda.

“Eh. Pretty much,” said Gilda, shrugging. “Quibbling and discussion get in the way of money, so it’s best to lay everything out ASAP. Everyone likes money but no one likes a cheat.”

“What about loopholes? Shouldn’t you close them?”

“Usually, we reason that someone who uses loopholes obviously likes holes so much that…” Gilda bared her claws. “…they should have holes in them.”

Starlight liked that idea far more than she wanted to admit.

---

Even after Starlight-Unicorn-Heliotrope had gotten the idea that the guard-griffon might be able to help them, Thorax-Changeling couldn’t stop worrying. This was all his fault, after all. Why shouldn’t he worry?

Hive etiquette (what little that existed, anyway) said nervous changelings should find some other place to go to avoid bothering other changelings with their feelings. Ponies were more open, but, his nerves in tatters, Thorax-Changeling found himself reverting to ingrained instincts and hiding upstairs. Nobody went upstairs.

One of the closets was nice and dark and quiet. Almost like a cocoon. Perfect for stewing in. Thorax-Changeling ignored the dust attempting to storm his nose and stayed curled up in the bottom. His emotions were out of control — even worse for a changeling than for a pony. He wanted to believe Bon Bon-Earth-Tan and her claim that they could still pull this off, he really did, but he’d just shot a hole in it the size of a stadium. He felt worthless, yet everyone kept insisting he stay (except for Gilda-Griffon-Lion-Bald Eagle, which probably meant she was smart). He was a terrible changeling and felt even worse than he was. It all came down to one thing: Goumada-Unicorn-Marble knew.

The effectiveness of changelings came from ponies not knowing when one was around. The second they did know, it was better to just skip town for the rest of forever. Knowing meant ponies could plan, and even something as simple as trust passwords could screw changelings over. The heist was similar, and who knew what Goumada-Unicorn-Marble would do? They might change the guards’ uniforms the day before the robbery without anyone knowing. And it was all his fault.

So Thorax-Changeling was feeling sorry for himself in the closet. Nobody would need his presence as a reminder that things had gone downhill faster than an avalanche. Nope. He was safe. Nobody would look for him. Nobody would find him.

The door cracked open. A pause, then Lyra-Unicorn-Mint yelled, “Never mind! You can stop looking! Found him!”

Fornication.

“Go ’way,” mumbled Thorax-Changeling.

“No. Get up.” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint’s voice was stern, but Thorax-Changeling thought he tasted bits of concern there. Concern? For who? Him? Psht. Yeah, right. “You can’t stay in here forever.”

“Watch me.” He didn’t even have the energy to get up and hiss.

“We can still do this. C’mon, get up.” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint nudged Thorax-Changeling with her hoof. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“Feels like it.”

“…You wanna talk about it?”

“Nope.”

“Too bad!” Thump. Thorax-Changeling risked cracking open an eye. Lyra-Unicorn-Mint was sitting outside the closet, staring disapprovingly at him. And that concern tasted a bit stronger. Huh. “Now. What do I need to say to get you to come out?”

Thorax-Changeling uncoiled and slouched against the back wall of the closet. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I… You know what I did.”

“Yeah.” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint shifted on her tail. “And, it’s… Yeah, it’s bad. And, yeah, we’ll have to do things differently from now on. But c’mon, you can’t keep beating yourself up about it! At least you got Bon Bon out safely! Kinda. Sorta. Ish.” She paused. “Close enough! She’s out and you were around when she got out so it counts!”

“But I-!” Thorax-Changeling’s ears twitched. “And- it’s- I’m- I’m also… not a…” His voice dropped. “It’s more than that. I’m, I’m not a very good changeling.”

“So freaking what?” asked Lyra-Unicorn-Mint. “Who cares if you’re not a good changeling? I don’t. Is a good changeling something you wanna be, anyway?”

“Kinda… I mean… I am a changeling…”

“So?”

Thorax-Changeling stared at Lyra-Unicorn-Mint. Lyra-Unicorn-Mint stared back. What was she thinking? “Well, um,” he mumbled, wringing his hooves around each other, “I’m… a changeling, so, um… I’ve… kinda gotta be a… good changeling.”

“Says who?”

Thorax-Changeling opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. Said who? Well, Chrysalis-Changeling-Queen, but by now, she was the kind of person who you paid very close attention to so you could do the opposite of what she said. Spike-Dragon-Purple certainly didn’t care whether or not he was a good changeling. Flurry-Alicorn-Pink didn’t care. Why should he?

Because, being good at being a changeling or not, he was still a changeling. He should be good at being who he was. But that meant being a conniving, lying, backstabbing dastard, and if you weren’t a changeling, that was pretty universally a Bad Thing to be. Even griffons, jerkish and greedy as they were, were at least honest and forward being jerkish and greedy.

So if being who he was meant being a bad person, did he really want to be who he was?

Lyra-Unicorn-Mint must’ve noticed his internal conflict, because she said, “You wanna know something?” She pulled herself into the closet and sat next to Thorax-Changeling, her back against the wall. “I’m a terrible graduate of CSGU.”

“Um. Thanks?” Thorax-Changeling’s ears twitched. “I… don’t know what that means.”

Lyra-Unicorn-Mint laughed. Thorax-Changeling would’ve guessed it was to brush off her mistake if he hadn’t tasted her amusement. “Right. Sorry. Anyway, it’s the Canterlot School for Gifted Unicorns. Kind of a big deal in Equestria. It’s where all the smart unicorn foals go to flex their magic muscles. I got accepted in. I even kinda-sorta knew Twilight while we were growing up. Anyway, there I was in the best school in the country. And you know what? I was bored.” She shifted to another wall so she could better look at Thorax-Changeling. “I’m good at magic, but I don’t like doing it. All those…” She made a twirling sort of motion with her hooves. “…equations and instructions and wlah. It’s boring.”

“So what were you doing there?”

“Parents made me. My grades were fine, so I couldn’t get them to let me drop out.” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint shrugged. “Then I graduated, and since then, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about a single thing I learned back then. I mean, I play the lyre. That’s like Princess Celestia’s personal student becoming a plumber or a librarian!”

“Um. Wasn’t Twilight…?”

“Right, bad example. But you get what I’m saying, right?”

Thorax-Changeling did, kinda. Who you were wasn’t completely who you were. (Ehm. He reworked the phrase in his head.) The role you were given didn’t define you. He could be a changeling, sure. He could shapeshift, nip at emotions, all that jazz, but just because changelings were other things as well didn’t mean he needed to be those other things. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“And if you ever want to just mope and cry, I’m here to listen.” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint moved next to Thorax-Changeling again and tentatively put a leg around his shoulders. He scooted a bit closer to her; she tightened her hug. “I’m a good listener, and I totally promise that I won’t tell you to get over it.” Her smile was so winning that Thorax-Changeling half-expected a visible twinkle to glint off her teeth. He’d never tasted anypony quite so… open. Except maybe Spike-Dragon-Purple.

“Thanks.”

“Need a… like, a hug or… something?” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint frowned. “How do you even eat emotions, anyway?”

“It’s… magic. I can’t really explain it.” Mostly because Thorax-Changeling had never really thought about it beyond pulling the emotions in. “And, yeah, I could use a hug.” He wasn’t hungry, but he was still feeling so love-deprived that instinct made him slip into a form better suited for getting love from ponies.

Lyra-Unicorn-Mint blinked at him and her emotions did a magnificent double backflip straight into confusion. “Okay, that’s… I guess I can work with that.”

“Work with what?” asked Thorax-Earth-Tan. “I don’t- OhhiveI’msosorry!” Poof. “That was an accident!” Thorax-Changeling said breathlessly. “It’s just, I, it’s easier for me to-”

“No no, keep it!” said Lyra-Unicorn-Mint. Her feelings triple-axeled back into… excitement? “If it’s easier for you, then do it! I’m sure Bon Bon won’t mind. It’s not like we’re gonna keep this up after today, right?”

“I… um…” Thorax-Changeling rubbed his hooves together, alternately looking Lyra-Unicorn-Mint in the eye and looking everywhere but her. Was posing as somepony’s special somepony really that bad when the first somepony knew what you were doing? “It’s… I…” Poof. “I guess not,” said Thorax-Earth-Tan.

And then Lyra-Unicorn-Mint was hugging Thorax-Earth-Tan so tightly he almost couldn’t breathe. Love was pouring off of her in waves; love for both Bon Bon-Earth-Tan and for him, surprisingly enough. He returned the hug, steadily drinking up the love, and would’ve buzzed his wings in contentment if he’d still had them. Lyra-Unicorn-Mint ran her hooves up and down his back, through his mane; he could hear her humming with pleasure.

After a moment, she asked, “So, you feeling better?”

“Mmm. Yep.”

“Awesome. You wanna keep going?”

“Sure. Should we kiss?” he asked before he realized it. To his surprise, he didn’t regret it.

“Would it get you feeling even better?” respond Lyra-Unicorn-Mint.

“Ehm… Maybe.”

“Then let’s try it. Okay?”

“…Okay.”

Lyra-Unicorn-Mint mashed their lips together, hard. After a brief moment of shock and self-consciousness, Thorax-Earth-Tan mashed back and lost himself. This was nice. He didn’t need to worry about much of anything. Lyra-Unicorn-Mint was a gigantic font of love. He felt better by the second, his love reserves creeping up inch by-

A shadow passed over them from outside; they quickly broke apart to see Bon Bon-Earth-Tan standing over them. She blinked. “Lyra. Why are you playing Seven Minutes in Elysium with Thorax disguised as me?”

Thorax-Earth-Tan immediately struggled to come up with an answer, but Lyra-Unicorn-Mint just said, “Thorax is having a bad day and needs a pick-me-up.”

Bon Bon-Earth-Tan blinked again. Her emotions were interlocked gears each trying to turn in opposite directions; Thorax-Earth-Tan couldn’t even distinguish them all. But finally, she said, “If he needs it.” She twitched, then added, “Feel free to experiment and let me know how it turns out.” Her emotions were still hard to read, but Thorax-Earth-Tan thought she left rather quickly.

“Sweetness.” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint turned back to Thrax-Earth-Tan. “So, where were-”

“You want to keep going?” squeaked Thorax-Earth-Tan. “After- she- saw us?”

“She’s okay with it. What’s the problem?” Lyra-Unicorn-Mint ran a hoof across her lips, pursing them. “Is my technique bad? Bonnie says it’s good, but she might just be trying to flatter me…”

“Well- It’s-” Thorax-Earth-Tan shuffled away. “It was fine at first, and then she came and it just got weird! She- She walked in on you cheating on me looking like her and- she’s all- What?” He ran his hooves through his mane and looked away. “I, I think I’ve got enough love for now. Um. Thanks.”

Lyra-Unicorn-Mint chuckled. “Yeah. The changeling life is not for you. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.” She got up and left the closet, still laughing.

Thorax-Earth-Tan rolled his eyes. Ponies were weird.

---

Bon Bon stared at her half-empty soup bowl, her train of thought a runaway. Good spycraft wasn’t just about being sneaky; you also needed to improvise when things nigh-inevitably went into the toilet. And Bon Bon’s improvisational skills had always been a bit… lacking. Heck, once the bugbear had first appeared in Ponyville, she’d immediately told Lyra everything, without one single attempt at an excuse. In hindsight, pretty stupid. She could’ve made something up about going to check that her house wasn’t destroyed (it hadn’t been) or talked about a phobia of bugbears (which, in a way, she had). She was lucky she’d never been captured while on the job.

And for all Derpy said about them never having a plan in the first place, Bon Bon had still assumed certain things would be true. Being able to walk into the front door without being recognized and clubbed to death or worse, for instance. Entering a building was a bit required for robbing it. Bon Bon didn’t put that much stock on any service entrances, either. All it would take was one guard to notice her. She practically needed to enter the hotel on or near the same floor as the vault.

If she was even going along with the main break-in party. She was kind of assuming she was, but who knew? She was just treading water at the moment, trying not to drown in a sea of crime bosses.

She sipped at her soup. At least dinner was good.

“So what do you think?” she asked the pony across from her, apropos of nothing.

“Neightzsche was right and Trotcrates really wasn’t all that great a philosopher but depended heavily on straw mares because he didn’t have confidence in his own arguments?” asked said pony (Sunburst, as it turned out).

“Well, that, too. But the, y’know, the heist.”

“Oh. Right.” Sunburst pushed his glasses up his muzzle. “Well, um, regardless of, of what’s going on, rolling over and letting Goumada keep the Alicorn Amulet is, is kind of a bad thing.”

Bon Bon grunted. Stupid logic. “Got any actual plans?”

“N-not at the moment, no. But I’m thinking,” Sunburst added defensively.

“We might need to get into the hotel somewhere in the middle,” she said, half to Sunburst, half to try to jar her brain. “The front entrance is going to be more secure than Rarity’s bobbins and the airship port is just the next most obvious place to go. And none of the rooms have balconies.” She sipped at her soup. “And we’ve only got four people who can fly: Gilda, Rainbow, Derpy, and Thorax. Rainbow’s occupied, Derpy is… um… and I don’t know if Thorax is going to want to come.”

“What, what about Starlight?”

Bon Bon blinked. “Starlight can fly?” Of course she could.

“Well, it’s, uh, technically self-levitation,” said Sunburst, “but, um, I guess that’s close enough.”

Even self-levitation was good. A spellcaster who could (sort of) fly, especially one as powerful as Starlight, was almost as good as an alicorn in this. If Starlight actually had the self-confidence to follow through. Bon Bon drained the rest of her soup and said, “What’s the news on the cameras, by the way? I heard they were working well, but not much else.”

Sunburst’s ears went up and he grinned. “Oh, those! Yeah, the seeds’re working great. The picture’s crystal clear, we can switch between them easily- Why don’t I show you?”

And with a speed and strength only available to excited nerds, he dragged Bon Bon into one of the sitting rooms they hadn’t been using. The improperly-reflecting mirror she’d seen earlier was still up, but now it was split into square sections, each one “reflecting” scenes from the casino: games, hallways, the main casino floor, and more. The images were so clear Bon Bon had to convince herself that she wasn’t looking through a window (although she was, technically speaking in a roundabout way). But there weren’t anywhere near enough images for the whole casino. Before Bon Bon could ask about the rest of the cameras, Sunburst had bounded forward and dragged his hoof across one of the squares. The image literally slid out of sight, replaced by another one. Grinning at Bon Bon, Sunburst kept swiping. More and more and more images zipped by. “You like?” asked Sunburst in a tone that probably shouldn’t have left the bedroom.

“Sure,” said Bon Bon vaguely, still staring at the mirror. She tentatively poked it; it felt just like any other mirror. She slid her hoof across, and the image changed just as it had for Sunburst, no magic required. Swipe swipe swipe, change change change. “Wow,” she said, the best she could manage. “This is… This is great.”

“I know!” Sunburst patted the mirror affectionately. “Easy to set up, easy to use, and smoooooth. There’s a, a similar system to the anklets to, to let you hear communications, and I might be able to override their, the signals the cameras are sending out to whatever security rooms they, they have!”

Bon Bon whipped around and stared at Sunburst, her jaw hanging open. Where had this guy been hiding? If he was half as good at casting magic as Starlight, he knew enough about magic that could probably rob the casino himself. “Seriously?”

Sunburst’s grin grew a little wooden. “W-well, um… Not, not right now. I’d need to, uh, get another seed into the, the racks again, to, to, y’know, send out the, the signals from here. Which, which would mean… going into casino security. At- the- worst possible time to try getting into casino security.”

“But assuming we could do that-”

“Then, oh, yeah, definitely!” Sunburst nodded vigorously. “We could, I don’t know, send illusions, or maybe just record a, a few minutes of empty hallway from one of those cameras and send that. It’d barely even require us to, to buy anything!” He tilted his head at Bon Bon. “I mean, the visual spells are basic, and it’s, it’s the same idea as sending the magic from the casino to here, just in, in reverse. Stop acting like I’m a genius because of this.”

“You are a genius!”

“Yeah, but not because of this,” Sunburst said without a trace of either humility or arrogance. “Anypony could do it if they knew refractional glass thauma transference.”

Bon Bon turned back to the mirror, idly flicking through cameras. There were a lot less invasions of privacy than she’d have expected from a crime boss, but maybe that was just because Goumada still had to keep up a pretense of civility, and somepony trying to sleep in a room with a camera staring at them from the ceiling didn’t exactly produce glowing recommendations. Either way, there was enough coverage for all the main areas of the casino and hotel.

“I mean, the most complicated thing in, thing in this is the fiber arcanics themselves,” Sunburst rambled. He didn’t seem to care that Bon Bon wasn’t listening to him anymore. “And that’s not, it’s not that complicated, just incredibly niche and, and new.”

“Let me know if you come up with any more ideas. This is great.” Complete access to cameras and the possibility to fake the images. As she left the room, Bon Bon’s spirits were just a little bit higher.

Comments

[Bugsydor]

Oooooh! They paid an uncertain price for it, but total access to the casino's surveillance system might just have been worth tipping their hooves a bit.

Also, Eccentric Lyra is Best Lyra.

[redmar]

This was a great chapter and I like the conversation between Lyra and Thorax.

[ShadowLDrago]

“Usually, we reason that someone who uses loopholes obviously likes holes so much that…” Gilda bared her claws. “…they should have holes in them.”

... You know, I kinda like that logic.

[Level Dasher]

And with a speed and strength only available to excited nerds

Yes, this is a power only a select few should be able to utilize.

[Yoshifan30]

Ok so Gilda and starlight went to the house of a griffin Named Gus the guard who works at the casino they return the key and I need him for the inside to see if there's any changes or what so it's always a good idea to have an inside meanwhile thorax is still feeling a little down after what happened but then Lyra found him and actually give him a good conversation with him to make him feel a little better and it was nice of her to do that and it looks like Sunburst showed something to Bonbon that the mirror is working that they can see the security camera and everything here hopefully this will be enough

[origami]

Fornication.

The polite F word. So appropriate for Thorax.

[Venlinelle]

“Neightzsche was right and Trotcrates really wasn’t all that great a philosopher but depended heavily on straw mares because he didn’t have confidence in his own arguments?” asked said pony (Sunburst, as it turned out).

I don't love Socrates either, but that's not really a fair criticism. Strawmanning is generally when you argue against points that nopony is actually making, and misrepresent your opponents. The fact that Socrates wrote in his "seminar" format doesn't make it strawmanning any more than a normal philosophical treatise or paper would; that's down to how accurately he portrays opposing arguments, which is generally pretty fairly.

If there is a problem with that format, it's that he tends to use it to indirectly mock specific people who disagree with him, but that's just rude, and doesn't necessarily make his arguments less valid.